ABC Wednesday Archives - Page 65 of 91

E is for Encyclopedia

I still have a soft spot for those nearly uniform books that went from A clear down through Z.

When I was around six years old, my parents got me the Golden Book Encyclopedia, a series of books for kids. Well, it was for my sisters and me. But I was the one who practically wore off the covers.

Three or four years later, Mom and Dad purchased the Encyclopedia Americana, ostensibly for the family, but I was clearly the greatest user by far. I may have read the whole thing, over time. Because the books became instantly dated, Americana sold these Annuals that would update the main books. My parents bought these as well, and I DID read the volumes practically cover to cover.

When I was living on my own, local supermarkets would often sell encyclopedias, one book a week. The first volume would be 99 cents, or maybe just a penny; subsequent books were three or four dollars each. I know I started buying these because I ended up with a lot of A volumes; I knew more about aardwolves and Aachen than anyone should.

During my brief time in New York City, I was a telemarketer for about three months. I called people who had the World Book Encyclopedia already and ask them if they wanted to buy the Annual. I was rather good at selling these, as I recall.

Of course, now, most encyclopedias are available online, which makes them easier to keep up-to-date. Still, I still have a soft spot for those nearly uniform books that went from A clear down through Z.

That reminds me: I learned to spell the word encyclopedia from Jiminy Cricket on the Mickey Mouse Club.

ABC Wednesday – Round 12

D is for Drinking

I never had a drink until I was of legal age.

JEOPARDY! Show #6480 – Friday, November 16, 2012
BOOZY TALK
It precedes “rummy” & comes after “cotton”
It’s a geographical area that forms a harbor; any one in a storm
It’s the title of a 1958 no. 1 hit by the Champs; it’s also the entire lyric
This royal family ruled France from 1589 to 1792
De website for dis company says “a diamond is forever”
(Answers at the end.)

When I was 18, the legal age for consuming alcohol in New York State, and much of the United States, was 18, the same age as one could vote, smoke cigarettes, drive at night without restrictions, and go to war. However, there was concern about underage drinking, which sometimes also involved driving. The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 withheld “revenue from states that allow the purchase of alcohol by anyone under the age of 21.” Different states have different laws about consumption, though “15 states and the District of Columbia ban underage consumption outright.”

Unsurprisingly, the issue of underage drinking remains; it’s just been pushed to the college campuses. In fact, many college presidents want the drinking age lowered to 18, believing that the higher age leads to more binge consumption. I tend to agree.

This is actually true: I never had a drink until I was of legal age. It may have been a Tom Collins at a bar on Clinton Street in Binghamton, NY where my sister, who was NOT old enough to drink, was singing with a band.

In college, I learned what I liked – most clear liquors, whiskey, Kahlua. And what I didn’t – vermouth, Scotch, and, unfortunately, beer. Not liking beer in a college town is a real drag, because while everyone else is sharing a pitcher, I’m ordering a white wine or a mixed drink.

I also learned, the hard way, never to change drinks during the evening. The first hangover I ever had was the morning of June 9, 1976, five years after my first drink. This was memorable because I went horseback riding that day – brutal. And a Long Island iced tea is a sneakily treacherous beverage.

If you look in the top shelf of our pantry these days, you’d think we imbibe a lot. In fact, I’ll go weeks without drinking anything other than an occasional glass of wine.

JEOPARDY! answers:
Gin
Port
Tequila
Bourbon
DeBeers

One of my favorite songs about liquor is Demon Alcohol by the Kinks. I prefer the original, but all I could find is this cartoon adaptation.
***
How to make a Dark ‘N’ Stormy, which I should note, I had never heard of.

ABC Wednesday – Round 12

C is for Cooperation, and Competition

I don’t mind losing, but I DO like to win.

Anyone who knows me casually will likely come to the conclusion that I am a rather cooperative guy, and that would be true. I got a Masters degree in Library Science, a very cooperative field, at a school, not necessarily coincidently, dominated by women students. Whereas, a decade earlier, I had dropped out of a Masters program in Public Administration, where the students were far more competitive, and not so incidentally, far more male.

The classic example: when I would be in the library trying to find a resource in the PA program, and couldn’t find it, there was a good chance that someone else had, and had hidden it to make it more difficult for others; really zero-sum. Whereas the library folks were more of a “high tide lifts all boats” people, that by helping others, one was helping oneself, and the profession.

My cooperativeness, however, ends when it comes to playing games: board games such as SCRABBLE, or especially backgammon. In card games such as hearts and bid whist, I can be a bit ruthless.

I think it’s a function of the fact that my paternal grandmother, who taught me the card game canasta. Once I understood the fundamentals of the game, she played me as though I were an adult. So when I did defeat her, it wasn’t a gimme. Likewise with my great aunt Deanna, with whom I played 500 rummy and Scrabble; my parents, with whom I played pinochle; and my paternal grandfather, with whom I played gin rummy. I sensed they all believed that letting me win would not serve me well. I play my good friend Mary in backgammon these days, and I never attack her position without statistical good cause, but to the untrained observer, it seems to be mean; I never play to be mean. I don’t mind losing, but I DO like to win.

