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.

Everything Counts

The grabbing hands
Grab all they can
All for themselves after all

It's a competitive world
Everything counts in large amounts

  “Everything Counts,” Depeche Mode

 above, Depeche Mode in 1983; below, Alan Cohen and his collections

 

Ron Cohen’s 83-year-old brother Alan died in Berkeley and left a huge collection of knickknacks, figurines, ceramics, mugs, record albums, books, and other quirky items, according to the estate sale representative. Ron’s daughter Alysha retrieved a few mementoes. In a frame was the Depeche Mode lyric, “Everything Counts / In Large Amounts.” The English synthpop band Depeche Mode, still going strong, recorded “Everything Counts” for the 1983 album “Construction Time Again” as a condemnation of corporate greed and corruption.  It’s on the soundtrack of PlayStation’s action-adventure video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, released in 2006.

I watched “Red Sparrow” on HBO despite poor reviews because it starred talented Jennifer Lawrence as Russian ballerina Dominika Egorova. After a career-ending injury, she’s recruited by villainous Uncle Vanya (Matthias Schoenaerts) to attend a spy training center (Sparrow School) nicknamed “whore school.”  Dominika consents in order to retain medical care for her mother.  Despite Lawrence's stunning performance, “Red Sparrow” pales in comparison to the TV series “The Americans,” which presented Soviet intelligence operatives as sensitive and dedicated rather than heartless automatons.  Roger Ebert com’s Christy Lemire deemed it “more like a cheap exercise in exploitation than a visceral tale of survival.”  Lemire wrote:

 The cruel and emotionless leader of Sparrow School (Charlotte Rampling) known only as Matron, gives a speech to the class about how the West is weak, tearing itself apart with racial divisions and social media obsessions, and how it’s Russia’s time to step in and assert itself as the ultimate world power. This is about as close as “Red Sparrow” comes to addressing the renewed Cold War between Russia and the United States. (I guess a whole movie in which Jennifer Lawrence sits in a Moscow office building pumping out anti-Hillary Clinton Twitter bots would’ve been hard to market.)

In John Updike’s “Licks of Love in the Heart of the Cold War,” originally published in the Atlantic Monthly, proper Russian guide and translator Nadia accompanies Eddie, a banjo-playing musician, on an October 1964 good-will tour. Right before Eddie’s scheduled departure, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was pushed out of power in a bloodless coup. In a hallway unlikely to have been bugged, Nadia confided: 

  Eddie, it was not civilized.  It was not done how a civilized country should do such things.  We should have said to him, “Thank you very much for ending the terror.”  And then, “You are excused – too much adventurism, O.K., failures in agricultural production, and et cetera. O.K., so long but bolshoi thanks.”

Each night Nadia and Eddie said goodnight with a handshake.  At the airport, in a scene more intimate than any of the anthology’s many sexual couplings, Eddie recalled, “We leaped the gulf between our two great countries and I kissed her on one cheek and then the other, and hugged her, in proper Slavic style.”  I was in Virginia Law School watching the 1964 World Series when a special bulletin announced Khrushchev’s overthrown.  As bumptious and cold-blooded as he had seemed, the deposed Soviet boss seemed less threatening than the faceless bureaucrats who succeeded him. I was in Virginia Law School watching the 1964 World Series when a special bulletin announced  Khrushchev’s overthrown. As bumptious and cold-blooded as the deposed Soviet boss had seemed, he seemed less threatening than the faceless bureaucrats who succeeded him.

 John Updike

A lover of banjo music, I often played my Flatt and Scruggs album in law school.  During his Soviet tour Eddie eschewed political and Cold War in favor of a brief history of the banjo, brought from Africa by slaves and a staple at minstrel shows.  In the comedy series Divorce Frances (Sarah Jessica Parker) meets a high school girl ridiculed for taking banjo lessons, who repeats this riddle: “What do you need when you find 100 banjo players up to their necks in water?”  Answer: More water.  My oldest friend, who I think of every day, played folk songs on his banjo. This evening I put on Steve Earle’s “Back Out on the Road Again,” which has a great banjo solo. 

