Nano

Last night (Friday, December 29) we attended the birthday-party of the infamous “Nano,” Nancy Brown, the staff-artist at the mighty Mezz, who has attained the ripe old age of 50.
Nano and I are on different wave-lengths, but I thought immensely of Nancy, because she was ever-willing to field the questions of a Quark-novitiate.
As my career at the mighty Mezz wound down, I always felt badly that things I had done were getting shoved off on Nano.
I used to do a closings-box for her which ran before holidays.
I’d give her a completed Quark-file, which I called the “Wear-Your-Rubbers” file, which she could just flow onto the page.
It entailed making a bunch of phonecalls regarding gumint office-closings, banks, schools, garbage-pickup, bus-service, etc.
We also were doing library-closings, but finally deferred to “call,” since the library-closings would have filled an entire column.
When I cut back to part-time, the “Wear-Your-Rubbers” file, and its phonecalls, got pawned off on Nancy.
She was supposed to be staff-artist, but here she was doing peon-work.
I also had been giving her “Skywatch;” sunrise and moonrise, sunset and moonset. I got this stuff from the Naval Observatory site.
When I retired it got pawned off on Nano.
I found the Naval Observatory site because I was sick of using the Farmers’ Almanac; and how imprecise it was.
“What’s that moon doing up there? I had it setting four hours ago.”
The stockbox got redesigned with the assistance of Nano.
She showed me how to set Quark decimal-tabs, and after that they weren’t all over.
I (with her help) made the stockbox look classy.
And it could be done with a quick copy/paste from a Quicken stock-portfolio I set up.
What used to take hours was now taking 5-10 minutes.
The party was held at “All Things Art” in Canandaigua, a large old storefront on the main drag converted to an art-gallery.
It was a large party — at least 200.
A funky band of old grayheads — one of whom was apparently Nancy’s husband — was blasting away along a wall far from the crowd.
The place was mostly candle-lit, and a food-line was set up with pulled-pork barbecue, baked macaroni-and-cheese, and various toxic desserts. Alcohol (beer and wine) was apparently also available; on Nano’s nickel — but I didn’t partake; I don’t like being tipsy.
The Messenger-people had gravitated to certain tables, but since they were full we ended up sitting with Nancy’s aged neighbors, who asked if I was still working at the Messenger, and then entertained us with train-stories when it was revealed I was a railfan.
Particularly upsetting to me was the wife’s noisy insistence they caught the Lehigh-Valley “Black Diamond” in nearby Newark, once New-York-Central stopped passenger-service on the Peanut to Canandaigua from Holcomb (apparently they were taking a Central train to the Water-Level at Auburn, and then down to New York City).
The Lehigh-Valley went nowhere near Newark. The only railroads that do are the Water-Level east-to-west, and the old Pennsy Sodus-Point line north-to-south — which crossed the Water-Level on a raised girder-bridge.
(Most of the old Pennsy-line [ex Northern Central — the NC actually ran to Canandaigua; the Sodus Point line was a Pennsy extension] is long abandoned; although a small portion remains operated by Ontario Midland [this Wikipedia link has a mistake; it’s Wallington to Newark, but the “New York” link is to “Newark”]. OMID is a shortline. We’ve ridden it a few times — they have Alco-power, and the old Pennsy line is a tunnel of trees.)
LV did go through nearby Geneva; but after two feeble attempts at correcting, I gave up.
I was barely audible over the din, and that lady wasn’t brooking correction.
How the Black Diamond went through Newark I’ll never know.
I saw two Messenger retirees: Joy Daggett and Marky-Mark (editor Mark Syverud).
Syverud was there with his daughter Gretchen, who is now doing the dreaded “Night-Spots.”
I recounted over-and-over how I tried to get out of doing it, and how I hated it; but she said she enjoys doing it.
“Well, we had him doing a lot of other stuff,” Marky-Mark said. “All you’re doing is Night-Spots.”
She said she was mostly doing it at home — which is mostly what I did: copy-paste from web-sites, and then e-mail the “so-far” to the mighty Mezz.
I also mentioned what I felt most badly about was that I never had time to make it what it deserved to be — which is when Marky-Mark commented about all my other duties.
What I didn’t mention was that phonecalls were a bit beyond-the-pale for a stroke-survivor with compromised speech. People never understand that — to them I’m normal, and should be able to make phonecalls as well as them.
I asked Joy how she felt about retirement, and her husband commented “often she has time on her hands.”
“Do you ever feel that way?” Joy asked.
“Absolute reverse,” I said. “I wasn’t even sure we could make this gig. We got errands and appointments coming out our ears. The question is always ‘when did we ever work?’”
I feel our attendence didn’t come off that well, since I might have inadvertantly stepped on the toes of two poeple I think the world of: particularly K-Man (the Managing Editor), and Kathie Meredith, the editor of the Steppin Out magazine.
I mentioned that the dreaded Night-Spots was probably, more than anything, what blew me up; and that K-Man refused to let me stop.
I also addressed Kathie as “Yo-Meredith;” an old Frank Brown put-down I avoid. It was to get her attention.
I also encountered another girl who has nine years to go. She introduced me to her significant-other, and both of us felt stupid.
I then told her I always felt I had to retire too early, and that she should be very careful about blood-pressure medication, that I felt it was the primary cause of my early retirement.
I doubt she heard much of what I said; I usually have to repeat everything to make what I say comprehensible, and the din was deafening.
And discussion of blood-pressure medication usually crashes in flames.