Hamlet

“Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.” Hamlet

Hamlet refers to a small rural settlement and, of course, is the title of one of William Shakespeare’s greatest plays. Because its hero was indecisive, which prevents Hamlet from acting until it’s too late, the word has been used to categorize those, such as 1952 and 1956 Democratic Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, who procrastinated, in Stevenson’s case, about throwing his hat in the ring. Historian Lance Trusty described early Munster, Indiana, as a hamlet during the 1860s with a general store opened by Jacob Munster with a postal station in back and serving as a gathering place for local farmers.  At bridge Naomi Goodman told me that Lance’s widow Jan is taking her granddaughter, who loves theater, to London and Stratford-upon-Avon to attend numerous plays.

 above, Jimbo, Riley Ash, Charlie, Kody Frasure; below, Savanna Sayiov, Tom Rea, Carre Allen

Oregon-Davis math teacher David Pinkham brought eight high school students to Charlie Halberstadt’s duplicate bridge game at Banta Center in Valparaiso. Most started playing about five months ago as part of a club Pinkham originated and seemed to enjoy themselves – or at least didn’t appear stressed out.  Charlie was initially worried many regulars wouldn’t be there because of a monthly women’s “Assembly” taking place at the same time; but he had enough for eight and a half tables, which enabled the four students pairs to play East-West, switching tables every three hands while the North-South pairs remained stationary.  Most were seniors except for Riley Ash, who was without her glasses, which had been busted, she said, during a game at Bible camp. Shvanna Sayiov plans to attend Miles Community College in Montana; her goal is to take part on rodeos.  Charlie and I finished second to Chuck Tomes and Dee Browne among the nine North-South pairs. After the final round former Portage math teacher Chuck Tomes stated, “Since I have the loudest voice, let me thank the Oregon-Davis students for enlivening the game.”  He received a round of applause from everyone. 

 depot in Hamlet, pre-1911

I had heard of the Oregon-Davis Bobcatas because of my interest in high school basketball but not Hamlet, Indiana, the town where it is located. Like Munster, Hamlet’s origins date back to the 1860s when John Hamlet established a post office.  Located in Starke County south of Valparaiso, the town of Hamlet had 800 residents according to the 2010 census.  In 2014 Oregon-Davis won the girls IHSAA state championship seven years after the Bobcats captured the boys title.

One reason I wanted to play in Valpo was to give the new Shavings to Rick Friedman (above) and Ed Hollander, whom students in Steve McShane’s class had interviewed for an oral history project. Barb Walczak’s Newsletter recently profiled Rick, an ophthalmologist for 40 years who learned bridge while in medical school but then took a break for nearly a half-century although, as he told Barb, he kept up by reading the bridge newspaper column.

At dinner Toni and I were talking about the recent images of a black hole, a phenomenon unknown when I was in school and until now never detected. Albert Einstein paved the way with the assertion that gravity was a warping of spacetime but initially was dismayed by German physicist Karl Schwarzchild’s prediction that when mass becomes too dense, it collapses into a black hole. Photographer Kyle Telechan wrote:“Scientists with the Event Horizon telescope have produced an image of a  black hole, or if we are being pedantic, the shadow of a black hole surrounded by particles in the accretion disk, some moving as fast as the speed of light.Totally ignoring how cool it is that we were able to get an image of a freaking black hole, how incredible is it that they were able to predict, correctly, what it would look like based on our understanding of black holes, without ever seeing one?It might be blurry, but it's the first of its kind. Can you imagine the images that'll be captured in our lifetimes?”

 Daniel Webster letter emancipating Paul Jennings; below, Webster

I finished “A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons.” Jennings finally achieved his freedom from Dolley Madison in 1847 after going to work for Massachusetts Senator (and two-time Secretary of State) Daniel Webster, who had purchased him the year before for $120.  Branding slavery “a great moral, social, and political evil,”Webster had previously helped others attain their freedom.  During the 1840s both Webster and former First lady Dolley Madison threw lavish parties in the nation’s capital that nearly bankrupted them.  In an effort to save the Union, Webster, known as “The great Expounder and Defender of the Constitution,” supported the Compromise of 1850, which abolished the slave trade in Washington, DC, but strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act.  Abolitionists branded it the “Bloodhound Law,” and it tarnished Webster’s reputation.  For 14 years until his retirement Jennings worked at the pension office of the Interior Department, earning between $400 and $720 annually.  He died eight years later.

