Saturday, September 30, 2006

GG1


I see the September photograph in my CEDco all-Pennsy color calendar (CEDco went bankrupt — I got it from Ebay) is red, cat-whiskered GG1 #4977 at South Amboy, north Jersey, the last place the mighty Gs ran.
My train Christmas card is a G on the Northeast Corridor.
Both continue the common misconception Raymond Loewy styled the GG1.
Yes and no. The basic steeple-cab layout of the G is Pennsy, as exemplified by “old Rivets,” #4800, the first G, originally 4899, an experimental that competed with 4-8-4 electric R1 #4800, much like a P5 (the G tracked much better — tests were held at Claymont, Delaware).
All the Gs would have looked like “Old Rivets” had not Loewy convinced Pennsy to use an all-welded steel shell instead of riveted panels.
“While he did not design the shape of the railroad's famous GG1 electric locomotives, he improved their looks by recommending welded and smoothed, rather than riveted construction....” (Raymond Loewy)
Loewy also made a tiny styling filigree that looks fabulous: namely rounding the top of the narrow front man-door so it follows the curve of the single headlight (the Cyclops eye).
“Old Rivets” had a rectangular man-door. It doesn’t follow the curve of the headlight.
These minor inputs by Loewy make the mighty G the most beautiful railroad locomotive of all time.
Loewy went on to become a major force in Pennsy styling, bringing ultra-conservative Pennsy out of its stolid past.
He did the streamlining for K4 #3768 to haul the newly redesigned (also by Loewy) 1938 Broadway Limited. His streamlined K4 looked turgid (as did his experimental S1, a steam-turbine), but his DD2 (a 4-4-4-4 GG1; only one was built, #5800) looked great, as did his first Ts.
Only one or two Ts were built to the Loewy design; the rest had Loewy styling cues, but were redesigned by Pennsy to be more work-friendly (not much of Loewy was left).
The Ts were not very successful: Pennsy’s attempt to build a modern 4-8-4 steamer — except the Whyte system had them as 4-4-4-4, since the eight drivers were divided into two pairs of four, each pair powered (four cylinders instead of two).
Unlike most engines having one or more sets of drivers powered by one boiler, the T wasn’t articulated; i.e. the front driver-set wasn’t hinged — free to bend more easily into turnouts (switches).
All eight drivers were on a single frame, so it had a longish wheelbase, and the rear set, not loaded as much as the front, liked to slip.
The Ts were notoriously slippery (also an 80-inch driver), and also made a lot of smoke. Their days were also numbered by the coming of diesels. Diesels bumped the Ts off their plumb passenger assignments.
Regrettably I never saw a T, or a J, or even a Dek. Too big and heavy for PRSL. But after we moved to Delaware I saw plenty of Gs.
Once Bruce Stewart and I rode the Congo from 30th St. to Wilmington. 18 cars, but boombita-zoombita in no time at all. Incredibly powerful, but gorgeous too.
Loewy went on to become the premier post-war industrial-designer — this despite his doughty streamlined K4 being a turkey compared to Henry Dreyfus’ streamlined NYC Hudson.
Loewy designed the most beautiful automobile of all time, the 1953 Studebaker Starliner Coupe.
He also styled the Avanti automobile — still being made, independently, with minor deviations from Loewy’s styling; e.g. rectangular headlamps (they’ve since changed back). The first Avantis were Studebakers.
His start with Pennsy, in 1937, was designing trashcans for New York City’s Penn Station (since torn down, although the station is still there, under the new Madison Square Garden).
The GG1 is a triumph; fiddled by Loewy, but not completely styled by him.
If all the Gs looked like “Old Rivets,” they’d still be remarkable, but Loewy made them great — the most beautiful railroad locomotive of all time.

target heart-rate

My target heart-rate is 126 beats per minute.
The formula for maximum heart-race (for men) is 220 minus your age. 220 - 62 = 158.
THR is 80% of that: 126.4 (or 126).
Only one machine at the PT-gym has a heart-rate monitor: the recumbent bicycle. Three figures are on it: 65% (“weight-loss”) and THR (“80% target heart-rate”). The third display is your heart-rate as measured by the pulse in your palms.
I usually do the recumbent last, and start out at 120-125 or so; and usually get up to 130 or so after 7-8 minutes. The game is to hold it at 130 or over until the end — maybe 132. I do 15 minutes.
Today (Wednesday, September 13) I felt a little stronger — less tired. I got it up to 140 after 10-12 minutes, and after about 13 minutes started to kick. The machine also displays watts generated, and I know from experience 120 beats-per-minute requires 110 watts or so, 130 beats-per-minute requires 120 watts or so, and 140 beats-per-minute requires 130 watts or so.
Since I was able, I pushed harder, and my heart-rate crossed 147 as I ended.
“So how’d you do?” the PT asked.
“80% THR is 126; I got 147.”
Her jaw dropped. “I don’t want you to have a heart-attack. 126 or so. 147 is nuts!”
The display-label is deceptive. To me “80% target heart-rate” is 80% of the target heart-rate. So I figured the THR was higher. (It needs a colon or parentheses.)
But THR is 126; 80% of the maximum.
“Next time, cool it. I don’t want to have to call 9-1-1.”
Ho-hum, I thought. No pain, no stars. It ain’t like I do 147 all the time. Perhaps one day a week I might be able to exceed 132. 147 was only for about 20 seconds. 140+ about three minutes.
What I go by is pain or stars. If I had been seeing stars at 147 I would have stopped.
My response is fiddle-de-dee. If I can wick it up to over 132, without pain or stars, that’s beneficial. So why not?
Seven months ago, when I started, I could hardly get past 120. I’ve worked up to what I’m doing over time (Jack is toast).
The two other aerobic machines without heart-rate monitors, the step-machine and the treadmill, I’m probably getting over 132. My goal is 400 calories on the treadmill, and 160 or so on the recumbent — today was 158. (The electronics on the step-machine ain’t working, so I count 250 steps.)

Frustrations..........

  • This morning (Wednesday, 5/31; at about 3 a.m., in the dark) a minor thunderstorm passed to the south. It didn’t do much — at least not here — rained a little, and scared Killian into our bedroom.
    It also dumped the electricity for a short time; enough to fire up the standby. It also sent our range- and microwave-clocks into the ozone. Our VCR has a clock too, but it apparently is backed up by a battery — it has to be off a long time for it to tank.
    When this happens I fire up this rig and reset the time. It’s getting it from an Internet-source — the atomic-clock in Boulder I guess; same source for the satellite-clocks that do your cell phones — and I can reset it by clicking a button.
    I then reset my digital-watch, and use it to reference the range- and microwave-clocks.
    .....Or so it seems; this morning we crashed mightily in flames.
    About five months ago, shortly after I retired, my digital-watch tanked — or rather the reset button stuck. It was at least four years old, so I dutifully went to the running-store the buy digital-watch #5. I buy running-store watches because they are also stop-watches. They cost maybe 40 bucks.
    #5 ain’t like previous digital-watches. I has three time-zones, three alarms (for what?), an occasion-alerter (“bomb-time”), and 89 bazilyun other functions (including starting your dinner remotely from across the universe).
    Just resetting the time is a massive hairball; I had to get out the manual, written in contorted english by Japanese monkeys.
    As is often the case with a stroke-survivor, resetting the time was impossible. It kept talking about a “next” button on the watch, but none of the many buttons on the watch-face were so marked. A manual-diagram said the “mode” button was also the “next” button, but such things are hard for a stroke-survivor to discern — especially when there is little time.
    We had to get to the PT gym by 9, and hope we could get home by when the plumber showed up at noon. Our trip to Ontrac to buy a lawn-tractor got canceled, and by departure-time from the PT gym an errand to the funky food store also got canceled. The CR-V also needed gas; all we could hit was Weggers and the gas-station. Retired: hah! Utterly swamped.
    Resetting the watch was only supposed to take a few minutes (I’ve done it in the past); but a “few minutes” was quickly adding up to 25 minutes.
    Plus the Californy time was wrong, and reading October, for crying out loud.
    I managed to get the watch-time reset, having finally figured out “mode” was also “next.”
    But the Californy time is still waiting, and all the alarms are “on” (I don’t know about “armed”).
    Time was flying by, so everything had to be deferred. The watch is reset, but the range- and microwave-clocks are just slopped.

  • A couple weeks ago we reinstalled the voicemail on our landline, primarily because there are those who refuse to dial cell phones; which had previously been our only voicemail.
    I have the landline voicemail access number memorized into my cell phone, so I can access it from my cell phone.
    So while at the gas-station I tried it — it was 11:55.
    “Now what?” It dialed our home-phone; gave me our welcome-message. There is an access-number, and I used that, but somehow it called our phone and didn’t give us the messages.
    Who knows? What else is new? I deal with this kind of insanity all the time — stroke-survivor.
    I had to give up and forget the voicemail. It was almost noon, and it was gonna take 10 minutes to get home.

    Probably the worst reason I had to retire from the mighty Mezz was that there things always went fairly well — or so it seemed — an antidote to the insanity here at home.

  • Frontier Telephone

    Last week I had occasion to call our mighty phone company.
    Not our cell phone provider, which is Verizon. But the provider of our local land-line, Frontier Telephone (used to be Rochester Telephone).
    Some time ago I cut back our land-line to the barest minimum, which meant dumping the voicemail (a Frontier service).
    The intent was to go wireless, but we kept the land-line in case the cable-Internet tanked. Our voicemail was on the cell phones.
    But those that call refuse to use cell phones, so land-line calls were going unanswered. We often unplug the land-line — so the phone doesn’t ring at 3 a.m. — and forget to plug it back in.
    “Use the cell phone,” we say. “That has the voicemail.”
    But “I ain’t usin’ no cell phone. Survived the Depression.... World safe for Democracy...... Bath Fire Tower..... How come your phone ain’t plugged in? Wassa matter? Doncha love me?”
    So we needed to reinstitute the voicemail on the land-line.
    “Welcome to Frontier; steadfastly marching technology into the twenty-first century.
    “Your call may be monitored so we can fire the service-reps that don’t properly tow the company line (‘one ringy-dingy; two ringy-dingies.....’).
    “Please enter your seven-digit phone number.”
    Well swell; this makes sense. The machine presorts the phone calls or fires up your number on the service-rep’s screen in advance.
    “Hi there. My name is Donna. What can I do for you today?”
    “Well, since you asked,” I said; “but what I really need is to reinstitute the voicemail on our land-line.”
    “Okay, what is your phone number?”
    HMMMMMMMMMMNNNNNNNNNNN........
    Cue all-knowing brothers who will noisily insist I change my cell phone provider to the one they use.
    Uh, yeah; changing cell phone providers is gonna make non-techies use the cell phone voicemail instead of the land-line.

    flow-restricted

    A little over two weeks ago, we bought a new showerhead from mighty Lowes.
    Our current showerhead moved only a trickle, but the Mr. Rooter service-technician (plumber?), also certified in sewer technology, said it was flowing normally, 2.8 gallons per minute, the normal flow-restricted rate.
    He suggested a flow-rate of 3.5, and that Delta made such a showerhead, also flow-restricted (even at 3.5).
    I never was able to find a Delta with a specified flow-rate, but mighty Lowes had showerheads with removable restrictors.
    So we bought one, and installed it without the flow-restricter.
    I was afraid it might empty the water-heater. It didn’t, but it was still flowing pretty strongly.
    So we (I) decided to try it with the flow-restricter.
    Wimpy. It’s coming back out.

