What, me worry?

“Getting old is when a narrow waist and a broad mind change places.” Alfred E. Newman

The saying “What, me worry?” often accompanied MAD magazine mascot Alfred E. Newman, who has appeared on almost every MAD cover since the 1950s, when I was a loyal reader of the scabrous cartoon satires within its pages.  Every kid could find humor in the Alfred E. Newman quote,“A teacher is someone who talks in our sleep.”  Over the years any number of celebrities, from Prince Charles to, more recently, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, have been said to resemble the “bumpkin portrait” (MADfounder Harvey Kurtzman’s words) of a “part leering wiseacre, part happy-go-lucky kid.” Given Trump’s most recent verbal depredations, where he recklessly branded Representative Ilhan Omar a communist and “Hater of America” who should go back to where she came from (Somalia), as bigoted supporters shouted, “Send her home,”only MAD seems capable of capturing the utter MADness.  Alfred E. Newman once characterized elections as when politicians find out what people will fall for. For the sake of the republic, I sincerely hope, in the words of the Who, Americans“won’t get fooled again.”

Robert Blaszkiewicz retweeted Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s response to Trump’s incendiary calumnies with this Maya Angelou poem:

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise. 

“Chance the Snapper: the Alligator that Mesmerized Chicago,” headlined the New York Times.  On July 9 a five-foot gator was discovered swimming in Chicago’s Humboldt Park lagoon.  For a week, as efforts failed to trap the reptile whose nickname derived from Windy City celebrity Chance the Rapper, ever-larger groups of sightseers gathered at the lagoon’s edge.  Unable to spot the critter among the lily pads, the city of Chicago in desperation hired Floridian Frank “Alligator Bob” Robb. After he snagged Chance the Snapper on its tail with a fishing pole, Robb held a press conference, describing how around 1:30 a.m. he heard it “vocalizing” and spotted its eyes shining in the darkness.  Moving to an optimum position on shore, Alligator Bob caught “the Snapper” on the first try. Briefly was toast of the town, he subsequently threw out the first pitch at a Cubs game. There was talk of keeping the creature in a Chicago zoo, but it’s headed to an animal sanctuary in Florida. Chance the Snapper bobbleheads are presently on sale.

 East Chicago mayor Bob Patrick in 2003 after the court invalidating his primary victory over George Pabay, Times photo by Christopher Smith

Book club member Rich Maroc turned me on to the 2001 documentary “The King of Steeltown” about longtime East Chicago boss Robert “Hollywood Bob” Pastrick.  It being in the Calumet Regional Archives, I checked it out and was pleased to hear commentary from longtime area newsman Rich James.  The film focused on the 1999 mayoral primary when Pastrick faced a formidable challenge from Lake County Democratic chairman Robert Stiglich, who under suspicious circumstances had hundreds of supporters apply for absentee ballots. In a review titled “Hardball Politics in the Heartland,” Chris Sautter wrote: 

  The King of Steeltown" is an offbeat, sometimes humorous inside look at Chicago-style machine politics in a rust-belt city (East Chicago, Indiana) struggling with the decline of the steel industry. The film focuses on the 1999 re-election campaign of Robert A. Pastrick, mayor for three decades and a dominant political force since he launched his career in the early 1950's. Described as the last of America's political bosses, Pastrick is portrayed as an old-style pol who skillfully retains control of this gritty multi-racial industrial community with a well-oiled political machine, an election year multi-million dollar public works program, and a clinical display of old fashion retail politics.

Liz Wuerrfel and Beatrice Petties

Liz Wierrfel interviewed longtime Gary resident Beatrice Petties for the VU Flight Paths project. In “Remember Where You Came From” Beatrice stated:

 I say to my grandkids all the time, you can never forget who you are, but you have to remember where you come from.  I always tell everyone I was a depression baby because I was born in 1929.  In Detroit my mother joined the WPA was trained as a welder. They sent her to school. She had certificates and everything. She thought when she came here, she would go to the mill and get a job. They would not hire her. The only job she could get was a job as a cook or a cleaning. She said, no thank you. And that’s when she took the two jobs, cleaning houses and waitressing.  One time, I sat there and watched as she took orders from five tables. When she came back, not one person got the wrong drink, or the wrong dish. She went up this high for me when I saw her do that. I was sitting there wondering, “How do you remember them?”She said, “You do it, you just learn how to do it, that’s all.”I often wondered how far she would have gone if she had had the opportunities that are open for us now. 

   My brother was born in Gary. As we got older, I had to babysit him naturally. There was a young man that would always come by, which I did not like, period. I said, “Billy, tell him I’m not at home.” And I went in the bedroom and stood with the door open. And he opens the door, and what does he say, “She said to tell you she’s not at home.”Oh, I was ready to kill him. So I had to go out shamefaced and all and say, “I’m sorry, but I’m not going anywhere, I’m babysitting, period.”

   Whatever I learned to do in school, like if it was sewing or cooking, I had to come home and teach him. His rule was if he was in carpenter shop or any other shop that I couldn’t do, he had to teach me. And my aunt was a good cook, she made the best lemon pie in the world. And I could never make that lemon pie. He comes home one day when he was in the service. I said, “I sure wish I could have one of Aunt Mamie’s pies.”And he said, “Which one you talking about, Bea?” And I said, “I’m talking about that lemon pie, you know, the one with that thick meringue on it.”And she did not use an egg beater to make that meringue, she used a fork. He goes in the kitchen – he didn’t tell me what he was doing – and made that pie. I’ve been trying to make that lemon pie for I don’t know how long said, “how come you got to make it?”And he laughed and hugged me. He said, “Because I paid attention and you didn’t.” Yeah, my brother and I were good friends.

