Granger

“You’ve got the right to wages and holidays and proper clothes; you don’t have to do everything you’re told.” Hermione Granger in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”

 Hermione and Emma Watson in Vanity Fair

While I’ve not read the Harry Potter books, just heard parts of tapes in the car, I saw most of the films and admired the character of Hermione Granger, played by Emma Watson, who in addition to modeling and movie careers has been a United Nations goodwill ambassador and outspoken feminist active in the fight against sexual harassment. In 2017 she took much heat – unfairly, in my opinion - for posing topless in Vanity Fair. Famous actors sharing her last name include English matinee idols of years past Farley and Stewart Granger.  The word originally meant one who worked in a granary.  The Granger movement of the late nineteenth century was a farmer protest against being ripped off by bankers, railway corporations, and grain elevator operators and ignored by elected officials. Goals included government regulation and democratizing the political process

I spent the weekend in Granger, Indiana (one of at least 11 American communities so-named) to attend a graduation party for grandson James, niece Michele’s son Nicholas, and niece Lisa’s daughter Grace, soon to be freshmen at Valparaiso, Purdue, and Oregon.  An affluent South Bend suburb, Granger dates back to the 1880s when named for National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry.  After World War II Granger rapidly ballooned to a bedroom community of 20,000 in 1990; nearly double that at present.

 funny family photo; 3 graduates

Hosted by Lisa and Fritz Teuschler, the family gathering included a dozen Lanes and even more of Toni’s sister MaryAnn’s kids and grandkids.  Toni brought a huge pot of galumpkis plus rye bread, and Fritz cooked burgers, hot dogs, and corn of the cob on the grill.  I  spent the night at nearby Hampton Inn rather than opt for a couch.  Though I see Nicholas (from near Indy) and Grace at least once a year, still it was startling to observe how much they’d matured.  In the 8 months since he and Dave jammed on guitars at our condo over the Christmas holidays, Nicholas has become an accomplished player; he and Dave kept the group entertained with many of us joining in on the chorus of songs we knew.

late-night storytelling; golfers Phil, Connor, Fritz, Tom, Nicholas, Nick, Sean, Jim

Charlene and Jim Quinn, who live in Punta Gorda, came with sons Sean and Connor. When Toni and I made annual trips to Florida while Midge and stepfather Howard lived in Bradenton, I’d look forward to being with them.  Teenagers then (like me, Sean was a Jimmy Eat World fan), now they’re in their mid to late 20s.  Connor is extremely competitive (he won the late-night Texas Hold ‘em tournament) and as a 13-year-old insisted on playing as many games of ping pong as it took to beat me.  Sean, a brilliant intellect and well-read with an irreverent sense of humor, is about to earn a master’s degree from San Diego State.  His thesis is on Russia under Vladimir Putin, whom, he said, is a serious student of American history and admires strong chief executives Lincoln, TR, and FDR.  While his heavy-handed domestic policies are unpopular, Putin is admired for making Russia again a superpower after the humiliating days under Boris Yeltsin.  According to one story, American authorities once discovered Yeltsin on a street near the Russian embassy in Washington drunk, in his underwear, and in search of pizza.  The Robber Barons who seized control of the Soviet Union’s state-run industries after the fall of communism thought Putin would be a puppet, but before long he turned on those who would not cut him in on the spoils.

                                                   cornhole champs Dave (ponytail) and Anthony (hands on hips)

homeless newsboys

Our final day, outside on a beautiful afternoon, I played a little corn hole (Dave and Anthony were the champs) but, unlike Toni, stayed away from badminton. Sean recalled reading grandfather Sonny’s New York Post as a kid and finding its sarcastic headlines, sensationalistic stories, and eye-catching cartoons and suggestive illustrations hilarious.  I noted that the tabloids invented mean nicknames for celebrities, such as “Jacko” for Gary’s Michael Jackson.  A big fan of podcasts, Sean liked one (The Bowery Boys, I think) that covered the 1899 New York City newsboys strike against Joseph Pulitzer’s New York Worldand William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal.  We got to talking about comedians, and Jackie Okomski’s boyfriend Matt mentioned Rodney Dangerfield.  I brought up the Catskills borscht circuit where Jewish stand-up comics honed material at summer resorts.  He was unfamiliar with the term, so I explained that borscht was soup favored by Jewish patrons.   Joe Robinson, in from Seattle, clarified that it was Russian soup, which a former neighbor often made and was delicious. Many Russian Jews settled in New York City and, if successful, vacationed at Catskill resorts where Jews were welcome.  Before leaving, Sean gave me his email address, and we promised to keep in touch.

