Requiem

“There comes that day [when] the fishing’s done at last, the final time you tie a hook, the final spinning cast.  But we hope a lake exists in heaven’s grand design where once again you’ll feel the thrill of tugging on your line.”  “Requiem for a Fisherman.” Author unknown 

I attended a “Service of Celebration” for successful entrepreneur and former IU trustee James W. Dye, whom I interviewed for the IU Bicentennial oral history project.  The 1953 IU grad served in Japan and Korea with the Army Corps of Engineers, was an active pilot for over 50 years, an avid angler who loved fishing for walleye in Canada, and loved golf, vacationing in Jamaica, watching auto racing and westerns, and “his beloved Indiana Hoosiers.”  He is survived by two sisters (one the widow of a man named James Buchanan) five children, 13 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.  Appropriately, the service took place at IUN’s new Theatre Northwest with several hundred people in attendance.  

Beforehand, I was delighted to run into former IUN Admissions director Bill Lee, a frequent golfing partner of Dye, who once offered to fly him to Canada for a fishing trip. Bill recalled being on the golf course during a lightning storm and Dye holding his putter high in the air as if to dare a bolt to strike him; otherwise, he intended to complete the round.  Bill asked about my former colleagues Ron Cohen, Fred Chary, and Paul Kern.  Many years ago, after a niece quit college over a housing issue, he enrolled her as a special student at IUN, enabling her to transfer to Bloomington the following semester.  Lee performed a similar service for one of Dye’s relatives, cementing their friendship.

 James Dye (right) and 2012 college scholarship winners

While people filed in, pianist Jack Kashak played a medley that included “As Time Goes By,” “Stormy Weather,” “Canadian Sunset,” and the IU Fight Song.  A Methodist minister who reminded me of an earnest Pee Wee Herman asked everyone to stand if able and sing the opening hymn “How Great Thou Art,” but virtually nobody followed the second command.  Granddaughters Andrea and Jaclyn read “Requiem for a Fisherman” and “The Flyer’s Poem.” Former IU vice-president Terry Clapacs reflected on his friend’s many contributions to Indiana University and his philanthropy (including hundreds of full college scholarships) in conjunction with late wife Betty, whom he met while camping in Canada.  Dye, a lifelong Republican, told Clapacs he’d be voting for Hillary Clinton after Trump won the 2016 GOP nomination.  Son Jim, who confessed that eulogizing his dad was the hardest thing he’d ever been called on to do, drew laughs repeating his father’s claim to have earned money cutting grass at age two.  After another unsung hymn, the pianist played the postlude, Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”  Exiting the theater, I told Chancellor Bill Lowe, “Now that’s a number we could have sung.”  

Sampling the refreshments, I managed to fit on a tiny plate a delicious beef sandwich, tomato and cucumber slices, salad dressing, hummus, and a bunch of grapes, then resisted an impulse to go through the line a second time, bringing to mind a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode with Larry David, back on Saturday Night Live again as Bernie Sanders in a skit about a Democratic Presidential debate crashed by new entrant Michael Bloomberg, played by former cast member Fred Armison. Colin Just portrayed Pete Buttigieg as a manchild uncomfortable about what do with his arms.  Congressman Pete (Visclosky) endorsed fellow Hoosier Mayor Pete, citing his pro-union record and praising him as a moderate.  Republican heavy hitters Tim Fesko and Cal Bellamy were in the room.  Governor Eric Holcomb recently appointed attorney Fesko Chair of the Gary Chicago Airport Authority; Bellamy founded the Shared Ethics Advisory Commission.

