Living for the City

“I hope you hear inside my voice of sorrow
And that it motivates you to make a better tomorrow
This place is cruel, nowhere could be much colder
If we don't change the world will soon be over
Living just enough, just enough for the city”

         Stevie Wonder, “Living for the City”

 Martayveus Carter

I became heartsick when I saw a Times front page headline, “NFL hopeful critical after deadly shootout in E.C.,” caught my eye.  The gunshot victim, at a gas station shortly before midnight Saturday, was Martayveus Carter.  Dead at the scene was 30-year-old Hammond resident Brian Thomas, apparently an innocent bystander, whom Dave remembered fondly when he taught him at East Chicago Central.  In 2013 Martayveus Carter led East Chicago Central to an unforgettable upset victory in the football Regionals against number 3 ranked New Prairie.  I was in the press box with Dave, who was announcing the game, when Martayveus scored the game winning TD on a fourth down plunge. In addition to his considerable offensive skills (he scored on several kickoff returns), he was The Timesdefensive player of 2013, registering a record 505 tackles and several “pick six” interceptions. Carter went on to become the leading rusher in Grand Valley State University’s history, plus scored 28 touchdowns during a stellar career.  When GVSU Coach Matt Mitchell heard he’d been shot, he was devastated and said, “He was a good person at heart.  He had some highs and lows.  My heart goes out to his family and what they’re going through right now.”  According to Times reporter Joseph Pete, Carter had two children and recently attended a Kansas City Chiefs workout. Pete wrote:

  His mother Sharon Carter was hit on the streets of East Chicago and dragged for a block while pregnant, an accident that put her in a wheelchair.  Her brother Percy Long, a star football player in California in the late 1980s, was shot dead by a skinhead. “It’s like I’m reliving his life,”Martayveus said in 2013.  “I never had a chance to meet him, I know he wishes he could be in my shoes.  Instead it’s me.  That’s why I sent him a kiss.  Now I’m doing what he would want me to do if he were still on the Earth.”

Tragically, no more, in all likelihood.

A SundayTimes editorial, taking issue Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson’s characterization of a recent rash of homicides as an “aberration,”preferred the word “epidemic” to describe the 30 shooting fatalities since the beginning of the year, a 16 percent increase from 2017.  Victims included 55-year-old Terrence Conley, shot in the face near the Miller South Shore station, and East Glen Park resident Pamela Hunter, 28, killed at her home, the assassin also wounding an 8-year-old daughter.  One possible cause: she was a witness in an upcoming murder trial. 

I spent much of the weekend in Gary.  At IUN’s emeritus luncheon Chancellor Lowe announced that a recent poll listed the university as among the safest urban campuses in America.  Campus police patrol the surrounding area east of Broadway to Martin Luther King Drive and south to Ridge Road.  Recent incidents have been minor crimes of opportunity, thefts, and almost always, Lowe claimed, the stolen items were recovered.  The City of Gary is attempting to purchase Franklin School and adjoining property near Thirty-Fifth and Georgia as part of its University Corridor plan, envisioning the site being converted to affordable housing.  Lowe noted that the area is comparable in size to our campus.  Unfortunately, the state-appointed emergence manager who runs the Gary schools wants more than a million dollars for the property.  She is also cavalierly auctioning off valuable school possessions, including a bust of educator William A. Wirt that should rightly be in a safe place, such as the Calumet Regional Archives, rather than, in all probability, melted down for financial gain.

At Gardner Center in Miller a retrospective art exhibit featured dunes scenes by Jim Wilson, Della Schaller, and Dale Fleming. A gentle soul, Wilson and Toni were active in the Gary Artist League.  Fleming, our Edgewater neighbor, composed several dozen drawings for an issue of Steel Shavings(volume 28, 1998) on “Tales of Lake Michigan and the Northwest Indiana Dunelands” for a mere $200.  Among his drawings I spotted a familiar one showing dunes artists boarding a South Shore train that originally appeared in “Tales of Lake Michigan.”  Most of those prints are presently in the Archives, but Jack Tonk had purchased the one in question at a 1998 Lake Street Gallery reception.  Dale subsequently moved to Bloomington to live with son Carl.  His present whereabouts are unknown. Corey Hagelberg introduced me to Sierra Club staff member Ashley Williams, Northwest Indiana Organizing Representative for a Beyond Coal Campaign.  They invited me to a community conversation at Gary’s Progressive Community Church featuring “Ecopolis Southshore,” a presentation written and performed by community activists Sam Love and Walter Jones, and two artists in residence, Krystal Wilson, and Jeff Biggers.  I decided to attend.

 Ashley Williams

Progressive Community Church is located at 656 Carolina Street, across from abandoned Emerson School, founded in 1908 and the first institution to implement progressive educator William A. Wirt’s work-study-play platoon system. When I arrived, I noticed were a half-dozen huge hoop houses in use.  Cars were parked all around the block, and the chapel was nearly filled to capacity. The dramatic reading, “Ecopolis Southshore,” envisioned a time in the near future when the Emerson district had been transformed into urban gardens and small-scale enterprises emanating from a refurbished Emerson School, with coal no longer needed as an energy source.  The Billy Foster Trio provided musical interludes.  Here are notable excerpts:

  Walter: People heated their homes with coal when I was a kid.  The strong scent of hydrocarbons stinging the cold night air. Gary, Indiana, was built on two things, sand and steel.  The maw of the beast, the steel industry, takes up 9 miles of lakefront, keeping that beautiful asset away from the view of its citizens.

  Krystal:The pollution, all of it, causing heart damage, lung disease, respiratory distress, reproductive problems, gastrointestinal illness, birth defects, and impaired bone growth in children. Cancer.  You live near an unlined coal ash pond, you may have as much as 1 in 50 chance of getting cancer from drinking cancer-contaminated water.

