Roger O Green

The JEOPARDY Alumni T-shirt

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Amy Roeder

Jeeopardy T-shirt A few years ago, I bought a Jeopardy Alumni T-shirt online. Initially, the shirts didn’t reflect the 1998-1999 season, in which I appeared. Presumably, the demand generated some of the earlier shirts.

The peculiar thing about this item is that I’ve never worn it. One doesn’t want to wear these customized things out too quickly. This year, I’m considering wearing it on November 9th, the date of my first Jeopardy appearance.

On the backside of the shirt is a list of all the people who were on season 15, listed alphabetically by first name, which I think is a hoot.

Jeopardy T-shirt

As you can see, there were 11 Celebrity Jeopardy games, including a Legends in Sports match on November 6 featuring Reggie Jackson vs. Martina Navratilova vs. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I remember Kareem winning because it was the episode before my first match aired. Also, Kareem played a character named Roger in the Airplane movie.

Connected

So, it’s oddly fun to be listed on a T-shirt with Kareem, Bob Costas, Robin Roberts, Keith Olbermann, Al Franken, Garry Marshall, Jane Seymour, Graham Nash, and Maine state representative Amy Roeder, among other notables, plus about 400 other folks I have one thing in common with.

There were also 10 five-day champions, including Juliet Wiley, a Tournament of Champions finalist; the ToC winner was Dave Abbott, who played the previous season. A part of me wishes they would go back to limiting champs to five games, excluding the ToC. But that’s not going to happen. The fanbase and the JEOPARDY staff want to have players win 10, 20, 38, or 74 games.

The clues’ values doubled in November 2001, from Friday, the 23rd, to Monday, the 26th. Occasionally, I mused how I would have fared. But I recall that early players in that period had difficulty recalibrating their wagers, so it’s just as well.

Calendar post: November 2025, et al.

Underground Railroad Education Center

I love my little calendar post. I’ll probably do one of these monthly, if only so I can keep it straight in my own mind. My choir has been rehearsing quite a bit for the December 14 concert. I suppose I should read the tome before my book review.

ITEM: Marathon public reading of Legs by William Kennedy. Noon to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 5. Albany Distilling Co. Bar, 75 Livingston Avenue, Albany, NY 12207 518-949-2472

Want to join the reading? Readers are asked to sign up and select a time slot by Friday, Oct. 31. Just want to listen? No registration is needed to attend. The event is free and open to the public. Drop in anytime from noon to 8 p.m.

Support a good cause: Donations will be collected at the door to benefit the food pantry and free meal outreach at Sacred Heart Church in Albany, Kennedy’s childhood parish.

The event is the third in a series of public readings of Kennedy’s novels. We read Ironweed in 2023 and Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game in 2024. (I participated in both, and will again this year.)

ITEM: Roselee Blooston, who will be speaking at APL in December, provided this info about her new book, Including the Periphery:

Main Street Magazine’s author profile, which you can read HERE. She was also included in Chronogram’s “5 Hudson Valley Books to Read in September.” She will be at:

A November 4^th Reading and Signing at the Etling Memorial Library in New Paltz, [my old college town], hosted by Inquiring Minds Bookstore, at 6:30 p.m..
A December 9^th Author Talk, Albany Public Library, Washington Branch, at 2 p.m.

The Ballad of the Brown King

ITEM: There will be a concert on Sunday, December 14, at 3 pm at First Presbyterian Church, 362 State Street (corner of Willett) in Albany. The FPC choir will perform in partnership with the Festival Celebration Choir. It will feature a chamber string orchestra (plus harp). Half of the concert will feature carol settings by Alice Parker, including her Seven Carols for Christmas. The second half will feature the cantata The Ballad of the Brown King by Margaret Bonds, one of the most significant black woman composers of the 20^th century, with lyrics by Langston Hughes.

ITEM: Connections That Feed Hope – FOCUS Churches Breakfast Club. Donate if you can.

ITEM: Stand with the Underground Railroad Education Center as a sponsor or attendee of the upcoming Arias in the Afternoon: Lifting Every Voice on December 14, 2025, from 1 to 3 pm, at the New York State Museum. Arias in the Afternoon brings Handel’s Messiah together with the Smithsonian’s Voices and Votes exhibit for a powerful experience combining music, history, and inspiration.

ITEM: The current Art at APL exhibit — “Sight Specific” — is on view at the Pine Hills Branch until Nov. 8.

