3985

UP 3985 in Kansas returning from Houston, where it entertained guests at the 2004 Super Bowl. (Sorry; I can’t run all the pik, because it was over a magazine-fold. —It also looks like a Howard Fogg watercolor.) (Photo by Roy Inman.)

Behold, Union Pacific 3985, the largest restored railroad steam-locomotive in the world.
Without the caption, I’d think the picture was a Howard Fogg watercolor. —The grass in the snow, and the sky, look like Fogg. So do the crossbucks.
3985 was built in 1943 by American Locomotive Company in Schenectady, N.Y., part of an order of 105 4-6-6-4 Challenger locomotives for Union Pacific Railroad.
The 4-6-6-4 wheel arrangement is known as the “Challenger,” and the engine is articulated, meaning the frame of the front wheel-sets (including the drivers) is hinged to the rear frame.
The locomotive boiler is solidly mounted to the rear frame, and the front frame can offset to allow the locomotive’s massive length to negotiate tight curves (e.g. crossovers) without derailing.
Evidence of this offset is discernible in the second picture.
3985 and its brothers are the massive 4-8-8-4 “Big Boy” downsized. The “Big Boy” was the largest steam-locomotive ever built, and with the coming of the Challengers was transferred to the Wasatch mountains in Utah.
The new Challengers were assigned to Wyoming — idea being to speed up freight dispatch across the state. (The Challengers could boom-and-zoom.)

UP 3985 in Little Rock, Ark. in 2004. (Photo by David Hoge.)

3985 was retired about 1960, and put on display in Cheyenne.
But then UP needed more space, and wanted to move 3985.
A bunch of Union Pacific shop retirees wanted to restore 3985, so UP management let them, expecting failure.
But the retirees got it running in 1981. Now what!
3985 joined the other Union Pacific steam locomotive, 844, a 4-8-4 Northern, also built by American Locomotive Company, Union Pacific’s last steam-engine, never retired.
I’ve never seen 844, but I’ve seen 3985 twice: first time depicted below, and second a ride behind.
The first time was in the early ‘80s — we flew out to Denver and picked up a rental V6 Firebird.
We had no idea where we were going at all, so drove up Interstate 25 into Cheyenne.
It was the old “look for the smoke” drill. I saw a pillar of thin smoke, and arrowed west out the old Route 30.
There it was, off to the left in a railroad-yard.
3985 was being fired up to take over an excursion from Denver.
Diesels would bring the excursion up from Denver, and then 3985 would take over and run the train out to Laramie, then back to Cheyenne.
Within minutes 3985 was accelerating west out of the yard, so we got back on Route 30, which parallels the original UP main up Sherman Hill.
But 3985 was arrowing south on another line, away from us, on what we later found was the Harriman Cutoff, a line built in 1953 to make the westbound ascent of Sherman easier. (Sherman is the Continental divide.)
The line from Denver switched into both the Harriman and the UP main; so 3985 was moving to accommodate, and would back to the stopped excursion.
I bombed out a side-road, completely lost, and stopped a couple guys in a Pontiac Celebrity-clone.
“You guys look like railfans. Any idea where you’re going?”
“No,” they answered. “We’re from Georgia.”
I ended up driving under the Harriman, and 3985 was off in the distance, waiting for the train from Denver.

3985 and Denver excursion, westbound on Harriman. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the Spotmatic.)

It was going up the Harriman, so I photographed it as it passed (see pik above).
From there we got on a long rain-slicked dirt road that eventually ended up in Harriman, a small collection of cottages put up by the railroad. (The Firebird on that road was great — it had incredibly good balance; I could drift the tail.) There also had been a water-tower, and it was still there.
3985 and train passed and we went farther out along the UP main west of the summit-tunnel. (The Harriman merged back into the UP main before the summit.)
We had a long wait, because apparently they were doing a run-by. Linda and I waited on a large rock overlooking vast desolation.
Wyoming is like that. Set off an atomic bomb, and it would look like a firecracker.
The surrounding area seemed arid. Harriman at least had stubby green pine trees.
The train continued into Laramie, where it would get turned on a wye.
Laramie has a gigantic foot-bridge across all the tracks of the yard.
We set up on that footbridge, and what I remember most was the banter that began:
“Where ya from?”
“Pocatello, Idaho”
“San Francisco.”
“Atlanta, Georgia.”
“Rochester, New York.”
I cried. Yo; people from all over the country were on that foot-bridge to see that engine.

3985 in Laramie. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the Spotmatic.)

3985 was wyed, but not the train. (The wye was apparently a branch.)
Finally after a couple hours they had everything coupled, so they began reloading the train.
The train moved farther out so they could load the rear cars — I was able to run along-side on a parallel side-street so I could take more pictures. I could do that, as I had been running footraces.
Finally the train left.
My final image was of 3985 where it crossed Interstate-80 in the gathering dusk west of Cheyenne. That image is still in my head.
We rode a small excursion behind 3985 a few years later; an excursion that rained the whole time and cost a fortune.
They only had five cars; no work at all for 3985.
It was frigid. 89 bazilyun run-bys. I remember standing in a small trackside shed and freezing. We were waiting for a run-by; and it was preferable to standing outside in the wind-driven sleet.
3985 is still running. Although it’s been converted to burn fuel-oil; same as 844. The two times I saw it it was still burning coal.
My blowhard macho brother-from-Boston chased it in Illinois once in his Cherokee, and could barely keep up with it.
3985 was doing 60 mph crossing the square highway grid at an angle. I guess he eventually lost it.
3985 can still boom-and-zoom, and they run it that way.

“Howard Fogg” is a famous railroad artist, now deceased, who often painted watercolor.

“Crossbucks” are the roadway grade-crossing sign — the “railroad-crossing” sign is on crossbucks.

“Crossovers” are switches from one track to a parallel track; like from one track to the other in a two-track railroad.

“Sherman Hill” is fairly easy, but long. The summit, where there’s a tunnel, is the Continental Divide. It’s the highest point on the original Union Pacific Transcontinental Railroad — although the original line has been abandoned. The original crossing did not have a tunnel.

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.

RE: “Water-tower.......” —Railroad steam-locomotives boil and consume great quantities of water. Therefore water-towers were along the railroad to fill the engine tenders. Many were not removed when railroads switched from steam-power to diesel — as were many coaling towers.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.

RE: “Run-by.....” Everyone gets off the train, the train backs up, and then runs by the detrained passengers making great smoke and noise so the passengers can take pictures and videos.

A “wye” is essentially an inside curved-sided triangle. The train goes in one leg of the wye, backs out the other, and is thereby reversed.

“My blowhard macho brother-from-Boston” is my younger brother “Jack,” who noisily badmouths everything I do or say.

Saturday-morning TV

I am about to eat a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich I just made.
I move from the kitchen and turn on our TV and combination DVD/VCR, which cable-feeds the TV.
I have a railfan video in the DVD player, and I’m gonna watch it as I eat my sandwich.
By default, our combination DVD/VCR is tuned to the local ABC channel, and plays it before I can switch over to my DVD.
“Power-Rangers” is on.
A disheveled young dude walks out of his pizza-shop kitchen, all smothered in pizza-dough. “So much for my Mt. Kilimanjaro pizza experiment,” he says.

MARCY, IT’S EVERYWHERE!

RE: “I have a railfan video in the DVD player......” —I’m a railfan, and have been all my life.

“Marcy” is my number-one ne’er-do-well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the Messenger newspaper), and together they live near Boston. (Both Marcy and Mahoney keep blogs — Marcy’s is Playtime at Hazmat.)

Back to grapefruit-juice

“Did you actually mean to buy grapefruit-juice?” Linda asks.
“Well, I’m not taking anti-cholesterol drugs any more,” I say.
The advice is you shouldn’t consume grapefruit or grapefruit-juice if you are taking anti-cholesterol drugs.
I got varying advice on this.
The drug-pusher, alias halitosis-breath, who started me on the anti-cholesterol drugs in the first place, said the concern over grapefruit was a bunch of hooey.
My wife, perusing the dreaded Internet, thought grapefruit and anti-cholesterol drugs would cause the end of the world.
“That Internet has caused more malarkey than anything,” my current Doctor says. “When I hear ‘I read it on the Internet,’ I think ‘Horror-of-horrors.’ Self-doctoring and self-diagnosis.”
“All right,” I say to my wife; “we’ll switch to orange-juice, and I’ll stop eating grapefruit. It ain’t cast in stone.”
So for years I only drank orange-juice. (Cut in half; half OJ, half water, much to the rather vocal dismay of my siblings. I prefer it that way — dilutes the sweetness. I used to cut grapefruit-juice too.)
A few months ago my doctor allowed me to stop anti-cholesterol drugs, after I argued I didn’t think they were necessary. —Not as important as getting back into shape.
So I guess we can go back to grapefruit — which I prefer.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.

RE: “The drug-pusher, alias halitosis-breath......” —My previous Doctor, at a health-center (previously HMO), prescribed a slew of drugs to cure my perceived ills (his perceptions). All these drugs have been dropped, stopping various dangerous side-effects. I got back in shape at the behest of a Physical Therapist, who I respect. —The previous doctor became “the pusher-man,” and we switched health-centers; i.e. got a new doctor. “The pusher-man” had strident bad breath.

RE: “Much to the rather vocal dismay of my siblings.....” —My brothers and sisters, especially my blowhard macho brother-in-Boston, loudly accuse me of being a cheapskate, and that cutting orange-juice in half is evidence of this. Jesus drank it straight.

Report regarding trip to the Canandaigua YMCA

—1) More plasma follies:
I’m on the fancy-dan new exercise gizmo, a sort of semi-elliptical; which a staff-lady says replicates running in sand.
You can simulate climbing steps, or lengthen your stride.
“All I know is this thing gets my heart-rate up higher than any other machine,” I say. (When I started it got it up to 126 — the target heart-rate for somebody my age. Now that I’ve done it a few times, it gets me up to maybe 115.)
An ad comes on the plasma-baby the machine faces — it’s tuned to the weather-channel.
Some drug has been pulled because of bad side-effects. “If you have suffered any of the following: stroke, heart-attack, death; please contact our attorneys now.”
HMMMMMMMNNNNNNNN.......

