Postponed Reunion

“The life of every man is a log in which he means to write one story and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.” James M. Barrie, creator of “Peter Pan,” quoted in 1960 Upper Dublin yearbook

 

With vigils, demonstrations, and riots taking place in Minneapolis, Atlanta, and dozens of other cities, the Covid-19 pandemic is suddenly no longer the top news story.  Even so, yesterday Northwest Indiana reported 11 new deaths even as most area communities started reopening.  The elderly have been especially hard hit.  Although obituaries rarely mention cause of death, the number seems to have ballooned. Here’s an excerpt for World War II veteran Otto Henry Loeffler, a lifelong Valparaiso resident:

    Otto was a fine athlete, playing in the Dodgers minor league baseball system, then becoming a first-rate golfer and bowler.  He played a fine hand of blackjack.  Whether rousting his kids up to go fishing or golfing at 5:00 AM, hosting family get-togethers or spending time with Evelyn (late wife of 60 years) or grandchildren.  Otto was full of positive energy.  His last days were spent in the isolation of the 2020 pandemic, which did not sit well with someone who loved the company of his family and a dog on his lap.

R.I.P. Otto.

 

A few days ago good friend Tom Wade left for Connecticut to see his dying brother.  He posted this eulogy on Facebook along with a photo with his big brother:

    My older brother Dan passed away yesterday after fighting kidney disease for more than a decade. He was an extraordinary human being, holding a variety of academic positions and awards and ending up at Yale for the last 34 years. He, along with Carol, his loving wife of 54 years, were longtime warriors for peace and social justice. They ended their wedding in 1966 with a 10 minute plea for ending the war in Vietnam, and were in the middle of the 1968 protests for peace at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He had a wonderful internal joy about him that warmed all who knew him. He leaves behind his wife and partner in peace Carol, daughters Alyson and Malory, and grandson Luke. Thanks for being such a great example for your little brother, Dano. Love forever bro!    

 

My Upper Dublin “Class of 1960” reunion has been “rescheduled” for October 2021.  As the planning committee put it, nobody wants a solemn affair where masks are worn and old friends must keep six feet apart.  Compared to the momentous events engulfing us during this “plague year,” this is relatively unimportant.  Still, it’s a bitter pill.  I’ve attended every reunion since our twentieth.  I missed the tenth because I’d just begun teaching at Indiana University Northwest and had returned to Pennsylvania the previous week for my mother’s wedding.  The reunions always provide vivid memories and surprises.  In 1980 I smoked out with Gaard Murphy and hubby Chuck in the parking lot, and we’ve been good friends ever since.  I heard Ed Piszak ask Eleanor Smith at the registration desk if Jimmy Lane had arrived and then surprised him when he came up the steps. Still looking young for my age, I was taken aback when some folks hardly recognized me because I’d grown a good six inches since high school.  Lo and behold, I was taller than Suzi Hummel, who asked if I were in touch with Chuck Bahmueller, her next-door neighbor in East Oreland. I danced with a dozen classmates, including Faith Marvill, whom I dated in seventh grade, and Leslie Boone, looking like an absolutely gorgeous high school senior. Dick (“call me Richard”) Garretson got Bruce Allen and me to go into the adjacent bar to watch the Phillies clinch the National league pennant (they’d go on to win the World Series) and tried to persuade us to meet their plane at the Philadelphia airport.  Alas, the team still has a Sunday game.  That’s the last time I saw cool Dick Garretson.  Next day, I talked on the phone with Judy Jenkins for 40 minutes reporting on reunion highlights.

 

In 1990 I mistook Carolyn Aubel for Carolyn Ott and blurted out that I’d had a crush on her in grade school.  Beforehand, Chuck Bahmueller and I argued politics for an hour before sitting with beauties Judy Jenkins, Molly Schade, Suzi Hummel, and Susan Floyd, who asked me to dance to “Proud Mary.”  Judy said she had trouble remembering many classmates.  It helps to get out the yearbook beforehand, I said, momentarily forgetting that because she needed a summer course, Judy, along with a half-dozen others, got excluded from “The Mundockian.”  What administration bullshit!  After a post-reunion gathering (many of us being reluctant to have the night come to an end) Thelma Van Sant gave Bahmueller and me a ride back to our hotel. Just south of U.D. was the Van Sant farm (now gone), where many of us had worked summers and in whose long winding access road made out with dates, in my case once interrupted by Chief Ottinger.

