Ramblin' with Roger

1. The State of the Onion is on Tuesday. It’s pre-empting “Commander in Chief”. I think I’d rathervwatch Geena Davis. I’ll tape the speech, and fast forward through all the times the Congress stands up for the obvious applause lines (about our brave fighting forces, e.g.), and grit my teeth as he once again defends domestic spying.

2. Apparently, Jennifer is over Brad canoodling with Angelina, now that she’s living with Vince. Categorize this under: Things I REALLY Don’t Care About, But Discover Standing At The Checkout Line.

1. Who do want to win? Who do you think will win? Or are you a person who neither knows nor cares?

2a. If you watch: What time do you start watching? All afternoon, or just before game time?
2b. If you don’t watch, do you have an anti-Super Bowl ritual, such as going to the movies?

3. Super Bowl Sunday – secular holiday?
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Football 101.

The thing I remember most about the Challenger disaster is that I’m pretty sure I had NO idea that a shuttle was being launched that particular day. Sure, there was all that “First Teacher in Space” stuff, but the thing had been postponed so many times that I frankly lost interest.

I was working at the comic book store, FantaCo, listening to my favorite radio station of all time, Q-104, when the 10-2 shift DJ, Mary Margaret (Peggy) Apple, who I knew well, stopped playing music to announce the disaster. From the little of the particulars that I remember, my sense is that she handled the story rather professionally, something she was rarely, if ever, called on to do in that job.

Later, when I gothome, I saw the pictures of the 73-second flight over and over ad nauseum uuntil I was practically nauseous. Eventually, I would learned more about O-rings than I ever thought possible.

I also remember where I was when the Columbia tragedy took place, at home getting ready for an annual MidWinter’s party in the MidHudson Valley of New York State. I called my friend Mark, a real space geek and broke the news to either him or his wife Paula; they lived in the MidHudson and were going to be at the party. My first thought when I heard about it – it’s the same weekend as the Challenger 17 weeks earlier! Well, not exactly, but pretty close (1/28/1986, 2/1/2003). That time, I felt even a greater sense of loss, for the Challenger disaster taught me never to take these extraordinary technological events for granted ever again.

I’ve know Paul and Mary Liz Stewart for a lot of years. Don’t see them often, especially A.L. (after Lydia), but they are friends. Such good friends that, when they called to invite us to dinner at their house last Friday, we made a bold counterproposal that they come to our house, with them bringing dinner, and they actually accepted. (It’s easier to get Lydia to bed that way.) We had a great time with them and their youngest son Joel – who’s into music from electronic games, an area about which I know NOTHING – talking and playing (non-scoring!) SCRABBLE.

I was one of the first people to go on their Underground Railroad tours of Albany a few years ago. They held an Underground Railroad a conference four years ago for a few hours at the College of St. Rose. Each year, the thing gets ever bigger . This year’s event is “The Underground Railroad: Connecting Pathways To Liberty”.

You can read all about it here.
A Conference On The Underground Railroad Movement In New York State (For more information and to register: www.ugrworkshop.com), (518) 432-4432.

Incidentally, the map is of Historic Sites and Museums of the Underground Railroad in New York State. Go here to find out more about them.

Tomorrow marks the 250th anniversary of Amadeus’ birth. To paraphrase the great Tom Lehrer, “When Mozart was my age, he had been dead for 17 years.”
Listen to some Mozart tomorrow; it’ll make your brain swell. Or maybe not, but it’ll sound purty.

Note to Gordon: A good lapsed Catholic like yourself may enjoy “The Vatican Rag” on the Lehrer site.