Winter Winds

“But if your strife strikes at your sleep
Remember spring swaps snow for leaves
You’ll be happy and wholesome again
When the city clears and the sun ascends.”
Mumford and Sons

Told granddaughter Alissa I was listening to Mumford and Sons, and she couldn’t believe it. It’s her favorite group, too. To get to our house from Grand Rapids she has to pass through the infamous Lake Michigan snow belt. Winter winds continue to send lake effect snow to Chesterton, but it’s not as bad as the blizzard of ten days ago, not to mention London, where Heathrow Airport has been shut down for days or the West Coast where torrential rains are causing mudslides and other horrors.

IU Northwest’s cafeteria was nearly empty. I had a chicken salad sandwich for $3.30 plus got charged a quarter for a single pepper. Most cashiers wouldn’t have rung it up, but the one on duty is a real stickler. I ran into Nursing student services coordinator Anne Mitchell, who served on several committees with me (there was a time when the paucity of African-American faculty overburdened their committee assignments). Anne lives in Miller and understood when I told her that high property taxes put the kibosh on hopes of finding a place in Gary near Lake Michigan. I told her how much fun it was when Dave and Angie lived at the end of Shelby, within a few yards of a beach entrance.

Sent an email to Aaron Pigors about a DVD collaboration featuring the late, great FACET founder Eileen Bender for possible viewing at the next retreat. It will combine comments about her from last spring’s French Lick interviews, followed by the 90-minute taping we did of her in South Bend. It is all so good that I am reluctant to edit out portions. Retired Bethlehem Steel photographer Dave Mergl is frequently at the Archives making jpegs for us from his extensive collection. He confided that he’ll be sorry when the library closes for ten days over Christmas and New year’s because he’s a caregiver for an Alzheimer’s sufferer and about to be inundated by kids and their families and pets.

I asked all faculty members if they wanted to assign an Ides of March journal next semester; hopefully I’ll get a few responses besides Steve McShane and Chuck Gallmeier. Chuck invited me to his place in Miller to see his train set and other decorations. In the foyer is a nineteenth century miniature English village with various Charles Dickens characters from “A Christmas Carol.” In his office a train weaves its way around a town that includes a Coca Cola factory and a couple dozen other buildings. A movie marquee advertises “Rebel Without a Cause.” In front is a facsimile of the car Dean drove in “Rebel.” Having found African American figurines, including a Black Santa, he has thoroughly integrated the circa 1950s scene. Chuck showed me a just-published journal article he did with Stephanie Shanks-Meile on Deaners who gather in his Hoosier hometown of Fairmount on the anniversary of his death. Chuck is reading Nora Titone’s “My Thoughts Be Bloody: The Bitter Rivalry Between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth That Led to an American Tragedy.” Sons of famed British thespian Junius Brutus Booth, Edwin was evidently the much better actor of the two, and more successful, and the sibling rivalry played a role in John Wilkes’ warped decision to kill President Lincoln. Chuck had high praise for “Dutch,” Edmund Morris’ controversial biography of Ronald Reagan. Maybe I’ll give it a look.

In “Colonel Roosevelt” Morris opens the chapter “Two Melancholy Men” with these lines from poet Edwin Arlington Robinson: “The coming on of his old monster Time/ Has made him a still man; and he has dreams/ Were fair to think on once, and all found hollow.” During the winter of 1914 TR was suffering from symptoms of incipient old age as well as “power deprivation.” President Wilson was grieving the death of his wife and feeling helpless in the face of his country drifting inexorably toward the war raging in Europe. The progressive rivals would clash over how to respond to the carnage overseas.

Searching for holiday reading matter, I picked up Sue Miller’s “The Good Mother.” On the back is this blurb: “Recently divorced, Anna Dunlap had two passionate attachments: to her daughter, four year-old Molly; to her lover, Leo, the man who made her feel beautiful – and sexual – for the first time.” The fly in the ointment: Anna’s ex-husband charges that Leo has been sexually abusing Molly. The books opens with the main character recalling her grandparents’ summer cottage in Maine and crossing a lake in a rowboat to get to the nearest post office. Inside was an array of brass-trimmed letterboxes, a worn wooden floor, nicked counters, and an opening where you’d ring a bell to summon the postmistress “from the mysterious bowels of her house.”

Anthony asked Facebook friends their favorite memories with him. I mentioned shooting hoops outside his house and playing cards; I should have added our trip to California five years ago. We played wiffleball with nephew Bob, and Anthony perfectly mimicked him, including pretending to spit tobacco juice before each swing. Another young friend (not Anthony) is into something called The Modern Church of Satan. I was alarmed enough to Google their website, which extols the virtues of living life to the fullest and being a free thinker. There are quotes from beat poet Jack Kerouac, libertine Marquis De Sade, and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. My guess is that some followers like being regarded as nonconformists and is call themselves Satanists in part for shock value. The beliefs don’t appear to be violent or morbid. In fact, claiming to worship the devil seems a provocative way of declaring oneself free from the grip of organized religion. Perhaps it’s like when people call themselves witches or warlocks – there’s even a faction within the local Unitarian Church.

Ron Cohen recommended attorney Donald Evans as a good choice to help us update our wills. We met him in his Valparaiso office that he shares with several other lawyers, including Rick Busse. Busse has a PhD in Theology and teaches part-time in our department. In the summer he has a fried vegetable wagon that he takes to county fairs. Evans claimed we met at Al Samter’s house after Al contracted throat cancer and needed a will drawn up. We had several other friends in common besides Ron.

Ron has shingles but found time to read Roy Dominguez’s “Spirits from the Fields: An American Odyssey” and email IU Press that it’s a wonderful, insightful rags-to-riches story. Roy plans to visit places where he grew up in Texas after leaving office January 1, and we’ll resume our tapings when he gets back. Hopefully a book contract will be awaiting him.

Bowling opponent Tommy Pleasant struck out in the tenth and then suddenly said, “I going to have a heart attack.” Moments later he fell to the ground. A Gary policeman took charge until paramedics arrived. As they carried him out on a stretcher, Tommy was breathing, but it didn’t look good. Engineers won all seven points, and I rolled a 541. Robbie changed the way he held the ball after seven miserable frames and caught fire, finishing with a 562 series. His style reminds me of my dad, Vic, a 180+ bowler who released the ball almost in the right gutter. Frank had a 616, “pretty, pretty good,” as Larry David would say. I hope I have his competitive drive in ten years. Next week he and his wife celebrate their fifty-fourth anniversary.

Arrived home to find Alissa and Toni chatting. I provided them with m ore bowling highlights than they probably cared to hear (24 marks, one split, and five blows) and then phoned captain Bill Batalis with news of our sweep. I stifled an urge to call Bob and Nike or Chuck and Gaard on the West Coast and do more bragging.