Mayor Pete

“The function of education is to teach us how to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of education.”  Martin Luther King

photo by April Lidinsky

South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg officially announced his candidacy for President.  On the strength primarily of his brilliant appearances on network news shows, the openly gay former Rhodes scholar and Afghanistan war veteran has polled third among the crowded field of Democratic hopefuls in both Iowa and New Hampshire, behind only septuagenarians Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.  On MSNBC Joe Scarborough asked Buttegieg to describe himself in a single word; “Millennial,”the 38 year-old replied.  A decade ago, Robert Blaszkiewicz, then working for the NWI Times, encountered him when he ran for state treasurer.  Robert told me to keep an eye of him, that he was really impressive and heading places.  Tom and Darcey Wade have read his book “Shortest Way Home,” and son Brady has been working for him without pay. Tom displayed lawn signs he hopes to distribute to supporters. Throwing his hat in the ring at a refurbished complex formerly owned by Studebaker Corporation before an overflow crowd, Buttigieg embraced his husband Chasten and gave him a kiss.  Tears flowed freely.

In “Mayor Pete has caught Republicans’ attention” Times columnist Brian Howery wrote that Vice President Mike Pence, pouncing on a moving statement Buttigieg made at a LGBT Victory Fund brunch, shamefully accused him of breaking a pledge to run a civil campaign and attacking the former Hoosier governor’s Christian values.  Poppycock!  Addressing his sexual orientation, Buttigieg said, “It’s hard to face the truth that there were times in my life that, if you had shown me exactly what is was inside me that made me gay, I would have cut it out with a knife.  If you had offered me a pill to make me straight, I’d have swallowed it before you had time to give me a cup of water.”  Then he added: “That’s the thing that I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand: that if you have a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me, your problem, sir, is with my Creator.”    

Brian Howery’s column cited these observations by Andrew Sullivan of New York magazine about the 2020 election, emphasizing the differences between Buttigieg and the White House incumbent:

 Trump would be the oldest president in history; Buttigieg would be the youngest at 39.  Trump landed in politics via his money and celebrity after years in the limelight; Buttigieg is the mayor of a mid-size midwestern town, unknown until a few weeks ago.  Trump is a pathological, malevolent narcissist from New York, breaking all sorts of norms.  Buttigieg is a modest, reasonable pragmatist, and a near parody of normality.  Trump thrives on a retro heterosexual persona; Buttigieg appears to be a rather conservative, married homosexual.  Trump is a coarad and a draft dodger; Butiegieg served his country. Trump does not read; Buttigieg does.  Trump’s genius is demonic demagoguery.  Buttigieg’s gig is careful reasoning.  Trump is a pagan; Buttigieg is a Christian.  Trump vandalizes government; Buttigieg nurtures it. To put it simply, Mayor Peter seems almost designed to expose everything that makes the country tired of Trump.

Gerald Seib of the Wall Street Journal, believing the political system is at a crossroads, put it this way: “As different as the two men are in most every way, Candidate Buttigieg might not exist without the example of President Trump, who shattered expectations and the old paradigms in 2016.”My dream ticket for 2020 include Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar and Mayor Pete, with whomever prevails in the primaries choosing the other as running mate.

Adra Young and Hobart H.S. students Brandon Marciniak and Tyler Schultz; photos by Kyle Telechan

Big doings at IU Northwest over the weekend.  Several motivational speakers appeared at a Youth Violence and Drug Prevention conference, including Indiana Parenting Institute COO Jena Bellezza and Northwest Indiana Heath Department Cooperative tobacco prevention coordinator Cynthia Sampson. Adra Young’s keynote address linked bullying and substance abuse.

Leaving John Will Anderson Library Friday afternoon, I noticed a job fair in progress involving area schools.  In the lobby were tables for Merrillville, Gary’s 21st Charter School (located across thestreet from the ruins of City Methodist Church), and others.  A greeter directed me to the East Chicago Central table in the conference center. Two comely administrators, who introduced themselves as Mrs. Martin and Mrs. Hogan, greeted me.  Both knew son Dave and raved about what a great, caring teacher he is. Mrs. Hogan, now a vice principal, is an IUN grad whom Dave mentored when she was in the UTEP program.  She recalled taking a course from me and reading a Steel Shavings article about a Region resident overcoming numerous obstacles.  Her son Carrington Frank is presently a student of Dave’s.  I gave both copies of the latest Shavingsand directed them to a section titled “Twin City” that contained photos of Dave with the E.C. Central  girls tennis team, league champs with a 10-2 record.  Also in that section were photos of NBA basketball player E’Twuan Moore, a Central grad, putting on a summer basketball camp.  Along with Kawaan Short and Angel Garcia, Moore was part of the 2007 state championship team coached by Pete Trgovich that defeated Mr. Basketball Eric Gordon and North Central, 87-83, in the exciting final.

