Tree of Life

“All theory is gray, gut the golden tree of life springs ever green,” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Nanai people Tree drawing 

Mentioned in Genesis, the tree of life has come to symbolize the sustaining and enhancement of humanity.  Virtually all cultures have a tree of life myth growing from the center of creation, with branches sometimes containing magical fruit representative of layers of existence and understanding. The 2011 Terence Malick film “The Tree of Life,” starring Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, and Sean Penn and taking place in a Fifties Texas town, dealt with such universal themes as evolution, spirituality, and generational conflict.

 Bianca and Alex, 2017

Toni and I attended the wedding ceremony of Herb and Evelyn Passo’s son Alex to Bianca Angarola at Temple Israel in Miller in front of a stain glass window depicting the Tree of Life.  The invitation contained its image and the words, “Share love.  Spread light.”Our boys attended pre-school at the Temple; one day, after meeting the Rabbi, Dave thought he’d seen God.  We’ve known Alex, now an attorney, since he was a kid.  He took my survey American History course, performing brilliantly but often appearing to be lost in thought.   Rabbi Stanley Halpern, who had presided over Alex’s Bar Mitzvah, returned from Zionsville, Indiana, to perform the service.  Many friends were in the overflow audience. Cantorial soloist Sean Egan, a Hammond charter school principal and co-cost with Robin Rich of Temple Trivia Night, sang a haunting rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” during the Processional.  The theme being renewal and continuity, Alex’s cousin Hayden Adam was flower girl, a task her mother Michelle performed 36 years ago at Herb and Evelyn’s nuptials. 

The reception was at Allure on the Lake, minutes from our condo.  We sat next to Judy and Steve Tallackson, who left early because early next morning Steve was taking Calumet College History students to Tippecanoe River State Park.  They will observe a replica of a Shawnee village, interact with Voyageur re-enactors, and visit the 1812 battlefield site of the massacre that propelled William Henry Harrison (“Old Tippecanoe”) to the Presidency.  Robin Rich told me that she and Rebecca Hanscom interviewed Fred Chary for the Temple Israel Newsletter and that he is home again after rehabbing after an operation at Rush Memorial Hospital.  Here are some answers Fred provided:

  I moved here in 1966 to take a job at Indiana University Northwest. Prior to that I worked on my degrees at the University of Pennsylvania and at the University of Pittsburgh. I’ve been a member of Temple Israel since 1967. I was very attracted by the diverse community. 

  [My Jewish identity] led me to Bulgaria. My uncle was in the military during WW2, when Bulgaria was an ally of the Germans, but Bulgaria protected their Jewish population. In 1939, before Bulgaria joined the Axis, there were 44,000 Jews in Bulgaria; after WW2 there were 50,000. The Jewish population actually increased. [During my frequent visits] I found no discrimination against Jews in Bulgaria. I never had any difficulties there. The most significant fight in Bulgaria was a religious battle: the Greek Orthodox vs the Bulgarian Orthodox. 

  I’ve traveled extensively, of course in Bulgaria, but also Germany, Poland, the former Soviet Union, Great Britain, and Israel.  I’d love to visit Central Asia and Africa.  I collect stamps and like old movies—especially from the 1940s. I am working on a historical novel about 17th century Russia. I look forward to research, reading and writing—those are my favorite things to do.

Fred is a huge Philadelphia sports fan.  Last time I visited him, he invited me over to watch the Eagles as soon as he got home.  Confirming that he was home, I rang him up. He sounded great and repeated the offer.

 at Konrady Plastics table

Toni and I were Bernie Konrady, Jr.’s guests for One Region’s annual luncheon at Avalon Manor Banquet Center in Merrillville.  His daughter Leah is its President and introduced dynamic guest speaker Tom Murphy, formerly mayor of Pittsburgh (1994-2005) and presently with the Urban Land Institute, planners of city revitalization.  At the Konrady Plastics table, a company Bernie and wife Sue founded now located in Portage but originally on Arthur Street in Gary, I introduced them and cousin John Konrady, an IUN Business and Economics major who studied under Leslie Singer, to IUN Chancellor Lowe, a former chairman of the One Region council. Seated to my right were Bernie’s sisters Dee Gee, a Delta Airlines stewardess (now called flight attendants) for 30 years, and Ronnie, who had former IUN chancellor Peggy Elliott as a teacher at Horace Mann and recalled her coming to class with a bandaged hand from burning it getting something out of the oven.

