Ramblin' with Roger

The 1992 Mainstream #1 Rock Tracks

an influential 1835 hymnal

The 1992 Mainstream #1 Rock Tracks were the songs that were getting airplay on mainstream rock stations, regardless of format (singles, album cuts, etc.).

Remedy – the Black Crowes, eleven weeks at #1M, #48 pop

How About That – Bad Company, 6 weeks at #1 M, #38 pop

Hotel Illness – the Black Crowes, 6 weeks at #1 M; did not chart on the pop charts, but it was released as a single. Probably unrelated, Hotel illness family ‘too traumatised to holiday again.’

Thorn In My Pride – the Black Crowes 4 weeks at #1 M, #80 pop

Human Touch – Bruce Springsteen, 3 weeks at #1 M. #16 pop

Even Better Than The Real Thing – U2, 2 weeks at #1 M, #32 pop

Again Tonight – John Mellencamp, 2 weeks at #1

One – U2, 2 weeks at #1 M, #10 pop

Sting Me – the Black Crowes, 2 weeks at #1 M, did not chart pop

Rest In Peace – Extreme, two at #1 M #96 pop

The rest were #1 for 1 week, Mainstream

Let’s Get Rocked – Def Leppard, #15 pop

Digging In The Dirt – Peter Gabriel, #52 pop

Keep The Faith – Bon Jovi, #29 pop

The Robinson brothers

From Wikipedia: “The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion is the second studio album by American rock band the Black Crowes, released on May 12, 1992… The album’s name derives from the full name of the Southern Harmony, an influential 1835 hymnal compiled by William Walker…

“It was a record for an album to feature four album rock number-one hits (previously set by Tom Petty in 1989, with three). The album itself reached the top spot of the Billboard 200 album chart, propelled by the success of these singles.”

I never owned the album, though someone had given me their previous collection, Shake Your Money Maker. The only albums I own from the songs represented above were Us (Gabriel), Human Touch (Springsteen), and Achtung Baby (U2).

Incidentally, I’m fond of One by Johnny Cash from the 2000 album American III: Solitary Man.

Binghamton-adjacent

Rev. Alphonso Whitfield

These are random Binghamton-adjacent pieces.

ITEM: An old friend from high school sent me a clipping from the Broome County Office for Aging’s Senior News. Specifically, on page 15 of the February 2026 issue was a story titled LOCAL HISTORY. “In observance of Black History Month this February, we are privileged to dedicate this issue to celebrating the profound and essential contributions of Black individuals in shaping Broome County.”

Four people were highlighted. “Gentleman” Joe Taylor (1923-1995), I might have met but did not know. My father, though, absolutely knew him. The well-regarded boxer, after retirement, opened Gentle Joe’s restaurant on Susquehanna Street.

Dr. Beverly Housten Dorsey (1925-2023) was married to Beverly R. Dorsey, MD (1922-2011) for about 60 years. One black doctor provided a sense of community pride, but two? Wow! Beverly Housten’s resume is astonishing. My great aunt Deana Yates, my maternal grandmother’s sister, did some cooking, cleaning, or sewing for them.

Midgett S. Parker (1925-1999). His first name was pronounced Meh-JET. I didn’t know he was a chemist. But he was a leader at Trinity AME Zion, which I attended for many years.

Alphonso Whitfield (1903-1999) became “a charter member of the Interracial Association,” where my father worked in the 1960s.
He was a preacher at the AME Zion Church. He and his wife, Constance, were my godparents. My parents became the godparents of his grandson, Walter Jones. Alphonso and Constance’s daughter, Marcheta Hamlin, I wrote about at length HERE. I remember annual car trips to Utica to visit my godparents, when Rev. Whitfield was serving there.

13 Gaines Street?

ITEM: One of my friends from grade school sent me this Zillow listing, purportedly for 13 Gaines Street, and wondered if it was the house I grew up in. No, I lived at 5 Gaines Street.

But Gaines Street was only a block long, between Oak and Front Streets, so I knew the houses. That did NOT look like 13. I went there quite often because Lawrence and Dorothy Greene lived at 13, and we would get each other’s mail. Per the Binghamton City Directory of 1960, which I accessed on Ancestry, one or both of them worked at Ansco. And their son, Danny, would play in our yard periodically. But 13 was smooth and green and white.

Finally, I called the listing agent. The address SHOULD be 1 AND 3, not 13. THAT makes sense. It’s the house next to 5 Gaines that a tree crashed into. The red corner convenience store his gone in favor of a parking space, and the yellow house to the left represents newish construction on Front Street that wasn’t there 30 years ago.

Remarkable

ITEM: I came across online on International Women’s Day, Remarkable Women From Binghamton Who Made History. One of them I’ve known all my life. “Born in Binghamton in 1940, Frances M. Beal, better known as Fran Beal, is a feminist and peace and justice political activist. Beal was a founding member of the SNCC Black Women’s Liberation Committee, later called the Third World Women’s Alliance. Fran Beal is most well known for the book she wrote, which is called ‘Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female.'”

