Roger O Green

Sunday Stealing: Memememe — Part 2

the 1913 Binghamton factory fire

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!

Impetua is the blogger who delivered us this mother lode of meme questions. They were originally stolen from someone named Mel, whose blog no longer exists. We took 50+ queries and made it 20 questions over two weeks. (Boy, are they ever random!)

Memememe — Part 2

11. You can build a dream house anywhere in the world. Where would it be located?

Given the vagaries of climate change, I’d say right where I am right now in Albany, NY. It’s not perfect, but it works for what I need to happen.

Photo booth

12. Have you ever taken a photo in a photo booth?

Yes. Quoting me:

“These pictures were undoubtedly taken at a Woolworth’s, not terribly far from Binghamton Central High School, which is now and has been Binghamton High School since 1982. This is Michele, Steve, and I doing what one does in a tiny room, the camera flashing every ten seconds or so. I probably never saw these since they popped out of the side of the booth over 45 years ago.

“In the era of the selfie, if you have never had a photo booth picture taken at a Woolworth’s or similar venue, I should explain this process. There’s a booth with a curtain, and you would get three or four photos for 25 or 50 cents. For years, they were always in black and white, though the latter years had color. It didn’t take long to process, although the three minutes waiting seemed like an eternity.

“And the pictures were unique. “There are no copies, no negatives. Photo booths use a direct positive process, imprinting the image directly to the paper — creating a one-of-a-kind artifact.”

Steve sent these to me about a decade ago. Undoubtedly, I took many other photo booth shots, including at a Friends and Foundation of the Albany Public Library gala only a few years ago, but I don’t know where the pics are.

13. What’s your favorite kind of mustard (dijon, spicy brown, bright yellow)?

In order: Dijon and spicy brown.

14. What did you do on New Year’s Eve?

To the best of my recollection, I stayed up until midnight, hugged whoever was up—probably my daughter, unlikely my wife—and then went to bed.

School daze

15. Did your parents ever share memories of their high school days?

I don’t remember specifically—certainly not my father, who, I gather, hated school at the time. My mom went to the same high school and, for that matter, elementary school that my sister Leslie and I attended. I’ve seen pictures of her in elementary school; one is here.

16. What’s the most famous thing to happen in your hometown?

Most folks will probably note that Rod Serling, the creator of the famous TV show The Twilight Zone, grew up in Binghamton, NY. There’s a new statue of him in Recreation Park in the city.

But, and I guess more infamous, was the 1913 Binghamton factory fire, which occurred on July 22, “on the premises of the Binghamton Clothing Company… It destroyed the Wall Street building in less than 20 minutes, killing 31 of the more than 100 people inside. Though not as deadly as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, it put even more pressure on New York officials to strengthen life safety codes, increase funding for more inspectors, and increase penalties for violations.“

From Atlas Obscura: “The monument is at the top of the hill on the south side of Spring Forest Cemetery. Enter through the Mygatt St. entrance and bear left through the valley and up the hill. The stones stand in a clearing and are easily visible from the path.”

It’s weird, then, that despite spending my first 18 years in Binghaton and having visited that cemetery several times, even this decade, I did not hear this story until 2025. Here’s a link to the documentary The Devil’s Fire by WSKG Public Television and filmmaker Brian Frey. The book Return to the Embers of Tragedy by David A. Bogart was published in August 2025.

The short answers

17. Did you ever have a MySpace page?

Probably, but I surely didn’t know what to DO with it.

18. Will you eat a cookie today?

If it’s oatmeal raisin, yes.

19. Who is the last person you spoke to – not texted with – on the phone?

My wife. She was coming home late, which is not unusual.

20. Do you play poker?

As a kid, I played penny ante, but not really. Still, I taught my daughter how to play while going on college excursions, as described here.

1985 #1 Top Rock Tracks

the Pauls Carrack and Rodgers

These are the 1985 #1 Top Rock Tracks. What am I talking about? Earlier this year, I bought the book Joel Whitburn Presents Rock Tracks. It is “compiled from Billboard’s alternative Rock and Mainstream Rock charts.” The mainstream rock chart was first published in 1981.

Further, “there’s a weekly Top 60 airplay chart compiled from rock radio as indicated by the Nation’s leading album-oriented and top track stations. What is a track? Billboard’s Mike Harrison said, “Quite simply, a track is any individual song played on the raw merits of its popularity, regardless of its mechanical configuration, meaning, regardless of whether it is a 45 RPM single, LP cut, or whatever.”

Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground) – Mike + The Mechanics, five weeks at #1, #6 pop. It also appeared on the soundtrack of the film On Dangerous Ground. The track features former Ace and Squeeze singer Paul Carrack on lead vocals.

Lonely Ol’ Night – John Cougar Mellencamp, five weeks at #1, #6 pop

The Old Man Down The Road – John Fogerty, three weeks at #1, #10 pop

Don’t You (Forget About Me) – Simple Minds, three weeks at #1, #1 pop

Trapped – Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, three weeks at #1. #2 for four weeks pop. This was on the We Are the World album by USA for Africa.

If You Love Somebody Set Them Free – Sting, three weeks at #1, #3 for two weeks pop. Linguistically ahead of the curve.

Money For Nothing – Dire Straits, three weeks at #1, #1 for three weeks pop

You Belong To The City – Glenn Frey, three weeks at #1, #2 for two weeks, from the Miami Vice soundtrack.

Tonight She Comes – The Cars, three weeks at #1, #7 pop, from the Cars’ Greatest Hits.

Also

Somebody – Bryan Adams, two weeks at #1, #11 pop

Just Another Night – Mick Jagger, two weeks at #1, #12 pop

All She Wants To Do Is Dance – Don Henley, two weeks at #1, #9 pop

Forever Man – Eric Clapton, two weeks at #1, #26 pop

Little By Little – Robert Plant – two weeks at #1, #36 pop

Tough All Over – John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band – two weeks at #1, #22 pop

The Power Of Love – Huey Lewis and The News, two weeks at #1, #1 for two weeks pop

Fortress Around Your Heart – Sting, two weeks at #1, #8 pop

Sleeping Bag – ZZ Top, two weeks at #1, #8 pop

Talk To Me – Stevie Nicks, two weeks at #1, #4 pop

The rest for a single week at #1

I Want To Know What Love Is – Foreigner, #1 for two weeks pop

Radioactive – The Firm, #28 pop. The Firm was a British rock supergroup formed in 1984, featuring singer Paul Rodgers (Free and Bad Company), guitarist Jimmy Page (The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin), drummer Chris Slade (Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, Uriah Heep, and later AC/DC), and bass player Tony Franklin.

We Built This City – Starship, #1 for two weeks pop

Lydster: Driver’s license

Let’s go to the whatever!

The daughter wanted a driver’s license in the summer of 2024. She studied the driver’s manual thoroughly and got her driver’s permit. Then she took the mandated five-hour course on August 18th (the date becomes relevant), but there just wasn’t enough time for her to get enough reps to drive, much to her disappointment.

She was away at college in the fall of 2024. During winter break, she drove a bit. But she was in South Africa in the spring of 2025. So she spent a goodly part of the summer of 2025 wheedling her mother to give her opportunities to drive. “Oh, let’s buy the groceries. Let’s go to the farmers’ market. Why don’t we visit Grandma? Let’s go to the whatever. The daughter would drive, and my wife would be in the passenger seat. I generally was home because I hate being in the back seat; it kills my knees.

My wife is a quite good driver but we didn’t know how her teaching the daughter to drive would go. Pretty darn well, it seems.

The test

We all agreed that she should get a professional driver to give her one lesson in case my wife missed sharing something. My daughter tried to schedule it in late July, but the guy postponed it to August 3rd, the day before she would take her driver’s test. This made her anxious. The driving instructor was a little prickly, which put her in a bit of a funk.

She got over it. The next day, she took the driving test in downtown Albany and passed it with flying colors! She really wanted to get the license before August 18 so that she didn’t have to retake the five-hour course.

She doesn’t have a car, though. Well, technically, she does. My wife’s previous car was lent to her niece, Alexa, in New York City. But with expenses for the trip to South Africa and the increase in the money we have to spend for college this coming year, there’s no money to put another car on the road. But, you know, when she graduates next spring and makes oodles of money, she may have a car, albeit used.

For the remainder of August, before she returned to college, she had the “privilege” of moving the car because we have alternate-side street parking. She bought some groceries and did some other chores for the family.

I’m very proud of them. My wife is an excellent driver, and my wife is obviously a good teacher.

