obituary Archives - Page 6 of 8 - Ramblin' with Roger

A Peculiar Synchronicity

The funeral will probably be on Tuesday, to accommodate her out-of-town relatives, and the burial on Wednesday.

Well, if you read the latter comments to yesterday’s post, you know that my mom, Gertrude Elizabeth (Trudy) Green, died yesterday morning. She was 83, had suffered a massive stroke (9 cm, as opposed to the usual 2 to 3 cm) on Friday. And still I was surprised, and yet not.

Mom with Lydia

I’ll ~~probably~~ undoubtedly write more on this event over time, but I do want to make a couple of observations.

Thanks for the outpouring of kind words and thoughts and prayers that I have received.

Before each of my parents died, they each had a stroke, though my father’s was less severe. I was the last of the three Green children to arrive in Charlotte, and shortly after each of them saw me, they died. It was as though they were waiting on my arrival so that they could let go. there’s more than a little ambivalence in that.

I think this is interesting. When my father died on August 10, 2000, my sisters were by his side. Marcia had stayed over the night before and Leslie had come to relieve her when he was getting ready to pass. My mother and I were stuck at the house until I found a neighbor to give us a ride, too late.

I had stayed in my mother’s room Monday night, and Tuesday morning, I was amazed how quickly she died, at 8:50 a.m. I called my sisters but she had already passed by that point.

We’re meeting with the mortician this morning, but
the funeral will probably be on Tuesday, to accommodate her out-of-town relatives, and the burial on Wednesday, next to my father, at the veteran’s cemetery 40 miles from here.
***
I’ll probably continue to blog about what I had planned for a few days. Tomorrow, the actual train ride down.

January Ramblin’

The Rev. Roger Green was a priest of the Church of England.

Finding a Religious Common Ground. A reminder that the religions that sometimes divide us have much history in common. (CBS Sunday Morning)

From the Wikipedia:
One relatively minor aspect of the [Green Hornet] character that tends to be given limited exposure in the actual productions is his blood relationship to the Lone Ranger, another character created by [Fran] Striker. The Lone Ranger’s nephew was Dan Reid. In the Green Hornet radio shows, the Hornet’s father was likewise named Dan Reid, making Britt Reid the Lone Ranger’s great-nephew.

On November 11, 1947, radio show episode “Too Hot to Handle”, Britt tells his father that he, Britt, is the Green Hornet. After Dan’s initial shock and anger, Dan refers to a vigilante “pioneer ancestor” of theirs that Dan himself had ridden alongside within Texas. As he expressed pride in and love for his son, the Lone Ranger theme briefly played in the background.
The Lone Ranger property was sold to another company in the 1950s, which resulted in a legal complication that precluded The Lone Ranger from being directly associated with the Green Hornet.

And here’s a joint chronology of the Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet.

The Lone Ranger intro
Fred Foy, the announcer of the Lone Ranger, who died in December 2010, recreating the intro
the last 3/4s of the William Tell Overture by Rossini, the final section of which is the Lone Ranger theme

All The World Is Waiting or should be. Interesting history in five minutes, of the best known female character in comics, Wonder Woman.

Who could play the Marvel Comics character, the Black Panther?

Sean Smith resigned as L.A. bureau chief of Entertainment weekly to join the Peace Corps, which he wrote about in this Newsweek article. My favorite paragraph:
“Writing about Hollywood is like being a reporter at Disneyland. At first, you can’t believe that you get to spend every day in The Happiest Place on Earth. Everyone wants to ask you about your work. You’re surrounded by princesses, and the sky sparkles with pixie dust. But as the years go on, you learn about the oily machinery that manufactures all that enchantment. You see what Cinderella’s really like when that glass slipper comes off. And then one day you notice that the magic is gone, and all you’re left with is a small, small world.”

Daniel Johnston’s “Infinite Comic Book of Musical Greatness”
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Google Alert finds

A Friend Like Charlie
Charlie Green is 14 (on Feb. 16) and his father, Roger Green, is 70. They are bound together more than just by blood. It’s music that also binds them.

Teaming up with CareerBuilder provides our national, regional, and local advertisers with access to job seekers in towns and cities where we’ve not traditionally been present,” said Roger Green, Managing Director, Newsquest Digital Media. “Plus it provides our audience with the greatest number of opportunities for jobs and careers.”

Roger Green made this Freedom of Information request to Devon County Council; definitely my kind of thing.

The Rev. Roger Green was the father of Timothy Green. Roger was born about 1611 in England and came to Virginia in 1635 on the ship Abraham at the age of 24 years. The Rev. Roger Green was a priest of the Church of England and was active in establishing the Church of England in Virginia and North Carolina.

Roger Green, age 80, of Huntington [Indiana], died at 9:05 p.m. Monday (January 25, 2010) at Oakbrook Village in Huntington.

