New Offices

 "it is our job now, to make it through the day

and get along-

at the end, once we have weathered this reboot

we wonder, how will the world be remade”

    George Bodmer, from “Quarantine Poem”

illustration by Brooke Uporsky

The sixteenth annual IU Northwest Arts and Sciences two-day research conference took place as scheduled, only it was completely on-line, with participants in “new offices” at home rather than at the university.  Thanks to Aaron Pigors and his Instructional Media Center staff, it went, for the most part, with only minor hitches.  I was disappointed at the dearth of History sessions but impressed with the high quality of most student presenters.  In fact, thanks to the computer hookup, I could understand what folks were saying better than in previous years.  In fact, the students felt more comfortable in front of computers than standing before a live audience.

I was particularly impressed by Niko Pino’s discussion of existential analysis. Apparently speaking from a few notes rather than merely reading an article, Pino, who studied under Professor Gianluca Dimuzio, summarized the beliefs of Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard and French writer Albert Camus and then explored the theories of Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl, whose book “Man’s Search for Meaning” is considered one of the most influential of the twentieth-century. Frankl evidently defined three main core values as experiential, creative, and attitudinal and believed (if I understood Pino correctly) that those who had found a why to live next needed to learn to cope with the how.

I was excited to see that Fine Arts student Christopher Hartz was on the program, being familiar with his work.  Introduced by Jennifer Greenburg as a postmodernist whose art contain elements of irony, skepticism, and blasphemy, Hartz poked fun at inspirational sayings and juxtaposed soothing words such a feeling and caring with “dirty” words such as fellatio and cunt. He paired “Fore Shin” with two butterflies and drew an illustration almost identical to Kurt Vonnegut’s “asshole” in “Breakfast of Champions” and titled it “asterisk.”  An old-fashioned historian wary of the postmodernist belief that truth is relative and illusory, I still chuckled at some of Hartz’s silkscreens.

Spencer Cortwright, whose boundless enthusiasm is always contagious, chaired a session that included fascinating papers by Erin Cassidy (“Dungeons and Dragons: The Gendered Allure of Fantasy”) and Heather Harwood (“Tattoos of Us”). Since its appearance in the 1970s, the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons until recently was considered to be the exclusive province of young male nerds, but in the past couple decades its appeal has broadened.  Since a chat room allowed for questions, I wondered if various participants played G, PG, R and even X-rated versions.  Erin, 27, who started playing in college, answered that while some characters took on queer personas, her friends played what she considered a PG version, albeit with plenty of violence.

Heather Harwood provided examples of tattoos from all over the world and gave a fascinating account of how they differ according to culture and gender.  Men’s tattoos tend to be macho, tribal, and family-based while women’s more personal and spontaneous, thus more likely to be regretted in retrospect.  Queer women often opt for tattoos with a rainbow motif or the date they first came out.  On chat I mentioned that Glen Park was once home to a famous tattoo artist, Roy Boy, who counted Cher among his clients. Roy Boy and his wife, who stripped down to a bikini to show off her tattoos, were once speakers at one of Garrett Cope’s Glen Park Conversations.  They were a huge hit.

Almost all day two presentations were science-related.  Dean Mark Hoyert, unfailingly witty, welcomed everyone, adding that the day before he understood all talks but one but was not so confidant about most upcoming papers, such as “Screening transposon mutant library of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus for mutants with altered sensitivity toward four antimicrobial agents.”  He added that he was especially looking forward to a session about catnip.  My thoughts exactly.  Again, most students did an excellent job, and I learned from Jerome Wyrobek that horseback riding is good therapy for those with MS and from Laila Nawab and Jeffrey Dykstra details about hydroponics, growing methods where plants receive nutrients from water solutions rather than dirt. While Dykstra noted that cats go crazy over catnip, I’m still in the dark over the nature of the “high.”  I’ll never forget our cat Marvin discovering catnip in our backyard garden and acting like he’d died and gone to heaven.

