valentine

Yes, I indeed bought my wife a valentine. It cost $1,057.14, but wasn’t flowers. What it was was a new washing-machine (and dryer), something she would find much more sensible than mere flowers, which only wilt, and have to be tossed in a week or two.
A new washing-machine meant various adventures. We had no interest in driving all over to save $50. So we went directly to Sears, since they have Kenmore, essentially Whirlpool.
We went apprised of a 54”+ opening (we measured), currently occupied by our old equipment, including a 28&1/2” dryer.
All their washers are 27 inches wide. Not enough room for a new washer with our old dryer. (Their dryers are also 27”.)

The Keed.

Valentine by Kenmore.

No one makes a washer the same width as our old Maytag: 25-inches. There are a few 24-inch washers — Roper (????) for example — but none were on display.
So in essence they saw us coming and licked their lips lustily in slavering anticipation. The opportunity of a lifetime; two people who only wanna shop one store, with no regard to saving 50 smackaroos.
The salesman dipped into his pitch a few times: do they teach these guys that gibberish in sales school?
“The agitator is an engineering marvel,” he said. “It’s comprised of three parts. The bottom rotates side-to-side like a normal agitator, and the top is an augur, rotating only one way, forcing clothes down.”
“With really big loads, the top also goes up-and-down.”
“So in other words, it does the boogaloo,” I thought to myself.
“Something to go wrong,” my wife said. “All I want to do is wash clothes.”
The model we ordered also lacks computer touch-screens, and the gizmos you need to start your laundry from the Starship Enterprise across the galaxy. Just knobs and switches — 20th century technology. (I’m sorry; but I have intimate experience with 21st-century technology and how it can lock up. “Please wait while Windoze cogitates the meaning of life........ OOOOOOOOOOOHHMMMMM”)
The dryer had a magic “automatic” function that senses moisture and shuts off when dry.
It also had a timer, “but timers are notoriously inefficient. With this, you get two dries for the price of one.”
Uh, like we never set the timer to shut off when clothes are dry. Sometimes it’s 20-25 minutes; other loads need 50-60.
Then there was the delivery issue, and setup. “The next delivery-date to your zip-code is this coming Sunday.”
“But that’s the Lord’s day,” I was tempted to say.
We thought about it, and said it was okay. “We’re heathens anyway,” I said.
“Huh?” the poor salesman asked. He was utterly lost.
“You have to understand we have relatives that are born-again Christians,” my wife said. “For them, delivery on Sunday would be unconscionable.”
So the valentine is arriving tomorrow (Sunday, 2/19). Sears, and us, will burn in Hell.
Now begins the mighty deluge of how we could have saved $500 by comparing Wal*Mart to Target to Home-Depot. (Sears is west; the others are east.) —Or online and set up ourselves — sell the old equipment out on the curb. LOOKOUT!
Our old Maytag lasted over 30 years. We could probably keep driving it, but apparently water puddles in it, stands, and stinks. The gaskets also don’t last forever.

Joy Daggett

Joy Daggett, the infamous ‘pyooter-lady at the mighty Mezz, the one that hired me, is retiring.
I predict sonorous blustering from West Bridgewater about turnover at the mighty Mezz, but I don’t think retirement qualifies as turnover.
Joy was mostly unlike me, but given a challenge, she was like me. Not the Connor “gimme that,” but “let me see that. I bet I can fix that.”
(She used to carry screwdrivers.)
Like most people at the mighty Mezz, she fell into what she was doing. “If we gotta fix this to get a paper out, let’s fix it.”
The ones who stayed at the mighty Mezz were those that cared; and caring prompted learning as much as they did.
The Mezz hired to fill specific needs, but the ones that flowered were those that performed beyond the specific need.
“If we have to figure this out to get a quality paper out, let’s do it.”
The mighty Mezz reflected that.
So here I was, a stroke-survivor, grandly messed up, but from what she could see, one who cared. (I had already worked there for weeks as an unpaid intern.)
“I’d like to hire him, but I don’t know if he’ll get along.”
My employment advisor took her aside and told her “Well, he has had a stroke. That probably severly compromised his social skills.”
“All right,” Joy said. “We’ll give it a shot.”
I’m sure others weighed in; e.g. George Ewing Sr., the owner of the newspaper, and “Boss-man” Bob Matson, the Executive-Editor of the paper.
But it was her decision. I was hiring into her department.
Quickly 20 hours per week became 36+, and I got asked to do one-thing-after-another.
“Compromised social-skills we can deal with as long as he fixes things.”
“He wants us to be a class act,” the Executive-Editor said. “He insists on doing it right.”
The Executive vice-president, a chain-smoking REPUBLICAN, wanted to lay me off, mainly because I didn’t worship him.
But “Wait a minute,” Boss-man said. “How can I lay off somebody who’s giving me letters-to-the-editor hand-over-fist? How can I lay off the only one at his level who knows how to drive that OCR-scanner — the only one who cared to learn it?”
So eventually the Executive Veep was fired and I was kept. (There were many other faux pas besides me.)
The person Joy hired turned into a faithful 10-year employee that conquered many challenges.
“How’d you do that?” Boss-man used to say.
“You’re running on seven cylinders?” Poobah said. “Your seven cylinders is more than most people at eight.”
The most significant thing Joy did was when I was on vacation and had ridden the mighty Kow out to Charlie Gardiner’s in Vermont.
It was a Saturday night, when I usually worked from 4 p.m. until 3 a.m. getting the Sunday-paper out.
Joy was working for me, since I was on vacation, pasting-up and dousing fires — what I usually did.
I called them all up from Charlie’s house, and they were thrilled.
Joy, etc. were worried about me. I had had a stroke, and here I was riding motorbike to Vermont.
A few years ago, Executive-Veep wanted to cut my hours. Okay, but that would have put me back on Social-Security Disability, which would have limited my income even more.
Boss-man wanted me to be able to work as much as I had, but Social-Security was making that untenable.
So: “what will it take for you to have the same monthly income you had with SSDI without SSDI?” Boss-man asked.
I was given a huge raise that meant I could drop SSDI and become full-time.
Joy was eventually kicked upstairs at the mighty Mezz. The Messenger’s purchase of the Post papers included their computer-guru, who made Joy redundent. —Plus she wasn’t as ‘pyooter-literate as the guru.
Guru was another fall-in. He had started at the bottom at the Post, but was interested in ‘pyooters, and eventually became their ‘pyooter-guru.
400-pound Frank Brown at the mighty Mezz is like that. No college, but his interest in ‘pyooters has taken him far beyond the bottom. Frank Brown was my boss in paste-up. I think the world of him too.
Joy had also dabbled in purchasing at the Messenger, so they made her “Purchasing Director” at Messenger-Post Newspapers.
She’s in her late 60s — maybe 70 — so retirement-age. She had cut back to three days a week to take the pressure off.
I’m sure she doesn’t want to retire — working at the mighty Mezz was (is) rewarding. But it’s up-for-sale too. Time to get out before you get dumped. Time to get out before the mighty Mezz becomes part of the vast Gannett empire — pablum.

Passed the spellcheck

A few months ago the head-honcho at Cycle-World penned a column discussing the deaths of three giants of motorcycling: one a builder in his 30s of cancer; one in his 60s of a heart-attack, and aging Bud Ekins.
Head-honcho went on to recite their “epithets,” but what followed was clearly their “epitaphs.” They were hardly derogatory.
A torrent of angry e-mails descended from the grammar-police; Granny in the lobby with Uzi blazing.

The PT-girl was relaying a story about treating an English-teacher.
“Turn over and lay on your belly.”
“Kristin,” the lady said. “It’s ‘lie.’ Your English is terrible.
“After that I didn’t say much,” the PT said.

My “Semaphore” showed up yesterday (Thursday, September 14), the monthly newsletter of the Rochester Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society, of which I am a member.
In it was advice to attend the annual Steam-Pageant nearby. Farm-tractors were at first steam-propelled, and some have been restored.
“The Pageant has expanded considerably. You’ll find many steam-powered displays, including a shingle-mill and trashing of wheat.”
“Why’d they even bother growing it?” my wife asked.

The local classical-music radio-station we listen to, WXXI, has a promo from SeaBreeze Amusement-Park: “promoting fun and splashing on the web at www.seabreeze.com.” Well, I know what they meant, but editors at the mighty Mezz would rewrite that — just like the bread that baked 50 years. (No longer do we hear about “burning-displays” at fireplace-stores after I said “call the fire-department.”)

Car-Soup, a web-based car seller, is now advertising about “sell your car for nothing at Car-Soup.” Why not just give it away?

“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.
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 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.