—2) Not a Dubya-sticker:
I’m in the left-turn lane off the main drag through Canandaigua to access North Road, to go to the Canandaigua Tops.
It’s a dedicated left-turn lane, marked with an arrow.
The arrow comes on, but Mr. Dubya-supporter is madly dashing into the intersection from the other side in his silver Nissan.
He stops, seeing no one else beside him is running the red-light.
He gives me the finger as I go around.
Sorry chillen; I’m looking at his front. If there’s a Dubya-sticker it’s on the back.
But obviously a Git-R-Dun engineer.
The fact I was using the left-turn arrow shows how reprehensible and utterly stupid I am.

—3) MONSTROUS learning-curve on the dreaded U-Scans:
“Welcome to Tops. If you have a Tops valued-customer card, please scan it now.”
“Welcome Tops favored-customer! Please start scanning your order now!”
“BIP!”
“Please deposit your scanned item in the bag.”
I got lots more to scan, so I attempt to scan more items.
No “BIP!” Just “Please deposit your scanned item in the bag.”
Okay, try the other juice; I got two, the first one worked, so we’ll scan it again.
“BIP!”
“Please deposit your scanned item in the bag.”
The first Ben & Fat Jerry’s chocolate ice-cream scans, but not the second.
Okay, I got four, so try them all, and even the first doesn’t scan again.
“Please deposit your scanned item in the bag.”
The screen goes into a sub-total mode, then “Please deposit your scanned item back in the bag.”
Minutes pass. This is more trouble than it’s worth.
I look at the “Please deposit your scanned item back in the bag” screen for about five minutes, sorely tempted to try another U-Scan.
Finally the harried 60-ish lady clerking the U-Scans walks by, and I say “I seem to be in some kind of abyss. I been lookin’ at this screen for the last five minutes.”
Burp — she hits a reset button and “Are ya done? If so, please select method of payment.”
(The items scan if ya get ‘em in the sweet spot. The four Ben & Fat Jerries scanned.)

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

“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.

“Ben & Fat Jerry” is Ben & Jerry®.

Corvair

This morning’s dream (Friday, March 28, 2008) was about my black ‘61 Corvair Monza coupe, the first real car I ever owned.
(My first car is The Beast: a 1958 Triumph fish-mouth TR3 [in 1966]; but it was a toy, not a normal means of transport. It’s weather-protection was minimal; I usually drove it top down [rain or shine].)
The Corvair was the pinnacle of General Motors engineering — a better Porsche than even Porsche.
Aluminum air-cooled motor in the back, and flat as a pancake — i.e. totally unrelated to anything else GM was building (except perhaps the valve-train, which was the same design as the Small-Block).
I am especially partial to the second iteration (‘65-‘69). They have fully-independent rear suspension, as opposed to swing-axles like the first Corvairs.
My ‘61 was the first iteration, and only had two flaws endemic to the design.
The motor in the rear made it feel tail-happy and unbalanced. I felt like I was driving a pendulum.
The swing-axles also liked to get all crossed up.
Roll the car into a corner, and the inside axle could cock, throwing tire-contact on the side of the casing, and minimizing its size.
It was a flaw on which Ralph Nader made his reputation, although you had to be really moving for this to happen.
Nader was claiming this would happen to Granny at slow speed.
It also sold a lot of camber-compensators: a single-leaf spring that tied the swing-axles flat in a corner. In fact the 1964 Corvair had one stock from the factory. (Nader went bonkers.)
My Corvair also had problems specific to the car. It had the two-speed PowerGlide automatic, and it would drop into Low at the drop of a hat; revving the poor motor into the stratosphere.
Looking back, I’m inclined to think a tranny mechanic could reset that thing to not do that. —Our buses were like that: some shifted at 20 mph; others not ever. A tranny mechanic could make it shift at 35 mph, like it was supposed to.
But I thought the tranny was sick. Once the car crippled, and O’Connor Chevrolet dropped the while drivetrain. They claimed the diff had filled with ATF. —I’m more inclined to think the cable shifter had broke. Years later I coulda fixed that myself.
Another factor was at play: namely that PowerGlide was not my choice. I had looked at four-on-the-floor Corvairs, but my father had found this one. And he wasn’t about to cosign a four-on-the-floor.
The import of the dream was that the Corvair was still a great car.
Compared to what’s available now, the only things lacking were good tires and good brakes.
In 1961 cars were still on bias-ply tires; nowhere near as good as the radials you find today.
And as I was driving along, the brakes were wimpy. The Corvair still had drum-brakes. It took a lot to slow the car.
But on the other hand I felt like I was driving as good as it gets. Slam on the brakes in our CR-V and the rear locks up. It doesn’t have anti-lock brakes, but I’ve always felt anti-lock brakes were just a band-aid for poor balance. Slam on the brakes in the Bathtub and nothing locks — it’s balanced.
Our Faithful Hunda was like that: fantastic brake-balance.
But compared to a Corvair it feels like later cars were heavily finessed to hide their flaws.
After all, you can engineer stability into an unstable design.
But the Corvair was an excellent design — and my dream substantiated this. I still had it (had never traded it), and it felt as good as current designs.

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.

“PowerGlide” is the automatic-transmission Chevrolet introduced in 1950.

RE: “Our buses were like that......” —For 16&1/2 years I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.

“Diff” equals differential; “ATF” equals automatic-transmission fluid.

“Four-on-the-floor” is a four-speed floor-shifted standard transmission; a sporting option.

RE: “The Corvair still had drum-brakes......” —Most cars now have disc brakes; much better because they don’t expand away from the braking medium like drum-brakes.

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

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

“The Faithful Hunda” is our 1989 Honda Civic All-Wheel-Drive station-wagon, by far the BEST car we ever owned, now departed (replaced by our 2003 Honda CR-V). (Called a “Hunda” because that was how a fellow bus-driver at Transit [Regional-Transit-Service in Rochester, where I once worked] pronounced it.)

Marky-Mark

This morning (Thursday, March 27, 2008), while walking our dog at the so-called elitist country-club, we met the estimable Marky-Mark (Mark Syverud [“SYE-ver-rud”]).
Marky-Mark was an editor at the mighty Mezz when I started; a primary reason why I felt so highly of the Messenger newspaper.
There were other reasons, of course: Circh and Frisch and Z-man and Boss-man and Queeny and AJ and Peggy Carroll and Joy.
They were all dedicated to putting out a classy product. I was impressed.
My income, being post-stroke, was puny; and a job-counselor at my rehab suggested getting my job back at Transit.
“Nothing doing!” I said. I preferred working at the mighty Mezz.
I started as an unpaid intern, a stroke-survivor, cranking “Names & Faces” into their system.
I was still doing that when one day I uttered a pearl-of-wisdom I had created at Houghton.
“If you can’t do it, teach it; if you can’t teach it, teach others how to teach.” (—A reflection on my Secondary Education courses, and the stupid professors therein.)
Marky-Mark was stunned. He looked at me awe-struck, as if to say “this guy had a stroke?”
I almost didn’t see Marky-Mark when he passed. I was paying more attention to footing with our dog — it was icy, and he was pulling, as usual.
“Bob is a prolific writer,” Mark said.
“Almost every day I send Mark a steaming pile of useless drivel,” I said.
“And what is it you write about?” his friend asked.
“Anything and everything,” I said. “I call it shoveling.”

Our dog is “Killian;” a rescue Irish-Setter. We’ve had him about five years.

“The so-called elitist country-club” is nearby Boughton (“BOW-tin”) Park, where we walk our dog. It was called that long ago by an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper (the mighty Mezz), 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.

“Circh and Frisch and Z-man and Boss-man and Queeny and AJ and Peggy Carroll and Joy......” —Stevie Circh, Kevin Frisch, Richard Zitrin, Robert Matson, Lenore Friend, Anne Johnston, Peggy Carroll and Joy Daggett. Matson is Executive Editor, Frisch is Managing Editor, Circh, Zitrin and AJ are gone, Peggy and Joy are both retired. Syverud is retired too. (Joy was the all-around tool-guy, and ‘pyooter-lady [at first]. She retired as Purchasing Director.)

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

“Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years.

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

“Marky-Mark” is one of the vaunted Ne’er-do-Wells, an e-mail list of everyone I e-mail my stuff to.

“Fair and balanced”

Yesterday (Wednesday, March 26, 2008), two of the large wall-mounted plasma-babies in the gym at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA, were playing the same program: live coverage of a speech by REPUBLICAN presidential candidate John McCain at the Foreign Affairs Council (WHATEVER) in Los Angeles.
The southern-most plasma-baby had FOX-News, and the middle plasma-baby CNN. (The northern-most plasma-baby has the Weather-Channel.)
All the plasma-babies are silent. If closed-captioning is available, that runs on the screen; which is all you get — no sound.
But McCain wasn’t closed-captioned — I guess only Democrats get closed-captioned; e.g. Hillary and Obama. I’ve endured this before.
So here I am silently blasting away on the exercise bicycle, and McCain is silently yammering.
You can tell when he’s standing for applause. He goes speechless, and mouths “thank you; thank you,” firmly gripping the lectern.
FOX and CNN weren’t sharing the camera; each had a slightly different angle — and FOX was running slightly ahead of CNN.
So you couldn’t tell what McCain was saying — except both networks were running synopses of the speech below McCain.
FOX seemed biased; e.g. “McCain is the only presidential timber;” “McCain will be our Maximum Leader;” “the onliest respectable Commander-in-Chief.”
CNN seemed more on the beam: “we need NATO;” “if we leave Iraq and Afghanistan it will be our greatest security defeat;” “I know war and the damage it can cause.”

I’m exaggerating FOX, but the synopses seemed along this line.
“Seems pretty apt,” Linda said. “I had to endure FOX reportage of a Hillary speech the other day on the Y plasma-baby.”
“I hate Hillary, but FOX was off the deep-end. You could tell they hated Hillary. Their reportage was hardly ‘fair-and-balanced.’ It was anti-Hillary.”
Similar to the e-mail I was forwarded the other day — about Hillary stealing White House china. “Bill Clinton was the only convicted felon to ever be president. His wife shouldn’t even think of being president.”
The Clintsky felony count was for long ago not reporting for military duty. —Kind of like Dubya enlisting in the National Guard to avoid combat in Vietnam; or Cheney claiming he had more important things to do beside combat.
They shoulda lassoed him to shoot down that rogue satellite. (“Piece a’ cake!”)

I’m surprised FOX can even favor McCain — he sure ain’t the darling of Limberger and his lackeys. —And abhorrent as she is, Hillary is the onliest one that can beat down Limberger.

