Hard Candy

“Hey farmer farmer

Put away that D.D.T. now

Give me spots on my apples

But leave the birds and the bees.”

         Joni Mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi” (1970)

I was listening to the Counting Crows CD “Hard Candy” and after a minute’s silence at the end on came a hidden track, “Big Yellow Taxi,” a Joni Mitchell cover with Vanessa Carlton on backing vocals. The most famous line is, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” Helping Adam Duritz out on other tracks were Ryan Adams, Matthew Sweet, and Cheryl Crowe.  In the lyrics to “Hard Candy” someone is dreaming of better days and lost loved ones who fade just out of sight and then in the morning, “it’s just the same hard candy you’re remembering again.”

I gave the new edition of “Gary: A Pictorial History” to Chancellor Bill Lowe; we used a photo of him peering through a telescope on campus during the solar eclipse of 21 August 2017.  Spotting one of the IUN Lady Redhawks celebrating a second straight AII (Association of Independent Institutions) championship on 27 February 2011, Lowe, a frequent spectator at university basketball games, exclaimed, “I’d have been in that one also if it hadn’t been cropped.”  He inquired about Ron Cohen acquiring the William A. Wirt bust, I invited him to come see it at the Archives. Nearby, in the library/conference hallway was a compelling glass case exhibit Steve McShane put together on IUN’s predecessor, Gary College. 

Kyle Telechan posted photos from last weekend’s second annual Mexican Independence Day parade in Hammond, hosted by the HUGS Cultural Committee and coordinated by Rosa Maria Rodgriguez. Ron Cohen and I used a Times photo by Jonathan Miano of Rodriguez outside Gary City Council chambers protesting efforts by GEO to build an immigrant detention center near Gary Airport.  She once worked as a security guard for the School City of East Chicago.  Son Dave knows her and praised her dedication to bettering the community.

Huffington Post reporter David Uberti, a young, confident Detroit native, interviewed me for 90 minutes about housing in Gary, frequently checking his recording device to make sure it was still working.  He had read “Gary’s First Hundred Years” beforehand and seemed knowledgeable about current developments regarding abandoned buildings and community efforts to jumpstart development.  I provided a historic overview of steel mill employment, unionization, the GI Bill, and suburbanization. I showed him pages from the pictorial history about urban gardens and discussed City Hall initiatives, such as the Blight Elimination Program. He’ll meet with Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson and Pastor Curtis Whitaker of Progressive Community Church, who has learned how to make soil healthy and fertile; other urban gardens use raised beds.  I suggested contacting, if possible, former mayor Richard Hatcher and someone from the Latino community, often ignored by national correspondents.

 Karla and Craig Hoskins courthouse ceremony in 2014; Times photo by Jonathan Miano

Couples getting hitched at Crown Point courthouse, once branded a “Marriage Mill,” has become an integral feature of Crown Point Hometown Festival Days.  For a half-century, until a 1952 ordinance forbade clerks from issuing licenses to women who did not reside in Lake County, there was no waiting period, unlike in Illinois, which, beginning in the 1930s, also required blood tests for communicable sexual diseases.  Justices of the Peace charged $2.50 during day, $8 after hours, $10 between midnight and dawn.  Crown Point hosted the nuptials of actors Tom Mix, Rudolph Valentino (Rodolfe Guglielmo), and Ronald Reagan (to first wife Jane Wyman), comedian Red Skelton, and film producer Mike Todd. 

circa 1930

Lake County historian Bruce Woods told the Post-Tribune that the 24/7 operation at one time required a half dozen JPs: “There were certain restrictions, but the clerks did not always follow them.  The male had to be 21 and the female 18, but they could be younger with parental consent.  And they had to be sober, although there was one justice of the peace who had an office on the second floor who said, ‘If they could get up to the second floor, they could get married.’”Wedding parties arrived by the busload, and local jewelers offered a wide variety of rings to those who came unprepared. Florists and tuxedo rental establishments also flourished.  Muhammad Ali got married there during the 1960s. 

In Laredo, Texas, U.S. Border Patrol agent Juan David Ortiz has been arrested  for allegedly murdering four sex workers following the escape of a fifth, who fled to authorities.  District Attorney Isidro Alaniz branded Ortiz a serial killer.  Nicholas Villanueva Jr.’s “The Lynching of Mexicans in the Texas Borderlands” (2017) documented the increase in vigilante murders a century ago, beginning in 1910 when a suspected felon was dragged from jail and burned alive.  The most horrendous incident occurred in 1918 after refugees who’d fled the Mexican Revolution were mistaken for bandits who had recently pillaged Texas ranches. Journal of American History reviewer Tim Bowman wrote:

  A confluence of events caused a drastic decline in the number of ethnic lynchings in Texas via a transference of public suspicions from Mexicans to Germans; the onset of political stability in Mexico; and Texas state legislature investigations into depredations committed against ethnic Mexicans by Texas Rangers.

above, Anne and Michelle

Anne Balay reported: “I spent the weekend having awesome trucker adventures.”  Anne participated in a truck parade across to Macinaw Island.  Michelle Kitchin, whose rig for the excursion was loaded with pineapples picked up in Trenton, New Jersey, wrote “We were the only truck full of women. Haha!”  They also took in the St. Ignace, Michigan, truck show, a three-day event held at the Little Bear East Arena.  

