Will young people vote?: A college query

I recently retired from Northwestern University where I was a journalism prof. I get to campus regularly and find myself talking with students and becoming acquainted with the priorities of young people; some engaged in campaigns. Many more are turned off to politics. 

When I was in college, I was into politics. I went to school just across the border from Illinois. I was a Chicago guy, proud of my hometown, like young folks are now because of the TV show, The Bear. Yet for most of my four years, Chicago was out of sight, out of mind. 

I lived in a college bubble, so I get how students now can ignore the election and resent people trying to shame them for not paying attention to the debates, the candidates, and the avalanche of intrusive emails and texts. 

One student told me he has no intention of voting, despite issues that matter to him -- the economy, his ability to get a job, afford housing on his own, and abortion. 

A survey of college students earlier this year found that when asked “what they would do if they or their partner became pregnant while in college, most asserted they would seek abortion.” The student said it deeply matters to him that if his partner or a friend became pregnant, she’d be able to turn to abortion. 

An August CBS News poll found that 60% of voters believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. 

Last month, People Magazine published a story identifying 56 celebrities who’ve shared their abortion stories. They were young women, not celebrities, when they sought an abortion. 

Democrats Harris and Waltz are dedicated to a woman’s right to decide. 

Republicans Trump and Vance treat abortion like a campaign shell game. Under one card, they put Trump’s appointment of Supreme Court justices who did his bidding to overturn a woman’s abortion rights, under another is Vance’s call for a national abortion ban, under another is their mantra to leave abortions to the states. 

I wonder if the student I talked with and others who consider the issue as important still won’t vote. 

______________________

Jack Doppelt is Emeritus Professor of Journalism, Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University and co-author of Nonvoters: America’s No-Shows

Kamala Harris Campaign Anthem: Never Going Back Again

Trump broke down and let chaos in 

We could see what he had done 

Been down with Trump one time 

Been down two time 

We're never going back again 

 [guitar solo] 

 You gotta know what it means to win 

So get down, vote and then 

Took down Trump one time 

Will take down Trump two time 

Yah 

Took down Trump one time 

Will take down Trump two time 

And there won’t be three time 

We're never going back again 

Yah 

Written and played by Lindsey Buckingham/Fleetwood Mac 

With deep thanks 

Watch and listen to his virtuoso version here - https://lnkd.in/gWsmYmR7

 Anthem words by Jack Doppelt

Resistance: Who Am I?

Update: July 22, 2024 Evanston RoundTable Good Monday morning, Evanston.

Someone apparently reacted quickly to Joe Biden stepping down from the presidential race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for the nomination on Sunday, rearranging a yard sign on Asbury Avenue south of Greenleaf Street that previously spelled out "RESIST." (Picturing Evanston photo by Joerg Metzner.)

I have often wondered, what is the measure of this man, Jack Doppelt? Martin Luther King preached that “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” Plato is quoted as saying, it is what one does with power.

What would I do in times of war or in times when resistance to power is the challenge? I have never fought in a war. I did not enlist during the Vietnam War. My number was 335 when the draft lottery was held on Aug. 5, 1971. It would be the last draft lottery.

Over the years, when discussions among friends have turned to what would you do at times of challenge and controversy, such as a Trump presidency, the recourse has been one of frustration. Move to Canada. Have your passport current and ready. 

It is conceivable, if not likelier than not, that Trump will become president again. From all indications, if that comes to pass, his presidency will be more dire, draconian and autocratic than fathomable. Read his lips. His words, as documented by Axios: 

• "Defund any school with a vaccine or mask mandate." • Impose the "largest domestic deportation operation." 

• "Protect innocent life." 

• "Investigate every radical out of control prosecutor." 

• Reimpose the "Trump travel ban." 

• End the "insane electric vehicle mandate." 

• Initiate "ideological screening on all immigrants." 

• Ensure "immunity for our law enforcement" 

• "Obliterate the deep state." 

He has pledged each of those measures, at least 5 times or more, again according to Axios. 

