The Cave

“So come out of your cave walking on your hands
And see the world hanging upside down
You can understand dependence
When you know the maker's land.”
Mumford and Sons, from “Sigh No More”

My new favorite band is the English folk rock group Mumford and Sons, whose album “Sigh No More” features two jewels, “Little Lion Man” and “The Cave.” Toni has nicknamed our basement the “Jim’s man cave” because I retreat there to read, play music loud, and watch sports and premium channels in high definition on our flat screen TV. Niece Andrea in Seattle refers to her bedroom as her cave and admits that some mornings she finds it difficult to come out and face the day. WXRT plays Mumford and Sons a lot and has had them in the studio for a live jam. Marcus Mumford explained that they chose the name because they thought of themselves as a family business even though the members are not related. Some of their lyrics come from Shakespeare, but as Mumford quipped, he’s been dead for centuries, so we don’t have to worry about being sued. I expect “Sigh No More” to be in their top ten listeners poll.

Speaking of lairs, Plato wrote “the allegory of the cave” to explain the distinction between appearance and reality. In his cave prisoners mistake puppet shadows for actual images. In Portuguese Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago’s “The Cave” an aging potter whose skill seems obsolete in the modern world discovers a cave beneath the sterile “Center” where he lives with his daughter and son-in-law. Saramago died this year and is remembered fondly in Time’s year end issue along with Lena Horn, J. D. Salinger, Robert Byrd, Wilma Mankiller, Richard Holbrook, Tony Curtis, and others who departed the scene.

On Saturday morning WXRT featured songs from 1994. On the way to the library I heard Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, and Phish (nephew Bob followed them around Europe after graduating from IU). The Seattle sound and dreadlocks were in style. Like 2010 it was a bad year for Congressional Democrats. Clinton subsequently faced off successfully with Newt Gingrich. Obama and the lame duck Congress have been cooperating. Gone is the stupid “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding gays in the military, and hopes are high that the Senate will ratify the Start nuclear arms limitation Treaty. Republicans did prevent the so-called Dream Act from coming to a vote. It would have allowed children brought to the United States illegally to become citizens if they attend college or serve in the military for two years. Hopefully the GOP will pay a price for their racist position.

I re-watched the season finale of “Boardwalk Empire,” having fallen asleep the first time. It ended with federal agents raiding an Irish-American St. Patrick’s Day banquet in Atlantic City and Nucky screwing the widow Schroeder, like her seducer a schemer in the best immigrant tradition. Meanwhile, in Chicago Jimmy’s girl, a high-class prostitute, commits suicide after a gangster disfigured her face, provoking a visit to an opium den. He had promised to take her to California. It reminded me of Michael Caine smoking the pipe in “The Quiet American” and his mistress dreaming of life in America.

Watched “A River Runs Through It,” directed and narrated by Robert Redford. Brad Pitt, looking like a young James Dean, plays Paul Maclean, a free-living, chance-taking second-born with a penchant for drinking, smoking, gambling, and fly-fishing. He vows he will never leave his home state but defies Montana convention by dating an Indian woman, and he ends up shot to death and left in an alley. Two years ago Tony Mochus read a moving excerpt from the book retired English professor Norman Maclean, in real life Paul’s older brother. Giving the movie three and a half stars and a thumbs up, Roger Ebert wrote in 1992: “Redford and his writer, Richard Friedenberg, understand that most of the events in any life are accidental or arbitrary, especially the crucial ones, and we can exercise little conscious control over our destinies. Instead, they understand that the Reverend Maclean's lessons were about how to behave no matter what life brings; about how to wade into the unpredictable stream and deal with whatever happens with grace, courage and honesty. It is the film's best achievement that it communicates that message with such feeling.” In the credits was this strange announcement: “No fish were killed or injured during the making of A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT. 
The producers would like to point out that, although
the Macleans kept their catch as was common earlier
in this century, enlightened fisherman today endorse
a “catch and release” policy to assure that this priceless 
resource swims free to fight another day.”

Edmund Morris’ “Colonel Roosevelt” uses excerpts from the poet Edward Arlington Robinson, whom TR provided with a sinecure while President. In Speech class at Bucknell I attempted to read “Miniver Cheevy” and instead of saying “child of scorn” said “skild of chorn.” I made up for it by correctly reading the entire poem in my upper division class on the Progressive Era. TR visited Gary, Indiana, during his 1912 Bull Moose campaign. The city had been founded just six years previously. A chief organizer of the Progressive Party was U.S. Steel board member George Perkins, who probably persuaded the former President to make the trip. The next day Roosevelt was shot in Milwaukee, and the bullet came to rest within an inch of his heart after passing through the manuscript of the speech he insisted on giving before going to the hospital. David McCullough believes TR wanted to die on stage, so to speak, and in the arena. The deranged would-be assassin John Flammang Schrank, angry over his decision to seek a third term, had been tracking TR for some time and apparently was in the Gary crowd that cheered the candidate as he rode in an open car down Broadway.

In 1913 Roosevelt embarked on a Brazilian expedition to chart the path by which the River of Doubt (subsequently renamed Rio Roosevelt) flowed into the Amazon River. Relentlessly attacked by ticks, mosquitoes, termites, bees, horse flies, and other insects, drenched by relentless rain, and slowed down by impassable waterfalls and rapids, 54 year-old Roosevelt almost died after his temperature rose to over 104 degrees from a reoccurrence of malaria that had periodically ravaged him since his days as a Rough Rider in Cuba. At one point, finally forced to confront his own mortality, he asked the others to go on without him. Of course, they did not. Subsisting on monkey meat and jungle fruits as food supplies dwindled, TR lost over 35 pounds in four months. Afterwards he admitted to a friend that “the Brazilian wilderness stole away ten years of my life.” He did have grit.

