“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.
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’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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