State of Disunion

    “I rise today with no small measure of regret, regret because of the state of disunion, regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics, regret because of the indecency of our discourse.” Senator Jeff Flake (2013-2019), Republican critic of Trump

When I heard that Trump had given the Presidential Medal of Freedom to racist demagogue Rush Limbaugh during the State of the Union presentation, I was glad I’d been playing bridge at the time because I might have done damage to the TV.  Here’s Ray Smock’s take on the fiasco, titled "State of Disunion":

    Last night’s State of the Union address will go down in history as a formalized campaign rally, complete with wild cheers, applause, and chants of “Four More Years“ from the Republicans in the chamber and with silence punctuated by occasional jeers from the Democrats. It had all the elements of President Trump’s demagogic style. It was designed not for the brain, or even the heart, it was a punch in the gut to the president’s political enemies and a prelude to the coming campaign. As such, it will take its place in the annals of such addresses, as a sign of our divided times.

    Rush Limbaugh is the single most controversial broadcaster in the nation, and ranks with past spewers of hatred, conspiracy, and distrust of government, with the first radio demagogue, Father Charles Coughlin, the “Radio Priest” of the 1930s. Coughlin’s broadcasts reached 30 million listeners and featured economic and political attacks on Franklin Roosevelt's administration and the dangers of Jewish bankers. Coughlin was finally kicked off the radio in 1939 for his anti-Semitism and for espousing support for fascists like Hitler and Mussolini.

    To give this high honor to such a polarizing figure as Rush Limbaugh, a man who has been Trump’s mouthpiece in attacking his chief political rival, and to do it before a large television audience in the chamber of the House of Representatives was a sickening display of the Trump notion that if he does it, it’s OK, because he’s the president. Nobody else matters.  At the end of the speech, Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a clear show to her party and the nation that she wanted no part of the lies in the speech, or Trump’s use of the People’s House for his re-election campaign. She deliberately, and with emphasis, showed her disgust for the whole performance by tearing up copies of the president’s speech. The president did not see this at the time. His back was turned as he was leaving the podium. Earlier, the president refused to shake the Speaker's hand, when she offered it.

April Lidinsky posted this reaction: “Weep for our democracy in the hands of such craven people.  And VOTE.”  Alan Gardner emailed Smock: “Thank you for the review with an historical perspective that magnifies his shameless, sociopathic behavior. He sullies everything he touches, physically and verbally; and he leaves a proverbial slime trail behind him where ever he walks.”  

 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tears up State-of-the-Union speech

The following day, George Romney broke with fellow Republicans and voted to convict Trump of abuse of power.  As he himself predicted, the White House propaganda machine is leveling all sorts of insults against him.  Typical is Michael Kelleher’s asinine remark: "RINO scumbag.”  On the other hand, Jim Daubenheyer emailed: “Romney just became my second favorite Republican ever!”  I’m assuming the other was Abraham Lincoln.  Some pundits are calling the 2020 contest the most important since 1860, when Lincoln’s election precipitated Southern states seceding from the Union followed by the Civil War.  I’d compare the situation to 1932 although, unlike FDR’s landslide victory, I’m less confident in the result.  Many people I talk to are beginning to believe that only billionaire Mike Bloomberg can defeat Trump. A few timid Republicans expressed the hope that Trump would think twice before abusing his power again.  He answered by purging those brave enough to testify about his wrong-doing.  Unlike Bill Clinton, he is incapable of acting apologetic.

As always, I enjoyed partnering with Dottie Hart at bridge.  A half-century ago she lived in Gary’s Aetna neighborhood, and her four children attended Wirt High School.  Her house had been boarded up for some time, and, sadly, Wirt now sits vacant.  Several people I knew bought starter homes in Aetna when first finding work in Gary, including Post-Tribune managing editor Terry O’Rourke and Kate and Jim Migoski (a U.S. Steel computer specialist who got me to join the Electrical Engineers bowling team).  I had a 486 series bowling against Pin Short. Two frames in a row I left the 6-10 “baby” split.  After I picked it up the first time, daughter-in-law Delia’s uncles, Larry Ramirez and Eddie Lopez, clapped. Before trying for it again, I turned to them and said, “This will show if last frame was luck or not.”  After I again picked it up, their entire team cheered.  On the adjacent lane, friendly Judy Sheriff, who must be close to 90 and struggles to break 100, came over to tell me a pants cuff was inside my sock and noticed a scratch on my cheek.  “I scratched myself in my sleep; I do it every couple months, not sure why,” I told her.  “Nightmares?” she speculated.  More likely, just an itch.

Eddie Lopez, Larry Ramirez, Angel Menendez, Phil Vera at Hobart Lanes

In “When We Get to Surf City” Bob Greene mentions that the band members backing up Jan and Dean on the Oldies circuit frequently quote lines from the 1996 Tom Hanks movie “That Thing You Do,” about the Wonders, a group from Erie, Pennsylvania, playing in a 1964 Rock and Roll “Galaxy of Stars” caravan.  These include Faye lamenting “I have wasted thousands and thousands of kisses on you,” Dell saying, “Ain’t no way to keep a band together.  Bands come and go.  You got to keep on playing, no matter with who,” and Guy explaining, “It would be ungentlemanly for me to elaborate.”   When the band was performing at the Erie Seafood Festival, shortly before the set began, Greene used this line from “That Thing You Do”: “How did we get here?”  He was not being sarcastic despite the smell of dead fish and vomit wafting toward the stage.  To him it was “one more wondrous summer night.”

below Howard "Hopalong" Cassidy

Before a Jan and Dean concert taking place in Columbus, Ohio, following a minor league baseball game. Greene spotted a first base coach for the hometown Clippers, a New York Yankees affiliate, with No.40 on the back of his uniform – the same number 1955 Heisman Trophy winner Howard “Hopalong” Cassidy wore when he played for Ohio State.  Lo and behold, the coach turned out to be Cassidy himself, whom I had rooted for when he played running back for the Detroit Lions and, briefly, the Philadelphia Eagles.  A longtime friend of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, Cassidy passed away last September at age 85.  

