Life Cycles

“You’ll know what you had when it’s gone

The only thing left of what used to be is you

I saw the world

You saw my parents grow old”

    Cam, “Redwood Tree

“The Beekeepers” by Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel (1525?-1569), who often depicted peasant life, contains workers whose protective gear is suggestive of our present plight during the pandemic.

 

Toni and I spent the weekend in Grand Rapids, Michigan, our first such trip in months, to celebrate the birthdays of granddaughter Miranda and daughter-in-law Beth.  At a rest stop we were in the majority of those wearing masks.  We arrived at Josh and Alissa’s, where we were spending the night, and exchanged hugs with faces turned away but no kisses. I had generous amounts of Beth’s guacamole before we headed to Miranda and Will’s place for an outdoor party. I enjoyed watching badminton games, only slightly envious that my rotator cuff forced me on the sidelines.  All four of Phil’s kids are doing great and traded stories about each other’s old flames and other memories. Tori helped me change my Facebook profile photo, first time ever, and said she hoped to attend grad school in North Carolina.

 

The following morning Alissa made pierogis and Josh put on albums of Brazilian, Japanese, and Portuguese musicians.  Nice.  Phil and Delia arrived, and Delia trimmed Toni’s hair and my eyebrows and ear hair.  I mentioned starting marriage in Hawaii, where Josh and Alissa honeymooned, and Josh noted that his parents lived there for three years while his dad was in the navy.  Then he worked at a naval base near Saginaw, Michigan, located on Lake Huron and not far from where two dams recently gave way, causing massive flooding in the Midland community.  Josh’s uncle had recently purchased a lakeside retirement home. First the floodwaters reached his house; then the next day the lake had disappeared, leaving only a mucky mess.

John Attinasi informed me that 90-year-old jazz trumpeter Arthur Hoyle, whom I interviewed not long ago, passed away.  The obit stated:

    Arthur received his first trumpet on his eighth birthday in rural Oklahoma. He moved to Gary, Indiana with his Mother at age 13. He began playing in local clubs and ballrooms at the age of 15. Arthur's excellence as a jazz trumpeter earned worldwide admiration. After a four-year stint in the U.S. Air Force, Arthur joined the Sun Ra Arkestra. He next worked with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, touring the United States, Canada, Europe and North Africa. Arthur's music career included the Art Hoyle Quintet and studio work as both a voiceover talent and musician on TV, radio, commercials and movie sound tracts. He has worked with some of the greatest musicians of our time including Lee Konitz, Gene Ammons, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Woody Herman, Billy Eckstine, Frank Sinatra and many others.

 

I watched the 1998 Spike Lee film “He Got Game” for the first time.  It was unnerving seeing Denzel Washington play a flawed character whose hot temper results in the death of his wife.  Ray Allen, now retired after a long NBA career, shined in the role of his estranged son. Wrote critic Roger Ebert:

     Spike Lee brings the spirit of a poet to his films about everyday reality. "He Got Game," the story of the pressures on the nation's best high school basketball player, could have been a gritty docudrama, but it's really more of a heartbreaker, about a father and his son.  Lee uses visual imagination to lift his material into the realms of hopes and dreams. Consider his opening sequence, where he wants to establish the power of basketball as a sport and an obsession. He could have given us a montage of hot NBA action, but no: He uses the music of Aaron Copland to score a series of scenes in which American kids--boys, girls, rich, poor, black, white, in school and on playgrounds--play the game. All it needs is a ball and a hoop; compared to this simplicity.  Jerry Seinfeld observes, when we attend other sports we're cheering laundry.

 

Louise Erdrich

Historian Ray Boomhower often posts quotations by those whose birth date it is, such as this advice from baseball great Satchel Paige: “Don’t look back – something may be gaining on you.”  Boomhower repeated these words by prolific author Louise Erdrich: “Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”

from left, Dorothee, Anne, Lynn

This from Anne Koehler: “Upon popular request here is another part of my life story. I had just turned 41 in early 1975 and was working as store manager for Jacobsen's Office Supply in Portage, Indiana, when I noticed a lump on the lower part of my stomach. Concerned that it might be a tumor, I went to see the company doctor, located in the downtown Gary Hotel. After checking my vitals, the doctor put his stethoscope on my stomach, looked at me and said, “I hear a heartbeat.” This came as a total surprise and I could not believe it. I was in my fifth month of pregnancy. I was happy. When I went downstairs to go home with my husband he had already left, evidently thinking that it had taken too long. The suspected tumor Linda was born August 25, a beautiful and healthy girl. She is 43 years old now and the joy of my life.”

