Leaves of Grass

“Memories

How sweet the silent backward tracings!

The wanderings as in dreams -

The meditation of old times resumed – 

Theirs loves, joys, persons, voyages.

    “Memories” by Walt Whitman, from “Leaves of Grass”

When Walt Whitman published the 95-page first edition of “Leaves of Grass” in 1855, critics branded it as obscene because of its sexual and homoerotic references. Fellow poet John Greenleaf Whittier reputedly threw his copy into the fire.  During the mid-nineteenth century, the word grass often denoted lesser literary works while leaves referred to pages.  Thus Whitman declared his volume to be of modest importance.  Expanded in later printings, it has since become a classic expression of the American spirit.

Bucky Dent after winning HR

In “14 Back: Hate, Fate and the Summer of ’78,” a Sports Illustratedcover story, Tom Verducci asserted that a New York City newspaper strike was a crucial element in the unprecedented Yankees comeback from 14 games behind to overtake the Red Sox for the American League pennant.  The black-and-white cover was intended to emulate a newspaper front page. The Bronx Bombers’ roster of 40 years ago contained such feuding hotheads as Russell “Bucky” Dent, Albert “Sparky” Lyle, Richard “Goose” Gossage, Jim “Catfish” Hunter, and Reggie “Mr. October” Jackson.  Nearly to a man they hated owner George Steinbrenner and fiery manager Billy Martin. In the clubhouse and at hotel bars the city’s omnivorous beat reporters publicized every rumor and insult they unearthed, often from an inebriated Martin.  For three months, the presses were silent, and the Yankees went on an unlikely run culminating in a Bucky Dent HR (the “Boston Massacre”) in a one-game playoff, followed by a 4-2 World Series triumph over the L.A. Dodgers. Print journalists would never again have such influence over a team’s destiny.

above, Lanes 1978; below, with Rhiman Rotz, Paul Kern, Neil Nommensen

I still have vivid memories of the summer of 1978, especially Phil and Dave’s Little League exploits and parties on the hill at Maple Place. Being a huge Phillies fan, I watched them lose to the Dodgers in the National league championship but then had little interest in the World Series itself.

Anne Balay

I met former colleague Anne Balay at the South Shore Miller station prior to her IUN appearances in Tanice Foltz’s Sociology class followed by a campus talk in the Women’s Studies classroom about “Semi Queer: Inside the World of Gay, Trans, and Black Truck Drivers.”  We picked up two boxes of the hot-off-the-press books that she had mailed to friend Melissa, and I drove her past her old house, still purple with green trimmings.  We passed apartments Anne remembered because a girl who lived there once knocked on her door needing money for a train ticket to join her aunt in Illinois. When Anne accompanied her to pick up a satchel of clothes, she spotted a bunch of unattended kids, including the girl’s little sister.  Anne gave the girl enough money for the two of them.   I drove through Marquette Park (with north winds, Lake Michigan was gorgeous) and the Lake Street commercial district. Reaching campus, Anne had time for a brief visit at the Calumet Regional Archives and a salad at Little Redhawk Café before speaking to 80 attentive Sociology students.

Anne and Tanice; photo by Tome Trajkovski

In her introduction Tanice credited me with mentoring Anne when she embarked on her previous oral history “Steel Closets: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Steelworkers.”  After Anne spoke without notes about her innovative research and fascinating discoveries, students peppered her with questions, belying the absurd claim by the superior responsible for her dismissal four-years ago that her teaching was inadequate for tenure.  She told the class that gender identity was fluid, like colors of the rainbow, rather than rigidly binary.  She described long-haul trucking as exhausting but often exhilarating and a good fit for marginalized groups unwelcome in other professions.  During the past 40 years, however, onerous government regulations have fallen almost exclusively on drivers rather than on their corporate bosses, resulting in escalating  work force turnover. Asked what she’d be researching next, Anne replied, “Sex workers.”

