"Wonderful Life" Redux

“I can see my mother in the kitchen

My father on the floor

Watching television,
It’s A Wonderful Life

Cinnamon candles burning, snowball fights outside

Smile below each nose and above each chin

Stomp my boots before I go back in.”
“Boots,” Killers

I’ve been listening to CDs nephew Bob gave me by the Killers (“Hot Fuss”) and Ray Lamontagne (“Trouble”). He is also a big fan of Stevie Wonder and the Grateful Dead. Bob and I are facing off in the first round of the Fantasy football playoffs. The Killers have released a Christmas song in each of the past several years, and their latest, “Boots,” is getting airtime on WXRT. The “snowball fights” reference reminds me of building snow forks as a kid in Fort Washington. My dad (Vic) captured a snowball fight on 16-milimeter film.

Toni bought a rug for the foyer for people to stomp their boots or shoes on when they enter the condo. We keep a pair of boots that we both use in the foyer for trips outside for the newspapers or to sweep and shovel. Water from the gutter has been settling on our front porch and freezing, making it hazardous. Handyman Jason Ruge gave us an estimate of $200 to repair and reseal the gutter. I have emailed the condo board members and expect they will approve the request as they did a similar repair job in another court.

Saturday was mild and rainy, the calm before a blizzard. I shoveled off the slush in front of our garage. Neighbor Tom Coulter saw me and did the same in front of his. Ditto the neighbor in unit 413. At the library read a “Vanity Fair” article about Jackie O as book editor and then checked out Edmund Morris’s “Colonel Roosevelt, about TR’s life after leaving the Presidency in 1909. In his syrupy farewell speech to his staff, Richard Nixon referred to TR’s useful last ten years after leaving office. The prologue deals with TR’s African safari; he slaughtered hundreds of game, satisfying his blood lust and need to test his manhood. The rationale: he was collecting specimens for the Smithsonian. Touring Europe, he was treated by heads of state like royalty. On the voyage back to New York he spoke at a Sunday service on deck and then insisted on addressing a thousand passengers in steerage, mostly Polish immigrants, on the great adventure that lay before them in America. According to Morris, many wept openly and clamored to touch him. The authorized biographer of Ronald Reagan, Morris wrote a controversial “memoir” called “Dutch,” where he invented a gossip columnist and an older version of himself, to make the story more lively. “Colonel Roosevelt” seems generally accurate, with no invented characters.

Ron and Nancy Cohen and Tanice Foltz stopped to see our condo on the way to Tracy and Fred Trout’s Holiday party. Nancy brought us butter cookies that melted in your mouth. They liked all our closet space and that the bedroom was on the first floor. Ron gave me a copy of “New York Review of Books.” Ronald Dworkin, bemoaning the 2010 election results and the Citizens United Supreme Court case that allowed secret funding of conservative candidates to the tune of 110 million dollars, wrote, “Why do people vote in such numbers for the party favored by the bankers and traders who brought on the economic catastrophe? If someone burned down your house, you would not fire your new contractor because he has not rebuilt it fast enough and then hire the arsonist to finish the job.” During the 1936 Presidential campaign FDR compared opponents of the New Deal to a rich old drowning man first grateful to have been saved but then angry because the rescuer didn’t also save his silk hat.

Great food, wine, and company at Tracy and Fred’s party. Jeff, a classmate of Tracy’s at Merrillville High School, mentioned that they had appeared in numerous theatrical production together and as back-up singers to Vic Damone and Barry Manilow. Tracy’s mom, Martha Sass, is a mainstay at Valparaiso’s Chicago Street Theater. Jeff recently played the part of Dr. Frank-N-Furter in a production of “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” People in the audience threw toilet paper, toast, rice and hot dogs just like at the movies. He mentioned taking an awesome dance class at IUN 30 years ago with Garrett Cope and was amazed to learn that Garrett is still at the university. I talked sports with Cindy and Mark Hoyert’s 15 year-old son Matt, who is about six foot six and plays on Valpo’s freshman team. He had on the same tie Mark wore at last year’s Arts and Sciences Holiday party. The Valparaiso varsity had a game earlier, and he was required to wear a tie.

