Censure?

“The readiest surest way to get rid of censure is to correct ourselves.” Demosthenes

At bridge Terry Brendel argued that Congress should censure Trump for his actions regarding Ukraine rather than go through an impeachment trial that will inevitably end in him remaining in office and hand him an issue in his re-election bid.  A Los Angeles Times editorial laid out the rationale:

    A House vote to impeach President Trump appears inevitable. So how can the country be spared the further division that would come from a wrenching impeachment trial? One solution would be for House Democrats and Republicans to take an unprecedented step in American history: Adopt a joint resolution censuring the president for improper conduct. Such an action would put presidents on notice that manipulating foreign governments to extract personal political gain is unacceptable. In return, Democrats would agree to drop impeachment articles.

    Censure is neither endorsed nor prohibited by the Constitution, which makes it a good escape hatch. And it’s not a completely novel idea. Former Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, two great public servants of different political stripes, courageously advocated for censure in December 1998 to ward off a trial in the Clinton case. The country would have been better off if Democrats and Republicans had embraced the idea.

The only problem with this scenario is that the Republicans remain in lockstep with Trump, the Constitution be damned. Dean Bottorff replied to my post:

    Your argument makes sense. However, in the words of H.L. Mencken: "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." I will posit that a simple censure is wrong, if only because the facts of what Trump did are undeniable and present a fundamental threat to American democracy. Obviously, the Republicans, who have become the Party of Party (not unlike the former Ba’ath Party of Iraq or the NSDAP of Germany), act only as sycophants of their leader. Conventional wisdom says you are correct about the outcome. But I would argue that even if impeachment ultimately fails, it is not necessarily a given that this will improve Trump’s re-election prospects; and, quite possibly, will weaken the re-election prospects of the Republican senators who vote to acquit despite overwhelming and damning evidence of wrongdoing clearly within the scope of what the framers considered “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Moreover, this modern Republican party should forever be damned by history.

Ray Smock

Ray Smock also disagreed with the L.A. Times, arguing:

Censure is a joke. A slap on the wrist with no consequences. Why would we censure a president for committing high crimes and misdemeanors when the Constitution provides the remedy?  The Democrats have the high moral and legal ground no matter what happens in Mitch McConnell’s Senate.

Anne Koehler Wrote: “Another way out would be for Trump to resign like Nixon.  Fat chance.”

Trump reached a new low, if that is possible, with a fake orgasm mockery of former FBI lawyers Lisa Page (above) and Peter Strzok at a campaign rally. On a lighter note Senator Kamala Harris responded to Trump’s sarcastic tweet that he’ll miss her now that she’s dropped out of the Presidential race by answering, “Don’t worry, Mr. President.  I’ll see you at your trial.”  During a House impeachment hearing, after Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan stated that under our current system a President may name a child Barron but cannot anoint a nobleman, the White House put out a statement under Melania’s name chastising her.  Karlan subsequently apologized, something foreign to Trump’s DNA.

In a Banta Center club championship game Norm Filipiak and I, partnering for the first time, finished fifth out of fifteen with 53.2%, good for.83 of a master point.  After working as a manager for JC Penney and Sears in several locations, including Jackson, Michigan, he purchased a bakery and an entertainment center in Michigan City.  On the way home at Route 49 and the tollway entrance I got caught in a horrendous traffic jam due to the light being out.  There was no cop on the scene to direct traffic.  Because my rotator cuff has been giving me problems, I asked Joel Charpentier to bowl for me. Joel, who hadn’t bowled in three years, struggled for seven frames, then tripled and finished with a 169. I left early and got a holiday haircut from Anna in Portage.  At Nativity Church I picked up two packages of oplatki Christmas wafers, a Polish tradition, one for our family and the other for Toni’s sister Marianne. In Nativity’s office was a former student named Guernsey from my Vietnam war course.

 oplatki wafers; below, Sandy and Sara Carlson at Valparaiso University

Neighbor George Schott hosted the annual condo owners meeting, my first since serving as secretary for eight years.  Three longtime board members, former president Ken Carlson, Treasurer Kevin Cessna, and President Sandy Carlson, all announced their intention to retire, and only one person was willing to serve in their place.  Sandy tried to get me to come back onto the board, and I offered to do so in two years if she served another term.  She reluctantly agreed and persuaded two women to jointly serve. The issue of snow removal came up.  The company charges $400 each time it plows and $350 to shovel sidewalks.  Most residents enter their units through their garage and don’t mind taking caring of their own sidewalks, but the condo could be liable if someone delivering packages has an accident.

Jimbo Jammers finished the regular Fantasy Football season 10-2-1, usually good enough for first place, but Phil edged me out by a half-game.  We both have a bye in the initial round of the six-team playoff and hope to meet in the finals.

