Foursomes

“The foursome attempted to evoke the Zen-like closeness of artist and subject.  Might such representations of the wish to perpetuate intimacy express at once the confines and yearnings of the singular self?” Carolyn Burke, “Foursome: Alfred Stiglitz, Georgia O’Keefe, Paul Strand, Rebecca Salsbury.”

Foursome usually refers to golfers, as in this joke by author Bruce Lansky: “Some golfers fantasize about playing in a foursome with Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Sam Sneed.  The way I hit I’d rather play in a foursome with Helen Keller, Ray Charles, and Stevie Wonder.”  Foursome can also refer to group sex as in this proclamation by a character in a Jeaniene Frost fantasy novel from the Night Huntress series, who says, “I’ll become a swinger.  That’s right – threesomes, foursomes, and more.  Bones knows about a thousand chicks who’d love to hop into bed with us.  It’ll be kinky, we’ll get our freak on.”

 Stiglitz and his 1918 photo of O'Keefe

I’ve long been fascinated with photographer Alfred Stiglitz, a pioneer of modern art instrumental in photography coming to be accepted as a legitimate art form as well as a patron of  artist Georgia O’Keefe, his model, muse, lover, and wife.  For most of their marriage they lived separate lives with O’Keefe preferring to be in New Mexico, especially after discovering Alfred’s affair with another model.  Stiglitz preferred New York City and summers at Lake George.  I’ve read elsewhere that both had trysts with Rebecca Salsbury, but I’m not yet that far into Carolyn Burke’s book. I’m still in 1916 when Georgia was teaching in Texas and likely still a virgin but writing passionately to both Stiglitz and his protégé Paul Strand after meeting them at 291, Stiglitz’s gallery. To Paul she wrote: “I wanted to put my arms round you and kiss you hard.” To Alfred she described painting a self-portrait in the nude from reflections in the mirror, adding: “I couldn’t get what I wanted any other way.” He replied: “I’d like to kiss your body from top to bottom and then enjoy a long, long sleep – entwined.”

During the nineteenth century John Humphrey Noyes founded a utopian community, Oneida, based on a theory of perfectionism and the practice of complex marriage that permitted members to be sexually intimate with a variety of partners.  The 1969 comedy drama “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice” was somewhat of a cop-out, as when the two couples finally share a bed together, the swapping does not advance beyond passionate kissing, at which point the action stops and the couples return to their spouses.  In recent times foursomes have experimented with living together as poly families. Kathy Labriola, a counselor who describes herself as involved in a polyamorous community, found that few such arrangements last for more than a year or two.  She wrote: 

  I’ve seen several households with a primary couple who add another couple and eventually end up as a threesome. It seems quite rare that all four people are compatible and flexible enough to handle the demands of a poly family, and eventually one of the four opts out. I’ve also seen some group marriages where two or even three of the partners stay together for many years but the fourth or fifth partners leave and are replaced by new people every year or so.  It’s certainly possible that there are successful foursomes or moresomes out there, but my data is empirical.

Photographer Cindy C. Bean noted on Facebook that I used some of her work in Steel Shavings, eliciting this reply from Diana Rudd: 

  So proud of you. Steel Shavingsis a marvelous collection of history of the region. Professor Lane was one of Jennifer's instructors when she attended IUN. One of the pieces he assigned her class to write focused on 1970, the year I graduated. She interviewed me for her paper and it was excerpted in a Seventies edition. I talked about the fluff of that year.. so many others contributed memories of the really important stuff.. Vietnam, the steel mills, politics. But even fluff memories have their place, I guess.

