Strange Days

“Strange days have found us
Strange days have tracked us down
They're going to destroy
Our casual joys”

    “Strange Days,” The Doors

The Doors

Lori

James

People are putting all sorts of weird stuff on Facebook to relieve boredom during the pandemic.  One fad is melding one’s photo into an avatar look-alike.  Lori Montalbano was more successful than James Wallace, methinks.  Political commentary abounds, the latest batch debunking Trump’s threats to force governors to open churches on Sunday – this from a man pandering to the Christian right who only worships himself.  Fortunately, friends have not lost their sense of humor, as evidenced by this post by Cindy Bean:

I’ve finished posting album covers on Facebook but am enjoying choices by others, including Fred McColly (Warren Zevon), Chris Daly (folk and bluegrass singer John Hartford), and Gregg Hertzlieb (Steve Hackett, former lead guitar player for Genesis.  Brenden Bayer introduced me to School of Fish, an alternative rock band from L.A. who in 1991 recorded “3 Strange Days.”  Brenden also suggested posting a list of five people, four of whom you’ve met or been within a few feet of and one you haven’t and see if friends can guess the correct one.  Here’s a list of civil rights leaders: Julian Bond, Andrew Young, James Farmer, Jesse Jackson, Stokely Carmichael.  Here’s a second list of famous people: Dick Clark, Jesse Owens, Frank Borman, Muhammad Ali, Lyndon B. Johnson.  Can you identify one from each list I’ve never met?  Spoiler alert: answers are Andrew Young and Muhammad Ali. Surprisingly few people guessed Young but most guessed Ali (I thought more would select LBJ, who I saw speak in Lewisburg, PA, in 1960 when he was JFK’s running mate, or track star Jesse Owens, whose hand I shook when the Gary NAACP honored him at a luncheon at IUN).

 

Julian Bond

I met Julian Bond, who was then teaching at the U. of Virginia, at an Oral History Association conference. I heard Carmichael speak at IUN in 1979 on Pan-African socialism when he went by the name Kwame Ture. Richard Morrisroe was in the audience, and the two former freedom fighters embraced.  James Farmer, a founder of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and a 1961 Freedom Rider on a bus attacked by racists, spoke at IUN and I got him to sing one of the songs that calmed people on the bus - he had a great voice and it's on an episode of "Eyes on the Prize."  I first saw Jesse Jackson in 1968 speak on Solidarity Day in DC. Richard Hatcher brought him to IUN when he was running for President in 1984, and I spoke with him at a Genesis Center event on the 40th anniversary of the 1972 West Side National Black Political Convention. Ali visited Gary several times while Hatcher was mayor, but I never met him.  Janet Bayer wrote: “Mayor Hatcher's Evenings to Remember were great for meeting people. I actually was in line with Julian Bond behind me waiting to get to the Campaign Fountain. He was charming. Another year Rev Jesse Jackson came in to do some fund raising. The Black National Convention that was hosted by Mayor Hatcher had everybody. I was one of very few white people invited.  We were so fortunate to live in Gary.”

 

Brenda Ann Love suggested opening a book to page 45 and seeing what the first thing you read tells you about yourself.  Why not?  Pamela Roorda-Barnett wrote: "There was a clear sense that the school had invested in us, which I think made us all try harder and feel better about ourselves." Michelle Obama - “Becoming.” This was on page 45 of Hilary Mantel’s “Beyond Black” – of all things, a one-night stand with a bookstore manager, who sold her a book on tarot and the cards as well:

    He had a room in a shared flat.  In bed he kept pressing her clit with his finger, as if he were inputting a sale on a cash machine.  In the end she faked it because she was bored and getting a cramp.

This on page 45 of Jean Shepherd’s “A Fistful of Fig Newtons”: “The roar in the driveway meant the old man was home from bowling.  Our Oldsmobile made a distinctive, loose-limbed, gurgling racket that came from 120,000 hard miles and gallons of cheap oil. “YER LOOKIN’ AT A GUY THAT JUST ROLLED A SIX HUNDRED SERIES!”  He strode through the kitchen ten feet tall, smelling of Pabst Blue Ribbon and success.”  Moral: every dog has its day.

