Today at the YMCA

I’m done working out, and walking back to my car, which I park at a small shopping-plaza about three blocks from the Y.
I’m walking west on Park Ave., which is one-way west between the main drag through Canandaigua (State Route 332) and the twin railroad-bridges of the old Auburn.
—Park Ave. is the route usually used by Y-members, since it accesses the Y parking-lot. But ya gotta drive the kerreck direction.
Suddenly up the street, going east, which is the WRONG way, barges a tan metallic Caliber, driven by a supremely confident blondish soccer-mom.
I was sorely tempted to shout “wrong way;” I have before.
But instead of saying anything, which before sowed weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, I decided to look for a Dubya-sticker as she passed.
Sorry guys’ no Dubya sticker. I guess the Caliber is after 2004.

The “Auburn”-Road was the first railroad across the state into Rochester. It took a rather circuitous route, and is now partly abandoned. A more direct railroad was built east from Rochester to Syracuse, so the Auburn (via Auburn) became a detour bypass. The direct route became the mainline of the New York Central Railroad, but NYC also owned the Auburn. (The direct route is now CSX.) The Auburn served many small farming communities, but became moribund. What remains is now operated by independent shortline Finger Lakes Railway, but the line into Rochester is gone.

Dodge “Caliber,” a small car styled much like a truck.

“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.

Sample-Desk

I’m at the mighty Canandaigua Weggers (today; Sunday, June 29, 2008), wheeling my cart outta the store.
It ain’t the wussy-cart, nor is it the large cart; the one I say is “as big as a Buick” — the one Mother-Dear would use.
Rather, it’s the middle-sized cart, although I probably coulda got by with a wussy-cart. (I often do; I ain’t buyin’ that much.)
I exit the west-most store entrance; there are two, separated by about 20 feet.
A beaming teenybopper in a Weggers baseball cap is doling out free samples of diet W-Pop; the Weggers brand sody. I guess Weggers has just started bottling diet.
GrandPop and his flopsy wife wheel up and block my exit, fishing for a free sample.
An “I voted for Dubya” button is on his shirt-collar.
Seeing they’re blocking my exit, GrandPop shoves their loaded wussy-cart unattended into an adjacent outdoor furniture display; chairs and tables akimbo, glass-topped table and umbrella toppling.
“Oh, no matter,” teenybopper beams; “you voted for the greatest president ever.”
She pours diet W-Pop into plastical glasses; “Care for any?”
“Well, since you’re giving out free samples, I’ll have a hot pastrami on rye.”
“Sorry; all I’m passing out is W-Pop.”
“Well I never!” GrandPop shouts. “I might just hafta blow you in to Mary Ellen Burris. Conduct unbecoming a Weggers employee.”
GrandPop was standing his ground; i.e. continuing to block my exit.
I could see a great contretemps beginning, so did a 180 with my cart, and headed through the spray-dampened produce for the other exit.
As I exited the other entrance, GrandPop was angrily shaking his fist at cowering teenybopper, and his flopsy wife was slowly sipping a diet W-Pop creme-sody.
“Now George,” she said.

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

A “wussy-cart” is the smallest shopping-cart Wegmans has; a very small cart for daily shoppers. Since they were a new size, my siblings loudly decided they were for wusses.

“Mother-Dear” is my mother, deceased. She always used the largest shopping-cart available. A proper REPUBLICAN shopping-cart would hold enough to feed a family-of-five in Bangladesh for an entire month.

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

“Mary Ellen Burris” is the Weggers head PR-person; portrays herself as a consumer-advocate.

Matt Ried

One-by-one the members of the infamous “wall-people” at the mighty Mezz move on.
“Wall-people” because we worked under the plaque-wall at the mighty Mezz, the back wall of the newsroom.
It was the wall on which the Messenger hung the many plaques it had won. (“There is no plaque in the Dental Hall of Fame.”)
Working under the plaque-wall was an adventure.
Next to my cubicle, and that of adjacent Bill Robinson, later Marcy, was a pressroom that contained a small individual sheet-fed press; so we were constantly entertained with “ka-thunka, ka-thunka, ka-thunka, ka-thunka.”
Next to Ried’s cubical was a tiny break-room for the drudge hourlies.
That break-room had a Coke-machine that occasionally malfunctioned.
One time Matt was quietly beavering away on his ‘pyooter, when suddenly “KER-WHAM!” The plaque-wall thrust about six inches toward him, setting all the plaques a-tittering.
The thermostat for the entire vast newsroom was over Matt’s cubicle, and the newsroom was always ice cold.
Marcy, huddled beneath her heavy sweater, used to say that thermostat was on crack.
The scuttlebutt was that Matt’s monitor, a giant heat-emitting CRT screen, was throwing off the thermostat; so elaborate cardboard shielding was constructed to shield the thermostat from his monitor.
But it didn’t make any difference; the newsroom was still a refrigerator.
Most irksome to me was the telephone in the adjacent mailroom out back, a contrivance that could wake the dead.
The idea was to make it loud enough to override all the throbbing racket.
“Will somebody please answer that thing?” I’d shout.

—Robinson was the first to leave.
Me, Robinson and Matt Ried were the original Messenger “Electronics Department;” Robinson the head-honcho, Ried the webmaster, and me, as stroke-survivor, the tag-along.
Their responsibility was the Messenger web-site, among other things, although the idea was for me to master it, which I did.
Ried and Robinson were also ‘pyooter paginating pages for the daily newspaper, and they did quite a few.
I never did this, but was more partial to the web-site anyway, although I was also doing other things.
The web-site we were doing was version number-two, the Z-Wire version, a version that only worked off our single clunky PC.
It worked pretty well, except a lot of dickering was done on-site at the mighty Mezz; including conversion to HTML.
I remember driving Ried and Robinson crazy with my questions. “Don’t think, just do,” Matt used to say.
“I can’t do it if I don’t understand what’s going on,” I’d respond.
Robinson was the Local-Editor, and he tired of all the madness of trying to keep up for peanuts.
He was also upset over how his wife, a Messenger Advertising-Rep, was being mistreated.
So they both quit; he shortly after his wife.
Robinson went on to get a “stupid, meaningless job” (my nomenclature — like bus-driving), that paid more for less madness.
I told him to never put his pen down — he had also written a local weekly column before leaving.

—Robinson was replaced by Marcy, who I first called “the new girl;” but that was perceived as negatory, so I stopped.
By then production of the Post weeklies had gravitated to the palatial Messenger offices in Canandaigua, so Marcy was roped into doing the Post front-pages, and other Post pages. And so Marcy discovered the madness of trying to meet printing deadlines with people from outside offices that didn’t understand printing deadlines.
Copy would appear after deadline, and then those outside editors would be incensed it couldn’t be included.
Meanwhile: —1) “ka-thunka, ka-thunka, ka-thunka, ka-thunka;” —2) the mailroom phone waking the dead; —3) Ried frantically trying to escape his cubicle when the Coke-machine was hurled against the plaque-wall; and —4) Marcy shivering.
One time Marcy was telling her aunt (Nancy Brown; chief artist at the mighty Mezz) about the Five-Star Crash rating on the Honda CR-V Marcy was considering. “So go out and crash one today,” I said.

—I left next, suddenly retired due to health-issues — which if they hadn’t occurred I probably woulda stayed around longer.
By then we had moved on to web-site number three, and first I was doing all the Post sub-sites, although later Matt and I switched when I went part-time.
Part-time was a reaction to declining health and advancing age; I was no longer able to do a 40-hour (or more) week.
The dreaded “Night Spots” was my greatest challenge; and was such a beast I told the Managing Editor it might retire me.
But in the end I was also doing the Messenger web-site; a function I enjoyed, because that web-site could reflect my prerogatives, the main of which was to throw a lot of pictures on it.
I always felt the web-site was primarily a visual medium, and that it was the future of journalism.
And that was despite our web-site being rather turgid — a generic sample from our web-service.
But Ried and I never had a chance to improve it. All we could do was fly it; and that was usually a mess.
We were using a web-service from Ann Arbor, Mich., and things often didn’t crunch.
Their angle was they generated a web-site for us; and also converted all our stuff to HTML.
But how many times did I call Ann Arbor from home; our web-site wasn’t flown. I’d fix things from my home rig, or often had to drive back to the mighty Mezz to do everything over.
And of course, calling Ann Arbor was “please hold during the silence: Boom-chicka-boom-chicka-boom-chicka-boom-chicka......” I’d get shoved on hold for a half-hour or more.
I had to talk directly to their head tech guy, whose name I forget; the only way to actually get anything done.
He’d hang up, kick his servers angrily a few times, and then call back saying “send it again; everything went into never-never land.”

—Marcy left next; a victim of puny income, and increasing Messenger madness. She had to work two jobs to exist.
Together she, and future husband Bryan Mahoney (at one time the Messenger Canandaigua reporter, and I always felt the best I ever knew; primarily because he rode the 100-foot Canandaigua Waterpark water-slide, the best way to report same), moved to near Boston, Mass., no job for either. Marcy was my number-one ne’er-do-well, the first I was e-mailing stuff to. She saved everything I sent into a ‘pyooter folder — she thought it was hilarious. Like minds I guess; similarly wacko.

