Argh!

Fire up good old Facebook the other night (Sunday, November 29, 2009).
WOOPS! Forgot to fly the day’s blog-post note.
No problem! I have it saved.
Just copy/paste onto Facebook, and there it is.
Those familiar with Facebook know it has a blue navigation bar on top. It has a “home” link to the left, and another link of your name to the right.
Click “home” link, I don’t know exactly what this is, but I have it toggled to “News Feed.”
I see Allison (Cooper) has flown her MPN blog about Ollie on her page.
“Get another cat,” I comment.
Notice something else, and switch to that.
Refresh “home.”
Wait a minute! There’s Allison, but where’s my comment? Still in a word-processor document, so post it again.
Refresh again. I see my brother in Delaware has just posted a comment regarding a picture posted by his wife.
Where’s Allison? No Ollie blog at all.
“View older posts.”
Still no Allison.
What I see is posts from days ago, but no Allison.
For crying out loud!
I go to Allison’s page.
There’s the Ollie blog-link, and my comment double-posted.
Facebook madness! (Whew!)
I delete one of the double-posts, and click back to “home.”
Still no Allison.
I toggle over to “live feed,” and there’s Allison, with my comment posted only once.
“I never know what is going on here,” I say.
My wife comes in. “I never do much with Facebook,” she says.
“I guess the difference in ‘live feed’ and ‘news feed’ is just the order stuff is in, but I don’t know.”
“I’ve stopped trying to figure out Facebook,” a Facebook friend in Virginia says,
“I guess I’ll pull the plug,” I say, exasperated. “Before it locks my computer.”
(It has.)

• “Allison Cooper” is an editor at Messenger-Post Newspapers, where I once worked. Messenger-Post Newspapers (“MPN”) has blogs on its web-site, and Allison is a blogger there. So am I. (“Ollie” was her cat; hit by a car and killed.)

Da Cronies

During my freshman year, ‘62-‘63, at nearby Houghton College, I fell in with a pack a’ ne’er-do-wells known as “Da Cronies.”
I probably generated the name myself.
It was comprised of most of the vaunted “Summer-School Gang,” and a few others.
The “Summer-School Gang” were all those who had to attend college summer-school to gain acceptance.
Failing that, you became cannon-fodder for ‘Nam.
I was Summer-School Gang and made it.
Houghton was at that time strictly fundamentalist; I don’t know about now.
Back then girls couldn’t even wear sleeveless dresses, and shorts were utterly beyond the pale.
Our goal was to overtake the college, and perhaps loosen it some.
All the freshman boys were in the same dormitory: Shenawana (“Shen-uh-WAA-nuh;” as in “wand” and “then”).
After your freshman year, the boys moved into private housing.
Most houses in town had way more rooms than a family needed. So the extra rooms were rented to men students.
Girls from all classes roomed in dormitories, although a few didn’t.
Most of the residents of the town were employees of the college, so in essence it was a college room in a private home.
With the Freshman boys all in the same dorm, it was easy to keep “Da Cronies” alive.
We’d gather furtively in the room of a fellow ne’er-do-well, and swap strategy.
We didn’t get very far.
Our efforts prompted fear-and-loathing among fellow students, that an evil cabal of Devil-worshipers was trying to take over.
“Da Cronies” quickly fell apart.
Pursuing a college education was more important.
“Da Cronies” lasted maybe 3-4 months, and by Sophomore year, when we all moved out into private homes, it was dead.

• “Houghton College,” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.
• “‘Nam” is of course Vietnam.
• “Fundamentalist” is to be strictly religious, particularly relevant to social mores — i.e. if it’s fun, it’s sin.

Kaput!

Sic transit gloria.

My most recent issue of Cycle World, January 2010, reports that Buell Motorcycles (“BULE;” as in “mule) is kaput.
This is a shame. Buell Motorcycles is the only other American motorcycle manufacturer beside Harley Davidson, although by now a wholly-owned subsidiary.
It was named after its founder and head-honcho, ex Harley engineer Eric Buell.
Buell fielded a motorcycle of his own design in 1983, a square-four two-stroke.
He then fielded a crotchrocket in 1987 with a Harley Davidson Sportster engine.
Harley bought 49% of the stock in 1993 and took control, and made Buell a wholly-owned subsidiary in 2003.
40-50 years ago the Harley Sportster engine was la-crem-de-la-crem.
But sadly engine development has passed it by.
The Japanese are fielding motorcycle engines with as much horsepower at half the displacement.
Harley stuck to tradition, and built motorcycles that appealed to those into the macho Harley schtick.
Appeal to the Hells Angels wannabees; and “loud pipes save lives!”
BLAMA-BLAMA-BLAMA-BLAMA! and BRRRAAAPPPPPPP-uh!
“The look” was more important than function. Try to control a motorcycle with “ape-hanger” handlebars.
And a front fork so extended ya can’t negotiate your driveway.
Buell fielded some great ideas:
—1) Primary was slinging the muffler under the engine, between the wheels, instead of alongside the rear wheel.
Doing so increases lean clearance — you’re not scraping the muffler.
—2) was using the twin frame spars as a gas tank. A sport motorcycle needs two huge frame spars to connect the steering-head to the rear swingarm pivot.
Put a gas tank in its usual place, in front of the rider, and the spars crowd it.
—3) Buell also used the rear swingarm assembly as an oil tank.
—4) Another great idea was putting the brake-disc out at the tire-rim.
Such a large disc can generate incredible stopping power, so ya only need one.
But regrettably Buell kept using the Sportster engine (although the new 1125R had a non-Harley engine). He was in no position to develop a crotchrocket engine of his own.
I’ve only seen one Buell up-close-and-personal.
I was on my way to Horseshoe Curve, and had stopped in Williamsport, PA.
A Buell was parked in the lot of an adjacent hardware; and the rider came out and fired it up.
It had an edginess to it — more so than a Harley.

