Postponed Reunion

“The life of every man is a log in which he means to write one story and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.” James M. Barrie, creator of “Peter Pan,” quoted in 1960 Upper Dublin yearbook

 

With vigils, demonstrations, and riots taking place in Minneapolis, Atlanta, and dozens of other cities, the Covid-19 pandemic is suddenly no longer the top news story.  Even so, yesterday Northwest Indiana reported 11 new deaths even as most area communities started reopening.  The elderly have been especially hard hit.  Although obituaries rarely mention cause of death, the number seems to have ballooned. Here’s an excerpt for World War II veteran Otto Henry Loeffler, a lifelong Valparaiso resident:

    Otto was a fine athlete, playing in the Dodgers minor league baseball system, then becoming a first-rate golfer and bowler.  He played a fine hand of blackjack.  Whether rousting his kids up to go fishing or golfing at 5:00 AM, hosting family get-togethers or spending time with Evelyn (late wife of 60 years) or grandchildren.  Otto was full of positive energy.  His last days were spent in the isolation of the 2020 pandemic, which did not sit well with someone who loved the company of his family and a dog on his lap.

R.I.P. Otto.

 

A few days ago good friend Tom Wade left for Connecticut to see his dying brother.  He posted this eulogy on Facebook along with a photo with his big brother:

    My older brother Dan passed away yesterday after fighting kidney disease for more than a decade. He was an extraordinary human being, holding a variety of academic positions and awards and ending up at Yale for the last 34 years. He, along with Carol, his loving wife of 54 years, were longtime warriors for peace and social justice. They ended their wedding in 1966 with a 10 minute plea for ending the war in Vietnam, and were in the middle of the 1968 protests for peace at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He had a wonderful internal joy about him that warmed all who knew him. He leaves behind his wife and partner in peace Carol, daughters Alyson and Malory, and grandson Luke. Thanks for being such a great example for your little brother, Dano. Love forever bro!    

 

My Upper Dublin “Class of 1960” reunion has been “rescheduled” for October 2021.  As the planning committee put it, nobody wants a solemn affair where masks are worn and old friends must keep six feet apart.  Compared to the momentous events engulfing us during this “plague year,” this is relatively unimportant.  Still, it’s a bitter pill.  I’ve attended every reunion since our twentieth.  I missed the tenth because I’d just begun teaching at Indiana University Northwest and had returned to Pennsylvania the previous week for my mother’s wedding.  The reunions always provide vivid memories and surprises.  In 1980 I smoked out with Gaard Murphy and hubby Chuck in the parking lot, and we’ve been good friends ever since.  I heard Ed Piszak ask Eleanor Smith at the registration desk if Jimmy Lane had arrived and then surprised him when he came up the steps. Still looking young for my age, I was taken aback when some folks hardly recognized me because I’d grown a good six inches since high school.  Lo and behold, I was taller than Suzi Hummel, who asked if I were in touch with Chuck Bahmueller, her next-door neighbor in East Oreland. I danced with a dozen classmates, including Faith Marvill, whom I dated in seventh grade, and Leslie Boone, looking like an absolutely gorgeous high school senior. Dick (“call me Richard”) Garretson got Bruce Allen and me to go into the adjacent bar to watch the Phillies clinch the National league pennant (they’d go on to win the World Series) and tried to persuade us to meet their plane at the Philadelphia airport.  Alas, the team still has a Sunday game.  That’s the last time I saw cool Dick Garretson.  Next day, I talked on the phone with Judy Jenkins for 40 minutes reporting on reunion highlights.

