Sigh........

Another year drifts into the filmy past.
Most of 2009 was my 65th year on this planet.
And my fourth year of retirement from the mighty Mezz.
I wonder if 2010 will be the year I deteriorate so much I become an invalid.
Probably not.
2009 was slow deterioration, but I can still get around quite well, still work out at the Canandaigua YMCA, and still can grovel on my garage floor.
But getting onto my feet is no longer as simple as it was before.
Plus my balance seems to be getting worse.
Not that bad yet, but I notice.
There’s a guy in his 80s at the YMCA.
I hope I can still work out at that age.
I find myself considering the physical requirements of simple tasks, like lawnmowing and snowblowing.
Lawnmowing is sit down on my mower, and let the gasoline do the work.
Snowblowing is walk behind — slightly more difficult.
But I’m sure I could still do it.
I’m sure I’ll get the opportunity soon — although the snow has to be eight inches deep.
I can probably operate my rototiller too.
Last summer a friend brought his classic ‘49 Ford hotrod out, and we proceeded to try to remove the steering.
We failed — there was a trick to it.
But this included my groveling around on the car-floor under the dashboard, wedged in front of the front seat, trying to remove bolts that held the steering-column.
“I can still do it,” I said.
I had just climbed out of my pit, slathered in grunge, after trying to pull the steering-box.
My friend can’t, but he’s a few years older than me, and has Parkinson’s.
Years ago I rode my motorcycle to Rochester Rehabilitation for a post-stroke psychiatric appointment, and a cabbie I’d once had was there.
He’d had a stroke himself.
He had driven Cardinal Cab, and drove me to Rochester Rehab when I couldn’t drive.
“You look fine,” he said, seeing my motorcycle.
“What’s your secret?”
“Orneriness,” I said.
“If you think you can do it, you probably can.”

• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired four years ago. Best job I ever had.
• “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.
• I work out at the Canandaigua YMCA.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• “Cardinal Cab” is (or was) a livery service local to the Rochester area — it provided taxi-cab service for United Way clients. For post-stroke rehabilitation, I was a United Way client. Most of their cabbies were indepndent.

Monthly Calendar Report for January 2010

One new calendar, one dumped, and one no more.
The one dumped is my Norfolk Southern Employees Photo-Contest Calendar, and the one no more is the Oxman “Legendary Sportcars” calendar — I guess they gave up.
I missed the All-Pennsy Color Calendar last year, but snagged it this year.
It replaces my O. Winston Link Steam & Steel calendar, which I still got, and Steam & Steel replaces the Norfolk Southern Employees Photo-Contest Calendar.


Uphill on Track One under the signal-bridge at Summerhill, PA., eastbound up The Hill toward the summit. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—By far the BEST, and the calendar that will win all the accolades, and the one that will usually run first, is my new calendar of my own photos.
It’s Kodak Gallery, and I was expecting a cheap-shot.
I ordered only one, and it was magnificent.
So magnificent I ordered six more to pass out to my railfan friends, one of whom is Phil Faudi (“FAW-dee”) of Altoona, PA, responsible for many of the photos.
Faudi is a railfan extraordinaire who gives railfan tours of the Altoona area.

The mighty Curve.

Altoona is the foot of the old Pennsy grade over the Allegheny mountains, and includes Horseshoe Curve (the mighty Curve), by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a now 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.
It loops across a mountain valley. The grade up (westbound) is 1.75-1.8%; 1.75-1.8 feet up for every 100 feet forward.
A grade, but not impossible.
The railroad is now owned and operated by Norfolk Southern.
Faudi has his radio scanner tuned to Norfolk Southern’s operating channel (160.8), and knows every train as the engineers call out the signals.
Automated trackside defect detectors also call out trains and what track they were on, after they’ve passed.
Track One is eastbound, Track Three is westbound, and Track Two can be either way.
He also knows how long it will take to get to a photo location before the train does.
Railfaning with Faudi is railfan overload.
Last time — last September — I saw 30 trains, and never waited more than five minutes.
By myself I might see 7-10, and wait for hours.
Norfolk Southern’s line over the Alleghenies is quite busy. It used to be a main channel east for Midwestern commerce.
But no more.
Pennsy’s old river of traffic is now that out of Long Beach and the LA basin in southern Californy, commerce from the Pacific Rim.
So The Hill might see 60-80 trains a day, many scheduled, and quite a few extras.
But I don’t know what Faudi knows, like the locations of signals as called out, and how long it would take to beat that train to a photo location.
I usually end up hanging out at a location for hours, and know the locations of defect-detectors.
My indication that a train is coming is defect-detector callouts.
Once at Cassandra Railfan Overlook — an old abandoned highway bridge over the tracks at Cassandra, PA — defect-detectors kept indicating trains were coming; fleeting in both directions. (“Norfolk Southern milepost 258.9, Track One, no defects.” —That’s Portage, PA.)
So I hung around for each train — about five or six. Didn’t leave for well over an hour.
Summerhill is a small town on the western slope about 10-15 miles from the summit.
The approach is from the west; eastbound is uphill,
The train is uphill on Track One.
The train has two SD40-2 helpers on the point. They have probably been there since Pittsburgh.
It may have also had two SD40-2 helpers on the rear.
The eastbound grade up the western slope is not as steep as the westbound grade up the eastern slope, but it’s steep enough to often require helpers.
SD40-2 helper sets were stationed, and maintained, at Cresson, just west (downhill) of the summit of the Alleghenies.
The SD40-2 helper sets have been around for eons.
They are at long last being replaced with SD-40Es, a downrated SD-50.
Helper sets have long been needed on The Hill; both going up and going down.
Helper sets add additional dynamic-braking going down.
The traction-motors are turned into generators, and the current generated goes to giant toaster-grids atop the locomotives.
Using the traction-motors as generators generates additional braking action.
It’s added to the braking of the individual train cars of the train.
A steam-locomotive can’t generate dynamic-braking — although some railroads with treacherous grades fielded a way of generating braking-force from a steam-locomotive.
General Electric has made use of dynamic-braking on its locomotives to charge batteries instead of burn heat off of toaster grids.
Someone finally had to do it.
How successful this is is debatable. Running a locomotive requires a lot of electricity. The massive diesel-engine is generating current for the electric traction-motors. —A diesel-electric locomotive.
The train is coming under a signal-tower; with classic Pennsy target-signals (position-lights).
The signals for the two eastbound tracks are up high to be visible over the highway bridge behind.



Two P-40s. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The January 2010 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is two P40s.
The P40 was what was on hand at the outbreak of WWII.
Some were lost when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
One of the P40s is painted in the famous Tiger Shark scheme. The other isn’t.
The Flying Tigers were a private military contractor, authorized by the United States, to fight the Japanese in China before Pearl Harbor.
Their airplanes, P40s, had Chinese markings, and also that gorgeous Tiger-Shark mouth painted on the radiator scoop.
It looks so great most every P40 still flying has the Tiger-Shark scheme.
Those shark teeth have been applied to other airplanes. I even saw it on a lowly military Piper-Cub once — what a joke!
On a fighter it made sense, but the Piper-Cub was a non-fighting observation plane, or a trainer. It wouldn’t be raining death and destruction. It would be a sitting duck!
Just the same, the shark’s teeth looked perfect on the P40. It’s just that you see it too much.
The P40 is a nice airplane, but it’s not the gorgeous hot-rod the P51 Mustang is.


Pennsylvania Railroad M1b Mountain (4-8-2) #6729 heads priority freight west through Duncannon, PA. (Photo by Don Wood©.)

