Ramblin' with Roger

The suitcase retrieval

Nor’easter

NEWLY-PLANNED: Sunday, September 27 – On Friday evening, after I called my wife, my daughter called me to ask what I was thinking about regarding the suitcase retrieval. I had left it on the bus from Syracuse to NYC when I got off in Binghamton.

I thought that there should be a way to send the luggage up by bus, but this would mean more work for Andrea. So I decided I should take a bus to New York City.

My wife and daughter had been in NYC Wednesday through Friday, having seen School Girls or, the African Mean Girls Play (which they loved) and Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) (great acting, but plot holes).

So, my daughter offered to come to NYC (drive to Poughkeepsie, Metro-North train to Grand Central Station) on Sunday. Wonderful. There was only one potential downside: a Nor’easter was racing up the coast. So, it’s settled; the plan is on.

The point of it all, apparently

On Saturday, I had called my father’s first cousin Ruth, who witnessed firsthand my father coming up my name shortly after I was born. She offered to pick me up Sunday morning and take me to the bus station.

As she and one of her daughters had picked me up quite early, we talked about family lore, about Raymond Cone, and the resilience of my paternal grandmother Agatha, Ruth watching Leslie and me when we were little, and my father’s amazing creativity, coupled with his utter lack of fiscal restraint.

REALIZATION: Suddenly, I realized why I needed to be in Binghamton the weekend of my dad’s 100th birthday: to share Les stories with people he’s related to.

But what about not seeing 5 Gaines Street (42.107838 latitude, -75.915621 longitude), the house I grew up in that’s now for sale? I had friend Cee and spouse keep the 12:30 pm appointment and share the intel with sister Leslie and me. (Thanks!) I’m not saying either of us would move there, but it is an intriguing concept. Especially for my sister, since the housing costs are so much greater in SoCal.

It’s too bad I didn’t get to go to church at Trinity A.M.E. Zion, the church I grew up in, but I got to ride by it a couple of times; it’s less than two blocks from 5 Gaines. When I went by there on Friday night, a bunch of kids from the church were playing on the lawn, which I found oddly comforting.

Big Apple

NEW PLAN: The bus station in Binghamton does NOT announce or display arrivals or departures. So at 7:45, I went out to look for my 7:55; yup, it was just about to board. I said my goodbyes and got onto a Trailways bus to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, which, not incidentally, was MUCH more comfortable than those Flix buses I rode to Syracuse and Binghamton. It rained intermittently on the trip, but it wasn’t bad.

Around the same time, my daughter was driving from Albany to Poughkeepsie. It turns out that, because of the counterclockwise winds, the rain from the Nor’easter was worse on the trip down than on the return trip, especially around Woodstock and Kingston. She almost stopped for a time but persevered, reaching Poughkeepsie and taking the Metro-North to Grand Central.

My sense of direction was all out of whack, and I couldn’t figure out how to reach Grand Central. Some official sent me to Penn Station on the 7 subway, but my daughter directed me back.

Suddenly, I wandered to an S shuttle that took me to Grand Central, and my daughter found me. We took the Metro-North. My daughter has quickly become an expert. We needed to take the New Haven line, but really the Stamford subsidiary line to Westchester County.

The ‘burbs

While we waited for Andrea and my suitcase, we overheard a couple of friends who had met at the train stop. She was a trained dancer hired by a rich Manhattanite to perform at the wealthy lady’s two-year-old’s birthday party. But there were so many other people and stuff that there was no room to dance. The hired Santa assured her that it was a weird, albeit well-paid, gig. The friends realized we had been eavesdropping on their conversation – they were only about ten feet away – when I couldn’t stifle a laugh. They were cool about it.

Finally, Andrea figured out where we were and got me the suitcase. She suggested I be more mindful; noted. My daughter gave her the wine and chocolate she had bought on my behalf.

We ate at the station, took the line back to Harlem, then took the Hudson line back to Poughkeepsie. My daughter drove us back to Albany. We arrived at 6:40, less than 20 minutes later than I would have if I had taken the bus back to Syracuse, then Albany; oh, yeah, that bus was canceled. How WOULD I have gotten home?

I was exhausted, but still wired. After my wife and daughter went to bed, I noticed I had recorded Sunday Night Football, the match betwen the Los Angeles Rams and the Denver Broncos. About halfway through the first quarter, I fell asleep on the sofa and woke up for the last three minutes, which I watched. It was a great ending to an interesting weekend.

Rockets and raindrops

after the rain

I had the idea of occasionally posting a photo as my post. I was inspired by this post from Kelly, where he wrote: “I am strongly considering making the newsletter a weekly thing, with most issues being a quick photography feature in which I’ll share one photo of mine, likely with a short paragraph or two about it…like, why I shot it, what caught my eye, what I learned from it technically, and so on.”

The problem, of course, is that I’m not a photographer. In any case, I don’t take enough shots to even fake it.

