Credibility

“Your words carry a lot of weight

They create the atmosphere

You are the prophet of your life

Your future can depend on what you say.”

         Poet Hollis Donald

President Herbert Hoover (above) lost his credibility after repeatedly saying during the Great Depression that prosperity was “just around the corner.”In 1960 the nation was shocked upon discovering that Dwight D. Eisenhower lied about the real mission of the U-2 American spy plane shot down over Soviet territory.  Lyndon Baines Johnson’s propensity to tell falsehoods created a “credibility gap” that proved disastrous during the Vietnam War. Nixon’s Watergate lies about cost him the presidency. Ronald Reagan avoided calumny when the Iran-Contra scandal broke by pleading memory loss that sympathizers countenanced as early signs of senility. George Bush’s bogus statements about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction have stained America’s Middle East policy to this day.  Trump began his foray into politics by making the false claim that Barack Obama was not an American citizen.  If Hitler invented the “Big Lie,” Trump tells so many whoppers in a single day that he long ago used up any ounce of credibility.  

In the course of a single campaign rant, Trump claimed that Mideast terrorists had infiltrated that ranks of Honduran refugees seeking asylum in America, promised a pie-in-the-sky middle-class tax cut, warned that Republicans, not Democrats, would protect those with pre-existing medical conditions from losing health insurance, and claimed the impending arms deal with Saudi Arabia will create a half-million new jobs.  Now, in the wake of pipe bombs having been mailed to Obama, Clinton, CNN and other critics, he blames the “fake” news media for spreading division and hate.  Historian Robert Dallek pointed out the perils of such demagoguery, especially should the President need to unite the country in a time of crisis: “Once the public loses confidence in a president's leadership, once they don't trust him anymore, once his credibility is sharply diminished, how does he get it back?”  

Dean Bottorff's daughter Ann calls this photo "Breaking Dad"

Dean Bottorff responded:

   The world needs a new word for this. May I suggest “fire-hosing,”the act of spreading so many lies so fast that each individual lie, like a drop of water, is lost in the deluge. At this, Trump, like the NAZI propagandists of the 1930s, and a host of others since, is a master. The effectiveness of “fire-hosing”is well documented. I was in Germany 20 years after the end of WWII and there were still those there who continued to believe in Hitler and the Nazi cause. The US Army did a study in 1948 in which it was discovered that fully 30 percent of the German population still had various degrees of high regard for Hitler and the Nazis even as their country lay in ruins, a huge percentage of their youth had been killed, and the horrors of the Holocaust had been exposed. What this portends for Trump supporters is frightening. Thank you, Jim, we need your historical perspective on this. 

Commenting on Trump’s recent “60 Minutes” appearance, Ray Smock wrote:

  I almost fell out of my chair when the president expressed his view on global warming that he was suspicious of the political agenda of scientists predicting dire consequences. But the part that almost threw me to the floor was Trump's admission that, sure, the world's climate was changing but that it would change back! I never heard anyone say this before. When will it change back? How many thousands of years do we need to wait for the climate to improve? Trump was worried that any attempt to save the Earth's temperature from rising would cost people jobs and money. How about loss of humans as a species? No need to worry about jobs when humans are extinct.

Joe Van Dyk, Gary’s Director of Planning and Redevelopment, sought my input on producing a historical overview for the city’s upcoming comprehensive plan.  I referred him to the “Gary: A Political History”  chapter introductions and suggested that he could divide the essay into chapters covering 1906-1929 (rapid growth during an age on industrialization), 1929-1945 (when Gary was dependent on the federal government for survival during the Great Depression and for the boom of the World War II years), 1945-1970 (when white movement to the suburbs accelerated), 1970-2000 (years of depopulation and state and federal neglect during an age of deindustrialization), and twenty-first century strategies for revitalizing Gary’s downtown, lakefront, University Park area, and other neighborhoods. Van Dyk first visited the Archives while working on a Master’s thesis at UIC.  He’s been involved in plans to convert the City Methodist Church ruins to an urban garden.

