Author: rtrube54

Review: Death of a Ghost

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Death of a Ghost (Albert Campion #6), Margery Allingham. New York: Avarang Books, 2023 (first published in 1934).

Summary: Campion and Stanislaus Oates investigate two murders connected to the house of Belle Lafcadio and the unveiling of famous works of her deceased husband John.

Fairly early on in this book, Campion and Inspector Stanislaus Oates know the identity of the murderer. But they lack evidence for an arrest. The suspenseful buildup in this book involves Campion’s efforts to expose the murderer, obtaining sufficient evidence for an arrest of a murderer clever in covering tracks. It’s a dangerous game, one that nearly costs Campion his life.

The setup is the unveiling of a painting by deceased artist John Lafcadio. Before his death, he painted a series of paintings, packed into twelve containers, one to be opened for display and sale at the home of his widow, Belle Lafcadio. Max Fustian, an art dealer, helps manage the shows and sale of the art. For seven years, all has gone well. Not so this year,

A boyfriend of Belle’s granddaughter Linda, Tommy, shows up at the show, fresh home from a painting trip to Italy, married to a model in order to bring her into the country. When the lights come on after a brief outage, Tommy is found dead of a knife wound to the heart. Suspicion hangs on Linda until Fustian confesses to the murder. His story doesn’t hold up but no one is arrested. There is not enough evidence to arrest anyone, and Campion, an old family friend of the Lafcadios doesn’t think Linda guilty.

Then odd things begin happening. All of Tommy’s work begins disappearing, including a piece in Campion’s possession. Then another murder, of Claire Potter, an artist who, along with her husband, lives at Belle’s and works in a garden studio. The cause is found to be nicotine poisoning. Some clues point clearly to the murderer, but they offer too little basis for an arrest. Drawings made by Tommy could be a key piece of evidence. A trip to the country cottage where the drawings might be found result in an encounter with the murderer and the drawings but ashes in the fireplace.

Fearing that Belle could be next on the murder list, Campion uses a remaining drawing by Tommy, provided by Linda, to lure the killer into a meeting where he puts his own life at risk, hoping to expose the killer before another connected with the Lafcadio household dies. But will it cost him his own life?

What makes this such a good read is the fascinating character of the killer, genius tinged with madness. Knowing the identity of the killer builds the suspense, given the cleverness of the killer, managing to kill Claire from a distance. We fear for Belle, then Campion. And for good reason.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — 10 Things We No Longer Do

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An old Youngstown bicycle license from the 1970’s

My wife and I were talking about things we don’t do that were a part of our lives growing up in Youngstown. Here were ten things we came up with on this stroll down memory lane.

Buy bike licenses. We remember buying licenses for our bikes. You’d go down to the nearest fire station, fill out a form with your name, address and bike description and serial number, It was supposed to help in recovering stolen bikes. The old ones were metal and there were holes on bike fenders that you could use a nut and bolt to attach the license. Eventually they went to reflective stickers like the one pictured above that were harder to remove. No one I know ever recovered a lost bike. Better to buy a good lock.

“Vintage Children’s Flying Ace Outdoor Roller Skates” by Joe Haupt is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Skate on sidewalks with roller skates that clipped to your shoes. This allowed for a quick switch without pulling off shoes and pulling on skates and the metal wheels held up to concrete sidewalks. Looking online, it does appear there are some modern versions of clip on roller skates.

Buy the latest hits on 45 rpm “singles.” Remember getting the latest Beatles or Human Beinz single. There was a “B” side with a song not nearly as good, usually. The top hits lists came from sales of these. You had to play them with an adapter or insert. Now you download or stream the songs digitally. But vinyl has experienced a comeback. Will 45’s?

Use an old cigar box for your school pencil case. We loaded pencils, erasers, pens, rulers, and protractors into one of these after grandpa emptied one of all his stogies.

Go to sock hops. Yes, we wore socks to protect the gym floor. Girls on one side, boys on the other. Eventually the bolder ones paired up and somehow most of the rest followed while teachers and parents chaperoned.

