Monthly Calendar Report for November 2009

When calendar entries are as DROLL as they are this month, the Monthly Calendar Report seems silly.


Ardun heads.

But hands-down, the winning calendar is my Oxman Hot-Rod Calendar, a 1932 Ford Roadster with a supercharged Ardun-headed Flat-head.
The Ardun cylinder-heads were a special conversion for the Ford Flat-head by Zora Arkus-Duntov (and his brother Yura), who later developed the Chevrolet Corvette.
They addressed the two main problems with the Ford Flat-head V8, namely: —1) that it was a flat-head, so therefore it —2) breathed terribly.
But -A) it was a V8, and -B) it responded well to hot-rodding. Plus they were cheap and many were available.
So after WWII, they became the motor-of-choice for hot-rodders, so much that a HUGE industry sprang up to supply parts that would wring more horsepower out of the motor.
But a flatty as a performance motor is all wrong.
A flat-head is side-valve, so that the intake-charge has to negotiate contorted passageways. Down from the intake manifold, and then almost 180° back up toward the poppet-valve, which is along-side the cylinder, and facing up.
A better-breathing arrangement was overhead-valve, wherein the intake manifolds were still on top, but the valves facing down, allowing a more direct path for the intake-charge.
The path of the exhaust-charge in an overhead-valve engine was also more direct, but in a flat-head it was contorted just like the intake path.
Worse yet, on the Ford Flat-head the exhaust was plumbed through the block so it exited at the block sides. Even worse, the center two exhausts were siamesed into a single port.
(Some flat-head V8s exhausted out the top; e.g. the Cadillac V8.)
The Flatty was a chronically poor breather, plus it tended to overheat with its exhaust going through the block.
The Ardun head addressed all that, and beyond that was hemispherical.
The arrangement in schematic looks much like the Chrysler Hemi®. Still a central single camshaft in the crux of the V, with pushrods activating rockers on two rocker-shafts.
Suddenly, four exhaust ports per side (instead of only three), plus four intake ports aimed directly at the intake manifold.
Plus the combustion-chamber was hemispherical, with hemispheric valve location.
The intake valves were actuated backwards by rockers on a common rocker-shaft.
The exhaust valves were actuated by longer rockers on a second common shaft.
Valving was turned 90° relative to the crankshaft.
This is like the Chrysler Hemi®. Most overhead-valve engines line the valves all up in a row, parallel to the crankshaft.
Also like a Chrysler Hemi, the sparkplugs were so deeply recessed in the rocker-covers, to access the faraway combustion-chambers, tubes had to be used.
And the compression-ratio could be much higher, although ya needed leaded gas back then to avoid knock.
The angle between valves was pretty open; almost 90°. Nowadays the combustion-chambers are pretty flat; still hemispherical but the angle between valves is almost flat.
(And by now it’s four valves per cylinder, with overhead camshaft valve actuation.)
And I also see that the pistons look very antique. By now the pistons are little more than a ringland, with shoulders for the pin. —The old-style pistons in the schematic would be too heavy to rev sky-high like recent high-performance motorcycle motors.
And the way to increase compression-ratio in a wide-angle hemispherical combustion-chamber was to cast a pop-up into the piston dome.
But this encourages pre-ignition (knock) at the pop-up edges.
But with a hemi-head, the Ford Flat-head was no longer side-valve; i.e. no longer a flat-head.

The four holes are sparkplug tubes.

But there were problems.
The heads were aluminum castings, and the bronze valve-seats could work loose due to differing rates of heat expansion.
Plus there were weak spots in the aluminum castings.
Another problem was cast-iron pushrods. Later pushrod technology uses tubing. Cast-iron was too heavy, and could bind valve-springing at high engine speed with extreme cams.
The valves were also heavy, and inhibited higher engine speeds.
Many of these problem were solved by C & T Automotive of
N. Hollywood, CA. A second production-run of Ardun heads was produced by Don Orosco, to an improved design.
Later development was done by Don Ferguson Sr. and Jr.
The later heads are the ones to get.
The Ardun head was somewhat experimental, but a vast improvement on Ford Flat-head performance.
The Ardun head is long ago, so they are now pretty rare.
The car pictured has Ardun heads, and also the largest supercharger made by Supercharger Company of Turin (“S.C.O.T.”), which explains the moniker.
So the car pictured is fairly special, even though its color is rather droll.
Plus Ardun heads in a hot-rod are a bit off; they’re more a racing application.


Double water-towers at Buena Vista, VA, March 1956. (Photo by O. Winston Link.)

The November 2009 entry of my O. Winston Link “Steam and Steel” calendar is his famous twin water-towers picture.
Watering steam-locomotives was a time consumer.
And the steam-engines had to be watered, since they were boiling water to make steam.
And the steam was being thrown out the stack. It wasn’t being condensed back into water.
The water was stored in a giant cistern in the locomotive’s tender. From there it was pumped into the boiler, usually injected.
A boiler producing steam worked against adding water — the water had to get past steam pressure of 100-300 pounds per square inch or more.
The water-tank in the tender would empty over time, so had to be refilled. Usually this was done by stopping the train at a water-tower so the locomotive(s) could take on water. Although occasionally ya’d see water-pans between the rails, and a passing locomotive would dip a scoop into it at speed.
But scooping water on-the-fly wasn’t as successful as stopping and refilling at a water-tower. Often the scoop broke off, or the water in the pans watered the lineside foliage more than got into the tender.
So here we see two water-towers, spaced so a train with two locomotives could water both engines simultaneously.
That’s half the time needed to water each engine individually.
Diesel-locomotives dispensed with locomotive watering. Ya hardly see water-towers any more. —Usually just never torn down.
The train pictured has only one engine, a massive Y6 articulated; 2-8-8-2.
It hasn’t stopped to water. It’s just blowing by.


1969 Cougar. (Photo by David Newhardt.)

My Motorbooks Musclecars calendar has a 1969 Mercury Cougar.
HO-HUM!
Not that good a picture, also not that good a car.
The Cougar always played second-fiddle to the Mustang.
It was Mercury’s demand to field a pony-car; based on the Mustang, but with individualized front and rear.
The front clip demonstrates a tendency toward the bloated cruisers that came later.
Cougars were eventually based on the mid-size Torino platform — more like the Buick Riviera.
But the first Cougars were based on the Mustang platform, as is this one.

A Bud Moore Cougar.

The earliest Cougars were raced in the SCCA Trans-Am series by Bud Moore Engineering of Spartanburg, SC; application of stock-car racing tricks by old NASCAR racer Bud Moore.
Moore was an entrant, and previous Indianapolis 500 winner Parnelli Jones was among his drivers.
The old tractor suspension layout isn’t as agile and nimble as independent-rear-suspension (“IRS”), but can be made to handle well if sturdily located.
Moore went on to race Boss 302 Mustangs in the Trans-Am series, and his were the fastest cars.
Years ago I was at Bridgehampton Sportscar Course out Long Island, and the two Bud Moore Mustangs were on the front row; Jones and George Follmer.
Jones and Follmer came flat-out over the crest of a hill into a blind downhill turn, 160+ mph.
Neither was giving an inch, and I will remember it as long as I live.
The Mustangs would bottom their rear-suspensions at the foot of the hill, and throw up a shower of sparks from their track-bars.
As Jones used to say: “If your car isn’t out of control, you’re not driving fast enough.”
But first Moore raced Cougars; hide-away headlights, and sequential taillights.
Although his Cougars probably didn’t have that.
Years later I found Bud Moore Engineering in Spartanburg. I went inside and thanked them for some of the greatest car-racing I ever saw.
But that was the Mustangs, not the Cougars.
Moore even did some bodywork to his Mustangs to reduce their frontal-area. Um, that’s cheating. A NASCAR staple.
The license-plate on the car pictured says “428,” and its surround says something about eating Ferraris for lunch.
Well, yeah; in a straight line.
A 428 is a big and extremely powerful motor, and would indeed skonk a Ferrari.
But don’t throw a corner at it. For that ya need a Ferrari.
Way too much weight on the front-end, and the rear axle is a log on rubber-bands.


I1s Decapods at Weigh Scales, on a Pennsy branch north of Shamokin, PA. (Photo by Lew Bowman©.)

—The November 2009 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs B&W All-Pennsy Calendar is a Pennsy Decapod (2-10-0) pushing (helping) a heavy ore train past Weigh Scales, PA. (Another Dek is waiting for it to pass.)
There’s no date on this picture, but my guess is about 1955, among the final years the Pennsylvania Railroad was using steam locomotion.
Freight locomotives were fielded on Pennsy after the Decapod (nicknamed the “Hippo;” because they were so large), mainly the M1 Mountain (4-8-2) and the J1 Texas (2-8-4). —The Dek is 1916.
The Mountain was a Pennsy design, but mainly worked well at speed over Pennsy’s wide-open mainlines, like its Middle Division between Harrisburg and Altoona (the Allegheny mountains).
The J1 Texas was not a Pennsy design. Pennsy needed new power for WWII, having worn out locomotives.
They had not developed new steam power due to electrification and all the technical input it required.
The War Production Board would not allow Pennsy to design a new freight engine, so the railroad tried a Norfolk & Western A (2-6-6-4), and Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad’s T1 Texas (2-10-4). —The T1 won. (Pennsy abhorred articiulateds.)

No Belpaire firebox; a Pennsy J1.

The J1 was not a Pennsy design. It lacks the trademark Pennsy Belpaire firebox.
It’s essentially Lima Locomotive’s (“LYE-muh;” not “LEE-muh”) 2-10-4 SuperPower design.
It has all the appliances Pennsy normally eschewed; like feedwater preheat.
And a trailing-truck booster.
Other engines were designed and used earlier, like a 2-10-2 Santa Fe, and also the L1 Mikado (2-8-2).
But the Santa Fe’s were used mainly west of Pittsburgh.
The J1 was a poor match for Pennsy operations; SuperPower tended to be for high-speed operation.
Pennsy had heavy gradients that made a train run slow.
But the J was powerful, and fit well with moving long trains of loaded coal-hoppers out in Ohio from Columbus to Sandusky.
There it could cruise at a good clip.
They were used on Pennsy’s Hill out of Altoona, but down-and-dirty at a crawl wasn’t what they were best suited for.
But at least, their boiler had fantastic steam-capacity. They wouldn’t run out of steam like a Dek might.
The Decapods hung around and weren’t scrapped. They were well-suited to dragging heavy freight-trains up mountains; like in PA.
A final assignment was to lug heavy ore trains up to an interchange with Lehigh Valley Railroad in Mt. Carmel, PA.
One of the most spectacular train-photographs I’ve ever seen, ran many years ago in this calendar, a Pennsy ore train on the Mt. Carmel branch in the snow.
It was taken by Don Wood, and the lead Decapod is hurling a giant column of backlit smoke and steam into the sunlit sky.
I’m sorry I can’t find it. I’d run it if I could.
“Weigh Scales” because that was where the railroad had weigh scales to weigh the train.
Weigh Scales is on the Mt. Carmel branch.