—The January 2010 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar is a classic Don Wood photograph, probably published before, of a daily Pennsylvania Railroad westbound freight marching at good speed up the old Pennsy main through Duncannon (“DONE-cannon”), PA.
It’s behind classic PRR locomotive #6729, an M1b Mountain (4-8-2).
The Mountain was the last PRR steam-locomotive developed until after WWII.
It was developed in the late ‘20s — a melding of a large boiler with a fairly large fire grate with a firebox with a combustion-chamber.
It worked quite well, but sadly Pennsy invested in electrification after that.
No steam-locomotive development was carried out in the ‘30s, when SuperPower concepts came into vogue.
At the outset of WWII, Pennsy was saddled with tired steamers that were behind the times.
They had to shop around, since the War Production Board wouldn’t allow them to develop.
They had to purchase Chesapeake & Ohio’s T-1 2-10-4 SuperPower design, a Lima (“LYE-muh;” not “LEE-muh”) product.
(They also compared the fantastic Norfolk & Western A-series 2-6-6-4 articulateds.)
That 2-10-4 was their J-1 series, slightly fiddled, but mainly the Lima design.
As such, it lacked the trademark Pennsy Belpaire firebox.
Pennsy only built one railroad (I think), its main stem from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh.
Up the east bank of the Susquehanna from Harrisburg, across, and then up the west bank to where the Juniata (“june-ee-AT-uh”) River empties into the Susquehanna, then inland and up the Juniata and Little Juniata to Petersburg.
It paralleled the old Pennsylvania Canal to there, and after Petersburg the canal branched west, and the PRR went north to Tyrone.
Then south from Tyrone to Altoona, where it faced the Allegheny mountains.
First it went down to Hollidaysburg, where it intersected with the old Allegheny Portage Railroad, but PRR was intent on building its own railroad without inclined planes.
An 11-mile grade was built up into the mountains, which includes Horseshoe Curve, a trick that allowed Pennsy to surmount the Alleghenies without steep grades.
But a tunnel had to be bored at the top, at Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin”), then it went back down the mountains, eventually following the Conemaugh (“kone-uh-MAW”) River toward Pittsburgh.
Every other railroad in the great Pennsy system was affiliated or merged, although some parts were rebuilt and improved after Pennsy got control.
But only the Harrisburg-Pittsburgh line was built by them.
It was chartered in 1846, a response to the horribleness of the Pennsylvania Public Works System, with its portage over the Allegheny mountains and its inclined planes.
The Public Works was Pennsylvania’s response to the phenomenally successful Erie Canal; and like the Erie, was intended to be a through canal system.
But unlike in New York, an impenetrable mountain range, the Alleghenies, was in the way.
There was no getting through it with a canal.
All the state could do was go over the Alleghenies with a portage railroad.
And grading was so rudimentary at that time, the only way to do so was with inclined planes; grades so steep, ropes and stationary steam engines had to tow cars up the planes.
And canal packets had to be transloaded onto railcars for the portage.
It was so cumbersome and slow, it was an impediment to trade with the midwest.
The reason New York City is now the great city it is, is because of the Erie Canal.
Other east coast ports were falling quickly behind.
Baltimore’s response was the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, opened in 1827, the first common carrier railroad.
Washington DC got no farther than Cumberland, MD, where the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal paralleling the Potomac river ended. The Alleghenies stopped it.
As mentioned, Pennsylvania’s (Philadelphia’s) response was the Public Works System, a combination canal and railroad.
Existing railroad from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, then canal from Harrisburg to the Alleghenies, then portage railroad over the Alleghenies, then canal back down to Pittsburgh.
But the System was so slow and cumbersome, Philadelphia capitalists struck out on their own to build a private through railroad, the Pennsy.
And then a slew of railroads west of Pittsburgh were merged into it to channel huge quantities of freight onto the main stem.
Eventually Pennsy became the largest railroad in the world.
It was phenomenal, but now is gone.
The main stem remains, although no longer moving the river of traffic it once moved.
Rationalization was allowed, and what once was a four-track main is now only two in most places.
Pennsy merged with arch-rival New York Central in 1968, and that soon tanked — eight years.
Most of the old Pennsy lines are now owned and operated by Norfolk Southern Railroad.
The train pictured is expedited freight service, a daily scheduled train west from Enola (“aye-NOLE-uh”) yard near Harrisburg.


1969 Z/28 Camaro. (Photo by David Newhardt.)

—The January 2010 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a 1969 Z/28™ Chevrolet Camaro, perhaps the finest factory hot-rod to come out of Detroit.
And that’s despite its antique tractor layout; a solid rear axle (non-independent) with heavy integral differential propelled by a central driveshaft, turned by a hot-rodded Chevrolet Small-Block.
At least it’s a Small-Block, which is fairly light.
A heavy cast-iron Big Block would have made it EXTREMELY front-heavy, sending it straight like a snowplow in corners.
With the Small-Block it was fairly well balanced.
It’s interesting where the Z/28 got its name.
Z/28 was the number of the option-code needed to make the Camaro eligible for Sports-Car-Club-of-America (“SCCA”) Trans-Am racing.
Chevrolet was hunting for an attractive name for the car, and various magazines, particularly Car & Driver, suggested they name it the option-code: Z/28.

The earliest Penske/Donohue Trans-Am Camaro.

The first Z/28s were the earliest models, ‘67 and ‘68, raced by Roger Penske (“penn-SKEE”) with driver Mark Donohue (“don-uh-HUE”) in the SCCA Trans-Am series (as pictured at left).
Penske/Donohue also raced a 1969, but switched to AMC Javelin after that.
The Trans-Am concept was attractive; bellowing pony-cars banging fenders; e.g. Mustang versus Camaro.
But engine size was limited to five liters; quite small, 305 cubic inches.
The Mustang and Camaro V8s were at 302 cubic inches, but could be souped up like stink.
Small as they were, the Trans-Am engines were getting over 450 horsepower!
A stock Z/28 was probably good for over 300.
What limited the cars more than anything was brakes.
I certainly watched enough Trans-Am races where the Penske Camaro, among others, lacked brakes.
Detroit braking was still not up to what was being asked of it. Everything would heat up so much, the brake-pistons might fuse in the calipers, or the seals burned up and leaked out all the fluid.
Braking was adequate in the first laps, but shortly faded away.
The jones was to dissipate the gigantic amount of heat generated.
Larger Corvette brakes were tried, and ducting installed to blow cool air on the brakes.
The brakes were fine for the street, but not racing.
The manufacturers had to build so many cars, available to the public, to enter one in the Trans-Am.
Perhaps 500.
Hence the Z/28 option.
The calendar picture is a bit wonky.
The buildings in the picture distract.
But it’s a Z/28, the BEST Detroit hot-rod ever made.

A Pennsy Owl-face. (Photo by Bill Janssen.)

—The January 2010 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is a PRR MP54 Owl-face commuter car at Elizabeth station during a blizzard in north Jersey on January 30, 1966.
Probably the same blizzard that dumped a surfeit of snow on my college about that time in my senior year.
Hip-deep snowpack.
It was winter-break, and I couldn’t go home.
What we see here is a Pennsy Owl-face, called that because that was what they looked like.
A motorman would drive the car from behind that right porthole.
It was the standard P54 commuter coach motorized; two electric traction-motors in one truck.
Each motor was essentially the same AC traction-motor used in the fantastic GG1 (“Gee-Gee-One”) electric locomotive, although in the GG1 two motors powered each drive-axle; 12 motors — six drive-axles.
As I recall, many MP54s could drive themselves and a single unpowered car; although here we see all four cars powered. None unpowered.
The train is dealing with a blizzard.
The self-powered MP54 was Pennsy’s first commuter-car.
Large portions of its lines around Philadelphia, and then New York City, were electrified so Pennsy could move its surfeit of commuter traffic — in less expensive self-powered cars. —Negating the need for coaches with a locomotive.
Commuter districts were also electrified around Philadelphia, to allow use of the MP54.