Among those mentioned for special thanks was former English professor George Bodmer, who designed an illustration commemorating IU’s two hundredth anniversary and IUN’s first virtual COAS conference.  Unfortunately, the drawing was nowhere in evidence.  I assume it was meant for programs that would have been distributed at the site, but nobody evidently thought to use it on the online version of the program. In

          It would be the time to fix it

       to build a new world

           but in our wounded shock, we are hardly in the best shape

           to reconstruct it soundly

In a recently discovered chapter of “A Fistful of Fig Newtons” entitled “The Barbi Doll Celebrates New Year’s” Jean Shepherd returns to the Region after three years in the army:

    Out of the street I pulled my collar up against my old enemy, the Indiana wind.  I sniffed the air, the familiar, fragrant, sickening aromatic air of home, redolent of blast furnace fumes, the noxious gases of innumerable refineries, the pungent yet titillating overtones of the Grasselli Chemical Works, subtly blended with the exhalations of Lake Michigan, its frozen, clammy, detergent-laden waters.  I breathed in deeply the rich compost of life-giving poisonous vapor and trudged on into the night.

    My eyes were watery from the cold.  I battled on past laundries and bowling alleys, past the little candy store where as a loose-limbed stripling I had bought a sinister top.  I tacked into the wind and around a bleak corner and there before me lay the Warren G. Harding School.  In the blackness of the playground I almost saw the dark, moving shadows of Farkas and Grover Dill, of Schwartz and Flick, of me playing a ghostly game of softball.

He arrived home, knocked and identified himself to his mother, and after undoing chains, latches, and locks, she was unable to open the door.  Shepherd wrote: “Nothing had changed.  That door had been sticking since before I was born, and I knew exactly what to do.  I gave a swift kick at the lower left corner, at the same time hurling my right shoulder forward and simultaneously giving it a blow with my left knee. It never failed.  The door swung open.”  Immediately he was engulfed in familiar smells: “meatloaf, red cabbage, the old daybed, moldy tires from the basement, my mother’s red chenille bathrobe, which faintly breathed out the myriad aromatics of countless breakfasts past.”

Historic Marker

“We were the pioneer.  Ours was IU’s first major building program.  President Herman Wells insisted that Gary main have a full[-scale auditorium.  At the dedication a play was performed by a cast from Bloomington.” Acting Director William M. Neil

I spoke at a dedication ceremony for the unveiling of a Tamarack Hall historic marker at the site of IUN’s first Glen Park building, known as Gary Main when I arrived in 1970.  Archivist Steve McShane, who nominated Tamarack Hall for the honor and helped write the inscription, presided. The program commenced with Northwest Indiana ROTC cadets posting the colors.  Steve’s welcome statement quoted Bill Neil labeling the new facility a “cultural catalyst” for the Region.  There were brief remarks by Chancellor William Lowe, Faculty Org president Susan Zinner, and IU University Historian James H. Capshew, who noted that IU “extension” courses in Gary began a century ago and that many Glen Park residents opposed bequeathing 26.5 acres of Gleason Park to Indiana University – although he did not bring up the primary reason, fear that it might lead to the arrival of “riff raff” (i.e., blacks) into the segregated community.

 James Capshew at dedication; below, Lowe flanked by SGA President, Laila Nawab and Sue Zinner; 

photos by Tome Trajkovski

In my five-minute talk I recalled Garrett Cope’s children plays that drew thousands to the campus and  summer musicals that Phil and Dave acted in, including “Finian’s Rainbow” and “Hello, Dolly.” I mentioned teaching in Room 93, which held up to 200 students and Faculty Org meetings there listening to Leslie Singer, Jack Gruenenfelder, and Bill Reilly, who frequently employed Latin phrases. In the lounge adjacent to the History Department, I recalled, George Roberts and I met Birch Bayh at a Young Democrats function and the History department held a memorial service for Rhiman Rotz, then planted a tree nearby in his honor.  I told of rescuing Arredondo family photos from my office during the 2008 flood and the annual spring bug infestations.