1937 BMW 328 roadster.

—The November entry of my Oxman Legendary Sportscar Calendar is a white 1937 BMW 328 roadster.
I wouldn’t fly it, except the BMW 328 is a very significant car.
It had a tubular frame, and independent front suspension.
Competitive Alfa-Romeos of that time were still buckboards with a beam axle up front.
The car was light, and had an 80 horsepower six-cylinder engine, which later became a British Bristol engine as a war reparation.
A 328 won the Mille Miglia (“MEE-ya MEE-ya”) in 1940 — a slap in the face to the Italian car-racing fraternity.
In some ways it was revolutionary.
BMW seemed a backwater until the late 1960s, when Car & Driver Magazine began trumpeting the BMW 2002.

A 2002.

It was a great car.
A lowly two-door sedan, but it had independent rear suspension, and a MacPherson strut front end.
Just about everything has come to that chassis layout since — at least the MacPherson strut front end.
The rear axle on many rear-drive Detroit cars is still solid with an integral differential; same layout as a Model T.
And the unpowered rear-axle on a front-drive car is often a solid beam tying the two wheels together; it’s not independent.
But it’s much better located than even a ‘70s musclecar. It won’t bumpsteer.
Even the solid rear-axle on a rear-drive Detroit car is well located. Its only disadvantage is its heavy weight — its momentum,
The 328 was a major step forward for BMW. —A very desirable car.
And now BMW is perceived as a premier car, although I think it woulda failed without Car & Driver Magazine.


A string of Humvees on a Norfolk Southern train. (Photo by Cori Martin.)

—The November 2009 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees calendar is rather dumb, a load of armored HMMWV vehicles on a Norfolk Southern train in Chillicothe, OH.
I suppose the calendar judges were impressed the picture depicted the railroad’s role in our military effort.
That’s always been true, and not just for one railroad.
We probably wouldna won WWII were it not for the railroads.
Eisenhower was so impressed with the German Autobahn system he instituted an Interstate highway system.
But the interstates can’t move freight like the railroads.
I have train videos of old steam engines dragging mile-after-mile of military equipment on railroad flatcars.
Just about every train video I have has a long train of tanks, Stryker vehicles, or military trucks.
I’ve seen military equipment loaded into gigantic cargo jets for transshipment to Afghanistan.
That might be 10 vehicles. One train is carrying hundreds.
Railroading was so instrumental in our war effort in WWII, German saboteurs were sent to blow up the Pennsylvania Railroad’s crossing of the Allegheny mountains.
And many of our bombing runs in Germany were rail yards.
About the only thing interesting in this calendar picture is the lighting, and the fact it was shot from a locomotive.
The lighting is cloudy dawn. The photographer did well to capture it.
But the train could just as well be coal.
I have a train video of loaded coal-hoppers similar to this; the locomotives are pushing.
But being a video, the cars are jukin’ and jivin’ side-to-side.
Ya don’t see that in a still.

I’m not flying my Ghosts WWII warbirds November calendar entry because I think it’s stupid.
It’s only a Hawker Nimrod trainer, a biplane (“BYE-plane”).
Its landing-gear doesn’t even retract.
It’s not one of the fabulous WWII warbird hot-rods, like the Mustang or the Corsair.
The engine is only 600 horsepower! The Mustang is 1,695, a Corsair is 2,000, a Bearcat is 2,100, a P-47 is 2,535.

“Beautiful”

We’re at Strong Hospital yesterday (Thursday, October 25, 2009) for a medical appointment.
“Stick your tongue out,” the Doctor says to my wife.
She does so.
“Beautiful,” the Doctor says.
“That mean you think my wife has a beautiful tongue?” I ask.

• “Strong Hospital” is one of two large hospitals in Rochester city. There are others, but they are in the suburbs. Strong Hospital is in the southeast of Rochester; the other is in the northeast. It has medical office facilities.

Traffic Report

—1) I’m headed west yesterday (Wednesday, October 28, 2009) on the New York State Thruway, Interstate-90, the toll superhighway from New York City to Buffalo and the Pennsylvania state line near Erie, via Albany.
It more-or-less parallels the Erie Canal and the New York Central railroad, although unlike them it bypasses Rochester.
Supposedly the reason it did was because Rochester was Democratic when the Thruway was considered, in a state that was Republican at that time.
I’m headed from the Canandaigua YMCA to the Funky-Food-Store to pick up a case of Arrowhead Mills® Puffed Rice cereal I special-ordered.
The “Funky-Food-Store” is Lori’s Natural Foods in deepest, darkest Henrietta. They specialize in natural foods; e.g. salt-free. (Arrowhead Mills® Puffed Rice is salt-free.)
I’m on the added-lane segment between Exits 44 and 45, Canandaigua and Victor.
Normally the Thruway is two lanes in each direction, but one additional lane was added here to each side because it’s part of the heavily-traveled route between Rochester and Canandaigua.
I’ve gravitated to the middle-lane, doing about 65, the speed-limit.
I usually use the right-most lane, but a double-bottom dump-truck and semi are in it doing about 60.
I usually avoid the left-most lane (the additional lane) because it disappears at the exit.
I’m passed by a gray Hyundai in that lane doing about 75.
It has a Christian fish on its trunklid, and a bumper-sticker; something about “If Rapture occurs, this car will be unpiloted.”
The semi angles left to pass the dump-truck, so I fall in behind the Hyundai — merge left to the left-most lane.
The semi, giving up, moves back behind the dump-truck, and right about there a fourth lane is added, an exit-lane for Exit 45.
A dark-green Subaru Forester rockets by in that lane, passing the two trucks on the right.
Suddenly the gray Hyundai sweeps across three lanes of traffic, his right-turn signal on, headed for the exit.
Whoa! Mr. Hyundai does a giant swerve back into traffic — I guess he didn’t see (or even look for) the Subaru.
We proceed west a long way; the Hyundai in traffic with his right-turn signal on.
I guess the Subaru is laying back in fear and trembling, lest Mr. Hyundai make another crazy move.
By now I can see it on the Hyundai: “Bush-Cheney 2004” on the left side of the trunk-lid, and another bumper-sticker saying “Bambi makes good hamburger.”

—2) I’m headed back home from Lori’s, Interstate-390 south to the Rush Exit.
The Rush Exit is where I-390 crosses under Route 15; also Route 251 to Scottsville.
The exit onto Route 15 is protected by a traffic-light, but the ramp onto 390 isn’t.
There also is a ramp from 251, but it crosses Route 15 at a stop-sign.
I proceed south on 15, approaching that ramp.
A white full-size Chevy pickup is at that stop-sign, but I can’t see its driver — he’s in shadow, and it’s rainy.
He pulls right out in front of me — did he see me at all?
I hit the brakes, throwing everything in the back forward.
Completely stopped myself, I see the other driver. He’s looking the other way.
Um, hell-oooo; knock-knock. Anybody home?
I just saved your flabby butt from an accident; me T-boning your pickup.

Today (Thursday, October 29, 2009).
—3) Another trip into Rochester. We are returning home on 15A. We’re approaching the Honeoye Falls Five Points road, which crosses into Monroe St. into Honeoye Falls.
I need to turn left onto Monroe St. toward Honeoye Falls.
I’ve been followed since Rush by a glowering intimidator in a white Ford Ranger pickup.
I flick on my left-turn signal and begin slowing for Monroe St.
Suddenly, PRAAMMMP!
Well HEX-KYOOZE ME, dude, for delaying your arrival at the donut-table.
I can’t just move into the opposing lane so you can pass.
Or turn left at 89 bazilyun miles-an-hour.
—4) Another trip, this one toward Fairport.
Into Pittsford on the main north-south drag; hafta turn right onto Route 31 east.
I pull into the right-turn lane at 31, and notice a “no right-on-red” sign.
Makes sense, that corner is relatively blind.
A lady in a beige Honda minivan is behind me; she tootles her horn.
Disregard; I wasn’t sure it was even her.
But then, more insistently: PRAAMMMP!
I point skyward over my car; “Didja see the sign? ‘No right-on-red.’ I’m sorry I’m a pest. but I’d like to obey the law.”

I could go on-and-on with various phenomenal avoidances; e.g. the Cadillac that cut me off at the Pittsford Post-Office, and the Civic that cut me off on Marsh Road.
To me, driving is a social compact, and that compact seems to be unraveling.
As we used to say at Transit, expect anything!

• “Deepest, darkest Henrietta” is a rather effusive and obnoxious suburb south of Rochester.
• Route 15, a two-lane, used to be the main road into Rochester from the south, before Interstate-390. Route 15A paralleled it to the east across Western New York. 15 and 15A are north-south; 251 is east-west, and goes through “Scottsville,” NY, a fairly large rural town. It also goes through Rush.
• “Rush” is a small rural town nearby, about 10 miles away. The “Rush Exit” on I-390 is near it.
• A “glowering intimidator” is a tailgater, named after Dale Earnhardt, deceased, the so-called “intimidator” of NASCAR fame, who used to tailgate race-leaders and bump them at speed until they let him pass.
• “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993).

Whole-bean coffee follies

The Canandaigua Weggers has a display for selling whole-bean coffee.
Giant see-through plastic tube-bins dispense whole-bean coffee into bags, which you weigh, and a printed label is dispensed the checkout clerk can scan.
You can grind the whole-bean coffee at home, or right there at the display.
Since our coffee grinder tanked a while ago, I use the store grinders.
Okay, dispense “Seattle Dark” into one-pound bag, and pour into grinder.
Walk away. Grinding takes about five minutes; enough time to shop other parts of the store.
Lately I’ve had to help the grinder.
The whole-bean coffee is not feeding.
I don’t like doing it. It involves putting your hand in the chute, and shoving the coffee-beans toward the grinder.
Buy bananas and milk and oranges, and walk back to grinder. —It’s only ground about one-tenth of the coffee.
Okay, we’re looking at a long and arduous process here; shoving remaining coffee at grinder.
I almost gave up. Nine-tenths of what I poured in has to be shoved toward the grinder.
“I always hafta help this thing,” I say to a pimply young store employee.
Didn’t register. Keep shoving.
Finally after ten long minutes of helping, it’s ground it all.
Remove bag, and place on scale.
“9-8-5-2-2” or whatever it is.
“PLU not found,” it says.
Oh yeah, the scale.
“Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep!”
“PLU not found.”
Well, of course not. It reads “9-8-8-5-2.” (The number displays on a screen.)
The “eight” button registered twice — musta breathed on it.
Watch carefully. Attempt 9-8-5-2-2.
“9-?” “PLU not found.”
CLEAR!
Try again. 9-8-5-2-2.
“9-8-?” “PLU not found.”
CLEAR!
Concentrate. Got it this time.
“Print label.”
NOTHING!
Okay, try again.
“9-?” “PLU not found.”
9-8-5-2-2.
Print.
NOTHING!
I give up!
The checkout clerk looks for my label.
“I tried to price that, but your vaunted machine refused to do it.”