Photo by BobbaLew.

An MP54 baggage-car, about 1960.

Nearly all MP54s, 368, were built as passenger coaches, but apparently a few were otherwise.
I managed to snag a few in the yards in Wilmington, DE about 1960.
The lead car pictured is a windowless baggage car, and it’s followed by two combination baggage/passenger cars.
Passengers grew to hate the MP54s.
Many lasted eons, were old, rode rough, and few were air-conditioned.
If it was hot, passengers opened all the windows.
Eventually Pennsy’s commuter service became an albatross, costly to operate.
The MP54s needed replacement, and the railroad wasn’t financially able to replace them.
Local authorities helped Pennsy begin replacing the MP54, and eventually took over the entire commuter operation; Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), and Jersey Transit in north Jersey.
SEPTA came to operate other commuter operations beside Pennsy, as did Jersey Transit. —SEPTA operates every commuter operation around Philadelphia; including bus-service.
The self-powered car concept was a siren song.
The federal government came to institute high-speed self-powered passenger service on the old Pennsy electrified lines, busy New York City to Washington DC, and also Philadelphia to Harrisburg.
But the self-powered MetroLiners were unreliable. Often a GG1 had to be sent to rescue the train.
Eventually Amtrak went back to locomotive-pulled trains — locomotive-pushed to negate terminal turning. —The opposite car of a locomotive-pushed train had a control-stand for a motorman.
And, of course, Amtrak came to own and operate the old Pennsy electrified trackage from Washington DC to New York City; the vaunted Northeast Corridor.
But it’s a joke. It’s not much of a high-speed railroad. It still has bog-slow terminal trackage in Philadelphia, and the tunnels under Baltimore and the Hudson are small and old.
The MP54 pictured is well before the Northeast Corridor; in fact, when Pennsy still operated the commuter service.
Elizabeth station still stands.
The MP54 train probably is operating to or from New York City via the tunnels under the Hudson.


Deuce with Viper engine.

—The January 2010 entry of my Oxman Hot-Rod Calendar is unfortunately what hot-rodding has become in the new century, a distortion of what it was originally.
What we have here is a 1932 Ford hot-rod roadster with a V10 Viper engine.
Hot-rodding is a phenomenon of the post WWII era, largely based in southern California.
A number of factors were at play:
—1) A surfeit of surplus fittings and exotic hardware that could be picked up for peanuts to make a hot-rod.
—2) The number of old Ford used cars available.
—3) The fact weather in southern California was so fabulous — forever warm and sunny. It allowed open roadster hot-rods. Protection from the elements wasn’t needed.
—4) The old Ford flat-head V8 -a) was so cheap and available, and -b) it responded so well to hop-up, so much speed stuff was made for it.
—5) So many places were nearby for speed competition, particularly the dry lakes out in the California desert.
Mirage ("MERE-ahj") was the best; vast and flat. Although it became the location of Edwards Air Force Base.
Speed competition began on the dry lakes well before WWII. People would hot-rod Model Ts, and race ‘em.
The best post-war hot-rods were ‘32 Ford roadsters with a souped-up flat-head Ford V8.
Later Chevrolet introduced its vaunted Small-Block V8 (1955), another motor that -a) responded well to hot-rodding, and -b) was cheap and plentiful.
It was the motor that put the old Ford flat-head out to pasture.
Small-Blocks replaced the Flatty, but the layout was still classic: a body and motor on frame-rails.
Car-manufacturers were changing to unit-construction; construction that didn’t bend like a ladder.
More-than-likely the car pictured is body-on-frame, not unit construction.
I bet that Viper motor twists it.
A Viper motor in a ‘32 Ford is way too much.
The owner claims 600 horsepower, and 200 mph; although I don’t think I’d wanna try it with the aerodynamic equivalent of a brick.
The Milner coupe from "American Graffiti" is more like it.
A Chevy motor but a car that is driveable; a street-rod, as opposed to someone’s dream, which the car pictured is — a trailer-queen.
Worst of all are the tires and wheels; usually extreme, as they are in southern California.
Giant glittering chromed spider-spokes of perhaps 20 inches in diameter, with super-wide tires of so little sidewall height ya wonder if they can actually damp out bumps.
Hit a curb with such a thing, and ya’ll dent the rim.
A classic hot-rod had 15-inch wheels, maybe 16. And the tires had sidewall height of five or six inches.
Radials made more sense than bias-ply tires, but 20-inch wheels on a hot-rod?
WRONG-OOO, WRONG-OOO, WRONG-OOO, WRONG-OOO, WRONG-OOOO!

Photo by BobbaLew.

I saw such a car, pictured at left, at a local car show a year ago. Recent tires on giant wheels; plus tiny taillight slits cut into the rear body panel.
It could probably be driven from its enclosed trailer to the display area, but beyond that it was a dreamcar; only for show.
Another mistake — to me personally — is that two-piece windshield.
The stock ‘32 Ford roadster has a flat one-piece windshield that looks much better.
Supposedly this car was named 2010’s Most Beautiful American Roadster, but I don’t think so.


HO-HUM. (Photo by O. Winston Link.)

—We’re running out of material.
The January 2010 entry of my O. Winston Link "Steam and Steel" calendar, and boobie-prize, is Norfolk & Western Mountain (4-8-2) #104 riding the turntable at Bristol, VA, while J #606 (4-8-4) passes eastbound in the background with a passenger train; the “Pelican.”
This year will probably be my last “Steam and Steel” calendar.
Link took lotsa photographs, many at night, but all the good ones ran in last year’s calendar.
Some are nice this year, but none are extraordinary.
This one is moribund.
What’s notable is the turntable cut Link’s flash wiring.
He had to splice it all back together.
And Norfolk & Western may have been the last steam operated mainline railroad in America, but many of its engine classes looked awful.
The only ones that looked great were the Js (4-8-4), and some of these Mountains, which had the same streamlining as the Js.
Its A (2-6-6-4) was incredible, but not as good-looking.
Contrast that with Pennsy, where everything looked great except the early streamliners.
And they were Raymond Loewy, whose later T-1 (4-4-4-4) duplexes looked fabulous.

Facebook Fulminations

I decided to post a photograph on the so-called “wall” of a Facebook “friend.”
Fasten seat-belts; bury head in lap.
I’ve had Facebook hang on functions like this.
Begin photo-posting procedure. Click photo icon; select photo from ‘pyooter.
BAM! “Share.”
Seconds pass; turning into minutes.
“Good old Facebook,” I say. “Um, I don’t have all day.”
I switch to something else.
Meanwhile, Facebook is cranking away in the background.
I can do that.
My FireFox® Internet-browser can keep multiple sites open, one of which is Facebook.
I never log out — which means I never have to log in.
Often Facebook will hang, in which case I dump it; a log-out I guess.
I thereafter log in and try again.
I look again about an hour later, and Facebook has posted the photograph.
Probably took at least five minutes, during which I did something else.
Sorry, I’m not a Windoze user. I’m not into the hourglass.
My having a Facebook is inadvertent.
I wouldn’t have one, but Facebook pulled a fast one.
They sent me an e-mail whereby an old friend from the mighty Mezz invited me to be her Facebook “friend.”
Sure; I dutifully filled in a form, little knowing I was setting up a Facebook of my own.
“Welcome to Facebook,” said another old friend.
I could just dump this whole Facebook thingy, or walk away from it, as I did an e-mail provider.
But people I like pay more attention to Facebook than e-mail.
Another factor, and probably why I wasn’t suspicious, was my younger brother in northern DE had become a Facebook evangelist.
For years he had been administrator of my family’s web-site, and it looked to him like Facebook could do all our family’s web-site was doing, without his administration.
Trouble is, Facebook can be far more public.
I suppose you could limit “friends” to only family members, but even then it fires right up for any “friend.”
Our family’s web-site you had to log in; it was more private.
My wife also initiated a Facebook, but with an alias, and her “profile-picture” is a previous dog.
The Facebook “search” function won’t work, unless the searcher knows the alias.
Plus our family’s web-site was much more user-friendly. Facebook makes you jump through hoops.
I poke around my Facebook.
“Anyone know the difference between ‘live feed’ and ‘news feed?’” I ask no one in particular.
I had tried each, and noted no difference — although now I do.
“I think it might be the order stuff is in,” my wife says.
“I’ve given up on trying to figure out Facebook,” a Facebook “friend” in VA says.
I have a few other “friends” who according to Facebook are novitiates. They’re about 50-75% into Facebook “initiation.”
How, pray tell, do they figure this?
The fact I have 27 “friends” means I’m no longer a novitiate, where those with only four or five are?
My aunt has only one “friend” — surely a record — whereas my brother in DE has almost 400.
I guess that makes him more viable as a person, kinda like your viability as a person is a function of the number of e-mails ya receive.
Various “friends” trumpet how great social networking is. Well of course it is, but they never had a family web-site.