 

 

Times photo by Marc Chase

NWI Times correspondent Lauren Cross interviewed 16-year veteran Hobart police officer Monte White, an African-American husband and father of five, whom a few Black Lives matter protestors thoughtlessly called an “Uncle Tom.”  In tears an Hispanic woman said she was demonstrating for him and his kids and asks if he didn’t worry about them.  White remained silent but told Cross: “I wanted to talk to her and say, ‘Hey look, I am a black father.  I have kids.  And I do worry about them coming home.’ If I ever have the chance to see her again, I would tell her I appreciate the things she had to say.”  White grew up in Gary and had encounters with police, some of which did not go well.  He told Cross, “I never thought I’d be in this type of situation, standing in the front lines of a protest in regards to how police treat black people and other minorities.”

 

Republican Mitt Romney marched in a protest rally and, asked why, said, “Black Lives Matter.”  Critics are rightly pointing out Trump’s long history of racist antipathy to his predecessor, but he was far from a lone voice among Republicans, who commonly accentuated Obama’s middle name, Hussein, ridiculed his having been a community organizer, and questioned the color of his suits, the absence initially of a flag on his lapel, and even his fist-bumping the First Lady.

East Chicago Central grad Guy Rhodes attended the pandemic commencement and posted this photo and caption: “East Chicago Central High School senior class sponsor David Lane enjoys his golf cart as students participate in a dcrive through graduation ceremony held at the school in East Chicago, Ind., Sunday, June 7, 2020. The ceremony, normally held in the school's gymnasium, was held outdoors to encourage social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Old Mill

John Constable, "Parham Mill, Gillingham," circa 1823

“The sound of water escaping from mill dams, etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things.” English landscape artist John Constable
Old Mill in 1936 and  2007 (by Samuel Love)

From Samuel A. Love:“Farewell Old Mill, 1851-2018. More Merrillville landmarks disappearing. Originally a distillery, then a grist mill, a tavern, a restaurant, a dance hall, a school, a candy store, and finally a pizzeria. We rarely dined here, we were Palace Pizza devotees, but I remember being fascinated with the little rapids of Turkey Creek ‘roaring’ under the deck.”

I am disappointed in Merrillville’s leaders for not bothering to save historic Old Mill, located at 73rd and Madison and boarded up since 2010.  73rd Avenue has roots dating back to the Sauk Trail, used first by Native Americans and then by settlers traveling west.  Once, Potawatomi tribes gathered in a nearby clearing for religious ceremonies. A century ago, the road was paved and became part of Lincoln Highway.  Merrillville went through several name changes once the Potawatomi were forcibly removed: McGwinn Village, Wiggins Point, Centerville, Merrillville, and Ross Township, prior to Merrillville becoming a town in 1971 out of fear of annexation by Gary.

At lunch with Mike Olszanski and Chris Young at Little Redhawk Café.  I mentioned Young’s article about the infamous 1979 “Disco Demolition Night” at White Sox Park organized by WLUP’s “shock jock” Steve Dahl, when a crate of disco records was blown up between games of a twi-night doubleheader as the crowd chanted “Disco Sucks,” then stormed the field, causing game 2 to be forfeited.  Chris noted that, his area of specialty being early American history, it was the only time he made use of oral interviews for a scholarly publication. Library assistant Clyde Robinson walked by; I finally addressed him by his correct name after calling him Wayne for months and, before that, Rob a couple times. Once, I called Bettie Wilson, whom I see every day, Barbara.

