Jesus Is Just Alright

“I don’t care what they may say

Jesus is just alright, oh yeah.”

    Doobie Brothers

I put on The Doobie Brothers’ Great Hits CD to hear “China Grove” but really dig “Jesus Is Just Alright with Me.”  First recorded in 1966 by the Art Reynolds Singers, the Byrds released a version in 1969 and the Doobies recorded it in 1972 even though the band members weren’t particularly religious.  As one told a reporter, however, what’s the point in being an atheist and believing that once you die, that’s it?  It became a crowd favorite at concerts, and hippies in the Jesus Movement took the “just alright” to mean cool, as in someone who cares about the poor, the sick, and others considered losers by the larger society.

In the social history of IU Northwest that Paul Kern and I produced one of my first students, Milan Andrejevich, recalled that because his parents took lots of vacations, he’d have parties while they were gone, resulting on one occasion in a blown speaker that I was complicit in causing.  “Lane loved to dance,” he said, “and was always trying to put on the Doobie Brothers’ ‘China Grove.’”

Talk about coincidences.  Colin Kern asked his Facebook friends to copy the fifth sentence from p.52 of the book they’re reading.  On that page in “Valor” Roy Dominguez and I quote from “Educating the Calumet Region,” the Shavings issue I did with Colin’s father, where Donald Young is quoted as saying this about the IU Northwest Police Chief who mentored the future Lake County sheriff: “Chief Andy Lazar made you realize that mistakes happened but that one should learn from them.”  Paul Kern posted this sentence: "While I was carrying on this debate in my own mind, a crowd of Spaniards arrived, led by their major-domo, who, with the headstrong rashness of his race, bade them go in and take the vase and give me a good beating."

Tuesday felt like autumn, and fewer IU Northwest students were showing bare midriffs, legs, and arms.  In the Student Union party games were in progress, including two folks playing Twister.  When Milton Bradley put out the game in 1966, critics accused the company of marketing sex in a box.  Indeed at parties where women wore mini-skirts the pretzel-like gyrations could be quite revealing.  Now a half-century later it has acquired respectability and is enjoyed by all ages. 

The Business Division free barbeque featured hot dogs, burgers, chips, cookies, and pop.  In line were my Tuesday lunch buddies, and I chatted with Anne Balay’s daughter Emma about her New Zealand experiences as an extra in “The Hobbitt.”  She attended Anne’s Gender Studies class on “The New Momism” (the myth that women are only truly fulfilled through motherhood) and Tiger Mothers (a phrase from Amy Chua’s tough love handbook “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”

Vying with stories about Romney’s latest political gaffe (insinuating at a private fundraiser that the 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay taxes are freeloaders) and anti-American riots in the Arab world from Libya to Pakistan is the furor over the French magazine Closer publishing photos of Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Windsor, sunbathing topless.  The Royal family is threatening to sue even as Kate and her hubby, the heir to the British throne tour Malaysia seemingly unfazed by it all. Nude photos of Prince Harry cavorting with Los Vegas party girls recently were making the rounds.  Those Royals love to get naked.

Tom Higgins’s daughter Nancy asked friends to send him happy eightieth birthday wishes.  Here is what I’ve written: “As I’ve gotten older, I have made a special point to seek out for inspiration folks ten years my senior, who are still active in the community and doing vital things.  You are certainly one of those people, writing histories of Gary schools and contributing to the Calumet Regional Archives in efforts to preserve regional history.  I am especially grateful for your support of Steel Shavings, both for your autobiographical essays about Holy Angels, Horace Mann, your radio career and a close-call boating mishap, and in having me on television to plug the magazine.  My son Philip directed one of those appearances on Channel 56, and it was a joy being on several shows with you and Wally McCormick, who never failed to ask what I thought of returning to a single-class basketball tournament. A true mentor, you have labored well in the service of Clio, the muse of history.  Keep on truckin’.”

The “Hig-man,” as I called Tom, has a ready smile and an endless repertoire of anecdotes and jokes. He was a big fan of zany Spike Jones, whose City Slicker Band did satirical takes on popular tunes of the day using cowbells, whistles, gunshots and weird vocals.  My parents were fans, and I recall as a kid hearing him on the radio at breakfast.  Jones had an original number 1 hit in 1947 with “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth.”

The season premier of HBO’s “Broadway Empire” takes place on New Year’s Eve 1922 with characters portraying crooner Eddie Cantor, gangster Al Capone, and Warren G. Harding’s corrupt Attorney-General Harry Daugherty.  There’s mention of a Harriet Duncan, a composite of aviatrix pioneers Harriet Quimby and Amelia Earhart, attempting to fly across the U.S.  Disgraced FBI agent Michael Shannon (Michael Shannon) is now a door-to-door salesman mouthing French guru Emile Coué’s mantra, “Every day in every way I’m getting better and better.”

In my intro to Sheriff Roy Dominguez’s Soup and Substance talk I mentioned how Sociology professor Bob Lovely set up special Saturday study sessions to ensure that students understood the course content. Roy sometimes attended, even when he didn’t have to, because they were so interesting.  Others at IUN who provided invaluable help to him were Elsa Rivera in Special Services, Chief Lazar, and Communications professor Camille Schuster.  Student Life director Scott Fulk put up large signs of the cover of “Valor” and provided beef vegetable and cream of broccoli soup.  About 30 folks attended, including buddies Ron Cohen and Steve McShane, John Attinasi (former head of UTEP), Mike Olszanski of Labor Studies, Minority Studies prof Raoul Contreras, and Anne and Emma Balay.  Roy was charming and eloquent, and the five copies of his book went fast.  Roy’s media consultant Manuel Corazzari videotaped the program, moving around to capture different angles and crowd shots, and will put the finished product on YouTube.

 Got a chuckle out of George Bodmer’s latest’s Oscar cartoon.  Just as a neighbor helped him with a sledgehammer, George came to my aid years ago when I was having trouble operating a jack while changing a flat tire.  After a miserable bowling night I stayed up for Band of Horses performing “Knock, Knock” on Letterman from their new CD “Mirage Rock.”

Gangnam Style

“I have my own style

It’s Gangnam style.”

    Psy

The latest pop star is a 34 year-old Korean who calls himself Psy (sigh: that’s how it’s pronounced).  Since “Gangnam Style” went viral on YouTube and soared to the top of the I Tunes charts, Psy has been enjoying his “15 minutes of fame” to the hilt.  He and a bevy of Korean beauties appeared on Friday’s Today Show before a huge crowd, and gave the regulars lessons on how to dance Gangnam style (it’s like a horse rider galloping to a techno drum beat).  Gangnam is a district in Seoul where young folks go clubbing.  The Korean lyrics, translated, include this nugget: “I am a man who drinks coffee bottoms up before it cools down.”  The following evening Psy made a surprise appearance in an SNL skit and the audience went wild.

Sports Illustrated carried Thomas Lake’s moving article “The Boy They Couldn’t Kill.”  Twelve year-old Chancellor Lee Adams is one of the most courageous people I’ve ever read about. Twelve years ago Carolina Panthers wide receiver Rae Carruth wanted his pregnant mother to get an abortion.  When she refused, he paid someone to kill them both.  She died but first gave birth to Chancellor and provided testimony that implicated Carruth, who is behind bars. Chancellor’s brain was deprived of oxygen, resulting in his being permanently disabled with cerebral palsy.  Grandmother (G-mom) Saundra Adams has been a godsend, taking him to physically therapy and nurturing him to the point that he competed in the Special Olympics.  As author Lake remarked, “If a kid like this can be so happy, what right do I have to complain?”  I told Bill Pelke, founder of Journey of Hope . . . From Violence to Healing, about the article and he plans to read it.

Nancy and Ron Cohen invited us to her daughter Elizabeth’s wedding Saturday at Tryon Farm in Michigan City.  The weather was perfect, and hens provided background clucking during the ceremony.  Ruge Meats roasted a pig.  In use were the most interesting porta-potties I’d ever seen, attached to a vehicle with toilets that flushed and running water from a spigot.  In the men’s was also a urinal, and one slightly drunk guy emerged saying that two people could go in at once.  Nobody took him up on it.  If one line got too long, women used the men’s unit and vice versa.

Guests included Sue and Joe Farag (once known as “the blond Farag” to distinguish him from his many siblings, now he is white-haired like brother Omar). One guest had a funny anecdote about getting revenge on a bailiff who was always playing practical jokes.  Pretending to be an attorney’s secretary, she asked him to page a Jack Meoff. He repeated the name in the courtroom several times before gales of laughter caused him to realize he was saying “Jack me off.”

The deejay mixed in classic dance tunes such as David Bowie’s “Modern Love” with songs of recent vintage such as “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster the People.  No “Gangnam Style,” but the floor was packed with Thirtysomethings and a few of their seniors such as Tanice Foltz and the father of Jeremy Moore, the groom.  Some would put their arms around a partner to make it appear that the person had four hands. Sylvia Manalis, married to Rich, a friend of Ron’s from high school, took a photo of my old colleague and me. 

Ryan Maicki, the brother-in-law of the groom, wrote a hilarious account of Hobart high school high jinx for my class entitled “Bad Seeds” that’s in my Nineties Shavings “Shards and Midden Heaps.”  When I talked to the Hobart Kiwanis, I had several audience members read excerpts, including Judge James Moody and former mayor Linda Buzenic.  Parts of it got lots of laughs but Ryan also wrote poignantly about his buddy Bowman, who “had fun down to a science” but died in a car crash.

Lawrence R. Samuel’s “The American Dream: A Cultural History” examines a concept as old as America, one with myriad meanings having to do with opportunity, security, liberty, and happiness.  The book’s starting point is 1933, the year FDR took office, when historian James Truslow Adams wrote: “What is the next chapter in the epic of America?  What is the prospect for the fulfillment of the American Dream?”

Sunday Ron had a signing for his Woody Guthrie book at Angela’s in Miller.  Beforehand I gamed at Dave’s and then we had lunch and played bridge at Hagelberg’s. For health reasons we cut the day short.  I spent the evening rooting for the 49ers, especially tight end Vernon Davis, who was on my Fantasy team. 

The reality show “Breaking Amish” follows four Amish young people and one Mennonite who leave their communities, even though they realize they are certain to be shunned, and travel to New York City.  Two of them had been adopted; Sabrina wants to get more in touch with her Italian and Puerto Rican heritage.  Jeremiah has had a lifetime fascination with cars, planes, and other motorized vehicles he is unable to have back home.  In episode one there is a memorable scene of him cutting grass with a puny hand-mower and saying, in so many words, “WTF, isn’t this ridiculous?”  Once in The Big Apple, he decides he wants to be a taxi driver.  Suzanna, who describes herself as “Amish in my heart,” wrote: “My concern is just who are the people who gathered together these Amish young folks and herded them to New York.  It seems they victimized them. Whoever made it was obviously out for sensationalism.  I hope most of them go back but I am sure it is not the lifestyle for everyone and some communities are truthfully just way too restrictive.  New Order Amish are a lot more lenient.”