Dad and the neighbor’s tree

Wizard of Oz

Here’s the story about Dad and the neighbor’s tree. The photo above was taken in August of 1969. My baby sister says she remembers the picture but not the incident, whereas my recollections are the opposite.

Let me tell you about that tree. I saw it from my bedroom at 5 Gaines Street, Binghamton, NY, looking towards the tree and the house at 1 Gaines. The photo was likely shot from our driveway.

The tree weirded me out. It reminded me of one of those mean trees in the Wizard of Oz movie: gnarled and sinister. Sometimes when I woke up from a dream, I would see an ominous face on the tree.

Sidebar (1965)

Here’s something only tangentially related. In 1965, when I was a 7th grader at Daniel S Dickinson Junior High School, there were some new kids in our class. One of them was Dawn, with flaming red hair. Based on a note her friend Bernadette passed me, Dawn seemed romantically interested in me. I was 12—she might have been a year or two older—and I had no idea what to do with this information, so I did nothing.

Back to the main story (1969)

The caption says the tree “accidentally crashed into the house… and the elm was being felled by the building’s owner when it tipped in the wrong direction into the building.”

My father is watching this young man, probably in his early twenties, work on this tree, ensuring it won’t strike our house. Dad told the guy that the tree would hit his dwelling. The fellow told Dad to mind his business as though this “old man,” who would have been in his early forties, was a foolish meddler. My father told me about this exchange before the tree was felled.

It “accidentally” hit 1 Gaines, which is technically accurate, but it was an avoidable incident. I don’t know the tenant in the photo; I suspect he lived upstairs, and the tree branches breached his dwelling area.

(Do you know how to “fell a tree” safely? If not, click here. This is from OSHA, which sister Leslie sent me.)

I think the owner lived downstairs with his wife, who I’m almost positive was Dawn from 7th grade, with a baby.

My father, an artist and floral designer, had excellent spatial acuity. He would have been 99 years old tomorrow.

PS: My sister

A walk around the neighborhood

Emergency Department

My wife took a walk around the neighborhood on Wednesday, September 10th. She said she’d return at 7:30 a.m., but came back about seven minutes early.

I was shocked! She looked as though she had been assaulted on the face! The cut above her left eyebrow seeped enough blood to cover the left third of her face. Several people later told me that the head has much more blood per cubic centimeter than the rest of the body. She had bruising under her left eye. I don’t think she realized how bad she looked until she got a gander at the mirror. She also had some minor cuts elsewhere, on her fingers and knee.

She had fallen on the sidewalk, just like she had three years ago when she tripped on an uneven surface. But this time, there was seemingly no culprit. She looked worse than that time.

I made an appointment for her at the urgent care place, which she went to around 10:30. A couple of hours later, she called me and said the urgent care place had encouraged her to go to the emergency room at St. Peter’s Hospital. She was asked who had accompanied her, and no one had.

ER

I took the bus and met her at St Peter’s. She got to the triage area, or whatever they call it, with her on a gurney outside of a room, and eventually, I got in there, too. I was falling asleep in the Emergency Department waiting room, but in the triage area, that was impossible with all of the monitors beeping and buzzing.

Over a period of about four hours, she got some pain medicine, a CAT scan (no brain injury), and some X-rays. At last, she got a splint because she had broken the bone on her left pinky closest to the palm.

We noticed the couple at the next gurney since we had been there for a long time. The husband was there with his wife, the patient. She was in such a weakened state that the nurse asked the patient whether her husband could sign the consent form for her treatment, and she nodded yes.

The interaction gave me information that had not occurred to me. The nurse asked him whether they had the same insurance, and they did so that he could provide the nurse with his insurance information. But my wife and I do not have the same insurance, so I need my wife’s information, and she needs mine.

My wife is recovering well, thank you. The black eye, worse than the last one, is fading. However, interestingly, some bruising on her shoulder and hip, not immediately evident right after the fall, became more prominent a week later before eventually fading.

Epilogue

A week later, she went to a specialist, who wanted to bind her left pinkie with her left ring finger. This meant my wife removing her wedding ring, which was recrafted with her engagement ring. Despite concerted efforts, they could not remove the ring, which was still swollen from the accident. So they had to cut her ring off, which, despite their slow (over an hour) and deliberate efforts, was quite physically uncomfortable.

We were both sad about the ring, which we’ll get fixed after her hand is healed.