Imagine

“Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace, you

 

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one”

    John Lennon, “Imagine”

 

Dave performed “Imagine” on piano and dedicated it to Toni. As a kid, he’d play our piano in the basement rec room to relax, learning by trial and error.  A recent rightwing Facebook post called the song “Marxist” - can you imagine?  If it is a pipedream to imagine a world without war, government and religion, it is certainly not to be treated as dangerous enemy propaganda, only the wise words of a musical shaman too fragile for this world.

 

I had a relatively busy day compared to most during this pandemic.  Mike and Janet Bayer spent the night after visiting son Brenden and is family.  After breakfast I donned a face mask and got my toenails clipped at nearby Aqua Spa, first time in months.  They checked my temperature, squirted sanitizer onto my hands, and took me to a station that had a barrier between me and the young woman servicing me.  In the afternoon Dave and Angie stopped over, and in the evening I played Space Base via Zoom with Tom, Jef, Dave, Evan and Patti. With a scoop of ice cream I watched the news about Covid-19 spreading rapidly in Red states that re-opened precipitously and Trump denying he knew about Russian payoffs to Taliban terrorists who killed American soldiers. Also: Trump railed against Chief Justice John Roberts for striking down a Louisiana anti-abortion statute.

 

Suzanna Murphy wrote about living in a secure environment while her dad would soon be risking his life in the Korean War not long after surviving harrowing experiences in the Far East during World War II:

    The year was 1949. I was a few months past four. My mother and I had recently moved in with my grandparents in Wyncote, Pennsylvania in a beautiful old Victorian home.  We had been living in Lancaster before in an Amish home. My father had been sent overseas again and was soon to go to Korea for a very long time. I have vivid memories of my time at Grama and Grampa's home. One crisp morning, Grama was fixing oatmeal for breakfast and cooking cinnamon toast in the oven. WOR, from New York, was blaring on the small wooden radio on the kitchen cupboard. Their theme song was cheerfully playing: "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile." I went down in the basement with Grampa to watch him stoke the furnace with coal. I heard a new voice in the kitchen and came up to find the milk man visiting with Grama and my mother. The milk was in glass bottles of course. I helped Grama feed the birds out the window. After breakfast I went down in the basement with her and helped her with the wringer washer and then went outside to hang the clothes on the line.  She said I could watch her sew a dress for me on the treadle sewing machine too. I had been sick a few days and was home from school. Grampa was going to Beaver College to teach, as usual. Later he would work on his sermon for the church where he was pastor. I would help Grama in the garden and then go for a walk with my mother down to Station Park. Those were the morning plans I was told. One thing I always knew. It would be peaceful and quiet and orderly and I would be safe and loved.

 

Suzanna was my first serious girlfriend. We met at an end-of-the-school-year party soon after I graduated from Upper Dublin and she from tenth grade.  I drove her home and received a kiss as my reward. We went together until I left for college. That summer I caught a terrible case of poison ivy on my arms working on an estate right around the time I was ready to put some serious moves on her.  Her dad was home all the time dealing with post-traumatic stress syndrome but I don’t recall ever meeting him. At a state fair with Suzanna and her mom, I saw Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong perform.  Now platonic Facebook friends despite and her being a Mennonite and our political differences due to her anti-abortion beliefs, Suzannah prays for me and tolerates my caustic comments to her most outlandish political posts.  To one conspiracy theory labeled “scary shit,” I replied, “Shit all right – bullshit.”  She chastised my vulgarity until I pointed out that I was using the same word as the caption.

 

Classmate Connie Heard Damon, who volunteers each year at a health clinic in Africa, posted this notice:

    While walking my dog at Trewelyn Park recently, I lost my key fob and was unable to get back in my car to drive home. Despite retracing my steps, I was unable to see the black fob in the advancing darkness. Several people stopped to ask if I needed help. One man even offered to drive me home to get my reserve fob. While I was waiting for my sister to come "save" me, a female runner stopped to ask if I needed help. She quickly offered, despite my protestations, to look for me and headed back through the woods.

    The next morning at daybreak I returned to the trail and started looking again- to no avail. When I got back to my car, there was a note on the windshield: I FOUND YOUR KEY. There next to the note was my key fob which I never thought I'd see again. I was in tears. No one was around.