    all-time favorite train video-tape

    For the past few days I have been viewing one of my all-time favorite train video-tapes: “Cajon Pass and Tehachapi Loop,” the first train video-tape I got from Pentrex back in the middle ‘80s.
    It ranks right up there with my Corridor cab-rides, my Trains Magazine Horseshoe Curve tape, and a bunch of Iron-Horse tapes I have of the B&O lines and Pittsburgh.
    It is rather ancient. In fact, when it was shot A) Santa Fe was still independent — it hadn’t yet merged with Burlington-Northern; and B) Southern Pacific, the other line in Cajon, and the line over Tehachapi, was also independent. It hadn’t yet been bought by Union Pacific.
    And all the Santa Fe units were yellow over blue — the famous red-and-silver warbonnet scheme hadn’t reappeared. Or else the units were painted yellow over red — the scheme of the aborted ATSF/SP merger.
    Most of the power is General Motors — not the General Electric you see nowadays. And none of the power is wide-cab.
    In fact, the GE units you see — and there are quite a few — are all U-boats; none of the Dash-8s and Dash-9s you see now with their squared-off radiator blisters.
    But I still feel it is my best train video-tape.
    East of San Bernardino, Cajon Boulevard parallels the old Santa Fe line; making pacing possible.
    We are storming east, pacing an eastbound Santa Fe freight attacking Cajon at about 50 mph. We slowly pass each unit, and 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 units are on the point. Holy mackerel!
    I’m always in awe of that; and one is an ex-Amtrak F45 Santa Fe got.
    A lot is also shot on the pilot or in the cab. We’re on the pilot as a train climbs through the tunnels at Alray, and in the cab as a Santa Fe freight threads gingerly down the hill and around the loop at Tehachapi.
    The tape is so old the trains still have cabooses, and the tunnels at Tehachapi haven’t had their floors lowered yet to clear double-stacks.
    I still consider it the most dramatic train video-tape I have. The easy grade on Cajon is 2% — the original is 3%; still in use as a down track, or express climbing. The trains attack the grade in run-eight — throttle to the roof — into famous “Sullivan’s Curve;” named after Herb Sullivan, who photographed AT&SF there in the ‘30s with his 4X5 Graflex.
    Another shot is a southbound AT&SF clawing up Tehachapi’s 2.5% — eight units on the point, down on its knees. Even though the line is SP, AT&SF has trackage-rights. (No way could AT&SF have built a competing line — the SP line is incredible enough.)
    I have been both places — saw many trains on Cajon, but only a few on Tehachapi.
    The old Summit-Road road-crossing at Cajon is still in use on the tape. Our most recent visit, two years ago, it was closed.
    Santa Fe earlier had a different route atop the hill, but that was replaced with a lower route through a massive cut. The new route also took out a lot of curvature.
    A tiny railroad town, “Summit,” was atop the pass, but that was removed with the new alignment and the coming of SP in 1967.
    Which explains why “Summit-Road” was finally closed.
    AT&SF and SP parallel, but AT&SF is headed west, and SP east. SP’s “Palmdale Cut-Off,” the line in Cajon, is a way the SP could skirt Los Angeles for trains going east from San Francisco.
    Trains using the Palmdale Cut-Off also use Tehachapi.
    The Trains Magazine video-tape of Horseshoe Curve is a favorite despite being rather moribund, suffering from poor narration and overly-dramatic video.
    But they interview visitors to the mighty Curve, and one stands out.
    “Why do you come here?” they ask a gangly dork in his 30s.
    “Simple, man,” he says: “trains!”
    It’s what I would say.
    Pentrex has gone on to publish 89 bazilyun train-videos, and has become the major force in the train-video market.
    Every year they send out a survey, and I always tell them their first video — Cajon Pass and Tehachapi Loop — was the best.
    (“What is it about that place [the mighty Curve]? That’s the third time you’ve been there this summer.” “Simple, man. Trains!”)

    Bruschi

    As in “BREW-ski” ( the beer); except that it’s Tedy Bruschi, linebacker for the New England Patriots (Patsies, Pasties; whatever).
    Bruschi had the same sort of stroke as me: a clot passing through a hole in his heart (a “patent foreman ovale”), thereby clotting his brain causing partial brain-death.
    It’s the same sort of occurrence I fear with my brothers, since they too may have a PFO. I think my grandfather Connor had a stroke — it was never really clear. His ability to talk was compromised — contrary to the mighty Connor heritage he didn’t say much. Spawn were always making excuses for him.
    Bruschi is featured in the Sunday “Parade” magazine that came with the Messenger today (Sunday, September 24). It’s purchased, “Sunday Messenger” printed on the cover, but it isn’t local.
    Inside is a picture of Bruschi exiting the hospital. He’s holding onto his wife to not fall, and looks like he’s been hit by a Peterbilt.
    Which is what I used to say: “I feel like I’ve been hit by a Peterbilt.”
    I predict sonorous blustering from Boston about how Bruschi did much better than me (motivation I predict); this from the same guy who so little understands brain-injury that anyone with one deserves the ice-flow.
    A stroke is generally misunderstood. The part of one’s brain killed can’t regenerate, but quite a bit of brain-tissue is still left. So that if what’s left can relearn what was previously controlled by the part killed, that’s “recovery.”
    All brain-injury is like that: hitting the pavement with your head, falling in a church sanctuary, getting hit over the head with a pipe (tube; whatever).
    Enough brain-tissue is left, so the idea is to get what remains to take over for what was killed.
    It’s called “rewiring your brain,” “running on what’s left,” “running on seven cylinders.”
    Bruschi was apparently able to get what remained to take over playing football. I was able to get what remained to take over riding motorbike. We were both told such things were beyond-the-pale.
    You have to be ornery: not accept disability. My mantra was “I used to be able to do this.”
    So now we have to get my siblings to admit it could happen to them: and that if so, they got three hours to receive clot-busting drugs.
    Both Bruschi and I missed the boat.

    adventures

    For some time, Linda has been working Saturday-mornings at the West Bloomfield post-office.
    It’s only a small-time (part-time) job, hopefully with an income low enough to not effect our Social Security — i.e. not a “real” job; that is not life-support.
    My job at the mighty Mezz was like that; hardly enough income to support oneself. — In fact, it even went part-time.
    It was an attempt to offset my stroke. Life-supporting work (Transit) ended with the stroke. I was supposed to be disabled, but got hired anyway. And stayed hired because I was impressing people with mental wherewithal. They still use my stockbox, and the astronomical-events site I found. —And honor-rolls ended with my departure.
    The Executive-Editor (“Boss-Man”) gave me a huge raise to get me off Social Security Disability.
    Beyond that, they all loved me at the mighty Mezz. “This place is just too quiet since Hughsey left. Boring.” —I was making them laugh.
    I retired because “episodes” were happening.
    I left knowing a lot about driving a web-site, so that theoretically I could probably drive one as a volunteer — like for the town or something. That’s upload stories/piks; not design the site.
    But driving the Messenger-site was so frustrating — and therefore high-pressure — I decided I better not.
    So I do nothing: sleep in on Saturday.
    Saturday morning I get up at 6, unload the dishwasher, and go back to bed.
    The idea was to run Saturday mornings, but so far I’ve only done it once. Usually I was too bushed; and now it’s dark until 7.
    Linda leaves around 7.
    As such, I’ve had a chance to think about “lots of nice memories:” (Vast Right Wing Conspirator - Sep 20, 2006)
    It’s true. The things I remember from my callow youth are, e.g. 1) riding the PRSL turntable at Camden Terminal Enginehouse, and 2) watching the Corsairs fire up at Willow Grove Naval Air-Station. Willow Grove was a Cub-Scout trip; Camden Terminal Enginehouse was a first-grade field trip.
    After reading Vast’s comment, I think “too bad I didn’t have a father like Paul;” i.e. one that does adventures to please himself, and then takes his kids along.
    No doubt my sister in Floridy will bluster angrily “What about this, and what about that?” Sadly, the only “adventure” I remember is my father reconnoitering a bike-hike for the “yooth” at Erlton Community Baptist Church.
    We went down a little-used dirt-road in Camden County Park that ended at the high embankment of the Camden bypass built by the Pennsylvania Railroad about 1896. The embankment dead-ended the road.
    We turned down a narrow path that led to Cooper Crick (not “creek”), where the Pennsy crossed on a high girder bridge.
    We then dismounted and started along the north bridge-abutment. The abutments were on a concrete apron that had a four-inch level you could run your tire on, and the apron was about four feet wide, 30° slope; enough to walk on.
    You could thereby get around the railroad embankment, and access another little-used dead-ended dirt road that led into a more active area of the park near Cuthbert Road bridge, behind Ellisburg Drive-In, where we saw “Greatest Show on Earth” with the Lipscombs.
    The active area was denouement, but the first part was adventure. The actual bike-hike was the same way.
    Sadly, the only “adventure” I remember with the Old Man was this bike-hike. I guess there were a few other things, usually at the behest of my mother. I remember a Thanksgiving-Day football-game at Haddonfield High we hiked to.
    No doubt my saying this will prompt angry blustering from Fort Lauderdale about how my parents were wonderful and fabulous and perfect.
    Plus the usual noisy blustering from Boston about my being utterly clueless and forgetful, from the same guy who can’t remember who he took to his prom, and forgot about the LHMB (which he rode, for crying out loud).
    If I forget something, my memory is failing; and if I remember something, I’m a haughty SME.
    Seems it all started after I disputed his recollection of where we got off I-80. “He’s sensitive about that,” Linda said.
    And then I get called an “old man” by GramPaw.

    Mighty Holtkamp


    The venerable CG, Charlie Gardiner, my esteemed cohort at Houghton who graduated in my class, who I maintain an e-mail friendship with, sent me an e-mail enquiry last week.
    He was apparently going through his barn, and stumbled upon a hoary old vinyl recording of Don Hustad on the mighty Holtkamp at Houghton.
    The mighty Holtkamp was the fabulous pipe-organ in the John & Charles Wesley Memorial Chapel-Auditorium.
    The chapel is a giant box built shortly before we arrived — i.e. about 1960; we arrived in the fall of ‘62.
    It has a giant pipe-organ off to one side: the mighty Holtkamp, 47 stops, 45 voices, 61 ranks, 3,153 pipes; installed in 1962. It’s a glorious instrument, specked by Charles Finney, FAGO (Fellow of American Guild of Organists), at that time the head of the Music Department at the college.
    Since Finney was heavily into Bach, the Holtkamp is a Bach instrument, very baroque sounding. It’s electronic — electronic keyboards and actuation, as opposed to tracker (mechanical), but the pipes and sound are baroque.
    I thought the world of that Holtkamp. By comparison a mighty Wurlitzer is glitzy and bombastic — sort of an ElectroGlide.
    I used to detour through the chapel during off-hours. The Holtkamp was also used by organ-majors for practice. The Music-Building had a pipe-organ, but it was small. The mighty Holtkamp was the goal.
    Finney played the Holtkamp during chapel-services. The last verse of hymns was sung in unison, and Finney would “hymprovise.” I’d listen in silent awe. Finney often drove himself into a box, but sometimes he’d do it right. (It was glorious when he did!)
    Houghton couldn’t require chapel-attendance. If they had, they would have had no National Defense Student Loans; the way I financed my last two years at Houghton (along with Mahz-n-Wawdzzz). Chapel could be cut; but I don’t think I ever did, thanks to that Holtkamp.
    The largest stop on the mighty Holtkamp was 16’; Finney couldn’t afford a 32’. But it had a coupler that played all the overtones of a 32’ to mimic a 32’ stop; although it didn’t actually have the 32’ voice — more of a throb.
    Sometimes Artist-Series concerts were held on the Holtkamp; e.g. Don Hustad in December of 1962. The entire concert was recorded and turned into an LP; except the pickup mike was in the organ-loft, so the recording is dead.
    Hustad played Bach’s “Tocatta, Adagio and Fugue in C-Major,” very well suited to the mighty Holtkamp, since the Tocatta is all pedal-work on the trumpet-stop.
    That concert was the first and last time I ever took out Mary Jo Newland, who was in my freshman “Principles of Writing” (English) class.
    Mary Jo was fairly attractive, but very weird. She was my first date after summer-school.
    I think she was also frightened by my enthusiasm for the mighty Holtkamp — how can anyone get turned on by a pipe-organ; especially one played by a flagrant show-off?
    Houghton had a defacto custom whereby anyone who took out a girl had to ask twice. The girl was also required to go out twice.
    But not Mary Jo. Once was enough. I had another girl (from Altoony) who refused to go out with me at all. So much for the vaunted custom.
    Mary Jo and I went up into the organ-loft to visit Hustad after the concert. Hustad and I talked up how wonderful the Holtkamp was.
    Mary Jo stood quietly with her hands folded.

