Roger O Green

Senior Year in high school

blame ADD

I saw a quiz on Mark Evanier’s page. It’s one of those online questionnaires that make the rounds. This one’s about one’s Senior Year in high school… I was vaguely considering it. But then ADD wrote of Facebook, “Who will play along? Unlike Mark Evanier, I understand this question, and my money’s on Roger.” So there it is.

Class of:

1971

Did you know your current love?

No, we didn’t meet until the early ’90s.

Type of car?

Not only did I not have a car, I don’t even remember what car my parents were driving. As I’ve said before, I’m totally car blind.

What kind of work did you do?

From March to early September 1971, I worked at IBM, which I described here.

Where did you live?

The First Ward of Binghamton, NY

Were you popular?

I suppose so. I was elected student government president in my junior year of high school. Also, I was involved with the drama club, mostly on stage crew. There was one time I had more than one line in a play: The Bald Soprano by Eugenie Ionesco. I played the Fire Chief and had a very long recitation that I could not memorize, so somebody made a scroll, and I read the piece, and then I flung it across the stage. Additionally, I was president of the Red Cross club.

Of course, I was in the choir.

Were you in band or choir?

I was in choir all three years at Binghamton Central, and at least for two of them, I was in something called the Male Glee Club, which sang a lot of TTBB Barbershop-type harmony.

Ever get suspended?

No, although I thought there was a possibility. A friend of my then-high school girlfriend had forged the name of one of our teachers, Helen Foley, on a couple of passes. GF and I each had a study hall and wanted to hang out in the auditorium, but we got caught and had to talk to the principal. Then I talked to Helen Foley, which was much worse because I disappointed her.

If you could, would you go back?

Oh, goodness, no.

Still talk to the person that you went to prom with?

Yes, we’re good friends. I wished her a happy birthday a couple of months ago because I remember it.

Did you skip school?

I know I attended a rally when Julian Bond was in downtown Binghamton, but I don’t remember if that was during or after school. I did leave a walkout of our school once. The school had enforced draconian rules about walking on the grass, and people were getting suspended. So, as student government president, I convened a meeting on the sidewalk and voted to walk on the grass, which ticked off the principal, but he didn’t do anything about it.

Pigskin

Go to all the Football games?

It was probably half the home games the year I was student government president, but never the away games.

Favorite subject?

American history, although I did like algebra and trigonometry.

Do you still have your yearbook?

Yes, although I never got my class photo out of this sense of strange rebellion. My picture shows up about eight times in the book.

Did you follow your career path?

I don’t even know what my career path was. I was thinking about becoming a lawyer or going into politics, but I didn’t do that. Having been a page at the Binghamton Public Library, I should’ve known that it should have been my career path. It took me until I was in my late 30s to figure that out.

Do you still have your high school ring?

I never had a high school ring and never wanted one.

Who was your favorite teacher?

The aforementioned Helen Foley was the public speaking teacher and the drama club director. She wrote my too-long speech when I was supposed to introduce Rod Serling, the one he walked out during.

Gimme a head with hair

What was your hairstyle?

I could never pull off a really good Afro, and even then, my hairline was starting to recede.

Favorite shoes?

Red Chuck Taylors

Favorite food?

I don’t have a strong sense of this. It’s probably something my grandmother made: pork chops or chicken, maybe the spaghetti my father made.

Favorite band?

This was a transitional time, late 1970. The Beatles (Because) had just broken up. Simon and Garfunkel (Song For The Asking) seemed to be defunct. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young (Carry On)? Santana (Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen)? Led Zeppelin (Immigrant Song)? The Band (The Shape I’m In)? Possibly Sly and The Family Stone (Thank You).

What cologne/perfume?

For a minute, I did have some eau de something, but I don’t remember the name.

How old were you when you graduated?

I was about six weeks shy of my 18th birthday. In Binghamton, in those years, you could start school in either September or February, and I was a February starter. So, we graduated in January 1971, which is weird. They don’t do that anymore.

Who will play along?

I don’t know. I recommended it to my baby sister because her experience differs somewhat from mine. She moved to Charlotte, NC, with our parents in the early 1970s, so she didn’t graduate from the same high school that our other sister and I graduated from. That’s kind of interesting to me.

What high school did you attend?

I went to ninth grade at Daniel S. Dickinson, where I attended K-9. I attended Binghamton (NY) Central for grades 10-12. BCHS merged with Binghamton North c. 1982, located at the site of BCHS.

Movie review: Anora

not Pretty Woman

I went to see the new movie Anora, largely because it had been so widely acclaimed. Sean Baker won the Palme d’Or, awarded to the director of the Best Feature Film at the Cannes Film Festival; he also wrote the story. The film was nominated for several other awards. I saw it at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany, one of only two people present on an early Wednesday matinee.