 Allison Schuette

first school in Gary

Ron Cohen will talk to Steve McShane’s Senior College students about the Gary schools first Superintendent William A. Wirt, whose work-study-play system became world famous.  VU professor Allison Schuette composed the following poem after observing a photo in Ron and my Gary pictorial history of students and teacher Ora Wildermuth at Gary’s first school:

A one room, one-story frame building with a gable roof, 

    unfinished on the first day of school. 

Mr. Ora L. Wildermuth rose to the occasion, 

  taking a stand on the stump in front of the schoolhouse, 

  ringing the children to school with a bell supplied by the board. 

A box of tablets of writing paper awaited them, 

  but no seats, no benches. The doors and windows went in that day. 

Who is the bully and who the mean girl? Who the teacher’s pet? 

Who is hungry and who has been well fed? 

Who will fall prey to lice and not give a damn? 

Who will fall prey to lice and burn with shame? 

Who will pay attention and fall in love with reading? 

Who will stare out of windows and dream of running? 

Who suffers abuse at the hands of a mother or father? 

Who knows genuine love? Who will grow up to be an addict? 

Who will call a union strike? Who will give birth to a civil rights leader? 

Who will lead from behind? Who will escape the Midwestern work ethic? 

Who will reject family norms and love whom they will love? 

Who will remember the day this photo was taken 

    and resent the morning of when 

    his mother forced him into his Sunday clothes and pressed his sister’s hair 

    and reminded him that he was setting an example 

    and more was expected of him? 

Who will cross his arms over his chest, tuck his chin

    in an effort to fold himself up like a letter into an envelope 

    that could arrive anywhere else but here, and pout?

 abandoned Lew Wallace H.S.

I grieve for young Black kids from Gary denied the opportunity to attend good public schools like those built under William A. Wirt’s auspices.  Gone is any trace of Froebel, the immigrant school.  Closed in the past 15 years: Horace Mann, Lew Wallace, and Wirt/Emerson. On its last legs: Roosevelt, once the pride of Gary.  Due to enduring boiler problems, its remaining students will start classes at the Gary Career Center.

Hold Your Head Up

“And if they stare
Just let them burn their eyes on you moving
And if they shout
Don't let them change a thing what you're doing”

“Hold Your Head Up,” Argent

 Jake Lacy as Nick in I'm Dying Up Here

Argent, a British rock group formed by Zombies keyboardist Rod Argent, recorded “Hold Your Head Up” in 1972 with Russ Ballard on vocals. “Hold Your Head Up” was subsequently covered by Steppenwolf, Uriah Heep, Phish, and many others. Over the long weekend I watched the second season finale of the Showtime series I’m Dying Up Here, set in the Seventies.  Young comedian Nick (Jake Lacy) is guest host on a radio talk show.  We see him opening up about an uncle molesting him when he was seven but then realize the program hasn’t begun.  When it does, Nick introduces Argent’s “Hold Your head Up.”

 Alissa selfie in Granger IN

Jimbo and Grace 

Blanche Trojecka at Mt. Baldy

Twenty members of the Lane and Okomski clans gathered in the South Bend suburb of Granger. Toni’s sister Marianne had flown in to stay with teenagers Grace and Oliver Teuscher while parents Lisa and Fritz celebrated their twentieth wedding anniversary with a hiking trip in the Canadian Rockies.  Toni brought Golumpkis, Angie tuna salad, and Beth two blueberry pies.  With fritz’s assistance, nephew Tom Dietz grilled burgers and hot dogs and fixed bacon, eggs, and toast for breakfast.