In the early hours of Saturday morning a gun battle raged in the parking lot outside Sunset Lounge in Portage.  Several Chicago TV stations covered the story.  According to The Times, a melee first erupted inside the crowded facility involving several dozen patrons; tables were overturned and furniture and bottles used as weapons.  As Portage police arrived, several cars sped off.  Order was restored, and some 30 bullet casings from handguns and a rifle were found scattered over the area.  Several vehicles and nearby businesses got hit with bullets.  Authorities blamed the disturbance on outsiders. Someone from Gary went to the hospital after getting hit on the head with a bar stool, while an East Chicagoan and a guy from Kentucky suffered gunshot wounds.  Dave’s band Voodoo Chili played several gigs at the Sunset.   Once I intervened when a stranger tried to dance intimately with Angie.  Another time a member of another band coldcocked Dave for doing an encore before relinquishing the stage. Two brothers connected with Voodoo Chili, Bob and Mike Heckler, later got even with the culprit.

Former Gary police officer Jesse Salomon provided stories about his years on the force for the Calumet Regional Archives.  Opting not to be interviewed due to hearing issues, on my suggestion he began writing down reminiscences.  Sworn in during the summer of 1975, he and five others spent 13 weeks at the Law Enforcement Academy in Plainfield. Salomon recalled:  

    On the first day I found out that the administrative and training staff did not care to much for Lake County and often made snide remarks. During the Law classes we were told constantly we could forget about this chapter because it was about Indiana Law, not Lake County.  Upon receiving our certificates, we returned to Gary and were placed in the patrol division, walking the beat in the downtown area for the Christmas holidays. 

    After the holidays, we were paired with a training officer. Every training officer was different - some good, some bad - but I learned something useful from each. The rookies always got the worst assignments.  Two of us were placed on a beat for eight hours from Fourth and Broadway to Ninth and Broadway; we also had to check the alleys.  One day Sergeant Cobie Howard approached me and asked why I was placed on that beat every day. He then told me to follow him to the station and informed Captain Joseph Novotny that I had been placed on the downtown beat every night rather than rotated to different areas.  Learning that I was from Glen Park, Sergeant Howard said, “Joe, I want this officer in Glen Park.” For the next 21 years Sergeant Howard watched over my police career and he never asked for anything from me.

Cobie Howard would eventually become Gary Police Chief.

 Frank Gucciardo, front row, second from left

Officers Romeo Rendina and Joseph Novotny stop motorists on Dunes Highway near Utah St., April 19, 1959

Salomon also mailed several Gary police photos dating from the 1950s.  In one was former neighbor Frank Gucciardo, bedridden and dying when Toni and I moved to Sand Creek Drive in 2010.  His widow Joan once showed me a tattoo on her arm identifying her blood type, part of a postwar Red Scare experiment affecting area school children.  In another photo are Solomon’s captain Joseph Novotny and Romeo Rendina, who recently passed away at age 89.  His obit read in part:

Romeo will be remembered as a hard worker, friendly and compassionate man who was known to enjoy wearing sharp clothes and loved family, friends, eating together and most of all his wife of 63 years Dorothy. From his teenage days as a Paperboy and a Golden Gloves boxer in Chicago to opening a gas station with his brother, 20 years of service on the Gary Police Department, 18 years as a Lake Co. Court Bailiff and nearly 60 years of owning and operating Rendina Funeral Home with his brothers, he was proud of his service to others and his country.

Salomon wrote about incidents that took place while he was assigned to District Nine north, between 80/94 and Ridge Road and between Broadway east to the city limit:

    A call was dispatched to District Ten in reference to a male black with a gun at 3658 Broadway at the Laundromat.  There no respond from the nearest two man-unit. After  calls, I advised radio that I was near the laundromat  and I would check it and advise radio of the situation.

    As I pulled up to the business, I notice a male standing in the doorway motioning me to come over to him; he identified himself as the owner of the building and that he lived over the business with his wife. He further informed me that a male black who worked for him had just threatened them and the man was in the rear of the laundromat .  As I proceeded to the rear of the business, the owner turned on the lights inside.  I told him to shut them off the lights because I did not want the subject to see me.

