Thing Called Love

“I ain’t no porcupine

Take off your kid gloves.”

  John Hiatt, “Thing Called Love”

Steve McShane asks visitors to the archives to put on kid gloves when handling sensitive materials.  Recently he retrieved bound volumes of Lake County newspapers dating back to the nineteenth century.  The paper is very fragile, he noted.  I tried to convince him to have lunch outside during Tuesday’s Thrill of the Grill, but he was helping several researchers, including John Trafny, working on a book about Glen Park. 

Nicole Jamrose and Mark Soljacich played two sets of blues, country and pop tunes for a paltry but appreciative audience that included mainly IUN staff members and medical school students on lunch break.  Most students and faculty were in class, given the crazy summer hours.  No wonder enrollment is down.  Seven years ago Nicole finished third in the TV series “Nashville Star” competition.  She and Mark did selections by the likes of John Hiatt, John Prine and Dusty Springfield as well as originals like “Fall Out of Love.”  Between numbers Mark bantered with the audience, referring to the med students as a triage unit, and played a mean Chuck Berry lick on an upbeat number.  Because Omar Farag booked them, I wore a Stand Up for Steel” t-shirt with an “Omar Presents” logo on it from a concert held ten years ago at the SteelYard baseball park in Gary.  Omar was elsewhere, but Terry Ann Defenser from University Relations noticed it.  She worked for Omar back then and had helped with preparations.  Small world.

Uniformed police passed through the courtyard on the way to the Conference Center for the swearing-in ceremony for IUN police chief Patricia Nowak.  I mentioned Sheriff Dominguez’s new book “Valor” to IU Public Safety Director Jerry Minger, who administered the oath, and he remembered Roy from police academy days and hoped he’d attend an upcoming fortieth anniversary event.  Roy was the first Latino state trooper and was selected by his peers as the outstanding cadet in his class.

I got my glasses tightened for free at Vision Point, a nice service considering I never bought anything there.  I did ask if they sold Wedgees or other products to keep glasses from falling off, but the answer was no.

James and I made significant progress on the thousand-piece Rock and Roll jigsaw puzzle.  Where I once had to cajole him to work on it, he is now very gung ho and better at finding pieces than I.  Meanwhile, he is learning about ZZ Top and other rockers.

The Times ran a front-page article by Susan Erler on efforts to transform downtown Miller Beach into a hub for the arts.  A color photo captures Corey Hagelberg standing in front of his art piece at the Marshall J. Gardner Center for the Arts (formerly Miller Drugs) along with friends Josh McGarvey and Seneca Weintraub. A second Jonathan Miano photo shows Karren Lee getting the Center ready for Pop Up Art.

Greg Reising, representing the Chanute Aquatorium Society, sent out a newsletter touting an August event that will feature authors Linda Simon and Jane Anneson of the pictorial book “Miller Beach.”  Steve McShane helped them find material, and Ron Cohen aided with the text, so hopefully they will donate a copy or two to the Archives.

Local papers are reporting all too often about drownings in Lake Michigan.  Authorities finally found the body of 15 year-old Portage resident Corey McFry, who was swimming in choppy waters as the air show was ending Sunday and got caught in a rip tide.  As the Post-Trib’s Jerry Davich wrote, “Lake Michigan isn’t a water park or a public swimming pool.  It’s the real deal – beautiful yet dangerous, incredibly enticing but potentially deadly.”

Exactly 206 years ago, encamped by the Missouri River, Meriwether Lewis recorded this in his journal: “It is now the season at which buffalo begin to copulate, and the bulls keep a tremendous roaring.  We could hear them for many miles, and there are such numbers of them that there is one continuous roar.  Our horses had not been acquainted with the buffalo.  They appear much alarmed at their appearance and bellowing.”

The latest Sports Illustrated “where are they now?” issue has a contribution by 70 year-old veteran writer Roy Blount, Jr., who claims that his most vigorous activity is doing chest bumps with his cat Jimmy reminiscent of Yogi Berra jumping into Don Larson’s arms after the pitcher’s World Series perfect game.  Blount writes: “Seventy is like being an athlete in one way: the aches and pains.  The other day a nurse was about to inoculate me against shingles.  ‘This will hurt,’ she said.  Then a pinprick.  I had to tell that young person, I hurt worse than that all over, all the time’”

Don Terry’s article “Where Work Disappears and Dreams Die” just appeared in “The American Prospect.”  As the title indicates, it is virtually all negative save for some wistful remarks by Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson.  Terry started his investigation looking for poverty, crime, and decay on the fiftieth anniversary of Michael Harrington’s “The Other America,” and he found plenty of it – a closed downtown library, a drive-by shooting, an overcrowded food bank, vacant vandalized schools.  He didn’t use any of the material I told him about viable neighborhoods, resilient people and potential for developing the lakefront and the education corridor between IU Northwest and Ivy Tech.  For historical perspective he quotes S. Paul O’Hara, author of “Gary: The Most American of All American Cities,” who argued that “deindustrialization just doesn’t remove the wages, the jobs, the pride – it removes that foundation that undergirds the churches, the social institutions.  The soul of the city is tied up in industrial work, and now, for most people, that work is gone.”  Terry ends with two homeless shelter residents musing about their downtrodden city.  Levi Gildon says, “It’s almost to the time there should be a eulogy spoken over the city.”  To which Charles Byrom replies, “It’s not dead yet, but it’s definitely on life support.”  The soul of the city, right now and for the future, rests is its mostly non-white residents, who deserve more help from Indianapolis and Washington, but as Brothers Keeper director Mary Edwards noted, “The government has downsized the role it plays in the lives of poor people.”