Such occasions always include story-telling, especially since Marianne’s daughters Charlene and Michelle were present with husbands JQ and Tom. I talked about past visits by Toni’s mother Blanche to our home near the dunes.  Blanche was so impressed with Mount Baldy (a sand dune no longer open to visitors), she made sure we returned whenever other family members visited.  Her reaction to Saugatuck, Michigan, was similar, and we took her back several times, with various grandchildren in tow. A strong, feisty woman, she gave birth to seven children and flew for the first time to see Phil and Dave in the IUN musical Finian’s Rainbow,directed by Garrett Cope   She was only in her sixties then– much younger than I am now.  At a kid’s birthday party, Toni organized a scavenger hunt, and I partnered with Blanche.  Toni nabbed us trying to sneak off early (her idea); then when we’d found everything on our list and she noticed Dean and Ann Bottorff heading home from a different direction, she grabbed my hand and started up our steep hill and driveway at such a fast pace I could hardly keep up. She loved bingo, and I’d take her to a game in Portage where she’d play 8 boards simultaneously.

above, Shelly Fitzgerald; below, Elijah Mahan with rainbow banner

We played a couple Texas Hold ’em tournaments with grandson Anthony and nephews Oliver Teuscher and Nickolas Dietz impressively holding their own.  Nick’s sister Sophia enlightened us about a controversy at her Catholic high school in Indianapolis, Roncalli.  Lesbian Shelly Fitzgerald, a popular 15-year veteran guidance counselor, was placed on administrative leave after some idiot complained to the archdiocese that she had married a woman.  This technically violated a contract mandating obedience to the church teachings, including that marriage was between a man and a woman.  Students protestors have been wearing rainbow attire; teachers have rallied on Fitzgerald’s behalf, and the principal has been supportive but claims his hands are tied.  The shabby treatment of Fitzgerald has become national news. Sophia, sympathetic toward Fitzgerald, rues the disruptions and incessant media coverage.

On Labor Day the Wades invited us over for burgers and brats on the grill.  Darcey made her famous potato salad (enough for me to take home, share with Angie and Becca, and still have plenty for lunch all week). We ended the pleasant evening with Wits and Wagers.  Tom edged me out by a single chip after I guessed that 51 million households tuned in to the final episode of M*A*S*H*.The answer was 50.9.  I had exceeded the correct amount, so the winning bet was 44 million. Thirty-five years ago, we were among the households that tuned in.

above, M*A*S*H* final scene; below, John Updike

John Updike’s “Rabbit Remembered” takes place in Brewer, Pennsylvania, reminiscent of my hometown of Easton, in 1999, a decade after Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom’s heart gave out at age 56 after winning a one-on-one basketball contest.  Masterful at setting a scene, Updike is a joy to social historians. One constant theme is change over time, in most cases declension. The high point of Rabbit’s life, for instance, was his senior year of high school.  The novella opens with daughter Annabelle, conceived by a woman other than Harry’s wife, ringing the doorbell of widow Janice, 63, now remarried to Rabbit’s onetime nemesis Ronnie but living in the house where she grew up: “Decades of rust have all but destroyed its voice, the thing will die entirely someday, the clapper freezing or the wires shorting out or whatever they do.”  Somewhat deaf, Janice often doesn’t hear the faint ring if in the kitchen, and a twinge in one hip slows her progress as she walks through the dining room “whose shades are drawn to keep the oriental rug from fading and the polished mahogany table from drying out.”  In the front room an unused Zenith TV holds her dead mother’s dusty knickknacks.  Janice puts her hand on an old-fashioned doorknob “with a raised design worn shiny with the years, like brass lace” and opens a “heavy walnut door with its tall sidelights of frosted glass in floral arabesques that has been swollen and sticking all summer with a humidity that never produced rain.”  Janice takes calcium pills to fend off osteoporosis but, compared to her friends, is quite fit.  Outside she notices a mail van, white with red and blue stripes, not solid green like previous ones that resembled military vehicles, and nearby “a young woman with long sun-bleached hair and stocky tan legs in shorts who pushes her pouch on a 3-wheeled cart.”

