Family Ties

“Such a wonder is family.  They can make you mad or fill you with glee.”  “Family Ties,” Tranikka K. Powell (1892)

Best known for co-starring Michael J. Fox as Alex, the Eighties sitcom “Family Ties” featured liberal ex-hippies (Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter-Birney) and their three kids, conservative know-it-all Alex, shallow, fashion-conscious gossip Mallory, and a tomboy Jennifer.  We named our dog Ubu after the company that produced the show.  Prior to “Family Ties,” sexy momma Baxter-Birney was in the drama series “Family.”   

 at Balboa Park and Del Mar Beach

playing Twister with Bob

Miranda in La Jolla

Tori and Crosby

Granddaughters Miranda and Tori spent the first week of 2018 in San Diego, California, visiting my nephew Bob, wife Niki, daughter Addie, and son Crosby. I had been promising Tori a trip to California and sprang for the tickets after learning she and the kids didn’t go back to school until January 8 and then touching base with Bob and Niki. Despite all sorts of airline snafus, they had a great time at the Pacific Ocean, Balboa Park, and playing hide-and-seek and twister at Bob and Niki’s. Their flight home was cancelled due supposedly to mechanical problems, and they ended up diverted to Charlotte, North Carolina overnight.

 Toni and Niece Michele 

Niece Michele Dietz, husband Tom, daughter Sophia, and son Nicholas arrived from Indy despite single-digit temperature and lake effect snow.  Both teenagers had grown considerably in the two years since we saw them.  They play soccer, and Sophia is an ice skater, while Nicholas is a golfer.  Nicholas brought an acoustic guitar and is quite accomplished, although not yet ready to sing while he plays.  Like his dad, he is partial to classic rock. When Dave dropped over, they passed the guitar back and forth, with Dave singing such numbers at my suggestion as Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer,” “Romeo and Juliet” by Dire Straits, Don McLean’s “American Pie,” Bob Dylan’s “The Man in Me,” and REM’s “It’s the End of the World.”  Nicholas mentioned often jamming with friends, and next day, Dave gave him a speaker system from his Voodoo Chili days.   We played a couple Exploding Kittens games, and while most of the gang went to see “The Greatest Showman,” Tom and Nicholas checked out Bass Pro Shop.

 Playing Exploding Kittens

In Kurt Vonnegut’s “This Son of Mine” Rudy and son Karl performed duets on flute and clarinet after shooting clay pigeons with Rudy’s boss and his son:

  They played without sheet music, intricately and beautifully.  The music wasn’t speaking anymore of just Rudy and Karl.  It was speaking of all fathers and sons.  It was saying that fathers and sons were one. It was saying, too, that a time for parting in spirit was near – no matter how close anyone held anyone, no matter what anyone tried.

At Culver’s after Saturday bowling, James noted that his next American History unit will cover the 1920s.  I noted that. until recently, Warren G. Harding was considered a failure as President because of widespread corruption in his administration.  James asked if civil service reform hadn’t ameliorated the problem.  I told him that scandals such as Teapot Dome involved cabinet members not covered by civil service regulations.  Harding had good instincts and deserved better from “Ohio Gang” cronies who took advantage of his generosity.

Alex Vraciu in 1944

The December 2017 issue of Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History arrived with silent film star John Bowers on the cover in a scene from “The Heart of the Yukon” (1927). The Hoosier actor could not make a successful transition to “talkies” and succumbed to alcoholism and eventual suicide.  Inside, my Reverend L.K. Jackson article was richly illustrated with 11 photos, most furnished by Steve McShane of IUN’s Calumet Regional Archives. Editor Ray Boomhower did an excellent job, working with me, for example, during the final edit to clear up a couple vague statements.  The Editor’s Page described the exploits of East Chicago World War II ace pilot Alex Vraciu.  An article about the close friendship between Anderson, Indiana, athletic prodigies Carl Erskine and Johnny Wilson reminded me of the bond between St. Louis natives Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola, only Wilson was African American.  Erskine was a Dodger teammate of Jackie Robinson and had a career record of 122-78, while Wilson’s basketball career suffered due to discrimination.     

Erskine top, second from right; Wilson, first row, left; below, Johnny Wilson

In 1946, a year before Bill Garrett became the first black starter at IU, Hoosier coach Branch McCracken refused to recruit Wilson despite his leading Anderson H.S. to a state championship.  “Jumpin’ Johnny” scored 30 points in the final game and was named Mr. Basketball.  Author Norman Jones wrote:

  During his junior year at Anderson College, Wilson broke his arm when an opponent shoved him as he was making a move to score his fiftieth point in the game.

Wilson went on to play with the Harlem Globetrotters, along with Goose Tatum and Sweetwater Clifton, and became adept at drop-licking a ball into the basket from 60 feet.  Wilson later amassed a 378-135 record as head coach at Malcolm X College before returning to his high school alma mater to coach the girls team. At a 2016 dedication ceremony, as a 9-foot statue of Wilson was unveiled at Anderson H.S., Erskine said: “My hope is that it will mean a lot more than Johnny being a great athlete.  What Johnny stands for to me is he beat the odds.” Wilson remarked: “If one kid can look at that statue and say, ‘I think I can do that,’ that would satisfy me.”

