At Last

“At last the skies above are blue

My heart was wrapped in clover the night I looked at you.”

    “At Last,” Etta James

At La Porte Civic Auditorium granddaughter Becca won the prestigious Hoosier Star competition in the youth division after nailing her interpretation of the Etta James standard “At Last” with a maturity beyond her years.  You rarely hear love songs anymore as beautiful as “At Last.” Literally hundreds of contestants tried out for Hoosier Star, and the five finalists included entrants from La Porte and nearby New Prairie who had large numbers of fans in the audience, so I had not expected Becca to emerge victorious despite her awesome performance.  Runner-up was Ella Moon, who sang “Girl on Fire” by Alicia Keys. Favorite Jamileh Cornejo sang “Nessum Dorma” from the Puccini opera “Turandot.”  In the adult division winner Joe Stewart got a standing ovation after belting out Sam Smith’s “I’m Not the Only One” and showing off a mean falsetto.  Crowd-pleaser Billy Cox, whose large contingent of raucous fans, some holding signs with blinking lights, were near us, came on stage in jeans and cowboy hat holding a drink and performed Eric Church’s “Drink in My Hand.”  La Porte Symphony Orchestra provided the instrumentation.  I recognized emcee Jeremiah Mellon from his starring as Quasimodo in the Memorial Opera House production of “Hunchback of Notre Dame.” 

above, Becca's reaction to winning; below, James, Dave, Becca, Angie

Driving to La Porte, once home to Mayo Clinic founder William Mayo, eccentric baseball owner Charlie Finley, and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, we passed Pine Lake on the way to La Porte Civic Auditorium, a structure that reminded me of Hammond Civic Center, where Phil and Dave played indoor soccer and Fats Domino once performed.  Built in 1930 as the result of a half-million-dollar gift from Fox Woolen Mills CEO Maurice Fox in honor of parents Samuel and Fannie, the venue has hosted countless athletic contests, receptions, and concerts, the latter often featuring country singers such as Randy Travis.  Daughter-in-law Beth’s parents live in La Porte, and Beth and Alissa arrived to root on Becca after visiting them. Our contingent included Becca’s friends from Chesterton H.S.’s Sandpipers choral group, brother James, first time off campus since enrolling at Valparaiso University, and great-grandmother Vera Teague, a trooper in her mid-nineties.

Etta James (1938-2012) was born in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles and became one of the greatest blues singers of all time.  In addition to “At Last” her hits included “Something’s Got a Hold on Me,” “Tell Mama,” and “I’d Rather Go Blind,” co-written by Ellington Jordan and Gary native Billy Foster, her partner at the time.  Etta sang backup vocals on the Chuck Berry hit “Back in the U.S.A,” and other Chess Records Rock ‘n’ Roll hits.  Beyoncé portrayed her in “Cadillac Records” (2008) based on the Chicago independent label that released most of her albums, and sang “At Last” at Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, a fitting tribute to America’s first black president. At last, indeed!  Though suffering from early dementia, Etta believed she could have sung it better. Perhaps they should have done it together.

 Nina Simone

Sometimes I confuse Etta James, whose given name was Jamesetta Hawkins, with Nina Simone (1933-2003), whose bluesy style was more heavily influenced by jazz and whose image was more militant.  In 1965 Simone recorded her most popular hit, “I Put a Spell on You,” first released as a rhythm and blues tune by “Screamin’ Jay” Hawkins.  Simone participated in civil rights marches and added protest songs to her repertoire during the tumultuous 1960s.  She recorded “Mississippi Goddam” after civil rights leader  Medgar Evers was murdered”; it includes such lyrics as “This whole country is full of lies/ you’re all gonna die and die like flies” and “You don’t have to live next to me/ just give me liberty.” A line in “Baltimore,” written by Randy Newman, goes, “Ain’t it hard to live? Just to live?”  Cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib called Nina Simone proud and fearless, writing:

  I came of age during a time when I was constantly reminded of the darkness of my skin, the width of my nose, the size of my lips.  I am similar to Nina Simone in this way.

