No More Free Lunch

“There is no such thing as a free lunch,”

  nineteenth-century industrialist and philanthropist John Ruskin

physicist Ernst Ising

During America’s era of rapid industrialization saloons near factories often advertised free lunch to workers who patronized their establishment.  In 1934 Mew York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia kicked off his campaign against graft and corruption by proclaiming, “No more free lunch.”  In our time pharmaceutical companies often treat doctors’ offices to sumptuous buffets in order to pitch their newest drugs.  Big tech companies commonly provide free lunch as a perk and device to develop loyalty and camaraderie.  Despite widespread skepticism by Saturday Evening Club (SEC) members, thanks to the efforts of Larry Galler the SEC met electronically for a talk by Tom Ising introduced by the phrase, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.”   Ising began by mentioning that his father Ernst Ising (1900-1998) remains famous from developing a century ago what is known in physics as the Ising model of ferromagnetism.  The son of wealthy Jews and University of Hamburg prodigy, Ernst saw a brilliant career cut sort with Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.  Barred from teaching in 1933, he became headmaster of a school for Jewish children until forced to flee to Luxembourg in 1939 and took a series of menial jobs until the end of World War II. In 1947, after an eight-year struggle, the Ising family was able to emigrate to America. That summer seven-year-old Tom improved his English skills at Tapawingo Farm Camp in Gouldsboro, PA.  After a year in North Dakota, Ernst secured a professorship at Bradley University in Peoria.  He and his wife became naturalized citizens in 1953.

Thomas Ising’s talk was on free market economic theory and the benefits of unfettered capitalism. Afterwards, he received much pushback from the dozen or so members linked through web.zoom.  I argued that capitalists generally try to diminish competition, leading the growth of monopolies.  Income inequality, the inevitable result of unregulated capitalism, led to the Great Depression and has become even more pronounced since the 1980s.  Under Trump's crony capitalism his buddies get a free feast while the other 99% get crumbs. Mike Baird mentioned that he’d once been a Milton Friedman acolyte but that his work with nonprofits had convinced him of the need for governmental safety nets.  Several people reiterated that corporations guided by the profit motive would seek to exploit cheap labor if left unfettered and lauded social welfare states such as Finland where access to free medical care was universal. Others brought up Jean Jacques Rousseau’s social contract and the Declaration of Independence as championing of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  As President Terry Brendel stated, “All things considered, things went much more smoothly than he expected.”

Consumed by a desire to open up the country in order to win re-election and help his business interests, Trump has squelched reports from his own experts to go slow and encouraged governors to open stores and return to business as usual.  Republican governors, including West Virginia’s Jim Justice, for the most part are obeying him even though Covod-19 deaths are still on the upswing. Outbreaks are especially worrisome at prisons, nursing homes, and meat packing plants that are reopening after Trump issued an executive order relieving companies of liability in the event that stricken employees seek legal redress.  Regarding testing, what initially seemed like incompetence on the federal government’s part now appears to be foot-dragging due to fear that widespread testing would reveal that the virus has infected many more people than would support reopening the economy. Now, as a Presidential food server and the Vice President’s press secretary have tested positive, Trump supporters are claiming that hospitals are exaggerating the numbers of casualties and things not as dire as they appear.  Dr. Anthony Fauci and two other health experts have tested positive and are self-quarantining.  “It is what it is,” as immunologist Anthony Fauci, borrowing a quote from Martin Scorcese’s “The Irishman,” is fond of putting it.

Ray Smock wrote about venturing out to Lowe’s during the pandemic in an essay titled, “Simple Tale from West Virginia, a State NOW OPEN.”

I was out of propane for my Weber. I am a 79-year-old guy in the high-risk category for many reasons, but I wanted to grill while in quarantine.

I risked going to Lowe's in Martinsburg. Propane tanks are outside the store. But I was told I needed to go in to see a cashier to get my refill tank paid for. I asked to give the credit card over the phone so I could stay outside the store. No dice. So I suited up with my mask and safety goggles and surgical gloves and went to the store.