The NWI Times ran Jane Ammeson’s review of “Valor,” entitled “Rogelio ‘Roy’ Dominguez shares journey of his family to the Calumet Region.”  On their website were two comments.  “Mytwocents,” who had posted something sarcastic when “Maria’s Journey” came out, wrote: “Another immigrant struggle story.  Arredondoes of East Chicago vs. Dominguez’s of Gary.”  Maxwell Edison replied: “Did you read the book, mytwocents? I did and thought it was a great read! I love reading and like biographies best. Most of the bio's I read are published from prominent Universities; I know I'm getting quality material there. I'd highly recommend you buy a copy, read the book, and then you could make an intelligent comment. Good reading to you.”

Continuing my exchange with Vice Chancellor Malik, I wrote: “In the time you have been at IU Northwest you have provided both stability and innovation in a position that was badly in need of a strong, steady hand.  To further cement your legacy I am hoping that you consider ways to give sustainability to the Liberal Studies master’s degree program.  As you may know, efforts to launch Liberal Studies started three decades ago (when F.C. Richardson and John Kroepfl headed up Arts and Sciences) and only came to fruition after the tragic death of Robin Hass Birky, thanks to the commitment of your predecessor (Kwesi Aggrey) to finish what she had been working for as a testament to her memory.  Unfortunately, the degree program was never properly funded and virtually all offerings were simply cross-listings with undergraduate courses.  There is a proven demand for the program, but many students (Mary Lee, for example) have already taken most of the courses as undergraduates.  There are also limitations on the number of directed readings courses students can take and a requirement that they first complete a core curriculum first.  Your reply to a previous email suggested that emeritus faculty could teach courses gratis or that one-credit courses might be a way to get around the 15-student minimum regarding class size.  Both are possible perhaps, but what I believe is necessary is more flexibility and a fuller university commitment to a program that could be a model for other IU campuses.  After all, the main thing that distinguishes Indiana University from Purdue and other state institutions is its primary commitment to the Liberal Arts.”

Right after I sent that email, Chancellor William Lowe sent out the stunning announcement that David’s administrative assistant, Lydia Hairston had unexpectedly passed away.  I emailed Malik: “my condolences about Lydia, a sweet person whose passing I’m still in shock about, as you must be.  I still recall running into Kwesi Aggrey after he had just heard the news about Robin (Birky, assistant vice chancellor) dying (when a semi ran a red light and slammed into her) and how broken up he was.  Later he made a special trip to our campus with his family to see the plaque dedicating the Women’s Studies room in Savannah to her.”  Previously they had visited her gravesite.

Once, waiting for Malik, I took along a history of New Zealand, expecting that he might be late for our appointment.  Lydia Hairston offered to phone me when he returned, but I told her I was enjoying my book.  She inquired about it, and I mentioned that for thousands of years giant flightless birds similar to ostriches called moa lived on New Zealand’s two islands, but after the arrival of the Maori, they quickly became extinct because the Maori found them so delicious.  To my surprise the anecdote nearly moved her to tears, demonstrating what a compassionate person she was.

With bases loaded and one out in the eighth inning of a critical White Sox-Tigers contest Dewayne Wise tagged up on second on Adam Dunn’s apparent sacrifice fly and got thrown out at third before Gordon Beckham crossed home plate.  The bonehead play felt like a “Bartman moment” (forever etched in the memory of Cubs fans), but Chicago survived and defeated Detroit 5-4 to go three games up with 16 to play.

Hometown

“Sometimes I just

Wanna go back to me home town

Though I know it’ll never be the same.”

    “Home Town,” Joe Jackson

My hometown of Fort Washington PA was what suburbs resembled before subdivisions, close enough for my dad to catch a commuter train to Philadelphia but rural enough that there were woods across the street from our house and farms within a couple miles.  There was no home mail delivery, so in fifth grade Terry Jenkins and I started a mail route.  For a quarter a week we picked up people’s mail.  Somehow everyone, including the postmaster, trusted us.  Back then, in an age before seat belts or helmets I’d ride my bike all over town.  Going downhill on Fort Washington Avenue, I could get the speedometer up close to 40.  Scary thinking about what would have happened had I wiped out. 

I reluctantly de-friended Pat Zollo, losing a link to my hometown, after he posted a particularly egregious anti-Muslim cartoon. Pointing out errors in the rightwing stuff he circulated proved tiring after it obviously had no effect on his views about the Middle East or the upcoming election.   I want to remember him as the ultra-cool adolescent.  On the other hand, my contact with Upper Dublin classmate Gaard Murphy Logan has increased.  Sharing my views on Romney, the girlfriend of my teenage dreams wrote, “What are we going to do if he actually gets elected?”  She and Chuck are off to Italy next week. 

I put on a Time/Life CD of 1956 hits that included the Dells’ “Oh What a Night.”  When I talk next month about Vee-Jay Records founder Vivian Carter, I’ll open with an anecdote about teenager Henry Farag first hearing the song on Vivian’s WWCA radio show and becoming hooked on doo wop music.  My favorite two 1956 songs are also on the CD, Fats Domino’s “My Blue Heaven” and Roy Orbison’s “Ooby Dooby.”

Chris Kern (a huge Joe Jackson fan growing up in Miller) recommended a column by Fred Clark defending his tolerance of LGBT people against those believing, based on certain biblical verses, in “the intrinsic immorality of sexual minorities.”  To Clark Jesus preached love and tolerance and was neither wrathful nor fearsome.  Paraphrasing something Lloyd Bentsen said about JFK in a debate with Dan Quayle, he answers critics with this response: “I know Jesus.  I pray to Jesus.  Jesus is a savior of mine..  And the person you describe, sir, is no Jesus.”  If he’s wrong, Clark says, then in the words of Huckleberry Finn, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell.”

