Ramblin' with Roger

The Giveaway: The (Delayed) Results

Funny thing….a dollar coin dropped out of the pages when I opened it up! Was that suppose to happen? 🙂

You know about the best laid plans. Way back on May 5, to inaugurate my new blog, I decided to have a giveaway of five items for anyone leaving a comment of five words or more, the rule designed to eliminate those who might leave a comment like, “Nice!” or “Thanks!” Besides, it was my FIFTH anniversary, so I wanted FIVE words, OK? At least one smart aleck left me a comment something like “So: Five words then, huh?” Hey, that qualified.

The entry period was May 3 through July 3, inclusive. I picked the latter date because one of the items, the Billboard book was supposed to ship in early July. Well, it didn’t; I didn’t receive it until mid-August. By this time, we were the throes of busyness around the Pakistani wedding, followed immediately by the buyness of back to school.

Then, I misplaced two of the items for a couple weeks, then it totally slipped my mind for a couple weeks until I cleaned the work desk and said, “Oh, nuts, THAT’S still here?”

I went into the comments section for the new blog and noted 372 comments. Then I picked the random number generator for six numbers. Frankly, I didn’t bother to check if they all qualified – and at least one was mine, which would NOT qualify. But if the post was unacceptable, I’d skip it for the next choice, which proved to be necessary.

I contacted the first person who got the choice of any of the prizes; once selected, the second person got the choice of any of the remaining items, and so on.

I wrote You may select ONE item from the following:
any one of the three items listed in this post, or
the complete Dick van Dyke DVD set
the CD -The List by Rosanne Cash
the CD-Michael Jackson’s Greatest Hits
the book – The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg
(later, when I found it, I added to the list)

1. Joy from A Raft of Apples requested that I send her something not on the list. “Send me a picture postcard. On the plus side, still only one trip to the post office, on the minus you may not have convenient postcard availability.
“I’m a collector of postcards and also a Postcrosser (random people from around the world send each other cards). I’m fascinated by the countries of the world and the cards are little moments of time and places complete with messages on the back.”

Well, how could I turn THAT down!

She received it and wrote:
“Hi Roger
Thanks for the Albany Skyline postcard, your home town beautiful in the setting sun. And also thanks for the UK way date, LOL, it also came with a nice clear US Mail cancellation, which leaves me in no doubt as it had Nov on the date so us Brits don’t get confused:-)
I agree with you, blogging is a great introduction to the citizens of the world.”
Well, of COURSE, I dated it day, month, year; it makes sense. The only reason why I don’t do it always is the possibility of confusion, such as on my work timesheet.

2. LisaF of peripheral perceptions asked for Beyond words: daily readings in the ABC’s of Faith.
She wrote:
“Just wanted to let you know the book arrived today! It’s much thicker than I expected it to be. The timing is perfect as I just finished my other book and plan to start reading it tonight before I fall asleep. Funny thing….a dollar coin dropped out of the pages when I opened it up! Was that suppose to happen? :-)”
Oh, yeah, that was in the rules too. One Presidential dollar coin of whoever’s coin was out most recently on May 2 and that turned out to be Millard Fillmore, the 13th and one of the least regarded Presidents. But at least the coin was pretty.

3. Scott of Scooter Chronicles requested The Heart of Christianity” by Marcus Borg. I’ll get back to him presently.

4. Amy B of Amy’s Miscellany also wanted Beyond Words, which I could accommodate. She said nice things about me – blush – in her blog.

5. Now here’s where it gets strange. I tell the next person, but I’m clearly not being understood, because she has never made a selection, despite e-mails back and forth. The opportunity is still open to her. But I didn’t want to wait too long; I wanted to ship them all at the same time.

6. As it turned out, Scott, a frequent commenter, got ANOTHER pick. This time, he took what I thought he’d pick in the first place, the Billboard book. He thanked me and noted that his son Nigel was impressed. “He said, ‘That’s a lot of stuff, Daddy!’ after I piled everything on the table. He especially liked the coins.”

So it’s not entirely resolved yet, but I wanted to write this during the calendar year.

W is for Weddings

It appears that heterosexual marriage is doing a bang-up job of imperiling heterosexual marriage.

In November 2010, Pew Research reported that about half of all adults in the U.S. are married, down from 72 percent in 1960, while four in 10 people consider marriage obsolete. The Census Bureau added that American men and women are waiting longer before the wedding.

But from the Time magazine story concerning that Pew poll: “Americans still venerate marriage enough to want to try it. About 70% of us have been married at least once, according to the 2010 Census. The Pew poll found that although 44% of Americans under 30 believe marriage is heading for extinction, only 5% of those in that age group do not want to try to seek their own wedded bliss.

