Teach Your Children

"You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good-bye."

    “Teach Your Children,” Crosby, Stills and Nash

 

Post-Trib columnist Jerry Davich quoted from the David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash classic “Teach Your Children” in a column on the importance of family history, citing a 75-year-old Chesterton resident, Marvin Zelkowitz, whose Jewish parents did not want to talk about the horrendous situation in Europe that they escaped from.  Zelkowitz told Davich:

   After seeing Alex Haley’s TV mini-series “Roots,” I asked my father about our family history.  He told me he was not interested in his roots.  My mother said nothing.

In Zelkowitz’s possession, nonetheless, is a photo taken in 1911 of his then one-year-old mother Rachel Gorbaty, taken in Bialistok, Poland.

 

“Feed them on your dreams” seems apt parental advice from the trio who combined with Neil Young and performed at Woodstock 51 years ago.  When Ron Cohen and I launched Steel Shavings magazine, the purpose was to publish student family histories. Back in 1970, almost all IU Northwest students had parents or grandparents who emigrated to the Calumet Region from Europe, Mexico, Puerto Rico or the American South, mostly due to employment opportunities in heavy industry, mainly the steel mills.  While no longer able to make such assignments, I continue to publish family histories through interviewing IUN alumni and soliciting such information from Facebook friends such as Anne Koehler and Eleanor Bailey.

 

Being a resource person for the Valparaiso University Flight Paths project has also put me in touch with professors Liz Wuerffel and Allison Schuette, who have been conducting interviews about race, ethnicity, and migration from the industrial cities of Gary, Hammond, and East Chicago to the suburbs.  Nicole Martinez-LeGrand, for example, who is Multicultural Collections Coordinator for Indiana Historical Society, described growing up in a Mexican household, being introduced to a myriad of ethnic influences, and the initial culture shock of going to college downstate:

    When I was growing up, ethnicity was kind of static. And I didn’t really come to understand what “ethnicity” meant until I went to college, till I came down here in Indianapolis. A lot of people here in Indianapolis have German heritage. So, I went to a small Catholic college here in the city and so a lot of people at that time were from Indianapolis, surrounding Indianapolis, or rural areas. And so, the roll call, when they would say their names! Going to, you know, high school and hearing the roll call, you know, you have, you know, “Cichocki,” “Szczepanski,” “Ramirez,” “Gonzalez,” “Hernandez.” I mean, just like a mix of Eastern European and Latino last names. And so, I just kind of realized, like, “I am – Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.” And then, also, it didn’t really help that the summer before my twin sister and I started college the Latin explosion happened. J.Lo and Ricky Martin became mainstream. A lot of those folks that I went to school with, their entry point in understanding Latino culture. So everybody would say, “Oh, you look like J.Lo!” No, I don’t. And at the time – my natural hair is very curly – and so, I’m like, “One, I have curly hair. Two, I look nothing like her. Three, I’m Mexican; I’m not Puerto Rican.” And so, people just didn’t understand that, so that didn’t really help things. But I think it made people more curious and able to talk about it, so that’s when I kind of understood culture.

    I was born in 1980. I was born at Munster Community Hospital but I grew up in Hessville in Hammond, Indiana – that neighborhood in Hammond. I actually grew up right across the street from what is now Purdue Northwest. Back then it was Purdue University Calumet. I have a twin sister so I wasn’t born alone, so I always had a playmate. So, I just remember running up and down the block and then actually, like, riding my bike through Purdue’s campus before they closed in the streets on, I think, Wicker and I can’t remember what the other side street was. So, terrorizing the students there in the late 80s as well as – there’s a street called Knickerbocker and it’s just, like, this one continuous loop. I think it’s about two miles and so that was always kind of a thrill to roller skate or, later, roller blade in the 90s and ride my bike around. So just a lot of just being outside and playing. And then there was a deli a couple blocks down. I remember going there and buying candy, getting in trouble. I stole my mother’s checkbook once and wrote, like, 000.1 and tried to buy some candy, and it had my mother’s telephone number on it, and they called her. So, we were very sneaky and very imaginative children.