• I ride a motorcycle myself — a 2003 600cc Honda CBR-RR.
• A “square-four” is a four-cylinder motorcycle with two crankshafts; two cylinders per each. A “two-stroke” is an engine that delivers a power stroke with each down-stroke. Ya hardly see two-strokes any more, since they grossly pollute. Oil has to mixed with the gasoline, and is burned with it. The gasoline-charged intake air is cycled through the crankcase, to pump it into the cylinder. And that crankcase needs oil. —Most gasoline engines nowadays are four-stroke; every other downstroke is a power stroke. Gasoline-charged intake air is sucked in past open poppet-valves — independent of the crankcase. Operation can be more precise, and meet pollution requirements. (Poppet-valves are round valves popped open mechanically.)
• A “crotchrocket” is the nickname for a sport-bike. Such a motorcycle is capable of being ridden extremely fast. (My CBR-RR is a “crotchrocket;” but I don’t ride it that way.)
• The “Harley Sportster engine” is the smaller Harley Davidson engine; V-twin (two cylinders in a Vee). Harley also makes a bigger V-twin used in its road motorcycles.
• “Ape-hanger handlebars” rise 3-4 feet above the steering-head, so ya look like an ape hanging on.
• RE: “Front fork so extended......” —Part of “the look” is to severely extend the front fork-tubes that mount the front wheel. Along with this, the steering-head is also “raked” (cranked into a much more horizontal angle), such that the two modifications extend the wheelbase so much, ya hardly can steer it.
• Horseshoe Curve (the “mighty Curve”), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains 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. —I’ve been there hundreds of times, since it’s only about five hours away.)

“I was expecting a thousand smackaroos!”

Last Tuesday (November 24, 2009) we had a plumber come, Miller Plumbing in Rush.
He arrived while I was still at Boughton Park walking my dog.
“That’s Habecker (“HAH-becker”) across the street,” he said to my wife. “I’ve worked for them.”
“Well they’re both dead,” my wife said. “Their son Billy lives there now.”
“Yeah, I did some work for him,” the plumber said. “I’ve also worked at that house next door. Their septic is marginal.”
“Well ours works just fine,” my wife said.
We had a slew of tiny projects, all of which I could have pursued myself. But if I had, they might not get tended to for years.
Primary were three sink traps, all of which were leaking.
They were in two bathrooms and the garage, a utility sink.
All were original to the house — about 20 years old.
All had to be replaced. All were corroded, and had broken fittings.
Next was our master bathroom toilet, which plugged occasionally.
He determined it wasn’t flushing much, so treated the jets with acid.
He also rebuilt the filling mechanism, and installed a new check-valve.
Next was the master bathroom shower-stall, which didn’t move much water.
A second restrictor was removed from the showerhead — I had removed the first, and wasn’t aware of the second.
“I see you have a tankless water-heater,” he crowed. “I bet that’s the problem.”
A tankless water-heater is just that. It heats the water as it flows through it, not water in a storage tank.
“I wouldn’t install one a’ them things if my life depended on it!” he bellowed.
“Whoa-whoa-whoa,” I thought to myself. “That thing beats the livin’ daylights outta me with scalding hot water in the other shower.”
“Are you listening?” my wife said under her breath. “That master bathroom shower had that problem before that tankless was installed.”
My guess is the master bathroom shower flows better because that restrictor was removed.
Finally was an adapter for our central vacuum unit in the basement.
It’s a plumbing job; removal of the old fitting, and gluing the adapter into the system’s PVC pipe.
“Ya gotta do it right,” he said. “About 20 seconds after ya glue the thing, the glue sets up.”
“That adapter is an admission by the manufacturer they designed the unit wrong,” my wife said.
The way it was, ya just slipped the bag inside the unit. Replacing the bag meant dust everywhere. (My wife abhors dust; although I too thought it silly.)
Same thing with bagless vacuum cleaners. 89 bazilyun HEPA filters to keep dust from escaping the vacuum cleaner, yet empty the sucker and ya got dust everywhere.
Projects completed, it was tally up time.
“Check or Visa? I can do both. $472.63.”
“Holy mackerel,” I cried. “I was expecting a thousand smackaroos!”
“I can always add more,” he said.

• “Boughton (‘BOW-tin’ as in ‘wow’) Park” is the town park nearby where I run and we walk our dog.
• Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s four, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up.)
• My wife of almost 42 years is “Linda.”
• “HEPA” (“high efficiency particulate air”) filters remove at least 99.97 percent of airborne particles 0.3 micrometers in diameter.

Degraded Youth of America

The other day (Wednesday, November 25, 2009; the day before Thanksgiving) I went to the Canandaigua YMCA to work out in their Exercise Gym (“Wellness Center”).
It’s part of my ongoing feeble effort to keep this 65-year-old bag-a’-bones alive.
And also to keep my blood-pressure down without medication.
About four years ago I retired from the mighty Mezz at almost age 62 because of “episodes.”
My doctors called them dizzy-spells, but I’m not sure that’s exactly what they were.
It felt like my heart had stopped, allowing blood to drain from my head.
My father used to have that; his heart would stop, and he’d keel over.
He finally had to have a pacemaker installed.
After numerous tests, including an all-night heart monitor, a neurologist in Canandaigua named Scott suggested it was probably a side-effect of the blood-pressure medication I was taking, a calcium blocker.
So I stopped taking it. No more “episodes” since then.
He also prescribed physical-therapy at Lake Country Physical Therapy.
The good people there suggested the best thing I could do was get back in shape.
Made sense to me. I was in pretty good shape before my stroke (I used to run footraces), but since then I deteriorated. I still could run, but much slower, and my weight ballooned.
So I started working out there; mainly their treadmill, a step-machine, and a recumbent bicycle trainer. —Lost about 25 pounds.
This lasted about a year, but then I happened to blog a local politician treated there.
The Physical Therapists went justifiably ballistic. I had inadvertently revealed one of their clients, violating a cardinal rule of medical ethics.
I was kicked out, but wanted to keep working out.
So my wife and I visited the Canandaigua YMCA.
They had an Exercise Gym loaded with cardiovascular trainers, all much newer than the Physical Therapy.
We joined, and have been members since.
Since then that Exercise Gym has been remodeled, expanded, and many new machines installed.
The YMCA itself renovated, doubling in size.
Its old swimming-pool was closed, and a new one built.
I try to work out at least twice a week; often three times. Current workouts burn at least 900 calories.
The renovation included a new parking-lot to the southwest; but I can’t get to it easily from the west on West Ave. with the bridge over Sucker Brook out.
So I park in the old parking-lot, the tiny lot the YMCA originally had.
I access it from Greig (“Gregg”) Terrace, as I did before the renovation. The old parking-lot is right adjacent to Greig Terrace.
The old and new parking-lots, at different levels, are connected by a long downhill driveway.
I have to go down that to get to the YMCA’s front entrance.
In so doing I passed a group of teenaged boys atop the driveway with skateboards, etc.
I was being followed by a YMCA janitor carrying a fiberglass extension ladder.
“Move along, fellas. This isn’t a skatepark,” he said behind me.
Suddenly a lady appeared far away, a YMCA receptionist, shouting “You boys have to move along, or we’re calling the Police. —Oh John, I didn’t see you up there........”