Surveyor Loren Stackhouse arrived at the Archives while Steve McShane was at a meeting and inquired whether we had maps of an area adjacent to Gary within the present boundaries of Lake Station and New Chicago. It is the site of an unpaved extension of Indiana Ave. The property is adjacent to where Marianne Brush lives and evidently belongs to River Forest High School. I doubt we have the relevant maps but promised to ask Steve about the matter and suggested he visit the Lake County Surveyor’s office. If George Van Til were still in charge, I’m certain he could help.

State Representative Mara Candelaria Reardon was featured in two front-page Post-Trib stories, appearing at IUN at a “Woman and Power” seminar with Gary mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson and one of four women to have accused Indiana Attorney-General Curtis Hill of touching her inappropriately.  A Munster H.S., IUN, and John Marshall Law School grad of Puerto Rican ancestry born in East Chicago, Reardon is married and the mother of two.  Reardon’s father is  Isabelino “Cande” Candelaria, Indiana’s first Puerto Rican city council member, her mother, Victoria Soto Candelaria, was the first Latina president of the Indiana Federation of Teachers.

 cast of "The Signal"

Henry Farag called, still intent on staging “The Signal: A Doo Wop Musical” at IUN’s new auditorium.  He wrote Chancellor Lowe a proposal about the matter and is meeting with a theater representative.  The university was cautious about booking such shows during its first year but approved performances of “The Wiz” during Black History Month.  Henry has a very deserving proposal, and suggested he talk with James Wallace, IUN’s Director of Diversity, Equity, and Multicultural Affairs, who helped fund “The Wiz” appearances last february. Henry and many Farag family members are IU grads. “The Signal” has won acclaim from critics and audiences in Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan.  I predict one day it will play on Broadway.

In the 1964 “Class Notes” section of the Bucknell alumni magazine, scribe Beth Wehrle Smith wrote about a Phi Psi reunion at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware attended by my old roommate Rich Baker, Ron Baroody, Dan Harris, and Carl Rogge.  She described them as “in their 70s, most a bit paunchy, hair challenged, and somewhat senile.”  While I can’t speak for the others, “Bakes” is neither paunchy nor senile. We talk frequently, and, in fact, I phoned to tease him about Wehrle’s blurb. He mentioned that one Rehoboth Beach attendee was a former pledge blackballed from becoming a brother but continues to consider himself a Psi Phi.  Fraternities were an elitist vestige from the past with few redeeming virtues aside from its parties.  I convinced a mutual college friend, John Sandburg, to pledge Sigma Phi Epsilon his sophomore year, but a few fraternity brothers made him do such humiliating tasks that he quit in disgust.

 Frederick Douglass and, below, John Brown

November’s book club selection, Keith Anderson’s biography of John Brown, received good reviews. When teaching in Saudi Arabia, I had the class read two essays on the fiery abolitionist, one proclaiming him to be a freedom fighter, the other claiming he was a deranged fanatic.  Most students were down on Brown for countenancing violence. I didn’t disagree with them.  During my final class, a student claimed that if it hadn’t been for Watergate, Nixon would have gone down as a great president. I replied, thinking of the millions who died needlessly in Vietnam during his watch, that, compared to John Brown, Nixon was a mass murderer.  That caused quite a ruckus.  In “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom,” historian David W. Blight, whom I heard speak at an Indiana Association of Historians conference, concludes that the former slave and outspoken abolitionist admired Brown’s courage but was repelled by his incapability to think through his actions.  Therefore, he opposed the suicidal Harper’s Ferry raid, realizing that it was doomed to failure and meant death to anyone, slave or free man, who participated.

