Ramblin'

“Lord, I was born a ramblin’ man

Tryin’ to make a living and doin’ the best I can.”

   “Ramblin’ Man,” Allman Brothers Band

On the cover of Rolling Stone is Obama interviewed by publisher Jann Wenner.  Also is the issue is a tribute to Levon Helm of The Band and an excerpt from Gregg Allman’s “My Cross to Bear.”  A hitchhiker killed Allman’s dad when he was a toddler, and brother Duane died in 1971 in a motorcycle accident.  Gregg admits that his drug and alcohol addiction torpedoed his marriage to Cher.  No mention how they got tattoos from Glen Park’s Roy Boy.  In 1973 “Ramblin’ Man,” written and sung by Dickey Betts, became the Allman Brothers Band’s biggest hit.  Based on a song of the same name by Hank Williams, Sr. The single reached number two, surpassed only by Cher’s lame “Half-Breed.”

On the anniversary of Navy SEALSs killing Osama bin Laden President Obama flew to Kabul to announce victory over al-Qaeda is within reach and that our primary mission will be to train Afghan troops.  Republicans, who had been criticizing Democrats for supposedly politicizing the death of bin Laden, mostly kept their mouths shut.  Nine years ago Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” on board the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, a gesture he later regretted.   Romney, contrary to statements he made in 2007 that he wouldn’t have violated Pakistan sovereignty to strike at bin Laden, quipped that “even Jimmy Carter” would have approved the mission – a crack that even Republican Joe Scarborough thought unfair and misleading.  In truth both Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had misgivings about giving the OK to the SEALs mission.

Robert Caro’s “The Passage of Power,” covering the years of LBJ’s vice presidency and first months as president, got a big splash in “The Smithsonian” and the Sunday “New York Times Magazine.”  Caro despises Lyndon the person but admires his skill following JFK’s assassination and shepherding liberal legislation through Congress.  Caro is in his mod-Eighties, so one doubts if he’ll ever complete the biography.

Getting my PSA blood work done took about an hour.  An 88 year-old WW II air force guy starving for company started up a conversation.  Delia’s Aunt Elba checked me in.  Last time I hardly felt the prick, but the nurse did three or four unsuccessful probes in my arm before asking if I mined her using my hand.

Proofreading Henry Farag’s “The Signal” in preparing for it to become an eBook renewed my appreciation of his unique talents as a writer, performer, and producer.  His account of growing up in the Tolleston neighborhood of Gary is also great social history, dealing with gangs, teenage haunts, relationships between the sexes, politics, and race-relations.  The program Henry’s son Ryan used to create a word document was remarkably efficient.  Except for mistaking “rn” for “m,” (i.e., tumed instead of turned) and capital “O” for zero (0), the main errors were too many spaces between words.

Angie bought odometers for herself and the kids.  Doctors recommend that adults walk about ten miles a day.  I’m probably good for about half that.

I’m pondering having Fall students keep a daily log of how many miles they drove and to where. Here’s what one of mine would look like: Thursday, May 3, drove to Jewel and back (one mile) for ice cream, beer, and ingredients for tuna and macaroni casserole; took back “City of Fortune” to Chesterton library and picked up a Subway cold cut foot-long before arriving at IUN (total of 20 miles); visited W.E.B. DuBois library on Eighteenth and Broadway (one mile) to peruse a 1942 Roosevelt yearbook for information about William Marshall; drove 16 miles to East Chicago Central for tennis match against Hanover Central (a 3-2 victory for the Lady Cardinals with four of the five matches going three sets and the number one doubles team of Katie Lipa and Jackeline Fernandez winning on a third-set tie breaker); arrived back in Chesterton in time for Flyers OT loss to Jersey Devils (25 miles).