On a positive note Facebook has connected me to online board games and bridge with friends and allowed me to learn about the doings of family members such as Dave, who’s been able to order appropriate masks for East Chicago Central seniors and volunteers.  Also Anne Koehler has taken the opportunity to write her memoirs. Here’s the latest installment:

In late 1957 I took the train from home in northern Germany to Sweden to meet a friend in Goeteborg. I had been an exchange student earlier in the year at Asa Folkhoegskola in Skoeldinge. In the beginning I did not know a word of Swedish, but became fairly fluent by the end of the Summer. People would ask "Aer Ni fran Skone?" (are you from Schonen, a southern part of Sweden) because of my accent. I considered that a compliment.  Back then the Danish isles were not all connected by bridges and tunnels as they are now. One had to get off the train or car and onto a ferryboat. Topside at the railing I started to talk to a young man from America who spoke German. He was a GI on vacation with a German family. After the 15-minute crossing it was time to get back to our respective modes of transportation and we exchanged addresses. His time of enlistment was up in 1958 and I did not see him again until 1960 when I came to the USA. We had corresponded for three years. Since Richard was fluent in German, the Army used him to spy on East German radio stations. He had a car and got to travel up and down the border separating East and West Germany. His mission was secret and he very reluctantly told me about it.- Two weeks after arriving in the USA we got married.

 

Desperate to find a decent movie I hadn’t already seen On Demand I discovered a category labeled Indie films – evidently in contrast to mainstream blockbusters and entered into film festivals – and found “Ophelia” and “Tumbledown.”  The latter was about a professor and a grieving widow collaborating on a book about  Hunter Miles, a dead folk singer whose songs in the movie were sung by Seattle folkie Damien Jurado.  “Ophelia” was a remaking of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” from Ophelia’s point of view, starring Daisy Ridley (below), who reminded me of high school redhead Gaard Murphy.

"Tumbledown" takes place in Gaard’s home state, Maine, where fans come to put momentos, including bottles of Jack Daniels, by their hero’s gravesite. Seen teaching a music pop culture class, Andrew (former SNL cast member Justin Sedeikis) appears to be a snob.  Lecturing on the music of The Notorious B.I.G., he asks the class, “Fiction or autobiography, pose or confession?” adding “Biggy was as much defined by as he was killed by his 10 crack commandments; what does that mean, to hinge your street cred on your own moral evanescence?” Say what?  As class ends, he asks students to analyze the assigned music in terms of cultural appropriation.  Boring!   In the course of the film Andrew drops his phony pretenses, shows endearing and vulnerable sides of his personality, and falls in love with Hannah (Rebecca Hall).  Highly recommended.

Heartbreaker

You belong among the wildflowers

You belong in a boat out at sea

Sail away, kill off the hours

You belong somewhere you are free.”

         Tom Petty, “Wildflowers”

As if the worst massacre in American history wasn’t bad enough, Tom Petty passed away suddenly at age 66. What is sad beyond belief is that the Las Vegas killings were less shocking than the Rock icon’s death.  The Republicans claim to believe in a federal system but are lockstep behind the NRA’s demand that cities like Gary, Chicago, and Las Vegas have the same gun laws (or lack thereof) as Montana or rural Alabama.  As my nephew Beamer Pickert put it: “Just because bad people will do bad things doesn't mean we have to make it easier for them kill more people more quickly. We CAN do something about the access to rapid kill weapons.”

The first I knew about Petty’s condition was driving home from IU Northwest and hearing a complete set of Tom Petty songs on WXRT. At Chesterton library, someone was checking out Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers CDs and commiserating with the person behind the counter.  Talking by phone to Marianne Brush, I learned the story might be false only to have his death confirmed later.  Rather than play more familiar CDs in my collection, I put on his 1994 solo album “Wildflowers,” whose only hit single was “You Don’t Know How It Feels.”  In their tributes to Petty, Brenden Bayer and Corey Hagelberg referenced the Traveling Wilburys song “End of the Line,” which concludes:

Well it's all right, even if you're old and grey
Well it's all right, you still got something to say
Well it's all right, remember to live and let live
Well it's all right, the best you can do is forgive

Well it's all right, riding around in the breeze
Well it's all right, if you live the life you please
Well it's all right, even if the sun don't shine
Well it's all right, we're going to the end of the line