Sociologists note that Americans have a rate of marriage — and of remarriage — among the highest in the Western world.

The divorce rate, while down from its peak in the l970s, is higher in America than in most other countries. (And what IS the real divorce rate in the US?)

So I am filled with a cross between bemusement and incredulity at the notion, suggested by some, that the prospect of legalized gay marriages, or even civil unions, poses some sort of threat to heterosexual wedlock. It appears that heterosexual marriage is doing a bang-up job of imperiling heterosexual marriage.

(Arthur links here and here regarding his home state of Illinois’ new civil union law.)

Not incidentally, I got a form letter from my annuity company quite recently, adding the following proviso to my certificate:
“Pursuant to Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), same-sex marriages currently are not recognized for purposes of federal law. Therefore, the favorable income-deferral options afforded by federal tax law to an opposite-sex spouse under Internal Revenue Code sections 72(s) and 401(a)(9) are currently NOT available to a same-sex spouse.”

So even in those states allowing same-sex marriages, those couples won’t be fully equal until DOMA is repealed.

Oh, BTW, you may be wondering whose wedding this is. It’s the nuptials for the Pakistani couple I mentioned a couple of months ago, which took place on Labor Day weekend. My daughter was in the wedding, but I pulled her photos solely for the purpose of posting them on December 26; I always write about Lydia on the 26th of the month.

ABC Wednesday – Round 7

Merry Christmas Questionnaire

The stockings Christmas Eve, presents Christmas morning.

From my friend Sarah Kim:

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
Ideally, wrapped in the Sunday funnies, though I have capitulated to wrapping paper.

2. Real tree or Artificial?
Real for my entire life until this year. Haven’t warmed up to the new artificial tree.

3. When do you put up the tree?
Varies widely. Last year it was December 21; ideally, it would have been earlier. This year, it was December 18.

4. When do you take the tree down?
I would take it down on Twelfth Night, January 6. However, others thought otherwise and it came down New Year’s Eve.

5. Do you like eggnog?
Yep, with amaretto.

6. Favorite gift received as a child?

The Beatles white album, 1968. What I remember, though is that the intro to Birthday skipped and I had to get a replacement copy. This problem, I understand, was not mine alone.

7. Hardest person to buy for?
My mom, and has been for years.

8. Easiest person to buy for?
My daughter, who verbalizes what she wants.

9. Do you have a nativity scene?
Yes, in fact, we have a couple; I married into these.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards?
Mail, or not at all, it seems.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
Actually, I have no idea. Well, unless you want to count the clothes my wife gets me.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie?
I’m leaning toward the Christmas Carol with George C. Scott.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
Sometimes early if I have a bright idea, and this year’s going surprisingly well. Or the very last minute when I don’t.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
Probably.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
Real mashed potatoes, not the stuff in a box.

16. Lights on the tree?
White.

17. Favorite Christmas song?
Anything with a descant.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
Usually at home or my parents-in-law’s, a little over an hour away.

19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer?
Yes.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star?
Angel.

21. Open the presents on Christmas Eve or morning?
The stockings on Christmas Eve, and presents Christmas morning.

22. Most annoying thing about the season?
The “war on Christmas” drivel.

23. Favorite ornament, theme, or color?
It’s weird, but most of my favorite ornaments – mostly red – have gone MIA. I am fond of an Adirondack chair ornament from May 2003, just before Carol got pregnant.

24. Favorite for Christmas Dinner?
Turkey.

25. What do you want for Christmas this year?
Other than the usual (Hess truck, World Almanac,) some music on my Amazon list.

Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol, one of my childhood favorites.

Bowie and Bing redux.
***
I read this to my daughter this month:

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus? It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Picture from Freefoto. Ref Number: 90-15-57; Photographer: Ian Britton; Camera: SONY , DSLR-A100; Date: Dec 1, 2006

Kennedy Center Honors 2010

Paul has become the legacy Beatle, as opposed to Ringo’s All-Starr gigs, which, no disrespect, always felt like the oldies-tour Beatles.

I’ve been watching the Kennedy Center Honors every year for decades, possibly since they began offering them in 1978. And while, in the early days, at least one performer per year was a bit obscure to me, as time passed, the awardees became much more familiar, in general. And there is usually at least one very moving segment such as Libera singing Love and Mercy to Brian Wilson in 2007, or Bettye LaVette singing Love Reign O’er Me to Pete Townsend and Roger Daltry of the Who in 2008. The celebration of “the Careers of Five Extraordinary Artists” took place on Sunday, December 5, 2010. The gala will be broadcast on CBS-TV on Tuesday, December 28, 2010, at 9:00-11:00 p.m., ET/PT.