    teller

    Yesterday (Friday, September 29) we patronized the mighty Canandaigua National Bank branch in East Bloomfield to pay our school-taxes.
    The East Bloomfield School District apparently has an arrangement with the bank to accept school-tax payments.
    Theoretically we could have done it online — we have CNB Bill-Pay, and I’m sure they could credit the school-district.
    But it would have come out of our CNB checking-account, and I’d rather pay the school-taxes with the line-of-credit my brother in Boston noisily insists I close, so I could pay more interest, and jump through hoops, should I want to use a line-of-credit in the future, like to buy a car. (I bet if I closed that line-of-credit, and had to open another at a higher rate, he’d start bellowing about “poor judgment;” A BROKEN RECORD!)
    As soon as we walked in the door we were greeted by an invisible voice from behind the counter: “What can I do for ya (schnap)?”
    I walked toward invisible voice and found a bouncy young strawberry-blonde with freckles — heavy with eye-liner.
    Her name was “Kristin,” and her name was announced as a “teller” on her name-plaque.
    “Job-titles have come full-circle,” I thought to myself.
    When I was cut loose from banking, back about 1970, banking was on the verge of retitling their tellers “CSRs” (Customer-Service-Representative).
    The retitling was supposed to elevate the tellers; no increase in pay, of course. (Rah-rah-rah; Siss-boom-bah!)
    Transit, in its infinite wisdom, tried to do that. Tried to retitle us “bus-drivers” as “operators.”
    Actually it was an attempt to downgrade our position, so I protested mightily.
    “Elevators are controlled by ‘operators,’” I said. “Dial ‘O’ on a telephone, and you get the ‘operator.’”
    “Yet our passengers still think of us as ‘bus-drivers;’ the Captain-of-the-Ship. .....Swashbuckling slayers of dragons, and rescuers of damsels-in-distress.”
    “Brave and forthright, we have to stop nine tons of hurtling steel on a dime when Granny pulls out of the mall parking-lot (‘Oh look, Dora; a bus. Pull out! Pull out!’).”
    Their intent to change us to “operators” crashed mightily in flames. The mindless-management-minions at Transit might call us “operators,” but the passengers still called us “bus-drivers.”
    So now the lowly bank-tellers are back to being called “tellers” yet again.
    I can imagine some self-absorbed middle-management type at the bank congratulating himself in the mirror that he had the shining wisdom to rename the tellers what they were long ago.
    Sounds like the bank is run by REPUBLICANS. No matter what you rename it, a shovel is still a shovel.
    I didn’t say anything to strawberry-blonde. I knew doing so would go over like a lead balloon.
    But Linda got it. I bet Marcy does too. (playtime-at-hazmat.blogspot.com/)

    Thursday, September 21, 2006

    hook-and-ladder

    The other morning (Monday, September 18) the morning-man on the classical-music radio-station we listen to, WXXI, played a commentary by a story-teller.
    Morning-man plays various commentaries throughout the week pertaining to local history, gardening, band-music, a movie-review, etc. The story-teller runs once or twice a week.
    Story-teller’s consideration was about fire-departments, particularly the hook-and-ladder.
    The old Immanual Baptist church was across from a fire-station. Heaven forbid the guys get called out during the sermon — you couldn’t hear it.
    Often my parents dragged us all across the street after church to visit the fire-station. Free entertainment: my father loved it. The firemen loved it too. They’d take us upstairs, and we’d slide the firepole back down.
    After we moved to Rochester, we discovered there was a city fire-station down the street. How could you miss it? They’d wake the dead when called out.
    That fire-station served the whole east side of Rochester, so that even after we moved onto Winton Road, sometimes their hook-and-ladder would blast by out front.
    You could hear it coming a mile away; siren at full-wail — and a real siren too; not one of those disgusting electronic sirens.
    It also had a giant air-horn; and the boys would lay on it to clear the intersections.
    It always got me out of the house. Stand back! Here it comes. 60 feet of hurtling racket; pedal-to-the-metal. Like watching a steam-locomotive.
    The back end — the trailer — steered too. A guy was on top at the rear steering-wheel.
    I loved seeing that thing take the 90° corner from Winton onto Humboldt. The rear end would swing wide around the corner nearly hitting the parked cars.
    He never hit the parked cars, but I remember one time he went over the curb and almost sideswiped a tree.
    Eventually the mighty hook-and-ladder was retired, replaced by a “Quint.” A Quint is huge, but doesn’t have a trailer. It’s also an electronic siren. It’s about 40 feet — the length of a city bus.
    Thankfully someone bought that hook-and-ladder and restored it. It still runs, but not like it did.

    Report from the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower



    Report from the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower
    :

  • Our 93-year-old nosy neighbor asked if I was all ready to go to Floridy.
    “Hardly know it’s coming,” I said. This seems to be the way everything is since the stroke. Various trips — mighty Curve, Boston, etc. — just occur. I don’t know if this is a stroke-effect or the wild melee we live in, but fall just came and went one year after the stroke. My sense of these things seemed stronger before the stroke.
  • I called Bill from the Rochester airport: “I got ‘em all-all. Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyahhhhh..... Toy not with the master! —Even the Cayman; I wasn’t expecting that.”
    “Jack hasn’t weighed in yet.”
    “Get to work, you pup!”
    “I’m tryin’.”
  • Once the plane was aloft, I couldn’t help noticing all the abandoned railroad right-of-ways on the checkered terrain below. They’re everywhere.
    We kept climbing, high enough to not be able to discern if they were active railways.
    The north-south runway at Rochester International parallels the Rochester-Southern, previously B&O (Chessie), long ago Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh.
    We were soon climbing over the long-abandoned alignment of the old Peanut, and then paralleling the RS south.
    Our flight was direct, Rochester-to-Orlando, and old railroad alignments were all over, along with old canal beds.
    We crossed over Swain ski-center, but I couldn’t see the long-abandoned alignment of the Shawmut up on the hill. But I could see the old horseshoe fill that crossed Swain Valley and the old Erie.
    But the cloud-deck thickened as we flew south.
  • Navigating Orlando was the expected shambles.
    A shuttle took us to Hertz, which was off the airport.
    They gave us a Sonata (snotta), but it wasn’t there.
    The clerk noticed her error and dragged us back inside, but couldn’t supply a Corolla-sized car.
    “Whatever happens, my mother-in-law needs a door,” I said.
    We were offered a Chevy HHR, the same thing Elz had in Boston, at the Corolla-price.
    “Business or pleasure?” the clerk asked.
    “We’re here to see my 90-year-old mother,” Linda said. “Different option: neither business nor pleasure. How about ‘duty?’”
    “Light-blue; A3; keys are in it.”
    The HHR in A3 was light metallic purple. The one next to it was medium-blue.
    “Are you sure that’s the right one?” I asked.
    “Check the license-plate. I’ll come with you.”
    She didn’t, but an aging latino asked to see our contract.
    “How do you get in the back?” I asked, after fumbling around.
    “Well, there’s always this,” he said. We pushed buttons on the magic key-fob. Who knows if you could unlock it with a key.
    “How do you get the windows open?” I asked the girl at the checkout from a cracked-open door.
    “Down between the seats,” she said. The electric-window openers were not on the doors.
    -We exited following a MapQuest route to De Land I had gotten through Netscape, but it said turn left at a no-left-turn, so we turned right and U-turned on a side-street to get turned around.
    -Then we followed another street north to an expressway on-ramp, but the sign for it was at a cross-street.
    We turned onto it, but “Wait a minute,” the Keed said. “This don’t look like no on-ramp; it looks like a cross-street.”
    We then navigated numerous narrow alleys around the rear of a gas-station, and sure enough, the elusive on-ramp we wanted was beyond the sign.
    “If I had been driving,” Linda said, “I would have blissfully continued on that cross-street clear into the Atlantic Ocean.
    -Our expressway quickly divided into a fork, with one side north, and one back to the airport. You have about 100 yards to change lanes — fine if you’re from Orlando, but we aren’t.
    So we headed back to the airport.
    A toll-plaza greeted us: exact change or E-pass. What do you do if you have neither? After sitting a minute at the split with the four-ways on, trying to come up with exact change, we got turned around, and were quickly greeted by a similar plaza on the on-ramp.
    -The Greeneway does another split headed north, with one fork headed to Sanford, and another off. Again, a sudden lane-change, so again I was trapped.
    Another toll-plaza greeted us: penalty for being a tourist; 75¢, exact-change please. Thank ya, Jeb.
    Once back on the Greeneway, nothing else happened. We also tossed the MapQuest directions near De Land; Interstate-4 the whole way.
    We found the mighty De Land water-tower with no trouble, and then Linda’s mother.
    She looks fine for 90, except she looks pregnant. Thin but a swollen belly. Supposedly had a heart-attack, and part of an intestine was removed, but she seemed pretty spry.
    “I don’t like walking with the others here,” she said. “They’re too slow.”
    She gave us a 50-dollar bill for breakfast, but we managed to escape without it.
    “Where am I gonna find a $50 breakfast?” I asked. “Anyway we got $18,000 in our checking-account, and near $100,000 in our savings. Add our IRAs and we’re approaching $600,000.
    “I think we can find breakfast for less than $20.”
    Maybe she’s been reading Galatians; or something about buying love from your spawn.
    “You kids were so cute when you were small,” she once said. I think I did hear that, not too long ago, but wasn’t privy to their strange attempt to order a pizza and have it delivered. Since when does Papa Johns have to deliver to an elusive retirement apartment not on a street? We ended up getting it ourselves.

