On the Basis of Sex

 “I ask no favor for my sex, all I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” Ruth Bader Ginsburg, quoting Sarah Grimké during her first oral argument before the Supreme Court

 Sarah Grimké  

Sarah Grimké (1792-1873) and sister Angelina were prominent abolitionists and feminists.  Born into a prominent South Carolina family, Sarah sympathized with slaves she grew up with and resented that her own education was inferior to her brother’s due to social norms of the day.  She moved to Philadelphia, became a Quaker, and lectured about two issues dear to her, the immorality of slavery and discrimination against women. She once wrote: “I know nothing of man’s rights, or woman’s rights; human rights are all that I recognize.”

 Ruth Bader Ginsburg portrait

 “On the Basis of Sex” follows the early career of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of just nine women in her 1956 Harvard Law School class. At the time, the building lacked a woman’s bathroom. Despite her academic credentials, no New York City law firm would hire her as an associate, so she began teaching at Rutgers and then Columbia Law School.  The film highlights a case Ginsburg successfully argued with her husband, a tax attorney, before the Tenth Circuit of Appeals of a man denied a tax deduction for hiring a nurse to care for his mother so he could continue working.  She wrote the brief in the 1971 Reed v. Reedcase in which the Supreme Court extended the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to women.  In 1972 she became general counsel for the ACLU Women’s Rights Project.  Felicity Jones played Ginsburg as iron-willed, extremely intelligent, and compassionate. I loved Sam Waterston as unctuous Harvard Law School dean Erwin Griswold and Kathy Bates as veteran civil liberties activist Dorothy Kenyon.

A graduate of New York University Law School, Dorothy Kenyon (1888-1972) was an important feminist and New Deal liberal who worked with the ACLU, NAACP, and agencies offering legal services for the poor in New York City.  When Red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy falsely accused her of being connected to subversive organizations, Kenyon (above) called him a liar and a coward hiding behind Congressional immunity.

In “I’m Not Taking This Sitting Down” (2000) humorist Dave Barry described donning the lizard costume of the Miami Fusion soccer team mascot P.K. (for penalty kick) and learning to his chagrin the fine line between being an object of affection and ridicule. He discovered that children “love to run directly into mascots at full speed and tend to hit you” right where one would be well-advised to “wear a cup.”  Barry was at a gala where Mick Jagger made an appearance, looking “like Yoda wearing a Mick Jagger wig” and probably the only one in the room his senior.  In high school Barry’s band attempted to play Rolling Stones songs, such as “(Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and “Under My Thumb” but could never get the chords right.  Barry wrote:

    He seemed like a pleasant enough person, as near as I could tell from watching a crowd of avant guard people trying to get as close to him as possible while pretending not to.  I considered trying to push my way in there and start up a conversation with Mick, maybe try to find out the correct chords to “Under My Thumb.”

Former student Fred McColly stopped by on the way to the Archives to drop off two new journals about working at South Lake Mall on Macy’s department store’s loading dock.  He enjoys his co-workers but fears that Amazon and other direct mail giants will soon render stores like Macy’s obsolete.  Cosmetics appears to be Macy’s most important big-profit item. For Sears, mail order pioneers who lost their way, in its last days as a department store the main sellers had been paint and kitchen appliances until new competitors undercut them.

To celebrate bridge player Joe Chin becoming an Emerald Life Master, having accumulated 7500 master points, over 70 people gathered in Gary to honor him, including nonagenarian Jennie Alsobrooks, who, in Chin’s words, “started a lunch-hour foursome at Gary West Side High and taught me bridge basics.”  Barbara Walczak, who planned the event, presented him with a 50-page illustrated book citing some of his accomplishments and tributes from former partners and opponents.  Walczak’s Newsletter reported on the death of Claire Murvihill, noting that at Claire’s request the last hour of her funeral celebration was devoted to bridge; seven full tables participated. Back playing after a two-week hiatus,  Dee Browne and I finished third out of ten couples with 58%.

