City Methodist Church

“Let me take you down, ’cos I’m going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout”
John Lennon and the Beatles

A history teacher at Wheeler High School asked Brenden Bayer’s daughter Megan what “Strawberry Fields Forever” has to do with Vietnam. Written in 1967 for “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, it is a psychedelic journey that on the surface seems on the surface to be a nostalgic memory of a garden where Lennon spent time during his childhood. Written at a time when America was rapidly escalating the war, some people believe that the Strawberry Fields refer to the bloody battlefields of Southeast Asia. Rich Cohen, reviewing Keith Richards’s book “Life” for Rolling Stone magazine, quotes the Rolling Stones’ guitarist as saying, “The Beatles couldn’t fill in all of the spots on the charts. We filled in the gaps.” His relationship with Mick Jagger isn’t too different from how Lennon’s was with McCartney. Asked how he can still play with someone from whom he’s grown apart, Richard replied, “When you break a bone, you take time to heal, then be careful never to break that same bone in the same place again.” On a lighter note WXRT has been featuring David Gray’s new song “A Moment Changes Everything,” which contains these lines: “The years spent running parallel to everything that might have been.” They also have his older “Babylon” on permanent heavy rotation, it seems. I might have to purchase his new album “Foundling.”

Got a flurry of emails from Flight 33 producer Steffen Schlachtenhaufen detailing final arrangements for my 3-D interview at City Methodist Church. He mentioned having read my blog (other “regulars” include Darcy Wade and Ron Cohen) and took my suggestion that his team also interview lifetime Region resident and longtime radio and TV personality Tom Higgins. He has written about Froebel School, produced a documentary about Memorial Auditorium, and has vivid memories of the Palace Theater and other “ruins” to be featured in the “Abandoned Planet” episode. I recall watching “House of Wax” starring Vincent Price, in three dimension at the Ambler Theater when I was 11 or 12 years old, and being transfixed during the fire scene.

Spent an uneventful Saturday shopping and football watching (Indiana University’s woeful squad almost beat seventeenth-ranked Iowa, but a wide receiver dropped a certain game winning touchdown pass in the end zone). “The Accidental Tourist,” based on Anne Tyler’s novel, was on the premium channel Starz. William Hurt plays Macon, the neurotic writer of travel books for the person who hates to travel. As Roger Ebert wrote in a rave review a quarter century ago (I Googled it), it begins on a note of emotional sterility “and the whole movie is a journey toward a smile at the end.” After Macon’s son is killed, his marriage falls apart and he takes up with Muriel, a quirky but lovable dog trainer played winningly by Geena Davis. His control freak wife, played by Kathleen Turner, tries to win him back. He’s tempted but ultimately decides she doesn’t need him as much as Muriel and her son. Director Lawrence Kasdan also worked with Hurt in the equally brilliant movie “The Big Chill.” Legendary composer John Williams, who did the score for “Jaws,” “E.T.’” “Star Wars,” and many more, wrote a hauntingly beautiful soundtrack.

Due to the time change (fall back), we got in an extra board game, Shark, which I won. I tied T. Wade in Amun Re, stupidly failing to add a slice to go with my pyramids. Bears barely defeated the 0 and 7 Bills. At the Hagelbergs had Chinese food from Wing Wah and finished second to Toni in bridge. Before bed read what I had written about City Methodist Church in “Gary’s First Hundred Years” in preparation for Monday’s shoot. William Graham Seaman not only raised money for the magnificent Gothic church (persuading U.S. Steel Board Chairman Elbert H. Gary to donate money for the Skinner Organ) and adjoining community center, he also helped raise funds for Methodist Hospital and Stewart Settlement House. He hoped to institute a tradition of interfaith and interracial services but during the Depression, when it proved hard to pay for what he had built, church members got him replaced by someone less liberal and public-spirited. During the Forties and Fifties the community center was home to Indiana University’s Gary Center, forerunner of IU Northwest.

City Methodist Church has weeds growing from the roof and sunlight showing through gaping holes in the walls. On the floor were shards of wood and stones, some broken chairs and other remnants of a vanished age. In 1974 while researching a history of Gary I attended church services there, and the attendance was down to about 50, almost all white-haired members who had probably moved to the suburbs. Greeting me was Steffen’s brother Andy (the associate producer), director Laura Verklan, and the camera crew. Shifting sunlight required everyone to move or shift angles every ten minutes or so. My United Steelworkers of America tie clasp reflected too much light and had to come off. So did my glasses, surprisingly since they are tinted. Laura asked general questions about Gary’s history, the steel mills, the ethnic influx, racial change, and reasons for the downtown decline before quizzing me on the church and other ruins, such as Memorial Auditorium, that they later planned to film. Sounds from outside – busses, children’s laughter from the charter school across the street, a horn honking – caused me to have to repeat some answers, something that I once hated to do but by now I am used to doing. Members of the crew were obviously professionals who treated me with respect. During one break in the action head cameraman Ken Stipe suggested I use my hands more – my natural style is to wave them around and I had been consciously trying not to do that – but, hey, this was 3-D. I joked that I could do a little soft shoe if they wanted. At the end they had me walking around staring at the walls and ceiling. I felt slightly off balance without my glasses on but handled it to their satisfaction. Tom Higgins arrived just as I was leaving and joked about getting the heat turning on. Although it was a mild day for November, inside it was cold enough to turn Laura’s hands almost into icicles.