  Samuel: I heard the voice of Curtis Whitaker, the great environmental activist in our town.  He stood up, rang a bell, silenced the table, and said: “It’s time for Gary to rethink our ways in an age of climate change, to rethink ways that regenerate our energy, our food, our land, our ways of getting around – beyond sustainability, we must heal our damage to this land.  We must heal ourselves.  We need to go back to our roots as a laboratory of democracy on the south shore.”  Pastor Whitaker launched Faith farms, starting with three raised beds, then 4 hoop houses, and then a community orchard. What started at a single intersection soon grew to encompass ’      Walter:It began with a vision.  That’s why I came back.  The Region gave us so much, has so much to offer.  But mainly it reminds us that hope dies last, that hope resists. Tough, resilient, steely.  You wind up being people who make it work, because that’s all you’ve got.

Sam: Sure, we’re polluted, poisoned, and there’s nowhere to run.  But this is home.  We want to do the immediate planting of tiny acorns that yield mighty oaks for generations to enjoy, rather than blathering beneath a decaying tree about all the good things that could be done. Just do it.

  Krystal: We’re doing work that our grandkids’ generation will still be doing.

  Walter: And we love it.

Rev. Curtis Whitaker; Times photos by John Luke

Visitors to Progressive Community Church were treated to fruit smoothies, which will be sold at a neighborhood juice bar in containers processed from fruit products.  During a tour of Faith Farms, Pastor Curtis Whitaker pointed out produce being grown in hoop houses that eventually will operate year round.  He noted that solar panels on the church were purchased with the help of a grant.  Nearby was a fancy chicken coop (the hip Reverend labeled it “dope”) that will not only house poultry but a bee hive to provide honey and discourage predators. Listening to this inspirational man, dressed simply with no trace of false piety, gave me a sense that common people just might be able to overcome a harsh environment that most former residents were eager to flee. With proper leadership in place and help from Sierra Club members, who turned out in force for the four-hour program, one can dare hope.

Millerite George McGuan hosted a ten-player Texas Hold ’em game.  He and Al Renslow, who sat on my right after we drew cards to determine seat position, were memorable Seventies IUN students. Toni and I attended Al’s wedding (“my first,” he quipped) at Club SAR, founded by benevolent Gary machine boss George Chacharis.  Al was active in the IUN Young Democrats, as was mutual friend George Van Til.  First out was Jack Tonk, seemingly inexperienced at Texas Hold ’em. Renslow, a little too reckless, followed soon afterwards. McGuan was almost out of chips but rebounded with a brilliant bluff.  One hand I was started with an Ace-10 of Hearts.  I called an all-in bet by a player who held 2 Kings.  The flop yielded two more Hearts bit no Kings.  The next card was no help to either of us, so I needed an Ace or a Heart to beat him.  The final card was a Heart. I was holding my own until I lost a big pot to a flush, which beat my high straight.  Then George McGuan, Jr., almost bankrupt, went all in prior to the flop. I held the King-Queen of Hearts and called.  We revealed our cards, and he had the worst possible hand, a deuce and a three.  He was bluffing.  Wouldn’t you know, up came a 2 and a 3, and he claimed the pot with two pair to my two Queens.

2017 and 2018 New Yorker covers

New Yorker correspondent Margaret Talbot wrote:

    The theme of cruelty unfolding at the southern border last week was the purest distillation yet of what it means to be governed by a President with no moral center. The Trump administration, enacting its “zero tolerance” policy regarding migrants, forcibly separated children from their parents and detained them in a tent city and a repurposed Walmart in parched South Texas. Photographs showed children penned in large cages and sprawled on concrete floors under plastic blankets. Many were sent on to facilities thousands of miles away.  Those under the age of 12, including babies and toddlers, were discharged to “tender age” shelters, a concept for which the term “Orwellian” does not quite suffice.

 Staci Abrams

I wouldn’t mind living in Gary.  How nice not to have to commute on 80/94.  My fantasy is to win the MacArthur prize for Steel Shavings and with the money build a residence near campus that I’d bequeath to IUN as a dorm for foreign exchange students and possibly the Chancellor’s residence.  As I walked into IUN’s Anderson Library, a young man responded to my greeting as saying, “How’s it going?”  “OK,” I replied, then seconds later teared up, recalling Martayveus Carter lying in a hospital bed in critical condition.  I actually turned around and would have said,“Actually, I’m not OK”except he was gone.  

In the Archives were John Trafny, working on a Gary book, and Steve Spicer, researching the Wabash Railroad, whose tracks provided transportation for Aetna Powder Company products.  A 1912 explosion killed eight men and one in 1914 blew windows out two miles away on Broadway. Spicer has found the names of victims killed as a result of plant explosions, some of whom are buried in Miller’s ancient Swedish cemetery. On Spicer’s webpage is a section on Aetna Powder Works that contains this information from Powell A. Moore’s “The Calumet Region: Indiana’s Last Frontier” (1959):

    Aetna has long been considered part of Miller although it is a little separated from it. In 1881 the Miami Powder company began erection of the Aetna Powder works because it was in a fairly remote location although still close to the railroads and a source of labor. By 1888 the plant had 26 buildings and employed 45 men producing 60,000 pounds of powder a day. Powder was marketed to farmers to blow stumps, and by the onset of World War One the plant employed some 300 men. The plant flourished making gun cotton during the war. It employed some 1200 men, but at the end of the war, with the expansion of Gary and Miller, there was little justification of maintaining a plant in such close proximity to the growing population and the plant closed.

Spicer reprinted a Chesterton Tribunearticle from April 12, 1888, entitled “Terrible Explosion: 3,000 Pounds of Nitro-glycerin Accidentally Explodes at the Aetna Powder Works.  Three men Blown Into Atoms and Parts of Their Bodies Found a Mile Away”:

    This is the second explosion within the last two years, though the first was not so disastrous. The president of the company evidently expects the worst, and prefers his cozy Chicago office to the dangers of the works, for whenever business compels him to visit Miller the works are shut down and nothing is done until he gets away to a safe distance.