 

In 1990 I mistook Carolyn Aubel for Carolyn Ott and blurted out that I’d had a crush on her in grade school.  Beforehand, Chuck Bahmueller and I argued politics for an hour before sitting with beauties Judy Jenkins, Molly Schade, Suzi Hummel, and Susan Floyd, who asked me to dance to “Proud Mary.”  Judy said she had trouble remembering many classmates.  It helps to get out the yearbook beforehand, I said, momentarily forgetting that because she needed a summer course, Judy, along with a half-dozen others, got excluded from “The Mundockian.”  What administration bullshit!  After a post-reunion gathering (many of us being reluctant to have the night come to an end) Thelma Van Sant gave Bahmueller and me a ride back to our hotel. Just south of U.D. was the Van Sant farm (now gone), where many of us had worked summers and in whose long winding access road made out with dates, in my case once interrupted by Chief Ottinger.

 

1995 began a traditional of reunions every five years.  Seeing Kathleen Birchler, star of the U.D. field hockey team, for the first since graduation, I recalled how at Fort Washington elementary school she competed in soccer with the guys at[LJ1]  recess while most girls (and a lone guy) played house in dirt patches.  Kathleen once beat up a kid a year older than her in a fight, making his nose bleed.  She claimed to have no memory of the incident.  I got Wayne Wylie (who never dances, wife Fran warned me) to boogie with me to the Ramones’ “I Wanna be Sedated.”  He lived on a farm in Jarrettown; on summer sleepovers we’d ride a tractor out into the cornfield, pick corn and his mom would cook up four ears each for us.  Ambrosia. 

 

Favorite teacher Ed Taddei came to our fortieth reunion, along with football coach Frank Gilronan and music teacher Robert Foust.  I confessed that I had misbehaved in his class, and Mr. Foust replied, “You weren’t so bad.”  He must have witnessed worse, forced to teach some apathetic groups just once a week.  Bob Reller came to his first reunion with a comely wife.  I danced to a Motown number with Mary Dinkins, married to a preacher, who sat behind me in Latin class; once I turned around to say something clever to Mary when Miss LeVan whacked me with a ruler. The Temptations song caused Mary to close her eyes and show some soulful dance moves.  Dave Seibold and his wife wowed everyone with ballroom dance moves they must have learned at Arthur Murray studios.

 

For the first time in 2005 Toni attended a reunion. Classmates joked that they’d wondered if I’d made her up.  We were returning from the Jersey shore and had Miranda with us.  We sat at a table with John Jacobsen, who offered to give up his seat when it appeared that we were one serving short.  Still ruggedly handsome, John recalled Fort Washington school teachers Miss Worthington, Mrs. Orr, Mrs. Bytheway, and Mr. Johnson, the latter a weasel of a man with a big Adam’s apple that I’d almost forgotten about.  Sultry Miss Polsky (who could get a rise out of me when she called me Jacques), Mr. Bek (my hundred-pound football coach), and Miss Malkus attended as did two cool classmates who for some reason had changed their names, Tony Tucciarone and John Magyar, who once fought chemistry teacher John Schwering in the hallway.  Vince Curll and I would visit Tony Tucciarone on the way to the movies in Ambler and sample his mom’s delicious homemade bread. Eddie Piszek, full-headed and fit, gave overweight Magyar diet tips.

 

Several first-timers made it to the fiftieth, including childhood pal Jay Bumm and homecoming queen Wendy Henry wearing, unbelievably, her tiara. I tried to ask tenth grade girlfriend Mary Delp to dance, but Skip Pollard’s wife, who’d been her neighbor in Naperville, shushed me away.  When “The Bristol Stomp” came on, Alice Ottinger and I showed off some moves and got an approving smile from Jimmy Coombs; then for good measure we slow-danced. Later cameras came out when Alice danced with old flame Jay Bumm.  Marianne Tambourino and star athlete Percy Herder, who worked at the old high school, came onto the dance floor, and later Phil Arnold organized a Stroll line.