At the Archives two documentarians from IU interviewed me about Vee-Jay Records co-founder Vivian Carter.  I stressed Vivian’s Gary background, segregated but with opportunities for talented and ambitious African Americans during the 1920s and postwar years. I emphasized how influential Vee-Jay hits such as “Goodnite, Sweetheart” and “For Your Precious Love” were on 1950s teenagers like myself and credited Vivian, with her gospel background, for helping give birth to the emergent soul music. Henry Farag, whose musical “The Signal” deals with Vee-Jay doo wop groups, arrived next. We both encouraged producer Adam Carroll to videotape the next live presentation of “The Signal.”

I spoke to Kenny Kincaid’s Purdue Northwest history class on Latinos about Ramon and Trisha Arredondo’s “Maria’s Journey,” which they’re reading, and talked about editing it and helping them find an appropriate publisher (i.e., Indiana Historical Society Press).  I brought up oral histories I had conducted with Mexican-Americans Jesse Villalpando, Louis Vasquez, Abe Morales, and Paulino Monterrubio.  Since in addition to “Maria’s Journey,” students were also assigned articles by John Fraire and Dan Simon, I noted that John’s mother was a star baseball player on an Indiana Harbor team (the Chicks) and that Dan was a retired Business professor with a lifelong interest in history. I gave Kincaid the current copy of Tracescontaining an article about a family of agricultural workers who settled in Southern Indiana.

Kenny and his students are angry over the Purdue Board of Trustees intending to change graduates’ diplomas to read Purdue University Northwest rather than simply Purdue (IUN sheepskins say Indiana University without designating the campus).  The change was triggered because students and faculty on Purdue’s Lafayette campus were upset upon learning that online graduates attending former Kaplan University, now labeled Purdue Global, would receive diplomas identical to theirs. During the break I chatted with a bright student named Frank Rodriguez, a Munster resident who had located my blog on-line.  His dad was a union elevator repair worker.

I found the HBO documentary on Jane Fonda fascinating.  She once again apologized to Vietnam War veterans still upset over her misguided actions while visiting POWs and an anti-aircraft battery in Hanoi while under the influence of second husband Tom Hayden, who succeeded French film director Roger Vadim and preceded billionaire TV network founder Ted Turner.  Currently active in feminist causes, Fonda co-stars with Lily Tomlin in the comedy TV series “Grace and Frankie.” The 80-year-old was looking forward to an upcoming bedroom scene with Sam Elliott.

Novelist Sinclair Lewis’ creation George F. Babbitt regarded himself as a Solid Citizen and Regular Fellow and addressed Zenith Athletic Club lunch companions by such jocular epithets as “old Bolshevik” and “old horse thief.”  While talking to grandson James about best friend Paul Reisling, whom Babbitt often called Paulski or Paulibus, I brought up Paul Turk, who befriended me after my family moved to Birmingham, Michigan at Barnum Junior High (now a park with only the entranceway remaining) after entering eighth grade undersized and knowing nobody.  We played wiffleball and football; his mom was a great cook and his dad took us to an Indians-Tigers game. After my family moved back to Fort Washington we corresponded throughout high school and college.  His envelopes often employed clever take-offs on my middle name Buchanan (Buckmeister and Buckmillian were two of the shorter ones). In January 1965, Paul drove through a snowstorm from Ohio to attend our wedding. We still exchange occasional phone calls, usually after a sports event, but unlike me he does not like to reminisce.

Sports Illustrated writer Tim Layden’s “Fists of Fury” profiled Cahn Carlos and Tommie Smith 50 years after their clenched fist protest on the victory stand at the Mexico City Olympics.  Most photos only show winner Smith and Bronze Medalist Carlos from the waist up, which misses elements of their symbolic statement.  Layden explains:

    Their appearance on the stand remains riveting to this day.  Single shoes and bare feet covered only in black socks, signfying poverty at home. Carlos’s beads, recalling the lunching of black men.  Smith’s black scarf, highlighting a deep identity with his race.  The gloves, the fists shoved upward for the world to see, suggesting defiance and unity.