—And now the Webmaster is moving on.
I picked up a bunch of stuff from him. I still use MyCast, the weather-radar he clued me in on.
And “if Matt can do it, so can I;” which is how I figured out how to use my cellphone as a calculator.
Matt wasn’t really a “wall-person” when he arrived. He’s a Postie; one of the people that came to us after our buyout of the Post papers.
But we made him a “wall-person.” So much junk was flying about, what could he do? He became a part of it.
One day we were discussing animal-rights, and Matt says “vegetables have rights too.” Attaboy Matt; you are now officially a “wall-person.”
Matt is somewhat disabled; but not much. I guess he had Spina-Bifida or something, and has to use crutches to get around.
But it hasn’t slowed him any. Like me, he’s ornery, and ain’t lettin’ no disability compromise what he wants.
I guess he’s flown airplanes, even a P51 Mustang. He may even have his pilot’s license; I bet he does.
Matt was also my source about propeller airplanes. Like most at the mighty Mezz he knew a lot about certain subjects; me it was trains and cars and propeller airplanes and ‘50s rock-and-roll.
Matt was propeller airplanes; I could rely on him to know esoterica about the Corsair fighter-plane, the P38 Lightning, the P40 Warhawk, and the P51 Mustang. He was my source about radial engines; even better than the dreaded Internet.
“One of the best sounds ever is a big honkin’ radial engine,” Matt used to say.
“The next airshow I attend will have a Connie in it,” I told him. That’s the Lockheed Constellation, “Prettiest airplane ever made,” said Matt.
We were on the same wavelength.
Matt goes to Denver, Col.; same condition as Marcy, jobless.
Plan A is marketing or Public-Relations, what Marcy fell into. Plan B is journalism. Plan C is Emergency-Medical-Services; a side-job he did in this area. He was a dispatcher for the local medavac helicopter service.
I remember a circulation person collapsing on the floor once at the mighty Mezz. Matt sprang into action. She coulda had a stroke; and I had one.
But Matt was way ahead of me.
What Matt ended up doing at the mighty Mezz was way more than mere reporting. Like me, he fell into ‘pyooter functions he was interested in, and could therefore do.

—That leaves only one “wall-person” remaining at the mighty Mezz; the so-called “Hasidic Jew,” my friend L. David Wheeler, a Houghton-grad, now Arts & Entertainment Editor.
Wheeler’s cubicle wasn’t actually on the plaque-wall, but it was the same aisle; i.e. within earshot of everything we were saying.
One day I commented “If the King James Version was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.”
That stopped Wheeler in his tracks.
He turned around slowly, and said “I bet somebody actually said that, didn’t they.”
“Yes,” I said.
“And you saved it for posterity, didn’t you?” Wheeler said.
“Yes,” I solemnly intoned.
Another time I said: “One minor side-effect of this medicine is death. If you experience death, please contact your physician immediately.”
Wheeler picked right up on it. “If death persists more than four hours, please contact your doctor.”
Wheeler is as wacko as the rest of us. After all, he once worked near Wildwood, N.J. at the infamous “Wendy’s-from-Hell.” He declared south Jersey is the fiberglass pink-flamingo capitol of the universe.

The departure-party for Ried was at Mulconry’s, an Irish pub in deepest-darkest Fairport.
Mulconry’s was on Liftbridge Lane, hard by the Erie Canal, once the right-of-way of the Rochester, Syracuse & Eastern interurban line. The entire area is awash in restaurants, boutiques and funky shops; what passes for socializing in the new century.
Party-time was 6:30 p.m., and I arrived at 6:20, having no idea how long it would take to get there. I went inside and was greeted by a hostess with a heavy Irish brogue; but then walked back outside, seeing no one I knew.
I crossed the street and sat down on the curb of a parking-lot — hoping I’d see someone I knew. (I was reading a drag-racing book I’d brought along.)
Finally Matt appeared, walking up the street. We went inside, and sat at the bar. Matt ordered a “Harp” draft, and I ordered nothing. I have to drive home, and I don’t like what alcohol does anyway.
Finally a few showed up, but at least half were people I didn’t know — people that Matt had worked with, or was currently working with.
The only ones from my vaunted “Ne’er-do-Well” list (beside Matt) were Syverud and Wheeler.
“So when is your last day?” someone asked.
“About three hours ago,” Matt answered.
That insanity was in place even when I was there. When Matt hit 40 hours, he was supposed to walk out, no matter what. (How many Fridays did I complete the web-site because he had to leave?)
There was discussion about Messenger telephone policy. Apparently it had come down from on high that people weren’t answering their phones.
Like here they are trying to put a newspaper together at the last minute, and they’re supposed to answer their phones even if so doing makes the newspaper late.
So management’s wisened reaction was for page-editors to assign someone to answer for them; voicemail was no longer acceptable.
“I’d rather get voicemail than some clueless idiot that has no idea what they’re doing,” Wheeler observed.

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

“There is no plaque in the Dental Hall of Fame......” is an old Bob & Ray joke I frequently repeated under the plaque-wall at the Messenger.

“CRT” (Cathode-Ray-Tube) is the video technology that has been used since the dawn of television. Now video-screens have advanced to non-CRT technology; that found on flat-screens. Computer displays were CRT at first, but now many are flat-screen. (My own monitor is CRT.)

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

“Z-Wire” is a web-service that does many newspaper web-sites.

RE: “Single clunky PC........” —When I first was employed at the Messenger newspaper, we were uncomputerized (no Personal-Computers used in newspaper generation), except for a few Windows PCs that were used for four-color front-page generation — black (the story-text) was still un-PC. One PC was the Rastorized-Image-Processor (RIP); it sent three color separation negatives (cyan, magenta, and yellow) to an image-setter for the front pages. —When the newspaper computerized (full ‘pyooter pagination), it did so with all Apple Macintosh. We saved one PC — the RIP. It was converted to other PC functions. It had Windoze-95 as an operating-system, and was rather unstable. It was a clunker; held together with paper-clips. Whatever software was on it came from the network; there were no longer any functional drive-inputs.

For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y. My stroke ended that.

RE: “Post weeklies.....” —When I first started in 1996, we were only the Canandaigua Daily Messenger newspaper. But later we bought the “Post weeklies,” eight weekly suburban newspapers published by “Post Publications.” (We later bought another independent suburban weekly.) The Post’s majordomo retired and soon died. He sold Post Publications to the Messenger.

Some of the Post weeklies were done at “outside offices;” not Canandaigua.

A “CR-V” is an SUV car made by Honda. We have one ourselves, a 2003.

Two+ years ago I was experiencing dizzy-spells, but am not any more. They’re why I retired.

RE: “Post sub-sites.....” —Under the third web-site iteration, we had one grand web-site, which was comprised of: -1) the Daily-Messenger’s site, which was updated every day, and -2) eight (then nine) Post sub-sites, one for each weekly, and they were updated weekly.

“Night Spots” was a computerized file of live entertainment at local night-clubs. We ran it once a week, so it had to be constantly updated. It was such a struggle I always felt I was shorting it; even though it was a free ad.

The “Managing Editor” at the Messenger is Kevin Frisch, a very good person.

RE: “Postie......” —Ex of Post Publications.

“Radial engines” are internal combustion gasoline engines, with cylinders arrayed in a circle around a central crankshaft. —The application was most normally seen on airplanes, almost always air-cooled. A typical radial airplane engine might have 18 cylinders; two rows of nine each. The crankshaft turned a propeller.

RE: “Dreaded Internet” is the World-Wide Web. “Dreaded” because it’s not very reliable. It has various misspellings for “Hillary Clinton” and “Dulles Airport.” It erroneously claims the Pennsylvania Railroad was built with four tracks. It was originally built with one or more tracks; four came later.

The “Lockheed Constellation” is a post WWII propeller airliner; four radial engines — recognized mainly by its triple tailfins.

“Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it. Houghton is a religious liberal-arts college.

“Fairport” is an old suburban village on Rochester’s east side. It’s on the Erie Canal; thus the name.

An “interurban” is a rural trolley-line, but it had bigger cars that could attain faster speeds. The Rochester, Syracuse & Eastern was a premier east-side interurban out of Rochester that only attained Syracuse. Service was phenomenal, since it had a two-track mainline. (Most interurbans were only one track.)

The “Ne’er-do-Wells” are an e-mail list of everyone I e-mail my stuff to.

“Syverud” is Mark Syverud (“SYE-ver-rud”), once an editor at the Messenger newspaper. He later managed the Post weeklies. He retired not too long ago.

Back in business

Yesterday (Thursday, June 26, 2008), our dreaded zero-turn mower was returned; complete right-side hydrostatic installed at no charge.
The shop-owner indicated Husqvarna didn’t wanna replace the complete right-side hydrostatic unit. They wanted him to take it all apart so he could replace the case.
The pump-pulley had come loose, and then the cockeyed pulley-shaft had worn a slot in the case-top, making replacement of the case mandatory.
“I wanted to do it right,” he said. Mower-man is also the railfan I badgered to visit Horseshoe Curve and the web-cam.
He finally went, and was blown away.
Of course. The Curve is the BEST railfan spot I’ve ever been to.
“Around-and-around I went with Husqvarna, but they finally sent me a complete right-side hydrostatic unit.”
“So were ya also able to grease the rotor-spindles?” I asked. “You’ll need money for that.”
“Also no charge,” he answered. “Only took a minute. I figured it was worth the aggravation. You’ve been without a mower almost three weeks.”
I sure am glad I didn’t buy it at Lowes.
“You and I both know this poor thing was assembled on Friday,” I said. “Since when does a rotor-spindle fail? I don’t think the spacers were even on it.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a drive-pulley come loose. It’s a lock-nut, and whoever tightened it musta been weak.”
“Or drunk,” I said.
As a consequence I mowed the entire lawn — took about 3-4 hours.
No mowed trees or flowers; no ditch-excursions.
Our entire lawn was farmed out once, and the Back 40 twice.
Still no Greenie. Probably shoulda taken it to mower-man insteada John Deere. It was just the drive-belt.

Our “zero-turn” is our 48-inch Husqvarna riding-mower; “zero-turn” because it’s a special design with separate drives to each drive-wheel, so it can be spun on a dime. “Zero-turns” are becoming the norm, because they cut mowing time in half compared to a lawn-tractor, which has to be set up for each mowing-pass. —“Dreaded” because my macho, blowhard brother-in-Boston, the ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, insists I am unable to master such a thing; which explains “no mowed trees or flowers; no ditch-excursions.” (I’ve had it three years.)

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, and have been since I was a child.) —Horseshoe Curve has a web-cam (for viewing Curve-action over the Internet), but it’s awful.

“Lowes” (the home-improvement outlet) has a big-box store in Canandaigua.

Our “Back 40” is a large open field behind our house.