 

Greg Hildebrand 

Toni and I traveled to South Bend, where Mayor Pete Buttigieg, currently a Democratic Presidential frontrunner, first made a name for himself, for our annual meeting with a TIAA adviser.  Thanks to IUN’s retirement plan that first kicked in for me 50 years ago, we are wealthier now than ever before.  Lake effect snow was coming down hard when we left Chesterton, but before long the sun came out, a rare sight this past week. On wealth management adviser Greg Hildebrand’s shelf were four different colored Legos on top of one another, perhaps a gift from one of his children.

In Jean Shepherd’s “A Fistful of Fig Newtons” I was pleased to find a third chapter dealing with when the author was a kid growing up in the Region, in addition to those on the Great Ice Cream War and Camp Nobba-Wa-Wa-Nockee.  Shepherd described tactics employed by kids sitting near the back of the classroom whose last names appeared near the end of the alphabet to avoid being called on by teachers at Hammond’s Warren G. Harding School. One kid slumped down in his desk, while the author was expert at keeping another kid between him and the teacher’s line of vision.  “I blessed the beehive hairdo when it became popular,” Shepherd wrote, and added:

    Fat Helen Weathers could sweat at will, surrounding herself with a faint haze cloud so that Miss shields could never quite see her in focus, believing that Helen was just a thumb-smudge on her glasses.  Perlmutter had a thin pale beaky face that you could not remember even while you were looking at him.  No teacher ever remembered his name or whether he was even there.  He’d sit for hours without moving a muscle, as anonymous as a pale hat rack.  

    Zyncmeister, a strict Catholic, sat so far behind even us that he spent his entire school career jammed up against the cabinet in the rear of the room where worn erasers, pickled biology specimens, and moldering lunches were stored.  His defense was religion; divine intervention.  The click of his beads as they were counted kept up a steady castanet beat during Miss Shields’s distant cluckings.  It seemed to work.

In Jean Shepherd’s “A Fistful of Fig Newtons” I was pleased to find a third chapter dealing with when the author was a kid growing up in the Region, in addition to those on the Great Ice Cream War and Camp Nobba-Wa-Wa-Nockee.  Shepherd described tactics kids sitting near the back of the classroom whose last names appeared near the end of the alphabet employed to avoid being called on by teachers at Hammond’s Warren G. Harding School. One kid slumped down in his desk, while the author was expert at keeping another kid between him and the teacher’s line of vision.

After eight years the Indiana State Board of Education, which took over Gary Roosevelt High School in 2012, terminated its contract with EdisonLearning.  In an editorial titled “State owes Roosevelt a future,”The Gary Crusader wrote that the for-profit education management company based in Fort Lauderdale earned over $31 million “while Roosevelt would remain with under-achieving students, a crumbling, neglected building, and now an uncertain future,” as a state-controlled management team has recommended that the 89-year-old structure be permanently closed.  Classes have been held elsewhere for over a year.  The Crusader concluded: “We hope the state will eat some humble pie before giving its final decision.  The state owes Roosevelt a future that it promised but failed to deliver.”

I watched IUN’s Lady Redhawks bow to an 18-3 St. Xavier Crusader’s team that was undefeated in conference play.  Several of their players, including Maddie Welter (no.3), were deadly 3-point shooters able to get off their shot lightning fast. Six-foot, four-inch Redhawk Breanna Boles (no. 32) dominated inside whenever teammates got her the ball down low but seemed to prefer tossing up 3-pointers, especially after her first one went in.  I noticed former stars Nicki Monahan and Grayce Roach were now assistants to Coach Ryan Shelton.

Saturday Evening Club met at Valpo Velvet ice cream shoppe, founded in 1947 and a veritable living museum with photos lining the walls and many flavors in large tubs behind the counter. Scott Brown, whose son Mike and daughter-in-law Catherine (above) own the factory and store, spoke on the world’s super rich, who control governments, are modern-day Robber Barons, and have taken to buying up luxury properties in places such as London, New York City, and Florida, and converted them into condominium suites that often remain vacant most of the year.  President Terry Brendel signed me up to speak next September on the topic “Novelists as Social Historians.”

Longevity

“The most important key to longevity is avoiding worry, stress, and tension.” George Burns, “How to Live to be 100”

Bob Hope and George Burns

The first centenarians that come to mind are Rose Kennedy (1890-1995), who outlived three of her four sons, including one killed during World War II and two (JFK and RFK) slain by assassins’ bullets, and comedian George Burns (1896-1996), who was appearing on Late Night shows in his nineties with a cigar, albeit unlit. Fellow comedian Bob Hope (1903-2003) once quipped that the secret to staying young was to hang around with older people.  Painter Grandma Moses (1860-1961) believed the secret to a long life is keeping busy.  Queen Mother Elizabeth (1900-2002) recommended living “as if tomorrow you’ll be run over by a big red bus.” Harry S Truman (1884-1972) claimed the key to longevity is taking a two-mile walk before breakfast. Jimmy Carter, our oldest former president, believed he still had more of God’s word to do on earth.  I have my blog, duties as Calumet Regional Archives co-director, occasional speaking engagements, plus bridge, bowling, and, most of all, family. Upcoming campus talks include “Prohibition in Gary” in Nicole Anslover’s American History class, and “1960: A Critical Year for Rock and Roll Music” for Senior College.

