6/6/07

—T-gurl........
Yesterday afternoon (Tuesday, June 5, 2007), while walking our dog Killian up street to Michael Prouty Park, I met T-gurl (real name Tanya Olsen, previously Tanya Kellogg).
T-gurl goes back to my first days at the mighty Mezz, where she worked as a graphical-artist.
Like most people at the mighty Mezz, she did anything and everything, like me; the driving need to get the newspaper out with a shoestring staff.
But she essentially worked in Commercial-Printing, an adjunct to the mighty Mezz, whereby most of the infrastructure was put to work doing printing-jobs other than the newspaper.
T-gurl was a really nice person, who like Marcy and my wife laughed at all my jokes, and considered me an extraordinary person.
She wasn’t some buxom floozy from the Broken-Spoke Saloon desperate for a thrill-ride on a blatting GeezerGlide.
A number of things stand out:
-1) Once T-gurl noted the Jeep was first made by American Motors.
“IT WAS NOT!” I shrieked. “It was first made by Willys.”
Any normal person would have taken affront (I’ve had it happen at the Daze Inn in Altoony).
But not T-gurl; she thought my response was extremely funny, and laughed.
-2) was T-gurl’s detailing of the mighty Kinzua Viaduct.
The Kinzua Viaduct is a huge steel railroad-bridge in northwest Pennsylvania to leap the vast Kinzua Creek valley, a more direct route to get Pennsylvania coal to Buffalo. It was financed, and operated, by the Erie Railroad. (The steel viaduct, built in 1900, was number-two; number-one [1883] was spindly iron.)
I’d heard of it, but never seen it. It’s 2,053 feet long and 301.5 feet high, slightly higher than the length of a football-field. (In 2003 it was partially collapsed by a tornado. —I’ve seen both before-and-after.)
She had seen it. It was in the Allegheny mountains where she and her boyfriend (soon to be husband) four-wheeled.
“It’s over 3,000 feet high,” she exclaimed.
“Whoa!” I said. “Are you sure you don’t mean 300? The Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado is slightly over 1,000; and we got to 1,200 in the Tri-Pacer.”
“I’ll bring the brochure,” she said.
It was 300. Again, she laughed.
-3) When the Sass ran away, T-gurl scanned a photograph I had and made a Photoshop poster I could put up on phonepoles. (We never did find the Sass.)
-4) One afternoon it was snowing fiercely, and I returned to the mighty Mezz after getting stuck (and unstuck) in the outskirts of Canandaigua. I was driving the so-called soccer-mom minivan (our Astrovan), and I looked like the abominable snowman — covered in ice.
At that time T-gurl was driving to the mighty Mezz in a full-size Ford Bronco that her boyfriend owned.
Together we set out on a rural road toward West Bloomfield, not 5&20 — me leading.
The Astrovan caught a snowbank and went off the road; getting itself stuck in a snowpile along the verge.
T-gurl stopped, and together we continued to West Bloomfield, abandoning the Astrovan. (It was royally stuck; AAA had to dislodge it the next afternoon.)
By the time we arrived in West Bloomfield, the snow was over two feet deep in our driveway, so T-gurl hung around to make sure I got in our house (she didn’t pull into the driveway — I wasn’t sure she could get out).
Our dog (Tracy) was outside — our kennel has doghouses (Tracy was in hers).
T-gurl continued at the Messenger a few more years — I think even past the construction of the new building. Our initials are carved in the concrete for the front-door landing to the receptionist-area.
T-gurl eventually married her boyfriend, and soon got pregnant.
Our Executive-Veep, a REPUBLICAN, refused to let her work part-time or job-share. (He was eventually fired.)
And so T-gurl drifted into the filmy past; she apparently began doing graphical-artist work on her own from the rural back-country house she and her boyfriend had built.
Once-in-a-while she’d visit the mighty Mezz — usually with son number-one along, and then with number-two also.
Last night, at Michael Prouty Park, number-one was doing lacrosse in some youth-league; the one with the bellowing coach that’s always imploring all his players to “poke-poke-poke” (I hope this isn’t her husband).
She has since also had daughter number-one; that makes three kids.

—Light wars........
Apparently the bedroom of our 93-year-old nosy neighbor (soon to be 94 — I’ll have to change my macro), across the street, faces our house.
In fact, apparently his bed faces our house, so that he can monitor our nocturnal activities from his bed.
Linda visited yesterday and the 93-year-old nosy neighbor asked he what was going on the night before.
“Ulp; Bob turned the light out over his computer; they must be going to bed,” he said.
“Now what? He turned the garage-light on, and then turned it off.”
So last night I gave him a light-show: flicked the garage-light on-and-off about six times over five seconds.
Then I circled around and came back to the garage; flicked the light on-and-off about 10 times over five seconds.
Then I circled around again and flicked the light over my ‘pyooter on-and-off about 10 times over five seconds.
“Call the sheriff; them neighbors are taunting me, and I’m old enough to have been their milkman. Why I cut the road-shoulders with a team of horses! We didn’t have no tractors then.”

“The mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked.

“Marcy” worked at the mighty Mezz during the later years of my employment. She quit and moved to near Boston.

RE: “Some buxom floozy from the Broken-Spoke Saloon desperate for a thrill-ride on a blatting GeezerGlide....” refers to two girls my macho brother-from-Boston picked up in the Broken-Spoke Saloon at a massive Harley-Davidson get-together at the motorcycle races in Loudon, New Hampshire. My brother has a very laid-back Harley, and since he’s 50, we call it the GeezerGlide. It’s an ElectraGlide.

“Daze Inn in Altoony” is the old Days Inn in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the motel we usually stay in when visiting Horseshoe Curve, the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. That Days Inn is now a Holiday-Inn Express.

The first airplane I ever flew in, in 1956, was a Piper “Tri-Pacer;” a single-engine private-plane.

“The Sass” (Sassy) was an Irish-Setter we had long ago. We had “Tracy” (another Irish-Setter) at the same time. Sass ran away in a thunderstorm; she could climb our five-foot chainlink fence.

My macho brother-in-Boston, in a turgid putdown, called our 1993 Chevrolet Astrovan a “soccer-mom minivan.” That Astrovan has since been traded for a Toyota Sienna minivan.

“5&20” is the main east-west road in our area; state Route 5 and U.S. Route 20, both on the same roadway.

RE: “the construction of the new building......” The Messenger newspaper constructed a new building during my tenure.

“The 93-year-old nosy neighbor” is an Appleworks-5 macro. I will have to rewrite it when he turns 94.