The store had re-routed entry to one entrance so a counter could check off the people going in. I walked in the only entrance and was immediately confronted by a group of unmasked customers waiting at the return desk. They were all standing in a tight cluster. I tried to go around them. But all other aisles were blocked to route traffic in a certain direction. I squeezed by the unmasked customers coming within 2 feet of them because they were blocking the aisle.

I went to the first person I saw with a register who had no customers only to be told that I needed to go to one of the "regular" check-out lanes to pay for my propane. I walked half the length of the store passing a dozen customers not wearing masks.

The young woman at the check-out was wearing a homemade mask that kept falling off her nose. She constantly touched her face to get the mask in place.

She was a most friendly West Virginian, who called me honey. I put in my credit card and punched the keys to enter my pin. I got my receipt and exited the store. The clerk had to call someone to go out and unlock the propane tanks.  So I waited by the entrance while dozens of unmasked customers went in. The person with the key to the propane cage never showed up. Luckily for me, the propane delivery guy in a big truck pulled up. He was a very friendly guy, although unmasked. He took my empty and gave me a new canister right off the truck. He even offered to carry it to my car. I joked with him that steaks always tasted better when the propane was fresh. He had, I'm sure, heard that one before and replied, "we made this propane fresh this morning."

So it goes in Wild and Wonderful, and Wide Open West Virginia. By the way, the county in which I live and shop is a current Covid hot spot. We are the second largest metropolitan area in a mostly rural state of 1.6 million souls. Metropolitan is too big a word to describe the Martinsburg area. But the virus has no idea of what urban and rural means. It just likes people in close proximity.

A historian, Smock added: “We haven't learned a single lesson from the flu pandemic of 1918-19. Those cities and states that bit the bullet and practiced self-distancing, and quarantine, fared so much better than those who tried to open too soon.” 

More cautious than most Republican governors, Indiana’s Eric Holcomb has kept controls on Lake and Marion counties, given the alarming increase of cases in the Gary and Indianapolis areas, and recommended safety procedures regarding masks and social distancing elsewhere.  When Toni and I have gone to grocery stores or pharmacies, the vat majority of shoppers and clerks are wearing masks.  Stores have designated shopping lanes one-way and marked off six-foot distances in check-out lines.  While people flocked to Lake Michigan beaches last weekend and a few disgruntled ministers and protestors urged defiance, most Hoosiers are exhibiting common sense. Let’s hope that continues to be true.

Former Lake County sheriff Roy Dominguez dropped off “Frank Mrvan for Congress” t-shirts for Toni and me after I told him we were supporters.  He was wearing gloves and kept six feet away from me as we chatted but responded to my offer of an elbow bump.  We both agreed that the endorsement of outgoing Congressman Peter Visclosky was encouraging, given Hammond mayor Tom McDermott’s clout among county officeholders. Mrvan has the support of most labor unions and seems most likely to represent the interests of the entire Congressional district.

Scene from The Visitor

I’m a big Richard Jenkins fan after loving him in the mini-series “Olive Kitteridge” (2014) as a gentle small-town druggist and husband of the indomitable Olive.  He was a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in “The Shape of Water” (2017). Coming across “The Visitor” (2007), for which Jenkins received an Oscar nomination playing a burnt-out professor who forms a bond with a Syrian and Senegalese immigrant couple, I was hooked.  It was a tear-jerker, and I found it incredibly moving.  If it had ended more happily, I’d have gotten Toni to watch it again with me. Roger Ebert wrote:

    Richard Jenkins is an actor who can move his head half an inch and provide the turning point of a film. That happens in "The Visitor," where he plays a man around 60 who has essentially shut down all of his emotions. A professor, he has been teaching the same class for years and cares nothing about it. He coldly rejects a student's late paper without even enquiring about the "personal problems" that made it late. He makes an elderly piano teacher figure out for herself why she will not be needed again. His lips form a straight line that neither smiles nor frown. Jenkins creates a surprisingly touching, very quiet, character study. Not all actors have to call out to us. The better ones make us call out to them.