She’s my mother’s first cousin, daughter of Ernie Yates (my maternal grandmother’s brother) and Charlotte Berman Yates. I wrote about her HERE. Even though she’s been living in California, she’s still famous in her hometown, as I discovered HERE

“The Missouri Compromise!”

Maine statehood

I was heading to take the bus to attend my choir rehearsal one cold February evening. Even several dozen meters away, I could hear someone at my stop, saying, repeatedly, “Do you know about the Missouri Compromise? Remember the 14th Amendment!”

It turned out to be a young Black woman, maybe 22(?), who was chanting it, stopping for about ten seconds between recitations. The folks at our bus stop generally ignored her, but some at the stop across the street started yelling, “Shut up!” or a variant.

Since I had to walk past her, I ALMOST replied, “Yes, I do! The Missouri Compromise of 1820 allowed Maine to enter the Union as a free state and Missouri to enter as a slave state. It set a precedent for the next 30 years or so. I even wrote a bit about it.” But I opted against. You can read how Henry Clay shepherded the bill here, and the bill’s wording here.

HCR

Then, on March 14, Heather Cox Richardson posted a piece titled “Happy Birthday, Maine.” You can access it on Substack here. In part, she wrote:

“Mainers were angry that their statehood had been tied to the demands of far-distant slave owners, and that anger worked its way into the state’s popular culture. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 meant that Maine men, who grew up steeped in that anger, could spread west.

And so they did.

“In 1837, Elijah P. Lovejoy, who had moved to Alton, Illinois, from Albion, Maine, to begin a newspaper dedicated to the abolition of human enslavement, was murdered by a pro-slavery mob, who threw his printing press into the Mississippi River.

“Elijah Lovejoy’s younger brother, Owen, had also moved west from Maine. Owen saw Elijah shot and swore his allegiance to the cause of abolition. ‘I shall never forsake the cause that has been sprinkled with my brother’s blood,’ he declared. He turned to politics, and in 1854, he was elected to the Illinois state legislature. His increasing prominence brought him political friends, including an up-and-coming lawyer who had arrived in Illinois from Kentucky by way of Indiana, Abraham Lincoln…”

“Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, overturning the Missouri Compromise and permitting the spread of slavery to the West.” HCR wrote that the repercussions of that 1854 action included the creation of the Republican Party by 1856. When he ran for President in 1860, Lincoln picked Hannibal Hamlin of Maine to be his running mate.

So, the Missouri Compromise was the beginning of much anti-slavery fervor, which helped define the issue before the Civil War.

Reply to My Texts?

can I FIND my cellphone?

In the Social Q’s column of the New York Times for March 18 was a piece titled My Relative Takes Forever to Reply to My Texts. What Can I Do? The subhead: Stung by a family member’s laggardly response times, a reader considers confronting the issue head-on: “Do you make all your friends wait like this?”

I thought it was an absurd question. The response, in part: “Here’s my view, along with a suggestion: Sending texts to people does not obligate them to respond on our timetable. Still, I know that mismatched feelings of closeness can be hurtful in relationships. If that’s your concern here, stop sending idle texts and suggest an activity in real life: a dinner date or a walk in the park. Because it’s shared experiences that make us closer — not keystrokes.”

This reader response, I thought, was the usual rule of thumb: Not all texts are the same. Some require an immediate answer: “Where are you? We were supposed to meet here 10 minutes ago.” Some do not: ” I am having a wonderful day gardening – it’s gorgeous out. (and so on for a full paragraph).” The whole point of texting is that a reply can be quick or not, depending on the circumstances. Let it go.

Another reader comment: My cellphone is for my convenience, not anybody else’s. I’ll get around to texting you back when I deem it sufficiently important. Plus, the older I get, the harder it is to text on that tiny little screen without a zillion typos. Which, again, because I am old, I am compelled to correct before sending. This is definitely true. I hate the physical act of texting, as I tend to hit two keys at once. At least, I’ve (mostly) figured out the jargon.

Generational

This reader comment is dead on: Believe it or not, there are those of us who came of age in the pre-cellphone age for whom texting is not a primary form of communication. We get around to reading and responding to texts when we get to them. I’m 75; I have a landline, and sometimes I don’t check my cellphone (when I can find it) for texts for days on end, which I admit can be a problem at times, but that’s simply the way it is.

Even in my generation, I was not an “early adopter.” We too have a landline, in part so that I can call and FIND my cellphone. I DON’T go days on end, but it might be for hours.

I’ve chosen to treat my cellphone like a regular phone. If I’m involved with something else, including downtime, I don’t answer or respond. I’m in full resistance to the distraction economy.

One of the things I used to do was look at my phone as soon as I got up in the morning in my office upstairs. Then my wife’s charger went on the fritz. So now my wife and I both charge our phones on a device with multiple charger ports that I bought for our 2023 trip to France. It’s downstairs. This is SO much better for my mental health.

There were hundreds more comments, but these hit the spot.