Newest finds at Chesterton library: The Flaming Lips performing “The Soft Bulletin” with Colorado Symphony Orchestra and a new Jimmy Eat World CD, “Survivor,” whose title song contains these lines:

In a lot of ways

You’re still that lost kid

You can still survive

But not exactly live

“Judy Ayers wrote about a “dear old friend” in the Winter 2020 Ayers realtors Newsletter:

    Laura Jones, born 102 years ago on June 30th, 1917, has known me longer than any other person on earth, having been a neighbor of my family since I was born and raised on Hancock Street just two doors away from where Laura lives today.  She was among the first group of students who went to Miller School and grew up with kids from the 8 or 10 houses at that time on Hancock Street. She remembers most of the houses being built. Miller was a full-fledged community at that time with businesses and professional offices. A good way to get to downtown Gary was to take the streetcar that traveled from Lake Street down what we know as Miller Avenue to Broadway. 

    Laura graduated from high school in 1936 but decided to take an extra year of classes in order to be able to work in an office. She remembers at that time women didn’t work outside their homes unless they were teachers or nurses. Because of her extra training, she was hired by a neighbor, Mr. Jackson, who was the head of the Gary office of Railway Express – a national package delivery service that used existing railroad infrastructure to safely and rapidly deliver parcels, money and goods during World War I. The office was located where the New York Central and B & O railways converged in Gary at 3rd and Broadway, and she worked there for 30 years. When the war started and most of the men working at Railway Express had been drafted or had enlisted, Mr. Jackson asked Laura to help people get on and off the train, point them in the right direction, and be the one to accept packages and deliveries. When the US Army took over the operation of Railway Express, she more than once had to convince the Army she was more than capable of doing her job and could actually be quite helpful. She has fabulous stories about animals on their way to Lincoln Park Zoo, traveling nuns, a dead guy in the men’s bathroom, two United States Presidents passing through – all just trying to get from one place to another.

    Laura met her husband, Sam, when he and his father, who owned a movie theater in Gary, set up a program during the war to show second run movies on week nights in local schools – Miller School being one. Sam had graduated from college with a degree in architectural engineering and was working at US Steel when drafted by the army. Because of his education and with further training in the military, he was assigned to a project and that didn’t allow him to give Laura much detail, nor could he tell Laura exactly what his role was and why he was transferred from Alabama to the University of Iowa to New York. Sam called her often, and during one particular call Laura told him she had been listening to the radio the night before and heard about the bombing of Japan. It was then Sam could tell her he had been working on the development of the “A Bomb.” Later he received written recognition for his military contribution.

    The message I get after spending time with Laura is not that her life has been one big, funny, wisdom-packed adventure. She certainly has the effects of physical decline, which she best describes with words not always befitting when spoken by a lady. She has trouble with her hearing aids and her vision is beyond poor. She moves from room to room, yet in her own home with the aid of a walker that should probably be fitted with a governor. Yet she always has a list of things she wants to accomplish – be it clean out a drawer, pay her bills or look forward to the next outing with her more than reliable and dedicated health care giver, Wayne. She delights in telling stories of days gone by, but she always talks about what she hopes to do tomorrow. Maybe the message before my very eyes is that happiness is a choice we make.  We probably shouldn’t worry about what might happen and then just adapt when it does.

“Curb Your Enthusiasm” is back on HBO for a tenth season.  The first several episodes deal humorously (some might say tastelessly) with Larry David being accused of sexually harassing women.  Sadly, Shelley Berman, who played his father Nat, passed away at age 92, and Bob Einstein, whose deadpan expressions were a hoot as Marty Funkhouser, died at age 77.  In a memorable season 4 episode titled “The Survivor,” Larry invites Holocaust survivor Solly (actor Allan Rich, born in 1926) to dinner and he has a heated argument with a guest named Colby who’d been on the reality TV show “Survivor” over how rough each had had it.  Here’s a sample of the dialogue: 

    Colby: So, here we are in a region of Australia where, out of the world's ten most deadly snakes, nine of 'em inhabit this region. It was harrowing. You come across a taipan on the trail, you get bit, you're dead in thirty minutes flat. 

    Solly: Oy, I'll tell you, that's a very interesting story, let me tell you. I was in a concentration camp! You never even suffered one minute in your life compared to what I went through! 

    Colby: Look, I'm saying- I'm saying we spent 42 days trying to survive and we had very little rations, no snacks... 

    Solly: Snacks? What you talking, "snacks"? We didn't eat sometimes for a week! For a month! We ate nothing!...

Toni and I enjoyed the Agatha Christie-inspired whodunnit “Knives Out” with an all-star cast that included Christopher Plummer as an 85-year-old mystery writer, Jamie Lee Curtis as his headstrong daughter, Daniel Craig (most famous for James Bond flicks) as a detective, and Don Johnson of “Miami Vice” fame. Looking for films we both might like, I discovered it was playing at the Cinemark in Valparaiso.  

Super Bowl LIV in Miami did not disappoint, especially the Latin-flavored halftime extravaganza starring Jennifer Lopez (50) and Shakira (43) defying the laws of aging in a high energy performance.  With JLo’s daughter Emme leading a children choir in a scene with children in cages, strands of “Born in the USA” could be heard when JLo unveiled a Puerto Rican flag.  I was pleased that Kansas City prevailed, just their second NFL championship, the first coming 50 years ago coached by Gary native Hank Stram, famous for shouting on the sidelines during Super Bowl IV, “Just keep matriculating the ball down the field boys!”   Kansas City had lost in the first Super Bowl when Gary native Fred “The Hammer” Williamson suffered a broken arm early in the contest.  Andy Reid, who had coached the Philadelphia Eagles for many years before joining the Chiefs, previously had the most victories by someone who had never won a Super Bowl.  Quarterback Patrick Mahomes again rallied his team from a ten-point fourth-quarter deficit on three touchdown drives to seal the 31-20 victory. 

 Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes in Disneyland

Gamblers bet millions on a myriad of Super Bowl scenarios, some as inane as the coin flip  or how long the national anthem would last.  One could wager on whether or not Mahomes would rush for more than 30 yards.  With just a minute remaining, he had gained 44 yards on the ground; running out the clock on the three final plays, he purposely kneeled down 5, 3, and 7 yards behind the line of scrimmage, reducing his total for the game to just 29, costing high rollers big bucks. Several friends posted a Trump tweet congratulating the Chiefs, who, he claimed, “represented the Great State of Kansas so very well.” Of course, the Chiefs play in Kansas City, Missouri.

In one of Barb Walczak’s final Newsletters she profiled bridge newcomer and Miller resident Gosia Caldwell, who owned a business in Poland but came to America 19 years ago to be a nanny.  Walczak wrote that in addition to bridge, Gosia “is a voracious reader, loves the theater, and likes to dance.”

 Chubby Checker in 2019

In “When We Get to Surf City” Bob Greene described watching a blond woman “in the shortest of skirts” rushing the stage during a Chubby Checker performance at an Oldies concert in St. Louis, leaping on him and wrapping her arms and legs around his neck and waist.  Chubby kept twisting as he sang, and Greene wondered how he kept from tumbling onto the stage floor.  Jan and dean played a Clearwater, Florida, hospital fundraiser with Jerry Lee Lewis, backed by Elvis Presley’s former lead guitar player James Burton.  Jerry Lee’s eyes looked both dead and angry, Greene wrote, like “someone who had been insulted in ways no one could understand.”  During the show Greene spotted a young woman whose t-shirt read, "JUST EAT ME.”  Back at the century-old Belleview Biltmore, recently purchased by a Japanese company, Greene met a woman in her 80s who’d been vacationing there for a half-century and once danced to a tuxedoed orchestra in its once ornate ballroom.

Small Farms

“Do what you love to do, and be around things that make you smile.  The cows make me smile every day.” David Jackson, Bentwood (Texas) Dairy

 David Jackson family at Bentwood Dairy

When I was growing up in the rural suburb of Fort Washington, PA, Wentz turkey farm was a mile from our house as well as the Van Sant farm, where seasonal work opportunities were available for teenagers. Living in Gary during the early 1970s, one could drive south on Broadway and come across farms later replaced by suburban sprawl.  In October we’d visit one to buy Halloween pumpkins; others sold Christmas trees. As teenagers during the 1980s Phil and Dave picked up spending money de-tasseling seed corn in rural Porter County.

Due in part to the expansion of agribusiness giants such as Monsanto, Cargill, and Archer Daniels Midland, the number of family farms in America continues to shrink by more than 100,000 since 2013, according to Time magazine.  Farm debt has rose close to $500 billion, and more than half of all farms lost money each of the past seven years.  According to the Department of Agriculture in 2017 the average farm size was 434 acres, and the number of small farms of less than 10 acres had shrunk to 273,000.  Farms of more than 2,000 acres accounted for 60 percent of total agricultural production.

 Mike Certa (3rd from left) in 2007 IUN retirement photo with Leroy Gray, Patti Lundberg, Florence Sawicki

Mike Certa wrote a piece titled “Two Treat Day” about visiting a dairy farm in Merrillville, Indiana, when he was a kid.

    When I was at Edison Elementary School in Gary, we were told that our class of “city kids” was going to have an outing to the “country” to see the Tony Smith Dairy Farm out in the wilds of Merrillville.  In addition to the farm, the Smith family ran a store as an outlet for their dairy products.  When I told my Mom where my class was going, she said, “Did you know that we’re related to Tony Smith?”  Of course, I didn’t.  Mom continued, “My grandma was Clara Schmit, and she was Tony Smith’s brother.  She was married to my Grandfather Michael Boesen.  Clara was my mother Anna’s mother.”

    I was confused and full of questions, “How come her name was Schmit and her brother’s name was Smith?  Who was Clara again?” Mom explained that the family came from Germany and that their name was originally Schmit.  Mathias Schmit and wife Catherin were granted possession of land in what is now Merrillville in 1852.  Their Grandaughter, Mom’s Grandma, Clara Schmit married Michael Boesen  in 1894. At that time, the entire family was known as Schmit.  During World War I (1914-1918), when Germany and America fought one another, many Germans living in American changed their names to more American sounding ones.  Schmit was changed to Smith.  When Tony (Schmit) Smith started his farm, he used his American name.

    Later I discovered what an amazing woman Clara (Schmit) Boesen was.  Widowed at an early age with four small children (Margaret, Francis, Raymond, and Anna), she began teaching school in Merrillville.  She later became the Griffith Postmistress, a post in which she served for decades.  Because of her job, she owned one of the first automobiles in Lake County.  Since she didn’t drive, she was chauffeured around by her youngest son, Raymond (also known in the family as Scotty).

    Mom remembered visiting her Uncle Tony’s farm with her mother and grandmother.  She told me to let them know that I was related to the owner.  She said, “Tell them that Tony Smith is your Great-Uncle.  Say that your mother is Cecelia Mae Govert from Griffith.”  The day of the school field trip she made sure that I took a piece of paper with me with that information on it.

