Roger O Green

The 2024 APL trustee candidates

school budget

On Tuesday, May 7, at the Washington Avenue branch of the Albany Public Library, I attended an event introducing the 2024 APL trustee candidates, who will be up for election on Tuesday, May 21.

I was relieved. When I declined to run myself, I worried that there wouldn’t be enough candidates to run for the three slots. It turned out that TWELVE people got enough signatures to get on the ballot.

Daniel Schneider, 12208
Zachary Cunningham, 12208
Carlos Velasquez, 12210
Paige Allen, 12210
Jennifer Marlow, 12208
Bradford Lachut, 12203
Kirsten Broschinsky, 12203
Paul Collins-Hackett, 12202
Marsha Lazarus, 12208
Tia Anderson, 12203
Mary A. Rosch, 12208
Daniel Plaat, 12210

Eleven of the twelve, all except Velasquez, were present. All of the candidates available loved their library and would bring specific skills to the job.

My picks

I won’t tell you who to vote for, but I will note who I am selecting. Kirsten Broschinsky has served with me on the Friends and Foundation of the Albany Public Library Board before being selected to fill the unexpired term of a person on the APL Trustees board.

Mary A. Rosch has worked on the FFAPL gala and other activities. She has been a speaker at the Tuesday book talks and will be again in August. At the event, she noted that she was involved in other community activities. She said she would willingly give up many of them if she were elected, suggesting she understands the scope of work.

My third vote will go to… I don’t know yet. I have eliminated three. Of the remaining, one lives on my street, and one reads my blog (which would NEVER affect my decision). Most have compelling narratives.

However, I enthusiastically support the $7,864,740 budget, which “reflects a two percent increase in the annual total tax levy.” As APL Executive Director Andrea Nicolay notes, “The increase supports our staff and core services, and positions us to leverage partnerships and grant opportunities. We are mindful that, these days, public libraries and civil liberties are under attack. We strive for excellence, and we don’t take community support for granted.”

School daze

The library vote coincides with the City School District of Albany budget. The board has “unanimously approved a $326.2 million budget proposal for the 2024-25 school year. The proposal includes no tax-levy increase for the second year in a row and the fourth time in the last nine years…

“Voters also will be asked to consider three additional school-related propositions, none of which would have any additional tax impact.”

The term of board member Hassan I. Elminyawi expires this spring. The Board of Education clerk told me he is running unopposed for reelection.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m. on May 21. Please note that the voting locations do NOT necessarily correspond to those where one votes in the primary and general elections, and at least two venues have changed since the last school/library vote. Mail-in ballots are also available.

School board and school budget votes will be voted upon throughout New York State on that date.

My wife is a good mom

drive

My wife is a good mom. There, I said it. As I’ve noted, we came to parenthood from different perspectives. She seemed confident in knowing that this was something she wanted to do and likely would do well at. Conversely, I’ve been consistent in thinking that I have no idea what I’m doing.

Here’s something my wife did. After spring break from college, on a Sunday, my wife drove my daughter back to college about 100 minutes away. My wife picked up my daughter’s besties, Kay and Tee, whose college breaks were inconveniently set for that following week. Tee stayed at college with my daughter. My wife drives Kay back to Albany, taking her home.

Six days later, my wife and I pick up Kay, drive back to the daughter’s college. the five of us went out to a lovely Guatamalan restaurant. Then we went to a campus craft fair. We said goodbye to the daughter. My wife drove us back to Albany, dropping off Tee and Kay.

This is not the first time my ife has made round trips in successive weekends, despite her very busy work schedule.

As I’ve noted, my wife has taught my daughter about first aid. The daughter’s interest in cooking stems from my wife, not me. My daughter doesn’t drive yet, but she’s noted my wife is a great example of a conscientious operator of a motor vehicle. And I’m sure there are plenty of other examples.

Sandwich

She’s also helping to tend to her mother, who moved into a senior independent living center in our county a year after my FIL died. My wife takes her mom to some doctor’s appointments, does occasionally shopping, and helps sorting out papers.

My wife is not precisely in the sandwich generation in that she’s not tending to her mom for her day-to-day living, it is a commitment nonetheless. Yet she does it well.

