Father's Day

“He adopted a role called being a father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a protector,” Tom Wolfe

I’ve always regarded Father’s Day as a “Hallmark” holiday promoted as a gimmick to merchandize cards and gifts.  The idea was first proposed by Sonora Dodd of Spokane, Washington, in 1910 to honor her father, a Civil war veteran, and as a complement to Mother’s Day.  In 1972 Richard Nixon signed a bill proclaiming Father’s Day to be a national holiday.  I discourage cards but welcome phone calls.  Phil checked in after his kids took him to brunch.  Dave called en route to the University of Cincinnati's College Conservatory of Music, where Becca will participate in its summer program.  Granddaughter Alissa, who lived with us for seven years, telephoned in the evening. Unlike Mother’s Day, I don’t recall celebrating Father’s Day growing up.

 below, Barb and Steve at Lincoln Park gig

At Miller Beach Farmers Market the duo Silver Rose, featuring Barb Silverman and Steve Rose, performed a variety of popular songs.  Barb’s late father lived in Miller, and she teaches at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago.  Ron Cohen, who knows her, attended with Nancy, primarily interested in the antiques on display at the old Miller School nearby.  Nancy recently completed my latest Steel Shavings and said she particularly liked Ray Smock’s essays on the state of the Union under Trump. A big NBA fan, Nancy was disappointed that Seth Curry and Golden State lost in the championship round to Toronto.  I admitted rooting for the Raptors, mainly because they had defeated the 76ers on a miracle shot by Kawhi Leonard and had never gone all the way before.

In the final round of the U.S. Open Tiger Woods, already out of contention, bogeyed four of the first six holes and seemed headed for an ignoble 80. Then he birdied six of the last 12 for a 69, wowing the crowds and demonstrating some of that old Tiger magic.

The “young people edition” of Michael Bronski’s “A Queer History of the United States” consists mainly of short biographies of activists who were often in civil rights, antiwar, environmental, and labor movements, as well as the arts.  I learned, for instance, that “Queen of Disco” Sylvester, who recorded the dance classic “Do You Wanna Funk?” was in a San Francisco theatrical group called the Cockettes.  I particularly enjoyed profiles on Mattachine Society co-founder Harry Hay, Daughters of Bilitis founders Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, and Kiyoshi Kuramiya, born in 1943 in Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming during World War II.  From my days as a teaching assistant at University of Hawaii, I learned to pronounce Japanese names, which are phonetic and much easier than Eastern European ones encountered in Northwest Indiana.  Our friend Sheila Hamanaka had a son named Kiyoshi, whom everyone called Kiyo. While a student at the University of Pennsylvania, Kuramiya was beaten and hospitalized participating in civil rights activities in Montgomery. He joined SDS and took part in the 1967 March on the Pentagon, providing the FBI an excuse to scrutinize his activities. He belonged to ECHO (East Coast Hemophile Organization) and later the Gay Liberation Front.  An architect who collaborated with Buckminster Fuller, he died of AIDS at age 57, like so many contemporaries. 

 Kiyoshi Kuramiya

Sylvester in 1974

Bayard Rustin

I met Bayard Rustin, a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, at an IUN function and noticed that he smoked European cigarettes from a holder, had manicured nails, and made no effort to camouflage his effeminate mannerisms.  While jailed as a conscientious objector during World Wat II, lover Davis Platt wrote him as a woman to avoid the letters being confiscated. Bronski’s “A Queer History of the United States” noted: “Rustin’s habit of seeking hookups in public places, called cruising at the time, often got him into trouble.”  In 1953 he was arrested for having sex with a man in a car.  In 1977 65-year-old Rustin settled into a permanent relationship with 27-year-old VISTA worker Walter Naegle.

Twenty years ago, my colleague Terry Lukas was arrested and briefly detained during a raid on a park where gay trysts were taking place.  He was fearful he might lose his position at IU Northwest and thankful when I stuck by him.  I recall his telling me that there were few places where gays could meet.  The bust was front page headlines; one man identified was a Baptist minister.  Chancellor Hilda Richards called Lukas to her office and warned him not to put himself in a potentially embarrassing position again, then dropped the matter. 

When Paul Kern and I wrote a history of IUN, we mentioned numerous matters of sex but left out that incident as well as one where a professor was punished unfairly due to unproved innuendoes that he was involved in an inappropriate relationship with a male student - despite a predecessor having slept with a string of comely coeds under his charge with impunity.  Now I wish we’d have included the incidents - perhaps in a revised addition, now that both principals are dead.  Writing a queer history of IUN would be a pathbreaking accomplishment, albeit difficult to research, even for an oral historian. 

 Jimmy Hoffa flips RFK the bird during 1957 Senate hearing

Brother-in-law Sonny, a truck driver who became a Republican after Attorney-General Robert Kennedy went after Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa and who postured as a big Trump supporter when alive, had a gay friend named Harry who got caught in a police sweep of a public park in Florida frequently by gays.  The Korean War vet claimed he was merely taking donuts to those hanging out there.  A onetime victim of police harassment himself during younger days, Sonny defended Harry and thought it disgraceful that he was identified in the local newspaper, jeopardizing his job as a supermarket packer.  After a cop ordered Harry to cease crossing an intersection in a golf cart on the way to work, Sonny told him to keep on doing it, that the cop had no right to stop him.

In the “We Do History” Indiana Historical Society blog, Kathy Mulder discussed father and grandson William Henry and Benjamin Harrison, who became the country’s ninth and twenty-third presidents.  The latter lived in Indianapolis from 1854 until his death 47 years later. Mulder wrote: “One of Benjamin Harrison’s most notable campaign attractions was a giant campaign ball made with a steel frame and slogan-covered canvas. The ball was modeled after his grandfather’s 1840 presidential campaign ball and was rolled nearly 5,000 miles to Harrison’s Indianapolis home during the 1888 election.” On several occasions Harrison vacationed by the Kankakee Marsh and shot down countless migratory birds. In 1888, for example, the President-elect recuperated from the campaign on General Lew Wallace’s houseboat at Baum’s Bridge.

Playing poker for the first time in a year at Dick Hagelberg and George McGuan’s place of business, Kidstuff Playsystems, I was rather rusty and not used to high-low Omaha, which requires one to use two cards from your hand of four and three of the five up cards.  I had many second-best hands, in which I stayed in for the large final bet only to lose, for example to an Ace high flush when mine was King high. Twice I would have won low except for a rule that the winning hand needed to be eight high or better.