Vermont Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

ARA: move to one of the states bordering New York

Mel Allen

You have to move to one of the states bordering New York. Which one, and where in that state?

Vermont, the 14th state, which was once part of New York, sort of. It’s a very progressive state. “The Vermont Republic abolished slavery before any other U.S. state…Vermont approved women’s suffrage decades before it became part of the national constitution. Women were first allowed to vote in the December 18, 1880 elections when they were granted limited suffrage…. It was the first state to introduce civil unions in 2000 and legalize same-sex marriage in 2009, unforced by court challenge or ruling.”

I’d probably move to the teeming metropolis of Burlington. The city has about 50,000 people, but the metropolitan statistical area has about 225,000, about one-third of the state’s population. It’s near Lake Champlain, with several ferries crossing into New York.

Favorite sports announcer, reporter, or writer?

First, it would probably be limited to baseball and football because that’s all I read about and watch enough to offer an opinion other than Jim Nantz’s coverage of men’s college basketball.

Baseball

Writers: Roger Angell, Peter Gammons, Roger Kahn, Dan Shaughnessy, George Will (yes, THAT George Will), former MLB pitcher Jim Bouton, and, of course, Terence Mann.

Announcers: On one end of the spectrum is the voice I most identified with the game while growing up: Mel Allen. He was the “longtime voice of baseball’s weekly highlight show, This Week in Baseball.”

But I also enjoyed Vin Scully’s dulcet tones, even though I tended not to root for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Mark Evanier wrote in 2013: “You know what needs Vin Scully? When no one cares about anything happening on the field. The outcome of the game doesn’t matter. One team is six runs ahead. The stands are two-thirds empty because even the people who showed up decided that the fifth inning was a good time to head home and beat the non-existent traffic. That’s when somehow Vinnie manages to make it interesting. Even I sometimes listen to him then. What a great talker.”

Bob Costas was always prepared with a story, even during a rain delay.

There are George Owens and Harry Doyle; in other words, Bob Uecker.

Football

Announcers: On the one hand, I like the straightforward play-by-play folks such as Pat Summerall. BTW, “The urban legend was his nickname became “Pat” because of the abbreviation for “point after touchdown” that a field-goal kicker was credited for in a game summary. But in a 1997 Dallas Morning News story, Summerall said after his parents divorced, he was taken in by an aunt and uncle who had a son named Mike. ‘My aunt and uncle just started calling me Pat to go with their Mike,’ Summerall would say, referencing frequently named characters in Irish jokes told during that time.”

However, for color commentary, I was fond of former Raiders coach John Madden. They were a great team.

Here’s my pet peeve: the sideline reporters who talk to head coaches either at the end of the half or right before the third quarter. They ask mundane questions about what they will do differently in the second half. The answers, by definition, are pretty dull: “Well, we have to make more third downs,” “We’ll have to hold onto the ball better,” or “We’ll have to cut down on those penalties.” It’s almost always some obvious thing that you already know if you were watching the game. Useless, pointless. The coaches have been gracious about it, but it’s unnecessary blather.

Both

Writers: Frank Deford, Michael Smith, Red Smith.

Announcers: there’s a bunch of them, among them Al Michaels.

Two Virgins and the Vermont Republic

Virgin Queen

Vermont road map VA Virginia, a state – a commonwealth – in the southeastern US. Capital: Richmond. Largest city: Virginia Beach.

Since I wrote about Virginia five years ago, I’ll just note that the state was “named for Queen Elizabeth I of England, who was known as the Virgin Queen. Historians think the English adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh suggested the name about 1584.”

VI Virgin Islands, a US territory in the Caribbean. Capital and largest city: Charlotte Amalie, on the island of St. Thomas.

The US Virgin Islands were sold to the United States by Denmark in the Treaty of the Danish West Indies of 1917. Other islands in the archipelago are controlled by the United Kingdom.

“Christopher Columbus named the islands after Saint Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins (Spanish: Santa Úrsula y las Once Mil Vírgenes), shortened to the Virgins (las Vírgenes). ”

GREEN Mountain State

VT Vermont, a New England state of the US. Capital: Montpelier. Largest city: Burlington

I wrote about our 2015 vacation. The truth is, I’ve been all over Vermont. A wedding on Lake Champlain, several choir performances in my Methodist days, even shopping. Of course, I’m inherently fond of the state, since it involves the color green.

On the Travel Trivia website, it listed 5 Countries That No Longer Exist. One was the Vermont Republic.