There’s a card game called casino, where one of the objectives is to get the aces. There are four cards on the table, and each player has four cards in hand. My college girlfriend was playing me, and there’s an ace on the table. She went first, the ace remained, so I picked it up on my next turn. But I quickly discovered she had an ace IN HER HAND, with which she could have picked up the ace on the board. “Why didn’t you pick up the ace?” “I wanted you to have it.” I was really ticked off; love was one thing, but one does NOT throw the game.

When I play The Daughter in Sorry or Connect Four board games, I play her the same way, mostly because she has legitimately beaten me, quite often in fact. Whereas she hasn’t figured out the strategy in checkers yet, and I will point out why she oughtn’t to make a particular move. And most unfortunately for me, she really hasn’t gravitated to card games, except for UNO; she beat me twice just last week.

Here’s a great cartoon about cooperation.

ABC Wednesday – Round 12

B is for Books

I was tired of looking at an increasingly large pile of unread books.

When I was at my previous church, a book club was formed, and I joined. Most of the members of the group were women, an average of two decades older than I. Each month, we’d pick a topic, and we’d all read different books around that topic; it might be about crafts or poetry or popular culture. With that structure, I always read ten to twelve books a year, and usually lot more; reading begat more reading.

The group lasted about nine years, and I felt that I learned more about these people from hearing them speak about the books they chose to read than from any other encounters I had with them.

After that period, I would start many books. Without the stimulus of mutual responsibility to the group, though, I often failed to finish.

I’m fascinated that I’ve managed to read more books in the final three months of last year than in the previous three years, and I’m not sure why. I do know that I was tired of looking at an increasingly large pile of unread books, for I would continue to purchase them at book sales and at book signings.

Completed in the last quarter of 2012:
Governor Martin H. Glynn: Forgotten Hero
11/22/63 by Stephen King
Wicked
Vince Guaraldi at the Piano
A Reporter’s Life by Walter Cronkite
Using Content-Area Graphic Texts for Learning
After All by Mary Tyler Moore
Plus Ken Levine’s book about the 1960s that I haven’t written about yet.

They are, incidentally, physical books, not on a device such as an Amazon Nook. And my wife HAS a Nook. I like the book. I spend at least seven hours every weekday on a computer for work. I blog on a computer at home. The idea of using another device to read books is unappealing, at this juncture. Perhaps, it’s, as Dustbury notes, that e-books don’t feel like one is buying anything. Or, more broadly, maybe it’s because, as Arthur described so well, I am a digital immigrant.

ABC Wednesday – Round 12

A is for Albany

Albany had the same mayor, Erastus Corning 2nd, for over 40 years, from 1941 until his death in 1983.

Albany, New York has a long history, going back to at least 1624, when it was called Fort Orange, then later Beverwyck, under Dutch rule. From the city’s webpage: “In 1664 when the Dutch surrendered to the British without a battle, King Charles II granted territory… to his royal brother James, the Duke of both York and Albany. Thus Beverwyck became Albany and New Amsterdam became New York… It was on July 22, 1686, that Governor Thomas Dongan representing the British crown granted a charter recognizing Albany as a city.” It became the permanent capital of New York State in 1797.

As a city on the Hudson River, the city was important in trade. That song The Erie Canal has a line about it running “from Albany to Buffalo.”

One of the more controversial situations in 20th century Albany history was the razing of dozens of buildings to build the South Mall. It changed the skyline but cut off one side of the city from the other.

My own history in Albany, I believe, started in 1970. I was selected to participate in something called The Governor’s Conference on Children and Youth. I flew with a half dozen other people from Binghamton to Albany, only 150 miles away, in a little plane, maybe a 12-seater, during a thunderstorm; I was terrified. I did, however, get to meet Governor Nelson Rockefeller.

I moved from New Paltz, my college town, to Schenectady, not far from Albany, at the end of 1977, and then to Albany in August 1979.

I must admit that sometimes Albany can be quite parochial. I blame it in part on a long series of one-party rule, the Republicans around the turn of the 20th century, but the Democrats since the early 1920s. Albany had the same mayor, Erastus Corning 2nd, for over 40 years, from 1941 until his death in 1983.

I noted here that most folks have to be here 30 years before one’s REALLY from Albany. One somewhat derisive term for the place is Smallbany, which basically means that folks you meet in one set of circumstances you’d likely run into another. There’s a certain snarkiness by Albanians about the city touting the fact that it is about equidistant to NYC and Boston, rather than discussing the city’s many virtues, including two universities, one of which I attended.

ABC Wednesday – Round 12