Ramblin' with Roger

Richard Powell (1936-2020)

“Hammerin’ Harmon”

The late Richard Powell, me, the late Les Green

My father-in-law Richard Powell and I bonded over baseball. He loved the game, and I had grown up with it, even having a big baseball card collection in the 1960s and early 1970s. When he moved to Oneonta in the early 1990s, he usually had season tickets to the minor league farm team, first for the Yankees and then, from 1999 to 2009, the Tigers.

Richard was an avid, and serious fan. He kept score of the games in a series of ledgers And by “keeping score”, I mean recording every out or hit of every batter. He was so reliable that the official scorekeeper, the person who decides whether that was a hit or a fielder’s error, occasionally called on him for his expertise.

We went to the exhibition games in Cooperstown nearly annually through 2008. No way would we drive to Cooperstown. We took the bus, which was much more civilized. And much cheaper, as the local homeowners charged exorbitant fees to park on their plot of land. He became quite expert at picking out the old-timers who would be in town to sign memorabilia.

We even went to a New York Yankees game on Father’s Day weekend 2015, which I wrote about here.

Minnesota Twins

His favorite player was Harmon Killebrew, who hit 573 home runs for the Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins in an era when reaching 500 homers was an achievement. He’s still 12th all-time among home run leaders. He led the league in that stat six times and all of major league baseball five.

Richard’s persona was like the play of another one of his favorite players, Kirby Puckett. Not ostentatious but steady, reliable, showing when necessary a surprising bit of power.

And in October 2019, Richard seemed quite healthy and vital. Then he got what seemed to mimic a bad flu, which lingered into the new year. He had excessive calcium, which was treated by his doctor. But he spent about a week at a hospital in Oneonta, and another week and a half in a hospital in Schenectady, taking an ambulance 75 miles between the two.

Finally, he was diagnosed with Angioimmunoblastic T-Cell Lymphoma. It’s a rare form of lymphoma. While there were medical options presented, none were particularly attractive. So we were told he had about a year to live around Presidents Day. Four weeks later, and after a number of falls it was suddenly only another month to go.

As it turned out, his wife and three surviving children were all present on the day he died, Wednesday, April 22, 2020. Expect more on Richard Powell, especially if/when I find that picture of the two of us in Cooperstown.

Lydster: school days, reimagined

rigorous sans being onerous

albany-city-school-district-squarelogo By Friday, March 13, the rumors were rife in Albany, NY that there would be no school the following week because of the pandemic. Specifically, Albany County had confirmed two cases in the county the day before. Two of my daughter’s teachers gave her homework for the following week, just in case. At about 4:35 p.m., it was official: no school for the next two weeks.

The district had links to old exams, Khan Academy and other materials. As it became obvious that the schools would be closed well beyond the initial March dates, the district started distributing Chromebooks to students to assist families with computer access at home. Some free WiFi options were touted.

A new schedule

On Monday, April 6, teachers were to begin new instruction at all grade levels. For high schools, it meant classes at 9 and 10:30 a.m., lunch between 11:30 and 12:30, and classes at 12:30 and 2.p.m. The online learning is through Google Classroom. So the daughter is up by 8 a.m. to start her reimagined school day.

It was interesting to me how the course work has been recreated. Her physics teacher has worksheets and short videos, featuring herself. Others were making use of existing worksheets from various sources; some are great. Some, though, were difficult for even me to follow.

I have helped my daughter with her physics, math and French homework because of my experience from a half-century ago. My wife, the ENL teacher, who is also working all day from home, assists with English Language Arts, as they call it, and art, not that my daughter needs the assistance there.

Electronic resources continue to be available. Given the fact that these classes weren’t designed for online learning, the schedule seems rigorous enough without being onerous. It would be trickier, though if she were taking two classes of the same category, such as math, science or language. Or if she and siblings were sharing a Chromebook. Fortunately, this not the case. I feel very glad that I’m not in the position to have to homeschool my daughter, just help her a bit.

One real drag: the spring break, scheduled for April 10-17, became instead “scheduled days of instruction in alignment with Governor Cuomo’s executive order closing all New York schools through April 29 due to COVID-19.”

Motown Memories: found list

Too Many Fish in the Sea

Marvelettes Here’s another found list, this one labeled Motown Memories. I like the fact that most of these songs are not the obvious choices.

I’m A Road Runner – Jr. Walker and the All Stars. #4 RB, #20 pop in 1966. I never owned any of his albums. Yet I remember what the cover of the album containing the song looked like. It appears on the various inner sleeves of the Supremes, Temptations, and Four Tops albums I owned.
Girl, Why You Want To Make Me Blue – the Temptations. #11 RB, #26 pop in 1964. The single just before My Girl.
Don’t Look Back – the Temptations. #15 pop, #83 RB in 1965. The B-side of My Baby.
Ask the Lonely – the Four Tops. #9 RB, #24 pop in 1965. this was covered by the Jackson Five.

