Tag: Binghamton

The new Mother’s Day reality

The running joke when I’d call or send a card is that I’d say or write that it was from her favorite son.


Someone sent me this picture some months ago. I thought it was rather funny. Specifically, it reminded me of the Paul Simon song Mother and Child Reunion, which is based on a chicken and egg dish that Simon had at a Chinese restaurant.

Then my mom died, and it’s my first Mother’s Day without her. The visual is still funny but in a more melancholy way. Melancholy humor.

I’ve discovered that Mother’s Day ads REALLY irritate me lately, more than Father’s Day ads did 10 years ago. Maybe it was because it was longer between when my father died until the next holiday (August to June) than it is for my mom (February to May). But probably it’s because I get more e-mail solicitations than I did a decade ago, and they are more difficult to ignore.

The picture above is of my mother with her favorite son many years ago in front of 5 Gaines Street, Binghamton, NY USA; the house and the trim, BTW, were green. The running joke when I’d call or send a card is that I’d say or write that it was from her favorite son. She was generally polite enough not to mention that I was her ONLY son.

Last Sunday, there was a Mass for Mom at the Mission San Diego Basilica de Alcala in San Diego. As my sister Leslie reported, it was “beautiful. It was the regular Noon Mass, but it was announced at the beginning that this Mass was for Trudy Green, mother of Leslie Green, who is a member of the Mission Choir.” I will be getting a copy of the event. “It was a packed house on a beautiful day.”

The bottom picture is of my daughter with her favorite mother. Carol is, among other things, a good mom.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you mothers, and all of you who have or had mothers.

 

30-Day Challenge: Day 27-A Picture Of Where You’re From

This was an arcane piece of information my late father once noted that I found inexplicably interesting.

A picture? I did a whole blogpost about my hometown of Binghamton, NY last year, and much more recently, a partial blogpost about Albany, NY, where I’ve been the last 30 years.

Well, all right:

When I was growing up, this was the post office in Binghamton. Now it’s the federal building.

Perhaps slightly before my time: it’s the house of the first Dutch governors, who resided in Albany.

This was an arcane piece of information my late father once noted that I found inexplicably interesting. Binghamton, NY is about in the middle of the state, east to west, but lies very close to the northern border of another state, Pennsylvania. To get to the state capital, Albany, you have to travel about 150 miles to the northeast (more like 140, but whatever).

Charlotte, NC, where my parents moved in 1974, and where I lived briefly in 1977, is about in the middle of the state, east to west, but lies very close to the northern border of another state, South Carolina. To get to the state capital, Raleigh, you have to travel about 150 miles to the northeast (more like 175, but close enough).

30-Day Challenge: Day 17- A Childhood Picture

The elementary school I went to was the one closest to my grandmother’s house, rather than the one closest to our house.

Here’s a picture of (L-R) me, my sister Leslie (16.5 months younger), sister Marcia (5 years, 2 months younger).

My recollection is that we were 10, 9, and 5. One of my sisters thinks 8, 7, and 3. My mother doesn’t remember.

Regardless, it is our very favorite picture of us, especially compared with the next picture of the three of us (NOT SHOWN, thank you very much, which we call the “year of the bad glasses.” Mine were oversized horn-rimmed, and the girls were wearing cats-eyes.

The picture above, I THINK, was taken at McLean’s department store in downtown Binghamton, NY, where my mother worked in the bookkeeping department. For all the time I can remember, my mom worked outside of the home, at McLean’s, then at Columbia Gas & Electric. When she moved to Charlotte, NC, she worked at First Union Bank as a teller.

And because she was working, the elementary school I went to was the one closest to my grandmother’s house (Daniel S. Dickinson) rather than the one closest to our house (Oak Street), which had a HUGE effect on my life. There are seven kids I knew from K-9 from Dickinson, then grades 10-12 at Binghamton Central HS, at least four of whom I’m still in touch with.

30-Day Challenge: Day 12- Where Your Family Is From

Greater Binghamton, ironically, has been getting smaller.


My sisters and I were born in Binghamton, NY. My parents were apparently born in Binghamton, NY; my father, I’m not positive about, but certainly by the 1930 Census, when he was 3.5, he was in Binghamton, NY. My maternal grandmother and her mother and HER mother grew up in Binghamton, NY.

The vast majority of the relatives I can find were born in New York State. Some were from Pennsylvania, probably in an area not that far from Binghamton, NY.

I wrote about Binghamton, NY extensively HERE.

I was in Binghamton proper this past weekend, though only in passing, for the aforementioned family reunion. A lot of my wife’s family are from the Binghamton area, though I was unfamiliar with them when I was growing up.

Strange change to the nomenclature about the Binghamton metro. It is now called Greater Binghamton. The airport is called the Greater Binghamton Airport. When I was growing up, it was called the Triple Cities, which included the villages, not cities, of Johnson City and Endicott. Greater Binghamton, ironically, has been getting smaller. There used to be two public high schools, and now there is only one, pictured above; that’s the building, now augmented, that my mother, my sister Leslie and I used to go to, once Binghamton Central HS (the blue and white of the Bulldogs), now Binghamton High (the red, white and blue Patriots).

Several interstates run through the city. I-81, which runs north/south (fastest way to get from Syracuse, NY to Scranton, PA is through Binghamton); I-88, which the late state Senate Majority Leader Warren Anderson got built from Binghamton to Schenectady, near Albany, even though it pretty much parallels NY Route 7. A new Route 17, which will eventually become I-86, was started when I was in high school, which involved tearing down some perfectly decent housing just a block north of my late grandmother’s old house. I used to ride my bicycle on the completed, but not yet opened highway. I’ve successfully had to relearn how to get from one part of the area to another via highway, rather than the local roads.

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