Dad would have been 79

My father would have been 79 tomorrow. I’ve talked about how he died, but only touched on how he lived.

After he passed away five years ago, the Charlotte (NC) Observer wrote one of those appreciation pieces, not strictly an obit, written by staff writer Gerry Hostetler, from which I will quote liberally.

(Have you EVER been in a news story and NOT find an error, in fact or tone or emphasis? This story said I was the YOUNGER brother of my sister Leslie when I’m the oldest of the kids.)
***
“Life is not worth much unless you can share,” he once said. That’s what life’s about…and sharing is beautiful!” Leslie H.”Les” Green, also known as the folk singer Lonesome and Lonely Traveler, died Aug. 10…

Sharng is what Les did best. He shared his singing, painting, floral designing, poetry, and ministries in church and in prisons. And he shared his love.

[Paragraph about breakfast ministry, which he did for four years.]

When he visited prisons, he took along a bag of marbles. “The marbles were a symbol of ‘be smooth in your pursuits’,” said daughter Leslie, who shares her father’s name. “Prisoners wrote him, ‘I kept the marble; I’d be back in prison if not for you. You really helped get my life on track’,” his daughter said.

As vice-president of J.A. Jones[actually A VP of the construction firm], he visited schools about job interviews. Wearing a disheveled wig, he admonished students, “Don’t go in there like this – look the part to get the job.” Singing was one of his favorite things, and one shared with the family. He taught daughter Leslie to play guitar when she was 12, and joined by brother Roger, the trio appeared as the Green Family Singers at churches and functions in their native Binghamton, N.Y. “He did it for love, not the money, “Leslie said. “Fifty dollars a month was a big night.” The Greens came to Charlotte in 1974. “It was the best move we ever made, said his wife, Trudy. Trudy and youngest daughter Marcia were the cheering section of their audience.

They sang again when Les went into the hospitalized in July and August. His big, beautiful baritone voice, accompanied by Leslie’s and Roger’s, overflowed his sixth-floor room at Carolina’ Medical Center. When he was transferred to the third floor, the nurses from the sixth came down to check on him and, just maybe, to listen to his powerful voice as it wrapped around the words of joyous hyms or cushioned a soulful folk song.
***
Well, OK. A little saccharine, and a few other facts were wrong. I never sang with my father in the hospital. He had already had a stroke. I probably sang with my sister, and with others.

I guess, I’ll have to write muy OWN appreciation, warts and all. Check back same time, next year, for what would have been my father’s 80th birthday. Maybe by then I will have digitized a picture of him to share with you.

Seduction of the Innocent

Stolen from Gordon, not the last time I steal from him this month.

Your Seduction Style: Au Natural

You rank up there with your seduction skills, though you might not know it.
That’s because you’re a natural at seduction. You don’t realize your power!
The root of your natural seduction power: your innocence and optimism.

You’re the type of person who happily plays around and creates a unique little world.
Little do you know that your personal paradise is so appealing that it sucks people in.
You find joy in everything – so is it any surprise that people find joy in you?

You bring back the inner child in everyone you meet with your sincere and spontaneous ways.
Your childlike (but not childish) behavior also inspires others to care for you.
As a result, those who you befriend and date tend to be incredibly loyal to you.

Mixed Bag CD Blog-end notes & contest


So you’ve seen reviews of all of the Mixes that *I* received. Again, if you sent one and I didn’t get it, please send it again.

Now, there was a conversation once upon a time about putting together a Best of Mixed Bag 2. I’d be willing to do that. The problem is that I’m not comfortable with putting together the playlist, based on SUCH diverse styles.

Given the fact that I feel really blessed in the vblogisphere, and I’ve even won stuff, I need to have a CONTEST of my own. Anyone submitting song suggestions (at least three cuts, but feel free to offer more) for a Best of Mixed Bag 2 is eligible. Kindly describe by compiler and by title and/or artist. Suggestions such as “ALL of Joe’s” will be ignored. Also, if you have suggestions as to what part of the disc (“great lead-off cut”, e.g.), feel free to say that. (Of course, if I get 10 lead-off cuts, 90% of you will be disappointed.)

Up to 30 people will get a Mixed CD. (All of you Mixed CD folks who participate will almost certainly get one. Think the NBA draft, rigged.)
And one person, picked at random, will get a Mixed Blogger CD, another compilation disc or two of my choosing, plus their choice of a half dozen FantaCo publications. I know I have some duplicates of some Chronicles, some Hembecks, and certainly others. Maybe something else.

In case you don’t have the discs – or even if you do- my reviews (and links to other reviews) appeared on August 3, 9, 13, 17, 20, 24, 27, 31, September 3, 8, 17, and 21.

But I also wanted to give people who weren’t involved in the Mixed CD thing an extra chance, since they haven’t heard the music. So, you can also come up with a usable meme for me. Want examples? Something like this, or this, or this, a piece so compelling that EVERYONE will want to do it. It doesn’t have to be original (but you should cite the source); originality will probably get extra points, not as many as cleverness.

The deadline for submitting will be Saturday, October 15 at 11:59 p.m., EDT. Please send your responses, along with your name and address (and blog, if you have one and weren’t one of the Mixed Bag participants) here. No member of Arro Verti Enterprises is eligible. The winners will be announced sometime before Halloween. Since I’ve never DONE a contest before, I’m sure SOMEONE will write, “What about…?” (and I have a pretty good idea who.) I’ll address it as it comes.

Name that hurricane


This is really about how my cursed librarian mind works.

Tegan writes some innocuous thing: “I suspect Katrina will be retired soon” [from the Atlantic hurricane name list.] So, now I need to know: “How DOES the retiring of a name happen?” I find that here.

Then I need to know what hurricane names HAVE been retired. This site from NOAA is good, but dated (2002)

The FEMA for kids site is fairly limited. Do they think that kids aren’t very bright?

The USA Today article is much better, as it answers my next question, “What hurricane is the last to be retired, alphabetically speaking?” The answer, Roxanne, which hit the Yucatan peninsula in 1995. (Will Rita join its ranks?)

But, I’m the librarian, and I keep looking. The BEST site I found is here, the ONLY site which indicates that both Dennis and Emily were retired this year. Not even the World Meteorological Organization is showing that yet, because their reports tend to be annual in nature.

As usual, I found things I really wasn’t looking for, but have some entertainment value, such as this article about naming storms.
Or annoying things, like an article about how, according to e-Week, Hurricane Rita is heading onshore, and Internet criminals around the globe are already rigging up fake charity sites. However, several teams of security watchdogs are readying countermeasures to ward off the “cyber-looters.”

If I’m doing research for someone, and if I think the person might appreciate it, I might throw in some really tangential stuff, such as the lyrics to a song.

3 Affirmative Questions

I’d really like your answer on this one. Mine will be forthcoming, of course.

I was reading an old (August 5) Entertainment Weekly book review of Yes Man by Danny Wallace. “The book’s premise is simple: He said yes. To everything. For a year.”

Feel free to substitute Who or Where for What in the following questions I would like you to answer, if you please.

1. What have you said yes to that you wished you had said no to?

2. What have you said no to that you wished you had said yes to?

3. What will you say yes to, eventually?

BONUS QUESTION: If you’ve read the book, please tell me if you liked it.

Ramblin' with Roger
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