At West Brewer Diner (open 24 hours a day), where she and Rabbit came after dances, Janice imagines the future of her waitress, a dark-complected Greek or Italian beauty – marriage, pregnancies, heavy meals, lost looks – reducing her blazing exquisiteness to a small, resentful spark, wondering “where it all went.” The jukebox plays “Crazy” but by a young diva, not Patsy Cline, who died young in a plane crash, like JFK, Jr.  Driving home from a four-deal party bridge game known as Chicago, where she misplayed several hands (underbidding a sure game and getting set in 3 No-Trump because she prematurely cashed her Diamond stopper), Janice ruminates over Annabelle’s unexpected intrusion into her settled life.  She passes an empty building that once housed  an upscale department store and an asphalt parking lot where ornate movie palaces had offered escape and excitement.  On the car radio came news that a man in Camden shot his estranged wife, three small children, and, cornered by police, himself. Updike wrote:

 For months there have been mass murders on television, the schoolchildren in Colorado and then the man beheading women in Yosemite Park and the man in Georgia who had lost a hundred thousand dollars at day trading on the Internet and blamed everybody but himself.  He left a long pious note asking God to take his dear wife and little ones whereas the teen-age killers in Colorado mocked and killed the girl who said she believed in God.  Either way, you killed them dead, sending them straight to heaven, or to nowhere, to an emptiness like that big orange hole in the middle of Brewer.

September’s Bridge Bulletin announced that the winter national tournament venue will be the Hilton Hawaiian Village along Waikiki beach in Honolulu.  As newlyweds in 1965, Toni and I spent our first days in Hawaii in the penthouse suite of a luxury hotel reserved by my rich aunt.  After two days, I inquired how many nights she had paid for; none, was the answer.  We promptly checked out but not before parting with a giant chunk of our savings. Rooms at the Hilton start at $195 a night, about what we paid In 2006 when Toni, Miranda, and I spent several days there on the way back from Australia, I was pleasantly surprised at the price.  We toured the barely recognizable University of Hawaii, where I received an M.A., and passed by our apartment on Poki Street (we named our first cat Poki) as well as nearby Punahou School (Barack Obama’s alma mater), where I played wiffleball with neighbor Rick Simpson.

 Don and Pat Valiska 

Barb Walczak is encouraging bridge veterans to describe vacation highlights for the Newsletter.  Don and Pat Valiska toured Ireland.  Don wrote: “As a former history teacher, I could not get enough of the Celtic and Christian ruins, folklore and music – something new at every stop.  The Cliffs of Moher were breathtaking, and I did survive kissing the Blarney stone at the castle - probably why I needed the tours of the Guiness Storehouse and the Irish Whiskey distilleries.  The last night we stayed at the Cabra Castle, where we celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary.”  

Bridge opponent Marcy Tomes asked when Eugene Swartz was Mayor of Gary.  After thinking a moment, I answered, “Between 1948 and 1952.”  She knew his daughter, who recently passed away.  Terry Bauer’s grandchildren played soccer atop a building in the Kowloon City district of Hong Kong.  In school they have an hour of Chinese a day with the emphasis on verbal communication and are teaching their parents, there for three years, certain phrases.

Impressions

“People, get ready
There's a train a-coming
You don't need no ticket
You just get on board”

         “People Get Ready,” Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions

The Impressions’ recorded the classic “For Your Precious Love” on Vee-Jay Records with Jerry Butler heading the group.  After Butler left the Impressions to embark on a solo career, Curtis Mayfield wrote and sang lead vocals on subsequent hits, including “Gypsy Woman” and “It’s All Right.”  The gospel-influenced “People Get Ready” came out in 1965 and quickly became an anthem of the civil rights movement.

 Meek Mill with Joel Embiid

Fresh from prison, rapper Meek Mill attended a Philadelphia 76ers playoff victory over the Miami Heat to the cheers of the crowd and Sixers players.  At age 18 Meek Mill, born Robert Rihmeek Williams, was arrested for illegal possession of a firearm and, although beaten by police, was charged with assaulting the officers. Two years later, he was apprehended on charges of dealing drugs, although one of the arresting officers apparently lied under oath in this and other cases.  In November 2017, the Philadelphia rapper was sentenced to 2 to 4 years for parole violation, which civil rights activists charged was excessive and an example of the judicial system discriminating against minorities. Black ministers criticized Meek Mill’s hit “Amen” as profane and urged parishioners to boycott it.  One of the few lines devoid of sexual references goes:

I’m on probation, when they test me I just pee Rosé 
Cause last night, I went hard, Peach Ciroc, Patron and all

Prior to Julius Erving (“Dr. J.”) becoming my favorite basketball player, I became a huge fan of an Upper Dublin center named Meekins.  Eddie Piszek and I buddied up to him on the school bus and became his unofficial fan club. Eddie’s father founded Mrs. Paul’s Frozen Seafood, and before we could drive, his chauffeur would take us to away games, where we cheered wildly Big Meek's on-court heroics.  