It would be ironic if Simone will be remembered mainly for her rendition of “I Loves You, Porgy.” Abdurraqib, who will be speaking at IUN next month, concluded:

  I have been thinking about how I learned to write, to tell the stories I have, largely at the feet of black women who then became ghosts – ghosts by death, or ghosts by erasure of their living contributions, and sometimes both.  I think of Nina Simone’s legacy, and I see the legacy of so many black women I know, who have had their work reduced by all of the hands that are not their own.  Today, movements are stolen and repackaged with faces America finds more palatable.

Jesse Harper at Popcorn Festival 5k run; South Shore Roller Girls looking for "fresh meat"

I missed this year’s Valpo Popcorn Fest parade and concert, but the main stage headliner, Max Weinberg, former E Street Band drummer and “Tonight Show” band leader, wasn’t as enticing as usual.  I was delighted to find Facebook parade photos of Democrats, including city council candidate Liz Wuerffel, behind a Bill For Mayor banner touting candidate Bill Durnell.  Liz’s partner Allison Schuette took a great shot of the South Shore Roller girls, on the prowl for “fresh meat” (as the expression in their sport goes) and looking hot! hot! hot!

Toni and I attended a memorial celebration to honor the memory of Shirley Dick, who passed away recently on her sixty-ninth birthday after a brave battle with cancer.  It was held at the Hobart VFW post, where Shirley had tended bar.  I talked at length with her just last month at James’s graduation party. Sons Kevin and Tom and daughter Michele shared fond memories, as did grandkids Kylie and Nick.  Michele had written this message during Shirley’s final hours:

  Well you made it to your birthday mom. I know we only have some hours left with you. I wish for your birthday this year no more pain. Thank you for giving us one more birthday with you. I hate this so much. I want to wake up from a bad dream. It’s not real. But as I stay awake watching you it is so real. You are an amazing mom and grandma and sister and an aunt and a friend. You have been there for me through so much. We were partners. I love you so much.

Kevin and Dave’s high school friend Tony Spencer came in from Lubbock, Texas, for the occasion, and we recalled LINT concerts and parties at our Maple Place abode, as well as Bob Knight’s seven-year coaching career at Texas Tech after IU fired “The General” for laying hands on players and critics.  I spoke to the daughter of Chris Lugo, whom I used to bowl with, and her daughter Angel, a PhD candidate in psychology at Adler University in Chicago.  I first met Angel at Cressmoor Lanes when she was about 2 and mistook her for a boy.  She gave me a dirty look, so I made certain never to repeat the mistake and to learn her name. I saw her a few times at Inman’s where James and her brother, now a varsity baseball player at Andrean, bowled. Angel has blossomed into a lovely, self-assured young adult, studying to become a substance abuse counselor (she used the euphemism substance use disorder).

I was delighted to find a 1953 photo from IUN’s Calumet Regional Archives collection of band leader Ken Resur at a Buffington Park event in John and Diane Trafny’s “Downtown Gary, Millrats, Politics, and US Steel,” as well as one of a “Bug Abatement Parade” sponsored by the City of Gary to promote an insect and mosquito eradication program.  Known as Gary’s original “Music Man,” Resur began a 35-year teaching career at Froebel in 1928 and within a year expanded the orchestra from 37 to 108 members.   Under his direction the Froebel band won many competitions, including the Chicago World’s Fair Century of Progress parade in 1933.  For 27 years Resur also directed U.S. Steel’s Carillco Band. Resur’s final 15 years were at Horace Mann, where in 1963 his crowning achievement was the Mann marching band winning the World Band Contest in Milwaukee against 107 other entrees.