    Henry Scott, one of the men killed, was from Wheeler and had been employed in the powder factory about seven years. John A. Gill was from Boston, and Jansen from Denmark. All were single men.   Scott was the mixer, Gill his assistant, and Jansen the trucker, who wheeled the powder to another department.  Scott got $60 month, and Gill and H.L. Jansen $2 a day for their perilous work. Their funeral took place on Saturday, and the remains were buried in the cemetery at Millers.

Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City,” from the 1973 “Innervisions” album, provides background music for a dramatic crack house scene in Spike Lee’s 1991 film “Jungle Fever.”  I think of that scene often, given the country’s current opioid crisis.  A Timecover story about Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacy Abrams mentioned that one of her brothers is a heroin addict and ex-convict.  Their college-educated father was, according to the cover story, “relegated by his race to working at a shipyard in southern Mississippi in the 1970s.”  Stacy’s mother had a graduate degree but earned less as a librarian than the building’s janitor.  The  family of seven shared a tiny house sometimewithout water and electricity.  One of Stacy’s siblings became a social worker, another a microbiologist.  Uncertain of the Stevie Wonder title, my Google search turned up the great Foghat number “Fool for the City,” about a country bumpkin moving to the big city. One verse goes:

Breathin' all the clean air, sittin' in the sun,
When I get my train fare, I'll get up and run.
I'm ready for the city, air pollution here I come!

Some thought the lyric was “evolution here I come,”not “air pollution.”  

 photo by Joseph Pete

On a lighter note: at Whiting’s Pierogi Fest Joseph Pete heard someone say, “I think you can gain weight just by breathing the air here.”   

Future Teachers

“The mediocre teacher tells.  The good teacher explains.  The superior teacher demonstrates.  The great teacher inspires.” William Arthur Ward

 Arielle Keller 

Airella Keller started her journal by announcing that most people called her Air, that she turned 25 in January, and that she is adopted and an only child, although the family has three dogs and a snake.  She graduated from Hammond High and has worked for Strack and Van Til for almost three years.  Here are some journal excerpts:. 

    January 10:My boyfriend of two years celebrated my birthday early because he has to work tomorrow. At his place he gave me two eye shadow sets from Too Faced, Chocolate Gold and Just Peachy Mattes.  The one smells like chocolate and the other like peaches and figs. We ate at Chilis and saw “Pitch Perfect 3,”  a good end for the series.

    January 26:While at work fixing the beer and wine shelf, I knocked a wine bottle over that went crashing to the ground.  A little later a second wine bottle slipped from my hand onto the floor.  It made me so stressed and angry, I went on break. 

    February 2:  In high school I was in Anime Club.  My mom forced me to go to the senior prom instead of an anime con (convention) I had my heart set on that was happening at the same time. I had got dumped that year by my first boyfriend of four years, which really sucked. After some time, I ended up dating this junior for like two or three months and went to prom with him.  It was held at one of the Brookfield Zoo pavilions. Supposedly peacocks walked around the area, but I did not see any since it was kind of cold that year. It was not a happy time because my date was acting like a creep.  He also smelled me a lot, which I told him more than once stop, but he kept doing it. When in the bathroom to get away from him, I walked in on a couple screwing in the handicap stall, which surprised me but gave me a laugh.  I broke up with my date a day later, which led to a three-minute voice mail of him crying and begging me to take him back.  A couple weeks later, he showed up at my house with Mountain Dew and panda snacks, hoping I’d go with him to a football game. I accepted the snacks but didn’t go with him, a bitch move, I’ll admit, but if you’re going to be creepy toward me, I’m not going to feel bad about anything I do to you.

Air with stuffed hippo and in blonde wig at anime-con

          February 3:I still watch anime and attend anime cons when I have the time and money.  Over the years I have gone to at least 15, mostly in the Chicago area but as far away as Ohio and Georgia.  There are panels, photo areas, viewing stations, and at least two or three parties, such as a soap bubble, a rave, and a masquerade ball, often with live music from Japanese or Korean musicians.  Artist alley is the place to buy pictures, key chains, bookmarkers, posters, hats, pillows, toys, stickers, pins, comic books, jewelry, and handmade items. At nearby hotels are get-togethers and purportedly sex parties that have secret codes that you need to hunt for at the con.  At the market place one can buy wigs, anime, hentai (anime porn), cute toys, anime figures, posters, J-Pop, J-Rock, K-Pop, K-Rock (Japanese and Korean music), fur suits and parts, cosplay costumes, yaoi, manga (boys love manga), clothes (like shirts, hats, sweaters, blankets), kigurumi (which are onesies), fancy swords, and anything else you could think of, including videogames, which tend to be dating simulation games in Japanese, so I am not into them that much.  I own just one, a Death Note game, but really don’t know what it is about since it’s all in Japanese. I am into yaoi. I have a large collection of the mangas and own one yaoi DVD. Yaoi comes in three kinds of manga; soft core wIth light make outs; median core, a bit heavier in the make out session and touching; and hard core, which shows everything.  I used to have a larger collection of yaoi manga then I do now. I also have some yaois in Japanese.  I am into Japanese rock groups like Gackt, Dir En Grey, the GazettE, Girugamesh, and Miyavi.  I went to anwesome Dir En Grey concert with friends at Chicago’s House of Blues when still in high school. I even got a CD signed by the whole band. I like fur suits, but I don’t have the money for a set because they cost a pretty penny. I do have a black and blue rave wolf vest that has ears on the hood and a tail. I usually go crazy purchasing items.  I like getting in big group photos of cosplayers (short for costume players representing certain characters).  I also did small cosplays like gir from Invader Zim, Gloomy Bear who eats children, and L From Death Note. I go to the raves if not too sore from all the walking. Anime viewing rooms are also fun. I pretty much do a bit of everything if I have the time.

above, Batman cosplayers; below, Payn and Creeper

    February 16:For our anniversary my boyfriend and I So, we went to David and Busters for dinner and games. I got a blue narwhal plushie from the tickets I won. Then we saw “Black Panther,” which was cool. Back at my place, my boyfriend said some sweet things and then pulled out a ring and proposed.  I said yes!.

