Over the Rainbow

“Someday I'll wish upon a star
Wake up where the clouds are far behind me.
Where trouble melts like lemon drops,
High above the chimney top,
That's where you'll find me.”

         “Over the Rainbow,” E.Y. Harburg and Harold Arlen

Vera (left) and family at Linda birthday celebration, circa 2010

At the wake for their Granma Linda Teague, James and Becca sang “Over the Rainbow” and Linda’s favorite lullaby with Dave accompanying on guitar.  It was very moving.  Linda’s mother Vera Kalberer, 93, who lost husband Tom not long ago, was especially touched.  Sung by Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939), “Over the Rainbow” was nearly deleted from the film because MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer thought it slowed down the action.  The American Film Institute has ranked it the greatest movie song of all time.

Arlene J. Heward

Michael Katz, son of former Gary mayor A. Martin Katz (1964-1967), donated to the Calumet Regional Archives a framed picture of Horace Mann School that had been in the possession of Arlene J. “Sue” Heward, who recently passed away, showing swans swimming in the nearby man-made lagoon that was ultimately filled in. A 1956 Mann graduate, Heward graduated from IU and went on to a 35-year teaching and coaching career at her high school alma mater.   

A. Martin Katz and Mahalia Jackson in 1963; Katz signs 1965 Civil Rights Ordinance as Cleo Wesson, Jessie Mitchell, Richard Hatcher and Bishop Andrew Grutka look on

Michael Katz reminisced about getting to know the city’s leading political lights.  Due to his relative youth, he was, in his words, a “fly on the wall” when Mayor George Chacharis visited the Katz home on the eve of serving a prison sentence on corruption charges dating to when “ChaCha” was city controller.  Chacharis allegedly told Katz he’d be throwing his support to John Visclosky in the 1963 mayoralty election because he doubted Gary voters would accept a Jewish mayor.  Katz prevailed, but his brave support of a 1965 Civil Rights Ordinance alienated many white residents.  When he ran for re-election against Richard Hatcher, supporters of spoiler Bernard Konrady circulated anti-Semitic flyers in all-white Glen Park neighborhoods.  Michael asserted that his dad never burned political bridges, unlike Mayor Hatcher, whose principles and pride prevented him from being more flexible and forgiving of those who crossed him.  I invited Katz to our next book club meeting since he knows presenter Rich Maroc and World War II buff Lee Christakis.

The series finale of “The Americans,” after six seasons was totally awesome.  An excruciating parking garage confrontation between FBI agent Stan Beeman and Philip, Elizabeth, and Paige Jennings lasted a full 11 minutes; reason prevailed although the entire time Elizabeth was looking for an opening to kill Stan.  One memorable line from Philip to Stan: “I wish you’d have stayed in est.”  Then there was hardly any dialogue during the final segments, as “Brothers in Arms” by Dire Straits, U-2’s “With or Without You,” and Tchaikovsky’s “None But the Lonely Heart” provided background music. At a McDonald’s for carry-out, Philip notices a family of four in a booth enjoying their meal. In a shocking and heatbreaking scene, Philip and Elizabeth are about to cross into Canada only to see Paige on the train platform, having made up her mind to stay behind.  In Moscow, Elizabeth, whose real name was Nadezhda, delivers the final line, “We’ll get uses to it,”in Russian. Variety’s Caroline Framke wrote:

  The finale’s subversion of expectations is representative of its sly brilliance. It takes everything we came to know about these characters — their wants, their dreams, their red lines, their darkest shames — and finds a way to make their fates completely wrenching without spilling a single drop of blood.

Mike Hale of the New York Timesput it this way:

The show’sending was happy only in the sense that everyone survived. Death took a holiday, but sadness was everywhere, hanging in the air like the Moscow fog in the final shot. As Elizabeth and Philip fled America, their story felt very Russian.  In scene after scene, we saw characters — often for the last time — sitting down, shell-shocked and silent. Henry in the hockey bleachers, abandoned by his parents. Paige at Claudia’s table, totally alone. Oleg on the floor of his cell and Elina in their apartment, not knowing if they’d ever see each other again. Stan in a chair beside his bed, staring at the wife he’d never be able to trust. Most unbearably, Igor Burov on a bench in a Moscow park, slapping his knees in his helplessness, bereft of a second son.

Son Henry cut short a final parental phone call on the excuse that he needed to get back to a ping pong tournament at his school. When Philip told him he loved him, the 17-year-old thought the Old Man had been drinking.  The scene reminded me of getting a phone call from Vic from the Baltimore airport while I was at Maryland, wondering if I wanted to meet him during a layover.  I told him I was busy, never imagining he’d soon drop dead at age 50 from a heart attack.

In New York Review of Books Garry Wills titled an article on oral historian and fellow Chicagoan Studs Terkel “The Art of the Schmooze,” a perfect description of the consummate conversationalist.  Wills wrote: “I considered him a saint, by the only definition that makes sense to me: a man or woman whose company you leave feeling that you should become a better person.”  Although an agnostic, the broad-minded Terkel appreciated ritual and would encourage religious dinner guests to say grace.

Pat McKinlay sent me a Thank You note for sending her a copy of a recent Steel Shavings that praised her late husband Arch, a Region historian and expert on early Hammond and East Chicago.  She wrote: “Arch appreciated your work and your friendship.”  Perhaps because he was a Republican whose interests were different from mine (he had little use for recent history), I did not embrace him as much as I should have. Studs Terkel would have been more tolerant, realizing he could learn much from Arch.  While living in Miller, he entertained Ron Cohen and me and our wives. Then 20 years later when he and Pat moved from their Miller cottage, he threw a party and invited everyone to leave with a bottle of expensive wine.  Toni was in Michigan but Beth went with me, first insisting I change my socks, which didn’t go with my shorts and shirt.