Embrace the Mess

“The messiness of experience, that may be what we mean by life.” Daniel J. Boorstin

Joe Madden and Don Ritchie; "c'est du vent" means "it's all hot air"

“Embrace the mess”sounds like a gimmicky motto thought up by Chicago Cubs manager Joe Madden, whose motivational sayings include “Try not to suck”and “Do simple better.” Two articles on pedagogy in the current Oral History Review (OHR)are titled “Embracing the Mess,” one about “Conflict Studies Classrooms” and the other on “Untidy Oral History.”  Both take a postmodernist approach, regard uncertainty of validation as a given, and discuss such concepts as deconstruction, dialogic relationships, indeterminacy, and intersubjectivity. Methinks these scholars created an unnecessary messiness themselves. I’m so grateful for fellow Marylander Don Ritchie’s “Doing Oral History,” which advocates plunging in armed only with a few practical words of advice and leaving the analysis until later.“

I am one of countless oral historians who have benefitted from Alessandro Portelli’s sage insights and example.  In “Biography of an Industrial Town: Terni, Italy, 1831-2014” (2017), now available in English, he distinguishes between memory and imagination and regards his craft as a creative endeavor.  His “symphony” of working-class voices (in the words of OHRcontributor William Burns) weaves a narrative similar to many post-industrial towns and cities. In “They Say in Harlan County: An Oral History” (2011) Portelli wrote:

  I have always admired the way in which people fight back under great odds and survive, especially in the United States, where one is not supposed to be up against impossible odds.  Harlan County [KY] does not display much pursuit of happiness.  But you see there the persistence of life in the face of danger and death.

  The handling of poisonous snakes in church is a test of faith and grace, just as catching them in one’s yard is a test of prowess and courage.  The deathly presence of the snake parallels the daily danger of the mines, and the culture takes a sort of ironic pride in its ability to handle it.  The snake is both something radically other and a household presence.

The most interesting article in the special OHR section on pedagogics, Leyla Neyzi’s “National Education Meets Critical Pedagogy: Teaching Oral History in Turkey,” views oral history as an alternative to “methodologically conservative nationalist history.”Neyzi’s mentor was folklorist and historian Arzu Öztürkmen of Bogazici University, who at the 1998 International Oral History Association (IOHA) conference in Rio de Janeiro presented a splendid paper entitled “The Irresistible Charm of the Interview.”  Phil and I danced with Öztürkmen at the U.S. Consulate’s gala for IOHA members.  I learned that the Turkish belly dance is similar to the Hawaiian hula except for the arm motion. 

Leyla Neyzi and Arzu Ozturkmen

In 2000, thanks in part to Öztürkmen, Bogazici University hosted the IOHA conference.  I was there when grandson James was born. In Istanbul I gave a talk about Inland Steel’s “Red Local” 1010 and the Steelworker’s Fight Back 1977 USWA election. One conference session was on the Armenian genocide during and after World war I resulted in the Turks extermination of approximately a million people.  When governmental officials threatened to prevent it, the IOHA threatened to hold the conference elsewhere.  An overflow audience included many people who were not IOHA members.  Neyzi wrote that this neglected episode in Turkish history illustrates “the silences and contradictions of public history”:

  When mentioned in history textbooks, Armenians tend to be referred to as “traitors” who were “relocated” during wartime for raison d’etat.  The prevalent view is that the (“so-called”) Armenian genocide is a myth Turkey’s internal and external “enemies” fabricated. Given that young people are raised with this public narrative (which masks an “open secret” only discussed in private), what are the implications of introducing the Armenian genocide as a historical event in the classroom, along with the memories of survivors as recorded by oral historians?”  

Neyzi broached this controversial subject in “’Wish They Hadn’t Left’: The Burden of Armenian Memory in Turkey,” a chapter in the 2010 book “Speaking to One Another: Personal Memories of the Past in Armenia and Turkey.”

Regal Beloit’s threat to move its Valpo operations to a plant in Monticello, Indiana, is shameful blackmail. All striking workers demand is a 75-cent hourly wage increase and health insurance not to exceed $15,000 a year. NWI Timescorrespondent Joseph S. Pete wrote: “The bearings manufacturing operation has a long history in Valparaiso and is even older than U.S. Steel's Gary Works. Regal Beloit, a multinational electric motors manufacturer, has only owned the former McGill Manufacturing Co. for five years.” Mayor Jon Costas released this statement:

  This decision would impact approximately 110 union workers and another 50-60 nonunion management positions. As a community, we are disappointed that Regal is considering shutting down this productive facility and urge them to reconsider this unfortunate option. 

