Widespread Panic

“I just spent sixty days in the jailhouse
For the crime of having no dough, no no
Now here I am back out on the street
For the crime of having nowhere to go”

    Robbie Robertson, “Shape I’m In” 

I heard a Widespread Panic song from their cleverly named live album “Light Fuse, Get Away” on WXRT’s Lin Brehmer morning show on the way to IUN.  A Southern rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1986, Widespread Panic is famous for extended jams and often compared to the Grateful Dead.  At the first Bonnaroo festival in 2002, the band performed for 70,000 fans.  Their cover of “Ophelia” and “Shape I’m In” by the Band is a staple of live shows.  The opening lines of “Shape I’m In” go:

Go out yonder, peace in the valley
Come downtown, have to rumble in the alley
Oh, you don't know the shape I'm in

Dame Emma Thompson and the great American actor (“The World According to Garp,” “Terms of Endearment,” “Footloose”) John Lithgow star in the comedy drama “Late Night.”  Mindy Kaling wrote the screenplay and plays an Indian-American who joins the white male staff of a seemingly over-the-hill late-night hostess as a diversity hire. She reinvigorates the show and saves it from being cancelled.  Kaling’s character is fetching, original, and believable; she is initially insecure and cries frequently but has an iron will and loyalty to the truth.  Widespread panic ensues when a story breaks that the Thompson character (Katherine Newbury) has cheated on her husband (Lithgow as a professor emeritus suffering from Parkinson’s)) and had an affair with a staff member.  She is about to accept her show being cancelled when Molly Patel (Kaling) intervenes. Katherine’s confession speech reminded me of when David Letterman had to fess up to copulating with numerous underlings.

I’m 175 pages into Stewart O’Nan’s new novel “Henry Himself,” set in Pittsburgh and about a 74-year-old former Westinghouse engineer and World War II veteran who vacations yearly at Chautauqua with a wife and two married children with offspring of their own.  Taking place in the late 1990s, there’s mention of a Chevy Lumina, Ford Explorer, and the family Oldsmobile.  On rainy summer evenings at the family cabin, family members work on multi-piece puzzles or watch movies from Blockbuster while Henry’s wife Emily knits or reads. Each person has his or her favorite genre: science fiction, English dramas, old classics, comedies, even westerns. The first night they settle on “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”  Henry’s mother, who’d been dead nearly 20 years, loved silly sayings such as “Lead on, MacDuff”(a misquote from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”) and “I see said the blind man”(one I say, including the punch line, “as he picked up his hammer and saw”).

Henry drinks Dewar’s (same brand of scotch as our friend Herb Passo), remembers eating animal crackers as a kid, and has a bum knee, arthritis in the hips, occasional back spasms, and frequent nighttime bathroom visits due to prostate problems, yet plays golf and is a gifted handyman around the house. When Emily forbids him to ascend to the cabin roof on a ladder to remove an obsolete antenna, his son botches the job.  So far everything is humdrum but charming, but one senses widespread panic lurking in the pages ahead.  Henry’s fingertips, for example, often go numb at night, as do mine.  Dr. Ostroski diagnosed my condition as carpel tunnel, but Henry frets that it is one of five signs of an impending heart attack. 

NWI TimesEditorial writer Marc Chase, partly responsible for Gary mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson’s recent primary election defeat, is continuing his misguided vendetta against her.  Why? Perhaps to play to the former Hammond Times’suburban readership. Chase ridiculed the Mayor’s reasonable plan to balance the city budget as hare-brained, only he misspelled the word as hair-brained.  He’s a lightweight as a muckraker with a flawed sense of proportion.

Over the weekend we played party bridge with our monthly group of eight (Toni was the winner), first dining at iconic, 90-year-old Teibel’s Restaurant in Schererville (Herb Passo ordered a Dewar’s. I had a Three Floyd’s IPA). Next evening Charlie Halberstadt and Naomi Goodman invited us to her place in Valparaiso; Charlie made a delicious pie that resembled cheese cake.  In between I met Ron and Nancy Cohen at Miller Beach Farmers Market, where we traded his old copies of New York Review of Booksfor the Tracesissue containing my article about “The Champ” Joe Louis.  He included a couple items for archivist Steve McShane, including a Post-Tribunearticle about the death of environmentalist Charlotte Read.

