End of the Line

“Unions aren’t just about making more money.  It’s about having a seat at the table, having the ability to talk to your employer and be respected, having some dignity in work.” Dave Green, President of United Auto Workers Local 1112 

 UAW officers Dave Green and Michael Aurillo

An article in New York Times Sunday magazine asked, “What happens to a factory town when the factory shuts down?” Mahoning Valley, which encompasses the Youngstown area, suffered the loss of steel industry jobs a generation ago, now faces an even bleaker future.  Six months ago, General Motors head honcho Mary Barra announced that the corporation would “unallocate” its Lordstown, Ohio Chevrolet plant, thereby eliminating thousands of jobs – the term.  G.M. came up with the term “unallocated” in a blatant attempt to circumvent a union agreement forbidding plant closings during the life of the contract.  A state-of-the-art facility when built in 1966, with two dozen robot welders part of its assembly line, the plant has produced over 16 million Chevys – Impalas, Vegas, Sunbirds, Cavaliers, and since 2011, 2 million Chevy Cruzes.  In 1972, when workers had considerably more leverage, employees staged successful wildcat strikes over a three-week period to protest speed-ups that would have resulted in worker exhaustion and job eliminations.  Despite a multi-billion-dollar bailout a decade ago, generous UAW givebacks in 2017, and the facility generating a healthy profit, G.M. decided to focus domestic production on S.U.V.s and trucks rather than sedans.  Dan Kaufman wrote: “The last Cruze came off the line on March 6, two days ahead of schedule. It had come to symbolize much more than a car.  It was a token of the most coveted working-class possession: a secure, well-paying job with health insurance and a pension.”  G.M. recently sold the Lordstown plant to Workhorse Group, maker of electric vehicles and drones, whose present work force numbers less than one hundred. 

Rohinton Mistry’s historical novel “A Fine Balance” takes place in India during the time of “The Emergency” when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ruled by decree, using the pretext of internal subversion to curb civil liberties and imprisoning political opponents. Asked to explain its meaning to tailors whom she has recently hired, widow Dina Dalal says, “Government problems – games played by people in power.  It doesn’t affect ordinary people like us.”

 Jesus Nazareth Fajardo; Times photo by John J. Watkins

Speaking at IUN’s commencement, held at Gary Genesis Center, was Jesus Nazareth Fajardo.  A decade ago at age 12, Fajardo moved with his family to the Chicago area knowing “not one drop of English.”Now with plans to attend medical school, he told classmates, friends, and loved ones: “Although we may come from different places and speak in different languages, it is our differences that make us special, that make us strong.”  NWI Timesreporter Carley Lanich wrote: “In his native language Nazareth Fajardo paused during his commencement address to thank his family.  He emphasized the importance of those who supported him throughout his studies.”  Chancellor Bill Lowe cited the accomplishments of three nontraditional students (half the graduating class being at least 26 years old), including Paulina Ugalde, who emigrated from Mexico less than three years ago.  IU President Michael McRobbie praised recently deceased Gary football star George Taliaferro, who when a student at Bloomington was unable to eat in the cafeteria or live in a dorm but became a respected professor and administrator in Bloomington, as an example of one who overcame formidable obstacles and became an inspiration to those who followed on his shoulders.

After playing a role in Gary mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson’s defeat at the hands of Lake County politician Jerome Prince, NWI Times editorial writer Marc Chase piled on in a column heralding what he termed a “spring awakening.”  Chase brought up Freeman-Wilson’s election as President of the National League of Cities and claimed that she “at times seemed more concerned with a national profile . . . than with her city’s struggle.”  Hogwash!

Two legendary performers are dead, Norma “Queen of Swing” Miller, 99, and Doris Day, 97, who transitioned from Big Band “siren” to wholesome star in such films as “Calamity Jane” (1953) and “Pillow Talk” (1959).  Growing up in Harlem, Miller was a member of the Lindy Hoppers and starred in stage shows starring Redd Foxx and Sammy Davis, Jr., among others.  In her later years Doris Day became an outspoken animal rights activist.

