Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!
Once upon a time, in a blogosphere far, far away, there was a popular meme called Thursday Thunks. Alas, the thunking stopped back in 2011.
Thursday Thunks again
1. Is there anyone whose home you enter without knocking? Does anyone (who doesn’t live with you) have permission to enter your home without knocking?
Not currently, but back when he lived in Albany in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a bunch of us would go to Walter’s house to play hearts (a card game). There would be a game going on four or five nights a week, with a rotating crew of players. Everybody knew where the key was, so there were people often coming in and out. I remember specifically May 4, 1988, when Walter wasn’t even there, having been delayed at work. The house was physically constructed so that his wife, in the main bedroom upstairs, didn’t even hear us.
2. Tell us about a school trip you took.
The parents of our friend Carol had a cottage on a lake in northern Pennsylvania, which our whole class was invited to go to several times when we were growing up. It was a lovely time. Carol’s older sister was there, often with a couple of friends, one of whom I had a mad, unrequited crush.
In reach
3. Name three things within arm’s reach right now (but they can’t relate to your phone, computer, or laptop).
A large red Dixie cup, which I use for drinking water. A compact disc player – currently playing Try A Little Tenderness from The Three Dog Night Story, 1965-1975; in the queue, Scheherazade and Other Stories by Renaissance (Song of Scheherazade) and Reload by Tom Jones (Burning Down The House with the Cardigans). And, of course, a slew of books on the shelf in front of me, mostly music books from Record Research, edited by the late Joel Whitburn, such as Across the Charts: The 1960s.
4. Weather permitting, do you dry your clothes outdoors on a clothesline?
The clothes dryer. But when we first bought the house in 2000, we quickly discovered that the existing dryer was totally inadequate. It would dry four items in about two hours. So until we could afford a new machine, we dried clothes, usually on a clothes rack in the spare bedroom, or occasionally outdoors.
5. If every flower in the world only bloomed in one color, what color would you like to see?
Purple. Our daughter’s name is associated with the color.
Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.
As a sucker for music lists, you might think I would glom onto the New York Times’ Greatest Living American Songwriters. Well, no. It is because I feel desperately unqualified compared with “More than 250 music insiders and six New York Times critics [who] weighed in on who defines the new American songbook.”
I liked early Three Dog Night. And I enjoyed them even more when I discovered they were providing visibility for songs and artists that would become more prominent. At the same time, they highlighted songs that were overlooked or forgotten. TDN was a gateway drug. 
Does not our ongoing, epic failure to obstruct