Tag: birthday

Lydster: Div III gallery invitation

Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

This is the Div III gallery invitation for the Daughter’s show, which she is sharing with three other artists. What’s Div III? Don’t worry about it. 

What is kuumba? It is “a Swahili term that translates to Creativity. This principle is about making the community more beautiful and beneficial than it was inherited. Kuumba encourages the use of creative energy to improve the conditions of the community and to leave a legacy that honors both ancestral heritage and future generations.” 

When she was working on the show title, she was concerned that people wouldn’t know what it meant.  She knows the term kuumba in part because she’s been  studying Swahili. I was of the opinion that people would figure it out.  

The Daughter has always been creative. I’m sure I’ve written about her talent – here and here, e.g.; I’ve tried NOT to steer her in a particular direction.

What’s going to be in the show? I’m not certain. She has about two dozen pieces she’s completed, but there is space for only about half of them.

One of her early pieces was tied to W.E.B.DuBois’s the American Negro exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition. He “developed colorful hand-drawn charts, graphs, and maps that illustrated the social realities of African Americans.” She integrated the graphics with her own genealogical line. But it may not fit.

For certain, her semester at the University of Cape Town in the first half of 2025 will be represented. 

Natal day

I must note that today is her birthday. At the risk of publicly embarrassing her – hey, isn’t that what parenting is all about? – she’s shown a much greater sense of time management in the past year or two. Even when she “goofed off” hanging with the parents for three days in mid-February, she recognized that she needed to redouble her efforts the following week.  

We may not visit with her at Easter break because she’ll want to finish framing some pieces and then hang the display, but we’re looking forward to seeing her at her show.

Keeping score in bowling

cognitive prosthesis

I wrote about my mother four years ago on the broad topic, but this will focus on keeping score in bowling. My sisters remember that she was in a league for at least a decade while in Binghamton, NY, and for about five years in Charlotte, NC. Recently, I learned from one of my sisters that my mother got her bank job in Charlotte because she had been the captain of her bowling team, which showed that she displayed leadership qualities! I did not know that!

In Binghamton, she bowled with her good friend Pat Fink, later Jones. But my sisters say she was also on a team with Pat Whitfield Jones, a woman from our church who was a daughter of my godparents; my parents were her son Walter’s godparents.

I don’t specifically remember where my mom and her friends bowled. But I’m sure I went to some of her league games with her.

Keeping score

Moreover, as noted, I learned to keep score in bowling from my mother and/or her friends. But with the current lanes, scoring is automatic. I was mildly saddened when I first experienced this “new” thing.

Here’s a real sidebar, where  Cory Doctorow alluded to a phenomenon: “I used to walk around with a hundred phone numbers in my head. Now I remember two, maybe three on a good day. Which is fine!…

“Whenever we adopt a cognitive prosthesis, there’s always someone who overweights the value of the old system of unassisted thinking, while ignoring the cool things we can do with the free capacity we get… 

“Versions of this continue to play out. When I was a kid, there was a moral panic that pocket calculators would make us all innumerate (an argument advanced by people who know so little about mathematics that they think it’s the same thing as arithmetic).

“Now I keep hearing about millennials who can’t read an analog clock, a skill that has as much objective utility as knowing how to interpret a slide-rule or convert from Francs to Lire to Deutschemarks. Not actually useless, but entirely bound to a specific time and place and a mere historical curiosity at some later date.” [I’m not sure I agree with the analog clock analogy, but whatever.] 

Yet I still can keep scoring in bowling, which has value to me. I love that my mother taught me something of what is now of limited applicability precisely because it links us not only to the task but also to a specific timeframe. My childhood memory is remarkably spotty, so I embrace whatever connection exists. 

Family

My father and my sisters would occasionally bowl, but my sisters said they weren’t very good at it. This was before bowling establishments installed barriers to prevent people from throwing gutter balls. I was pretty competent in my few years in a league. I assume the years of my mother’s play made her a decent bowler. 

So this was Roger and his mom again, which is cool. Gertrude Elizabeth (Trudy) Green, nee Williams, died on this date in 2011.

Dick Van Dyke is 100

bupkis

Dick Van Dyke is 100. I have loved DVD since I watched his 1961-1966 show, which I wrote about at length here. And I loved sharing my DVDS DVD set with my daughter. Here are my favorite episodes. I know more than bupkis about the show.

But I saw him in many other programs, including his many appearances on The Carol Burnett Show, the Diagnosis: Murder series, the movie Night at the Museum, and even the New Dick Van Dyke Show, a lesser offering than the first series. 

I adored his small part as old man Mr. Dawes in Mary Poppins Returns (2018), reprising a role he played in the original movie, with a lot of makeup no longer needed in the latter. 

A movie I saw on television,  more than once, was Cold Turkey (1971).  “Hoping for positive publicity, a tobacco company offers $25 million to any American town that quits smoking for 30 days. Amid the media frenzy, Eagle Rock, Iowa, accepts the challenge–and the company’s PR man tries to sabotage the effort.” It was directed and co-written by Norman Lear.

I watched Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic two years ago, plus several other game show/variety show/special programs. 

Other voices

In his 2017 documentary film, ‘If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast,’ Carl Reiner had his old friends Lear and DVD come over to be interviewed by CBS Sunday Morning’s Tracy Smith. Dick has said publicly that he misses his old friends. Lear and Reiner are gone, as are almost all of his DVDS co-stars. 

