Sandy

“And Sandy, the aurora is risin' behind us
This pier lights our carnival life forever
Oh love me tonight for I may never see you again
Hey Sandy girl

My, my baby

. . .
I just got tired of hangin' in them dusty arcades 

bangin' them pleasure machines
Chasin' the factory girls underneath the boardwalk 

where they all promise to unsnap their jeans”

Bruce Springsteen, “4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)”

Within the first 30 minutes WXRT’s Saturday flashback show on the year 1973 featured great songs by Bruce Springsteen (“Sandy”), The Who, Patti Smith, Faces, Jackson Browne, and Elton John (“Grey Seal” from the double album “Beyond the Yellow Brick Road”).  I can’t recall ever hearing “Sandy” but the others were familiar.  Four-year-old Dave loved seeing Elton John, a great showma, on TV.  At an IUN History Department meeting Bill Neil referred to “the yellow brick road,”meaning from the movie, and Paul Kern said afterwards, “I was surprised Bill knew the Elton John album.” 1973 was an eventful year, with the Watergate hearings exposing Nixon’s criminality, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigning in disgrace, the Vietnam War ending in ignominy, the CIA overthrowing Chilean President Salvador Allende on behalf of international business interests, and the Supreme Court ruling on the controversial abortion case Roe v. Wade.

With Dorian in the news all week, finally wreaking havoc on the Carolina coast, I heard numerous references to Hurricane Sandy, which in 2012 battered the Jersey shore after first leaving destruction in its wake in the Caribbean. Dorian caused massive flooding in Nag’s Head, NC, not far from Kitty Hawk, where we spent a weekend while I was in grad school at Maryland.  I recall on the way trying to follow Dave Goldfield as he drove at high speeds beyond the capacity of our VW bug. One-year-old Phil ran into the Atlantic Ocean surf, got knocked down, and wanted no part of the beach the rest of the day, so we stayed by the motel swimming pool. In the news back then was an incident still vivid in my mind where a motel manager dumped chlorine in a pool when African Americans attempted to use it.

Hearing Bruce Springsteen’s“4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” reminded me of Sandy Sanders, softball teammate Ivan Jasper’s girlfriend during the 1970s.  She was blond, beautiful, a former high school track star, and warm and friendly. Sandy and Ivan eventually broke up because she wanted kids and he didn’t, having taken care of younger siblings most of his life after his mother deserted the family. In 1979 Ivan and Sandy took one last trip together to the Bahamas (last week devastated by Dorian) along with several other Portage Acres couples, including the four Lanes. Phil and Dave, then 10 and 11, loved Sandy, as did all of us. One afternoon by the pool she was lying on a beach chair when Ivan noticed them looking their way and briefly unsnapped and lifted her bikini top.

Steve Rushin of Sports Illustratedcan make any subject interesting.  Writing about the phasing out of tickets to sports events, as most folks receive them on mobile devices, Rushin admitted the technological advancement has its advantages but also, “like Dylan going electric, its drawbacks and consolations.”  Soon, Rushin quipped, nobody will know the meaning of,“I’ll take a rain check.” Collectors wax nostalgic over such items as tickets shaped like pineapples or catchers’ mitts.  Quite valuable would be one from Sandy Koufax’s last game as a Dodger in the 1966 World Series.  Koufax went 27-9 that season despite suffering from a sore arm that hastened his retirement as age 30.  I got a good laugh reading this paragraph:

  One U.S. Open golf spectator was given a replacement ticket after persuading officials that his dog had really eaten his pass. But the Michigan State season-ticket holder who inadvertently threw his tickets into his fireplace while burning old files was SOL.  His tickets did not rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes.

It took me a few seconds to realize that SOL stood for “shit outta luck.”Toni got it immediately.