Jerry Clemons and Zeke Ronders

At Miller Beach Market entertainment was provided by the Nick Danger Band, a great blues/rock group featuring guitarists Jerry Clemons and Zeke Rongers and drummer Lannie Turner.  The band often plays with vocalist Nicole Jamrose and keyboardist Chris Wander. They jammed on such numbers as “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash, “Down Under” by Men at Work,” “Sultans of Swing” by Dire Straits, and an extended jam on “Cold Shot” by Stevie Ray Vaughan, which showed off virtuoso guitar playing by Clemons and Rongers. The first verse goes

Once was a sweet thang baby, held out love in our hands
Now I reach to kiss your lips the touch don't mean a thing
And that's a cold shot baby, yeah that's a drag
A cold shot baby, I let our love go bad

Band members kept repeating “Cold Shot, Cold Shot” between musical interludes.  What an unexpected delight to watch three professionals honing their craft.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the Nick Danger Band included a Widespread Panic number or two in their impressive repertoire, perhaps “Pigeons” or “Can’t Get High.”

Loose cannon Trump vows utter destruction of Iran one day and an offer to meet with President Hassan Rouhani with no preconditions the next.  Either would probably end in a complete disaster. Rouhani called Trump, who caused the mess by pulling out of a nuclear agreement, retarded.

In a recent New York Review appeared Sean Wilentz’s essay on Michael Tomasky’s “If We Can Keep It: How the Republic Collapsed and How It Might Be Saved.”  Wilentz wrote:

 At least some of the current mess derives from the undemocratic apportionment of the US Senate – in which Wyoming, with just a half a million people, and California, with 40 million, each have 2 seats – and the hyperpartisan gerrymandering of House districts.

Tomasky quoted Franklin D. Roosevelt as remarking in 1944: “We ought to have two real parties, one liberal and one conservative.”  That’s what we’re stuck with today, which Tomasky regards as a serious problem. Wilentz prefers a statement FDR made in October 1936 at New York City’s Madison Square Garden when facing a Republican rightwing not unlike today:

 I should like to have it said of my first administration that in it the forces of selfishness and lust for power met their match.  I should like to have it said of my second administration that in it these forces met their master.

Wilentz adds: “That’s the spirit.”

New York Review of Books Personals are always worth a read, although sadly less erotic as Baby Boomers have become senior citizens.  These appeared in the May 9 issue:

   NYC woman seeks young-at-heart gentleman (70s) with similar sensibilities for one more fling.

   Sarasota Florida man, 75, no children. Passions: long walks and talks, holding hands, sharing life.  Let’s meet.

   NYC attorney, well read and well-traveled, vigorous, eclectic, good listener.  Francophile.  But life is more.  Seeks woman to share the adventures.

History professor David Parnell, who taught an experimental freshman seminar last semester that he and Mark Baer had developed and had me speak about the history of IUN, announced that the class is now mandatory for freshman Arts and Sciences students.  Five sections are on the Fall schedule, including one taught by historian Jonathyne Briggs.  I wouldn’t mind contributing, perhaps assigning a journal or history project in the form of an interview.  Hopefully neither would induce widespread student panic, as oral presentations often do (I’ve had a student nearly faint on me, others clam up, and one literally left a puddle of sweat).  We shall see. 

James registered for Fall classes at Valparaiso University.  I’ll have to check if I know any of my grandson’s professors. During orientation parents were told, better if students not go home on weekends for at least the first month.  Toni has given James the same advice. He was considering bowling one more season at Inman’s, enabling me to take him to Culver’s afterwards, but it looks like that won’t happen - maybe for the best.

 James Wozniak

At Quick Cut in Portage for my bimonthly (every other month) haircut from Anna I ran into James Wozniak, who used to bowl in the Sheet and Tin league at Cressmoor Lanes on a team with Randy Marshall and his dad (“Big Randy”). The same age as Dave, James works shift work at U.S. Steel and has recently been putting in 56 hours a week. A third Jim was having his hair cut in a chair near me, telling the barber to be careful not to touch an area where he feared he was going bald.  A guitar player, he claimed to have played backup for Styx.  When he learned his hair stylist’s son played guitar, he recommended that he watch Carlos Santana play “El Farol” on YouTube (the live version), vowing that it would change his life. When he started mimicking the guitar sounds, Anna said, “We’re being entertained.”  I told him I’d seen the Nick Danger Band on Sunday; he knew them and said, “They started in the Eighties.”

Debunked

“A great many of those who debunk traditional values have in their background values of their own which they believe to be immune from the debunking process.” C.S. Lewis

The word debunked is a fitting description of exposing something as false that was previously believed to be true, whether it be a mythical legend or a statement assumed to be a fact in existing historical literature.  The word debunk apparently first appeared in print in William Woodward novel “Bunk” (1923) with the protagonist debunking others’ illusions.  A popular debunking book is Herb Reich’s “Lies They teach You in School” (2012). Astrology and phrenology are examples of so-called scientific theories disproved as pure bunkum (nonsense), as is the myth that ostriches, when scared, stick their heads in the sand.