Fond memories of my time as a teenager, in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, when a stodgy old deacon of the church I attended told me I and my kind were “degraded.”
His name was Middleswart (“Middle-zwart.”)
I promptly opened the founding chapter of the Degraded Youth of America (DYA).
Sadly, we never got out of northern Delaware — never had more than five members.
Like those malcontents in the YMCA driveway, we were attracted to the force of gravity.
Gravity could be harnessed to provide ultimate thrills and spills.
In our case it was sledding. And I soon discovered I possessed the fastest sled in the entire known universe; the incomparable “Flexible-Flyer.”
It was actually my father’s; about 30 years old. And broken so many times it was way more flexible than intended.
Its siderails had been broken, but they were long breaks, and could be tied back together with circling string.
NOTHING would beat the Flexible-Flyer — not even close.
A fellow-traveler from the DYA went out and bought a brand-new sled, but he got royally skonked.
He thereafter waxed the runners, but still got skonked.
Another gravitational attraction was roller-coasters.
Every summer our church held a picnic at a nearby amusement park. It had a wooden roller-coaster about the size of SeaBreeze’s JackRabbit.
My ne’er-do-well friend would stay seated as the coaster ratcheted up the first hill, and then stand up as it went over the top.
I guess the object was to stay standing the whole ride, but I don’t think he ever made it.
That thing slammed ya around so much in the curves, he’d sit back down.
The Flexible-Flyer was finally destroyed beyond repair when I landed sideways after a jump.
I suppose those youths left the YMCA, because there were no police-cruisers with sirens and flashing lights.

• “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.)
• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost four years ago. Best job I ever had.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993. It was caused by a patent foramen ovale (“PAY-tint four-AYE-min oh-VAL-lee”), a heart-defect wherein an open passageway between the top two chambers of your heart never closes after birth. I never knew about this, and it passed a clot that caused the stroke. This is the same heart-defect that caused the stroke of New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi (“BREW-skee”).
• “Sucker Brook,” a small brook, threads Canandaigua, and is frequently bridged. “West Ave.” comes into Canandaigua from the west, and crosses Sucker Brook. That bridge is being replaced, so West Ave. is closed.
• Before my moving up to this area (late 1966), my family lived in “northern Delaware.”
• “SeaBreeze is a small amusement park, very old, northeast of Rochester, near Lake Ontario. It has a wooden roller-coaster called “The JackRabbit.”

We’ll See What Happens

Another union-meeting drifts into the filmy past.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. While there I belonged to the local division (“Local 282”) of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union. Our local holds a regular business meeting the third Thursday of each month.
Bylaw changes were at issue. It generated large attendence — about 50 instead of 10.
Our union is not in compliance with the International constitution. It has two full-time union officials; a president and a business-agent.
The International constitution combines president and business-agent into one full-time union official.
To make this change our local union membership has to approve a bylaw change.
Also at issue is the number of people on our union’s Executive Board. We currently have 12. The suggestion is eight. Another bylaw change.
Lots of noisy fulminating and breast-beating.
I don’t know why I attend these meetings......
I can’t vote.
And it seems Transit is no longer what it was when I worked there; so my attendence is rather irrelevant.
About all I’m doing by showing up is demonstrating support for my union.
As a Transit retiree, about all that matters is that -A) my retiree benefits continue, and -B) my pension increase with the cost-of-living. It can; it’s negotiable — it’s not fixed.
The madness that Transit has become is no longer something I parry.
It was bad enough when I worked there, and has gotten worse.
At this meeting I spent more time reading a railroad book than following what was happening.
People were foaming about how -A) reducing officialdom would negate checks and balances, yet -B) with two union officials nothing ever gets done.
One “brother” complained reduction of officialdom and the Executive Board was just a blatant power-grab.
Another, an Executive Board member, complained that reducing the Executive Board was reversing their getting representation on it — which was a struggle.
Bylaw changes need a two-thirds majority to pass; 38 for versus 30 against. —They didn’t pass.
By not passing, our union is subject to discipline from the International, I guess.
The International might “trustee” our union and take over.
An International official had been around for a while, and advocated the bylaw change.
But it crashed.
Now we’ll see what happens.

• RE: “Reading a railroad book......” —I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child.

Hot-te-Tott!

