Past and Present

"won’t be long now it won’t be long

till earth is barren as the moon

and sapless as a mumbled bone”

    Don Marquis

I had never heard of Midwestern humorist Don Marquis until historian Ray Boomhower shared one of his poems.  The popular columnist created such characters as the Old Soak and Archy and Mehitabel.  Boomhower found a statement where Don Marquis claimed he would “look forward to a disreputable, vigorous, unhonoured, and disorderly old age” and, if called on, would “address public meetings in a vein of jocund malice.”  Alas, he died in 1937 at age 59.

 

A special issue of Bucknell’s alumni magazine was devoted to class disruptions during “Our Pandemic Spring.”  A sidebar documented previous disruptions during the Lewisburg, PA, university’s 174-year history.  For instance, classes were suspended for six weeks in 1863 as Rebel troops advanced toward Gettysburg; 36 students took part in the momentous battle. In 1918 the Spanish flu hit Pennsylvania particularly hard; classes continued with precautions, but several football games got cancelled, including one at the last minute against Penn State. Flooding of the nearby Susquehanna River in 1936, at which time students had to be rescued by canoe, caused suspension of classes and damaged residence halls and fraternity houses. In 1970 a student strike supported by faculty in protest over the invasion of Cambodia and the Kent State killings pressured the administration into cancelling classes for the week of May 4 for teach-ins and demonstrations.

Pioneer sociologist Max Weber, who died in 1920 at age 56 of complications brought on the flu, is most famous for his two-volume text “The Protestant Ethic and the ‘Spirit’ of Capitalism (1904-1905). In New York Review Peter E. Gordon wrote:

    In the United States today one often encounters the boastful claim that its citizens are the beneficiaries of a “Protestant work ethic,” as if this explained the power of American capitalism.  But Weber offered a more tragic view.  In his estimation the religiously inspired ethic of a calling had died out long ago, a casualty of the rationalization process it helped set in motion. Capitalism, Weber argued, now runs on its own, with machine-like indifference to all spiritual values.  Meanwhile, those who are caught in its mechanism are left with little more than a sense of mindless compulsion.

    Although Weber could not have anticipated the unfolding catastrophe of climate change or the environmental ravages that have attended the process of industrialization, he understood that capitalism’s unrestrained expansion across the planet could hardly be taken as a sign of social betterment or historical progress.

above, Perry and Aggie Bailey in 1910 with Flora, Maude, Oscar, and Ethel
below, Aggie holding baby, back, middle, circa 1918

“A Rural Family Near Roselawn, Indiana, 1923-1935, by Eleanor Bailey and Hettie Bailey Abbott describes the struggles of Perry and Aggie Bailey and their children, who rented a small farm without electricity, refrigeration, or air-conditioning located west of Roselawn in Lincoln Township. The couple wed in 1899 when Aggie was 17 years old.

    Coal oil lamps were used for lighting, washing done by hand. Putting food by for winter meant a lot of work in the summer. They planted a large truck patch to grow vegetables for the family and to sell in town. The cash crops were potatoes and strawberries. The potatoes had to be bugged by knocking the bugs off with a paddle or a stick into a can of old oil.  Eggs and butter were taken to Thayer once a week to trade for flour, sugar, rice and lamp oil. Perry grew and hybridized gladiolas and shipped some orders by rail.  Beans put in gunny sacks and hung up to dry. In the winter the bags were taken down and beaten with sticks so that the beans would pop out of the shells.

    When blackberries, raspberries and huckleberries were ripe, Aggie and her children would take a horse and buggy go to the woods and pick berries to can for the winter.  Canning was done without the convenience of a ready supply of hot water. Water had to be pumped, heated on the stove, the jars washed, scalded, filled and everything went back on the stove to be boiled again. Many hours went into the work of canning food for use in the winter.  Aggie’s father, Israel Cox, would butcher a hog; after the meat was prepared, he and wife Matilda would share it with other families.

    Entertainment was square dances on Saturday night. Model T’s would bring the families to a neighbor’s barn.  After a picnic lunch, younger children would be asleep before the dancing was over. Perry Bailey played the fiddle for most of the dances. He played a few times as a guest on WLS National Barn Dance in Chicago.

    During those years of Prohibition and gangsterism, John Dillinger was robbing banks and Al Capone was spending a lot of time in south Lake County, Indiana where he had a hideout at Wildwood near Schneider, Indiana. The intersection of State Routes 10 & 55, between Thayer and Roselawn, was called “Little Chicago.” At a corner gas station bootleg whiskey or homemade beer could be purchased.  Rowdy card games took place on Saturday nights. If the FBI agents were in the area, gunny sacks would be placed on the roads as a warning to bootleggers. During the Depression, many local men took jobs cutting willows out of the road ditches when State Road 10 was paved from Lake Village to the Illinois State Line.