. Laura Jones wedding picture with husband and parents, 1938

Steve McShane collected materials for the Archives at boarded up Wirt/Emerson School and from Miller centenarian Laura Jones, whom Judy Ayers frequently takes to lunch.  Steve suggested I interview her.  She’s evidently hard of hearing but still sharp mentally.  In an Ayers Realtors Newslettercolumn Judy Ayers wrote about trick-or-treating in Miller:

   I can still remember the best houses to go to on Halloween. Clarice and George Wilson on Henry Street always handed out Hershey Bars. Snack size or miniature candy bars hadn’t been invented yet so you got a full-sized Hershey Bar. Then there was Mrs. Teiche on the corner of Hancock and 3rd Avenue, who spoke with a heavy accent and always wore grandma dresses and thick stockings. A kid would stand on her porch and wait for what seemed like forever for her to reach down in a big burlap bag and bring out one apple at a time and drop it in their trick or treat bag. She was a nice old lady; but once we figured out time spent wasn’t relative to end result, we often bypassed Mrs. Teiche’s house. 

  Sometimes I’d skip math teacher Mrs. Hokanson’s house, too. She’d put kids through their paces. She’d conduct a little question and answer session with each kid before she’d relinquish one of her popcorn balls. She could make up a story problem about 7 little ghosts and 43 Tootsie Rolls and darn near ruin a kid’s Halloween by making them do math. 

    Then there was the Erlandson house. If Mrs. Erlandson knew you were a neighborhood kid, you got invited onto her porch for donut holes and hot apple cider. Moms and Dads on escort duty always liked this stop but a kid could waste a lot of valuable trick or treating time there. Mrs. Erlandson always had to get a good look at everyone’s costume even if it was cold and rainy and you were all bundled up in your winter coat. Mrs. Erlandson didn’t hear very well either and the year I borrowed one of Mrs. Ellman’s white poodles and dressed as Little Bo Peep, Mrs. Erlandson thought I said I was wearing something old and cheap. She told me “Oh, honey, it’s only Halloween – you look just fine. Isn’t that Mrs. Ellman’s poodle?” 

    These days Mrs. Teiche would have to pull something other than apples out of her bag on Halloween lest she be suspected of wrongdoing. Gene and I both have to be careful to not carry on too much about how cute the Spiderman and Little Mermaids look when we answer the door. We’ve learned from experience. Growing up in the same neighborhood, we have vowed to never come to the door dressed in costumes ourselves because we can still remember the Halloween Evelyn Mosegard came to the door dressed like the tooth fairy and we never did figure out what husband Elmer was wearing in the background. Maybe it’s best for our little kid psyches we didn’t know. 

    We also know to move quickly. Forget trying to give little goblins lessons in manners by trying to coax them into saying “thank you.” One year I forgot to tell Mrs. Lindstrom thank you and she kept saying “Now, what do you say when a nice lady gives you trick or treat candy”and I’d say back to her “Trick or Treat?”Then she kind of got a tone in her voice when she asked me the same question again. This time I said, “Happy Halloween?”while other trick or treaters were stacking up behind me. The crowd was getting rowdy and I was about to take my tiara and dig down in my trick or treat bag to retrieve the piece of petrified bubble gum I was jumping through hoops for when she gave up on me. It wasn’t a pretty sight. I nearly lost my princess composure. Being dressed for a northeaster to blow through the area at any given moment, I had perspiration on my upper lip and still had to turn around and make my way through the raging crowd of my peers. 

    Gene and I pretty much adhere to the Clarice and George Wilson theory of candy giving. We keep the porch light on, come to the door in respectable garb, distribute treats in an orderly and time efficient manner, remembering good trick or treat candy makes good leftovers. Hopefully, that’s how kids in our neighborhood will remember us – the place where you can get hassle free, express treats – not the home of Zena, Princess Warrior and Dr. Spock. 

At bowling Mel Nelson asked if we had many Halloweeners. Living in Gary’s Glen Ryan subdivision, he saw almost none. So many folks showed up at the condo that Toni feared we might run out of candy, though not James and Becca, unfortunately (James had play practice, and Becca couldn’t talk her friends into going out). I bowled miserably for 26 frames, then converted three straight spares and turkeyed in the tenth, as the Engineers won two out of three games and series to remain in first place. Afterwards, Dick Maloney reminded me of the time at Cressmoor Lanes when an opponent ended with three strikes, then collapsed and died.  Too bad it didn’t happen a frame earlier, I quipped, tastelessly.  At the time it wasn’t funny.  I saw him keel over.  Terry Kegebein returned from a three-week road trip to California.  On an icy road in the Colorado Rockies, he witnessed some idiot driver losing control of his vehicle and almost going over a cliff. As it was, he careened off both the retaining wall and the mountain, messing up both sides of his car.