A friendly guy stationed at the IUN cafeteria entrance to make sure folks don’t abscond with food that they didn’t pay for wears various nametags of lawmen such as Joe Friday from “Dragnet” and the comic strip character Dick Tracy. Monday it read Sheriff Dominguez, about whom he knew almost nothing. After lunch I stopped by the Anthropology Club Dollar Book Sale and found a rare Steel Shavings issue of Henry Farag’s “The Signal.” There were a couple copies of my Vietnam issue, probably from the freebies I distributed in Nicole Anslover’s class. Bob Mucci said that Shavings issues always go fast, so I dropped off some other issues.

Attended a lecture by IU Northwest artist David Klamen, who was the first recipient of an award for distinguished scholarship. I sat next to Political Scientist Marie Eisenstein, whom I met for the first time at Friday’s meeting with Chancellor Lowe. Directly in front of us were Chris Young and Mark Hoyert, whose size difference (Mark is huge) reminded me of when I posed next to Ed Escobar for a photo to go on the back cover of our book on Latinos and I looked like a midget. In his opening remarks Chancellor Lowe said that it was occasions such as this that make university life so rewarding. David showed reproductions of his work covering his days in college all the way up to recent stuff. He has done an amazing variety of works, but there are certain threads that run through all of them. In his work, he said, he tries to answer the question, how do I know what I know? During Q and A I asked if teaching at IU Northwest for 25 years had influenced his art. He pondered that for a few moments admitted that his inspiration mostly comes from books or childhood memories, but then he talked about several students whose originality and artistic talent almost blew him away and that his interactions with students was a really important part of his life that indirectly affected his art. His entire presentation came off as sincere. He was erudite without being pretentious and made numerous witty asides that caused Marie and I to glance in each other’s direction and smile.

LeeLee Minehart thought that the saga of Wendy’s missing tiara might make a great mystery. I sent her the following as a possible opening paragraph: “The tiara had set on the top shelf of Wendy’s imposing China closet. It was the first thing many people noticed when they entered the formal dining room. On either side were dolls from Wendy’s childhood. Most looked like ragamuffins or well-worn stuffed animals, but on its side as if sleeping was a beautiful princess doll. The lower shelves contained serving dishes, plates, cups, saucers, a sugar bowl, and other items passed down through generations. Looking somewhat out of place on the bottom shelf were a shot glass and beer stein. The tiara had been moved a dozen times during Wendy’s long and eventful life, and for years had been out of sight and almost forgotten. Then with the purchase of the China closet it seemed to have gained a permanent resting place – until Wendy received notice of her fiftieth high school reunion and came up with an idea.”

Ruminating about the 3-D shoot at City Methodist Church, I wondered about the accuracy of what seemed to be the premise – that the Gary ruins are analogous to a time in the future when the planet is devoid of life. Writer James Goldin will compare (and hopefully contrast) Gary ruins with those on Hashima Island, formerly site of a Mitsubishi Motors coal mining operation. It was the most densely populated place in the world until completely abandoned after the coal mine shut down in 1974. I found photos of “Japan’s Rotting metropolis” on a site called Viceland Today. What seemed truly remarkable about the neighborhood bordering City Methodist Church were the signs of activity so near the rotting hulks of old buildings. Inside the church I could still sense the grandeur of the place. How tragic that the throwaway society we live in doesn’t have more respect for its past.

Sent my review of “Empire of the Summer Moon” to Magill’s and summarized the story of Quanah Parker and the Comanches in this way: “A violent account of the Southwest’s most feared warriors and the half-breed chief who guided them to glory during their last desperate days on the Texas Plains and then made a remarkable adjustment to reservation life.” I started with a eulogy Quanah gave at a 1910 ceremony reinterring his mother’s remains at an Indian mission: “Forty years ago my mother died. She captured by Comanches, nine years old. Loved Indian and wild life so well, no want to go back to white folks. All people same anyway. God say. I love my mother.” By and large my review was positive, and in the final paragraph I wrote: “Employing an occasionally hyperbolic and overblown journalistic style, Gwynne occasionally reveals ethnocentric biases in the use of such loaded words as squaw, primitive, and savage. Though he admires many aspects of traditional Cherokee culture, his detailing of atrocities, particularly toward women, seems at times unnecessarily sensationalistic. That said, the author’s narrative is entertaining and his facts generally accurate, impressively so concerning the topography of the Southwest.”

In the news: In India President Obama endorsed that country’s bid to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. Conservatives are spreading lies that his Asia trip is costing the taxpayers millions. He is now in Indonesia and but might have to curtail the trip due to the volcanic eruption of Mount Merapi, which has killed hundreds and the clouds of ash have interrupted flights. Twice before he cancelled trips to the country where he lived as a boy for four years because of pressing domestic issues.