Cat's Cradle

“Cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little girl blue and the man on the moon
So when you're coming home?
Hey yo, I don't know when
We'll get together then.”

         Harry Chapin, “Cat’s in the Cradle

Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle” being one of my favorite songs, whenever Dave gets out the acoustic guitar, I press him to sing it.  Chapin’s point is that parents can become so busy that they don’t have time for their children.  Fortunately, that cautionary tale didn’t apply to me.  Born in 1942 (same year as me), Chapin died at age 39 after his Volkswagen collided with a truck, setting it aflame; five years later he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his work combatting world hunger.  Chapin also recorded “Taxi,” “Mail Order Annie,” and “Sunday Morning Sunshine.”

James is reading Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle” for an English class assignment. I recall Toni’s father, Anthony Trojecki, demonstrating how to take string and form a pattern known as Cat’s Cradle.  Editor Sidney Offit called “Cat’s cradle” “an icy black comedy”and Vonnegut “an acidly funny Midwestern fabulist whose anger and sorrow at the way things are is equaled only by his love for the best we can be.” In Vonnegut’s novel, Felix Hoenikker, one of the scientists who worked on developing the atom bomb, was playing with a loop of string and creating that formation while Hiroshima was being bombed, incinerating close to 100,000 Japanese.  His son Newt recalled:

  He went down on his knees on the carpet next to me, and he showed me his teeth, and he waved that tangle of string in my face.  “See?  See?” he asked.  “Cat’s cradle.  See the cat’s cradle.  See where the nice pussycat sleeps?  Meow.  Meow.”  And then he sang, “Rockabye catsy, in the tree top, when the wind blows, the cray-dull will fall.  Down will come cray-dull, catsy and all.”

Like in the Harry Chapin song, Hoenikker’s three children are badly neglected, and their attempts to gain his attention have tragic consequences. Elsewhere in “Cat’s Cradle” Vonnegut wrote this dialogue:

  “No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's . . .”
  “And?”
  “No damn cat, and no damn cradle.” 

When I went to check out “Cat’s Cradle,” a Chesterton library staff member informed me that they were holding Bob Woodward’s “Fear: Trump in the White House” for me.  When I first requested it months ago, I was eighth on the list.  It opens with this quote from The Donald: “Real power is – I don’t even want to use the word – fear.” Spineless Republican legislators certainly fear crossing him and possible losing the 30% or so of the electorate who apparently believe he can do no wrong. In the opening scene of “Fear” presidential adviser Gary Cohn removes a letter from Trump’s Oval Office desk that would have set in motion U.S. withdrawal from a trade agreement with South Korea that would have risked interrupting sensitive spy operations on North Korean missile capabilities and thus jeopardized national security. Woodward wrote: “In the anarchy and disorder in the White House and Trump’s mind, the president never noticed the missing letter.”   

Mike Olszanski was a guest speaker in Philosophy professor Anja Matwijkix’s Business Ethics class.  At lunch Oz told me he enjoys the opportunity to get on his soap box and represent the perspective of organized labor’s rank-and-file.  I know the feeling and in two weeks will be talking about the Gary Homefront in Nicole Anslover’s World War II course.  She’s currently discussing wartime propaganda.  I told her how the government made use of African Americans, including heavyweight champ Joe Louis and naval hero Dorrie Miller, for propaganda purposes – ironic in view of their treatment in the segregated military.  Despite Louis raising millions in war bonds, the IRS unfairly claimed he owed more back taxes than he could ever hope to pay.  Dorrie Miller was a mess attendant working in the laundry on board the USS West Virginia anchored in Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941.  Miller rushed on deck, shot down two planes with a machine gun, and rescued a wounded officer.  The War Department was reluctant to honor Miller until the black press publicized his actions.  Miller died in 1943 on board the USS Lissome Bay when a Japanese torpedo struck the escort carrier near the Gilbert Islands in the Pacific.  A Gary housing project was named in Miller’s honor.

Since Nicole told me to visit her class whenever I could, I decided to sit in on one on propaganda.  After she showed brief excerpts from the German film “Triumph of the Will” and a Frank Capra produced episode of “Why We Fight,” she led a lively discussion comparing and contrasting them.  The latter included a quote by Vice President Henry Wallace depicting World War II as a battle between the free world and slave world. When she elicited opinion on what affect propaganda had on Americans, I commented that it spurred civil rights leaders to demand an end to racist practices on military bases, at defense plants, in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere and led to the Double V campaign for victory against tyranny both abroad and at home.  One student mentioned Japanese-Americans being put in internment camps, and Nicole pointed out how anti-Japanese propaganda was blatantly racist.  Nicole’s next class will deal with comic books and Disney cartoons.

Larry David and pregnant mother

On an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” Larry’s lunch companions are congratulating a women on becoming pregnant with her tenth child.  Larry pipes in, “Isn’t that a little selfish?” Later at her father-in-law’s barbershop, Larry learns she’s had a miscarriage and makes a quip about her already having nine kids, causing the barber to start beating him with a towel.

According to WXRT’s Mary Dixon, February 13 is Galentine’s Day where women celebrate intimate friendships with other women.  The sun finally came out after many days but the wind chill is still around zero. In the past few weeks ice mounds along the lake have expanded rapidly, as demonstrated in a photo by Samuel A. Love, taken during a Douglas Center Sacred Wanderings tour.

The sun finally came out after many days but the wind chill is still around zero. In the past few weeks ice mounds along the lake have expanded rapidly, as demonstrated in photos by Samuel A. Love, taken during a Douglas Center Sacred Wanderings tour.