From near McKinney Springs in west Texas, Aaron Davis, on a cross-country bike trip, wrote: “Probably won't have cell reception for the next few days. Not sure about wifi. I won't freak out if you don't.”  Momma Patti Davis replied: “I will try not to freak out, just get in touch when you can!”

I stayed up until halftime of the college football championship in Atlanta in order to see Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show.  He did not disappoint, performing a medley that included “DNA,” “Element,” “Humble,” and “All the Stars.”  Trump, on the field for the “National Anthem,” reputedly left prior to Lamar’s appearance.

WXRT’s morning drive began with St. Vincent’s “Los Ageless” (“In Los Ageless the waves they never break, they build and build until you have no escape”) and included “I Wanna Be Sedated” by the Ramones and “The Streets of Philadelphia” by Bruce Springsteen.  The set concluded, as I pulled into an IUN parking lot, with Ingrid Michaelson’s “The Way I Am”:  One verse goes:

I’d buy you Rogaine when you start losing all your hair

Sew on patches to all your tears

below, Sam Diamond and Nettie Sachs

Robert V.V. Hurst sent archivist Steve McShane a copy of his new book, “The Heartless Murder of Nettie Sachs,” about his grandmother, murdered in East Chicago in 1923 by her fifth husband, Harry Diamond. After fleeing Lithuania in 1885 to escape persecution by Russian Cossacks, the Jewish refugee lost her life, in the author’s words, “at the hands of the son of a man whose romantic interest she had rejected years before in the old country.  Envious of her new-found wealth, her spurned suitor sent his son 13 years younger than Nettie to court her, then marry her” – and ultimately murder her.  Hurst concluded: “Nettie did her best to raise her children and instill in them her passion for justice and freedom.  Her strength and determination live on in three generations of successful Americans, her legacy.”

Speaking to Steve McShane’s class, I explained why, as a social historian, I consider student journals - their project this semester – to be important primary sources for future historians.

This from Ray Smock:

    Michael Wolff's FIRE AND FURY paints a disturbing picture of a president that by all common indicators is not acting normally and we should not try to normalize his behavior. And even more troubling, many of the people around the president are not acting normally either. 

    If a thousand psychiatrists examined Trump and declared him sane, I would still make my judgment based on my observations, not as a professional medical person, but as a professional historian who has studied politics for a half century, worked in government as an appointed official of the House of Representatives, met and worked with top government officials from all three branches of government, and based on this kind of professional experience, I can easily declare that Donald Trump is unfit for office by temperament, by arrogance, by self-absorption, by a total lack of empathy, and for being uninformed about what governance means or how it is done.

    If he is not crazy, he sure knows how to act the part every single day. Inside his White House, by all accounts, it seems more like an asylum than the seat of government. His ignorance of American history and world history and his seeming unwillingness to learn anything, profoundly disable him.

    I will take a lesson not from psychiatrists, but from Cicero, who said in 46 B.C. “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.” It may not be a clinical diagnosis, but how many people who have observed Trump up close and from far away conclude that he acts like a child? This child-like behavior may not be mental illness, but it is profoundly disturbing in a president of the United States who is 71 years old.

War on Drugs plays Pappy and Harriet's

Learning that The War on Drugs will be playing Coachella again this spring, I wrote Pappy and Harriet’s owners Robyn Celia and Linda Krantz in case the band puts on a special concert there like in 2015.  I included this account of my last visit to Pioneertown, California:

    When I learned that the Head and the Heart was playing an intimate set at my favorite watering hole, I phoned nephew Bob Lane and said that if he could obtain four tickets, I’d pay for them and I’d be there with sons Phil and Dave, never dreaming that he’d pull it off.  When tickets for a War on Drugs concert at Pappy and Harriet’s previously went on sale, they all were gobbled up within minutes, and the only reason Bob and I got to go was due to my abject appeal to the owner, telling her I’d attended three Cracker Campouts and returned whenever I visited my aging mother in Rancho Mirage.  What sealed the deal was my promise to write a Yelp review extolling its many virtues.  Bob learned exactly when The Head and the Heart tickets went on sale, down to the minute, and miraculously came through.

    Around 10:15 Bob drove the four miles uphill from Twentynine Pines Highway past Joshua trees and cool rock formations to Pappy and Harriet’s.  An outdoor concert featuring electronic music by Little Dragon was winding down, and the doors were not scheduled to open until 11, leaving time to show Phil and Dave the nearby building, sets for old westerns, such as the Lone Ranger and Cisco Kid. By the time the few hundred people were processed and inside, it was almost midnight.  The tables had been removed, but I found a stack of chairs and positioned one by the wall so I didn’t have to stand waiting for the concert to begin.  Several others did the same thing, and one guy stood on his, prompting a visit by a huge security guy who remedied the situation and warned, “Don’t make me come back.”

    Standing within 30 feet of the band, I had a great view of Jon Russell and Matt Gervais but strained to see the diminutive Charity Thielen until I maneuvered to a closer spot for the encores.  Folks were swaying to the music and, in many cases, mouthing or singing the lyrics. When the band played “Library Magic,” I turned around to tell Dave it was my favorite song, and several young women in unison said, “Mine, too.” Curious why a 75-year-old would be in attendance, one young female fan asked if I were a Pappy and Harriet’s regular.  Sort of, I said, having been there over a dozen times.