Livonia, Avon & Lakeville

Livonia, Avon & Lakeville Alco #s 420 and 425, bound for Rochester. Both are Alco Centurys, #420 an ex-Long Island C420, and #425 an ex-New Haven C425. #420 is high-nose, because it once had a steam-generator (as LI #200).

At long last, I know why I’ve seen Livonia, Avon (“AH-von;” not “AYE-von,” the cosmetic) & Lakeville (Livonia, Avon & Lakeville) power in Norfolk Southern’s Gang Mills yard.
Gang Mills is between the south ends of the Cohocton and Canisteo river valleys west of Corning, NY, in the Southern Tier.
The old Erie mainline, now Norfolk Southern, goes up the Canisteo river valley.
Delaware, Lackawanna & Western’s fabulous Buffalo Extension went up the Cohocton river valley, and then over the divide to Dansville.
Erie’s Rochester branch also went up the Cohocton valley, but that is long-gone.
The old Delaware, Lackawanna & Western’s Buffalo Extension remains, though abandoned past Wayland to Dansville. (It used to end at Cohocton, but to Wayland was reactivated.)
It was once operated by Erie-Lackawanna, the merger of Erie and DL&W in 1960.
That line was subsequently operated by Bath & Hammondsport, originally a tiny spur between Bath and Hammondsport.
We rode that DL&W line long ago (1995) as a B&H excursion.

Bath & Hammondsport Alco S1 #5 at Cohocton’s old Erie station in 1995. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the Spotmatic.)

It was depressing.
Here we were ambling that fabulous DL&W grade at walking-speed; a grade good for 70+ mph.
Arrow straight, flat as a pancake, and wide open.
We had to stop for every road-crossing and flag it.
Even more depressing is what happened at Cohocton.
The railroad zagged from the DL&W grade to the parallel Erie grade, and ended (at that time) at Erie’s Cohocton station, which was still standing. —The railroad has since been extended north to Wayland.
The original Bath & Hammondsport is little used, but the old DL&W main into Gang Mills is being operated by Livonia, Avon & Lakeville.
So says a locomotive rag from Trains Magazine.

Livonia, Avon & Lakeville has come a long way since it was founded in 1964.
At that time it was all that remained of the Erie Rochester branch, a small 13-mile shortline linking the three named towns.
The Erie Rochester branch went directly north from Livonia to Avon; Lakeville was just a spur.
But LA&L convinced a corn-syrup transloader to locate along the Lakeville branch, and it became a mainstay of the LA&L.
LA&L brings tankcars of corn-syrup to the transloader, which unloads into tanker-trailers pulled by trucks.
Corn-syrup (a sweetener) is the main ingredient in soft-drinks.
LA&L subsequently abandoned the line to Livonia east of the Bronson Hill Road bridge, which the state wanted upgraded, so the cut could be filled in and the bridge removed.
Even the tracks are still there; buried of course.
But west of Bronson Hill Road the Livonia line was resurrected, and it looks like LA&L convinced a grain transloader to locate by it at Bronson Hill Road.
Local farmers ship grain to the transloader, who transloads into covered railroad hopper-cars.
LA&L then railroads the loaded covered-hoppers to interchange. —And so trains still negotiate the old Erie Rochester branch through Triphammer valley, and around Triphammer Pond.
At first LA&L was also operating steam-powered passenger excursions. At first they used a small Mikado (2-8-2), #17, but that developed problems and was scrapped at Lakeville.

#17 gets cut up. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the Spotmatic.)

A mural of that engine still adorns an outside wall in Livonia.
They got another steam-engine, #38, a small Consolidation (2-8-0) with a Pennsy tender.

#38 in Livonia about 1969-70. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the Spotmatic.)

They also had a small 44-ton switcher at that time.
We rode excursions behind both. The 44-tonner was good for two coaches; the Consol maybe six or eight.
The grade southeast from Avon up to Livonia was steep. Once the brakes failed on a car in Livonia, and it coasted all the way down to Avon.
It was a pleasant ride, and I took a slew of photographs. A guy named Eugene Blabey (“BLAH-bee”), who was a head-honcho of some sort, came out to our house in Rochester, and gave me an official photographer’s pass.
But I never sold anything to them; never tried.
My impression was that it was a full-scale Lionel layout; guys playing with trains.
But they were soliciting business. That corn-syrup facility turned into a gold-mine.
LA&L extended north of Avon, acquiring the remainder of the old Erie branch into Rochester from Conrail; although it was already abandoned north of Jefferson Road in Henrietta — i.e. didn’t go into the city proper.
They also got the remains of the old Lehigh Valley Rochester branch, although it too had abandoned north of Jefferson Road.
The old Lehigh Valley Rochester branch passed a large lumberyard south of Henrietta, so LA&L added to its customers.
A connection had to be built from the Erie line to the Valley.

Apparently LA&L has gone on to operate the Bath & Hammondsport’s ex-DL&W line, and also the Western New York & Pennsylvania.
The WNY&P was originally the old Erie mainline west out of Hornell, made moribund by —1) the line from Hornell to Buffalo (now Norfolk Southern), which was much more active, and —2) a torturous grade near Alfred Station.
WNY&P also got the old Pennsy Buffalo branch from Machias south to Driftwood, PA, including the monster Allegheny grade over Keating summit.
At 2.2% northbound and 1.7% southbound the grade demands big power; six-axle as opposed to four. LA&L had to get big six-axle power to operate it.

Now LA&L is notable for being all Alco.

Alco RS1 #20 at Lakeville.

Steam passenger excursions are long-gone; ended due to increased insurance costs.
I doubt my photographer’s pass would do anything anymore.
And the toy-train phase is also gone.
LA&L has become a smashing success.
Enough to expand to operating other shortlines.
And they’re doing it with all Alcos.
The LA&L engines I saw at Gang Mills were the first Alcos I’d seen in years.
Alco S2 #72, their oldest engine, built in 1941; at Lakeville.

“Alco” is American Locomotive Works in Schenectady, NY; a long-time manufacturer of railroad steam-locomotives. When railroads began switching over to diesel locomotives, American Locomotive Works switched over to diesels. Alco is now out of business. —The Alco “Century” series was a line of locomotives introduced in the late ‘60s, to compete with a high-horsepower line from EMD. (“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 Century line succeeded fairly well, but eventually Alco went out-of-business.

“Long Island” is Long Island Railroad, serving Long Island, NY. Most of it is now Metro-North (the New York City commuter-district). “New Haven” is the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad; merged into Penn-Central, which went bankrupt. A lot of the NYNH&H still exists — it’s mainline to Boston is now Amtrak.

Diesel or electric locomotives used in passenger-service had “steam-generators;” a small boiler that generated steam for steam-heating the passenger-cars. This was a holdover from when passenger-cars used locomotive-steam to heat the cars, when the railroads used steam-locomotion. —Amtrak now heats its cars with electricity. An electric-generator is onboard the locomotive to generate current for passenger-car heat. (On Amtrak it’s powered by the locomotive engine. Often a separate engine is used to generate electricity; primarily on commuter-districts.)

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

“Southern Tier” is the common nomenclature of the southernmost counties of Western New York.

“Interchange” is interchange with another railroad. E.g. LA&L railroads cars to interchange-points with other railroads.

The old Erie Rochester branch navigated the “Triphammer valley” south of Avon. “Triphammer Pond” was an accumulation of water dammed by the railroad embankment. At “Triphammer Pond” the railroad turns east toward Livonia.

The “Mikado” (2-8-2) and “Consolidation” (2-8-0 — “Consol”) are both steam-locomotives of that wheel-arrangement.

“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.

A “tender” is the combination coal-tender and water cistern attached to a steam-locomotive. Most steam-locomotives had a trailing tender, although some were built with saddle-tanks around the boiler to carry water, and a coal-bin behind the firebox. (That water was boiled into steam for propulsion.)

A “44-ton switcher” is a small locomotive built to meet the requirement of only 44 tons. Anything larger required a two-person crew, but a 44-tonner could get by with only one. But they were too small to lug much.

“Conrail” is 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. Conrail included other bankrupt east-coast railroads, like Erie-Lackawanna and Lehigh Valley; but eventually went private as it became more successful. Conrail has since been broken up, sold to CSX Transportation Industries (railroad) and Norfolk Southern railroad. CSX got mainly the old New York Central routes, and NS got the old PRR routes.

“Henrietta” is a suburb south of Rochester.

“Lehigh Valley” (“Valley”) and “Norfolk Southern” are both railroads; “Lehigh Valley” no longer in business (torn up and abandoned), and “Norfolk Southern” very much in business. (Norfolk Southern is a merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway. It has merged other railroads, mainly the old Pennsy lines from Conrail. So that now it is a major player in east-coast railroading.)

A “2.2%” grade is 2.2 feet up for every 100 feet forward; fairly steep for a railroad. “1.7%” is 1.7 feet up per hundred; not that steep, but an impediment.

No purchase

Yet another month drifts into the filmy past without consummating the purchase of the proposed Suzuki SX4 station-wagon.
The SX4 is supposed to replace our CR-V; which is fine, except it’s a truck.
That means it’s big, unbalanced, and rides high. It’s very car-like, yet still a truck.
We bought it instead of a Subaru, because it’s a Honda, and our Faithful Hunda went over 160,000 miles.
We’d probably still be driving it, but it got smashed up.
The Subaru at that time had a ramped floor with a giant gap between it and the front seat-backs.
That was because the rear seat-backs folded on top of the rear seat-cushions — leaving a gap that could swallow dogs.
The Faithful Hunda had a flat floor, and bottom seat-cushions that folded into the gap.
It was a great system, and nobody is doing it since. (Maybe the Honda Fit is, but that ain’t available in All-Wheel-Drive, which I need [see below*].)
The Sube still has seat-backs that fold down onto the bottom seat-cushions, but finally the floor is flat.
—Just high above street-level, so that it ends up with a flat floor despite seat-backs folding atop the bottom seat-cushions.
And that seat-folding system still leaves a dog-swallowing gap behind the front seats.
The lack of that gap was part of the reason we chose the CR-V, but in that -1) the entire rear seats fold up as a unit to cover the gap; that is, bottom and back seat-cushions as a unit, and -2) the remaining flat floor is way above the street outside, and to get to it requires negotiating a step.
The rear door also blocks the path a dog would take to jump up to the floor, as do the folded-up seats.
It made Sabrina a nervous wreck. She didn’t like getting in the CR-V. She fell backwards many times, and I’d have to pick her up.
For that reason we hardly ever carried our dogs in the CR-V.
OF COURSE, SUCH CONSIDERATIONS DENY WHAT SHOULD BE FIRST; NAMELY, HOW WELL A VEHICLE PROJECTS A MACHO IMAGE.
If a dog has difficulty getting in, he/she can just deal widdit, or back wall for you, baby!
*The Suzuki SX4 station-wagon is also All-Wheel-Drive; which usually means I don’t have to blow out the driveway.
Both the CR-V and Bathtub are All-Wheel-Drive; as were the Faithful Hunda, the so-called soccer-mom Astrovan, and the Sube.

