Living a Dream

“I’ve Been Living Your Dream,

Not mine.”

    “Living Your Dream,” Danika Holmes

The best line in “Living Your Dream” goes, “This veil is slowly lifting, reveling weary eyes.”  It reminded me of the Langston Hughes poem “The Weary Blues” about a Harlem piano man’s lament.   Hank Williams had a country classic titled “Weary Blues from Waitin’.”  Danika was close to earning a PhD (what is called ABD, or “all but dissertation) before she took the plunge and pursued a music career.

I told more personal anecdotes than usual in my “Age of Anxiety” lecture for Nicole Anslover’s class.  Early memories include sitting on Santa’s lap in a Pittsburgh department store and noticing his cigarette breath smelled like Camels, my dad’s brand (their ads claimed the tobacco was a Turkish and American blend).  When I mentioned cod liver oil, a woman recalled being forced to take it as a kid as well. After a student read from Stanley Stanish’s diary about going to St Adelbert’s in Hessville, I said I got hitched in a St. Adelbert’s Church in Philadelphia.  It was considered a mixed marriage in those days since I was a WASP and Toni a Polish Catholic.  Although I had no memories of WW II, I told about John Haller being a toddler who was taken to a prayer service on an army base where his dad was stationed at war’s end and his parents’ shock when they opened their eyes and noticed his mouth bulging from wads of gum he’d found under folding chairs.

Asked if I didn’t think life was more carefree back then, I replied, “Not if you were gay or a girl who got knocked up.”  I forgot to mention the murder of teacher Mary Cheever sparking a Gary women’s crusade against vice and crime. Young people were into drag racing and shocking their parents in the clothes they favored and the gangs they sometimes joined, giving rise to fears (in the media at least) about juvenile delinquency.  Illustrating the theme of social change over time as the essence of history, I mentioned that the WW II generation enjoyed sex, listened to music (but not yet Rock ‘n’ Roll), went dancing, played sports, raised large families, worried about diseases such as polio, and struggled with budgeting their money.  It was an era without credit cards, computers, cell phones, cable TV or fast food franchises.  Drive-in movies and eateries were big.  At Ted’s, according to Tom Higgins, “waitresses dressed like drum majorettes and came to your car.  If you gave them money for the jukebox, some would dance.” 

Nicole and Michele Skokely expressed disappointment that my “Diaries, Memoirs, and Journals” class got cancelled. I told them Mark Hoyert was working on ways to market it as a General Studies capstone course.

MSNBC pundits agreed that the Democratic convention was generating more excitement among the faithful than last week’s GOP charade.  Michele knocked the ball out of the park, as Dave noted on Facebook.  Ditto “Mr. Bill” the next night, laying bare Republican lies (when he say Congressman Ryan has some Brass, meaning “Balls,” to attack Obama for something he himself supported, he brought the house down.  His best line: Republicans are doubling down on trickle down.  Afterwards, Obama embraced Clinton as Yom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” played.

Engineers again won 5 of 7 points despite being a man short (a ten-pin per game penalty), Dick being out with a bum leg and Frank in his last week of golf.  I sucked in game one, but Duke carried us.  Our opponents came alive in game two, but in the finale I bowled a 182, Rob a 213 and Melvin a 199 to compensate for Duke’s spate of splits and ten-pins.  Bobby McCann was wearing a POISON t-shirt, and I asked whether it reflected her taste in bands or personality. I had on a DETROIT ROCK CITY shirt.

With Fantasy season about to start, already I worry about injuries.  My two best running backs, Adrian Peterson and Trent Richardson, are questionable.  Fortunately Ahmad Bradshaw got me 14 points, thanks mainly to a ten-yard TD run while the Cowboys’ running back only got Pittsburgh Dave, my opponent 13.

Thursday we spent the day in South Bend with Mary and Sonny.  My brother-in-law had breakfast at I-Hop (seven pancakes) while the rest of us ordered lunch (I went with chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes).  In the afternoon we told funny family stories and avoided politics since Mary gets irrational at the very mention of the President’s name.