   March 12:It’s spring break  and I didn't do much beside laze around the house, watching TV in bed and stuff on the internet. Lunch was chicken-flavored Raman with soy sauce. Dinner was strawberry-flavored mini-wheat cereal. 

  March 13:I got up before 6, made coffee and got ready for work, which I started at 8 and  lasted till 1, stocking in different areas of the store. Then I drove myself home and let the dogs out. After lunch I watched some TV with my mom - that's how we bond. We made chicken and pasta for dinner and I went to sleep around midnight.

   March 14:I spent much of the day playing Monster Hunter World.

    March 15:  I took a 34-minute shower and got to work at 7:54 for another five hours of stocking. I went on break at 9:23 and bought myself a hot pocket and green tea. I relaxed in the afternoon and hung with a friend that night in Chicago.  I had Long Island ice tea, a bit of a strawberry daiquiri, a bit of a fruity drink, a bit of a mojito, and two shots of tequila. Also, pizza. 

  March 16:I woke up with no apparent hangover and worked another five-hour shift. Stocking things onto a high shelf while standing on crates, I fell and landed on my right hand, which buckled, causing my elbow to hit the concrete.  It hurt like a son of a bitch. I ended up filling out a work injury form and talking to a nurse, who gave me an icy hot pack for my arm.  Rather than go to a hospital, like I should have, I took pain pills and kept an ice arm pack on the rest of that day. 

    March 17:  Despite my arm still hurting, I went to work. Pain pills helped me get through the day.

    March 18:My mom noticed that my elbow was a different color due to my spill. I hadn’t noticed it before.  I cracked up looking in the mirror, but  my mom wondered why I hadn’t  gone to the hospital. She made a belated St. Patty's Day meal that was very tasty, but, god, did the cabbage smell up the house.

A 24-year-old Education major who asked to go by the name of Janee’ Desire moved from Gary to Merrillville at age 13 and then to Gary’s Miller neighborhood after high school. Here are excerpts from her journal:

 March 15, 2018:Spring break is not working in my favor. Yesterday, my room flooded after a pipe burst, destroying books, school work, and clothes.  We rushed to Menards for a plastic vacuum and sucked up as much water as we could, although by the time we got home, the hallway and living room were flooded.  An insurance adjustor discovered a hole in the pipe probably caused by a gopher. Most everyone's backyard on my block has holes due to those pests.  Fortunately, the pipe will be fixed tomorrow, but meanwhile we must shut our water off.  How do 2 women and a 5-year-old survive without any water (I live with my mom, older sister, and nephew)? Well, I guess we will make do.

   March 16:The pipe hasn’t been fixed, but we have water. 

   March 17:It took nine hours, but workers fixed the pipe.According to the insurance company, it's up to us to soak the water up. I've literally been using this plastic vac for hours and the carpet still seems saturated. I cannot live like this.  Damn, spring break is almost over, and I didn’t even get a chance to enjoy it. Or catch up on assignments.  

   March 18:This the last day I can sleep in. 

   March 19:I worked all day on school assignments. I hate being such a procrastinator, but at least I finally get it done.  I make plans to get them out the way early, but time just flows by.  

   March 20:I want to be a teacher but do not know how I'm going to wake up every morning. This semester my schedule starts at 8 am and ends at 6:45 pm.  The only thing I'm looking forward to today is my counseling session.  At IUN we have access to future therapists and counselors.  My counselor since January, a graduate student, has helped me deal with issues that I face as a young black woman. Early this semester, for example, someone singled me out for being the only black person in the room.  With the help of my counselor, I was able to speak with this person privately and let known my honest feelings, which is that I am not the spokesperson for African Americans. I'm unsure if the message got through.  

   March 21: My 10-week art education course ended. The binder that contained my assignments got a grade of B. I had perfect attendance in this class, so NO WORRIES! 

   March 22:At Longfellow Elementary I observed first-grade teacher Ms. Jensen, who has great classroom management skills. For math, she has students work on tablets and with flashcards, and she goes over different math concepts with small groups at a work station. For reading, Ms. Jensen divided students into three groups based on reading levels,but downplayed how they were arranged. 

   March 23:Today is online class day.  I'm barely able to comprehend the information because we have so little contact with our instructor. 

   March 24:My mom works at St. Margaret's Hospital. Although she isn't a doctor, our family tends to think so and often come to her before seeing an actual doctor. My grandparents are in their 80s and schedule appointments at St. Margaret's, so she can be there to translate “doctor language.” My sister and I have been through so much, including our parents’ divorce. She is like my righthand. The difference we have is her hate/like of education and her temper.  Other than that, we are two different people but like one of the same.  Her son is the light of all our lives. I call him my spiritual child because he is much like me (picky eater, youngest, spoiled.) but looks like his parents. He basically runs the house. That is why went to Walmart today, because it is his favorite store plus they have all the super wings toys he could find.  

   March 25: Every Sunday the family gathers at my grandmother's house for dinner. This is like a ritual. We never go a week without seeing my grandparents. My grandfather built this house on Gary’s west side near the Tarrytown subdivision long before my mother was born.  My grandparents were originally from Missouri and Mississippi and met in Gary after they moved North for better opportunities. Locke Elementary was right up the street, and my grandfather used to take me to school and pick me up.  He continued to do that at Tolleston and West Side until my junior when I enrolled in the Gary Area Career.  He has even driven me to IUN a few times. My evening highlight will be “Real Housewives of Atlanta. ”   

Charlemagne Tha God

   March 27: My morning ritual includes watching “Breakfast Club” with Dj envy, Angela Yee, and Charlamagne Tha God. I honestly do not know how I could function in this society as a young African American without the gems and jokes they give out. They have great interviews with such artists as Young Jeezy, Gucci Mane, N.O.R.E, and Cardi B. The best part of the show is when Charlamagne gives his “Donkey of the Day” award for people who made dumb decisions.  Donald Trump (not my President) has received the DOD at least 8 times already this year. Class was too long today, or maybe I just was ready to go. I think I have the flu. Longfellow’s principal mentioned that a flu and stomach virus is going around. I think I'll  leave my counseling session early. 