Toni received a half-dozen Mothers Day calls and Dave’s family arrived with Chinese food at mid-afternoon. There were no hugs or kisses and separate tables for dinner, but we didn’t always observe the six-foot admonition.  It was great to have them over.  On Facebook Dave posted a photo of Toni and Angie and wrote how important Toni had been in his life.

Almost There

“Never, never say, ‘It's not so bad.’ Say ‘You are almost there!’ And say it a lot.”  Madonna Ciccone

When I taught a course on the 1980s, I assigned J. Randy Taraborrelli’s “Madonna: An Intimate Biography” (2001).  Student Kim Hunt expressed disappointment because she had a young daughter who identified with the iconic pop superstar’s provocative clothes and behavior.  I believed Madonna’s story revealed insights about what some have labeled the “Me Decade.” The book details the Material Girl’s many affairs with the likes of John F. Kennedy, Jr., Warren Beatty, Dennis Rodman, and Alex Rodriguez. More vulnerable than her public persona would suggest, Madonna had the strength to overcome public ridicule and condemnation from religious hypocrites.

Randy Newman wrote “Almost There” for the Disney feature “The Frog and the Princess” (2009), loosely based on a Brothers Grimm fairy tale.  Tiana, a New Orleans waitress, dreams of owning her own restaurant and kisses a prince whom a sorcerer has turned into a frog and becomes one herself.  Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) sings:

There's been trials and tribulations
You know I've had my share
But I've climbed the mountain, I've crossed the river
And I'm almost there

Art in Focus at Munster Center for the Arts featured Dan Rybicky and Aaron Wickerden’s documentary “Almost There” (2015) about outsider artist Peter Anton.  I met Rybicky at Anne Balay’s place in Miller, and there’s an unmistakable shot of it – painted a garish shade of purple – in the background of “Almost There,” as Rybicky, her next-door neighbor, retrieves a letter from Anton in his mailbox.  The filmmakers first met Anton at Pierogi Fest in Whiting, where he was doing portraits of kids. Anton lived in the basement of an Indiana Harbor hovel where he grew up.  It contained so much mold that Rybicky and Wickerden had to wear masks when they visited. The upper floors were uninhabitable, and all utilities had long since been cut off.  Anton showed them a 12-volume autobiography of photos, sketches, sayings, lists, and miscellaneous items entitled “Almost There” that he considered his legacy to posterity.  Film critic Roger Ebert wrote: “In 2008, Rybicky and Wickerden became Anton’s co-conspirators in relaying his story to the general public.  We also gradually start to see parallels between the lives of the filmmakers and Anton.” Rybicky, for instance, has a gay, mentally ill brother who lives at home and is an artist.  Ebert’s review of “Almost There” concluded:

      Anton’s tour of his decades of artwork inspires the documentarians to look into exhibiting several pieces at the Intuit Center. Intuit specializes in “outsider art," a sub-genre that focuses on art done by those outside the cultural mainstream. “Most of the people whose art we exhibit are dead,” says Cleo Wilson, Intuit’s executive director. So, she’s excited to present a living artist like Peter Anton, who’s still around to speak for his work. The exhibit will serve as the next chapter in the life of a man who once ran a talent group whose young entertainers put on over 1,000 shows over a 20-year period. We meet several of these children in “Almost There," some of whom are in the paintings Intuit exhibits.