I’m having trouble in my research into Gary actor William Marshall.  His nephew was helpful on the phone but hasn’t answered my written queries.  The FBI has been giving me the runaround regarding my Freedom of Information Act request.  He’s mentioned in a file pertaining to a so-called Communist Front group, the Committee of the Arts Against Repression but for some reason I can’t see the documents.  The Roosevelt yearbook I looked at belonging to the Gary library’s local history room is missing the page containing Marshall’s senior photo.  I did find him, however, in a Men’s Glee Club photo and in a senior play cast photo of “Our Town.”

The May history book club will meet at Gino’s in Merrillville, where I had lunch with the son of former Indiana attorney-general Theofore Sendak’s son. We’ll discuss a biography of Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff.  I found a 1972 scholarly work by Michael Grant that mentions that her lineage was Greek, not Egyptian, a descendent of Alexander the Great.  First married to a kid brother (incest being royal tradition), she had affairs both with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.  Her elaborate spectacles were held not out of decadence but to cement the loyalty of subjects as the earthly embodiment of goddess Isis.  In 33 B.C. Mark Anthony stabbed himself after losing the naval battle of Actium and Cleopatra then succumbed from a self-inflicted deadly bite of a cobra.

Finally emailed Marylander Sam Walker, who wrote a history of the early years of ACC basketball between 1953 and 1972, after finding his address in the sports jacket I wore to Ray Smock’s Distinguished Alumni lecture.   The ACC was formed with football in mind, but in time the basketball rivalries were much more intense.  Sam wrote an excellent account of 1944 Gary Lew Wallace grad Vic Bubas, who played for North Carolina State and then coached Duke for 11 years beginning in 1959.  Bubas started out as assistant at NC State to Everett Case, whom Sam calls “the man who made ACC basketball” because he inherited a mediocre program and made it so competitive that rivals had to up their efforts to keep up.  Bubas was a great recruiter, working on prospects early in their high school careers and snagging such All-Americans as Art Heyman and Jeff Mullins.  His Blue Devils teams won 213 games, and made three Final Four NCAA appearances.  Contemporaries included coaches Bones McKinney at Wake Forest and Frank McGuire at North Carolina.  The 85 year-old Bubas went on to become commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference for some 15 years.

Aaron Pigors taped me at the Archives in connection with the time capsule opening next week.  Jack Buhner, who’s attending the graduation day events, started teaching at the old IU Extension in 1948 and helped secure the present location of the campus in what was then Gleason Park.  While I got in some information about Buhner, most of Chris Sheid’s questions had to do with my memories of Tamarack Hall (originally Gary Main), which was recently razed and whose cornerstone contained the time capsule. I mentioned summer musicals Phil and Dave were in as kids, including “Hello Dolly” and “Finnegan’s Rainbow,” and lively lunch discussions in the lounge adjacent to my office with the likes of George Roberts and Leslie Singer.

Exactly 70 years ago 26 year-old Charles Kikuchi wrote from Tanforan, California: “I saw a soldier in a tall guardhouse near the barbed wire and did not like it because it reminds me of a concentration camp.  I feel like a foreigner in this [internment] camp hearing so much Japanese although our family uses English almost exclusively.”

Vietnam vet Jay Keck sent me a book of poetry put out at IU-PU at Fort Wayne entitled “Confluence.” He liked Jessica Wilson’s untitled poem that contains these lines: “There’s nothing you can do but keep on holdin’ your ground/ Keep your head up and get ready for the next round/ Count your blessings and be thankful for today/ Because we all know tomorrow’s not guaranteed anyway.”

At the Library

“Staring across the room
Are you leaving soon?
I just need a little time.”
“At the Library,” Green Day

I am trying to locate Gary Roosevelt yearbooks from the early 1940s to see what actor William Marshall was up to in high school. Since the downtown Gary library closed at the end of last year, I don’t know how to gain access to its Indiana room. Archives volunteer Maurice Yancy said that most old yearbooks that were once in Roosevelt’s school library are missing, pilfered probably, and he was pessimistic about me have better luck in the Indiana Room. In IUN’s library stacks I found four good books about African Americans in the movies and television, including Daniel J. Leab’s “From Sambo to Superspade.” On Facebook Sam Barnett, aka Samuel A. Love, posted a video of Green Day’s “At the Library” and wrote: “Just reminding that not a single library closed in this country during the Great Depression! The rationalizations of why so many are closing now are miserable lies.” Two Gary firemen visited the Archives today because the downtown library was inaccessible.

