Ramblin' with Roger

Sunday Stealing — Meme Schmeme

Milky Way

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!

Cheri is a blogger from the beautiful state of Georgia who didn’t often participate in memes but stole this one because “for whatever crazy reason” it appealed to her. Let’s see how you like it.

Meme Schmeme

Complete the thought:

I AM that kid who used to write his address with way too much detail, adding North America, Northern Hemisphere, Western Hemisphere, Earth, Milky Way galaxy, and probably other markers.

I LIVE by some basic mottos: the Golden Rule, helping others when you can, sharing information, listening to music a lot, and trying not to be an @$$4013.

I THINK I am a klutz with even the simplest physical tasks. We had to put new license plates on a vehicle this weekend. So I unscrewed the old plate on the back and put on the new one. Then I went to the front and unscrewed the plate. Where’s the replacement plate? I managed to attach two plates to the back of the car; they seem thinner than the ones I used to screw on, which was probably a half-century ago.

Fred MacMurray

I KNOW an inordinate amount of useful and more than occasionally mundane info. Just this weekend, there was a Facebook conversation about the television show My Three Sons. Someone wrote that they had a crush on one of the sons, Robby. In response, another asked if he was the oldest. I jumped in: “Originally, there were three bio sons, Mike, Robby, and Chip. But Mike got married and left; the dad then adopted Ernie. So if you were watching in 1965 or later, Robby was the oldest. Simple question, but complicated answer.” Except for the year, I KNEW all of that.

I WANT to declutter the house, and occasionally, my mind.

I WISH people would stop believing comments, often made by political figures, that are, to my mind, clearly lies. Also, the rationalization of bigotry by JD Vance, over “jokes” about gas chambers and rape, approving of slavery, and sneering about “watermelon people,” among other comments, reflects a moral bankruptcy.

I PRAY that people recognize that climate change is real and act to slow its progression since it is apparent that we are beyond reversing it.

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

1995 #1 Hot Country Singles & Tracks

John Michael Montgomery, Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn

Here are the 1995 #1 Hot Country Singles and Tracks. Joel Whitburn’s Hot Country Songs contains information about chart methodology.

“For decades, Billboard’s country singles charts were compiled by playlists reported by radio stations and sales reports reported by stores. These airplays and sales reports established the weekly rankings…

“On January 20, 1990, Billboard began basing the charts entirely on airplay with information gathered by the Nielsen Broadcast Data systems, a subsidiary of Billboard that electronically monitored actual radio airplay… These monitors can identify each song played by an encoded audio fingerprint.

“On December 5, 1992, Billboard began compiling the country singles charts strictly on the number of detections or plays registered by each song.

The songs

I Like It, I Love It – Tim McGraw, five weeks at #1

Check Yes or No -George Strait, four weeks at #1. As you may know, Strait has been selected for the Kennedy Center Honors in 2025. Someone gave me one of his compilation CDs, the 1991 Ten Strait Hits.

I Can Love You Like That – John Michael Montgomery, three weeks at #1. This song I know! I own a version by All-4-One. Some music pundit noted at the time that this convergence meant that the genres were essentially meaningless.

Summer’s Comin’– Clint Black, three weeks at #1

Sold (The Grundy County Auction Incident) – John Michael Montgomery, three weeks at #1

Not A Moment Too Soon – Tim McGraw, two weeks at #1

Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life) – Pam Tillis, two weeks at #1

Old Enough To Know Better – Wade Hayes, two weeks at #1

This Woman And This Man – Clay Walker, two weeks at #1

Thinking About You – Trisha Yearwood, two weeks at #1

Any Man Of Mine – Shania Twain, two weeks at #1

You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone – Brooks & Dunn, two weeks at #1

Dust On The Bottle – David Lee Murphy, two weeks at #1

Tall, Tall Trees – Alan Jackson, two weeks at #1

That’s As Close As I’ll Get To Loving You – Aaron Tippin, two weeks at #1

All the rest of the songs are one week at #1

Gone Country – Alan Jackson

My Kind Of Girl – Collin Raye

You Can’t Make A Heart Love Somebody – George Strait

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter – Reba McEntire

Little Miss Honky Tonk – Brooks & Dunn. I read the titles to text, and the machine changed Honky to *****, which I thought was adorable.