I replied: “Diana’s memories of Lew Wallace and downtown Gary in 1970 are historically important.”  She mentioned her post-prom party at Tiebel’s in Schererville (still in business) with the live band World Column and getting a 1962 blue Chevy as a graduation present. Here is an account of Diana’s first job after high school:

 I began as secretary for a two-brother legal team whose office was located in the old Sun Building at 475 Broadway.  I made a hundred dollars a week, not bad for someone with no prior experience.  I received a Christmas bonus equaling a week’s pay.  Relying on public transportation was inconvenient at times.  I had to drive to work on Fridays so that I could run errands. I began to feel unsafe after a rape occurred during business hours, two doors down from my office.  My days working in downtown Gary were numbered. My bosses seemed unconcerned with our safety.  There were two secretaries in our office, myself and a girl from Portage, who were expected to work alone on alternate Saturdays, finishing up work left over from the week.  When our bosses wouldn’t rearrange the schedule, I began looking for another job.

At her next job as a claims secretary, she met claims adjuster Henry Farag, who sang with the doo wop group Stormy Weather.  “They were cutting their first record at that time,” she recalled.  

Thanks to Marianne Brush, I purchased four third row tickets to see Dave Davies, formerly of the Kinks, at the Art Theater in Hobert.  Alissa and Josh came down from Grand Rapids, and son Dave completed our foursome.  Beforehand, we met Marianne and daughter Missy at Montego Bay Restaurant, which served Caribbean food.  Marianne knew the waitress and her husband, the cook and owner, who came out and greeted us. Everyone congratulated Dave on being named East Chicago Central’s “Teacher of Excellence.” Corey Hagelberg, also going to the show, stopped by our table to say hi.  It was a beautiful spring evening. We had time to stop by Green Door Books.  Much to my delight, it was still open and IUN Fine Arts major Casey King was inside, along with the owners.  Casey talked to our group about his work that adorned two walls.  Nearby was Tom Lounges’ Record Bin, which also included a small studio for Lounges’s radio show and a seating area for intimate live concerts.  I found a favorite Night Ranger album on vinyl, “Midnight Madness” (1983) that contains “Sister Christian” and “(You Can Still) Rock in America” but the price seemed steep at 18 bucks.

Alissa selfie and photo, below, by Sam Love

Dave and I had seen the Kinks at the Star Plaza over 30 years ago when he and brother Ray hardly spoke to one another but put on a great show.  Josh said that when he and his friends wanted to play the guitar, Kinks riffs were the first they mastered.  Looking grandfatherly at 71, Davies, on Rolling Stone’slist of all-time greatest guitar players, could still play and had a serviceable voice.  He seemed delighted at the enthusiastic audience and mixed in Kinks hits such as “Till the End of the Day” and “All Day and All of the Night” with recently recorded numbers. At one point he asked if a woman he’d met when he’d played in Merrillville was in the audience.  “I remember, she was from Hobart,” he exclaimed.  We all had a great time.  Though I didn’t see them, Sam and Brenda Love were in the house.  Afterwards, she posted: “Finally a concert where I’m not the oldest in the audience.”

 The Beths

Back at the condo, I played for Josh the Weezer song “Take On Me,” which we’d seen the band perform earlier in the month, and “Billie Jean,” also on the Teal album.  I introduced him to the Beths’ CD “Future Me Hates Me” after he said he’d been listening to Australian punk bands.  The Beths are actually from Aukland, New Zealand.

After having prepared breakfast for Alissa and Josh, Toni hosted a Spring Solstice dinner for Angie and Dave’s family, including her dad and  a very pregnant Tamiya - ham with all the trimmings plus mussels and scallops.  Everything was delicious. Afterwards, we played the dice game Qwixx and Pass the Pigs where you score points or get wiped out depending on how the piglets land. Before dinner I watched an exciting 76ers victory over the Brooklyn Nets, as Joel Embiid not only had 31 points and 16 rebounds but a key assist while falling to the ground to enable Mike Scott to score the game winner, a three-pointer from the corner.

I watched the first episode of a series called “Punk,” hosted by Iggy Pop, whose Detroit band The Stooges were pioneers of the genre.  Iggy claimed the Kinks 1964 song “You Really Got Me,” with its famous guitar riff by Dave Davies, was an early inspiration, the only Top 40 hit, in his words “worth a shit.”  The distortion sound came from Dave Davies slicing the speaker cone of his amplifier and then sticking it with a pin.  Iggy’s mentors were the Motor City group MC5, whose trademark song “Kick Out the Jams, mother fucker,” roused crowds to a frenzy.

