Last Hurrah

“All we’re asking for
One more last hurrah”
Justin Currie of Del Amitri

Note: the above quote emulates how Jeff Manes opens his Post-Tribune “Salt” columns.

Two dozen Lanes and Okomskis (12 of each, including Joe, Lisa, Michele, and their families) gathered at Maple Place for one final weekend before the federal government comes in to return the property to nature. It seems such a waste to tear our place down, but it’s not like we didn’t know what was going to happen (eventually) when we purchased it. Except for one mattress losing air overnight everyone seemed relatively comfortable. Alissa arrived after a photo shoot for a Grand Rapids magazine. Earlier in the week she used Miranda as a shoe model. Dave put in a 16-hour day at East Chicago Central H.S., what with tennis practice and announcing the football game (a win over Hammond High), but showed up Saturday. The Michiganders brought Diamond, and I took the “old pea brain” to the Miller Village Apartments across County Line Road, where children flocked around and petted him after assurances that he did not bite. After meeting Diamond, Lisa and Fritz were sorry they didn’t bring their dog.

The weather cooperated, enabling many hours at the beach in the water (Lake Michigan is at its “warmest” this time of year) and roaming through the sand dunes. The youngsters also explored the woods around our house. Nickolas found a frog at a pond in the ravine, and other scavengers brought back rocks and bottles. My assignment was breakfast, dishes and restocking the refrigerator. Toni took care of most everything else. While Jackie shopped at the mall with Miranda, I showed the rest of her family the condo after stopping at Subway for Garrett’s fast food fix. They were fascinated by the nineteenth century quilt with the French erotica. Saturday was Demolition Derby night in Joliet, Illinois, something Tina did with her family as a child. Sophia, first up both Saturday and Sunday, conversed with me about her sports and school activities. The woman who took her class photographs grabbed kids heads and yanked them into place, she claimed, demonstrating with her hands and facial expressions. In fourth grade, Nickolas is studying Indiana History; I promised to send him issues of TRACES magazine. Since people wanted bricks from the garden box as mementoes, Toni got a chisel out to separate the cement used to hold them together. The weekend’s most popular games were Shooters (played with dice) and S.O.B. (a card game that rewards patience). Joey and I played pinochle against Toni and Philip featuring several wild hands. One time we called trump and only got three points in the play. In the first game we went set by a single point or would have won. In the second, trailing badly, we took all 12 tricks one hand and then pulled the game out when I got a run, even though Phil and Toni held me to 12 points after the meld (bidding 29, I only needed ten).

In addition to the many photo opportunities, Phil shot a video featuring everyone doing his or her thing for ten seconds, and the next person starting with the same pose as the predecessor. It was similar to 30 years ago when brother-in-law Sonny did a funny bit that I emulated about eating cheerios (one of Sonny’s arms is bigger than the other due to childhood polio). Reminiscing about previous visits, I told anecdotes about when Toni’s mother Blanche would visit. Once during a scavenger hunt, she sprinted up Maple Place and our driveway in a vain attempt to beat out Dean Bottorff. During the long goodbye Tori said that I was an awesome grandfather. The Lane Fantasy Football League draft is coming up shortly, and Anthony vowed to beat my ass. Everyone survived in apparent good health despite the poison ivy in the woods and numerous tumbles down the steps. We’re all meeting up for Labor Day weekend in 12 days at Fritz and Lisa’s in South Bend. It’s Notre Dame’s opening football game against state rival Purdue, and we may be tailgating beforehand. Toni’s sister Mary and Sonny will be flying in for the occasion.

“Rolling Stone” profiled rock legend Chuck Berry, whose classic hits include “Maybelline,” “Rock and Roll Music,” “Johnny B. Goode,” and “Roll Over Beethoven.” He spent three years in reform school for stealing a car and another three for bringing a 14 year-old Apache girl across state lines for immoral purposes. Sued for allegedly taking photos of women who were using the bathroom, Berry sang the praises of “My Ding-a Ling” (his only number one hit) even though music critics treat the 1972 novelty song as an embarrassment. In a “Simpsons” episode a kid starts to sing it in a talent show and the principal gets him off the stage after the first line. In “Cadillac Records” starring Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess (who gave his stable of Black recording artists flashy cars but insufficient royalties), Mos Def plays Chuck. Beyoncé is a spectacular Etta James. The 2008 movie pays tribute to Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf as progenitors of rock ‘n’ roll. Berry had serious character flaws, but there’s no denying his musical genius.

