Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

You Might Be Old

Selectric

Mark Evanier did one of those You Might Be Old If memes. But I think yes-or-no answers are somewhat limiting, so I decided to expand on some of these.

Used a rotary phone. Well, yes. I am fascinated by the fact that there were films to show one how to use a rotary phone 80 or more years ago. Now, there are videos showing us that current students don’t know how to use them. 

Used a floppy disc. Yes, 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 inch. 

I used a typewriter. I was a terrible typist—still am. When I was in student government at New Paltz in the mid-1970s, we had an IBM Selectric. The great thing about it was that it had “an internal correction feature…, intended to eliminate the need for typists to use cover-up tape, ‘white-out’ correction fluid, or typewriter erasers.”  In the late 1980s, I had a Sears typewriter with minimal memory, which I thought was the greatest thing ever.

Taken pics with a film camera. I have at least twenty photo albums worth of pictures taken with a camera, plus a boxful of loose photos.

Right now!

Listened to music on a CD. As I write this, I’m listening to Magic by Bruce Springsteen. If I’m home, I play six to eight CDs per day.  

Watched a movie on VHS. Yes, several. The first VHS tapes I bought were Being There and Groundhog Day. 

Rented a movie from Blockbuster. Probably, but I have no strong recollection.

Learned cursive. Yes. I always thought the G in cursive was kind of boxy and ugly. And I’ve written it a lot.

Played an Atari, possibly at someone else’s house. I never owned one.

Sent or received a fax. When I first started working at the New York Small Business Development Center, there weren’t enough phone lines. So I shared a phone with the fax machine. So when my phone rang, I never knew whether it was a call for me or lots of facsimile noise.  

Had a MySpace account. Maybe. I’m not sure.

Ordered from Columbia House. No. But I was a member of the Capitol Record Club circa 1966-1968. That’s where I bought most of my Beatles albums, plus LPs by Billy Strange, the Lovin’ Spoonful, Roger Miller, Bobbie Gentry, and the Hollyridge Strings.

Had an AOL address. I still have an AOL address. It’s sometimes used for two-step authentication.

Access the Internet via dial-up. Oh, yeah.

Jiminy Cricket

Used an encyclopedia. My parents bought us, but probably more for me, a set of the Encyclopedia Americana, plus a half dozen annual updates. 

Used a phone book. Not only did I use it, but I read it. I used to know all of the area codes in the US and Canada. But it was easier then. The first digit was between 2 and 9, the second 0 or 1, and the third between 1 and 9. 

Send a postcard. Yes, and I used to know how much it cost to send one.

Used a paper map. Yes, and I still prefer a paper map for most purposes. I find that GPS can occasionally be unreliable. For example, my wife and I were traveling to Cohoes in Albany County, and the GPS repeatedly told us to take an exit long before we needed to.

Owned a dictionary. I still do, and it’s less than six feet from where I’m sitting. 

Written a cheque. I did it all the time. Now, I write about five per year if I can find them.

Uncurled a telephone cord. All of the time!

Sunday Stealing: Good Luck Charm

An American Family

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. The quiz is stolen from the League of Extraordinary Penpals.

    Do you have a Good Luck Charm?

Oscar and Bellflower

    What was the last song you listened to?

I listened to many albums a couple of days ago, but I don’t remember the order. I Ain’t Marching Anymore by Phil Ochs? Holiday by the BeeGees? Maybe it was the Rolling Stones’ I Am Waiting.

    What is your favorite thing about the place you live?

Albany is the right size for me. I don’t want to live in a huge city, and I certainly don’t want to live out in the country or suburbs. A small/medium-sized city is just about right.

    What is your earliest childhood memory?

I don’t think I remember this as much as I’ve seen a picture of it. My family had gone to the Catskill Game Farm in Catskill NY, from Binghamton when I was three and a half. There was a plastic or metallic pumpkin large enough for me to sit in, and there’s there’s a photograph of this somewhere.

If you could be any animal, what would you be?

A platypus because it would be so contrary to any logic, It’s a mammal and it lays eggs. I love that.

Trust

  Who do you trust the most in your life?

Ostensibly, my wife, but I think there are things you trust some people in certain areas more than you trust other people. I have a couple of friends I’ve known since kindergarten and another I’ve known since the first day of college.

  How many languages can you say “hello” in?

From this list, I know French, Spanish, Chinese, Italian, and German.

What is your favorite kind of weather?

Partly cloudy and 72 light breeze

    How did you discover that Santa wasn’t real, and how old were you?

Santa Claus isn’t real?

    What is the best feeling in the world?

Listening to familiar music with headphones. It tends to be classical music, such as Pictures at an Exhibition or  1812 Overture, or especially Bach’s Toccata and Fugue.

    What is your favorite color?

Aquamarine

    Is there a language you would love to learn?

All of them, especially Chinese and Spanish, but it is not my strength

How do you feel about reality TV?

Early on, I actually watched a few reality shows, such as An American Family, Queeer Eye for the Straight Guy, the first season of Survivor, and the first four seasons of The Real World. But I’ve long ago lost my taste for them.

    Did you ever skip school when you were a kid?

Only to go to a couple of antiwar demonstrations

    What is your least favorite food?

Kale. People telling me how good it is has not swayed me.

Songs that resonate

Neil Young

Many different factors create songs that resonate with me. I’m gonna touch on just a few of them here.

