At Rest

"Teaching is the greatest act of optimism," Colleen Wilcox

Former Gary educator Carmen Cammarata passed away at age 89.  After graduating from Froebel, Carmen served in the army for two years before earning degrees in Education from IU and Roosevelt University and taking a teaching job at Webster Elementary in Glen Park.  Former Webster student Robin Shannon recalled:

    He was the nicest guy.  I ran into him as an adult. It took a minute but once it came back to him he remembered this skinny little kid who transferred from private school.  He said I cried for two days until he gave me a lollipop.  He was an Italian guy in a school full of brown kids. He was super protective of us, never allowing racism of the 60s to gain traction within our hallways.

Using his student experiences at Froebel as a model, Cammarata took a multicultural approach to learning. After serving as assistant principal at Emerson, he became principal at Washington and later at Aetna and Kennedy-King in Miller. Alicia Skinner Kelley wrote, “He was an awesome person, teacher, and leader.  He was my principal at Washington Elementary at my first teaching assignment.  I was his assistant principal at Spaulding, and he taught me everything that I would ever need to know about Elementary Administration. All the principals considered Mr. C the very best.”  Natalie Stewart added: “He loved his job, loved talking about Froebel School, and Gary, the city where he was raised.” As caring as he was, Cammarata kept a tight reign on discipline during a time of rapid racial upheaval.  On Burns-Kish Funeral Home “Share a Memory” website Chip wrote: “Mr. C!  His sternness, bullhorn, and paddle helped make me the success that I am.”  Self-described problem child Ricky Ammons noted, “He taught us structure and respect.” T. Myricks summarized: “He had a non-nonsense approach that you appreciated because you knew it truly came from a place of love.”

Cammarata (right) is survived by wife of 68 years Mary Ann, two siblings, five children, 11 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.  The Cammarata family, according to the Northwest Indiana Times obit, “enjoyed numerous trips touring the western states in their pop-up camper.  Upon retirement, Carmen and Mary Ann enjoyed trips to Italy, Russia, and Alaska.  He especially enjoyed his trip to Sicily to meet his cousins for the first time.  His summers were filled with the meticulous care of his house, yard, and cars.” R.I.P.
When Phil and Dave started school at Marquette Elementary in Miller, the principal, a Mr. Svetkoff, paddled kids, in fact made a public spectacle of it in front of other students.  It    so traumatized Dave that he once at age six walked all the way home, crossing a major artery.  We scheduled an appointment with Svetkoff, and he claimed that the teachers union contract gave him the right to paddle, that black parents wanted him to use the power (this was a time of rapid racial transition), and that we didn’t have to worry about Dave getting paddled.  We suggested that at the least he could carry out disciplinary action away from other kids, but he refused and actually seemed proud of what he was doing.  Not long afterwards, Phil and Dave started going to an alternative school in Glen Park.

In John Updike’s “Rabbit at Rest” Harry is watching the news in August 1989 when reports came on of Voyager II discovering volcanoes on Triton, one of Neptune’s 13 moons, and two Congressman dying in a small plane crash within a week, Lankin Smith of Mississippi and African-American Mickey Leland of Texas in Ethiopia. Other lawmakers, small plane travel being an occupational hazard, who similarly perished were Hale Boggs over Alaska (presumably, the crash site was never found) and Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania, whose widow, heir to the Heinz ketchup fortune, married Senator John Kerry.  Fleeing to Florida after his daughter-in-law confessed to sleeping with him (her idea, her husband being a cokehead at the time), Harry found an Oldies radio station that played songs from his youth: “Mule Train” by Frankie Laine, “It’s Magic” by Doris Day, “Vaya con Dios” by Les Paul and Mary Ford, and “Just a Giggolo” by Louis Prima – fitting in Rabbit’s circumstance.  Updike observes: “We’re all just bodies with brains at one end and the rest just plumbing.”

I re-watched the 1973 John Lucas-Francis Ford Coppola classic “American Graffiti” (1973) and discovered that Harrison Ford played a greaser who races John, the Fonzi-like character. Richard Dreyfuss, then 26, plays high school graduating senior Curt, as does Ron Howard (identifies as Ronny in the credits) as Steve.  Set in the year 1962, the film features Wolfman Jack spinning songs from my youth such as “Sixteen Candles” by the Crests and “Goodnight, Sweetheart” by the Spaniels from Gary, Indiana. The thin plot, such as it is, centers on whether Curt and Steve will go away to college or attend a local junior college. After Steve’s girlfriend leaves him and almost dies when Harrison Ford’s car flips over and explodes in flames, she begs him never to leave her and wimpy Steve forgoes his chance to attend a prestigious university (Boo!). As the credits roll, we learn that Curt becomes a writer, Steve an insurance salesman, and that John gets killed by a drink driver – pretty bogus and annoying since these are fictional characters.