Forty long years ago......

Mother-Dear.

Matron-of-honor Carol Button, Linda, me, best-man Ted Hinderer (and flower-girl Peggy).

........(December 30, 1967) Yr Fthfl Srvnt and his wife-to-be piled confusedly into my humble 1961 Corvair coupe and set out from Rochester to Thurston, N.Y., Linda’s home, to be married in Thurston Christian Church.
Thurston is uphill from Campbell, N.Y. (pronounced “Camp-BELL,” not the soup), and can be driven through in about a minute. It’s very rural. I remember spending the night there once, and ya could hear the cows when ya woke up. On Sunday morning ya heard the church bell. The town might have had 75 residents at that time — now it’s probably down to 50.
A number of wars were in action; primary of which was that we had originally intended to marry on December 31, but Linda’s mother put the kabosh to that, since Dec. 31 was a Sunday, and “didn’t make a lick of sense” since that would muck up the church schedule.
“Me domineering? Well I never! Don’t you dare ever bring that up again!”
The second war was that I thought Linda looked much better without her glasses, but Linda’s mother was appalled.
The wedding was without the glasses, but the reception, at Linda’s house, had the glasses.
What I remember most about this shindig was the Preacher-man (we think his name was “Dersham (‘Der-SHUM’)” asking if I wanted to “salute the bride.”
“Sure,” I answered, doing my best military salute, hand cupped to forehead.
We returned married; and I remember being scared to death.
What had I done? I was looking at a yawning and potentially precipitous future, and it was frightening.
I had just moved alone into into our first apartment, furnished digs at 644 Averill Ave. off Monroe Ave. in Rochester.
It was three flights up.
I also had a new job: hired as a management-trainee at Lincoln Rochester Bank.
So a number of new paradigms were in place, but I remember being terrified as Linda started hanging her clothes in our closet.
We had to get past a few things at first — first of which were the steamy entrails of my difficult childhood.
But like with Tim-oooo, I decided it was better to make things work — the rewards were worth it.
Had I not, it probably would have been over in months.
Second was to let Linda buy her own clothes.
This goes back to my having bought her an outfit at National Clothing Company, my first employer.
It inadvertently looked pretty good, so I wanted to be a part of her clothing purchases from then on.
Okay, but -A) finding attractive clothes for her was not easy; and -B) she was running out of clothes.
A bank isn’t a clothing-store, so I had to give up.
It wasn’t worth being impossible.
The next issue, and I’ve always felt bad about this, is my not wanting kids.
I didn’t want to carry on the hoary traditions of my father, like standoffishness and inability to communicate. I feel badly that everyone suffers from this; both Linda and my dogs. But I didn’t want kids to suffer that.

Linda’s father; her mother; Carol Button; Linda; me; Mother-Dear; Hinderer; the Preacher-Man. (Peggy is the flower-girl.)

The years rumbled by. Within months we traded our cars for the TR250, a feeble and erroneous attempt to bring back The Beast. But the TR250 was a poor automobile — a sportscar doesn’t make a proper pillar-to-post automobile.
I also bought the Frejus in a few years, while still on Averill (which was nearby the vaunted George Rennie Bike Shop, at that time the best bike shop in the area).
I also bought my first Pentax Spotmatic 35mm SLR camera.
After about three years at Lincoln Rochester (which became Lincoln-First Bank), I was released (supposedly not fired). The job I had trained for vaporized, and I was redirected toward front-desk interface, for which I was ill suited. (To be a front-desk lackey you had to have the morals of a slut — kiss the big fish and send the little fish packing.)
Toward the end of my short tenure at the bank, I started taking pictures at sportscar races.
And so began a long and fruitless attempt to become a freelance photographer.
We also moved to 20 Woodland Park in Rochester, an upstairs apartment of an aging dowager who lived downstairs.
Linda also began working at Lawyers Co-operative Publishing, a career that lasted almost 35 years (and moved on to different owners).
The dowager charged little rent, since we were also watching her.
She was quick to pass judgment though; questioning why we didn’t have furniture. (Our previous apartment had been furnished.)
Our mattress had to be horsed upstairs through a back upstairs porch. We did it with clothesline and Linda’s mother.
It was too big for the stairwell.

Mother-Dear.

My sister Betty (“Elz”), me, and Tim-oooo. (Reception at Linda’s house — Linda visible at right.)

My disemployment from the bank led to a seven-year interregnum from the world.
I set up a darkroom in our bathroom (it could be converted back), and learned black & white photography processing and printing.
I sold quite a few pictures — my first to Trains Magazine in 1971 of trains climbing the mighty Curve — but never made much money at it.
A small weekly newspaper called City/East began in Rochester about that time and it was a class act, so I tried selling photos to them.
The co-publisher (and only ad-salesman, the publisher’s husband) was interested in sportscars (he had a 356 Porsche), and he knew I was interested too.
He asked if I knew anyone who could write sportscar racing coverage. I didn’t, so I suggested maybe I could try it.
And so began a three-year stint of writing sportscar racing coverage for City/East newspaper. I also turned in a major story every two weeks to cover the dead time between races. They wanted me to, and every story included a photograph taken by me.
I confined my coverage to three tracks: Watkins Glen; Mosport near Toronto, and Lime Rock in Connecticut — four if you include St. Jovite north of Montreal; although I never wrote up any races from there. (I also attended a few races at the old Bridgehampton track out Long Island.)
This was the time of some of the greatest sportscar racing ever: Can-Am and Trans-Am.
Can-Am were unlimited sports-racing cars; two seats with usually a hot-rodded light-weight aluminum Big-Block Chevy supplying the power.
Trans-Am was the ponycars; Mustangs and Camaros; and the best Mustangs were supplied by stockcar racing-entrant Bud Moore of Spartanburg, S.C.
Both series came to naught: the Can-Am falling to turbocharged Porsche domination, and the Trans-Am taking in the small European manufacturers (Alfa, BMW, etc.) when the Detroit factories pulled out.
It was the end of Detroit involvement in sportscar-racing — the end of the Detroit V8.
Quite a few drivers were also killed — including two I had interviewed.
So I was losing interest.
And my attempt at making money at it was crashing mightily in flames. Over the years I sold probably 30 nationally published photos, but that was hardly enough.
Motor Trend Magazine wanted to talk to me, but I wasn’t interested in moving to L.A. (And the guy they hired lasted about a year.)
We also bought our first house, a nice-looking antique at 323 N. Winton Rd. in Rochester, based on Linda’s income, since I had no income. It needed a lot of work.
I began to look for a “real job;” i.e. one not as a freelance photographer or writer. It was obvious that to succeed at either you had to develop a large coterie of contacts, which I was no good at.
I also was hardly ever given trackside photographer’s passes, so that most of my published photos were from behind the fence. A couple times I was given photographer’s passes, but never at Watkins Glen, although once they gave me a pit-pass, so I flew a picture of Jackie Stewart in his Formula-One Tyrrell in Road&Track.
I also was given a trackside pass once at Lime Rock, but that was primarily because Warren Agor from Rochester was the lone Trans-Am Camaro holdout. (Trans-Am had the ferriners by then.)
My angle was photographing scenery punctuated by racecars. Watkins Glen could be scenic, if you knew where to shoot; but it was otherwise dead.
The Canadian tracks were extraordinary, especially St. Jovite.

(This is probably the News-Journal.)

I began circulating resumes to ad-agencies, and interviewed at a few. One guy was exasperated he couldn’t hire me, but he couldn’t afford another person.
So my search for a so-called “real job” went nowhere; except our new neighbors on Winton Road were both bus-drivers for Regional Transit Service, so suggested I apply there.
It was only supposed to be temporary, but my bus-driving stretched 16&1/2 years — although I was tiring of it.
What I liked most about it was the actual bus-driving. The clientele was rather frightening, and management a bunch of jerks.
The money started pouring in. At first my income was larger than Linda’s, and our union-contract had a cost-of-living escalator, so my income kept ratcheting up.
But the cost-of-living escalator was dumped, and Linda’s income pulled even. She then passed.
But all that changed when I had what many consider a non-event: my stroke, October 26, 1993.
And no matter what the zealots may wish, a stroke is a life-changing event.
Linda had to say goodbye to the person she married, and he was replaced by a feeble approximation of the person I previously was.
Recovery was bog-slow; it’s learning how to live on what’s left of your brain — seven cylinders, I always say.
Even now, 14 years hence, I am left with compromised speech, clumsiness, and poor balance.
As a stroke-survivor I was reduced to earning chump-change; peanuts compared to Linda.
Have a stroke and be forced to retire on disability from Valero, and that will be a major life-change.
A little over two years after the stroke I began employment at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper — the best job I ever had.
A job-counselor at Rochester-Rehab suggested he could try getting my bus-driving job back, but I wasn’t interested.
Employment at the mighty Mezz lasted almost 10 years. I got cycled through various duties, and ended up doing the Messenger web-site; a good match, since it meant exercising what gray-matter remained such that I could determine to a small extent what that web-site looked like.
But I was reduced to being a dependent.
I have to let Linda make the phonecalls, since I have speech-difficulty doing so.
And now the tables are turned somewhat, with Linda chasing the cancer-Jones.
But I still am baggage. I still fag out and have to lay down.
My ability to science things out ain’t what it was, so I get easily frustrated.
So Linda has to cover for me, and parry the exasperation.
So 40 years hence: I don’t feel I made the wrong decision. Linda’s not a hottie. I could have married a hottie and done a lot worse.
Linda always cries at weddings; the protagonists have no idea.
But of course none of this makes any difference when I choose to use a different toothpaste than my famblee — and continue to use the wrong ‘pyooter-platform, running shoes, snowblower, and on-and-on, ad infinitum, as it was in the beginning, ‘tis now and ever shall be, world without end, amen, amen.
If I switched back to Crest and/or goosestepped with the OxyContin®-King, that would be a major life-change; forced disability retirement isn’t.

So will we make 50 years? Probably.
Linda seems to think I’m worth it despite the madness, and the accumulated wisdom of poo-pooing relatives far away who aren’t involved (except to pass judgment).
So it depends on whether either of us tank in the next 10 years.
But we’re only in our early 60s, so I doubt it.