South Shore Arts director John Cain offered me two free tickets to his twenty-fifth annual Holiday reading, purportedly his last, performing his favorite story, Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory.”  I recently completed an essay for a catalogue for a gallery exhibit about “Gary Haunts.”  I am working on a “Dance Party: 1960” talk for next season’s Art in Focus series at the Munster center. A similar one last year was a success, and this time I plan to take local high school dancers (perhaps from Munster) to provide additional entertainment and persuade audience members to get out of their seats.  Two particularly soulful ballads from 1960, my senior year in high school, are “A Thousand Stars” by Kathy Young and the Innocents and “Angel Baby” (“oh, pretty baby, won’t you hold me in your arms?”)by Rosie and the Originals (when you are near me my heart skips a beat”).  They don’t write love songs like that anymore.  Kathy Young was just 15 in 1960 when she ended “A Thousand Stars” with the words, “I’m yours.”I saw her perform at the Star Plaza in Merrillville a half-century later as part of Henry Farag’s “Ultimate Doo Wop Show.”  Born in 1946 of Mexican ancestry, Rosalie “Rosie” Mendez Hamlin, who died last year, was even younger than Kathy Young and also appeared in “Oldies” shows well into the twenty-first century.`

With the payola scandal, Elvis getting drafted, Jerry Lee Lewis being blacklisted for marrying his 23-year-old cousin, Little Richard becoming a preacher, Dick Clark promoting teen idols whose hits were a lame parody of rock and roll, and Buddy Holly dying in a plane crash along with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, some were predicting the death of rock and roll. Instead, rhythm and blues veterans such as Lloyd Price and Hand Ballard stepped to the fore  and new artists filled the void, such as Vee-Jay Records Dee Clark and Gene Chandler. And one of Hank Ballard’s songs, “The Twist,” recorded by Chubby Checker, would inspire a dance craze that inspired a new generation of teenagers.

The Electrical Engineers remained in first place in Mel Guth’s Seniors League by taking two games and series from Hot Shots.  Our anchor, Frank Shufran rolled a 206 in the only close game after Joe Piunti, Melvin Nelson, and I all marked. One woman asked if I were married, perhaps hoping to set me up with a girlfriend. For the second week in a row I forgot my change purse (for paying dimes for made splits and doubles and quarters for every tenth strike).  Last week I plumb forgot it; this time I had it minutes before leaving for the university and must have put it down when I grabbed my keys.  Now, if I do it again next week, I’ll start worrying.

Ain't No Better

“You’ve heard the news

An awful lie has been told to you

You’re the best thing in town – no lie can hold you down

So keep your silence, the truth is bound to turn things around.

We all know – ain’t no better than you!”

         Hollis Donald, “Ain’t No better Than You”

Ain’t, frowned upon in polite circles, is short for am or are not.  Midge (my mother) loathed the contraction as a sign of being poorly educated, but, like many postwar suburban wives, she was unduly influenced by etiquette books. I was constantly reminded to keep my elbows off the table, and drinking soup straight from the bowl was a definite taboo.  When greeting a stranger, one should say the meaningless phrase, “How do you do?”rather than the more natural, “Pleased to meet you.”  I could go on and on.

Jack Lynch in “The Lexicographer’s Dilemma” called ain’t “the most stigmatized word in the language,”  but it can be useful when employed for rhetorical effect.  The word can be found in many songs, including two favorites, “Ain’t That a Shame” by Fats Domino and “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” by Bachman-Turner Overdrive.  Elvis Presley sang the lyric, “You ain’t nothing but a hound dog,”and Clarence “Frogman” Henry lamented, “Ain’t got no home.”  Presley once philosophized, “Truth is like the sun.  You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.”Depression-era pitcher Dizzy Dean once said,“I lot of people who don’t say ain’t, ain’t eatin’.”  Sojourner Truth made this point at a Woman’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, in May 1851:

 And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

 Sojourner Truth, circa 1870

A New York Times crossword puzzle asked what Senate Majority Leader succeeded Bill Frist, a Republican from Tennessee who had graduated from Harvard Medical School.  Answer: Nevada’s Harry Reid after Democrats won control of the Senate as a result of the 2006 election and served eight years until succeeded by present Majority Leader Mitch “The Bitch” McConnell.