Mike Olszanski is going on a union bus with Paul Kaczocha and Dr. T. Iverson to protest state legislators trying to ram through a right-to-work law. He writes: “Maybe we should plan on sleeping there until these Republican jerks get the idea. No RTW!!!!” Democrats are again threatening to boycott the session.

Karren Lee asked me to distribute flyers announcing that Gail Archer, a Grammy nominated organist, will be performing at St. Mary of the Lake Church in Miller a week from Sunday. Was glad to oblige. Vickie ran some off, and Scott Fulk of Student Life stamped them approved.

Jonathyne Briggs reported that his AHA session on “Cold War Kids: The Ideologies of Punk in the East and West” went fine and was well attended. His paper was entitled “Force de Frappe: Rock against Communism in Socialist France.” He has asked Chancellor William Lowe to talk about Ireland in his spring class on terrorism. That would be fun to attend. The first course topic will be the American Revolution. Imagine – our founding fathers were terrorists.

Yesterday I bought a pair of comfortable boots at Bass Pro Shop in Portage, my first visit there. Grandson Anthony likes to go there and use their archery target. Merrell boots, recommended by nephew Tom Dietz, seemed too heavy duty and cost three times as much as the Redhead pair I purchased.

After watching “Homeland” on Showtime, I checked out an episode of “Californication,” a series in its fifth season starring David Duchovny as a writer who bedded down three women in a half hour. In each case Duchovny was on the bottom, allowing the camera to capture action shots of the actresses naked from the waist up. Episode one began with Duchovny fantasizing about receiving a bj from a nun. Evidently the show has been on the air since 2007 and Duchovny is a Golden Globe winner. Judging from what I have seen on the premium cable channels at least one soft core porn scene is almost obligatory – not that I’m a prude and complaining. In one scene the writer’s 12 year-old daughter tells him that there’s a naked lady in his bedroom and something must be wrong with her because she doesn’t have any hair near her vagina.

More dead bodies were uncovered on the Italian cruise ship “Costa Concordia,” which crashed into a rock and tilted over on its side. Captain Francesco Schettino, who took the ship too close to shore and then abandoned ship on a lifeboat before most passengers were evacuated, has been put under house arrest.

Wikipedia is blacked out all day in protest over a proposed piece of legislation that, to quote the online encyclopedia, “could fatally damage the free and open Internet.” In sympathy Google has inserted a black rectangle over its logo. Three times I tried unsuccessfully to access sites. I did manage to find a YouTube clip of William Marshall appearing on a 1964 episode of “Bonanza” entitled “Enter Thomas Bowers.” General Motors, the sponsor, threatened to withdraw from the program upon learning that Marshall and two other black performers, Ena Hartman and Ken Renard, would appear, but the corporation backed down after confrontations with NBC and the NAACP. Marshall played a celebrated opera singer who faces arrest because some believe him to be an escaped slave. In the end he sings a selection from Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville.” Strikingly handsome with a rich baritone voice, he was fantastic.

Vietnam vet George Rasmussen came across my blog about the death of Jim Tolhuizen and informed me that he was wounded by the same sniper who shot Jim on May 10, 1970 during the Cambodian invasion. He added: “Everything that you wrote in your article about Jim was right on the money. The good friend that he said died in a rocket attack was Paul Stepp. I sent in a picture of Paul, and it is posted on the virtual wall web site. Based on everything I've read about Jim on the Internet, he was a well liked member of the faculty, a good friend and it appears that he made good use of the additional ‘time’ he was granted.” I sent George a copy of my “Vietnam Veterans from the Calumet Region” Shavings issue.