Trump has been taking heat for lying about Hurricane Dorian hitting Alabama, but the greater obscenity is his total lack of compassion regarding victims in the Bahamas.  Ray Smock wrote:

  Trump just trashed the people of the Bahamas by saying there are bad people there that should not be allowed in without documentation. Only people with documentation will be let into this country. What if their documentation blew away in the storm or is under ten feet of water? What if their house and all their papers are gone? What if they have only the clothes they are wearing?  Trump has no human compassion whatsoever and he likes to take it out on dark skinned people. This cannot stand.

Jimbo Jammers garnered a record (for me) 156 points during the first week of fantasy football and only came out with a tie.  In fact, it took a last-second 58-yard field by Saints kicker Wil Lutz to avoid losing to Pittsburgh Dave Lane. The closest any other team to us was Phil with 133 points. Going into Monday night just 8 points ahead and facing no. 3 draft pick Alvin Kamara, I was pessimistic.  Lutz’s final field goal had to be more than 50 yards or else I’d have lost, and it took a desperation pass by Drew Brees to put him in position for his unlikely boot.

 Wayne Wylie

I shed tears when I got the news from his son that old buddy Wayne Wylie passed away.  Growing up, he was one of my closest friends.  I’d stay at his farmhouse overnight; we’d go out into the field on a plow, pick corn, and his mom would serve the ears for dinner, with me eating at least three or four.  In sixth grade Wayne was probably a foot taller than I, but the disparity in size never mattered.  At our reunion 24 years ago, I got him to dance with me to the Ramones’ “I Wanna be Sedated.”  Wife Fran told me afterwards that Wayne never danced and that she couldn’t believe I got him to agree to it.  Up until recently we’d talk on the phone, reliving memories of the characters we knew at Fort Washington School. Classmate Connie Heard Damon wrote:

Wayne was one of my earliest friends since we started in First Grade at Jarrettown Elementary School and went through 12 years of school together. I remember Wayne coming to my house for my 8th birthday party. I have a photo of all of us in the backyard. Wayne was the tallest and came dressed in a suit! I still have the little stuffed elephant he gave me for a gift.  I also remember going to a Halloween party held in his barn in Jarrettown. It was the first time I ever heard of (and played) "Spin the Bottle."

Connie’s comment was one of 15 Facebook replies to my post, as well as 12 Love, 11 sad, and 10 Like emojis. 

Sandy

“And Sandy, the aurora is risin' behind us
This pier lights our carnival life forever
Oh love me tonight for I may never see you again
Hey Sandy girl

My, my baby

. . .
I just got tired of hangin' in them dusty arcades 

bangin' them pleasure machines
Chasin' the factory girls underneath the boardwalk 

where they all promise to unsnap their jeans”

Bruce Springsteen, “4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)”

Within the first 30 minutes WXRT’s Saturday flashback show on the year 1973 featured great songs by Bruce Springsteen (“Sandy”), The Who, Patti Smith, Faces, Jackson Browne, and Elton John (“Grey Seal” from the double album “Beyond the Yellow Brick Road”).  I can’t recall ever hearing “Sandy” but the others were familiar.  Four-year-old Dave loved seeing Elton John, a great showma, on TV.  At an IUN History Department meeting Bill Neil referred to “the yellow brick road,”meaning from the movie, and Paul Kern said afterwards, “I was surprised Bill knew the Elton John album.” 1973 was an eventful year, with the Watergate hearings exposing Nixon’s criminality, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigning in disgrace, the Vietnam War ending in ignominy, the CIA overthrowing Chilean President Salvador Allende on behalf of international business interests, and the Supreme Court ruling on the controversial abortion case Roe v. Wade.