Another guest at the Trouts, Greg Lasky, graduated from Portage the same year as son Phil. Wife Jana was the niece of former Congressman Adam Benjamin. I told her about how helpful Adam was when I was writing “City of the Century.” The house we rented at 54th and Maryland when we first came to Northwest Indiana was through Adam, who represented the owner in Texas. We looked like hippies, but when he learned I was a professor at Iu Northwest, he had no qualms about letting us move in. His office at the Gary National Bank Building contained a plaque naming him Assyrian-American of the Year. I hadn’t even known there were Assyrian Americans. Jana showed me an Assyrian pendent she was wearing. She and Greg used to work for Congressman Pete Visclosky. During his successful campaign against incumbent Katie Hall and Prosecutor Jack Crawford he came up our isolated road and driveway at Maple Place to solicit our vote. He got it even though I had intended to vote for Hall.

Got home in time for Saturday Night Live hosted by actor Paul Rudd (in a new comedy, “How Do You Know,” with Reese Witherspoon and Owen Wilson). Musical guest was Paul McCartney, who also appeared in several skits. Though my age (born in 1942), the former Beatle rocked out to “Jet.” Some think the song is about an old girlfriend or maybe John Lennon (“the wind in your hair of a thousand laces”) or David Bowie (“I thought the major was a lady suffragette”), but the lyrics are nonsensical. Jet was the name of Paul’s dog at the time he wrote it.

With the Gary Public Library budget cut in half down to 3 million dollars, there is talk of closing all five branches or even the downtown anchor, since it is dire need of repair, and keeping just the DuBois branch at 1835 Broadway. It would make sense for Gary to become part of the county system, but board members would have to give up perks in that scenario.

Dick and Cheryl picked us up for the Sunday matinee of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Angie had told us it was a sell-out, but due to the weather there were about 50 empty seats, enabling Toni to move up after a tall person sat right in front of her. I wish daughter-in-law Beth, who recently asked me to be her Facebook friend, was around. “It’s a Wonderful Life” is her favorite holiday movie. By intermission blizzard conditions had developed outside. When the play was over, we congratulated Becca, James, and Angie and went to a nearby restaurant, One Fifty Seven, with Tom Eaton and Pat Cronin joining the four of us as planned. Only six other brave souls were at the restaurant. My petite filet minion was so good I didn’t need a doggie bag. The wind was blowing so hard, Dick could hardly see the ramp connecting Ridge Road with Route 49. After a cast party, Angie and the kids came to our house with much difficulty rather than try to reach Portage. The Northwest Indiana weather conditions made the national news, as did Minneapolis, where the storm caused the collapse of the Metrodome, forcing postponement of the Vikings-Giants football contest.

Talked to Mary Delp Harwood on the phone about Wendy and the tiara mystery. She had no recollection of my driving home from a dance and attempting to pass a car on a three-lane highway in a 1956 Buick. I barely made it before a truck came barreling down the middle lane from the other direction.

No school Monday for the kids. IU Northwest stayed open because Monday was the first day of finals, but I didn’t go anywhere. On Dave’s advice I queued up On Demand and watched the first episode of the HBO Twenties gangster series “Broadway Empire” written by “Sopranos’ screenwriter Terence Winter, directed by Martin Scorcese, and starring one of my favorite character actors (i.e., “Fargo”) Steve Buscemi as boss Enoch “Nucky” Thompson. The show has plenty of violence and frontal nudity. Among the real life gangsters written into the script are Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Johnny Torrio, and Arnold Rothstein (responsible for fixing the 1919 World Series, the so-called Black Sox scandal). The series was inspired by Nelson Johnson’s nonfiction book subtitled “The Birth, High Times and Corruption of Atlantic City.” Dabney Coleman, whom I didn’t recognize, plays Nucky’s mentor, the Commodore. The first role I saw him play was slimy Mayor Merle Jeeter in the night time Seventies soap opera “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.”

Going into Monday night Bob had a 15-point Fantasy lead on me with each of us having one player left; I had Baltimore running back Ray Rice and he had Houston kicker Neil Rackers. As I told Phil, I was looking good after DeSean Jackson caught a 90-yard TD pass Sunday evening but then the Cowboys’ Jason Witten caught a meaningless TD at the end of the game, adding ten points to Bob’s total. Oakland tied Jacksonville near the end of their game, allowing Maurice Jones Drew (MJD) to get Bob 11 points on the final play on a long TD run. On draft night I should have taken MJD rather than Ray Rice when I had third pick but was scared away by his knee problems. Ray had no TDs and I lost by 13 points.

