Jingling Bells

"Jingle bells,
Mortar shells,
VC in the grass,
Take your Merry Christmas and jam it up your a*s!
Jingle bells,
Mortar shells
Charlie's in the wire,
Take your Merry Christmas and set your a*s on fire!"
“Songs by Americans in the Vietnam War”

Vietnam veteran Jay Keck, a dear soul, sent me the Echo Company “Two-Seven Tooter” (motto: “Ready for Anything, Counting on Nothing”) for December 15, 2010. It contains excerpts from an anonymous songbook put together between 1965 and 1968 and recently donated to the Library of Congress. In the “New York Review of Books” is an article about the novel “Matterhorn” by Karl Marlantes entitled “The War We’ll Never Understand.” The book had been published privately and eventually picked up by Atlantic Monthly Press. Time listed it as one of the ten best nonfiction books of the year. Like at Hamburger Hill, the marines had taken the Matterhorn, named for a Swiss mountain peak, then under orders retreated. A colonel who needed impressive body counts in order to get promoted commanded them to retake it even with the enemy above them in bunkers the marines themselves had built. This passage by a navy nurse, according to reviewer Jonathan Mirsky, helps explain why author Marlantes and so many others suffered from post traumatic stress syndrome: “You’ve got to understand what we do here. We fix weapons. Right now you’re a broken guidance system for 40 rifles, three machine guns, a bunch of mortars, several artillery batteries, three calibers of naval guns, and four kinds of attack aircraft. Our job is to get you fixed and back in action as fast as we can.” Dr. Ronald Glasser made the identical point in “365 Days.” No wonder the cynicism of “Jingle Bells, Mortar Shells.”

Speaking of “Jingle Bells,” a great Christmas song is “Jingle Bell Rock” by Bobby Helms, who also scored a number one hit in 1957, “(You Are) My Special Angel.” Helms died of emphysema in 1997. Dick Hagelberg saw him on stage near the end of his career with an oxygen tank by his side.

Having saved 130 stamps from Jewel Osco (one for every ten dollars worth of groceries), Toni and I were able to purchase a 90-dollar roaster (one of a half-dozen pots available) for a penny. We used to save S and H green stamps. There’d be distribution centers where you’d redeem the stamps for merchandise. Several other competing stamps were offered at gas stations and other stores. Now a common gimmick is to offer frequent flier miles. We use a Discover credit card whenever possible because we get a refund check (usually around two hundred dollars) every year. Santa’s helper was ringing a bell outside Jewel. Toni always gives generously. A Quickly contributor complained of getting dirty looks if she doesn’t donate. That’s never happened to me – in fact, usually just the opposite – a smile and hearty “Merry Christmas” – without a hint of sarcasm to make me feel guilty.

Gregory Gates read my Gary book and seeks more info about Drusilla Carr, a Miller Beach pioneer who fought U.S. Steel’s attempts to take her land. She stood her ground in the face of legal action by the behemoth corporation. Her main concern was the desecration of the lakefront ecology. A relative, Clara Harmening, recently sent the Archives a book tracing the Carr family genealogy that contains photos and a brief autobiography that first appeared in a partially handwritten manuscript entitled “Papers of Various Hands.” In it Drusilla tells of protecting her small child from an attacking eagle with a sunbonnet until husband Robert, a fisherman, drove it off with a paddle. Historian James Lester, who edited “Papers,” published several stories 90 years ago in volume 18 of the Indiana Magazine of History.

Colleagues Frank Caucci and Chuck Gallmeier are envious that I have no finals to grade nor tenure, sabbatical or pre-tenure dossiers to peruse. Learned at lunch that Bill Dorin was once a lecturer in john Maniotes’ Communication Information Systems Department at Purdue Cal, and they traveled together to a conference in San Francisco. Looking for a Chinese restaurant, Maniotes told Bill they should search for one that had Chinese customers.

Having read my account of his Uncle Art Daronatsy traveling south with Richard Hatcher during Freedom Summer, Tom Daronatsy showed up at the Archives. I gave him “Age of Anxiety,” dedicated to “Old Lefties” and containing Art’s photo. Also showed him a photo of Art in Gary: A Pictorial History.” His uncle, an adviser to Hatcher, recommended naming a branch library in honor off W.E.B. DuBois. In 1970 Tom skipped school to pass out leaflets about Earth Day. Hauled into the principal’s office, he was asked what his uncle would say if he knew he’d played hooky. “Which one?” Tom replied. Another uncle was an East Chicago businessman and civic leader, but Art would have been proud of him. Tom remained in the Archives all afternoon, except for cigarette breaks, pouring through books and yearbooks.