Ray Smock wrote:

    Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV: These five words will be part of the narrative of Donald Trump’s late stage unraveling. He bragged to Fox News medical reporter, Dr. Marc Siegel, that he aced the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test and then lied that the doctors were amazed that he was able to do what he did. In great detail, and with no embarrassment, and only pride in his personal accomplishment, the president seemed to be acting out a caricature of himself on Saturday Night Live. The president repeated the five words several times to prove he could do it. This feat proved to him, if no one else, that he was cognitive enough to be president of the United States. He is a good five-word guy. The doctors were amazed.

    Why, after watching Trump and bearing witness to his conduct for five years now, does my jaw still drop and my eyes pop out at this man’s behavior? The dark tragedy that is the Trump Administration has no bottom to it. As dark as it is, it somehow gets darker with each passing week. I thought the nation was in free fall when Trump was elected. But I underestimated how far we would fall, and, at first, I thought we had a parachute we could open into a lovely blue sky that had the word Constitution written across it in big bold letters. The Constitution would save us.

Joe Kernan

On the day of Congressman John Lewis’ funeral service attended by three former presidents (but not Trump), I learned that former Democratic governor of Indiana Joe Kernan passed away, sparking eulogies from Democrats and republicans who knew him alike.  He 1968 Notre Dame graduate piloted a plane shot down over Hanoi in May 1972 and was a POW for eleven months. He served three terms as mayor of South Bend and became governor when Frank O’Bannon died in office. Former Gary mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson recalled flying to a campaign appearance with Kernan and his joking that on one of his previous flights, he crash-landed in enemy territory.

Since I’ve been home these past months, I have been binge-watching the eight seasons of “Homeland,” starring Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison, an intrepid, bipolar CIA agent. Watching the series finale, I realized the perfect symmetry between the first episode, when an American POW appears to have been brainwashed by ISIS terrorists but overcomes what he’d been programmed to do, and denouement, after Carrie is released from eight months of captivity by the Russians. Like the series finale of “The Americans,” I found it gratifying and full of surprises.

Walt and Lois Reiner

 "Show up.  Make change.  Have fun.” Lois Reiner motto

As a freshman at Valparaiso University in 1948, Lois Bertram Dau had little connection with the town other than Saturday movies at the Premier Theater. Soon after graduating four years later, Lois married VU football coach Walt Reiner, a World War II and Korean navy vet.  In 1962 VU’s president asked Reiner to start a Youth Leadership Training Program, and three years later, when Walt became director of the Prince of Peace Volunteers, the Reiner family moved to Chicago’s Near North Side to minister to the needs of Cabrini Green Homes residents.  An outspoken advocate for civil rights and opponent of the Vietnam War, Walt survived 1967 heresy charges levied against him by conservative Lutheran-Missouri Synod officials to which VU was affiliated. As the Reiners prepared to return to Valparaiso, Cabrini Green housing project resident Barbara Cotton lamented that her family was denied the same opportunity.  That plea became the motivation for the Reiners and other Lutheran activists affiliated with the university founding the Valparaiso Builders Association, whose stated mission was “to strengthen the community by addressing issues of race, class and poverty, and to build healthy families and neighborhoods whose diversity is welcomed and cherished.”  The initial agenda: construction of a home for the Cotton family in what at the time was considered a lily-white “Sundown” town, a prospect not necessarily welcomed by a majority of Valpo residents. Braving death threats and other forms of harassment, this goal ultimately became a reality.  Rob Cotton, just ten at the time, is now a city council member and one of approximately a thousand African-American residents in a city of 33,000.

volunteer (now exec. dir.) Paul Schreiner in 1987

Still going strong in its 51^st year, the volunteer organization now called Project Neighbors has provided homes for over 300 residents.  Walt Reiner led by example and often told others, “Don’t sweat the small stuff, caulk it.”  Viewing his mission as liberating, he once stated, “When you give up the need for power, reputation, and money, you have the whole world open to you.” In 1995 the Reiners led efforts to found Hilltop Neighborhood House, which offered health, child care, pre-school, and adult educational services to area residents.  When Walt died in 2006 at age 83, the city renamed a street in the Hilltop neighborhood in his honor.  Loie Reiner, now in her nineties, remains active in Project Neighbors and serves as secretary of the organization.  Currently, there are two Project Neighborhoods-sponsored facilities in operation that provide homes for 33 women and their children. Recently, the zoning board approved a 14-unit facility for men (with preference for veterans) but held up a second rental unit by labeling it a “homeless shelter” despite its opposite intent, to offer an affordable alternative becoming homeless.  After the tie vote Loie posted: “DREAM DASHED….NOT ERASED.  STAY TUNED.”

Liz Wuerffel at zoning board meeting

Through our friendship with Ron and Liz Cohen, Toni and I were supportive of the Reiners’ efforts a half-century ago to desegregate Valparaiso. I met Loie a few years ago at a house party Health and Thais Carter hosted for VU students that had taken Heath’s course on civil rights in Northwest Indiana.  She and I had both participated in the course as speakers and resource persons.  Not surprisingly, Loie was engaging and looking forward more than to the past; I’m honored to have become her friends.  On the eve of her 91^st birthday she wrote:

    My children and grandchildren and greatgrandchildren and all young people of every race, gender, religion, economic level are on my mind. I pray for their courage to fight evil and build their lives on caring and generosity and creativity. I pray that they have faith in a Greater Power; and if that gives them what mine does, they will celebrate each God-given day as opportunity to love their neighbor....someone very different from them but in need of them. I pray that they - that all of us - refuse to be dragged into the hate and despair streaming through our present situation. And I pray that they - we - are listening to those too long unheard for the salvation of our endangered moral fabric.

Carl Reiner and Dick Van Dyke, 2000

RIP: Funny man Carl Reiner, born in the Bronx in 1922, a year before Walt Reiner (no relation) and integral part of the classic Sid Caesar TV comedy shows of the 1950s.  He was the creator of the 1960s “Dick Van Dyke Show” and longtime film collaborator (and sometimes actor) with Mel Brooks and Steve Martin. Son Rob Reiner (“Meathead” to Archie Bunker in the “All in the Family” series), Carl brought lots of laughs to this fan over a 70-year career.

Great Adventure

“When a great adventure is offered, you don’t refuse it.” Amelia Earhart

 

Growing up in Atchison, Kansas, Amelia Earhart earned the reputation of being a daredevil and tomboy who believed girls should have the opportunity to do anything a boy could do.  Her first plane ride in 1920 changed Amelia’s life; becoming an aviatrix became her passion. By the following year, she had saved enough money to pay for flying lessons from highly-regarded instructor Anita Snook. Within a few years she was a seasoned pilot.  In 1928, in what was a well-planned publicity stunt, Earhart was a passenger in a transatlantic flight piloted by Wilmer Stultz, admitting, “I was just baggage.” Upon returning to America she and the two-person crew received a ticker tape parade in New York City and a reception with President Calvin Coolidge. Due to her resemblance in appearance to Charles Lindbergh, she was dubbed by the press “Lady Lindy.”  Determined to prove her mettle on her own, in 1932 Earhart completed a 14-hour solo flight across the Atlantic, battling strong winds, icy conditions, and mechanical problems.  Her celebrity status led to frequent appearances and commercial endorsements. In 1935, I learned from historian Ray Boomhower, Purdue University hired Earhart to be a counselor to female students and established a Fund for Aeronautical Research in her name that helped in purchasing a twin-motored Lockheed Electra for Amelia’s next great adventure.

By 1938 Earhart had decided to attempt an around-the-world flight and have an account of it be the penultimate chapter in a memoir that would raise money for further aeronautical research and exploration.  After a false start, the ill-fated flight began June 1, 1938, in Miami, Florida. Flying to South America and then east to Africa and Southeast Asia, Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan had completed 22,000 miles in a month and had just 7,000 miles to go, across the Pacific.  From Lae, New Guinea, the next leg was 2,570 miles to Howland Island.  She never made it; the plane went missing and a radio frequency snafu caused a waiting naval vessel to lose contact with her plane.  Her last message was that the Lockheed Electra was running out of fuel.  Despite an intensive search, no trace of her or the plane was ever found.

 

Earhart’s disappearance has been the source of speculation and conspiracy theories that exist to this day.  Indeed, it is the primary reason people remember her.  Because America would soon be at war with Japan, some claimed her plane had been shot down and Earhart captured, accused of being on an intelligence mission, and executed.  Romantics wondered wishfully if she and Noonan had escaped to a deserted Pacific island; more likely, they landed on a coral reef that eventually submerged.  Most experts believe the plane simply ran out of fuel, crashed into the Pacific, and sank to the bottom of the sea.

 

My great adventure was leaving law school and traveling to Hawaii to commence working on becoming a History professor. For as long as I could remember, I’d planned to become a lawyer, and for three summers I’d worked at distinguished Philadelphia law firms as a mail room messenger. I observed young associates working 60-80 hours a week hoping to make partner, an outcome that seemed to depend on whether they could generate business for the firm.  In other words, not as glamorous a situation as on the “Perry Mason” series.