After school Grace put on the Nickelodeon show “Victorious” that featured a cameo of Kesha performing “Blow.” After singing “It’s time to lose your mind and let the crazy out,” she adds, “Let me see them Hanes” – meaning, I guess, a guy’s underwear.  Could this be a reference to the fad of wearing one’s pants so low that their underpants become prominent?  The teenagers appear to be impossibly cool, except for the nerdy, socially awkward Robbie (Matt Bennett), whose main companion is a ventriloquist puppet that doubles as his cool alter ego.

The final evening of the Democratic convention was an unvarnished success.  One point of emphasis was honoring veterans of recent wars.  Both John Kerry and Joe Biden reminded the delegates that Romney never mentioned the sacrifices of our soldiers or the war in Afghanistan. Obama’s acceptance speech might not have matched his 2004 and 2008 orations but was miles better than Romney’s. 

Paul Samuelson’s daughter-in-law Susan sent along great photos of the Gary-born Nobel laureate in economics.  Working on an article for Traces magazine, I added this paragraph: Even though Samuelson’s “Foundations of Economic Analysis,” based on his PhD thesis, won him wide acclaim, his department chairman at Harvard, Harold Hitchings Burbank, was unimpressed.  In 1941, When M.I.T. offered Samuelson a full-time position Burbank made no attempt to retain him.  As his good friend Robert Solow later quipped, “You could be disqualified for a job if you were either smart or Jewish or Keynsian.  So what chance did this smart, Jewish Keynsian have?”

I emailed Ray Smock, “OK, I was wrong about Hillary and Biden swapping jobs, but what about this?  Clint Eastwood is secretly for Obama so stages the fiasco in Tampa to sabotage the GOP.  It’s hard to believe ‘Dirty Harry’ is so insensitive to fundamental fairness that he could support the modern Republican Party.  John Kerry looked like hell but gave the speech of his life.”  Ray replied, “Clint Eastwood is a law and order Republican. That's why, when acting, he can stick a gun in the face of a black guy and say "Make My Day."  It is convincing because he means it. Sure he was a rebel cop in Dirty Harry, but only because he hated government and government bureaucracy, especially the police bureaucracy that kept him from cleaning up all the punks in the city. And the Outlaw Josey Wales is pure rugged individualism of the Ayn Rand type. All those damn cowboys from John Wayne down were conservative Republicans who believed the myth of the West.  Don't get me wrong. I love Eastwood's movies. But you and I know the difference between celluloid and the real world. What we saw at the Republican convention was Clint in the real world, trying to pretend he was acting. It was awful to watch.”

I ran into Chuck Gallmeier while searching for a parking space.  He wants to take me to his and barb’s Lake Michigan cabin for a weekend of boating and chilling out.  Sounds good.

On the cover of Sports Illustrated is Jim McMahon, the punky QB who led the Bears to a Superbowl victory in the mid-80s.  Sadly the story is about his having early dementia due to at least four concussions, one coming after Charles Martin of the Packers body-slammed him to the turf a good five seconds after the ball left his hand.  Martin, who got a two-game suspension, should have been arrested for assault.

In Nebraska on September 7, 1804 the Lewis and Clark expedition came across a four-acre village of prairie dogs.  William Clark’s journal noted the “great numbers of holes on the top of which these little animals sit erect and make a whistling noise, and, when alarmed, step into their hole.”  Traveling through Texas in 1965, Toni and I came across a similar village.  Where once there were billions of prairie dogs in the American West, some species are endangered or have become extinct.

The one thing “The Words” had going for it was Jeremy Irons, playing a character known simply as “the old man.”  The flick starts out great but limps to a rather unsatisfactory denouement.  The three “love” scenes would have worked much better had the director not gone for a PG rating.

Jay Keck passed on these gems for lexophiles (lovers of words): A thief who stole a calendar got 12 months.  Police were called to a day care when a three year-old was resisting a rest.

Saturday I went from the library to McDonald’s and had a double cheeseburger and side salad for $2.14.  For dinner with the Hagelbergs Toni made pork roast with onions, potatoes, and zucchini and as my partner made a difficult four-hearts bid that enabled me to edge out Dick by a mere 80 points.