I helped myself to a sandwich, salad, and cookie embossed with the cream and crimson IU logo.  Business professor Ranjan Kini reminded me that Gary Rotary met in the Blue Lounge, thanks to the efforts of administrator Bill May.  Chancellor Lowe commented on my “Toadies and Bugs” speech, and Gary Chamber of Commerce director Chuck Hughes vowed to ask me back as a speaker.  The impressive turnout included historians Chris Young, David Parnell, and Jonathyne Briggs.  IU Historian James Capshew praised Paul Kern and my history of IUN, “Educating the Calumet Region,” and promised to help secure that an appointment of Steve McShane’s successor prior to his retirement.  Aaron Pigors, sporting an impressive beard, noticed me in the short documentary about Tamarack making the rounds online.  It also features Garrett Cope and Lori Montalbano, a student at IUN and then a Communication professor.

Aaron Pigors

Charlie Halberstadt and I finished first among the North-South couples in the Third Quarter Chesterton Club duplicate bridge championship, scoring  66.22% and garnering 1.75 master points each.  Sally and Rich Will did even better (67.78%) as the top East-West couple.  Beforehand, director Alan Yngve’s lesson was based on not pushing opponents to game unless prepared to double the contract.  I did exactly that on the very first hand, resulting in a high board.  Terry Bauer bravely wore a Cubs shirt even though the Cubbies are mired in a nine-game losing streak. Next day at Banta Center I learned that Ric Freidman’s uncle had been a tennis pro and tournament director in the Catskills and once disqualified young John McEnroe for bad behavior.  Afterwards, McEnroe’s dad thanked him and hoped it would teach the brat a lesson.  Fat chance. Through the uncle Ric got free tickets to a U.S. Open won by Althea Gipson.  I told him I once saw tennis great Vic Seixas play a Davis Cup match against Italian champ Nicola Peitrangeli at Philadelphia Cricket Club.

      Vic Seixas and Nicola Peitrangeli     

The Ken Burns “Country Music” episode on the 1930s opens with the Mavis Staples gospel number “Hard Times (Come Again No More)" written by Stephen Foster in the mid-1850s.  Its concluding lines:

'Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,
'Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore
'Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave
Oh! Hard times come again no more.

Burns highlighted the film career of Gene Autry, the “singing cowboy” whose popularity spawned a hundred imitators, including Tex Ritter and Roy Rogers, real name Leonard Slye, who sang in The Sons of the Pioneers and appeared in an Autry movie before becoming a box office attraction rivaling his mentor.  After distinguished service during World War II flying cargo planes over the Himalayas to China, Autry had a successful TV series in the 1950s whose theme song was the Autry hit “Back in the Saddle Again.”  In the 1960s the “Singing Cowboy,” whose yodeling style imitated country legend Jimmie Rodgers, became owner of the California Angels.  When the team won their first (and only) World Series in 2002, four years after Autry died at age 91, strains of “Back in the Saddle Again” came over the public address system.

A whistleblower has exposed Trump’s attempt to coerce Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into gathering dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company, by holding up military aid approved by Congress in an attempt to besmirch the Democratic Presidential frontrunner.  He wants to run against Elizabeth Warren, which he has accused of being a socialist – and worse. Trump once claimed he could shoot somebody in the middle of New York’s Fifth Avenue and not lose his base.  Now he’s convinced the entire Republican Party is beholden to him. We will see – I’m not holding my breath that much will change prior to the 2020 election.  I still think Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar has the best chance to beat him. 

Bowling teammate Ron Smith greeted me with the Bugs Bunny refrain, “What’s up, doc?”  When an opponent made light of the whistleblower hearings on TV, Smith ridiculed Trump’s contention that he’d had a “perfect” telephone conversion with the Ukrainian president.  Joe Piunti was the only Engineer to bowl above average, but we took two games from Frank’s Gang despite Mike Reed’s 570 series.

