IU Northwest Faculty Org

“Every institution has two organizational structures.  The formal one is written on the charts, the other is in the everyday relationships of the men and women in the organization.” 

Former ITT President Harold S. Geneen

 

When asked to pay tribute to my late colleague Fred Chary at November’s virtual Faculty Organization meeting, I agreed with one caveat: that my appearance be near the top of the agenda.  Last time I spoke, to honor retiring Sociology professor Chuck Gallmeier, I was called to the podium with just two minutes until automatic adjournment and had to cut my remarks short. Another unspoken reason was that such gatherings can be deathly boring, with tedious committee reports and unimportant announcements by administrators and events planners. Whereas once the Faculty Org played an important role in university matters, its power has been diluted by, among other things, an all-university Faculty Council and the establishment of a Chancellor’s cabinet.

 

In Paul Kern and my history of IU Northwest, “Educating the Calumet Region,” we wrote that the first recorded faculty meeting took place in 1952, when the campus, known as the “IU Extension,” met in Seaman Hall in downtown Gary, and that a constitution was drawn up four years later. Here are memories of meetings that took place in the 1960s after IUN moved to its present Glen Park location:

  Angie Komenich: I liked watching the rhetorical give and take.  Bill Neil, George Thoma, and Jack Gruenenfelfer were very good.  Director Jack Buhner encouraged discussion. 

    Ken Stabler: Several people saw the meetings as an opportunity to get up and expound.  Leslie Singer and George Roberts enjoyed telling everyone what they thought in a colorful language.  They were an entertaining part of the décor.

    Mary Harris Russell: My first meeting was nothing like expected, coming from Berkeley, where Noam Chomsky and other luminaries debated pressing issues of the day.  Discussion went on interminably over whether Sophie could bring over coffee on a cart from the cafeteria.  I thought, “I have better things to be doing.”

 

While an untenured professor during the 1970s, I attended meetings out of obligation and in order to meet some of the important players that might be controlling my fate.  Old timers exuded a certain gravitas, and gadflies George Roberts. Les Singer, and Gary Moran could be counted on to rail against those they considered to be administrative toadies.  Moran got his comeuppance when he asked Regional Campus director and future IU President John Ryan a question and made the unforgivable faux pas of referring to the mother campus as the University of Indiana.  Business professor Bill Reilly’s forte was coming up with Latin phrases that half the time went over my head. Over the years I can recall a handful od exciting meetings.  I missed by one year the 1969 debate over establishing a Black Studies program but was part of efforts to gain approval for Chicano/Riqueno and Women’s Studies programs as well as a resolution to ban smoking on campus.  I was on the losing end of one to have student transcripts simply be a record of progress toward a degree, eliminating needless W’s, I’s, and F’s. 

 

One ongoing debate, I learned, has been whether to tape meetings and have them then made available to those unable to attend. Opponents pointed out that written minutes already serve that purpose while protecting individuals’ anonymity, whereas recording meetings might stifle debate.  Sureka Rao noted that if professors really cared about what went on, they could make more of an effort to attend.  Zoran Kilibarda drew laughs when questioning whether anyone would spend hours watching the proceedings.  The motion was tabled. My remarks appeared to be well received (I subsequently received warm, congratulatory emails from all history faculty. 

 

I stayed around to hear retiring Computer Information Systems professor Bill Dorin praised by Faculty Org chair Mark Baer. Once a lunchtime fixture at the cafeteria faculty table, Dorin spent many hours helping me make a DVD companion to Ron Cohen and my “Gary: A Pictorial History.” Each photo appeared on the screen for approximately 30 seconds, sometimes with Bill panning in on certain details, while I recited the captions. While not terribly exciting, the DVD was used in some Gary classrooms during units on local history. Ever the comic, Dorin said he was looking forward to having time to catch up on his reading and then held up a child’s coloring book as an example.

Fred Chary, R.I.P.

“Change Is in the cards, 

but this time it will be hard.”

