“The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.” Alfred Lord Tennyson
Tom Hallum achieved the rank of Diamond Life Master, having accumulated 500 points over a 40-year competitive bridge career. Longtime partner Joe Chin presented him with two cakes. In Barbara Walczak’s NewsletterClaire Murvihill declared:“As well as being an awesome player, he is an excellent and enthusiastic teacher. He’d come over to my house and, in exchange for pizza, share his expertise with a bunch of us lower on the ladder. I still find myself repeating some of his axioms, including, ‘Clubs usually take care of themselves.’” Lynne Kostopoulos noted: “He was so supportive and eager to help me improve my game when we played. As an opponent, he is always so gracious and pleasant. He will give advice or an opinion when asked but, otherwise not.” Steve Watson said: “Tom is a fierce competitor who truly enjoys the analytic part of the game. His deep penetrating analysis extends all the way from the bidding, or lack thereof, of his opponents, to card reading and play, to opponent tendencies, and even to opponent gestures, mannerisms, and past history at the table.”
Tom Rea and I each earned .28 of a masterpoint for registering a 56.25 percent in the Chesterton game. I hadn’t been partners with Tom before and wish I had two hands over, one where I was too timid in the bidding and the other when I attempted an unnecessary finesse. Otherwise, we did fine and enjoyed each other’s company. Tom is a former air force officer, and we discussed the recent Chicago Air Show, in which planes took off from Gary airport. Jim Carson said he once lay down on an incline near 80/94 and watched jets zoom right over his head. Director Alan Yngve congratulated Terry Bauer for earning an amazing 24 gold points at a regional tournament in St. Louis. Partnering with Bill Birk, they finished first in three events, second in a fourth and sixth (of 60 teams) in the “Gold Rush.” Terry reported that his two young grandsons like Hong Kong’s international school. One’s teacher is from Australia, the other’s from Maine.
In Bridge Bulletin Billy Miller lamented that a woman in the early stages of Alzheimer’s whose love of bridge kept her mind and spirit strong couldn’t play on certain days because she had too many masterpoints. “The minute she stopped playing bridge,”Miller asserted, “it was like the light switch in her life was turned off.” Such red tape has not prevented my former partner Dee Van Bebber from playing in local games even though I’m pretty certain she has earned hundreds of points over the years. Miller concluded: “We need to be more inclusive in times of need.” I told Dee’s present partner, Dee Browne (Chuck Tomes, who usually brings both, calls them “Dee squared”) that a famous historian shares her name but without the “e,” Dee Brown, author of “Bury My Head at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West” (1970).
Novelist Richard Russo masterfully brings even minor characters to life, witness 70-year-old semi-retired English professor Tom Newhouse in “Horseman.” Reduced to a single class, his James Joyce seminar, the widower was known for bonhomie and largess with seniors of drinking age. He enters the Hub Pub, a campus hangout wearing a tweed hat over wild white hair and orders two pitchers of beer, one for students engaged in a drinking game and the other which he brings to a booth containing junior faculty Janet Moore and Tony Hope, chagrined that he is joining them. Squeezing in close to Janet, he says, “You know what I like about you, Moore?” Tony guesses what she is thinking, her tits, but Newhouse confides, “You’re a good dancer.” “But you’ve never seen me dance,” she replies.
“That must have been something,”he said. “I wish that I’d been there.”
“Yeah, well, you missed it,” she told him.
“Hey,” he said, planting a kiss on her forehead. “Just because I wasn’t there doesn’t mean I can’t remember it.”
Russo’s “Mr. Chips” reference is to James Hilton’s 1934 novella “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” about beloved teacher Mr. Chipping, based on the author's personal experiences at a British boarding school. The story has been adapted in films, musicals, and radio and television series. Peter O’Toole played Mr. Chips both in a 1969 movie and on stage.
from Horace Mann 1970 yearbook; above Thespian Club members (Bernie Konrady front, middle); below, senior varsity swimmers Randy Weiss, Jeff Landsman, Len Predawn, Rich Flora, Bernie Konrad
I interviewed Bernie Konrady at the Archives, and then, having bonded, we continued our conversation at Ivy’s Bohemia House in Chesterton. Born in 1952, Bernie grew up on Gary’s northside and attended Holy Angels through eighth grade. An older sister of Valpo mayor Jon Costas was his first crush. On Horace Mann’s varsity swim team for four years, he graduated in 1970 when, fleetingly, the school was fully integrated. Proud to have grown up in the “Steel City,” Bernie said he wouldn’t trade those days for anything. Those were halcyon times indeed in the city’s evolution; too bad they didn’t last. Whites began moving away. While Bernie was at the University of Northern Colorado on a swim scholarship, the neighborhood became rough. Somebody shot their dog. A rock crashed through a window - the final straws for the elder Konradys.