The “Greenie” is our small John Deere SRX95 riding-mower (38-inch cut). It was the mower I used before the zero-turn, but took about twice as long. We kept it. I brush-cut our paths with it.

Overheard on the local TV news

“Now that the Supreme-Court has restricted gun-laws, the Rochester City Attorney is evaluating the city’s handgun law to see if it complies with the decision.
Currently handguns are limited to those disabled or in pieces.”
Marcy, it’s everywhere!

“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 Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the Messenger newspaper), and together they live near Boston. (Both Marcy and Mahoney keep blogs — Marcy’s is Playtime at Hazmat.) —She once asked me where I got so much material.

More Scarlett

“Hi, I’m Sue Musil (‘MEW-sul’) of Irish-Setter Rescue of Ohio. I just thought I’d call to see how Scarlett’s doing.”
“Well, I never did know who was who,” I said; “like who brought the dog to Buffalo.”
“That was me!” she chirped.
“Well believe you-me, you ain’t gettin’ this dog back.” I said. “This is one of the neatest dogs we’ve ever had — perhaps the most Irish-Setter ever.”
“The dog immediately assumed ‘protect-the-property’ mode. Told off our neighbor across the street. Barks at me occasionally when spooked, and then is embarrassed.
“Died and gone to Heaven. Walks galore, park, up-the-street. No more of that puppy-mill foolishness.”
I should note our Sassy-dog was very much an Irish-Setter: a complete spaz; a wiggle-bottom.
But she was built more like an Afghan in the back end.
Killian was small, but full of the hunting-instinct.
He also was somewhat afraid of us; obviously had been abused in prior homes.
But Scarlett looks like a full-size show-dog, and is completely wacko.
More than just a Faithful-Companion — our kind of dog.
The dog put the fear-of-the-Lord into a bunny-rabbit the other night. She was pulling me just like Killian.
“You just get outta here! That lettuce is ours.”

Scarlett is our most recent dog. “Killian,” a rescue Irish-Setter, was our previous dog. He had lymphatic cancer, and didn’t survive. —He was over 10; we never knew his birthdate. (He was a frantic puller. I didn’t break him of it — messed up too much already.) “Sassy” was an earlier dog, an escape-artist; ran away during a thunderstorm and disappeared.

Today's YMCA follies

—1) Called Linda from the Mens Locker-Room on my cellphone.
“How many bags of spinach do I get?”
“What?” said Joel Freedman, buck-naked and also in the Mens Locker-Room.
Joel Freedman is Canandaigua’s Mr. Green, head of the local prevention-of-cruelty-to-animals chapter.
He used to write hand-written diatribes to the mighty Mezz; re: the great chicken caper, where Canandaigua High-School Biology students were dissecting chickens they had raised.
He wasn’t allowed in Weggers, after Dippity-Dawg threw him out for rescuing lobsters.
An envelope would arrive at the mighty Mezz offices, containing his letter-of-the-month (only 12 letters-per-year were allowed Messenger letter-writers; intent being to throttle the tub-thumping conservative blowhards that continually badmouthed everything we said or did). It’d be hand-written, meaning I couldn’t OCR scan it, and had to hand it over to a typist.
“When’s that guy gonna move into the new century?” I’d ask.
Once we got a Word printout (“That could be an e-mail attachment,” I said); so I was able to OCR-scan it, and we printed it within three days.
A hand-written letter got typed into the system when the typist had a chance; which meant Freedman might go unpublished for a week or more.
But only one ‘pyooter printout. After that Joel probably recycled his ‘pyooter.
No doubt Joel thinks cellphones are of-the-devil.

—2) Here I am quietly cranking away on a Cybex machine.
A pretty young blond college-girl mounts another Cybex-machine, and she’s wearing a “Houghton” tee-shirt.
After numerous Cybex machines, I confronted her and asked “what class?”
“2008; I just graduated.”
“1966,” I said; “and I’ve never regretted it. Your whole life is ahead of you, and mine is about done; but Houghton better prepared me for life-in-the-real-world than some silly engineering-school that passes even blowhards. The I-35W bridge in Minneapolis is in the drink thanks to engineers.”
(“Don’t get me started about engineers,” our shed-slab contractor said.)
“I’ve never regretted attending a so-called ‘Liberial-Arts’ school like Houghton. I was a History-major; much more feet-on-the-ground than the engineers that supervised the Big Dig (allowing ceiling collapse, and leakage).
“I got an engineer brother that supervises his beloved Porta-Johns disgorging raw sewage all over Crapo St. They were shot out by al-Qaeda. He went in a Porta-John, sat down, and it blew up under him. Al-Qaeda had installed an IED! He was so mad, ya could hear him bellowing all over New England.”

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.

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

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

“OCR scan” (optical-character-recognition) is scanning that creates computer-text of the scanned document.

“‘Pyooter” equals computer.

“Cybex machines” are strength-training machines, much like the old Nautilus machines, but much better. The Canandaigua YMCA has a whole circuit of many machines — at least 15.

“Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it. Houghton is a religious liberal-arts college.

My macho, loudmouthed brother-from-Boston, the ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, got an engineering-degree from an “engineering-school” in Texas, and noisily claims superiority to liberal-arts majors — like me, who majored in History. Engineering is the supreme discipline; anything else is slacking off, so I am inferior.

RE: “Our shed-slab contractor” is the small independent concrete-contractor who poured the floor-slab for our storage-shed.

“Liberial” is now how my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston noisily insists “liberal” is spelled. (Now it’s “liberila.”)

The “Big Dig” is the massive tunnel-project around and through Boston. Some of the underwater tunnels leaked, and ceiling-tiles fell on cars passing underneath.

My blowhard brother-in-Boston supervises Porta-Johns at where he works, and his grown-up-and-married daughter lives on “Crapo St.”

“IED” equals improvised-explosive-device, the military nomenclature for improvised roadside bombs in Iraq. —Long ago, my brother-in-Boston had a leaky kitchen-faucet I labeled an IED. His wife endured it for six years.

My brother is always “bellowing.”

Up the road

Last night (Tuesday, June 24, 2008), the local TV news brought back a flood of long-ago memories.
The weatherman mentioned weather would be hot and sultry for the last final exams, so the head honcho, our age, picked right up on it.
In 1962, my final year at Brandywine High School, everyone in our class had to take 12th-grade Problems of Democracy, the social-studies regimen.
So a final-exam in it could be given to all 250+ students in our class in one fell swoop, unlike other classes, which could only be given one class at a time.
So the POD final was a big affair; 250+ desks arrayed in our gym — open windows, gently wafting fans in the open doorways.
So study for it could be a singular affair.
Most students went outside in the glaring sunlight, and across the street up a dirt road next to an elementary school; i.e. far away from the high-school.
I went up the road with my friend Brooks Parker, and remember splaying on a hillside eating lunch.
It certainly was nicer than the school cafeteria.
Some studying was done, but not much. Just batting things around with possible exam questions.
Like define “bicameral;” and what year was our nation’s Constitution adopted, and who wrote it?
Possible essay question: Why did we do a Constitution when we already had the Articles of Confederation?
Our long sojourn at Brandywine High School was winding down.
Somehow, going up that road in the steamy sunshine was more apt than studying in the school Library.

“Brandywine High School,” north of Wilmington, DE; is from where I graduated in 1962.

“Brooks Parker” was my friend during my senior year at Brandywine. We had formed a small dance band.

Dog Number-Six

Dog number-six: “Scarlett.” (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

“Scarlett” is Dog Number-Six.
Casey, long ago, was dog number-one, Tracy was dog number-two, Sassy was number-three, Sabrina was number-four, and Killian was number-five.
Scarlett is a rescue Irish-Setter, just like Killian and Sabrina, although Sabrina was more an already home-settled dog, returned to her breeder nearby due to divorce, and the inability of her master to keep her (the old apartment gig).
Scarlett is a rescue-dog, but from Ohio; fairly young, but already a mother twice — turned over to rescue because her owner wanted to switch to breeding small dogs. (Big dogs didn’t sell — does anyone understand the point of an Irish-Setter ain’t moolah?)
Looks like she didn’t get much attention; now she’s thrilled to get it.
The compromise was a meet-and-greet in Buffalo; about 75 miles away.
Getting to the Thruway is a half-hour; Buffalo a straight shot west of about 45 minutes.
Our intended meeting-place was a house in an old city residential area.
It looks like Rochester’s tree-shaded 19th Ward — houses from the ‘30s and ‘40s.
Buffalo has an urban core, but this was far away. Still Buffalo though.
We had Google-maps, but they failed to note the lack of a westbound exit onto the northbound avenue we intended. So we ended up going farther west, and got off the inbound expressway onto a highway on our map.
I then turned north onto another street, that was unmarked at the intersection, but we later discovered was a street we could use.
It crossed the street the house was on but with little warning, so we continued north under a railroad viaduct.
“What railroad is that?” Linda asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Too bad Jack’s not here.”
We turned left onto another street my old directions Jones indicated would be parallel to our destination street.
I turned left (south) onto another street and back under the railroad tracks.
Buffalo has railroad tracks galore. Like Chicago it used to be a major railroad hub. There are lots of abandoned railroad rights-of-way.
The railroad was smack through the residential area. Seemed fairly busy too; I heard a train once.
Finally we turned back east onto Crescent Ave., the street we wanted, and began noting house-numbers.
Our target was a gambrel-roofed abode that had been thoroughly modernized and added to.
A deck had been built on back, with a hot-tub and an above-ground pool. Trash was in a hidden cul-de-sac I thoroughly investigated numerous times with various dogs. “You must be the Hugheses,” someone said. “Just go around back, and take a seat.”
An older guy from the nearby Rochester suburb of Penfield was there with his wife; the whole point of the meet-and-greet — they wanted to get a dog.
The Ohio Irish-Setter rescue lady brought four dogs — great; now I gotta turn down two.
One was a puppy, maybe six-seven months old. No puppies for us.
Another was “Charlie Brown,” a big lazy bozo that acted more like a Labrador-Retriever.
The third was “Rhett,” who was scared of all the other dogs. He finally had to be returned to his crate in the minivan; he was a nervous wreck.
Killian was a nervous wreck too; which is why I hate walking away from nervous wrecks.
“Charlie Brown” hooked up with me right away — “a man’s dog,” they said — but kept wanting to lay down or go in the house.
But Scarlett is a happy spaz; the essence of Irish-Setter.
She started thumping her tail as soon as the side-door of the minivan opened.
“I don’t know how you could ever keep up with that wiggling monster,” the Penfield lady kept saying to me. “I know I couldn’t.”
“We just had a dog like this,” I said. “Extremely high-strung. That’s what we want.”
First choice was the Penfield people; we were only there by coincidence.
Around-and-around they went. I guess hubby was positive, but wife was up-in-the-air.
The puppy was alert, and quickly ascertained that a mirror wasn’t an enemy dog.
“If I wanted a puppy, I woulda taken that dog without hesitation,” Linda said.

(Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

Finally, after over two hours of hemming and hawing: “I guess we’ll give it a shot.” said the Penfield wife.
Their idea is to train the puppy as a therapy-dog, which may or may not work.
After all, it is an Irish-Setter.
She also was worried the puppy might charge through their Invisible-Fence.
“A puppy is less likely to do that,” the rescue-lady said.
“A puppy can be trained, and their threshold of pain is lower.”
“An adult dog that has already charged through an Invisible-Fence in pursuit of critters will do it again.”
So back on the Thruway with Scarlett in our crate.
She’s a fairly large dog, so was cramped.
Now that we have her home, I’ve already walked her on our paths.
She keeps jumping on me: “Let’s do that again, Boss.”
What’s most depressing is walking away from Rhett — that nervous dog needs a home.
And poor Charlie-Brown.
Already returned from one placement that didn’t work out, and still without a home.
“Well, you can always take all three,” the rescue-lady said.
“One dog is enough,” I said; “and we go with the spaz.”
“That tail sold me as soon as I heard it,” I said.
“Looks like that other couple got what they wanted,” the Penfield people probably said.
“Did you see that dog bouncing and wiggling all over? I could never handle a dog like that.”
(They probably shoulda taken Charlie Brown — I bet that puppy grows into a high-strung dog; he’s a field-setter, like Killian. A therapy-dog has to be laid-back.)

RE: “‘Old guy’ with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.......” —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). I also am loudly excoriated by all my siblings for preferring a professional camera (like the Nikon D100) instead of a point-and-shoot. This is because I long ago sold photos to nationally published magazines.

RE: “Casey, long ago, was dog number-one, Tracy was dog number-two, Sassy was number-three, Sabrina was number-four, and Killian was number-five.” —Casey was not actually our first dog. Our first dog was “Stacy,” a Lab-mix we got from a dog-pound. We gave her away after a week or two, after she bombed our landlady’s bedroom, an act I thought was hilarious. Our landlady was furious and wanted the dog out. —We had Tracy and Sassy at the same time, except Sassy ran away and disappeared well before Tracy died. Sabrina and Killian were also together; and Sabrina died March 2007; Killian just recently.

RE: “Too bad Jack’s not here.....” Jack is my supposedly all-knowing brother-from-Boston, who noisily claims I have no knowledge of railroading at all. I’ve been a railfan all my life.

RE: “My old directions Jones......” —This is my ability to find my way, which is excellent.

“Killian” was our previous dog; a rescue Irish-Setter. He died recently of lymphatic cancer. —He was over 10; we never knew his birthdate.

Presents

The other day (probably last Wednesday, June 18, 2008) Linda was vacuuming our Castro-Convertible.
Killian used to sleep on the Castro-Convertible. It had to be modified to suit him; pillows removed, blankets installed, etc.
Linda had folded out the Castro-Convertible, first time in years.
Suddenly a dusty Milkbone appeared.
We used to play the Milkbone game with Killian, if he had finished his supper, which he usually did.
It was more the game than the treat.
I’d hide the Milkbone while Killian sat out of sight, and then shout “All right, you little monkey!”
Killian would run all over in search of the milkbone. Usually he knew where to look; he’d listened while I hid it.
So he usually found it right away.
Then there was the question of whether he’d eat it — usually he did.
But sometimes he didn’t, in which case he had to hide the Milkbone for later consumption.
Often he’d go to the porch door, to bury it out back.
But I’d remove it from his mouth; we didn’t want a Milkbone outside going soggy in the dirt.
Other times he’d hide them inside — like inside the Castro-Convertible.
How many times did we find Milkbones carefully buried under our bed-pillows?
The next day (Thursday, June 19, 2008), Linda was vacuuming our bedroom closet, and there behind her shoes, well out of sight, was a carefully buried Milkbone.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.

“Killian” was our dog; a rescue Irish-Setter. He had lymphatic cancer, and didn’t survive. —He was over 10; we never knew his birthdate. (One of the neatest dogs we’ve ever had.)

A “Castro-Convertible” is a fold-out sofa-bed. The Castro-Convertible Company was sold to Krause's Furniture in 1993. The founders are dead.

A “Milkbone” is a dog-treat. Killian ate only “GravyBones;” gravy flavored miniature Milkbones.

We may get another dog today (Sunday, June 22, 2008), but it won’t be Killian.

“What’s your mother’s maiden-name?”

Last night (Friday, June 20, 2008) I was updating our online checking account.
So I decided to verify our Visa account.
Capital idea! Access Chase-Visa online, verify our charges to date, and make sure nothing fishy is going on.
I’ve done this before — in fact, just recently when a gas-pump ate our receipt, so I had no idea what our purchase was.
Chase is a FireFox bookmark, but (uh-oh......) it’s showing me the full log-in screen; like it forgot my user-name.
So I enter my user-name and password (which I have on a monitor prompt-tab), and NOW WHAT! Looks like Chase has decided I no longer exist, or perhaps an unrelated software upgrade has vaporized everything on restart.
Chase demands the kerreck log-in and password.
I do so, and Chase stonewalls. It demands I create a new password.
I log in again; “Naughty-naughty! Too many log-in attempts. Back to square-one. Verify identity. Create new password. What’s your mother’s maiden-name?”
For crying out loud! Chase is turning a simple two-minute log-in into a HUGE two-hour hairball.
I gave up. Some other time. Chase is demanding I create a new password. I got e-mail to process. It’s 9:30 p.m.
I don’t have time for madness like this.

My Internet browser is “FireFox.”

Blowing smoke........

Yet another regular monthly meeting of Local 282 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, my union at Regional Transit Service, my former employer, drifts into the filmy past.
I suppose I should make these meetings a blog category, and I probably will, since I write these things up every month.
And this is despite the union going on summer vacation of sorts; no monthly meetings until September.
My attending these shindigs is sort of a joke.
As a retiree, I am no longer an active employee at Transit, so therefore I can’t vote on union business.
My attendance at these meetings is little more than support for my union — and a subtle reminder to union-officials the pension amount I receive hasn’t changed in years; and that benefit could be increased.
As union meetings go, it was boring; no yelling or screaming histrionics.
But two things stand out:
—1) was the arbitration proposed to reinstate an employee who was fired for allegedly misfiling a claim for workers compensation.
The worker had an accident with her car while off-duty, called in sick (injured), yet was called in by Transit the next day “to file papers.”
The paper she was given wasn’t a workers comp application form. It was the form to report a bus accident; which this wasn’t.
So the form requested the number of the bus she was driving; so despite being on pain-medication (she had tried to put off her coming), she wrote the number of the bus she had earlier driven that day.
So now, despite her accident being off-duty with her car, Transit is claiming she was trying to file for workers compensation instead of disability.
“What can I say?” the Business-Agent said.
“Human-Relations screwed up. They gave her the wrong form, and the one they gave her wasn’t even a workers comp application.”
“Infinite wisdom. Fire the involved hourly when they should be firing their HR person.”
“Ya gotta watch these HR idiots like hawks,” the Recording-Secretary said. “They throw a COBRA-application at you, in which case you’re resigning.”
Looks like a slam-dunk to me.
Her Ford-Escort, written up in the Police-report, ain’t a Transit-bus; and 6:20 p.m. is off-duty.
The proposed arbitration passed.
—2) was a motion made in an earlier meeting to copy and circulate the Union-proposal tendered to Transit management.
“Seems like this is gonna be a lot of paper,” brother Stitt observed.
“Yep,” said the Business-Agent. “Our proposals are 25 pages or more.”
“More than that,” said the Recording-Secretary.
“Maybe we could post that proposal in the union bulletin-board at Transit,” said Stitt.
“That bulletin-board is nowhere near big enough,” said the Business-Agent. “We’d need a whole wall.”
“How about a union web-site?” someone asked. “Interested people could download the proposal and print it. That would save a lot of union paper.”
“I could do that,” said brother Maurice Hebert, a person I respect highly.
“When I was doing that union newsletter,” I said; “I’d be up to 3 a.m. getting it ready. Every ‘pyooter function takes way longer than expected.”
Hebert turned toward me and said “well, I already do a web-site.”
Okay, I’m sure brother Hebert is more ‘pyooter-literate than me, and he ain’t parrying a stroke, but “Repeating: every ‘pyooter function I’ve ever done takes way longer than expected.”
I also remember all the hairballs with the Messenger web-site, and how flying it every day was usually a struggle — try to get by despite the hairballs. Do it over, because something wasn’t working. (When I got home, I’d see if it actually published; and if it didn’t, I’d fix things at home so it did. —How many times did I call Ann Arbor from home?)
“And not only that,” someone observed; “a web-site needs to be maintained. Most of the web-sites I access are way outta date.”
“Can’t we affiliate our web-site with the RGRTA web-site?” someone innocently asked.
A torrent of guffawing broke out. “Sure,” the Business-Agent said; “and they rewrite our content to agree with their agenda.”
I have the feeling nothing will happen here. Maybe brother Hebert can pull it off; actually do a union web-site — but I remember what a time gobbler my union newsletter was.
And like me with my newsletter, a union web-site would be voluntary. Brother Hebert is still driving bus; plus I think a union web-site would gobble twice the time of my newsletter.
Unfortunately, a web-site has to be a separately paid function.
“Who needs a web-site to circulate a union-proposal?” said the Recording-Secretary. “Maybe yaz could all gimme your e-mail addresses.”
“In which case ya get 500+ e-mail addresses,” the Business-Agent said. (Sure; construct an e-mail list of 500+ addresses. That’s at least three hours — maybe four or five.)