Climbing Rope, Public Domain

Climb the rope (or not) in gym class. At least for guys, this was a mark that you were fit. It was a moment of triumph when I could finally do this in eighth grade as baby fat finally got replaced with adolescent muscle. For a long time, it was just a dreaded ordeal of failure.

Using carbon paper. Remember when if you wanted to have a copy of a document, you would insert a piece of carbon paper between two sheets of paper or printed forms, including credit card receipts?

Image by Ralph from Pixabay

Returning pop bottles for deposits. When we bought a bottle or crate of pop, there was a bottle deposit that was part of the price. We’d get a few cents back when we returned the bottle, which we often used to buy penny candy. Recycling was built into the system.

Shopping at mom and pop stores. They were more expensive but they often would go out of their way to serve their neighborhood customers. They’d set aside a favorite cut of meat. Or deliver a grocery order. “Pop’s” was the store I’d buy baseball cards at or pick up a bag of sugar when mom ran out.

“Chrome Reflection” by Jenn Durfey is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Polishing the chrome on dad’s car. Bumpers. Grills. Trim. Wheels. At one time, cars were loaded with chrome. It would get pitted and you used a special chrome cleaner to make it shine like new.

I suspect you could come up with a lot more. It’s funny all the things that were a part of our lives that we (or our kids) no longer do. One more that readily comes to mind: we dial phone numbers on phones that have electronic keypads but no dials. Hope you have a fun trip down memory lane!

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!

So Many Books and Only Two Eyes

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Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

“So many books and only two eyes.” I saw a meme with this quote the other day and it reminded me of one of the fears that lurks at the back of my mind. My immediate family history includes two people who had or have macular degeneration. One was my mom, from whom I probably inherited my love of reading. As the macular degeneration progressed, reading became more difficult until she just gave it up. I’ve wondered what I’d do if this happened to me. I’m approaching the age of onset for my other family members. Perhaps it is one of the reasons I read like crazy. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to do so. While giving up driving would be tough, there are days I’m glad not to. I can’t say that of reading.

One article I read said that 3.22 million Americans have a visual impairment. That’s a sizeable enough body of people that there are devices and strategies and support that can help. For those with low visual acuity the keys are light, contrast between print and the background, and the size of the print.

Light. With mild to moderate cataracts, not yet requiring surgery, I need more light than I once did. LED bulbs make this possible at a fraction of the energy we once used. A good reading lamp is more essential than ever.

Contrast. This is where electronic screens that allow us to adjust contrasts are helpful. Black against a yellow or white background or white on black (particularly in low light situations) is helpful.

Print size. This seems to be the biggy. Magnifiers from handheld to sheets to electronic magnifiers that project enlarged text on a screen are out there. Many books are released in large print editions, often available at libraries. The only downside is the size and weight of such books, and often a more limited selection. The advent of e-readers has been a boon for many visually impaired. These allow enlarging font sizes and adjusting backgrounds. I would suggest finding places, whether libraries or showrooms where you can try out devices before buying. Think about usability, weight, and especially the readability of text. Some devices also have read aloud features.

When Low Vision Becomes No Vision. For some of us, we will reach the place where these aids will no longer help. Here are some directions one may take:

Audiobooks. Far and away, this is the best option for many. Local libraries offer these for free (a wait may be required). You will need the app your library specifies. Go visit. They will be glad to help set it up.

NFB-Newsline. The National Federation of the Blind makes audio versions of many national and local newspapers and other periodicals, as well as offering a children’s version.

Podcasts. There are a host of podcasts on every subject that also make for great listening, often with opportunities to hear interviews with authors we like.

Human Readers. This is trickier, but there may be a family member, perhaps even a grandchild who might read, or a friend. Sometimes it could be someone you read to at an earlier time in life who returns the favor. There is an intimacy of the shared enjoyment of a book at any age.

Braille. This is still an option but one that requires training. Your local Society for the blind or similar organizations can help.

Having books read aloud is hardly new. In societies with low literacy rates, this is how most people “read” books and often, especially with good narrators, one may hear things that wouldn’t come across in a visual reading.

It also occurs to me that slowing down, absorbing what we read more slowly, might not be entirely bad.

