Ramblin' with Roger

1619: Before the Mayflower (NYT, Bennett)

The Names of 1.8 Million Emancipated Slaves Are Now Searchable

I’ve found the information that has been provided by the New York Times in the 1619 Project to be of great use over the past half year. It explaining the effects of slavery in America. And not just up to 1865, but variations that exist to this day, such as the roots of tipping. Check out these audio clips.

I should not have been, but I was nevertheless surprised that so many people were unaware of the year’s significance. Maybe it’s because I grew up reading ads in Ebony and Jet magazines for Before the Mayflower by the late Lerone Bennett. The book came out in the early 1960s, but I didn’t read it until about a decade later. It’s been updated a number of times until 2007.

Before the Mayflower is a great introduction to African American History. But since a lot of people are unfamiliar with it, The 1619 Project became necessary. There is some controversy surrounding the Times series, naturally. On one side is The Battle between 1619 and 1776: The New York Times versus the History Community. On the other, Who’s afraid of the 1619 Project?

I’m not going to get into the debate, except to point out the obvious. Issues of race and slavery and history are… complicated…

The Spanish

For example, “Juan Garrido became the first documented black person to arrive in what would become the U.S. when he accompanied Juan Ponce de León in search of the Fountain of Youth in 1513, and they ended up in present-day Florida, around St. Augustine…

“In 1565… the Spanish brought enslaved Africans to present-day St. Augustine, Fla., the first European settlement in what’s now the continental U.S. In 1526, a Spanish expedition to present-day South Carolina was thwarted when the enslaved Africans aboard resisted.” Still, 1619 was a turning point, if not a beginning.

Here’s A Poem Commemorating The 1619 anniversary: An African Renamed. It’s by Brenda Cave-James, who I have met. We both have Binghamton roots. The poem was inspired by Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.

This could be useful: The Names of 1.8 Million Emancipated Slaves Are Now Searchable in the World’s Largest Genealogical Database, Helping African Americans Find Lost Ancestors. Most of the files are just before or after the Civil War.

The annual baking of the lasagna

Note to OGA: not as good as yours

lasagna Usually once a year, always in the winter or late fall or very early spring, I bake lasagna. I mean, why turn on the oven when it’s 86F (30F)? But when it’s 23F (-5C), that’s another matter entirely. And I generally make at least TWO of them, because the mess from making one just isn’t worth the effort.

On page 247 of Betty Crocker’s 40th Anniversary Edition Cookbook is the recipe for Italian Sausage Lasagna. Oddly, it’s in the Meat section of the book. Usually, I don’t put in any meat at all. I have added spinach, though.

This year, though, we had a half pound of chicken sausage, left over from my daughter’s experimental meal the night before. She told me that taking it out of the casings was “disgusting.” Oh, how bad can it be? It’s like ground beef, right? Well, no, actually. It felt clammy. Never again. I’ll slice it instead. The recipe called for two pounds, but we go with what we have.

I cook the chicken sausage, two mediumish chopped onions and some garlic that my wife had in the fridge. Did I add a couple teaspoons of sugar? I don’t recall. Need a lot of tomato. The recipe wants 32 ounces of tomatoes and 30 ounces of tomato sauce. I’ll at least double it.

Cook it all together until it boils, then let it simmer. The book says for 45 minutes, but I’ve gone longer and shorter than that. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix a carton of ricotta cheese, 24 ounces, and a carton of cottage cheese, 32 ounces, with a half a cup of Parmesan.

Don’t cook the lasagna noodles

Then spread the sauce mixture in the bottom of the baking dish. Add the dry lasagna noodles, because dealing with wet pasta noodles is too much like work. Then more sauce, cheese mixture, sauce, mozzarella, noodles, sauce. Basically the idea is to have enough sauce and other liquids so that cooking the pasta is unnecessary.

Cover and bake 30 minutes, and uncover for another 15. Unless your oven is running cool, which ours does, and end up cooking covered another 20 minutes and uncovered for 10 more.

They turned out OK, one with wheat pasta, and one with the traditional style. But note to OGA: not as good as the lasagna you’re bringing over to my house on March 14, OK?

Lasagna – Weird Al Yankovic.

Les Green, born Leslie H. Walker

new amended birth certificate

Les Green.Savannah GA.1998 My new discovery is that I now have evidence that my father was born Leslie H. Walker in Binghamton, NY. I had been misled that it might have been Wesley Walker, based on the listing in the 1930 Census.

After failing to find a birth certificate in Wilkes-Barre, PA, where I thought he might have been born, I read some genealogical clues. One suggested the New York State Archives, in the same building as the state library in Albany.

I discovered a set of microfiche. It lists every birth in New York State – excluding NYC – by year, and alphabetically within the annual listing. For 1926, “Walker, Leslie H., Bing, 26 Sept.” I have to think it was no accident that Agatha named him similar to Raymond C. Cone’s elder daughter Lessie.

Now I could apply for his real birth certificate. The birth certificate I’d seen since 1974, dated from 1944, listed McKinley Green as Leslie Green’s father. I now know it may have been the “real” birth certificate. Or a legal fiction. Thanks to Melanie for the following:

According to this: “As a portion of the estimated 6 million adoptees, our New York adoptees have two ‘official’ birth certificates. The original one, which truthfully states the information about their physical birth, including their original names, their natural parents’ names, the hospital, doctor, date, time and weight, becomes forever sealed under a court of law when their adoption is finalized.”