    I wish I knew who found it so that I could express my gratitude. In these days when we seem to hear of so much negativity, what a joy it is to know there are generous, kind people who are willing to help a stranger. So, whoever you are, I hope you read this.  Thank you, and God bless you!!!

 

Nic

Gabriel

Ezkiel

Several Kenyans who appreciate Connie’s work were among the many commenters.  Gabriel Wafula responded: “What a good testimony.  When you plant goodness you will reap goodness.  You have been good to people who were strangers.  You have touched lives in Kenya.  The water borehole in Living Hope High school is serving a whole community. Don’t be surprised, a lot of good things are coming to you.  You shall flourish!” Nic Simiyo wrote, “Wonderful testimony, mum; good work rewards.” Ezkiel Shimbira added: “You always help many, you’re reaping what you plant.”

Valparaiso University curator and artist Gregg Hertlieb’s drawing elicited this comment from Sandy Appleby: “For sure . . . Covid the dreadful in the Southern swamps looking for those who believe they are invulnerable.”  I first met Sandy Appleby when she worked for Tri-City Mental Health Center in East Chicago and asked me to be an oral history consultant on a grant funded project dealing with Aging.  That led to similar collaborations on projects dealing with ethnicity, Alzheimers caregivers, and laid off steelworkers. Along with her colleague Olga Velazquez, who later became mayor of Portage, we took part in several scholarly conferences.  I hadn’t heard from Sandy in years. She introduced me to matriarch Maria Arredondo family, which led to the publication of “Maria’s Journey.”

Sandy and friend

Let America Be America Again

 "O, let America be America again –
The land that never has been yet –
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME”–

    Langston Hughes (below)

 

I had this email interchange with East Chicago graduate Denzel Smith (above), whom son Dave mentored:

     Denzel: They made me stand up every morning and pledge my allegiance to a flag that is rooted in the OPPRESION, MARGINALIZATION, DISCRIMINATION, and HATRED of my people. That’s crazy!!!

    Jim: Our country's roots, certainly flawed, as you point out, also includes valuable guarantees of liberties, fragile as they given our political situation. Please give "the system" another chance in November.

    Denzel: Jimbo, you will always be one human being that I love and respect and because of that, I have to be honest and say, I don’t think we have it in us to give it another chance. I could be wrong but I believe we need to go back to the drawing board and figure out a system that works for all people, not just some. Let’s build a new table of brotherhood.

    Jim: OK but make sure to vote and stay safe, we want to keep your voice and passion around for a long time

   Denzel : Thank you and I hope to see you guys when I come home next month. Be safe.

    Jim: For sure. My political hero Richard Hatcher's greatest legacy was to continue to work within the political system in the late-1960s, when most black power advocates had given up on it. Hatcher's 1972 National Black Political Convention inspired young African Americans, including Barack Obama; in his seventies Hatcher tirelessly campaigned for Obama prior to the crucial 1908 Iowa primary. Hatcher's father Carleton escaped from a Georgia overseer and didn't learn to read or write until old age. Several of his offspring died as a result of the hovel they were forced to live in during the Great Depression. Carleton, understanding the importance of education, made sure others had the opportunity to attend college. Denzel, you can be a future mayor of East Chicago or anything else you set your mind to. Teacher? preacher? I see both of those traits in you. As Maryland History professor Sam Merrill told me during the 1967 March on the Pentagon, stay safe, you can be a much more important force for good as a teacher than as one of thousands in a crowd. But he was marching beside me, realizing the need to be there.

Denzel: Thank you and I hope to see you guys when I come home next month. Be safe.

Visclosky, Millsap, Mrvan

Toni and I were surprised and delighted to learn that Frank Mrvan upset Hammond mayor Tom McDermott to gain the Democratic nomination to succeed First District Congressman Peter Visclosky.  Though outspent four to one and overcoming numerous “spoiler” candidates, Mrvan received approximately 26,000 votes to former Republican McDermott’s 22,000. None of the other 11 candidates garnered as many as 8,000.  Mrvan credited endorsements by Visclosky and the United Steelworkers as key factors, as well as hard work by hundreds of volunteers, including former lake County sheriff Roy Dominguez, whose opinion helped sway us.  Let’s hope this bodes well for November and a resounding repudiation of Trump.

