What Albany winters used to be

no singing?

December 17, 2020 – Albany, NY – Albany digs out after an early winter storm. (Mike Groll/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)

Having lived in the New York State capital since 1979, I recall what Albany winters used to be: colder and snowier. Here’s a February 2024 news article about another mild winter.

Most of this winter wasn’t terrible, but February 2025 sucked. On February 9th at church, the education classes were canceled, and the choir didn’t sing in anticipation of a forecasted snowstorm. It wasn’t that bad in Albany. I ended up reading the prayers of people.

The following weekend, choir and education hours were canceled again, less because of the snow but the threat of ice. I ended up being an usher. Somebody said after the service, “Isn’t it nice having time off from choir?” NO! I miss the singing.

The ice continued throughout the week all over the city, with high winds and subzero wind chills. When I had to go to a drugstore, trying to climb over the intersections of solid ice was treacherous. If not for using my cane, I would surely have fallen more than once.

I take pride in keeping my sidewalk clear, but it took two days and multiple applications of deicer to get down to the pavement. It didn’t matter much since most of the rest of the walks weren’t clear for several days when it finally reached freezing.

More bus stories

The whole month was messy. Early in February, I was waiting at a bus, and this relatively short woman was terrified of stepping off the bus into water that would probably be halfway up to her shins. She was paralyzed about what to do, so this guy said, “Okay, we got you,” and, with each of us holding an arm, got her across the gap between the bus and the curb. She was so happy. The bus driver waved the guy and me onto the bus without having to pay.

A couple of days later, it wasn’t snowing, but no one had shoveled the entire walk to the curb. The bus driver wanted to put down the ramp for a person in a wheelchair, but the ramp wouldn’t lie flat. So he wheeled up the small snow bank, and two other people pushed him into the bus—think tush push.

Another time, I was waiting for a bus on Central Avenue, and I had just missed what appeared to be a three-car accident. The vehicles were sitting in the left lane heading eastbound. When the cops came, they stopped in the right lane, making it almost impossible for any vehicle to get by, even as we saw the bus on the horizon. Cleverly, the bus driver drove into the Hannaford grocery store parking lot and managed to pick up the customers anyway. The passengers were praising the CDTA driver for their ingenuity.

Icebreaker Questions for Work

Sing. Obviously.

Here are some more Icebreaker Questions for Work: Breaking the Ice and Building Connections. The concept still cracks me up.

Some of the introductory text: “Ah, icebreaker questions! They’re like little magical potions that can work wonders in breaking down barriers and helping people connect on a deeper level. Whether you find yourself in a work setting where team members may not know each other well or you simply want to foster a sense of camaraderie, icebreaker questions are here to save the day…

“Icebreaker questions are conversation starters designed to, well, break the ice! They’re a fun and lighthearted way to get people talking, connecting, and feeling more comfortable with one another. Think of them as those little sparks that can ignite powerful conversations and create memorable moments together.”

Category 2: Would You Rather?

  1. Would you rather have a rewind button or a pause button in your life?  I’m not going back, that’s for sure. Pause, I suppose. Hmm. Stop The World (And Let Me Off) by Patsy Cline, a song I remember growing up, is stuck in my head.  –
  2. Would you rather always speak in rhymes or sing instead of speaking? Here’s an admission: when I recite the Lord’s Prayer at church, I tend to sing it instead of saying it. I’m trying to remember the words “debts” and “debtors” rather than” trespass” and “trespasses.”. Debt and debtors are the Presbyterian choices, but I was a Methodist for most of my life, so it’s easy to fall into that trap, even 22 years into Presbyterianism. Here’s a version that at least starts less bombastic than most. But I giggled when the lyrics, probably an AI feature, read, “And forgive us our death As we forgive our dead earth”!
  3. Would you rather have a pet dinosaur or be best friends with a unicorn? May I ride the unicorn? Then that. 
  4. Would you rather only be able to whisper or always have to shout? Whisper.  Our choir director and others, such as directors of plays, have talked about how a whisper can still be heard in the back of the room.  
  5. Would you rather have to wear clown shoes every day or a clown wig? A clown wig because it would cover my balding head. No clown shoes unless they’re orthopedic.
  6. Would you rather have to sing every time you speak or dance while you walk? Sing. Obviously.
  7. Would you rather have a pet elephant or a pet penguin? The Penguin likely poops less. (And my spellcheck capitalized penguin.) 
  8. Would you rather always smell like onions or always have bad breath? Presumably, the bad breath would be more likely to be masked, so I’ll go with that.
  9. Would you rather have a flying car or a personal robot assistant?  I will let my robot assistant clean my office, type these blog posts, give me massages, make dinner, wash the dishes…
  10. Would you rather have a permanent funny hiccups or uncontrollable laughter? From time to time, I actually do have uncontrollable laughter after I find certain things that are astonishingly funny. But other people look around, wondering, “What is that old fool laughing about?”  

