Looking Back

The river in summer

In midstream

I look back

    Japanese haiku

 

Matilda and daughter Iona, 1920

Eleanor Bailey wrote:

   Recently while going through some old postcards, I found one postmarked April 8, 1925, from Matilda Cox to her five-year old grand-daughter, Hettie Bailey. The Cox and Bailey families lived just a mile or two from each other. They didn’t have telephones, so postcards were a common mode of communication be it near or far. It read: “Dear Grand Daughter you are invited to come out Friday night or Saturday Morning and bring papa mama Charles Chester and the twins and stay for Easter be Sure to come. grand Mo and Po to Hettie.” How thrilled the five-year-old must have been when she received the card from her grandmother.

I came across an article about queer activist Sarah Schulman, above, in New York magazine and realized I had seen her speak at IU Northwest about “Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community responsibility, and the Duty of Repair.”  She seemed particularly eager to hear students’ opinions of her book and what, in their opinion, constituted harassment.  Author Molly Fischer identified the book’s central insight:

    People experiencing the inevitable discomfort of human misunderstanding often overstate the harm that has been done to them – they describe themselves as victims rather than as participants in a shared situation.

The key distinction between conflict and abuse: the nature of the power relationships.  For example, what might be simply a disagreement among colleagues or associates might constitute harassment if a superior in a position of dominance is the source of the discomfort. In the classroom Schulman has a “no censorship” rule and students are encouraged to debate and critique one another in any language they feel appropriate without the need for “trigger warnings” that the forthcoming subject matter may be disturbing to some. Needless to say, Schulman believes universities college campuses should be forums for open debate on controversial subjects.

 

I knew about novelist David Foster Wallace’s thousand-page tome “Infinite Jest” but little else until viewing “The End of the Tour” (2015), about Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky spending a week with the troubled novelist who later hanged himself. As portrayed by Segal, Wallace was a rather pathetic, albeit talented, figure most comfortable with his dogs or, his one social outlet, dancing at a Bloomington, Illinois, Baptist church.  Part of a “New Sincerity” school that regarded banality as truth, Wallace during a Minneapolis stop admired the Mary Tyler Moore statue, visited the Mall of America, and took in a “Die Hard” movie.  Throughout Wallace is wary that Rolling Stone will portray him as ambitious or a sell-out.  When asked if wearing a kerchief on his head were an affectation, he replied defensively that it kept sweat out of his eyes. He didn’t want a TV in the house not because he was a snob but out of fear he’d never turn it off.  He wrote: “What TV is extremely good at—and realize that this is "all it does"—is discerning what large numbers of people think they want, and supplying it. TV’s “real” agenda is to be “liked,” because if you like what you’re seeing, you’ll stay tuned. TV is completely unabashed about this; it’s its sole raison.”

David Foster Wallace gave a memorable commencement speech at Kenyon College titled “Thoughts on Living a Compassionate Life.”  It opened with a parable about two young goldfish being asked, “How’s the water?” and replying, “What is water?” Wallace left us this introspective insight:

    The so-called ‘psychotically depressed” person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote “hopelessness” or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames.

Alexandria, right; MaryAnn below

Alexandria Quinn wrote that Toni’s sister MaryAnn, who is battling cancer, was the strongest women, with the biggest, most passionate heart, that she’s ever known. She wrote:

    I cannot begin to express how much her passion and heart has fed my soul and the woman I have grown proud to be. She is unstoppable and relentless, beautiful and educated, loving and driven, passionate and stubborn. Times are hard: no one could deny that cancer is one hell of a battle. Even being exhausted and in pain, I had to tell her not to make us breakfast this week and to stop worrying about taking care of everyone else. She has still been making jokes and laughing at herself instead of getting down on herself and asking “why me,” blaming everyone and everything else.  She’s a fighter and is proving that through the toughest battle imaginable.  I love her to the moon and back. Lanes and Okomskis, 2019

Toni’s older sister was a risk taker who eloped while a senior at Little Flower High School and kept the marriage secret until she graduated.  She had four kids in quick order before a doctor warned her to cease or risk dying.  She waited a few years and then gave birth to two more daughters.  The first time I met her while dating Toni MaryAnn’s daughter Andrea cut herself trying some daredevil feat in the backyard; Sonny wasn’t home, so I drove them to the ER.  I was so freaked out by the bloody wound that MaryAnn had to calm me down.  MaryAnn’s kids, no surprise, turned out passionate and opinionated.  Family was everything to MaryAnn, and she loved nothing better at the end of the day than to tell or listen to family stories accompanied by much laughter.  In her sixties she roughed it in Thailand with her daughters.  Two years ago, she participated in the Eagles Superbowl celebration in downtown Philadelphia. Sonny, not one to give out compliments, admitted not long before he died, that he had hit a grand slam when he married MaryAnn.