Anne Balay reports that daughter Emma returned from New Zealand, where she was an extra in a “Hobbit” movie, with a cold, elfin eyebrows, and a desire to work in pictures. She recommends the new novel “Telegraph Avenue” by Michael Chabon (below)

about the families of two guys, one white, the other African American who own a vinyl record store.

A Jerry Davich column reported on a cross-burning on the lawn of a black family living in Portage.  Mentioning that he received much reader feedback, he printed two responses, including this garbage from one Debbie F.: “Perhaps this is a hate crime, one perpetrated by blacks as retribution for leaving a black neighborhood.  It is possible that one of their own is angry at them for becoming an ‘Oreo’, as if rejection of ghetto behaviors or success means your white.”  I responded: “Why did you run Debbie F's sarcastic piece instead of the many comments expressing sympathy for the family and outrage over the cross-burning?  My guess: to keep the controversy brewing.”  Agreeing with me was Amanda Verdeyen Gulley, who commented: “Accusing a black person of doing this has to be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. People who live in Gary have WAY bigger things to worry about than some one who left. I still love you, but that broad is WAY off the mark. I think it's white people like that who just rub salt in that family's wound. To even think that another person of color did that is her own way of pretending garage like this doesn't happen.”

I sent this email to Bob Mucci, director of Liberal Studies master’s degree program: “As much as I support Liberal Studies, lack of funds, as you know, has forced you to piggyback onto undergraduate courses.  More attention, I believe, should be given to utilizing emeritus faculty willing to teach small numbers of grad students at less than the normal “$3,000.  Several grad students signed up for my second semester History Topics course, “Diaries, Memoirs, and Journals”), for instance, only to find it cancelled.  I offered to teach them for free, but by the time a way was found to implement this, the students had dropped the course. If a way were found to compensate emeritus faculty (say, $200 per student) for working just with grad students, I believe the quality of the Liberal Studies program would be greatly enhanced. And my guess is that distinguished faculty such as Ronald Cohen and Fred Chary would welcome an opportunity to participate.”  Mucci responded that he fully supports the idea.

All summer a humongous pokeweed plant with berries that birds consumed grew near where our ash tree had been.  Evidently the leaves are edible if cooked, but the root and berries are poisonous to humans.  Toni clipped off the branches, and then I dug out most of the roots, as well as two smaller ones behind the condo.

One question in the NY Times September 2 Sunday puzzle was “Honolulu’s Palace.”  When researching my U. of Hawaii master’s thesis on Governor Joseph B. Poindexter, I went to Iolani Palace often to make use of his papers housed there.  Commissioned by King David Kalakaua and completed in 1882 in an American Florentine style, it was the official residence of Queen Liliuokalani until she was overthrown by American planters and later kept prisoner in a small room upstairs.

In the NY Times magazine’s letters section John H. Steed, commenting on a previous article about poverty, wrote: “The prison population has risen to more than 2,3 million in 2008 from roughly 200,ooo in 1970.  Any attempt to implement government policies to combat poverty without acknowledging the relationship between our current criminal-justice system and social collapse seems futile.”

I was looking forward to a big sports night Thursday, but the Sox-Tigers game got rained out and the Bears totally sucked in Green Bay.

Logical Song

“There are times

When the world’s all asleep

The questions run too deep

For such a simple man.”

    “The Logical Song,” Supertramp

There’s a line in “The Logical Song” that goes, “Now watch what they say or they’ll be calling you a radical.”  Hey, that’s preferable to being “acceptable, respectable, presentable, a vegetable!”

MSNBC ran a tape of the 9/11/01 Today Show that aired while the terrorist attacks were in progress.  I was glued to the set at the time watching Matt Lauer and Katie Couric.  Jonathyne Briggs posted a YouTube video of the Flaming Lips’ “Evil Will Prevail.”  Making the talk show rounds is Pasquale Buzzelli, the so-called “9/11 surfer,” who was on the 64^th floor of the World Trade Center North Tower when an airplane crashed into it.  He had made it down to the 22^nd floor when the structure began to collapse all around him.  Huddled in the stairwell, he lost consciousness and awoke atop a pile of debris seven stories tall.

Muslims outraged over a film ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad that was distributed on YouTube by the same Florida minister, Pastor (“bastard”) Terry Jones, who was burning copies of the Quran not so long ago, stormed the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, set it aflame, and the attack killed Ambassador Chris Stevens.  Earlier, when protestors were threatening the American embassy in Cairo, officials there released a statement criticizing the video.  Without waiting for all the facts, Romney claimed that Obama should be held responsible for the “disgraceful” statement.  Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the President made statements praising Stevens and the three other American casualties.  Hopefully Romney will pay a price for recklessly playing politics with this issue and other warlike utterances regarding Iran. As Ray Smock wrote, “Romney’s statement was so off base, so crude, so ill-times, so politically opportunistic that it ranks as one of the lowest, most desperate tactics I have seen since Joe McCarthy waved his list of commies.”

Garrett Cope suffered a nasty spill near his home that opened a cut near his eye, requiring 16 stitches.  As I emailed Sheriff Roy Dominguez, scheduled to speak at Garrett’s next Glen Park Conversation, “The September 18 event at IUN got postponed to October 23.  The Soup and Substance event at noon on September 19 is still on, however, and I talked to several ALMA students who are excited about co-sponsoring the affair.”  I gave “Valor” to University Relations director Chris Sheid, who promised to publicize the event, and told him that Scott Fulk in Student Life could fill him in on the history of Soup and Substance and upcoming speakers.