Package-bomb

Yesterday (Wednesday, October 25) we had a package to mail: a return-exchange of pull-on rubber galoshes.
The drill had been to mail it at the West Bloomfield post-office — a revenue issue — but timing was becoming impossible. This is because the one-person post-offices like West Bloomfield close for lunch 12:30-1:30.
So we went to the massive Canandaigua post-office instead, which has no lunch-hour.
“Anything liquid, perishable, fragile or potentially hazardous?”
We could imagine the following exchange:
“Well, it contains a package-bomb.”
“Well, let’s see if I have a package-stamp for that.”
“Yes I do; ‘Caution: package-bomb enclosed. Handle with care.’”
“And here’s another: ‘Personal. To be opened only by addressee.’”
“Would you like a confirmation-of-receipt?”
“Sure. Preferably signed in blood.”

ringed-planet punch

I still have my ringed-planet punch.
I was given it in May of 1977 when I began driving bus for Regional Transit Service.
I was told, at the time, that when I retired, was fired, or separated for any reason, I had to give it back — whereupon it would be passed onto someone new.
But it was never asked back. It sits in the same place on our bedroom dresser where I left it Monday night, 10/25/93. The stroke was at about 1:30 a.m. 10/26/93, and ended my career as a bus-driver.
Who had it before I don’t know. It probably goes back to trolley-days. It’s very substantial.
I’ve been on a number of railfan-excursions where some fan, dressed as a faux conductor, walks through the train and punches tickets with an el-cheapo Office-Max punch.
“I have a real punch,” I’d say. “That’s just a wannabee.”
I call it the “ringed-planet punch” because the tiny hole it punches looks like the planet Saturn.
I used to hang my punch on the transfer-cutter near the farebox. I had it on a dog choke-collar, part of the glittering array of shiny steel with which you impressed all-and-sundry.
(I remember terrifying my state legislator when I strode into her office wearing all that steel.)
I didn’t have it on my belt. The drill was to not walk off the bus without it, which I don’t think I ever did (maybe once; but if so, I got it back). Other drivers lost their punch and would start using an el-cheapo Office-Max punch.
Our bosses would do a punch-check once in a while, to see if you still had the same punch you were issued. I was one of the few that passed. (Each punch punched different — a punch-hole signified a specific driver.)
Thousands of tickets got punched with that punch, and I was very fair about using it.
Linda tells of a bus-driver who always punched the same hole on her ticket. That ticket lasted for months.
I’d always make sure there was a spot to punch. Sometimes there wasn’t; or other drivers would punch all over the place.
—Or else multiple-punch, in which case you gave the rider an unpunched ride.
Wasn’t their fault another driver punched multiple times. I was very careful to punch in the right place, and only once.
Sometimes I’d get a ticket with all my punch. “Thanks for riding with just me,” I’d say.

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.
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?

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.
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.)

surfeit of surveys

I (we) have been waylaid by a surfeit of surveys.
Actually, only two have been phone-surveys, one at suppertime, leading me to expect a sales-pitch and consequent hang-up.
Who knows how many others never got through, or hung up in transit.
Yesterday (Friday, October 6) our phone rang twice, but when I answered it I got the dial-tone. It rung again, and this time nothing at all. I pushed a button; again nothing. I pushed another; again nothing. Finally it gave me the dial-tone.

Phone-survey #1 was probably from McDonalds. Allegedly it was about fast-food.
“When was the last time you patronized a fast-food outlet?”
“About three weeks ago,” I said.
“And what was it?”
“Taco Bell (BONG).”
“Have you ever heard of McCoffee?”
Thus began a long litany of every McCoffee McDonalds sells: 89 bazilyun; including McCappuccino, McSwill, and McMud.
As the surveyor paddled through his long list I was tempted to do the plaintive wail of Garrison Keillor: “can’t I just get a cup of coffee?”
But I knew saying so would just be a monkey-wrench.

Phone-survey #2 was about beverages.
“Have you drunk beer in the last few days?”
“No.”
“Wine?”
“No.”
”Hard spirits?”
“Never.”
“Energy-drinks with alcohol?”
“Never.”
“Wine-coolers?”
“Nope.”
“Bottled water?”
“Tap.”
“Thank you for your input, Mr. Hughes.” (A teetotaler; dread! How am I supposed to get zonked if he’s a teetotaler?)

There have been other surveys.
Hertz sent us one about our rental experience in Boston.
I commented about the clerk giving us erroneous tunnel-closings information, prompting a write-back that said heads would roll.
What I didn’t say anything about was directions from my brother that led us into the ozone.
“Take the first possible right-turn,” he said, when he probably should have said “turn right at the rotary.”
The first possible right-turn was onto a side-street that accessed a condo parking-lot.
He also said something about getting on Route 99 South, but there were no signs except for a sign to Route 99 — no direction. We therefore found ourselves on Route 99 North.
I tried turning around in a parking-lot hard by the smelly Boston Harbor (awash with sewage), attracting the attention of two security-guards nervously stroking their sidearms. Al Qeada in a Toyota Corolla.
“Oh yeah; we know that guy. Get yourself turned around. You’re headed for New England. Route 99 South is the other way.”
Linda thinks you may have given Elz different directions; that the directions you gave us were the way you would have gone.
Except you never noticed “the first possible right-turn” was into a condo parking-lot.
And it seems every receipt I get has a survey log-in: “Fill out our survey about your shopping-experience and qualify to win our drawing.”
Nope; pass. I ain’t wastin’ 10 more minutes when it already took 10 just to buy paper.

Starships

Today’s (Thursday, 5/4) Transit dream was about driving a 700-type bus out good old Monroe Ave.
The 700-line, which included Monroe Ave., was a fairly nice ride, but mainly because it had a lot of idle time.
The north end transited the Hispanic neighborhood, so was fairly busy. The south end did not go through a specific neighborhood, but was a long-established busy transit corridor.
They eventually got so they could cover the north end with one bus (out and back in 30 minutes), but the south end always seemed to need three buses.
The south end forked in Brighton, and the fork wandered off into the ‘burbs to serve a Jewish Community Center and a Jewish Home for the Aged.
The main stem went out Monroe to Pittsford, and then beyond into the ‘burbs. It took two buses to cover it, even with a 50-minute headway, so we ended up with about a 20-minute layover in a community park next to a high-school.
The 700-type buses were our first Starships. They had an unturbocharged 8-71 with three-speed tranny; also no governor and no front-door interlocks — all of which meant they could be used as a Park-and-Ride as well as a city-bus.
As originally received the 700s were air-conditioned, and the air had to work; no opening windows. Plus the AC was down by the road; not a blister on top.
Eventually the ACs would clog up with leaves and road-dirt, and you had an oven.
A big conversion-program was instituted. The 700s got opening windows, and the AC was put in a blister on top.
And it wasn’t mighty GM that did it. GM was the designer of the Starships — although later Starships (the 8s and the 9s) had opening windows, and the AC was in a blister on top.
I always liked the Starships: the most triumphant styling job GM ever did.
I remember the look I got from managers when I suggested calling them Starships. Of course, it didn’t happen.
I also remember flooring 728 on the Eastern Expressway deadheading to Eastview Mall one morning. 80 mph! Never again. It was juking and jiving and bucketing all over. Here I was humping down the passing-lane in a living-room.
735 was extremely jumpy. As every bus aged, it developed certain quirks as the mechanics worked on it. 735 had a tight tranny. You could only give it so much accelerator lest it throw all your passengers on the floor.
And it was a 700 that dropped its entire motor-cradle on the floor when they lifted it.

whisper-quiet

As you are all probably aware, we have a stand-by back-up generator.
Its function is to kick in if the electricity dives, powering the freezer, refrigerator, water-heater, furnace, garage-door opener, and quite a few lights, the TV and these rigs. It doesn’t drive the air-conditioning.
The power dove last night during a minor thunderstorm, although only for a few seconds. No warning at all: no audible thunder; no flickering lights.
All of a sudden, bam! Total darkness. I had been cranking a story into my ‘pyooter, and about three paragraphs disappeared into the ether.
The generator waits about 30 seconds before kicking on, so we waited in the dark. But then apparently the electricity came back on. The generator never started.
My 93-year-old nosy neighbor across the street has a stand-by generator too. In fact, he got his first. So we got one too. Seemed like a swell idea; plus we were tired of all his noisy bragging.
He complained to the salesgirl about the racket it makes, but was told it was “whisper-quiet.” Like us, his is below the bedroom window, so if it kicks on, sleep is impossible.
It self-tests once a week. Forget about a nap. When his self-tests you can hear it clear across the street.
About two months ago the electricity dove during a windstorm, and the generator kicked on at 6:50 a.m. Nice, but after four hours you worry about your gas-bill.

zero-turn

A zero-turn lawnmower is an entirely different animal than the typical garden-tractor that steers with a steering-wheel. Our new Huskvarna mower is a zero-turn.
Explanation: A typical garden-tractor (and our vaunted Greenie) power the entire rear axle; both tires (actually a differential). It has only one tranny — what turns the rear axle.
A zero-turn has two trannies; one for each tire. The direction it goes is a function of the speed of each tire. If the right tire (wheel) turns faster, the mower steers left. Conversely, if the left tire turns faster, the mower steers right.
There is no steering-wheel, nor a steerable front axle linked to a steering-wheel. The front wheels are only casters, like a shopping-cart.
You steer it with two levers that activate the separate wheel-trannies. Push both forward together the same amount and it goes straight. Push only the right lever and it steers left — only the left lever and it steers right.
Pulling back on the levers together is reverse. Push forward on one and pull back on the other and it spins like a top.
The advantage is it can be spun like a top. Finish one row and you spin it around to get the parallel row in no time at all. A garden-tractor has to be driven all over to line it up.
Zero-turn mowers were first a commercial application. John Deere only sells commercial zero-turns — add about $2,500.
But zero-turns are finding their way into residential applications, which significantly cuts the price.
What got me interested in a new mower was borrowing my 93-year-old nosy neighbor’s new John Deere garden-tractor with a 42-inch cut. It was twice as fast as the Greenie, which only has a 38-inch cut. But mainly it was the zoom-and-boom ground-speed.
But there was a long green nose out front, plus it had to be driven all over to line it up. It also had a reverse cutout.
So I began to look at zero-turns. Another advantage of a zero-turn is that theoretically it could trim closer than a garden-tractor. It can steer sharper, and no reversing.
Toro had a zero-turn but it was $1,000 additional. Cub-Cadet had one, but it seemed chintzy. Mighty Lowes had one, but it was an off brand. Home-Depot had one too, but it was the same Cub-Cadet the Cub-Cadet dealer had. The Cub-Cadet dealer also sold Kubota, but that was like John Deere; add $2,500.
Leif’s, our local Husky dealer, who operates out of a ramshackle assemblage of farm buildings awash in weeds, and also sells model trains (I showed him the mighty Curve webcam [Curve web-cam]), had the Husky I bought.
Our 93-year-old nosy neighbor used to “draw him to school” in school-bus, so bought a garden-tractor from him, #3, since given to his son in Pittsburgh.
Leif’s is also nearby; much closer than John Deere.
And contrary to the fervent wishes of my noisy brother from Boston, I haven’t driven it into a ditch yet, or over the cliff (our embankment), or eaten any trees.
I damaged one small conifer yesterday (Friday, 6/30): bent it over and skinned the trunk. I was trying to trim, and the levers are like off-on. The thing turned so sharply the deck caught the tree and bent it over. It may not survive.
Approaching a tree I stop, and proceed gingerly.
But I have to keep doing it; I ain’t doing that bad — Linda says I'm doing better than expected, and the 93-year-old nosy neighbor gives me an “A.”
It’s pretty fast too. We still have the Greenie. It runs too well, and I trim with it (for the time-being). Plus the Husky is too wide for some places.
I don’t know as I’d want the bluster-boy trying anything fancy with it. “Just the straight parts, Bubba. No trimming.” There is a learning-curve, no matter how astute you think you are.
My 93-year-old nosy neighbor once worked for the Cub-Cadet store, who at that time was also selling farm-equipment.
He once drove a huge combine that steered like a zero-turn. “It was a handful” (he was driving on the road). He drove it to some guy’s farm, and the farmer promptly put it in his pond.
“Just keep that thing away from my mailbox,” my neighbor says.

