Ramblin' with Roger

Sunday Stealing: Four 5’s

five cents

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!

We found this one at CreativeGene, who stole it from someone named “Randy” because “it looks like fun.” Let’s see if you agree.

Four 5’s

FIVE things on my to-do list:

1. Write the book

2. Clean out the drawer

3. Book speakers for the FFAPL book reviews/author talk in January/February 2026 (interested?)

4. Submit reimbursement forms for my health care expenses

5. Re-sort my played compact discs

FIVE snacks I enjoy:

1. Oatmeal raisin cookies

2. Canned fruit cocktail

3. Golden Oreos

4. Apple sauce

5. Ritz crackers

FIVE places I have lived:

1. Kingston, NY – 2 months in 1972, a roach-infested place

2. Charlotte, NC – roughly 4 months in 1977, living with my parents

3. Jackson Heights, Queens, NY – roughly 4 months in 1977, living with one of my sisters

4. Schenectady, NY – approximately 20 months in 1978-1979

5. Binghamton, NY, my hometown

Workin’ For A Living

FIVE jobs I have held:

1. A box factory, for two weeks. Hated it, as described here

2. Janitor at some department store in New Paltz for a few weeks, and at Binghamton City Hall for about four months in the 1970s

3. Empire Blue Cross, customer service rep, eventually hated it, which I described here

4. Albany Savings Bank, teller, 02/1978—Two days after my training was over, and I was on the window by myself, spending an hour trying to find a five-cent overage, I quit with two days’ notice. They weren’t happy, but they were only paying me $6000 a year, less than what I had in my drawer every day. I left to work as a bookkeeper at the Schenectady Arts Council, which I liked a lot more and made $8200/year.

5. FantaCo, from May 1980 to November 1988

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

Lindenwald: Martin Van Buren site

National Park Service

For at least two decades, my wife and I have said we should visit Lindenwald in Kinderhook, NY, less than 30 miles (48 km) from Albany. Moreover, we have been in the vicinity of the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site, which the National Park Service runs. Finally, on September 5, we made a visit.

I felt as though I knew quite a bit about Van Buren. A few years back, there was a story about a 12-year-old girl who discovered that all of the U.S. presidents, from Washington through Obama, were related to each other, except one. The one was Van Buren, while the others were connected to John Lackland Plantagenet, King of England (ruled 1199-1216).

Van Buren’s lineage was Dutch, and that was his first language. He was considered the first President born a United States citizen, as his birth on December 5, 1782, occurred after the British surrender in Yorktown in 1781. However, it was before the Treaty of Paris officially ended the war in 1783.

After serving as Andrew Jackson’s second Vice President—John C. Calhoun was Jackson’s first one — Van Buren was elected the eighth President of the United States (1837-1841).

I vaguely recall the Panic of 1837, an economic crisis that started with Jackson’s unstable economic policies earlier in the decade.

His failed 1840 reelection campaign helped popularize the term OK. In fact, the $800 clue in the JEOPARDY category on 10/23/2025 under Presidential Facts read: This New Yorker’s bid for reelection was hampered by an 1837 financial panic & a depression that followed.

Really?

There was a lot I did not know about Van Buren. According to the White House Historical Society, “His father, Abraham, owned a successful inn and small farm, along with six enslaved individuals.” Also, “Martin Van Buren owned at least one enslaved person during his lifetime—not wholly uncommon for a man who was born and raised in a state that permitted slavery until 1827.”

^{The most intriguing story I heard about Martin Van Buren, when he was running for reelection in 1840, was that he ran without a vice presidential candidate. There was opposition to Vice President Richard M. Johnson‘s personal life, specifically his relationships with several Black or mixed-race women, including his common-law wife Julia Chinn.}

Martin Van Buren purchased the Lindenwald mansion in 1839 while he was President. It became his home and farm from 1841, when he left the White House, until he died in 1862. He launched unsuccessful campaigns from there in 1844 and 1848, the latter as the candidate of the Free Soil party, which focused on opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States.

There was no admission. The bigger-named attractions supplement the lesser-known locations. If you can’t make it to Kinderhook, you can take a virtual tour. In fact, it was a treat for me because the physical tour didn’t include the second-floor bedrooms.

Movie review: The Lost Bus

2018 SoCal fires

My wife wanted to go to the Spectrum Theater and see the new movie, The Lost Bus. Unfortunately, when I looked at the schedule on what I believe was the first Friday after it had opened, it was no longer available there, which disappointed my wife.

I wondered if it’s on one of those streaming services we happen to have, which I can access on the Roku that will facilitate that. Sure enough, there it was on Apple+. My wife made popcorn.

The film is based on a true story about the 2018 California fires. Kevin McKay (Matthew McConaugh) is a guy just hanging on. His father died recently, and he is taking care of his mother and has joint custody of his angry teenage son. He has a job as a school bus driver, but he’s not good with the regulations, such as bringing the bus in for inspection.