    In terms of, like, the ethnicity of my neighborhood, mostly at that time – mostly white. And there was another Latino family that lived down the street, somebody that my parents went to high school with.  They went to East Chicago Washington. And so, there was the Morales family, so there was Maria, Jose, and Pablo. Jose and Pablo were the younger brothers and Maria and I were the same age. So, we played with her but I mostly played with this Polish family, the Cichockis who lived just across the alley. And so, my backyard and their backyard kind of looked at each other. We both had sisters named “Kelly.” So, she had a little sister named Kelly so it was “Baby Kelly.” So, I grew up before going to school thinking everybody had a sister, and everybody had a sister named Kelly.

    So now that I look at it as an adult, a lot of Eastern European: tight-knit groups, always affiliated with church. I went to Catholic schools. Like, food events. A lot of food. I used to hate sauerkraut. I love sauerkraut now. And I used to always think sauerkraut was a Polish dish, but it’s all Eastern European. It’s, you know, German. You know, pierogies? Like, pierogies are, you know, the Eastern European version of empanadas, you know? So, there’s a lot of, like, cross-connect and shared heritage in a lot of these ethnic communities that I think about but I’ve only come to understand and appreciate when I was, you know, becoming of age as a young adult.

Teach your children has taken on new meaning during the pandemic. With schools delaying when they’ll open or keeping kids home to learn online, parents are being asked to be even more involved in the learning process than previously.  All types of so-called hybrid offerings are the “new norm” at IUN. The number of parents choosing to home school their children is also on the rise. Colleges, too, are being forced to develop and amend policies on the fly. Meanwhile, no leadership in forthcoming from the federal government, as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos prioritizes for-profit charter schools.

 

“The Eye Has to Travel,” is a fascinating 2012 documentary about the life of fashion designer Diana Vreeland (1903-1989), born in Paris the daughter of an American socialite and a British stockbroker. Beginning in 1936, Diana worked for Harper’s Bazaar and then Vogue. Rather than retire when her extravagance proved too much for her superiors, she seized an opportunity to design shows for the Metropolitan Museum of Art; her grand openings became the social highlights of the season – eye candy for sophisticates and social histories.

 

Kiley Reid’s “Such a Fun Age,” about an African-American (Emira) sitter employed by a rich couple (Alix and Peter Chamberlain), takes place in Philadelphia.  Emira lives in the Kensington neighborhood, near where Toni grew up; when Toni worked in Center City, she’d take a trolley to Kensington and Allegheny (the intersection was nicknamed “K and A”), get on the elevated, which became a subway as it neared the downtown.  Her boyfriend lived in Fishtown, not far from her North Philadelphia home. The Chamberlains resided in the fashionable Rittenhouse Square area close to where my stepfather Howard’s law book publishing business had its headquarters. I checked out “Such a Fun Age” after reading that it was a Booker Prize finalist, as was my previous novel, Anne Tyler’s “Redhead by the Side of the Road.” Both Emira and Alix lean heavily on a small group of intimates, who sometimes lead them astray.

Chuck Logan told me about “Pit Bulls and Parolees,” a reality show on Animal Planet network that’s beginning its sixteenth season.  It stars Tia Torres, who founded Villalobos Rescue Center for pit bulls and other supposedly aggressive dogs.  One of the show’s purposes is to demonstrate that pit bulls don’t deserve the bad reputation often attributed to them as result of disreputable owners.  Even so, I am always wary when I come across one, especially if kids or other animals are around, because their jaws can be deadly.

 

Thanks to classmate Pat Zollo, I came across the Upper Dublin Class of 1960 Facebook site and photos of our 50^th reunion a decade ago.  In one I was with childhood buddies Pete Drake, Jay Bumm, and Chris Koch, while in another cool dude Donald Stroup is flanked by LeeLee Minehart, my tenth-grade girlfriend Mary Delp, with friends Connie Heard Eleanor Smith and Flossie Worster nearby.  Biggest find: Mary Dinkins, the only African American in my college prep classes, whom I had a crush on, with Myna Pinkett.