    The form of the protest came together only after the 200-meter race, in the well of the stadium.  “In the dungeon,”says Smith.  Smith’s wife Denise had brought a pair of black gloves. Carlos’s wife Kim had brought beads with her from the U.S. 

                                              

I’ve been listening to the Dandy Warhols, a Nineties alternative band from Portland.  One of their tracks, “Get Off,” refers to escaping everyday burdens and feeling a rush akin to sexual climax, not literally being on top of someone, like now-confirmed Justice Brett Kavanaugh allegedly hoisted himself onto Dr. Christine Blasey Ford at a high school party. In his day (and mine) dry-humping was considered within bounds – but not if met with resistance.  The Dandy’s most famous song, “Bohemian Like You.” Features this exchange between a customer and a waiter

So, what do you do?
Oh yeah, I wait tables too.
No, I haven't heard your band,
'Cause you guys are pretty new.
But if you dig on vegan food
Well come over to my work
I'll have them cook you

Years ago, Doc Lukas helped me lay out an issue of Steel Shavings,I gave him a Dandy Warhols CD after hearing that the band had a big gay following.  Turned out Terry was into electronic music. My bad.  Even more embarrassing was when I noted that he was wearing his “trademark pink shirt.”He shot me a hurt look. One time, seated across the gym floor at an amateur Mr. Bodybuilding contest at IUN, I waved and he waved back.  In 2013 Atlanta began hosting a world transgender bodybuilding competition. What I wouldn’t give to attend next year’s competition with Terry and Anne Balay.

Ray Smock wrote the latest example of Trump’s “ceremonial arrogance of power”:

  Donald Trump could not accept victory quietly, or gracefully. He had to rub it in. Justice Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in immediately after his confirmation. He went to work at the Supreme Court. But this was not enough for our president. There were some scores to settle and some salt to pour into wounds. He needed to do this on national television.

  In an unusual nationally televised ceremonial swearing-in at the White House the President took the opportunity to gloat and campaign for next month’s elections. Trump said the occasion was historic. There was nothing historic about it, except for the minor fact that this was the first time a former Justice of the Supreme Court, was able to swear in one of his former law clerks.

  It was retired Justice Anthony M. Kennedy who conducted the oath ceremony. Kavanaugh had clerked for him twenty-five years ago. I have no idea why Justice Kennedy was and is so outwardly friendly with Trump. Maybe it was because Kennedy’s son, Justin, had dealings with the Trump Organization as an official of Deutsche Bank. Kennedy said he was retiring to spend more time with his family, a standard Washington cliché. It gave Trump the opportunity to appoint his second Supreme Court justice.

  This event was the only time I ever heard Trump apologize for anything. And when he did, it was all wrong, it was ugly, and uncalled for. The president said that on behalf of the nation he apologized for the way that Brett Kavanaugh was treated during the hearings. Trump had no business declaring Justice Kavanaugh to be innocent of all the charges against him or to say that he was vindicated and proven innocent. He never once thought of apologizing to Dr. Ford, who has been humiliated by the Senate Judiciary Committee and the president.

  Early in the Kavanaugh hearings President Trump called Dr. Ford a credible witness and described her as a nice person. As the hearings heated up he mocked her shamelessly at campaign rallies and now calls her whole testimony, her personal anguish at coming forward, to be nothing but a hoax orchestrated by Democrats. Dear Dr. Ford, I humbly apologize to you for the way you were treated in your testimony and the way you have been so unfairly maligned by the President of the United States.