 

In 2015 I chatted at dinner with LeeLee Minehart and her husband Bob whom she met in Afghanistan while in the Peace Corps. Among those stopping to chat at our table were Ed Dudnek and Rita Grasso, who looked stunningly beautiful.  I traded Babe Ruth baseball league memories with Eddie Piszek.  Ron Hawthorn’s dad (Mr. Haw-the-Haw) was our coach and Dave Seibold our star first baseman.  Classmate Freddie Scott played hits from 1960, including “The Twist” by Chubby Checker (I preferred the Hank Ballard original), “Go, Jimmy, Go” by Jimmy Clanton, and “Save the Last Dance for Me” by the Drifters.  Although I needed the help of nametags for a few classmates, I recognized most immediately.  Pat Zollo was bald but otherwise hadn’t changed much, holding forth with humorous stories of wilder days.  Coombs, who looked like he could hold his own in a fight, asked whether I was in touch with Penny Roberts (negative) and I countered with questions about the Fad brothers. Barbara Bitting, married to classmate Joe Ricketts, remained blond and beautiful, Connie Heard more youthful acting than in high school almost.  Susan Floyd showed me a photo circa 1969 of her, hubby Joe McGraw and Terry and Gayle Jenkins looking like hippies. In 1969 I had long hair and a beard, too. As Teenagers Susan and I hung out at Terry and Judy Jenkins’ house and shared many memories. Like so many of my classmates, Susan has aged gracefully.  Let’s hope most of us can rendezvous in 2021.

Turning 76

“Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been,” David Bowie

 Toni gets cookie at Ivy's Bohemia House from Amy Mackiewicz

Toni’s birthday falls on February 14, and we normally celebrate the day after so not to compete with the Valentine’s Day crowd.  Patrick O’Rourke treated me to lunch at Asparagus Restaurant, whose Vietnamese owners are friends of his, to talk about my next interview with him, so I took Toni an order of lobster and mango spring rolls.  We arrived home within minutes of one another, as Dave and Angie had taken her to lunch at Ivy’s Bohemia House.

Next day, granddaughters Alissa and Miranda arrived with Miranda’s boyfriend Will, whom we’d never met. He’s in Nursing administration and going for an MBA.  He’s been working with Spanish-speaking hospital out-patients in Grand Rapids on such matters as ensuring that they have a procedure in place for taking prescriptions at the proper dosages and times. At Toni’s request we dined at Craft House so that she could introduce our Michigan visitors to the beignet pastry fritters served with chocolate, strawberry, and caramel dipping sauces.  Beforehand, we shared an appetizer of Brussel sprout chips tossed with garlic parmesan butter and candied bacon; my entre, BBQ pork shanks, a haystack of onions, and Cole slaw, was delicious.Home in time for the conclusion of Maryland-Michigan State basketball.  Down by seven with minutes to go, the Terrapins scored the final 14 points, including 11 by Anthony Cowan (3 threes and 2 free throws), to beat the Spartans 67-60.

Sunday, I played board games with Dave and Tom Wade, including, at Dave’s request, Stockpile, which I’d only played a couple times but really enjoy, and Space Base, which I’d observed  at Halberstadt Game Weekend.  We said goodbye to our overnight house guests and prepared for a birthday party for Toni, which grew like Topsy, as the expression goes – originally referring to a slave girl in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1851) – to 20 people, including four of Becca’s Chesterton classmates.  Dave and Angie picked up Chinese food from Wing Wah and a chocolate cake from Jewel.

At bridge the previous Wednesday I partnered with Vickie Voller, whom I’ve known since she was an IUN student in the 1970s.  She’s an animal lover whose emails contain the quote, “Love is a four-legged word.” We finished above 50 percent.  She’ll be bringing her husband to my Art in Focus talk on Rock and Roll, 1960, and they plan to dance. I’ll start with “Hard-Headed Woman,” on the soundtrack of “King Creole” and Elvis Presley’s last recording before entering the army for two years in March of 1958 and subsequently reaching number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

At Hobart Lanes 83-year-old Gene Clifford told me his bowling career was over, doctor’s orders, due to COPT.  In our final game against Fab Four, the Engineers finished with a 1053, 173 pins over our handicap.  Joe Piunti, carrying a 130 average, rolled a 223. I finished with a 160 and 472 series, 30 pins over my average.