   March 28: Thank god for  medication! As a child, I was diagnosed with chronic bronchitis, so any small cold could turn into the flu. Mucus builds up in the lungs and nasal cavities, which makes it hard to breathe at night, and I have trouble with catching my breath when I'm up walking around. My doctor gave me a prescription that will control my coughing and put me to sleep like a baby. Time for a nap.  

   March 29:My first-grade students are on spring break, so no field experience today. With the flu, I’ll just rest and catch up on shows.  I am currently addicted to the “Joe Budden Podcast.” He is a former rap legend who hates the industry and gives his take on media and celebrities   His predictions usually turn out to be true. He is a “Breakfast Club” fan and friends with Charlemagne Tha God. Each podcast is 2 hours, and the episode I am watching is called "Freaky Man lmao” (Imao stands for arrogant opinion). 

   March 30: Time to catch up in my online assignments.   IWith an early start, hopefully I can watch my Friday shows “Bring It” and “Marriage Boot Camp” and maybe catch up on “Drink Champs” with N.O.R.E (formerly Noreaga ) and Dj EFN as well. They interview rap legends such as Snoop Dogg, Irv Gotti, Wu tang Clan, and Ice Cube. This show is by far the most watched show on YouTube right now. 

   April 1:Before Sunday dinner, my sister and I ran an errand to but lottery tickets for my Grandmother at gas stations on Colfax and by Lake Etta. These are the only places she’ll get her "numbers” for as long as I can remember and seems to have good luck. Playing lottery and gambling are on the agenda when we have family reunions. Hmmm, I wonder what momma is cooking today.   

    April 2:I plan to stop at JERK2GO on Twenty-Fifth, by far the best place to order anything jerked for a decent price.  Or I might go to El Nortenoon Fifth Avenue, which has the best tacos. With that being said, I  may be greedy and go by both places today just to make sure I have enoughwhile watching“ Love and Hip Hop” and “Vanderpump Rules.” 

     April 3:What a day. For starters, one teacher forgot to tell us a discussion board was closing, so none of us did the assignment. Another teacher had us reschedule most of our due dates, so we are now even more behind than ever before. At least history is well organized; we are given the information needed to study for quizzes.  I had no idea I would enjoy this class so much. 

   April 4:My favorite Wednesday show is “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.” I've literally seen every episode and still am excited about what going to happen next. This episode involved an assault victim who blamed an African-American man when one of her acquaintances had committed the crime.

   April 5:Today for field, I focused on the classroom discipline aspects of Ms. Jensen's first grade classroom.  The three rules, displayed on a poster, are to “Be Respectful, Be Responsible and Be Safe.” The teacher came up with these after getting suggestions from students and had them sign the poster.   

   April 6:Chili's, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Rico's Pizza are the best places to get hot wings. Chili's and BWW are all over, but Rico’s is harder to find.  Fortunately there is one on West Twenty-Fifth, near the THIS IS IT station where my grandmother gets her lottery tickets. Since I must do online work, I’ll go to Rico’s later since they are open until 1 am.  

    April 7:Life coach Lyanla Vanzant currently had a show on OWN (Oprah's channel) called “Fix my Life.”  My interest increases when she assists people with father issues. I haven't had a father since I was about 13. I know how important it is to have a father in your life, but in my case, it’s best for my sanity that I keep this door closed. Still there is an emptiness. My therapist told me that women generally choose to marry either someone like their father or someone she thinks her father should be.

   April 11:“Law and Order: SVU” is not on today so I'll watch “Black Ink” on VH1, about a tattoo owner and his employees. Drama, drama and more drama is what this show is about, and I'm addicted. 

   April 12:In my field today, students introduced these little caterpillars to me and let me know they are raising butterflies. I think this is great idea for students, but I don’t do insects and kept my distance. The students also informed me about a field trip to the dairy farm.  I went to one as a child, but I doubt it’s the same experience today. Maybe I should talk to Ms. Jensen about it.   

   April 13:I decided to play Fortnite, a team online game that involves shooting, which was all the description I needed. OMG, this game is just as addictive as a reality show. The only problem is that you interact with different people of all ages.  I heard students talking about it one day. I was supposed to catch up on work, but six hours later I still want to play. No matter how old I get, video games will always be a secret love of mind. 

   April 14:Today we are shopping for clothes for our May trip to Missouri to watch my little cousin graduate. Boy, time flies. I can remember when his mother came to visit. He was the first baby I ever held. I'm so happy for him. He has a great head on his shoulders, and I really hope he plans to attend college.  

   April 15:My grandmother made roast and potatoes, fried/bake chicken, and, of course, greens. Collard greens are a guaranteed side to each Sunday meal.  My grandfather has two gardens where he grows greens, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and have grown pretty much everything he can. He has two tractors.  He claims one is for me and one for my sister, but we haven’t driven them yet. In the summer my grandfather drives them around the neighborhood and to and from his garden. 

    April 17:I had my last counseling session, and I am so sad that it’s over. I noticed an improvement in my behavior and self-esteem. I also like how everything is confidential, well, unless you say you're going to kill someone. 

