Longevity

“The most important key to longevity is avoiding worry, stress, and tension.” George Burns, “How to Live to be 100”

Bob Hope and George Burns

The first centenarians that come to mind are Rose Kennedy (1890-1995), who outlived three of her four sons, including one killed during World War II and two (JFK and RFK) slain by assassins’ bullets, and comedian George Burns (1896-1996), who was appearing on Late Night shows in his nineties with a cigar, albeit unlit. Fellow comedian Bob Hope (1903-2003) once quipped that the secret to staying young was to hang around with older people.  Painter Grandma Moses (1860-1961) believed the secret to a long life is keeping busy.  Queen Mother Elizabeth (1900-2002) recommended living “as if tomorrow you’ll be run over by a big red bus.” Harry S Truman (1884-1972) claimed the key to longevity is taking a two-mile walk before breakfast. Jimmy Carter, our oldest former president, believed he still had more of God’s word to do on earth.  I have my blog, duties as Calumet Regional Archives co-director, occasional speaking engagements, plus bridge, bowling, and, most of all, family. Upcoming campus talks include “Prohibition in Gary” in Nicole Anslover’s American History class, and “1960: A Critical Year for Rock and Roll Music” for Senior College.

Newest finds at Chesterton library: The Flaming Lips performing “The Soft Bulletin” with Colorado Symphony Orchestra and a new Jimmy Eat World CD, “Survivor,” whose title song contains these lines:

In a lot of ways

You’re still that lost kid

You can still survive

But not exactly live

“Judy Ayers wrote about a “dear old friend” in the Winter 2020 Ayers realtors Newsletter:

    Laura Jones, born 102 years ago on June 30th, 1917, has known me longer than any other person on earth, having been a neighbor of my family since I was born and raised on Hancock Street just two doors away from where Laura lives today.  She was among the first group of students who went to Miller School and grew up with kids from the 8 or 10 houses at that time on Hancock Street. She remembers most of the houses being built. Miller was a full-fledged community at that time with businesses and professional offices. A good way to get to downtown Gary was to take the streetcar that traveled from Lake Street down what we know as Miller Avenue to Broadway. 

    Laura graduated from high school in 1936 but decided to take an extra year of classes in order to be able to work in an office. She remembers at that time women didn’t work outside their homes unless they were teachers or nurses. Because of her extra training, she was hired by a neighbor, Mr. Jackson, who was the head of the Gary office of Railway Express – a national package delivery service that used existing railroad infrastructure to safely and rapidly deliver parcels, money and goods during World War I. The office was located where the New York Central and B & O railways converged in Gary at 3rd and Broadway, and she worked there for 30 years. When the war started and most of the men working at Railway Express had been drafted or had enlisted, Mr. Jackson asked Laura to help people get on and off the train, point them in the right direction, and be the one to accept packages and deliveries. When the US Army took over the operation of Railway Express, she more than once had to convince the Army she was more than capable of doing her job and could actually be quite helpful. She has fabulous stories about animals on their way to Lincoln Park Zoo, traveling nuns, a dead guy in the men’s bathroom, two United States Presidents passing through – all just trying to get from one place to another.

    Laura met her husband, Sam, when he and his father, who owned a movie theater in Gary, set up a program during the war to show second run movies on week nights in local schools – Miller School being one. Sam had graduated from college with a degree in architectural engineering and was working at US Steel when drafted by the army. Because of his education and with further training in the military, he was assigned to a project and that didn’t allow him to give Laura much detail, nor could he tell Laura exactly what his role was and why he was transferred from Alabama to the University of Iowa to New York. Sam called her often, and during one particular call Laura told him she had been listening to the radio the night before and heard about the bombing of Japan. It was then Sam could tell her he had been working on the development of the “A Bomb.” Later he received written recognition for his military contribution.

    The message I get after spending time with Laura is not that her life has been one big, funny, wisdom-packed adventure. She certainly has the effects of physical decline, which she best describes with words not always befitting when spoken by a lady. She has trouble with her hearing aids and her vision is beyond poor. She moves from room to room, yet in her own home with the aid of a walker that should probably be fitted with a governor. Yet she always has a list of things she wants to accomplish – be it clean out a drawer, pay her bills or look forward to the next outing with her more than reliable and dedicated health care giver, Wayne. She delights in telling stories of days gone by, but she always talks about what she hopes to do tomorrow. Maybe the message before my very eyes is that happiness is a choice we make.  We probably shouldn’t worry about what might happen and then just adapt when it does.