• “Windoze” is Microsoft Windows. Apple Macintosh users claim it’s inferior, and slow. Posturing — I don’t know as it is any more; but it used to be. The “hourglass” is what Windows flies on the screen during “please wait;” although other icons have been developed. With Macintosh it’s a spinning soccer-ball. (I use an Apple Macintosh.)
• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired four years ago. Best job I ever had. (“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.)
• My younger brother in northern Delaware is “Bill.”
• My wife of 42 years is “Linda.” She retired as a computer programmer.

42 years

Forty-Two long years ago, December 30, 1967, yrs trly and his wife-to-be clambored into my humble black 1961 Corvair coupe for the long journey from Rochester to her ancestral digs in far-out Thurston (“THIRST-in”), NY.
Thurston is a tiny rural hamlet up the road from Campbell (pronounced “kamp-BELL;” not “KAM-bull,” like the soup).
Campbell is up the road from Corning.
It has a large cheese factory where my wife’s father worked — now Kraft, but at that time “Polly-O.”
This was well before Interstate-390, so we took Route 15.
The intent of our trip was to get married in tiny Thurston church, where her family had been members for eons.
This was per the request of her maternal grandmother, a long-time Thurston resident.
The Corvair is perhaps the best car General Motors ever brought to market; an el-cheapo Porsche (“POOR-sha”).
But it was air-cooled, and its engine was in the rear — very unorthadox.
The first Corvairs had swing-axle rear suspension, like the Volkswagen Beetle, which they sort of mimiced.
For the 1965 model-year, Corvair switched to fully independent rear suspension (“IRS”), and a completely new body that looked great.
A really great car — too bad it didn’t sell well.
It was trumped by the Ford Mustang, which was much more orthodox.
Mine was rather moribund. Automatic transmission (“PowerGlide”). My father had bought it for me — although I was supposed to pay for it, but couldn’t.
We were going to get married on December 31, last day of the year.
But my wife’s mother would have none of it.
December 31 was a Sunday, and a wedding would mess up church functions.
Who knows if Thurston Church still exists; Thurston was dying.
My wife’s parents moved to FL, where her father later died; 1989.
What I remember most is coming back home terrified; afraid I’d made a mistake.
Within hours my wife was emptying her prior apartment, and hanging things in my closets.
A lot of things have happened over those 42 years; I suppose most significant being my stroke.
It changed me somewhat, but I guess I’m still pretty much what I was before.
A railfan. 42 years of chasing trains.
Hundreds of times to Horseshoe Curve, but never to Hawaii.
More importantly, a “mocker.” We both are.

• My wife of 42 years is “Linda.”
• “Polly-O” cheese, named after the Pollio family.
• “Interstate-390” is the main interstate into Rochester from the south. U.S. Route 15 (a two-lane) was before I-390.
• Chevrolet’s first automatic transmission was the “PowerGlide;” two speeds.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993. I pretty much recovered from it — no paralysis.
• “Horseshoe Curve,” west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is now 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’ve been there hundreds of times, since it’s only about five hours away.

Don’t Mess with the Comics!

About a year or so after I retired from the mighty Mezz, they began printing the Sunday comics in-house.
Prior to that, if I’m right, the Sunday comics were purchased as a package, or part of a package, from an offsite printer.
I’m sure this change was made with great consternation.
As my wife says, “don’t mess with the comics!”
It’s kind of like the daily lottery numbers.
If someone inadvertently forgot to put them on the page, Granny would call head-honcho and ream his ears out.
We noticed the disappearance of “Nancy” — no great loss.
Also the disappearance of “Marmaduke” — a tragedy for dog-lovers like us.
Every time Marm took his master for a walk, hanging on for dear life, we could identify with that.
But they managed to keep “Monty,” and so too “Spider-Man,” which I considered expendable.
About the time of that switch, the Executive Editor at that time, Robert Matson (“MATT-sin”), wrote a column of his various misadventures hiring reporters.
He detailed how one interviewee stalked out in a huff when Matson explained the importance of good spelling and grammar.
I always liked Matson. He had the moxie to look in the eyes of a severely messed up stroke-survivor (me), and say “looks normal to me!”
He also gave me a HUGE raise, so I could get off Social Security Disability.
The Social Security guys in Geneva were dumbfounded. They had never seen such a thing.
Matson and I were on the same page regarding spelling and grammar.
I think good communication requires it.
Both Matson and I are graduates of nearby Houghton College, him in 1980, me 1966.
I think Houghton engendered that — that creativity counts in good writing, but it needs correct spelling and grammar.
I wrote Matson a congratulatory e-mail, telling him to stand his ground.
I also suggested Spider-Man was a waste, that I didn’t read it.
“NO WAY!” he cried. “No way am I dumping Spider-man. That’s the best comic we got.”
Oh well, difference of opinion.
Matson is one person, and I’m another.
I’m glad he likes Spider-Man.
But I wonder why every Spider-Man comic seems to have a scowling villain? (See picture.)
I’d like to think Matson likes Spider-Man because it’s laughable.

• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired four years ago. Best job I ever had. (“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.)
• My wife of 42 years is “Linda.”
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and was taken on as an unpaid intern at the mighty Mezz about two years later. Later I was hired. I retired in December of 2005.
• 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.) —When taken for a walk, she pulls, and quite hard.
• “Houghton College,” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.
• “Geneva” is another city about 15 miles east of Canandaigua. It’s at the northern end of Seneca Lake, a so-called “Finger-Lake.” —The nearest Social Security office is in Geneva.

Packard

The February 2010 issue of my Hemmings Classic Car Magazine is essentially all Packard.
The one thing my paternal grandfather wanted more than anything else was a Packard motorcar.
He finally managed to get one, about when I was born (1944), although my paternal grandmother resisted.
But only because Packard was marketing down.
They were somewhat poor, so his Packard was used, and also the cheapest model.
It was a sedan (four doors, I think), with a flat-head six-inline engine.
More upscale Packards had an eight-inline engine, and top-of-the-line offered a V12.
I suppose more than anything it was that beautiful skirling waterfall grill (pictured above), but also the red hexagon hubcaps.
My grandfather would take me out into his garage to admire his Packard’s hubcaps.
They were an icon before icons were in fashion.
My grandfather finally gave up on his beloved Packard.
He had to remove the rear seat for his tile-setting business.
It made it rather uncomfortable for long trips.
We little ones had to sit on wooden orange-crates.
He replaced it with a chrome-laden Buick, notable in that it supposedly pumped heat under the front seat.
Here were my sister and I groveling around on the car floor, trying to feel heat pumping under the front seat.
“Feel it? “my grandfather would ask.
“Sure, Pop-pop.” We didn’t feel a thing.
Sadly, Packard declined after WWII.
It was because its iconic grill no longer fit the styling that cars were becoming.
A manifestation of that grill was pasted on a new design, but it was ugly. A beetle-bomb.
And by the ‘50s, Packard was no longer financially strong enough to do what General Motors was doing — a completely new design every couple years.
Its redesign for the 1951 model-year had to last through 1956; altered quite a bit, but essentially the same car.
Packard was unable to do a modern overhead valve V8 engine until years after GM did one.
A while ago I bought a slightly customized three-quarter ton 1979 E250 Ford van.
It had a rear bench seat behind the rear axle, about 10 feet of open space in front of it.
My grandfather would have loved it.
It was like riding in a Packard.
Packard tanked in 1958, after merger with Studebaker, making it moribund, because it had to use Studebaker car lines.