I ran into the ALMA students on day two of Back 2 School Week.  Entertaining was Titus Rodes, a Latin-oriented band that played originals as well as pop tunes from the likes of Chris Brown and Black-Eyed Peas. For Cee Lo Green’s “F*** You” only changed the lyrics to “See You.”  Charismatic lead singer Fernando Rodriguez recently graduated from IUN; his hot, tan-legged sister Georgie accompanied him on most songs.  The Redhawk mascot bogeyed with passersby and Fernando.  John Evans, the bass player’s dad, photographed the action.

The latest Traces contains an excellent article by Terence E. Hanley about Hoosier cartoonist Bill Holman, creator of the zany character Smokey Stover.  Pun-meister Holman’s “Damp Tootin’” has Smokey in water amidst three buoys wearing his trademark hat resembling a tugboat.  The caption: “Nothing like a night out with the buoys.”  Also worth reading is Jim Lindgren’s “Taking the Risk: Fighting for Women’s Rights on the Home Front during World War I.”

Roosevelt University grad student Cullen Daniel visited the Archives to seek advice about a possible thesis on white flight and business disinvestment during Richard Hatcher’s administration.  He grew up in Miller, said he knows Ragen Hatcher, and seemed sympathetic to her father’s limited options.  I told him to look for ways to narrow his focus, such as realtors’ activities, including block busting, and to examine economic realities as well as racial tensions and fears.

Wednesday’s Thrill of the Grill featured Chad Clifford and Aaron Hedges from the band Crawpuppies, and as always they put on a quality show.  Chad played a mean harmonica on several numbers.  When I complimented Chad on the choice of “The Logical Song,” he said he always makes it part of his repertoire when playing college campuses.  Looking for a shady table with an umbrella, I joined a coed clearly unfamiliar with the classic hits being performed.  When I told her that “Man on the Moon” was my favorite REM song, she said she’d heard of the band but not comedian Andy Kaufman, the subject of the piece.  After she went to class, Aaron Pigors joined me, and Tanice Foltz thought he was my son.  He had videotaped my FACET interview of her, and Aaron quipped that she probably didn’t recognize him because he was behind a camera.

The Engineers, starting the evening in second place, took three of seven points against Valpo Muffler, whose bowlers averaged over 200.  They started slowly, enabling us to win the first game by 101 pins.  They won the next two by about 40 pins, giving us a point for series thanks to Duke striking out in the tenth.  Duke got more strikes than the rest of us combined but none of the four quarter-pots for every tenth strike.

White Sox lost but Phillies are finally a game over .500.  Their playoff chances are slim but maybe they’ll stay hot while teams ahead of them fade. One of Letterman’s Top Ten reasons you’re not one of the smart people: You think you can cut taxes for the rich and balance the budget.

Observing George Bodmer about to cross Broadway, I told him to be careful and that I loved his Oscar cartoons.  He alerted my to his latest blog addition based on a driver injuring him nearby.

Don't Wanna be Like That

Some people get crazy

Some people get lazy

Some people get hazy

Some people get out.”

    “Don’t Wanna be Like That,” Joe Jackson

[Note: I certainly am not lazy, no longer get crazy, and hope I don’t get too hazy – as in fade away mentally -  any time soon].

We cut gaming short, Sunday being opening day for most NFL teams.  Dave wanted to check the latest Fantasy reports on probables and questionables.  Tom Horvath posted an old photo of him, Dave, and Keith Cheney on their way to the Portage H.S. prom.  Keith (in white): “I forgot I went as the tin man.”  Erick Orr noted that the Virgin Mary behind them at Horvath’s house seemed ready to party.

 

Fort Pierce, Florida, pizzeria owner Scott Van Duzen got so excited to see his famous customer that he gave President Obama a hug and lifted him off the ground.  The President was cool with it, but the Secret Service team must have been having a conniption unless, as some suspect, they had been tipped off and the photo op was scripted in advance.  Will there be copy cat Presidential bear huggers, I wonder, and is the secret service devising a strategy on how to deal with the situation should it happen again?  Van Duzen is in demand on the talk show circuit, and Ray Smock reports that the YouTube clip of the hug has gone viral.

“American Hardcore” is a gripping documentary about early Eighties punk bands such as Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and Mild Threat.  Fronting a black group out of D.C. called Bad Brains was H.R. (Human Rights).  The Village Voice described him as “like James Brown gone berserk, with a hyperkinetic repertoire of spins, dives, back-flips, splits, and skanks.”  After the group became Rastafarians, they moved more into reggae.  While the movement was essentially self-destructive (to achieve commercial success was, ipso facto, to have sold out), it had a profound influence on the Beastie Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Replacements.  My favorite singers during those years, Joe Jackson and Graham Parker, were part of the New Wave offshoot of punk.

Jerry Davich’s column, “The Worst Day in Lake Station’s History,” dealt with a Penn Central train crashing into a church bus at an unmarked crossing on October 31, 1971, that killed four teenage girls.  He wrote, “After the girls’ funerals, one father came home and told his family not to utter another word about the crash.  It led him to a life of rage, denial and alcoholism.”  Fred Newman has been researching the event.  Roberta “Bobbee” Miller, who was severely injured and whose older sister Elizabeth died on the scene, recently returned to Lake Station to thank R.O. Johnson, who rescued her and took her to the hospital.  

Ann Fritz hosted a reception for Chicago artist Jay Wolke entitled “Architecture of Resignation: Photographs from the Mezzogiorno.”  Many regular attendees from the community were absent, which Ann attributed to a new university policy charging visitors two dollars for temporary parking permits.  Some photographs were of ruins of World War II military bases and landmarks partially destroyed by Allied or Axis bombings. Next to the four-story yellow building in Palermo, for instance, is a “melted tower” while in the foreground is a soccer goal sans net. Jay was very personable and explained his work to students in Jennifer Greenberg’s class.  Jennifer lent me a copy of her book “Rockabillies” to show Joyce Davis of Lake Street Gallery, who will display some of her photographs at a December 8 event sponsored by the IU Alumni Association. 