Liz Wuerrfel introduced me to Belt magazine, which will be publishing a poem she wrote about Gary.  I found Kay Saunders’s memoir about growing up in the rust belt city of Akron, Ohio, in the June 24, 2019 issue:

   I was seven when my family moved to Rubber City. That’s what everyone called Akron—once home to General Tire, BFGoodrich, Firestone, and Goodyear. Although most of the rubber plants were gone by the time we moved to Akron, the specter of industry remained. F.A. Seiberling, founder of Goodyear Tire and Rubber, once lived in the sprawling Stan Hywet Hall. Now the estate is a museum, open for school field trips, weddings, and those who simply wish to see how the rubber barons lived. In our suburban house, on clear days, I sometimes saw the Goodyear blimp, blue and gold and hulking. It hovered in the sky, a distant reminder of prosperity and productivity.

    When I went out with my friends on Friday nights, my mother would wait up for me. My father went up to read around 9:30 with a mystery novel tucked under his arm. By 9:45, when my mother went upstairs to wash her face and take out her contacts, my father would be snoring, his book still open and splayed across his chest.  My mother always wore fleece pajamas and two pairs of wool socks. Even though it had been years since we’d moved from New Orleans, she still wasn’t used to the harsh winters. She shivered in restaurants, malls, and church: everywhere we went. She craved sunlight, the South’s merciless heat.

    On Friday nights, after my father was in bed, my mother ate cheese and crackers, maybe a runny brie, a cranberry stilton, or a cheddar with chives. She usually drank red wine, but in the winter months, she savored a finger or two of scotch. She poured from the expensive bottle my uncle always brought for us when he made his annual visit from Wales.  She watched the ten o’clock news on the trashy channel my father usually forbade us from watching before dinner. He thought the reporters were incompetent, but that’s exactly why she and I liked the station. The Cleveland news was seldom good, and if we laughed at the reporters’ incompetence, it made hearing it easier. A missing child. An entire family killed in a house fire. Another young Black person killed by police officers’ bullets.

Barbara Walczak’s bridge Newsletterpaid tribute to Dave Bigler for achieving the rank of Gold Life master, having accumulated 2500 master points. Congratulating him were numerous partners and admirers, including Mary Kocevar, who took lessons from him at Hobart Senior Center, Trudi McKamey, who met him at a Bridge-O-Rama game, and Wayne Carpenter, who attended Hobart High and IU Northwest with him and like him worked at U.S. Steel for 30 years.  Calling his bridge contributions “Golden,” Walczak wrote: 

 Dave has offered a multitude of lessons throughout the years - all without remuneration. He oftentimes comes to the games with bags of food, also without remuneration – but with gratitude from us.  He signed up as a “pro” to help increase Alzheimer’s donations.  Nine players signed up to play with him, and he accepted them all.  In fact, he doubled their games (2 for the price of 1), and he collected $240 for Alzheimer’s.  He is willing (or more so, he is enthusiastic) to partner with new players – no matter how elemental their skill level is – and those newbies leave having had a successful experience.

The Newsletter noted the passing of Conrad Staudacher, whose big disappointment was not accumulating the 500 points needed to become a Life Master.

 below, Dr. Raymond Carmody

Retired Valpo ophthalmologist Rick Friedman was my bridge partner at Banta Center. Despite never playing together before, we finished right around 50 percent. He’d known eye doctor Tim Carmody, one of my first students, who committed suicide in 1998 at age 46.  Knowing I wrote a medical school letter of recommendation on his behalf, his sister and father, who had an eyecare center in Glen Park, treated me like royalty. Timmy was one of the sweetest people I’ve ever known. Several softball teammates went to school with him, and we got to be friends.  After Phil visited his office for an eye exam, he wanted to be an eye doctor because he was so impressed.  I last saw Timmy at a Moody Blues concert, and he seemed fine but evidently couldn’t get over his wife breaking up with him.  I shed a tear as Rick mentioned that Tim’s father, Dr. Raymond Carmody, came of out of retirement afterwards at age 90 to resume work at the family business. A patient of Rick’s, Raymond Carmody died just last year at age 109.

Dr. Eric Friedman

Last year while in Steve McShane’s Indiana History class, IUN student Madelynn “Maddy” Kurgan interviewed Rick Friedman.  Here is part of what Rick told her:

    I learned to play bridge in medical school. It was not a required course. Four of us actually took a night course at a nearby high school and learned enough to play. Then for the next 40 years I didn’t play due to time constraints of a busy practice and the fact that my wife didn’t play cards. Only after retirement did I have enough free time. I considered myself an athlete, frequently playing golf, tennis, racquetball, and even joining softball leagues in Valpo.  My bad back has limited sporting endeavors and turned me back to bridge.