• “My sister” is my sister Betty (Elizabeth). She’s second after me, 63 (I’m the oldest at 65). She lives in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and is married to a guy named Tom.
• “Pop-pop” is my paternal grandfather.

The curse of Bill Gates

—1) Why does my Quark always hafta be force-quit on my first try opening; and
—2) Why does my FireFox hafta be on for my Quark to work?
—3) Why does my rig go to screen-saver on certain thingies, and not on others?
—4) Why is my photo-scanner supposedly not connected, when it clearly is, on the first try; and then decide it’s connected on the next try? —Quite often Photoshop Elements tanks on my first try scanning.
—5) How come names disappear from my e-mail address lists — and have to be put back in?
—6) Why did a name disappear from an e-mail address?
—7) How come stuff I didn’t highlight is highlighted in my AppleWorks — and I have to kill and fire up the app again to correct?
WHY AM I ALWAYS WRASTLING WITH THIS BALONEY?

• “Bill Gates” is the head-honcho of Microsoft.
• “Quark®” is a glorified word-processor, that can also do graphic design. “FireFox® is my Internet web-browser.
• “My rig” is my computer.

HMMMMMMMM.......

EXACT instructions per University Imaging:
“• Do not eat or drink for six hours before your test.
However, we would like you to drink two glasses (16 ounces) of water before arriving for your test.”

• “University Imaging” is a medical facility in nearby Rochester that does C.A.T. scans, P.E.T. scans, etc. It’s affiliated with University of Rochester Medical Center. —These are instructions for a P.E.T. scan.

The REAL Santa

(Parents, don’t read this to your kids.)

Yr’s trly with the Real Santa Claus, 1950.

Eons ago I believed in Santa Claus.
It was the late ‘40s, when I was age four through seven.
I had questions, of course, driving my poor parents crazy.
“How come Santa’s on every street-corner?” I’d ask.
I was told they were just ersatz Santas.
The REAL Santa Claus was at Gimbels Department Store in Philadelphia.
We lived in south Jersey at that time.
Prior to Christmas our local volunteer Fire Department would parade Santa around the neighborhood atop their hook-and-ladder.
But we all knew it wasn’t the REAL Santa.
It was Charley Philpot (“fill-POT”), the fire chief.
And he was rather surly about it too.
“Don’t tug on the beard, Johnny!” he’d say, adjusting his costume.
“Boy, it’s awful cold up here. No North Pole for me! Ho-ho!”
The REAL Santa was at Gimbels Department Store in Philadelphia.
Every Thanksgiving the Philadelphia merchants held a giant parade, and Santa arrived atop a hook-and-ladder at full wail.
Firemen would extend the ladder up to the eighth-floor window of Gimbels, and Santa would climb up it, and enter Gimbels through the open eighth-floor window.
That parade was always on TV, and TV would cover his ascent.
That was the time of Lionel Trains.
I had an uncle who had a monstrous Lionel Train layout in his house.
As a railfan (I’ve been a railfan all my life), I wanted a Lionel trainset more than anything.
My father would take me to Sears, where they had massive Lionel layouts in the basement.
Model trains have always been a rush, but -A) they collect dust; and -B) I got more interested in the real thing.
So I’m probably asking Santa for a Lionel trainset.
Usually children are terrified of Santa.
I was at first, but by age six (1950) I was okay.
Later I was told Santa Claus was a fabrication, but I ain’t so sure.
One Christmas morning a Lionel train was circling our Christmas tree.
It wasn’t much, but what a thrill.
I was told Santa had brought it.
He came in our back door — no fireplace.
And the reindeer and sleigh put down in our backyard — no snow.
It was true.
The Pepsi and Oreos we left were gone.

• Our family lived in a suburb of Philadelphia in south Jersey until I was 13. After that was northern Delaware.

Winter solstice

Today (Monday, December 21, 2009) is the winter solstice, “shortest day of the year,” trumpeted the announcer at WXXI, the classical-music radio station out of Rochester we listen to.
“No, no, no,” I said. “They always say that.
I know it’s common usage, but it’s more precise to say it’s the day with the least amount of daylight.
Far as I know, it will be 24 hours long, just like every other day.”
I can imagine the firestorm this will prompt.
Fervent posturing by noisy language zealots and English Majors who feel it’s their right to muddy communication.
I used to do “Skywatch” at the mighty Mezz.
I’d access the Naval Observatory site every day, to see when sunup and sundown were for Canandaigua.
The winter solstice is the least amount of daylight, but already sunset is ratcheting up.
Earliest was 4:35 p.m., but that was a week ago.
By now it’s 4:37.
It’s the shortest amount of daylight because dawn kept occurring later and later.
On December 21 it was 7:37 a.m.
Not too long ago it was 5 a.m., and sundown was pushing 9 p.m.
Every day I have to zoom home so I can walk my dog before dark.
In 1960, when I was 16, my parents took us on a fabulous vacation up into the Canadian prairie, where dawn was about 4 a.m., and sunset about 10 p.m.
It never got pitch-dark.
The southern sky never got past dusk, and it started brightening at 2 a.m. in the northeast.
And just a few months ago I was looking outside at my lawn to see if it absolutely, positively needed mowing.
Now it’s covered with snow.

• WXXI-FM, 91.5, is the classical-music radio-station in Rochester, NY we listen to, publicly supported.
• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired four years ago. Best job I ever had.
• “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.

Don’t mess with an ex bus-driver!

The other day (Saturday, December 19, 2009) I happened to patronize Lori’s Funky Food Market in deepest, darkest Henrietta.
The reason was to pick up a case of Arrowhead Mills Puffed Rice cereal I had ordered.
Arrowhead Mills Puffed Rice is salt-free.
I have ordered the stuff so many times I know a case costs $20.40.
I tried to order it online from Amazon once.
They wanted less per bag, but a gold-mine to ship it.
It cost way more per bag from Amazon.
My wife had also picked up a small tube of Burt’s Bees lip-balm — about the size of lipstick.
The clerk rang up everything, processed our charge-card, and I signed.
I happened to look at it later; $43.55?
“Holy mackerel!” I thought to myself. “How much did they want for that lip balm? What’s it made of?”
$2.60.
What’s going on?
I got back in line.
“What’s going on here?” I asked the harried clerk.
“You purchased two cases of Arrowhead Mills Puffed Rice.
“NOT! I only purchased one.”
Heavy-hitters were brought in.
“Do you have your purchase?”
“Right over there!” I snapped.
My wife walked over with our single case of Arrowhead Mills Puffed Rice.
A heavy-hitter eyed my receipt, and observed that I had indeed been double-charged for my single case of Arrowhead Mills Puffed Rice.
“How did that happen?” she asked.
Another heavy-hitter was brought in to process a credit.
Don’t mess with an ex bus-driver!

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY.
• “Deepest, darkest Henrietta” is a rather effusive and obnoxious suburb south of Rochester.
• Amazon.com.
• My wife of 42 years is “Linda.”