Over the weekend the August Wilson play “Fences” (1985) attracted a large audience at IU Northwest.  Directed by IUN alumnus and visiting professor Mark Spencer, it deals with an embittered former Negro League baseball player (Troy Maxson) now working as a garbageman in Pittsburgh and starred Darryl Crockett and Rose Simmons.  James Earl Jones appeared in the original Broadway production and Denzel Washington in a 2010 revival, with Viola Davis as wife Rose Maxson. 

While most high schools were off for President’s Day, both IUN and Valparaiso University held classes, having honored Martin Luther King Day.  My interview with Chancellor Bill Lowe was delayed a few minutes because of a fire alarm in Hawthorn Hall (caused by a faulty toaster, it turned out) that kept Samantha Gauer from getting the videotape equipment.  She thoughtfully alerted the Chancellor and me from her cellphone.  Lowe grew up in Brooklyn; his father was a police officer.  He majored in History at Michigan State and was in Ireland doing research during a time of civil rights demonstrations that became known as the Troubles. His administrative career took him to the Rust Belt cities of Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, and ultimately, Gary.

 confiscating bootleggers equipment in Gary (1926)

Invited to speak in Nicole Anslover’s class about Prohibition in Gary, I described the city in 1920 as containing 50,000 residents, mostly steelworkers, many foreign-born and often single men laboring 12 hours a day, seven days a week.  The year began with Gary under martial law occupied by army troops ordered to crush a two-month-old strike and jail union leaders whom General Leonard Wood branded as Reds.  Prohibition was anathema to men for whom the saloon was the center of their limited social life, where they drink, ate, and, in may cases, procured establishments that refused to pay off corrupt police officials.  At the Gary Country Club, the watering hole of the affluent, liquor flowed freely with no interference from law enforcement.  Some years, due to its reputation as an “anything goes” city, Gary attracted more tourists than Indianapolis, disparaged as “Naptown” or “India-no-town.” By 1930 former mayor R.O. Johnson, convicted in 1923 of violating the Volstead Act and sent to Atlanta federal penitentiary, was back in City Hall as mayor.

 partying at Gary Country Club (1926); Allegra Nesbitt standing, 2nd from right

Students asked me about race-relations in Gary during the Twenties, a time when Mill officials aimed to keep the labor force divided, and whether U.S. Steel built housing for workers as in Pullman, Illinois.  While the corporation provided home ownership opportunities on the Northside for managerial personal and plant foremen, unskilled workers were left to fend for themselves. Many boarded in bunk houses, sharing a cot with someone working the alternate 12-hour shifts. Nicole invited me back anytime; I thinking of returning in two weeks when the class discusses the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial featuring Clarence Darrow for the defense and William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution.

Bob Greene (above), author of “When We Get to Surf City,” emailed:

     What a nice letter, Jim-- thank you.

    I really liked the excerpts from the book that you chose to include in your blog-- I'm especially glad that you took note of my observations about Jerry Lee Lewis.  No one has ever specifically mentioned that part of the book to me, but it's one of my favorites, and I'm pleased that you saw in it what I did.

    Just sang again the other night in Florida with a band called California Surf Incorporated-- all former Beach Boys musicians.  Randell Kirsch, from Jan and Dean, was playing with them, and one of the guitarists wasn't feeling well and didn't want to do his vocals, so they invited me to fill in.  It never gets less fun.

    Thank you again for what you said, and especially for the way you said it.  It means a lot to me.

I wrote back:

    Thanks for the nice response.  I saw Jerry Lee Lewis live in Merrillville, IN in 1980 (what a showman!) and recall him appearing a few years ago on Letterman with Neil Young, the only time Neil agreed to be on the show.

    I’m glad you’re still jamming with old Beach Boys.  My son was in a band until a few years ago and would invite me on stage to sing the chorus of Cheap Trick’s “Surrender.”