    Follies in the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower:

  • The heat and humidity in Floridy was stifling.
    Linda’s glasses fogged up, and the infamous Ducati-jacket was unbearable, which meant the loss of a pen I clipped to my T-shirt collar.
    The camera-lens also fogged up.
    Clouds quickly exploded into small thunderstorms, and strange insects and jungle-birds serenaded us from trees.
    Tiny lizards darted across the sidewalks.
  • Our first trip with Linda’s mother was to De Land Library via her old house in nearby DeBary, 5-6 miles away.
    “Now turn here on Howry Ave.”
    Turn right, I guess.........
    Suddenly, within one block: “There’s the library. Turn here!”
    Screech; lurch. BARNEY-FIFE ALERT!
    The idea was to use their ‘pyooters to access my e-mail and print our boarding-passes for the return flight home.
    We were assigned ‘pyooter-eight, but no rig.
    So ‘pyooter-10.
    Linda’s mother stayed in the car.
    “If I’d known she was going to do that, we’d have skipped the library,” Linda said. “She sure knows how to drive me nuts.”
    The temperature in a parked car in Floridy quickly ramps up to over 100°.
    “Oh, I’ll be fine. I’ll suffer in silence.”
    The AirTran site bombed, so we couldn’t print boarding-passes. It did crunch a seat-change, although it took forever.
    And everything took way longer than I’m used to on my MAC. “Please wait; OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHMMMMMMM......” Watch the icon spin.
    (It took two attempts to do the seat-change — first attempt bombed [thank ya, Gates].)
  • After the library (Linda’s mother hadn’t even cracked the door), we went to mighty Wal*Mart to look for a girdle, fiber, anti-hemorrhoid suppositories, and various toxins.
    Linda’s mother got a cart as big-as-a-Buick and started roaring around.
    The drill is if you don’t keep up, Linda’s mother quickly disappears. 90 years old and zip!
    After giving up on the hour-long girdle-search (nothing suited, including those endorsed by NASCAR), we reconnoitered every food-aisle in the huge store, which unlike the ancient Canandaigua Wal*Mart is a Super-Center with a 40-foot ceiling. The building occupies acres.
    There was the incident of the attempted orange-juice purchase. Here in the citrus-capitol of the entire universe, we couldn’t get pulp with calcium, until I found it later in a separate display-case. I changed out the non-calcified pulp thereby casing weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. So I got another calcified pulp ending up with two in the cart.
    “We were only supposed to have one!” I quickly returned #2.
    Linda’s mother also refused anything good for her. “No diet Jello; no diet cottage-cheese either.”
    “They got no-salt tomatoes here.”
    “Nope; I ain’t eatin’ that. Salted tomatoes please.”
    (She also put real butter on her bread. Plus the buffet we ate supper at gave her enough lamb to feed a family of four.
    Linda and I split the fried fish she got. Linda’s mother paid the tab, of course: $31.)
    We could have used self checkout at Wal*Mart and got out quicker, but “I ain’t usin’ no credit-card. I only pay cash.”
  • Exiting Wal*Mart I was told to turn left into a “no-left-turn” (in fact, it would have been head-on into a Jersey barrier), so I got turned around in a residential area.
    “Why are you turning right? We’re supposed to be turning left;” (a U-turn I guess).
    “To get turned around in this residential area.”
    Then we approached the intersection with Route 92, International Speedway Blvd. to Daytona (six miles).
    “Where ya goin’ now, Bob? We’re supposed to be going straight.”
    “East on 92 at Walgreens; just like last night.”
    “We ain’t goin’ to Walgreens. We need to go straight.”
    “Well, I can’t change now,” I said; “I’m already committed.
    “Well, that’s all right. We can turn at Amelia.”
    “Which is what I was going to do anyway.”
  • “Aren’t ya gonna stop for breakfast? Doncha want this? Doncha want that? How ‘bout a flashlight in case the power goes? I got plenty a’ flashlights.”
    “Mother,” Linda said, “the flight leaves around 11, and we counted it back. Allow three hours at the airport and to return the rental, plus we gotta buy gas, and allow an hour for the trip.”
    “That’s leave at 7. We won’t have time for breakfast.”
    “Doncha want this? Doncha want that? Wassa matter? Doncha love me? I’m from the greatest generation that ever was. Survived the DEEpression, and then made the world safe for democracy. Then looked for Russian bombers from atop the Bath fire-tower.”
    I forgot my pencil, and was given five — only one of which had a sharp point. “I got plenty a’ pencils.”
    We bought two cans of tomatoes at Wal*Mart, which added to four she already had should be enough to survive a monster hurricane, or nuclear Armageddon. Let’s hope that Al Qeada guy doesn’t find her cupboards.

    Rental-car return follies

  • Everything went hunky-dory except for tossing the 50¢ exact-toll on the pavement at the off-ramp toll-gate. Thank ya HHR — windows like gun-slits. Hit the ceiling-header.
  • Then there was the driver of the Hertz shuttle, an Elvis wannabee.
    We learned Orlando International Airport was originally McCoy Air Force Base, named after the WWII fighter-pilot with the most kills, which explains “MCO,” the three-letter acronym assigned to the airport.
    “This airport is one of the busiest in the nation. Last year it moved over 45 million people, of which I carried half.”
    “My name is Jack, a Jack-of-all-trades. I have to show you this photopass, so you don’t think I’m impersonating your bus-driver.”
    “Thank you; thank you very much,” I said, as we got off. He was entertaining us with “Since my baby left me........”

    Return from the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower:

    The temperature differential between Rochester and De Land is about 40-45 degrees.
    In De Land it was oppressively hot and tropically muggy — about 90+ degrees.
    Rochester was cold and windy enough to require the mighty Curve jacket, one step above the infamous Ducati-jacket, walking the dogs.
    De Land was no jacket of any kind.
    Apparently a front passed through in De Land, triggering thunderstorms.
    But it was so muggy everything remained wet even when it wasn’t raining.
    Our glasses, etc. fogged up because of the difference in air-conditioned (inside) air versus outside air. Our guest apartment was air-conditioned to about 72°, which meant everything was 72° when we stepped outside.
    Once we drove down a Spanish moss draped residential street thick with foliage. Roof-shingles were covered with moss, and everything was closed in.
    Lawns were overwhelmed with abundant greenery. It sure wasn’t western New York.

  • Linda’s mother would use other people to voice her disgust. How many times did Sylvia get invoked; her first neighbor in the retirement-center?
    “You mean them two are retired and can’t stay more than one day?”
    “Sure; another day in the slammer for the dogs, and the grass grows” (I got one section I couldn’t get to before I left, and I have to hope it doesn’t cripple the Husky).
    Beyond that, I’m not sure I could stand it. Sit quietly, bored to death, for fear of saying or doing something that prompts weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
  • Sometimes it’s Linda’s mother that vents........
    “I couldn’t believe that Debbie (Jerry’s first wife’s daughter). She got a bathing-suit that was no more than a string. I was disgusted. Then she had that thing alone in the dryer — just a string; I called it the ‘G-string.’ A-tumblin’ and a-bangin’. Of course that was what she grew up with — never could conceive of drying it on the clothesline outside (although if she had, I would have been embarrassed”).
    “As I recall,” Linda said, “you were upset with all the laundry they did.”
    “No-no,” Linda’s mother said. “I never had any problem with that.”
    “That’s not what I remember,” Linda said. “You went on-and-on for years about their doing laundry at all hours of the night, and their continually doing laundry.”
  • Linda and I have fallen into looking out for each other’s detriments — A) the fact that driving is near-impossible for her, and B) the fact I have difficulty communicating.
    Linda has also made trips to the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower herself a few times — so that I let her lead through the giant confusing Orlando airport.
  • So is the HHR worth considering after two days of driving one? It would be if it were available as all-wheel-drive. Otherwise I have to hope the Toyota Matrix (and the Pontiac Vibe [which is a rebodied Matrix]) will fold its seats into a flat floor, as will the HHR.
    The other problem is that the HHR has gun-slit windows; okay with me, but not with my wife. It’s her car too.
    But it’s nice to see a Chevy with as much content as a Toyota (although the Bucktooth Bathtub would put it on-the-trailer when it comes to cupholders). In fact, it was nice to drive a Chevy as nice as a Toyota.


  • Welcome to Floridy.

    Tuesday, September 12, 2006

    strange mating-dance

    About a week or two ago I was treated to a wheelie-fest out front.
    Actually it was only two motorbikes, but holding a wheelie almost a mile seems remarkable to me. (Cue Bluster-King.)
    For those not knowing, we live about 200-300 yards south of a sharp right turn in Route 65. Actually it used to be a four-way intersection, but so many were turning right the state regraded it, so that the right-turn — 90 degrees — is unstopped; as is the left-turn going north.
    So 65 in front of our house is a drag-strip. The sharp right-turn empties into a long straight south to 5&20.
    As such, motorbikes/hot-rods/whatever accelerate up through the gears after making the turn. People make the turn at 25-30; but a good sportbike could probably do it at 60+.
    So crotch-rockets have blasted by our house at over 100. Blatting Harleys do it too; although they’re only good for about 70+. (The speed-limit is 40.)
    This time though, the approaching motorbikes weren’t winding-out. Whatever was coming was holding constant revs.
    First a thumper (one lung) passed, its front-tire about eight feet in the air. Then a crotch-rocket passed, also at constant revs, also with its front tire eight feet in the air.
    Down the road they went; front-tires aloft. It looked like a strange mating-dance.
    How does one steer if your steering-member is off the pavement?

    Monday, September 11, 2006

    Online reservations

    Last night (Sunday, September 10) I attempted to make reservations online to the shadow of the mighty DeLand water-tower.
    I’ve done online purchases in the past, so I know to use IE, since sometimes Netscape locks up; although IE doesn’t display the blog toolbar.
    Online airline reservations went without a hitch: down Monday, September 18; return Wednesday, September 20. Any hitch at all was at our end, wedging said foray amongst all the various appointments.
    Saturdays are always out; Linda works at the post-office Saturdays. Linda also has a few weekday work-days scheduled, and a doctor’s appointment.
    A service-appointment for the Bucktooth Bathtub needs to be scheduled (tire-rotation), plus the wheels need to be balanced for the CR-V. The contractor may also want to pour (set, place, whatever) the floor-slab for the shed while we’re gone.
    Another factor is that AirTran (the airline) has only one direct flight per day Rochester-to-Orlando; and 9/25 going was sold out. All other flights involve a plane-change — which is okay, except a direct flight takes less time.
    Reserving a car crashed mightily in flames. Hertz and AirTran are apparently affiliated so that Hertz has an AirTran discount. This is how we did Boston; all reserved online.
    But trying last night sent the Hertz site into a tailspin, finally locking up my machine. Nothing worked — I had to reboot (15 minutes to scan the 60-gig hard-drive).
    Before the bluster-boy tells me to “dump the MAC for a real computer” (BROKEN-RECORD ALERT!) Linda fired up her PC and promptly got the same result.
    A number of factors are at play here. Hertz is renting a Shelby GT-H Mustang again, and had a few at Logan last July.
    I’d like to rent a GT-H, but A) Orlando is the worst place in the entire universe to rent a car; and B) the GT-H is only a two-door.
  • RE: Orlando. Last time we got sent into a parking-garage trying to return the car; they even have parking for satellites. Approaching the airport was a crapshoot: expressways we couldn’t find on a map (including their map). —We found the airport by signs; thankfully no condo parking-lots via Jack. (And we were on the donut too; that was the trip where the tire went flat in the shadow of the mighty DeLand water-tower.)
  • RE: GT-H. A GT-H costs almost $100 per day, but I could spring for that if I knew I didn’t have to cart around Big Dorothea. Linda could clamber into the back seat, but I’m sure there’d be a noisy fusillade of guilt from Big Dorothea; bellowing over her shoulder-harness, etc. (“Ya got me strapped in!”)
    All of which is okay — Linda’s mother is 90, and frail. A Corolla at $30 a day makes more sense. It has four doors.
    Plus a GT-H is rather large — it should have been in Boston.
  • Saturday, September 09, 2006

