Hold Your Head Up

“And if they stare
Just let them burn their eyes on you moving
And if they shout
Don't let them change a thing what you're doing”

“Hold Your Head Up,” Argent

 Jake Lacy as Nick in I'm Dying Up Here

Argent, a British rock group formed by Zombies keyboardist Rod Argent, recorded “Hold Your Head Up” in 1972 with Russ Ballard on vocals. “Hold Your Head Up” was subsequently covered by Steppenwolf, Uriah Heep, Phish, and many others. Over the long weekend I watched the second season finale of the Showtime series I’m Dying Up Here, set in the Seventies.  Young comedian Nick (Jake Lacy) is guest host on a radio talk show.  We see him opening up about an uncle molesting him when he was seven but then realize the program hasn’t begun.  When it does, Nick introduces Argent’s “Hold Your head Up.”

 Alissa selfie in Granger IN

Jimbo and Grace 

Blanche Trojecka at Mt. Baldy

Twenty members of the Lane and Okomski clans gathered in the South Bend suburb of Granger. Toni’s sister Marianne had flown in to stay with teenagers Grace and Oliver Teuscher while parents Lisa and Fritz celebrated their twentieth wedding anniversary with a hiking trip in the Canadian Rockies.  Toni brought Golumpkis, Angie tuna salad, and Beth two blueberry pies.  With fritz’s assistance, nephew Tom Dietz grilled burgers and hot dogs and fixed bacon, eggs, and toast for breakfast.

Such occasions always include story-telling, especially since Marianne’s daughters Charlene and Michelle were present with husbands JQ and Tom. I talked about past visits by Toni’s mother Blanche to our home near the dunes.  Blanche was so impressed with Mount Baldy (a sand dune no longer open to visitors), she made sure we returned whenever other family members visited.  Her reaction to Saugatuck, Michigan, was similar, and we took her back several times, with various grandchildren in tow. A strong, feisty woman, she gave birth to seven children and flew for the first time to see Phil and Dave in the IUN musical Finian’s Rainbow,directed by Garrett Cope   She was only in her sixties then– much younger than I am now.  At a kid’s birthday party, Toni organized a scavenger hunt, and I partnered with Blanche.  Toni nabbed us trying to sneak off early (her idea); then when we’d found everything on our list and she noticed Dean and Ann Bottorff heading home from a different direction, she grabbed my hand and started up our steep hill and driveway at such a fast pace I could hardly keep up. She loved bingo, and I’d take her to a game in Portage where she’d play 8 boards simultaneously.

above, Shelly Fitzgerald; below, Elijah Mahan with rainbow banner

We played a couple Texas Hold ’em tournaments with grandson Anthony and nephews Oliver Teuscher and Nickolas Dietz impressively holding their own.  Nick’s sister Sophia enlightened us about a controversy at her Catholic high school in Indianapolis, Roncalli.  Lesbian Shelly Fitzgerald, a popular 15-year veteran guidance counselor, was placed on administrative leave after some idiot complained to the archdiocese that she had married a woman.  This technically violated a contract mandating obedience to the church teachings, including that marriage was between a man and a woman.  Students protestors have been wearing rainbow attire; teachers have rallied on Fitzgerald’s behalf, and the principal has been supportive but claims his hands are tied.  The shabby treatment of Fitzgerald has become national news. Sophia, sympathetic toward Fitzgerald, rues the disruptions and incessant media coverage.

On Labor Day the Wades invited us over for burgers and brats on the grill.  Darcey made her famous potato salad (enough for me to take home, share with Angie and Becca, and still have plenty for lunch all week). We ended the pleasant evening with Wits and Wagers.  Tom edged me out by a single chip after I guessed that 51 million households tuned in to the final episode of M*A*S*H*.The answer was 50.9.  I had exceeded the correct amount, so the winning bet was 44 million. Thirty-five years ago, we were among the households that tuned in.

above, M*A*S*H* final scene; below, John Updike

John Updike’s “Rabbit Remembered” takes place in Brewer, Pennsylvania, reminiscent of my hometown of Easton, in 1999, a decade after Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom’s heart gave out at age 56 after winning a one-on-one basketball contest.  Masterful at setting a scene, Updike is a joy to social historians. One constant theme is change over time, in most cases declension. The high point of Rabbit’s life, for instance, was his senior year of high school.  The novella opens with daughter Annabelle, conceived by a woman other than Harry’s wife, ringing the doorbell of widow Janice, 63, now remarried to Rabbit’s onetime nemesis Ronnie but living in the house where she grew up: “Decades of rust have all but destroyed its voice, the thing will die entirely someday, the clapper freezing or the wires shorting out or whatever they do.”  Somewhat deaf, Janice often doesn’t hear the faint ring if in the kitchen, and a twinge in one hip slows her progress as she walks through the dining room “whose shades are drawn to keep the oriental rug from fading and the polished mahogany table from drying out.”  In the front room an unused Zenith TV holds her dead mother’s dusty knickknacks.  Janice puts her hand on an old-fashioned doorknob “with a raised design worn shiny with the years, like brass lace” and opens a “heavy walnut door with its tall sidelights of frosted glass in floral arabesques that has been swollen and sticking all summer with a humidity that never produced rain.”  Janice takes calcium pills to fend off osteoporosis but, compared to her friends, is quite fit.  Outside she notices a mail van, white with red and blue stripes, not solid green like previous ones that resembled military vehicles, and nearby “a young woman with long sun-bleached hair and stocky tan legs in shorts who pushes her pouch on a 3-wheeled cart.”

