Ramblin' with Roger

Sunday Stealing – Food questions

K-E-double L-O-double good

This week’s Sunday Stealing is a bunch of food questions. I’ve eaten food now and then, as I recall.

1. If you were a vegetable, which one would you be, and would you ever let yourself be smothered in cheese?

Obviously, it would be a GREEN vegetable, and it would be spinach. But if it were to have cheese sauce on it, it’d have to be broccoli because.

2. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be, and how long do you think it would take before you got sick of it?

I answered this recently, and I said either pie because there are many different pies (chicken pot, cherry, etc.) or sandwiches. But if I had to narrow it, it’d be eggs. They can be scrambled, fried, poached, hard-boiled, or soft-boiled. I could probably do that for a year unless I could put things INTO the eggs. Then possibly forever.

3. Would you rather have fingers made of licorice or spaghetti noodles for hair?

Ick. Noodles for hair.

4. What’s the most unusual pizza topping combination you can think of that might actually taste surprisingly good?

I want to try Spam, which is a thing in Hawaii.

Hero of our nation

5. If you were an ice cream flavor, what would be your name, and what would the ingredients be?

Ramjet, with fresh blueberries, strawberries, and peaches in a vanilla ice cream base.

6. If you could make a smoothie out of any three foods, which ones would you choose, and what would you name your concoction?

I’m not a smoothie kind of guy.

7. What’s the funniest thing you’ve ever seen someone do with food?

We were playing baseball with heads of lettuce. Or maybe it was cabbage—aluminum bats.

8. If your favorite food could talk, what do you think it would say about you?

You’re finally eating your veggies besides me, Spinach would say.

9. If you were a chef, what outrageous names would you give to your dishes to make them more interesting?

I would go through my bookshelf and pick random titles. String Music of Black Composers, which would be spaghetti and various meat products. The Book of Virtues, which would have to be some veggie thing.

10. If you could have dinner with any historical figure, who would it be, and what food do you think they’d be surprised to see on the menu?

Thomas Jefferson and it would be anything that was microwavable.

11. What’s the weirdest or grossest thing you’ve ever eaten just to impress someone else?

Not my style. I’m not a food dare kind of guy.

The battle for Battle Creek

12. If breakfast cereals were characters in a TV show, which cereal would be the comedic sidekick, and which one would be the evil villain?

Tony the Tiger, who’s great, with the Froot Loops toucan. I know that Snap, Crackle, and Pop are engaged in criminal enterprises. They keep their safecracking tools under those caps. Incidentally, I own a set of the bowls shown above because of course I do.

13. If you could turn one vegetable into a superpower, which one would it be, and what could you do with it?

The vegetable doesn’t matter. Whichever one can transport me like they do on Star Trek. But it’d have to be small enough to carry but large enough not to get lost. A radish? A peapod?

14. What do you think aliens would say about our strange Earth foods if they came to visit?

If they travel to Earth, I assume their food might be reduced to pills or another easily storable commodity. So it is the wide diversity of foods that would awe them. Then they’d become disgusted by how much of that food went to waste and how some people didn’t have enough to eat. Undoubtedly, they would be very judgy.

15. If foods had personalities, which two foods would make the weirdest couple, and why?

The potato would have the personality of the Potato Heads from the Toy Story movies, perhaps a bit stodgy. Meanwhile, if you’ve seen those wind dance air puppets, they remind me of celery. They’re flapping all over the place.

Samuel J. Patterson, Civil War ancestor

Samuel>Mary Eugenia>Agatha>Les

For my Veterans Day post, let me introduce you to Samuel J. Patterson, my great-great-grandfather. Like another second great-grandfather, James Archer, he fought in the American Civil War on the Union side. Also like James, he survived the war.

He was born on June 28, 1844 in Berwick, Columbia County, PA. His parents were Anthony J Patterson (1818-1894) and Elizabeth Snyder (1811-1883). The 1840 Census list Anthony, Elizabeth, and a girl (Mary) and boy (Simon), both under 10, as “free colored persons.”

However, the 1850 Census lists the whole family, including Samuel, his slightly older sister Catherine, and 20 year-old Joseph, a “boatman,” as mulatto. Elizabeth Snyder, possibly formerly Schneider, may have been Pennsylvania Dutch (Deutsch). My father’s gene pool was 18% from England and northwest Europe.

The book African Americans in the Wyoming Valley 1778-1990 by Emerson Moss describes the Pattersons as one of the first African American family in the area. In a page 2 story in the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader on March 24, 1930, it states that he worked on the canal as a young man.