Employees agreed to return to work while negotiations continue regarding the dispute and the company’s heartless position.

Anne Balay wrote:

Memories. Ten years ago today, at a faculty meet and greet, James Lane suggested to me that I do oral histories of gay steelworkers. I was telling him about my interest in blue collar queers, and he said this was an interesting and fun opportunity. I was an English professor with no background in ethnography or interviewing. I was an introvert. I never looked back and the people I know now because of that work are the greatest gift anyone could have.

Last October, in Montreal for an OHA conference session Anne Balay organized, I teared up at lunch with one of Anne’s Haverford students, Phil Reid, describing my suggestion that she interview LGBT steelworkers and how her department chair held that against her, preferring that Anne keep churning out largely unread children’s lit articles.

Ray Smock photographed the Milky Way near Spray, Oregon and wrote:

   The Milky Way this time of year dominates the sky from horizon to horizon. We had two nights of crystal-clear sky with stars so bright it was easy to see in total darkness. Spray, Oregon a town of 150 was six miles from our viewing site and blocked by a mountain. No light pollution!  We got lucky in the high desert with beautiful days and star filled nights. We went to a country store where we were the only ones not wearing camouflage. It was opening day for elk hunting for bow hunters.

On the second week of bowling I rolled a 473 (148-152-173) as the Electrical Engineers took two games and series by a mere 12 pins.  In the tenth frame of game three Ron Smith doubled, I struck and spared, setting the stage for 87-year-old Frank Shufran, our clean-up man, who needed to pick up a ten-pin, normally his nemesis, in order for us to prevail.  He nailed it and flashed four fingers, signifying the number of times he had converted it.  On an adjacent alley, 82-year-old Gene Clifford, a former Valpo H.S. bowling coach, rolled a 236 despite missing a couple spares.

Steve and Wanda Trafny

Historian John C. Trafny gave me a copy of his latest Arcadia “Images of America” volume, “Downtown Gary, Millrats, Politics, and US Steel,” co-authored by his sister Diane F. Trafny.  On the cover is a Calumet Regional Archives photo of a parade float provided by Gary Works passing the Lake Superior Court Building during the 1931 Gary Silver Jubilee celebration.The book includes several photos of the Trafny's parents, Steve, who saw action in the Pacific during World War II, and Wanda, a refugee from Poland.  In the introduction they paint a vivid picture of Gary’s downtown commercial district during its 30-year heyday beginning in the 1920s, which drew shoppers and pleasure seekers from throughout the Calumet Region despite stores being closed on Sundays prior to the 1950s except for gas stations and pharmacies:

 Shoppers were offered a host of stores. Large national chains like Sears, J.C. Penney, Florsheim, and S.S. Kresge Co., and Chicago-based stores like Goldblatt Bros. became popular with blue-collar families, especially those who wanted a good deal on furniture or appliances.  H. Gordon and Sons, which opened on Broadway in the early 1920s, became one of the area’s premier clothing stores.  Others included Pearson, a women’s clothing store, and Henry C. Lytton and Sons, menswear.  Baby boomers may recall Comay’s Jewelers with its record shop, Tom Olesker’s, W.T. Grant, and Robert Hall clothing on East Fifth Avenue.  No matter the store, sales associates asked shoppers, “May I help you?” 

  Along Fifth Avenue visitors could patronize Olsen Cadillac, Baker Chevrolet, and Baruch Olds. Bakeries such as Cake Box and Sno-White provided delicious baked goods. Slicks Laundry, the Blackstone, the Lighthouse, Walts, and Gary Camera were other businesses located along the street. In addition, there were plenty of taverns in the area.They included Parkway, Cozy Corner, Trainor’s, the Spitfire Lounge, the Ingot Inn, and a host of others.  On payday Mondays, the saloons did good business as steelworkers cashed checks there instead of the banks.  It was, after all, a steel town.

Ron Cohen treated Steve McShane and me to lunch at Captain’s House in Miller.  The main order of business was doing whatever necessary to hire Steve’s replacement before he retires in a year.  As Archives co-directors, Ron and I agreed to write Library dean Latrice Booker and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Vicki Roman-Lagunas to urge authorization so a search can commence.   Archives volunteer Maurice Yancy had brought me a copy of the Gary Crusaderthat contained an article about the third edition of “Gary: A Pictorial History.”  Ron told me that the Katie Hall Educational Foundation has been selling them at a brisk pace.