Happy Mother’s Day, dear.

Sunday stealing: liturgy of the Word

LOUD

Here’s this week’s Sunday Stealing. I looked at the questions, and many of them seemed very familiar. In fact, look at these answers from two months ago.

But there is something in a lot of church worship called the liturgy, which is “a customary repertoire of ideas, phrases, or observances. The liturgy of the Word consists of Scripture readings, repeated in a three-year cycle. The theory is that as one revisits them, one has new insight.

So I will answer all the questions, even the repeats, but answer them differently.

1. Write about the best decision you ever made. How did you make it? Was it reasoning or gut instinct?

It was moving to the Capital District of New York State in late 1977. As you can tell, it was definitely not reasoning. And it wasn’t gut instinct. It was desperation.

2. What ONE thing would you change about your life? How would your life be different?

I honestly cannot answer this. If I did this, then I wouldn’t have done that. I can think of a good half dozen choices that would have changed my life if I had said, or didn’t say, X. Think the multiverse.

Mom

3. What is the hardest thing you have ever done? Why was it hard for you? What did you learn?

It wasn’t watching my mom die. It was a few minutes before that when I thought she was suffocating to death. I freaked out and rang the nurses, even though she had a DNR. This is a natural devolution of end of life, I learned. Do I need to explain why it was difficult? It’s added to my pool of information for Death Cafe courses I have helped to facilitate. I’ve since embraced the topic of death, learning about death doulas, for instance.

4. What is your greatest hope for your future? What steps can you take to make it happen?

Someday, my wife will retire. I can make oatmeal for us almost every morning.

5. If you can time travel, what will you tell your teenage self?

Not a damn thing because I wouldn’t believe it anyway. If I did believe my Future Self, it would alter what I might have experienced.

6. Write about the most glorious moment in your life so far.

One would be when my church choir performed the Mozart Requiem in March 1985, then a handful of us crashed Albany Pro Musica and performed it on September 11, 2002; afterward, it was the only time I wore a tuxedo to work.

7. What did you struggle most with today?

Time management. the more I NEED to do, the less likely I have the focus to do so,

8. What made you happy today?

Takeout Indian food.

Grandma

9. What did you dislike most about growing up?

The deaths of my paternal grandmother, Agatha Walker in 1964, when I was 11, and my great aunt Adenia Yates in 1966, when I was almost 13. They were great.

10. Write about 3 activities you love the most and why you love them.

Music (singing), music (listening to recordings), and music (hearing live music). Because joy.

11. What has been your best trip so far?

There have been a few. The first best trip as a family was probably a 2008 trip to colonial Williamsburg, pictured above.

12. Write a list of 3 things (physical or personality-wise) you love about yourself, and why they make you unique.

We’re all unique, with specific recollections and skills. Mine tend to be with numbers. I had to exchange some tickets for a musical, and they would cost more. In my head, I figured it out before the person with the calculator could. Math is everywhere. Why? Because it’s useful and fun.

Unfairness ticks me off. Cars that park in crosswalks, making it difficult for pedestrians, who might be blind or have a walker or a shopping cart are selfish jerks. Unfortunately, I’m too civilized to key their cars, But I think about it way too often.

And music. I hear it, even when it’s not playing. I listen for the tones of fire trucks, vacuum cleaners, or chainsaws. Why? Because music. Renée Fleming has edited a new book called Music and Mind, which someone ought to get for me.

Openish book

13. Discuss 3 things you wish others knew about you.

I’ve been writing a blog for 19 years. Whatever I haven’t told you I either don’t think I can share, at least not yet, or I don’t remember anymore.

14. Write about your top 3 personal strengths.

I can be VERY LOUD when I have to be, a useful skill when someone tries to announce amid a noisy room. My go-to: “OYEZ!! OYEZ!”

I observe a great deal, looking for people in certain settings who seem new or shy.

I have that curiosity gene that a good librarian needs. It’s been used in the blog dozens of times per year.

15. Is social media a blessing or a curse?

My general observation is that there’s a LOT of information, too much to keep track of. I saw this post about a woman leaving the reality show Real Housewives of the Potomac. There’s a show called Real Housewives of the Potomac. And it’s been on since 2016?! I spend more time skipping things than reading them.