With Dorian in the news all week, finally wreaking havoc on the Carolina coast, I heard numerous references to Hurricane Sandy, which in 2012 battered the Jersey shore after first leaving destruction in its wake in the Caribbean. Dorian caused massive flooding in Nag’s Head, NC, not far from Kitty Hawk, where we spent a weekend while I was in grad school at Maryland.  I recall on the way trying to follow Dave Goldfield as he drove at high speeds beyond the capacity of our VW bug. One-year-old Phil ran into the Atlantic Ocean surf, got knocked down, and wanted no part of the beach the rest of the day, so we stayed by the motel swimming pool. In the news back then was an incident still vivid in my mind where a motel manager dumped chlorine in a pool when African Americans attempted to use it.

Hearing Bruce Springsteen’s“4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” reminded me of Sandy Sanders, softball teammate Ivan Jasper’s girlfriend during the 1970s.  She was blond, beautiful, a former high school track star, and warm and friendly. Sandy and Ivan eventually broke up because she wanted kids and he didn’t, having taken care of younger siblings most of his life after his mother deserted the family. In 1979 Ivan and Sandy took one last trip together to the Bahamas (last week devastated by Dorian) along with several other Portage Acres couples, including the four Lanes. Phil and Dave, then 10 and 11, loved Sandy, as did all of us. One afternoon by the pool she was lying on a beach chair when Ivan noticed them looking their way and briefly unsnapped and lifted her bikini top.

Steve Rushin of Sports Illustratedcan make any subject interesting.  Writing about the phasing out of tickets to sports events, as most folks receive them on mobile devices, Rushin admitted the technological advancement has its advantages but also, “like Dylan going electric, its drawbacks and consolations.”  Soon, Rushin quipped, nobody will know the meaning of,“I’ll take a rain check.” Collectors wax nostalgic over such items as tickets shaped like pineapples or catchers’ mitts.  Quite valuable would be one from Sandy Koufax’s last game as a Dodger in the 1966 World Series.  Koufax went 27-9 that season despite suffering from a sore arm that hastened his retirement as age 30.  I got a good laugh reading this paragraph:

  One U.S. Open golf spectator was given a replacement ticket after persuading officials that his dog had really eaten his pass. But the Michigan State season-ticket holder who inadvertently threw his tickets into his fireplace while burning old files was SOL.  His tickets did not rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes.

It took me a few seconds to realize that SOL stood for “shit outta luck.”Toni got it immediately.

Bob and Rhea Laramie

I cheered when Phil’s former soccer coach Bob Laramie, who identified himself as 49-year Portage resident posted this raffle ticket and wrote:“I hope these weapons being raffled off by the FOP do not come back to haunt the department or the citizens of Portage. In the future when they come wanting donation, they will be reminded about this. The Mayor supporting this will also lose my vote in the upcoming election. I have no problem with guns just weapons of war that people use to slaughter others.  Robert Laramie, 49-year resident of Portage

John Fraire, who I’ve known for many years and whose brother Rocky is a good friend, sent me this email:

  Some of my research on the Mexican community in NW Indiana was the collection of oral histories of some of the original Mexican residents in the East Chicago. They were collected under IRB guidelines at Western Michigan University and then were approved for use by the IRB office of Union Institute and University where I completed my doctorate. The narratives have all been transcribed and printed. I would like to donate the following to the Calumet Archives:  print copy of the transcribed narratives, release forms from the individuals interviewed, original transcriptions with handwritten notes, flash drive with all the interviews.

What a treasure trove! I responded: “I’m very excited at your choosing the Calumet Regional Archives as the repository for your valuable collection.  By the way, I see your brother Rocky when our book club meets every two months at Gino’s in Merrillville.” He emailed back: “Thank you Jim. And thanks for all your help over the years. I will let you know when I am headed back to Crown Point with the materials. It will be great to go over them with you.”  Fraire has written extensively about women’s baseball teams in Indiana Harbor and California.

photo by Marty Bohn

At Gardner Center in Miller Marty Bohn’s exhibit “Definitive Moments,” featured striking photos taken in Nepal, India, Morocco, and Cuba.  I’d love to visit Nepal and Cuba, not so much India or Morocco. This from Anne Balay, who misses living in Miller but was denied tenure at IUN due to blatant discrimination on the part of her immediate superior:

  My face is on this truck. The couple who drive it designed the truck to represent trucking as it was and at it is now. They wanted my book and the stories it tells represented. Given the number of closed doors that I have met with, this recognition feels so affirming. The audience I really care about gets it and I am so damn grateful.