Ray Smock sent me an email entitled “C-SPAN’s Kinkiest Moment.” He goes on to say, “The National Constitution Center has posted a Twitter link to a part of my 2005 C-SPAN interview where I tell the story of how I became Ben Franklin’s body double. But here is the real reason for looking at this. This is a record setting appearance. I am the only historian to have ever appeared on C-SPAN in my underwear. This is a record to be proud of. It is, perhaps, the kinkiest thing C-SPAN has ever done.” Sure enough, one shot shows Ray in black briefs.

At lunch math professor Jon Becker said he took my Vietnam War class in 1984. He and psychology prof Karl Nelson discussed cell phones being classroom annoyances and students accessing Facebook rather than taking notes. Missing was the normal English department contingent. I noticed that Alan Barr is showing the x-rated “Last Tango in Paris” in his film class, starring Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci.

Talked Toni into making steak sandwiches with mushrooms and onions for dinner. Dave “Duke” Kaminsky bowled for me because I attended the January condo board meeting at Bernie Holicky’s place, where the main issue was whether or not an owner should be allowed to have a whirlpool adjacent to his back deck. Bernie was formerly a librarian at Purdue Calumet. IU was up by seven against Nebraska when I left but lost 70-69.

Lions and Lambs

“Got shackles on, my words are tied
Fear can make you compromise.”
“Houdini,” Foster the People

Harry Houdini had no trouble with shackles but wasn’t ready for the sucker punch that fatally burst his appendix. The Foster the People “Houdini” line about compromising reminds me of the Counting Crows line in “Round Here” about talking like lions but sacrificing like lambs. Talk about sucker punches: Mitt “the shit” Romney’s Super PAC did a number on Newt “the hoot” Gingrich, who emerged from the Iowa caucuses, to quote one pundit, like a wounded lion eager to exact his revenge. To eke out a quarter of the votes frontrunner Romney continued to compromise his beliefs (if indeed he has any) pandering for votes from the Religious Right. He’s done a one eighty on abortion and buckled on global warming. We’ll see if he turns out to be the Ed Muskie of 2012. As Matt Taibbi wrote on his Rolling Stone blog, what did all the sound and fury in Iowa mean: absolutely nothing. He points out that the candidate who raises the most money wins more than 94 percent of the time. In Romney’s case, it was by eight votes over former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. Tea Party sacrificial lamb Michele Bachman is gone, and Rick “the prick” Perry is probably next.

Speaking of lions, the final words of Steve Jobs allegedly were, “Oh, wow, oh, wow, oh, wow!” Did he see a shining light at the end, one wonders, or just a black abyss? Did he feel great pain or liberation from same?

Save for catching a cold, the holidays went great. Got in numerous card games. Grandchildren abounded for a week, and numerous good friends dropped in, including Hagelbergs, Horns, and Wades. For Christmas I received a lumberjack shirt (Phil got matching ones for himself and Dave), slippers, jelly, the CDs “Torches” by Foster the People and “Lisbon” by the Walkmen (from Alissa’s boyfriend Josh), and “Seabiscuit” author Laura Hillenbrand’s “Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption” (from daughter-in-law Beth). Robert Blaszkiewicz’s annual CD of his 20 favorite songs of the year included Foster the People’s hit “Pumped Up Kicks” as well as numbers by veterans WILCO, the Feelies, and REM. On Wednesday December 27 the last folks to leave were Phil, Beth and Alissa plus Angie and the kids.

Talked to old classmates Mary Delp, Gaard Murphy, Phil Arnold, Bob Reller, and Wayne Wylie, who informed me that John Magyar passed away. A starter on Upper Dublin’s basketball team, he and his brother Mike used to shoot hoops at my place. Rel’s son is a high-ranking naval officer. I told him about nephew Fritz working at Notre Dame in the navy ROTC program.