      The show is a success. We see Anton playfully interacting with visitors and reuniting with some of his old neighbors. The film is half-over, and uplift is already in the air. Then “Almost There” lowers the boom on us.  One of Intuit’s visitors is Olga Briseno, the editor of the Times of Northwest Indiana. Fascinated by the rapport Anton has with the people who knew him, she figures he’s a local celebrity. So, she digs into her archives to find stories on Peter Anton. What she finds is so unpleasant it stuns the filmmakers.  [Thirty years before, Anton was arrested for taking nude photographs of young girls who had performed in his talent shows and served 28 days in jail – most likely why Anton withdrew from the spotlight and became somewhat of a recluse for years]

      In its most effective segment, “Almost There” explores the ramifications of this discovery and how better due diligence could have led to this information much earlier. There’s a power to this section that makes the viewer vibrate with rage and uncertainty. Rybicky and Wickenden ask the right questions of their interviewees, their subject and of themselves. And then, almost as suddenly as it was raised, the issue nonchalantly falls by the wayside as “Almost There” works its way to its warm, fuzzy finale.

While Anton made a colossal error in judgment in photographing minors in the nude, it doesn’t appear that he was a sexual predator; there was no evidence that he touched or groped his subjects.  Having directed them in theatrical presentations, the artist in him believed their bodies to be aesthetically beautiful.  Times editor Olga Briseno did not pursue the story.  Despite his idiosyncrasies and irascibility, Anton had a certain charm; appreciative friends stuck by him.  Forced against his will to move into senior housing after his house was condemned, he adjusted well after rescuing his beloved cat and began teaching others to paint.  Warm and fuzzy indeed!

 Peter Anton

outsider artist Henry Darger

Program director Jillian Van Volkenburgh announced, half-jokingly, that she wasn’t in the best of moods because she had recently turned 40 and had a colonoscopy.  Being an artist helped her, like others, cope with periodic depression.  She asked whether one should separate an artist’s life from his art, or if that were even possible.  In Anton’s case, certainly not, but I believe filmmakers Rybicky and Wickerden dealt with the incident of Anton’s taking nude photos of prepubescent girls with both candor and compassion. Jillian could understand a mother’s outrage upon discovering what Anton subjected her daughter to but noted that most outsider artists suffer from mental problems and impaired judgment as to society’s norms. Anton’s mother was so mortified upon learning that Peter was drawing nudes in art school that she ordered him to paint clothes on them and drop out of school. Chicago outsider artist Henry Darger, who some believe to have been a serial predator, was raised in an all-male asylum and painted naked young girls with penises.

At Phil-B’s in Valpo, Saturday Evening Club speaker Hugh McGuigan, formerly Director of VUs International Studies, warned of the alarming decline of the bee population.  The chief culprit: pesticides developed by huge agribusiness giants such as Monsanto.  Not only do these unscrupulous corporations make gigantic profits from marketing pesticides, they also sell genetically altered seeds able to withstand their brand of weed killer.  Monsanto lawyers have even sued farmers on adjacent lands where their seeds have spread.  When McGuigan urged all of us to sign a Friends of the Earth petition demanding that certain pesticides, such as neonicotinoids, be banned, one cynic piped up that if anyone does that, Friends of the Earth will be pestering you virtually every day.  I, for one wouldn’t mind receiving emails and Facebook messages from that organization.  I told Hugh McGuigan afterwards that granddaughter Alissa worked with Grand Valley State’s overseas program, and he said he mentored many valuable people in her position. 

Toastmaster Steve Brenley asked a biologist for his expert opinion, and the guy replied, “Actually, the only entomologist I know is a woman, and I was not able to invite her as a guest.” Touché!  My feelings exactly.  Historian Steve Tallackson compared the bee situation to when DDT was banned following the publication of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” (1962), which warned that it was lethal to the bald eagle population, threatening their survival by softening eagle egg shells.  Steve added that Americans probably don’t have the same warm fuzzy feeling for bees as bald eagles but they are vital to the world’s food supply.   

I defended the need for effective regulatory commissions such as the Environmental Protection Agency, arguing that they were not only necessary to protect the public interest but compatible with long-range interests of innovative corporations.  As Karl Marx stated, unbridled capitalism will destroy itself.  I lamented that Trump’s appointees, such as EPA director Scott Pruit, too often do not believe in their agency’s mission and claimed that the Trump administration’s head-in-the-sand approach to global warming has made America a laughing stick abroad.  A member named Abe added that we were virtually the only country to repudiate the Paris Agreement; even Syria recently signed on.

