Wednesday, January 3, 2018

The Holidays

“The problem with winter sports is that they generally take place in winter.” David Barry

Celebrating Christmas a day late so we could have everyone at the condo after completing other obligations, we had over a dozen over-nighters.  Numerous friends dropped in, including Beth Satkoski’s brother Jim with wife Erika and daughter Annalisa and Dave’s former student Denzel Smith, who attends Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida.  Denzel knew all about founder Mary McLeod Bethune, a friend of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and a National Youth Administration (NYA) director.  When soliciting funds for her school, she’d wear a shabby coat to emphasize her frugality.  My gifts included a File 7 tablet, a half-dozen CDs (including “Nothing to Find” by the War on Drugs and Dave’s “Best of 2017” compilation that included “Dirty Laundry” by All Time Low), a flannel shirt, Aspen cologne, and a couple fancy jellies.  Dave mentioned that the Moody Blues finally got voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with other favorites Dire Straits, Bon Jovi, and the Cars. 

Dean Bottorff announced that he and Joanell have sold their Roosevelt Inn near Mount Rushmore and are retired but certainly not sedentary.  He wrote:
  We made a big home improvement by finally getting the cabin on a real foundation. Previously, it was perched on pylons; now the back wall has a genuine, native stone foundation. Yes, we know, most people build a foundation first, then put the house on it, rather than build the house and put the foundation under it . . . but why do it the east way when there’s a harder way?  A contractor told us he could build a foundation for $23,000, but we figured that with all the rock around here and a hundred bags of concrete and mortar we could do it cheaper . . . and so it was if you don’t count the cost of Tylenol.
  Once we mastered the knack of building with native stone we kinda got carried away and built a new stone wall at the gate and another one around the back deck.  They may not be the prettiest or best walls ever made but they look good to us.  Also, one can take a lot of pride in being able to sling around an 80-pound bag of mortar.
 Will Kellogg
My holiday reading included Howard Markel’s “The Kelloggs: Battling Brothers from Battle Creek” (2017), about physician John Harvey Kellogg, director of a world famous medical center and spa, and younger brother Will, founder of Kellogg’s cereal company.  John and Will feuded for most of their lives but their development of ready-to-eat, easily digestible corn flakes revolutionized what millions ate for breakfast.  Will came up with such advertising gimmicks as putting toys and comics inside cereal boxes and investing in a huge electric sign atop the Mecca Building in Times Square. The W. K. Kellogg Child Welfare Foundation, dedicated to caring for vulnerable children, became one of the nation’s largest charitable trusts.  According to Markel, when Will was a child he had a pet horse that his father sold to a neighbor.  After he made his fortune, he bought property in California’s Pomona Valley and assembled a stable of prize Arabian thoroughbreds including Jadaan, that Rudolph Valentino rode in “The Son of the Sheik.”  When I taught in Saudi Arabia, a student invited me to dinner and took me to see his daughter ride her Arabian horse.

Holly Tucker’s “City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris” presents a portrait of “Sun King" Louis XIV that seems remarkably similar to his English contemporary Charles II.  Both seemed more interested in frolicking with mistresses than affairs of state but were canny enough to appoint competent ministers, in Louis’ case, Jean-Baptiste Colbert.

I’m rereading Gary Pomerantz’s “The Devil’s Tickets,” about a bridge game that turned deadly in 1929.  When reporting on it to history book club members, I’ll emphasize how the game’s burgeoning popularity was connected to themes of the Roaring Twenties, including urbanization, the growth of the middle class, the rise of mass advertising, and the New Era revolution in manners and morals.  Here are a few anecdotes gleaned from Pomerantz.
·     * In the 1930 comedy “Animal Crackers’ Harpo Marx sits on a woman contract bridge opponent’s lap, inspiring Chico to quip: “He thought it was contact bridge.”
·      * Algonquin Round Table regular George S. Kaufman, an inveterate bridge player, made this comment after a partner departed for the bathroom: “That’s the only time this afternoon I’ve known what he had in his hand.”
·      * Some New York City Flappers danced without panties and shaved their pubic hair in the shape of a heart or, to symbolize their allegiance to dapper chief executive Al Smith, a derby.
Alice Joyce
Sports Illustrated noted the passing of broadcaster Dick Enburg (above), famous for the understated expression “Oh, My.”  During a game of Texas Hold ’em, I found a dramatic occasion to utter the expression.  Former Philadelphia Phillies who passed away in 2017 included Cy Young recipient Jim Bunning, manager of the 1980 World Series champs Dallas Green, catcher on the 1993 National League champs Darren Daulton, and 2010 21-game winner Ray “Doc” Halladay, who pitched a post-season no-hitter against the Reds.
I turned down an opportunity to see the latest “Star Wars” flick, “The Last Jedi,” but enjoyed several good movies OnDemand over the holidays, including “The Last of the Mohicans” (1992), based on the 1826 James Fenimore Cooper novel; “Frida”(2002) about Mexican revolutionary artist Frida Kahlo and starring Salma Hayek; “The Door in the Floor” starring Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger and based on John Irving’s 1998 novel “A Widow for One Year”; and “The Legend of Ben Hall,” about a nineteenth-century Australian bushranger whose exploits made him a folk hero and inspired several bush ballads. 
 Ben Hall