Having enjoyed the new Of Monsters and Men CD, I checked out their earlier album “beneath the Skin” (2015) and discovered “Slow Life,” which hardly describes the past hectic days.  One verse goes:

We're slowly sailing away
Behind closed eyes
Where not a single ray of light
Can puncture through the night

With my 60th high school reunion scheduled for October, I told planners Larry Bothe, John Jacobson, and Connie Heard that I’d work on classmates who don’t normally attend. Rehashing weekend highlights with Gaard Logan, a gourmet cook who claims she has no interest in the reunion but is always interested in hearing about Upper Dublin classmates, I described the beignet pastry fritters, Brussel sprout chips, and lobster and mango spring rolls.  Signing off, I called her sweetie, eliciting a chuckle and, “Take care , my friend.”

Homecoming

“Poetry is a sort of homecoming,” Paul Celan

I provided free copies of Steel Shavings, volume 47, at a Homecoming “Legacy” lunch for IUN grads and their children or grandchildren presently enrolled.  Alumni Relations director Paulette LaFata invited me to stay, so I made myself a salad and sat with Annalynn Morin and her mother Jean, who were at a table by themselves.  Annalynn is a Biology major active in several student groups; Jean took classes with Ron Cohen and remembered him fondly as a folk music expert.  Afterwards, I watched IUN’s Lady Redhawks defeat the Madonna University Crusaders, from Michigan judging from where their players hailed from. IUN’s best player Grayce Roach looks to be 100 percent recovered from a finger injury.  Veterans Michelle Borgen, Gina Rubino, and Chloe Salman also played well. Freshman Brittney Williams from Merrillville came off the bench to grab several rebounds and score two terrific follow-up shot on hustle plays.  I congratulated Coach Ryan Shelton, also IUN’s athletic director, on the university getting accepted into the CCAC (Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference) and expressed condolences on the death of assistant Ken Markfull.

Brittney Williams while at Merrillville; Times photo by John Luke

James as "narrator"

Grandson James was a narrator in the Portage H.S. play “Ten Ways to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse.”  Phil and Delia came in for the occasion.  Unbeknownst to me, James starts out in the audience.  Minutes before the curtain went up, Becca nudged me, and I turned to see him beaming just a few rows behind us.   Slightly deaf, I had trouble understanding much dialogue, but James belted out lines loud and clear.  In the program bio James quoted from the Nintendo game WarioWare: “It’s pizza time!  Oh yeah, no money.” 

 Z. Kierstead’s“I could’ve dropped my croissant”is from a YouTube vine gone viral.  Maria Sosa’s “No”is in honor of Rosa Parks, whose refusal to yield her seat sparked the 1955-56 Montgomery Bus Boycott. Makayla Butala’s “Don’t let the muggles get you down”is from “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” Meghan Smeltzer repeated a popular meme, “This is so sad.  Alexa, play Despacito.”  Toni sometimes calls upon digital assistant Alexa for crossword puzzle answers. “Despacito” is a song by Luis Fonsi.  Senior thespian Angelo Jarvis thanked former theater director Kevin Lee Giess, unfairly terminated on school board orders, “for allowing me my first opportunity.”

 Tom Wade, Waiting to see Obama at Gary Genesis Center

Obama photo by Kyle Telethon

Tom and Darcey Wade were part of a standing-room only audience at Gary Genesis Center that heard Barack Obama campaign for Indiana Democrats.  Beforehand, Tom stood for 90 minutes to obtain two free tickets and then another 90 minutes waiting to get inside, as rumors had circulated that not everyone would be able to get in.  Close to the stage with Darcey in a wheelchair, both got to shake the former President’s hand as he was leaving.  On Facebook Tom confessed to having a man-crush and wrote: “We will not wash our hands for a long while! He is such a gregarious, beautiful man.”

Major Brent Taylor, 39, mayor of North Ogden, Utah, and father of seven, died in Afghanistan at the hands of someone he was training during his second tour of duty there with the U.S. National Guard.  Previously, he had served two tours in Iran. His assassin, a member of the Afghan National Defense Force, was immediately shot and killed. Brent Taylor was a true hero, a selfless public servant at home and abroad.

