Roger O Green

Lydster: finally at college

Uh huh

My daughter is finally at college. As I noted, her experience this autumn was delayed by COVID, first hers, then mine, then my wife’s. The initial protocol for her to start college was for her to wait five days from her onset. But with her parents contracting the disease at her domicile, this meant waiting an additional five days.

So instead of arriving on August 25 for a week of orientation before classes began on August 31, we were instructed to arrive on September 5, Labor Day, three days after classes had started.

Yet we were promised a call back from the college closer to our departure date. It never happened. On the morning of the fifth, we headed toward campus. While my wife drove, I called every office on the college phone menu. One choice failed to transfer properly. The only one I reached was campus security, which was not helpful to the task at hand.

We arrived at her dormitory. My daughter and I found a couple of people in an office, and I told them our tale of woe. One of them listened attentively, then told us that it was their first day on the job. But they called someone who had access to my daughter’s room key. The three employees, my daughter, and I unloaded the car.

I neglected to mention that, as of Labor Day morning, my wife was STILL testing positive for COVID, even though my daughter and I had tested negative; first, my daughter, then me on September 2.

After unloading, we went out to eat. Then we returned, and the three of us made my daughter’s bed and moved around a couple of pieces of furniture in her tiny room.

At that point, the vibe was clear. “Thank you, parents. You can now leave.” And so we did.

Aftermath

The following weekend at church, no fewer than a dozen people, upon hearing that our daughter was finally at college, asked, “How is she doing?” My answer was always some variation of “How do I know.”

I messaged her that first week and told her that we were there to help her if she needed us but that we didn’t want to bug her. She wrote back: “Uh huh,” which I took to mean, “Noted.”

She did call me on the Thursday of the first week at 10 p.m. I knew she was calling me because my wife’s almost always in bed by that hour. She wanted a clarification of a book footnote, which I provided. This let me know she was actually reading an assignment, which was some comfort.

Then the following week, she called her mother. They spoke for nearly an hour. So it’s all good.

My dad did what? Said what?

labor relations and safety coordination

I’ve mentioned that I’ve been pouring over my 1972 diaries. Mostly, I’ve noted my foibles. But now and then, I say, “My dad did what?”

Tuesday, August 1: Premiere of Compendium on CV7 (I assume public access cable) at 10 pm. “Barbara and Dad were hosts.” Surely, Barbara was the very active Barbara Oldwine, who died in 2014. the topic was The Black Family. I have ZERO recollection of this.

Friday, August 4: In the presence of his friends John and April, who had come over for dinner, he announced he would run for mayor of Binghamton in 1973. Three young black men from Highland Falls, Orange County, came over. Nope, don’t remember that either. And since he had JUST moved to Johnson City, I don’t know HOW he could run. Ultimately, he did not.

Checking Newspapers.com

One of my sisters suggested I look up Newspapers.com to see if he ever made any overtures toward the political office. I searched for him on Newspapers.com for 1972 and 1973. He was elected to a couple of boards involving the Broome County’s Red Cross and a group involved with housing for children.

He became the labor relations and compliance officer and safety coordinator for Edward L. Nezelek, Inc. around 9 Jan 1973.

Several articles about difficulties between the State Division of Human Rights and its Binghamton-Broome advisory committee, chaired by Les Green, were reported. By 17 March 1973, things were getting better. Dad was one of those “trusted voices” asked to comment on whatever racial tension occurring in Binghamton.

The house fire in August 1973 at 29 Ackley Avenue in Johnson City was reported. My sister Marcia’s name is misspelled as Marsha. The fire marshall said a “cigarette from an ashtray emptied into a trash basket next to the stove may have caused the fire.” There was damage to the kitchen, bathroom, attic, and roof.

No mention of political ambition. But what’s this? Here’s a classified ad for 28 July through 1 August 1973: “GOOD SLIGHTLY USED folk guitar, price negotiable.” He was going to sell his beloved 1958 Gibson guitar? THIS shocked me. As it turned out, he didn’t sell it but took it to Charlotte, NC, when he, mom, and Marcia moved, and it stayed with him until his death. My sister Leslie now owns it.

The picture

This is a picture of my father, approximately at age five, in Binghamton, NY, circa 1932. I had never seen the photo until February 2022. It is the earliest pic I have seen of him by about a decade. But I don’t know where it is except for the word Calvary. A church? A daycare?

