passport Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

“Get Your Passport, Kid”

global warming became climate change

Get Your Passport, Kid is a paper my daughter wrote about me for a class during the autumn 2023 semester. I am using it with her permission. I have changed nothing substantial. I added a couple of commas, and I did create some subheads. Oh, and subsequently, she HAS applied for her passport, and received it less than a month later!

I recently had a conversation with Mr. Roger Green, my father. I chose him because he has lived a long life (70 years!), he is my eldest living family member who still has a reliable memory, and because he has a blog(!), so if there’s anything he’s a bit foggy on, he can look back at his own ramblings and re-enlighten himself. Both of us, plus my mother, also tend to agree that my father and I are very similar. I hope to channel his long-time blogger energy into my writings.

We had planned an hour-and-a-half Zoom meeting one afternoon, but he ended up accidentally pocket-dialing me a few minutes early on Facebook Messenger while he walked home from the bus stop. When he finally heard me, he took out his phone and showed me his walk past my elementary school in the neighborhood I grew up in, back to the house I lived in my whole life until coming to college here. It was a nice reminder of the place I call home, and I got to talk to my cats.

Hometown

My father was born in Binghamton, New York, which, like most upstate New York cities, has fairly temperate weather with hot summers and cold winters. Roger went to SUNY New Paltz for his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, having him relocated to another upstate city, New Paltz, New York with the same subtle climate. And later he moved to Albany, New York, his third upstate city and final destination, where he settled down and lived for the past 40 years since attending SUNY Albany for his Master of Library Science degree. Having lived in three similar cities his whole life, none of which had much extreme weather -hot or cold- I asked him to focus on the landscape, architecture, and his environment.

Starting off my uber-professional interview with Roger I ask him about where it all began: Binghamton’s First Ward, 1953. Roger lived with his mother and father and two younger sisters in a two-family house with his paternal grandparents living on the top floor, in a home owned by his maternal grandmother. His maternal grandmother lived a few blocks away on Prospect Hill, the home he and his sisters would walk to for lunch break during school since their mother was out working. Their neighborhood was filled with big, old, multi-family houses near the banks of both the Chenango and the Susquehanna Rivers. Roger and his sisters would often walk by the Spring Forest Cemetery, where many of their relatives were buried. The Trinity AME Zion church my father’s family attended was located on Lydia St., a name that would come up again when it was time to name his first and only child.

Being black in the hometown

I wanted to know if being a black family affected how they experienced their landscape as well. Surprisingly to me, Roger seemed to feel that even though they grew up in a predominantly white area, he and his siblings didn’t encounter significant interpersonal racist interactions, as it was a somewhat progressive neighborhood. However, their race, or more specifically, perceived race, made their family unable to buy or rent their own house. Roger’s mother, while black, was very fair-skinned and was often unintentionally white-passing, while his father was dark-skinned and unambiguously black. This reality caused Roger’s parents to be viewed as an interracial couple, and in the 1950s and ‘60s, this meant no one wanted to sell or rent to them. Homeownership is, in my opinion, one of the first steps in building generational wealth, and if they did want to move, making that happen was unattainable at the time. Knowing Roger’s family wasn’t well off, it’s fair to assume that that affected how they went about their business. He tells me their vacations were never very far away. Sometimes, he, his sister, and their father would sing as their family group at the campsites they frequented rather than having to pay.

Climate

I did want to swing back around to the weather topic, and as I predicted, he didn’t have immediate terrible weather memories, but here are some unusual weather moments he could think of:

Albany’s worst snowstorm (in Roger’s lifetime), October 4th, 1987 – not heavy but early in the season, and with leaves still on the trees, many branches were brought down, and thousands were without power for days.
Bad snowstorm, March 1993 – 20+ inches of snow
May snow, May 18th, 2002 – my mother’s college graduation ceremony was moved to an indoor venue because of the unexpected spring snow
Hot, hot, hot, early 2000s – sent home from work because of the heat, and the company didn’t want to pay for all that air conditioning.
Valentine’s Day snowstorm, February 14th, 2007 – The buses stopped running early, and Roger barely made it home. The Albany area got 1-3 feet of snow, which froze over the next day.

The bus

Next, I asked Roger what changes he has made due to climate change. Roger is a Capital District Transit Authority (CDTA) bus rider, which of course I knew since I lived with him for 18 years, and the man can’t drive, what else would he do? But I didn’t know how much of a CDTA advocate he was. He attended CDTA town halls and responded to their surveys. He is always willing to help people figure out what route or bus stop they need, how to secure their bike to the front bike rack on the bus, how to get a Navigator (refillable bus pass), and whatever people need to feel comfortable using the CDTA. Roger has also signed petitions to create safer bike lanes in Albany.