    As I reached the rear door, the subject fired three shots point blank at me, just missing the left side of my head. The owners’ wife was talking to police dispatch at the time and informed them that I had just been shot in the head. I advised radio I was not shot but  still need assistance. Officer Carl Johnson whom I knew since childhood was the first to come to my aid.  As we were looking for the subject, we noticed him hiding and he saw us.  He then tried to fire at us but did not have any more live rounds.  The subject then ran to the basement of the laundromat and was loading his gun as we approached him.  We took him into custody without further resistance. In regards to the District Ten officers they never arrived.  When I asked them why, they informed me that they didn't hear the call because they were playing cards!  

    I was contacted by the owners of the laundromat along with two of their attorneys, who wanted me to drop the charges against the subject, John Anderson.  At the court hearing I was asked what I would like done.  I stated to the judge, whatever was fair, then left the hearing.  A short time later I received a notice from the court stating John Anderson got probation, not 2-14 years. Later one of his attorneys  was sent to Federal prison and lost his law license.  

    A few years later while on patrol, I found John Anderson a man beating a female impersonator.  The victim did not want to file charges so I let them both go.  However, I asked Anderson if he remembered me.   He said,  “No I don't.”  I replied, “You tried to kill me, remember now?”  He fell to his knees and began to cry as I drove away.

 Noam Chomsky in 2010

Jack Palance in "Requiem for a Heavyweight"

Requiem originally referred to a Roman Catholic Mass for the souls of the dead or a musical composition performed at such a ceremony.  It has come to mean any act of remembrance for something or someone who has departed. The documentary Requiem for the American Dream, for example, is an extended interview with Noam Chomsky bemoaning the concentration of wealth and power that has made a mockery of the nation’s democratic pretensions as a land of opportunity. Requiem for a Heavyweight, directed by Rod Serling, was a live “Playhouse 90” 1956 TV production starring Jack Palance as a punch-drunk heavyweight and Keenan Wynn as an unscrupulous trainer,  Six years later, it was turned into a movie featured Anthony Quinn and Jackie Gleason in the title roles.  Former heavyweight champ Max Baer appeared in the original and Jack Dempsey (as himself) in the film. 

Consumer Counterculture

    “The natural foods movement launched many citizens into activism for nutritional equity, food workers’ rights, and sustainable agriculture and contributed to the neoliberal definition of the marketplace as a force for social justice and self-fulfillment.” Maria McGrath

 Maria McGrath                                                                          Carol Flinders

In the introductory chapter to “Food for Dissent: Natural Foods and the Consumer Counterculture Since the 1960s,” titled “The Gathering Storm: Baby Boomers and Their Discontent,” historian Maria McGrath profiles Carol Flinders, co-author of “Laurel’s Kitchen: A Handbook for Vegetarian Cookery and Nutrition” (1976).  In 1967, married with a two-year-old daughter and living in Berkeley, California, Flinders met future collaborator Laurel Robertson at an antiwar activity.  After involvement in encounter groups, potting, and eastern meditation, she reconnected with Robertson and joined the Food Conspiracy, a natural foods buying club.  Sharing Beat poet Alan Ginsberg’s contempt for “Supermarket America” as a symbol of capitalist America’s unchecked excesses and civic irresponsibility. Flinders, McGrath concludes, found community and purpose.  Nourishing the body with non-processed foods, she believed, had the potential to transform one’s life and help save the planet.  

 Selma Miriam and Noel Furie at Bloodroot Restaurant

McGrath, daughter of Upper Dublin High School classmate Susan Floyd, quotes hippie Raymond Mungo, author of “Total Loss Farm” (1970) responding to critics who claimed he had retreated from political action by moving to a Vermont commune: “We are saving the world.”  In other words, the personal is political, a rallying cry of student activists, feminists, queers, and natural foods advocates.  During the 1970s, McGrath concluded, cultural nonconformists attempted to create the markets services, and societies that matched their dreams for a better world in the pursuit of “right livelihood.”  One example, which Maria talked about at the Oral History Association conference in Montreal last year, is the vegan restaurant and bookstore Bloodroot Collective in Bridgeport, Connecticut, whose cookbooks proclaimed that carnivorous people were part of a “Blood culture” while vegetarians honored the cycles of nature. Lesbian owners Selma Miriam and Noel Furie are still keeping the faith 42 years after Bloodroot’s debut.

