Froebel School

“Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood for it alone is the expression of what is in the child’s soul,” Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852)

Gary School Superintendent  William A. Wirt had the city’s kindergarten through 12^thgrade “unit” schools named for admirable educators, beginning with Ralph Waldo Emerson and continuing with Friedrich Froebel and Horace Mann.  Once known as the immigrant school, Froebel attracted visitors from all over the world intrigued by Wirt’s progressive educational “work-study-play” philosophy.  During the 1960s its graduates included future educator and State Representative Vernon Smith, responsible for a historical marker at the site where the historic school was demolished, and jazz pianist Billy Foster, who will appear on the cover of Steel Shavings,volume 48.  In its editor’s note I wrote:

  On March 19, 1965, Billy Foster (playing sax) and his Royal Imperials won a citywide talent show at Gary’s Memorial Auditorium representing Froebel High School. Famous as the home town of Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five, Gary has a long, proud musical tradition even though the Gary Conservatory “Music Man” professor Harold Hill claimed to have graduated from in never existed.  From its earliest years, music was an integral part of Superintendent William A. Wirt’s work-study-play curriculum.  Gary’s many ethnic groups produced a rich variety of musical strains, from Mexican mariachi bands to Serbian choral and tamburitza groups.  Metropolitan Opera tenor James McCracken, a Gary native, sang in a church choir as did the Spaniels and other doo wop groups recorded on Vivian Carter’s Vee-Jay label that originated in Gary.  The city’s rich jazz tradition dates to dance halls and nightclubs that sprang up during the “Roaring Twenties” and flowered during the 1940s.  At a young age jazz pianist Foster became familiar with local bandleader Tom Crump and horn player Art Hoyle.  In addition to teaching at Gary schools (primarily Charles R. Drew Elementary) for over 30 years as well as Valparaiso University, Foster performed with his own group, the Billy Foster Trio, as well as with such distinguished luminaries as Art Farmer, Slide Hampton, Tommy Harrell, Clark Terry, Bobby Watson, and many others. At present Foster hosts the WGVE radio show “Billy Foster Jazz Zone” and teaches a Senior College course at IU Northwest, whose Calumet Regional Archives recently started a collection in his name.

Froebel School gained notoriety in 1945 when many white students went out on strike just a month after World War II ended, protesting the policy of sending African Americans to their institution while most other Gary schools remained segregated.  In an effort to reduce tensions a liberal organization, Anselm Forum, invited singer Frank Sinatra and heavyweight champion Joe Louis to participate in a Tolerance program.  Sinatra’s appearance made national news, but Louis was unable to come due to other commitments.  I mention the incident in a forthcoming Traces article titled “Joe Louis and Gary.”  In “Gary’s First Hundred Years” I wrote that football coach Johnny Kyle became interim principal while Richard Nuzum was temporarily forced to step aside in the face of student pressure and school board cowardice.  Future IUN Performing Arts chair Garrett Cope was a student at Froebel at the time and could perform in musical programs but not in theater productions.

Twenty years ago I published a Steel Shavings issue (volume 27) titled “Froebel Daughters of Penelope,” about five Greek-Americans who attended Froebel during the 1940s, in some cases starting in elementary school, including Constance Girasin.  She recalled:

  At Froebel we were exposed not only to the three r’s but to sewing, cooking, orchestra, band, swimming, foreign language classes, wood shop, machine shop, a college-bound curriculum, and a whole line of business classes  such as shorthand, bookkeeping, and typing. The “Work” part of “Work, Study, Play” consisted of getting students ready for “life.”  Shops on the far west part of our building were for boys only, and girls didn’t so much as enter the.  However, we would pass them on our way to the band room.

