Great Adventure

“When a great adventure is offered, you don’t refuse it.” Amelia Earhart

 

Growing up in Atchison, Kansas, Amelia Earhart earned the reputation of being a daredevil and tomboy who believed girls should have the opportunity to do anything a boy could do.  Her first plane ride in 1920 changed Amelia’s life; becoming an aviatrix became her passion. By the following year, she had saved enough money to pay for flying lessons from highly-regarded instructor Anita Snook. Within a few years she was a seasoned pilot.  In 1928, in what was a well-planned publicity stunt, Earhart was a passenger in a transatlantic flight piloted by Wilmer Stultz, admitting, “I was just baggage.” Upon returning to America she and the two-person crew received a ticker tape parade in New York City and a reception with President Calvin Coolidge. Due to her resemblance in appearance to Charles Lindbergh, she was dubbed by the press “Lady Lindy.”  Determined to prove her mettle on her own, in 1932 Earhart completed a 14-hour solo flight across the Atlantic, battling strong winds, icy conditions, and mechanical problems.  Her celebrity status led to frequent appearances and commercial endorsements. In 1935, I learned from historian Ray Boomhower, Purdue University hired Earhart to be a counselor to female students and established a Fund for Aeronautical Research in her name that helped in purchasing a twin-motored Lockheed Electra for Amelia’s next great adventure.

By 1938 Earhart had decided to attempt an around-the-world flight and have an account of it be the penultimate chapter in a memoir that would raise money for further aeronautical research and exploration.  After a false start, the ill-fated flight began June 1, 1938, in Miami, Florida. Flying to South America and then east to Africa and Southeast Asia, Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan had completed 22,000 miles in a month and had just 7,000 miles to go, across the Pacific.  From Lae, New Guinea, the next leg was 2,570 miles to Howland Island.  She never made it; the plane went missing and a radio frequency snafu caused a waiting naval vessel to lose contact with her plane.  Her last message was that the Lockheed Electra was running out of fuel.  Despite an intensive search, no trace of her or the plane was ever found.

 

Earhart’s disappearance has been the source of speculation and conspiracy theories that exist to this day.  Indeed, it is the primary reason people remember her.  Because America would soon be at war with Japan, some claimed her plane had been shot down and Earhart captured, accused of being on an intelligence mission, and executed.  Romantics wondered wishfully if she and Noonan had escaped to a deserted Pacific island; more likely, they landed on a coral reef that eventually submerged.  Most experts believe the plane simply ran out of fuel, crashed into the Pacific, and sank to the bottom of the sea.

 

My great adventure was leaving law school and traveling to Hawaii to commence working on becoming a History professor. For as long as I could remember, I’d planned to become a lawyer, and for three summers I’d worked at distinguished Philadelphia law firms as a mail room messenger. I observed young associates working 60-80 hours a week hoping to make partner, an outcome that seemed to depend on whether they could generate business for the firm.  In other words, not as glamorous a situation as on the “Perry Mason” series.

 

My senior year at Bucknell, I took Education courses and student taught, which I thoroughly enjoyed. At Virginia Law School many students were undecided over careers or had been pressured into being there. After a dorm mate committed suicide, I started contemplating whether, much as I enjoyed most law school classes, the legal profession was for me.  On a whim I looked into the University of Hawaii’s graduate program and discovered the History chair, Herbert Margulies, was someone whose work on the Progressive Era I admired.  I wrote Margulies a letter, and he urged me to apply and indicated I could receive an assistantship that would cover tuition and pay me a couple thousand dollars.  After meeting with Bucknell mentor, Dr. William H. Harbaugh in Lewisburg, PA, (hitchhiking part of the way) who warned me I’d never be rich and have at least a half dozen years of schooling yet but told me to go for it if that’s what I really wanted, I took the plunge with Toni’s consent. I’ve never looked back and marvel at how well it worked out and that I had the nerve to do it.