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

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.

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

“Limberger” is Rush Limbaugh. I call him that because I think he stinks.

String it out

Yesterday afternoon (Tuesday, March 25, 2008) about 4 p.m., as I began to take my blood-pressure, the phone rang.
“Hi; this is Bob from Frontier Telephone; yada-yada-yada-yada.”
“I’m here to make you an astounding offer; caller-ID, call-waiting, caller-waiting ID, voicemail, DSL Internet, 100 minutes of long-distance absolutely free, for only $19.95 per month, guaranteed for two years; our premium bundle.”
“What?”
“Yada-yada-yada-yada.”
“You’re talking so fast I can’t understand you.”
“Yada-yada-yada-yada. Offer of a lifetime; guaranteed; that okay with you?”
“I don’t wanna change anything without thinking about it first.”
“Well, that’s okay. Do you wanna step aside for a moment to think about it? I’ll hold.”
“Can’t right now; my wife’s at work” (Post-Office).
“Well, I can’t guarantee the offer until later. This is a once-in-a-lifetime offer.”
“Um, I don’t wanna change anything without thinking about it first. Anyway, you’re offering services I don’t need, plus we do our long-distance over the cellphone. There’s no charge. And our Internet is cable — much faster than DSL.”
“Yada-yada-yada-yada.”
Don’t hang up — string it out. Usually I just cut these people off, but I tried selling encyclopedias door-to-door once, and know the drill is to waste the salesman’s time.
If there’s anything that frustrates a salesman, it’s to lose a sale after investing a huge gout of time.
“I don’t wanna change anything without thinking about it first.”
“Well, I can’t guarantee the offer until later. This is a once-in-a-lifetime offer.”
A broken record.
“I don’t wanna change anything without thinking about it first.”
“Well, I can’t guarantee the offer until later. This is a once-in-a-lifetime offer.”
He seemed to be heavily into the “guarantee” word; an offer full of guarantees, but he couldn’t guarantee my waiting.
Finally, after about five minutes, and five reprises of the “I can’t guarantee the offer,” I hit the kill button.
“Lost the sale, idiot. I hope I wasted enough of your time.”

My wife works part-time at the local Post-Office.

More U-Scan follies

(FROM THE VAUNTED “AIN’T TECHNOLOGY WONDERFUL” FILE..........)

I am done with my work-out at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA (Monday, March 24, 2008).
I drive to the mighty Canandaigua Tops, to purchase our weekly allotment of Ben & Fat Jerry’s chocolate ice-cream. Tops is the onliest store to carry Ben & Fat Jerry’s chocolate ice-cream — no Weggers, no Wal*Mart, despite Wal*Mart supposedly having everything, and thereby being the greatest store in the universe.
I obtain a pint-carton of Ben & Fat Jerry’s chocolate ice-cream, the onliest thing I’m buying, and head for the dreaded U-Scan terminals.
“Welcome to Tops. If you have a Tops valued-customer card, please scan it now.”
“Bip!” (Not as loud as Wal*Mart — I guess the machines are not aimed at Generation-Xers that had their boomboxes at full volume; but loud enough.)
“Welcome Tops favored-customer. Please start scanning your order now.”
“Bip!”
“Please deposit your scanned items in the shopping-bag.”
Um; pause.
“Please deposit your scanned items in the shopping-bag.”
I’ve done this before.
“Please deposit your scanned items in the shopping-bag.”
At this point a screen is supposed to appear that lets me continue checkout.
“Please deposit your scanned items in the shopping-bag.”
For crying out loud; now what?
“Please deposit your scanned items in the shopping-bag.”
It apparently refuses to accept that I have only one item.
“Please deposit your scanned items in the shopping-bag.”
Now all four U-scans are doing it: “Please deposit your scanned items in the shopping-bag;” all separated by half a second each, so that one announcement steps on the other. (Shoppers are awe-struck and bewildered.)
Over the store PA: “Please deposit your scanned items in the shopping-bag.”
Out in the parking-lot: “Please deposit your scanned items in the shopping-bag.”
After standing quietly about a minute, and concluding we must be in some come kind of closed Microsoft loop, I hit the “ask for assistance” button.
Nothing happens but “Please deposit your scanned items in the shopping-bag.”
A 60-ish woman is clerking the U-Scans; and looks frantic.
I hit “cancel” but “Please deposit your scanned items in the shopping-bag.”
Suddenly the machine burps and throws up the checkout screen.
Sale completed, I depart the store with my Ben & Fat Jerry’s chocolate ice-cream.

“As it was in the beginning; ‘tis now and ever shall be. World without end; amen, amen.”

“Tops” is a grocery supermarket based in Buffalo, that has stores all over western New York. It competes with Wegmans (“Weggers”), a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. Both have stores in Canandaigua.

“Ben & Fat Jerry” is Ben & Jerry.

My siblings all loudly insist Wal*Mart is “the greatest store in the universe,” and that “it has everything;” and excoriate me for not thinking the same. The “Bip” sound at Wal*Mart is extremely loud.

RE: “We must be in some come kind of closed Microsoft loop......” —All my siblings loudly insist I am reprehensible for not agreeing that Bill Gates is the savior of mankind.

Paycheck loans

So here I am quietly blasting away at the YMCA on the arm-bicycle.
CNN is on the middle of the three wall-mounted plasma-babies; “Issue Number One” (which purports to be the leading election issue: the economy).
Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth; a talking head is decrying the burgeoning credit-crisis. People are so far in debt they can’t keep up the payments.
Well, okay. Pause for ad. American Express is pushing a “plum-card;” a plum colored credit card. “Low introductory rate, then we take ya to the cleaners.”
Next is an ad for a mortgage company that promises ya can lock in a low annual rate of 5.34%. “Fork over or we foreclose!”
Finally we get an ad for “paycheck loans:” lines of credit that pay off with each paycheck.
For crying out loud, pay some fatcat for the privilege of living beyond your means.
“Never bounce a check any more.” Paycheck-to-paycheck becomes paycheck-loan to paycheck-loan.
IRONY ALERT!

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

Directions

This morning (Monday, March 24, 2008) Linda is working at the West Bloomfield post-office — all day.
So I decided to take our dog Killian for a walk before going to the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA.
I set out about 8:45 a.m.; up to the vaunted Michael Prouty Park and back.
Killian always has a wonderful time, sniffing and snorting and digging all over. We thoroughly checked out a metal drain-grate. Critters were probably living inside. (“I’ll get ‘em!”)
A giant Ford diesel dually pulled into the park as we walked out.
Uh-ohhhhh...... The poor guy is probably lost, and wants to ask me directions. He’s rolling down his passenger window.
Here we go: try to speak normally and not jam up.
“Any idea where a wood-processor is?” he asks.
“No, I don’t know of any wood-processors.” (What’s a wood processor? Do they cut wood? Chop it? Burn it?)
“Is there a town of West Bloomfield?”
“Up at the traffic-light,” I say.
Mr. Git-R-Dun macho man; cowboy hat and Marlboros.
Heavy terbacky smoke pouring outta the rolled-down window.
The dually goes down to the parking lot and turns around — big enough to need a tugboat.
“Rattle-uh; rattle-uh; rattle-uh; rattle-uh.” He accelerates up the street.
Congratulations. Ya pulled it off without muck-up. Passed as normal.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years. She works part-time at the West Bloomfield post-office. We live in West Bloomfield, NY.

“Killian” is our dog; a rescue Irish-Setter. We’ve had him about five years.

“Michael Prouty Park” is a small town park in West Bloomfield.

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

Clock-radio

Our fantabulous HD radio is also a clock-radio.
UH-OHHHH....... “HD RADIO.” I PREDICT AN AUTOMATED RESPONSE FROM THE ANTI-HD RADIO BLOGGERS ABOUT HOW HD RADIO IS THE DEVIL’S HANDIWORK. (I have to spell out “automated” lest people think we’re getting an “automotive” response.)
The dreaded instruction manual for the HD radio is missing — it apparently disappeared after the radio wasn’t getting WXXI’s HD channel. Although we’re inclined to think it was their end; that was long ago, and now we’re getting it.
So I was without a manual to set the clock-radio, which was the typical fiddling with an electronical gizmo.
So, take on the dreaded HD radio without the manual. “Can’t be rocket-science,” I said. “Real men don’t need manuals.”
(“Why make the clock radio work?” Linda asks. “We got an alarm-clock.”
“Like Mt. Everest it’s there,” I say. “I’m a ‘Liberila’-arts major.”)
I started poking around.
Held down a button, and saw that the alarm time was changing with spinning the tuning dial.
I set it at 5:40 a.m.
“Okay, we’ll see if the radio comes on at 5:40.”
I armed it, and also armed our alarm-clock at a later time in case it didn’t.
VIOLA! 5:40 a.m. the radio came on.

RE: “I have to spell out ‘automated’ lest people think we’re getting an ‘automotive’ response.......” —No too long ago I did a blog about auto-responses, and my sister-in-Floridy wondered why it wasn’t about automobiles.

“WXXI-FM,” 91.5, is the classical-music radio-station in Rochester we listen to. It also broadcasts three channels of HD radio.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.

“Liberila” is now how my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston noisily insists “liberal” is spelled. (Used to be “liberial.”) —He majored in Engineering, and is therefore superior.

