Tributes

“Jean Shepherd gets compared to Mark Twain a lot.  He was an American icon and a philosopher in many ways who realized the best medicine is humor.” Nick Mantis”

 

Hammond native Nick Mantis donated items to the Hammond library’s Local History room in tribute to Jean Shepherd, including a plaque the Hoosier bard received in 1981 from the city of Hammond and the academic gown Shep wore when awarded an honorary IU degree in 1995 from Indiana University Northwest. Mantis repeated this famous quote by Shepherd to NWI Times correspondent Joseph S. Pete: “Can you imagine 4,000 years passing, and you’re not even a memory?  Think about it, friends.  It’s not just a possibility.  It is a certainty.”  Then Mantis added, “In his mind, he didn’t want to be forgotten . . . in the city where he came from. He’s going to be remembered in Hammond.”

 

I used to make fun of Readers Digest volumes containing multiple condensed books. I recall my Bucknell professor, William Harbaugh, admitting that his truncated biography of Teddy Roosevelt wasn’t bad but that he hoped it would encourage readers to peruse the original.  At the Banta Center library I found a volume of “World’s Greatest Biographies” that contained “select editions” by A. Scott Berg on Charles Lindbergh, Stefan Zweig on Marie Antoinette, and “The Autobiography of Mark Twain,” edited by Charles Neider.  I’m glad I found it because Twain’s memoirs are humorous and incisive and I’d never read the original. Twain’s paternal ancestors allegedly included a pirate and a Member of Parliament who helped sentence Charles I to death. His father hired slaves from neighboring farmers ($25 a year for a female house servant, $75 yearly for an able-bodied man).  His mother championed abused people and animals; at one time, Twain claimed, “We had 19 cats.” Twain was a practical jokester and put garter snakes in his Aunt Patsy’s work basket: “When she took the basket in her lap and they began to climb out of it, it disordered her mind; she never could seem to get used to them.”

 

Time magazine published a list claiming to be the hundred best Young Adult books of all-time in the order in which they were published.  The first seven – “Little Women,” “Anne of Green Gables,” “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” “The Diary of Anne Frank,” “Catcher in the Rye,” “Lord of the Flies,” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” - were classics enjoyed by readers of all ages. Almost all of the others, save for “The House on Mango Street” and “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” so far as I could tell (only a handful were familiar to me) seemed to be specifically aimed at young readers, often minority, disabled, and queer groups. Shockingly absent were “The Hobbit” and any Harry Potter books.

 

 Toni and I hosted our monthly bridge group after enjoying an excellent experience at Abbiocco Italian restaurant in Chesterton. We had planned to meet there at 2 but received a call Saturday morning that, due to insufficient staff (a common phenomenon at eateries), they weren’t opening until 3.  I called the other couples and got their OK.  None had been there before, and both the entrees and service were great.  I had a wedge salad with skirt steak added on (plus several pieces of homemade bread) and Toni the lobster tortelloni with lemon cream, roasted tomatoes, and Stracciatella.  In fact, Chuck and Marcy Tomes decided we’d go there again next month at 3 even if we could probably get in earlier. For the second time in three months Toni emerged the winner.

 

Paul Studebaker died, fellow Saturday Evening Club member Jim Wise informed me.  Last year Paul and his son Ben gave an inspiring presentation on the consequences of global warming.  Before they began, Paul said they would not deal with those who deny this is a man-made problem because the facts are incontrovertible.  Here’s what Jim Wise wrote his dear friend: 

    I am saddened to tell everyone that Paul Studebaker passed away Saturday
evening at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. As I was reading the
lyrics of the Doc Watson song "Your Long Journey," Betty Ann texted Michele
to tell her that Paul had died.  Paul and I were friends since 1978 (maybe
1979) when he was recruited from IU Champaign - Urbana for IG Technologies
by Mel Bohlmann. I was on the recruiting trip and thought it was a great
idea. Later in the 1980's, we were colleagues energized by the rapid developments we were experiencing in our work with magnets. We had become good friends quickly outside of work as we were solo acts while
Michele did her internship in Indianapolis. He surprised me in the kitchen
one night dropping a large peanut butter jar intentionally. I had not yet
noticed that the jars were plastic. He was a great fishing buddy - I was
never bitten by a mosquito when Paul was in the boat. One of my great
memories is our foursome white water rafting on the Arkansas River. It was
July 3 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit. We were in front of the raft. No two guys from the Midwest were ever colder.  I wrote cowboy poetry for him to celebrate an important birthday. There was no one better to share work or discuss ideas - or, occasionally to remind you that there might be a more sensible way to do things. I will miss him greatly. 

Here are the lyrics to “Your Long Journey” by Arthel Lane “Doc” Watson (1923-2012), mentioned by Jim Wise.  Blind since a young age, Watson performed folk, country, blues, and gospel music:

God's given us years of happiness here
Now we must part
And as the angels come and call for you
The pangs of grief tug at my heart

Oh my darling my darling
My heart breaks as you take
Your lone journey

Oh the days will be empty the nights so long
Without you my love
And as God calls for you I'm left alone
But we will meet in heaven above

Fond memories I'll keep of the happy days
That on earth we trod
And when I come we will walk hand in hand
As one in heaven in the family of God

 

I just received a booklet titled “A Celebration of IU Northwest Faculty Research and Creative Activity, 2019-2020,” published as part of the IU Bicentennial.  The 15 faculty honored spoke at a program that I attended which took place right before the campus shut down due to the pandemic. Especially stimulating were the 7-minute talks by poet William Allegrezza, theater actor, director, and producer Mark Baer, and Criminal Justice professor Monica Solinas-Saunders, who focuses, she wrote, “on issues associated with incarceration and re-entry.  I am also interested in interpersonal violence and the consequences of abuse among youth and young adults.” In a photo of Steve McShane speaking at a ceremony unveiling a historic marker for Tamarack Hall I am in the audience.  Paul Kern and my history of IUN, “Educating the Calumet Region,” is cited in a section highlighting the role of research at IUN.

 

In the Forum section of the Sunday NWI Times was a column by Korry Shepard, founder of the Gary Historical Collective, titled “A redlining tragedy: Gary’s vacant lots a legacy of 80 years of elite segregation.” The nefarious practice by banks and government agencies graded areas where blacks lived to be at risk of decline, making it practically impossible for African American to obtain home loans or have mortgages insured. Another insidious practice by mortgage lenders leading to the proliferation of abandoned homes is a “bank walkway” or “stalled foreclosure,” where a decision is made not to foreclose on a defaulted mortgage when the property is deemed to have little value – “leaving the structure,” wrote Shepard, “to the elements.”  Shepard concludes:

    Redlining, so-called “white flight,” bank walking, panic peddling, arson, and block busting all took a toll on the City of Gary and elsewhere in the nation.  Sadly, financial institutions are just as much at fault for Gary’s demise as the politicians and criminals who make the papers every day. Apparently, the Region [alite] spent the better part of 50 years dismantling Gary, moving its pieces to other towns, then turning around to wag their fingers when they finished.

Merrillville is presently celebrating its Golden anniversary as an incorporated town with nary a mention of the racist motives or maneuvers that allowed such a thing to happen.