“If there's not a rebellious youth culture,
there's no culture at all. It's absolutely essential. It is the future. This is
what we're supposed to do as a species, is advance ideas.” John Lydon
Best known as Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols,
John Lydon grew up in a poor working-class London neighborhood. He gave band mate John Simon Ritchie the
nickname Sid Vicious after his parents’ pet hamster. His own stemmed from rotten teeth. “Anarchy in the U.K.” and “God Save the Queen”
are punk classics. Sid’s heroin
addiction led to the breakup of the Sex Pistols. At the end of their abbreviated final concert
in San Francisco in January 1978, Lydon shouted, “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” He subsequently formed Public Image Ltd (PIL),
a band I saw at the Riviera in Chicago in 1991 with Dave Joseph, Tom Horvath,
and John Migoski, who lost a shoe when a security guard pulled him on stage
before he got crushed. Lydon still fronts
PIL, which reformed in 2009.
For Steve McShane’s class Allison Boudreau wrote about her cousin Lisa
meeting Mike Dirnt of Green Day and Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins:
“What a decade, the 90s rocked!” was the first words Lisa uttered
when I asked if I could interview her.
Lisa was born in 1980 and an only child. Growing up, I admired her
pierced tongue and crazy colored hair.
She was super cool. Raised in
unincorporated Valparaiso, she said, felt like living in the middle of
nowhere. She attended Morgan Township
from kindergarten through twelfth grade.
There were 48 in her graduating class of 1998. She felt as if she did not fit in. She dyed
her hair burgundy in tenth grade, saying: “This
was a pretty big deal because I was the first person in my entire school to dye
their hair an un-normal color. I started to feel much more comfortable with who
I wanted to be and not care what people might think.”
Lisa described her handful of friends as uninterested in athletics or
school activities. They drove around to
such hangouts as Inman’s bowling alley/arcade and Night Owl coffee shop. It was
a time before cell phones. Lisa
recalled: “If you wanted to call your
crush, you had to dial the house phone. If a parent answered, you’d have to ask
if you could talk to him. So awkward. I usually wouldn’t go to parties due to so
many drugs being done. Living in the country with limited things to do, there
were a lot of drugs. Some of my best friends did drugs, but I was just never
interested. There was no peer pressure.
For them, living in the middle of nowhere, they were bored and unmotivated.
Music and writing and the internet gave me my own escape.”
Lisa (left) and friends
Regarding fads and
fashions, Lisa mentioned flannels and Doc Martin boots, JNCO jeans with huge
wide legs, t-shirts with clever sayings, colorful plastic jewelry, short pixie
hair, chokers, and eyeliner. Then, as the 90s progressed, the punk-grunge,
“raver/skater” style took over. Lisa and her friends had pagers. She recalled: “If you got paged, you better find a pay phone quick! Sometimes, you’d get the number with 911 at
the end of it. This meant CALL ME NOW!” Close
friends gave themselves code numbers, like 77, to identify themselves to
friends. Lisa was pretty tech savvy in
her day with her pager and 100 hours of America Online time. Most of her friends didn’t have access to the
Internet. They’d ask her to print out
song lyrics or celebrity pictures. When
you entered a chat room, people would ask A/S/L,
which meant Age/Sex/Location. Lisa even constructed her own web page, but few
people knew about it. The idea of social
media didn’t exist yet.
Lisa idolized Green Day, whom
she first saw on Dave Letterman in 1994. “I
was painting my nails in my bedroom and happened to have the TV on. I thought
Billie Joe Armstrong was perfection. I got Dookie and all their old
CDs. I read every article I came across
that mentioned them. 1995 came and they were performing in Chicago. I had never
been to a concert, and my Mom said 15 was too young to go with just friends.
That concert ended up being taped for MTV and aired repeatedly. It was
bittersweet. I should’ve been there.
