September 2024 - Page 2 of 6 - Ramblin' with Roger

Dad’s cousin Ruth

tracking Walkers

Here’s my dad’s cousin Ruth (R) with two of her children. My sister Leslie and I saw her in October 2022 at the church we all grew up in, Trinity AME Zion in Binghamton, NY. She pointed out a room that used to be a Sunday school classroom where my paternal grandmother Agatha Green used to teach Sunday school to me and a bunch of other kids. It is now a room of noted members of the Trinity family, and she asked us for large photos of our parents for the wall, which we still need to get for her.

The most recent time I saw her was in August 2024, in Horseheads, NY, at the Elmira Jazz Festival. She and her two daughters went to see my niece Leslie’s daughter Rebecca Jade in concert.

She told the story, which I had heard before, about how, after I was born, my father was at her house. He was furiously scribbling on a piece of paper, but she had no idea what the heck he was doing. He was trying to figure out my name, and he wanted to get it to spell out something with my initials and name. Hence, ROG = Roger Owen Green. So she witnessed my naming.

Walker clan

In July 2024, sister Leslie was in Binghamton for her high school reunion. She went to see Cousin Ruth. Ruth gave her a whole bunch of information about the genealogy of the Walker clan. Ruth’s father was Earl; Earl was my paternal grandmother’s brother, so Ruth was my father’s first cousin. She was over a dozen years younger than him, so she didn’t know all the early stories about my father, but she knew him like a big brother.

She has kept track of the Walker genealogy, knowing all of Earl and Agatha’s siblings’ birth/death dates and those of some of their descendants. This will be very useful once I get a chance to work on it. She is my oldest living relative, so I’ve known her even longer than I’ve known Leslie.

I want to thank Ruth for the opportunity to delve into my father’s history. Had he been alive, my father would have been 98 tomorrow. He died in 2000, yet he remains a mystery in various strange and subtle ways.

Ask Roger Anything sans pumpkin pie

Dickinson cultivar

From Snopes: “On 23 September 2016, Facebook users began sharing an article which claimed that the pumpkin typically used in pumpkin pie is in fact a multi-squash blend containing little to no pumpkin.” I remember reading about it at some point and shrugging.

As it turns out, the truth is a bit more nuanced. “According to botanists, however, asserting a clear distinction between ‘pumpkin’ and ‘squash’ is difficult because there is no strict botanical definition for pumpkins. Semantically, pumpkins are a type of squash, and the Dickinson cultivar is listed as a pumpkin.”

The pumpkin can you get from a can from Libby’s and other manufacturers is a blend of squash and pumpkin. It’s not the pretty pumpkins you expect to see on porches at Halloween, but they’re arguably more edible.

The topic is no big deal to me because I’m not a big fan of pumpkin, specifically pumpkin pies, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin muffins, and the like. In the 1990s, I baked two or three pumpkin pies for some fundraising events at the cajoling of my late friend Darby. But my favorite pies to eat tend to be apple pie or maybe a blueberry pie.

General Mills

Since I don’t drink coffee, I don’t drink a pumpkin spice latte. I don’t eat Pumpkin Spice Cheerios, available only for a limited time; I don’t need dessert for breakfast. I like regular Cheerios, and I have eaten Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast, which negates my point about dessert for breakfast.

What I really like, though, is when you Ask Roger Anything. You may ask Roger about his taste in pies, cakes, music, movies, or politics; it doesn’t matter as long as it doesn’t involve pumpkin spice.

I would love you to ask in the next few days, and I will be sure to reply in the next three or four weeks. As always, I promise to be as honest as I can be. It’s fun to hear what you want me to talk about. When you come up with very clever questions, a change of perspective is always helpful.

As usual, you may leave your questions in the blog’s comments section or my Facebook page (Roger Owen Green); look for the duck.

Day in the life: 20240915

lunaversary

Occasionally, I write a day-in-the-life post. This one is for Sunday, September 15th, 2024; I designated it 20240915 in a year/month/day formula, which makes sense to librarians and computer geeks.

My wife stopped at the gas station and I tend to fill up the gas tank because I’ve been doing it since I was a kid. I don’t mind it but my wife doesn’t like to get gas on her hands.

While I was doing this, a guy asked me for change. I waved him off and said, “When I’m done.” The thing about the process is that it’s pretty easy, but I need to do it in a methodical order: credit card in and out, type in the ZIP code, pick the grade of gas, and then place it into the tank. Because he continued chatting, I missed a step. “Do you need help?” “No, I need you to stop talking to me.” I didn’t realize that pumping gas was a bit of a zen experience for me until this guy was harshing my mellow. Yes, when I was DONE, I gave him some change.

The thing is, I LIKE helping people when I can. A couple of days earlier, I was sitting at a bus stop. A gregarious young adult male, 20 to 25, came up to me and asked, “Could you tie my shoe for me?” I replied, “Can you put your foot up on the seat?” because my knees and back didn’t want me to bend over. He said OK; I tied his shoes, and he thanked me, by which time the bus was coming.