Retirement

“Retire from work but not from life.” Indian homeopathic physician M.K. Soni

Dr. M.K. Soni 

“Calvin and Hobbes” creator Bill Waterson once said, “There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.”  When I first retired as a full-time History professor, it seemed an impossible task to fill the waking hours; but before long, that problem vanished.  I am now playing duplicate bridge twice a week with fellow retirees when not at my emeritus office at Indiana U Northwest writing or interviewing people for the Calumet Regional Archives.  When Charlie Halberstadt offered to teach octogenarian Don Giedemann backgammon, which he had expressed interest in, Don told him it would probably have to wait until winter when he wasn’t so busy.  At the Valparaiso bridge game Norm Filipiak noticed my Cancun shirt and mentioned staying at a resort near the Mexican coastal city years ago and renting a jeep to take his family to Mayan sites only to have a sudden downpour ruin the plans minutes after they started out. Banta Canter winners were the Fieldhouses with an impressive 68.5 percent.  Karen Fieldhouse is a retired Grand Rapids teacher."

NWI Times reporter Emily Schnipke interviewed Barb Walczak and 94-year-old Jennie Alsobrooks (above) for an article about duplicate bridge.  “There’s always more to learn,” Walczak said.  Alsobrooks learned to play at age 10 and took it up seriously after moving to Gary in 1948. Now living  in a Merrillville facility for seniors, she still plays regularly, telling Schnipke, “At this age I like the challenge.  And I like to win.”

Paulette LaFata-Johnson retired as IUN’s Director of Alumni Relations, a position legendary Region newsman Tom Higgins held until deemed too opinionated – not enough of a yes-man - for former chancellor Bruce Bergland’s taste. Paulette was a worthy successor and seemed not to age in all the years I’ve known her.  She played a key role in graduation ceremonies.  After the university unfairly terminated English professor Anne Balay, graduating senior Amanda Board attempted to present IU president Michael McRobbie a copy of my Steel Shavingsissue that outlined how she had been unfairly denied promotion and tenure.  As the precession began, Paulette snatched the magazine away from her, claiming students were not allowed to carry things with them on stage. While University Advancement held a small going away party for Paulette, there evidently are no plans for a university-wide retirement ceremony, once an annual tradition.

above, Amanda Marie in 2019; below, Stewart O'Nan

Stewart O’Nan’s “Henry Himself” takes place in 1998, the year, O’Nan reminds readers, that baby doctor Dr. Spock, Cher partner Sonny Bono,singing cowboy Gene Autry, and Cubs announcer Harry Caray died.  The novel is such a realistic account of a 75-year-old retiree’s daily routine that I was surprised to find that O’Nan was only in his fifties.  The author of 20 books, including non-fiction, O’Nan co-wrote with Stephen King “Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season” – when the Bosox broke the so-called Babe Ruth curse, capturing their first World Series since “The Bambino” was traded to the Yankees in 1919.  Led by Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz, and Manny Ramirez, they swept the Cardinals after a miracle comeback in the playoffs against the Yankees, winning four in a row after dropping the first three games.  O’Nan’s fiction has been compared to John Updike in terms of capturing the essence of everyday life, an insight I concur with and that O’Nan regards as a compliment.

In a chapter titled “The Birthday Boy” Henry Maxwell asks wife Emily not to make a fuss, knowing that she will.  O’Nan writes: 

 He was going to be 75 – a big one, as they never tired of reminding him. He wasn’t embarrassed by his age, but, like living longer than his mother, neither did he see it as an accomplishment. Birthdays were for children. . . . Like a funeral, a birthday wasn’t yours but for the people who loved you.  Why resist the inevitable?  Better to acquiesce, and yet the prospect depressed him, he couldn’t say why. Seventy-five years was a long time 

Aware that family physician Joseph P. Runco M.D. recently succumbed at age 75 to brain cancer, Henry’s birthday wish was for another. 

In “Side Effects” O’ Nan lists the dozen or more medications Henry and Edith swallowed, in addition to antihistamines, analgesics, and ointments in the medicine cabinet.   Two I also take: metoprolol for blood pressure and Klor-Con as a potassium supplement to counter the side effects of the former.   O’Nan writes: “The size of the crosshatched plastic reminders he and Emily relied on – organized by the days of the week, further divided into slots for morning, noon and night like a tackle box – had become a morbid joke among the children.”  There was no mention of Cialis or Viagra among the many pills – in fact, sex seems to have been a thing of the past between Henry and Emily.  On their anniversary, when Henry gets amorous, Emily firmly puts the kibosh on the idea, more interested in knitting or reading.  After spending years at Westinghouse working on a project ultimately scrapped, he is reduced to using his engineering expertise on mundane household chores.

“Henry Himself” ends seemingly without drama, inconsequentially, on a snowy winter morning, as Henry takes Rufus on a walk to a neighborhood reservoir in Pittsburgh, and they spot a ring of deer lolling beneath an apple tree, who file into the woods when Rufus barks.  O’Nan writes: “Later he would see this as a premonition, but at the time he had no reason to assign it a darker meaning.” “Henry Himself,” it turns out, is a prequel to “Wish You Were Here” and “Emily Alone” that chronicle a widow’s life after Henry’s death, which evidently followed a period of convalescence, not suddenly, as Henry had hoped.  New York Times reviewer Ruth Franklin repeated these lines from “Wish You Were Here” describing Emily tormented by memories of their honeymoon to Niagara Falls when there with grandchildren:

    The sun made the day sharp and promising, as if they might drive forever, only stopping to make love and eat. It had seemed that way, though they must have waited in line like this, and sat at stoplights, and fussed with the luggage. She remembered only the best of them, compensation for the months she'd spent at Henry's bedside, memories that caught her walking across the living room or washing out her teacup at the sink, leaving her useless and fretful for the rest of the day.