“Wrapped Up in Books,” Belle and Sebastian

 

My good friend and former IU Northwest colleague Fred Chary, 81, passed away; his daughter EllaRose called with the sad news. Unable to get around much for the past few years, he remained intellectually active, leaving behind a mostly completed Russian historical novel. In the hospital for a procedure, he was rehabbing at a facility when he tested positive for the coronavirus and never made it home. He didn't suffer serious symptoms, but wife Diana could only see him through a glass window and one night he went to bed and never woke up. So he evidently died peacefully.

 

Graduating from Penn, located in his hometown of Philadelphia, he received a PhD from Pitt in 1968 and published the critically acclaimed "The Jews and the Final Solution, 1940-1944" (1972), which found that Bulgaria was the only German ally during WW II where the entire Jewish community was able to avoid Hitler's gas chambers. His lively history of Bulgaria was published in 2011.

We lived just a few blocks from the Charys in Miller during the 1970s and frequently got together for cards, board games (i.e., Risk), dinner, special occasions, and holidays. While his family spent a year in Bulgaria (sons David and Michael attended Ho Chi Minh School there), a bunch of us at a New Year's Eve party made an audio tape for them. It apparently didn't get through the Communist censors, probably because it was considered too raucous, although Fred later suspected the reason was political.

 

In those years we had several brilliant students in common who became our good friends, including David Malham and Milan Andrejevich, who went on to earn a PhD, work for Voice of America, and teach at both IUN and Ivy Tech. Milan would host student-faculty parties when his parents were away that produced many memorable moments. In faculty-student touch football games Chary was a fearsome lineman.

 

Once, teaching a Historiography seminar, I asked other department members to talk about their areas of specialization in Fred's case, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. I'd never seen Fred teach, and he did not disappoint, interweaving a perfect blend of content, personal anecdote, and Q and A.

 

For many years Fred and Diane Chary would have a table at Temple Israel in Miller's Trivia Night. She'd decorate around a theme and often provide hats, wigs, or other costumes. I was expected to handle Gary history and pop music questions. On hand usually were Chary sons David and Michael and friends Jack Bloom, Karen Rake, and Sue Darnell.

 

Both Freddy and I were ardent Philly sports fans. In 1974, the year the Flyers first won their first Stanley Cup, we were at a party during the crucial fourth game against Boston and found an empty bedroom for the final minutes, a victory that put the Flyers up 3 games to 1. In the mid-70s the Phillies finally had worthy playoff teams with Larry Bowa, Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, and Dick Allen. We'd both tune in WFIL in the evening (sometimes in my car) and call when one of us could pick up the signal. One of our favorite Eagles games was when the hated Giants could have run out the clock had the quarterback just taken a knee, but he inexplicably tried to lateral to his running back and an Eagle intercepted it and ran untouched into the end zone. Two years ago, when the Eagles finally won the Superbowl, he was the first one I called. I'll miss him and think of him often.

 

Among the many faculty responding to my tribute to Fred was historian Paul Kern, who wrote: “Very sorry to hear this. Fred was a brilliant linguist and had an encyclopedic knowledge of history. He had an ironic sense of humor. And he was a very good chess player. He was my colleague for 38 years, part of an IUN history department faculty generation that flourished for four decades.”  Sculptor Neil Goodman noted: “It was a great department and I had a huge respect for Fred as well as all of the members of your department. It set the bar high for excellent scholarship and collegiality.” Among the student responses was this from Jim Reha: “Jim, please express our condolences to Fred's family. I always enjoyed his class and used information from him throughout my teaching career.”  Old friend Susan Darnell wrote:

    Thanks much for this Jim; Fred would have enjoyed it. Glad he had his big 80th Birthday party...he sure loved parties, mainly his own, especially the food (wife Diane is a gourmet cook and spoiled Fred often), the gifts and cards! It was touching to see him engaging with his peers that day...he was in his element relishing the special IU comradery. Diane will be lost; they were a team and she tried desperately to protect him from exactly what happened. I hope to be there for her as needed. Ella Rose and David (Michael too) you had a great dad, the best! He was beyond proud of you all. I, as a forever friend of roughly 45 years will remember all the parties, Trivia Nights and the many meandering conversations and sage advice when solicited. I'll miss Fred often, his brilliance, his gentleness and his humble joy. I am so blessed to have wandered into his circle to share some time and oh so many memories. My love to you all...you just always think there will be more time. Godspeed dear, sweet Fred. 