    defacto car-show of old and classic sportscars

    Yesterday (Friday, September 8), “we” (my wife, our dogs, and I; not just me alone) drove down to Watkins Glen to take in a defacto car-show of old and classic sportscars, affiliated with vintage car-races at Watkins Glen International road-race track.
    Took the dogs along. Don’t know as we should have, as it’s a one-and-a-half hour drive, which the dogs aren’t used to, plus it was beastly hot, and we were navigating a tightly-packed crowd of slobbering gray-beards, dapper in their checked bermudas, flip-flops and day-glo NASCAR T-shirts, swilling overflowing tankards of foaming brew.
    The cars, over a hundred, were parked cheek-to-jowl along the main drag, angled into the curb. Also tiny parking-lots had been converted to concours, some specific to brands. There also was a grassy knoll dedicated to actual competition-cars.
    But I only saw two Ferraris; one winged monster actually driven on an old-course tour. Before the track, Watkins Glen held road-races on the public roads, so “tours” of the original course are held.
    Marshals clear the street with shrill police-whistles and hand-held freon horns, and then the cars blast by, up through the gears.
    Of note were the Austin-Healeys with Chevy Small-Block power. I even heard an MGA with a Small-Block — how does one lever a Small-Block into an MGA?
    We went at the suggestion of my “idle,” City-Editor Tim Belknap, who allegedly edits the entire mighty Mezz, despite previous frequent mention of Executive-Editor Bob Matson (“Boss-Man”) and Managing Editor Kevin Frisch (“K-Man”), both of whom outrank Belknap.
    Belknap is one of many editors, which also include Poobah, Queeny, and editorial-page editor Dan Hall. The so-called “Hasidic Jew” (Dave Wheeler) is the Sunday-Editor. There are others.
    Belknap manages all the local reporters — as such he is responsible for the local content of the paper: quite a bit of it.
    Belknap is also a car-guy; which explains his prior attendance at this show, and jawing with me.
    The lack of Ferraris was surprising, and I think the road-car was only a V8. I was told to expect lots of Ferraris.
    But the show-car was the best Ferrari: a 275 LM Berlinetta coupe. Except it was black not red.
    The owner was regaling some guy about the hand-made nature of Ferraris; that the right-side of his car was one-half inch longer than the left.
    He also pointed out a faint ridge in the top of the left-front fender that wasn’t in the right.
    His car was a V12, but regrettably I don’t think the 275LM is a Columbo V12; arguably the best motor Ferrari ever built.
    American-iron stands out in this crowd like a sore thumb. A giant GTO Pontiac was on display next to a tiny Morgan.
    Even Corvettes look a little garish. And then there was the yellow Cyclone, the Barracuda, the ‘53 Studebaker, and (for crying out loud) the ‘49 Plymouth coupe.
    “I don’t want to drive all the way down there just to see old Fords. Old Fords are a dime-a-dozen.”
    “Don’t worry. You’ll see old Cobras and Lotuses.”
    Regrettably the place was awash in MGs and old Triumphs. They’re also a dime-a-dozen. After 18 bugeye Sprites, you go bug-eyed yourself.
    After about an hour of threading sweaty bodies, Killian had to lay down. He was bushed. We had to ask about water, and finally found a small stainless dish under an outside tap at the post-office.
    The dogs lapped profusely.
    Walking back up the street we passed an autocross set up in a tiny tavern parking-lot. A huge crowd had gathered — who knows what for. How can anyone get interested when the cars juke madly around the tiny lot, and rarely get above 25 mph?
    We also passed a place where some guy was firing up his antique Harley-Davidson. Another huge crowd. It sounded like a death-rattle.
    We then walked back up to the Bucktooth Bathtub, parked far way along the road in. “Dad looks thirsty too — needs a libation,” some doddering gray-beard said, sagging honey on his arm.
    Yeah, water; just like the dogs.
    On the way home we stopped at the same parking-area along 14A where Jack and I put on our rain-gear in a downpour.
    Stopped there on the way down too. Killian dragged me after a squirrel.
    Once home the dogs zonked out.

    Thursday, September 07, 2006

    Insanities

  • Today (Thursday, September 7) I set out for the PT-gym about 8:05 a.m., which is the tailend of NASCAR-rush hour for the stolid burghers that run this great land.
    Heading east on 5&20 I fell in behind a schoolbus, that stopped every half-mile to pick up kids. Often they pull over to let the jam-up past, but this one didn’t. I was #5 out of 20.
    The many cars in the jam-up were hot to get around the schoolbus. I remember a tan Aztek blasting over the double-yellow.
    East of Toomey’s Corners (a traffic-light) is an intersection with a small rural crossroad. The schoolbus stopped about 100 yards (a football field) past it to pick up kids.
    A ratty red S-10 pickup was juking at the intersection, and since I put so much gap between me and the car ahead, he pulled out in front of me.
    Well okay, but suddenly a motorcycle appeared in the oncoming lane having just passed the slowing schoolbus (flashing yellow lights).
    “Uh-oh,” I thought. I bet that S-10 driver pulled out assuming nothing would have passed the schoolbus.
    Fortunately the motorcycle was far enough away he didn’t have to take evasive action. In fact, he didn’t do anything. He had time.
    The S-10 was disappearing across the street as I passed. Sure enough; a Dubya-sticker on the tailgate (held closed with a bungee-cord).
  • After the PT-gym I stopped at mighty Weggers for milk and a peach. Before leaving, having a long drive home, I hit the men’s-room, but when I came out my cart was gone.
    I looked around and saw a cart similar to mine, except it had only tomatoes and bread, so I gave up and went to the service-desk.
    “Attention shoppers. Please check your cart, and if you have the wrong one, please return it to the service-area.”
    Thrump-thrump. Minutes passed. Finally, after being accosted twice by clerks anxious to help me, and Granny pushing past to buy a lottery-ticket, my original contact came out and we began looking for my cart near the men’s-room.
    “That’s it,” I said.
    “Often people seeing they have the wrong cart just push it aside, and retrieve the cart they had.”
    Order restored. Weggers is not out $7. Danny buys another gallon for his TestaRossa.
  • Tuesday, September 05, 2006

    minicart

    Mighty Weggers, the best supermarket-chain in the entire known universe, has introduced a new minicart (pictured) for the casual shopper.


    Ooooooooooooohhh!

    Ever vigilant, Weggers has noticed many of its shoppers aren’t buying a week’s groceries. There are quite a few of these, to whom Weggers supplies shopping-carts big-as-a-Buick, plus NASCAR-carts for the kids, and motorized carts for Granny (“coming through!”).
    But many are just dropping in to buy milk and/or eggs and/or bread, now that these staples are no longer delivered to your door. (Do you remember that, pups? Our bread in Erlton was Freihofer's, and our milk was Sealtest. In Delaware it was HyPoint — Big Ed, father of Peg-a-lou.)
    But now you buy this stuff at the grocery. The milk is Weggers brand. And the eggs come from Wegger’s egg-factory, where the chickens get warehoused, dewinged and debeaked (so-called “battery-eggs”).
    Weggers is at least two stops a week for us — one for what’s left of the week’s groceries, and one for milk/bananas/whatever to finish out the week (we also buy fresh spinach, since the frozen is like baled hay).
    What I usually got was their smaller cart, not as small as this new minicart, yet not as-big-as-a-Buick.
    A hand-basket wasn’t big enough, plus it’s a drag with a gallon-jug of milk.
    So now we were faced with using a new cart that could be perceived as “cute.”
    Giant leap a few weeks ago — we took a new one: ooooooooooooohhh!
    So now mighty Weggers has three types of carts, and only two storage-chute sizes in the parking-lot.
    They haven’t retired the old carts yet, but probably will. I don’t look forward to using a cart as-big-as-a-Buick to shop for two.

    Monday, September 04, 2006

    BACKHOE ALERT

    Sunday night (July 16), about midnight as we rushed headlong to bed to begin perhaps our worst week ever, since it involves a trip to the mighty Curve, plus Jack’s wedding (isn’t it Rachle’s [doesn’t matter] wedding?), I noticed my digital watch was reading a time of 8:55 p.m.
    Like everything, so it seems, resetting it meant shoving it to mañana. I managed to balance our checking-account that night, and set up an online payment of our Visa. (Our bank has an online bill-pay, which to me is the only way to do it online, since I initiate it.) Balancing the Visa will be mañana.
    Later I surmised the watch was probably displaying Californy time. It has multiple time-zones; zone 2 is Californy time.
    So I reset it Monday morning according to my ‘pyooter which gets the exact time over the Internet from the dreaded atomic clock in Boulder.
    The seconds were right, but the minutes were still four minutes slow. My previous watch carried both the minutes and the seconds over to Californy time. You only reset the hours.
    This one only carries the seconds. You have to reset the minutes.
    Then I had to make the watch display the local time instead of Californy time.
    I pored over the cryptic instruction-sheet, translated by Japanese monkeys, in type so small you need a magnifying glass, but I couldn’t see any indication how to change the time display.
    “Aha,” I said. “I think this button does it.” Viola! Back to local time.
    So much for the instructions. No indication whatsoever. Real men don’t need instructions.
    The CR-V is ailing — it sounds like it’s dragging an emergency-brake shoe — and I expect to farm it out. Getting a service appointment will be near impossible; the CR-V will probably get shoved in the garage, and we’ll take the bucktooth-bathtub to the airport and hope it doesn’t get stolen (I have a steering-wheel lock).
    The Husky is also ailing — it spun a pulley that drives a cutting-rotor. The Husky doesn’t slip its rotor-belt like the Greenie, so it stalled three times in the Back 40.
    Then it spun a pulley. At least two hours Sunday was tied up removing the spindle-housing — something I could have farmed out to the Husky-guys, but I wanted to look at the pulley myself.
    The rotor-spindle has star-teeth, and I bet the pulley did too, but no more.
    The cutting-blades also have star-teeth so they can’t slip under the blade-bolt like the Greenie.
    The pulley is just a double-thickness sheet-metal stamping with the star-pattern cut with a die. The grass wasn’t that high — just thick enough to stall it.
    We visited the Husky-guy before setting out. He replaced the entire spindle-assembly and pulley under warranty.
    “How many more of these am I gonna have to replace?” I asked, pointing to the pulley. But the spindle was supposed to be starred too. Mine had stripped.
    “That’s the first one I’ve ever seen. Make sure you install this spacer.” Maybe the spacer had never been installed. We never saw any sign of it.
    The funicular at the mighty Curve was closed for maintenance. Jack would have had to use the steps, in which case he would have been toast. We bombed up the steps as if they weren’t there, even in the 90° heat.
    All they do is wick up the old ticker.
    Seems like we never come here without having some sort of insanity to report.
    Monday night was the vaunted spaghetti-joint where we sat next to a bloated 350-pound girl and her stringbean husband/boyfriend/significant-other/whatever. The girl was a dead ringer for Aunt Ginny: same mannerisms, same demeanor, same noisy overconfidence, even sounded like her.
    Significant-other was upset the spaghetti-joint was an Italian restaurant — he couldn’t get wings. Aunt Ginny fielded all her little boy’s eccentricities with exquisite aplomb. And when her cellphone played Ride of the Valkyries, she asked why her mother was calling on a weekday instead of the weekend.
    As we were leaving Aunt Ginny was clambering into her tiny red Pontiac sedan just like Aunt Ginny: grab the windshield-post and then hurl her gelatinous heft into the seat, after which her side of the car dropped a foot on its shocks.
    At Tunnel Inn we had the “MO Tower” suite, named for the old Pennsy tower at Cresson which still exists. “MO” was the suite I always asked for in the past, since it’s on the opposite side of the building farthest from the tracks. (“MO” were telegraph call-letters.)
    But I don’t know. All the suites get shaken by passing trains, and last visit we had “Alco,” the other suite on the opposite side of the building.
    Bed locations have been changed in all the suites, so that now the air-conditioning in “MO” blows on your head. We had to kill it, after which the suite became hot and stuffy.
    “Aren’t you the guy who wrote that big article on Horseshoe Curve?” the owner asked.
    “Yep; that was me,” I said.
    The owner is a railfan too, which is the whole reason Tunnel Inn exists.
    The steps at the mighty Curve were easier this time compared to the last, which means mighty Jack is even more likely to get skonked. At first I was worried Jack might beat me — after all, he is 13 years younger.
    But now I have no doubt at all. What we’re worried about is him blowing a gourd “not about to be beaten by no history-major.” He hasn’t been working out, and keeps a-sluggin’ that ‘Dew. Putting him on-the-trailer is okay (putting a blowhard on-the-trailer is always great fun), but we don’t want to have to drag him to Bon Secours.
    Part of a visit to to the mighty Curve is a visit to Cassandra Railfan Overlook, west of Cresson.
    A couple of years ago a patron at the Tunnel Inn told me about it, and it’s fabulous. It gets the train frequency of the mighty Curve, and is shaded by trees.
    Cassandra is a dying coal-town out along the Pennsy Main. The railroad had to dig a huge cut, so eons ago highway engineers used the high cut-walls to mount a single-lane iron highway-bridge.
    The road is long abandoned, but the bridge is still there, so railfans were using it as a viewing-spot — so popular the town decided to install benches and improve the area.
    So became Cassandra Railfan Overlook; right up there with the mighty Curve, part of the local railfan agenda.
    The eastbound approach to Cassandra is a long tangent, so you can see approaching trains miles away.
    There also is a distant signal-bridge, so if it lights up it means a westbound is approaching.
    There also are detectors my scanner gets.
    Cresson built a railfan observation-deck, but it’s right out in the sun. We skipped Cresson this time — except for the Philly Cheese-steak at the Cresson Family Restaurant.
    It’s becoming apparent I have to look out for my old friend as much as she looks out for me.
    For years it seemed to be the other way around, what with exasperating stroke-effects, poor balance, and deteriorating health.
    But the poor balance seems to be slowly going away.
    Linda has a trick knee, so I drove the whole way so she wouldn’t have to, since driving is painful for her.
    I also try to be the one walking the little monster, since he pulls you off-balance with sudden hard lunges.
    No problem. I already decided it wasn’t worth my getting exasperated with her not hearing I said. She may have gotten hard-of-hearing (I’m not yet).
    We used the steps every time. No problem there either (six times). Jack is toast.
    Jack attempted to call me on the cellphone Tuesday night. I suppose it was an ongoing attempt to apprise me of various tunnel-closings around Boston. Something about concrete (cement; whatever) tunnel-linings crumbling off and falling onto cars.
    Sounds like more backhoe shenanigans to me.
    Whatever; despite all his bellyachin’ about me having my phone turned off, I tried to call him twice this morning (Wednesday, July 19), and each time got referred directly to voicemail. (Musta been on one a’ them secret Porta-John monitoring projects.)
    He finally called up as we were gassing up at the mighty Sheetz gas-station on 764 in Altoony, and mumbled something about “charging.”
    Excuses, excuses. At least on the phone he’s a pussycat, which he ain’t on this here site.
    He also said something about the famblee-site being awfully quiet. “No screaming,” he said.
    Well of course; we’re incommunicado.