June 27 would have been Midge’s birthday number 103.  She lived well into her hundredth year.  At her assisted living facility in Rancho Mirage, California book club members read “Fifty Shades of Grey,” of which she claimed to disapprove when I noticed it partially hidden in her bookcase. Back in the 1970s she got Howard to take her to the X-rated “Candid Camera” producer Allen Funt’s movie “What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?” and hinted that my stepfather was not as amorous as she would like.  Of course, I wanted nothing to do with either topic.

VU professor Liz Wuerrfel posted “Just Got the Impression,” on the Welcome Project’s “Flight Paths” website. The unnamed retiree who describes himself as a former history major reflects on the rapid racial turnover of his childhood Gary neighborhood and laments how neighborhoods are no longer tight-knit and people are dependent on the automobile. I’d love to live in a city where driving a car would be unnecessary. Growing up in North Philadelphia, Toni took a streetcar, bus or train everywhere – to school, museums, and later her job at a downtown law firm.  Her mother never learned to drive; everything she needed was within walking distance in their Port Richmond Polish neighborhood.  Here is an excerpt from "Just Got the Impression":

   I grew up in the Tolleston area of Gary which was, at the time, very Germanic and some Polish. I went to St. John’s Lutheran Church and spent much of my time there.  We lived right across the street.  In addition to church activities, we had school activities: the sports programs, the social programs.  All of these made a significant difference in our sense of community. Friends were made and became solidified as a result of the closeness of everything.

   Back in the mid and late ‘60s we had a pastor named Norman Brandt. The neighborhood was changing because of the steel mill and other economic activity. And so he went pretty much door-to-door and started inviting all kinds of interesting people to attend church and eventually become members. He was probably one of the first activists in that area, speaking before the city council and sharing thoughts about how we should be a unified society regardless of our race.  But as the situation, economically and socially, changed and whites began to leave, the church became more and more African American. 

   Realtors would come into a neighborhood and say, “Better move now while your property is still worth something because when this neighborhood starts changing, property values will decrease and you’ll lose out on a lot of money.” And that eventually became illegal, but folks just felt, “Well, I’d better do as they say and turn my house over to the realtor and get rid of it while I move elsewhere.”

   So many people just heard about these problems; they didn’t really experience them. They were watching television, seeing all kinds of marches and rebellions across the country, and they just got the impression that the black culture was one that was antisocial. When we watched, on television, the funeral of Martin Luther King, you know, my uncles would say, “Oh, man, we can’t have this.”You know,“What is going on here? What’s happening to our society?”All they saw was the violence they thought was going to be widespread and come into Gary. And I guess the whole idea of being in the same neighborhood in the same church with black people was just something that they could not understand or tolerate.

     My parents moved from the Tolleston area to the Horace Mann district, which seemed to be changing more rapidly than Tolleston.  Residents were hearing all kinds of news about fights and violence, and they just got a little scared and moved to Merrillville or other suburbs.  In Merrillville, there was a black family living next door. My parents were fine with that, but they didn’t really communicate or socialize with that family. We’d say, “Hi,” over the fence and ask how things are going but not invite each other to a social event, you know, a marriage or birthday party. That was just not something we would do. Some of our former friends from St. John’s moved into that subdivision and we’d celebrate events with those families; but in terms of actually visiting the neighbor next door, that wasn’t done. The community was more outside of Merrillville. It was still at the church. It was still at the school for the kids.  And I see that still today. A lot of people just don’t have the neighborhood relationship that was once there forty, fifty years ago.

   It used to be that people could walk to downtown Gary or take a bus.  A car was not as prevalent as it became later on, but now it’s a car to the doctor’s, a car to the shopping mall, a car to an auto repair shop. And the use of the car, I think, has dramatically changed the way people live in a way that would be totally alien to previous generations.    

Hitting Home

    “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever.  Use a pile driver.  Hit the point once.  Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.” Winston Churchill

For a Flight Paths project that I’m involved with, Valparaiso University professor Liz Wuerrful posted interviews with African-Americans who attended Gary’s segregated East Pulaski School. Here is an excerpt from one titled “Hitting Home”:

    The school I went to in Detroit was what they say now was integrated. When I came here to Gary, there was an East Pulaski and a West Pulaski. East Pulaski was for my people, and West Pulaski was for other people. That’s the way it was. One of the buildings was a cooking classroom. We from East Pulaski would go to our cooking class, and make lunch for the children at both West Pulaski and East Pulaski. I don’t know if you realize, I don’t know if you realize, the shock to a child of 11 years old, almost realizing that you’re not accepted because of the color, and that was hard.

   Roosevelt was an entirely black school. I think there were two or three white students there because their parents owned property in the area. Froebel was the only integrated school in the area. Emerson had a few black students, but that was because they lived in the area. And my mother had to go to Horace Mann school in order to get me transferred from Roosevelt to Froebel.

   I read a lot. I’m what they would have called a nerd at the time. And I wanted to take mechanical drawing. They would not let me take that. And I was so upset. They did not want the girls to participate in things. They steered us to the cooking class, sewing class, and to a typist class.