I was somewhat excited to get to our interview’s climate change talk section. I knew some of my dad’s fundamental beliefs and that he’s left-leaning, but since I haven’t lived at home in a bit, we hadn’t had the random world/political conversations I was used to in middle and high school.

Q&A

Question: What are the causes and effects of climate change?

Answer: “Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere makes hot things hotter and leads to biodiversity loss; sea animals move differently because of warmer water, and islands will disappear due to rising waters.”

Question: Who do you usually talk to about climate change?

Answer: Like-minded people, friends, political allies, liberals.

Question: Do you follow climate news?

Answer: “Yes, liberal and conservative.”

Question: Are you involved in community groups that deal with climate change?

Answer: “No, not really. (What about the church and the library?) “Well, yes, I am part of groups that support climate action but not part of groups that specifically address climate change.”

Question: When did you start hearing about climate change or global warming?

Answer: “I heard about global warming in the ‘70s. It became climate change into the ‘80s because that was ‘less offensive.’ You’d have one colder-than-usual day, and all the global warming deniers would come out. So they changed it to ‘climate change.’ But overall, if you look at the data, “the globe is getting warmer; climate change is a wussy term!”

The librarian questions

Question: You worked with SBDC and SUNY Research Foundation. People would call you, and you’d answer their questions. Did you get any global warming questions?

Answer: “Later on. I was there for 26 years (1992 – 2019). In the first 15, absolutely not. In probably the last 10 or 12 years, yes. It’d be like, ‘What are the best fuels we should use to do what we want to do?’ Or finding the energy that would have the least ecological impact. Or taking a substance, like cooking oil, and using it as fuel. I think people’s awareness of it had grown so that people realized that maybe they could do something about it. ‘We can start a business to be more carbon neutral.'”

Question: What do you think about the climate and the planet’s health?

Answer: “I think we are in desperate straits.”

Question: What are you most worried about in relation to climate change?

Answer: “Mostly denial; it makes me terribly worried. You can’t fix it if you don’t think it’s a problem.” He was the most unnerved and ranty during this section. Climate change and global warming denial is worrying and anti-Christian.

Ending

At the end of our interview, I was reading off the post-conversation questions meant for me to answer on my own. “Did anything surprise you?” I asked myself out loud to get down any notations before they slipped my mind. Roger started to respond, “Well, what did surprise me…” I cut him off, “That’s a question for me, not you,” I responded. “Well, I want to answer it.” Okay, my bad.

“What surprised me was I hadn’t really thought about how limited my geographic parameters had been when I was growing up. Growing up in Binghamton, I think my world experience was encompassed by New York and Pennsylvania. I don’t think we ever even went to New England or Ohio.” This turned into a lecture about me getting my passport renewed (again). “That’s why I really want you to get your passport and travel when you can. It’s a very enriching experience.”

Roger and I grew up in and currently live in a small region of the world with his life path is Binghamton, New Paltz, and Albany, and mine is Albany and Amherst. In a later call, I mentioned that my friend and I wanted to study abroad. He was very supportive of that, and he restated his wish for me to get my passport so that I could see more of the world than he did. This aspect has been the most meaningful part of the conversation for me.

Getting prepared for the whatever

Living in upstate new York isn’t the worst place to be

An article in Forbes notes that “nine states will no longer allow travelers to board an airplane with just their state issued driver’s licenses as of January 22, 2018. To get past TSA security checkpoints, another form of identification will be required: passport, permanent resident card/green card or a military ID.”

The states are Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Washington.

However, this map from the Department of Homeland Security suggests that more than half the states, plus Puerto Rico and all of the territories, are under scrutiny. These include California, Illinois, and New York by 2020 at the latest, if their drivers’ licenses aren’t compliant.

“DHS is currently reviewing extension requests from states with extensions that expired on October 10, 2017… In the meantime, there will be no change in enforcement status for these states. States will have a grace period until January 22, 2018, meaning that Federal agencies (including TSA) will continue to accept driver’s license and identification cards issued by these states in accordance with each agency’s policies.”

As it turns out, I always travel on planes and trains with my passport, which doesn’t expire until 2020. It HAS come in handy. I looked at it recently and realized I had stuck a rarely-used credit card and a $5 bill in there. The Wife’s passport expires when mine does, but the Daughter’s has lapsed, and we need to fix that.