“Curb Your Enthusiasm” is back on HBO for a tenth season.  The first several episodes deal humorously (some might say tastelessly) with Larry David being accused of sexually harassing women.  Sadly, Shelley Berman, who played his father Nat, passed away at age 92, and Bob Einstein, whose deadpan expressions were a hoot as Marty Funkhouser, died at age 77.  In a memorable season 4 episode titled “The Survivor,” Larry invites Holocaust survivor Solly (actor Allan Rich, born in 1926) to dinner and he has a heated argument with a guest named Colby who’d been on the reality TV show “Survivor” over how rough each had had it.  Here’s a sample of the dialogue: 

    Colby: So, here we are in a region of Australia where, out of the world's ten most deadly snakes, nine of 'em inhabit this region. It was harrowing. You come across a taipan on the trail, you get bit, you're dead in thirty minutes flat. 

    Solly: Oy, I'll tell you, that's a very interesting story, let me tell you. I was in a concentration camp! You never even suffered one minute in your life compared to what I went through! 

    Colby: Look, I'm saying- I'm saying we spent 42 days trying to survive and we had very little rations, no snacks... 

    Solly: Snacks? What you talking, "snacks"? We didn't eat sometimes for a week! For a month! We ate nothing!...

Toni and I enjoyed the Agatha Christie-inspired whodunnit “Knives Out” with an all-star cast that included Christopher Plummer as an 85-year-old mystery writer, Jamie Lee Curtis as his headstrong daughter, Daniel Craig (most famous for James Bond flicks) as a detective, and Don Johnson of “Miami Vice” fame. Looking for films we both might like, I discovered it was playing at the Cinemark in Valparaiso.  

Super Bowl LIV in Miami did not disappoint, especially the Latin-flavored halftime extravaganza starring Jennifer Lopez (50) and Shakira (43) defying the laws of aging in a high energy performance.  With JLo’s daughter Emme leading a children choir in a scene with children in cages, strands of “Born in the USA” could be heard when JLo unveiled a Puerto Rican flag.  I was pleased that Kansas City prevailed, just their second NFL championship, the first coming 50 years ago coached by Gary native Hank Stram, famous for shouting on the sidelines during Super Bowl IV, “Just keep matriculating the ball down the field boys!”   Kansas City had lost in the first Super Bowl when Gary native Fred “The Hammer” Williamson suffered a broken arm early in the contest.  Andy Reid, who had coached the Philadelphia Eagles for many years before joining the Chiefs, previously had the most victories by someone who had never won a Super Bowl.  Quarterback Patrick Mahomes again rallied his team from a ten-point fourth-quarter deficit on three touchdown drives to seal the 31-20 victory. 

 Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes in Disneyland

Gamblers bet millions on a myriad of Super Bowl scenarios, some as inane as the coin flip  or how long the national anthem would last.  One could wager on whether or not Mahomes would rush for more than 30 yards.  With just a minute remaining, he had gained 44 yards on the ground; running out the clock on the three final plays, he purposely kneeled down 5, 3, and 7 yards behind the line of scrimmage, reducing his total for the game to just 29, costing high rollers big bucks. Several friends posted a Trump tweet congratulating the Chiefs, who, he claimed, “represented the Great State of Kansas so very well.” Of course, the Chiefs play in Kansas City, Missouri.

In one of Barb Walczak’s final Newsletters she profiled bridge newcomer and Miller resident Gosia Caldwell, who owned a business in Poland but came to America 19 years ago to be a nanny.  Walczak wrote that in addition to bridge, Gosia “is a voracious reader, loves the theater, and likes to dance.”

 Chubby Checker in 2019

In “When We Get to Surf City” Bob Greene described watching a blond woman “in the shortest of skirts” rushing the stage during a Chubby Checker performance at an Oldies concert in St. Louis, leaping on him and wrapping her arms and legs around his neck and waist.  Chubby kept twisting as he sang, and Greene wondered how he kept from tumbling onto the stage floor.  Jan and dean played a Clearwater, Florida, hospital fundraiser with Jerry Lee Lewis, backed by Elvis Presley’s former lead guitar player James Burton.  Jerry Lee’s eyes looked both dead and angry, Greene wrote, like “someone who had been insulted in ways no one could understand.”  During the show Greene spotted a young woman whose t-shirt read, "JUST EAT ME.”  Back at the century-old Belleview Biltmore, recently purchased by a Japanese company, Greene met a woman in her 80s who’d been vacationing there for a half-century and once danced to a tuxedoed orchestra in its once ornate ballroom.

