Embrace the Mess

“The messiness of experience, that may be what we mean by life.” Daniel J. Boorstin

Joe Madden and Don Ritchie; "c'est du vent" means "it's all hot air"

“Embrace the mess”sounds like a gimmicky motto thought up by Chicago Cubs manager Joe Madden, whose motivational sayings include “Try not to suck”and “Do simple better.” Two articles on pedagogy in the current Oral History Review (OHR)are titled “Embracing the Mess,” one about “Conflict Studies Classrooms” and the other on “Untidy Oral History.”  Both take a postmodernist approach, regard uncertainty of validation as a given, and discuss such concepts as deconstruction, dialogic relationships, indeterminacy, and intersubjectivity. Methinks these scholars created an unnecessary messiness themselves. I’m so grateful for fellow Marylander Don Ritchie’s “Doing Oral History,” which advocates plunging in armed only with a few practical words of advice and leaving the analysis until later.“

I am one of countless oral historians who have benefitted from Alessandro Portelli’s sage insights and example.  In “Biography of an Industrial Town: Terni, Italy, 1831-2014” (2017), now available in English, he distinguishes between memory and imagination and regards his craft as a creative endeavor.  His “symphony” of working-class voices (in the words of OHRcontributor William Burns) weaves a narrative similar to many post-industrial towns and cities. In “They Say in Harlan County: An Oral History” (2011) Portelli wrote:

  I have always admired the way in which people fight back under great odds and survive, especially in the United States, where one is not supposed to be up against impossible odds.  Harlan County [KY] does not display much pursuit of happiness.  But you see there the persistence of life in the face of danger and death.

  The handling of poisonous snakes in church is a test of faith and grace, just as catching them in one’s yard is a test of prowess and courage.  The deathly presence of the snake parallels the daily danger of the mines, and the culture takes a sort of ironic pride in its ability to handle it.  The snake is both something radically other and a household presence.

The most interesting article in the special OHR section on pedagogics, Leyla Neyzi’s “National Education Meets Critical Pedagogy: Teaching Oral History in Turkey,” views oral history as an alternative to “methodologically conservative nationalist history.”Neyzi’s mentor was folklorist and historian Arzu Öztürkmen of Bogazici University, who at the 1998 International Oral History Association (IOHA) conference in Rio de Janeiro presented a splendid paper entitled “The Irresistible Charm of the Interview.”  Phil and I danced with Öztürkmen at the U.S. Consulate’s gala for IOHA members.  I learned that the Turkish belly dance is similar to the Hawaiian hula except for the arm motion. 

Leyla Neyzi and Arzu Ozturkmen

In 2000, thanks in part to Öztürkmen, Bogazici University hosted the IOHA conference.  I was there when grandson James was born. In Istanbul I gave a talk about Inland Steel’s “Red Local” 1010 and the Steelworker’s Fight Back 1977 USWA election. One conference session was on the Armenian genocide during and after World war I resulted in the Turks extermination of approximately a million people.  When governmental officials threatened to prevent it, the IOHA threatened to hold the conference elsewhere.  An overflow audience included many people who were not IOHA members.  Neyzi wrote that this neglected episode in Turkish history illustrates “the silences and contradictions of public history”:

  When mentioned in history textbooks, Armenians tend to be referred to as “traitors” who were “relocated” during wartime for raison d’etat.  The prevalent view is that the (“so-called”) Armenian genocide is a myth Turkey’s internal and external “enemies” fabricated. Given that young people are raised with this public narrative (which masks an “open secret” only discussed in private), what are the implications of introducing the Armenian genocide as a historical event in the classroom, along with the memories of survivors as recorded by oral historians?”  

Neyzi broached this controversial subject in “’Wish They Hadn’t Left’: The Burden of Armenian Memory in Turkey,” a chapter in the 2010 book “Speaking to One Another: Personal Memories of the Past in Armenia and Turkey.”