This from Anne Koehler: “With my 98-year-old friend Babe Poparad who is still a crossing guard in Porter. Has a beautiful garden and shares her produce.  We are both of German descent and know how to milk cows but don't have any!!!!”

Great Adventure

“When a great adventure is offered, you don’t refuse it.” Amelia Earhart

 

Growing up in Atchison, Kansas, Amelia Earhart earned the reputation of being a daredevil and tomboy who believed girls should have the opportunity to do anything a boy could do.  Her first plane ride in 1920 changed Amelia’s life; becoming an aviatrix became her passion. By the following year, she had saved enough money to pay for flying lessons from highly-regarded instructor Anita Snook. Within a few years she was a seasoned pilot.  In 1928, in what was a well-planned publicity stunt, Earhart was a passenger in a transatlantic flight piloted by Wilmer Stultz, admitting, “I was just baggage.” Upon returning to America she and the two-person crew received a ticker tape parade in New York City and a reception with President Calvin Coolidge. Due to her resemblance in appearance to Charles Lindbergh, she was dubbed by the press “Lady Lindy.”  Determined to prove her mettle on her own, in 1932 Earhart completed a 14-hour solo flight across the Atlantic, battling strong winds, icy conditions, and mechanical problems.  Her celebrity status led to frequent appearances and commercial endorsements. In 1935, I learned from historian Ray Boomhower, Purdue University hired Earhart to be a counselor to female students and established a Fund for Aeronautical Research in her name that helped in purchasing a twin-motored Lockheed Electra for Amelia’s next great adventure.

By 1938 Earhart had decided to attempt an around-the-world flight and have an account of it be the penultimate chapter in a memoir that would raise money for further aeronautical research and exploration.  After a false start, the ill-fated flight began June 1, 1938, in Miami, Florida. Flying to South America and then east to Africa and Southeast Asia, Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan had completed 22,000 miles in a month and had just 7,000 miles to go, across the Pacific.  From Lae, New Guinea, the next leg was 2,570 miles to Howland Island.  She never made it; the plane went missing and a radio frequency snafu caused a waiting naval vessel to lose contact with her plane.  Her last message was that the Lockheed Electra was running out of fuel.  Despite an intensive search, no trace of her or the plane was ever found.

 

Earhart’s disappearance has been the source of speculation and conspiracy theories that exist to this day.  Indeed, it is the primary reason people remember her.  Because America would soon be at war with Japan, some claimed her plane had been shot down and Earhart captured, accused of being on an intelligence mission, and executed.  Romantics wondered wishfully if she and Noonan had escaped to a deserted Pacific island; more likely, they landed on a coral reef that eventually submerged.  Most experts believe the plane simply ran out of fuel, crashed into the Pacific, and sank to the bottom of the sea.

 

My great adventure was leaving law school and traveling to Hawaii to commence working on becoming a History professor. For as long as I could remember, I’d planned to become a lawyer, and for three summers I’d worked at distinguished Philadelphia law firms as a mail room messenger. I observed young associates working 60-80 hours a week hoping to make partner, an outcome that seemed to depend on whether they could generate business for the firm.  In other words, not as glamorous a situation as on the “Perry Mason” series.

 

My senior year at Bucknell, I took Education courses and student taught, which I thoroughly enjoyed. At Virginia Law School many students were undecided over careers or had been pressured into being there. After a dorm mate committed suicide, I started contemplating whether, much as I enjoyed most law school classes, the legal profession was for me.  On a whim I looked into the University of Hawaii’s graduate program and discovered the History chair, Herbert Margulies, was someone whose work on the Progressive Era I admired.  I wrote Margulies a letter, and he urged me to apply and indicated I could receive an assistantship that would cover tuition and pay me a couple thousand dollars.  After meeting with Bucknell mentor, Dr. William H. Harbaugh in Lewisburg, PA, (hitchhiking part of the way) who warned me I’d never be rich and have at least a half dozen years of schooling yet but told me to go for it if that’s what I really wanted, I took the plunge with Toni’s consent. I’ve never looked back and marvel at how well it worked out and that I had the nerve to do it.