1218

Yesterday was December 18, 2009; 12/18.
1218 was the last of Norfolk & Western Railway’s fabulous 1200-series A-class locomotives.
It was never scrapped.
1218 was converted into a stationary boiler, and used by Union Carbide.
Norfolk Southern Railroad restored it in 1987 for excursion service.


Ker-CHUFF, ker-CHUFF, ker-CHUFF, ker-CHUFF; HOOT-HOOT-hoot-HOOOOOOOOT!

1218 is a giant 2-6-6-4 articulated locomotive.
The only remaining locomotive larger is Union Pacific’s #3985, a 4-6-6-4.
The Norfolk & Western As were more powerful.
The 1200-series locomotives were freight engines, but could boom-and-zoom.
They had incredible steam capacity, and had been designed by the railroad.
They were essentially designed for the railroad.
And per Norfolk & Western operating practice, the idea was to use as little fuel (coal) as possible.
The As powered four cylinders directly with one boiler.
This was in contrast to its Y6 class (2-8-8-2), a compound.
“Compounding” was popular early in the 20th century, but most railroads gave up on it.
What compounds they had were converted to “simple;” the boiler powering all four cylinders directly.
But not Norfolk & Western.
They made compounding work, although the Y6 was more a pusher engine.
I rode behind 1218 once, a railfan excursion from Buffalo west on the old Nickel Plate.
It was awful.
A big hand doesn’t drop out of the sky to turn 1218.
Not like a model railroad.
To get it turned around we had to back at least 15 miles on Conrail; a foreign railroad, and a competitor.
—Another problem was 1218 was big and heavy. It was so heavy opposing freight-trains had to pass 1218 and its train stopped on the main.
In other words, the opposing freights passed on the sidings.
Management was afraid 1218 would spread the siding-rails.
—A third problem was watering the engine.
There were no longer water-towers, and great quantities of water are needed to make steam. (It’s not condensed; it’s thrown out the stack.)
1218 towed two tenders behind it. The front tender was the one it was built with, and the second tender carried only water.
Both tenders had to be refilled, and all there was was a single fire hydrant manned by a volunteer fire department.
The flow was putrid.
Refilling 1218’s tenders took almost three hours; out in the middle of nowhere.
I remember watching them turn 1218 on a tight wye.
It was raining, so the rail was slippery.
One driver-set would break traction and spin, while the other didn’t.
Adhesion was at a premium.
1218 backed gingerly at about 1 mph, crewmen walking along side. If a driver-set broke traction they had to stop everything.
Just wying it took hours.
Finally, 1218 ran short of coal about 20 miles from Buffalo. It was midnight, and diesels had to be sent out to rescue the train.
From Buffalo, of course. Took about an hour and a half.
We finally returned to Buffalo around 3 a.m.; utterly blasted.
That was supposed to be my final railfan excursion — I’d had enough.
But it wasn’t.
Later I rode behind restored steam-locomotive Nickel Plate #765 up New River Gorge in WV.
It was much better.
But railfan steam excursions had a habit of everything going wrong.

611.

My brother and I chased a similar excursion west out of Buffalo with restored Norfolk & Western J #611, a 4-8-4 built in 1950.
The poor thing broke something trying to turn on a wye at its western endpoint.
611 was crippled, and the railroad had to dispatch diesels to rescue the train.
From Buffalo, of course; about 90 miles east.
We drove home on the Thruway, but those poor passengers probably sat there for hours.
1218 had a very specific sound.
Ker-chuff, ker-chuff, ker-chuff, ker-chuff.
I’ve only heard that on one other engine: #3985, also an articulated.
A typical steam-locomotive, with only one driver-set, and two cylinders, goes “chugg, chugg, chugg, chugg.”
Four beats to the bar; four chuffs per one complete revolution of the driving-wheels.
Each side in one direction, and then each side in the other direction.
(Cf: Chuck Berry’s “Strummin’ to the rhythm that the drivers made,” in Johnny B. Goode.)
An articulated with two cylinders per driver-set also does four beats to the bar.
But since it has two driver-sets, you get “ker-chuff” as each piston set works.
Often the driver-sets work together, so then it isn’t “ker-chuff.” But when the drivers aren’t together, which they usually aren’t, it’s “ker-chuff.”
I’ve seen the number 1218 many times, most often at the Canandaigua YMCA, where a cardiovascular trainer is counting down the time remaining; twelve minutes, eighteen seconds.
I always take notice of it.
It reminds me of one of the most extraordinary steam-locomotives I’ve ever seen.
1218 is now retired, at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, VA.
Roanoke is where it was built in 1943.
I should note that “hooter” whistle.
Its whistle was not the usual multiple-toned chime found on most steam-locomotives.
It was just a single-toned “hooter.”

Say a command

“Please say a command,” said a muffled disembodied voice from deep within my pants pocket.
It was my cellphone. It had been beeping at me the whole time I put on my shoes at the Canandaigua YMCA.
“Please say a command,” it repeated.
“Okay, I got a command in mind,” I thought to myself. “How about ‘SHADDUP?’”
“Please say a command,” it said a third time.
“Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” I said.
I pulled out my cellphone and hit the kill-switch.
I’ve learned this doesn’t actually kill the phone, but it does kill the disembodied voice.
Next move: memorize “SHADDUP” into my cellphone.

• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym. (“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 best doctor I’ve ever had

Last week I happened to visit our medical doctor — I forget which day.
I really like this guy.
After 65 years on this planet, I feel like he’s the best doctor I’ve ever had.
This may be a reflection that over the years I’ve had quite a few turkeys.
My last doctor was a real dunce.
The pill-pusher.
He was the one I had when I had my stroke.
He looked at me, and told my wife she’d be carting me around like a vegetable for the rest of my life.
“I’m gonna prove you wrong, Doc!” I shouted.
Probably indecipherable gibberish, but that’s what I meant.
The reason for this most recent visit was the biannual checkup for this aging bag-a’-bones.
“197 pounds,” they said. “That’s less than last time.”
“Yeah, less than 200,” I said. “I go by the scale at the Canandaigua YMCA. That says 190 or so.”
“Probably no clothes,” the nurse said.
“Our Wal*Mart roulette scale says 187,” I said. “But that’s only sometimes. Other times it says 197.”
The next assay was blood-pressure. “Lemme know whatcha get,” I said. “I check this every day.”
“140 over 85.”
“Higher than I get. I average about 130 over 80.”
The doctor came in.
“I think we oughta double your Hydrochlorothiazide. 140 over 85 is borderline.”
“My old prescription runs out, so I’ll need a new one.”
He thereupon wrote a new prescription for 90 90-mg tablets.
I drove home.
I looked at my old prescription; 25 mg.
25 to 90 mg is doubling?
Is this thing right?
Is the doctor REPUBLICAN?
My wife had to visit the same doctor the following week, so took the prescription.
“That ain’t right,” the doctor said. “They don’t even make a 90-mg tablet.”
He rewrote the prescription down to 50 mg.
Oh well, he’s only human, and the pharmacy woulda questioned it.
Part of the reason I like this doctor is he can laugh at himself.
A thought came to mind.
“We oughta blow you in for medical malpractice. Bring in Cellino & Barnes; maybe even Mike the Hammer.”
I probably won’t even say this to him.
I really like the guy.
Best doctor I ever had.

• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• My wife of 42 years is “Linda.”
• I work out at the “Canandaigua YMCA.” (“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.)
• “Hydrochlorothiazide” is an inexpensive blood-pressure medication; a water-pill.
• “Cellino & Barnes” are injury attorneys local to Rochester that advertise a lot on TV. “Mike the Hammer” is another attorney, specializing in auto accidents, that advertises heavily.

HO cache

(Photo by BobbaLew.)

