“I've lived a life that's full
I've traveled each and every highway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way”
I've traveled each and every highway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way”
“My Way,” Paul Anka
“My Way” was originally a 1967 French song, “Comme d’Habitude” (“As Usual”). Paul Anka wrote English lyrics expressly for Frank Sinatra, whose recording became a hit and thereafter his signature song. Elvis Presley covered it on the 1973 album “Aloha from Hawaii,” and it became a staple at his live shows, as well as Anka’s. The Sex Pistols recorded a punk parody version with profane and nonsensical lyrics (i.e.,“To think, I killed a cat, and may I say, oh no, not their way”). The final lines: “The record shows, I’ve got no clothes, and I did it my way.” Martin Scorsese used the Sex Pistols rendition at the end of “Goodfellas,” as credits rolled.
Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols
Grandson James may perform “My Way” at a Portage H.S. Outstanding Student competition. I assume he’s familiar with the Sinatra version, but I told him that at Omar Farag’s Elvis Tribute shows, when the final performer sings “My Way,” women rush the stage to get scarves from “Elvis,” emulating The King’s female fans over 40 years ago. I’d love it if James did an Elvis impression – or, even better Sid Vicious. When Dave (whose high school nickname was Sid) was at Portage, he and his buddies appeared as the Sex Pistols in an air band contest and got disqualified.
A relative of Al Samter saw his name on my blog and asked for more information. I replied that he was a labor activist, poker player, pipe smoker, and jazz expert who died from throat cancer. A New Yorker who moved to Gary as a steel mill “colonizer” for the Communist Party, Samter would show up at a mutual friend’s house at Christmas bearing gifts and two geese for the hostess to cook. After he retired from the mill, Al Samter was a district leader in S.O.A.R, (Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees) and hosted a dinner dance at McBride Hall that went from 4 p.m. until 8. At the time we poked fun at the hours, but now it makes perfect sense. He and an African-American deejay took turns spinning records, alternating between jazz and rhythm ‘n’ blues. At one point Samter played a Dixieland number and led the crowd in a strut around the room. He had class. Mike Olszanski and I interviewed him for our Steel Shavingsissue “Steelworkers Fight Back: Rank and File Insurgency in the Calumet Region during the 1970s” (volume 30, 2000). Here is part of what he told us:
After the war I had worked for a small record store in New York and then got laid off. The big chain stores starting reducing prices on phonograph records, which forced mom-and-pop stores to cut back. I was on and off the unemployment rolls and finally decided to make use of my G.I. Bill of Rights and get into an apprentice program.
Everybody was going into the big industries, so in April of 1949 I came to Northwest Indiana and applied for an apprenticeship. They didn’t have any such programs open but were hiring for the summer. They sent me out to the coal chemical plant, as a pump operator. The summer job turned into a permanent job. I stayed 37 years. I never did get into the apprenticeship program. My job, especially after they built a new chemical coal plant in 1955, paid more than I would have gotten in any of the craft jobs. My department took light oils which come off the coke-making process and separated and distilled them into the industrial oils benzene, toluene, and xylene.
I became a shop steward and got acquainted with African-American Curtis Strong, who was running for grievance committeeman. I wrote some of his material. After he got elected, I became a shop steward. One of my jobs was to sign up new members. There were still some old-timers who were not union members, but I kept signing them up until our department was 100% union.
Like Curtis Strong, I belonged to the caucus that supported John Mayerick, who became President of 1014 and formed a Civil Rights Committee. I became its secretary. At one point we decided to have a joint civil rights committee meeting at Local 1014’s headquarters. Among those attending were Fred Stern from Youngstown and Jim Balanoff from Inland. At that point the International decided they better recognize us, so they sent somebody in from the International. It was one of the things that pushed them into having a civil rights division.
When I published a Shavingsissue on the Calumet Region during the Postwar years (volume 34, 2003), I dedicated it to a dozen “Old Lefties,” including Al Samter, who kept the faith in a time of repression. Class-conscious activists for civil rights, trade unionism, and peace, they realized the need for a fundamental reordering of wealth and power if the nation were to remain true to its historic ideals.