 

Toni agreed to move up our wedding date six months, after which we drove her Volkswagen Beetle across the country (a Southern route since it was mid-January 1965, a time when Yankees were viewed with suspicion), shipped the VW from California on to Honolulu, and boarded a plane.  I began work on a Master’s degree, and Toni obtained a job at a downtown law firm. We found a small apartment on Poki Street (why we later named a cat Poki) about a mile from the Manoa campus and close to a bus stop for Toni to commute to work while I walked to classes.  Some evenings we’d hang out on Waikiki Beach near nightclubs with live Hawaiian music and once splurged at Duke Kahanamoku’s for dinner and a show featuring Don Ho of “Tiny Bubbles” fame. I did research at Iolani Palace and we spent a glorious week on the then-barely developed island of Kauai (below, left).  Since phone calls were prohibitively expensive, we’d send and receive audio tapes from our families. I retain many other fond memories of our 18 months on Oahu and have been back to the islands several times since.                 Graduation, 1966

My adventure pales in comparison with the millions of immigrants to America, including Toni’s grandparents.  John Petalas posted a 1922 photo (below) of charter members of AHERA (American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association, founded to counter bigoty emanating from hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan  Anne Koehler, who emigrated from Germany many years ago, wrote about spending a delightful evening with friend Dorothy: “We were sitting in the car at Weko Beach in Bridgman, Michigan where they play taps at sunset during the summer. A car pulled up halfway. Dorothy talked to the driver and found out that he was from Germany. We started to talk from car to car and I found out that this spry gentleman is 92 years old. He hails from Stuttgart in southern Germany and came to this county in the 1950s. He remembers growing up under Hitler and barely missed being drafted toward the end of the war. I was happy to find out that he shared my dislike of our president.”

Dominguez family and George Van Til

My “Great Adventure” post received close to 50 replies, many from former students, including Jim Reha and Sarah McColly, collaborators Roy Dominguez and George Van Til, niece Cristin and nephew Bobby, with whom I’ve shared some adventures.  In the New York Review of Books “Personals” section was this message titled “In the Time of Corona”: “Chinese-Russian grandmother, youthful 60s, seeks a kind, self-supporting, healthy single man 60-70s with whom to share some life - enjoying career tai chi, theater, War on Drugs, Buddhist meditation, and more.” War on Drugs must refer to my favorite band that nephew Bob Lane and I saw perform at Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown, CA.

Up for Debate

In all debates, let truth be thy aim, not victory, nor an unjust interest.” William Penn

 Several of my friends from high school re-post rightwing messages on Facebook that I mostly ignore but sometimes offer a brief rebuttal – as when, for example, they imply that Democrats are anti-police, pro-rioters or unpatriotic.  Frequently they bring up some local incident and ask why it wasn’t widely reported on the mainstream media.  Recently I came across an image of William Harvey Carney, the first African-American Medal of Honor winner, who, though badly wounded, “refused to let the American flag touch the ground.”  Above Carney’s photo were these words: “Maybe the NFL should put this up in every locker room.”  Carney (1840-1908) was born a slave.  After his father escaped with the aid of the Underground Railroad, he purchased his wife and William’s freedom.  Enlisting in the 54^th Massachusetts Colored Regiment, as did two sons of Frederick Douglass, Carney performed the heroic deed in 1863 at the Battle of Fort Wagner in Charleston, South Carolina.  Angry that Carney’s admirable action was being politicized, I commented: “No NFL player is allowing the flag to touch the ground.”  Someone (not my friend) replied: “They just burn it.  Man, you pop up everywhere like a lib-in-a-box.”  Ignoring the fact that the person was not distinguishing between taking a knee during the National Anthem and flag-burning, I suggested, figuratively, that it was better to wash the flag than burn it.