Laragy

Yesterday (Saturday, March 22, 2008) we were visited by both Jim Laragys, Junior and Senior.
Junior worked with Linda as a programmer.
He doesn’t seem too healthy, and has various ailments, like diabetes.
He also seems unsure of himself.
But vastly intelligent.
He helped Linda master the various bits of ‘pyooter technology.
Yet he was fired by her employer — probably mostly because he wasn’t very forceful, and somewhat uncommunicative and easily distracted.
Linda is always angry they fired Junior, like the mindless management minions were self-blinded to what an asset he was.
Senior seems all that Junior isn’t; confident and healthy.
Senior was a staff-photographer at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle newspaper; one I always respected because he was an excellent illustrator.
He had the good eye I felt I lacked.
I’d know pretty much what I wanted for a story-spread, and could go out and take that.
For example, I had pictured a spread for the Canadian Grand Prix long ago at Mosport, so went out and shot it.
We ran all three pictures I had planned in City/East. The story-spread was exactly as conceptualized (and probably cost them a fortune).
But Senior could be presented with an unknown, and extract a good photograph. —I.e. He had an eye for good photography.
I did to a small extent, but was always shooting preconceptions.
And some of my good pictures were coincidence; e.g. my wide-angle of Jackie Stewart in the Glen pits. It was a fabulous shot, and ran in Road & Track, but not that much the result of “eye.”
I may have switched to my 28 (pretty wide) to take it, but that was the extent of my photographic input.
“Eye” is deducing what a good photo will look like from what you have, and trying to match that.
Newspapers added another factor.
Photos had to be page oriented. A left-page had to have the photo aimed right, and a right-page had to have the photo aimed left.
Otherwise the subject was running off the page, or the racecar was driving off the page.
One of my first Formula-One pictures Road & Track published had Mario Andretti driving his Ferrari into the center-crease.
A newspaper photographer has to cover all page possibilities (the front page of a section is the reverse; as is the back page), and may ask what page the photo may be on.
But Senior had more than that. He also had an “eye.” Given an unknown, he could extract a good illustration — capture the kerreck foreground, background, and lay out the elements therein to extract a good illustration.
I always felt I lacked that.
I could take out water-towers, and avoid the mistake of aiming at faces. (“Don’t aim at us. Get the top of 611.”)
I remember once centering the steering-wheel of that ‘56 Nomad Dick Chappell owned down-the-street in Oak Lane Manor.
Chappell was impressed: “Oh yeah, gotta do that!”
But it was repeating a known custom. It wasn’t “eye.”
I was always conceptualizing my photos way in advance. Given an unknown situation I wasn’t doing what Senior could do.
Which is partly why I gave it up. Plus it seemed successful freelance photography was a function of contacts, which I was no good at.
So Junior and Senior drove out to give us two mounted photographs in honor of our 40th wedding anniversary, and Linda’s birthday.
Senior is still taking photographs, and talking to him it’s obvious it still turns him on.
He’s even advanced into the digital age — something some film-guys abhor — and allowed that he started with a Nikon D100, upgraded to a D200, and recently a D300.
“D100 is what I got,” I said; “although I’m only taking jpegs with it.”
We also discussed the joys of Photoshop, although he doesn’t do as much as I do.
“Just about every picture I take has Photoshop in it,” I said. “What comes out of the D100 is my starting-point. My photo-files are ‘raw’ for Photoshop, but they’re jpegs, not the D100’s ‘raw’ format.”
Apparently Senior still sells photographs through a gallery, and has many mounted under glass.
They brought a slew.
Senior is probably in his 70s, but he drove out and unloaded their minivan.
We chose his photos of the boat-houses on Canandaigua Lake and Grand Central Terminal.
The boat-houses are digital; Grand Central film.
Grand Central is available-light, and had to be Photoshopped. (Someone else did it; although I knew what he was talking about. I’ve done it. —The corners were dark, and had to be lightened.)
There was a third picture of the Statue of Mercury atop Linda’s old employer. Mercury and the fluted wings atop a nearby building were silhouetting a twilight sunset-orange sky.
That was my third choice.
We may swap Grand Central for it, or may keep Grand Central and buy Mercury.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years. Toward the end of her long career, she became a computer programmer at Lawyers Co-operative Publishing in Rochester.

“Mosport,” a road-racing course near Toronto, was once a Formula-One racing venue. It still exists.

“City/East” is a small weekly Rochester newspaper I wrote motorsports coverage for in the early ‘70s — although it was road-racing coverage. The newspaper still exists, but as “City.”

“Glen” is Watkins Glen road course in western New York, at the foot of Seneca Lake. The Glen was once the venue of the U.S. Grand Prix.

“28” is my 28mm wide-angle lens for my Pentax Spotmatic 35mm film camera.

RE: “Get the top of 611..........” —Once my brother-from-Boston and I chased Norfolk & Western Railroad restored excursion steam-locomotive #611 (a 4-8-4) across north-western Pennsylvania. Near Erie the engine had crippled, so we asked someone to photograph us standing in front of the engine. “Don’t aim at us. Get the top of the engine,” I said.

RE: “Dick Chappell ... down-the-street in Oak Lane Manor.........” —Our family lived in the suburban development of “Oak Lane Manor” in northern Delaware. Down the street from us was a Mr. Dick Chappell, who owned a flawlessly restored 1956 Chevrolet Nomad station-wagon, and a 1957 Nomad. I once photographed the ‘56 for him.

Marcy, it’s everywhere

“If you get any dirt on this dress, Dennie is gonna take away your bulldozer!”

Synopsis of this past week’s “All My Children.”
“Just as Robert wanted them to do, Tad and Jesse found the warehouse where Jesse had been imprisoned and tortured. When Colby and Frankie were later kidnapped, Adam blamed Tad and Jesse, but accompanied Tad when he tracked Jesse as Hubbard went to face the abductors. Jesse challenged Robert to reveal himself (HMMMMMMMMNNNNNN), and shots were fired as Tad and Adam arrived. Meanwhile, Angie and Krystal couldn’t save Mrs. Remington from a fatal heart attack, while her necklace lay in Robert’s hands. Kendall finally admitted to Zach that she saw Ryan in LA, and confronted Aidan about his telling Zach. Erica was taken to prison and had her hands full dealing with her cellmate. Coming: Jesse looks for answers.”

“Marcy” is my number-one ne’er-do-well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the Messenger newspaper), and together they live near Boston. (Both Marcy and Mahoney keep blogs — Marcy’s is Playtime at Hazmat.)

“Queeny”

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

The other day (Wednesday, March 19, 2008) we encountered “Queeny,” Lenore Friend, after parking our CR-V in the tiny shopping-plaza parking-lot where we park when attending the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA.
Queeny was probably my favorite Messenger coworker. She had her feet squarely on the ground, and was a fabulous news-hound.
When I started in January of ‘96, she may have still been just a reporter, although she may have been an editor.
She was elevated to Sunday Editor, and we were still pasting up.
There we’d be at 12:30 a.m. Sunday morning finishing the last non-sports page, which was 2A, because that had the lottery numbers. We’d get the lottery numbers from the office TV (the drawing was at midnight), Queeny would make the file, and then I’d paste it in.
Off would go the final page of the A-section, Queeny could go home, and I could move on to Sports, which had a 2 a.m. deadline so we could print late scores from the west coast — sometimes even scoreboxes, if we got them in time.
Queeny was like that: she wanted the mighty Mezz to be a class act. —And would hang around to make sure it was. (Probably a “Liberila”-Arts major.)
Later, after we finally went electronical, and paste-up was disbanded, we both fell into slightly different roles.
Once I got so I could drive the OCR scanner, I started getting presents from Queeny.
“If you can turn this over quickly,” her note would say; “we can run it on 1B” (page one of the Local section).
About a half-hour later she’d call me up.
“Already in QuickWire,” I’d say. “I left the fax on your keyboard.”
She’d glance my way across the vast newsroom, and there it would be on 1B, as promised.
That was a stringer story. Queeny was cultivating stringers.
The mighty Mezz only had a few reporters; and they only covered news in Canandaigua and perhaps nearby.
News in non-Canandaigua locales was covered by stringers: freelancers not actually in the office.
Queeny had quite a few, but I only remember one: Laurel Wemmet (“WEM-it”), the stringer for West Bloomfield.
Laurel had not yet advanced to e-mail, so we’d get these droll, boring faxes I’d scan. “When’s that girl gonna dump that Smith-Corona?” I’d ask.
Queeny would rewrite Laurel’s report; give it a flashy lede, and convert the turgid prose into something attractive.
I got to see the boring tome Laurel had filed, and what Queeny turned it into.
Later my role changed again: I began doing the Messenger web-site.
I’d call her up: “I thought ‘Prattsburgh’ was spelled with an ‘H.’”
“It is!” she’d shriek.
“Well, I got a photo-caption here that ran in the paper without the ‘H,’ which I can add on the web-site.”
Turns out the New York State Department of Transportation had made town entry signs into “Prattsburgh” without the “H,” and new town businesses were doing the same thing.
But the town platt-maps have the “H,” as do the town post-office and a number of old businesses.
A similar occurrence began when the Messenger bought the Post weeklies. They had a freelancer named “Cynthia Bassett.”
Some Messenger editor runs a Bassett story through their spellcheck, which of course throws out “Bassett.”
The editor promptly changes “Bassett” to “Basset” (as in basset-hound).
Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth; poor Cynthia had her name changed.
Of course all the Posties knew, so this horrible faux-pas was passed along. Who knows how many times I had to fix her name on the web-site?
“Hey, thanks for the tip!” Queeny said, as we walked up and she rolled down her window.
About a week before, Linda and I had been driving 5&20 toward the YMCA, and passed a giant auction of farm-equipment. 89 bazilyun cars and pickups were parked on the shoulder.
So I called the all-powerful Tim Belknap, City-Editor at the mighty Mezz, and noted same.
“Don’t know as it will amount to anything, but if the huge Lusk Farm has been sold, it’s the end of an era,” I said.
“Ya mean that phonecall prompted that story last Sunday about growing land values?”
“Yep. We sent a photographer, but didn’t run anything.”
(Turns out the Lusk Farm had been sold to another farm.)

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.

“Queeny” because she was the so-called queen of the newsroom. She fired a guy because he wasn’t doing anything.

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

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

RE: “Paste-up” versus “electronical:” —With “paste-up” the newspaper pages were each pasted up on cardboard page dummies, which were then photographed generating giant negatives that were used to burn printing-plates of each page. “Electronical” page generation was done in a computer, and each page was then sent to an image-setter that generated the huge negatives for plate burning.

RE: “Probably a “Liberila”-Arts major........” —My blowhard brother-from-Boston loudly insists that all liberal-arts majors are reprehensible and stupid — unlike him, who majored in Engineering. (This is because I’m a History major.) —He also loudly insists “liberal” is spelled “liberila” (earlier it was “liberial”).

An “OCR scanner” is an Optical Character Recognition scanner; a scanner that can generate a text-file of the document it scanned. Faxes were fairly messy — the OCR scanner would mis-scan some; although a spellcheck often threw out the mis-scans.

“QuickWire” is the software application we saved everything in.

“Lede” is newspaperese for the lead sentence or paragraph of a story. “Ledes” had to attract the reader, which meant they couldn’t be droll.

RE: “Messenger bought the Post weeklies.......” —At first it was only the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, but then all the Post-weeklies went up for sale when their head-honcho retired; he sold everything to the Messenger. It became MessengerPost Newspapers.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.