Recovering the Practice of Memorizing. Many of our forebears had a wealth committed to memory: Shakespearean sonnets or passages of plays, poetry, scripture and more. They carried something of a library in their heads.

Have we staked too much on reading? Reading is not my life, just an enjoyable part of my life. If my sight goes, my faith remains, my relationships remain, hopefully other senses remain and grow sharper, where I can smell the new mown lawn, feel cool breezes and warm sunlight, and savor the different ingredients in a fresh salad. It’s probably a good question to ask ourselves whether we have resources within us to sustain us if we’re not able to take in new ones from without.

So many books and only two eyes. Perhaps it ought to make us grateful to have TWO eyes still able to read, if we do. Perhaps it ought to make us mindful of our reading choices. No matter what, we can’t read everything–but we can dead some good things that enrich us. And perhaps it ought make us mindful of ways to sensitively share that gift with those who no longer enjoy it. I’m not sure we ever outgrow the voice in us that cries, “read me a story!’

Review: The Deepest Place

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The Deepest Place: Suffering and the Formation of Hope, Curt Thompson, MD. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2023.

Summary: Drawing on the experience of Paul, described in Romans 5 and using the insights of neurobiology, a psychiatrist explores how hope may grow out of suffering as one learns one is secure in the presence of God and of a caring community.

Suffering can touch the deepest places in our lives. Often the result of some trauma, suffering rewires our brains to respond in ways to protect ourselves or suppress the ongoing pain. We may not even be aware of why until it threatens our jobs, our relationships, our finances, and our health. Curt Thompson has met many sufferers in his psychiatric practice. Through an understanding of interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB) and drawing on insights from the Apostle Paul of how we may be transformed through suffering, Thompson offers us a process, illustrated by a number of patient stories, of how people experienced such transformation at the level of rewiring their responses to anxiety-triggering events.

Thompson frames his account around Romans 5:1-5:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,  through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (NIV)

Crucial, in all human experience, according to Thompson is the forming of a secure human attachment, the lack of which is a source of suffering. When we have such an attachment, we can receive and know that we are loved and flourish, even through suffering. For the Apostle Paul, this secure attachment came through being justified by faith, knowing that he was at peace with and secure in God. This in turn allowed him to face rather than run from suffering, persevering, forming character and deepening hope.

But knowing these things in our heads is not enough. It is practicing different ways of thinking, responding, and bodily reacting. It involves bringing our awareness of what we suffer into a place where we are seen, soothed, safe, and secure (the 4 S’s). Thompson works toward this both in his personal work with patients and in confessional communities where people are able to “confess” the situations in which they suffer and experience the 4 S’s with others. The more they experience this, the more they can relinquish the behaviors that covered up their suffering. Like Paul, who speaks of standing in grace, there is a bodily integration, a standing in the 4 S’s that occurs. As people experience caring acceptance when they reveal what brings them pain and shame, they glimpse the glory of God, even as they most openly face the causes of their suffering.

But this process of facing suffering is hard and painful work. For some it is so hard, they turn back. But knowledge of the glory of being accepted and loved by Jesus can sustain us, especially when memories are reinforced by counselors and a caring community such as the confessional communities Thompson works with, and those memories become more embedded. Over time, as we persevere, character is formed, as we keep practicing Christ-formed and sustained responses to suffering supported in community. In Thompson’s practice, he and counselees “do the work” and “then pause and notice the work” which embeds it more deeply. They assess progress using the acronym FACES which stands for flexible, adaptive, coherent, energized, and stable, qualities that express increasing integration of our character.

Progress in being seen, soothed, safe and secure over time in one’s suffering, persevered in over time, not only forms character but contributes to an embodied hope as our responses are rewired and we increasingly taste Christ’s glorious acceptance, building our anticipation of what’s to come, coming full circle around to increasing glory.

Thompson is honest that not all complete the circle or cycle. For some, facing suffering is too hard, and they retreat. some find it too hard to be loved, when all they’ve known are people coming to hurt them. Thompson discusses the rich young ruler who not only shrinks back from giving away his wealth but in finding eternal life through Jesus’s invitation to be in relationship with him, the one who “looked on him and loved him.” We keep loving those not ready to accept the invitation to be loved, even as we enfold those who do in communities where they are seen, soothed, safe, and secure, allowing them to do the hard work with Jesus of seeing their suffering transformed into hope.