Embarrassment (Nov. 13)

 "When asked where I was from, I substituted upstate New York for Gloversville, a deft maneuver that allowed me to trade embarrassment for guilt, which, having been raised Catholic, I was used to." Richard Russo," "The Destiny Thief"

Richard Russo

Many Gary natives refer to where they're from as the Chicago area or Northwest Indiana. I don't fault them, but I'm "STRAIGHT OUTTA GARY," if not by birth nor my present address but spiritually, in my heart. 

A product of WASP suburbia, embarrassment was to be avoided at all costs, while guilt seemed a wasted emotion. The one time I shop-lifted - two .45 records from Woolworth's in Ambler- my fear was that I'd be caught, not that I'd sinned. Farting in class, seen with your fly open, your dad asking if you'd had a BM in the presence of friends - all things to be avoided lest you'd be ribbed mercilessly.

 

Trump's refusal to act gracefully in defeat is a horrific embarrassment to the nation and a threat to the peaceful transfer of power - yet another hallmark of our system that the grifter is willing to jeopardize for his own self-interest.

 

The Doobie Brothers are 2020 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, along with T. Rex, Nine Inch Nails, Whitney Houston, and Notorious B.I.G. One of my favorite Seventies bands, the Doobies, from San Jose, California, had such great hits as “Listen to the Music,” “Jesus Is Just Alright,” “Long Train Runnin’,” and my favorite, “China Grove.”  Michael McDonald joining the group in 1976 extended the band’s career in the spotlight, and he has a great voice; but I like the early Doobie output the best. A few years ago, they started touring again, and 2020 marks their fiftieth anniversary.

 

The Hall of Fame honored musicians that we lost in 2020, including the immortal Little Richard, guitar genius Eddie Van Halen, balladeer John Prine, Ric Ocasek of the Cars, Tex/Mex rocker Trini Lopez, plus Helen Reddy (“I Am Woman”), Bill Withers (“Lean on Me,” “Ain’t No Sunshine”), Southern rocker Charlie Daniels, and many more including Adam Schlesinger from one of my favorite bands, Fountains of Wayne.  

 

Jeopardy host Alex Trebek succumbed to pancreatic cancer.  Taping shows until near the very end, he left us seven weeks of new shows to enjoy.  While once he could be quite arrogant to contestants who missed an easy question, or especially a clue about his native Canada, in recent years he mellowed and often seemed genuinely sorry for those who don’t know the answer to a “Double Jeopardy” or final question. Among his many strengths was pronouncing foreign names or phrases or imitating the author of the clue being quoted.  When good buddy Clerk Metz was alive, afternoons I’d stop at his place in time to watch Jeopardy with him. Since then my reaction time to answer has slowed down, but I’m still good at history and sports questions.  A recent “Final Jeopardy” I blanked out on had to do with word origins.  The clue was “Hall erected to honor nine Greek deities” and the answer: museum.

Aggie and Perry Bailey

Eleanor Bailey wrote:

    My Grandma had a broom, a dustpan and a linoleum floor. She had a wooden mop handle with a metal spring clamp that held a piece of an old blanket or a piece of towel. She had a galvanized mop bucket. That's what grandma had.

What she didn't have was an upright vacuum cleaner and a swifter wet-jet and a swifter dry-floor duster and various kinds of disposable dust cloths and several kinds of cleaners in spray containers.

    She didn't have a plastic, made in a foreign country, purchased in a big-box-store, shop-vac that falls apart all by itself and dumps its contents down the basement stairs when you least expect it to happen.

    She had a dust rag and when she cleaned windows and mirrors, she would make a mixture of vinegar and water, wipe that on the windows and dry with old newspapers.