CBS Morning Newsco-host Gayle King made one of six covers for Time’s 100 Most Influential People issue, primarily from staying calm while interviewing singer and accused pedophile R. Kelly.  Adorning our copy in the mail was Taylor Swift - seemingly a poor choice since she hasn’t recorded an album since 2017.  She was on a Timecover last year for suing a radio host who groped her ass; I suppose her image sells magazines and in any case. the choices seem pretty arbitrary. No literary figure made the list.  On the cover of New York magazine: Peter Buttigieg. A sidebar listed Mayor Pete’s favorite books; they include Ulysses by Irish writer James Joyce and Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.  

A package arrived from the Abraham Lincoln Association.  Ken Anderson, a fellow book club member, gifted me a membership.  With a cover letter came a copy of the Association’s Winter 2019 journal, which contained an article by IUN professor Chris Young about the 1887 dedication of Augustus Saint-Gauden’s 12-foot statue of Abraham Lincoln in Chicago's Lincoln Park and its replica in London’s Parliament Square, unveiled in 1920.  In 1861 the 13 year-old Saint-Gaudens observed the President-elect standing in a carriage and bowing to a crowd of supporters. Four years later, he was among the thousands of mourners who viewed Lincoln’s body lying in repose at New York’s City Hall. Saint-Gaudens designed monuments to other Civil war leaders, including William Tecumseh Sherman.  His bronze of the Roman goddess Diana is on display at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Senator Elizabeth Warren wants to begin impeachment proceedings against Trump and proposed wiping out almost everyone’s student debt, causing IUN grad Amanda Marie Board (below, in middle), who recently passed the National Registry EMT exam, to write: “Okay, you may have just become my front runner.” I’m still for Klobuchar/ Buttigieg – or maybe Buttigieg/Klobuchar.

Old Mill

John Constable, "Parham Mill, Gillingham," circa 1823

“The sound of water escaping from mill dams, etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things.” English landscape artist John Constable
Old Mill in 1936 and  2007 (by Samuel Love)

From Samuel A. Love:“Farewell Old Mill, 1851-2018. More Merrillville landmarks disappearing. Originally a distillery, then a grist mill, a tavern, a restaurant, a dance hall, a school, a candy store, and finally a pizzeria. We rarely dined here, we were Palace Pizza devotees, but I remember being fascinated with the little rapids of Turkey Creek ‘roaring’ under the deck.”

I am disappointed in Merrillville’s leaders for not bothering to save historic Old Mill, located at 73rd and Madison and boarded up since 2010.  73rd Avenue has roots dating back to the Sauk Trail, used first by Native Americans and then by settlers traveling west.  Once, Potawatomi tribes gathered in a nearby clearing for religious ceremonies. A century ago, the road was paved and became part of Lincoln Highway.  Merrillville went through several name changes once the Potawatomi were forcibly removed: McGwinn Village, Wiggins Point, Centerville, Merrillville, and Ross Township, prior to Merrillville becoming a town in 1971 out of fear of annexation by Gary.

At lunch with Mike Olszanski and Chris Young at Little Redhawk Café.  I mentioned Young’s article about the infamous 1979 “Disco Demolition Night” at White Sox Park organized by WLUP’s “shock jock” Steve Dahl, when a crate of disco records was blown up between games of a twi-night doubleheader as the crowd chanted “Disco Sucks,” then stormed the field, causing game 2 to be forfeited.  Chris noted that, his area of specialty being early American history, it was the only time he made use of oral interviews for a scholarly publication. Library assistant Clyde Robinson walked by; I finally addressed him by his correct name after calling him Wayne for months and, before that, Rob a couple times. Once, I called Bettie Wilson, whom I see every day, Barbara.