 

Toni agreed to move up our wedding date six months, after which we drove her Volkswagen Beetle across the country (a Southern route since it was mid-January 1965, a time when Yankees were viewed with suspicion), shipped the VW from California on to Honolulu, and boarded a plane.  I began work on a Master’s degree, and Toni obtained a job at a downtown law firm. We found a small apartment on Poki Street (why we later named a cat Poki) about a mile from the Manoa campus and close to a bus stop for Toni to commute to work while I walked to classes.  Some evenings we’d hang out on Waikiki Beach near nightclubs with live Hawaiian music and once splurged at Duke Kahanamoku’s for dinner and a show featuring Don Ho of “Tiny Bubbles” fame. I did research at Iolani Palace and we spent a glorious week on the then-barely developed island of Kauai (below, left).  Since phone calls were prohibitively expensive, we’d send and receive audio tapes from our families. I retain many other fond memories of our 18 months on Oahu and have been back to the islands several times since.                 Graduation, 1966

My adventure pales in comparison with the millions of immigrants to America, including Toni’s grandparents.  John Petalas posted a 1922 photo (below) of charter members of AHERA (American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association, founded to counter bigoty emanating from hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan  Anne Koehler, who emigrated from Germany many years ago, wrote about spending a delightful evening with friend Dorothy: “We were sitting in the car at Weko Beach in Bridgman, Michigan where they play taps at sunset during the summer. A car pulled up halfway. Dorothy talked to the driver and found out that he was from Germany. We started to talk from car to car and I found out that this spry gentleman is 92 years old. He hails from Stuttgart in southern Germany and came to this county in the 1950s. He remembers growing up under Hitler and barely missed being drafted toward the end of the war. I was happy to find out that he shared my dislike of our president.”

Dominguez family and George Van Til

My “Great Adventure” post received close to 50 replies, many from former students, including Jim Reha and Sarah McColly, collaborators Roy Dominguez and George Van Til, niece Cristin and nephew Bobby, with whom I’ve shared some adventures.  In the New York Review of Books “Personals” section was this message titled “In the Time of Corona”: “Chinese-Russian grandmother, youthful 60s, seeks a kind, self-supporting, healthy single man 60-70s with whom to share some life - enjoying career tai chi, theater, War on Drugs, Buddhist meditation, and more.” War on Drugs must refer to my favorite band that nephew Bob Lane and I saw perform at Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown, CA.

Roundabout

 "I’ll be the roundabout

The words will make you go out ‘n’ out”

 YES from 1971 “Fragile” album

A British progressive rock group known to be a drug band, members of YES, including frontman Jon Anderson, may well have been high on LSD when recording “Roundabout,” whose lyrics make no sense unless high.  I wasn’t much into progressive rock bands other than Steely Dan until Terry Jenkins turned me on to YES.  At a fantastic Holiday Star concert YES played for almost three hours without a break except for individual musicians exiting the stage during drum, guitar and keyboard solos.  They kicked ass on “Roundabout.”  Both George Sladic and Fred McColly recalled memorable YES concerts they attended, Freddy at Hawthorne Raceway with Peter Frampton and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Roundabouts are proliferating in Valparaiso and other region suburbs.  When first introduced the Post-Tribune’s Quickly column was filled with criticisms.  Once experienced a few times, however, I found they are easy to maneuver and highly efficient. East Coast roundabouts, called traffic circles, have been around for at least three generations. On the way to the Jersey shore vacationers encountered at least a half-dozen.  When Toni and I visited New Zealand 30 years ago, we drove on counter-clockwise roundabouts, as New Zealanders, like Brits, drive on the left (in common parlance, “wrong”) side of the road.

In “A Fist Full of Fig Newtons” Region Rat Jean Shepherd wrote about first encountering a New Jersey roundabout:

    After a lifetime of driving in other parts of the country with conventional staid overpasses, viaducts, crossroads, stop-lights, etc., etc., suddenly I found myself going round and round, surrounded by hordes of blue-haired ladies piloting violet-colored Gremlins.  In and out they wove.  I passed my turnoff four times before I got control of my mind and was hurled out of the traffic circle by centrifugal force, back in the direction I had come.  Good grief!

Liz Wuerffel, who ran for Valpo city council, noted that so many people complained about roundabouts that she probably would have won the election had she gone on record against them.

George Van Til, surprised to read of my long softball career, wrote that he played for a team in the Bethlehem Steel Chesterton league and that teammates often gathered afterwards in a Chesterton watering hole across from the gazebo.  He was so impressed that when on the Highland Town Board, he pressed for the park department to construct one on land that came under its control when Main School was torn down.  The gazebo has been a popular success, site of concerts, weddings, and theatrical productions such as “Music Man” starring longtime clerk/treasurer Michael Griffin, an IUN grad.  I told George that son Dave was in a production of “Music through the Ages.”  One performance was curtailed shortly after one of Dave’s solos by a severe thunder and lightning storm. On Facebook yesterday Dave performed Simon and Garfunkel’s “Me and Julio Down by the School Yard” and “The Boxer.”