Justin Henry Miller, "Wannabe Satyr";     James Deeb, "Pyles Regiment" 

Toni and I attended John Cain’s annual Holiday Reading, “Don We Now Our Gay Apparel,” at Munster Center for the Arts.  Beforehand, we enjoyed the gallery exhibit “Things that go bump in the night,” whose paintings and sculptures had a ghostly Halloween flavor.   We ran into numerous Miller friends, including Karren Lee and Judy Ayers.  Elaine Spicer introduced me to folklorist Sue Eleuterio, who directs Goucher College’s graduate virtual writing center and is a consultant with the American Folklore Society.  She was familiar with my Gary books.  Last year Sue took part in a Walk the Line protest against oil pipelines running through residential neighborhoods in Griffith, Hammond, and East Chicago.   

 Susan Eleuterio with Vietnam Vets exhibit

The meal was vegetarian, featuring tomato bisque, quiche, fruit, rolls, salad, and pumpkin mousse.  It was nutritious, without processed foods so far as I could tell, and filling without leaving you stuffed like often the case at such functions. At the IUN table I talked to Mark Hoyert about meeting fellow Marylander Jim Muldoon.  Mark told me he was a History major about 10 years after I graduated, and that his favorite professor was military historian Gordon Prange, author of the popular account of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, “Tora! Tora! Tora!” and a consultant on the set of the movie. David Klamen asked about the rumor that the Jackson 5 had once lost a talent show at IUN.  It happened at Gary Roosevelt, I told him, when audience applause for a skit by high school jocks exceeded their ovation.  Papa Joe Jackson supposedly was so angry he kept the brothers up all night rehearsing.    

A somewhat embarrassed Art in Focus director Micah Bornstein, adorned with angel wings and halo, introduced John Cain and Jim West, who read a humorous 1950s account of a kid watching “The Lawrence Welk Show” in his pajamas with a cynical father and chain-smoking grandmother followed by one about a New York City family celebrating both Hanakkah and Christmas.  Last year, at his twenty-fifth Holiday Reading, John indicated it might be his finale. I’m glad he reconsidered; with some 300 people in attendance, it remains a popular and profitable affair. Toni and I find Cain to be charming, and by now he knows both of us by name.

 Marcia Carson on left

At bridge Jim and Marcia Carson were wearing Red for Ed Action t-shirts, having been among the 15,000 demonstrators assembling earlier outside the Indianapolis statehouse. For many years Marcia taught Art, a program that has suffered from draconian budgets and policies forcing educators to concentrate on preparing students for standardized exams to the neglect of cultural enrichment.  Indiana State Teachers Association president Keith Gambill told the crowd, “To the legislators in the statehouse today we say pencils down, time’s up.” Average pay for Indiana teachers is $51,000, less even than in most Deep South states.  Speakers also blasted a recent bill requiring teachers to complete 15-hour “externships” free of charge with local businesses as a condition of having licenses renewed. At Banta Center Charlie Halberstadt and I finished second to Chuck and Marcy Tomes by a single percentage point.  In out three hands head-to-head we played them pretty much to a draw.

Charlotte and Terry Kegebein

In bowling the Electrical Engineers took all 3 games from Portage Four despite having to spot them 28 pins.  Back from Georgia because his wife Charlotte is in the hospital, Terry Kegebein rolled a 530 series and after a 220-game quipped that he was still not bowling his weight.  Leading off, Joe Piunti rolled a 180 and won the league pot in game 2 for most pins over average.  Despite a sore shoulder I bowled 20 pins over average opposite Neda Gonzalez, who carried a 146 average.  Each game we were virtually neck and neck.

