Historic Marker

“We were the pioneer.  Ours was IU’s first major building program.  President Herman Wells insisted that Gary main have a full[-scale auditorium.  At the dedication a play was performed by a cast from Bloomington.” Acting Director William M. Neil

I spoke at a dedication ceremony for the unveiling of a Tamarack Hall historic marker at the site of IUN’s first Glen Park building, known as Gary Main when I arrived in 1970.  Archivist Steve McShane, who nominated Tamarack Hall for the honor and helped write the inscription, presided. The program commenced with Northwest Indiana ROTC cadets posting the colors.  Steve’s welcome statement quoted Bill Neil labeling the new facility a “cultural catalyst” for the Region.  There were brief remarks by Chancellor William Lowe, Faculty Org president Susan Zinner, and IU University Historian James H. Capshew, who noted that IU “extension” courses in Gary began a century ago and that many Glen Park residents opposed bequeathing 26.5 acres of Gleason Park to Indiana University – although he did not bring up the primary reason, fear that it might lead to the arrival of “riff raff” (i.e., blacks) into the segregated community.

 James Capshew at dedication; below, Lowe flanked by SGA President, Laila Nawab and Sue Zinner; 

photos by Tome Trajkovski

In my five-minute talk I recalled Garrett Cope’s children plays that drew thousands to the campus and  summer musicals that Phil and Dave acted in, including “Finian’s Rainbow” and “Hello, Dolly.” I mentioned teaching in Room 93, which held up to 200 students and Faculty Org meetings there listening to Leslie Singer, Jack Gruenenfelder, and Bill Reilly, who frequently employed Latin phrases. In the lounge adjacent to the History Department, I recalled, George Roberts and I met Birch Bayh at a Young Democrats function and the History department held a memorial service for Rhiman Rotz, then planted a tree nearby in his honor.  I told of rescuing Arredondo family photos from my office during the 2008 flood and the annual spring bug infestations.

I helped myself to a sandwich, salad, and cookie embossed with the cream and crimson IU logo.  Business professor Ranjan Kini reminded me that Gary Rotary met in the Blue Lounge, thanks to the efforts of administrator Bill May.  Chancellor Lowe commented on my “Toadies and Bugs” speech, and Gary Chamber of Commerce director Chuck Hughes vowed to ask me back as a speaker.  The impressive turnout included historians Chris Young, David Parnell, and Jonathyne Briggs.  IU Historian James Capshew praised Paul Kern and my history of IUN, “Educating the Calumet Region,” and promised to help secure that an appointment of Steve McShane’s successor prior to his retirement.  Aaron Pigors, sporting an impressive beard, noticed me in the short documentary about Tamarack making the rounds online.  It also features Garrett Cope and Lori Montalbano, a student at IUN and then a Communication professor.

Aaron Pigors

Charlie Halberstadt and I finished first among the North-South couples in the Third Quarter Chesterton Club duplicate bridge championship, scoring  66.22% and garnering 1.75 master points each.  Sally and Rich Will did even better (67.78%) as the top East-West couple.  Beforehand, director Alan Yngve’s lesson was based on not pushing opponents to game unless prepared to double the contract.  I did exactly that on the very first hand, resulting in a high board.  Terry Bauer bravely wore a Cubs shirt even though the Cubbies are mired in a nine-game losing streak. Next day at Banta Center I learned that Ric Freidman’s uncle had been a tennis pro and tournament director in the Catskills and once disqualified young John McEnroe for bad behavior.  Afterwards, McEnroe’s dad thanked him and hoped it would teach the brat a lesson.  Fat chance. Through the uncle Ric got free tickets to a U.S. Open won by Althea Gipson.  I told him I once saw tennis great Vic Seixas play a Davis Cup match against Italian champ Nicola Peitrangeli at Philadelphia Cricket Club.

      Vic Seixas and Nicola Peitrangeli     

The Ken Burns “Country Music” episode on the 1930s opens with the Mavis Staples gospel number “Hard Times (Come Again No More)" written by Stephen Foster in the mid-1850s.  Its concluding lines:

'Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,
'Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore
'Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave
Oh! Hard times come again no more.