I got a call from Gary native Jim Muldoon (Lew Wallace, Class of 1956), like me a Maryland grad and CEO of METCOR.  A subscriber, he praised my latest Steel Shavings and mentioned how his school raised $2,000 in a single day selling peanuts in a campaign to fight polio, a postwar scourge.  We reminisced about the day we spend together at the Archives and touring Gary, and he invited Toni and me to his estate on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Philip Potempa’s Post-Tribune column dealt with the history of Valparaiso, mentioning a virtual audio tour Porter County Museum director Kevin Pazour put together from a 1987 architectural guide developed by members of VU’s Art department. Sites include the courthouse, jail, opera house, two banks, and Lowenstine’s Department Store, in existence between 1916 and 1988, which included a vacuum tube system. Since World War II Valpo’s downtown flourished for 30 years, then suffered downturns during the 1980s and twenty years later followed by resurgences, primarily due to restaurants.  In addition to Lowenstine’s, Potempa lamented other retail casualties such as Linkimer’s Shoes, shuttered in 1994 after 45 years, David’s Men’s haberdashery, closed in 2014 after three decades, and Piper’s Children’s Boutique, which recently went out of business after 37 years.

An obit for Fae Elaine Wewe, 92, who lived in Gary’s Miller Beach neighborhood most her life, noted her culinary skills and that she donated baked goods and homemade jellies and jams to Lutheran church fundraisers.  She and husband Dick, a steelworker, adopted daughter Jeanette in 1959. Fae Wewe’s obit concluded: “Though she grew up in a time that relegated women and others to second-class status, Fae understood that all people deserved equal treatment, no matter their gender, race, ethnicity or ability. Those values formed the core of her life. Though she lacked much formal education, she taught her daughter to read before she started kindergarten.” Jeanette McVicker is presently a professor of English and Women’s Studies at SUNY Fredonia and an expert on Virginia Woolf. 

Judy Blue Eyes

    “Fear is the lock and laughter the key.” Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” Crosby, Stills and Nash

Close to 50 years ago, after finishing three sets of tennis with Paul Kern, Nick Kanellos, and Bob Wilszynski at Woodlake Village Apartments, I was getting into my car when I smelled reefer emanating from one of the units and heard the mellow sounds of “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” from the 1969 self-titled Crosby, Still and Nash album that also contains “Marrakesh Express” and “Wooden Ships.”  I waved, flashed the PEACE sign, and from an open sliding glass door a long-haired hippie waved back.  Had he beckoned, I’d have gladly joined them.  Hearing “Judy Blue Eyes,” on WXRT en route to IU Northwest, I could still recall many verses, including: “Chesnut-brown canary, Ruby-throated sparrow, Sing a song, don’t be long, Thrill me to the marrow.”  One I never understood in Spanish: “Me la traiga a Cuba, La reina de la Mar Caribe, Quiero solo visitaria alli, Y que triste que no puedo!”: Translated it appears to mean:  “I'd bring her to Cuba, The queen of the Caribbean Sea, I only want to visit her there, And how sad that I can't.”

“Judy Blue Eyes” always reminds me of grade school pal Judy Jenkins, whose brother Terry was my grade school best friend and whom I reconnected with in ninth grade after living in Michigan for over a year.  By then Judy was blond, quite beautiful, and popular; though at her and Terry’s house quite often, I was too diffident to ask her out, afraid of jeopardizing a close relationship, so settled for being a friend and confidant.

About 20 years ago, coming back from Wells Street Beach to our house on Maple Place, I heard the mellow sounds of Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” from the 1971 album “What’s Going On?” emanating from folks enjoying a cookout in front of Miller Village Apartments.  I joined them, the vibes were friendly, and I was invited to a Labor Day party in one of the fourth-floor units.  I showed up but noticed a certain tenseness among some guests, who seemed to suspect I might be a narc.  After a short time, I departed.  Carolyn McCrady lived on the same floor but soon moved out after unsavory renters moved nearby.  Five months later, home invaders broke into Dave and Angie’s cabin a block away from us and across County Line Road from Miller Village Apartments.  The three of us were playing the board game Shark.  The bastards held us captive and terrorized us for over an hour.  Though they were never caught, an FBI bloodhound traced their scent to the fourth floor of Miller Village Apartments.

