Labor Conflicts

“Each major strike forces the state to decide whether it represents workers or employers.” Erik Loomis

 West Virginia teachers strike in 2018

“A History of America in Ten Strikes” by Erik Loomis contends that labor strife has been a constant of capitalism, yet it receives scant attention (“a footnote at best”) in accounts of recent American history or public discussion.  The book opens with an account of the successful February 2018 West Virginia direct action involving 34,000 teachers who were defying the law in a right-to-work state due to their dire conditions on account of actions by Republican officeholders who drastically underfunded public schools while supporting corporate tax breaks and for-profit, privately-run, nonunion charter schools. One placard read, “Will Work for Insurance,” a take-off on indigents who advertise, “Will Work for Food.”  Loomis argues that both political action and union vigilance, including, if necessary, the use of strikes, are vital or order to combat employers and, too often, their governmental allies.  In the chapter “Take Back Power,” he concluded that true freedom cannot come without “economic emancipation”  and offers this bleak assessment of  our uncertain times:

  We live in what I call the New Gilded Age.  Today, we are recreating the terrible income inequality and economic divides that dominated the late-nineteenth century and created the violent responses that included the Haymarket bombings and the assassin of President William McKinley.  Once again, we have a society where our politicians engage in open corruption, where unregulated corporate capitalism leads to boom-and-bust economies that devastate working people, where the Supreme Court limits legislation and regulations meant to create  a more equal society, and where unions are barely tolerated.  Life has become more unpleasant and difficult for most Americans in our lifetime.

 Oakland workers strike in 1946

I was familiar with most conflicts Loomis analyzed, including the tragic 1981 Air Traffic Controllers work stoppage but not the 1946 Oakland (CA) General Strike. The latter commenced when at Kahn’s department store clerks struck for tolerable working conditions and a living wage. After local police used strong-arm tactics against the women, over 100,000 AFL-affiliated workers walked off the job in sympathy.  Several days later, with the Oakland Tribunered-baiting rank-and-file leaders, corrupt Teamster boss Dave Beck ordered members back to work.  Faint-of-heart AFL International leaders accepted a compromise that did not address the retail clerks’ grievances nor gain prior approval from local leaders.  The Kahn employees kept up the battle for five more months before capitulating with most demands unmet.

Post-World War II strikes were, like in 1919, a result of inflation and, in Loomis’ words, “an economy that had created large profits for companies during the war but few material gains for workers.”  1946 job actions affected 4.6 laborers, including steel, rubber, shipyard, and auto workers.  Successful general strikes in Stamford, CT, Lancaster, PA, and Rochester, NY, made business leaders and their governmental allies, in Loomis’ words, “determined to reverse this aggressive union tide.”  Nowhere was the unholy alliance more overwhelming than Oakland.

Ed Sadlowski

Loomis titles his chapter on the 1972 Lordstown wildcat strike at a G.M. Chevy Vega plant near Youngstown, Ohio, “Workers in a Rebellious Age.”  The civil rights and antiwar movements had divided labor’s ranks generationally, and the primarily young automakers at Lordstown, concerned with dignity issues and hating being mere cogs on assembly lines, wanted more, according to J.D. Smith, treasurer of the UAW local, “than just a job for 30 years.” After plant managers introduced a speed-up (requiring 8 separate operations in 36 seconds) and compulsory overtime, rank-and-file workers responded with various forms of sabotage and, in defiance of union leaders, a wildcat strike that lasted 18 days.  UAW honchos stepped in and eventually negotiated a settlement that contained sparse gains for those on the shop floor, and in the years ahead autoworkers would fight rear-guard actions simply to hold on to their jobs. Loomis wrote:

   The Lordstown factory stayed open, but the UAW started giving back their hard-won gains in wages and benefits in contracts by the early 1980s in order to incentivize GM and other auto companies to stay in the United States.  Despite this, hundreds of auto and auto-supple plants have closed in the past 40 years.

Loomis links Lordstown to democracy movements that erupted in the steelworkers and mineworkers unions that enjoyed temporary but not long-lasting success.  He mentions Eddie Sadlowski’s unsuccessful 1977 bid to become President of the United Steelworkers of America and frequently cites Jefferson Cowie’s “Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class” (2010).

Just yesterday GM announced that, despite massive recent tax breaks, it is laying off 14,700 workers at five assembly plants, including Lordstown.  The official explanation: the weakening market for the Chevy Cruze. Trump is huffing and puffing and saying mean things against about GM CEO Mary Barra but will likely not do anything harmful to the corporation.