Anne's talk and book signing; photos by Tome Trajkovski

above, Alyssa and Gabby; below trans truckers Dana and Mary Lou

Among the overflow crowd attending Anne’s 1 o’clock appearance were several lesbian and trans truckers interviewed for “Semi Queer,” as well as someone working on a documentary about the trucking industry. A half-dozen faculty were on hand, including Bill Allegrezza and Jonathyne Briggs, whom Anne and I used to have lunch with, and numerous former students of hers.  Two I’d known from auditing her Women’s Studies class were Portage special education teacher Alyssa Black and Kaden Alexander, whom four years ago I had known as a transitioning woman.  During Q and A Ron Cohen, noting that “Steel Closets” had led to a dramatic change in the United Steelworkers of America position toward bullying, wondered whether “Semi Queer” might have comparable impact on the Teamsters. Unfortunately, Anne replied, fewer than 8 percent of truckers belong to unions, due to a variety of economic, political, and demographic factors. When asked about HIV rates among truckers, Anne said that it was impossible to know since, without health insurance, most don’t see doctors.  

Chancellor Bill Lowe showed up, a nice touch that Anne appreciated.  In fact, her stellar performances provided a degree of closure after her ordeal of four years ago.  Afterwards, helping myself to a sandwich and fruit in the Robin Hass Birky Center next door, I thanked Tanice Foltz for arranging the events. Kaden, sporting a beard and speaking with a deep voice, told me that our mutual friend Amanda Marie had come in from Glacier National Park last week for his wedding.      

The televised Senate Judiciary Committee appearances of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Cavanaugh held the attention of the nation. Having accused Cavanaugh of sexual assault while at a party in high school, Basey Ford came off as totally believable while the Judge ranted and raved about the unfairness of the hearings and refused to endorse an FBI investigation that might clear up what really happened.  This heated exchange with Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar took place, for which Cavanaugh later apologized:

 Klobuchar: "So you're saying there's never been a case where you drank so   much that you didn't remember what happened the night before, or part of what happened?"

 Kavanaugh: "You're asking about blackout. I don't know. Have you?"

 Klobuchar: "Could you answer the question, judge?  You have -- that's not happened, is that your answer?"

 Kavanaugh: "Yeah, and I'm curious if you have."

 Klobuchar: "I have no drinking problem, judge."

 Kavanaugh: "Nor do I."

 

Perhaps to impress Trump, Cavanaugh modeled his behavior on how Clarence Thomas had reacted 27 years before when faced with sexual harassment charges from her assistant Anita Hill. The performance made him come off as injudicious, however; he’d have been better off admitting he sometimes got drunk at parties and may have stumbled upon Christine and pushed her onto a bed but without the intent to rape her.  Earlier, Cavanaugh admitted partaking immature high school behavior which now makes him cringe.  But, just as her Basel Ford said she was 100 percent certain Cavanaugh had pinned her down on a bed, groped her, and put his hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming, he claimed to be equally certain he was not the perpetrator.  Next day, the Judiciary Committee voted 11-0, on straight party lines to send Cavanaugh’s name forward, but three Republicans joined Democrats in insisting on an FBI investigation prior to the final vote. Had Cavanaugh from the beginning humbly apologized for any actions that may have traumatized her, the gambit might have worked. Now he’s opened up a potential can of worms.

Discussing chapter 3 of Babbitt with James, I mentioned that envy (of the more exciting lifestyle of the Doppelbraus next door neighbors) and temptation (for bobbed-haired secretary Miss McGoun) were major themes, as aging businessmen in the 1920s feared domestication and emasculation that could not be assuaged by drinking beer, smoking cigars, gambling around a poker table or driving the latest model car.  Babbitt passed 9-foot billboards on the way to work featuring sexy ads for tobacco products and talcum powder, now primarily used while changing babies’ diapers but a century ago also a men’s product to apply to the groin area. Babbitt’s life may have seemed like a paragon of bourgeois virtue, but dissatisfaction was near the surface and rebellion not far from the horizon.  As Babbitt said to himself, “Oh, Lord, sometimes I’d like to quit the whole game.”