 Terry Kegebein and granddaughter

At Hobert Lanes after two terrible games I rolled a 180, as the Engineers salvaged a game from Frank’s Gang.  After a 170, Terry Kegebein quipped, “Another 60 pounds, and I’d have bowled my weight.”  Opponent Mike Reed, wearing a shirt reading “My mind is in the gutter,”took good-natured ribbing after he actually threw a ball in the gutter in an otherwise outstanding game. When he claimed to have exceeded his weight of 168 pounds, some teammates were disbelieving; but he is in good shape with no pot belly and noted that he has to keep his weight down due to high blood pressure.

 Archives holdings moved for renovation

Anne Balay is en route to St. Louis, where she has a new home and hopes to teach at a local college while beginning research on a third book about sex workers. Steve McShane updated Ron Cohen and me on the latest change of plans regarding what to do with Archives files while workers install new heating and air conditioning: “We had movers in yesterday, taking out all kinds of collections and materials from the CRA and moving them down the hallway to 2 “staging” rooms.   Phase 1 will begin in earnest on Monday, as contractors invade to tear down ceilings and remove lighting from this first half of the Archives:  reading room, large cage, and corner storage/work room.”  Still remaining in the main room are bookcases containing yearbooks and books about the Calumet Region, including Anne Balay’s pathbreaking accounts of LGBT steelworkers and long-haul truckers.

above, Anne's tattoo; below, Toni, Becca, Angie

We were all set to see James shine in the Portage H.S. senior musical, but a small fire that damaged the curtain caused its postponement.  Bummer! The previous evening Becca has honored at a ceremony for outstanding students.  Tomorrow Becca has a solo in Chesterton's talent show.

In the opening chapter of Saidiya Hartman’s “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments” is this portrait of a turn-of-a- twentieth-century "ghetto girl" living in Africa Town, the Negro quarters of Philadelphia or New York:

 You can find her in the group of beautiful thugs and too fastgirls congregating on the corner and humming the latest rag, or lingering in front of Wanamaker’s and gazing lustfully at a fine pair of shoes displayed like jewels behind a plate-glass window.  Watch her in the alley passing a pitcher of beer back and forth with her friends, brash and lovely in a low-cut dress and silk ribbons; look in awe as she hangs halfway out of a tenement window, taking in the drama of the block and defying gravity’s downward pull.  Step onto any of the paths that cross the sprawling city and you’ll encounter her as she roams. Outsiders call the streets and alleys that comprise her world the slum.  For her, it is just the place where she stays.

Bent on using fear of immigrants as a primary campaign issue in 2020, Trump recently declared that the United States is filled up and doesn’t need any more newcomers, especially from south of the border.  Earlier he had expressed a preference for Norwegians over those from “shithole countries.”  The Washington Postrevealed that on two separate occasions the White House suggested migrants seeking asylum be bussed to sanctuary cities such as San Francisco, part of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Congressional district, in retaliation for Democrats’ opposition to his draconian policies. When the idea was floated, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials responded that it was not feasible on several grounds.  Perhaps that is one reason Trump, at the advice of diabolical Stephan Miller, ordered a shake-up of top DHS leaders, beginning with Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. I predicted that the President, as Shakespeare once wrote in Hamlet,that he will be“hoisted on his own petard.”

 below, defeat of Spanish Armada

In the New YorkerJohn Lanchester reviewed Philipp Blom’s “Nature’s Mutiny: How the Little Ice Age of the Long Seventeenth Century Transformed and Shaped the Present.”  I learned that for 300 million years the earth was entirely covered in ice and that 34 million years ago, the opposite was true and, in Lanchester’s words, “crocodiles swam in a fresh-water lake we know as the North Pole, and palm trees grew in Antarctica.”  For 110 years beginning in 1570, the temperature dropped almost 4 degrees Fahrenheit, which produced crop failures, disrupted feudalism, caused the Ming dynasty to fall, and contributed to such events as the defeat of the Spanish Armada (due to an unprecedented Arctic hurricane) and the 1666 London fire ( during an ultra-dry summer after a bitterly cold winter).  As Lanchester concluded, “Climate change changes everything.”

