Afternoon Delight

“There are few hours more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea,” Henry James

The lyrics of Starlight Vocal Band’s hit “Afternoon Delight” – i.e., “My motto’s always been; when it’s right, it’s right, why wait until the middle of a cold dark night” - make it clear that the delightful activity is sexual.  Nineteenth century Anglophile Henry James may have enjoyed sipping tea, but the American “Happy Hour” means good cheer and alcoholic beverages at reduced prices.  In Portrait of a Lady Henry James, using language that seems erotic, describes the charming Lord Warburton paying an afternoon visit to Isabel: “His smile was peculiarly friendly and pleasing, and his whole person seemed to emit the radiance of good feeling and good fare which had formed the charm of the girl’s first impression of him.  It surrounded him like a zone of fine June weather.”  Delightful.

In the final Gender Studies class of the semester Anne Balay asked if society should try to cure autistic or obese folks and if these were analogous to efforts in the past to “de-program” gay people.  Most students initially thought yes to the first, but Anne’s daughter Leah argued that while we should strive to help those with autism, it should not be at the cost of destroying their personality or treating them as pariahs.  One reading was about the “fat acceptance movement” and the National Association to Aid Fat Americans.  While the class agreed that fat people should not be stigmatized, most endorsed exercise, eating healthy, and intructing young people about proper dietary habits.  While racist and sexist jokes have become less acceptable, comedians still delight in making fun of fat people.  At Smith College, which Leah attends, the most frequently heard expression, according to an oft-repeated joke, is, “That’s not funny!”  The classroom went silent when Anne told everyone to read a new article.  As an experiment, I was tempted to see who would laugh if I said tastelessly, “I can’t believe a dozen women can keep quiet for five minutes.”  Discretion being the better part of valor, I censored myself.

Several women thanked me for adding a male presence to the class.  As a parting gesture, I gave away copies of my pink Shavings issue (volume 41) with Anne and Leah Balay in a Gary Gay Rights parade on the cover.  I showed them them copies of the full-page Post-Trib story about Anne from the day before and stated that her being denied tenure was an absolute travesty.  After class, with Anne and Leah at Abuelo’s, I ordered fajitas, beans, and potatoes (delightful and enough for me to take half home) and an 18-ounce Dos Equis on draft.  A Math whiz, Leah recently completed an internship in Wisconsin and this weekend will leave for Budapest for a semester abroad.  Sister Emma is in St. Louis for a job interview.

 Leah, Anne, and Emma at "Avengers" convention

Friday’s Post-Trib contained this “Quickly” comment: “I hope Professor Balay’s book becomes a best seller so IU Northwest regrets letting her go.  As one of her former students, she is one of the best English teachers IUN has.”  On Facebook Anne wrote: “I got the most emotional, genuine email from a student yesterday about what it feels like to see me on campus, and talk to me, and get support. What I want to know is: WHY DO THOSE VOICES NOT MATTER??? WHY ARE ONLY SOME PEOPLE"S LIVES VALUED??? That is what makes me angry about all of this. The very few students who are threatened by me are catered to, while the many who find me enlightening, and the few who find me quite literally a lifeline, don't count. Well, let me just say: even if you are silent and scared, you belong in college, and you deserve kindness.” 

All summer Anne was a trooper, giving her students, who had genuine affection for her and vice versa, her best effort, even coming to school on a day daughter Emma was having an operation in Chicago.  The main rap against Anne: she teaches to an “agenda,” code word for being an openly lesbian feminist. How is that different, I wonder, from a Keynsian economist, an existential philosopher, or a Jungian psychology professor or a deconstructionist in the English department?  Kimberly Ann Watta commented to Anne’s post: “Now that I have moved back to the area Anne, I was thinking of coming back to IUN to finish my lit degree, but because of you being let go, I say HELL NO, I'll go somewhere else to finish it. You helped me more than you can imagine and made a tremendous impact on my life.”

Times columnist Doug Ross questioned the fairness of sentencing former Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., to just 30 months behind bars for stealing $750,000 while Hammond Councilman Al Salinas got 42 months for accepting a $10,500 bribe.  Unsympathetic to either, Ross bode both, “Good riddance!”  I am less judgmental, reserving my scorn for the corporate tycoons who buy and sell their political pawns.  Sadly, Jackson’s apparently inherited love of luxury items such as watches and suits led him astray.  Salinas bought into a political culture that countenanced kickbacks from those receiving city contracts.  Smart politicians know how to turn such practices into “honest graft” in the form of billable hours or cushy consultantships.