 

1995 began a traditional of reunions every five years.  Seeing Kathleen Birchler, star of the U.D. field hockey team, for the first since graduation, I recalled how at Fort Washington elementary school she competed in soccer with the guys at[LJ1]  recess while most girls (and a lone guy) played house in dirt patches.  Kathleen once beat up a kid a year older than her in a fight, making his nose bleed.  She claimed to have no memory of the incident.  I got Wayne Wylie (who never dances, wife Fran warned me) to boogie with me to the Ramones’ “I Wanna be Sedated.”  He lived on a farm in Jarrettown; on summer sleepovers we’d ride a tractor out into the cornfield, pick corn and his mom would cook up four ears each for us.  Ambrosia. 

 

Favorite teacher Ed Taddei came to our fortieth reunion, along with football coach Frank Gilronan and music teacher Robert Foust.  I confessed that I had misbehaved in his class, and Mr. Foust replied, “You weren’t so bad.”  He must have witnessed worse, forced to teach some apathetic groups just once a week.  Bob Reller came to his first reunion with a comely wife.  I danced to a Motown number with Mary Dinkins, married to a preacher, who sat behind me in Latin class; once I turned around to say something clever to Mary when Miss LeVan whacked me with a ruler. The Temptations song caused Mary to close her eyes and show some soulful dance moves.  Dave Seibold and his wife wowed everyone with ballroom dance moves they must have learned at Arthur Murray studios.

 

For the first time in 2005 Toni attended a reunion. Classmates joked that they’d wondered if I’d made her up.  We were returning from the Jersey shore and had Miranda with us.  We sat at a table with John Jacobsen, who offered to give up his seat when it appeared that we were one serving short.  Still ruggedly handsome, John recalled Fort Washington school teachers Miss Worthington, Mrs. Orr, Mrs. Bytheway, and Mr. Johnson, the latter a weasel of a man with a big Adam’s apple that I’d almost forgotten about.  Sultry Miss Polsky (who could get a rise out of me when she called me Jacques), Mr. Bek (my hundred-pound football coach), and Miss Malkus attended as did two cool classmates who for some reason had changed their names, Tony Tucciarone and John Magyar, who once fought chemistry teacher John Schwering in the hallway.  Vince Curll and I would visit Tony Tucciarone on the way to the movies in Ambler and sample his mom’s delicious homemade bread. Eddie Piszek, full-headed and fit, gave overweight Magyar diet tips.

 

Several first-timers made it to the fiftieth, including childhood pal Jay Bumm and homecoming queen Wendy Henry wearing, unbelievably, her tiara. I tried to ask tenth grade girlfriend Mary Delp to dance, but Skip Pollard’s wife, who’d been her neighbor in Naperville, shushed me away.  When “The Bristol Stomp” came on, Alice Ottinger and I showed off some moves and got an approving smile from Jimmy Coombs; then for good measure we slow-danced. Later cameras came out when Alice danced with old flame Jay Bumm.  Marianne Tambourino and star athlete Percy Herder, who worked at the old high school, came onto the dance floor, and later Phil Arnold organized a Stroll line.

 

In 2015 I chatted at dinner with LeeLee Minehart and her husband Bob whom she met in Afghanistan while in the Peace Corps. Among those stopping to chat at our table were Ed Dudnek and Rita Grasso, who looked stunningly beautiful.  I traded Babe Ruth baseball league memories with Eddie Piszek.  Ron Hawthorn’s dad (Mr. Haw-the-Haw) was our coach and Dave Seibold our star first baseman.  Classmate Freddie Scott played hits from 1960, including “The Twist” by Chubby Checker (I preferred the Hank Ballard original), “Go, Jimmy, Go” by Jimmy Clanton, and “Save the Last Dance for Me” by the Drifters.  Although I needed the help of nametags for a few classmates, I recognized most immediately.  Pat Zollo was bald but otherwise hadn’t changed much, holding forth with humorous stories of wilder days.  Coombs, who looked like he could hold his own in a fight, asked whether I was in touch with Penny Roberts (negative) and I countered with questions about the Fad brothers. Barbara Bitting, married to classmate Joe Ricketts, remained blond and beautiful, Connie Heard more youthful acting than in high school almost.  Susan Floyd showed me a photo circa 1969 of her, hubby Joe McGraw and Terry and Gayle Jenkins looking like hippies. In 1969 I had long hair and a beard, too. As Teenagers Susan and I hung out at Terry and Judy Jenkins’ house and shared many memories. Like so many of my classmates, Susan has aged gracefully.  Let’s hope most of us can rendezvous in 2021.