Occasionally, I will indulge myself by watching three or four reels on Facebook of billiard shots. I love billiards, but I suck at it, so the game interests me.

Al Dexter and the country hits of 1944

Pistol Packin’ Mama

Until I noticed that the country music charts started in 1944, per Joel Whitburn’s Record Research book, Al Dexter was unknown to me. This even though he was a massive star.

Per the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame page, he was born Clarence Albert Poindexter on May 4, 1905. “Al Dexter is considered to be one of the forefathers of the honky-tonk music style. But rather than specializing in forlorn heartache laments, he emphasized the rollicking, good-time, barrelhouse side of this country barroom genre… He was proficient on guitar, banjo, harmonica, organ, and mandolin.” He died in January 1984.

So Long Pal – Al Dexter, #1 for 13 weeks

Smoke On The Water – Red Foley, #1 for 13 weeks. A WWII song, Some of these performers I do know, probably from the 50 Stars, 50 Hits album that my grandfather McKinley Green brought me when I was a kid.

I’m Wasting My Tears On You – Tex Ritter and his Texans, #1 for six weeks. I know that name too, but not just because he was the father of John Ritter of Three’s Company fame. Ritter co-wrote it.

Straighten Up And Fly Right – the King Cole Trio, #1 for six weeks. I own this on a Nat Cole CD. Cole co-wrote this.

Pistol Packin’ Mama – Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters with Vic Schoen and his Orchestra, #1 for five weeks. Dexter wrote it. I have this on a Crosby/Andrews Sisters CD compilation.

Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t (Ma Baby) – Louis Jordan, from the Universal picture Follow the Boys, #1 for five weeks. This song, written by Jordan and Billy Austin, appears on my only Jordan CD compilation. I first heard this song by Joe Jackson in the early 1980s.

Also

Soldier’s Last Letter – Ernest Tubb, #1 for four weeks. After my father-in-law died in 2020, I sorted his CDs and picked out my first two Tubb albums, though I’d known the name for decades.

Pistol Packin’ Mama – Al Dexter, #1 for three weeks.

Ration Blues – Louis Jordan, #1 for three weeks, co-written by Jordan.

Too Late To Worry – Al Dexter, #1 for two weeks

For one week each:

Rosalita – Al Dexter

They Took The Stars Out of Heaven -Floyd Tillman and His Favorite Playboys, written by Tillman

Some notes:

Al Dexter and his Troopers hit the pop charts with Pistol Packin’ Mama in 1943. The song was used in a 1943 film of the same name.

Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, together and separately, hit the top of the pop charts in 1944 but with different songs. The same is true of Louis Jordan.

The whimsy of the found item

hours and hours and hours of pondering

I’ve been fascinated by the whimsy of the found item. One case in point: this drawing. I wasn’t looking for it; nor do I have any idea how it suddenly reappeared. Maybe it was magic.

It was created by someone I know and care about a few years ago, though I don’t recall the circumstances of when/where/why anymore. (No, it was not by my wife or daughter.) Still, interestingly, finding it again brought me more joy than receiving it originally. I decided to take a picture of it. It was overcast and so my office was a bit dark. Sure I could have gone downstairs, but nah.

I turned on the over-the-desk built-in lamp my daughter made for me last year. Then I set the drawing on my laptop and saw the potential photo. Only my name and the very top of my head were illuminated. I decided that was PRECISELY the picture I wanted.

Because whimsy. I need to lean more into whimsy.

Ho-ho-ho!

To that end, my wife bought a new case for her cellphone. It’s red, which matches her birthstone. More to the point, I could tell the difference between her phone and mine at a glance.

But sometimes seeing a black item on a cluttered table isn’t easy. Hey, I should get a new cellphone case too! But what should color should I select? I spent hours and hours pondering this monumental decision.

Okay, that was a lie. But is it really a lie when I’ve let you in on the truth beforehand? Anyway, of COURSE, it’s green, like me. Specifically, Sprout Green.

Wait, isn’t the Little Green Sprout the protégé of the Jolly Green Giant? Why, yes, he is. So have I inadvertently conned myself into eating more vegetables? That doesn’t align with whimsy at all! Good heavens!