There is a Calvary Baptist on Chenango St, which had a kids program. But what’s with the outfits? Christian service brigade and/or pioneer club? Binghamton history folks: do you have any thoughts? He was probably living at 339 Court St at the time; he was there two years earlier. Or he could have been at 10 Tudor St, off of Susquehanna St.

BTW, tomorrow, my father would have been 96.

Christopher Reeve would have been 70

Paralysis Research

Lots of people have mused why Christopher Reeve, born September 25, 1952, was the perfect Superman. Part of it is that perfect early scene:
Supes: Easy miss, I’ve got you
Lois Lane states: You–you’ve got me? Who’s got you?
And it’s that little chuckle that I loved.

But also, he was my favorite Clark Kent. If you don’t accept Clark as distinct, it’s difficult to buy the secret identity of the superhero. I saw the first two films, and even though the second film is a lesser effort, it was not the failure of the actor in the lead. Here was his workout regimen.

I didn’t see him in much else. Remains of the Day (1993) and Noises Off (1992) I liked. Also Somewhere in Time (1980), during which Jane Seymour says she and Christopher Reeve were “falling in love.”

Then, “on May 27, 1995, the actor injured his spinal cord after falling off his horse in an equestrian competition… The blow left him paralyzed from the neck down and forever in a wheelchair. Reeve was only 42 years old. The doctors took away any hope of improvement, assuring him that it was ‘impossible’ to recover movement…

“As The New York Times revealed, if the actor had fallen one centimeter further to the left, he would have died on the spot. If he had done so to the right, he would most likely walk out with less than a concussion.

“Reeve reappeared in public at the 1996 Oscar Awards, a surprise remembered as one of the most exciting moments in the history of the awards.” I’m very sure I got a lot verklempt at that moment. Christopher quipped, “What you may not know is that I left New York in September and just arrived in Los Angeles this morning [March 25, 1996].”

The Foundation

The above paragraphs were from a piece on the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, a nonprofit founded in 1999.

Even before then, both Christopher and Dana were involved with activism. “In the years following his injury, Christopher did more to promote research on spinal cord injury and other neurological disorders than any other person before or since.”

As the AmeriDisability page notes: “Originally created in 1982 in response to the injury of Henry Stifel, the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation – first conceived as the Stifel Paralysis Research Foundation, a community-driven nonprofit dedicated to curing spinal cord injury (SCI) – marks its 40th anniversary (2022). Over the last four decades, the Reeve Foundation has evolved to become the premier national, paralysis-focused nonprofit organization working to address a dual care-cure mission – providing free, comprehensive resources to help those impacted by SCI and paralysis as it advances the most promising scientific advances toward cures.”

Check out the Give.org page.

The most recent Charity Navigator listing for the Foundation gives it a “score is 87.31, earning it a 3-Star rating. Donors can ‘Give with Confidence’ to this charity.” Note that “this score represents Form 990 data from 2019, the latest year published by the IRS,” because the agency “is significantly delayed in processing nonprofits’ annual tax filings.”

Passing

In 1998, Reeve produced and starred in Rear Window. It is, of course, a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s great 1954 film. “He was nominated for a Golden Globe and won a Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance.” Of course, it doesn’t compare with the original. But one scene actually terrified me. When the villain disconnected the Reeve character’s breathing tube, it was impossible for me to separate the role from the guy playing it.

On October 9, 2004, Reeve went into cardiac arrest after receiving an antibiotic for an infection. He fell into a coma and was taken to a hospital in Mount Kisco, New York. He died on October 10 at the age of 52, quite possibly as the result of an adverse reaction to a drug, something he had experienced in the past.

Dana Reeve married Christopher in 1992. Less than a year after his death, Dana announced that she had been diagnosed with lung cancer. “She had never smoked but in her early career often sang in smoky bars and hotel lobbies.” She died on March 6, 2006, at the age of 44, at NYC’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

But their work lives on.

Brian-Lamont-Eddie, 1965-1966

more Holland-Dozier-Holland

When Holland–Dozier–Holland was a songwriting and production team for Motown in the 1960s, Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland were the composers and producers for each song, and Eddie Holland wrote the lyrics and arranged the vocals.

Here are more songs by Brian-Lamont-Eddie that I own, excluding most of the big hits of the Supremes, who will be covered separately. H-D-H wrote 10 of the Supremes’ 12 US No. 1 singles.

