Coronavirus

    “It has a very nice floral bouquet.  I detect lilac, hydrangea, tulips,” Governor Andrew Cuomo (below), unveiling NYS Clean, a hand sanitizer produced by inmates at the Great Meadow maximum security prison.

No IU Northwest classes on campus for the next three weeks due to the coronavirus scare, although buildings, unless things change, will remain open, so, for the time being, I don’t have to scramble to borrow a laptop.  In Indianapolis a large crowd watched IU defeat Nebraska in the Big Ten tournament, but then the rest of the games were cancelled.  A Big East contest was terminated at halftime.  Ditto the NCAA playoffs.  The NBA has suspended its season.  Even Hoosier Hysteria bowed to reality, as the IHSAA suspended the basketball playoffs.  The last holdouts, NASCAR and the National Hockey League, reluctantly bowed to the inevitable. ESPN, which ends “Sports Center” with the top ten plays of the previous day, was reduced to showing high school basketball played in a mostly empty gym.

Trump gravitates between declaring that what the World Health Organization has called a pandemic will soon go away as if by magic and declaring the rapidly spreading disease a national emergency, blaming other countries (and who else? Obama).  He has absolutely no credibility.  His White House speech was a disaster.  As the Washington Post noted about his “ten minutes at the teleprompter,” Trump failed in his attempt to calm coronavirus fears. Critic Ben Rhodes said:

     I think we’ll look back on this as a defining moment of the Trump presidency because it speaks to larger concerns that people already had about Trump — that he can’t tell the truth, that he doesn’t value expertise, that he doesn’t take the presidency seriously enough.

     Trump’s speech contained at least two errors and a significant omission. He said the travel ban would apply to cargo; it did not. He said health insurance companies would waive patients’ co-payments for coronavirus testing and treatment; industry officials later clarified that they would waive payments for testing only. And he did not fully explain the details of his travel restrictions, leaving out the fact that U.S. citizens would be exempt.

 Josh and Alissa (middle) in Panama

Trump’s lack of leadership has raised anxieties rather than calm them.  Phil called to say that his PBS station in Grand Rapids, WVUE, was straining to keep up with breaking news and updates all day. He wanted to make sure Toni and I (of the age to be classified as elderlies) were tasking proper precautions.  Alissa and Josh, vacationing in Panama, were scheduled to stop in New Orleans on the way back; Phil hoped they’d revise their plans.

 Crystal Taliefero (who plays drums and banjo as well as sax)

Although IUN’s Women’s and Gender Studies Conference took place as scheduled, keynote speaker Crystal Taliefero was unable to attend.  A Gary Wirt grad, Crystal has toured with Bob Seger, Joe Cocker, John Mellencamp and Billy Joel; she had planned to talk on “Breaking and Entering the Male-Dominated World of Pop, Rock, and Blues.”  The conference proceeded without her although two other presentations I was looking forward to, Kaitlin Battista’s “Abuse of the Disables” and Kaitlyn Grubbe’s “Bill Clinton Sex Scandals,” were scratched.  Speaking at faculty sponsor Tanice Foltz’s session, Lani Eaton traced the history of abortion legislation and litigation, then expressed concern over the proliferation of recent Trump appointees to the bench signaling a possible Me Too backlash.

Brandon (left); Hilary, below

Speaker Michael Litke Adams reflected on Brandon Teena’s life and legacy.  Born a girl in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1972, Brandon transitioned into a man and was raped and murdered in 1993.  Growing up, Teena had been sexually abused by an uncle, was considered a tomboy, began identifying as a male as a teenager, and started dating girls.  “Boys Don’t Cry” (1999), based on Brandon’s life, starred Hilary Swank, who won an Academy Award for the performance. Adams criticized the choice of Swank, arguing that a trans actor should have had the part, but I thought Swank was a perfect choice.  Perhaps I’d feel differently if it were being made today or if I were trans, like Adams. In 2005, when she won a second Oscar for playing a female boxer in “Million Dollar Baby,” Swank said, “I don’t know what I did in this life to deserve this.  I’m just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream.”   