. Laura Jones wedding picture with husband and parents, 1938

Steve McShane collected materials for the Archives at boarded up Wirt/Emerson School and from Miller centenarian Laura Jones, whom Judy Ayers frequently takes to lunch.  Steve suggested I interview her.  She’s evidently hard of hearing but still sharp mentally.  In an Ayers Realtors Newslettercolumn Judy Ayers wrote about trick-or-treating in Miller:

   I can still remember the best houses to go to on Halloween. Clarice and George Wilson on Henry Street always handed out Hershey Bars. Snack size or miniature candy bars hadn’t been invented yet so you got a full-sized Hershey Bar. Then there was Mrs. Teiche on the corner of Hancock and 3rd Avenue, who spoke with a heavy accent and always wore grandma dresses and thick stockings. A kid would stand on her porch and wait for what seemed like forever for her to reach down in a big burlap bag and bring out one apple at a time and drop it in their trick or treat bag. She was a nice old lady; but once we figured out time spent wasn’t relative to end result, we often bypassed Mrs. Teiche’s house. 

  Sometimes I’d skip math teacher Mrs. Hokanson’s house, too. She’d put kids through their paces. She’d conduct a little question and answer session with each kid before she’d relinquish one of her popcorn balls. She could make up a story problem about 7 little ghosts and 43 Tootsie Rolls and darn near ruin a kid’s Halloween by making them do math. 

    Then there was the Erlandson house. If Mrs. Erlandson knew you were a neighborhood kid, you got invited onto her porch for donut holes and hot apple cider. Moms and Dads on escort duty always liked this stop but a kid could waste a lot of valuable trick or treating time there. Mrs. Erlandson always had to get a good look at everyone’s costume even if it was cold and rainy and you were all bundled up in your winter coat. Mrs. Erlandson didn’t hear very well either and the year I borrowed one of Mrs. Ellman’s white poodles and dressed as Little Bo Peep, Mrs. Erlandson thought I said I was wearing something old and cheap. She told me “Oh, honey, it’s only Halloween – you look just fine. Isn’t that Mrs. Ellman’s poodle?” 

    These days Mrs. Teiche would have to pull something other than apples out of her bag on Halloween lest she be suspected of wrongdoing. Gene and I both have to be careful to not carry on too much about how cute the Spiderman and Little Mermaids look when we answer the door. We’ve learned from experience. Growing up in the same neighborhood, we have vowed to never come to the door dressed in costumes ourselves because we can still remember the Halloween Evelyn Mosegard came to the door dressed like the tooth fairy and we never did figure out what husband Elmer was wearing in the background. Maybe it’s best for our little kid psyches we didn’t know. 

    We also know to move quickly. Forget trying to give little goblins lessons in manners by trying to coax them into saying “thank you.” One year I forgot to tell Mrs. Lindstrom thank you and she kept saying “Now, what do you say when a nice lady gives you trick or treat candy”and I’d say back to her “Trick or Treat?”Then she kind of got a tone in her voice when she asked me the same question again. This time I said, “Happy Halloween?”while other trick or treaters were stacking up behind me. The crowd was getting rowdy and I was about to take my tiara and dig down in my trick or treat bag to retrieve the piece of petrified bubble gum I was jumping through hoops for when she gave up on me. It wasn’t a pretty sight. I nearly lost my princess composure. Being dressed for a northeaster to blow through the area at any given moment, I had perspiration on my upper lip and still had to turn around and make my way through the raging crowd of my peers. 

    Gene and I pretty much adhere to the Clarice and George Wilson theory of candy giving. We keep the porch light on, come to the door in respectable garb, distribute treats in an orderly and time efficient manner, remembering good trick or treat candy makes good leftovers. Hopefully, that’s how kids in our neighborhood will remember us – the place where you can get hassle free, express treats – not the home of Zena, Princess Warrior and Dr. Spock. 