Old Mill

John Constable, "Parham Mill, Gillingham," circa 1823

“The sound of water escaping from mill dams, etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things.” English landscape artist John Constable
Old Mill in 1936 and  2007 (by Samuel Love)

From Samuel A. Love:“Farewell Old Mill, 1851-2018. More Merrillville landmarks disappearing. Originally a distillery, then a grist mill, a tavern, a restaurant, a dance hall, a school, a candy store, and finally a pizzeria. We rarely dined here, we were Palace Pizza devotees, but I remember being fascinated with the little rapids of Turkey Creek ‘roaring’ under the deck.”

I am disappointed in Merrillville’s leaders for not bothering to save historic Old Mill, located at 73rd and Madison and boarded up since 2010.  73rd Avenue has roots dating back to the Sauk Trail, used first by Native Americans and then by settlers traveling west.  Once, Potawatomi tribes gathered in a nearby clearing for religious ceremonies. A century ago, the road was paved and became part of Lincoln Highway.  Merrillville went through several name changes once the Potawatomi were forcibly removed: McGwinn Village, Wiggins Point, Centerville, Merrillville, and Ross Township, prior to Merrillville becoming a town in 1971 out of fear of annexation by Gary.

At lunch with Mike Olszanski and Chris Young at Little Redhawk Café.  I mentioned Young’s article about the infamous 1979 “Disco Demolition Night” at White Sox Park organized by WLUP’s “shock jock” Steve Dahl, when a crate of disco records was blown up between games of a twi-night doubleheader as the crowd chanted “Disco Sucks,” then stormed the field, causing game 2 to be forfeited.  Chris noted that, his area of specialty being early American history, it was the only time he made use of oral interviews for a scholarly publication. Library assistant Clyde Robinson walked by; I finally addressed him by his correct name after calling him Wayne for months and, before that, Rob a couple times. Once, I called Bettie Wilson, whom I see every day, Barbara.

. Laura Jones wedding picture with husband and parents, 1938

Steve McShane collected materials for the Archives at boarded up Wirt/Emerson School and from Miller centenarian Laura Jones, whom Judy Ayers frequently takes to lunch.  Steve suggested I interview her.  She’s evidently hard of hearing but still sharp mentally.  In an Ayers Realtors Newslettercolumn Judy Ayers wrote about trick-or-treating in Miller:

   I can still remember the best houses to go to on Halloween. Clarice and George Wilson on Henry Street always handed out Hershey Bars. Snack size or miniature candy bars hadn’t been invented yet so you got a full-sized Hershey Bar. Then there was Mrs. Teiche on the corner of Hancock and 3rd Avenue, who spoke with a heavy accent and always wore grandma dresses and thick stockings. A kid would stand on her porch and wait for what seemed like forever for her to reach down in a big burlap bag and bring out one apple at a time and drop it in their trick or treat bag. She was a nice old lady; but once we figured out time spent wasn’t relative to end result, we often bypassed Mrs. Teiche’s house. 

  Sometimes I’d skip math teacher Mrs. Hokanson’s house, too. She’d put kids through their paces. She’d conduct a little question and answer session with each kid before she’d relinquish one of her popcorn balls. She could make up a story problem about 7 little ghosts and 43 Tootsie Rolls and darn near ruin a kid’s Halloween by making them do math. 

    Then there was the Erlandson house. If Mrs. Erlandson knew you were a neighborhood kid, you got invited onto her porch for donut holes and hot apple cider. Moms and Dads on escort duty always liked this stop but a kid could waste a lot of valuable trick or treating time there. Mrs. Erlandson always had to get a good look at everyone’s costume even if it was cold and rainy and you were all bundled up in your winter coat. Mrs. Erlandson didn’t hear very well either and the year I borrowed one of Mrs. Ellman’s white poodles and dressed as Little Bo Peep, Mrs. Erlandson thought I said I was wearing something old and cheap. She told me “Oh, honey, it’s only Halloween – you look just fine. Isn’t that Mrs. Ellman’s poodle?” 