An old friend has scored a massive cache of HO-scale model-railroad equipment.
HO gauge is 16.5 millimeters between the rails, and has been around for years. 3.5 mm equals a foot.
A neighbor and I built a large HO layout as teenagers in the late ‘50s.
It was two 4x8 sheets of plywood butted together in an “L.”
The track was on two levels, and had two yards.
Each yard was within a loop of track, and a third loop climbed to the higher level.
One yard was at the higher level.
More was in our layout than rolling stock.
My neighbor even constructed some plaster scenery.
And I constructed a steel truss bridge for it out of balsa wood.
I submitted it as a high-school Geometry project; got an “A.”
It looked great.
Spray-painted flat black.
It looked like the real thing.
Like me, my friend is a retired transit bus driver from Regional Transit Service in Rochester.
He drove bus way longer than me.
My career driving bus ended suddenly at 16&1/2 years because of a stroke.
He was a mentor of sorts, since my approach to the job ended up being his; which was “go with the flow.”
My attitude became that only three things mattered to Transit managers: -1) show up, -2) don’t hit anything, and -3) keep your hands outta the till (farebox).
A fourth thing that only mattered to us bus drivers was -4) don’t get shot.
Our clientele was difficult and could go ballistic. Dealing with them meant “don’t rock the boat.”
We soon learned to not dispute fares. It wasn’t worth it.
Whatever backup we could call on was -a) far away, or -b) glomming donuts at Mickey-D’s.
Sadly, my friend has fairly severe Parkinson’s Disease.
Not debilitating, but somewhat an impediment.
Like me, he’s ornery, as bus drivers tended to be.
Although my wife suggests that orneriness may be why we succeeded as bus drivers.
One snowy morning last week he was perusing the want-ads — he usually never reads the newspaper.
There amidst the puppies and sundry junk was this large cache of HO equipment the seller wanted to part with.
“I don’t drive, so whaddya got?” my friend asked.
“I’ll call ya back,” the seller said.
“I lost count,” the seller said, when he called back. “Perhaps 30 engines, and a slew of freightcars.”
HO is half-O; O-gauge being 1&1⁄4 inches (32 mm) between the rails; most commonly 1:48 scale. HO scale is about 1:87.086.
O-gauge was common to Lionel Trains, but to model to O-scale would have made rolling-stock so large it would overwhelm everything.
O-scale was the track scale used by Lionel Trains, but their equipment was to a much smaller scale.
Lionel was a toy train;. not very realistic, but rugged and operable by children.
But to scale it to real size woulda made it HUGE.
Lionel also used three-rail tinplate track — hardly very real looking. I preferred American Flyer, because it was at least two-rail track; more realistic.
HO track was more realistic yet; two-rail on plastic ties.
And it was small enough to allow equipment scaled to size.
I had a Lionel trainset myself, and an uncle had a massive collection.
There was joy in operating model trains, no matter how unrealistic they were.
When I was a child I visited a friend who had a massive Lionel layout.
He was a spoiled-rotten only child, and had everything.
His layout was HUGE and intricate.
And he had Lionel’s premier engines, the Santa Fe warbonnet F-units, red and silver, pulling a train of model streamlined fluted stainless steel passenger-cars.
Lighted passenger silhouettes in the windows; the Santa Fe “Super-Chief,” the railroad’s most glamorous train.
He also had most of Lionel’s trackside doodads; like the barrel hurler, and the flashing highway signals with crossing-gates that slammed down at the speed of light. (Look out!)
My friend called the seller back the next day, and told him he was waiting; 300 smackaroos in hand. (The ad offered everything for $300. —Perhaps $2,000 worth of equipment.)
The seller showed up with five large cardboard cartons. The huge cache was unloaded onto my friend’s train-table — which is in his cellar.
Except for one carton; the one with bundled track.
His layout is rather basic; just a 4x8 sheet of plywood with reversed ceiling drywall on top. A single loop of running track is laid out on it.
89 bazilyun HO engines were unloaded onto the tabletop, and the slew of freight cars.
Much of it is rather trashy; cheap shiny plastic.
But quite a bit isn’t.
So here we are like little kids, instead of the old geezers we are, running anything and everything.
—I lost interest in model railroading for two reasons: -a) it’s not very realistic, and -b) a layout collects dust.
HO is way more realistic than Lionel, but the rail is nothing like reality. It’s way too heavy.
It has to be that way to accommodate wheel-flanges about 20 times as deep as reality.
The flanges in the real world are maybe two inches deep.
To keep an HO train on the track, the flanges are much deeper — compared to reality.
—Another consideration is that the curvature of the track is much sharper than reality.
Curvature that sharp is only found on industrial sidings. A heavy-duty mainline railroad never went that sharp.
Railroads tried to avoid curves. The wheels don’t differentiate, so one wheel slides on curves — the squealing you hear.
Curvature also slows down trains. Flanges are dragging against the railhead.
My friend’s track loops at each end of that 4x8 sheet of plywood — that’s less than a 24-inch radius.
A Wikipedia article says 24-inch curvature is too tight for a six-axle engine. Sounds right; but we were operating quite a few six-axle units without problem.
And all the wheels were flanged. On steam-engines with six or more driving wheels, the center wheels are unflanged, so the locomotive can negotiate the curvature.
We had a black and white six-axle Lehigh Valley Alco Century unit, plus a gigantic Baltimore & Ohio freight-cab, what EMD marketed as its SDP40F.
The SDP40F was originally for Amtrak, but derailed at speed so much it was removed from service, and sold to freight railroads as freight power.
I’m not even sure Baltimore & Ohio had such a unit.
They are after 1973, and Baltimore & Ohio was merged into Chessie in the ‘60s.
No matter, the SDP40F uses three-axle trucks; all wheels powered.
Only the outside wheels on an E-unit were powered. —Three-axle trucks, but the center axle unpowered.
We ran that model SDP40F without problem.
And there were other six-axle freight-engines we also ran. Supposedly, the curvature has to be at least 27 inch radius to run a six-axle unit.
But a 4x8 sheet of plywood won’t accommodate a loop of 27-inch radius.
Of course, there’s a lotta side-play when the wheels are on the track. Way more than reality.
—A third problem is the speed of trains.
My neighbor and I once figured out the scale speed of a beautiful Baltimore & Ohio Athearn Budd RDC he got, and it was 250 mph!
Even more incredible is that it stopped in about 300 scale feet. —From 250 mph!
That’s enough to throw the passengers on the floor.
My friend and I were operating his many locomotives at 100 scale mph and up.
100+ mph into curves that would tumble a real train off the track.
Railroad equipment is far more top heavy than highway equipment.
Slam it into a curve, and it falls over.
Ya can’t operate HO at normal train speeds.
I access the Roanoke rail-cam, and a train is rumbling by at about 5 mph.
The speed-limit on the old Pennsy grade over the Allegheny mountains is 30 mph.
HO won’t go that slow. 100+ mph requires a lotta horsepower. 60 mph is about as fast as freight-trains go; perhaps 70.
A heavy drag-freight might do 10.