 

My senior year at Bucknell, I took Education courses and student taught, which I thoroughly enjoyed. At Virginia Law School many students were undecided over careers or had been pressured into being there. After a dorm mate committed suicide, I started contemplating whether, much as I enjoyed most law school classes, the legal profession was for me.  On a whim I looked into the University of Hawaii’s graduate program and discovered the History chair, Herbert Margulies, was someone whose work on the Progressive Era I admired.  I wrote Margulies a letter, and he urged me to apply and indicated I could receive an assistantship that would cover tuition and pay me a couple thousand dollars.  After meeting with Bucknell mentor, Dr. William H. Harbaugh in Lewisburg, PA, (hitchhiking part of the way) who warned me I’d never be rich and have at least a half dozen years of schooling yet but told me to go for it if that’s what I really wanted, I took the plunge with Toni’s consent. I’ve never looked back and marvel at how well it worked out and that I had the nerve to do it.

 

Toni agreed to move up our wedding date six months, after which we drove her Volkswagen Beetle across the country (a Southern route since it was mid-January 1965, a time when Yankees were viewed with suspicion), shipped the VW from California on to Honolulu, and boarded a plane.  I began work on a Master’s degree, and Toni obtained a job at a downtown law firm. We found a small apartment on Poki Street (why we later named a cat Poki) about a mile from the Manoa campus and close to a bus stop for Toni to commute to work while I walked to classes.  Some evenings we’d hang out on Waikiki Beach near nightclubs with live Hawaiian music and once splurged at Duke Kahanamoku’s for dinner and a show featuring Don Ho of “Tiny Bubbles” fame. I did research at Iolani Palace and we spent a glorious week on the then-barely developed island of Kauai (below, left).  Since phone calls were prohibitively expensive, we’d send and receive audio tapes from our families. I retain many other fond memories of our 18 months on Oahu and have been back to the islands several times since.                 Graduation, 1966

My adventure pales in comparison with the millions of immigrants to America, including Toni’s grandparents.  John Petalas posted a 1922 photo (below) of charter members of AHERA (American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association, founded to counter bigoty emanating from hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan  Anne Koehler, who emigrated from Germany many years ago, wrote about spending a delightful evening with friend Dorothy: “We were sitting in the car at Weko Beach in Bridgman, Michigan where they play taps at sunset during the summer. A car pulled up halfway. Dorothy talked to the driver and found out that he was from Germany. We started to talk from car to car and I found out that this spry gentleman is 92 years old. He hails from Stuttgart in southern Germany and came to this county in the 1950s. He remembers growing up under Hitler and barely missed being drafted toward the end of the war. I was happy to find out that he shared my dislike of our president.”

Dominguez family and George Van Til

My “Great Adventure” post received close to 50 replies, many from former students, including Jim Reha and Sarah McColly, collaborators Roy Dominguez and George Van Til, niece Cristin and nephew Bobby, with whom I’ve shared some adventures.  In the New York Review of Books “Personals” section was this message titled “In the Time of Corona”: “Chinese-Russian grandmother, youthful 60s, seeks a kind, self-supporting, healthy single man 60-70s with whom to share some life - enjoying career tai chi, theater, War on Drugs, Buddhist meditation, and more.” War on Drugs must refer to my favorite band that nephew Bob Lane and I saw perform at Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown, CA.

Chautauqua

“Chautauqua is the most American thing in America.” Theodore Roosevelt

Riis photo

For more than a half century beginning in the 1870s Chautauqua summer programs brought culture, information, and entertainment to millions. Founded on the shore of Lake Chautauqua in southwestern New York, Chautauqua began as a Methodist camp dedicated to training Sunday School teachers, yet almost from the beginning prided itself on being nondenominational. A successor to the Lyceum Movement that stressed adult education as essential to democracy, Chautauqua lectures were not only religious but reformist, motivational, informational, and instructive.  In July of 1891, for example, urban progressive Jacob A. Riis, author of the 1890 expose of New York City tenement house conditions, “How the Other Half Lives,” spoke on “The Children of the Poor.”  Other celebrities at Chautauqua that summer were Social Darwinist philosopher John Fiske, the Reverend Edward Everett Hale, and the feminist Julia Ward Howe.  Riis returned to Chautauqua often, as did other distinguished personages at the turn of the century.  Other communities emulated the Chautauqua example.