Bob and Rhea Laramie

I cheered when Phil’s former soccer coach Bob Laramie, who identified himself as 49-year Portage resident posted this raffle ticket and wrote:“I hope these weapons being raffled off by the FOP do not come back to haunt the department or the citizens of Portage. In the future when they come wanting donation, they will be reminded about this. The Mayor supporting this will also lose my vote in the upcoming election. I have no problem with guns just weapons of war that people use to slaughter others.  Robert Laramie, 49-year resident of Portage

John Fraire, who I’ve known for many years and whose brother Rocky is a good friend, sent me this email:

  Some of my research on the Mexican community in NW Indiana was the collection of oral histories of some of the original Mexican residents in the East Chicago. They were collected under IRB guidelines at Western Michigan University and then were approved for use by the IRB office of Union Institute and University where I completed my doctorate. The narratives have all been transcribed and printed. I would like to donate the following to the Calumet Archives:  print copy of the transcribed narratives, release forms from the individuals interviewed, original transcriptions with handwritten notes, flash drive with all the interviews.

What a treasure trove! I responded: “I’m very excited at your choosing the Calumet Regional Archives as the repository for your valuable collection.  By the way, I see your brother Rocky when our book club meets every two months at Gino’s in Merrillville.” He emailed back: “Thank you Jim. And thanks for all your help over the years. I will let you know when I am headed back to Crown Point with the materials. It will be great to go over them with you.”  Fraire has written extensively about women’s baseball teams in Indiana Harbor and California.

photo by Marty Bohn

At Gardner Center in Miller Marty Bohn’s exhibit “Definitive Moments,” featured striking photos taken in Nepal, India, Morocco, and Cuba.  I’d love to visit Nepal and Cuba, not so much India or Morocco. This from Anne Balay, who misses living in Miller but was denied tenure at IUN due to blatant discrimination on the part of her immediate superior:

  My face is on this truck. The couple who drive it designed the truck to represent trucking as it was and at it is now. They wanted my book and the stories it tells represented. Given the number of closed doors that I have met with, this recognition feels so affirming. The audience I really care about gets it and I am so damn grateful.

Longest Day

“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.”  Coach Jim Valvano

Phil Lane with Miranda, Alissa, Tori  and Anthony; photo by Delia Soto-Lane

"The Longest Day" (1962) was a rather over-dramatic account of D-Day with big-name stars of a half-century ago, such as Richard Burton, John Wayne, and Robert Mitchum, but the phrase also refers to the summer solstice that literally results in the occurrence of the longest day of the year.

On Fathers Day I got calls from Phil and Dave as well as granddaughter Alissa, who had her dad’s family over for spring rolls and the seventh game of the NBA finals won by Cleveland, led by “King” Lebron James, the series leader in scoring, rebounds, blocks, and assists.

In “Couple share lifelong love of Miller Beach” Post-Trib columnist Jeff Manes  reported that Judy Ayers donated cookbooks to the Calumet Regional Archives.  Judy told him:

              My mother, Barbara Neal, was the owner of Barbara's Cover Girl Beauty Shop for 40 years and her business was always on Lake Street. For most of those years, it was located next to Ayers Realtors where she rented her side of the store from Gene.

Mom's patrons, ladies from Miller, Gary, Ogden Dunes, Portage and Lake Station, sold their community or church cookbooks as fundraisers. My mother bought them to support her customers and their causes. In each cookbook there was the history of the church or organization. After every recipe was the name of who contributed it.

It was always fun to see the recipes friends and neighbors served their families. Many years later, the cookbooks and the names of the recipe contributors serve as reminders of the ladies my mother knew.

In 1922 N. Guy Ayers, Gene’s great-uncle, hung out a shingle to launch Ayers Realty.  Gene’s father Bruce joined the business in 1946 after serving in World War II.  Gene, like Judy a 1965 Wirt High School grad, said:

            When I was really young, we lived in Aetna. They hadn't yet built the 1950s Fifield-Aetna houses, so we lived on Aetna Street at the end of a sand dune. The Fifields took raw land and subdivided it into all those inexpensive homes that were built in that post-war era. Close to 70 percent of the houses in Miller were built from '46 to '66.

