“Everybody wants respect just a
little bit
And everybody needs a chance once
in a while
Everybody wants to be closer to
free”
BoDeans,
“Closer to Free”
BoDeans
Tolan Shaw
The fabulous BoDeans sold out Valparaiso’s Memorial Opera
House Thursday and played many familiar songs, including a rousing version of
“Closer to Free” as a final encore.
David and I had great seats, thanks to free tickets from a friend of
Angie’s. Beforehand, we had dinner
across the street at Parea’s Greek Restaurant, Dave’s first time there. Talented singer-guitarist Tolan Shaw opened
and quickly won the crowd over with a number called “Change the World” and an
upbeat finale, “Golden State of Mind.” Dave noticed BoDeans watching from the
wings, a sign of respect. In the lobby
during intermission Shaw autographed CDs, which artists can now produce
independently. Young people generally don’t buy CDs, but Shaw is
well-represented on YouTube.
Dave posted Facebook photos and got “wish I were there” replies from Marianne
Brush and Robert Blaszkiewicz. A
quarter-century ago I attended a BoDeans concert at Valparaiso University. Last fall they headlined Valpo’s Popcorn
Fest. All week, I’ve had “Best of the
BoDeans” on heavy rotation, along with CDs by Steve Earle, War on Drugs,
Supertramp, and Fountains of Wayne.
Sarah Forbes and James Labulo Davies
The season two “Victoria” finale opened with
British ship captain Frederick Forbes rescuing a West African Yoruba princess named
Aina from slave trader King Ghezo of Dahomey and presenting her to the Queen as
a present after his wife named her Sarah and taught her English. Curious as to whether this was based on fact,
I learned that, while Aina never lived at court, as portrayed in the PBS
series, Queen Victoria became her godmother, paid for her education, and
frequently invited her to Windsor Castle. As Sarah Forbes Bonetta (the name of
the ship that brought Aina to England), she married a Yoruba businessman, James
Labulo Davies, and produced three children, including a daughter Victoria, whom
the Queen also embraced as godmother. In chronic poor health, Sarah died at age 37 of tuberculosis on the Portuguese island of
Madeira.
Louis Harlan
At Ron Cohen’s house in Miller, Donning
Company representative George Nikolavski outlined details regarding publishing
a third edition of our Gary pictorial history.
He gave me “Maryland, Reflections on 150 Years,” a Donning pictorial
history of the University of Maryland.
On the cover: the famous bronze statue of Testudo the diamondback terrapin,
overlooking the quad from McKeldin library.
Mentioned in a section on distinguished faculty is Louis Harlan, author
of “Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee,” whom I played tennis against
and worked under as a teaching assistant (TA).
Once, I told a group of historians in his presence that he was a mentor;
he interjected that Sam Merrill had been my primary mentor. So true and typical of the brilliant but
self-effacing scholar, who at the time was simultaneously president of the
Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and
the Southern Historical Association – my profession’s trifecta! Among the distinguished Maryland graduates
listed in “Reflections” was 1976 History PhD Manning Marable (no doubt
influenced by Harlan), Muppets puppeteer Jim Henson, news anchor Connie Chung,
and comedian Larry David, co-creator of Seinfeld,
who received a BA in History in 1970, the year I earned my PhD. Perhaps I was his TA! I’d love to know his impressions of
graduation (if, indeed, he attended). The
campus was under martial law, and both Black Power and anti-war protestors
turned out in full force, some tossing anti-diplomas into the audience. Dr. Merrill, seated next to me, placed the
doctoral hood over my head during the so-called hooding ceremony. On my cap was a PEACE sign.
I’ve started Sridhar Pappu’s “The Year
of the Pitcher: Bob Gibson, Denny McLain and the End of Baseball’s Golden
Age.” In 1968, St. Louis ace Gibson was
virtually unhittable, compiling a 22-9 record with an unbelievable 1.12 earned
run average. His father died before he
was born in an Omaha, Nebraska, housing project; actually the Logan Fontenelle
Homes marked an improvement over the family’s previous squalid abode. One of Gibson’s biggest regrets was not
knowing what the man looked like: the family was so poor, there were no
photographs of him. He applied for a
basketball scholarship at IU, but Coach Branch McCracken told him they had
already filled their quota for black players.
I saw Gibson pitch at Wrigley Field in 1975, at the tail end of his
career. A fierce competitor, he stormed
off the mound when taken out for a relief pitcher. Free-spirited Denny McLain won a modern day
record 31 games for the Tigers in 1968 before fading from stardom within a
season or two. I was a Tiger fan back
then who grew up admiring outfielder Al Kaline, then in his sixteenth year on
the team. The 1968 World Series went the
full seven games and produced an unlikely hero, hurler Mickey Lolich.
Alan Yngve giving lesson in Chesterton; photo by Hannah McCafferty
With IUN media production specialist
Samantha Gauer’s assistance, I interviewed duplicate bridge player and director
Alan Yngve, whose connection to Northwest Indiana began when his parents built
a summer cottage in Dune Acres. As a
teenager, he enjoyed long walks along the Lake Michigan shoreline. At the University of Chicago lab school he joined
bridge and chess clubs and learned war board games. At Indiana University his first love was
Asian history and he spent a year in Japan; but, realizing that the academic
market for historians had dried up, he pursued mathematics as more likely to
lead to an employable career. A
management consultant, Yngve has worked at Northwestern and for the Illinois
legislature. He and wife Katherine lived
several years in Lebanon, which he asserted was safer than the common
perception and where he found competitive bridge games with many players using
a French system initially unfamiliar to him.