brochures from 1906 and 1920

In 1904 the movement expanded with the beginnings of “Tent Chautauqua.”  Enterprising booking agents put together a Chautauqua Circuit, providing local communities with an impressive lineup of speakers.  Within a decade over 10,000 communities hosted programs ranging from a few days to weeks. In addition to Jacob Riis, the financial rewards attracted such popular speakers as Mark Twain, William Jennings Bryan, Robert La Follette, and Frances Willard.  Free thinker Robert Ingersoll could speak knowledgeably about topics as varied as William Shakespeare, Postwar Reconstruction, and Agnosticism. Baptist preacher Russell Conwell was in such demand for his “Acres of Diamonds” oration that the founder of Temple University ultimately gave the speech over 6,000 times, all over the world.

left, Russell Conwell; below, Robert Ingersoll

By the 1920s lecturers began to share equal billing with entertainers, as singers, magicians, yodelers, and theatrical groups joined the traveling caravans.  In 1925, for instance, a cast performing Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado” began an extended tour in Abbeville, Louisiana, that concluded in Sidney, Montana. By this time, vaudeville tours were the rage, held in movie emporiums sprouting up all over the country.  The days of the Chautauqua Circuit were numbered; summer programs near Lake Chautauqua, however, still attract tens of thousands of registrants each year.

 

Kevin Nevers found this nugget for Chesterton Tribune’s “Echoes of the Past” column:

    100 Years Ago, the Red Grenadiers Bank band and male chorus, great lectures on timely topics: these are the notable attractions which will appear here on the 1920 Redpath Chautauqua.  The entire program is replete with features of compelling interest and timeliness.  Featured guests will include Dr. George Park, who will lecture on “The Man of the New Age;” Earl H. Hipple, “Wizard of the Xylophone<” and Judge Manford Schoonover, who will give his great lecture, “Unseen Forces.”

 

IU Northwest’s summer adult education series, Senior College, was cancelled due to the pandemic.  I was scheduled to speak on the state of Rock and Roll music in 1960.  I’d given the talk to Munster seniors and was looking forward to interacting with students, including jazz pianist Billy Foster.  I’m on the Munster Center for the Arts schedule for next year that may or may not go forward, given the current uncertainty. Topic: the underrated early 1960s in popular music: from Chubby Checker to the Beatles: surf sounds, soul music, and the girl groups.  And more.

This month Ron Cohen was to have spoken to the Merrillville History Book Club on Glenn Frankel’s “High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic.” On the surface a traditional western starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly, shot on a shoestring budget in less than five weeks, “High Noon” won four Oscars in 1953 and achieved box office success.  Debuting at the height of the Red Scare, the film celebrated moral courage and loyalty. Screenwriter Carl Foreman had increasingly regarded the script as an allegory for the Hollywood witch hunt taking place as he wrote.  Hauled before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in the midst of the production, Foreman, a Communist Party member in the 1930s, refused to name names of fellow members and was blacklisted as a result.  He subsequently co-authored “The Bridge on the River Kwai” screenplay, uncredited.

 

After sending federal troops in marked uniforms to Portland, allegedly to protect federal property in defiance of the Mayor and Oregon’s governor, which escalated the confrontation (moms and the Mayor himself have been tear-gassed, Now Trump is sending others (purportedly from ICE, Homeland Security, AFT, Border Petrol, and other agencies) wants to send other units to Chicago and Albuquerque, again not invited and over threats of legal action, in order to fight combat gun violence.  Ray Smock wrote:

    12,000 Chicago Police Officers do not need help from 3 or 4 hundred members of Trump's Goon Squad, assembled to cause disruptions in major cities with Democratic mayors. This is what fascism looks like. Don't pretend this is normal. State and local officials have not asked for federal help. If Trump wants the pandemic to be run by the states, why does he feel it takes federal officers in battle gear to handle mostly peaceful protests?

    Trump has enablers in some cities that will help him make this seem legitimate. It's ironic that the state's rights Republicans are willing to tolerate federal incursions into state authority. They will only argue it is unconstitutional when Democrats do the same to Republican strongholds.

Chesterton High School was all set to have an outdoor graduation when one of Becca’s classmates who’d been with several others recently tested positive for Covid-19.  School officials cancelled the ceremony and substituted a parade of cars procession for the immediate family only.

Sad Days

“Connections are what fascinate me, the connections of history and of individual lives,the accidents, incidents, and intentions that rip people apart and sew them back together.” David Maraniss

Bill Pelke was a steel mill crane operator from Gary when he learned that teenage girls had murdered his grandmother Ruth after getting into her home in Glen Park under the pretense of wanting Bible lessons. The were quickly caught and the supposed ringleader 15-year-ld Paula Cooper eventually tried as an adult and sentenced to death by electrocution.  Bill Pelke and his family were gratified by sentence. One day, while at work in his crane Pelke had an epiphany: his grandmother telling him that she didn’t want Paula to die. Much to his dad’s chagrin, Bill joined an effort to save Paula from the electric chair that ultimately succeeded thanks to millions of signatures and statements from religious leaders, including the Pope. Bill also reached out to Paula herself in letters and finally face-to-face visits.  Paula became a model prisoner, was released three decades later, and tragically, killed herself, perhaps out of guilt that she could never completely shed.

