Soul Travel

“I'm looking at myself, reflections of my mind,
It's just the kind of day to leave myself behind.”
Moody Blues

Slept late (for me – 7:30) Wednesday because of bowling and heard ten 1967 songs at ten a.m. on 97.1 FM, including “Tuesday Afternoon” by the Moody Blues, one of my favorite bands. Eckankar “soul travelers” also love the Moodies. It was a better choice, I thought than their more famous hit of that year “Nights in White Satin.” Also heard two other psychedelic favorites, “Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum and Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” which contains the line, belted out by Gracie Slick, “Feed your head.” Had I stayed in the car longer, might have heard something from “Sergeant Pepper.” After consuming two Taco Supremes for lunch, attended “The Hereafter,” directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Matt Damon as someone with psychic powers and French beauty Cecile De France, who plays a journalist who during a near-death experience has visions suggestive of an afterlife. As much as I respect Eastwood for his past work, most recently “Gran Torino,” and for tackling the subject of religion, the movie was pure mumbo jumbo. The Matt Damon character communicates intimately with dead loved ones after simply holding supplicant’s hands for a few seconds. The only suspense was how completely Cecile would disrobe (answer: down to bra and panties). Don’t give much thought to the hereafter, suspecting, as Cecile’s lover put it, that the lights simply go out, the plug is pulled. It would be great to be able to soul travel through time and space, but I'd settle for our spirit becoming part of the cosmos. Never bought the Lutheran belief that only believers in Jesus Christ reach heaven or that faith was more important than good works. If I needed a church, I’d select the Unitarians, who are tolerant and nondoctrinaire.

The Post-Trib ran excerpts from an oral history of baseball that focused on one of my favorite players, Dick Allen, who played for the Phillies both in the Sixties and the late Seventies. He had an MVP season with the White Sox in 1972, and Bill Melton recalled that he almost never took batting practice. It messed up his timing, he said, to swing at balls going only 60 miles per hour. One day, the right-handed Allen took batting practice left-handed, and Melton was astounded when he hit numerous balls out of the park. I was sitting in rightfield at the old White Sox park when Allen hit a line drive home run that was still rising when it landed near me.

Biding time till bowling, ate yogurt in the car and read about Jimmy Carter’s boycott of the Olympics (motivated by political considerations and a desire, in the wake of the Iranian hostage crisis, not to look weak, the action ultimately backfired and weakened American prestige). I rolled a respectable 502 despite a paucity of strikes. Engineers won one of the three games. In game one of the World Series, San Francisco, conquerors of the Phillies, routed Nolan Ryan’s Texas Rangers. Heard “Laredo” by Band of Horses and “Depression” by the Dead Horses, whose frontman, Ryan Bingham wrote “The Weary Kind,” which Jeff Bridges sang in “Crazy Heart.”

At Purdue North Central for the Hispanic Communities in Northwest Indiana panel. Organizer Kenny Kincaid was delighted that about 50 people were in attendance, about half of whom were not in his class. A student of mine from the early Seventies introduced herself beforehand and even had a friend take a photo of the two of us. She said her son Bryan Blaschke took my class as well. Bryan wrote an article that’s in my Nineties Steel Shavings (“Shards and Midden Heaps,” volume31) about Charles R. Paine, a 1991 Merrillville High School graduate who spent three months in jail on a false drug charge. His roommate got caught with marijuana and then claimed it was his. Eventually the authorities dropped the charges against Pierce. Also in attendance were Terry and Kim Hunt, old friends who took numerous courses of mine before moving to Westville and transferring to Purdue. Player/coach for the Glen Park Eagles, Terry recruited Dave, Paul Mathews, and me to be on the softball team. I promised to send them our new address and phone number and that we’d have lunch before Christmas. Terry suggested Olga’s in downtown Westville. Didn’t even know Westville had a downtown.