   There is one thing that we all disliked: we were not allowed to go to swimming classes until Fridays. After we were supposed to take those swimming classes, they would drain the pool. When my mother found out, I thought for sure I was going to get kicked out of the school. I don’t know what she said, what she did, or what she had to do, but I was never allowed to go swimming, and they didn’t even put that on my schedule. I was glad because I didn’t feel like it was right because my first thing is, “Why do I have to go in there after they’ve been in there and it’s all dirty?”

   We started a club and we called it Fro-Ro, which was Froebel Roosevelt. We would get together, and have dances and sit around, even do our homework together.  That’s when we found out that the books Roosevelt had were almost five years older than what we had. The information that we had in our history books, even our math books, our literature, all of that was totally different from what they had. Why didn’t they have the same information available to them that we had? And that’s when it really started hitting home about how things were. I was starting to grow up and starting to see things the way my parents were seeing them. And I started to realize how much of a sacrifice they were making. They did a lot of things that were quiet. They did not come, they didn’t do the marching, and all this stuff that everybody else is doing. They did whatever they had to do to let them know that it wasn’t acceptable. They did it in a very quiet way. It was almost like they did not want us to see the hardship they were having to make it possible for us to get a very good education.

In “A Well-Kept Secret” a second respondent told Flight Paths interviewer Reagan Skaggs:

   Seventh grade, we had a speech teacher. She introduced us to black poets—black poetry—and all of us kids were shocked, like, “What? Black folks wrote poems?”We had never heard of it. I was elated, and I went home, and I told my mother. I said, “Momma, black folks wrote poems. Look at this! They wrote these poems!”Langston Hughes, to name just one, but there were so many! She didn’t know it either, of course, and she bought the very first book of poetry we owned - this expensive book - a book for twenty or thirty bucks was a lot for her.  It was a compilation of poems by African Americans, and then you had your Caribbean folk, and it also included Europeans. And that is a thick volume. It’s not in print anymore. I still have it to this day.  So that was a great sacrifice for her, but she bought that book, and boy, did I get into those poems. I loved them. I was so grateful to know about that.

   Throughout my life, looking at TV, movies, magazines, there was never, ever anything pleasant said about the continent of Africa, nor the brown, black people in it. It was always bad. It was always sad. It was not stuff that would make you feel proud and honored to be a part of that heritage. They never, ever spoke about Ancient Egyptians being chocolate people. That was a well-kept secret. I didn’t learn that until I was a grown woman. Actually, a very mature grown woman. When I went to Egypt, I saw the pictures on the walls, and the people were black, and dark, and brown, and I was in awe. This is really true. They were a black race, so why is it hidden? Why is it kept secret? Why is it never mentioned? All I ever heard was negative things, so, to learn that during the Harlem Renaissance we had these phenomenal poets step out, and writers, and I mean, you just didn’t hear about it in any form or fashion.

   You know, we’ve been so disconnected to those truths because we didn’t control things that would allow us access to that information. And it all has to do with this thing that’s called institutional racism. The group that’s in charge controls information as well. So, if you don’t have access to that information, you don’t know what your potential is. And the potential is always for greatness.

According to Noah Isenberg’s “We’ll Always Have Casablanca,” the idea for “Everybody Comes to Rick’s,” the play that became the basis for what the author calls “America’s most beloved movie”originated during a trip writer Murray Burnett made to Vienna during the summer of 1938. What hit home was the utter terror Jews faced, including his wife’s family, as a result of Anschluss, Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria. After successfully smuggling out of the country some of her relatives’ prize possessions, including a fur coat wife Frances wore and diamond rings of each finger, Burnett visited a nightclub in the South of France.  An African-American pianist was playing jazz standards, providing respite from the insanity outside its smoky walls. The atmosphere was in stark contrast to the “tragedy and tears”Burnett had witnessed in Vienna and a perfect setting for a play, named for a Moroccan city Burnett never visited Casablanca in his entire life.

Depressing cable fare abounds, including movies about the breakup of a marriage (“Wild Fire”), a musician’s self-destructive path to eventual suicide suicide (“A Star Is Born”), and a lesbian marriage that turns sour due to one being a psychopathic murder (“What Keeps You Alive”).   “Big Little Lies” began its second season in the aftermath of an abusive husband having been murdered.  The pilot of the super-depressing mini-series “Euphoria” portrays teenagers as drug and sex obsessed misfits dependent on cell phones and bereft of meaningful adult role models.  Unlike “Big Little Lies,” which has a brilliant cast, I doubt I’ll keep watching “Euphoria.” The so-called comedy series “Barry” stars Bill Hader as a hired hitman taking acting lessons from the “Fonz” of old, Henry Winkler and killing his lady friend, a cop. Barry’s diabolical boss is a hoot.  When police close in on him, he manages to say something like “Thank heaven you’ve finally arrived.”

Charlie Halberstadt and I had an excellent bridge week, finishing second in the Chesterton game and first at Banta Senior Center in Valparaiso out of 12 pairs for a combined 3.86 master points each within 24 hours, by far my most ever. At Chesterton I was getting weak hands all evening until one contained 26 high card points, Ace, King, Queen, spot, spot in both Hearts and Diamonds, Ace, Jack, of Spades, and bare King of Clubs. I bid 2 Clubs, indicating at least 23 high card points, and Charlie responded 2 Diamonds, meaning 0 to 3 points. I went to 4 Hearts and made it on the nose.  Others playing an automatic 2 Diamond response to 2 Clubs didn’t get to game since the strong hand got passed out at 2 Hearts.  