    In the outhouse she had a Sears and Roebuck catalog for the readers and the wipers. And, the outhouse was scrubbed out every week, using some of the wash water on laundry day. 

    And a smile for everyone, that's what Grandma had. 

Janet Smith noted that her mom also had a mop with a wooden handle with the old towel attached, adding: “I thought we had become millionaires when the first sponge mop was used.”

NHC Zoom Session

“Today’s panelists all work to amplify the voices of traditionally marginalized communities and to challenge the historical narratives that excluded or minimized their experiences.” “Crossroads to Shared Authority: Amplifying Voices” session introduction

 

Instead of convening in Indianapolis, as originally scheduled, the National Humanities Conference was a virtual affair.  As our session’s “fearless moderator” (Allison Schuette’s phrase), I requested those who joined us to describe the nature of their humanities work and where they were located.  The large group hailed from all parts of the country. Then I introduced the speakers- Northwestern grad student Emiliano Aguilar, Indiana State Museum curator Kisha Tandy, and Valparaiso University Welcome Project co-directors of the “Flight Paths” initiative

Emiliano Aguilar 

Aguilar focused on a 1970 student walkout at East Chicago Washington, sparked by an assistant principal’s alleged comments about Mexicans being lazy and stupid. When demonstrators rallied at Mayor John Nicosia’s residence, he evidently punched one, adding fuel to the fire. Tandy dealt with preserving the history of Bethel AME Church in Indianapolis, founded in 1836 by an itinerant preacher and a barber. During its early years Bethel was part of the Underground Railroad and recruited black soldiers for the Union cause during the Civil War. Located beginning in 1869 on Indy’s downtown canal, the church offered a full range of social, educational, and religious services.  Vacant since 2016, the historic building is being restored for use as a hotel. Kisha played excerpts of an interview of church historian Olivia McGee Lockhart and showed illustrations from the Virtual Bethel Project coordinated by the Indiana Historical Society. 

The overall goal of the Flight Paths initiative, Schuette and Wuerrfel explained, is to collect oral testimony about the history and unfolding of white flight from Gary as well as black empowerment in Gary and Northwest Indiana. Told from the point of view of those who fled to the suburbs, it is a story of declension that accompanied the election in 1967 of Richard Gordon Hatcher as the first black mayor of a significant-sized city. One push factor was fear – of black neighbors moving in and the resultant decline of property values.  Adding to the individual biases were legacies of systematic racism, such as redlining by government agencies, block busting by realtors, and inadequate funding of public schools and city services.

 

Panelists intentionally kept presentations brief to allow ample time for questions and comments.  Initially none were forthcoming, so I stepped into the breach and asked Emiliano about bilingual education (one of the Concerned Latins Organization’s main goals), inquired of Kisha whether the proposed hotel would exhibit Bethel church artifacts and memorabilia (it will), and solicited Al and Liz’s opinions on how interviewers should react if a narrator stated something that was palpably false.  Allison claimed she took her lead from Studs Terkel, who while interviewing unapologetic racists in a Mississippi barbershop maintained a friendly demeanor, even promising to return the next day for a haircut. “Kind of like Borat,” I interjected, referring to the Sacha Baron Cohen film persona who plays along with all types of weirdos.

 

The questions that started arriving in the chat room were rather theoretical, such as Ken Dinitz from Pennsylvania Humanities asking what we thought the difference was between public memory and public history.  Traditionalists commonly define history as the written record of change over time, while memory is often meant to be synonymous with the oral tradition, as with pre-literate societies preserving their culture through legends, stories, and folklore. To a contemporary oral historian, public memory suggests a variety of divergent voices while public history, incomplete without such input, implies some degree of consensus.

2017 Chester/Gary cultural exchange

Afterwards Ken Dinitz sent this email: “We've been thinking about those issues for a long time at PA Humanities, so it is always fascinating to see how others are approaching these unanswerable questions. That you are working with Gary is so interesting to me and to Pennsylvania Humanities. We facilitated artist and activist exchanges between Chester, PA and Gary a few years ago.”   I  emailed back that I’d be happy to send Ken a free copy of “Gary’s First Hundred Years.” 