The exhibit is curated by Opalka Gallery and funded by the Friends & Foundation of APL, with additional support in 2025 from the Arts Thrive and Grow grant through The Arts Center of the Capital Region.

Stay tuned for information about the next Art at APL exhibit — “Countenance: The Contemporary Portrait” — which will debut on Dec. 5.

Another book review (moi)

ITEM: Events at the Albany Public Library, 161 Washington Avenue, on Tuesdays at 2 pm in the large auditorium.

October 28 | Special Program: Andrea Nicolay, Executive Director of APL, will discuss APL and Current Events.

November 4 | Author Talk | Peter Balint, retired international businessman and former US Army officer, discusses and reads from his memoir, The Shoe in the Danube: The Immigrant Experience of a Holocaust Survivor.

November 11 | Author Talk: Ryane McAuliffe Straus, formerly professor of political science at St. Rose College and now an Empire State Fellow, discusses and reads from her book Divided by Choice: How Charter Schools Diminish Democracy.

November 18 |Book Review | On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. Reviewer: Mark Lowery, retired from NYS Department of Environmental Conservation.

November 25| Book Review | Everything is Tuberculosis:  The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green.  Reviewer:  Roger Green, business librarian retired from the NY Small Business Development Center.  (Not related to John.)

ITEM: Remember to make a plan to vote and take advantage of Early Voting if you can!

In New York State:
Saturday, October 25 – Sunday, November 2, 2025
Saturday & Sunday: 9:00AM – 5:00PM
Monday & Wednesday: Noon – 8:00PM
Tuesday, Thursday & Friday: 9:00AM – 5:00PM

Early Voting Locations for 2025 in Albany County

You may vote at ANY of the following sites during Early Voting only:

Bethlehem Lutheran Church (Parish Hall)
85 Elm Ave., Delmar, NY 12054

Albany County Board of Elections

St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church

Boght Community Fire District

Pine Grove United Methodist Church

East Berne Volunteer Fire Company

Guilderland Public Library

Scams

ITEM: REPOST PSA

The Albany Police Department’s Center and South stations have received numerous calls regarding scams. Please remember:

The scammers may:
Claim you owe money.
May identify themselves as an officer of APD demanding arrest if you do not pay the amount owed.
Demand payments through gift cards.

Just a reminder:
APD will not call you and demand payment over the phone.
APD will not ask for personal financial information over the phone.
Do not provide any personal information over the phone

If you receive a suspicious call, hang up and report it to the police.

Lydster: ’70s soul

There’s Love In Them There Hills

Obviously, I have failed my daughter. My wife, daughter, and I were visiting my mother-in-law’s communal residence. Curiously, in the background was, of all things, the Ohio Players’ Fire, a song I love. My daughter did not know this track.

On the ride home, she clarified that she isn’t familiar with many ’70s soul songs. She does know the Beatles, Motown, and other stuff from the ’60s, as well as Gladys Knight and the Pips on Arista Records. Reciprocally, she has taught me about 1990s/early 2000s soul, such as Aaliyah and Blaque.

I have all of the songs mentioned in some physical form

Some songs:

Fire – Ohio Players. I made a post in 2016 of other songs titled Fire.

Lady Marmalade – LaBelle. This is the song that she had a vague understanding of because it had a line in French; did she learn it in high school class? The song was added to the National Recording Registry in 2021.

Tell Me Something Good – Rufus. My niece Rebecca sang this song in concert during a Chaka Khan medley that my daughter heard. The daughter may not know that Stevie Wonder penned it. Chaka Khan and I have the same birth month.

Strawberry Letter #23—the Brothers Johnson. Shuggie Otis wrote and performed the song; I have it on CD. Shuggie was the son of 1950s music legend Johnny Otis. This cover, produced by Quincy Jones, is iconic. I wrote about this song in 2015. Here’s the single, which is good, but the album cut is better..

Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) -Sly and the Family Stone. I love Sly, and there are a bunch of other songs she should know about.

STAX

Mr. Big Stuff – Jean Knight. A Stax Records hit

Respect Yourself – the Staple Singers, arguably my favorite Stax song from the 1970s, though their I’ll Take You There is a worthy choice as well.

Thin Line Between Love and Hate -The Persuaders. The Pretenders covered this.

Why Can’t We Live Together – Timmy Thomas. I have this on an LP. One of the longest intros on a single I’ve ever heard at over 90 seconds before the vocal.