“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.

RE: “The all-powerful Tim Belknap.......” —Tim Belknap is an editor at Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked; one of about seven. I once posted something by Belknap, and my brother-in-Boston loudly claimed Belknap was the whole and onliest reason the Messenger was so reprehensible; unaware the paper has at least seven editors, and Belknap is toward the bottom. Belknap like me is a car-guy, so we continue to keep in contact.

I’m told I should pass this along

“I plant that birdseed, but every time it comes up flowers.”

street running

Norfolk & Western excursion steam-engine 4-8-4 #611 on 19th St. in Erie. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the SpotMatic.)

The April 2008 issue of my Trains Magazine has an interesting article, a treatment of railroad street running, the operation of a railroad right in the street, sharing the street with automotive and pedestrian traffic. —Railroads normally have a separated right-of-way.
So far I have only seen one street railway operation: the old Nickel Plate mainline on 19th St. in Erie, PA (pictured above); where Norfolk Southern freight trains operated right down the street.
Norfolk & Western Railway bought the Nickel Plate, so their trains operated right in the street. —N&W since merged with giant Southern Railway to become Norfolk Southern.
The 19th St. mainline didn’t agree with Nickel Plate’s angle to offer high speed service.
It had to be operated at 10-15 mph.
New York Central had street-running long ago in Syracuse, and Pennsy originally had street-running in Lancaster, PA. Both were bypassed.
The 19th St. line is also gone.
Norfolk Southern managed to get trackage-rights on the old New York Central line through Erie — previously Michigan Central, then Conrail, now CSX.
Street-running is dreadful.
Trains are dodging automobiles. You can’t stop a train like a car.
You have to have faith the car-drivers will avoid the train. A train can’t take evasive action. It’s path is predetermined by the track, and it can’t stop.
At least on Delaware Ave. in Philly, which fronted the river, a train might only be a few cars. They were servicing the piers. (I drove Delaware Ave. long ago; it was back-and-forth across the tracks.)
But 19th St. in Erie was a long freight train.
The worst street-running operation is Jack London Square in the Embarcado in Oakland, CA, terminus of the old Western Pacific Railroad.
The original California Zephyr, which used the WP in Californy, loaded right in the street.
Freight trains still originate in the street — WP is now Union Pacific.
One common street-running challenge is cars parked too close to the tracks.
This ties up everything, although I’ve seen it on industrial spurs too.
The train can’t move until the car is moved, and the car’s driver is long-gone.
And sometimes the industry’s rail-siding is closed off by a gate, and no one is around to unlock the gate.
The railroad crew can’t place the freight car, and then, of course, the industry blames the railroad and switches to trucks.

“#611” has since been retired.

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.

“Nickel Plate” is the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, Buffalo to the midwest (it never actually served New York City). It was called “Nickel Plate” by a scion of the competing New York Central because it was so competitive. NC&STL was eventually renamed “Nickel Plate.”

“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.

“Philly” is Philadelphia.

Investment follies continue......

Just hand over your “pots,” and this will be you!

Yesterday (Tuesday, March 18, 2008) the so-called “viper” (investment advisor) visited again.
His schtick is to get us to convert our “pots” to a variable annuity which has a front-end load of about $14,000, of which he gets about $300.
The angle is guaranteed payout as long as we live, even if Armageddon occurs, and assuming the company doesn’t do a Bear-Stearns.

Two major factors are at play here:
—A) I’m married to a lady who loathes rewarding anyone for doing research she could do herself; and
—B) In the words of her Aunt Ethelyn, I always say “I don’t see any dead bodies on the curb.”
That last assertion is rather fibrous, but the point is even if the market totally collapses, it ain’t the end of the world.
Other factors are at play, namely:
—1) The old Connor Jones, in which I say: “Wait a minute! We’re talking about a HUGE sum of money here.”
Years ago I had to grandstand a real-estate salesman because he was promising the moon, while grabbing for my wallet. Nice guy, but dunna toucha the wallet.
And despite stroke impairment I stood my ground when Sunoco tried to double-charge me. (Don’t try that with The Keed. —As I said once to a fellow Messenger-employee: “That checking-account better balance.”)
—2) Linda worked with salesmen, and recognized all the elements of the pitch — they have a code.
Awfully nice guy; and believes he is suggesting the right product (“You have to believe in your product to sell it,” Linda says).
But is his perception of us kerreck?
“Suppose 10 years from now Bob buys a motorhome?”
“I ain’t buyin’ no motorhome,” I say.
“The reason we’re as loaded as we are, is we don’t spend. No Corvette, no speedboat, no motorhome.”
“Fred, I gotta stop these lawbook supplements. They’re just piling up.”
“George, you can’t do that. You need these books!”
“Um, didn’t the guy just say he had to stop the supplements?” my wife asked.
“I didn’t hear that,” the salesman said as he began unboxing the supplements and inserting them.

So what will probably happen is:
—1) Linda will look around for no-load mutual funds we can roll our “pots” into (i.e. we’re back to where we were 18 years ago; when we didn’t get “advice” from my all-superior siblings), and
—2) The investment-advisor will get sent packing.
My deferred-income fund from Transit may present a hairball; but
A variable-rate annuity is probably toast — after all, I don’t see any dead bodies on the curb.

We have been considering what to do with our retirement accounts, so we’ve brought in a financial advisor. My all-knowing brother-in-Boston implies he’s a “viper.”

“Aunt Ethelyn” is my wife’s aunt, who died at 98 a few years ago. “Connor” is my mother’s maiden name; the Connors are Irish. (Nuf said.) —“The Keed” is of course me.

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

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years. She once worked as an accounts-rep at her long-time employer, Lawyers Co-Operative Publishing in Rochester.

RE: “Fred, I gotta stop these lawbook supplements......” —My wife went along on a sales call.

RE: “We’re back to where we were 18 years ago......” —18 years ago we put equal amounts into two no-load mutual funds as IRAs, on our own — no advisor.

“Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years. Since Transit is a public employer, deferred income was a 457 (not a 401k).

Dippity-Dawg

So here I am this afternoon (Tuesday, March 18, 2008) walking our dog Killian. —Up the street to Michael Prouty Park and back.
Dippity-Dawg is sitting in the trailer-place taking pictures.
I cross the highway to start walking back home.
A silver Accord blasts by, doing about 60 mph. The speed-limit on the highway in front of our house is 40 mph.
It’s raining slightly; the pavement is wet.
Suddenly I hear an angry moan from up the road. Dippity-Dawg has the pedal-to-the-metal on his white Crown Vic — no lights, no siren.
The Crown Vic upshifts at about 5,000 rpm, and blasts by at about 75-80 mph.
So much for the 40 mph speed-limit; Dippity-Dawg is in hot pursuit. Giant streamers of water were spinning off his tires.
I’m glad we were on the shoulder. —Again, no lights, no siren.
Who’s at fault here; the Accord or the Git-R-Dun Dippity? Maybe the trap should be a two-car detail, with the second car down at the motorbike store.

“Michael Prouty Park” is a small Town of West Bloomfield park, located about a half-mile south of our house on N.Y. State Route 65. It’s behind a house-trailer store.

The “motorbike store” (Cycle Enterprises) is about a quarter-mile north of our house on Route 65.

Deuce

(This picture ran in the magazine. I can’t run the whole pik, because it’s across the fold.)

My April 2008 issue of Car & Driver magazine has an interesting proposition, a 1932 Ford hot-rod built with so-called “modern” components.
Well, “modern” is a relative term, since it’s still a body on a ladder-frame with a frame-spanning rear tractor axle.
You only see that construction-method on trucks any more. Cars are more normally unit-construction (frameless), and rear-suspensions fully independent.
The hot-rod is of course rear-wheel-drive. Cars are more normally front-wheel-drive or all-wheel-drive. Rear-wheel-drive is usually trucks, although a few RWD cars are being made.
But various components are new.
The motor is a new Hemi over-the-counter crate-motor; a 392 cubic-inch version of the Hemi V8 Chrysler now puts in so many vehicles.
As such it’s fuel-injected. Carburetors are old news; too sloppy to meet emission requirements.
392 cubic-inches was the final displacement of the original Hemi in 1958. It was in the fabulous Chrysler 300-series, precursor to all future muscle-cars.
The car also uses the new Chrysler four-speed auto-tranny. Sacrilege! A proper hot-rod had standard transmission; preferably four-on-the-floor.
The author even says something about right foot for go-pedal, left foot for stop-pedal. —I still drive with my right foot operating both accelerator and brake. My left foot was for the clutch-pedal, which none of our current cars have (they’re all auto-tranny).
The body isn’t Ford either, although probably better. It’s a Dearborn Deuce reproduction of the ‘32 Ford roadster body, in steel, but with longer doors and more cockpit room.
It’s also a convertible; i.e. the canvas top folds into a well behind the seat covered by a metal tonneau.
So it looks like a ‘32 Ford, but ain’t. And bar none the 1932 Ford roadster was one of the most appealing hot-rods of all time (although I prefer the three-window coupe).

(This picture also ran in the magazine — a very small pik.)

But unfortunately there’s no getting around the ancient underpinnings — that ladder-frame and tractor-axle.
The car also uses a beam front-axle on a buggy-spring: standard fare at that time, but now ancient.
The author admits the steering is “wooly;” steering is much better now.
Years ago, all through high-school and college, I looked forward to owning a 1955 Chevrolet two-door hardtop like some of the customs I knew in high-school: Corvette motor and four-on-the-floor.
The ‘55 Chevy was revolutionary for its time, but looked at since then, it suffers from too many styling gimcracks — like the wraparound windshield, and lines better suited to a Buick.
But it was light, and had the fabulous Small-Block V8 motor, introduced by Chevrolet in that model-year.
More-than-likely, the ‘55 Chevy customs I saw in high-school were just the stock 265 cubic-inch Small-Block warmed over, not the ‘Vette.
But in college my break was to draw a ‘55 Chevy with the new 327 cubic-inch Small-Block motor.
Then too my parents had a ‘57 wagon with the 283 Power-Pak Small-Block (four-barrel carb, dual exhausts). I was smitten.
About 15 years ago a ‘55 Chevy Belair two-door hardtop appeared in the want-ads — the car of my dreams. I had to go look; afraid I might spill.
The owners (actually inheritors, since the guy who built it had died) took me for a spin.
My reaction was “What in the wide-wide world did I ever see in this thing?” It’s frame was like an aluminum-ladder; goose the motor, and it twisted like a pretzel.
It sorely needed a complete frame-off restoration, but even then “throw $35,000 at it and it would still be an antique!”
I got back into our Faithful Hunda, and although it was slower and less intimidating (and quieter), it was much more my style. Cars have gotten much better since 1955.
The new Deuce looks great, but it would be more a toy for profiling than transportation. —And I’m sure it would be a bear to drive.