 

I emailed Oral History Association heavy hitter Michael Frisch, author of the acclaimed book “A Shared Authority,” that I participated in a National Humanities Conference zoom session with Allison Schuette and Liz Wuerffel, whom he mentored at the 2019 OHA conference in Salt Lake City.  I wrote: “They named our session “Crossroads of Shared Authority: Amplifying Voices.”  Wonder where they got “shared authority” from. 

Dancing in the Street

“They're dancing in Chicago (dancing in the street)

Down in New Orleans (dancing in the street)

In New York City (dancing in the street)”

Martha and the Vandellas

Finally, the wait is over.  Joe Biden is President-elect, having carried Pennsylvania, which put him over the necessary 270 electoral votes.  Winning Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia upped the total to above 300, so Trump’s empty threats to go to court have apparently sunk in, to everyone but him and his most head-in-the-sand supporters.  After the cautious networks finally called it after four tense days, crowds across the country began dancing in the street, celebrating the fact that Trump’s nightmarish regime is nearing an end.  In Paris church bells tolled, and throughout the world demonstrators toasted America’s election outcome, including Kamala Harris’ ancestral village in India.  Progressive Democrat Doug Rees emailed George Van Til: “I could go on about Joe Biden’s links to the establishment.  But when I saw those crowds dancing in the street, I had the feeling that something fundamental had changed in this country.  Joe Biden should follow the path of the better angels of his nature and dare to be great.”

 

Philly photos by Chris McGrath

On MSNBC former Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill admitted breaking out in tears watching people’s pure joy over the result.  On CNN Van Jones broke down as he explained: “It’s easier to be a parent this morning. It’s easier to be a dad. It’s easier to tell your kids character matters. It matters. Tell them the truth matters.” The teary-eyed Jones hoped that the county could reset and finally get some peace.

More tears flowed that evening in Wilmington, Delaware, as Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris gave victory speeches. Especially poignant were mothers hugging young daughters.  Harris took the stage to strands of “Work That” by Mary J. Blige (“Read the book of my life and see I've overcome it/ Just because the length of your hair ain't long and they often criticize you for your skin tone/ Wanna hold your head high cause you're a pretty woman/ Get your runway stride home and keep going/ Girl live ya life”). It’s a tribute to Biden’s character that he gave Harris the spotlight, and she shined, wearing white in honor of suffragettes and her black sorority pin and crediting civil rights pioneers – black, Latina, native American – on whose shoulders she stood.  Her expression was incandescent as she exclaimed that while she was the first vice president-elect of color, she certainly will not be the last.

Biden literally ran onto the stage preceded by a medley of songs that included Tom Petty’s “I Won’t back Down.” Finally on the brink of achieving a goal that he has worked for decades to achieve and enduring family tragedies that would have destroyed many a man, he called for unity and promised to be a president for all the people, including those who supported his opponent, and to be a healer who will end the “grim era of demonization.” In closing he referred to the Catholic hymn “On Eagle’s Wings,” which, he said, brought him comfort when his son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015.  He went on: "It captures the faith that sustains me, which I believe sustains America. And I hope I can provide some comfort and solace.”  Then he recited these lyrics: “And he will raise you up on eagle's wings, bear you on the breath of dawn. Make you to shine like the sun and hold you in the palm of his hand.” Biden concluded: "And now, together — on eagle’s wings — we embark on the work that God and history have called upon us to do.”

Ray and Phyllis Smock

As the Harris and Biden families filled the stage, a massive fireworks display ensued.  As it neared an end, one could hear Coldplay’s “Sky Full of Stars,” Beau Biden’s favorite song, played at his funeral service (“you're a sky full of stars 'Cause you light up the path . . .  in a sky full of stars, I think I saw you”).  On Facebook I told Ray Smock: “Watching Kamala Harris' awesome speech, I thought of Barack Obama at the 2004 Democratic convention.”  He wrote: “We are so proud to fly our flag again as a symbol of hope and pride, and with great respect to all who have fought for and defended our nation and our Constitution.”  Dave got out his guitar, poured a glass of champagne, and performed the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want ("But if you try sometimes, well, you might find/ You get what you need”). Tom Wade posted a photo of a red rose blooming below their Biden-Harris sign. As FDR’s 1932 campaign song stated, indeed, let’s hope “Happy Days Are Here Again.” 

