A Good Jolly

“A good jolly is worth what you pay for it.” George Ade

Ray Boomhower’s “Indiana Originals” contains a chapter on Hoosier’s “warm-hearted satirist” George Ade, mentor to both acerbic Jean Shepherd and fantasist Kurt Vonnegut.  Following in the footsteps of Mark Twain, Ade wrote humorous columns and books about everyday Americans.  His “Fables in Song” bore a resemblance to Shepherd’s semi-fictional tales of the Calumet Regional and certain characters that appear in Vonnegut’s novels.  Like Progressive urban reformer Jacob A, Riis, Ade’s writing career began as a beat reporter for a big city newspaper, in his case the Chicago Morning News.Riis’s big break was scoring a scoop covering a New York City fire.  Ade was the first reporter on the scene following an explosion on the steamer Tioga on the Chicago River on July 11, 1890, caused by naphtha vapor and resulting in at least 26 deaths. 

Boomhower referenced Jazz Age songwriter Hoagland “Hoagy” Carmichael’s autobiography “Sometimes I Wonder,” the first line of Carmichael’s classic “Stardust.”  Born in Bloomington, Carmichael was named for a circus troupe that stayed at his parents’ home during his mother Lida’s pregnancy.  Lida, whom Hoagy was much closer to than his dad, an electrician, played the piano at home in preparation for dances on the campus of Indiana University as well as at local movie houses.  Carmicael’s mentors included black pianist Reginald DuValle and Bix Beiderbecke (he named a son Hoagy Bix).  In “Indiana Avenue and Beyond,” a history of jazz in Indiana, DuValle’s son, Reginald Jr., recalled that when Hoagy was a young aspiring jazz pianist, he’d sit on their front porch in Indianapolis and listen to his father practicing until he was finally invited in to take lessons. From DuValle Hoagie learned how to improvise and play stride. In turn, once he became famous, Hoagy he would frequently visit the DuValle family when passing through Indianapolis.Carmichael’s repertoire of popular standards included “Up the Lazy River,” “Georgia on My Mind,” “Heart and Soul,” and “The Nearness of You.” He died at age 82 in Rancho Mirage, California.

 son Hoagy Bix with Annie Lennox

At duplicate bridge in Chesterton Charlie Halberstadt and I finished in first place with 62.5 percent, earning each of us .90 of a master point.  Our best hand came when Charlie overcalled a Club by bidding one Diamond.  The opponent to my right bid a Spade, and I passed, having just six points but six Hearts to the Ace Queen.  When Charlie bid 2 Hearts, I jumped to 4 Hearts, causing Charlie to exclaim, “I woke him up.”  He made the bid on the nose, and we were the only pair to be in game. Charlie asked Dottie Hart for the recipe for her snickerdoodle cookies, only he butchered the four-syllable name, causing a caustic rejoinder from the cool octogenarian.  

 John and Karen Fieldhouse in 2016

Next day at Banta Center Charlie and I finished third, scoring 55 percent sitting north-south in a six-table match.  I told John Fieldhouse, who was a chemist for Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio, that my father had been an industrial chemist for Penn Salt (later Pennwalt Corporation) in Easton, Pennsylvania before being transferred to the company’s Philadelphia executive office.  Like Vic, John had been expected to comply to a strict dress code, even to an extent of wearing white shirt and tie under a lab coat.  Firestone frowned on employee behavior that might reflect badly on the company, similar to the situation with Vic, who even wore the requisite monogrammed polo shirt on the golf course of Manufactures’ Country Club in Fort Washington, PA.  Both traveled often for work, in John’s case to Prescott, Arkansas.  One time his travel agent booked him on a flight to Prescott, Arizona.  A chlorine expert, Vic often went to Paducah, Kentucky. Both secured valuable patents for their respective companies.

 Manufacturers' Golf and County Club clubhouse

Elton John and family, 2015

While the film biopic “Rocketman” had great production numbers, it mostly concentrated on the reasons for Elton John’s admitted drug, alcohol, and sex addiction – a result, according to the screenplay, of feeling unloved and ashamed of his homosexuality, augmented by the temptations and insecurities endemic to his profession. The triumphant final number, “I’m Still Standing,” follows the singer’s long stint in rehab going to group therapy and precedes mention that Elton has been drug and alcohol free for 28 years, happily married to Canadian filmmaker David Furnish, and the father of two boys, Zachary and Elijah, born to a surrogate.