I have never stomached cigars, just filtered menthol cigarettes, and didn’t start drinking beer until college but enjoyed getting tipsy at fraternity parties as a way to relax and relieve stress but never blacked out or tried to get girls drunk. Like Cavanaugh, I did some cringeworthy things but never exposed myself or sought to trap women in a bedroom as he allegedly did. Some Bucknell frat parties featured a grape juice, soda water, and vodka concoction nicknamed Purple Passions that may have incapacitated unsuspecting coeds. Compared to other “Animal House” “jock” fraternities, Sig Ep was rather tame, at least in the early 1960s.

In Ticket to Ride: Pennsylvania, I finished second to host Jef Halberstadt, playing too cautiously.  Had I taken 2 more Pennsylvania Railroad stocks rather than the Erie line, I’d have won.

Friends with You

“i ain't lookin' for you to feel like me,
see like me or be like me.
all i really want to do
is, baby, be friends with you.”

         Bob Dylan, “All I Really Want to Do”

Listening to World Party’s 1986 debut album “Private Revolution,” which contains “Ship of Fools,” I was surprised to hear Karl Wallinger doing a dead-on Dylan impression on the 1964 classic “All I Really Want to Do,” successfully covered by Cher and The Byrds.  One line goes, “I don’t want to define you or confine you,”as Dylan playfully claims to reject possessiveness or machismo.  Good luck with that. 

Near the end of her extended visit to Indiana, Toni’s sister Marianne dropped in with daughter Lisa, back from a twentieth-anniversary tour of the Canadian Rockies.  She and Fritz were the youngest couple by 20 years (about a third hailed from the Chesterton-Valpo area).  They hiked about six miles per day (Lisa wears an odometer) and were especially impressed with Calgary, located in Alberta province, which boasts a population well over a million and a modern skyline.  Chicago sports jocks who cover Blackhawks games there disparage the place (Les “The Grobber” Grobstein insists on pronouncing the name Cal-GARY) as a cow town. It’s famous for its annual rodeo, the Calgary Stampede.

At Culver’s with James after he bowled at Inman’s, we discussed Sinclair Lewis’ “Babbitt,” which he is reading for senior Advanced English.  He’s finished the first couple chapters and recognized its satirical intent.  One way to look at the novel is to analyze similarities and differences between the 1920s and now.  More interesting, however, are the changes Babbitt undergoes during the 46-year-old’s midlife crisis.  Before awakened by his ultra-modern alarm clock with cathedral chime, intermittent alarm, and phosphorescent dial, Babbitt dreams of being gay and valiant, not stuck in a stale marriage, boring job, and dull routine.  As he admits to himself, “Oh, Lord, sometimes I’d like to quit the whole game.”  I didn’t have to explain to James that to Babbitt, gay meant carefree and fun-loving.  He got a kick out of Babbitt’s annoyance at his two teens for immature behavior similar to his own.

My fantasy is to live on a Hawaiian beach with Toni (she once wanted to be a beachcomber) and friends nearby.  As World Party put it, “don’t wake me ‘cos I’m dreaming of my Hawaiian Island world.”  While a grad student at the Mãnoa campus, I loved to dance to Hawaiian music, body surf, and explore new beaches.

Thinking back a quarter century, I cannot recall experiencing anything akin to a midlife crisis.  I sometimes flirted with women but never students.  Nor was I tempted to indulge in an affair, unlike a straight-laced former marine we knew in grad school who left his wife for a grad student. Aside from teaching and research, I channeled excess energy and urge for adventure into sports and world travel.  Phil and Dave were off to college and the wild parties of the Seventies (the years of the “Private Revolution,” to quote World Party) were, for the most part, a thing of the past.  On a train ride to Paris, I turned down an invitation from Aussies to join them at a sporting house but did attend an X-rated variety show in Amsterdam.  At a softball teammate’s bachelor party, I was disappointed when the groom’s father paid for two strippers and moved elsewhere when they strapped on a hose-like two-headed dildo.