Or watch a handful of videos: 

• Trump on immigrants and deportations 
• Trump on climate change 
• Trump on Ukraine and NATO 
• Trump on Project 2025 
• 
  

Project 2025, the transition report blueprint for Trump’s presidency that is spearheaded by The Heritage Foundation, as summarized by the Washington Post, would: 

“Remake the federal workforce to be political: Instead of nonpartisan civil servants implementing policies on everything including health, education and climate, the executive branch would be filled with Trump loyalists…Give Trump power to investigate his opponents: Project 2025 would move the Justice Department, and all of its law enforcement arms like the FBI, directly under presidential control….Crack down on even legal immigration: It would create a new ‘border patrol and immigration agency’ to resurrect Trump’s border wall, build camps to detain children and families at the border, and send out the military to deport millions of people who are already in the country illegally (including dreamers)….Slash climate change protections: Project 2025 calls for getting rid of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which forecasts weather and tracks climate change, describing it as ‘one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.’” 

Trump is distancing himself from the frightful specifics of Project 2025. He’s no dummy demagogue. Fascism for the people and the power of positive bullying go hand in hand with bluster mitigated by practiced denial and buoyed by drumbeats of propaganda. 

The Post’s summary tries to comfort the easily distracted public by noting that “some of these ideas are impractical or possibly illegal. Analysts are divided about whether Trump can politicize the civil workforce to fire them at will. And the plan calls for using the military to carry out mass deportations on a historic scale, which could be constitutionally iffy.” 

That is not how dictatorships work when the judiciary has already been coopted, and Republican voters, public officials and media platforms have fallen under a toxic spell. Trump is a master dogwhistler and MAGA supporters are obedient, angry companions. It is ironclad. 

Remember the titan. Trump got the votes of more than 62 million people when he defeated Hillary Clinton for president in 2016; he got more than 74 million votes when he lost to Joe Biden in 2020. 

Instead of shaking our heads in wonderment at how a deranged demagogue could have the support of millions and millions of Americans, do some basic math in assessing your fellow Americans. 

Among us are segregationists whose response to the end of slavery during the end of the 19th century and most of the 20th century was to impose Jim Crow laws and fight civil rights legislation and protests with seething anger, fists in the air and bulldogs. 

Count off the isolationists and Nazi sympathizers during the 1930s and World War II who linked arms to foment anti-Semitism. 

Add in the anti-Communists of the 1950s and ‘60s who were the thought police of that era. They cancelled culture through blacklisting that got people fired and rendered them unemployable. 

Don’t forget the White and Christian nationalists who use immigrant-phobia to keep the country from slipping into the clutches of the other. 

Toss in the anti-abortion activists whose beliefs and methods have spilled over to instill fear in women and doctors who aren’t even contemplating abortion. 

Hail to Huey Long, Bull Connor and Lester Maddox, hail to Charles Lindbergh and Father Charles Coughlan, hail to Joe McCarthy and hail to Donald Trump. Leaders with bullhorns and bully pulpits matter. 

So do the offspring of ardent segregationists, isolationists, Nazi sympathizers, anti-Communists, White and Christian nationalists, anti-abortion activists. Take out a ledger. Subtract the many, many offspring who have disassociated from their parents and their beliefs. On the other side of the ledger, account for the biblical fruitfulness and multiplication that has repopulated each generation with revitalized venom. 

If you did some simple addition allowing for overlap in the millions and margins of error, you’d still have 50 million + people who constitute the willing followers of Fascism Trump-style. It is intoxicating. 

Trump is not a stand-alone nemesis. His legions are legion. They have a push-pull relationship and they mean business. 

As Project 2025 sets out in its opening paragraph [emphasis theirs]:

“It is not enough for conservatives to win elections. If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on Day One of the next conservative Administration.” 

Project 2025 is driven by a 180-day playbook. Whether it’s Trump’s agenda or Project 2025’s playbook or a marriage made in heaven forbid, there’s work to do over the next four months to defeat Donald Trump. 

There’s also work to do to organize for the resistance if he were to win. I’m not moving to Canada, as fond as I am of the place. 

So what to do and how to go about it? 

As a Jew whose grandparents were slaughtered in a Nazi concentration camp, I’m sensitive to the direct consequences of the demonization of the other and to the Righteous role models whose selfless sacrifices in resistance saved Jews from capture and death. 

Resistance is a controversial concept and undertaking. Even Wikipedia recognizes that. 