At Temple Israel in Miller, the League of Women Voters sponsored a debate between Ragen Hatcher and Jessica Renslow, each bidding to succeed longtime Third District State Representative Charlie Brown. Beforehand, State Rep. Linda Lawson, a former student who, lamentably, is also retiring, greeted me with a hug.  I gave free copies of my latest Steel Shavingsto old friend Omar Farag and Communication professor Eve Bottando, who used hers to prop up a sign on stage between the two seated candidates. Afterwards, Ragen told me that seeing her father on the cover inspired her.

Both Ragen and Jessica are progressives in their thirties who agree on most issues and performed admirably.  Ragen spoke mainly about her service on the Gary City Council and opposition to state legislation that discriminates against African American school children, voters, and prisoners.  Jessica, a Miller community activist for Neighborhood Spotlight, made references to  Lake Station and Hobart, part of the Third District.  With TV cameras on hand, the debate started promptly at six and ended exactly an hour later. While I don’t live in the Third District, I believe that, of the two, Ragen would have more clout downstate. 

The Carsons and Wills returned from an African trip and at bridge talked about touring Capetown, observing Victoria Falls, and going on safaris that took them into Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia.  They flew in and out of Durbin, where I stayed for two days 16 years ago before attending an oral history conference in Pietermaritzburg. Sally Will noted that one British guide seemed to regret the consequences of de-colonialism and had a patronizing attitude toward African self-rule.

I was disappointed to find no history sessions scheduled for the annual Student Research Conference, but one titled “Writing in the Region” included a paper by Arts and Sciences administrative assistant Mary Hackett on impressions of Northwest Indiana upon moving from Chicago.  She mentioned deaths from traffic accidents, Lake Michigan drownings, drug overdoses, and gangland gun battles, and domestic tragedies.  She contrast that with environmental splendors of the dunes and remnants of prairies.  She concluded by referencing to depopulated urban areas, victims of de-industrialization and automation.

Fine Arts professor Lauren DeLand moderated a session on contemporary art.  Kimberly Variot focused on Robert Smithson, who created Spiral Jettywithin Utah’s Great Salt Lake and Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Surrounded Islandsin Biscayne Bay near Miami, with the land encircled with floating pink woven polypropylene fabric.  More controversial was Xakilah Daniel’s “Racial Fetishism: The Studies of Kara Walker and Robert Mapplethorpe.”  Daniel claimed that both objectified black people, Walker with cutouts of black female slaves with exaggerated features and Mapplethorpe with explicit photographs of male nudes.  When a shot of an erect penis appeared on screen I avoided looking to where Chancellor Lowe, gallery director Ann Friitz, and Fine Arts secretary Sherry Sweeney were seated.  Daniel contributed to the Gary Poetry Project “Made in Gary” city poem coordinated by Samuel Love and Corey Hagelberg.

 above, Robert Mapplethorpe nude; below, Kara Walker at work

Keynote speaker Victoria Wittig, project coordinator for Save the Dunes, urged everyone to start a garden with plants native to the area, especially those that attract butterflies and bees.  Both species having suffered dramatic population loss due to pesticides, the draining of wetlands, and other environmental disasters. Karner Blue butterflies, for instance, feed only on wild lupine leaves.  Global warming and harmful chemicals have led to the destruction of milkweed plants, the lone food for Monarch caterpillars. 

above, Karner Blue butterfly; below, Victoria Witting

This from Jim Spicer:

  A certain private school was faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. Afterwards, they’d press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints. Every night, the maintenance man would remove them, and the next day they’d be back. Finally the principal decided to call all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian. To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required. He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it.  Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

Getting ready for an upcoming Finland trip, I read about the bloody 1918 civil war between the Reds and the Whites in the wake of Finnish independence.  The former were allied with Russian Bolsheviks and pro-worker while the triumphant Whites included German sympathizers and wealthy capitalists opposed to social change, who slaughtered thousands and allowed many others to starve in concentration camps. Historian Tuomas Tepora wrote: 

The victors called the Finnish Civil War the "War of Liberation," denoting freedom from Russia and the Bolsheviks. The victors claimed their opponents had been under Bolshevik influence and overemphasized the role of Russians in the conflict. These divisions started to dissipate in the late 1930s but were not overcome until the Second World War. The true scale of the White terror was not acknowledged until the 1960s.