One Region CEO Leah Konrady
Konrady was particularly proud of the role his father Bernard Konrady played while a state senator in the early development of IUN’s med school. Responding to my inquiry, Health and Human Services dean Pat Bankson wrote:
[Philip] Bainbridge and [Bernard] Konrady were trying to establish a med school in NW Indiana. The state responded by establishing a statewide multi-campus system in 1972. Legislators established the Lake County Medical Center Development Agency whose board levied a tax on hotel/motel rooms to support the new branch campus as well as nursing programs at Purdue Cal and Allied Health programs at IUN. The legislation was changed more than a decade ago to direct the tax to support tourism, with a capped amount going to all the programs it had supported before, long after Konrady and Bainbridge had passed on. I met Bernie but not Phil when I came to campus in 1978. The program up to 2013 was a two-year program, not premed, just the preclinical years, so students would go to indy after us for their last two years. Under my leadership we added years 3 and 4 of med school. So yes, they helped establish a well-functioning and stellar med school branch. The tax still exists and supports ours and other health related programs in NW Indiana. We owe the legislators a debt of gratitude for their foresight and making our campus a jewel in the crown of the IUSM system.
Trump said on Fox and Friends,“If I was impeached, the markets would crash and everyone would be poor.” Ray Smock sneered, “He must think the entire economy revolves around him. And how does he explain the amount of poverty in America even with a thriving stock market?” Scott Walsh piped in: “Trump knows nothing about history, but apparently he thinks of himself as a latter-day Louis the 14th. 'I am the state.'”
The “Final Jeopardy” category being “U.S. Historic Sites,” contestants were asked to identify one dedicated in 1864 whose motto is “Our Most Sacred Shrine.” Answer: Arlington National Cemetery. None knew it. Guesses included Gettysburg Cemetery, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Sad. I frequently visited those hallowed grounds while working summers at Boys Village of Maryland during the late 1960s, the reason, I assume, to impress the incarcerated teens.
For a class assignment street-smart Aaron Wiley, an aspiring teacher, wrote about his family background, present situation, hopes for the future, and an unforgettable character, “Old Man Johnson”:
At one time I wanted to be a police officer - something many children aspire to. I do not like school, never did and still do not. Putting my brain into overdrive is taxing and tiresome. What keeps me going is the payoff. I attended Ball State for a few semesters but after switching majors a few times realized I was costing my mom too much money so last summer I decided to attend IUN. I’m an Education major because helping children is something I am passionate about. I’m from the inner city of Chicago and know how children can easily be influenced. I want to reach them before they are sucked into a lifestyle of making quick money through selling drugs or robbing people. My mother, Yolanda, a Chicagoan, was an Illinois hearing officer until she retired in 2005 as a result of her father passing, which really took a toll on her. Certain songs would remind her of him and she’d start crying. My father, Joseph, is from Gary. He worked for the Post-Tribuneand now is a landscaper, cutting grass in the summer and plowing snow in the winter. My dad has ulcers in his legs, which hampers his ability to walk. A stroke has affected his brain. He has a hard time gathering his thoughts. My mom is the middle child. She had a younger sister who passed away at a young age and an older sister Jay. My dad, on the other hand, has nine sisters and a twin brother, all with children. His family is so big I do not know all the names. I am closer to my mom's side. I am also a middle child, sandwiched between younger brother Brandon and Terrance, who has a different father, is 14 years older than me, and lives in California. Brandon is a hospital cook and lives in Indianapolis.
My uncle passed away last year after a four-year battle with cancer. He was a constant presence in my life, taking care of my brother and me while my mom worked. He took and picked us up from school, and planned excursions, letting us experience Chicago from many different points of view. My uncle fought through his health problems as best he could and put on a brave face to the world. Although he never complained, it was obvious that he was slowly withering away. It got to the point where he was hospitalized. Over the summer I had bought tickets for us to see the Bulls play the Celtics. In the hospital he insisted that he’d still be able to go. When it became necessary to insert a ventilator tube down his throat, my uncle demanded that it be removed. After consulting his brothers and sisters, my mom, who had power of attorney, granted his wish. He stayed alive only for a few hours. Near the end he gave me a fist bump. I wept, knowing what it meant.