Food

My wife and I stopped at the co-op to get sandwiches for a luncheon after church, and then we went to church. I got to attend choir rehearsal, the first week the choir sang since the spring. I missed it terribly. Even though we had a couple of rehearsals it’s not the same as singing in front of the congregation.

After church, we partook in the aforementioned luncheon. I was talking to one of the pastors who is particularly good at remembering names. There were a couple of congregants I could not identify. She said, “Tell me where they were sitting, and I could probably tell you their names. So, I noted that along with a general physical description. She knew their names even though they were newcomers to the congregation.

A couple of people around us were fascinated by this, not that the pastor knew their names but that I knew where they sat. If you’re sitting in the choir loft, you tend to notice where people are. Most people sit in the same place so it wasn’t that difficult for me.

We helped clean up, and then we went home for a couple of hours. My wife visited her mother while I was on a Zoom call with my sisters.

We try to have a lunaversary dinner. It often falls by the wayside, but we still attempt to go out to eat on or around the 15th of the month because we got married on the 15th of May. I checked the website of a nice restaurant in Watervliet, and it showed that it was open, so my wife drove us over there, but it was closed.

More food

We went to an Italian restaurant in Albany where we had been before. There was a football game on the TV (Chiefs/Bengals). A short time later, another couple came in and sat down not very far from us. They looked very familiar.

After dinner, we acknowledged seeing them in this restaurant some months ago. I said, “Oh, yes, it was the game between the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys.” The woman said, “How do you know that?” “Because you hate the Cowboys, and our fathers were big Giants fans in the Binghamton area.”

My recollection was partly aided by my writing about it at the time. Still, the details of that meeting were fresh in my mind even though it had been eight months and a day since that earlier game.

My wife and I went home, and soon, my wife went to bed. About an hour later, a police officer in a cop car was in front of the house across the street directing someone to get out of their car. I brushed my teeth, did some reading, and went to bed.

Sunday Stealing, 200.03: Oscar

lights out

This week’s Sunday Stealing is part of the 200 questions that Bev used the past two weeks. Here are 15 more from the same source, so I dubbed it 200.03. Next week, it will likely be 200.04.

1. What popular TV show do you refuse to watch?

There are so many current TV shows that I can’t even keep track of. So there’s no sense of “refusing to watch.” I suspect there would be if I were keeping up with more of them. In the past, I started watching a program called 24. The first 13 episodes of the first season had a taut dramatic arc, and then it limped along for the rest of the season. I watched the first episode of season 2, in which the lead character, Jack Bauer, murders somebody so he can literally steal their face and infiltrate the other side. I said I’ve had enough of this, and I didn’t watch it anymore.

2. What pets did you have while growing up?

We mostly had cats. There was a time when my sisters and I had three cats: Tiger, Taffy, and Tony. Tiger was mine, and he got hit and killed by a car; I was devastated. Earlier, we had a cat named Peter, who was so smart that when he wanted to come in, he would get up on the stoop and rattle the doorknob. We also had a dog named Lucky Stubbs, an Alaskan Husky, and he nipped at me. I was not a big fan of this dog, but my father liked him, and we kept the dog until Lucky also nipped both of our pastor’s daughters. Then Lucky Stubbs was off to some farm in rural Broome County.

Rabbit’s foot

3. What is the luckiest thing that has happened to you?

As I noted here, I was lucky that when I moved to the Capital District of New York State, my old pal Pam, who I knew from my New Paltz college days, also moved north. Her boyfriend at the time, Paul, was running a program with the Schenectady Arts Council, and I was able to get a job there, one of my two favorite jobs of all time.

4. What are some small things that make your day better?

Playing Wordle – I have a 636-game winning streak, playing Quordle, posting my blog to Facebook, and saying good morning to my stuffed monkey, Oscar.

5. What’s your favorite piece of clothing you own/owned?

When my sister Leslie went to Mexico in 1972, she brought me back two shirts, a Guatemalan work shirt, and a dress shirt, and I love them. I think I wore one of them the first time I got married, that year, actually.

6. What’s the most annoying habit other people have?

Arguing with people online for long periods as though they were going to change their opinion. I came across one recently about whether God was in favor of or against abortion, which led to a conversation about how God in the Old Testament encouraged the slaughter of certain enemies. I said this is a fruitless discussion.

Black and white

7. What game or movie universe would you most like to live in?

I was taken by the movie Pleasantville (1998), in which everything was simple and black and white until it wasn’t.

8. What’s the most impressive thing you know how to do?

Figuring out square roots with pen and paper and keeping score with bowling. All sorts of totally useless skills that technology does for you instead

9. What was the best book or series you’ve read?

Every time I get a question like this, I always think about the last time, and I try to answer it differently. Today, I’m going with Saga of the Swamp Thing by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, and John Totleben. I have a collection in this very room.

10. What state or country do you never want to go back to?

I’ve been to 32 states and four other countries, and I don’t think there’s a real answer. It was hot and muggy when my daughter and I were in Indiana in 2019. I wouldn’t write off the state over that one experience, but it did suck.