For IU’s Bicentennial oral history project, I interviewed IUN Dean of Health and Human Services Patrick Bankston, who will be retiring after 42 years of service to the university.  He grew up in a community near Rochester, New York, and majored in Biology at Hobart College before earning a PhD at the University of Chicago and teaching for five years at Hahnemann Medical College.  Bankston was proud of collaborating on a research paper with Nobel Laureate George Palade. When he was hired as a professor of anatomy and cell biology, only one year of medical school was available on the Gary campus. Classes took place in World War II “temporary” buildings that endured into the twenty-first century.  Bankston was instrumental in expanding the program to all four years and, more recently, launching an initiative that allowed graduates to take part in residency programs at area institutions. Among his heroes were predecessor Dr. Panayotis Iatridis, Congressman Peter Visclosky, Senator Richard Lugar, Indiana legislator Charlie Brown (who calls him “my brother from a different mother”), and his wife of 25 years Dr. Glyn Porter, an IU School of Medicine graduate whom he has known for 40 years.  “I guess she knew what she was getting into,” I quipped, as we concluded the productive 70-minute interview.

After the interview Bankston told me about recently attending a Muslim wedding of two former IU medical school graduates.  Years earlier, the Pakistani father of the bride brought her to meet with him while she was still in high school  in order to learn what was needed to become a doctor. Pat joked about his political career, “unsullied” by ever winning an election.  He was appointed to finish out the term of a Porter County commissioner and during his brief tenure found outside funding to replace a dangerous, century-old bridge in Union Township from the state and the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission (NIRPC).  During the ensuing election his opponent falsely claimed the project wasted local taxpayers’ money.  As Media Production Specialist Samantha Gauer, who taped the 70-minute session, was leaving, Pat said he hoped he didn’t bore her.  “No, I learned a lot,”  she replied.

Samantha Gauer

Valparaiso University professor Liz Wuerffel’s podcast students signed a “Thank You”card with expressions of gratitude for my guest appearance.  Noah wrote: “Keep history alive.”  Liz added: “I appreciate that you were willing to share your [interviewing] mistakes that helped you be a better oral historian and recorder, too.  Much appreciated!”  

Felicia Childress

Wuerffel’s Welcome Initiative co-founder Allison Schuette recently interviewed 101-year-old Felicia Childress, who moved to Gary from St. Louis during World War II.  Born prematurely in the house of her grandfather, a Baptist minister, she and a twin brother each weighed less than three pounds and were not expected to live. She knew the wife of Joseph Chapman, hired to head up Gary’s Urban League chapter, and initially came to help the Chapmans get settled.  Joe Chapman would play a key role in mediating the 1945-46 Froebel School Strike.  Childress recalled:

   When we came into Gary, we were coming up 5th Avenue, and I was amazed. I looked out the car window and there was tumbleweed blowing down the streets. I said, “This looks like the Wild West.” I could see sand hills between buildings and said, “It’s so flat.” Nobody had a house over two stories. I found out that everyone wanted to come to Gary because there was a mill. All the way down Broadway we could see the gates to the mill and realized that was why people came to Gary. In the old days, the mill would take the huge, molten steel and dump it directly into the lake. These were the days before EPA, and when that hot steel hit the water, Uh-whump! - it was so loud you could hear it past the borders of Gary. I cringed and said, “I don’t like it.”  But I’ll tell you what I did like. I learned about the South Shore.  I could relate to the South Shore because it looked so much like the streetcars in St. Louis. When I got on that South Shore, I looked out the window and there were trees. And then past that canal, you could see pheasants with beautiful feathers.  You could see the colors of their feathers as they would be flying through the trees. But they were soon gone, I think because whatever they were throwing into the mill was so frightening, and so they left. 

At Chesterton library I came across the Goo Goo Dolls “Miracle Pill” and found the 2019 CD irresistible.  Formed in Buffalo some 33 years ago, the band, featuring Johnny Rzeznik and Robby Takac, enjoyed two smash hits,“Iris” and “Slide,” in the late 1990s from the album “Dizzy Up the Girl” and then pretty much dropped out of the spotlight. The track “Autumn Leaves” differs from the 1945 Johnny Mercer standard, covered by countless crooners including Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Robert Goulet, Johnny Mathis and more recently, Willie Nelson, Eric Clapton, and Bob Dylan. An instrumental version by pianist Roger Williams became a number one hit in 1955. The Goo Goo Dolls “Autumn Leaves” contains these lines:

Life is change, we move on

And where you go,

I hope the summer goes along.