NWI Times photos of 2015 steelworkers rally by John J. Watkins

 

“Getting into the streets to stand up for our rights,”Loomis wrote,“must play a central role in labor struggles.”In the third edition of “Gary: A Pictorial History” a page is devoted to a 2015 steelworkers rally outside city hall, when some 3,000 ArcelorMittal and U.S. Steel union members and their supporters, many carrying signs reading “FAIR CONTRACT NOW,” were opposing proposed cutbacks to their health insurance.  Addressing the crowd were Mayors Karen Freeman-Wilson, James Snyder (Portage), and Brian Snedecor (Hobert).  After prolonged negotiations, a new contract was approved that included no pay raises nor coverage of health cost increases, especially hard-hit were retirees.  Local 1010 President Tom Hargrove commented: “We were bargaining in some real bad times for steel.”

The November 2018 issue of Duneland Today contains histories of the Porter County Museum (PO CO MUSE), the Duneland School Corporation, Westchester library, and the cities of Porter and Chesterton.  None mentioned labor strife, Native Americans (unwelcome after white settlement), or African Americans (unwelcome until very recently). Prior to its incorporation in 1899, I learned, Chesterton went by several other names, including Coffee Creek and Calumet, and there is uncertainty over the origin of its present name.  One theory is that Chesterton was derived from Westchester County.

 Thanksgiving photos by Miranda and Angie

Our Thanksgiving dinner at the condo took place on Friday with 20 people in attendance, including good friends Charlie Halberstadt and Naomi Goodman.  Pregnant Tamiya Towns, Dave’s former student, who calls me Poppa Lane, told them that she planned on naming her baby Charley should it be a girl or Charles (after the father) if a boy.  Phil, Dave, Josh, and I had several lively euchre games; the evening was devoted to Werewolf, which an unlimited number can play.  By days end there was hardly any turkey left but enough ham for a few lunches.  I’m glad the downstairs fridge was stocked with Yuengling lager.  

Over the long weekend I watched numerous NFL games.  The Bears won despite missing starting QB Mitch Trubisky, and the Eagles barely beat the lowly Giants.  Without injured QB Alex Smith Washington bowed to the hated Dallas Cowboys, whose wide receiver Amari Cooper nonetheless earned me 30 Fantasy points thanks to a 90-yard TD reception, enough to knock Dave out of the playoffs.  Near the end zone Cooper nearly went out of bounds. During the review I was hoping the TD counted.  Thanks to spectacular late games by running backs Dalvin Cook and Lamar Miller, I had the most points of all 8 teams -  and that was with Todd Gurley on a bye week.  The evening news covered recreational marijuana now being available in additional states, emphasizing the long lines that ensued.  Evidently, juiced up gummy bears are an extremely popular item. Hard to believe the penalties once imposed for pot possession. Some are still paying the price.

Appearing on MSNBC was Rudy Valdez, director of “The Sentence,” who made an eloquent plea for getting rid of mandatory sentencing, as happened to his sister, incarcerated on vague conspiracy charges as a result od crimes committed by her then-boyfriend.  There is bipartisan Congressional support for such legislation, but reactionary Republicans are dragging their heels.  I told Michigan State professor Juan Coronado about “The Sentence.”  He replied that the victim is from Lansing.

 abandoned Masonic Temple in Hammond by Kyle Telechan

Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club members

Some 297 emails awaited me at IUN.  Most were unimportant, but John Attinasi reported that horn player Art Hoyle, 89, enjoyed our interview and had additional anecdotes about performing in the segregated South.  Times columnist Joseph Pete sought to speak with me about a proposed book about Hammond “Haunts.”  I advised visiting the Archives.  If so, I’ll show him Lance Trusty’s pictorial history and other sources, including the “Urban Legends” exhibit booklet that contains a photo by Larry Mickow of the abandoned Masonic Temple.  VU History prof Heath Carter wants to have lunch with Ron Cohen and me in December. He was recently in the news for protesting the use of Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club members as Salvation Army bell ringers because some wore “Aryan” patches.  In response to the furor, the charitable organization deemed that the Hell’s Angels violated their dress code and would no longer be soliciting donations although I don’t doubt they were effective at it.   

 Dick Flood

Ram Prasad

Barb Walczak’s bridge Newsletterwelcomed two newcomers, VA doc Ram Prasad and retired William and Mary prof Dick Flood.  The feature is a reminder that our ranks are being replenished as more Baby Boomers become seniors.

Burned Again

“We must make our choice.  We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we can’t have both.” Justice Louis Brandeis

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jewish immigrants from Prague, Bohemia (now the capitol of the Czech Republic), Brandeis, known as the “People’s Lawyer,” served on the Supreme Court for 23 years beginning in 1916.  In the course of a distinguished legal career, he championed the rights of workers, social justice, freedom of speech, and the right to privacy.

 Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rourke

I learned about Ben Fountain in a New York Review of Books essay by Adam Hochschild entitled “American Deviltry.” Best known for the novel “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” (2012), Fountain has written “Beautiful Country Burn Again: Democracy, Rebellion, and Revolution.” The first half is his reportage of the tragic 2016 election, filled with telling character studies.  Here’s Fountain’s take on slimy Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who, when bettered in a debate with Beto O’Rourke, “could only smile with a pants-around-the-ankle sort of squinch to his face.” Fountain continues:

  [Cruz speaks] in urgent, breathy tones of preacher sanctimony, his voice dropping as it nears the end of every thought, digging for the tremble, the hushed vibrato of ultimate virtue.  You’d think he gargles twice a day with a cocktail of high-fructose corn syrup and holy-roller snake oil. . . . There’s a schlumpy fleshiness to him, a blurring of definition in his face and neck, the little knob of his chin dangling like a boiled quail egg.  His skin reads soft, smooth, the skin if an avid indoorsman.

“American Deviltry” then analyzes the obscene transfer of wealth to the super-rich, resumed during the 1980s after a half-century of relatively progressive times but not really questioned under Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and greatly accelerated under Trump.

 Chris and Nancy Brown look over remains of their home in Paradise, CA; photo by Josh Edelson

Victims of the tragic California fires received scant sympathy from our clueless leader, who remains a climate change denier and in his proposed 2018 budget recommended cutting $300 million from the forest service’s wildfire fighting programs. Blaming state officials for mismanagement, he claimed they should take their cue from Finland, a welfare state whose pine forests are nothing like the areas ablaze in the Golden State and yield needles rather than leaves.  Internet postings of Finns ridiculing Trump by raking pine needles have gone viral.  With rain forecast, there’s now a threat of massive flooding, with the parched fire zones deprived of underbrush that could absorb the water.

 Tamara O'Neal (above) and Dayna Less

Four people died after a man shot E.R. physician Tamara O’Neal, who had broken off her engagement to him, then ran inside Chicago’s Mercy Hospital and fatally shot pharmacy resident Dayna Less, who was exiting the elevator at the time.  In a subsequent shoot-out, the man took police officer Samuel Jimenez’s life before evidently taking his own.  Both women were from Northwest Indiana.  Deeply religious and idealistic, O’Neal grew up outside LaPorte, while Less was a Lake Central grad. Dr. John Purakal said of Tamara: “I knew her, trained with her, saved lives with her and tonight, tried to save her life. Tonight, I broke down in front of my coworkers when we lost her, and tonight I held hands with her mother in prayer. Tonight, we lost a beautiful, resilient, passionate doc. Keep singing, TO.” Less was engaged to her high school sweetheart and worked for a time in Kenya.  Music teach Dennis Barunica wrote: “Dayna Less was in the first Serbian group I taught. She learned brac and cello, so that tells you how talented and into it she was. We would go over her house with whoever could make it and just play until our fingers were sore, then her mom, Teena, would make us all the palacinke we could eat and send me home with some. Dayna was one who made teaching easy and fun. Only 25 and gone.” 

Daniel Day-Lewis and Emma Stone starred in the film “In the Name of the Father,” about the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven, two Irish groups convicted of playing a role in the 1974 Guildford Pub bombings.  Even though an IRA terrorist confessed to carrying out the deed, authorities kept that information from the defense team until the confession was unearthed and the victims were freed after serving over 15 years in prison.  Paul Hill, one of the Guildford Four, subsequently married Robert F. Kennedy’s daughter Courtney. 

Cynthia Shank, front center, with producers and next to brother Rudy Valdez

The HBO documentary “The Sentence” unveiled another case of injustice.  Due to draconian mandatory sentencing laws Cynthia Shanks, received a 15-year sentence for conspiracy five years after her onetime boyfriend was murdered for dealing drugs, even though she had taken no active part in his crimes. Meanwhile she had married and was raising three young daughters.  Cynthia served nine years until granted clemency during Obama’s last days in the White House, one of just 1,600 out of 33,000 applicant whose cases had merit. Had her younger brother Rudy Valdez not brought the injustice to light with his documentary, she might still be incarcerated.

A most interesting section of Babbitt is when Sinclair Lewis’s creation begins acting on his midlife longings. With BFF Paul Riesling in jail, having shot his nagging wife, Babbitt goes alone to their woodsy Maine retreat but realizes he is incapable of making a clean break from Zenith, Ohio, or married life.  While Mrs. Babbitt is away, however, he is itching for an extramarital affair.  His pathetic attempts to seduce fetching secretary Miss McGoun, worldly manicure girl Ida Putiak, and flirtatious neighbor Louella Swanson get rebuffed, but he finds real estate client Tanis Judique more compliant.  