 

Despite this terrible blow, Bill Pelke has continued his work with an organization he founded, Journey of Hope . . . from Violence to Healing. Its central purpose: opposing the death penalty. No in his 60s and living in Anchorage, Alaska, Pelke spent a frustrating week striving unsuccessfully to prevent the execution of three federal prisoners brought to Terre Haute, Indiana, to await the lethal injection. Pelke led protests at the Supreme Court building in Washington as the high court rejected, 5-4, pleas to halt the first such executions in 17 years.  The first, Daniel Lewis Lee was convicted of taking part in the murder an Arkansas family.  The family’s relatives objected to his execution, and the man most responsible for the crime avoided the death sentence by cooperating with the authorities at Lee’s prosecution. One of the other two suffered from dementia.  All three had committed heinous crimes, and all three were white, perhaps selected to dispel any hint that race was an issue.

 

Bill Pelke posted this statement from Ruth Friedman, attorney for Daniel Lee and Director, Federal Capital Habeas Project

    It is important for everyone to understand exactly what happened last night to our client, Daniel Lewis Lee. At 2 AM on July 14, while the country was sleeping, the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision vacating the injunction that had been in place against the first federal execution in 17 years. Within minutes, the Department of Justice moved to re-set Danny Lee's execution--for 4 AM, summoning media and witnesses back to the prison in the very middle of the night. When it was brought to the government's attention that a court stay still remained in place, the DOJ first maintained that that stay presented no legal impediment to executing Danny Lee, but then filed an "emergency" motion to lift the stay.

    Over the four hours it took for this reckless and relentless government to pursue these ends, Daniel Lewis Lee remained strapped to a gurney: a mere 31 minutes after a court of appeals lifted the last impediment to his execution at the federal government's urging, while multiple motions remained pending, and without notice to counsel, he was executed.

    It is shameful that the government saw fit to carry out this execution during a pandemic. It is shameful that the government saw fit to carry out this execution when counsel for Danny Lee could not be present with him, and when the judges in his case and even the family of his victims urged against it. And it is beyond shameful that the government, in the end, carried out this execution in haste, in the middle of the night, while the country was sleeping. We hope that upon awakening, the country will be as outraged as we are.

Before I came to know Bill Pelke, I wouldn’t given these executions much thought.  Since inviting him to speak at IU Northwest on two occasions, I have become a strong advocate for abolishing the death penalty. It has proved not to be a deterrent and costlier, given the extended appeal process, than life without possibility of parole.  What’s more, modern DNA analysis has shown numerous prisoners on death row to have been innocent.  Most important, I believe it morally unjust for the state to put someone to death.  Bill Pelke is a man of faith who believes all souls are redeemable. One executed man’s final words were, “Holy Mother, mother of God, pray for me.”  I couldn’t bring myself to sympathize with him but did say a prayer of thanks to crusader Bill Pelke, who is keeping the faith in our troubled times.

The country lost another man of faith, Democratic Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, a civil rights pioneer involved in the 1960 sit-ins, 1961 Freedom Rides, 1963 March on Washington, and the 1965 Selma march, where a trooper fractured his skull. Like his mentor Martin Luther King, for him an open, just, integrated society was not just a Black issue, it was a goal we should all embrace.  He championed the cause of gas, Latinos, poor people, native Americans, women – and he worked within the political system, making friends across and aisle. Tributes were so nonpartisan even the President was pressured into lowering federal flags to half-staff.  Son Dave wrote:

My heart is saddened. Last night John Lewis died, but for 80 years he showed us how to truly live.  Our hero is with God.  May we be his legacy. “May we love as courageously; serve as humbly; and until justice rolls down like water, may we always cause Good Trouble.” - Cory Booker. “Not many of us get to live to see our own legacy play out in such a meaningful, remarkable way. John Lewis did” - Barack Obama

 

This from former IUN colleague Don Coffin

Native village.

Hidden in the bamboo, cannot

Escape the summer storms

    Japanese haiku

Frank Certa in 1950s with sons Mike and Jerry

This from former IUN colleague Mike Certa:

    It's a sad/glad couple of days. A year ago on 7/19 our friend George passed away. On 7/20/91, my parents died in an auto accident. Thinking of them reminded me of all of the friends and relatives who have passed away. The glad part of these two days comes from the literally thousands of good memories that I have of those folks that we made when we were together. If I've learned anything, it's to never take anyone for granted. Everyday is a gift! Live it like you mean it! Stay safe.

