Then and Now

“As albums go, Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs” was probably my favorite of the year, with Ra Ra Riot’s “The Orchard,” The New Pornographers’ “Together” and Titus Andronicus’ “The Monitor” as close runners-up.” Robert Blaszkiewicz”

I put on Robert’s favorite songs of 2010 CD to see how the selections hold up a decade later. Most seem particularly fitting in this, our plague year.  Robert led off with “A More Perfect Union,” by Titus Andronicus, the Civil War theme hopefully not a harbinger of things to come with a sociopath in the White House sowing sedition.  Spoon’s “Trouble Comes Running” follows, then “Crash Years” by New Pornographers and, two tracks later, Cee Lo Green’s “Fuck You,” served with a figurative raised middle finger. The middle verse goes:

Yeah I'm sorry, I can't afford a Ferrari,
But that don't mean I can't get you there.
I guess he's an Xbox and I'm more Atari,
About the way you play your game ain't fair.

 

Robert always broadens my musical horizons, and 2010 was no exception, with “Boyfriend” by Best Coast, “10 Mile Stereo” by Beach House, and “Glass Printer” by The Besnard Lakes. I hadn’t recalled that the 2010 Mix contained “The Weekenders” by The Hold Steady, one of my favorite bands since Alissa’s husband Josh introduced me to “South Town Girls,”; also, Arcade Fire, whose 2010 “The Suburbs” CD, which contains “Rococo,” I presently have on heavy rotation. The finale: “Talk on Indolence” by the Avett Brothers, whom Robert and I saw at Merrillville’s late, lamented Holiday Star with the Nitty Ditty Dirt Band opening for them. “Talk on Indolence” could be a lamentation for our current time

Well I've been lockin' myself up in my house for some time now

Readin' and writin' and readin' and thinkin'

And searching for reasons and missing the seasons.

The Autumn, the Spring, the Summer, the snow.

The record will stop and the record will go

John and Lorraine Shearer discovered numerous Petroskey stones during a recent expedition to Lake Michigan by Sleeping Bear Dunes. They live in Traverse City in one of the few areas where the pebble-shaped fossilized coral can be found.  According to Wikipedia, “Such stones were formed as a result of glaciation in which sheets of ice plucked stones from the bedrock, grinding off their rough edges and depositing them.” It is the state stone of Michigan.
Neil Goodman sculpture at IUN

On campus during Indiana University Northwest’s registration for Fall semester, I found my building and the library virtually deserted.  The process is apparently all automated.  In contrast, when I began my IUN teaching career, registration was a chaotic affair with heavy faculty participation; in order to successfully enroll for a particular course, a student had to maneuver in lines in order to pick up IBM computer card from department representatives situated in a huge room filled with students, faculty, and harried Admissions staff hoping to provide guidance to bewildered freshmen.  Working registration, I socialized with colleagues whom I might not otherwise have been with at any other function.

 

Numerous people identified with my description of past registration.  Janet French wrote: “That’s how it was at VU when I began in 1974.  In the gym heavy canvass was spread out on the floor.  If you didn’t get in line quick enough, for a class, you lost out. Chaos, but I miss that.”  IUN grad liked the socializing aspect of registration, adding: “It appears that part of the college experience has disappeared.”  Former IUN History professor Jerry Pierce recalled:

    Had something similar when I started at Oregon. We had to go to the basketball court in the arena, get cards, and stand in line. While waiting for a science class that was filling too fast, I struck up a conversation with a grad student at the Religious studies table and decided to register for Intro to the study of the Bible, which set me on my career trajectory. And it was a much better class than Physics of light and color.

