T-gurl

Yesterday afternoon (Saturday, May 3, 2008) I traveled to Lori’s Funky Food Store in deepest, darkest Henrietta, mainly to pick up a case of Arrowhead-Mills puffed-corn breakfast cereal I had ordered, but also to buy bulk long-grain brown rice, which I figured they’d have, plus a package of wild rice, and some “slippery elm” herbal extract for our dog.
-Our dog is being chemoed for cancer, and supposedly slippery elm extract will help his digestion.
Lori’s is a half-hour away, plus they sell stuff in bulk. I noticed a green magnetic carbon-footprint sticker for the back of your righteous Subaru: “protect the planet;” much like the folded “protect-our-troops” ribbons.
The lot was also filled with Obama supporters. (“Scrub the shrub!”)
Lori’s is in the old Regional Market, set up long ago to give local farmers an outlet.
It had railroad sidings off the old West Shore, now the CSX Rochester Bypass, so large buildings were erected for large local food distributors.

Also RS3 (probably Penn-Central) operates a local on the old West Shore. (Photo years ago [probably about 1970] by the so-called “old guy” with the Spotmatic.)

The railroad sidings have since been removed, and the large buildings have taken over. (The railroad used to run locals out along that line (see pik) — e.g. a propane-gas supplier on the west side of Rochester who used to get tankcars of liquefied petroleum gas — but I doubt the locals run any more; at least I haven’t seen them.)
Regional Market is now anything and everything; buildings where small businesses lease space: e.g. Mack’s Windshield Replacement, or Technology Associates ‘Pyooter-Supply.
We bought our fantabulous Mighty-Mite vacuum-cleaner from a Regional Market outlet. (Or close and similar.)
But food-distributors still dominate the Regional Market, one of which is Lori’s.
There are the Freihofer’s Baking Outlet, and Palmer Food-Supply — long ago the tiny Palmer Fish Market. The lot is loaded with semis.
Lori’s is no longer in its original building, which went back to the original Regional Market.
That building has since been torn down, exposing spiders and thick dust (TOXIN ALERT); replaced by a new building, much larger and glitzier with a Weggers-like 30-foot ceiling with exposed HVAC ducts.
Like Weggers, birds live inside. —You have to watch for stink-bombs from above.
But it’s still the same old Lori’s; ancient Jean at the service-desk, who always knows my name and special-order (“What’ll it be this time, Mr. Hughes? Puffed rice or puffed corn?”), and the pretty young tart with the Statue-of-Liberty tattooed on her left arm.
The Regional Market entrance off Jefferson Road was closed; a giant backhoe had dug a huge hole, so I was directed into an adjacent parking-lot for a fast-food outlet.
Unlike the Bluster-Boy, I respected the parking-lot divider-curbs that separated me from Lori’s. I also didn’t park in the fast-food parking-lot.
I drove back out and went around the block.
Jamaican-lady was manning the service-desk. “I need wild race and slippery-elm,” I said.
“I’ll show ya wild rice!” she said. “Go back this aisle and over to the next aisle, but ya gotta watch that stuff. It’s kind of rambunctious!”
“The slippery-elm is over in ‘wellness.’ There should be four consultants there.”
I wandered over to “wellness,” and began looking for a consultant, and/or slippery-elm.
An attractive waif had her back to me, but looked much like T-gurl*, a coworker from my earliest days at the mighty Mezz.
“Are you who I think you are?” I asked.
She turned around, faced me, and rattled off her name.
But it wasn’t T-gurl; same hair and build, but thinner and younger than T-gurl.
*T-gurl is actually Tanya Olsen (Kellogg at the mighty Mezz). T-gurl was the nickname given her by her long-time boyfriend, whom she later married.
T-gurl was a graphic-artist at the mighty Mezz when I started, and we had a wonderful time. She always liked my humor, but we were at least 20-25 years apart. I used to say I was old enough to be her grandfather.
T-gurl was the one that told me about Kinzua Viaduct, which I kind of knew about, but she had actually seen it.
She wrongly claimed it was slightly over 3,000 feet high.
“For heaven’s sake,” I exclaimed. “Ya sure ya don’t mean 300? The TriPacer I flew in in ‘56 got to 1,200 feet, and the Royal Gorge suspension-bridge in Colorado is 1,053 feet above the Arkansas River.”
“I’ll bring in the brochure,” she said.
Um, 301 feet, it said.
Like my wife, she thought my reaction was funny — a few people are like that, but most take offense.
One time I returned to the mighty Mezz looking like an ice-encrusted Santa Claus, after getting stuck in a huge blizzard in the so-called soccer-mom minivan (our ‘93 Chevrolet Astrovan).
T-gurl and I set out together on rural back-country roads to get home. T-gurl was always looking out for me; aware that I was a stroke-survivor.
I was ahead, and T-gurl was behind in the massive Ford Bronco of her boyfriend.
The Astrovan caught the snow on the shoulder, and slid off the road into the roadside snow-bank.
No damage, but the Astro was royally stuck.
T-gurl stopped, and drove me home in the Bronco. We left the Astro behind — it was rescued the next day by Triple-A.
“I just started working here,” waif said.
“Slippery-elm is an herb......” (I had an Uncle Herb once.)
“Liquid or dry?” she asked.
“Liquid, I guess,” but it’s 35% alcohol.
“We don’t want a drunk dog,” Linda observed.

“Lori’s Funky Food Store” is Lori’s Natural Foods, south of Rochester in Henrietta — a source for salt-free cereal, sauce, etc.

“Deepest, darkest Henrietta” is a rather effusive and obnoxious suburb south of Rochester.

Our dog is “Killian;” a rescue Irish-Setter. He’s over 10 (we don’t know his exact age), and has lymphatic cancer.

The “West Shore” was a railroad built in the late 1800s financed by the Pennsylvania Railroad to compete with New York Central’s mainline across New York state. (NYC was at that time financing a railroad in Pennsylvania [the South Pennsylvania Railroad] to compete with the Pennsy main.) —The war was stopped by J.P Morgan by bringing all the parties onto his yacht in Long Island Sound. The West Shore became part of NYC, and the South Pennsylvania Railroad was never built. Grading and tunnels were later used for the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Most of the West Shore was abandoned, although the section along the west shore of the Hudson River remains in use, plus the segment around Rochester — which didn’t actually go through Rochester — which became the Rochester Bypass.

RE: “‘Old guy’ with the SpotMatic.......” —My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who is 13 years younger than me, calls me “the old guy” as a put-down (I also am the oldest). The “Spotmatic” is my old Pentax Spotmatic 35mm film camera I used about 40 years, since replaced by a Nikon D100 digital camera.

“Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. It’s very successful.

“The bluster-boy” is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, the ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He has decided he has a right to do anything; the “Git-R-Dun” king.

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

“Kinzua Viaduct” is a large steel railroad-trestle in northwestern Pennsylvania, once the highest and longest railroad bridge in the world. It was built to circumvent eight miles of track around the deep Kinzua Creek valley. It was abandoned years ago when coal-traffic out of Pennsylvania toward Buffalo disappeared, and since has been partially brought down by a tornado.

A “TriPacer” is the Piper Tri-Pacer private airplane. It was made in the middle ‘50s, intended to make flying as easy as driving. I did three flights in TriPacers in 1956 and 1957 — when I would have been 12-13.

Our “so-called soccer-mom minivan” is our 1993 Chevrolet Astrovan, traded two years ago for our 2005 Toyota Sienna van. My loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston calls both “soccer-mom minivans” as a put-down.

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

“I had an Uncle Herb once” is a joke I once made at the Messenger newspaper regarding national herb month.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.