 

Gregg Hertzlieb referenced John Mellencamp’s “Scarecrow” album and the song “Minutes to Memories” that opens with these lyrics:

On a Greyhound thirty miles beyond Jamestown
He saw the sun set on the Tennessee line
          He looked at the young man who was riding beside him
He said I'm old kind of worn out inside

I worked my whole life in the steel mills of Gary
And my father before me I helped build this land
Now I'm seventy-seven and with God as my witness
I earned every dollar that passed through my hands
My family and friends are the best thing I've known
Through the eye of the needle I'll carry them home

Assisted Living

 “Old age is like climbing a mountain.  The higher you get, the more tired and breathless you become, but your view becomes more extensive. “Ingmar Bergman

 

Sixty years ago, if there were assisted living facilities for active seniors, I was unaware of them.  What I knew about were nursing homes for old people in need of professional care.  Both my grandmothers died before I was born, but great-aunt Ida lived with us until she suffered a stroke and my mother could no longer care for her, so she spent the rest of her days in a Lutheran nursing home in a room with numerous beds and chairs next to them for visitors or those patients able to sit in them. Very, very depressing.  After Grandpa Elwood had terminal cancer, he had a room in a former motel in Ambler near our home. I recall being with him after my dad (Vic) died at age 50 and Elwood saying that he wished it had been him.

 

After Midge remarried, she and Howard, eight years her senior, moved to an over-55 community in Florida. After Howard survived a brush with a serious illness, they moved into an assisted community that had a variety of options ranging from villas to apartments to suites to wards for the very ill. Still in her early 70s, Midge initially resented the cords on the walls that one could pull if suddenly disabled. They lived in a villa until Howard passed away at age 99.  A year or so later, Midge moved to an assisted living facility in Rancho Mirage, California. Because Howard had left her financially well off, she could afford a very nice place, with a hair salon, afternoon Happy Hour, Friday entertainment, and good meals.  I’d joke that by the time Baby Boomers reached old age, retirement communities would be swinging places, as they have indeed become if you can afford them.

 

During the current pandemic, some facilities for the elderly have become dangerous places where the disease has spread rapidly, often inflicting a death sentence on those with pre-existing health problems.  Seniors on cruise ships have found themselves adrift at sea as ports are reluctant to have them disembark.  Other facilities as yet unaffected are observing measures akin to quarantining to keep them safe. The daughter of a close friend in one such place posted a photo of her talking by phone to her mother outside her window. How sad for those with symptoms to be unable to have loved ones with them.

 

Other cultures have more respect than ours for the wisdom of the elderly, whose view of history has been broadened by experience. Those few folks left who lived through the Great Depression and World War II have lessons we could learn from if we tuned them in. As Andy Rooney once said, “The best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.”

 

Facebook posts can be comforting in times like these.  Examples I’ve enjoyed include things people have made (Kyle Telechan’s Italian bread, Anne Balay’s quilts), pets (Sam and Brenda Love’s cats, Cindy Bean’s dog), kids (belonging to Charles Halberstadt and Jerry Pierce), views near one’s home (Krista Donahue of the Delaware River, LeeLee Devenney of the Atlantic Ocean) and works of art (Liz Wuerrfel’s drawings, Gregg Hertzlieb’s paintings). Then, of course, there are the humorous sayings, political cartoons, and inspirational quotations, all easily passed over if not one’s liking.

  

Dunes Pageant

“Sandland in shadow or shining in the sun

What care you for the fame of men or what their wars have won?

For Duneland is dearest because no place is there

For echoes of the battlefield or scars its victims wear.

“Song o’ the Dunes,” George E. Bowen

 Frank V. Dudley, "Dunes Pageant," 1917

At VU’s Brauer Museum opening reception for “The Indiana Dunes Revisited: Frank V. Dudley and the 1917 Dunes Pageant,” classical guitarist Peter Aglinskas provided musical stylings, ranging from Bossa nova to doo-wop.  I ran into VU professor Liz Wuerrful and grad student Marla Gee, a friend from when we were in an IUN Sixties class together. Curator Gregg Hertzlieb gave me for the Archives a copy of a beautifully illustrated exhibition catalogue featuring a biographical essay by James R. Dabbert.  Born on a Wisconsin farm to deaf parents, Dudley and brother Clarence opened an art supply store and gallery in Chicago.  Clarence was a chief organizer of the Dunes Pageant.  Four years later, Frank built a Lake Michigan beachfront log cabin residence and studio with north windows and devoted the rest of his life to painting dunes scenes.  His art became part of an effort to preserve the dunes by establishing a national park, something that came about in 1967, ten years after his death at age 88.

