Flamingo Pizza

Got an email from old student Rick Dawson, who enjoyed “cherry picking” my journal. I recall when my sons player soccer, cherry picker was pejorative for one who didn’t play defense and instead hung out near the opponent’s goal hoping to get an easy score. It is also a type of aerial work platform attached to a crane and often shaped like a basket that was originally designed and still used in fruit orchards. Parenthetically, as an adjective “cherry” can mean inexperienced (i.e., a virgin) or like new (a cherry car being one in mint condition). Rick saw that I had done a Shavings issue about Vietnam vets from the Calumet Region (“Brothers in Arms”) and revealed that he had served in the First Infantry in Vietnam but does not like to read novels or see movies about the war. He mentioned that while staying with Geoff Ryan in Miller he ate at Flamingo’s three times and especially enjoyed the fried perch sandwich. “I would have eaten there four times,” he added, “but they would not allow my eight year-old granddaughter to come in.” I emailed back: “Great to hear from you. Please email me in advance before your next foray (a favorite Jean Shepherd word) into the Region. Back in the 1970s I spent many happy hours attending Geoff Ryan’s deck jams – they were both loud and mellow. I lost touch with him – that’s the way life is - until I phoned him to get your address. Flamingo’s is a great success story, and the management does numerous special things, such as outside barbecues, that have cemented patron loyalty. Their pot roast dinner special on Thursdays for $8.95 is enough for two with meat left over. Glad you are glancing through the journal.” Flamingo’s started as a pizza joint with a smoky bar on the east side but has expanded considerably and even has a wing, I believe, where kids can be seated.

I emailed Aaron Pigors and Tome Trajkovski thanking them for all their camera work at the FACET retreat. Offered to send Gerald Powers a copy of my retirement journal (Shavings, volume 40) since he mentioned during his “Uncle Edgar” talk how liberating it was to write in the first person in a scholarly setting. I thanked FACET staff members Kim and Ali for their help and resisted the temptation to say something about the silver streak in Ali’s hair that I found very attractive or Kim’s lactating breasts (she had a nursing baby with her, and when Tome went to pin a microphone on her, she joked, “I’m lactating”). At lunch I told Bill Dorin and Jim Tolhuizen that I had gotten to know Psychology professor Karl Nelson at the retreat. He had a big booming, infectious laugh. He’s friends with Jerry Pierce, who teaches medieval history and writes about historical films such as “The 300” and Oliver Stone’s “Alexander.” I saw both of them. Joining us at our lunch table was geologist Kristin Huysken, who plays in a bluegrass group and was on her way to a student field trip to the Paul Douglas Center at the Indiana dunes in Gary.

After torrential rain and tornado warnings greeted us in French Lick, these past three days the temperature has been in the nineties. At IU Northwest coeds have stripped down considerably – plenty of bare midriffs and décolleté. That hardly ever distracted me in class although this one student had a tattoo positioned right above her ass and would wear short shorts that revealed some of it. My interest in it was more curiosity than prurience, and I wondered whether she got it at Roy Boy’s, nearby Glen Park’s oldest business establishment, that Cher and Greg Allman once frequented.

I had mentioned to Suzanne that going to French Lick with Phil evoked memories of when we went to Rio de Janeiro together 12 years ago. She asked what Rio had been like and I responded: “The beaches are fantastic and there is a rain forest within the city limits. I’d go back in a minute although some neighborhoods are unsafe and to be avoided by Americans. We were there at the time of the World Cup in soccer and a young historian attending the International Oral History Association conference invited us to a party that coincided with a game the Brazilian team was playing. There was dancing in the street and wild jubilation whenever their compadres scored. The American Embassy hosted a party for conference attendees where dancing and other festivities went on late into the night. At the Universidade do Brasil were life size busts of retired distinguished faculty. The only evidence of my 38-year tenure at IU Northwest is a framed collage.” Other Rio highlights included a steakhouse buffet where waiters brought a dozen cuts of meat to our table and a stage show where beautiful women wearing erotic – make that exotic - carnival outfits danced and posed with us.