Skeletal Remains
“I clearly saw the
skeleton underneath
all this show of
personality.
What is left of a
man
and all his pride
but bones.”
Jack Kerouac, “Scattered Poems”
In preparation for Steve McShane’s first
class on Indiana History, in which I will outline a journal assignment, I’ll
mention how they are related to diaries and memoirs but less intimate (usually)
than the former and more present-oriented than the latter, even though they can
contain elements of both. In fact, I’ll
recommend that students include both events from their daily lives and
histories of their families and communities.
I’ll read from the chronicles of Lake County’s first historian Timothy
H. Ball. He was living in Cedar Lake in
October 1870, when human skeletons were exhumed. Workers were plowing ground for a mill site
on a grassy knoll a few feet higher than the sandy beach and sloping slightly
in every direction, unaware that they were tampering with an ancient Indian
burial mound. Ball wrote about an
unexpected discovery, human skeletons:
“As
the surface soil was removed, and as the plowshare cut into a second layer of
earth, it struck a mass of human bones, evidently entire skeletons, until the
plow reached them, and in a good state of preservation.
As
many as 20 skeletons were taken out from a small space of ground, and a tree,
under the very roots of which some of them were buried there, apparently in one
promiscuous heap, 200 years ago.”
Frigid weather caused school cancellations
throughout Chicagoland. At 9:15 on Tuesday I arrived at IUN to find the doors
locked. Someone told me the university
was scheduled to open at ten, and fortunately campus police officer Michael
DeVries let me in after a short wait. Steve
McShane’s in California, but volunteer Maurice Yancy came in. Vickie Milenkovsky told me that Communication
secretary Dorothy Mokry’s father died at age 100. Until the former Chetnik fighter broke a hip
recently, the Serbian-American had been in apparent good health.
New York City cops have turned their
backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio at ceremonies honoring the two policemen, Rafael
Ramos and Wenjian Liu, who were basically assassinated in the line of
duty. After no indictment was handed
down against the cop who put a choke hold on Eric Gerner, leading to his death,
the Mayor had dared admit that he’d “given the talk” to his biracial son how to
act – deferential, not disrespectful - if confronted by policemen. Maybe one such gesture of protest was OK, but
to defy not only the mayor but Police Commissioner William Bratton was shameful
and outrageous. As Bratton said, “Come
demonstrate outside City Hall or police headquarters. But don’t put on your uniform, go to a
funeral and engage in a political action.”
This racially insensitive
behavior can only inflame an already tense situation. Comedian Chris Rock commented: “Maybe the
NYPD can use their newfound love of back-turning the next time they see a
dark-skinned man walking the street doing nothing wrong.”
Michael Bayer passed along an article by
Andrew O’Hehir that excoriated “arrogant blowhard” Patrick Lynch, leader of the
NYC Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, for orchestrating the “mini-rebellion.” O’Hehir wrote: “Many people inclined to feel sympathy for the
police, and skittish about the street protests of recent weeks, were dismayed
to see cops turn the funeral of a murdered officer into a petty political
confrontation, against the wishes of the dead man’s family. It was, or should
have been, a moment of mourning and contemplation, when the city and the nation
were poised to reflect on the uniquely difficult lives of police officers, who
so often bear the brunt of policies they did not create and attitudes they
cannot realistically be expected to escape.”
above, Mike Bayer with Rhiannon's toy "Stuffie": below, Bernie Sanders
CHOICE named Anne Balay’s “Steel Closets” an
“Outstanding Academic Title of 2015, just one of 651 books so honored, or less
than three percent of volumes submitted for review.
The Indiana legislative session has
begun, and 61 year-old IU Northwest grad Marla Gee, scheduled to start Valparaiso
Law School in August, sent this report on her first days as a Democratic
intern:
Spent my first week PANTING my way
across the State House. My tongue was hanging out so much from heavy
breathing that first day I gave myself a sore throat! I have never WALKED
so much on a job in my life. Endless halls and corridors, double wooden
doors that you can access getting in but can’t getting out, tunnels, and of
course, the marble staircases which are not meant to be climbed by
humans. I’m here in the bowels of the building, (the basement), and I
share an office space with 5 other interns and I think 4 legislative
assistants. This was once a STABLE. As in HORSES. (This is what
happens when you’re the minority party and the Republicans grab all of the
sweet offices.) I am still finding my way about, getting lost every day,
the map still in hand everywhere I go. Part of the reason why I’m so
exhausted is because I’m backtracking so much…the walls are painted an
industrial yellow, and everything looks the same. It’s like walking
through an enormous maze. We are expected to dress professionally, you
know, the “corporate” look. It looks stupid, but with my pants suit I am
wearing Nikes; otherwise, my right knee could not take the pain of walking on these
beautiful marble floors. I keep a pair of heels in my desk drawer if I
need to go on to the House floor or chambers for any reason…but once I’m behind
my desk, the heels come off!