Here’s how Thomas W. Stevens, who wrote the script for “The Dunes Under Four Flags: The Historical Pageant of the Dunes, 1917,” summarized the event:

On Memorial Day in 1917, Prairie Club members staged a massive festival on Waverly Beach in the Dunes in an effort to generate public support for a national park. Attracting an audience of more than 40,000 enthusiastic supporters from throughout the region, the pageant represented the pinnacle of early Dunes preservationists' optimism. In an amphitheater of sand, nearly a thousand actors portrayed Indians, European explorers and fur traders, U. S. soldiers, and city planners, while dancers performed the roles of waves, wind, nymphs, birds, and “tree hearts,” in a representation of “the march of civilization to and through the region.” The final scene, in which the developers of City West (a city founded in the 1830s to compete with Chicago) realize that their dream city is doomed to failure, concludes with a clear message on behalf of Dunes preservation. “I never believed down in my heart,” one of City West's developers admits, “that we could tame these sands to city ways . . . They're beautiful, but God made them just to play in the breeze.”

 Frank Dudley

In 2006 Gregg Hertzlieb curated a Frank Dudley retrospective that contained works in possession of Brauer Museum, including the undated “Shadows and Sunlit Silence.” Hertzlieb offered this description:

While savoring the sound of the title in his mind,
the viewer sees the dunes in Dudley's painting
standing beside the unseen lake, impressing
with their mass but also threatening to disappear
at any moment like a ghost composed
of a material both substantial and insubstantial. 

For the present exhibition, over a dozen lenders, including the Bernie Konrady family, provided works not commonly exhibited.  On LinkedIn, Konrady Plastics co-owner Bernie Konrady playfully listed his occupation as janitor.  He is a birder and son of Bernard Konrady, 1967 Gary mayoral candidate, whose entry into the Democratic primary enabled Richard Hatcher to win the Democratic primary over incumbent A. Martin Katz.  His company is an outgrowth of a family-run Gary coal company founded in 1919 by former steelworkers John and Andrew Konrady.  Andrew’s wife Julia kept the books.

birders Bernie Konrad and Ken Brock

In Steel Shavings volume 12 (1985) IUN student Dorothy Konrady wrote:

At the outset, Konrady Brothers Corporation almost went bankrupt.  Most coal companies then didn’t deliver much coal.  Instead, peddlers with wheelbarrows went to the coal companies, bought coal, and resold it to consumers.  At first the peddlers all dealt with a competitor.  The brothers tried everything they could to lure them to their establishment.  Finally, for reasons still not known to surviving family members, the peddlers started getting their coal from Konrady Brothers Corporation.

 Walter Becker (left) and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan

Steely Dan co-founder Walter Becker passed away.  I saw the jazz rock band live at the Star Plaza a couple years ago.  With Donald Fagen on keyboards and singing most numbers, Steely Dan (named for a strap-on dildo in William Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch”) played the 1977 album Asa straight through as well as such favorites as “Reelin’ in the Years” and “Riki Don’t Lose That Number,” which begins:

We hear you're leaving, that's okay
I thought our little wild time had just begun
I guess you kind of scared yourself, you turn and run
But if you have a change of heart

Rikki don't lose that number

Meanwhile, can’t do everything and missed the Bodeans at Valpo’s fortieth annual Popcorn Fest, where I’ve seen Crackers, Gin Blossoms, Spin Doctors, and Poi Dog Pondering.  I saw the Bodeans live at Valpo University about 25 years ago at VU and have followed the native Wisconsin band closely ever since. Their biggest hit was “Closer to Free” (1993).  The name came from Bo Diddley and James Dean, although the band jokes that they were inspired by Beverly Hillbillies character Jethro Bodine