 

First day of Fall semester at IU Northwest was unlike any I can remember. Normally the parking lots are filled to overflowing; not this year. No sign of student groups recruiting new members at tables set up near the student union. The cafeteria was almost devoid of customers.  With so many online offerings, less than 20 percent of courses are in classrooms, and the Zoom website was so overwhelmed, it crashed for a couple hours. Those students I encountered were wearing masks inside buildings but not always while outside. Only a few professors appeared to be around, but Philosopher Gianluca Di Muzio asked if I’d attend his freshman seminar next month to talk about the history of IUN, a course component. I agreed but am unsure whether I’ll need to keep a mask on during the entire 75 minutes.  I plan to give students my latest Steel Shavings beforehand, something that sparked discussion when I spoke in Jon Becker’ class last year. I’ll begin by mentioning that IU is celebrating its bicentennial, IUN its hundredth anniversary, and that I have been at the university exactly half that time - 50 years. In 1970 fully a third of the classes were in the evening, and most students were from steelworker families and first-generation college students whose parents or grandparents were immigrants.

My Oral History Association conference session is all set, chaired by Dr. Annette Henry of the University of British Columbia, who will also speak about two Black-Canadian women she interviewed.  Also on the panel is Izumi Niki, who will discuss Japanese-Canadian Kishizo Kimura, a west coast fisherman interned shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, similar to what happened in the United States.  Some 22,000 Japanese-Canadians, 90 percent of them Canadian citizens, were order to evacuate British Columbia and move inland into relocation camps.  The Canadian government also deported others and would not allow those relocated to return to the west coast until 1949, four years after World War II ended.  What is unique about Kimura is that he served on government bodies charged with disposing of the property holdings, including fishing vessels, of people he formerly had worked with and kept n extensive diary, which has been edited and published under the title “Witness to Loss.”  Were it not for the pandemic, I’d be looking forward to meeting Annette Henry and Izumi Niki.  As it is, we’ll be at home rather than in Baltimore.

 

David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest” (1996) takes place at a future time when years will have a corporate sponsor similar to sports stadiums.  Thus, most of the action takes place in the “Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment.”  Other years are named for the Whopper, Perdue Wonder chicken, and, my favorite, the Trial-sized Dove Bar.

The Republican convention is un-watchable.  Among the despicable things that has transpired is approving a platform branding the Southern Poverty Law Center, which catalogs the nation’s hate groups, a “radical organization.”  Co-founded by Julian Bond and dedicated to the rule of law and ideals of Martin Luther King, it is an organization that we have supported for decades.

The Republican convention is un-watchable.  Among the despicable things that has transpired is approving a platform branding the Southern Poverty Law Center, which catalogs the nation’s hate groups, a “radical organization.”  Co-founded by Julian Bond and dedicated to the rule of law and ideals of Martin Luther King, it is an organization that we have supported for decades.

Nelsons

 “Someone opened up a closet door and out stepped Johnny B. Goode

Playing guitar like a-ringin' a bell and lookin' like he should
If you gotta play at garden parties, I wish you a lotta luck
But if memories were all I sang, I rather drive a truck

And it's all right now, learned my lesson well
You see, ya can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself”

    “Garden Party,” Ricky Nelson 

Ricky Nelson (1940-1985) began an unlikely career as an actor and pop singer at age eight on the radio program “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” starring his parents (a former band leader and vocalist) and also featuring older brother David.  Five years after the show became a successful TV series in 1952, Nelson made his singing debut, a cover of Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin’,” and the following year enjoyed his first of 19 Top Ten hits, “Poor Little Fool.”  In 1959 Nelson co-starred in the Howard Hawks Western “Rio Bravo” with John Wayne and Dean Martin. One summer when in high school, I caught a glimpse of him leaving a concert at Atlantic City’s Steel Pier mobbed by fans.  A girlfriend told me I looked like him, quite a flattering comment, I thought, if perhaps an exaggeration. Around the time of the 1964 British Invasion, the hits stopped coming for Nelson, except for 1972’s “Garden Party,” which he wrote in disgust after being booed at an Oldies show when he sang new country-oriented material rather than stick to mostly lame former hits. 

Rick Nelson died when his private plane, a DC-3 formerly owned by Jerry Lee Lewis, crashed bear De Kalb, Texas while his band was en route to a concert during a “Comeback tour" after a fire erupted in the cabin.  After toxicology reports found drugs in Nelson’s body, rumors spread that the fire was due to passengers free-basing cocaine; but the likely cause was a faulty in-cabin heater. Rick’s twin sons Gunnar and Matthew subsequently formed a band called Nelson.