Facebook

    “Everybody is continuously connected to everybody else on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram, on Reddit, e-mailing, texting, faster and faster, with the flood of information jeopardizing meaning. Everybody's talking at once in a hypnotic, hyper din: the cocktail party from hell.” New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd

Despite Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s protestations that the company’s mission is benign -  to make the world more connected and build community across boundaries, his creation has become intrusive, a threat to privacy, and a polarizing force politically.  Aside from those criticisms, Facebook accounts inevitably become littered with advertisements and other annoying messages.  Today’s crop, for instance, included MLB, art.com, Humana Pharmacy, Bob Rohrman Auto Group, and Empire: World War 3. Even so, for me it continues to provide illustrated links to friends, relatives, former students (i.e., Jonathan Rix, George Sladic, Chris Daly, Bob Fulton, Amanda Board) and old acquaintances that I find invaluable. For example, here is a sample of what I found when opening my account this morning:

Miller Town Hall, built in 1910, used a firehouse after annexation

This from Gary historian Steve Spicer: “On February 17, 1919, the Gary Common Council passed ordinance No. 754 annexing the Town of Miller. One hundred years ago today. Approved by the mayor three days later.”  Spicer also posted a photo taken from his house on Miller Ave. of a full moon at 4 a.m. Steve was one of many area residents who expressed satisfaction that, thanks to efforts by Congressman Peter Visclosky and many others, the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore is now one of 61 national parks. 

Dave Lane, E'twain Moore, Dee Atta Wright; below, Miranda 

Son Dave posted photos while at Purdue University with students invited as guests of former East Chicago Central basketball star  E’Twaun Moore to celebrate aday in his honor in Lafayette and enjoy a Boilermakers game against Penn State. Dave wrote that Moore “epitomizes class and it was a great honor to be there to celebrate with him. He continues to make his hometown proud!”  Other new family photos included James visiting Valpo U. for an overnight experience and Miranda vacationing in Florida.

Professional photographer Ray Gapinski attended the same play, “Shrek: The Musical” that we enjoyed on Sunday and took numerous photos of the performance that will surely become collectors’ items for cast members. Photographer and community organizer Samuel Love documented a tour of sites in Gary to collect sights and sounds for a genealogy podcast.  Betty Villareal got together with “girlfriends” from Lew Wallace’s Class of 1967, while my 1960 Upper Dublin classmate Bettie Erhardt posted photos of a gathering at Giuseppe’s, a local steak sandwich and pizza joint, when Thelma Joy Van Sant visited.  Replying to one of Thelma and Eddie Piszek, Alice Ottinger employed the title of a 1956 Chordettes doo wop hit: “Eddie My Love.” Whenever I return to Fort Washington, I alert Bettie and she arranges for a similar mini-reunion.

Ray Smock announced the publication on President’s Day of his new book on the Trump presidency, “American Demagogue,” which drew many positive comments and a sarcastic photo from follower Katherine Ryan Walsh. Anne Balay shared this article by Brooke Nagler that appeared in the University of Chicago magazine:

 Anne Balay, AB’86, AM’88, PhD’94, has worked as a mechanic and a trucker. “I love the mental state long drives put me in; they’re pretty much the only time I feel relaxed,”she writes in Semi Queer. “I love that feeling, and almost every trucker I’ve talked to does too. That’s what we mean when we say trucking is addictive—it’s not just a job but a lifestyle.” 

 Balay herself worked as a trucker after being denied tenure, a decision she believes was motivated by homophobic discrimination. Jobless and panicking, she entered trucking school because she’d always liked driving. There she found that sitting in the cab of a truck was transformative. “Suddenly all of the anger and bitterness just flowed away. I felt like this is something I could do that would be meaningful and productive,” she says. (Balay has since returned to academia and now teaches at Haverford College.)