• “Canandaigua” (“cannon-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.
• “Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.
• I don’t know what “PLU” stands for, but apparently “9-8-5-2-2” is a valid product code.

Stroke anniversary

Sixteen long years ago, on this date, October 26, 1993, I had a stroke.
I was still, at that time, driving transit bus for Regional Transit Service (“RTS”) in Rochester, NY, as I had done 16&1/2 years.
I had a run that pulled out at 5:05 a.m., and then drove eight straight hours — no break.
It was a killer, but I chose it because it got me done in front of the bus-station around 1 p.m.
Wake-up alarm to in-the-garage was about 11&1/2 hours, the shortest portal-to-portal I ever had.
I had just helped my younger brother chase restored Nickel Plate steam-locomotive #765 near Charleston, WV.
It was an enjoyable adventure, but doing so entailed an arduous day-long drive home from Charleston via Erie and Buffalo, 6 a.m. to about 6 p.m.
That was the weekend, and I managed to work the following Monday, despite lack of sleep.
That was October 25.
At about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, October 26, I got up to go to the bathroom, and suddenly BAM!
It felt like a giant dip had occurred in my whole being.
It was a thrombosis; a clot had blocked off blood-supply to part of my brain.
We didn’t know what it was.
If we had, I could have gone immediately to the hospital for clot-busting drugs.
I had double-vision, slurred speech, and facial muscles that sagged on one side of my face.
All the classic symptoms of a stroke, but we didn’t know that.
Since I had to get up at 3 a.m. anyway, I thought I’d just go back to bed.
But at 3 a.m. no changes, so I called Transit to call in sick — thus suddenly ending a 16&1/2 year career of driving transit bus.
We called our health-center later that morning, and they said get to the hospital.
So began our hour-long journey to Rochester General.
Despite double-vision I was still able to direct my wife.
We got there about 10 a.m., and walked into Emergency.
By then clot-busting drugs were too late, I guess; and I was told to wait.
I waited all day, and had to spend the night alone in Emergency.
And during this time the segment of my brain denied of blood was slowly dying.
The next day they got me a room, and so began the frenzied search of why I’d had a stroke despite being in fabulous physical shape.
Long-story-short, I had an unknown heart-defect, a Patent Foremen Ovale (“PAY-tint four-AYE-min oh-VAL-ley;” “PFO”), a hole between the upper chambers of my heart, that had allowed a clot to pass toward my brain. —A clot that would have normally been filtered out by my lungs.
This is the same heart-defect linebacker Tedy Bruschi (“BREW-ski”), of the New England Patriots, had. —He had a stroke too.
The PFO was determined after a slew of tests, the final of which was ramming an ultra-sound probe down my esophagus, because ultra-sound wouldn’t see past my breast-bone.
They wanted to repair the defect right away — an open-heart surgery.
But I was so messed up I deferred.
I got worse-and-worse over time — my speech was reduced to lightning-speed gibberish.
A doctor came in and declared my wife would have to cart me around like a vegetable. “I’m gonna prove you wrong, Doc!” I shouted. It was probably undecipherable, but I wasn’t caving in to that.
I started to slowly improve, perhaps because I was ornery, and therefore working fast.
Start trying to do things immediately, and apparently what’s left of your brain rewires to do what the killed part did.
Rehabilitation went on over a year; first in the hospital, then as in-patient rehabilitation at Park Ridge Hospital, then at Rochester Rehabilitation as an out-patient at home.
Rochester Rehabilitation is an adjunct of the Al Sigl Center (“SIG-uhl”) in Rochester. (Sigl was a radio announcer, I guess.)
Rochester Rehabilitation has a driver-education program for stroke-survivors, and eventually cleared me, which included going back to riding my motorcycle. —I was told I never would.
Then the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper hired me — they had to moxie to hire a stroke-survivor.
It turned out to be the best job I ever had; nowhere near the income of Transit, but much more fun.
For a long time my perception of reality was degraded, so I wasn’t sure I was even alive.
But now I’ve been on this planet long enough after the stroke where my perception of reality isn’t degraded any more (or I’m accustomed to it).
Most people seeing me think I’m completely normal, and never knew I had a stroke.
This includes all my tub-thumping Christian siblings who say the only things wrong with me could be solved by —1) church, and —2) becoming a REPUBLICAN Conservative just like them.
Other things are —A) switching to the Bill Gates PC platform instead of using a MAC, and —B) trading my utterly reprehensible Honda motorcycle for a Harley Davidson.
What vestigial stroke-effects I have are: -1) poor balance, -2) dropsy, the tendency to drop things, -3) lability, increased tendency to cry (although I think this is more degraded emotional control), and -4) poor concentration, although this is mainly the disinclination to continue a long read.
All of these are controlled enough for me to pass as a normal person.
—And for my zealot siblings to loudly declare I’m completely recovered.
My all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, points up every stroke-effect as aging — he’s younger than me.
Well yes, I am old (the oldest — 13 years older than him, a mere pup); but he’s never had a stroke.
(And I hope he never does.)

• “Nickel Plate steam-locomotive #765” is a restored Nickel Plate Berkshire (2-8-4) railroad steam locomotive, owned and run by Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society (FWRHS) of Fort Wayne, IN. (“Nickel Plate” is the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, called the “Nickel Plate” long ago by a New York Central executive because it was so competitive. The railroad eventually renamed itself the “Nickel Plate.” Norfolk & Western Railroad bought the Nickel Plate years ago, and N&W has since merged with Southern Railway, to become Norfolk Southern. Nickel Plate never actually attained New York city; it stopped at Buffalo.) —765 is the best restored steam locomotive I have ever seen, mainly because it can and is run hard. —On this excursion in WV, it had been disguised as Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad “Kanawha” (“ken-AH-wah”) #2765, also a 2-8-4. (The excursion was on the original C&O main.) The Nickel Plate Berkshires (“Berks”) were a version of Lima Locomotive Company’s (“LYE-mah;” not “LEE-muh”) SuperPower locomotives; also built by Lima. They had phenomenal steam capacity, and could run hard and fast at speed. A number of railroads purchased “SuperPower” locomotives, Nickel Plate being one. Nickel Plate used them for high-speed freight service. —They are also a gorgeous locomotive, and have a fabulous whistle.
• “Rochester General” is a hospital within northeast Rochester; one of two major hospitals in Rochester. There are others, including Park-Ridge, but that’s out in the suburbs.
• The “Patent Foremen Ovale” was long ago closed with open-heart surgery.
• “Canandaigua” (“cannon-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.
• A “MAC” is an Apple Macintosh computer.

“At peak”

(Photo by BobbaLew.)

Last night (Saturday, October 24, 2009) the weather-guy on the TV news said fall foliage in the area was “at peak.”
He displayed a map of New York State that had orange all around Rochester.
Yep; I happened to take our dog to good old Boughton Park (“BOW-tin;” as in “wow”) yesterday morning, and came upon the view pictured above, while walking in the road.
Leaves all yellow with the low sun shining through.
Enough to get the old stroke-survivor to notice.
About a year after my stroke, I was being taxied to Rochester Rehabilitation.
My cabbie was an older gentleman whose daughter had suffered a very severe brain injury in an auto accident.
She was almost down to nothing; couldn’t talk, was in a wheelchair, and was bog-slow in her movements.
It was the time of fall foliage, and I noticed it wasn’t making the powerful impression it made before the stroke.
Previously I had been very aware of the change of seasons.
Now I didn’t seem to be as aware.
And that’s how it’s been ever since the stroke.
In May the frenzied lawn-chase begins, and late June is strawberry season.
This all happens like clockwork, and in a few weeks I’ll be blowing snow.
Yet the passing seasons don’t seem that noticeable.
Except yesterday at Boughton Park on the road in.

• “Boughton Park” is a nearby town park owned by three towns, one of which is West Bloomfield. (We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western N.Y., southeast of Rochester. ) —It used to be a water-supply.
• Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s four, and is our sixth Irish-Setter.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

The infamous CG

This morning’s (Saturday, October 24, 2009) dream was about the infamous CG.
“CG” is my friend Charlie Gardiner, who graduated in my class at Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “oh” — not “WHO-tin” or “HOUW-tin;” as in “wow”), 1966.
We are somewhat alike, both being ne’er-do-wells, somewhat on the outs at the college.
Unlike me, Charlie hated the whole Houghton experience, I guess.
I, on the other hand, liked my time at Houghton, although after four years I was tired of it.
I had come to college hoping to prove our nation’s Founding Fathers got it right, and were favorably motivated.
But I was systematically shot down by mentors I thought highly of.
Beyond that, pursuit of Philosophy was frustrating.
For every supposed answer my philosophy professors had a question.
Where Charlie was in all this is unknown, but after four years at Houghton I was ready to move on.
Charlie and I had been friends in our Freshman and Sophomore years, but began drifting apart.
By our Senior year, Charlie had moved out of our rooming-house to move in with another guy in a fairly straight accommodation.
I continued to room alone, like Charlie had before, in a house of weirdoes and social outcasts.
Charlie and I swap occasional e-mails, I suppose because we are both electronically savvy, Charlie more than me.
I’ve visited CG twice, in his humble abode in Ashburnham, in the rural outback of Massachusetts. —Also his so-called vacation stead, the Holton (“HOLE-tin”) homestead in way out Jamaica, VT.
CG is a New York City native.
I’m from South Jersey, which partially explains my twisted psyche.
South Jersey is the land of smelly oil-refineries, and gravel-pits. Navigation on its waterways is by poled cement-tub.
The world does indeed have an armpit, and it is Vineland in South Jersey, where illicit drugs, especially heroin, flow freely.
Exit South Jersey an angry pessimist; rocker Patti Smith is a sterling example.
Jersey alone (north Jersey) produced Bruce Springsteen.
What I always say is that North Jersey was the garbage-dump for New York City, and South Jersey was the dump for Philadelphia.
South Jersey was always an outlet for sinners frustrated by the Puritans that ran Pennsylvania.
Honky-tonks and whore-houses and liquor stores abound.
And there was always the vast Pine Barrens, a dumping ground for Mafia hits.
New York City, on the other hand, could be a beacon of light.
Some areas looked like bombed out war zones, but there were pockets of venerable culture.
Charlie had frequented same, and it was possible to get around without a car — i.e. as a teenager.
Houghton, by comparison, was a cultural backwater, far out in the sticks.
For me, though, Houghton was a step up in intellectual pursuit; and furthermore people there valued my opinions.
My dreams about CG always seem to reprise our college experience; him in an apartment much like his spare accommodations in our college rooming house.
Both CG and I are always gray-haired old fogies.
I’d been contacted about picking up CG to take him to a class we shared.
I was driving our Honda CR-V.
(My last visit to Asburnham was the CR-V.)
I exited I-590 at Blossom Road, and there was Charlie, walking under the bridge.
All scraggly and gray-haired — he hasn’t had a haircut in years.
I turned on my four-ways, and crossed into the opposing lane to pick him up.
It was him; same snide remarks and verbal pot-shots.
A mocker, just like me.