In Harper’s, Nicholson Baker’s “Wrong Answer: The Case against Algebra II,” compares the widely hated Common Core subject (used to judge students and schools) to ancient Greek, once believed vital to a decent education.  “Useless torture,” Coleman Mccarthy termed it, yet Algebra II is an integral part of Obama’s Race to the Top and, before that, Bush’s No Child Left Behind.  Students need master, as Baker puts it, “square-rooted, polynomialed, horseradish clumps of mute symbology.  The homework is unrelenting, the algorithms get longer and trickier, the quizzes keep coming.  Sooner or later, many of them hit the wall.”  Here’s what Math teacher and engineer Arthur Dean wrote in 1930 about making Algebra a requirement rather than an elective:  “I cannot see that algebra contributes one iota to a young person’s health or one grain of inspiration to his spirit.”  How tragic that Math deficiency keeps students out of college or grad school.  A former marine and “A” student of mine, Charles Mubarak, received a C- in a required IUN Math course, which prevented from graduating.  True story.  I personally appealed in vain to the Math t chair.  Charles should have come to remedial study sessions, she argued, even though he had a full-time job.  Did he really need to understand polynomials to do well in law school.  We’ll never know.

My Algebra II teacher in eleventh grad, Mr. Lewis, sucked; when twelfth grade trigonometry teacher Mr. Taddei, who had taught us “A” section students the four years previously, realized we had learned nothing from “Louie,” I thought he was going to cry.

Retired geologist Mark Reshkin, working on his memoirs, was in the Archives seeking information about former Congressman Ray J. Madden.  He passed on a couple anecdotes about Madden securing passage of the legislation establishing the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore as a federal park.  In one case he promised a colleague a desired earmark.  Madden was an ardent New Dealer who served in the House of Representatives for 34 years, beginning in 1943, the last four as Chair of the powerful Rules Committee.  Adam Benjamin defeated him in the 1976 Democratic primary.

above, Bart Letica, third from left

Bart Letica sent along more WW II photos of his ordnance crew on Tinian Island in the Pacific, including one depicting an airplane nicknamed “lady Be Good” with an image of a woman in bra and panties spreading her legs for the cause.  Boys will be boys in wartime in the South Pacific, or as the song goes, “There is Nothing Like a Dame.”

Miranda at West Beach with Jimbo and Jackie

Three welcome houseguests arrived, granddaughter Miranda from Michigan and 22 year-old niece Jackie and boyfriend Rob from Jersey.  Toni ordered carry-out from Applebee’s and we stayed up talking till 10:30 (11:30 East Coast time).  Friday I took them to West Beach, where a bride and groom were having pictures taken and a guy put a blanket over a hole he dug in the sand topped with crackers for seagulls.  They were smart enough to suspect a trap and walked around the edges before one landed, scooped up a bite and flapped its wings to prevent descending into the hole.  It was a delightful afternoon.  We stopped at Dirty Dog for ice cream cones before arriving home.  Dave’s family joined us for Chinese food, and I played Uno and ate a couple of Miranda’s just baked chocolate chip cookies before calling it a day.

In Battle

“Battle reduces men to animals, so easy to begin and yet impossible to end,” Ken Hensley, from Uriah Heep’s “Lady in Black”

In the New York Times Sunday puzzle, I knew the answers for Hayworth (Rita) and Uriah (Heep), but Toni already had filled them in.  The latter, a character in Charles Dickens’s “David Copperfield,” was an insincere manipulator. In his LBJ biography, Robert Caro called the thirty-sixth president a Uriah Heep.  The British band of that name was one of Seventies heavy metal’s “Big Four,” along with Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple. (photo of Rudy Clay by Sam Barnett)

Former Gary mayor Rudy Clay lost his battle with prostate cancer at age 77.  Dapper, health conscious, and known for mutton-chop sideburns and beginning his speeches by thanking “The Lord, Jesus Christ,” he personified Lake County politics and held multiple offices after losing his first election because opponents managed to put a Ralph Clay on the ballot to syphon votes away from him.  Reverend Jesse Jackson eulogized him as “smiling, styling, and profiling.”  While most of his plans for the city – a downtown plaza to replace the Sheraton, a land-based casino, a Michael Jackson theme park -  never came to fruition, Clay was an optimist and true Gary booster.  I sat next to Rudy at an event honoring Richard Hatcher, and all he ate were vegetables and salad.

In the latest “Game of Thrones” Daario Naharis, Jorah Mormont, and the Grey Worm helped Daenerys capture the city of Yunkai.  Unexpectedly a horrific massacre killed off three main characters.  Tom Wade, who has read the books, warned that there’d be episodes like this, and the title “Red Wedding” should have been the tip-off.  “Mad Men” took place at the time of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, and several characters watched the “Battle of Michigan Avenue, with the women and young men more horrified than Don or his corporate clients.

