Coronavirus

    “It has a very nice floral bouquet.  I detect lilac, hydrangea, tulips,” Governor Andrew Cuomo (below), unveiling NYS Clean, a hand sanitizer produced by inmates at the Great Meadow maximum security prison.

No IU Northwest classes on campus for the next three weeks due to the coronavirus scare, although buildings, unless things change, will remain open, so, for the time being, I don’t have to scramble to borrow a laptop.  In Indianapolis a large crowd watched IU defeat Nebraska in the Big Ten tournament, but then the rest of the games were cancelled.  A Big East contest was terminated at halftime.  Ditto the NCAA playoffs.  The NBA has suspended its season.  Even Hoosier Hysteria bowed to reality, as the IHSAA suspended the basketball playoffs.  The last holdouts, NASCAR and the National Hockey League, reluctantly bowed to the inevitable. ESPN, which ends “Sports Center” with the top ten plays of the previous day, was reduced to showing high school basketball played in a mostly empty gym.

Trump gravitates between declaring that what the World Health Organization has called a pandemic will soon go away as if by magic and declaring the rapidly spreading disease a national emergency, blaming other countries (and who else? Obama).  He has absolutely no credibility.  His White House speech was a disaster.  As the Washington Post noted about his “ten minutes at the teleprompter,” Trump failed in his attempt to calm coronavirus fears. Critic Ben Rhodes said:

     I think we’ll look back on this as a defining moment of the Trump presidency because it speaks to larger concerns that people already had about Trump — that he can’t tell the truth, that he doesn’t value expertise, that he doesn’t take the presidency seriously enough.

     Trump’s speech contained at least two errors and a significant omission. He said the travel ban would apply to cargo; it did not. He said health insurance companies would waive patients’ co-payments for coronavirus testing and treatment; industry officials later clarified that they would waive payments for testing only. And he did not fully explain the details of his travel restrictions, leaving out the fact that U.S. citizens would be exempt.

 Josh and Alissa (middle) in Panama

Trump’s lack of leadership has raised anxieties rather than calm them.  Phil called to say that his PBS station in Grand Rapids, WVUE, was straining to keep up with breaking news and updates all day. He wanted to make sure Toni and I (of the age to be classified as elderlies) were tasking proper precautions.  Alissa and Josh, vacationing in Panama, were scheduled to stop in New Orleans on the way back; Phil hoped they’d revise their plans.

 Crystal Taliefero (who plays drums and banjo as well as sax)

Although IUN’s Women’s and Gender Studies Conference took place as scheduled, keynote speaker Crystal Taliefero was unable to attend.  A Gary Wirt grad, Crystal has toured with Bob Seger, Joe Cocker, John Mellencamp and Billy Joel; she had planned to talk on “Breaking and Entering the Male-Dominated World of Pop, Rock, and Blues.”  The conference proceeded without her although two other presentations I was looking forward to, Kaitlin Battista’s “Abuse of the Disables” and Kaitlyn Grubbe’s “Bill Clinton Sex Scandals,” were scratched.  Speaking at faculty sponsor Tanice Foltz’s session, Lani Eaton traced the history of abortion legislation and litigation, then expressed concern over the proliferation of recent Trump appointees to the bench signaling a possible Me Too backlash.

Brandon (left); Hilary, below

Speaker Michael Litke Adams reflected on Brandon Teena’s life and legacy.  Born a girl in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1972, Brandon transitioned into a man and was raped and murdered in 1993.  Growing up, Teena had been sexually abused by an uncle, was considered a tomboy, began identifying as a male as a teenager, and started dating girls.  “Boys Don’t Cry” (1999), based on Brandon’s life, starred Hilary Swank, who won an Academy Award for the performance. Adams criticized the choice of Swank, arguing that a trans actor should have had the part, but I thought Swank was a perfect choice.  Perhaps I’d feel differently if it were being made today or if I were trans, like Adams. In 2005, when she won a second Oscar for playing a female boxer in “Million Dollar Baby,” Swank said, “I don’t know what I did in this life to deserve this.  I’m just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream.”   

