Month: March 2023

Health report: damn knee

walking stick

On Saturday, March 4, Albany received enough wet snow that several tree branches came down throughout the city. One was in my yard. Unfortunately, it was also totally across the sidewalk. It needed to be moved.

Ultimately, I needed to walk into the few inches of snow. Unfortunately, atop the snow was a sheet of ice, which made me turn my ankle. It was uncomfortable, but I figured it’d pass. The next day, it seemed fine.

Monday morning – more the middle of the night – I awoke to extreme pain on the left side of my left knee. I could not bear to put any weight on it. Getting out of the office chair took ten minutes.

So I spent the better part of Monday and Tuesday, my 70th birthday, sitting on the sofa, my damn knee elevated, watching news programs (60 Minutes et al.), and reading magazines. I couldn’t focus on much more than that.

Eventually, I felt less pain with a knee brace and a walking stick. I first damaged my knee in 1994, as I wrote here. I’m working on getting an ortho appointment.

You gotta have heart

Meanwhile, I went to see my original cardiologist on March 9. Even after a few scans over the past three years, it is “unclear whether the patient’s bicuspid valve is congenital or acquired due to heavy calcification.” I have a “moderate dilation of the ascending aorta. The maximum diameter of the enlarged segment is 5.1 cm.”

If it gets to 5.5 cm, I get to have heart surgery. Oh, joy! I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me a little anxious when I think about it, which is about twice a year when I get the scans and see the heart doc.

I need to lose more weight, as I’ve lost none since the beginning of the year. The good news is that I haven’t gained any either, and it’s stayed in a five-pound range.

Birthday present for me: Ask Roger Anything

carrot cake

I know you’ve been working on your perfect birthday present for me. You’re going to Ask Roger Anything.

I received some physical items for natal day #70. My wife got me the book The McCartney Legacy, Volume 1: 1969-73 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair. She has also promised me a new office chair because my current one has become very uncomfortable.

The Amazon card I got from a friend was used to purchase five Warren Zevon albums for under twenty bucks. There are several packages of CDs for the Doobie Brothers, Roberta Flack, Randy Newman, and others.

My daughter painted the item above shortly after she was home for spring break. Her mother is the carrot on the left, and she’s the one on the right. Of course. The word Birthday is not misspelled; since she gave it to me after my natal day, it says, “Happy birth – hey!”

I need something more interactive now, which is where y’all come in. I’m sure there are things you always wanted to ask of me, but you were too shy. Now’s your opportunity!

I doubt there are any questions that you can ask that I will not answer. You can try to stump me. Perhaps you want to know how I’ve changed in specific areas over decades. And I certainly have changed over time in ways that I might not have noticed until and unless you ask the questions.

I’ll answer your queries in the next month or so. Indeed, I already have gotten a couple of questions. But I want more, MORE! Please pose your questions in the blog’s comments section, email me at rogerogreen (AT) Gmail (DOT) com, or contact me on Facebook. Always look for the duck.  

One to Ten Sunday Stealing

observant

This week’s Sunday Stealing is One to Ten.

One song that describes my life.
I’m trying to pick a song I haven’t discussed recently. From Paul Simon’s Still Crazy After All These Years album is a tune called Have A Good Time, which I used to play every March 8 for about two decades. The lyrics begin:
Yesterday, it was my birthdayI hung one more year on the lineI should be depressedMy life’s a messBut I’m having a good time

Two things I wish I had more of in my life
Money, though I’d give most of it away, and time.

Three ways I relax
Getting a massage, listening to music, taking a nap

Four of my best accomplishments
Blogging for nearly 18 years, winning on JEOPARDY, figuring out some genealogical puzzles, and working long enough so that my wife’s health insurance is paid for until she’s 65 and my daughter’s until she’s 26

Five things I am looking forward to
Visiting Vermont again, reading several books, attending Jagged Little Pill, attending Ain’t Too Proud, going to a concert

Six things I am grateful for
My wife, my daughter, my sisters, my friends, living in a walkable neighborhood, and my house (despite its flaws, but don’t tell it I said so)
Seven Deadly Sins
Seven facts about me
I met former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1973, I introduced Rod Serling at a high school assembly in 1970, I’m much more likely to remember numbers than words, I was born on a Saturday, I’ve never been off North America, I’m the oldest of three children, and I know all of the two-letter postal abbreviations for the 50 states

Eight things I can see from where I am sitting
Lots of books, several Hess trucks, photos of my wife and daughter, my inhaler (which I haven’t needed lately), an empty diet cherry Pepsi bottle, a file cabinet that had been spray-painted blue, the radiator, a lamp

Nine words I would use to describe myself
Intelligent, cautious, opinionated, political, musical, curious, melancholy, considerate, observant

Ten little things that make me happy
Watching kids read, barbershop quartet harmony, people holding the door for others, kittens, missing all of the red lights when going to church, getting JEOPARDY questions correct when all three players fail to ring in, fixing something mechanical (not generally my strong suit), people shoveling their walks after a snowstorm, listening to Italian even though I do not understand it, a clean kitchen counter 

More birthday month music

Depressive Quartet

birthday month musicHere’s more of my birthday month music celebration. These are songs tied to a particular time and place, or occasionally multiple times and places, in my life. 

