November 2019 - Page 2 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Lydster: homework is unrelenting

“It teaches time management skills.”

homework My daughter was sick the second Thursday and Friday of the school year back in September. She really was ill, with her temperature spiking over 100F, always in the evening, before we took her to the urgent care place and got her antibiotics.

Obviously, it’s been a LONG time since I’ve been in high school. But I don’t remember the homework being so unrelenting. And being ill is no excuse these days.

Her school district had embraced an “Attendance matters” initiative, “All day. Every day.” And if you’re not there – a high fever is reason enough IN THE DISTRICT’S RULES to keep the child home – the homework doesn’t go away.

It’s very easy to fall behind. My daughter has caught up, but it took over a week. It often involved staying up later than I would have wanted for her. I have been told that even second graders are getting homework, and are responsible for it, whether or not the child is present.

If you Google value of homework pros and cons, you’ll find some pros:

“It encourages the discipline of practice.” Maybe. “It gets parents involved with a child’s life.” That IS true. Since at least her third-grade class, I’ve been the parent who helped try to explain Common Core math, even when I was mystified by it. I look forward to school breaks and vacations as much as, or possibly more than, my daughter.

“It teaches time management skills.” Theoretically, but not necessarily, in this case. “Homework creates a communication network.” Not applicable. “It allows for a comfortable place to study.” I have NO idea how she studies with the television on.

“It provides more time to complete the learning process.” Sometimes the stuff that seemed to have made sense in the classroom actually becomes fuzzy by the time she gets home.

“It reduces screen time.” Well, THAT isn’t true. Much of her homework REQUIRES screen time to complete. The weekly AP European history quiz is online. The English papers are submitted electronically. An ad she did with some classmates REQUIRED her phone. Some research requires doing searches.

My daughter doesn’t love the homework. Her father isn’t a fan, either.

That time in Utah when…

Snowbird

I saw a Utah license plate this autumn in Albany

UM United States Minor Outlying Islands are “eight United States insular areas in the Pacific Ocean (Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Atoll, Palmyra Atoll, and Wake Island) and one in the Caribbean Sea (Navassa Island)…

“Except for Palmyra Atoll, all of these islands are unincorporated, unorganized territories of the United States. As of 2019, none of the islands have any permanent residents.”

UT Utah, a state in the western US. Capital and largest city: Salt Lake City. The state is known for the 28 million acre-feet of briny water that comprises the Great Salt Lake. It is the sixth-largest lake in the US, after the Great Lakes. The second-largest lake that sits completely within the United States borders is significantly more saline than other large lakes.

A story

In 1994, I did something fairly stupid in Utah that affects me to this day. I attended the ASBDC conference in Snowbird. The place is 29 miles from Salt Lake International Airport, located near the town of Alta in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

Alta’s base elevation is 8,530 ft (2,600 m). It was beautiful. Behind the site of the conference was a picturesque mountain. Since the event had not started yet, and I had nothing better to do, I started climbing up, just to get a better view.

Eh, I decided to climb up a little farther, and maybe just a tad more. Then I got so far up that I figured I should keep on climbing. I was just pulling on rocks and branches. If they withstood being pulled on thrice, I’d use them to pull myself up.

Just as I was about to reach the top, I pulled on a branch three times. For good measure, I tried it once more and it came loose, falling down the mountain. Yikes, that could have me tumbling – I’ve since checked – 2,538 ft or 774 m.

What goes up…

Now the descent. I tried to brake myself from going too fast. I got maybe a third of the way down and I began sliding. I wasn’t too worried until my left leg got caught in a hole, while the rest of my body weight was going downhill.

My left knee starting hurting, a LOT. Somehow, I crawled the rest of my way down, then the few dozen meters to where we were staying. I came across some I knew from New York State and he drove me to an urgent care place. This was the first time I’d been to one.

An urgent care locale is for when you really need some medical care, but you don’t need the lifesaving care from an emergency room. The doctor told me that I had a torn meniscus in my left knee. He gave me the X-rays to bring to a doctor in Albany to get fixed, which happened.

That knew, though, has never been the same. I wear a brace on it, especially if I’m walking any distance. It is probably arthritic, and I experience pain there regularly.

To soothe my pain, here’s the website of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Up to ABC Wednesday

Mourning has broken, somewhat

Henri Nouwen

mourning dove As regular readers of this blog may have noticed, I’ve gone to a number of funerals this calendar year. Two members of my current church in January, two former fellow choir members from my previous church in February.

It’s not just my own mourning, of course. From those four funerals, there are three widows who I’ve known at least 18 years each, plus various other relatives. My wife and I went to the service of a mom of a friend, also in the first half of the year.

Somehow, I inserted myself as a source of information about the memorial arrangements for Charles G. Hill, e.g., Dustbury. BTW, his daughter had no idea about his favorite charity. She found nothing in his record-keeping. She suggested the Oklahoma City Performing Arts or maybe a mental health organization.

I should reiterate that donations for Arthur’s husband Nigel King can be made to Anxiety New Zealand. I would recommend you read Arthur’s blog, starting with the first of October, regarding his uneven adjustment.

A decade and a half ago

Certainly, there were lots of funerals/memorial services this year, expected as one gets older. My wife and I recall, though, the last third of 2004, when we attended at least five funerals. Two were for the husbands of friends of mine; the women were both named Mary.

I was particularly fond of Tom. We had similar sensibilities about politics and much else. I helped make sure he got to vote in that Presidential year, thus assuring the election of President John Kerry. Even this year, Mary and I have pondered what he would have thought of the 240 candidates running for President. Goodness, that was 15 years ago.