“Mother-Dear” is my mother. “Ted Hinderer” is my sister Betty’s (Elz) first (of four) husband. “ “Carol Button” is my wife’s brother’s first (of four) wife. “Peggy” is my baby-sister; she was born in late 1961; I am the first, born in early 1944. “Tim-oooo” is my brother Tim born in 1954. He had Down Syndrome, but lived at home. He is visible in the third pik saying “none of your lip.” He used to imitate the Three Stooges.

“National Clothing Company,” my first employer out of college, was in Rochester. It’s long defunct.

“The TR250” is a 1968 Triumph TR250 sportscar. “The Beast” was my first car, a 1958 Triumph TR3 sportscar that I had during my final year at college. It was very powerful — an old racecar.

“The Frejus” is my 10-speed Frejus Tour de France bicycle. I still have it. Frejus is Italian — but compared to current bicycles is quite heavy.

The “mighty Curve” (Horseshoe Curve), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan.)

“The Big-Block Chevy” is a V8 motor brought to market about 1965; first displacing 396 cubic inches. Later enlargements ran to 427 and 454 cubic inches. It was a truck-motor, but also applied to cars as a hot-rod motor. It’s much larger than the V8 Small-Block, which came to market in the 1955 model-year at 265 cubic inches — later enlarged to 283 and then 327 and finally 350 cubic inches. (There have been other displacements, like 302 cubic inches in Trans-Am.) Both motors are still in production, although the Small-block has been enlarged yet again and heavily modified. It’s in the Corvette. The Big-Block is no longer available in a car; only as a crate-motor (something you install yourself). It’s also available in trucks. The Big-Block came in displacements of 430 cubic inches and up in the Can-Am, and cranked about 6-800 horsepower; with gobs of torque. But it was no match for the turbocharged Porsches.

“Bud Moore” used to drive NASCAR in the early years. He later became an entrant with others driving for him. He entered the Trans-Am because his cars could smash the competition by reflecting NASCAR experience.

“The News-Journal” is the Wilmington News-Journal newpaper, the daily newspaper in Wilmington, DE.

My siblings, unlike me, are “zealots,” tub-thumping born-again Christians in the mold of Jerry Falwell. Therefore I am inferior. They claim a stroke is nothing compared to being “born-again.”

My younger brother in northern Delaware works at the “Valero” oil-refinery, where my father worked, although at that time it was “Flying-A.”

“Rochester-Rehab” is Rochester Rehabilitation Center in Rochester, where I did post-stroke rehabilitation.

The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired two years ago.

My wife (Linda) has lymphatic cancer. It’s treatable — she will survive.

A loud famblee argument has surfaced about “hottie.” I follow the old definition where “hottie” equaled a slut. But all my Christian-zealot relatives loudly declare that “hottie” has become a symbol of Christian virtue and attractiveness.

I am loudly criticized by all my siblings for using the wrong toothpaste, ‘pyooter-platform, running shoes, snowblower, ad infinitum. As such I am adjudged inferior and reprehensible.

“OxyContin®-King” is Rush Limbaugh.

clear up to her patootie

Leave it to the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA to give me material......

Renovation of the exercise-gym at the Canandaigua YMCA has put three 42-inch wide/flat-screen, high-definition plasma-babies above the treadmills on the wall.
Since they can’t push sound, they also display the translations for the deaf.
Normally I disregard the video-inputs, like the new Cardio-Theater machines.
But here I am blasting an elliptical, a machine I kind of loathe, so I was distracted by a plasma-baby.
I have no idea what channel it was on (since there are 89 bazilyun any more), but here comes “Tyra;” the so-called “Queen of High-Low Living,” flouncing down the runway trying to look super-sexy.
EX-KYOOZE me, but she’s a big girl; at least 20 pounds overweight. With thighs like that she shouldn’t be wearing short skirts.
(Is this some sort of subliminal motivation to work out?)
They began to detail the so-called “Twelve Commandments of high-low living.”
A youngish big-thighed strumpet was trotted out. “Welcome Tasha!”
“See that purse? $2,000! A Chanel purse.”
“WHAT?” I thought to myself. “Two-thousand smackaroos for something ya might be able to front on the street for five bucks? They’d love ya at White’s Flower-Farm: basket of pine-cones, only $385.”
Tyra turns to designer number-two and asks how ya accentuate a $2,000 purse.
“Everything monochromatic,” designer trumpets.
“What about the dress?” Tyra asks — a monochromatical white strapless ya could not work in for fear of distracting the male eye-candy. And the skirt on big-leg Tasha was clear up to her patootie.
“$19.50 at ‘Play-it-Again Sam’s lightly-used clothing rag-bag.’”
“And how about those pumps?” Tyra asked.
“$25 at shoe-dollar!”
“Wow! You scored big, girl!” shrieked Tyra.
“WAIT A MINUTE!” I thought. “$2,000 plus $19.50 plus $25 equals $2,044.50. This sounds like Dubya’s budget for the war in Iraq.”
“How come that designer didn’t get that there handbag from Sam’s?”
Tyra began interviewing an aging hottie-wannabee (over 35) that only bought designer clothes.
She was upset doing so cost so much money, but “designer clothes make me look sexier.” (Ahem!)
“Here I am out on some date with a hot guy, and he puts his arm around me so he can look at the designer label.”
“WHAT?” I think. In the world I come from that was called instigating a pass. (ILL REPUTE ALERT!)
Meanwhile Lady Dame Chanel, or her heirs, or her establishment/WHATEVER are laughing their way to the bank. “Slap another steak on the grill, Lady Chanel; someone just bought one of them purses.”
Probably made by China by Chinese child prison-labor out of embossed vinyl on a cardboard/lead casing. That there label ain’t worth two-thousand buckaroos.

“Plasma-babies” are what my macho, blowhard brother-in-Boston calls all high-definition, wide/flat-screen TVs.

“Dubya” is George W. Bush, our current president.

A loud famblee argument has surfaced about “hottie.” I follow the old definition where “hottie” equaled a slut. But all my Christian-zealot relatives loudly declare that “hottie” has become a symbol of Christian virtue and attractiveness.

“Slap another steak on the grill, (Lorrie)” is my response to my macho, blowhard brother-in-Boston, a Harley-guy, walking into his local Harley-shop to order custom-wheels for his Harley. The Shop is called “Monty’s,” and an owner is “Lorrie.”

In the trash

Epson 10000 XL.

YEAH SURE.........

Intuit has sent me a free TurboTax® CD.
From what I can ascertain, it’s just like the free AOL CDs that become cup-holders.
Like all AOL CDs this TurboTax® CD will immediately go in the trash.
“Ask you simple questions.....”
Like:
-1) “What is the meaning of life;” and
-2) “What is the value of Pi to 118 places?”
I tried TurboTax a few years ago. —Simple questions like.....
“-List all your incomes.” (Uh, just for TurboTax? I do that for 1040 anyway.)
“-What did you give each individual charity?”
Um, Schedule-A doesn’t even want you to individualize each charity......
—Which is why my Schedule-A Excel spreadsheet doesn’t individualize each charity.
I hardly consider going back and getting an individual total for each charity a simple act.
The work-around is to individualize each charity-gift through the year.
I could do that with another Excel spreadsheet.
But what’s the point if Schedule-A doesn’t even require that? —Plus my Excel spreadsheet is aimed at what Schedule-A wants.
I suppose they have to set up for undeductable charity-gifts, but individualization in my case becomes a “waist” of time.
Sorry; Schedule-A with my spreadsheet is a slam-dunk.
With it, income-tax takes about an hour.
TurboTax® would at least quadruple that, perhaps quintuple it.
“Risk-free TurboTax® CD — try before you buy!”
No thank you — we tried that road before.
Compared to my already established system, TurboTax® is a “waist” of time.
Wherein is individualizing each charity-gift a simple act?
—Especially when ya don’t need to........
TurboTax® is for people utterly buffaloed by their income-tax. I majored in History.

“AOL” is America-On-Line.

“Waist” is how my blowhard brother-in-Boston noisily insists “waste” is spelled. He also insists “waist” is spelled “waste.”

RE: “TurboTax® is for people utterly buffaloed by their income-tax. I majored in History......” —All my siblings (except one) use TurboTax® and claim I am utterly stupid — that I can’t make sense of it for lack of gray-matter. (The exception has his taxes done by an outside service.) —All my brothers were trained as engineers, yet I majored in History; making me inferior.

It’s hard to keep a straight face...........

.......when ya hear something like this.

Overheard at the mighty Canandaigua Weggers on the store-wide public-address system today (Sunday, December 23, 2007):
“Will all frozen personnel please report to the loading-dock.”

“Mighty Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at.

RE: “Grady”

I should try to explain “Grady” for those of you who accessed this blog from a “Grady’s World” link.
“Grady” is the nickname I was given many years ago during my earliest days at the mighty Mezz.
It was given to me by Steve Bradley, the long-gone guy who was Sports-Editor at that time.
It was early ‘96, a little over two years after my stroke, which was in late 1993. It was my first job since the stroke.
Back then the newspaper was still pasted up — not ‘pyooterized. My job was in paste-up: pasting copy-galleys to large cardboard page-dummies, which were later shot by a gigantic camera to make large page-size negatives for burning printing-plates.
The scoreboard-page was known as the “agate-page,” because the copy-font was agate.
Usually the agate-page was laid out first each day.
The agate-page was eight columns of tiny type; regular pages were six.
The agate-page was normally laid out by Kenny Rush; a long-time paste-up employee, so he could lay it out himself.
The agate-page had to be laid out just so.
National scoreboxes (e.g. Major League Baseball, profession football, professional basketball) were top-left, and ran the entire scorebox.
If there were both football and basketball, football ran first.
Local agate — local high-school football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, whatever — ran top-right, and we tried to run all of it.
Anything else — golf, professional soccer, ice-hockey, tennis, etc. — was filler; i.e. cutable.
So if Kenny was laying it out, he could do the whole agate-page and slam-dunk have it approved by Bradley.
I didn’t know the priorities at first, and Bradley didn’t consider stroke-addlement anything other than a negatory attitude.
So when he saw I was doing the agate-page, he’d get angrily frustrated, and make a faint stab at showing me the priorities: “This is what I wancha to do: Dink-Dink-Dink!”
....Which is what I did, but then he’d come over and tear up what I had done — and bellow that I hadn’t done as asked.
Finally I got mad: “So what do you actually want?” I asked. “Ya tell me how to do it, I do that, and then ya tear up what ya asked for, saying I didn’t do as asked.”
Others at the mighty Mezz loved it. Finally someone was challenging the jerk.
So Bradley gave me the name “Grady;” mainly as a put-down.
“Grady” is the TV-character I supposedly look a little like.
Eventually I got so I could lay out the dreaded agate-page just like Kenny, and Bradley would slam-dunk approve what I did and send it to camera.
No input from Bradley at all; which seems to be what he wanted.
But then the dreaded agate-page was handed over to Hockey-Dude, and he got the insanity.
Mere mention of the name of Steve Bradley to Hockey-Dude would start kicking his trashcan.
So obviously it wasn’t just me.
The “Grady” name stuck, even after Bradley went elsewhere.
And he departed about two years after I started — and I worked there almost 10 years.
It wasn’t “Bobbalew,” but I didn’t care that much.
I kept getting introduced as “Grady.”
“This is Grady. Don’t let him scare you. He’s rather gruff, but harmless.”
People loved it I made then laugh.
“What is it that you do, Grady?”
“I don’t know; anything and everything.”
“We keep him on the payroll, because his fingers are in our entire operation, and he makes us laugh.”
In later years, the infamous Marcy, who like me has a blog, and is ex of the Mezz, and the Webmaster at the Mezz (Matt Ried: “REED”), tried to change my nickname to something more appropriate.
But that crashed mightily in flames (I forget what it was).
It stayed “Grady” until I retired.
In fact, when I retired they printed a “Grady-book.”
Only one person at the mighty Mezz addressed me as “Bobbalew.”