All the Things

“Over and again, last call for sin

While everyone’s lost, the battle is won.”

    “All the Things That I’ve Done,” Killers

Mitt Romney let it be known that he listens to The Killers, whose lead singer, Brandon Flowers, is Mormon.  He didn’t say what his favorite Killers song is, but I’d bet, if he really listens to them, that it is not “Mr. Brightside.”  Probably more like “Read My Mind,” which contains the line, “Slippin’ in my faith until I fall.”  Running mate Ryan claims he’s an AC/DC and Zeppelin fan.  What unctuous phony baloneys.  In an email mentioning how Ryan’s speech pandered to the evangelicals in his party, Ray Smock wrote, “The Republican Party has a writhing poisonous snake in its hands and does not know how to let go without being fatally bitten.”  I replied, “I like your reference to the poisonous snake in the Republican party’s hands.  It reminds me of a scene in “The Campaign” (which unfortunately I can’t recommend wholeheartedly) where Will Ferrell as Cam Brady has a snake in his hands at a fundamentalist church, gets bit, and lets out a string of profanity.”

Too bad Hurricane Isaac didn’t cause cancellation of the Republican convention.  Keynote speaker Chris Christie made a pathetic attempt to sound self-righteous (as the New York Post succinctly put it, “Fat Chance”) while Anne Romney made a shameless pitch to win over suburban stay-at-home moms.

Back with the Tuesday lunch regulars at IUN’s Redhawk Café, Anne Balay mentioned how many women faculty we’ve recently lost and its impact on the Women’s Studies program.  I suggested to Nicole Anslover that she develop a course on American Women Diplomats and she thought it a good idea.  My next pitch is for Diana Chen-lin to work one up on Chinese Women’s Place over the Ages.

Paulette Lafata-Johnson called to say the IU Alumni Association will co-sponsor a December book signing at Lake Street Gallery and pay for refreshments.  I also worked with Raoul Contreras and Scott Fulk on involving Latino students in the Soup and Substance event with Sheriff Dominguez coming up on September 19.

Sam Barnett’s t-shirt illustrates the continuing war on public school teachers.  Due to Indiana governor Mitch Daniels draconian policies, there are just three non-charter public high schools, Wallace, Wirt-Emerson, and West Side, left in Gary.  The Chicago teachers union gave a ten-day strike notice and there’s so sign the other side is interested in compromising.  The last Windy City school strike, 25 years ago, lasted 19 days.

        Mayor Freeman-Wilson greets Prince and Paris Jackson, NWI Times photo by Jonathan Miano

Michael Jackson’s three kids joined festivities at their dad’s boyhood home on what would have been the King of Pop’s fifty-fourth birthday.  There was also a special exhibit in Miller at the Marshall J. Gardner Center for the Arts.

In our season opener the Electrical Engineers won 5 of 7 points thanks to David “Duke” Kaminski’s 639 series.  I had many splits and finished 4 pins below my average.  Two people mentioned my appearing on Jerry Davich’s radio show.  Thanks to new “no smoking” legislation I did not come home reeking of cigarettes.  Chris Lugo, whose granddaughter Angel came to Cressmoor Lanes when a pre-schooler, reports that she is in twelfth grade and was offered a softball scholarship.

Country singer Danika Holmes sang at the Thrill of the Grill, outside in perfect weather.  She was quite soulful and African Americans in the audience seemed to dig her.  I purchased her CD ‘”Living Your Dream,” which has the outstanding song “How to Be Beautiful,” which contains the line, “Find the good in life, let your words be kind.”  A lyric in the title song goes, “May you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift.”

On this date 70 years ago humorist Will Rogers wrote, “California always did have one custom that they took seriously.  Everything big enough to spread a double mattress on is called a ‘ranch.’  Well, up here in these mountains where there is lots of fishing, well every house you pass they sell fishing worms, and it’s called a ‘worm ranch.’  Well, I always did want to own a “ranch,” so I am in the market for a good worm ranch.”