I came across this quote from one of my favorite theologians, the late Henri Nouwen. It’s what I TRY to do in these moments of mourning:

“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing… not healing, not curing… that is a friend who cares.”

An artist whose voice you love

I’m leaving off the Beatles and Motown…

I’ve come up to the prompt, “A song by an artist whose voice you love.” This is intriguing.

What makes the human singing voice appealing? There are plenty of vocals by artists whose sounds are not “pretty,” yet I like to hear them sing. Bob Dylan falls into that category.

Somewhere – Tom Waits. I heard this song for the first time near the end of the 1997 movie Afterglow with Julie Christie and Nick Nolte. I saw it on the February 2018 holiday weekend. In the context of the movie, I wept.
Lay Down (Candles in the Rain) – Melanie with the Edwin Hawkins Singers. I think it’s the juxtaposition of her rough sound with the majesty of the choir.

I had an office mate some years back, and there were only two artists she wouldn’t allow me to play because she absolutely HATED their voices. Naturally, I need to link to them here:

Old Man – Neil Young
Always on My Mind – Willie Nelson

There are countless rockers and soul shouters who’d be on the list:

Black Dog – Led Zeppelin (Robert Plant)
Star – David Bowie
Respect – Otis Redding
I Got You – James Brown

I’m leaving off the Beatles and Motown and the Beach Boys…

The first songs I thought of, though, were these:

Stand by Me – Ben E. King, a great song written by him, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
Maybe – Alison Krauss. I’m a sucker for the harmony vocals.
Dimming of the Day – Bonnie Raitt. There are LOTS of versions of this song, and I love most of them.
A Case of You – Joni Mitchell. From the great Blue album.
A Ballata Of Francesco Landini (ca. 1335-1397) Lasso! Di Donna – Judy Collins. When I think of my favorite Judy Collins album, it bounces between Wildflowers, from which this song comes, and Who Knows Where the Time Goes
Rolling in the Deep – Adele. I’m old; she the only artist whose first release was in the 21st century whose whole body of work (that’s more than one album) I own.

Siena Saints men’s basketball

Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference

Siena As a perk of having a subscription to Albany’s remaining newspaper, I can enter a number of contests pretty much automatically. So I play. A couple months back, I scored a pair of tickets to a movie theater.

Then in November, I received a pair of season tickets to Siena College men’s basketball games. Siena is in suburban Loudonville. That’s pronounced LOUD-in-ville, not LEW-den-ville, or London-ville.

Siena plays in Division I. It’s in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, a league that generally gets only one team to play at the end of the season NCAA March Madness. Siena’s gotten to that tournament six times over the years and has won a total of four games.

But it’s one of OUR teams, along with my alma mater, UAlbany. I missed the first home game. I decided I should go to the second game on Tuesday, November 12 because there wouldn’t be another home game until December 21.

Not Charles

I decided to invite the only person I know who definitely knows something about basketball. Chuck Miller is a fellow blogger, but more importantly, an announcer for the Albany Patroons, defending champions that play in the oddly-named The Basketball League.

We met at the pizza place nearby. The owner ended up offering a free slice to a guy who asked almost everyone in the joint for money. The fellow claimed to be a homeless veteran; perhaps, perhaps not.

The last time I was in the Times Union Center was when I saw a football game of the now-defunct Albany Firebirds a couple of years back. Our seats at the basketball game, if it were a football stadium, would be in the end zone. In other words, we were almost behind one of the baskets. Yet we could still see pretty well.

The two teams, Siena and St. Bonaventure University, were playing for the Brother Ed Coughlin Franciscan Cup. Coughlin was Siena’s president before he died in July 2019. He had earned his bachelor’s degree at St. Bonaventure.

Siena started the game off really cold, even missing free throws. The Bonnies made a few threes and had a six-point lead after four minutes. But the Saints turned things around, as their opponents got sloppy. Siena, up three at the half, built an insurmountable lead in the latter stages, and won 78-65.

There was a young woman in front of us, a Siena alum, who knew far more about the team and their skill sets than we did.

What was that?

The school held a 50/50 raffle to help one of their baseball or softball teams. Chuck spent $10 on his tickets and wanted to know if I wanted to go in on it with him. I decided to buy my own $5 worth. With 15 minutes left, the scoreboard flashed the winning number. The announcement was that I should go to the VCfghfl jkgughjn. WHAT?

I wandered around the perimeter of the arena until I found a young woman and her daughter, who was under five. She verified my ticket and handed me $263. Ah, Christmas is saved!

I was reminded that, generally, live sport is more interesting than watching on television. The game, I later learned, was broadcast on ESPN+, one of those several tiers of the sports network.

Would you like to go?

These are the remaining home games on the schedule.

December
21 (SAT) 6 PM VS BUCKNELL
23 (MON) 6 PM VS CANISIUS
29 (SUN) 2 PM VS HOLY CROSS

January
3 (FRI) 7 PM VS MONMOUTH
9 (THU) 7 PM VS SAINT PETER’S
24 (FRI) 7 PM VS MARIST
26 (SUN) 2 PM VS QUINNIPIAC

February
7 (FRI) 7 PM VS FAIRFIELD
14 (FRI) 7 PM VS RIDER
16 (SUN) 2 PM VS MANHATTAN/DOUBLEHEADER WITH SIENA WOMEN (noon)
19 (WED) 7 PM VS IONA

March
4 (WED) 7 PM VS NIAGARA

It’s highly unlikely that I’ll go to all of them. Thursday is choir night, e.g. And I don’t really want to go alone. So if you’re local and want one or two tickets, IM me on Facebook.