Region author and Times correspondent Jane Ammeson praised Ken Schoon’s new book, “Swedish Settlements on the South Shore of Lake Michigan."  Schoon noted, “Many Swedes came first to Chicago, which at one time had more Swedes than any city on Earth except Stockholm.”  Ammeson quoted extensively from Schoon’s account of Joel Wicker, son-in-law of French fur trader Joseph Bailly, whose estate near Chellberg Farm in Porter has been preserved by the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Wicker hired Swedish newcomers  to chop down trees for use as railroad ties and fuel for steam engines.  Schoon wrote:

  Logs were also needed to build and heat homes and for cooking.  When enough trees were cut down, Wicker then sold the land to his Swedish employees who then cleared the land for farming.  Other Swedes found employment as farm laborers and working for sand and ice-mining companies, and as blacksmiths and carpenters.

  As the immigrants had more money, many purchased their own farms or started businesses in town.  The first licensed embalmer in Indiana was carpenter John Lundberg, a Chesterton Swede.  

Svanti Nordstrom (above with Fredrika); photos from Verlaine Wright

Schoon’s bibliography lists my Portage Shavings and a 1974 Post-Tribune article titled “Swedes started new church” about Miller pioneer Syena “Svanti” A. Nordstrom, who learned of the area from friends in LaPorte and Baillytown.  He wrote idyllic, albeit, exaggerated accounts of Miller’s scenic beauty and job opportunities that convinced former neighbors to join him.  He was acting pastor of Bethel Lutheran Church.  In October 1874 the congregation met for the first time in a one-room log schoolhouse.  A minister from Baillytown came periodically to preach and conduct communion; in his absence Nordstrom performed emergency baptisms.  Ruggedly handsome with yellow, curly hair and a long, flowing beard, Nordstrom, one parishioner recalled, “had the bearing of a man that you could not help but respect.”  Wife Fredrika died in 1888 at age 70, but Svanti, three years younger, lived another 22 years.

Cindy inside abandoned Horace Mann School 

Photographer Cindy “Cupcake” Bean sent Ron Cohen and me shots taken inside abandoned Horace Mann, including one of a letter from a Japanese visitor back when the K-12 “unit school” was implementing the vision of progressive educator Superintendent William A. Wirt.  The Gary school, in decent shape when it first closed, has been reduced to the scrap heap of history.  I told Cindy about the upcoming “Gary Haunts” South Shore exhibit in Munster featuring work similar to hers.

I picked up a needed win in Fantasy Football over nephew Bob to improve to 5-4.  Bob’s QB Mitch Trubisky threw only one TD pass, to Bears tight end Trey Burton, whom I had in the lineup because the Eagles’ Zach Ertz was on a bye week.  Trubisky earned Bob just 8 points; my backup QB (for Carson Wentz), Ben Roethilsberger got me 24, including a TD on the ground while Trubisky’s similar end zone effort ended a half-yard short.

James Lane voting for first time

George Van Til and Jimbo; photo by Jim Lazarus

On election day former Lake County Surveyor George Van Til invited me to lunch at Old Chicago Restaurant in Merrillville.  At the table were county auditor John Petalas and wife Karen, Lake County Democratic chairmen Jim Wieser, former Timesreporter Jim Lazerus (who came from California to volunteer for Senator Joe Donnelly, North Township Board member Peter Katic, writer Douglas Simmons, and current Lake County surveyor Bill Emerson.  They were pessimistic about Donnelly’s chances but otherwise guardedly confident.  Katic recalled election day gatherings at recently demolished Old Mill restaurant.  Wieser recalled former Lake County politician Andy Holinga inviting party members to his house, where he’d bang his huge fists on the kitchen table with such emphasis that things on it would fly into the air.  Petalas, a former student whose father owned a shoe repair shop on Broadway, first near Thirteenth and then in Glen Park, invited me to Rep. Peter Visclosky victory celebration that evening at Croatian Hall, but I was playing duplicate bridge. 