Reverend Pfleger at IU Northwest, May 2012

Weather was seasonally cool but sunny with low humidity for the condo picnic hosted by Mary and Ray Garza. In addition to chicken and pulled pork provided by the board, on hand was delicious lasagna plus numerous salads and tasty desserts.  Neighbor George Schott, who performs weekend mass at Holy Angels and brought both salad and a cherry pie, mentioned that charismatic Chicago priest Michael Pfleger recently spoke at a large revival in Gary.  A community activist, Pfleger has frequently clashed with the church hierarchy for supporting the ordination of women and priests marrying and adopting several boys, including a tragic victim of gun violence.  I told George about hearing civil rights leaders Jesse Jackson and James Farmer talk at IU Northwest.  During Q and A I got Farmer to describe being a Freedom Rider in 1961 facing a mob in Jackson, Mississippi.  My hope was that, like in the series “Eyes on the Prize,” he’d sing the verse that steadied the bus passengers’ nerves: “Hallelujah, ain't it fine? Hallelujah I'm a- travelin' down Freedom's main line.”  His fine baritone voice still powerful, he did not disappoint.

“The People vs. Larry Flynt” (1996) starred Woody Harrelson and Courtney Love as Althea Leasure Flynt, a former stripper and tragic figure; Flynt himself appeared as an uptight judge in an obscenity case.  The film concentrates on a lawsuit brought by the Reverend Jerry Falwell for a satirical Hustler magazine cartoon suggesting the evangelist had carnal relations with his mother in an outhouse. The only hint of Hustler’s primary porn breakthrough – wide open beaver – was a camera shoot when Larry urges Althea to spread her legs.  More compelling was “Darkest Hour” (2017), with Gary Oldman portraying Prime Minister Winston Churchill squaring off with conservatives Neville Chamberlain and Viscount Halifax, who sought to enter peace negotiations with Hitler in the spring of 1940.  The Western European continent was being overrun by the Nazis and an America not yet willing to come to Great Britain’s aid.  The fate of the world may well have rested on Churchill’s decision to hold on to the bitter end whatever the consequences.  Like the film “Dunkirk, it concludes with Churchill’s “fight them on the beaches” speech to the House of Commons.”

 Times photo by John J. Watkins

A lawsuit brought by transgender Carmen Carter-Lawson claims Gary police harassed her while she was in the police department women’s room.  Evidently, an officer banged on the door demanding she exit on the grounds that she had not yet undergone full sex change.  According to Carter-Lawson, “I told him, ‘Are you seriously saying this? This is sexual harassment. You can get in trouble.' And he really didn’t care. He made a big scene trying to justify why he was pulling me out of the bathroom. People were all around, and he’s literally making a scene of my personal business.” Previously, Carmen had successfully sued the police for arresting her and impounding her vehicle while a police recruit for claiming, in a call to the Lake County dispatcher after her car broke down, that she was a reserve officer. In that case, her suit claims, “the Gary Police Department and officials within, purposefully colluded to disqualify me from becoming a Gary Police officer. However, without justifiable explanation, Gary Police Department disqualified me.”

Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson hosted a City Rebirth Round Table geared toward reconnecting former residents with their hometown.  Not surprisingly, most participants were African Americans since it has been nearly a half-century since most prominent whites moved away. Many ex-pats in attendance were eager to re-establish ties and become friends of the city.

Steve Hannagan with actress Ann Sheridan in 1951, 2 years before he died at age 53 

Michael K. Townsley’s informativeTraces contribution, “Steve Hannagan: ‘The Prince of Press Agents,’” describes the Hoosier publicist’s career as an advertising genius, unequaled at understanding the tastes and longings of American consumers. As promoter for Carl Fisher’s Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Hannagan perceived that the general public preferred reading about the lives of drivers than race cars.  He associated Fisher’s Miami Beach resort with bathing beauties and high society celebrities.  He devised the unlikely name Sun City for Averell Harriman’s Idaho ski resort, and promoted Coca Cola through catchy jingles and songs (i.e., “Rum and Coca Cola”) and having the soft drink turn up in movies, taking advantage of connections with Hollywood stars and moguls.  Among his clients: Daryl Zanuck, Tom Mix, Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Gary Cooper, and Jack Benny.  Townsley summarized the so-called Hannagan method:

  Tell the truth, be bold but use finesse when appropriate, place your product in front of the audience, find a compelling theme that tells a story, help others who will help you sell a product, get out of the way of a story, and write like a journalist.

