Remarkable Hoosier

“I had the good fortune to be able to right an injustice that I thought was being heaped on young people by lowering the voting age, where you had young people that were old enough to die in Vietnam but not old enough to vote for their members of Congress that sent them there.” Birch Bayh

Former Senator Birch Bayh passed away at age 91. Moving to Indiana in 1970, I was proud that he was in Congress representing the Hoosier state.  During a remarkable 3-term career beginning in 1962 at age 34 with an upset win against Sen. Homer Capehart, he championed civil rights legislation, helped make the 25th and 26th amendments a reality regarding presidential succession and lowering the voting age to 18, and sponsored Title IX, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded educational and sports programs.  The father of 13 year-old Dianne Murphy (below) from Valparaiso, a national wrestling champion in a competition that included boys, credited Birch Bayh for making possible sports opportunities for females of all ages. 

   Sen. Bayh in 1968 on Coast Guard cutter investigating alewives infestation of Lake Michigan with mayors Frank Harongody (Whiting), John Nicosia (East Chicago), Richard Hatcher (Gary), and Joseph Klen (Hammond)

In 1964 Bayh was traveling with Senator Ted Kennedy in a small plane that crashed near Springfield, Massachusetts.  Kennedy suffered a broken back, and Bayh helped pull him out of danger. In 1972 Bayh called off plans to run for the Democratic Presidential nomination when his wife Marvella was diagnosed with cancer.  Bayh successfully led the opposition to  confirming Nixon’s racist Supreme Court nominees Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell, paving the way for Justice Henry Blackmun’s elevation, and unsuccessfully supported ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and abolition of the electoral college.  

I first met Bayh in 1974 when he was in a tough re-election battle against Indianapolis mayor Dick Lugar.  In the morning he addressed the IU Northwest Young Democrats.  Shaking hands with him afterwards, I noticed Bayh’s intense blue eyes, how comfortable he was interacting with everyone in the room, and that he seemed to give each well-wisher his total attention.  From the Terre Haute area, he was down to earth without phony folksiness.  That evening at a house party in Miller, after campaigning all day in Gary, he still looked energetic and spoke passionately about the need for Congress to stand up against executive overreach.  When he shook my hand, Bayh said, “Hi, Jim, good to see you again.”  I was impressed. 

On Facebook Connie Mack-Ward wrote: “I campaigned for him when I was in college. It broke my heart when he was swept out during the horrible Reagan election. His fundamental decency as a human being was reflected in his political service. He was arguably the best federal elected official Indiana has ever had.”  Local Democrats Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson, George Van Til, Charlie Brown, and Roy Dominguez effusively praised him, as did Republican Governor Eric Holcomb and Sen. Todd Young.  Congressman Pete Visclosky noted: “He lived a life dedicated to serving others.”Tennis great Billie Jean King called him “one of the most important Americans of the twentieth century.”

The Remarkable Book Store on Taft Street in Merrillville is closing on the fortieth anniversary of its birth.  Pretty much a one-man operation through the years, Ken VanderLugt started out in 1979 stocking both new and used books, but during the time I’ve known him, the concentration, with a few exceptions, has been on the latter.  He sold dozens of Ron and my “Gary: A Pictorial History,” however, and always was willing to take 5 or 10 copies of new Steel Shavingsissues.  When I’d stop in, I’d pick up science fiction novels for Toni and a history book or two for myself.  Lately VanderLugt  saw just a handful of customers a day, but after Jerry Davich wrote a laudatory column, old customers began returning, nostalgic and saddened by the looming closure of such a welcoming place.

“This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women” (2007), edited by NPR producers Jay Allison and Dan Gediman, contains contributions by both the famous (novelist John Updike, feminist Gloria Steinem) and relative unknowns– a part-time hospital clerk, for example, and a member of a state parole board.  In 1951 distinguished journalist Edward R. Murrow hosted a five-minute series by that name on CBS radio with appearances by such scholars as anthropologist Margaret Mead and scientist Charles Galton Darwin, grandson of the famous naturalist. Allison and Gediman revived “This I Believe” a half-century later.  These words of praise come from a Publisher’s Weeklyreview

  “Your personal credo”is what Allison calls it in the book’s introduction, noting that today’s program is distinguished from the 1950s version in soliciting submissions from ordinary Americans from all walks of life. These make up some of the book’s most powerful and memorable moments, from the surgeon whose illiterate mother changed his early life with faith and a library card to the English professor whose poetry helped him process a traumatic childhood event. And in one of the book’s most unusual essays, a Burmese immigrant confides that he believes in feeding monkeys on his birthday because a Buddhist monk once prophesied that if he followed this ritual, his family would prosper. This feast of ruminations is a treat for any reader.

High school teachers often assign some form of “This I Believe” essays, and questions in a similar vein often show up on college applications.

I’m not very adventuristic when it comes to taking care of my body or automobiles. In my 49 years living in Northwest Indiana, I have had just two head mechanics (Frank Renner and Tom Klaubo, head of Lake Shore Toyota service), two barbers, two regular doctors, and four dentists (including one who committed suicide and another who I nicknamed “the gouger”)  I’ve been a patient of dentist John Sikora’s for probably 30 years.  He grew up in Glen Park, is an IU grad and big Hoosier sports fan, loves the White Sox, and plays music to my liking when cleaning teeth and fixing cavities.  

