Blast from the Past

“Mild apprehension
Blank dreams of the coming fun
Distort the odds of a turnaround”
From MGMT’s “Flash Delirium”

Among the hundred emails awaiting me upon my return from Michigan was one from an old girlfriend whom I went out with the summer between high school and college. Suzanne found me through Facebook and wrote: “ I have fond memories of our growing up experiences together that summer when I was 15.” Holy cow! I thought she was at least 16 (she was going into eleventh grade). Lucky I never ventured further than second base. It was 1960, and I was just thrilled to have an attractive, steady girlfriend who was a great kisser. Her email mentioned that she has been married twice, had six kids, and has had many job experiences, including caseworker, counselor, EMT, and midwife. I wrote back: “I have fond memories of you, too, and I’m sorry for any and all stupid things I might have done during that time. I blame it on the time and my immaturity. I remember being with you at a state fair and seeing Louis Armstrong perform, and being at your house with a horrible case of poison ivy. You were a real sweetheart. A couple summers after we stopped going together I was at a party at Paul Curry’s (he died in Vietnam tragically) across from your house and almost knocked on your door. Sounds like you are doing well despite life’s vicissitudes. Six kids – that’s quite an accomplishment.” Suzanne responded to my email thusly: “I was so truly delighted to see that you answered my note- in -a -bottle via cyber space. You were my first real boyfriend and so I surely never forget anything about that. We had a wonderful summer... we were young... all self perceived immaturities are forgiven and taken into account, of course, and I hope you do the same for me. We were very different people but just what we needed at the time, I do believe.” In my reply I succumbed to the temptation to bring up anecdotes of the two of us parking. As I put it, “My hormones were raging then, so I have memories mostly of making out with you (isn’t that terrible?).” She mentioned that she is now very religious – a Mennonite, in fact – so I may not hear from Suzanne again. I hope that is not the case, however. This is how I ended my second email: “I apologize if this has been too intimate. I am in touch with numerous Upper Dublin classmates, including Mary Delp, whom I dated in ninth and tenth grade. She recalled my father (who died at age 50) driving the two of us from the movies to a dairy bar on Bethlehem Pike and waiting in the car while we went inside for something to eat. I had no memory of that, and it was great adding that anecdote to the memories I have of my father.”

Soon to retire Chancellor Bruce Bergland thanked me for the “Retirement Journal.” I sent him and called me a “pillar of IU Northwest.” He called me Jimbo, as he always does, and concluded, “I’ll always treasure your friendship.” I’m a little rough on him in the journal for the way he treated Vice Chancellor Aggrey, so I hope he likes it (maybe he won’t get that far). There’s a line in the MGMT song “Flash Delirium” from their new CD “Congratulations” that goes: “I can stand by my pillar of hope it’s just a case of flash delirium.”

Monday evening I went to the Patio for the Merrillville History Club presentation of Lester Langley’s “The Americas in the Age of Revolution.” One fellow was bemoaning the instability of Latin American countries compared to ours, and I mentioned that during the Cold War the United States did much to destabilize countries and prop up dictators. Afterwards, Joy Anderson emailed, “I wanted to let you know that I thought your insightfulness into the role that our foreign policy played interfering in the governments of Central and South America was an excellent point. I can remember the campus unrest when I was in college regarding the backing of the right wing dictators, pouring money into countries that was supposed to help the general population but just lined the pockets of the corrupt leaders.”

I saw the movie “Death at a Funeral” starring two of my favorite comedians, Chris Rock and Tracy Morgan. It’s pretty gross but very funny. There’s a midget blackmailer who shows up with photos of him having sex with the dead man (Chris Rock’s father). Aaron (Rock) tells his brother Ryan (Martin Lawrence): “Let me get this straight: our dad was having gay sex with a guy that could fit in his pocket, and you're mad because he's white?” Danny Glover is hilarious as a thoroughly crabby Uncle Russell. One running joke involves a bottle of pills marked “valium” (inadvertently taken by three people) that in fact are powerful psychedelics. They cause people to freak out. The James Marsden character takes off all his clothes and gets up on the roof to gawk at nature. In the final scene someone has medicated Uncle Russell to calm him down and we see him naked on the roof commenting on how green everything looks.

Toni and I went shopping for basement furniture for the new condo and bought a sofa set at Value City plus a table and chairs. Jim, the salesman, was a real pro and was so low pressure it was a joy to do something (shop) that I normally dislike. We had sandwiches at a place called Heavenly Ham. Toni was able to buy a ham soup bone for five dollars.

I attended the weekly meeting of the Hobart Kiwanis in order to get volunteers for my Hobart Oral History Project. Students in Steve McShane’s summer Indiana History class will do projects relating to the town’s social history. I’m scheduled to talk with them during their first class next Tuesday. About 20 people filled out the questionnaire and agreed to be interviewed, including funeral director Jim Burns, who donated a coffin for a school exhibit about the perils of drunk driving that was intended to be an object lesson for those going to the prom and whose son Jimmy was one of my best students. In fact, Jimmy wrote an article in my 1990s issue “Shards and Midden Heaps” about wrestler Alex Ramos, who saved Jimmy’s sister Christy and saved her life after they were involved in a horrific accident. I happened to have a copy of the Nineties volume with me and gave it to Burns. The Kiwanis speaker was 87 year-old Dwight Carter, was a marine corpsman who landed at Iwo Jima 65 years ago as part of the original invasion force and who lost 40 pounds during the 37 days he was on the front lines. He had a belt where he had made an extra notch to hold his pants up. He had enlisted in 1942 “For the Duration,” as he put it. Twice marines died within ten yards of him. He recently returned to Iwo Jima, now in Japanese hands, for a ceremony honoring both Americans and Japanese who fought there. Both the Chicago Sun-Times and the Post-Tribune had front-page stories about his journey, which first took him to Honolulu and Guam. There had also been a 50-year commemoration, but he didn’t go because of his wife’s poor health. At the end of his presentation the Kiwanians gave him a standing ovation.

There’s a great scene in Richard Russo’s novel “Straight Man” where Hank is having lunch with his dean in one of the few places still open in the fictitious western Pennsylvania town of Railton. The lounge is in a bowling alley, and near them a lone bowler yells out “cocksucker” when he leaves a split. “Nice ambience,” Hank glibly tells his boss. “Nice nose,” the dean replies. Earlier during a department meeting colleague Gracie Dubois, an earth mother type, hit him with a notebook after he made a snide remark disparaging her poetry. Later Hank’s mother chastises him for being clever, saying that cleverness is a poor substitute for true creativity. Me, I’ll settle for clever.