“Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood for it alone is the expression of what is in the child’s soul,” Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852)
Gary School Superintendent William A. Wirt had the city’s kindergarten through 12thgrade “unit” schools named for admirable educators, beginning with Ralph Waldo Emerson and continuing with Friedrich Froebel and Horace Mann. Once known as the immigrant school, Froebel attracted visitors from all over the world intrigued by Wirt’s progressive educational “work-study-play” philosophy. During the 1960s its graduates included future educator and State Representative Vernon Smith, responsible for a historical marker at the site where the historic school was demolished, and jazz pianist Billy Foster, who will appear on the cover of Steel Shavings,volume 48. In its editor’s note I wrote:
On March 19, 1965, Billy Foster (playing sax) and his Royal Imperials won a citywide talent show at Gary’s Memorial Auditorium representing Froebel High School. Famous as the home town of Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five, Gary has a long, proud musical tradition even though the Gary Conservatory “Music Man” professor Harold Hill claimed to have graduated from in never existed. From its earliest years, music was an integral part of Superintendent William A. Wirt’s work-study-play curriculum. Gary’s many ethnic groups produced a rich variety of musical strains, from Mexican mariachi bands to Serbian choral and tamburitza groups. Metropolitan Opera tenor James McCracken, a Gary native, sang in a church choir as did the Spaniels and other doo wop groups recorded on Vivian Carter’s Vee-Jay label that originated in Gary. The city’s rich jazz tradition dates to dance halls and nightclubs that sprang up during the “Roaring Twenties” and flowered during the 1940s. At a young age jazz pianist Foster became familiar with local bandleader Tom Crump and horn player Art Hoyle. In addition to teaching at Gary schools (primarily Charles R. Drew Elementary) for over 30 years as well as Valparaiso University, Foster performed with his own group, the Billy Foster Trio, as well as with such distinguished luminaries as Art Farmer, Slide Hampton, Tommy Harrell, Clark Terry, Bobby Watson, and many others. At present Foster hosts the WGVE radio show “Billy Foster Jazz Zone” and teaches a Senior College course at IU Northwest, whose Calumet Regional Archives recently started a collection in his name.
Froebel School gained notoriety in 1945 when many white students went out on strike just a month after World War II ended, protesting the policy of sending African Americans to their institution while most other Gary schools remained segregated. In an effort to reduce tensions a liberal organization, Anselm Forum, invited singer Frank Sinatra and heavyweight champion Joe Louis to participate in a Tolerance program. Sinatra’s appearance made national news, but Louis was unable to come due to other commitments. I mention the incident in a forthcoming Traces article titled “Joe Louis and Gary.” In “Gary’s First Hundred Years” I wrote that football coach Johnny Kyle became interim principal while Richard Nuzum was temporarily forced to step aside in the face of student pressure and school board cowardice. Future IUN Performing Arts chair Garrett Cope was a student at Froebel at the time and could perform in musical programs but not in theater productions.
Twenty years ago I published a Steel Shavings issue (volume 27) titled “Froebel Daughters of Penelope,” about five Greek-Americans who attended Froebel during the 1940s, in some cases starting in elementary school, including Constance Girasin. She recalled:
At Froebel we were exposed not only to the three r’s but to sewing, cooking, orchestra, band, swimming, foreign language classes, wood shop, machine shop, a college-bound curriculum, and a whole line of business classes such as shorthand, bookkeeping, and typing. The “Work” part of “Work, Study, Play” consisted of getting students ready for “life.” Shops on the far west part of our building were for boys only, and girls didn’t so much as enter the. However, we would pass them on our way to the band room.
Twice Mrs. Jones was our history teacher, once in eighth grade and again in eleventh. She was very soft-spoken and did 98 percent of her teaching sitting behind a desk. She was a little too nice for us adolescents. We were forever asking to be excused for band practice. One day she came up with an expression I’ll never forget: “Constance, you are not going to earn your living baton-twirling.” That’s true, but at the time I thought baton twirling was very important. In my senior yearbook Jim Taneff jokingly wrote, “Constance, you are not going to earn your living by baton-twirling.”
