Fulfilling the Promise

“Faith in education has been a dominant feature of our society since the beginning of the republic,” Herman B Wells, 1938

IU has adopted the slogan “Fulfilling the Promise” in anticipation of its 2020 Bicentennial.  A website citing milestones, beginning with an 1820 legislative act establishing a “state seminary,” brags: “It’s a story of broad-minded thinkers and impressive feats.  Outstanding artistic contributions and world-altering inventions.  Strong leaders and community builders.”  Among those honored are President Herman B Wells (“a pioneer in education”), Marcellus Neal and Frances Marshall (“the first African American graduates”), Ernie Pyle (“prized journalist”), dental scientist Joseph Muhler (inventor of fluoride toothpaste), Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz (seven gold medals in 1972), and 2009 Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom (in the category Economic Sciences).

above, John Bartlow Martin; below, Ray Boomhower

 “Fulfilling the Promise” is on the back cover of the December 2015 issue of Indiana Magazine of History (IMH), which contains my review of Ray Boomhower’s impeccably researched and gracefully written “John Bartlow Martin: A Voice for the Underdog.”  Martin was an award-winning magazine writer in the heyday of that genre, adviser to Democratic Presidential candidates for 20 years beginning in 1952 with Adlai E. Stevenson, and diplomatic trouble-shooter during the 1960s to war-torn Dominican Republic.  Concentrating on Martin’s 19 years in Indianapolis starting in 1919 at age four, I wrote:

  [It was] a place he claimed to have loathed, labeling his Brookside Avenue neighborhood a “mean street in a mean city.”  With his dad, J.W., he observed Ku Klux Klansmen circling the Soldiers and Sailors Monument downtown.  Martin’s two younger brothers died, perhaps unnecessarily (mother Laura was a Christian Scientist).  Home life fell apart after J.W., a general contractor, suffered reversals during the Great Depression.  Even so, Martin received a liberal education at Arsenal Tech and, after initial puerile acts of rebellion (“whoring and drinking,” as he put it), flowered at DePauw as college newspaper editor and columnist, adopting a flippant, condescending, Menckenesque tone.  Lampooning the hallowed (for Hoosiers) Indianapolis 500, Martin claimed: “It’s just like a county fair, only the bearded lady and the Streets of Paris and the Ferris wheel are missing.”  Following a stint with the Indianapolis Times and a failed marriage, Martin embarked on a freelance career and moved to Chicago. “The horizons in Indiana seemed suffocatingly close, he remembered, “the ceiling in Chicago unlimited.”   Boomhower concludes, “Martin had finally shaken off the mental shackles imposed by Indianapolis’s Brookside Avenue and had made it to a place ‘where the action was.’”  All things considered, Martin’s upbringing prepared him well for later success.

This is how I concluded my review:

  Crafting a biography of Adlai Stevenson, Martin didn’t explore his subject’s reputation as a ladies man.  Similarly, the author’s affection for Martin’s family may account for the silence on certain private matters.  A heavy smoker, he retreated often to Michigan’s remote Upper Peninsula and remains somewhat of an enigma.  In 1979 Martin delineated dilemmas facing biographers.  Among them: how to make subjects come alive; what made them tick; and how much personal material to reveal.  Boomhower succeeded on the first two counts and exercised discretion regarding the third.

Also in IMH Ralph D. Gray reviewed Dean J. Kotlowski’s biography of New Deal governor Paul V. McNutt, Indiana’s most powerful chief executive save for Oliver P. Morton during the Civil War.  High Commissioner to the Philippines from 1937 to 1939 when the islands were a U.S. possession, McNutt, Gray wrote, “defied America’s restrictions on mass immigration into the U.S. and persuaded the Philippine leaders to open their doors to some 1,300 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution.”

I’ve started “Abide By Me” by Elizabeth Strout, author of “Olive Kitteridge.”  Taking place, like most of her novels, in a small town in Maine, it describes a minister’s crisis of faith after his wife dies. 

Jeff Manes wrote: “Sometimes it gets a little hairy being the only Dem living on Ramsey Road. But I can handle the heat. Judging by the pattern, I'd say whoever shot my ‘Fire Pence’ sign was using a load of deuces from about 30 yards. 12-gauge, probably. You see, I'm not your average bleeding heart liberal lamb -- I shoot back. Have a nice day.”  David Mueller commented: “Every vintage sign should have a few buckshot holes.  This is the one you can tack into your garage siding.”

At bridge Chuck Tomes was wearing an IU sweater, so I invited him join me at a Friday basketball double header.  In one hand I opened a Heart and Alan Ynve to my left promptly bid two Hearts.  WTF?  I learned that it was a very strong take-out double indicating that he had two five-card suits.  His partner, Janice Custer bid and made two No-Trump.  Alan was void in hearts, but Janice had two stoppers.  Others who played my hand at three Hearts got set.  Several times Charlie Halberstadt and I played stellar defense only to get low board because other opposing teams got too aggressive.  Knoefel Jones, who with wife Janet finished in first place, promised to give everyone present a million dollars when he won Powerball, worth over a billion dollars (talk about wretch excess).