The guilty pleasure HBO series “Mrs. Fletcher” stars Kathryn Hahn as Eve, a horny divorced housewife suffering from empty nest syndrome after her lunkhead son Brendan (Jackson White) goes off to college.  It opens with Eve, a senior center administrator, hearing loud moans emanating from the common room where folks are knitting and playing checkers.  The source: an old man’s computer. The geezer’s son tries to stick up for him by telling Eve, “He has no pleasures in life.  You have any idea what that’s like?”  After a friend calls her a MILF (Mom I’d Like to Fuck), Eve looks up the definition on the computer and becomes attracted to porn, has rough sex with a stranger, tender sex with a woman, and fantasizes about being serviced at a massage parlor, participating in a threesome, and starting an affair with a teenager bullied in high school by Brendan (I was relieved that she did not act upon that urge). Labeling the series a “fascinating misfire,”Sophie Gilbert, reviewer for The Atlantic, wrote: “Like her biblical namesake, Eve senses she’s been missing something crucial. It isn’t porn that is fascinating Eve so much as the idea that, in her mid-40s, she can reject every assumption she or anyone else has ever had about herself and start over.  For Eve, porn is freedom.”  “Mrs. Fletcher” is a bleak commentary on contemporary life when people, to quote Gilbert, “are too busy tapping their phones to forge meaningful connections.”

I was asked to teach an IUN second semester History class and be a consultant on a Valparaiso University grant to contribute material to the Flight Paths interactive documentary website.  I declined the offer to return to the classroom but accepted the latter.

At the first annual IUN Artist Collective Holiday Pop-up Market in Savannah Gallery, I was delighted to find Casey King’s work and that Casey was on hand to show me his most recent work, including a mock ad for the Frank N Stein Drive-In that once attracted crowds to the Miller Beach neighborhood when Dunes Highway was a heavily traveled route between Chicago and the Lake Michigan dunes communities prior to construction of the Tri-State expressway.  Corey Hagelberg’s environmental coloring book was also on display.   

Goodbye, Columbus

“I’m going home

I’m going to Palestine

Goodbye, Columbus.”

  1920s Yiddish song

The screenplay for the 1969 hit film “Goodbye Columbus” starring Ali McGraw and Richard Benjamin was based on a 1959 novella by Philip Roth that dealt with a romance between a young Jewish couple from different economic backgrounds.  The title comes from a ditty sung by graduating seniors at Ohio State, located in the largest of at least 20 American cities named for Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, whose mistreatment of indigenous people has caused a reconsideration of his place in history.  At Notre Dame, for example, university officials announced plans to cover up nineteenth-century murals by Italian Luigi Gregori depicting Indians and African Americans in submissive poses with the cruel conqueror.  They ultimately will be moved to a museum and exhibited for purposes of teaching and research.

In her Ayers Realtors Newsletter column “Home on the Range” Judy Ayers included a recipe for Apple Crisp that a friend gave her after they bought apples at Garwood Orchard in La Porte.  She recalled sharing the back seat of the family car with sister Jane during the 1950s in the days without navigation features, temperature control, and hand-held entertainment devices: 

  There was no air conditioning, and we traveled with all the windows rolled down.  Shouting was not only allowed but required.  Jane and I fiercely enforced with military precision a dividing line between her space and mine.  Even short trips required our mother to come up with activities to keep us occupied and less likely to bicker with one another.

Lane family trips from Fort Washington, PA, to visit relatives in Easton and McKeesport found brother Rich and I squabbling when not preoccupied with games involving passing vehicles’ license plates.  Sometimes, in a surprisingly low bass voice, Vic would sing multiple verses from a fraternity drinking song he learned at Pitt featuring a battle between a Russian and a Turk, Czarist warrior Ivan Skavinsky Skivar and Abdul Abulbul Amir (“The son of the desert, in battle aroused, could spit 20 men on his spear.  A terrible creature, both sober and soused, was Abdul Abulbul Amir”).  Vic would rest his left elbow on the open window (that part of his arm had a deeper summer tan) and have the vent window at an angle for increased ventilation, a feature now sadly unavailable on most automobile models. Whenever we approached a two-lane road, Vic would joke that two of us would have to get out.  Taking James to Liam’s house in Portage, we came upon a bridge on Samuelson Road that narrows to a single lane.  For old times’ sake, I quipped, “Looks like you’ll have to get out.”  He’d heard me use the line before but obligingly chuckled.