Terry Brendel, in charge of the Valpo game with Charlie Halberstadt in Arizona, complimented my letter to the NWI Times complaining about Gary and its political leadership.  The editor had left out some of my supporting material, but Terry reminded me of the policy limiting letters to 250 words or less.  I did like the headline: “Positive solutions needed to Gary’s problems.”  It fit with my final sentence: “What is needed in the face of Gary’s present travail is regional cooperation and positive solutions, not ugly stereotyping by those who, in my opinion, long ago ceased wishing the city well.”

In the Banta center library was “Baseball Forever” by Ralph Kiner, my first sports hero growing up in Easton, PA.  Kiner’s father, Ralph, Sr.,  had been a steam-shovel operator in the New Mexico copper-mining town of Santa Rita who died when Ralph was just four.  Mother Beatrice moved the family to Alhambra, CA, worked as an insurance company nurse for $125 a month, and, in Kiner’s words, kept a clean house and close eye on her son, sending him to military school for a semester when he lied about his after-school activities.  Kiner played for Pittsburgh, my dad’s hometown, and led the National league in home runs a record six years in a row, twice hitting over 50.  He briefly played for the Cubs and Cleveland Indians before a bad back ended his playing career.  Chicago oldtimers fondly recall Kiner in rightfield, slow-footed HR hitter Hank Sauer in left, and Frank Baumholtz in center, expected to cover most of the outfield. Beginning in 1961, Kiner became a New York Mets announcer until his death in 2014.  

At bowling, after overhearing Jim Daubenhower and I discussing Gary, George Yetsko mentioned that he was a 1951 Lew Wallace grad (he recalled French teacher Mary Cheever’s murder, which led to women protesting crime and corruption tolerated by the Democratic machine).  Wife Marge was a Horace Mann grad.  Her grandfather, a dentist, lived in a large house with a spiral staircase that was later torn down to make way for RailCats Stadium. 

 Tim Vassar

Daubenhower brought me Timothy Vassar’s autobiography “Jeremiah Wasn’t Just a Bullfrog: A Story of Passion, Pursuit, Perseverance . . . and Polliwogs.”  Vassar, a Butler University grad, taught special education, coached track and field at Lake Central High School, and is presently Director of Student Teaching at IUN. A Highland native, Vassar attended Mildred Merkley Elementary School, a name Region humorist Jean Shepherd (whose style Vassar’s resembles) would have appreciated.  Tim father worked at the mill plus two weekend jobs to provide for his family of six.  Vassar wrote: “My Dad used to say that Northwest Indiana was one of the only places on earth where you could run your furnace and central air on the same day.  Since we didn’t have central or any other type of air conditioner, I had to take his word for it.”  

Tim Vassar played centerfield on a Highland team coached by Andy Domsic that competed in the 1970 Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA after winning state and regional tournaments.  In Williamsport Vassar noticed Taiwanese players eating with chop sticks and met Pirate great Pie Traynor and 1968 Olympic medalist Chi Chang, the first woman to run 100 yards in ten seconds flat.  Tim’s moment of glory came when he fielded a line drive on two hops and threw out a runner jogging from first to second. After defeating a German team consisting mainly of sons of American servicemen, Highland lost in the semi-finals to eventual champ New Jersey.  The town of Highland threw a parade for the returning heroes, and players rode in convertibles.  The following year, 1971, a team from Gary, led by Lloyd McClendon, reached the Little League finals, losing to Taiwan in the longest game, nine innings, in tournament history. After McClendon homered in five consecutive at-bats, opposing coaches intentionally walked him every time he came to the plate.

Princeton professor Imani Perry was the featured speaker at VU’s Martin Luther King Day celebration.  Born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1972, she is the author of six books, including “Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry” and one on the history of the Negro National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Perry’s keynote speech lamented the “Disneyification of Dr. Martin Luther King” and urged students, my grandson James, a VU freshman among them, to overcome the rancid present political climate. NWI Times correspondent Doug Ross quoted her as saying, “Hope is not an organic feel for me at this moment.  I don’t just feel it, I create it, and we all have to do that.”

