Ramblin' with Roger

R is for Rogers

Note I did NOT use Rodgers, since Rodger is NOT my name, though people have erroneously spelled it that way.

Apparently, I DO take requests. When I wrote R is for Roger, Redux six months ago, Martha asked, “Have you tried using Roger (or Rogers) as a last name? That might be fun too.” Well, I had not. Of course, there are a LOT of them, but here’s the list I thought of:
Non-Fictional:

Fred Rogers (1928-2003) – the beloved host of the children’s program Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Well, popular among most people: here are some local FOX News personalities speculating that his positive message of valuing all people was actually harmful to children. (n.b., I believe these people are nuts.) Personally, I thought the man in the cardigan sweater brought a certain calmness to kids’ lives. HERE he accepts the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 24th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards in 1997. You might be surprised by the number of times I’ve been called Mr. Roger by parents of children I’m acquainted with.

Ginger Rogers (1911-1995), nee Virginia Katherine McMath – the regular dance partner of Fred Astaire. A musical about her life was called Backwards in High Heels, a reference to the quote Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backward and in high heels, which originated in a 1982 Frank and Ernest cartoon by Bob Staves, and popularized by the late former governor of Texas, Ann Richards.

Kenny Rogers (b. 1938) – I first heard Kenny Rogers with a group called The First Edition, singing songs such as But You Know I Love You and Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) [LISTEN]. He then became a country crooner with many hit songs, notably The Gambler, which became the source of a couple of TV movies. He has sold over 68 million albums in the USA alone. Rogers is a 2013 inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Marshall Rogers (1950-2007) – though he drew stories with both Marvel and DC Comics, I always most associate him for illustrating the stories Steve Englehart wrote about Batman in Detective Comics. They teamed up to do stories of the Silver Surfer as well.

Mimi Rogers (b. 1956) – actress I know best as the costar of the Geena Davis Show (2000-2001), and who you probably know best as an ex-wife of Tom Cruise. No, I never saw her in X-Files, or Two and a Half Men, or Austin Powers, among her many credits.

Roy Rogers (1911-1998), ne Leonard Slye – the singing cowboy, whose closing theme, Happy Trails To You, was written by his wife, Dale Evans. I own a Sons of the Pioneers CD on which he sings. The very first question I got right when I was on JEOPARDY! I knew because of watching Roy’s show; it was about sidekick Pat Brady. The series featured Roy’s golden palomino, Trigger, and his German Shepherd dog, Bullet, and I watched religiously every Saturday morning on CBS-TV. He was also in over 100 movies, none of which I ever saw. He shrewdly had a clause in his 1940 contract with the studio where he would have the right to his likeness, voice and name for merchandising; there was a LOT of Roy Rogers merchandise in the day. Like Kenny Rogers, Roy was also a restaurateur, though not an active participant.

Will Rogers (1879-1935) – an Oklahoma wit full of pithy quotes, who was a cowboy, writer, actor, and radio commentator, giving bipartisan barbs to the politicians. There’s a nice page about him on the PBS website. He died in a plane crash with noted aviator Wiley Post.

Fictional:

Buck Rogers – a 25th-century explorer. Popular on television, though I have no particular memory of it.

Sally Rogers – played by Rose Marie (b. 1923) on the television series Dick Van Dyke Show, she was the female comedy writer on the variety program The Alan Brady Show. Single – except for her cat – and not generally happy about it.

Steve Rogers – in the comic books, scrawny kid not eligible for military service during World War II, but signs up for a secret experience that gives him superior strength. Frozen in a block of ice, he is reanimated in the comic book Avengers #4. In several live-action and animated films.

Note I did NOT use Rodgers, since Rodger is NOT my name, though people have erroneously spelled it that way.

ABC Wednesday – Round 13

Veterans Day 2013

The better photo ops during the shutdown involved patriotic old men in their 80s and 90s unable to get to war memorials.

Reading this somewhat self-serving history of the Department of Labor during and after World War II: “When the war ended, attention shifted to the needs of those returning from war and their families. The Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of June 22, 1944—widely known as the G.I. Bill—provided a weekly unemployment allowance, as well as counseling, placement services, education and job training to nearly 10 million veterans between 1944 and 1949.” Taking care of that generation was important to the country.

At the end or near end, of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we see that
most Americans now believe those conflicts were mistakes. I’m sure battle fatigue was a major factor in people’s opposition to an American incursion into Syria. Yet this is not a reflection of what people felt about soldiers’ bravery, from all reports.

The Veterans Affairs Department is drowning under mountains of paperwork representing services not rendered. During the government shutdown, the VA secretary said that “more than 5 million veterans, as well as some active-duty service members, would not have received “crucial benefits after Nov. 1 if the event had continued much longer. As it was, the shutdown slowed the process of paying those vets.