Rolling Stone National Editor Matt Taibbi’s article “Trump 2020: Be Very Afraid” compares the President to a “mad king” whom “most people would not leave alone with a decent wristwatch, let alone their children.”  Here’s a description of him at a rally in Cincinnati: “His hair has visibly yellowed since 2016.  It’s an amazing, unnatural color, like he was electrocuted in French’s mustard.  His neckless physique is likewise a wonder. He looks like he ate Nancy Pelosi.” He scolds Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for being disrespectful to “Nancy.”  Taibbi writes: 

 Nancy!  The lascivious familiarity with which Trump dropped her name must have stung like a tongue in Pelosi’s ear.  The Speaker, from that moment, was cornered.  A step forward meant welcoming the boils-and-all embrace of Donald Trump. A step back meant bitter intramural surrender and a likely trip to intersectionality re-education camp.

If “race, class, and gender” was once the politically correct historians’ Holy Trinity, “intersectionality” has become its unitarian synthesis. Coined by black feminist scholar Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, it’s the assertion that aspects of political and social discrimination overlap with gender.

 intersectionality

In “Chances Are” novelist Richard Russo introduced memorable minor characters such as closeted American History professor Tom Ford, who gave students the lone final exam question on the first day of class: “What caused the Civil War?” Michael, Sr., Mickey’s father, “like so many workingmen, always carried his money in a roll in his front pocket, no doubt comforted by the weight, the illusion of control you couldn’t get from a flimsy credit card.”A pipe fitter with a heart murmur that he neglected, one day he remained in the restaurant booth when his buddies got up to leave, his heart having beat for the final time.  When I told Gaard Logan that “Chances Are” was named for the 1957 Johnny Mathis song, she recalled that the brother of the African-American crooner (the secret heartthrob to many suburban young women I knew) was rumored to be a toll booth attendant in San Francisco when she moved there. 

Friendsgiving

 “There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

Michael and Jimbo; photo by Kirsten Bayer-Petras

Since the 1970s it’s been a tradition to have Thanksgiving with our oldest Gary friends, Michael and Janet Bayer.  We missed some years after they moved to Vermont but revived the tradition upon their relocating to the Indianapolis area.  In the past couple years we realized having our families together on Thanksgiving was impractical, so we moved it to an earlier date. This year August worked best because we could take advantage of Kirsten and Ed’s pool.  The weather was perfect, sunny and in the low 80s, then cool enough after sundown for a fire to make smores.  Grilling burgers, brats, hot dogs, chicken, and corn of the cob and eating outside was more relaxing than a sitdown meal of turkey and ham with all the trimmings. Our group of 20 ranged in age from 4 to 77.  Though the eldest, I played two games of cornhole with Phil as partner and went 1-1against tough competition.  Kirsten made delicious cherry cobbler from a recipe she got from me.  Brenden Bayer, a Great Lakes boat captain, gave Toni an International Longshoremen’s Association sweater, which she’ll treasure.

 Kravitz family; below, Chez Roberts and friends (Kirsten on right)

Several folks had watched season 2 of “Little Big Lies” and, like me, were blown away by Meryl Streep and the other actresses, in particular Zoë Kravitz, the daughter of singer Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet – talk about cool parents! Joining us was Chez Roberts, one of Kirsten’s oldest friends who manages an Italian restaurant and soon will open a place of his own.  He is from Columbus, Ohio, as is Hanif Abdurraqib, author of “They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us.” Abdurraqib describes his hometown with bittersweet candor, avoiding nostalgia:

  The mission of any art that revolves around place is the mission of honesty.  So many of us lean into romantics when we write of whatever place we crawled out of, perhaps because we feel like we owe it something, even when it has taken more from us than we’ve taken from it.  The mission of honesty becomes a bit more cloudy when we decide to be honest about not loving the spaces we have claimed as our own.

We spent the night at Mike and Janet’s in Fishers and then were back at Kirsten’s in Carmel for breakfast.  Recently retired, Janet talked about taking a “gap year” (a phrase I became familiar with recently and now seemingly hear all the time) before pursuing another phase of her life.  She’s thinking about starting a blog and hopes to write about famous people she’s met as an activist over the years, and I mentioned some I interacting with Bayard Rustin and Julian Bond.   Brenden, who lives just a few miles from us, suggested we go back on routes 31 and 30 instead of taking I-65, so we followed his advice.  It took about the same amount of time and was much more relaxing, with fewer trucks and traffic.  Summer construction is unavoidable but not so much a hassle on the new route.