I’ve completed an essay John Cain requested for a South Shore Arts exhibit catalogue to go with “Urban Legend: Haunts,” opening in Munster.  Because I have included a paragraph on acclaimed photographer Camilo Vergara, who for a quarter-century has been documenting Gary ruins and am hoping he will include photos I’ve sent him of the Blackstone Hotel taken in 1993 titled “Survivor in a tough city” and City Methodist Church at dawn taken in 2004, titled “Rise of a City.”  My final paragraph rebuts the “Gary as abandoned city” stereotype:

  Outsiders sometimes mistake Gary for a ghost town.  To the contrary.  Often regarded downstate as a Hoosier stepchild and by suburbanites as a place to avoid at all costs, Gary has numerous viable neighborhoods.  True, signs of declension abound, but residents have demonstrated grit and resiliency. While the recent edition of “Gary: A Pictorial History,” covering the years 2004-2018,  includes photos of demolition efforts on the 800 black of Virginia St., most pages exemplify Gary’s ongoing spirit, diversity, and cultural life and are filled with signs of activity – church celebrations, sporting events, school activities, urban gardens, steelworker rallies, protests against locating an immigrant detention center adjacent to Gary Airport, crowds assembling at Michael Jackson’s family home, Calumet Artist Residency poetry workshops, Gary Air Show beach onlookers, and the IU Northwest campus, my intellectual home for 48 years.  Though Gary has lost much of its tangible heritage and remains a tough environment, especially for those  struggling to find work and raise families, potential exists for a brighter future not only in the development of the lakefront, airport, and academic corridor along Thirty-Fifth Avenue but even in downtown revitalization, with Gary’s alluring ruins hopefully surviving. Meanwhile, remarkable activities continue to occur in schools, churches, and community centers, some literally in the shadows of haunts that reflect its former glory.

Let's Be Still

“The world's just spinning

A little too fast

If things don't slow down soon we might not last.

So just for the moment, let's be still.”

         The Head and the Hand, "Let's Be Still"

 The Head and the Heart

I have been playing the CD “Signs of Light” by The Head and the Hand, a Seattle indie rock group formed in 2009, on heavy rotation along with albums by Weezer, Blink-182, The War of Drugs, and Phoenix.  The Head and the Hand’s “All We Ever Knew” reminds me of my favorite Roy Orbison song, “In Dreams” and contains these lyrics:

When I wake up in the morning

I see nothing

For miles and miles and miles

When I sleep in the evening, oh lord

There she goes, only in dreams

She's only in dreams

At Chesterton library I checked out “The Hawaiian Quilt,” a novel about an Amish young woman (Mandy Frey) on a cruise who gets stranded on the island of Kauai and is taken in by a Hawaiian couple who run a bed and breakfast.  Having lived in Honolulu in 1965-66 and spent a memorable week in Kauai, I am finding the book interesting.  My friend Suzanna Murphy has been living an Amish lifestyle for more than a decade and is a fan of authors Wanda and Jean Brunstetter.  I even watched a few episodes of the reality TV series “Breaking Amish.”  Like Mandy, I’m descended from Pennsylvania Dutch settlers on my mother’s side.

Post-Trib correspondent Nancy Webster interviewed me about remembering Pearl Harbor at a time when the last few survivors of the December 7, 1941, attack are dying off.  I talked to her about writing my University of Hawaii M.A. thesis on territorial governor Joseph B. Poindexter, unfairly blamed by islanders for allowing military rule under martial law for the duration of World War II.  Historians regard the Japanese attack on our fleet at Pearl Harbor as one of the pivotal events of the twentieth century because it was dramatic proof that America could not isolate itself from what was occurring in the rest of the world. Bullet holes on buildings at Hickam Air Force Base are still visible as a reminder to be ever vigilant. Over two million people visit the USS Arizona Memorial annually, including Japanese tourists.  In three weeks Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Obama will visit the site together. There was a time when Japanese-Americans were not allowed to work there due to a misguided fear that some veterans might object.

 Hickam Air Force base building

Jermaine Couisnard game winner, Post-Trib photo by Jim Karczewski

With son Dave announcing from behind the scorer’s table East Chicago Central defeated top-ranked Merrillville 69-67, as Jermaine Couisnard drove the length of the court and scored with four seconds left.  Jonah Jackson, who had drained two threes to tie the game with 10 seconds left, got off a final desperation shot that bounced off the front of the rim.