Sarah Jessica Parker in Divorce

Updike’s “Licks of Love” stories are from the perspective of men in their sixties looking back to “a sweet time of self-seeking”on “the breadfruit island of Eisenhower’s America.”  In “How Was It, Really?” Don’s first wife Alissa gossiped about affairs and divorces; with wife number two Vanessa the topics were health and death. Don ruminates: “Between Vanessa and him there had come to prevail the tact of two cripples, linked victims of crime.”  

In Updike’s “His Oevres” faux Beat novelist Henry Bech encounters lovers while on a book tour reciting from a decades-old literary output that by his own admission was devoid of almost all that mattered.  Bech hated Q and A, especially questions about the meaning of his work or one such as, “How did you like the movie of [his road novel] “Travel Light” starring Sal Mineo?”  In Indianapolis one fan gushed, “It’s wonderful to have you here in the Hoosier State.”  Among the “devout Quaylites [Republican supporters of lightweight politician Dan Quayle] and Butler University evangels” he spotted Alice Oglethorpe. He recalled them playing bridge aboard the Santa Fe Super Chief and that he “timidly failed to bid a small slam though Alice had given clear signals that her hand was loaded.”  More memorable than the copulating in her sleeper was his dashing from the Chicago station during a brief stop “to buy, in that era just before the Pill’s liberating advent, a three-pack of Trojans at a Rexall’s” and that “the sly, blond-mustached clerk tried to talk him into an entire tin of fifty.”  Next evening, he could have used them and shuddered when Alice said she wouldn’t mind having his baby.

 Gary mural of Black Freedom Fighters near 10th and Broadway (Curtis Strong on left) 

According to Ruth Needleman’s “Black Freedom Fighters in Steel: The Struggle for Democratic Unionism,” Curtis Strong supported A Martin Katz against Richard Gordon Hatcher in the 1967 Democratic primary for mayor because the incumbent had a proven pro-labor record.  After Hatcher emerged victorious, he and wife Jeannette, president of the NAACP local chapter, worked tirelessly for the nominee in the general election.  Jeannette Strong’s father had been a supporter of Black nationalist Marcus Garvey and she had been active in the United Steelworkers (USWA) even before meeting Curtis. In 1968 they traveled to Mississippi together to assist in black voter registration. Jeannette later became Indiana state NAACP director.  In the Gary Crusader Needleman wrote:

  Curtis Strong was born in Mississippi in 1915, described by friends and foes alike “as a firestorm.”He grew up in Dixon, IL and then hired into the tin mill in 1937. His father was the son of the slave owner who had owned his mother’s family. Staying in Mississippi was never an option. Curtis grew up confident, conscious and militant and never got over the racism that kept him out of the air force. He wanted to fly planes.  He became the first Black griever at Gary Works in the Coke plant, founded the first Black caucus in steel, the Sentinel League, and then the Eureka Club, was vice president of his local, and then later went on staff.

According to “Black Freedom Fighters in Steel,” autocratic Joe Germano, USWA’s District 31 Director for a quarter-century, despised Curtis Strong and only agreed to promote him to a staff position under pressure from the rank-and-file and on condition that Strong be soon reassigned to the International’s Pittsburgh office.

In an essay titled “Trump and the Long View of History” Ray Smock compared Watergate with Trump’s lawbreaking:

    Even in the darkest days of Watergate, I never felt that the basic institutions of the United States were in jeopardy. What I saw with the investigations into Watergate was Congress doing its job and protecting the Constitution. What I saw in the press was a diligent quest for the truth while cover-ups and lies were the order of the day. What I saw in Nixon was a greatly flawed president who ultimately bowed to the rule of law and stepped down. He was a crook. But he faced the fact that his powers as president were not sufficient to place him above the law. 

    Trump is more troubling than Nixon and Watergate because he is defiant and far more corrupt than Nixon ever was. Nixon was a major American politician who went bad. Trump is a major American politician who started out bad and got worse. Trump came into office as a fraud and a criminal. Nixon had to work at becoming one. Nixon, for all his faults, was a skilled American politician. Trump is a complete disaster who does not know the first thing about how to govern. Nixon could still think of the Constitution and the good of the nation. Nixon could still listen to members of his own party who told him it was time to resign. Nixon was a staunch anti-communist who rose to power fighting against communism and the Soviet Union. Trump is a stooge of the head of the Russian Federation who used to be the head of the dreaded Russian spy agency, the KGB. 