For four months during the winter of 1939-1940, “Brave Little Finland” resisted a Soviet invasion and inspired British leader Winston Churchill to declare on January 20, 1940: “Only Finland, superb, nay sublime in the jaws of peril, Finland shows what free men can do.”  A year later, however, in an effort to regain lost territory, Finland fell within the German orbit, became, in the eyes of many, “Hitler’s handmaiden,” and suffered the consequences at war’s end.  Even so, Finland retained its independence at a period when its Baltic neighbors got swallowed up by the Soviet Union.

In My Childhood,  Toivo Pekkanen (1902-1957), a Finnish stoneworker’s son, recounted a traumatic childhood memory of being stuffed inside an empty coffin by kids staging a mock funeral service. He screamed so loud, someone opened the lid and he ran sobbing into his mother’s arms.

above, Grace Teuscher; below, Lisa (left) with driver and Andrea

At Chesterton H.S. I watched Grace Teuscher and a sterling Penn band performance at a state qualifying event.  Grace, playing French horn, had recently returned from Germany while her mom, my niece Lisa, spent several weeks on safari in Africa.  I arrived during a performance by the Concord Community Band and was told not to enter the auditorium until they finished.  One woman claimed she was only going to peer through the glass on the door and then tried to sneak in but was nabbed before she could get far.  The Penn band performed Serenadeby Tchairkovsky, Jupiter: Bringer of Lightby Holst, and Finlandiaby Jean Sibelius, composed in 1899 as a covert protest against censorship by Russian imperial authorities. Critic David Dubal described Finlandiaas a tone poem whose rousing, turbulent music evokes the national spirit on Finns.  A serene melodic sequence exudes an impression of optimism in the Finnish national destiny.  The entire show was awesome. Near the end, Penn’s brass section rose from their seats and blasted away for a fitting finale.

Here are some of Ray Smock’s impressions of James Comey’s new book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership”:

     Comey, a prosecutor of major crime figures, described the president as projecting that same style that crime bosses do. Everything must be about them and for them. Crime bosses demand personal loyalty. The first thing Trump asked of Comey was that he be personally loyal to him. But as the title of Comey’s book suggests, a president must have a “higher loyalty” to the Constitution, to the rule of law, and to the American people. You cannot be loyal to the people of this nation if you lie to them day in and day out about things large and small.

   When I was growing up in Harvey, Illinois, an industrial suburb south of Chicago, I heard stories about the mobster Al Capone, who was still a folk hero to some people in the 1940s and 50s. Capone operated on the South Side, and in places close to where I grew up. Everyone knew Capone broke the law, that he was a crime boss, but if they weren’t personally hurt by his actions, they often liked the guy.  Capone ran booze during Prohibition. How could you fault that? I heard stories about how kind Capone could be to the down-and-out poor during the Depression. He started a soup kitchen to feed the needy. He gave out turkeys at Thanksgiving. I had an uncle who borrowed money from the mob on the South Side and lived to tell about it. People said, if you stayed out of Capone’s business he wouldn’t hurt you. 

   I have nagging thoughts that some Americans have already made Trump into a mobster-like folk hero. He is an anti-government guy who talks and thinks the way a lot of Americans do. Some Americans admire the way Trump bullies the government. They like his swagger. They like his gaudy displays of wealth. They liked the image of Trump from the “The Apprentice,” a most unreal reality show. Some Americans like (unfortunately) that Trump is not afraid to say African countries are shit-holes. People will overlook a lot of faults if you give them a turkey at Thanksgiving or a small tax cut at Christmas time.

