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

South Shore

“Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore.”  Thomas Campion

"Stormy Weather" by Dale Fleming

The century-old South Shore was originally one of three commuter rail lines linking Chicago to suburban communities to the north, south, and west.  It is now operated by the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (NICTD) although freight trains still use the South Shore name.  The local baseball team that began operations in 2002 was officially named the Gary SouthShore RailCats in a bid to draw fans from throughout the area.  Calumet Region industrial cities originated on the southern shores of Lake Michigan, part of which has been preserved through incorporation within the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Transportation played a major role in the development of Northwest Indiana, not only freight and passenger trains but ore boats and streetcars that linked Region communities as well as horse-drawn conveyances and, eventually, automobiles. At present Burns International harbor handles more than 2.6-million tons of cargo annually.

The Times has published the third volume in its pictorial series “Memories Along the South Shore,” subtitled “More Than 125 Years of History in Photographs.”  It contains contributions from a dozen libraries and historical societies, including a hundred or so photos from IUN’s Calumet Regional Archives.  Many illustrating the city’s past ethnic diversity appeared in Ron Cohen and my pictorial history of Gary. In the Foreword, Doug Ross wrote: “In the broad sweep of human history, 125 years seems like the blink of an eye.  But, for Northwest Indiana, it’s a vast part of our history.  Hammond, the largest city in the Region, wasn’t even incorporated until 1884, and it’s one of the oldest.”  According to the 2010 census, Hammond’s population was estimated to have surpassed Gary’s by about 600, making Ross’s rather pejorative swipe at the “Steel City” technically correct. Ross gave special mention to the 1917 Dunes Pageant that highlighted the unique beauty and heritage of the south shore dunes.  As Danish-born landscape architect Jens Jensen eulogized:

  Magic are the Dunes where they meet the sea that bore them. There is an ocean-like grandeur in the broad stretches of beaches; the waves, chasing one another in madness, pitch high; the west wind roars and the sand blizzard rules; seagulls fill the air like giant snowflakes.  Then the Dune country is in its making; and a giant dram is enacted.

Jens Jensen in 1943

 among those hiking the dunes in 1916 was Stephen Mather, below

Included in “Memories Along the South Shore” are shots of Prairie Club members in 1916 hiking the dunes, including Stephen Mather, who became the first director of the National Park Service.  It’s an impressive volume, although it could have used more labor history shots and fewer photos of visiting celebrities and politicians (are two full pages devoted to a 1972 appearance by racist George C. Wallace at Hammond Civic Center really necessary?). 

Hatcher in 1983 and (below) 1972

There’s a great photo I’d never seen before of Mayor Richard Hatcher addressing protestors opposed to President Ronald Reagan’s invasion of the island nation of Grenada in October of 1983.  I was amazed to find one taken at a 1972 antiwar rally, where Mayor Hatcher was addressing the crowd, which included sons Dave and Phil.   Toni was there, too, but not in the picture, I recognized Joe Norrick, Monica Johnston, Julie Chary, and Karen Farabaugh, an IUN student and friend who was carrying a sign with the letters FTA, meaning “Fuck the Army.”  

"Therese Dreaming" by Balthus

Thousands have signed a petition requesting that the Metropolitan Museum of Art remove the 1938 painting “Therese Dreaming,” claiming that it objectifies women.  By that standard, many others would also have to go.  So far, the Met has refused, arguing that it presents a teachable moment.  Time’s Person of the Year: “The Silence Breakers” who launched the movement against sexual harassment.  None of the five on the cover was one of Trump’s numerous accusers. One might quibble over the inclusion of glamorous singer Taylor Swift on the cover, who had her bare ass grabbed under her skirt during a photo shot, motivated, no doubt, by the desire to boost sale, but the feature story does mention how poor, working women are perhaps sexually exploited worst of all.

Democrats have pressured 88-year-old Congressman John Conyers into resigning, and many, women especially, are calling for Senator Al Franken to do the same. On the other hand, the Republican National Committee is financing Alabama pervert Ray Moore’s campaign, the result of pressure from the President, but Republican Senate maverick Jeff Flake sent a check for a hundred dollars to Moore’s Democratic opponent Doug Jones with the hand-written explanation “Country over Party.”

Lighthouse basketball coach Marvin Rea and teacher Kelly Nicole Bradley died in a five-vehicle pileup on I-65.  Rea’s vehicle was stopped due to another accident when a Chevrolet box truck plowed into him, crushing his car between it and a flatbed trailer.  Rea was a teammate of Glenn Robinson at Gary Roosevelt and Purdue.  He had coached Theo Bowman Academy to a pair of state championships before being fired on specious ground by charter school honchos envious of his popularity.

I was able to miss bowling so I could attend IUN’s Holiday party, whose menu featured, among other things, vegetarian egg rolls, two types of chicken, cheese balls, fruit and veggies.  The History Department was well represented, and a choir composed of a half-dozen women and Ken Schoon (showing off impressive facial expressions and hand gestures, entertained.  When they sang “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” they added the words Kwanzaa and Hanukkah to the following two lines.  Chancellor Lowe noted that more people were in attendance than at his town hall meeting and added, straight-faced, that he might mention some enrollment and budget figures.  After a pause, he said, “Or maybe not.”

The 2017 South Shore Wall of Legends inductees are Tuskegee Airman and educator Quentin Smith and billionaire businessman Dean White.  The Tuskegee Airmen as a group had been selected ten years ago, so Smith’s inclusion was a surprise, but he was a towering figure who remained active in the community until shortly before his death in 2013 at age 94.  Earline Rogers recalled walking into English class in the fall of 1951 and observing him begin writing a sentence with his left hand and completing it with his right hand.  She told Times reporter Joyce Russell: I never again ran into a teacher like that.  He was innovative.”  John Davies, founder of the South Shore Legends Project, said that Smith was a hero both in war and peace: “He bravely defended our nation, stood up against segregation, and unselfishly served as a civic leader, educator, and mentor.”