Helen Boothe and I finished third in the Chesterton bridge club championship, earning 1.15 master points each. An aggressive bidder, Helen twice successfully put us in slam where I would have been too cautious. We went down one bidding 2 No-Trump only because she had an Ace-King doubleton and I held a bare Queen-Jack, wasting two honors.  Had either of us held a third Club, we’d have made the contract. Sitting North-South in another key hand against winners John and Karen Fieldhouse, we were bidding Hearts and our opponents Spades.  We went down one at 4 Hearts for minus 50, while all other East-West couples went to 4 Spades and got set. Thus, another low board through no fault of our own. Helen, 87, will soon board a train at Chicago’s Union Station and travel overnight to West Virginia for a family reunion.

 Sara Jane Moore

In 2005, when Martha Stewart was released from Alderson federal prison in West Virginia after serving five months for giving false testimony about an insider stock deal, Helen Boothe’s brother-in-law, James A. Haught, wrote a Charleston Gazettecolumn about previous celebrities incarcerated there. These included radical Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, jailed during the McCarthy witch hunts, Puerto Rican nationalist Lolita Lebron, who participated in a 1954 attack on Congress, and pacifist Claire Hanrahan for trespassing at an army school that trained military operatives for Latin American dictators.  Blues singer Billie Holiday landed in Alderson in 1947 for possession of heroin, Mildred “Axis Sally” Gillars for treason, and Charleston native Sarah Jane Moore for firing at President Gerald R. Ford outside San Francisco’s St. Francis Hotel. Decorated Vietnam War marine veteran Oliver Sipple grabbed her pistol and deflected the shot.  Haught wrote, “Ford did little to thank the man because reports said he was gay.” Moore, like fellow inmate and would-be presidential assassin Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, escaped from Alderson but was caught and transferred to a more secure facility.

 Buffalo Creek flood damage, 1972

Helen Boothe told me about former West Virginia governor William C. Marland, a progressive Democrat, who became a taxi driver in Chicago after he left office in 1957 and overcame alcohol addiction. While governor, Marland took on coal companies that depleted the state’s natural resources and attempted to implement school desegregation at a time other Southern governors were defying federal mandates.  More popular was three-term Republican governor Arch Moore who in 1990, a year after leaving office, pled guilty to accepting bribes from coal company moguls, including Buffalo Mining Company executives responsible for the 1972 Buffalo Creek tragedy. James Haught wrote:

  The historic flood – caused by rupture of the coal company’s illegal, makeshift, unlicensed, unstable chain of “gob pile” dams – killed 125 Logan countians, injured 1,000 and left 4,000 homeless amid sodden debris.  It destroyed a 15-mile valley, wrecking more than 1,000 homes, 1,000 vehicles, 30 businesses, 10 bridges and miles of roads.  Arch Moore accepted a $1 million settlement as complete payment for the state government’s loss in the disaster, leaving West Virginia taxpayers stuck for up to $13 million in unpaid costs.

Moore served three years in prison in Petersburg, Virginia.

Corey Hagelberg picked up a copy of “Gary: A Pictorial History” and offered to donate the woodcut “We All Share the Roots,” which appears in the third edition, to the Archives.  He was pumped up over a decision by NIPSCO to phase out coal within ten years, something he has been working on in connection with the Prairie Club.

Fascinating Rhythm

“Got a little rhythm that pitter-pats through my brain

So darn persistent, the day isn’t distant

When it’ll drive me insane”

         “Fascinating Rhythm,” George and Ira Gershwin (below)

It’s annoying when you can’t get a certain tune out of your head, especially one especially inane such as “Who Let the Dogs Out?” by Baha Men.  Published in 1925, “Fascinating Rhythm” was recorded by countless by vocalists such as Fred Astaire, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, and Judy Garland, as well as Big Bands led by Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Stan Kenton, and Percy Faith. There are Latin versions (i.e., by Xavier Cugat), country-flavored recordings (Cliff “Ukulele Ike” Edwards), a mellow one by Hawaiian steel guitarist Sol Ho‘opi‘I, and a snappy Motown release by The Four Tops.

Charleston Gazette editor James A. Haught characterized “Fascinating West Virginia” as containing “wild, wonderful episodes – and some not so wonderful.”  “Institute rose from epic love story” traced the antecedents of West Virginia State to the antebellum Samuel I. Cabell plantation located nine miles southwest of Charlestown.  Cabell took slave Mary Barnes as his lifetime mate and eventually freed their 13 children, provided for their education in Ohio, and took elaborate steps to insure they’d have full legal rights and inherit his 900 acres of property along the Kanawha River.  In July 1865, seven neighbors fatally shot Cabell, in all likelihood because, in Haught’s words, “of white resentment toward his integrated family life.” A jury acquitted the perpetrators within minutes.In the 1890s daughter Marina and other Cabell heirs sold 80 acres of land to the state for the creation of West Virginia Colored Institute, forerunner of the present university. In 1970, when Haught published the column about Samuel Cabell and Mary Barnes, he wrote: “Strangely, this story isn’t recorded in any West Virginia history book, even though it was a minor sensation at the end of the Civil War.”