Postponed Reunion

“The life of every man is a log in which he means to write one story and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.” James M. Barrie, creator of “Peter Pan,” quoted in 1960 Upper Dublin yearbook

 

With vigils, demonstrations, and riots taking place in Minneapolis, Atlanta, and dozens of other cities, the Covid-19 pandemic is suddenly no longer the top news story.  Even so, yesterday Northwest Indiana reported 11 new deaths even as most area communities started reopening.  The elderly have been especially hard hit.  Although obituaries rarely mention cause of death, the number seems to have ballooned. Here’s an excerpt for World War II veteran Otto Henry Loeffler, a lifelong Valparaiso resident:

    Otto was a fine athlete, playing in the Dodgers minor league baseball system, then becoming a first-rate golfer and bowler.  He played a fine hand of blackjack.  Whether rousting his kids up to go fishing or golfing at 5:00 AM, hosting family get-togethers or spending time with Evelyn (late wife of 60 years) or grandchildren.  Otto was full of positive energy.  His last days were spent in the isolation of the 2020 pandemic, which did not sit well with someone who loved the company of his family and a dog on his lap.

R.I.P. Otto.

 

A few days ago good friend Tom Wade left for Connecticut to see his dying brother.  He posted this eulogy on Facebook along with a photo with his big brother:

    My older brother Dan passed away yesterday after fighting kidney disease for more than a decade. He was an extraordinary human being, holding a variety of academic positions and awards and ending up at Yale for the last 34 years. He, along with Carol, his loving wife of 54 years, were longtime warriors for peace and social justice. They ended their wedding in 1966 with a 10 minute plea for ending the war in Vietnam, and were in the middle of the 1968 protests for peace at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He had a wonderful internal joy about him that warmed all who knew him. He leaves behind his wife and partner in peace Carol, daughters Alyson and Malory, and grandson Luke. Thanks for being such a great example for your little brother, Dano. Love forever bro!    

 

My Upper Dublin “Class of 1960” reunion has been “rescheduled” for October 2021.  As the planning committee put it, nobody wants a solemn affair where masks are worn and old friends must keep six feet apart.  Compared to the momentous events engulfing us during this “plague year,” this is relatively unimportant.  Still, it’s a bitter pill.  I’ve attended every reunion since our twentieth.  I missed the tenth because I’d just begun teaching at Indiana University Northwest and had returned to Pennsylvania the previous week for my mother’s wedding.  The reunions always provide vivid memories and surprises.  In 1980 I smoked out with Gaard Murphy and hubby Chuck in the parking lot, and we’ve been good friends ever since.  I heard Ed Piszak ask Eleanor Smith at the registration desk if Jimmy Lane had arrived and then surprised him when he came up the steps. Still looking young for my age, I was taken aback when some folks hardly recognized me because I’d grown a good six inches since high school.  Lo and behold, I was taller than Suzi Hummel, who asked if I were in touch with Chuck Bahmueller, her next-door neighbor in East Oreland. I danced with a dozen classmates, including Faith Marvill, whom I dated in seventh grade, and Leslie Boone, looking like an absolutely gorgeous high school senior. Dick (“call me Richard”) Garretson got Bruce Allen and me to go into the adjacent bar to watch the Phillies clinch the National league pennant (they’d go on to win the World Series) and tried to persuade us to meet their plane at the Philadelphia airport.  Alas, the team still has a Sunday game.  That’s the last time I saw cool Dick Garretson.  Next day, I talked on the phone with Judy Jenkins for 40 minutes reporting on reunion highlights.

 

In 1990 I mistook Carolyn Aubel for Carolyn Ott and blurted out that I’d had a crush on her in grade school.  Beforehand, Chuck Bahmueller and I argued politics for an hour before sitting with beauties Judy Jenkins, Molly Schade, Suzi Hummel, and Susan Floyd, who asked me to dance to “Proud Mary.”  Judy said she had trouble remembering many classmates.  It helps to get out the yearbook beforehand, I said, momentarily forgetting that because she needed a summer course, Judy, along with a half-dozen others, got excluded from “The Mundockian.”  What administration bullshit!  After a post-reunion gathering (many of us being reluctant to have the night come to an end) Thelma Van Sant gave Bahmueller and me a ride back to our hotel. Just south of U.D. was the Van Sant farm (now gone), where many of us had worked summers and in whose long winding access road made out with dates, in my case once interrupted by Chief Ottinger.