Chesterton High School has a long, storied Debate Club tradition.  Jim Cavallo (above), a Speech and Debate teacher for38 years beginning in 1971, was the third CHS Debate Program Director inducted into the National Speech and Debate Hall of Fame.  His predecessors were Joe Wycoff and Bob Kelly.  Cavallo coached CHS to five consecutive national championships beginning in the late 1980s.  According to a NSDA press release, Cavallo was one of the first coaches to break from the “boys club” mentality and recruit females to do Policy Debate.  It concludes: “To Cavallo, every kid had talent, potential, and the ability to contribute to constructive argumentation.”

With a national debate raging over whether to take down monuments of rebel slaveholders, Anne Koehler passed on this statement by Kerri Smilie:

    I really didn't want to talk about concentration camps tonight. But today I've seen a certain post going around saying something to the effect of "Germany didn't take down their concentration camps, so why should we take down Confederate statues?”

 

   Whew. Deep breaths.

 

    In 2004 I went to Germany (one of a few trips I took there). Part of the trip entailed visiting some historical sites related to WWII. I sat in the courtroom in Nuremberg where Goering and crew were tried and condemned for their actions. I can tell you, there was NOT ONE BIT of honor for them in that room. We watched a graphic video in English, German, and Hebrew detailing the atrocities these men were condemned for. The theme of the lecture was "What they did was horrible. We as a nation stood behind it. We own it. And we will never allow it to happen again." Know what we didn't see? A single freakin' statue of a Nazi.

    But while we're talking statues, let's talk Dachau. The Dachau visit was the day after we went to Nuremberg, and my heart just couldn't take it. So my dad went, took lots of photos, and told us about it. It is completely saturated in remorse and resolve. There is nothing honoring any soldier. There is no glory in the Germany of WWII. There are no "alternate story lines." The statues there glorify those who were tortured and killed by the Nazis. One of the most famous statues at Dachau portrays skeletons strewn across barbed wire because so many of the prisoners ended their lives by throwing themselves into the fences and being shot, rather than suffer another day at the hands of the SS.

    This particular statue though is the one I want to talk about. It is called "The Unknown Prisoner." He stands tall and proud- because the prisoners were required to keep their heads bowed and eyes averted. He has his hands in his pockets- because the prisoners were forbidden to do so. He is not wearing a hat- because the prisoners were required to wear a hat on penalty of death. And his inscription reads "To Honor the Dead, To Remind (or warn) the Living." This statue is brazenly defiant. And I love it.

So if you want to compare the way Germany has kept their history alive with the way the South has, don't look at it in statues and memorials. If we want to follow Germany's lead, every plantation would be a solemn memorial to a dark time in our nation's history. There would be no weddings there- just like there are no weddings in Auschwitz. There would be no nostalgia for days gone by, but only reminders of the horrors of those enslaved.

    If we want to follow Germany's lead, then every statue of a Confederate general should be replaced by a statue of a slave breaking free of their chains, or standing proud in defiance of the slaveholders.  Don't make comparisons if you're not willing to follow them through all the way.

Ryan Askew

I enjoy reading personal items I find in obituaries, such as that Arthur Catenazzo, 88, a Korean War veteran and former U.S. Steel shift manager, walked six laps around South Lake Mall six days a week and was known as Mayor of the Mall. Former East Chicago firefighter and hospital security guard Edward Kowalski, 96, loved Hostess Twinkies and Ho Ho’s and during holiday celebrations “took the carving knife to baked hams like no one else.”  The obit for Ryan Askew, 59, a 1978 West Side grad, former Lake County police officer, and security guard at Community Hospital in Munster, gave no hint that he was shot and killed by another officer while attempting to restrain a patient who had him in a chokehold. In addition to mentioning Ryan’s wife Fonetta, daughter Da’Ja’Nay and other relatives, the notice mentioned eight “special friends,” including Gary residents Perry Gordon, Willie Stewart, Aaron Stuckey, Armon Stuckey, and Ernest Goodwin. When he first learned of Askew’s tragic death, former Sheriff Roy Dominguez, who promoted him to Commander, told The Times: “He was a nice guy, very professional, and extremely well-liked by the troops.”