Ron Cohen showed me a new book by Penn State professor Gary S. Cross, “Machines of Youth: America’s Car Obsession,” that contains several references to my Fifties Steel Shavings, “Rah Rahs and Rebel ’Rousers,” published in 1994 and containing oral histories of Calumet Region residents who were teenagers during the era when Baby Boomers were becoming old enough to drive.  I got my license while still in tenth grade and picked up prom date Mary Delp in my parents’ yellow-and-white 1956 Buick. In the back seat were Vince Curll and Pam Henry. On bethleham Pike, a three-lane highway, I attempted to pass a slow-moving vehicle only to have the driver speed up and not let me in as a car bore down on me from the other direction.  I barely made it.  I’m not sure the three passengers realized how close we’d come to a head-on collision.  Weekends I’d cruise in Bob Reller, Pete Drake or Skip Pollard’s car; we’d often end up at a drive-in theater or diner hoping to hook up with girls.  

I emailed Gary Cross to tell him how delighted I was to be in the book and ask where he had come across “Rah Rahs and Rebel ’Rousers.”  He answered within the hour, informing me that Steel Shavings was at Penn State library and calling the interviews in it priceless and invaluable for his book.  Pretty cool!  Other books by Cross include “Kids’ Stuff: Toys and the Changing World of American Childhood” (1999) and “Men to Boys: The Making of Modern Immaturity” (2008).

A right-winger responded to Ray Smock’s indictment of Trump by claiming Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff were evil and that God would punish them, adding “How I miss the USA of the 50s.”  Smock replied sarcastically:

Yeah, I sure miss Joe McCarthy, hunting for communists behind every tree. I miss the duck and cover exercises while the world went mad with nuclear bombs tested in the atmosphere. I miss the old days of the colorful crime bosses who made murder seem so cool. And I sure miss Jim Crow America. But I was a kid then, and I lived in a kid world, oblivious to such things. I am not a kid anymore. I live in the present. I will oppose the corruption of Donald Trump because I love my country and want to see it do so much better than it is doing right now. He is killing the Constitution every day of his presidency. This is the worst crime of all. He insults everyone who has ever defended the Constitution and stood up for the rule of law. 

Liz Wuerffel (left) with Valpo candidates for mayor, council & clerk/treasurer; below, Pete Visclosky

My friend Liz Wuerffel lost a race for Valparaiso city council to the outgoing mayor’s son, as Republicans, running scared, outspent Democrats by a four-to-one margin.  Congressman Pete Visclosky, 70, announced he would not seek another term as Indiana’s First District Representative on the 35th anniversary of his upset win over incumbent Katie Hall and Lake County prosecutor Jack Crawford.  During that campaign Visclosky, son of Gary’s interim mayor after George Chacharis went to prison, solicited our votes in person at our remote Maple Place residence within the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.  Roy Dominguez met Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg while in South Bend and wrote on Facebook: “We are so proud of his accomplishments, and he would make a great President of the U.S.A.!!!”

 Pete Buttigieg and Roy Dominguez

In “Amy and Isabelle” novelist Elizabeth Strout, so skilled at revealing the inner lives of everyday people, attributes office worker Bev’s addiction to cigarettes to loneliness.  Strout wrote:

  Bev knew why she smokes.  She smoked for the same reason she ate: it gave her something to look forward to.  It was as simple as that.  Life could get dull, and you had to glook forward to something.  When she was first married, she had looked forward to going to bed with her husband Bill, in that hot little apartment on Gangover Street. Boy, they used to have a good time.  It made up for everything, all their squabbles over money, dirty socks, drops of pee in front of the toilet – all those little things you had to get used to when you married someone.

  Funny how it could wear off, something that good.  But it did.  Bev kind of lost interest after the first baby was born.  She began to resent how night after night he’d still want to do it, that rigid thing always there.  It was because she was exhausted and the baby cried so much.  Her breasts were different too after that tiny angry baby had sucked them till the nipples cracked; and she had never lost the weight.  Her body seemed to stay swollen, and by God she was pregnant again.  So at a time when her house, her life, was filling up, she had experienced an irrepressible feeling of loss. They still did it once in a while, silently, and always in the dark.

The opening paragraph of Stroud’s new novel “Olive, Again” re-introduces a unique, unforgettable character, whom I came to love, nonjudgmental in matters of the heart but one who did not suffer fools - and played in an HBO mini-series by Frances McDormand:

  In the early afternoon on a Saturday in June, Jack Kennison (Bill Murray in the mini-series) put on his sunglasses, got into his sports car with the yop down, strapped the seatbelt over his shoulder and across hos large stomach, and drove top Portland – almost an hour away – to buy a gallon of whiskey rather than bump into Olive Kitteridge at the grocery store here in Crosby, Maine.

Chesterton bridge partner Joel Charpentier and I are on quite a roll, finishing first, third, and first in the three weeks since first pairing up. On Tuesday second-place finishers Chuck and Marcy Tomes cleaned our clock the final two hands, so edging them out came as a surprise.  I asked Terry Bauer, whose daughter is working in Hong Kong, whether she still is staying clear of the anti-government protests.  For all the publicity they’ve generated, he noted, not a single person has died.  It's more like street theater, with each side getting its point across.