I hope I can consummate this purchase in October, but as always I have a surfeit of things to do: a dog to walk, lawn to mow, and the usual 89 bazilyun errands including doctor-appointments and home-improvements.
We also are supposed to do the mighty Curve the end of October.
Thankfully, lawn-mowing is winding down; which makes October more open. (The Bathtub was bought in October.)
—Except by now the cars available at the Suzuki store may no longer be what I saw a few weeks ago.
I’d rather make an offer on a car in stock (at the end of the month) — it’s a way to get away with low-balling.
I’d like to have made an offer at the end of September, but -a) what I’d offer on might have been already sold, and -b) I only had two days: yesterday and today (Tuesday, September 30, 2008).
It would have been impossible to move in two days.

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

“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.)

“Sabrina” is a previous dog; a rescue Irish-Setter. She died over a year ago at age 11.

RE: “OF COURSE, SUCH CONSIDERATIONS DENY WHAT SHOULD BE FIRST; NAMELY, HOW WELL A VEHICLE PROJECTS A MACHO IMAGE,” and “back wall for you, baby!.........” —My all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, is known as the pet-executioner. If a pet makes him angry (like requiring something that contradicts his desire to project a macho image), it get shoved out behind his house to die in a cage exposed to the frigid north wind.

“The Bathtub” is our 2005 Toyota Sienna van; called that because it’s white and like sitting in a bathtub.

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.)

Hummer Alert

So here I am yesterday afternoon (Sunday, September 28, 2008) blithely bopping eastbound in the CR-V on 5&20, headed for mighty Weggers to do our weekly grocery-shopping.
5&20 is always a crap-shoot. Usually nothing happens — I’ve driven it thousands of times.
But it can. I always have to expect anything.
It’s the schtick we applied driving bus. Granny would pull out of a mall parking-lot right in front of you — “Oh look Dora; a bus! PULL OUT! PULL OUT!”
And then you had to stop nine tons of hurtling steel on a dime without throwing your passengers out of the seats.
So I’m approaching Toomey’s Corners (“TWO-mee”); a major intersection with a traffic-light.
(Didn’t used to be a traffic-light, but I guess the accident threshold was passed.)
State Route 64 comes up from the south, and turns left (west) on 5&20.
There also is a cross-street — Whalen Road — but that ain’t 64.
The light is green for me, and there’s nothing that would trip it, so I’m approaching at about 50 mph.
Suddenly an opposing black Hummer arcs right in front of me; a sweeping left-turn south onto 64 — unsignaled of course.
I stab my brakes.
Sorry chillen; couldn’t see if it had a Dubya sticker. It was going the other way.
I have to watch for followers.
I can’t just turn my head.
But it was probably a macho driver; although it wasn’t a full-size Chevy pickup with a gun-rack behind a Confederate flag, and the decal of Calvin peeing on the Ford-oval.

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

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

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

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.

“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.

“Calvin” is a character in the Calvin-Hobbs cartoon. He is rather nasty. —The “Ford-oval” is the oval-shaped blue Ford (Motor Company) icon. (A variation of this is Calvin peeing on the Chevrolet bow-tie symbol.)

34:30

RACE NUMBER-TWO

Still bog-slow, but not the 39:40 of last time.
What I say is “64 years old, 50 pounds overweight, had a stroke, but still finished anyway.”
“You also have to remember you had open-heart surgery,” my cardiologist adds.
Yeah, I guess that was kind of drastic. Seems I stopped running after that; although I always thought it was more the antidepressants.
It was the inaugural Buchanan Brothers Memorial 5K (that’s 3.1 miles) in nearby Honeoye Falls; in honor of the brothers Buchanan (“Byew-CAN-non”), both of whom died young; one in the collapse of the World Trade Center, and one in an off-road four-wheeler accident.
My first race was a month ago, the Crosswinds 5K in Canandaigua, a race organized by a zealot church.
But that was a tougher race; down to the lake, and back up again.
First mile of that race was 12:12; bog-slow but saving myself for the killer hill at the end.
Haven’t run a Christian race yet that didn’t have a killer hill in it. (“We are climbing Jacob’s Ladder.......”)
This race was flat as a pancake. First mile was 10:26; still bog-slow, but better than 12:12.
I had preregistered for today’s race.
Walked into the high-school lobby, and arrowed toward the “preregistered” table.
“You don’t exist!”
“You already cleared my check. I have a xerox of my sign-up right here.”
“In that case, go over to the ‘registration’ line. They’ll give you a number, and not charge you for it.”
Linda was along with our dog.
The idea was for both of them to do the accompanying one-mile walk.
She had not preregistered, so forked over $22 cash.
“What if they want you to pay $22 in your case?”
“I ain’t payin’. I already gave them $17; that’s all they’re getting. I’ll run without a number if I have to.”
“We have a problem,” my wife said to the clerk. “My husband already preregistered, but apparently it didn’t crunch. We got sent over here.”
Oh well, this is what I have to do all the time. Rely on my wife to deal with social situations.
My ability to do so was compromised by the stroke. People always perceive my hesitation as anger. (Happened recently at Tunnel Inn.)
The race began with a freon-horn blast — it was drizzling slightly and very foggy.
I passed a father with a little boy.
The little boy was dazed and confused.
“Don’t worry, son. He’s just breathing.”
“Yep,” I thought. “They used to call me ‘locomotive-breath.’ All my brothers do it.” —I was at a race once with Bill, and I could hear him coming: “hoofa-hoofa-hoofa.” Asthma I guess; although not very bad.
We turned onto Ontario St. — Route 65 — and began the long haul out of town.
A Honeoye Falls Rescue-truck was at the end of the long straight, colored strobes flashing.
“Are you all right, sir?” as I passed.
(He must have heard the “locomotive-breath.”)
Another long haul along Quaker Meetinghouse Road, and then back into Honeoye Falls on Boughton (“BOW-tin” as in “OW”) Hill Road.
Halfway into town a silver-metallic Honda Odyssey minivan starts backing out of a driveway about 50 yards in front of me.
He sees me coming, so stops.
Nope; a little farther — by now I’m 20 yards away.
Finally with me about five yards away, he backs right out in front of me.
I had to zag around him (thankfully no traffic).
“Oh well; no problem. Just a person; not a car. Should be home watching NASCAR and glomming Cheetos. Them runners are disgusting.”
Sorry chillen; no Dubya sticker — maybe he took it off; Dubya is no longer slam-dunk popular. But he must have been REPUBLICAN. Sure drove like one.
Maybe the guy was a friend of Kinnear.
Linda used to pound the fenders of drivers like that.
I just let it ride. (I know, it’s always my fault. —Has been ever since the stroke.)

I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech.

“Honeoye Falls” is a small village near where we live.

About a year after the stroke I tried three antidepressant drugs (one drug at a time); mostly at the insistance of my psychiatrist. But they didn’t do anything other than knock me out; so I stopped. —Haven’t taken anything since.

“Crosswinds” Wesleyen church, a rather large mega-church; but not 89 bazilyun members.

“Zealots” are tub-thumping born-again Christians; which I am not, much to the dismay and disapproval of all my zealot siblings.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.

Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s four-plus, and is our sixth Irish-Setter.

“Tunnel Inn” is a bed-and-breakfast near Horseshoe Curve (the “mighty Curve”), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child.) —Tunnel Inn has a very tiny parking-lot, and it was blocked, so I couldn’t park there. Patrons thought I was angry when I hesitated to say anything. (I usually stay at Tunnel Inn.)

“Bill” is my younger brother in northern Delaware.

We live on State “Route 65;” but about five miles east of Honeoye Falls.

RE: “Watching NASCAR and glomming Cheetos......” —My all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say; insists I should be “watching NASCAR and glomming Cheetos......” like him, instead of trying to stay in shape. (He weighs almost 250 pounds.)

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

My siblings are all REPUBLICANS, and noisily insist I should be. That Dubya has been the greatest president ever — even greater than Reagan.

“Kinnear” is Lloyd Kinnear (“Kin-EAR”), the current supervisor of the Town of Canandaigua, a strident blowhard CONSERVATIVE, more interested in noisy theatrics than actually getting anything done. He was charged with felony driving-while-intoxicated, which he noisily claims is a spurious charge. “Felony” because it was the second time — he took his car off the road. (“No one was killed; and if they had been, they deserved it!”)

dark-horse

Alice.

A dark-horse has won the Democratic primary in the Congressional district west of the Genesee river (the seat formerly held by REPUBLICAN Tom Reynolds, who retired).
Not our district; we are east of the Genesee river.
One Alice Kryzan; and she did it with only one TV ad.
But the ad was perfect, depicting what political discourse has become in the age of apoplectic Rush Limbaugh and shrill Ann Coulter.
The ad depicted major candidate Jack Davis sitting in a park bench calmly reading the newspaper.
His major challenger appears: “Hey Jack; that’s my chair!”
“It is not!” Jack bellows. “I bought it fair-and-square with special-interest money.”
Soon the two are in each other’s faces, yelling and screaming.
“Liberial!” “Tub-thumper!” “Why I oughta.......”
It’s a reprise of a Three Stooges movie; what politics has become in our current age — the wwwwwww of politics.
“Boys,” Kryzan steps in. “This is no way to get anything done.”
So Kryzan won the primary; skonked the presumed Democratic candidate. So now the REPUBLICANS, in their infinite wisdom, are slinging the same kind of mud at her she made fun of.
“Kryzan will do a number on our economy,” they scream.
“That’s all we need,” they yell; “more failed liberial policies.”
Well, EX-KYOOZE ME!
Dubya and his lackeys have done such “a number on our economy” they now want a bailout.
No fat-cat left behind.
It’s (horror-of-horrors) socialism; gumint tinkering with the economy so fat-cats don’t fail.
Dubya’s chickens coming home to roost. —Even the REPUBLICANS are running away from Dubya.
Welfare for the fat-cats; and we taxpayers pay for it.
Welfare is unacceptable for the poor and disabled, yet right for the rich.
We just don’t call it “welfare.”
Funny, that peckerwood didn’t do a number on the economy.
In our district mud is flying.
Dubya’s Kuhl versus Flaming-Liberial Massa.
Too bad we don’t have a Kryzan.