A Traces article on physicist Melba Phillips, a collaborator with J. Robert Oppenheimer on developing the atomic bomb and renown educator, concentrates on her undergraduate years at Oakland City College in southeastern Indiana but briefly notes her ouster from Brooklyn College for standing up to “the congressional bullies of the Joe McCarthy era.”  Examining the matter, I discovered that she refused to testify before New York’s Security Activities Control Board regarding so-called communist infiltration of the Teachers Union and thereby violating a law mandating termination of any New York City employee who invoked the Fifth Amendment. Brooklyn College subsequently apologized for its action and created a scholarship in her name.

Pleased with my three NFL teams (Skins, Eagles, Bears) all winning, as well as the Cubbies, my sports highlight of the day, nonetheless, was Tiger Woods, 42, winning his eightieth PGA tournament after a five-year hiatus marred by injuries.  Afterwards, Woods said that the low point was not being able to walk or lie in bed without pain.  Evidently pain-free, he proclaimed himself just happy competing at something he loves and that winning was simply icing on the cake.  Asked if players on the tour fear him, he replied that most only remember him from TV and are delighted to be competing against him.  I rehashed highlights with Chuck Logan in California. Sam Snead, winner of a record 82 PGA events, made the U.S. Open cut at age 61 and continued to play well into his eighties.

 

Jim Spicer (above, with Elaine) asked: Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during his root canal?  He wanted to transcend dental medication.

Chief Wayne James; NWI Times photo by Kale Will

IU Northwest Police Chief Wayne James has been named to the 40 Under 40 list of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.  The honoree’s grandfather, St. John Baptist Church pastor Julius James, was a close friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. and hosted the civil rights leader during visits to Gary.  During the 1960s Rev. James helped organize the Combined Concerned Citizens on Open Occupancy (CCCOOO) and the “Gary Freedom Movement,” the latter after City Council initially voted down an Omnibus Civil Rights bill.  A shopping boycott and demonstrations against groups  opposed to the ordinance, including the Chamber of Commerce and Gary National Bank (whose branch manager Paul Guist had cast the decisive Council vote) resulted in its ultimate passage. Chief Wayne James recalled that his grandfather was one of the first African Americans to move into Glen Park and faced discrimination but weathered the storm. Reverend James died when Wayne was just 14 but was a huge influence.  “I’m the man I am today because of him,”he told Sarah Reese ofThe Times: “He was just always giving, always serving, doing it because you want to do it, not because you have to do it.”

At bridge Charlie Halberstadt and I started slowly, being unfamiliar with each other’s bidding tendencies, but got high boards on each of the final three hands, culminating with making a small slam. My partner overcalled Judy Selund’s 2-Diamond preempt with 2 Hearts, and Mary Kocevar on my right said 3 Diamonds.  Holding King spot of Hearts, King Jack x x in Spades, 4 little Diamonds, and a Club Ace, I went 3 Hearts, mainly to keep the bidding open but afraid to mention Spades. Instead of going to game, Charlie raised to 6 Hearts.  I gulped and, using a Dick Hagelberg line, joked, “Well, it’s the last hand.”  Charlie took every trick.

 damage in Hong Kong from Typhoon Mangkhut, Sept. 17, 2018

Terry Bauer’s daughter’s family survived Hong Kong’s worst typhoon in 30 years. The top floors of their 33-story apartment building were swaying back and forth.  One of his grandkids made his international school soccer traveling team and will compete in Thailand, Singapore and, in the spring, Sweden. While he takes public transportation to practices, many teammates arrived in chauffeured Ferraris.  Terry’s stories remind me of letters Joanell Ackerman wrote when she and Dean moved to Hong Kong.  Back from a family reunion in West Virginia, Helen Boothe suggested that a relative with arthritis try marijuana and got this reply: “I plan to in January when medical marijuana becomes legal.”