The Senate passed the compromise tax extension plan 81 to 19. Voting no were five Republicans including Tea Party hero Jim DeMint of South Carolina, 13 Democrats including liberals Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Carl Levin (MI), Tom Harkin (IA), and Patrick Leahy (VT) plus socialist Bernie Sanders (VT), the bill’s most outspoken critic. It may stimulate the economy as Obama asserts (and his re-election hopes depend on a recovery), but it further leads the country down the path toward bankruptcy.

Fred McColly recently wrote: “Being an industrial worker in Northwest Indiana must have something of the same feel as being a communist part boss in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in November 1989...just waiting for some bureaucratic drone like Gunter Schabowski to make an inadvertent slip and expose the whole fiction of a well functioning system for the sham it is...it's only a matter of time.” Gunter Schabowski gave a misleading statement at a press conference implying that his government had immediately ended travel restrictions into West Berlin. Huge crowds forced border guards to open the gates, thus rendering obsolete the Berlin Wall. His subsequent criticism of GDR policies led former comrades to label him a Wryneck (a bird that can turn its head 180 degrees).

On Facebook Paul Kern’s son Colin wrote: “Got my hair cut by a girl with an orange Mohawk. I can’t stop thinking about how boring my hair is now.” His friend Nathaniel Pearre commented: “Funny, I think in that situation I’d be wondering if a girl with an orange Mohawk is qualified to cut my hair.” Colin, bless him, replied: “It was a very well done orange Mohawk.”

Bowling on alleys 15 and 16 at Cressmoor Lanes, in game one I got seven strikes on the latter (including three in the tenth frame) and none on 15, finishing with a 199. Starting game two, I struck on alley 16 in the first, threw a gutter ball in the third, and struck in the fifth. In other words, nine strike frames out of ten.

A Christmas card came from Peggy Renner, the widow of longtime mechanic Frank. He probably worked 60 hours a week. After he suffered a heart attack, his insurance company dropped him and due to his “preexisting condition” there were no other affordable plans. After he had a second attack, Peg feared he’d lose his shop. So much for the American dream. He died soon afterwards, one of those cases where the operation was a success but the patient died.

In the third episode of “Boardwalk Empire” Nucky tells the black mobster Chalky White, in reference to how he is treating his employees, “You’re a real Simon Legree.” Not catching the reference to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Chalky replies, “If they don’t agree with me, I’ll kick their ass.” MILF Gretchen Mol plays Gillian, Jimmy’s mother, who reminds Nucky of their agreement that he would keep her son out of trouble. Nucky orders Jimmy to leave town, and off to Chicago he goes, where he hooks up with Al Capone.

“Sports Illustrated” has articles on the suicide of golfer Erica Blasberg and the “Long, Painful Farewell” of Brett Favre. In both cases the athletes had domineering fathers. Andre Agassi hated tennis because of the way his father drove him so hard. Could that be Tiger Wood’s problem as well? Mickey Mantle’s dad was like that. Was the price worth it? I’d say a resounding “maybe.”

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is “Time’s” person-of-the-year, at age 26 the second youngest. Aviator Charles Lindbergh was only 25 in 1927, the maiden year of the designation. The success of “Social Network” probably played a role in the selection, but it is a good choice.

Airing recently on National Public Radio was Michael Puente’s report, “Is Gary Ready for Another Mayor Hatcher?” Even though he spent a and I spent most of his defending Richard Hatcher as a visionary and concluding that the Hatcher name would help daughter Ragen in her bid to become mayor, the one brief quote that Puente used was this: “Out in the suburbs Hatcher’s name has a negative connotation. Many blame him for having to sell their homes at bargain basement prices, but that trend might have been hurried by Hatcher’s election but that trend was already going on.” I shouldn’t have been surprised. Thanks to me he was able to use an excerpt from “Eyes On the Prize 2” of Hatcher’s 1972 speech at the Black Political Convention and get a quote from Richard thanks to the phone number I provided him.

Had a chance to read Tom Higgins’ “The Fabric of Froebel” about Gary’s immigrant school, where educators from around the world came to observe how Superintendent William A. Wirt’s work-study-plan system worked. Explaining the “fabric” symbolism, Higgins wrote: “The faculty served as The Stitching Corps. They kept everything together and maintained a special uniformity with the threads of teaching, counseling, practical application, and guidance through the years the students were in their charge.” Higgins dedicated the book to the memory of Gary’s first athletic hero, John W. Kyle, in his words “an integral part of the formation of sports in Gary with Emerson, Indiana University, The Elks, Gary College, and Froebel as a player, coach, and athletic director.” In his inscription Tom wrote: “Dr. J, it’s too bad I didn’t finish this some time ago. We could have discussed it on ‘Wally’s World.’” Tom’s humorous memoirs appeared in Shavings volumes 22 (WW II), 28 (Lake Michigan Tales), and 34 (Age of Anxiety).