First on the program went very well, I essentially summarized what I had written in the forward to “Maria’s Journey,” adding that Maria actually made three journeys to America, when 11 to join her brother, when 19 to join her husband, and when 32, pregnant and with 8 kids. The first two times she lived in boxcars in a railroad workers’ camp. My talk was essentially a 15-minute introduction of Ray and Trish Arredondo, who decided to take my advice and read an excerpt from “Maria’s Journey” after saying a few words about how they came to write the book. They chose excerpts from “Don’t Look Back – The Homecoming,” the chapter dealing with her third border crossing. Also on the program was Puerto-Rican-American Monica Cavinder, program director for El Puente, a Hispanic Community Center in La Porte that provides counseling services ranging from Food Stamp application assistance to free health screenings. The final speaker, Chancellor Jose Guadalupe “Lupe” Valtierra of IVY Tech, gave a very inspirational talk about the value of education and importance of role models, referring several times to “Maria’s Journey,” emphasizing the importance of family history and calling on several students to explain why they were in school. The discussion afterwards went on for a half-hour, focusing both on history and current events. Delicious cookies were on hand; when Kenny said they’d go to waste if we didn’t take them, I wrapped up a half-dozen. I mentioned to Chancellor Valtierra how disappointed I was that the Academic Corridor plan that would have rehabilitated the area along Thirty-Fifth Avenue between his school and mine seemed to be moribund. He replied that at the GRIP conference yesterday at the Gary Genesis Center the plan was discussed in positive terms. At lunch in the university cafeteria, I had a burger and big salad before driving to Dr. Quackerbush’s office. Good news: my PSA, potassium, and cholesterol readings were all down from six months before.

Angie and the kids came over for Toni’s homemade chicken soup (the cookies from the panel discussion were a hit for dessert). While James finished homework Rebecca decorated Katie’s dolls in Halloween outfits. In the basement with a quart of Miller I proofread a draft of an article Chris Young is submitting to an online journal called “Federal History” entitled “Proclamations and Founding father Presidents, 1789-1825.” The most famous was George Washington’s proclamation of Neutrality” when France and Great Britain were at war, but others had to do with pardons (including Jean Lafitte and pirates who helped defend New Orleans during the war of 1812), trade, and establishing the holiday of Thanksgiving.

Killing four or five flies a day by the Martha’s Cage window where my computer is located has been pretty disgusting. I’ve been using an IU directory and need to bring in a swatter. Heard from eighth grade pal Paul Turk who is doing a study of the Gary Airport for the Federal Aviation Administration and had questions about the nearby area steel mills. His daughter KT will be starting college in two years so isn’t planning to retire any time soon.

Ron Cohen came in for Chancellor Lowe’s Installation ceremony, lured to the event in part because of the promise of good food afterwards. The caterer is the same guy who recently closed Miller Bakery Café. He asked me to proofread, an essay entitled, “Country Music, Southern Music, and Alan Lomax.” It’s very thoroughly researched but contains too many overlong quotes. I also recommended a more descriptive and catchy title. Stopping at the History office, I ran into colleagues carrying academic robes for the Chancellor’s Installation. Gianluca Di Muzio quipped that someone asked if it was his Halloween costume. Jerry Pierce joked that a flask could fit under it. I’ve never felt particularly comfortable in a cap and gown and missed more IU Northwest graduations than I attended – or I’d go in civilian clothes and then congratulate students I knew afterwards. Chris Young, having read my suggestions for his paper, said, “You’re a genius.” Wish it were so, but I do have a talent for editing. Walking back to the library, I ran into Chancellor Lowe, who was carrying his cap and gown, and noted that it was a big day for him and the campus. Many guests were on campus for the occasion, and as Chuck Gallmeier told a Post-Trib reporter, Lowe seems the right man for the job. At the reception afterwards were free beer and wine and a room full of desserts. The History department is meeting with Chancellor Lowe next Friday, and I plan to suggest that he pick out a book about Irish History (his field) and we could all read it over the holidays and then come together to discuss it in January.

A producer for a Discovery Channel series entitled “Abandoned Planet” wants to interview me about the history of locations that, in his words, “have fallen on hard times or have become abandoned altogether.” I wrote back: “I would be happy to say a few words about three vanished or vanishing Gary sites that once were vital to the city’s social life: Froebel School, City Methodist Church’s Seaman Hall, and Memorial Auditorium. I can be at IU Northwest’s Calumet Regional Archives November 8 or 9 and either be interviewed there or at the various sites.”