I attended the Saturday Evening Club at Phil-B’s in Valparaiso as the guest of longtime educator Terry Brendel, whose talk was titled “Broken Bootstraps.”  He lamented the “dumbing down” of higher education exemplified by grade inflation and the reluctance of teachers to criticize student work.  He stressed how low salaries and over-emphasis on standardized test scores are causing talented college students to shy away from the teaching profession.  Citing books about anti-intellectualism in America, he contrasted John F. Kennedy’s advisers (i.e., John Kenneth Galbraith, Arthur E. Schlesinger, Robert McNamara) with the buffoons serving Trump.  Each attendee was expected to participate in the discussion. I noted that Kennedy’s “best and the brightest” were virtually all macho white men who tended to disparage “egghead’ intellectuals such as Adlai Stevenson and admire the type of can-do activism that led to Vietnam.

Old friends Janet and Michael Bayer spent the night after a family function in LaPorte, so I stayed up talking several hours later than normal.  We all knew friends and relatives in harm’s way of Hurricane Irma and next morning kept checking the latest news from the Sunshine State. Celeste and Michael Chirich had us over for an afternoon lunch; his sister Diana and husband Harold Henery are in for their yearly visit to Miller Beach.  Diana was lead soprano for the Volksopera in Vienna, Austria; Harold has an advance degree in Religious Studies and his present interest is art history.  We were expecting a light lunch, but aftertasty au d’oeuvres Diana served a chicken and mushroom gravy dish with rice followed by tiramisu for dessert.  I gave Harold a copy of “Maria’s Journey” and pointed out my Foreword and IU historian John Bodnar’s introduction; he’s planning to start it immediately, having just finished a tome on art.

 Pablo Picasso

Driving to Munster for an Art in Focus program on Pablo Picasso, I took Ridge Road from IUN due to construction on 8-/94, passing Ridge Lawn Cemetery (IUN Professor Gary Martin’s final resting place), Bootleg Liquors, Bone Dry Saloon, a Long John Silver’s near Burr Street where we’d take the boys after a movie (the nearby theater has been long gone), and Wicker Park (where IUN once held faculty/staff picnics).  I reminded Marcia Carson, an Art History professor, about my upcoming 1957 “Dance Party” and told her to bring Jim.  She joked that they almost split up over dancing. I thought it would have been over bridge, I quipped. “He’s much more competitive than I am,” she replied.

Art in Focus hostess Jillian van Volkenburgh announced that she hated Picasso (a notorious womanizer) but appreciated his momentous contributions to modern art. She noted that the Picasso sculpture in Chicago’s Daley Plaza was assembled at American Bridge Company in Gary using steel from Gary Works.  Picasso’s cubism affected fashion, advertising, music, literature, and other aspects of popular culture.  Even the style of his signature has been copied by the Radisson Hotel chain. Active for more than 7 decades, he left behind over 43,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, and pottery.  Afterwards, I checked out the South Shore Salon Show exhibition and found an interesting assemblage by Jillian, who listed as Gary as her hometown. 

Arriving early at Gino’s for Brian Barnes’ talk on the evolution of homo sapiens, the manager placed two free chicken wings in front of me when I ordered a draft beer at the bar.  They were spicy but delicious. When I told Ken Anderson about speaking to Jonathan Briggs’ World War I seminar students, he inquired about auditing classes after he retired. Someone said that DNA tests showed that she had Neanderthal ancestors.  I brought up the thesis of Ronald Wright’s “A Short History of Progress,” to wit, every advancement has bad unintended consequences.  The industrial revolution, for example, led to weapons capable of destroying the earth as we know it.  War seemed unthinkable prior to World War I, which produced over 40 million casualties; with Trump in the White House, all bets are off.

 above, Neanderthals; below, Antonio Brown

I am 1-0 in LANE Fantasy Football after beating Pittsburgh Dave by 11 points.  I had expected to lose after a Seattle safety intercepted an Aaron Rogers pass for an apparent pick-six, only to have a referee nullify the TD with a questionable penalty.  My top wide receiver, Antonio Brown, outscored Dave’s (Jordy Nelson) by six points; even though my quarterback, Kirk Cousins, had a mediocre day, his (Russell Wilson) did even worse.  The clincher: my kicker, Baltimore’s Justin Tucker, had 8 points compared to Steeler Chris Boswell’s 3.