Burns highlighted the film career of Gene Autry, the “singing cowboy” whose popularity spawned a hundred imitators, including Tex Ritter and Roy Rogers, real name Leonard Slye, who sang in The Sons of the Pioneers and appeared in an Autry movie before becoming a box office attraction rivaling his mentor.  After distinguished service during World War II flying cargo planes over the Himalayas to China, Autry had a successful TV series in the 1950s whose theme song was the Autry hit “Back in the Saddle Again.”  In the 1960s the “Singing Cowboy,” whose yodeling style imitated country legend Jimmie Rodgers, became owner of the California Angels.  When the team won their first (and only) World Series in 2002, four years after Autry died at age 91, strains of “Back in the Saddle Again” came over the public address system.

A whistleblower has exposed Trump’s attempt to coerce Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into gathering dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company, by holding up military aid approved by Congress in an attempt to besmirch the Democratic Presidential frontrunner.  He wants to run against Elizabeth Warren, which he has accused of being a socialist – and worse. Trump once claimed he could shoot somebody in the middle of New York’s Fifth Avenue and not lose his base.  Now he’s convinced the entire Republican Party is beholden to him. We will see – I’m not holding my breath that much will change prior to the 2020 election.  I still think Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar has the best chance to beat him. 

Bowling teammate Ron Smith greeted me with the Bugs Bunny refrain, “What’s up, doc?”  When an opponent made light of the whistleblower hearings on TV, Smith ridiculed Trump’s contention that he’d had a “perfect” telephone conversion with the Ukrainian president.  Joe Piunti was the only Engineer to bowl above average, but we took two games from Frank’s Gang despite Mike Reed’s 570 series.

Discussing our upcoming oral history conference “Flight Paths” session in Salt Lake City, I alerted Liz Wuerffel and Allison Schuette that the audience will question them about the validity of their narrators’ recollections of leaving Gary during the Sixties.  Most describe a dramatic racial “breaking point” (a home invasion, their kids’ accosted, a brick through a window) that precipitated the decision while downplaying other push and pull factors. Distorted negative images of Mayor Richard Hatcher often play a prominent role in these narratives.

Despite my proposed talk, “A Queer History of IU Northwest” having been rejected, as anticipated, I attended the two-and-a half-hour “Celebration of Faculty Research” hosted by Assistant Vice Chancellor Cynthia O’Dell.  I ran into Pat Bankston entering the A and S theater, whom I had sat next to the day before.  “If we sit together again, people will start talking,” I joked. Dean Mark Hoyert was in charge of the clock warning speakers when their time was up.  The program got off to a great start with Bill Allegrezza reciting nine poems within his allotted eight minutes.  One began, “I grew up dreaming of a post-earth people.”  Another based on recurrent dreams of wrestling with a water buffalo concludes, “But I didn’t let go, as I should, as we all should.” One written after getting divorced about his daughter coming to him with a broken toy ends: “Some things, once ruptured, are broken forever.”

Subir Bandyopadhyay showed excerpts of a an IUN digital scrapbook  featuring photos and film from the Calumet Regional Archives and narrated by Steve McShane. Monica Solinas-Saunders spoke movingly about the mounting numbers of women being incarcerated, most the victims of abuse, mentally scarred and drug offenders.  A prisoner Monica worked with recently took her own life during a weekend furlough.  “Our circle was broken,” she concluded. Mark Baer told of being part of the Gary Shakespeare Company, which stages plays throughout the Region. Showing a photo from Macbeth, he joked that his Theater students are familiar with his expression. 

Youthful-looking Biology professor Ming Gao claimed that the DNA of humans and fruit flies are 77% identical and their germ cells a fruitful field of study. It’s always a treat witnessing Spencer Cortwright’s enthusiasm, whether about frogs and salamanders or efforts to preserve the Region’s natural habitat – dunes and swale, oak savanna, and tall grass prairie. Yllka Azemi explained marketing strategies to attract lifelong customers to Gary businesses.  Cara Lewis discussed her upcoming book, “Dynamic Form: How Intermediality Made Modernism,” and described the 1920s cross-fertilization between visual artists and writers. 