Working on a NY TimesSunday puzzle, Toni inquired if I knew the rhyming nickname of a Cardinal great.  Easy: Stan “The Man” Musial, best natural hitter I ever saw, save for Red Sox Ted Williams, also a lefty.

At Gary Genesis Center people were lined up around the block for tickets to see Barack Obama Sunday campaigning for Senator Joe Donnelly, Congressman Pete Visclosky, and other Democrats.  Earlier, the former President stumped for Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, as did Oprah Winfrey. Her opponent is a disgusting bigot who, as Secretary of State, is actively seeking to disenfranchise thousands of black voters.  Tom Wade snagged two tickets in Valpo, and Darcey is hoping to get in with a bottle of water and in a wheelchair.  She wrote: “It will be great, but I dread the standing in line and sitting on hard chairs, ouchie. Will try to take in a bottle of water, specifically not allowed, heavy security, metal detectors. When they try to confiscate my bottle of water I will play the cancer survivor card hard, doubt it will work. Rules are rules.”

Our out of control president now claims he can nullify the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of citizenship to those born in the United States by executive order.  Ray Smock wrote:

  He is anti-immigration unless the immigrant is white. That’s clear all right, clearly racist and xenophobic. We have been having a discussion about what it means to be an American for more than three centuries. Our literature and histories are filled with this discussion. The best elements of the American “creed” tend toward openness, diversity, tolerance, acceptance, and the “melting pot theory.” But we have never really melted even as peoples from many lands assimilated. Over the next century the issues of migration worldwide will have a vast impact on all nations. We will see vast movements of human populations fleeing from the ravages of climate change. There will be internal migrations in the US and other nations not unlike the Dust Bowl migrations of the 1930s. Wars will be fought over water and arable land. Trump style dictators and fascism are already on the rise. And in 100 years there will be another 4 to 5 billion people fighting over a rapidly changing planet that will be far less salubrious than it is now. Where shall this discussion begin? I won’t be around to see this. But I see all the moving parts lining up as I write this.

  

Prior to our book signing at Lake Street Gallery, Ron Cohen and I met at Miller Bakery with Toni, Nancy, Councilwoman Rebecca Wyatt, and Ken Schoon, who also has a new book out on Swedes settlers in Northwest Indiana.  Harry and Maryanita Porterfield were eating nearby and the Lowes and Gallmeiers were in the bar area waiting to be seated. Despite Lake Street being torn up and a competing Temple Israel service to honor Pittsburgh shooting victims, we sold more than a dozen copies of “Gary: a Pictorial History” and Schoon did almost as well.  Cindy C. “Cupcake” Bean showed up for a free copy since we used her photo, taken from Marquette Park, of Lake Michigan with steel mills in the background.   

John Attinasi, formerly an IUN  Education Professor, came by on his way to Temple Israel and told me that legendary jazz musician Art Hoyle from Gary recently celebrated his  89th birthday.  I’m hoping to interview him about nightclubs where the horn player performed. Hoyle was attending Roosevelt High School when Frank Sinatra performed at Memorial Auditorium during then Froebel School Strike. A session player at Chess records he became a fixture at Chicago’s Regal Theater beginning during the early 1960s. Seven years ago, he told an interviewer about going on a 1960-61 tour with Bo Diddley, Lloyd Price, and Vee-Jay Records artist Jimmy Reed:

  We did 67 one-nighters from New York to Los Angeles and back. Two busloads of people. We wound up in the 369th Armory in Harlem. It was supposed to accommodate 1,800 people and they had over 3,000 in there. Big Joe Turner was on that bill and he was singing let it roll like a big wheel. A girl was trying to marry one of the guys in the band got up on a table and started shaking. A guy in the balcony threw a bottle. It landed in front of the piano that was being played by (organ player) Big John Patton. The lead alto player turned around as the bottle broke. It hit him and blood streamed down. Fights broke out. And Joe is still singing. The fire department turned on hoses. Bo Diddley's drummer and I rescued this pregnant woman who was about to be trampled. We pulled her up on the bandstand with us.