  Twice Mrs. Jones was our history teacher, once in eighth grade and again in eleventh.  She was very soft-spoken and did 98 percent of her teaching sitting behind a desk.  She was a little too nice for us adolescents.  We were forever asking to be excused for band practice.  One day she came up with an expression I’ll never forget: “Constance, you are not going to earn your living baton-twirling.”  That’s true, but at the time I thought baton twirling was very important.  In my senior yearbook Jim Taneff jokingly wrote, “Constance, you are not going to earn your living by baton-twirling.”  

Randy Roberts’ “Joe Louis: Hard Times Man” (2010) begins with this quote from “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” by novelist Ernest J. Gaines: “When times get really hard, really tough, He always sends you somebody.  In the Depression it was tough on everybody, but twice as hard on the colored, and He sent us Joe.  Joe Louis was to lift the colored people’s heart.”  Roberts described the jubilation in 1938 among black people in all walks of life, from Harlem intellectuals to Gary steelworkers, listening on the radio and rejoicing when Louis defeated German Max Schmeling by knockout in the first round.  In Plains, Georgia, several dozen cotton and peanut field hands gathered on the front lawn of their boss Earl Carter, who had positioned his radio near an open window for their benefit.  Roberts wrote:

  Young Jimmy Carter remembered that they had listened to the fight without a word spoken or a cheer uttered, then filed away quietly, crossing a dirt road and a railroad track and entering a house out in a filed.  “At  that point pandemonium broke loose inside the house, as our black neighbors shouted and yelled in celebration of Louis’ victory.  But all the curious, accepted proprieties of a racially-segregated society had been carefully observed.”  Mister Earl’s “boys” knew “their place,”but in some way and for some period of time, Joe Louis had liberated them.  He had taken then to another place.

Roberts pointed out that in 1941 the three sports that mattered were horse racing (with Seabiscuit and Triple Crown winner Whirlaway, baseball (with Joe DiMaggio hitting in 56 straight games and Ted Williams batting .406), and boxing (with Gary’s “man of Steel” Tony Zale middleweight champ and Louis heavyweight champ).

Sports Illustrated columnist Steve Rushin eulogized Bob Einstein, who played Funkhouser on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and, years before, “Super Dave” Osborne, “the master of not landing on his feet.”  I laughed out loud reading about bits I’d seen on Letterman.  With a deadpan delivery and mock seriousness, Einstein’s character became a parody of contemporary stuntman Evel Knieval whose feats always ended in failure, with Super Dave crushed, squashed or flattened like a pancake.  Rushin wrote:

  Osborne didn’t suffer the foolish questions of sports journalists.  When he fell off Toronto’s CN Tower, then the tallest man-made structure in the world, and landed face-down in a parking lot, sportscaster Mike Walden asked him how he felt. “Why are you talking to me?”Super replied.  “I’ve got a minute to live. I need an ambulance.  Help me, putz.”  An ambulance arrived, only to run Osborne over.

 Super Dave Osborne shortly before shot three times in 1980 bit

Portage English teacher Mr. Downes loved James’ paper on “Babbitt,” assigning it a grade of 98%.  His only criticism concerned verb tenses when quoting from the novel, something that I know from experience can be tricky.  At present the class, reading several chapters a day, is critiquing “Great Expectations” (1860) by Charles Dickens from Marxist and feminist perspectives.  Sounds like a great class.

A 16-letter crossword puzzle clue asked who was the lone American to win Pulitzers for both fiction and poetry. Toni had the first name, Robert, which enabled me to get Robert Penn Warren, author of two volumes of prize-winning poetry, “Promises” and “Now and Then,” and “All the King’s Men,” based on the career of Louisiana demagogue Huey Long and one of my favorites.

As I entered Jewel’s parking lot, Chesterton police were questioning a woman who evidently had broken into one of the cars in the lot.  Either someone spotted her in the act or she was caught on the store’s surveillance cameras.  Maybe an alarm went off.  Inside the employees were all abuzz.  As I left, the woman was being taken away in a fire department  vehicle.