Industrial Sunset

“Survival’s a victory to be counted,” Machinist-poet Sue Doro, “Blue Collar Divides”

"Industrial Sunset" by Cindy C. Bean

In “Industrial Sunset: The Making of America’s Rust Belt, 1969-1984” Steven High asserts that heartland cities such as Gary that were dependent on a single industry or employer were more susceptible to decisions made at the distant headquarters of multinational corporations, whose self-serving policies often conflicted with local needs.  The purging of labor militants during the Cold War and union leadership’s support of the Vietnam war had weakened union solidarity at a time when collective resistance was vital in struggles that faced overwhelming odds.  Canadian workers had better success in stopping plant closings than their American counterparts, in part because the issue was framed within a nationalist context much more compelling than “Buy American” campaigns.  Canadian historian High concludes: “In spite of the aura of inevitability that surrounds industrial transformation, working people can and do make a difference.”  He references former IUN Labor Studies professor Bruce Nissen’s “Fighting for Jobs: Case Studies of Labor, Community Coalitions Confronting Plant Closings” (1995), which focuses on Northwest Indiana and the Calumet Project for Industrial Jobs, and IUN guest lecturer Staughton Lynd’s “The Fight against Shutdowns: Youngstown’s Steel Mill Closings” (1982).  While “Industrial Sunset” makes valuable use of personal narratives gleaned from oral histories, Steven High warns that they sometimes leave the impression that job loss is an individual rather than a collective experience and minimize past union struggles that garnered widespread popular support.  Although some Region plants closed (i.e., Blaw-Knox Steel Foundry in East Chicago, LTV Steel Bar Mill in Hammond), Northwest Indiana mills still produce steel in record amounts but with a skeleton labor force compared to a half-century ago.  

Flex Maldonado, Jackson 5 mural on cover of "Indy Windy"; Ish Muhammad (right) painting on "Aerosol Wall" (2009)

At a South Shore Arts gallery reception for “Indy Windy: A Love Story,” the first of a two-part “Urban Legends” series, I talked at length with curator Ish Muhammad, a member of CISA (Crazy Indiana Style Artists).  The exhibit booklet, still at the printers when Toni and I visited three days before, contains my essay “Gary Haunts.” After a quotation about urban ruination by Marxist scholar Marshall Berman, my opening paragraph states: “Gary’s haunts lie dormant near Lake Michigan and the steel mills responsible for their creation, sometimes inhabited by the homeless and visited by curiosity seekers and photographers fascinated by urban ruins. Still beautiful, they are representative of the grand illusions of early 20th-century city builders and symptomatic of a throw-away society with a short historic memory.”  Good friend Gloria Biondi asked if I were making any money from them.  The booklet contains “Broken Down Palace” by Chicagoan Eric Hollow (below), a poignant shot of the once-grand Palace Theater, which seated nearly 3,000 when it opened in 1925.  

below, City Methodist, 1960

"Abandoned" by Joey Lax Salinas

“Urban Haunts” curator John Cain grew up in postwar Gary and remembers fondly the way things were when the city “was perhaps at its apotheosis,”before “the great white migration out of the city.”  He wrote:

  City Methodist was where my family went to church. My mother, famously, attended on only three occasions: her wedding day, August 26, 1953; my baptism; and once to play the Virgin Mary in a Christmas Eve pageant in the sanctuary.  I was an angel.  I remember standing beside her, both of us shivering, as she smoked a cigarette on the steps outside waiting for our cue. 

John Attinasi brought 89-year-old jazz horn player Art Hoyle to the Archives for me to interview him.  The previous week, Hoyle had fallen down 12 steps and landed on his head, causing memory problems plus he was shaken by the recent sudden death of longtime friend Robert Shy, drummer in the Art Hoyle quintet. Nonetheless, he had great stories about moving to Gary at age 13 with his mother during the World War II boom years. They resided with his maternal uncle, Dr. Dudley Wellington Turner, who delivered over 300 babies one year and once treated boxer Jack Johnson. Turner needed a housekeeper after losing his wife, and she thought Art could use better discipline and educational opportunities.  Hoyle played freshman football for Roosevelt and scrimmaged against future IU All-American running back George Taliaferro, who, he said, ran over him and most everyone else. Musical influences included Roosevelt instructor Ernest Bennett and Gary band leader Thomas Crump.  Playing in Crump’s band at a Calumet City strip joint, he recalled that they were behind the curtain.  His biggest career mistake, he believed, was quitting the Earl Hines orchestra to join a traveling rock and roll show featuring Lloyd Price and Bo Diddley.   There were no trumpet solos to such Lloyd Price hits as “Stagger Lee” and “Personality,” he lamented.  With Lionel Hampton’s orchestra his long riff to “Smoke gets in Your Eyes” earned a three-minute standing ovation. Hoyle did radio voiceovers and recorded a narration of Martin Luther King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” doe a CD.  He donated one to the Archives.  After the hour-long interview, camera operator Samantha Gauer shook hands with Hoyle, honored to have met him. 