In my CD collection, lo and behold, was a nearly forgotten 1993 Sting album, "Ten Summoner’s Tales.”  Most titles were unfamiliar and fun to discover, and to my delight were the tracks “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You” and “Fields of Gold.”  Here are the latter's bridge lyrics:

        I never made promises lightly

        And there have been some that I've broken

        But I swear in the days still left

        We'll walk in fields of gold

Juice man

“If life gives you lemons, make some kind of fruity juice.” Conan O’Brien

James in middle and in scene from "Honey, I Juiced the Kids"

James played a “juice man” in VU’s 47th annual Christ College first-year production of “Honey, I Juiced the Kids.” According to the program, quirky vigilantes “use morally questionable tactics to save a city controlled by the Church family.”   After the violent death of their eldest child, Mother and Father Church make everyone drink a concoction that takes away all emotions, both good and bad.  Initially, the rebels believed it necessary to kill Mother and Father, but a nonviolent solution prevailed.  All freshman honors students participated in the project (James was also production accountant), which featured original music and a 12-member orchestra.  I was extremely impressed.  As the program stated: “In just 10 weeks of intense collaboration, the students write, stage, and perform an original 90-minute theatre piece based on the ideas encountered in Texts and Contexts.”  A guy handing out programs was wearing a t-shirt from last year’s “Phrivilous Philosophy: A Phlight to Plourish.”  Previous titles included “Six Feet Under, or a Grave Matter” and “Blame It on the Lake Effect.”  All four performances were sellouts.

I wondered how many VU freshmen knew about O.J. “The Juice” Simpson.  I desperately wanted to believe that Simpson was innocent of murdering his estranged wife.  Ditto another African-American fallen hero, Bill Cosby, who inexplicably felt compelled to drug women before sexually violating them.  Dave was pretty certain that James’s class had discussed the Jonestown tragedy, in which cult leader Jim Jones killed over 900 followers by dispensing poisonous kool aid.  The phrase “drinking the kool aid” has come to refer to someone who has blind obedience to a cause or purpose, as, for example, a movement, politician or sports team. In 2012 Forbes magazine ranking “drinking the kool aid” the most annoying example of business jargon.

Jesse Salomon sent me retired Gary detective Hugh “Al” Shanahan’s recollections of racketeers Tommy (Gaetano) Morgano, who had been associated with Al Capone and the Chicago Outfit, and his son Snooky (Bernard):

    When Tommy got deported in 1963, he continued to visit Gary frequently from the Italian island of Capri near Naples. He came to the U.S. via Mexico, paying his way as he came and went.  The last time I saw Tommy was with Snook at a pizza joint in Glen Park near 49th and Broadway. It started as Pete and Snooks, then Pete started his own place, the Tower of Pizza at Fifth and Virginia.  Pete was a boozer and pill head, and Tommy tried to put him straight on many occasions. Then Pete started beating his wife, and that was a no-no for them in the day.  Extra babe on the side was accepted and almost everything else, but “family” in the more common use of the word was sacred to the very Roman Catholic Morgano family.  

  Tommy Morgano, also known as Tom Morgan, was a business partner in Flamingo Pizza with another Italian family, and at one time the business collected $0.25 from every pizza sold in Lake County.  They also had the cheese market from Chicago and eventually olive oil and pizza flour mix and toppings.  “Che Che” Paul Micholas was the partner and also lived in Miller.

    Snooky had two boys, and he kept them out of the business.  Both have gone on to do well.  In 1990 Snooky rolled over on everybody and everything he had, past, present, and made up, I think.  He named several Gary cops that he had some loose connections with for traffic beefs and some dicks on cars and minor burglary deals but nothing big. Snooky never did have any involvement in anything else but extortion and some power work for dead beats. He did 13 years instead of 30 and got out in time to see his grandchildren.  Snooky Morgano was driving from his house in Bristol with his granddaughter when he realized he was having a heart attack.  He managed to pull into a parking lot and ran the car into a brick wall.  No damage to the child, but Snook broke both his legs.  He never recovered and died shortly after that in 2010 at age 73.  Last I heard, Snook’s wife was still living in Bristol, Indiana, in rural Elkhart County, alone but near her daughter.