“RWD” is rear-wheel-drive.

“Four-on-the-floor” is four-speed standard transmission, floor-shifted (as opposed to column-shift [“on the tree”]). Floor-shift was more precise, and quicker, than steering-column shift.

A roadster didn’t have a fold-down retractable convertible top. It usually ran with no top at all.

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” was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the Small-Block.

“The Faithful Hunda” is our 1989 Honda Civic All-Wheel-Drive station-wagon, by far the BEST car we ever owned, now departed (replaced by our 2003 Honda CR-V). (Called a “Hunda” because that was how a fellow bus-driver at Transit [Regional-Transit-Service in Rochester, where I once worked] pronounced it.)

Rochester St. Patrick’s Day Parade

Another Rochester St. Patrick’s Day parade bites the dust.

(Photo by lady with glittering green aluminum-foil hair.)

The whole idea is to march our rescue Irish-Setter with the Western N.Y. Irish-Setter Club.
The first one we attended was probably five years ago, and it engendered my first long-lost send to Marcy. Madness was everywhere. Beer-swilling volunteer firemen were openly peeing on the lawns of the beloved East Ave. gentry, and drunken macho types were standing around in kilts — bare knees in 30° temperatures.
That epistle also flew on FlagOut. Too bad it’s lost; it was one of my best epistles ever.
(Marcy published a St. Patrick’s Day Parade epistle in the vaunted “Grady-book,” but it’s parade number two.)
If any madness occurred yesterday (Saturday, March 15, 2008) I was unable to observe it because I was shepherding a frightened dog.

(Photo by Linda Hughes.)

“These humans do strange things. Usually it’s the park, but every year we gotta do this stupid parade.”
“Oh, he’s so cute. Can I pet him?”
—At least 89 bazilyun times.
“Irish-Setters rule!” from a drunken youth with a green Richard Simmons mop.
“Wanna beer?” A drunken skin-head proffered his open bottle of Michelob-Lite.
Killian passed.
It sure ain’t no normal parade.
“Johnny’s Irish Pub” and “School of Irish Dance” I can see, but a conga-line of gaily decorated Frontier Telephone bucket-trucks?
We were proceeded by a navy-blue Regional Transit bus festooned with green crepe-paper. (I used to work for them guys.)
....And followed by a small Cingular blimp.
I’m walking the dog down the sidewalk waiting for the parade to start, and “Vote for Judge Bellini,” yelled by a comely young teenybopper in a lined-up PT Cruiser with green streamers.
We passed an onlooker wearing a camo Superman tee-shirt.
“You’re not Irish; you’re Jewish,” someone yelled. “You’re lying,” schlurp!

Killian. (Photo by Linda Hughes.)

I think I interrupted a young dude about to take a wizz behind an apartment building.
“How ya doin’?” he asked, as I walked by.
“We’re fired up!” I heard. A contingent of Obama supporters was marching behind us.
Finally, about 1&1/2 hours after parade-start, our Division started moving — we were in the 10th Division, probably last.
We were followed by Brownies, and proceeded by a dark-brown Chevy-van promoting Guinness Stout.
Killian is the least show dog-like, and least trained (more rambunctious than most).
“This is why I come,” a lady said. “Can I pet your dog?”

Our rescue Irish-Setter is Killian. We got him about five years ago, and he had already been through two homes. His second home was apparently abusive. He’s not a show-dog; more a “Red Setter;” smallish. He’s now about 10 — we don’t know his birthdate.

“Marcy” is my number-one ne’er-do-well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the Messenger newspaper), and together they live near Boston. (Both Marcy and Mahoney keep blogs — Marcy’s is Playtime at Hazmat.)

The St. Patrick’s Day parade starts on ritzy “East Ave.” and then goes through downtown Rochester.

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

The “Grady-book” was a book assembled by Marcy when I retired, of all my e-mails I had sent to her, which she saved in a computer-folder. “Grady” was my nickname at the Messenger newspaper.

“Linda Hughes” is my wife of 40+ years.

“Frontier Telephone” is our local telephone company.

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

Monthly calendar report for March 2008

None of my March 2008 calendar pictures really stand out, but they’re all pretty good, or at least notable enough to depict every one.

Pennsy SD40 in Chicago, 2/20/1966. (Photo by Karl Henkels.)
—1) My March 2008 All-Pennsy Color Calendar is a Pennsy SD40.
EMD made two SD40s, the SD40 and the SD40-2.
The original SD40 had the old-style mechanical electronics; the SD40-2 has updated (more modern) transistorized electronics.
The generator (or alternator) of a diesel-electric locomotive sends current to traction-motors on the wheel axles.
How, and how much, is sent to these traction-motors is determined by the switching.
Switching governs what current is sent to what traction-motor wiring.
The SD40 did it with the mechanical switching that was on the earliest diesel-electric locomotives, although modernized some over time.
Dash-2 locomotives (like the SD40-2) use electronical switching.
By now these SD40s are retired, or rebuilt into SD40-2s (or something else, probably derated).
A diesel-electric railroad locomotive lasts 15-20 years — the old steam-locomotives might last 30+ years.
The “SD” (Special-Duty) was a larger six-axle variation of the four-axle “Geep” (GP) hood-unit road-switcher; e.g. the GP40. There were SD7s and 9s, and SD35s, like their GP counterparts.
Four-axle units are no longer offered, since railroads prefer six-axle units.
Six-axle units might be the same horsepower (and motor) as four-axle (e.g. the SD40 and GP40), but that power is divided between six axles instead of four.
Trouble is, a six-axle truck is harder on the railroad than a four-axle truck.
There is no differentiation. The two wheels are solidly connected to the axle, so as a train negotiates a curve, one wheel slips a little.
All that squealing as a train negotiates Horseshoe Curve is wheels slipping on the railheads (this happens on freight-car trucks too).
The center axle of a six-axle truck doesn’t have much lateral motion; in fact, it may not have any at all.
So as a six-axle truck negotiates a tight curve (like a switch turnout), the wheel-flanges work against the rail side; wearing both the flanges and the rail. (Of course, the wheels of the center axle of a three-axle truck may not be flanged.)
This isn’t as pronounced with a four-axle truck.
Curvature is pretty open on railroad mainlines, and crossover switches can be made long to ease curvature.
So most railroads can accommodate six-axle power, although six-axle power is still rough on rail.
But factory sidings and switches thereto are still fairly tight — tight enough to require four-axle power.
SD40s are used as helpers on the mighty Curve, which is part of The Hill over the Alleghenies, but they are SD40-2s.

Goodyear FG-1D Corsair. (Photo by Philip Makanna.)
—2) My March 2008 Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Corsair, in this case an FG-1D Goodyear iteration thereof. The original Corsair fighter-plane was the Chance-Vought F4U, although other manufacturers, like Goodyear, were roped into the World War Two production effort.
The Corsair is a hot-rod, the barest essentials with a big motor; although this Corsair has only the three-bladed propeller.
The ultimate Corsair hot-rod airplanes had a four-bladed prop, 2,450 horsepower.
This airplane has 2,300 horsepower.
The Corsair was developed in 1938, and the prototype was rated at 1,850 horsepower. —The original F4U-1A at 2,250 horsepower.
The Corsair also had the famous inverted gull-wing; a trick by its designers to allow short, stubby landing-gear with that huge propeller.
Landings on an aircraft-carrier flight-deck are slam-bang affairs, so the landing-gear had to be short and stout.
Corsairs were known as “Whistling Death” by Japanese fighter-pilots because of the noise they made through their wing-mounted oil-coolers.

Inaugural run of Vulcan Materials unit stone-train near Spartanburg, S.C. on the Norfolk Southern Railroad. (Photo by Jim Crawford.)
—3) My Norfolk Southern Employees calendar has a Norfolk Southern unit stone-train near Spartanburg, S.C. taken by Jim Crawford.
What’s amazing is that it was taken with a Kodak EasyShare C643, which as far as I know is a point-and-shoot camera, more-or-less, now discontinued.
This shows how far point-and-shoot technology has come.
Years ago my mother used an Instamatic point-and-shoot that only had a clear plastical lens.
The idea was the lens was small enough to pretty much be in focus whatever the shooting-distance was.
The low light it allowed could be offset with fast film — and the film was designed to get an image no matter what the exposure was. I don’t think it had aperture-control, or even variable shutter-speed.
Crawford’s EasyShare was probably auto-focusing, the same thing I usually do with my D100, and probably setting the aperture and shutter-speed automatically, like I also do with my D100, although I can make it aperture- or shutter-priority when I want (like to increase focal-length, or stop a train).
This picture also displays the importance of lighting and composition, although they were probably defaults by the photographer.
Crawford had a lot to do with setting up this business, so got up at 3 a.m. to photograph the train’s first run.
So here he is at sunup to photograph his baby pulling out, and thereby gets a fantastic shot with his point-and-shoot.

