Different Moments

“When other nights and other days
May find us gone our separate ways
We will have these moments to remember”

         The Four Lads

below, Joe David and Jimbo in Helsinki

I’ve been enjoying “Different Moments,” a CD featuring Joe Davidow’s compositions and piano and keyboard stylings accompanying saxophonist Seppo “Paroni” Paakkunainen.  Numbers reflecting aspects of Joe’s background and personality include “Bronx Nights,” “Morning Coffee,” “Days of Spring,” “ Hurry Up – The Fight,” and “Crazy Horse on a Calm Sea.”  Like Lakota warrior Crazy Horse, Joe is very creative and a fierce advocate for truth and justice.  In “Young Man in the Evening” Davidow wrote:

Growing up in the Bronx, I kind of grew up listening to Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall when others were listening to the Beatles.  All my working life I’ve been moving between composing for instrumental improvisation and contemporary electro music worlds.  Music for theatre, dance, ballet, film scores – of which most were scores for my own films.  On this CD I have put together the works I most like in the category we could call creative improvisational jazz. All of this music has been done in my European home country, Finland.

Lance Trusty

Jan Trusty invited me to an open house celebrating the life of husband Lance, my forerunner in documenting the modern history of Northwest Indiana’s Calumet Region and mentor in terms of speaking in a lively urbane manner to community groups.  He wrote the update to Powell A. Moore’s definitive “The Calumet Region: Indiana’s last Frontier,” entitled “Workshop of the World. ”  I included his writings in a half-dozen Steel Shavingsissues, including an excerpt from his history of Munster, “Town on the Ridge,” that describes that community’s transition from a Dutch farming hamlet to a bedroom suburb.  Trusty titled an essay written especially for my Eighties Shavings“End of an Era: The 1980s in the Calumet.” Along with Steve McShane and George Roberts, we participated in a memorable Indiana Association of Historians conference session in Terre Haute.  We kicked ass.  An obit in the NWI Times,published on July 4, revealed that Trusty was born in Panama in 1933, reared in Hampton, Virginia, and graduated from William and Mary College and Boston University.  It contained this paragraph:

Lance was far from a typical academic. During his spare time, he rebuilt boats, restored old cars, fixed and rode motorcycles, made his own home improvements and repairs, and passed his "handy-man" skills and knowledge on to his children. He was a talented photographer, loved classical music, and was unbeatable at the game Trivial Pursuit. For many summers he traveled the country with his family and their camper, visiting historic sites by day and teaching graduating high school students "How to Study in College" at local YMCAs in the evenings. He enjoyed debating the merits of a Humanities Education versus Engineering Training and was known to tip a bourbon or two to enhance the discussion. He will be remembered as much for his good humor and kindness as his academic prowess.

Muslim students praying near my Archives office have been kneeling on old New York Review ofBooks issues Ron Cohen gave me after he was done with them. They appear to be open to articles I recently read, such as “Crooked Trump” and “The Loved One.”  The latter is about the homoerotic ambiguities in Herman Melville’s novella “Billy Budd,” published posthumously, and contains a sexy 1962 picture of Terence Stamp, who played Billy Budd in a peter Ustinov adaptation.

Alissa stayed overnight and Angie brought makings for spring rolls, intended to be Dave’s welcome-back-from-Finland dinner if he hadn’t been so tired after being up 32 hours straight.  At a family birthday party for James and Rebecca were close friends Tom and Darcy Wade, Kevin, Tina, and Kaiden Horn, and Robert and Max Blaszkiewicz.  At the Archives, Steve Spicer, learning I’d just returned from Finland, noted that he and Cara stayed in a small Finnish village for a month and that son Sam studied in Helsinki.

 Wirt 1960 grads Judy Arlheit and Bob and Barbara Null; Post-Trib photo by Carole Carlson

former coach Don Rogers; NWI Times photo by Joe Nieto

Wirt alumni took a farewell tour of the 79-year-old school, closed by order of a parsimonious state-appointed emergency manager. Longtime football and wrestling coach and 1963 graduate Don Rogers was joined by most of his former assistants. Let’s hope the historic building can be transformed into a community center of some sort. Republican legislators did a number on public education in general and distressed cities such as Gary in particular. In World Cup action, Brazil knocked off Mexico, many of whose fans were on our flight to Helsinki two weeks ago.  Belgium, down 2-0, defeated Japan, 3-2, with a goal in the final seconds.  

 with Cate Pattison at IOHA reception; on lake cruise with Rommel Curaming

IOHA conference participant Cate Pattison thanked me for the photo I sent her with Dave and me and wrote: “It was great to meet the men from Gary Indiana.  I loved Finland, far more exotic for me than Singapore will be [in 2020], being four hours from Perth.  I’d better start working on something else so I’ve got something else to present then!”  From Brunei Dr. Rommel Curaming emailed a photo of us together and wrote: “It was really nice chatting with you on the river cruise/dinner. I immensely enjoyed the IOHA conference and the socials they arranged for us. I remember the one in Barcelona was nowhere near as enjoyable and profitable. I look forward to meeting you again perhaps in Singapore two years from now.”

According to her bridge Newsletter, Barb Walczak was the top area scorer over the past two weeks, accumulating 10.97 master points.  She paid a rare visit with partner Trudy McKamey to Duneland Bridge Club in Chesterton for the monthly championship and finished first, earning 2.16 points.  In July’s Bridge Bulletin Susan Weiss wrote of teaching bridge in a Jericho, New York, when the library lost power:

  We play in a community room, which is downstairs and has no windows. That room went totally dark.  I went upstairs and was told we needed to evacuate the building.

  When I told my class the news, my students were using their cell phones for light, and they were still playing the hand I had prepared.  When I told them we had to leave, they all asked if they could stay just long enough for me to explain how to bid the hand.

  Do we love the game?  Yes!

  

It was fun playing bridge after three weeks, but I was a little rusty.  In one hand I wish I could replay, I bid a spade over Alan Yngve’s Diamond when I should have doubled because I had 13 high card points, costing us a shot at game. Terry Bauer asked about the Finland trip and said a pickpocket had stolen his wallet five years ago when he visited Talinn, Estonia, a trip we skipped since there was so much to do in Helsinki.  After Dottie Hart bid Diamonds on three straight hands, I said, “You like Diamonds.” Without missing a beat, she displayed her hands that were bereft of diamond sand replied, “No, I don’t.”

  Jimbo in Jyvaskyla

Dave posted more than a hundred photos of the Finland trip on Facebook, producing a multitude of likes and comments, especially from Janet Bayer, who visited many of the sites with Mike a few years ago. They reached half-dozen of my high school classmates, including Susan Schuyler, whom I haven’t heard from in nearly 60 years, LeeLee Minehart, who shares my lefty political leanings and love of travel, Barbara Bitting, still married to high school sweetheart Joe Ricketts, Phil Arnold, whom my oldest son is named after, Bettie Erhardt, who is still “hot to trot,” as I like to tell her, and Judy Jenkins, who wrote: “You are both so fortunate to have this special times together.”  Agreed.