Finished Updike’s “Terrorist.” Jewish guidance counselor Jack Levy talks Ahmad out of blowing up the Lincoln Tunnel. Started “Matterhorn,” which Ron Cohen loaned me. It has a vivid description of a lieutenant returning from his first patrol in the jungles of Vietnam and extracting leeches from his body.

There’s a fresh “Curb Your Enthusiasm” On Demand called “The Nanny from Hell.” In it Richard Lewis claims he invented the phrase “The Blank from Hell” (as in “the date from hell”). Thanks to that episode Lewis now is in the “Yale Book of Quotations.”

In the news: the government recalled a half billion eggs. Chief culprit Jack DeCoster is, to quote George du Maurier, a bad egg, a habitual violator of state and federal standards according to Food and Drug administrator Margaret Hamburg (what a name). In sports: White Sox finished a four-of-six road trip five games behind the Twins (Les Grobstein calls them the Twinkies on his SCORE overnight show). Cubs were atrocious against the Braves, who maintained a two-game lead over my Phillies, who won a weekend series from Washington on the strength of shutout performances by Roy Holladay and Roy Oswalt. In manager Lou Paniella’s final game, the Cubs succumbed 16-5, the identical score as their opening day loss to the Braves. Lou cried when he took off a baseball uniform for the final time, supposedly to care for his ailing 90 year-old mother. He got the Cubbies to the playoffs twice, but they went 0-6 thereafter. A class act, he deserved a better fate. For all the money G.M Jim Hendry wasted, Lou never had a good leadoff man.

Portage Historical Society

I spoke to about 25-30 members of the Portage Historical Society last evening. First I told them about how Steel Shavings magazine got started (to publish family histories written by IUN students and record other aspects of social life in the Calumet Region). Then I mentioned what went into the Portage issue (volume 20) that came out in 1991, including articles and interviews some of my seminar students did as well as interviews I conducted with politicians Cortie Wilson and William Westergren. I recruited 18 Historical Society members to read quotes from old-timers who had been interviewed by Portage High School students in 1981 about life during World War I and the 1920s. Passing out magazines with the various people’s lines marked with red ink, I told the volunteers they could keep the magazine when we were done, an incentive that apparently worked.

Before the group performance, former student and friend Bruce Sawochka read an excerpt from his article “Portage in Three Stages of Its Growth.” In between the “Pioneer Era” and the “Big Bang Period” starting in the 1950s were the quiet years of farms, villages such as Crisman, McCool and Garyton, and one-room schoolhouses. I got chuckles mentioning that one teacher was also a preacher and closed school on funeral days but then made students make the day up on Saturday. The reading experiment went very well with people almost always talking loud enough and picking up on their cues (I was well organized, having employed this method of shared participation in talks about the city of Gary). When I had run out of male volunteers, Lois Mollick offered to assume the role of Marvin Guernsey and drew laughs when she read his lines with a deep voice. One woman turned out to be the granddaughter of one of the Anderson brothers, Elmer and Walter. Elmer recalled: “I got a job working in the mill before we had the eight-hour day. I worked in the mill nights, and then in the daytime I worked on the farm.”

During the question period I mentioned that I lived in Portage but that my neighborhood, Edgewater, was disappearing because it was within the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. When someone asked about the big slide in Ogden Dunes during the Twenties, I replied that one could read about it in my “Tales of Lake Michigan and the Indiana Dunelands” issue (volume 28). I also got in a plug for Ron Cohen and Steve McShane’s book on South Shore posters, “Moonlight in Duneland: The Illustrated History of the Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad” One man said he was thinking about writing a book about stories from his years working at U.S. Steel, and I encouraged him and told him about Richard Dorson’s book “Land of the Millrats” and my Shavings volume (no. 19) on “Steelworkers Tales.”