Alan Yngve at IU Northwest; photo by Samantha Gauer 

Congratulating Chesterton bridge director Alan Yngve on becoming a Silver Life Master, regular partner John Polles told Barb Walczak for the bridge Newsletter:

  Those who know Alan know that he has developed an interesting bidding scheme he calls Demand Minor.  We used it against a well-known pair of senior life masters.  One of our opponents became agitated with our bidding – not understanding it and believing he was being taken.  Finally, in a fit of pique he challenged Alan by asking if Alan’s system wasn’t just another name for the Montreal Relay.  Alan with a hint of a smile simply answered that it was a little similar – but only better!  Modesty only goes so far.  Don’t mess with Alan.  L’Shalom

Like the Hawaiian word Aloha, Shalomin Hebrew can mean hello or goodbye, as well as peace, prosperity, tranquility or harmony.  Thus, the salutation  L’Shalommeans “In Peace.”

Charlie Halberstadt and I scored a 63.49% at Banta Center, top among the 17 couples.  Having eight and a half tables allowed Charlie, the direct, to employ the Mitchell movement where North-South couples are stationary and play three hands with each East-West pair.  Sally and George Will were the top East-West pair with 61.61%. Two cakes were on hand to celebrate the birthdays of Naomi Goodman and Al Marks.  They went fast, and Ed Hollander noted that soon only the Jolly Ranchers would be left.  Lo and behold, on the treat table was a large bag of the hard candies that I had never heard of before Matt Simmons told an anecdote at James’s graduation party about IUN Education Professor Vernon Smith tossing Jolly Ranchers to deserving students, a practice Simmons adopted at East Chicago Central. 

I was tempted to ask Daryl Penfold if she had a brother named Daryl, a running joke in the silly Bob Newhart series.  Onetime partner Dee Browne is in the hospital; unsettling and all too common among aging duplicate players. One hand I was dealt 7 Clubs to the Ace Queen but with no other high cards except for a Jack.  I preempted 3 Clubs and Charlie, void in Clubs but with a very strong hand, bid 3 No Trump.  He got set by Judy Selund and Don Geidemann, but those couples that played in 3 Clubs went down 5 because one opponent was also void and the player to my left held 6 Clubs, most higher than mine.

actress Julia Butters in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"

Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” features bravado performances by Leo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as an insecure spaghetti western actor and his Vietnam vet sidekick. Julia Butters as a wise 8-year-old actress and Margot Robbie as innocent Sharon Tate are incandescent, points of light undimmed by cynicism, according to Rolling Stonecritic Peter Travers.  Charles Manson’s harem are portrayed as zonked out crazies hooked on drugs and TV.  I loved the use of 1969 shows such as “FBI” and movies such as “The Wrecking Crew” starring Dean Martin, Elke Sommer, and Sharon Tate, which the actress watches starry-eyed in an L.A. theater. In the row in front of me at GQT Portage 16 was a man and teen-age grandson.  Afterwards, as the older man was explaining the Manson murders, I told him, “I’m glad it ended when it did.” Before the unspeakable carnage. If, at the conclusion of the tumultuous Sixties, the moon landing signaled the triumph of technology, Sharon Tate’s death marked the end of the Age of Aquarius.

Summer of '87

"Born in secrecy during the summer of ’87, the child of lofty idealism and rough political bargains, the Constitution is a story that will continue as long as the nation does,” David O. Stewart

At Monday’s History book club meeting Joy Anderson gave away books, including “Maria’s Journey,” which Ray and Lorenzo Arredondo gave a report on last year. Handing it to Barbara Wisdom, there with her sister and friend Rock Ferrer, I told her of having edited it and written the afterword. I took home David O. Stewart’s “The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution” and started it while getting an oil change and 30,000 check-up at Lake Shore Toyota.  Stewart introduces George Washington, eulogized in Nathaniel Philbrick’s “Valiant Ambition,” in this manner, describing a 1784 meeting at his Mount Vernon plantation with fellow Virginian George Mason:

  Known to crack walnuts with a single large hand, the strongly built Washington had thrived on outdoor living and battlefield dangers.  At 53, he retained the grace and power of a splendid horseman and dancer, but it was something from the inside that made him the master of every room he entered. Certainly, he was a Virginia gentleman of courtesy and integrity, but so were others. Equally, he had his flaws, including being “addicted to gambling . . . avid in the pursuit of wealth, . . . a most horrid swearer and blasphemer ,” and unrelentingly ambitious.