In place of Crystal Taliefero’s keynote speech was a discussion of Jessica Valenti’s recent column in Medium titled “Coronavirus Is Having an Outsized Impact on Working Woman.”  Noting that she was writing while three little girls were playing nearby, with school having been cancelled, Valenti called for authorities to pay attention to how women’s caretaking might spread the disease.  She concluded:

    Ironically, while women perform this extra work around preparing for and dealing with the consequences of coronavirus, the White House’s coronavirus task force, a Mike Pence-led coalition focusing on preventing the spread of COVID-19, is entirely male. That lack of representation means less understanding of how coronavirus will impact women and the way women’s invisible labor could impact the spread of the virus. This isn’t just a feminist issue — it’s a health issue.

  Sherry VerWey

During a break I chatted with faculty sponsors Jacqui Huey, whom I met at the same conference last year, and Bill Allegrezza, whose student Sherry VerWey, I know as secretary for IUN’s School of the Arts and who read original poems to close the conference, save for final remarks by program director Tanice Foltz.  Sherry VerWey, in her introduction of “Ghost,” about an adoptee, mentioned that approximately 135,000 children are adopted annually but only 10 states grant adult adoptees access to birth records.  An organization called Bastard Nation has been fighting for adoptee rights. Here’s Sherry’s incredibly moving poem “Ghost”:

this isn’t some representation of the “miracle of life”

it isn’t some “beautiful little blessing”…

YOU DIDN’T CHOOSE ME

…any baby would do

you will erase my name

rewrite my ethnicity

my history

my DNA

and replace it all with your fantasy

i already know i’m lost…stolen

a primal wound

my eyes may not be open

but i morn just the same

a shroud of shame surrounds me now

shhhhhhh….(your dirty little secret)

when i look in the mirror, it’s a stranger i see

these hands, these eyes

no resemblance, no memory

you’re painted as a saint, a savior…mother

but no one thinks of the woman (child) left behind

what of her grief

her emptiness

confusion

an eternal question

permanently sealed

the ghost of my identity

Next day, I asked Sherry, in her 40s and herself adopted, if she’d been writing poems for a long time.  Not until I took professor Allegrezza’s class, she replied, except for some rants during her Gothic phase.

Patricia Gonzales thanked me for the latest Steel Shavings and wrote: “All the history you have given us in these volumes read like a conversation and are a gift to read now and especially in the future.”  Steve Gwizdalski noted: “Always enjoy Steel Shavings; looking forward to the next issue. I hope you keep going for many more years...I know this is a labor of love for you. Always great to read about the 'Region' and how the events of the times shaped us, and to read much of it as seen through the eyes of students with a fresh look. I grew up in Burnham and Cal City, retired from two area steel mills - Inland and US - so I've been around awhile. I always thought it was a pretty good place to grow up in. Through Steel Shavings. I can stay in touch with the new stuff (kind of), yet read many stories that bring back countless memories. Thanks again for what you do, and for keeping me in the loop.”

Jon Hamm, whom I came to admire in the TV series “Mad Men,” is a hoot in the latest “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode. Claiming he'll be playing a role based on Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, he tags along with David, and they quickly bond. Hamm mimics Larry’s mannerisms and expressions so well while Larry is being obnoxious that Susie kicks them both out of a dinner party. 

Jerry Pierce posted a drawing of daughter Heidi , along with this explanation: “Look, Daddy, it's you and me, and we're in the ocean. And I'm holding your hand because I was scared of the waves. But now I'm not.”  The first time we took Phil to the ocean was at Cape Hatteras on North Carolina’s outer banks, near Kitty Hawk. A toddler, he eagerly ran to water’s edge and got knocked down by a wave.  He didn’t want to go anywhere near the beach the rest of the day, so we hung out by the hotel pool.

