My Back Pages

“Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth, "rip down all hate," I screamed
Lies that life is black and white spoke from my skull, I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now”

“My Back Pages,” Bob Dylan (1964)

On YouTube I found a 1994 “30^th Anniversary Concert” performance of the Bob Dylan classic “My Back Pages,” which was a 1967 hit for Roger McGuinn and the Byrds.  On stage and each singing a verse were Dylan, McGuinn, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Tom Petty, and Neil Young.  When Dylan first recorded “My Back Pages,” it horrified the folk music establishment because the lyrics seemed to recant his previous commitment to “finger-pointing” protest songs.  Looking back, I view it as an admission that the world was more complex and solutions less obvious than once believed and that Dylan, hailed as the voice of a new generation, was uncomfortable in that role. I saw Dylan perform at the Holiday Star in Merrillville in the 1990s with a group of Saturday Night Live regulars led by bandleader G.E. Smith, responsible for putting together the 30^th Anniversary Concert.

Dunes artist and former Edgewater neighbor Dale Fleming, 81, passed away, his cousin Jill informed me, after a fall from which he evidently never recovered. His sister Phyllis recalled that from a young age he loved to draw and in 1955 fell in love with the Northwest Indiana dunes when an art teacher took the class to Marquette Park in Gary’s Miller Beach neighborhood. After graduating from the American Academy of Arts in Chicago, he briefly worked for an advertising agency but hated the “9 to 5” routine and opted to become a freelance artist.  He lived simply a few blocks from Lake Michigan, his only luxury being a passion of model trains.  Sister Phyllis wrote:

    Friends and family found that if you sat still too long in his house, he would sketch you for free because he had a generous heart and used his art to express his love. His pride and joy was son Carl, as were his grandchildren and greatgrandchildren.  He tells in “Steel Shavings: Tales of Lake Michigan and the Northwest Indiana Dunelands,” edited by James B. Lane, that he enjoyed being with Carl at the dunes, “whether it was flying kites, skipping stones across the water, or sliding down a dune on a piece of cardboard.”  He was a very kind, gentle soul, a friend to all with a great sense of humor.

Dale's house; Dale and Carl

Diana of the Dunes by Dale Fleming

When John Laue and I approached Dale to sketch drawings for an oral history of Portage’s Edgewater neighborhood, he readily agreed and would accept only a few hundred dollars. He’d study a building or outdoor scene for a few minutes and then draw at a frenzied rate. With a keen eye and talent for detail he preserved images of a dying community, since all properties were eventually razed to make way for the what is now the Indiana Dunes National Park. After the magazine was published, many admirers attended an opening at Lake Street Gallery to greet what was for him a rare public appearance. Sister Phyllis summed up his character perfectly; he was a kind, gentle soul content to live a simple life.

Dale’s cousin Jill, a former school library media specialist, wrote:

    I was searching online for pictures of Dale’s artwork, to show my kids, and came across your blog, where he was featured.  I grew up in Gary and Merrillville and find your blog fascinating! Also, I realized you once interviewed my aunt, Dr. Marie Edwards! My Dad was her brother. I’ve been sorting through pictures and family history and just found your article on her. I cherish this information! I adored my Aunt Marie and often wish I had talked to her more about her life in the Navy and early teaching years. I was a history major at Ball State (class of 1978), partly because of her influence! 

 

I interviewed Lew Wallace teacher Marie Edwards when researching my history of Gary, “City of the Century,” and published excerpts in Steel Shavings, volume 34 (2003), titled “Age of Anxiety: Daily Life in the Calumet Region during the Postwar Years, 1945-1953.”  Edwards recalled:

    We came out of the most devastating war in our history stronger economically, socially, and politically. In Gary the mills had been at top capacity.  Our high school senior boys had been encouraged to work 4-to-12 shifts.  One huge boy was always going to sleep in my class. I had the office call his mother.  The next day she called and said, “When he got home, I got out the whip.” And then she told me the boy was working the 4-to-12 shift.  It kind of broke my heart.