At bowling Mel Nelson asked if we had many Halloweeners. Living in Gary’s Glen Ryan subdivision, he saw almost none. So many folks showed up at the condo that Toni feared we might run out of candy, though not James and Becca, unfortunately (James had play practice, and Becca couldn’t talk her friends into going out). I bowled miserably for 26 frames, then converted three straight spares and turkeyed in the tenth, as the Engineers won two out of three games and series to remain in first place. Afterwards, Dick Maloney reminded me of the time at Cressmoor Lanes when an opponent ended with three strikes, then collapsed and died.  Too bad it didn’t happen a frame earlier, I quipped, tastelessly.  At the time it wasn’t funny.  I saw him keel over.  Terry Kegebein returned from a three-week road trip to California.  On an icy road in the Colorado Rockies, he witnessed some idiot driver losing control of his vehicle and almost going over a cliff. As it was, he careened off both the retaining wall and the mountain, messing up both sides of his car.

Working on a NY TimesSunday puzzle, Toni inquired if I knew the rhyming nickname of a Cardinal great.  Easy: Stan “The Man” Musial, best natural hitter I ever saw, save for Red Sox Ted Williams, also a lefty.

At Gary Genesis Center people were lined up around the block for tickets to see Barack Obama Sunday campaigning for Senator Joe Donnelly, Congressman Pete Visclosky, and other Democrats.  Earlier, the former President stumped for Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, as did Oprah Winfrey. Her opponent is a disgusting bigot who, as Secretary of State, is actively seeking to disenfranchise thousands of black voters.  Tom Wade snagged two tickets in Valpo, and Darcey is hoping to get in with a bottle of water and in a wheelchair.  She wrote: “It will be great, but I dread the standing in line and sitting on hard chairs, ouchie. Will try to take in a bottle of water, specifically not allowed, heavy security, metal detectors. When they try to confiscate my bottle of water I will play the cancer survivor card hard, doubt it will work. Rules are rules.”

Our out of control president now claims he can nullify the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of citizenship to those born in the United States by executive order.  Ray Smock wrote:

  He is anti-immigration unless the immigrant is white. That’s clear all right, clearly racist and xenophobic. We have been having a discussion about what it means to be an American for more than three centuries. Our literature and histories are filled with this discussion. The best elements of the American “creed” tend toward openness, diversity, tolerance, acceptance, and the “melting pot theory.” But we have never really melted even as peoples from many lands assimilated. Over the next century the issues of migration worldwide will have a vast impact on all nations. We will see vast movements of human populations fleeing from the ravages of climate change. There will be internal migrations in the US and other nations not unlike the Dust Bowl migrations of the 1930s. Wars will be fought over water and arable land. Trump style dictators and fascism are already on the rise. And in 100 years there will be another 4 to 5 billion people fighting over a rapidly changing planet that will be far less salubrious than it is now. Where shall this discussion begin? I won’t be around to see this. But I see all the moving parts lining up as I write this.

  

Prior to our book signing at Lake Street Gallery, Ron Cohen and I met at Miller Bakery with Toni, Nancy, Councilwoman Rebecca Wyatt, and Ken Schoon, who also has a new book out on Swedes settlers in Northwest Indiana.  Harry and Maryanita Porterfield were eating nearby and the Lowes and Gallmeiers were in the bar area waiting to be seated. Despite Lake Street being torn up and a competing Temple Israel service to honor Pittsburgh shooting victims, we sold more than a dozen copies of “Gary: a Pictorial History” and Schoon did almost as well.  Cindy C. “Cupcake” Bean showed up for a free copy since we used her photo, taken from Marquette Park, of Lake Michigan with steel mills in the background.   

John Attinasi, formerly an IUN  Education Professor, came by on his way to Temple Israel and told me that legendary jazz musician Art Hoyle from Gary recently celebrated his  89th birthday.  I’m hoping to interview him about nightclubs where the horn player performed. Hoyle was attending Roosevelt High School when Frank Sinatra performed at Memorial Auditorium during then Froebel School Strike. A session player at Chess records he became a fixture at Chicago’s Regal Theater beginning during the early 1960s. Seven years ago, he told an interviewer about going on a 1960-61 tour with Bo Diddley, Lloyd Price, and Vee-Jay Records artist Jimmy Reed:

  We did 67 one-nighters from New York to Los Angeles and back. Two busloads of people. We wound up in the 369th Armory in Harlem. It was supposed to accommodate 1,800 people and they had over 3,000 in there. Big Joe Turner was on that bill and he was singing let it roll like a big wheel. A girl was trying to marry one of the guys in the band got up on a table and started shaking. A guy in the balcony threw a bottle. It landed in front of the piano that was being played by (organ player) Big John Patton. The lead alto player turned around as the bottle broke. It hit him and blood streamed down. Fights broke out. And Joe is still singing. The fire department turned on hoses. Bo Diddley's drummer and I rescued this pregnant woman who was about to be trampled. We pulled her up on the bandstand with us.

Art Hoyle, Gary jazzman

Clampdown

“The judge said five to ten, but I say double that again

I'm not working for the clampdown

No man born with a living soul

Can be working for the clampdown.”

         “The Clash, from “London Calling”

Rolling Stone named the double album “London Calling” by the English punk rock band the best record of the 1980s.  Headed by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, the Clash followed that triumph with the overtly political but uneven triple album “Sandinista!” which contained 36 songs.  The group’s biggest hit, “Rock the Casbah,” came in 1982, a year before Strummer and Jones parted ways, and was a critique of Iran’s clampdown on Western music imports.  My favorite lines in “Clampdown” refer to the 1979 Three Mile Island partial nuclear meltdown: “I’m working in Harrisburg, working hard in Petersburg, working for the clampdown, Beggin’ to be melted down.”

New York magazine printed excerpts from Lil Wayne’s book “Gone Til November, written in 2010 in journal format while he was incarcerated at Rikers Island after convicted of criminal possession of a pistol. It’s hard to imagine a white celebrity being punished that severely for being armed.  Treated with a modicum of respect by staff, he earned a paid position on the overnight suicide watch.  Wayne (Dwayne Carter) admitted being nervous when asked to rap for fellow inmates and vowed never to rap about prison experiences.  A prisoner saved his butt by convincing him that his future was more important than fighting someone who baited him.  In a section titled “What’s Really Real” he wrote:

  I don’t ever want to come back to this bitch!  There’ absolutely nothing cool about jail.  It’s nasty.  It’s dirty.  I got into an argument on the yard and went straight gorilla.  That’s when this dude was like, “You go home to something nobody else here goes home to . . . dude, leave that nigga alone.  He’ll be back in this bitch next month. You don’t want to be back in this bitch, man.  Don’t act that way.  Go home, bro.  You’re a millionaire. You’re a superstar.  So act like one! I couldn’t argue with that shit – damn – and yeah.

        

He lived for Visitors Day, as the following paragraphs emphasize:

  I chilled in the dayroom waiting on my visit. And what a great visit it was. Diddy kept his word and visited me today. It was total chaos! Every captain in the building was down there! Even the deps and the warden! Everyone just wanted to see him. It was kind of aggravating, but it is what it is.

. . .

Just got back from my visit. I have the best friends, fans, and family in the world. I've been in this bitch for a good minute now and have never missed a visit yet. You get two visits a week and I haven't missed one yet! That shit is incredible ’cause I've never seen Jamaica get a visit. The only visit I saw him get was the mothafuckas who deported his ass came and got him. Coach has never got a visit. Dominicano has never got a visit. Charlie has never got a visit. I got every visit I was supposed to get. I've been able to look forward to seeing someone every chance I was able to see someone ... THANK GOD!

. . .

I have to give props where props are due ... big shout-out to Diddy, Chris Paul, and Kanye for coming to see me, especially with their schedules. I know that they had to go through some extra shit, because you just can't walk in this bitch and say, "I want to see Dwayne Carter.”