 Belle Boyd, "the Cleopatra of the Confederacy"

Haught wrote that  Civil War Charles Town changed hands four times.  In 1863, the western counties broke off from Virginia, and until 1870 the capital of West Virginia was Wheeling.  Haught mentioned that Shepherd University’s Center for the Study of the Civil War contains information on Martin Delaney, a free black who fled Charles Town and recruited volunteers for a famed Massachusetts colored regiment and that 17-year-old beauty Belle Boyd served as a Confederate spy for fellow West Virginian Stonewall Jackson.  World War II general George S. Patton’s grandfather, a native Mountaineer, was a Confederate colonel under Jackson’s command killed during the Battle of Winchester.

 Wirt bust by Emory Seidel, photo by Steve McShane; below, Jack Tonk, P-T photo by Carole Carlson

Among the 78 William A. Wirt High School items auctioned off on orders from Gary Emergency Manager Peggy Hinckley was a 21-inch bronze bust of the city’s first School Superintendent and school’s namesake by Chicago artist Emory Pius Seidel.  Ron Cohen bought it for $6,800 and has donated the impressive work to IUN’s Calumet Regional Archives.  Post-Tribunecorrespondent Carole Carlson noted that former guidance counselor Jack Tonk paid $75 for a student painting he had purchased 30 years before for his office.  He told Carlson, “I bought it twice.”

 Coach Fisher in 2016 with Brianna Joiner; P-T photo by Jim Karczewski

“Fisher firing fishy” pronounced Post-Tribune columnist Mike Hutton, lamenting the sudden dismissal of legendary Gary West Side girls basketball coach Rod Fisher, 68, who notched 674 wins during a 41-year career, second in the state to Scottsburg’s Donna Cheatham with 699.  Two years ago, administrators tried to terminate Fisher but at that time needed school board approval, and former players rushed to his aid.  Now with the state having emasculated the board’s authority, petty academic officers carried out the dirty deed.  I recall Coach Fisher was a gym teacher at Marquette School during the early 1970s when sons Phil and Dave were in first and second grade (one taught by Linda Bonner, now Fisher’s wife).  He was a hardnose, but Jackie Gipson, who played for Fisher, asserted that he really cared for the players, often buying them meals out of his own pocket. His replacement, Shanee’ Butler, has no head coaching experience, Fisher’s wife claimed.  Envy and nepotism are possible explanations.  Former West Side star Dana Evans, now playing for Louisville, told reporter John O’Malley: 

  It's really horrible. I’m surprised and I’m really upset. It’s just so unfair and it’s not right. He’s one of the best coaches in the area and around the state. He was always willing to work hard and put extra time in with the kids to help make them better.  After everything coach had done, they just should have let him decide when he wanted to give up coaching and retire. It’s really not right. Gary can never have anything good. They try to destroy anything positive in the city, or anything that’s something, that really helps Gary. They (school officials) have been wanting coach Fisher out for years. I saw it, and I never understood that. It makes no sense. Why would you want a person like him out?

Roosevelt athletic director said the decision was a terrible way to end something so special for so many people. Unfortunately, this continues a trend, following shabby treatment of other Gary coaches, including Marvin Rea, Ted Karras, Jr., and Renaldo Thomas

In “Rabbit Remembered” Harry Angstrom’s son Nelson met half-sister Annabelle for lunch at the upscale (for Brewer, PA) Greenery (Salads, Soups and Sandwiches)and described their Dad as a narcissist who never grew up, nor did he seek to, and, like many men of his generation, was scared of his homoerotic side. He was better with grandchildren than his own son, though Nelson recalls them playing catch in the back yard and going to a Flyers ice hockey game in Philadelphia. The son claimed the only job he ever cared about was working the linotype at The Blast, next to his Old Man, Earl Angstrom (1905-1976).  When the family brought Rabbit’s ashes back from Florida in a square urn and stopped at a Comfort Inn, 9-year-old granddaughter Judy insisted that they bring it in from the trunk and had wanted to open it and look inside.  Next morning, Nelson drove off without the urn until Judy remembered it two exits up the road. Author John Updike wrote: “Afterwards, with schooled hindsight, Nelson saw that there had  been a certain unconscious vengeance in their leaving Dad behind, as he had more than once left them behind.”  Nelson’s Aunt Min, upon hearing she had a niece, replied, “Life is wild.  When it isn’t, a total bore.”

above, Jamrose Band; below, Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum

Over the weekend, Jamrose Band rocked out at Miller Pizza and Soul Asylum at Valpo Popcorn Festival.  Ron Cohen met Soul Asylum frontman Dave Pirner at a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame conference and concert honoring Woody Guthrie.   The Cubs sat through ten hours of rain delays.  The Friday game lasted a mere inning, wasting a start by ace Jon Lester.  Saturday they lost a twin bill, with rain interrupting a performance by pitcher Cole Hamels.  Sunday they cooled their heels at the D.C. ball park for over 4 hours before it was cancelled. That night, the Bears blew a 20-point lead against Green Bay in the final 18 minutes with QB Aaron Rodgers directing the comeback on a gimpy knee and girlfriend Danica Patrick in the family box.  Old friend Terry Jenkins attended last week’s Phillies game when the Cubbies beat Aaron Nola on Home Runs by Baez, Rizzo, and Murphy. We’re both huge Eagles fans, and I mentioned that when Falcons QB Matt Ryan threw into the end zone on the final play of Thursday’s contest, I wanted it to be incomplete but if caught, by Julio Jones, who’s on my Fantasy team.  It was an incompletion, but Jones still got me 17 points, enough, combined with 19 by Todd Gurley, to allow Jimbo Jammers, to easily beat Pittsburgh Dave’s Bruisers.  

At bridge on Saturday Toni finished first, 90 points ahead of Brian and Connie Barnes, who tied for second.  Beforehand, I had a burger at Bulldog Restaurant in Ogden Dunes, which I couldn’t finish after eating a salad and rolls.  I wish that, like Toni, I’d just ordered the bacon-wrapped scallops appetizer. Monday night, Connie and Brian attended the Gino’s book club talk on “Valiant Ambition.” Beforehand, on the bar stool next to me, Bill Walton was discussing IU professor Peter Guardino’s new book, “The Dead March: A History of the Mexican-American War.”  Centering on the experiences of ordinary Mexicans and American soldiers, this social and cultural study claims that the United States underestimated the strength of Mexican nationalism and ferocity of their resistance to being conquered, resulting in thousands of American casualties and at least twice as many Mexican combatants and civilians. Evidently, young Irish recruits endured buggery and rape and witnessed atrocities inflicted by U.S. troops on Mexican civilians. (Guardino below)

Bonehead Play

“A dispute historic in baseball, which enriched the language with two exceedingly forceful words, ‘bonehead’ and ‘boner,’ arose over whether Frederick Charles Merkle did or did not touch second base.” Mark Sullivan, “Our Times”

As a baseball historian, I knew about the bizarre conclusion to the 1908 National League season, when a make-up game between the Cubs and the Giants was necessary to decide the pennant due to 19-year-old Fred Merkle’s “bonehead” baserunning mistake. With the score tied in the bottom of the ninth at New York’s Polo Grounds, Giant shortstop Al Bridwell hit an apparent game-winning single, sending Moose McCormick home from third.  On first, Merkle saw fans swarming onto the field and ran into the dugout without first touching second base, a common practice in those days. Cubs second baseball Johnny Evers, however, noticed the gaffe and brought it to the attention of the umpires.  In fact, in a recent game against the Pirates the exact thing had occurred only there had only been one umpire, Henry O’Day, who missed what happened so the rule wasn’t enforced.  Largely because of the fuss Evers put up at that time, two umpires were assigned to the Cubs-Giants game, including the one who’d failed to see what happened against Pittsburgh.  According to David Hinckley, details of exactly what happened are hazy, “lost in the mists of time – mists that closed in rapidly”:

  In most accounts, Giants pitcher "Iron Man" Joe McGinnity dashed from the first base coach's box to intercept the ball Art Hofman threw back to the infield and fling it deep into the stands. That was that, McGinnity figured, except Evers was still yelling. If that ball was gone, he wanted another one. Eventually he found one. Some say it was the real one, ripped away from a fan in the stands by little-used relief pitcher Rube Kroh. Others say it was another ball, relayed to Evers by shortstop Joe Tinker and maybe even third baseman Harry Steinfeldt, in a bizarre alternate version of the Cubs' famous Tinker-to-Evers-to Chance double play combination.

  Whatever the ball's origin, Evers secured it, touched second base and asked the umpires – R.D. Emslie at second base and Henry O'Day behind the plate – to call Merkle out on a force play, which would nullify McCormick's winning run. Emslie, who fell to the ground avoiding Bridwell's single, said he didn't see whether Merkle touched second and therefore couldn't make a call. O'Day said he did see and no, Merkle did not touch second. Therefore, yes, he was out. 

Hall of Fame umpire Bill Klem, known as the “Old Arbitrator,” who officiated games for 36 years beginning in 1905, decried the decision as “the rottenest” he’d ever come across.

Prior to the playoff game a week later, “Iron Man” McGinnity, who wasn’t scheduled to pitch that afternoon, attempted to pick a fight with Frank Chance, hoping that both would be ejected; but the ruse didn’t work.  The Cubs went on to defeat Giants ace Christy Mathewson, 4-2, setting off a riotous aftermath, as described by David Rapp:

  The bad feelings ran so high, acknowledge a New York paper, that “the Chicago men were bombarded as they left the field, kicked, and reviled.”  Hundreds of rabid fans took to the field, growling and out for blood. Tinker, Sheckard, and others took hard knocks to the head, while someone slashed Pfiester on the shoulder with a knife. Another hooligan chased down Chance from behind and delivered a wicked chop across his neck.  The blow broke some cartilage and temporarily snuffed out his voice.

