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.