                                               Buck Swope and Roller Girl

Home in time to catch the Cubs getting swept by the Washington Nationals, whose hitters were more disciplined than the strike out-prone Cubbies.  I finished watching “Boogie Night,” depressing but with a cool scene where a drug-crazed cokehead is dancing and singing along to “Sister Christian” by Night Ranger and Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl,” which contains the line, “Jessie’s got himself a girl and I want to make her mine.”  In fact, I enjoyed the music throughout, including “Got To Give It Up” by Marvin Gaye and “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys. The two most sympathetic characters were Buck Swope (Don Cheadle), a porn star who dresses like a cowboy and hopes to open his own stereo store, and Roller Girl (Heather Graham), a nightclub waitress who ultimately goes back to school.

First day of Fall semester at IUN, I was fortunate to find a parking space in the lot adjacent to the Arts and Sciences Building.  I couldn’t hear my phone messages so Rogelio “Roger” Torres from Tech Services came to my rescue.  He was impressed I could pronounce his name, so I showed him my book with former Lake County sheriff Rogelio “Roy” Dominguez.  Reminding me he’d taken my Vietnam war course 32 years, Jon Becker asked me to speak about the history of IUN in his freshman seminar.  I ran into old family friend Mike Applehans, who teaches math for IVY Tech, which shares the new building with IUN.  I delivered 20 Shavingscopies to Liz Wuerffel at VU, whose podcast students I’ll be talking with next week.  I may see if James wants to show me his dorm room and go to Culver’s afterward.  

Miranda spent the night after picking up a friend’s cat Duke in Chicago, who’s visiting her husband’s Syrian relatives in Saudi Arabia.  The person they first left Duke with left him in a dark room all the time. Last weekend Miranda went to a festival featuring rap and electronic music, and thieves made off with hundreds of cell phones, some worth up to a thousand dollars.

Liz Wuerffel (above) and Miranda Lane

One reviewer called Richard Russo’s new novel, “Chances Are” an elegy for the Baby Boom generation.  Three 66-year-old best friends in college, Lincoln, Teddy, and Mickey, reunite on Martha’s Vineyard. Russo introduced the prologue with these lines from “Miss Atomic Bomb” by The Killers:

For a second there we were.

Yeah, we were innocent and young.

Teddy, editor of a failing university press, Lincoln, a real estate broker, and Mickey, a musician, were self-described hashers who had served food at a college sorority.  Arriving on a Harley, Mickey mocked his buddies’ taste in music. He labeled the alt rock groups Teddy favored – Mumford and Sons and the Decembrists – as faggot music and the selections on Lincoln’s phone – Herb Alpert and Jonny Mathis (including “Chance Are”) – as elevator music.  Mickey had nicknames for everyone, in Teddy’s case, Tediosli, Teduski, and Tedmarek.

Cerebral and cautious, Teddy, the son of high school teachers, was susceptible to sudden mood shifts and described his goal as avoiding Sturm und Drang(storm and stress).  Ordering a second IPA at a tavern, he rationalized that he had no place to go, this weekend of any other. Haunted by recollections from his past, he lamented, “Wasn’t memory, that bully and oppressor, supposed to become soft and spongy?”His dim-witted high school basketball coach called him a pussy because he wouldn’t play dirty.  Russo wrote:

  The coach, attempting to free a stick that had become wedged between the blade and the frame of his lawnmower, without first turning the motor off, managed to slice off the top joint of what he always referred to as his pussy finger. Teddy, when he heard about it, couldn’t help smiling.

Barb Walczak’s Newsletter reported a 72-50% game by Claire Murvihill and Harry Dunbar (above).  The tight end on my seventh-grade football team was Bill Dunbar, a handsome African American with red hair.  Harry praised Claire’s good attitude and added: “I like to hear her sing religious songs even though I am not a religious man.  She makes herself available in giving me rides in a very pleasant way.  She’s become an expert at finding my house on a dark night.”

At Chesterton Judy Selund mentioned that she is about to embark on a two-week trip to Poland with 6 friends, three of them bridge players.  They’re taking a limo to the airport large enough for seven women and their luggage. For a going away dinner Don Geidemann made noodles Warsaw, with kluski noodles, sausage, cabbage, and spices.  He described the hotels they’re staying at as palatial.