  When the team made it to relative safety in their dressing room, the doors barricaded, armed guards had to stand outside to hold the mob back.  The Cubs eventually were secreted back to their hotel in a patrol wagon with two cops inside and four more riding the running boards.  They hustled out of town that night for Detroit, site of the upcoming World Series, by slipping out the back door and running down an alley, escorted by a swarm of policemen.

The Cubs went on to defeat the Detroit Tigers 4 games to 1, their last championship for 108 years. Chance outplayed future Hall of Famer Ty Cobb, garnering 8 hits to his 7 and swiping 5 bases to his 2.

Baseball historian Trey Strecker wrote about another unfortunate incident involving Merkle in the deciding game of the 1912 World Series against the Boston Red Sox:

  Fred was poised to be the hero when his single in the top of the 10th inning scored Red Murray from second to give the Giants the lead. The bottom half began with Fred Snodgrass' infamous muff in center field, allowing pinch-hitter Clyde Engle to reach second base. After Harry Hooper flied out and Steve Yerkes walked, Tris Speaker hit a high foul near the first-base coach's box. Though most observers agreed that it was his ball, Merkle backed away when Christy Mathewson called for the catcher, Meyers, to make the catch. The ball fell to the ground, giving Speaker another chance, and this time he slashed a long single to right that started the Sox's winning rally. In New York, the headlines the next day read “Bonehead Merkle Does It Again.”

Sports writers employed “bonehead” during the NBA playoffs when Cleveland Cavalier J.R. Smith grabbed an offensive rebound in a tie game with seconds remaining and dribbled away from the basket rather than attempt a shot.  Even more egregious was Michigan All-American Chris Webber calling time-out with 11 seconds remaining in the NCAA championship against Duke when his team had none left, resulting in a technical foul and loss of possession.

Bridge Bulletin used this Larry Sherman letter under the heading Déjà vu?::

  I was called to a table at a game I was directing. North said someone had scored on their line.  East then chimed in that they had already played this board.  I tried to clarify whether East-West had played this board at another table.  North then realized that the handwriting on the traveler line was her own.  They had played the same board twice at thistable with a different contract and a different result.  That was a first for me.

In duplicate Dottie Hart and I finished with a 57.29 percent, good enough for third place and half a master point.  My only bonehead move came after Dottie opened one No-Trump and the person on my right bid 2 Diamonds.  I held 5 Hearts but just 7 points and using a transfer system would have said 2 Diamonds had my opponent not beat me to it.  I bid 2 Hearts and Dottie, believing that indicated a five-card Spade suit, responded 2 Spades.  When I bid 3 Hearts, she raised to 4 Hearts and I got set 2.  What I should have done initially was double 2 Diamonds. Then when Dottie bid 2 Hearts, I could have passed. On another hand, I got high board holding 6 Hearts, including the Ace, King, Queen, 5 Spades to the Queen and 2 singletons. I bid Hearts 3 times while Dottie kept passing and the opponents bid Clubs and Diamonds. Dottie had only one Heart, but a lucky 3-3 split enabled me to make the contract. Last week in a similar situation, a 5-1 split proved disastrous and resulted in a low board.

Bridge opponent Helen Booth mentioned having been a neighbor of Post-Tribuneowner H.B. Snyder, who committed suicide by walking into Lake Michigan.  Snyder’ss wife socialized with Heywood Braun and other members of New York City’s “Smart Set.” She’d write Post-Trib“Travel” columns about her trips abroad. Gary Mayor George Chacharis nicknamed Snyder, his arch-enemy, the “Duke of Dune Acres.” IUN professor Garret Cope’s parents worked for the Snyder family as cook and chauffer.  Helen lent me “Holy Horrors: An Illustrated History of Religious Murder and Madness” by her brother-in-law James A. Haught. The title seemed particularly relevant given the horrific headlines about atrocities committed by hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania and subsequent church coverup. Haught signed the copy, “From a total heathen.”

 above, Christy Mathewson; below, Fred Merkle

Baseball goat Fred Merkle was an avid bridge player, often partnering in the New York clubhouse with Christy Mathewson, born in Factoryville, Pennsylvania, a graduate of Bucknell (my alma mater), and winner of 373 games during a stellar career.  Mathewson enlisted in the army during World War I and was accidentally gassed, resulting in tuberculosis and an early death in 1925 at age 45.  He was buried in Lewisburg Cemetery near Bucknell’s campus, known in the early 1960s as a “make-out heaven.”

Bonehead was the name of a children’s TV series that ran for three seasons on BBC beginning in 1960 and featured a dim-witted trio of crooks, Boss, Happy and Bonehead. 