Old Mill

John Constable, "Parham Mill, Gillingham," circa 1823

“The sound of water escaping from mill dams, etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things.” English landscape artist John Constable
Old Mill in 1936 and  2007 (by Samuel Love)

From Samuel A. Love:“Farewell Old Mill, 1851-2018. More Merrillville landmarks disappearing. Originally a distillery, then a grist mill, a tavern, a restaurant, a dance hall, a school, a candy store, and finally a pizzeria. We rarely dined here, we were Palace Pizza devotees, but I remember being fascinated with the little rapids of Turkey Creek ‘roaring’ under the deck.”

I am disappointed in Merrillville’s leaders for not bothering to save historic Old Mill, located at 73rd and Madison and boarded up since 2010.  73rd Avenue has roots dating back to the Sauk Trail, used first by Native Americans and then by settlers traveling west.  Once, Potawatomi tribes gathered in a nearby clearing for religious ceremonies. A century ago, the road was paved and became part of Lincoln Highway.  Merrillville went through several name changes once the Potawatomi were forcibly removed: McGwinn Village, Wiggins Point, Centerville, Merrillville, and Ross Township, prior to Merrillville becoming a town in 1971 out of fear of annexation by Gary.

At lunch with Mike Olszanski and Chris Young at Little Redhawk Café.  I mentioned Young’s article about the infamous 1979 “Disco Demolition Night” at White Sox Park organized by WLUP’s “shock jock” Steve Dahl, when a crate of disco records was blown up between games of a twi-night doubleheader as the crowd chanted “Disco Sucks,” then stormed the field, causing game 2 to be forfeited.  Chris noted that, his area of specialty being early American history, it was the only time he made use of oral interviews for a scholarly publication. Library assistant Clyde Robinson walked by; I finally addressed him by his correct name after calling him Wayne for months and, before that, Rob a couple times. Once, I called Bettie Wilson, whom I see every day, Barbara.

. Laura Jones wedding picture with husband and parents, 1938

Steve McShane collected materials for the Archives at boarded up Wirt/Emerson School and from Miller centenarian Laura Jones, whom Judy Ayers frequently takes to lunch.  Steve suggested I interview her.  She’s evidently hard of hearing but still sharp mentally.  In an Ayers Realtors Newslettercolumn Judy Ayers wrote about trick-or-treating in Miller:

   I can still remember the best houses to go to on Halloween. Clarice and George Wilson on Henry Street always handed out Hershey Bars. Snack size or miniature candy bars hadn’t been invented yet so you got a full-sized Hershey Bar. Then there was Mrs. Teiche on the corner of Hancock and 3rd Avenue, who spoke with a heavy accent and always wore grandma dresses and thick stockings. A kid would stand on her porch and wait for what seemed like forever for her to reach down in a big burlap bag and bring out one apple at a time and drop it in their trick or treat bag. She was a nice old lady; but once we figured out time spent wasn’t relative to end result, we often bypassed Mrs. Teiche’s house. 

  Sometimes I’d skip math teacher Mrs. Hokanson’s house, too. She’d put kids through their paces. She’d conduct a little question and answer session with each kid before she’d relinquish one of her popcorn balls. She could make up a story problem about 7 little ghosts and 43 Tootsie Rolls and darn near ruin a kid’s Halloween by making them do math. 

    Then there was the Erlandson house. If Mrs. Erlandson knew you were a neighborhood kid, you got invited onto her porch for donut holes and hot apple cider. Moms and Dads on escort duty always liked this stop but a kid could waste a lot of valuable trick or treating time there. Mrs. Erlandson always had to get a good look at everyone’s costume even if it was cold and rainy and you were all bundled up in your winter coat. Mrs. Erlandson didn’t hear very well either and the year I borrowed one of Mrs. Ellman’s white poodles and dressed as Little Bo Peep, Mrs. Erlandson thought I said I was wearing something old and cheap. She told me “Oh, honey, it’s only Halloween – you look just fine. Isn’t that Mrs. Ellman’s poodle?” 

    These days Mrs. Teiche would have to pull something other than apples out of her bag on Halloween lest she be suspected of wrongdoing. Gene and I both have to be careful to not carry on too much about how cute the Spiderman and Little Mermaids look when we answer the door. We’ve learned from experience. Growing up in the same neighborhood, we have vowed to never come to the door dressed in costumes ourselves because we can still remember the Halloween Evelyn Mosegard came to the door dressed like the tooth fairy and we never did figure out what husband Elmer was wearing in the background. Maybe it’s best for our little kid psyches we didn’t know. 