It is not something I know how to engage in. I have no playbook. When I think about it, it seems like a dystopian fantasy or the musings of a savior complex. When it goes beyond organized peaceful protests or legal strategies, its actions can’t be publicly shared or disseminated. Texts, email and social media would be mostly off-limits. 

If peaceful protesters are arrested, would I and others join in to swell the ranks to make arrests less feasible?  If immigrants are rounded up for deportation, would I and others hide people in our homes? Would I and others seek out churches, synagogues and mosques for sanctuaries, solidarity and moral guidance? Do undergrounds form organically? 

I’m in uncharted territory here. 

 #####

Preparing the 2024 Haggadah is not the dilemma I feared

Jack C. Doppelt 

April 2024 

This year’s Haggadah seemed destined to be different in large part because of the complexities of the struggles throbbing in the Middle East. Surprisingly and poignantly, not much changing is needed. The places, the terms (Holy Land, Promised Land, Bible, exodus, desert, plagues), the themes, the introspection, even the jarring lessons of being the oppressed and the oppressors have been in our Haggadah all along. All that’s needed is to listen more intently, be more aware of suffering and of empathy, and truly recognize how the history of humanity and inhumanity keeps resonating. 

In 2014, I was teaching in the West Bank and wrote these reflections: Because We Can? Pondering Oppressor and Oppressed. We incorporated it into our Haggadah. 

The driving force of any Passover is the telling and retelling of stories so memories are more likely to be preserved. Take this one with you, whether you celebrate, respect Jewish traditions or not: 

Elijah the Prophet: A child’s view of plagues, miracles and the open door 

As I was putting this year's updates to bed, a friend discovered a story in Washington Monthly, called "From The Edges of a Broken World: The article Guernica retracted, and the translator who tried to tread the line of empathy." It's worth reading. 

In it, Joanna Chen, the author, quotes from poetry lines that others have written over the years. Many are translated from Hebrew or Arabic. They help bottle the empathy Passover needs to preserve. 

Joanna Chen

"The tree lost its mythical powers, horses huddled at the edge of the earth. The sniping light turned cold, winter came, we continued, faces sealed. Only at night did we sit down with our own names. How can I mourn the distance of years, of waste, of your silence seeping into the earth."

--“The End of Naivete” by Yonatan Berg in Frayed Light 

"You hand me a clean handkerchief, Ripe figs. I have been moving away For years"

--“Remembrance” by Yonatan Berg in Frayed Light 

"By the time the knock at the door came, I was dead. Who’s there? asked the photo in the frame. It is me, I said. I came back to wipe the dust off you." 

--“To My Mother” by Yonatan Berg in Frayed Light 

"Your morning is the morning of others. Your evening is the evening of others And we frequently set traps for birds."

--untitled, by Nasser Rabah, in Arrowsmith (translated collectively by Joanna Chen, Julie Yelle, and Mosab Abu Toha)

"No flag flutters for me, No bird alights upon the window. I am a clock on the wall." 

--“The Evening of Others,” published in Chen's 2017 blog in the Los Angeles Review of Books

"I want to be your foliage, Dense and cool against the heat, But I am dry thorns on a hilltop" 

--“Hebron” in Frayed Light 

"I want to be innocent of every line I ever wrote, I want to cry on every hand that ever hovered over the cover of a book. A flock of vocabulary jostles at my window, hammers at my heart." 

--untitled, by Nasser Rabah, Los Angeles Review of Books 

"The hand still moves across the page and on the balcony plants lean forward, long-necked, into the sun." 

--“Report from a Free City” by Yonatan Berg in Frayed Light 

 #####

Changing the immigrant narrative: A State of the Union postscript

                                                                                                                                    March 8, 2024

Well into President Biden’s State of the Union address, Biden displayed a pin that referred to Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student at Augusta University who was brutally killed a few weeks ago. Biden’s remarks were off the cuff, not part of the official transcript, and prompted by Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, donned in a red MAGA cap, who goaded him from the chamber after buttonholing him as he entered. 

Say her name,” Greene heckled. Her stalking worked. Biden took the bait and got hooked.

In commiserating with the student’s family, Biden conceded that Riley was “an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. That’s right.” 