In “Once a Great City” David Maraniss wrote about Detroit in the early 1960s, a time when the city seemed to be thriving, with a record number of cars being sold and Motown Records booming.  My family lived in a Detroit suburb in the mid-1950s when Vic was transferred to Penn Salt’s Detroit office.  But white flight was well underway followed by business disinvestment.  Maraniss, a Michigan native, claims he got the idea after seeing an Eminem ad during the Superbowl.

 Walter Ray Williams (l) and Jerome Tachik

At Hobart Lanes, despite a 736 series by opponent Jerome Tachik, the Engineers salvaged the final game by three pins.  After I converted a spare by picking up the 1-2-7, Jerome needed a double in the tenth, but the lefty left a seven-pin after first striking.  Whew!  Posting a Facebook photo with seven-time PBA player of the year Walter Ray Williams, Tachik wrote: “I was able to bowl with him for five frames.” 

Brooke Gardner

Chuck Tomes took me up on my invitation to visit the Archives prior to our watching IUN’s Lady Redhawks defeat Lincoln Christian, thanks in large part to the hustle of sub Brooke Gardner.  A longtime Portage Math teacher and former referee, Tomes was critical of one official who took his time moving up court.  Unlike me, he knew that women’s college games now have four ten-minute quarters.  Having received a masters degree from IUN 40 years ago, Tomes hardly recognized the campus.  He took classes with Peggy Elliott, Lary Schiefelbusch, and Lew Ciminillo, who, he recalled, liked to sit on his desk with his shoes off.  I first met Tomes when he umpired Porter Acres softball games (he called me Doc).  After the game players from both teams formed a prayer circle, something I hadn’t seen before but not surprising given the opponent was a Christian school.  As I was leaving Chancellor Lowe wished me Happy New Year.

Yesterday in Gary

“There is no law of progress.  Our future is in our own hands, to make or to mar.  It will be an uphill fight to the end, and would we have it otherwise?  Let no one suppose that evolution will ever exempt us from struggles.”  Dean William R. Inge

Dolly Millender's 1967 volume “Yesterday in Gary: A Brief History of the Negro in Gary” opened with quotes from Dean William R. Inge and Sir Thomas Overbury (“The man who has nothing to boast of but his illustrious ancestry is like the potato - the best part under ground”).  The quotes make clear Millender’s theme that progress only comes with struggle and transcending what came before.  I love that Millender’s title “Yesterday in Gary” emphasizes the connection between past and present. 

At an IUN function Dolly Millender came up to Fred Chary and me and took our picture for a book about Gary legends.  Flattered, I introduced her to F.C. Richardson, who in 1969 helped bring about IUN’s Black Studies program, one of the nation’s first.  I told Dolly that he was a true legend, something that induced a chuckle from my former dean.  Her death caused me to remember Garret Cope, who several times had invited Dolly to speak at Glen Park Conversation gatherings at IUN.  Garret always had everyone introduce themselves, and, more than once, when it came around to him, said, “I am Barack Obama.”  The syllables would roll melodically from his tongue, and there’d be a twinkle in his eye.  I’ve speculated on why Garret did this and believe he saw the President as a kindred spirit and American hero who represented the possibilities of overcoming prejudice and transcending race.

Sadly, some bigots regard Obama as a usurper, similar to the enmity Richard Hatcher faced after he became mayor of Gary.  Recently Obama got choked up during a speech about curbing gun violence as he recalled the 20 young children massacred in 2012 in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.  Then he added: “And by the way, it happens on the streets of Chicago every day.”  Unbelievably, Fox news contributor Andrea Tattaros suggested the President might have had a raw onion under the podium to induce the tears.  Has she no shame?

Also passing away over the holidays was Archibald McKinlay, 88, a NWI Times columnist who wrote a pictorial history of East Chicago and “Reejin Archetypes,” which contains several chapters based on information from “City of the Century” and Steel Shavings issues.  He was mainly interested in the distant past, before superhighways destroyed the polyglot nature of Lake County industrial cities, whereas my concentration has been on the post-World War II years.  Arch, who resembled Papa Ernest Hemingway, founded Cattails Press and published a book Steve McShane and I edited entitled “Skinning Cats: The Wartime Letters of Tom Krueger.”  This excerpt from “Reejin Archetypes” illustrates his breezy style.

  One moment there was uninhabited swamp and wasteland, the next a thriving civilization with its own ineffably alloyed race babbling with all the tongues of the world and discharging the richest, most exotic culture imaginable: the homing place and time for a million divinely-guided, divinely-hindered wanderers, adventurers, expatriates, and miscellaneous folk on the lam – all driven by sweet tooths that hankered for milk and honey.

  Now there are mainly artifacts.