Dottie Hart and I finished first in bridge with a 65 percent, with more than our share of luck.  One hand we underbid only discover that other pairs who went to game got set.  Another hand, Dottie and I were both bidding Diamonds, and our opponents Spades and Clubs.  Holding the top two Hearts, one stopper in Spades, and the Ace, Jack, spot of Clubs, I took a chance and bid 3 No-Trump.  Surveying Dottie’s hand, I realized it was necessary to lose a Diamond before I could run the suit. The player to my left led the King of Clubs, and I played low. Had he then led a small Spades, I would have been in trouble, but he followed with the Club Queen.  I took it and still had the Jack stopper as well as the Ace of Spades and could draw out the Diamond Ace without fear.  I made ten tricks for high board. During our sit-out round I learned that Dottie’s father had worked for Sinclair Oil as a distributor.   She was the youngest of five, all daughters, and he’d take her hunting but only to observe.  Dottie’s husband was a pressman at the Post-Tribune, and she worked for a mortgage company.

Frank and Joan Shufran in 2017; photo by Jeff Manes

At bowling Frank Shufran had scratch marks on his arm; one looked infected.  Every once in a while, he said, their three-year-old cat goes a little crazy.  Knowing he was devoted to an older dog, I asked whether the two pets got along.  “No way,” he replied.  Asked why they got a cat, Frank said that at the vet wife Joan spotted three homeless kittens in a cage and couldn’t resist bringing one home.  They had also rescued all their previous pets.

Toni found Jewel to be a madhouse, with sanitizer and toilet paper (???) gone from the shelves, as hoarders were panicking. Recently married Kody Amanda Marie posted: “What if the world reacted to climate change like it’s reacting to the coronavirus.”

              left, posted by Cindy Bean; right, Chelsea Sue and Kody Amanda

Bonehead Play

“A dispute historic in baseball, which enriched the language with two exceedingly forceful words, ‘bonehead’ and ‘boner,’ arose over whether Frederick Charles Merkle did or did not touch second base.” Mark Sullivan, “Our Times”

As a baseball historian, I knew about the bizarre conclusion to the 1908 National League season, when a make-up game between the Cubs and the Giants was necessary to decide the pennant due to 19-year-old Fred Merkle’s “bonehead” baserunning mistake. With the score tied in the bottom of the ninth at New York’s Polo Grounds, Giant shortstop Al Bridwell hit an apparent game-winning single, sending Moose McCormick home from third.  On first, Merkle saw fans swarming onto the field and ran into the dugout without first touching second base, a common practice in those days. Cubs second baseball Johnny Evers, however, noticed the gaffe and brought it to the attention of the umpires.  In fact, in a recent game against the Pirates the exact thing had occurred only there had only been one umpire, Henry O’Day, who missed what happened so the rule wasn’t enforced.  Largely because of the fuss Evers put up at that time, two umpires were assigned to the Cubs-Giants game, including the one who’d failed to see what happened against Pittsburgh.  According to David Hinckley, details of exactly what happened are hazy, “lost in the mists of time – mists that closed in rapidly”:

  In most accounts, Giants pitcher "Iron Man" Joe McGinnity dashed from the first base coach's box to intercept the ball Art Hofman threw back to the infield and fling it deep into the stands. That was that, McGinnity figured, except Evers was still yelling. If that ball was gone, he wanted another one. Eventually he found one. Some say it was the real one, ripped away from a fan in the stands by little-used relief pitcher Rube Kroh. Others say it was another ball, relayed to Evers by shortstop Joe Tinker and maybe even third baseman Harry Steinfeldt, in a bizarre alternate version of the Cubs' famous Tinker-to-Evers-to Chance double play combination.

  Whatever the ball's origin, Evers secured it, touched second base and asked the umpires – R.D. Emslie at second base and Henry O'Day behind the plate – to call Merkle out on a force play, which would nullify McCormick's winning run. Emslie, who fell to the ground avoiding Bridwell's single, said he didn't see whether Merkle touched second and therefore couldn't make a call. O'Day said he did see and no, Merkle did not touch second. Therefore, yes, he was out. 

Hall of Fame umpire Bill Klem, known as the “Old Arbitrator,” who officiated games for 36 years beginning in 1905, decried the decision as “the rottenest” he’d ever come across.