11. Where do you usually go when you have time off?

Into my imagination

Secret

12. What amazing thing did you do that no one was around to see?

“Amazing” would not be the term I’d use. When I was a kid and cars were left unlocked, I would open the doors and turn off the lights. On a rainy or overcast day, I might do this a dozen times on my way home from high school. Now, I remove obstructions – tree branches, tipped-over empty garbage cans – from the sidewalk.

13. What is something you think everyone should do at least once in their lives?

I’ve never been all that prescriptive, so I’m not one to suggest that one ought to do anything. I suppose I could say something mundane like do something that gets you out of your comfort zone, but what the heck does that even mean?

14. What’s something you’ve been meaning to try but just haven’t gotten around to it?

Writing a book

15. What is something most people consider a luxury but you don’t think you could live without?

Takeout. I don’t much enjoy cooking; I do make the morning oatmeal or occasionally eggs or pancakes. It’s unreasonable that my wife should come home from work and then have to cook afterward, though she’s good at cooking meals for two or even three nights. There’s a Tuesday farmers market she frequents for about half the year. Around the corner from our house, there’s an Indian restaurant, a pizza place where we often get lamb or chicken on rice, a burger place where we can also get pizza, etc. When I was single, I used to buy frozen meals and heat them, but my wife is not a big fan.

#1 hits of 1984: at the movies

Jump, not Jump

“Hello — ORwell 1984?” / Herblock. April 1962
Summary: Editorial cartoon: man talking on a telephone labeled “Wiretap Bill 1962”; he is looking at a poster with a bust portrait of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy

Some of the #1 hits of 1984 on the pop charts are from movie soundtracks. All of the movie albums listed here I own on vinyl, except Footloose, which I have on CD. RB means rhythm and blues/soul, and AC is adult contemporary.

Like A Virgin – Madonna (Sire), #1 pop for six weeks, #9 RB, #29 AC, gold record

When Doves Cry – Prince (Warner), #1 pop for five weeks, #1 RB for eight weeks, platinum record. From the semi-autobiographical movie Purple Rain, starring Prince and Apollonia, which I saw in the theater. The album won the Oscar for Best Original Song Score.

Jump – Van Halen (Warner), #1 pop for five weeks, #88 RB, gold record.

[This is not to be confused with the Pointer Sisters hit Jump (For My Love), which went to #3 the same year. Here is a cinematic footnote: the Pointer Sisters’ version of Jump (For My Love) appears on the US soundtrack for the 2003 movie Love Actually, but the UK soundtrack uses the version by Girls Aloud.]

Three weeks at #1 pop

Footloose – Kenny Loggins (Columbia), platinum record. The title song of the movie starring Kevin Bacon and Lori Singer. It was nominated for an Oscar as Best Original Song (Loggins and lyricist Dean Pitchford).

What’s Love Got To Do With It – Tina Turner (Capitol), #2 RB for five weeks, #8 AC, gold record

Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now) – Phil Collins (Atlantic), #2 AC for six weeks, gold record. From the movie Against All Odds, starring Jeff Bridges and Rachel Ward. The song was nominated for an Oscar as Best Original Song.

I Just Called To Say I Love You – Stevie Wonder (Motown), #1 RB and AC for three weeks, gold record. From the movie The Woman In Red, starring Gene Wilder and Kelly LeBrock. The song won the Oscar for Best Original Song.

Ghostbusters – Ray Parker, Jr. (Arista), #1 RB for two weeks, #9 AC, gold record. The title song from the movie starring Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, and Sigourney Weaver, which I saw in the theater. It was nominated for an Oscar as Best Original Song.

Karma Chameleon – Culture Club (Virgin/Epic), #67 RB, #3 AC, gold record

Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go – Wham! (Columbia), #4 AC, platinum record

Two weeks at #1 pop

Hello – Lionel Richie (Motown), #1 RB for three weeks, #1 AC for six weeks, gold record

Owner Of A Lonely Heart – Yes (Atco), #69 RB. As I noted here, I remember the first time I heard this song.

Out Of Touch – Daryl Hall and John Oates (RCA), #24 RB, #8 AC

Time After Time – Cyndi Lauper (Portrait), #78 RB, #1 AC for three weeks, gold record

Let’s Hear It For The Boy – Deniece Williams (Columbia), #1 RB for three weeks, #3 AC for three weeks, platinum record. It is also from the movie Footloose and was nominated for an Oscar as Best Original Song (Tom Snow and Dean Pitchford).

Let’s Go Crazy -Prince & the Revolution (Warner), #1 RB, gold record. It is also from the movie Purple Rain. I have a 12″ EP with an extended version of this song.

The Reflex – Duran Duran (Capitol), gold record

Caribbean Queen (No More Love On The Run) – Billy Ocean (Jive), #1 RB for four weeks, #7 AC, gold record

A single week at #1 pop

Missing You – John Waite (EMI America), #7 AC

To my surprise, putting this together gave me a touch of melancholy over the passing of Tina Turner, Eddie Van Halen, Prince, George Michael, and even Irene Cara (in the Ghostbusters video).