“On January 15, 1777, Vermont became the Vermont Republic, with its own Declaration of Independence, elected assembly, money, postal service, military, and diplomatic relations. Vermont was joined in its decade and a half of sovereignty by sixteen New Hampshire towns and a few more from New York.

“They were eventually given back to their states when Vermont joined the union [in 1791 when it became the 14th state], but it was a process by which Congress, New York, and New Hampshire recognized Vermont’s sovereignty. That means Vermont’s time as an independent nation wasn’t a fun historical quirk; it was a tangible expression of North American international freedom.”

For the verdant ABC Wednesday

V is for Vermont

Pickleball is a sport easier to play than to explain.

All of my wife’s immediate family – her parents, her two brothers, their wives, the three daughters amongst them, and our nuclear threesome – spent several days together just before Labor Day at Smugglers’ Notch Resort near remote Jeffersonsville, VT about 40 miles northeast of Burlington. It’s a ski resort in the winter but has grown into a family-friendly summer resort.

Smugglers’ Notch namesake “comes from the smugglers of the early nineteenth century, who used the thick forest on the mountain range, and the caves and caverns along the Long Trail to transport illegal or embargoed goods across the Canadian border. The notch was most likely involved in bootlegging during the Prohibition-era of the 1920s, using the same caves as a cache for smuggled Canadian beer, wine, and spirits.”

We got there on a Sunday, the day before they switched to a modified fall schedule of events. The downside is that there was much confusion about the new rotation. For instance – and there were five or six examples like this – the Wife and I call up to book disc golf lessons at the appointed time, but no one there knows what we’re talking about.

The good news is the staff, to a person, was unfailingly polite and accommodating. An employee made a call and got us transportation to a location on the massive site, and a guy gave us – and only us, as it turned out – lessons.

Disc golf, BTW, is a flying disc game – think of series of differently-weighted Frisbees – the object which, similar to golf, “is to traverse a course from beginning to end in the fewest number of throws of the disc.” As it turns out, there are a few disc golf courses in our area, notably Central Park in Schenectady.

More crowded was the pickleball class, a sport easier to play than to explain. A standard pickleball court is the same size as a doubles badminton court, but we played in a modified tennis court. The net height is a yard, a little less than a meter. The paddle is smaller than a tennis racquet but larger than a ping-pong paddle, and more like the latter. The ball itself is like a wiffleball but smaller in diameter, and slightly heavier. It plays like a mixture of tennis and badminton.

The five days there also featured hikes, some reading, and, on two nights, visits to the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. It is a lovely setting. As someone almost said, a splendid time was had by all.

ABC Wednesday – Round 17

February rambling: expats, and the end of “Parenthood”

How America’s Sporting Events Have Turned into Mass Religious Events to Bless Wars and Militarism. Amen.

The Weekly Sift analyzes what the Atlantic article “What ISIS Really Wants” gets right and gets wrong. Also, ISIS Bans Teaching Evolution In Schools in Mosul, as well as art, music, history, literature and, of course, Christianity.

American ISIS: The Domestic Terrorist Fallout of the Iraq War.

Melanie: A Modern Day Scarlet Pimpernel and Human Trafficking.

Something most Americans know little or nothing about: The Trans-Pacific Partnership is the latest trade deal being cooked up in secret by big corporations and their lobbyists.

John Oliver Eviscerates the Stunningly Corrupt Practices of Big Pharma. This IS journalism. I also LOVE how he takes on Big Tobacco and their bullying tactics internationally.

Here are Remarks by the President at National Prayer Breakfast, February 5, 2015. Obama Attacked for Telling the Truth about Christianity’s Bloody History and The Foolish, Historically Illiterate, Incredible Response to Obama’s Prayer Breakfast Speech. True this: Using religion to brutalize other people is not a Muslim invention, nor is it foreign to the American experience.

Is The Phrase ‘Playing The Race Card’ As Racist As It Sounds? You Bet It Is.

A Latin motto for Vermont? “I thought Vermont was American, not Latin?”

When a Puerto Rican Wins the Powerball.

When Hate Stays in the Closet: “Answering the most sympathetic and reasonable arguments against same-sex marriage.”

A cautionary tale: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life.

Amy Biancolli: The Weight of a Ring.

Uthaclena: Truth in Advertising, or The Eyes Have It.

Dear Student: Should Your Granny Die Before The Midterm … “Grandmothers are 10 times more likely to die before a midterm, and 19 times more likely to die before a final exam. Grannies of students who weren’t doing well in their classes were at even higher risk of meeting their maker.”