 

1995 began a traditional of reunions every five years.  Seeing Kathleen Birchler, star of the U.D. field hockey team, for the first since graduation, I recalled how at Fort Washington elementary school she competed in soccer with the guys at[LJ1]  recess while most girls (and a lone guy) played house in dirt patches.  Kathleen once beat up a kid a year older than her in a fight, making his nose bleed.  She claimed to have no memory of the incident.  I got Wayne Wylie (who never dances, wife Fran warned me) to boogie with me to the Ramones’ “I Wanna be Sedated.”  He lived on a farm in Jarrettown; on summer sleepovers we’d ride a tractor out into the cornfield, pick corn and his mom would cook up four ears each for us.  Ambrosia. 

 

Favorite teacher Ed Taddei came to our fortieth reunion, along with football coach Frank Gilronan and music teacher Robert Foust.  I confessed that I had misbehaved in his class, and Mr. Foust replied, “You weren’t so bad.”  He must have witnessed worse, forced to teach some apathetic groups just once a week.  Bob Reller came to his first reunion with a comely wife.  I danced to a Motown number with Mary Dinkins, married to a preacher, who sat behind me in Latin class; once I turned around to say something clever to Mary when Miss LeVan whacked me with a ruler. The Temptations song caused Mary to close her eyes and show some soulful dance moves.  Dave Seibold and his wife wowed everyone with ballroom dance moves they must have learned at Arthur Murray studios.

 

For the first time in 2005 Toni attended a reunion. Classmates joked that they’d wondered if I’d made her up.  We were returning from the Jersey shore and had Miranda with us.  We sat at a table with John Jacobsen, who offered to give up his seat when it appeared that we were one serving short.  Still ruggedly handsome, John recalled Fort Washington school teachers Miss Worthington, Mrs. Orr, Mrs. Bytheway, and Mr. Johnson, the latter a weasel of a man with a big Adam’s apple that I’d almost forgotten about.  Sultry Miss Polsky (who could get a rise out of me when she called me Jacques), Mr. Bek (my hundred-pound football coach), and Miss Malkus attended as did two cool classmates who for some reason had changed their names, Tony Tucciarone and John Magyar, who once fought chemistry teacher John Schwering in the hallway.  Vince Curll and I would visit Tony Tucciarone on the way to the movies in Ambler and sample his mom’s delicious homemade bread. Eddie Piszek, full-headed and fit, gave overweight Magyar diet tips.

 

Several first-timers made it to the fiftieth, including childhood pal Jay Bumm and homecoming queen Wendy Henry wearing, unbelievably, her tiara. I tried to ask tenth grade girlfriend Mary Delp to dance, but Skip Pollard’s wife, who’d been her neighbor in Naperville, shushed me away.  When “The Bristol Stomp” came on, Alice Ottinger and I showed off some moves and got an approving smile from Jimmy Coombs; then for good measure we slow-danced. Later cameras came out when Alice danced with old flame Jay Bumm.  Marianne Tambourino and star athlete Percy Herder, who worked at the old high school, came onto the dance floor, and later Phil Arnold organized a Stroll line.