The war

Samuel’s enlistment date was January 8, 1864, in Boston. He was listed as 5’4 1/2″ tall with black hair and eyes, and had been working as a laborer. Times Leader: “Being enthused with the desire to liberate his enslaved fellow countrymen, Mr. Patterson seized the first opportunity to enlist and joined” the 5th Regiment, Massachusetts Calvary (Colored). He was a private in Company C. The unit was “organized at Camp Meigs, Readville. The battalion moved to Washington, D. C.. then to Camp Casey, near Fort Albany in early May, 1864.”

Why is this significant? “During the American Civil War’s final years, a Union base in Northern Virginia trained hundreds of African American soldiers to fight to end slavery, one of only a few such bases inside a Confederate state. But, Camp Casey has nearly disappeared from history…”

The 1930 Times Leader story: “He was in the Battle of Petersburg, Va. from June 14 to 29, 1864 and was detailed as an orderly for gallantry at the capitulation of Richmond on April 3, ’65.” In June 1865, his unit was “ordered to Texas and duty at Clarksville till October. Mustered out October 31, 1865.”

Postbellum

In the 1870 Census, he had been married to Henrietta Jane Long since December 5, 1867 and they had two children.

By 1880, they had six kids, including Mary Eugenia (1878-1944), commonly called Jean, my great-grandmother. Eugenia would marry Samuel Walker in 1899 and have several children, the oldest of which was Agatha (1902-1964), my father’s mother.

Times Leader, 1930: “In 1880, [Samuel Patterson] took up bicycle repairing and boasted of having been the first negro in Wilkes-Barre to have ridden a bicycle.”

By 1900, Samuel is a tile setter, “one of the finest in this and Lackawanna County,” which he did for 30 years. He was also a plumber “being connected with the firm of B.G. Carpenter” for 20 years.

His Wilkes-Barre, PA, home was owned free and clear. Henrietta, his first wife, died in 1896. He married Sarah Jane Towns on November 29, 1899, but she died in 1904. Four children were home from ages 8 to 26 in 1900.

In 1910, Samuel was still setting tile, living with his new wife Sarah J. “Sadie” Bunley (b. 1868), who he married on May 31, 1908, in Pittsburgh, PA. Only his youngest child, Samuel George, 18, is still at home. By 1920, Samuel was retired and living with only Sadie.

Passing

Samuel J. Patterson died on March 23, 1930. He was 85 years, 9 months, and 25 days old, and listed as Wilkes-Barre’s “oldest Negro citizen.” He died from chronic myocarditis and was buried in Wilkes-Barre’s City Cemetery four days later.

The aforementioned newspaper article “Death Claims S.J. Patterson, G.A.R. Veteran” was subtitled “Former Well-Known Tiler and Plumber Answers Final Summons.” He was survived by his widow, six children, 25 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

I am told by a cousin of mine that there was an American Legion Lodge named after him back in the 1920s thru the ’40s. “For some reason it ended.”

The photo above is an undated of Samuel and his family, tweaked by Arthur.

CVS plopped a dumpster

Like a bad neighbor…

As you may recall, CVS closed my local store in late September 2023, much to my chagrin.

David Galin, chief of staff to Albany mayor Kathy Sheehan, posted on the platform formerly known as Twitter that the company “shut down an essential business in one of our more diverse neighborhoods, plopped a dumpster in front of two other small businesses just trying to make ends meet, AND decided it to do un-permitted construction on their way out.

“Alas, the City is onto them.”

Joe Bonilla added: “This is how @CVSHealth treats neighborhoods it disinvests in – by plopping a dumpster in front of a coffee shop and a movie theater in Albany! There was a spot in front of its former store, but it chose to locate this in front of two businesses left on the block. Thanks, CVS!”

And if CVS didn’t want it in front of the store because it would have blocked a CDTA bus stop, it could have used the side of the building on South Main, With a permit, of course.

Songs about war and peace

“The latest things in clothes will be black.”

I made a series of mixed CDs from my CD collection in the first decade of the 21st century. (The whys I’ll write about next week.) They are songs about war and peace in honor of the Veterans Day weekend.

A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall – Bob Dylan. This is the Rolling Thunder Revue version from 1975.

Shades of Grey – Billy Joel. I was surprised I went with this song instead of his Goodnight Saigon.

The Ostrich – Steppenwolf. I’ve loved this song and the eponymous album it comes from for a long time.

The Call Up – the Clash. Here’s what the song from the triple album collection Sandinista! is about.

One More Parade – They Might Be Giants—the great Phil Ochs song.

The big fool says to push on.