   The Navy set up a 14-month program to teach Japanese. At the end of 1942 they issued the invitation to a hundred women.  I couldn’t resist.  Some of my students had been killed.  We waged the war in Washington. I came back to Wallace in September of 1946. Some veterans returned and got their high school diplomas, including a former student.

   I got my first car in April 1947.  Previously I had taken the streetcar and then the bus.  Coming out of the Navy, I went up and down Fifth Avenue and Washington Street just begging someone to take an order for a car.  Nash was the only one that took my order.  It was the best car I ever had. I was living with my parents and would pick up other teachers.  It was a nice fellowship group.  Many teachers lived at the Hotel Gary, and another teacher would pick them up.  I was perfectly happy living at home.  I had the best of all possible worlds.  I came home, and dinner was ready.

On March 3, 1949, 45-year-old Lew Wallace language teacher Mary Cheever was murdered as she was walking to her Eighth Avenue apartment following a PTA meeting.  Marie Edwards recalled her shock at her friend’s death:

    I hadn’t felt that it was an unsafe neighborhood, but when I came home, I’d honk the horn and my father would be in the garage with the lights on and the door open.  In the morning he’d go out with me and open the door.  Whenever I took anyone home at night, I always waited until they were in the house. My Y-Teen group was still coming downtown by bus to the Y once a week. Nobody ever thought of it being dangerous. I often walked to the Y at night and then home without any fear.

     Mary Cheever’s death was a catalyst.  It marshalled a whole movement, the WCC (Women’s Citizens Committee). We started going to city council meetings.  One time we walked from City Methodist Church and filled the City Hall stairway all the way from the council chambers to the street. I went on Operation Shoe Leather in front of a gambling joint. I remember the photographers arriving and our being determined.  Some ridiculed us, but we got a lot of attention.  Ultimately, the publicity became nationwide.

Marie Edwards in 1991

  In 1949 I selected a masters thesis topic on the developing labor movement in Japan.  My committee at Northwestern recommended me for doctoral work.  On the G.I. Bill I kept going summers, and by 1952 I was in Japan doing research.  I had my doctorate by 1956. I tied my graduate work in the teaching of political science and economics. I never wanted to do anything but teach.  This was a time when women weren’t going too far. One assistant superintendent said, “Why don’t you become an elementary school principal?  We’ll give you a job there.”  I said, “No, if I want anything, I want your job.”

Marie Edwards eventually did become director of social studies for the entire Gary school system.

GARY LAKEFRONT TODAY by Elaine Spicer and Omar Farag

Goodbye Jimmy Reed

“You won't amount to much, the people all said
'Cause I didn't play guitar behind my head
Never pandered, never acted proud
Never took off my shoes, throw 'em in the crowd
Goodbye Jimmy Reed, goodbye, goodnight
Put a jewel in your crown and I put out the lights

    “Goodbye, Jimmy Reed,” Bob Dylan

James Mathis “Jimmy” Reed (1925-1976) grew up in the small, unincorporated community of Dunleith, Mississippi, picked up the guitar at a young age, learned to play the harmonica (harp) from Eddie Tayler, and earned money busking (street performing) as a teenager. Soon after moving to Chicago he joined the navy during World War II.  After being discharged, he married his hometown sweetheart Mary (whom he called Mama Reed) and got work in an Armour meatpacking plant while getting occasional work as a session player at Chicago’s Chess records and sideman in Jim Brim’s Gary Kings along with future Blues legend Albert King. Brim’s band played clubs in Gary and Chicago, many owned or financed by policy bosses.  During this time Reed met Jimmy Bracken, who along with Gary partner Vivian Carter, founded Vee-Jay Records with a loan from a Gary pawnbroker involved in the numbers racket.  When Chess Records expressed no interest in him as a solo artist, Reed signed the Vee-Jay, along with a Gary doo wop group called the Spaniels, and recorded the label’s very first single.  From the beginning Reed’s songs, such as “High and Lonesome” and “You Don’t Have to Go,” charted on Billboard’s Rhythm and Blues top ten.  “Goodnite, Sweetheart” by the Spaniels did even better and enabled Vee-Jay to become an industry powerhouse that paved the way for Motown a decade later.