Goodbye Jimmy Reed

“You won't amount to much, the people all said
'Cause I didn't play guitar behind my head
Never pandered, never acted proud
Never took off my shoes, throw 'em in the crowd
Goodbye Jimmy Reed, goodbye, goodnight
Put a jewel in your crown and I put out the lights

    “Goodbye, Jimmy Reed,” Bob Dylan

James Mathis “Jimmy” Reed (1925-1976) grew up in the small, unincorporated community of Dunleith, Mississippi, picked up the guitar at a young age, learned to play the harmonica (harp) from Eddie Tayler, and earned money busking (street performing) as a teenager. Soon after moving to Chicago he joined the navy during World War II.  After being discharged, he married his hometown sweetheart Mary (whom he called Mama Reed) and got work in an Armour meatpacking plant while getting occasional work as a session player at Chicago’s Chess records and sideman in Jim Brim’s Gary Kings along with future Blues legend Albert King. Brim’s band played clubs in Gary and Chicago, many owned or financed by policy bosses.  During this time Reed met Jimmy Bracken, who along with Gary partner Vivian Carter, founded Vee-Jay Records with a loan from a Gary pawnbroker involved in the numbers racket.  When Chess Records expressed no interest in him as a solo artist, Reed signed the Vee-Jay, along with a Gary doo wop group called the Spaniels, and recorded the label’s very first single.  From the beginning Reed’s songs, such as “High and Lonesome” and “You Don’t Have to Go,” charted on Billboard’s Rhythm and Blues top ten.  “Goodnite, Sweetheart” by the Spaniels did even better and enabled Vee-Jay to become an industry powerhouse that paved the way for Motown a decade later.

 

Known to be a heavy drinker and somewhat uncomfortable in a recording studio, Reed initially had to be kept under lock and key before sessions to ensure he’d be sober.  He’d have Mama Reed, who co-wrote many of his songs, by his side.  She sang background and sometimes could be heard whispering lyrics to him.  In 1957 Reed had a crossover hit with “Honest I Do” and followed that up with “Big Boss Man,” “Bright Lights, City Lights,” and others.  His soulful voice and unique guitar and harp stylings were a pronounced influence on many 60s British bands, including the Rolling Stones and the animals; both bands covered his songs, as did Elvis Presley, the Grateful Dead, and Hank Williams, Jr., among others. Suddenly in demand, Reed toured with various headliners and blues revival shows until the ravages of alcoholism and untreated epilepsy led to his death at age 51.

In 1991 Jimmy Reed was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with LaVern Baker, the Byrds, Tina Turner, John Lee Hooker, and The Impressions (with Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield, who recorded “For Your Precious Love on Vee-Jay Records). Christgau’s Record Guide states: “At his best—on Vee-Jay in the '50s—Reed sang with the languid self-assurance of a man who never ran for the bus because he wanted to spend the fare on a glass of wine, and the unindustrious shuffle rhythms of the Vee-Jay band ambled right along behind.”

 

“Goodbye Jimmy Reed” appears on ageless icon Bob Dylan’s 2020 album “Rough and Ready Ways.”  Considering himself like Reed a vagabond troubadour armed with a guitar, harp, and songs to sing, Dylan paid his mentor the ultimate compliment, comparing their lives, according to Douglas Brinkley of the New York Times,” in a high-octane showstopper that honors the Mississippi bluesman with dragon-fierce harmonica riffs and bawdy lyrics.”  Here’s the concluding verse:

God be with you, brother, dear
If you don't mind me asking, what brings you here?
Oh, nothing much, I'm just looking for the man
Need to see where he's lying in this lost land
Goodbye Jimmy Reed, and everything within ya
Can't you hear me calling from down in Virginia?

Jose Cardenal

“When I came to this country to play baseball, I couldn’t speak much English, so I ordered ham and eggs or hamburgers all the time,” José Cardenal

José Cardenal was the most exciting of the many memorable Cubs whom I rooted for while Dave, a devoted fan, was growing up in the 70s and 80s.  As veterans Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Billy Williams, and others from the 60s retired, their replacements, though perhaps not as talented, became indelible characters to die-hard followers – Pete LaCock, Rick Monday, Steve Stone, Steve Swisher, Rick and Paul Reuschel, Bill Matlock, and Manny Trillo, whose batting stance and throwing motion Dave copied. Cardenal stood out because of his daring feats on the base paths, leading the team in steals, though not blessed with exceptional speed, and doubles, many on apparent singles that he stretched into an extra base through sheer guile and daring. In those halcyon days at Wrigley Field fans could go right next to the dugout and request autographs.  José signed Dave’s scorecard and smiled when I blurted out like an idiot: “You’re my biggest fan.” I meant the opposite, of course, but perhaps he took it the way I intended it. Right field bleacher fans loved shouting encouragement to him in Spanish and getting a salute and smile in return.