Chances Are

 Chances Are (Nov. 3)

  Take a walk in the park, take a valium pill

 Read the letter you got from the memory girl

 But it takes more than this to make sense of the day

 Yeah it takes more than milk to get rid of the taste”

  “Sleep the Clock Around,” Belle and Sebastian”

In the Richard Russo novel “Chances Are,” about three college friends who reunite in 2016 at age 66, Mickey Girardi, a musician and sound engineer still into late-Sixties style Rock and Roll, ridicules his buddies’ musical tastes, labeling Lincoln’s phone choices of Nat King Cole and Johnny Mathis elevator music and Ted’s alt rock favorites – The Decembrists, Mumford and Sons, and Belle and Sebastian – faggot music. As one who’s into alt rock, I dig The Decembrists and Mumford and Sons but had never heard of Belle and Sebastian, a Scottish band that’s been around, I learned, for over 20 years.

Sarah Martin

Checking YouTube, I discovered several music videos for such tracks as “I Want the World to Stop,” “Another Sunny Day,” “Sister Buddha,” and “I’m a Cuckoo,” plus a 2014 full “Austin City Limits” concert and a live 2015 appearance at Lollapalooza, Berlin. Among the many members are several keyboardists, with the vocals mostly featuring co-founder Stuart Murdock and Sarah Martin (below).  Belle and Sebastian even put out a song called “Piazza, New York Catcher” that makes an illusion to rumors about Mets backstop Mike Piazza possibly being bisexual (“San Francisco’s calling us, the Giants and Mets will play, Piazza, New York catcher, are you straight or are you gay?”) The band’s name comes from a French novel, “Belle et Sebastien,” about a six-year-old boy and his dog.

Thanks to Richard Russo, whose favorite is Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, I’ve discovered a rich vein of excellent music. In fact, I found three Belle and Sebastian CDs at Chesterton library.

Mickey, Lincoln, and Ted calll each other by their colleges nicknames, what Russo calls “avatars of their younger selves.”  In high school I went by Jimmy; in college best friend Rich Baler (“Bakes”) called my Lanezer.  During my softball career it was Dr. J.  Now, close friends and family call me Jimbo or JBo.  For a guy fast approaching 80, I’ll take it.

College was the site of my brief pugilistic career. Bucknell had a freshman Phys. Ed. requirement that included a boxing component with extra-large gloves that when sparring were supposedly less likely to cause injury (that was the claim).  An interfraternity tournament was part of year-long sports competitions involving the dozen frats.  I had pledged Sig Ep, which had no hope of beating out the so-called jock houses, yet wanted to avoid the indignity of finishing near the bottom in the standings.  So not to be penalized, Sig Ep needed to have a full slate of contestants; thus pledges were consigned to be the guinea pigs. I dispatched my first opponent, another luckless pledge, due to having longer arms. Bout number two, I found out later, was against the defending champ.  I landed a few soft left jabs without much resistance for about 30 seconds before getting decked by a hard right.  More stunned than hurt, I decided to stay down for the count rather than prolong the mismatch.  Thus, my unwanted boxing career came to an end.

The Chicago Bulls have signed Maurice Cheeks as assistant coach to Billy Donovan, whose assistant he was with the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Chicago native graduated from DuSable High School, starred at West Texas A & M, and was drafted in 1978 by the Philadelphia 76ers. He was point guard for the 1983 NBA champs, whose star-studded team, coached by Billy Cunningham, included Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Andrew Toney, and Bobby Jones. When he retired after 15 years (the first 11 with the Sixers), the future Hall of Famer was first in career steals and fifth in assists. He was head coach for three NBA teams before joining the Thunder in 2015. Cheeks once said, “Execution down the stretch is the key,” and with the game on the line his teams wanted the ball in his hands. 