Dennis Varni’s 1932 Ford Tudor sedan built by Rolling Bones Garage. (It has a Hemi.). (Photo by Peter Vincent.)
—4) My ‘32 Ford hot-rod calendar has a rather pedestrian car, but it is the best photograph of the month, mainly because of its setting.
The ‘32 Ford Tudor sedan is rather ordinary, but photographer Vincent shot it next to a rusting corrugated steel warehouse, not the Bonneville Salt Flats, where he shot so much else.
Bonneville is dream-like, and a good setting for hot-rod photography, but there are other shots in the calendar beside Bonneville, and this is the best one.
The car also has a Hemi motor, one of the most phenomenal motors of all time, but it’s a ‘52, the first iteration.
The Hemi came in three iterations. At the beginning of the ‘50s, Chrysler wanted to build something different (and better) than the new Oldsmobile and Cadillac overhead-valve V8s that debuted in the 1949 model-year, so debuted the Hemi in the 1951 model-year.
It splayed its valves across a hemispherical combustion chamber, so it could breathe better than the Olds and Caddy V8s, which lined their valves in a row.
The Hemi lasted through the 1958 model-year, when it was retired, because it was too costly to produce. (It has two rocker-shafts per cylinder-head; and each head is a large heavy casting.)
The Hemi was replaced by the less costly Wedge motors, which weren’t hemispherical combustion chambers, and use larger displacements to make massive power.
But in the ‘60s it became apparent that a large Wedge couldn’t generate the massive top-end power of free-breathing hemispherical heads, so Hemi-heads were grafted onto the Wedge block, creating the infamous “elephant motor.”
The elephant motor was 426 cubic inches, and dominated NASCAR until it was outlawed.
A Buddy Baker Dodge Daytona winged car powered by a Hemi lapped Talladega Speedway at over 200 mph in 1970, the first NASCAR racer to do so.
The elephant motor was also available as a stock motor; like in the Barracuda and the Dodge Challenger pony cars. NASCAR required it be a stock motor, and it was a monster.
The elephant motor also dominated drag racing.
Iteration number three is the new Hemi motor, that -a) takes advantage of the glorious reputation of earlier Hemis, and -b) also has the hemispherical combustion chamber.
The new Hemis are smaller, but still strong. They’re also fuel-injected, and earlier Hemis mostly weren’t, although Chrysler had a fuel-injection in the late ‘50s (as did Chevrolet).
Varni’s 1932 Ford Tudor is true to the engineering of early hot-rodders. It’s an in-your-face hot-rod; make do with what ya have to go like stink.
Rolling Bones Garage got it right: chop the top 5&1/2 inches, and 89 bazilyun louvers. —Big rear tires and a rudimentary paint-job.

Buffalo Day Express (powered by Pennsy K4 Pacific #1981) pauses at Sunbury station, April 12, 1950. (Photo by Stephen J. Benkovitz©)
—5) My Audio-Visual Designs All-Pennsy B&W calendar has the railroad’s Buffalo Day Express, stopped at the Sunbury station in Pennsylvania long ago in 1950.
The railroad’s run to Buffalo was its most scenic, and the Buffalo Day Express ran from Washington D.C. to Buffalo in daylight.
South of Harrisburg it ran the old Northern Central to Baltimore, a line through York, Pa., and tough enough to engender the two K5 Pacifics, which were the massive Decapod boiler on a Pacific wheelset.
Pennsy bought the Northern Central in the late 1800s to expand itself into central western New York.
They eventually built a huge coal pier at Sodus Point on Lake Ontario for transloading coal into large lake boats.
Between Harrisburg and Williamsport, the railroad follows the eastern shore of the Susquehanna river.
North of Williamsport the Northern Central continued to Elmira, N.Y. with a route in the same valley as highway Route 14. That segment has largely been abandoned; and hardly any of the grade remains.
The Buffalo Day Express continued on another railroad to the northwest, through Olean, N.Y. to Buffalo.
It still exists and is very scenic, crossing the Allegheny mountains.
It’s out in the middle of nowhere — very rural. It doesn’t start getting urban until the outskirts of Buffalo. There was little lineside traffic — the only justification for that route was Williamsport to Buffalo.

Heavily modified 1961 Pro Street Corvette drag-racer. (Photo by Richard Prince.)
—6) My All Corvette 2008 calendar has a 1961 Pro Street Corvette — something you’d never wanna throw into a corner.
It’s made for drag-racing only. The front tires are puny, and the rears are HUGE — so big, the back end had to be “tubbed.” That is, giant tubs were installed in the trunk to encase the giant rear tires. They even had to narrow the rear-end, which of course is a tractor-axle.
The earliest ‘Vettes suffered from poor underpinnings — they were little more than the 1953 Chevy sedan chassis; modified to accept the fiberglass ‘Vette body.
All they were, after 1955, was the fabulous Small-Block motor. (Before 1955 it was a souped-up Chevy Stovebolt Six.)
Apparently the 1961 model was the first year with the ducktail (although I thought it was 1962 — last of the earliest Corvettes [C1])
Regrettably the calendar doesn’t have the ‘57 Corvette Fuel-Injection; the most memorable of the early Corvettes.
In the late ‘50s I once was in a parking-lot near a bowling-alley near where we lived in northern Delaware.
Three Corvettes were parked outside: two ‘57s and a ‘56; one ‘57 was fuel-injection. The other ‘57 was dual-quads; and both ‘57s were four-on-the-floor.
Suddenly four young dudes burst from the bowling-alley and got in the ‘Vettes.
I quickly pedaled my balloon-tire bicycle to the parking-lot exit, because I knew I was about to witness an event.
Sure enough, each ‘Vette blew outta the parking-lot and laid down a trail of tire-smoke.
Each car was wound out to about 7,000 rpm in first gear before they shifted, and chirped when they did.
I have never forgotten that as long as I’ve lived, and doubt I ever will.
It determined my predilection for the Small-Block all through high-school and college.

—7) Finally, we have my Three Stooges calendar, or as my mentally retarded kid brother said: “Tree ‘Tooges.”
As a whole, the calendar is forgettable, but most notable about this month’s entry is “Shemp,” the Stooge that was replaced by Curly.
Moe and Shemp were brothers; Moe actually Moses Horwitz, and Shemp actually Samuel Horwitz.
Curly, actually Jerome Lester Horwitz, was the youngest brother, and replaced Shemp fairly early when he left the Stooges.
So Shemp is kind of like the long-lost Stooge, although the essence of the Stooges was Curly (and I’ve never seen Shemp in a Stooges skit).

“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.

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

“Geep” is the nickname given to EMD GP road-switchers (four axles).

Horseshoe Curve (the “mighty 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 (“The Hill”) without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan.)

The “D100” is my Nikon D100 digital camera. It’s a professional camera; the first Nikon digital at that level, which was upgraded to the D200 and now the D300. Mine is about five years old, and was bought brand-new; and replaced my old Pentax Spotmatic film cameras — which were about 40 years old.

The “K4 Pacific” (4-6-2) is the standard passenger steam-engine the Pennsylvania Railroad used until the end of steam. I was developed in the late ‘teens, and lasted until 1957 or so. Pennsy never developed a replacement in the ‘30s, and the replacement they developed after WWII (the T-1; 4-4-4-4) was more-or-less a failure.

“B&W” equals black-and-white.

“Decapod” (2-10-0) was the massive freight steam-engine Pennsy developed about 1920 — they had many.

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” was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the Small-Block. The Small-Block is still produced, more-or-less, although vastly improved.

The “Stovebolt Six” is the inline six-cylinder engine introduced about 1930; that lasted over 40 years. It was significantly re-engineered for the 1937 model-year, and enlarged in the ‘50s. It was revolutionary when introduced, because unlike most motors it had overhead valves. —It was called the “Stovebolt” because bolts could be replaced by stove-bolts bought at the hardware-store.

I had a mentally-retarded kid-brother (Down Syndrome) who lived at home. (He died at 14 in 1968.)

Easter-bunny

So here I am today (Friday, March 14, 2008) nonchalantly navigating the twisting hallways of the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA — I am on my way out: I have finished my workout, and am headed for the men’s room for one final widdle before going to Weggers and the egg-man.
I open a door, and as I turn the corner the Easter-bunny is staggering out of the men’s room.
“Can ya see?” a young female attendant plaintively asks.
“No!” Easter-bunny shouts.
Easter-bunny continues staggering down the hallway, crashing into walls and feeling for corners.
I manage to avoid crashing into blind Easter-bunny as we pass; “Good Grief!” I say.

(MARCY, IT’S EVERYWHERE!)

“Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua. —We buy our eggs from an individual.

“Marcy” is my number-one ne’er-do-well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the Messenger newspaper), and together they live near Boston. (Both Marcy and Mahoney keep blogs — Marcy’s is Playtime at Hazmat.) —She asked me once where I found so much insanity to report.

Gathering of former bus-drivers

Gathering of former bus-drivers at Cartwrights Maple Tree Inn.

Yesterday (Wednesday, March 12, 2008) I attended a gathering of retired bus-drivers (all except me [as photographer] visible above, except Art Dana, who is obscured).
The gathering was at a rural pancake house far out in the Southern Tier near Houghton — in the town of Angelica, but far from the village.
The pancake house is Cartwrights Maple Tree Inn, a restaurant added to the long-ago family maple sugaring business.
I guess it’s open only three months a year, during the maple sugaring season. It gets tour-buses of aging geezers.
It was rather depressing. I’m not in stellar shape, but not as bad as them — they all have to watch their sugar, yet pour gobs of sugar in their coffee, and gallons of maple-syrup on their pancakes. (“For heaven sake, Ron; ya gonna be able to stir that?”)
Creaky geezers were surfing by in walkers, and the handicapped parking-slots were swamped. But none of us were using walkers, or staggering about holding onto doting relatives.
The worst image was an older women who could barely surmount the door threshold; about an inch.
About the onliest ones who seemed in good shape were Gary Colvin (my age), and Ron Palermo and Norb Dynsky (“Din-SKI”). (Norbert not Norman.)
But both Palermo and Dynsky have to watch their sugar, and Palermo is overweight.
Tony Coia (“KOY-uh”) looked okay, but smokes (as does Dynsky).
Colvin, like me, is ornery.
At least one was hobbling due to a stroke, but that seemed to be his only impediment, although like me he had slight difficulty getting words out.
Another guy, who hired on right after me, looked like he might have had a stroke. One whole side of his face was slumped.
There were also a few guys I never knew; up around 2400-badge. Mine was 1763.
Most everyone was retired well after me; and apparently Transit got worse after I left.
The verifiable stroke-survivor was once a road-supervisor (management), and thinks Transit has gone to Hell-in-a-Handbasket.
(“Those guys have no idea how to run a bus-company at all.”)
Most depressing was Dana, who has Parkinson’s and seems in slightly worse shape than Reynders — that is, not bad, but slow. He also trembles a little.
He also can’t stand up straight; slightly stooped.
Dana is a hot-rodder. He told me he recently built a steel Model-A roadster on a ‘46 Ford frame with a ‘55 Pontiac V8. It’s still in black primer, and I hope it stays that way. (He called it “a rat.”)
He also used to build custom choppers, and rode motorbike himself.
He also had a large American-Flyer S-gauge model-railroad layout in the basement of his Rochester home.
He said his wife had died, so he moved in with his sister in a Rochester suburb because he could no longer keep up his house.
He seems to be happy, but it’s not the Art Dana I knew from long ago.
Confident and ornery reduced to a hobbled little old man.
“I take 14 pills a day,” he told me.
A lot of my attitude toward bus driving was gleaned from Dana.
“Once I got called on the carpet because a state checker gave me a bad transfer at the Psych-Center.”
“I had wadded it up and put it in the trash.”
“That’s what I used to do!” I crowed. “I got it from you!”
“Do you guys have any idea who gets off at the Psych-Center?” he told management. “The idea was to not get mugged!”
Memories and stories got batted around. There also was a distinct lack of diplomacy, tact and etiquette. Words like “please” and “pardon-me” were not in the bus-driver lexicon. Bus-driving makes you that way — always dealing with blowhards. “Here; gimme that!” I said abruptly. (No one was offended — there were no Bluster-Kings.)
I probably had the fewest pancakes. I had three, plus a sausage-patty. I probably coulda got by on two.
Colvin had 14; and another may have had more.
It was “all-you-can-eat,” and the pancakes were buckwheat.
The average consumption per person was about eight pancakes.