Laborers

“Unions were created to make living conditions just a little better than they were before they were created, and the union that does not manifest that kind of interest in human beings cannot endure, it cannot live.”  USWA President Philip Murray

 Philip Murray in 1936

Scottish-born Philip Murray (1886-1952) came to America in 1904 with his father, a coal miner. Young Philip also went to work in a mine, first in Scotland and then in the Pittsburgh area but was fired in 1904 for punching a manager who tried to cheat him by altering the weight of the coal he had mined.  He went on to become the president of a United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) local and in time a close associate of UMWA president John L. Lewis.  When Lewis formed the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO), he tapped Murray to head up the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC).  He went on to succeed Lewis as CIO President and in 1942 transformed SWOC into the United Steel Workers of America (USWA), serving as its first president. 

 Lowell Labor Day parade photo by Post-Tribune's Suzanne Tennant

Becca as Mary Poppins; below, Dunes National Park site by George Sladic

The town of Lowell held its hundredth annual Labor Day parade, with Teamster Local 142 president Ted Bilski (also a Lake County Councilman) one of the planners.  Phil came in for the Labor Day weekend to attend a fantasy football draft at Robert Blaskiewicz’s. Toni hosted a sixty-ninth birthday party for Angie’s dad John Teague, who arrived with a cooler of beer left over from James’s graduation party. Beth, up from Carmel, contributed a rhubarb pie.  Toni served ribs, corn of the cob, and rice, plus special meals for Angie (a vegan) and Charles, who doesn’t eat pork.  Becca borrowed my umbrella for an upcoming benefit at which she’ll sing a number from “Mary Poppins.”  In the Hoosier Star vocal competition in LaPorte, next week, she’ll perform “At Last,” made famous by Etta James and covered by Beyonce. Sunday would have been a perfect beach day only I opted to watch the Cubs get shut out for the second day in a row.  Dave stopped in after dropping Phil off, and we got in Acquire and pinochle games – first time in quite a while.

steelworkers on strike in 1949 (above) and 1952 (below)

left, shooting pool at union hall

Philip Murray Building

John and Diane Trafny’s “Downtown Gary, Millrats, Politics, and US Steel” contains photos of Gary Works employees picketing during the 1949 and 1952 steel strikes, as well as two of Philip Murray union hall (exterior and interior) at Fifth and Massachusetts, headquarters for Local 1014 until the 1970s when replaced by McBride Hall on Texas Street near I-65.  In 1959 a 116-day strike ended after President Dwight D. Eisenhower invoked the Taft-Hartley Act. While those three job actions yielded beneficial resulted for workers, by the time of the 1986-87 USX lockout, the longest in steel industry history, union workers were on the defensive.  

Betty LaDuke

On the way to Valparaiso University’s College of Arts building to speak to Liz Wuerffel’s podcast class, I ran into Brauer Museum director Gregg Hertlieb and had time to check out the current gallery exhibit, entitled “Social Justice Revisited” and featuring the impressive work of Betty LaDuke.  The 86-year-old Oregon artist has traveled to 19 African nations and many other so-called Third World countries to learn about and portray regarding food production and migration.  

The podcast class met in a graphic design lab, and the 18 students had their own work stations. I introduced myself and asked each their name and where they from.  One said Peru – Indiana, not South America, I found out later. I discussed oral history as a vital tool for researching workers, immigrants, minority groups, and seniors.  The students’ first assignment is to interview someone from the Calumet Region, so I suggested talking to Regal Beloit workers who had been on strike since late-June or perhaps seniors who go to Banta Center.  I stressed not going into the interview with a long set of questions but rather engaging the subject in a conversation and being flexible and open to the unexpected. I cited mistakes I’d made such as failing to check my equipment and not asking my subject to turn off his TV.