The better photo ops during the shutdown involved patriotic old men in their 80s and 90s unable to get to war memorials. Yet, one could argue that veterans were hurt far more by the loss of benefits during the shutdown than by the symbolic lack of access to some shrines. Open memorials may matter, but money for essentials matters, too.

I am a collector

Yes, sometimes, I would manually calculate BA and ERA, because it was fun.

Chuck Miller wrote a piece about collecting, which inspired this.

Stamps

My actual stamp collecting was only for a year or two when I was eight or nine, but I have my great aunt’s book of stamps from around the globe. It’s a fascinating tome, mostly unfilled, but it tells an interesting story of the world from the period before World War II.

There were times, particularly in the 1980s and I was doing mail order when I would keep an interesting stamp that came in, but it was in no particularly organized way, and I have no idea where they are today.

Coins

I used to collect pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and half dollars. I knew about the mints in Philadelphia (P) (generally unmarked in the day) from Denver (D) and even San Francisco (S). But the theft of the half dollar coins in my childhood soured me.

I was getting the Presidential $1 coins, but they are so unpopular with the general public, they are only available to coin dealers. So last year, and again this year, I capitulated and spent $2.95 each for a P & a D for each $1 Presidential dollar, starting with Chester A. Arthur. Ticks me off that Americans haven’t taken to the dollar coins, because I love them.

If I see a wheat penny (1909-1958), I throw it into my Mickey Mouse bank that I’ve had for decades.

Baseball cards

From about 1960 on, I was collecting baseball cards. Most of them were from a company called Topps, but I also had some that were on the back of boxes of Post cereals, e.g. I remember some gold and red cards, but no longer its provenance.

What I do remember is reading the backs of the cards to read each position player’s AB (at bats), number of H (hits), 2B (doubles), 3B (triples), HR (home runs) and the BA (batting average.) Pitchers were measured by W (wins), L (losses), K (strikeouts), BB (walks), IP (innings pitched and ERA (earned run average). Yes, sometimes, I would manually calculate BA and ERA, because it was fun.

Unfortunately, I had left my cards at my grandmother’s house when I went to college, and kept them in this olive green container, which was stolen in the great theft of 1972.

Subsequently, I bought a couple season sets of Topps cards in 1986 and 1987. Alas, they were in the damp basement of my current abode, and they’ve stuck together in a mass i just can’t bear to look at. Maybe a few are salvageable.

Hess trucks

I described this collection here. Not much more to say except it remains on my annual Christmas list. My friend Mary still has some earlier ones I’ll buy when I can afford to.

Comic books

I wrote about the origins of my collecting in this narrative for Trouble with Comics. In college, I was buying my new comics, first at an inconvenient convenience store in Highland (NY), then at the Crystal Cave, in New Paltz, one of the first true comic shops. But in addition to the store and mail order, you could buy comics at garage sales and the like.

In the 1980s, I was buying virtually all the Marvels, plus almost all the “independents”, such as Pacific, First, et al. Not so much DC, though the stories not so tied to the universe, such as Warlord, I’d get. Once I left FantaCo in 1988, and wasn’t getting a discount anymore, I cut back, getting most Marvels, but also the weirder stuff.

By the 1990s, it wasn’t that I hated comics, but I hated the comic market, with innumerable #1s and even #0s. So I sold my collection in 1994. It wasn’t until this past summer that I came across a cache of comics I bought in 1993 and 1994, unread. So maybe it WAS also that comics themselves had lost their luster for me. I also found, only this summer, a magazine box of Savage Sword of Conan, and the Hulk, and Marvel Preview, which I had meant to sell two decades ago, but somehow missed.

Almost every year the first Saturday in May, I go to Free Comics Day, and it’s like visiting a place I used to live. I pick up random items.

I do still have books of comic art: Elfquest, Groo, the original Dark Knight saga, Swamp Thing, and those Marvel Masterworks, among others.

Enough of this; next time out, books and music. A LOT of music.

JEOPARDY! plus 15 years

Put ‘Em in Order: “Oklahoma statehood, California statehood, Nebraska statehood.” What’s your guess?

What’s made relating the game information so much easier than when I first wrote about it in 2005 is my discovery of something called J-archive, which archives JEOPARDY! games, including mine. So you can read every question and the order in which it was selected.

In game 1, it was the fifth question before I can finally answer a question, even though I knew three of the previous four.
The category was The Brady Bunch. “Unlike his horse, his sidekick, Pat Brady isn’t mounted for display.” I ring in first: “What is Roy Rogers?” It should have been WHO, but it’s still correct.