In the comic strip ZITS, there was a two-day stretch on March 25 and 26 about Jeremy, the 15-year-old protagonist, getting upset that his friend Hector wasn’t replying to his texts. It felt about right.

I see my cellphone as a tool, not an extension of myself, to be used at my discretion. But you may have a different relationship with your cellphone.

The broader issue

In the New York Times essay, No Wonder You Can’t Concentrate, Cal Newport addresses my broader concerns. Here’s just one paragraph:

Many of these declines in cognitive skills became notable starting in the mid-2010s, exactly the period when smartphones became ubiquitous and the digital attention economy exploded in size. An increasing amount of research implies that this timing is no coincidence. A meta-analysis released last fall showed that consuming short-form video content, as delivered by apps like TikTok and Instagram, is associated with poorer cognition and reduced attention, and the results of a clever experiment from 2023 found that the mere presence of participants’ smartphones in a room significantly reduced their ability to concentrate.

I find that my phone being off, downstairs, or, recently, “accidentally” left at home has created a level of relaxation I had not experienced in a while.

So I WILL text you back eventually. Probably, assuming you are not spam, which you often are tracked as being.

Adding to the agenda

No Kings

Somehow, I have a pretty full life. I’m generally resistant to adding to the agenda. But sometimes, I capitulate.

ITEM: Friday/Saturday, March 27/28. Baby sister Marcia calls on Friday to suggest that we should send flowers to sister Leslie, who is singing at a show in the San Diego area Saturday night. This sounded like a good idea.

But to whom shall I send them? They could show up before she arrives. I called her accompanist, and he suggested calling the club. But I reached the club owner, who was in the midst of the evening rush (5:30 pm PDT). So I opted for sending them to the accompanist.

However, on Saturday, the guy running the show called me at c. 11:30 a.m. PDT and said I could send them to him. That was nice.

I did the I-800-FLOWERS thing. I wrote: “Congratulations on the new era in your career.” While she still sings in church choirs and takes a solo here and there, this would be a more substantial presentation with a setlist, like when she sang in Binghamton in the 1970s or Puerto Rico in the 1980s.

Leslie brought the flowers to her church the next day, which pleased me.

Protest

ITEM: Saturday, March 28 – Some folks at my church were meeting to make signs for the No Kings rally at the NYS Capitol in Albany. I didn’t have the bandwidth for that. Also, I’m a lousy signmaker. I mean, notoriously bad. But I would, and did attend the rally. I’m the guy in the orange hat, which looks red in the WRGB screenshot.

The best speech was by Lieutenant Governor Anthony Delgado, who knew how to preach love.

Something from Bethlehem Invisible, I’m having a REALLY difficult time discerning.

“The most dangerous thing that could happen after [No Kings Day rallies] is that millions of people go home feeling like they did their part… and wait to see what happens next… That’s how the people counting on your exhaustion win. The rally is the IGNITION. NOT THE ENGINE. The engine is what you build AFTER YOU LEAVE.

“Pick one target and stay on it. Not twenty issues. ONE. One representative. One school board seat. One ballot measure. One race where the margin is close enough that your effort changes the outcome.

This is REALLY difficult for me. There’s voter registration, Walkable Albany, the library budget, and the library board candidates (three slots), just to name a few. Then there’s the next item:

ITEM: Monday, March 30. I attended a presentation of the local League of Women Voters about Ranked Choice Voting, which was very compelling. I signed a petition to try to bring the process to the city of Albany.

Stories

ITEM: Tuesday, March 31. 518 Stories hosted an Open Mic Stories and Spoken Word Poetry event at the nearby Madison Theater. There was a decent-sized crowd, including at least three people I knew, two from church. I told a story in five minutes about my Civil War ancestor, James Archer. They’re doing it again on Tuesday, April 28. Will I do it again? Peut-être.

ITEM: Of course, there were church services on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, PLUS rehearsals after each.

ITEM: The Times Union ran a story, Want to be in ‘The Gilded Age’? Now’s your chance, Capital Region residents. Because the series was actually filmed in front of our church for the Season 2 premiere, which was cool, I gave it serious consideration.

“New York City-based talent agency Grant Wilfley Casting is seeking Black actors ages 18 and older to portray ‘event guests,’ according to a casting call posted on casting platform Backstage.” Oh, “Tentative Shoot Dates: June 9-10 in Troy, NY; fitting required prior to work.”

I’m leaning against it, but I could change my mind.

ITEM: I had to watch the launch of the Artemis II rocket on Wednesday, April 1. Should one go into space on April Fools Day? I know some folks are not interested. See Dan Lewis, who hints of “more macro societal concerns” needing to have priority, among other issues. For me, maybe it’s, in part, having a woman, a black man, and a Canadian (!) being able to see the dark side of the moon; they are an affable quartet, even though the toilet’s not always working.

ITEM: I never see that I need a haircut. It never gets that long. Conversely, my beard can become a scruffy mess. During COVID, my wife would cut it; getting a beard trim while wearing a mask is a no-go. I needed to go to the barbershop on Good Friday.