To kick off Back 2 School Week the salsa band Hijos de Rythmo (Sons of Rhythm) performed in IUN’s Savannah/Moraine Courtyard.  One medley included “La Bamba” and “Twist and Shout.”  Among the groups with busy booths were the Ping Pong Club and the Muslin Student Association.  Students seemed oblivious to the excellent music except for a few moving their limbs and bodies.  Since I was the only person who clapped when they finished numbers, the frontman several times turned to where I was sitting and pointedly said “thank you.”

The Grand Valley State newsletter did a feature on Alissa starting work as outreach coordinator for Padnos International Center.  Mentioning her travels to China, Great Britain and the Czech Republic, it quoted her as saying that the experiences will make it easier for her to relate to a broad range of students and alleviate their fears and misconceptions.

Labeling Paul Ryan Dick Cheney with good hair, The Nation’s John Nichols claims the Republican vice presidential nominee is committed to “the supply side lie, to authoritarian assaults on civil liberties and a woman’s right to choose, and to an embrace of militarism over diplomacy.”

Eva Mendieta was at the Archives looking for photos to accompany her article about East Chicago Mexican-American mutual aid societies that were forerunners to the UBM (Union Benefica Mexicana).  Indiana Magazine of History recently accepted it for publication.  I was so pleased I went to shake Eva’s hand, but she had on a splint because she’d recently broke a bone in her finger so I hugged her instead.

The History Book Club at Gino’s wasn’t the same without Bob Selund, who died six weeks ago after a massive stroke, but Sheriff Dominguez and I put on a good show talking about “Valor” to an appreciative group.  Before the program I chatted with former Judge Lorenzo Arredondo (often at odds politically with Roy but someone he respects) and attorney Paul Giorgi, whose grandfather, Dr. Antonio Giorgi, was a Gary pioneer.  I mentioned that Dr. Giorgi delivered Nobel Laureate Paul A. Samuelson, and that is why the economist's middle name is Antonio.  After speaking movingly about his parents moving to Northwest Indiana to secure better opportunities for their seven children, Roy mentioned some of his experiences as a young attorney in the Lake County prosecutor’s office, such as winning a DUI case in Judge Orval Anderson’s court against renown attorney Nick Thiros. Judge Ken Anderson mentioned that during the 1980s a political boss offered him $10,000 to run against Orval since their last names were the same in order to decrease Orval’s total enough to allow the machine candidate to win.  When Ken ran for Schererville Town Court Judge in the 2003 Democratic primary against incumbent Deborah Riga, she allegedly won by 11 votes after almost all the absentee ballots favored her.  He proved that at least 23 were fraudulent and a judge ruled in his favor.

Week one in the NFL featured Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, my three favorite teams, all winning and climaxed with a Monday doubleheader on ESPN.  I started the evening leading in a league where you assign point values (one to 15) based on the teams you expect to win and degree of confidence.  I had picked Oakland to upset San Diego and thought I was doomed when the Raiders lost but managed to finish first in the 11-player pool anyway.  In the Lane Fantasy League, facing off against Pittsburgh Dave, Jimbo Jammers held a slim 12-point lead going into the final game.  Oakland running back Darren McFadden seemed a cinch to compile more points than that and a halftime, when I went to bed, had at least 9.  Lo and behold, he only got two more and I won by a single point.

Living a Dream

“I’ve Been Living Your Dream,

Not mine.”

    “Living Your Dream,” Danika Holmes

The best line in “Living Your Dream” goes, “This veil is slowly lifting, reveling weary eyes.”  It reminded me of the Langston Hughes poem “The Weary Blues” about a Harlem piano man’s lament.   Hank Williams had a country classic titled “Weary Blues from Waitin’.”  Danika was close to earning a PhD (what is called ABD, or “all but dissertation) before she took the plunge and pursued a music career.

I told more personal anecdotes than usual in my “Age of Anxiety” lecture for Nicole Anslover’s class.  Early memories include sitting on Santa’s lap in a Pittsburgh department store and noticing his cigarette breath smelled like Camels, my dad’s brand (their ads claimed the tobacco was a Turkish and American blend).  When I mentioned cod liver oil, a woman recalled being forced to take it as a kid as well. After a student read from Stanley Stanish’s diary about going to St Adelbert’s in Hessville, I said I got hitched in a St. Adelbert’s Church in Philadelphia.  It was considered a mixed marriage in those days since I was a WASP and Toni a Polish Catholic.  Although I had no memories of WW II, I told about John Haller being a toddler who was taken to a prayer service on an army base where his dad was stationed at war’s end and his parents’ shock when they opened their eyes and noticed his mouth bulging from wads of gum he’d found under folding chairs.

Asked if I didn’t think life was more carefree back then, I replied, “Not if you were gay or a girl who got knocked up.”  I forgot to mention the murder of teacher Mary Cheever sparking a Gary women’s crusade against vice and crime. Young people were into drag racing and shocking their parents in the clothes they favored and the gangs they sometimes joined, giving rise to fears (in the media at least) about juvenile delinquency.  Illustrating the theme of social change over time as the essence of history, I mentioned that the WW II generation enjoyed sex, listened to music (but not yet Rock ‘n’ Roll), went dancing, played sports, raised large families, worried about diseases such as polio, and struggled with budgeting their money.  It was an era without credit cards, computers, cell phones, cable TV or fast food franchises.  Drive-in movies and eateries were big.  At Ted’s, according to Tom Higgins, “waitresses dressed like drum majorettes and came to your car.  If you gave them money for the jukebox, some would dance.” 