The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired two years ago. Best job I ever had.

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

“Hockey-Dude” is Matt Saxon, a graphic-artist hired a few years after I started. He did paste-up, among other things. I call him “Hockey-Dude” because he likes ice-hockey. “Hockey-Dude” and I had a rollicking good time, but he left before I retired.

“The infamous Marcy” is my number-one ne’er-do-well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the mighty Mezz. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells.

Two things

-1) Rejected!
The other night (Thursday, December 20, 2007) the local TV-news we watch (WHAM; Channel 13) did a “Bright Spot” about young boys constructing Blue-Jay birdhouses.
Some lady was being interviewed and said Blue-Jays reject a birdhouse if it wasn’t made precisely enough.
“Uh-oh, Dora; we gotta move. I detect a 64th-inch gap in this corner-seam where somebody oversanded.”
“REEEE-JECTED! Boy that’s gotta hurt, Jeb.”
“Mr. Hughes; can you please watch the news without snide remarks.......”

-2) Thank ya, Gates.
I have noticed our cellphones are quite unpredictable.
Shut-down is supposed to cycle a shut-down screen and chimes.
But often it doesn’t.
The phone shuts down, but without its little dance.
The other hairball is after charging.
Pull out the charger and the phone turns on.
Ain’t supposed to.
Who programmed these things, Microsoft?

“REEEE-JECTED! Boy that’s gotta hurt, Jeb........” is a line from a “Just-For-Men” TV-ad. The protagonist (a graybeard) was making a pass at “little Miss Hotty” in a bar. He needed to apply “Just-For-Men” to be successful, whereupon “little Miss Hotty” threw him on the floor.

RE: “Thank ya, Gates.........” —All my siblings use PCs, but I use a MAC, so am therefore reprehensible. (Bill Gates is the president of Microsoft.)

Fireworks for sure

Last night (Thursday, December 20, 2007) I went to the regular monthly business-meeting of my old bus-union at Regional Transit Service in Rochester, Local 282 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, the union for transit-employees nationwide.
About 20 were in attendance, the usual motley collection of ignorant whiners and complainers — plus about seven on the podium.
Old business: “first we gotta vote on the new copier,” Business-Agent Frank Falzone (“Foul-ZONE”) said. “I’ll turn this over to Matt Shaw, who pursued it.”
“Yada-yada-yada ... $119 (or whatever) a month lease ... printer, fax machine, scanner, copier; the whole shebang ... yada-yada-yada.”
“What if we buy it outright?” someone shrieked.
“$6,000; and that doesn’t include a service-contract,” Matt said.
Finally a vote was taken. “Next we’ll discuss the proposed union-computer,” Frank said.
“Uh-ohhh...” I thought to myself. Fireworks for sure.
The copier passed. My old 282-News was “printed” on the union-copier — but that was Toshiba; the new one would be Canon. “We’re payin’ more per month for toner,” Matt said.
Next item of business: “Again, I’ll turn the discussion over to Matt Shaw,” Frank said. “He pursued the computer purchase too.”
Matt is apparently on the Executive Board of Local 282. He apparently did ‘pyooter installation for the Army, and does ‘pyooter-installations as a part-time job.
Again: “Yada-yada-yada-yada ... total cost of entire system; $8,025.”
A noisy wave of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth overswept the hall.
“The Chair recognizes Darryl.”
“I got a computer at Circuit-City and it didn’t cost no $8,000.”
“I got mine at Best Buy and it cost $1,000,” someone yelled.
“The Chair recognizes Ozzie.”
“I got a sister in Trenton, N.J.,” Ozzie bellowed, “and she has a PH-D in ‘pyooters!”
(Here we go....)
“She sets up ‘pyooters for the gumint,” he yelled. “You give me $450, and I can set you up!”
“Uh, sure,” I thought to myself. “...From the back of the faded blue Econoline in the old Tops parking-lot on Joseph Ave.”
Later, at home, my wife said 450 smackaroos would get a decent ‘pyooter; but only a ‘pyooter, not a complete system. And the ‘pyooter would be a desktop; not a laptop.
Item-by-item Shaw ticked off the parts of the proposed system: two work stations, a server, battery standby, auto file backup, anti-virus, and about six applications, including the vaunted “MUMS” application, written for unions, that the Washington, D.C. central office wants all the locals to have. ($1,200 — half of which gets rebated by the central-office after four months’ use.)
“What do we need a server for?” I asked.
“So people outside can access our files. Ya won’t need to be in the office.”
“I don’t think ya need a server for that,” I said.
“How many ‘pyooters does our Union currently have?” someone asked.
“Currently none,” Frank said.
“I see two ‘pyooters on the podium,” someone said.
“Yep,” Frank said. “This one’s Blocchi’s (John “BLOCK-eee” — the Recording Secretary), and that one down there is Matt’s.”
“So that’s two right there, and Joe (Carey; the Union-Prez) also has his own.”
“Wait a minute!” Frank bellowed. “My kids at home let me play with their’s occasionally.”
“The cost of this system is two seven-dollar assessments per member,” said Matt. “We pay way more than that for arbitrations. I got bids clear up to $12,000.”
“So what did the Executive-Board think?”
“Unanimous,” said Frank.
“What about other locals in New York state? What about Syracuse? What about Buffalo?”
“I don’t know about those two,” Frank said; “but Albany has MUMS, and they wish they had gotten it sooner.”
The proposed ‘pyooter-system crashed mightily in flames.
“Will all in favor of purchasing the proposed system please raise their hands?”
No hands.
“Will all opposed to purchasing the proposed system please raise their hands?”
A forest of hands shot up. (Raise both hands to be counted twice!)
“You guys want a computer? Ya can’t even get us a bylaws-book.”
“With a ‘pyooter we could easily print a bylaws-book.”

For 16&1/2 years I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y.

RE: “My old 282-News......” —During my final year at Transit (see above) I did a voluntary union newsletter (in Word) titled “The 282-News.”

RE: “.....back of the faded blue Econoline (Ford Econoline van) in the old Tops parking-lot on Joseph Ave.......” —My relatives all claim I pay too much for anything I purchase, and suggest alternatives for a song. My response is: “from the back of the faded blue Econoline in the old Tops parking-lot on Joseph Ave.” Joseph Ave. is the slums in Rochester. Tops Supermarkets once had a supermarket grocery-store there, but pulled out.

My wife was previously a computer-programmer.

Appleworks-V

The other night (Sunday, December 16, 2007) my vaunted Appleworks-V tied itself in knots. First time ever; and I use it a lot.
What I usually do is type into Appleworks so I can use their spellcheck.
AW5 also has all my macros, so I can add “weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth” without having to type it out.
“Awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity” is also a macro.
My HTML-tags are also macros, even the color-tags.
So what happens is after the file is generated, and spellchecked, I copy/paste it into the final whatever: e-mail, blog, FlagOut.
So here I am, generating a response in Appleworks-V to the bluster-boy’s usual rotten tomatoes. I select-all, and copy-paste into the FlagOut response-window, as I’ve done thousands of times.
Boom! The previous clipboard pastes in, which has nothing to do with his fulminations.
Okay; looks like I failed to copy the AW file I just did. Select-all, copy-paste, and try again.
Boom! Same old previous clipboard.
What in the wide, wide world is going on here? I select-all and copy-paste. Again; still the previous clipboard.
Okay, “view clipboard.” Very interesting. The contents is is my most recent AW file, so I paste that and get the previous clipboard, which “view-clipboard” says no longer exists.
Meanwhile, Appleworks has disappeared from my desktop, so I click on the icon in the dock.
Doing so brings the clicked app to the front, but in this case nothing.
Uh-oh..... Looks like Appleworks-V, my most reliable and most-used app, has lost its way.
Reboot time.
I “restart,” and fire up Appleworks-V again. Back to normal. Sweetness-and-light.

“FlagOut” is our family’s web-site, named that because I had a mentally-retarded kid-brother (Down Syndrome) who lived at home, and loudly insisted the flag be flown every day. “Flag-Out! Sun comes up, the flag goes up! Sun goes down, the flag comes down.” I fly the flag partly in his honor. (He died at 14 in 1968.)

“The bluster-boy” is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say — (“rotten tomatoes”).

“App” is software application.

Overheard in the waiting-room of Bloomfield Family Practice

Last Friday morning (December 14, 2007) I had to go to Bloomfield Famblee Practice to get a blood-draw for my upcoming prostate exam.
“Every time somebody says ‘Happy Holidays’ to me, Dora, I say ‘Merry Christmas.’ I figure I got a right.”
Each protagonist weighed about 300 pounds — I was afraid of the speaker doing the Kate Smith shake and belting out “God Bless America.”
“This country is being taken over by a tiny liberal cabal, and they wanna take all the joy out of Christmas.”
“First it was Hanukkah, then Kwanzaa; what next?”
“And they wanna get Hillary Clinton elected president. She’s Satan, ya know. I heard that on Don Imus.”
“And they want Santa to lose weight, and stop that ‘Ho-ho-ho’ stuff.”
“It’s awful, I tell ya. Next they’ll be against Christmas trees!”