In 2003 young contest winner Natalie Gilbert started singing the National Anthem prior to a Sixers game when she suddenly got confused and lost her composure. Head coach Mo Cheeks joined her at the mike and began singing with her. The crowd and players joined in and by the end Natalie was belting out the final verse and the crowd erupted, many with tears in their eyes, in a standing ovation. Google it, and I guarantee it will get you choked up. Welcome back to the “Windy City,” Maurice Cheeks.

Untethered 

    “When did America become untethered from reality?” Kurt Anderson, “How America Went Haywire,” The Atlantic (2017)

Election Day has morphed into election week. The initial results were absolutely disheartening, as Trump appeared ahead in key battleground states, including Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. As votes came in from urban areas and the counting of mail ballots began, Biden gained the upper hand in Wisconsin and Michigan and narrowed the gap in the Keystone State.  Even so, the expected Democratic gains in the Senate and House were not happening, as Trump’s lies – that Radical Democrats would defund the police, take away private health care, threaten white suburbs, and fraudulently steal the election, combined with Republican scare tactics, appeared to be having an effect. Bright spots were Arizona, where Biden and Senate candidate Mark Kelly (below) are ahead, and Nevada, where the former vice president has an apparently safe lead. After three full days, Biden’s leads in Pennsylvania and Georgia are growing, and most remaining votes are from urban Democratic strongholds.  Trump’s strategy, to get the vote stopped where he was ahead and continue the count where he was behind, has hopefully failed.  Twitter has even begun to prevent his baseless tweets from appearing. In contrast, Biden is urging calm and acting presidential.

Anti-Trump Republican Kurt Anderson traced America’s “lurch toward fantasy” to aspects of the American character, such as belief in rugged individualism, extreme religious beliefs, an anti-intellectual strain, and susceptibility to conspiracy theories and con artists from B.T. Barnum to Trump, in Anderson’s estimation, an amoral grifter resentful of the establishment. In the 1960s, the postwar mainstream consensus collapsed, with the radical Right gaining a foothold in the Republican Party with Barry Goldwater’s nomination in 1964, and the Vietnam War fracturing Lyndon B. Johnson’s liberal coalition.  In academia the postmodernist belief that truth is relative became the precursor to Trump apologists’ defense of “alternative facts.”  By accusing the mainstream media of disseminating fake news, attacking Congress and the courts, and now threatening to refuse to abide by the election results, Trump has become a threat to America’s political system.  As Josh Barro wrote:

 The problem is that the Republicans have purposefully torn down the validating institutions.  They have convinced voters the media cannot be trusted; they have gotten them used to ignoring inconvenient facts about policy; and they have abolished standards of discourse.

Day of the Dead

“Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten the,” George Eliot

Dia de Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, is a Mexican celebration of the faithful departed, a take-off on the Catholic All Souls Day, which follows the Evening of All Hallows (Halloween) and All Saints Day. Believed by Mexican nationalists to have been descended from ancient Aztec practices, it is a day of remembrance, with families designing altars and shrines to departed family members, preparing traditional food, writing calaveras or short, anecdotal poems about the deceased, and taking flowers and other items to the gravesites of loved ones.  For many years, IU Northwest’s Modern Languages Department put together an elaborate exhibit that included photos of faculty we had lost.  I looked forward each year to seeing images of my good friends Bill May and Rhiman Rotz.

 

The Irish trace Halloween to the pre-Christian, Celtic celebration of Samhain, a two-day festival celebrating the end of harvest season and the beginning of the “dark” months. According to tradition, Druid priests would sacrifice cattle and ignite an immense wheel whose sparks would set off a bonfire from which villagers would light their hearths.  I just learned about Samhain from former student Chris Daly, who offered up this holiday wish for friends and loved ones: “May you all reap the rewards of the seeds harvested over the past year! Be appreciative of such rewards! My reward was the voice mail left for me and the subsequent phone call with my daughter and grandbaby! I could not be more grateful that I am included in their lives! Soak in all that you have, my friends. Honor those whom have sowed the seeds and sacrificed so that we can flourish! For this is the day when they are closest to us. Merry meet, Merry part, and Merry meet again!”