Sunday after making blueberry pancakes and kaibasa and watching Sunday news shows, I found two movies OnDemand, the depressing “Blue Valentine” (2010) starring Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling (about a marriage falling apart) and the silly but funny “What about Bob?” (1991) with Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss as a mental patient and his self-absorbed shrink. I caught the first two hours of the Oscars and learned next day that the South Korean film “Parasite” not only won both for Best Director but Best Picture as well, beating out such favorites as “Joker,” “The Irishman,” “1917,” and “Little Women.”
Maurice Sendak
At Munster Center for the Arts I told Art in Focus program director Micah Bornstein what I needed for my speaking engagement next month (sound system, stools, and dance floor), then watched a documentary about Maurice Sendak (1928-2012), most famous for the children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are,” whose upcoming Memorial Exhibition will be at the Center’s gallery for two months. Interviewed at age 80, Sendak talked about being traumatized from learning about aviator Charles Lindbergh’s baby having been kidnapped and killed (it inspired “Outside Over There”) and seeing a childhood friend in Brooklyn fatally struck by a vehicle on a street trying to retrieve a ball Sendak had tossed him.  “In the Night Garden” (1970) caused a furor because of a drawing of a child’s penis.  Some librarians censored the book; others actually drew diapers on him.  Asked if he’d purposely drawn the offending member, Sendak responded, “That dick didn’t get there by itself.”

George Van Til asked me to keep my book club introduction of him brief when he spoke about his forthcoming autobiography; beforehand I wrote out these remarks:

    As George Van Til once told me in an interview, his political career both began and ended on Route 41.  It began when he took a Political Science class at Indiana University Northwest and joined the IUN Young Democrats, where he met political officeholders and aspirants, some of whom are still active in county government.  The Young Democrats served as a springboard for a career in Highland town government and as Lake County surveyor, with Van Til ultimately winning a total of 16 elections.  During that time, I would frequently see him at events in Gary and of concern to workers and environmentalists.  His efforts on behalf of those people earned him the enmity of powerful economic interests who, when they could not defeat him at the polls, turned to the Justice Department, which ultimately charged him with practices involving his staff that were common, nay, near universal among elected officials. 

    Two years ago, Post-Trib columnist Jeff Manes wrote a column about George Van Til.  He began with the Biblical quote: “He that is without sin among you, let him cast a stone.”  He ended by saying that prison taught him humility – something he admitted he needed and this quote from Van Til: “When I drive by the government center, where I worked for so many years, I avert my eyes.  It’s difficult to look.  Government service is what defined me.  That’s who I was.  What am I now?  It’s a struggle.”  Then Manes added: “As for me, I suppose I needed to talk man to man with the tall, bearded Dutchman for 90 minutes.  My conclusion? No stones cast here.”

 Jimbo and George in Terre Haute, 2016

A large group was on hand for Van Til’s talk, including former Lake County sheriff Roy Dominguez and longtime East Chicago wheeler-dealer Bob Cantrell, who starred on East Chicago Washington’s 1960 state championship basketball team that defeated Muncie Central 75-59. Much of what Van Til revealed about his career as a public servant was familiar to me from interviewing him for several hours, but he added some spicy anecdotes so as (his words) not to bore his audience.  Years ago, Lake County politicians were known to visit sporting houses at the State Capital when the legislature was in session, with the understanding that what goes on in Indianapolis stays in Indianapolis.  One well-known politician, now deceased, was undressing when the lady of the evening asked where he was from and ticked off the names of Region clients.  The man quickly put his clothes back on and was never tempted to return.  One conservative downstate Republican legislator suggested that he and his wife stay overnight and swap mates.  George didn’t take him up on the offer. 

George read off some prospective chapter titles, including one covering the feds vendetta against him, “I didn’t do it.” I teared up when he told of Mayor Richard Hatcher arranging a luncheon at Beach Café for black elected officials to express their appreciation for his services on behalf of the people of Gary.  Before starting his prison sentence in Terre Haute, George spoke with others, including former Calumet Township Trustee Dozier T. Allen, who’d been incarcerated on what to expect. When he realized that most prison guards and white prisoners were Trump supporters, he was careful not to bring up politics.  Playing the piano at Sunday church services was something to look forward to and offered needed solace.  When told by those attending that they’d been praying for a piano player, George thought, “I hope that’s not why I ended up here, as an answer to their prayers.” One holiday Archbishop Tobin conducted services at the chapel and told the prisoners, “I am your brother, Joseph.”  Van Til was impressed.  His prison nickname became “piano man.”