Prior to the playoff game a week later, “Iron Man” McGinnity, who wasn’t scheduled to pitch that afternoon, attempted to pick a fight with Frank Chance, hoping that both would be ejected; but the ruse didn’t work.  The Cubs went on to defeat Giants ace Christy Mathewson, 4-2, setting off a riotous aftermath, as described by David Rapp:

  The bad feelings ran so high, acknowledge a New York paper, that “the Chicago men were bombarded as they left the field, kicked, and reviled.”  Hundreds of rabid fans took to the field, growling and out for blood. Tinker, Sheckard, and others took hard knocks to the head, while someone slashed Pfiester on the shoulder with a knife. Another hooligan chased down Chance from behind and delivered a wicked chop across his neck.  The blow broke some cartilage and temporarily snuffed out his voice.

  When the team made it to relative safety in their dressing room, the doors barricaded, armed guards had to stand outside to hold the mob back.  The Cubs eventually were secreted back to their hotel in a patrol wagon with two cops inside and four more riding the running boards.  They hustled out of town that night for Detroit, site of the upcoming World Series, by slipping out the back door and running down an alley, escorted by a swarm of policemen.

The Cubs went on to defeat the Detroit Tigers 4 games to 1, their last championship for 108 years. Chance outplayed future Hall of Famer Ty Cobb, garnering 8 hits to his 7 and swiping 5 bases to his 2.

Baseball historian Trey Strecker wrote about another unfortunate incident involving Merkle in the deciding game of the 1912 World Series against the Boston Red Sox:

  Fred was poised to be the hero when his single in the top of the 10th inning scored Red Murray from second to give the Giants the lead. The bottom half began with Fred Snodgrass' infamous muff in center field, allowing pinch-hitter Clyde Engle to reach second base. After Harry Hooper flied out and Steve Yerkes walked, Tris Speaker hit a high foul near the first-base coach's box. Though most observers agreed that it was his ball, Merkle backed away when Christy Mathewson called for the catcher, Meyers, to make the catch. The ball fell to the ground, giving Speaker another chance, and this time he slashed a long single to right that started the Sox's winning rally. In New York, the headlines the next day read “Bonehead Merkle Does It Again.”

Sports writers employed “bonehead” during the NBA playoffs when Cleveland Cavalier J.R. Smith grabbed an offensive rebound in a tie game with seconds remaining and dribbled away from the basket rather than attempt a shot.  Even more egregious was Michigan All-American Chris Webber calling time-out with 11 seconds remaining in the NCAA championship against Duke when his team had none left, resulting in a technical foul and loss of possession.

Bridge Bulletin used this Larry Sherman letter under the heading Déjà vu?::

  I was called to a table at a game I was directing. North said someone had scored on their line.  East then chimed in that they had already played this board.  I tried to clarify whether East-West had played this board at another table.  North then realized that the handwriting on the traveler line was her own.  They had played the same board twice at thistable with a different contract and a different result.  That was a first for me.

In duplicate Dottie Hart and I finished with a 57.29 percent, good enough for third place and half a master point.  My only bonehead move came after Dottie opened one No-Trump and the person on my right bid 2 Diamonds.  I held 5 Hearts but just 7 points and using a transfer system would have said 2 Diamonds had my opponent not beat me to it.  I bid 2 Hearts and Dottie, believing that indicated a five-card Spade suit, responded 2 Spades.  When I bid 3 Hearts, she raised to 4 Hearts and I got set 2.  What I should have done initially was double 2 Diamonds. Then when Dottie bid 2 Hearts, I could have passed. On another hand, I got high board holding 6 Hearts, including the Ace, King, Queen, 5 Spades to the Queen and 2 singletons. I bid Hearts 3 times while Dottie kept passing and the opponents bid Clubs and Diamonds. Dottie had only one Heart, but a lucky 3-3 split enabled me to make the contract. Last week in a similar situation, a 5-1 split proved disastrous and resulted in a low board.