Nicole and Michele Skokely expressed disappointment that my “Diaries, Memoirs, and Journals” class got cancelled. I told them Mark Hoyert was working on ways to market it as a General Studies capstone course.

MSNBC pundits agreed that the Democratic convention was generating more excitement among the faithful than last week’s GOP charade.  Michele knocked the ball out of the park, as Dave noted on Facebook.  Ditto “Mr. Bill” the next night, laying bare Republican lies (when he say Congressman Ryan has some Brass, meaning “Balls,” to attack Obama for something he himself supported, he brought the house down.  His best line: Republicans are doubling down on trickle down.  Afterwards, Obama embraced Clinton as Yom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” played.

Engineers again won 5 of 7 points despite being a man short (a ten-pin per game penalty), Dick being out with a bum leg and Frank in his last week of golf.  I sucked in game one, but Duke carried us.  Our opponents came alive in game two, but in the finale I bowled a 182, Rob a 213 and Melvin a 199 to compensate for Duke’s spate of splits and ten-pins.  Bobby McCann was wearing a POISON t-shirt, and I asked whether it reflected her taste in bands or personality. I had on a DETROIT ROCK CITY shirt.

With Fantasy season about to start, already I worry about injuries.  My two best running backs, Adrian Peterson and Trent Richardson, are questionable.  Fortunately Ahmad Bradshaw got me 14 points, thanks mainly to a ten-yard TD run while the Cowboys’ running back only got Pittsburgh Dave, my opponent 13.

Thursday we spent the day in South Bend with Mary and Sonny.  My brother-in-law had breakfast at I-Hop (seven pancakes) while the rest of us ordered lunch (I went with chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes).  In the afternoon we told funny family stories and avoided politics since Mary gets irrational at the very mention of the President’s name.

After school Grace put on the Nickelodeon show “Victorious” that featured a cameo of Kesha performing “Blow.” After singing “It’s time to lose your mind and let the crazy out,” she adds, “Let me see them Hanes” – meaning, I guess, a guy’s underwear.  Could this be a reference to the fad of wearing one’s pants so low that their underpants become prominent?  The teenagers appear to be impossibly cool, except for the nerdy, socially awkward Robbie (Matt Bennett), whose main companion is a ventriloquist puppet that doubles as his cool alter ego.

The final evening of the Democratic convention was an unvarnished success.  One point of emphasis was honoring veterans of recent wars.  Both John Kerry and Joe Biden reminded the delegates that Romney never mentioned the sacrifices of our soldiers or the war in Afghanistan. Obama’s acceptance speech might not have matched his 2004 and 2008 orations but was miles better than Romney’s. 

Paul Samuelson’s daughter-in-law Susan sent along great photos of the Gary-born Nobel laureate in economics.  Working on an article for Traces magazine, I added this paragraph: Even though Samuelson’s “Foundations of Economic Analysis,” based on his PhD thesis, won him wide acclaim, his department chairman at Harvard, Harold Hitchings Burbank, was unimpressed.  In 1941, When M.I.T. offered Samuelson a full-time position Burbank made no attempt to retain him.  As his good friend Robert Solow later quipped, “You could be disqualified for a job if you were either smart or Jewish or Keynsian.  So what chance did this smart, Jewish Keynsian have?”

I emailed Ray Smock, “OK, I was wrong about Hillary and Biden swapping jobs, but what about this?  Clint Eastwood is secretly for Obama so stages the fiasco in Tampa to sabotage the GOP.  It’s hard to believe ‘Dirty Harry’ is so insensitive to fundamental fairness that he could support the modern Republican Party.  John Kerry looked like hell but gave the speech of his life.”  Ray replied, “Clint Eastwood is a law and order Republican. That's why, when acting, he can stick a gun in the face of a black guy and say "Make My Day."  It is convincing because he means it. Sure he was a rebel cop in Dirty Harry, but only because he hated government and government bureaucracy, especially the police bureaucracy that kept him from cleaning up all the punks in the city. And the Outlaw Josey Wales is pure rugged individualism of the Ayn Rand type. All those damn cowboys from John Wayne down were conservative Republicans who believed the myth of the West.  Don't get me wrong. I love Eastwood's movies. But you and I know the difference between celluloid and the real world. What we saw at the Republican convention was Clint in the real world, trying to pretend he was acting. It was awful to watch.”

I ran into Chuck Gallmeier while searching for a parking space.  He wants to take me to his and barb’s Lake Michigan cabin for a weekend of boating and chilling out.  Sounds good.

On the cover of Sports Illustrated is Jim McMahon, the punky QB who led the Bears to a Superbowl victory in the mid-80s.  Sadly the story is about his having early dementia due to at least four concussions, one coming after Charles Martin of the Packers body-slammed him to the turf a good five seconds after the ball left his hand.  Martin, who got a two-game suspension, should have been arrested for assault.

In Nebraska on September 7, 1804 the Lewis and Clark expedition came across a four-acre village of prairie dogs.  William Clark’s journal noted the “great numbers of holes on the top of which these little animals sit erect and make a whistling noise, and, when alarmed, step into their hole.”  Traveling through Texas in 1965, Toni and I came across a similar village.  Where once there were billions of prairie dogs in the American West, some species are endangered or have become extinct.

The one thing “The Words” had going for it was Jeremy Irons, playing a character known simply as “the old man.”  The flick starts out great but limps to a rather unsatisfactory denouement.  The three “love” scenes would have worked much better had the director not gone for a PG rating.