I’m debating how spicy to make my September Saturday Evening Club presentation on “Novelists as Social Historians.”  Before discussing such personal favorites as “Rabbit Run,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “The Jungle,” “Babbitt,” “Grapes of Wrath,” and recent works by Elizabeth Stroud and Richard Russo, I may start with the first novel I recall reading, the controversial potboiler Peyton Place (1956).  Kids usually read for adventure, fantasy, or to be educated – in this case, it was about sex.  Its themes of hypocrisy, social inequities, class privilege, and sexism in a small, conservative town were especially relevant in postwar America. “Peyton Place” entered the lexicon; after several high school classmates became pregnant involuntarily, gossips clucked, “This town is a regular Peyton Place.”  The book spawned several sequels, two movies, and even a prime-time soap opera starring Mia Farrow as Allison and Ryan O’Neal as Rodney.  Author Grace Metalious was a rebel who often eschewed bras and dressed in men’s clothes prior to becoming famous (some would say notorious) and drinking herself to death within a decade.  I was shocked to find a copy of “Peyton Place” hidden in the bookcase of my maiden great-aunt Grace.  It opened to pages containing juicy passages that she must have read several times.  Here’s one:

    Her finger tips traced a pattern down the side of his face, and with her mouth almost against his, she whispered, “I didn’t know it could be like this.”

    She could not lie still under his hands.

    “Anything,” she said. “Anything.  Anything.”

    “I love this fire in you.  I love it when you have to move.”

    “Don’t stop.”

    “Her? And here? And here?”

    “Yes. Oh, yes.  Yes.”

This car scene featured teenagers Rodney and Betty, who had a “fast” reputation:

    Her whole body twisted and moved when he kissed her, and when hos hands found their way to her breast, she writhed on the seat, jackknifed her knees, pushed Rodney away from her, clicked the lock on the door, and was outside of the car.

    “Now go do it to Allison MacKenzie,” she screamed at him.  “Go get the girl you brought to the dance and do it to her.”

  Before Rodney could catch his breath to utter a word, she had whirled and was on her way back to the gym. He tried to run after her, but his legs were like sawdust under him.  He hung on to the open car door and retched helplessly, the sweat poured down his face.

Legend Mourned

“This community has lost a giant.  I am humbled to be a recipient of his wisdom and guidance and will always be grateful for his influence on my life.” Gary mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson on the death of Richard Gordon Hatcher at age 86

Phoning from Florida, Paul Kern called to commiserate on the passing of Richard Gordon Hatcher, a civil rights icon and the first African-American mayor of a significantly sized city. That’s how I learned that a heroic figure was dead. The Post-Tribune, which had demeaned Hatcher during his 20 years in office, ran an excellent in-depth piece titled “Pioneering Gary leader mourned” that was free of rancor and contained tributes from Lake County and around the state.  My name appeared in a section describing his decision to challenge the entrenched, corrupt local Democratic machine:

  Hatcher saw the inequality in a city whose population in the 1960s was already half African American, according to James Lane, but took steps during his time on the City Council to push for civil rights and equality for all Gary residents.

Congressman Peter Visclosky stated: “Mayor Richard Hatcher was a historic and exemplary leader for civil rights and racial equality in our nation, and he was always a true public servant for the City of Gary and the Northwest Indiana region.” From Governor Eric Holcomb: “Mayor Hatcher was a state and national trailblazer who committed his life to serving and helping his community.” Longtime Calumet Township Trustee Dozier T. Allen, described as both an ally and adversary, recalled:

    Richard and I met in 1959.  He was a student at Valparaiso University selling Hoover Vacuums on the side, and I was a liberal arts, business, and political science major working for my dad.  We lived in the same dorm, and we were the only two black men in it.  We had a great many things to talk about, and he always had great thoughts about civil rights, open occupancy, voting rights and fair employment.  He also believed that the only way to challenge belief systems was at the ballot box.  I miss those talks on the stairwell.  I also remember his car, a lavender and purple convertible.  I used to put gas in his car when times were tough.

 Hatcher in the White House with Jimmy Carter, 1980

The most heartfelt comments came from former Lake County surveyor George Van Til, who told The Post-Tribune:

    He was like a rock.  It’s just a real sense of loss. He was a good a decent man, a man of real faith.  A lot of people didn’t know that. I never heard him swear, see him drink or smoke or behave inappropriately.  He was a devoted family man and a faithful churchgoer and, but he never talked about it.  He just lived it.  That’s kind of what I admired about him.  He had strong political beliefs, but he never talked bad about those who disagreed with him.