• Charlie is somehow related to the Holton Family. A Holton cousin of his also attended the college, and graduated two years after us.
• The “CR-V” is our 2003 Honda CR-V SUV.
• “I-590” and “Blossom Road” are Interstate-590 and Blossom Road, an east-west road through southeastern Rochester. At that point 590 (north-south) is no longer an Interstate; just a state highway, although a four-lane divided expressway. 590 passes over Blossom Road, and there is an interchange.

Three things:

—1) “Do you actually own a Ferrari, or is that just a tee-shirt?” asked a guy in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercize-Gym the other day (Monday, October 19, 2009).
I was pumping away on the Precor® AMT, a sort of semi-elliptical exercise machine.
And I was wearing my red Ferrari tee-shirt. It has a tiny yellow Ferrari shield emblazoned on the left-front.
“It’s just a tee-shirt,” I said. “I don’t own one.
Although I will admit that when I was in college long ago I dreamed of some day owning a Ferrari.
The dream withered,” I said.
“For all intents a car is just a means to get from Point A to Point B. For that, ya don’t need a Ferrari.”
“Plus they’re a bear to maintain,” the guy said.
“Not only that, ya can’t stretch ‘em out,” I said.
“It’s illegal, and traffic won’t let you.”
He walked to another exercise machine.
“I will tell you a story though.
The other morning I’m at the intersection of County Road 14 and State Route 64 in Ionia (‘eye-OWN-ya’), about to turn onto 64.
About seven supercars blasted past, southbound, all in a row, all doing about 80 mph. A ‘Vette, a Porsche (“POOR-sha”), a Mustang GT500, a Dodge Viper, and at least one Ferrari, I think the F430.
That’s not seven, but they were moving too fast.
To my mind, the car that stood out was the Ferrari; everything else was a compromise.
The Mustang GT500 has a great motor, but its rear-axle is a log.
The Viper and ‘Vette are better cars, but their motors aren’t double overhead cam. The ‘Vette is engineered extremely well, but the Viper excels on the size of its motor. Make it big enough, and ya got a supercar. —It’s kind of the same way with the ‘Vette.
The Porsche is nice, but the motor is in the wrong place.
It’s out behind the rear axle, where it can throw off the weight balance.
The Porsche Boxter is better. It’s mid-engined, with the motor ahead of the rear wheels.
You can engineer to offset rearward weight bias, but the motor, fabulous as it is, is still in the wrong place.
A Porsche is a great car, but essentially a souped-up Volkswagen Beetle.
The only car without compromise was the Ferrari.
Every car was lustable, but I’d want the Ferrari most.
But then, where do I put the groceries? Where do I put my dog?
Better yet, where do I wring it out?

—2) My Facebook® had an ad for Microsoft Windows 7 off to the side.
It had a short video; I clicked it.
Essense of video: shake the window ya want on your ‘pyooter (I suppose with your mouse), and it becomes the only window ya see.
Zippity-do!
What’s so special about that?
Um, this is progress?
Okay, I hit the “maximize window” button on my MAC, and it becomes the only window I see (Hello) — plus it fills the whole screen. (I don’t think Windows-7 is doing that.)
Sorry Gates, but I’m drivin’ OS-X, and as I’ve said to other PC users, once ya drive OS-X ya can’t switch.
Gates and his lackeys try to keep up, but Apple looks better.
Sometimes my MAC drives me crazy (like find a file, for example), but Windows is droll by comparison (and I’ve used Windows).
Beyond that, over six years of OS-X use I’ve never had my rig crash. I’ve had stuff freeze, but I can “force-quit” without bringing down my whole machine.

—3) “This catalog is printed on paper that has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council,” and “We use eco-friendly vegetable inks!”
“WHAT?” I ask.
This is the Heifer Project’s one-and-only Christmas catalog; a worthy effort, and one I will support.
But do they need to say that?
Will it enhance my “giving experience?”

• “Ionia” is a tiny village, in the town of West Bloomfield, near where we live, about three miles away. (We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western N.Y., southeast of Rochester.)
• A “Mustang GT500” is a special Mustang that gets 500 horsepower, on pump gas, no less. —It has a mechanically supercharged V8 motor.
• Most Porsches have the engine in the rear, like a Volkswagen Beetle. But it’s a much more powerful engine, usually six cylinders as opposed to four in the Beetle. Locating the engine there is like locating a heavy dumbbell weight behind the rear wheels. It throws off the car’s weight balance.
• The Corvette, Viper, Mustang, and Ferrari are essentially mid-engine too, except the engine is in front of the driver. In the Boxter it is behind the driver; the common definition for “mid-engine.”
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• “Gates” is Bill Gates, the head-honcho of Microsoft. My ‘pyooter (“rig”) is an Apple Macintosh. “OS-X” is its operating system, Apple Computer’s tenth operating system.

Good ole 1703

Yesterday (Wednesday, October 21, 2009) was a regular quarterly meeting of the dreaded 282 Alumni.
“Dreaded” because all my siblings are flagrantly anti-union, and my all-knowing blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, declares all bus-drivers are no-good, do-nothing, lazy layabouts who just sit on their cans all day.
My brother collects a six-figure salary for policing Porta-Johns at an electric-power generating station.
The so-called “Alumni” are the union retirees (Local 282, the Rochester local of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union) of Regional Transit Service in Rochester, N.Y. (For 16&1/2 years [1977-1993] I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service [RTS], the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY.) The Alumni was a reaction to the fact Transit management retirees ran roughshod over union retirees — a continuation of the bad vibes at Transit: management versus union. Transit had a club for long-time employees, and I was in it. It was called the “15/25-year Club;” I guess at first the “25-year Club.” But they lowered the employment requirement, and renamed it “15/25-year Club.” The employment requirement was lowered even more; I joined at 10 years. My employ there ended in 1993 with my stroke; and the “Alumni” didn’t exist then. The Alumni is a special club — you have to join.
Of interest to me was the appearance of two retired bus-drivers.
—1) Bobby McAuliff (“Mick-ALL-iff”), a white guy who was once the president of the 15/25-year Club; and
—2) Eugene Muhammad (“Muh-HUM-med”), a black guy who drove bus 20 years, and then went to the Rochester City School-District.
“Who’s that guy standing next to Broadhurst?” someone asked.
That’s Gene Muhammad,” someone answered.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “That’s Gene. It’s him, only his hair is white now.”
Eugene eventually sat across from me.
“Okay Gene,” I said. “Here we go.
You drove 1703 a long time, and then switched off it.
After you, I drove it a long time; at least three years.
It was the nicest ride I ever had.”
“And after you, Hazel drove it for a while,” someone piped up.
“Hazel had more seniority than me,” I said. “I don’t remember her driving 1703. 1701 and 1702. She always gravitated toward the 17.”
“But they broke up the run she’d been driving, so she switched to 1703.”
“The only thing wrong with it,” I said; “was three trips, which is one too many.
Plus ya got Fred at Nazareth College. Fred was always in your face. He even sent me a Christmas-card.
Plus it got done at 7:30.”
“I remember Fred,” Eugene said. “7:30 too.
Plus they started pulling into every college while I drove it; St. John Fisher, Nazareth — all the way out to that high-school.”
“No high-school when I drove it. By then that was the 700-line. I looped in the old Pittsford loop.”
“That high-school was impossible,” Gene said. “Not enough time.”
“Probably timed with a supervisor-car on a Sunday morning,” I said.
Muhammad is not a member of the Alumni, so was being plied by Alumni Vice-President Frank Randisi (“ran-DEE-zee;” as in “Anne”).
The whole point of this program was a presentation by Rochester Optical to solicit the business of us retirees.
Big deal! All I can see is their couponing my co-pay. My healthcare insurance pays for eye exams — I might have to co-pay $10.
Rochester Optical would use my insurance, but pay my co-pay.
I can afford $10 for -A) an optical shop nearby and more convenient, and -B) my vision being cared for by competent people, including a Houghton-grad.
“Anything from you, Frank?” asked Randisi of Frank Falzone (“Foul-ZONE”), the Business-Agent of Local 282 of our old bus-union.
“They’re messin’ with us,” Frank said, referring to a letter to all 282 members from the International President Warren George in Washington D.C. threatening to trustee our union.
“They wanna compress our union leadership into one full-time person. Most locals our size have only one full-timer.”
(We currently have two full-timers.)
“But we’ll be all right — we always are........”
Frank is 61; the union-prez is over 65 — retirement age.
I think they are both too old to be running a union, against a massive forest of publicly-funded young lackeys.
It’s us retirees they represent — not the current employees.
“Have the Army remove them,” Eugene said.

• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• “1700”-line and “700”-line are two different bus-routes, but both end up in Pittsford (an old suburb southeast of Rochester). —Pittsford was a rich suburb, so many of our passengers on the 17 were domestic help. The Pittsford loop was an old trolley-loop in Pittsford — tracks long-gone and paved. The high-school (Pittsford-Mendon; Mendon being an adjacent town) was far past it.
• RE: “Supervisor-car.......” —Road-supervisors (supervised bus operations by radio from the administrative offices), used company cars. They were marked as supervisor-cars, and had a flashing yellow beacon.
• “Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. —Every Houghton-grad I’ve met had their feet on the ground.
• RE: “Trustee our union......” is to administer it from Washington D.C., no longer locally. There are two questions at issue: —1) we have too much debt, and —2) no contract has been agreed to for over three years. —Our union’s response is that this is because our bosses are stonewalling. Debt is mainly legal fees — we have to arbitrate every grievance, and there are over 400 pending. Lawyers aren’t paid until the case is settled.

That does it!