The south-to-north Genesee river is more-or-less the geographical dividing-line in the metro Rochester area.

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

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

“That peckerwood” is Bill Clinton. My siblings all hate him because he was a “liberial,” who couldn’t keep his pecker in his pants.

“Kuhl” is REPUBLICAN Randy Kuhl, our current Congressman; and “Massa” is Eric Massa, his strident Democratic challenger. (Massa lost to Kuhl by a tiny margin two years ago.)

Calendar-dash

So begins my annual mad dash to replace my seven calendars, which don’t really inform me of the date (only one would do for that; and that is what I had long ago) — what they do is give me changing wall-art every month.
I see my most recent issue of Trains Magazine (November 2008) has an ad for the Norfolk Southern Employees Calendar.
That’s one.

I already have my Audio-Visual Designs black & white All-Pennsy Calendar; the one I’ve had for years, and most tentative.
I ordered it last June, and it finally came about a week ago.
I get the feeling Audio-Visual Designs, a shoestring operation, is waiting to send it to me until my check clears.
And doesn’t bounce back for collection.
The first Audio-Visual Designs black & white All-Pennsy Calendars, back in the ‘60s, were photographs by Don Wood; classic photographs of Pennsy steam.
Don Wood is gone, and lately the Audio-Visual Designs black & white All-Pennsy Calendar has taken to publishing other photographers, like Jim Shaughnessy, a classic shot I’ve attached as a blog-link.
Like Wood, Shaughnessy (also gone) was a chronicler of the end of steam locomotion on the railroads, and shot along Pennsy’s now-abandoned Elmira branch in upstate Pennsylvania.
I feel like every order of the Audio-Visual Designs black & white All-Pennsy Calendar may be my last, and is a shot in the dark.
Will I get it or not? Months passed this time. I was all set to write an inquiring letter.
But the calendars (actually two — I get one for 44) arrived first.
I wonder if Audio-Visual Designs will be around next year?

“Ghosts” is my source for the World War II Warbirds Calendar.
As Matt Ried once said: “There’s nuthin’ like the sound of a big honkin’ propeller airplane engine.”
I’m sure he meant internal-combustion reciprocating engines.
And just about everything in WWII is that.
Every American BY LAW should be required to see, and hear, a P51 Mustang fly.
I saw one do aerobatics at the Geneseo Airshow. Over 500 mph in a power-dive. Full-power hammerhead stalls.
The Mustang isn’t the most powerful hot-rod fighter-plane. But it will rattle your bones.
Its water-cooled Packard-Merlin V12 engine is unmuffled, and generates an incredible crackle.
I ordered the calendar online.

Oxman Publishing is better this year — that’s two calendars: hot-rods and sportscars.
Last year the hot-rod calendar was all cars by Chip Foose, and the sportscar calendar was all classic monsters from the ‘30s.
Foose cars are unrealistic; and monsters from the ‘30s ain’t the recent ‘Vette or Jags.
Both got tossed; the Foose calendar was boring, as was the sportscar calendar. If I’d wanted monsters from the ‘30s, I’m sure I could have got a calendar of same.
Thankfully, Oxman has gone back to its old format: classic street-rods and legendary sportscars.
—That is, hot-rods that could be driven on the street, and Ferraris and Lamborghinis instead of Duesenbergs and Bugattis and Hitler Mercedes.
I don’t think anything by Foose could be driven on the street; or if it could, not in the rain.
Better encased in a trailer, for display at a carshow.
What I ended up doing last year was replacing both calendars with -a) an all ‘32 Ford hot-rod calendar, and -b) an all Corvette calendar; both from Motorbooks International.
The ‘Vette calendar was okay, but the ‘32 Ford calendar suffered from having most of its photographs taken at Bonneville Salt Flats; somewhat surreal, and a moonscape.
I tried to order from Oxman online, but their site was empty of what I needed.
So I called their 800 number, and the clerk promptly apologized for their site crashing mightily in flames. —Apparently, I wasn’t the first problem.
They told me their whole site went completely bonkers awhile ago, and they had to hire a new webmaster.
So I had to order over-the-phone.

My Three-Stooges Calendar was stupid enough to not be worth doing again.
All it was was movie outtakes; which don’t work as well as the actual movies.
A photograph has to be posed, of course — and a movie outtake ain’t the same.
The photos published often had a Stooge looking the wrong way.
So I decided maybe another alternative was in order — like perhaps the John Wayne calendar. (I once had an Elvis Presley calendar, and that was pretty good.)
But now I see Motorbooks International has an American Muscle-cars Calendar,
which I think would be better than John Wayne.
I coulda got the Howard Fogg trains calendar, but Fogg is partial to narrow-gauge. I’ve had the Fogg calendar before, and many pictures were Colorado narrow-gauge.
Well okay, if you like narrow-gauge; but I prefer other locations besides the Colorado Rockies.
Which is why I did The Stooges, but that was a mistake too.
American Muscle-cars might be more interesting.
Another attempt to order online, but this time I got some message about a questionable certificate (intimations some lackey might be trying to get my credit-card number).
So I go with their 800 number.

That leaves two calendars: -a) my All-Pennsy Color Calendar, and -b) the Norfolk Southern Employees Calendar.
Who knows if I can get the All-Pennsy Color Calendar; a couple years ago its publisher, CedCo, tanked; and the calendar moved to another publisher. (Although the new publisher was the former CEO of CedCo.)
The All-Pennsy Color Calendar will be a Froogle-search. Usually it advertises in Trains Magazine, but nothing yet.
The Norfolk Southern Employees Calendar is a snail-mail order. From what I can see, no online ordering yet.

RE: “Trains Magazine.....” —I’ve subscribed to “Trains Magazine” since the ‘60s. I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child.

“Norfolk Southern” is Norfolk Southern Railroad.

“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.

“Elmira” is a small city along the southern border of central New York.

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

“Matt Ried” was webmaster at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked. Like me, he was a fan of propeller airplanes. He has since moved to Denver.

The “Geneseo Airshow” is a an annual get-together of still flyable classic propeller airplanes, primarily WWII warbirds. It’s held at the small Geneseo Airport (a grass-strip) in the nearby college-town of Geneseo, south of Rochester.

A “hammerhead stall” is where the airplane flies straight up, until its propeller won’t climb it any more, at which point the airplane slows enough to “stall” (fall over) into a dive.

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

“Howard Fogg” (dead) was a prominent railroad artist.

“Narrow-gauge” is three feet between the rails of a railroad. Standard-gauge is four feet 8&1/2 inches — the common measurement. Narrow-gauge can be built with tighter curvature; so was prevalent in the Rockies. Narrow-gauge is no longer standard practice; it’s only seen in tourist-lines.

“Muscle-cars” are mid-size Detroit sedans with gigantic and immensely-powerful motors — prominent in the ‘70s.

“Froogle” is the Google product search.

“Snail-mail” is U.S. Postal Service, as opposed to e-mail (and ordering online).

Monthly Calendar-Report for September, 2008

(AT LONG LAST; this Monthly Calendar-Report has been done for weeks, but my e-mail crashed mightily in flames.)

The most collectible of all Corvettes; a ‘65 Fuely. (Photo by Richard Prince.)

None of my September calendars are artistic triumphs, but the best is my All Corvette calendar, which is the most collectible Corvette of all time, a ‘65 Fuely.
In 1965 a gigantic number of options were available.
You could specify a cushy boulevardier, or a true sportscar.
The cars were styled by Bill Mitchell, and were extremely attractive.
Also available were fourwheel disc brakes (revolutionary at that time), and knockoff wheels.
Most triumphant was the engine, a fuel-injected 327 cubic-inch Small-Block of 375 horsepower.
The Small-Block was almost European in character, and would rev to the moon.
375 horsepower out of a stock motor is phenomenal.
But the car could also be ordered with air-conditioning, power-steering, power-brakes, and auto-tranny — all the marks of a cushy Detroit sedan.
Steps toward mediocrity; what my friend Tim Belknap calls a car for divorced dentists.
The Sting-Ray also had independent rear suspension, although it was kind of rudimentary.
It used spider universal-joints instead of constant-velocity joints, but was independent rear suspension, a revered icon of sportscar design at that time. GM didn’t make constant-velocity joints at that time that could withstand that much power.
What stood out, as has been the case with most Corvettes, was that motor.
The latest Corvettes are almost as collectible, although by now the Small-Block, though vastly improved, is a bit dated.
Styling also looks pretty good, now that ‘Vette has advanced from the bloated C5 to the smaller C6.
But in the words of Tim Belknap: “It looks like a shampoo bottle!”

Three B1 electric switchers at Harrisburg, 1957. (Photo by John Dziobko.)

SIGH!
My All-Pennsy Color Calendar is another Dziobko picture.
Dziobko has five of the 12 pictures in the calendar.
Well, I for one am glad he was out there; shooting color of the Pennsy in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s when everyone was shooting black & white.
So far we’ve seen an I1s Decapod, the Alco PAs, a K4 Pacific, and next month will be the small B6 0-6-0 switcher with its slope-back tender.
September is the B1 electric switcher, an application special only to Pennsy, since so many of its railroad-lines in the east were under wire.
The B1 is a box-cab design, and I’ve seen a few, primarily at Philadelphia’s 30th St. Station.
The B1s are long-gone, and I don’t think any remain. All were scrapped — which is sad.
These three are in Harrisburg’s station, where electrification ended for Pennsy in Pennsylvania.
West of Harrisburg was never electrified, although it was proposed.
A passenger train from New York City or Philadelphia or Washington would pull into Harrisburg behind a GG1 electric locomotive, and the B1s went to work shuffling cars.
Trains left Harrisburg west with non-electric engines; steam at first, then diesel.

The Thomas, Walsh, Walsh & Cusack speedster at Bonneville Salt Flats. (Photo by Peter Vincent.)

The September entry of my All-1932 Ford calendar has a true speedster, a Bonneville Salt Flats record car.
And it’s on the Bonneville Salt Flats, as are many of the ‘32 Fords in this calendar.
This car is an actual record holder at Bonneville Salt Flats, and has been competing since 1991.
232.621 mph!
It’s amazing to get that kind of speed out of essentially what is a brick.
A 1932 Ford hi-boy roadster may look great, but not to the wind.
This car has had various motors, including a Ferrari V12.
But this appears to be a blower application, probably a blown Chevy.
This is hardly a car for the street, but it’s very definitely a 1932 Ford.
It’s the gorgeous ‘32 Ford grill-shell, and the ‘32 Ford roadster body. And it’s on a frame, just like hot-rods of old.
The front is so lowered it wouldn’t clear a driveway, but you have to do that for speed.
As little frontal-area as possible.
Those headlights are probably required by the rules.
How many headlights have watched the ground go by at 232.621 mph?