I appreciate how Thompson frames this work with the wisdom of Romans 5. His narratives of patient stories elaborates what this looks like. He also helps me understand why it is hard for many to understand the place of grace in which they stand, that they are secure in the love of Christ. They know it in their heads, but haven’t yet had it transform the wiring of their lives, the patterns of their memories. It helps me understand why believing people often inflict pain on others. In the words of Richard Rohr: “If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.”

What Thompson describes is a process of transforming discipleship at the deepest levels of our lives, making it possible not only to transform suffering but transmit healing to others. I cannot help wonder if this is the healing needed for a church that seems so angry and fearful, one so enamored with control and power, that clings to national glory and demonizes the other because it has never experienced the greater glory of the love of God toward all people in Christ. I wonder….

Review: Wisdom from the Witch of Endor

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Wisdom from the Witch of Endor, Tikva Frymer-Kensky. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2024.

Summary: A modern midrash on the witch of Endor and four lessons or rules we may draw from her story.

Tikva Frymer-Kensky was a biblical scholar from the University of Chicago Divinity School who passed away in 2006. She authored Reading the Women of the Bible and represented a school of scholars who platformed the voices of minor and marginalized figures in scripture. Often these stories are more significant than many, mostly male, dominant culture interpreters have credited (and there were reasons for their inclusion).

This book, drawn from the author’s papers offers us a close reading of the story of the witch of Endor, commending her as an exemplar of four qualities that we do well to follow to live effectively. In the Preface, this is described as a modern midrash on the biblical text.

The first part of this brief book re-tells the biblical story, and explains her work with the ‘ob, an instrument of unknown character used to communicate with the spirits of the dead. The author helpfully differentiates this practice, known as necromancy, from other forms of witchcraft involving incantations, potions, and spells. Nevertheless, she downplays the uniform prohibition of this practice in scripture, emphasizing Saul’s prohibition.

The second part of the book emphasizes “life lessons” we might draw from her. First she knew her power, even though forbidden, and did not give up but exercised determined commitment and self-knowledge. Second, she strove to excel, exercising proficiency in the use of the ‘ob. Third, she chooses the moment, after securing Saul’s promise that no harm will come to her. In her wisdom, she is cautious. Finally, she “won well.” She uncovers the king in his desperate hypocrisy and is an instrument by which the spirit of Samuel foretells Saul’s death. Instead of crowing or taunting, she persuades him to eat and is benevolent.

While in themselves, there may be nothing wrong with these rules or lessons (although, as I will contend, not all powers are good or pleasing to God), this platforming of the witch distorts the story and wrongly valorizes her. Here are my reasons:

  1. The uniform prohibition of necromancy. God speaks through the law, through Urim and Thummim, and through his sent prophets. Turning to necromancy is turning away from God’s ways of disclosing God’s self, and seeking knowledge God, in God’s wisdom, chooses not to disclose.
  2. The story of Saul offers a case study in disobeying God’s disclosures and, when God refuses to speak, he turns to means he himself has forbidden.
  3. The four lessons, good perhaps, are examples of moralizing. They may well be modern midrash but do not represent good biblical interpretation.
  4. Finally, good interpretation centers not on self-help principles but on the character and work of God.

This book reminds me of Bruce Wilkinson’s Prayer of Jabez, which was also questionable hermeneutically, but wildly popular. I suspect the title, the cover design, and the format (similar to The Prayer of Jabez) will be a draw for some. But I cannot commend the book.

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Doppelganger

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Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, Naomi Klein. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023.

Summary: Naomi Klein, a liberal activist and writer finds herself being confused with another Naomi, once a feminist now become an anti-vax advocate and darling of the extreme right.

Last summer, an anonymous pretender created a fake version of a social media page I curate, stealing a picture of me and posts I had made to the page. An alert follower contacted me and reports from me and followers stopped further posts that day. But the page remained up for several months until it was removed, attracting only about ten followers, thanks to the vigilance of people following my page. Still, I was outraged and felt that a part of me was violated, that my “brand” (my page uses the same name as this blog) was being stolen and perverted. Having an online “doppelganger,” even if an inactive one, and how easily it could happen, was disturbing.