At IUN’s Faculty Organization to honor to retiring Sociologist Chuck Gallmeier, I sat next to former head of Technical Services Paul Sharpe, now at IU South Bend but back filling in for an ailing Carol Wood.  “I saw a recent copy of your magazine,” he exclaimed enigmatically.  Several faculty stopped to greet Sharpe, including the Chancellor, who turned to me and said, “What are you doing here?”  Long reports followed on eTextbooks, online courses, and new classroom technology (yawn). The only saving grace was that presenters Dean Mark Hoyert and Director Aaron Pigors were witty.  By the time I was introduced there were less than 2 minutes remaining until adjournment.  I skipped all but my final two paragraphs, telling the audience they could find additional anecdotes on my blog, and concluded by emphasizing that Chuck never let differences on university matters interfere with our friendship.  He later said I had him in tears and joked that, with all the accolades, maybe he’d change his mind and not retire.

 Melba Liston

John Attinasi had told me that he and Art Hoyle would be attending jazz pianist Billy Foster’s 3 p.m. Senior College class.  The timing was perfect, after the Faculty Org but prior to the South Shore Arts reception I thoroughly enjoyed Foster’s commentary and musical selections by bands led by the likes of Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton, Buddy Rich, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, and Quincy Jones, who not only collaborated with jazz greats but such pop singers as Leslie Gore, Aretha Franklin, and Michael Jackson.  A clip of the Earl Hines group included Art Hoyle playing trumpet; another featured jazz trombonist Melba Liston with Clark Terry’s band.  According to Foster, women band members were uncommon, but Melba’s talents both as a soloist and as an arranger silenced doubters.  Melba formed an all-female quintet and composed for Diana Ross and Tony Bennett.

 Joel Henderson at Campbell Friendship House remains

The Unwanted Collective

naked lady by Veronica Napoli 

After driving through snow and popping a beer, I discovered in the exhibit booklet a photo urban explorer Joel Henderson took of St. Mary’s Mercy Hospital for a series called “LOST to TIME.”  On Comeuppence Network are Henderson'sphotos of abandoned Campbell Friendship House and what’s left of Memorial Auditorium. Also in the booklet were photos by IUN students who formed The Unwonted collective.  Chancellor Lowe used one by Richard Contreras on a Holiday card; Veronica Napoli’s nudes portraits were disconcerting when I saw them in the exhibit and equally unsettling in the booklet.

below Becca and Josh

Granddaughter Becca had the starring role of Maria in the Chesterton H.S. production of “The Sound of Music.”  Near the beginning, she sang the title song walking down the aisle, every few moments stopping to make eye contact with the audience.  My heart melted, I was so proud of her.  Fellow junior Paige Fowler had the role of eldest daughter Louisa, whose little sisters were played by freshman Isabelle Maddex and Maddex’s real-life siblings, sixth grader Jane and second grader Annie, a natural who brightened every scene she appeared in.  Senior Danny Schmiegel, Captain von Trapp, was Seymour in last year’s “Little Shop of Horrors.”  Becca’s friend Josh Sweet was in the ensemble but also played a priest and a Nazi.  At intermission I ran into bridge friend Barb Mort, whose face was blackened from a fall (it looked worse a few days ago, she claimed), there to see Elle Hodge as Countess Elsa, whom von Trapp dumps for Maria.  In the program Elle thanked Danny, her “Turtle King” of four years (was she jealous, I wondered, when Danny kissed Becca on stage?  Not if she’s a true thespian, Toni opined).  The variety of cast members’ first names fascinated me.  The only ones appearing twice were Katie, Emma, and Kayla.  James slept over with bowling buddies Andy English and Liam Craven, along with Phil, in from Grand Rapids, and Beth, up from Carmel.

 Khalil Mack sack

I made pancakes and kielbasa Sunday for our guests and perused “Industrial Sunset” after Arkansas edged IU in basketball by a single point despite Hoosier freshman sensation Romeo Langford’s 22 points. Worse yet, New Orleans was slaughtering the Philadelphia Eagles, and I heard about the career-threatening injury to Redskin QB Alex Smith.  In the evening, however, the Bears proved they were for real, defeating Minnesota despite a mediocre performance by QB Mitch Trubisky, thanks to amazing play by the defense.  Michael Chirich had friends over whom, he said, spent as much time looking at “Gary: A Pictorial History” as the game.  Dan Vance discovered himself in a 1985 Post-Tribphoto by Chuck Dillard taken at the Alibi Lounge on Miller Brews Brothers Night, Monday, December 2, 1985. That evening the Bears suffered their only loss of the season, 38-24, to the Miami Dolphins.