I waited 15 minutes outside a Bureau of Motor Vehicles facility before the 1999 Corolla passed the state emissions test.  Only Northwest Indiana is subjected to the procedure, even though most Region pollution emanates from heavy industry or trucks passing through on interstates.  The procedure used to be more onerous, taking up to an hour and requiring drivers to keep their right foot steady of the gas pedal for about a minute.  We’ve never had any trouble with Toyotas, but a Plymouth we bought used never could pass.  Fortunately, an option was having at least $50 of work done; if the reading improved the second time, the car passed.  After American Motors recalled our year and model for a certain defect, the Plymouth got through the inspection successfully.

In Traces C. Matthew Balensuela, writing about big bands at Indianapolis’ Indiana Roof Ballroom, uses as his primary document a “Jazz Door.”  Two Indiana Theatre backstage workers, John Young and Tom Kelly, complied a list of performances on a storage room door, including a rating system going from zero to four stars.  Balensuela focuses on a 1934 “Biblical Battle of the Bands” between Joe Cappo and his Egyptian Serenaders and the “Israelite” House of David Band, consisting of bearded musicians from a Benton Harbor religious cult. Angry at manager Thomas J. Devine for booking novelty acts, including a robot and fan dancer Sally Rand, Young and Kelly wrote “plain chicken-shit” next to the House of David band while awarding Cappo’s group three stars.

Bart Letica sent the Archives more photos from when he was stationed in China during WW II.  In one, dated January 1945, a Chinese boy is standing on a bomb cluster in need of repair (Bart’s job) wearing a head cover made from dog skin.  Herb Read gave the Archives a copy of a book about his parents prepared by Pia Lopez, entitled “Philo and Irene Read: A Partnership in Life and Dunes Preservation.” A dunes lover since 1907 and an officer in Chicago’s Prairie Club, Philo worked toward the establishment of Dunes State Park as well as a national park.   Both were charter members of the Porter County chapter of the Izaak Walton League.  Philo’s father Opie Pope Read was a newspaperman, humorist, novelist (“The Jucklins,” about a North Carolina farming family, sold over a million copies), and Chautauqua lecturer active in the Hyde Park-based Chicago Renaissance.   The only Opie I’d ever heard of was Opie Taylor, played by Ron Howard on “The Andy Griffith Show.”  The one Philo I knew about was Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of the television.  Using Google, I discovered an abolitionist named Philo Carpenter, who was also Chicago’s first pharmacist. Philo of Alexandria 2,000 years ago attempted to harmonize Hellenic philosophy with Jewish theology. 

In the Archives prior to speaking in Steve McShane’s Indiana History class, Ron Cohen brought sheet music of “His Sacrifice,” a song written in tribute to Billy Rugh, the 41 year-old crippled Gary “newsboy” who died in 1912 after undergoing a skin graft to save a woman’s life.  Some 25,000 mourners – a number greater than the population of the six year-old city -  attended a tribute to him.  Ron also loaned me a copy of his friend Larry Colton’s “Southern League: A True Story of Baseball, Civil Rights, and the Deep South’s Most Compelling Pennant Race.”  It follows the Class AA Birmingham Barons in 1964, a year after Martin Luther King’s Birmingham Crusade and opens with 19 year-old Johnny “Blue Moon” Odom being stopped for no reason at midnight in his new Galaxy and a racist cop telling him, “This is Birmingham, Alabama.  It’s real important you stay in the nigger part of town.”  Gary Horace Mann grad Charlie O. Finley, owner of the Kansas City A’s, had recently signed Odom to a $75,000 bonus.  In 1946, while a superintendent at Kingsbury Ordinance Plant in LaPorte, Finley contracted TB.  While recuperating, he got the idea of selling group disability insurance to physicians, from which he made millions.

In 1963 my favorite player, Dick Allen, had been the first African American to play for the Arkansas Travelers.   He received death threats, and on opening day the leader of the Little Rock White Citizens Council held a sign reading, “Don’t Negro-ize Baseball.”  He lived apart from his teammates in the black section of town.  A catcher on the Macon Peaches, author Colson recalls his team stopping at a greasy spoon restaurant on a bus trip from Montgomery to Mobile and a waitress announcing, “Niggers have to eat out back.”  Manager Andy Seminick, described by Colton as “an old-school, barrel-chested, tobacco-chewing native of West Virginia who had once caught a World Series game with a broken wrist,” told his players to get back on the bus rather than make anyone submit to the humiliation.  Seminick was a childhood hero of mine and played on the 1950 Phillies pennant-winning team known as the “Whiz Kids.”

I met Anne Balay for lunch at IUN’s Little Redhawk Café.  She had a letter from University of North Carolina Press officially accepting “Steel Closets,” due out next spring, and one from Chancellor Lowe citing reasons she was denied tenure.  I’m sure it was hard for him to compose it since he supported her and appreciates her value to the campus.  Repeating her detractors’ claims, he inserted the word “reportedly” when saying they had brought these things to her attention.  It will be interesting to see what IUN’s Board of Review and possibly the EEOC decide concerning the documentation (or lack of) for these claims.