Zephyr

Today (Sunday, 1/22) the mighty Mezz ran a big stringer-story on the front of the local section titled “Hot Rods from Hall;” Hall being a tiny rural town in our readership area, and “stringer” meaning the writer was a freelancer, i.e. not a Messenger employee.
Stringers sometimes find their way onto the Messenger staff. One reporter was once a stringer, and I think this writer will be someday.
Hall apparently has an old car-dealer transformed into a shop that builds hot rods. They compete well with anything from southern California.
An editor had the story a few weeks ago, and e-mailed it to me for prior reading. This was after my departure and retirement.
The editor is also a car-guy, but the stringer wasn’t.
The story featured a customized 1939 Zephyr coupe, spelled “Z-E-L-P-Y-R.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “That ain’t right.”
I thereupon showered the editor with a torrent of anxious e-mails.
“Let’s get this right,” I said. “Ford co-opted the ‘Zephyr’ name from the streamliners of the Burlington Railroad. I am positive that’s how it’s spelled.”
I also e-mailed him a web-link to a ‘39 Lincoln Zephyr site.
The stringer also spelled “tranny” T-R-A-N-I. “Not that important,” I said. “But I would spell it “T-R-A-N-N-Y. It’s his call, though.”
The editor changed both spellings to mine.
Years ago our Managing Editor wrote a humor-column mentioning the Pacer was made by General Motors.
“It was not!” I said, but it was already in print.
He got bombarded with e-mails from angry readers demanding a retraction, which he had to do.
“You gotta run these things past ‘car-guy,’” I told him.

zealots

During my long 16&1/2-year tenure driving buses for Regional Transit Service, I developed quite a few friendships, three of whom were zealots.

One was Chip Walker (Charles), a born-again Christian.

Another was Dominic Zarcone (“Zarr-KOWN”) a charismatic Catholic.

The third was Gary Harriman, a Mormon.
-Chip was also a railfan. He’d take lunch from Transit and watch my train-tapes at our house.
Chip worked in management, starting shortly before me as a lowly transfer-clerk at the drivers’ window.
But he soon transferred to Scheduling in the White Tower, because the head of Scheduling was also a railfan — head of the Nickel Plate Historical Society.
Schedule-head had photos of smoky Nickel Plate Berks all over his office. He also had a “NYCSTL” license-plate on his red classic ‘61 Ford convertible, and was amazed I knew what it stood for (long before Google).
I’d run into Chip chasing 611, and we went to a Genesee & Wyoming railfan day.
When Chip found out I had graduated Houghton, the frenzied fishing began. Befuddled by my lack of zealotry, he started preaching at me.
Chip came to visit after my stroke; and Linda says it was one of the few times I talked like the person I was before. —We were jawing about 765 in New River Gorge.
I also visited Chip at Transit after I was discharged, but it was crazy.
Chip had no idea how to deal with a stroke-victim, so acted like I was normal despite my crying.
We used to exchange Christmas-cards, and Chip’s always had the self-congratulatory Christmas Annual so characteristic of tub-thumpers.
I sent him train-cards up until last year. Recently, no response — I think I’ll pass this year.
By now he’s probably retired — he also moved out of the city. One of his annuals mentioned his father losing both legs to diabetes. His father also had Parkinson’s.
-Zarcone, like me, was a bus-driver, and lived in the urban house he grew up in in Rochester with his mother.
I visited once, and it was all agitated yelling and screaming in Italian.
Despite his college-education (Notre Dame), I guess that was what he was used to and preferred.
Our friendship started when he loudly declared his first marriage wasn’t a real marriage.
“What?” I said. “That’s balderdash! You can’t say marriage #1 wasn’t a marriage.”
Thus began a frenzied argument about Godliness; how he felt he had been “saved” from his first marriage.
At first he was a Bible-thumping Christian, but he came from a Catholic background; so eventually “came home.”
But his stridency continued with his return to Catholicism.
Zarcone also visited after my stroke; and left me with an inspirational tape by infamous Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz.
He got it from the Library, along with the machine that played it. Unbeknownst to him, the challenge for a stroke-victim was to be able to play it at all. I played it a few times, but was bored by it.
Zarcone took me to a union-meeting soon after my discharge. My being there was more a statement than attending a union-meeting.
I attended union-meetings faithfully after that, and once in a while Zarcone would show up.
Members were discussing whether to arbitrate over the Company not following its drug-policy.
Zarcone was there, and ardently weighed in. The accused needed to repent — Zarcone knew all about repentance.
The Union-honchos had to shut him down. We weren’t discussing the guilt of the person charged, but whether the Company had followed its drug-policy.
I gave up sending Christmas-cards to Zarcone too. What I’d get in return was a spastic hand-scrawl about prayer that looked like it had been done by Hunter Thompson’s cartoonist.
Zarcone moved to the suburbs too; but I think he took his mother along.
-Gary Harriman wasn’t as strident as Chip or Zarcone. But he was always trying to convert me.
Finally one afternoon, while he was trying to get me to attend the Morman Pageant, a giant annual shindig where the Angel Maroni gets hoisted above the stage with a cable (“ascending into Heaven”), I asked why he was trying to convert me.
“Why not Ronnie Culp or Attila the Hun” (two thugs that worked at Transit)?
“Because it’s you I care about,” he answered.
“Why not them?” I asked. “They’re gonna roast in flames too — for which you would be held to account.”
My point was he was trying to convert me because A) I would give him an argument; and B) I wasn’t a macho threat like the thugs.
Thugs wouldn’t give him the time of day.

The Slide

One of the last of my 2007 calendars has appeared; my 2007 Norfolk Southern calendar.
This leaves only one calendar to go: my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy calendar, which I’ve gotten since 1968.
As mentioned earlier; it’s not an obsession with date-keeping. I have seven calendars. What it is, is the content therein.
I could get by with just the Audio-Visual (did for a while), but if I did, I’d lose the hot-rods, the sports-cars, and the warbirds.
My Norfolk Southern calendar has a strange picture for June 2007. It’s a photograph by Charlie Juda of Gang Mills, N.Y., a longtime trainmaster, who’s had entries in the calendar before (it’s all NS employees).

Stacker on The Slide.

It’s taken at the famous Tunnelhill overlook near Gallitzin, where Pennsy completed its final ascent of Allegheny Summit.
I took pictures long ago at that overlook, but now it’s so overgrown it’s not worth going to. Plus it’s town land: “No Trespassing.”
Pennsy originally tunneled under the ridge with Allegheny Tunnel, which emptied out in Gallitzin. Allegheny was originally two tracks, but soon converted to only one.
A second parallel tunnel, Gallitzin, was added in 1912. It was only one track.
The two tracks at left go through Allegheny tunnel. Allegheny tunnel had to be expanded eleven years ago to clear double-stacks; it also was widened to two tracks with gigantic clearances so Gallitzin could be abandoned.
A third tunnel was under Tunnelhill: New Portage; for the Pennsylvania Public Works, the state-sponsored combination canal-system and railroad in the early 1800s. It was originally two tracks, but now is only one.
New Portage was higher up the mountain, so when Pennsy acquired the moribund Public Works, which they had put out of business, they decided to not abandon New Portage, but make it a part of their Allegheny Crossing.
But since New Portage is higher up the mountain than their line to Allegheny tunnel, they had to ramp up to it.
Eastbound (the western slope) is not too bad — the ramp begins far before the tunnel.
But westbound (the eastern slope) is awful, “The Slide,” 2.36%. (By comparison Pennsy’s Allegheny-crossing is only 1.75%.) Only eastbounds work The Slide; going down is easier than climbing it westbound.
The train pictured appears to be eastbound descending “The Slide.” The engines are the helper-set on the rear; twin SD40-2s.
What’s strange is the train pictured is a stacker, and I thought New Portage wouldn’t clear double-stacks.
Maybe it too has been expanded. Sending all stackers up Track #2 (through Allegheny) bottlenecks the mountain.
But what I’ve seen — over years of witness — is all stackers through Allegheny, east or west, and everything lower eastbound through New Portage and down The Slide on Track #1.
My options are 1) ask NS if New Portage was expanded to clear double-stacks; 2) ask Trains Magazine the same thing — they have a question-and-answer feature; or, 3) put my question on an online rail-forum.

soy-bean field

The soy-bean field up the street has been harvested.
We live in a mostly rural area.
There are a few houses, but we’re mostly surrounded by cultivated farm-fields. The field up the street was soy-beans this year, corn last year, and wheat the year before that. That field is also behind our 93-year-old nosy neighbor.
Behind us are more fields that used to be farmed, but I don’t know anymore since our new unknown neighbor bought them. One field appears to be fallow, and the other may have been tilled.
We can’t see the second field, since it’s obscured by trees. But we could hear a tractor.
Another field is down the street past the intersection (and its motorbike store), but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything on it. It abuts a ramshackle farmhouse with rundown farm-buildings, including a collapsing barn.
On Routes 5 & 20 in town is Bonna Terra Farms, a giant operation that doesn’t cultivate contiguous fields, but those all around us and all over.
Every once in a while a giant tractor goes by, usually towing a big tanker of pig-slop they use as fertilizer. The tankers aren’t as big as gasoline semi-trailers, but are on eight huge all-terrain tires, and are full trailers.
Going toward Canandaigua on 5 & 20, I pass a farm raising veal-calves in tiny shelters, a dairy operation, and a guy raising hay in Centerfield, source of “Centerfield hay,” which finds its way to horse-tracks all over the country.
We pass a vegetable-farm on our way to the so-called elitist country-club. They raise acorn-squash, butternut-squash, pumpkins, and cabbage. They also have a raspberry patch.
Illegal aliens are often out picking in the morning dew. A rudimentary two-story shelter had been built to house the illegals, but it’s since been converted to a barn.
At least we think it’s soy-beans. They sure don’t look like string-beans or peas. We did a Jack and just surmised.
Quite often farmers raise soy-beans.
The current West Bloomfield supervisor is a farmer.