At West Brewer Diner (open 24 hours a day), where she and Rabbit came after dances, Janice imagines the future of her waitress, a dark-complected Greek or Italian beauty – marriage, pregnancies, heavy meals, lost looks – reducing her blazing exquisiteness to a small, resentful spark, wondering “where it all went.” The jukebox plays “Crazy” but by a young diva, not Patsy Cline, who died young in a plane crash, like JFK, Jr.  Driving home from a four-deal party bridge game known as Chicago, where she misplayed several hands (underbidding a sure game and getting set in 3 No-Trump because she prematurely cashed her Diamond stopper), Janice ruminates over Annabelle’s unexpected intrusion into her settled life.  She passes an empty building that once housed  an upscale department store and an asphalt parking lot where ornate movie palaces had offered escape and excitement.  On the car radio came news that a man in Camden shot his estranged wife, three small children, and, cornered by police, himself. Updike wrote:

 For months there have been mass murders on television, the schoolchildren in Colorado and then the man beheading women in Yosemite Park and the man in Georgia who had lost a hundred thousand dollars at day trading on the Internet and blamed everybody but himself.  He left a long pious note asking God to take his dear wife and little ones whereas the teen-age killers in Colorado mocked and killed the girl who said she believed in God.  Either way, you killed them dead, sending them straight to heaven, or to nowhere, to an emptiness like that big orange hole in the middle of Brewer.

September’s Bridge Bulletin announced that the winter national tournament venue will be the Hilton Hawaiian Village along Waikiki beach in Honolulu.  As newlyweds in 1965, Toni and I spent our first days in Hawaii in the penthouse suite of a luxury hotel reserved by my rich aunt.  After two days, I inquired how many nights she had paid for; none, was the answer.  We promptly checked out but not before parting with a giant chunk of our savings. Rooms at the Hilton start at $195 a night, about what we paid In 2006 when Toni, Miranda, and I spent several days there on the way back from Australia, I was pleasantly surprised at the price.  We toured the barely recognizable University of Hawaii, where I received an M.A., and passed by our apartment on Poki Street (we named our first cat Poki) as well as nearby Punahou School (Barack Obama’s alma mater), where I played wiffleball with neighbor Rick Simpson.

 Don and Pat Valiska 

Barb Walczak is encouraging bridge veterans to describe vacation highlights for the Newsletter.  Don and Pat Valiska toured Ireland.  Don wrote: “As a former history teacher, I could not get enough of the Celtic and Christian ruins, folklore and music – something new at every stop.  The Cliffs of Moher were breathtaking, and I did survive kissing the Blarney stone at the castle - probably why I needed the tours of the Guiness Storehouse and the Irish Whiskey distilleries.  The last night we stayed at the Cabra Castle, where we celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary.”  

Bridge opponent Marcy Tomes asked when Eugene Swartz was Mayor of Gary.  After thinking a moment, I answered, “Between 1948 and 1952.”  She knew his daughter, who recently passed away.  Terry Bauer’s grandchildren played soccer atop a building in the Kowloon City district of Hong Kong.  In school they have an hour of Chinese a day with the emphasis on verbal communication and are teaching their parents, there for three years, certain phrases.

Subdivisions

“The subdivisions have no charms to soothe the restless dreams of youth,” Rush, “Signals”

The only subdivisions I’ve lived in were Beverly Hills, Michigan, in 1955-56 and Ross Township (now part of Merrillville) in 1970-72.  Neither was charming, and in the latter case, many neighbors had recently moved from Gary and were fearful of blacks and apprehensive of my beard and long hair.  Neighbor kids would ask Phil and Dave if Toni and me were married.

Jonathyne Briggs posed with someone in a Darth Vader outfit at Soldier Field.  A friend joked that he had run into half of Daft Punk, whose new CD of electronic music tops the charts and landed the French duo of Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter on the cover of Rolling Stone.  The name stems from a negative review of their first album, recorded with Phoenix guitarist Laurant Brancowitz, under the name Darlin’.

Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek died of cancer at age 74.  In 1993, 22 years after Jim Morrison passed away, Eddie Vedder sang lead vocals when the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  I heard “Light My Fire,” featuring Manzarek’s unforgettable solos, on WXRT while on the way to Jewel.  Another pleasant surprise was saxophonist Cannonball Adderly’s “Mercy Mercy Mercy.”  It contains no words, but the sax says it all.

In “The Shackles of Power” John Dos Passos notes that cantankerous John Randolph of Roanoke contracted mumps in his youth, which left him with undeveloped testes, a high-pitched voice, and beardless.  After one brother died, his fiancé gave birth to a stillborn baby.  Another brother disposed of the body, was caught, and indicted for murder.  Though Thomas Jefferson’s cousin, John Randolph broke with the president for supposedly abandoning States Rights and became the leader of the “Old Republicans” or “Quids.” In his will he freed the slaves who had supported him all his life.

On Memorial Day weekend Michele and Tom Dietz brought Seattle Joe Robinson up from Indy along with Nicholas and Sophia.  Hoosier born and bred, Tom had been to Indianapolis Motor Speedway earlier in the week for Festival Parade Day and has attended “The Race” several times.  Veteran Tony Kanaan, one of four drivers bunched together when a caution flag was lifted with just a few laps to go, rushed ahead of Ryan Hunter-Reay just before a crash caused another caution flag to keep the cars from passing one another during the final two laps.  It was a lucky break for Kanaan, finally winning the 500 in his twelfth attempt.

James and Becca stayed the entire weekend, making a total of nine sleeping at the condo Saturday night.  Dave and Angie brought chicken and mashed potatoes left over from the E.C. Central prom, and Toni made ribs.  The potatoes came in handy when I pulled breakfast duty and made latkes (I also had requests for hoecakes).  Dave got his hair cut short for the occasion. (below, Dave with Maria-Isabel Gomez)

In a walk around the block the kids and I encountered numerous friendly dogs and passed by several men mowing lawns.  We passed a basketball around, Nicholas and Sophia managing the feat while on push scooters.  They also got in beach time before the rains came.  Starting home on Monday the Dietz’s ran into traffic on 80/94 and detoured onto Route 12.  At County Line Road they decided to check out our old place almost three years after we left it.  Why hasn’t it been torn down?  Lack of funding?

On Tuesday Joe, Toni, and I watched the Liberace biopic “Behind the Candelabra” starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon as his young lover.  In this day and age it is hard to imagine that most of the pianist’s fans didn’t realize that he was gay.  While there was no frontal nudity, director Steven Soderbergh included scenes of Daman mounting Douglas from behind and of Liberace greeting bedmate Scot in the morning by saying, “You’re up” and then going down on him.  Later they visit a porn emporium, and Scot pukes upon discovering that Liberace is making use of a glory hole.  As portrayed in the film, Liberace clearly loved Scot but sought variety and dumped him when another young protégé caught his eye.  That said, there were plenty of funny moments and the actors were mesmerizing.  Joe and I loved it while Toni found it somewhat disturbing.  I only wish there were more performance scenes.

Joe got into the basketball and hockey playoffs, rooting for the Pacers against the hated Heat and cheering on the Blacks Hawks as they overcame being down three games to one to the Red Wings.   Watching the 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction show, Joe marveled at Rush’s performance and later found a five-CD box set at best Buy for $19.95.  I picked up Daft Punk’s “Random Access Memories” and the new National CD “The Trouble Will Find Me,” featuring Matt Berninger’s baritone vocals.  On Joe’s last evening, we ordered pizzas from Sage Restaurant and attended Dave’s rehearsal with Blues Cruise.  Joe loved playing with the lively Bush family dog and particularly enjoyed the band’s rendition of Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls.”  Missy and Dave sang several songs together, including a Cracker tune I hadn’t heard them do before, “Eurotrash Girl.”  Brittany Shearer, bass guitarist on several numbers, has been playing roller derby on a pro team that plays their games at Camelot Lanes.

On our ride to Greenwood, just south of Indy, Joe and I listened to ABBA (a tradition ever since three years ago when we went to French Lick) and Rush’s 1982 effort “Signals.”  Joe has a terrific ear and picked up most of the lyrics.  Greeting us were Nicholas and the Dietz family dog Chloe. On Science Channel I learned how soy sauce is made, a process that takes months.  After squeezing the liquid from layers made of soybeans and wheat the leftovers are used as cattle fodder. 

