Ramblin' with Roger

Sunday Stealing Feels Distinctly Adolescent

live wire

Welcome to Sunday Stealing, which feels distinctly adolescent. Here, we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

This week’s Sunday source is Minnesota Mom, who loves baking (especially cookies). She stole this meme from Esther, whose blog is no longer available, so the trail has gone cold.

These questions require just a yes or no, but you can answer at length if you’re in the mood. The choice is yours!

Litter

But before we get to that, here’s what happened very late Sunday night/very early Monday morning, March 15/16. I was downstairs watching TV about 11:45 pm when the doorbell rang. That’s really unusual. Was there an accident? Is my house on fire? No, the guy said he really needed money to get something to eat. He promised to pick up the litter from my lawn.

Let’s talk about litter. My wife is assiduously dedicated to keeping the trash from our yard. Yet, a day after she’s done, you would not have known of her efforts. It’s not just the schoolkids nearby; it’s the wind.

So I tell the guy at the door. “Sure, whatever,” give him a $5 and quickly close the door. BTW, he does pick up some of our litter.

Electric

About a half hour later, I’m in my office, which is on the second floor at the front of the house, playing Wordle. By now, the rain is pouring, and the wind is gusting so much, perhaps 50 miles per hour/80 kilometers per hour, that the walls are shaking.

Out my front window, in my periphery, I see a large spark. A tree branch has felled a power line that ran from a telephone pole on my side of the street to a house across the street. The large branch lands in the middle of the street, right next to what I assume is a live wire, beside my wife’s car.

I could have called National Grid, our power supplier, but I chose to ring the Albany Police Department’s non-emergency number. After all, they are only two blocks away. The dispatcher tells me that it’s very windy out there, which I acknowledged. But soon, there’s a fire truck blocking my street.

In the morning, the wire is wound up, the branch is gone, and a truck is parked in front of the house, doing SOMETHING, because it’s running 24/7. Two days later, four trucks, including a cherry picker, are out there fixing the situation.

But I wonder if the guy repairing something at the top of the pole somehow mucked up my Internet. It’s not OFF, but I can’t get to sites, or it’s very slow.

On to the quiz

Have You Ever …

1) Skipped school?

The first time I remember doing so was when I had been legitimately sick for a day or two. I was feeling better, but I learned that the Beatles’ new videos were going to premiere on a show called Where The Action Is, which was, inexplicably, airing at 8:30 a.m. So I watched Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane. This must have been February of 1967.

The next time was when Julian Bond came to town in 1969.

2) Lettered in a school sport?

No, I never did school sports. I did show up one day at a football tryout, but the ill-fitting equipment and general vibe weren’t for me.

3) Made a prank phone call?

Probably, but I have no strong recollection.

4) Paid for a meal with coins?

Yes, definitely, in 1978 in downtown Schenectady. I went out to breakfast or lunch with a friend, but was short on cash. To be fair, I doubt the meal was more than $4, including the tip.

5) Laughed until some sort of beverage came out of your nose?

Possibly, but I don’t really remember.

Spring songs

Classics Explained

I was trying to decide what to play for some spring songs. Fortunately, I pulled Joel Whitburn’s Album Cuts, 1955-2001 off my shelf. The annoying thing is that, as a strict list, it does not differentiate between songs with the same title but are different, and covers of the same song.

Spring – Little Milton (1969)

Spring – John Denver (1972)

Spring – Meryl Streep · George Winston (1985) from The Velveteen Rabbit, a story I love

Spring – · Ned’s Atomic Dustbin (1992)

These were all different songs, despite the same title.

Spring Again – Lou Rawls (1977)

Spring Fever – Biz Markie (1989)

Now, I come to a song with oodles of covers. “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” (1955) is a popular song with lyrics by Fran Landesman, set to music by Tommy Wolf. The title is a jazz rendition of the opening line of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, “April is the cruelest month.” The song describes how somebody feels sad and depressed despite all the good things associated with spring

Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most – The Pete Jolly Trio (1963)

Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most – Ella Fitzgerald (1960)

Then…

Spring Collection – The Vapors (1980)

Spring Comes To Spiddal – The Waterboys (1990)

Spring Is Here – Peter Nero. When I tried to search for Nero’s Spring Concerto from 1961, this is what came up.