North-American “Texan.” (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

The September 2008 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Texan trainer.
Ho-hum!
How many Texan trainers are still extant?
Probably hundreds.
I’ve certainly seen enough. —Often two or more flying in formation.
The Texan is a great airplane, but hardly the flashy hot-rod that a Mustang or P38 or Grumman Bearcat is.
I guess the Texan was the final step before a real fighter-plane; like a Mustang.
Basic training for flying began in a Stearman biplane, or perhaps a Ryan STM or Piper-Cub.
Next step was the Texan; faster and more powerful than a basic trainer, but not a Mustang.
I’ve seen 89 bazilyun Texans.
My all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston and I were once driving through Letchworth Park, shortly after the Geneseo Air Show last year, and “I hear a radial engine,” I said.
We both looked and looked, and it was two Texans flying overhead.

Norfolk Southern auto-train through Port Allegany, Pa. (Photo by Jared Hopewell.)

My Norfolk Southern Employees calendar has published a fall-foliage shot for September.
Well excuse me, but I bet it was shot in October — the leaves in Port Allegany would turn in October.
New York is north of Pennsylvania, and the leaves turn here in early to mid October.
Our reservation for leaf-change at the mighty Curve is late October.
Port Allegany is northwest Pennsylvania, but is the climate of here in West Bloomfield.
Which means the leaves would turn in October.
Also of note is that only one locomotive is pulling the train, instead of two or three in multiple.
Diesel-electric railroad locomotives have gotten powerful enough to where -a) one engine is often enough, and/or -b) helpers aren’t needed to surmount a grade.
I’m sure the train pictured is light too.
If the train is all auto-racks, it’s light.
A loaded coal-train of 100 hopper-cars, might need more locomotives.
And the line through Port Allegany isn’t easy.
It’s the old Pennsy line to Buffalo via Olean; very scenic, but difficult, as it’s through the Allegheny mountains.

“Wub-wub-wub.........”

I only fly the September entry of my Three Stooges calendar because it’s stupid.
The idea is that Moe and Larry are hanging Curly over a yawning precipice, the top edge of a tall skyscraper.
Except it’s obviously a movie set, and Curly is looking at a drop of maybe a foot.
All one has to do is look at the shadows.
The shadow of Curly is prominant on the set-drawing behind them.
I get the same effect with camera flash.
People shoot camera flash toward a mirror or window, and then are surprised to find the flash reflected.
My wife got this the other day photographing our newly painted bathroom.
Her flash had reflected off the medicine-chest mirror onto an adjacent wall.
My D100 has a small camera-top flash I can turn on if I flip it up.
But if I use it I get the shadow of my lens at the bottom of my picture if I shoot close up.
I aim down so I can crop out that shadow with Photoshop, and still get what I want.

My Audio-Visual Designs black & white All-Pennsy calendar, is another Jim Shaughnessy shot, but it ain’t much.
Not good enough for the Monthly Calendar Report.
It might have been better if it were steam, but it’s EMD F-units.
The picture is titled “choo-chew,” because the train is passing a barn painted with a giant “Chew Red-Man Tobacco” ad.
Okay, but only steam-locomotives “choo.”
Reminds of the model train circling the bulk-food department of the Pittsford Wegmans.
Wegmans-lettered model F-units are circling on track suspended above the bulk-food department.
“Chuff-chuff-chuff-chuff,” chants an on-board audio.
My jaw dropped. No diesel railroad-locomotive ever made that sound.
“Oh look, Mommy. A choo-choo train.”
“That’s right, Damon; hear that sound?”
These people have probably never even heard a steam locomotive, no less a diesel.
Shaughnessy is one of the chroniclers of the end of steam locomotion in the ‘50s.
He was based in Binghamton, N.Y., so photographed on Pennsy’s now abandoned Elmira branch, which this shot is.
He also photographed the shot that appeared in my July Calendar Report, a classic; also on the Elmira branch.
This is one of his bombs.

“Fuely” is fuel-injection. At that time nearly all cars used carburetion to mix gasoline with air; but Chevrolet introduced “fuel-injection” in the 1957 model-year, mainly to allow better engine-breathing. Fuel was injected directly to the cylinder-ports with nozzles, the amount metered by air-flow. Chevrolet continued fuel-injection as an added-power option until it was phased out in the middle ‘60s. Most auto-mechanics couldn’t understand or work on fuel-injection. —Now all auto manufacturers use fuel-injection, but primarily to more precisely meter fuel-flow to minimize emissions. Carburetors were too sloppy.

“Bill Mitchell” was the head of General Motors Styling from 1958 through 1977.

“Knockoff wheels” use a threaded central spindle to locate the wheels; instead of mounting-studs (4-6; usually five) arrayed around the center. The central knockoffs have two or three wings that can be spun with a hammer. “Knockoffs” are much faster to mount and dismount — racing practice.

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.

“Auto-tranny” is automatic car transmission — as opposed to standard transmission with a clutch. At that time, “auto-tranny” was not as fast as standard transmission.

“Tim Belknap” was an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked; one of about seven. Belknap like me is a car-guy, so we continue to keep in contact. He has retired.

“Spider universal-joints” versus “constant-velocity joints:” —The spider universal joint is what has been used for years to allow angle turning in power transmission; like in a car driveshaft. But the spider universal joint becomes erratic when turned too sharply. I delivers power in thrusts; it’s not constant. The constant-velocity joint is more internalized. Instead of a central spider, the bending is accommodated by balls in channels, so is more constant. Most front-wheel-drive cars use constant-velocity joints (“CV-joints”) to allow wheel steering of powered wheels.

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 therefore a C2.

“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.

The “I1s Decapod” (2-10-0), the “K4 Pacific” (4-6-2), and the “B6” (0-6-0), were all Pennsylvania Railroad steam-locomotives; the “Dek” the standard Pennsy freight locomotive, the “K4” the standard passenger locomotive, and the “B6” the standard yard-switcher (although Pennsy kept many of its 2-8-0 Consolidations for switching service). —The “Alco PA” was an American Locomotive Works (“Alco”) diesel-electric passenger locomotive; very attractive, and perhaps the most beautiful diesel locomotive of all time.

A “slope-back tender” is the coal-tender attached to a steam-locomotive, although in this case with a sloped water-cistern to permit better backing visibility.

RE: “Under wire......” —Most of Pennsy’s east-coast mainlines were electrified, under overhead wiring suspended between steel poles. I.e. they used electric engines instead of steam (then diesel) locomotives.

The Pennsylvania Railroad’s terminal in Philadelphia was 30th St. Station, at 30th and Market Sts. Pennsy’s first Philadelphia terminal was downtown at Broad St., but after that burned down in the late ‘40s, 30th St. became the main terminal. It was along the Washington-New York mainline, so trains direct from New York to Pittsburgh-and-west have to back into the terminal. (30th St. is not on the mainline west from New York City.)

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

RE: “A blower application......” —The motor has an engine-driven supercharger to force more air/fuel into the cylinders; and thereby make more power.

A “Mustang” is a North-American P51 Mustang fighter-plane; a “P38” is a Lockheed P38 twin-engine fighter-plane; the “Grumman Bearcat” is the Navy Grumman Bearcat (F8F) carrier-based fighter-plane. All were fabulous propeller fighter-planes used in WWII.

“Letchworth Park” is a large park in western New York. The Genesee River flows through a scenic gorge it carved, and there are three large waterfalls. It was first owned by William Pryor Letchworth, who bequeathed it to the state. The park was mainly developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the ‘30s. —The “Geneseo Air Show” nearby is an annual get-together of still flyable WWII warbirds at the Geneseo Airport near the town of Geneseo.

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.)

We live in the tiny rural town of “West Bloomfield” in western New York.

The “D100” is my Nikon digital D100 camera.

“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.

“F-units” are the first freight diesel railroad locomotives EMD manufactured. They have full car-bodies that cover everything; as opposed to a “hood-unit” (e.g. a “Geep”) that doesn’t. —An F-unit has the operating cab at one end, so that operation is difficult in reverse. A “hood-unit” renders a better view. F-units aren’t manufactured any more.

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

B-dah, b-dah, b-dah, b-dah.........

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

Yesterday (Saturday, September 20, 2008) we decided to attend the infamous tractor-parade in the adjacent rural village of Ionia.
“Second largest tractor-parade in the entire nation,” I heard someone say.
Well, I don’t know about that, but there were at least 60 tractors, some glitzy and well-restored; others oily and rusty, like they were still being used.
Everything was ancient; nothing new.
We ended up going separately, mainly because I took my old friend Art Dana to it.
If you recall, Dana, like me, is a retired bus-driver.
As an old hot-rodder, he has many of the same interests I have.
He also is the guy with fairly severe Parkinson’s. He hardly can walk, but can.
I called Dana Friday night, the night before the parade, and suggested he might want to see it. B-dah, b-dah, b-dah, b-dah overload.
But he deferred.
Said he and his sister (who he lives with in the nearby suburb of Pittsford) planned to go up to Thousand Islands that day to see if Art’s cottage had suffered wind damage from Hurricane Ike.
But yesterday morning, coming back from Boughton (“BOW-tin,” as in “OW”) Park with our dog, my cellphone rang.
It was Art’s sister, who then put Art on.
They hadn’t gone to Thousand Islands; Art’s sister was sick.
So did I still wanna take Art to the tractor-parade?
Linda works at the Post-Office Saturday mornings, and doesn’t get home until 12:30-12:45. The parade started at 1.
To Art’s is about a 35 minute trip; so I had to leave at 11:15, our dog alone in the house.
Back home with Art, in case he had to use the bathroom. Then off to the parade.

