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Roger is 63

“Grown-ups are making it up as they go along,”

63. Three score and three. I’ve turned 21 for the third time. Or the forty-third time, depending on how you look at these things.

I saw this on my friend Steve Bissette’s Facebook page a while back – he’s a fellow March Piscean, FWIW – and I thought it both appropriate and true, though I’ve never seen the film:

“You think grown-ups have it all figured out? That’s just a hustle, kid. Grown-ups are making it up as they go along, just like you. You remember that, and you’ll do fine.”
– Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman), MATINEE (1993)

Since I don’t actually blog on my birthday, or work on my birthday, I’ll leave you with the usual, which, now that I look back, I haven’t used in three years:

A quote from one of my favorite books, Here and Now: Living in the Spirit by Henri J.M. Nouwen, a Canadian theologian who died in 1996. (Copyright 1994, published by The Crossroad Publishing Company.)

I share this passage about birthdays, not only for my sake, but, I hope, for yours as well:

Birthdays need to be celebrated. I think it is more important to celebrate a birthday than a successful exam, a promotion, or a victory. Because to celebrate a birthday means to say to someone: “Thank you for being you.” Celebrating a birthday is exalting life and being glad for it. On a birthday we do not say: “Thanks for what you did, or said, or accomplished.” No, we say: “Thank you for being born and being among us.”
…
Celebrating a birthday reminds us of the goodness of life, and in this spirit we really need to celebrate people’s birthdays every day, by showing gratitude, kindness, forgiveness, gentleness, and affection. These are ways of saying: “It’s good that you are alive; it’s good that you are walking with me on this earth. Let’s be glad and rejoice. This is the day that God has made for us to be and to be together.”

P is for popularity of names

“Roger” was the 31st most popular boy’s name in 1953.

My friend Arthur did this some time back, based on this TIME magazine article, which, not incidentally, is US-centric.

“The popularity of your name is likely far different today than it was the year you were born. Maybe you’re one of those men born in 1983 and named Michael, the most popular name of the year.

“Today, if you were given the most popular boy’s name, you’d be named Noah. The following interactive shows you which name had the same popularity in the past year and every decade since 1890 as yours did the year you were born, using [then] newly released baby name data for 2014.”

The premise is slightly misleading in that, early on, there was a paucity in the diversity of names. For boys, John and William were heavily used in the 1880s (89,951 and 84,881, respectively), well ahead of James (54,058). For girls, Mary (91,669) was even more dominant; Anna (38,159) and Emma (25,404) were far behind.

Still: “Roger” was the 31st most popular boy’s name in 1953. It was MOST popular in 1945, hitting its peak of #22, I dare say, because of World War II: “Roger that. Roger over and out.”

My name today would be Oliver, a name I associate with the TV show Green Acres, Charles Dickens, and Elvis Costello.

My 2000s name is Isaac, a good biblical name, son of Abraham (nearly sacrificed) and Sarah, and father of Jacob and Esau.
My 1990s name is Mark, my brother-in-law’s name, and the shortest of the Gospels in the Bible.
My 1980s name is Edward, my great uncle’s name on my maternal grandmother’s side.
My 1970s name is Terry. I knew a guy named Terry in the 1970s at college and worked with a woman named Terry in the 1990s.
My 1960s name is Alan. Not incidentally, the Social Security list does not combine spellings, such as Allan and Allen.
My 1950s name is Henry, the VIII, and Aldrich.
My 1940s name is Ernest, another great uncle’s name on my maternal grandmother’s side.
My 1930s name is Leonard, as in Bernstein, and Nimoy.
My 1920s name is Elmer, as in Bernstein, and Fudd.
My 1910s name is Eddie, as in the Renaissance Geek, though that’s not his given name.
My 1900s name is Alfred, as in Tennyson or Batman’s butler.
My 1890s name is Sam, promoter of Green Eggs and Ham, or the Sham.

“Name trends are provided by the Social Security Administration… This tool only searches for names of the same gender as what you entered at the top. Many names have drifted from being associated with boys to being associated with girls over the years, so it can appear as though female names are showing up in the male results.”

ABC Wednesday – Round 17

Why the Russians are following one of my blogs

“Found this during a recent archaeological dig.”

ITEM: I created a blog for the New York State Data Center affiliates called Data Detectives some years ago. I post every other day or so.

Sometime in early October, I was showing one of our interns the analytics of the page. I must admit that I almost never look at such things, on that blog, this one, or any of the ones to which I contribute. I’m told that I “should”, but, generally speaking, that conversation makes my eyes glaze over.

Still, I was fascinated that the most popular country among blog viewers for the week ending October 13:
Russia – 1010 page views
United States – 361
France – 35

I theorize that it had to do with my link to the article Lefty Presidents Are Better For Markets. This had to do with handedness, not politics, southpaws, not socialists.