Jump to 1997 and several hundred more pictures of Billie Joe and Green
Day on my bedroom wall. They were
playing the Riviera in Chicago! This
time I could go. None of us had our license, so my dad drove us in his
van. It was the best night ever. After
the concert, we went by the back door where about 20 people were waiting. The
security guards made us stay behind the ropes, but the door was right there.
Eventually, Billie’s wife came out carrying their toddler son, followed by
drummer Tré Cool. Finally, the door opened and it was Billie Joe. When he got near me, I held out my camera,
and he paused long enough for me to snap a photo. After Billie got on the bus, the security
guard told us bass guitar player Mike Dirnt went out another door and that’s
it. We left but then spotted a guy outside that I could tell was Dirnt. I ran down the street and shouted,
‘Mike!’ He saw me coming and started
laughing. I started laughing and just
kept running towards him. He gave me a hug as I ran into him. It was freezing
outside, and he told me even his underwear was freezing. We took a pic, and I
said thanks and told him bye. Meeting Billie Joe was the best thing ever for me,
but getting to meet Mike with no one else around was a close second.”
above, Billie Joe Armstrong; below, Mike Dirnt; photos by Lisa
Lisa attended Columbia
College in Chicago to study sound engineering. She visited record stores,
watched concerts and videos online, and attended concerts. When two of
her friends were home from Purdue on break, Lisa took them around Chicago. Lisa
recalled: “We got lost on the way to Ed
Debevics, ended up on a side street, and passed a parked black Mercedes. The guy inside looked like Billy Corgan from
the Smashing Pumpkins. When I mentioned
that to my friends, they convinced me to walk back and see. The guy put his hand up and waved. I said, kind of awkwardly, ‘Are you Billy
Corgan?’ He said yeah and asked if we had any change for the parking
meter. I found some quarters and handed
them to him. A guy he was with paid me back in dollars. He said they were
headed to lunch at Houston’s and asked if we wanted to join them. Um, yes! Billy
talked to the host, and we were seated right away at a corner table, away from
people. Lunch was so laid back, I almost
forgot the guy was famous. We had a pretty normal conversation. He paid for our
lunches and Evian water that came in big glass bottles. I saw his credit card,
and it said ‘William Patrick Corgan.’ When we got up from the table to leave,
people started swarming up to him, wanting to shake his hand or get an
autograph. We walked back to his car and took some pictures with my disposable
camera. We thanked him and said our goodbyes. Once we were a block or so away,
we proceeded to scream like schoolgirls because there was no way anyone was
going to believe what just happened.”
above, meeting Billy Corgan; below, Lisa in 1998
Like Eddie Vedder
of Pearl Jam, Billy Corgan is a huge Cubs fan and has sung “Take Me Out to the
Ball Game” during the seventh inning stretch numerous times at Wrigley. Smashing Pumpkins is best known for the 1995
album “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,” featuring the single “Bullet
with Butterfly Wings.”
Justine Brasseur interviewed 1996 Portage graduate Jenise Johns
Smith. During her freshman year Jenise
came down with a severe illness and missed school for an entire month. Due to the lack of support and understanding
from her teachers, Jenise decided to transfer to Portage Adult Education. Her diploma is identical to what Portage High
School students received. There was no
yearbook, however, no clubs, no sports teams, and most classmates were older. Janise would hang out at pool halls in Hobart
and Miller or in the Portage Kmart parking lot. Kids would bring their
hopped-up cars. From time to time police
would order everyone to leave. As soon as the cops left, they’d come back! When B and B dance club opened, she
recalled: “That was the place to be at that time. Teens came from all over. We
went there every weekend, and it never got old. I even worked there in the coat
check. There were some awesome dancers
and dance battles all night."