 Lorrell D. Kilpatrick

IUN Minority Studies professor Raoul Contreras and Rene Nunez of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies hosted a two-day Participatory Democracy conference centering on the theme “Democracy is in the Streets.”  I missed the Friday evening events but attended a Saturday workshop titled “Active resistance of racial and social injustice” chaired by Dr. Patricia Ann Hicks and featuring Lorrell D. Kilpatrick, adjunct professor of Sociology and co-organizer of the Gary chapter of Black Lives Matter (BLM).  On Twitter Kilpatrick describes herself as a Marxist Black feminist, environmentalist, and disability rights advocate.  Kilpatrick asked the several dozen participants their initial impression of Black Lives Matter.  Most decried police brutality but were less certain about such BLM tactics as stopping traffic.  When a person identified himself as half white, half black, Patricia Hicks explained that categories of race are meaningless and that we all share common ancestors. 

Kilpatrick made clear she didn’t want excessive speech-making or participants talking more than once until everyone had a chance to make their views known. That didn’t sit well with three men, one of whom spent ten minutes merely introducing himself as , among other things, an agent who booked strippers for the “Jerry Springer Show.”  He argued that activists should be addressing black-on-black crime rather than the police.  A second pontificator excoriated the justice system; a third claimed Moors were the first Americans and that pre-Columbian tribes deserved their land back.  While all may have had some valid points, Lorrell wisely did not let allow them to take over the agenda. 

Yu Zhang, second from left

During the workshop and at lunch I sat with Yu Zhang, a personable IUN actuarial science grad student who is taking a class with Raoul Contreras.  She’s been in the U.S. 13 years, speaks perfect English, has a three-year-old, and works at Methodist Hospital, both in Merrillville and Gary. She had not heard of Cubs pitcher Yu Darvish and told me that Yu can be either a male or female name depending on the pronunciation and inflection.  Googling her name, I discovered that she was part of a team, including Steven Rynne, Anthony Zuccolo, Jacob Jakubowicz, and Jillian Milicki, that competed last year in an international competition and out of 70 universities worldwide was the only U.S. team to reach the finals.  They called themselves the Redhawk (Pi)rates.

Angie and Becca; in audience Toni and Beth (right), Tamiya, Dave, Jimbo (below) 

At Chesterton H.S. Becca sang Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing” at the Duneland Exchange Club Talent Show.  Since we skipped the primary and junior divisions, the program was a decent length and the dozen acts quite good, especially granddaughter Becca (it goes without saying).  My two other favorites were a dance group featuring Ellery Brunt, Barbara Holslaw (rhymes with Cole slaw), and Mackenzie Simmons performing to Lady Gaga’s “Shallow” and Ally Christian playing guitar and singing to “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones with drummer Colin Campbell accompanying.  Winner of the ACE (Accepting the Challenge of Excellence) Award was Elias Hanna, a Syrian immigrant who knew very little English when he started at Chesterton as a freshman.  By senior year he was making straight A’s in mostly honors courses and preparing to go to Icollegeand major in pre-med.  Coming up from Fishers, Beth brought me a delicious blueberry pie as a belated birthday present.  After the show, Dave and Tamiya Towns dropped in for pie and in Tamiya’s case Toni’s beef stew, which she had enjoyed at dinner.  Toni gave her a bowl to take home.

above, Elias Hanna; below, Guetano Givens on left at Ball State

While Mayor Pete’s candidacy was front page news, the Times Forum section contained a column by IUN Chancellor William J. Lowe touting the fiftieth anniversary of IUN’s Minority Studies program and the Black Student Union (BSU) members, including Jerry Samuels, whose pressure helped bring it about.  He cited present BSU member Guetano Givens, who persevered against numerous obstacles to receive a degree after six years.  In October 2017, Givens attended a Diversity Research Seminar at Ball State, where the keynote speaker, Angela Davis, bemoaned the nation’s unjust prison system. Last year Givens was with a group that visited Atlanta on the fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination.