This poignant letter from Ray Andersen of Newburgh, IN, appeared in the November 2019 Bridge Bulletin:

  My wife and I have participated in all of The Longest Day promotions to raise funds to find a cure for Alzheimer’s. About two years ago, she began to change.  Once a good bridge player, the last time we played bridge as partners (about four months ago) she could no longer recognize even simple things such as Jacoby transfers (responses to a 1 No Trump bid). I hope that ACBL (American Contract Bridge League) will continue The Longest Day promotions to fight this wicked disease, and that all of our members will participate and contribute.  Now it’s personal.

 Lucy Mercer

Leafing through Jean Edward Smith’s FDR biography that Jim Pratt will be discussing at my upcoming book club, I enjoyed the account of Roosevelt’s romance with Lucy Mercer that blossomed during World War I.  After giving birth to five children, Eleanor decided that they’d practice abstinence.  Acerbic cousin Alice Roosevelt Longworth quipped, “Franklin deserved a good time.  He was married to Eleanor.”  On July 16, 1917, anxious to have Eleanor away from Washington, DC, for the rest of the summer, Roosevelt wrote her, “You were a goosy girl to think that I don’t want you here because you know I do.  But honestly you ought to have six straight weeks at Campobello.” In a chapter covering the emergence of 1940 Republican Presidential candidate Wendell Willkie, a Democrat until just months before the nominating convention, former Republican Senator James E. Watson said of his fellow Hoosier, “If a whore repented and wanted to join the church, I’d personally welcome her and lead her up the aisle to a pew.  But I’d not ask her to lead the choir the first night.”

  

Prior to the 1940 Democratic convention FDR had decided to seek an unprecedented third term due to the war in Europe but, according to Jean Edward Smith, only on the condition that Secretary of Agriculture be his running-mate.  He believed Wallace’s candidacy would help him carry farm states and that Wallace would support liberal programs in the event anything happened to him, in contrast to Vice President John Nance Garner or House Speaker William B. Bankhead of Alabama.  It took determined arm-twisting by Jim Farley and Jimmy Byrnes and a moving convention speech by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to carry the day.  

In July 1944 FDR traveled on the cruiser Baltimore to Hawaii to meet with military leaders Douglas MacArthur and Chester Nimitz to finalize strategy for defeating Japan and to quiet rumors that his health was failing.  While in Honolulu the President toured military bases and requested that he be photographed with Nisei (Japanese-American) soldiers.  He also visited an amputee ward, his only public appearance ever in a wheelchair.  Jean Edward Smith wrote: “The President stopped at one bed after another, chatting briefly.  He wanted to show his useless legs to those who would face the same affliction.”

Bridge

“Sail on silver girl, sail on by

Your time has come to shine”

         “Bridge over Troubled Waters,” Simon and Garfunkel

 photo by Jacob A. Riis, circa 1889

In 1970, while I was finishing my PhD dissertation at the University of Maryland on urban reformer Jacob A. Riis, Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge over Troubled Waters” was a big hit.  Perhaps under its influence, I titled the fruit of my labors “Bridge to the ‘Other Half’: Jacob A. Riis and the American City.”  My publisher, Kennikat Press, perhaps wisely used only the subtitle. Even so, writings by the crusading Danish-American, such as “How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York” acted as a bridge connecting the general public with the plight of the urban poor.

 Lowe and 2013 retiree Sam Flint, receiving a clock

Chancellor William J. Lowe visited the Calumet Regional Archives to discuss a one-week “Bridge” session for incoming IUN students that will be held later in the month. Under the auspices of History professor David Parnell, it will include an Archives component, as students will conduct research on women from Northwest Indiana and, with guidance from personable Performing Arts professor Mark Baer, participate in a dramatic reading at week’s end.  I suggested Vee-Jay Records founder Vivian Carter and Latina matriarch Maria Arredondo as possibilities, and Steve mentioned former chancellors Peggy Elliott and Hilda Richards.  Lowe will talk to students about the history of the university, beginning a century ago when the first IU “extension” classes were offered in Gary.  Steve suggested he consult Paul Kern and my history of IUN, “Educating the Calumet Region,” for details.

Making the case for the importance of Vee-Jay Records, I produced the Steel Shavingsissue (volume 46) with Vivian Carter on the cover, eliciting a quip from Lowe about my blog.  I reiterated that I was a staunch supporter of his; in fact, I have refrained from criticizing him in print.  My only quibble with his stewardship is that he generally leaves academic policy matters to subordinates.  That was probably a sensible decision when he came on board from an urban campus in Minnesota; but, unfortunately, at times it has enabled an “Old Boys” network of entrenched faculty to make policy decisions that fail to take into account community engagement and need for racial and gender diversity that, in my opinion, were inimical to the long-term interests of the university.  