Juggling Acts

“Most of us have trouble juggling.  The woman who says she doesn’t is someone I admire but have never met.” Barbara Walters

The earliest historical record of juggling goes back 4,000 years to a panel found in an Egyptian tomb thought to have religious significance, with the round objects possibly signifying solar objects. In ancient China a military leader, according to legend, used his juggling prowess to overawe enemy troops. Juggling acts became staples in circuses and a way of entertaining audiences between acts during vaudeville shows. Common props are balls, rings, and clubs, as well as more dangerous objects such as swords, flaming torches, and even chainsaws.  The records for most soccer balls juggled simultaneously is five, first achieved by Argentinean Victor Rubilar in 2006.

 Monica and Edgar in Mexico

In the spring of 2018 a pregnant Monica Verduzco juggled work, school, and family obligations while struggling with serious health issues.   She wrote:

January 29, 2018:I have been going back and forth and finally decided to have a first birthday party for Joaquin. I’ll rent the Riverview Park cabin in Lake Station.  It is inexpensive and hopefully big enough for our families. I gave my sister-in-law Maggie $150 for the deposit. She lives in Lake Station and I’m in New Chicago, which has a Hobart mailing address and pays Lake Station for water, sewer, trash, and police service; but somehow I don’t qualify as a resident.  I had a doctor appointment. My fiancé Edgar was able to go with me to see the ultrasound. I am 29 weeks pregnant and, oh, so high risk since I’ll turn 40 in March. This is my second child; it’s a girl. We haven’t decided on a name yet. 

January 30:Last fall I went back to school to become a history teacher. I am in UTEP (Urban Teacher Education Program) working towards a Master’s Degree in Secondary Education. There is a shortage of teachers in Indiana. I can only assume it’s because of the crappy pay and hostile environments of recent years.

February 5:Oh my goodness, so much homework, I feel like I may have to drop a class.  My boss scheduled me to work 45 hours for the next three weeks. This means it will be 50 because I never get out on time. I also do taxes for friends. I didn’t like to charge, but most insist on paying something, such as a case of Modelo beer or diapers. 

February 12:It’s my miracle child’s first birthday. Unfortunately, I have so much stuff going on that we aren’t going to celebrate until his party. I have 2 more taxes to get done this week. Edgar is laid off, and so is his uncle. They are fence erectors and probably won’t get work until April. 

February 14:Valentine’s Day is nothing special because I am so stinking busy. My boss has been gone and left us understaffed and without a proper schedule. I’ve even been asked to work two Sundays. 

February 19:At an appointment with the high risk doctor, everything went well. Even so, my thyroid is overactive, and the medication that I take is basically poison. It could cause low birth weight and a lot of growth issues for the baby. Edgar asked the nurse if there was still a possibility that it was a boy. The nurse reacted like he’s crazy. All I could do is shake my head; even the genetic test came back as a girl. Edgar is still hopeful that they are wrong. He is nervous about having a girl, I think; it’s funny how much he is over-reacting. 

February 24:At Sam’s Club we spent $200 on stuff for the baby’s birthday party on March 11, the first weekend day available, and we have a lot more to go. I did save a bunch of money by ordering a super cute Mickey Mouse cake and 28 cupcakes for $30. 

February 27:Edgar and I have talked about just going to the Justice of the Peace and getting married on my spring break before the baby is born. It makes me want to cry every time I have to tell someone my last name and then my son’s and they aren’t the same. The most important reason is that I almost died giving birth to Joaquin.  The nurses all talked about how scared the doctor was and how he stayed with me in recovery until I woke up, something he virtually never does. I am so worried about this delivery. I need to make sure that my family is taken care of. Everything that Edgar and I own is in my name. I have way better credit than Edgar and I have worked at the same place for 24 years. I have also owned my home for ten years. We have three vehicles and two are paid off. If anything happens to me,  he can sell them.  I need to make sure that he has a legal right to everything.  I have a friend who is an ordained minister and I might see if she’d marry us at Joaquin’s birthday party as long as Edgar is down for it. 

March 2:   Edgar liked the idea of one of my BFF’s marrying us. As long as we can get our license and his ring, we’ll do it at the birthday party. We ordered the ring and they said it should be here by in time. 

March 5:After my doctor appointments Edgar, Joaquin, and I went to Lake County Government Center for a marriage license. Edgar was super frustrated because we went into the wrong building three times.  He is really impatient. I feared he was going to leave, but he followed through. We haven’t told many people that we are getting hitched. We have been living as if married for almost seven years. We both come from Mexican backgrounds and our families are super Catholic, so they probably won’t think this is good enough since it wasn’t through the church.

March 10:I took today off. I usually work Saturdays but need to get everything done for the birthday party. Edgar’s ring came. We picked it up and went to Sam’s Club for last-minute items and to pick up Joaquin’s cake. At home I made pasta salad, broccoli salad, and a few desserts. The weather forecast is for tomorrow to be sunny and in the forties but snow in the evening. By then hopefully everyone will be home tucked in their beds. 