Chris Young has been selected to be the new director of CISTL, IUN’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.  He’ll do a great job, but I worry that the university won’t replace him with another historian.  I have suggested to Anne Balay that she ask Chris to suggest ways for her to improve her teaching in terms of reducing the number of students who withdraw from her classes and winning over the small minority intimidated by her being an open lesbian.  A flyer advertising her summer Women in Culture class announces: “You’ll learn about women, equal pay, Obama, lesbians, your rights, sex, the family, work.  Expand your mind, share your story, come to class in drag.  This is a discussion and action based class, which teaches you to see your life in a whole new way.”  Good for her.  No retreat.  I’ll be there.

Just back from L.A., Anne is about to visit London for a week and plans to see a theatrical production of “Behind the Candelabra.”  She doesn’t own a TV, so I invited her to see the HBO movie at the condo when she returns.  The owner of Moonlite Bunny Ranch recently bailed out Liberace’s former lover Scott Thorson from a Reno jail.  Charged with identity theft and burglary, Thorson expressed his enduring love for Liberace and thought Damon “did a great job” portraying him.  At a premier party at San Francisco’s Castro Theater a drag queen named Libera-she showed up.

 Matt Damen as Scott Thorson

Elizabeth LaDuke’s visit to Fairhaven Baptist Church services was a success.  “I’m so glad I went,” she stated.  After I called them “True Believer hypocrites,” Ray Smock replied: “Those damn Baptists have been a pain in the ass since 1609.  They are the ones to blame for all this Born Again bullshit.  As a way-former Catholic who was baptized as an infant before I had free will, I can only say that it was far easier for me to forget all about religion after that than it would have been if some Baptist preacher had dunk me in a creek as an adult.”

Nephew Aaron Pickert, due to visit on Friday, reports that Fairbanks, Alaska, wasn’t totally dark at midnight.  He added: “As I was picking up my rental car, they were going over the rules and I heard one I've not encountered before... it was, no smoking (obviously), no pets (not unheard of), no fish (wait what?)... only in Alaska!”

Special Events coordinator Linda Sharma mentioned that summer Thrills of the Grill will be without live music.  I’m not surprised, given how dead the place is, with crazy class hours and the plethora on on-line courses.  Checking out the IUN Community Garden, Fred McColly reported: “Beets are up in the bed with the hopi blue.” 

Democrat Frank Lautenberg, the oldest member of the Senate, died at age 89.  New Jersey governor Chris Christie called for a special election to replace him in October rather than have it on the November ballot when Christie will run for re-election even though the special election will cost millions of dollars.

Pittsburgh Dave Lane is upset over the Penguins losing the first two battles in their series with Boston.  I’d like to see Pittsburgh and the Blackhawks, up 2-1 in their series with L.A., in the Stanley Cup finals.

I listened to Dire Straits’ “Brothers in Arms,” adding it to my heavy rotation of CDs along with Daft Punk, The National, Steve Earle, and the Doobie Brothers.  I noticed “The Doobie Brothers” on the latest “Rolling Stone” cover but instead of the band members the photo was of the potheads in Seth Rogen’s new movie, “This Is the End.”

Nicole Anslover showed “The Best Years of Our Lives” to her “Hollywood and History” class.  Beforehand, students talked about primary sources they’d discovered about WW II.  One had found a clip from the 1941 movie “Buck Privates” of the Andrews Sisters singing “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” to soldiers seemingly having the time of their lives.  Studs Terkel interviewed Maxene Andrews for “The Good War,” and she recalled how tough it was to sing to wounded soldiers who had lost arms, legs or parts of their face.  The sobering 1946 William Wyler flick, which won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, follows three WW II vets as they return and try to cope with Midwestern small town civilian life.  I had forgotten that drummer Gene Krupa is in it momentarily and that Hoosier composer Hoagy Carmichael plays the uncle of a maimed sailor who lost both hands and wears hooks instead.  Critic Roger Ebert, who called “The Best Years of Our Lives” one of the all-time best, wrote: “One of the movie's most famous sequences involves Fred deciding to leave town in search of work, and going to the airport. While waiting for his military transport flight, he wanders into a vast graveyard of mothballed warplanes. This scene is heartbreaking. Once Fred flew these planes, and now they, and their pilots, are no longer needed.”

In the fourteenth inning in Seattle the White Sox broke a 0-0 tie with five runs in the fourteenth only to have the Mariners tie the game in the bottom of the inning on a two-out grand slam.  Scoring two in the sixteenth, Chicago ended an eight-game losing streak.