 

Known to be a heavy drinker and somewhat uncomfortable in a recording studio, Reed initially had to be kept under lock and key before sessions to ensure he’d be sober.  He’d have Mama Reed, who co-wrote many of his songs, by his side.  She sang background and sometimes could be heard whispering lyrics to him.  In 1957 Reed had a crossover hit with “Honest I Do” and followed that up with “Big Boss Man,” “Bright Lights, City Lights,” and others.  His soulful voice and unique guitar and harp stylings were a pronounced influence on many 60s British bands, including the Rolling Stones and the animals; both bands covered his songs, as did Elvis Presley, the Grateful Dead, and Hank Williams, Jr., among others. Suddenly in demand, Reed toured with various headliners and blues revival shows until the ravages of alcoholism and untreated epilepsy led to his death at age 51.

In 1991 Jimmy Reed was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with LaVern Baker, the Byrds, Tina Turner, John Lee Hooker, and The Impressions (with Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield, who recorded “For Your Precious Love on Vee-Jay Records). Christgau’s Record Guide states: “At his best—on Vee-Jay in the '50s—Reed sang with the languid self-assurance of a man who never ran for the bus because he wanted to spend the fare on a glass of wine, and the unindustrious shuffle rhythms of the Vee-Jay band ambled right along behind.”

 

“Goodbye Jimmy Reed” appears on ageless icon Bob Dylan’s 2020 album “Rough and Ready Ways.”  Considering himself like Reed a vagabond troubadour armed with a guitar, harp, and songs to sing, Dylan paid his mentor the ultimate compliment, comparing their lives, according to Douglas Brinkley of the New York Times,” in a high-octane showstopper that honors the Mississippi bluesman with dragon-fierce harmonica riffs and bawdy lyrics.”  Here’s the concluding verse:

God be with you, brother, dear
If you don't mind me asking, what brings you here?
Oh, nothing much, I'm just looking for the man
Need to see where he's lying in this lost land
Goodbye Jimmy Reed, and everything within ya
Can't you hear me calling from down in Virginia?

Nippon Bukodan

When I woke up, mom and dad are rolling on the couch.
Rolling numbers, rock and rolling, got my Kiss records out”

    Cheap Trick, “Surrender”

Nippon Bukodan is an indoor arena in Tokyo first used for judo during the 1964 Olympics.  The name means martial arts hall and is most famous for hosting rock concerts.  The Beatles played Bukodan, for example in 1966 and other acts included ABBA, Queen, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Kiss, and many more, including Cheap Trick, whose “Live from Bukodan” album is one of my favorites.  It opens with a rousing “Hello There,” closes with “Goodnight,” and contains the Fats Domino classic “Ain’t That a Shame” and the hit single “I Want You to Want Me.” My favorite cut is “Surrender,” much superior to the studio version and a staple for Dave’s Band “Voodoo Chili,” before which he’d often invite me up to sing the chorus with him.  I saw the power pop band from Rockford, Illinois, led by guitarist Rick Nielson and singer Robin Zandar twice at the Holiday Star in Merrillville, once in the tenth row with Dave, a niece, and her boyfriend.  The warm-up band drummer threw a sharp-pointed broken drum stick into the audience that landed between the two.  It could have taken an eye out.