The “Momma Mia!” sequel, “Here We Go Again,” had great Abba numbers that made up for the schmaltz, maudlin parts, and a whacky timeline. Cher, playing Donna’s grandma, belted out the Abba hit “Fernando” and looked fabulous.  Meryl Streep came back from the dead to reprise a couple songs as well. Sad to see fewer than a dozen others in attendance at the Michigan City AMC Showplace.  Will theaters go the way of video stores, I wonder, now that most everything is available on cable.

Hazel Hannell, "Dunes - Winter Day" (1959) 

 

Leafing through a 2017 “Sand and Steel” Brauer Museum exhibit catalogue, I was struck by the vividness of “Dunes – Winter Day” (1959), a watercolor by Hazel Hannell, who lived for 50 years in Furnessville, now part of Chesterton. Along with husband Vin (also a painter), she was active in Save the Dunes Council and traveled to Washington, D.C., with founder Dorothy Buell to lobby Congress on behalf of preserving the Indiana dunes.  Still painting when she turned 100, Hazel Hannell died at age 106 while living in Oregon with longtime dunelands artist Harriet Rex Smith.

In “The Destiny Thief” Richard Russo recalled being on a Bulgarian talk show when the band, knowing he was a Springsteen fan, played “Land of Hope and Dreams” from the 2012 “Wrecking Ball” album, in Russo’s opinion, perhaps the greatest anthem of his lifetime.  Recalling that “The Boss” had helped a weary nation get through the Vietnam War, the AIDS epidemic, and the World Trade Center attack, Russo teared up when the singer from Sofia came to these stirring words::

Grab your ticket and your suitcase
Thunder's rollin' down this track
Well, you don't know where you're goin' now
But you know you won't be back . . .

This train carries saints and sinners

This train carries losers and winners

This train carries whores and gamblers

This train carries lost souls . . .

Big wheels roll through the fields where sunlight streams

On meet me in a land of hope and dreams.

I said this train, dfeams will not be thwarted,

This train, faith will be rewarded,

This train, steel wheels singin’

This train, bells of freedom ringing.”

In the Post-Tribune was a photo of VU History professor Heath Carter, chairman of Valparaiso’s Human Relations Council, being wheeled across Lafayette Street by 11-year-old son Isaiah in an experiment to test accessibility of local businesses for disabled residents.  Carter told reporter Becky Jacobs: “Downtown is an older part of town. From the sidewalks to the entrances, things are tight.”  He added that it is daunting to realize what wheelchair-bound people have to go through  to get to a store or restaurant. Some have outside seating that make it too narrow for wheelchairs get by. 

Javier Baez is having an MVP season.  Today against the Padres, “El Mago” (the magician) hit a home run and triple and made a great throw home to nail the potential tying run. Games don’t get much better than that, nor the meal Toni made of ribs, rice, salad, and corn on the cob for Dave’s forty-ninth birthday. For a second birthday celebration the following evening at Kevin and Tina Horn’s, Toni made mango salsa with scallops that was so good it took all my will power not to devour more than my share.  

At Kevin and Tina's: Toni, Dave, John, Jimbo, Kris, Becca 

original section of Overseas Highway

At Kevin and Tina’s, daughter Kaela talked about seeing Bruno Mars at Lollapalooza and John English, about to embark on a trip to Key West, discussed being fascinated with the life of financier Henry M. Flagler, responsible for building a railroad line to Key West, which some branded “Flagler’s Folly.” Even though damaged beyond repair during the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, the roadbed and bridge became the foundation for the Overseas Highway, which was eventually abandoned after a new highway opened in the 1980s. Dave was grieving over a friend in critical condition after being a hit-and-run victim and two former students who died, one at a railroad crossing and another caught in a crossfire of bullets.  