Christmas In October

Two weeks ago I walked into the grand front-entrance of the mighty Canandaigua Weggers and discovered they already had their Christmas stuff up.
Uh, come on, guys. It’s not even Halloween yet, and we don’t have snow yet; although I’m sure it won’t be long.
A colorful sign was in front of the glittering fake Christmas-trees, and it said: “Christmas and other holidays are very special times in our lives. Some customers like to do their holiday shopping early, and others like the hustle-bustle of waiting until the very last minute.
By displaying early, we are allowing you make that decision.”
I can just imagine some mindless public-relations minion in the Weggers white-tower cogitating that drivel. Minions gather silently at a conference-table and dicker with the sign. Sure sounds like committee-speak.
Um, triumph of the almighty dollar. Why not just leave the stuff up all year? That’s what the towns do. Their Christmas-lights stay on the poles all year.

SPAM

Like most people who have computer e-mail, I gets tons of Spam.
My MyWay e-mail account has a spam-filter, and I have it wicked up fairly high. Once in a while something shows up in my bulk-mail folder.
But the spammers have not yet found my MyWay account.
What they send to is the PoPserver — the great e-mail server in the sky.
This is what my old RoadRunner e-mail accessed. MyWay can access it too, but their filters only work on e-mail direct to MyWay.
My old RoadRunner e-mail didn’t have a spam-filter; or if it did, they had it so buried I never turned it on. My Netscape e-mail didn’t have a bulk-folder.
So every day I download all my old RoadRunner e-mail, weed out what matters, and delete the rest (there is a “check-all”).
The whole process takes about two minutes. Processing viable e-mails takes a lot longer.
Last night (Sunday, October 22) I noticed one entitled “Let’s Party” from Donna (?).
Are they kidding? What a come-on! If they only knew......
We’re not party-people.
“Let’s Party” was probably a come-on for refinancing your mortgage, or Viagara at a discount.
I didn’t even open it. It got dumped.
And then there are those that purposely misspell to defeat the spam-filters. How many misspellings have I seen of “Viagara,” and “pharmacy?” If Exelon lays off, Jack could become a spammer.
My MyWay is a lot like Yahoo-mail. It can be accessed from the Internet. At the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower I processed my e-mail from the De Land library.
It has auto-sign and auto-respond. It also has a calendar, but I don’t know about bathroom-bells. (Bong-bong-bong-bong! “Time to sit on the can.”)
RoadRunner e-mail could also be accessed over the Internet, but was accessing the PoPserver. I hardly did it. I had Night-Spots dives e-mailing my RoadRunner, so mostly I was doing it at work — I never did it on-the-road.
MyWay is since I retired. Compared to Yahoo, there are no pop-ups.

Heavies

My November 2006 issue of Trains Magazine is doing a special feature on CSX railway’s application of heavier diesels to its horrific “West End.”
The “West end,” B&O’s original line toward the Ohio River (they couldn’t get a charter to Pittsburgh at first — thank ya, Pennsy) is the most horrible mainline railroad to operate on the east coast.
It has four horrific grades: Seventeen-Mile, Newburg, Cheat, and worst-of-all Cranberry.
All exceed 2.4%; Cranberry gets 2.8%. Both Newburg and Cranberry face eastbound tonnage.
There also is a shorter eastbound intermediate grade, Deer Park, high in the Alleghenies, before descending Seventeen-Mile, but it is shorter and only 1.04%.
The “West End” is no longer through, but can channel a lot of coal from the Bridgeport and Fairmont subs west of Grafton. Fairmont was the original line to the Ohio.
The subs fork at Grafton.
I reconnoitered the West End a few years ago in the so-called soccer-mom minivan.
It was dramatic — even though I saw no trains.

The Keed

The top of Cranberry grade.

Cranberry drops off like a roller-coaster. The top of the hill is called “the hole.” It rounds a bend, goes under a girder highway-bridge level with the top, and climbs out of a wooded glade.
But the summit of the Alleghenies is atop Seventeen-Mile; Altamont, 2,628 feet.
Cranberry is climbing the Alleghenies too, but summits at Terra Alta, 2,500+ feet.
Whatever; compared to Pennsy the West End was horrible.
When B&O finally accessed Pittsburgh, it became the main.
But the West End could still move a lot of coal, and still does.
You just need a lot of tractive-force to surmount the grades.
The “heavies” are a trick to enhance low-speed output. A heavier locomotive could exert more tractive-force, and be less likely to stall on grades like Cranberry.
The software that controls wheel-slip was also reconfigured. Not surprisingly CSX found that the lead wheelset of a locomotive was conditioning the rail in adverse conditions.
And the following wheelsets could exert evermore amounts of tractive-force before slipping. The last wheelset could break couplers if unlimited; and had to be so limited.
Previously (I think) anti-slip software was engineered to limit all the wheels on a locomotive together.
The advance is to limit each wheelset individually.
Horsepower determines the ability of locomotives to hold a constant high speed (or accelerate) on straight level track.
But the West End is hardly level; and has curves. It needs tractive-force. Horsepower is kind of irrelevant.

Report from the mighty Curve

Seems every trip we make to the Mighty Curve reveals some insanity that has to be reported.
E.g.:

350-pound Aunt Ginny stroking her little boy (boyfriend/lover/significant other/whatever) because he couldn't get chicken-wings at the spaghetti-joint.

Two angry retired Pennsylvania Railroad employees bellyaching Norfolk Southern has no clue how to operate a railroad up north.

A tree fallen across the road in the infamous four-lane downhill section of Route 15 south of Steam Valley, a curvy section I hate driving because it's not up to Interstate standards (this time was with a pack of barreling semis — "I made it," I sighed).

Granny asking where the hill is, when the locomotives ascend the Curve in Run-Eight.

No lights in the windowless men's room at the Foy Ave. Sunoco in Williamsport.
This time's adventure was at the infamous widdle-stop on I-390 just north of Campbell ("CAMP-bell;" not the soup).
A trip to the Mighty Curve is comprised of four legs:
1) Home to widdle-stop;
2) Widdle-stop to Williamsport Sunoco, off Foy Ave. west of town, just north of the ramp to 220;
3) Sunoco to the mighty Sheetz, just south of the road to Milesburg, also just south of the storied Milesburg exit (subject of numerous noisy outbursts from West Bridgewater);
4) Sheetz to Altoony.
Often I can pass the mighty Sheetz — this time I did.
Jack had guzzled a 'Dew in Williamsport, so we had to stop at the mighty Sheetz.
We pulled into the widdle-stop, and I was using a stall; when all-of-a-sudden:
ROAR — BLAST!
"What in the wide, wide world is that?" I was tempted to say. "It sounds like someone has a jet-engine in here."
Apparently the state highway department had installed new hand blow-driers.
Our central-vac is quite loud too (I bought it because it sounded like a 454-Chevy), but it's nothing compared to these things.
They sounded powerful enough to lift a 747 clear into the sky.
Somebody pushed the button, but dared not dry their hands under it for fear of being dismembered.

The spaghetti-joint.

The trees have started turning at the Mighty Curve, but not as much as at home.
The hillside viewed by the web-cam is still pretty green, but the web-cam is aimed too high — too high to wave at; getting the top of the housing.
(I called Jack, but he was at a Randi- (doesn't matter) game; i.e. not in front of a 'pyooter.)
We hung around over an hour, but saw no trains. First time we've ever struck out at the mighty Curve — no scanner-chatter either.
Our entertainment was doddering geezers bellering at the funicular-operator below.
"Attention visitors. Those wishing to go to trackside or the visitors' center please enter the funicular now."
A doddering geezer staggered quickly across the wide viewing-area, waving his cane frantically at the funicular.
But the door and gate began closing as he approached.
"Wait a minute!" he yelled.
Unlike an elevator, the door doesn't retract if impeded. He almost caught his hand.
"Please stand clear of the closing gate."
"Don't you tell me to stand clear," he bellowed.
The gate closed, so he waddled over to the parapet and shook his fist at the operator far below.
Everything reopened, and snarling geezer got on.
Then it closed, and more geezers lined up.
"We're ready to get on," they yelled.
The funicular descended without them, so they angrily waddled down the stairs, fussing and fuming and sputtering — one step at a time.
We went to Brickyard Crossing in Altoony; milepost 238.2. There is a detector there (down only), and a signal-bridge. (The Curve is 242.)
We saw two trains; one a long stacker down Track 2, and Amtrak up on Track 3. (The stacker had GM power.)
Another was climbing as we left, but it may have only been helpers. It was hidden by trees.

The refrigerator-dump.