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

We arrived a half-hour early.
“Shall we look at tractors, Hughsey?”
We ambled into a field where the tractors were parked. B-dah, b-dah, b-dah, b-dah.
It’s like walking with Jack, only worse.
Art moves very slowly. I have to stop so he can catch up.
The edge of the field was lined with macho pickups with trailers the tractors came in on.
The parade was to be led by an ancient gray 1937 Case that wouldn’t crank.
Finally a Johnny Popper arrived, and they hooked up a towing strap.
All of a sudden: b-dah, b-dah, b-dah, b-dah!
“They got that old sucker lit!” I cried to Art.
60-some tractors led by a knight-in-shining-armor on a big mottled-gray red-clothed nag, an old Indian motorcycle that looked more like a powered bicycle, and that ancient Case with its open exhaust.
Here they come; out of the lot, up the hill, around the block, back down the road, and loop at the firehouse. B-dah, b-dah, b-dah, b-dah!
About 20% of the tractors are actually small lawn-tractors, although old lawn-tractors that were never thrown out.
Most memorable was an old yellow Cub-Cadet with a Briggs-&-Stratton up front.
Junior, about five, was see-sawing it all over the road, and Mom and Dad were walking along to hold the motor’s throttle open — I guess the cable had broke.
Every once in a while Dad had to grab the steering-wheel to keep Junior out of the crowd.
Best farm-tractor was an ancient Oliver 77 Row-Crop; so rusty and greasy, it looked still used. (—Probably early ‘50s.)
Oliver sheathed the whole front-end of the tractor in sheet-steel, and it was so rusty the “77 Row-Crop” was nearly obliterated.
“I don’t know about you, Art,” I said; “but to me this is the best one.”
“This looks like the real thing. A rust-bucket; not some jewel.”
(It was driven by a lanky farmer with long silver locks and a graying Santa-Claus beard.)
“What impresses me,” Art said; “is how many of these monsters are driven by kids.”
When Elz and me stayed at the Bastian (“BAHS-jin”) farm in Alberta, their son was only about 12, and drivin’ the tractor (which was an Oliver).

Stories were swapped, as always:
—1) “So me and my father were in our ‘54 Olds; me drivin’ and my Old Man riding shotgun.”
“Identical to that car we saw at the car-show, Hughsey.”
“Could be the same car, Art,” I said.
“No-no-no. I trashed that car,” Art said. “When we gave up on that thing, it was all puked out.”

That’s Art, and his sister’s boyfriend, looking at the car. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

“So here we are, moseying along on some country road just like this, a ‘56 Chevy driven by some punk ridin’ my bumper, jukin’ and jivin’ all over, flashin’ his headlights.”
“‘Let ‘im pass, son,’ my father says.”
“‘He’s not tryin’ to pass, Pop. He’s tryin’ to get me to race.’”
“‘Here; watch this,’ I said.”
“I pulled the Olds over, and the Chevy came up alongside. We both rolled down our windows.”
“‘Okay, what’ll it be?’ I said. ‘Rolling or standing-start?’”
“‘Standing,’ we agreed. ‘When I hit the horn, I’m outta here.’”
“‘PRAAMP!’ —Off we go; tires spinnin’, mucho tire-smoke.”
“I slam into second, pinning my Old Man in the seat. The Olds was three-speed standard, not HydraMatic.
Neck-and-neck; the Chevy ahead by a fender.”
“Race over, ‘what was that all about, son? And not only that, you got beat.’”
“‘Which is why I keep tellin’ ya to get a ‘57 Chevy.’”
“‘We ain’t gettin’ no ‘57 Chevy!’ my father said.”
“‘No wonder this thing is such a wreck. You’re beatin’ the living daylights out of it. —I ain’t lettin’ ya get your hands on no ‘57 Chevy!’”
—2) “One morning they gave me 728; just a Park-and-Ride in from Eastview Mall. So I deadhead out I-490 direct to Eastview and then load from there.
Once through the Can, I put the hammer down. Nobody on, so let’s see what this sucker will do.”
“80 mph, Art; and never-again. That thing was bouncin’ all over the road. Here I am doing 80 in something as big as a living-room — everything inside slammin’ and bangin’.”
“Right, Hughsey,” Art said. “You could do 80 in a 400, but not a seven.”
—3) “So one weekend I went up to the cottage with Meyer Friedman (‘MY-er FREED-man’) and his wife. Remember Meyer Friedman?”
“Yeah, the Russian bus-driver. Heavy accent, and completely wacko.”
“Meyer had never fished before, so I took him out onto Lake Ontario in my boat, and we had about caught our limit.”
“‘One more fish,’ Meyer says; and he gets one 11 inches long, which is an inch short of the 12-inch limit. So I lobbed it back into the lake.”
“Meyer went ballistic. ‘Whaddja do that for?’”
“‘Because it was under the 12-inch limit,’ I said.”
“‘Meyer bought bait, fish eats bait, it’s Meyer’s fish,’ Meyer said.”
“We go back to the cottage, and Meyer accosts my wife. ‘This bum you married just tossed my fish back into the lake.’”
“‘Tell him about the 12-inch rule, honey.’”
“‘Meyer no like silly rules!”
“‘Not my rule,’ I said; ‘the state Department of Environmental Conservation.’”
“We had a good time. But our wives were at each other’s throats.”

After the tractor-parade, we drove back to West Bloomfield. (I knew we were at parade-end when a woody Model-A station-wagon passed.)
Linda was home, but Art didn’t go in.
I think he’d be embarrassed to do so; in the condition he’s in.
We sat in the grass once at the parade, but he could hardly get up.
He did, and without my help. I’m not about to make him feel like an invalid. If he needs help, he’s got a mouth. I’m willing to help, but only if he asks.
“I take eight pills each morning, and five pills in the afternoon,” Art said.
“A dead man walking,” Art said.
“But we both still are; that stroke coulda killed me.”

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.

“We” is myself and my wife of 40+ years, “Linda.”

RE: “Like me, is a retired bus-driver.......” —I drove transit-bus at Regional Transit Service in Rochester for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.

Like me my wife is retired, but she works part-time at the West Bloomfield post-office.

“Jack” is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He’s only 51, but way overweight, and having broken a few bones in his legs a few times, has pins in his ankles, and is rather unambulatory.

A “Johnny Popper” is the old two-cylinder John Deere tractor, so nicknamed. It makes a popping sound: “b-dah, b-dah, b-dah, b-dah.”

Many small lawnmower engines are made by “Briggs-&-Stratton.”

“Elz” is my sister Betty (Elizabeth). She’s second after me, 62 (I’m the oldest at 64). She lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

For a 1960 family vacation, my sister and I stayed “at the Bastian farm in Alberta.” My father went to school in Chicago in the ‘30s with Mr. Bastian, and he returned to farming in Alberta, Canada. —It was an adventure, of sorts. Extremely rural; no central plumbing or hot water.

“HydraMatic” is the automatic transmission Oldsmobile was using at that time. Standard-transmission was better (faster).

“728” is a bus-number. Our 700-series of buses at Transit were our first General Motors RTS series; we got them in 1979. They had a General Motors V-8 unturbocharged 8-71 (71 cubic inches per cylinder) diesel engine, and a four-speed automatic transmission. They weren’t governed to 55 mph, so could be used as a Park-and-Ride (suburban; as opposed to city) bus.

RE: “Deadhead......” —Is to drive the bus without passengers.

“Eastview Mall” is a large suburban shopping-mall southeast of Rochester.

The “Can” is the so-called “Can-of-Worms,” a junction of Interstate-490 and Interstate-590. It was very messy and accident-prone, since it also threaded a couple main streets, plus two railroads, although separated. It has since been rebuilt, and is much easier. One railroad was abandoned and is gone. —The “Can” is where the old Erie Canal through Rochester turned south. I-490 and then 590 are on the old canal grade. The canal through Rochester was bypassed when the Erie was rebuilt into the State Barge Canal in 1918, south of Rochester.

Our 400-series buses were very fast over-the-road express buses. They had a V8 unturbocharged 8-71 diesel engine, and a three-speed automatic transmission.

“A woody Model-A station-wagon” is a Model-A Ford station-wagon, in this case, 1930-31. Steel station-wagons didn’t arrive until the ‘50s. Before then, all station-wagons were wood body. Anything with a wooden body is called a “woody.”

E-mail to Zarcone

(“Zar-CONE”)

Too bad you left before the meeting ended.
You missed all the fireworks I caused when I finally got fed up with all the noisy bickering, and bellyaching, and bellering, and said “yeah, but will I see you at the next meeting?”
“Probably not,” I added. “I keep coming to these things, and it’s only 10-15 people (out of 500+), usually different each time.”
“Every time I come I expect I might have to drive all-the-way back home, because we didn’t get a quorum.”
“Wait a minute; who are you?” bellowed the chief bellyacher.
“He’s a retiree,” interjected Frank; “which means he can’t even vote. But he keeps coming to these meetings because he knows the only way he can support his union is to show up at these meetings — and he’s driving all the way from West Bloomfield; about an hour. Believe you-me, he’s at every meeting. He was at the last one, and will be at the next one.”
The meeting adjourned shortly after that — it was 11 p.m. It had already been extended once.
Frank hadn’t completed his Business Agent’s report — and Dunbar was mad as a hornet, and was ready to walk out. Blocchi almost did.
I got accosted again as I crossed the darkened parking-lot.
Chief bellyacher introduced himself, and started yammering at me.
I interrupted.
“My career driving bus ended suddenly 15 years ago, but before my retirement I was deeply involved in this union with a voluntary union newsletter.
Dunbar cut me off, and thankfully. “We can’t leave until you guys clear out.”
Dunbar and Frank were pulling out as I started to leave.
“Make sure Dunbar knows I appreciated him giving me an out,” I said to Frank.

It’s true; the Union is a joke.
But that’s because of givens I observed long ago doing my newsletter.
—1) The bus-drivers are pretty much on-their-own anyway.
They report to a Drivers Room, and after that are on-their-own until they drive home.
And that Drivers Room was an inspired idea (probably a continuation) by Jack Garrity to control the Union.
I thought a Hall off the property might make more sense, but that would have been a HUGE expense, and drivers were already complaining loudly about piddling union assessments.
—2) So in effect, only the mechanics, bless ‘em, were a union.
They were on the property all day, and not in some room monitored by management.
Their concerns could spread like wildfire among themselves.
My newsletter was a feeble attempt to improve communication among drivers.
But it didn’t work.
All it did was increase political pressure on Garrity and his lackeys, and that was because Dunbar was circulating it to area politicos.
But we sure had fun.
We had Transit management on the run.
“Too bad I’m 64,” I said. “I no longer have the stamina to stay up until 3 a.m. finishing that newsletter.”

“Zarcone” is Dominick Zarcone, a union-representative hired shortly after me; and a friend of mine. We both drove bus at Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, me for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. (Zarcone is still driving.)

“Frank” is Frank Falzone (“Fowl-ZONE”), the union Business-Agent; one of only two full-time union officials. Local 282 is the Rochester local of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union — my old bus-union.

“Blocchi” (“Block-EEE”) is John Blocchi, the union recording-secretary; a bus-mechanic at Transit.