Tom Petty is one reason the late 1970s is one of my favorite musical periods; and the Traveling Wilburys – bringing him together with Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne – was pure magic.  When “American Girl,” “Free Fallin’,” and other Petty classics come on the radio, I turn the dial up and sing along.  Dave’s band Voodoo Chili played several of his songs, including “Don’t Come Around Here No More.” Petty was beautiful when he began his career and beautiful in spirit until the end – still at the top of his game, for instance, at Wrigley Field this past summer.

 photo by Steve McShane

Steve McShane and I put together a Unit 154 Contract Bridge League glass case exhibit in IUN’s library hallway, using items donated or loaned by Barbara Walczak, Joe Chin, Anna Urick and Carol Osgerby.  Some date back to the 1890s and Whist, the forerunner of bridge.  Barb Walczak designed the backdrop.  Recent Newsletters on display contain photos of former IU Business professors Dan Simon and Ed d’Ouville. I encouraged Steve’s students to invite their assigned bridge players to visit the exhibit and to take selfies with them when they do so.

Austin Rogers

High school history teacher Justin Vossler won $65,000 on Jeopardy in a single day.  Comfortably in the lead, he made a huge wager on Final jeopardy with the category being American artists.  The clue asked what Iowa native once claimed he got his inspiration from milking cows.  Voila!  The Pitchfork man, Grant Wood.  His competitors guessed James Whistler (a New Englander), but Vossler, who ran his five-day total to $110,000, nailed it. The following day, Vossler lost to another history teacher.

Alan Yngve in 2014

Dee, my bridge partner, was indisposed so I partnered with director Alan Yngve; we finished second, pretty good for never having played together.  In one hand, Carol Miller, who with Mary Kocevar finished first, preempted 3 Spades, and I held five Spades to the Queen.  Alan doubled, wanting me to name my strongest suit.  I passed, ordinarily a cardinal sin, but we set them 2, doubled, for high board. Another hand, Alan opened 1 No-Trump.  I had four Hearts to the Queen, Jack, a singleton spade, and an Ace of Clubs.  I bid 2 Clubs, indicating a four-card major.  He bid 2 Hearts, and I passed.  He made 4 Hearts and afterwards said that, with the singleton Spade, I could have said 3 Hearts.  When Dottie Hart asked if Alan would then have gone to game (4 Hearts), he said no, getting a laugh out of all of us since our score would have been the same either way.  He had a point, however, since, not knowing how strong his hand was, I should have left the decision to him.

 

In a Rolling Stone article entitled “The Madness of Donald Trump” Matt Taibbi ruminates about America’s past:

      We Americans have some good qualities, but we're also a bloodthirsty Mr. Hyde nation that subsists on massacres and slave labor and leaves victims half-alive and crawling over deserts and jungles, while we sit stuffing ourselves on couches and blathering about our "American exceptionalism." We dumped 20 million gallons of toxic herbicide on Vietnam from the air, just to make the shooting easier without all those trees, an insane plan to win "hearts and minds" that has left about a million still disabled from defects and disease – including about 100,000 children, even decades later, little kids with misshapen heads, webbed hands and fused eyelids writhing on cots, our real American legacy, well out of view, of course.

      Nowadays we use flying robots and missiles to kill so many civilians and women and children in places like Mosul and Raqqa and Damadola, Pakistan, in our countless ongoing undeclared wars that the incidents scarcely make the news anymore. Our next innovation is "automation," AI-powered drones that can identify and shoot targets, so human beings don't have to pull triggers and feel bad anymore. If you want to look in our rearview, it's lynchings and race war and genocide all the way back, from Hispaniola to Jolo Island in the Philippines to Mendocino County, California, where we nearly wiped out the Yuki people once upon a time.

      This is who we've always been, a nation of madmen and sociopaths, for whom murder is a line item, kept hidden via a long list of semantic self-deceptions, from "manifest destiny" to "collateral damage." We're used to presidents being the soul of probity, kind Dads and struggling Atlases, humbled by the terrible responsibility, proof to ourselves of our goodness. Now, the mask of respectability is gone, and we feel sorry for ourselves, because the sickness is showing.

The final song on Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers” album, “Wake Up Time,” ends with these lines:

'Cause it's wake up time
It's time to open your eyes
And rise and shine

If only!