For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.

RE: “The Business-Agent........” —Our union has two full-time paid officials, who work at the Union instead of Transit, the union-president, and a “Business-Agent.”

“COBRA” (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) is self-paid continuation of health coverage, should you discontinue employment with (or be fired by) an employer with health-coverage.

The “Recording-Secretary” is another union official; but he still works at Transit. His main function is to keep meeting minutes, and process text.

RE: “Earlier meeting......” —Our union holds at least two regular monthly meetings on meeting-day; for employees that are on-duty during a meeting.

RE: “Union-proposal tendered to Transit management......” —Our union is currently in negotiations for a new contract with Transit.

“Brother Stitt” is Terry Stitt, a bus-driver, and top of the seniority list for bus-drivers.

My “union newsletter,” the 282-News, was a voluntary union newsletter I did during my final year at Transit. I did it with Word on a computer.

The “Messenger,” my post-stroke employment, is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over two years ago. Best job I ever had. —During my final months there I did the Messenger web-site.

The Messenger web-site was done out of a web-service based in “Ann Arbor,” Michigan.

“RGRTA” (Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority) is a publicly-funded state authority to run transit service in the Rochester area; primary of which is Regional Transit Service.

‘57 Chevy

‘57 Belair convertible; the most desired.

The most recent issue of my Hemmings Classic Car magazine, August 2008, makes an interesting assertion: that the 1957 Chevrolet is the ultimate American icon.
To my humble mind, that’s a rather sweeping statement, but the 1957 Chevrolet is by far the ultimate American collector-car.
Pristinely restored examples of the ‘57 Chevy convertible are nudging 100,000 smackaroos, if they haven’t already gone over.
And this is despite Chevy losing the sales-race to Ford in 1957.
Ford had a completely new car, whereas the ‘57 Chevy was only a rehash of the ‘55 and ‘56, although both were extraordinarily good cars for their time.

Lordy-lordy. Fuel-Injection in the lightest and most basic ‘57 Chevy.

The main reason was the new Small-Block motor, introduced in the 1955 model-year, a motor so good it’s still in production, although vastly improved.
Despite losing the sales-race to Ford, the ‘57 Chevy went on to become one of the most popular used-cars of all time.
They were particularly in demand among youth, due primarily to the Small-Block.
And now everyone seems to want to go back to those days.
Everyone seems to want a ‘57 Chevy, particularly Baby-Boomers, who might have had one in the past.
The ‘57 Chevy restoration business has gotten so good, aftermarket suppliers are selling everything to make a complete non-Chevrolet ‘57 Chevy.

The fake.

The car pictured is a complete ‘57 convertible assembled from aftermarket parts.

Our family had a few.
One was a puke-green Belair four-door sedan powered by a Stovebolt.
It was a pig; even slower than our ‘53.
After my freshman year at college, my father purchased a silver ‘57 Belair four-door station-wagon (pictured below).
I was ecstatic. It had the Power-Pak V8 motor; four-barrel carb and dual-exhausts.
I used to want to drag-race it, although I’m sure a properly tuned car would have whomped it.
I used to remove the air-cleaner and drive it around that way; mucho induction-noise: WONK!
A quarter-mile was measured out on a well-paved rural road near our northern Delaware house, and the wagon would do over 80 mph.
And that’s with the PowerGlide tranny, and I’d still be in Lo gear.

“The Wagon.” (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the ancient Hawkeye.)

After I got married and no longer lived at home, my father purchased a ‘57 Chevy two-door hardtop with a Stovebolt as a collector car.
But my mother put her foot down, and made him sell it. —A tragedy.

So now the ‘57 Chevy is in such demand, it’s out of reach for Average Joe.
And I’m not sure I’d even want one.
Years ago I looked at a hot-rodded ‘55 with a 400 cubic-inch ‘77 Monte Carlo Small-Block.
The guy who built it had died.
It had a four-speed floorshift, and I let his daughter drive.
What a dishrag! I came away cowed, much preferring our Faithful Hunda.

What did I ever see in these things? It’s a turkey styled by a committee. (Stovebolt One-Fifty post — two door sedan.)

What had I ever seen in such a thing?
The Small-Block was uproariously loud, and the chassis wimpy.
Throw $35,000 at it, and it’d still be an antique!
And there they were: those dreadful wire doorlock pins. The plastical knobs had broken off and disappeared, as they always did.
The replacement clear-plastic knobs were aftermarket, and didn’t screw on. All I had to do was remove them, and there was that wonky threaded wire that could flex and disappear into the door.
The ‘57 used the same flimsy system. Our wagon lacked lock-knobs.

The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first at 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the Small-Block. It was made in various displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation.

“Fuel-Injection” is a special application to allow more precise fuel-metering than carburetors, which were sloppy. The main advantage of FI (Fuel-Injection) on a Small-Block was tuned intake ram-tubes, which couldn’t be done with carburetors, and enhanced high-speed breathing. The ‘57 FI was troublesome, and beyond the ability of the average backyard mechanic. The ‘57 FI on the Small-Block was the first FI in production. FI is now the norm, but mainly to meet emission-requirements. (The FI car pictured could be a stock-car racer.)

“Puke-green” is our family’s description of anything pea-green. Our ‘57 Belair four-door sedan was two-tone green; bottom was dark green, and on top was a lighter green: i.e. “puke-green.”

The Chevrolet overhead-valve inline “Stovebolt-six” was introduced in the 1929 model-year at 194+ cubic inches. It continued production for years, upgraded to four main bearings (from three) for the 1937 model-year. In 1950 the Stovebolt was upsized to 235.5 cubic inches (from 216), and later upgrades included full-pressure lubrication and hydraulic (as opposed to mechanical) valve-tappets. The Stovebolt was produced clear through the 1963 model-year, but replaced with a new seven-main bearing (as opposed to less — like four) inline-six engine in the 1964 model-year. The Stovebolt was also known as “the cast-iron wonder;” called the “Stovebolt” because various bolts could be replaced by stuff from the corner hardware.

“Our ‘53” was the navy-blue 1953 Chevrolet Two-Ten two-door sedan I learned to drive in. It had automatic transmission (PowerGlide).

A “four-barrel carb” is a four-barrel carburetor (the usual V8 application was a two-barrel) — for performance; as were two exhaust pipes (“duals”). Most cars had only one exhaust-pipe, and at that time exhaust-pipes were rather small.

A “drag-race” is standing-start to the end of a quarter-mile. Whoever finished first won. 80+ mph at the end of a quarter-mile was fairly fast at that time, but now cars are much faster. Cars specifically designed for drag-racing are now hitting well over 300 mph.

“PowerGlide” was Chevrolet’s first fully automatic transmission, introduced in the 1950 model-year; but it was only two-speeds: “Lo,” which was sort of a fluid-drive; and “Hi,” which was direct (1-to-1). Both the ‘53 and The Wagon were PowerGlide, but The Wagon would rev higher in Lo; 80+ mph whereas the ‘53 might do 65. (This was a function of how high each engine would rev.)

“Tranny” is transmission.

RE: “Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the ancient Hawkeye.......” —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 “Hawkeye” (“HAWK-eye”) was on old Kodak Hawkeye camera I inherited from my father when he gave it up. It was the first camera I used, and it used 120 VeriChrome Pan black & white film. (See image.)

A “four-speed floorshift” is a four-speed transmission shifted with a floor-lever; as opposed to a shift-lever on the steering column. Floor-shifts were preferred by hot-rodders as more direct; as was standard transmission over automatic transmissions, which consumed power to operate the transmission, and were less direct than standard transmission.

“Monte Carlo” was a Chevrolet model during the ‘70s and the early ‘80s. — It was based on the Chevelle. You could get the Small-Block in it at 400 cubic-inches, the largest ever displacement for the Small-Block. But it required siamesed cylinder-bores; i.e. no cooling passages between cylinders. Too close = not normal. 350 cubic-inches displacement (with cooling-passages) was more normal.

“The Faithful Hunda” is our 1989 Honda Civic All-Wheel-Drive station-wagon, by far the BEST car we’ve ever owned, now departed (replaced by our 2003 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.)

Monthly Calendar Report for June 2008

An image for the ages. (Photo by Jim Shaughnessy©.)

The July 2008 entry in my Audio-Visual Designs black & white All-Pennsy calendar, the best one, is another classic Jim Shaughnessy shot, Pennsy Decapod number 4230 starting out of Max siding on the Elmira branch at Ralston, Pa., in 1957.
The Dek is the quintessential Pennsy steam-engine, 2-10-0; and is performing a quintessential Pennsy task, lugging a heavy train in a deep Pennsylvania valley.
It’s belching a heavy column of smoke and cinders high into the sky, an act which would inflame Granny, if her laundry was hanging outside at trackside. (Who hangs their laundry out any more? Ya blow-dry it with burning natural-gas in a dryer.)
Nowadays such smoke would be frowned upon — in fact, even back then it was frowned upon.
Engine crews were admonished to run their smokestacks clean, and stack police were around to blow crews in.
Yet nowadays the crews on restored excursion steam-locomotives are advised to make a lot of smoke, especially for photo-runbys.
The railfan photographers want the same towering pillar of smoke that’s in this picture.
The fireman pours so much coal (or fuel-oil) into the engine’s firebox, the fire burns so rich it creates an oily black smudge on the sky.
The Greenies would have a fit. GLOBAL-WARMING ALERT! POLLUTION ALERT!
And conditions have to be just right — they were right for this picture.
The air has to be still enough to not dissipate the smoke.
How many times have I seen smoky photo runbys ruined by smoke fanning over the countryside, dissipated by the wind.
Yet here we are deep in a mountainous Pennsylvania creek-valley, surrounded by towering hills, and Shaughnessy is ready.
Thank you, Shaughnessy — an image for the ages.
My friend Charlie Gardiner, who I graduated with from Houghton College in 1966, has a vacation abode in Vermont, and once pointed out a proposed steam excursion railroad.
It was scotched due to environmental concerns. (Even cellphone towers aren’t allowed.)