 

In 2015 I chatted at dinner with LeeLee Minehart and her husband Bob whom she met in Afghanistan while in the Peace Corps. Among those stopping to chat at our table were Ed Dudnek and Rita Grasso, who looked stunningly beautiful.  I traded Babe Ruth baseball league memories with Eddie Piszek.  Ron Hawthorn’s dad (Mr. Haw-the-Haw) was our coach and Dave Seibold our star first baseman.  Classmate Freddie Scott played hits from 1960, including “The Twist” by Chubby Checker (I preferred the Hank Ballard original), “Go, Jimmy, Go” by Jimmy Clanton, and “Save the Last Dance for Me” by the Drifters.  Although I needed the help of nametags for a few classmates, I recognized most immediately.  Pat Zollo was bald but otherwise hadn’t changed much, holding forth with humorous stories of wilder days.  Coombs, who looked like he could hold his own in a fight, asked whether I was in touch with Penny Roberts (negative) and I countered with questions about the Fad brothers. Barbara Bitting, married to classmate Joe Ricketts, remained blond and beautiful, Connie Heard more youthful acting than in high school almost.  Susan Floyd showed me a photo circa 1969 of her, hubby Joe McGraw and Terry and Gayle Jenkins looking like hippies. In 1969 I had long hair and a beard, too. As Teenagers Susan and I hung out at Terry and Judy Jenkins’ house and shared many memories. Like so many of my classmates, Susan has aged gracefully.  Let’s hope most of us can rendezvous in 2021.

Oxymandias

My name is OzymandiasOzymandias Pharaoh Rameses II (reigned 1279-1213 BCE). According to the OED, the statue was once 57 feet tall., King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.” Percy Shelley (1818)

A column by playwright David Mamet about our present crisis mentions his Jewish grandparents and uncle who emigrated to America a century ago and overcame numerous calamities.  Mamet references Percy Shelley’s “Oxymandias,” about the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II, whose statue was taken from a temple in Thebes and the torso and head eventually brought to London. The column refers to rock pecked by daws, and I found out that a daw, short for jackdaw, is a bird similar to a crow.  “Oxymandias” was also the title of a “Breaking Bad” episode during which Bryan Cranston recited the entire poem to make the point about collapse following greatness, hopefully not the fate of America burdened by a total incompetent at the helm during the present pandemic.

Ray Smock has characterized the Trump presidency as the Era of Pandemonium and his most recent daily briefing as a defining moment. In a wacky, dangerous, and all too typical display, DT “wondered out loud if maybe disinfectants could be a cure. Maybe we could get UV light inside of people. Maybe injecting the right kind of disinfectant might kill this thing. Maybe we should look into these things. He wondered if anybody ever thought of this before. It was as if he just discovered the answer to the pandemic.”  Smock added facetiously: “I certainly hope that no one goes out and tries to drink bleach or inject some household disinfectant into their veins. But maybe we will see a run on UV lighting. And people on beaches this summer may get sunburned tongues trying to follow the leadership of our president.”

With 50,000 Americans having died from Covid-19 in little more than a month – more than perished during the Vietnam war – I’m more aware of obits than ever before.  Claudia Wright, 79, of Valparaiso passed away, and as usual there was no clarification as to the cause of death.  Her relatives enjoyed her wacky expressions, such as “Do you want me to stand on my head and spit golden nickels?”  Or, “Your ass sucks buttermilk through a straw.”  The obit stated that one of Claudia’s last requests was “for the sake of mankind, to make sure that the ‘idiot’ is not re-elected as U.S. president.  For those who knew her, you could probably hear her voice saying this.”

 Anthony Mallozzi

Upper Dublin classmate Anthony Mallozzi passed away, John Jacobsen informed me.  I had to think briefly which Mallozzi that was because Bill Mallozzi, another cool dude, was also in our class.  Anthony was a tall, handsome Italian-American born in Ambler and in retirement lived in Sellersville, PA, not far from where we spent our formidable years, just down Bethlehem Pike a ways. We were casual friends with buddies in common – Bob Elliott, Pat Zollo, Dick Garretson, John Magyar – but didn’t have any classes together since he was in Industrial Arts and I in College Prep.  He signed my yearbook: “Jimmy, to a real nice guy.  Don’t forget intramurals. Best of everything in what you do.  Ant.”  I have no recollection of intramurals but it must have been basketball a sport I was quite good at despite my diminutive size.  The yearbook gives Ant’s nickname as Lazard and contains these notes: “Let’s go down to Gert’s – always seen with his ’54 Mercury – prefers a certain blond – heading West first chance he gets – tries to be serious when it’s impossible.” His friends Carol and Joe Paulino wrote, “Barbara and his family meant the world to him, and he talked about his grandchildren all the time.”  I hope he made it out West before he settled down.