Art Hoyle, Gary jazzman

Memorial Day Weekend

“Peace is the only battle worth waging.” Albert Camus

Most Memorial Day newspaper articles were not memorable, but, as always, the Post-Trib’s David Rutter offered up food for thought.  His column began: “We Americans burden ourselves with a new war every decade or so in a rolling litany that extends back more or less uninterrupted for 250 years.  For a self-defined peace-loving nation, we sure kill a lot of people. The total of our soldiers who have died will hit 1.5 million sometime this spring.  We may have killed roughly 10 million enemies deliberately in our wars and vast millions more by accident. We can assume that not all of them had it coming to them.”  Our leaders, Rutter wrote, have: “shown a predisposition to attack people with dark skin (Vietnam, Korea, Mexico, Cuba, Barbary pirates and 30 or so major Native American tribes who would not give up their rights unless we shot them first).”

Historian John F. Hogan has a new book out about the Memorial Day Massacre at Republic Steel entitled “The 1937 Chicago Steel Strike.”  He quotes organizer George Patterson as recalling: “The police told us to disperse or else.  We refused, and the next thing we knew, our heads were being clubbed.”  At least ten demonstrators died, including Sam Popovich, Earl Handley, Ken Reed, Hilding Anderson, Anthony Tagliori, Lee Tisdale, Otis Jones, Leo Francisco, Alfred Causey, and Joseph Rothmund.

The Post-Trib’s sports historian John Mutka profiled 73 year-old Tolleston grad Eliot Uzelac, whose football coaching career spanned 47 years at the high school and college level.  His last stint was with St. Joseph’s in Michigan, which had suffered through two winless seasons before he turned the program around with records of 6-5, 10-1, and 10-1.  The team won two regionals but, in his words, “could never get past Grand Rapids.”

 Variety show raised $525 for Porter Co. Animal Shelter

Soon after we bade good-bye to Seattle Joe, Phil’s family arrived for a crab feast.  He and Dave had three-dozen Maryland blue points flown in from the East Coast.  Beforehand, we attended a variety show at Chesterton’s 4th Street Theater entitled “Kids Power Goes to Hollywood.”  James and Rebecca were in several scenes and did an Abbott and Costello routine together.  Becca excelled at a song and tap dance number, and James was a riot as a game show host.

Everyone liked the crabs although Angie thought some of the innards gross.  Some claws were dry, but, all things considered, it was a great success and reminded me of grad school get togethers with the Smocks, Rumbles, and Burtons, where Toni would eat all of us under the table.  We introduced family members to steamers in Cape May, New Jersey, a decade ago.

In Texas Hold ‘em tournament.  I finished third, out of the money, to Dave and Alissa.  I don’t usually remember dreams but woke up after replaying one of the hands over and over; as often is the case in dreams, the details were rather skewed.  When Toni and I first moved to Indiana, we played duplicate bridge several times at Temple Israel and had trouble sleeping afterwards.

I watched “Midnight Cowboy” for the first time in 40 years.  The beginning was great, as we get a glimpse of the small town Joe Buck (Jon Voight) is leaving behind, but once the scene switches to New York, the movie gets very depressing.  Voight preens in front of a mirror and zips the fly on his pants almost exactly like John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever.”  Joe Buck’s favorite hustling line: “I ain’t a f’real cowboy.  But I am one helluva stud.”  I loved the crestfallen look on Buck’s face when Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) tells him his cowboy outfit makes him look like a fag.  Ironically, desperate for money, he ends up offering stud services to men.

In 1894 Hoosier Republican James Watson won his first Congressional election by being able to deliver speeches in German.  His memoir “As I Knew Them” included an interesting anecdote about Maine Congressman “Czar” Thomas Brackett Reed, Speaker of the House for most of the 1890s.  Reed changed the quorum rules to prevent opposition Democrats from employing a favorite delaying tactic.  One pompous colleague from Illinois, William M. Springer, ended a long, boring speech by declaring, “Like the great Commoner from Kentucky, Henry Clay, I would rather be right than be president.”  Eyewitness Watson recalled: “Mr. Reed, standing close by, drawled out through his nose in real Yankee fashion, so that the entire House could easily hear: ‘The gentleman from Illinois need not be alarmed.  He will never be either.’”