 Roosevelt Allen

In the news locally: Gary Works steelworkers have been sent ballots and will vote whether or not to ratify a contract agreement negotiated by their union.  Also Lake County Commissioner Roosevelt Allen, Jr., a 1965 Gary Roosevelt grad and former funeral director, died unexpectedly, a true gentleman, friend and foe agreed.

Brixton, England mural

David Bowie died after an 18-month battle with liver cancer.  Bono asserted that his influence in England was as huge as Elvis in America.  Marsha Andrevich turned me on to Bowie, and nephew Chad Donahue had all his albums.  He sang about being an outsider and taught listeners that they could reinvent themselves.  Madonna claimed to be devastated and to owe her self-confidence to him.  Ditto Iggy Pop.  Jerry Davich wrote: “Long live the Thin White Duke, Ziggy Stardust and decades of influential music that ushered so many profound ch-ch-ch-changes to the rock and roll world.”   New York Times writer Jon Pareles added:

  Angst and apocalypse, media and paranoia, distance and yearning were among Mr. Bowie’s lifelong themes.  So was the penchant for transgression coupled with the determination to push cult tastes toward the mainstream.

A threatened snowstorm didn’t stop bridge with the Hagelbergs, Tom Eaton, and Pat Cronin and dining at Miller Bakery Cafe followed by desert back at Tom’s.  Sunday Dave, Tom Wade, and Brady Wade arrived for gaming, and after Toni fed us cheeseburgers we kept an eye on IU’s impressive win over Ohio State and the NFL playoffs (disappointing losses by Minnesota and Washington).  Dave and I were huge Skins fans until his prime interest switched to his Fantasy teams. 

I’m a sucker for Will Ferrell movies, and “Daddy’s Home” contained a few funny moments as he played stepdad Bred Whitaker competing with cool Dusty Mayron (Mark Wahlberg).  At a father-daughter dance (similar to one I went to with Alissa when Phil was away at IU) Brad gets carried away and takes off his shirt, then realizes he was the only one to do so.

In Sports Illustrated is a poignant article about former Redskin tight end Jerry Smith, whose pro career spanned 12 years, beginning in 1965. While Smith didn’t talk about being gay, his teammates suspected but accepted him as a brother.  Quarterback Sonny Jurgensen, my favorite player of all time, was one of many teammates who visited him in the hospital as he lay dying of AIDS in 1986.  Smith idolized Coach Vince Lombardi, who died of cancer after bringing respectability to the Redskins my last year at Maryland and had a gay brother.  Coach George Allen called Smith the best Redskins tight end ever. When asked if he knew Smith was gay, Allen responded, “Heck, yeah.  He was one of the happiest guys on the team.”

 Voodoo Daddy (r) with Dave (guitar), John Shearer (drums), and Bob Heckler (organ)

Marianne Brush posted photos of late hubby Tim on Facebook and wrote: “Happy Seventh Anniversary in Rock ‘n Roll Heaven Big Voodoo Daddy!  I love and miss you every day.  Hope you are rocking out!”   We all miss him – he had a huge heart and ready smile and was the most nonjudgmental person I ever knew.

Sunday’s NWI Times Forum section contained IUN professor Chris Young’s article about a “Life Review” exhibit at the Abraham Lincoln Heritage Museum in Lincoln, Illinois. Young wrote:

  The museum guest is welcomed into the state box at Ford’s Theatre and is seated behind Lincoln, his wife, and their guests. One sees the shadowy John Wilkes Booth approach the president, hears the roars of laughter, and anticipates the terrifying shot.

What follows is a simulation of what might have gone through Lincoln’s mind during the subsequent nine hours and nine minutes left of his life.

I have long believed that one remembers past experiences in direct proportion to how enlightening (or traumatic) they were.  In “The Lost Landscape: A Writer’s Coming of Age” Joyce Carol Oates concluded:

  Emotion is a sort of flash photography – if you feel something deeply, you are likely to remember it for a long time.  But where emotion is not heightened, as in most hours of what we call our “daily” lives, memories fade like Polaroid pictures.  The memoirist is one who has impulsively picked up a handful of very hot stones – and has to drop some, in order to keep hold of others.

Anne Balay

Valparaiso University English professor Allison Schuette sent along an announcement about Anne Balay’s upcoming talk on February 18 at VU’s Center for the Arts.  Honored by VU’s Cultural Arts Committee as the 2015 Dr. Betty Berzon “Emerging Writer,” Anne, the announcement states, “presents in Steel Closets powerful stories of the intersections of work, class, gender, and sexual identity in the dangerous industrial setting of the steel mill.  Through the powerful voices of Northwest Indiana steelworkers, Steel Closets provides rich insight into an understudied part of the LGBTQ population.”

The Final Jeopardy question asked the origin of the line: “But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all.”  Easy: “Casey at the Bat,” the baseball poem by Ernest Thayer.  All three contestants nailed it.