Valentina

I’ve been playing the board game Space Base, both with Dave, Phil, and James at the condo and online ever since Angie ordered it for me on Amazon. Each player assumes the role of a commodore in charge of a fleet of ships purchased on one’s turn and named after astronauts such as Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins or Russian cosmonauts like Valentina Tereshkova and Pavel Popovich.  Tereshkova was the first woman in space, orbiting the Earth 48 times in 1963 on a solo flight aboard Vostok 6.  I won a couple games prior to everyone knowing the fine points of the game, but on Zoom last evening winner Tom Wade and runner-up Dave Lane left me far behind.

 

As reported by the Chesterton Tribune’s Kevin Nevers, the Chesterton Town Council discussed the Juneteenth march.  Police Chief David Cincoski announced that it was peaceful and went very well, with participants wearing masks and practicing social distancing.  He thanked the Fire and Street departments for their assistance and officers from the neighboring towns of Porter, Burns Harbor, and Ogden Dunes. Council member Jim Ton added:

    I believe the major goal of the march was to protest institutional racism and the unjust treatment of black citizens in America.  I also believe that the goal of law enforcement was to provide for the free exercise of the right to do so in a safe and secure environment.  Both of these goals were met last Friday afternoon.  Chesterton should be proud of that.

In the Tribune’s “Voice of the People” Reverend Aaron Ban of St. Jon’s United Church wrote: “Chesterton is a town where people of all races are proclaiming, ‘Black Lives Matter!.’  The Juneteenth Celebration and demonstration lifted my spirits and made me proud to live and work here.”

 

Casey King wrote:

    We are in the midst of a revolution...rise with the change or fall...and fade. I’ll be selling prints to raise money for Gary, Indiana art programs. I am a proud recent fine arts graduate of Indiana University Northwest in Gary, Indiana. Gary was once known as the “magic” city and the very foundation of the American school system, The Wirt System, began here. I would like to make a difference through my art and this is one means of doing so.  Art is universal and healing, a language that not all have to speak but one that all can understand if one tries to. To underprivileged youth, art can serve as a powerful tool to push through trying times and life’s struggles. There is comfort in creating and liberation in being able to express oneself. Keep your eyes open for when I list these on my shop. Your support is greatly appreciated.

 
I  thought of the Seventies community group The Concerned Latins Organization when reading this email post by John Fraire:

 I recently gave the keynote address for the Latino Leadership Initiative (LLI) in Washington. I told the students that the Chicano student movement was an under-appreciated part of the civil rights movement and that programs like the LLI owe their thanks to the Chicano Student movement. Many parents were in the audience. Like many other times, many of them remained expressionless during my talk. After my talk, one of the fathers, a man in his 50's, approached me, shook my hand and said "Gracias, Soy Chicano."

Martha Bohn  posted  storm clouds reaching Miller Beach, and octogenarian Barbara Mort shared a phot  taken at her recent wedding to Ascher Yates

Juneteenth

 "If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to how far you can go.”

    James Baldwin

 

On June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, Union General Gordon Grange informed former slaves that they were free. Almost immediately, freedmen began celebrating Emancipation or Jubilee Day with festivals featuring food, songs, parades, and speeches.  Most states have declared Juneteenth a Day of Observance, and, ironically, Trump’s idiotic determination to hold a rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth brought national attention to the date and furthered a movement to have June 19 declared a national holiday.  Better, methinks, to press for national health insurance, a living minimum wage, and election day being a national holiday with no more voter suppression.

Chesterton Juneteenth march by John Luke

 

Robert Cotton

Angel Smith

An impressive crowd numbering in the hundreds participated in a Chesterton Juneteenth march from the police station to Centennial Park.  Organized by Chesterton High School English teacher Becky Uehling and others, it featured speeches by African-American Valparaiso city councilman Robert Cotton and a poetry reading by CHS grad Angel Smith, now a senior at Stanford. Though the temperature was in the mid-90s, I marched the final four blocks and found a seat in the shade.  Cotton recalled neighbors in the Chicago projects, where he grew up, mourning the deaths of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King.  Now in his 60s, he substitute teaches in several communities, including Chesterton, in order to expose himself to students who may never have had a black teacher. Attesting to the importance of history, Cotton confessed he didn't know about Juneteenth until he was in his 30s.