    These days Mrs. Teiche would have to pull something other than apples out of her bag on Halloween lest she be suspected of wrongdoing. Gene and I both have to be careful to not carry on too much about how cute the Spiderman and Little Mermaids look when we answer the door. We’ve learned from experience. Growing up in the same neighborhood, we have vowed to never come to the door dressed in costumes ourselves because we can still remember the Halloween Evelyn Mosegard came to the door dressed like the tooth fairy and we never did figure out what husband Elmer was wearing in the background. Maybe it’s best for our little kid psyches we didn’t know. 

    We also know to move quickly. Forget trying to give little goblins lessons in manners by trying to coax them into saying “thank you.” One year I forgot to tell Mrs. Lindstrom thank you and she kept saying “Now, what do you say when a nice lady gives you trick or treat candy”and I’d say back to her “Trick or Treat?”Then she kind of got a tone in her voice when she asked me the same question again. This time I said, “Happy Halloween?”while other trick or treaters were stacking up behind me. The crowd was getting rowdy and I was about to take my tiara and dig down in my trick or treat bag to retrieve the piece of petrified bubble gum I was jumping through hoops for when she gave up on me. It wasn’t a pretty sight. I nearly lost my princess composure. Being dressed for a northeaster to blow through the area at any given moment, I had perspiration on my upper lip and still had to turn around and make my way through the raging crowd of my peers. 

    Gene and I pretty much adhere to the Clarice and George Wilson theory of candy giving. We keep the porch light on, come to the door in respectable garb, distribute treats in an orderly and time efficient manner, remembering good trick or treat candy makes good leftovers. Hopefully, that’s how kids in our neighborhood will remember us – the place where you can get hassle free, express treats – not the home of Zena, Princess Warrior and Dr. Spock. 

At bowling Mel Nelson asked if we had many Halloweeners. Living in Gary’s Glen Ryan subdivision, he saw almost none. So many folks showed up at the condo that Toni feared we might run out of candy, though not James and Becca, unfortunately (James had play practice, and Becca couldn’t talk her friends into going out). I bowled miserably for 26 frames, then converted three straight spares and turkeyed in the tenth, as the Engineers won two out of three games and series to remain in first place. Afterwards, Dick Maloney reminded me of the time at Cressmoor Lanes when an opponent ended with three strikes, then collapsed and died.  Too bad it didn’t happen a frame earlier, I quipped, tastelessly.  At the time it wasn’t funny.  I saw him keel over.  Terry Kegebein returned from a three-week road trip to California.  On an icy road in the Colorado Rockies, he witnessed some idiot driver losing control of his vehicle and almost going over a cliff. As it was, he careened off both the retaining wall and the mountain, messing up both sides of his car.

Working on a NY TimesSunday puzzle, Toni inquired if I knew the rhyming nickname of a Cardinal great.  Easy: Stan “The Man” Musial, best natural hitter I ever saw, save for Red Sox Ted Williams, also a lefty.

At Gary Genesis Center people were lined up around the block for tickets to see Barack Obama Sunday campaigning for Senator Joe Donnelly, Congressman Pete Visclosky, and other Democrats.  Earlier, the former President stumped for Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, as did Oprah Winfrey. Her opponent is a disgusting bigot who, as Secretary of State, is actively seeking to disenfranchise thousands of black voters.  Tom Wade snagged two tickets in Valpo, and Darcey is hoping to get in with a bottle of water and in a wheelchair.  She wrote: “It will be great, but I dread the standing in line and sitting on hard chairs, ouchie. Will try to take in a bottle of water, specifically not allowed, heavy security, metal detectors. When they try to confiscate my bottle of water I will play the cancer survivor card hard, doubt it will work. Rules are rules.”