At the reception I spoke with IUN Fine Arts student Casey King, whose work I had highlighted in the lastSteel Shavings issue.  His father owned a sign business and Casey is interested in an area sign in front of a Frank-N-Stein Restaurant where 12 and 20 come together west of Miller, a popular hangout during Gary’s heyday.  Inquiring where he could get more information,  I suggested consulting Gary city directories in the Archives and contacting realtor Gene Ayers.  Dr. Surekha Rao appreciated my mentioning Garrett Cope during the Historic Marker dedication.  When she and her husband, Computer Information Systems chair Bhaskara Kopparty (who remembered James from IUN summer STEM camp), first started teaching at IUN Garrett took them on a tour of the area and made them feel welcome.  Chris Young appreciated my memories of Rhiman Rotz and asked the location of the tree planted in his honor.  His most vivid memory of Tamarack Hall during its last days was his books becoming moldy after a month in his office near the overgrown west wing courtyard.  I told Dean Mark Hoyert, a fellow Marylander, that I missed his introductions of new Arts and Sciences faculty at Faculty Org September meetings.  Recently, he told me, he’d learned that a new English professor had been struck by lightning and had the audiences in stitches describing its probable effect. I brought up Herman Feldman, who hired him, and he mentioned taking off an earring and getting a haircut before the interview.

Transitioning

“Life is pleasant.  Death is peaceful.  It’s the transition that’s troublesome.”  Isaac Asimov

“‘All men are liars,’ said Roberta Muldoon, who knew this was true because she had once been a man.”  John Irving, “The World According to Garp”

At a retirement reception for Joe Pelliacciotti and David Malik, Chancellor William Lowe referred to the honorees as transitioning.  That evening Bruce Jenner used the same word in an interview with Diane Sawyer to describe his transitioning to a woman.  So far as I know, the former IUN vice chancellors are comfortable in their male personas.  Both have been with IU for 35 years, and Malik is returning to IUPUI’s Chemistry department while Joe might move to the West Coast.

Former acting chancellor Herman “Hy” Feldman passed away at age 88 in Tacoma, Washington.  In our history of IUN, “Educating the Calumet Region” Paul Kern and I wrote:

  The early Seventies could aptly be called the Herman Feldman years.  Feldman played a key role in campus planning, moving from chair of Arts and Sciences into an administrative deanship and then assuming the post of acting chancellor.  One of the “Old Gang” who favored keeping Liberal Arts the bedrock of the curriculum and making IUN a miniature IU, he was ultimately unsuccessful in seeking the permanent chancellorship.

Somewhat embittered that he was passed over in favor of Chancellor Dan Orescanin, in part, he believed, because he was Jewish but also because the Business and Education divisions sought a leader more amenable to their needs, Feldman never returned to campus, so far as I know, after he transitioned into retirement.  Now he’s completed his final transition

At Friday’s Faculty Organization meeting Neil Goodman recalled being good friends with Hy Feldman’s son Ted and seeing Hy at social gatherings after he retired.  Hy would always greet him in Yiddish and next ask about “my campus,” which he did so much to nurture.   Dean Mark Hoyert eulogized Feldman with typical verve.  Hoyert recalled the university’s early days after moving to our present Glen Park site:

  When Gary Main (Tamarack) first opened, the faculty shared one communal office.  There was one phone hanging on the wall for the entire faculty to share.  Hy was tasked with trying to convince Bloomington to allow them to get at least one more phone.  He called Bloomington and made his pitch.  The request was greeted with incredulity.  “How could it be possible they needed another phone?  Who were they calling all the time!  Surely that volume of calls could not be justifiable.”  And most irritatingly, “clearly the one phone was sufficient and working well; after all, he was using it to call them.”

Hy told a story about requesting some paper, some pencils, and an adding machine.  Bloomington could understand the paper and pencils, those were appropriate supplies for an extension teacher, but they put Hy through the ringer for the adding machine.  “Why would you need that?  Why can’t you just add it up using the paper and pencils we are giving you?”

I first met Hy in April of 1988 . . . and was especially privileged to benefit from his incredible wisdom earned through years of experience and his phantasmagoria of resulting stories. . . .  Once, when asked why we had been charged with completing yet another pointless and time consuming report, he pithily responded, “The bureaucracy needs its chow.”  Another time, Hy was asked if the university had grown more pernicious or whether we just hadn’t noticed it before.  His response was that “the enemy was always with us.”

Thank you Hy for your years of service and guidance.  We will remember the portly man with the rumpled suit and crooked smile.  We will try to follow your lead and strive to build a comprehensive university to serve the region.  We will feed the bureaucracy when necessary, will keep our eyes out for the enemy, and will resort to illusions to the Russian army only when absolutely necessary.  Alav Hasholom Haim Feldman.