  

In “African-American Mayors: Race, Politics, and the American City,” edited by David R. Colburn and Jeffrey Adler (2001) I wrote:

    Rarely has the advent of a mayoral administration taken on the symbolic importance of the inauguration of Richard Gordon Hatcher on January 1, 1968, in Gary, Indiana, the self-proclaimed “City of the Century” of approximately 170,000 people.  To the chagrin of the local political establishment and economic elite, and to the delight of African Americans and liberal well-wishers across the country, Hatcher, a 34-year-old community activist, had captured city hall after a bitter grassroots struggle.  At his inauguration Hatcher referred to the special problems and opportunities he faced and vowed to bring about a “healthy black nationalism.”  Sympathetic federal bureaucrats were eager to embrace the new mayor by turning on the faucet of Great Society funds, so that Gary would prosper as a truly multiracial city and a model of black empowerment.  Major changes in the racial and political climate of the United States and in its antiurban biases would have to take place, however, before this could occur.

In “Gary’s First Hundred Years” I wrote this epitaph on his 20 years in office: “Hatcher survived five terms as mayor despite unrelenting opposition by those who, in all likelihood, would have relocated to suburban environs no matter who controlled City Hall.  He left office as he had entered it, unbossed, unbought, and with head unbowed.” Hatcher once summed up his political philosophy in this manner: “All other considerations are secondary to this moral requirement; that there must be opportunity for all Americans, regardless of race, regardless of status.”

CBS Sunday Morning aired a segment about humorist Mo Rocca, whose “Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving,” contains portraits of personages ranging from Founding Father Thomas Paine to black entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr, as well overlooked forerunners such as Elizabeth Jennings, a black woman on a Manhattan streetcar who refused to give up her seat a century before Rosa Parks’s similar action.  

Rocca profiled singer Laura Branigan, whose 1982 pop hit “Gloria” became the theme song of the St. Louis Blues during the 2018-19 season.  The team had finished in last place the previous year but won the Stanley Cup in game 7 against the heavily favored Boston Bruins and celebrated by singing “Gloria.”  Branigan died in her sleep, probably of a brain aneurysm at age 52 in August of 2004.  A close friend said that if Laura were alive, she would have loved performing “Gloria” at the final Blues home game and the victory celebration.  First recorded by Italian Umberto Tozzi as a love song, Branigan’s “Gloria” portrayed a party animal running too fast for her own good.  Initially, it became the rage at gay dance clubs.  I first heard “Gloria” at Marcy Velasquez’s son’s wedding reception where, responding to audience demand, the deejay played it several times.  It’s still one of my favorite songs and a worthy successor to Van Morrison’s garage band “Gloria,” Patti Smith’s “Gloria” anthem and forerunner to the Lumineers unsettling contemporary hit of the same title about an alcoholic.

I am in the Lane Fantasy Football finals against Phil, barely surviving the semi-final round against Dave despite scoring 171 points. His 165 is probably a record for a losing effort.  Drew Brees would have won it for him had I not played the New Orleans kicker Wil Lutz.  Phil’s team is loaded with talent, starting with QB Lamar Jackson and running backs Saquan Barkley and Dalvan Cook.

Homecoming

“Poetry is a sort of homecoming,” Paul Celan

I provided free copies of Steel Shavings, volume 47, at a Homecoming “Legacy” lunch for IUN grads and their children or grandchildren presently enrolled.  Alumni Relations director Paulette LaFata invited me to stay, so I made myself a salad and sat with Annalynn Morin and her mother Jean, who were at a table by themselves.  Annalynn is a Biology major active in several student groups; Jean took classes with Ron Cohen and remembered him fondly as a folk music expert.  Afterwards, I watched IUN’s Lady Redhawks defeat the Madonna University Crusaders, from Michigan judging from where their players hailed from. IUN’s best player Grayce Roach looks to be 100 percent recovered from a finger injury.  Veterans Michelle Borgen, Gina Rubino, and Chloe Salman also played well. Freshman Brittney Williams from Merrillville came off the bench to grab several rebounds and score two terrific follow-up shot on hustle plays.  I congratulated Coach Ryan Shelton, also IUN’s athletic director, on the university getting accepted into the CCAC (Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference) and expressed condolences on the death of assistant Ken Markfull.

