Squeeze Inn

“The hourglass has no more grains of sand 

Little red grains of sand

My watch has stopped no more turning hands

Little green neon hands”

    “Hourglass,” Squeeze

Steve Spicer posted a photo of a century-old cottage at Miller Beach known as Squeeze Inn that Chicagoans used in the summer. “When the original Squeeze Inn was cobbled together is unknown,” Spicer wrote, “but it was located somewhere between the mouth of the Grand Calumet, quite possibly where the Aquatorium is today.” When the City of Gary began developing Marquette Park, the building was ordered razed, but a sorority purchased a lot further east for 500 dollars and a New Squeeze Inn opened on July 4, 1921. Spicer found a hundred-year-old article by Edith Heilman in the Forest Park Review, written upon returning from chaperoning sorority sisters for two weeks during the final summer of the original shack’s existence.  Here is an excerpt, thanks to Miller historian Spicer:

 “Squeeze Inn,” in cold, geographical terms, is a shack-and-porch a mile from Millers Beach, Millers, Ind.

Practically speaking, it’s a little bit of heaven dropped from out the skies. Sunny days and star dotted nights and the lake breeze make it so. Sand flies and a giant species of mosquito are the rift in the lute. But let us dismiss them!

As before stated, they call this place “Squeeze Inn.” But whoever presided over the christening rites missed his guess. It should have been called “Squeeze Out!” We are heaps more out than in, and some of us bubble over even from off the porch and sleep on the sand with the stars for our canopy.

Picture if you can a shack 18 by 10 feet with a complement of a porch 18 by 18 feet; porch bigger than the house, you will note. The house proper holds cooking utensils and clothing and at present is so crammed with both that a human being hasn’t room to more than wiggle into and out of her bathing suit.

The cooking is done out of doors on an improvised stove, and I want to say right here that if you are finicky or “set” in your ways, stay away from the “Squeeze Inn!” Sand and charcoal is the basis of most of the menus, but what cares youth for such trifles?

And the girls themselves! Tall, short, black heads and blond – with a charming red head thrown in for spice! And when they all line up in their gayly colored bathing suits they’re a sight for sore eyes.

Fifty weeks out of the year they are stenographers, bookkeepers and general office girls. Out here for two carefree weeks that are Dryads of the Woods and Belles of the Beach!

Spicer discovered that the origin of the unofficial sorority Tau Omega Tau Sigma (TOTS) was an organization the young women joined during World War I, the Girls Patriotic Service League and that Edith Heilman had been their sponsor. The TOTS girls, as they called themselves, and their families used the second Squeeze Inn until the 1950s.

 

Growing up in a Philadelphia suburb, the main places to vacation were the Jersey shore and the Poconos. My parents preferred the Poconos; and after two bad experiences using a tent began renting a cabin at Lake Minneola along with the Jenkins family. It wasn’t a shack, but it was not very luxurious either. What I recall most vividly was the open porch where we’d play cards and flypaper hanging up to which were attached its victims. Most of our excursions to the shore were day trips, but after my freshman year at Bucknell, my fraternity rented a place for a week that became as crowded as Squeeze Inn. I recall sleeping on a couch with a coed I had met earlier in the day. We were both pretty drunk and didn’t do any heavy petting. I saw her once after that but otherwise we went our separate ways.

 

In “Rabbit at Rest” Harry drove by his childhood neighborhood (something Terry Jenkins and I did the last time we were together) and recalled his bedroom, with tinker toys, rubber soldiers, lead airplanes, and stuffed teddy bears lined up on a shelf. I shared a bedroom with my younger brother and recall that on one shelf were adventure books on cowboys and the wild west by someone with the strange name of Holling C. Holling. We also had numerous board games, including Parcheesi and Chutes and Ladders, and sometimes we’d combine them so you’d have to have your tokens go onto the second one after completing the route on the first.  Updike wrote:

 On the radio Harry hears that Mike Schmidt, who exactly two years ago, on April 18, 1987, slugged his five hundredth home rum against the Pittsburgh Pirates, is closing in on Richie Ashburn’s total of 2,217 hits to become the hittingest Phillie ever. Rabbit remembers Ashburn.  One of the 1950 Whiz Kids who beat the Dodgers the fall Rabbit became a high school senior.  Curt Simmons, Del Ennis, Dick Sisler, Andy Seminick behind the plate.  Beat the Dodgers the last game of the season, then lost to the Yankees four straight.

I was in third grade when the Phillies played the Yankees in the 1950 World Series. The games took place in the afternoon, and Miss Worthington let us listen to them on the radio.  My dad had tickets for game 5, which never took place because the Yankees swept all four games.  I watched the final one on a Saturday at the Jenkins house; we didn’t have a TV until a year later.