He mentioned that one can compete on line alone or even with a partner
against unseen opponents but emphasized
that there is no substitute for live competition. An ideal bridge partner, he said, is one with
whom you are comfortable communicating, both non-judgmentally after games and
nonverbally across the table by adapting and developing systems. It’s best, he
added, if both partners are not too passive or aggressive. Since Yngve tends to be on the aggressive
side, he prefers a partners who tends toward caution.
Dee Van Bebber and I finished second in
duplicate at Chesterton YMCA. I rued two
miscommunications that resulted in low boards, one in bidding and the other by my
not leading back the suit Dee bid (instead voiding myself in a side suit)
. In the former Dee preempted 3 Spades,
and Kris Prohl doubled. With 11 points,
including 6 Hearts and a singleton Spade Ace, I bid 4 Hearts, intending to give
Dee a choice of suits and cut off the opponents’ opportunity to find a
fit. Instead, Dee passed, I was faced
with a 5-1 Heart split, and got set four for minus 200 points. In retrospect, I should have passed; it was
not even a good sacrifice. Two vulnerable
East-West couples ended up playing in Hearts and being set big time. As Dee, who held seven Spades but just 7
points, explained afterwards, when she preempts, she doesn’t intend to bid
again.
Kevin Start interviewed me for background information relating to the East
Chicago pollution crisis. According to Social Justice News Nexus, Stark “is an independent reporter who focuses on
environment and climate change. He has written about rising seas, industrial
pollution, global climate research, and urban and housing policy.”
Stark is developing a program about soil contamination at
an East Chicago housing site for NPR affiliate
WBEZ. During the 1960s, I told him, Mayor John Nicosia secured federal funds
for urban renewal projects that offered opportunities for lucrative kickbacks
involving the razing of existing sites to make way for the erection of low
income housing units. One of these was
West Calumet Housing Complex, built in 1972 atop a former lead smelting and
metal-processing plant site. As early as
1985, federal inspectors had flagged the site as hazardous, and for two decades
Congressman Pete Visclosky pushed for it to be cleaned up with Superfund
money. Finally, in 2009, it was added to
the many sites earmarked for inclusion in the EPA’s woefully underfunded
Superfund program. After tests revealed
alarming levels of lead and arsenic in the soil, the thousand residents,
including 670 children, were forced to relocate. Financial compensation was scant solace. On April 6, 2017, as the deadline drew near, Lethette
Howard told NWI Times reporter Lauren
Cross that what once was a close-knit community has become a ghost town.
Identifying myself as an oral historian, I talked about interviewing Local
1010 rank-and-file unionists concerned about environmental issues and
Latinos who grew up in Indiana Harbor
and worked in Inland’s coke plant. Afterwards,
I introduced Kevin Stark to Calumet Regional Archives volunteer John Hmurovic,
who has written about the 1955 Standard Oil refinery explosion in Whiting, not
far from the West Calumet Housing Complex.
I got out Archibald McKinlay’s pictorial history “Twin City” and Andrew
Hurley’s “Economic Inequalities: Class, Race, and Industrial Pollution in Gary,
Indiana, 1945-1980,” based in large part on r Archives research. Stark, who has a fellowship at Northwestern,
plans to send grad students to the Archives to investigate materials relating
to East Chicago.
Stevie Kokos; photo by Jerry Davich
Jerry Davich interviewed IUN grad and onetime Performing Arts major Stevie
Kokos, whose 32-year career backstage at the Star Plaza was coming to an end as
the Region entertainment mecca was facing demolition. After Kokos gave him a backstage tour, Davich
wrote:
"Oh,
the stories I can tell you," Kokos, 60, told me. "It's been an amazing run. I was gifted by God to have this career
here." The stage's ghost light, a single unadorned light bulb on a
tall black stand, had previously been turned off only during live performances.
Otherwise it remained on, as much for the sake of tradition and superstition as
it was for safety and practicality on a dark stage.
"When
this ghost light goes out, my time here runs out," Kokos said, staring
into it as if it was a crystal ball.
The Gary native got his start at the
venue in 1985 unloading performers' trucks. On one backstage wall, in white
grease pencil, Kokos wrote, "8-24-85
Bob Fosse's Dancin." "That was my first day, and my first show,"
he recalled.
Through the decades, the venue also has
hosted every kind of event imaginable, including a gubernatorial debate, a
wedding, and a funeral. Kokos has even performed on this stage, as Constable
Locke, the town sheriff in "The Music Man."
Kokos and I were teammates on the Glen
Park Eagles softball team, and he took my Sixties and Vietnam War classes. I always looked for his smiling face when
attending Star Plaza concerts.
Kokos and I were softball teammates on
the Glen Park Eagles, and he took my Sixties and Vietnam War classes. I always looked for his smiling face when
attending Star Plaza concerts.
Three people I know are currently in
Africa, nieces Lisa and Andrea in Zanzibar after a safari in Serengeti National
Park and remarkable high school classmate Connie Heard Damon, working as a
nurse in Kenyan Healing Hut. Many
patients are AIDS victims.
I wished Granddaughter Tori , who turned
18 (closer to free, with the right to vote but not to legally drink) a Happy
Birthday. Sisters Alissa and Miranda
took her to Rumors Night Club, which advertises itself as the hottest gay bar
and dance club in Grand Rapids, located at 69 Division Avenue. Tori said that those between 18 and 21 pay a
ten-dollar cover charge and get an “M” for minor stamped on their hand. She said she danced a lot and had so much fun
she went back the next night with a friend.
She thought the drag queens were cute.
No comments:
Post a Comment