Discussing our upcoming oral history conference “Flight Paths” session in Salt Lake City, I alerted Liz Wuerffel and Allison Schuette that the audience will question them about the validity of their narrators’ recollections of leaving Gary during the Sixties.  Most describe a dramatic racial “breaking point” (a home invasion, their kids’ accosted, a brick through a window) that precipitated the decision while downplaying other push and pull factors. Distorted negative images of Mayor Richard Hatcher often play a prominent role in these narratives.

Despite my proposed talk, “A Queer History of IU Northwest” having been rejected, as anticipated, I attended the two-and-a half-hour “Celebration of Faculty Research” hosted by Assistant Vice Chancellor Cynthia O’Dell.  I ran into Pat Bankston entering the A and S theater, whom I had sat next to the day before.  “If we sit together again, people will start talking,” I joked. Dean Mark Hoyert was in charge of the clock warning speakers when their time was up.  The program got off to a great start with Bill Allegrezza reciting nine poems within his allotted eight minutes.  One began, “I grew up dreaming of a post-earth people.”  Another based on recurrent dreams of wrestling with a water buffalo concludes, “But I didn’t let go, as I should, as we all should.” One written after getting divorced about his daughter coming to him with a broken toy ends: “Some things, once ruptured, are broken forever.”

Subir Bandyopadhyay showed excerpts of a an IUN digital scrapbook  featuring photos and film from the Calumet Regional Archives and narrated by Steve McShane. Monica Solinas-Saunders spoke movingly about the mounting numbers of women being incarcerated, most the victims of abuse, mentally scarred and drug offenders.  A prisoner Monica worked with recently took her own life during a weekend furlough.  “Our circle was broken,” she concluded. Mark Baer told of being part of the Gary Shakespeare Company, which stages plays throughout the Region. Showing a photo from Macbeth, he joked that his Theater students are familiar with his expression. 

Youthful-looking Biology professor Ming Gao claimed that the DNA of humans and fruit flies are 77% identical and their germ cells a fruitful field of study. It’s always a treat witnessing Spencer Cortwright’s enthusiasm, whether about frogs and salamanders or efforts to preserve the Region’s natural habitat – dunes and swale, oak savanna, and tall grass prairie. Yllka Azemi explained marketing strategies to attract lifelong customers to Gary businesses.  Cara Lewis discussed her upcoming book, “Dynamic Form: How Intermediality Made Modernism,” and described the 1920s cross-fertilization between visual artists and writers. 

At the reception I spoke with IUN Fine Arts student Casey King, whose work I had highlighted in the lastSteel Shavings issue.  His father owned a sign business and Casey is interested in an area sign in front of a Frank-N-Stein Restaurant where 12 and 20 come together west of Miller, a popular hangout during Gary’s heyday.  Inquiring where he could get more information,  I suggested consulting Gary city directories in the Archives and contacting realtor Gene Ayers.  Dr. Surekha Rao appreciated my mentioning Garrett Cope during the Historic Marker dedication.  When she and her husband, Computer Information Systems chair Bhaskara Kopparty (who remembered James from IUN summer STEM camp), first started teaching at IUN Garrett took them on a tour of the area and made them feel welcome.  Chris Young appreciated my memories of Rhiman Rotz and asked the location of the tree planted in his honor.  His most vivid memory of Tamarack Hall during its last days was his books becoming moldy after a month in his office near the overgrown west wing courtyard.  I told Dean Mark Hoyert, a fellow Marylander, that I missed his introductions of new Arts and Sciences faculty at Faculty Org September meetings.  Recently, he told me, he’d learned that a new English professor had been struck by lightning and had the audiences in stitches describing its probable effect. I brought up Herman Feldman, who hired him, and he mentioned taking off an earring and getting a haircut before the interview.