For a long time, I knew Merle Haggard only for his song Okie from Muskogee, about which I had, at best, mixed feelings. But I subsequently discovered a wealth of tunes of Americana that transcended the narrow political box I had placed him in.

Jerry Herman wrote a wealth of Broadway musicals, but he is probably best known for Hello, Dolly! and La Cage aux Folles. Both of these have made multiple visits onto the Great White Way, and La Cage is in revival presently. Both of these productions were also turned into movies.

Though born in Florida, Bill T. Jones was raised in the Southern Tier of upstate New York, probably an hour from where I grew up, “the tenth of 12 children of migrant farmworkers, ‘poorer than poor, one of two black families in a town of 10,000.'” He studied at SUNY Binghamton, the college in my hometown, “a theater major on an athletic scholarship,” where he discovered ballet and modern dance, and love “with Arnie Zane, a Jew from the Bronx studying art and photography.” By 1982, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company “was well on its way to becoming a living treasure of American culture,” but Arnie died of AIDS-related lymphoma in 1988. Jones subsequently choreographed a wide range of well-received pieces, eventually winning two Tony awards, for Spring Awakening and Fela! I know him best for a dance he choreographed for a production based on the life of Abraham Lincoln, which my wife saw last summer at SPAC.

Oprah Winfrey. What’s to say? She’s a “producer, television host, actress, major player on Broadway and in Hollywood, author and self-made billionaire philanthropist” who overcame a very tough childhood. I must admit that I have seldom watched her program, particularly in recent years, but one episode I did see definitely stood out: the nine black kids who integrated the high school in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957, and some of the white kids who taunted them, 50 years later. It was a healing moment that made for great television.

Finally, Paul McCartney. He’s Sir Beatle Paul, FCOL. When Paul left the Beatles in 1970, he worked really hard to avoid even playing Beatles songs. Eventually, he started putting a few in, but he seemed to want to make sure that his new stuff wasn’t overshadowed. I recall that Elvis Costello had to push him into using the Beatlesque bass line of My Brave Face. Now that he’s 64-plus, he seems comfortable with his place in history, playing the last concert at Shea Stadium in 2008, and the first concert in the new Citi Field in 2009, echoing the Beatles at Shea in 1965. He’s become the legacy Beatle, as opposed to Ringo’s All-Starr gigs, which, no disrespect, always felt like the oldies-tour Beatles. Good Evening New York City, from that 2009 gig, might be the best live album he’s ever done, and I recommend it, especially with the DVD. In particular, Here Today, his tribute to John Lennon from the early 1980s, always felt a little cloying, but here, with Paul describing John’s love for NYC, quite touching.

And Macca seems to have developed quite the sense of humor about himself, as evidenced by his recent appearances on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon – Scrambled Eggs!- and Saturday Night Live.

Meal Blessing QUESTION

We now sing grace to the Nestles chocolate commercial.

With families getting together for the holidays, I was wondering:
Does your family do a blessing for the holiday meal? Is it a corporate blessing (i.e., rote) or is it free form? Is there a designated pray-er?

It’s interesting that even in my more…secular days, there was always a blessing at Thanksgiving and usually at Christmas. One girlfriend always evoked the memory of John F. Kennedy, who died around Thanksgiving in 1963.

When my wife’s family is together, the designee is usually my mother-in-law. When the Greens are together, it’s usually my sister Leslie. But in other situations, it’s devolved to me. I remember that at a work function in 2002 in New York City, there was a clergyperson who was supposed to offer the invocation, but he didn’t show, and I got pressed into service.

Growing up, the corporate prayer at daily dinner was:
Heavenly Parent, thank you for this food we’re about to receive for the nourishment of our bodies. In Christ’s name, Amen.
But somewhere in the mid-1960s, my father changed Christ’s to His, trying to respect other faiths.

My wife’s family’s corporate prayer is:
Bless this food to our use, and us to thy service, and keep us ever mindful of the needs of others. Amen.

Our corporate prayer was:
God is great, God is good. Let us thank you for our food.

However, recently, the Daughter discovered this one, which we now use:
A-B-C-D-E-F-G. Thank you, Lord, for feeding me. Amen.
However, she did it to the tune of the Alphabet Song, which wouldn’t do. Instead, we now sing it to the Nestles chocolate commercial.

I remember Bob Feller.

I saw only a handful of Blake Edward films, “10”, one of the “Pink Panther” comedies, and collaboration with his wife, Julie Andrews, “Victor/Victoria,” but sad to see him pass.