Barbara Walczak’s bridge Newsletter contained a photo taken at the Gary game of participants dressed in Halloween costumes, including Barbara Stroud, Charlotte Abernethy, Barb Walczak, Helen Miller, Daryl Fraley, Carolyn Potasnik, Alta Allen, and Trudi McKamey.  Pretty cool.

Charlie Halberstadt and I finished in the middle of the pack with 51.37%. Charlie told me about a player with a new partner who was asked what happened with her previous one.  “Bridge divorce,”she replied.  We edged out Terry Bauer and Dottie Hart, who usually clean our clock.  In one hand playing 3 No Trump against them, I had eight sure tricks but needed a finesse to make the contract.  If it failed I’d go down two.  It worked!  I was very disappointed in the results in Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee; but, asMichael Moore said, Democrats swept the races in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio, the three states whose electoral votes in 2016 elected Trump, a tumor on the body politic that hopefully is receding in influence.

At lunch, Miller resident Douglas Simmons had told me I could find his books on Amazon.  His bio states: “Read, so that you may know. Write, so that you may tell what you know. Tell, that others to come may also know: The written word is the light that leads us all through the darkness that is ignorance.”  Well put. He continued,“Having been, over the years (along with lesser pursuits) employed as soldier, postal worker, carpenter, caterer, photographer, professional musician, a millwright, an overhead crane operator, and last to this day an adventurer who sometimes pauses to muse about his wanderings,without fail, no matter the diverse undertakings of my life, I have been a writer.”  In “Reluctantly Collected Poems” (2013) – Simmons would rather have his poems read one at a time - is one I particularly like titled “I Spoke”:

Thinking that I had no words;
I spoke no more.
Thinking I had done it all;
I closed the door.

Thinking I had heard the world;
I closed my heart.
Thinking to escape the pain;
I drew apart.

Then you were there laughing
At a voice I didn't hear.
Hoping I might laugh again;

               I spoke: to draw you near.  

As days shorten with winter in the air and snow predicted in 48 hours, I thought of “Homecoming” by Romanian-born Jew Paul Celan (1920-1970), who survived a Nazi work camp but intentionally drowned in the Seine River:

Snowfall, denser and denser,
dove-colored as yesterday,
snowfall, as if even now you were sleeping.

White, stacked into distance.
Above it, endless,
the sleigh track of the lost.

Below, hidden,
presses up
what so hurts the eyes,
hill upon hill,
invisible.

On each,
fetched home into its today,
as I slipped away into dumbness:
wooden, a post.

There: a feeling,
blown across by the ice wind
attaching its dove- its snow-
colored cloth as a flag.  

Sharp Dressed

“Black shades, white gloves,

Lookin’ sharp, lookin’ for love.

They come runnin’ just as fast as they can

‘cause every girl crazy ‘bout a sharp dressed man.”

         “Sharp Dressed Man,” ZZTop

Miranda's post: officially won "most over-dressed" 

For Phil, Robert Blaszkiewicz, and Jimmy Satkoski’s fiftieth birthday celebration, young women were dressed up to the nines while most guys opted for casual.  Our upstairs bathroom that afternoon smelled like a beauty salon, not that I’m complaining. Both Dave and I wore Helsinki t-shirts. It was perfect weather, and I spent much of the evening outside on the Shorewood clubhouse porch, where a nearby band played Jimmy Buffet and the Grateful Dead and fireworks periodically went off from several directions.  I talked to the Bayers about Dave and my Helsinki stay with Mike’s brother Joe and wife Jaana.  John English told me he was a high school exchange student in Tampere, Finland.  Two security guards observed teenagers playing cornhole and appeared to sniff their drinks to ascertain if they contained alcohol.  Dave and Jimmy Satkoski joked that had it been them at that age, the answer probably would have been yes. Dave welcomed them and by evening’s end they were eating birthday cake.