Peggy Hinckley, emergency manager for the Gary schools has approved the auctioning off of 78 items, including Chicago sculptor Emory P. Seidel’s bust of former School Superintendent William A. Wirt.  After protests by historians Ronald Cohen and Kendall Svengalis and others, Councilwoman Rebecca Wyatt, chair of the council’s art, culture and history committee got the online auction postponed at the last minute by unearthing a legal requirement that Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson be notified at least 30 days prior to property being sold.  At the time, bidding on the bust had reached $6,000.  Wyatt told Post-Tribunecorrespondent Carole Carlson, “We don’t want to sell off our history. The historical  significance is more valuable than any money brought in.”  While the mayor expressed the view that historical artifacts should be preserved and not auctioned off, so far she has not taken action and the online bidding is continuing.

 English professor Carolyn Boiarsky

At an Open House celebrating the life of Historian Lance Trusty were several of his former Purdue Calumet colleagues that I recognized, including Bernie Hollicky, Naomi Goodman, and Marcia Gaughan.  English professor Carolyn Boiarsky solicited my advice about researching the history of land use in East Chicago, and I told her to check out city directories that she could find in East Chicago.  I told Jan Trusty that I considered Lance a mentor when it came to researching Region history and speaking to community groups.  She replied that Lance had respected my work and that their library contains many Steel Shavingsissues.

Kaylan Zimny, a 2016 Hobart H.S. grad and IUN Elementary Education major, kept a journal as a class assignment. Here are excerpts:

  February 26, 2018:I hope to teach second or third grade because those students are generally enthusiastic about learning new things.  If I’m not studying, I am probably working at Subway in Hobart or hanging out with my boyfriend of 3 years. 

  March 11, 2018:Scheduled begin to work at 6 a.m., I forgot we lost an hour because of daylight saving time and was 10 minutes late. Good thing the big boss wasn’t there. We were so busy, the lines were out the door.  That evening, my boyfriend and I went to Cappos, an Italian restaurant that makes the best pizza around. We decided to visit Indianapolis and Brown County during spring break. When we got back to his house, we researched places to stay and things to do during the trip. 

  March 12, 2018:My boyfriend and I went to Denny’s for breakfast and then to the grocery store for food for our trip. We got granola bars, muffins, cereal, frozen pizzas, hot pockets, and sandwich makings. We plan to go to the Indianapolis Zoo and do hiking and fishing in Brown County. At home I packed and played Uno, which is very competitive in my family, before going to bed early because we’re leaving tomorrow.

  March 13, 2018:I woke up at 6 and picked up my boyfriend at 6:30. After loading my car with luggage, we went to get coffee and breakfast sandwiches from Dunkin Donuts before we hit the road. The drive to Indianapolis went by quickly, and we got there too early to check into our Airbnb. Instead, we walked around downtown and got lunch at Buca di Beppo, an amazing Italian restaurant.  At the Airbnb, there was a lockbox under the porch with a key to the house. The owners had left breakfast foods, and the house was very tidy and homey. After a romantic dinner at St. Elmo Steak House, we relaxed the rest of the night. 

  March 14, 2018:  The Indianapolis Zoo was very well kept and the animals all looked healthy. My favorite part was the dolphin show. We stayed at the zoo all day, so we were exhausted when we got back to our place. 

  March 15, 2018:  We woke up a little later than we hoped, but, hey, vacations are for relaxing. The drive to Brown County only took about an hour. We rented this beautiful cabin in the woods (again from airbnb) with a private fishing pond in the back. It was raining, so we decided to stay in and watch movies. We foolishly watched Cabin in the Woods, which terrified me because we were literally in a cabin in the woods. 

  March 16, 2018:  At the pond we caught about 5 fish each and made a frozen pizza before we went hiking. Brown County State Park has many amazing trails to pick from. You would never have guessed that this was Indiana, there were so many hills. It was absolutely breathtaking. As the sun was starting to set, we made spaghetti and relaxed in the hot tub. 

  March 17, 2018:  In Brown County, an entertaining St. Patrick’s Day Bash took place at the Seasons Lodge and Conference Center.  I wore a green dress, while my boyfriend wore a green shirt and black pants. It very different than what we would have done in Chicago. 

