“Okay, Mr. Miller, we’re going to numb your gums with this gel first, and then we’ll add the Novocaine.” At that point, I clicked the button on my iPod and the dental hygienist’s voice was replaced by the lead singer of Muse. The first person who says to me, “Chuck, how could you tell the…
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Remembering Uncle Sam 3-Coin Register Banks
Almost every toy coin bank produced has had a “cheat” built into it. A false bottom, a rubber stopper, a sliding panel, all of which allowed you to scoop out the few coins you put in earlier that day so that you would have some change to go to the candy store. And even if…
Read MorePhoto Essay: The Ghost Signs of the Capital District
No, I’m not talking about the marquees of haunted buildings. Once I describe them, you’re going to say, “Oh yeah… those things.” A couple of weeks ago, Jessica Pasko of the website alloveralbany.com devoted a post to all the retro signs of the Capital District – you know, the Westgate Shopping Center sign, the “Ladies…
Read MoreA new trick lowlifes can use to compromise your credit cards
On the 17th of January, 2010, I saw the ecampus.com charge on my credit card online statement. I couldn’t think of what I might have bought from ecampus.com, and in fact I was wondering if ecampus.com was part of some other company that I might have purchased from, with ecampus.com being the primary company. I…
Read MoreBeginning a new health project for me
This is actually one of those New Year’s Resolutions that I never put down as one of my official New Year’s Resolutions – but it moved to the top of the list because of something that happened last Friday. I was eating some peanuts, when all of a sudden I felt something in my mouth…
Read MoreRemembering Wacky Packages
Flashback to the summer of 1973. I was at my grandmother’s house in West Roxbury, Massachusetts for the summer, and several of the neighborhood kids got together to trade baseball cards, and I was more than willing to swap any Carl Yastrzemski cards I had for whatever Tony Oliva or Vida Blue cards they had.…
Read MoreRemembering “Black Through the Years”
On this holiday in which we pay tribute to the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., today I pay tribute to a very special high school play. See, the year before I arrived at Street Academy, the students in that school’s history classes wrote a series of vignettes on the history of African-American…
Read MoreDon’t Mix Your Coolants. Don’t. Just Don’t.
Taking care of a 1991 Pontiac 6000 with (as of today) 149,000 miles on it can be a daunting task. There are issues that can be minor annoyances – I have to replace the weatherstripping on the front passenger door – and issues that can be major concerns, and that’s what brings me to today’s…
Read MoreRemembering Teddy Pendergrass
When I received the e-mail from Maxine Porter, my heart froze. Maxine is the widow of Bill Pinkney, the last surviving member of Clyde McPhatter’s Drifters, and she and I have worked together on projects involving the Vocal Group Hall of Fame. So when I opened my e-mails this morning and saw the news –…
Read MoreRemembering Utica Club’s Talking Beer Mugs
The advertisements were a combination of kitsch, cornball humor and hardsell – a beer with such a full taste that even the steins holding it would sing its praises – but between 1959 and 1965, two “spokesmugs” shilled for Utica Club beer in an award-winning commercial campaign. Viewers throughout the Northeast watched bowling and boxing…
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Chuck The Writer 
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