After taking grandson James to Inman’s for bowling, I told Kevin Horn that my knuckle sometimes rubs against the side of my new ball’s thumb hole.  He told me that one can buy special strips of tape to remedy that problem and introduced me to friendly teenager McKayla Smith, who uses them on her thumb. Inman’s pro shop didn’t have the brand she recommended, Genesis, so McKayla opened a container that resembled a fishing tackle box, containing all sorts of accoutrements, and gave me two of hers.  She refused to take any money for them.

Sunday at Temple Israel Ron Cohen spoke about folk music during the 1930s.  Introducing him, I plugged the Archives (which we founded) and Steel Shavings magazine (ditto).  Thirty years ago, Ron and I talked about another joint venture, our book “Gary: A Pictorial History,” a similar Temple Israel brunch.  On hand were old friends Bobbi and Larry Galler.  He and I were discussing music and I told him about the CDs that Robert Blaszkiewicz made at Christmas of his favorite song of the year.   “He was my editor at the Times,” Larry exclaimed, referring to his Marketing column in the paper’s Sunday Business section.  Union stalwart Robin Rich introduced me to a lesbian couple, Sandra and Nancy Hagen Goldstucker, who moved from Chicago to Miller because of Anne Balay and have known her since her daughters Emma and Leah were babies. 

Ron played a half-dozen folk songs, including selections by Lead Belly, the Almanac Singers, Earl Robinson, and Woody Guthrie and mentioned the odd fact that in 1931 Gene Autry, the singing cowboy, recorded “The Death of Mother Jones,” whose lyrics included these lines:      

The world today's in mourning

O'er the death of Mother Jones;

Gloom and sorrow hover

Around the miners' homes.

This grand old champion of labor

Was known in every land;

She fought for right and justice,

She took a noble stand.

Ron speculated that Autry had never previously heard of labor champion Mother Jones; I countered that the Great Depression temporarily radicalized many people.   I asked Ron if Pete Seeger, when performing in union halls during the 1940s, got workers to sing along, something that became his trademark later in his career.  Pete started the practice when he was blacklisted and appearing mainly on college campuses and for kids at school, at progressive summer camps, and eventually on Sesame Street..

above, Gene Autry; below winter scene with deer by Marianne Brush

below, Becca second from right

As several inches of snow covered trees and slickened streets, we drove to see granddaughter Becca perform in Chesterton High School’s forty-fourth annual Madrigal Feast fundraiser.  Dressed as a maid, she was a bell player, server and singer in the chorus.  CHS cafeteria resembled a medieval baronial hall, and a herald (Wyatt Lee) introduced guests with fanfare after banging his staff to attract attention.  Becca escorted us to the Prince James of Wessex table.  Before dinner the herald read off 11 rules of etiquette, including not to pick your teeth with a knife, wipe your greasy fingers on your beard, rest your legs on the table or dip your thumbs in your mead. The program featured music, dancing, and jesters performing for the guests of honor, many whom I recognized from the musical “Godspell.” Although too religious for my taste, the production was impressive.  At any rate seeing Becca in action was worth the price of admission.

Son Phil knocked me out of the Fantasy Football playoffs by a mere four points.  My receivers, the strength of my team all year, let me down.  Mike Evans, Emmanuel Sanders, and Jason Witten combined for just 7 points compared to 25 for Phil’s trio of Jordy Nelson, Brandin Cooks, and Eric Ebron.  Top draft pick Rob Gronkowski was on injured reserve, and T.Y. Hilton was questionable, so I didn’t play him and he racked up 29 points.  Go figure. In the CBS Office Pool I picked Atlanta over Kansas City and got done in on a freak play.  Atlanta went ahead 28-27 late in the fourth quarter and elected to go for a two-point conversion. The pass got intercepted and run back 100 yards, giving K.C. 2 points and the victory.

At the IUN History Club program on Weird History I talked about flour sacks once becoming fashionable dresses and Abraham Lincoln’s wrestling prowess. In fact, Chris Young had linked me to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame website where I learned that George Washington had been a county-wide champ and at age 47 defeated seven challengers from the Massachusetts Volunteers.  David Parnell cited weird facts about Roman emperors, and Diana Chen-Lin talked about Chinese women who gather in parks, sidewalks, and other public places and dance in groups – perhaps harking back to when they were in the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution and participated in parades and other syncopated activities. Jonathan Briggs compared the marketing of the Ku Klan Klan in the 1920s as a money-making enterprise to Amway’s pyramid scheme of enlisting followers to find others to sell memberships and other paraphernalia.  Coming up with additional weird facts were History Club officers Sylvia, Scott, Tyler, and a handsome ROTC officer I recalled from Nicole Anslover’s class on World War II.  The group was still going strong after two hours when after a gross story about a New Orleans spinster I exclaimed, “On that note I’m out of here.”