Still, I wonder why even the total going back to May 2010 has so many views from the former Soviet Union:

United States 247,390
Russia 32,066
Germany 17,379
France 13,787
Ukraine 9,387
United Kingdom 9,078
Netherlands 3,294
China 3,278
Poland 3,040
Canada 2,963

ITEM: On Facebook, I forwarded to a terrestrial friend of mine an article about an award received by an author I knew he admired. He thanked me, adding, “It’s like I have my own personal librarian looking out for me.” This pleased me greatly.

ITEM: A guy named Jan, who was in my graduation class at Binghamton (NY) Central High School, asked to friend me on Facebook recently. I agreed, and almost immediately he posted this: “Found this during a recent archaeological dig.”

This was taken around our HS graduation in 1971, I think, though someone theorized that it was from my college years; it DOES look like the ceiling of the Student Union Building offices of the Wind Sun News.

Just got a picture of me for our new IDs at our new work location downtown. Wouldn’t you know that it has that same “glare on the glasses” look? Since I don’t take selfies, you can’t blame ME.

Some of those other people named Roger Green

Roger L. Green the legislator, of course, worked in Albany, which is one of the reasons I tend to use my middle name.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are

people named Roger Green in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Ken Levine, the “Emmy winning writer/director/producer/major league baseball announcer” wrote about other guys named Ken Levine. That was such a swell idea that I thought I’d follow suit. Well, not EXACTLY; I thought I’d use my OWN name instead. Let’s start with Wikipedia:

Roger Green, the Welsh professional rugby league footballer of the 1930s, was born before 1915, which makes him very old.

Roger (Gilbert) Lancelyn Green “(2 November 1918 – 8 October 1987) was a British biographer and children’s writer. He was an Oxford academic who formed part of the Inklings literary discussion group along with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.”

Roger Curtis Green (15 March 1932 – 4 October 2009) was an American-born, New Zealand-based archaeologist. He was very accomplished, and I was actually sad when he died.

Roger Green (born 2 June 1943) is a Canadian former sailor who competed in the 1968 Summer Olympics.

Roger L. Green (born June 23, 1949) is an American legislator who served in the New York State Assembly for 26 years, from 1981 to 2007 (with a brief interruption in 2004), parts of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. More on him later.

Additionally, there is

Roger Green‘s Feng Shui Professional Certification Program

Roger Green founded Roger Green and Associates, Inc. (RG+A) in 1991. He serves as President and Chief Executive Officer. Over the past twenty years, Roger has worked to design marketing research methods, insights, and modeling tools that promote a greater understanding of what drives value in pharmaceutical markets.

Roger Green makes custom guns, including rifles and shotguns, does metalwork, stockwork, inletting, and sells pedigree gun dogs.

Roger Green, a co-founder of one of the first alternative medicine centers in Australia, served as director of the Australian School of Healing from 1985 to 1999.

There are more, surely.

Roger L. Green the legislator, of course, worked in Albany, which is one of the reasons I tend to use my middle name, t distinguish myself from him. Moreover, he’s black, and sometimes when I’d be introduced to people, they’d ask if I were in the Assembly; heck, no, I’m MUCH taller than that guy, by three or four inches at least.

One day, I came home from work, and there was a phone message from WCBS-TV in New York City, asking me to call them. They wanted to know if I had a comment about the death of Yusuf Hawkins in Bensonhurst. I hadn’t seen the news yet, so I had no idea who Yusef Hawkins was, quite possibly until the next morning. But, naturally, they didn’t want MY comment, they wanted Roger L. Green’s, who represented that part of Brooklyn.

Too many state legislators in New York State have been involved in illegal activities, and Assemblyman Green was no exception: “Green resigned his seat in June 2004, after pleading guilty to petty larceny in connection with $3000 in false travel reimbursement claims. As part of a plea deal, he served three years’ probation, was fined $2,000, and had to pay $3,000 in restitution. Later that same year, he ran and was re-elected to the same seat.”

But he ran for Congress a couple of years later and lost, so isn’t in Albany anymore.
***
Happy half birthday to me.

Straight outta somewhere in upstate New York

The forces that be designed this Straight Outta Somewhere website.

Jaquandor, that fly guy from the OP (that being Orchard Park), did this. There’s a new movie about NWA, “a Compton, California-based hip hop group widely considered one of the seminal acts of the gangsta rap sub-genre.” I wasn’t a big fan, as I found their music misogynistic. I couldn’t name the members save for Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, and the latter only because of his appearances as an actor.

Anyway, there’s going to be a movie about the group, Straight Outta Compton, opening today. In honor, the forces that be designed this Straight Outta Somewhere website. I took the first few pictures of me I could find and did this: