Turkey Season

“What do you call a cluster of featherless turkeys?  A cluster pluck.”

             (First Thanksgiving by Jennie A. Brownscombe)

Renditions of the first Thanksgiving in 1621 are based on based largely on speculation and myth.  The separatists (later designated Pilgrims) who arrived  on the Mayflower the year before were indeed aided in the cultivation of corn, beans and squash by the Wampanoag Tisquantum (Squanto).  In 1614 he had been captured and sold into slavery before returning to America as a translator and finding his Patuxet band virtually wiped out by a smallpox epidemic.  There is no evidence that turkey was served at the three-day harvest celebration and certainly no pies, but fowl were plentiful in the area, so wild duck or turkey may have been available, and the Wampanoag (“People of the Dawn”) visitors probably provided venison.  Some might have perished in the 1637 Pequot massacre, others (or their descendants) in King Philip’s War during the mid-1670s.

At bridge Terry Bauer mentioned that a daughter was visiting her sister in Hong Kong and found it easy to get around and shop because there were virtually no tourists due to the continuing anti-government protests.  She was surprised to find mountains and hills with plentiful hiking trails.  On one such excursion 25 years ago, I recall encountering a beautiful waterfall and a troop of monkeys that, Dean Bottorff warned, loved to steal cameras from careless tourists.  Don Geidemann and Judy Selund had a final round sit-out.  As they left, Don said, “Happy Thanksgiving, turkeys” – as in jive turkeys. They were amazed to find out later that they scored a 73.61 percent, earning an acknowledgement in Barbara Walczak’s Newsletter.  Geidemann told her: 

  The super game was overdue.  Some may apply the idioms, “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometime” or “Every dog has its day” but we believe that we have graduated from “The school of Hard Knocks” both in our personal lives and at the bridge tables. Judy and I initiated our partnership 13 months ago.  Our agreement includes tolerance for missed bids and missed plays.  We are still learning as we go.

Judy added: “Our objective is to minimize the bonehead mistakes.”

 Don Geidemann and Judy Selund, photo by Charlie Halberstadt

We had a great time at Evelyn and Herb Passos’ for Thanksgiving as did Don and Judy, a former gym teacher and longtime friend of Evelyn’s.  I enjoyed chatting with sons Max Passo, who started medical school in August, and Alex, a former student and now an attorney.  Next day, we had 23 family members and guests at the condo for our belated Thanksgiving, almost half of whom spent the night.  Toni served turkey, ham, and a tofu turkey roll that I did not sample, saving room for daughter-in-law Beth’s cherry and blueberry pie.  During the course of the day I played Lost Cities, Acquire, Perudo, and Werewolf.  I was about to turn in when Phil, Alissa, and Beth persuaded me to watch Super Troopers 2, the sequel to the 2002 campy cult classic.  After a hilarious dream sequence, it went downhill but was good for cheap laughs and groan-worthy puns.  Obnoxious Rodney Farva (Kevin Hefferman) tells fellow troopers, “You know they have Eskimo hookers up here [in Canada]?  When they have sex, they really get ‘Inuit.’”  It was fun spotting cameos by Rob Lowe (as minor league hockey legend Guy LeFranc), Lynda “Wonder Woman” Carter, grown up “Wonder Years” star Fred Savage, and black comedian Damon Wayans Jr.

The Memorial Opera House Holiday production, Meredith Wilson’s “Miracle on 34th Street,” was originally a 1947 movie.  In eighth grade at Barnum Junior High in Birmingham, Michigan, I saw the film 30 minutes at a time during a week of lunch hour.  The musical, first titled “Here’s Love,” opened on Broadway in 1963.  Set at Macy’s in New York City, the play references Macy’s competitor Gimbel’s. In the early 1960s when I worked in a law firm mailroom in Philadelphia’s center city, department stores appeared to be in their prime. There was no Macy’s but Gimbel’s, Wanamaker’s, and Strawbridge and Clothier were three of the grandest, with holiday window displays to attract shoppers.