In “For the People” newsletter historian Joshua Claybourne debunked the contention by Abraham Lincoln biographers Stephen B. Oates (“Our Fiery Trial,” 1979) and David Donald (“Lincoln,” 1995) and others trusting these eminent historians that the sixteenth President loathed the nickname Abe.  The single primary source: recollections by Lincoln’s cousin Dennis Hanks.  Claybourne could find no corroborating evidence and numerous contradictory sources, including an 1864 Dennis Hanks letter to his uncle that began, “Dear Abe.” Lincoln apparently had no issue with the 1860 campaign slogan “Honest Abe” other than concern over living up to his reputation for straightforwardness.  Similarly, most historians once cited a specific estimate for the number of slaves brought to the Americas until it was discovered that they all originated in one unreliable source.

At the IUN Arts and Sciences Student Research Conference David Parnell’s session featured three of his Roman History students and Fine Arts major Neil Gainer, who under Chris Young studied Paul Revere’s Boston Massacre engraving (plagiarized from engraver Henry Pelham) as an example of Patriot propaganda.  Brandon Martens related that estimates of the percentage of plague victims during the second century range widely due to the paucity of hard evidence.  Sylvia Corey, discussing Roman Prostitution, showed images of sex worker stalls at Pompeii, preserved due to the sudden eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Prostitution, involving both males and female clients and sex workers, went underground after Emperor Caligula attempted to tax the brothels and perhaps declined after Constantine’s conversion to Christianity (Parnell was skeptical, having conducted research on Roman army sex workers).  To illustrate her talk, “The Suppression of Women Through Art and Literature in the Early Roman Empire,” Inga Karch used paintings depicting the abduction of Sabine women by the founders of Rome and the rape of noblewoman Lucretia.  According to Roman historian Livy, the first Romans needed women to start families; later the Sabine women intervened to halt a battle between their former tribe and their conquerors.  According to legend, the rape and subsequent suicide of Lucretia led to Rome becoming a republic instead of a kingdom.

 East Chicago league champs, Coach David Lane front, middle

On the final week of bowling I rolled a 470 and the Engineers took 2 games and series to finish fourth (out of 15 teams), a single point behind Duke Cominsky’s Pin Heads.  Congratulating George Leach, who anchored the first place Pin Chasers, I complimented his colorful t-shirt, purchased at a Minnesota Fifties car show.  I have trouble telling identifying present-day models but still recognize vintage Fords, Chevys, Buicks, Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles, Studebakers, and the like.  “Me, too,”George noted.  Marie Roscoe ran into son Dave at a Hobart-East Chicago Central tennis match, as two granddaughters compete for the Hobart Brickies. They both bowled in the Sunday night “Rowdies” league, where I occasionally subbed and attended end-of-season parties to hear Dave entertain on guitar.  Someone asked teammate Terry Kegebein how he was doing.  He gave his standard answer: “I’m on the right side of the grass.”

 wedding of Bud Hoffman and Agnes Olejnik, later annulled

A few days ago, this email arrived from longtime Region resident Ed LaFleur:

   I’m contacting you about my mother, Agnes Olejnik LaFleur.  She was a contestant in a charity event put on by the Gary Lodge No. 1152 B.P.O. Elks Club, called a SPORTING CLASSIC WALKATHON.  It began in Oct of 1933.  My mother had just turned 22 at that time.  She entered on Oct 27, 1933 and lasted till Dec. 31, at 8 pm that night, for a total of 1492 hours of dancing. She was disqualified because of an infected foot.  Someone had stolen her shoes a few weeks before, and Agnes had to borrow someone else’s, which had a nail sticking thru the sole.   I have her scrapbook, which contains lots of newspaper articles, pictures of contestants, and other memorabilia from that event.  It is literally falling apart.  I have no idea how to preserve this piece of Gary’s history.  I was wondering if you could shed some light on this?

Could I ever!  I told him about the Calumet Regional Archives (CRA) and invited him to visit. When he arrived, I took him to CRA archivist Steve McShane; LaFleur donated many items and promised to return with more.  A scrapbook contained photos and clippings of the dance marathon, with a $750 first prize, big money during the Great Depression.  Several couples, including Agnes, were talked into getting married. Soon afterwards, she had it annulled. I quipped,“I guess they didn’t get a chance to consummate the nuptials on the dance floor or during one of the ten-minute breaks.”  I plan to peruse the clippings, as it seems impossible for couples to have lasted for 1492 hours without considerable respites from the action. After a contestant suffered a heart attack, LaFleur asserted, a medical team disqualified contestants deemed at risk.

 scene from "They Shoot Horse," Jane Fonda in foreground

Alissa arrived from Michigan to attend James’s senior musical, a week after attending with Josh the Dave Davies concert.  Josh heard a Kinks song on a “Med Men” episode.  After I described Agnes Olejnik’s dance marathon experience at breakfast, Toni brought up the 1969 Jane Fonda film “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”  It portrays marathon dancing for what it was, a brutal and exploitative event.  In a rave review critic Roger Ebert wrote:

 Contestants tried to dance their way through illnesses and pregnancies, through lice and hallucinations, and the sight of them doing it was part of the show. Beyond the hit tunes and the crepe paper and the free pig as a door prize, there was an elementary sadism in the appeal of the marathons.  Among American spectator sports, they rank with stock-car racing. There was always that delicious possibility, you see, that somebody would die. Or freak out. Or stand helplessly while his partner collapsed and he lost the investment of hundreds of hours of his life.

 cast of "Cinderella," James Lane third from right

James starred as Lord Pinkleton in the Portage H.S. senior play, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1957 production of “Cinderella,” which differed substantially from the Disney version.  For one thing, a step-sister ended up with a defender of the poor who bore a resemblance to Leon Trotsky.  James shined and appeared in a majority of the scenes. The line he liked best was, “I will be back at 11 with the local weather and sports.”  The play had been postponed several weeks after the stage curtain caught fire.  It snowed Saturday when I attended the performance with Alissa and Phil.  Toni went Friday and Sunday.  After the show we ran into Phil’s high school soccer teammate Randy Marshall, whose daughter was in the chorus. Classmate Tom Cannon is Portage’s interim mayor now that James Snyder was convicted of a felony.  His favorite expression I high school evidently was “How dumb!”  When Phil asked an old friend about Cannon being mayor, the response was. “How dumb!”

In the Ayers Realtors NewsletterJudy Ayers reported on a reunion with “The Girls of ’65,” Wirt grads whose memories include “going to the first day of kindergarten together, Brownies, Girl Scouts, choir practice, church youth groups, high school dances, proms, dates, boyfriends, first jobs . . . and life thereafter.”  Judy wrote:

 Old friends don’t look at you and think you’ve grown old because they’ve grown older, too.  And there sure is a lot of humor in childhood/youthful memories. Just the words Judy Neal, dance, and wristlet flowers when everyone else got corsages can split our sides.  A festooned homecoming float with purloined flashing construction lights should not be paraded down Lake Street.  Cigarettes with filter tips don’t flush fast enough when parents come home earlier than expected.  A college student should never put a fake cast on her foot in order to convince parents she needs her car at college.

In 1918 30 year-old artist Georgia O’Keefe moved to New York City and began posing nude for mentor (and later lover and husband) Alfred Stieglitz. Carolyn Burke wrote: 

 Given the ardor of those early photographs, many assume that they became lovers soon after her arrival.  While it is difficult to imagine them not yielding to their passion, newly released correspondence shows that this was not the case; the excitement palpable in these photographs of O’Keefe owes as much to the frustration of their desires.  Taken into account Alfred’s status as a married man, his fears for her health and possible pregnancy, and his sense that he should wait until she “gave” herself, one can understand that even such ardent souls might agree to the deferral of their desires.

Throughout “Foursome” the author downplays the sexual activities of the Alfred and Elizabeth and Paul and Rebecca when common sense suggests otherwise.

With local elections impending, NWI Times editor Marc Chase is supporting challenger Jerome Prince and doing everything he can to trash Gary mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson.  The Post-Tribune, more balanced, ran a letter from city planning director Joseph van Dyk entitled “Gary has come a long way.”  He mentioned removing the eyesore that the old Hotel Sheraton had become as well as many other vacant buildings. He listed stores opening in Miller and near RailCat Stadium and new investments by steel companies.  Improvements at Gary International Airport and plans for development of Buffington Harbor once the casino relocates to a site near the Borman Expressway also hold promise.  I agree with his conclusion that “it would be absolutely devastating for the city to change leadership at this critical time.”

During a marathon 15-inning game in Phoenix that lasted well over five hours, Cubs broadcaster Len Casper told an anecdote about pitcher Tug McGraw, who in 1980 helped the Phillies win their first World Series.  Asked if he preferred grass or Astroturf, hTug replied, “I don’t know, I’ve never smoked Astroturf.” The Cubs triumphed thanks to an unlikely double by pitcher Tyler Chatwood off an old Little League teammate followed by clutch hit by Ben Zobrist.  Canadian women are smoking joints to combat pain and depression.