The name Nelson, of English, Scottish, and Scandinavian origin, has been both a first and surname; in some cases, it literally denoted son of Nels. Examples of the former include South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela and New York governor Nelson Rockefeller; famous people with the last name range from British naval hero at Trafalgar Viscount Horatio Nelson and actor Judd Nelson to performers Nelson Eddy and Willie Nelson. Sports stars include infielder Nellie Fox and grappler Battling Nelson.  Two popular wrestling holds are the half and full nelson, which involve locking a hand on an opponent’s neck in an effort to turn and pin him.

On the way to Jon Becker’s freshman seminar on the fourth floor of IUN’s Hawthorn Hall, I dropped in the offices of poet Bill Allegrezza and Brian O’Camb, now English department chair and a former lunch companion, along with Jonathyne Briggs and Anne Balay.  Becker gave me an inscribed copy of “The Flunked-Out Professor: Six Steps for Turning Big Failure into Bigger Success” about turning his life around after then girlfriend and future wife Kate warned she didn’t want to marry a bum.  The book contains inspirational advice by the likes of Star Trek’sCaptain Jean-Luc Picard (“Let’s see what’s out there”)and Martin Luther King (“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the entire staircase”).Heading a section advising students to start a reading program was this quote from President Harry S Truman: “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers”- sadly inapplicable in rudderless America at present.

 Becker family in 2016

Becker introduced me as his Vietnam War summer class professor 32 years ago in which he received a “D.”  He’d just gotten married, Jon explained, and had other things on his mind. In discussing the history of IUN, I explained how “Educating the Calumet Region,” which I had given each of them the previous week, was in large part a social history employing oral testimony by students, staff, faculty, and administrators. I spoke of Ruth Nelson’s 60-year stint with the university, beginning as secretary for Gary College director Albert Fertsch and continuing after retirement as a library volunteer.  In 1970, my first year at IUN, Nelson was IUN Bookstore manager.  By then directors of admissions, registration, and financial aid had been hired to oversee functions she once handled for a tiny fraction of their combined salaries. I first interviewed her for a Post-Tribune column later included in my history of Gary, “City of the Century.”  Ruth told me:

    In 1934 I graduated from Horace Mann and after my father broke his neck at a July Fourth picnic became secretary to Director Albert Fertsch.  The salary of $55 a month was paid by the New Deal agency FERA and helped put food on the table. When my father got a job as a watchman, my wages were reduced by ten dollars.  The only time I spoke to Superintendent William Wirt was to request a raise.  He turned me down, saying, “The class of people you are dealing and working with should compensate for the lowly salary.”

    Tuition was five dollars for the first five hours, four dollars for the next five, and three dollars for any over that.  The father of Alexander S. Williams, who became Lake County’s first black elected official, walked from Gary’s southside every week to pay part of the tuition.  Sometimes he’d pay as little as 50 cents.  A student once asked Mr. Fertsch whether he had a physical education program. He replied, “Do you walk to school?  That’s your hour of physical education.”

    Gary College had a picnic at Marquette Park.  A policeman interrupted the festivities and ordered the lone black student to leave.  I just couldn’t believe it. It hurt me so much that I said to him, “Wait a minute.  If you have to leave, I have to leave.”  So we left together.  The picnic went on without us.

    Indiana and Purdue both vied for Gary College when it was about to cease functioning, but it was no contest. Mr. Fertsch had no love for Purdue because of the negative survey their educators did of Dr. Wirt’s work-study-play plan.   

I traced the careers of historian Bill Neil (a part-time student at Gary College who became Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs) and Chancellor Peggy Elliott (a former Horace Mann English teacher who started at IUN as a lowly adjunct) as exemplifying changes that took place during their long tenures with the university.