 

Richard Russo’s 2012 memoir “Elsewhere” describes growing up in a New York mill town that, in miniature, mirrored Gary, Indiana’s sad fate in the face of deindustrialization, mechanization, and globalization.  Russo’s hometown of Gloversville manufactured not only top-quality gloves but other leather goods. By the 1970s Gloversville commercial district had become, in Russo’s words, “a Dresden-like ruin,” but during the 1950s on a Saturday afternoon “the streets downtown would be gridlocked with cars honking hellos to pedestrians.” Like Gary’s Palace Theater Gloverville’s Glove Theatre would be packed with adolescents.  Russo recalled:

    Often, when we finished what we called our weekly “errands,” my mother and I would stop in at Pedrick’s.  Located next to City Hall, it was a dark cool place, the only establishment of my youth that was air-conditioned, with a long thin wall whose service window allowed sodas and cocktails to be passed from the often raucous bar into the more respectable restaurant.  Back then Pedrick’s was always mobbed, even in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. Mounted on the wall of each booth was a minijukebox whose movable mechanical pages were full of song listings.  Selections made here – five for a quarter, if memory serves – were played on a real jukebox on the far wall. We always played a whole quarter’s worth while nursing sodas served so cold they made my teeth hurt. Sometimes, though, the music was drowned out by rowdy male laughter from the bar, where the wall-mounted television was tuned to a Yankees ball game, and if anyone hit a home rum, everybody in the restaurant knew it immediately.

Russo lamented that by the time he graduated in 1967, “you could have strafed Main Street with an automatic weapon without endangering a soul.”  The restaurant area of Pedrick’s had closed, and the bar was “quiet as a library.”

 

Ray Smock wrote:

One of the news items that did not get a lot of attention but that drove home the depths of systemic racism, and the many guises it can take, was the announcement by Walmart that it would no longer keep black cosmetics and beauty supplies under lock and key. The following is from a story in the New York Times of June 10: “Walmart will end its practice of locking up African-American beauty care products in glass cases, the retail giant said on Wednesday after a fresh round of criticism that the policy was a form of racial discrimination. Hair care and beauty products sold predominantly to black people could be accessed at certain stores only by getting a Walmart employee to unlock the cases, some of which featured additional anti-theft measures.”

When Sears closed its Gary store during the 1970s, it was making a handsome profit; but with South Lake Mall opening, corporate executives figured African Americans would come to Merrillville whereas most whites wouldn’t shop in Gary.  The lame excuse they gave Mayor Richard Gordon Hatcher: shoplifting, something easily remedied.

 

Ray Boomhower referenced an article Robert L. Sherrod wrote for Time about the heroism of African-American marines during the invasion of Saipan in June 1944.  Although most were serving as ammunition carriers and in beachhead unloading parties, many found themselves forced into combat.  Boomhower wrote:

    When the Japanese counterattacked the Fourth Marine Division near Charan Kanoa, twelve African Americans were thrown into the defense line and offered a stiff resistance, killing fifteen of the enemy. Sherrod quoted a white marine lieutenant from Texas as commenting on the incident: “I watched these Negro boys carefully. They were under intense mortar and artillery fire as well as rifle and machine gun fire. I saw no Negro running away. They all kept advancing until the counterattack was stopped.”

    Other black marines volunteered to carry badly needed ammunition to frontline units and joined fellow marines in hunting down snipers. Sherrod added the African Americans were credited with being “the workingest men on Saipan, having performed prodigious feats of labor both while under fire and after beachheads were well secured. Some unloaded boats for three days, with little or no sleep, working in water up to waist deep.”

    What did not make it into Sherrod’s published Time article was a remark one of the black marines made upon seeing army troops begin to land on the island: “It must be safe. Here comes the army.” Later, Sherrod learned that Admiral Chester Nimitz’s command in Hawaii had refused to allow such a statement, remarking that “no correspondents’ stories will be approved which reflect on Army in comparison with Navy or Marines,” and his story had “flagrantly violated” the restriction. For his part, Sherrod said he had included the quote to show the “high state of morale among Negro Marines.”