I will be attending a Welcome Back reception this evening for the
Indiana Black Legislative Caucus, which is funny for me because I rarely go out
to social events. There are so many of these kinds of things we are
expected to attend! Yesterday the pub across the street offered free
cheeseburgers and fries to all the legislators and their staff, and someone’s
office always has some kind of baked goods going on, or there is some lobbyist
putting on a huge spread either for breakfast or luncheon…I swear, this is the
EATING-EST place! Very easy to gain weight…but I think I should be okay
because I am WALKING so much! I should say, though, that by now I
have discovered the whereabouts of the elevators.
Before Marla Gee left for Indy, I had suggested
she keep a journal or, if she didn’t have the time, email me from time to
time. One’s impressions are most vivid upon
initially encountering an unfamiliar environment. I till recall Joanell Boyyorff’s first
letters from Hong Kong and Alissa’s “couch surfing” across Europe.
An archeologist excavating below Marla’s
quarters might find skeletal remains of horses – or, who knows, maybe even
politicians. Marla’s remarks reminded me
of when Linda Lawson wrote about her freshman term as a State Representative in
1998. The former Hammond police officer,
now House Minority leader, comparing her first month to being a freshman in
high school.
“I
didn’t know anyone, didn’t know the process, didn’t know what to wear, who to
trust, where my staff was, who the best teachers were and couldn’t find the
bathrooms. It was a nightmare. In the first three weeks I packed my suitcase
three times to come home. I was
confused, frustrated, had a total loss of control, and things were moving so
fast I couldn’t really get a handle on something until we were moving on to
something new.”
Lawson coped, as I’m certain Gee
will. They both have grit.
I noticed bowling mate Mike Sebben’s
photo with a newspaper article about bowling and figured he’d rolled a 700
series or won a tournament. Instead, to
my shock, I learned he died. For many
years Sebben worked at Cressmoor Lanes for Jim Fowble, and recently he and wife
Tammy bought an alley in Hebron. He had
a ready smile and looked much younger than 53.
Some nights he’d be trouble-shooting if something went awry on one of
the lanes and then return and without hesitation usually throw a perfect
ball. Some bowlers are slow as molasses;
Mike was just the opposite. In a Jeff
Manes column a few months ago someone compared him to the Energizer Bunny.
From Ray Smock: “Phyllis and I started
the new year by inviting a friend from Canada to dinner. He was delicious.”
I checked out the premiere of the HBO series “Looking” a year after I
first aired. Some LGBT critics thought
season one was too tame, but it opened with a main character in a park receiving
a blow job (interrupted when his cell phone rang) and also featured a three-way
involving a gay couple and someone they’d justmet. Too tame?
I think not. There was no frontal
nudity of course, but for those wanting actual sexual organs triple-X porn is
readily available.
They first gay silent screen idol was jack Kerrigan, born in New Albany,
Indiana, and a warehouse clerk before he joined a vaudeville touring
company. Beginning in 1913 he appeared
in over 300 films, but his popularity waned after he said he wouldn’t volunteer
to fight in World War I. Coy about his
homosexuality (lover James Vincent lived with him, but so did his mother, to
whom he was fiercely devoted), his final two movies were “The Covered Wagon”
(1923) and “Captain Blood” (1924).
Next month Ron Cohen has yet another book coming out, co-authored with
Will Kaufman and entitled “Singing for Peace: Antiwar Songs in American
History.” On the cover is a photo Pete
Seeger and Bruce Springsteen singing “This Land Is Your Land” at the “We Are
One” event on the day of Obama’s 2009 Inaugural.” Typically Seeger entreated the crowd to join
in.
No comments:
Post a Comment