Living Mirage

“Don’t tell me I lost a step

Criss-crossed in the wrong direction”

         “Missed Connection,” The Head and the Heart

 above, Joshua Tree National Park; below, The Head and the Heart

Joshua Tree; photo by Amanda Marie Board

Chelsea Sue and Amanda Marie

WXRT has been playing a couple tracks from the upcoming Head and the Heart CD “Living Mirage, including “Missed Connection” and “Honeybee,” written by Jon Russell at Joshua Tree National Park where I took 98-year-old Midge on our last jaunt together. Perhaps the album title emanates from a mirage or optical illusion Russell encountered while walking through the wondrous park. “Honeybee,” both a love song (rare these days) and a confessional, contains this verse:

But here we are 

After all the misses and confessions

To the scars

That we never really owned as ours

Alissa called to say she and Josh are coming down from Michigan two weekends in a row, to see James in the Portage senior play and the following Friday to attend the Dave Davies concert with me at Hobart’s refurbished Art Theatre.  I told her I was listening to Weezer’s Teal album that contains “Africa,” “Take On me,” and “Happy Together,” all of which we heard Weezer perform a couple weeks ago.  She’s been playing The Head and the Heart, whom we saw last year at 20 Monroe in Grand Rapids.

scenes from Appointment with Danger, Original Gangstas

In Mary Beth Blake’s VU Sociology class for the final time as students discussed their recent trip to Gary, I found myself straining to hear what they had to say. In the main they were soft-spoken, but if I were still teaching, I’d need a hearing aid.  One young woman from the Region used the phrase “Scary Gary” to describe her preconceptions but admitted that it did not seem so frightening as she had thought.  They were pleased with how much time Mayor Karen freeman-Wilson spent with them, as well as Tyrell Anderson of the Decay Devils at Gary’s long abandoned Union Station. Mary Beth started class showing a scene from “Appointment with Danger” (1951) that took place there.  I mentioned that Peter Aglinskas has a monthly Film Noir series at VU for those who enjoy crime movies of that genre. I brought up “Original Gangstas” (1996) starring James Brown, Pam Grier, and former Gary and Kansas City Chiefs football star Fred “The Hammer” Williamson, that has a scene inside the ruins of Union Station.  I mentioned how little home rule the city of Gary enjoys, hampering mayors and that past projects they touted such as the airport and Genesis Center (Richard Hatcher), casinos (Thomas Barnes), and RailCat Stadium (Scott King) failed to generate satellite shops, restaurants, and stores.

At Chancellor Bill Lowe’s suggestion I interviewed Joe Medellin, a human resources executive at Arcelo Mittal in East Chicago and member of the Chancellor’s advisory board.  Because of the upheaval on the third floor of the library, home of the Calumet Regional Archives, Samantha Gauer filmed us on the Instructional Resource Center’s set.   Born in 1951, Joe grew up on Massachusetts Street across from IUN’s new Arts and Sciences Building; his mother Carmen still lives there.  His father, who has passed away, worked in U.S. Steel’s tin mill for 30 years. Joe attended Franklin Elementary, Bailly Middle School (when black students were first bussed in), and Lew Wallace, where he was a star pitcher.  Obtaining a partial baseball scholarship to Valparaiso University (tuition was just $3,500 a year), he majored in Business Administration and worked at U.S. Steel for $2.75 an hour to help pay for college.  He attended IUN his senior year, as VU accepted the credit).  In the mid-1980s Joe earned an MBA at IUN and recalls Economics professor Leslie Singer as brilliant but nearly impossible to keep up with when lecturing.  Nearing retirement, Joe hopes to do volunteer work for the Special Olympics and the Calumet Regional Archives.  He is responsible for our obtaining the massive Inland Steel collection.

 Pope Francis throwing wreath into sea to honor drowning victims at Lampedusa, 2013

Ron Cohen gave me a bunch of New York Reviewsthat he had was done with.  The January 17 issue contained an article by Francesco Cantu, whose book “The Line Becomes a River” I’ve been reading titled “Has Any of Us Wept?” After describing the effect on families and children that Trump’s inhumane border policies have caused, he broadened the scope to the immigration crisis in the Mediterranean.  He brought up a 2013 visit by Pope Francis to Lampedusa, a small Italian island just 70 miles from Tunisia that is a central destination for migrants, 20,000 of whom have perished trying to cross the sea. Cantu described a homily Pope Francis delivered there:

  He referred to migrants not as undifferentiated “others” but as family, saying: “These brothers and sisters of ours were trying to escape difficult situations to find some serenity and peace; they were looking for a better place for themselves and their families, but instead they found death.”

  Standing on an altar assembled from remnants of wooden refugee boats, Pope Francis looked out over the port of Lampedusa and asked his audience, “Has any one of us grieved for the death of these brothers and sisters?  Has any one of us wept?”  In asking his listeners to consider who is responsible for this loss of life he describes “the globalization of indifference” through which our societies have become numb to the suffering of others.

New York Review evidently runs a Personals contest and printed these two runners-up:

DUBLIN, (IRELAND)

L. Cohen is dead so I’m free

Femme, Irish, just gone 63

Cool, classy, and svelte

My ice just might melt

For gentlemen callers like thee

Second runner-up was less lyrical:

HOT BLOODED BLONDE with brains longs for equally lonely heat seeking missile. Educated, analyzed, eccentric 71year-old NYC widow looking for male counterpart.

Here is the contest winner:

MY SON TOLD ME that certain butterflies drink the tears of turtles.  It was a metaphor for dating in Maine. (Post-masculine straight male, 50.  Midwestern nice. Yes to banter, yoga in non-yoga clothes, hapless hope)