The Indiana Historical Society (IHS) is touting a talk in August by IHS coordinator of multicultural collections Nicole Martinez-LeGrand titled “Our Latino Heritage.” It is geared toward those anxious to explore ways to find out about their ancestors.  I suggested she access the Calumet Regional Archives website for information about our Latino holdings and mentioned that Steel Shavings,volume 40, contained a master index covering all previous issues. She was familiar with the Shavingsissues on Latinos Louis Vasquez as well as “Forging a Community: The Latino Experience in Northwest Indiana, 1919-1975” and other books of mine on the subject, saying, “You are held in high esteem here at the Indiana Historical Society.”  I’m flattered and tempted to attend her talk and distribute free copies of my latest Shavings to participants. I’m considering submitting a paper for the 2020 IOHA conference in Singapore on interviews I’ve conducted with Mexican-Americans Jesse Villalpando, Abe Morales, Maria Arredondo, Paulino Monterrubio, and others.  Nicole Martinez-LeGrand grew up in Northwest Indiana and her grandfather was a prominent merchant in the Indiana Harbor barrio. She’s conducting interviews concentrating on old -country roots. 

Ruthellyn Hatcher (above) and Elaine McGregsry

Barbara Walczak’s bridge Newsletterwelcomed Wednesday game newcomers Elaine McGregory and Ruthellyn Hatcher.  Elaine worked for 20 years for the Chicago Transit Authority as a Senior Claims Adjustor. This what Walczak wrote about Ruthellyn:

Ruth was born in Booneville, MO, but since 1967 has lived in Gary and that is the time she began learning to play bridge.  She is currently teaching music at Banneker Elementary School. She has 3 daughters – all lawyers – and 5 grandchildren,  She has been married for 41 years to Richard Hatcher (first black mayor of Gary).  Her hobbies are bridge, golf and traveling.

In the Chesterton game John and Karen Fieldhouse finished first with 60 percent.  Oddly, their worst hand came against Dee and me when Karen bid 4 Hearts over my 3 Spades and went down 5 doubled vulnerable for minus 1400 points due, among other things to a 5-0 split in Heart. When Helen Booth and Joel Charpentier were playing the same hands as Dee and me, they were doubled a 3 Spades and made an overtrick for 930 points.  Imagine their surprise when they discovered they lost out high board to us.

 Brenda Ann Love

Brenda Ann Love’s latest South Shore lament: “It’s ‘Let your kid scream and run around on the train’ day. Oh, and if your kid shits himself, maybe take him to the bathroom.”

I’ve got the 2011 War on Drugs CD “Slave Ambient” on heavy rotation with Flaming Lips. Jimmy Eat World, Fountains of Wayne, and The Head and the Heart.  The sound of “Slave Ambient” is much like the group’s more recent efforts.  It was produced by the independent record label Secretly Canadian from, of all places, Bloomington, Indiana.  In 2011 Adan Granduciel and band members were living in Philadelphia.  Here is a verse from “Come to the City:

Burning tires on my street
Past the roar and debris, baby
All the kids dance around it
But he lacks what he sees

At an emeritus faculty luncheon, 86-year-old John Ban asked if I’d consider giving a talk to Merrillville seniors.  I suggested  I asked IUN Chancellor Bill Lowe about the possibility of having a plaque honoring Ruth Nelson’s 70 years of service to the university, an idea passed on to me by library staff member Anne Koehler that Bill said he would look into.  In 1934, after graduating from Horace Mann, Ruth became secretary to Albert Fertsch, director of Gary College and the school-city’s adult education program.  Promoted to administrative assistant when Gary College became part of IU, she was in charge of scheduling, purchasing, payroll, and veterans affairs prior to becoming bookstore manager.  After she retired, she did volunteer work in the library for many years. 

The Cubs won an exciting game against the Diamondbacks, 7-6, scoring three runs in the bottom of the ninth on home runs by Dave Bote and Anthony Rizzo.  They also traded  for Cole Hamels, who pitched for the Phillies when they won the World Series in 2008.  He won 14 games during the season and went 4-0 in the playoffs.  His last game with Philadelphia in 2014, he hurled a no-hitter against the Cubs.

How I Miss Obama

“Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?  Barack Obama

At bridge Helen Booth gave me a copy of a column by Max Boot, former foreign policy adviser to John McCain and Mitt Romney and author of the forthcoming book “The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I left the Right.” Boot’s opening sentence reads, “How I miss Barack Obama.  And I say that as someone who worked to defeat him.”  He continued:

    I criticized Obama’s ‘lead from behind” foreign policy that resulted in a premature pullout from Iraq and a failure to stop the slaughter in Syria.  I thought he was too weak on Iran and too tough on Israel.  I feared that Obamacare would be too costly.  I fumed that he was too professorial and too indecisive.  I was left cold by his arrogance and cult of personality.

  Now I would take Obama back in a nanosecond.  His presidency appears to be a lost golden age when reason and morality reigned.  All of his faults, real as they were, fade into insignificance compared to the crippling defects of his successor.  And his strengths – seriousness, dignity, intellect, probity, dedication to ideals larger than himself – shine all the more clearly in retrospect.

  Those thoughts are prompted by watching Obama’s speech in South Africa on the 100th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s birth.  I was moved nearly to tears by his eloquent defense of a liberal world order than Trump seems bent on destroying.

  The first thing that struck me was what was missing. There was no self-praise and no name-calling.  Obama has a far better claim than Trump to being a “very stable genius,” but he didn’t call himself one.  The sentences were complete and sonorous – and probably written by the speaker himself (imagine trump writing anything longer than a tweet – and even those are full of mistakes).  The tone was sober and high-minded, even if listeners could read between the lines a withering critique of Trump’s policies.

  Obama denounced the “politics of fear and resentment,” the spread of “hatred and propaganda and conspiracy theories,”and “immigration policies based on race, ethnic, or religion.”  Gee, wonder who he had in mind?  He rightly noted that “we stand at a crossroads – a moment in time at which two different visions of humanity’s future compete for the hearts and minds of citizens across the world.”  He then rejected the dark vision propagated by Trump and the dictators he so admires.