  Washington’s force came from the antagonistic qualities he blended.  His “gift of taciturnity” radiated dignity and calm, yet he simultaneously implied, in the words of one admirer, “passions almost too mighty for man.”  No one who saw Washington’s rage ever forgot it. The combination of steely discipline and powerful drive generated a charisma so compelling that, by one account, every king in Europe “would look like a valet de chamber by his side.

end-of-summer party; Phil and Dave on both ends: below, Dave and Toni at IU

During the summer of 1987 the Lane nest was emptying, as son Dave prepared to join his older brother at IU Bloomington, where Phil participated in celebrations touched off by the Hoosiers winning the NCAA championship.  It was a memorable summer at Maple Place, with visits from friends and relatives and a lively end-of-the-summer party featuring friends of our college-bound sons.  I was 45, Toni 43, and our lone home companion was Marvin, a cat inherited from Suzanne Migoski, also off to school. I don’t recall suffering from “empty nest syndrome,” then or since. Nine months later, granddaughter Alissa came into our lives.  In the news: President Ronald Reagan accepted responsibility for the Iran-Contra scandal, and the Senate rejected reactionary Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.

At Chesterton YMCA Alan Yngve’s lesson dealt with being overly aggressive when your hand doesn’t justify a game bid.  On the hand he demionstrated from last week, I went down one in 4 Hearts, but others get set two and three tricks.  Against Carol Miller and Barbara Larson, I was dealt 7 Clubs, Ace, King, Queen, 4 Spades, a doubleton in Hearts, and a void in Diamonds.  Carol, on my left opened 3 Diamonds, Alan bid 3 Spades, and Barbara bid 5 Diamonds.  In short, to bid Clubs, I’d have had to go to the 6 level.  Instead, aware of going against Alan’s lesson but convinced it was a good sacrifice, I bid 5 Spades, and Alan went down one.  Another couple bid and made 5 Spades doubled, the double allowing the declarer to correctly guess whom to finesse.  Our worst score, against Kris Prohl and Barbara Mort, began when Alan opened one Diamond.  With 17 high card points, I jump-shifted to 3 Clubs and, much to my chagrin, he passed. All other pairs bid and made game, either 5 Clubs or 3 No-Trump.  Alan suggested I should have said 2 Clubs, evidently a demand bid. I’ll have to learn that  system, known as New Minor Forcing.  We finished right around 50%, fifth out of 11 couples, with Chuck Tomes and Tom Rea the winners.

Dee Van Bebber and Chuck Tomes achieved a 75.66% at Charley Halberstadt’s Valparaiso game, Barb Walczak’s Newsletterreported.  Chuck recalled: “Not only is Dee a lovely lady but also a solid, experienced player from whom I’ve learned a lot, especially about bidding. We plussed 18 of 27 boards with 9 tops and 3 tied for top.  We made no major mistakes and got a lot of good breaks.”  Dee added: “Chuck is one of my favorite players, never critical and always complimentary.  We were in sync all afternoon.  Of course, we had our share of good luck – making for a memorable day.”

AM 670 (The Score)sports jocks Dan Bernstein and Connor McKnight claimed that Dodger pitcher Clay Kershaw’s great-uncle was on the team of astronomers that in 1930 discovered Pluto, the so-called dwarf planet. Located in the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune, Pluto’s solar orbit takes 248 years.  Tom Wade has a t-shirt defending Pluto against detractors who in 2016 argued that it wasn’t a real planet.  One thing about Dan Bernstein, dating back to his afternoon show with Terry Boers, he often abruptly hangs up on obnoxious callers.

Weather has remained summery, sunny with highs in the 80s, but the daylight hours are markedly shorter. At lunch with Mike Olszanski, I discovered the veggies I had packed were missing. Later I found them on the ground near the Corolla.  On a library elevator a half-dozen students were peering at someone’s phone.  I asked what interested them; Apple was unveiling new products. 