 Bayer family

Josh Leffingwell and Lane gang

Lisa and Fritz Teuscher with Phil

sharp dressed men; photos by Alissa Lane

Once karaoke got underway with Dave as m.c., things inside got lively, starting with Andrew English doing “Sweet Caroline.” Kirsten’s nine-year-old son Nick requested Imagine Dragons.  Miranda and Tori did a rousing Chainsmokers number that got everyone up dancing, and Dave persuaded former LINT bandmates Jimmy Satkoski and Hans Rees to harmonize on a couple REM songs.  Spotting Tom and Darcy Wade getting ready to leave, Dave put on ZZTop’s “Sharp Dressed Man” and Tom, Dave, Phil, and I did our by-now polished routine where we pretend to be playing guitars in sync.  A high point was Phil doing Clarence “Frogman” Henry’s “Ain’t Got No Home” and “My Chaw,” with lyrics he made up in high school to the tune of “My Guy.” His sisters dragged Anthony out onto the dance floor, but once there, he was a hit with the girls.  Afterwards, Toni brought home so much pizza that I’ll be having it for lunch all week and then some.  On Saturday I had made bacon and blueberry pancakes for our houseguests. On Sunday Toni cooked omelets.

Nephew Beamer and family drove in from Tremont, Maryland for the occasion, and at Chesterton’s European Market seven-year-old Nick observed a man make clever balloon creations. Beamer introduced us to the board game Gravwell, which we liked so much we played twice, with Phil winning each time.  Gravwell publisher Cryptozoic Entertainment provided this overview:

After being pulled through a black hole, four spaceships find themselves in a dimension with physics never before encountered and without fuel. By mining and collecting basic elements from the space dust and asteroids in the area, you can muster just enough thrust to move your ship. But in this bizarre dimension, gravity is not working like how you’ve been taught. Your ship will typically travel towards the nearest object… which is usually another ship… and those ships are moving. Sometimes forwards, and sometimes backwards. It’s a real mind—bender!

Cubs took 2 of 3 from Cincinnati to complete a 7-1 home stand.  In the rubber game, Jason Heywood, my favorite player, scored the lead run from first on a single by Javier Baez, something I hadn’t seen since a mad dash by Jose Cardenal during the 1970s.  Heywood had taken off for second on a hit and run and scampered home when the centerfielder took his time getting the ball back to the infield.

 Curtis Hill

Indiana lawmakers, led by Governor Eric Holcomb, are urging Republican attorney-general Curtis Hill to resign after four women accused the African American of groping them on March 15 while drunk at a party celebrating the conclusion of the legislative session.  He allegedly gave one a back rub, hugged another, slid his hand down one’s back under her clothes, and grabbed a fourth’s buttocks. The former Elkhart County prosecutor denies the accusations.  If reports of the egregious behavior are true, one wonders why colleagues did not intervene before things went so far.  Could it be because of his race?  In 2016 Hill garnered more votes than any office holder in Indiana history. Perhaps some Republicans viewed him as a threat and welcomed his comeuppance.

I dropped off my latest Steel Shavingsat Jackie Gipson’s house.  She was pleased to see Mayor Hatcher on the cover. Jackie had a house full, as her sister’s family and relatives from Atlanta were visiting.  I stumbled descending the porch steps, my right knee still weak from dancing to “Sharp dressed Man.”  I think Dave played a long version, and, of course, I stuck with it to the very end.

I invited Dave Serynek to be my book club guest and told him to arrive early if he wanted free bar food.  Gino’s did not disappoint, serving sausage with fried onions. A record crowd turned out to hear Rich Miroc talk about Chief Justice John Marshall.  I restricted my remarks to defending Jefferson for regarding Justice Samuel Chase as a threat to free speech and Aaron Burr as a scoundrel up to no good after killing Andrew Hamilton in a duel and heading west with several dozen armed filibusterers.  I introduced Dave to Roy Dominguez, Lorenzo Arredondo, and Brian and Connie Barnes; he enjoyed himself so much he added his name to Joy Anderson’s email address list.