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

“Southern Tier” of counties of western New York state.

RE: “town:” —In New York state a “town” is the equivalent of a township, and may encompass a large area. The actual village the “town” may be named after is just a village (or city: e.g. the “City of Canandaigua” is within the “Town of Canandaigua).

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

“Reynders” is Tom Reynders (“RINE-ders”) my sister-in-south-Floridy’s husband.

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

Let’s fix NASCAR

The new Challenger.

The Bullitt Mustang.

Two of the three cars that could remake NASCAR from the ludicrous joke it has become are now being made.
Those cars are —1) the new retro Mustang, and —2) the new Dodge Challenger.
The new retro Mustang has been around a little while.
It takes its styling cues from the Mustangs of old, yet is a much better car.
Pictured is the Bullitt Mustang, a new iteration that pays homage to the 390 cubic inch 1968 Mustang of Det. Lt. Frank Bullitt in San Francisco; played by Steve McQueen.
McQueen leapfrogged his Mustang up and down through the streets of San Francisco in the greatest car-chase scene ever.
He was chasing a black Dodge Charger driven by Mafia hit-men.
The Charger crashed into gas-pumps and exploded in flames.
Ford has an advantage. The Mustang’s motor is a four cam double overhead cam V8, four valves per cylinder.
The motor should breathe well, perhaps making up for the aerodynamical detriments of that retro body.
Mighty Mopar has fielded a competitor, although it may weigh too much
It has a 425 horsepower version of the new Hemi, a motor that cashes in on the old Hemi’s reputation, but like the old Hemi has free-breathing hemispherical combustion chambers.
It also has a retro body that probably will present an aerodynamical challenge.
So all that’s left is a GM entry, a retro Camaro.
I guess one is under development, but it’s not for sale yet. —It looks like Chevy will be last this time instead of Mopar.

The proposed Camaro.

And make no mistake: these are the cars that could make NASCAR relevant.
Used to be NASCAR stockcar racing was actual stock cars, then based on stock cars.
It was the old waazoo: win on Sunday, sell on Monday.
Now NASCAR racers aren’t even close — purpose built racers on tube chassis.
No longer can it be “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” when the racers are so unrelated to stock. (“Take Granny to church in one of them things — they don’t even have doors!”)
Then too the double overhead cam Ford motor might drag GM and Mopar kicking and screaming into the new century.

U-Scan

(FROM THE VAUNTED “AIN’T TECHNOLOGY WONDERFUL” FILE)

Zippity-dooo!
The mighty Canandaigua Tops has “U-Scan” terminals; Weggers doesn’t (YET) — terminals ya can scan your grocery-order yourself.
I’ve wanted to try it before, but they were always occupied — and the express-line wasn’t.
But today (Monday, March 10, 2008) they weren’t, so I thought I’d give it a shot.
“Please press ‘start’ to begin.”
“Bip!”
“Welcome to Tops Markets. If ya have a ‘value-card,’ please scan it now.”
All it is is my bar-coded keytag. Extract keytag (while Granny goes ballistical because I’m holding things up. “I got bingo to go to!”). “Bip!”
“Please begin scanning your order.”
Okay; all it is is this Ben & Fat Jerry’s Chocolate ice-cream. “Bip!”
“Be-boop!” The end; end of order.
“Is that all? You’re a disgrace to the American Way. Go back and buy some more!”
“Please select method of payment” — this thing even takes cash and checks.
“Please run credit-card through reader.”
“Bip!”
“Credit or debit?”
“Credit.”
“Please take your card to the service-desk to complete your order.”
“What?” I thought the idea was to take store-employees outta the loop. I see a pimply teenybopper manning a service-desk for four U-Scans (okay, that’s three less employees); “I guess I’m supposed to give you this,” I say.
“All ya have to do is sign this.” (Weggers has electronical signing, although I saw a lady swipe the terminal with the electronical pen — the equivalent of the signature that was on our refund check from LeBrun Toyota. It was a refund of the registration for the Bucktooth Bathtub, which didn’t cost as much as planned. Whoever signed the check had scribbled a few circles on the line. I might have even put it on FlagOut.)
“Do I get a receipt? I need a receipt!”
“Back at the U-Scan,” he said.

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

“Ben & Fat Jerry” is Ben & Jerry.

“LeBrun Toyota” in Canandaigua is where we bought the so-called “Bucktooth-Bathtub,” our 2005 Toyota Sienna van; called that because it’s white and like sitting in a bathtub, and appears to have a bucktooth on the grill. There was a partial refund of the registration-fee, which was too large. LeBrun issued us a check.

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

Valley of the shadow of death

The “valley of the shadow of death” was Route 19 between Centerville Road and Sy’s place. Charlie (Gardiner) and I walked it after 9:30 p.m. when we were sophomores living at Sy’s place.
It would be pitch-dark. The headlight of an Erie-Lackawanna F-unit would oversweep the valley (the Genesee-Valley) scaring Charlie and he would say “What was that?”
“The Second Coming, CG; and you’ve been left behind.”

This is the middle ‘60s, when both Charlie (Gardiner) and I were attending Houghton College. We lived in a rooming-house, known as “Sy’s place,” north of the campus. Charlie and I would be returning from the library. Houghton was a zealot college, and we were sinners.

“Houghton” is Houghton College, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it. Houghton is a religious college. The main highway through Houghton was State Route 19.

“Erie-Lackawanna” railroad, now tanked. EL was across the valley from Houghton. An F-unit is the full-cab (“Covered-Wagon”) freight diesel-electric railroad-locomotive made by General Motors’ EMD division ( Electromotive Division), GM’s manufacturer of railroad diesel-locomotives. Most railroads used EMD when they dieselized; although many now use General-Electric railroad diesel-locomotives.

“CG” is Charlie Gardiner.

Debt

Just about every night the ABC-TV national news airs some gloom-and-doom report about the mess in the mortgage biz.
People being foreclosed out of their houses, and home-values plummeting so low the mortgage is more than their home’s worth.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke wrings his hands and tells Congress it will only get worse.
And the other night the reporter related the cost of auto-loans is skyrocketing. (—That repossessions are up.)
And people are swimming in credit-card debt, and falling behind.
Well I’m sorry, but I can’t feel much compassion for people that got in over their heads.
True, some of that debt may be college loans.
I owed my college some money when I graduated, plus National Defense Student Loans to the gumint.
The college wouldn’t even release my transcript.
But I set about paying everything off as soon as I graduated.
I didn’t spring for a ‘Vette or a speedboat.
I remember some callow dreamer and his young wife coming into the Henrietta office of the bank I worked at.
He wanted an auto-loan to buy a Corvette.
The front-desk people, laughing uproariously, sent him packing.
Now the bank would “work with him.”
After college I wanted to buy a sportscar.
The Triumph TR250 new cost $3,500, about $1,000 more than the average car. (Back then, 1968, $1,000 was a lot of money.)
But that was what I wanted, so I started saving for it.
Ended up paying cash — never have bought a single car without ending up with clear title; i.e. paying the full amount to the seller with cash. No dealer financing; only a $500 one-year bank-loan for the Triumph to establish a credit-history.
For years that was the only car ever bought new, until the Faithful Hunda, which we bought with the help of a home-equity loan (we could have paid cash).
We still have that home-equity loan, but the balance is down to about $400.
Beside our credit-card, it’s our only debt. I only use it to pay the real-estate taxes.
Our house mortgage is also paid off.
Two-thirds of this house was paid cash; the rest was mortgaged.
And it was a fixed-rate mortgage; I couldn’t accept an adjustable-rate mortgage. —There’s no such thing as a free lunch; sooner-or-later even the fat-cats gotta pay the piper.
The mortgage debacle is homeowners getting hit with climbing adjustable rates.
A few years ago, mortgage-rates were dropping enough to make refinancing worth considering.
But I figured it made more sense to just pay the thing off. It wasn’t much.
By that time, I was carrying the mortgage only for the credit rating.
People are surprised we only have one credit-card.
That card mis-scans, and “doncha have any other credit-cards?”
“Nope. Only this.”
“Man; these people are weird.”
And I never pay any finance-charges on it.
I pay it in full every month.
Yet weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth about people unable to pay their minimum credit-card payment.
The cash-advance checks we get every month go in the shredder.
They’re payin’ me interest to hold my money; I ain’t payin’ them interest.
Sure; leverage everything and buy a ‘Vette. That ‘Vette will cost me more than it’s worth; and furthermore, where do I put the dog, or the groceries?
Yet we get inundated with credit-card approvals; usually one every day.
I return the postage-paid envelope filled with unidentifiable junk. If it’s identifiable it becomes confetti.
And the TV is always trumpeting schemes to get out of debt. —Far as I ever knew, the onliest way to “get outta debt” is declare bankruptcy or pay it off.
I get e-mails declaring the joys of bankruptcy.
All my motorbikes have been cash too.

RE: “The bank I worked at.....” —My first job, out of college, was Lincoln Rochester Bank. It lasted almost three years, but was a misfit. I was “released.” They had an office in deepest, darkest Henrietta, a rather effusive and obnoxious suburb south of Rochester.

“The Faithful Hunda” is our 1989 Honda Civic All-Wheel-Drive station-wagon, by far the BEST car we ever owned, now departed (replaced by our 2003 Honda CR-V). (Called a “Hunda” because that was how a fellow bus-driver at Transit [Regional-Transit-Service in Rochester, where I once worked] pronounced it.)