I ran (so far away)
Space age love song
You can run
Don’t ask me.”
“A Flock of Seagulls” (1982)
A Flock of Seagulls, a Liverpool synth-pop New Wave band formed b keyboardist and lead singer Mike Score, had a wildly successful self-titled 1982 concept album about an alien invasion featuring such hits as “Space Age Love Song,” “Modern Love Is Automatic,” and “I Ran (So Far Away).” A recent critic wrote: “Of course, everyone remembers this group now for singer Mike Score's ridiculous back-combed haircut and the fact that they are mentioned in Pulp Fiction. So now they're kind of cool, but in the early 1980s it was a different story.” A character in Pulp Fiction gets the nickname Flock of Seagulls because of his haircut.
VU professors Allison Schuette and Liz Wuerffel asked me to participate in an Oral History Association conference session in Salt Lake City in October dealing with their Flight Paths project, which envisions an interactive documentary website. The proposal states: “[Wuerffel and Schuette] will play excerpts from their 26-minute audio documentary on the changing racial and economic demographics of Gary and Northwest Indiana. ‘Chorus of Voices’ re-presents residents’ memories of migration, neighborhood life, the rise of black political power and opportunity in the 1960s, the ‘flight’ of white residents and businesses to the suburbs, and deindustrialization. Voices in each chorus do not always agree; no single chorus is completely comprehensive. By interweaving the oral histories of black and white residents of Northwest Indiana—some of whose families stayed in Gary, some of whose left—the documentary suggests that remembered experience creates a conflicted historical portrait.”
Wuerffel and Schuette began conducting oral histories of Valparaiso University students for a “Welcome Project” and then expanded its scope to include testimony from Valpo residents (many of whom had once lived in Gary) as well as those presently living in Gary. I have spoken in their classes, taken them on a tour of neighborhoods in Glen Park and Miller, introduced them to community organizers, and welcomed them to IUN’s Calumet Regional Archives. Recently, due to their interest in the history of Merrillville, I put them in touch with Lake County Auditor John Petalas, a former student who has intimate knowledge of that city on Gary’s southern border, formed in reaction to Richard Hatcher’s election, despite the existence of a buffer zone ststute designed to prevent such a development. Speaking by phone to Petalas, I filled him in on “Flight Paths, and he reiterated his intention to donate an extensive collection of Region campaign buttons to the Archives. They will make an excellent exhibit in one of the library/conference center’s first floor glass cases.
Interviewed By Alison Schuette for Flight Paths, Brandi Casada spoke of being bussed to Glen Park during the 1960s:
From about, say, 9th Avenue back to about 25th, and from the East Side of Gary up to Broadway was black area. That was where most of the black people lived. The West Side at that time was predominantly white. And Glen Park was predominantly white. So, blacks were kind of closed in in that one little area. We moved to the West Side of Gary, and Glen Park was still predominantly white because we were bussed from the West Side when there was forced integration. The first year I was bussed to Webster School in fifth grade. I was among the first group of students bussed for integration. A principal, Ruth Deverick, had two meetings: she called in the parents of the white students and the parents of the black students prior to school. And she said, “Now, we are coming together as a school—a united school—we are not going to have problems this year.”And that school year went smoothly. And then they got rid of her. And the next year, we had a new principal, and that was not his mindset. And it was chaotic almost the whole year. I often wonder now as I reflect on that, was that the mindset of the administration? Because they had to know that under her guidance, there were no problems, and they moved her, and moved him in, and he had a totally different mindset, and there were problems all year. We went on from there to Bailly junior high school, and it kind of continued. You know, we were in school together, but we were separated.
That was 1968, the year that Martin Luther King died, and we were very upset about it, and the school system kind of felt—we felt like it was just incidental to them. They did not care. So, we wanted some acknowledgment that this had happened, whether it be some type of assembly, even something said over the intercom. But they refused to do anything. They just acted like it had never happened, or like it was of no importance…. There were several of us who led a walkout, and we left. Now, Bailey School was quite a distance from where we lived because that was in Glen Park over on Georgia Street, and we were normally bussed home. But we walked that day. We walked home to show our solidarity behind the death of Dr. King. We were just happy that we were able—you know, we felt empowered by walking out and saying that we are showing how we feel about the death of Dr. King, whether or not you feel at all about it. There were no consequences. You know, no one was punished for it. I guess at that point, it was like, “If we don’t talk about it, it didn’t happen. And just go from there.”
photo by Paul Kaczoha
I considered staying home because the temperature was right at zero, but reconsidered after noticing weather predictions for next week were even worse. I wore four layers and a scarf, first time in my memory – Toni had to show me how to wrap it. I completed my final condo meeting minutes after 8 years as secretary on the board. At the annual meeting we voted to reduce the board’s size from seven to five members. Since my term was up and we had volunteers, former president Ken Carlson and neighbor George Schott, to join the three remaining members, I was able to retire, at least temporarily.
A couple, both age 78, went to a sex therapist's office. The doctor asked, “What can I do for you?” The man said, “Will you watch us have sex?”The doctor looked puzzled, but agreed. When the couple finished, the doctor said, “There's nothing wrong with the way you have sex,”and charged them $50. This happened several weeks in a row. The couple would make an appointment, have sex with no problems, pay the doctor, then leave. Finally, the doctor asked, “Just exactly what are you trying to find out?” “We're not trying to find out anything,”the husband replied. “She's married and we can't go to her house. I'm married and we can't go to my house. The Holiday Inn charges $90. The Hilton charges $108. We do it here for $50...and I get $43 back from Medicare.”
The government shutdown has now lasted over a month, thanks to Trump’s imbecility. Unpaid air traffic controllers are further stressed by dangerous drones that have been spotted near airports, causing shutdowns recently in Newark and London. Drones interfered with pilots fighting California wild fires; one almost struck a medical helicopter in Dallas. Imagine drones in the hands of domestic terrorists.
Ring-tailed gulls near BP refinery
Dylan Kerr’s New Yorker article “Birds of a Feather” included an interview with designer Rebeca Mendez, who curated a New York’s Cooper Hewitt Museum show featuring avian art. Mendez said, “We are setting our boundaries tighter and tighter – we are entrenching in our location. Birds represent incredible freedom.” Commenting on current world affairs, Mendez stated: “Bird migration is a constant flow. The earth is screaming at us in all possible ways, ‘Migration is the way to go.’” Flocks of ring-tailed gulls found on the southern shores of Lake Michigan as well as area parking lots migrate south in winter to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
Kaitland Cherry
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