“Bloomfield Family Practice” (in nearby Bloomfield) is our health-provider.

Banana

BANANA

The Keed with the dreaded D100 and flash.

(That pocket zipper is the same as the original jacket-zipper. The hood [never used] is for comparison.)

The dreaded “Banana” is retired.
Not the motorbike; the jacket (pictured).
The “Banana” is the down-filled jacket I bought years ago at Burlington Coat-Factory.
It’s very functional, but liked to eat zippers.
It came with a plastical zipper (like the pocket-zipper), but that soon gave out.
We replaced it with another plastic zipper, but that soon gave out too.
Zipper-teeth would disintegrate.
So we replaced it with a metal zipper, but the zipper-head would jam on adjacent nylon shell lining.
We had to replace the whole shebang with zipper number-four; but it too liked to jam on the shell-lining.
Once it jammed so bad we had to cut away shell-fabric.
So now I had a hole in the lining next to zipper. I had to avoid that, but could.
I also learned the head might jam, but the lining wasn’t hooked in the zipper-teeth. Work past the jam and I could back it down.
Meanwhile, the shell was getting dirtier and dirtier.
I could wash the jacket, but that invited disgorging goose-down. So I dry-cleaned it a few times.
Anxious to get a new jacket, I went back to Burlington Coat-Factory. Other sources (like Lands End) had goose-down jackets, but they were chintsy.
I walked out of Burlington Coat-Factory with another down-filled jacket, but it’s overkill. Too warm. Fine for an inactive person, but not to ski in. (My first test at Burlington Coat-Factory got tossed, because it liked to jam the zipper-head.)
I also used the Banana a lot to ride motorbike. I liked the fact it was yellow. Yellow gets seen; even more so than red.
I took the Banana along on our motorbike trip to the mighty Curve; much to the noisy chagrin of the almighty Bluster-King.
It was July, but I know how it is. I don’t like riding motorbike with an inadequate jacket in the cold (and at 60+ mph on motorbike the breeze is colder).
But I never needed it.
But the Banana needed replacement.
But to replace it meant meeting various givens; the pursuit of which consumed time.
I already had made one mistake.
Froogle produced 89 bazilyun hits, none of which seemed adequate.
It also didn’t bring up the jacket I ended up trying.
So another online stab-in-the-dark.
Order a jacket and see what arrives.
But VIOLA! It fits and is light enough to ski in; yet warm.
So the Banana is retired.
Now for a deluge of LL Bean suggestions; even though LL Bean was among the discarded Froogle-hits.

RE: “Banana” is the name my macho-blowhard Harley-guy brother-from-Boston gave this jacket as a put-down.

My motorcycle, a 600cc 2003 Honda CBR/RR crotch-rocket, is known as the LHMB. Seeing a picture of it, my sister-in-Floridy declared “Lord-Have-Mercy;” and my macho loudmouthed Harley-guy brother-in-Boston, seeing it was yellow, pronounced it a “Banana.” So LHMB equals Lord-Have-Mercy-Banana; not to be confused with the jacket.

The “mighty Curve” (Horseshoe Curve), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan.) My brother-from-Boston and I rode our motorcycles there about five-six summers ago. (The Pennsylvania Railroad is no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that went bankrupt in about two years. The Pennsylvania Railroad was once the largest railroad in the world.)

“The almighty Bluster-King” is my macho, loudmouthed brother-from-Boston. He badmouths everything I do or say.

RE: “Now for a deluge of LL Bean suggestions........” —My brother-from-Delaware and his wife will make 89 bazilyun LL Bean suggestions for a down-filled jacket. They are heavily into LL Bean.

Hooray-hooray

My two Motorbooks calendars arrived yesterday (Saturday, December 15, 2007), that replace my two Oxman car calendars, which to my humble mind aren’t worth hanging.
Thankfully I never paid for those Oxman calendars (which are going in the recycling); or more precisely, they never charged me for them.
The Oxman site still displayed the 2007 calendars (no doubt our ISP), so I ended up phoning my order.
The two Oxman calendars came, but they never charged me for them.
The sportscar calendar is especially dreadful — only two cars are worth looking at: a Ford GT40 and a rather questionable 1951 Ferrari that looks like one of my wife’s loaves of whole-wheat raisin-bread, although red.
The rest are all prewar, including a gauche Hitler Mercedes — except for a gull-wing Mercedes.
The Duesenberg Model J? Admittedly one of the greatest cars of all time (“it’s a Doozey” comes from it), but I’ll take the XK-E Jag.
My Oxman hot-rod calendar is also dreadful; all dreamcars by Chuck Foose.
Excuse me, they look like trailer-queens. How does one get such a thing in the driveway without scraping the radiator-shell?
And everything looks like a ‘34 Ford. Foose is obviously drawn to the siren-song of the ‘34 Ford; to him apparently the ultimate in hot-rod expression.
Excuse me again; I’ll take the ‘32 — so my Motorbooks hot-rod calendar is all 1932 Fords.
2008 follows the 75th anniversary of the ‘32 Ford; although many of the cars in the calendar are Bonneville lakesters.
Some are sedans and Phaetons; not the delicious coupes and roadsters.
A friend at Houghton had one: a gray five-window coupe.
But it was stock, and had the four-cylinder engine. (We rode in the trunk once to Letchworth — crippled, fuel-evaporation in the fuelline.)
My Motorbooks sportscar calendar is all Corvettes, although it lacks the most collectible Corvette of all time: the 1957 fuel-injection.
One of my unforgettable epiphanies involves Corvettes.
I was peddling my ancient Rollfast bicycle through Fairfax Shopping Center, and three Corvettes were parked in front of the bowling-alley: a black ‘57 Fuelly, a ‘57 two-pot, and a ‘56 two-pot. (All were four-on-the-floor.)
Suddenly four young dudes burst from the bowling-alley and strode toward the Corvettes.
I immediately peddled my Rollfast up to the traffic-light where the Fairfax Shopping Center parking-lot empties onto Route 202, because I knew I was about to witness an EVENT.
Sure enough, the ‘Vettes angled out onto 202, laid down huge smoking stripes of rubber, and wound out to about 7,000 rpm.
It’s something I’ll never forget as long as I live; right up there with Don Garlits, the Corsair at Willow Grove, and 765 in New River Gorge.
That incident initiated my lust for the Small-Block that lasted at least 20 years!

I have seven calendars: four trains (I’m a railfan), two cars, and one WWII warbirds. —All for wall-art; better than paintings, which don’t change every month.

RE: “No doubt our ISP!” —ISP equals Internet-Service-Provider; in our case RoadRunner via the cable. Last July my macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston visited, and set up a wireless Internet connection to my wireless router. His Internet reception was spotty, so he loudly blamed our Internet-Service-Provider (ISP). Now anything untoward is due to my ISP.

RE: “Trailer-queens......” —A trailer-queen is a showcar that never gets used on the road.

RE: “Bonneville lakesters.......” —Are racing-cars for the speed-trails at Bonneville salt flats (dry lake) near Salt Lake City. The Salt Flats are big and flat enough for wide-open top-speed runs. “Lakester” is the slang term for cars racing top-speed runs. At first many hot-rods were the old Fords hopped up for speed. They were run (before Bonneville) on the big dry-lakes near Los Angeles.

“Houghton” is Houghton College, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it. Houghton is a religious college.

“Letchworth” is a large park near Houghton College.

“Fairfax Shopping Center” is near where we lived in Wilmington, DE.

“Two-pot” is two four-barrel carburetors; a very strong fuel-supply. (Single four-barrel carbs were later built with even more capacity than two four-barrels.)

-1) “Don Garlits” raced his fuel dragster at Cecil County Drag-o-way (in northeastern Maryland) in the summer of ‘65, and laid rubber the whole length of the quarter-mile. It was so loud, you had to cover your ears. White flames at least 15 feet long were roaring out of the header-pipes. -2) A Navy Corsair fighter-plane was at Willow Grove Naval Air Station near Philadelphia back in 1951 when I visited with the Cub-Scouts. A pilot strode out and fired up the Corsair sending huge gouts of yellow flame down the fuselage. -3) “765” is a restored Nickel Plate Railroad Berkshire SuperPower steam-locomotive (2-8-4). I rode behind it in 1991 on the Chesapeake & Ohio mainline through New River Gorge in West Virginny, and it was doing 70-75 mph.

The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches in the 1955 model-year. It was phenomenally successful, and is still in production; now up to 350 cubic-inches — even larger.

Monthly calendar report:

December 2007 is not the banner month for calendar entries last month was, when some of the greatest motorized vehicles of all time were displayed.

Roger Durfee.

Norfolk Southern freight in Kent, Ohio.

But it is a pretty good month, and surprise-surprise, December’s best calendar-entry is the Norfolk Southern calendar picture above.
Roger Durfee of Cleveland, took his Canon Digital Rebel trackside to Kent, Ohio in a blizzard to capture a Norfolk Southern freight-train heading toward Bellvue.
Durfee is a conductor, a Norfolk Southern employee. All entries in the Norfolk Southern calendar are by Norfolk Southern employees. It’s a contest.
The Canon Digital Rebel is the premier digital camera, perhaps even better than my Nikon D100 (the D200 is now Nikon’s premier digital offering).
In my case, the D100 is somewhat overkill, since I’m shooting simple jpegs — it will do all kinds of professional formats.
Plus you can alterate white-balance and color-balance (things I can do with Photoshop), but the main thing is I can shoot aperture-priority and control f-stop to increase depth-of-field.
It also will shoot shutter-priority, which I sometimes have to do (at a fast speed) to get a sharp shot. I need fast shutter-speed with strong telephoto, which is often focused at infinity, so depth-of-field doesn’t matter that much.
So here’s Durfee out there set up on a wind-blown highway overpass, camera probably on a tripod (or maybe not; it’s a normal lens); wife (or significant-other; whatever) shielding the whole kaboodle with an umbrella.
Linda and I used to do that, although I never got anything in a snowburst.
We have an ancient picture of me at trackside looking through my 300mm “cannon” east of Newark on the Water-Level. I was in my 20s.

Philip Makanna.

“Sentimental Journey.”