“Someone's got it in for me
They're planting stories in the press
Whoever it is I wish they'd cut it out quick
But when they will I can only guess”

    Bob Dylan, “Idiot Wind”

Bob Dylan’s earlier albums “The Times They Are A-Changin’” (1964) and “Highway 61 Revisited” (1965) had a greater impact on music and society, but my favorite Dylan recording was his fifteenth studio effort, “Blood on the Tracks” (1975).  Initially receiving mixed reviews, it is one of Dylan’s most personal and has since been acclaimed as a classic.  Side one opens with “Tangled Up in Blue” and “Simple Twist of Fate” and contains “Idiot Wind,” which I inevitably sing along to; the highlight of side two is the tale of “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts.”  What a treat from the ever-surprising minstrel of folk and pop, known affectionately to Tom Petty, George Harrison, and Jeff Lynne as Boo Wilbury.

“Don’t let me down

Take me to another shore”

    “Alda Reserve, “Ancient Lies

My favorite band that hardly anyone has heard of is Alda Reserve, whose lone album was “Love Goes On” (1979).  The brainchild of keyboardist Brad Ellis, it was released by Sire records after legendary music executive Seymour Stein (who signed the Talking Heads, Ramones and Pretenders) heard the band at New York’s CBGBs.  When “Love Goes On” received mediocre reviews, the record company failed to promote it. Compared unfairly to The Doors and not punk enough for purists, the album nevertheless got airplay on Chicago radio station WMET, “the mighty MET,” (now a country station), where I must have heard it.  There’s not a bad song on the album, which includes “Some Get Away,” “Whiter Than White,” “Pain Is Mine” (with the line, “She looked at me with kamikaze eyes”), and my favorite, “Overnight Jets.”  I know still know every word to “Overnight Jets.”  There aren’t many; each verse contains a four-syllable phrase repeated four times: “Overnight Jet,” “Land on the Dunes,” “When the Windows Shine,” and “Don’t Know Her Name.”  I  found Alda Reserve songs on YouTube, including a couple from the ill-fated second album never released on vinyl.  Bill Daily wrote of “Some Get Away: “This tune was my college band’s signature song.”  It opens:

    “Standing on the edge of night, it takes me away

    Hiding away from the light, been waiting all day”

In a 1915 interview Brad Ellis spoke of coming to New York City and living with a cousin Virginia whom he described as an artist and commie. After moving to the Bowery and becoming part of the East Village gay and punk scenes, he began a 14-year relationship with painter Carl Apfelschnitt.  Ellis lost numerous friends during the AIDS epidemic.  He told an interviewer, “I can’t say I really knew Gary Indiana but I have had some cordial conversations with him.  I didn’t just like his book, I loved it.”  Gary Indiana (born Gary Hoisington in 1950) was a prolific author (“Rent Boy,” “Gone Tomorrow”), actor, director, playwright, and Village Voice art critic.

                                                                      Gary Indiana

I try not to dwell on inconveniences caused by the pandemic since my situation is in no way comparable to those suffering economic hardship or illness, but it would be nice to know when it will abate and what the “new normal” will be.  I recently learned that a National Humanities Conference session I’m part of was accepted as well as a paper to be presented at the Oral History Association conference.  Both are scheduled for October, also the month my high school reunion is supposed to take place.  We’ll see.

                                                     

I received this email from Elaine McKearn:

    My mother was born in Gary, Indiana 1918. She was baptized Josephine Kankowski. She attended a Catholic school until third grade. She graduated from Gary Horseman High School. She married Bert Laskowski in 1938. I was born in Gary in 1943. We have reconnected with almost all of her first cousins who all are presently living in Southeast Poland as well as near Chelm, PL and Lublin.  She died in 2009 in La Porte, Indiana as well as my father in 2000.  I recently (Jan 26, 2019) did a presentation to the Polish Genealogical Society of California at the LDS Family Center in Los Angeles.  I have a lot of memories of Gary during my childhood.

I replied that I’d like to know more about where her parents lived and works as well as her Gary experiences and added:

    Very interesting email.  As you may know, in addition to having written a history of Gary, I am co-director of the Calumet Regional Archives at IU Northwest.  We'd be interested in obtaining a copy of the paper you presented and, although closed now along with the university, would welcome a visit if you come to NW Indiana in the future.  Some of our manuscript collections might be of interest to you, as well.  We also have Horace Mann yearbooks that your mother might be in.