    The bus picked us up in Brunswick.  As we got close to the farm, we could see cows in the fields and some barns.  The actual field trip is a bit of a blur.  They showed us the milking barn and some cows.  I was waiting for the visit to the dairy store for two reasons:  that’s where Mom told me to let them know who I was, and rumor had it there might be some sort of treat.

    Sure enough, once we got to the dairy store we were told we could get either a fudgesicle or a creamsicle.  When I got to the lady passing out the goodies, I said, “Tony Smith is my Great-Uncle.  My Mom is Cecelia Mae Govert from Griffith.”  The lady said, “What?  Who?”  I repeated my speech.  Still, the lady looked confused.  I pulled my piece of paper out of my pocket and handed it to her.  She took it and went into the back room, calling out to someone.  I don’t know who was back there, but when she came out she was smiling.  She said, “Well, since you’re a relative, you get a special treat.”  Then she gave me two treats: a fudgesicle AND a creamsicle!!!!!!!!!!  I was the envy of the entire class.

    Nowadays, when I drive past the intersection of Old Merrillville Road and 59th Avenue, and see the Smith Dairy Store (that is now across from Saints Peter and Paul Church), I think of that old location as part of my family’s history, enough to get me TWO ice cream treats. 

In 2018 NWI Times correspondent Jane Ammeson interviewed Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society president Roy Foreman, who recalled: “Smith's Dairy Farm on the north side of Merrillville gave tours to groups of school children and to Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops.”

Small Farms Apartments

Gary’s Small Farms on the west side near the Little Calumet River dates at least as far back as the 1930s.  Most homesteads are gone now, but Small Farms Apartments along 24th Avenue was constructed during the late 1970s, federally subsidized by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.  It is one of the neighborhoods included in a Flight Paths initiative I’m involved with as an oral historian. I ran into fellow participants Kay Westhues and Allison Schuette at a Gary Public Library reception organized by the Calumet Heritage Partnership titled “Calumet: The Land of Opportunity.” It included Calumet Regional Archives photographs and other items Steve McShane loaned them, including a Jackson 5 concert poster that caught my eye when I first arrived.  I chatted with colleague Ken Schoon, former IUN campus cop Ron Jones, labor activist David Klein, Gary librarians Maria Strimbu and David Hess, library board member Robert Buggs,former Gary council member Rebecca Wyatt, and Cedar Lake Historical Association director Julie Zasada, whose organization contributed a century-old sign advertising Bartlett cottages and who was one of the exhibit organizers. The buffet included chicken wings that thankfully weren’t so spicy as they appeared as well as miniature chocolate eclairs among the desert selections.

Robert Buggs, Kay Westhues, and Jimbo 

 ethnic kids at Gary's Bailly Branch library, 15th and Madison, 1922

Ron Cohen found a copy of Jean Shepherd’s “A Fistful of Fig Newtons” (1981) that contains a chapter titled “Ellsworth Leggett and the Great Ice Cream War” that begins with the author returning for a funeral to his hometown of Hammond, Indiana, which “stood craggy and sharp against the grayish multi-colored skies of the Region [and] resembled a vast, endless lakeside junkyard that had been created by that mysterious wrecking ball known as Time. . . An adult theater was on the very site on which the proud Parthenon theater had reposed, named after the Parthenon itself of ancient Athens.  It had been famous for its elegant lobby and its graceful Fred Astaire movies.  Now, TOPLESS MUD WRESTLING and dealers in greasy film cartridges shot in the cellars of Caracas.  Where Clark Gable was once the king, Linda Lovelace now reigned.” Shepherd contrasted his nondescript rental car with the old man’s Pontiac Silver Streak 8: 

    With its three yards of gracefully tapering obsidian black hood, its glorious Italian marble steering wheel with gleaming spidery chromium spokes – a steering wheel that could well hang on the walls of the Museum of Modern Art – its low, menacing purring classic Straight 8 engine, it bore as much resemblance to this 85-dollar-a-day tin can as the Queen Mary does to a plastic Boston whaler. 

    A giant dump truck roared past me, flinging bits of gravel and what appeared to be molten tar over my windshield.  Heavy diesel fumes rolled on my window.  I frantically tried to crank it up, but naturally the handle came off in my hand.  I flung it under the seat with a snarl, there to join the handle from the other door and the empty Pabst Blue Ribbon can thoughtfully left for me by the previous renter.

On the evening of the “war” between The Igloo’s owner Mr. Leggett and an ice cream franchise that had opened across the street from his ice cream emporium, the old man had taken the family out to “watch the mill”:  Shepherd wrote:

  “Watching the mill” was a special treat known only to the residents of the Region.  On hot nights people would drive to the lakefront and park in the velvet blackness near the shore to watch the flickering Vesuvius fireworks of the blast furnace and the rolling mills across the dark water.  Cherry-red ingots and sepia-shaded orange glowing sprays of sparks flung high in the air by the Bessemer converters made a truly beautiful and even spectacular sight as the hissing colors were reflected in the black waters of Lake Michigan.

    The smell of the lake was part of it, of course, Lake Michigan, that great, sullen, dangerous, beautiful body of water, is, in midsummer, like a primitive reptilian animal in heat.  For miles inland on such nights,  the natives can “smell the lake.”

    Not until I left the Region as a semi-adult did I realize that not everywhere was the northern sky a flickering line of orange and crimson, a perpetual man-made sunset.