In an epilogue, Peck, on the advisory council of the Woodrow Wilson House at 2340 S Street, mentioned that Wilson lived out his remaining years in a Washington, D.C., townhouse located in the fashionable Kalorama neighborhood. The outgoing President purchased a replica of the White House Lincoln bed and kept his oval office chair and gifts received during his Presidential trip to Europe, including a huge tapestry. Peck added:
Along with the transport vans carrying Wilson’s furniture was a truck bearing a special cargo: their wine collection. Prohibition had made the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol illegal, but not its possession. Wilson had no desire to leave behind his collection for President Harding, who was known to throw a good party. “In the shipment was a whole barrel of fine Scotch whiskey, besides a variety of rare wines and liquors,”the New York Times reported.
George Remus
I learned from author Garrett Peck that novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald modeled title character Jay Gatsby in “The Great Gatsby” (1925) after Cincinnati bootlegger George Remus. An actor assumes the role of Remus in the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire.” Born in Berlin, Germany, and growing up in Chicago, Remus became a pharmacist and then a lawyer who took advantage of a loophole in the Volstead Act permitting alcohol to be sold in drug stores for medicinal purposes. He invested heavily in both pharmacies and distilleries. After moving to Cincinnati, he’d have his own men “steal” liquor from the distilleries and resell it for huge profits. Remus threw lavish parties at his mansion, nicknamed the Marble Palace. One featured a 15-piece orchestra and aquatic dancers wearing scandalous bathing suits. At another he gave diamond stickpins to male guests and new automobiles to their wives. His extravagant lifestyle attracted the attention of federal agents. Remus spent two years in prison for bootlegging, during which time wife Imogene and her lover cheated him of his fortune, and she filed for divorce. He had left properties, stock, and bank accounts in her name. Freed, he fatally shot Imogene and, pleading temporary insanity, was acquitted. Thereafter, Remus lived modestly in Covington, Kentucky and died from a stroke in 1952 at age 77.
Tom Brady
Even though I was rooting for New Orleans and Kansas City in the conference championships, the contests, both going into overtime, could not have been more exciting. When Rams kicker Greg Zuerlein nailed a 57-yarder, Bears fans couldn’t help but think that could have been their fate had they signed a competent place kicker. As Tom Brady led the Patriots on consecutive clutch TD drives, one couldn’t help but admire the 41-year-old future Hall of Famer. New England’s presence will give me a team to root against in Super Bowl LIII. Still, I feel sorry for Saints QB Drew Brees and Chiefs coach Andy Reed, who had several good years with the Eagles.
Charles Eastman
The HBO movie “Bury My Heart in Wounded Knee” not only traced the cruel fate befalling the Lakota tribes during the late nineteenth century but described the life of Hakadah, a Santee Lakota tribesman who took the Christian name Charles Eastman and graduated from Boston University medical school. At Pine Ridge Reservation in 1890, he cared for survivors of the Wounded Knee Massacre. He was subsequently dismissed by the Bureau of Indiana Affairs for criticizing its policies toward Native-Americans. He married reformer Elaine Goodale, and the couple had six children.
David Parnell
I spoke in David Parnell’s freshman seminar on the history of IU Northwest. IU Extension classes began a hundred years ago and expanded rapidly during the 1920s. School Superintendent William A. Wirt started Gary College in 1932 intended for enable students unable to go away to college to earn a two-year degree. Classes met at Horace Mann after high school hours. After World War II, Gary College ended, and IU Extension classes met at Seaman Hall in downtown Gary, as well as a facility in East Chicago until the move to its present Glen Park location in 1959. Eight years later, IU Northwest, as it came to be called, held its first graduation ceremony as a four-year institution, outdoors, near its one building, Gary Main, (later renamed Tamarack and condemned after the 2008 flood). I explained that Kern and my collaboration combined social and administrative history, with Paul relying on written sources while I provided oral testimony both from student interviews and my own. Parnell’s acclaimed book, “Justinian’s Men: Careers and Relationships of Byzantine Army Officers, 518-610,” takes a similar approach. When I mentioned that to Parnell, he replied: “That's true! I would become even more of a social historian if I could conduct oral interviews on ancient Byzantines. What a treat that would be.”
No comments:
Post a Comment