My Ghosts WWII warbird calendar has a B17.
I’ve seen B17s fly; bog-slow, a sitting duck.
No wonder so many got shot down.
Loaded with armament, but still a turkey.
And often the things limped back all shot up; sometimes on only two engines.
Years ago, when we lived on Winton Road in Rochester, I heard the distinctive sound of a radial airplane engine.
I ran outside on our back deck, and there was old “Fuddy-Duddy,” the B17 owned at that time by the Geneseo warbird group.
Bog-slow, it lumbered overhead; and the motors on B17s aren’t very impressive (only four 750 horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-1690 radial engines) — it’s a ‘30s airplane.
I went through Fuddy-Duddy once. My impression was that it was much smaller than it appeared, and made of Swiss-Cheese.
The fuselage-rings appeared to be thinly-machined aluminum castings. They didn’t look very sturdy.
Most of the motors were without cowlings, and each over a large puddle of engine-oil.
Someone reported that one motor was very difficult; nearly impossible to start.
Yet these were the planes that bombed the living daylights out of the Nazi Axis.
It’s a pity so many got shot down.
They’d take down a crew of 10, although many tried to parachute to safety, but into enemy hands.

Scott Williamson.

Lambo.

My Oxman sportscar calendar has a 1966 Lamborghini 400GT (pictured), a car I lusted after.
—Although I remember thinking it wasn’t very attractive. The GT was introduced in 1963 as the 350GT at the Turin Motor Show in Italy; an alternative to Ferrari.
As such it had a 3.5-liter V12 engine designed by Giotto Bizzarini. It was a good motor.
The 400 is a larger (later) variant of the 350; four-liter displacement.
The GT Lambo wasn’t very attractive, but an alternative to Ferrari, which seemed overblown.
Plus it had a V12 motor; just like the Ferrari — I wanted one. If I can’t get a Ferrari, I’ll take the Lambo.
But cars have become more pedestrian since then; as have my tastes.
Even back then, where could you properly stretch out a V12 motor? —Now would be utterly impossible.
What matters now is not performance, but techno-wizardry — can I play my iPod in it, and will it render GPS coordinates? All tricks to distract that you’re immobilized in a traffic-jam.
Okay, so I get a Ferrari; where do I put the dog? The groceries? Will it idle at 5 mph in traffic?
And now even ho-hum cars are better than that old Lambo. I rode around in a hot-rodded ‘55 Chevy once — the car of my dreams all through college.
Our Faithful-Hunda was a better car; slower, and not the blowsy old antique the ‘55 Chevy was.
A ‘66 Lambo would be an antique!

Tom Smart.

GP9a #7184 powers local-freight through the back-streets of Cincinnati in 1966.

The December entry of my All-Pennsy color-calendar is two Pennsylvania Railroad GP9s (pictured) powering a local-freight through Cincinnati.
Pennsy was a late-comer to diesel power, a holdout for steam clear until 1957 — perhaps because it moved so much coal, and steam-engines were coal-fired.
But it was a futile effort. Diesels were much better at moving heavy consists uphill at slow speeds: what Pennsy was doing.
Pennsy never really did the SuperPower gig in the ‘30s, perhaps because of electrification and the GG1.
So their steam-engines of the ‘20s were never replaced with ‘30s power; and Pennsy never really got into developing replacement power until the ‘40s — in fact, not until after the war. (Pennsy was also developing it own engines; it never bought from outside suppliers except to its own plans.)
So Pennsy may have never had GP7s — in fact, I don’t think it had F3s, or the EMD FT which was introduced in 1939.
So that by the time Pennsy dieselized, the Geep was already up to the GP9, and the so-called “Covered-Wagons” (the F-units) were up to the F7.
Pennsy passenger-diesels came earlier, but not as early as other railroads.
Freight kept moving behind steam; and when Pennsy finally dieselized, they had to purchase power from everyone and anyone — so much that what they bought was more experimental in nature.
As a long-time Baldwin customer, Pennsy bought a huge number of Baldwin diesels, but they were no match for the reliability of the General Motors EMD offerings. Baldwin diesels would break down and tie up the railroad — as did Alco and Lima-Hamilton. (Baldwin eventually became Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton.) The EMDs were more reliable.
So here we have GP9s powering a local-freight in Cincinnati — not Baldwin or Alco.
#7048 at the mighty Curve is a GP9; modified some, but still a GP9. #7048 is one of the 270 GP9s Pennsy had — as are these engines.

Scott Williamson.

The McMullen roadster.

My Oxman (same link as above) hot-rod calendar is the famous 1932 Ford roadster raced by Tom McMullen in the late ‘50s.
It’s now owned by someone else, but set the appearance-standard for 1932 highboys after appearing on the cover of Hot Rod Magazine in 1963 — which means I probably got that magazine at Houghton, since I was a subscriber in 1963; which means it probably caused weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth by my friend Neal “nerd” Frey, who was appalled that anyone would hot-rod anything by the greatest car-manufacturer of all time: Henry Ford. (Neal had a Model-T — “all ya ever need.”)
The McMullen roadster had a blown 327 cubic-inch Small-Block Chevy. It also had that tiny beer-keg in front of the radiator for gasoline — enough gas for a speed-run, but nothing more.
They looked very trick, so many hot-rods were built with that keg, plus a regular gas-tank in the back.
The car also has flame-paint laid out by Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, the infamous “Rat-Fink.” He also did the pin-striping, which looks ridiculous (it’s not visible on the trunk-lid). The Penske Trans-Am Camaros also had pin-striping, which also looked ridiculous.
But the McMullen roadster is still the same car it was in 1963 — one of the best-looking hot-rods of all time.

Martin Zak.

Alco RS3s past Slope uphill toward the mighty Curve in December of 1960.

My Audio-Visual Designs black & white All-Pennsy calendar is at a tower in Altoony that no longer exists: Slope.
Slope interlocking still exists, at the foot of the long grade over the Alleghenies (which includes Horseshoe Curve); but the tower is long-gone.
“Alto” Tower (in Altoony) still exists, and dispatches everything on The Hill. I’ve listened to their dispatchers on my scanner doing their Marlon-Brando Godfather imitations: “Track-uh Two-uh.” There also are some skirt dispatchers the train-crews try to flirt with.
The Hill was why Pennsy was so successful: a well-placed funnel that was fairly flat — flat enough to make transit west of the Alleghenies viable. Prior to Pennsy, horse-drawn freight-wagons took days to cross the Alleghenies, and then the state had a combination canal/inclined-plane railroad system to cross the state.
The combination canal/inclined-plane railroad system still took too long, so Pennsy was a smashing success; and it ended up moving huge quantities of freight, and opening up the midwest (and west).
By 1960 the Pennsy was in trouble — huge tax-bills and freight moving to trucks on the interstate-system. The Pennsylvania-Turnpike was also a competitor.
And yet The Hill still exists, although no longer Pennsy. It’s still so successful the Teamsters wanna shut it down, and have enlisted the help of Hillary-dillery.
The threat is that The Hill will get converted into a jogging-trail. Never happen; I say. (The state of Pennsylvania has millions invested to make that line clear double-stacked containers.)

Only one calendar remains: my Howard Fogg railroad calendar. It’s an oil-painting of a Southern-Pacific 4-8-2 Mountain steam-locomotive heading north toward Klamath Falls, Oregon with the second-section of a passenger-train. Ho-hum........

RE: “Alterate.......” —Years ago I passed a dry-cleaner that had a sign out front saying that it “alterated” clothes. I was driving transit-bus.

“Linda” is my wife.

The “300mm ‘cannon’” is the 300mm telephoto lens for my Pentax single-lens-reflex camera. It was as big as a “cannon.”

The “Water-Level” is the old New York Central railroad mainline across New York state. “Water-Level” because it follows rivers, and has easy grades.

“Geneseo” is a nearby rural town, but fairly large, because it has a branch of the state university.

“3.5-liter” is fairly small. The Small-Block Chevy is 4.34 liters and up (to around 6 liters). The Big-Block Chevy at 427 cubic-inches is 7 liters. (The Big-Block went up to 454 cubic inches — now it’s even bigger, but no longer in a car.)

“The Faithful Hunda” is our 1989 Honda Civic All-Wheel-Drive station-wagon, by far the BEST car we ever owned, now departed (replaced by our Honda CR-V). (Called a “Hunda” because that was how a fellow bus-driver at Transit [Regional-Transit-Service in Rochester, where I once worked], pronounced it.)

“Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that went bankrupt in about two years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world.

“SuperPower” was a specialized design of Lima Locomotive Works (in Lima, Ohio [“LYE-ma,” not “LEE-ma”]), maximizing horsepower and minimizing fuel-use. “SuperPower” locomotives could steam well at high cruising speeds — non SuperPower engines often ran out of steam at speed. “SuperPower” was mainly a ‘30s innovation, and many railroads bought “SuperPower” engines; although they were a waste at slow speed.

“The GG1” was an electric railroad locomotive designed by Pennsy for it’s New York City to Washington, D.C. service. It was extremely successful, and outlasted the railroad.

“EMD” is Electromotive Division of General Motors, GM’s manufacturer of railroad diesel-locomotives. Most railroads used EMD when they dieselized; although many now use General-Electric railroad diesel-locomotives.

“Geep” is the nickname given to EMD GP road-switchers (four axles). “Covered-Wagon” is the nickname given to full cab-units: e.g. F-units by EMD, FAs by Alco.

“Pennsylvania Railroad GP9 #7048” is on display at Horseshoe Curve (the “mighty Curve”), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan.) —GP9 #7048 replaced a Pennsylvania Railroad K4 Pacific steam-locomotive (#1361) built in the Altoona Shops in Altoona. (#1361 had been on display since 1957; until it was replaced and restored.)

“Baldwin” is Baldwin Locomotive Works on the Pennsy New York to Washington mainline in Eddystone, Pa. It is now defunct, but manufactured railroad steam-locomotives for many years. It started out in Philadelphia, but outgrew its original factory. Many Pennsy steam-locomotives were manufactured by Baldwin.

“Highboy” is a slang term to describe the hot-rodded 1932 Ford open roadster without fenders.

“Houghton” is Houghton College, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it. Houghton is a religious college.

“Blown” equals supercharged, in this case a 6-71 Rootes supercharger as used on GM diesel truck or bus-engines; driven by a large rubber belt.

The “Penske Trans-Am Camaros” were the Camaros entered in the early SCCA Trans-Am series; as entered by Roger Penske and driven by Mark Donohue (deceased).

