Lillian Holley

Lake County Sheriff Roy Dominguez invited Toni and me to the dedication of a Memorial to Women in Law Enforcement (the first of its kind) as well as the dedication of the Lillian Holley Resource Center in Crown Point. Several hundred people were on hand including county surveyor George Van Til and prosecutor Bernard Carter. Bette Roberts waved us over to where she and George, a retired IUN Political Science professor, were sitting. In character as always, George had a Purdue cap on and introduced me to former Crown Point mayor Dan Klein. Bette motioned Post-Tribune columnist Rich James tp join us, but he declined, adding that he talked with me a few days ago. Before the program an honor guard procession included the sheriff’s department pipes and drums unit. Keynote speaker Barbara McConnell, chief deputy prosecuting attorney, mentioned that Lillian Holley assumed her duties just 13 years after ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment allowed woman to vote. Upon becoming FBI director in 1924 J. Edgar Hoover forced out the three female agents and no others were hired until after the closeted cross-dresser’s death in 1972. Deputy chief Lessie Smith thanked Chief Marco Kuyachich for mentoring her when she became the first woman SWAT team member. Sheriff Dominguez, resplendent in full uniform, introduced dignitaries, honored guests, including retired woman officers, and members of Lillian Holley’s family, as well as his wife, daughters, brother Jesse, and 85 year-old mother Inocensia, who (he said) danced the electric slide at her recent birthday party.

Lillian Holley became county sheriff in 1933, a day after her husband Roy, the incumbent, was shot and killed attempting to arrest a farmer who murdered a neighbor in retaliation for cutting down a tree. She was in office when bank robber John Dillinger and a second prisoner named Herbert Youngblood escaped from the Crown Point jail and then took off in her V-8 Ford. Dillinger later bragged that he used a “toy gun” carved from a wooden washboard and darkened by shoe polish, but in all likelihood his attorney provided him with a real pistol. Two jail officials were later indicted for abetting the escape but were found not guilty. In the aftermath of the escape Sheriff Holley said, “If I ever get John Dillinger back, I’ll shoot him in the head with my own gun.” FBI agents saved her the trouble, gunning him down in front of Chicago’s Biograph Theater after being tipped off by Gary brothel madam Anna Sage, the “Lady in Red,” who had been threatened with deportation if she refused to be a stool pigeon (the FBI deported her anyway). In my centennial history of Gary I have a photo of Holley taken when Dillinger was first extradited from Arizona. It appears that county prosecutor Robert Estill and Dillinger had their arms around each other. In disgust Indiana State Police Captain Matt Leach called it the “petting party picture.” Estill claimed the pressure of space caused him to grasp the outlaw involuntarily, but it ruined his career. Holley retired from politics in December of 1934 and lived to the age of 103.

John Updike’s 2006 novel “Terrorist” is about a Muslim high school student named Ahmad who envisions his classmates as devils seeking to separate him from his faith. I’ve shied away from reading it until now. It’s a vehicle for Updike to rant against the amorality and hedonism of modern American youth. As Ahmad sees it, “girls sway and sneer and expose their soft bodies and alluring hair. Their bare bellies, adorned with shining navel studs and low-down purple tattoos, ask, ‘What else is there to see?’”

In the news: Taliban Afghanis executed ten modern day missionaries who were providing medical and eye care to villagers in remote areas, claiming they were Christian proselytizers. As LSD experimenter Clare Booth Luce said, “No good deed goes unpunished.” Republican gubernatorial primary victor Linda McMahon is a former executive for the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment). She’s a middle-aged hottie (what some would call a MILF) who might be more formidable than one might think. If Jesse Ventura could become governor of Minnesota, anything is possible. Former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, who sought pork barrel funds for a “bridge to nowhere,” died in a plane crash. With a career in Congress’s upper chamber spanning over 40 years till felled by scandal, he was the longest-serving Republican Senator ever (South Carolina racist Strom Thurmond served longer but was a Democrat until 1964). Third season “American Idol” winner Fantasia Barrino overdosed on aspirin and sleeping pills. America has a new folk hero, Jet Blue flight attendant Steven Slater. After an altercation with a passenger, he screamed obscenities over the loud speaker, grabbed a couple beers, activated the emergency chute, slid down it, muttered “there goes 28 years,” and left the airport. In other words, “Take This Job and Shove It” – as country singer Johnny Paycheck put it. The passenger supposedly had left her seat early and struck him in the head pulling down her bag from an overhead compartment, then cursed him out when he asked for an apology). He was allegedly having gay sex when a fully armed SWAT team apprehended him at his home. Bail was set at a paltry $2,500. Tens of thousands of fans are coming to his defense. A co-worker said, “It’s something we all fantasize about.” On Facebook Slater has 131,529 friends and counting.

Evidently the way that “On Demand” works for TV series is that four repeats are changed every week or so. In one that aired in 2001 Larry David has floor seats to a Lakers game and inadvertently trips Shaquille O’Neal. Learning that “Seinfeld” was Shaq’s favorite show, he takes tapes of all the episodes to his hospital room. The two end up watching “The Contest,” famous for the cast using the euphemism “master of my domain.” Jerry, Kramer, Elaine, and George bet on who can keep from masturbating the longest after George’s mother caught him in the bathroom with a copy of “Glamour” magazine. Kramer succumbs almost immediately due to a beautiful woman walking around naked in an apartment across the street. Elaine’s downfall was running into JFK, Jr., at a fitness club. In the series finale George admits that he cheated after seeing the silhouette of a voluptuous nurse giving a patient a massage.

Finally located a theater in Michigan City that is showing “The Kids Are All Right.” – as distinguished from the Who song and 1979 film “The Kids Are Alright.” It’s supposed to be the best movie of the summer. The plot revolves around a half brother and sister finding their lesbian parents’ sperm donor (played by Mark Ruffalo). I saw Ruffalo in “Shutter Island” earlier in the year.