Brittney Williams while at Merrillville; Times photo by John Luke

James as "narrator"

Grandson James was a narrator in the Portage H.S. play “Ten Ways to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse.”  Phil and Delia came in for the occasion.  Unbeknownst to me, James starts out in the audience.  Minutes before the curtain went up, Becca nudged me, and I turned to see him beaming just a few rows behind us.   Slightly deaf, I had trouble understanding much dialogue, but James belted out lines loud and clear.  In the program bio James quoted from the Nintendo game WarioWare: “It’s pizza time!  Oh yeah, no money.” 

 Z. Kierstead’s“I could’ve dropped my croissant”is from a YouTube vine gone viral.  Maria Sosa’s “No”is in honor of Rosa Parks, whose refusal to yield her seat sparked the 1955-56 Montgomery Bus Boycott. Makayla Butala’s “Don’t let the muggles get you down”is from “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” Meghan Smeltzer repeated a popular meme, “This is so sad.  Alexa, play Despacito.”  Toni sometimes calls upon digital assistant Alexa for crossword puzzle answers. “Despacito” is a song by Luis Fonsi.  Senior thespian Angelo Jarvis thanked former theater director Kevin Lee Giess, unfairly terminated on school board orders, “for allowing me my first opportunity.”

 Tom Wade, Waiting to see Obama at Gary Genesis Center

Obama photo by Kyle Telethon

Tom and Darcey Wade were part of a standing-room only audience at Gary Genesis Center that heard Barack Obama campaign for Indiana Democrats.  Beforehand, Tom stood for 90 minutes to obtain two free tickets and then another 90 minutes waiting to get inside, as rumors had circulated that not everyone would be able to get in.  Close to the stage with Darcey in a wheelchair, both got to shake the former President’s hand as he was leaving.  On Facebook Tom confessed to having a man-crush and wrote: “We will not wash our hands for a long while! He is such a gregarious, beautiful man.”

Major Brent Taylor, 39, mayor of North Ogden, Utah, and father of seven, died in Afghanistan at the hands of someone he was training during his second tour of duty there with the U.S. National Guard.  Previously, he had served two tours in Iran. His assassin, a member of the Afghan National Defense Force, was immediately shot and killed. Brent Taylor was a true hero, a selfless public servant at home and abroad.

Region author and Times correspondent Jane Ammeson praised Ken Schoon’s new book, “Swedish Settlements on the South Shore of Lake Michigan."  Schoon noted, “Many Swedes came first to Chicago, which at one time had more Swedes than any city on Earth except Stockholm.”  Ammeson quoted extensively from Schoon’s account of Joel Wicker, son-in-law of French fur trader Joseph Bailly, whose estate near Chellberg Farm in Porter has been preserved by the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Wicker hired Swedish newcomers  to chop down trees for use as railroad ties and fuel for steam engines.  Schoon wrote:

  Logs were also needed to build and heat homes and for cooking.  When enough trees were cut down, Wicker then sold the land to his Swedish employees who then cleared the land for farming.  Other Swedes found employment as farm laborers and working for sand and ice-mining companies, and as blacksmiths and carpenters.

  As the immigrants had more money, many purchased their own farms or started businesses in town.  The first licensed embalmer in Indiana was carpenter John Lundberg, a Chesterton Swede.  

Svanti Nordstrom (above with Fredrika); photos from Verlaine Wright

Schoon’s bibliography lists my Portage Shavings and a 1974 Post-Tribune article titled “Swedes started new church” about Miller pioneer Syena “Svanti” A. Nordstrom, who learned of the area from friends in LaPorte and Baillytown.  He wrote idyllic, albeit, exaggerated accounts of Miller’s scenic beauty and job opportunities that convinced former neighbors to join him.  He was acting pastor of Bethel Lutheran Church.  In October 1874 the congregation met for the first time in a one-room log schoolhouse.  A minister from Baillytown came periodically to preach and conduct communion; in his absence Nordstrom performed emergency baptisms.  Ruggedly handsome with yellow, curly hair and a long, flowing beard, Nordstrom, one parishioner recalled, “had the bearing of a man that you could not help but respect.”  Wife Fredrika died in 1888 at age 70, but Svanti, three years younger, lived another 22 years.