 Charles Stewart Parnell and David Parnell

Because Lowe pronounced David Parnell’s name with the emphasis on the first syllable, I told him I had always said Par-NELL.  The Chancellor admitted that most people, including David, probably say Par-NELL but, being an Irish historian, he favored the pronunciation used by Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell, a Protestant and advocate of Home Rule.  Allied with William Gladstone’s Liberal Party during the mid-1880s, Parnell was a controversial figure detested by, among others, Catholic prelates.  Parnell's influence diminished after revelations surfaced of his long adulterous affair with Kitty O’Shea. Lowe pointed out that Parnell’s mother Delia was from New Jersey and the daughter of Admiral Charles Stewart, commander of the USS Constitutionduring the War of 1812. Lowe mentioned attending one of Parnell’s classes on Roman history.  I told him I’d audited his  Crusades course. We were both very impressed with his knowledge and classroom skills.

While we had Lowe's attention, Steve brought up the Archives’ need for more space. I asked whether the university intended to replace retired gallery director Ann Fritz in view of the fact that Corey Hagelberg had been assured that the position would be his until David Klamen returned from a two-year leave-of-absence and countermanded the offer.  Lowe seemed unfamiliar with those facts but agreed on the need to fill the position.

 above, Corey Hagelberg on ladder at Gary Heat, Light, Water Co.; below Puerto Rican dancers in 2017

Hammond librarian Amanda Aguilar visited the Archives to acquaint herself with our holdings and discuss areas of cooperation between the two repositories.  A few days ago, East Chicago Public Library held a two-hour program, “Catch the Rhythm of the Island,” celebrating Puerto Rican heritage that featured music, dance, exhibits and ethnic refreshments.

 IU Vice President James Wimbush

Former IUN Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Mark McPhail stopped by to report that IU Vice President for Diversity, Equity  and Multicultural Affairs James Wimbush recently appointed him to produce an all-campus study on diversity.  Wimbush was formerly a Business Administration professor and IU Graduate School dean. A year ago, when asked to assess McPhail’s complaint to the IU Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity that he had encountered a hostile campus work environment due to his being African American, I wrote that shabby treatment emanated not from his superiors, such as Lowe, but from underlings among the faculty who undermined efforts to implement university policies set down by John ., Applegate, IU Executive Vice President for University Academic Affairs. I concluded:

  McPhail is particularly upset that his unhappy year at IUN has hindered his career goal of being in an administrative position where he could make good use of his considerable talents.  I would hope that President Michael McRobbie or Vice President Applegate might find some role for him to be of service to IU in an advisory capacity.

Perhaps somebody was taking notice or, more likely, independently came to the same conclusion.

 Reid brothers of The Jesus and Mary Chain

All week WXRT has been giving away tickets to Lollapalooza after-shows for performers such as Jack White, Arctic Monkeys, The National, and Greta Van Fleet.   No sign that either of my favorite bands, The War on Drugs or The Head and the Heart, will be anywhere near Chicagoland. I’ve been playing CDs of theirs, “Slave Ambient” and “Signs of Life,” on heavy rotation and added such Nineties Lollapalooza headliners as Soul Asylum, Sonic Youth, and The Jesus and Mary Chain.

A chapter in Richard Russo’s “The Destiny Thief” recounts a 2004 Colby College graduation address where he cited “Russo’s Rules for a Good Life.”  The first was to search out the kind of work that you would gladly do for free and then get somebody to pay you for doing it.  Others were to find a loving life mate, have children, and nurture your sense of humor if you have one.  Like Russo, I was on a path toward a profession in a field that no longer excited me when I quit law school to follow my desire to become a teacher. Married 51 years with two great sons, six grandchildren, and a decent sense of humor, I agree with his sentiments. As Roots author Alex Haley put it, “In every conceivable manner, the family is a link to our past, bridge to our future.”I have never been invited to deliver a commencement speech. Sadly, most area high schools prefer ministers to academicians; but if such an offer ever happened, I’d mix in Russo’s rules with quotations from Kurt Vonnegut, perhaps “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.”  Or, “What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously.  But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.”  If not cured, I’d add, at least ameliorated.

from Twain's "Life on the Mississippi" (1883)

A comic writer, Russo considers the world around him grist for humor. His world view is akin to that of humorist Mark Twain, who once said, “There was never yet an uninteresting life.  Inside the dullest exterior, there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.” “The Destiny Thief” contains this anecdote: after Jimmy, his ne’er-do-well Old Man, died and was cremated, the family hosted a memorial in a funeral home. While it was in progress, Russo noticed a wizened geezer walking from room to room and even upstairs to off-limits private quarters before someone stopped him and gently but firmly escorted him back downstairs.  Before reaching the bottom, the stranger loudly exclaimed, “Ahem, where the hell is Jimmy?”  Now that’s funny.

