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But the favorite thing that I got was not really a present. I had misplaced my passport some three or four (or more) months ago. I wasn’t really worried about it, since I was confident that it was buried in the bedroom SOMEWHERE.

So, I was surprised to get an envelope in the mail last week that included:

The envelope was from the main branch of the Albany Public Library, with “Security” written on it. No note. It was great to get these items back, but where had they been? I was worried about identity theft, primarily.

I talked to the security guy. There was no recent log of these items being found. Most likely, the items were found late last year, stuck in a drawer for a few months, and then just mailed out.

1. My earliest recollection is being three years old in a plastic pumpkin at the Catskill Game Farm in upstate New York.

2. When I was three, I fell down a flight of stairs between my grandparents’ apartment and ours. There’s some kind of bump in the area below my lower lip and above my chin to this day. As a result, I cannot grow facial hair there.

3. When I was five and a half, I had a nasty nosebleed that my parents could not stop. I ended up in the hospital, and even my 66-month-old self’s preconceived notions were blown away when I found that I had a female doctor. I think I also had a male nurse, although that may have been an orderly. But definitely a female doctor.

4. The only vegetables I would eat as a child were corn, peas, beans (reluctantly) and spinach. The latter was clearly the influence of Popeye the Sailor man.

5. As a small child, I ate peanut butter incessantly. I must have ODed on it, because now even the smell of peanut butter makes me slightly nauseous.

6. One time, in kindergarten, I woke up from a nap at 11:45, and everyone had gone to lunch, including the teacher. It was very disorienting.

7. In second grade, there were four couples who danced to the “Minuet in G.” About a year later, I accidentally pelted my dance partner with an ice ball.

8. I was a Cub Scout for about a year. I took piano lessons for about the same length of time. I quit both because I was not very good at mechanical stuff. I once took the lock off our front door, because I was curious how it worked, but was unable to put it back together. In 7th grade shop, I blew up three or four pieces trying to make an ashtray. I couldn’t tie my shoes until I was nine or ride a bicycle until I was 13.

9. I was also lousy at gym. Classic right fielder. Could never climb the rope.

10. But I was a pretty good bowler. My mom bowled. I joined a league for a couple years. I once bowled a 186 when I was 10, still my fourth highest score.

11. I was pretty good academically. Through 11th grade, I never got less than a 90 on a math final – 97 in algebra, 98 in trig- except for the 86 I got in geometry, and only because I thought it was stupid to memorize proofs. I tried to just bluff my answer, but the test contained the very first proof in the book, I used tools that came later in the semester, I lost 6 points on that one 10-point question. I spelled well, and I was good in what they used to call social studies.

12. The scariest part of “The Wizard of Oz” for me were those talking trees. There was this gnarled tree outside of my bedroom when I was a kid, and I always thought it might attack.

13. Binghamton was/is a cloudy city, and car drivers were always leaving their lights on. I made it a point as a kid to turn them off. One day, when I was in high school, I turned off 22 sets of lights on my way home, no exaggeration. These days, the lights usually are turned off automatically, AND the car is usually locked. In fact, the last time I tried to do that, I was 24, living in Queens, and someone thought I was trying to steal his car.

“She was the wind beneath his wings,” [my sister] Leslie said of her mother. [At my father’s funeral, Leslie sang that song to my mother.]

Les met Trudy by mistake when she was 13. He was delivering for a florist and went to Maple Street instead of Maple Avenue. “He knocked on the door,” Trudy said, “and here was this guy with a big smile and a bouquet. The flowers weren’t for Trudy…but the smile was. They wound up in school together, and when he read a book report aloud, “I was mesmerized,” she said.

When he proposed, he told Trudy, “I may be a headache, but you will never be bored.” They celebrated their 50th anniversary March 12 [2000], and though they hadn’t sung together [in public] for 15 years, the Greens [Les, Leslie and I] sang. “We fell into it, Leslie said. “People were in awe.”

“You know he was right,” Trudy said. “He warned me, but I was never bored.”

This part of the story was actually quite on target. {Don’t know about the “awe” thing.} But even recently, my mother noted wistfully using those same words, “I was never bored with him.” She was sometimes exasperated or those other things that people married a half century go through, but boredom was not my father’s thing.

Five and a half years on, my mother appears to be coping pretty well after Les, but I know she still misses him, especially on days like this.

Follow-up to that “Racist Song report” is here. Tom the Dog will be pleased to note that the writer probably hated the movie “Crash” more than he did.

ABC News devoted about 4 of its 22 minutes to its lead story about the death of Dana Reeve on its broadcast Tuesday, which seemed to be a lot. To be fair, it also included a report that 1 in 5 women who develop lung cancer are non-smokers, as opposed to only 1 in 10 men, and science is not certain why. Dana Reeve was a non-smoker.

Mark Trail is one of those old time comic strips I grew up with, one that some might say, “They’re still putting THAT out?” – the Comics Curmudgeon does cite him regularly. For me, it’s in the local paper, and I scan it only because it’s there. But the storyline that started in the last panel of February 17 struck my interest. By February 27, the plot involved a potential land grab, and by March 6, it was named: eminent domain. You can read the strip here.

Since Rod Serling and I were so tight (OK, I met him once), I should note that, starting in 2007, there will be a Rod Serling Museum in my hometown of Binghamton, NY, about six blocks from where he (and later, I) went to high school. Incidentally, a small part of the piece in the Wikipedia about him is wrong. The place he (OK, and I) graduated from was Binghamton CENTRAL High School, not Binghamton High School; it didn’t change its name until 1982, well after he died. “They say Tanzania, I say Tanganyika” is apt here.