Deep Freeze

“Don’t knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn’t start a conversation if it didn’t change once in a while.” Kin Hubbard

Hoosier Frank McKinney “Kin” Hubbard (1868-1930) was a cartoonist and journalist whom Will Rogers called “America’s greatest humorist.”  Kurt Vonnegut often quoted him.  In “Slaughterhouse Five” he referenced the witticism, “It’s no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.”  The same Hubbard quote appeared again in “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.”

Chicagoland suffered through several days of record low temperature, as a polar vortex put the entire Midwest into a deep freeze for nearly a week, preceded and followed by snow.  For a week IUN either opened late, closed early, or shut down completely.  Even bowling and bridge got cancelled.  “Deep freeze” can mean a state of suspended animation, which seemed appropriate given so many things coming to a crashing halt.  My get together with Valparaiso University Sociology professor Mary Kate Blake was put off a week.  Conditions brought to mind the brutal winters of the 1970s when I considered looking for a job in warmer climes and 1985 when to my amazement our Maple Place thermometer dipped well into the minus 20s.  In 1994 our driveway had a thick coat of ice that proved virtually impossible to  remove. Every snowstorm left me wondering if I could get up our hill once I left for school.  Fortunately the Portage Street Department didn’t forget about us, thanks to cakes Toni baked for the drivers every Christmas. While teaching an 8:30 a.m. class, as was my routine, I sometimes called ahead and was told classes hadn’t been postponed or cancelled, only to learn otherwise upon arriving to IUN. More than once, I slept overnight on an uncomfortable couch in Tamarack Lounge due to conditions outside.

 above, Paul Kaczocha's house in Miller; below, Grand Rapids, MI

It’s been colder in these parts than in Antarctica, Greenland or Siberia.  The weather was even worse in western Michigan, where lake effect has been relentless.  House pets are rebelling against venturing outside to relieve themselves.  After Miranda posted a photo of her “snow kitten,” her mom asked if she had thrown him outside.  “Nooo, placed him very gently,”cat-lover Miranda responded.  When she was a kid, Miranda loved visiting Ken Applehans and his menagerie of cats and kittens that he’d taken in on various occasions.  Darcey Wade complained that her kitchen smelled like urine.  Predictions are for as much as a, 80-degree temperature change, as Monday’s forecast is high in the mid-50s.

Home bound, I did a final proofread of the forthcoming Steel Shavings,volume 48 with Gary jazz legend Billy Foster on the cover. In the Index were several inconsistencies regarding spelling. For instance, I had three “fs” in Pfeifer and left out the “a” in MacDonald. Moore, Powell was out of order, and Cele Morris appeared in two different spots.  Coincidentally, Maria McGrath emailed that she was currently preparing an Index for “Food for Dissent,” due out in June. Mine is a Region name index.   I replied: “Subject indexes are ten times harder.  They’re also hard to proofread without falling asleep.”

I found a couple decent movies on HBO and watched reruns of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Both Super Dave Osborne (Bob Einstein) and Shelley Berman made their debut during season 4, which centers around a scheme by Mel Brooks to have Larry David star in “The Producers” in order to bring the long-running production to a merciful end.  During rehearsals he drives both Ben Stiller and Dave Schwimmer crazy.  The best episode has Larry taking a hooker to a Dodgers game so he can drive in the fast lane and arrive on time.  Afterwards, she and Larry smoke a joint with his dad (Berman) for his glaucoma, and the Old Man starts talking like a 1950s NYC cool cat.