    We also know to move quickly. Forget trying to give little goblins lessons in manners by trying to coax them into saying “thank you.” One year I forgot to tell Mrs. Lindstrom thank you and she kept saying “Now, what do you say when a nice lady gives you trick or treat candy”and I’d say back to her “Trick or Treat?”Then she kind of got a tone in her voice when she asked me the same question again. This time I said, “Happy Halloween?”while other trick or treaters were stacking up behind me. The crowd was getting rowdy and I was about to take my tiara and dig down in my trick or treat bag to retrieve the piece of petrified bubble gum I was jumping through hoops for when she gave up on me. It wasn’t a pretty sight. I nearly lost my princess composure. Being dressed for a northeaster to blow through the area at any given moment, I had perspiration on my upper lip and still had to turn around and make my way through the raging crowd of my peers. 

    Gene and I pretty much adhere to the Clarice and George Wilson theory of candy giving. We keep the porch light on, come to the door in respectable garb, distribute treats in an orderly and time efficient manner, remembering good trick or treat candy makes good leftovers. Hopefully, that’s how kids in our neighborhood will remember us – the place where you can get hassle free, express treats – not the home of Zena, Princess Warrior and Dr. Spock. 

At bowling Mel Nelson asked if we had many Halloweeners. Living in Gary’s Glen Ryan subdivision, he saw almost none. So many folks showed up at the condo that Toni feared we might run out of candy, though not James and Becca, unfortunately (James had play practice, and Becca couldn’t talk her friends into going out). I bowled miserably for 26 frames, then converted three straight spares and turkeyed in the tenth, as the Engineers won two out of three games and series to remain in first place. Afterwards, Dick Maloney reminded me of the time at Cressmoor Lanes when an opponent ended with three strikes, then collapsed and died.  Too bad it didn’t happen a frame earlier, I quipped, tastelessly.  At the time it wasn’t funny.  I saw him keel over.  Terry Kegebein returned from a three-week road trip to California.  On an icy road in the Colorado Rockies, he witnessed some idiot driver losing control of his vehicle and almost going over a cliff. As it was, he careened off both the retaining wall and the mountain, messing up both sides of his car.

Working on a NY TimesSunday puzzle, Toni inquired if I knew the rhyming nickname of a Cardinal great.  Easy: Stan “The Man” Musial, best natural hitter I ever saw, save for Red Sox Ted Williams, also a lefty.

At Gary Genesis Center people were lined up around the block for tickets to see Barack Obama Sunday campaigning for Senator Joe Donnelly, Congressman Pete Visclosky, and other Democrats.  Earlier, the former President stumped for Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, as did Oprah Winfrey. Her opponent is a disgusting bigot who, as Secretary of State, is actively seeking to disenfranchise thousands of black voters.  Tom Wade snagged two tickets in Valpo, and Darcey is hoping to get in with a bottle of water and in a wheelchair.  She wrote: “It will be great, but I dread the standing in line and sitting on hard chairs, ouchie. Will try to take in a bottle of water, specifically not allowed, heavy security, metal detectors. When they try to confiscate my bottle of water I will play the cancer survivor card hard, doubt it will work. Rules are rules.”

Our out of control president now claims he can nullify the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of citizenship to those born in the United States by executive order.  Ray Smock wrote:

  He is anti-immigration unless the immigrant is white. That’s clear all right, clearly racist and xenophobic. We have been having a discussion about what it means to be an American for more than three centuries. Our literature and histories are filled with this discussion. The best elements of the American “creed” tend toward openness, diversity, tolerance, acceptance, and the “melting pot theory.” But we have never really melted even as peoples from many lands assimilated. Over the next century the issues of migration worldwide will have a vast impact on all nations. We will see vast movements of human populations fleeing from the ravages of climate change. There will be internal migrations in the US and other nations not unlike the Dust Bowl migrations of the 1930s. Wars will be fought over water and arable land. Trump style dictators and fascism are already on the rise. And in 100 years there will be another 4 to 5 billion people fighting over a rapidly changing planet that will be far less salubrious than it is now. Where shall this discussion begin? I won’t be around to see this. But I see all the moving parts lining up as I write this.