I began substitute teaching at the Lighthouse Academy in Highland. My first-graders were getting out of their seats, asking me all types of questions, messing with one another, and challenging my authority. The teacher’s assistants helped in a major way because I literally had no control over the students. At the end of the day, I sat in my car for ten minutes contemplating if I really wanted to be a teacher.
I attended the Saint Patrick’s Day parade in Chicago, first time that I can recall. People were wearing all types of green clothing. I arrived about an hour early and noticed many college students in the crowd. When the parade started, before long, I was paying more attention to them acting wild than the boring parade I could’ve seen on TV. Some were climbing trees while others threw plastic water bottles at them. The experience reminded me of a basketball game, better in person than on TV.
Former postal worker Mr. Johnson is like the great-grandfather I never had. I can count on him to make me laugh and raise my spirits. A former army staff sergeant originally from Alabama, he relocated to Chicago because his sister was there. He married three times but has no children. My grandma lives in his building, and they developed a friendship. A few years ago, Mr. Johnson fell and she took him to the hospital before rehabbing in a nursing home. He hated it there, so my grandma brought him home. His legs and arms were stiff and he became wheelchair-bound. I became one of his caregivers. He could still move his legs but he did not possess the strength to walk. He could write and eat but his fingers were permanently in one position due to arthritis. In a way, “Old Man Johnson” was like an adult baby; he could do some things for himself but needed somebody to wash him, brush his teeth, fix his food, and other things. He was cognitively sharp and used to doing things on a schedule (army background). During the week he went to a daycare center for adults. I had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to get him ready. We often talked sports. He loved boxing, football (especially the Packers), and baseball. Although basketball was not his favorite sport he did have a favorite player, Magic Johnson. He knew my love for basketball and being inquisitive, would have me break down what was going on. To sum up, Mr. Johnson has had a profound impact on my life. I admire his easy-going manner and positive outlook. Though 94 years old, his memory is sharp, and I love hearing stories from his childhood.
above, Celia Sanchez; below Ryan Henry
Celia Sanchez’s 2017 journal highlights include getting a tattoo on her left bicep based on an album cover by The Used from Chicago master artist Ryan Henry:
January 9:At 4:30 a.m. I got a wakeup call from my boyfriend since work begins at 6. I am a Human Resources team member at Target in Highland. On weekends I help my dad at at Swap O Rama Flea Market, but this weekend will be going to Nashville to see Avenged Sevenfold, one of my favorite bands – a Christmas present from my boyfriend.
January 10:At work, I finished my portion of the front end of the store – beauty and electronics - and helped a coworker with the rest of the sales floor by 9:30. I took a different route to IUN due to power cables on the highway. The side streets got me to campus almost as quickly.
January 11:My A&P (Anatomy and Physiology) lab instructor is my friend’s mother. I work with both of her daughters at the Highland Target. All three are very nice. After class I rushed home to pack for Nashville and picked up snacks for the 7-hour drive. I went to bed a little after midnight.
January 12:My boyfriend did all the driving to Nashville while I studied and caught up on much-needed sleep. Snow came down hard. Right outside of Nashville; there was a bad accident, closing the expressway and causing an hour delay. Candlewood Suites was very nice and about a 10-minute drive from downtown. At Bridgestone Stadium we saw amazing performances by Avenged Sevenfold, Breaking Benjamin, and Bullet for my Valentine.
January 13: We slept in most of the day. We have pretty crazy schedules so sleep is precious to us. We even cancelled plans to go bar-hopping that night.
January 14: Since we had a room with a kitchen, we bought breakfast food and snacks for late-night cravings.
January 15:We were out on the road by 9 a.m. Once again, it was snowing, even heavier as we neared home. We stopped at a sit-down restaurant and I got home around 8 p.m. surprised to see that my family was having a movie night so I joined them.
January 16: After work I rushed home to change my insulin pump, and then set off for IUN. I finally looked at my phone 15 minutes away from campus and discovered class was cancelled.
January 19:Finally, at last, TGIF (Thank God, Its Friday)! It’s also pay day, and I’m off work. My big plan was to go to Chicago for a tattoo appointment! This will be my third and I’m extremely excited, but a bit nervous. Ryan, my tattoo artist, has done excellent art work before on my foot/ankle/leg, so I was looking forward to seeing what he has in store for me! He presented me what he drew up and I absolutely loved it! It never seeks to amaze me with how he puts his own twist on ideas I give him. My tattoo is inspired by an album cover design by my all-time favorite band, The Used. A red heart is hanging by a noose from a dead tree branch, with the words In Love and Death. This will be my first color tattoo.