I finished Kurt Vonnegut’s “God Blass You, Mr. Rosewater” (1965), which I had checked out from Chesterton library (also in the stacks was Vonnegut’s later “God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian”) along with Kurt Vile’s new CD “Bottle It In” and others by Oasis and Paul McCartney.  Neither I nor a library staff person could find McCartney’s “All the Best,” but as I was leaving, she caught up with me to say she’d found it and checked it out for me. Nice.   “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater” takes place in Rosewater, Indiana, which Vonnegut claims is 42 miles from Turkey Run State Park. Science fiction writer Kilgore Trout makes an appearance, and in some ways the book is a prequel to my favorite Vonnegut novel, “Breakfast of Champions: Goodbye Blue Monday.” “God Blass You, Mr. Rosewater” has many quirky characters, whom everyone but Eliot Rosewater despises, including town drunk Delbert Peach, who goes around singing, “I’ve got the clap and the blueballs, too/ The clap don’t hurt but the blueballs do.”

In my Fifties Steel Shavings, subtitled “Relationships between the Sexes during the Teen Years of the 1950s,” which I call my R-rated issue, a section called Blue Balls includes this account by Jim Wojehowski of taking a date atop an abandoned grain elevator in Burnham, where one could see for miles and miles and get a scenic view of the Chicago skyline: 

  Joey and I took Peggy and Lisa through a hole in a fence up to the warehouse.  We had been hyping the eerie nature of the building and tossed in a few murder stories. The girls said they weren’t scared, but when a ton  of pigeons flew out as we reached the top of the staircase, the girls clung to us like we had hoped. Before long we settled in to some serious necking and petting.  You could say we had as much fun as two people can have with their clothes still on. The next day I had a classic case of teen “blue balls.”

In her Ayers Realtors Newsletter column cat lover Judy Ayers wrote about her childhood neighbors in Miller, the Moseguards, and a recently deceased pet in an essay titled “Ode to Old Dude”:

  There was an elderly retired couple, the Moseguards, who had an old black Ford sedan that Evelyn drove, and the car had taken quite a beating as Evelyn got older and had trouble negotiating the car and the garage door. Elmer was the passenger and wore suspenders and a funny little hat that he tipped as they drove down the alley.  Evelyn wore housedresses, full frontal aprons, and a hat that matched Elmer’s. She took her driving seriously with both hands gripped on the wheel, eyes focused on the path ahead and enough force on the accelerator to make gravel fly and mothers quickly take inventory of the children when they heard the Moseguard car approaching.

  Elmer and Evelyn loved cats and had a lot of them. There was always a cat or two in various windows of the house, some sat in the sun in their back yard and there was always a cat or two in Elmer’s lap when they went on driving excursions. Gene remembers the time when Elmer pounded on the Ayers’ back door, yelling and screaming about a cat in their tree and wanted Gene to come out right away and retrieve it.  Elmer had a ladder in place, having already attempted to rescue the little rascal, when 11-year-old Gene was recruited.  He could reach the cat, but the cat bit and/or scratched him time and time again as Elmer and Evelyn yelled from the ground and became quite surly themselves.

  Twelve years ago, Gene and I were given a kitten named Dude. Over the years we had cats one at a time and were always mindful of mimicking the Moseguards.  That includes making sure a draft of cat presence was never the first to greet Trick or Treaters  on Halloween, and we make sure neither of us leaves the house adorned in cat hair. Even though it’s been weeks since Dude died, I still expect him to meet me at the door or come running at the sound of the can opener opening a can which in Dude’s mind could only contain tuna. As sad as it is to lose a pet, I still say there is nothing like a nonjudgmental, trusting dependable four-legged companion, and one of these days I hope we find another furry friend.

 Izzy Young in 2014

Ron Cohen is speaking about Bob Dylan at Gary Rotary next week.  He invited me to be his guest, but it clashes with bowling. I recently proofread a chapter about Dylan for Ron that includes several references to our mutual friend Izzy Young, who in 1957 opened the Folklore Center in Greenwich Village and produced Dylan’s 1961 Carnegie Hall concert.  Izzy is mentioned in Dylan’s song “Talkin’ Folklore Center.”  Ron is also upset at attempts, by Gary school officials to auction off the original model for the Picasso sculpture in Chicago used by American Bridge and subsequently given to the school corporation.