I spent a snowy Sunday afternoon watching the thrilling climax to the Masters tournament.  Tiger Woods entered the final round two strokes behind Italian Francesco Molinari and caught him when Molinari put a tee shot in the water and settled for a double bogie.  Another half-dozen players were within a stoke of the lead, including reining PGA champ Brooks Koepka.  The issue was in doubt until Tiger putted to within inches of the cup on the eighteenth green.  Listening to the crowd roar “Tiger, Tiger, Tiger”and watching him embrace his two kids and Thai mother was unbelievably emotional.  Afterwards, Koepka and several others who grew up idolizing Tiger waited to offer their congratulations.

Dean Bottorff posted these kind words on Facebook:

  Thanks to James Lane for the shout-out in the new edition of Steel Shavings. For those who may not know, Steel Shavingsis a publication by Indiana University that records the daily lives of those living in Northwest Indiana. Jim, ever the historian, publishes Steel Shavings that will be an invaluable reference for future historians who will want to understand the rise of America's industrial heartland cities such as Gary, IN, and the issues such places faced in the 21st Century. Unlike most historical references Steel Shavings will provide future historians an intimate view of everyday life of ordinary people. So if anyone in the 25th Century wants to know anything about Ann Bottorff’s role in a scavenger hunt, this is where he or she will find it. My personal thanks goes out to Jim for publishing this picture of me.

Arriving early for book club at Gino’s, I ordered an APA on draft and Jimmy the owner placed a plate of delicious mushrooms in front of me.  On TV was coverage on the 850-year-old Notre Dame Cathedral ablaze, with its iconic spire collapsing.  With a stone foundation all indications are that it will be restored eventually.  Bar mates were speculating whether it was a terrorist act.  

 Barbara Wisdom and Rock Fraire

Barbara Wisdom’s excellent book club presentation on “A Slave in the White House” was succinct and thought-provoking.  We learned that it was Paul Jennings, not Dolley Madison, who rescued the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington before the British sacked the White House during the War of 1812 and that Dolley gave the diminutive fourth president piggy back rides.  All agreed that Dolley was heartless toward her slaves, even selling her faithful mistress of 30 years to enable her spendthrift son to buy a new suit.  At the conclusion of the talk I declared that as a descendant of Harriet Lane, I now proclaim her the best First Lady of the nineteenth century.  Learning I was related to President James Buchanan, Jim Pratt suggested I report on a book about him.  “There’s only one,”Brian Barnes quipped.

Labor Conflicts

“Each major strike forces the state to decide whether it represents workers or employers.” Erik Loomis

 West Virginia teachers strike in 2018

“A History of America in Ten Strikes” by Erik Loomis contends that labor strife has been a constant of capitalism, yet it receives scant attention (“a footnote at best”) in accounts of recent American history or public discussion.  The book opens with an account of the successful February 2018 West Virginia direct action involving 34,000 teachers who were defying the law in a right-to-work state due to their dire conditions on account of actions by Republican officeholders who drastically underfunded public schools while supporting corporate tax breaks and for-profit, privately-run, nonunion charter schools. One placard read, “Will Work for Insurance,” a take-off on indigents who advertise, “Will Work for Food.”  Loomis argues that both political action and union vigilance, including, if necessary, the use of strikes, are vital or order to combat employers and, too often, their governmental allies.  In the chapter “Take Back Power,” he concluded that true freedom cannot come without “economic emancipation”  and offers this bleak assessment of  our uncertain times:

  We live in what I call the New Gilded Age.  Today, we are recreating the terrible income inequality and economic divides that dominated the late-nineteenth century and created the violent responses that included the Haymarket bombings and the assassin of President William McKinley.  Once again, we have a society where our politicians engage in open corruption, where unregulated corporate capitalism leads to boom-and-bust economies that devastate working people, where the Supreme Court limits legislation and regulations meant to create  a more equal society, and where unions are barely tolerated.  Life has become more unpleasant and difficult for most Americans in our lifetime.

 Oakland workers strike in 1946

I was familiar with most conflicts Loomis analyzed, including the tragic 1981 Air Traffic Controllers work stoppage but not the 1946 Oakland (CA) General Strike. The latter commenced when at Kahn’s department store clerks struck for tolerable working conditions and a living wage. After local police used strong-arm tactics against the women, over 100,000 AFL-affiliated workers walked off the job in sympathy.  Several days later, with the Oakland Tribunered-baiting rank-and-file leaders, corrupt Teamster boss Dave Beck ordered members back to work.  Faint-of-heart AFL International leaders accepted a compromise that did not address the retail clerks’ grievances nor gain prior approval from local leaders.  The Kahn employees kept up the battle for five more months before capitulating with most demands unmet.