Spring Creek – George Winston (1991) from the album Summer

Spring Fever -· Elvis Presley (1965)

Spring Fever – Orleans (1976)

I was unfamiliar with all of the songs.

Highbrow

There are two pieces of music I play every vernal equinox. The first is The Rite of Spring (1913) by Igor Stravinsky. I always loved the story of the ballet, explained entertainingly by Classics Explained.

There are several recordings. I decided on Stravinsky Conducts Stravinsky (1960) with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra.

The other annual ritual is playing The Four Seasons (1725) by Antonio Vivaldi. I prefer summer and winter; the solstices are in minor keys, whereas the equinoxes are in major keys.

Celebrating the Sestercentennial

also: Ask Roger Anything

Usually, for the beginning of spring, I ask you to Ask Roger Anything. You still may – I encourage it – but I also want to turn the tables a bit. What, if anything, are you doing to celebrate the sestercentennial of the United States?

No, I hadn’t heard of the word before either. My spellcheck does NOT like it. As far as I know, the prefix is a Latin term meaning “two and a half.” It also has other definitions. I’ve been using semiquincentennial (half of five hundred years) or quartermillennial because I find it easier to use.

Anyway…

I remember the bicentennial in 1976 with much more enthusiasm than I have for this year’s model. Reenactments and the Tall Ships were events I watched on television.

For 2026, the “United States Semiquincentennial Commission is the congressionally appointed body in charge of promoting and coordinating” the events. The calendar seems rather sparse, but maybe I missed something. There IS a Water Lantern Festival in Albany, NY on June 27. The New York State Museum in Albany will open a huge exhibit this summer to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The process was a political football for a while. Then the politicization got worse as FOTUS, in 2025, “created the White House Task Force on Celebrating America’s 250th Birthday to also promote and plan the events.”

Daily Kos notes the UFC fights on the White House South Lawn on June 14 and an Indy Car race around DC. Naturally, there will be a lot of Trump 250 merch available.

And yet…

At the point when I might be [might be? That’s understating it!] feeling discouraged, I heard a recommendation for a book. The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change by Rebecca Solnit. It “surveys a world that has changed dramatically since the year 1960. Despite the forces seeking to turn back the clock on history, change is not a possibility; it is an inevitability…

“While the white nationalist and authoritarian backlash drives individualism and isolation, this new world embraces antiracism, feminism, a more expansive understanding of gender, environmental thinking, scientific breakthroughs, and Indigenous and non-Western ideas, pointing toward a more interconnected, relational world.”

On The View, Ken Burns reiterates that his latest project, The American Revolution, is his most important yet. It dissects how the internal conflicts of “all men are created equal” played out. And, implicitly, still does.

I think I need to go to the next No Kings rally on March 28.

Still, you CAN Ask Roger Anything

If you have a question for me, you may just Ask Roger Anything. I’ve yet to reject a query. You can test the limits of my tolerance. Moreover, I’ll likely answer it sooner rather than later.

You may leave your questions in the comments section of this blog, in my email, referenced elsewhere on this blog, or on my Facebook page (Roger Owen Green); always look for the duck.

The Yiddish Book Center

A Storied History

On February 17, my wife and I left the Kern Art Center and went to The Yiddish Book Center. It is located on the campus of Hampshire College in Amherst.

We watched the introductory video. It was likely the most entertaining preview of a museum or library I have ever seen. The story of Aaron Lansky is that of a 24-year-old graduate student of Yiddish literature. In the course of his studies, he “realized that untold numbers of irreplaceable Yiddish books… were being discarded by Jews unable to read the language of their Yiddish-speaking parents and grandparents.

“So he organized a nationwide network of zamlers (book collectors) and launched a concerted campaign to save the world’s remaining Yiddish books before it was too late.” What was entertaining was the reception he received from donors and the scale of books he received, far beyond his wildest expectations.