An obit using an image of a young Herman Feldman stated that he served in the U.S. army in Japan and used the GI Bill to obtain a PhD from the University of Nebraska.  His family added: “In retirement he became an avid flower and vegetable gardener, wine maker and woodworker. He left several woodworking projects undone and books unread because he could not stop being active and curious.”

above, Joseph Ferrandino; below, Demetra Andrews

At the retirement reception I met Marketing professor Demetra Andrews and SPEA professor Joseph Ferrandino.  Good old David Parnell, who attends virtually all university functions, was wearing a leather jacket similar to my old one that I outgrew and gave to Phil, which subsequently elicited several compliments from black men he passed on the street.  I refrained from telling Parnell, uncertain how Demetra would react.  Not surprisingly, she seemed to know Parnell and was very personable; I’d like to know her better.  Greeting Pamela Lowe, I commented, in reference to earlier remarks her husband and Chuck Gallmeier made, that Jake and Elwood did a good job.  They played the Blues Brothers in recent ads about the university. 

Richard and Ragen Hatcher in 2011

Evelyn Bottando was passing out chocolate concoctions on a stick that City Council candidate Ragen Hatcher brought to a rally that Eve helped coordinate.  Campaign manager Carolyn McCrady, who can be very persuasive, drafted Eve into service.  That evening on the phone with Mayor Hatcher we commiserated over George Van Til and Mary Elgin being unfairly targeted by federal prosecutors, something to which Hatcher himself was no stranger while in office.  He is justly proud that his daughter is still striving to make Gary a better place despite all the pitfalls in her path and that McCrady remains a loyal, resourceful campaign strategist.

Frank E. Lee, who is retiring from WXRT, does a Saturday morning bit about celebrities who died in the year being highlighted.  In 1979 baseball player Thurman Munson succumbed after crashing his small plane, and Vivian Vance (Ethel Mertz on I Love Lucy), passed away at age 70.  Others who transitioned to the “Great Beyond” included actor John Wayne, clown prince Emmett Kelly and Sex Pistols punk rocker Sid Vicious.  On the way to the university I heard Neil Young’s “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)” that contains the line, which later appeared in Kurt Cobain’s suicide note, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.”

 Raoul Contreras

Knowing that IUN grad Marla Gee would be up from Indy for the Seventh Annual Participatory Democracy Conference, organized by Minority Studies professor Raoul Contreras, I made it a point to attend.  Among the groups taking part were ALMA (Alianza Latina del Medio-Oeste de America), Iraq Veterans Against the War, The IUN Social Justice Club, and the University Community Environmental Partnership.  The morning workshop, “Public Education, Social Justice, and Democracy,” attracted about 60 participants and was ably led by Vince Emanuele, a former marine who served two tours in Iraq and is a founder of Veterans for Peace. An equally well-attended session took place on the second floor of the library.  I particularly liked the remarks of activist and radio host Juan Andrade, who emphasized that civic education needs to take place outside, as well as inside, the classroom and that sometimes it’s necessary for democracy to take place in the streets.  Contreras, who became a husband, father, and marathon runner in his 60s, was pleased with the turnout.

During a Cubs rain delay in Cincinnati ESPN showed the 2011 documentary “Renée,” about transgender tennis player Renée Richards (above), an ophthalmologist born Richard Raskind who had sex reassignment surgery in 1975 at age 41.  The following year, U.S. Open officials refused to allow her to compete in their tournament.  She successfully sued and played in 1977, losing her singles match in the first round to Virginia Wade but reaching the doubles finals with partner Betty Ann Stuart before losing to Martina Navratilova and Betty Stove.  While some women opposed her being allowed to play, Billie Jean King and Martina defended her right, perhaps realizing that the media fanfare would benefit the women’s tour.  Renée later became Martina’s coach when Navratilova won two Wimbledon titles.

I heard from two former students.  Alex Bencze emailed: “I remember you in class as vibrant, filled with passion for history, one of the best ever at IUN.  Out of class I can see you wielding a tennis racket, usually playing doubles with your wife or sharing time at parties with students and faculty.  My wonderful days at IUN were made even better because of you and the interest you took in my life.”   Writing (a genuine letter) from Helena, Montana, Terry Helton noted: “Gary was my hell since I came out of the chute, whereas you and Toni were looking for something special and found it in the Region, of all places.”  Using a happy face, Terry signed the letter, “See ya!  Slalom, Terry.  P.S. I miss my teacher.”  Nice.

Nick Tarailo hosted one last weekend party at Bronko’s in Crown Point before the popular hangout went out of business.  Jerry Davich posted several photos on Facebook, including one of his aunt and uncle Phyllis Davich Mazeika and Lou Mazeika.