Regal Beloit’s threat to move its Valpo operations to a plant in Monticello, Indiana, is shameful blackmail. All striking workers demand is a 75-cent hourly wage increase and health insurance not to exceed $15,000 a year. NWI Timescorrespondent Joseph S. Pete wrote: “The bearings manufacturing operation has a long history in Valparaiso and is even older than U.S. Steel's Gary Works. Regal Beloit, a multinational electric motors manufacturer, has only owned the former McGill Manufacturing Co. for five years.” Mayor Jon Costas released this statement:

  This decision would impact approximately 110 union workers and another 50-60 nonunion management positions. As a community, we are disappointed that Regal is considering shutting down this productive facility and urge them to reconsider this unfortunate option. 

Employees agreed to return to work while negotiations continue regarding the dispute and the company’s heartless position.

Anne Balay wrote:

Memories. Ten years ago today, at a faculty meet and greet, James Lane suggested to me that I do oral histories of gay steelworkers. I was telling him about my interest in blue collar queers, and he said this was an interesting and fun opportunity. I was an English professor with no background in ethnography or interviewing. I was an introvert. I never looked back and the people I know now because of that work are the greatest gift anyone could have.

Last October, in Montreal for an OHA conference session Anne Balay organized, I teared up at lunch with one of Anne’s Haverford students, Phil Reid, describing my suggestion that she interview LGBT steelworkers and how her department chair held that against her, preferring that Anne keep churning out largely unread children’s lit articles.

Ray Smock photographed the Milky Way near Spray, Oregon and wrote:

   The Milky Way this time of year dominates the sky from horizon to horizon. We had two nights of crystal-clear sky with stars so bright it was easy to see in total darkness. Spray, Oregon a town of 150 was six miles from our viewing site and blocked by a mountain. No light pollution!  We got lucky in the high desert with beautiful days and star filled nights. We went to a country store where we were the only ones not wearing camouflage. It was opening day for elk hunting for bow hunters.

On the second week of bowling I rolled a 473 (148-152-173) as the Electrical Engineers took two games and series by a mere 12 pins.  In the tenth frame of game three Ron Smith doubled, I struck and spared, setting the stage for 87-year-old Frank Shufran, our clean-up man, who needed to pick up a ten-pin, normally his nemesis, in order for us to prevail.  He nailed it and flashed four fingers, signifying the number of times he had converted it.  On an adjacent alley, 82-year-old Gene Clifford, a former Valpo H.S. bowling coach, rolled a 236 despite missing a couple spares.

Steve and Wanda Trafny

Historian John C. Trafny gave me a copy of his latest Arcadia “Images of America” volume, “Downtown Gary, Millrats, Politics, and US Steel,” co-authored by his sister Diane F. Trafny.  On the cover is a Calumet Regional Archives photo of a parade float provided by Gary Works passing the Lake Superior Court Building during the 1931 Gary Silver Jubilee celebration.The book includes several photos of the Trafny's parents, Steve, who saw action in the Pacific during World War II, and Wanda, a refugee from Poland.  In the introduction they paint a vivid picture of Gary’s downtown commercial district during its 30-year heyday beginning in the 1920s, which drew shoppers and pleasure seekers from throughout the Calumet Region despite stores being closed on Sundays prior to the 1950s except for gas stations and pharmacies:

 Shoppers were offered a host of stores. Large national chains like Sears, J.C. Penney, Florsheim, and S.S. Kresge Co., and Chicago-based stores like Goldblatt Bros. became popular with blue-collar families, especially those who wanted a good deal on furniture or appliances.  H. Gordon and Sons, which opened on Broadway in the early 1920s, became one of the area’s premier clothing stores.  Others included Pearson, a women’s clothing store, and Henry C. Lytton and Sons, menswear.  Baby boomers may recall Comay’s Jewelers with its record shop, Tom Olesker’s, W.T. Grant, and Robert Hall clothing on East Fifth Avenue.  No matter the store, sales associates asked shoppers, “May I help you?” 

  Along Fifth Avenue visitors could patronize Olsen Cadillac, Baker Chevrolet, and Baruch Olds. Bakeries such as Cake Box and Sno-White provided delicious baked goods. Slicks Laundry, the Blackstone, the Lighthouse, Walts, and Gary Camera were other businesses located along the street. In addition, there were plenty of taverns in the area.They included Parkway, Cozy Corner, Trainor’s, the Spitfire Lounge, the Ingot Inn, and a host of others.  On payday Mondays, the saloons did good business as steelworkers cashed checks there instead of the banks.  It was, after all, a steel town.