 1929 Hammond High seniors, Lester Cornwall top row, second from left

Barbara Mort donated a 1929 Hammond High Yearbook called “The Dunes” to the Archives.  It contains an account of the school year in diary form, employing slang and the contemporary tendency to capitalize for emphasis in that hopeful time before the Wall Street Crash and great depression.  Here’s how it begins and ends:  

  September 4: My, I was ALL-of-a DOOah about coming back to school and it seems everyone was WHIFfling and BURBLING with JOY at the prospect and no less!  Everything has been perfectly SWISS, especially since this perfectly FAScinating Les Cornwall accepted the presidency of the Association at the first auditorium session.  Oh, how we girls adore presidents, but he is so inDIF’rent, sort of, to our GIRLISH BLANDISHMENTS – can you cope with it?

  . . .

  June 11: The juniors can CERtainly THROW A MEAN prom.  Gosh, the orchestra was so hot, it sizzled. But, my DEAR, Nobody WAXed so kittenish all of a sudden as the DIGnified SENIORS, no less!  It was simply KILLING to be HOPping GIDdily about all evening tho, so when it all ended and “Home, Sweet Home” was played, we were SIMply defunct on our feet.

  June 14: “Teacher let the MONkeys out, and etc., etc. ____.”  Anyways, EVERYbody is making RAZoo and my job is DONE.  AU REVOIR.

Bucknell roommate Rich Baker won’t be joining me in Montreal as we had hoped.  He expressed disappointment at not being able to “see me in action,” so I sent him this copy of my prepared remarks on “Talking to Strangers: Teaching Ethical Oral History Methods to Undergraduates” for a roundtable organized by Anne Balay:

  My oral assignments have usually involved family members, not strangers, and dealt with such themes as ethnic roots, school memories, work experiences, race relations, and stories from past eras, such as the Great Depression, the World War II Homefront, the Postwar Age of Anxiety, the Teen Years of the 1950s, and the like.  The Eighties issue was titled “The Uncertainty of Everyday Life.”  For a project dealing with Vietnam veterans, students had surprising success with strangers they located at American Legion halls.  Contrary to popular belief, veterans were often, especially after a few drinks, eager to share their stories with someone truly interested who was recording the testimony for posterity.   The final product, they were told, would become part of an Archives collection, be published in a future issue of Steel Shavingsmagazine, and therefore constitute an important social history source for the blue-collar Calumet Region of Northwest Indiana.   

  A recent Indiana History class interviewed strangers who bowled in a mixed senior league (containing men and women). I suggested students accompany their subjects to a local alley and inquire how bowling experiences had changed over time. For example, I competed in a Sheet and Tin League once composed of 16 steelworker teams representing different Gary Sheet and Tin Mill departments.  My team, the Electrical Engineers, was the last vestige of an era when the steel industry was labor intensive.  Some elderly bowlers started as pin setters and kept their own score without aid of a computer. Mid-century hard rubber and polyester bowling balls were gradually replaced by modern polyurethane and hybrid models.

oral historian Michael Frisch, author of "A Shared Authority"

  My methodology begins with the assumption that, ideally, oral histories become shared experiences. I draw on the proven insights of mentors Studs Terkel, Michael Frisch, Ronald Grele, Alessandro Portelli, Donald Ritchie, and, more recently, Anne Balay, who started as a protégé and taught me that intimate oral exchanges sometimes require a degree of flirtation (for lack of a better word).  Having students interact with active seniors often counteracts misconceptions about the elderly. My participation forty years ago in an East Chicago, Indiana, mental health center “Life History” oral history project was an eye-opening experience, and students of mine researching the history of Portage, Indiana, similarly benefitted from a visit to Bonner Senior Center.  Expecting to find codgers in wheelchairs, folks were participating in an exercise class and playing ping pong and pinochle.  In fact, several students, both male and female, were hit on.