  

Prior to our book signing at Lake Street Gallery, Ron Cohen and I met at Miller Bakery with Toni, Nancy, Councilwoman Rebecca Wyatt, and Ken Schoon, who also has a new book out on Swedes settlers in Northwest Indiana.  Harry and Maryanita Porterfield were eating nearby and the Lowes and Gallmeiers were in the bar area waiting to be seated. Despite Lake Street being torn up and a competing Temple Israel service to honor Pittsburgh shooting victims, we sold more than a dozen copies of “Gary: a Pictorial History” and Schoon did almost as well.  Cindy C. “Cupcake” Bean showed up for a free copy since we used her photo, taken from Marquette Park, of Lake Michigan with steel mills in the background.   

John Attinasi, formerly an IUN  Education Professor, came by on his way to Temple Israel and told me that legendary jazz musician Art Hoyle from Gary recently celebrated his  89th birthday.  I’m hoping to interview him about nightclubs where the horn player performed. Hoyle was attending Roosevelt High School when Frank Sinatra performed at Memorial Auditorium during then Froebel School Strike. A session player at Chess records he became a fixture at Chicago’s Regal Theater beginning during the early 1960s. Seven years ago, he told an interviewer about going on a 1960-61 tour with Bo Diddley, Lloyd Price, and Vee-Jay Records artist Jimmy Reed:

  We did 67 one-nighters from New York to Los Angeles and back. Two busloads of people. We wound up in the 369th Armory in Harlem. It was supposed to accommodate 1,800 people and they had over 3,000 in there. Big Joe Turner was on that bill and he was singing let it roll like a big wheel. A girl was trying to marry one of the guys in the band got up on a table and started shaking. A guy in the balcony threw a bottle. It landed in front of the piano that was being played by (organ player) Big John Patton. The lead alto player turned around as the bottle broke. It hit him and blood streamed down. Fights broke out. And Joe is still singing. The fire department turned on hoses. Bo Diddley's drummer and I rescued this pregnant woman who was about to be trampled. We pulled her up on the bandstand with us.

Art Hoyle, Gary jazzman

Los Campos

“Mexicans by the carload, by hundreds, by thousands, are being brought to the Chicago-Calumet district to work in the steel mills and other industrial plants.”  Gary Post-Tribune, 1923

 Isaac Villapondo in Inland Steel's 76-inch finishing mill, Sept.27, 1946, from Calumet Regional Archives (CRA)

Rafael Rodriguez and Heriberto Villareal at Inland's No. 2 open hearth, December 1953, CRA collection

The current issue of Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History contains an article by educator Douglas Dixon entitled, “Los Campos: Los Latinos y La Via de Indiana” that cites Ed Escobar and my “Forging a Community: The Latino Experience in Northwest Indiana, 1919-1975” as a source and makes use of photos from the Calumet Regional Archives.  Explaining the title, Dixon explained: “Los Campos may signify farm fields or family names. Los Latinos y La Via de Indiana may be a path from Indiana or the Indiana way.”  Mexican immigrants came to Indiana both as unskilled industrial workers, primarily in Lake County, and as agricultural laborers harvesting apples, strawberries, tomatoes, and other seasonal crops. During the past two decades, the Hoosier Latino population had increased by 82 percent as a result of migratory patterns and high birth rates. Dixon wrote:

  La familia de Los Campos brought a set of values that have meshed well with those all Hoosiers hold dear – a work ethic, respect for farm labor and produce, the importance of family, business savvy, volunteerism, and piety.  Latino/a values such as personalism (heightened sense of each person’s value), simpatico (avoiding confrontation), respeto (high regard for older or high-status persons), and familism may be less familiar to various groups in Indiana, but endearing nevertheless.  Other central values – collectivism (a greater sense of interdependence), power distance (unquestioning deference based on status), gendered aspects of familism, religious fatalism, or a relaxed view of time – may generate the potential for conflict.

Dixon focused on the Campos family, whose patriarch Felipe brought his family to Indiana in 1950 as agriculture laborers. Because they traveled from farm to farm in several states, son Noe Campos received little schooling; after he obtained work in a machine shop, the family settled permanently in Ligonier, a small town in northeast Indiana. Noe Jr. graduated from high school, obtained a white-collar job in a bank, and became an American citizen at age 24. Noe Sr. preached at Templo Betel, an evangelical congregation, and his son frequently plays the accordion and sings at religious services and ethnic functions.