"Miracle on 34th Street" photos by Ray Gapinski

The strong cast included charismatic Thomas Olsen as Kris Kringle (who co-starred in “La Cage Aux Folles”), Frank Allen as a drunk Santa and a fictitious R.H. Macy (the family sold the business in 1895 shortly after founder Rowland Hussey Macy died), and several talented youngsters, including preteen Goldie Samardzija in a prominent role as the store manager’s daughter.  Portage attorney Dan Whitten played several characters, including the Governor and the D.A. While the dialogue was dated (for example, the romantic lead referred to his love interest as a dame), the music and dance numbers were  great.  During intermission I spoke with bowling buddies Dorothy Peterson and Gene Clifford.  During turkey hunting season Gene, 82, arrived at Hobart Lanes sporting a black eye.  When a wild turkey surprised him, he fired his weapon and it recoiled while it was too close to his face. At the curtain call Kris Kringle (Olsen) asked the audience to join in an encore of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.”
                  Dan Whitten, fourth from left

Chancellor Lowe and F C Richardson

At Pesko’s I ordered a Yuengling on draft and steak salad, enhanced by onions Dick Hagelberg discarded and several slices of delicious bread. Brian Barnes noted that he’d attended the annual IUN Chancellor’s Medallion banquet as guest of former dean F.C. Richardson and wife Bernice who were honored for their many years of service to the university.  After serving as Chancellor of IU Southwest, Richardson returned to Northwest Indiana and became an advisor to Chancellor Lowe, whom Brian briefly met. The citation stated:

    Only the second African-American to join IU Northwest’s faculty, F C is celebrated for his advocacy for Black rights during the Civil Rights movement. One of F C’s most important career contributions was his role as advisor for IU Northwest’s Black Caucus, now known as the Black Student Union. 

    F C’s wife, Bernice, earned degrees in elementary education from IU Bloomington in 1968 and IU Northwest in 1973 and spent most of her career in Gary schools, primarily in the roles of assistant principal and principal.  Bernice also served as an IU Northwest Alumni Association board member for several years.

 muddied up Andrew Weil with rosemary and mint plants

In “Food for Dissent” (2019).  Maria McGrath seemed conflicted about self-health guru Andrew Weil, a onetime hippie who kept alive counterculture precepts (i.e., the revolution must begin inside each person’s head) but profited by hawking of all sorts of products purportedly leading to physical well-being. I came across the name of Mike McGrath, editor of Organic Gardening during the 1990s and wondered if he was related to Maria.  The final chapter discussed Ron Dreher, author of “Crunchy Cons: The New Conservative Counter-Culture and Its Return to Roots” (2006).  McGrath concluded:

  Conservatives’ presence in the hippie-left movement surprised and disturbed natural foods proponents with countercultural biographies and affinities. It should not have. Cultural preservation, pastoral sentimentality, and moralistic consumerism – the movement’s fundamentals – were always there, ready for conservative adaptation.

I came across Rodger McDaniel’s “Dying for Joe McCarthy’s Sins: The Suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt” (2013).  Hunt, a former Democratic governor elected to the Senate in 1948, was an outspoken opponent of the Wisconsin demagogue Joseph McCarthy.  Rightwing Republicans Styles Bridges of New Hampshire and Herman Welker of Idaho attempted to blackmail him into not seeking re-election after Hunt’s son Buddy was arrested for soliciting sex from a male undercover cop in Washington’s Lafayette Park.  Normally, first offenders got off with a warning and notification to the family, but Bridges and Welker pressured District of Columbia law enforcement authorities into prosecuting Buddy and warned Hunt that they’d publicize the case unless Hunt retired from politics.  Hunt subsequently shot himself at his Senate desk.  The day before, McCarthy hinted that he’d make the sex offense public.  Senate reporter Allen Drury used a fictionalized version of the incident in the 1959 novel “Advise and Consent.”

