Delusions of Grandeur

With my good friend Clark Metz leading the way with a 511 series, 25 pins over average, the Electrical Engineers won all seven points Wednesday, improving our record to 10-11 (the first week we lost two points due to a clerical error). We lucked out in the second game, winning by two pins when the opponent’s team captain failed to double in the tenth. We were a hundred points under average, but they did even worse. It looked like we’d lose game three when John Gilbert (a former softball teammate and state dart champ) regained his normal form with a 221, but we all bowled over our heads in the final frames. I doubled in the eighth and ninth, spared in the tenth by knocking down a six pin, and struck on my final effort, leaping in the air as the ball went in the pocket. “No excessive celebrating,” good-natured opponent Terry Kegebin quipped. He had kept up a clever line of patter throughout the match. Called captain Bill Batalis, who left after game one, when I got home, as is my ritual if I have any good news to impart. Emphasized my 182 in the third game and Dick Maloney sandwiching a 117 between his two 200+ games. With the league having gone from 100 to eighty percent handicap, we don’t have much hope of finishing high in the 16-team standings, but, hey, after three weeks one can harbor delusions of grandeur.

“Phrase Finder” website traces the origin of “delusions of grandeur” to an 1882 court case where Stephen Cooper accused brother Henry of suffering from that disorder because the successful tailor falsely claimed to have opened a Parisian department store and unveiled grandiose plans for expanding the family business in new York City.

Terry and Gayle Jenkins congratulated us on the condo move and claim to be looking forward to our visit in October. Terry’s father Ted was either an electrical or mechanical engineer. I have no idea what either one entails, but he was probably good with a slide rule (like the Sam Cooke song, I don’t know what a slide rule is for but do know a few things about History). Ted was one of the coolest WW II generation people I ever met, a stud really. He loved sports cars and always had the nicest Christmas tree in Fort Washington. Phoned Bob Reller to wish him good fortune during his trip to the Holy Land and told him I’d fill him in on the reunion after he returns.

In the IUN parking lot History and Philosophy Chair Gianluca Di Muzio was attempting to carry three ample files plus several handbags. I took the files from him and we talked about department matters on the way to his office. He plans to invite Chancellor William Lowe, a historian, to the next departmental meeting. On Jerry Pierce’s office door was a sticker reading “I followed by the symbol for clubs in cards and then Zombies,” I think in reference to the movie “Zombieland,” which he loved. In other words, “I club zombies.” Coincidentally heard the Zombies’ “Time of the Season.” It contains the line “What’s your name, who’s your daddy?” In 1999 IU coach Bob Knight exploded when Northwestern fans chanted “Hoosier daddy?” to disparage an IU player who had fathered a child. Chauvinist Knight was no one to talk. Eleven years before, in an interview with NBC’s Connie Chung, he uttered the despicable remark, “I think if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.”

Bumped into 83 year-old Garrett Cope, still working for Continuing Education, who looked gaunt from a recent bout with the flu that caused cancellation of Senior College. Too bad, many folks look forward to it each August, and I get a kick from interacting with them during my annual guest appearance. A researcher in the Archives said that from the back I look like Stephen King. My hair is the longest it’s ever been; must be the novelist’s style, too. The School of Business hosted a noon courtyard cookout with free burgers, chips and pop. Behind me in line were faculty members Anne Balay and Patrick Bankston (who never thanking me for “Gary’s First Hundred Years”). It was a cool September day, so coeds were revealing much less flesh than last week when low-cut blouses were common and tattoos prominent despite the bare midriff look having apparently declined somewhat from past years.

My starting Fantasy quarterback Tom Brady was in a car accident but apparently emerged uninjured. Substitute QB Donovan McNabb is banged up, so just in case for insurance I picked up Derek Anderson of the Cardinals (formerly from Chicago and St. Louis, the team that is). With Larry Fitzgerald as his primary receiver Anderson should put up big numbers when Arizona plays the Rams should I need him. The NFL season kicked off between New Orleans and Minnesota in the Superdome. Three of my Fantasy players competed. Minnesota tight end Shiancoe was a pleasant surprise, but kicker Longwell sucked and few balls went Marques Colston’s way. Drew Brees is so popular in New Orleans that some call him Bresus. Minnesotans consider Favre a savior although under pressure he is prone to throw interceptions, and last evening was no exception.

The condo picnic in Court Three will take place from 2 until 5 on September 19, when I’ll be speaking to the Ogden Dunes Historical Society. Initially told it would occur from 4 to 7, I hoped I could at least make the last half. Court One has been asked to bring salad or chips. Toni will go by herself, but maybe the affair will still be going on when I get home. Landscapers replanted the two trees in our courtyard after expanding the holes like they should have in the first place. In a flyer distributed to my neighbors I announced my intent to run for board secretary and hoped that, if successful, someone would volunteer to replace me a court director. Sue Harrison seems willing.