The U.S. women’s soccer team slaughtered Thailand 13-0, including a half-dozen goals in the waning minutes, celebrating each like it was the winning shot, jumping on each other’s backs and shimmying on the sidelines – the wretched excess creating an international backlash.  The rout reminded me of Phil’s soccer team beating Lew Wallace by a similar score, only the boys acted more maturely rather than rubbing it in.  Phil took exception to my original characterization of the women’s behavior as disgusting, pointing out that rules prevent more than two substitutions and a World Cup goal is more momentous than a high school feat.

The White Sox raised eyebrows by distributing commemorative t-shirts to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Disco Demolition riot that took place between games of a doubleheader, causing the nightcap to be forfeited due to fan hooliganism.  Among other things, some hard rock purists tossed albums like frisbees at Tiger players and dug up sod as souvenirs, rendering the field unplayable. 

The St. Louis Blues won their first ever Stanley Cup upsetting the favored Boston Bruins, who dominated the first period only to find themselves down 2-0 after 20 minutes.  A day later, the Toronto Raptors won their first NBA title over defending champ Golden State after both Kevin Durant and Trey Thompson were badly injured attempting to play hurt.  All in all, plenty of grist for the sports talk radio mill.  For a true fan, nothing beats that first championship.  I still recall where I was when Bobby Clarke and the Flyers beat the Bruins in 1974, the Phillies won the World Series in 1980, and the Cubs in 2016.

 Charlotte Cushman

In the “New Books” section of Chesterton library I discovered the “young people edition” of Michael Bronski’s “A Queer History of the United States.”  According toTime, what mainly got expunged were graphic photos and written depictions of sex acts.   For example, sodomy was defined not in terms of oral stimulation or anal penetration but as intercourse of some sort between two people of the same sex – misleading since fellatio and cunnilingus performed between males and females were also criminalized under sodomy laws. In a chapter titled “Nineteenth-Century Romantic Friendships: BFFs or Friends with Benefits?” the author leaves the posed question unanswered, concluding that such relationships may or may not have included sex, we have no way of knowing in most cases.  He examines George Washington’s relationship with General Lafayette to demonstrate that an intimate bond need not be a a “queer” one, consummated sexually.

Bronski’s chapter on acclaimed mid-19th century tragic actress Charlotte Cushman, titled “American Idol, Lover of Women,” leaves no doubt that the thespian was a practicing lesbian. Cushman’s lovers included African-American Sallie Mercer, British journalist Matilda Mary Hays, sculptor Emma Stebbins, and paramour Emma Crowe, to whom she wrote:

 Ah, what delirium is in the memory. Every nerve in me thrills as I look back and feel you in my arms, held to my breast so closely, so entirely mine in every sense as I was yours. Ah, my very sweet, very precious, full, full of ecstasy.

Bronski leaves out intimate details of orifices explored and erogenous zones aroused, but each relationship was stormy, filled with agony as well as sexual climax, but long-lasting despite not being monogamous.  At Charlotte’s death bed, Bronski writes, were Emma Stebbins, Emma Crowe, nephew Edward, and Sallie Mercer.

Charlotte Cushman, friends with President Abraham Lincoln and rich and powerful cosmopolitan New Yorkers of her day, had a fondness for men’s attire and often played male roles, such as Romeo in the Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy “Romeo and Juliet.”  She was most famous for her role as ambitious Lady Macbeth, who, like Romeo, took her own life.  After Cushman’s death of pneumonia in 1876 at age 59, Reverend W.H.H. Murray delivered this eulogy: “She was a Samson and Ruth in one. In her the strength of the masculine and the tenderness of the feminine nature were blended.  She seemed to stand complete in nature, with the finest qualities of either sex.”  As Hoosier humorist George Ade would have put it, she had a gay old time and plenty of good jollies for which she must have deemed the price paid worth it.