Typically little is known about the person accused of crimes for weeks after an arrest until the news media researches the hell out of the person’s background. Here too, what was shared by authorities was the accused’s name - Jose Antonio Ibarra. He lived in an apartment near the Augusta campus, he was caught on video, he’s 26, he didn’t know the victim, he’s from Venezuela, he doesn’t have an “extensive criminal history,” he’s not a U.S. citizen, though authorities didn’t know his immigration status. In the initial reports, the incident was likened to a 2023 rape and killing of a 34-year-old woman, who like Riley had been running on campus (at the University of Memphis). The accused suspect was identified, had been charged in Sept. 2021 with raping another woman, and had served 20 years in prison for kidnapping a prominent Memphis attorney in 2000 when he was 16 years old. He was not an immigrant. 

Since the initial reports, it’s come out that Ibarra crossed the border without authorization or documentation, as did his brother, Diego Ibarra, whom federal authorities believe may be affiliated with the violent Tren de Aragua, a violent Venezuelan gang whose members frequently wear Chicago Bulls garb. He’s charged with having a fake green card and has been arrested three times by Athens officers. 

Diego Ibarra

A few lines after his exchange with Greene, Biden returned to his script. Referring to Trump only as his predecessor, Biden pledged, "I will not demonize immigrants, saying they are poisoning the blood of our country," referring to Trump’s many anti-immigrant vulgarities, including: “It’s true. They’re destroying the blood of our country,” which he said recently live on Fox News while campaigning in Waterloo, Iowa. 

Biden engaged in a feisty, rehearsed challenge to the Republican side of the aisle to act on what he termed a bipartisan border security approach that collapsed last month after Trump told his congressional minions to kill the deal. 

As Republicans started to boo and groan, Biden regained his mojo, “Oh you don’t like that bill, huh? That conservatives got together and said was a good bill? I’ll be darned,” he said and cited the proposal’s supporters, including the Border Patrol union and the Chamber of Commerce. “Unfortunately, politics has derailed this bill so far.” 

As all too many polls are showing, immigration matters. It’s become the third rail of politics and it’s derailing anything and anyone who goes near. For the Republicans, they claim Trump means “illegal” immigrants are the blood poisoners. Thanks for clearing that up. 

For the Democrats and the left, they cringe at the term “illegal.” Many were vocally critical of Biden for using the term in his speech. 

“As a proud immigrant, I’m extremely disappointed to hear President Biden use the word ‘illegal,’”said Cong. Chuy García of Illinois. 

Cong. Pramila Jayapal, chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said to an Associated Press reporter that she wished “he hadn’t engaged with Marjorie Taylor Greene and used the word illegal.” Cong. Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat, told the Texas Tribune that it was “dangerous rhetoric.” 

Cong. Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House, told CNN that Biden “should have said undocumented, but that’s not a big thing.” She added, “We usually say undocumented, he said illegal, I don’t think it’s a big deal.” To others, glaringly big. 

Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center, similarly criticized Biden, saying he “parroted dehumanizing Republican rhetoric about immigrants.” 

“We were shocked to hear the president echo the words of anti-immigrant extremists,” the National Immigrant Justice Center said in a statement. “Manipulating a personal tragedy for political gain in this way is dangerous. Conflating immigration status with criminality is racist and dehumanizing.” 

That’s the Republican-MAGA narrative on immigration and immigrants. It’s vicious, dangerous, divisive, and Trumped-up. The Laken Riley-Jose Antonio Ibarra saga is their gift that will keep on giving. 

It’s often said that in politics, it’s not facts that matter, it’s how the public feels. More on point, it’s how people are told to feel. It’s in the messaging. 

The right - from Fox News to MAGA to Trump - have conjured a pet phrase for the duration of the campaign. “Migrant crime.” 

An analysis in The Washington Post - The birth of Fox News’s ‘migrant crime’ obsession – captured the phenomenon a week ago. “Over the past month, Fox News hosts, guests and video clips have mentioned ‘migrant crime’ nearly 90 times, more than half of those in the past 10 days,” the story cited. “Trump quickly picked up on the idea. Speaking at a National Rifle Association conference earlier this month, he used the term explicitly. “We call it migrant crime,” he said. “It’s unbelievable what’s going on. And now for the first time, you’re seeing migrant crime. These are tough people.” 