Meanwhile, a moderate-sized fire is miles away, but because of the terrain, it cannot be contained. As the fire spreads, schools need to be evacuated. Kevin has an empty bus, so he goes to an elementary school and picks up Mary (America Ferrera) and her nearly two dozen students.

McKay’s son Shaun was played by McConaugh’s real-life son, Levi. Matthew said on a TV show that because his father-son relationship with Levi was so solid, he encouraged his son to play the role as caustically as possible.

Burning

Harrowing fire stuff happens, which probably would have been more intense on the big screen. But it was nerve-wracking enough, especially at the highlight of the film. Indeed, the exposition setup was necessary, but the disaster creates the tension. What was as interesting as the attempted escape from the fire was the firefighters’ scenes as they slowly realize this is an inferno like they had never seen.

The film was directed and co-written by Paul Greengrass, who’s known for how well he presents films based on real events (United 93, Bloody Sunday).

Scores on Rotten Tomatoes were 87% postive with critics and 94% with fans. One critic noted, “This is a spectacle-type movie but didn’t feel like a spectacle.” Another critic complained about “the refusal to acknowledge the climate changes making bushfires ever more savage.” As I complain a lot, that wasn’t the film Greengrass was making; he was addressing the surprise/shock and ultimate lack of preparation in 2018.

There’s Red Cross page featuring McConaugh and Ferrera urging people to be prepared for wildfires.

The joys of homeownership

The fence was good, at least

Ah, the joys of homeownership.

We needed to get a new fence for our property. Our 20-year-old wooden fence had fallen (some parts of it, literally) on hard times. So my wife, whom I cede most home stuff for reasons explained later, contracted with a company to tear down one day and build the new one the next day.

A sidebar: After that first day, the construction people needed two parking spaces in front of our house to park their truck closer. Not having a driveway is a hassle for people working in our backyard.

Fortunately, my wife is one of the best car parkers ever. Seriously, she can get into tiny spaces and does it so well that once a FedEx driver saw her parking and complimented her. But what she needed to do in this case was to park to take out two spaces so that no other car could get in there. She moved her car so the fence contractors could put their truck into that space. She did this perfectly.

So, the process went fine as far as we were concerned. But one of our neighbors was dissatisfied with one element, complicated to explain. The person harangued my wife and the workers on day 1 with BS (the workers “probably weren’t licensed,” the person surmised, using subtle ethnic bigotry).

On day 2, the person rang our doorbell – my wife was at work – and kvetched about something that was not the workers’ responsibility. The person was so insistent that the workers jerry-rigged a fix without me asking. They were great guys.

Oh, geez

The next day, another contractor looked at things in our house to do some handyman work, notably the clogged sink in the downstairs bathroom. Someone else had told me that I could take off the pipe underneath, blah blah blah. I said Well, yes, I could; my issue has always been, ‘Can I reattach it?’ Based on previous experience, the answer is probably not.

He quotes us for that and some other small jobs around the house. But then he saw some construction someone else had done in 2024, and he pointed out that part of that construction was not up to code. Yikes. And, not incidentally, that tracks. Should we get the previous person to rectify it, something my wife is resistant to doing for reasons, or get somebody else to replace it?

This falls into my general anxiety about owning a house. I never owned a home before marrying in 1999, and my parents did not own a home until 1972 or ’73. But my wife had purchased her first home independently, so she’s better at this stuff.

I need to do stuff

moderate dilation of the ascending aorta

I need to do stuff. Specifically, I need to clean my office to work on some reimbursements for my health care expenses. In the midst of starting to clean, I put things on top of other things, and it has become even more challenging to do what I was trying to do in the first place.

I started this process two months ago and have made no real progress. Not only is it irritating to me, but it’s probably a physical hazard. My wife came in here and almost tripped over the garbage can, which is the greater motivation. Her hand is still healing.

The only way I will clean this room and put away the recently played compact discs is if I don’t have to write a substantial blog post.

I wanted to say that I’m OK. I find art in my house every sunny day. Above is what the hallway looks like going upstairs, and below is a shrunken image. I’m not sure which one I like better, though I don’t think either picture really represents how cool it looks, but I can cope with that. It’s still discovered art, and multiple rainbows to boot.

Ticker

The one thing I can tell you is that I went to my cardiologist in late September. I like my cardiologist; he’s amusing. As I mentioned at some point, I have a “moderate dilation of the ascending aorta.” If the “maximum diameter of the enlarged segment” reaches 5.5 cm, I will need to have heart surgery. It was 5.1 last year, and it’s 5.1 this year, so no open heart surgery for me in 2025! Yay, me.

So, to the question: “How are you doing ?” I answer, “Well, I’m not having open heart surgery this year, which means I’m just fine!” Or fine enough for the nonce.