Naomi Klein faced this situation in a subtler and more disturbing fashion, one that could not be eliminated by a report. Naomi Klein is an activist, academic, and writer who has focused on big corporations and their invisible control of our lives as well as writing about climate change. Naomi Wolf, a one-time liberal feminist, pursued a parallel career around a different set of issues. Then in 2019, she published a book filled with factual inaccuracies that was pulped. She was widely excoriated in the liberal establishment, suffering a kind of death. Except that she rose from the ashes during COVID-19, spouting a number of the spurious claims and conspiracy thinking of the alt-Right, becoming a darling of Steve Bannon…and being confused with Naomi Klein. Klein was stuck with trying to figure out how to say “not me.” At one point, Klein became so obsessed with following Wolf’s online antics, and her transformation, that she withdrew into a world of screens until her husband rescued her.

The experience led to her trying to understand both her own reaction to this doppelganger (who even looked something like her). Klein had always been “anti-brand,” she thought, especially of “Self as Brand” until she realized that she had built a “brand” that she wasn’t defending very well. She asks the question, “What aren’t we building when we are building our brands?” and she realizes what a convenient retreat this can be when faced with daunting challenges like our warming climate.

Looking more deeply, she realizes that her doppelganger has confronted her with a mirror world. Where she would be concerned about the corporate stripping away of privacy accelerated by our smartphones, she watches Wolf and anti-vaxxers fixate on “vaccine passports” as opening the door to our private lives. She describes a process termed “diagonalization” that destroys old left-right distinctions by playing on shared fears and concerns–“what are they putting in our food?” to “what are they putting in those vaccines?” The mirror world trades in a shared fear of the Shadow Lands, an underground effort to abuse our children and co-opt our lives. Klein observes trenchantly that these Shadow Lands, such as fears about the vaccines, covers up huge profit margins and a basic neglect of vaccine equity. A Canadian, she chronicles how truckers both caravanned in protest to indigenous child deaths in boarding schools and trucker shutdowns in Toronto over COVID regulations–often the same truckers.

She raises uncomfortable questions. We rail against Nazis and yet if we are living in a former colonial power country, our country presided over similar atrocities. The Mirror World challenges our illusions. Writing pre-October 7, she wrestles with Israel’s settler colonialism and the Shadow World built to sustain it (I wonder what her thoughts are since?). In the end, she raises equally uncomfortable questions about herself, indeed, any self. Can we hold onto a sense of identity or self? Is this not changing for all of us?

In the end, she concludes, “A bigger part of being human, though, and certainly of living a good life, is not about how we make ourselves in these shifting sands of self. It’s about what we make together.” I’m troubled by this conclusion. I could see this being taken any number of ways. I’m sure Hitler’s Germany and the settler colonists were also not just thinking of themselves but what they were making together. Equally, this was the rhetoric of Marxists and Mao.

I find myself thinking that Klein describes the post-Christian society foreseen by William Butler Yeats, in his poem, “The Second Coming.”

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

If there is no center that will hold, if all we have are “the shifting sands of self,” then I find myself praying “Lord, help us” and indeed, “Come Lord Jesus.” Klein is courageous enough to ask some very hard questions. I wonder if we all will be courageous enough to wrestle with the implications of what she asks.

Review: The Beatles

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The Beatles: The Biography, Bob Spitz. New York: Little, Brown, 2005.

Summary: A biography of the band from its beginnings, rise, Beatlemania, studio work, and demise, with mini-biographies of each of the Beatles, their manager, Brian Epstein.

One of those “where were you?” moments for those of us of a certain age is “where were you when The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show for the first time?” I was a fourth grader, watching them on my grandparents television while the adults tut-tutted about the “long hairs” and their music. Inside, I was fascinated, as were all my classmates, especially the girls, who talked endlessly about “my favorite Beatle.”