IU Bicentennial

“Sometimes it's best to brave the wind and rain
By havin’ strength to go against the grain”

         Oak Ridge Boys, “Goin’ Against the Grain”

I interviewed former Lake County surveyor George Van Til at the Calumet Regional Archives as part of IU’s Bicentennial project. Another motivation was to convince Van Til to set up an Archives collection in his name. Although discussing events a half-century old, he recalled vividly how influential the campus experience was to his intellectual growth and subsequent political career.  Although his father never went to college due to financial exigencies, books and Newsweek magazines were in the house and dinner table discussion often centered on a pastor’s Sunday sermon.  A Political Science class offered by Fedor Cicak transformed his life. He signed up for it because he’d heard all one had to do was keep abreast of current world events, something George did anyway.  On the day of the first exam, George had come from visiting his father, who had just endured open heart surgery, and feared he’d fared poorly.  Later, as Cicak was returning the blue books, he read from Van Til’s and after class recruited him for the Political Science Club.  George rose to a leadership position and gained confidence that carried into other endeavors.  A Speech course also proved invaluable, as did an offering by Gary Mayor Richard Hatcher, who taught at IUN for more than 40 years and, shamefully, has never been awarded an honorary degree due to fears of alienating alumni donors.

 IUN Young Democrats in 1970 (from left, George Van Til, Ted Bownowski, Sandi Weissbuch, Patti Puplava, Linda Mosorx, Mike Reza, Joe Ciesielski, George Sufana

Political Science professor Fedor Cicak

Cicak had a distinctive Eastern European accent and organized student trips to the Mideast.  He frequently invited students and faculty to his home in Hobart.  Prior to my first visit, he told me to turn right after passing the Dough Boy.  He was referring to a World War I statue, but at first I thought he meant the Pillsbury Poppin’ Fresh Doughboy. As I recall, before I went to Saudi Arabia for three weeks to teach a course on the History of American Ideas, Cicak briefed me on what to expect in that Muslim monarchy.

 above, Dough Boy Memorial; below, Oak Ridge Boys

Van Til attended the Oak Ridge Boys annual Christmas concert at the Star Plaza, the final event before a wrecking ball demolishes the 40-year-old landmark.  The Oak Ridge Boys are the only group to have performed there every single year of its existence and a total of 111 times.  The group dedicated “I Guess It Never Hurts to Hurt Sometimes” to Bruce White, whose father Dean built the Star Plaza, and ended with “Amazing Grace.” Eloise Valadez of the NWI Times wrote: “The group stepped back to wait for the curtain to close as a number of Star Plaza Theatre personnel joined them onstage. Audience members then watched with tears in their eyes as the familiar red curtain slowly started to move.”

Having never visited the Archives, Van Til was impressed by the variety of our holdings, including a picture of IUN’s former Calumet Center in East Chicago and painting of steel baron Elbert H. Gary.  He noticed a 1977 union poster touting labor leaders Ed Sadlowski and Jim Balanoff during their Steelworkers Fight Back campaign and recalled that Balanoff’s wife Betty was a historian and the old warhorse’s complete opposite in demeanor but, like him, devoted to the rank and file. 

Videotaping Van Til’s comments in the Ronald Cohen Room of the Archives was Samantha Gauer, a recent graduate from Miami University in Ohio, who I’m hoping to use for subsequent interviews with IUN grads Congressman Peter Visclosky and Lake County Auditor John Petalas. Helping her set up was Aaron Pigors, director of Instructional Media Services, who accompanied me to a FACET conference in French Lick, where I interviewed more than a dozen celebrated educators from across the IU system in a single day.  I reminded Aaron that he’d hurried back to his wife, who’d recently given birth.  The child is now almost 8 years old, he said.  How time flies.  The following year, son Phil was my FACET conference camera man and won 50 dollars spinning the wheel at French Lick’s casino.  My prize was a French Lick t-shirt that I still wear on occasion.