Our out of control president now claims he can nullify the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of citizenship to those born in the United States by executive order.  Ray Smock wrote:

  He is anti-immigration unless the immigrant is white. That’s clear all right, clearly racist and xenophobic. We have been having a discussion about what it means to be an American for more than three centuries. Our literature and histories are filled with this discussion. The best elements of the American “creed” tend toward openness, diversity, tolerance, acceptance, and the “melting pot theory.” But we have never really melted even as peoples from many lands assimilated. Over the next century the issues of migration worldwide will have a vast impact on all nations. We will see vast movements of human populations fleeing from the ravages of climate change. There will be internal migrations in the US and other nations not unlike the Dust Bowl migrations of the 1930s. Wars will be fought over water and arable land. Trump style dictators and fascism are already on the rise. And in 100 years there will be another 4 to 5 billion people fighting over a rapidly changing planet that will be far less salubrious than it is now. Where shall this discussion begin? I won’t be around to see this. But I see all the moving parts lining up as I write this.

  

Prior to our book signing at Lake Street Gallery, Ron Cohen and I met at Miller Bakery with Toni, Nancy, Councilwoman Rebecca Wyatt, and Ken Schoon, who also has a new book out on Swedes settlers in Northwest Indiana.  Harry and Maryanita Porterfield were eating nearby and the Lowes and Gallmeiers were in the bar area waiting to be seated. Despite Lake Street being torn up and a competing Temple Israel service to honor Pittsburgh shooting victims, we sold more than a dozen copies of “Gary: a Pictorial History” and Schoon did almost as well.  Cindy C. “Cupcake” Bean showed up for a free copy since we used her photo, taken from Marquette Park, of Lake Michigan with steel mills in the background.   

John Attinasi, formerly an IUN  Education Professor, came by on his way to Temple Israel and told me that legendary jazz musician Art Hoyle from Gary recently celebrated his  89th birthday.  I’m hoping to interview him about nightclubs where the horn player performed. Hoyle was attending Roosevelt High School when Frank Sinatra performed at Memorial Auditorium during then Froebel School Strike. A session player at Chess records he became a fixture at Chicago’s Regal Theater beginning during the early 1960s. Seven years ago, he told an interviewer about going on a 1960-61 tour with Bo Diddley, Lloyd Price, and Vee-Jay Records artist Jimmy Reed:

  We did 67 one-nighters from New York to Los Angeles and back. Two busloads of people. We wound up in the 369th Armory in Harlem. It was supposed to accommodate 1,800 people and they had over 3,000 in there. Big Joe Turner was on that bill and he was singing let it roll like a big wheel. A girl was trying to marry one of the guys in the band got up on a table and started shaking. A guy in the balcony threw a bottle. It landed in front of the piano that was being played by (organ player) Big John Patton. The lead alto player turned around as the bottle broke. It hit him and blood streamed down. Fights broke out. And Joe is still singing. The fire department turned on hoses. Bo Diddley's drummer and I rescued this pregnant woman who was about to be trampled. We pulled her up on the bandstand with us.

Art Hoyle, Gary jazzman

Humane Ideas

“We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.”  Kurt Vonnegut, “Breakfast of Champions”

Miranda’s boyfriend Sean told me that he loved Vonnegut’s books and that “Breakfast of Champions” (1973) was his favorite.  Me, too. Vonnegut sometimes referred to Pall Mall cigarettes as Pell Mells, also cancer sticks.  Sean didn’t know about the 1999 movie starring Albert Finney as Kilgore Trout, Nick Nolte as cross-dresser Harry LeSabre, and Bruce Willis as crazy Dwayne Hoover, who had a Labrador retriever named Sparky.  Vonnegut wrote:

  Sparky could not wag his tail - because of an automobile accident many years ago, so he had no way of telling other dogs how friendly he was. He had to fight all the time. His ears were in tatters. He was lumpy with scars.  Dwayne would get down on the floor and roll around with Sparky, and he would say things like, "You and me, Spark," and "How's my old buddy?" and so on.

A minor character in “Breakfast of Champions” kept a greyhound dog named Lancer all day in a one-room, New York City, sixth-floor apartment:

His entire life was devoted to unloading his excrement at the proper time and place. There were two proper places to put it: in the gutter outside the door 72 steps below, with the traffic whizzing by, or in a roasting pan his mistress kept in front of the Westinghouse refrigerator.  Lancer had a very small brain, but he must have suspected from time to time, that some kind of terrible mistake had been made.