Ron Cohen treated Steve McShane and me to lunch at Captain’s House in Miller.  The main order of business was doing whatever necessary to hire Steve’s replacement before he retires in a year.  As Archives co-directors, Ron and I agreed to write Library dean Latrice Booker and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Vicki Roman-Lagunas to urge authorization so a search can commence.   Archives volunteer Maurice Yancy had brought me a copy of the Gary Crusaderthat contained an article about the third edition of “Gary: A Pictorial History.”  Ron told me that the Katie Hall Educational Foundation has been selling them at a brisk pace.

Rolling Stone National Editor Matt Taibbi’s article “Trump 2020: Be Very Afraid” compares the President to a “mad king” whom “most people would not leave alone with a decent wristwatch, let alone their children.”  Here’s a description of him at a rally in Cincinnati: “His hair has visibly yellowed since 2016.  It’s an amazing, unnatural color, like he was electrocuted in French’s mustard.  His neckless physique is likewise a wonder. He looks like he ate Nancy Pelosi.” He scolds Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for being disrespectful to “Nancy.”  Taibbi writes: 

 Nancy!  The lascivious familiarity with which Trump dropped her name must have stung like a tongue in Pelosi’s ear.  The Speaker, from that moment, was cornered.  A step forward meant welcoming the boils-and-all embrace of Donald Trump. A step back meant bitter intramural surrender and a likely trip to intersectionality re-education camp.

If “race, class, and gender” was once the politically correct historians’ Holy Trinity, “intersectionality” has become its unitarian synthesis. Coined by black feminist scholar Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, it’s the assertion that aspects of political and social discrimination overlap with gender.

 intersectionality

In “Chances Are” novelist Richard Russo introduced memorable minor characters such as closeted American History professor Tom Ford, who gave students the lone final exam question on the first day of class: “What caused the Civil War?” Michael, Sr., Mickey’s father, “like so many workingmen, always carried his money in a roll in his front pocket, no doubt comforted by the weight, the illusion of control you couldn’t get from a flimsy credit card.”A pipe fitter with a heart murmur that he neglected, one day he remained in the restaurant booth when his buddies got up to leave, his heart having beat for the final time.  When I told Gaard Logan that “Chances Are” was named for the 1957 Johnny Mathis song, she recalled that the brother of the African-American crooner (the secret heartthrob to many suburban young women I knew) was rumored to be a toll booth attendant in San Francisco when she moved there. 

Kidding

“Please don’t use a bad word when you can use a good word,” Jeff Pickles (Jim Carrey) in “Kidding”

The Showtimeseries “Kidding” was a tour de force for versatile actor Jim Carrey, who plays Jeff Piccirillo, host of a children’s TV show, “Mr. Pickles’ Puppet Time,” modeled after “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.”  In the course of ten episodes Jeff struggles to keep his sanity as a son dies in a car accident, his wife leaves him, and a second son starts smoking pot and displaying dangerously aggressive behavior.  When he tapes an episode about loved ones passing away, his father Seb, the show’s producer (a marvelous Frank Langella) refuses to air it because it might upset his young audience. One of the show’s fans is a killer on death row whose execution Jeff attends; the lethal injection enters the condemned man’s arm in the center of his tattoo, a fly modeled after a puppet on the show.  Later, when Jeff destroys his father’s office, we see that he now has the same tattoo on his arm.  I’ve re-watched every episode of “Kidding” and find subtleties I missed the first time, like all the witnesses to the execution having red hair like the victims. Voxreviewer Karen Han summed up the series perfectly when she called Carrey a marvel and “Kidding” “wonderful, terrifying, and heartbreaking at the same time.”  Mr. Pickles’ final advice to parents before his show went off the air: listen to your children.

 above, Ish Muhammad; below, Felix "Flex" Maldonado, Times photo by Joseph Pete

Toni and I attended John Cain’s 25th annual Holiday Reading, Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory,” at South Shore Arts in Munster.  Beforehand, we enjoyed the gallery exhibit “Windy Indy,” curated by self-taught artist Ish Muhammad and featuring several pieces by graffiti artist Felix Maldonado.  Donna Catelano, my book club companion and South Shore special projects director, greeted me. The second part of the Urban Legendsseries, “Haunts,” will open in February and highlight guerrilla explorers of such Gary architectural ruins as City Methodist Church, Union Station, Horace Mann School, and the Palace Theater.  Since I wrote the catalogue essay, Cain provided free tickets and wants me to return for a February talk and gallery tour that is part of the Art in Focus series.  I chatted with friends from IUN and Miller, including Al Renslow and Judy Ayers.  I told Nick Mantis, who is producing a documentary on Region bard Jean Shepherd, I was looking forward to his February Art in Focus lecture titled “The Making of Shep: A Filmmaker’s Progress.” 