March 11:Everything turned out great. The decorations looked awesome, the food was great, and about 120 people came. The seating was a little tight, but we managed. Most of the kids played outside, so that gave us additional room. Amanda, my ordained minister friend, was pretty nervous with the size of the crowd.  Edgar and I were, too. I checked over the vows that Amanda printed off the internet and cut several paragraphs, telling her short and sweet was better. Then the three of us walked to the front, I grabbed the microphone from the DJ (because what first birthday party doesn’t have a DJ), and made the announcement. There were a few unexpected gasps and cheers from the crowd. Then we exchanged vows. Amanda was shaking so bad that it calmed us down. The whole thing lasted 3 minutes and 45 seconds.

Joaquin cried almost the whole afternoon except when he napped and when Edgar was holding him. He wouldn’t eat his smash cake or open his presents. Thank god, Edgar is an amazing father and now husband.  If everyone knew my story, how hard it was to get pregnant, stay pregnant and then stay alive during and after the delivery, I think they would understand why he is so pampered. 

March 12:It’s my birthday. I will say I am in such a better place in my life at 40 than I was at 30. I slept in and am in a lot of pain from yesterday.  My birthday present is that Edgar went back to work. I am excited because we need to keep saving for my upcoming maternity leave. Edgar, Joaquin, and I will go out for dinner. No big deal.  I have to take a three-hour glucose test tomorrow and need to fast for 12 hours, so I won’t be able to eat anything after 7 pm. I also need to watch my sugar intake, so no cake for me. 

March 13:After the torture of the glucose test at St. Anthony’s in Crown Point was over, I ate a footlong Firehouse sub. It was delicious. 

March 15:  I worked an 11-hour shift. My body is killing me. At least I am on Spring Break and don’t have class. I work across the street from the Key West Inn. Today they pulled another body from the motel. This time it was a murder, a woman with a daughter from Wheatfield who’d been missing. 

March 16: On my way to work I had to pass the motel.  A bloody mattress had been thrown in the dumpster for the whole world to see.  How horrific that they would do this. It is disgusting. I pray that none of her family pass by and see this. The place should be shut down. 

March 17:It is St Patrick’s Day, and I would love a nice cold green beer or just a regular beer for that matter. Being pregnant, I can’t have one for a few more months. I did make corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and carrots for dinner. There were no leftovers, so I would say it was a hit. I am half Mexican and half Irish, two red hot combinations. I have a really bad temper, by the way. 

April 2:Joaquin was really, really bad.  Edgar has him so spoiled. He only wanted to go with him. That annoyed Edgar, who wanted to leave my sister’s house earlier than normal.  My health issues and all the expenses for medications are seriously stressing me out. 

April 21:My family threw Edgar and me a surprise shower for Mila, our baby girl. We finally decided on a name. Everything was perfect. I was really surprised and almost cried. Lina, my cousin and sister-in-law (she is married to my husband’s brother), coordinated everything. She thought out every detail and even bought me a dress in case I showed up in jeans and a hoodie. 

April 22:After I worked on homework, we went to my nephew’s soccer game. I wore a sun dress and flip flops, not a good idea. I froze my butt off. Joaquin slept almost the entire time. Joaquin loves soccer. He kicks the ball around with assistance, since he is such a chicken to walk on his own. We then went to El Capitan in downtown Hobart to get something to eat after the game.  I am due a month from today and hope I make it that long. This way I’ll get more time off in August when the weather is nice. I was a week late with Joaquin; he just didn’t want to come out. Maybe Mila will be late. I am really nervous.  My doctor is insistent that I try for a vaginal delivery instead of the C-section. I just have this sickening feeling that something is going to happen and I might die, leaving Edgar a widow with two children under the age of two. Edgar would go crazy parenting alone and I pray that he doesn’t have to. Hopefully, I am paranoid. 

 Mila

Perhaps due in part to heavy rain, we just had three tables at bridge.  The hand I wish I had bid differently began with the person on my left opening one Heart.  Joel, my partner, bid 2 Clubs and the person to my right bid 2 Spades.  I held six Diamonds to the Ace-ten and 3 Clubs to the King.  After much hesitation, I bid 3 Diamonds and everyone passed.  Joel had a singleton Diamond King, which wouldn’t have been too bad except I encountered a 5-1 split and went down 2.  Had I bid Clubs, we would have made the contract.  My reasoning was that since I had a singleton Spade, the six Diamonds would be more valuable, but I should have supported Joel’s Clubs.