“Dunbar” (“Done-BAR”) is Ray Dunbar, currently the union vice-prez, and was chairing the meeting. 15 years ago, together we initiated the union newsletter; me as editor, writer and producer, and he helped collate and distribute. (It was largely his idea.)

“Jack Garrity” was the head-honcho at Regional Transit Service during my entire tenure. Despite all the trouble my newsletter caused, I wasn’t fired. I was perceived as one of their best employees. —The current head-honcho at Transit is much worse. I’d be fired as a union-agitator.

E-mail to MyWay

RE: “Congratulations! You’ve been upgraded to the new MyWay e-mail system.”
Um.......
—1) Where’s the “empty-trash” tab?
Ya mean I gotta delete trash e-mails one item at a time?
That’s silly! — Five times as long; even more if I have a lotta items.
This is progress? I DON’T THINK SO.
—2) Where’s the “empty junk-mail” tab?
Ya mean I gotta delete bulk e-mails one item at a time?
That’s five times as long; even more if I have a lotta items.
Suppose I wanna empty those folders in one fell swoop? I tried “select-all,” and every possible MyWay link. “Select-all” activated everything but the contents of that folder. —It seemed to be a browser “select-all.”
—3) Where are the old check-boxes at the left of each e-mail, so I can move a BUNCH of items in one fell swoop?
This is progress? I DON’T THINK SO.
And now my e-mails include unwanted ads, like for adult diapers.
I tried disabling pop-ups, but I still get them.
And every step takes WAY LONGER than the old system. I spend more time looking at the “loading” pinwheel.
—Thanks for my address-list.
Hopefully I can export it into Yahoo or GMail.
My old MyWay was great!
Auto-filling the “To” line is all the progress I see.

Two computer issues:

(DONCHA MEAN “PROBLEMS?”)

—1) A while ago I added the “Flock” browser at the suggestion of the famblee-site. They were no longer gonna support Netscape, so suggested FireFox (“Fox-Fire”) or Flock.
So I installed Flock (a free download), and made the FlagOut log-in my homepage.
I already had FireFox, so made the FlagOut log-in a bookmark. The Curve web-cam was my homepage on FireFox.
The other night (Monday, September 15, 2008) I fired up my “Ike” post, and got the missing-picture icon instead of the swing picture.
Linda was getting the picture on her PC with Internet-Explorer; plus any responses were cranking immediately. Mine weren’t posting at all.
So I fired up FlagOut in FireFox.
VIOLA! There’s the picture, and responses crank immediately.
“So do you have Internet?” Linda asked. “How can I have Internet and you not?”
“I got Internet galore,” I said. But it was all FireFox.
My only Flock-Internet was FlagOut.
Somebody did something to Flock.
This ain’t the first non-post.
If FireFox works, and Flock doesn’t, Flock is suspect. (This was posted with FireFox.)

—2) My e-mail is MyWay, like Yahoo an Internet e-mail. (I think GMail is too.)
I kept getting notifications MyWay would upgrade; a new e-mail.
Well okay; that’ll happen in the background.
Pay it no heed.
—Alarm-bells shoulda gone off!
All-of-a-sudden, no MyWay.
Into the ozone.
Can’t even connect.
I backtracked to my old RoadRunner e-mail, but MyWay had my up-to-date address-list; which was in never-never land.
A few days later “Congratulations! You’ve been upgraded to the new MyWay e-mail.”
“Yeah, but no address-list,” I responded.
Well now, at long last, I have my address-list back, including the groups: the Ne’er-do-Wells, Transit, and “No Jack.”
I’ve yet to figure out how to e-mail with it.
It ain’t as decipherable as my old MyWay, which I got working by looking at it.
No manual, of course.
But I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

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

“Fox-Fire” is my siblings’ mispronunciation of the Internet-browser “FireFox;” which they all declare is useless — and the fact I prefer it, is reprehensible. (I should be using Internet-Explorer, like them.)

The “Curve” is Horseshoe Curve, west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child.) The Pennsylvania Railroad no longer exists; so now the Curve is operated by Norgolk Southern Railroad. —Horseshoe Curve has an Internet streaming web-cam, but it’s awful.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.

I still have my RoadRunner e-mail. It connects direct to the PoP-server; i.e. it ain’t Internet.

RE: “Groups: the Ne’er-do-Wells, Transit, and ‘No Jack’...........” —The “Ne’er-do-Wells” are an e-mail list of everyone I e-mail my stuff to. —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 “Transit” group is people I worked with. —My “No Jack” group is all my siblings except my all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston (“Jack”), the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. —E-mail groups send to more than one.

Ike

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

The remnants of Hurricane Ike blasted through last night (Sunday, September 14, 2008); essentially a short, torrid wind-storm.
It flipped our swing (pictured), and then took out the electricity.
So all night we listened to our allegedly “whisper-quiet” stand-by generator.
Well, it ain’t a roaring Harley, but when the recently deceased 94 year old nosy neighbor’s stand-by, identical to ours, is on across the street, we can hear it.
Our stand-by is also right beneath our bedroom window.
A better location might have been out back (facing east), but that would have meant -a) extensive gas piping, and -b) long electrical cabling to our electrical box, which is in the northwest corner.
The stand-by runs on natural gas.
Location thereof didn’t get the kind of prethought our house-design got.
The stand-by ran all night, but it wasn’t enough to make sleep utterly impossible.
Linda had to work all day at the post-office. So I took our dog to the so-called elitist country-club for a walk. (That is, I get walked by the dog. “Yippee; I can get that!” WHAM!)
When I returned, the stand-by was off, and power returned.
Now to see if I have Internet........

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.

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

“The so-called elitist country-club” is nearby Boughton (“BOW-tin” as in “OW”) Park, where I run and we walk our dog. It was called that long ago by an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked, because it will only allow taxpayers of the three towns that own it to use it. We are residents of one of those towns.

Two driving incidents

—1) Late yesterday afternoon (Friday, September 12, 2008) I am driving westbound on 5&20 in our CR-V, returning from Canandaigua after -a) having the brakes done, coupled with -b) a trip to mighty Weggers. (I never can do one errand without coupling another.)
All the brake-pads had been replaced and rotors resurfaced. The rears were down to metal-to-metal — memories of why the Blue Bomb failed inspection.
So here I am approaching Bloomfield village, followed by a glowering intimidator in a puke-green LL Bean Subaru.
I’m being slowed by two Grandpops in front of me: a brown Eddie Bauer Ford Explorer, the other a rusty maroon full-size Ford pickup; the version before the most recent. The Explorer is in front.
I usually do about 60-65 on this section, but am down to 45.
Subaru driver is yelling and angrily thumping his steering-wheel, as if I’m the impediment.
We enter Bloomfield village — speedlimit 35 mph. Dippities often set up here to pull over speeders; anything over 40.
So I always slow to 35 mph, as do both Grandpops. I’ve been nailed through here enough times before.
Glowering intimidator is going catatonic — it’s Rush Limbaugh railing against liberals (sorry; “liberials”).
We proceed through the village, and I turn north on Route 64 to avoid a possible flagman stopping traffic ahead. They’ve been repaving 5&20.
To my left I hear an incredible roar.
Sure enough; glowering intimidator has the poor Sube floored — their opposed 2.5-liter pancake four-cylinder (two cylinders per side, just like a Beetle) makes an awful racket at full-throttle.
WHOA! Brakes on!
Glowering intimidator falls in behind the two Grandpops.
Sorry, chillen. No Dubya-sticker.
Just “Peace” and “Obama” and a Christian fish.
I couldn’t make sense of that. (“Christian environmentalist;” ain’t that an oxymoron?)

—2) This morning (Saturday, September 13, 2008) it was light enough at 7:30 a.m. to take the dog to the so-called elitist country-club for a walk.
So I loaded up the Bathtub — Linda was working at the Post Office. Went north to Baker Road, left on Elton, right on County Road 14.
On CR 14 a divorced dentist fell in behind in a top-down silver Eclipse (despite the fog), chawing an unlit cigar, incensed that I had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to stop for the stop-sign where CR 14 empties onto State Route 64.
I always stop (or nearly) for that intersection, because 64 is a busy main road, and the view is blocked by trees.
After traffic cleared (thrump-thrump!), I proceeded onto 64; the Eclipse right behind without looking.
We navigate a short straight section across a low part, before curving uphill where I turn left onto County Road 39.
Half way is a left turn onto “Strong Road.”
Most followers turn onto Strong Road, but not the Eclipse.
Because of Strong Road, the straight section is center-marked with a double-yellow line.
But no matter. I hear a roar to my left, and Mr. Incensed Eclipse driver has crossed the double yellow, and is blasting past me.
He flips me the bird as he changes back into my lane.
Guess what, chillen. “Bush-Cheney 2004.”

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

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

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

The “Blue Bomb” was our family’s 1953 Chevy two-door sedan I learned to drive in. It was navy-blue — and a turkey.

A “glowering intimidator” is a tailgater, named after Dale Earnhardt, deceased, the so-called “intimidator” of NASCAR fame, who used to tailgate race-leaders and bump them at speed until they let him pass.

If it’s green, my siblings all say “puke-green.”

“Dippities” are sheriff deputies.

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

“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.

All my siblings are tub-thumping born-again Christians.

“The so-called elitist country-club” is nearby Boughton (“BOW-tin” as in “OW”) Park, where I run and we walk our dog. It was called that long ago by an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked, because it will only allow taxpayers of the three towns that own it to use it. We are residents of one of those towns.

“The Bathtub” is our 2005 Toyota Sienna van; called that because it’s white and like sitting in a bathtub.

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

“CR 14” equals County Road 14.

My friend Tim Belknap calls all racecar driver wannabees “divorced dentists.”

“If ain’t one thing, it’s another”

My trusty LeCie monitor, which is about 10 years old (maybe older; since I got it online for the beige desktop G3 — and this here G4 tower is at least five-six years old), finally gave up the ghost (i.e. it died; no image).
The LeCie is a PC monitor; I had it hooked up to my MAC with an adapter.
So we dredged in Linda’s monitor, and tried that. It works — I’m using it now. Little set-up required: OS-X has 89 bazilyun monitor drivers already installed. It just senses the monitor, and installs the driver for that.
All I did was change the monitor-rez from 1024x768 (default, I guess) to 1280x1024, what I had on the LeCie, so what’s displayed is identical to the LeCie.
(Her’s is Dell.)
Well, I guess I’m still in business.
But I went out in search of a monitor to come home with.
Apple wanted megabucks for their flat-screen. Not interested, when I plan to switch to a laptop in a couple years.
So first I drove to OfficeMax in Victor, but they didn’t appear to have any monitors.
Next was all the way over to Henrietta to patronize Circuit City, but it appears that place has tanked.
Nearby is a “BestBuy,” and the greeter directed me to ‘pyooter monitors.
I looked at a few, and then wandered over to their so-called “Geek Squad.”
“I’d like to walk outta here with a ‘pyooter-monitor,” I said.
“How big do ya need?” Geek asked.
“Well, I don’t need one of them big monsters. This little one here (19 inches wide) is fine.”
Two-hundred smackaroos (Apple wanted over double that). Samsung flat-screen.
Not installed yet — don’t have the two hours.
Coulda got an identical Dell; three-hundred smackaroos.
NOT WORTH IT! I just wanna keep goin’. Switch to a laptop in a couple years.