I Found Out

“It's not the love that's in your mind
It's the love that you might find
That's gonna save our lives”

    The Head and the Heart, “I Found Out

On September 11 the Head and the Heart performed at 20 Monroe in Grand Rapids, where 8 of us saw them last year.  They put on such an awesome show then that Phil, Dave, nephew Bob, and I traveled to Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown, California, my favorite roadhouse, for a special midnight show prior to their appearance at the Coachella Valley Music Festival.  Phil offered to go with me again, but both of us have been busy. I love the band’s new CD “Living Mirage,” especially “Missed Connection” and “I Found Out,” whose chorus is in my head. John Lennon recorded a different song by the same title on the 1970 “Plastic One Band” album that Red Hot Chili Peppers covered on the tribune CD “Working Class Hero.”  Expressing disillusionment with false idols and panaceas, Lennon wrote this lyric:

I've seen through junkies, I been through it all
I've seen religion from Jesus to Paul
Don't let them fool you with dope and cocaine
No one can harm you, feel yer own pain

I finished first in duplicate two days in a row, partnering with Charlie Halberstadt in Chesterton and Don Giedemann in Valpo, with whom I’d never played. Returning after long stints on the DL were Dee Browne and Karen Fieldhouse. Partnering with Pam Missman was a woman who introduced herself as Sarabel Nowlin, adding it rhymes with Clarabell – the mute clown on “The Howdy Doody Show” that aired afternoons between 1947 and 1960 during my childhood and teen years.  Sarabel’s niece, Marcia Carson, had brought delicious, home-bakes chocolate chip cookies to the Chesterton game the previous evening. One weird hand, Don opened a strong 2 Diamonds (18 or 19 points with even distribution), and I responded 2 Spades, indicating 7 or more points.  He bid 4 Clubs, asking for Aces, and when I signaled none, he bid 4 Spades, meaning I’d play the hand, being the first to bid that suit, despite holding just a Spade singleton. Don lay down Ace, King, Queen, Jack, and 2 other Spades, but one opponent was void in trump and the other had 6, as many as were in the dummy.  I ended up down one but tied for high board as 3 No Trump twice got set 2 and 6 Spades went down 4 doubled.

 Judy Selund and Don Geidemann at Portage Riverwalk; P-T photo by Carole Carlson

Corey Hagelberg dropped off posters announcing a “Northwest Indiana Youth Rally” at Portage Open Air Pavilion, organized by an IUN freshman who graduated from Portage High.  One consequence of global warming: rising water levels have eradicated Lake Michigan beachfront Portage Riverwalk.  I gave one to Raoul Contreras, adviser to the Public Affairs Club.  

 homeless man in Boulder; below, Willie Baronet

Several posters adorn faculty office windows reading, “This Is Awkward For Me, Too,” publicizing an IUN gallery exhibit titled “We Are All Homeless.” Willie Baronet, a creative advertising professor at Southern Methodist University, collected the signs used by indigents begging for help over a 20-year period.  Many were featured in the 2014 documentary “Signs of Humanity.” 

The Valparaiso University Invisible Project “Stories of Home and Homelessness” contains interviews with victims forced to seek shelter wherever they could. Co-directors Alison Schuette and Liz Wuerffel wrote, “Homelessness does not always look the way we imagine, and the homeless are important and valuable members of our community.”  A woman who suffered a nervous breakdown and lost her job, the use of the trailer she’d been living in, and custody of her children, told them:

I was in a car. And not wanting to ask for any help whatsoever. But finally I had to stay at my parents’ house, and my parents were trying to take the discipline type of road with me because I was acting out. They didn’t understand mental illness at the time. So, I slept on the couch, and I had a laundry basket with just my possessions. That was it. And I did that for an entire year. Which was very difficult, because I was in a household that didn’t understand what was going on with me. And then Housing Opportunities saved my life. They were fantastic, but I was on a waiting list for about a year. But they were wonderful, they talked to me. They were compassionate and helpful. The application process was painless. It’s sad that I had to wait a year, but they actually checked on me, also, to see, you know, how my situation was going and everything.