Questioned about doing oral history and other matters, one student who had read the portions of Steel Shavings magazine I had assigned asked if I wrote persuasively.  I said that as a historian, I sought the truth but didn’t try to disguise my point of view.  As Alessandro Portelli put it, oral history must have as one purpose the advancement of social justice; otherwise, what’s the point?  A Korean-born student wondered what, if anything, scholars would find relevant about our present age.  I noted the climate change crisis, the changing nature of work, and ever-increasing advances in technology.  Asked if I thought Trump would get us into a war with Russia or China.  I declined to discuss Trump other than predict that if he thought he needed a war to get re-elected, he’d pick on a nearby weak country (like Reagan invading Grenada) rather than a superpower. I made several references to the VU Flight Paths Project, whose co-directors are Liz Wuerffel and Allison Schuette.

from left, Liz Wuerffel, Rebekah Arevalo, Christina Crawley, Allison Schuette

I showed a short clip from my interview of Martha Azcona, whose parents were migrant workers who moved to Gary in the early 1950s when she was a pre-schooler. The eldest of seven, Martha talked about hours spent cleaning her sisters’ cloth diapers, insisting on diaper service for her own children, and using disposables for the next generation.  Now that’s social history at its essence! Next came the main reason I brought the DVD.  Suddenly, Martha said, “I don’t know if I should say this but when I was 15, my parents split up because of another woman.” She explained that the “nice Jewish grocers”her dad worked for told him, who had relatives who perished in Nazi “Death Camps” and believed in family above everything, that they’d have to let him go if he didn’t reconcile with his wife.  He refused, and as a consequence, Martha had to delay graduating from Horace Mann high school to join her mother as a migrant worker.

I noticed a German-born student wearing a Philadelphia Eagles jacket.  He had enjoyed the section in Steel Shavings,volume 48, about the Eagles, led by QB Nick Foles, defeating Tom Brady and the New England Patriots to win the Superbowl and the raucous celebration afterwards.  I included this paragraph from a Sports Illustratedarticle:

  The Crisco that state police had lathered onto street poles two weeks earlier had been replaced by hydraulic fluid – so fans simply uprooted the poles from the ground and carried them down the streets on their shoulders.  Others climbed atop traffic lights and surveyed the unprecedented scene unfolding beneath them. Some 2,000 college students marched from Walnut to 30th Street and, en masse, chanted “Fuck Tom Brady” and “Big Dick Nick.”  Other revelers stood atop cars and threw dollar bills into the air.  One man dressed as Santa – a costume that evokes the most ignominious moment in franchise history – crowd-surfed down the road, not too far from where a Christmas tree was set afire. A police horse was stolen and trotted through the city.

I told the student that my fantasy football draft was that evening, and he nodded with approval. I stuck pretty close to what the experts recommended but consulted with Dave and took a couple personal favorites such as QB Carson Wentz and Bears running back Terik Cohen).  Nephew Garrett tried to persuade me to trade Wentz to him, but I replied, “No dice.”

Karen Freeman-Wilson (r) with Joe Buscaino, Kathy Maness, 
and NLC predecessor Mark Stodola, Mayor of Little Rock

IU Northwest hosted a three-day National League of Cities meeting of mayors, as Gary’s Karen Freeman-Wilson is finishing out her one-year term as president of the organization.  I saw nothing about it in either local paper.  In fact, The NWI Times, which opposed her bid for a third term, egregiously claimed it was a distraction from her mayoral duties. 