At the first commercial, it’s Tom $800, Roger $1100, Amy $1900. However long the commercials are at home is how long there are in the studio. Jennifer had to re-powder my forehead because I was “shiny.

So we get to Old Testament Women, one of the categories I expect to do well in.
$100- Delilah, which Amy got.
$200- for reasons unclear, I said Delilah! I KNEW it was Bathsheba but the brain just picked up Amy’s response.
She asked for OT Women for $300 and I’m still literally shaking my head, beating myself up for this gaffe. The mortification finally passed and I did get the $500 clue.

The score after the JEOPARDY! round, Tom $2100, Roger $2000, Amy $2800. Alex says, “Roger, you’ll go first in Double JEOPARDY!”

The categories are Brahmins, The Untouchables, Television, Put ‘Em In Order, This Is Your Life – Woodrow Wilson, and Literary Crosswords “M”. Well, television should be OK, and maybe Wilson, but this is not looking great.

I start with Television for $200, get Frasier. Television for $400-the first of the two Daily Doubles! And it’s a Video. Score Tom $2100, Roger $2200, Amy $2800. OK, if I bet enough, and get it right, I can take the lead for the first time! I can say, “I held the lead once!” I bet $1200.

Jason Alexander (from Seinfeld) says on screen: “This actor co-starred with me on a sitcom called “E/R” before starring in the medical seies “E.R.” So what do YOU think? I actually watched the earlier show, which starred Elliot Gould, and I also read about it in People magazine after the latter show began.

“Who was George Clooney?” “You guessed right,” Alex said. It wasn’t a guess.

Amy started taking off, getting several responses. I managed to get a couple in Crosswords, and three under Wilson. I put some Popes in order for $400. Then I pick the $600 clue in that category. It’s the OTHER Daily Double!

With the furious back and forth, I was genuinely surprised to find that I was leading: Tom $4100, Roger $7400, Amy $7000. Put ‘Em in Order: the category made me nervous. It could be ANYTHING. I bet a conservative $1000. “Oklahoma statehood, California statehood, Nebraska statehood.” What’s your guess?

One thing I knew: California became a state in 1850, the year after the Gold Rush. Oklahoma became a state in the 20th Century, actually 1907. When did Nebraska become a state? I said, “California statehood, Nebraska statehood, Oklahoma statehood.” That was correct. Nebraska become a state in 1867.

At the end of Double JEOPARDY!, it’s Tom $5100, Roger $9600, Amy $8400. The Final JEOPARDY! category is World Capitals. During the commercials between Double JEOPARDY! and the Final, you have to make your bet. The Final JEOPARDY! clue was: “This city was known as Dong Kihn, and to the Europeans as Tonquin.”

For five seconds, I have no idea even what was being asked. Then I look at the two primary words in the clue Tonquin and Donkin. If you blend them together, you get Tonkin. Tonkin Gulf. Where’s that? Vietnam. And what’s the capital of Vietnam? And all that processing took about 10 seconds.

Tom writes, What is Hanoi? Correct. He bet $1000 and now has $6100. Amy wrote, “What is Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City?” Wrong, no longer a world capital. Then my response is revealed: “What is Hanoi?” At that moment, it didn’t matter what I bet. I stand, poker-faced. $8000, added to my $9600, for a total of $17,600! When my bet was uncovered, there was an audible gasp in the audience; I just exhaled.

I got tremendous applause, more than I could have imagined. There were reasons: 1) I was told by an audience member that WTEN brought a busload of people with them to see the show 2) both of my friends, Judy and Karen, were telling people sitting around them, “Hey, we know him, go root for Roger.” And they DID.

But the second game, about 20 minutes later, did not go nearly so well. After the first round, I had but $600, while Jim had $2,700 and Robin, $2,900, after I got the last question of the round incorrectly. I got only 2 right in the Double JEOPARDY! section, both films of the ’40s. I just couldn’t get in. After a while I started to root for Jim to stay close to Robin; the score at the end of the Double JEOPARDY! round was $2200 for me $5500 for Jim, $9200 for Robin.

I have virtually zero chances of winning. But I get Final JEOPARDY! right, they don’t, I end up in second place, which was a trip to Barbados, which I eventually used on my honeymoon with Carol. Then I sit in the audience, watch a third show, and am melancholy I think I would have done well with those questions.

The seven weeks between the taping and the airing of the show are the worst, with people prodding me for the results. The day before the show aired, I called Amy Roeder, and commiserated together.

I watched the show in my church’s parlor with about 50 other people. It was slightly mortifying.