Traces editor Ray Boomhower eulogized the late Wilma Gibbs Moore (above), a gifted storyteller who for over 30 years served as Indiana Historical Society program archivist for African American history until retiring in 2017.  She helped guide to publication my scholarly articles on Carleton Hatcher and Reverend L.K. Jackson. I enjoyed chatting with her at Indiana Association of Historians conferences.  A 1969 graduate of Indianapolis Crispus Attucks H.S., she recalled: “I went to school with the colored kids taught by the colored teachers.”  She once described her life’s work as “toiling in the Indiana history vineyard helping others find materials for their storybooks.”  R.I.P., good lady.  Thanks for your service on behalf of Clio, the muse of history.

 Arnautoff self-portrait in "City Life" mural in San Francisco

The current Journal of American History (JAH) contains a review by IU Northwest Labor Studies professor William Mello of Robert W. Cherny’s “Victor Arnautoff and the Politics of Art.”  Born in Russia, the son of an Orthodox priest, Arnautoff (1896-1979) became part of San Francisco’s leftist arts scene during the late 1920s. Moving to Mexico, he became an assistant to muralist Diego Rivera. Back in California, he produced controversial murals in fresco for the Pala Alto Medical Clinic (showing a doctor examining a bare-breasted patient) and San Francisco’s Coit Tower (including a self-portrait near a newspaper rack of leftist publications).  Mello wrote: “Inspired by his growing commitment to socialism, Arnautoff infused his portraits of everyday working-class life with political commentary.”  He taught art at Stanford, whose faculty resisted rightwing efforts during the Red Scare to have him terminated. In retirement Arnautoff returned to the Soviet Union, where he created tile mosaics for public buildings. 

The JAH also contains a review of Robert Justin Goldstein’s “Discrediting the Red Scare: The Cold War Trials of James Kutcher, ‘The Legless Veteran.’”  The son of Russian immigrants, Kutcher joined the Socialist Workers Party in 1938 at age 26 and, inducted into the U.S. Army, lost both legs to German mortar fire in Italy during the 1943 Battle of San Pietro. In 1949 the Veterans Administration loyalty board suspended him without pay from his position as a file clerk due to his political belief and past associations. It took seven years of legal fights, during which time he lost his disability benefits, before a U.S. Appeals Court restored his job.

 Terry Kegebein

Thanks to good series by Terry Kegebein and Mel Nelson, the Electrical Engineers took all 3 games from Fab 4.  Nearby I noticed Delia’s Uncle Phil Vera bowling right-handed again, after two years as a southpaw following a stroke.  He still hasn’t recovered full strength and uses a light 12-pound ball. Former student Jin Daubenhower, a retired History teacher, came by Hobart Lanes to say hello and will be coaching boys eighth-grade basketball at Kankakee Valley.  He told me, “You’re the reason I became a teacher.”  Nice.

Interviewed after George Goeway and Todd Fisher (above) scored a 72.69 percent in Lynwood, Goeway told bridge Newsletter editor Barbara Walczak: “Todd is fun to travel with – he is a Napoleonic scholar, writer, Civil War reenactor, foodie, and enjoys a good microbrew.”  Todd described their high performance: “We doubled close contracts to good effect, when our opponents got “over their skis.”  It led to one lady “walking the dog” on us and making 5 on 4 Clubs doubled, but this was the exception.”Joe Chin introduced the pair 13 years ago prior to a regional in Toronto.

Bridge buddy and former bank manager Barbara Mort visited the Archives to donate biographical materials and was accompanied by Asher Yates, a retired Hollywood film editor who moved to Northwest Indiana 20 years ago and won an EMMY in 1983 as a sound editor for the TV movie “The Executioner’s Song” starring Tommy Lee Jones as murderer Gary Gilmore.  The previous year, he was nominated for the TV series “Marco Polo.” Yates volunteers at the National Lakeshore’s Paul H. Douglas Center for Environmental Education.

Tree Hugger

“It is nothing short of a crime to deny our coal mining communities the best possible protection from accidents and the repercussions of strip mining.” Jeff Biggers

Columnist Jeff Manes, who has written about the beauty of the Kankakee Marsh, likes to call himself a tree hugger.  Opponents of progressive Indiana Congressman Jim Jontz used the phrase pejoratively when he fought western logging interests who claimed he couldn’t see the forest for the trees, i.e., the big picture.  Some environmentalists have literally chained themselves to trees in order to prevent economic predators from killing them.  Starting in 1997, Julia Butterfly Hill lived for 738 days in a fifteen hundred year-old redwood in order to prevent Pacific Lumber from cutting it down.  The company eventually agreed not to harvest the tree.