Banta Center was once an elementary school; bridge opponent Knoefel Jones recalled the names of his first, second, and third grade teachers.  The latter, he claimed, collected a quarter from his students, promising they’d get a European pen pal, but they never did. That guy must have pocketed at least five dollars, I joked.  But think of how much money that would be today, he replied, straight-faced.  Knoefel is always joking around, so when he first told me his name (pronounced no-fell), I thought he was putting me on.  Knowing Tom and Sylvia Luekens were big Valparaiso University boosters, I told them grandson James was going to VU in the Fall and that I will be in a history session in October with professors Allison Schuette and Liz Wuerrfel in Salt Lake City.  When Sylvia said she knew Allison, I told of working on their Flight Paths project tracing the Gary roots of Valpo residents.

Barbara Walczak’s newsletter contained “A Poem about Alzheimer’s,” which began:

Do not ask me to remember

Don’t try to make me understand

Let me rest and know you’re with me

Kiss my cheek and hold my hand

Bridge players with mild Alzheimer’s often remain cogent at the card table. Bridge is great mental stimulation for retirees, even after the initial signs of what was once cruelly referred to as senility hits home.

Mel Allen

Samantha Gauer taped my hour-long interview with retired Hammond Teachers Federation president Patrick O’Rourke.  His father ran into New York Yankee announced Mel Allen while at a conference, leading to a lifelong friendship that provided Patrick with some of his most vivid memories, including a ping pong match with Mickey Mantle.  Allen loved Phil Smidt’s Restaurant in Hammond, and the two would meet there when the Yankees were in Chicago to play the White Sox. Elston Howard, the first Black Yankee, often slept at the O’Rourke home, unwelcome at the team’s hotel.  When New York faced Milwaukee in the 1957 World Series, 15-year-old Patrick got to watch the game from the Yankee press box.  In fact, O’Rourke claimed that “Ellie” Howard once saved his life after he fell off a pier and ended up under it until Howard reached down and fished him out.  

O’Rourke’s sister eloped at 16 with someone who was neither Irish nor Catholic.  When they returned from Iowa, the father and grandfather tried to have the marriage annulled, only to be told by the bishop that if it had been consummated (it was) to forget it.  The union lasted a lifetime and produced seven children.  O’Rourke still has a crooked knuckle from his seventh grade teacher at St. Joseph School in Hammond rapping him with a ruler. Once after he misbehaved, the nun made him recite the Gettysburg Address from memory.  Another nun refused to teach girls.  Forced to do so, she gave them huge amounts of homework and kept them inside during recess while the boys got off scot free.

I got a call from Michael Keating, who with Chris Smith has been photographing over 300 Indiana gyms over the past six years.  Many are featured in an Indiana Historical Society Bicentennial exhibit, and a book entitled “Hoosier Hardwood” is in the works.  Keating was familiar with my work and with the Calumet Region’s proud basketball tradition.  He knew that the remnants of Gary’s Memorial Auditorium, once the site of Sectional tournaments, was in danger of being demolished.  Asked my opinion of the best Region team ever, I mentioned the 1971 East Chicago Washington team with Pete Trgovich, Junior Bridgeman, and Tim Stoddard and the 2006 EC Central champions Trgovich coached starring E’Twaun Moore, Kawann Short, and Angel Garcia, then added two Gary Roosevelt teams that lost in the finals, the 1955 team with future NBA star Dick Barnett that lost to Indianapolis Crispus Attucks despite “Mr. Basketball” Wilson Eison outscoring Attucks star Oscar Robertson, 31-30, and the 1991 squad that lost in double overtime to Plymouth, with Scott Skiles scoring 39, including a miracle shot at the end of regulation. 

 Oscar Robertson

Keating has interviewed Emerson coach Earl Smith, whose Golden Tornado team my family followed closely.  In 1975 Emerson lost to Lafayette Jefferson in the Regional after a downstate ref called two egregious fouls on center Earner Calhoun Mays within the first few minutes. In 1977 we were in Hinkle Fieldhouse when Emerson won the Thanksgiving “Turkey Classic” with “twin towers” Wallace Bryant and Frank Smith (one of the teams was the Frankfort “Hot Dogs”).  I noted that in 1991, when Gary Roosevelt defeated Indianapolis Brebauf by 19 points in the state finals, it took a 40-point effort by Glenn “Big Dog” Robinson, including a game-winning, last-second jump shot, to win the Regional against East Chicago.  

The Jesuits who run Indianapolis Brebeuf defied the Archdiocese and refused to fire a lesbian teacher who married another woman, supposedly counter to church doctrine.  In retaliation the Archdiocese will no longer recognize Brebeuf as a Catholic school.  Shameful!  I’ve been following the story since niece Sophia Dietz, who attends Indianapolis Roncalli, told me about a popular guidance counselor fired from her school despite student protests.  I’m certain this would not have happened if Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin hadn’t been transferred to Newark.  Kirsten Bayer-Petras praised Brebauf’s stand and posted this statement by the school board:

  The decree follows a sincere and significant disagreement between the Archdiocese, on the one hand, and Brebeuf Jesuit and the USA Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus, on the other, regarding whether the Archdiocese or our school’s leaders should make final governance decisions related to internal administrative matters at Brebeuf Jesuit and, in particular, the employment status of our faculty and staff. Specifically, Brebeuf Jesuit has respectfully declined the Archdiocese’s insistence and directive that we dismiss a highly capable and qualified teacher due to the teacher being a spouse within a civilly-recognized same-sex marriage.