Birth certificate #2

“At that point, the new adoptive parents are issued a new amended birth certificate which might or might not state the real birth information such as date, time, hospital and weight, and replaces the natural parents names with the adoptive parents names ‘as if’ the child was born to them. The name of the child is also reborn and all identity from the point of finalization on is replaced.”

Ha! So the registrar didn’t screw up. McKinley and Agatha didn’t lie. And this suggests heavily that McKinley Green actually adopted Leslie H. Walker by 1944, though my father’s surname shows up as Green as early as the 1940 Census.

Since November 2019, obtaining Original (Pre-Adoption) Birth Certificates are now available for adoptees from New York State. “Direct Line Descendants” are also eligible to access it. “A Direct Line Descendant is a child, grandchild, or great grandchild, etc. of the adoptee.” I qualify.

I’ve applied directly to the City of Binghamton office of Vital Statistics. New York State’s queue for old birth, marriage and death certificates is about 15 months.

Movie review: Marriage Story

ScarJo with two acting noms

The movie Marriage Story was included in the Vanity Fair article Divorce Stories: Why the Oscars Love Miserable Couples. I realized how true the observation was. And I’m one of those folks who had been attracted to these.

Ordinary People (1980), Kramer v. Kramer (1979), the early oeuvre of Woody Allen. These are among the films I related to heavily at the time.

The beginning of Marriage Story was quite lovely. Charlie (Adam Driver), a theater director, and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) are putting together lists. They are to write down the traits they like in each other. Alas, this is in anticipation of their inevitable divorce.

Still, they both agree to try to work out the arrangement without dragging lawyers into the mix. They want to protect their son Henry (Azhy Robertson) from too much drama.

Yet the arrangement becomes a transcontinental affair. Charlie has a theater gig in Manhattan. Nicole, whose family is from SoCal, has an acting gig in LA.

Send lawyers…

So Nicole gets a fiercely strong attorney, Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern, NOTHING like Marmie in Little Women). Charlie is forced to respond, with the avuncular Bert Spitz (Alan Alda). High-powered lawyer Jay Marotta (Ray Liotta) may not be available.

Charlie and Henry are visited by a social worker, which was difficult. Charlie, back in NYC, sings to his cast. There is a rather emotionally brutal scene between the principals; THAT was exhausting. At the end, do they find the balance they sought?

Marriage Story was written by Noah Baumbach. He wrote and directed The Squid and the Whale (2005), which also touched on the themes of divorce and children. I haven’t seen it since I first viewed it at the time. But I recall enjoying it far more than Marriage Story. He also penned the screenplay to The Fantastic Mr. Fox. So he can write about happy families.

This was a very well-written, -paced, and -acted movie. The nominations for Johansson, Driver and especially Dern are warranted. I don’t imagine me seeing Marriage Story again, though.

1910 #1 hits : discs rule!

Bert Williams (pictured)

According to A Century of Pop Music: “By 1910, discs had assumed full dominance of the popular record market over wax cylinders…” And that advantage “expanded every year…”

Joel Whitburn explains, “Sheet music sales achieved an all-time high in 1910, with published estimates ranging from 30 million to substantially more. Two six-million sellers were ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart’ and ‘Down By the Old Mill Stream.'” I know both quite well, and I’m not nearly that old. “Not the new, but the old…”

Another popular song from 1910, Put On Your Old Gray Bonnet by Arthur Clough (#3) and the popular Haydn Quartet, among others.

Casey Jones – Billy Murray & the American Quartet (RCA Victor), 11 weeks at #1. Though the RIAA didn’t start certifying records until more than 40 years later, it was designated a gold single. It was “one of the biggest sellers of the entire acoustic recording era.” Billy Murray also had a #3 hit as a solo artist that same summer.

By the Light of the Silvery Moon – Billy Murray and the Haydn Quartet (RCA Victor), 9 weeks at #1. Billy Murray was ubiquitous in this period. The song also went to #2 as performed by both the Columbia Male Quartet and Ada Jones. The Tin Pan Alley standard was first performed on-stage by Lillian Lorraine in the “Ziegfeld Follies of 1909.” Another song that is still a classic over a century later.

More hits

Where the River Shannon Flows – Harry MacDonough, 6 weeks at #1. The Irish Swanee River.

Play That Barber-Shop Chord – Bert Williams, 6 weeks at #1. “Bert Williams (November 12, 1874 – March 4, 1922) was a Bahamian American and was one of the pre-eminent entertainers of the Vaudeville era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. He was by far the best-selling black recording artist before 1920. In 1918, the New York Dramatic Mirror called Williams “one of the great comedians of the world.”

Every Little Movement – Harry MacDonough & Lucy Isabelle Marsh, 4 weeks at #1.

Call Me Up Some Rainy Afternoon – Ada Jones & American Quartet (Columbia), 4 weeks at #1. Written by Irving Berlin.

Meet Me To-Night In Dreamland – Henry Burr, 4 weeks at #1.

Carrie (Carrie Marry Harry) – Billy Murray, 2 weeks at #1.

In the Valley of Yesterday – Harry MacDonough (RCA Victor), 2 weeks at #1. Recorded in 1905.

Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! – Byron Harlan & Frank Stanley, 1 week at #1. Apparently recorded in 1907.