Gonna Get A Life – Mark Chesnutt

What Mattered Most – Ty Herndon

Texas Tornado – Tracy Lawrence

I Don’t Even Know Your Name – Alan Jackson

I Didn’t Know My Own Strength – Lorrie Morgan

Not On Your Love – Jeff Carson

She’s Every Woman—Garth Brooks. I own only one other album represented on this list, Fresh Horses.

Piano at home

looking for musicality

Among the interesting things I receive because I have a blog is this recent email about a piano: “I hope this message finds you well. A friend of mine is giving away her late husband’s Yamaha Piano to an instrument lover. This instrument holds profound sentimental value for her, and she’d love it for it to find a new home with someone who’ll cherish it as much as her late husband did. She’d be delighted to share its history, condition, or other details if you’re curious. Thank you for considering this. Any help or advice is appreciated.”

It is astounding how many people are trying to unload what had been in the heart of the household. Please think of the last three minutes of It’s A Wonderful Life. Fillyjonk noted,” I knew people growing up who had pianos or guitars or other instruments, and they played for their own or their family’s entertainment.” She links to an on-point video.

When I was growing up, we had an upright piano at home. Though no one could really master it, we all noodled around, playing Chopsticks and the like. My maternal grandmother also had a piano; my father is sitting on the piano bench. The one year I took piano lessons, I practiced more at Grandma’s because it was a better instrument.

“For a long time, the piano was one of the first instruments U.S. children learned to play, but in 2025, fewer people are buying pianos for their homes. CBS Saturday Morning discovers why decreased sales might not be a bad thing.”

Sales

According to the Blue Book of Pianos, piano sales were estimated to be as high as 306,984 annually in 1925 for a population of about 116 million people. In 2024, per the Music Trades Corporation’s Music Industry Census, it was 17,294 pianos annually in a population of 340 million.

Hannah Beckett, a piano technician in northern Virginia, notes the increased popularity of alternatives. “‘At least a digital piano is going to have accurate sounds and notes, the keys are going to go up and down,’ she explains, a problem that older acoustic pianos can pose for beginners.’

“Beckett is optimistic about the future of playing the instrument.

“‘At some point, you’re going to start looking for musicality, for emotional expression, for shaping phrasing, for some of the things more advanced musicians are interested in,” she says hopefully, adding, ‘we’re going to see a resurgence of piano playing. I think we’re all kind of weary of screens at this point.'”

Crying and dying music

Hymn To Joy

This continues my response to J. Eric Smith’s The Honest Playlist prompt, with his answers here. It turned out to be crying and dying music.

Crying

The song that makes me cry is “A LOT OF MUSIC MAKES ME CRY,“ and it’s become more frequent over time. Sad songs such as these can be tied to failed romance. Also in the category is “Harvest Moon” by Neil Young. A friend was playing that song by Cassandra Wilson and wondered if it made me feel down; no, it’s the specific cadence of the original.

Lullabye by Billy Joel, especially after I heard an a cappella group from Binghamton, NY perform it c. 1995. It’s the bridge.

The inverse pedal point.

Silent Eyes by Paul Simon. The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel; see the description here. Biko by Peter Gabriel, specifically at the end. There are quite a few songs.

I wrote here about my mom in 2016, five years after she died: “I went to church [back in Albany] that last Sunday of the month when we sang Lift Every Voice and Sing, which I’ve sung for years. But I can barely get through it anymore without crying, and it started that day when I knew, profoundly, that my mom, and my last living ancestor, was gone.”

There’s a Lenten hymn called “Ah, Holy Jesus.” The second verse ends with “I crucified You.” It always makes me verklempt.

But it doesn’t always have to be sad. Lots of organ music affects me; it often offers power chords at the end. I’m a sucker for the very last, very high note Julie Andrews sings in Do-Re-Mi from The Sound of Music. Or the growl by Paul Carrack in Squeeze’s Tempted. The modulation in She’s Gone by Hall and Oates; that song won me $48. There are a slew of them. But they don’t always affect me the same way every time.

Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye

The song I’d like played at my funeral: Coincidentally, in the spring of 2025, folks in our adult education class at church talked about what music, scripture, etc., the participants would like to have at their funerals. I wasn’t there because the choir rehearses at the same time.