Still, I took this one on Friday, August 21 at 9:18 a.m. on my iPhone 12, or whatever it is. My wife and I were coming back from breakfast. As she drove home, I saw a series of rockets and raindrops on the passenger-side window. In other words, the light from the sun refracted through the raindrops and left a series of rockets? Arrows? Whatever was on the door.

The raindrop you see on the base of the window created the rocket image. Meanwhile, I don’t know WHAT was on the window that created a shadow just behind the raindrop.

Of course, I LOVED seeing the texture of the car’s interior, which I had never really noticed.

I took the shot because the physical phenomenon fascinated me. It had rained the night before and perhaps even early that morning, but not by the time we went out at c. 8 a.m. So these were residual raindrops.

First take

While I didn’t really learn anything, I noted that the first attempt from a minute or so earlier, while capturing the phenomenon, was a bit meh. So I tried again. The greenery made the second shot much more interesting.

What thinkest thou?

BCHS reunion

Mount Prospect

IT’S ALL JAZZ: Saturday, September 26, on what would have been my father’s 100th birthday. After breakfast, Cee and hubby went to a scarecrow event; they brought their own straw and other accouterments.

I spoke to a couple of cousins, my sister Leslie, and others.

PLANNED (I LOVE planned!) My friend Bill picked me up for my BCHS reunion. That’s Binghamton Central High School. It merged with Binghamton North in 1982, but the school is still the building that Rod Serling and I attended (not together), though it has been expanded.

Bill came with his wonderful wife, Brenda, and his nifty sister, Wendy. The event was at Ely Park Golf Course on Mount Prospect, which I believe is the northernmost point of the Appalachian Mountains.

The base of the mountain was very close to my grandmother’s house when I was growing up, but I hadn’t really been up there in decades, not since they took down the steps that ran from Prospect and Oak Streets up a couple of hundred steps. They tore them down when they built the “new” Route 17 in the early 1970s.

The upside was seeing Lois, like Bill, another Dickinson alum, and a bunch of other folks. There were fewer people than five years ago, but for me, the crowd was more manageable. Kudos to Helen, Sharon, Bonnie, and Susie for organizing the event.

The downside was that it was REALLY windy at times, so the staff people putting out the food thought it prudent to turn off the flames under the heating trays. I had a cold hamburger late in the 2 to 6 pm window, which wasn’t terrible. Fortunately, I had my autumn jacket.

Improv

PLANNED: Cee and spouse picked me up, and we went to the UU church, where I first heard the Beatles’ white album in 1968; ah, the LRY (Liberal Religious Youth) that my high school friend was involved with.

We saw the improv group Cherry Bomb, which has nothing to do with the song by The Runaways.

A member of the audience suggested the beloved Binghamton location for the group to riff on: the Rod Serling statue. One performer misheard it as the Ron Serling statue; fortunately, the piano player had attended Binghamton University, so he was required to know who Rod Serling was.

It was entertaining enough. I laughed a lot. But they must have had some bits already in their performance arsenal.

At about 10:30 pm, I received an email: my Flix/Greyhound bus back to Syracuse and then Albany, scheduled for Sunday afternoon at 2 pm, had been canceled. I don’t know why. I got a refund. It’s a good thing I had a backup plan.

Mixed together

Speaking of the reunion and the white album: when I was in high school, I rewrote “Back in the USSR” in my head as “Back at BCHS” (ain’t you a mess).

Those Central girls really knock me out

They leave the North High behind

And Central girls make me sing and shout

That Bulldog’s on my-my-my-my-my-my-my-my mind.

The Bulldogs were Central’s mascot, the blue and white. North’s were the Indians, the blue and red. Now Binghamton High School – red, white, and blue – are the Patriots, of course.

Instantly identify songs

the ear nose – I mean KNOWS

Aretha You can still Ask Roger Anything. From Sue:

Hi Roger,

Here is a question for your ‘Ask Roger Anything’ hopper:

Knowing that you have such an appreciation for music and a JEOPARDY! background, what is a song you can instantly identify from literally the first split-second of notes?

I’ve been playing a music-guessing game recently called Songless Unlimited (where you only get a tenth of a second to start), and it’s fascinating how our brains can retrieve audio cues so quickly, whereas scrolling through endless cellphone text threads just gives us headaches.

Hope you get some well-deserved relief from long text chains, and looking forward to your answers!

This is a difficult question to sort. My gut says there are a lot. Several of them are the Beatles. Two in particular have such iconic starts – Hard Day’s Night and I Feel Fine– but there are likely others, such as Strawberry Fields Forever.

When I was in college, I heard a LOT of Seals and Crofts, so Summer Breeze immediately came to mind. My father owned the Everly Brothers single, so Bird Dog. I’m fairly obsessed with Something In 4/4 Time by Daryl Hall. I have owned the title track to the Daydream album by the Lovin’ Spoonful since I joined the Capitol Record Club as a kid. Seeing Lyle Lovett on the TODAY Show hooked me; one of my favorite songs is That’s Right (You’re Not From Texas).