Gator Robb, the Florida man who trapped Chance the Snapper in Chicago’s Humboldt Park, is back in the news.  While in the Windy City he met Kadi Flagg, and the two have been dating ever since. “She’s the total package,” he told reporters after they toured Shedd Aquarium, adding: “Most people see those animals and they kind of get the heebie jeebies.  That wasn’t a problem she had. She seemed to be all about it.”

Salt of the Earth

“No man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.” Edward R. Murrow (below)

What newsman Edward R. Murrow said of the red-baiting Republican Senator from Wisconsin Joseph R. McCarthy seems particularly relevant during a time when, once again, the timidity of Republicans allows demagoguery full reign, this time from the White House.  In 1954, during the so-called Army-McCarthy hearings, attorney Joseph Welch enunciated what others were too timid to say on the record: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Have you no sense of decency?”

The phrase “Salt of the earth”comes from the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus purportedly said to fishermen and, in effect, all simple folk, “Ye are the salt of the earth.”  It was a fitting title for a 1954 film about Mexican-Americans fighting for decent treatment at Empire Zinc Mine in the company town of Silver City, New Mexico.  The company paid Mexican-Americans less than Anglo miners and housed them in segregated units that lacked indoor plumbing or hot water.  Producer Paul Jarrico and director Herbert Biberman had been blacklisted for refusing to testify before the House UnAmerican Activities and in Biberman’s case, jailed for six months.  Will Geer played the role of sheriff; most cast members were not professional actors but rather miners themselves. When a Taft-Hartley injunction prevented workers from picketing, their wives took their place, in some cases against the husbands’ wishes.  Esperanzo Quintero, pregnant with a third child, gets arrested for leading the protest and is jailed, and, when consoled by a comrade, says, “I don’t want to go down fighting.  I want to win.” When the company attempts to evict the Quintero family, the community comes to their aid and the 15-month strike ends with the company granting most demands.  Most theaters refused to show “Salt of the Earth” after the American Legion called for a nationwide boycott, but it has since been recognized as a classic.

               Jencks in movie and later

Ron Cohen had me pick up a book for him mailed to the History department, “McCarthyism vs. Clinton Jencks” by Raymond Caballero.  A University of Colorado graduate, Jencks (1918-2002) served in the air force during World War II and after receiving an honorable discharge found work at Asarco’s Globe Smelter in Denver. Joining the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers, a radical union, he worked as a labor organizer in New Mexico and supported miners who in 1950 went on strike at Empire Zinc Company. Jencks participated in the blacklisted film “Salt of the Earth,” playing a role based on his own experiences.  In 1952 FBI agents arrested Jencks on charges of falsifiying a document by denying he belonged to the Communist Party. Convicted largely due to the testimony of FBI informant Harvey Matusow, who later recanted, Jencks appealed.  In 1957 the Supreme Court exonerated him due to his having been denied access to documents used against him.  During the 1960s he earned a PhD in Economics at Berkeley and became a professor at San Diego State before moving to Grand Rapids, Michigan with his third wife, a former grad student.

The Portage Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) is awarding an AR-15 to the winner of their raffle.  In an understatement Post-Tribunecolumn Jerry Davich opined that the prize was in bad taste.  One reader was more emphatic, branding it “crazy” and only possible in “redneck” Portage.  Other FOPs sadly have done the same despite the threat to law enforcement officers posed by semi-automatic rifles capable of mass destruction.

On the first week of bowling the Electrical Engineers were down to a single former electrical engineer, Frank Shufran, from our old Gary Sheet and Tin league, due to the retirement of Dick Maloney (macular degeneration) and Mel Nelson (bum shoulder). Fortunately, we picked up Ron Smith from Duke Cominsky’s Pin Heads, which disbanded due to teammates’ similar health problems. Lorenzo Rodriguez, on the DL all last year, would have been our fourth bowler had another team not reached him first.  Early in game one Lorenzo fell, sat down until his head cleared, then left, his return doubtful.  