We did not have accommodations at Tunnel Inn (Tunnel Inn) this time. Actually we could have, but it would have been the Juniata suite, which punishes with two twin beds.
All the other suites (except the handicap-suite downstairs which we've never used) have a single king. We're used to sharing a bed. Juniata is shades of the mighty De Land water-tower.
Juniata is also trackside; although I don't think it makes much difference. Passing trains shake the entire building, but are gone in 2-3 minutes.
In St. Albans, West Virginny, you could hear C&O coal-drags hammering up the grade 15-20 minutes.
So we camped out at Holiday Inn Express (Holiday Inn Express Altoona), previously the Daze Inn Jack and I stayed at.
The picture of a B24 was not there (previously misidentified as a B52); but the newspaper-clipping of the guy that opened the place, previously a WWII B24 pilot, was there; as was the painting of Pennsy K4 1361.
Harley also waddled out, but wasn't on the counter, and didn't have his macho studded Harley neckerchief. Harley, a white poodle, greeted Jack and I, and helped Jack right his dumped GeezerGlide.

The glider-port.

Tuesday, our full day in Altoony, was a complete and utter washout. The rain was coming down in sheets — not windy in town, but windy at the Mighty Curve.
But we diehard railfans aren't about to let no torrential downpour scotch a visit to the Mighty Curve.
Horseshoe Curve is the grand daddy of them all — the best trainwatching spot on the entire planet.
So we drove up to the Curve, and took the funicular up to the viewing-area.
No one was there, of course; and we couldn't leave the funicular pagoda.
We hung around about 15 minutes, and then the funicular door magically opened.
"Do you wanna stand inside, or come down?" a PA-voice asked.
"Take 'er down," I said. (You have to push a "communicate" button.)
No trains either; another strike-out.
"I've been here hundreds of times," I said to the clerk in the store; "but I've never seen it this bad."
We then drove to Brickyard, the only place in the area to watch trains from inside a car.
But the windows fogged up, and the windshield loaded up with water.
"3363, 237.8 clear; west on Track 3," the scanner said. But all it was was helpers; three SD40-2s.
"3363, 238.2 clear; west on Track 3," they said, as they went under the Brickyard signal-bridge.
Huge dumptrucks were depositing slabs of Logan Blvd. in a landfill next door. It sounded like thunder.
And for some reason the top retention-pond of the Altoony Water Authority at the Mighty Curve was nearly empty.
TrackSnacks had it's "Open" sign on, but no patrons. No one at the picnic-tables either (siddown and soak your bottom).
We eventually went back to the motel, and between cranking in this story, and arguing with Jack, chasing trains became impossible.
We went directly to the Philly-cheese-steak restaurant in Kresson. It was 5 o'clock. and even though it had stopped raining, the Mighty Curve makes no sense when it gets dark after 6:30.
The restaurant in Kresson is hard by the old Pennsy main, so we saw a few. But it ain't the same as the Mighty Curve.
So our trip to the Mighty Curve was only a break from the seeming rat-race. Only saw two trains, and a pusher-set.

Through the Rathole

For the past few weeks I have been watching a train-video over-and-over I forgot I had.
It’s “Through the Rathole,” a Pentrex cab-ride video of the Norfolk Southern RoadRailer train over the infamous “Rathole Division” in Tennessee and Kentucky.
The Rathole is no longer what it was, a torturous mountain railroad with 89 bazilyun tunnels (“ratholes”).
The Rathole carried lots of traffic, so as a result it was rebuilt in 1963 with an extensive line-relocation that removed many of the tunnels, and made it much less difficult to operate.
The line-relocation still has a few tunnels and incredible river viaducts.
But mainly now it has very deep and long mountain cuts — there are four.
RoadRailer is a special train. Highway trailers mount on bogies, and trail railroad-power. At depots the train gets disassembled and the trailers “rubbered” to their destination — driven over the highways.
The idea makes much more sense than individually driving single (or double) trailers over the Interstates.
The hitch is the trailer has to be designed to accept the rail-bogey — not extensive, but it has to be there.
The trailer still carries its road-wheels, but is riding on the bogey.
RoadRailer service is fairly extensive. I’ve seen it at the mighty Curve, and sometimes my truck-driver neighbor (an independent) is rubbering a RoadRailer trailer.
One diesel engine is often enough — enough to pull 72 trailers over the Rathole. The RoadRailer train on my tape is one unit (a GP60) pulling 72 vans; its limit.
The engineer reminds me of Billy Gardiner at Mahz-n-Wawdzzz; strong and silent, the epitome of macho; as opposed to all the pretend macho noise from West Bridgewater.
Engineer is totally engrossed in what he’s doing. He also was #2 in seniority, which means he knew every inch of the railroad.
He’s juking the run-lever back and forth, well before hills and slides. He’s also blowing the horn well in advance of invisible grade-crossings around corners. You get the feeling whistle-signs aren’t needed.
Often the throttle would get wicked up as we approached a grade-crossing — reminded me of driving a bus; another pursuit requiring independent and automatic responses.
And the tape entertains with real-life train operations; like the time it was down on its knees due to a wonky flange-greaser.
The conductor was down on the ground checking the sanders; walking along beside the engine at 1.2 mph.
RoadRailer is a priority train. Most trains got the hole (siding) so RoadRailer could pass. In fact, the only time we got the hole was 1) the RoadRailer in the opposite direction, and 2) a higher-priority trailer-van train also in the opposite direction.
RoadRailer was allowed 60 mph — other freights 50. But we only got 60 once, on a long downgrade.
60 was hard to attain with one unit pulling 72 vans.

Tidbits 10/14/06

Chase Visa is punishing us for a transposition.
“Transposition” is an old term from our long-ago banking days, wherein two figures in a number are transposed.
E.g. the amount due to Chase Visa last month (which includes the shed) is $6,951.36. The bill-pay I authorized was $6,591.36; a difference of $450.
All transpositions are divisible by nine. If your balance-strike was off by an amount divisible by nine, you looked for a transposition.
“Well, if a person had processed it instead of a machine,” Linda said; “they probably would have caught it.”
I can imagine the celebrating among the cubicles in Wilmington, Del. (home of Chase credit-card processing): “Hooray! Finally got those guys. You made a mistake. Gotcha!” (Don’t drop your kuchen.)
The finance-charge — our penalty — was $141.86; 19.24% A.P.R. on an average daily balance of $4,043.03.
No wonder the credit-card companies are snowing us with solicitations.

Our 93-year-old nosy neighbor (that’s 93, Bubba; not 92) decided to get a snowblower attachment for one of his many garden-tractors.
This was despite previously contracting for his driveway to be plowed out.
He bought a blower-attachment at a John Deere place, and they were supposed to deliver it yesterday. A second guy was supposed to come out and mount it.
The snowblower was supposed to be delivered at 1 p.m. The store called up: “Are ya there?” they said. “Can’t deliver it if you’re not there.”
So they sat quietly in an anteroom all afternoon. No snowblower.
Finally the mounting-guy showed up at 4 p.m.
“Where’s the blower?” he asked.
“Never got it,” nosy said.
“Ya mean it was never delivered?”
“Nope.”
“It was supposed to be delivered at 1 p.m.”
“Well, it wasn’t.”
Nosy called up the store and canceled the order.
“We can deliver it next week.”
They tore up the check right in front of me.

Linda noticed a customer at the post-office wearing an “Eric Massa” button.
Eric Massa is the Democratic candidate running for REPUBLICAN Randy Kuhl’s local Congressional seat.
Don’t know as we’re pro-Massa, but Kuhl is a jerk.
“I’m a life-long Republican,” customer said; “but I’ve had enough.”
“Dubya and his lackeys are hardly Republicans in the mold of Abe Lincoln and Barber Conable.”
“What they are are glutinous opportunists; shills for the fat-cats. Kuhl is a jerk.”
“Five girls shot to death in an Amish schoolhouse, so Dubya convenes an anti-school-violence summit instead of funding school-security — humoring us with mindless blathering about “gentleness.”
“After Columbine, school-security funding was around $150 million; last year it was only $5 million; and this year it’s not in the budget at all.”
“And Iraq is only a diversion. We attacked the wrong guys on flimsy evidence. Now all the terrorists are coming to Iraq. Thousands of American boys have been sacrificed to rectify daddy’s blunder.”
“I’m a life-long Republican, but Dubya and Kuhl have made me a Democrat.”

It has gotten cold enough to require 1) the heat; 2) long underwear; 3) gloves; and 4) the electric-blanket. We haven’t yet performed the ceremonial removal of the air-conditioning bridge — and probably won’t until the end of the month. We’ve had our first frost, and will probably have Indian Summer; in which case the AC may still be needed.
I look at the web-cam at the mighty Curve (Curve web-cam), and the trees there haven’t turned at all. Here they have. I plan to take along the long-underwear; have used it before.

lake-effect

It apparently snowed quite heavily west of here.
Not here — the ground is still bare (lawn-mowing season ain’t over yet, but nearly is) — but Buffalo and counties west of here; six inches of heavy, wet snow.
It was a lake-effect event. Cold air flows over the still-warm lakes, causing evaporation that forms into clouds that move inland and dump.
If it’s warm enough it dumps as rain; cold enough and it’s snow.
Cold air was moving over Lake Erie, forming clouds that dumped east of Lake Erie.
Sometimes Lake Erie lake-effect makes it all the way to West Bloomfield, but not this time.
If the cold wind is out of the north, lake-effect can be off Lake Ontario.
The shore of Lake Ontario always gets slammed, as does Tug Hill Plateau, east of Lake Ontario.
Quite a bit of the snow here is lake-effect, but we are in sweet spot that doesn’t get much from either lake.
Occasionally there is synoptic snow, from a nor’easter or a storm; but lots is lake-effect.
Our bedroom radio prompted an outburst.
I had already turned off the kitchen-radio because the classical-music radio-station we listen to was starting one of their occasional fund-drives; which we can’t stand.
(“Just one more pledge and we get a matching grant from the Daisy Marquis Jones Foundation that will put us over $30,000; today’s 9 a.m. goal. You can do it — rah-rah-rah! Call our volunteers at 454-6300; they’re eating donuts. Get a free ceremonial coffee-mug as a thank-you gift” — clank-clank.)
Morning-man was rattling off all the school-closings.
“Are they kidding?” Linda asked. “They didn’t close school for six inches of snow back in our day!”
Right; we had to walk to school barefoot in snow eight inches deep, and it was uphill both comin’ and goin’.
These kids today got it way too easy.