“MIGRANT CRIME IS TAKING OVER AMERICA…” Trump said in a video that has attracted more than 20,000 likes on Truth Social. He suggested that Biden had allowed an “invasion of our country,” and “into American communities to prey on our people.” And ultimately full circle to the gift that will keep on giving. He alleged that a “Biden migrant” had committed a murder in Georgia after “Crooked Joe” ordered the immigrant to be released. Cue Marjorie Taylor Greene. 

Is there a counter-message? Democrats and the left need to change the immigration narrative. The message and the reality is that the U.S. needs immigrants as workers. I’m naïve, but not so naïve to think it can be deployed during the campaign. Still, it’s to where the national conversation needs to shift. OK, what national conversation? Then call it messaging, talking points, whatever floats your political boat. 

For starters, listen to Cong. Delia Ramirez, a progressive Illinois Democrat’s take on Biden’s State of the Union address, She told TIME after the address that she wanted to hear Biden emphasize how immigrants are crucial to the American workforce instead of touting a bipartisan bill that would have added restrictions on immigration. “Democrats, in some cases, we are sounding just like the other side,” she said. “What we heard tonight wasn't very different from what we’ve heard from the other side. And I wish I would have heard him with more conviction say no human being is illegal.” 

Cong. Delia Ramirez

For those who are willing to venture beyond messaging and into facts, data, history and trends, stick with me for the sequel.

[Jack Doppelt is the founder and former publisher of Immigrant Connect, an online storytelling network for immigrants, their families and communities]

######

A dying Cub fan’s last bequest

By Margie Schaps and Jack Doppelt          January 31, 2024                                                                                                     

We may be daft, but our bats aren’t in the belfry. 

We met by the shores of old Lake Michigan, where the hawk wind blows so cold, as folksinger Steve Goodman sang. Our first date, our first kiss, was attending an outdoor Steve Goodman concert in Milwaukee in July 1983. 

When Jack had been in college, friends visited, toting his first record player as a birthday gift. Hitchhiking from Champaign to Grinnell College, friends got a ride. The driver asked where they were headed. “Grinnell, Iowa.” Me too, the driver said, “I have a gig there tonight” and drove on at 95 mph. Goodman asked during his performance who’s the fella with a birthday today, and Jack got to request a song. 

Thirteen years later, the year after our first date, in Sept. 1984, Goodman died of leukemia. He was 36. Jack’s job as morning news radio producer allowed him to line up top and bottom of the hour headlines. After Goodman died the night before, Jack pulled out his cache of Goodman’s tunes and plucked some choice musical ditties to spruce up the headline, an unusual embellishment for radio news. After a couple of hours, the morning anchor, apparently thrown by the memorial pageantry, bellowed into the internal mike, “Who the hell is Steve Goodman?” 

A few months ago, at the opening of The Fat Shallot, in our Evanston neighborhood, the owner’s mom asked if we’d heard of Steve Goodman. Came to the right place. She told us she had Steve Goodman’s piano. Do we want it? No charge. We just had to move it out of her garage. It had been there for years and was out of tune. Goodman had given her the piano when he was moving to California to stoke his career. Her dad was his hematalogist, addressing Goodman's leukemia. She had the piano hoisted into her third-floor apartment at 1225 W. Chase in Rogers Park. What? That’s where we lived, on the first floor. She’d long since moved, as have we. 

We now live in a 110-year-old stucco house that has endured basement flooding, mice, squirrels, and a recent 25-page animal control report that pinpointed more than 20 vulnerable openings in our home’s exteriors. Estimate to repair: $8,516. Yikes! 

It took weeks to work out moving arrangements for the upright Thompson piano. We let the arctic chill in early January pass. On Fri., Jan. 19, the movers drove up. They removed an out of tune piano in the living room and replaced it with Goodman’s out of tune piano. It was our first introduction. Yes, it resembled the piano on the album cover of Goodman’s Somebody Else's Troubles. 

Beneath the piano’s dust and web-ridden exterior was a stunning interior view of the hammers and tuning pins above the keyboard.