below, Jim West and John Cain

Buddy and Sook

Cain told Post-Trib feature writer Philip Potempa: “I never met or saw Truman Capote in person. However, one of my prized keepsakes came when I was 30 years old and I purchased a used copy of ‘A Christmas Memory’ from a book store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. The book not only turned out be a first edition, it was also signed by Capote, making it extra special.”Potempa summarized “A Christmas Memory” in this manner:

  Originally published as a feature article in Mademoisellemagazine in December 1956, “A Christmas Memory” captures the folksy atmosphere of Capote’s youth with the aroma of pecan pies and the flickering of candles in the windows of homes back in December of a 1930s Alabama. It follows the dreams of a young boy named Buddy (the name Capote used as a youth) and his friendship with his eccentric relatives, including his much older cousin and best friend, "Sook."  Capote lived with “a spinster aunt,” and one of his favorite traditions was helping mail fruitcakes [he helped Soot make] to everyone from actress Jean Harlow to President Franklin Roosevelt, as a means to feel a connection to the famous names of the day.

One humorous highlight is when Buddy accompanies Sook to a menacing bootlegger’s den in order to buy a bottle of whiskey for the fruitcakes. After finishing their labors, the cousin pours the remaining liquor into two glasses and they celebrate, much to the chagrin of uptight relatives.  At Christmas Soot imagines Mrs. Roosevelt serving their fruitcake at the White House.  Shortly after that holiday, Capote’s family sent him off to a military academy, but over the years he continued to receive fruitcakes from his beloved childhood companion.

I moved into a first-place tie in Fantasy Football by defeating nephew Garrett Okomski on the strength of 26 points from Eagles tight end Zach Ertz.  Needing a substitute kicker with mine on a bye week, I lucked out with former Bear Robbie Gould, who kicked 3 field goals for San Francisco, including one over 50 yards, on a weekend when Bears kicker Cody Parkey missed 2 3-pointers and 2 extra points.

The granddaughter of Elbert H. Gary’s brother visited the Archives in search of information about Bishop Herman Alerding, who founded a Gary settlement house for foreign-born Catholics that bore his name.  In 1920 Alerding wrote to U.S. Steel Board Chairman Elbert Gary appealing for money, using this rationale: “A Catholic settlement house would result in more and more amicable relations between employer and employee.  Americanization would be a good investment, an insurance not only against atheism, but against communism.”Judge Gary responded by donating $100,000.

On Jeopardy none of the high school contestants knew the sport African-American heavyweight champ Jack excelled in.  Incorrect answers included baseball and golf.  On the other hand, unlike me they knew all the Bodies of Water answers, but only one in three recognized that it was Betsy Ross ousted by the Quakers when she married an Episcopal upholsterer and subsequently took over his business after his death.

 Sara Teasdale

Post-Trib columnist Philip Potempa was judged a poetry recital at La Lumiere school in LaPorte. Winner Lauren Jordanich chose “Let It be Forgotten,” a 1924 poem by rebel and suicide victim Sara Teasdale:

Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,

Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,

Let it be forgotten for ever and ever,

Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.

If anyone asks, say it was forgotten

Long and long ago,

As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall

In a long forgotten snow.

Another student recited “The Days Gone By” by Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley. Its final verse goes: 

O the days gone by! O the days gone by! 

The music of the laughing lip, the luster of the eye; 

The childish faith in fairies, and Aladdin’s magic ring— 

The simple, soul-reposing, glad belief in everything,— 

When life was like a story, holding neither sob nor sigh, 

In the golden olden glory of the days gone by.

