[NU Sports] Roosevelt

[BSchooler at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/19/2006 4:57:03 PM Central Daylight Time, 
thehaze at earthlink.net writes:

> Okay, while we're talking about Roosevelt and politics, let me add that 
> when he took office in 1933, it was already eight years after the Scopes 
> Monkey Trial in Tennessee.  Even in 1933, that trial was looked back 
> upon with a bit of amusement, the obvious national feeling being that 
> William Jennings Bryan and the state of Tennessee were a tad backward in 
> their thinking.  It wasn't until recently -- 70 years later -- that the 
> issue of so-called "intelligent design" has been brought up from the 
> grave by a variety of reactionaries. 
> 
> Gee, we are getting a bit away from NU sports aren't we -- and isn't it 
> fun?!!
> 

Sheesh, what's the connection between Roosevelt and the Scopes Monkey trial? 
I guess this was just a rhetorical ruse to raise, then disparage, the issue of 
"intelligent design". But since Jim Bendat finds this discussion of politics 
so much "fun", I thought I'd share a few personal recollections about Jim that 
contributed to my conversion from college hippie to adult conservative. This 
also should put a well deserved end to any more political discussion on this 
List because Mike Nolan surely won't permit this discussion to continue once 
I've chimed in.

Back in the Fall of 1969, we were desperately in need of a sixth roommate to 
replace a last minute drop out for our house at 2011 Maple Avenue. So we ended 
up with Jim Bendat, whose theory of communal principles, we quickly learned, 
was "What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine". We still get a laugh among 
ourselves about that one. The 1969/1970 school year, my senior year at 
Northwestern, was also the year of the first draft lottery. All six of us sat around 
the downstairs TV as the birthdates and associated numbers were announced. 
Four of us had numbers called out in the first fifty; a sure ticket to Viet Nam. 
Needless to say, they were extremely upset. I had the next best number at 191 
and that still earned me a draft notice two weeks after I had fortunately 
enlisted in the Army Reserves. While some of us were punching holes in the walls, 
the numbers and birth dates continued to be announced. All the while, Jim 
Bendat's birthdate of June 6 or 8, I've forgotten, was not announced. Finally, 
the last number - 366 for a leap year - was called and, you guessed it, it was 
Jim Bendat's birthday. Immediately, Jim jumped up and started screaming, "I got 
a 366, I got a 366!". Oblivious to how upset the rest of us were, Jim ran 
around the house screaming "I got a 366!" for the next ten minutes. Then he 
disappeared out the front door and ran up and down the streets of Evanston, so we 
heard, screaming, "I got a 366!". Returning an hour later, an exhausted Bendat 
realized the rest of us were in no mood to join in celebrating his "366", so 
he suddenly announced that it was not fair that something so arbitrary as a 
birthdate should determine whether or not someone should have to go to Viet Nam. 
(Perhaps Jim was thinking of the deferment he already had secured due to a bad 
back as a more reasonable determinate). The quick transition from wild 
celebration to cold calculation was complete when Bendat gravely proclaimed he was 
renouncing his birth date and corresponding draft number. (How one can renounce 
their birthday remains a mystery to me to this day.) In fact, Bendat had 
become so incensed over the injustice of it all that he called up a woman he knew 
who just happened to be the roommate of the Editor of the Daily Northwestern 
and told her how pissed off he was over the arbitrary nature of the draft 
lottery and that he was renouncing his number. Not surprisingly, fifteen minutes 
later, a reporter for the Daily Northwestern called up Bendat for an interview. 
The next day, there was a front page story in the Daily about how Bendat was 
renouncing his "366" in the grossly unfair draft lottery. Shortly thereafter, 
the Chicago Sun Times picked up the story. Jim basked in the glory of his 
sudden notoriety and status as a hero to the anti-war crowd. If only they could 
have seen his intitial reaction, as did I, the other four residents of 2011 Maple 
Avenue and all the folks up and down Maple and Sherman Avenues.

1969 and 1970 were also years in which it had become fashionable to "rip off" 
the system, both literally and figuratively. So Bendat thought he'd give it a 
try. When he was in the SBX, he put a couple books under his long overcoat 
and tried to walk out without paying for them. An SBX employee saw him trying to 
leave without paying for the books and asked him if he was trying to steal. 
Instead of saying something like, "I'm sorry, I forgot to pay.", Bendat 
admitted he was trying to steal the books and that they had caught him. So Bendat 
became probably the first and only person ever to have been charged with 
shoplifting at the SBX. So what was Jim's response? He went through The Grill (former 
student union in Scott Hall) from table to table panhandling for money to 
cover his legal fees because he had gotten busted, gladly letting people assume 
that the bust was for drugs rather than shoplifting. Jim bragged to us that he 
had raised $700 in this manner. He used $400 of this money to hire a lawyer 
from the Loop on retainer, beat the shoplifting charges and boasted about how he 
had made $300 on the deal.

Seeing this type of hypocrisy was one of the factors that put me on the road 
to conservatism. Some of you may recall something similar from Jim Bendat on 
this List last year in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Jim 
bragged about how his son, a senior at Tulane, had transferred to Syracuse and 
gotten a free semester studying abroad in London. Later in the Fall, Jim reminded 
us about his good fortune when he posted to this List not once, but twice, from 
an internet cafe in London while visiting his son who, we were reminded, was 
studying abroad in London.

So Jim, do you still find this discussion of politics "fun"? And yes, Jim, we 
all know you were the one who tried to get Northwestern's nickname changed 
from Wildcats to Purple Haze.

Bob Schooler