Justine (left) and Stacy
"One time at B and B, this huge guy got into a fight with a little punk k until the owner, who
happened to be a Porter County police officer, broke it up by picking up the
kid. One of my best friends decided
after a spat that she didn't want to be engaged anymore and threw the
engagement ring at him in the dance hall, which was huge and dark. Several of
us were crawling around searching for it. When the girl left, I didn’t
know whether to go after her or keep looking for it. At the end of the night,
we’d go to Shoneys for breakfast and to someone’s house (mine, more often than
not) and stay the night. When B and B closed, everyone was devastated.” There was a dance club at Camelot Bowl, but,
in her words, “there were lots of fights
there, and it was a much smaller area for dancing, so I didn't really go there
too much. If I did, I usually hung out
right outside of the dance place, in the arcade, because it was really crazy
inside.”
Tessa Cheek interviewed Alexas Holbrook attended Hobart H.S. between 1996
and 1999.
Alexas
recalled: “We hung out in Smoker’s Alley,
where all the ‘bad’ kids went to go smoke and hang out and do things parents hated: smoke weed, have sex, and get drunk. The big thing
about me was that I stole. At the mall a friend and I would steal things from
Spencer’s, Hot Topic, and stores like that. I never got caught, thank God.” Alexus
only had two boyfriends all through high school. Her first got sent to military
school for misbehaving so much and later died of a drug overdose.
School
held little interest for Alexas. She
recalled: “I was tardy a lot until one
day my dad got fed up and escorted me to my class. He walked me into the
school, up the stairs, to my locker, and then to my classroom. He plopped me in
my seat and made sure I stayed in the classroom. For gym class the school provided girls
old-fashioned brown swimsuits. They only came in three sizes - S, M, and L
- and didn’t fit very well. You could
tell what size they were by a colored thread on the side. They were pleated
around the chest area so the girls that had boobs semi-fit into the swimsuit.
The boys, as usual, had no problem finding a swimsuit. It was so unfair!”
Alexas
recalled Senior Privilege Week: “There
was Slave Day where seniors picked a freshman to be their slave. So, if the
senior told his slave to break out in song and dance, he would have to do it.
We dressed boys up in weird clothing and put makeup on them. One time there was
a conga line of freshmen in the middle of the hallway.” Alexas recalled frequent school bomb
threats. In one case everyone got sent
home. Three of her classmates committed
suicide, including one she was close to. She told me, “School was strange for the rest of the year. It was like a part of our
group was lost. He was the joker and always had a smile on his face. It was a
huge shock to hear that he shot himself.”
three looks of Alexas
“I had a new hair color every week,” Alexas
claimed. “My outfits usually consisted of
really baggy flared pants and a band tee shirt. I did wear choker necklaces at
one point. My wallet was connected to my pants by a long skater
chain. I also had an army jacket that I wore religiously. I probably went to
over 100 concerts. We’d save up our money and drive to Chicago every month to
see a new band. People would sneak alcohol in. Getting drunk was something I
did a lot. One time we drank so much
that one girl threw up out the window and then went downstairs and stole
another bottle from the fridge. Someone brought a guitar and everyone broke out
singing 'American Pie.' I will remember that night forever.”
Alexas
said: “My parents and I never had the
best of relationships because they were so strict. They had rules for
everything. Eventually I just started going around my parent’s backs and making
up where I was and who I was with. My best friend’s parents were really relaxed
and basically let her do whatever she wanted, so I would tell my mom that I was
spending the night at her house. One night we got caught sneaking out around
midnight when her mom heard us open the back door. She told my mom and I was
grounded for about 3 months. I hated my parents for doing this to me and my
friend’s mom for telling on us.”
Marely Arena wrote about 1995 Hammond Gavit
grad Maria Acevez’s high school days.
Maria recalled: “Sports, studies, and music pretty much sum up my high school
years. My freshman year I didn’t do many activities; my mom was a little
over-protective but I was also very shy.
My sophomore year I ran track and cross country. One day a coach saw me run in gym class and
told me I should try it out. My legs
were long, which gave me an advantage. I
never did it for the awards but because I truly loved it. Running was a huge
escape; I felt like I was free.” Maria also
played basketball and joined the band’s flag core. Gavit’s main rival was
Hammond High. Gavit at the time was
mostly Mexican and white and Hammond majority Black. Maria recalled: “They were the hardest, sweatiest, dirtiest basketball games I played
and loved every second of it. Somehow we
always started some type of hype speech before a game and gave it all we had.