Our previous dog serenades some robins. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Yet another bunny-rabbit meets its demise in the jaws of canine death.
We figure this is her fourth bunny-rabbit, or maybe her fifth — we’ve lost count — and we’ve only had her a year-and-a-half.
Our immediate back yard is surrounded by five-foot cyclone fence, to keep the dog from disappearing into the wilderness.
We had one dog, our so-called Houdini dog, who could climb that fence, and one day ran away during a thunderstorm, and disappeared.
We never saw her again.
If a bunny-rabbit gets in that fence, and we let the dog out, that bunny-rabbit is dead meat.
The bunny-rabbits occasionally escape, but usually not. If trapped, they get zapped by our blood-thirsty carnivore.
We could try to discourage her, but why bother?
She’s an Irish Setter. It seems endemic to the breed.
Nearly every Irish Setter we’ve had (this is our sixth) was a hunter.
One wasn’t. She was pretty laid back, but caught a robin once, and used to hunt frogs.
Every filthy quagmire was a hunting-ground. She almost got swallowed by one once.
Our first dog, in the ‘70s, dispatched at least 30 squirrels, despite getting hit by a car, which made her lame.
She learned how to sneak up on ‘em.
The dog we had before this one (pictured above) nabbed a chipmunk despite lymphomic cancer, which eventually took his life.
One dog actually ate the rabbit she’d caught. All that was left were a few tufts of rabbit fur, and a dog plump and satisfied.
My wife got up at 2 a.m. this morning (Thursday, November 19, 2009) to let our dog out.
She thereafter went into our bathroom.
Back onto the porch to let the dog back in, and there’s the dog prancing merrily around the back yard with that rabbit in its mouth, pleased as punch; “Hot-te-Tott. Hot-te-Tott. I got it, and you do not!”
I got up myself, and our garage lights were on, a back-door light was on, and all the back yard floods were lit.
Our back yard looked like an apron at Rochester International Airport.
There’s my wife out in her bathrobe trying to get that rabbit.
She succeeded. I knew because our dog was back inside the house.
But I had a frenzied, dashing monster on my hands, yipping and yowling.
“She’s got my rabbit, Boss. She’s lobbing it into the trash.”
That’s two critters in about 12 hours.
She caught a mole earlier.
I took her to Boughton Park this morning.
Hang on for dear life! A squirrel!

• “We” is me and my wife of almost 42 years.
• Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s four, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up.)
• “Boughton (‘BOW-tin’ as in ‘wow’) Park” is where I run and we walk our dog.

Gotcha!

As I’ve gotten older (I’m 65), I’ve sworn off some of the maintenance things I used to do; e.g. change the oil on our cars.
Not that I don’t think I still could — I even have a pit designed into our garage.
But our Honda CR-V is troublesome.
Removal of its oil-filter is a guaranteed hand-gash.
Ontario Honda, where we bought it, gives a free oil-change as long as we own the car, so let them do it.
So I was still changing the oil/filter on our Toyota Sienna.
Our pit made it fairly easy.
But LeBrun Toyota, where we bought it, does an oil-change as part of its scheduled maintenance.
It’s not free, but doesn’t cost that much.
So I let them do it.
Last summer my friend Art Dana, like me a retired bus driver from Regional Transit Service, needed to change out the steering box on his hot-rodded ‘49 Ford sedan.

Photo by my wife.

Art’s ‘49 Ford hot-rod. (That’s Art at right.)

Art has fairly severe Parkinson’s, but “You got a pit, BobbaLew.”
Over my pit it went, and we set about tearing out the steering box.
Or attempting to tear it out.
It couldn’t be removed unless a floor panel we didn’t know about was removed.
A friend of Art, who had a similar car, removed it in a jiffy.
“I can still do it,” I said. Overweight and creaky, it involved wiggling around on the floor in front of the front seat to remove a U-bolt that held the steering column to the dashboard.
It also involved pit diving, and getting liberally slathered with grunge.
I wanted to keep trying the next day, but both Art and I were too tired.
“We’re not young any more,” I said to Art.
Yesterday (Tuesday, November 17, 2009) I set about testing the charging on our fabulous zero-turn lawnmower.
I still have my ancient charging-system tester from the ‘70s. It measures amperage to the battery.
I’ve been having to trickle-charge that mower all summer long. It wasn’t self-charging; it was running off the battery.
After a while, it wouldn’t crank.
“Sounds like your regulator is kaput,” said Dan at Leif’s Sales and Service, where I bought the mower.
“They often fail,” he said.
My connections were terrible, essentially fiddled paper-clips.
My first test was backwards. The reading was slight, but negative.
Reverse connections; a slight positive reading.
“I can still do it, I guess,” I said to myself.
I patronize Leif’s today to get a new regulator — it’s solid-state.
The whole joy of these pursuits is “gotcha!”

• The “Honda CR-V” is our 2003 Honda CR-V SUV. The “Toyota Sienna” is our 2005 Toyota Sienna van.
• Both “Ontario Honda” and “LeBrun Toyota” are near Canandaigua. “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.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY.
• Our “zero-turn” is our 48-inch Husqvarna riding-mower; “zero-turn” because it’s a special design with separate drives to each drive-wheel, so it can be spun on a dime. “Zero-turns” are becoming the norm, because they cut mowing time in half compared to a lawn-tractor, which has to be set up for each mowing-pass.
• “Leif’s Sales and Service” is a small garden-tractor shop nearby.

The seed was planted

This morning’s (Monday, November 16, 2009) Composer’s Datebook on WXXI, the classical-music radio station in Rochester we listen to, celebrated a concert given in 1900 in Philadelphia.
It prompted the Philadelphia Orchestra, a symphony orchestra comparable to anything in New York City or Boston.
It was probably the Philadelphia Orchestra that began my life-long love of classical music, they and my piano-teacher Mrs. Dager (“DAY-grrr”).
Mrs. Dager was a scion of local society, and also my church organist. She also directed my church’s choir, which I belonged to as a child.
She wanted me to become a Billy Graham pianist with sweeping piano glitz and glorious chords. But I was more attracted to Jerry Lee Lewis.
The Philadelphia Orchestra was giving Children’s Concerts, and Mrs. Dager arranged for my sister and I to attend.
We had front-row seats. It probably wasn’t Ormandy, but it was the Philadelphia Orchestra.
They played Finlandia, The New World Symphony, and probably “Waltz of the Flowers” from Nutcracker. (I remember the harp.)
The seed was planted.
The resonant horn-blasts of Finlandia were in my head for years — even riding bicycle on the wooded paths of Camden County Park.
I got so I could follow 1812 Overture.
My high-school band-director had it on a Mercury LP — unabridged.
And then I happened to attend nearby Houghton College.
I found a hotbed of classical music, especially Bach.
They had a fabulous pipe-organ, 3,153 pipes, and essentially a baroque organ.
I visited the campus two years ago, and told them if they let that organ deteriorate, they weren’t getting another red cent.
After college was Karl Haas’ “Adventures in Good Music;” a syndicated educational classical music program on WXXI.
WXXI always trumpets its own Simon Pontin (“PAHN-tin”) and recently deceased Richard Gladwell, but I’d say it was mainly Karl Haas.
Thanks to him were Stravinsky, Copeland, and Gershwin.
Even Mozart, who I usually abhorred.
So now WXXI is celebrating 35 years on the air.
They’re asking for suggestions for 35 classical hits.
The Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony. I still recognized it after my stroke.