In place of Crystal Taliefero’s keynote speech was a discussion of Jessica Valenti’s recent column in Medium titled “Coronavirus Is Having an Outsized Impact on Working Woman.”  Noting that she was writing while three little girls were playing nearby, with school having been cancelled, Valenti called for authorities to pay attention to how women’s caretaking might spread the disease.  She concluded:

    Ironically, while women perform this extra work around preparing for and dealing with the consequences of coronavirus, the White House’s coronavirus task force, a Mike Pence-led coalition focusing on preventing the spread of COVID-19, is entirely male. That lack of representation means less understanding of how coronavirus will impact women and the way women’s invisible labor could impact the spread of the virus. This isn’t just a feminist issue — it’s a health issue.

  Sherry VerWey

During a break I chatted with faculty sponsors Jacqui Huey, whom I met at the same conference last year, and Bill Allegrezza, whose student Sherry VerWey, I know as secretary for IUN’s School of the Arts and who read original poems to close the conference, save for final remarks by program director Tanice Foltz.  Sherry VerWey, in her introduction of “Ghost,” about an adoptee, mentioned that approximately 135,000 children are adopted annually but only 10 states grant adult adoptees access to birth records.  An organization called Bastard Nation has been fighting for adoptee rights. Here’s Sherry’s incredibly moving poem “Ghost”:

this isn’t some representation of the “miracle of life”

it isn’t some “beautiful little blessing”…

YOU DIDN’T CHOOSE ME

…any baby would do

you will erase my name

rewrite my ethnicity

my history

my DNA

and replace it all with your fantasy

i already know i’m lost…stolen

a primal wound

my eyes may not be open

but i morn just the same

a shroud of shame surrounds me now

shhhhhhh….(your dirty little secret)

when i look in the mirror, it’s a stranger i see

these hands, these eyes

no resemblance, no memory

you’re painted as a saint, a savior…mother

but no one thinks of the woman (child) left behind

what of her grief

her emptiness

confusion

an eternal question

permanently sealed

the ghost of my identity

Next day, I asked Sherry, in her 40s and herself adopted, if she’d been writing poems for a long time.  Not until I took professor Allegrezza’s class, she replied, except for some rants during her Gothic phase.

Patricia Gonzales thanked me for the latest Steel Shavings and wrote: “All the history you have given us in these volumes read like a conversation and are a gift to read now and especially in the future.”  Steve Gwizdalski noted: “Always enjoy Steel Shavings; looking forward to the next issue. I hope you keep going for many more years...I know this is a labor of love for you. Always great to read about the 'Region' and how the events of the times shaped us, and to read much of it as seen through the eyes of students with a fresh look. I grew up in Burnham and Cal City, retired from two area steel mills - Inland and US - so I've been around awhile. I always thought it was a pretty good place to grow up in. Through Steel Shavings. I can stay in touch with the new stuff (kind of), yet read many stories that bring back countless memories. Thanks again for what you do, and for keeping me in the loop.”

Jon Hamm, whom I came to admire in the TV series “Mad Men,” is a hoot in the latest “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode. Claiming he'll be playing a role based on Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, he tags along with David, and they quickly bond. Hamm mimics Larry’s mannerisms and expressions so well while Larry is being obnoxious that Susie kicks them both out of a dinner party. 

Jerry Pierce posted a drawing of daughter Heidi , along with this explanation: “Look, Daddy, it's you and me, and we're in the ocean. And I'm holding your hand because I was scared of the waves. But now I'm not.”  The first time we took Phil to the ocean was at Cape Hatteras on North Carolina’s outer banks, near Kitty Hawk. A toddler, he eagerly ran to water’s edge and got knocked down by a wave.  He didn’t want to go anywhere near the beach the rest of the day, so we hung out by the hotel pool.