John Updike’s “Rabbit at Rest” ended similarly to how “Rabbit Run” opened, with Harry playing hoops with someone younger, in this case a one-on-one game of 21 with a black guy he nicknames Tiger. He had observed playground games in the slum neighborhood during walks and, despite a bad heart, had worn shorts and sneakers in case he got into a game. As the contest intensified, Harry was aware “of a watery weariness entering into his knees, but adrenaline and nostalgia overrule.”  At 18 apiece Tiger says, “You puffin’ pretty bad.  How about coolin’ it? No big deal.”  Harry declines, they trade buckets, and needing a basket for the win, the 58-year-old, Updike writes, “takes one slam of a dribble, carrying his foe on his side like a bumping sack of coal, and leaps up for the peeper.  The hoop fills his circle of vision, it descends to kiss his lips, he can’t miss.  Up he goes, way up toward the torn clouds.  His torso is ripped by a terrific pain.  He bursts from within; he feels something immense persistently fumble at him, and he falls unconscious to the dirt.”  In the hospital Rabbit’s last words to son Nelson: “All I can tell you, it isn’t so bad.”

Rock of Ages

“I gotta take a little time

A little time to think things over.”

    “I Want to Know What Love Is,” Foreigner

Trish and Ray Arrendondo did a reading from “Maria’s Journey” at Ivy Tech’s De La Garza Center in East Chicago.  Angie Komenich introduced them and quoted from my Foreword, saying, first in Spanish, that Maria believed “God helped those who helped themselves.”   Eva Mendietta led off with historical background about Latinos in Northwest Indiana.  Beforehand, she whispered, “You should be doing this,” but she did an excellent job.  It reminded me of when Diana Chen-Lin was asked to talk about Chinese-Americans.  Even though it wasn’t her field, she, being conscientious like Eva, did lots of research.  Rather than accept an honorarium, Ray and Trish used the money to provide a dozen free books to audience members.

The music and acting in “Rock of Ages” were first-rate, but the plot was typical of musicals originally on Broadway – pretty shallow.  I was surprised that Tom Cruise played the aging rock star as a rather despicable character with few redeeming qualities.  In many cases the Eighties songs sounded better than the originals, especially the Journey numbers.  I especially liked Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is.”  Russell Brand and Alec Baldwin are hoots as an unlikely couple.

At Chesterton library I found a “Vanity Fair” article about the 1967 “Summer of Love” and a free autobiography of folk icon Richie Havens, who opened the Woodstock festival. 

At the European Market I bought two tacos from the family that cleans our condo and enjoyed a watermelon flavored icy free sample.  Then it was on to Becca’s dance recital, a Toni’s Dance Academy production of “Working 9 to 5.”  In one skit Becca had on a coal miner’s outfit dancing to “16 Tons,” one of the few songs I know the words to, including “another day older and deeper in debt” to the company store.  Early in the second act the curtain closed just as a number was starting.  A kid had run into a table, knocking out a tooth and necessitating a rush to the ER to get stitches.  Becca was great, as always.

At James’s twelfth birthday party was a tall, self-confident girl named Molly, who was reading “The Covenant (Abram’s Daughters)” by Beverly Lewis about Amish sisters living in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  I told Molly about my friend Suzanna, who is living the simple life of an Amish woman, gardening, canning, quilting, painting, and the like.  Molly was equally at ease with kids and adults and reminded me of childhood friend Molly Schade, also tall and willowy, who charmed virtually everyone she met. I talked White Sox baseball with Kevin Horn, how college was going with wife Tina (wisely, with three kids, she took the summer off), and politics with Robert Blaszkiewicz.  Angie gave her dad, John Teague, and me matching t-shirts that stated, “This is what a cool grandpa looks like.”  Marianne Brush mentioned that Cracker will again be performing at Hobart Jaycee Fest on June 29, but I’ll be in California then.