Every day for the next 35 days, and indeed for most days for the next six months, someone who was a total stranger would recognize me and congratulate me. Just when I think it was dying off, a new wave of folks would remind me they saw my appearance. I was fascinated that when I was in San Diego in September of 1999, 10 months after the show aired, some women from DC recognized me.

Winning on JEOPARDY! means that people think I’m intelligent. I’m probably no smarter than I was before, but I am perceived as such.

As recently as August 2013, people in my office have introduced me to other people as “our JEOPARDY! champion.”

I’m still in touch with Amy Roeder; check out her blog. Still use the lap blanket I got as a consolation prize.

All in all, it was a great experience. I’m still talking about it in no small part because someone will introduce me to another, saying, “”Oh, Roger won on JEOPARDY!” and the second person will say, “Tell me about it.” So I do, here.

JEOPARDY! plus 180 months

The WTEN cameraman was following me around the room, and that he particularly concentrated on my feet because he was fascinated by my red Chuck Taylor sneakers.

Monday, November 9, 1998 was the first of my two appearances on the TV game show JEOPARDY! I wrote about this at TREMENDOUS length when I first started blogging in 2005: Parts 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 and 10 and 11.

I’ll try an abridged version here.

I took a mini-test in Albany in late April 1998, passed it, and was supposed to take a bus to Boston on May 14 to take the REAL test. But I had a NON-REFUNDABLE train ticket to visit Detroit and Cleveland that week.

I called WTEN, the local affiliate that carries the show, who gave me the number of Susanne Thurber, the “talent coordinator” for JEOPARDY!, in Los Angeles. She informed me about tests in Washington, DC the following week.

In DC, I went to a hotel conference room, where 45 or 50 people were seated for the test. We wrote the responses (no, they didn’t have to be in a form of a question) on a sheet of paper. There would be 50 questions in 50 categories.

Eight of us passed the test. We played a few mock games, complete with a buzzer. You don’t click once, you click repeatedly until someone’s name is called.

Thursday, August 13, I’m sitting at work, when our secretary buzzes my phone. “It’s JEOPARDY!” The next thing I hear is: “Roger Green? ” “Yes?” “I’m Grant Loud from JEOPARDY! This is the call!”

Grant explained that this would be a special series of programs filmed in Boston. They were taking only people who resided in the original 13 colonies for this week of programs. Would I be available on September 17 and 18? Yes! On September 17, my friend Judy Doyle and her son Max picked me up with my requisite three suits, five ties, two shirts, and my new shoes.

We get to the Boston Park Plaza Hotel, a very nice hotel. It was oddly shaped to fit the space that was available, I gather.

It turns out that President Clinton and other dignitaries were going to be at the hotel for a fancy (read: high-priced) fund-raising dinner. Eventually, I could look down from my upper story room and see several hundred protesters, split about 50/50 anti-Clinton, and anti-Ken Starr, the special prosecutor, who put all of the lurid details about Bill and Monica Lewinsky on the Internet. The added security made it difficult for us to get back into the hotel, once we left for dinner. (Host Alex Trebek had the same difficulty, I later learn.)

The contestants were to meet in the hotel lobby with our change of clothes at 11:30 a.m. We rode in two vans for the two or three-block trip to the Wang Center. Among other things, she noted that the place was much larger (seating capacity 3200) than the small theater where the show is filmed (250).

Boston was really psyched to have JEOPARDY! in town. The Globe, the Herald, and even the Christian Science Monitor were there, interviewing Susanne, Trebek, head writer Gary Johnson, and others.

There was a cameraman from WTEN wishing me “good luck.” They were because it was relatively close by AND because a guy from Albany was there. The WTEN cameraman was following me around the room, and that he particularly concentrated on my feet because he was fascinated by my red Chuck Taylor sneakers. (I REALLY know this, because, a few months later he gave me his raw footage of my feet and other things he filmed.)

My interview with Bianca de la Garza from Channel 10 takes place. Then Sharman Saccetti of Channel 18 in Elmira was there to interview me, probably because the station that carries JEOPARDY! in the Binghamton market, my hometown, is located 60 miles away in Elmira. Then Channel 2 Plattsburgh wanted to talk with me. Why? I don’t know. I must have been the contestant geographically closest to them.

Finally, with Susanne Thurber practically dragging me off the stage to end interview #3, we return downstairs. It was determined who the contestants who would face defending champion Tom: Amy Roeder, an actress from Merrimack, NH, and me!

I am still feeling very relaxed. Then Johnny Gilbert says, “A business librarian from Albany, NY, Roger Green.”
And my mouth goes dry.

(Tomorrow, the thrilling conclusion.)