January 20: It was very hard and bothersome to sleep because the tattoo was on my inner left bicep. As much as I wanted to roll around and wrap my arms around my blanket, I couldn’t. It’s an open wound and I am a Type 1 diabetic susceptible to infection! I was diagnosed April 13, 2017, two months before my 17thbirthday! I arrived at the emergency room with a blood sugar of 740, a number that can be deadly. The doctors told me if I’d waited another day, I would have been dead or in a coma! I do what I need to do every day to keep myself healthy and alive!
January 21:Sunday fun day at Swap O Rama! I am a vendor with my father and brother. We started almost 6 years ago. There’s good and bad days. We sell tire shine and car air fresheners. This Sunday was slow.
January 22: My blood sugar is pretty high. I swear its becoming harder and harder to wake up mornings. I need to get to bed sooner, but I don’t get home until around 8 and have to eat dinner.
January 26:My tattoo is healing nicely. I’ve gotten so may compliments on it. I spent the evening with my boyfriend. It’s hard for us to find time to see each other, especially when he works nights.
January 28:You may wonder why a Radiological major is taking a history class. Well, it is an elective. I am the only Radiological major in the class.
January 30: I hate changing my insulin pump at work.
February 1:By the time I came into work, the schedule was done. All I had to do was go over Rule Violations and distribute hours between work centers and team members. I left work at noon in order to get to my lab in time. Like every Thursday, I’m eating lunch outside the classroom. I barely have time some days. My lab instructor is aware of my diabetic condition and tells me to come in when I’m ready.
February 2:I needed to be in Chicago by 8 a.m. for a doctor’s appointment. My boyfriend came with me after a long overnight shift. I usually go by myself, but it is nice that he made the effort. I was so nervous waiting for my results. The doctor said the readings were nearly perfect and I was her prized patient. I always do what she asks, unlike many diabetics. Then it was on to my second appointment. The ladies at the front desk were mean and very short with me. A nurse asked me to explain why I was coming in and then cut me off to say that’s something I should be telling the doctor. Finally, the doctor, who seemed in a rush, checked some vitals, asked a few questions, and basically cleared me in a matter of 10 minutes. I think I’ll transfer to the University of Chicago Hospital, where I have amazing doctors who treat their patients with care and kindness. There has not been a single visit where I felt uncomfortable, even with a new doctor.
February 5: I was stressing all day and trying to study in between breaks at work for my first A & P exam. I’ve had test anxiety before but not this intense. Even after it was over, my chest felt really heavy and it was hard to breathe and swallow. I still had my statistics class, and then it took an hour to get home because of all the snow. I almost crashed exiting the expressway.
February 6:My boyfriend took my car in for new wipers and a wash. Then we went out for my lunch break. That was the highlight of my day. It was nice to see him so early in the week.
February 9:My boyfriend and I slept for a bit with our puppy and then went out for lunch. Back home, I focused on cleaning and reorganizing my room, usually neglected throughout the week. It doesn’t get trashed, but things need to be put in their place.
February 14:For Valentine’s Day we had reservations in downtown Chicago at Steak 48. The New York Strip is AMAZING! After that lovely dinner, we spent the night in the city and had a wonderful breakfast.
March 14: With Spring Break at hand I left for Miami with my boyfriend! I seriously need this. This will be our second trip together, and unlike Nashville, we are taking a plane.
March 15: We visited Bayside Market Place, a big outdoor mall. We got food and drinks and sat on the pier. People on boats were partying, and a band was performing. I suddenly spotted Ruben from back home! We said, “hi” and marveled at running into each other. We then spent the day shopping. We also had to go visit Target, because we both work there so why not!
March 16:It was a great day but the water was freezing. We only dipped our feet it. It was more relaxing to just lay out on the beach. We walked through a block featuring foods from around the world. Music was playing, lights were over the trees above us, and there was a huge chandelier at the end of the block. Which I still wonder how that got that to hang up above the trees.
March 17:Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We explored around our hotel and went to a different outside mall, a bit smaller but with the same types of shops. Happy hour started at 4, an hour earlier than back home. There were a bunch of street performers that got everyone involved in a funny skit that about all races getting along.
March 18:Back home in time for sister Rose’s seventeenth birthday party. We arrived bearing gifts so everyone was happy. I slept soundly.
Celia Sanchez with Daniel Nelson
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