Post-World War II strikes were, like in 1919, a result of inflation and, in Loomis’ words, “an economy that had created large profits for companies during the war but few material gains for workers.”  1946 job actions affected 4.6 laborers, including steel, rubber, shipyard, and auto workers.  Successful general strikes in Stamford, CT, Lancaster, PA, and Rochester, NY, made business leaders and their governmental allies, in Loomis’ words, “determined to reverse this aggressive union tide.”  Nowhere was the unholy alliance more overwhelming than Oakland.

Ed Sadlowski

Loomis titles his chapter on the 1972 Lordstown wildcat strike at a G.M. Chevy Vega plant near Youngstown, Ohio, “Workers in a Rebellious Age.”  The civil rights and antiwar movements had divided labor’s ranks generationally, and the primarily young automakers at Lordstown, concerned with dignity issues and hating being mere cogs on assembly lines, wanted more, according to J.D. Smith, treasurer of the UAW local, “than just a job for 30 years.” After plant managers introduced a speed-up (requiring 8 separate operations in 36 seconds) and compulsory overtime, rank-and-file workers responded with various forms of sabotage and, in defiance of union leaders, a wildcat strike that lasted 18 days.  UAW honchos stepped in and eventually negotiated a settlement that contained sparse gains for those on the shop floor, and in the years ahead autoworkers would fight rear-guard actions simply to hold on to their jobs. Loomis wrote:

   The Lordstown factory stayed open, but the UAW started giving back their hard-won gains in wages and benefits in contracts by the early 1980s in order to incentivize GM and other auto companies to stay in the United States.  Despite this, hundreds of auto and auto-supple plants have closed in the past 40 years.

Loomis links Lordstown to democracy movements that erupted in the steelworkers and mineworkers unions that enjoyed temporary but not long-lasting success.  He mentions Eddie Sadlowski’s unsuccessful 1977 bid to become President of the United Steelworkers of America and frequently cites Jefferson Cowie’s “Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class” (2010).

Just yesterday GM announced that, despite massive recent tax breaks, it is laying off 14,700 workers at five assembly plants, including Lordstown.  The official explanation: the weakening market for the Chevy Cruze. Trump is huffing and puffing and saying mean things against about GM CEO Mary Barra but will likely not do anything harmful to the corporation.

NWI Times photos of 2015 steelworkers rally by John J. Watkins

 

“Getting into the streets to stand up for our rights,”Loomis wrote,“must play a central role in labor struggles.”In the third edition of “Gary: A Pictorial History” a page is devoted to a 2015 steelworkers rally outside city hall, when some 3,000 ArcelorMittal and U.S. Steel union members and their supporters, many carrying signs reading “FAIR CONTRACT NOW,” were opposing proposed cutbacks to their health insurance.  Addressing the crowd were Mayors Karen Freeman-Wilson, James Snyder (Portage), and Brian Snedecor (Hobert).  After prolonged negotiations, a new contract was approved that included no pay raises nor coverage of health cost increases, especially hard-hit were retirees.  Local 1010 President Tom Hargrove commented: “We were bargaining in some real bad times for steel.”

The November 2018 issue of Duneland Today contains histories of the Porter County Museum (PO CO MUSE), the Duneland School Corporation, Westchester library, and the cities of Porter and Chesterton.  None mentioned labor strife, Native Americans (unwelcome after white settlement), or African Americans (unwelcome until very recently). Prior to its incorporation in 1899, I learned, Chesterton went by several other names, including Coffee Creek and Calumet, and there is uncertainty over the origin of its present name.  One theory is that Chesterton was derived from Westchester County.

 Thanksgiving photos by Miranda and Angie

Our Thanksgiving dinner at the condo took place on Friday with 20 people in attendance, including good friends Charlie Halberstadt and Naomi Goodman.  Pregnant Tamiya Towns, Dave’s former student, who calls me Poppa Lane, told them that she planned on naming her baby Charley should it be a girl or Charles (after the father) if a boy.  Phil, Dave, Josh, and I had several lively euchre games; the evening was devoted to Werewolf, which an unlimited number can play.  By days end there was hardly any turkey left but enough ham for a few lunches.  I’m glad the downstairs fridge was stocked with Yuengling lager.  