 

Anne Koehler wrote:

The current storm over statues and what to do with them brings me to another story from my childhood. The Aschberg is the highest elevation for our area, which is just under 100 meters or roughly 300 feet. Here stands the 21-foot tall statue of Otto von Bismarck. He was the Reichschancellor under Kaiser Wilhelm II and played a significant role in the fact that my home area remained German and did not become part of the Danish Kingdom. The statue was built and first erected on the Knivsberg in North Schleswig. When that part of Schleswig-Holstein was ceded to Denmark in 1919 as a result of a plebiscite, the statue was dismantled and moved south. The head was sawed off to make it fit into the railroad carriage for transport. A lengthy odyssey ensued; at times it was stored in a warehouse, at others in a barn. Different locations competed for the statue. In 1930 it was erected in its current spot. Bismarck proudly leans on his sword, looking into the hilly landscape, marked by fields surrounded by hedgerows. The hedgerows prevent soil erosions from wind and house birds and animals as well as provide firewood. The Aschberg and Bismarck were favorite outing locations. Sports and other events took place there. As children we would climb up on the side of the statue and sit on the crown to the right side. After the second World War precious metal was stolen from the sword for scrap.

 

Paul Kern replied: “Bismarck’s unification of Germany through three wars and his authoritarian rule left a dubious legacy. The Second Reich was based on Prussian domination of the rest of Germany. Bismarck liked to have internal enemies, first the Catholics in the Kulturkampf and then the Social Democratic Party in the anti-socialist law, policies that left Germany deeply divided religiously and politically. It was no accident that the fifty-five years after Bismarck were catastrophic for Germany.”

 

In the Chesterton Tribune “Echoes of the Past” column this item from June 18, 1895, a time when the country was in the throes of a Depression as devastating as the 1930s disaster: “The tramp element is getting thicker than ever.  It is not an uncommon occurrence to se 125 or 20 men lying around the water tower and living off the fat of thase land.”  Prior to 1895 most social reformers, such  Jacob A. Riis, thought tramps were lazy bums who shirked work.  The economic calamity convinced him otherwise.

Tomfoolery

“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.” Mark Twain

Thomas Skelton

The origin of the word “tomfoolery,” meaning to acting even worse than a fool, comes from England in the time of William Shakespeare.  Thomas Skelton was a sadistic jester at Moncuster Castle in Cumbria who allegedly played vile jokes on those whom Sir William Pennington disliked, once cutting off the had of a butcher with whom
his master’s daughter had fallen in love with his own knife.  Rumor had it that he’d sit under a tree and tell passersby who asked for directions to take a path that led to quicksand and their death.

Trump’s latest tomfoolery is to announce that despite the pandemic he’ll be holding a MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, location of the infamous 1921 massacre that killed scores of black people and destroyed their neighborhood. The original date was June 19, known as “Juneteenth” and celebrated when slaves learned of their emancipation. Attendees have to sign a waiver agreeing not to hold sponsors liable in case they catch Covid-19.  Imagine. Trump also announced that he’d be giving his Republican National Convention speech in Jacksonville, Florida, on August 27, the sixtieth anniversary of that city’s notorious “Axe Handle Riot,” when a Klan-inspired white mob attacked peaceful black demonstrators with axe handles.  Trump has also criticized those who wish to rename the dozen military bases (Bragg, Hooker, Benning, etc.) named for Confederate leaders. 

Don Coffin passed on this statement by former General David Petrakis: “For an organization designed to win wars to train for them atinstallations named for those who led a losing force is sufficiently peculiar, but when we consider the cause for which these officers fought, we begin to penetrate the confusion of Civil War memory. These bases are, after all, federal installations, home to soldiers who swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. The irony of training at bases named for who took up arms against the United States, and for the right to enslave others, is inescapable to anyone paying attention. Now, belatedly, is the moment for us to pay such attention.”

Even more damning was a recent statement by former Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis, branding Trump the first president in his lifetime “who does not
try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us.”  The country has not been so polarized in 50 years, since Nixon, Vietnam, and Watergate. Some, referencing the poem “Second Coming” (1919) by William B. Yeats, fear the center won’t hold and that the country is slouching toward anarchy. But for the prospect of voting Trump out of office in November, they may have a point. Here are the first lines of “Second Coming”:

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world 

Republican Senator from South Carolina Tim Scott, an African American, appeared on the Sunday talk shows to tout a bipartisan legislative proposal for police reforms regarding the use of choke holds, no-knock procedures, and compiling a record of complaints against individual.  When Scott described to fellow Republican legislators how he’d been stopped and hassled numerous times by cops, including after he’d become a member of Congress, they supposedly were shocked and mortified.  While I doubt that anything meaningful will come from Scott’s efforts, given Trump’s intransigence to any gesture of compromise, Republicans are clearly worried about a possible election debacle.