Ron Cohen wants me to accompany him to Michigan State in two weeks when he gives a talk there, promising to drive and pick up the tab for lunch. We’ve had fun going to the Labor History Workshop seminar in Chicago, but a round trip to MSU in one day would mean five hours in the car.

Suzanna can’t see out of one eye and is having surgery. Concerning our relationship a half-century ago, she wrote: “I thought back then I was really only on a very superficial level with you during that summer romance and never let on of my serious side. After you broke up with me I immersed myself in my classical piano study. I practiced piano maybe six hours a day. I ended up playing for the whole school several times, such things as Chopin's Revolutionary Etude, Rachmaninoff pieces, Liszt's Un Sospiro and others. I was always writing, and thinking and going to art museums in Philly and all sorts of things not typical of high school. When I was a young married chick, Joe and I gravitated toward the hippie culture and my parents sent me a letter that they disowned me! That was sad because I was not a participant in the bad stuff, just the music and brotherhood stuff and the image.”

During the sexist early Sixties some guys were threatened by signs of intelligence from their girlfriends. The AMC series “Mad Men,” which I’m into thanks to On Demand, vividly demonstrates how men treated women as sex objects to be discarded when they reached a certain age and didn’t take them seriously. Hopefully things have improved since then. I wrote back to Suzanna, “I don’t think you ever were superficial, and that is meant as a compliment. Toni loved going to art museums growing up, and being from north Philly got to them by public transportation. I can’t believe your parents disowned you. Hopefully they recanted. In grad school at the University of Maryland, I came home with a beard. On previous visits my mother always bugged me to attend church with her but not with me looking like a hippie. I had a bunch of hippie softball teammates in the Seventies, and did we ever have some great times.” Tom, Ivan, and my Porter Acres teammates, I can’t thank you enough.

Oscar Sanchez, Roy Dominguez’s chief of staff, called to say that jpegs of the sheriff with Bill and Hillary Clinton were on the way electronically. IU Press has sat on the manuscript for almost nine months. Indications are that they like it but no final word. They forwarded glowing comments from a reviewer, who praised its readability, predicted that “it will captivate readers from all walks of life,” and called it a significant addition to the literature on Indiana’s Latino history. The reviewer concluded: “The author traces his family’s experiences in America, principally Texas and Northwest Indiana, from the nineteenth century to the present. The narrative describes many struggles faced and dealt with by the Dominguez Family to achieve the ‘American Dream.’ Roy Dominguez freely announces his plans to run for the Indiana governor’s office, and he wants readers to get to know him through the pages of Spirits from the Fields. He believes that his core values—family first, public service, and patriotism—will guide him well if he wins the state’s highest office and that he will be an effective and compassionate leader because of those core values. Throughout his autobiography, he seeks to convey how his parents’ commitment to sacrifice and hard work provided him with opportunities for a better life and how he has tried to emulate their example. “My goal has been to explain to people the inspiration of my passion for life and public service,” Dominguez notes, and goes on to state that ‘holding public office is meaningless if the public servant is not helping others.’ As his parents often said, ‘It’s always about the people,’ and Mr. Dominguez repeats that statement throughout the manuscript, emphasizing how it has fundamentally guided his public (and private) life.”

I am considering publishing my blog entrees for 2009-2010 as volume 41 of Steel Shavings, perhaps in combination with student journals from Steve’s class. Call me delusional but I believe my activities as a Region historian merit documenting. Who knows, the Arredondo family might appear on Oprah, and Sheriff Rogelio Dominguez may become governor of Indiana.

Checked out “Machete,” starring craggy-faced Danny Trejo and directed by Robert Rodriguez, because Robert De Niro and Lindsey Lohan were in it. It was originally a fake trailer for “Grindhouse,” which Rodriguez did with Quentin Tarantino. Lindsey plays April, a slut daughter of the main villain who makes porn movies for her web site, including a three-way with her mother June (in her next movie Lohan will play “Deep Throat” porno star Linda Lovelace). De Niro plays a corrupt Texas state senator playing on racist fears of border “Infestations.” Other actors playing villains include Steven Seagal and Don Johnson from “Miami Vice.” Cheech Marin, currently in the finals of “Celebrity Jeopardy,” played a priest who ends up crucified by the bad guys. The movie is over-the-top violent but campy, with the heroes being illegal aliens. All in all, I was entertained although I closed my eyes a few times when the hero was wielding a machete. Best line of the movie: “Machete don’t text.” But later he does.