If you want to play music in the lead-up to my funeral, I’d suggest the Barber adagio or Raindrop Prelude by Chopin. The Chopin begins and ends simply, but the middle (the inverse pedal point section) is the stormy section.

At the beginning, I’d love to have a recording of My Prayer by the Beach Boys. It’s not very long but effective.

How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place from the Brahms Requiem, in English, would be nice during the service. Also, I Will Not Leave You Comfortless by Everett Titcomb, or Come Thou Holy Spirit by Pavel Tschesnokoff.

I want someone to sing the response to Psalm 29, the arrangement by Hal Hopson, as one of the scripture pieces, along with readings of Psalm 150 and Matthew 25:34-40.

Hymns

Pick some hymns with harmonization; I don’t want a bunch of boring unison singing. Here are some options from a previous Presbyterian hymnal. They are in page order, not by any preference:

Holy, Holy, Holy (Nicaea)—I now know the blessed Trinity refers to God’s manifestations, but it evokes in me my first church in Binghamton (Trinity AME Zion) and in Albany (Trinity United Methodist). And it’s the first hymn in what a late ex-girlfriend used to refer to as the “real Methosdist hymnal.”

It Is Well With My Soul (Ville Du Havre) – sung at several Trinity UMC funerals

God of the Ages, Whose Almighty Hand (National Hymn). I always loved the trumpet opening. We sang some version of this in elementary school around Thanksgiving.

Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise (St. Denio)

Guide Me, Oh Thou Great Jehovah (Cwm Rhondda)- I always loved the bass vocal flourish in the last line. It reminds me of someone specific.

How Firm A Foundation (Foundation)

My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less (Sold Rock)

O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go (St. Margaret)

Precious Lord (Precious Lord)

Lord, You Give the Great Commission (Abbot’s Leigh) – this has a great bass line.

The Church’s One Foundation (Aurelia) – I’m a sucker for old Wesleyan hymns

Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Theee (Hymn To Joy) – roll over, Beethoven

For The Beauty of the Earth (Dix)

When Morning Gilds The Skies (Laudes Domini)

And in the end

Near the end, I want God Be With You Till We Meet Again (Randolph) or Now The Day Is Over (Merrial), and most importantly, I want a seven-fold Amen. We don’t sing enough Amens in our service.

I need a postlude, something I could feel viscerally if I sat in the choir loft. One option would be the Toccata from Symphony V by Charles-Marie Widor, which I first heard in 1992 at my graduation from library school. But there are others.

Finally, I want someone to play a recording of In The Mood by The Henhouse Five (Plus Two), the nom de poulet of Ray Stevens, purveyor of eclectic songs such as Gitarzan, Mr. Businessman, Everything Is Beautiful, and The Streak. I have the song on a Warner Bros. Loss Leader. He showed that, and I’ve known this ever since, almost anything can be done in chicken. (See, for example, Ode To Chicken by TwoSetViolin.)

I suppose this is all subject to change, with music I’m not thinking of. (I’m REALLY bad at remembering names of instrumentals.) And since I’ll be, er, dead, I don’t want to handcuff the planners of my funeral TOO much. But I thought it was a pretty good first draft.

October rambling: gallimaufry

blah blah blah

Word of the day: gallimaufry- a confused jumble or medley of things.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Maria Corina Machado the Nobel Peace Prize 2025. She will receive it for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.

UAlbany Alum Omar Yaghi ’85 Shares 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He was born in Amman, Jordan.

FACT CHECK: Almost Every Syllable He Utters

Noem’s shutdown propaganda isn’t flying at US airports

Medicaid Work Requirements Will Devastate People With Invisible Disabilities

Portland Frog is Back after being “Pepper Sprayed In the Vent” by ICE

“They haven’t heard of Bad Bunny, and that’s all that matters.”

Why Planes Still Have ‘No Smoking’ Signs

The Silence of the Generals

As UN Turns 80, US Continues Violation of Charter’s Limits on Use of Force

FOTUS incompetence is bolstering China—and screwing US farmers

A Stranger Shattered Their Lives. At First, They Didn’t Know Why. A family reckons with the devastation left behind after a former N.F.L. player showed up on their property.