Alan Yngve

At Chesterton YMCA, director Alan Yngve’s duplicate bridge lesson was from the previous week’s hand where Dee and I gained 1400 points for doubling and setting a 3 Heart bid down five.  John and Karen Fieldhouse, our opponents then, asked in a good-natured way why he had to select that hand.  The reason was to demonstrate that having the most high card points doesn’t necessarily translate into a successful contract. In this case, the best contract was 4 Spades by North-South despite both hands having a combined total of just 17 high card points, whereas East-West, despite holding 23 high card points, cannot likely even garner a majority of tricks in their best suit, Hearts.  

There were five full tables.  Joel Charpentier and I finished fifth out of ten despite having only been partners on one previous occasion several months ago. I opened one hand a Spade, holding Ace, King, Queen and three others plus a void in hearts but just one other honor. Joel raised to 2 No-Trump and I rebid Spades, expecting him to go either 3 No-Trump or four Spades.  Instead, he bid 4 No-Trump, asking for Aces.  After I answered 5 Diamonds, he jumped to 6 No-Trump. Holding just 10 high-card points, I feared the worst.  After he took the first trick with his only Heart stopper, Joel led his singleton Spade and played dummy’s Ace, King, and Queen.  Had Spades not split 3-3, he’d have been down big time, but opponents Mary Korcevar and Judy Selund each had an equal number; Joel took every trick thereafter for a small slam and high board.

I told Judy Selund and Mary Kocevar that I enjoyed Anna Urick’s account of their trip to Iceland in Barbara Walczak’s Newsletter,  including these remarks about “An Awesome Winter Wonderland”:

  On July 8, we left for the volcanic, verdant country of Iceland.  We saw many stunning sights, including numerous waterfalls, geysers, black beaches, and glaciers (receding at an alarming rate).  We also saw many species of birds, including the puffins (no, we did not eat any).  Sheep and horses were plentiful on the countryside.  Beautiful purple and yellow wildflowers were prevalent everywhere. If you have ever heard “Singing in the Rain,” imagine Judy, Therese, and Tina swimming, drinking wine, and splashing in the Blue Lagoon as rain fell.  Their visit to a nearby spa completed the day Another day they went horseback riding. All proved to be quite the equestrians.

  Since four of the travelers were bridge players, we managed to get in a few games, playing for money instead of masterpoints. We learned that playing for masterpoints was less stressful than when kronas(the national currency) were involved.

 Doug Jordan in 2014

Amazingly, Barbara Walczak has been editing two Newsletters a week.  The latest contains this remembrance of 89 year-old Doug Jordan, Lake Central band director for 30 years, beginning in 1958, and a lover of bridge:

  Doug’s friend and bridge partner Sharon Snyder said that he not only refreshed her understanding of bridge but that he single-handedly made her into a moderately decent bridge player.  Even when he couldn’t get out to play anymore, he bought an electric scooter and a handicapped-accessible van so he could try and get to the social game that he and Sharon ran on Fridays in Crown Point.  He also asked friends to come to Town Centre to play – where he moved last November.  And he was even playing bridge on Bridge Base Online on his laptop in the hospital just days before he died.  He was definitely a King of Spades!  Doug also played in the Hobart Community Band and the pit of LCTG playhouse in Cedar Lake until he just couldn’t physically manage it anymore.  His loves were music, bridge, and the great outdoors.

 Toni, Alyssa, James, and Becca; photo by Angie Lane

Anne Balay posted on Facebook that she liked the lesbian subplots in “Incredibles 2”  but otherwise found the movie “pretty meh.”  Not hip, I found in Urban Dictionarythat “Meh” means indifference, or not really caring about something.  Patti Calandra missed the lesbian parts.  Anne explained:“Elastic and the tekkie sister had some hot eye contact, and the void and violet were nerd flirting near the end.  I love nerd flirting.”  Toni went to see “Incredibles 2” with the grandkids.  I’ll have to ask her about the matter.

Nathaniel Philbrick’s “Valiant Ambition” on George Washington and Benedict Arnold arrived via inter-library loan.  It opens with a Shakespeare quote from Julius Caesar: “As he was valiant, I honor him. But, as he was ambitious, I slew him.” Like Brutus, Arnold turned traitor, at least in the public eye.  The truth is more complex.