Jim Spicer’s latest senior citizen joke:

  An elderly man in Louisiana had owned a large farm for several years. He had a large pond in the back. It was properly shaped for swimming, so he fixed it up nice with picnic tables, horseshoe courts, and some apple and peach trees.
    One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond and look it over, as he hadn't been there for a while. He grabbed a five-gallon bucket to bring back some fruit. As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee. As he came closer, he saw it was a bunch of young women skinny-dipping in his pond. He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end. One of the women shouted to him, “We're not coming out until you leave!” The old man frowned, and proving that some seniors still think fast he said, “I didn't come down here to watch you ladies swim or make you get out of the pond naked. I'm here to feed the alligator.”

Friendsgiving

 “There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

Michael and Jimbo; photo by Kirsten Bayer-Petras

Since the 1970s it’s been a tradition to have Thanksgiving with our oldest Gary friends, Michael and Janet Bayer.  We missed some years after they moved to Vermont but revived the tradition upon their relocating to the Indianapolis area.  In the past couple years we realized having our families together on Thanksgiving was impractical, so we moved it to an earlier date. This year August worked best because we could take advantage of Kirsten and Ed’s pool.  The weather was perfect, sunny and in the low 80s, then cool enough after sundown for a fire to make smores.  Grilling burgers, brats, hot dogs, chicken, and corn of the cob and eating outside was more relaxing than a sitdown meal of turkey and ham with all the trimmings. Our group of 20 ranged in age from 4 to 77.  Though the eldest, I played two games of cornhole with Phil as partner and went 1-1against tough competition.  Kirsten made delicious cherry cobbler from a recipe she got from me.  Brenden Bayer, a Great Lakes boat captain, gave Toni an International Longshoremen’s Association sweater, which she’ll treasure.

 Kravitz family; below, Chez Roberts and friends (Kirsten on right)

Several folks had watched season 2 of “Little Big Lies” and, like me, were blown away by Meryl Streep and the other actresses, in particular Zoë Kravitz, the daughter of singer Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet – talk about cool parents! Joining us was Chez Roberts, one of Kirsten’s oldest friends who manages an Italian restaurant and soon will open a place of his own.  He is from Columbus, Ohio, as is Hanif Abdurraqib, author of “They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us.” Abdurraqib describes his hometown with bittersweet candor, avoiding nostalgia:

  The mission of any art that revolves around place is the mission of honesty.  So many of us lean into romantics when we write of whatever place we crawled out of, perhaps because we feel like we owe it something, even when it has taken more from us than we’ve taken from it.  The mission of honesty becomes a bit more cloudy when we decide to be honest about not loving the spaces we have claimed as our own.

We spent the night at Mike and Janet’s in Fishers and then were back at Kirsten’s in Carmel for breakfast.  Recently retired, Janet talked about taking a “gap year” (a phrase I became familiar with recently and now seemingly hear all the time) before pursuing another phase of her life.  She’s thinking about starting a blog and hopes to write about famous people she’s met as an activist over the years, and I mentioned some I interacting with Bayard Rustin and Julian Bond.   Brenden, who lives just a few miles from us, suggested we go back on routes 31 and 30 instead of taking I-65, so we followed his advice.  It took about the same amount of time and was much more relaxing, with fewer trucks and traffic.  Summer construction is unavoidable but not so much a hassle on the new route.

                                               Buck Swope and Roller Girl

Home in time to catch the Cubs getting swept by the Washington Nationals, whose hitters were more disciplined than the strike out-prone Cubbies.  I finished watching “Boogie Night,” depressing but with a cool scene where a drug-crazed cokehead is dancing and singing along to “Sister Christian” by Night Ranger and Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl,” which contains the line, “Jessie’s got himself a girl and I want to make her mine.”  In fact, I enjoyed the music throughout, including “Got To Give It Up” by Marvin Gaye and “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys. The two most sympathetic characters were Buck Swope (Don Cheadle), a porn star who dresses like a cowboy and hopes to open his own stereo store, and Roller Girl (Heather Graham), a nightclub waitress who ultimately goes back to school.