A few days ago our phone-bill arrived, and it had exploded about $20.
That is, from $37 to $57.
“That does it!” I said. “I don’t know what is happening here, but I’d like to go back to our old plan,” which was just metered calls added to a minimal access fee.
Some time ago we switched to a whiz-bang bundled plan that was supposed to save us money, but it didn’t.
It increased our phone-bill about $8-$10 per month.
Now they want 20 bucks more.
For some time I’ve been tempted to dump the landline.
We have cellphones, and use them for just about everything.
We’ve only kept the landline for two reasons:
—1) I have a 93 year old mother-in-law who refused to call a cellphone — although by now she has.
—2) Cellphone service can be flaky. “Stand somewhere else, Bob; you’re cuttin’ out.”
Beyond that I wired a landline switchplate into every room when our house was built; maybe 15.
A move that soon became moot with wireless telephones.
Only four are connected, and two of those are wireless phones.
Okay, call phone company and switch back to metered calls.
That’s not how things work in this household.
I had a stroke, so my ability to parry a phonecall is severely compromised.
It’s the old waazoo; my wife makes the phonecalls, and I drive her around. —I can drive, but she’s automotively challenged. She could drive if she had to, but it would be messy.
I have to map out routes for her with no left-turns, or if she has to turn left, it’s an intersection with a left-turn arrow.
I can usually find someplace myself easy-as-pie. —Last year we found a veterinarian’s office in Orchard Park near Buffalo; slam-dunk, first try.
But my wife would get lost. No sense of direction.
She also holds up traffic at intersections; yes-or-no?
But this isn’t something the average person understands.
Nor do they understand stroke-compromised speech.
A sister-in-law, whose friendship I value, called yesterday (Tuesday, October 20, 2009), and I mentioned my difficulty doing phonecalls.
“You always say that,” she said; “yet I don’t hear anything.”
“Sure,” I said. “I sound quite normal, but today’s attempt to exchange running shoes was a wrestling-match.”
Long pauses to assemble words, silences, stuttering, and the wrong words spilling out.
It’s not the speech-center I used before the stroke. Another part of my brain, still alive, was roped into it. It wasn’t designed for speech.
My wife called the phone company. —It wasn’t Francine. (“One ringy-dingy; two ringy-dingies. Oh, come on Cher, pick up! I am a high-school grad-jew-ate.”)
They wanted to verify the last four digits of my Social Security number, before they would talk to her.
“Say again?” I said.
Long pregnant pause on my part.
“Lemme think,” I said.
I of course know what the four digits are, but I have to assemble them into a speech response.
“Do you want us to talk to your wife from now on?” the girl asked, obviously frustrated.
89 bazilyun whiz-bang plans got rattled by. “I also can reactivate your previous pricing. It expired.”
Around-and-around my wife went, while I quietly beavered away on this here rig.
And every time my wife deflected back to metered calls added to a minimal access charge.
“We can get you free long-distance.”
“For long-distance we use our cellphones; there’s no charge.”
A year ago I went alone to a bed-and-breakfast near Altoona, PA.
The bed-and-breakfast has a tiny parking-lot, that can only accommodate about 3-4 cars.
When I returned from eating supper, the parking-lot was filled, so I mentioned offhandedly I had parked nearby in the street.
Those in the parking-lot became defensive, and my halting, choppy speech was perceived as anger.
I’m sure if my wife had been along, all would have been smoothed over.
I have another friend who had a stroke; in fact, a couple.
He sounds quite normal, but I can discern the speech choppiness.
To me it’s obvious he’s had a stroke.
It’s the same speech as me.
I’ve decided from now on I should probably mention I had a stroke, and that as such:
It takes me —A) twice as long to accommodate what was said;
and —B) four-five times as long to respond.
I’ve told a lotta people I had a stroke; a YMCA exercise coach, a tour-guide, a financial advisor, my neighbor up-the-street.
All say they never woulda known.
Yet people get frustrated listening to me, my disinclination to say anything is perceived as anger, and I can’t do phonecalls.
Years ago when I worked at the mighty Mezz, I processed “Green Thumb” by Doc & Katy Abraham, for the “Garden Page.”
Sometimes there’d be something that merited a phonecall to Doc.
He’d get frustrated trying to talk to me.
I never had a chance to mention I’d had a stroke; he died first.

• “We” is my wife of almost 42 years, and I.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty putting words together.)
• “Bob” is of course me.
• “This here rig” is my computer.
• The “bed-and-breakfast near Altoona, PA,” is Tunnel Inn in Gallitzin (“Guh-LIT-zin”) near Horseshoe Curve, by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child.) —Tunnel Inn is right next to the railroad’s tunnels at the top of the first ridge of the Alleghenies. It used to be Gallitzin’s town offices and library; built by the railroad in 1905.
• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost four years ago. Best job I ever had. They had a “Garden Page” that ran once every week. “Doc and Katy” lived nearby, and had a nationally syndicated radio-program. It gave gardening advice. “Green Thumb” was their syndicated newspaper column. “Doc” was much older than me. (He died in his 90s.)

BILLS WIN

“BILLS WIN, BILLS WIN, BILLS WIN,” shrieked the Facebook page of my friend Paul Long.
“Do you mean to tell me the lowly Billy-goats beat the mighty N.Y. Jets?” I asked.
“I’ll look it up,” my wife said from the other room.
(My wife has her own rig. In fact, our ‘pyooters aren’t even networked. We use e-mail.)
“Yep,” she said. “Bills 16, Jets 13.”
Paul Long was sports-editor at the mighty Mezz during the final years of my employ.
We worked in nearby cubicles; him the Sports-Editor and me doing their web-site.
The web-site ran local sports stories, and I was always trying to fly sports pictures — even though I had been advised not to.
He was a great guy to question; like if something had a misspelled word.
Sports was always kind of a mess at the Messenger the entire time of my employ.
When I first hired on, the Sports-Editor had loud angry temper tantrums, and would tear up what he had asked for, blaming us.
He moved on, but no one replaced him. Sports was done by two sports-reporters.
Then a guy hired earlier as a sports-reporter, but who went on to generate a lot of the paper, was made Sports-Editor, but it was like herding cats.
His sports-reporters had previously done the entire section.
Despite this, Sports was always a premier section.
It had local bias, so covered local sports.
Then Long was made Editor, but was saddled with two prima-donnas.
It wasn’t a marriage-made-in-heaven, but still Sports shone.
Long is from this area, so is a Buffalo Bills fan.
In fact, he’s a fan of just about every local sports team.
I remember Syracuse basketball made the National Championship during Long’s tenure; a fact he celebrated.
Also the Buffalo Sabres.
But sadly the Bills have become a laughing-stock, particularly after last week when they were beat by the lowly Cleveland Browns.
They made so many mistakes.
I rely on Paul, not being a sports-fan myself, and he said team-owner Ralph Wilson was too cheap to hire the talent needed to field a good football team.
Well, probably so; but he did hire Terrell Owens, whom I’m sure cost a pretty penny.
But one super-talented player can’t save a football team.
To me, the Bills beating the Jets is a fluke, much like when they beat the New England Patriots long ago in 2003.
Yeah, sure; what about next week?
I bet they lose. No confidence. They’re not winners.
“They lost everything when Flutie (“FLOO-dee”) left,” my wife says.

• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost four years ago. Best job I ever had. I worked there after my stroke (October 26, 1993); almost 10 years. My stroke disability-retired me from driving transit bus at Regional Transit Service in Rochester, NY, which I did for 16&1/2 years.
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• “This area” is Western New York.
• “Flutie” is Doug Flutie, a previous quarterback for the Buffalo Bills — a winner.
• Paul Long moved to near to Charlotte, NC, to become a sports-reporter at a local newspaper nearby.

VIOLA!

Strong Hospital has instituted automated fee-collection for their parking-garage.
The way it used to work was a person-free machine issued you a time-stamped ticket as you entered.
If you had a doctor’s appointment, or other appointment, their office would issue you a parking voucher.
Then on exit you’d hand everything to an attendant in a booth, and they’d tell you what you owed.
A parking voucher might get your amount due down to a dollar. Without one it was two dollars or more.
They still have that, but now they also have automated parking fee collection in the hospital lobby.
Rochester General had it too, but it was in the garage.
You were on-your-own.
The object of the game was escape from the garage.
Strong had an attendant.
I’ve always been attracted to these sort of gizmos; e.g. computerized sub-ordering, the U-Scans at Canandaigua Tops.
I managed to figure out the automated parking fee collection at Rochester General, so I faced the Strong gizmo.
“Insert ticket-stub here.”
“Hold it!” the attendant said. “Face up; align the arrow.”
“Machine working;” seconds pass — “Five dollars.”
“Holy mackerel,” I cried.
“Now insert your yellow parking voucher,” the attendant said.
“One dollar,” the machine flashed. (Visions of the slots at Turning Stone.)
There were slots for your credit-card, and also cash.
I took a dollar-bill out of my wallet, and in the slot it went.
Back out came my parking-ticket.
“Now, just put that ticket in the machine at the exit, and the gate goes up.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “All the exits have manned ticket-booths.”
“Not the lane to the left, sir,” he said. “That lane is unmanned. Just insert your ticket in the machine.”
Okay, gingerly approach exit, and keep to the left.
Insert ticket in machine, and viola! The gate swings up.

• “Strong Hospital” is a large hospital in the southeast of Rochester. “Rochester General” is a large hospital in the northeast of Rochester. The two are the largest hospitals in the city of Rochester.
• “Computerized sub-ordering” is to order your submarine sandwich with a computer touch-screen which prints your completed order on a small ticket which a clerk then fills.
• “Tops” is a large supermarket-chain based in Buffalo we occasionally buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua. —They have “U-Scan” machines, whereby you can check out your order yourself. It scans the bar-code on items, and then takes your payment.
• “Turning Stone” is a large gambling casino between Syracuse and Rochester.

The Perfessor

The “Perfessor.”