  “I believe in Nelson Mandela’s vision,” Obamasaid.  “I believe in a vision shared by Gandhi and King and Abraham Lincoln.  I believe in a vision of equality and justice and freedom and multiracial democracy, built on the premise that all people are created equal with certain inalienable rights. And I believe in a world governed by such principles is possible and that it can achieve more peace and more cooperation of a common good.”  Even though I was thousands of miles away, I felt like cheering those stirring words.

Helen Booth mentioned recently visiteingrelatives in Lewisburg, West Virginia. When Dick Jeary was grooming me to be his successor as Sigma Phi Epsilon social chairman at Bucknell, I booked a band from Philadelphia, Tommy and the Tones, to play at the fraternity’s Homecoming dance.  They didn’t arrive until minutes before they were scheduled to start, having gotten off the turnpike at Harrisburg but then followed signs to Lewisburg West Virginia rather than Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

Bucknell’s alumni magazine focused on the 1950s.  Tuition in 1950 was just $500, and Art Linney won the 1953 Mr. Ugly Man contest after receiving the most change, $113.20, in his milk bottle.  Novelist Philip Roth, author of “Portney’s Complaint,” was a 1954 graduate. Bucknell’s president between 1954 and 1964 was Merle Odgers, whom I saw getting off a bus in Honolulu in 1965 with a woman who may have been his wife while I was attending the University of Hawaii.

 Steinbeck

At Chesterton Library to return Richard Russo’s “Bridge of Sighs,” I spotted his latest, “The Destiny Thief: Essays on Writing, Writers, and Life,” in the new nonfiction books section.  Russo had an epiphany about the importance of tone, mood, andbeing able to assume different identities by reading a description of a brothel in John Steinbeck’s “Cannery Row” (1945) that reminded him of his father’s voice – unsentimental, cynical, realistic.  Steinbeck had written: 

    Up in back of the vacant lot is the stern and stately whore house of Dora Flood; a decent, clean, honest, old-fahioned sporting house where a man can take a glass of beer among friends.  This is no fly-by-night clip-joint but a sturdy, virtuous club, maintained and disciplined by Dora who, madam and girl for 50 years, has through the exercise of special gifts of tact and honesty, made herself respected by the intelligent, the learned, and the kind.  And by the same token she is hated by the twisted and lascivious sisterhood of married spinsters whose husbands respect the home but don’t like it very much.

    Dora is a great woman, a great big woman with flaming orange hair and a taste for Nile green evening dresses.

A celebration of labor leader Eddie Sadlowski’s life will take place in Chicago.  Paul Kaczocha, who described himself as a “wage slave for capitalism since 1967 and still going but not for much longer,”recalled first meeting “Oil Can Eddie” in 1973 in a eulogy titled “A Life Bigger Than The Man.”  Here are the first couple paragraphs:

    I was barely over 21 when I first met Ed Sadlowski. Al Sampter, a US Steel Coke Oven worker with a long history of struggle in the mill and the Union, asked me if he could bring Ed over to talk to me about his campaign to run for District 31 Director of the Steelworkers. At that time there were over a million steelworkers in the Union and District 31 was the largest. Al was a former Communist Colonizer from New York and was part of the grass roots revolt going on in the Steelworkers to democratize the Union and bring in new blood. Workers were upset about a recent dues increase and with giving up the right to strike along with having no right to ratify their contract especially one seen as a surrender of labor’s basic right to withhold our labor. Most importantly the voices of Black, Brown and women workers were absent from the national leadership.

    Al brought Ed, twelve years my senior, to my apartment in Gary one summer evening and I remember thinking that Ed, who was a huge over weight Staff Representative for the Union, was the stereotypic fat cat Union rep. However he talked the talk of trying to change the Union and take out the same people who had run the district for 30 years since the Union’s inception. I was spellbound as his rap touched a nerve in me. I was a young new Union representative at a shop full of young people at a plant that was the newest built fully integrated steel mill in the U.S. - Bethlehem Steel’s Burns Harbor plant. Like Ed’s father my grandfather, helped build the Union and had been a staff representative for the same District that Ed was trying to take over. Ed convinced me to join the cause of changing the Union by taking it over. You CAN beat city hall he was fond of saying. He used to tell me that when you were a Union rep you had to stay on the side of the angels and that some guys would sell out the members over a steak when the boss took them out to dinner. 

Here is the final paragraph of Kaczocha’s essay:

    I would run into Ed all over the Chicago area at different protests and even at a labor history tour of Chicago. We were at one of the Steelworker rallies for steel against imports and he told me that tariffs were no good for the worker. Tariffs raised the price on everything and it just cost workers more to live. One of the last times I spent some time with Ed was in the first Obama election when we took the good part of a day campaigning going door to door for Obama in Gary. Ed told me that he had worked with Obama and that it was going to be a long shot on how much Obama would do for labor. Ed Sadlowski was a different leader, ahead in his time opposing the Viet Nam War, tariffs and favoring a more democratic Union. His candidacy inspired many to a life of Union action way beyond his original campaign. 