Finding a Smithsonian magazine I perused Nathaniel Philbrick’s article about the Battle of Bunker Hill, which took place a year before the signing of the Declaration of Independence and was the bloodiest clash of the Revolution.  Among the 1,500 dead was Dr. Joseph Warren, who held off the British during their third assault on Breed’s Hill so that other could escape.  In the evening we rooted for the Pacers and booed when Miami’s goon Chris “Birdman” Andersen mauled Tyler Hansbrough and was not kicked out of the game.  It was close until Lebron James took over in the third quarter. Andersen was subsequently suspended for game six.  Michele and I chatted about family matters. She lamented that most folks in their subdivision were conservative but has found congenial companions at a 6 a.m. exercise class.  Her family is pushing for them to move to Florida when their kids are out of high school in seven years, while Tom wants to stay in Indiana.  Hope they remain Hoosiers.

Driving north in the rain Friday, I listened to a couple Top 40 stations (rare for me) and recognized Justin Timberlake (“Mirrors”) and Taylor Swift (“22”).  I heard Macklemore and Lewis (“Can’t Hold Us”) for the first time and a new single by Avril Lavigne, “Here’s To Never Growing Up.”  I’ll drink to that.

In the Archives for the first time in a week, I opened a hundred emails, including news that Alissa and Josh had arrived in Amsterdam.  He posted a photo of hundreds of bicycles parked at the central train station.  They are now in the Paris district of Montmartre, known for its nightclubs and the white-domed Sacred heart Basilica.  Josh reported: “That first night we met up at a bar with hundreds of couch surfers having a trivia night; they told us many cool places to go and will be helping us around town this week.  Yesterday we went to the top of the Eiffel Tower and just as we were leaving at sunset it began sprinkling and a rainbow circled the top of the tower; it was incredible. We also had our first "real" Parisian meal at a small restaurant with a bottle of wine, a baguette and goose, duck and smoked salmon.” 

 Alissa in Amsterdam and with Josh at Montmartre

The latest Traces contains articles about the Great Flood of 1913 inundating Indianapolis and the founding that year of the Woman’s Press Club of Indiana.  A hundred years ago, women couldn’t join the all-male Indianapolis Press Club.  Charter member Juliet Strauss wrote a column for the Indianapolis News as well as one entitled “The Ideas of a Plain Country Woman” for Ladies Home Journal.  She advised: “When trouble comes, meet it, get along with it the best you can, and then let loose of it.”  In the “Black History” section are articles about an unsuccessful Indiana Underground Railroad escape attempt and the tragedy of Sergeant Thomas Brown, so traumatized from seeing comrades used as canon fodder by racist commanders during the Battle of the Crater near Petersburg, Virginia, that he died eight years later in an insane asylum.

IUN is offering a Public Speaking summer course online.  WTF?  Responding to Vice President Applegate’s latest email, I expressed the hope that he might make it his mission to facilitate the launching of innovative regional campus pilot programs, especially in the liberal arts (what distinguishes IU from Purdue and the former state teachers colleges).  I wrote: “The legacy of your distinguished predecessor, John Ryan, was to free regional campuses from overburdening bureaucratic controls.  Yours, I hope, will be to help make individual campuses laboratories for experiments that, if successful, could be adapted by others.”  Two recent campus initiatives, the Liberal Studies masters degree program and the Center for Urban and Regional Excellence, were well intentioned but suffered from inadequate funding.  I concluded: “I know money is tight, but perhaps you have the resources or wherewithal to seek grant money for system-wide pilot programs, including Threshold Summer.” 

On Facebook Jonathyne Briggs wrote: “Ten years ago, I lost my dad.  I miss him every day.  Make sure to hug yours, if you can.”  Unfortunately Vic died of a sudden heart attack at age 50.  Still recall the shock upon hearing the news late at night while a grad student at Maryland.  Jerry Davich noted that Allegiant Airlines is ending service from Gary Airport after 18 months of twice a week flights to and from the Orlando area.  Sad.  Pittsburgh Dave Lane passed along the front page of a Minnesota newspaper that he found amusing.

Archives intern Elizabeth LaDuke brought in delicious brownies with icing on the top.  She’s doing a Sociology paper on the fundamentalist Fairhaven Baptist Church, located just a couple miles from us, and plans to attend a service on Sunday.  She was somewhat apprehensive, but I told her people will probably be friendly.  Each Sunday Fairhaven buses bring ghetto kids to the church from Gary, supposedly promising them Big Macs.  Elizabeth discovered on my blog that I liked Arcade Fire and recommended the band Grizzley Bear.

Lake County Sheriff John Buncich hired Michael Chirich as a security guard for work-release prisoners.  His crew recently cleaned up at the Gary park where Froebel School once stood.  He wears a uniform and carries handcuffs but no lethal weapon.  Having taught 30 years at Calumet High School, he’s seen everything and mentioned that the prisoners are well-behaved because if they screw up they’ll be back in a cell rather than getting outside and living eight to a room in a decent facility.