Fandango describes it as “an audacious, thrilling, and comedic variation on a modern-day Cinderella story.” Ani (Mikey Madison) is a young sex worker from Brooklyn who is good at her job. One of her clients is a young, brash, fairly obnoxious, but very rich young man of Russian heritage named Ivan or Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), who specifically asked for an escort who at least understood Russian. Anora’s grandmother had never learned how to speak English.

They are having a good time, in a wretched excess way, with him shelling out beaucoup bucks for her exclusive company, and in short order, they decide to get married. This is a problem for Vanya’s handlers when they find out. They worked for his parents and were supposed to keep him on a loose leash. Now, the marriage must annulled, which is complicated.

Evolution

The early part of the film was a bit boring to me. There’s a lot of sex, not just with Ani, and it’s very unsexy.

The film finally starts getting interesting when two of Vanya’s handlers rush to the lavish home where he and Ani are staying. These guys are intimidating but not lethally scary. Still, they and their immediate boss are determined to get their way and have the means to grease the legal machinery. At this point, I see Ani’s strength and vulnerability come through. And the film becomes a black comedy.

So I liked the latter half of it, although, as some critics pointed out, “Anora’s outbursts of fury, incessant trash talking, and relentless screaming can wear on the ear.” The Rotten Tomatoes reviews were 96% positive with the critics and 90% with the fans.

I’m reminded that when the movie Pretty Woman was being made, it started as a “gritty dark comedy about the dehumanizing nature of sex work,” much darker than the frothy tale that Garry Marshall engineered with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere’s characters. This is NOT Pretty Woman.

1000 games of Wordle

I have played just over 1000 games on Wordle, and I’m surprised. On Wordle World, a Facebook group, somebody asked about our stories regarding the game. Mine is pretty straightforward. I heard about it for months, and as is my general wont, I avoid things that everybody else does. It took me about 3/4 of a year before I played one game. I liked it so much that I’ve participated every day ever since.

Early on, I used a formula to maximize the number of letters I could check. It was TUBES, FLING, WORDY, CHAMP. This uses 20 letters and only misses the K and the more obscure letters JQVXZ. The good news is that it got me a win most of the time, but the bad news is that I was getting lots of 5s or 6s, only rarely a 4. Once, I muffed it all together.

Somehow, probably with the help of my daughter, I ended up using AROSE and TULIP regularly, and it’s been a boom. I’ve only muffed it once since then, on JUDGE, which I played too cavalierly; my last choice was FUDGE.

I still start with AROSE. If I have at least one green or two yellow letters, I try to play it in what they call the hard mode, meaning I have to play the green letter where it shows up and use the yellow letter. If I have only one yellow letter, I might go to TULIP. Regardless, I tend to use the letters in TULIP early on.

Wordle 1,250 3/6 AROSE 94

THINE 2

NICHE

The system

My current streak of over 700 words is helped by the fact that I compare notes after the game with a guy named Matthew. After making a particular choice, I tend to put the number of possibilities left, which has helped me hone my guesses for future games, thanks to the sometimes sanctimonious WordleBot.

I’m trying to reach the streak of a participant on Wordle World named Nola, who had a 938-game streak snapped on September 29. We were neck-and-neck before I muffed JUDGE. She is very encouraging.

Sometimes, I get lucky.

Wordle 1,241 2/6 AROSE 39

STOIC

And other times, I get there by a thread.

Wordle 1,232 6/6 AROSE 39

SPOIL 5

STOOP 3

SWOOP 2

SCOOP 1

SNOOP

When I get an E and R, my go-word is LITER. One day, it will be the answer.

Wordle 1,240 3/6 AROSE 158

LITER 3

INNER

A useful hint: YOWZA is not a word in the Wordle dictionary.

Quordle

For Quordle, I do use TUBES FLING WORDY CHAMP. It works most of the time, though I just went down when I muffed it at 5 a.m. I’ve given up the other multiples, such as Octordle, mostly for time. Interestingly, I hit 500 on Quordle on Thanksgiving, the same day I did my 1000th Wordle.

Connections

My wife and I play New York Times Connections together. We’re much better at it that way than trying to do it separately. We’ve become so proficient at it that we have tried to find all four groups of four words before typing in the first one, attempting to ascertain which one would be purple, the most difficult.

When we do this, we tend to avoid misleading terms. Recently, a category looked like headwear, and I assumed that CAP was one of the four. When we created all four groupings, we realized that CAP had to go with Cover, Plug, and Seal, which were THINGS THAT PREVENT LEAKS. The fourth piece of headwear with Beret, Derby, and Pillbox was Snapback, a word I was unfamiliar with, though I wear such caps about half the year. Understandably, 50% of players put CAP in the wrong category. Oh, and the Times sells a Connections snapback cap; of course, they do.

Sunday Stealing: Searching for Solid Ground

Patricia Fennell

This week’s Sunday Stealing is about books. I buy many more books than I read, or more specifically, than I finish reading. Books are often presented at the Friends and Foundation of the Albany Public Library’s Tuesday book talk. When it is an author talk, I tend to buy the book.