In the news: Obama issued an executive order declaring that the federal government will no longer seek to deport illegal aliens who have been in America nearly their whole lives and will establish procedures for renewable work permits and the like. Romney, already doing poorly with Latinos, grumbled that the President’s motivation was political but refused to take a stand on the merits of the action.  Braving the wrath of fellow conservatives, old friend Pat Zollo wrote, “This is a reasonable proposal to a very difficult problem.”  One of his Facebook friends warned him that a Democrat had hacked into his identity and a nephew expressed great disappointment.  When I commented that even arch-conservative William Crystal of the Weekly Standard supported the policy, the nephew claimed Crystal was a RINO (Republican in Name Only), an epithet he used about John McCain.  It’s guys like him who purged the GOP of Dick Lugar. 

                                       Pat Zollo (right), circa 1950 and 2012

On the Sunday shows several pundits noted that the Watergate break-in occurred 40 years ago.  George Will opined that only a paranoid president (read: Richard Milhous Nixon) would order former CIA agents to burglarize the Brookings Institute and wiretap the Democratic National Headquarters.  “Tricky Dick” might have gotten away with it had not he played such a central role in the cover-up.

Tiger Woods started out so poorly on the final round of the U.S. Open that I quickly lost interest and got much proofreading done while flipping from golf to baseball to the NBA finals.  I also watched an HBO documentary entitled “Hitler’s Pawn: The Margaret Lambert Story” about a high jumper whom Hitler promised to allow on the 1936 German team to avoid an American boycott, only to go back on his word once the U.S. contingent set sail for the games.  Anti-Semitic U.S. Olympic official Avery Brundage was one of the heavies in the story, which featured interviews with Lambert, born Gretel Bergmann in 1914, both in the U.S. and on a trip to her hometown of Laupheim, which had recently named an athletic facility in her honor.

After obtaining Dale Fleming’s mailing address from Norm Carr, I sent him checks for the four drawings I sold at Pop Up Art.  Then it was off for a check-up to get my blood pressure medicine refilled and then a haircut from Anna in preparation for my California trip next week.

Vanishing Community

Shortly after I arrived at IUN’s library the fire alarm went off at an earsplitting level. Steve McShane had warned me that it would happen, but it still nearly caused me to jump out of my chair. About 40 of us gathered outside while Environmental Health and Safety director Kathy Manteuffel gave us instructions using a bullhorn. The temperature reached 70 degrees, so many folks were without coats. Some students were even in shorts and bare midriff outfits. We had numerous visitors to the Archives, including three people interested in Gary's sports history.

John Laue, who is writing a book on the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, interviewed me about living in the vanishing community of Edgewater. When Toni and I moved there in 1977, already about half the homes were in the process of being torn down. So we never had the experience of living in a vibrant community like John did growing up. Now there are only a handful of homes left that will have to be evacuated by the end of the year unless the government does a total about-face. John asked me what I’ll miss the most and I mentioned foraging in the woods for firewood. The sassafras trees in particular were great because they were a perfect size for cutting up into logs and as they burned they made a cool sizzling sound and smelled great. I mentioned the home invasion that took place ten years ago in the cabin where David and Angie lived and coming upon a dead body a few months later a block down from us. Even so, hardly anyone ventures up our hill from the apartments on the other side of County Line Road and we have never felt unsafe.

I traded Facebook messages with Pat Zollo, who once was class rebel and apparently has aged gracefully. At Upper Dublin High School students weren’t supposed to leave at lunchtime, but Pat would often go out for Italian zeps (hoagies) and smuggle them in the side door by the wood shop. They smelled so good and the aroma was so strong that everyone in the area was jealous.

Cafeteria lunch companion Ray Fontaine is retiring soon and talks as though he can’t wait and won’t look back. I wonder if he won’t miss the university. My situation, coming to school nearly every day, is pretty unique. Where once people looked at me as if to say “What are you doing here” (some people actually said just that), people now seem to take my presence on campus for granted.