Dottie Hart and I finished first in bridge with a 65 percent, with more than our share of luck.  One hand we underbid only discover that other pairs who went to game got set.  Another hand, Dottie and I were both bidding Diamonds, and our opponents Spades and Clubs.  Holding the top two Hearts, one stopper in Spades, and the Ace, Jack, spot of Clubs, I took a chance and bid 3 No-Trump.  Surveying Dottie’s hand, I realized it was necessary to lose a Diamond before I could run the suit. The player to my left led the King of Clubs, and I played low. Had he then led a small Spades, I would have been in trouble, but he followed with the Club Queen.  I took it and still had the Jack stopper as well as the Ace of Spades and could draw out the Diamond Ace without fear.  I made ten tricks for high board. During our sit-out round I learned that Dottie’s father had worked for Sinclair Oil as a distributor.   She was the youngest of five, all daughters, and he’d take her hunting but only to observe.  Dottie’s husband was a pressman at the Post-Tribune, and she worked for a mortgage company.

Frank and Joan Shufran in 2017; photo by Jeff Manes

At bowling Frank Shufran had scratch marks on his arm; one looked infected.  Every once in a while, he said, their three-year-old cat goes a little crazy.  Knowing he was devoted to an older dog, I asked whether the two pets got along.  “No way,” he replied.  Asked why they got a cat, Frank said that at the vet wife Joan spotted three homeless kittens in a cage and couldn’t resist bringing one home.  They had also rescued all their previous pets.

Toni found Jewel to be a madhouse, with sanitizer and toilet paper (???) gone from the shelves, as hoarders were panicking. Recently married Kody Amanda Marie posted: “What if the world reacted to climate change like it’s reacting to the coronavirus.”

              left, posted by Cindy Bean; right, Chelsea Sue and Kody Amanda

Welcome Initiatives

“Time to get up

Time to go to class

Time to tell bigots who bother me

To kiss my ass.”

         “Time,” Morning Bishop (1979)

Morning Aarona Bishop moved to Gary in 1967 and after raising more than a half-dozen kids graduated from IU Northwest in 1980 at age 38.  A few years later, she founded a children’s theater troupe at the YMCA, which became the Morning Bishop Theatre Playhouse.  Bishop also directed productions with adults at a variety of Gary locations.  Thanks to numerous grants, she was able to find a permanent home on Lake Street in Miller beginning in 2004.  Morning Bishop Dilworth passed away in 2015, and as her obituary stated, “she was a wife, mother, advocate, and complete community force.”

The NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) awarded Liz Wuerffel and Allison Schuette (above) a hundred-thousand dollar grant for their Welcome Project initiative, “Flight Paths: Mapping Our Changing Neighborhoods.”  They are partnering with nine area organizations, including IUN’s Calumet Regional Archives.  The project, in their words, will feature “a multi-media initiative  to help users engage and analyze factors contributing to de-industrialization and the fracturing of neighborhoods, communities, and regions in post-industrial America.”  They conclude: “Flight Paths will prove an invaluable source to anyone who wants to understand why – fully 50 years after the height of the modern Civil Rights movement – the extent of both racial segregation and racial inequality in the United States remains as jaw-dropping as ever.”

Jimbo and Ron at Lake St. Gallery book signing; on left is Ken Schoon

Ron Cohen arranged for VU History professor Heath Carter and I to have lunch with him in Miller, and we ended up at Bakery Café after finding Captain’s House closed.  We talked about ways area History departments have periodically cooperated in the past (unfortunately, not much) and future possibilities. I have spoken in Heath Carter’s class on the Civil Rights movement in Northwest Indiana and offered to talk about Jacob A. Riis in an upcoming one covering settlement houses during the Progressive Era.  In the Spring Carter also has a seminar on Trump’s America, which will trace past Evangelical and populist movements and compare the present administration with previous presidents.  With Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen and National Enquirerbuddy David Pecker plea bargaining with regard to paying hush money to  porn star Stormy Daniels and a Playboyplaymate Karen McDougal, it would be ironic if the House of Representatives brought impeachment charges against him on matters of sex, as Republicans did with Clinton.  I hope lawmakers concentrate on more important matters (actual “high crimes”) in regard to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