Daly's granddaughter Aaliyah

Halloween, one of Toni’s favorite holidays, produces elaborate yard decorations more diverse than any other. In addition to her ghostly display, two young neighbors in our condo court had decorated their front yard with an assortment of skeletons, tombstones, spiders, and pumpkins.  Toni always makes a big pot of chili and, weather permitting, sets up a table outside and invites neighbors to partake.  Normally, we get from 50 to 100 trick-or-treaters.  This year, due to the pandemic, the neighbors stayed inside, either with lights out or, in two cases, with a container of treats on the front porch. It was a brisk but pleasant evening, so Toni and I spent the two hours (5:30-7:30) sitting near the garage entrance with a table of treats ten feet in front of us and emanating from a miniature boom box eerie music or tales (some narrated, I swear, by Chicago storyteller and oral historian Studs Terkel).  Sadly, we only had a couple dozen visitors, mostly preschoolers accompanied by parents. The influx of older kids that I kept predicting would arrive never materialized. As 7:30 neared, Toni kept telling new arrivals to take more and more of the candy treats.

 

Son Dave (in Cardinal cap) spent Halloween at East Chicago Central organizing an event at nearby McShane Park dubbed “Nightmare on McShane Street.”  Students wore costumes and face paint, along with masks, to appear as zombies, werewolves, and other creatures of the dead.  It was a great success, although Dave later learned that one of the volunteers subsequently tested positive for the coronavirus, and he’s been self-quarantining until he himself gets back test results.  

 

What a friggin’ year.  And, of course, the whole country is on edge, as new cases daily approach 100,000 and POTUS cavalierly holds super-spreader rallies, ridicules health experts and those in the audience wearing masks, including, unbelievably, reactionary Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham, mocking her for being “politically correct.”  Worse, he has threatened not to abide by election results if he loses.

Dennis Trelinksi (above) and Harold Beckwith

Over the weekend actor Sean Connery (the first James Bond) died, and the NWI Times caried obits for many more people, it seemed, than normal, including 68-year-old Dennis J. Trelinkski, who was active at St. Thomas More Church as a Memorial Day Mass Eucharistic Minister and at their annual carnival.  Trelinski donated his “mortal body” to IU’s anatomical education program.  Gary Special Education teacher Harold Beckworth, a Roosevelt and IU grad, owner of Sir Harold’s Liquors, and member of St. Timothy Church, “made his earthly transition” (as the obit stated), with the “Homegoing Celebration” over the weekend officiated by Pastor Rameen Jackson.

The IU Northwest family is particularly saddened by the passing of Antoinette Wallace (above), the wife of Diversity, Equity, and Multicultural Affairs director James Wallace.  Here is the obit

    Antoinette Wallace (nee Wilkins) age 58, of Merrillville, Indiana, passed away peacefully at her home, on Sunday, October 25, 2020. She was surrounded and cared for by her husband and mother. Antoinette was born on February 1, 1962, in Chicago, Illinois to Josephine Wilkins and Kenneth Stanfield. Antoinette was a proud graduate of Julian High School also in Chicago and attended Eastern Illinois University majoring in fashion design. Her passion and brilliance for clothing design was well known to all who knew her as she could often be seen adorned in garments of her own creation. While there she joined the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated where she made many lasting friendships. 
    After college, she worked for the U.S. Post Office for twenty-plus years and joined the Isis Chapter #40 of the Order of the Eastern Stars. She met and married James W. Wallace, Jr. on May 15, 2010. After retiring from work she spent her final years providing a comforting home for her husband and mother. She was a wonderful cook and her baked creations, especially her rum cake, were simply delicious. Antoinette enjoyed travelling and home improvement shows much to the irritation of her husband who was often dragooned into a variety of projects. She had an abundance of love for her family and friends who will miss her dearly.