My favorite characters in Richard Russo’s “Everybody’s Fool” (2016) are African Americans Clarice, assistant to Police Chief Doug Raymer, and octogenarian Mr. Hymes, seen most days in a roadside chair waving a small American flag to passersby.  Both are witty and have common sense.  After Clarice invites Raymer for a dinner of lamb chops and wine, he fears he’s insulted her by falling asleep. Apparently most everyone in Bath knew Raymer’s wife was having an affair with Clarice’s twin brother Jerome but the Chief.

Dee Van Bebber and I picked up 2.04 master points by winning at bridge with a score of 70.83%, my first time reaching that milestone.  We had a bye in the final round, so I left early and didn’t find out until the following morning.  As usual, what I mulled over afterwards was a hand where I got set down two doubled when Joel Chandelier trumped my good Heart trick before I could get the lead and then took my Queen of Spades as a finesse failed.  I could have minimized the damage to down one, which would have given us a decent board.  We did extremely well, however, against the two runners-up, Chuck and Marcy Tomes and Terry Bauer and Dottie Hart.  A day later, Dee and Chuck finished first at Charlie Halberstadt’s game in Valpo. 

Ray Smock wrote:

    The president promised the nation a Christmas present and he will deliver it. It should be clear to all but the GOP that this monstrous tax bill was not written by Santa Claus and his elves, but by Satan and Mammon, Satan's dark prince of Money and Greed. I can't remember the last time I used Satan in a sentence. But this is bad stuff. You don't kick 13 million people off health insurance rolls and call it a Christmas present.

    You don’t give the richest people in America a trillion dollars in tax savings and talk about Christmas in the same breath.  This is the largest single legalized theft in the history of this country. It is a big gift of charity for the very group of people who don’t need it.  It is only Christmas for billionaires like our president. The Trump family will be most merry indeed this year.

    Trump has no idea what is in the bill. But he will sign it with glee and great fanfare. He will be proud of this colossal theft, the greatest in his long career as a con man.

As Hollis Donald wrote in the poem “This Town Won’t Last Too Long”:

Those on top are talking ill will

Efforts to kill the little man are going on still

At the library pot luck luncheon, I pigged out on rib tips, chicken wings, a tamale, baked beans, spaghetti, salad, and deli pickles (my contribution to the cause). Betty Wilson suggested I try the frappe she made, which turned out to be Sprite with rainbow sherbet added.  I sat with Scott Sandberg, who has asked me to participate in a roundtable discussion of Martin Luther King’s Nobel lecture, “The Quest for Peace and Justice.”  He has submitted a Humanities Grant proposal for that purpose.  Also at our table was Cele Morris, who worked in the library for 18 and is married to emeritus Physics professor John Morris.  She reported that he recently messed up a knee falling down steps; in a previous spill, he had injured the other knee.  I knew him when he was first hired and couldn’t believe it when he retired. I recall Dean Mark Hoyert reading off a list of Morris’ scholarly publications that produced laughs because they were so arcane, including “Fermionic and Bosonic Stabilizing Effects for Type I and Type II Dimension Bubbles” in Physical Review.

At the Holiday bowling banquet a day later, I sat with Gene Clifford, who explained why a record number of snowy owls have flocked to Northwest Indiana in what experts call an eruption.  They feast on lemmings, field mice, and other small rodents and often hang out atop utility poles.  Gene spotted one near Lake Shore Toyota in Porter. Henrietta Irwin joined us, and we compared cheese cake recipes since she brought one with cherries on top. We both had an ample share of corn pudding, a specialty of my great Aunt Grace.  I almost told her she reminded me of Aunt Grace, being about the same age as she was the last time I saw her, but feared she might take it the wrong way. I once told sister-in-law Maureen she looked somewhat like actor Robert Mitchum, a handsome guy with bedroom eyes, but she didn’t seem to appreciate the sentiment.  Electrical Engineer teammate Bob Robinson, who has been on the DL all year with cancer and pretty much incommunicado, came with his wife, who I’d never met.  She called me Professor Lane and said she’d earned a master’s degree in Mathematics from IUN during the 1980s.