First day of Fall semester at IUN, I was fortunate to find a parking space in the lot adjacent to the Arts and Sciences Building.  I couldn’t hear my phone messages so Rogelio “Roger” Torres from Tech Services came to my rescue.  He was impressed I could pronounce his name, so I showed him my book with former Lake County sheriff Rogelio “Roy” Dominguez.  Reminding me he’d taken my Vietnam war course 32 years, Jon Becker asked me to speak about the history of IUN in his freshman seminar.  I ran into old family friend Mike Applehans, who teaches math for IVY Tech, which shares the new building with IUN.  I delivered 20 Shavingscopies to Liz Wuerffel at VU, whose podcast students I’ll be talking with next week.  I may see if James wants to show me his dorm room and go to Culver’s afterward.  

Miranda spent the night after picking up a friend’s cat Duke in Chicago, who’s visiting her husband’s Syrian relatives in Saudi Arabia.  The person they first left Duke with left him in a dark room all the time. Last weekend Miranda went to a festival featuring rap and electronic music, and thieves made off with hundreds of cell phones, some worth up to a thousand dollars.

Liz Wuerffel (above) and Miranda Lane

One reviewer called Richard Russo’s new novel, “Chances Are” an elegy for the Baby Boom generation.  Three 66-year-old best friends in college, Lincoln, Teddy, and Mickey, reunite on Martha’s Vineyard. Russo introduced the prologue with these lines from “Miss Atomic Bomb” by The Killers:

For a second there we were.

Yeah, we were innocent and young.

Teddy, editor of a failing university press, Lincoln, a real estate broker, and Mickey, a musician, were self-described hashers who had served food at a college sorority.  Arriving on a Harley, Mickey mocked his buddies’ taste in music. He labeled the alt rock groups Teddy favored – Mumford and Sons and the Decembrists – as faggot music and the selections on Lincoln’s phone – Herb Alpert and Jonny Mathis (including “Chance Are”) – as elevator music.  Mickey had nicknames for everyone, in Teddy’s case, Tediosli, Teduski, and Tedmarek.

Cerebral and cautious, Teddy, the son of high school teachers, was susceptible to sudden mood shifts and described his goal as avoiding Sturm und Drang(storm and stress).  Ordering a second IPA at a tavern, he rationalized that he had no place to go, this weekend of any other. Haunted by recollections from his past, he lamented, “Wasn’t memory, that bully and oppressor, supposed to become soft and spongy?”His dim-witted high school basketball coach called him a pussy because he wouldn’t play dirty.  Russo wrote:

  The coach, attempting to free a stick that had become wedged between the blade and the frame of his lawnmower, without first turning the motor off, managed to slice off the top joint of what he always referred to as his pussy finger. Teddy, when he heard about it, couldn’t help smiling.

Barb Walczak’s Newsletter reported a 72-50% game by Claire Murvihill and Harry Dunbar (above).  The tight end on my seventh-grade football team was Bill Dunbar, a handsome African American with red hair.  Harry praised Claire’s good attitude and added: “I like to hear her sing religious songs even though I am not a religious man.  She makes herself available in giving me rides in a very pleasant way.  She’s become an expert at finding my house on a dark night.”

At Chesterton Judy Selund mentioned that she is about to embark on a two-week trip to Poland with 6 friends, three of them bridge players.  They’re taking a limo to the airport large enough for seven women and their luggage. For a going away dinner Don Geidemann made noodles Warsaw, with kluski noodles, sausage, cabbage, and spices.  He described the hotels they’re staying at as palatial.

Gator Robb, the Florida man who trapped Chance the Snapper in Chicago’s Humboldt Park, is back in the news.  While in the Windy City he met Kadi Flagg, and the two have been dating ever since. “She’s the total package,” he told reporters after they toured Shedd Aquarium, adding: “Most people see those animals and they kind of get the heebie jeebies.  That wasn’t a problem she had. She seemed to be all about it.”