At Banta Center for duplicate bridge a guy with a guitar setting up to entertain seniors at lunch told me he mainly played upbeat 60s and 70s numbers.  Bridge opponent Ric Friedman recalled some good local bands back then.  I brought up Styx, and Ric claimed he bought a car previously owned by one of the band members with all sorts of special gadgets, including remote control for music. Dottie Hart and I each earned half a master point, finishing with 54% despite a couple hands I wish I could bid or play over.  When opponent Ed Hollander got set and said, “I was screwed,”Dottie replied “And you weren’t even kissed.”  I’d never heard that expression before.  Chuck Tomes mentioned a LaSalle College basketball player, and I noted that NBA great Tom Gola starred for the Philadelphia school when I was a kid and went on to lead the Philadelphia Warriors to a championship in 1956, six years before the franchise moved to San Francisco.

Learning that bridge opponent Don Giedemann was a bowler and that his partner, Judy Selund, was vacationing in Poland, I talked him into subbing for the Electrical Engineers since we were in desperate need for a fifth bowler.  He already knew many Mel Guth Seniors league bowlers. He started slowly but rolled a 230 second game and finished with a 198 average.  Don once carried a 210 average but took several years off when his wife became critically ill.  A 1955 Bishop Noll graduate, he recalled Noll’s basketball team barely losing to Indianapolis Attucks in front of 5,000 fans at Hammond Civic Center.  Led by Oscar Robertson, Attucks would go on to become state champion by defeating Gary Roosevelt, 97-74.  When he heard I’d spoken in a Valparaiso University class, Don said that for seven years he participated in one on public speaking for an exercise of one-on-one disputation.  The Purdue graduate was a manager at LTV and retired in 2001 after 44 years.

Jim Spicer, elated over Green Bay’s NFL victory, 10-3, over the pathetic Bears, posted his joke of the week:

    Doug lived all his life in the Florida Keys and while on his deathbed, knowing his life’s end was near, spoke to his wife, his daughter, two sons, and his doctor. He asked for two witnesses to be present and a lawyer so that he could place in record his last wishes.

    “My son, Andy, you take the Ocean Reef houses. My daughter, Sybil, take the apartments between mile markers 100 and the Tavernier. My son, Jamie, I want you to take the offices over in the Marathon Government Center. Sarah, my dear wife, please take all the residential buildings on the bayside on Blackwater Sound.”
    The lawyer and witnesses were blown away as they didn’t realize his extensive holdings. Doug slipped away and the lawyer said, “Mrs. Pender your husband must have been such a hard-working man to have accumulated all this property.”
    The wife replied, “No, the jerk had a paper route.”

Ron Cohen and I sent the following memo to Vicki Roman-Lagunas, IUN Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs, and Latrice Rosana Booker, dean of the Library

  In the summer of 2020 IU Northwest Archivist Steve McShane will be retiring.  As co-founders and co-directors of the Calumet Regional Archives (CRA), we feel it is imperative to guarantee that he will be replaced by a full time, professional archivist in order to maintain the CRA’s excellence and importance as the most extensive professional Archive in Northwest Indiana, as well as implement plans to establish an IUN campus administrative archive. In order to make sure that Steve (right) will be on hand to acclimate his successor to the job, we are writing to urge that authorization for the position be made as soon as possible in order for a search to commence.        

   Note: Professor James Lane and Ronald Cohen (on left) joined the IUN History Dept. in September 1970. They soon began doing research on Gary and the Calumet Region’s history, which led to collecting historical materials that were initially stored in their offices. When the university began planning the new Library/Conference Center the administration agreed to include a space for the newly created Calumet Regional Archives (CRA). In 1982 the CRA was officially launched with the hiring of Stephen McShane as the full-time archivist. Lane and Cohen have long remained the CRA’s Co-Directors.  Over these last almost forty years the CRA has grown into a massive collection that has been used by countless historians, genealogists, and others from around the world in researching local history, as well as students and faculty. During this time the CRA also expanded its space on the 3rd floor to accommodate the always increasing number of collections.