 President Obama presents Dick Lugar with Presidential Medal of Freedom

Six-term U.S. Senator Richard Lugar passed away at age 87.  He was elected mayor of Indianapolis in 1967, the same day as Richard Hatcher in Gary.  Longtime chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he worked diligently to eliminate nuclear arsenals and was a Republican moderate, now an endangered species.  In the 2012 Republican primary I voted for him in his losing effort against Tea Party mouthpiece Richard Mourdock.  Barack Obama issued this statement:

   We held different political beliefs, but traveling overseas together, Lugar took me under his wing as we toured munitions storage facilities and talked over meals of borscht. Dick always stuck to the facts. He understood the intricacies of America's power and the way words uttered in Washington echo around the globe. But perhaps most importantly, he exhibited the truth that common courtesy can speak across cultures.

Weezer

“On an island in the sun

We’ll be playin’ and havin’ fun

And it makes me feel so fine

I can’t control my brain”

         “Island in the Sun,” Weezer

 Tori, Alissa, Josh, and Jimbo at Weezer concert

A few days ago, son Phil called from Grand Rapids.  Through his PBS station he had obtained free tickets to a concert featuring Weezer and the Pixies.  He couldn’t go, but I was all in, along with Alissa, Josh, and Tori. I arrived at a Days Inn the afternoon of the show, and Alissa picked me up from her job at Grand Valley State.  At their place Josh played some Weezer to get us in the mood, and we ordered pizza slices around the corner from Van Andel Arena.  We arrived in time to catch a few songs by British rock band Basement, finishing up a 30-minute set.  Next came the Pixies, who blasted through a rousing set virtually non-stop. I’m more familiar with lead singer Frank Black’s subsequent solo work but recognized such Pixies late-Eighties classics as “Here Comes My Man,” “Debaser,” and “Monkey Goes to Heaven.” I was disappointed the two big screens were off.  I would have enjoyed close-ups of the individual members, especially Black (called Black Francis while with the band).  Did the band request no screens, I wonder, or was it out of deference to Weezer, the headliners?

 Black Francis (Frank Black) in Grand Rapids with Pixies

Weezer concert at Van Andel Arena

Weezer won over the audience right away.  After “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets came over the loud speakers, someone announced, “And from Kenosha, Wisconsin, Weezer.” Actually the band started in L.A. some 27 years ago.  Out came Brian Bell, Scott Shriner, Patrick Wilson, and Rivers Cuomo dressed like a barbershop quartet and sang several numbers a Capello and duo wop style. Mounting the stage, they rocked out on many numbers but not to such a degree as to drown out crowd favorites such as “Buddy Holly,” “Pork and Beans,” “Hash Pipe,” and “Island in the Sun.” The latter produced hundreds of lighters and cell phones from the near sell-out crowd. About halfway through the set Rivers Cuomo got aboard a boat carried up one aisle and down another by burly roadies and, stopping directly below us, sang the Turtles’ “Happy Together” while playing acoustic guitar.  Back on stage he brought the house down with the 1982 Toto favorite “Africa” and Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid.”  The band’s first encore was my absolute Eighties favorite by A-ha, “Take On Me,” followed by “Say It Ain’t So.”   Totally awesome. 

 1187 Battle of Hattin

Knights Templars burned at stake

Back at Days Inn, before meeting Phil, Delia, and Miranda for lunch I watched a documentary on the History channel about the Knights Templars, whom I had learned about in David Parnell’s Crusades class.  Catholic warrior monks formed supposedly to protect pilgrims visiting the Holy Land, after a disastrous military defeat at Hattin in 1187 at the hands of Saladin and the subsequent loss of Jerusalem, the secret Order morphed into powerful European land owners and money lenders until French King Philip the Fair, in debt to the Templars, persecuted its leaders on charges of heresy. The episode featured four seemingly knowledgeable historians.  Normally I can’t stand History channel fare, with all its commercials and emphasis on warfare, conspiracy theories, and disasters. This contained elements of all three but captured my interest.

I had intended to stay at the downtown Holiday Inn, but no rooms were available. Days Inn “near downtown” (as advertised) was less than half the cost, including free breakfast, but had lackadaisical check-in staff, more interested in chatting with staff or friends than being helpful.  A door to my room had to be forced open and shut, and my phone did not stop blinking (the front desk was no help), a noisy fan kept going off and on.  Pillows were comfortable and there was no sign of bedbugs nor ants, so I was satisfied.  As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. When I first arrived at the address, a sign said Baymont Inn but nothing about Days Inn. I drove around a bit before venturing inside and discovering both were part of the Wyndham hotel chain. It reminded me of Avis and Budget at the same airport car rental booth.