Jay Keck passed on these gems for lexophiles (lovers of words): A thief who stole a calendar got 12 months.  Police were called to a day care when a three year-old was resisting a rest.

Saturday I went from the library to McDonald’s and had a double cheeseburger and side salad for $2.14.  For dinner with the Hagelbergs Toni made pork roast with onions, potatoes, and zucchini and as my partner made a difficult four-hearts bid that enabled me to edge out Dick by a mere 80 points.

Marrakesh Express

“Sweeping cobwebs from the edges of my mind

Had to get away to see what we could find

Hope the days that lie ahead

Bring us back to where they've led.”

    Marrakesh Express,” Crosby, Stills and Nash

With the possibility of a steel strike looming, Steve Walsh wanted to interview me about the 1986 lockout, the longest in Gary’s history, for his Labor Day radio show.  I begged off, suggesting he find a steelworker instead.  Management bastards want to impose a two-tier system whereby new employees would be under an inferior wage scale and receive no pension benefits. 

Ron Cohen forwarded to me a piece from “Jacobin: A Magazine of Culture and Polemics” co-authored by an old Trotskyite acquaintance named Michael Hirsch recommending that radicals eschew Obama in favor of a Socialist candidate.  No thanks.  Ron was on Jerry Davich’s Friday radio show as a call-in to talk about his new Woody Guthrie book.  He reported that Nancy finished “Valor” and really enjoyed it.  I’ll try to get her to come to the Merrillville History Book Club next Monday.

The library elevator reeked of perfume when I entered it.  I guess it could have been worse had someone recently farted. The best smell is when Steve or Will have coffee with them in the morning.

At the Taltree Arboretum in rural Valpo for a 6:30 concert by Marrakesh Express, a Crosby, Stills and Nash cover band, I searched in vain for Marianne Brush, who had alerted me to the show, but sat next to a woman who inquired, “Professor Lane?”  It was Nancy Hrnjak George, who had taken classes with me in the mid-70s, recalled my book about Jacob A. Riis, subscribed to Steel Shavings for several years, and effusively praised my classroom talents.  Growing up in Brunswick, she knew members of both the Farag and Dominguez families.  Her husband Jim took my survey course in 1971 in Gary Main, Room 93, which could hold about 150 students and showed me a wedding picture where the Joyces were looking very Seventies.  They offered me beer and wine and gave me a plate filled with grapes, cheese, crackers, and cherry tomatoes.

 The 8-member band was great, capturing the spirit as well as the harmonies of such classics as “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” “Southern Cross,” and “Almost Cut My Hair.” The outdoor setting was scenic and mellow and the audience, me included, got thoroughly into it, despite the apparent absence of weed, at least none I could smell.  Marrakesh Express had recently played at an Alaska state fair, and someone asked whether they were Styx.

Toni and I traveled to Granger, Indiana, to visit her sister and brother-in-law while daughter Lisa and Fritz were in Ireland for the Notre Dame-Navy football game and extensive pub tour.  Mary has been ministering to Grace and Oliver’s many needs.  Tom and Michele came up from Indy with Sophia and Nickolas, at 11 and 12 slightly older than their cousins.  After staying up late telling and listening to family stories, I slept soundly in a bed with a perfect thin pillow.  In the morning I took Sophia and Grace to Krispy Kreme while Ton prepared bacon and eggs.  They were fascinated by the doughnut assembly line in plain view and laid claim to three doughnuts apiece (out of 18) as the price for not starting to eat them in the car.  In the afternoon Sonny, Toni and I got in four pinochle games while others went to Oliver’s football scrimmage.  The diminutive cornerback looked lost in his helmet and uniform, which reminded me of Nickolas (left) two years ago who after some violent hits wised up and switched to soccer.

 Tigers swept the three-game series with the Chisox to claim a share of first place in the AL Central.  They clearly have the superior team, but Chicago has some cagey veterans who could make the final month of the season interesting.

At the Wades for Labor Day we played croquet, Wits and Wagers, and Say Anything (which James and Becca really enjoyed).  A person reads a question, such as, “What is my favorite type of pie?”  Then the others write down answers.  If two are the same, the second person has to come up with one not already mentioned.  Once the person reading the question locks in his answer, the others can bet on up to two of the choices.  Toni benefitted from knowing I would choose blueberry, but several others followed her lead and put their chips on blueberry as well.  Jef Halberstadt, who like me grew up in the east, recalled how Tasty Cake’s 12-cent blueberry pies were surpassed only by the lemon-flavored ones.  Jef, who works for ArcelorMittal (the former Bethlehem Steel), reported that a strike has been temporarily averted, as employees are continuing to work under the terms of the old contract.

Charlotte Pribish Conjelco requested a copy of the presentation I delivered last year for National Carpatho-Rustn Day.  I complied and added that most of the historical information came from the book “Peopling Indiana” and my “Gary’s First Hundred Years.”

Latest Republican strategy is to revive the Reagan line about asking yourself whether you are better off now than four years ago.  Anyone with an ounce of historical memory would realize that the country was on the edge of a precipice four years ago and, to make matters worse, Romney supports the very policies that got us into the mess.  This tactic hopefully will backfire as (I predict) will the tasteless line about Obama worrying about the oceans rising.  Meanwhile rightwing hatemongers are continuing to spread lies that only true believers could swallow, such as that the DNC is bussing into Charlotte 20,000 Muslims.  One intriguing but far-fetched rumor is that Biden and Hillary will trade jobs, with him becoming Secretary of State and her being Obama’s running mate.

 George Bodmer has a blog of his clever drawings, including his “Oscar” series.  Sadly reading the morning newspaper may soon be obsolete.