Black country music landscape

DeFord Bailey

From the Greene County, OH library page: “Black artists have been part of the country music landscape since the beginning, with elements of African-American music, like blues, rock and roll, and southern gospel music, woven in. The banjo, an essential Appalachian music instrument, was introduced to the region by black slaves in the early 19th century (source: Smithsonian Music).”

It was probably in 2005, the year he was posthumously inducted, that I first learned about Country Music Hall of Fame member DeFord Bailey (1899-1982). “An influential harmonica player in both country and blues music, … Bailey was one of the Grand Ole Opry’s most popular early performers and country music’s first African American star… He grew up in a musical family that played what he called ‘Black hillbilly music,’ a tradition of secular string band music that drew upon the same core repertoire shared by rural Black and white musicians alike.”

From Opry.com:  “Harmonica wizard DeFord Bailey wasn’t merely one of the Opry’s first stars — he was the first musician to perform the Saturday that announcer George D. Hay coined the name of the world’s longest-running radio show that would become famous – the Grand Ole Opry. Bailey, whose tunes helped popularize his instrument in the United States, boasted another first, as well: He was the first musician to hold a recording session in Nashville, setting the stage for a scene that would change the world.”

Listen to Pan American Blues and an album

Ray

The multifaceted Ray Charles released an album in 1962, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, which became his first album to top the Billboard 200 charts, and it did so for 14 weeks. The follow-up release, Volume Two, got to #2.

Doug Freeman of the Austin Chronicle wrote of Charles’s influence through the album, stating:

Country and soul have always had a tenuous connection, undoubtedly exacerbated by the racial identifications of their respective fanbases. Yet despite the perceived disconnect between the two genres, the populist formats of both have always been more fluid and contiguous than is traditionally recognized. Elvis‘ melding of country and R&B may even arguably be considered the genesis of rock & roll, though that middle ground has largely only served to allow soul and country to remain segregated. With his 1962 Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Ray Charles created the benchmark for crossing the line, highlighting the similarities in sentiment often overshadowed by sound

Ray Charles (1930-2004) was posthumously inducted into the Country Hall of Fame in 2021.

Modern Sounds In Country and Western Music

Charley Pride

The black country artist I remember best growing up was Charley Pride. “During the peak years of his recording career (1966–1987), he had 52 top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 30 of which reached number one.

“In the late summer of 1966… he was booked for his first large show, in Detroit’s Olympia Stadium. Since no biographical information had been included with those singles, few of the 10,000 country fans who came to the show knew Pride was Black and discovered the fact only when he walked onto the stage, at which point the applause trickled off to silence. ‘I knew I’d have to get it over with sooner or later,’ Pride later remembered. ‘I told the audience: ‘Friends, I realize it’s a little unique, me coming out here – with a permanent suntan – to sing country and western to you. But that’s the way it is.'”

Charley Pride (1934-2020) was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000.

Listen to Greatest Hits

Others

There are many more black country artists, such as Darius Rucker, formerly of Hootie and the Blowfish. Here are 12 Black artists shaping country music’s future (2021) and 13 Black country artists you need to know (2024). There is some overlap; the latter group includes Shaboozy, whose A Bar Song (Tipsy) dominated both the pop and country charts for weeks.

Beyoncé’s album Cowboy Carter did not receive any nominations at the 58th Annual Country Music Association Awards, presented in November 2024. Still, it won Best Country Album and Album of the Year at the Grammys in February 2025.

Listen to Texas Hold ‘Em

Lying about time

inaccurate

from the Oddity Mall

As long as I can remember, I’ve been lying about time. When I was growing up, my household, probably my father, decided that the kitchen clock should run 15 minutes ahead. This was an attempt to get us to attend church and other events on time. I think it worked for a short while, but after a bit, we knew we had an extra quarter-hour and would get to events late anyway.

Incidentally, the clock in the kitchen was the only timepiece everyone could see. My parents may have had an alarm clock in their bedroom, but I do not recall a clock in the living room.

I’ve learned to lie to some people about time. If I tell someone I must get to a train station or airport by a specific time, I suggest the train or flight is earlier. I find this to be an acceptable fabrication. Doing otherwise would make me irritated with the driver when I get to my destination with too little time. (I have specific examples.)

Including me

I lie to myself about when I have to leave for a CDTA bus. If I tell myself I must leave by 1 p.m., when I don’t need to leave until 1:05, I can return to the house and retrieve my wallet or find the house key.

When I worked at FantaCo in the 1980s, we had a great artist named Raoul Vezina. However, when he worked on a project, such as a Smilin’ Ed comic, he was such a perfectionist that he was invariably late. So Tom, the owner, would say, “Raoul, the book MUST be done by February 1!” It didn’t need to be completed until February 15, yet he’d still be putting on the finishing touches.