 Julia Child

Though unique, the careers of Emily Post (1872-1960) and Julia Child (1912-2004) have certain common themes.  Both came into prominence in middle age, Post after divorcing a faithless husband, Child in the midst of a fulfilling marriage, what Laura Jacobs called a true “soul match.”  A generation after Post’s books and columns codified proper manners for a burgeoning middle class, Child’s TV cooking shows introduced French cuisine to newly affluent, Kennedy-era Americans.  In her autobiography, Child wrote of the half-hour PBS program that debuted live on July 26, 1963: “There I was in black and white, a large woman sloshing eggs too quickly here, too slowly there, gasping, looking at the wrong camera while talking too loudly and so on.” While Post was a graceful matron, Child was a freak of nature, well over six feet with a shrill voice and comic mannerisms that ingratiated her to millions.  Once she flipped a potato cake that evaded the pan and broke into pieces on the stovetop.  She pressed it back together and advised: “You can always pick up, and if you’re alone in the kitchen, who is going to see.”  The line became famous and, like a fisherman’s tale took on a life of its own in the retelling.

Gary native Jim Muldoon, 81, met me at IUN’s Calumet Regional Archives.  I alerted library faculty Scott Sandberg, stationed near the library entrance, that I was expecting him, and he graciously escorted Muldoon to the third floor.  Jim grew up on Gary’s Northside and attended St. Luke’s and Emerson before his family moved to Glen Park and he transferred to Lew Wallace, graduating in 1956.  I showed him the Archives copy of the 1956 Wallace yearbook, Quill and Blade.  Next to his senior picture was one of his brother; they were born 14 months apart.  He’d driven by the house near 40th and Fillmore and was pleased that it was in better shape than during his previous visit. Of Slovak and Irish ancestry, Jim related that his maternal grandfather died soon after the onset of the great Depression, leaving a wife and seven children.  His father provided muscle for Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa (he was vague on what the old man actually did) and a brother became a union leader at the Budd Company.

 Jim Muldoon receives Coast Guard safety award

Muldoon lost his football scholarship at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, IN, due to an injury and joined the air force, at which time he took numerous college courses offered by the University of Maryland’s overseas program. After receiving an honorable discharge, he completed an undergraduate degree in Political Science in 1966 at Maryland’s College Park campus and then a law degree from Georgetown.  He worked several years as an aide and driver for Senator Birch Bayh and on a couple occasions accompanied the Indiana lawmaker to the White House, where he met President Lyndon Johnson.  Bayh once told him that his proudest legislative accomplishment was securing the 1972 Title IX amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which led to equal funding for women’s collegiate sports programs. In 1979 Muldoon founded the Washington, DC, management consulting company METCOR.  Knowing that he was an avid sailor and former president of the U.S. Sailing Association, I discovered that Jim had not sailed Lake Michigan while growing up.  

Muldoon was very friendly and interested in my writings on Gary.  He had personal stories about local sports stars Tony Zale and Alex Karras and about being thrown in a jail cell with a murderer after a scuffle with a cop.  After chatting at the Archives for an hour, we had lunch at Abuelo’s in Merrillville.  He showed me photos relating to his sailing career and a statement of recognition Maryland Representative Steny H. Hoyer inserted into the Congressional Record on December 17, 2010.  It read in part: 

  Muldoon has been an advocate of community sailing programs at the grassroots level, especially in the areas of youth sailing, training, and safety. He has long been actively involved in international sailing and boating-related organizations. He has captained his own 73-foot yacht, DONNYBROOK, with a highly competitive amateur team in hundreds of races and has accrued over 

75,000 miles of ocean racing.