settlements

A monstrous 6-page legal-notice appeared in the mail about two weeks ago; something about settlements against suppliers of ‘pyooter DRAM. The suppliers, global mega-corporations, had allegedly violated anti-trust law.
Supposedly I am part of a class that purchased DRAM at some time. Plaintiffs include Kevin’s Computer and Photo, PC Doctor, etc. (HMMMMMMMNNNNN....)
Well, far as I know I never purchased DRAM from the defendants; and in fact, the only time I ever purchased RAM-chips at all was for my long-retired beige G3, many years ago, and I bought it through MACwarehouse.
Additional memory was purchased for my G4, but that was done by MacShack; i.e. the ‘pyooter was delivered with additional RAM.
Naturally the defendants claim they are not culpable (REPUBLICAN ALERT!), despite various persons from their staffs being imprisoned.
But of course they’ve agreed to settle out-of-court because they can’t win the suit.
And naturally the notice is full of “wherefores,” “heretofores” and “therefores” — language only a lawyer could love — plus a huge instruction in capital-letters to read the notice in full under penalty of death followed by dismemberment.
I tried, but it was putting me to sleep. Don’t know as reading the notice was worth the $5 I might collect. $165-million divided amongst 89 bazilyun ‘pyooter users.
“Do not ever dare remove these tags from your cushions lest the tag-police throw you in the slammer.”

alto sax

Many years ago, when I was in seventh-grade at Delaware Township High School (Della-Twip) in south Jersey, I was directed into the band program.
The Della-Twip band program was in its infancy, as was Della-Twip, which we had moved into although only one building of four was completed: D-building, the classroom building. (The remainder of the school, A through C, opened in fall of 1957: A = shops and mechanical-drawing; B = auditorium and music rooms; and C = cafeteria, gym and administrative offices.)
I was interviewed by the band director and directed to the alto saxophone. The director was blown away by my classical-music background.
Band practice at first was held in a cramped basement room. I remember sousaphones pasted to a back wall.
We then moved to Delaware, requiring resolution of my instrument-problem. My first saxophone was a Della-Twip instrument. Moving meant no instrument, or use of the el-cheapo A.I. instruments, silver Conns.
My father decided to get me a good sax, and dredged up a Selmer in the want-ads. It cost $250: at that time a huge amount (by now, such an instrument might cost $4,000).
As soon as I appeared I was made first-chair first-sax, displacing a scion of the local establishment. Scion left the band in a huff.
I blew sax all through high school, and fell into using harder reeds: #4, the hardest. As I recall, I bought my reeds custom-made, although maybe not.
A harder reed made a more melodic tone; softer reeds were blowsy. Tiny Wes Diemer, the BHS band-director, loved it. He’d pick pieces where he could have me solo.
My sax also found its way to Sandy Hill. Any number of times I was called upon to solo in chapel, and once I soloed on Morning Cheer.
One morning I was enlisted to blow reveille. If they could have, the campers would have thrown tomatoes.
My senior-year at BHS I was replaced myself. A young up-and-comer was made first-chair first-sax, and I was made first-chair second-sax. (There were four alto saxes.)
It was probably just as well. By then I had lost interest. I was hardly blowing anyway, and I dropped out of concert-band to help Bruce Stewart build his huge HO-layout, thus precipitating the great piano-bench incident.
At Houghton I stopped playing altogether. I went back to boogie-woogie piano, preferably on a Steinway concert grand with a broken sound-board which had been retired to a practice-room.
There also was a Hammond Model D in another practice-room. Once in a while I’d steal into the Houghton Church and fire up their pipe-organ.
(Once the college pastor confronted me after hearing “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” segued into “Louie-LouEYE.”)
Who knows whatever happened to that saxophone. It was probably sold to buy groceries.

blood-tests

The results are back from my most recent blood-tests, and my doctor advised I could discontinue the iron-tablets and B-12.
The blood-test — unfortunately not a fasting blood-test — was part of a battery of tests to assess why I felt funny, and perhaps explain the “episodes.”
The tests were a heart stress-test last month (which I blew through with flying colors), carotid-artery ultra-sound, brain cat-scan, and a 24-hour continuous heart-monitor halter.
The heart-monitor is today (1/16) — the last test. It was delayed due to a ‘pyooter-crash.
“Why are you even taking those pills anyway?” the doctor asked.
“Well, various all-knowing relatives suggested I should.”
“I also have a brother who advises the Arby’s Pig-Out Menu, and heavy intake of Mountain Dew, which he calls ‘the elixir of fabulous health.’”
“I have another brother who suggests I glom 14 hard-boiled eggs at a sitting, preferably while doing 152 mph in my car.”
“Well don’t do it!” the doctor advised. “Mountain Dew will blow your sugar out of sight — your kidneys too; and 14 hard-boiled eggs, and the Arby’s Pig-Out Menu, would blow your cholesterol. No 152 mph either. You don’t see me coming here at 152 mph.”
Actually there were three blood-draws, or maybe four. I’m sure that includes a thyroid-check, and blood-sugar.
What will be interesting is if this battery of tests reveals nothing. No fevered phonecalls regarding the ultra-sound or cat-scan. I also had a dream the blood-tests might indicate an organ transplant, but I guess not.
So I ran out the iron-tablets, and may do the same with the B-12. Waste not, want not.
“All you’re doing is filling up your septic. You might as well flush ‘em directly.”

RE: Heart-monitor:
Installation was fairly simple: “lift your shirt so I can install these patches.”
“Now, in case the monitor becomes disconnected; this is how you reconnect it.”
“Hold it! Wait just one cotton-pickin’ minute.” You’re dealing with the keed. “I have to do it myself, to understand how it works. I don’t want this test to go to waste.”
“Insert the connecter until you feel it hit this slot, then reconnect.”
Done.
“Now, push it tight.”
“What, pray tell, are you talking about? I have to do it myself.
“Gimme that. Here, let me try it. This thing may come apart, and I have to know I’ve successfully reconnected it. Watching you do it is not enough.”
The reason the Keed could drive the site was because of asking questions like that. “Don’t think. Just do.” “Ex-KYOOZE me, but if I don’t understand it, I can’t do it.”

e-mail

This past week I wrote an e-mail to the chairman of the Boughton Park Board (the controlling entity for the so-called elitist country-club), explaining that I’d retired from the mighty Mezz, and could therefore go to the park quite a bit more often.
I was on the Park Board for some time, but meetings became a hairball, largely because they were on Thursday night, the same day we uploaded five Post web-sites.
I might get done at 5:30 or 6, after which I had to rush home (half-hour drive home), and glom supper so I could attend a Boughton Park Board meeting 10 minutes away at 7:30.
If I had been able to leave the mighty Mezz by 4, I could have done it. It’s also why I quit attending the 8 o’clock Union-meeting, also on a Thursday. Getting to it (Rochester) took an hour.
The chairman dutifully congratulated me on retirement. I guess he’s fast approaching retirement himself, so he wondered if he could accomodate the change.
Some are anxious to retire, and others don’t want to retire, he said. I think I would have been anxious to retire from Transit, if I could have made it. It would have always entailed getting up at 3 or 4 a.m.
Even in the city (4:30-5 a.m.) I was starting to have to take naps. But I didn’t want to retire from the mighty Mezz. The Night-Spots were irksome, but I really liked doing the web-site, even if it was a daily crap-shoot.
But I had no choice. Episodes kept occuring, which to me was a sign. The dreaded Night-Spots had blown me up, just as I feared they might.
(I had tried to dump the Night-Spots on numerous occasions, but they kept wanting me to do them.)
So we had to pull the plug altogether. Linda has ratcheted back to doing a few hours a week for the West Bloomfield Post-Office, but I am doing nothing at all. (I suppose cutting back to 25 hours per week at the mighty Mezz from 45 was the same, but it was also like trying to force a quart into a pint-pot.
I haven’t had much time to be “bored” (as they suggest at the mighty Mezz). I’ve been running all over trying to chase down what made me retire in the first place.