Here’s one of Ken Levine’s favorite episodes. Mark Evanier saw a taping of a show when he was a kid, and links to his TEN favorite episodes, and notes the comic book.

In December 2024, Kelly Sedinger linked to a couple of Dick Van Dyke Christmas-related pieces. One was the December 18, 1963, The DVDS episode of The Alan Brady Show Presents. I remember that episode extraordinarily well. As I recall, someone – Carl Reiner or maybe producer Sheldon Leonard – was resisting doing a holiday show until he realized that he could show it every year, which turned out to be two more years.

99-Year-Old Dick Van Dyke Reacts to His Life in Photos: ‘Mary Poppins,’ ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.’ American Masters on PBS will be saluting him in an episode that debuted yesterday.

All My Love – Coldplay

Happy birthday, Dick Van Dyke!

Pope Leo XIV is 70

born Robert Francis Prevost

I have been fascinated by the fascination with Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff. Even though I’m endlessly fascinated by the papacy and even watched the movie  Conclave early in its release, I did not foresee that Cardinal Robert Prevost of Illinois and Peru would be selected.

Here are some of the analyses I’ve read. He’s the first Augustinian pope. Noblemen, enslaved people, freedom fighters, slaveholders: what the complex family tree reveals. The DC Report on the issues as of his ascendency. He studied under a pioneer in Jewish-Catholic relations, the Rev. John T. Pawlikowski, when he attended seminary in Chicago.

From Catholic Social Teaching in Action (CAPP-USA):  “His chosen name puts Him in a particularly close relationship with the Social Doctrine of the Church and our Foundation’s activities at a time when the Church is called upon to provide hope and moral leadership in a world of divisions, conflicts, and disorder.”

Is he hiding his light under a bushel? Lost in translation: Should US-born Pope Leo XIV speak in English more often? When he “praised migrants on July 25 amid… mass deportation policies, causing unrest in Southern California and throughout the country, few Americans knew what he was saying. Until his comments were translated into English.” 

But the remarks WERE translated, and quickly. Still, “there are an estimated 1.5 billion English speakers in the world, compared to 68 million Italian speakers… Like his predecessor, Leo has preferred to speak Italian in public settings. “

At least early on, “He is keeping his cards close to his chest.” The Augustinian emphasis on unity, listening, community, and collaboration appears to guide the new pontiff. Still, he has condemned the brutality of the Gaza war.
It matters little, so far.

The fact that he’s from the Chicago area and roots for the baseball Chicago White Sox has won over most Americans. He’s getting unsolicited deliveries from Windy City pizzerias. 

“‘Our new pope has aura’ read one comment on a Tik Tok video about the newly elected pope. 

“‘I’m an atheist and I started liking this guy,’ wrote another user.

“And with tens of thousands of spectators gathered in front of the Vatican with social media posts, reporters’ notebooks, and vlogging cameras in hand, awaiting the Conclave’s decision, Pope Leo XIV has already gone viral.

“‘As the first-ever pope born in the United States, Leo has especially garnered attention among U.S. spectators. While the number of religious folks in the country has consistently dropped over the past couple of decades, it seems the Conclave revealed an underlying interest in religion — even among the nonreligious.'”

At the end of July, he gave content to Catholic Digital Missionaries and Influencers (!). Then, in early August, he held a Youth Mass, telling the gathered, in English, “The Lord is gently knocking at the window of your soul.” He told a million Catholic youths they were a sign that a “different world is possible.” He is a rock star! 

So it is not surprising that Leo has made Carlo Acutis the first millennial saint, although it should be noted that if Francis had lived long enough, he would have elevated him.

How long will the glow last? I have no idea. But I can wish Pope Leo XIV a happy birthday. 

Marcia: my niece’s mother

Mecklenburg County

Last December, I received a notification from Ancestry asking whether this person named Marcia was my niece’s mother. Well, yes. I found it really funny that it didn’t ask me whether Marcia was my sister, which she is, as well as Alexandria’s mom.

The site gave me a lovely color picture of her graduating from high school in Charlotte, NC, in the ’70s. However, I can’t show you that one because it’s linked to many other people’s pictures with their names. So, it won’t allow me to show you the individual photo. Instead, I share another picture from around that same time.

I was always jealous of her ‘fro. I could never grow one like that. In fact, my hair started receding around the time of this picture or probably even earlier.

Interestingly, there is a Marcia Green, who graduated from Binghamton Central High School, my alma mater, in 1978. She is NOT my sister.

NC

It was 50 years ago last year that my parents and Marcia moved to Charlotte, NC, from Johnson City, NY, near Binghamton and in Broome County. My father went south first, Marcia, and then my mother.

Marcia had a different high school experience than our sister Leslie and me. She attended Johnson City High School briefly and then graduated from a school in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.

When we have conversations on our Sunday ZOOM calls, we naturally have many similarities from growing up as a base of experience. But Leslie and I both attended Binghamton Central for three years, though she spent ninth grade at West Junior High School after they closed my K to 9 schools, Daniel S. Dickinson. 

One of my random favorite thoughts is that I once sang for Marcia’s kindergarten class at Dickinson, though I’m not sure how that happened. Her teacher was Mrs. Burroughs, whereas Miss Cady taught Leslie and me.    

Happy birthday, Marcia!

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