Bill Neil and Peggy Elliott

groundbreaking at new campus site, August 29, 1957, President Herman Wells at microphone

From the outset I encouraged discussion of such matters as why a century ago Bloomington started offering “extension” courses” in the Region, reasons behind demands for programs in Black, Latino, and Women’s Studies, and how much independence should be given editors of university newspapers. Turning to photos in “Educating the Calumet Region,” I explained that President Herman Wells, shown at a groundbreaking ceremony for the initial building (Gary Main, later renamed Tamarack Hall) at the present Glen Park site, ended segregation on the main campus and took heat for supporting Alfred Kinsey’s sex research. On the cover was a 1967 shot of IUN’s first commencement as a four-year institution. It took place outdoors, a practice that ended soon after Jon Becker’s graduation in the late-1980s.  Pointing out an illustration showing Chancellor Elliott holding Mary Ann Fischer’s baby during a visit by child psychologist T. Berry Brazelton, my voice broke slightly as I told of Peggy spotting Toni on campus holding granddaughter Alissa when she was an infant and breaking away from Bloomington muckedy-mucks to gush over how cute she was.  Students were amazed at how inexpensive tuition once was compared to the present and asked why no student dorms, something legislator Charlie Brown fruitlessly advocated for years.

In my latest Steel Shavings, Becker came across a photo from Halberstadt Game Weekend of Jef and Evan Davis playing Terraforming Mars, Jon’s favorite board game.  He mentioned owning the many upgrades to Ticket to Ride.  When I told him the version using the map of Pennsylvania was my favorite, he exclaimed, “Mine, too.”  He hadn’t noticed his being mentioned in “Educating the Calumet Region,” where former Mathematics professor John Synowiec lamented 15 years ago that most administrators held Arts and Sciences in low esteem but that his department seemed in good hands because of excellent young faculty such as Iztok Hozo, Vesna Kilibarda, and “an IUN graduate, Jon Becker.”

Lorraine Hansberry and Chance the Rapper (Chancelor Jonathan Bennett)

In advance of music critic Hanif Abdurriqib’s speaking engagement at the university, IUN is holding discussions on “They can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us.”  The first will deal with the first five essays, including “Chance the Rapper’s Golden Year” and “The Night Prince Walked on Water.” about the “Purple Rain” genius’s incandescent Superbowl XLI performance that included renditions of Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower” and Foo Fighter’s “Best of You.”  A common theme is the search for moments of joy in “the vicious and yawning maw”of a country where mass murders have become commonplace and a “xenophobic bigot”occupies the White House.  The author quotes Chicago native Lorraine Hansberry: “I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful, and that which is love. Because this is so, I wish others to live for generations and generations and generations and generations.”Abdurraqib compared Chance the Rapper’s album “Coloring Book” to the poetry of fellow Chicagoan Gwendolyn Brooks, who also captured the triumphs and failures of ordinary black folk.  In an endless and sometimes unbearable age, Abdurriqib wrote, “we are nothing without our quick and simple blessings, without those [like Chance the Rapper] willing to drag optimism by the neck to the gates of grief and ask to be let in, an entire choir of voices singing at their back.”

One of Abdurraqib’s essays is “Carly Rae Jepsen Loves You Back,” about the Canadian singer’s concert appearance at Terminal 5 in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood singing selections from the 2015 album “E-MO-TION.” Abdurraqib credited Jepsen with being able to convince a room full of people – teenagers, hipsters in their early 30s, blacks in their 20s, couples kissing passionately during “Warm Blood,” to, in his words, “set their sadness aside and, for a night, bring out whatever joy remains underneath – in a world where there is so much grief to be had, leading the people to water and letting them drink from your cupped hands.” I picked up “Dedicated,” Carly Rae’s most recent CD, at Chesterton library and especially enjoyed “No Drug Like Me” and “Right Words Wrong Time,” which contains these lyrics:

Took a million miles to feel the final separation

Don’t you tell me now you know what you need

I need to find a love to love me with no hesitation

Don’t you tell me you’re ready for me.

At bridge 87-year-old Dottie Hart had a new partner.  I held Dottie’s arm and said, “I hope you are in good hands.”  "I am now,” she joked.  At Charlie Halberstadt’s urging I tried  a new system called “Reverse Drury,” used after two passes and with a hand containing just 10 or so points but with good Spades.  The experiment did not end well. At bowling the following day, Jerome Tashik, on the DL last season, rolled a 715 series, winning the pot for high game over average all three games.  As Frank Vitalone announced after the final game, “We have a triple winner”– unprecedented in the years I’ve been in the league.  A 715 is a hundred pins higher than my best series ever.

