On Their Shoulders

“Everything begins with the body of the father.” David Maraniss, “When Pride Still Mattered”

 Vince Lombardi and Sonny Jurgensen

In a biography of legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, David Maraniss wrote that patriarch Enrico Lombardi arrived in the U.S. from Italy at age 3 and got nicknamed “moon” because of his round face and later “Five by Five” due to his short, squat stature.  Henry, as he liked to be called, covered his body with tattoos, much to the chagrin of his mother, Matilda, who friends and family called Matty.   Finding work as a butcher, he was so physically powerful he could lift two kids on a coal shovel with one hand. Son Vince’s life revolved around family, church, school, and sports, not necessarily in that order.  Brother Harold moved to San Francisco and, in response to constant inquiries about when he was getting married, finally revealed in a letter that he was gay.  Henry wrote back, “I don’t care.  You are my son.”When Vince came out of retirement in 1969 to coach the Washington Redskins and discovered that a player was gay, he told running back coach George Dickson, “if I hear one of you people make reference to his manhood, you'll be out of here before your ass hits the ground.”  I became a Skins fan that year, with quarterback Christian Adolf “Sonny” Jurgensen my favorite player.  The two got along famously, and Washington enjoyed a turn-around season, going 7-5-2, but it would be cancer-stricken Lombardi’s last. Both Henry and Matty Lombardi outlived their celebrated son.

After conducting research on the parents of successful Gary natives, I wrote articles on athletes Alex Karras (son of a family doctor and a registered nurse who was the better athlete), Hank Stram (whose father wrestled professionally and widowed mother managed a store), and Tony Zale (born Anthony Florian Zaleski into an immigrant family of steelworkers).  Prior to Zale’s initial bout, his mother fed him fish because it was on a Friday. He lost, and thereafter she served him steak no matter what day the fight took place.  Actor Karl Malden’s parents, Peter and Minnie Sekulovic, both acted in ethnic plays that young Mladen participated in, as well as Karageorge choir at Saint Sava Serbian Orthodox Choir, which his father directed.  

Coming of age during the Great Depression, my parents, Midge and Vic, valued the security of family and steady work.  Vic preferred sticking with a company that didn’t always treat him fairly to taking a chance when a riskier venture came along.  Midge worked full-time before marriage, was a substitute teacher while I was in school, and got hired as a dentist’s secretary after Vic died at age 50. To the extent that I am frugal and cautious in financial matters, it comes from them. My competitive streak in sports and games comes from Vic. They paid for my college education, as we did for Phil and Dave.  Despite similarities in looks and attitudes I’m not exactly a chip off the old block, as the saying dating back to Greek poet Theocritus goes, especially when it comes to my progressive political views and lifestyle. Both parents hated my musical tastes in the Fifties and still would today.

Vic was about 5’9”, weighed around 190, and had a full head of hair (like me, knock on wood; my younger brother has a bald spot).  A meat and potatoes man who smoked nearly a pack a day (mainly nonfiltered Camels), he commuted to work and had a mostly sedentary job.  A golfer and bowler, he and I went at it in ping pong and one-on-one basketball games, but wiffleball he could never get the hang of, frustrating him. Midge, barely five feet tall and given that nickname due to her diminutive size, went by her given name, Mary, after Vic died.

Until recently I thought that impressive Presidential candidate and former HUD secretary Julian Castro under Barack Obama was the Texas Congressman who recently visited overcrowded detention centers where the Trump administration treats immigrants like cattle. That happens to be Julian’s identical twin brother Joaquin, named for the character in Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzalez’s “I Am Joaquin” (“I am Joaquín, lost in a world of confusion, caught up in the whirl of a gringo society, confused by the rules, scorned by attitudes, suppressed by manipulation, and destroyed by modern society”).  Matriarch Victoria Castro came to America from Mexico as an orphan at age 6.  Her daughter Maria (Rosie”) became a San Antonio community activist, while the twins’ father Jessie Guzman was a mathematics teacher. Rosie helped start the Chicano party La Raza Unita.  Julian, who served three two-year terms as Mayor of San Antonio after succeeding Henry Cisneros as city councilman, once said: “My mother is probably the biggest reason that my brother and I are in public service. Growing up, she would take us to a lot of rallies and organizational meetings and other things that are very boring for an 8-, 9-, 10-year-old.”

Peter Lorre as Ugarte in "Casablanca" 

According to “We’ll Always Have Casablanca” by Noel Isenberg, Hungarian-born Peter Lorre began his stage career as Laszlo Lowenstein, Born in the Hungarian town of Rozsahegy, now part of Slovakia, Lorre was the son of a Jewish bookkeeper frequently absent on military maneuvers with the Austrian army reserves. His mother died when he was four, and Laszlo frequently clashed with his stepmother.  Having arrived in the U.S. in 1934 and taken the stage name Peter Lorre, he portrayed gay dandy Joel Cairo in the 1941 film noir “The Maltese Falcon,” directed by John Huston and starring Bogart and Sydney Greenstreet.  In CasablancaLorre played unsavory black market dealer Signor Ugarte, who sold exit visas desperately needed by those fleeing the Nazis. In one exchange Ugarte says to Rick (Humphrey Bogart), “You despise me, don’t you?”Rick responds, “If I gave it any thought, I suppose I would.”   Lorre often took roles portraying sexually ambiguous oddballs and often appeared as Japanese or German villains in war movies.  In his last film for Warner Brothers, “The Beast with Five Fingers” (1946) Lorre played a crazed astrologer.   A practical jokester, Lorre sometimes had actors rehearse nonexistent movie scenes in his dressing room. When “Casablanca” director Michael Curtiz would leave a lit cigarette in an ashtray, he’d put it out with from an eye dropper. 