The 2005 “biography” of the Fab Four brings back all those memories and so much more–much that was fascinating and some that I’d rather not have known. Spitz traces the history of the band from its beginnings with John Lennon and The Quarrymen, the meeting with Paul McCartney, the Liverpool years and the various combinations of musicians including the fan favorite drummer Pete Best whose home was a favorite hangout until he was unceremoniously ditched and Ringo brought on board on the eve of their fame. Spitz writes abbreviated biographies of each of the Beatles and their manager, Brian Epstein.

We learn how formative their time in Hamburg was and the significant advance they made under Brian Epstein’s management. Spitz takes us through all the things he did to polish their image, how they became “The Beatles,” his efforts to get them recorded and promoted, and the mistakes he made in setting up recording contracts. As their records hit the charts and they toured Great Britain, we see them reach the “toppermost of the poppermost.” Then Ed Sullivan. America. Beatlemania with its surging crowds, shrieking and swooning girls, and ever-increasing danger to the Beatles leading to their end of touring in 1966.

Spitz takes us behind the scenes and we see the genius of the songwriting duo of Lennon-McCartney as well as the eventual strains in their relationship, the guitarwork and growing skill of George and how Ringo not only provided the musical foundation for the band but also a certain emotional glue. We learn what it was like to record at Abbey Road. We observe the self-effacing genius of George Martin, who never profited beyond his modest salary, helping with the innovative work on albums like “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

Spitz reminds us of the trip to India to learn meditation as the band sought both to grow spiritually and mend the growing artistic and personal rifts that would ultimately lead to their demise, particularly after Yoko Ono entered the scene, helping further alienate John from the others. We read accounts of the final recording sessions and the release of “Abbey Road” and their last live concert on a London rooftop, where amid all the tensions, they momentarily recaptured the joy of making music together.

Then there is the seamier side. The drug use beginning with amphetamines, marijuana, and eventually LSD, and in John’s case heroin, from which he was often strung out and increasingly erratic. The women. So many “birds” to have sex with, as was the case with many rockers. At one point, all were being treated for gonorrhea. There is the brilliant and sad Brian Epstein and his closeted gay life, including rough sex leaving him beaten and robbed, and his growing despair as he felt he was losing control of the Beatles, leading to his death, whether accidental or suicide, from an overdose of drugs. While they were rich, through Epstein’s mistakes and their own debacle with Apple, they foolishly lost millions.

There is the tragic. Going back to Hamburg days, the death of onetime bandmate Stu Sutcliffe, the firing of Pete Best and the way it was done. The betrayal of Lennon’s wife, Cynthia, and Paul’s girlfriend, Jane Asher. The end of the band itself, chronicled in agonizing detail. And later deaths: John, George, Linda Eastman McCartney.

This is a huge biography, coming in at 983 pages, including photos and notes. Yet it is a fascinating read that gives one a sense of the hard work it took to become “The Beatles” the genius of Lennon and McCartney, the trauma of Beatlemania, the behind-the-scenes accounts of the making of each album and so much more. At the same time, we see them as all-too-human, flawed and forming young men thrust into the fame and fortune they’d dreamed of but were not prepared to handle. What is astounding is to consider that most of the output of The Beatles took place over just seven fraught years, from 1963 to 1969. Yet they changed rock ‘n roll forever. Spitz gives us the “crowded hours” of that epic journey.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Reed’s Arena

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Some of the acts that played at Reed’s Arena

It was fifty years ago this week, on February 11, 1974, that fire broke out at Reed’s Arena, located at 25 Oak Hill, at the bottom of Oak Hill on the Southside. A motorist spotted the fire and called it in at 11:40 pm. As the fire department poured gallons of water on the roof, an intense fire, blue at times, consumed the building as a crowd of 200, including Mayor Hunter watched. At 12:07 am, the wall on the Marshall Street side collapsed. Only a smoking hulk was left with a loss valued at $300,000, including a large stock of skates. The building was never rebuilt.

The building was a one story brick and concrete block building built in the 1920’s and known at that time as the Oak Hill Auditorium. It was used for many years for high school, athletic, and civic events. Later McKenzie Muffler operated out of the building. There were a number of small businesses located around that part of Oak Hill. Somewhere in the 1950’s, it appears that it began to be used as a skating arena.. By the 1960’s or earlier James Reed began operating it as Reed’s Arena. The building was owned by McCullough Transfer at the time of the fire.