Richard Gladwell (“GLAHD-well”), one of the two stalwarts of classical music radio in Rochester, has died.
Gladwell, I guess, was one of the original announcers, along with Simon Pontin (“PAHN-tin”) on radio station WBFB, long ago, the first classical-music radio station in this area, a commercial station.
Both were British expatriates.
WBFB was affiliated with WBBF, at that time the most popular pop-radio AM station in Rochester.
Gladwell had to be in his 80s by now, but still had a radio program on WXXI-FM, 91.5, the current classical music station; a public-radio station.
WBFB went defunct, and the first format of WXXI-FM was failing, so WXXI decided to become a classical music station.
They hired Gladwell and Pontin.
Pontin had tried selling Mercedes-Benz, but failed. —He wasn’t a viper.
Pontin retired a little while ago, but Gladwell soldiered on.
He even stood in as a substitute announcer occasionally.
Both Pontin and Gladwell were a bit bumbling, but could get by.
Part of their appeal was their tendency to make mistakes.
Pontin would play a cut from a CD, and it would continue during his following traffic-report — next cut.
“Sorry about that,” he’d mutter. “Go back to your coffee.”
“Woops!” Gladwell would say. “That’s not the music I intended. Here, try this.”
Gladwell was partial to classical liturgical music, particularly pipe-organ with brass.
He had a program called “With Heart and Voice” that syndicated nationally.
He also did a local production of the same program.
It was more the Gladwell we knew; the national production was slick and over-produced. No bumbling mistakes.
Gladwell got brain-cancer, I suppose the same thing that took Teddy Kennedy.
It ended his broadcasting. I guess he was operated on, and had to do rehab.
Gladwell lived in the Park Ave. neighborhood of Rochester.
Occasionally I drove bus out “Funky-Funky Park Ave.,” and sometimes I’d take him home.
“I know who you are,” I’d say; “and I appreciate what you do.”
It left him utterly flustered.
Bus-drivers weren’t supposed to like classical music.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY.
• “The Park Ave. neighborhood of Rochester” is an old neighborhood of beautiful houses on the southeast side of Rochester. It’s populated by liberals and ne’er-do-wells. —Park Ave. is an east-west street through the area, busy enough to merit a bus-route.

Yada-yada-yada-yada

I’ve attended another meeting of Local 282, the Rochester local of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union, the union for bus-company employees; bus-drivers, mechanics, etc.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY.
My stroke October 26, 1993 retired me suddenly on disability; although I was tiring of it.
I belonged to Local 282, the bus-union at Transit (Regional Transit Service).
Last night’s (Thursday, October 15, 2009) meeting was significant. The International (headquarters) in Washington D.C. was threatening to trustee us.
Over three years had passed without a contract, and 400+ grievances were to be arbitrated.
This was stonewalling by our bosses, but the implication was that our local leadership was dysfunctional.
An International Vice-President had been sent to —1) see what was going on, and —2) try to resolve a contract with our bosses.
Regarding the first item:
—Our union has two full-time officials, a President and a Business-Agent.
Most other locals have only one; a combination President/Business-Agent.
Going to only one full-time officer would save money — our union is severely in debt.
(Well sure; our bosses at Transit have us swimming in lawyer fees.)
Our union’s response is a slew of bylaw changes, to implement the savings needed.
Whether our current leadership can deal with the bosses at Transit is debatable — it seems they couldn’t, whereas the International Vice-President could.
Regarding the second item:
—Transit is almost impossible to negotiate with.
They always have an excuse to avoid negotiations.
And the head-honcho doesn’t participate at all. All he does is preen for the TV cameras — like Transit is a smashing success because of his administration. He brags about making a “profit;” and was written up as such in the N.Y. Times.
Um, a “surplus” is hardly a “profit.” Seems the N.Y. Times forgot Transit was a “not-for-profit;” a publicly funded enterprise.
—Our union is not allowed to strike; it’s illegal.
Our union is a public-employees union.
To supposedly offset the fact that we can’t strike, we negotiate with our employers.
If that doesn’t work (and it didn’t), impasse is declared, and the contract dispute goes to fact-finding by an impartial party.
If the contract is still not resolved, we can go to arbitration, whereby an independent arbitrator writes the contract.
This happened years ago. An independent arbitrator allowed the Company to have part-time workers, a condition our union would have never allowed.
Contract arbitration is always a gamble — win some, lose some.
The International Vice-President, one Gary Rauen (“ROW-in;” as in “wow”), wanted to avoid contract arbitration.
As such, this so-called “significant” union-meeting turned out to be not what was predicted.
There was no discussion of the threat to trustee our union — a condition Rauen somewhat suggested.
Instead, it was Rauen saying “lemme tell ya where we’re at.”
Apparently he managed to get Transit to negotiate, although I think our bosses were noticing our membership was fed up.
“I don’t like it,” he said; “but it’s better than arbitration.
At least you’re getting to vote on a proposed contract — which is better than rolling the dice.
Go to arbitration, and ya get half of what your bosses want, including Mark Aesch’s (“ahshh”) beloved ‘Incentive Program.’
He went down to N.Y. City and presented his Incentive Program to transit managers statewide; they moaned and told him to take it back to Rochester.
‘Well, I’ll show yaz!’ he said. ‘I’ll get it in my contract.’
Guys, this Incentive Program sucks. It’s playing off the good guys against the so-called ‘bad.’
Debbie walks into the negotiating room, and asks a favor; that we separate the Incentive Program from the contract, and vote on both.
If the contract passes, okay; and if the Incentive Program fails, that’s okay too; we have a contract.
Guys, it’ll never pass.
Aesch comes down to the Drivers’ Room, and bewails the union badmouthing his Incentive Program, which would reward bazilyuns to his goody two-shoes.
He was sent packing — told to never do that sort of thing again.
We’re very close, Brothers. They asked me to come back at 10 p.m. tonight, so we can hammer out the final details.
I don’t like it, but it’s better than arbitration.”
Not the meeting I expected — Rauen left; about an hour.
I should mention this meeting prompted almost a hundred to attend.
That’s a record. Usually there’s question of whether we can generate a quorum; 15.
Many were retirees though, or so it seemed. I saw many who drove bus back when I did — now retired.
Of interest to me was “no reduction of retiree benefits.” —My health-insurance is a Transit retiree benefit.
The Recording-Secretary thereupon began reading all the proposed bylaw changes.
No discussion, just reading. Discussion and vote (fireworks) will be next meeting; I don’t know if I will attend — but probably will.
Various blabbermouths tried to start discussion, but were quashed by Union Vice-President Ray Dunbar.
“Way to go, Ray!” someone yelled.
The two current full-time officers sat quietly while bylaw changes were read that would put one of them out of a job.
Another blusterhead tried to derail International Vice-President Rauen earlier, but Rauen deflected him.
It’s obvious. Rauen knows how to parry blusterheads; no wonder he got somewhere with Aesch and his lackeys.
The Recording-Secretary was a bit flustered reading all the proposed bylaw changes. Most difficult was “he-slash-she,” which was in every phrase. “Yada-yada-yada-yada,” at the speed-of-light.
“Do we have a motion to adjourn?” asked President Joe Carey (“CARRY”).
“So moved.” 9:30 p.m. — not too bad. Many had already left.

• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• “Trustee us” is to take over local administration of our union.
• “Mark Aesch” is the head-honcho at Transit.
• “Debbie” is a Transit official; one of Mark Aesch’s lackeys.

Whoa!

A few weeks ago, Friday, September 4, 2009, to be exact, I got snared yet again in the infamous Bloomfield speed-trap.
“That does it!” I said myself. “They’ve extracted their last toll. There has to be another way to Canandaigua beside 5&20 through Bloomfield.”
There is, of course, if ya don’t mind adding about five minutes to your trip. It involves Boughton Road (“BOW-tin;” as in “wow”) which becomes Rice Road, then Brace Road and County Road 30.
Unfortunately it involves what I consider dangerous intersections, the worst of which is across State Route 444.
I’ve lived in this area almost 20 years, and during that time have received 5-6 traffic tickets. Each and every ticket was speeding in Bloomfield. (All 40-50 mph.)
Everyone knows what the Bloomfield speed-trap is. Dutifully slow to 35 mph eastbound, the speed-limit on 5&20 through Bloomfield village.
At the eastern edge of the populated area you start down a hill past the town garages, and there’s Smokey on the other side of the defile taking pictures.
Bloomfield, quite justifiably, considers its village to extend all the way to Oakmount Road.
If you aren’t riding the brake — paying attention — your car speeds up as you descend the defile.
My bypass involved Cooley Road at first, but I avoided that due to a bad turn onto 5&20.
I go that way returning. 5&20 onto Cooley is safe.
So here I am yesterday (Wednesday, October 14, 2009) at the intersection of Boughton and 444, where Boughton Road becomes Rice Road.
Sight lines are okay, but traffic on 444 is moving at 55+.
I look carefully. All seems clear, but as I begin to cross 444 a dark-green Ford Explorer blasts north.
Whoa! Where did he come from?
There are essentially two blind spots on the right side of my car, the windshield-post and the door-post.
Apparently they blocked out the Explorer.
I have to look around both, and probably did.
Yet whoa!
I don’t like that intersection.
I’d avoid it if I could.
5&20 is safer, but there’s always the Bloomfield speed-trap.

• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western N.Y., southeast of Rochester. Adjacent is the rural town of East Bloomfield, and the village of Bloomfield is within it.
• “Canandaigua” (“cannon-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.
• “5&20” is the main east-west road (a two-lane highway) 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.

“Baloney!”

“130 dollars!” a customer shrieked at my wife.
“They got me for cellphone use while driving,” she said.
“Now I hafta pay a $130 fine, and certify the letter I send it in.”
My wife worked all day yesterday (Tuesday, October 13, 2009) at the tiny West Bloomfield Post-Office, where she works part-time as a “PMR” (postmaster relief).
“Well fine,” I say.
I have a cellphone myself, and when I drive it goes into my pocket. If it rings, I ain’t answerin’ — it’s goin’ to voicemail.
As far as I’m concerned, driving takes 100 percent concentration. A cellphone is a distraction, even hands-free.
To me, a cellphone is little more than a radio telephone.
It frees me from the landline network.
A while ago my wife was at Wilmot Cancer Center, and when finished she’d call me on her cellphone to come get her.
An older gentleman was across from her.
“Gotta get me one of them cellphones,” he said.
His daughter unholstered her cellphone, and said “Here Dad; can you see this?”
Her cellphone was displaying tiny numbers, and the keys were the size of match-heads.
“No,” he said.
“So much for you using cellphones,” daughter said.
“Baloney!” I thought. “I’m 65 years old. If I can use a cellphone, there’s no reason someone my age can’t.”
My current cellphone displays large numbers, and has keys larger than match-heads.
It hits me with mistypes occasionally, but I use it.
In fact, I use it for just about all phonecalls.
But I don’t upload belches to Facebook® with it.
Nor do I download tunes.
I have three extraneous applications on it; namely weather-radar, a GPS navigation system, and a contact-list backup.
My weather-radar can display weather-radar for some faraway location; handy when I’m not home.
I don’t use the GPS navigator. All I have it for is to tell me the coordinates for where I’m standing.
I got the contact-list backup after losing my contact-list when a previous cellphone got dunked.
That was a Motorola RAZR®, a really great gizmo.
My wife still has her RAZR. She kept it rather than learn a new cellphone. (My new phone is slightly different.)
But neither of us use our cellphones while driving.
Driving is more important.

• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western N.Y., southeast of Rochester.
• “Wilmot Cancer Center” is in Strong Hospital, in southern Rochester. My wife had lymphatic cancer. It was treatable with chemotherapy — she survived.
• “GPS” equals global-positioning-system, via satellite.