On the cover of Time is Lil Nas X (Montero Lamar Hill), a gay, black, country rapper, with the hottest song of the year, “Old Town Road,” which has topped the Billboard charts for a record 19 weeks and already streamed well over a billion plays on Spotify, outperforming such heavy hitters as Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran.  Just a year ago Lil Nas X was homeless, sleeping on a sister’s couch.  Here are lyrics to “Old Town Road”:

My life is a movie
Bull ridin' and boobies
Cowboy hat from Gucci
Wrangler on my booty

Can't nobody tell me nothin

Chancellor Lowe and Laila Nawab

Over a hundred faculty, administrators, staff, and students turned out for the Chancellor’s “Campus Conversation,” which resembles a convocation (something I suggested a decade ago) but without the typical pomp and ceremony. In her welcoming remarks Vice Chancellor Vicki Roman-Lagunas noted the steep increase in on-line offers to a round of applause (I felt like booing but kept silent) and paraphrased Chancellor Lowe’s statement that IU Northwest is the campus of the future, but we’re doing it now.  Faculty Org president Susan Zimmer’s most memorable line was, “Some students drink at the fountain of knowledge, and others just gargle.”  Chemistry major Laila Nawab, president of the Student Government Association gave the student welcome, noting efforts to get more students involved in campus affairs. Business students described an innovative mentoring program they started. 

Chancellor Bill Lowe’s state of the campus address was surprisingly upbeat, compared to the normal doom and gloom over budget matters.  He claimed that enrollment and retention were up after several lean years and that the university’s financial affairs were in order. Touting Hanif Abdurraqib’s October visit to campus, Lowe noted that all students can get a free copy of “They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us.” Before introducing Diversity director James Wallace, Lowe noted that the campus will soon be celebrating IU’s Bicentennial year and 60 years of being at our present Glen Park location.

At a luncheon in Savannah gym East Chicago Central grad David Bork, one of Dave’s best former students, who was recently hired as an assistant to Athletic Director Ryan Shelton, greeted me warmly.  Sitting with Chris Young and Nicole Anslover with plates of salad and brisket, string beans, rice, ands gravy, I told Chris I was looking forward to his September book club talk on the Pony Express.  He is presently reading Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” because his son has been assigned it in high school, something I did James’s senior year. I congratulated Nicole on being the new department chair.  Since she is teaching a fall upper division course on Postwar American, I told her about David Goldfield’s “The Gifted Generation: When Government Was Good” (2017).  She plans on inviting me to speak about race-relations in postwar Gary. Joining our table were sociologists Jack Bloom and Kevin McElmurry, geologist Zoran Kilibarda, photographer Jennifer Greenburg, and sculptor Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford (below).

Exceedances

“Another sad day for Lake Michigan.  Industry still using the lake as its own dumping grounds!” Jim Brown

 IDEM officials checkoff dead fish near Portage marina, NWI Times photo by John Luke

A malfunction at ArcelorMittal Burns Harbor plant has resulted in thousands of fish dying in the East Branch of the Little Calumet River and in nearby Lake Michigan. Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) officials have used the euphemism “exceedances” to characterize the chemical spill of cyanide and ammonia-nitrogen.  Indiana Dunes National Park superintendent Paul Labovitz closed the Portage beach area and told Kevin Nevers of the Chesterton Tribune, “It was a broad-spectrum kill.  It was not species-specific.  Anything close to the source was killed.  It even killed catfish, and catfish are pretty hard to kill.”  Labovitz was rather cavalier in concluding, “I put this in the category of ‘Shit Happens in an industrial community.’”  He praised Arcelor-Mittal for accepting blame for the environmental disaster and communicating results of their ongoing investigation far faster than was the case with U.S. Steel when a deadly carcinogen spilled into Burns Ditch from its Portage facility 30 months ago with dire consequences. Republicans being in control of state and federal regulatory commissions, it is doubtful that Arcelor-Mittal will receive more than a slap on the wrist.

Post-Tribune photo byZbigniew Bzdak

Cha Meyer reacted to Portage Beach being closed until further notice: “We are canaries in the coal mine of the world that our society has polluted and squandered away.”

Portage officials contradicted Superintendent Labovitz’s charitable assessment.  A spokesman noted: “While reports show many, including IDEM, knew of the concerns as early as August 12th, the City of Portage was not informed of this concern until August 15th.” Commenting on the Portage Indiana Municipal Facebook site, Diana Dempsey Bartkus wrote: “It’s cheaper for them to pay the fine than dispose of properly, I’m sure. Throw down! Make an example out of them! There should be zero tolerance! Beach goers were not turned away from any of these beaches on Thursday! They already knew of the situation for more than 24 hours! This is awful and infuriating!!!” Tammie Klym added:“How is any level of these deadly chemicals allowed to be near our water supply? How are these companies allowed to have any vessel that allows anything to be dumped into water? I can see intake. This is why our ecosystem is failing. This company makes millions if not billions of dollars. Put in a filtration system and make sure it works.” This from Jonathan Fronczak: “Forget a fine, some people need to be locked up. You can get a felony and jail for hunting and fishing unlawfully. The only way to stop future events is criminal prosecution. Make an example!!!”