In every crevice lurked wads of dust, webs, droppings, whatever a loose imagination might conjure from years in a garage. Gloves on, I vacuumed everything the nozzle approached. I emptied the garbage bags. I scoured. It looked less like a prop from the Munsters. A few days later, our housekeeper took over and applied skill to elbow grease. Better yet. 

Our welcome party got waylaid. We woke up Monday morning to an unexpected, and deeply unwelcome visitor, resting in our bathtub on the second floor. A quick, nervous glance convinced us the clump was a bat, not of the Louisville Slugger variety. We consulted a YouTube video, reconnoitered with our neighbor, a naturalist, and devised a plan. Thick gloves on hands and a plastic garbage can in hand, we swooped in, so to speak. We covered it, had it, and brought over some heavy books to weigh down the bat-enriched container. We also covered it with a heavy blanket. We called the animal critter folks, who briefed us on the regs on protected species (read: bats). They aren’t to be killed. The animal critter folks came out, took away the container and retreated to their facilities to test the bat for rabies. Though humans aren’t protected species, we aren’t left unprotected. Per doctor’s orders, and armed with two truths - rabies bites are 100% preventable and 100% fatal - we headed to the closest ER for rabies shots. A battery of five vaccine doses over a two-week period; three initially. 

Returning home spooked and vaccine achy, we cancelled our evening plans and tried to sleep. It was challenging enough until Margie woke at 2 am to go to the bathroom. There on the shower curtain was another clump. Another bat, this one in an inconvenient place to capture. The curtain dangled loosely from a rod. How to capture it? We called the animal critter folks. They would come out in the middle of the night for $550. Worth it, but the guy lived more than an hour away. Were we willing to leave the bat as is, and go back to sleep as the guy drove over? Leave it? No. Sleep? Not likely. Having watched a YouTube video, we felt equipped to capture it ourselves...sorta. We poised ourselves.

Gloves in place, container in hand, we pinned both the clump and the shower curtain to the mosaic tiles. 

The captured package was high up the wall. We could hold it in place against the tiles, but after a while, our arms would tire.

Shower curtain and
rubber gloves

In confining the bat, we’d caught its wing under the edge of the container. If it had been sleeping, as bats do plenty, it wasn’t now as it tried to wriggle out of the container. As it wriggled, flailed and strained to fly, it hissed, squealed and bared its teeth. Scary enough. Our mission was to scoonch the container down, holding it tautly to the tiles until it was tub high so we could hold it longer. Scarier. 

We went at it, as the bat leeched blood down the tiles. Too reminiscent of Hitchcock’s shower scene at the Bates Motel in Psycho for our tastes. 

Janet Leigh

We got it down. Next maneuver. Place the top of the plastic container level with, but behind, the container. Push the container onto the container top, hold it taut, turn it over and tightly secure the container. Did it. Missed a chance to go viral on YouTube. Now, we could wait till morning for the critter control folks to fetch the bat from our renamed batroom on the second floor. We had become suitably spooked about staying in our bat-infested house. The rabies results came back. Negative on both bats. Still, we checked on accommodations with friends. We stuck it out and tried to return to normal, notwithstanding sleep deprivation. 

We brought in a piano tuner. With a look of woe and wonder, he reinforced how out of tune and action-damaged the piano is. But he knew of Steve Goodman, figured there might be Cubs paraphernalia stuck somewhere in the works and volunteered for the piano rescue team. Before he could tune, there were more remnants crammed into interstices. Gloves re-engaged, we vacuumed more and emptied the garbage bags. 

He had a go at step one in the tuning process. He saw hope. He found some pennies. We unearthed the piano’s serial number: 145291. So far, no Cubs paraphernalia. No scribbled notes or chords to Go Cubs Go, to City of New Orleans, to Lincoln Park Pirates, to Men Who Love Women Who Love Men, or to A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request. 

We’ve had an epiphany. We are now operating on the hypothesis that the bats came in the piano, just the right size to host two bats, making the bats the paraphernalia. They are Goodman’s Dying Cub Fan's Last Bequest.

#####

Letters from home freshman year

                                                                                                                                           January 6, 2024 

[Listen here to the Lines n' Lyrix version of My Old Man, Steve Goodman's dedication to his dad]

Our basement flooded recently. As I aired it out, I discovered a filled folder of old letters and cards that I’d saved. Among the water-damaged pages were letters from my college days, circa 1970. Still mostly legible 50+ years later, but needing to be scanned if I want to keep them. I do. 