While replacing a filling and waiting for the area to get numbed up, Dr. Sikora asked what I thought of the college admissions scandal that involved rich folks paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their kids into elite universities.  The scheme included bribing coaches and administrators and having  ringers take the applicants’ SAT or ACT exams.  I hope they throw the book at both the parents and the fixers behind the racket and told Dr. Sikora that under-achieving teens would be better off at institutions such as IUN.  Undergraduate diplomas at elite schools, in my opinion, are overrated compared to graduate degrees, especially if a student makes mediocre grades.

 Don Coffin

Over 50 people have been charged with federal crimes, and some ringleaders have pleaded guilty and are looking to plea bargain.  Coaches have been fired, and adversely affected students are bringing class-action suits. Former IUN professor of Economics Don Coffinoffered this perspective on what he termed “the bribing-your-kids-way-into-college thing”:

It all feels like morbid and unwelcome confirmation of my oft-repeated line that community colleges struggle because they’re trying to create a middle class for a country that no longer wants one.  The wildly wealthy live in their own world; what Christopher Lasch called “the secession of the successful”has so desiccated our sense of community that colleges for whom community is their middle name are left aside.

Electrical Engineers moved into first place by one point by taking two games and series from Just Do It Again while Duke Cominsky’s Pin Heads swept Pin Chasers to move within 6 points of us.  When I thanked Duke for helping the Engineers get into first, he said,” Not for long.”  I rolled a 440 series, just a point from my average, while Joe Piunti got hot and ended 90 pins over his.  After I picked up a 1-3-5-6 spare, opponent Wanda Fox commented, “Show off.” In the very next frame Wanda converted the exact same pins.  Of course, I said, “Show off”as she left the alley. Marge Yetsko, carrying a 137 average, threw a good ball but so slowly she rarely got a strike and more often a split. She picked up four straight 10-pins, a feat befuddling some 200 bowlers.  Husband George’s ball has good velocity but goes straight and inconsistent, befitting his 125 average.  Just Do It Again is one of the few teams the Engineers spot pins.

Jim Spicer’s weekly witticism:

  A teacher asked her 6th grade class: “Who can tell me, which human organ becomes 10 times bigger when it’s stimulated?”
  Maria stood up, bright red and angry, and said “How can you ask such a question? I’m telling my parents and they’re going to get you fired!”
  The teacher was shocked by the outburst, but decided to ignore it. She asked the class again, “Who can tell me, which human organ becomes 10 times bigger when it’s stimulated?”
  This time Thomas responded, “The answer is the iris in the human eye.”
  “Very good, Thomas. Thank you,”replied the teacher who then turned her gaze on Maria.
 “Maria, I need to tell you three things. First, you obviously have not done your homework. Second, you have a dirty mind. And third, I fear that one day you will be very, very disappointed.”

Chilling News: An Australian gunman mowed down 49 Muslims worshipping in two nearby mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, one of the most peaceful nations in the world.  Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern (above) vowed to change her country’s gun laws.  Were such progress possible in the U.S.?  The assassin, a Trump admirer, claimed he chose new Zealand to show that Muslims weren’t safe anywhere in the world.

Marianne Brush got me four tickets to see Dave Davies and his band on April 19 at the Art Theater in Hobart, of all places. Voted one of the hundred best guitarists of all time by Rolling Stone, Davies and brother Ray founded the Kinks, and Dave was responsible for the distorted power chord on the Kinks’ first hit, “You Really Got Me,” by slitting his speaker with a razor blade.  The two brothers had a stormy relationship. Toni, Phil, Dave, and I saw the Kinks at the Star Plaza 30 some years ago.  “Lola” (1970), about a young man and a transvestite, became a classic. When we saw them, they teased the audience by starting the first chord and then morphing into another song before finally performing it as an encore.

Barbara Walczak’s bridge Newslettercongratulated Barbara Larson and Carol Miller for their remarkable 76.39 % at a recent Dunelands Bridge Club event.  Barb stared the article by stating: “This is not a typographical error.”  Both are very friendly people.

I finished “Unexampled Courage,” about a recently discharged soldier beaten so badly by a South Carolina sheriff in 1946 that he was permanently blinded. Author Richard Gergel concluded: 

 In the midst of what seemed to be an unsolvable crisis in American government and character, courageous citizens, recognizing the demands of the times, stepped forward to challenge the racial status quo.  Most had little to gain and much to lose.  Although to the modern observer the collapse of the Jim Crow world may be viewed as the inevitable consequence of a growing and prosperous postwar nation, the truth is that in 1946 America’s racial future was uncertain.  This band of diverse, courageous citizens, some prominent, others from humble backgrounds, altered the course of American history, displaying what Judge J. Waties ascribed to the Briggs plaintiffs, “unexampled courage.”

Briggs v. Elliottbegan in 1947 as a challenge to the school segregation laws in South Carolina. It ultimately became combined with other cases as part of brown v. Board of Education.  Plaintiffs Harry and Eliza Briggs, a service station attendant and a maid, both lost their jobs and moved away from South Carolina.  Reverend James De Laine, who led the fight in Clarendon County, was fired from his teaching job, had is church burned to the ground, and survived an assassination attempt before leaving the Palmetto State.

The flags at IUN are at half-staff.  At first I thought it might be for the Muslims slain in new Zealand but then remembered that the Governor had ordered it in honor of Birch Bayh’s death.