Got shut out gaming (Dave and Tom each won twice) and watched the Eagles make a miracle comeback against the hated New York Giants, scoring an incredible 28 points in the final seven and a half minutes with Michael Vick showing why he is an MVP frontrunner. They pulled off an on sides kick, and after NY punted with 14 seconds to go, De Sean Jackson returned the kick 65 yards for a touchdown. I called Fred Chary and rehashed the highlights with him. Terry Jenkins was watching on tape delay, so I nonchalantly acted like I wanted to talk about was the Phillies’ acquisition of Chris Lee. Wouldn’t you know, now that I had been eliminated from the FANTASY playoffs Ray Rice had a career day. My total of 117 points in a consolation game against Dave was 21 points higher than Phil (who with Michael Vick beat Pittsburgh Dave) and 31 points more than Bobby (who with Philip Rivers defeated Kira).

Jeff Manes wrote about Bob Meyer, a fourth-generation steel worker who is president of the Northwest Indiana Steel heritage Project. The group’s overall goal is a steel museum, but Meyer is lobbying for space at the Lake County Tourist Bureau Welcome Center to set up a learning center. Right now there’s a permanent display devoted to bank robber John Dillinger that more fittingly could be in Crown Point. The Calumet Regional Archives has been supportive of the project. Manes used this quote from his short story “Appalachian Apologia”: “After the war he returned home but did not stay. His people told him of big money up north, near Chicago. He took a job in the steel mill and was placed in the coal-handling section of the coke plant, a good job for a hillbilly. And he figured it was not as cold as Korea, but atop the coal bridge, on an East Chicago January day, it was colder than Kentucky. And the steel mill could hurt you, the same as Korea or the mines of Kentucky.”

My only ventures into Kentucky have been on its interstates on the way south. I have not been to the Kentucky Derby or Mammoth Cave, its premier tourist destination. We took Alissa on a caving trip but settled for Marengo Cave in southern Indiana. At one point our guide wanted everyone to turn out all lights so we could experience it being pitch black; one person in the group balked, saying she was too scared to do so. Then close your eyes and we’ll just do it for a few seconds, the guide said. You’d think if someone were claustrophobic, she’d stay out of caves. In “Roll Away Your Stone” Mumford and Sons sing: “The darkness is a harsh term don’t you think? And yet it dominates the things I seek.” The excellent banjo playing reminded me of a Flatt and Scruggs album I played in law school. Earl Scruggs could really strum.

English prof George Bodmer commented on my Henrietta Gibson quote concerning the deer whose horns “got fast against the bale”: “I've long been interested in that use of ‘fast.’ I used to work in a can factory in Cincinnati, which also employed a good number of workers who came from Appalachia. One came to me one day because he had locked his keys in a supply area and thought I might be able to slip in through a crack because I was slight (this was obviously a good while ago). As I squeezed through, he said, ‘don't get fast,’ which I interpreted to mean, ‘don't get stuck fast.’ That wording has always stuck with me.” I wrote back: “Very interesting. I had never heard the expression before and double-checked the quote in case I had gotten it wrong. I’m sure the Southerners in the can factory were called worse things than Appalachian. So many Kentuckians moved to Cedar Lake IN during WW II that some people nicknamed the town Cedartucky. Their kids who went to Crown Point schools were called Lake Rats. I expect your holiday will be more enjoyable than a year ago.” Last year a car struck him as he was crossing Broadway on his way to the parking lot. He replied that at this time a year ago he “was just home from the hospital and very happy to be sprung and getting around kind of on my own steam.”

Heard from Suzanna, who as feared had been in the hospital with heart problems. She came out of it OK and plans to live to be 106 “like my Grama.” My great grandmother Grace Frace lived into her hundredth year in Easton, PA. Near the end she had delusions that her daughter (my great Aunt Ida) was entertaining college boys from Lafayette, who’d move her out of her bed so they could use it for immoral purposes. My straight-laced maiden aunt was mortified when she started talking like that. Aunt Ida lived with us for ten years and baked wonderful crumb pies and cinnamon rolls. One time my brother and I talked her into letting us eat an entire sponge cake by complimenting her on how yummy it was. In Michigan with us she was so lonely my mother dragged her to a senior citizens activities center. She joined a bridge group that met in each other’s homes. Prior to her hosting it, she sheepishly asked if she could serve the ladies wine. Normally she frowned on the partaking of alcohol. I called her Aunt Potato (for Idaho potato patch). As the Eddie Cantor song went, she was truly sweet as apple cider.

Reverend Richard Stazesky sent an update on Marion Merrill’s condition in lieu of her traditional Christmas letter. At age 96 my former PhD adviser’s widow is wheelchair-bound and can no longer read but voted Democratic in the last election and retains a sense of humor. Stazesky writes: “I told her I planned to say that her long term memory was very good but her short term memory is not so good. She quickly responded, ‘That’s because I have so much to remember.’” She also wanted everyone to know she’d rather be in Vermont, a continuing lament for ever since I met her 45 years ago.

Received a 50-dollar coupon for a Honey Baked Ham, which I ordered and picked up (pre-baked and sliced) in Merrillville along with “Sigh No More.” Stopped at Quick Cut and tipped favorite hair stylist Anna eight dollars (it being the holidays) on orders from Toni.

Brett Favre was a surprise starter against the Bears but suffered a concussion in the first half. Chicago won in a rout thanks in part to Devin Hester’s record breaking punt return and clinched winning their division.