Two Noras: January 18, 1914 and January 18, 2021

 Nora Bauer: Sunday, January 18, 1914

Was to two Masses today. Started to snow about 10:00 o'clock. Had quite a nice snow. Did some more typing for Sr. Augustine today. 

Nora Spitznogle: Monday, January 18, 2021

What a weird day this is -- because of the COVID-19 pandemic Dad (rightly so) cancelled his annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day fish fry.

Grandma Nora mentioned the snow twice, I wonder if it was a pretty as yesterday's snow was here? 

Today was really odd for me. Martin Luther King, Jr. days for the last 25 years-is have been busy with cooking for Dad's MLK, Jr. party. The day is always full of cousins, friends, folks from Lebanon, and Dad's GM buddies. The weather would have been perfect this year - cold enough for food safety, but not too cold to freeze the beer. 

Here is the text of the 1997 article in The Indianapolis Star that my late-friend Jeff Ayers wrote under the byline of Jeff Stanley (Stanley was his father's middle name). 

King Day Annual party draws the host's co-workers from GM, neighbors, family and friends.

By Jeff Stanley CORRESPONDENT LEBANON, Ind.

The annual Martin Luther King Jr. . Day fish fry and party at the Spitznogle farm in rural Lebanon doesn't match most people's notion of how a King Day event should look. First, there's the host 60-year-old John Spitznogle. His ancestry is German, and his distinctive Hoosier twang and easygoing rural manner make him seem the classic good ol' boy.

 For the past six or seven years, friends have gathered for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration and fish fry at Spitznogle's farm. The party-goers consist of co-workers from the General Motors metal fabrication factory in Indianapolis where Spitznogle, a die maker, has worked nearly 40 years, neighbors from the area (virtually all of whom are white), family and friends of John and Meg Spitznogle's adult children.

To the first-time guest, the party looks more like an old-fashioned country cookout than a commemoration of the guiding light of America's civil rights movement. Spitznogle said the first King party came about as a result of a favor he had done for a buddy. "A friend of mine stored a boat out here a season or two and he kept saying, 'Aw, John, I want to pay you for the storage,' and I said, 'Well, don't you have some fish?" He said he did and, since it was the first year we got the holiday off from GM, I decided to have a fish fry.

" What started off as a handful of friends from the factory getting together to fry fish and play cards eventually came to be known as the Spitznogle Martin Luther King Day Fish Fry.

Attendance grew, with neighbors, relatives and co-workers making the party a midwinter tradition. Spitznogle freely admits he was not always an enthusiastic King supporter. As a young man living and working on the farm during the troubled years of the civil rights movement, Spitznogle remembers being wary of King's agenda. He said he based his skepticism on the government's own fear, suspicion and mistrust of civil rights leaders like King. What changed his mind? "The truth came out about the whole thing," he said. "You know, being a little white boy from the farm in the country, I thought everybody had the same opportunity as I did," he explained. "I found out that it Just wasn't that way."

Spitznogle remembers blacks slowly making gains in areas such as equal employment opportunity. "I hate to say it, but we were the last skilled trade in our factory to get a black apprentice," he said. He came to understand that the changes brought about by the civil rights movement not only furthered the cause of justice for blacks, but had a goal of a truer democracy for all Americans.

"As far as I'm concerned, the Martin Luther King movement of nonviolence helped black people, helped women, and he surely didn't hurt us union folks, either," Spitznogle said as he brought another pan of fried fish into his workshop. Before General Motors gave employees the day off, Spitznogle remembers when nearly all of his black co-workers would stay away from the job on King's birthday. "I admired 'em for backing up what they believed in," he said.

Spitznogle said he knows not all of his white colleagues value the strides made by blacks. Some have even questioned why he would hold such a party. "I ran across a gal the other day and she couldn't believe I was having a Martin Luther King party," he said. "But what really surprises me is some of the young people, like this 25-year-old kid who said, 'What's John doing with this Martin Luther King party" Nonetheless, the party goes on. growing a little each year, inside the workshop, people fill up on fish and oxtail stew, trade stories and play cards. The atmosphere is down-home and relaxed, interrupted only by friendly laughter and the shuffle of work boots, on the wooden floor as celebrators return to the food table for more fish.

In the end, Spitznogle knows his little party probably won't change those more closed-minded than himself. If, by sponsoring a King Day event, a little ' more brotherly goodwill and mutual respect are generated, then that's a bonus. For his part, Spitznogle will modestly and matter-of-factly .explain his own convictions to anyone who cares to listen. '. "I'm not going to sit here with my chest sticking out and say, "I'm for Dr. King and he was wonderful and let's play a song," he said. "I'm just saying that, I do think he did some real good for this country."