Through the 1960’s and early 1970’s it operated as a roller rink and gathering spot for Black youth on the lower Southside. Dances were held there and especially after the closure of the Elms Ballroom, it became a concert venue for some of the top R & B acts in the country. Otis Redding was booked there in early 1966. Among the groups booked there in the 1970’s were James Brown, Kool & The Gang, The Chilites, The O’Jays, Parliament-Funkadelic, and The Impressions.

Young Jerry Poindexter, who learned piano at his mother’s side in church, got his start performing in a talent competition at Reed’s Arena after friends pushed him on stage. He won the competition, and later on spent 24 years playing with James Brown.

The Arena also served as a venue for other community events including a closed circuit live showing of the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fight in 1971 with the 1500 seats going for $12 apiece. The report on the fire also mentions a Platinum Show Lounge on the site, also operated by Reed.

One of the challenges is that there is relatively little documentation of the history of venues like this that played an important part in Youngstown’s cultural life, as local historian Sean Posey noted in this interview. I knew of Reed’s Arena and no doubt passed by it but have no memories of the place and never passed by. From what I can learn, James Reed was an entrepreneur who ran a place that served as a gathering place for skating, dances, concerts, and more for the youth of the Southside. At the time of the fire, Reed vowed to go on but I can find nothing of his subsequent career. The destruction of Reed’s Arena by fire marked the end of a building that was a center of activity on the lower Southside for fifty years.

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!

Review: How Ableism Fuels Racism

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How Ableism Fuels Racism, Lamar Hardwick. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2024.

Summary: An argument that ableism is an important lens through which to understand racism, because both create a hierarchy of superior and inferior bodies.

Lamar Hardwick is a pastor who lives at the intersection of racism and ableism as a Black pastor on the autism spectrum. Also, at the time of the writing, he is under treatment for a recurrence of cancer, with the attendant bodily disabilities this brings. As he has reflected on his own experienced, read scripture and researched American history, he is convinced that ableism not only fuels discriminatory treatment of the disabled but also racial discrimination. The connection is the idealizing of certain bodies as fit and superior. In the American experience, this has particularly centered on White bodies, especially male bodies.

Hardwick focuses on Judges 17: 1-6, in which a young man, Micah, steals a large sum of money in gold from his mother, then under threat of curse confesses his sin. Instead of punishment, his mother takes the gold and has it made into an idol for the household. When a Levite comes through, Micah persuades him to become his priest. From this incident, Hardwick discerns three stages of ableism: images, idols, and institutions. Instead of facing sin, we honor what we should grieve, make it an object of central concern, an idol, and then create institutions to support our idolatry.

Hardwick traces how this was done in the early settlement of the U.S., subjugating women and indigenous people, and importing slaves, considering them inferior human beings. Slavery was even defended as a blessing for the inferior slave! He traces ways churches supported this form of ableism, and have continued to do so, pleading for and receiving exemption from the ADA legislation of 1990.

He cites a statement of John Piper’s that equated disability with ugliness and how our idolatry of superior bodies upholds certain White and ableist ideals of beauty. I was reminded of a conversation at a social gathering where someone remarked on the attractiveness of Michelle Obama only to be confronted by a yuck face from one of the other (White) women.

He offers a particularly personal discussion of ableism, racism, and healthcare in terms of access, differences in listening to reported symptoms, and quality of care. He also discusses how ableism fuels racism in the church, and the important role Black churches have been in offering a refuge from ableist and racist treatment and in many ways have led the way in disability inclusion.

One of the most thought-provoking chapters focused on the disabled God. The resurrected Jesus still bears the wounds of the crucifixion, and in this, God is glorified. This contrasts with ableist versions of Jesus, blonde, blue-eyed, ripped and aggressive.

Hardwick also considers the world of work and ableist ideas of productivity, what he calls “grind culture.” The question arises of the worth of bodies that cannot meet the demand of the grind, and the different ways bodies of color and disabled bodies participate in the work of creation. He proposes elevating place-making above profit-making as one way to address this.