Sometimes, my wife tells me she’ll be home by a specific time. She is not lying, but she isn’t usually accurate. One time recently, I was supposed to start pre-heating the oven and then add the macaroni and cheese she had prepared the day before. I started the process 15 minutes late, just the right timing.

When planning a family trip in early February, the daughter suggested that we all agree to leave by 9:30 a.m., assuring that we would go by 10 a.m. We left the house at 10:08, pretty darn good.

Do YOU lie about time to yourself or others? Do others lie to you about time?

The Catholic tradition

Jesuit

When the movie Conclave came to the area, I had to go see it because it was all about the popes. For a Protestant kid, I’ve been oddly obsessed with the Catholic tradition.

As a kid, I was probably trying to understand the difference between my traditions and Roman Catholic ones at some level. At my African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, we recited the Apostles Creed. There’s a line about the “holy catholic church,” and I was confused by that because we were Protestants. They were talking about the universal church, small c catholic, not big C Catholic.

“The term comes from two Greek words that together mean ‘throughout the whole.’  This single word, ‘catholic,’ means throughout all time and places and also points to the essential unity or wholeness of the church in Christ. No one English term captures that dual sense of this ancient Greek term quite as well as ‘catholic.’ So when the creed states, ‘I believe in the holy catholic church,’ it refers to the wholeness of the whole church in all times and places rather than to any specific branch of Christianity.”

When I went to public school, Daniel Dickinson in Binghamton, NY, at the bottom of a wide driveway was Saint Cyril’s parochial school, with the church nearby. The kids from Dickinson and Cyril’s would occasionally get into mild skirmishes. Dickinson kids would call them St. Cheerios, and I’m sure they also offered some nicknames.

The ashes

But I was fascinated that some of my Catholic friends at Dickinson would go out at lunchtime on Ash Wednesday and return with dirt on their foreheads. Or so I thought.

During the decade before 1982, when I wasn’t attending church very much, I’d occasionally attend a Christmas Eve service. As often as not, it would be at a Roman Catholic church. I liked the ritual, and I tended to love the music.

Around 2005, I attended a FOCUS churches’ Ash Wednesday service at Israel AME church in  Albany. They applied ashes to the foreheads of the congregants. Huh. I thought it was a great idea because I’m pro-ecumenicalism. My current church follows this tradition.

It’s like when I went to the Cathedral of All Saints in Albany for an anniversary concert, and they allowed, even invited, the Protestants to take communion, something that was otherwise not done. As I noted, some of my Protestant friends refused, but I felt that if they offered, I’d accept.

Pontiffs

This morphed into knowing all of the popes in my lifetime. When I was on JEOPARDY in 1998, there was a question in the category PUT ‘EM IN ORDER. The clue was  Paul VI, John Paul I, Pius XII. Easy-peasy.

I wrote about them back in 2013. The first pope in my lifetime was Pius XII (1939-1958). There’s been a reevaluation of his papacy  regarding his attitude toward the Holocaust.

He was followed by John XXIII (1958-1963), who named the first cardinals to Africa, Japan, and the Phillippines. Paul VI (1963-1978) was followed by John Paul I (1978), who was in office for five weeks before he died.

John Paul II (1978-2005) was the very popular Polish Pope in many circles, particularly for his anti-communist cadence. He tended to oppose the death penalty. He did apologize for many of the sins of the church, from complacency in the African slave trade to, late in his tenure, the first recognition of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and others.

I didn’t like Benedict XVI (2005-2013) from Germany as pope or afterward. But I didn’t know one could resign.  “In 2019 [as Pope emeritus], Benedict released a 6,000-word letter that attributed the Church’s sexual abuse crisis to an erosion of morality driven by secularization and the sexual revolution of the 1960s. The letter was in sharp contrast to the viewpoint of his successor, Francis, who saw the issue as a byproduct of abuses of power within the Church’s hierarchical structure.” He died in 2022.

The current guy

Francis (2013-) from Argentina “is the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuit Order), the first from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere, and the first born or raised outside Europe since the 8th-century papacy of the Syrian pope Gregory III.”

“In December 2019, Francis abolished the pontifical secrecy privilege in sexual abuse cases, clarifying that bishops do not need authorization from the Vatican to turn over to materials from canonical trials upon request of civil law enforcement authorities. The lifting of the confidentiality rule was praised by victim advocates, but did not require the Church to affirmatively turn over canonical documents to civil authorities.”

While progressive in many ways, “Francis has categorically rejected the ordination of women as priests. Early in his papacy, he initiated dialogue on the possibility of deaconesses, creating in 2016 a Study Commission on the Women’s Diaconate to research the role of female deacons in early Christianity.” But his position seems to have hardened. 

Anyway, that was part of the reason I had to see a movie about selecting a Catholic pope.

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