For about a year, c. 1965, I tried to learn to play the piano. I went to the home of Marcheta Hamlin, our church organist. She was patient, but it just wasn’t in my skill set. One time she wanted me to play Minuet in G major, then attributed to J.S. Bach, but now considered to be written by Christian Petzold. She said it was like A Lover’s Concerto by The Toys. I didn’t know the song at all then and may not have until The Supremes covered it the following year.  

After I broke up with my girlfriend in May 1971, I visited my friend Steve in Poughkeepsie. He was playing the Billy Preston album That’s The Way God Planned It, produced by George Harrison. The first song is Do What You Want. I LOVE that song. Within a year, I saw Billy live in Elting Gym at SUNY New Paltz, which I was attending. 

In my freshman year, I was in Scudder Hall, probably in my dorm room, when I determined that  When You Dance, I Can Really Love by Neil Young was Our Song for The Okie and me. This track, and the Billy Preston tune, have something in common. They start much slower than they end. 

Help Me by Joni Mitchell defines a rebound relationship that didn’t last, and a concert went awry. 

My real understanding of apartheid in South Africa started with Biko from Peter Gabriel’s third album. BTW, that whole collection, sometimes called Melt, is a desert album of mine. I have a copy of it in German.   

Again

My tenth high school reunion in 1981 was a bit of a dud. But a bunch of us went over to my friend C’s house. My friend Karen played the new Rolling Stones single Start Me Up about once an hour between midnight and 6 a.m.

Romance was hit or miss in the day. I developed a Depressive Quartet of songs. I wrote about them here. Sweet Bitter Love by Aretha Franklin, her best track on Columbia. My First Night Alone Without You by Jane Olivor. Gone Away – Roberta Flack; if I WANT to cry, this song always works. Stay With Me by Lorraine Ellison.  If I needed to feel worse: Remove This Doubt by The Supremes; Down So Low by Linda Ronstadt; Can We Still Be Friends by Todd Rundgren. 

I was riding back from somewhere late at night in 1983 with my roommate Mark, a part-time disc jockey at my favorite radio at the time, Q104. Owner Of A Lonely Heart by Yes came on the radio, and we mused whether the song would have any commercial success. I had my doubts.

More next week. 

That Black/Irish thing

Paradise Square is based on true events

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I will note that Black/Irish thing.

When I was down in NYC in June 2022, my sister Leslie and some friends arrived earlier. They got to see the Broadway production of Paradise Square. It is described thusly:

“Led by Tony winner Joaquina Kalukango (who won Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical), Paradise Square is based on true events from a part of New York history that not many Americans know about.

“The musical is set in 1863 during the Civil War, in Lower Manhattan’s Five Points neighborhood. This real-life neighborhood used to house free Black Americans and Irish immigrants, who lived together, worked together, and married each other. Kalukango’s character Nelly owns a saloon called Paradise Square, where most of the musical’s action takes place…

“The neighborhood was built over a filled-in freshwater lake. The buildings placed on top of it would sink and sag, and were notoriously damp, making it a breeding ground for diseases. Because of this bug in its design, housing in Five Points was cheap, making it a destination for new Irish immigrants and freed Black Americans.”

My sister thought it was excellent. Unfortunately, the show’s run abruptly ended shortly after controversies of “Lawsuits, Unpaid Bills, and Alleged Bullying” came to the fore.

Genealogy

In my extended family, there is a man named George Liggins. The 1910 Census shows that he was 49, designated as black, with his father born in Ireland and his mother born in New York. His wife Hannah, 54, noted as white had both parents born in Ireland.  Their three sons and three daughters, ranging in age from 15 to 25, were listed as mulatto.

I wonder if George Liggins’ parents met in Paradise Square. I have no way of knowing, but it’s an interesting fantasy of mine.

You should be dancing

Around the same time as the trip to Carnegie Hall, my wife and I saw Irish Dance: Steps of Freedom on PBS. “This program charts the evolution of Irish dance, from its early Celtic origins to its peasant dance roots to its mix with Caribbean and African slave cultures.” So the Black and Irish intermingling narrative continues.

I was surprised by my interest in the difficulties of the American Irish Historical Society in New York City, as reported in the New York Times in December 2022. The following month, it was reported that the Irish American Heritage Museum in Albany, which I’ve not yet visited, would be involved in revitalizing the NYC entity. “The new board was announced by state Attorney General Letitia James to deal with the group’s financial issues… Elizabeth Stack, executive director of “the Albany entity “will serve on the three-member interim board…”

I’m no closer to figuring out my direct lineage from County Cork, Ireland. Perhaps the Irish American Heritage Museum could help?

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