 Karen McDougal

At Chesterton Y I partnered in bridge with octogenarian Dee Browne for the first time, and we did well despite being unfamiliar with each other’s tendencies. There were five and a half tables.  After having very few biddable hands, the round we sat out we’d have had a grand slam.  Several top area players competed, including life master Trudi McKamey and Dave Bigler, who thanked me for the DVD copy of our interview and is making one for his grandson.   My best hand was when I doubled a 4-Heart bid (I held five Hearts including the Ace King as Dee was void in them), which went down four, earning us 800 points for high board.  Barbara Mort, learning that Toni plays but doesn’t like duplicate, invited us to her place on a Monday evening when she and Kris Prohl deal out practice hands. Toni promised to consider it after the holidays.

above, Billy Foster; below, Tanice Foltz and Bonnie Neff

I was disappointed that jazz pianist Billy Foster did not play at IUN’s Holiday party, but at least the choir re-assembled for a fifth year under Kathy Malone’s direction.  With Rick Hug indisposed, its lone male member was retired Education professor Ken Schoon.  Once again, the highlight was audience participation for “12 Days of Christmas.” On the seats were slips of paper instructing what you’d represent; mine read“2 Turtle Doves,”meaning that on 11 occasions, I was to stand and sing that line. Old pro David Parnell coached me on how to bob my head in a pecking motion.  Near us Sociologists Chuck Gallmeier and Kevin McElmurry twirled as they belted out “A partridge in a pear tree”a dozen different times.  Will Radell was leading a group of swans a swimming, while choir members were acting out all the verses, Tanice Foltz most expressively. Afterwards I chatted with historians Jonathyne Briggs and Diana Chen-Lin; both have daughters in college that I first met as young kids.  Chancellor Bill Lowe noted, “I see that you’re wearing a tie,”and I replied, “Yes, it matches my sneakers.”  It’s part of our yearly routine since at a previous Holiday celebration he quipped that my tie went with my sneakers. When Garrett Cope was in charge of arrangements, the event was held in the Savannah gym and featured entertainment by Gary high school choral groups. Now downsized, it takes place in the conference center, and few faculty attend.  The food was plentiful, and I took two beef sandwiches and two brownies home for Toni’s dinner.

 scene in "Blue Velvet"

Neither Alan Barr nor George Bodmer attended despite the former having retired this semester, which just ended, at age 79 and the latter scheduled to depart in the spring.  Doug Swartz quipped that he’ll soon be the old man in the English department.  Each previous spring, Barr has taught a film class. A couple years ago, I audited one on erotic movies and saw such notable classics as “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” (1989) and “Hiroshima Mon Amour” (1960).  I recall Alan telling the students that most worthwhile films are made outside the United States.  A critique was due each week, and Alan wanted them succinct, thematic, and original rather than a lengthy summary of what happened or what other reviewers thought. Barr liked my essay about a scene in David Lynch’s nightmarish “Blue Velvet” (1986) where drug dealer Dean Stockwell is lip-synching to Roy Orbison’s sorrowful lament “In Dreams” (about a lover existing only in one’s sleep) while crazy Dennis Hopper mouths the words nearby and a man dances with a snake.