December Ramblin’

Hit me with your rhythm stick/Je t’adore, ich liebe dich
Hit me with your rhythm stick/Das ist gut, c’est fantastique

I’ve enjoyed seeing composer Steven Sondheim, lyricist for West Side Story, A Funny Thing happened on the Way to the Forum, and many, many other musicals, a couple of times on television recently, promoting his book “Finishing the Hat: Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines, and Anecdotes.” I’ve ordered the book if only for the lyrics themselves, and what he’ll have to say about them. I enjoyed hearing about the strong tutelage of family friend Oscar Hammerstein. He has appeared on Stephen Colbert‘s program and on The Newshour on PBS. Part of the latter interview is here:
JEFFREY BROWN: And the greatest focus is on words that rhyme…He uses an old rhyming dictionary and a 1946 edition of “Roget’s Thesaurus.”
STEPHEN SONDHEIM: A rhyme draws the ear’s attention to the word. So, you don’t make the least important word in the line the rhyme word. So, you have to — and also a rhyme can take something that is not too strong and make it much stronger…
BROWN: And…he believes words that are spelled differently, but sound alike, such as rougher and suffer, engage the listener more than those spelled similarly, rougher and tougher.
SONDHEIM: I think we see words on — as if they’re on paper, sometimes when you hear them. I don’t mean it’s an absolutely conscious thing, but I’m absolutely convinced that people essentially see what they’re hearing.
BROWN: Yes. So, I’m hearing rougher and suffer rhyme…then I quickly think…
SONDHEIM: And that’s a surprise… I have got a rhyme in “Passion,” colonel, and journal. Now, you look at them on paper, they seem to have no relation to each other at all. So, when you rhyme them, it’s, ooh, you know? It’s — it — I really may be wrong about this. It’s just something that has struck me over the years.

So what lyrics immediately, and I mean IMMEDIATELY, come to mind? Hit Me with your Rhythm stick by Ian Dury and the Blockheads, a staple on my favorite radio station of the late 1970s, Q104.
Specifically:
In the wilds of Borneo And the vineyards of Bordeaux
Eskimo, Arapaho, move their body to and fro

But also the foreign language rhymes:
Hit me with your rhythm stick/Je t’adore, ich liebe dich
Hit me with your rhythm stick/Das ist gut, c’est fantastique
Here are a couple of recordings HERE with some misspellings, and an odd ending and HERE, after an ad.

Jaquandor found this nifty cartoon that explains climate change.

Eddie shares this Go Go’s video. Eddie notes that Belinda Carlisle’s memoir states their repertoire was limited to the songs on the first album in
their early touring days. This confirms my recollection that when I saw them at JB Scott’s in Albany in 1981, or late 1980, around the time of their 1st album, they played every song on the album plus one non-album B-side.

The Playing For Change Foundation’s new Song Around the World – John Lennon’s “Imagine”

The Twilight Zone Marathon is on again. The December 31 lineup has been posted at syfy.com. But the Marathon will be interrupted for two hours that evening by one of those dopey wrestling shows.

How cats lap up milk, in slow motion

Painting Like Jackson Pollock

I’m afraid I cannot condone this abuse of perfectly good coconut creme pies. Well, maybe for a good cause.

STAN LEE is on their side! Spidey an agent of the Illuminati? Say it ain’t so, Stan! Say it ain’t so! Especially now that you’re 88, as Johnny Bacardi notes.

I mourn the loss of Matt Staccone, SBDC advisor, at the age of 55.

A friend of mine came across this eBay sale of ‘Two Decades of Comics’ fanzine booklet from March 1981; “Fantastic Brian Bolland cover art featuring Brother Power The Geek, Nightshade & Indian? looking at book with characters heads flying out: Storm, Man-Thing, Sgt Rock, Cain, The Demon, Howard The Duck, Metamorpho, The Spectre etc.
Very scarce – Book comprehensively views A-Z of comic book titles with fan-art – notably: Dave Hornsby “The Creeper” art 1pg, Nik Neocleous “Deathlok” art 1pg, Kev F Sutherland “Iron Jaw” art 1pg, Steve Whitaker “Red Wolf” art 1pg, Steve Lowther “The Werewolf” art 1pg, Eagle Awards 1976-1979 Results feature 4pg.” And boy, did that cover look familiar. As it turns out, FantaCo published it as an inside cover in our Chronicles Annual. That Annual was based on that same magazine.

Five Sci-Fi Children’s Books, including Kirk and Spock are Friends.

Wikileaks QUESTION

Ann Coulter is an idiot.

A friend of mine who follows my blog asked me about whether I was planning to write about the Wikileaks issue. And I wasn’t. I thought it was because I had been feeling rather sick the past week – missed church and a concert on Sunday, and work on Monday and Tuesday – and I just wasn’t up to formulating an opinion.