Agreeing with Kristen and the school board, Connie Mack-Ward wrote: “This is an outrage! It's perfectly ordinary for schools of orders within a diocese to run their school independently of diocesan interference. Jesuit schools are among the finest in the country--and that's because they're run by Jesuits!” 

first day of summer at Wells Street Beach, photo by Mary Ann Best

Summer begins and about time considering the cool, wet spring we've undergone.

Global Warming

 “Which hands get to turn the final page?

In whose throat belongs the swan song

Crisis, warming, denial, change?”

         Parquet Courts, “Before the Water Gets Too High”

An article in New York Times Sunday magazine listed “Before the Water Gets Too High” by Parquet Courts as one of 25 songs that matter right now.  Robert Blaszkiewicz turned me on to the Brooklyn indie punk band, and I saw them live at Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown, CA during a trip to see my mother timed around their appearance at my favorite watering hole.  One verse goes:

Glass barely bends before it cracks
Embedded down into our path
Paved in the crimson of our tracks
Without the chance of turning back

Favorite band Weezer’s “Can’t Knock the Hustle” also made the “songs that matter right now” list.  According to critic Lydia Kiesling, the tune is “relentlessly bouncy” but dark commentary on the gig economy, with such morbid lines as, “The future’s so bright I gotta poke my eyes out/ Running up my credit cards/ Selling lemonade by the side of the road.” 

Popular songs warning of environmental catastrophe date back at least to 1971, with Marvin Gaye’s lament “Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology),” which included the lines, “Ah things ain’t what they used to be, no, no/ Oil wasted on the oceans and upon our seas, fish full of mercury.”   In 1989 Frank Black and the Pixies predicted that “Everything Is Gonna Burn” in “Monkey Gone to Heaven.” As Pixies composer Charles Thompson put it:

There’s a hole in the sky

And the ground’s not cold

Though scientists have long been warning of the consequences of inaction and the first Earth Day occurred a half-century ago, troglodytes in the Trump administration persist in minimizing the crisis.  As Bill Clinton’s former vice president Al Gore put it, “There is an air of unreality in debating these arcane points when the world is changing in such dramatic ways right in front of our eyes because of global warming.”

“Funny Man” author Patrick McGilligan claimed that many of Mel Brooks’s comedic ideas sprang from childhood experiences.  The farting scene in “Blazing Saddles,” for instance, came from observing scenes in Western movies where cowboys ate beans and drank black coffee around a campfire.  Chosen to play dimwit Mongo, who knocks out a horse, Gary football great Alex Karras nailed the part in his film debut.  McGilligan wrote: “Karras would make the mentally challenged enforcer lovable as well as fearsome.”  At age 91 Brooks was planning a musical stage production of “Blazing Saddles.” Climate change doubter Ronald Reagan once blamed rising temperatures on cows farting.

Herb and Charlotte Read

Bridge partner Helen Boothe attended the memorial service for Save the Dunes activist Charlotte Read, whom the Post-Tribune’sAmy Lavalleyaccurately labeled a “fierce advocate for the Indiana Dunes and an ‘unstoppable force.’”  From a young age Charlotte and husband Herb were indefatigable in fighting to protect the environment.  In addition to serving as the first director of Save the Dunes Council, Charlotte held a similar position with Shirley Heinz Land Trust and was active in the Izaak Walton League.  Jeanette Neagu, who traveled to Washington with Charlotte to testify on behalf of creating a national park, told Lavalley:“She and Herb and Dorothy Buell and all the dunes people made an impression on me. They taught me that even if it seemed pie in the sky, if you work hard and organize, you can achieve.”

I got to know the Reads as a result of my involvement in protests by the Bailly Alliance during the 1970s and early 1980s to prevent NIPSCO utility company from building a nuclear power plant on the shores of Lake Michigan near Bethlehem Steel’s Porter County mill and lakeside communities such as Dune Acres. A combination of legal challenges and direct action delayed the project long enough to convince NIPSCO to scrap it as cost prohibitive.  My sons’ Little League coach, Vince Panepinto, a local building trades union officer, grimaced upon seeing them carrying a sign reading “No Nukes!” During the mid-1990s I chaired an Oral History Association conference session about the Bailly fight titled “Hell, No, We Won’t Glow.”  On the panel were a representative from Greenpeace and Inland Steel union leader Mike Olszanski, who had opposed the plant while head of Local 1010’s environmental committee.  

Adam Higginbotham’s “Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster” is a searing critique of the Soviet bureaucrats responsible for overseeing the nuclear plant that exploded in 1986. Not only were they criminally negligent in ignoring known defects in the reactor but refused to accept the extent of the emergency once the meltdown occurred, exacerbating the damage and increasing the number of casualties.  Higginbotham sees a correlation between that calamity and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union.