Brenda Ann Love (above) shared this poignant story on Facebook:

  When I was younger, there was a nice older Slovak couple who lived across the street. The wife had Alzheimer's and her husband took care of her as best he could. As he was also elderly, he had a difficult time getting around sometimes, too. I used to go over and sit with her about once a week so the husband could go run errands (and on occasion, he would go to the Slovak Club and bring me back some pierogis).  He always apologized that they didn't have a lot of food in the house for me to snack on while I sat with her, and his need to apologize always saddened me.  One day, their Meals on Wheels delivery arrived while I was there and I then realized that Meals on Wheels was their main source of food.

    He had worked in the mills for most of his life and had a modest pension. Her medical expenses had drained their savings and he was doing the best he could. Those meals kept them from going hungry. So, as I sit here reminiscing, I find myself saddened again. I realize the Feds do not fully fund MOW, but cutting any funding for programs that feed elderly and home bound people seems to be the opposite of compassionate.

At Boston’s Fenway Park a fan threw a bag of peanuts at Baltimore Oriole outfielder Adam Jones, one of just 62 African-American major leaguers, and repeatedly called him the “N” word.  Red Sox management condemned the behavior and notified Jones of steps being taken to assure it wouldn’t happen again.  The next day, as Jones came to the plate, fans gave him a standing ovation.  Red Sox pitcher Chris Sales stepped off the mound so not to interrupt the reception. Afterwards, Jones appreciated the gesture and told Boston fans: “Boo me, tell me I suck, just keep the racial stuff out of it.”

Katherine Langford as Hannah

The Netflix miniseries “13 Reasons Why,” about a girl who commits suicide and leaves behind 13 audiotapes for classmates who, in her mind, contributed to her tragic decision, is all the rage with teenagers.  New York magazine’s Anna Silman termed it “a lightning rod of controversy with many mental-health professionals arguing that it romanticizes or glorifies teen suicide.”  Many teachers see this as an opportunity to talk candidly about such subjects as bullying and sexual assault. Amelia, 17, from Massachusetts told Silman:

     All my friends were really obsessed with it. I watched it as sort of a guilty pleasure. But once I finished the series, I still had a lot of issues with it — not that it was difficult subject matter, because I thought the way it addressed the culture surrounding sexual assault was really great.  My biggest issue was that it didn’t address Hannah’s depression at all; it just makes it seem like you kill yourself because of things other people do to you, and not because of what’s going on inside of you. I think they had an opportunity to make it a lot more introspective and talk about the toll and effect it had on her — I think they really missed the mark.

Trump is taking heat for claiming that slave-owner Andrew Jackson had a big heart and could have prevented the Civil War had he been in office when Southern states seceded. New York Times analysts Peter Baker and Jonah Engel Bromich ridiculed the President’s tenuous knowledge of history and elicited this quote from biographer Jon Meacham: “The expansion of slavery caused the Civil War.  And you can’t get around that.  So, what does Trump mean? Would Jackson have let slavery exist but not expand? That’s the counterfactual question you have to ask.” Paul Starobin, author of “Madness Rules the Hour: Charleston, 1860 and the Mania for War” (2017), analyzing the mass psychology favoring secession following Abraham Lincoln’s election that precipitated the confrontation at Fort Sumter that caused the unthinkable to become inevitable, said: “History is not tidy. Trump likes tidy. He likes slogans.  History doesn’t offer any.”  My view: the Civil War was unpreventable and necessary to rid the country of its cursed “Peculiar Institution” and that there is no “deal” that Southern firebrands would have accepted short of disunion. Time’s Lily Rothman wrote that, unlike the 1832 Nullification crisis over taxes, the slavery dispute could not be “worked out” (to use Trump’s phrase).  As President Lincoln eloquently put it in his 1865 inaugural address:

  Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.  One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. 

Ray Smock commented:

  Yes, we have a real honest-to-God historian as president. He makes up history on the fly and never gets it right. We need a Constitutional Amendment that all future presidents should know about American history, and a good dose of World History wouldn't hurt either. Trump's tweets since occupying the White House constitute an amazing display of stream of conscious nonsense with a large part of it consisting of him congratulating himself on his big win. What will Trump do when he discovers that Andy Jackson is coming off the 20-dollar bill only to be replaced by a black woman, Harriet Tubman? He may feel the need to stop the printing presses and bring Old Hickory back.

Dean Bottorff added his two cents:

As a resident of a county with 10 percent of the population being native American, I can assure you that Andrew Jackson is widely reviled by many here and is not considered a role model for anything except slavery and bigotry - come to think of it, a perfect fit for Donald Trump.