I say “college days” instead of “college years” because I noticed that almost all the letters were from the first half of freshman year. Regular letters from my parents. They lasted the year. My dad did most of the writing. My mom considered herself a “greenhorn” and wasn’t confident writing in English. Crammed into the rest of the folder were a few hundred letters, no exaggeration, from high school chums, many of whom I don’t recall maintaining a friendship with once I went to Grinnell, 300 miles due west of my Chicago home. No wonder I have such a fond and clear memory of Ernie, the campus post office guy. A few of my friends’ communiques made it through break. They vanished before summer. The letters from friends were of all shapes, sizes, colors and designs, period pieces worthy of a retro exhibit. I learned from a quick once over that I was apparently known by a flurry of pet names in high school, like Black Jack, Mad Dog, Dip-Breath, Cracker, Jacob, Podner, Jackie Poo, Zalman King, Dop, and Dobbs.

It will take me awhile to do memory justice to them, so I decided to read my parents’ for now. My dad’s letters were in the same handwriting, mostly on 6”X 8” paper. I got used to deciphering them. The first letter from my parents was dated Labor Day.

It referenced a package I would be getting with 25 bank checks imprinted with my name. I was now a man. We’d invested in a long-distance call (me reversing the charges of 85 cents) before then in which I told them my hay fever was acting up. Iowa alfalfa? Marijuana? The next letter expressed disappointment that I wasn’t coming home for the Jewish high holidays. My parents planned to accept Grinnell’s offer, as one letter put it, to visit on Parents’ Day Oct. 31. I got a parcel with candies from my mom and a reform high holiday prayer book from my dad, with wishes for continued strength in body and spirit. My dad’s notes became peppered with Hebrew words, as he wrote how proud he was to be asked to do an Aliyah Levi at the Torah during high holiday services. I had wished my dad happy birthday and he told me a friend had gotten my mom and him two tickets to “Butterflies Are Free.” My folks didn’t go the theater much. 

One letter provided addresses of our relatives in Israel so I could write them too. Apparently my high school chums who were in college nearer to home would drop in and visit my folks. 

By Oct. 20, our letters expressed mutual feelings of loneliness. I’d apparently written them that food at Grinnell was “not very palatable,” to which my dad responded with a Hebrew phrase that he translated for me: “Such is the way of the student of learning.” They wrote how much they anticipated my return home for Thanksgiving. Seems I didn’t make it home. My dad repeatedly asked in the letters for me to reflect more on my course subjects. In the Thanksgiving letter, he wrote how pleased he was that I was in the company of such learned writers as Thucydides, “the student of cause and effect in history.” My dad was clearly reveling in vicarious education. He was also noting that he liked my writing style; that my heart was in it and that therefore my heart was in writing to them. That made it easier, he wrote, to not be with me for Thanksgiving. He would look forward to my homecoming “in the near future.” I apparently phoned on Thanksgiving. The next letter – on Dec. 5 – mentioned that I was a student of logic. At some point, probably at the time I received the letter, I highlighted in yellow the next phrase: “It therefore follows logically that upon receipt of this letter, you will call us again and tell us, especially, how you are progressing with your finals.” 

They stuck with me after break and wrote in late January that they’d received my grade report. They were “extremely happy therewith,” as my dad put it. They hoped I’d make it home for my birthday in late Feb. I didn’t. The next letter enclosed a birthday check for $18, which spells out Chai (or life) in Hebrew. Next in line for a visit home was Passover, in early April. My favorite holiday. Didn’t make that one either. Seems as I read over the 1st year correspondences with my parents that college was all consuming for me, and that’s how I wanted it. It reminds me that when my parents drove me to campus to begin college, I couldn’t wait for them to drive off so I could set off on this college/Grinnell thing. My folks and I kept up our correspondence through the school year. Last exchange: May 11, ’71, two days after Mother’s Day. My dad thanked me for having one of my high school buddies deliver flowers to my mom. He called Shel (my oldest friend to this day) my “harbinger of surprises.” 

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