Toni and I represented IU Northwest at the Dunes Learning Center’s annual banquet, “A Dunes Affair,” held at Sand Creek Country Club (only a mile from us as the crow flies), as did IUN Dean of Education Mark Sperling and wife Sandy, where Gary native Ken Schoon was the recipient of the Green Apple Award; the citation stated:

 Ken is a Northwest Indiana native and professor emeritus of science education at IU Northwest.  After 22 years as a middle and high school teacher, he joined the faculty at IUN, retiring 23 years later as a full professor and associate dean.  His research interests center around science misconceptions and local studies.  Ken is a founding board member and past president of Dunes Learning Center, an adviser to Shirley Heinz Land Trust, secretary of Munster Education Foundation, a member of the IUN Science Olympiad steering committee, and a member of the Indiana and Munster historical societies.  He has published three books about regional geology and history.

One of his publications is a book about Swedes who settled in Indiana’s Lake and Porter counties, which includes several Nelsons, including one of the founders in 1874 of Bethel Lutheran Church in Miller, Christina Maria Nelson, prohibited from signing the original charter due to her sex.

Ken Schoon at IUN, September 2017

Greeting us at the door was event committee member Bill Payonk, a former nontraditional IUN student who wrote a Northwest Phoenixcolumn called “The Old Guy.”  Diane Brown introduced herself to Toni as a former next-door-neighbor to Evelyn Passo’s mother, and recalled meeting her when Toni and granddaughter Alissa were visiting with Evelyn and her two sons.  A short film showed children visiting Dunes Learning Center, including  a group from Marquette School with teacher Tom Serynek, a friend and former president of Save the Dunes Council.  In accepting the award, Ken related having been a history major at IUN when he took a class with Mark Reshkin and became hooked on geology and dunes preservation. He credited Lee Botts as a mentor to whom one does not say no. Several items were auctioned off that each went for over a thousand dollars, including a ten-course meal for 8 prepared by chefs who came to your home and “Before the Sun Goes Down,” a painting by Porter, Indiana, landscape artist Mark Vander Vinne.

 below, Hakim Laws

Former Philadelphia firefighter Hakim Laws helped rescue babies from a burning apartment by catching them when they were tossed down to him.  Afterwards he told reporters that he was more sure-handed than Eagles receiver Nelson Agholor, who dropped several passes in a loss to the Detroit Lions.  The comment went viral, and Agholor called him a hero and offered him tickets to Philadelphia’s next home game.  Classy.

Hold Steady

‘There's gonna come a time when the true scene leaders
Forget where they differ and get big picture’

    “Stay Positive,” The Hold Steady

Rolling Stone gave a plug to The Hold Steady’s forthcoming CD “Thrashing Through the Passions” on its latest “Quick List” of top new albums.  The Brooklyn band formed in 2003. Josh Leffingwell burned me their 2006 CD “Boys and Girls in America.  The first song, “Stuck Between Stations,” has a line that references Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” (1957):

There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right

Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together

“Chillout Tent” is about two young people at a rock concert who meet in a chill-out tent after being taken there by paramedics when they’d overdosed on mushrooms, then given oranges and cigarettes (for nourishment and stimulation?).  My favorite track is “Southtown Girls,” which contains a line “Hey Bloomington, what’d you let them do to you” (an IU reference perhaps?)and the much-repeated couplet:

Southtown girls won't blow you away
But you know that they'll stay

We celebrated Dave’s fiftieth birthday at BC Osaka in Merrillville, a Japanese restaurant whose buffet included a wide variety of dishes.  Many seemed spicy so I favored the roast beef, crab Rangoon, and salad along with small portions of Mongolian beef and a noodle dish, then finished with jello, ice cream, and cream-filled pastries.  Toni especially enjoyed the sushi selections, not my cup of tea.  The night before, Dave and Angie dined at Ivy’s Bohemia House, where Becca works, with several old friends.  Dave asked Toni details about the day he was born (in Washington, DC), and we discussed summer of ’69 news events, including the Apollo 11 moon landing, Chappaquiddick, and Woodstock. which would become a counter-culture symbol peace and harmony, with a half-million hippies gathering in a rain-drenched field without violence.  I’m not sad to have missed it, but those who went gained bigtime bragging rights. Toni and I saw Martin Scorsese’s documentary in the spring of 1970 at a venerable theater near Kensington and Allegheny in north Philly while visiting her parents Blanche and Tony. Performing at Woodstock fiftieth anniversary festival will be original artists John Sebastian, John Fogarty, Carlos Santana, David Crosby, and Country Joe McDonald, whose antiwar “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag” chorus went, “One, two, three what are we fighting for?”

I could hardly watch the news with two mass shootings that took dozens of lives in El Paso and Dayton – within hours of one another. More people died at the hands of the white supremacist in ten minutes than the average in El Paso for an entire year. Trump stayed away from El Paso mercifully and instead delivered a mealy-mouthed address from the White House and said nothing about banning assault rifles or mandating universal background checks. Kyle Telechan posted this comment:

    It's weird how quickly mental health suddenly becomes important to Republican politicians and pundits the few moments after a mass shooter is found to be a white supremacist, and how unimportant it becomes soon thereafter. If you want to claim that "mental health" is the base cause of these shootings, sounds like maybe we should work on getting a system where everyone can get the help they need regardless of their economic status?  No? We're going to forget about this in a few days until the next white kid with obvious supremacist views extinguishes more human lives? Also related, can you imagine how quickly they'd be racing to address this instead of hand-wringing and "thoughts and prayers"-ing if the mass shootings were inspired by ISIS? If you don't see their inaction as speaking volumes of their motives, you're not paying attention.

Mike Olszanski posted this Carl Sagan quote: “For me, the most ironic token of [the first human moon landing] is the plaque signed by President Richard M. Nixon that Apollo 11 took to the moon. It reads, ‘We came in peace for all Mankind.’ As the United States was dropping seven and a half megatons of conventional explosives on small nations in Southeast Asia, we congratulated ourselves on our humanity. We would harm no one on a lifeless rock.”

On category in the Jeopardy Teen tournament was Vinyl.  I knew four of the five answers, including Juke box, revolutions per minute, turn-table, and 21 Pilots, a pop group Miranda turned me onto.

Knowing I’d seen Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Jonathyne Briggs asked if it was worth seeing  in a theater. I gave him an emphatic yes!  As Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers wrote: “The action jumps off the screen while setting up psychological provocations with a reverb that won’t quit.”

IUN math professor Jon Becker just published a book titled “The Flunked-Out Professor,” based on his college experience.  Here’s how Amazon advertised the Kindle edition:

   Jon has been kicked out of college.He spends his days playing video games and his nights delivering pizzas, with no motivation to develop a sustainable plan for the future. Recognizing this, Jon's girlfriend decides that she doesn't want to be stuck with a video game-addicted pizza delivery man for the rest of her life. So, she tells him to get his act together, or she will have to end their relationship. Jon feels like a total failure.
  SOUND FAMILIAR?

  Failure is a common part of life for everyone. But when we fail, most people make the mistake of identifying themselves as the failure instead of recognizing that they have experienced failure.In The Flunked-Out Professor,readers follow Jon as he makes a series of bad choices which get him kicked out of college and beaten down in life. Eventually, he chooses a new path--one that ultimately leads him back to the same college that kicked him out...as a faculty member!

Lou Nimnicht wrote a piece for Barb Walczak’s Newsletterabout competing in a tournament in Las Vegas.  He claimed that in the Friday Knockout he and his partner came in second of 25 teams, “despite losing to a squad whose average age was about 10!” Now if that was not a facetious exaggeration, it would be most unusual, as most competitors are seniors.  I will have to investigate.  Last year IUN student Meriah Isaza (below) interviewed Nimnicht for an oral history assignment.  I asked Terry Bauer, recently elected president of bridge Unit 154 for Northern Indiana, and he quipped that Nimnicht considers anyone under the age of 60 a kid. He added, however, that he’d lost at a tournament to 12-year-olds.