Here Comes the Sun

“Into each life

Some rain must fall.” 

  Ray Charles, “Drown in My Own Tears”

Neighbor Dave expressed interest in albums I’ve been meaning to get rid of that are in our garage, in particular two by Credence Clearwater Revival that I have on CD.  Coming across Steve Winwood’s “Arc of a Diver” and Jackson Browne’s “Running on Empty,” I decided to bring them to the basement because I’m not sure if I have those on CD.  I thought I did but couldn’t find them last time I looked.  I passed on a couple Beatles albums but also salvaged a Ray Charles LP and have been playing a 1956 Time/Life greatest hits of 1956 CD that includes “Drown in my Own Tears.”

With my back still sore from the plane trip back from California, I paid as visit to my old reliable chiropractor Manuel Kazanas, who gave me an adjustment that did the trick.  Then after downing two Taco Supremes I checked out Oliver Stone’s “Savages,” about a couple guys who marketed primo weed facing Mexican thugs who seek to horn in on their business.  I closed my eyes a few times during the violent parts but enjoyed it.  John Travolta is a hoot as a corrupt federal drug agent.  Drug scenes played a large part in several of Stone’s previous movies, including “Platoon” and “The Doors.”  On the soundtrack is Peter Tosh’s “Legalize It,” but my favorite was Malaysian singer Yuna’s version of “Here Comes the Sun.”

James slept over Friday, so in the morning I cooked up bacon and pancakes – with chocolate bits for him and blueberries for me.  Dave and Tom came over for gaming, and in the afternoon I went to Paul Kaczocha’s annual picnic.  Fortunately the wind shifted, dropping the temp almost 20 degrees to a tolerable 84.  As I drove down County Line Road in Miller, a long line of cars was leaving, indicating to me that the Gary Air Show was over. Turning onto Oak St. a terrific noise startled me.  After a moment I realized that it was a plane from the air show.  I arrived the same time as Alice Bush, who was carrying deviled eggs.  Her son Mike showed up briefly but claimed he couldn’t turn off his car motor for fear it wouldn’t start up again.

At the picnic I got into a lively discussion with Jim Balanoff, Jr., and Mike Olszanski.  Oz and I put out a Shavings magazine called “Steelworkers Fight back” about the 1977 USWA election involving Ed Sadlowski for union president and Balanoff’s dad for district director.  Jim claimed that when his dad ran for re-election in 1981 Eddie secretly supported Jack Parton in return for being promised a position as sub-district director.  We discussed which event had the greatest impact on American history, the assassinations of JFK and RFK or 9/11.   All three were sad days for America.

I had a mild interest in the Wimbledon finals, rooting for ultimate winners Serena Williams and Roger Federer.  I enjoyed the commentary of John McEnroe, whose clashes with umpires 30 years ago were legendary.  Now with cameras able to show down to the millimeter whether or not a ball is out, outbursts by players are few and far between.

James and I fitted 60 more pieces into the thousand-piece Rock and Roll Puzzle.  Even though it was hard on the back, I stayed with it after he left while watching the White Sox lose to Toronto, 11-9.  They still have a three-game lead over Cleveland going into the All-Star break, but Detroit is finally making its move.

I’ve decided that when I get more “Valor” books I’ll send inscribed copies to Don Ritchie (who re-enforced my belief in the efficacy of oral history”) and Ira Berlin to put in Maryland’s H. Samuel Merrill seminar room bookcase (I’ll dedicate it to Marion Merrill, Sam’s faithful sidekick, who nurtured a cohort of grad students).

Judge Miroc selected “Wolves against the Moon” to report on to the History Book Club.  When I was researching pioneers Joseph and Marie Bailly for ”City of the Century,” I consulted it even though it is a fictionalized account of their lives.  Of French and Indian descent, Marie live for a time with Ottawa among the Ottawa and was the first woman settler in Northwest Indiana, and her life symbolized the merging of French and Indian culture and the destruction of that way of life by western expansion.  A devout Catholic, she was a missionary to tribesmen who frequented her husband Joseph’s trading post.

                     (home to Joseph and Marie Bailly at the time of their deaths in 1835 and 1866)

IUN Bookstore manager Donna DeGradi reports that she is unable to stock the book about women’s diaries, “Private Pages,” so I will substitute “Wild Girls: Girlhoods in the Counterculture,” edited by Chelsea Cain with a foreword by Moon Unit Zappa.  “The diaries in “Private Pages” were often prosaic, so this may be a blessing in disguise.