Former House historian Ray Smock remarked: “Reed is one of the most interesting Speakers and a colorful character all around. My favorite quotation of his is what he said of two members of the Democratic Party in the House: ‘They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum total of human knowledge.’”  Ray mentioned reading obituaries for Herb Jeffries, who died at age 100.  Nicknamed the “Bronze Buckaroo,” he played a singing cowboy similar to Gene Autry in so-called B-movies made for black audiences.  Biracial, Jeffries darkened his skin with make-up in order to pursue his career in movies and jazz.

Miranda selfie with Toni, Tori, Alissa, Stephanie, Jimbo, and Phil

Sunday I did laundry, including many, many towels, while Josh, Alissa, Miranda, and Tori went to the beach.  The others saw “Godzilla” and gave it enthusiastic reviews.  Alissa’s freshman roommate Stephanie Stephens visited from Chicago and noted approvingly the Michigan State t-shirt I was wearing.  I asked if anyone had told her she looked like Meg Ryan; she answered, “Drew Barrymore, it’s my mouth.”  She’s getting married twice, the second time in Brazil for the benefit of her fiancé Philippe’s family.  Stephanie told stories about when she and Alissa lived in a house with three others.  One Halloween they started drinking, fell asleep, and missed their own party.  I remember Dave’s old friends swapping stories of wild times during their youth that they would never dared to let parents know about at the time.

Miranda spent a couple extra days with us, but the others had Memorial Day plans.  Monday we drove to Granger, a suburb of South Bend, to see nieces Lisa and Michelle and their families, plus Seattle Joe, on the last leg of his trip.  He’s anxious to be back in Seattle. Nobody commented on my t-shirt from French Lick, where I took Joe, Tom, Michelle, Sophia, and Nickolas three years ago.

David Goldfield was pleased that my latest Shavings mentioned our “Golden Oldie” “The Enduring Ghetto.”  He recently spent 10 days in China “doing programs for the State department on ‘Green Cities,’ of which there aren’t any in that country.”  In the Preface to “The Enduring Ghetto” we wrote: “Any flash of brilliance in thought or prose in our introductory essay is probably due to the careful and expert guidance of our mentors and friends Dr. George H. Callcott and Dr. Horace Samuel Merrill.”  Callcott was so brilliant a lecturer that people not registered would attend his class.  I couldn’t have completed my PhD in four years if it wasn’t for Sam, and during the subsequent year jobs for history professors completely dried up.

Ron Cohen loves to tell me about parties in Miller to which I was not invited.  He learned that after Amanda Board got my magazine snatched away from her at commencement, she complained to Women’s Studies chair Tanice Foltz and to the Chancellor himself.  Good for her!  Anne Balay returned from Toronto, Canada, where she took part in the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, and plans to bring daughter Leah to Miller Bakery Café tomorrow to meet Miranda and me.

At Sharon Lowe’s party was jazz legend Art Hoyle, who played the trumpet in Lionel Hampton’s orchestra and recorded with scores of vocalists, including Sarah Vaughn, Lena Horne, Tony Bennett, and Peggy Lee.  He and his mother moved to Gary from Oklahoma in 1943 when he was 13.  Hoyle told Chicago Jazz Magazine: “She he had a brother whose wife had just passed. He was one of Gary’s most prominent doctors, who held the record for the most babies delivered in one year—305—almost one a day! She told him that she was having a tough time disciplining me, and he said if we moved to Gary there would be good schools and all that.”  At Roosevelt the band director, Ernest Bennett, was also a trumpet player and influenced Hoyle greatly.  I’m pretty sure I met Hoyle years ago at John and Lillian Attanasi’s house.

IUN’s cafeteria is serving great custom-made salads, but the place was practically deserted due to the crazy class times and the growing number of online courses.   I said good-bye to Dorothy Greer and Diane Robinson, Arts and Sciences office mainstays for as long as I can remember, who are both retiring.  They’ll be missed.