We lost some and won some, and those were the best games I ever played.”
Maria was also involved with many organizations
in high school, Key Club was her favorite. “I
signed up because we could leave early every Wednesday, to volunteer at a soup
kitchen at St. John. Before that
experience I lived in a bubble, not aware of what being poor was. We served hot meals. Seeing a whole family in need, my heart
broke. I couldn’t understand how blind I had been.” Weeks later, shopping with her mom, Maria
spotted the same woman in the aisle with her two little boys, making decisions
on which cereal to buy. Maria said, “My
heart raced. I ran to my mom and told
her we had to buy that lady cereal. After I explained, my mom understood and we
bought the lady cereal and other groceries. The lady was so happy she almost
cried. I started noticing people with food stamps. When I asked my mom why we
didn’t get them, she told me others need help more than us.”
Gavit allowed students to
leave school for lunch. The place to go was “The Wheel.” For a dollar, you
could get pretty good soup. Maria said, “The
waitresses hated us because we would rarely tip. We could not afford to. Those with real money
would to Arby’s and get a sandwich.”
Weed was huge at school, and nobody really bothered anyone about
it. Maria recalled: “If you had a car, everyone was your friend because they didn’t want to
walk. I got really good at stealing at a
little store. Now that I think back, how
stupid was that. My friend had a really
big truck, and on chilly days when it was normal to wear a bulky sweater, we’d
drive up to the store, buy one thing, and come out with gum, M and M’s,
Snickers bars and Kit-Kats. I’d sit in the back seat, wiggle my arms, and all
the candy would just fall out.”
The
1990s were one of my favorite decades. I
was still playing softball and tennis and bowled a 615 series, now beyond my
grasp, barring a miracle. Making teaching at IUN a special pleasure during that
decade were A+ students Bob Petyko, Sara McColly, Dawn Smith, Sam Barnett,
Brook Conaway, Tracy Hirsch, Mike Olszanski, Andy Wielgus, James Lining, and
Walter “Pappy” White, a Vietnam vet who served, a generation later, in the Gulf
War.
Andrew Wielgus, a River Forest principal
In
the Post-Tribune Jeff Manes profiled
95-year-old Ruth “Babe” Poparad (above), who grew up on a dairy farm in Porter and
still volunteers as a school crossing guard. She told Manes:
I remember when Cloverleaf Dairy out of Gary would pick up the
eight-gallon cans of milk here. My dad had
24 head of cattle and one bull. I was the only one of five girls who learned
how to milk. My mother used to sew special gloves with one finger and a thumb
so we could husk corn.
Dad helped build The Spa with horses pulling slip
scrappers, but he wasn't allowed to go there once the job was complete because
he wore bib overalls. The Spa was a ritzy place that would employ colored folks
from Michigan City who would wear black bowties, white shirts and aprons. During
the Depression, we suffered with six kids. I remember eating lard and
sugar sandwiches. I consider Franklin Delano Roosevelt a great president. He
got us through hard times.
My father also worked for the state, but he was
killed in 1936 while mowing along Highway 20. I was 13. He asked my mom that
morning: ‘Edith, what if I don't come home today?’ She told him: ‘I'll live
with the kid who treats me the best.’ You see, a man who was working two jobs
fell asleep at the wheel and hit my father, breaking his neck. He was driving a
physician's supply truck. The state didn't
pay my mother anything.
IUN’s Anne Koehler posted: “I know this great lady, had many a beer
and good talks with her. German ethnicity.”