Born in 1943 in Matanzas, Cuba, Cardenal had played for five major league teams beginning in 1963 before signing with Chicago, including St. Louis as a replacement for Curt Flood.  After the 1977 season he signed a two-year contract with the Phillies.  During a trip to Philadelphia the boys and I took in a Cubs-Phils game at Veterans Stadium.  Cardenal didn’t disappoint; leading off first base, he took off on a hit-and-run, and when the batter drove a single into right, José rounded the bases and slid into home barely ahead of the throw. With his keen baseball acumen he became a first base coach and received three World Series rings as a Yankee in the late-90s.  One of Barack Obama’s final acts as president was to invite the 2016 World Champion Cubs to the White House, as well as several old veterans.  When Michelle Obama spotted Cardenal, she embraced him and confided that as a young teenager (below) she wore a Cubs cap over her huge Afro just like her favorite Cub.

Nick Mantis, noticing Cardenal’s comment about ordering the same meals over and over due to the language barrier, recalled that when his father came to America, all he knew how to order was apple pie and coffee until a friend taught him to say bacon and eggs.  Repeating a common immigrant joke but swearing it was a true story, Mantis wrote:

    Next day when the waitress said, “Apple pie and coffee?” my father smiled and said, “No, Bacon and eggs.” The waitress said, “OK, how do you want those eggs, scrambled?  Over easy? Hard boiled?”  My father said, “No, apple pie and coffee.”

Joining Richie Ashburn, Sonny Jurgensen, Dick Allen, Bobby Clarke, José Cardenal, and Julius Erving on my list of ten favorite players to watch and root for: Muhammad Ali (“The Greatest,” the only heavyweight boxer who could “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”), Walter Peyton (“Sweetness,” who always fought for extra yards), Michael Jordon (whose first title I watched from New Zealand and his sixth from Brazil), and Tiger Wood (so good in his prime folks bet even odds on him against the entire field). I enjoy watching old veterans strive for one last chance of glory so especially relished Ali’s rope-a-dope victory against George Foreman (watching from a Hammond theater) and Wood’s 2019 Master’s win. I’ll never forgive Mike Ditka for denying Peyton a chance to score in Superbowl XX or the Bulls management breaking up the team after 1998.

Adding to my top-ten list are amazing performances by Cub pitcher Jake Arrieta and Eagles quarterback Nick Foles. Arrieta was virtually unhittable the second half of the 2015 season, including a no-hitter against the Dodgers.  In an elimination game against Pittsburgh, I was with old friend Jim Migoski in MacMurray, PA, on the way to my 55^th high school reunion. Beforehand, we had a meal with five Pirate fans, including Jim. Arrieta was completely in control on the way to a 4-0 shutout. The only drama was because after two hit batsmen, umpires warned that one more would result in an automatic ejection. I shuddered whenever Jake threw inside.  At the reunion I moved to an adjacent bar to watch the Cubbies win a key game against the Cardinals thanks to rarely employed bunts.  Had Arrieta been able to pitch every game in the NL finals against the Mets, the Cubs probably would have been in their first World Series since 1945. Well, diehard fans said, there’s always next year.  And next year was indeed the charm, beginning with Arrieta’s second no-hitter in April against the Reds.

 

When Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz got injured in 2017 on his way apparently to an MVP season, few expected backup Nick Foles to lead the 11-2 team to its first Superbowl ever.  Playing the best football of his career to advance as NFC champs, Foles, nonetheless, seemed over-matched going into the big game against New England’s Tom Brady.  Used to previous Eagle disappointments, I decided to forego a Superbowl party at Marianne Brush’s house and watch the game alone. Before the contest, commentators declared that if the Eagles faced many third and long situations on offense, they’d be in deep trouble. Time and again, Foles connected on first-down passes in those situations. Two trick plays proved decisive: a Patriots wideout threw a pass to Brady that fell from his fingertips; then the Eagles executed an almost identical play and Foles scored.  He also connected on 28 of 43 passes for 373 yards.  With the score 41-33 Brady’s hail Mary pass into the end zone fell incomplete and the celebrations began.  That and the ten-inning Cubs seventh game World Series win in 2016 rank along with the 1980 Phillies championship as my most gratifying sports memories