 

Final Jeopardy in one of the college tournament semi-final rounds was impossibly hard.  The category was Presidential geography and the clue was, birth place of a nineteenth-century president named for another president.  All three contestants wrote Lincoln, Nebraska, but the answer was Cleveland, where James Garfield is buried.  The two leading players bet almost everything, enabling someone far behind them to win.  An IU student also made the finals.

 

Chancellor Bill Lowe announced that there would be no annual “Years of Service” luncheon due to the university being closed due to Covid-19.  Even though my name was not on the list of honorees, I emailed that I had planned to attend since I’d been associated with IUN for 50 years (having been hired, along with Ron Cohen in 1970) and that I had hoped to congratulate my friends Kathy Malone, Suzanne Green, and Tim Johnson, on their 40 years of service. Bill emailed back, congratulating me on 50 years of service and lamenting all the campus events that faculty and students are missing.

Mayor Pete

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

photo by April Lidinsky

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Lorrell D. Kilpatrick

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

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

Yu Zhang, second from left

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dean Bottorff posted these kind words on Facebook:

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

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

 Barbara Wisdom and Rock Fraire

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

M*A*S*H*

“File this garbage under garbage!” Col. Henry Blake in M*A*S*H*

We had a full condo over the weekend, as 6 Michiganders and Beth from Indy arrived to witness James in the Portage production of “M*A*S*H*” and Becca in the Chesterton musical “Little Shop of Horrors.”  Not a regular M*A*S*H* viewer during its 11-year TV run, nor a fan of Allen Alda, who played Hawkeye Pierce, I preferred Donald Sutherland, who had the role in Robert Altman’s more hard-hitting 1970 film.  Nonetheless, I was part of the record audience that tuned in the 1983 CBS two-hour finale.  Dealing humorously with a fictional Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in Korea during America’s “police action” nearly 70 years ago, the play contained characters familiar from the series, such as “Hot Lips” Houlihan and “Radar” O’Reilly, but not the cross-dressing Maxwell Q. Klinger.  James was Colonel Henry Blake, McLean Stevenson in the TV series.  When Stevenson left after the 1975 season, the producers killed him off in a plane crash as he was returning stateside.  Last year in “E.R.,” the character James played suffered a fatal heart attack on stage, but James as Colonel Blake made it to the play’s end.  At the Friday opening, however, while the stage was dark, unbeknownst to the audience, James fell six feet into the orchestra pit.  Amazingly, he landed on his feet with no apparent ill effects. I shudder every time I think about it. A half-century ago, IUN prof Les Singer broke a leg in a similar mishap.

 James on right and M*A*S*H* cast

On stage James was an absolute joy to behold, booming out dialogue with facial expressions registering various states of annoyance, anger, impatience, and sarcasm.  The large cast included a humorous trio of USO entertainers (Mitzi, Fritzi and Agnes Bonwit) and several Korean villagers. Ho-John was played by Korean-American Braxton Craigin, who plans on joining the marine corps and becoming an aviation engineer.  His best line: “In America, when you are hungry, you eat something called the French fry and the overheated dog.”   Two talented African Americans had significant parts, Rondale Hendricks, who played “Spearchucker” Jones and Daniel GoShay as Captain John ‘Ugly” Black, who made out onstage with one of the nurses.  I liked when the cook played guitar and sang the M*A*SH* theme song “Suicide Is Painless.”

Sitting behind us were the aunt, grandmother, and great-grandmother of Jordan Johnson, who was perfect as bumbling Private Lorenzo Boone, Colonel Blake’s go-fer.  The program revealed that this was the junior’s first theatrical experience and that Jordan is outgoing and writes poetry.  James wrote that he loves playing Henry (“but don’t call me Henry” – an oft repeated line in response to wiseacre Hawkeye) and enjoys cracking puns.  I laughed out loud when he uttered the line: “File this garbage under garbage!”  Also in the program was a tribute to Bill Bodnar, who recently passed away, and information on how to contribute to a scholarship in his name. The announcement began:

For 38 years, Bill Bodnar touched the hearts and souls of thousands of Portage students as he directed over 100 plays, variety shows, and Air Band contests.  His love of theater and his students was evident in his work.

Both Phil and Dave were big admirers and participated in his productions.  In an Air Band contest Dave and friends appeared as the Sex Pistols (the name was censored from appearing in the program) and were eliminated because Dave Joseph ran out onto the apron of the stage. Mr. Bodnar confided to David afterwards that his group won the balloting by a landslide despite having been disqualified.

 Becca in Little Shop of Horrors

Because Becca had the role of killer plant Audrey II in “Little Shop of Horrors,” we only saw her face in the opening and final scenes.  Like a trooper, she belted out her musical numbers despite having battled a cold all week.  Toni and I took Alissa to a production at IUN when she was 5, and she called it the “Little Shop of Horribles” after everyone got eaten.  A biker dentist who abused his girlfriend was the first victim, to the audience’s satisfaction, but then Audrey II got more bloodthirsty. After watching the movie, we had kept assuring Alissa that the main characters would not suffer such a fate only to be proved wrong.  She wouldn’t talk to us during the entire car ride home. We joked about it, but she didn’t find it humorous at the time.  On Facebook Angie’s dad John Teague wrote: “Almost ran away to Hollywood as a teenager to be an actor! It runs in our blood to be on stage, I'm glad to see my grandchildren fulfilling my dream!”

Toni made huge pots of chili and sausage vegetable soup, and we alternated cooking breakfast for our houseguests.  I got in several games of euchre with Phil, Dave, and Josh, while the women played bananagram, a take-off on Scrabble.  Alissa and Josh discussed their plans to visit Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon over Thanksgiving.  Most everyone else will be returning in a few days for a turkey dinner.  Tori has been accepted at several Michigan colleges plus the University of Hawaii, one of my alma maters.  Intriguing, although she’s leaning towards Grand Valley State, where Anthony goes and Alissa works.  Miranda asked what I thought of all of us living in a mansion in Grand Rapids.  I joked that my next residence will be an assisted living facility and, more seriously, that it would be difficult to move away from IUN.  I hope to get in 50 years and outlast English profs Alan Barr and George Bodmer.

While sleeping on an air mattress downstairs, Josh came across “Dinner with DiMaggio” (2016) by Dr. Rock Positano.  The “Yankee Clipper” still holds the record for hitting safely in 56 straight games. Because he retired in 1951, I have no recollection of ‘Joltin’ Joe” as a player except in documentaries, such as in Ken Burns’ series on baseball.  More vivid is his pitching Mr. Coffee on TV and publicity surrounding his brief marriage to Marilyn Monroe.  When divorced from showgirl Dorothy Arnold, Joe received a summons from Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who admonished him not to wed the blond movie star. Joe stormed out of the room and essentially told the cleric to go to hell.  DiMaggio’s hero was Lou Gehrig (1903-1941), the “Iron Horse,” a clutch hitter and team player who nurtured him when he was a rookie and appeared, often hurt, in 2,130 straight games over a 14-year span. Joe told Positano that when Gehrig revealed to him in private that he was too ill to keep playing the game he loved, the two of them shed tears together.

 Yankee Clipper

Though the author idolized Joe DiMaggio (1914-1999), he comes off as a conceited pain in the ass, especially to waiters, tailors, and other underlings whose service didn’t meet his exacting standards.  He was also a mooch; as the author delicately put it, if a restauranteur sent anyone to his table and then expected him to pay, he never returned.  On several occasions, Positano took DiMaggio to an art gallery that displayed a sexy photo of Marilyn Monroe in the men’s room. Positano would alert the staff about impending visits, and they’d temporarily replace it with one of Salvador Dali.

DiMaggio remained bitter over losing three seasons to Uncle Sam during World War II.  Unlike his contemporary Ted Williams (the better hitter of the two), who was an ace air force pilot, DiMaggio had a sinecure as a physical education teacher and played in exhibitions to entertain troops.  Like Frank Sinatra, he associated with mob-connected club owners, but the press gave him a pass in deference to his exalted status.  In “Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life” (2000) Richard Ben Cramer documented his vanity and obsession with maintaining an image of manly reserve.  Crotchety Clint Eastwood would be a perfect candidate to play an elderly DiMaggio. He became an odious Mr. Scrooge who skipped funerals of friends and basically wrote off a weakling son. If there was something in it for him, however, the “Dago,” as teammates called him, could turn on the charm. DiMaggio loved recounting when Yankee pitcher Lefty Gomez fielded a bunt with a runner on first and heard a coach yell, “Throw it to the Dago.”  Italians Tony Lazzeri and Frankie Crosetti were stationed at second and short, but Gomez hurled the ball to Joe out in centerfield.

Josh and Alissa are “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fans, so I mentioned my regret that Shelly Berman, Larry’s father in the series, passed away prior to the new season.  Berman was an acerbic stand-up comedian 60 years ago during an era when comedy record albums were big sellers.  “Inside Shelley Berman” (1959) was the first Grammy winner in the category of spoken comedy recording.  He’d pretend to be on the phone and accused Bob Newhart of stealing his routine.  Newhart claimed the concept had a long tradition going back to George Jessel in the 1920s.  Bill Cosby and Redd Foxx put out albums that, especially in Foxx’s case, were raunchier than their routines on TV.  Others who had success with the genre included Jonathan Winters Woody Allen, Allen Sherman, Don Rickles, and George Carlin.