Bridge opponent Lila Cohen recommended Tara Westover’s “Educated: A Memoir,” about the daughter of Mormon survivalists in Idaho home-schooled until she was 17, who, remarkably, earned a PhD from Cambridge University.  Lila had reviewed it for an AAUW publication.  Fred Green mentioned suffering a career-ending football injury at Indianapolis Brebeuf in eleventh grade. A linebacker and pulling guard, he’d been recruited by Notre Dame and West Point.  In “A Fistful of Fig Newtons” Jean Shepherd recalled being an intrepid defensive lineman at Hammond High where he “irrevocably shattered the ligaments of my left knee.” At a table with feisty 89-year-old partner Dottie Hart playing against two equally feisty octogenarians, we started the three hands late because our opponents had to use the bathroom. When we finished before the four other tables, one said, “Well, I guess we had time to use the restroom.”  I replied, “Yes, you’d even have had time to go number 2.”  She said, “TMI” – standing for too much information, a criticism she frequently gets from her grandchildren.  We all had a good laugh.

In Banta Center’s library I found Bob Greene’s “When We Get to Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreams,” about the author’s unlikely 15-year gig as a backup singer at Oldies concerts for surf duo Jan and Dean.  “Surf City,” Jan and Dean’s first Number One hit, contains the line, “Surf City, where it’s 2 for 1, two girls for every boy.” Another couplet goes: “When we get to Surf City, we’ll be shootin’ the curl and checkin’ out the parties for a surfer girl.”  Greene compares his experience at middle-age to a kid’s fantasy of running away from home and joining the circus. Invited up on stage for the first time, he spotted headliner Chuck Berry waiting in the wings, mouthing the words to “Help Me Rhonda,” the Beach Boys hit Jan and Dean were covering.

Ray Smock 

Ray Smock shared an open letter constitutional scholar Richard Bernstein wrote to his former law professor Alan Dershowitz, which reads in part:

     I never thought that you would stoop so low as to embrace the pseudo-monarchical conception of the presidency treasured by President No. 45 and by those who enable him and do his bidding. Today, sad to say, those of us who are constitutional historians, who remember Watergate, and who know that a president of the United States is not a king of any kind are consumed with disgust, contempt, and revulsion by your embrace of the idea that a president can define the national interest by reference to his desire to win re-election, and that nothing but a violation of criminal law resulting in indictable felony can be an impeachable offense.

    You disgrace the legal profession, you disgrace this country, and you disgrace yourself by what you are saying in seeking to argue that No. 45 cannot be impeached except for an indictable felony.

At Cressmoor Lanes the impeachment trial was on TV but mute, no doubt a rehash of arguments repeated ad nauseum.  Instead of real cross-examination, the Democrats questioning the House managers and the Republicans tossing softball questions to Trump’s lawyers. I rolled a 450 series, slightly above my average.  My only double came in the final frame and helped the Engineers eke out series over Frank’s Gang.  Mark Garzella, disgusted with the Cubs, is switching loyalties to the White Sox.  I’m considering doing it, too, and told him I had been a Sox fan when former Philadelphia Phillies great Dick Allen was with the team. Jim Rennhack, a tall lefty, said he met Allen when invited to the Phillies’ spring training camp in Clearwater, Florida, right out of high school 50-some years ago. He was not offered a contract but received a check for $5,000.

Paul and Julie Kern, on the final leg of a 2500-mile road trip to visit their son in California, noticed a church sign near my favorite watering hole when I’d visit Midge, Pappy and Harriet’s, a haven for old hippies and the young at heart.

Changes

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.  Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow.” Lao Tzu

In an email titled “Change Is Coming” bridge Newsletter editor Barbara Walczak (above) announced that she is ending her tenure after 1000 issues.  While she hopes someone will take over what seems like a herculean task, that seems unlikely. Admitting that she is “worn out,” Barbara wrote: “I have begun this labor of love 14 years ago, and I’ve come to a time when I wish to pursue interests other than concentrating so heavily on bridge.  There are so many other things to do in life.”  I responded: “Say it ain’t so!  We’re losing a vital historical source.  Let me know if you wish to deposit your photo files or other items to your collection in the Calumet Regional Archives.”

Completing Ralph Kiner’s “Baseball Forever,” I noticed the word DISCARDED on the front cover.  The culprit: Valpo Public Library, just 15 years after the book’s publication.  Kiner had harsh words for executive Branch Rickey, who broke the color line while with the Brooklyn Dodgers but did not add any African-American players to the Pirates roster during his unsuccessful five-year tenure in Pittsburgh.  After the 1952 season, during which the Pirates finished the cellar, he wanted to cut the slugger’s $90,000 salary 25% despite his having led the National League in home runs, saying, “We can finish last without you.” Rickey ended up trading Kiner to the Cubs.  Kiner admits that when a Mets broadcaster, he was known for malaprops, such as calling his press box sidekick Tim MacArthur rather than McCarver, catcher Gary Carter Gary Cooper, and sponsor American Cyanmid American Cyanide.  Oops!  He once claimed that “if Casey Stengel were alive today, he’d be spinning in his grave.”  

 Ralph Kiner and first wife, tennis star Nancy Chaffee

Thrice married, Kiner also dated actress Janet Leigh for three weeks until a jealous Tony Curtis returned from a movie set and reclaimed her.  Years later, Kiner ran into Jamie Lee Curtis, and without missing a beat she exclaimed, “Daddy!”  That night, Kiner did the math and realized that Jamie Lee was joking.  Kiner became friends with many Hollywood celebrities, including Bing Crosby and Bob Hope and like them, made his home in Rancho Mirage near Palm Springs, where my mother spent her final years.

 

On HBO Saturday I watched “The Horse Whisperer” (1998) starring irresistibly sexy Robert Redford, Kristin Scott Thomas as his love interest, and Scarlett Johansson (I was delighted to discover) as a 13-year-old who became traumatized after a riding accident that killed her best friend, caused her leg to be amputated, and severely injured her horse Pilgrim.  Later Toni and I braved the snow to dine with the Hagelbergs at Longhorn Steakhouse, finally exchanging Christmas presents after a month of being unable to find a mutually agreeable date.