 James Whitcomb Riley

In “The Winter of Trump’s Discontent,” Ray Smock wrote about the President’s latest display of embarrassing behavior:

  The president went to Paris to join other world leaders in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Unfortunately, he could not muster enough energy to go to an American cemetery where more than 6,000 American soldiers, mostly Marines, are buried in sweeping semi-circles of white crosses interspersed with rose bushes. These honored dead were the casualties of the Battle of Belleau Wood about 50 miles from Paris during the month of June 1918. President Trump blamed his absence on the rainy weather. Somehow other world leaders got there just fine. Later he blamed his protocol people for not telling him that a no-show was bad for his image. When he returned to the United States, this same president who castigates the patriotism of NFL players who kneel during the playing of the National Anthem in protest of civil rights violations could not muster the strength to visit Arlington Cemetery, just 2.1 miles from the White House, on Veteran’s Day. Clearly, the president is distracted by other things right now. 

From Martinsburg, West Virginia, Ray Smock attached this caption to a photo: “It’s elementary Watson! The suspect walked down the driveway, picked up the Washington Post, went to the mailbox, back-tracked to the garbage can, and wheeled it back to the house.”

Wildfires are out of control in California and a nor’easter has blanketed the East Coast. Back home in Chesterton, I shoveled two inches of wet snow (heart attack snow, Toni calls it) from the sidewalk and drove to IUN in preparation for a big day Friday.  In the morning I’ll interview 89-year-old jazz horn player Art Hoyle, who moved to Gary at age 13 with his mother and lived with an uncle, a pediatrician who insisted on discussing books Art was reading by the likes of Mark Twain and Charles Dickens at the dinner table.  At Gary Roosevelt Art came under the tutelage of music teacher Ernest Bennett and played in a jazz band that performed at school dances. His future wife attended Froebel and was part of a greeting committee that met Frank Sinatra prior to his performance at a Tolerance concert during the Froebel school strike.  At age 19, prior to joining the air force, Hoyle played in Thomas Crump’s orchestra in Calumet City and learned how properly to back up vocalists.  During a 70-year career that included stints with bands led by Sun Ra and Lionel Hampton and gigs in Europe and at Chicago’s best venues, Hoyle is still going strong. In 2010 he told Chicago Jazz Magazine: “I’m still working enough to keep the flies off.” 

 Alessandro Portelli

Preparing for the Art Hoyle interview, I re-read Sandro Portelli’s Oral History Review essay “Living Voices: The Oral History Interview as Dialogue and Experience.” Portelli wrote: “Our task is not only to extract information, but to open up narrative spaces.”  He argues that an interview is an exchange of gazes -  a co-created moment in a relationship between the past and the time of the telling.  Portelli recalled interviewing Kentucky civil rights activist Julia Cowans in 1983, who began by saying that she didn’t trust him because he was white and then spent many hours explaining why that was so.  Here is Portelli’s final paragraph:

  “Never trust a white school teacher,”says Baby Suggs, a character in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. So here I am, a white schoolteacher who learned the meaning of oral history because a black woman did not trust me, and because she trusted me enough to tell me why. 

 Ish Muhammad collage

In the evening I’ll attend an artists’ reception at South Shores Arts gallery for the exhibit “Indy Windy: A Love Story” and hope to give free copies of “Gary: A Pictorial History” to Ish Muhammad, who curated the show, and other Region artists who are in the book and the exhibit.  Beforehand, I’ll pay tribute to retiring colleague Chuck Gallmeier at an afternoon gathering of IUN faculty.  This is what I plan to say:

  The first time I recall conversing with Chuck was at a 2-day retreat Chancellor Peggy Elliott arranged at Avalon Manor in Chesterton.  I hadn’t known what to make of this tall, handsome, long-haired ladies man.  From our very first conversation I realized this was someone I wanted to know better. At lunch on the final day of the retreat, after a rather tedious morning, faculty and administrators dined in two adjacent rooms.  Chuck and I opted for the one without the bigwigs.  A waitress came to take drink orders; most folks ordered coke, sprite or lemonade.  Chuck and I opted for something stronger; immediately almost everyone else switched to beer, wine or a cocktail.  Five or 10 minutes later, a waiter entered carrying a tray of soft drinks.  “That must be for the other room,”Gallmeier said deadpan, drawing hearty laughs all around the table.  