Thursday 12/29 an Asian lady trimmed my toenails at L.A. Nails ($5), got my hair cut at Quick Cut ($12), picked up an airport bus schedule in Portage (I’ll have to go to Highland to catch my Saturday 7 am flight to Hawaii), and stopped at Town and Country for groceries. I discovered the HBO series “Game of Thrones” On Demand. It’s got plenty of violence and nudity but grabbed my attention immediately. Filmed in scenic Northern Ireland, it deals with families vying for control of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. In short order I watched the entire ten episodes of season one. The spectacular final scene features a funeral pyre for Dothraki warlord Khal Drogo, whose wife Khaleesi emerges from the fire nude but unscathed with three newborn dragons. Bring on season two, due in April! Aside from Khaleesi, the most fascinating character is nine year-old Arya Stark, daughter of Lord Eddard, the right hand man of the king (shockingly beheaded at the end of episode nine) and a willful tomboy to the core.

On Friday, opening day of Game Weekend at the Halberstadts, I had an amazing streak of luck, winning five of seven games, including Small World, Seven Wonders, Medici, and the new hit Revolution. It was so popular someone ran to buy the expanded version, which accommodates up to six players. In Wits and Wagers a question asked how many times members of Congress applauded during one of Bush’s 49-minute State of the Union addresses. I guessed 59; the answer was 58. Since you can’t go over, the person who wrote down 44 got credit, not me. Dave went ahead nailing the number of Olympic medals Carl Lewis won (ten), but I rebounded knowing when the movie “Casablanca” came out (1942). We both knew the final answer, 1789, the year of George Washington’s first inaugural, but I had more money to bet.

Game Weekend attendance, up from last time, included John Hendricks from Wisconsin, the Davis family from Fort Wayne, and several guys from Indianapolis who had met Jef at gaming conventions. One was Patrick Malott, works for a video game company in Austin, Texas, called BioWare. His t-shirt had a logo of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, one of the games he works on. I was teaching three of them St. Petersburg when a little kid spilled an entire glass of pop in the middle of everything in a bid to gain his dad’s attention.

Saturday I finished last in Revolution, caught up in a turf battle with Charles Halberstadt and stymied by Patti Davis employing a strategy similar to one I used the day before, but Sunday my luck returned with victories in Amun Re and Acquire (in a four-player game that Evan Davis would have pulled out if it had lasted one turn longer). One treat was playing in a game of Air Baron with Evan, who had invented the game. When Hendricks bragged about besting him, Evan replied that many folks could claim that honor.

No interest in the final week of the NFL season since Eagles and Bears were out of playoff contention but loved watching Indiana upset number two Ohio State 74-70 in a nail biter. Even though freshman Cory Zeller had trouble scoring and fouled out with three minutes to go, Christian Watford, Victor Oladipo and Jordan Hulls came through in the clutch. Bulls have won four of five and are fun to watch with MVP Derrick Rose.

Monday, January 2, being an official holiday, Fred Chary invited me to watch the annual NHL outdoor classic featuring Flyers against Rangers. Lake effect snow and a lingering cold kept me home, but we were in phone touch like during the 1970s. Despite being awarded a penalty shot in the final minute, the Flyers succumbed due to superior goal tending by Ranger Henrik Lundqvist. Between commercials I got into “Unbroken,” about Louis Zamperini, who competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics before becoming a bombardier during WW II, who survived being adrift in the Pacific and incarceration in a Japanese POW camp. He was an incorrigible hell-raiser as a child until an older brother channeled his energy into long-distance running.

Tuesday the IUN library opened after 12 days, and a hundred emails awaited me, including messages from high school friend Pat Zollo (about mutual friend Paul Curry, who died in Vietnam) and grad school buddy Ray Smock (who is delivering the annual alumnus speech April 2 at Maryland). Niece Andrea reported that it is sunny with highs in the 80s on the Big Island of Hawaii and that she and Seattle Joe can’t wait for Tom and me to arrive. Cafeteria was virtually deserted save for Alan Lindmark, who supposedly retired in December. Ron Cohen’s son Josh, visiting the credit union, recognized me and showed off a photo of his son, who looks just like him. “I call him Mini-Me,” he said with a grin, referring to a character in an Austin Powers movie.