Over the long weekend I watched numerous NFL games.  The Bears won despite missing starting QB Mitch Trubisky, and the Eagles barely beat the lowly Giants.  Without injured QB Alex Smith Washington bowed to the hated Dallas Cowboys, whose wide receiver Amari Cooper nonetheless earned me 30 Fantasy points thanks to a 90-yard TD reception, enough to knock Dave out of the playoffs.  Near the end zone Cooper nearly went out of bounds. During the review I was hoping the TD counted.  Thanks to spectacular late games by running backs Dalvin Cook and Lamar Miller, I had the most points of all 8 teams -  and that was with Todd Gurley on a bye week.  The evening news covered recreational marijuana now being available in additional states, emphasizing the long lines that ensued.  Evidently, juiced up gummy bears are an extremely popular item. Hard to believe the penalties once imposed for pot possession. Some are still paying the price.

Appearing on MSNBC was Rudy Valdez, director of “The Sentence,” who made an eloquent plea for getting rid of mandatory sentencing, as happened to his sister, incarcerated on vague conspiracy charges as a result od crimes committed by her then-boyfriend.  There is bipartisan Congressional support for such legislation, but reactionary Republicans are dragging their heels.  I told Michigan State professor Juan Coronado about “The Sentence.”  He replied that the victim is from Lansing.

 abandoned Masonic Temple in Hammond by Kyle Telechan

Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club members

Some 297 emails awaited me at IUN.  Most were unimportant, but John Attinasi reported that horn player Art Hoyle, 89, enjoyed our interview and had additional anecdotes about performing in the segregated South.  Times columnist Joseph Pete sought to speak with me about a proposed book about Hammond “Haunts.”  I advised visiting the Archives.  If so, I’ll show him Lance Trusty’s pictorial history and other sources, including the “Urban Legends” exhibit booklet that contains a photo by Larry Mickow of the abandoned Masonic Temple.  VU History prof Heath Carter wants to have lunch with Ron Cohen and me in December. He was recently in the news for protesting the use of Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club members as Salvation Army bell ringers because some wore “Aryan” patches.  In response to the furor, the charitable organization deemed that the Hell’s Angels violated their dress code and would no longer be soliciting donations although I don’t doubt they were effective at it.   

 Dick Flood

Ram Prasad

Barb Walczak’s bridge Newsletterwelcomed two newcomers, VA doc Ram Prasad and retired William and Mary prof Dick Flood.  The feature is a reminder that our ranks are being replenished as more Baby Boomers become seniors.

Spring Solstice

“Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s party.’”  Robin Williams

Toni prefers celebrating the Spring solstice rather than Easter, but egg dying is an annual ritual, as is hiding James and Becca’s Easter basket.  The busy weekend began with James moving in, Toni making a standing rib roast, and the arrival of Phil’s family en route to Naples, Florida.  Becca and Angie returned from their Florida choir trip Saturday in time for Chinese carry-out.  Sunday, Toni was up at 3 a.m. to see Phil’s family off to O’Hare Airport, then served a delicious roast to eight of us, including Angie’s dad and Tamiya Towns, who forwarded photos she took (below) to me. 

above, Toni; below, Tamiya, John Teague and Jimbo

“Roseanne,” which debuted 30 years ago, is back on the air with the original cast. The initial episode received huge ratings and a congratulatory shout-out from Trump since actress Roseanne Barr is a supporter, as is her character on the show, who resembles “All in the Family” bigot Archie Bunker.  Sister Jackie is the liberal foil, and there is an African-American grandkid to demonstrate, I guess, that Roseanne isn’t a racist.  As always, John Goodman (as Dan Connor) was hilarious, first appearing in bed wearing a breathing mask for sleep apnea.  At one point Dan goes outside to urinate because the bathrooms were occupied and then claims to have waved to a neighbor with his free hand. Like most sitcoms, the plot seemed contrived, with one of Roseanne’s daughters wanting to be a surrogate mother and a grandson attending first day of school in girl’s clothes.  When Dan first hears about it, he escapes to the garage. Roseanne cautions about disturbing him until he’s had a couple beers, then moments later says, “That should be long enough.” 