 Ralph utters the "f" word in "A Christmas Story"

An Vanity Fair article entitled “How A Christmas Story Went from Low Budget Fluke to an American Tradition” contains some great anecdotes about by the late Hoosier humorist and screenwriter Jean Shepherd, including this retort to critics who labeled his work nostalgic: “[It is] anti-sentimental, as a matter of fact. If you really read it, you realize it’s a put-down of what most people think it stands for—it’s anti-nostalgic writing.” Of Ralphie’s mother, played by Melinda Dillon, Shepherd said she “is the kind of woman I figure grew up in a family of four or five sisters and married young. She digs the Old Man, but also knows he’s as dangerous as a snake.” During the filming of “A Christmas Story” Shepherd became so disruptive that he was barred from the set. 

My favorite “In God We Trust” Jean Shepherd tale (incidentally, not part of “A Christmas Story”) is “Leopold Doppler and the Great Orpheum Gravy Boat Riot.”  During the Depression theater owners employed all sorts of gimmicks and giveaways to lure customers during week days, including Dish Night.  Each week at the Orpheum in Hohman, Indiana, women customers received one item from a 112-piece dinnerware set, starting with a bun warmer, a cup and saucer combination, and an egg cup.  “The town was hooked,” Shepherd wrote:

  Ladies in the last stages of childbirth were wheeled into the Orpheum, gasping in pain, to keep the skein going.  Creaking grandmothers, halt and blind, were led to the Box Office by grandchildren.  Ladies who had not seen the light of day since the Crimean War were pressed into service.  They sat numbly, deafly in the Orpheum seats, their watery eyes barely able to perceive the shifting, incomprehensibly images on the screen, their gnarled talons clasping a sugar bowl for dear life.

  There was only one Big Platter in every complete set of dinnerware, the crowning jewel in Doppler’s diadem.  For weeks we had filed past the magnificent display in the lobby and there in the exact center, catching the amber spots, glowing like the sun, was the Big Platter.  And tonight it was ours.

  One of the saddest sounds I have ever heard was the crash in the darkness by some numb-fingered housewife, carried away by a brilliantly executed scene by Joe E. Brown loosened her grip in laughter.  A sudden panic and her platter was no more, scattered in a million Pearlescent slivers among the peanut shells and Tootsie Roll butt ends that formed a thick compost heap underfoot.  Recriminations, suppressed sobs, and the entire family rose and filed out, their only reason for being there gone in a single split second.  My mother held ours with both hands clamped over her chest in a death grip.

All went well until gravy boats kept arriving over and over again each week.  Finally, when Doppler took the stage to assure the crowd that they could be exchanged later, a “blizzard” of gravy boats filled the air.  Shepherd wrote:

  A great crash of Gravy Boats like the crashing of surf on an alien shore drowned out Doppler’s words.  And then, spreading to all corners of the house, shopping bags were emptied as the arms rose and fell in the darkness, maniacal female cackles and obscenities driving Doppler from the stage.

  High overhead someone switched off the spotlights and Frankenstein flickers across the screen.  But it was too late.  More Gravy Boats, and even more.  It seemed to be an almost Inexhaustible supply, as though some Mother Lode of Gravy Boats had been struck. The eerie sound track of The Bride of Frankenstein mingled with the rising and falling cadence of wave upon wave of hurled Gravy Boats.  Outside the distant sound of approaching Riot Cars.  The house lights went on. The Orpheum was suddenly filled with blue-jowled policemen.

  The audience sat among the ruin, taciturn, satisfied.  Under the guidance of pointed nightsticks they filed into the grim darkness of the outside world.  The Dish Night Fever was over, once and for all.  The great days of the Orpheum and Leopold Doppler had passed forever.