  During the next quarter-century Chuck established himself not only as IUN’s most popular teacher but as one of the very best, right up there with Sociologist Bob Lovely, my former colleague Jerry Pierce, and English profs George Bodmer and Anne Balay.  When I talk with alumni about memorable professors, these names come up most frequently. 

  Chuck was much in demand to teach Swing Shift courses to steelworkers. Labor Studies staff member Mike Olszanski taped classes for those unable to attend.  Oz confided to me that Gallmeier normally let it all hang out and frequently used salty language; but one evening he noticed that Chuck had really toned things down.  During the break he realized why – a student had brought her 8-year-old daughter. That’s typical of his concern for students.

  Chuck once asked me to take over his class because of university obligations in Bloomington.  Beforehand, I watched him in action and found the experience scintillating.  When my turn came, a fair share of students had read the assignment -  about the Central Park 5 case - and were both eager to hear what I had to say on the subject and prepared to engage meaningfully with each other.  Chuck had primed them to assume an active role in the learning experience but to stay within the boundaries of mutual respect. 

  As a longtime chair of the Faculty Organization Gallmeier was a worthy successor to such distinguished predecessors as “Founding Fathers” Jack Buehner and Bill Neil, soft-spoken Fred Chary and John Ban, union activists Lew Ciminillo and Esther Nicksic, erudite Bill Reilly, curmudgeons George Roberts and George Bodmer, no-nonsense IUN grad Linda Rooda, and diplomat Mary Russell. I can think of nobody who has devoted more time and energy than Chuck in providing necessary faculty input to administrators.  He and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye on university matters – he was more the pragmatist while I was more outspoken in criticizing questionable actions of our “Old Boys” network.  While faculty can often be petty about holding grudges, Chuck never, ever let university matters ruin our friendship.

   Several years ago, Bill Neil, IUN’s first elected Faculty Org chair, who hired me, spoke to this body about a recently deceased colleague, George Thoma, I think, or perhaps Herman Feldman.  Bill confessed that what he most missed about the university was the collegiality.  So do many of us, and that is one reason why I suspect that we will continue to see my good friend around campus for many years to come.  Let’s hope so. I can’t imagine IUN without him.

Finland Trip

 “Finland, arise, for to the world thou criest

That thou hast thrown off thy slavery
Beneath oppression's yoke thou never liest
Thy morning's come, O Finland of ours!”

         Jean Sibelius, “Finlandia,” lyrics by V.A. Koskenniemi

abstract Sibelius monument in Helsinki by Eila Hiltunen; user duress the bust of Sibelius was added

After enduring an hour-long line for the purpose of having our passports and boarding passes checked and double-checked, Dave and I flew on a Finnair Airbus to Helsinki.  During the overnight flight I watched two great movies, “Lady Bird” (Laurie Metcalf deserved an Oscar as the mother of a disgruntled teenager) and “The Post,” starring Meryl Streep as Katherine Graham and “The Americans” co-star Matthew Rhys as Pentagon Papers pilferer Daniel Ellsberg. The film begins with Ellsberg on a disastrous patrol in Vietnam and ends with Watergate watchman Frank Wills discovering something amiss at Democratic National Headquarters. After turning our watches ahead eight hours, we went through customs easily and rented an Opel Signum from Avis with built-in GPS.  Despite little or no sleep, Dave drove 160 miles (257 kilometers) to Jyväskylä for the twentieth biennial International Oral History Association (IOHA) conference. At the Scandic Hotel’s Moe’s Café we had Karhu beer on draft and, at Angie’s prior suggestion, grilled ham and cheese sandwiches on delicious toast before calling it an evening.

 first Finland photos

Registering for the IOHA conference at the University of Jyväskylä, I inquired if Dave could attend a few sessions; organizer Tiina-Riitta Lappi, learning he was an inner city high school teacher, gave him a lanyard that entitled him to attend all events.  I ran into Anna Green, whom I remembered from a NOHANZ conference in Wellington, New Zealand.  Toni is still in touch with Beverly Morris, who with husband Peter hosted us.  During the opening ceremony, University of Helsinki prodigy Zipora Oyola played native folksongs on a kantele, a 39-string Finnish instrument.  Aussie Paula Hamilton’s  keynote address, “Rethinking Oral History and the Landscape of Memory” opened with a video on a large screen of the Crystals performing “Then He Kissed Me.”  That got our interest and me singing along.
IOHA opening reception