 Barr (white shirt) retirement; to his right, Bodmer, Mary Russell, Doug Swartz

Both Barr and Bodmer have been forces to be reckoned with regarding faculty governance and staunch believers in the primacy of research in tenure and promotion decisions, although not, unfortunately, in Anne Balay’s case.  For years, until they began shunning me over that matter, they were fond lunch companions. Some years ago, Bodmer was seriously injured when struck by a car as he was jaywalking across Broadway.  While he was recuperating, I sent him an Anne Tyler novel.  He later told me that his wife enjoyed it.  Since then, he’s frequently predicted he’d be remembered as the person responsible for getting traffic lights installed near the spot of his accident.  In addition to his scholarly output in children’s literature, Bodmer does minimalist etchings (he’d often send me home with samplings to elicit Toni’s opinion). Unless I’m mistaken, he taught a class to homeless Chicagoans.  While his sardonic classroom persona and biting criticism of mediocre work (criticisms leveled at Balay) turned off some students, others, including son Dave, poet Sarah McColly, bowling buddy George Villareal, and steelworker Dave Serynek, found his classes stimulating.  Serynek told me that he ended his academic career with a bang, reading Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita” in Bodmer's class.  George used to wear a Chairman Mao cap, once changed a flat tire for me, and has a cool wife. 

 Bodmer etchings

Doris Guth at Mel Guth's funeral service (2016)

At Hobert Lanes the Electrical Engineers took 5 of 7 points from Better Without Phil (the name of a former teammate who left to form his own team), which spotted us 99 pins a game.  Five frames into the match, we had squandered the 99-pin lead and trailed by 60 pins.. from then on we pretty much bowled them even. Both Terry Kegebein and I finished the series more than 50 pins over our average; I rolled games of 165, 146, and 158 with only a handful of strikes but just one split.  Opponent Larry Ramirez has a mean lefty hook.  Twice he threw gutter balls followed by several strikes in a row.  “I got mad,”he said both times.  Our Mel Guth Seniors league selected Doris Guth as our sportswoman of the year.  A few years ago, the Engineers won two games from her team, Best Friends, and when she began the third game with two strikes, Dick Maloney said,“Take it easy on us.”  Doris replied with an expletive.  Last week my 765 handicap series was second highest to Jaime Delgado’s 772. Next week is the Holiday banquet, and opponent Phil Magdiak promised to bring fresh smoked Polish sausage from Misch brothers grocery in Calumet City. I’ll bring my usual, deli pickles.

ABC nightly news ran a feature on Genevieve Purinton, the 88-year-old originally from LaPorte reunited with her daughter Connie thanks to DNA findings.  Christina Caron, the New York Timesinvestigative reporter who broke the story, emailed me that Genevieve had moved in with her sister before giving birth at age 19 at Gary’s Mercy Hospital because her mother had warned her that her father would “kill” her if he learned about the pregnancy.

Valued Archives volunteer Maurice Yancy gave me a hand-made Happy Holiday card with this composition:

  Back in the day I thought I was

All that . . . an a bag of chips, 

Today I’m an old guy with memories

Flapping lips!!!!!

I met Allison Schuette and Liz Wuerffel at Hunter’s Brewery in Chesterton.  We celebrated the NEH grant coming through, and I suggested they get in touch with Kenny Kincaid at Purdue Northwest so they could expand their “Flight Paths” to include Latinos from the Indiana Harbor district of East Chicago.  Latinos comprise approximately 7 percent of Valparaiso’s population, they told me. Many, I’m sure, trace their family history to either Gary or East Chicago.  One of their interns interviewed her father, Steve Walsh (below), formerly a Post-Tribune investigative reporter and now affiliated with a San Diego PBS station.  Walsh once covered the statehouse in Indianapolis during legislative sessions with regard to matters affecting Northwest Indiana.

Leaves of Grass

“Memories

How sweet the silent backward tracings!

The wanderings as in dreams -

The meditation of old times resumed – 

Theirs loves, joys, persons, voyages.

    “Memories” by Walt Whitman, from “Leaves of Grass”

When Walt Whitman published the 95-page first edition of “Leaves of Grass” in 1855, critics branded it as obscene because of its sexual and homoerotic references. Fellow poet John Greenleaf Whittier reputedly threw his copy into the fire.  During the mid-nineteenth century, the word grass often denoted lesser literary works while leaves referred to pages.  Thus Whitman declared his volume to be of modest importance.  Expanded in later printings, it has since become a classic expression of the American spirit.