 Coach Jerry Vlasic

Longtime Bishop Noll football coach (1971-1996) Jerry Vlasic died at age 81.  His 1975 squad went undefeated, and in 1989 the Noll Warriors won the Class 3A championship, beating Indianapolis Roncalli 20-14.  Former player Joe Angyus recalled: “Coach Vlasic became the person to whom I needed and looked to for direction.  He was larger than life, had a way of having fun, yet was a fierce competitor and had a similar effect on so many.”  Players recalled him always donning shorts at practice, regardless of the weather. When I was a Portage Little League coach, he was often at games, in shorts that showed off his muscular legs. He was big handsome, charismatic guy. Wish I had known him better.

Being Thanksgiving week, a surprisingly large number of couples, nine, showed up for duplicate bridge at Chesterton YMCA.  People brought up the bridge Newsletter photo of Jim and Marcia Carson wearing crowns as Barbara Walczak noted their monster 76.39% game.  I wondered if Walczak might have doctored the original, but on vacation in the Alps they had been dubbed king and queen of the Matterhorn.  Charlie Halberstadt and I finished first with a 68.75%, worth .90 of a master point.  Chuck and Marcy came in second with a 66.67%, usually enough to win.  The margin of difference was that we made a small slam against them, thanks to Charlie’s bold bid of six Diamonds.  All evening we got favorable trump splits.  Marcy brought up that classes were cancelled all week both at VU and IUN.  She attended IUN when the university even held classes the day before Thanksgiving, including Wednesday evening.  When the issue came up for debate in the Faculty Org, Rhiman Rotz and Jack Bloom were defenders of the status quo while most of us sympathized with faculty who needed to be home preparing for next day’s dinner. Many simply cancelled class.

Kidding

“Please don’t use a bad word when you can use a good word,” Jeff Pickles (Jim Carrey) in “Kidding”

The Showtimeseries “Kidding” was a tour de force for versatile actor Jim Carrey, who plays Jeff Piccirillo, host of a children’s TV show, “Mr. Pickles’ Puppet Time,” modeled after “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.”  In the course of ten episodes Jeff struggles to keep his sanity as a son dies in a car accident, his wife leaves him, and a second son starts smoking pot and displaying dangerously aggressive behavior.  When he tapes an episode about loved ones passing away, his father Seb, the show’s producer (a marvelous Frank Langella) refuses to air it because it might upset his young audience. One of the show’s fans is a killer on death row whose execution Jeff attends; the lethal injection enters the condemned man’s arm in the center of his tattoo, a fly modeled after a puppet on the show.  Later, when Jeff destroys his father’s office, we see that he now has the same tattoo on his arm.  I’ve re-watched every episode of “Kidding” and find subtleties I missed the first time, like all the witnesses to the execution having red hair like the victims. Voxreviewer Karen Han summed up the series perfectly when she called Carrey a marvel and “Kidding” “wonderful, terrifying, and heartbreaking at the same time.”  Mr. Pickles’ final advice to parents before his show went off the air: listen to your children.

 above, Ish Muhammad; below, Felix "Flex" Maldonado, Times photo by Joseph Pete

Toni and I attended John Cain’s 25th annual Holiday Reading, Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory,” at South Shore Arts in Munster.  Beforehand, we enjoyed the gallery exhibit “Windy Indy,” curated by self-taught artist Ish Muhammad and featuring several pieces by graffiti artist Felix Maldonado.  Donna Catelano, my book club companion and South Shore special projects director, greeted me. The second part of the Urban Legendsseries, “Haunts,” will open in February and highlight guerrilla explorers of such Gary architectural ruins as City Methodist Church, Union Station, Horace Mann School, and the Palace Theater.  Since I wrote the catalogue essay, Cain provided free tickets and wants me to return for a February talk and gallery tour that is part of the Art in Focus series.  I chatted with friends from IUN and Miller, including Al Renslow and Judy Ayers.  I told Nick Mantis, who is producing a documentary on Region bard Jean Shepherd, I was looking forward to his February Art in Focus lecture titled “The Making of Shep: A Filmmaker’s Progress.” 

below, Jim West and John Cain

Buddy and Sook

Cain told Post-Trib feature writer Philip Potempa: “I never met or saw Truman Capote in person. However, one of my prized keepsakes came when I was 30 years old and I purchased a used copy of ‘A Christmas Memory’ from a book store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. The book not only turned out be a first edition, it was also signed by Capote, making it extra special.”Potempa summarized “A Christmas Memory” in this manner:

  Originally published as a feature article in Mademoisellemagazine in December 1956, “A Christmas Memory” captures the folksy atmosphere of Capote’s youth with the aroma of pecan pies and the flickering of candles in the windows of homes back in December of a 1930s Alabama. It follows the dreams of a young boy named Buddy (the name Capote used as a youth) and his friendship with his eccentric relatives, including his much older cousin and best friend, "Sook."  Capote lived with “a spinster aunt,” and one of his favorite traditions was helping mail fruitcakes [he helped Soot make] to everyone from actress Jean Harlow to President Franklin Roosevelt, as a means to feel a connection to the famous names of the day.