    Art Dana and Walt Stuart

    Following is a clearly selfish me-centered post about two other people.
    I’ve noticed in the strange world of REPUBLICAN logic, anything about anyone other than me is me-centered, as was my post about Barry at Sandy Hill, J.B. Swank, J-D Jenkins, and Ted on 1703.
    The fact I had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to dispute the myth that all men are ogres when it comes to the kitchen is clearly a me-centered assertion of self.
    As you all know, I sling these posts to ne’er-do-wells all over the world, mostly the mighty Mezz where I once worked.
    Every once in a while I add another to the vaunted ne’er-do-well list, and they get a welcome-message explaining what is going on.
    In it I explain that Flag-Out has become a blog-site, wherein I post stuff, and thereafter my siblings all go completely ballistic, particularly my blowhard brother in Boston.
    The fact I post anything at all is apparently perceived as a threat to his royal highness and utter supremacy.
    So following is another celebration of myself about two other people. Have fun everyone.
    Dissertations from Boston, confusing as they are, aren’t self-centered, even when talking about how one spent one’s day. Oh no!

    During the final years of my 16&1/2-year sojourn with Regional Transit Service, I became friends with two fellow bus-drivers about two years older than me: Art Dana and Walt Stuart.
    Art, like me, was an old gear-head, heavily into cars and trains. Walt was a friend of Art.

  • Walter reminded me of Aunt Betty, very Connor-like, except he also smoked. He probably would have had little to do with me except for Art.
    Walter relieved the 1100-line south the same time I started my first trip with 2403. We’d drag-race down South Ave., merge left at the Library (“the switch”), and swoop down and up through the I-490 on-ramps from downtown.
    Thereafter Walt took the passing-lane, and I the right lane. That was because he was turning left at the light, and I was going straight.
    I’d pull adjacent to Walt, and he’d open his door to bark snide remarks. By then we had the Gillig Park-and-Ride buses which had a gigantic driver’s window that could be slid open.
    The Starships only had a tiny slot for management to open from the outside and excoriate the driver.
    The window-slots were also over your door controls, so you could reach in from outside and shut the doors (“secure your bus”).
    Walt lived in deepest darkest Henrietta. I say that because I once had a trip to a school for retarded children (“special needs”). It entailed navigating the Henrietta ‘burbs, where garages were often larger than the house, and add-on porches had ramshackle flat roofs.
    Houses were only a few feet apart. Front lawns were often littered with rusty abandoned cars, rotting lumber, and/or bed-springs.
    Actually, I think Walt lived south of the Thruway. North of it was worse. Route 15 north of the Thruway was all car-dealers. It looked like Las Vegas.
    People fear that someday their strip will look like West Henrietta Road (Route 15); which looks like Pleasant Blvd. in Altoony near Daze Inn.
    South of the Thruway is more rural and less developed. Route 15 used to be the main entrance from the south into Rochester; now it’s the I-390 expressway.
    Walt lived alone with his wife in a house he designed and/or built. He specified two 8x7 single garage doors, and was miffed when his giant F250 Ford pickup wouldn’t fit: too high and too wide over the mirrors.
    The first thing I did when I started designing this house was measure the old E250. It needed a garage-door eight feet high, so that’s what we have.
    It also was almost nine feet wide over the mirrors, which is why we have a single 8x16 instead of two 8x8s.
    Our contractor had a fit; I suppose because the single 8x16 cost more than two 8x8s, but that was what we had specified.
    So poor Walter had to park his truck outside (and work under it in the snow). I also think it would have been too long for his garage. Our garage is 24 feet deep, to accommodate the E250, which was about 18 feet long.
    The last I heard Walt had cancer — but not lung-cancer. So now he’s probably dead.
  • Dana was into cars, and had driven bus for years. When I started he had a graying pony-tail, and was a father-figure to all drivers.
    I guess he was an only-child, and was living in the family homestead where he had grown up. It was smack in the middle of the city’s crime-ridden 21st ward. Like our house on Winton Road it was an old farmhouse the city had grown up around — different in that he had heavily fortified it with elaborate fencing and an electronic alarm-system. He also had a four-legged alarm-system. An abandoned factory was across the street. If anyone broke in they were facing a .357 Magnum.
    Art had no kids. He lived alone with his wife of many years and his dog. He had an assortment of hot-rod parts in his garage and an American-Flyer layout in his basement.
    His layout, like most layouts, was more track than anything else. But it was good-looking track, not the cheap tinplate American-Flyer sold.
    He had display-tracks on the wall, with a huge assortment of classic American-Flyer equipment. Most of it was diesel; including four sets of classic Alco PAs.
    His Rock Island PAs were the most valuable — the rarest. He also had a complete fluted-stainless passenger train with lighted cars — except it was too small, and therefore not to scale.
    And most of the stuff ran. He’d put stuff on the track, and operate it. Around and around the Rock Island PA set circulated on a small loop: three units pulling four cars (the engines were longer than the train).
    What I remember most was him showing me all his scenery was glued down, so he could vacuum without sucking up anything.
    Art was friends with “Frenchy,” another bus-driver, who had never married and hung onto his ‘56 Chevy he had hot-rodded as a wild youth.
    By then the ‘56 was a collector-car, especially with its nosed hood, decked trunk, and flippers. It was what we’d now call a “post;” a Two-Ten two-door sedan, metallic olive-green (probably not stock).
    The motor was the original Power-Pak 265 with 4-barrel and duals. It had a floor-shift he and Art had installed to its 3-speed.
    Apparently he and Art had changed out the cam, putting in a Duntov. Made it a hot-rod; Frenchy was forever grateful.
    Art apparently built quite a few chops for people: all Harley-Davidson powered. What mattered was function. “The bitch has got to at least run,” he used to say.
    Art used to ride motorbike himself, but gave it up. Which is why we became friends: I still was riding the FZR400, and he’d see me coming in as he pulled out.
    Lots of interesting stuff lurked in Art’s garage; including a stock Ford banjo rear-end, a ‘30 Ford 5-window coupe body, and a set of ‘32 frame-rails.
    By then Art was too old to do anything with it. He was over 50, and more concerned with visiting his ailing father in the nursing-home. His mother was dead.
    Art used to say the best-looking car ever was the ‘50 Mercury; chopped, channeled, sectioned, lowered, done up in flat-gray primer. I used to send printouts of such sleds from my hot-rod calendar.
    The last time I saw Art he was bundled up in an open ‘32 Ford hi-boy roadster owned by Jimmy Tranquil, another bus-driver who had stayed true to his roots.
    Tranquil was the head of the local ABATE chapter, and bought a new Harley every year. He lived next to the bus-barns in a run-down house that was little more than storage for his many bikes (including a ridable Ariel Square-Four).
    Tranquil also wasn’t married; but seemed to have a new girlfriend every minute — all lily-white, flabby, alcohol-sodden Harley-mommas.
    Art was in heaven in that ‘32; even though shivering.
    The car had a Chevy Small-Block with triple deuces; and according to Tranquil cost $50,000 — that’s late ‘80s.
    Before my stroke Art spearheaded resistance to announcing bus-stops on the bus PA. The newer buses had a PA-mike, that management wanted us to announce bus-stops on for the blind.
    Art resisted hugely, and held meetings with disabled-groups, including the blind. To announce stops would be a distraction added to the existing madness of driving a bus.
    Art succeeded.
  • Anvil Inn

    RE: “Anvil Inn.....”
    I have a hunch the “Anvil Inn” currently exists.
    No doubt the place Elz and I went is long-gone.
    Over the many years I did “Night-Spots” for the mighty Mezz, I came to see that the turnover in dives was insane. Many of the dives I did disappeared from the face of the earth. The only one that stayed in business the whole time (about six years) was a place called “Milestones” on East Ave. in Rochester.
    But I was updating their gigs from their web-site — which is cheating. “If a dive wants a free ad of what’s coming at their place, they should be faxxing us.” I.e. I shouldn’t have to be getting their updates from the web. (Web-sites were my way of filling the page. There were at least 6-8. That filled one-third the file.)
    Years ago I drove Transit bus past a restaurant that went through six owners over eight years. On the way to the mighty Mezz I passed a roadhouse that over 10 years went through four different owners.

    Bishop

    During my tenure at Transit, I befriended a guy named Ron Bishop, who apparently flew P51 Mustang fighter-planes during WWII.
    Bishop was one of those strange ducks bus-driving seemed to attract. One was a recorded classical guitar-player, and one was the president of his class at a Rochester high school, who later went on to graduate Notre Dame.
    And then, of course, there was me. “You graduated college, and are driving a bus?” “Yep. Majored in bus-driving.”
    Us weirdos had hired on planning for it to be a temporary job; then stuck with it when we saw it paid fairly well, and could be made agreeable.
    Bishop was a wiry little guy, about 10 years older than me. He was hardly the quintessential fighter-jock. But he could tell stories. Apparently he had crash-landed his plane once on a dead stick, and walked away.
    Bishop was highly enamored of his Volkswagen Beetle, mainly because he could maintain it with coat-hangers. He used to say it was little more than a glorified lawnmower — and as simple to maintain.
    Another guy at Transit had a rusty old ‘64-’65 Valient with a slant-six. It was held together with baling-twine. He kept it because it was cheap to run, and he couldn’t afford a newer car. There was also the matter of principle.
    I think Bishop quit before I had my stroke. He was never satisfied — plus running a Beetle became impossible.
    I think he switched to a Ford Fiesta. Nice, but the front-fenders were welded on. Impossible.
    The head of the Brandywine Phys-Ed Department; one Jim Snyder — just don’t call him “stumpy” — also flew P51s in WWII.
    We had a coed Health class, but discussion of sex got replaced with P51 war-stories.
    Apparently he flew a lot 10-25 feet above the ground — including under the tree-crowns on country lanes — in rural France.
    The P51 was a fabulous airplane. All Americans should be required by law to see a P51 fly — and hear one.
    I saw one at the Geneseo Air Show — and I will never forget it. I can still hear it — Packard-Merlin V12.
    As taildraggers they have to be zigged and zagged when taxiing, because the huge nose obscures the way.