I’ll Be Doggone – Marvin Gaye. #1 RB, #8 pop in 1965. His first soul #1. His first pop #1 would be I Heard It Through the Grapevine.
Beechwood 4-5789 – the Marvelettes. #7 RB, #17 pop in 1962. I’ve read that people with that real phone number were inconvenienced for months.
Too Many Fish in the Sea – the Marvelettes. #5 RB, #25 pop in 1965. I may have heard the Young Rascals version first.
Tracks of My Tears – the Miracles. #2 RB, #16 pop in 1965. Smokey Robinson!

I’m Gonna Make You Love Me – Diana Ross and the Supremes & the Temptations. #2 for three weeks RB, #2 for two weeks pop in 1969. It was kept out of the #1 spot by Marvin Gaye’s Grapevine.
Walk Away from Love – David Ruffin, #1 RB, #9 pop in 1976. A big hit from the former Temptation.
My Whole World Ended – David Ruffin, #2 RB, #9 pop in 1969.

And finally

Baby I’m for Real – the Originals. #1 for five weeks RB, #14 pop. Produced by Marvin Gaye.

That’s the end of the list, but I figure I’d add the massive hit, already mentioned twice.

I Heard It Through the Grapevine – Marvin Gaye. #1 for seven weeks on both RB and pop. The Miracles version was famously rejected by Motown boss Berry Gordy.

But he allowed the iteration by Gladys Knight and the Pips to be released. It went #1 for six weeks RB, #2 for three weeks pop in 1966. It was kept out of the top pop spot by Daydream Believer by the Monkees, then Hello Goodbye by The Beatles.

I hope you enjoyed someone else’s Motown Memories. I know I did.

Puerto Rico pill organizer

“free time”

The Puerto Rico pill organizer is my daily reminder. As are most of us, I am a creature of habit. After I retired, my ability to remember to take my daily medicines seemed to have gone out the window.

It’s not that there are THAT many of them. One statin pill. One aspirin, what they used to call a “baby aspirin” when I was growing up. And most notably, four calcium/vitamin D3 pills.

Apparently, because I have an autoimmune disease – the vitiligo – this has an effect on my calcium retention. It’s supposed to be at 3000. Three thousand what I have no idea. It was at 1600 three years ago, 2300 two years ago, and 2400 last year. So I was to take 2400mg of calcium daily. But I’d forget.

My family went to this flea market in the fall. At the end of the day, they had a bag sale. All you could get in a bag for five bucks. There was a seven-day poll dispenser from the Villa Cofresi Hotel, in Rincon, PR.

Essentially, bag sales allow one to buy stuff you don’t know if you need. Still, for about three seconds I resisted picking the pill dispenser. That would mean that I must be old. Then I realized, “Well, I’m unlikely to see my 132nd birthday, so I’m more than middle-aged.” AND I was neglecting taking the pills.

I’m doing MUCH better. Even when I miss a day, it’s ONLY a day, not three or four or who knows how many.

Retired

Do you know what I miss since being retired, pre-COVID? Taking a sick day. I had about a week and a half of “flu-like symptoms” in the fall. Somehow, not going to work was a measure of “geez, I must REALLY be sick.” I suppose missing two choir rehearsal and a church service was the closest approximation.

With all this purported “free time”, you might think I’ve had a couple massages. I’ve had none. This must be rectified – well, when I can again!

Fighting digital divide: national defense

DARPA

As a librarian, I’ve been hearing about the digital divide practically from the beginning of my career.

It is defined as “the growing gap between the underprivileged members of society, especially the poor, rural, elderly, and handicapped portion of the population who do not have access to computers or the internet; and the wealthy, middle-class, and young Americans living in urban and suburban areas who have access.” Three years ago, it was a quarter of the nation.

If we’ve learned nothing else from the COVID-19 experience, it is that When School Is Online, the Digital Divide Grows Greater. The problem has not improved greatly in recent years. Americans turned to technology during the COVID-19 outbreak. An outage would be a problem.

A highway is a highway

I’m wondering if the previous arguments have been off. People I know speak of the digital divide in terms such as “economic justice” or “fairness.” That might attract us liberals, but meh. They see underserved as one letter off from undeserved. We need to sell it as a Defense Initiative. Internet Force! Y’know, like Space Force.

And there’s a lot of history behind this. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has funded projects that “have provided significant technologies that influenced many non-military fields, such as computer networking and the basis for the modern Internet, and graphical user interfaces in information technology.”

There may be not enough money in the domestic budget for such an initiative. But there seems to always be money in the Defense budget. This is a national security issue. This will keep us safe in the next disaster. The interstate highway system was purportedly built, in part, “in case of atomic attack on our key cities, the road net [would] permit quick evacuation of target areas.” In the case of the next disaster, we need our people to have access to the information highway as well.