Alissa's Graduation

On Thursday we drove to East Lansing for granddaughter Alissa’s graduation from Michigan State. She lived with us for eight years and is like a daughter to us. We had three rooms at a Howard Johnson’s for our entourage of 12. Beth, Alissa’s mom, flew in from Oregon (she was pleased to see me wearing the “Detroit Rock City” t-shirt she bought me one Christmas), and her parents came up for the big event. Alissa was radiant, and in addition to the gigantic commencement that we skipped due to inclement weather the school staggered various smaller, intimate ceremonies where each student crossed the stage as his or her name was called. Alissa was one about 500 graduates from the division of Arts and Letters, which included Fine Arts (her specialty in photography), Graphic Arts, Professional writing plus more traditional (and less popular) fields such as Philosophy and American Studies. Many more students were in Asian Studies than were majoring in French, Italian or Russian. Afterwards we found a pizza place that could seat the 15 of us, including Vee and Jen, two housemates who will be going to Europe with her in the summer. We ordered Middle Eastern carryout one other day, which we brought back to the motel. The kids loved its swimming pool and hot tub, and we also got in several S.O.B. card games.

I finished my review of “The Dragon’s Tail” just as a book arrived for me to review for Salem Press called “Roots of Steel: Boom and Bust in an American Mill Town” (about Dundalk, MD, a blue collar community near Baltimore and the old Bethlehem Steel Sparrow’s Point works). Author Deborah Rudacille, who grew up in Dundalk, writes a moving elegy (“that would do Studs Terkel proud,” according to Kirkus Reviews) to a dying breed of industrial workers whose values – hard work, patriotism, family bonds – made a lasting imprint on her. On the back of the jacket is a memorable photo from June of 1942 showing literally thousands of shipwrights, blacks and whites all intermingled, on payday. As Rudacille points out, however, African Americans suffered from housing discrimination as well as barriers to job advancement. In the mills they were given the dirtiest, most unsafe jobs.

Here’s the “Dragon’s Tail” review: Atomic narratives in postwar American culture are subjected to cogent analysis in this succinct, well-researched, readable book. These stories convey just how scary the future seemed during the Cold War at a time (until 1963) when atmospheric testing exposed virtually all living things on the planet to radioactive fallout. As the government urged citizens to construct backyard fallout shelters, ethicists debated whether one was justified in shooting intruders. Nuclear weapons, everyone agreed, threatened civilization’s very survival. World peace was no longer a pipedream but the only practical alternative to an apocalyptic denouement - the extinction of the human race as dramatized in Nevil Shute’s bestselling novel On the Beach (1957) and on a bubblegum trading card labeled “Atomic Doom.” A ludicrous (in retrospect) civil defense film, Duck and Cover, made use of cartoon character Bert the Turtle and a jingle written by the same team that came up with “See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet" to warn kids to be on alert for a sudden bright flash that could “burn you worse than a terrible sunburn.” Especially interesting is the interpretation of disaster movies such The Incredible Shrinking Man. Monsters range from mutant ants (Them) and octopi (It Came from Beneath the Sea), to dinosaurs (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and, most famously, Godzilla).

For lighter reading I am enjoying for the second time Richard Russo’s “Straight Man.” It’s a real riot. The main character, 49 year-old English professor William Henry “Hank” Devereaux, Jr., says: “Truth be told, I’m not an easy man.” I think I am an easy man, but Toni would disagree. Who is? My friend Jim Migoski is the most easy-going man I know, but his wife commonly says, “I’m gonna kill him.” Devereaux has a dog Occam, named for Occam’s Razor, the proposition that the simplest explanation is best. One colleague, Bill Quigley, only calls him when he’s been drinking. He’s not necessarily a drunk but doesn’t make phone calls unless he’s been loosened up with spirits. Hmmmm. Sounds familiar. Another colleague Hank has nicknamed Orshee because whenever someone uses the pronoun “he,” the guy, who is guilty he was born a white male, adds, “or she.”

Got home just as the Cubs lost, completing a 1-5 road trip. The Phillies won, and two nights ago 47 year-old Jamie Moyer beat the Braves, the oldest pitcher ever to hurl a shutout. My white puff ball tree is in full bloom, and Toni spotted a groundhog ambling across our driveway. Mellowed out with a quart of Miller High Life and scared two deer away as I relieved myself on the rocks, something I’ll miss being able to do when we move to the condo. Talked to Midge, it being Mother’s Day, and also phoned Alissa and 16 year-old Miranda, who had driven with Phil back to Grand Rapids. She apologized for Texting so much while we were all playing cards (no problem, I said). She had a funny story about having trouble getting cruise control to work, and when Phil was helping her, he noticed the gas gauge registered empty. Fortunately they made it to a station.