Getaway – Earth, Wind, and Fire. There’s a lot of EWF she should know.

There’s Love In Them There Hills – the Pointer Sisters. Play in the dark, as loud as you can; it’ll be clear why after the first 2:30.

Sunday Stealing: Four 5’s

five cents

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

We found this one at CreativeGene, who stole it from someone named “Randy” because “it looks like fun.” Let’s see if you agree.

Four 5’s

FIVE things on my to-do list:

1. Write the book

2. Clean out the drawer

3. Book speakers for the FFAPL book reviews/author talk in January/February 2026 (interested?)

4. Submit reimbursement forms for my health care expenses

5. Re-sort my played compact discs

FIVE snacks I enjoy:

1. Oatmeal raisin cookies

2. Canned fruit cocktail

3. Golden Oreos

4. Apple sauce

5. Ritz crackers

FIVE places I have lived:

1. Kingston, NY – 2 months in 1972, a roach-infested place

2. Charlotte, NC – roughly 4 months in 1977, living with my parents

3. Jackson Heights, Queens, NY – roughly 4 months in 1977, living with one of my sisters

4. Schenectady, NY – approximately 20 months in 1978-1979

5. Binghamton, NY, my hometown

Workin’ For A Living

FIVE jobs I have held:

1. A box factory, for two weeks. Hated it, as described here

2. Janitor at some department store in New Paltz for a few weeks, and at Binghamton City Hall for about four months in the 1970s

3. Empire Blue Cross, customer service rep, eventually hated it, which I described here

4. Albany Savings Bank, teller, 02/1978—Two days after my training was over, and I was on the window by myself, spending an hour trying to find a five-cent overage, I quit with two days’ notice. They weren’t happy, but they were only paying me $6000 a year, less than what I had in my drawer every day. I left to work as a bookkeeper at the Schenectady Arts Council, which I liked a lot more and made $8200/year.

5. FantaCo, from May 1980 to November 1988

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

Lindenwald: Martin Van Buren site

National Park Service

For at least two decades, my wife and I have said we should visit Lindenwald in Kinderhook, NY, less than 30 miles (48 km) from Albany. Moreover, we have been in the vicinity of the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site, which the National Park Service runs. Finally, on September 5, we made a visit.

I felt as though I knew quite a bit about Van Buren. A few years back, there was a story about a 12-year-old girl who discovered that all of the U.S. presidents, from Washington through Obama, were related to each other, except one. The one was Van Buren, while the others were connected to John Lackland Plantagenet, King of England (ruled 1199-1216).

Van Buren’s lineage was Dutch, and that was his first language. He was considered the first President born a United States citizen, as his birth on December 5, 1782, occurred after the British surrender in Yorktown in 1781. However, it was before the Treaty of Paris officially ended the war in 1783.

After serving as Andrew Jackson’s second Vice President—John C. Calhoun was Jackson’s first one — Van Buren was elected the eighth President of the United States (1837-1841).

I vaguely recall the Panic of 1837, an economic crisis that started with Jackson’s unstable economic policies earlier in the decade.

His failed 1840 reelection campaign helped popularize the term OK. In fact, the $800 clue in the JEOPARDY category on 10/23/2025 under Presidential Facts read: This New Yorker’s bid for reelection was hampered by an 1837 financial panic & a depression that followed.

Really?

There was a lot I did not know about Van Buren. According to the White House Historical Society, “His father, Abraham, owned a successful inn and small farm, along with six enslaved individuals.” Also, “Martin Van Buren owned at least one enslaved person during his lifetime—not wholly uncommon for a man who was born and raised in a state that permitted slavery until 1827.”

^{The most intriguing story I heard about Martin Van Buren, when he was running for reelection in 1840, was that he ran without a vice presidential candidate. There was opposition to Vice President Richard M. Johnson‘s personal life, specifically his relationships with several Black or mixed-race women, including his common-law wife Julia Chinn.}

Martin Van Buren purchased the Lindenwald mansion in 1839 while he was President. It became his home and farm from 1841, when he left the White House, until he died in 1862. He launched unsuccessful campaigns from there in 1844 and 1848, the latter as the candidate of the Free Soil party, which focused on opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States.

There was no admission. The bigger-named attractions supplement the lesser-known locations. If you can’t make it to Kinderhook, you can take a virtual tour. In fact, it was a treat for me because the physical tour didn’t include the second-floor bedrooms.