My father was in partnership with some people who were going to build a workingman's lakefront housing project where Bethlehem Steel (ArcelorMital) is now. It was going to be called Duna Beach, but Dad's partner became gravely ill and Duna Beach never happened.

At Tom Eaton’s for bridge Pat Cronin mentioned that she is in a knitting club with Judy Ayers.  Last year the group made a hundred caps for kids with cancer.  I finished second to Brian Barnes, who with wife Connie will host next month’s get together.  A great cook, Eaton served Bavarian cream cake.

At Primary Care to renew three blood pressure prescriptions, I learned that Dr. Ostroski's daughter is teaching in the Nursing Department at Valparaiso University.  I wonder if she’s met Chemistry professor Julie Peller, John Ban’s daughter, who who left IUN after getting screwed over for promotion by the old boy network.  I was tempted to suggest that Len  quit the rat race and see about becoming a professor at IUN Medical School.

Chesterton High School hosted a ceremony in honor of 2014 grad Mitchell Alexander Winey, who drowned in Texas along with 8 others in a military training accident when floodwaters washed their transport truck from what was supposed to be a shallow crossing.  Class president and captain of Chesterton’s soccer team, Winey was a West Point cadet.  During the ceremony Indiana senator Joe Donnelly remarked: “I will never make a better nomination or make an easier one than this one [to the military academy.]”

Funeral services took place over the weekend for many of the 49 victims of the terrorist attack in Orlando.  Because it occurred on Latin Night and approximately half of the dead were Puerto Rican, Attorney-General Loretta Lynch announced that the FBI is investigating whether it was a hate crime against Latinos as well as gays.

 

NWI Times photo by John Luke 

Members of the Pokagon band of Potawatomi Indians held a blessing to Mother Nature at the waters of Lake George at Festival Park in Hobart.  NWI Times reporter Chas Reilly wrote:

         The Potawatomi prayed for the healing of the water and those participating in the ceremony at Festival Park.

They used rattles and drums to keep time as they sang. During one song, a copper kettle filled with water was held toward the sky. The large crowd that gathered was later given water from that kettle to drink.

Bob and Rhea Laramie

I attended a party at Woodland Park for Portage High School grad Stephanie Laramie, who will be a freshman at Vincennes University in the fall.  Her grandfather, Bob Laramie, coached Phil on several youth soccer teams, and we reminisced about highlights from years past.  Bob knew the names of all 16 of his grandchildren and his 24 great-grandchildren, many of whom he introduced me to.  On hand was an IUN History major (Tyler) whom I knew from Jonathyne Briggs and Nicole Anslover’s classes.  For Fathers Day son Bobby gave Bob, a former steelworker, “Steel Giants” and said one of the authors had signed it, not Steve McShane but Gary Wilk, who had been at a booth with wife Nancy at European Market.

At the Democratic state convention in Indianapolis John Gregg was nominated to oppose Governor Mike Pence along with running mate Christina Hale, a Michigan City native.  East Chicago former judge Lorenzo Arredondo is the party’s attorney-generalnominee, and Glenda Ritz will seek a second term as superintendent of public instruction.

The Cubs swept the Pirates, and Anthony Rizzo pulled off an unusual play that I’ve long advocated.  On first with bases loaded and two out Ben Zobrist hit a grounder to deep short.  Rather than side, Rizzo ran to second in full stride and beat the throw.  He got tagged out overrunning the base, but the man on third, reaching home beforehand, scored.

Adam Hochschild's “Spain in Our Hearts” profiles American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, many of whom were demonized during the Red Scare as "Premature Anti-Fascists." Robert Merriman, the son of a lumberjack, received a grant to study in the Soviet Union during the Great Depression while a grad student at the University of California.   One of his Economics professors at Berkeley was Paul S. Taylor, whose account of Mexican-American steelworkers in the Calumet Region Ed Escobar and I excerpted in “Forging a Community.”  Taylor’s wife was photographer Dorothea Lange.

Dorothea Lange; photo by Paul S. Taylor