—Coming home......
The Bathtub needed gas, so I patronized the infamous Rush Valerio: $3.81.9 per gallon.
Exiting I pulled out onto the highway, about 300-400 yards ahead of macho-man in an onrushing giant Chevy pickup.
He kept coming at about 70-75 mph, until he was right on my bumper; and this was despite my flooring the Bathtub.
—And so he became a glowering intimidator; if I had slowed he woulda rear-ended me. My rearview was filled with Chevy pickup grill.
I go south on that highway about a half-mile, over a hill and around a curve; planning to turn left onto Six Points Road, which goes into Honeoye Falls.
So I flicked on my turn-signal well in advance, so he wouldn’t try anything stupid.
Glowering intimadator shifted to the shoulder and roared by: “_______ _____!” he bellowed (rhymes with “forking”).
Well, HEXKYOOSE ME, Boobie.
But I think the “I-D-10-T” was YOU. Ya were so intent to climb all over my bumper, ya woulda rear-ended me if I slowed. —I had to signal early so ya didn’t try anything stupid!
Sorry chillen; no Dubya-sticker, but it did have a bumper-sticker that said “my wife, yes; my dog, maybe; my gun, never.”

My old monitor was a 19-inch cathode-ray tube monitor (“CRT”) made by “LeCie;” famous at that time for large ‘pyooter monitors. I got it online, and it replaced an earlier 14-incher that had failed.

A “beige desktop G3” is the first Apple Macintosh computer I had; it replaced our first Windows personal-computer (“PC”). I switched to MAC, because that was what my employer (the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper) was using. The computer was a “G3,” the architecture and processor thereof. It was in a beige plastic case that laid on the desktop. I replaced it with a double-processor G4 tower. The “beige MACs” are called that.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years. She uses a PC laptop, with an additional larger flat-screen monitor to supplement the smallish monitor in her laptop. She also got a regular keyboard and mouse for it.

“OS-X” is the Apple operating-system I use.

“Victor” and “Henrietta” are both small suburban towns outside Rochester.

“‘Pyooter” is computer.

My all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, insists I should buy Dell. (A while ago it was Gateway.)

The “Bathtub” is our 2005 Toyota Sienna van; called that because it’s white and like sitting in a bathtub.

“Valerio” is Valero.

A “glowering intimidator” is a tailgater, named after Dale Earnhardt, deceased, the so-called “intimidator” of NASCAR fame, who used to tailgate race-leaders and bump them at speed until they let him pass.

“Honeoye Falls” is the small village nearest out house — about five miles away.

“I-D-10-T” is computer lingo. A user finds her ‘pyooter down, so calls the local ‘pyooter techy. Techy shows up, corrects her error, and then tells her the ‘pyooter had an “I-D-10-T” error.

“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.

utter insanity

(Have I ever left the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA without some piece of utter insanity to report?)

I am quietly blasting away on the sand-trainer.
Amazon-lady is striding around in the background: hee-ya! hee-ya! —She’s a really nice lady; I asked if her son was in an apartment at RIT that requires bus-use to get to class — nada.
The wall-mounted plasma-baby that’s usually tuned to the Weather-Channel, is instead tuned to the local NBC affiliate, WHEC Channel-10 in Rochester.
I guess it was the “Today” show, but maybe not.
Two female talking-heads were fulminating about anything-and-everything, obviously inspired by “The View.”
They were in a ground-floor studio, surrounded by glass, so that spectators could look in.
Apparently there was a monitor outside, projecting the air-feed, so that they could wave and see themselves on nationwide TV. (Memories of our feeble attempts with the mighty-Curve web-cam — although I did get Jack to see me, and got showered with a torrent of loving put-downs.)
First they interviewed a buxom Nat King Cole’s daughter displaying acres of cleavage.
Pity; the camera was cutting it off. Gotta educate them camera-operators. Hottiness is in; look at Sarah.
Then they moved on to a lithesome lassie intent on showing us how to get sexy skin from our refrigerator.
They wandered over to a pretty girl; and “You need a strawberry smoothie facial-mask.” (She didn’t need anything; and was probably over 30.)
89 bazilyun strawberries were chopped up in a blender, leaving pulpy red mush.
The advisor-lady thereupon dabbed some of this red mush on pretty-girl’s face.
I’m sorry, but it looked like garbage. Pretty-girl couldn’t help giggling.
Next was crushed pineapple and pomegranate.
“My first thought was granny’s oatmeal,” the hostess said.
Another pretty girl gets daubed with mush.
I’m sorry, but she looks like a veteran of Honor-Court after Initiation at Houghton; people swimming in chocolate Jell-o pudding, etc.
On to pretty-girl number-three.
“What we have here is a bowl of mashed pumpkin-rind.”
More dabbing of garbage on a pretty girl’s cheeks.
The camera zooms in on the pretty-girl’s face. I’m sorry, but it looks like she fell in the mud on “Wipe-Out.”

I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA exercise-gym.

The “sand-trainer” is a semi-elliptical exercise-machine that duplicates running in sand.

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

“RIT” is nearby Rochester Institute of Technology, a college.

“Plasma-babies” are what my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston calls all high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs. Other technologies beside plasma are available, but he calls them all “plasma-babies.”

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 — so I’ve been there hundreds of times.) —Horseshoe Curve has a web-cam, but it’s awful.

“Jack” is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. (He was in Boston at the time, and me at Horseshoe Curve, but he could view me on his computer via the web-cam.)

RE: “Hottiness is in; look at Sarah.....” —A loud famblee argument has surfaced about “hottie.” I follow the old definition where “hottie” equaled a slut. But all my Christian-zealot relatives loudly declare that “hottie” has become a symbol of Christian virtue and attractiveness. “Sarah” is Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

RE: “Honor-Court after Initiation at Houghton.....” —“Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. At the beginning of the fall term, the sophomores “initiate” the freshman, and then an “Honor-Court” is held to punish the sophomores. Punishment is usually very messy.

“Wipe-Out” is the ABC-TV program Wipe-Out.

Car-show

Wrong (1932 Ford roadster hot-rod). (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

Yesterday (Sunday, September 7, 2008) I took my old friend Art Dana to a car-show in nearby Mendon.
Dana, you’ll recall, is the retired bus-driver with Parkinson’s.
I think Dana is a bit confused, but really appreciates my dragging him along.
I was planning to attend the car-show anyway, but he lives nearby.
Dana is also the guy I recently chased trains with on the Water-Level.
Other factors are at play.
—1) the fact we are both old bus-drivers and can swap stories, and —2) we both have brain-injuries; me the stroke, and him Parkinson’s.
People are always making allowances for him, but I don’t. -a) I don’t know how, and -b) I’ve deduced I don’t need to.
He’s got a mouth. He can complain if need be.
I think Art appreciates not being treated like an invalid.
“I got a ‘31 Model-A roadster; a rat,” he said to the guy with a rat Model-A five-window coupe (pictured).
“Oh, do what ya can, and farm out the rest,” five-window man said.
“Baloney!” I interjected. “This guy built that entire rod himself!”
“I can’t push wrenches to full torque,” Art said; “so I get somebody that can.”
“Well, do what ya can in your remaining time.”
To me that’s baloney too. Ya don’t assume your days are numbered. Live for the moment! Get that sucker on the road no matter what it takes.
Art knows a lot about hot-rodding.
We walk up to a ‘60 Chevy Belair two-door sedan.
“348!” Art says.
“Could be a 409,” I say.
“Nope; can’t be. First 409 was the ‘61 model-year, so it’s a 348.”

“Rat” 1929 Model-A five-window. (That’s Dana at left.)(Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

The two best cars at the show, both of which regrettably I didn’t photograph, were:
—1) A very plain-looking gray ‘60 Chevy two-door sedan, “a sleeper,” Art said.
“Did you hear that, Art?” I cried. “I haven’t heard a sound like that since Cecil County Drag-o-Way in the middle ‘60s.”
“He’s got the lakes-pipes uncorked!”
“I might do that with my Model-A,” Art said. “See if I can get away with it.”
“Holy Tamolé,” Art said; “the 270 horsepower engine.”
“Yep,” the owner said. “Only the 283.”
“But twin four-barrel Edelbrocks,” Art said.
I remember a 270-horsepower twin four-barrel application in 1957; it was second to the Fuely.
So for all I know this could be the same motor.
“Is this the four-speed?” I asked, pointing at the floorshift.
“Three-speed.” —Deduct one point for wrong tranny.
But still very righteous. Very stock. About the only mod was small stainless eyebrows over the quad headlights.
A true ‘60s hot-rod.
—I told the guy later it was the best car I saw — or heard.
“I’m gonna keep drivin’ that thing even if gas goes to fifty bucks per gallon!”
—2) A wine-red Chevy-II two-door sedan, with super-stock Small-Block and four-speed. The car’s owner was the original owner, who bought it new in the ‘60s.
“All I ever did was dragrace it,” the guy said.
“Been through six owners. I brought it back from California.”
A geezer looked at the display-card.
“I used to drag-race this guy. ‘56 Chevy and he always won.”
“Notice that everyone here is a geezer?” Art said.
“You betcha,” I said. “Us old farts are the only ones that understand. These new kids have no idea.”
A guy named Joe Muscato was there with his 440 Charger. He had bought it new in the early ‘70s, and hung onto it. There was a yellowed picture inside of the dealer delivering the car to Muscato. Only difference in 2008 was gray hair.

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.

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.

“The Water-Level” is the old mainline of the New York Central Railroad across New York State, now operated by CSX Transportation. Called “Water-Level” because it followed river-courses, and thereby avoided mountain grades. (The topography of New York State, north of the Allegheny Mountains, made west-east transportation easier.)

Ford “Model-A,” made from 1928-1931. Replaced the Model-T.