I had spoken to the group in 2006 when my “Centennial History of Gary” came out. Lois Mollick remembered me and told the group that she had been interviewed by two of my students (excerpts appeared in my Postwar issue “Age of Anxiety” (volume 34). Turns out she and a friend skipped school to see Frank Sinatra sing at a Tolerance concert held at Gary’s Memorial Auditorium during the 1945 Froebel School Strike. Someone else reported seeing Nat King Cole perform with his trio at Memorial Auditorium. I took that opportunity to mention that African-American celebrities often went to Midtown for ribs at Mae’s Louisiana Kitchen but that Roosevelt principal Theo Tatum thought the place to be disreputable and prohibited his teachers from frequenting Mae’s because he thought it would reflect badly on the school’s image.

Afterwards helped myself to some of the many cookies on hand and chatted with Barb Borg-Jenkins, the South Haven librarian who had originally invited me to talk. She had read about Ronald Osgood’s “My Vietnam Your Iraq” documentary on my blog and hopes to purchase a copy after it is completed. Another Historical Society officer told me that her sister had done an article for my “Brothers in Arms” issue. Turned out she was referring to Sherril Tokarski, one of my all-time favorite students, who also wrote about a family grocery store in Glen Park for my 1980s issue (volume 38), “The Uncertainty of Everyday Life.” (the title was fitting, as the store was robbed several times during the decade) As I was leaving, Barb Borg-Jenkins said, “Come back any time.” I was flattered and pleased with how everything went. I think at least two folks are planning a visit to the Archives.

My first Shavings issue was just 40 pages long while volume 40 is more than seven times as thick at 304 pages. The Portage issue, 96 pages, was the first to have a spine (not until volume 23 was there writing on the spine, however) and one of the last pre-computer issues that had to be retyped and therefore re-proofread by the printer. As Bruce Sawochka was finishing the reading the paragraph I had assigned him, he said at loud, “This is quite good.” That was also my feeling when going through the entire magazine. There are articles covering work experiences, school activities, church functions, July Fourth celebrations, Little League, Girl Scouts, trailer court life, the Bonner Center for senior citizens, and much more. In my “Editor’s Personal Note” I mentioned playing softball for Porter Acres at Woodland Park (its clubhouse was the site of the History Society meeting), taking my mother-in-law Blanche to play bingo in a church basement, and watching my granddaughter Alissa do puzzles at the public library.

Back home, I opened “Brothers in Arms” to Sherril Tokarski’s article, which dealt with her brother-in-law Charles Hubert Stanley being in a three-day battle in Vietnam during the Tet offensive. The sister I met seemed too young to have been married in 1967, but who knows? In his last letter to his wife Linda the young first lieutenant said he looked forward to seeing her soon on R and R in Hawaii. Then Sherril writes: “March 1968 – a green car arrives at our home. The soldiers inform my sister that her husband was killed. A defective grenade in his ammo pouch exploded while he was waiting for a chopper to airlift him out of the field at Binh Long province.” Sherril adds: “A young man died far from home for a lie delivered to all Americans by those we trusted. He never got a chance to buy his first home, hold his first child, have the great pride in his children, hold his grandchildren, and grow old or even middle aged. It has been 40 years since he died in that far away place, but he has not been forgotten. We are proud of you and will always love you.”

David Malham sent me two emails, a link to an Esquire article about film critic Roger Ebert called “The Essential Man” and a plea to sign a petition protesting the History Channel’s plans to show a scabrous biopic of John F. Kennedy next year on the fiftieth anniversary of his election as President. Got a call from Post-Tribune reporter Andy Grimm soliciting my reaction to the Gary Library Board changing the name of the Ora Wildermuth Miller branch to Carter Woodson, thereby honoring “the father of Negro History.” A couple years ago a historiancame across and published racist letters Wildermuth, Gary’s first librarian, wrote to IU President Herman Wells while he was on IU’s Board of Trustees opposing integration of dorms. Wildermuth argued that it would lead to intermarriage and that would be horrible. While Grimm mentioned that Wildermuth’s views were no different than most whites of his time, I told him I agreed with the Board’s decision.