I’ve finally gotten around to examining “Ides of March” journals that Steve McShane’s students kept in the spring.  Here’s part of what Traci L. Schwartz wrote:

    Introduction:I’m 44 years old, and my personal version of a midlife crisis comes as a return to school.  It took me 5 years to complete a 2-year associate’s degree at Ivy Tech in Valparaiso because I had to take 5 remedial courses in Mathematics. To say it was difficult is an understatement, I conquered my worst fear  - that I was too stupid to learn algebra.  I decided to pour myself into being a full-time student.  While studying Math, I took only one course at a time. Perhaps this seems like overkill, but I knew what I needed to succeed, and I allowed myself to have it in order to learn.  Last semester was my first at IUN.  Sometimes my family gets sick of me and my education.  My husband Bernie says he’ll be glad when I get done and get a job so he can finally retire.  He is 14 years my senior and has worked as a Teamster while I was a stay-at-home mom. We lived with my mom in Portage, and I took care of my great grandma, Etta Brown, during the daytime, while mom went to work.  She died  in 2000 at age 99. I loved her during my childhood, and through dementia and cancer. My mother’s father’s mother, she was the kindest woman I have ever met. Being Jewish, she introduced me to such strange food like gefilte fish, matzo ball soup, borsch, and macaroons. It was awful when we had to move her from the apartment on Sunnyside Avenue in Chicago, but she was being robbed constantly, and cockroaches had infested her things.  I loved taking her and my daughter to Deep River Park. I miss the simplicity of those days. My second daughter Saylor was born in 2001 and my third Sorenn in 2003.  Soon afterwards, my mom’s father, who was diagnosed with colorectal cancer, came to live with us - staying in the same room his own Mother had used.  She had been a saint, but he was ornery.  He died in 2005. My daughters were all in preschool or elementary school, so I spent most of my time cleaning, cooking, chauffeuring, homework helping, and bill paying.  In 2012 my grandfather’s sister, Millicent, came to live with us.  She had a little dachshund and would not leave its side.  Millicent was almost as sweet as her mom but slightly more assertive.  She was with us for 5 years.  She went daily to the Bonner Senior Center; a bus picked her up and dbrought her back home.  One morning she fell, hit her head on the tire of the bus, and broke 2 vertebrae in her neck. She died shortly thereafter and was buried with her parents, in the traditional Jewish tradition. Our family is not religious, but we sat Shiva for her. I feel guilty for enjoying my education, because I get so busy, taking a full load of classes.  I hope my going to school is making an impression on my daughters, because I do not want them to rely on a man the way I rely on their father or rely on me, as I have relied on my mother.  I want for them to be able to support themselves, and to choose an equal partner. My greatest wish is to graduate before my mom passes away.  I lost my dad in 2010, and he didn’t see me graduate from Ivy Tech in 2016.  

    March 15, 2018:I woke up at 6. I’m trying to look professional because I go to Longfellow New Technical Elementary in Griffith, as a part of my Education field experience under third grade teacher Mrs. Rose Phelan. In the morning I worked on a door display. For lunch I at Burger King, a whopper cost me darned near $6.  I better not get too used to this, I thought, teachers don’t earn enough for this kind of malarkey!  I returned to working on the door, hoping that I did not have oniony whopper breath, but I’m sure I did, and hell with it, the damned thing cost so much, I might as well have some kind of extended experience.  After lunch, Ms. Phalen printed the wording she wanted to use for the door. She decided to make the words look like clouds, so after putting the cloud wording in place, I had 2 types of butterflies, 2 types of bunny rabbits, 3 types of flowers, and a bumble bee. I cut more green stems to add to the largest flowers after placing them, or it appeared they were all just floating in the air. I got many compliments from staff.  I found out, as I worked on the project, that it was a contest, put together by the principal.  

The very best part of my day was when the principal asked if I had to make up a day during my spring break. (Yes, this IS why showing up is half the battle, by the way.) I said “No, I just LOVE it” with a giggle. I told her this (education) is my “Corvette,” my middle-aged dream of being an active part in our world.  Then she asked me if I was interested in working in an urban school.I said “Oh, yes” and barely contained doing my happy dance, and stopping my eyeballs from popping out. On the way home I picked up corned beef, cabbage, turnips, parsnips, carrots, and potatoes! Tomorrow is St. Paddy’s!  

    March 16:  I take my two high school girls to Portage between 7 and 7:15. My 19 year-old, C’Belle, wants to go to school with me for study-time, as she is a student at Ivy Tech.  I come back, and she tells me at 7:30 about the big mess of dog vomit she found. She cleaned it up and took out all the yucky trash WITHOUT being asked.  We studied for 5 hours at IUN’s Anderson Library and afterwards she said she wanted to try a sweet shop in Gary she’d heard about, Z’s Donut Bar, located at 1929 Broadway.  On the way we passed a dilapidated football stadium and several baseball diamonds.  Only in Gary, Indiana.  Z’s was a cute little place and painted to look sweet, in fuchsia and white.  My kid went in. I didn’t want anything, so I waited in the car.  C’Belle returned with a giant milk shake and two donuts!  At home, and my husband needed to pick up a trailer from his brother in Winamac, so we ate out at a place I have been wanting to go, One Eyed Jack’s, known for serving huge, delicious pork tenderloin. 

    March 17: I am cooking. Turnips, and Cabbage, and Carrots, and Potatoes and Rutabega, and CORNED BEEF!  The family will enjoy it today, and then I’ll freeze individual portions to heat up later in the microwave.  My kitchen is steamy, and there are veggie scraps in my rabbit cage. All is good in the world.

    March 23: I am taking new ADD meds and am concerned if I will be able to concentrate enough to do my studies effectively.  My shrink is out of Porter Starke, one of the few low cost mental health providers in the area. Since I have depression, I decided to go to a real shrink instead of my family doctor, who found that my depression is comorbid with ADHD.  This seems logical, as when I was a child, I was thrown out of Catholic school in Markham Illinois due to my parents not wanting to medicate me. In any case, my attention span is poor.  Also I cannot bring myself to start anything without a major interior battle.  It gets really old. I wish that I could afford mental health counseling, but sometimes my husband’s health insurance lapses, and I simply can’t afford it. I loved going when I had a regular therapist. I loved her; she did some bad-ass therapizing.  Anyway, my homework includes typing up a Teacher interview with Rose Phalen at Longfellow and finishing my History notes.  Then I have an online class about development of young children which requires a journal and a discussion over the required reading, and then another field reflection on my Longfellow experience.  My husband got laid off, and I wish I could sit at home, watch my favorite soap, and visit with him, but I have all this. 

Bernie, Traci, Traci's mom, Aunt Millie and Traci's daughters