Corey Hagelberg and Samuel A. Love joined me for lunch IUN’s Little Redhawk Café.  Corey and Kate’s first artist in resident next month will be 51 year-old environmentalist Jeff Biggers, author of “Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland” and the pro-immigrant “State Out of the Union: Arizona and the Final Showdown Over the American Dream.”  Corey said that Jeff, also a playwright and performance artist, wants a secluded place to think and work on a couple projects.  They met at a Calumet Heritage Project event. When Corey told him about the dunes, Biggers, the grandson of a Southern Illinois coal miner, was sold.

above, Jeff Biggers; below, Jim East

Community organizer Samuel A. Love, involved in several Gary projects, recalled Voodoo Chili gigs at various area dives as well as one at IUN’s Moraine Student Union where he won a limbo contest.  He still has the prize, a Voodoo Chili t-shirt.  At Mark O’s, when Big Voodoo Daddy’s teenage daughter Missy was singing with the band, David would wish her a Happy Twenty-first birthday because she shouldn’t have been allowed in the joint.   Whenever Sam attended a show, Dave would invite him to sing a Ramones song, usually “I Wanna Be Sedated” or “Blitzkrieg Bop.”  Sam’s high school American history teacher was legendary Merrillville coach Jim East, winner of more than 650 basketball games.

A letter from Reverend Doctor John E. Johnson thanking me for my Gary book starts out: “Grace, Mercy, and Peace be unto you!”  It ends: “God bless you and may God keep you.”  Even though I’m an agnostic, it’s nice to hear such sentiments.  I told my Amish friend Suzanna Murphy that someone’s praying for me.  “I’m praying for you, too,” she replied.

In Nicole Anslover’s class after Spring Break I’ll talk about tennis great Billie Jean King, winner of 39 Grand Slam titles and the first women Sports Illustrated “Sportsperson of the Year.”  Her most famous match was against Bobby Riggs, at age 55 some 26 years her senior, before 30,000 spectators at Houston’s Astrodome and a rapt TV audience of 50 million.  Riggs had previously defeated Margaret Court and claimed women didn’t deserve as much tournament money as men.  She made a laughing stock of the male chauvinist, winning in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3, but he laughed all the way to the bank, cashing in on his sudden fame.

In the first issue of Ms. magazine King allowed her name to appear on a list of 53 well-known women who admitted to having had an abortion.  In 1981, after a former lover filed a palimony suit, Billie Jean admitted to being a lesbian, the first prominent athlete to do so.  As a result, she lost all her endorsements and the displeasure of Martina Navratilova, who thought it would hurt women’s tennis, but Billie Jean became a heroine to others struggling to come out of the closet.  It took Billie Jean so long because she knew her parents would disapprove.  In 2009 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 2014 President Obama named her to represent the United States at the Sochi winter Olympics.

NWI Times photo by John Luke

Next year IUN will cease offering courses in the Portage University Center due to low enrollment. Not enough students want to go to a location just for one class, and the range of offerings is too small to make it sustainable.   It’s too bad because the present Center is a first-rate building.  Some want to house the Portage police there instead of paying for a new building.  Others believe that would have an unsettling effect on students.  I hated seeing ROTC units doing drills and calisthenics on campus but haven’t seen that in years, don’t know why.  Fourteen years ago, I taught at a site near Ridge and Willowcreek on the morning of 9/11. 

Making light of an unconscionable letter 47 Republican Senators sent to Iran’s leaders warning them that any agreement with Obama would be rejected by Congress, New Yorker satirist Andy Borowitz wrote facetiously that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has offered to mediate talks between Republicans and Obama.  Shame on John McCain for signing the letter, which is in violation of the Logan Act.  At least Indiana’s Senator Dan Coats did the right thing and refused to do so.  I bet former Senator Dick Lugar influenced his decision or he was smart enough to realize there’d be a backlash against such a grandstanding stunt.  In the Daily Banter Michael Luciano wrote:

Just when you thought congressional Republicans couldn’t look any more like a troupe of treacherous clowns hellbent on circus-ifying anything President Obama tries to do, they pull another bag of tricks from the trunk of their tiny car.

The weirdest thing about the letter — other than the fact that it was written in the first place — is that it doesn’t address anything specific regarding Iran’s nuclear program. It advances no alternative proposals, it elucidates no conditions under which the GOP would assent to a deal of any kind, and thus, it offers no hope of resolving one of the biggest U.S. foreign policy challenges of the last 35 years.