Housing Opportunities, a community-sustained nonprofit, provides a variety of services for the homeless in Porter and LaPorte counties. Its website states: “Some of our clients are not able to work due to crisis or disability. Some clients are professionals with college degrees who’ve hit hard times. Many clients are working or underemployed at minimum wage, struggling to support themselves or their families.”

As part of Indiana University’s Bicentennial Celebration, an IUN program will highlight faculty research projects, with professors speaking just 8 minutes.  My offer to report on “A Queer History of IU Northwest” was summarily rejected, as friends predicted, despite “queerness” currently being a hot topic in academia. I had been cautiously optimistic, if the decision was left to faculty and out of the hands of administrators.  In a form letter, Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Cynthia Odell wrote: “The selection committee, composed of representatives from the academic units, was very impressed with the breadth and depth of the proposals and had a difficult time making their final selections. Regretfully, your proposal was not selected for presentation this year. However, we hope to make this an annual event and encourage you to apply again in the future.”  I replied: “People told me my topic, “A Queer History of IU Northwest, was too controversial and certain to be turned down, but since I vowed not to mention names, I had hoped IUN had advanced into the twenty-first century.”  The shadow of queer scholar Anne Balay’s nemesis still looms large despite his recent retirement.

Fifteen years ago, when Paul Kern and I published “Educating the Calumet Region,” we mentioned the short-lived existence of the Gay/Lesbian/Bi-sexual Alliance during the 1980s and Pride Alliance in the 1990s, but did not mention that virtually all non-tenured gay faculty were closeted.  We also decided to leave out an incident when a professor rumored to be gay was removed from the classroom on spurious grounds.  Clearly the time has come to explore in depth this subject despite what others might think. “Educating the Region” contains this testimony by former librarian Ellen Bosman, now head of technical services at New Mexico State (below):

  During the late-1990s IUN’s handbook mentioned the existence of a club for gay and lesbian students but listed no adviser.  Its club statement implied a degree of secrecy I thought unnecessary and demeaning. I offered to be faculty adviser, and we rewrote the club description to make it more positive and inclusive.  One of our goals was to get people to embrace a concept of diversity that included sexual orientation.

  When the club was functioning, a good turnout would be maybe eight people.  We got to know each other and realized we weren’t so isolated.  We had a variety of activities, including a photo display, “Love Makes a Family,” that showed gay and lesbian couples with their children. One guest speaker talked about his bisexual experiences.  He was married, and his wife was aware of his lifestyle.  We brought in high school students from Evanston, including one who was transgendered, to talk about their experiences.

  We wanted people to realize our presence on campus.  For National Coming Out Day, we got big buckets of chalk and marked up the sidewalks with sayings, such as “Oscar Wilde was gay.”Some students were offended when we used African-American names such as Bessie Smith and Langston Hughes. They’d say, “How do you know they were gay?”  We’d say, “We didn’t make this up.  It can be verified in the library.” Sometimes when we put up signs, they’d be taken down. Eventually we got them put in locked cabinets.  Others claimed we were going against God’s will and expressed disappointment that such a club existed at IUN.

  After years of haggling, IU approved a domestic partner benefits program.  It allows same sex partners to register with the university and have their partners eligible for health coverage.
 

Noticing students and staff staring out windows in the Arts and Sciences Building, I found out that a careless driver had turned onto Broadway and plowed into someone legally in the crosswalk.  Next day, a female African-American IUN police officer told me the victim, likely in shock, originally claimed to be all right but was taken in an ambulance to be checked out.  It brought back memories of English professor George Bodmer struck and badly injured jaywalking near the accident site – one reason traffic signals were installed.  Until fairly recently, IUN’s police force was all-male and employed mostly white former Gary men in blue.  Researching “Educating the Region,” I interviewed African American Don Young, who endured hazing as a rookie and patrolled make-out areas in the evening such as Raintree Auditorium, isolated spots in the library, and far edges of parking lots (a dead giveaway that he’d find a couple in a compromising position).  I’ll mention Young’s experiences in explaining to Jon Becker’s freshmen seminar students the difference between a social and administrative history.
  