Cass

For the past week or so I have been viewing my Cass Scenic Railroad tape, which I consider to be one of the most fantastic train-videos I own; right up there with my Corridor cab-rides and the mighty Curve.
Like the others, it’s not fantastic because of the video; it’s the content. As I’m sure I’ve said on this site hundreds of times: all railfans, by law, should be required to visit Cass — mainly to hear the steam-whistles echo through the hollers.
The “Out and Away” editor at the mighty Mezz suggested I write another treatise like “the mighty Curve.” Cass qualifies, but it’s too far away. Horseshoe Curve was too far also — but that’s only half a day. Cass is a whole day, or two.
I’ll never forget the first time I visited Cass, alone, about 10 years ago.
I had parked the Faithful Hunda, and was striding across the vast parking-lot toward the depot, when one of the engines let out two short whistle-toots up by the water-tower to start its train.
It echoed on-and-on forever, bringing tears to my eyes. Every railfan should hear that.
But Cass could even be appealing to non-railfans. It’s in the middle of nowhere, and like going back 90 years.
The entire town has been restored to what it once was, except for the gigantic lumber-mill, which burned down in 1982.
The huge company-store still stands, and now houses a restaurant and gift-shop. And the restaurant isn’t McDonalds; your flapjacks get serenaded by acoustic mountain-music.
Cass Scenic Railroad isn’t a normal railroad. It’s steep, twisting, and uses switchbacks to gain altitude. The steepest mainline railroad I’ve ever seen is the 3% ATSF line over Cajon. Tehachapi is 2.5%; the mighty Curve is only 1.75%.
Cass has grades as steep as 11 and 13%; that’s 13 feet of climb per 100 feet.
Cass is a logging-railroad. It wasn’t meant to move freight over long distances. It was meant to bring logs out of the hills.
The steam-engines on Cass aren’t the side-rod engines you saw on mainline railroads. No way could a side-rod engine climb a 13% grade, or negotiate the rudimentary track logging railroads used.
A number of designs were made to meet the need, but most popular was the “Shay,” invented by Ephraim Shay, built by Lima Locomotive.
All designs were based on the idea of pistons working a driveshaft that turned wheels with helical gears. The driveshaft also had splinning and universals so the trucks could turn.
The Shay slung the cylinders and driveshaft on one side. Other designs, the Heisler and the Climax, have pistons working a central driveshaft. Cass has six Shays, one Heisler, and one non-working Climax in storage.
A side-rod engine would slip on a steep grade; but not a Shay. The multiple power-strokes are evenly distributed, many to a wheel-revolution. A rod engine only has four (or six, if it’s a triple) — and behind a rod engine you can feel the piston-thrusts work the train side-to-side.
You’ll also never see switchbacks in mainline railroading; too hard and expensive to operate and time-consuming.
Switchbacks are used to gain altitude without looping the railroad all over the mountain — although often that’s the best way to surmount a mountain. Switchbacks are too time-consuming. Switchbacks also reduced the amount of grading needed, But they were a bottleneck — in fact, the main triumph of Thompson’s “mighty Curve” was to surmount the Alleghenies without switchbacks.
Of course, grading is easy nowadays, but in 1850 it was hard. Mostly it was done with pick-and-shovel. Cass was built much later, but even then a logging-railroad only needed quick-and-dirty.
Which meant switchbacks; two tails, which I guess means two switchbacks.
A train ascends Leatherbark Creek (“Legend has it you drink once from the Leatherbark, and you’ll always come back.”) and climbs into the first switchback-tail.
A brakie gets off and throws the switch, and the train backs up the parallel track which turns away from the lead.
The train eventually climbs into the second tail, somebody throws that switch, and the train pulls out onto the parallel track, which turns away and continues up the hill.
Eventually the train pulls into Whittaker, four miles from Cass.
Whittaker was a staging-area, and had a giant steam-powered setup for dragging logs out of the forest.
It also is stop #1, the place most Cass trains end at; but Cass also goes up all the way to Bald Knob, 4,842 feet above sea-level, the top, 2,500 feet above the valley of the Greenbrier River far below. There is a big wooden observation-deck.
Three-fourths of the way up is a branch to Spruce (trackage-rights), a tiny hilltop town that once had no access except by rail. (I’m sure now it has.) At Spruce, Cass connects with a now-abandoned Western Maryland branch, but it was so steep they got a Shay to operate it.
That’s “Big Six,” which Cass now operates as its own. But Big Six can’t operate to Bald Knob without reversing on a wye near the top. There is a tightly-curved connector of the two forks of the wye Big Six can’t negotiate. It derails.
To run engine-first to Bald Knob, that curve has to be negotiated. So the smaller Shays run to Bald Knob.
Cass ends at Bald Knob, high above the valley-floor. It’s high enough to have Canadian climate.
Not long after my first visit, Linda and I both went, staying at a house-motel in far-out Stony Bottom in the boonies. I had stayed there during trip #1; a motel from the ‘50s.
A few months ago we visited Cass again, but the house-motel had closed. We had to stay in yuppie-land, a giant ski-resort over the mountain from Cass.
It’s totally unlike Cass. Cass is a different world.
True to Connor tradition we rode all the way to Bald Knob. The train was pushed by one Shay and the Heisler (pulled in reverse on the first switchback). I think Cass has instituted pushing to reduce the incidence of cinder-in-eye. —Only one engine, the Shay, held the train back descending — the cars have brakes too; and a brakie on each car.
At the time I was thinking it might be my last visit, but probably not.
Cass is a wonderful candidate for the famblee reunion; we could rent a cottage.

zealots

During my long 16&1/2-year tenure driving buses for Regional Transit Service, I developed quite a few friendships, three of whom were zealots.

One was Chip Walker (Charles), a born-again Christian.

Another was Dominic Zarcone (“Zarr-KOWN”) a charismatic Catholic.

The third was Gary Harriman, a Mormon.
-Chip was also a railfan. He’d take lunch from Transit and watch my train-tapes at our house.
Chip worked in management, starting shortly before me as a lowly transfer-clerk at the drivers’ window.
But he soon transferred to Scheduling in the White Tower, because the head of Scheduling was also a railfan — head of the Nickel Plate Historical Society.
Schedule-head had photos of smoky Nickel Plate Berks all over his office. He also had a “NYCSTL” license-plate on his red classic ‘61 Ford convertible, and was amazed I knew what it stood for (long before Google).
I’d run into Chip chasing 611, and we went to a Genesee & Wyoming railfan day.
When Chip found out I had graduated Houghton, the frenzied fishing began. Befuddled by my lack of zealotry, he started preaching at me.
Chip came to visit after my stroke; and Linda says it was one of the few times I talked like the person I was before. —We were jawing about 765 in New River Gorge.
I also visited Chip at Transit after I was discharged, but it was crazy.
Chip had no idea how to deal with a stroke-victim, so acted like I was normal despite my crying.
We used to exchange Christmas-cards, and Chip’s always had the self-congratulatory Christmas Annual so characteristic of tub-thumpers.
I sent him train-cards up until last year. Recently, no response — I think I’ll pass this year.
By now he’s probably retired — he also moved out of the city. One of his annuals mentioned his father losing both legs to diabetes. His father also had Parkinson’s.
-Zarcone, like me, was a bus-driver, and lived in the urban house he grew up in in Rochester with his mother.
I visited once, and it was all agitated yelling and screaming in Italian.
Despite his college-education (Notre Dame), I guess that was what he was used to and preferred.
Our friendship started when he loudly declared his first marriage wasn’t a real marriage.
“What?” I said. “That’s balderdash! You can’t say marriage #1 wasn’t a marriage.”
Thus began a frenzied argument about Godliness; how he felt he had been “saved” from his first marriage.
At first he was a Bible-thumping Christian, but he came from a Catholic background; so eventually “came home.”
But his stridency continued with his return to Catholicism.
Zarcone also visited after my stroke; and left me with an inspirational tape by infamous Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz.
He got it from the Library, along with the machine that played it. Unbeknownst to him, the challenge for a stroke-victim was to be able to play it at all. I played it a few times, but was bored by it.
Zarcone took me to a union-meeting soon after my discharge. My being there was more a statement than attending a union-meeting.
I attended union-meetings faithfully after that, and once in a while Zarcone would show up.
Members were discussing whether to arbitrate over the Company not following its drug-policy.
Zarcone was there, and ardently weighed in. The accused needed to repent — Zarcone knew all about repentance.
The Union-honchos had to shut him down. We weren’t discussing the guilt of the person charged, but whether the Company had followed its drug-policy.
I gave up sending Christmas-cards to Zarcone too. What I’d get in return was a spastic hand-scrawl about prayer that looked like it had been done by Hunter Thompson’s cartoonist.
Zarcone moved to the suburbs too; but I think he took his mother along.
-Gary Harriman wasn’t as strident as Chip or Zarcone. But he was always trying to convert me.
Finally one afternoon, while he was trying to get me to attend the Morman Pageant, a giant annual shindig where the Angel Maroni gets hoisted above the stage with a cable (“ascending into Heaven”), I asked why he was trying to convert me.
“Why not Ronnie Culp or Attila the Hun” (two thugs that worked at Transit)?
“Because it’s you I care about,” he answered.
“Why not them?” I asked. “They’re gonna roast in flames too — for which you would be held to account.”
My point was he was trying to convert me because A) I would give him an argument; and B) I wasn’t a macho threat like the thugs.
Thugs wouldn’t give him the time of day.

More tidbits.......

I went to the PT-gym alone, but only because there was a thunderstorm going on outside. I don’t want to leave the Killian dog alone at home in a thunderstorm; since he’d be scared to death. The bluster-boy can condemn his rabbits to death out along the fence, but I ain’t allowin’ that dog to be scared to death. He probably was left outside in a thunderstorm, so he hides when it starts a-thunderin’.

Story-time at the dreaded PT-gym:
I was advised that the receptionist they love and hate (because she is such a wonderful receptionist, yet a dimbulb when it comes to technology), had a birthday today (Wednesday, October 11). So I faced her in the office and said “Story-time. I had a kid-brother who was mentally-retarded: he had Down Syndrome. This is how he sang it — this is how our whole famblee sings it since him: ‘Agga-Burryay you-you; Agga-Burryay you-you. Agga-Burryay dear Linda (her name is Linda); Agga-Burryay YOU-YOU.’”
Needless-to-say, she was thrilled. I do this, despite being a reprehensible sinner.

After the PT-gym, I had to do three errands; Weggers, the funky-food store, and a bank-deposit. I have to do a hair-appointment tomorrow; and had planned on making out a check (I have before). Being at a bank meant I could get the money to pay the hairman cash; what I usually do.
I could have split the deposit, with a return of the cash; but didn’t think of that until I was at the bank.
Yet I could access their ATM-machine — a separate move.
So I drove to their ATM, followed by a silver S10 Blazer.
Uh-oh..... INTIMIDATOR ALERT! Not work the ATM fast enough and Blazer-guy blows his horn and gives you the finger. (The pressure is on — like being followed by Jack in the rumpeta-rumpeta!)
After downing the wrong power-windows (cue Bluster-King), I inserted my card in the ATM, although it has to be done just so, lest the machine spit it back out (driving Intimidator up the wall). I was well past the insert-slot, since I don’t use the ATM often, and had lined up next to the monitor — which displays in lucid color; thank ya Gates.
So I had to reach for the slot (Intimidator was fuming).
Then I apparently hit the “fast-$50” button; although I wanted to do $60.
Oh well, no matter; I’m sure I’ll end up with over $60 in my wallet.
I just laid everything on the center-console — cash/card/receipt — so I could get out of the way of the Intimidator; I was blocking his access onto the main drag. He was done before I could get out — boom-zoom.