 Charlotte Cushman as Meg in "Merrilees"

George Ade wrote: “After being turned down by numerous publishers, he had decided to write for posterity.”  I self-publish my musings and write primarily for posterity.  For an end-of-the-week “good jolly” I might smoke out, watched a couple episodes of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and put on “Living Mirage,” the new Head and the Heart CD found in the library’s “New Acquisitions” section. Missed Connection” contains these lines:

Don't tell me I lost a step
Criss-crossed in the wrong direction

Phil also discovered the new Head and the Heart album and likes the track titled “Running Through Hell.”  It begins:

Well you know those times
When you feel like there's a sign there on your back
Says I don't mind if ya kick me
Seems like everybody has

The song advises:

If you're going through Hell
Keep on going, don't slow down
If you're scared, don't show it
You might get out

         Before the devil even knows you're there

Dave is sore from participating in a softball doubleheader, subbing for a team he used to play on. He wondered at what age I retired (56 was the answer, but I spent my later career on the mound). Dave went four for four in the opener and made a diving stop of a ground ball but was spent by the second game and may have pulled a hamstring.  It was at Hidden Lake, the same field in Merrillville where I pulled a “hammy” at his age attempting to break up a double-play on a hard-hit grounder to short. I recovered and played for several more seasons on a team put together by Dave and Kevin Horn.

On the cover of Timeis Bernie Sanders, whom Toni has not forgiven for challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2016. There are articles on “Late Show” starring Emma Thompson and the appearance of Meryl Streep in the second season of the HBO series “Little Big Lies.” The role of a passive-aggressive mother-in-law was tailor-made for Streep.

Family Trees

“In every conceivable manner, family is the link to our past, bridge to our future.” Alex Haley, “Roots”

 

above, Addie and Crosby Lane; below, Toni's parents Tony and Blanche Trojecki

Granddaughter Becca and great-niece Addie both had genealogical assignments.  Becca chose to research Toni’s family while Addie selected me as the ancestor to interview.  Three of Toni’s grandparents were Polish immigrants while the fourth was Lithuanian.  On the phone from San Diego Addie, among other things, wanted to know the price of gasoline (25 cents a gallon) and movies (a quarter) when I was a kid. 

Calumet Regional Archives volunteer Martha Latko, whose workspace I inherited (hence the name “Martha’s Cage”) donated copies of TWIGS, the Northwest Indiana Genealogical Society’s bimonthly newsletter.  The July 2015 issue contains a contribution by Gerard Dupczak, whose daughter Kim in 1994 had to do, in his words, “the ubiquitous family tree class project.”  Gerard’s Aunt Mary showed them a 1918 wedding photo of an unknown couple and pointed out Kim’s great-grandparents Tomas and Maria (Tajdus) Jakubowski who were members of the wedding party.  On Maria’s lap is a little girl: Gerard’s Aunt Mary.  All Mary knew about Maria was that she supposedly was an only child and had cried upon receiving a letter from Poland that her mother had died.  Gerard’s godfather Stanley identified the wedding couple as Josef and Aniela (Tajdus) Wesolowski, the latter being Maria’s aunt, but otherwise, according to Gerard, he “did not know a lot about his family.  Surprisingly, that is not unusual.  Immigrants were sometimes reluctant to talk about the ‘old country.’”

The November issue of TWIGs includes a contribution from Alice Smedstad about great-great-great grandfather Ebenezer Saxton. Born in Vermont in 1797, Saxton fled Canada in the wake of the 1837 Patriot War, an attempt he supported to break free from Great Britain.  In 1837 he settled in Wiggins Point (now part of Merrillville), a well-known stop for wagons on their way to Joliet, Illinois.  Saxton took over the claim of Jeremiah Wiggins the following year after his benefactor died.  In “Lake County, Indiana, from 1832 to 1872” T.H. Ball described Saxton’s trek from Canada to Wiggins Point:

  Having sold his Canadian farm on credit, he started with his family in a wagon drawn by oxen, and traveled the 400 miles to Detroit.  He at length entered Lake County and crossed Deep River at Liverpool on a ferryboat.  Eight families it appears were on board, with ox teams and loading.  The boat sunk.  The families were taken over.  The boat was relieved of some of the weight, raised, caulked, and the oxen brought over.  Ebenezer Saxton had now five dollars in gold.  Coming to Turkey Creek, the team for the first time on the route stuck fast in the mud.  He gave two dollars to a man nearby for helping them out.  He reached Wiggins’ cabin and entered, and rested, and finally located.