Since their game wasn’t until Sunday evening, I got to see the Eagles rout the hated Dallas Cowboys, 37 to 9.  At one point Philadelphia scored 30 unanswered points. Because their place kicker got hurt, Philadelphia opted to go for 2-point conversions after TDs.  My Fantasy wide receiver Alshon Jeffrey scored one and later caught a TD pass to yield Jimbo Jammers 14 points.  I defeated Kira (“The Cougar”), 116-84, snapping her 8-game winning streak.

above, Staple Singers; below, Mavis and Bob Dylan

Blues great Mavis Staples revealed that longtime friend Bob Dylan had proposed during the 1960s.  We were courting and smooched and cuddled, she admitted.  In 2002 the two recorded several duets, including “Slow Train Coming,” and last year did shows together.  She considered Prince, who produced two albums for her in the 1980s, her son and called David Bowie the “ultimate gentleman.”  In 2016 The Guardian’s Jude Rogers wrote:

Humility runs like a thread through Staples’ career. She was born in Chicago in 1939; her father, Roebuck, known as Pops, grew up on a Mississippi plantation, learning guitar from delta blues legend Charley Patton, before forming the family band. Mavis was called Bubbles by her mum on account of her cheeriness.  By 13, Mavis was out on the road, getting extra homework for missing school on Mondays (she’d be singing at churches on Sundays). It was wonderful, she insists. “It wasn’t like the Jackson 5 and poor Michael – I didn’t miss my youth. We’d rehearse at home and then I’d go out to jump rope if it was summertime. I didn’t miss my prom neither!”

 

A young songwriter complained to “Dear Amy” of being stressed out over her mother dying and her boyfriend vanishing.  Amy Dickinson replied: “Joni Mitchell has some things to say to you.”  “Reckless Daughter,” David Yaffe’s new biography of the Canadian folksinger, describes Mitchell as a survivor whose music radiates melancholy and a longing for meaning.  On the 1971 album “Blue,” the opening number, “All I Want,” begins:

I am on a lonely road and
I am traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling
Looking for something, what can it be

 LaVar Ball

How low can Trump stoop?  Chinese authorities detained three UCLA basketball players for shop-lifting, including LiAngelo Ball, son of outspoken promoter LaVar Ball. Afterwards, Trump claimed credit for helping them get released and tweeted that Ball was an ingrate for not expressing his appreciation.  According to Politico.com:

“Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail!” the president wrote on Sunday in the first of two posts on the subject. “Shoplifting is a very big deal in China, as it should be (5-10 years in jail), but not to father LaVar. Should have gotten his son out during my next trip to China instead. China told them why they were released. Very ungrateful!”

Charlie Rose is the latest celebrity to be fired for past behavior demeaning women.  The avuncular host of CBS This Morning was the closest thing to our generation’s Walter Cronkite. I watched him regularly while eating breakfast.  Eight women told the Washington Post that he had made unwanted advances in the form of lewd phone calls, disrobing in front of them or groping their breasts.  Apologizing for the inappropriate behavior, Rose stated: “I always felt that I was pursuing shared feelings, even though I now realize I was mistaken.” One former producer admitted responding to complaints by saying, “Oh, that’s just Charlie being Charlie.”  Announcing the news, Norah O’Donnell and Gayle King looked stricken.  “I have to say, Norah, I really am still reeling,” King confessed, adding: “I got an hour and 42 minutes of sleep last night. Both my son and my daughter called me. Oprah called me and said, ‘Are you OK?’ I am not OK. I’ve enjoyed a friendship and a partnership with Charlie for the last five years. I have held him in such high regard and I’m really struggling because… what do you say when someone that you deeply care about has done something that is so horrible? How do you wrap your brain around that? I’m really grappling with that.”

Last week, it was George H.W. Bush’s turn for public shaming.  Six women, including one who was 16 at the time, accused him of grabbing them on the ass during photo ops. Bush spokesman Jim McGrath admitted that the former president “has patted women’s rears in what he intended to be a good-natured manner.”

IUN Chancellor Lowe 

Chancellor Bill Lowe’s guest column in the Post-Tribune on the importance of completing a college education and titled “Preparing the region’s students for the Knowledge Economy” concluded on this personal note:

      While in college, I was very fortunate to have held hourly jobs with employers who not only valued my work but often evinced pride in having a college student work for them. From dishwasher to delivery driver, it was these roles that provided me with valuable working experience and career lessons from which I learned a great deal that contributed substantively to building my professional future.  My employers saw something in college attendance beyond the hourly work I performed. They recognized the larger social and economic good, for me, their communities and the country.

      So, I ask this of Northwest Indiana employers: Please encourage the college students who work for you to make progress toward completing their degrees. Provide them with the necessary accommodations so they can successfully balance the competing responsibilities of college, work and family. And, most important, show them you care not only about their individual futures but the future vitality of this region.  By doing so, employers will contribute to a "virtuous cycle" that pays off in a better-educated, more economically prosperous region, ripe for the challenges, and opportunities of the Knowledge Economy.