George Takei at Rowher and at present

Rohwer Internment Camp

Veteran actor George Takei, best known as Hikaru Sulu in the “Star Trek” series, is in AMC’s “The Terror: Infamy,” which takes place in an internment camp where Japanese-Americans were consigned during World War II. In a Timeinterview Takei tells of his family being interned when he was just five. Soldiers showed up at their home in Los Angeles and took them to Santa Anita racetrack, where a chain-link fence surrounded the entire facility.  Takei recalled:

  We were unloaded and herded over to the stable area. Each family was assigned to a horse stall.  For my parents, it was a degrading, humiliating, enraging experience to take their three kids to sleep in a smelly horse stall.  But to me, it was fun to sleep where the horses slept.

One stall had been home to the famous racehorse Seabiscuit, winner of the 1940 Santa Anita Handicap less than two years before. From Santa Anita the Takei family was sent to Rohwer internment camp in Desha County, Arkansas.  Takei recalled: 

  We were plunked down in the swamps of southeastern Arkansas.  To me, it was an exotic, alien planet.  Trees grew out of the water of the bayou that was right next to the barbed-wire fence. I remember catching pollywogs and putting them in a jar. Dragonflies, which I’ve never seen before.  The first winter, it snowed. I was a Southern California kid.  To wake up one morning and see everything covered in white, it was a magical place.

  For my parents, it was a series of goading terrors, one after the other.  But children are amazingly adaptable.  We adjusted, and we got used to what would have been a grotesque thing – lining up three times a day to eat lousy food in a noisy mess hall, or going with my father to bathe in a mass shower.  When I made the night runs to the latrine, searchlights followed me.  I thought it was nice that they lit the way for me to pee. It wasn’t until later that I learned about the reality, the horror, the terror, and the injustice of the incarceration.

Toni and I attended a RailCats baseball contest against the Milwaukee Milkmen.  While the game itself was rather boring, afterwards there was a spectacular fireworks display, like a grand finale that lasted a good 10-15 minutes.  In“They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us” essayist Hanif Abdurraqib admitted to being a fan of his hometown Triple-A Columbus (Ohio) Clippers, and watching a Fourth of July fireworks display at Huntington Park:Over the weekend:

  You’ll roll your eyes when “Born in the U.S.A.” plays while the fireworks fly screaming into the sky, tucking all its darkness into their pockets.  I still go to watch the brief burst of brightness glow on the faces of black children, some of them have made it downtown, miles away from the forgotten corners of the city they’ve been pushed to. Some of them smiling and pointing upwards, still too young to know of America’s hunt for their flesh.  How it wears the blood of their ancestors on its teeth.

Music critic Abdurraqib, it turns out, is a big Bruce Springsteen fan.  He has attended several of The Boss’s concerts and is particularly fond of “The River” album, which celebrates the small pleasures of blue-collar culture and, as Abdurraqib put it, “the ability to make the most of your life, because it’s the only life you have.”  Catching Bruce and the E Street Band at a sold-out show in Newark, New Jersey’s Prudential Center, Abdurraqib observed:

  As I looked around the swelling arena, the only other black people I saw were performing labor in some capacity.  As the band launched into a killer extended version of “Cadillac Ranch,” I looked over to the steps and saw a young black man who had been vending popcorn and candy.  He was sitting on a step covered in sweat and rubbing his right ankle.  A man, presumably attempting to get back to his seat, yelled at him to move.

  In Bruce Springsteen’s music, I think about the romanticization of work and how that is reflected in America.  Rather, for whom work is romantic, and for whom work is a necessary and sometimes painful burden of survival. In my decade-plus of loving Bruce Springsteen’s music, I have always known and accepted that the idea of hard, beautiful, romantic work is a dream sold a lot easier by someone who currently knows where their next meal will come from.

I woke up disoriented, then realized; no electricity.  Most of Chesterton suffered the same fate.  Dave took us to breakfast.  After encountering long waits at Round the Clock and Bob Evans, we were about to settle for Culver’s when Dave noticed that, it being 11 o’clock, AJ’s Pizza Company was just opening.  They served great coffee, and the lunch menu included a tasty steak sandwich and homemade chips. I called Ron Cohen on Dave’s cellphone, and, back at the condo, he and Nancy picked me up for Fred Chary’s 80th birthday celebration just as our power returned.   