• “Camden County,” across from Philadelphia, is the county wherein Camden resides in south Jersey. I lived near “Camden County Park” as a child.
• “Houghton College,” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college. (We live in Western New York.)
• WXXI had two venerable classical-music hosts, Simon Pontin and Richard Gladwell. Gladwell died recently, and Pontin retired. Both were English expatriates.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

Employee-of-the-month

Yesterday (Friday, November 13, 2009) I cashed out at the Canandaigua Weggers, while a young girl was celebrated as the employee-of-the-month.
She pumped her fist embarrassedly as people cheered.
Well, I’m glad she received the recognition, but as a fellow employee at a bank-branch kept saying long ago, when her boss congratulated her: “How about a raise?”
And “Oh boss; do I get a gold star?”
For 16&1/2 years I drove bus for Regional Transit Service, and during that time I became one of their favorite employees, all because I showed up on time, never was sick, and was little trouble to management.
Yet I was receiving the same wage as the inveterate scumbags.
A friend recently commented about a proposed dress-down day to improve morale where he worked.
“This is how it works,” he said to his bosses.
“I work, you pay me. And I ain’t wearin’ no silly hat, nor Hawaiian shirt.”

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

Photoshop alert

Behold! The winner of the 2009 Irish Setter Rescue calendar.
“Gee, what a great picture! Tasha exploding into a sunset field full of birds fleeing.”
Um, I hate to burst your bubble, guys; but I detect Photoshop® dickering.
Clip Tasha out of a picture of her exploding into a backyard, and paste into dramatic birds-fleeing-at-sunset picture.
Easy as pie! —I’ve done it myself.
Clipped my macho brother-from-Boston off his Harley and pasted him onto a merry-go-round horse backwards, because he noisily insisted merry-go-rounds rotate clockwise (viewed from above).
“I got this fabulous shot of 89 bazilyun birds fleeing a sunset field. I’ll just paste Tasha on it.”
Two things give this away.
—1) The difference in lighting. Tasha is lighted one way, and the sunset another.
Perhaps some artificial light — a flash — was used on Tasha, but it doesn’t look like flash.
It looks like ambient cloud daylight; hardly a flash or a sunset.
—2) No camera will focus a background and a foreground razor-sharp.
-The birds are at infinity, and are razor-sharp.
-Yet Tasha is quite sharp in the very close foreground.
The camera has auto-focused Tasha exploding out a back door.
I’ve submitted photos to this contest myself, but not Photoshopped.
I have a feeling the calendar judges aren’t aware of the wonders of Photoshop.

• A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter dog rescued from bad home; e.g. a puppy-mill. Our current dog is a rescue Irish Setter, our third. —By getting a full-grown rescue dog, we avoid puppydom; but the dog is often messed up. Our current dog is our sixth Irish Setter.

Firestorm

Recently a good friend of mine, who works at the Messenger, L. David Wheeler, the editor of the newspaper’s Steppin’ Out magazine, initiated a minor firestorm of sorts, ranting on his Facebook page about misuse of “affect” and “effect.”
“‘Effect is the noun, ‘affect’ is the verb,” he said.
“Doesn’t matter,” said someone. “If you can understand what people mean, correct spelling and grammar don’t matter.”
This is the same response as my blowhard brother-in-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say.
He can’t spell.
He’s a tub-thumping Limbaugh Conservative, so I quickly made a comment about the Grammar Police being tub-thumping Conservatives.
David, quite rightly, pointed out that it isn’t always Conservatives that go ballistic.
But that the so-called “Grammar Police” are “self-righteous” and “superior.”
He also responded that he was an editor, and was paid to use the language properly.
He also commented misuse of the language fuzzes it.
I heartily agree.
I think it’s because we’re both graduates of Houghton College, a liberal-arts college (dread).
The previous Executive Editor of the Messenger, Robert Matson, was too.
We’re fighting a losing battle, or so it seems. —Trying to make communication precise.
It mattered at Houghton.
I was never that sure on grammar; I relied on David. He knew all that stuff.
But I could use a spellcheck. I also have an online dictionary. Plus the Internet. Nothing wrong with looking things up to stave off the Grammar Police.

• The “Messenger” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost four years ago. Best job I ever had.
• “Houghton College,” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.

