Tyranny of the cellphone

So here I am driving alone back from trying to find Sand Patch, and I’m on Interstate-81 northbound north of Scranton in the Faithful Hunda.
It’s not too long after my stroke, but I’m returned to driving — back to railfaning.
I am returning from Steamtown, where I dodged thundershowers and deluges — one as I exited Scranton.
This also is the same journey I visited Cass the first time.
Except I’m out in the middle of nowhere; motels are more urban centers. Shoulda camped out near Scranton.
I see an independent (non-chain) motel up ahead on my left; behind woods up on a hill.
I exit I-81, and attain the motel; a throwback to the ‘60s.
I check in, and open the room. No phone. That’s just great! Can’t check in with my worried wife to let her know I’m still alive and coming home.
The motel in Altoony has a phone. What is it with these people?
Okay; dinner-time.
I go back out and cross under I-81, and patronize a truckstop restaurant nearby.
The clouds open as I head in.
Inside truckers are on their cellphones checking in with their significant others.
VIOLA! Light comes on. What a great idea. No longer tied to the landline network. Gotta get me one of them there cellphones.
Same drill that old geezer at Wilmot thought when Linda called me on her cellphone.

So I get a cellphone — about 10 years ago; that was cellphone number-one; we are now on iteration number-four: a Motorola RAZR.
What a capital idea: no longer tied to the landline network; but the technology has its downside.
I always give out my cellphone number, since that’s the one we use the most.
—1) I’m in the Porta-John at Victor Christmas Tree Farm last weekend, after being told they no longer sold live (potted) Christmas trees, and my cellphone fires off.
Can I answer it? I’m in a Porta-John.
Flip; “Hello........”
“We’re calling from Sears, and see that the one-year warranty on your dishwasher is about to run out.”
“Can you hang on one second?” I say.
Ker-flap! For crying out loud.
Is it any wonder our house-builder wanted nothing to do with cellphones.
—2) Next day (Sunday, December 7, 2008) I’m in the CR-V headed north to pick up Art Dana for that model-train show.
My cellphone fires off. Usually if I’m driving I let it go to voicemail.
But it may be Art. He might have crashed; he has fairly severe Parkinson’s.
So “Hello........”
“We’re calling from Sears, and see that the one-year warranty on your dishwasher is about to run out.”
“I’m drivin’,” I say.
“Oops! Call back later.”
I go about three miles farther: Ding-a-ling!
“Oh, for cryin’ out loud. This thing is firin’ off more than when I’m home,” I think.
I answer it — unholster phone from pocket, flip open, and drive one-handed. (I could speaker-phone it, and have, but it often doesn’t work.)
I’m on a winding country road — the sort that requires concentration to keep between the lines. (I once fielded a cellphone call on the way back from the so-called elitist country-club, and ended up wandering across the double-yellow. So I usually pass, despite the insistent ringing.)
I don’t remember what it was, but it was a nuisance-call.
—3) I’m at Baker Park in Canandaigua this morning (Saturday, December 13, 2008), walking the dog loose around the park.
I’m in the woods walking winding, snowy paths: Ding-a-ling!
“NOW WHAT? How come this thing never fires off in a comfortable place?”
Unholster cellphone from pocket, flip open: “Hello........”
“This is Ted from Medved. Your Asics ‘Trabuco®’ trail-shoes, as ordered, are in, and can be picked up at the front desk.”
The sorta thing that usually goes to my voicemail; but I had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to have my cellphone on.

“Sand Patch” is Sand Patch tunnel, on the old Baltimore & Ohio Railroad route to Pittsburgh, PA. It’s part of their route through the Allegheny mountains, and is a very long tunnel; over 4,000 feet. The original tunnel was dug in the 1850s, an engineering feat at that time, since it was so long, and a second tunnel was built in 1871. It’s near the tiny town of Sand Patch, and the railroad is now CSX. —I couldn’t find it because it was at the end of a private (“No Trespassing”) dirt road, which was being used by bulldozers. Sand Patch tunnel is a railfan pilgrimage spot; I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child.

“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.)

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

Steamtown in Scranton, PA, is a railroad museum. It has an operating steam-locomotive excursion.

Cass is a restored logging railroad in West Virginia. It uses special locomotives — the typical side-rod steam locomotive could have never worked on logging railroad track. Too steep and too rough. Cass has a number of these locomotives in operation. It’s a state park, but only as wide as the railroad right-of-way. “Cass” is also the name of the town; once a lumbering operation. Trees were felled and railed down to the lumber-mill, which burned down in the ‘80s. (The mill was defunct by then.)

“Altoony” (Altoona, PA.) is the location of Horseshoe Curve, 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.

RE: “Same drill that old geezer at Wilmot thought when Linda called me on her cellphone.......” —“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years. She had lymphatic cancer, and was treated for it at Wilmot Cancer Center in Rochester. She survived. She received chemotherapy there, across from an older gentleman, who was impressed she could call me to come get her with her cellphone. Older gentleman’s daughter tried to persuade him that cellphones were beyond his ability.

RE: “Is it any wonder our house-builder wanted nothing to do with cellphones......” —Our house in West Bloomfield was built in 1989 by a contractor who at that time didn’t have a cellphone in his truck — this was back when cellphones were usually an automotive installation. I suggested he get a cellphone in his truck, but he said he didn’t want anyone bothering him until afternoon — that mornings were when he needed to do things without interruption.

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

“Art Dana” (“DAY-nuh”) is like me a retired bus-driver. For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. Dana started a year-or-two before me. —We have similar interests — me real trains, him real and model trains.

“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.

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

Medved Running and Walking Outfitters near Rochester. “Asics ‘Trabuco®’ are a model of Asics trail-running sneakers. (I run, and have for years.)