 Miranda, Delia, Jimbo, Phil

At a Mexican restaurant in Phil and Delia’s neighborhood Miranda mentioned that a stranger recognized her from her Instagram account, which evidently has hundreds, if not thousands, of followers.   Someone recognized Delia from Miranda’s Instagram photos.  Miranda has applied to the Peace Corps and hopes, if accepted, to be assigned to the island nation of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon).  When I told her I might attend a conference in Singapore in 2020, she invited me to come visit her. I brought up that Weezer was introduced as being from Kenosha, reminding me of the scene in “About Schmidt” (2002) where Jack Nicholson is in a trailer campground when a couple from Kenosha invites him for dinner.  He brings a six-pack and while hubby goes out for more beer makes a clumsy pass at the wife, who makes it clear he should leave.  Phil recalled how sad it was when Schmidt retired from his job as an actuary and Kathy Bates jumping nude into a hot tub with him.  We were both surprised Delia, a movie buff, had never seen it.

Over 30 Facebook friends registered likes to my account of the Weezer concert, and I received a half dozen comments.  Allison Schuette wrote: “Liz [Wuerffel] wondered if you could still hear afterwards.”  Tom Wade said he treadmills to Weezer’s rendition of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” Nephew Bob wrote: “Party on Lanes!”

left, Terrapin Bruno Fernando; below, Wildcat Jermaine Samuels

March Madness has begun.  Since I won David’s pool twice in the past three years picking Villanova, I went with the Wildcats once again, even though they are just a sixth seed.  Maryland, the only team I really care about, is also a sixth seed, so I picked them and two other six seeds, Buffalo and Iowa State, to reach the Final Four.  In the unlikely event any go all the way, I should be the only one to have selected them. Home in time to cheer on Maryland, surviving a scare to dispatch Belmont 79-77.  In the evening Villanova topped St. Mary’s 61-57.  So far, so good.

Chancellor Bill Lowe hosted a faculty reception in the new Arts and Sciences Building, featuring piano stylings by Billy Foster and plentiful food and drink. Wife Pamela was demonstrating a long bent nail that she had run over, resulting in a flat tire. Zoran Kilibarda commented on my shirt, which celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of IUN’s Black Studies program.  Diversity director James Wallace confirmed that F.C. Richardson, adviser to the Black Student Union in 1969, will be a guest of honor at next week’s IU Bicentennial banquet.   Spencer Cortwright, excited over Momma Mia!coming to the Memorial Opera House.  I congratulated David Parnell on his nomination for a Founders Day teaching award.  Jonathan Briggs, a Weezer fan, said he’d almost driven to Grand Rapids for the convert. Parnell commented that Weezer’s rendition of “Africa” isn’t as campy as the original by Toto but pretty good.

When I speak to VU professor Mary Kate Blake’s class about the 1980s, they’ll have read Lance Trusty’s “End of an Era: The 1980s in the Calumet,” so I’ll read them the final paragraph from Trusty’s “Centennial Portrait of Hammond” published in 1984.  Trusty wrote:

 Hammond was a chastened city as it celebrated its centennial in 1984.  The 1980 census revealed that the population had declined rapidly to 93,714 citizens.  The few large industries that had survived the dismal Seventies and the Calumet region’s steel mills and oil refineries continued to reduce their work forces. Times weren’t desperate for most, but near-term optimism was hard to find.

 The Hammond of 1984 had many hidden strengths.  It was still part of the enormously resilient Chicago metropolitan area and shared in its markets and transportation web.  The Hammond of 1984 was a residential city of skilled workers, enjoying the often overlooked benefits of a sound Catholic liberal arts college and a fast-growing university.  An era was ending in 1984, as the tough industrial city sought a new economic base in a fluid, unpredictable economy.

In 1992 Trusty was less sanguine: “In ten years Hammond, seemingly the least changed city in the Calumet, lost a tenth of its population, its downtown, and most of its industrial base."

Since Andrew Laurinec’s article in the Eighties Shavings is not part of the VU class’s assignment, I’ll read this paragraph: 

 My family lived in the Robertsdale neighborhood of north Hammond, nestled between a popcorn factory, lever Brothers, and the Amoco refinery.  Depending on the wind direction, you’d either smell popcorn, soap or whatever kind of noxious gas the oil plant was burning off at the time.  Sometimes at night Lever Brothers would release a cloud of soap and God knows what else into the sir.  It was not unusual to see people washing their cars the next morning.  After all, there already was soap on their car.

In 1980 there were 1,600 Lever brother employees at that plant.  In 2015 the number was down to 350.

My Way

“I've lived a life that's full
I've traveled each and every highway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way”

         “My Way,” Paul Anka

“My Way” was originally a 1967 French song, “Comme d’Habitude” (“As Usual”).  Paul Anka wrote English lyrics expressly for Frank Sinatra, whose recording became a hit and thereafter his signature song. Elvis Presley covered it on the 1973 album “Aloha from Hawaii,” and it became a staple at his live shows, as well as Anka’s.  The Sex Pistols recorded a punk parody version with profane and nonsensical lyrics (i.e.,“To think, I killed a cat, and may I say, oh no, not their way”).  The final lines: “The record shows, I’ve got no clothes, and I did it my way.”  Martin Scorsese used the Sex Pistols rendition at the end of “Goodfellas,” as credits rolled.

  Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols  

Grandson James may perform “My Way” at a Portage H.S. Outstanding Student competition. I assume he’s familiar with the Sinatra version, but I told him that at Omar Farag’s Elvis Tribute shows, when the final performer sings “My Way,” women rush the stage to get scarves from “Elvis,” emulating The King’s female fans over 40 years ago.  I’d love it if James did an Elvis impression – or, even better Sid Vicious.  When Dave (whose high school nickname was Sid) was at Portage, he and his buddies appeared as the Sex Pistols in an air band contest and got disqualified.

 Al Samter and Mike Olszanski, circa 1974

A relative of Al Samter saw his name on my blog and asked for more information.  I replied that he was a labor activist, poker player, pipe smoker, and jazz expert who died from throat cancer.  A New Yorker who moved to Gary as a steel mill “colonizer” for the Communist Party, Samter would show up at a mutual friend’s house at Christmas bearing gifts and two geese for the hostess to cook. After he retired from the mill, Al Samter was a district leader in S.O.A.R, (Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees) and hosted a dinner dance at McBride Hall that went from 4 p.m. until 8.  At the time we poked fun at the hours, but now it makes perfect sense.  He and an African-American deejay took turns spinning records, alternating between jazz and rhythm ‘n’ blues.  At one point Samter played a Dixieland number and led the crowd in a strut around the room.  He had class.  Mike Olszanski and I interviewed him for our Steel Shavingsissue “Steelworkers Fight Back: Rank and File Insurgency in the Calumet Region during the 1970s” (volume 30, 2000).  Here is part of what he told us:

  After the war I had worked for a small record store in New York and then got laid off.  The big chain stores starting reducing prices on phonograph records, which forced mom-and-pop stores to cut back.  I was on and off the unemployment rolls and finally decided to make use of my G.I. Bill of Rights and get into an apprentice program.

 Everybody was going into the big industries, so in April of 1949 I came to Northwest Indiana and applied for an apprenticeship.  They didn’t have any such programs open but were hiring for the summer.  They sent me out to the coal chemical plant, as a pump operator.  The summer job turned into a permanent job.  I stayed 37 years.  I never did get into the apprenticeship program.  My job, especially after they built a new chemical coal plant in 1955, paid more than I would have gotten in any of the craft jobs.  My department took light oils which come off the coke-making process and separated and distilled them into the industrial oils benzene, toluene, and xylene.

  I became a shop steward and got acquainted with African-American Curtis Strong, who was running for grievance committeeman. I wrote some of his material. After he got elected, I became a shop steward.  One of my jobs was to sign up new members.  There were still some old-timers who were not union members, but I kept signing them up until our department was 100% union.

  Like Curtis Strong, I belonged to the caucus that supported John Mayerick, who became President of 1014 and formed a Civil Rights Committee.  I became its secretary. At one point we decided to have a joint civil rights committee meeting at Local 1014’s headquarters.  Among those attending were Fred Stern from Youngstown and Jim Balanoff from Inland.  At that point the International decided they better recognize us, so they sent somebody in from the International.  It was one of the things that pushed them into having a civil rights division. 

When I published a Shavingsissue on the Calumet Region during the Postwar years (volume 34, 2003), I dedicated it to a dozen “Old Lefties,” including Al Samter, who kept the faith in a time of repression. Class-conscious activists for civil rights, trade unionism, and peace, they realized the need for a fundamental reordering of wealth and power if the nation were to remain true to its historic ideals.

I was pleased that Garrett Peck’s “The Great War in America” had plentiful quotes from acerbic H.L. Mencken, a second-generation German-American and Baltimore Sun columnist critical of American participation in the conflict and the resultant abridgement of civil liberties. He supported women’s suffrage, and expressed outrage at the postwar Red Scare roundup of radicals.  He ridiculed the Eighteenth Amendment, Prohibition. In “A Carnival on Buncombe,” Mencken wrote: “Between [Woodrow] Wilson and his brigades of informers, spies, volunteer detectives, perjurers and complaisant judges, and the Prohibitionists and their messianic delusion, the liberty of the citizen has pretty well vanished in America.”  As Warren Gamaliel Harding was on his way to victory in the 1920 Presidential election, Mencken sneered:“On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by an outright moron.”