I had little interest in holiday bowl games (although Terry Jenkins informed me that the Georgia-Oklahoma contest was one for the ages) or the final week of the NFL season; the Eagles had already clinched a bye and home field throughout the playoffs and the Bears and Skins had no chance for a winning season.  I did watch the 76ers win an exciting overtime game against the Knicks and parts of two Bulls games. I’m a fan of Niko Mirotic, returning better than ever after teammate Bobby Portis sucker-punched him, causing a concussion and facial injuries. Ice hockey doesn’t get interesting until the Stanley Cup playoffs, and IU’s basketball team is one of the worst in recent memory.

At Hobart Lanes, the Engineers took two games and series from first-place Just Friends, thanks in large part to Dick Maloney’s 530 series.  Due to macular degeneration, Dick can hardly see the pins and several times removed his glasses to determine if any were still standing. During the second game, he told Doris Guth, on her way to a 200 in a losing cause, to “take it easy on us,” eliciting a “bullshit” in reply. 

Condo resident John Mario passed away.  An accountant, he produced budget print-outs for the association for many years.  When Phil and Dave were teenagers, Mr. Mario refereed numerous youth soccer matches, and his sons John and Mark played soccer and tennis with the boys.  I often ran into him at Jewel, where we’d brag about our respective grandchildren.

For three days, I attended Jef Halberstadt’s game weekend and learned a new board game called Stockpile.  Railroads of the World looked intriguing but lasted several ours, so I just watched.  Don Price sent his regrets from Ventura, California, along with a 1984 Halberstadt Game Weekend shirt he’d outgrown that ended up being worn by Jef’s daughter-in-law Anna. Jef’s brother Glenn, who recently retired from Indianapolis Public Library, told me that he enjoyed reading Maria’s Journey (which I edited) by Ramon and Trisha Arredondo; it had been selected for inclusion in the library’s Bicentennial summer reading program.  I had said my good-byes on the final day when Tom Wade tempted me into staying for a five-player Acquire.  Charlie Halberstadt, who introduced Tom to our favorite game a half-century ago, lost to Dave by a paper-thin margin.


In bed by 10 p.m. December 31, 2017; good riddance to a disillusioning year.

In bridge Helen Boothe and I finished third; winners Jim and Marcia Carson made a grand slam against us. Every other couple playing the hand took all 13 tricks but stopped at six No Trump. Helen often lays with Joel Charpentier, who’s in Florida and got a write-up in Barbara Walczak’s Newsletter for doing well “with a myriad of partners.”  Barb wrote: “He does a lot of volunteer work – most notably in the food pantry.  He had 4 children and 7 grandchildren.”

On my first day back at IUN, it was minus 7 outside and not much warmer at my cage (thank heaven for the space heater Cheryl found me).  Doing research on Gary history at the Archives was Ball State professor of Architecture and Planning Olon Dotson, who was familiar with my work.  On You Tube I found a lecture he delivered in Indianapolis entitled “Through the Lens of Fourth Theory.” Usually the phrase “Fourth World” is employed to describe poverty stricken parts of Third World countries, but, for Dotson, it is a methodology for examining and developing greater understanding of the extent of the distress and abandonment commonly found in the cores of American cities.”
 Olon Dotson


Olon Dotson’s relatives have lived in Gary since 1918. In a Design Altruism Project article entitled “Gary, IN: Geography of a Fourth World City,” Dotson wrote:
  The severe physical distress and institutional abandonment present throughout the entire city proper, resulting from de-industrialization, historic segregation and discrimination patterns, erosion of a viable tax base, racism, inability to embrace the concept of desegregation and civil rights legislation by choosing ‘exit’ over ‘voice’, fear, despair, crumbling infrastructure systems, disinvestment in urban school systems, and environmental justice issues, qualify Gary, Indiana as model Fourth World city.

The tome “Kurt Vonnegut: Complete Stories” comes in at over 900 pages and brings together virtually all of the Hoosier bard’s short stories, including some heretofore never published.  In the Foreword, Dave Egger calls them moral stories rarely written anymore, telling readers what is noble, what is evil, and how to live with dignity.  In “The Honor of a Newsboy” a ten-year-old helps a sheriff solve a case, leading the officer to ruminate that it was a pity everyone couldn’t remain ten the rest of their lives and, if so, “maybe rules and common decency and horse sense would have a Chinaman’s chance.”  Looking in the mirror, the sheriff sees “a tired old man who tried to make the world wat the ten-year-old thought it was.”  Eggers summarizes Vonnegut’s philosophy thusly: “Be kind.  Do no harm.  Take care of your family.  Don’t start wars.”  Amen to that.

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