4/12/07

-Today (Thursday, April 12, 2007) and tomorrow (Friday the 13th), my wife has to work at the vaunted West Bloomfield post-office, as she did most of Monday.
The regular postmaster had a family emergency whereby the alcoholic brother of her future son-in-law drank himself into oblivion and poisoned himself to death.
So we dutifully got up at 6 a.m. to begin the morning ablutions. I was putting away the dishes from the dishwasher when Linda waddled in to make coffee for herself.
She filled the teakettle and put it on a front burner and lit it.
We looked at each other for a minute until I said “You put it there, and you have to make sure your bathrobe doesn’t catch fire;” which is why I always heat the teakettle on a rear burner.
“Well, my bathrobe sleeves are short, but long,” she said.
“Oh my golly!” I thought to myself. “REPUBLICAN-LOGIC ALERT!” I said.
She’s gone over to the Dark Side. Short-and-long sleeves make as much sense as $400,000 plus $400,000 equaling $815,000 — the strange world where two-plus-two equals five, a shovel becomes a “trenching-tool,” and DWI is “of little consequence” if you slaughter a ne’er-do-well.
“For crying out loud,” I thought; “don’t give her the car-keys. She’s liable to run a stop-sign.”

-Just prior to my final year at Houghton, ‘65-‘66, my senior-year, I showed up on campus a week early.
As did Donna Malenke (Mah-LENK-key), a sophomore, who like me worked in the college dish-room at Gaoyadeo Hall.
So for that week Malenk and I had the dish-room all to ourselves: Malenk racking, and me operating the dishwasher.
Malenk was wild; sent to Houghton by her parents to straighten-her-out, which of course made her wilder still.
Malenk had coupled with another sophomore, Don Dey (“Die”), who was very mellow, but also wild — another sent to Houghton by his parents to straighten-him-out, although it also made him worse. (Also a dish-room employee.)
Malenk and I were on much different wavelengths, but since Dey wasn’t there yet, we became friends.
Plus I had “The Beast;” a car that fit her personality to a T.
One night we roared off to a lonely roadhouse-tavern in the desolate rural outback that is Allegany County, and tipped a few — probably no more than two each.
It was a chance for Malenk to be wild without Dey; but little more than yammering for me.
Why do I mention this? Probably because I was remembering Malenk this morning, and this pleasant foray.
I remember driving there in the amber setting sun, through yellowing fall countryside. It was up the western hillside of the Genesee Valley — I think our destination was near Hume.
It was a roadhouse Malenke knew of.

-My sister Peggy is agreeing I can sling it extremely well. In fact, what she said was “I dare to say that you generate more verbiage/postings/bellowing/“hash”/random thoughts (whatever you want to call it) on this here web-site in one day than all of us combined do in one week.”
I don’t mind a bit — I’m proud of my ability to sling it.
Apparently my stroke was devastating. It left me no longer the person I had been before the stroke.
So that now I am a feeble approximation of the person I had been, left with compromised speech and a tendency to fag out (I need to take naps).
I no longer can take the lead as I had done; and have to farm out things I had previously done with great relish.
A sterling example of this is our standby generator; a two-cylinder internal-combustion engine (it burns natural-gas) that generates electricity when the power dives.
Before the stroke I would have had the cover off that thing the day it was installed: “what do we have here?”
But it was installed after the stroke, so I’ve never had the cover off. I plan to some day; but I’m no longer the person I was — i.e. I’m not that inclined.
Other examples are the storage-shed, house-staining and window-replacement. All these projects have been turned over to Linda.
Whatever; I also discovered right after the stroke my ability to sling it was apparently not effected at all. It was like the “old-me” was residing in the ‘pyooter. I couldn’t talk as well as I could before, but I could sling it just like old times.
I remember being assigned by the rehab-people to view a video-tape on a lift-equipped wheelchair-van, to write a review. The rehab people are always trying to figure out who you were, and get you back to doing things you once did.
So I viewed the video-tape, and wrote a scathing review just like old times. And it was easy-as-pie. It was colored by my experience with wheelchair lifts on the transit-buses, and how the salt-and-grit would put them outta commission.
My conclusion was the onliest place such a gizmo could ever work was southern Californy, where it never snowed.
Then my brother-and-his-wife in Delaware set up this here famblee-site; where I found I could lob stuff willy-nilly.
Then I made the mistake of disputing my macho brother-in-Boston’s recollection of where we got off I-80 during a motorbike trip to the mighty Curve, and the bombast wicked up.
I’m accused of having a tender psyche, and that my feelings get hurt when the blowhard fulminates.
Well, HEX-KYOOZE me, but if my feelings were hurt, I probably would have quit lobbing stuff onto this here site long ago.
I think the one with the tender psych, who’s feelings get hurt, is my blowhard brother-in-Boston, who was number-one of his group of children, and is appalled by the fact I happen to be the oldest child of my famblee. —Like I’m some sort of a challenge to his supreme superiority — which the fact I had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to dispute his clearly erroneous recollection of where we got off I-80 apparently added to.
So now the blustering is unending; I can’t say or do anything at all without him going totally bonkers. Everything I say is an affront — impetus to blustering.
Which to me is pitiful — like our relationship has fallen into the same sorry abyss as that with my mother; unrepairable. —Although my mother at least felt bad about it; my brother-in-Boston just struts madly around beating his chest.
It’s what I get for challenging a Harley-guy.