Bucky Dent after winning HR

In “14 Back: Hate, Fate and the Summer of ’78,” a Sports Illustratedcover story, Tom Verducci asserted that a New York City newspaper strike was a crucial element in the unprecedented Yankees comeback from 14 games behind to overtake the Red Sox for the American League pennant.  The black-and-white cover was intended to emulate a newspaper front page. The Bronx Bombers’ roster of 40 years ago contained such feuding hotheads as Russell “Bucky” Dent, Albert “Sparky” Lyle, Richard “Goose” Gossage, Jim “Catfish” Hunter, and Reggie “Mr. October” Jackson.  Nearly to a man they hated owner George Steinbrenner and fiery manager Billy Martin. In the clubhouse and at hotel bars the city’s omnivorous beat reporters publicized every rumor and insult they unearthed, often from an inebriated Martin.  For three months, the presses were silent, and the Yankees went on an unlikely run culminating in a Bucky Dent HR (the “Boston Massacre”) in a one-game playoff, followed by a 4-2 World Series triumph over the L.A. Dodgers. Print journalists would never again have such influence over a team’s destiny.

above, Lanes 1978; below, with Rhiman Rotz, Paul Kern, Neil Nommensen

I still have vivid memories of the summer of 1978, especially Phil and Dave’s Little League exploits and parties on the hill at Maple Place. Being a huge Phillies fan, I watched them lose to the Dodgers in the National league championship but then had little interest in the World Series itself.

Anne Balay

I met former colleague Anne Balay at the South Shore Miller station prior to her IUN appearances in Tanice Foltz’s Sociology class followed by a campus talk in the Women’s Studies classroom about “Semi Queer: Inside the World of Gay, Trans, and Black Truck Drivers.”  We picked up two boxes of the hot-off-the-press books that she had mailed to friend Melissa, and I drove her past her old house, still purple with green trimmings.  We passed apartments Anne remembered because a girl who lived there once knocked on her door needing money for a train ticket to join her aunt in Illinois. When Anne accompanied her to pick up a satchel of clothes, she spotted a bunch of unattended kids, including the girl’s little sister.  Anne gave the girl enough money for the two of them.   I drove through Marquette Park (with north winds, Lake Michigan was gorgeous) and the Lake Street commercial district. Reaching campus, Anne had time for a brief visit at the Calumet Regional Archives and a salad at Little Redhawk Café before speaking to 80 attentive Sociology students.

Anne and Tanice; photo by Tome Trajkovski

In her introduction Tanice credited me with mentoring Anne when she embarked on her previous oral history “Steel Closets: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Steelworkers.”  After Anne spoke without notes about her innovative research and fascinating discoveries, students peppered her with questions, belying the absurd claim by the superior responsible for her dismissal four-years ago that her teaching was inadequate for tenure.  She told the class that gender identity was fluid, like colors of the rainbow, rather than rigidly binary.  She described long-haul trucking as exhausting but often exhilarating and a good fit for marginalized groups unwelcome in other professions.  During the past 40 years, however, onerous government regulations have fallen almost exclusively on drivers rather than on their corporate bosses, resulting in escalating  work force turnover. Asked what she’d be researching next, Anne replied, “Sex workers.”

Anne's talk and book signing; photos by Tome Trajkovski

above, Alyssa and Gabby; below trans truckers Dana and Mary Lou

Among the overflow crowd attending Anne’s 1 o’clock appearance were several lesbian and trans truckers interviewed for “Semi Queer,” as well as someone working on a documentary about the trucking industry. A half-dozen faculty were on hand, including Bill Allegrezza and Jonathyne Briggs, whom Anne and I used to have lunch with, and numerous former students of hers.  Two I’d known from auditing her Women’s Studies class were Portage special education teacher Alyssa Black and Kaden Alexander, whom four years ago I had known as a transitioning woman.  During Q and A Ron Cohen, noting that “Steel Closets” had led to a dramatic change in the United Steelworkers of America position toward bullying, wondered whether “Semi Queer” might have comparable impact on the Teamsters. Unfortunately, Anne replied, fewer than 8 percent of truckers belong to unions, due to a variety of economic, political, and demographic factors. When asked about HIV rates among truckers, Anne said that it was impossible to know since, without health insurance, most don’t see doctors.  