Composure

 “The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.” Aristotle

William K. Buckley wrote “Composure” after visiting West Beach within the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.  It was in “Collecting Life,” published by Taos Press in 2011:

I walk the dunes of Lake Michigan and collect

                          smooth stones

            gull feathers   and bird bones

sometimes

                                      driftwood

              if the shape metaphorical

                                      or beach glass

              if the color passionate

as if natural debris

could give                     a soul

                                      room

as if collection

could deliver

                                      composure

I bend down

on this beach

                                      and break

to pick up pieces of the Earth

in their explanation

                                      for the sanity of death

Bones   Glass   Stones   Feathers

Collecting is taking

back

                          those thefts we have made

                                      from others

today I shove in my pockets

              returned letters   stone given to me

they expose

                          my wish

                          for composure

              before the undertow

My new computer finally arrived.  Affable Salman Iqbal, who installed it, will graduate at summer’s end.  He started out a Chemistry major but has switched his emphasis to computer information systems to become more employable.  Walking across campus, I ran into Peter Aglinskas, who will be teaching a Fall course on Music for Film, which I intend to audit. It might be a good idea to cross-list it with the Liberal Studies MA program.

Nephew Beamer Pickert, wife Kim and five year-old Nick arrived for a long weekend in time for a fondue and lobster feast Toni prepared for Dave’s birthday.  They had planned to spend a night at a motel but made the journey from Emmitsburg, Maryland, in one day.  Dave’s family postponed a trip to Great America because the temperature was in the mid- 90s.  I taught Beamer Lost Cities, and he came within 3 points of beating me.

Friday at West Beach was the first time Nick had been to one of the Great Lakes.  He mingled well with other kids playing in the sand and along the shore and collected a bucket full of smooth glass and rocks.  Like Phil and Dave many years before, he enjoyed running toward seagulls and watching them take off at the last moment.  For a late lunch we stopped at Depot Dog for Chicago-style hot dogs. The owner keeps the surrounding area meticulous.  I complimented the normally gruff guy, who was manning the cash register.  He beamed and said, “Thanks, I appreciate that.”

 Hagelbergs and McGuans with Mitch Markovitz

At Lake Street Gallery Dick Hagelberg and George McGuan had an unveiling of a South Shore poster they had commissioned from Mitch Markovitz for their Miller-based playground company.  Nick, who is quite affectionate, embraced Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson and hugged Judy Ayers a half-dozen times.  In the most recent Ayers Realtors Newsletter Judy wrote about a road trip to Nashville, where it was “hotter than a pepper sprout” (a lyric from a Johnny Cash/June Carter Cash song). Judy wrote: “There must have been a dozen places to buy cowboy boots and therefore boots outnumbered flip flops even in the 99-degree heat. Every once in a while I personally noticed young ladies wearing boots and very short and strapless dresses that made me wonder if one of them could have been whom Tobey Keith refers to in his song about a girl who was a preacher’s daughter and had been baptized in dirty water.”

A First Friday block party was taking place up and down Lake Street.  Eve Bottando was playing the accordion and singing “Hotel California” as we passed the Nelson Algren Alley on the way to Miller Bakery Café.  I introduced John Laue, in from California for the month, to Mayor Freeman-Wilson.  A street person who had gone to school with Karen had attached himself to her, but she handled it with aplomb.  The Bakery Café was hopping, and we exchanged greetings with Jim and Elaine Spicer and Bob and Henry Farag.  I ordered my usual, steak salad, and a pale ale from 18th Street Brewery, now located sadly in Hammond rather than Gary.

 Grace Teuscher selfie with Jimbo and Beamer

Saturday we drove to Evil Czech microbrewery in South Bend for yet another Dave birthday celebration.  The buffet lunch included small helpings of a variety of foods, and one could go through the line multiple times, as we all did.  Dave had discovered the place during a teen bowling tournament.  Our party of 20 included the Horn and English families whose sons Kaiden and Andrew bowl with James as well as niece Lisa Teuscher and her daughter Grace, who was eager to meet Beamer's family.  In marching band, Grace has been practicing 5-6 hours a day, including outside about half that time no matter how hot and humid it is.  Their fall program features numbers by Peter Gabriel, guaranteed to impress middle-age judges.  Mature beyond her years, Grace interacted with kids and adults alike and after I inquired about her life, asked me what I was doing.  Impressive.