Apparently, though, that’s not it. It is that – and I find this difficult to believe myself – I don’t HAVE a strong opinion. It’s this, on one hand, but on the other hand, that. I listened to the 2political podcast, but Arthur and Jason had less than conclusive positions. Likewise, Tegan of Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog lays out an ambivalent line.

OK, there are a few things I do know:
1) Whether they needed to be secrets or not, the system that allowed one Pfc to access so much info is desperately flawed, and the chatter about him and Wikileaks Assange sometimes seem like a distraction from that breach in the system.
2) While Assange appears to be a rather unlikeable sort, the fact that he’s been charged with a sex crime, doing something (not using a condom) that is not criminalized in most jurisdictions makes him oddly sympathetic.
3) Ann Coulter is an idiot. Specifically, she used the Pfc.’s alleged homosexuality as a reason not to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, as though that were an even marginally logical line of reasoning.

Thank goodness for SOME opinions! But what do YOU make of this whole situation?
***
As I noted, I blew off church on Sunday morning, with the intention of resting for the afternoon concert. Carol, Lydia and I were going with our friends Carol (yes) and Bonnie. But at 2 pm, I realized that no way was I going to enjoy the music. What to do with the spare ticket for a 3 pm concert? I called my friend Mary, who was just getting home, but she agreed to go.
Mary had never met Bonnie, but they discovered in conversation that, four years ago, Mary bought the house that Bonnie’s aunt used to live in! It was one of those bizarre Smallbany things.

Obits

I never liked the Dallas Cowboys. And they had a head coach named Tom Landry who I respected, but he just seemed like a cold fish. Which was why I found Don Meredith to be my favorite Cowboys quarterback; he seemed to really annoy Landry, who finally cut him loose. He ended up on Monday Night Football for a number of years, and he was entertaining in a VERY corny sort of way. He died this week.
***
Always loved the name Ron Santo. Great third baseman with the Cubs when I was growing up. I didn’t love the Cubs, but I loved Ron Santo. Later he became an announcer, but more than that, a symbol of a man with a lot of heart and courage. Salon did a nice piece on him, and SamuraiFrog associated him with his grandfather, which was very sweet. I’m of the opinion that there are certain people like Santo and Buck O’Neil whose cumulative baseball skills and service as ambassadors to the sport qualify them as Hall of Fame worthy.

If it was 30 years ago, why do I remember it so well?

“The Beatles, lead by John Lennon, created music that touched the whole of civilization.”

Unfairly or not, I always associate John Lennon’s death with the breakup of my girlfriend the week before. It was Monday, December 1, 1980, and, unlike all of those “grownup” breakups in the movies of that time, this was painful and acrimonious. About the only cinematic aspect of it was the line from near the end of the Woody Allen movie Annie Hall, delivered by Alvy Singer (Allen): “A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.”

So when the FOLLOWING Monday night came around, it was incumbent upon me to do whatever I could that would be contrary to what I would likely be doing with her. The choice was clear: I needed to watch Monday Night Football. It’s not as though I never watched the game, but it was usually a bit here and there. This time I was going to watch the whole damn thing.

And, if I recall correctly, it was a pretty close game between the Miami Dolphins and the New England Patriots, when announcer Howard Cosell said at about 11:15 p.m., “One of the great figures of the entire world, one of the great artists, was shot to death horribly at the Dakota Apartments, 72nd Street and Central Park West in New York City. John Lennon is dead. He was the most important member of the Beatles, and the Beatles, lead by John Lennon, created music that touched the whole of civilization. Not just people in Liverpool, where the group was born, but the people of the world.”

Here’s a snippet of the broadcast after that point.

So the first thing I do is call my good friend Karen, who had written, for our sixth-grade newsletter, a fantasy story about winning tickets to a Beatles concert, and who, that very fall, was working for his record company and promoting his and Yoko’s album, Double Fantasy. But her line was busy. I called my ex-girlfriend and told her; she was appreciative of the fact that I told her. I called Karen several times after that, but the line remained busy. I began to listen to my favorite radio station, WQBK-FM, Q104, and listen to the requests pouring in. It was either that night or the next morning that I asked for, oddly, The End by the Doors, and they played the whole 11-minute version.

Eventually reached Karen at about 1:40 a.m. When she heard my voice, she just cried for 10 minutes. We talked the next day, when I went out and bought, at lunchtime, Rock ‘n’ Roll; there wasn’t a copy of Double Fantasy to be had.

And thinking about time period STILL fills me with a surprising amount of sadness.

JEOPARDY! factoid: Calling him a Revolutionary, in 2000 Fidel Castro dedicated a statue of John on the 20th anniversary of his murder.

I was watching LENNONYC this past weekend – it’ll be repeated on my local PBS station tonight – and it was a good portrait of John’s life from 1971 until the end. Much of the info I knew, but a few bits I did not, such as Yoko going back to the studio after John died to listen to his outtakes.
***
Denise Nesbitt remembers.