Staying Alive

“Got the wings of heaven on my shoes

I'm a dancin' man and I just can't lose.

You know it's all right, it's O.K.

I'll live to see another day.”

    “Staying Alive,” Bee Gees

Within days of each other disco queen Donna Summers and Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees, whose falsetto made “Saturday Night Fever” one of the best-selling albums of all time, succumbed to cancer.  They epitomized the freewheeling 1970s, an era fading from our collective memory. In Spike Lee’s “Crooklyn,” set in 1972, black kids watch an episode of “The Partridge Family” and knowe the words of the sappy song the group is performing  Once a teen idol, singer David Cassidy turned 60 two years ago and has been in and out of rehab. 

On the 2012 Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame induction special Ronnie Wood showed up with the Seventies band Faces, looking ancient (Rod Stewart was a no show).  The main honorees were Red Hot Chili Peppers and Guns ‘n’ Roses (sans Axl Rose), and the final number, “Higher Ground,” had Wood playing with Slash and Flea.  Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top was also in the house on behalf of blues great Freddie King.

I recently renewed my Traces subscription and among the things I received in the mail was the Summer 2011 issue containing the article on "Madura's Danceland."  That was serendipitous since it gives us an extra copy to put in our "Traces of Northwest Indiana" exhibit.

I took James to Chesterton’s European Market.  He hadn’t eaten much breakfast, so he enjoyed a mango smoothie with whipped cream on top and got a container of cookies for later.  We ran into Omar Farag, who again will provide the musical entertainment for this summer’s Thrill of the Grill events on campus.  I expressed the hope that he’d bring back My Brother’s Salsa Band.  In the evening Tom and Dave came over for gaming.  I managed to stay up for most of SNL.  Mick Jagger did a terrific job hosting, playing a gay actor, paying tribute to Kristen Wiig, singing the 1974 Rolling Stones classic “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It)” with the Foo Fighters and even impersonating Steve Tyler.

Reading an excerpt from Frederick Buechner’s “The Sacred Journey” brought back memories of my dad.  Buechner’s father died when he was ten; Vic died of a sudden heart attack at age 50 when I was 24.  On drives to visit my great grandmother Frace in Easton he’d sing endless verses of “Abdul Abulbul Amir,” about a “son of the desert” who did battle with a Muscovite named “Ivan Skavinsky Skivar.”

Jeff Manes’s SALT column on Dave finally appeared in Sunday’s Post-Trib.  First rate as always, it mentioned Dave’s growing up near Wells Street Beach, attending Portage H.S. and IU (majoring in History and English), working as a sub at West Lafayette H.S. while playing in a band with Hans Rees.  After enrolling in IUN’s Urban Teacher (UTEP) program, he landed a teaching job at East Chicago due to his willingness to be yearbook and school newspaper adviser. Asked if he missed teaching history, Dave said, “My students tease me because I incorporate a lot of history in my lessons.  I think it goes hands in hand with the literature.” 

Dave talked a lot about his students, including Manuel Mendoza, captain of the tennis team, senior class president, and presently at Harvard.  The 2000 home invasion came up and how when he returned to school he received a standing ovation during an assembly.  Angie was pregnant with James when three thugs broke into their place, and it took all our wits, guile, and self-control to survive the ordeal.  I ended up with a partially collapsed lung and Dave had a concussion from being hit on the head with a hammer.  For the most part they left Angie alone or we’d have fought them and probably all be dead.  Good friends Clark Metz and Garrett Cope called, excited about the article.  Dave went to Alternative Public School in Glen Park with Clark’s daughters and performed in three of Garrett’s summer musicals at IUN.  Bill Lee’s kids were also in “Finian’s Rainbow.”

Protests have been taking place in Chicago during the NATO meetings. Sam Barnett was among those in the streets as were Occupy Wall Streeters and the usual assortment, bless them, of peaceniks, lefties, and hippies.In a moving scene evoking memories of Vietnam, veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan threw their medals away to atone for participating, directly or indirectly, in the destruction of villages and the deaths of civilians. 

Tom Morello of Rage against the Machine played at a nurses rally and at a concert at the Metro that Ron Cohen attended entitled “This Land is Our Land: A Centennial Celebration of Woody Guthrie.  Ron’s weekend house guest was folk music historian Scott Barretta, who edited Living Blues magazine and hosted Toni and I while we were in Sweden 14 years ago.  He’s writing a biography of Folklore Institute founder and Beat poet Izzy Young, who we also stayed with, thanks to Ron’s connections.

In Lowell for an afternoon of bridge with members of the Hobart Unitarian church, of the 12 participants I finished second to Dick Hagelberg.  He got 800 points by passing when Toni, with an opening hand, doubled my bid of one diamond.  I had five diamonds, but he had six and my partner had just two points, giving us a grand total of 15.  We were vulnerable, and I only got four tricks.  A woman named Wendy had seen Jeff’s article about Dave in the paper and said she had several Shavings issues.  We encountered a storm on the way home.  The temp dropped 30 degrees and the sky turned black.  At IUN large tree branches were down and the air condition unit for Marram was knocked off its foundation.  A possible tornado touched down a mile away.

Jeff Manes’s column, entitled “This teacher following his own Lane,” generated 180 “likes, tweets or shares,” compared to a normal 10.  The all-time record is 212 for one on Irene Basile, whose husband died after contracting frontotempolar degeneration, a disease similar to Alzheimer’s but more virulent.


At the invitation of CURE director Ellen Szarleta I attended the Barden Gary Foundation luncheon, which honored Roosevelt students who helped on rehab Buffington Park.  I spoke to them a few months ago, and they greeted me warmly.  College-bound, they will receive $4,500 scholarships from the Barden Foundation.  Ja’Mire Wayne, pictured below, sat next to me and intends to major in social work at Indiana State.  Attractive and affable, she played center on Roosevelt’s basketball team, and her Twitter handle is “badfreckleface.”  

Vice Chancellor Malik filled me in on the FACET retreat.  I told him I had offered to pay my own way and do some interviews but that Kim said it didn’t fit in with their plans.  I told Times publisher Bill Masterson that I liked his recent columns on plans for a Boys and Girls Club building in Tolleston.  Gary Parks Superintendent Caren Jones asked if I knew when her department was founded. I guessed 1909 when Gary became a city although there could have been one as early as 1906 when the first town board was created.  U.S. Steel created a few parks but kept control of them until their nemesis, Mayor Thomas Knotts, left office in 1913.

Neighbor Sue Harrison’s friend Dave brought over some venison salami from a larger hunk someone gave them.  Now I have to get up the nerve to try it.

Two of Miranda’s high school classmates died around 4:20 Sunday morning when the car they were in rolled off the I-196 off-ramp into an embankment.  The six people in the car had attended a party where alcohol was served, and the driver is in jail.  Miranda wasn’t real close to the victims but had posed with her arm around one of them at her prom.  A candlelight vigil took place at Wyoming Park School last night.  How sad for all involved and so close to graduation.