Along with her mom’s rhubarb/strawberry crunch recipe, Judy Ayers wrote about Laura Jones, who turns 100 next month, in the Ayers Realtors Spring Newsletter:

            One hundred years ago, while the world was involved in World War I, Albert Einstein was applying his general theory of relativity to the universe as a whole, Houdini was performing his buried alive escapes, T. S. Elliot published his first collection of poems, Al Capone became “Scarface” from a knife fight, Buffalo Bill died, Woodrow Wilson was president, the Chicago White Sox beat the New York Giants in the World Series, and Ella Fitzgerald, John F. Kennedy and Laura Jones were born.

Gene and I grew up just down the block from one another, went to the same schools, had the same friends, graduated, went to college, married spouses from outside our community, divorced, and got reacquainted when we were 35 years old. Laura Jones and her husband, Sam, lived between us when we were growing up on Hancock and Henry Streets and played a huge part in the village it took to ready me for leaving the nest. As a kid, I shoveled her snow and cut her grass; and while sitting on her front steps, I was given lessons on how taking chocolate milk left by the milkman in the milk box compartment of Mrs. Valentine’s house and drinking it with my sister and another friend wasn’t the right thing to do. Nor should I pick tulips from her yard even if I was giving them to my mother. And picking Mrs. DeGear’s rhubarb was not the best way to show my mother I was sorry for whatever I had done to make her angry.

Along the way, I became the nurse for Laura’s family doctor, she became my mother’s very good friend and she has consistently been a good neighbor, good counsel and friend to me. Laura has fabulous stories to tell about her childhood in Miller, her work with Railway Express for 40 years - 30 of which were at the Gary depot - and her involvement with the Chapel of the Dunes Church in Miller since 1919.

 from left, Pat and Karren Lee, Judy and Gene Ayers in 2015, at Gene Siskel Center

Valpo U. profs Allison Schuette and Liz Wurffel posted an interview with Karren Lee on its Flight Paths website.  Here’s an excerpt:

      I grew up in Lake Station, which was East Gary then. It was very working class - everybody’s parents made about the same amount of money. They worked in the mills. So, none of us were aspiring to be the rich kid in school. There were no rich kids in school. Gary was the place you went to shop.  My parents drove us there – or when we got a little older, we would just take the bus to downtown Gary. And there was every kind of shop you could think of; at Christmas, it was shoulder-to-shoulder, walking up and down Broadway Christmas shopping. It was thriving.

      Patrick and I were married in 1966, and we moved to Miller in 1967 with a young baby. At that time, Miller was thriving. The downtown area had every kind of store you can think of: jewelry stores and bookstores, coffee shop and dress shops, and Jack Spratt’s ice cream shop, which drew people from all over. And it was the funnel to the beach for hundreds of people during the summer, from all over.

      It started to change in the early seventies.  A lot of the people moved to Munster.  Most who stayed are still here. But the whole dynamics of the community changed. The money went with them to Munster. So, yeah, that’s the impact. 

      If Gary doesn’t thrive, the rest of the area doesn’t thrive. We can’t have part of our population barely surviving. The city of Gary has all the infrastructure, you know, the steel mills – it has so much going for it, we can’t ignore it. It’s like somebody in your family who has cancer and you’re just going to ignore them because it’s not going to affect you – well, it is going to affect you. We all need to be good neighbors, and it’s not just in Gary and Lake County, but in Porter County, in Indiana. As a country, we have to not be so polarized because nobody’s moving ahead.

Jeff Manes interviewed Angelique McKeny, 21, who attends Ancilla College in Donaldson, Indiana, on a bowling scholarship. She is a gymnastic instructor, hopes to become a first-grade teacher, and plays the saxophone. Hearing that, Manes replied: “My mother was always a big Boots Randolph fan. Boots once said he was the greatest hillbilly saxophone player of all-time because he was the only hillbilly saxophone player.”  Kentuckian Randolph scored a 1963 top ten hit, “Yakety Sax,” and was a frequent guest on “Hee Haw.”

At Chesterton library, I checked out rock journalist Ray Connolly’s “Being Elvis: A Lonely Life” (2016).  It starts out: “His beginnings could hardly have been more humble, his expectations more limited.”  The final line was a Bob Dylan quote: “Hearing Elvis for the first time was like breaking out of jail.”