3 Tips For Being Awake In A World That Is Asleep.

Learning stuff.

Nancy Frank, organist at First Presbyterian Church in Albany, NY, retires after 42 years. Not only is she a fine organist, but a great person as well.

Watch Middle School Kids Play A Led Zeppelin Medley … On Xylophones.

Vogue’s The 10 Greatest Oscar-Winning Songs of All Time.

Bob Dylan’s Full MusiCares Speech: How He Wrote the Songs.

Jaquandor is ranking the Bond songs!

The Real Instrument Behind The Sound In ‘Good Vibrations’.

Chuck Miller on the redemptive quality of Allan Sherman.

One of my favorite TV shows, Parenthood, ended this past month. Deleted Scenes Show Seth’s Return, Sarah’s Roast, and More.

Gary Owens of Laugh-In fame, RIP. Mark Evanier’s piece, and a story with Evanier’s mom, and the short-lived show Letters to Laugh-In. Plus Ken Levine’s appreciation.

What happens to someone who goes on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and loses $225,000?

Clowns: Beware of the Unicycling Clown and The Toronto Circus Riot of 1855.

Muppets: Miss Piggy and Constantine, the World’s Most Dangerous Frog, accept an award, and I’ll Get You What You Want (Cockatoo in Malibu) and Cookie Monster Chase. Also, ‘Big Birdman’ starring Caroll Spinney and Big Bird [Birdman Spoof] plus Simply Delicious Shower Thoughts with Cookie Monster and I’m Going To Go Back There Someday and The Muppet Movie can’t hide a soft heart beneath the silly gags. Finally, a Sesame Street discography.

Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling.

Video Artist Eran Amir made this video that looks like magical things seem to happen because the video is being run in reverse — but this is not running in reverse…

GOOGLE ALERTS (me)

Somehow, I have helped to encourage SamuraiFrog to compile a ranking of all of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s songs. THIS is a good thing that I will share with The Daughter.

Arthur wrote a GREAT piece, E is for Expat, about being a stranger in a strange land and how that changes over time, quoting others, as well as noting his own experiences.

Jaquandor answers my questions about changing his mind, but not about pie.

GOOGLE ALERT (not me)

Roger Green, from Sudbury, was named as the regional winner of the Churches Conservation Trust Volunteer Award… This is in recognition of the work he has done for St Peter’s Church, Sudbury, where he chairs the Friends’ group, facilitates regular markets, festivals, concerts and theatre productions, and has helped boost visitor numbers to around 60,000 a year.

Not in an upstate New York State of mind

I REALLY liked Madison, Wisconsin when I was there in 1988. Always appreciate the state’s progressive tradition.

LONG-time blogger Dustbury asks a question for this round of Ask Roger Anything:

If a purely arbitrary decision was handed down to the effect that you could no longer remain in upstate New York, where would you first consider going?

I’ve thought on this a lot, actually. It’s pretty much a process of elimination.

Not moving to anywhere there is no fresh water, so desert states such as Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico are definitely out. California – well, is the big earthquake still coming?

I’d like to be out of direct range of hurricanes, which eliminates Florida, not that I wouldn’t have passed on it for other reasons; and the parts of the states on the Gulf coast and southern part of the Atlantic are unlikely.

Not Texas, because Texas is Texas.

I’m wary of being in tornado alley, which seems to encompass much of the center of the country from Oklahoma to Ohio.

Places I had considered before I’m now rethinking; I worry about Washington and Oregon after the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown in Japan, maybe not enough to eliminate them, but it’s a factor. I wouldn’t pass on all the states along with the flood-prone Mississippi River, but any place that’s flooded in the last 15 years, I can imagine flooding again.

I hear the Deep South is more enlightened than it used to be; not sure I’d want to move there.

I REALLY liked Madison, Wisconsin when I was there in 1988. Always appreciate the state’s progressive tradition. Don’t love the current governor, though.

Do I want somewhere warmer? Certainly NOT colder, which eliminates Minnesota and Maine.

Ultimately, it would be either in a small college town or a larger college town with decent mass transit in New England, but probably not Connecticut, which often feels like suburbia. Rhode Island is a possibility. I’m fond of Northampton, Massachusetts.

My pick, all things being equal, is southern Vermont. After all, Vermont was part of New York, before it was broken off to become the 14th state. Both New York and Vermont have a maple syrup tradition. And, in spite of damage from some recent hurricanes, both tend to be out of hurricane alley.