Sunday I went to an Aquatorium fundraising event, the screening of “The Bridges of Toko-Ri” (1954), starring William Holden as Navy Lieutenant Harry Brubaker and classy Grace Kelly as wife Nancy.  One of the few movies dealing with the unpopular, inconclusive Korean War, it focused on a World War II bomber pilot unwillingly called back to active service despite having a wife and two daughters and a successful practice as an attorney.  For comic relief 5’2” Mickey Rooney plays a pugnacious helicopter pilot; for gravitas the veteran Frederic March was Rear Admiral George Tarrant.  In one hilarious scene the Brubakers visit a Japanese bath house, and uptight Nancy makes Harry get in the water before the kids can see him naked.  To their surprise a Japanese family arrive to use the adjacent pool; when they disrobe, Nancy shields the girls until they are in the water.  Soon the two families exchange pleasantries, with the children, unlike Nancy, unconcerned about skinny-dipping.

 Ted Williams; below, John Rudd senior yearbook picture

Beforehand, host Greg Reising explained that like the main character, many pilots, known as “dual draftees,” were called on to serve both in World War II and Korea. One of these was baseball great Ted Williams. I chatted with several familiar Millerites, including realtor Gene Ayers (who recently met with IUN student Casey King to discuss Frank-N-Stein Restaurant), Nelson Algren museum founders Sue Rutsen and George Rogge (about an April speaker's new book on photographer Art Shay), and John and Catherine Rudd, a couple I introduced myself to, who turned out to be 1976 Lew Wallace grads.  John was wearing a Wallace swim team jersey, and we discussed past Hornet basketball stars, such as Jerome Harmon, Tellis Frank, and Branden Dawson.  I told them that in 1976 IUN held its commencement ceremony in the Wallace gym.

 MJ and Kobe

In the car I learned the shocking news about basketball great Kobe Bryant, 41, dying in a helicopter crash, along with eight others, including his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, who had hoped one day to play in the WNBA and whom Kobe coached in a league he’d founded.  They were on their way to a game despite heavy fog.  A quarter century ago, Bryant had gone right into the pros from Lower Merion High School in the Philadelphia area and tried to emulate his hero Michael Jordan in the way he talked, dressed, practiced, and played through illness and injury. In a moving eulogy Jordan wrote: “I loved Kobe – he was like a little brother to me.” Some criticized the NBA for not cancelling games later that day, but players honored his memory in gestures of respect on the court and in public statements.

That evening the GRAMMY awards took place at the Staples Center, where Kobe played his entire 20-year NBA career; his jersey, number 24, stayed illuminated throughout the show.  Hostess Alicia Keys and Boys to Men sang a special tribute to Bryant’s memory.  The live performances were awesome and included a few old-timers, including Billy Ray Cyrus in a Lil Nas X number, Gwen Stefano in a duet with Blake Shelton, Tanya Tucker backed by Brandi Carlile, and Arrowsmith performing “Walk This Way” with Run-D.M.C. Lizzo, as always, was incandescent and obviously shaken by Kobe’s death.  Honoring the lifetime achievements of Chicagoan John Prine, Bonnie Raitt sang “Angel from Montgomery,” whose chorus goes like this:

Make me an angel that flies from Montgom'ry
Make me a poster of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing that I can hold on to
To believe in this living is just a hard way to go

While Vampire Weekend won a GRAMMY for best alternative album, my choice would have been Jeff Tweedy and Wilco’s latest, “Ode to Joy.” I particularly like “An Empty Corner,” which includes this verse:

Now that I’m not longed for

Wild life seems wrong

Won’t care, won’t stare

You’ve got family out there

“Everybody hides,” Tweedy sings in one of the album’s best songs, but the folky selections are surprisingly candid at times.

 Michael Griffin, George Van Til, Richard Hatcher, 2018

Assisted by Samantha Gauer, I interviewed former IUN student and Lake County surveyor George Van Til for a second time, in the Calumet Regional Archives. We covered his introduction to politics at age 23 in Highland town government and years of service as a precinct committeeman, learning lessons that facilitated his becoming county surveyor and proved useful on the way to winning 16 of the 17 times he ran for elected office.  The one loss came early in his career as a result of the last-minute entry of a spoiler candidate.  He later had the pleasure of handily defeating that person.  The 60 minutes flew by.  George considered it good preparation for his February book club appearance and motivation to resume working on an upcoming autobiography.

 

Timothy Vassar’s “Jeremiah Wasn’t Just a Bullfrog: A Story of Passion, Pursuit, Perseverance . . . and Polliwogs” contained a 1974 photo of him wearing a Mayor Hatcher Youth Foundation t-shirt with nine African-American AAU summer track and field teammates.  Vassar explained: “I was recruited out of Highland [after his sophomore year] to be part of this team and was honored to be part of an exceptional group of athletes.”  In the book he described being on the 880-yard relay team with athletes from Gary Roosevelt and West Side, track and field powerhouses coached by Willie Wilson and John Campbell:

    All of the team members were black.  Except one.  I felt like the middle layer of an Oreo cookie.  Practices were held at Gary Roosevelt in the “Midtown” section of Gary.  At that time, Gar had a reputation as a violent, crime-ridden city.  As I was warming up during the first practice, I carried my “spikes” with me.  One of my teammates, Jimmie Williams, began to jog with me and asked why I was carrying my spiked shoes.  I told him I didn’t want anyone to take them.  He told me that wasn’t a problem because “Track is sacred in Gary.” I dropped my spikes right then and never worried about them again. As the summer season progressed, our relay team of Michael Johnson, Lawrence Johnson, Robert Buckingham, and I qualified for the state championship.  As we were warming up for the event, I asked Michael, a 9.6 sprinter, what he needed from me.  He simply said, Just get me the baton.”  I did just that.  It was awesome to see Michael, Lawrence, and Robert finish out the race with a huge lead.  Lawrence went on to play football for the Cleveland Browns during the “Kardiac Kids” days.  All three of my teammates were far more talented than I was, and it was a blessing to be part of that relay team.