“Free, with minimal annual purchase......”

Yesterday (Monday, October 12, 2009) I’m quietly cranking away on the arm-bicycle in the Exercise Gym at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA.
An ad appears on one of the three silent wall-mounted plasma-babies I face.
An ad from Time Warner about its RoadRunner cable Internet service.
Something about $29.95 per month with Powerboost®, with free self-install.
“What?” I asked. I almost stopped cranking.
Sorry I’m an old geezer, but I just can’t make sense of logic like that.
Do they normally charge for a self-install?
Is this Dubya-speak resurfacing? Use the word “free” in front of anything, and whatever follows is thereby free?
I can hear it now: “Free; only $9.95. Have your Visa or MasterCard ready.”
A few weeks ago I was looking for a place in cyberspace to store my image files.
“Free, with minimal annual purchase,” it said.
Lost. I can’t make sense of that.
Is this what language and communication are coming to?
Content is not as important as the buzz-words?
And there’s old Limberger, the Oxycontin® king, railing loudly about el-cheapo fabrication and slander, and his comments being taken out of context.

• An “arm-bicycle” is an exercise machine whereby you hand-crank a loaded crank-wheel to burn calories.
• “Plasma-babies” are what my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, calls all high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs. Other technologies beside plasma are available, but he calls them all “plasma-babies.”
• “Dubya” is George W. Bush, our previous president; proclaimed by my siblings as “the greatest president of all time.”
• “Limberger” is Rush Limbaugh. I call him that because I think he stinks.

Alpaca, not Al-Qaeda

(Photo by BobbaLew.)

Yesterday and the day before (Saturday and Sunday, October 10 and 11, 2009) were the annual open-house at Lazy Acres Alpaca Farm in West Bloomfield.
It’s on Baker Road, right around the corner from where we live.
I should admit I didn’t go.
In fact, the last time I went to this shindig was three years ago, 2006.
A few weeks ago I patronized Alpaca Country in Pittsford, to purchase alpaca mittens and socks for snowblowing our driveway.
I think they’re affiliated.
The kindly clerk gave me a flyer for the open-house.
“To do so I have to pen the dog,” I said.
“Well, leash her and I’m sure she won’t be any problem,” she said.
“I don’t think so!” I responded.
“We used to walk through the animals at Lollypop, and she was fine until she saw the goats.
Holy mackerel! Hang on for dear life!
This dog is very much a hunter. —“Let’s get ‘em, boss!”
Now she’s barking at cows, and every time we pass that alpaca farm, if the alpacas are out, she goes ballistic,” I said.
I’ll let good old Wikipedia define “alpaca:”
“Alpaca is a domesticated species of South American camelid. It resembles a small llama in superficial appearance.
Alpacas are kept in herds that graze on the level heights of the Andes of Ecuador, southern Peru, northern Bolivia, and northern Chile at an altitude of 3,500 meters (11,483 feet) to 5,000 meters (16,404 feet) above sea-level, throughout the year. Alpacas are considerably smaller than llamas, and unlike llamas, alpacas were not bred to be beasts of burden but were bred specifically for their fiber.
Alpacas and llamas differ in that alpacas have straight ears and llamas have banana-shaped ears. Aside from these differences, llamas are on average 30 to 60 centimeters (one to two feet) taller and proportionally bigger than alpacas.”

The alpaca farm is in a very rural area invisible from the road.
We had parked in a pasture, and then hiked to the farm.
Gigantic open pastures were filled with grazing alpacas.
There’s a grazing pasture next to Baker Road, but it’s deceptive.
It’s only one, and not as pretty as the others, which were verdant green lined with fall foliage.
We may have had a previous dog along on that visit — I can’t remember.
If so he wasn’t going bonkers.















• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western N.Y., south of Rochester.
• “Pittsford” is an old suburb east of Rochester on the Erie Canal.
• “Lollypop” is the Rochester Humane Society. They keep farm-animals outside in pens.
• “Wikipedia” is the online encyclopedia. It’s voluntary, so subject to dispute — but fairly reliable.

Hup-two-three-four.......

Desired. (Screenshot by the mighty MAC.)

“I think I’ve finally managed to whup this here Excel® into doing what I want it to do,” I declared last night (Friday, October 9, 2009).
“Do what I want it to do” is difficult to explain, but I will try.
My Excel spreadsheet is just expenses deductible on our Federal Income-Tax Schedule A.
To fit it on my ‘pyooter-screen, I “outline” it, so that each month’s entries compress into just one monthly total.
I.e. All that’s on my screen are the monthly totals (green), but hidden in the background (“outlined”) are the entries throughout each month.
Come tax time, I expand the whole spreadsheet so that it prints every entry.
To me, this is better than TurboTax®, etc., since it gives me the totals for Schedule A.
I’ve tried TurboTax and it was starting from scratch.
Worse yet it was breaking charity deductions into each individual charity, I suppose because some charities were deductible and some weren’t.
Schedule A didn’t want this. It only wants one total charity deduction, which my Excel spreadsheet generates.
Okay, suppose I gotta do fixes to my spreadsheet, like add an entry.
Suppose that entry is dated before the first entries for a month.


WRONG. (Not in outline.) (Screenshot by the mighty MAC.)

Okay, insert line atop first entry: Command-I. Trouble is, such an inserted line is not included in my outline (circled in red ellipse).
I.e. The “outlined” total won’t include my inserted line — which was the fix.
Okay, roundabout trick to include the fix in my outline.
Enter fix below the first entries, which makes the dates out of synch; e.g. 10/10 followed by 10/1.
Highlight and cut that line, and paste into the top line.
Looks right, but it probably ain’t.
It fully replaced that top entry with the fix, which means I probably deleted (replaced) the top entry.


Engage marching ants......... (Hup-hup!) (Screenshot by the mighty MAC.)

Solution: Enter fix below top entries; dates will be out of sequence.
Cut top entries, and paste below fix.
That gets dates in sequence, yet maintains everything in the outline.
And nothing is lost.
The cut lines become empty lines no longer in the outline, and can be deleted (“Command-K”).

• RE: “Mighty MAC.......” —All my siblings use Windows PCs, but I use an Apple MacIntosh (“MAC”), so I am therefore stupid and of-the-Devil.
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.

“Various vagaries”

This morning’s (Thursday, October 8, 2009) dream (nightmare?) was about the various vagaries of production of this here newspaper, which despite the noisy blusterings of tub-thumping Conservatives, ain’t easy.
Anyone who reads this blog, assuming there are any at all, knows I had a stroke almost 16 years ago on October 26, 1993.
They also know I worked at this newspaper almost 10 years after that.
It was the best job I ever had, and over those years I did a number of things, and found flower in doing computer functions.
What I remember is doing obituaries (“obits”), and the “Night-Spots” column for the weekly “Steppin Out” tabloid.
I eventually ended up doing this here web-site, although earlier iterations thereof.
The last one I was doing was iteration #3, the paid web-site.
This newspaper’s current web-site is probably iteration #6 or so.
The “Night-Spots” file was a large computer file I’d update weekly by overwriting.
Doing so meant phonecalls, or accessing night-club web-sites.
It was tedious, but phonecalls were the main hairball.
My ability to do phonecalls had been compromised by my stroke, so I tended to not do them.
I always felt “Night-Spots” was poor because of my inability to do phonecalls, but I was told otherwise.
What I turned in was usually cut to fit.
I was told I was doing a fabulous job.
My dream was I had just completed my dreaded “Night-Spots” file, so I was ready to “send” it.
I had walked away from my cubical, and when I returned, my ‘pyooter was gone.
This sort of thing could happen in the production of a newspaper, although in my case it never did.
I walked around nervously trying to scarf up an unused computer — I did this occasionally when mine crashed.
But no luck.
Much worried jabbering at other work-stations, but no unused ‘pyooters.
My “Night-Spots” file would be needed for the next day’s newspaper production, but I had no way to “send” it.

• “This here newspaper” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost four years ago. —This blog also appears on their web-site.
• “The ‘Steppin Out’ tabloid” was a weekly tabloid magazine of local entertainment, etc., published with the newspaper.
• The “current web-site” is MPNnow; “MPN” standing for Messenger-Post newspapers. (A few years ago the Messenger bought nine weekly suburban newspapers [suburbs of Rochester] when their publisher retired; the “Post” papers.)
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.

The Keed always knows where he’s goin’

Yesterday (Tuesday, October 6, 2009) we had a doctor’s appointment at Strong Hospital.
9:30 a.m., which means drive NASCAR rush-hour.
Do battle with the stolid burghers rushing headlong to get to the office coffee machine first, so they can lean on it while yammering ceaselessly to those arriving later, whilst glomming donuts.
Stand back, everyone. Reading the Wall Street Journal or jabbering on their cellphone or texting Facebook®.
But don’t get in their way. The speedlimit ain’t fast enough on I-390; and if a traffic-light turns red, they run it.
As we used to say at Transit: “expect anything!”
“Blue-H,” my wife says, as we amble back to the hospital parking-garage.
“What?” I ask.
“‘Blue-H’ is where we’re parked.”
“I have no idea what ‘Blue-H’ means,” I say; “but I can find my car.”
All it is is the reverse of how I came in, which I took note of.
Parked four lanes over on the inside, cut through at the crossover, and walked off the Second Floor.”
Up two flights, up the ramp, cut through at the crossover, and BINGO! There it is!
I reprised our trip again today, but an 11:45 a.m. appointment.
After NASCAR rush-hour, but I was followed closely by a tiny red Chevrolet HHR, headlights on, its driver doing his best Glowering Intimidator impression, climbing all over my rear bumper.
He tried desperately to pass a few times, but was frustrated in his efforts by oncoming traffic — leading him to rage maniacally and thump his steering-wheel with his fist.
After the appointment we went to the Sears at Eastview; mainly to return a Lands End purchase.
“I could use a bathroom,” I said to a clerk unable to come up with a bagger attachment for my lawnmower.
“Take this aisle down to washing-machines and dryers, turn right up to Lands End, then right again past the jewelry. The Rest Rooms are right next to the Optical Department.”
“Huh?” I thought. Felt like I was talking to a robot.
I set out in search of the elusive Rest Rooms; turned right at the mysterious places indicated, and WOOPS! There’s the Optical Department.
Later follow-up today at Strong; back to Radiology.
Third visit to the dreaded parking-garage.
Exit Green Elevators in Strong Hospital, and look around.
“I recognize that ramp.” Off we go toward it. —Right decision, of course.
Back to parking-garage afterward; off at Third Floor, up the ramp, and cross over to the next ramp up on the outside of the building.
No idea where I parked, or inside or out.
We cut across, and HELLO! There it is! Right in front of us!
No GPS, no horn-trigger, no Google-maps, nuthin’.
“Get outta here with them directions! I don’t need no directions.”
The Keed always knows where he’s a-goin’.

