Lending a Hand

“Non nobis solum nati sumus (Not for ourselves alone are we born),”

Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero

Spanish professor Eva Mendieta thanked me for the advice I provided on her recently published Indiana Magazine of History article, entitled “Celebrating Mexican Cultire and Lending a Helping Hand: Indiana Harbor’s Sociedad Mutualista Benito Juarez.”  The papers of that mutual aid society are in the Calumet Regional Archives, and Eva’s first contact with them was as a translator.  The original purpose of the organization was to provide insurance for members, steelworkers mostly, who became ill or injured on the job, as well as survivor death benefits.  Over the years the emphasis changed to promoting cultural events that kept Mexican traditions alive. In 1956 the Sociedad Mutualista Benito Juarez merged with two other groups to form the Union Benefica Mexicana, which still exists at present.   Eva worked on the project for several years, and at my suggestion interviewed former officers Oscar Sanchez and Daniel Lopez.  Oscar worked closely with Sheriff Roy Dominguez.  Daniel was more comfortable speaking Spanish, so Eva accommodated him.  The journal used some great photos from the archives, including one of a Mexican band, another of a children’s folkloric group, and a third of Latinas playing softball in the Harbor.

Barney Frank may be the next Senator from Massachusetts once John Kerry is confirmed as Hillary Clinton’s State Department replacement.  The openly gay Congressman married James Ready last July and served 32 years in the House before retiring at the end of the last session.  In 1995 Dick Armey called him “Barney Fag” and then claimed it was nothing more than “trouble with alliteration.”  Frank refused to accept that it was an innocent mispronunciation, saying, “I turned to my own expert, my mother, who reports that in 59 years of marriage, no one ever introduced her as Elsie Fag.” 

If the Senate does the right thing and confirms former Nebraska Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, that will make two Vietnam vets in Obama’s national security team – both excellent choices who learned firsthand the horrors of war.  Neocons like Bill Crystal hate Hagel and accuse him without substance of being anti-Israel.  While our military deterrent sometimes prevents bad things from happening, it can’t necessarily make good things happen as the recent misadventures by neocon interventionists have demonstrated.  .  Some have dredged up the fact that in 1998 he opposed James Hormel being appointed ambassador to China because he was “openly aggressively gay.”  Hormel was confirmed anyway, and last month Hagel apologized for his “insensitive” remarks and stated he was “fully supportive of open service and committed to LGBT military families.”

Fred and Diane Chary invited me to join their trivia team at Temple Israel next week.  Since many questions are Region-flavored, they think I can help them.  Will some folks, I wonder, think it unfair if questions come from my Gary book?

Jerry Davich wants me on next Friday’s Lakeshore Public Radio show to discuss demographic changes that have taken place in the Region over the past 30 years.  He wrote: “I noticed a few trends, including a huge spike in Hispanics/blacks in Porter County and more baby boomers living alone.”  He wondered if I thought racial discrimination was still the area’s Achilles Heel.  I suggested he take a look at census figures and responded: “I think ethnicity is not as pronounced as the grandchildren of immigrants are more and more acclimated to "American" ways.  This is true of Latinos as well as white ethnics (Serbs, Croats, Greeks, etc.).  It is harder for African Americans to ‘melt’ but interracial couples don't cause heads to turn as much as in the past, and maybe soon the same will be true for same sex couples.  The area is still fragmented and many whites still stereotype blacks but (call me an optimist) I think things have improved since the polarized Sixties.  The aging of the Region can be seen in many ways - how about the average age of steelworkers being somewhere near 50?”  Since he was looking for interviewees to support his conclusions, I wrote: “As the population ages, more seniors are using facilities such as the Reiner Center in Hobart and working out at health clubs, etc.” 

Geosciences prof Zoran Kilibarda is off on a Fulbright to the University of Montenegro, near where he grew up.  He first came to the U.S. when wife Vesna was studying mathematics at the University of Nebraska.  Zoran stocked at a grocery, delivered pizzas, and had other menial jobs until he was accepted into Nebraska’s graduate program.  Unable to return to Montenegro during the 1990s, the Kilibardas lived in Alaska for five years before coming to IUN.  He has returned to his homeland twice in the past eight years and hopes to open the door for other young students to study in the U.S.

Parisian documentarians Frederic Cousseau and Blandine Huk are planning to visit Gary for two months next fall and want to meet me.  They hope to find a small apartment to rent cheap. I sent them “Gary’s First Hundred Years” and may have some housing suggestions.  French professor Scooter Pegram has lived in Gary and said he’d ask around and see what he could find.  Frederic wrote: “Why Gary?  Because our specialty is industrial cities.  We were in Ukraine, Russia, Poland, and now the West.”  According to a French cinema website, Cousseau was born in 1963 and was a punk rock musician during the 1980s.

On the elevator a student was wearing sand-colored sneakers that looked comfortable and classier than the gym shoes I commonly employ.  I asked where he bought them, and he replied, “Macy’s,” which replaced L/S. Ayres at what was once Southlake Mall.  I found no match at their shoe department but bought a similar pair at Aldo Shoes for 70 bucks, which I thought somewhat steep until I priced shoes at J.C. Penney’s.  Stopped on the way home at Town and Country, whose fruit selection is superior to Chesterton alternatives and sells quarts of Miller for 30 cents less.  At 3:30 the store was busy, but most check-put counters were open.  At Jewel patrons are encouraged to use self check-out, something I’m not ready to embrace.

Back at St. Anthony’s hospice to visit Bill Batalis, I met his 88 year-old sister Dorothy Johnson and her husband.  Both are nearly blind due to macular degeneration, and he mentioned getting shots from a needle into his eye.  Ouch!  Bill status is unchanged, but I took some comfort in talking to him about how all his bowling teammates were thinking of him.  A half-century ago I visited great-aunt Ida in a Lutheran nursing home whose facilities in retrospect seem quite barbaric compared to Bill’s private room.

I picked up “Licks of Love,” a volume of John Updike’s short stories.  The title piece is about a banjo player, Eddie Chester, involved in a cultural exchange program in the Soviet Union during the fall of 1964 when Nikita Khrushchev was overthrown.  In the voice of Chester Updike describes the country as rather dismal but university students he performed for as more eager to learn than their bored, spoiled American counterparts.  The character started his performance talking about the West African and slave origins of the instrument and his favorite banjo player was Pete Seeger, who revived traditional folk and bluegrass and whom some State Department officials considered a subversive.  When Khrushchev was pushed out of power, his translator told him in confidence: “It was not done how a civilized country should do things.  We should have said to him, ‘Thank you very much for ending the terror.’  And then, ‘You are excused – too much adventurism, O.K., failures in agricultural production, O.K., so long but Bolshoi thanks.’”  It least Nikita wasn’t killed like happened (some, not me, think with CIA connivance) to his superpower counterpart.