  March 18, 2018:We woke up early enough to see the sunrise just over the pond while in the hot tub, a nice way to end our trip. After driving almost 4 hours, we finally made it home. 

  March 24, 2018:My boyfriend and I went to Fair Oaks Farms, a fun place for all ages, and did the Pig Adventure. I never knew how huge pigs could get! The baby pigs were so cute I wanted one.  Before we left, we had delicious chocolate milk and ice cream. 

  April 1, 2018:My boyfriend and I went to Easter church service and ate with our families afterwards.  We found an old dying kit and colored Easter eggs with a Star Wars theme; mine was R2D2 and his was Chewbacca. Then, we had a mini Easter egg hunt.

  April 7, 2018:For was my sister’s 13th birthday, I took her and friends to a hotel with a swimming pool for the night. After having cake and saying Happy Birthday, they all wanted to do “makeovers.” Little did I know they’d brought makeup and wanted to practice on me.  It was a disaster that took about 30 minutes to remove from my face. 

  April 14, 2018:My friend Hannah invited a bunch of us to her family’s lake house in Michigan for  her birthday. We fished and it was a very fun getaway with my girls.

  April 21, 2018:My boyfriend and I started planning a summer trip to the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania to go white water rafting and hiking. Since my boyfriend loves the Steelers, we’ll stop in Pittsburgh and eat at a Steelers-themed restaurant. 

Spring Solstice

“Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s party.’”  Robin Williams

Toni prefers celebrating the Spring solstice rather than Easter, but egg dying is an annual ritual, as is hiding James and Becca’s Easter basket.  The busy weekend began with James moving in, Toni making a standing rib roast, and the arrival of Phil’s family en route to Naples, Florida.  Becca and Angie returned from their Florida choir trip Saturday in time for Chinese carry-out.  Sunday, Toni was up at 3 a.m. to see Phil’s family off to O’Hare Airport, then served a delicious roast to eight of us, including Angie’s dad and Tamiya Towns, who forwarded photos she took (below) to me. 

above, Toni; below, Tamiya, John Teague and Jimbo

“Roseanne,” which debuted 30 years ago, is back on the air with the original cast. The initial episode received huge ratings and a congratulatory shout-out from Trump since actress Roseanne Barr is a supporter, as is her character on the show, who resembles “All in the Family” bigot Archie Bunker.  Sister Jackie is the liberal foil, and there is an African-American grandkid to demonstrate, I guess, that Roseanne isn’t a racist.  As always, John Goodman (as Dan Connor) was hilarious, first appearing in bed wearing a breathing mask for sleep apnea.  At one point Dan goes outside to urinate because the bathrooms were occupied and then claims to have waved to a neighbor with his free hand. Like most sitcoms, the plot seemed contrived, with one of Roseanne’s daughters wanting to be a surrogate mother and a grandson attending first day of school in girl’s clothes.  When Dan first hears about it, he escapes to the garage. Roseanne cautions about disturbing him until he’s had a couple beers, then moments later says, “That should be long enough.” 

Sometimes I confuse Roseanne Barr with Rosie O’Donnell, whom Trump hates.  The feud evidently goes back 12 years to when O’Donnell criticized Trump for not firing a Miss USA winner who admitted to drug use and underage drinking.  Trump responded by calling her fat and a real loser.  Five years later, when Rosie became engaged to Michelle Rounds, Trump tweeted that he felt sorry for Rounds and her parents.  In 2014, when O’Donnell returned to the TV show “The View,” Trump tweeted, “Rosie is crude, rude, obnoxious, and dumb – other than that, I like her very much.”  During the first Presidential debate of 2016, when Megyn Kelly questioned Trump about demeaning women by using words such as pigs, slobs, and disgusting animals, Trump interrupted to say, “Only Rosie O’Donnell.”