I bowled my average (480 series), and the Electrical Engineers won five out of seven points against a very good team. Frank rolled a 623 and Robbie had games of 240 and 192 after starting with a 117. We won game one by four pins and series by under 20. I didn’t have many strikes but only one split. Just one more week to go. John Gilbert bowled a 700 series for the opposition. Last time I talked to him he told me about his former girlfriend’s father dying. He had been real close to Jamie’s parents. He couldn’t bring himself to attend the funeral service but visited the mom the next day and he said she gave him a huge hug.

Toni got back photos of Alissa’s show “Strange Roads” as well as photos of me with Sheriff Roy Dominguez at his Birthday Bash. There’s also a nice one of me with Oscar Sanchez. In the background is a sign reading “Keep Indiana Blue in 2010, 2011, and 2012.” Yesterday Toni viewed the photos on her digital camera at the pharmacy and the ones she ordered were ready within 24 hours. She probably could have gotten them within an hour had she needed to.

Facebook

I had a great time in Grand Rapids, Michigan, having traveled there with Toni for granddaughter Miranda's junior varsity basketball game. She was a tiger on defense, swished through a 17-foot shot, and threw a perfect pass to a teammate who scored her first points of the season. Afterwards, she took a photo for my Facebook with Phil's new computer, a group shot with her, Toni, and Victoria in it. Anthony showed me how he and Phil play computer chess, and Tori showed me her favorite YouTube sites. Delia prepared a meal featuring tilapia and also had some hot salsa on hand. Today at breakfast Miranda gave me a beautiful hand-made birthday card. After we got home, Alissa called from Michigan State to wish me a happy 68th. It’s hard to believe she’s graduating in a couple months. Her mom Beth sent me a CD by a group called Augustana. The song "California Burning" contains these lyrics: "I'm here wondering where the sun has gone/ Driving thru a midwest storm/ asking why no one's home."

Now that I know how to access my Facebook, I came to find I have 15 “friends,” including high school classmates, relatives, former students, buddies from graduate school days at Maryland, and former IUN colleagues. Several other people, including some I don’t know or can’t recall, want to be my friend. It’s a little overwhelming. Daughter-in-law Delia has 184 friends, including many people who in the near future might be mutual friends, if I get hooked. Also sites called classmates.com and MyLife keep telling me that all sorts of people are trying to get in touch with me, but those sites cost money. Besides, anyone who really wants to find me can Google my name and find me at IUN’s History Department site or on my blog.

When I tried to do my first shared Facebook posting, I was told my remarks used too many characters. As my blog readers already know, I can be wordy. Mentioned to Pam Rudolph that I has started a Facebook, and she replied that Facebook was for kids. I told her,"Believe it or not, many of our U.D. classmates have Facebook pages, including Pat Zollo (who’d have thought), Wayne Wylie, Joe and Barbara Ricketts, Joe Pollard, Phil Arnold, Bruce Allen, and Leelee Minehart. Probably others as well."

I finished another Anne Tyler novel called “Morgan’s Crossing.” Midway through the book, this fetching, oddball character commences an affair with Emily, a married woman 21 years his junior. I was disappointed at the turn of events but it turned out for the best for Emily, whom the book is as much about (her search to find herself). Near the end of the book Morgan’s old spouse Bonny put Morgan’s obit in the newspaper, even though he was still alive. Morgan is one of Tyler’s most memorable characters, eccentric like so many of her other creations and both endearing and annoying.

I’m involved in book projects with members of the two most prominent Mexican-American families in Northwest Indiana, the Arredondos and the Dominguez family, specifically Sheriff Rogelio "Roy" Dominguez, who because of term limits cannot run for re-election and is considering a run for Indiana governor in 2012. Meanwhile the 2010 local elections are interesting. Hours before the deadline for filing in Indianapolis, Judge Lorenzo Arredondo suddenly announced he would not be seeking another term. He intended that the timing would prevent anyone but his choice to succeed him from being able to file (a tactic Senator Evan Bayh used successfully a few weeks ago). Sheriff Dominguez got wind of the scheme and was able to get his nephew, Alex Dominguez on the primary ballot.