“We’ll Always Have Casablanca” makes reference to the phrase “Don’t Bogart that joint,” which pot smokers sharing a joint commonly use when someone is hogging it.  According to one explanation, while most smokers hold cigarettes between the second and third fingers, Bogie’s, when not in his mouth, were between thumb and forefinger, like pot smokers.  In 1978 Little Feat recorded a song by that name that starts out, “Roll another one just like the other one.  You been holding onto it, and I sure would like a hit!  Don’t bogart that joint my friend, pass it over to me!”

Cracker put on a live show at Acorn Theater in nearby Three Oaks, Michigan.  On WXRT’s Saturday morning flashback show on the year 1992 I heard “Happy Birthday To Me.” which Cracker hardly ever performs live.  Perhaps it’s the silly lyrics, although that’s true of many of their songs.  Here’s two verses:

I was having a good sleep in my car
In the parking lot of the Showboat Casino-Hotel
I say "I remember you, you drive like a P.T.A. mother
You brought me draft beer in a plastic cup"
    . . .
I remember you, I crashed your wedding
With some orange crepe paper and some Halloween candy
Uh, sometimes I wish I were Catholic (I don't know why)
I guess I'm happy to see your face at a time like this

I sang along to the “Happy Birthday To Me” chorus in the car.  

A “Jeopardy” question on national parks asked for one located in the Mojave Desert desecrated by vandals during a recent government shutdown.  Having visited Joshua Tree National Park, I knew the answer.  I’ve attended two cracker Campout weekends in nearby Pioneertown, California, which contains majestic Joshua trees.  Phil, Dave, cousin Bobby, and I traveled there to see the Head and the Heart, coming to Grand Rapids next month, where I first saw them. One song on their 2016 “Signs of Light” CD is “Your Mother’s Eyes.” Midge’s were green, Vic’s, like mine, blue.

 Bobby Skafish

At poker I met John Skafish, brother of longtime Chicago deejay Bobby Skafish, who has written “We Have Company: Four Decades of Rock and Roll Encounters” about celebrities such as David Bowie and Jackson Browne that he’s met during stints at Chicago radio stations WXRT, WLUP (the Loop), and WDRV (the Drive).  The Skafish brothers grew up in Hammond, John is a former math teacher at Andrean whose wife taught social studies at Lake Central.  With ten at the table we mostly played high-low Omaha, where one must use exactly two cards from the four dealt to you and three of the five common cards dealt face up, first by “flopping” three and then turning the others one at a time. If nobody has at least an eight low or two pair for high, there is just one winner. Other than splitting a couple small pots, in the three and a half hours, I won just a single pot but it was a huge one – in a high-only criss-cross game. I got dealt 2 fives, and two more came face up.  My four of a kind defeated two others betting heavy with a flush and full house.  The rest of the evening I minimized my losses by dropping out of most hands after the flop rather than hope for an unlikely card.  

 Baltimore and Ohio & Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Crossing in Miller, 1889, Calumet Regional Archives

Our nation and, in microcosm, the Calumet Region, became an industrial power on the shoulders of the laboring classes, whose ranks and clout are diminishing in the wake of automation and globalization.  Good riddance to some unsafe, unhealthy, demeaning jobs, but vanishing, too, are those that pay a living wage.

Allison Schuette had a poem accepted by Belt(as in rust belt) magazine, which publishes essays, features, and literary depictions of the industrial Midwest. Allison wanted to include a photo of a 1889 Miller railroad crossing that inspired her and appeared in Ron Cohen and my “Gary: A Pictorial History.” Calumet Regional Archives curator Steve McShane was able to send the jpeg to the editor.  Checking out Beltmagazine’s impressive digital publication, I discovered Tricia Orr’s “Cleaving” in the June 6, 2019 issue. It poignantly captures the bittersweet fascination with urban ruins:

In what may be her last message to me
she says she likes taking photographs
of abandoned places.

My city is abundant in that respect.
She says she knows this. One day
this summer she might visit and
go exploring. I take this as polite talk.

Still, I unfold my maps and trace my finger
across searching for the most authentic-looking
ruins. Perhaps I should show her the forlorn church
On E. 67^th, moss creeping up the bricks,
a red Hells Angels sign nailed to a nearby house.

Or maybe the massive warehouse
once used for making filament for lightbulbs.
Walls partially intact, open to the sky.

Some locals suspect the building spreads a little each year.
As though the weeds are the workers now,
carrying the building on their backs,
forcing us to come face to face
with what we’ve lost,

with what we might still recover.