An “interlocking” is where crossover switches, or switches, connect adjacent tracks. “Interlockings” are now called “Control-Points;” and used to be switched by lineside towers. They can now be switched electronically from a central location.

“The Hill” is the Pennsylvania Railroad’s grade over the Allegheny Mountains. It’s now operated by Norfolk Southern Railroad.

“My scanner” is the railroad radio-frequency scanner I monitor railroad radio transmissions with. Many railfans have scanners.

“Hillary-dillery” is Hillary Clinton.

“The Infamous Robin”

Wednesday, December 12, 2007, I met “The Infamous Robin” at the West Bloomfield Post-Office.
“Why ‘infamous?’” Robin asked.
“Because like you,” I said, “my wife works at this post-office.”
I deferred from relating my wife’s declaring Robin is a slop-hound.
“And who would that be?” Robin asked quizzically.
“Linda Hughes,” I said.
“Oh yes, Linda. Mother this is Mr. Hughes,” Robin said. “They live down Route 65 across from where Habecker used to live, two doors from Esther.”
(Habecker [Vern] is our 94-year-old nosy neighbor; “Esther” [Rehberg: “REE-burg”] is the retired West Bloomfield Town Clerk. —I’m told it’s actually Esther’s daughter........)
“Habecker still lives there,” I said.
That was either unheard, unnoted, or disregarded.

Mother Gargle.

“This is my mother, Mr. Hughes,” Robin said. “She lives right here in town, up behind the Town Hall.”
An approximation of Mother Gargle from the Born Loser cartoon greeted me, though lacking the frizzed hair and curlers.
“The Infamous Robin” is a big, blowsy woman, a dead ringer for a messy person. (“A really nice person,” Linda says; “but messy.”)
In her favor she works at the nearby and larger Lima Post-Office, which unlike tiny West Bloomfield is ‘pyooterized. West Bloomfield is a manual office, staffed by only one person, “Fran,” the postmaster.
Robin and my wife fill in, mostly Robin recently, since my wife is on the cancer-gig.
The West Bloomfield Post-Office has a doorbell on the counter to get the attention of the clerk, who sits out back.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Robin said. “Gotta finish my donut — chompf-chompf.”
Sometimes Robin works mornings, and my wife afternoons. Other times Fran works mornings followed by my wife.
“You can tell the difference,” my wife observed. “With Fran everything is in order, with nothing left to do. With Robin packages are tossed all over the place, and things left undone.”
Robin also belongs to the West Bloomfield Congregational Church, and is continually showering my wife with “Get-Well” cards. “Uh-ohhhh; another card from Robin.”
“Is your wife working this week?” Robin asked.
“I doubt it,” I said.

“My wife” (Linda) has lymphatic cancer. It’s treatable.

cardio-theater

The massive remodeling and expansion project at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA is completed, although it was just significantly enlarging the exercise-gym and installing new equipment.
Replaced are all the ancient Nautilus machines with new machines of a different brand.
They’ve also added a slew of cardio-machines: treadmills, ellipticals and exercise-bicycles.
Also added are two virtual bicycle-machines you have to steer, lest you plow headlong into a virtual tree.
They’ve also installed a gizmo that can replicate just about any leg-motion: running, a step-climber, cross-country skiing.
They’ve also installed an arm-bicycle, but only one.
All the new cardio-machines have cardio-theater, a small flat-screen TV on the machine.
Linda and I both went there yesterday (Monday, December 10, 2007); first time for Linda in about six months.
She never got to see the hourlies dumping broken masonry on a tarp because the mindless management minions couldn’t supply a dumpster.
Or hear the ratta-tat-tat of noisesome airguns chipping that masonry.
It also was the first time since her cancer diagnosis, and first time since the “cemo” started.
She was only able to crank 2.2 mph on the treadmill — a slow walk. I crank 3.6 mph (not 152).
So here we are cranking away on new bicycle-exercisers with the cardio-theater.
We turn it on and all it got was Channel-4; A blank screen.
Linda was adjacent and hit a keyboard-button after the Home screen.
VIOLA! Drew Cary and Price-is-Right.
So I hit Channel-13 and got the Whoopster interviewing somebody for The View.
No sound yet, but UGH!
I don’t think I could stand watching TV while I work out.
But it does have input selection and an iPod dock, so I guess I could watch 765 on the New River Train.
La-dee-dah! I still don’t think I could stand watching TV while I work out.

“Linda” is my wife of nearly 40 years. She has lymphatic cancer. (It’s treatable.)

“Cemo” is how is how my blowhard brother-in-Boston noisily insists “chemo” is spelled.

RE: “152.....” —My brother-in-Delaware bragged that his turbocharged Volvo station-wagon was capable of 152 mph.

“765” is a restored Nickel Plate railroad steam-locomotive, that my brother and I video-taped in 1993 in New River Gorge in West Virginny. They run it like the dickens — an awesome sight.

The great dishwasher search

And so begins the great dishwasher search.
For non famblee-members, that’s because the sealed bearings on our almost 18-year-old Maytag overheat and lock up, stalling out everything.
Repair would cost over $200, almost the cost of a new dishwasher.
The search for a new dishwasher could be exciting, if it didn’t gobble up so much time.
And so we set out yesterday afternoon (Sunday, December 9, 2007) for mighty Lowes in Canandaigua.
Getting to Lowes takes 30-40 minutes. A trip to Sears® at Eastview Mall in Victor would take about the same. All dishwasher outlets are about a half-hour away, at least.
And my wife had done considerable Internet research — although she is frustrated that our washer/dryer (Kenmore) were bought based on Internet research and are somewhat unsatisfactory. (Probably our ISP.)
The washer is somewhat rough on clothes and sounds like a railroad steam locomotive.
The lint-filter on the dryer doesn’t work very well.
Playing against all this is that our Bucktooth Bathtub is one of the best vehicles we’ve ever owned. In fact, if it were a car, it would be the best. The Faithful Hunda was a car — the Bucktooth Bathtub a van.
There also is our fantabulous Sanitaire “Mighty-Mite” portable vacuum-cleaner; an Internet recommendation.
So into mighty Lowes we go. All kinds of stuff is stacked sky-high under a 40-foot ceiling — an incredibly huge “big-box.”
The dishwashers were arrayed in a row in “appliances,” in the shadow of giant google-eyed front-loading washer/dryers — and water-dispensing refrigerators that looked more like billboards.
KitchenAid, Maytag, Frigidaire®, Bosch — interestingly, the ignitions and fuel-injection on my Volkswagens were Bosch.
Frustrating is the fact everything is made by who-knows-who. The Elite Kenmore is Bosch, and lesser Kenmores are Whirlpool.
Some of the Maytags looked like KitchenAid. They’re probably all made in China by Chinese child prison-labor from lead casings.
Perhaps two things differentiate: the tub and the front-door.
Our old Maytag’s tub was porcelain-enameled steel, but you no longer can get that.
Now it’s plastic or stainless-steel; and the stainless-steel looked chintzy — too thin.
The other differentiation is the front-door: enameled steel or brushed stainless. A stainless front-door is way more expensive. We don’t need that; we’re only trying to wash dishes, not impress the neighbors.
Okay, so plastic-tub and non-stainless front-door.
Dishwasher science has apparently advanced over the last 18 years. A spraybar does underneath the top-shelf, and there often is a small spray-head in the top. The top-shelf rolls out, but plumbing connects the spraybar with a water-feed when slid back.
Our old Maytag had one spraybar under the bottom shelf and a second in the roof — about eight inches above the top-rack dishes.
The idea is to not have to wash the dishes before putting in the dishwasher.
To us there are two other things to consider: -1) whether there is a way of superheating incoming water, and -2) capacity.
Our old Maytag only had a small heating-element for heating what water was already in the machine.
We also saw quite a few dishwashers that put the silverware in baskets in the doors. This frees up space in the rack that would otherwise be used as a silverware-basket.
So I guess what we want is silverware baskets in the doors, and a way of superheating the incoming water.
Our old Maytag also made a humungous racket. Maytags were notorious for this.
But recent dishwashers are a lot quieter — although more sound-insulation reduces capacity.
Hopefully tomorry (Tuesday, December 11, 2007) is mighty Sears®.
I also noticed mighty Lowes wants $130 for installing the dishwasher. I suppose Sears® will too.

“Mighty Lowes” is the Lowes national chain home-supply outlet.

RE: “Getting to Lowes takes 30-40 minutes........” —In the words of my siblings we are “centrally located: 25 minutes from everything.” (We live in the country.)

“Victor” is a town nearby. Eastview-Mall is not actually in the village of Victor, but in the town (ship).

RE: “Probably our ISP!” —ISP equals Internet-Service-Provider; in our case RoadRunner via the cable. Last July my macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston visited, and set up a wireless Internet connection to my router. His Internet reception was spotty, so he loudly blamed our Internet-Service-Provider (ISP). Now anything untoward is due to my ISP.

“The Bucktooth-Bathtub” is our 2005 Toyota Sienna van; called that because it’s white and like sitting in a bathtub, and appears to have a bucktooth on the grill.

“The Faithful Hunda” is our 1989 Honda Civic All-Wheel-Drive station-wagon, by far the BEST car we ever owned, now departed — replaced by our 2003 Honda CR-V SUV; which we’re not especially happy with — it’s a truck. (Called a “Hunda” because that was how a fellow bus-driver at Regional-Transit-Service in Rochester, where I once worked, pronounced it.)

