Turning 76

“Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been,” David Bowie

 Toni gets cookie at Ivy's Bohemia House from Amy Mackiewicz

Toni’s birthday falls on February 14, and we normally celebrate the day after so not to compete with the Valentine’s Day crowd.  Patrick O’Rourke treated me to lunch at Asparagus Restaurant, whose Vietnamese owners are friends of his, to talk about my next interview with him, so I took Toni an order of lobster and mango spring rolls.  We arrived home within minutes of one another, as Dave and Angie had taken her to lunch at Ivy’s Bohemia House.

Next day, granddaughters Alissa and Miranda arrived with Miranda’s boyfriend Will, whom we’d never met. He’s in Nursing administration and going for an MBA.  He’s been working with Spanish-speaking hospital out-patients in Grand Rapids on such matters as ensuring that they have a procedure in place for taking prescriptions at the proper dosages and times. At Toni’s request we dined at Craft House so that she could introduce our Michigan visitors to the beignet pastry fritters served with chocolate, strawberry, and caramel dipping sauces.  Beforehand, we shared an appetizer of Brussel sprout chips tossed with garlic parmesan butter and candied bacon; my entre, BBQ pork shanks, a haystack of onions, and Cole slaw, was delicious.Home in time for the conclusion of Maryland-Michigan State basketball.  Down by seven with minutes to go, the Terrapins scored the final 14 points, including 11 by Anthony Cowan (3 threes and 2 free throws), to beat the Spartans 67-60.

Sunday, I played board games with Dave and Tom Wade, including, at Dave’s request, Stockpile, which I’d only played a couple times but really enjoy, and Space Base, which I’d observed  at Halberstadt Game Weekend.  We said goodbye to our overnight house guests and prepared for a birthday party for Toni, which grew like Topsy, as the expression goes – originally referring to a slave girl in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1851) – to 20 people, including four of Becca’s Chesterton classmates.  Dave and Angie picked up Chinese food from Wing Wah and a chocolate cake from Jewel.

At bridge the previous Wednesday I partnered with Vickie Voller, whom I’ve known since she was an IUN student in the 1970s.  She’s an animal lover whose emails contain the quote, “Love is a four-legged word.” We finished above 50 percent.  She’ll be bringing her husband to my Art in Focus talk on Rock and Roll, 1960, and they plan to dance. I’ll start with “Hard-Headed Woman,” on the soundtrack of “King Creole” and Elvis Presley’s last recording before entering the army for two years in March of 1958 and subsequently reaching number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

At Hobart Lanes 83-year-old Gene Clifford told me his bowling career was over, doctor’s orders, due to COPT.  In our final game against Fab Four, the Engineers finished with a 1053, 173 pins over our handicap.  Joe Piunti, carrying a 130 average, rolled a 223. I finished with a 160 and 472 series, 30 pins over my average.

Over the weekend the August Wilson play “Fences” (1985) attracted a large audience at IU Northwest.  Directed by IUN alumnus and visiting professor Mark Spencer, it deals with an embittered former Negro League baseball player (Troy Maxson) now working as a garbageman in Pittsburgh and starred Darryl Crockett and Rose Simmons.  James Earl Jones appeared in the original Broadway production and Denzel Washington in a 2010 revival, with Viola Davis as wife Rose Maxson. 

While most high schools were off for President’s Day, both IUN and Valparaiso University held classes, having honored Martin Luther King Day.  My interview with Chancellor Bill Lowe was delayed a few minutes because of a fire alarm in Hawthorn Hall (caused by a faulty toaster, it turned out) that kept Samantha Gauer from getting the videotape equipment.  She thoughtfully alerted the Chancellor and me from her cellphone.  Lowe grew up in Brooklyn; his father was a police officer.  He majored in History at Michigan State and was in Ireland doing research during a time of civil rights demonstrations that became known as the Troubles. His administrative career took him to the Rust Belt cities of Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, and ultimately, Gary.

 confiscating bootleggers equipment in Gary (1926)

Invited to speak in Nicole Anslover’s class about Prohibition in Gary, I described the city in 1920 as containing 50,000 residents, mostly steelworkers, many foreign-born and often single men laboring 12 hours a day, seven days a week.  The year began with Gary under martial law occupied by army troops ordered to crush a two-month-old strike and jail union leaders whom General Leonard Wood branded as Reds.  Prohibition was anathema to men for whom the saloon was the center of their limited social life, where they drink, ate, and, in may cases, procured establishments that refused to pay off corrupt police officials.  At the Gary Country Club, the watering hole of the affluent, liquor flowed freely with no interference from law enforcement.  Some years, due to its reputation as an “anything goes” city, Gary attracted more tourists than Indianapolis, disparaged as “Naptown” or “India-no-town.” By 1930 former mayor R.O. Johnson, convicted in 1923 of violating the Volstead Act and sent to Atlanta federal penitentiary, was back in City Hall as mayor.

 partying at Gary Country Club (1926); Allegra Nesbitt standing, 2nd from right

Students asked me about race-relations in Gary during the Twenties, a time when Mill officials aimed to keep the labor force divided, and whether U.S. Steel built housing for workers as in Pullman, Illinois.  While the corporation provided home ownership opportunities on the Northside for managerial personal and plant foremen, unskilled workers were left to fend for themselves. Many boarded in bunk houses, sharing a cot with someone working the alternate 12-hour shifts. Nicole invited me back anytime; I thinking of returning in two weeks when the class discusses the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial featuring Clarence Darrow for the defense and William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution.

Bob Greene (above), author of “When We Get to Surf City,” emailed:

     What a nice letter, Jim-- thank you.

    I really liked the excerpts from the book that you chose to include in your blog-- I'm especially glad that you took note of my observations about Jerry Lee Lewis.  No one has ever specifically mentioned that part of the book to me, but it's one of my favorites, and I'm pleased that you saw in it what I did.

    Just sang again the other night in Florida with a band called California Surf Incorporated-- all former Beach Boys musicians.  Randell Kirsch, from Jan and Dean, was playing with them, and one of the guitarists wasn't feeling well and didn't want to do his vocals, so they invited me to fill in.  It never gets less fun.

    Thank you again for what you said, and especially for the way you said it.  It means a lot to me.

I wrote back:

    Thanks for the nice response.  I saw Jerry Lee Lewis live in Merrillville, IN in 1980 (what a showman!) and recall him appearing a few years ago on Letterman with Neil Young, the only time Neil agreed to be on the show.

    I’m glad you’re still jamming with old Beach Boys.  My son was in a band until a few years ago and would invite me on stage to sing the chorus of Cheap Trick’s “Surrender.”

Having enjoyed the new Of Monsters and Men CD, I checked out their earlier album “beneath the Skin” (2015) and discovered “Slow Life,” which hardly describes the past hectic days.  One verse goes:

We're slowly sailing away
Behind closed eyes
Where not a single ray of light
Can puncture through the night

With my 60th high school reunion scheduled for October, I told planners Larry Bothe, John Jacobson, and Connie Heard that I’d work on classmates who don’t normally attend. Rehashing weekend highlights with Gaard Logan, a gourmet cook who claims she has no interest in the reunion but is always interested in hearing about Upper Dublin classmates, I described the beignet pastry fritters, Brussel sprout chips, and lobster and mango spring rolls.  Signing off, I called her sweetie, eliciting a chuckle and, “Take care , my friend.”