After half a grapefruit, cheerios with sliced bananas, bacon, and two cups of coffee, stopped off for a talk with good friend Clark on the way to work. The roads in Miller were slippery, as the city of Gary apparently lacks the money to lay down salt adequately.

IU Press wanted a description of Roy Dominguez’s autobiography “Spirits from the Fields” for an upcoming meeting. This is what I sent: “Scholars will find Spirits from the Fields a significant and original contribution to the social, ethnic, and political history of Northwest Indiana. Hoosiers throughout the state will recognize in this intimate, informative, and inspiring narrative elements familiar to their own family histories. Like so many immigrants, Roy’s parents Jesse and Inocensia traveled to the heavily industrialized Calumet Region in order to earn a decent wage and provide their children with opportunities for a more fulfilling life than had been possible for them. Their core values served Roy well as he encountered hurdles growing up in the gang-plagued “Steel City” of Gary, on the way to becoming the first Hispanic Indiana state trooper, graduating with distinction from Indiana University Northwest, getting through Valparaiso Law School after a rough start, and maturing into a successful attorney and officeholder. Emulating his Dad, he was a “good Joe” with the knack for putting folks at ease. Like his Mom, he viewed politics as an honorable path to public service.

“Once as a group largely neglected by historians and social scientists, during the past half-century, starting in the consciousness-raising Sixties, a rich literature has documented the lives of Hispanics in the Midwest, and in particular, Northwest Indiana, not only scholarly output but also notable biographies and memoirs. As overt forms of discrimination abated after World War II, it became possible for talented individuals to obtain leadership positions in business, commerce, law enforcement, and industry, run successfully for union and political offices, and achieve distinction in areas ranging from athletics and advertising to the arts and academics. Spirits from the Fields exemplifies the American promise for those persistent enough to beat the odds and muster the resilience needed to confront life’s vicissitudes. Just when Dominguez was ready to start a family and embark on a promising legal career as a deputy prosecutor, he was stricken Guillain-Barré syndrome. How he coped with and eventually overcame this debilitating affliction is a compelling subtheme of Spirits from the Fields. The experience matured him, required patience and humility, and steeled him to meet future crises with wisdom, perspective, and grit. As Chairman of the Workers Compensation Board under Governor Evan Bayh, Dominguez made an impact statewide. Consumer groups, labor unions, and enlightened employers alike heralded the long overdue overhaul of workers compensation regulations that he shepherded into being.

“Dominguez truly stands on the shoulders of forefathers – and mothers, Texas landowners on one side, migrant workers on the other, who believed in family first and instilled confidence in a remarkable public servant whose compassion for people comes though vividly in the pages of his autobiography. His preferred leadership style emphasizes achieving outcomes through consensus; but when decisiveness is called for, he does not back down from necessary fights. Strong as the steel forged in Northwest Indiana’s mills, he rebounded from physical and political setbacks that would have felled lesser men and comprehends that life is fleeting and unpredictable and that one should put his talents to the best possible use. He is a proven leader capable of meeting whatever challenges the future holds for him.”

This just in: The Phillies signed pitcher Chris Lee to a five-year contract worth $120 million. An all-star who played for them in the 2009 World Series and for the Rangers in the 2010 Fall Classic, he will make Philadelphia an odd-on favorite to go all the way in 2011. This more than compensates for losing Jayson Werth to the Nationals.

Magill’s manuscript editor Christopher Rager emailed about my review of “Empire of the Summer Moon.” He “greatly enjoyed” it but noticed that three times I referred to the Comanches as Cherokees and wondered if it was a misprint. I replied: “I am so glad you caught that. I can’t believe I did that although as an editor I know that sometimes the most obvious things are not caught. Please change to Comanche in all three instances. Again, I apologize.” He wrote back: “I figured it was an oversight--those things definitely happen--but I just wanted to double check given my ignorance on the subject. Thanks for your quick response and great review.”

Suzanna sent me a cute animated flash ecard by Jacquie Lawson about a dog and a cat, home alone, breaking open presents and knocking balls off a Christmas tree before hearing carolers outside their house. I emailed back: “The cat reminded me of Marvin, who liked to get under our trees and play with the ornaments. He was very gentle, but occasionally he knocked some off. For several years we had carolers even though we lived in isolation on a hill. Two families we knew (Mack-Wards and Warricks) would go out with their combined four daughters and included us on their route.”

As the Killers sing in “Boots,” “brand new year coming up ahead.” Just 16 days to go.