Alissa and Beth arrived to make preparations for Beth’s dad’s 80th birthday party the following day. Dave’s family was on hand for a pork roll dinner, and we got in Acquire (Beamer’s second time playing) and Tsuro, an intriguing tile game of Beamer's that takes just 15 minutes to play.  Sunday morning I made potato latkes, scrambled eggs and Polish kielbasa for Beth, Alissa, and the Pickerts before they all took off.

above, Sean Manaea; below, Blake Pierogi in middle

The Cubbies won their seventh straight.  Oakland's starting pitcher, Sean Manaea, grew up in Wanatah and pitched on Andrean’s 2010 state championship team.  Many Cub fans in the Oakland Coliseum were standing as closer Aroldis Chapman struck out the final batter with a 104-mph heater.  In Rio Chesterton’s Blake Pieroni won an Olympic gold for being part of the 400-meter freestyle relay team.  He swam in the preliminary round, but Michael Phelps took his place in the final.

In “My Cold War” (2003) by Tom Piazza a professor who teaches the Cold War from a deconstructionist perspective has a mid-life crisis.  He says:

History, I thought, was what saved you from extinction.  It conferred meaning from outside.  It had been my escape.  But obviously history was equally capable of extinguishing the individual – that, in fact, seemed in many ways to be its true job.

Looking back on the death of his father, he ruminates: “There it all goes, up the chimney.  One more life gone – the memories of World War II dance music, the Depression, Queens, Brooklyn, the early days of radio, whatever private sex experiences he’d had . . . all gone.”  He compared aging to “heading downriver toward the great Waterfall, the roar growing louder in the distance, leaving nothing behind on the shore.”   He called Bob Dylan singing “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more” with a rock band at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival an iconic moment when Dylan declared his independence from the “Old Left.”  In Delano’s view only the surfaces of history were real: “the understructure is what is provisional and gets blown away with the wind.  The surface is what endures and is where we must look for meaning.”

Post-Trib columnist Nancy Coltun Webster quoted (and photographed) former judge Richard Maroc in an article about pioneer Region resident Joseph Bailly, who arrived in Porter County around 1822.  Maroc’s grandparents, like fur trader Bailly, were from Canada.  Maroc told Webster, “Fur trading then was like the oil business today.”  A fellow history book club member, Maroc once reported on a fictional account of Joseph and Marie Bailly, “Wolves Against the Moon,” which, he told Webster, got him started researching the Bailly family.

NWI Times columnist Marc Chase chastised Democratic Senatorial candidate Evan Bayh for acknowledging former eight-term East Chicago mayor Robert Pastrick at a campaign rally in Hammond.  WTF?  To have done anything less would have been rude and just plain stupid. Pastrick held office for 33 years, but his reputation was tarnished by the so-called “sidewalks-for-votes” scheme whereby the city spent about $24 million in public money on driveways and sidewalks, supposedly to win over voters prior to the 1999 primary.  Pastrick never was charged with a crime but forced to declare bankruptcy after a partisan civil suit brought by Republican Attorney-General Greg Moeller on some bogus racketeering charges.  I’d like to see Marc Chase do a similar piece on Republican candidate Todd Young's supporters; some, I’m sure, are more nefarious than Pastrick, a decent man and master at winning the loyalty of blacks and Latinos as well as white ethnic East Chicagoans.  When the widow of a good friend hoped to succeed her husband in office, Pastrick reluctantly supported a Latino candidate to satisfy that significant constituency.

I met George Van Til for lunch at Beach Café.  He gave me a photo that an inmate took of us when I visited him in Terre Haute.  He hopes to do some political consulting, something he’d be great at.  We talked about politicians he has known, including “Hollywood Bob” Pastrick.  Nobody could work a table or deliver a eulogy like Pastrick, he declared.  I countered by mentioning former Gary mayor George Chacharis, who had a legendary memory for names.  I once saw “ChaCha” go from table to table at Jackson’s Steakhouse in Miller, seemingly knowing everyone in the room, including me, who had interviewed him for “City of the Century.”  The last time Van Til had been to Beach Café was at a luncheon Richard Hatcher had arranged with black officeholders who owed him a debt of thanks. Despite a bad heart, balance problems, and high blood pressure, Van Til survived prison by keeping his composure despite inane regulations and humiliations at the hands of guards programmed to disrespect inmates. The day of his release, wife Patti picked him up with Van Til’s dog, who went wild with joy in the parking lot.

Bob Satkoski (with Alissa) hams it up at 80th birthday party