The New York Post this past Friday, had a subheadline about a space elevator. It being the bastion of journalism that it is, I was disinclined to believe it until I saw this.

Lefty is BACK with a Mixed Bag CD exchange, if it’s not too late.

Speaking of music, Johnny B. found this interesting site of notations on 212 Beatles songs.

Actually, it was about 10 or 11 years ago when I was in a Bible study with Carol, who I was dating, and three other women (who I was NOT dating). During the course of that year, I identified a bunch of songs that were pop songs of a spiritual nature.

Flash forward to the fall of 2005. Chris Brown, a/k/a Lefty, who has been the instigator of a number of mixed CD exchanges I’ve participated in, asked if I wanted to do a one-off bilateral exchange with him of a more spiritual nature. I always wanted to take those songs identified a decade earlier and put them into some coherent, cohesive order, so I said yes.

What I discovered, of course, is that some of the songs from 1995 were only on vinyl. Conversely, I had picked up a few more choices in the digital form. In any case, earlier this year I sent Lefty two CDs:

Old Testament
1. Our Prayer-Beach Boys
2. In the Beginning-Mike Oldfield
3. The Garden-Bobby McFerrin
4. Brother’s Keeper-Neville Brothers
5. Story of Isaac-Judy Collins
6. Rock Steady-Sting
7. Run On For a Long Time-Bill Langford & Langfordaires
8. The 23rd Psalm-Bobby McFerrin
9. 40-U2
10. Rivers of Babylon-Linda Ronstadt
11. Rivers of Babylon-Melodians
12. Turn, Turn, Turn-Bruce Cockburn
13. Dry Bones-Delta Rhythm Boys
14. The First Baseball Game-Nat Cole

New Testament
1. The Word-Beatles
2. Jesus Children of America-Stevie Wonder
3. Touch the Hem of His Garment-Soul Stirrers w/ Sam Cooke
4. Up Above My Head/Blind Bartimus-Marty Stuart with Jerry and Tammy Sullivan
5. The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar-Bob Dylan
6. When Love Comes to Town-U2 w/ B.B. King
7. The Cross-Prince
8. Jesus Christ-U2
9. Jesus is Just Alright-Doobie Brothers
10. Good Shepherd-Jefferson Airplane
11. When God Dips His Pen of Love in My Heart-Alison Krauss
12. Discipline-Bobby McFerrin
13. The Man Comes Around-Johnny Cash
14. Yazala Abambuti-Samite

Then. since Lefty was busy with his new website, Greg Burgas, who had participated in the earlier CD exhanges, initiated one on his own. Since my previous selection was of a certain theology, I thought I’d take a different perspective this time:

Doubt

1. The Vatican Rag-Tom Lehrer. How to sell the product.
2. Heavenly Bank Account-Frank Zappa. I chose the live version, mostly for the line, “Tax the churches!” Both versions segue into the intro for “Suicide Chump”.
3. Jesus He Knows Me-Genesis. I was very fond of this video on MTV some years back. Always reminded me of Jim Bakker. Topics: money and sex.
4. Reverend Lee-Roberta Flack. It’s about a “black Southern Baptist minister” who thinks he’s got his act together.
5. The Christian Life-the Byrds. In their country period. A straight reading would make this a song of faith, but I’m hearing a bit of sarcasism here.
6. Mercedez Benz-Janis Joplin. I was singing this at a factory when I was 18, and someone asked me if it was a Temptations song. At the time, I thought that was VERY funny.
7. Bible Dreams-the Wild Swans. “Soldier on.” From one of those Sire Records’ Just Say Yes albums I used to collect.
8. One of Us-Joan Osborne. At my old church, a guest minister did a sermon on this song.
9. Losing My Religion-R.E.M. Probably THE obvious choice for this disc.
10. Dear God-Sarah McLaughlin. I could have put the XTC version, but this one had more passion. (Someone downloaded it for me, and the volume is noticably less than the other cuts; it’s the only download- everything else is in my collection.)
11. Blessed-Simon and Garfunkel. A live version from 1967. “Oh, Lord, why have you forsaken me?”
12. Christmas-the Who. “How can he be saved…”
13. The Mercy Seat-Johnny Cash. From his third American album. The Benmont Tench piano really makes it.
14. God-John Lennon. Another piano-driven song, this time with Billy Preston.
15. Jesus Hits Like an Atom Bomb-Lowell Blanchard and the Valley Trio. This song from 1950 was on the soundtrack to an early ’80s movie I saw called Atomic Cafe. “Everybody’s worried about the atomic bomb, But nobody’s worried ’bout the day my Lord will come.”
16. Will Jesus Wash the Bloodstains from Your Hands-Exene Cervenka. This is, in essence, a reply to the previous song, by the former member of X.
17. Date to Church-the Replacements. Because we got a little heavy there, a fun ending. Another “Just Say Yes” cut.

I had intended to put another cut between 13 and 14, Rosanne Cash’s “World Without Sound” from her new album, in part because it name-checks Lennon, but I couldn’t copy it from Black Cadillac album I bought. It’s too bad, because I really wanted to plug that disc again. Ah, well.

In putting together this collection, I came across this page, but ended up picking none of the choices, though, independently, there is some crossover.

In any case, I’ll make you an offer: anyone who wants any of the discs (OT, NT and/or Doubt), please let me know. If you want to send a SASE, preferably with a padded envelope or one of those disc mailers; e-mail me, and I’ll tell you where to send it. The SASE is NOT required.

Not so incidentally, Lefty and my near-twin Gordon are sharing music gratis, but if you covered their postage costs, I’m betting they wouldn’t object. Gordon has one of those PayPal things.