A “roadster” is an open-top two-seater with only a flimsy canvas top attached. It’s not a convertible. The top has to be removed to make the car topless. —Roadsters are no longer made; although current two-seat convertibles are often called “roadsters.”

A “five-window coupe” is a coupe with five windows other than the windshield; two in each door, two small side-windows in the body behind the doors, and the rear window. —“Three-window” coupes were also made; no side-windows in the body.

In the 1958 model-year, Chevrolet made a large truck-engine available since the car was much heavier. It displaced 348 cubic-inches. In the 1961 model-year, the 348 was enlarged to displace 409 cubic-inches; the first hot-rod motor over 400 cubic-inches.

“A sleeper” is a car that doesn’t look much like a hot-rod.

“Cecil County Drag-o-Way” was the dragstrip in northeastern Maryland I went to often while in college. —Drag-racing is standing-start to the end of a quarter-mile. First one there wins.

“Lakes-pipes” are unmuffled exhaust outlets. They could be capped for street-operation; an application found long ago at races on the dry lake-beds in the California desert.

“Twin four-barrel Edelbrocks” is two four-barrel carburetors made by Edelbrock; much more powerful than standard carburetion, which was usually only a single two-barrel on a V8.

“Fuely” is fuel-injected, not carburetors. Chevrolet introduced fuel-injection in 1957, mainly to maximize engine-breathing. Now all cars are fuel-injected, mainly to control emissions — it can be more precise than carburetors.

“Tranny” is transmission. A “three-speed” is a three-speed standard shift; not automatic. Standard transmissions by then were usually shifted by a shift-lever on the steering column. But floor-shifting was more direct.

The “Chevy-II” was Chevrolet’s first real competition to the Ford Falcon. Chevrolet also introduced the rear-engine Corvair in the same year as the Falcon (1960), but it wasn’t as successful. The Chevy-II could accommodate the Small-Block V8.

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. —The 348 was Chevrolet’s first big motor, but it wasn’t the “Big-Block.”

The “440 Charger” was a Dodge Charger coupe with the 440 cubic-inch “wedge” engine — not as strong as a “Hemi,” but nearly. The “Hemi” had hemispherical combustion-chambers, and the “wedge” didn’t (it had wedge-shaped combustion chambers). The Hemi breathed better at high speeds, so could be more powerful.

Pensioner’s Meeting

Yesterday (Thursday, September 4, 2008) I attended an important meeting of Transit retirees.
This is a different crowd from the “Alumni” retirees, although it’s all people that were Amalgamated Transit Union Local 282 (“What’s ‘ah-two’”).
Many in attendance were not members of the Alumni, yet like the Alumni they were union retirees collecting a union pension.
Most, like me, were once lazy no-good layabouts who did nothing, except -a) not get shot, and -b) keep nine tons of hurtling steel between the lines in all kinds of weather.
A security-breech has occurred. A vendor for the Boston bank that processed our pension payments had computer equipment stolen.
That ‘pyooter equipment had names and addresses and Social-Security information of 45,000 pensioners, 250 of which were Transit union retirees.
This was eight months ago.
So far nothing has happened. —No losses that would indicate identity-theft.
Nevertheless our pension-administrator (not the bank) is alarmed.
They want us to sign up for a credit-bureau monitoring-service that would notify us of any activity — like a credit-card added.
They will pay for this for four years, but we have to sign up for it ourselves (it’s the law).
They also will pay for identity-theft insurance for two years, which we can add to existing insurance, if available; or get it elsewhere (arrangements were made).
So a meeting of all union pensioners was arranged.
The pension-administrator’s local representative also attended to relate the gravity of the situation.
All union pensioners received a letter a while ago, but I shoved it into my pending-pile.
I figured if our credit went wonky I could react — I have before.
Someone got our credit-card number years ago and purchased computer equipment.
The bank called us. Apparently they got monitoring software that flags activity that doesn’t match our patterns.
The union-prez mentioned he’d had his identity stolen, and it took eight months to straighten things out.
Credit-cards he didn’t authorize were being opened under his Social-Security number.
Stuff like this is what the pension-administrator is worried about, although nothing’s happened yet.
I rode up there on the dreaded Banana — it’s looking like I’m gonna burn a complete tank of gas this summer; probably more.
It’s about a 45-minute ride.
Nothing dramatical happened, except an encounter with a large furniture-delivery truck.
Main St. in Rochester is under construction — always is. One whole side of the street was torn up, so traffic was shoved to the other side.
The two eastbound lanes had been divided using traffic-cones into one lane each, eastbound and westbound.
So I placidly motored west into the westbound lane, but the furniture-truck turned off a left-side side-street heading east.
It was a large truck, and needed a huge swing; so he ended up heading east in my westbound lane — right toward me..
Well okay, the poor guy probably thought he was in the kerreck lane, so I quickly pulled off to the side, unable to downshift.
But suddenly the truck switched lanes, but I’m still stopped in second or third gear.
I make two starting attempts, but stall each time. A glowering-intimidator is behind me in a gigantical 4WD RAM dually pickup, angrily thumping his steering-wheel.
I’m off to the side to restart, but RAM-man doesn’t pass.
Through various tricks I know, I got the little dear into first and continued on.
Outside the meeting I saw only one other motorbike: a gigantical Harley-Davidson GeezerGlide, probably ridden there by Bob Ross; a retired bus-mechanic.
“How in the wide, wide world canya ride that thing? It’s a crotch-rocket; you’re supposed to be old.”
“Well I am, but I still can ride it, I guess. Got up here, didn’t I?”
Two people I haven’t seen in years were in attendance: namely Pedro Colazzo (“Pete Koh-LAH-zo”) and Nelson Kiske (“KISS-key”).
Colazzo is now 70, and of course retired, but when I started driving buses in 1977 he was a Road-Supervisor.
He eventually switched back to bus-driving, as many Road-Supervisors do, since bus-driving is the least frustrating job at Transit.
Colazzo is Puerto-Rican, and by now his hair is gray. But he looks pretty good for 70.
“Hey Pedro,” I yelled, still in my helmet.
We jawed for a long time; “My feet hurt,” Pedro was telling me.
“It ain’t circulation, I hope?” I asked.
“Nope. My doctor says that’s all okay. Nobody knows why my feet hurt.”
“Kiske” (nickname was “Bud”) was another one of my mentors.
“What I remember most was 1508 — or was it ‘06’ or ‘07?’”
“You picked that 10-hour Kodak charter, leaving 1508 for me; which I picked.”
“I used to call it the ‘Latta Road Merry-go-round.’”
“I’d deadhead out to Latta Road, and then around and around we went — I might get six passengers the whole afternoon over three trips.”
At this point, Kiske rendered the old waazoo he always said when I told him 1508 was so easy: “We don’t get paid by the ton — we get paid by the hour.”
I sat with Gary Colvin, one of my dreaded Ne’er-do-Wells.
“Does this make any sense?” he asked.
“Any questions?” the pension-administrator lady asked.
At his point Frito Bandito (that’s his actual name) got up, and started fulminating.
“My name is Frito Bandito; and I can’t hear or understand that well.”
Uh-oh; here we go. The same Frito Bandito that got management all bent outta shape, because he could make a lotta noise without making sense.
“A lot of good people were working, yet couldn’t read or write. And they couldn’t make any sense of this here high-finance stuff,” Frito said.
“So they gave all their hard-earned money to the town priest; and then that guy got roped in for stealing.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bandito,” the poor girl said, eying the floor.
Is it any wonder Transit management always threw up their hands, and shooed Frito out of their offices?
Outside I met “Smokestack Merkel,” (“MERR-kul”) puffing a cigarette on the landing. The Hall inside is “no-smoking.”
If yaz remember, Merkel was the guy without teeth, so that when he smiled all ya saw was gums.
Merkel was one of our most-valued activists, joined us to survey the Buffalo light-rail system (a subway boondoggle that’s little-used), and got laughed out of a Transit-Authority meeting when he presented his heavy-rail proposal for Rochester.
Merkel is a railfan, and suggested I ride some railroad tourist-line steam excursion in Texas.
“Well, I don’t know, Merkel,” I said. “I keep feeling like I gotta limit what I try, but usually I can do more than I think. Take this thing......” I said, pointing at my motorbike.
Riding home there were various challenges; I hit Victor to try to buy reservations for a train-excursion.
Doing so meant using I-490 — I saw 78 mph once.
(No reservations yet.)
The second challenge was freshly stoned pavement on a rural road I used. I usually try to avoid freshly stoned pavement, but can do it if need be.

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.

“Local 282” was the Rochester local of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union.

“What’s ‘ah-two?’” is something my mother asked seeing my ATU (Amalgamated Transit Union) button.

The “Alumni” is a special club of Local 282 (ATU) Transit retirees. You have to join.

RE: “Lazy no-good layabouts who did nothing......” —My all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, loudly insists bus-driving is nothing; that as a bus-driver I was a freeloader.

“‘Pyooter” is computer.

“Banana” is my 2003 Honda 600cc CBR/RR crotch-rocket motorcycle. My loudmouthed brother-in-Boston, a macho Harley-guy, seeing it was yellow, pronounced it a “Banana.”

RE: “It’s looking like I’m gonna burn a complete tank of gas this summer.....” —Being retired, I don’t have much reason to ride my motorcycle any more.

A “glowering intimidator” is a tailgater, named after Dale Earnhardt, deceased, the so-called “intimidator” of NASCAR fame, who used to tailgate race-leaders and bump them at speed until they let him pass.

A “RAM dually pickup” is a full-size Dodge RAM pickup with four wheels on its rear axle — two wheels per side. (They can haul heavy bed-connected trailers; that is, trailers with hookups in the pickup bed. But their large size is also used to project machoness.)

“GeezerGlide” is what I call all Harley Davidson ElectraGlide cruiser-bikes. My loudmouthed macho brother-in-Boston has a very laid back Harley Davidson cruiser-bike, and, like many Harley Davidson riders, is over 50 (51). So I call it his GeezerGlide.

A Transit “Road-Supervisor” was a person who rode around in a car to field bus-problems.

“1508” was a bus run. All bus-runs had numbers like that.

RE: “10-hour Kodak charter......” —Kodak had chartered 10 hours of RTS bus-service in its huge Rochester Kodak-Park facility, during improvements that put their regular bus-service out-of-service.

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

Regional Transit System (RTS) was run by the Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority (RGRTA), an independent state authority of local fat-cats.

“Freshly stoned pavement” is small granite chip-stones in tar. Local highway authorities often do this on little-used roads instead of repaving. It’s also called “chip-sealing.” The loose stones can toss a motorcycle.