An Ohio village moved to rename a park after its hometown baseball star, Ray Brown. Controversy followed

What the evidence tells us about Tylenol, leucovorin, and autism. The questions of whether acetaminophen can cause the condition or leucovorin can treat it have been studied to a fair degree

Hallelujah, “the linguistic Swiss Army knife of joy”

A comic about AI art

History

Twelve Failed Constitutional Amendments That Could Have Reshaped American History

Making amends: A friendship forged from the Unabomber’s violence

Announcing the Winners of the 5th Annual Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize. The prize honors the work of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated authors writing toward a more just world.

State Data Center Clearinghouse data

The NYG&B has released a significant addition to its online records: a free-to-use, enhanced index for FamilySearch’s digital collection New York, Land Records, 1630–1975. The searchable index comprises 63.5 million records for more than 32 million transactions, including deeds, mortgages, patents, and land grants.

The Great Chicago Fire of October 8-10, 1871 | Journey to American Democracy

New book – The Essential Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz: The Greatest Comic Strip of All Time by Mark Evanier

Jane Goodall, renowned chimpanzee researcher and animal advocate, dies at 91

I’ve long been convinced that, though Diane Keaton won an Oscar for Annie Hall, her performance that same year in Waiting for Mr. Goodbar (1977) sealed the deal. I’ve also caught her in The Godfather (1972), Reds (1981), Baby Boom (1987), Father of the Bride I and II (1991, 1995), The First Wives’ Club (1996), Something’s Gotta Give (2003), The Family Stone (2005), and Finding Dory (2016-voice). Oh, and every single Woody Allen movie in which she appeared. She died at age 79.

The Life and Death of the American Foodie

Kelly’s Tabular Enclosification

The Dionne Quintuplets Captivated the World During the Great Depression. But Their Fame Came at a Cost

The Thieves That Wrestled With Their Conscience and A Heroic Reason to Steal a Jacket

News consumption

The blogger DelSo writes, “I’m sorry that the country where I live is so selfish that far too many people care for no one beyond themselves.” She then discusses the “Sumud Flotilla and its attempt to deliver critical aid to Palestine,” and other topics.

An old buddy complained, “Why isn’t this story all over the news?” referring to Body slamming, teargas, and pepper balls: viral videos show Ice using extreme force in Chicago.

Astonishingly often, I read or hear, “This should be getting far more attention than it is getting”about a wide swath of topics.

Conversely, many of my friends said they hardly watch the news, or at least limit the content. “It’s too depressing!”

I absolutely agree with all of it. There’s a lot of news that goes underreported. Sarah Mullally, the bishop of London, has been appointed archbishop of Canterbury, yet this didn’t make that evening’s network news, which I watched. At the same time, the sentencing of Sean “Puffy” Combs led the broadcasts.

As noted in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Bari Weiss took over CBS News’s leadership, which is worrisome.

I hope people can stay informed because lots of stuff is happening, much of it distressing. At the same time, I’m hoping others will allow some grace for those who can’t bear the 24-hour, largely overwhelming, news cycle.

One suggestion: avoid clickbait, those sites you have to click on to where some presumably terrible headline has occurred.

MUSIC

Silent Eyes – Paul Simon

Sad and Beautiful World – Mavis Staples –

Goodbye Stranger – Supertramp

Piano Concerto in F major by George Gershwin

The Empty Chair – Sting

The Addams Family theme (cover)

Ophelia – The Band

Dirty Work– Steely Dan

The overture to La Cenerentola by Rossini

Coverville 1551: Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music Cover Story and 1552: The Human League Cover Story

Tom & Jerry by the Korean a cappella group, MayTree

Let Me Roll It – Paul McCartney and Wings

Desolation Row – Bob Dylan

Journey Through The Past – Neil Young

The Greatest Woman On Earth by Hans Zimmer, from the movie As Good As It Gets

Soldier Boy – The Shirelles

The Crazed Moon by Julian Anderson

The Autumn Leaves – Nat King Cole

Boogie Shoes – KC & The Sunshine Band

Save The Life Of My Child – Simon & Garfunkel (Why do people say ‘blah blah blah’?)

Carol Kaye Is Being Honored by the Rock Hall. She Doesn’t Care.

The Beatles Alpha Omega bootlegs