Raw and basic. (Photo by Peter Vincent.)

The July 2008 entry of my Deuce 1932 Ford hot-rod calendar is a Pheaton, set up to race at Bonneville — and photographed there.
It’s originally a show-car, a full-fendered Pheaton hot-rod, but unfortunately it burned to the ground in 1984.
The burned-out remains sat for 20 years, until rescued by Matt Reynolds.
He installed a 350 Chevy Small-Block, and reconfigured it to race.
It’s a classic hot-rod, raw and basic, and set up to go fast; not impress onlookers.
The original hot-rods usually rated flat-black primer. Glittering trinkets and baubles and fancy paint don’t make a car any faster.
Neither does the kerreck body, which to me would be a fenderless high-boy roadster or a three-window coupe with a chopped top.
I remember seeing a customized ‘50 Merc lead-sled in a northern Delaware fast-food joint: chopped, channeled, sectioned, lowered; the whole kabosh.
It had been done up in flat-black primer, yet looked great.
My old friend Art Dana, ex of the bus-company, built up a Model-A hot-rod with a ‘56 Pontiac V8.
“I hope ya brushed it with flat-black primer,” I said.
“Sure did, Hughsey,” Art said. “There’s no other way.”

The most beautiful railroad diesel-locomotive of all time. (Photo by John Dziobko.)

The July 2008 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is the most beautiful railroad diesel-locomotive of all time, the Alco PA — although the Baldwin Sharknoses styled by Raymond Loewy could give them a run for their money.
Unfortunately, the Alco PA wasn’t very reliable, although not as bad as the Baldwins.
But they weren’t as good as the EMD E-units.
The PA was rated at 2,000 horsepower, but out of only one engine, a turbocharged V16 Alco 244.
It was one of the earliest applications of turbocharging to a railroad diesel-locomotive.
The turbo would fail, crippling the locomotive, and/or sending pillars of black exhaust into the sky.
Fuel-metering was configured for turbo operation. Without it the engine ran incredibly rich.
A PA could emit a pillar of black exhaust even when the Turbo was working.
The Turbo wouldn’t spool up quickly enough, and the engine ran rich until it did.
The EMD E-unit was getting comparable horsepower out of two unturbocharged V12 diesel-engines.
Unfortunately they weren’t as gorgeous as the PA, but they were more reliable.
The 244 engine was rushed to market, and was so failure-prone it dragged down Alco sales. The later 251 engine was much better, but the damage had been done.
The PA pictured is in commuter service on the New York & Long Branch, a joint Pennsy and Central of New Jersey operation in north Jersey.
It was the final stomping-ground for many Pennsy engines, like the PAs, the Sharknoses, and the K4 Pacific steam-locomotive.
The unelectrified engines would run north to South Amboy, where they were swapped out for electric engines for final running to New York City.

The Stooges play golf: “nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-nyuk......”

The July 2008 entry of my Three-Stooges calendar is an all-time classic.
A movie-frame outtake, regrettably, but from one of the best Stooges skits of all time: the golf-game.
I think I have that in my Three Stooges video DVD.
In this frame they are analyzing a golf-hole; Larry looking suitably analytical, Curly looking wary, and Moe, as always, mugging insanely for the camera.
Moe looks completely freaked out, but it’s an act.
Without this, it wouldn’t be the Stooges.
“Here, see this?” POINK! “Why I oughta........”
But it ain’t Gleason and Carney in the Honeymooners.
Gleason (Ralph Kramden) and Carney (Norton) did the best golf skit.
“Okay Norton; lemme show ya how to play golf,” Ralph bellows.
“First ya gotta address the ball.”
Carney looks quizzically down at the ball, and says “hello, ball.”

Norfolk Southern double-stack through Oak Harbor, Ohio. (Photo by John Stanovich.)

The July 2008 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees calendar is what I see all the time on Norfolk Southern Railway any more: two black Norfolk Southern locomotives leading a colorful double-stack freight-train, this time through Oak Harbor, Ohio.
What’s interesting to me is the lead locomotive; a brand-new SD70M-2 from EMD (GM’s ElectroMotive Division), one of a recent order of 130.
It ain’t the usual General-Electric Dash-9. (NS rates ‘em at 4,000 horsepower, so Dash-9 40C, instead of the usual Dash-9 44C (4,400 horsepower); “C” being a six-axle truck.
The SD70M-2 is the new EMD four-stroke prime-mover; previous EMDs were two-stroke.
The two-stroke was too sloppy to meet emission requirements.
During a recent trip to Horseshoe Curve I saw quite a few SD70M-2s, usually leading GEs; but sometimes the complete lashup.
The moving finger having writ, moves on.......
So much for the Dash-9s; although many were still in evidence.
Stanovich is a locomotive engineer based in Chicago.
He’s probably proud of these things. I can understand. I used to take pictures of buses when I drove bus at Transit. I really loved driving our first “artics,” and thought our GM “RTS” buses were gorgeous.
The calendar picture appeared to be widened some; the nose of the SD70M-2 was too wide.
An old Photoshop trick; stretch the picture to fit the calendar image size.
This pik was narrowed back to make the SD70M-2 look right. It looks more kerreck, but ain’t the original camera image.
The calendar pik didn’t appear to be either — it looked like the stretched HD-TV I see at the Canandaigua YMCA.

Lockheed A-28 “Hudson.” (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

The July 2008 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is an airplane I never thought much of, the Lockheed A-28 “Hudson.”
As I recall, the Hudson was a military version of the Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra commercial airliner; used primarily by the Royal Air Force as bombers and maritime observation aircraft.
Two machine-guns were mounted in the nose of one version, so the airplane could be used as an attacker.
It was designed and constructed under Lend-Lease in the late ‘30s, a response to a British request in its effort against the Nazis.
The Hudson ain’t the North-American B25, which ended up being a primal force in the American war-effort.
The B-25 was a hot-rod, and the Hudson a turkey.

1981 C3 Corvette. (Photo by Richard Prince.)

The July 2008 entry of my Corvette calendar is a 1981 Corvette, perhaps the worst of all time.
The early ‘80s were a sad time for Corvette — the only engine available for Corvette was a 190 horsepower 350 cubic-inch Small-Block.
For heaven sake! In 1957 a Small-Block was available at one horsepower per cubic-inch: 283 horsepower for 283 cubes.
Zora Arkus Duntov was gone (retired in 1975), and the C3 had been around since 1968.
General Motors was even considering shortening a Camaro (a la the original American Motors two-seater AMX), and rebadging it as a “Corvette.”
Thankfully, this didn’t happen. A new C4 Corvette debuted in the 1984 model-year, and thereby saved the marque. The new C4 resolved many of the things that were wrong with the C3, and had a completely reengineered chassis.
That chassis is still being used in the C6, but has been improved.
The C4 saw reinstitution of performance as a goal with the Small-Block, as a 230-horsepower port fuel-injected version was installed in most Corvettes in the 1985 model-year. This is fuel-injection for each individual cylinder; much better that the twin crossfire injected Small-Blocks in previous Corvettes — which had two separate throttle-bodies for each cylinder-bank. Crossfire was better than carburetors (too sloppy), but not as good as individual port injection. (The 1957 fuel-injection was individual port injection.)
Even more powerful Small-Blocks were eventually installed.
During 1981 Corvette production transitioned from St. Louis to Bowling Green, Kentucky.
A manager at Transit had a C3, but his was 1976 — and he kept having problems with it.
It was a 350 Small-Block with a four-speed, and was “Hugger-Orange;” a beautiful car.
He finally had to sell it — the frame had rusted out. The body was fiberglass, but the frame was steel.
I shed a tear.

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

“Jim Shaughnessy” was a railfan photographer in the late ‘40s and the ‘50s. He was based in Binghamton, NY, and took a lot of railroad photographs in that area. Pennsy’s bucolic Elmira branch was nearby.

A “photo-runby” is when all the railfan photographers detrain, and set up in a “photo-line” at trackside. The train backs up, and then blasts by the photo-line; after which the photographers are picked up.

“Houghton College,” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it. Houghton is a religious liberal-arts college.

A “Pheaton” is an open four-seater with only a canvas roof. It wasn’t convertible. A “roadster” is an open two-seater (also unconvertible). Pheatons are no longer made; cars are closed.

“Bonneville” is Bonneville Salt-flats next to Great Salt Lake in Utah. It’s a vast open flat area where top-speed runs can be made.

The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first at 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the Small-Block. It was made in various displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation. —350 cubic-inches displacement.

A “high-boy roadster” is an unfendered roadster at stock height (although the front axle may be lowered). —A “three-window coupe” is a coupe with only three windows (four if you include the windshield): those in the doors (two), and the rear-window. “Five-window coupes” were also available, with small side-windows behind the doors. The yellow Milner coupe in “American Graffiti” is a five-window.

Usually a customized 1949-‘51 Mercury was known as a “lead-sled.” This was because so much custom metal-work at that time was done with molten lead.

“Chopped” is small sections cut out of the window-pillars, so the roof can be lowered. “Channeled” is constructing channels in the carbody, so it can be dropped lower on the frame. “Sectioned” is cutting longitudinal sections out of the carbody sides, so it will have decreased section height. “Lowered” is to lower the carbody relative to the axles. It was often done with lowering-blocks between the springs and the axle — although the front-axle might have to be “dropped:” rebent so the frame would sit lower relative to the wheels. (This presumes a front beam axle; a method out-of-fashion after the ‘30s and ‘40s.)

RE: “bus-company......” —For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y.