Nowhere To Run – Martha and the Vandellas, #8 pop, #5 RB in 1965
Whisper You Love Me Boy – The Supremes, B-side of Back In My Arms Again, 1965
I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) – The Four Tops, #1 pop, and RB in 1965
It’s The Same Old Song – The Supremes, album cut in 1967 (Orig. The Four Tops, #5, pop, #2 RB in 1965)
Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While) – The Doobie Brothers, #11 pop in 1975 (Orig. Kim Weston, #50 pop, #4 RB in 1965
Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things) – Martha and the Vandellas, #70 pop, #22 RB in 1965

1966

Put Yourself In My Place – The Supremes, album cut in 1966 (Orig. The Elgins – #92 pop in 1966)
Shake Me, Wake Me (When It’s Over) – The Four Tops, #18 pop, #5 RB
This Old Heart Of Mine (Is Weak for You) – The Supremes, album cut in 1966 ( Orig. The Isley Brothers, #12 pop, #6 RB in 1966. Written by H-D-H and Sylvia Moy
(I’m a) Road Runner – Jr. Walker and the All-Stars, #20 pop, #4 RB in 1966
Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart – The Supremes, #9 pop, #7 RB in 1966

I Guess I’ll Always Love You – The Supremes, album cut in 1967 (Orig. The Isley Brothers, #61 pop, #31 RB in 1966)
You Can’t Hurry Love – Phil Collins, #10 pop in 1982 (Orig. The Supremes, #1 pop and RB in 1966)
Little Darling (I Need You) – The Doobie Brothers, #48 in 1977 (Orig. Marvin Gaye, #47 pop, #10 RB in 1966
Reach Out I’ll Be There – The Four Tops, #1 pop, and RB in 1966
Love’s Gone Bad – Chris Clark, #41 pop in 1966. Looking for the video, I found a version by Michael Jackson, released in 1984 but clearly recorded earlier

I’m Ready For Love – Martha and the Vandellas, #9 pop, #2 RB
You Keep Me Hangin’ On – Vanilla Fudge, #67 pop in 1967, #6 pop in 1968; album version; (Orig. The Supremes, #1 pop and RB in 1966)
(Come ‘Round Here) I’m The One You Need– The Jackson Five, album cut in 1970 (Orig. The Miracles, #17 pop, #4 RB in 1966
Standing In The Shadow Of Love – The Four Tops, #6 pop, #2 RB in 1966

Ideal length of Ask Roger Anything

Anything, I tell you!

I recently found here and here the purported ideal length of everything online.

They suggest 20 to 25 words per sentence and two to four sentences per paragraph (or 40 to 100 words). Online, I find 100 words way too long visually.

The ideal domain name is eight characters. Mine is 11, and I’m not changing it.
The ideal headline is six words (any length each). If my SEO indicator says my title is too long or too short, I change it. Or I don’t. The headline of this piece is intentionally six words.

But the suggestion I’m going to ignore most vigorously is that the ideal blog post is 1,600 words (or roughly 7 minutes of reading time). I don’t remember the last time wrote nearly that long. Even the pieces I write to figure out things for myself don’t go nearly that long:

Salman Rushdie attacked at Chautauqua – 786 words
Searching the Mar-a-Lago compound – 1063 words
My linkage posts are 600 to 700 words

I’m not interested enough in many topics to write 1600 words. I do make a point of writing at least 300.

This is where YOU come in

On the other hand, I’m REALLY interested in whatever you are interested in asking me. And I have no rules about how long your questions ought to be. There are no off-limits topics. This does not mean that I won’t obfuscate my responses, generally to protect the privacy of another.

Do you know why I request that you Ask Roger Anything? Is it because I’m basically a lazy blogger that wants you to help me create content? No. Well, maybe, a little. But it’s mostly because you might ask something I hadn’t thought of. I say, “Hey, that could be interesting!” Or probably I’ll mutter, “How the heck am I going to answer THAT? And I only have myself to blame!”

I will answer all of your questions, usually within a month. Leave your questions and whatnot in the comments section of the blog. OR you can also contact me on Facebook or Twitter. On Twitter, my name is ersie. Always look for the duck.

If you want to be anonymous, tell me, and I will accommodate that. But you have to e-mail me at rogerogreen (AT) Gmail (DOT) com, or send me an IM on FB and say that.

This post is 384 words long.