  In Jyväskylä, Finland, for the 2018 IOHA conference, I was conversing with scholars from Australia, Ireland, and South Africa who had interviewed trauma victims of molestation and Rwandan genocide survivors.  “What are you working on?” one asked.  Senior bowlers and duplicate bridge players, I replied with just a hint of hesitation.   In my defense, there is considerable scholarly interest in the decline since World War II of volunteer associations as well as in the contemporary lifestyle of aging Baby Boomers. Virtually no college students play bridge nowadays, but since many subjects were retired teachers, several gave lessons to their interviewers.  On my advice, students visited bridge games, where they were warmly welcomed.  Several lasting inter-generational friendships resulted.

  Most non-American cultures wouldn’t question the validity of learning from old people, and hopefully students will have that insight re-enforced.  They asked Northwest Indiana bowlers and duplicate bridge players about ethnic roots, places where they’ve resided (in some cases, Flight Paths to suburbia), school and work experiences, and about their social lives in retirement.  Future scholars may legitimately ask, “What, no questions about sex and gender roles?”  Actually, some interviews breached that subject, discovering, for example, that romances, not surprisingly, have blossomed at the lanes and card tables.  All-male male bowling leagues often use erotic playing cards for side poker pots.  End-of-season banquets now frequently include family members but once featured strippers. One bit of Electrical Engineers folklore concerns a 75-year-old who succumbed to pneumonia soon after the bowling banquet.  Teammates blamed an exotic dancer named Tonya for getting him over-heated after she thrust her bare breasts into his face steaming up his spectacles and who knows what else.

Baker jokingly inquired whether he’d met Tonya during his and Susan's last visit, referring, I think, to a well-endowed waitress who served the four of us at Miller Bakery Café.

Los Campos

“Mexicans by the carload, by hundreds, by thousands, are being brought to the Chicago-Calumet district to work in the steel mills and other industrial plants.”  Gary Post-Tribune, 1923

 Isaac Villapondo in Inland Steel's 76-inch finishing mill, Sept.27, 1946, from Calumet Regional Archives (CRA)

Rafael Rodriguez and Heriberto Villareal at Inland's No. 2 open hearth, December 1953, CRA collection

The current issue of Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History contains an article by educator Douglas Dixon entitled, “Los Campos: Los Latinos y La Via de Indiana” that cites Ed Escobar and my “Forging a Community: The Latino Experience in Northwest Indiana, 1919-1975” as a source and makes use of photos from the Calumet Regional Archives.  Explaining the title, Dixon explained: “Los Campos may signify farm fields or family names. Los Latinos y La Via de Indiana may be a path from Indiana or the Indiana way.”  Mexican immigrants came to Indiana both as unskilled industrial workers, primarily in Lake County, and as agricultural laborers harvesting apples, strawberries, tomatoes, and other seasonal crops. During the past two decades, the Hoosier Latino population had increased by 82 percent as a result of migratory patterns and high birth rates. Dixon wrote:

  La familia de Los Campos brought a set of values that have meshed well with those all Hoosiers hold dear – a work ethic, respect for farm labor and produce, the importance of family, business savvy, volunteerism, and piety.  Latino/a values such as personalism (heightened sense of each person’s value), simpatico (avoiding confrontation), respeto (high regard for older or high-status persons), and familism may be less familiar to various groups in Indiana, but endearing nevertheless.  Other central values – collectivism (a greater sense of interdependence), power distance (unquestioning deference based on status), gendered aspects of familism, religious fatalism, or a relaxed view of time – may generate the potential for conflict.

Dixon focused on the Campos family, whose patriarch Felipe brought his family to Indiana in 1950 as agriculture laborers. Because they traveled from farm to farm in several states, son Noe Campos received little schooling; after he obtained work in a machine shop, the family settled permanently in Ligonier, a small town in northeast Indiana. Noe Jr. graduated from high school, obtained a white-collar job in a bank, and became an American citizen at age 24. Noe Sr. preached at Templo Betel, an evangelical congregation, and his son frequently plays the accordion and sings at religious services and ethnic functions.