Eleven-eleven-eleven-eleven-eleven

Today is Veterans Day.
I moved up to Rochester in October of 1966.
I had just graduated college, and was adjudged by my draft-board to be 4F, so I wasn’t going to ‘Nam.
I had to do summer-school to graduate.
At that time -1) Xerox Tower was under construction, and -2) railroads paralleled both sides of the Genesee River into downtown Rochester.
Dinosaur Barbecue was what it was originally, the Lehigh Valley Railroad Rochester passenger station.
And Main St. was lined with shops over the river, making viewing the river impossible from Main St.
MarketPlace Mall wasn’t built yet, nor was Interstate-390. In fact, Ray Hylan operated a small airport for private planes where MarketPlace Mall eventually located.
My coming here was partly escaping a difficult childhood, but mainly it was inability to move back in with my parents.
I had just spent four years in college, pretty much on my own.
My moving was a gamble. No job, no relatives, no prospects, no discernible future.
For a few weeks I lived on savings.
But my savings were running out.
So I looked for employ, and at that time good old National Clothing Company, in downtown Rochester, was hiring Christmas help.
They hired me for their stockroom, minimum wage, which at that time was $1.60 per hour.
The stockroom lasted perhaps a day or two.
I was transferred to the store’s Tailor Shop; one of about 75 employees.
My job was mainly clerical: matching up pants and suitcoats per numbered instruction tabs.
I commanded a small desk to organize those tabs.
People would purchase a suit, and pants had to be cuffed, and/or sleeves shortened.
Often the waist had to be let out, or a suitcoat significantly altered.
For that we had professional tailors — they might get called to the sales floor to mark up alterations.
The manager of the Tailor Shop was a wiry chain-smoker named “Willie Rock.” —He seemed to think I was worth having.
Most of the tailor-shop employees were immigrants.
The place had 89 bazilyun sewing machines, and pieces of cloth everywhere.
Dust abounded.
A nice lady received everything, split it up (suitcoats, vests, and pants), and then parceled out the work.
Me and two other ladies were the exit end, putting everything back together.
We’d hang everything on a pole-rack for delivery to “will-call” on each sales floor.
National had four sales floors.
The class act was the Second Floor, where expensive men’s suits were sold.
Will-Call on that floor was manned by a dapper English expatriate named “Arnold.”
The Basement was our Budget Store, run by two grizzled veterans: Maxx and Blanche.
Occasionally we got stuff from the Basement to alter, but our main source was the Second Floor.
National had three branch stores in the suburbs, at Pittsford Plaza, Southtown Plaza, and the plaza in Greece. —That plaza later became Greece Town Mall.
That stuff was denoted by red, green, and blue tabs, but altered downtown. We moved it around by truck.
I started employ at National early in November, so was on hand November 11th.
Eleven-eleven-eleven-eleven-eleven.
All of a sudden the whole Tailor Shop went silent.
November 11th, 11:11 a.m., and 11 seconds past.
The tailors all bowed their heads.
Some started crying.
Obviously some were remembering relations they had lost, probably in WWII.
A Hungarian lady named Ludmila, who had come to America with her husband Alphonse in 1956, when the Russians overran her country, bewailed the loss of a brother.
Until then I had only a minimal comprehension of what November 11th meant to some people.

• “Xerox Tower” is the tallest skyscraper in Rochester; 30 stories. It used to be Xerox’s corporate headquarters, but that was moved to Stamford, CT.
• The “Genesee River” is a fairly large river that runs south-to-north across Western New York, runs through Rochester, including over falls, and empties into Lake Ontario.
• Dinosaur Barbecue.
• “MarketPlace Mall” is a large shopping-mall south of Rochester. “Interstate-390” is the current main south-to-north interstate into Rochester.
• “Pittsford Plaza” is a plaza near Pittsford, an old suburb of Rochester to the southeast. (It’s on the Erie Canal.) “Southtown Plaza” is a plaza south of Rochester. It was quickly overshadowed by MarketPlace Mall, which is nearby. It still exists, but without its anchor-stores, which moved to MarketPlace. “Greece” is a suburb west of Rochester.

Snaggletooth!

For years we’ve videotaped the Evening TV-News for later viewing.
The news would finish before we got around to eating supper.
This has the advantage of fast-forwarding the ads.
Lately, we’ve started eating supper before 7 p.m., which means occasionally viewing a portion of the news live, which means we can’t fast-forward the ads.
The Evening News is two segments: -1) local, from 6 to 6:30, and -2) national, from 6:30 to 7.
“Local” has local ads.
The other night we started eating during the local news.
All-of-a-sudden an Aspen Dental ad was on; an ad I’ve fast-forwarded many times.
A smiling lady was trumpeting her dentures, how life was much sweeter than when she was a child.
“They used to call me ‘Snaggletooth,’” she said.
I gagged. My broccoli ended up on the TV screen.
I’d never heard that before.
Another ad I choke on is the Cialis® ads.
“Ever wonder if there’s any water in them bathtubs?” I’d ask.

• “We” is me and my wife “Linda” of almost 42 years.
• “Aspen Dental” is a local dental-care organization.
• There is no plaque in the Dental Hall of Fame.

Kodak Gallery Calendar

Cover-pik: At the Mighty Curve.

Constant readers of this here blog, if there are any at all, know that I get seven calendars per year.
They’re not really calendars — what they are is variable wall-art.
That’s six beyond my Audio-Visual Designs Black&White All-Pennsy Calendar, which I started getting in the late ‘60s.
Some are constant, but some aren’t.
The constants are -1) my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar; -2) and -3) my Paul Oxman Hot-Rod and Classic Sportscars calendars; and, of course, -4) my Audio-Visual Designs Black&White All-Pennsy Calendar.
Semi-constant is an All-Pennsy Color Calendar.
For years, that was CEDco, but they went bankrupt.
Now the All-Pennsy Color Calendar is by Tide-mark Press.
One year I got it el-cheapo from eBay. I guess it was left over stock from the CEDco bankruptcy up for auction.
Another semi-constant is my Norfolk Southern Employees Photography Contest calendar, although I’m thinking of skipping it this year (see below).
That leaves one calendar, so for the past two years I’ve gotten a calendar of classic black&white railroad photos by O. Winston Link.
Link’s efforts are famous, and recently I attended a Link show in Rochester.
Oxman gave up on the Classic Sportscars calendar, so next year’s Link calendar hangs there.
Last year there was no All-Pennsy Color Calendar (I ordered too late), so Link hung there.
Two years ago I had a Three Stooges calendar, but it was a waste.
Before that was -a) train water-colors by Howard Fogg; and -b) railroad paintings by Ted Rose.
Fogg was famous in the railfan community, but most of his art was of Colorado narrow-gauge. And Rose was of all railroads, but I’m partial to Pennsy.
A calendar I got to replace Fogg and Rose (and the Stooges) was a Motorbooks Musclecars calendar.
Okay, but I’ve been tempted to drop it.
The only reason I haven’t yet was to have seven calendars.
I was thinking of giving up on the Norfolk Southern Employees Photography Contest calendar.
It’s impressive, but similar to some of the train photography I take myself.
So I was thinking of getting the Trains Magazine train calendar instead.
But that depicts all railroading — the Ted Rose problem.
Kodak’s online Photo-Gallery can make calendars with your own photos. It’s fairly simple. I tried it with some of my mother’s insane photographs.
My mother, before she died, used to shower all her children with strange photographs of anything and everything, usually taken with her fuzzy-focus InstaMatic.
Giant bull statues, cornfields being gleaned, a model airplane, out-of-focus earrings on my niece.
We used to call her “motor-drive.”
When she died, Kodak stock dropped, and many of the Eckerds nationwide went out of business. (The ones in Florida were purchased by CVS.)
She used to do her photo-processing at Eckerd’s. (They’d cheer when she walked in!)
So I uploaded 12 of her crazy photographs to Kodak Gallery, and set about doing a calendar.
Idea! Forget Trains Magazine calendar, forget Norfolk Southern Employees Photography Contest calendar.
Make my own calendar of my own photographs near Horseshoe Curve.
Following are the 12 photographs I will use — on top is the cover photograph; that makes 13.
Most were taken with Phil Faudi (“FAW-dee”), although a few are mine alone.