“Alco” is American Locomotive Company of Schenectady, NY; a longtime builder of railroad steam locomotives. When railroads began to dieselize, Alco switched; but is now out-of-business.

“Sharknoses” are Baldwin diesel-locomotives designed by Raymond Loewy, probably the prettiest diesel railroad-locomotive of all time — although it’s competing with the Alco PA. “Sharknoses” because they had the headlight overhanging the pilot, looking like the nose of a shark.

“Raymond Loewy” is a prolific industrial designer hired by the Pennsylvania Railroad — and also Baldwin Locomotive Works.

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

The “E-unit” was EMD’s passenger locomotive from the ‘30s through the ‘50s.

“Turbocharging” is using exhaust gases to drive a turbine-driven supercharger. —Supercharging blows (forces) more air into the engine.

The “New York & Long Branch” is a railroad in north Jersey that could operate commuter-service to New York City. At first it was a Jersey Central operation, but became a joint operation with Pennsy, when PRR proposed building a competing line. —The Pennsy tunnels under the Hudson River from Jersey to New York City required electric operation, since they weren’t ventilated enough to operate otherwise.

“Norfolk Southern” is a 25-year-old merger of Norfolk & Western Railroad (in Virginia and West Virginia) and Southern Railway. Along with CSX Transportation it operates the preponderance of railroad service on the east coast (including the northeast). —NS got most of the ex-Pennsy lines when Conrail was broken up and sold. (“Conrail” was a government amalgamation of east-coast railroads that went bankrupt pretty much at the same time as Penn-Central, a merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central. It included other bankrupt east-coast railroads, like Erie-Lackawanna and Lehigh Valley; but eventually went private as it became more successful.) —N&W was immensely successful, since it served the Pocahontas Coal Region.

RE: “Double-stack...... “ is a system whereby two trailer-sized freight containers are stacked two-high in railroad well-cars. The system is very high, and required raising bridges and increasing tunnel-heights so it would clear. Stacking the containers two-high is much more efficient than only one-high — although one-high could also include the trailer-wheels (Trailer-On-Flatcar = TOFC).

“Two-stroke” diesels do a power-stroke for every down-stroke of the piston — “four-strokes” are a power-stroke for every other down-stroke of the piston. In two-stroke diesels the descending piston uncovered cylinder ports, through which intake air was blown into the cylinder. Poppet-valves would also open in the cylinder-head to let exhaust-gasses escape. —A four-stroke uses poppet-vavles to both let in the intake air and also the exhaust gasses. One piston down-stroke pulls in the intake air, and the last upstroke of the cycle exhausts. Being a diesel, fuel is injected at the top of the piston-stroke, and it self-ignites. The upstroke of the piston compresses the intake air, but with a four-stroke, this is a separate move. —General Motors developed light two-stroke diesel-engines in the ‘30, and the principles therein where used in truck and bus diesels, and much larger railroad locomotive diesels.

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, and have been since I was a child.)

An “artic” (“r-TIK”) was a two-section bus powered by one motor. The second section was a trailer connected to the first section by bellows. —The General Motors “RTS” bus was a series brought to market in the late ‘70s. It was GM’s third series of buses, and replaced the TDH “New Look” series (the fishbowls). In my humble opinion, they were GM’s best styling effort — even better than their cars. They made the humble bus look great. (I called ‘em “Starships.”) —For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y. Regional Transit had many “RTS” buses.

RE: “It looked like the stretched HD-TV I see at the Canandaigua YMCA.......” —I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA exercise-gym, and it has over three wall-mounted flat-screen HD TVs. HD TV (in this area) uses the same image used in normal-width TV, only it’s stretched to fit the increased image width. The effect is slight, but you can ascertain it. The Photoshop computer program can be used to stretch an image.

Zora Arkus-Duntov is the former hot-rodder hired by Chevrolet. He made the Corvette the great sportscar it is.

Various Corvettes have been marketed over the years; 1953-1962; the Sting-Ray from 1963-1967; the mako-sharks (also Sting-Rays) from 1968-1982; the C4s from 1983-1996; the C5s from 1997-2004; and currently the C6 (2005-to date). Earlier Corvettes didn’t go by the “C” nomenclature, and “C” nomenclature is essentially a fan thing. Ergo, C1 is 1953-1962; C2 is 1963-1967; and C3 is 1968-1982. The car pictured is a C3.

Ain’t technology wonderful?

Last night (Monday, June 16, 2008) I noticed an e-mail promotion from EssentialApparel.com.
Essential Apparel is where I ordered my Lee jeans online before.
Regular-cut stone Lee jeans only $19.90 a pair. (Cue Steno-Queen — Regular-cut stone Lee jeans only $5 from the back of the faded blue Econoline in the old Tops parking-lot along Joseph Ave. Or lead-based Chinese jeans from LL Bean; “kindly log in please. Never any shipping; our inflated prices reflect that.”)
Well okay, I’m going to need jeans in not too long; I clicked the link. It’ll be “FoxFire” (FireFox), because my e-mail is through FireFox.
I proceed through the ordering process until “please log in.” —Oh, for cryin’ out loud!
I don’t have an Essential Apparel account that I know of; don’t even want one — although I might; I did receive a promotional e-mail from them.
Think this through, guys. This ain’t a browser issue, or even a platform issue. It’s them WANTING (DEMANDING) I have an account. Do this on Linda’s machine with her Internet-Explorer and we’d get the same hairball.
I tried various e-mail addresses and the password I always use, but “naughty-naughty!”
Much later I gave up; having earlier walked away. Essential Apparel wasn’t allowing a non-account checkout, so I set up a new account, expecting weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth if my account info duplicated an already existing account (mine).
No drama; my new account crunched. Two pair of $19.90 Lee jeans are successfully ordered.
Ain’t technology wonderful?

“Steno-Queen” is my brother-in-Delaware’s wife, called “Steno-Queen” because she once was a stenographer, and is always correcting my spelling and grammar. —She prides herself in always getting the cheapest price for anything; except that she and my brother always buy stuff from LL Bean.

“Joseph Ave.” is the main drag through the slums of Rochester.

“FoxFire” is what my sister in south Floridy calls the Internet-browser “FireFox.” My siblings decided it’s inferior to Internet-Explorer, the browser of champions. I switched to FireFox at the suggestion of a PC user; and because Internet-Explorer was mucking this blog. The blog-site suggested FireFox.

RE: “This ain’t a browser issue, or even a platform issue.......” —My siblings all use Windoze PCs and Internet-Explorer, so of course I am utterly reprehensible and rebellious to use a MAC and FireFox. (I have a hunch they won’t get the “This ain’t a browser issue, or even a platform issue.” —They’ll just tell me to dump my MAC, and switch back to IE.)

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years. She drives a Windoze PC with Internet-Explorer; which all my siblings loudly advise is what I should be doing. The general advice is for her to do the online ordering from her rig, with her Internet-Explorer.

Alarums-alarums

(Do I ever leave the Canandaigua YMCA without something to write up?)

—1) I’m quietly doing a Cybex machine; a strength-trainer.
All-of-a-sudden: “Bamp-bamp-bamp-bamp-bamp!”
It’s Armageddon; Canandaigua is under nuclear attack. It’s the old waazoo — do we take this alarm seriously? Do we all pack up and amble onto the sidewalk; just like an elementary school fire-drill?
No smoke; no flames.
Just as suddenly someone hollers “breakout.” Amazon-Lady and Nadine (who may be Amazon-Lady’s daughter) have opened a side-door and are tossing cardboard cartons into the exercise-gym.
They close the door and the alarm stops. By then even staff-members are holding their ears.
Nadine, the head of the exercise-gym, called Amazon-Lady “ma” once, and looks as nasty. But she’s about 20 pounds overweight — a disgrace to her calling.

—2) I’m driving south on I-390, after having used the Thruway to get to the strawberry-patch — no U-pick.
I’m in the right lane, and a black Ford Escape is coming up in the left lane to pass me.
A beige Ford Focus is behind me; and starts changing lanes toward the Escape; no signal.
Here I am motoring blithely along watching this torrid drama unfold in my inside rear-view mirror — this won’t effect me at all.
Suddenly the Focus jukes madly to the right, over-correcting right into the shoulder — it looks like the left-front may dig in and flip him.
He regains his composure without flipping — thank ya Ford and Firestone — and the Escape passes me.
Finally the Focus deigns to pass: look out; Rapture may occur.
As he passes I glance left; but no Dubya-sticker. Did have a Christian-fish though.

Amazon-Lady is a YMCA-employee. We call her that because she is extremely muscle-bound.

“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.

“Next great leap forward.......”

Yesterday afternoon (Saturday, June 14, 2008; Flag-Day) I turned on our tiny TV to watch a train-video while eating a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.
No sound or picture on our TV until I turn on the DVD-player.
This is because our video-cable is direct into the DVD-player, since the DVD-player is cable-ready.
There’s no cable-box. I’ve had it wired that way for years.
With everything on I get the local ABC affiliate: Channel 13. The DVD-player displays whatever channel it was on last.
I then switch over to “play DVD” to play my train-video.
“What we have here, folks, is the next great leap forward in hedge-trimming technology.”
WHOA! Stopped in my tracks. I couldn’t switch over to the train-video.
“Marcy, it’s everywhere,” I thought to myself.
A pretty young model with mega-cleavage was busily hovering “the next great leap forward in hedge-trimming technology” over a hedge. It looked like a white plastical garbage-can lid, a refugee from Roswell, New Mexico; except it had a thick orange extension-cord coming out the back.
I guess the angle is that it also had an inside vacuum bag to fill with hedge-clippings — and probably fill in about 15 seconds.
Great. The “next great leap forward in hedge-trimming technology” is to dump your clippings three times per minute.
(Why do ya hafta be a History-major to see this kinda insanity?)
“Designed by engineers (uh-oh) and scientists — but you can have one for only $19.95; but only if you call now.”
“Operators are standing by; have your Visa or MasterCard ready. Not available in stores; regularly $24.95. Call the toll-free number on your screen.”
Years ago the recently-deceased 94-year-old nosy neighbor (at that time 91 or 92) was in front of his house trimming his hedge with a portable electrical hedge-trimmer: “bzzzz, bzzzzz!”
He had it attached to a long orange extension-cord around his house into his garage.
I snuck across the street and pulled the plug.
Suddenly “ker-click, ker-click, ker-click, ker-click,” followed by “Now what?”
“Wassa matter?” I asked. “Got a problem?”
“Looks like I got a neighbor problem,” he said.
“Put that plug back in, boy!”