Cindy inside abandoned Horace Mann School 

Photographer Cindy “Cupcake” Bean sent Ron Cohen and me shots taken inside abandoned Horace Mann, including one of a letter from a Japanese visitor back when the K-12 “unit school” was implementing the vision of progressive educator Superintendent William A. Wirt.  The Gary school, in decent shape when it first closed, has been reduced to the scrap heap of history.  I told Cindy about the upcoming “Gary Haunts” South Shore exhibit in Munster featuring work similar to hers.

I picked up a needed win in Fantasy Football over nephew Bob to improve to 5-4.  Bob’s QB Mitch Trubisky threw only one TD pass, to Bears tight end Trey Burton, whom I had in the lineup because the Eagles’ Zach Ertz was on a bye week.  Trubisky earned Bob just 8 points; my backup QB (for Carson Wentz), Ben Roethilsberger got me 24, including a TD on the ground while Trubisky’s similar end zone effort ended a half-yard short.

James Lane voting for first time

George Van Til and Jimbo; photo by Jim Lazarus

On election day former Lake County Surveyor George Van Til invited me to lunch at Old Chicago Restaurant in Merrillville.  At the table were county auditor John Petalas and wife Karen, Lake County Democratic chairmen Jim Wieser, former Timesreporter Jim Lazerus (who came from California to volunteer for Senator Joe Donnelly, North Township Board member Peter Katic, writer Douglas Simmons, and current Lake County surveyor Bill Emerson.  They were pessimistic about Donnelly’s chances but otherwise guardedly confident.  Katic recalled election day gatherings at recently demolished Old Mill restaurant.  Wieser recalled former Lake County politician Andy Holinga inviting party members to his house, where he’d bang his huge fists on the kitchen table with such emphasis that things on it would fly into the air.  Petalas, a former student whose father owned a shoe repair shop on Broadway, first near Thirteenth and then in Glen Park, invited me to Rep. Peter Visclosky victory celebration that evening at Croatian Hall, but I was playing duplicate bridge. 

Barbara Walczak’s bridge Newsletter contained a photo taken at the Gary game of participants dressed in Halloween costumes, including Barbara Stroud, Charlotte Abernethy, Barb Walczak, Helen Miller, Daryl Fraley, Carolyn Potasnik, Alta Allen, and Trudi McKamey.  Pretty cool.

Charlie Halberstadt and I finished in the middle of the pack with 51.37%. Charlie told me about a player with a new partner who was asked what happened with her previous one.  “Bridge divorce,”she replied.  We edged out Terry Bauer and Dottie Hart, who usually clean our clock.  In one hand playing 3 No Trump against them, I had eight sure tricks but needed a finesse to make the contract.  If it failed I’d go down two.  It worked!  I was very disappointed in the results in Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee; but, asMichael Moore said, Democrats swept the races in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio, the three states whose electoral votes in 2016 elected Trump, a tumor on the body politic that hopefully is receding in influence.

At lunch, Miller resident Douglas Simmons had told me I could find his books on Amazon.  His bio states: “Read, so that you may know. Write, so that you may tell what you know. Tell, that others to come may also know: The written word is the light that leads us all through the darkness that is ignorance.”  Well put. He continued,“Having been, over the years (along with lesser pursuits) employed as soldier, postal worker, carpenter, caterer, photographer, professional musician, a millwright, an overhead crane operator, and last to this day an adventurer who sometimes pauses to muse about his wanderings,without fail, no matter the diverse undertakings of my life, I have been a writer.”  In “Reluctantly Collected Poems” (2013) – Simmons would rather have his poems read one at a time - is one I particularly like titled “I Spoke”:

Thinking that I had no words;
I spoke no more.
Thinking I had done it all;
I closed the door.

Thinking I had heard the world;
I closed my heart.
Thinking to escape the pain;
I drew apart.

Then you were there laughing
At a voice I didn't hear.
Hoping I might laugh again;

               I spoke: to draw you near.  

As days shorten with winter in the air and snow predicted in 48 hours, I thought of “Homecoming” by Romanian-born Jew Paul Celan (1920-1970), who survived a Nazi work camp but intentionally drowned in the Seine River:

Snowfall, denser and denser,
dove-colored as yesterday,
snowfall, as if even now you were sleeping.

White, stacked into distance.
Above it, endless,
the sleigh track of the lost.

Below, hidden,
presses up
what so hurts the eyes,
hill upon hill,
invisible.

On each,
fetched home into its today,
as I slipped away into dumbness:
wooden, a post.

There: a feeling,
blown across by the ice wind
attaching its dove- its snow-
colored cloth as a flag.