Tight vocal harmonies, especially by females, I find particularly affecting. The chorus of Telling Me Lies by the Trio – Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris – on the chorus gets to me. On a Carly Simon album, she, her sister Lucy, and Judy Collins sing The Fisherman’s Song.

Some time ago, I wrote about the inverted pedal point, yet I managed to forget my two favorite pop examples, both on the choruses: Maybe by Alison Krauss and Richard Thompson’s Dimming Of The Day; this version is by Bonnie Raitt. 

I have a great affection for shared lead vocals. Sly and the Family Stone did it a lot, including on You Can Make It If You Try. The Norman Whitfield-produced Temptations were fond of it, starting their second #1 hit, I Can’t Get Next To You. The Jackson Five used it on ABC. Some artists gave the first vocals to others before taking over, such as You Are The Sunshine Of My Life by Stevie Wonder and 1999 by Prince. 

Applause

Sometimes, I’m taken by the hand clap, such as Private Eyes by Hall & Oates and Where Did Our Love Go by the Supremes, both of which appear at this link of The Handclaps List, vol. 2. Also, Cinnamon Girl by Neil Young.

Of course, one of my favorite hooks is a great bass line. But there are so many of them it’s hard to pick. The first two that come to mind are Tell Me Something Good by Rufus featuring Chaka Khan and Keep On Running by the Spencer Davis Group featuring Steve Winwood.

Songs not controlled by the metronome please me. Two examples I’m thinking of are starting much slower than they finish. Do What You Want To by Billy Preston. I first heard the song in 1971 while visiting my old high school friend Steve when he was living in Poughkeepsie. You want the Apple version, not the A&M version, which is much more regulated. Another is When You Dance, I Can Really Love by Neil Young. My favorite thing to do is play each of these songs and then go back to the song at the beginning of the song to see just how much it had picked up the pace.

Shopping carts

newspapers

In mid-October, I went to the Price Chopper/Market 32 grocery store nearest my home on Madison Avenue, but I couldn’t find any shopping carts.  I used a basket they had in the store that I hadn’t seen for a while.

I did my shopping. When I checked out, I asked the cashier. They told me the store had done some work on its entrances and exits. Someone had turned off the mechanism that locked the shopping cart wheels when the carts reached the parking lot’s perimeter.

As a result, many shopping carts disappeared. When I went shopping the next week, I found a single cart outdoors. As I finished my shopping, I passed along my cart to a customer seeking one. It took about a month, but they have been replenished,

Evening Press

I thought about this a lot because shopping carts always hung out on the street when I was a kid. When I had a newspaper route when I was 12 and 13, I often used the shopping cart. I never took it from the store, but they would always be available, like a community resource. That was probably the delusion of a tween.

One day, as usual, I was taking a cart to the pick-up point for the Evening and Sunday Press in my section of Binghamton, NY. Some guy stopped his car and said, “Oh, that cart belongs to our store. Do you wanna get arrested?” I said no, and I let him take the cart. In retrospect, I don’t know that he worked for the supermarket since there was nothing on the car indicating that. But by the time I reached the pick-up point, I had found another cart.

Cities now have abandoned cart regulations, which I reckon is a good thing. Albany has such legislation, but it’s been not as successful as hoped. 

Speaking of crime, my Price Chopper store has had an armed security guard at the entranceway for about the last year. It startled me initially, but now I see the person and shrug. It does not make me feel any more secure—in fact, it is probably the opposite—but I know many other stores in the area have hired armed personnel.

Demographics of cigarette smoking

The Great American Smokeout

When I posted about the Great American Smokeout in a recent year, someone pointed out, as I had mentioned, that cigarette smoking is on the decline.

I want to look at the demographics of cigarette smoking. Check out this CDC report.

28.1% of adults who regularly had feelings of severe psychological distress were smokers, compared with 10.9% without such feelings. Is there a causal connection? I don’t know.

18.5% of adults with a disability smoke, compared with 10.9% of adults without a disability (10.9%). Did smoking aggravate the disability? IDK that either. 

Current cigarette smoking was highest among persons who were divorced/separated or widowed (16.8%) and lowest among those who were married or living with a partner (10.4%).

Money

But I was most intrigued by this:

Current cigarette smoking was higher among people with a lower annual household income than those with higher annual household incomes.

  • About 18 of every 100 adults with low income (18.3%)
  • About 12 of every 100 adults with middle income (12.3%)
  • Nearly 7 of every 100 adults with high income (6.7%)

This tracks why I see more people at the bus stop smoking cigarettes. I love public transportation, but let’s face it: more people who use it regularly tend to have a lower economic profile than the general public.

I was particularly taken aback when waiting for a bus to go downtown last month. There was a guy who was looking on the ground finding cigarette butts that had only been partially smoked to pick up to use at a later date. It was so disturbing that I almost wanted to walk to the corner store and buy him a pack.

I haven’t bought a pack of cigarettes for decades. It was usually for my father – his brand was Winstons – who was a smoker for many years before he got emphysema. He stopped, got better, and then started smoking again. Admittedly, I was really ticked off.

Eventually, he stopped again and stayed that way for the last 30 years of his life. I keep reminding people of the Great American Smoke Out because I’ve had several people who have died from smoking, most notably my grandma Agatha Green, at age 62.

Frequently, I hear people suggesting that poor people should give up a bad habit because it’s so expensive. I have not bought into this mindset. Being poor is HARD.

Still, the folks at the Great American Smokeout have strategies to encourage folks to give up the coffin nails.  

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