I recognized South Africans Sean Field, a dorm mate in Istanbul, on the program and Philippe Denis, organizer of the 2002 Pietermaritzburg conference.  Sipping champagne at the opening reception hosted by the city of Jyväskylä, I chatted with Sean and a scholar from Australia, Cate Pattison, while old friend and fellow Marylander Don Ritchie struck up a conversation with Dave about, among other things, Elmore Leonard mystery novels.  Cate was also on our tour of the Alvar Aalto Museum, which not only highlighted Aalto’s architectural achievements but also his  and wife Elissa's design of furniture and other decorative items.

Over the next two days I attended a half-dozen sessions. “Troubling Trauma” included talks about the 1994 Rwandan genocide, women combatants in the Mozambique anti-colonial struggle, and memories of the apartheid era in South Africa, a subject Dave covers extensively in an advanced English course.  In the “Arts and Music” session Michael Kilburn’s “Hey Ferdo, it’s only rock and roll: Antipolitical politics and antipoetical poetics in the Czech underground,” featured commentary on the punk band The Plastic People of the Universe and the album “Egon Bondy’s Happy Hearts Club Banned.”  Kati Kallio spoke movingly about Finnish folk songs and then sang two of them, a nice touch.  One about young men conscripted into the Russian army during World War I contained these lines:

So the boys are picked

The white-heads are chosen

Who gets the lot

The lot leaps to the unlucky

According to Kallio, entire villages bid conscripts farewell in an elaborate ritual.

Irish scholar Jamie Canovan opened the “Difficult Childhood” session discussing abused foster children consigned to Irish state care. Sally Zwartz summarized the shocking findings of Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.  Slightly more uplifting was Spyridoula Pyrpyli’s account of working children’s memories playing for a legendary Greek football (soccer) team.  Chairing a session entitled “Different Oralities,” Don Ritchie expressed bewilderment at the subtitle devised by conference organizers: “Documenting the Human Experience of Conflict through the ‘I’ and the ‘We.’”  Claire Kotnes introduced the audience to Polish immigrant Mia Truskier, an advocate for both Jewish and Haitian refugees.  Husband Andor Kotnes spoke about Baltimore community organizer Juanita Jackson Mitchell, the first African-American woman recipient of a University of Maryland law degree and a protégé of Thurgood Marshall. 

I met interesting young scholars during meals and coffee breaks, including Niels Rebetez from Switzerland, Shatarupa Thakurta from India, and South African Tshepo Moloi.  I was talking about Gary mayor Richard Hatcher being arrested during a 1985 anti-apartheid demonstration in front of the South African embassy when Don Ritchie joined us.  Historian of the U.S. Senate at the time, Ritchie was demonstrating with a group of Academicians against Apartheid on a day when singer Stevie Wonder showed up and got arrested.   

Wednesday’s keynote speaker Shelley Trower spoke about studying British seniors’ reading habits during childhood and adolescence, citing such motivations as self-improvement and desire for vicarious adventure.  Kate Moore, whom I’d palled around with in Rio, Istanbul, and Pietermaritzburg, noticed my hand up during the Q and A.  I told her of my intent to bring up the seeking of sex information as a motive, citing the popularity of “Peyton Place” and “Playboy” during Baby Boomers’ formative years.  She quipped: “I’m glad you weren’t called on.  Maybe she wasn’t joking?  She recalled a rhinoceros charging our vehicle during a Pietermaritzburg conference field trip, something I had forgotten.

The much anticipated keynote by Alessandro Portelli did not disappoint.  Concentrating on the current plight of refugees, he opened with Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” whose opening lines were based on an English song of Italian origin.  Emphasizing the evolution of folk songs in a global context, he described discovering a Bob Dylan café in India.  Portelli enlivened his talk with anecdotes about recording a Senegalese immigrant’s lament similar to Dylan’s “blue-eyed son” only the darker-skinned sojourner could not return to the land of his birth.  Portelli recorded a Bulgarian street performer who showed up with a boom box and sang “Oh Solo Mio” and a Beyoncé hit.  When he inquired about gypsy folksongs, she promised to learn some and return in a couple weeks.