I sat next to J. Michael Baird, a retired banker and Valparaiso Council member presently active in the Boys and Girls Clubs of Northwest Indiana.  Mike spoke highly of Gary’s “Mayor Karen,” as he referred to Karen Freeman-Wilson, and offered to escort me on a tour of the refurbished Tolleston club facility.  He invited me to an upcoming mortgage burning party at the former Tolleston school. I reminisced with Richard Whitman, Chief of the Environmental Health and Restoration Branch of the Great Lakes Science Center, who taught for 10 years at IUN and recalled parties where we got out the air guitars. 

 Dianna and Richard Whitman

Eugene Shipman

Whitman’s wife Dianna wrote an article for my World War II course about her dad, Eugene Shipman, that I published in Steel Shavings (volume 5, 1979).  Here is an excerpt:

  For Eugene W. Shipman, born in Gary on March 27, 1923, the war meant finding a talent that was dormant and bringing it back to life.  As a child, he was always working with his hands and getting into one thing or another. Once Eugene and his brother set up a pulley on a rope that was attached to two trees and slid down a 25-foot embankment. They pretended they were flying and loved every minute of it.  Not once did they think of the danger involved if they had fallen.  Eugene was always trying to conquer the sky, and he knew that someday he would fly.

  Eugene was never interested in the various high school sports or popularity drives that most young people engage in.  At the age of 16 he quit school and worked as a mechanic. Later, he joined his father at American Bridge Works.  In January of 1943, at the age of 20 he was drafted.

  Eugene was sent to Amarillo, Texas, for Basic Training.  Luckily, an airplane mechanics school was located there.  At the time, there was a great need for airplane mechanics – and Eugene fit the bill.  Although only trained in the mechanics of the big planes, deep down inside he wanted to fly. In 1944 Eugene finished his training and was sent to Iceland. Now he had his big chance.  He was right where planes landed for fueling, repair, and storage.  After so many miles of flight time, the plane’s engine had to be taken apart and checked to keep the plane in tip-top shape.  Eugene made deals with pilot friends of his; he’d take extra good care of their machines if they would teach him how to fly. Eugene’s dream came true -  he could fly as well as repair airplanes.  Eugene was discharged from the Fourteenth Air Service Squadron on December 3, 1945.

  Eugene subsequently married Iona Tresenriter and settled down to work in his hometown. He became a certified pilot and active in the Civil Air Patrol.  He also was engaged in experimental design of new aircraft.  He was one of the first to build and fly the Midget Mustang. He also was contracted to build a Piper Cub.

        

Grandson James is studying about labor turmoil in the late nineteenth century, in particular the 1894 Pullman Strike.  I told him that railway workers first formed brotherhoods based on various skills and duties, but under Eugene Debs all joined the American Railway Union (ARU).  He knew about the dire situation for residents of George M. Pullman’s company town that precipitated the ARU’s actions on their behalf.  After President Grover Cleveland sent army troop to crush what a reactionary judge termed an illegal boycott, Debs was jailed and emerged a socialist, having lost faith in private ownership of giant corporations and the probability of labor organizations as a countervailing force, given the corporate control of the existing political system.

Over the weekend I watched an impressive, four-hour HBO documentary about Rolling Stone magazine’s first 50 years. While there was plenty of good music, commencing with Jimi Hendrix and climaxing with Dylan’s “Idiot Wind” in a section on Trump, the focus was on muckraking articles on such subjects as rock star groupies, the Patty Hearst kidnapping, the assassination of John Lennon, as well as cutting-edge “Gonzo” reporting by Hunter S. Thompson and Matt Taibbi, both of whom teamed with copacetic illustrators Ralph Steadman and Victor Juhasz. A segment about the downfall of televangelist Jimmy Swaggart showed his cousins Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilley jamming on pianos.  What showmanship that ran in the family!  Swaggart’s liaisons with prostitutes were so open, it was almost as if he wanted to be exposed as a sinner.