In an epilogue, Peck, on the advisory council of the Woodrow Wilson House  at 2340 S Street, mentioned that Wilson lived out his remaining years in a Washington, D.C., townhouse located in the fashionable Kalorama neighborhood. The outgoing President purchased a replica of the White House Lincoln bed and kept his oval office chair and gifts received during his Presidential trip to Europe, including a huge tapestry.  Peck added:

  Along with the transport vans carrying Wilson’s furniture was a truck bearing a special cargo: their wine collection. Prohibition had made the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol illegal, but not its possession. Wilson had no desire to leave behind his collection for President Harding, who was known to throw a good party. “In the shipment was a whole barrel of fine Scotch whiskey, besides a variety of rare wines and liquors,”the New York Times reported.

 George Remus

I learned from author Garrett Peck that novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald modeled title character Jay Gatsby in “The Great Gatsby” (1925) after Cincinnati bootlegger George Remus.  An actor assumes the role of Remus in the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire.”  Born in Berlin, Germany, and growing up in Chicago, Remus became a pharmacist and then a lawyer who took advantage of a loophole in the Volstead Act permitting alcohol to be sold in drug stores for medicinal purposes. He invested heavily in both pharmacies and distilleries.  After moving to Cincinnati, he’d have his own men “steal” liquor from the distilleries and resell it for huge profits.  Remus threw lavish parties at his mansion, nicknamed the Marble Palace.  One featured a 15-piece orchestra and aquatic dancers wearing scandalous bathing suits.  At another he gave diamond stickpins to male guests and new automobiles to their wives. His extravagant lifestyle attracted the attention of federal agents.  Remus spent two years in prison for bootlegging, during which time wife Imogene and her lover cheated him of his fortune, and she filed for divorce.  He had left properties, stock, and bank accounts in her name.  Freed, he fatally shot Imogene and, pleading temporary insanity, was acquitted.  Thereafter, Remus lived modestly in Covington, Kentucky and died from a stroke in 1952 at age 77.    

 Tom Brady

Even though I was rooting for New Orleans and Kansas City in the conference championships, the contests, both going into overtime, could not have been more exciting. When Rams kicker Greg Zuerlein nailed a 57-yarder, Bears fans couldn’t help but think that could have been their fate had they signed a competent place kicker.  As Tom Brady led the Patriots on consecutive clutch TD drives, one couldn’t help but admire the 41-year-old future Hall of Famer.  New England’s presence will give me a team to root against in Super Bowl LIII. Still, I feel sorry for Saints QB Drew Brees and Chiefs coach Andy Reed, who had several good years with the Eagles.

 Charles Eastman

The HBO movie “Bury My Heart in Wounded Knee” not only traced the cruel fate befalling the Lakota tribes during the late nineteenth century but described the life of Hakadah, a Santee Lakota tribesman who took the Christian name Charles Eastman and graduated from Boston University medical school.  At Pine Ridge Reservation in 1890, he cared for survivors of the Wounded Knee Massacre.  He was subsequently dismissed by the Bureau of Indiana Affairs for criticizing its policies toward Native-Americans. He married reformer Elaine Goodale, and the couple had six children.

Season 3 of “True Detective” has Mahershala Ali and Stephen Dorff teaming up as Arkansas troopers Wayne Hays and Roland West on a case involving the murder of a 12 year-old and the disappearance of his 10 year-old sister.  During one racially charged exchange Ali tells his partner that he is not one of his tribe.

 David Parnell

I spoke in David Parnell’s freshman seminar on the history of IU Northwest.  IU Extension classes began a hundred years ago and expanded rapidly during the 1920s.  School Superintendent William A. Wirt started Gary College in 1932 intended for enable students unable to go away to college to earn a two-year degree. Classes met at Horace Mann after high school hours.  After World War II, Gary College ended, and IU Extension classes met at Seaman Hall in downtown Gary, as well as a facility in East Chicago until the move to its present Glen Park location in 1959.  Eight years later, IU Northwest, as it came to be called, held its first graduation ceremony as a four-year institution, outdoors, near its one building, Gary Main, (later renamed Tamarack and condemned after the 2008 flood). I explained that Kern and my collaboration combined social and administrative history, with Paul relying on written sources while I provided oral testimony both from student interviews and my own.  Parnell’s acclaimed book, “Justinian’s Men: Careers and Relationships of Byzantine Army Officers, 518-610,” takes a similar approach.  When I mentioned that to Parnell, he replied: “​That's true! I would become even more of a social historian if I could conduct oral interviews on ancient Byzantines. What a treat that would be.”

Because the class will be discussing future possibilities for IUN, I brought up past debates over possible merger with Purdue Calumet.  One student asked whether doing recent history led to controversies, so I brought up incidents involving my Steelworkers Tales and cedar Lake issues and the Anne Balay case, Another question involved Glen Park student hangouts, and I brought up taking evening classes to Jenny’s Café and the Country Lounge in Hobart.  Even though desegregation was occurring in Glen Park, several bars along Broadway were still hostile toward African-American customers.