January: Eastbound up The Hill on Track One in Summerhill. Two helpers are on the point.


February: Eastbound on Track One at AR tower toward New Portage Tunnel in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin”).


March: Eastbound double-stack hammers upgrade on Track One at Cassandra Railfan Overlook.


April: Eastbound uphill through South Fork on Track One. Two helpers are on the point.


May: Eastbound on Track Two about to enter Allegheny Tunnel. The tunnel visible is “Gallitzin,” abandoned.


June: Eastbound train 14G is about to restart after changing crews at Rose, east of Altoona.


July: The classic Tuxedo F-units head the Executive Business Train west on Track Three through Lilly.


August: Westbound double-stack uphill on Track Three toward Horseshoe Curve; Brickyard Crossing in Altoona.


September: Under the highway overpass near Portage; eastbound uphill on Track Two.


October: Hold back the double-stacks; downhill from the Curve at Slope into Altoona. A track-crew is working on Track Two.


November: Under the six-target signal bridge eastbound at McFarland’s Curve, north of Altoona. The left-most signals are for the left-most track, a siding.


December: The best picture; two trains eastbound through Lilly, Tracks One and Two.

• “Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that tanked in about eight years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world. —My first contact with railroading was the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1946 when I was age two. I am a railfan, and have been since then. As a teenager in northern Delaware, where our family moved from south Jersey in 1957, I experienced the phenomenal Pennsy electrified line from New York City to Washington D.C.
• “Norfolk Southern” is Norfolk Southern Railroad, a merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway about 20 years ago. NS has since acquired other railroads, namely all the old Pennsy lines of Conrail. —NS is now a major player in east-coast railroading. (“Conrail” is a government amalgamation of east-coast railroads that went bankrupt pretty much at the same time as Penn-Central. Conrail included other bankrupt east-coast railroads, like Erie-Lackawanna and Lehigh Valley; but eventually went private as it became more successful. Conrail has since been broken up, sold to CSX Transportation Industries (railroad) and Norfolk Southern railroad. CSX got mainly the old New York Central routes, and NS got the old PRR routes, although NS also has the old Erie Railroad route across southern NY.)
• “Narrow-gauge” is three feet between the rails. Most railroads are “Standard-gauge,” 4 feet 8&1/2 inches between the rails. Narrow-gauge could have tighter curvature, allowing less grading, so was often used in confined mountainous territory; e.g. Colorado.
• “Musclecars” are the mega-power cars popular in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s; usually with HUGE incredibly powerful engines; e.g. the Pontiac G-T-O.
• My parents’ final home was south Florida.
• Horseshoe Curve (the “mighty Curve”), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use.
• “Double-stack” is two trailer containers stacked two high without wheels in so-called “wellcars.” —It’s much more efficient than single containers (or trailers) on flatcars, since it’s two containers per car. It’s often the same shipping containers shipped overseas; where they may be stacked three or four high, or even higher if a support deck is under a stack. But “double-stacks” require very high clearance; over 20 feet. Bridges had to be raised, and tunnels made larger.
• “Phil Faudi” is a railfan local to the Altoona area, who gives rail tours — train chases. So far I have done two Faudi train-chases; and they are railfan overload — worth every penny. —Faudi monitors only the Norfolk Southern operating frequency, on his radio scanner, and -A) knows every train as the engineers call out the signals, and -B) knows how long it will take to drive to a photo location. The end result is usually more than 20 trains over nine hours. My most recent train-chase, we saw 30!
• Everything but the cover-shot, Cassandra Railfan Overlook, and the tunnels, is at a Faudi picture location; pictures taken by me — although I’d been to Brickyard Crossing myself earlier, and Faudi hits Cassandra.