Our daughter met us there, and we went on a tour of the facility. It was supposed to take about half an hour, but our enthusiastic docent, answering our many questions, spent 90 minutes with us. “The exhibition features thousands of rare objects, books, family heirlooms, paintings, photographs, music, and videos, including many never seen before in public.”

The “60-foot color mural of global ‘Yiddishland’ by illustrator Martin Haake” portrays everything from Jewish gaucho saddling up in Moises Ville, Argentina, at the turn of the 20th century to the Barry sisters at the Grossinger’s resort in the Catskills of upstate New York.

“Visitors can also explore a re-creation of the Warsaw apartment of writer I. L.Peretz, whose legendary salon stood at the forefront of Yiddish modernism in the 1900s.”

But wait, there’s more!

“In 1997, the Center opened a building in Amherst on 10 acres of land purchased from Hampshire College, Lansky’s alma mater; a second building in 2009 accommodated educational programs. Lansky’s announcement in 2024 that he would retire in 2025 (he’ll continue as a part-time advisor) made the front page of the New York Times, which called the Center “one of the country’s leading Jewish cultural institutions.”

The “beautiful 37,000-square-foot headquarters.. is a lebedike velt – a lively world – featuring an open Yiddish book repository, theatres, art galleries, museum exhibitions about Yiddish language and culture, and more.

However, the YBC is doing more than merely displaying relics. It has had a summer program in Yiddish culture since 1984. The Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library was created in 1998. They have been collecting oral histories since 2010.

If you can’t make it there, attend A Global Culture Virtual Exhibit.

Based on a score of 100, Charity Navigator rated the Yiddish Book Center a score of 98 for Accountability and Finance, noting its independent board and positive financial status, and labeled it a 4-Star charity for the fiscal year of 2024.

Highly recommended!

Sucking Up Water

wet/dry vac

What did I do on my birthday, March 7th? I spent the better part of the morning sucking up water. I’ve mentioned that when it rains or when the snow melts, we’ll have a pool of water at the juncture of our walkway and our sidewalk, caused by the REPAIRS the city of Albany, NY, made to the sidewalk a decade or more ago. I dubbed it Lake 54 in honor of the NYC club Studio 54.

My wife suggested sweeping the puddle, but I said that there was way too much water. I remembered that we have a wet/dry vac in the basement, which I hadn’t used in a very long time. On the 6th of March, I decided, since I was having people over the next day, to try to drain this excess pond.

So I schlepped the machine up from the basement – no small task, because that thing is heavy – and got it outside. I found an extension cord that worked, and the machine started sucking up the excess water from the walk. When the machine cut off because it was full, I started removing the water with a three-cup plastic container. Eventually, when the water level was low enough, I could tip the device over into the big snow bank in the yard.

Hospitality

This exercise reminded me of something that is quite obvious: water is heavy. Twelve gallons of water are definitely heavy. I did that exercise a couple of times on the 6th.

One other thing: the machine is LOUD. The crossing guard at the nearby school, a few dozen meters away, glared in my direction. Hey, I want our sidewalk to be dry for the schoolkids, too.

When I looked out on the 7th, it looked just as bad. So I did it two more times on my birthday, but I decided to dump the excess water in the nearest sewer. That meant walking the device, which rather reminds me of R2D2, two houses away.

I got rid of all that water because my friends were coming over for my hearts game, bringing food and beverages. We told lots of stories, some of which involved Scotland and/or getting older, and had a wonderful time.

I’d lost every one of the four or five games I played except the last, and it’s only because of a quirky house rule that allows someone who gets exactly to 100 to go back to zero. I had 81 points and got 19.

But as people were leaving, the same pond returned. It was particularly troubling to me because one of my friends broke her ankle and was wearing a boot, which needed to stay DRY.

Still, my work apparently had its beneficial benefit The next morning, Lake 54 was almost totally dry and remained dry even as other people’s walks were puddling. So I feel like the nearly 50 gallons I removed from my sidewalk were ultimately beneficial.