Song to Woody

“I’m out here a thousand miles from my home

Walkin’ a road other men have gone down

I’m seein’ your world of people and things

Hear paupers and peasants and princes and kings.”

   Bob Dylan, “Song to Woody”

The “Mad Men” episode that mentions the murder of Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers ends with Dob Dylan singing “Song to Woody.”  During a scene one can hear John F. Kennedy addressing the nation on the need for Civil Rights legislation.  One Dylan line mentions “Cisco and Sonny and Leadbelly too,” referencing Cisco Houston and Sonny Terry of the Almanac Singers as well as Huddle Ledbetter.  Then Dylan sings, “Here’s to the hearts and the hands of the men that come with the dust and are gone with the wind.”

This month marks the fiftieth anniversaries of the Surgeon General’s health warning about cigarettes and cancer, heart disease, and other harmful side effects.  Getting more publicity is LBJ’s War on Poverty, debunked by conservatives and mourned by progressives at its incompleteness.  President Obama declared: “In the richest nation on earth, far too many children are still born into poverty, far too few have a fair shot to escape it, and Americans of all races and backgrounds experience wages and incomes that aren’t rising.  That does not mean abandoning the War on Poverty.  In fact, if we hadn’t declared ‘unconditional war on poverty in America,’ millions more Americans would be living in poverty today. Instead, it means we must redouble our efforts to make sure our economy works for every working American.”

With less than three minutes to go against New Orleans, Seattle’s Marshawn Lynch romped 31 yards to put the Seahawks up 23-8.  The Saints came back and scored, then recovered an on-side kick with just 20 seconds left.  Two plays later, Marques Colson caught a pass near the Seahawks’ 30 yard-line and could have gone out of bounds.  Instead, unbelievably, he threw an illegal pass across the field intended for Darren Sproles resulting in the referees running ten seconds off the clock.  Game over.  I called Chuck Logan to congratulate him; Gaard answered, happy for her hubby, but she hadn’t bothered watching.

Saturday Toni and I saw “August: Osage County.”  Normally she avoids heavy dramas about dysfunctional families, but, a huge admirer of Meryl Streep, she wanted to see it.  Streep did not disappoint, and the first-rate cast included Julia Roberts, Julianne Nicholson, and Juliette Lewis as Streep’s three daughters.  Abigail Breslin (Olive in “Little Miss Sunshine”) plays a precocious granddaughter).

In his Sunday column Carrol Vertrees waxed nostalgic about winters on the farm.  I learned  how impossible it was to collect chicken eggs wearing gloves and how after playing in the snow, kids would stand by the stove until “both sides were done.”  Vertrees quotes these lines from John Greenleaf Whittier’s “Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl”:

“And ere the early bedtime came

The white drift piled the window-frame,

And through the glass the clothes-line posts

Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.”

In between rounds of bridge we dined at Sage Restaurant with the Hagelbergs.  The friendly owner insisted on hanging up our coats, and waiter Tony, whom we know quite well by now, mentioned being a psychological counselor but that he makes more money waiting tables.  I ordered strip steak risotto and then asked if it came with potatoes, not knowing risotto is a rice dish.  It was great, and half went home for another day.  Back at our place, Toni served little cheesecakes that Angie had made during the holidays.

Sports Illustrated carried an excerpt of “Wooden: A Coach’s Life” by Seth Davis.  (The Wizard of Westwood,” as UCLA coach John Wooden was called, won an unheard of 10 NCAA titles in twelve years with star centers Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton leading the way.  Hailing from Martinsville, Indiana, Wooden was an All-American guard at Purdue and coached at South Bend High School (where he had a losing record) Indiana State before taking the UCLA job.  During the turbulent late-1960s black players demanded to be treated with respect, and Wooden was flexible enough to bend the rules for his stars.  Once asked who were the toughest players to coach, meaning black or white, Wooden answered, “Seniors.”