One humorous highlight is when Buddy accompanies Sook to a menacing bootlegger’s den in order to buy a bottle of whiskey for the fruitcakes. After finishing their labors, the cousin pours the remaining liquor into two glasses and they celebrate, much to the chagrin of uptight relatives.  At Christmas Soot imagines Mrs. Roosevelt serving their fruitcake at the White House.  Shortly after that holiday, Capote’s family sent him off to a military academy, but over the years he continued to receive fruitcakes from his beloved childhood companion.

I moved into a first-place tie in Fantasy Football by defeating nephew Garrett Okomski on the strength of 26 points from Eagles tight end Zach Ertz.  Needing a substitute kicker with mine on a bye week, I lucked out with former Bear Robbie Gould, who kicked 3 field goals for San Francisco, including one over 50 yards, on a weekend when Bears kicker Cody Parkey missed 2 3-pointers and 2 extra points.

The granddaughter of Elbert H. Gary’s brother visited the Archives in search of information about Bishop Herman Alerding, who founded a Gary settlement house for foreign-born Catholics that bore his name.  In 1920 Alerding wrote to U.S. Steel Board Chairman Elbert Gary appealing for money, using this rationale: “A Catholic settlement house would result in more and more amicable relations between employer and employee.  Americanization would be a good investment, an insurance not only against atheism, but against communism.”Judge Gary responded by donating $100,000.

On Jeopardy none of the high school contestants knew the sport African-American heavyweight champ Jack excelled in.  Incorrect answers included baseball and golf.  On the other hand, unlike me they knew all the Bodies of Water answers, but only one in three recognized that it was Betsy Ross ousted by the Quakers when she married an Episcopal upholsterer and subsequently took over his business after his death.

 Sara Teasdale

Post-Trib columnist Philip Potempa was judged a poetry recital at La Lumiere school in LaPorte. Winner Lauren Jordanich chose “Let It be Forgotten,” a 1924 poem by rebel and suicide victim Sara Teasdale:

Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,

Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,

Let it be forgotten for ever and ever,

Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.

If anyone asks, say it was forgotten

Long and long ago,

As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall

In a long forgotten snow.

Another student recited “The Days Gone By” by Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley. Its final verse goes: 

O the days gone by! O the days gone by! 

The music of the laughing lip, the luster of the eye; 

The childish faith in fairies, and Aladdin’s magic ring— 

The simple, soul-reposing, glad belief in everything,— 

When life was like a story, holding neither sob nor sigh, 

In the golden olden glory of the days gone by.

 James Whitcomb Riley

In “The Winter of Trump’s Discontent,” Ray Smock wrote about the President’s latest display of embarrassing behavior:

  The president went to Paris to join other world leaders in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Unfortunately, he could not muster enough energy to go to an American cemetery where more than 6,000 American soldiers, mostly Marines, are buried in sweeping semi-circles of white crosses interspersed with rose bushes. These honored dead were the casualties of the Battle of Belleau Wood about 50 miles from Paris during the month of June 1918. President Trump blamed his absence on the rainy weather. Somehow other world leaders got there just fine. Later he blamed his protocol people for not telling him that a no-show was bad for his image. When he returned to the United States, this same president who castigates the patriotism of NFL players who kneel during the playing of the National Anthem in protest of civil rights violations could not muster the strength to visit Arlington Cemetery, just 2.1 miles from the White House, on Veteran’s Day. Clearly, the president is distracted by other things right now. 

From Martinsburg, West Virginia, Ray Smock attached this caption to a photo: “It’s elementary Watson! The suspect walked down the driveway, picked up the Washington Post, went to the mailbox, back-tracked to the garbage can, and wheeled it back to the house.”

Wildfires are out of control in California and a nor’easter has blanketed the East Coast. Back home in Chesterton, I shoveled two inches of wet snow (heart attack snow, Toni calls it) from the sidewalk and drove to IUN in preparation for a big day Friday.  In the morning I’ll interview 89-year-old jazz horn player Art Hoyle, who moved to Gary at age 13 with his mother and lived with an uncle, a pediatrician who insisted on discussing books Art was reading by the likes of Mark Twain and Charles Dickens at the dinner table.  At Gary Roosevelt Art came under the tutelage of music teacher Ernest Bennett and played in a jazz band that performed at school dances. His future wife attended Froebel and was part of a greeting committee that met Frank Sinatra prior to his performance at a Tolerance concert during the Froebel school strike.  At age 19, prior to joining the air force, Hoyle played in Thomas Crump’s orchestra in Calumet City and learned how properly to back up vocalists.  During a 70-year career that included stints with bands led by Sun Ra and Lionel Hampton and gigs in Europe and at Chicago’s best venues, Hoyle is still going strong. In 2010 he told Chicago Jazz Magazine: “I’m still working enough to keep the flies off.” 