This has been all part of a preparedness mentality the last few years of disasters has created. We have a manual can opener because the power can go out. We need to replace our bottled water; I assume they feel the plastic will leak into the beverage.

That said, I’m thinking that living in upstate New York isn’t the worst place to be. It’s not prone to wildfires (western US) or hurricanes (mostly south of here) or flooding or tornadoes (Midwest) or drought.

OH! CANADA!

I’ve always wanted to see Toronto, so that’s on the agenda.

AS I may have mentioned, in a couple months, we’re going to be making a visit to Canada. Essentially, we’re going to circumnavigate Lake Ontario. Still not sure what the route will be. Initially, we thought we’d start by going northwest, visiting my wife’s alma mater of St. Lawrence University, then go north into Canada, head west, then south, then back east into the U.S.. But lately, we’ve considered start going west through New York, and enter Canada at Niagara Falls.

We all have passports, including the Daughter. One doesn’t NEED a passport to go Canada from the US; one could get an enhanced driver’s license or non-driver’s ID, or similar products. BUT one day we might want to fly somewhere in Canada or Mexico, and the alternate products are only good for traveling by land or sea, not by air.

We’ll see the Falls, of course; it’ll be the Daughter’s first time. I’ve always wanted to see Toronto, so that’s on the agenda; ideally, we’d see a Blue Jays game. More than one person has suggested staying outside the city proper, and use the mass transit. One of my coworkers highly recommended the Peterborough lift lock. We’d see Carol’s college on the return trip.

Hey, Canadians, especially you folks in southeastern Ontario! Anywhere else we ought to go that wouldn’t take us too far out of the way?

N is for Niagara Falls

One doesn’t NEED a passport to go to Canada; one could get an enhanced driver’s license or non-driver’s ID, or similar products. BUT the things are only good for traveling by land or sea, not by air.

JEOPARDY! answers. All but the first from a Niagara Falls category introduced by host Alex Trebek, who said: “The honeymoon’s not over with one of North America’s most scenic attractions.”

Niagara Falls gets is enormous power because the Niagara River’s water is rushing between these 2 Great Lakes, which are only 36 miles apart but have a 300-foot difference in elevation.

In 1901, a 63-year-old schoolteacher named Annie Taylor became the first person to go over the falls in one of these; she made it, but I’m gonna pass.

There’s plenty of water going over the falls right now, but would you believe that in March 1848 for about 30 hours the Falls actually stopped flowing due to a massive upstream accumulation of this stuff.

The tradition of honeymooning here at the falls began way back in 1801 when the daughter of this then-U.S. vice president came here with her new husband; three years later, dad fought a famous duel.

Ferries with this dewy feminine name have been plying the waters below the falls since 1846; some of the most famous guests: Edward VIII, Teddy Roosevelt & Marilyn Monroe.

The falls are divided into two sections–the straight-line American falls over here, & over here on the Canadian side, this cataract, named for its distinctive shape. I have been to Niagara Falls at least thrice, with my family planning a trip there this year. Let me tell you about my previous visits.

When I was 10, give or take a year, my parents, sisters, and I went to Niagara Falls. Oddly, I have a stronger recollection of the floral clock on the Canadian side than I remember the falls themselves. I do recall that the kids were all asleep when we came back through to the US side, and that I was disappointed by that.

In 1998, our SBDC annual meeting was in Niagara Falls. By this time, the Canadian side had a bunch of casinos, and we were all given some casino money – from a sponsor, not the program – with which to start gambling. Since I had never gone before, I gave it a shot. But I found/find casinos annoying loud and rather boring. Worse, I was actually winning, which you might think would be exciting, but which I found actually worrisome. So I changed machines, promptly lost my money, and just wandered around the area outside. My strongest recollection, though, was crossing the borders, in each direction, on foot. I waved my US passport and about a half dozen of us went across; ah, the days before 9/11.

In 2002, the State Data Center had its semiannual meeting there. It was in May, and my wife had just finished her school year; she was a grad student. Even better, it was our third wedding anniversary. So we drove out, had a hotel room for three nights, and ate out every night, and all was reimbursed except for her meals. She explored all day while I had my meetings. It was great. We walked across the border, me with the passport, my wife with her standard driver’s license.