I told Steve McShane’s students about Richard Hatcher’s parents Carlton and Catherine, forced to live in a Michigan City slum during the Great Depression.  Born in 1933. Hatcher recalled the family being on relief and his mother working in a putrid-smelling factory stripping hair from dead pigs’ tails for use in mattresses.  Before discussing his 20 years as mayor of Gary (1968-1987), I mentioned four malicious myths Hatcher’s enemies spread – that he was dishonest, a radical, anti-white, and responsible for the city’s decline.  The most federally investigated mayor of his time (with Republicans in the White House all but five years of his tenure), he chose to operate within the existing political system with both black and white advisers during a time when rustbelt industrial cities faced insurmountable problems.  I mentioned his strategies of striving for Gary become an urban laboratory (model city) and a black mecca (Gary Genesis).  Hoping to change national priorities, he organized a Black Economic Summit and directed Jesse Jackson’s 1984 “rainbow coalition” Presidential campaign.

Students read excerpts from my oral history of the Hatcher administration in the 1980s Steel Shavings (2006) that I gave them, including statements Hatcher made (several refer to lessons his father taught him) and assessments from both allies and detractors.  Urban planner Bill Staehle, for instance, faulted Hatcher on his relationships with the business community and inter-governmental agencies but added:

  The best of leadership may not have made a whole lot of difference.  Who controlled the exodus of stores?  Who controlled the steel company?  You don’t control those things.  It made no difference who was mayor, those things would have happened anyway.

Hatcher governed during dire times, exacerbated by the lack of support from lawmakers in Indianapolis and Washington, D.C., especially while Ronald Reagan was President.   Adviser Ray Wild concluded:

  The wonder is that Gary survived at all, that it didn’t just go to hell in a hand basket.  Somehow, despite economic forces that have nothing to do with the city administration, Hatcher kept the city in a position to move forward.  Even as late as the 1980s there was the completion of some really major capital improvements downtown: the Hudson-Campbell Health and Fitness Center, Adam Benjamin Metro Transportation Center, the Genesis Center, the Broadway exit into the city from the toll way, the link-up of I-65.  There’s a good argument to be made that a less creative, less farsighted administration might have cost this city everything.

In “Gary’s First Hundred years” I wrote that Hatcher left office, like his father Carlton would have wanted, unbought, unbossed, and with head unbowed.

 John Sheehan

I concluded by mentioning good things that were happening in Gary’s public schools, now under attack by Republican governor Mike Pence, and read John Sheehan’s “Gary Postscript 1989”:

The schools I taught in were noisy but friendly

The jiving was mostly merriment

The gangs mostly clubs

The learning more than you’d think

Though six of my students were shot to death

Out of six thousand.

I’ve lived in this house for 16 years

I walk the dog down the street to the woods

Kids and their parents call me by name

For better or worse Gary’s my home

And I’d rather live in this left-over city

Than in any suburb I know.

Like my son Dave, John Sheehan taught in an oft-maligned city school and inspired many of his 6,000 students.

Sixty years after Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, President Obama released this statement: “Rosa Parks held no elective office.  She was not born into wealth or power.  Yet Rosa Parks changed America.  Her lifetime of activism and her singular moment of courage continue to inspire us today.”  Time to put Rosa Parks’ image on the ten-dollar bill.

Driving to IUN shortly before 10 o’clock classes, I noticed several people jaywalking across Broadway, including a professor who several years before had been struck by a car and seriously wounded near that same spot.  WTF?  Does he have a death wish?  Does he do that after dark, like last time?

Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, giving Hillary Clinton a run for her money and on the cover of Rolling Stone, revealed that he mostly listens to classical music – especially Beethoven – but loves Motown (Supremes and Temptations) and disco (Abba and Bee Gees).  Asked if he had anything good to say about the Republican field of candidates, Sanders mentioned Rand Paul wanting to reduce prison sentences for drug offenders, end government spying on citizens, and avoid war in the Middle East.  Then he tempered his praise by adding that Paul had compared him to Pol Pot.