Jeffery in middle

The Eagles jumped out to a 14-0 lead against favored New Orleans but got blanked the rest of the way.  With two minutes to go and down 20-14, Philadelphia was 30 yards away from pulling off an upset when a pass went through the hands of former Bears receiver Alshon Jeffery, enabling the Saints to run out the clock.  No miracle this time from QB “St. Nick” Foles, last year’s Superbowl MVP. There’s a statue of him (below) outside the stadium.  The Eagles bowed out like champions, barely losing  to hall of famer Drew Brees.

fast food for Clemson Tigers

As the government shutdown enters its fourth week with no end in sight, Trump served fast food to the NCAA champion Clemson Tigers during their trip to the White House. Also in the news: 13 year-old Jayme Closs escaped an abductor who killed her parents and held her capture for three months.  A 21 year-old in now in custody.  Locally, the trial of Portage mayor James Snyder commenced; he allegedly accepted $12,000 in return for awarding a contract to a towing company.

Comings and Goings

“Amidst the worldly comings and goings, observe how endings become beginnings,” Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu

 photo by Jim Spicer

Thousands of sandhill cranes are making their biannual stop at the shallow marshes of Jasper-Pulaski Game Reserve on their way from Canada to Florida.  Property manager Jim Bergens described their courtship duet and dance:

  A lot of people will see them pick up a glob of dirt or a clump of grass and then throw it up over their shoulder. That’s part of their courtship display. And then they bow and call. The unison call – when the male and female call together in unison – they’re normally facing each other and their heads and necks are up.

NWI Times reporter Heather Augustyn wrote:

The sandhill crane is akin to the heron, only larger. With a 7-foot wingspan and a height of 31 to 47 inches, this long-legged bird not only makes a call with a strangely prehistoric sound, but it also has prehistoric roots since almost identical fossils of the sandhill crane have been traced back about 10 million years.

The moon currently is closer to the Earth than at any time since 1948 and a perfect backdrop for sandhill cranes in flight.

Shannon Pontney Patel and daughter Harper 

My friend Pat Conley passed away.  After retiring from a career in sales management, he audited several IUN history classes, including two of mine.  He became buddies with my favorite student Shannon Pontney and invited both of us to his lakefront home in Miller for Gary Air Show parties.  A great conversationalist, he was a regular at Flamingo’s Pizza.  Pat graduated from Hammond Tech and IU, once was a triple-A baseball player, and coached Little League in Munster for many years. I called his wife Danna to offer condolences, and she said that he had been under hospice care and died peacefully.  The obituary, probably written by Danna, stated:

  After moving to Miller Beach, Pat enjoyed the dunes, sunsets, sailing and the beauty of Lake Michigan. In addition to getting together with family and friends, he attended many cultural and art events in the area. Pat had an eagerness to learn and was always ready for the next adventure that life had to offer. During his retirement years, Pat traveled throughout the States, South America and Europe.

IUN departments are advertising their Spring offerings on bulletin boards, and, in the case of the French department with sidewalk chalk messages.  Peter Aglinskas posted information aboutas Music class on the “Soundscape of Pulp Fiction.” Jonathan Briggs is offering a course on the French Revolution.  Cara Lewis will be teaching an American Literature topics course entitled, “The Lives of the Artists: Bohemians and Beats, 1850-1970.”  Among the authors cited are Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Willa Cather, and Allen Ginsberg. Like my deceased pal Pat Conley, I like to audit classes and hear that Cara Lewis is an excellent teacher.