 Alessandro Portelli

Preparing for the Art Hoyle interview, I re-read Sandro Portelli’s Oral History Review essay “Living Voices: The Oral History Interview as Dialogue and Experience.” Portelli wrote: “Our task is not only to extract information, but to open up narrative spaces.”  He argues that an interview is an exchange of gazes -  a co-created moment in a relationship between the past and the time of the telling.  Portelli recalled interviewing Kentucky civil rights activist Julia Cowans in 1983, who began by saying that she didn’t trust him because he was white and then spent many hours explaining why that was so.  Here is Portelli’s final paragraph:

  “Never trust a white school teacher,”says Baby Suggs, a character in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. So here I am, a white schoolteacher who learned the meaning of oral history because a black woman did not trust me, and because she trusted me enough to tell me why. 

 Ish Muhammad collage

In the evening I’ll attend an artists’ reception at South Shores Arts gallery for the exhibit “Indy Windy: A Love Story” and hope to give free copies of “Gary: A Pictorial History” to Ish Muhammad, who curated the show, and other Region artists who are in the book and the exhibit.  Beforehand, I’ll pay tribute to retiring colleague Chuck Gallmeier at an afternoon gathering of IUN faculty.  This is what I plan to say:

  The first time I recall conversing with Chuck was at a 2-day retreat Chancellor Peggy Elliott arranged at Avalon Manor in Chesterton.  I hadn’t known what to make of this tall, handsome, long-haired ladies man.  From our very first conversation I realized this was someone I wanted to know better. At lunch on the final day of the retreat, after a rather tedious morning, faculty and administrators dined in two adjacent rooms.  Chuck and I opted for the one without the bigwigs.  A waitress came to take drink orders; most folks ordered coke, sprite or lemonade.  Chuck and I opted for something stronger; immediately almost everyone else switched to beer, wine or a cocktail.  Five or 10 minutes later, a waiter entered carrying a tray of soft drinks.  “That must be for the other room,”Gallmeier said deadpan, drawing hearty laughs all around the table.  

  During the next quarter-century Chuck established himself not only as IUN’s most popular teacher but as one of the very best, right up there with Sociologist Bob Lovely, my former colleague Jerry Pierce, and English profs George Bodmer and Anne Balay.  When I talk with alumni about memorable professors, these names come up most frequently. 

  Chuck was much in demand to teach Swing Shift courses to steelworkers. Labor Studies staff member Mike Olszanski taped classes for those unable to attend.  Oz confided to me that Gallmeier normally let it all hang out and frequently used salty language; but one evening he noticed that Chuck had really toned things down.  During the break he realized why – a student had brought her 8-year-old daughter. That’s typical of his concern for students.

  Chuck once asked me to take over his class because of university obligations in Bloomington.  Beforehand, I watched him in action and found the experience scintillating.  When my turn came, a fair share of students had read the assignment -  about the Central Park 5 case - and were both eager to hear what I had to say on the subject and prepared to engage meaningfully with each other.  Chuck had primed them to assume an active role in the learning experience but to stay within the boundaries of mutual respect. 

  As a longtime chair of the Faculty Organization Gallmeier was a worthy successor to such distinguished predecessors as “Founding Fathers” Jack Buehner and Bill Neil, soft-spoken Fred Chary and John Ban, union activists Lew Ciminillo and Esther Nicksic, erudite Bill Reilly, curmudgeons George Roberts and George Bodmer, no-nonsense IUN grad Linda Rooda, and diplomat Mary Russell. I can think of nobody who has devoted more time and energy than Chuck in providing necessary faculty input to administrators.  He and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye on university matters – he was more the pragmatist while I was more outspoken in criticizing questionable actions of our “Old Boys” network.  While faculty can often be petty about holding grudges, Chuck never, ever let university matters ruin our friendship.

   Several years ago, Bill Neil, IUN’s first elected Faculty Org chair, who hired me, spoke to this body about a recently deceased colleague, George Thoma, I think, or perhaps Herman Feldman.  Bill confessed that what he most missed about the university was the collegiality.  So do many of us, and that is one reason why I suspect that we will continue to see my good friend around campus for many years to come.  Let’s hope so. I can’t imagine IUN without him.