EllaRose

As always, Diane Chary prepared a bountiful buffet.  Having recently eaten, I was pleased to discover a vegetable plate and chunks of mangoes in a salad.  Later I went back for other delicacies.  Fred’s daughter EllaRose, a playwright, came from New York City.  Missing were regulars Karen Rake and Milan Andrejevich, as well as recently retired English professors Alan Barr and George Bodmer. Both attended ten years ago but not for Fred’s 75th, by which time they were shunning me – a case of letting academic differences take priority over friendship.  Not surprisingly, right-winger Jean Poulard and lefty Jack Bloom, both still teaching despite being well past retirement age, argued over Trump separating immigrant families.  Bloom is teaching a Fall course on the Vietnam War and is eager to see my old syllabus.  Its reading list included Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, Ronald J. Glasser’s 365 Days,Michael Herr’s Dispatches,and Robert Mason’s Chickenhawk. I talked with Fred about the Phillies’ recent sweep of the Cubs and told him that the Steel ShavingsI gave him contained descriptions of the Eagles’ Superbowl victory and the raucous celebrations afterwards. EllaRose opened a bottle of champagne Poulard had brought from his home village in France, and we toasted the guest of honor and vowed to gather again five years hence.  Diane insisted I take food home for Toni, so I opted for slices of vegetarian lasagna and chocolate cake.  On the birthday cake were figurines depicting a Phillies pitcher and catcher and a Cubs batter striking out.

Like Fred, I am a loyal Philadelphia sports fan with a couple all-time favorite players in each major sport – Richie Ashburn and Dick Allen in baseball, Eagles Chuck Bednarick and Sonny Jorgensen, Flyers Bobby Clarke and Bernie “Kid” Parent, and 76ers Julius “Dr. J” Irving and Allen “AI” Iverson.  Iverson is also a favorite of Hanif Abdurraqib, who wrote an essay titled “It Rained on Ohio On the Night when Allen Iverson Hit Michael Jordan with a Crossover.” The memorable event took place in 1996, AI’s rookie season, when “he hadn’t yet grown out his soon-to-be signature cornrows and was several tattoos short of where he would end his career.”  At the top of the key facing his idol, AI pulled off a double crossover, then nailed an easy jump shot.  While in high school, Iverson had been incarcerated in the aftermath of an interracial bowling alley brawl in Hampton, Virginia (only black kids were arrested). Accused of throwing a chair, Iverson told the judge, “What kind of man would I be to hit a woman in the head with a damn chair?”  Sent to a correctional farm, Iverson couldn’t play basketball his senior year and scholarship offers dried up.  Only Georgetown’s coach John Thompson took a chance on him.

Beloved by 76er fans and self-described “punk kids” like Abdurraqib, Iverson gave his all on the court, “throwing his body all over the place for the city of Philadelphia and dragging lackluster teams to the playoffs and then [in 2002] to the finals.”  The day after watching AI fake out Jordan, Abdurraqib was on a still-slick playground in Columbus “in baggy jeans that dragged the ground until the bottoms of them split into small white flags of surrender”dreaming “of having enough money to buy my way into the kind of infamy that came with surviving any kind of proximity to poverty.”  Of Iverson Abdurraqib concluded:

  He was a 6-foot wrecking ball, who wouldn’t practice hurt, but who would play hurt for what felt like half of the season.  The era of witnessing Allen Iverson was the era of learning a language for your limits and how to push beyond them.

 Ray Smock in Nebraska

I heard from old friend Ray Smock from Maryland days, traveling through the Great Plains states, and Paul Turk, whom I met when my family moved to the Detroit area in the mid-50s.  He’s a Cleveland Indians fan and, to a lesser degree, the Washington Nationals, now that he’s living in the DC area.  Daughter Kat, a grad student in archeology at Vanderbilt, “spent much of the summer in the Fish River Canyon in Namibia, scratching for the fossil record of the very earliest animals in the Ediacaran Period, 450+ million years ago.  Dinosaurs are SO nouveau and come-lately.” According to the online Encyclopedia Britannicathis was the latest of three periods of the Neoproterozoic Era marked by considerable tectonic activity and the rapid retreat of ice sheets associated with the Marinoan glaciation.

                            Kat Turk; fossil from Ediacaran period found in Australia