Raptor Kawhi Leonard and Robert Smith of the Cure

Over the weekend the Cubs took two of three from Milwaukee, thanks in part to Wilson Contreras’s fifteenth inning walk-off home run. In the NBA playoffs the 76ers lost the seventh game finalewith Toronto:  Kawhi Leonard ( sank a last-second shot that bounced four times on the rim before falling through the net – as one writer put it, “Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang. Swish!”  It reminded me of the sound (“Doink, doink”) of the missed field goal that cost the Bears a playoff victory.  The 2019 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction program aired on HBO.  Highlights were performances by Stevie Nicks and The Cure.  Robert Smith looked like an ancient goth but shined during a five-song set that included favorites “Shake Dog Shake,” “Just Like Heaven,” and “Boys Don’t Cry.”

   

works by Mary Cassatt and Marison Escobar

Bridge buddy Marcia Carson was Monday’s Art in Focus speaker at Munster Center for the Arts.  It being the first decent day in a week, husband Jim was on the golf course.  After director Micah Bornstein brought up the current gallery exhibit featuring birds, Marica mentioned that a downy woodpecker has been waking Jim and her up by tapping on an aluminum gutter outside their bedroom – evidently a mating ritual.   A Hammond teacher for 39 years, Marcia showed examples of “Mothers and Children in Art” (the title of her talk) from ancient Egypt and the Renaissance (i.e., Michelangelo’s “Pieta”) to modern Impressionists (Mary Cassatt’s “The Child’s Bath”) and photographers (Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother”).  The most fascinating piece was “Mi Mama y yo” by French sculptor of Venezuelan ancestry Marisol Escobar (1930-2016), whose mother committed suicide when she was 11.  A child is shielding her mother with an umbrella full of holes.  I hadn’t heard of Escobar but was familiar with her haunting statue of Father Damien, minister to a leper colony, located at the entrance to the State House in Honolulu, Hawaii.

photo by Nicki Seibold

High school classmate Dave Seibold replied to my sending him the latest Shavings,which contained a photo of him in Africa with a Massai chief.  He noted that the guy had three wives, each with her own hut that she built herself.  He recalled playing basketball on our garage court in Fort Washington after he was old enough to drive, his home being on the other end of Upper Dublin Township. We and Eddie Piszek were on a Babe Ruth baseball team coached by Ron Hawthorne’s father (Eddie liked to call him Mr. Haw-the-Haw).  Ronnie was our shortstop.  In a game with Dave playing first base and me at second, he fielded a swinging bunt and tossed a perfect throw to me covering first.  In the dusk I never saw it.  The umpires immediately called the game on account of darkness, with our team ahead and thus victorious.  Not long afterwards, an eye doctor determined that I needed glasses.  When my pair arrived, I admired blades of grass that heretofore were just a green blur.

At Gino’s in Merrillville for book club, I ran into old softball buddies Dave Serynek and Rocky Fraire at the bar while talking to Louis Gerodemos, owner of the Paragon Restaurant in Hobart and father of Jimmy, Gino’s manager.  Presenter Ken Anderson was speaking on a subject book to his heart, Richard Striner’s “Father Abraham,” written as a rebuttal to revisionist historians who claimed our sixteenth president was a white supremacist and a reluctant emancipator.  Ken pointed out that Lincoln’s moral opposition to slavery was unwavering but, a practical politician his views regarding Presidential power evolved, especially during wartime.  The end of the line for Lincoln came on Good Friday, 1865, just as the bloody Civil war was ending.  I pointed out the importance of Lincoln’s relationship with black abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who eulogized Lincoln as “emphatically the black man’s president, the first to show any respect for their rights as men.”  I read this 1876 assessment by Douglass: “Viewed from genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of the country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.” 

Harold Johnson in 2015; Times photo by John J. Watkins

The Post-Tribune profiled 97-year-old veteran Harold Johnson as he prepared to embark on a legacy tour of World War II sites in connection with the seventy-fifth anniversary of D-Day. An army paratrooper who enlisted at age 20, Johnson participated in a half dozen battles and received two Purple Hearts.  Just 20 years my senior, I can hardly imagine what Johnson went through – or, for that matter, what my contemporaries endured in Vietnam at an even younger age.  A couple years ago in Rochester, NY, I witnessed veterans de-planing from a legacy flight that had taken them to the nation’s capital for a tour of war memorials.  It was a moving sight; some rose from wheelchairs and others merely saluted when greeted upon arriving inside the airport terminal.