 A fascinating aspect of Diane McWhorter’s book on 1963 Birmingham, “Carry Me Home,” is her odd family history.  Her grandparents were genteel, cultured members of Birmingham’s most exclusive country club.  Rebelling against his ow father’s expectations, Diane’s dad was a mean drunk who carried out dirty work for the Ku Klux Klan.  In 1963 Diane and her fifth grade classmates saw “To Kill a Mocking Bird” at a downtown theater and sympathized with Tom Robinson, the black man Cary Grant as Atticus Finch defended. In gym class Diane’s classmates cheered news of JFK’s assassination.  She wrote: “The main reason I hadn’t joined in was that I was standing next to my best friend, Caroline McFarley, a Kennedy admirer and nonconformist who, a few years later, would name her dog after [liberal justice] Hugo Black.

Diane’s favorite uncle, Hobart McWhorter, once an adviser to Governor George Wallace, hosted Mountain Brook Country Club’s first black member in order to avoid the PGA pulling its annual tournament.  When a longtime waiter he called “preacher” was hospitalized with a life-threatening illness, Uncle Hobart visited him.  Told only family members could see him, he claimed to be his uncle.  Ironically, neither Hobart McWhorter nor George Wallace were at heart ardent segregationists, but they held that position out of political expediency. They made a devil’s bargain with Ku Kluxers and a former baseball announcer named Eugene “Bull” Connor who turned Birmingham into “Bombington.”  McWhorter ends “Carry me Home” with these words:

  The Magic City [in 1963] was barely 90 years old.  That was a short time to produce a history so terrible.  From it had come a gift, America’s most stirring example of democracy.

In his History seminar Chris Young assigned a book edited by Michael Burlingame and containing excerpts from “Abraham Lincoln: The Observations of John G. Nicolay and John Hay.”  Kansas Republican Jim Lane appears in a section called “Frontier Guards at the White House: April 1861.”  After the bombardment of Fort Sumter General Winfield Scott called on volunteers to defend the Executive Mansion in the event of a Confederate attack.  Senator-elect Jim Lane rounded up 50 “Frontier Guards” (as he named them) who slept in two long rows with their muskets stacked in the center of the room.  Nicolay and Hay wrote:

  At dusk they filed into the famous East Room, clad in citizens’ dress, but carrying very new, unvarnished muskets, and following Lane, brandishing a sword of irreproachable brightness. Here ammunition boxes were opened and cartridges dealt out; and after spending the evening in an exceedingly rudimentary squad drill, under the light of the gorgeous gas chandeliers, they disposed themselves in picturesque bivouac on the brilliantly-patterned velvet carpet – perhaps the most luxurious cantonment which American soldiers have ever enjoyed.  Their motley composition, their anomalous surroundings, the extraordinary emergency, their mingled awkwardness and earnestness, rendered the scene a medley of bizarre contradictions, a blending of masquerade and tragedy, of grim humor and realistic seriousness – a combination of Don Quixote and Daniel Boone altogether impossible to describe.

A native Hoosier, Jim Lane had fought in the Mexican War and became a leading Free Soil advocate during "Bleeding Kansas," the prelude to the Civil War.  In 1862 Lane, though still a member of Congress, was appointed brigadier general and recruited a volunteer regiment of black troops that defeated a band of Confederate guerrillas at the Skirmish at Island Mound.  In 1866 Lane shot himself in the head, depressed over accusations of financial irregularities and possibly deranged.  After lingering in feverish agony for ten days he finally died.  

As the baseball playoffs begin, the dictates of TV prevail.  Games will occur place at crazy times on obscure cable stations with so many off days that the World Series will be decided in November, probably in freezing temperature if the Cubs are fortunate to survive that long. They open a five-game series with the Giants, three-time World Champion (2010, 2012, 2014) in the past five years.

Spencer Cortwright reported:

  If you are walking through a forest at this time of year, you may come across a somewhat creepy looking plant whose fruits look like someone plucked out eyes from a series of dolls!  In autumn we call this plant “doll's eyes,” but in spring we call it “white baneberry.”  Either way if you see a scattering of these plants, then you likely are walking through a healthy forest, one that hasn't been logged too much or had nasty nonnative plants grow amuck!  But don't eat doll's eyes berrries - they are poisonous!  Fortunately, birds can eat them, so the seeds can be dispersed.