The Holidays

“The problem with winter sports is that they generally take place in winter.” David Barry

Celebrating Christmas a day late so we could have everyone at the condo after completing other obligations, we had over a dozen over-nighters.  Numerous friends dropped in, including Beth Satkoski’s brother Jim with wife Erika and daughter Annalisa and Dave’s former student Denzel Smith, who attends Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida.  Denzel knew all about founder Mary McLeod Bethune, a friend of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and a National Youth Administration (NYA) director.  When soliciting funds for her school, she’d wear a shabby coat to emphasize her frugality.  My gifts included a File 7 tablet, a half-dozen CDs (including “Nothing to Find” by the War on Drugs and Dave’s “Best of 2017” compilation that included “Dirty Laundry” by All Time Low), a flannel shirt, Aspen cologne, and a couple fancy jellies.  Dave mentioned that the Moody Blues finally got voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with other favorites Dire Straits, Bon Jovi, and the Cars. 

Dean Bottorff announced that he and Joanell have sold their Roosevelt Inn near Mount Rushmore and are retired but certainly not sedentary.  He wrote:

  We made a big home improvement by finally getting the cabin on a real foundation. Previously, it was perched on pylons; now the back wall has a genuine, native stone foundation. Yes, we know, most people build a foundation first, then put the house on it, rather than build the house and put the foundation under it . . . but why do it the east way when there’s a harder way?  A contractor told us he could build a foundation for $23,000, but we figured that with all the rock around here and a hundred bags of concrete and mortar we could do it cheaper . . . and so it was if you don’t count the cost of Tylenol.

  Once we mastered the knack of building with native stone we kinda got carried away and built a new stone wall at the gate and another one around the back deck.  They may not be the prettiest or best walls ever made but they look good to us.  Also, one can take a lot of pride in being able to sling around an 80-pound bag of mortar.

 Will Kellogg

My holiday reading included Howard Markel’s “The Kelloggs: Battling Brothers from Battle Creek” (2017), about physician John Harvey Kellogg, director of a world famous medical center and spa, and younger brother Will, founder of Kellogg’s cereal company.  John and Will feuded for most of their lives but their development of ready-to-eat, easily digestible corn flakes revolutionized what millions ate for breakfast.  Will came up with such advertising gimmicks as putting toys and comics inside cereal boxes and investing in a huge electric sign atop the Mecca Building in Times Square. The W. K. Kellogg Child Welfare Foundation, dedicated to caring for vulnerable children, became one of the nation’s largest charitable trusts.  According to Markel, when Will was a child he had a pet horse that his father sold to a neighbor.  After he made his fortune, he bought property in California’s Pomona Valley and assembled a stable of prize Arabian thoroughbreds including Jadaan, that Rudolph Valentino rode in “The Son of the Sheik.”  When I taught in Saudi Arabia, a student invited me to dinner and took me to see his daughter ride her Arabian horse.

Holly Tucker’s “City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris” presents a portrait of “Sun King" Louis XIV that seems remarkably similar to his English contemporary Charles II.  Both seemed more interested in frolicking with mistresses than affairs of state but were canny enough to appoint competent ministers, in Louis’ case, Jean-Baptiste Colbert.

I’m rereading Gary Pomerantz’s “The Devil’s Tickets,” about a bridge game that turned deadly in 1929.  When reporting on it to history book club members, I’ll emphasize how the game’s burgeoning popularity was connected to themes of the Roaring Twenties, including urbanization, the growth of the middle class, the rise of mass advertising, and the New Era revolution in manners and morals.  Here are a few anecdotes gleaned from Pomerantz.

·     * In the 1930 comedy “Animal Crackers’ Harpo Marx sits on a woman contract bridge opponent’s lap, inspiring Chico to quip: “He thought it was contact bridge.”

·      * Algonquin Round Table regular George S. Kaufman, an inveterate bridge player, made this comment after a partner departed for the bathroom: “That’s the only time this afternoon I’ve known what he had in his hand.”

·      * Some New York City Flappers danced without panties and shaved their pubic hair in the shape of a heart or, to symbolize their allegiance to dapper chief executive Al Smith, a derby.

Alice Joyce

Sports Illustrated noted the passing of broadcaster Dick Enburg (above), famous for the understated expression “Oh, My.”  During a game of Texas Hold ’em, I found a dramatic occasion to utter the expression.  Former Philadelphia Phillies who passed away in 2017 included Cy Young recipient Jim Bunning, manager of the 1980 World Series champs Dallas Green, catcher on the 1993 National League champs Darren Daulton, and 2010 21-game winner Ray “Doc” Halladay, who pitched a post-season no-hitter against the Reds.

I turned down an opportunity to see the latest “Star Wars” flick, “The Last Jedi,” but enjoyed several good movies OnDemand over the holidays, including “The Last of the Mohicans” (1992), based on the 1826 James Fenimore Cooper novel; “Frida”(2002) about Mexican revolutionary artist Frida Kahlo and starring Salma Hayek; “The Door in the Floor” starring Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger and based on John Irving’s 1998 novel “A Widow for One Year”; and “The Legend of Ben Hall,” about a nineteenth-century Australian bushranger whose exploits made him a folk hero and inspired several bush ballads. 