This Tuesday, December 3, at 2 p.m., at the Washington Avenue branch of the APL, musician Reggie Harris will discuss Searching for Solid Ground, the memoir he wrote with Linda Hansell. I will almost certainly buy it because I greatly enjoy Reggie’s music.

Has reading a book ever changed your life? Which one and why, if yes?

There are lots of them: Your Erroneous Zones by Wayne Dyer, which helped me become more assertive; Bartholemew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss, which speaks truth to power; Lying by Sissela Bok, which “challenges the reader to consider the effects of lying on the individual, relationships, and society”; and The Sweeter The Juice: A Family Memoir in Black and White by Shirlee Taylor Haizlip, which is an interesting treatise on race in America.

Do you prefer to read fiction or non-fiction?

Nonfiction, although historical fiction, can work for me, too.

If you could be a character in any novel you’ve read, who would you be?

Yossarian in Catch-22.

Has reading a book ever made you cry? (Which one and why?)

Absolutely. Among others, I read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Attwood in 1995, about a decade after it came out. I read it while in a book club at my old church. Almost all the people in the group were women, and the narrative was, to be understated here, untoward.

Started…

How many books do you read a year?

I started a dozen or probably even more. Usually, I read a chapter or three. Then I get a new book, and I’m attracted to that. I begin reading that instead and seldom get back to the previous book. I probably finished three this year. One of the things I’ve done in the FFAPL book review group is schedule myself to be a reviewer so that I must finish a book.

Name a book you had to read but hated. Why did you hate it?

The play Titus Andronicus by Shakespeare, which I think I had to read in college freshman English class, was a bloody piece that frankly bored me

If someone wrote a book about your life, what would it be called?

I had no idea, so I asked my wife. She suggested Roger That! I like it!

Have you ever written (or started to write) a book?

Yes, started.

If you could pick a book you’ve read to make into a movie, what would it be?

Effa Manley and the Newark Eagles by James Overmyer. It’s a story about a woman who ran a baseball team in the Negro Leagues.

What was your favorite book as a child?

I believe it was Message From Moscow (1966) by Brandon Keith, a novelization of the NBC television series I Spy.

What are you reading right now?

The Chronic Illness Workbook: Strategies and Solutions for Taking Back Your Life by Patricia A. Fennell, MSW, LCSW-R.

Billboard Christmas Charts #1s

The Christmas Song, twice

The Billboard Christmas charts were very odd ducks. Quoting from the book Joel Whitburn Presents Christmas in the Charts, 1920 to 2004, “From 1963 through 1972 and from 1983 through 1985, Billboard published a seasonal Christmas singles chart and did not chart Christmas singles on the Hot 100.”

There were a couple of exceptions in 1984 when two Christmas songs landed on the Hot 100; one was Do They Know It’s Christmas, #13 pop. I don’t know what the other one was. “The charts varied in size from a low of three to a high of 38 positions. The charts from 1983 to 1985 consisted of 10 positions.”

All of these songs went to #1 on the Christmas charts. They may have previously appeared on pop, country, or rhythm and blues charts. The years designated the first time the songs appeared on this particular list.

Billboard put out a pair of compilations with the songs I marked with * on them.

The Little Drummer Boy*—the Harry Simeone Chorale (1964). We had the single when I was a kid, but it was rerecorded with a slower ending.

Snoopy’s Christmas – the Royal Guardsmen (1967). I have this on an LP.

White Christmas – Andy Williams (1963). I know the song and Andy, but not this combo.

Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer* – Elmo and Patsy (1983). I own the single. This, too, was rerecorded.

Merry Christmas Darling – Carpenters (1970). Only vaguely familiar.

The Christmas Song – Herb Alpert (1968). The album cover is very familiar. Did I own this?

The #1 Christmas singles artist

White Christmas* – Bing Crosby (1969). This is the 1947 remake, not the 1942 original. I own both. Bing is this book’s #2 Christmas album artist, behind Mannheim Steamroller.

Jingle Bell Rock* – Bobby Helms (1969).

The Christmas Song* (Merry Christmas to You) – Nat King Cole (1969)

Blue Christmas* – Elvis Presley (1964)

Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town– the Jackson 5 (1970). Interesting Classic Motown animation; it was on a Billboard R&B CD collection.

Please Come Home For Christmas – Charles Brown (1972). it was on a Billboard R&B CD collection.

Jingle Bells – the Singing Dogs (1972). Not high in my rotation; at least it’s short.

Sleep In Heavenly Peace (Silent Night) – Barbra Streisand (1966). I didn’t know this version.

Step Into Christmas – Elton John (1973). I was unfamiliar with this song.

Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town—Bruce Springsteen (1985). It was included on the first A Very Special Christmas benefit CD in 1987.

Bonus

Chuck’s 2024 CPKC Holiday Train Chase: The Montreal Concert