In Richard Russo’s “That Old Cape Magic” Jack Griffin encounters an Archie Bunker type while at the Old Cape Lounge.  After the guy belittles his companion and ex-wife Marguerite, Jack ruminates: “How good it would feel to coldcock him, knock him clean off his bar stool, bloody his fucking nose.  Here she was, trying valiantly to be happy, and this asshole wouldn’t let her.” After he breaks up with Joy, Jack dates fun-loving Marguerite. When he meets Joy’s new “friend,” Jack labels him a fart-hammer, an expression he recently picked up from an old-timer.

Danna Conley thanked me for latest Steel Shavings, which mentions her and late husband Pat several times and contains excerpts of an article by Hayley Sekula, whose grandmother is her good friend.  A year ago, Danna thanked me for volume 46 and wrote: “Recently my granddaughter mentioned seeing someone dressed as a flower child who looked as if she came from the 1960s.  She had learned about the Hippie Era in history.”  On the card’s cover: Georgia O’Keefe’s 1937 painting “Red Hills and Flowers,” which juxtaposed still-life elements against a far-off desert landscape alive with color and undulating curves similar to a human body.  Many feminists believed O’Keefe’s flowers were symbolic of female genitalia.  She was adamant that, in her words, “the subject matter of a painting should never obscure its form and color, which are its real thematic elements.”  O’Keefe’s work reminds me of the photos of Liz Wuerffel, who often focuses her lens on symbols of decay and aging.  At present Liz is at Bryce Canyon National Park, where IUN grad Amanda Marie Board worked last year.

 Bryce Canyon National Park photo by Liz Wuerffel

For Nicole Anslover’s Diplomatic History class dealing with Ricard Nixon’s Vietnam policy I gave a short report on Rick Perlstein’s “NIxonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America” in order to point out that secrecy and deception  were standard Tricky Dick operational procedures.  I had Nicole put these paragraphs on the screen: 

    In March of 1969, Nixon ordered the bombing of sections of the Ho Chi Minh Trail that meandered through Cambodia, the beginning of a long-term plan called Operation Menu (its component parts were Breakfast, Lunch, Snack, Dinner, Dessert, and Supper).  This scaled new peaks of deception: the bombings were recorded on a secret ledger, which was later destroyed.  A half million tons of ordnance were eventually dropped on this neutral country, 3,875 sorties without Congressional knowledge.  “The State Department is to be notified only after the point of no return,”Nixon instructed.  

. . . .

    On May 15, paratroopers from the 101^stAirborne Division stormed up an objective Americans called Hill 937.  The AP ran an evocative dispatch on May 19:  “The paratroopers came down the mountain, their green shirts darkened with sweat, their weapons gone, their bandages stained brown and red – with mud and blood.”  It reported them cursing their commander, whose radio call was Blackjack: “That damned Blackjack won’t stop until he kills every one of us.”  It became known as Hamburger Hill.  The soldiers won the objective, just as Americans often won their military objectives; 633 North Vietnamese main-force soldiers were killed, fewer than 100 Americans. Then the hill was abandoned, just as Americans often abandoned objectives in Vietnam.  “We are not fighting for terrain as such,”Commander Creighton Abrams explained.  “Don’t mean nothin’,”answered the troops, a refrain echoed all the way back home. Senator Ted Kennedy called the Hamburger Hill assault “senseless and irresponsible, madness, symptomatic of a mentality and a policy that requires immediate attention.”

To an obscene degree, Nixon expanded upon trends begun by predecessors, including dirty tricks against political opponents and basing diplomatic maneuvering on domestic political calculations. During Nixon’s presidency over 21,000 Americans died in Vietnam and about a million and a half Vietnamese. The terms Nixon settled for in 1973 were obtainable when he came into office, but he continued the war for political gain, an unforgivable sin, in my opinion.  The result was not “Peace with Honor,” as he claimed, but an obscene stain on America’s legacy.

March Madness climaxed with Villanova, my pick to go all the way, winning its second NCAA title in three years.  With star player Jalen Brunson on the bench saddled with foul trouble, sixth man Donte DiVincenzo scored an amazing 31 points to enable the Wildcats to cruise to victory.  Within hours, Sports Illustratedhad DiVincenzo on its latest cover.