Sometimes I confuse Roseanne Barr with Rosie O’Donnell, whom Trump hates.  The feud evidently goes back 12 years to when O’Donnell criticized Trump for not firing a Miss USA winner who admitted to drug use and underage drinking.  Trump responded by calling her fat and a real loser.  Five years later, when Rosie became engaged to Michelle Rounds, Trump tweeted that he felt sorry for Rounds and her parents.  In 2014, when O’Donnell returned to the TV show “The View,” Trump tweeted, “Rosie is crude, rude, obnoxious, and dumb – other than that, I like her very much.”  During the first Presidential debate of 2016, when Megyn Kelly questioned Trump about demeaning women by using words such as pigs, slobs, and disgusting animals, Trump interrupted to say, “Only Rosie O’Donnell.”

In Richard Russo’s “That Old Cape Magic” Jack Griffin encounters an Archie Bunker type while at the Old Cape Lounge.  After the guy belittles his companion and ex-wife Marguerite, Jack ruminates: “How good it would feel to coldcock him, knock him clean off his bar stool, bloody his fucking nose.  Here she was, trying valiantly to be happy, and this asshole wouldn’t let her.” After he breaks up with Joy, Jack dates fun-loving Marguerite. When he meets Joy’s new “friend,” Jack labels him a fart-hammer, an expression he recently picked up from an old-timer.

Danna Conley thanked me for latest Steel Shavings, which mentions her and late husband Pat several times and contains excerpts of an article by Hayley Sekula, whose grandmother is her good friend.  A year ago, Danna thanked me for volume 46 and wrote: “Recently my granddaughter mentioned seeing someone dressed as a flower child who looked as if she came from the 1960s.  She had learned about the Hippie Era in history.”  On the card’s cover: Georgia O’Keefe’s 1937 painting “Red Hills and Flowers,” which juxtaposed still-life elements against a far-off desert landscape alive with color and undulating curves similar to a human body.  Many feminists believed O’Keefe’s flowers were symbolic of female genitalia.  She was adamant that, in her words, “the subject matter of a painting should never obscure its form and color, which are its real thematic elements.”  O’Keefe’s work reminds me of the photos of Liz Wuerffel, who often focuses her lens on symbols of decay and aging.  At present Liz is at Bryce Canyon National Park, where IUN grad Amanda Marie Board worked last year.

 Bryce Canyon National Park photo by Liz Wuerffel

For Nicole Anslover’s Diplomatic History class dealing with Ricard Nixon’s Vietnam policy I gave a short report on Rick Perlstein’s “NIxonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America” in order to point out that secrecy and deception  were standard Tricky Dick operational procedures.  I had Nicole put these paragraphs on the screen: 

    In March of 1969, Nixon ordered the bombing of sections of the Ho Chi Minh Trail that meandered through Cambodia, the beginning of a long-term plan called Operation Menu (its component parts were Breakfast, Lunch, Snack, Dinner, Dessert, and Supper).  This scaled new peaks of deception: the bombings were recorded on a secret ledger, which was later destroyed.  A half million tons of ordnance were eventually dropped on this neutral country, 3,875 sorties without Congressional knowledge.  “The State Department is to be notified only after the point of no return,”Nixon instructed.  

. . . .

    On May 15, paratroopers from the 101^stAirborne Division stormed up an objective Americans called Hill 937.  The AP ran an evocative dispatch on May 19:  “The paratroopers came down the mountain, their green shirts darkened with sweat, their weapons gone, their bandages stained brown and red – with mud and blood.”  It reported them cursing their commander, whose radio call was Blackjack: “That damned Blackjack won’t stop until he kills every one of us.”  It became known as Hamburger Hill.  The soldiers won the objective, just as Americans often won their military objectives; 633 North Vietnamese main-force soldiers were killed, fewer than 100 Americans. Then the hill was abandoned, just as Americans often abandoned objectives in Vietnam.  “We are not fighting for terrain as such,”Commander Creighton Abrams explained.  “Don’t mean nothin’,”answered the troops, a refrain echoed all the way back home. Senator Ted Kennedy called the Hamburger Hill assault “senseless and irresponsible, madness, symptomatic of a mentality and a policy that requires immediate attention.”

To an obscene degree, Nixon expanded upon trends begun by predecessors, including dirty tricks against political opponents and basing diplomatic maneuvering on domestic political calculations. During Nixon’s presidency over 21,000 Americans died in Vietnam and about a million and a half Vietnamese. The terms Nixon settled for in 1973 were obtainable when he came into office, but he continued the war for political gain, an unforgivable sin, in my opinion.  The result was not “Peace with Honor,” as he claimed, but an obscene stain on America’s legacy.