The hitmakers

But this became too random. So I looked at the list of the Top 60 singles artists from the book Top Pop Singles that came out in 2009. Not 100% I’d recognize these in a fraction of a second, but surely in a note or two. Most, but not all, of these are my favorites, or in the top two or three:

(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You’ve Been Gone -QoS. The first song I thought of.

Suite: Judy Blue Eyes – Crosby, Stills, and Nash

You Keep Me Hangin’ On – The Supremes

Brown Sugar – The Rolling Stones. Not my favorite.

God Only Knows – The Beach Boys.

I Saw Her Again – The Mamas & the Papas

Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone – The Temptations. I love that Dennis Edwards was so upset about the lengthy start. But it generated the right attitude for the opening line.

Goodnight My Angel – Billy Joel (maybe before the birds? Definitely after)

The Tears Of A Clown – Smokey Robinson & The Miracles

I Heard It Through The Grapevine – Gladys Knight & The Pips. My preferred version.

I Heard It Through The Grapevine –Marvin Gaye

I Want You Back – The Jackson 5

As -Stevie Wonder. One of my favorite songs EVER.

What do you think/know you’d recognize very quickly?

Binghamton: This happened instead

FlixBus

When I mused about Binghamton, NY, and the weekend of September 25-27, I had a plan, though only part of it took place. This happened instead.

(This, by necessity, is in parts because the damn thing went 1800 words.)

PLANNED: Friday, September 25: I was writing a Sunday Stealing post, but I ran out of time. But I’m taking the laptop; I’ll finish it later. Right?

PLANNED: I was going to get a ride from a friend, but she’s taking care of a dear friend of hers, whom I know.

NEW PLAN: Once upon a time, I could take a bus from Albany to Binghamton, but that’s what popped up. So I took a Greyhound bus to Syracuse, but it’s not the familiar vehicle. It’s a FlixBus. What? “Flix SE acquired Greyhound Lines Inc. in 2021. Having already been present in the North American market with its FlixBus services since 2018, the purchase of Greyhound brought together two leaders of the bus industry, combining FlixBus’s innovative global technology and expertise with Greyhound’s iconic legacy and nationwide network.”

But this bus is much less comfortable, with less legroom and narrower seats than the old-line Greyhound buses I’ve ridden. Oh, it has numbered and assigned seats. They printed the seat numbers and placed them near the stingy overhead space. Humorously, they printed 13A/13B and 13D/13C; someone at the bus company changed the 13s to 14s because, obviously, Flix is superstitious. My seat 14A was right behind 12A, very near the bathroom.

I get to Syracuse, buy a Subway sub, but don’t eat it because I have to get on the bus to Binghamton, and the space is not conducive to eating. There have been a number of people on both buses who I assume were Amish; some of the men were wearing those Weird Al hats.

Parlor City

When I got to town, I gathered the cane, the sandwich, and a couple of other things. I’m trying to get off the bus, but one of the Amish guys who got on in Syracuse is trying to get back on because he just wanted to stretch his legs, or whatever. So he moves to my right, and I pass him on my left as I go to the station.

NOT IN THE PLAN: My friend in Binghamton, Cee, meets me and asks where my suitcase is. Oh crap. It’s still on the bus! And the bus has already left for New York City with my clothes, laptop, knee brace, electric toothbrush, etc.

(Note: I’m blaming the Amish guy; I’m blaming bus fatigue. But it’s possible that if I had turned RIGHT off the bus, I would have seen the opened luggage compartment.)

After a not-too-brief period of self-loathing, I go to the Flix/Greyhound window. The guy was sympathetic, but said I should call the company, and they would tell me to contact them online, which is what happened. I did, reported the incident, but I had no confidence that anything would happen.

I pulled out my phone, checked my contacts, and found someone with a 212 area code. I’ve met Andrea – we saw Rebecca Jade on Long Island together in 2021. Could she go to the corner of 31st Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan at 7:20 p.m. and get my suitcase? (It’s not at a station.) She said yes, but extorted me for a bottle of wine.

Did I mention that I hate shopping?

NOT IN THE PLAN: Now what? Cee took me to Boscov’s, a department store, where I bought $150 of clothes. During this, my sister Leslie had spoken to her friend and Binghamton cousins, one of whom called while trying to find apparel in a store I’ve almost never shopped in, under stressful circumstances. So when my cousin says, “How’s the family?” I replied, “I’m sorry, but I have no bandwidth for that, ” which she seemed to understand.

GOTTA EAT: Cee, her husband, and I went out to a casual Thai restaurant. Pretty decent.

I stayed at their house. While I went to sleep, I woke up at least four times. Someone turn this man’s brain off, please.