Waist Deep In The Big Muddy – Dick Gaughan. This is from Where Have All The Flowers Gone: The Songs of Pete Seeger, a compilation double CD that I bought at the Old Songs Festival near Albany in the early aughts. For a time, Seeger was banned from singing it on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

War – the Temptations. Recorded first by the Tempts, Berry Gordy thought the song might be too controversial for one of Motown’s premiere artists. But Norman Whitfield was allowed to get Edwin Starr, a second-tier in the Motor City hierarchy, to release it as a single, which went to #1 pop for three weeks.

Wooden Ships – Jefferson Airplane. The song is credited to David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and the Airplane’s Paul Kantner. But on my CSN LP, it lists only Crosby and Stills.

If I Had A Rocket Launcher– Bruce Cockburn. I have a LOT of Cockburn on vinyl. Grammarly wants me to change the first word to Suppose.

The Unknown Soldier – the Doors. From the Waiting for the Sun album, the first Doors album I owned.

The War Is Over – Phil Ochs. I didn’t have my first Ochs album until after he died in 1976.

Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution – Living Colour, live at The Ritz. The great Tracy Chapman song. I have this on some compilation CD.

Business Goes On As Usual – Roberta Flack. It’s a great song on her Chapter Two album, written by Fred Hellerman of the Weavers and Fran Minkoff. It was recorded by The Chad Mitchell Trio; John Denver, David Boise & Michael Johnson; and others.

Give Peace A Chance – Louis Armstrong. And why not? (I didn’t pick Mitch Miller, thank your lucky stars.)

25 years since JEOPARDY!

WTEN-TV

25 years since JEOPARDY! Two and a half decades since the first of my two appearances on a syndicated game show. It is one of those things that people most identify with me.

I’m not going to rehash what happened. I wrote about that way back in 2005 and subsequently. Indeed, telling about it was one of the two reasons I started the blog in the first place. But I do want to reflect on why people keep bringing it up.

In June 2023, I was at the retirement party of some teachers, including a college friend of my wife. We were at a table of people I mostly did not know. Yet someone mentioned that they heard I was on the show. Then another person asked me about it, and a third gently chastised me for not bringing it up.

People in my area have won more games than I did. A woman from my town was on a show a month before my episodes did. But I had some unique advantages.

My shows were recorded in Boston, not in southern California. This meant that WTEN, Channel 10, the Albany affiliate station showed up at the tapings, much to my surprise. And TV folks from the Binghamton area (my hometown) and, inexplicably, Plattsburgh, way in upstate NY, interviewed me before the shows aired. The reporters covering the contestants got to play some mock games, which made the stations plug MY appearances more than a player who had gone to L.A.

Someone, usually people I didn’t know, mentioned to me being on the show for 270 days straight. Then not for a few days, followed by another streak of several weeks. It was weird and nice in about equal measure.

McGuire, not McGwire

Mark McGuire was the new person who covered the local television scene for the Albany Times Union in November 1998. When I won, he mentioned Linda Zusman, a foreign language teacher from Albany, NY, who had won $12,000 on the show that aired on October 6. After Sarah Gold took home $15,001 in a show from June 14, 1999, he mentioned Linda and me. And so on.

When Mark had tired of Ken Jennings after he won about 20 games, he called or emailed me for a pull quote.

This is true: I’m SO happy I played then rather than now. The picayune scrutiny players endure from social media is exhausting, everything from apparel to missing an “easy” Final JEOPARDY!

Second chance

A friend of mine asked me whether I had been invited to the Champions Wildcard that’s been taking place on JEOPARDY recently. No, all contestants are “winners who nabbed one, two, or three wins in Season 37 or Season 38.” I’m not jealous, but I do think it diminishes the game somewhat.

Yet I’m fine with those folks who never won being in the Second Chance tournament. They may have come up against a Mattea Roach, winner of 23 straight games, or 16-game winner Ryan Long.

Representative Roeder

One person I must thank publicly during my time on the show is Amy Roeder. She was the other challenger in my win. She played such a competitive game that I had to make a huge wager in FJ.

More importantly, she took my call the day before our episode aired. I was freaking out after having kept the results of the show secret for about seven weeks, and I needed to talk to someone. Because she was so personable, I got her number from directory assistance. She was very accommodating.

And now Amy is doing great things. She is “serving her second term in the Maine House of Representatives. She is the House chair of the Labor and Housing Committee.

“Rep. Roeder has worked in the arts for her entire adult life, both as an artist and administrator. She currently serves as an adjunct theater professor at the University of Maine. Additionally, she is a freelance business trainer and has worked with multiple local and national companies to address critical issues around communication, problem-solving, and organizational change management.

“Rep. Roeder is a strong advocate in Augusta for fair wages, safe working conditions, and expanded opportunities for all workers. She is particularly passionate about supporting small businesses and working to help Maine’s downtowns and Main Streets thrive.”

Oh, and she pointed out this intro to our episode.