    Barry

    During late summer of 1960, my second of three seasons on the vaunted Sandy Hill Boys Camp staff, there was a camper named Barry.
    Barry was big for his age (only 14), and affected the image of a hard-rock macho wannabee. He used to dunk his sandy blonde hair with Wildroot Creme Oil, and combed it forward into an oily curl over his brow. He had the back combed in a greasy dee-aye.
    Barry wanted very much to be on the camp staff; in fact, the stable-staff, which attracted macho wannabees. It was an image that appealed: the sullen cowpoke atop his tired nag (see Waco on Rebel in the J-D Jenkins story). That image flew in the face of reality; that horses were large animals that filled their stalls with stinking sewage.
    Which is why I did well in year-one, when I wasn’t much good as a rider. I wasn’t afraid of work — like mucking stalls.
    As such, J-D, the head-honcho, considered me his most valuable employee.
    I don’t know as Barry ever made it onto the staff — at least not while I was there (‘59, ‘60 and ‘61). You had to be at least 15, which he would have been in ‘61; but probably his affectation did him in. I think he also smoked.
    Actually the most macho guys on the Sandy Hill staff were the kitchen-crew; not the stable-staff. In 1960 that included Bob Mason, who I often canoed with on the muddy Elk so he could smoke his treasured Marlboros.
    And a wiry little guy whose name I forget who blew a rod out of his ‘54 Ford. He and the kitchen’s head-honcho swapped out the blown motor and wrenched in a slightly larger Mercury Y-block. They did it with a tree next to the kitchen. (I observed, of course.)
    The head-honcho of the kitchen was Lowell Hildreth, a big strapping dude personally hired by Dr. Palmer (“good food, and plenty of it”). Lowell, in his early 20s, was from south Jersey, and on days off he would ride the broncos at Cowtown.
    None of the kitchen-staff had cabins. In fact, they stayed together in a large tent at the foot of a tiny meadow below the mansion-house. At least it had a raised wooden floor-deck, but they were always fighting mosquitoes. Many of them would sneak cigarettes on the woody cliff overlooking the waterfront.
    I’ve always loved pillorying macho wannabees (ask Jack), so one night we decided to fix Barry (my idea, of course). All at Sandy Hill knew “the trick:” dip a sleeping person’s hand in warm water and they wet their bed.
    So about 10 o’clock one night we snuck furtively with our flashlights into Barry’s cabin, and found Barry sleeping soundly in a top bunk. Gingerly we dragged his hand out from under the covers, and dipped it in a glass of warm water.
    Naturally, you’d never know if it worked until the next morning when the embarrassed cabin-counselor removed all the bedding for washing, and tossed the soiled mattress atop the cabin-roof to air out.
    “Who’s mattress is that?” I asked innocently.
    “Why hard-rock Barry,” I was told.
    “Imagine that!” I said. (Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk..... )

    Traffic-circles

    About two or three weeks ago I had the opportunity to try the new traffic-circle (roundabout) where Route 251 crosses Route 65.
    Both roads are two-lane, and 65 was previously through and 251 stop.
    Both approaches of 65 were semi-blind, meaning to cross 65, or turn off 251 onto 65, required care.
    A flashing-light hung over the intersection; red for 251, yellow for 65.
    What it needed was a stop-light; but what it got was a traffic-circle. No longer was 65 through, or 251 across. Traffic has to slow and merge and negotiate the circle.
    Ex-KYOOZE me, but I think this is rather stupid, coming as I do from south Jersey, which is awash in traffic-circles now being removed.
    Supposedly the idea is to “calm traffic.” Sure, until Granny concludes the way to negotiate traffic-circles is to put the hammer down and send all scurrying.
    At first drivers are sheepish — apparent calming. But then they get the hang of it: hammer down then slam on the brakes. It becomes a demolition-derby.
    I know from experience. When I first learned to drive I considered my greatest challenge to be traffic-circles.
    “Bobby, we can’t wait. You’re holding up traffic. They’re all blowing their horns.”
    I quickly learned the drill: charge the circle and slam on the brakes to avoid T-boning.
    Who knows how many cars I avoided, and how many avoided me. “Bobby; you have to deal with these things.”
    Soon you exited the circle and wiped your brow.
    The last time I visited Jersey every circle was either gone or being sundered.
    The infamous Ellisburg Circle, not far from our house in Erlton, was totally gone, replaced by an intersection with traffic-lights.
    Kings Highway crossed Marlton Pike there, plus a side-road angled off next to Kings Highway south.
    I came upon it expecting the usual chaotic melee, but was greeted with placid order — a traffic-light.
    All the other circles I remember have been similarly obliterated; replaced with intersections with traffic-lights.
    A circle farther out on Marlton Pike was only partially obliterated. A traffic-light controls the main intersection in the center; but parts of the circle have been turned into turning-lanes with traffic-lights of their own. —The circle was large enough to do this.
    So how long will the traffic-circle at 251 and 65 exist? Probably until the instigators retire — they have an agenda to uphold.
    “Traffic-calming” only works for a little while; then it becomes bumper-cars.
    Then after the instigators retire their replacements will introduce a wonderful newfangled idea to stop the carnage: the traffic-light.

    Sunday, September 03, 2006

    1506

    This morning’s (Monday, 4/24) Transit dream was about good old 1506, the last “Express to Latta” of the day, which I drove for a summer.
    Early in the morning, at night, and all day Saturday and Sunday, the 10-Dewey drove all the way out to Latta Road in Greece, north of Rochester. Midday on weekdays the 15-Crosstown serviced Latta Road, and during rush-hours we ran express service downtown from and to Latta Road.
    The eastern end of the 15-Crosstown became so moribund it was discontinued, but the west end continued. This was two buses an hour apart, one of which was 1506.
    Even west-end service was moribund. I made two trips during which I might pick up 10 people. The regular driver, a high-seniority guy who had switched to Kodak service for the added money, told me to keep quiet when I said 1506 was silly.
    The lack of work was apparently his little secret.
    I made two trips in Greece, and then deadheaded downtown to make the final “Express to Latta” at 6:10 p.m. That was about 10 people too.
    True to form, my dream had me doing a slightly different route. It had me going through Midtown Plaza, our Park-and-Ride terminal. 1506 didn’t do that.
    I then drove all over Robin Hood’s barn to make my three westbound Main St. stops: Sibley’s (Main-and-Clinton), Lerner’s (Main-and-St. Paul) and Main and State. I might pick up eight.
    I then turned north on State St., which became Lake Ave., and was supposed to operate express all the way to Ridge Road (Kodak Park).
    This meant stopping at only “Lake-Express” stops; about every fifth-or-sixth Lake Ave. stop (there were Lake Ave. buses).
    People along Lake Ave. that wanted my bus were supposed to be at express stops, but often weren’t. The customer is always right, so I would stop at any stop where the customer was frantically waving.
    Lake Ave. passengers riding my bus got punished. I only stopped at express stops outbound, which meant they might have to walk. The clientele wasn’t getting away with murder.
    I might pick up a few at the Federal Building on State St., and a few more at Kodak Park. After that it was boom-and-zoom out to Latta Road with people getting off along the way.
    I remember doing a school-teaching interview out on Latta Road after the Corvair crippled. I rode the 10-Dewey out to Latta Road, then was surprised when the 15 didn’t go downtown. It crossed the Genesee river on Ridge Road, to operate the east side of its 15-Crosstown route.
    Showing up for a job-interview by bus is an automatic failure. I also had to ride bus to work at the bank when the TR250 was in the body-shop.
    Latta Road wasn’t a Park-and-Ride — beyond Latta Road (to Hilton) was. Senior drivers liked Latta Road — a city run with a suburban clientele; often few.
    (Not distingushing between 10 and 15 is an old passenger gig. If a bus is coming, it will take me home — i.e. where I want. [“Hey; where ya goin’?”] No matter; I wouldn’t have waited the whole afternoon for a 10 downtown.)

    "That's All I Need To Hear"

    Last week while on a foray to the so-called elitist country-club to walk our dogs, I heard the unmistakable hum of an inline truck-six being loaded.
    We had already completed one-half (the West-Pond Trail), and were starting the remainder (the East-Pond Trail).
    Truck-sixes often power other things beside trucks. I remember the right-side wheel-rim of a rusty ‘50 Chevy sedan hooked up to a circular-saw by a belt. An old man cut lumber with it. He had a cable to control the throttle on the Stovebolt.
    My first thought was paving-equipment. We were not far from Boughton Road (BOW-tin), and there were signs up. Out here in the sticks they don’t pave much. The roads don’t get much use.
    Usually they coat the road with hot tar, then top it with a thin layer of pebbles (place/pour/set/dump/whatever — I ain’t no engineer, but I did get the dreaded funicular right at the mighty Curve, whereas the so-called engineer blew it royally, and had to hang his head in shame).
    There was also a quiet background whirring coupled to the engine-speed. All we could think of was Jack: “That’s all I need to hear.”
    There also was the buzzing of tiny two-strokes, but they sounded like string-trimmers, not chain-saws.
    As we descended the defile, I noticed the orange of an Asplundh truck between the trees, and suddenly there was the sound of a chipper chewing up brush.
    Of course; the six was powering a chipper.

    A couple days later we were in our back-yard, and heard the unmistakable sound of a Ducati coming down 65 from the traffic-light.
    Actually there are a couple Ducatis out here; one a black Monster, and the others red sport-bikes.
    “Here comes the Ducati,” I said. “That’s all I need to hear.”
    Nothing sounds like a Ducati. The inline-four sport bikes sound like dentist-drills, and the Harleys like motorized farts. Often I’ve mistaken a high-winding inline-four as a siren.
    Cranked on, my old 900SS, the bike I never should have traded, sounded like a ‘Vette; a resonant bellow.
    Ducatis are 90° V-twin, so sound somewhat like an American V8, but not enough jugs to sound like a car. Car-V8s bellow too, but don’t rev like a Ducati.
    The only time I heard a car V8 rev like a Ducati is in the Trans-Am race series for pony-cars.