In the third week of bowling the Engineers salvaged one game against the Boricuas (the name indigenous Puerto Ricans called their island) mainly due to Ron Smith’s 213 in the finale.  Opponents Melody and Jaime Delgado brought a well-behaved baby. The Hobert Lanes manager wouldn’t switch channels to the Cubs game (causing me to miss Yu Darvish’s 6 shutout innings and 14 strikeouts); he claimed to be too busy juggling myriad duties at the counter and tending bar.  Instead we were stuck with a soap opera, mercifully on mute

 below, Zander Delgado; right, proud parents

Jim Spicer’s weekly witticism:

  Upon hearing that her elderly grandfather had just passed away, Katie went straight to her grandparent’s house to visit her 95-year old grandmother and comfort her. When she asked how her grandfather had died, her grandmother replied,“We were making love on Sunday morning.” Horrified, Katie told her grandmother that two people nearly one hundred years old having sex would surely be asking for trouble. “Oh no, my dear,”replied her grandmother. “Many years ago, realizing our advanced age, we figured out the best time to do it was when the church bells would start to ring. it was just the right rhythm. Nice and slow and even. Nothing too strenuous, simply in on the ding and out on the dong.”She paused to wipe away a tear and continued, “He’d still be alive if the ice cream truck hadn’t come along.”

 monuments in Marysville (left) and Sacramento

Prepping for Chris Young’s upcoming book club talk on the Pony Express, I found out that monuments exist in towns along the mail route from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California.  One pictured in Jim DeFelice’s “West Like Lightning” is in the Marysville, Kansas, town square.  Sculpted by Richard Bergen, it depicts Jack Keetley, who traveled a trail leading to Big Sandy, located in Woodson County, where a pony truss bridge over Big Sandy Creek was recently removed but a cemetery contains the remains of several riders.

On September 11, 2001, watching the Today Showat breakfast, I witnessed the collapse of the World Trade Center towers right before leaving to teach a U.S. History class at IUN’s Portage Center. From the car radio I found out that planes had rammed into the Pentagon and mysteriously crashed in western Pennsylvania. In class, one I’ll never forget, I talked about events that live in infamy, including the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor and JFK’s assassination, as well as meeting a Shiite family in Saudi Arabia while teaching in IU’s overseas program during the mid-80s.  One student had suggested I dismiss them.  I replied that anyone was free to leave, but nobody did. Colleague Rhiman Rotz, who was adviser to the Muslim Student Association, was critically ill at the time, and his last thoughts were concern for those students.

Network commentators are treating Trump’s dismissal of National Security adviser John Bolton as yet another example of a dysfunctional White House. Thoughtful liberals should be shouting hosannas. As Trump himself said, Bolton was a relentless hawk who would have the country warring on fronts from Venezuela and Cuba to Iran and North Korea. If I could cheer Nixon on the day he recognized China, I can breathe a sigh of relief with Bolton gone, whatever the cause.  Trump, first and foremost, is an America Firster, isolationist in foreign policy but unfortunately the ally of predatory capitalists and white supremacists.  A rank opportunist, he assumed this image for political gain and is beholden to those MAGA faithful that remain his base of support.

Toni was cutting up basil, and the aroma reached me in the basement. In Fort Washington neighbor Herb Sadtler, who shared our two-car garage, loved to brag about his herb garden, so we pronounced his name with the “H” silent, like “erb.”  Toni served basil atop a hamburger patty, and it was quite tasty when, at Toni's urging, I got around to eating it.  Ray Arredondo emailed me the obit he wrote for wife Trish, a good friend and collaborator on “Maria’s Journey.” He wrote this poignant remembrance: “Her love of nature and gardening brought her joy and she spent many long days outside, creating her garden “rooms.”  Although she would often comment about the deer and bunnies eating her blooms, she never did one thing to deter them.”

Trish, Maria, Ray Arredondo