 On Flag Day historian Ray Boomhower quoted Norman Thomas: “If you want a symbolic gesture, don’t burn the flag; wash it.” The flag Trump seems most eager to defend lately is the Confederate Battle flag.  In fact, when NASCAR announced that Confederate flags were not welcome at its events, he ridiculed the decision-makers. 

Former Valparaiso University History professor Heath Carter, now at Princeton
Theological Seminary, has made available on Facebook a lecture series he’s
giving at Nassau Presbyterian Church on the church during times of crisis. Introducing
himself, Carter noted that the series will offer both comfort and cautionary
tales. The initial one dealt with racism during a time of epidemic - the 1793
yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia, founded by Quaker William Penn as the
“City of Brotherly Love” and then the nation’s capital and largest city. Noted
doctor Benjamin Rush, believing African Americans to be immune to the disease,
convinced many free blacks to nurse the sick with dire consequences. Not only did
many perish, others were unfairly blamed for thefts and for spreading the disease.
After the terror abated, members of St. George’s Church, heretofore integrated,
voted to restrict blacks to the balcony. When Richard Allen refused to obey the edict and was forcibly removed, the other black members walked out and subsequently founded Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church, which is still in existence. Meanwhile, at Valparaiso religious leaders and many others of good will participated in a peaceful vigil and later a die-in to honor and mourn the black victims of police violence.

photo by Allison Schuette

Liam off camera

Sampter in sports jacket

Alissa visited overnight, and James celebrated his twentieth birthday with friends Andrew, Nate, and Liam. Dave got them to go on Facebook and sing Smash Mouth’s “All Star” (You’re an all star, Get your game on”). Janet Bayer found a1990 photo her
friend Anita took of a Going Away party for the Bayers upon their move to Vermont. I’m wearing a blue vest and tie and except for the nerdy glasses was looking quite dapper but, I wrote Janet, not as dapper as Al Sampter, mentor to my mentor, Mike Bayer.

Eleanor Bailey wrote:

    On This Day-June 15, 1943 -77 years ago. The town of Sumava Resorts in Newton County Indiana had been flooded for several days. (May-June flood Kankakee River 1943). We lived on the first road to the left. Mother was expecting her third child and our family was staying temporarily at the home of Dr. Raymond Merchant, who made house calls and had his office in his basement, in Lake Village. My brother Bill was born at Gary Methodist Hospital on June 15. I remember being in the car and crossing the railroad tracks at entrance to Sumava. There was a sign
that read 15 miles an hour to avoid dust. The flood waters were half-way up on
the sign post. R.I.P. Bill Bailey (1943-2014).

I was tempted to respond with the song title, “Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home?” but feared it would be taken the wrong way.  I befriended Eleanor Bailey thinking she was a high school classmate, but she knows mutual friend Kay Westhues – so I don’t know Eleanor very well.

Anne Koehler wrote about growing up in Germany with two brothers and a sister on a farm in Damendorf, northern Germany, less than a two-hour drive from the Danish border.

    The farm was medium sized with a variety of crops and animals. We grew wheat, barley, rye, potatoes, sugar and regular beets, flax, alfalfa. There were horses, about 25 milk cows, turkeys, ducks,laying hens and pigs. We were located in an end moraine.  Rocks and stones would surface every year and had to be picked off the fields. They were crushed and used for roads.- Our little pond in back of the garden had diving boards in three heights. This is where the children from the whole village would gather for a swim. We had to share it with calves and pigs, which did not bother us in the least. Great times until one day a boy drowned. A trained diver found him, but he could not be revived. It was a sad experience. - The low fields behind the farm would flood and freeze over in winter, making a splendid skating surface. The older boys would play ice hockey, we would skate or be be pulled on sleds. We also had a chair-like sled, -- In those days we did not own a milking machine. A hired man was singly in charge of milking the cows. Occasionally he got days off. So on Easter 1955. We had to help with the chores. I had gone to a party in the village tavern the night before and was hung over. While milking the cow Undine, my visiting cousin Hermann from southern Germany decided to take a photo. He captioned it: The city dweller says: oh that's where the milk comes from. The cow looks really good. It is a Holstein!!!