“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 Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the Messenger newspaper), and together they live near Boston. (Both Marcy and Mahoney keep blogs — Marcy’s is Playtime at Hazmat.) —During our time at the Messenger Marcy once asked me how I managed to find so much insanity to report. “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” I said.

RE: “Why do ya hafta be a History-major to see this kinda insanity?” —My all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, the ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, trained as an engineer, whereas I majored in History; so therefore I am inferior.

The so-called “94-year-old nosy neighbor” lived across the street from us. “94-year-old nosy neighbor” because he was always watching us and criticizing.

Errands

Yesterday afternoon (Thursday, June 12, 2008), while Linda was working at the Post-Office, I set out to do three errands.
Actually, three errands ain’t that much. It’s just that one was all the way in deepest, darkest Rochester, 50+ minutes away.
As always, other errands in that direction, north, had to be coupled.
And a fourth errand, road-test and assessment of a Suzuki SX4, which I’ve wanted to do for months, had to be deferred once again, since doing so would gobble up two or more hours.
—1) The first errand was to Roly-Door in Rochester, our old stomping grounds, Winton and Blossom, a block from our old house.
Roly-Door replaced our garage-door opener here in West Bloomfield when the earlier nylon gear stripped.
They also suggested a giant 16’ by 8’ garage-door would be much lighter now, and we should probably replace the door.
Our current garage-door, an “Overhead-Door,” is original to the house, so over 18 years old.
There’s a lotta weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth when we open it, and it hung up recently.
I’ve always felt negatory about Roly-Door, because they bought a classic house near the Winton/Blossom corner, removed the second story and the attic, flat-roofed the first story with a tar-roof, and then built out to the street.
So much for the classic house. —The first floor and cellar remain, including a bow-window with the glass painted over, but other than that it’s still there; painted flat gray.
But -a) Roly-Door fixed our door at the drop-of-a-hat; -b) I know where they are; and -c) Overhead-Door is kaput.
“Does your door still work?” the nice salesman asked.
“Yes,” I said; “but it hung up once.” I wasn’t looking forward to a frenzied used-car salesman, and thankfully this guy wasn’t.
Color-chips were circulated, and brochures opened.
R-values were bandied about.
“I work in that garage during winter, and don’t want to heat it.”
“Sounds like R-12 or R-18.......”
“It also faces south, so it gets the wind.”
“And right now the way it’s painted it’s a heat-sink; extreme thermal variances that pop screws and spring hinges.”
The salesman will come out next week to assess the job.
I guess everything has to be replaced except the opener, which they installed anyway: track-channels, door, sealers; the whole kabosh.
And no windows this time. We never used ‘em. They were so full of condensation (probably failed seals due to extreme thermal variances) we looked out the side man-door, or even opened it.
Departing I drove by our old house out front — didn’t go around back. Our front portico is almost completely closed in by a bush, and our front hedge is up to the bedroom window-ledges (our bedroom was on the first floor).
Last we looked around back, our garden had become a forest still surrounded by our fence.
I wonder how many owners there have been since we left?
And all the trees in the neighborhood are much higher — the neighborhood is much shadier.
—2) I also had to hit the dreaded Funky-Food-Market; mainly to purchase pizza-sauce.
Weggers has a funky food section, but it appears they don’t sell salt-free pizza-sauce.
Only Lori’s (the “Funky-Food-Market”) has it — plus I have to hit Lori’s for other things.
Three salt-free pizza-sauces in my sissy-cart, along with a case of organical grape-juice (12 bottles), and a large bag of bulk rolled-oats I dished out myself.
Doesn’t hafta be organical grape-juice, since MarketPlace sells it, but not by the case, and they want a lot more bucks per bottle. Weggers doesn’t sell it at all — with them, it’s Welch’s, which is okay, but I can’t buy a case.
Just the other day I purchased organical bananas at Weggers, but only because the non-organic bananas were too ripe and too small.
“Grown in Ecuador,” it said. That means jetted up to Weggers using gobs of jet-fuel, and then truck-delivered to the store.
So what’s the point? We’re still using oil to deliver the stuff, plus it had a petroleum-based “organic” band, and a molded plastic wrapper over the stems.
MarketPlace also sells bulk rolled-oats, and bulk quick-oats. We buy the quick-oats there; rolled-oats if I can’t get to Lori’s.
—3) Final errand was “Chevy Country” in nearby Avon (“AH-von” not “AYE-von” [the makeup]) to take pictures of old cars for my blowhard brother-in-Boston to identify.
Seems he should be able to slam-dunk at least half; probably even the faded pickup-truck (that’s five outta eight).
But they’re all junk — looks like that Dart was pushed dead into a field.
The ‘57 Chevys (and the ‘55) showed messy bondo around the headlights; and the driver’s door wouldn’t fully close on the ‘54. (But both ‘57s have an intact [unbroken] center grille-bar; where do you ever see that?)
I tried to open the hood on the ‘39 to see if it had a Small-Block or the original Stovebolt, which despite my all-knowing macho brother’s noisy claim, wouldn’t be the Iron-Duke.
But the hood wouldn’t open without my yanking it, and it ain’t my car; so I left it closed.
“I see ya like the cars,” said the scruffy owner. “I got lots more out back in a barn.”
“I can’t shoot anything inside,” I said.
“I expect to drag out more soon.”
A Dart is hardly a Chevy, nor is a rotting Mach-One Mustang, or an un-straight GTO (at least, I think it’s a GTO).
But they’re things for my brother to bluster about.
I have no idea what year the Dart is — didn’t look. I wonder if it’s a Hemi?

AS ALWAYS.......
The frenzied surfeit of errands continues: -a) this morning there was a PSA blood-draw for a Urology Appointment next Friday; -b) after 2 p.m. today (Friday, June 13, 2008) Budget-Blinds is supposed to appear to install the blinds on our porch; -c) the garage-door salesman comes next Monday in the late afternoon — and Linda has both a dentist appointment and an eye-appointment on that day, which means she may not be here. She also had an ear-appointment a few days ago; -d) monthly business-meeting of my old bus-union is Thursday, June 19; and -e) my Urology appointment is the next day (goosey-goosey).
The YMCA got tossed up the creek today, because I don’t have time for it. (I had to buy brown eggs from the dreaded egg-man, plus mail something to 44, and hit MarketPlace for milk.)
Plus -a) I still got a motorbike that needs inspection, and -b) we’re still looking for a dog, and that may mean a long journey.
Mighty Curve is down July 7, back July 9; and sometime during July is a Transit-retirees meeting, and I’ve volunteered to pass out diabetes literature in advance; since I still can.
Amidst all this is Linda working at the Post-Office, lawn-mowing, running, and the YMCA. It hurtles on-and-on.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years. Like me she’s retired, but she works part-time at the West Bloomfield post-office.

The “Suzuki SX4” is small all-wheel-drive station-wagon we’re considering buying.

RE: Before West Bloomfield, we lived near the corner of Winton and Blossom Roads in Rochester; on North Winton Road — an old farmhouse we owned.

The “Funky-Food-Market” is Lori’s Natural Foods, south of Rochester in Henrietta — a source for salt-free cereal, sauce, etc. “Dreaded” because my zealot siblings have loudly passed judgment. —“Funky food” is natural food; whole grains, etc.

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

Wegmans has a small shopping-cart that will only hold what a daily shopper would buy. My zealot siblings call it a “sissy-cart.”

“MarketPlace” is a small independent supermarket in the nearby village of Honeoye Falls. My wife buys most of our groceries there.

“My blowhard brother-in-Boston,” the ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, claims to be a superior car-guy to me, and that I know nothing at all; which is sheer posturing.

The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first at 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. It’s still being produced; though vastly revised.

The Chevrolet “Stovebolt” was the Stovebolt overhead-valve inline six-cylinder car motor, updated in 1937, but introduced earlier. It was called the “Stovebolt” because it could be repaired with common stovebolts from the hardware-store. It stayed in production through 1963.

The “Iron-Duke” was a four-cylinder car motor once made by Chevrolet, in the ‘80s. My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston once claimed the Chevrolet Vega used the Iron-Duke motor, which was flat wrong. The Vega motor was an unsleeved all-aluminum overhead-cam 2.3-liter four-cylinder; probably the worst motor General Motors ever made. “Unsleeved” because the cylinder-bores did not have cast-iron sleeves. The were etched aluminum; and would wear. Many Vegas ended up smoking like mosquito-foggers. 1939 is hardly the ‘80s.

The “center grille-bar” on a 1957 Chevy usually broke when the car was used to push-start another.

There have been three “Hemis” (“HEM-eee”): -1) was the original Chrysler Hemi V8 built from 1951 through 1958; -2) was the famed Dodge and Plymouth “Elephant-motor” displacing 426 cubic-inches, drag-raced and raced in NASCAR until it was outlawed; and -3) the current “Hemi;” which though smaller still produces prodigious horsepower, because it has the same hemispherical combustion-chamber (with canted valves) as the original Hemis — which breath extremely well (like at high speed). —If that Dart had an “Elephant-motor” it woulda been a monster; small car, HUGELY powerful motor.

For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. My bus-union was Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 282.

“Dreaded egg-man” is a local producer of eggs who keeps hens in his backyard. My zealot siblings have all noisily weighed in that Jesus would buy eggs only from Weggers — that backyard eggs are toxic.

“44” (“Agent-44”) is my brother-in-Delaware’s onliest son Tom. He recently graduated college as a computer-engineer. Like me he’s a railfan.

I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA exercise-gym.

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, and have been since I was a child.)