1981 Bailly Allance rally; Mike Olszanski second from left

 Liz Wuerffel and Allison Schuette

Toni reminded me to vote.  In Chesterton there was only one contested Democratic primary race, but I was interested in supporting a school referendum.  In neighboring Valparaiso, both Heath Carter and Liz Wuerffel, VU professors and friends on mine, triumphed and will be Democratic candidates for City Council in November.  I was disappointed that Gary mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson lost a bid for a third term to Lake County Assessor Jerome Prince, a seasoned politician with close ties to county clerk John Petalas and Sheriff Oscar Martinez, both of whom showed up at his campaign headquarters to congratulate him.  Apparently, a plurality of voters (there were nine candidates) believed city improvement projects were moving too slowly.  Just as the prospect of new casino money being available was an incentive for Scott King to run for mayor in 1995, recent developments permitting a land-based casino and development of Buffington Harbor made controlling City Hall seem more worthwhile.

Jerome Prince 

Ray Smock wrote: 

  Here We Go Again. Trump Exerts Executive Privilege Over Everything. Just Like Nixon, except this time Trump is too defiant to resign and he is challenging the House to impeach him because there are no Republicans in the Senate who will go down to the White House, like they did in 1974, and tell the president its time for him to go, and the Republicans will not vote to convict Trump in an impeachment trial. 

  Trump thinks he can win this one in the courts, and he thinks he can brand Democrats as sore-losing socialists and win a big re-election in 2020. He has the arrogance and audacity to hide behind the Mueller Report, the very report that shows he has broken the law. He and his defenders forgot what happened in the election of 2018. The investigations will continue. Why the GOP is hanging with Trump is beyond me. Where is there to go but down with this clown? Who can pick up the pieces at put the Republican Party together again?  

Leeah Nicole Mahon, an IUPUI oral history intern, sought information about former Dean of Student Services Golam Mannon, who a half-century ago was an IUN Educational Psychology professor.  I replied:

  I did not know Dr. Mannan, but he appears twice in a History of IU Northwest that I wrote with Paul B. Kern, “Educating the Calumet Region” (Steel Shavings, volume 35, 2005).  The first is in connection with the establishment of a Black Studies program in 1969, incidentally the second in the nation.  He served on a joint task force consisting of 4 faculty and 4 student members of IUN’s Black Caucus to implement the program.  Secondly in 1973 he helped establish a process for evaluating Chancellor Robert McNeill that led to the ineffective administrator’s resignation.

Chancellor McNeill proved incapable of leadership and, as George Roberts put it, “had some kind of emotional or nervous breakdown – he just fell apart.”  Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs William Neil put it more bluntly, calling McNeill a “wacko”:

 McNeill’s secretary’s typewriter drove him crazy, so at great expense he ordered a door with cork lining to seal out the sound. I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did.  He would accept no responsibility.  He was what in the army we called, to put it politely, poultry excreta. He pushed things off on everybody else and abhorred the thought of getting in trouble with the people in Bloomington.

 McNeill disliked business manager Gene Nacci.  He said, “Who hired that greasy little dick?”  Gene was very Italian-looking and effervescent. McNeill finally fired him. He also zeroed in on Education chairman Don Huddle, an overweight, very cocky operator. McNeill couldn’t stand him and set out to destroy him. 

  I had been asked to fill in for a semester, which lengthened to three and a half years.  It was fulfilling just as my 50 combat missions were fulfilling. I’ve got scars to show from both.

Latonya Hicks; below, Dave with E.C. Central league champs; Nayeli Arredondo third from right 

During an impressive program at East Chicago Central son Dave was honored as the school’s Teacher of Excellence for the sixth time in 25 years.  Dave arranged for his tennis team members and senior class officers to attend.  Introducing Dave, East Chicago Public Library public relations director Latonya S. Hicks said that she was a shy student who lacked confidence until motivated in Dave’s class.  Valedictorian Nayeli Arredondo, on the tennis team and the daughter of immigrants, praised Dave’s commitment to all students, including some that others’ might have given up on.  In the course of his thoughtful remarks, Dave quoted Socrates and from “The Big Lebowski,” to wit “The Dude abides.”  An elementary school recipient was thankful she’d found a job she’d gladly do for free, echoing a sentiment expressed by author Richard Russo in a commencement address.  Among the many people congratulating Dave was Richard Morrisroe, who during the 1960s was almost killed while a Freedom Fighter in the Deep South.  One of the most moving scenes I’ve witnessed occurred in 1979 when Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael) was speaking at IU Northwest on the subject of Pan African socialism. Spotting Morrisroe in the audience, the Black Power advocate went over and embraced him.

 Richard Morrisroe

Arriving home as Cubs relievers blew a one-run lead in the ninth, I saw favorite player Jason Heywood hit a walk-off home run in the eleventh, second time that happened in two days (the previous night’s was a 3-run shot by Kris Bryant). When Marlins pitcher Wei-Yin Chen took the mound, announcer Pat Hughes was unsure how to pronounce the name, then added: “As George Carlin once said, one name that never caught on in China was Rusty.”

Miller resident Omar Farag posted a photo taken from his property and asked, “Where’s the beach?”  Neighbor Michael Greenwald responded: “They took it away from us when they built the Port of Indiana pier and changed the flow of the Lake. This was predicted in the 50s. The zero beach point is at Ripley or Pine.”