Chancellor Bill Lowe showed up, a nice touch that Anne appreciated.  In fact, her stellar performances provided a degree of closure after her ordeal of four years ago.  Afterwards, helping myself to a sandwich and fruit in the Robin Hass Birky Center next door, I thanked Tanice Foltz for arranging the events. Kaden, sporting a beard and speaking with a deep voice, told me that our mutual friend Amanda Marie had come in from Glacier National Park last week for his wedding.      

The televised Senate Judiciary Committee appearances of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Cavanaugh held the attention of the nation. Having accused Cavanaugh of sexual assault while at a party in high school, Basey Ford came off as totally believable while the Judge ranted and raved about the unfairness of the hearings and refused to endorse an FBI investigation that might clear up what really happened.  This heated exchange with Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar took place, for which Cavanaugh later apologized:

 Klobuchar: "So you're saying there's never been a case where you drank so   much that you didn't remember what happened the night before, or part of what happened?"

 Kavanaugh: "You're asking about blackout. I don't know. Have you?"

 Klobuchar: "Could you answer the question, judge?  You have -- that's not happened, is that your answer?"

 Kavanaugh: "Yeah, and I'm curious if you have."

 Klobuchar: "I have no drinking problem, judge."

 Kavanaugh: "Nor do I."

 

Perhaps to impress Trump, Cavanaugh modeled his behavior on how Clarence Thomas had reacted 27 years before when faced with sexual harassment charges from her assistant Anita Hill. The performance made him come off as injudicious, however; he’d have been better off admitting he sometimes got drunk at parties and may have stumbled upon Christine and pushed her onto a bed but without the intent to rape her.  Earlier, Cavanaugh admitted partaking immature high school behavior which now makes him cringe.  But, just as her Basel Ford said she was 100 percent certain Cavanaugh had pinned her down on a bed, groped her, and put his hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming, he claimed to be equally certain he was not the perpetrator.  Next day, the Judiciary Committee voted 11-0, on straight party lines to send Cavanaugh’s name forward, but three Republicans joined Democrats in insisting on an FBI investigation prior to the final vote. Had Cavanaugh from the beginning humbly apologized for any actions that may have traumatized her, the gambit might have worked. Now he’s opened up a potential can of worms.

Discussing chapter 3 of Babbitt with James, I mentioned that envy (of the more exciting lifestyle of the Doppelbraus next door neighbors) and temptation (for bobbed-haired secretary Miss McGoun) were major themes, as aging businessmen in the 1920s feared domestication and emasculation that could not be assuaged by drinking beer, smoking cigars, gambling around a poker table or driving the latest model car.  Babbitt passed 9-foot billboards on the way to work featuring sexy ads for tobacco products and talcum powder, now primarily used while changing babies’ diapers but a century ago also a men’s product to apply to the groin area. Babbitt’s life may have seemed like a paragon of bourgeois virtue, but dissatisfaction was near the surface and rebellion not far from the horizon.  As Babbitt said to himself, “Oh, Lord, sometimes I’d like to quit the whole game.”

I have never stomached cigars, just filtered menthol cigarettes, and didn’t start drinking beer until college but enjoyed getting tipsy at fraternity parties as a way to relax and relieve stress but never blacked out or tried to get girls drunk. Like Cavanaugh, I did some cringeworthy things but never exposed myself or sought to trap women in a bedroom as he allegedly did. Some Bucknell frat parties featured a grape juice, soda water, and vodka concoction nicknamed Purple Passions that may have incapacitated unsuspecting coeds. Compared to other “Animal House” “jock” fraternities, Sig Ep was rather tame, at least in the early 1960s.

In Ticket to Ride: Pennsylvania, I finished second to host Jef Halberstadt, playing too cautiously.  Had I taken 2 more Pennsylvania Railroad stocks rather than the Erie line, I’d have won.