    1960 vacation

    In 1960, my parents took Elz and me on what to me was the most memorable vacation-trip I’ve ever made.
    Jack-a-Bill-a-Timmooo were left behind in Delaware. Peggy wasn’t born yet.
    There had been earlier vacations. Our first was in 1951, not too long after Tommy was born, to New England. It was a camping trip. We still had the ‘39 Chevy, and my father had engineered various tricks to make camping possible in that car.
    He had Elz and me sleeping in the trunk, and the parents were on a ping-pong table on the ground under a canvas drop-cloth that had been fashioned into a tent.
    Packed up, everything fit atop a roof-rack, tied this way and that.
    True to form, the ‘39 Chevy broke down on the first day, in deepest, darkest New York City. I think an ignition-condenser bombed.
    This was also the time I committed the mortal sin of stepping in my own poo. We weren’t in a campground, so bathroom activities were performed along the paths.
    That trip quickly deteriorated from a camping trip. We were soon “camping” in a closed pavilion, and by Toronto it was a garage. The trip also included a ferry across Lake Champlain, and Niagara Falls. (“We ain’t ridin’ no Maid of the Mist. $1.50; are you crazy? We’re broke!”) —Elz got sick on the ferry.
    Another long trip was taken in the summer of 1953, shortly after Tommy died (January 1953).
    True to form, on the first day, our car, the ‘41 Chevy, overheated on the Pennsylvania Turnpike near Pittsburgh, but it didn’t blow its antifreeze all over.
    My father, in a stormy pique of roadside mechanical frustration, removed the thermostat from its housing, and replaced the destroyed gasket with a new one cut from a Ritz-cracker box.
    The trip was all the way to Corning, Ark., where Tommy had received leukemia treatments from an experimental clinic. The old ‘41 ran fine after the radiator was flushed.
    We stayed at a steamy house where my mother had stayed with Tommy, Elz and I swinging on a front-porch swing, batting mosquitoes in the dark. The house overlooked burned-out rural cotton fields.
    We also drove through other places in Tenn. and Kent., visiting people my mother knew (other leukemia parents).
    We also stayed in steamy, sweaty Memphis. It was awful. I think Memphis was where my mother snapped her first blurred bridge-railing picture. (“That’s the Mississppi River, I tell ya.” “Looks like a blurred bridge-railing to me.” [Actually the first blurred bridge-railing photo was taken in 1952 — where they crossed the Mississippi at Cairo, Ill. — taking Tommy to the clinic in Corning.])
    We also visited Lookout Mountain and Rock City near Chattanooga. Rock City, famous for barn-roof signs all over the southeast, had a nature-trail through the rocks.
    There was a rope suspension-bridge, known as “Swinging Bridge,” over a yawning chasm. My sister and I had it bouncing up and down. (“Thomas; make them stop! They’re going to break it.”)
    In 1956 my parents flew out to Arizona alone on a TWA Super-Connie. Elz and me and Timmooo were left behind. They got on the Constellation at Philadelphia Airport. Pop-pop and I watched them leave.
    Their Connie developed engine-trouble along the way (some say an engine caught fire). The engine had to be shut down, and the plane made an emergency landing in Albuquerque. (Although that may have been where they were headed. I ain’t sure of the location of their forced-landing, or their final destination.)
    They visited the Grand Canyon, and took the mule-ride down into the canyon. My mother’s mule would nibble grass along the edge of the path overlooking the yawning abyss. “Thomas!” “Eleanor; pull back on the reins.” “I am; it’s not moooving.”
    This also was the trip where they met Roy and Dale Rogers. Apparently Roy and Dale had a child with Down syndrome (like Timmoooo), Dale had wrote a book about it (“Angel Unaware”), and my parents had struck up a friendship.
    Faded reddish prints of my parents with Roy and Dale adorned my parents’ bedroom wall for years.
    They also visited the West Coast, and took the original California Zephyr from Oakland to Denver. This was the CZ before Amtrak, back when it traversed Western Pacific, Denver Rio Grande & Western, and Burlington Route.
    Amtrak’s CZ covers the original transcontinental railroad, first Central Pacific, then Southern Pacific, and now Union Pacific, through the Sierra Nevada over Donner Pass.
    I think the original CZ had five Vista-Domes. Amtrak’s CZ has double-deck “Superliner” cars — no domes at all (although some of the Superliner cars are glass-topped “sightseer” cars).
    The original CZ navigated Feather River Canyon on the WP, and Glenwood Canyon on the DRG&W. Amtrak’s CZ doesn’t go this way.
    Supposedly the scenery of the old way is more glorious.
    They could have rode the CZ all the way to Chicago, but got off at Denver and flew back from there.
    What’s most memorable about the 1960 trip is no car-trouble. We were driving the humble Blue Bomb, at that time seven years old, but no overheating, no failed wheel-bearings, no blown ignition.
    The first night we stayed in a funky motel in the rural Indiana outback. It rained.
    The second day we drove all the way to Chicago, staying at Moody Bible Institute. Supposedly this was my introduction to Moody, but I was put off. It was a very urban setting, and that night we were put up in a brick dorm-tenement much like the dingy Sunday-school classrooms at the old Immanual.
    My father was from Camden, but I was from the ‘burbs. The idea of my attending Moody was frightening. Plus I wanted a full, four-year college (Moody wasn’t, at that time).
    The next day, after being shown around Moody and totally terrified, we drove out the infamous Eisenhower Expressway to the sleepy suburb of Wheaton, Ill., just west of Chicago.
    We stayed at the house of some Moody classmate of my father, picnicking out in the back yard, until sent inside by a tornado warning. Nothing happened; just a thunderstorm. The wind didn’t even kick up.
    Wheaton was the location of Wheaton College; a college I planned to apply to. We looked it over — ho-hum — I was sure they’d never accept me. Wheaton was the premier Christian college, and had extremely high acceptance standards (Houghton was #2).
    The next day we headed out across the vast, open prairie, staying that night in an old hotel in the center of some small town in Iowa. The town was little-changed from the 1800s; about the only concession to modernity was the streets were paved.
    My sister and I were in a second-floor room with strident blue wallpaper and a bare bulb. Bathrooms were down the hall. I think the room had historical significance of some sort; like maybe someone famous had stayed in it.
    The next day we attained St. Paul, our destination, where we would catch the Great Northern train up into Canada, to Winnipeg.
    In St. Paul was another Moody classmate, and we stayed there. But our goal was St. Paul Union Station, where I saw railroads I had never seen before; particularly Soo Line.
    I remember we couldn’t leave the Blue Bomb at the classmate’s, so we parked it in a church parking-lot. My father declared that by so doing the Lord would protect it.
    And so began the great railroad journey to Olds, Alberta, starting on the Great Northern overnight train to Winnipeg.
    Sleep was impossible. We were in coach seats, and enough north for the sun to set at 10:30 p.m. and come up at 2:30 a.m.
    Every once in a while a white-coated steward would trundle by, hawking pillows for 25¢. He had a French-Canadian accent: “Pillow? pillow? pillow?”
    Crossing an international border meant customs-inspection. We had to stop at the border and customs-agents walked through the train, querying passengers, and acting official (like bullies).
    At Winnipeg we caught a Canadian-Pacific train, the “Dominion,” west to Calgary. The “Dominion” was the #2 train; it wasn’t all Budd ribbed stainless-steel like the “Canadian” (#1).
    Lots of people were on the train headed to the Calgary Stampede. Elz and I struck up a conversation with a young cowpoke wannabee in the VistaDome.
    There were only one or two domes in the train; the last one being the last car, an observation. (Our dome also had a small luncheonette underneath — the “Skyline Coffee-shop.” We always ate there — it was cheaper. No diner for us.)
    At Calgary we caught a train of two Budd RDCs north to Olds (it was the CP line to Edmonton). That thing was booming-and-zooming at 110 mph. The railroad rights-of-way were the only place where the 10-foot-tall prairie-grass remained, so the blunt-nosed RDCs would split it with a huge bow-wave.
    The RDCs also had extremely loud airhorns. They needed them approaching unprotected rural grade-crossings at 110 mph. Even five miles out of Olds you could hear them blasting through town.
    Our destination was the Bastian farm west of Olds. Mr. Bastian was one of my father’s Moody classmates, but had gone back to farming the Alberta prairie.
    The Bastians lived in a very rustic farmhouse. I think it had electricity and a phone (maybe not), but no domestic water or in-house bathrooms. If Mr. Bastian wanted to take a bath, they had to drag a large galvanized tub out into the living-room, and heat water on the stove.
    The water came from a well, pumped by Briggs-and-Stratton. The windmill was kaput. They were probably using bottled propane.
    Bathrooms were two rickety outhouses along the back fence. #2 was apparently intended to replace #1, which was rather drafty. But #2 was right next to #1. I suppose they had indoor locks, but you knocked first.
    Mail-service was to drive into Olds to the post-office — no RFD. Once in a while Elz and me would ride bicycles into Olds with the other kids to pick up the mail — which was interesting, because the trucks sounded like they were right on top of you, even though still miles away.
    Bastian had most of his money tied up in farm equipment. Their car was a dusty old black Plymouth four-door from the late ‘40s.
    But he had a new Oliver tractor that supposedly cost $4,000 (a fortune at that time). He only farmed about 100 acres, so rented out his services to neighbors on his tractor.
    He mainly was raising beef-cattle, grazing them (not a feed lot), and his planting supplied the cattle. He had about 100 head.
    My parents eventually took the RDCs back to Calgary to catch the train on to Banff and Lake Louise, leaving Elz and me at the farm. But not without taking two side-trips in that dusty old Plymouth.
    One was to a scenic overlook about 100 miles from the Front Range of the Rockies. Colorado is like this. The prairie folds down, and the snow-capped Front Range rises up like a wall.
    This was where my father counted the number of flies on the back of a cow with Mr. Bastian’s binoculars. The cow was over a mile away.
    We also drove to Three Hills, Alberta; location of Prairie Bible Institute, where Mr. Bastian’s oldest child, a daughter, was matriculated. She was home for the summer. (Their next child was a son, about our age — my sister had the hots for.)
    Three Hills was named after the three small hills that mark the town. Ho-hum. Each hill had an elevation of about 15 feet, so they looked more like low mounds. Such things would go unnoticed back east, but out in the vast, flat prairie, they are hills.
    While my parents gallivanted in the Rockies, Elz and I got roped into various farm-duties. To kill time I would take Mr. Bastian’s .22 pump-action Winchester and shoot gophers.
    Once we got lassoed into castrating male calves. Another time Mr. Bastian decided to harvest his big hay-field. He (and his son) mowed it with his tractor, Elz riding shotgun on the fender. (How she did this without her allergies kicking up I’ll never know.)
    Mr. Bastian did not have a baler, so he piled his hay in huge haystacks out in his hay-field. I remember grooming the haystacks in the setting sun — all of us, including mother and daughter(s).
    Mr. Bastian would scoop up the hay with a multi-tine forklift he had on the front of his tractor. That lift could go 18 feet in the air, and he used to give rides to Elz and me.
    (Once my mother got on, and he promptly lifted her 18 feet in the air. “Put me down; put me down.” She was scared stiff.)
    After my parents returned we took the RDCs back to Calgary.
    We would be riding back east on the “Canadian;” Canadian-Pacific’s premier train.
    We got on about 4 p.m., and I got a front seat in the first VistaDome.
    It’s an image that has never gone away. The train left, and we proceeded east into a thunderstorm. The huge sky was a uniform slate-gray dropping down to the distant horizon. The vast yellowish-brown prairie was table-flat: no trees or houses at all. (Two colors: gray and yellow-brown.)
    Every once in a while the F-units would penetrate a herd of running antelope and send them scurrying — the antelope were the same color as the prairie.
    I didn’t leave that dome all night, or the next day either. Prairie-fires lit the night horizon. I’d watch the lineside target-signals change from green to red, as we flashed by in the dark in the rain.
    The train conductor, or a brakie, was jawing in the darkened stepwell with young passengers. I don’t think I slept at all (I wasn’t leaving that seat).
    CPR parallels Route 1, the main highway across Canada (although in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba it was only two-lane at that time). Our train was cruising at 50-70 mph. Cars would pace us on Route 1, disappear, and then reappear.
    We could always tell when we were approaching a town. Trackside grain-elevators would appear on the distant horizon. The train would slow as we approached, and Route 1 diverged.
    Then as we left the town, Route 1 would reappear.
    One place we went through was “Moose Jaw;” actually quite large; a city. We also went though “Medicine Hat.”
    We took the Canadian all the way back to Winnipeg, where I saw stored steam-engines in a yard. We had to kill time before getting back on the Great Northern, so took in “South Pacific.”
    That same white-coated French-Canadian steward was hawking pillows on the Great Northern train back to St. Paul.
    And the Blue Bomb was still in the church parking-lot, never touched, despite its Delaware tags.
    By far, the greatest vacation-trip I’ve ever made. Images still resonate.