Jeff Manes
I
passed Manes on his way to speak with IUN botanist Spencer Cortwright. I told
him how passionate Cortwright is about area flowering plants and that the
interview should be a doozy, like Sunday’s feature on Alan Yngve. At bridge Tuesday, someone told Yngve that
he’s now a celebrity. He liked what
Manes wrote but feared his bridge remarks were inane. Quite the contrary, I told him, they were
enlightening and understandable to non-bridge players, like Manes. On the last hand of the evening my partner
Dottie Hart put me in 4 Spades, and Alan doubled. I had three certain losers and needed to set
up either an extra Club or Heart. By
leading out all but one of my six Spades I forced Alan’s partner Helen Boothe
to choose between protecting either her winning Club or Heart. When she discarded Hearts, my nine proved to be
good, and we garnered top board.
With
a couple slow players, there was more time to socialize than normal. Sally Will said her Irish grandfather lost a
finger linking railroad cars together.
During the Great War, the army rejected him because it was his trigger
finger, so he went to Canada and was inducted.
Helen Boothe grew up not knowing her father. DNA analysis revealed that
her daughter had a cousin with the same grandfather.
Bridge players in Barbara Walczak newsletter (Halloween 2007)
Joe Chin, Sue Mahn, Barbara Stroud, Andree Walczak, Trudi McKamey
below, Doris Eley (hip hopper), Barbara Walczak, Ruth Bowser (scrub woman)
Duplicate
bridge facilitator Alan Yngve brought me about 200 copies of Barbara Walczak’s
newsletter from 2006-2010 to copy because she has not saved electronically.
When I return them, she will lend me more recent ones on travel drives. Not only do the newsletters contain scores and
tournament results, there are photos, including from holiday parties and
members’ vacations. Steve McShane agrees
that a Barbara Walczak Archives manuscript collection is a good idea and that I
should interview her (and later others) on videotape.
After
rehashing in my mind the evening’s events and telling Toni about the most
interesting hands, I gave Gaard Logan a call (living in Oakland, CA, I knew she’d
still be up). I told her about getting to know two really cool ladies ten years
my senior at bridge and about 85-year-old bowling teammate Frank Shufran, whose
170 average is, like mine, down about 25 pins from when he was at his peak.
Frank is an avid golfer and quilter and takes such long walks that he frequently
has to carry his dog part of the way. Gaard
still goes on long hikes and reports that she is still limber. I told her I use a cane to help get up and
down the stairs leading to my man-cave but am working on getting my knee back
to where I can again enjoy walks.
Former
student Terry Helton sent me “I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and
Was Shot by the Taliban” and William Doyle’s “PT 109: An American Epic of War,
Survival, and the Destiny of John F. Kennedy.”
I told him to expect Steel
Shavings, volume 46, in about a month.
I
watched the final episode of “Masters of Sex” and then the very first pilot,
set in 1956, where pathetic wife Libby Masters (Caitlin FitzGerald, bottom left) called her
husband Daddy and longed only to become pregnant. By 1969 she is a liberated woman who goes to
Woodstock and takes off with her kids in a VW van plastered with
counter-culture decals to start law school in Berkely, California. Caitlin actually had a bit part in Ang Lee’s “Taking
Woodstock” (2009).
I
picked up a passport renewal form for Toni at the post office, a sign that she
still wants to visit Ireland. At Quick Cut I learned that Anna’s Italian father
moved to Chicago and eventually found work on the assembly line of Salerno
Cookie factory. Salerno’s butter cookies
were delicious. After stops at the
library and food store, I listened to the 21 Pilots CD “Blurryface” Miranda
gave me for Christmas. From Columbus, Ohio, the duo of Josh Dunn and Tyler
Joseph combine elements of hip hop, electropop and rock. The chorus of “Lane Boy” goes:
They
say, "stay in your lane, boy, lane, boy"
But we go where we want to
They think this thing is a highway, highway
But will they be alive tomorrow?
But we go where we want to
They think this thing is a highway, highway
But will they be alive tomorrow?
I’m
still a Lane Boy as I approach my seventy-fifth birthday.
Josh Dunn and Tyler Joseph of 21 Pilots
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