Bridge opponent Helen Booth mentioned having been a neighbor of Post-Tribuneowner H.B. Snyder, who committed suicide by walking into Lake Michigan.  Snyder’ss wife socialized with Heywood Braun and other members of New York City’s “Smart Set.” She’d write Post-Trib“Travel” columns about her trips abroad. Gary Mayor George Chacharis nicknamed Snyder, his arch-enemy, the “Duke of Dune Acres.” IUN professor Garret Cope’s parents worked for the Snyder family as cook and chauffer.  Helen lent me “Holy Horrors: An Illustrated History of Religious Murder and Madness” by her brother-in-law James A. Haught. The title seemed particularly relevant given the horrific headlines about atrocities committed by hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania and subsequent church coverup. Haught signed the copy, “From a total heathen.”

 above, Christy Mathewson; below, Fred Merkle

Baseball goat Fred Merkle was an avid bridge player, often partnering in the New York clubhouse with Christy Mathewson, born in Factoryville, Pennsylvania, a graduate of Bucknell (my alma mater), and winner of 373 games during a stellar career.  Mathewson enlisted in the army during World War I and was accidentally gassed, resulting in tuberculosis and an early death in 1925 at age 45.  He was buried in Lewisburg Cemetery near Bucknell’s campus, known in the early 1960s as a “make-out heaven.”

Bonehead was the name of a children’s TV series that ran for three seasons on BBC beginning in 1960 and featured a dim-witted trio of crooks, Boss, Happy and Bonehead. 

Age of Anxiety

“We would rather be ruined than changed
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.”

         W.H. Auden, “The Age of Anxiety”

English-born W.H. Auden (1907-1973) completed “The Age of Anxiety” in 1946, the year he became a U.S. citizen and seven years after emigrating to America.  Set in a New York City bar, “The Age of Anxiety” deals with cultural and psychological themes, as four characters discuss issues of personal identity in a rapidly changing industrial world.

Historian Lance Trusty passed away, Naomi Goodman informed me.  John Trafny, one of Lance’s grad students, confirmed the sad news.  He was a popular speaker to area organizations, witty and urbane.  Impressed, I tried to emulate him when I talked to local groups about regional history.  Trusty wrote an afterword to Powell A. Moore’s “The Calumet Region: Indiana’s Last Frontier,” which summarized events between 1933 and 1977, and in 1984 published “Hammond: A Centennial Portrait.”  His writings appear in several Steel Shavings, including this excerpt from “Town on the Ridge: A History of Munster, Indiana” (1982), reprinted in “Age of Anxiety,” covering the postwar years between 1945 and 1953:

The imminent possibility of annexation by Hammond clouded every town issue between 1945 and 1950.  A Times editorial claimed Hammond was “as necessary to Munster as a mother cat to a nursing kitten.”  Why should that city continue to build water mains, provide high school seats, and other services “to accommodate another community?” asked the editor, who observed: “Hammond has lost many of its leaders in business, the professions, and in labor to Munster.  We feel the loss of their counsel.”

          Amalgamation was supported by Mayor Vernon Anderson, who was certain it was the only logical means for Hammond’s development.  But a 1948 town referendum indicated widespread opposition, and a bill was introduced into the General Assembly prohibiting the annexation of either ridge town, Munster or Highland.  The debate ended inconclusively.  Hammond’s failure to gobble up its neighbors was probably due more to inertia than to the loud noises emanating from the suspicious ridge towns.

  . . .

          The late forties marked the end of the peaceful farmer’s town on the ridge.  The needs and expectations of the new suburbanites and, above all, their sheer numbers, fundamentally changed Munster.  Newcomers expected new schools, more police cars, more municipal garbage trucks, more sewers, smooth roads, and a thousand and one other civic improvements that collectively made life comfortable but expensive.  The old Dutchmen could only shake their heads as they partitioned their farms into blocks of homes and retreated to the rural splendors of DeMotte and beyond.

My Eighties Steel Shavings, titled “The Uncertainty of Everyday Life,” contained an article by Trusty entitled “End of an Era: The 1980s in the Calumet” that summarized contemporary economic developments::

  The age of labor-intensive industries, which had given birth to the ever-Smoky region at the turn of the century, died in a wave of automation and consolidation, leaving behind a variety of huge plants but few jobs.  The forces that had created the Region’s cities were depleted.  Moreover, the search for alternatives, usually envisioned as clean, high-tech, industries, met little success in the 1980s.  Everyone wanted that sort of business, and invariably the grimy Calumet became the also-ran in the “find a new plant” contest.  A steady growth of low-paying jobs in the service industry was only a minor palliative.