 James A. Haught

Helen Booth will be attending her seventieth high school reunion in West Virginia, saying that she attended a Catholic school although not religious.  Her brother-in-law, James A. Haught, is the author of many books, including: “2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt” (1996); “Holy Horrors: An Illustrated History of Religious Murder and Madness” (2002); “Fading Faith: The Rise of the Secular Age” (2010); and a memoir “Fascinating West Virginia: Wild, Memorable Episodes from the Longtime Editor of the Mountain State’s Largest Newspaper, The Charleston Gazette.” (2011).  Amazon.com included this biography:

  James A. Haught was born in 1932 in a small West Virginia farm town that had no electricity or paved streets. He graduated from a rural high school with 13 students in the senior class. He came to Charleston, worked as a delivery boy, then became a teen-age apprentice printer at the Charleston Daily Mailin 1951. Developing a yen to be a reporter, he volunteered to work without pay in the Daily Mailnewsroom on his days off, to learn the trade. This arrangement continued several months, until The Charleston Gazette offered a full-time news job in 1953. He has been at the Gazetteever since - except for a few months in 1959 when he was press aide to Sen. Robert Byrd.
    During his six decades in newspaper life, he has been police reporter, religion columnist, feature writer and night city editor. Then he was investigative reporter for 13 years, and his work led to several corruption convictions. In 1983 he was named associate editor, and in 1992 he became editor. He writes 400 Gazette editorials a year, plus occasional personal columns and news articles.
    Haught has four children, 12 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.For years he enjoyed hiking with a trail club, participating in a philosophy group, and taking grandchildren sailing off his old sailboat. He is a Democrat and longtime Unitarian Universalist.

Chancellor Lowe claimed he was spending more time than intended reading Paul Kern and my history of IUN, “Educating the Calumet Region.”  I told him I had spoken about it at an oral history conference and that the moderator got a kick out of descriptions of IUN’s History department during the 1970s when, to quote David Malham, the professors were a bunch of “Young Turks.”  Paul Kern recalled: “Faculty parties usually involved students and weren’t tea parties.The cultural milieu was more beer and Rock ‘n’ Roll than tea and classical music. It was more a case of the Sixties generation setting the tone.  Nobody would have dreamed of wearing a coat and tie to a history party. It was more casual than it might have been a few years before.” Interviewed by Andrew Bodinet, 1971 Horace Mann grad Milan Andrejevich, recalled a party where I blew a speaker playing a Rolling Stones album at such high volume.  At Tom Pancini and Al Sterken’s place on 35^thAvenue in Glen park we wore out Pink Floyd’s album “Dark Side of the Moon.”   

I didn’t tell Lowe the title of my Oral History Association talk: “The Professor Wore a Cowboy Hat (And Nothing Else): Ethical Issues in Handling Matters of Sex in Institutional Oral Histories: IU Northwest as a Case Study.”   During the 1970s, faculty on average were much younger than today, and both the sexual revolution and the feminist movement were in full swing. Divorce was rampant.  Though regretful that she went straight from living at home to marriage and family obligations, thankfully, Toni stuck with me during those hazardous times.  Not so, four of my colleagues, who ended up remarrying students, although in most cases the women initiated the relationship.  My thoughts were often on preparing for class, writing scholarly articles, and doing what I deemed necessary to get tenure rather thinking about Toni’s needs.  We had just one car, hard to imagine, which often left her stranded at home.  I found time to play sports in the back yard with Phil and Dave but not always quality time with her.  Meanwhile, she was juggling various responsibilities while taking Fine Arts classes at IUN.

Joe Glowacki; Times photo by David P. Funk

Joe Glowacki, 29, won two gold medals in bowling at the Special Olympics in Seattle.  He has a 135 average but rolled a high game of 171. For seven years, he has been working at LARC (Learning Assistance Resource Center, serving people with developmental disabilities), folding and gluing boxes for BMW.  Joe once bowled a 201 and also swims and runs relays.

At lunch Mike Olszanski filled me in on the memorial service for union leader Eddie Sadlowski, evidently a three-hour affair at a former union hall converted into a church.  Roberta Wood, active in the Women’s Caucus when Eddie was district director, gave an eloquent speech.  We reminisced about “Old lefties” active in the rank-and-file steelworkers movement and the anti-nuke Bailly Alliance.  Oz Googled Joe Franz’s name and discovered he’d died after hitting his head while working out at a gym.  His wife had been married to a rather dour IUN Sociology professor until she became enamored with Joe during the Bailly fight.  In Steel Shavings (volume 16, 1987) Chicagoan Ed Gogal recalled first meeting Franz: 

  In 1977 a group us “no-nukers” came out to Indiana and met Herb Read and Ed Osann, who took us on a trek through the proposed nuclear plant site.  We trespassed on NIPSCO’s land, and Herb showed us how NIPSCO was ruining Cowles Bog. We wanted to get one demonstration under our belt before the weather got too cold.  We held a rally in a Chesterton park, and then people paraded to the NIPSCO offices and put a wreath, to symbolize the death and destruction from nuclear power, on the door there.

  That winter we started saying, “This is crazy.  We have a lot of nuclear plants in Illinois that have to be fought.”So we started calling ourselves the Bailly Alliance-Illinois..  But we kept meeting labor leaders, such as Mike Olszanski and Joe Franz, at our literature table.  They’d say, “We really support what you are doing, but we’re too busy trying to get the coke ovens cleaned up, we don’t have the time to get involved.”  Then a few months later, they jumped in with both feet and that’s really when the Bailly thing took off.

Toni and grandson James at Grand Valley State, August 2018