 Her experience was not uncommon. Mastering an 80,000-pound piece of machinery offered many of Balay’s interviewees a sense of power. As one driver told her, “the fact that people hate me ’cause I’m trans, well then they’ll hate me, but say hello to my truck.”

 With its constant motion and cycles of departure and arrival, Balay writes, the everyday life of a trucker is well suited to individuals whose gender identities are also in flux. Trucking offers a way for these individuals to express their shifting identities more openly. “Out here on the road I live authentically,” explained Alix, who is trans. “I am kind of leading a double life because when I go home, I’m kind of mom to the kids. … So when I get back into the truck, it’s liberating, because I don’t have anyone’s expectations to live up to.”

 But the profession has drawbacks. Nonwhite truckers experience racism from the carriers that employ them, other truckers, and customers. For all drivers, “trucking is incredibly dangerous,”Balay says. Apart from the risk of accidents, drivers are frequently alone in remote areas or at truck stops, which can be magnets for illegal activity. Sexual assault was common among the women she interviewed, both cisgender (those whose gender identity matches the sex on their birth certificates) and transgender. Nearly every trucker Balay interviewed carried a gun.

 Then there are the looming existential threats. Technology has transformed trucking, adding new forms of employer surveillance, such as cameras and speed sensors, that many drivers feel are needless micromanagement. The most dramatic change awaits as self-driving vehicles threaten to upend the industry. Balay worries for the marginalized truckers for whom “there are no other decent jobs available.”

 But until autonomous trucks hit the interstate, truckers will remain essential, linking even the most remote parts of the country to the web of American industrialism. That sense of connection to how things are made is one of the reasons Balay found satisfaction in driving a truck. Her work took her to the mills where toilet paper is made, the Nabisco factories where Oreos emerge from conveyer belts, the fields where fruit is grown and picked. She saw it all, and took it where it needed to go next.

Anne Balay by Riva Lehrer

Ides of September

Talked to Steve McShane about his students keeping journals. He thought the assignment would work better in the spring, so perhaps I’ll reprise what I did in 2003 and put together an issue entitled “Ides of March.” Dr. R.J. Bills phoned from Madison, Mississippi, requesting my latest Shavings. The former Gary resident received past issues from his daughter and read about volume 40 (the “Retirement Journal”) in the September 2010 issue of Indiana Magazine of History.

Professor Kenneth Kincaid is using “Forging a Community” in his course on Hispanics in America at Purdue North Central and wants me to speak on campus on October 28 as part of Hispanic Heritage Month. I suggested doing it with the Arredondos, and they liked the idea. So did Kenny, as he calls himself. The other main speaker, Valparaiso law professor Bernard Trujillo, will talk about immigration policy. I had suggested Sheriff Dominguez, but Kenny had already lined the person up. A Latin Americanist by training, Kenny seems enthusiastic about learning about Latinos in Northwest Indiana in general and “Maria’s Journey” in particular.

Toni found half-century old reel-to-reel tapes from our families when we lived in Hawaii (long distance telephone calls from Honolulu in 1965 were prohibitively expensive and reserved for only the most dire or special occasions) and from Bucknell fraternity brother Dick Jeary of a band called The Naturals. The threesome, playing at a Sigma Phi Epsilon Homecoming party, substituted suggestive lyrics to songs such as “Peanut Butter” and “Stick with Me Baby.” The threesome had that Everly brothers harmony sound and hailed from Dick’s hometown of Rochester, New York, I believe. Tome is checking to see if our old Panasonic model in the Archives takes an attachment that would convert them to regular audiotapes.

Helped Angie unload items from the old house. Back home, when I buzzed open the garage door, a chipmunk trapped inside scurried into a rolled up rug. Thought I had gotten rid of him but later spotted him scampering back into the rug. I lifted one side near the door, and out he went. Toni fears he’s looking for a place to spend the winter. He is cute.

On “Curb Your Enthusiasm” after seeing Larry sing “Sewanee River” at a karaoke bar, Mel Brooks impulsively offers him the starring role of Max Bialystock in “The Producers.” Larry subsequently manages to piss off a pregnant lesbian (suggesting the names Wang and Tang, a disabled man in a wheelchair (in a parking lot altercation), his agent’s wife (disparaging the shirts she designed), a doctor’s office receptionist (balking at signing in), a doctor (using his telephone while waiting for him to show up in the examination room), and Ben Stiller (refusing to shake his hand after Ben sneezed into it). The funniest gags, in fact, involved snot and drool. On YouTube were more than a dozen “Curb” bits, most showing run-ins Larry had with women or authority figures.