 Chesterton H.S. "Godspell" cast; Becca, lower right

Both James and Becca appeared in plays this weekend, James in Portage High School’s “E/R” and Becca in Chesterton’s “Godspell.”  Numerous relatives are coming in for the performances and staying at the condo, including Phil and Delia from Grand Rapids and Beth from Carmel. Friday at Portage we ran into Phil and Dave’s former teacher Bill Bodnar, who taught a Saturday Speech class at IUN and designed the E/R poster.  James played middle-aged heart attack victim Burton Surath who was a riot protesting that he was too busy to submit to tests and later dies on stage.  In the program’s “about the cast” section, which includes lines uttered by the various actors, is this blurb abut James:

He has performed at a variety of theaters, including Memorial Opera House.  James enjoys reading, taking walks, playing video games, and surfing the internet.  He practices piano at the Premier Performance in Chesterton.  “I can afford the treatment.  I just can’t afford the time.”         

below, James with Angie

Conceived and co-written by Dr. Ronald Berman as a satire on a Chicago Emergency Room, the characters include a bag lady, a drunk, a guy high on drugs, a stab victim, a pregnant teenager, and an Indian doctor wearing a turban whose best line is, “Don’t swami me, you dirtball.”  First performed by Chicago’s Organic Theater Company, E/R in 1984-85 aired as a TV sitcom starring Elliott Gould and George Clooney.

 Sheriff John Buncich; P-T photo by Kyle Telechan

The federal government has indicted Lake County sheriff John Buncich and Chief Deputy Tim Downs, as well as Portage mayor James Snyder, on public corruption charges.  U.S. Attorney David Capp claims they took bribes from auto body shops in exchange for hiring the company to tow disabled vehicles. Buncich, the current Lake County Democratic Party chairman, served two terms as sheriff beginning in 1994 and again beginning in 2011 after Roy Dominguez served in that office for eight years. While the indictments were not totally unexpected, given that the FBI seized documents last week from government offices, it still is somewhat of a shock.  According to Diane Pathieu of ABC “Eyewitness news” in Chicago:

    The officials are accused of taking money from local towing companies in exchange for contracts. Buncich is alleged to have corruptly solicited, demanded and received over $25,000 in cash and $7,000 in checks in exchange for favorable actions by Buncich regarding the towing contracts.

     Snyder is alleged to have corruptly solicited and received two checks totaling $12,000 in exchange for a towing contract in the City of Portage. Authorities said Snyder also corruptly solicited and agreed to accept a bank check in the amount of $13,000 in connection with Portage Board of Works contracts and other considerations.

     “To those others out there in law enforcement or in elected positions who have been engaging in conduct similar to that announced today regarding towing contracts. You know who you are and we know currently who some of them are and we are coming after you,” said David Capp, U.S. Attorney, Northern District of Indiana.

Librarian Tim Sutherland and SPEA professor Ellen Szarleta received a grant involving a lecture series.  I suggested reviving Glen Park Conversation, which Garrett Cope organized for many years, attracting neighborhood residents to interact with featured speakers, including police chiefs, city council members, and Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson.  I spoke to the group several times, once on a program with tattoo artist Roy Boy Cooper.  Former Emerson H.S. grad and Hammond Noll history teacher John Trafny, who has written on Glen Park, would be an excellent guest, as would IUN administrative assistant Mary Lee.

above, the late "Roy Boy" Cooper; below, photo by Joseph Dits

Conversation at bowling generally consists of sports and innocuous bantering, but both Bob Sheid and Bob Robinson had seen me in the “Shifting Sands” documentary by Lee Botts and Pat Wisniewski about efforts to preserve the Indiana dunes and wanted to talk about it.  I told Frank Vitalone that I saw him listed in a Post-Trib section honoring top bowlers of the week. He pointed to the Hobart Lanes board where his name and 634 series appeared as the top senior score of the week. The Engineers took five of seven points from the Pin Heads, who, like us, formerly competed in the Cressmoor Lanes Sheet and Tin League.  We won game one by 51 pins and lost the second by 40.  Going into the final frame of game three, the score was all even.  Three of us marked, while two opponents left impossible splits. Lefty Dick Maloney, our anchor, left a 4-7, and his second ball nearly went into the gutter before breaking just enough to pick up both pins. When Duke Caminsky struck out to finish with a 235, Dick needed just a six-count on his final ball and picked up eight pins.