No doubt Straight will soon be posting his annual apple-picking pictures, where he carries on the hallowed famblee tradition of picking winesaps at some apple-farm.
I haven’t had to make apple-runs this year. An apple-run was an hour trip to the other side of Rochester to patronize Sodoma Farms (“Sa-DOME-ah”); which I went to because their apples were pretty good.
An apple-run was a drag, and it got so their apples were no longer crisp — snappy.
But a nearby farmstand has taken to selling apples; and their’s are pretty good. Years ago, because I hated apple-runs, I tried a local apple-farm, but they weren’t very good, and over-priced.
We also tried another place east of Canandaigua but their’s were soft.
Whatever; I no longer have to make apple-runs. The nearby farmstand’s are good enough. (The farmstand is next to the West Bloomfield post-office.)

Bicycles

About three weeks ago, the mighty Mezz ran a front-page story on the passing of the lowly newspaper carrier.
A small percentage of the mighty Mezz’s readers live in the city of Canandaigua, and most of these readers still receive their papers via a newspaper carrier.
But many of the readers, like us, live out in the sticks, and get our paper from a rural carrier, in our case Randi Willard, an adult who delivers the papers with a car.
The passing of the teenage and preteen newspaper carrier prompted our Managing Editor, and Sunday Humor Columnist, to pen a paean recounting his halcyon days as a newspaper boy.
It taught him responsibility, time management, and how fast a Schwinn Sting-Ray would go when a German Shepherd was loose.
I never delivered newspapers, and banana-seat bicycles are after my time.
The first bicycle I ever had was a red J.C. Higgins 20-incher from Sears — 20-inch wheels. It was the only new bike I ever had.
I used to call it the “Red Rocket,” because I rode it flat-out down the hill on the sidewalk of Madison Ave. (around the block).
I learned how to ride it with blocks taped to the pedals so I could reach. My father ran behind and held the seat. I never had training-wheels.
I rode it a few months and then crashed head-on into the right-front fender of a slow-moving maroon 1947 Beetle-Bomb Ford sedan. Left a sizable dent with my head.
The driver never saw me at all — they were looking to the left at houses.
This happened at the south end of the Triangle, so my mother noisily insisted I never saw the car. From then on the Triangle was mowed.
I saw the car, of course. I was trying to avoid wiping out in gravel, but nobody argues with all-knowing Mother-Dear. (In other words, it wasn’t worth it.)
My crushed bike was repaired, and I rode it until I outgrew it, at which point my father decided to recondition his ancient balloon-tire 26-inch Columbia.
This is what we fell into. My father was not about to spring for no new bike when an old bike could be reconditioned for a song.
But the Columbia, flashy as it was in its shiny new red paint (which was all that had been done), was like riding a battleship. All the bearings were still rusty, so it pedaled and steered hard.
My parents decided I needed a better bicycle, so we traded the Columbia for another reconditioned bike, this one blue. It rode easier, but soon began derailing its chain.
We decided to move on to another, the RollFast, a bloated cruiser-bike with a tank, a horn, a radio, a headlight (and taillight), and front-suspension. (The horn and radio didn’t work; nor did the lights.) The extent of its reconditioning was that somebody had repainted it with a brush using red-lead primer and aluminum — probably the previous owner.
The shop never reconditioned it. I had to paint it myself: black. It promptly blew both tires, and I had to buy new whitewalls at the bike-shop in Haddonfield with my own money. In fact, I had to order them.
Soon after we moved to Delaware I stripped it; not unlike my sister’s bike, which broke the front fork at the stem on the downhill at Mountwell Pool in Haddonfield. Her bike was brown — another reconditioned special.
The front axle of the RollFast broke, so my father had someone thread similar-sized rod (bar; whatever) at his oil refinery (Tidewater). It was slightly longer.
I also flipped the handlebars, so that it sat somewhat like a 10-speed racer. This is “Old Reliable.” I rode it many times to Pennsy’s Edgemoor Yard, including the giant hill on Shipley next to the quarry off Route 13.
Later I made an eight-inch deep rectangular varnished plywood box with a “Hufton” decal, that fit where a rear rack would. I took it to Houghton my junior year. It could carry textbooks in the box.
I loaned it to Clay Glickert for a senior jaunt, and he destroyed the front suspension. He was hammering the daylights out of it (jumping, pogoing) trying to break it.
I had to bury it (with great ceremony) in a woody ravine. It was royally busted.
The following summer I bought a light-weight English bicycle in a shop on King St. in Wilmington. I stripped it. It had the three-speed Sturmey-Archer rear axle activated by a cable hooked to a handlebar-lever. I also repainted the frame and flipped the handlebars. I sprayed it yellow with translucent red model-car lacquer on the yellow. (It looked like a fireball.)
I took it to Houghton my senior year and rode it everywhere. I was known as “Free-wheelin’ Hughes.” I’d chain it to the step-railing at chapel, and rode in the country when I tired of study.
But its days were numbered. During summer-school after my senior year, I rode some guy’s cheap Schwinn 10-speed, and it was light as a feather.
So shortly after we got married I bought a Frejus 10-speed “Tour de France” from George Rennie Bike Shop in Rochester for $135, a princely sum at that time.
It came with sew-up tires glued to the rims with rubber-cement (or is it concrete?), but they were so fragile (and cantankerous) I swapped for clincher rims and battleship tires that could better cope with Rochester’s awful streets (often littered with broken glass).
I rode that bicycle for years, and modified it a lot. (I still have it.) I replaced the front-fork after it got pranged hitting a car-door. I also converted it to 18-speed; three on the front and six on the back — out of which I used eight. We rode with the Rochester Bicycle Club some, and I noticed it was heavy compared to state-of-the-art. It weighed 26 pounds.
So I bought a DeRosa double-butted steel frame, and fitted it with all Campagnello parts — the quintessential Italian racing bicycle. This was when Jap parts (Shimano) were becoming supreme, and Campy was falling behind.
I had to have the shop (Towner’s Bicycles) assemble it, as I didn’t have time.
My other mistake was not using a Cannondale fat-tube aluminum frame. This was when Cannondale was only selling complete bicycles.
I rode a fat-tube, and it was so stiff it felt heavy (although it wasn’t). But the seat/bars/wheels/pedals on my DeRosa are fabulous. Plus the frame-dimensions are perfect.
But the DeRosa is too resilient. The bottom-bracket twists when you pump, allowing a front chainwheel to scrape the rear frame.
I can correct this, but doing so makes the front derailleur inoperable.
So what I would like to do is get a fat-tube and fit all my good stuff to it, plus Shimano parts (brakes, derailleurs, etc.).
Supposedly a fat-tube is too stiff over distance, but I rarely ride over 30 miles.

bad day

I suppose today (Thursday, 4/27) is a bad day.
Waves of wooziness at the so-called elitist country-club, punctuated with possible slight mini-episodes; which only last a half-second or so, and cause slight tipsiness.
Blood-pressure is also slightly high (higher than other days), but not extraordinarily high — like 140/87 instead of 130/80.
Yesterday we worked out some at the PT, and then I mowed the front-yard; which ain’t that much.
Now I’m not so sure I should mow at all; the section to mow today is a lot bigger.
The continuing wooziness is rather depressing — I feel like I’m mucking up everything.
We then discussed how everyone seems to be hot to take me to task: Linda’s mother, all my siblings, my mother and father in my past.
Linda remarked “Yeah. It’s too bad you’re no longer going to the Messenger — lots of positive reinforcement there.”
Yep, I never wanted to quit; because things always seemed to go right there.
“Now Jack; I don’t know,” Linda said. “He thinks he’s doing you well by lobbing rotten tomatoes at you, but I don’t think so. He might benefit you more by just keeping quiet.”
“Yeah; 200 miles out his way to lob rotten tomatoes. True love, I tell ya!” I said.
Hopefully I will feel better tomorrow; I suppose I am better than last year’s-end. No full-on episodes since February, and the wooziness has decreased. I’ve noticed there seem to be “good days” and “bad days.”
But the wooziness seems to hang on. I was hoping to try the LHMB next week, but now I don’t know.

best blower money could buy

Today (Friday, 6/2) after working out at the PT gym, we did a number of errands, one of which was a visit to a garden-implements store hard by the funky food market.
This is the same store we long ago bought our Honda snowblower and our Honda tiller.
The store has apparently changed hands since then, but they still sell Honda equipment, as well as Husky and Ariens and Gravely.
So they still sell both Ariens and Honda snowblowers. He remarked Honda was the best blower money could buy. That given a choice he’d want the blower we have in our garage, except with the tracs instead of wheels (our has wheels).
“Tell that to my brother and you’ll get your head bit off,” I said.
“Well maybe he has an old Ariens; they were pretty good,” the guy said.
“Could be,” I said. “He has it held together with bobbie-pins and paper-clips and baling twine.”
He suggested I might better hang onto our blower; that a blower mounted on a garden-tractor has to be maneuvered all over, plus you mount a blower on the front and it makes it steer heavy. There also is the difficulty of mounting a blower — the mowing-deck has to be removed, and then the blower mounted and hooked up. My 92-year-old nosy neighbor is complaining about this. The import was the salesman could blow out a driveway faster with a 28-inch walk-behind than 42 inches on a tractor.
So I don’t know. We still have more stores to look; there is a Husky place up the street, plus Cub-Cadet (and Kubota — same dealer), and Lowes and Home-Depot.
Gravely (which he said Ariens is) sells zero-turns in our price-range; John Deere was over-the-top. I want at least 48’-cut; maybe even 54’. I’d rather do zero-turn considering how much trimming I have to do.
Whatever; the salesman said Honda was the best blower money could buy. Take that, bluster-boy. Mano-a-mano.

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.