My “Volkswagens” are late ‘70s and early ‘80s. But not the Beetle; a Dasher station-wagon and two Rabbits.

another gathering of ne’er-do-wells

Yesterday (Friday, December 7 [“A day that will live in infamy! I can still see that oily black pillar-of smoke TOWERING above that ship.”], 2007) was another gathering of the dreaded ne’er-do-wells, this time at El Pacifico restaurant, a Mexican restaurant near Canandaigua.
The meeting was to be at noon, but I was the first to arrive at 12:10. “At least five,” I told the greeter in my usual stumbling post-stroke gibberish.
Marcy and Mahooch (Bryan Mahoney) arrived about 10 minutes later, having driven all the way from Massachusetts; wherein faire Marcy got a $160 speeding-ticket.
Marcy is my number-one ne’er-do-well, and Mahoney is the best reporter the Messenger ever had. I say that because he rode the 100-foot-high waterslide at Roseland WaterPark (in Canandaigua) when it opened.
Bryan rode it despite advancing age (although he was only about 25 when he did it, but outta college). But to my humble mind the onliest way to properly understand that waterslide was to do it. I probably would have done it myself.
Marcy and Mahooch are now married, and I think it will work, since Mahooch is as wacko as Marcy.
Marcy and Mahooch both once worked at the mighty Mezz, although both quit and went to Boston without jobs.
“Are you guys crazy?” they were asked. Anything for them was better than the mighty Mezz, where they were both mucho stressed out.
Marcy’s income was so piddling she had to work two jobs; and Mahooch was parrying a mindless management minion.
But I came to Rochester without a job.
Mahoney is the Lexington Minuteman newspaper, and Marcy works as Marketing Coordinator at Hunneman real-estate services in Boston.
After about a half-hour of just the three of us, others walked in. But a half-hour was enough time to relate what few “Stooges” gags I remember.
“I’m an artist,” says Moe.
“So am I,” says Larry.
“Oh, a pair of drawers!” Curly says.
“Agent 12; reporting for duty, sir,” says Moe.
“Agent 14; reporting for duty,” says Larry.
“I’m Agent 15,” says Curly.
“What happened to Agent 13?” the General asks.
“We lost him swimming the Potomac River,” Curly says. “He died of Potomac poisoning; nyuk-nyuk-nyuk.....”
At this point cue Moe: “Here, see this?” POINK!
Quite a few were present, including Nano, Dreessen and Allison Cooper, all of the mighty Mezz. Nano is the oldest at 50 (or 51), and is formerly a ne’er-do-well, but so swamped with work as the staff artist she had to stop reading my stuff.
Nano is also Marcy’s aunt — and also plays cello (“We have decided to name you Yo-Mama”).
“Don’t worry, Nancy,” I said. “You’re not the oldest.”
All the others are in their 30s; although Mahooch is only 29 (Marcy is 31).
I feel sort of out-of-it, but only because I no longer work for a newspaper.
“Do I stop sending this stuff?”
“Absolutely not. We read it every day.”
Finally the Webmaster and the so-called “Hasidic-Jew” showed up — that’s Matt Ried and Dave Wheeler, Wheeler also like me a Houghton-grad.
“Aw man,” Ried said; “do we have to go back to work? Can’t we just not put out a Sunday paper?”
“Jessie will jump,” Wheeler said. Wheeler is the Sunday-Editor, and Jessie a Reporter also in attendance. (“Jump” means off the first page onto a follower.)
“Yeah, she’s long-winded,” Allison said.
“Lemme explain my two private hells,” Mahoney said.
“Government in the cradle-of-liberty is dysfunctional beyond belief.”
“There are no County governments in Massachusetts, but there are municipal governments; usually comprised of a town-board with as many as 180 members.”
“At Town meetings (one or 12 per year — I forget) each board-member gets two minutes to fulminate on each issue. That’s six hours already, and that’s only one issue out of maybe 40.”
Second hell: Apparently the Lexington Minuteman, like the Messenger since sold, is a Gatehouse Media Publication (I’m not sure of that), and Gatehouse is anxious to make their newspapers web-savvy.
“Um, shouldn’t we verify the factuality of what we put on the web-site?” Bryan asks.
“Doesn’t matter,” mindless management minion says. “Just get the story on the site.”
Triumph of the OxyContin®-King; factuality is for wusses — just get the story out.
“They’re telling me to put out an apathetic newspaper,” Mahoney crowed.
Mahoney was then relating how he and his staff were all given fancy-dan megabuck video-cameras with no training into how to use them; like focus, off-on, WHATEVER.
At this point Ried butts in and says “Dan (the ‘pyooter-guru at the mighty Mezz) tells me ‘Congratulations; you now have InDesign on your machine. I have no idea what it’s for or how to use it; so have fun!’”
Nano complained “I have no idea who my boss is.”
“Who’s the publisher now?” someone asked.
“Kelly Luvison,” someone said.
“Who’s that?” I ask.
“Previously of another Gatehouse Publication I once worked for,” Wheeler said. “He’s following me around the state.”
“What ever happened to Karl Helbig (previous publisher)?”
“He was replaced after he appeared in Police-Beat for breaking into the house of an ex-wife. That was a no-no.”
Our Mexican-fare was trotted out. Who knows if anyone actually got what they ordered.
I had ordered entree number-four, what appeared to be the least filling.
But what appeared as “number-four” had some kind of rice that wasn’t on the menu, as I recall.
Mysteriously, a plate of “fajitas” had appeared between Matt and me. Matt thought it was mine; and I thought it was Matt’s (or someone else’s).
After all our fare had been delivered, Matt asked “Who gets this?”
“Not me,” I said. “And I didn’t say what it looked like” — it had guacamole.
We began leaving. (“I got an interview showing up at 3 o’clock,” Dreessen said.)
“I really like the way you always redirect your story back to the punchline at the end,” Marcy said.
“I’ve done this long enough to know that sometimes the best thing to do is just shut up and let your characters do the talking.”

“Ne’er-do-wells” are all the people I send my stuff to via e-mail; I have a “ne’er-do-well list.”

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

The “Messenger” (“mighty Mezz”) is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired two years ago. Best job I ever had.

A picture of “Marcy” can be found at Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells.

RE: “Hasidic-Jew.....” —I posted a photo of Dave Wheeler once, and my sister in south-Floridy, ever tolerant, suggested he looked like a “Hasidic-Jew.”

“Houghton” is Houghton College, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it. Houghton is a religious college.

“OxyContin®-King” is Rush Limbaugh.

RE: “And I didn’t say what it looked like.......” —Perish-the thought: I think “guacamole” looks like goose-poo.

So here I am yesterday (Friday, December 7 [“a day that will live in infamy!”], 2007), on 5&20 in the CR-V, returning from that gathering of ne’er-do-wells.
I am driving through the valley east of here, west of the mighty East Bloomfield town water-tower, and up the long easy grade into West Bloomfield.
I’m doing about 55, and fall in behind a giant farm implement.
I can’t pass because we are cresting that long grade that tops out on a curve, so the highway has a double-yellow at the top.
But the long grade is marked for passing — it’s just that at the top is no-passing, and I fell in behind the farm implement at the top.
Suddenly GrandPop blasts his white LeSabre around me, to pass both me and the farm implement. —Still before the double-yellow, but that begins before he’s even got by me.
Thankfully 5&20 was once a three-lane, so even though it’s now two-lane the lanes are about 20+ feet wide.
GrandPop encounters an approaching silver Datsun in the opposite lane, as we round the curve.
Since the lanes are so wide, the Datsun can avoid him, and GrandPop move to the right — although he’s still in the opposing lane.
Also thankfully he only encountered that one car, so he could complete his pass without endangering anyone else.
Sorry guys; I couldn’t see if his LeSabre had a Dubya-sticker to go with his Christian-fish and “Support-the-Troops” ribbons.

“5&20” is the main east-west road through our area; State Route 5 and U.S. Route 20, both on the same road. 5&20 is just south of where we live.

“The CR-V” is our 2003 Honda CR-V SUV.

“Dubya-sticker” is a Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper-sticker. All insane traffic-moves seem to involve Bush-supporters. They seem to think they have the right.

A great pin-search successfully concluded

Now that winter has returned, and about eight inches of snow is on the front lawn......
.....Linda has returned to various sewing projects, one of which is a quilt for Little Diva (Rachel’s Adrienne).
The sewing-machine has been set up on the desk across from my ‘pyooter-center.
It’s the surplus desk we got long ago from Lawyer’s Co-op, and we’ve tried to it give away. —Very heavy.
The sewing-machine is an old Kenmore we got eons ago from the Swap-Sheet, but it’s one of two.
We also have Aunt Ethelyn’s old sewing-machine, which needs a belt, and it lacks the bigger working-surface of the Kenmore.
So here’s Linda quietly beavering away on the Diva-quilt, muttering along.
All-of-a-sudden a pin flies out of her chemo (“cemo?”) addled hands and drops to the floor — hidden by the gloomy darkness and the berber carpet.
“Gone forever!” Linda exclaims.
She feels around blindly on hands-and-knees. “That pin has utterly disappeared. Sweeper-time!”
I get up and get a flashlight from the kitchen. “Pins don’t just disappear,” I say.
It’s a reprise of the time my Xacto Knife rolled off our slanted paste-up easels at the mighty Mezz.
“Xacto Knifes don’t just disappear,” my boss Frank Brown said.
I had already poked around on the floor, and given up.
It’s the old “stroke-effect.” Things just disappear into the nether-world.
So here’s Frank, groveling on the floor, pulling back carpet in search of the Xacto Knife.
“What’s this?” he says, holding up the Xacto Knife.
I sweep the flashlight over the carpet.
“What’s this?” I say.

“Linda” is my wife of nearly 40 years. She has lymphatic cancer. (It’s treatable with chemo-therapy.)

“Rachel” is my brother-in-Boston’s only daughter. “Adrienne” (“Little Diva”) is her only child, my brother-in-Boston’s only grandchild.

For almost 35 years, my wife worked in Rochester at a company that started as “Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company.”

“Aunt Ethelyn” was my wife’s mother’s older sister. She died a few years ago at age 98.

“Cemo” is how my macho, blowhard brother-in-Boston claims “chemo” is spelled.

The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost two years ago. Best job I ever had. When I was first there, the newspaper-pages were “pasted-up” on cardboard page-dummies that were photographed when finished to make printing-plates. The boss of paste-up was Frank Brown.

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

minor infraction

It is dark, and we are returning from Wilmot yesterday afternoon (Tuesday, December 4, 2007) in the CR-V.
We are on Interstate-390 heading south toward the Rush exit.
Approaching the Rush exit, I flip on my right-turn signal.
Suddenly an Olds Alero rips into the exit ahead of us. No turn-signal: “I don’t need one; I voted for Dubya.”
The Rush exit empties onto U.S. Route 15, so you’re making a left-turn onto 15.
Again, no turn-signal from the Alero; again “I don’t need one; I voted for Dubya.”
We proceed south on Route 15 over I-390, and suddenly the Alero sweeps left across Route 15 onto the I-390 on-ramp.
Again; no turn-signal — no indication whatsoever.
“Musta missed the Thruway,” I observe.
Sorry guys; too dark to see if it had a Dubya-sticker.