 lake cruise 

Bad Ass Brass band entertains

Weather was perfect for our cruise on Lake Päijänne followed by a Midsummer holiday celebration that included dinner, champagne, and music provided by the super-cool Bad Ass Brass Band, whose impressive repertoire ranged from jazz to punk.  We sat with Rommel Curaming from Brunei and South African Tshepo Moloi, who was impressed with Dave’s knowledge of his country’s history.  Don Ritchie introduced me to Czech republic scholar Pavel Mücke, and wife Anne informed me of Maryland grad Charles Walker’s new book on the 1968 Washington, D.C., riot, the results of which we often drove by on research trips to the Library of Congress.  Near evening’s end, I spotted Kate Moore on the dance floor with a tall, friendly Norwegian and joined them. Afterwards, Kate acknowledged, “You can still dance.”

 Dave at Seuassari Island

Driving to Helsinki, we found Joe and Davidow and Jaana-Maria Jukkara’s place on a road, Tinasepantie, that we subsequently dubbed “Tina’s panty.”  Thanks to their generosity, we had the house to themselves while they spent the weekend in the country, like most Helsinki residents.  Following their suggestion, we visited an open-air museum on Seuassari Island, where tar was harvested during the nineteenth century for use on ships. The Midsummer festivities included folk dancing and the lighting of a huge bonfire off shore.  

Helsinki Cathedral (Lutheran), a stop on Hop On, Hop Off Bus route

Over the next five days, by car, train  and bus, we hit many popular attractions including Helsinki Cathedral, the downtown market, and a huge fortress on the island of Suomenlinna that was built in the mid-eighteenth century as protection against Russian expansion when Finland was under Swedish control.  An entrance-way called King’s Gate was designed to welcome King Adolf Frederick, who died after consuming a meal that included lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, kippers, champagne, and 14 servings of his favorite desert, a sweet roll named semi served in a bowl of hot milk.  The fortress became a Russian possession in 1808.  

fortress on Suomenlinna; Hard Rock Cafe

In addition to these tourist spots, Dave and I also visited Sea Life, Linnamaki Amusement Park, Korkeassaari Zoo (I loved the uncaged peacocks and the brown karhu polar bear whose likeness is on cans of our favorite Finnish beer).  We enjoyed out Finnish meal so much at Bryggeri Pub and Brewery that we each bought t-shirts.  Lunch at the Hard Rock Café was also on out to-do list.  

Joe and Jaana returned during our last two days in Finland.  By the time we left, we considered them to be dear friends.  Mike Bayer’s half-brother, Joe recalled many of our “lefty” friends from visits to Gary.  He directs films about American civil rights struggles for Finnish TV.  Joe was impressed with Dave’s knowledge of black intellectual James Baldwin and how well the two of us got along.  After hearing him call me Jimbo, he did, too. Our last night in Helsinki, Joe cooked salmon over a fire and Jaana contributed a delicious salad.  Joe’s friend Jeremy Gould, an anthropologist whose has spent many years in Zambia, brought the makings for guacamole and prepared a fire for a sauna, a common Finnish custom that Dave experienced with his two companions.  Both Joe and Jaana are soccer fans, so we caught an exciting World Cup match between Argentina and Nigeria.   

              Joe making fire for salmon dinner                   

 Jimbo and Jaana; below, Joe, Jaana, Dave, Jeremy

The flight home was uneventful. I watched “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and enough of “Black Panther” to appreciate its appeal to black moviegoers and fans of Marvel Studio productions.  We encountered seemingly endless lines going through customs at O’Hare, but limo driver Darryl got us home in record time considering Friday rush hour traffic.  After filling Toni in on trip highlights, I hit the sack for 12 hours straight. While I was away, Michael Jackson’s father, a Gary native and brutal task master, died.  In Lexington, Virginia, Red Hen Restaurant  owner Stephanie Wilkinson asked Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave after learning that her staff was uncomfortable serving her.  The ensuing bruhaha produced a typically ill-mannered presidential tweet, to wit: “The Red Hen Restaurant should focus more on cleaning its filthy canopies, doors and windows (badly needs a paint job) rather than refusing to serve a fine person like Sarah Huckabee Sanders.”  Suck wind, Mr. President, off to meet his pal Putin in Helsinki in two weeks.