 Ben Hall

I had little interest in holiday bowl games (although Terry Jenkins informed me that the Georgia-Oklahoma contest was one for the ages) or the final week of the NFL season; the Eagles had already clinched a bye and home field throughout the playoffs and the Bears and Skins had no chance for a winning season.  I did watch the 76ers win an exciting overtime game against the Knicks and parts of two Bulls games. I’m a fan of Niko Mirotic, returning better than ever after teammate Bobby Portis sucker-punched him, causing a concussion and facial injuries. Ice hockey doesn’t get interesting until the Stanley Cup playoffs, and IU’s basketball team is one of the worst in recent memory.

At Hobart Lanes, the Engineers took two games and series from first-place Just Friends, thanks in large part to Dick Maloney’s 530 series.  Due to macular degeneration, Dick can hardly see the pins and several times removed his glasses to determine if any were still standing. During the second game, he told Doris Guth, on her way to a 200 in a losing cause, to “take it easy on us,” eliciting a “bullshit” in reply. 

Condo resident John Mario passed away.  An accountant, he produced budget print-outs for the association for many years.  When Phil and Dave were teenagers, Mr. Mario refereed numerous youth soccer matches, and his sons John and Mark played soccer and tennis with the boys.  I often ran into him at Jewel, where we’d brag about our respective grandchildren.

For three days, I attended Jef Halberstadt’s game weekend and learned a new board game called Stockpile.  Railroads of the World looked intriguing but lasted several ours, so I just watched.  Don Price sent his regrets from Ventura, California, along with a 1984 Halberstadt Game Weekend shirt he’d outgrown that ended up being worn by Jef’s daughter-in-law Anna. Jef’s brother Glenn, who recently retired from Indianapolis Public Library, told me that he enjoyed reading Maria’s Journey (which I edited) by Ramon and Trisha Arredondo; it had been selected for inclusion in the library’s Bicentennial summer reading program.  I had said my good-byes on the final day when Tom Wade tempted me into staying for a five-player Acquire.  Charlie Halberstadt, who introduced Tom to our favorite game a half-century ago, lost to Dave by a paper-thin margin.

In bed by 10 p.m. December 31, 2017; good riddance to a disillusioning year.

In bridge Helen Boothe and I finished third; winners Jim and Marcia Carson made a grand slam against us. Every other couple playing the hand took all 13 tricks but stopped at six No Trump. Helen often lays with Joel Charpentier, who’s in Florida and got a write-up in Barbara Walczak’s Newsletter for doing well “with a myriad of partners.”  Barb wrote: “He does a lot of volunteer work – most notably in the food pantry.  He had 4 children and 7 grandchildren.”

On my first day back at IUN, it was minus 7 outside and not much warmer at my cage (thank heaven for the space heater Cheryl found me).  Doing research on Gary history at the Archives was Ball State professor of Architecture and Planning Olon Dotson, who was familiar with my work.  On You Tube I found a lecture he delivered in Indianapolis entitled “Through the Lens of Fourth Theory.” Usually the phrase “Fourth World” is employed to describe poverty stricken parts of Third World countries, but, for Dotson, it is “a methodology for examining and developing greater understanding of the extent of the distress and abandonment commonly found in the cores of American cities.”

 Olon Dotson

Olon Dotson’s relatives have lived in Gary since 1918. In a Design Altruism Project article entitled “Gary, IN: Geography of a Fourth World City,” Dotson wrote:

  The severe physical distress and institutional abandonment present throughout the entire city proper, resulting from de-industrialization, historic segregation and discrimination patterns, erosion of a viable tax base, racism, inability to embrace the concept of desegregation and civil rights legislation by choosing ‘exit’ over ‘voice’, fear, despair, crumbling infrastructure systems, disinvestment in urban school systems, and environmental justice issues, qualify Gary, Indiana as model Fourth World city.

The tome “Kurt Vonnegut: Complete Stories” comes in at over 900 pages and brings together virtually all of the Hoosier bard’s short stories, including some heretofore never published.  In the Foreword, Dave Egger calls them moral stories rarely written anymore, telling readers what is noble, what is evil, and how to live with dignity.  In “The Honor of a Newsboy” a ten-year-old helps a sheriff solve a case, leading the officer to ruminate that it was a pity everyone couldn’t remain ten the rest of their lives and, if so, “maybe rules and common decency and horse sense would have a Chinaman’s chance.”  Looking in the mirror, the sheriff sees “a tired old man who tried to make the world wat the ten-year-old thought it was.”  Eggers summarizes Vonnegut’s philosophy thusly: “Be kind.  Do no harm.  Take care of your family.  Don’t start wars.”  Amen to that.