The phrases “Age of Anxiety” and “Uncertainty of Everyday Life” cpertain to all recent decades, as the pace of change accelerates, affecting the nature of work and job security, even in stodgy academia, where stimulating live lectures, like those in which Lance trusty excelled, are becoming obsolete. the Trump presidency or the current flu epidemic, there is presently much cause for unease among those prone to nervousness.

 photo by Robert Blaszkiewicz ("running out of places to put the snow")

The phrases “Age of Anxiety” and “Uncertainty of Everyday Life” cpertain to all recent decades, as the pace of change accelerates, affecting the nature of work and job security, even in stodgy academia, where stimulating live lectures, like those in which Lance trusty excelled, are becoming obsolete. the Trump presidency or the current flu epidemic, there is presently much cause for unease among those prone to nervousness.

 "Reejin Rat" at Hammond Ciciv Center, 2017; Times photo by Tony V. Martin

Bob Kasarda has a Times column where he answers inquiries about the Region, including the derivation of that term.  After speaking to me on the phone, he wrote: “James Lane, a history professor at Indiana University Northwest, said the simplest part of the answer is that the name is a derivative of the Calumet Region.  The Calumet Region is defined by the areas surrounding the Grand Calumet and Little Calumet rivers, he said, which are connected to Calumet River just over the border in Illinois.”  Kasarda went on to quote Ken Schoon about the various theories on what “Calumet” meant, ranging from “little reed” and “pipe of peace” to “a deep, still water” or “a ship that draws a lot of water.”

Indoors most of the weekend except for taking James to bowling and Culver’s, I re-watched a couple favorite movies: “Fargo” (I’d forgotten about the Paul Bunyon statue in Brainerd resembling an ax murderer) and “Nobody’s Fool” (I didn’t recall the strip poker game with Sully’s attorney’s artificial leg in the pot). In “One True Thing” (1998), based on a novel by Anna Quindlen and starring Renee Zellweger and Meryl Streep.  William Hurt plays a pompous, self-absorbed English professor (the usual professorial stereotype in films, unfortunately).  I caught up on “Divorce” episodes (both parties are immature but ingratiating) and learned a new nickname for dolt – cement-head.  After reading a New York Times magazine cover story about Ru Paul, I checked out a “Drag Race” episode, but – nothing against it -  it just wasn’t my cup of tea.   While I didn’t tune in to the winter Olympics, I enjoyed news reports of the unified Korean women’s hockey team being cheered on by North Korean cheerleaders singing and swaying in syncopated unison as grumpy Vice President Mike Pence groused over their warm reception.

Jackie Roberts wrote about duplicate bridge player Terry Bauer for her Indiana History assignment.

        September 13: I called Terry and asked him about his family.  He and his wife Stephanie have six children, 2 boys and 4 girls, as well as 13 grandchildren.  He grew up in South Bend, the oldest of eight children.  His mom taught him to play bridge when he was about 10. He told me that he had just recently gotten back into playing bridge.  One thing he likes about it is meeting new people.  He moved had just recently gotten back into playing to Michigan City 20 years ago for a job as a school psychologist.  I asked his likes and dislikes of the region.  The former included proximity to Lake Michigan, being near family, and proximity to Chicago.  His dislikes were the harsh winters, air quality, and stagnant economic region. 

October 4: Terry and I met at the Portage Library.  I asked him about growing up in South Bend, and he replied: “There were eight of us children in a three-bedroom house. I played sports, and was always outside.  It was back in the day when kids were outside all day, instead of inside on technology.  I grew up in a white, middle-class, predominantly Catholic neighborhood.  In school, I was interested in Math.” Asked if his wife played bridge, he said, “No.  She doesn’t have a competitive bone in her body.”  Regarding bridge players, he said that some are in the 80s and 90s; and although their memories might be fading in other areas, they remember everything about playing bridge, and are good at it.  Terry told me he met his wife at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, adding: “She was in the Army, and I was in the Air Force.  I checked her in.  It took me 2 weeks to ask her out.  Two weeks later I proposed, and two weeks after that we were married in Monterey.  She was released from the service when she became pregnant.”  About his playing bridge, he said: “My mother used to host Bridge Tournaments at the house, and I would fill in when they needed another player.  I played some in High School and while I was in the service.  I didn’t have the time when I was working, but since I’ve retired I’ve started to pick it back up again.”