“Wilmot” is Wilmot Cancer Center in Rochester. My wife (“Linda”) has lymphatic cancer, which can be beat into remission with chemo-therapy. Her chemo-therapy is at Wilmot Cancer Center. I am the taxi-driver.

“The CR-V” is our 2003 Honda CR-V SUV.

“Dubya” is George W. Bush.

“U.S. Route 15” was once the main entrance north into Rochester. Now it’s Interstate-390.

“Dubya-sticker” is a Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper-sticker. All insane traffic-moves seem to involve Bush-supporters. They seem to think they have the right.

Joe Carey

The other day (Monday, December 3, 2007) I had occasion to call long-time Maximum-Leader (prez) Joe Carey (“Carry”) of Local 282, the Rochester-chapter of the Amalgamated Transit Union, my old bus-union at Regional Transit Service.
Joe has been president for years, ever since David Jones died back about 1990 due to melanoma, or was allegedly killed per some union activists because he was too much a union activist.
Joe may have been prez a few years before David Jones, and is less an activist.
I was advised to call him by Union Business-Agent Frank Falzone (“fowl-ZONE”), who has come to accommodate Joe even though at first he thought Joe was too conciliatory.
Joe and Frank are the onliest full-time union employees — that is, they are in the Union-office all the time; i.e. they never drives buses, which they once did.
Only two union officials versus a Transit-management staff of “hunderds.”
It’s kind of a sorry mess; Joe and Frank riding a bucking bronco.
When I started driving bus in 1977, the Union prez was a guy named Bert. Both he and the Business-Agent were accused of collusion with Transit-management, although we had a cost-of-living escalator.
Finally “the Bert-and-Larry Show” got tossed, and Transit-management became more intransigent.
The cost-of-living escalator got thrown out — I remember all the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Transit management was appalled we lowly bus-drivers were costing over $33,000 per year.
Yet management salaries started at $40,000, and that was just the start. We union-activists instituted a freedom-of-information inquiry, causing weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth among Transit-management. (40,000 smackaroos just to drive a desk and guzzle free coffee.)
Frank is more an activist. He was Business-Agent with David Jones, and felt Joe Carey was just reinstitution of “the Bert-and-Larry Show.”
But Joe’s somewhat an activist too. Apparently there were torrid donnybrooks at first, but now Joe and Frank get along.
Frank seems more attuned to current operations, parrying all the madness Transit dishes out.
Joe is more attuned to retiree-rights, but only more so than Frank, since both are involved in day-to-day Transit operations.
So Frank suggested I should call Joe. Joe wasn’t at the November union-meeting, and I had brought up the fact Transit was wanting me to enroll in another retiree health-coverage, since Blue Cross was discontinuing the one I had.
“Sounds like Joe,” I said.
“Yes it is. Who’s this?” Joe asked.
“Hi Bob, how ya doin’?” (He knows me from our days when I did the “282-News.”)
Joe had only a cursory knowledge regarding my question, so was hesitant to render advice.
But it sounds like Transit isn’t screwing around. They are required by contract to supply health-insurance to Transit-retirees, so their offer is for me to enroll in an equivalent of my expiring Blue-Cross coverage.
“Lemme know what you decide to do,” he said. “We’re only talking about 10 retirees.”
“I’ve passed your house ‘hunderds’ of times, but never see ya out.”
“Wanna hear the next joke, Joe?” I asked.
“Blue-Cross has my wife as a Transit-retiree!”
“That’s not possible. She’s your wife,” he said. “How can they do that?”
“You tell me,” I crowed.
Joe wasn’t much of a bus-driver, at least as adjudged by the passengers, which was how Transit judged us.
When Joe was driving bus, sometimes as an extra-man he’d get the other all-day bus on Main St.; 801 (I had 802). On the east side of the city we only had an hour to get from downtown, out to the layover, and back downtown. 801 and 802 were an hour apart — one-hour headway out East Main.
It took about a half-hour to 40 minutes to get to the end of East Main, where ya turned left on Winton Road, and then up Merchants Road to Wyand Crescent and the layover on Dorchester.
Coming back ya usually passed the other bus at the East-Main/Winton intersection, but when Joe drove it, I might get halfway back to downtown before passing him.
Here he’d be, stopped at some bus-stop, arguing with some passenger, following all the silly rules at Transit, so that he was already 20 minutes late.
If a mirror or wiper came loose, I fixed the stuff myself. I wasn’t waitin’ for no mechanic. It comes from having been a bus-passenger myself. The silly rules could be an impediment to getting people to work or home.
So having been a bus-passenger myself, I bent the rules and disregarded those that could be disregarded.
I wasn’t about to compromise safety — I had the temerity to look for loose lug-nuts; I wasn’t about to have a wheel come off.
And when the wheelchair-lifts were started, I had the the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to check operation of wheelchair-lifts. Once I got out 40 minutes late, after refusing five buses with non-operable wheelchair-lifts. I wasn’t about to start out with a non-operable wheelchair-lift.
Transit, in its infinite wisdom, blamed me for the 40-minute late-out. They couldn’t blame the non-operable wheelchair-lifts.
But Joe enforced all the silly rules, even those that didn’t make any sense.
At a post-roadeo banquet I observed that only three things really mattered regarding bus-operation (jaws dropped as everyone stopped eating): -1) show up, -2) don’t hit anything, and -3) keep your hands outta the till. A mindless management minion sheepishly agreed. (Some of the silly rules could be disregarded.)
Joe, on-the-other-hand, enforced all the silly rules, including stopping if it got icy. If the passengers didn’t like it, he was only doing his job.

For 16&1/2 years I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y.

“Hunderd” is how my blowhard brother-in-Boston noisily insists “hundred” is spelled.

The “282-News” was a volunteer union-newsletter I did with Word during my last year at Transit. My stroke (10/26/93) ended everything, including my bus-driving.

RE: “Roadeo.......” —Every year Transit held a “Bus-roadeo.” One year I finished third, and was therefore invited to the post-roadeo banquet.

“Construction-Vehicle: Do Not Follow”

So here I am merrily navigating west on 5&20, returning from mighty Weggers.
I get stopped at Toomey’s Corners, a traffic-light, the intersection of State Route 64 and 5&20.
At Toomey’s Corners, 5&20 widens out to four lanes, so that people can turn right without impeding traffic, or those going straight can go around anyone turning left.
I’m stopped in the left-most lane, the place to stop if no one’s turning left.
All of a sudden a large dump-truck sweeps by on my right, and then moves left where 5&20 goes back to two lanes.
An illegal move — it’s called passing on the right — a county-mounty could pull ya over.
But it’s happened often enough I more-or-less expect it. Once I had to open up the LHMB when a tiny Honda-car tried to do that.
But “Git-R-Dun” and “I voted for Dubya.” “Traffic-law is for wusses — an impediment to my forward progress.” (Once a Ford Fiesta passed me on the sidewalk — I was a good boy; on-the-road.)
The traffic-light was changing when the dump-truck swept by, so I found myself following a large foul-smelling truck with an large orange “Construction-Vehicle: Do Not Follow” sign on the back.
These are the situations that drive Linda crazy. “Now what? The most efficient way to get home is to follow a truck with a ‘Do Not Follow’ sign. What am I supposed to do? Take another route? Arrow into the adjacent pasture?”
So I followed the “Do Not Follow” vehicle home — in utter defiance of the sign.

“5&20” is the main east-west road through our area; State Route 5 and U.S. Route 20, both on the same road. 5&20 is just south of where we live.

“Mighty Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.

“LHMB” is my 2003 Honda 600-cc CBR/RR crotch-rocket motorcycle. Seeing a picture of it, my sister-in-Floridy declared “Lord-Have-Mercy;” and my loudmouthed brother-in-Boston, a macho Harley-guy, seeing it was yellow, pronounced it a “Banana.” So LHMB equals Lord-Have-Mercy-Banana.

“Dubya” is George W. Bush.

“Linda” is my wife of nearly 40 years. She’s “automotively-challenged.”

prettiest passenger railroad steam-locomotive of all time

Southern Railroad Ps4 #1401 at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

My January 2008 issue of Trains Magazine says the prettiest passenger railroad steam-locomotive of all time was the Southern Railroad Ps4 Pacific (4-6-2).
Well, I don’t know about that, but saying “best (anything) of all time” at the mighty Mezz was a guaranteed way of stopping everything — and I’m sure it will do the same for the almighty Bluster-King.
At the mighty Mezz, all activity would cease as all-and-sundry cocked their heads to hear what I had to say.
As soon as I said it, noisy fevered discussion would break out: “the greatest rock-and-roll song of all time is not ‘Louie-Loueye.’ It’s this or that or this......” —all forgettable stuff from the ‘80s.

Photo by Bud Laws.

New York Central J-3 Hudson #5441.

“Greatest car of all time” prompts a noisy torrent from West Bridgewater. I got loudly criticized for saying the 1953 Studebaker Starliner coupe was the best-styled car of all time.
Turgid muscle-cars of the ‘70s were trotted out — muscle-cars, but plain compared to the 1963 Riviera, or even the most recent Riv, which like the Starliner is a showcar brought to production.
But the Ps4 Pacific? It’s up against the New York Central Hudson (pictured) and even the Pennsy K4 Pacific (also pictured).
The Ps4 had excellent proportions, but so did the others. It’s advantage was that unlike the others it was painted green (see picture at top).
The NYC Hudsons were greyhounds, and were on a railroad where they could boom-and-zoom.

Photo by Bud Laws.

Pennsylvania Railroad K4 #5477. (Except it has the front-end beauty-treatment, which looks STUPID.)

But the K4 could strut its stuff too. And that belpaire-firebox was gorgeous.
Plus it had that gorgeous red keystone number-plate centered on the smokebox door.
I used to thrill when I saw that coming: “look for the red keystone, Bobby.”
The Ps4 was gorgeous too, but it ain’t the belpaire-firebox and the red keystone.
To me the prettiest passenger railroad steam-locomotive of all time is probably the Pennsy K4 Pacific.

The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost two years ago. Best job I ever had.

“The almighty Bluster-King” is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say.

“West Bridgewater,” MA, south of Boston, is where my brother-in-Boston lives.

“Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that went bankrupt in about two years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world. The K4 Pacific was its main steam passenger-locomotive.

“Look for the red keystone, Bobby......” is my father.