In “Indiana’s 200,” edited by Linda C. Gugin and James E. St. Clair, Ray Boomhower profiled humorist George Ade (1866-1944), a major influence on “Region Rat” Jean Shepherd.  Born in Kentland, Indiana, and a Purdue graduate, Ade became a Chicago reporter and syndicated human-interest columnist who claimed that the key to his success lay in his interest “in all kinds of people and what they were doing and hoping to do.”  His “Fables In Slang”(1899), modeled after Mark Twain, was so popular that it spawned a sequel a year later, “More Fables in Slang” that included such chapters as “The Fable of How Uncle Brewster was Too Shifty for the Tempter” and “The Fable of the Lodge Fiend and the Delilah Trick Played by his Wife.”  Ade donated some royalties to his alma mater for Ross-Ade Stadium and purchased a 417-acre estate near the small town of Brook, Indiana.  He hosted grand parties whose guests included Presidential candidates William Howard Taft in 1908 and Teddy Roosevelt in 1912.  Here, complete with Ade’s strange method of capitalization, is a sample from “The Fable of the Slim Girl Who Tried To Keep a Date That Was Never Made”:

  Once upon a Time there was a slim Girl with a Forehead which was Shiny and Protuberant, like a Bartlett Pear... In all the Country around there was not a Man who came up to her Plans and Specifications for a Husband. Neither was there any Man who had any time for Her. So she led a lonely Life, dreaming of the One—the Ideal. He was a big and pensive Literary Man, wearing a Prince Albert coat, a neat Derby Hat and godlike Whiskers. When He came he would enfold Her in his Arms and whisper Emerson's Essays to her.

Next “Indiana’s 200” subject was Mary Eileen Ahern (1860-1938), a leader of the “modern library movement.”  In an era when library science was one of the meaningful career opportunities open to women, Ahern wrote:

  One of the first and most important lessons which a woman who enters the business world needs to know is the seeming paradox to forget that she is a woman and at the same time keep ever before her that she is a woman.

Last week one of my chairs disappeared.  After I told IUN custodian Cheryl Johnson, she searched the entire library and joked that she’d fill out a police report.  She finally found it in a storage closet.

Haircut prices at Quick Cut in Portage have risen to $13.50.  With no sign of Anna nor Nancy, my regular barbers, I took a chance with blond Ariel, and she did not disappoint.

sixth century mosaic of Theodora; right, Sarah Bernhardt as Theodora

I gave IUN History professor David Parnell a New York Review of Books Peter Brown’s article about Empress Theodora, consort to sixth century Byzantine Emperor Justinian. Theodora’s father was the royal Keeper of Bears, in all likelihood, used for fighting one another or mauling enemies of the state.  Though an actress and prostitute in her youth, when Justinian became enamored of her, Theodora embraced religion and is responsible for construction of Hagia Sophia, considered a Byzantine architectural wonder.  Theodora is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church and successfully advocated legal reforms that expanded the property rights of women and made divorce easier.  She is credited with convincing Justinian to put down the Nika revolt rather than flee the city and be more tolerant to religious dissenters.  In The Guardian Stella Duffy wrote:

  As Empress, she worked on the paper “On Pimps,” an attempt to stop pimps making their money from prostitutes. Well aware of the impossibility of marriage and a safe life for such women, she set up a house where they could live in peace. Theodora worked for women's marriage and dowry rights, anti-rape legislation, and was supportive of the many young girls who were sold into sexual slavery for the price of a pair of sandals. Her laws banished brothel-keepers from Constantinople and from all the major cities of the empire.

I bowled two mediocre games at Hobart Lanes but then rolled a 174 to help the Engineers win the second of three games from Pin Chasers.  Dick Maloney’s 191 enabled us to capture game two.  A sub with a 141 average bowled a 555 series or we’d have swept them.  On the way home at the intersection of 149 and Ridge Road, a guy sped through a yellow light right in front of me and struck a car exiting a gas station.