  In August, more than two dozen, sailing and boating-related Organizations [including the coast guard and Special Olympics of Maryland] assembled to honor Mr. Muldoon for his lifelong contributions to boating safety. During the ceremony, Martin O'Malley, Governor of Maryland, awarded Mr. Muldoon with the Chesapeake Bay Ambassador Award.

Becca and Paige

Becca starred as Velma in the Chesterton H.S. production of the musical satire Chicago, about two performers who murdered their cheating lovers but beat the rap thanks to the machinations of attorney Billy Flynn. Catherine Zeta-Jones played Velma in the successful 2002 film.  Becca was great throughout and brought the house down singing “All That Jazz.”  Phil, Delia, Alissa, Miranda, and Beth arrived for the final Sunday performance. Beforehand, when a photo of Becca with Paige Fowler (who played Roxie)  appeared on the front page of the Chesterton Tribune, I didn’t recognize her at first because of the black wig.

Miranda selfie with Alissa and Jimbo

IUN library is evidently getting rid of books published prior to 2000, hopefully with some exceptions.  Not many books are utilized in these times of instant internet access, but the decision still seems mind-boggling.  Previously, many journals, including Indiana Magazine of History volumes going back a hundred year, got tossed out, rationale being that they are available online, so I don’t think this is a space issue.  I sent an email to library faculty recommending the creation of an Indiana Room to house books about and by Hoosiers that otherwise might get the axe.  

A memorial service for James Dye will take place on Sunday.  I sent this remembrance to his executive secretary in case the family might want to make use of it:

October 19, 2018: At the request of IU’s Bicentennial Committee, I interviewed former trustee James Dye, 87, a retired builder and major university donor. Since virtually the entire Instructional Media Center staff was at a conference downstate, the camera person was late arriving, and we had to halt twice because of a low battery.  It was maddening, but Dye, a Hammond native and Hammond High graduate, didn’t complain; and the interruptions were a blessing in disguise, as Calumet Regional Archives curator Steve McShane took the opportunity to inform him about our facility and I showed Dye the Rev. Robert Lowery library study area funded by the James and Betty Dye Foundation.  The foundation has offered scholarships to hundreds of IUN students. 

  Growing up during the Depression, Dye recalled earning nickels as a young boy seeping sawdust at the family lumber business and getting a whipping for buying a dime’s worth of candy at the corner store. Manager for IU’s football and basketball squads in the early 1950s, Dye recalled a Sigma Chi fraternity party that lasted 48 hours after the Hoosiers beat Notre Dame in football in 1950 and the celebration following a one-point win over Kansas for the 1953 NCAA basketball championship. He joked that IU probably gave him an honorary degree for attending so many losing gridiron contests.  Dye was an imaginative entrepreneur who built his first house virtually by himself at age 20 in Cedar Lake.  His company built Mansards Apartments in Griffith, and Dye competed with former Gary mayor George Chacharis on its tennis courts.  A pilot for over a half-century, Dye told me about his love of flying.  He praised IUN past IUN chancellors Dan Orescanin and Peggy Elliott and asked me about Chancellor Lowe.  

  October 24: I called the office of former IU Trustee James Dye to apologize for the various snafus during his visit to the Archives.  His son Jim answered and recognized my voice since his sister had taped the interview.  Claiming his dad had enjoyed himself immensely, he strongly suggested I call him at home so I did. Eleven years my senior, Dye still has a keen mind and a quick wit.  We talked for a good half hour; he told me about a buffalo farm he took over during the 1990s hurt by the failure of Ted Turner’s restaurant chain, Ted’s Montana Grill, specializing in bison, to take off.  Unlike cattle, Dye informed me, only a relatively small portion can be harvested for food, andbuffalo hides are not profitable.  From what I could gather, the farmland Dye acquired turned out to be a wise investment in the long run.  I told him that I admired people like himself who remained active in retirement.  Dye replied that doesn’t feel his age until he looks in the mirror.  Those were his last words to me.  I wish I’d known him better.