Ray Smock reported on a housecleaning attempt: “Today, after success in throwing away a box filled with old cables to equipment I no longer have, I picked up a box that was labeled AVANT GARDE Magazine. I had not looked at these in 40 years, although I have moved this box from our student housing apartment in College Park, to Beltsville and Laurel and Lanham in Maryland and for the past ten years they have been here in my basement in Martinsburg, WV. I have the full set of 14 magazines published from 1968 to 1971. The publisher was that notorious pusher-of-the-envelop Ralph GInsburg, who was convicted of obscenity for his earlier magazine EROS, and prosecuted by none other than Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, that prude. The magazine is iconic in more ways than one.  It took me back to the 60s, to Vietnam, hippies, sexual liberation journalism, Marilyn Monroe, the prison poetry of Ho Chi Minh, Mohammed Ali, LeRoi Jones ( Baraka Amiri) who died this week, Norman Mailer, Tricky Dick Nixon (before we knew how truly tricky he was), Dick Gregory, Justice William O. Douglas ( who wrote a nice short piece on the power of the folk song in his life, which was later cited as evidence of subversion when conservatives tried to impeach him), a whole issue on Picasso's erotic engravings, followed two issues later with John Lennon's erotic lithographs of oral sex with Yoko Ono.”

David Mitchell (front) with Lennard Davis, Lee Ann Field, Anne Balay, Shannon Snyder,& Riva Lehrer at MLA

Having attended the Modern Language Association conference in Chicago, Anne Balay wrote: “Had a great weekend -- panels and friends at the MLA -- sunny runs in the morning -- time with Riva -- meeting with my editor to plan next steps -- then sledding with Emma on the dunes. The semester can now begin, with fingers crossed for happy resolution . . .”

Chuck Hughes from the Gary Chamber of Commerce wants me to speak at an upcoming banquet about the year 1955,as a way of introducing a documentary about the fabled state championship showdown between Gary Roosevelt and Indianapolis Crispus Attucks.  Ike was President then and sent the first advisers to Vietnam, raised the minimum wage from 75 cents to a dollar, and suffered a mild heart attack.  Debuting on TV were “The Mickey Mouse Club” and Elvis Presley.  School desegregation was taking place in Topeka, Kansas, thanks to Brown v. Board of Education, and Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for not yielding her seat on a bus to a white man.  Bill Russell led the University of San Francisco to an NCAA title, and the New York Yankees signed their first black player, catcher Elston Howard.  They lost the World Series to the Brooklyn Dodgers, led by catcher Roy Campanella, the National League MVP.  Pitcher Don Newcombe won 20 games that year.

 "Campy" (left) and Jackie Robinson

At Gino’s with the Merrillville History Book Club, I passed around “The House on Mango Street,” next meeting’s selection, and told members they could buy it for ten dollars at IUN Bookstore.  Ken Anderson had seen Nicole Anslover talking about Bess Truman on C-Span’s “First Ladies” series and hopes she’ll agree to be a presenter.   A board member at the Abraham Lincoln Museum, Ken mentioned that after talking to Jimmy Carter about delivering an address at an upcoming function, another board member was outraged because of the former president’s criticisms of Israel in “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” (2011).  When presenter Pam Kosenka expressed puzzlement that Eric Metaxas’ “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy” received poor reviews from academicians, somebody quipped, “Then it must be good.”  I rose to the bait and pointed out that Bonhoeffer’s chief importance is as a theologian, and that is where the book is weakest.  Also the author is a critic of Obama for allegedly taking the Christ out of Christmas and foisting his opinion on abortion and birth control on church groups, earning him praise from rightwingers but backlash from liberals.

Home by eight, I listened to 20 year-old CDs by Natalie Merchant, Soul Asylum, and Flaming Lips and chilled out.