illustration by Victor Juhasz 

Tyanna Buie exhibit

Savannah Gallery is exhibiting work by Tyanna Buie, a drug addict’s daughter, who grew up in Chicago among foster parents and relatives. Tyanna has no childhood photographs but attempts to reclaim family memories in her art, which purposely blurs the features of people and places.  At the opening James Wallace told me that his Uncle Perry Wallace attended Vanderbilt and was the first black basketball player in the Southeastern Conference.  In a couple weeks James will attend a ceremony honoring Perry Wallace, now a law professor at American University in Washington, DC., on the fiftieth anniversary of that milestone. In 2014 Andrew Maraniss wrote about Wallace’s lonely collegiate experiences in “Strong Inside.”  At Mississippi State, when Perry was viciously elbowed on the court, the crowd roared upon spotting blood.  Three generations of racists spat on him leaving the locker room. He endured insults from racist professors, efforts to prohibit him from attending University Church of Christ, and slights from teammates who excluded him from their social circle. In 2003, he was elected to the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame; the following year, Vanderbilt retired Wallace’s jersey. 

 Darius Garland with parents Felicia and Winston Garland

Darius Garland, whose father Winston starred for Gary Roosevelt in the early 1980s, has committed to play for Vanderbilt, coached by Bryce Drew, whose 1998 “miracle shot” made underdog Valparaiso a winner against Old Miss.  The Drew and Garland families go back a long way.  As a kid, Winston attended Homer Drew’s basketball camp, and the two bonded.  Winston played on the 1982 state-finalist Roosevelt squad that lost to Plymouth in the championship when Scott Skiles scored 39 points.  Garland’s senior year, Lew Wallace, led by Jerome Harmon, won the Gary Sectional (I was at the game) before bowing to Anderson in the Lafayette Semi-State.  Like many budding Gary athletes, Darius Garland attended an out-of-state prep school, Brentwood Academy, near Memphis, Tennessee, where Vanderbilt is located.

 astronomer Eleanor Frances Helin

At Gino’s bar prior to a book club meeting, I ordered a Voodoo Ranger Pale Ale, which Lee Christakis added to his tab, and got a free dish of ravioli topped with delicious mushroom and sausage gravy.  A product of Gary’s Emerson district, Christakis once got into a fist fight with Alex Karras.  “I was young and stupid,” he admitted, acknowledging that he got the worst of it.   Presenter Donna Catalano showed a clip of “Rocket Girls” author Nathalia Holt describing how she got the inspiration for the book while pregnant and searching for a girl’s name.  After her husband suggested Eleanor Frances, she discovered Jet Propulsion Laboratory astronomer Eleanor Francis Helin, who tracked asteroids whose orbits brought them close to Earth. Donna’s presentation covered most of the book’s relevant points.  When I noted how birth control pills, panty hose, pants suits gave working women more freedom in the 1960s, Michael Bosch said that he, too, found that insight fascinating.

Going into Monday night football, I needed just 8 points from QB Cam Newton for a Fantasy victory over Garrett Okomski’s 48 Eagles.  Cam got me 35, most of any player in the league.  Next opponent: Kira Lane, with an 8-2 record and armed with Pittsburgh running back Le’Veon Bell.  The Cougar is favored over Jimbo Jammers by 6 points.

Bridge director Alan Yngve’s lesson pertained to what to bid after two passes and holding less than 13 points.  He suggested opening with 11 or more points and a decent suit.  I told partner Dee Van Bebber I’d been too cautious the previous week, and she told me to forget about it.  We finished in first place in part because I was more aggressive.  I followed Yngve’s advice and got high board on several partial contracts.  In one, Joel Charpentier held the Ace, King, spot of Diamonds, and dummy showed four Diamonds to the Queen, Jack.  Joel decided to lead both Ace and King; I trumped the King, which set up two Diamond winners on the board.