I voted

Another election drifts into the filmy past.
And with it, I hope, the blizzard of political mailings that clogged our mailbox.
And the forest of political signs that cluttered lawns and every corner where traffic might have to slow.
This area is not as bad as southern California, where I visited a few years ago.
I drove our rental into a suburban development to turn around, and some houseowner had a giant flashing marquee on his front lawn amidst a forest of signage.
It was at least 12 by eight feet.
“Vote for whoever,” it screamed; “who supports Arnold Schwarzenegger, the greatest Governor this state ever had.”
(Weren’t they saying the same thing about Ronald Reagan?)
A couple years ago a small sign for Eric Massa (“MAH-suh”) occupied a corner about a mile from our house.
It stayed there almost a year after the election, which had been won by incumbent Randy Kuhl (“Cool”).
We drove yesterday to the West Bloomfield Fire Department, our new polling-place since the Town Hall had been condemned.
Utterly mal-informed, as usual.
I have voted in nearly every election since college (late ‘60s).
Only missed a couple.
One was after my stroke (I was in the hospital), and it seems there was one just recently, where I ran out of time.
It was an off-year election. I’ve never missed one for president.
We even did the absentee ballot thing once, because we’d be on vacation on Election-Day.
That was Jimmeh Cah-duh.
I studied the ballot on our clunky old election machines.
Is this the best we can do with our fabulous technology?
On the other hand, maybe the old clunkers are more reliable.
If our cars were as reliable as our whiz-bang computers, drivers would be randomly stopped on shoulders scratching their heads.
“Oh well, what the heck?” I said to myself.
I pulled all the Democratic levers.
It’s always like this.
That was including the incumbent West Bloomfield Supervisor, who I wondered about after that proposed sweetheart land purchase.
We (the Town) voted that down, after we got it on the ballot.
Yet despite that I can’t vote REPUBLICAN.
Furthermore, their candidates are stridently against consolidation with East Bloomfield.
It’s at least worth considering.
“Throw the bums out,” a coworker said, referring to Bill Clinton.
“Replace ‘em with another set of bums,” I said.
It’s always Congress sucks, except my Congressman.
“Seems ya gotta be wacko to run for president,” my wife says.

• “This area” is where we live, in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western N.Y., southeast of Rochester.
• “Eric Massa,” a Democrat, is our current Congressman. He replaced “Randy Kuhl,” a Republican, who was our previous Congressman, a long-time incumbent.
• The previous West Bloomfield Town Hall, an old church-building, had been condemned due to dry-rot. The Town Hall was our previous polling-place.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• RE: “Sweetheart land purchase.....” —Some time ago a farmer donated a field to West Bloomfield in honor of his deceased son, who had played there. Since the Town Hall was condemned, the town needed land to build a new Town Hall, so they negotiated a land purchase to buy land adjacent to the donated park. The land-value negotiated was well over the going price-per-acre.
• RE: “We (the Town) voted that down, after we got it on the ballot.......” —The proposed land purchase got put on the ballot last year as a proposal. We could vote for or against.
• RE: “Consolidation with East Bloomfield......” —East Bloomfield is the town adjacent to West Bloomfield. New York State has suggested consolidating the two, but most West Bloomfielders are against; even Democrats. (Within the Town of East Bloomfield is the village of Bloomfield; fairly substantial.)
• My wife of almost 42 years is “Linda.”

“Whoa Nellie”

I dutifully changed all our clocks back to Standard Time last weekend.
As a result I got to the Canandaigua YMCA at 10:15 yesterday (Monday, November 2, 2009), which is 11:15 Daylight Savings Time, the time I usually got there.
10:15 is quite early — early enough to do the Cybex circuit, which I haven’t had time for for months.
The goal is to get out by 1:45. 11:15 to 1:45 was never enough time, not with three 30-minute sessions on the cardiovascular trainers.
Readers will start adding things up.
Three 30-minute sessions an the cardiovascular machines is not two and one-half hours: 11:15 to 1:45.
Two of those sessions are actually 35 minutes each; there’s a five-minute cooldown.
Plus there’s a five-to-eight minute break between each session to -a) wipe off the machine, and -b) use the mens room.
Whatever, I’d usually get out between 1:30 and 2.
So theoretically, if I’d got there at 10:15 instead of 11:15, I’d have an additional hour.
Whoa Nellie!
That’s not the way it works.
With Standard Time the sun sets an hour earlier.
2 to 5 p.m. is not enough time to hit Weggers, drive home (a half-hour), mow some, and walk the dog in daylight.
So no Cybex circuit even though 10:15.
We have to operate on Sky Time.

• I work out at the YMCA in Canandaigua. (“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.)
• The “Cybex® circuit” is a circuit of 14 strength-training machines. Each machine targets a specific muscle-group. (Cybex is the manufacturer.)
• “Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.

“Gonna teach that bladder who’s boss”

Every day I videotape the TV news so we can watch it after it’s off.
To my mind it’s the only TV worth watching; no “Lost,” no “Dancing With The Stars.”
“What I wanna know is why that fat dude never lost any weight?” I always ask.
“Too bad she couldn’t finish her dress,” my wife says, referring to the couples on Dancing With The Stars.
Most days we don’t get around to eating supper until after the news.
So the only way to watch it is to tape it for delayed viewing.
This has the advantage that I can zap the ads — fast-forward.
But lately, as daylight shortens, and lawn mowing ends, we watch some of the news live; i.e. we can’t zap the ads.
“Ever wonder if there’s any water in them bathtubs?” I always ask during the Cialis® ads.
One ad is laughable; it’s an ad for Toviaz™.
“Gonna teach that bladder who’s boss,” the announcer says.
The couple is sitting in lawn chairs at an outdoor concert, violinists merrily sawing away.
Wifey beams at hubby, and later she strides authoritatively through a promenade of tall city buildings.
“Gonna teach that bladder who’s boss,” the announcer says.

• “We” is I and my wife of almost 42 years, “Linda.”

Domestic Violence Awareness Month

We are watching the local TV news last night (Saturday, October 31, 2009).
Apparently October was Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
So they ran a video report of a Domestic Violence conference in nearby Rochester, NY.
My wife bursts out laughing.
This conference is giving instructions in karate.
So I guess the best way to reduce domestic violence is to club someone you love.

• “We” is I and my wife of almost 42 years, “Linda.”
• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western N.Y., southeast of Rochester.

“Nuke the baby-seals!”

My cellphone rings.
It’s the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (“ASPCA”).
They wanna speak to my wife.
This is interesting. My wife has her own cellphone, but they called mine.
They want more money, of course.
A professional fund raiser — she admitted as much. “We got a live one here! Call ‘em up, Dora!”
“I need all the details of your most recent gift,” she says.
“Are you an animal lover?”
“Yes and no,” my wife said.
If she’d thought of it fast enough, she woulda said “Nuke the baby-seals!”

• My wife of almost 42 years is “Linda.”