My Sunday Feeling

My excellent nephew Henry is pursuing a Master's degree at Indiana's school of music.  He has sensibly decided not to be on the performance side of the business although as long as there are brass bands-and regrettably they are with us always-the trombone, like lawyers, will be part of God's plan.  So, Henry is getting his degree in the business side of the performing arts in hopes of becoming an Executive Director of a symphony or the like.

Beats teaching music in high school.  Trust me on this one.  

The other night his dad texted me.  Seems Henry had been assigned the task of asking me about our family's history in Indiana.  I think there was a governor of the state once with our last name although we are no relation.  Maybe it was a "conflict of interest CYA" kind of thing.  Maybe not. Henry, like most of the young people in my life, didn't give me much to work with.  So here's what I wrote to him given what little information I had at my disposal.

"Your grandfather who you never knew was born in Chicago but was raised in Valparaiso, Indiana.  Valparaiso is now basically a bedroom community of Chicago on the other side of Lake Michigan.  My buddy Kenny is from Indiana.  He says that Valparaiso "really sucks." So there's that.

I never knew Russell Bowen for the same reason you never knew Buck Bowen.  They both smoked cigarettes and it killed them both equally graveyard dead.  Russ checked out at 56.  Dad pretty much dropped dead in our backyard at 52.  And I have coronary artery disease.  Thanks, Buck.  But I remain asymptomatic mainly because I have always exercised and never smoked cigarettes.  Some outcomes are preventable.  

Russ Bowen served in World War I and he was part of the effort to organize the workers at the steel mill.  I guess it was Indiana Steel but that's just a guess.  He was a big union guy.  Grandmother Bowen told me they camped in tents outside the mill after their shifts were over to fight the goons the management brought in to kick their asses and/or to fight the scab labor (Look it up. It won't kill you.  Do I have to do everything around here?) that tried to take the Union guys' jobs.  imagine that if you will.  I can't.

We called Grandmother Bowen Gram.  And I'll be damned if I can remember her name.  Isn't that strange?  Anyway, she and Russ were damn near Communists by contemporary standards.  She proudly told me that she cast her first presidential ballot for "Fighting Bob LaFollette" who ran on a pro-union pro-farmer platform.  His official portrait in later life bears something of a resemblance to you oddly enough.  If you had an Elvis-like pompadour that is.  You and I come from labor types on one side of the family and hardscrabble cracker types on Mother's side.  Both sides were big supporters of FDR but for slightly different reasons.

After WWII, Buck went back to Valpo (as the locals call it) and went to Valparaiso University on the GI Bill where he got a degree in engineering.  He went to work at Indiana Steel in that capacity.  If he ever had to fight anybody outside the front gate like his own father did he never told me about it.  

Your Uncle Dave and I were both born in Valparaiso although I have no memories of it.  If your Uncle Dave says otherwise he is lying.  My Uncle Ralph wound up at the steel mill too. The story I got was that Ralph had gotten into an altercation with some other contestant in a poker game and Buck told the judge that he would take Ralph back to Indiana and get him a job if the judge would go light on him, as we criminal lawyers say.  Uncle Ralph must not have beaten the guy up too bad because the judge told Buck to get him out of Cleburne County by sundown.  That was back when you could get justice.

My memory on this is imperfect but it is understanding that my mother, whom you called Grandma Donice, met my father when she was in Chicago on a girl's trip with some coworkers.  They were married in Little Rock for some reason and the rest is history.  Well, they married because they loved each other.  Why they picked Little Rock was never explained to me.   Not that it was any of my business. Anyway, this history resulted, among other things, in your ultimately gracing the planet and your cantankerous uncle with your presence.

It occurs to me that the reason we have a Labor Day is because of guys like Russ Bowen.  Along with 8 hour work days, wage and hour laws, child labor laws and, well, you name it.  At least we have them for now. The country is currently run by fools.  

Gram's name was Lucille.  It just came to me.  You will be old someday too.  And you will marvel at the stuff you can forget.

Happy Labor Day, Hen!  I hope this helped some.  

Write when you get work."