Bowled poorly and pulled a shoulder muscle midway through the third game. Gutted out a 178, and we had a chance to win after Melvie struck out in the tenth, but their clean-up guy doubled and Frank left a ten pin on a perfect hit or we’d have won. The original name for our team, dating back to 1950, was Test Engineers. Bill Batalis was a charter member and became captain in 1952. Bob Sheid noticed the back of my old Eagles softball shirt read “Doc” above the number 55 (my age in 1997, my final season) and asked why. Coach Terry Hunt, a student of mine, called me by my professional title, while a few others called me “Doctor J,” like with the incomparable Julius Erving. Most just called me Jimbo.

IU Northwest Chancellor William Lowe spent a good hour at the Archives with Steve, Librarian Tim Sutherland, Ron Cohen (my off-again, on-again co-director), and me. I think he was impressed with our show-and-tell performance. Maybe when he meets with the History department in a couple weeks or at the upcoming emeritus lunch I’ll urge him to persuade former Mayor Hatcher to do a course on Black Mayors with enough resources to bring some of them to campus. Discussing the origin of the word Hoosier, someone mentioned that during a bar fight during the pioneer era, someone shouted out, “Whose ear?”

Connie Heard Damon sent me a list of classmates planning to attend the reunion, including childhood friends Jay Bumm and Chris Koch, whom I haven’t seen since. “Jaybo” played drums at numerous parties and had an ancient “beater” car, while Chris was starting quarterback in tenth grade (Bobby Fad took over the job the following year) and was always good for laughs while driving around. To get to his house I’d walk across Fort Washington Avenue, pass through the Roberts front and back yard, go through a patch of woods next to the Bobby Gertsnecker’s, cross Summit Avenue, and I’d be there. Down the street was Joe Pollard’s house, while Jay lived a half-block away in the other direction. Connie’s list also included “Not heard from” (i.e., Rick Hoopes and Freddie Fluck), “Not coming” (including Gaard, Rel, and good friend Vince Curll), and “Maybe” (among them Suzi Hummel and Skip Pollard).

Connie told me that Eddie Piszek hasn’t been feeling well and gave me his cell phone so I gave him a call. We reminisced about playing Babe Ruth League ball on a team that Ronnie Hawthorne’s dad coached (Mr. Haw-thee-haw we called him). Eddie’s father started Mrs. Paul’s, lived on an estate, and had a chauffeur who took us to various functions before we could drive. Eddie said, “Remember how you, me, and Lee Shriner (a name I hadn’t thought of in 50 years) used to fight over Judy Jenkins?” I passed that line on to Judy, and she replied, “It’s nice to hear I had men fighting over me.” I responded: “Well, you had boys fighting over you, at any rate (the men came later).”

Voted by email to approve having the condo association pay handyman Jason a thousand dollars to fix woodpecker holes and rotting boards at numerous condo units. The landscapers who were supposed to install a window well still haven’t shown up.

The annual picnic took place in the Savannah Center gym. Years ago, it was an outdoor picnic, at places like Woodland Park and Hidden Lake with beer on hand as well as spouses and children. One year it took place at a water park. The food was great (hot roast beef sandwiches with all the trimmings plus vegetarian lasagna), and we didn’t have to wait until after openings remarks to be served like when Bergland was around. Chancellor Lowe introduced me to his attractive wife Pamela, and I suggested that after he gets settled he might consider putting together a readings seminar on Irish History (his field) open to both faculty and students. He chuckled but then said that every History curriculum should include Irish History. With Bruce gone, more faculty attended than in recent years, but many just ate and ran – some perhaps with one o’clock classes. Not much was going on other than calling out winning raffle numbers (prizes were tote bags filled with IU paraphernalia), but that might have been just as well because in past years loud music made conversation difficult. Chris Young and Jonathan Briggs introduced themselves to the Chancellor and invited him to lunch next Tuesday for guest speaker Paul Finkelman, who later in the day will be lecturing on “Fugitive Slaves and Undocumented Aliens: Is the Arizona Immigration Law a Replay of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850?”