Jerry Davich wrote a Post-Tribune column on Brent Schroeder, 55, who during the 1980s and 1990s played with such heavy metal bands as Prisoner and Hap Hazzard. Schroeder grew up in Boone Grove idolizing KISS and AC/DC and in high school formed the band Panama Red, which learned such numbers as “Cocaine” and “Highway to Hell” and got banned from a local talent show. After working as a welder in Chicago and playing area bars, Brent took his band to Hollywood, “flirted with success” (Davich’s words), and came back to the Region to sober up and eventually form a new band Midwest Cartel.  After suffering a stroke in 2011, brent wrote a memoir titled “Heaven Became Hell.” He’s been shot by Los Angeles gang members and stabbed and hit with a broken bottle while flirting with a guy’s girlfriend. Commenting on his shaved head, Schroeder remarked: “I see guys with long hair like that, I say, ‘Hey dude, the ‘80s are over.’”  At present Schroeder is back in Boone Grove living with his 83-year-old father who, wrote Davich, “never quite understood his son’s lust for life as a brash young rock’n’roller.”

Ray Smock wrote:

  Taking notes as Trump attorneys create alternative narrative. Was amused by argument that Trump did not go to Warsaw, Poland to meet President Zelensky on Sept. 1 because he had to manage Hurricane Dorian. You will recall that Trump used a Sharpie to show the hurricane would hit Alabama and spent the next 4 days in a tweet fight with our own weather experts. He can sure manage a disaster!

Jonathyne Briggs invited me to his freshman seminar class on Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.  The reading assignment included excerpts from Norman Mailer’s “Miami and the Siege of Chicago.”  The students were soft-spoken and reticent about discussing an event that must have seemed to them like ancient history.  Briggs engaged them by relating what happened to things students were familiar with, such as recent protests over abortion and gun control, the death of Kobe Bryant, and contemporary TV programs. I mentioned that Gary was one of the few cities that avoided rioting following the assassination of Martin Luther King and that I cast my first vote in 1964 for Lyndon Johnson because he promised “no wider war.”  

Because students seemed unfamiliar with Mailer, I mentioned that beginning with a 1960 Esquire article on John Kennedy, “Superman Comes to the Supermarket,” the novelist began to concentrate on what became known as “New Journalism” that made no pretense of objectivity and that his account of the 1967 antiwar march on the Pentagon, “The Armies of the Night” was an instant classic.  I stifled a desire to read my favorite paragraph from “Armies” describing what he (and I, marching with fellow Marylanders Ray Smock, Pete Daniel, and Sam Merrill) witnessed on that memorable day:

    The trumpet sounded again. It was calling the troops. "Come here," it called from the steps of Lincoln Memorial over the two furlongs of the long reflecting pool, out to the swell of the hill at the base of Washington Monument, "come here, come here. come here. The rally is on!" And from the north and the east, from the direction of the White House and the Smithsonian and the Capitol, from Union Station and the Department of Justice the troops were coming in, the volunteers were answering the call. They came walking up in all sizes, a citizens' army not ranked yet by height, an army of both sexes in numbers almost equal, and of all ages, although most were young. Some were well-dressed, some were poor, many were conventional in appearance, as many were not. The hippies were there in great number, perambulating down the hill, many dressed like the legions of Sgt. Pepper's Band, some were gotten up like Arab sheiks, or in Park Avenue doormen's greatcoats, others like Rogers and Clark of the West, Wyatt Earp, Kit Carson, Daniel Boone in buckskin, some had grown moustaches to look like Have Gun, Will Travel-Paladin's surrogate was here!-and wild Indians with feathers, a hippie gotten up like Batman, another like Claude Rains in The Invisible Man-his face wrapped in a turban of bandages and he wore a black satin top hat. A host of these troops wore capes, beat-up khaki capes, slept on, used as blankets, towels, improvised duffel bags; or fine capes, orange linings, or luminous rose linings, the edges ragged, near a tatter, the threads ready to feather, but a musketeer's hat on their head. One hippie may have been dressed like Charlie Chaplin; Buster Keaton and W. C. Fields could have come to the ball; there were Martians and Moon-men and a knight unhorsed who stalked about in the weight of real armor. There were to be seen a hundred soldiers in Confederate gray, and maybe there were two or three hundred hippies in officer's coats of Union dark-blue. They had picked up their costumes where they could, in sur- plus stores, and Blow-your-mind shops, Digger free emporiums, and psychedelic caches of Hindu junk. There were soldiers in Foreign Legion uniforms, and tropical bush jackets, San Quentin and Chino, California striped shirt and pants, British copies of Eisenhower jackets, hippies dressed like Turkish shepherds and Roman senators, gurus, and samurai in dirty smocks. They were close to being assembled from all the intersections between history and the comic books, between legend and television, the Biblical archetypes and the movies. The sight of these troops, this army with a thousand costumes, fulfilled to the hilt our General's oldest idea of war which is that every man should dress as he pleases if he is going into battle, for that is his right, and variety never hurts the zest of the hardiest workers in every battalion.