        

  Other Andy Borowitz witticisms include: “Hillary releases 20,000 Spam emails from Old Navy,” “Boehner invites man who hated Obama in high school to address Congress,” and “Kim Jong-un feels snubbed by absence of letter from Republicans.”  My favorite: “Joe Biden releases both emails written while Vice-President.”  That article, referring to Hillary’s having used a private server while Secretary of State, goes on to claim that Vice President Joe Biden, who apparently eschews modern gadgets, “took pride in announcing that he had sent both messages from his official government e-mail address, adding, ‘I have nothing to hide.’”

 back of Terry Kegebein's jacket

At Cressmoor Lanes, with a knee throbbing and back aching, I struggled with my delivery for eight frames and had my worst game in memory, then rebounded with a 169 despite only one strike.  Personable opponent Terry Kegebein of D’s Pro Shop said that against our team he couldn’t use age as an excuse.  He mentioned just missing several perfect games before finally rolling one despite three errant balls.  Terry’s teammate Frank Beshears, coming off a hernia operation, bowled a 625 series despite being in obvious pain the entire time.  Afterwards, he said he needed a couple stiff whiskeys.

Journalist Michele Weldon, author of “I Closed My Eyes,” a 1999 memoir about surviving spousal abuse, was keynote speaker at IUN’s Women’s and Gender Studies conference.  Her topic was “Not a Fair Fight: Voices Heard in the Media and Beyond.” She mentioned Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist critic of misogynistic video game culture, and Gamergate, where a person using that moniker threatened to shoot Sarkeesian and others if she went through with a speaking engagement at Utah State University.  She cancelled the appearance after learning that a state law prevented university authorities from banning hand guns at the event.

above, Anita Sarkeesian; below, Michele Weldon

During her talk 56 year-old Weldon said she enjoyed playing roller derby.  Afterwards, I told her how popular the sport is becoming in Northwest Indiana and asked what her nickname was.  “Mish the Masher,” she replied, adding that her team is called the Chicago Outfit, the name for the Windy City's organized crime syndicate.  Clever.  I told her that one of last year’s speakers, Alyssa Black is on the local newcomers squad.  “Fresh meat,” she said, using a phrase I’d also heard from Alyssa.

I couldn’t bring myself to attend the student sessions because of sad memories of Anne Balay’s unjustly being denied tenure.  One of Monica Solinas-Saunders’ students spoke on “Mentally Ill Women and Incarceration.”  I was pleased Ausra Buzenas, still keeping the faith, sponsored a discussion by Kaden Alexander, Teri Schumacher, Eli Weathersby and Landon Rosa on “Questions You Always Wanted to Ask about LGBTs.”  Balay’s Gender Studies course answered most of my misconceptions about transgendered people.

 Elton John performing New Year's Eve, 2014

On the ride home I heard “Philadelphia Freedom,” which Elton John wrote for Billie Jean King’s pro tennis franchise.  Elton came out of the closet in a 1976 Rolling Stone interview when he said, “There’s nothing wrong with going to bed with someone of your own sex.”  His record sales subsequently plummeted.  At home I put on a “Greatest Hits” CD to hear Elton’s “Rocket Man” and “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.”  After dinner Miranda arrived; she’s taking a Gender Studies course at Grand Valley State taught by an F to M transgendered guy.

Signs of spring; photos by Steve Spicer (above) and Samuel A. Love

Only a few traces of snow remain, and the first signs of spring flowers are popping up from the ground.  Deer in Marquette Park are partly camouflaged by brown undergrowth.

I dedicated volume 44 to the late, great IUN teachers Aline Fernandez, Bill May, Terry Lukas, Bob Lovely, and Garret Cope.  In my fantasy Garrett, still alive, invites Balay to speak on “Steel Closets” at his Glen Park Conversation and it goes so well Chancellor Lowe appoints her Chair of Women’s and Gender Studies.  Finest reactions to my new issue so far are by Hollis Donald (who vowed to keep showing me his poems), Mary Lee (“best one yet,” she said and gave me a hug), and Anne Balay, who commented, “I especially love the way it ends!!!!!”  The last paragraph reads, “Putting her best face forward about a trying time in her life, Anne noted:

“2014 was a transition year for me.  I hope to be settled into a new plan before 2015 ends, but I also want to honor the process, and the people it brings me.  Thank you all for sharing this wacky, wonderful journey with me.”