Nicki Minaj and Cardi B got into a shoving match at a New York Fashion Week event after Cardi had called Nicki a bitch.  In retaliation, Minaj evidently stepped on Cardi’s dress, causing it to rip in the back.  After security teams separated the two rap divas, Cardi threw a shoe at Nicki, who kept it as a souvenir. The New Yorker’s Carrie Battan believes that Minaj epitomizes rappers’ tendency toward self-mythologizing and braggadocio:

 It feels cheap to draw a parallel between Minaj and President Trump, but the attitudinal similarities – the obsession with winning, the instinct to dismiss critics as losers or liars, the paranoia, the rabid fixation on the initial    victory rather than the ensuing work – are too obvious to ignore.

East Chicago Central grad and friend of the family Denzel Smith wrote: “I remember when I had a speech impediment. Now I’m doing speeches in front of Presidents. Honored to have been asked to lead the invocation for the Bethune Cookman Annual President’s Assembly at the Mary McLeod Bethune Performing Arts Center.”  Son Dave was one of his mentors.

below, former coach and AD Earl Smith praising Rod Fisher

Both the Post-Triband The Timescovered protests at a Gary school board meeting regarding the unjust termination of longtime West Side girls basketball coach Rod Fisher. Supporters of Fisher plan to present a petition (I’ve signed it) to the Indiana Distressed Unit Appeal Board. West Side principal Marcus Muhammad praised Fisher’s extraordinary career but claimed a woman could relate to “the young ladies we have today”better than a man.  Former athletic director Earl Smith called Muhammad’s statement “asinine”and predicted that this would have a negative effect on the community. Smith said, “He dedicated his life to the West Side Cougar family and former players love Coach Fisher.”  Smith added that during the 14 years he was AD, Fisher “never asked the athletic program for anything.  What he couldn't do raising (money) with the parents, he took out of his pocket. You find me another coach that's any more dedicated than that.”  Fisher’s wife Linda told supporters, “They didn’t just tale away his job, they took his life” and asked, “Is he too old, too successful, too white?”  My Facebook coverage generated numerous emoji responses, including sad and angry. 

Times photos by Ed Bierschenk (above) and Jonathan Miano

The third edition of Ron Cohen and my “Gary: A Pictorial History” arrived, looking great. The photos covering the past 15 years are in color and more vivid than I’d hoped for.  In ones by Timesphotographers Ed Bierschenk and Jonathan Miano of protestors at City Hall opposing efforts to open an immigrant detention center near Gary Airport I recognize Miller activists Ruth Needleman and Tom Eaton and possibly Jim Spicer and Carolyn McCrady. Cohen’s updated bibliography even includes Leonard Moore’s 2018 book on the 1972 National Black Political Convention at West Side High School. At my suggestion chapter 8, “Looking Ahead, 2004-2018” begins:

     On the evening of July 14, 2005, Gary’s Centennial Committee held a gala at the Genesis Center.  Waiters on loan from Dean White’s Star Plaza served hors d’oevres. The Roosevelt High School band marched through the crowd playing “76 Trombones” from “Music Man.”  Emerson students put on a moving skit.  The musical group Stormy Weather, whose members were self-proclaimed “region rats,” entertained with doo wop hits and a stirring, a capella version of the national anthem.  Not since Mayor Hatcher’s “Evenings to Remember “was there such a glittering party. More important, U.S. Steel pledged $400,000 toward a “Fusion” statue and other efforts.  President of the Centennial Committee, appropriately, was First Lady Irene Scott-King, who stated: “It’s important to understand where you’re come from in order to see where you are going and move ahead in the future.  It’s critical to enlighten and give young people the foundation they need to one day take over the reins of the city.”

I also added this final peroration to Cohen's draft:

 Though a tough environment, especially for those struggling to find work and raise families, Gary in the past has afforded opportunities for a host of athletes, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs, and other notables who have achieved success elsewhere.  Even more impressive are those who stayed or returned and became community pillars. While some lament what Gary has lost, there is potential for a bright future, not only in the development of the lakefront but in commercial possibilities associated with airport expansion, an academic corridor along Thirty-Fifth Avenue (anchored by IU Northwest and IVY Tech’s new building on Broadway), and downtown revitalization (exemplified by the newly refurbished main library).