-Yesterday, when we visited the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA, they had a different XM-radio station on. I think it was XM-49 — although the mumbling was so bad I thought it might be Pope John-Paul.
Well, okay, Rolling-Stones, Def Leppard, and Lou Grammatico (Gramm) bellowing “Head Games” for Foreigner. (Grammatico is originally from Rochester.)
Then all of a sudden, while cooling down on the treadmill: ZOOP; back to Flight-26, the XM-radio station the Y has done for eons.
It was clearly the XM Flight-26 playlist; no more Rolling-Stones, Def Leppard, or Lou Grammatico.
“You don’t love me; you don’t even care......” Not too bad to listen to while pumping iron, but Linda says it’s too loud.
The last rock-n-roll group I bought was Def Leppard — none since. But the stuff on Flight-26 is better.

My wife “Linda” is a postmaster-relief (PMR) at the nearby West Bloomfield post-office; a part-time job.

My macho blowhard brother-in-Boston e-mailed coworkers about getting smokestack repairs done for a total of $815,000. Two smokestack repairs totaled about $400,000; and a third smokestack needed about $400,000 worth of repairs — equaling a total smokestack repair bid of $815,000 (REPUBLICAN-MATH ALERT).

On 89 bazilyun occasions I have witnessed Dubya-supporters making insane traffic-moves. (Run red-lights, run stop-signs, unsignaled sudden lane-changes, 152 mph, etc.)

“Houghton” college, in “Allegany County” of western New York, is where I got my BA-degree. (And that’s how it’s spelled: “Allegany;” not “Allegheny.”)

“Gaoyadeo Hall” was a residence-hall at Houghton when I was there. It’s since been torn down. “Gaoyadeo” was an Indian word.

“The Beast” was my first car, a 1958 fish-mouth Triumph TR3 sportscar. It was very basic; but a fabulous hot-rod. It had “immense powah,” but hardly any weather-protection at all. I subsequently flipped it, and my parents sold it for about 75 smackaroos to buy groceries. My mother hated it.

“Peggy” is my baby-sister. She’s almost 18 years younger than me (the last kid in our famblee); and lives in Lynchburg, Va. with her husband Paul and three teenage sons.

My stroke was October 26, 1993; and ended my 16&1/2 year career of driving transit-buses.

The “famblee-site” is our family’s web-site; called “FlagOut.” What goes on this here blog is what goes onto the famblee-site.

“My macho brother-in-Boston,” “Jack,” noisily claimed we used an exit one exit before the one we actually used, during our motorbike trip to the mighty Curve (Horseshoe Curve, by far the BEST railfan-spot on the entire planet), which was clearly WRONG, as we were using the route I had used “hundereds” of times. After my disputing this (“awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity”), so began a torrent of noisy blustering from Boston.

“Hundereds” is how my brother-in-Boston insists “hundreds” is spelled.

My brother-in-Delaware has a turbocharged Volvo he claims will do 152 mph.