• “The Keed” is of course me; “BobbaLew.”
• “We” is me and my wife of almost 42 years — it was her appointment.
• “Strong Hospital” is a large hospital in the south of Rochester.
• “I-390” is Interstate-390, the main expressway into Rochester from the south. —We travel I-390 to get to Strong Hospital.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service. Never knew the streets I was on, but knew the route. —Driving bus was challenging; people were always cutting you off.
• A “Glowering Intimidator” is a tailgater, named after Dale Earnhardt, deceased, the so-called “intimidator” of NASCAR fame, who used to tailgate race-leaders and bump them at speed until they let him pass.
• “Eastview” is a large shopping-mall southeast of Rochester.

Journey of a Lifetime

The Queen Mary in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

A little over 22 years ago, we took one of those journeys you remember for the rest of your entire life.
We set up our giant ‘79 Ford E250 van for camping and headed west.
The E250 was a giant leap from tradition. I was used to buying smallish and economical cars.
But fellow bus-drivers at Regional Transit Service suggested I try a van to replace our rusted VW Dasher station-wagon, which was only running on three cylinders (out of four).
So I started looking for a van.
Tried quite a few, but a bus-driver suggested Ford made the best van.
One afternoon I was headed out past Webster to look at a van in the SwapSheet.
Didn’t find it, but noticed a dark orange van in the used-car lot of a Chevy dealer.
Stopped and tried it, and promptly crippled. Dead battery.
Bought it anyway. —Not some boudoir with winking spider-webs on the ceiling. But finished inside; not an unfinished cargo van. (I had tried both.)
It was a custom van of sorts. Windows had been cut into the sides.
We called it the “Queen Mary” because parking it at Weggers needed two moves. —Turn toward the slot, back up, and then go in.
It was like a ship.
I was thinking it was the Small-Block, but it was the giant 460. Pistons the size of paint cans!
No matter; what a cruiser.
A vehicle designed for the Eisenhower Interstate System. Set the krooze at 65, and turn on the air-conditioning, which was both front and back.
We had Cole Muffler install a trailer-hitch, and aimed for my baby-sister in Lynchburg, VA with two motorbikes on the trailer.
It overheated.
It was beastly hot outside, but it didn’t boil over.
Just ran hot.
The following year I took out the giant radiator and had BJR Radiator recore it, three-row to four.
Replaced all the coolant hoses; that thing wasn’t boiling over if I could help it.
Also replaced the thermostat.
The E250 is something Old Henry would be proud to have his name on.
The front suspension had long gorgeous forged swingarms, the sort of thing you’d find on a Model T.
But 10 mpg the whole time I had it. That’s 30 gallons every 300 miles. SHLURP! (Two tanks; 40 gallons total — a potential fireball.)
I also did a few other things to it. Bought new steel 16.5-inch wheelrims from Frey the Wheelman, and mounted four Michelin snows.
I also mounted four new Koni® shock-absorbers — did it myself.


Grand Tetons at 4 p.m.

Ready-to-roll; ready to head west — to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons and Pikes Peak.
No scenic routes this time; I’d made a cross-country in 1980, that was dreadfully boring because the scenic routes were just like here until you got to Kansas.
And in Kansas we took the old Santa Fe Trail; back-and-forth: first due west, then due south, then repeat.
I wasn’t doing that this time. Just onto the Thruway and Interstate-90 from then on.
All the way to Montana.
First night we camped out in a giant RV park in Indiana; cheek-to-jowel with other RVs, most long-time stayers.
Next night Wisconsin in a thunderstorm.
Next night was over 100 degrees hard by the Missouri River in an open field.
We had screens in the open windows, so they kept the ‘skeeters out.
And on-and-on it went, gobbling up gas and miles.
Planned to use a motel eventually, but the E250 was preferable, so we camped out in it every night.
It was turning into a mind-boggling adventure.
On to Mt. Rushmore. 110 degrees, uphill all the way, but no trouble at all, even with the air on full-blast.
The Queen Mary just flattened it.
It felt like the E250 was good for Californy, but we turned south in Montana toward Yellowstone.


Weird things are going on in Yellowstone.

Can’t remember if the Tetons are north or south of Yellowstone (they’re south), but we camped that night in the only campground with vacancy we could find, south of the Tetons.
Woke up the next morning, and there they were.
Grand Tetons at dawn.
38 degrees in July, but I ain’t missin’ this.
Every American, by law, should be required to see the Grand Tetons at dawn.
I will never forget it as long as I live.
Then east across Wyoming. I remember three things:
—1) Coming out of a supermarket in Jackson Hole I faced a sheer mountainside. “Ya don’t see stuff like this at Weggers,” I observed.
—2) We pulled into a lonely gas-station out in the middle of nowhere, and I swear the people inside cheered. Bingo! A 40-gallon sale.
—3) That night we camped out in Curt Gowdy State Park. No facilities whatsoever. No phone, no electricity, no water, no check-in booth; NOTHING!
Cellphones were nonexistent then.
Yet time to change the oil and filter.
My wife was trembling with fear. NO MISTAKES! Here we are out in the middle of nowhere — it’s not even on the geodesic maps. What if I mucked up?
Nothing to it! The drain-plug for that gigundo sump was a soldered-on repair, but I’d done it before.
A slam-dunk! The waste-oil got put in two Weggers milk jugs, and went all the way back to Rochester.
Off to Devil’s Tower.
Anyone who’s seen the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” visits Devil’s Tower.
We drove around it. No landing pad for alien spaceships.
Just huge infestations of prairie-dogs.
Then south into Colorado, down past Denver, and west on I-70.
Up and up the Front Range, finally through the Eisenhower Tunnels at the top, 11,158 feet above sea-level.
Then down and down we went, south off I-70 toward Leadville, finally to camp out in a broad fertile valley above 7,000 feet.
Another 38 degree night.
I think it was the valley of the Arkansas River, although at that point the river was little more than a rocky creek-wash about 15-20 feet wide.
Down to Ouray in the mountains toward Silverton, and up the Million-Dollar Highway at the end. (“Million-Dollar” because the pavement is flecked with gold.)
Ouray is in a deep mountain cul-de-sac. The only way out south is hairpin up the mountain.
There’s Ouray far below; an alpine view.
Finally back east, after camping in an abandoned open-pit coal mine near Durango.
But first the Royal Gorge Suspension Bridge.
The Royal Gorge Suspension Bridge was built in 1929 over the Royal Gorge in southern Colorado, a HUGE narrow cleft (gorge) through the mountains wherein the Arkansas River flows.
The bridge is an incredible 1,053 feet above the river.
The Piper Tri-Pacer I flew in 1956 cruized at about that altitude. The Denver & Rio Grande built it’s railroad west through the Rockies up through Royal Gorge, so as we walked out on the bridge, a freight-train was threading it far below.
The cars were tiny!
The bridge is only one lane wide, with a deck of wooden planks — but probably wide enough to pass two Model Ts.
The largest vehicle allowed on it was our van; no RVs, no camper trailers, no camper pickups.
I remember as we started out across it, a wave in the planks proceeded us, and bounced off the other side back at us.
It’s a suspension-bridge; and unlike anything I’d ever seen before. What I’d seen is BIG; big enough to not be effected by vehicle weight.
The Royal Gorge Suspension Bridge is small. Yet at 1,053 feet is probably the highest. The New River Gorge bridge in WV is 876 feet above the river. The suspension bridges I’ve been on were over rivers navigable by ocean-going ships; around 135+ feet of clearance. —And wide enough for seven-or-more traffic lanes. Also stable enough to not be effected by vehicle-weight.
That night we camped out in a rustic campground near Cañon City.
I remember two things:
—A) I stepped outside into the pitch-dark, and overhead were “billions and billions” of stars; more than I’d ever seen before.
—B) Outside I could also hear the nocturnal yips of coyotes.
Then it was up past Pikes Peak, but no mistake this time.
Last trip we drove past it, but this time we’re drivin’ up.
And here we go again: “every American, by law,” should be required to drive the Pikes Peak road.
Although I hear by now it’s paved.
When I drove it, it was dirt.
And there were no guardrails, which meant NO MISTAKES. A thousand foot drop awaited if you mucked up.
At the top I sang “America the Beautiful.” After all, that’s where that song was written, by Katharine Lee Bates, published in 1895. —First as a poem, but later orchestrated.
And you can see why: “Amber waves of grain” to the east, and “Purple mountain majesties” to the west.
8.5 mpg up-and-back; but mostly in mid gear.


First vehicle in.

The E250 lasted a few more years after that trip.
It moved most of our stuff out to West Bloomfield to our new house, and was our first vehicle in our new driveway.
But it became unreliable.
If the engine was hot, it wouldn’t crank. Too much compression.
It had to cool.
Finally the floor rusted out around the rear wheel-wells, so that slush was getting inside.
Rust also appeared under the custom windows. The window cut-outs were probably cut with a Sawz-All.
Finally, I parked it. It’s gigantic C6 auto-tranny left a puddle of ATF on our driveway.
We donated it to charity, and I have a hunch its motor is powering another truck.
But I really liked that monster despite the 10 mpg.
So much of me was in it — I also rebuilt its four-barrel carburetor on my kitchen countertop.
And it also gave me an unforgettable journey.
I’ve had a van ever since. First a 1993 Chevrolet Astrovan, and more recently a 2005 Toyota Sienna.
In other words, more minivans than the Queen Mary.
Although the Astrovan is more a truck — just small.

• All photos by the so-called “old guy” with the Pentax Spotmatic camera. (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 single-lens-reflex 35mm film camera I used about 40 years, since replaced by a Nikon D100 digital camera.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY.
• “Webster” is a suburb east of Rochester; actually an old rural farm town.
• The Ford “Small-Block” (a V8) was about 5-6 liters engine displacement; the giant 460 was 460 cubic-inches displacement, over 7.5 liters. (The Ford “Small-Block” was a response to the phenomonaly successful Chevrolet “Small-Block” introduced in the 1955 model year. —Chevrolet introduced the unrelated “Big Block” in the 1965 model year. The 460 was Ford’s “Big Block.” Such large engines were gas-guzzlers.)
• “Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at.
• A “Tri-Pacer” was Piper Aircraft’s high-winged tricycle landing-gear small private airplane marketed in the ‘50s; a four-seater. —Some are still flying.
• “Billions and billions of stars” is Astronomer Carl Sagan.
• “Auto-tranny” is automatic transmission. “ATF” is automatic transmission fluid, a hydraulic fluid.