March Madness climaxed with Villanova, my pick to go all the way, winning its second NCAA title in three years.  With star player Jalen Brunson on the bench saddled with foul trouble, sixth man Donte DiVincenzo scored an amazing 31 points to enable the Wildcats to cruise to victory.  Within hours, Sports Illustratedhad DiVincenzo on its latest cover.

 Faye Anderson; photo by Barb Walczak

Bronze Life Master Faye Anderson, 98, passed away. Barb Walczak wrote:

  It was never in Faye’s plans to become a Life Master, but one day I said, “Let’s hop a plane to Reno and get started on our Life Master gold.”  She was game for the adventure.  We traveled to many places in the next nine months until we had our 25 gold.  We even had the thrill of playing with Eddie Wold and Mike Passell (ranked in the top 12 in ACSL) in Lake Geneva.  Faye was feisty (in a lovable way) and had a fun teasing personality endearing her to everybody.  Gunnar Berg called her “Bulldog” – and I think she liked that nickname.

  One of Faye’s biggest regrets was that she was not able to go to college.  It was in the 1930s and there were 12 children in the family, and it couldn’t happen. It was a shame – her potential was never fully realized.  She was a smart lady.

At bridge, on director Alan Yngve’s advice, I asked Barbara Stroud about Bridgerama, whose origins in Northwest Indiana go back decades.  Evidently started by women belonging to Tri Kappa, an Indiana service sorority, Stroud took it over when it was in danger of ending.  There’s one group of women and a second male-female group.  Couples play 20 hands at the host’s home, turning in the results to Stroud.  I told her about the Archives Bridge collection, and she said she recently emptied a file cabinet of many back records. Dee and I finished slightly above average (53.17%) for .28 of a master point.  In one hand I was dealt 8 Diamonds, including the top 5, two King-Jacks, and a bare King.  After determining that Dee held one Ace, I bid 5 Diamonds.  There was a Club lead to my singleton King, leaving no way to cash in one Dee’s Ace and Queen.  Even had Dee’s Ace overtaken the King, leading the Queen of Clubs would not have helped.   We went down one, as did another couple. The two other North-South pairs made 6 Diamonds when opponents led out an Ace rather than a Club.

Beverly Gray’s “Seduced By Mrs. Robinson” revealed that “The Graduate” (1967) was a low budget movie with a relative unknown, Dustin Hoffman, in the lead role as a disillusioned college graduate who has an affair with an older woman but is hot for her daughter.  It became a surprise box office hit primarily because of its appeal to Baby Boomers.  Though it did not deal with race tensions, the Vietnam War or campus protest, the film, wrote Gray, “appeared in movie houses just when we young Americans were discovering how badly we wanted to distance ourselves from the world of our parents. . . .  If we were anxious about parental pressure, or about sex (and our lack thereof), or about marriage, or about the temptations posed by plastics, it was all visible for us on the movie screen.”

 John S. Haller

My old fellow Marylander and IUN colleague John Haller reviewed Philip F. Gura’s “Man’s Better Angels: Romantic Reformers and the Coming of the Civil War” for the Journal of American History.  Haller concludes that the seven reformers, including Horace Greeley and Henry David Thoreau, culminated their intellectual journey “in their fatuous worship of John Brown and his murderous band of outlaws.”  Haller equates their “high-minded resolve to acquire liberty and equality even if it necessitated violence” to Maximilien Robespierre, architect of the French Reign of Terror.  Really?  

Teaching in Saudi Arabia 30 years ago, I was shocked at how down on John Brown the students were because Brown’s Kansas band of Free State volunteers murdered five pro-slavery Border Ruffians who had burned and pillaged the Free Soil town of Lawrence.  Later, when one student claimed that Nixon would have been a great President had it not been for Watergate, I replied that compared to John Brown, Nixon was a mass murderer, responsible for more than a million Vietnamese dying in an unwinnable war.  Some hold Brown partly responsible for bringing about the Civil war, which killed a half-million Americans.  Does Haller?

Hollis Donald dropped off an Easter essay about turning around one’s life through faith. He wrote: “Life can take you on many roads and can get so tangled up and twisted and lost in the tide, there can appear to be no way out.  You may need a new life, and Jesus is the giver of life.”  As the Doobie Brothers put it, “Jesus is just alright with me.”