Traces editor Ray Boomhower eulogized the late Wilma Gibbs Moore (above), a gifted storyteller who for over 30 years served as Indiana Historical Society program archivist for African American history until retiring in 2017.  She helped guide to publication my scholarly articles on Carleton Hatcher and Reverend L.K. Jackson. I enjoyed chatting with her at Indiana Association of Historians conferences.  A 1969 graduate of Indianapolis Crispus Attucks H.S., she recalled: “I went to school with the colored kids taught by the colored teachers.”  She once described her life’s work as “toiling in the Indiana history vineyard helping others find materials for their storybooks.”  R.I.P., good lady.  Thanks for your service on behalf of Clio, the muse of history.

 Arnautoff self-portrait in "City Life" mural in San Francisco

The current Journal of American History (JAH) contains a review by IU Northwest Labor Studies professor William Mello of Robert W. Cherny’s “Victor Arnautoff and the Politics of Art.”  Born in Russia, the son of an Orthodox priest, Arnautoff (1896-1979) became part of San Francisco’s leftist arts scene during the late 1920s. Moving to Mexico, he became an assistant to muralist Diego Rivera. Back in California, he produced controversial murals in fresco for the Pala Alto Medical Clinic (showing a doctor examining a bare-breasted patient) and San Francisco’s Coit Tower (including a self-portrait near a newspaper rack of leftist publications).  Mello wrote: “Inspired by his growing commitment to socialism, Arnautoff infused his portraits of everyday working-class life with political commentary.”  He taught art at Stanford, whose faculty resisted rightwing efforts during the Red Scare to have him terminated. In retirement Arnautoff returned to the Soviet Union, where he created tile mosaics for public buildings. 

The JAH also contains a review of Robert Justin Goldstein’s “Discrediting the Red Scare: The Cold War Trials of James Kutcher, ‘The Legless Veteran.’”  The son of Russian immigrants, Kutcher joined the Socialist Workers Party in 1938 at age 26 and, inducted into the U.S. Army, lost both legs to German mortar fire in Italy during the 1943 Battle of San Pietro. In 1949 the Veterans Administration loyalty board suspended him without pay from his position as a file clerk due to his political belief and past associations. It took seven years of legal fights, during which time he lost his disability benefits, before a U.S. Appeals Court restored his job.

 Terry Kegebein

Thanks to good series by Terry Kegebein and Mel Nelson, the Electrical Engineers took all 3 games from Fab 4.  Nearby I noticed Delia’s Uncle Phil Vera bowling right-handed again, after two years as a southpaw following a stroke.  He still hasn’t recovered full strength and uses a light 12-pound ball. Former student Jin Daubenhower, a retired History teacher, came by Hobart Lanes to say hello and will be coaching boys eighth-grade basketball at Kankakee Valley.  He told me, “You’re the reason I became a teacher.”  Nice.

Interviewed after George Goeway and Todd Fisher (above) scored a 72.69 percent in Lynwood, Goeway told bridge Newsletter editor Barbara Walczak: “Todd is fun to travel with – he is a Napoleonic scholar, writer, Civil War reenactor, foodie, and enjoys a good microbrew.”  Todd described their high performance: “We doubled close contracts to good effect, when our opponents got “over their skis.”  It led to one lady “walking the dog” on us and making 5 on 4 Clubs doubled, but this was the exception.”Joe Chin introduced the pair 13 years ago prior to a regional in Toronto.

Bridge buddy and former bank manager Barbara Mort visited the Archives to donate biographical materials and was accompanied by Asher Yates, a retired Hollywood film editor who moved to Northwest Indiana 20 years ago and won an EMMY in 1983 as a sound editor for the TV movie “The Executioner’s Song” starring Tommy Lee Jones as murderer Gary Gilmore.  The previous year, he was nominated for the TV series “Marco Polo.” Yates volunteers at the National Lakeshore’s Paul H. Douglas Center for Environmental Education.