I thought the major point the author was making to be compelling–that ableism furnishes the energy for racism in the distinction between superior and inferior bodies. At the same time, I wonder if the connection, if not conflation, of the two may mean overlooking the voices of persons with disabilities. Yet Hardwick offers important insights into the idolization and institutionalization of ableism. Most striking, and a field where I think further work is possible is the idea of the disabled God, the God who does not think the “disabilities” of the cross something to be “fixed.” People need not become White or able to be beautiful before God. The personal insights Hardwick adds from his fight with cancer sharpens his critique of ableism, even as it reminds me that to pray for him that the power of the disabled God would shine through his life.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Kingdom of Children

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The Kingdom of Children, R. L. Stollar, Foreword by Cindy Wang Brandt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2023.

Summary: A liberation theology of the child that centers children in our theology and ecclesial life, arguing for their full humanity and their place as participants in the life of the whole church.

What place do children have in your church? Do you send them off to children’s church while adults do real church? Have we ever thought that we might learn from children? How much do children participate in the leadership of the church? Do we seek their input about curriculum and programs? How do we handle passages in scripture where children are featured, particularly where children in some way bring the word of God or act for God (think of Miriam and Samuel as children for example)?

R.L. Stollar raised all these questions for me in The Kingdom of Children. The book is subtitled “A Liberation Theology,” which for some may be off-putting. By this, Stollar centers the child in his theology, particularly the marginalized, suffering child. Like other liberation theologies, Stollar considers them as the image of God, even as marginalized, sometimes because of abuse, and often treated as less than full participants in the life of the Christian community. One of the most fascinating things is his consideration of God as child in the incarnation–the baby Jesus who does cry, pee and poop, who goes through the terrible twos “learning obedience,” who asserts his place to sit with religious teachers at twelve.

Stollar begins by looking at the situation of children both around the world and in the U.S., and how often they are vulnerable to abuse, even more if they are part of another marginalized group, and how they are often stripped of agency. This makes the case that child do need a liberation theology for them. Then he lists thirteen questions he thinks we must ask in developing a child liberation theology.

Several chapters are devoted to how we love children as we read the Bible, beginning with seven elements that need to be present including focusing on how children’s roles are featured, how we exclude children from stories, how stories where children are absent may imply a lot about children, and especially, that we need to read the Bible with children. He discusses how we read both the bad and good stories, the binding of Isaac as an example on one hand, and the stories of Miriam and Samuel on the other..

He turns from hermeneutics to theology, considering first the other gods as children and then Jesus as child. He considers children as God-to-us and particularly how we should not see them, including as vipers(!), subordinates, tools, blessings to collect (think “quiver full”), property, consumers, or as addenda to our lives. This is followed by chapters on children as prophets, priest, and theologians, particularly as theologians of play. One of the important insights here is to recognize that children, while not cognitively mature are capable of asking profound spiritual questions, having a spiritual inner life, and gaining insights that the whole community may benefit from.

To welcome children in this way is not to adultify them but to recognize their gifts to us as children. He argues that we need to see them as children, and understanding child development, at least in a basic way, is important for those who work with children. Stollar also presses us to think about how wide our welcome is: wide enough for the racially diverse? for those with disabilities? the neurodiverse? He contends for robust child protection systems to be in place for all children, but especially these groups, who are more subject to abuse.

Stollar concludes with inviting us to think about what it means for the kingdom to belong to children. One of the delightful features of this book is how Stollar practices this idea throughout, writing the book in accessible and not academic language and by providing an “including children” section in each chapter. I’m intrigued that Stollar even proposes including children in aspects of church leadership, especially in decisions that involve them.

I see the number of youth walking away from the churches they were raised in and can’t help wondering if the subtle ways we treat them as marginal, “junior” members that discounts both their human dignity and the work of God in their lives, contributes to this exodus. This book made me think about my own childhood. I actually think I was fortunate to have teachers and mentors recognized the work of God in me, who empowered me and others of us. It’s also making me think about the children in my own congregation and how we can welcome and learn from and empower them. I think Jesus would smile on this.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.