Randy Roberts’ “Joe Louis: Hard Times Man” (2010) begins with this quote from “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” by novelist Ernest J. Gaines: “When times get really hard, really tough, He always sends you somebody. In the Depression it was tough on everybody, but twice as hard on the colored, and He sent us Joe. Joe Louis was to lift the colored people’s heart.” Roberts described the jubilation in 1938 among black people in all walks of life, from Harlem intellectuals to Gary steelworkers, listening on the radio and rejoicing when Louis defeated German Max Schmeling by knockout in the first round. In Plains, Georgia, several dozen cotton and peanut field hands gathered on the front lawn of their boss Earl Carter, who had positioned his radio near an open window for their benefit. Roberts wrote:
Young Jimmy Carter remembered that they had listened to the fight without a word spoken or a cheer uttered, then filed away quietly, crossing a dirt road and a railroad track and entering a house out in a filed. “At that point pandemonium broke loose inside the house, as our black neighbors shouted and yelled in celebration of Louis’ victory. But all the curious, accepted proprieties of a racially-segregated society had been carefully observed.” Mister Earl’s “boys” knew “their place,”but in some way and for some period of time, Joe Louis had liberated them. He had taken then to another place.
Roberts pointed out that in 1941 the three sports that mattered were horse racing (with Seabiscuit and Triple Crown winner Whirlaway, baseball (with Joe DiMaggio hitting in 56 straight games and Ted Williams batting .406), and boxing (with Gary’s “man of Steel” Tony Zale middleweight champ and Louis heavyweight champ).
Sports Illustrated columnist Steve Rushin eulogized Bob Einstein, who played Funkhouser on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and, years before, “Super Dave” Osborne, “the master of not landing on his feet.” I laughed out loud reading about bits I’d seen on Letterman. With a deadpan delivery and mock seriousness, Einstein’s character became a parody of contemporary stuntman Evel Knieval whose feats always ended in failure, with Super Dave crushed, squashed or flattened like a pancake. Rushin wrote:
Osborne didn’t suffer the foolish questions of sports journalists. When he fell off Toronto’s CN Tower, then the tallest man-made structure in the world, and landed face-down in a parking lot, sportscaster Mike Walden asked him how he felt. “Why are you talking to me?”Super replied. “I’ve got a minute to live. I need an ambulance. Help me, putz.” An ambulance arrived, only to run Osborne over.
Super Dave Osborne shortly before shot three times in 1980 bit
Portage English teacher Mr. Downes loved James’ paper on “Babbitt,” assigning it a grade of 98%. His only criticism concerned verb tenses when quoting from the novel, something that I know from experience can be tricky. At present the class, reading several chapters a day, is critiquing “Great Expectations” (1860) by Charles Dickens from Marxist and feminist perspectives. Sounds like a great class.
A 16-letter crossword puzzle clue asked who was the lone American to win Pulitzers for both fiction and poetry. Toni had the first name, Robert, which enabled me to get Robert Penn Warren, author of two volumes of prize-winning poetry, “Promises” and “Now and Then,” and “All the King’s Men,” based on the career of Louisiana demagogue Huey Long and one of my favorites.
As I entered Jewel’s parking lot, Chesterton police were questioning a woman who evidently had broken into one of the cars in the lot. Either someone spotted her in the act or she was caught on the store’s surveillance cameras. Maybe an alarm went off. Inside the employees were all abuzz. As I left, the woman was being taken away in a fire department vehicle.
Jeffery in middle
The Eagles jumped out to a 14-0 lead against favored New Orleans but got blanked the rest of the way. With two minutes to go and down 20-14, Philadelphia was 30 yards away from pulling off an upset when a pass went through the hands of former Bears receiver Alshon Jeffery, enabling the Saints to run out the clock. No miracle this time from QB “St. Nick” Foles, last year’s Superbowl MVP. There’s a statue of him (below) outside the stadium. The Eagles bowed out like champions, barely losing to hall of famer Drew Brees.
fast food for Clemson Tigers
No comments:
Post a Comment