        October 24: I saw Terry play at the Duneland YMCA in Chesterton and  met Terry’s partner Dottie Hart, who was entertaining throughout.  She was feisty and kept everyone laughing.  I could definitely see why Terry liked her as a partner.  I also met other people, as during the game they were constantly switching tables.  It was a pleasant experience, and I enjoyed myself immensely.  The people were very welcoming, and I could see the attraction with the experience.

        November 7: Terry answered my email, writing: “Hi, I am doing well and continue to play as much bridge as I can.  Dottie and I were able to score some points in a STAC game, not sure what that stands for, but it allows for extra silver points if you score well.  With those few extra silver points I was able to move up to the next level in bridge standings.  Also last week I continued playing with my regular partner, Bill Birk, from Illinois who has tutored me in several bridge conventions (ways of bidding in very competitive games and tournaments).  I was also happy to play again with another partner, Dee Marshall, who I played with regularly until she had some medical issues with her heart and had to take off six months.  I am attaching a picture that I took this week with my mother, daughter, granddaughter, and great grandson- a five generation picture!  Good luck on your project.  Terry”

 Terry Bauer and Dottie Hart; below, playing against Jim and Marcia Carson

Terry Bauer’s bridge partner Bill Birk (above) wrote this after a recent regional tournament in Indianapolis:

  Terry took first out of 38 pairs in the Saturday Gold Rush overalls, scooping 6.66 gold.  He followed that effort by earning a first-place tie in the 17-team Sunday Gold Rush Swiss, teaming with Mary Kocevar, Carolyn Potasnik, and Bill Birk.  In only his third regional competition Terry earned 11.33 gold during the two days.

  I really enjoy playing with Terry.  He is a fierce competitor who never appears to lose his composure.  Terry is a quick learner, as he seems to never make the same mistake twice.  He is always pleasant and considerate, even of his opponents.  We played together in his first regional when we drove to Champaign last May for the day. I still smile as I recall Terry telling me that he did not realize getting gold was that difficult.  Later that year we had a successful Kalamazoo Regional, gathering over 9 master points – with 6.80 being gold.  To date Terry has had 7 days of regional play and has a haul of 19.74 gold – and I thought he said it was hard to get gold.

Here’s how Greg Bishop and Ben Baskin of Sports Illustrated described the Superbowl victory celebrants that night in downtown Philadelphia:

            Around midnight, two students at the Merriam Theater of the Arts leaned out of a fifth-story window, trombones in hand, and led the thousands assembled below on Broad Street in a deafening rendition of “Fly, Eagles, Fly.”  The Crisco that state police had lathered onto street poles two weeks earlier had been replaced by hydraulic fluid – so fans simply uprooted the poles from the ground and carried them down the streets on their shoulders.  Others climbed atop traffic lights and surveyed the unprecedented scene unfolding beneath them.

            Some 2,000 college students marched from Walnut to 30^th Street and, en masse, chanted “Fuck Tom Brady” and “Big Dick Nick.”  Other revelers stood atop cars and threw dollar bills into the air.  One man dressed as Santa – a costume that evokes the most ignominious moment in franchise history – crowd-surfed down the road, not too far from where a Christmas tree was set afire. 

            Others, certainly, took it too far.  At the Ritz-Carlton hotel, one fan after another cascaded down the awning until eventually it collapsed.  Cars were flipped, drones were flown; fireworks and smoke bombs were set off, bottles thrown.  The fence at City Hall was mounted and climbed, as were garbage trucks and fire trucks and tractor trailers and the Rocky statue, upon which a number 86 Ertz jersey had been placed.  A police horse was stolen and trotted through the city.