 Faye Anderson; photo by Barb Walczak

Bronze Life Master Faye Anderson, 98, passed away. Barb Walczak wrote:

  It was never in Faye’s plans to become a Life Master, but one day I said, “Let’s hop a plane to Reno and get started on our Life Master gold.”  She was game for the adventure.  We traveled to many places in the next nine months until we had our 25 gold.  We even had the thrill of playing with Eddie Wold and Mike Passell (ranked in the top 12 in ACSL) in Lake Geneva.  Faye was feisty (in a lovable way) and had a fun teasing personality endearing her to everybody.  Gunnar Berg called her “Bulldog” – and I think she liked that nickname.

  One of Faye’s biggest regrets was that she was not able to go to college.  It was in the 1930s and there were 12 children in the family, and it couldn’t happen. It was a shame – her potential was never fully realized.  She was a smart lady.

At bridge, on director Alan Yngve’s advice, I asked Barbara Stroud about Bridgerama, whose origins in Northwest Indiana go back decades.  Evidently started by women belonging to Tri Kappa, an Indiana service sorority, Stroud took it over when it was in danger of ending.  There’s one group of women and a second male-female group.  Couples play 20 hands at the host’s home, turning in the results to Stroud.  I told her about the Archives Bridge collection, and she said she recently emptied a file cabinet of many back records. Dee and I finished slightly above average (53.17%) for .28 of a master point.  In one hand I was dealt 8 Diamonds, including the top 5, two King-Jacks, and a bare King.  After determining that Dee held one Ace, I bid 5 Diamonds.  There was a Club lead to my singleton King, leaving no way to cash in one Dee’s Ace and Queen.  Even had Dee’s Ace overtaken the King, leading the Queen of Clubs would not have helped.   We went down one, as did another couple. The two other North-South pairs made 6 Diamonds when opponents led out an Ace rather than a Club.

Beverly Gray’s “Seduced By Mrs. Robinson” revealed that “The Graduate” (1967) was a low budget movie with a relative unknown, Dustin Hoffman, in the lead role as a disillusioned college graduate who has an affair with an older woman but is hot for her daughter.  It became a surprise box office hit primarily because of its appeal to Baby Boomers.  Though it did not deal with race tensions, the Vietnam War or campus protest, the film, wrote Gray, “appeared in movie houses just when we young Americans were discovering how badly we wanted to distance ourselves from the world of our parents. . . .  If we were anxious about parental pressure, or about sex (and our lack thereof), or about marriage, or about the temptations posed by plastics, it was all visible for us on the movie screen.”

 John S. Haller

My old fellow Marylander and IUN colleague John Haller reviewed Philip F. Gura’s “Man’s Better Angels: Romantic Reformers and the Coming of the Civil War” for the Journal of American History.  Haller concludes that the seven reformers, including Horace Greeley and Henry David Thoreau, culminated their intellectual journey “in their fatuous worship of John Brown and his murderous band of outlaws.”  Haller equates their “high-minded resolve to acquire liberty and equality even if it necessitated violence” to Maximilien Robespierre, architect of the French Reign of Terror.  Really?  

Teaching in Saudi Arabia 30 years ago, I was shocked at how down on John Brown the students were because Brown’s Kansas band of Free State volunteers murdered five pro-slavery Border Ruffians who had burned and pillaged the Free Soil town of Lawrence.  Later, when one student claimed that Nixon would have been a great President had it not been for Watergate, I replied that compared to John Brown, Nixon was a mass murderer, responsible for more than a million Vietnamese dying in an unwinnable war.  Some hold Brown partly responsible for bringing about the Civil war, which killed a half-million Americans.  Does Haller?

Hollis Donald dropped off an Easter essay about turning around one’s life through faith. He wrote: “Life can take you on many roads and can get so tangled up and twisted and lost in the tide, there can appear to be no way out.  You may need a new life, and Jesus is the giver of life.”  As the Doobie Brothers put it, “Jesus is just alright with me.”