So now we’re planning a trip to Ontario. We all have passports, including the Daughter. One doesn’t NEED a passport; one could get an enhanced driver’s license or non-driver’s ID, or similar products. BUT the things are only good for traveling by land or sea, not by air, and though we’re traveling by car THIS time, we might want to fly to Vancouver, BC or Calgary sometime in the future. Oh, those pictures: they’re supposedly Niagara Falls in 1911. Are they really Niagara Falls? Apparently so. Are they from 1911? Almost certainly not. It’s one of those legends that are partly truth and partly fiction. The e-mail from which I received the photos even came with this narrative:

Margaret writes: Her mother had a cousin living in Niagara Falls that year. She told the family that she and her neighbours woke up in the night feeling something was wrong. It took a while but they finally realized that it was the lack of noise. They had all become so used to the roar of the falls that the silence was unusual enough to alert their senses. Of course, at that time nearly all the houses were near the falls. Can you imagine walking on Niagara Falls? JEOPARDY! questions:

What are Lakes Erie and Ontario?
What was a barrel?
What was ice? (See the falls DO freeze!)
Who was Aaron Burr?
What are the Maids of the Mist?
What is Horseshoe Falls?

ABC Wednesday – Round 8

In the “Who moved my cheese?” department

What did we do on Monday from 3:52 p.m. to 5:48 p.m.? We, that is to say I, stood in line so that my wife and I could renew our passports…

It’s my wife’s birthday today – happy birthday, Carol! – and we have been chuckling lately over something that started off as annoying.

She’s a deacon in our church. A few weeks ago, she substituted for another deacon in preparing a snack for after the service. She had bought, with her own money, a block of cheese, had cut it up, put it on a plastic plate, covered it up with a plastic wrap, and brought it to church at 9:30 a.m., at which point she went to Bible study.

At 10:30, she went to transfer said cheese onto a nicer plate, but she could not find the cheese. She looked around for a time, finally finding the plate of cheese in the garbage. There were other snacks, but she was understandably annoyed, actually, less about the waste of money and more about the waste of time preparing said cheese, then looking for it.

There is a policy – these are Presbyterians, so naturally, there’s a policy – that food in the refrigerator need be labeled and dated, but Carol never thought that the food she brought could be dumped in an hour. (By contrast, when they cleaned out the refrigerators at my workplace on July 9, we got a week’s e-mail notice, with large notices also on the fridges.)

Carol tells the deacon for whom she substituted about the situation, so she could be alerted when next that deacon served snacks the following week. Then the fun began, with that deacon forwarding Carol’s note, to Carol’s chagrin, to all the other deacons and the pastors. Suddenly, there was a flurry of e-mails going back and forth, some citing policy, others complaining about the waste of food, still others suggesting it be discussed at a committee meeting, and/or that better signs be made. A huge cause celebre.

The custodian had noted that someone else had been eating the cheese that morning, and was possibly the one who rewrapped it poorly. The member of the committee who tossed the cheese had thrown out the cheese because she was afraid it had been there too long; it wasn’t wrapped well, probably by the snacker, but then, to Carol’s embarrassment, she gave her money, to compensate for her loss.

I, on the other hand, thought it was all terribly funny, and labeled it The “Who moved my cheese?” incident. Then it felt more like absurdist theater, and we laughed about it regularly.

Quite coincidentally, there is a unit in my building at work that was downsizing, and they were getting rid of some books. I picked up a few business books for our work library, including the Spencer Johnson book, “Who Moved My Cheese?” I mean, I just HAD to.
***
So what did we do on Monday from 3:52 p.m. to 5:48 p.m.? We, that is to say, I, stood in line so that my wife and I could renew our passports and so that our daughter could get her first one. There were two families ahead of ours. And we hit the line just minutes before the 4 p.m. deadline. The rush was based on a TV story we heard that the rates were going up on Tuesday.

The downside of waiting is that I did not bring any reading material. The upside is that, by the time we actually got to the front, I could cite, almost verbatim, the policies put forth by our fine postal employee. “The passports will take four to six weeks. It has been taking four weeks, but because of the recent influx, it might take a little longer.”

We hadn’t planned on waiting until almost literally the last minute. We were near the post office earlier in the day, but the daughter was having a stomachache. Later, we got an unexpected 71-minute phone call from an old friend, then I went bike riding with the daughter while the wife napped. (We’d gotten up very early to take a relative from Oneonta to the Albany airport that morning.)

In the end, we saved nearly $100, and I got a lesson in passport policy.
***
It’s also Linda Ronstadt’s birthday, so maybe she should sing with Muppets.