Steve McShane received an email from the nephew of Kathryn Hyndman, who discovered that we have her aunt’s jail diary in the Archives. Steve is sending him my “Age of Anxiety” issue and invited them to the Archives.

Wednesday at the credit union I ran into Leroy Gray, formerly head of IUN’s Financial Aid office. We ended up having lunch and reminiscing about Region high school basketball and gushing over IU’s present number 12-ranked team. He asked about my former colleague Paul Kern, and I inquired about Ernest Smith, who moved to the Houston area a couple years ago.

Researching the career of Gary-born actor William Marshall, I discovered that among the half dozen productions of “Othello” that he starred in, one was a 1968 jazz musical with Jerry Lee Lewis playing Iago. In 1953 he was in the first TV series starring black actors, “Harlem Detective,” until blacklisted for being a member of two supposed communist “front” groups. A lion, he was friends with W.E.B. DuBois.

Steve McShane informed me that a researcher named Katie Turk will be visiting the archives to do research on the Kingsbury ammunition plant during World War II. My old friend Paul Turk’s daughter has the same name.

DeeDee Ige convened a pre-planning meeting of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion group in advance of a lunch date Friday with Chancellor Lowe. Many Gary residents were outraged when an able faculty member was denied tenure and then, after she died, few members of the administration attended her memorial service. My role will be to suggest ways to increase meaningful contact between the Gary community and the campus.

Librarian Audrea Davis gave me a copy of a 2010 report the Jeff Johnson Institute compiled on recommendations for community engagement and relationship-building. One suggestion was to launch an “Ambassador program” utilizing faculty, staff and students in making the community aware of university events and vice versa. Staff members such as Kathy Malone and Mary Lee already have assumed such a role and Ken Coopwood helped establish a black student leadership group, but more use could be made of former administrators such as Leroy Gray(Financial Aid), Bill Lee (Admissions), F.C. Richardson (Dean of Arts and Sciences) and Barbara Cope (Dean of Student Affairs). When former chancellor Peggy Elliott took the reins at South Dakota State, Barbara Cope and Bill Lee helped her recruit area Black students. Why not enlist them to do the same for IUN? I’d also like to see former chancellor Hilda Richards welcomed back to campus events. Unfairly maligned by those who would have preferred a WASP male leader, she was a good person who got two buildings built and the social work program launched.

Jeff Johnson also recommended “arts focused” special events. We do a good job celebrating Martin Luther King’s birthday, and coming up is a program commemorating the Freedom Riders of 50 years ago. Two other possibilities are a symposium recalling the historic 1972 National Black Political Convention at West Side High School and an event honoring the memory of Gary-born Shakespearean actor William Marshall and his mother Thelma Marshall, for many years head of the Lake County Children’s Home. William Marshall’s daughter Gina Loring is an accomplished poet and hip hop performer as well as a political activist. Gregg Andrews, who wrote a biography of Thelma’s sister Thyra Edwards, emailed that Gina performed at his campus and “to say that she WOWED our students would be an understatement.” He added: “I’m sure she’d jump at any chance to perform where her grandmother made such an important contribution to the community of Gary.”

The last time Jeff Johnson was on campus, he spoke with and listened to interested members of the IUN community. Perhaps he should be invited back to interact with Gary residents who still believe the campus is too aloof and insensitive to issues of diversity and inclusion.

I helped the Engineers win five points against the Town Drunks by bowling my average (barely). In the one close game Dick Maloney doubled in the tenth and finished with a 203.On the other team were Joe Piunti and his three sons, plus Chris Lugo, who bowled for us one year. I told JP, as I call Joe, that the family that bowls together stays together. Dave has been taking James bowling Saturday mornings, and we talked about an excursion with Phil over Christmas, but it didn’t happen. Too many other things going on.