“These are GP7s, or GP9s; I don’t know which,” I said.
“Supposedly the way to differentiate a GP7 from a GP9 is to count louvers.
And these are GP38s. You can tell, because they’re not turbocharged,” I said.
“A turbocharged unit has only one exhaust stack; the turbocharger. And an unturbocharged unit has two small exhaust stacks directly over the engine.
An unturbocharged engine has two Roots superchargers geared directly to the engine. A turbocharged engine has a single turbocharger (exhaust turbine powered supercharger) at one end of the engine — so only one exhaust outlet.
And it’s a big rectangle,” I said. “You could tell a model of a turbocharged EMD engine.”
The GP38 was a special model made by EMD at the request of the railroads. They were stymied by turbocharger maintenance. The things are flaky. You’re blasting hot exhaust gases through a turbine rotating at incredible speed.
The railroads requested an unturbocharged engine they could use to operate local freights. —And thereby avoid turbo maintenance.
So the GP38, and later the GP38-2. —Anything Dash-2 (“-2”) was updated solid-state electronics, replacing the relays used in early diesels.
Dash-2 technology was applied to all EMD offerings. It started in 1972.
—Beyond that was the number of freightcars an HO locomotive would pull — maybe 10 if you were lucky.
Throw a grade at it and the train stalled.
A typical real freight-train might be pulling 100 or more cars. That’s two or three units pulling a 100 or more cars.
Throw a grade at it, and that train might need help; perhaps two extra units on the front, and two units pushing on the back.
The old Pennsy westbound grade over the Alleghenies is 1.8%; 1.8 feet up for every 100 feet forward.
Not too bad, but steep enough to often require helpers.
The limit for an adhesion (non-cog) railroad is about 4%; and ya rarely see anything over 2.5%.
Yet the tightly looping grade up to the higher level on my neighbor’s layout was about 10%.
Put only five cars behind a single locomotive, and the train would stall. We had to shove it up the grade.
My friend’s running track operated the old way: current delivered by the track, and varied to change train-speed.
There is a newer way. Constant current delivered by the track, and tiny computers in the engines to vary the amount used; sometimes by radio control.
That way two trains can operate at different speeds on the same track.
With the old way, both trains operate at the same speed — and start and stop together.
“I think we ran everything, Hughsey,” my friend said.
Some engines ran, and some didn’t.
Only a couple steam-engines ran. On two the worm gear inside was jumping off the drive-sprocket.
Everything else was bound up — and in some diesel-locomotives only the headlight lit.
And some of the freightcars were unbelievable.
Giant paintings of oilcans and ice-cream cones filled the sides of boxcars top-to-bottom. They looked like -a) billboards, or -b) the candy-trains that run over the bulk-food department at Weggers.
Ya never see anything like that in the real world.
I remember how popular the “State of Maine” freightcars were in the ‘50s. Here at last was a colorful freightcar; red, white and blue.
But that’s how they were in the real world.
Ya never saw anything with a top-to-bottom oilcan on it.
And, of course, there was no graffiti. Graffiti-artists use railroad cars as a canvas. —Same with bridge abutments.

• 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.
• “Mickey-D’s” is McDonald’s.
• RE: “Santa Fe warbonnet F-units......” —Santa Fe (“Santa Fay”) is the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. Their “warbonnet” paint scheme was a red nose and front-end, shaped like a warbonnet, ahead of a silver car-body. “F-units” were the earliest freight-units made by EMD. Unlike what you see nowadays, the car-bodies were full-width, which made backing difficult due to poor visibility. Examples are the FT (1939 on), the F2, F3, F7 and F9. Santa Fe used their F-units in passenger service; despite their being freight-units. —Many of my friend’s locomotives were F-units, but other railroads.
• “Lehigh Valley” is Lehigh Valley Railroad, originally based in the Lehigh Valley of PA. It eventually built all the way to Buffalo — one of the finest railroads ever built; but since abandoned.
• “Amtrak” is a government corporation promulgated in 1970 to take over rail passenger service. It mainly runs passenger trains over the independent railroads with its own equipment, but it also owns and operates its own railroads; e.g. the old Pennsy (Pennsylvania Railroad) electrified line from New York City to Washington D.C., the so-called “Northeast Corridor;” although the Corridor has been extended to Boston over the old New York, New Haven & Hartford line.
• “Chessie” is Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad.
• “EMD” is ElectroMotive Division of General Motors, GM’s manufacturer of diesel railroad-locomotives. Most railroads used EMD when they dieselized; although many now use General-Electric diesel railroad-locomotives.
• “Alco” is American Locomotive Company of Schenectady, NY. For years, American Locomotive Company was a primary manufacturer of railroad steam locomotives. (It was originally a merger of many steam locomotive manufacturers.) —With the changeover by railroads to diesel-locomotives, American Locomotive Company brought out a line of diesel-electric railroad locomotives much like the railroads were switching to, and changed its name to “Alco.” Alco tanked a while ago; they never competed as well as EMD. —The “Century” series was a series of locomotives of varying sizes marketed by Alco in the ‘60s.
• The “E-unit” was EMD’s original passenger diesel locomotive. E.g. the E6, E7, E8 and E9.
• RE: “Athearn Budd RDC......” —Athearn (“AH-thurn”) was a manufacturer of great-looking, yet inexpensive, plastic HO model railroad equipment. Most of my neighbor’s rolling-stock was Athearn. The Budd RDC (Rail-Diesel-Car) was a self-powered passenger car built by Budd Company of Philadelphia in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s. It used two diesel tank engines driving Hydra-Matic tank transmissions to directly power the trucks. —The RDC made it possible to fulfill charter obligations without running a hyper-expensive locomotive and train-car.
• “GP” equals General-Purpose, the four-axle version of EMD’s road-switcher, a freight-engine with a car-body only the width of the motor. It also had a short hood ahead of the cab to protect the crew in collisions. Walkways are atop the locomotive frame next to the narrow car-body. This design allowed improved visibility, since the locomotive cab is full width. —EMD’s six-axle road-switcher is the “SD” series; Special-Duty.
• “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. Most of the ex-Pennsy lines are now operated by Norfolk Southern Railroad.
• A “Roots supercharger” is a supercharger following the Roots design. Two large rotating steel impellers compress the intake charge, which in a diesel is not charged with fuel. Most GM bus and truck diesels use a Roots supercharger. —As did their early railroad locomotives.
• “Hughsey” is of course ME, Robert Hughes aka “BobbaLew.”
• “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.) —They run a model railroad — hung from the ceiling — over what used to be the bulk food department. Most every Wegmans has this, usually over its bulk food department. And the overly colorful freightcars are marked with candy monikers.

Wrastling-match

I was at my desk here at home the other day (Wednesday, December 16, 2009) quietly beavering away on a possible blog for the Messenger’s web-site, and I noticed a large FedEx van arrow toward our driveway.
There it is; my wife’s new laptop from Dell, as promised by FedEx tracking number.
“These things are selling like hotcakes,” the guy said, as I signed for the carton. “I must have 20 on the truck.”
And so begins the tortured wrastling-match whereby my wife tries to replace her old ‘pyooter.
I myself have been driving Apple Macintosh for 12 or 13 years.
Our first computer was a Windows PC, a 386-40; 120 meg hard-drive, eight megs of RAM.
But then I started working at the Messenger newspaper in Canandaigua, and fellow workers touted the superiority of MAC.
What made me switch was the Messenger’s going all Macintosh when it computerized.
I guess it was superior.
The indicator was Photoshop®.
I took a Photoshop course in Rochester, and all the class had was Photoshop on PCs.
They were bog-slow. Hourglass city!
I took other Photoshop courses at Visual Studies Workshop.
They were all Macintosh. —Much faster.
We’d walk into the ‘pyooter-lab, and fire up maybe 12 MACs.
One-by-one they’d all sound the famous Macintosh opening chord.
My first MAC was a beige G3 tabletop.
It lasted about six years, but one day it was deader than a doornail.
I took it to Mac Shack, and they deduced bad motherboard.
I was about to upgrade anyway, so I ordered a twin-processor G4 tower (my current rig), and also a new inkjet photo-printer that would work on USB. (My previous inkjet photo-printer had been flaky anyway.)
Later I got a new platen scanner, an Epson 10000 XL, the largest they made.
It was also USB. My old scanner was SCSI (“Skuh-zee;” small computer system interface), and I still have the card installed. —It was installed as an option; but it’s currently not doing anything.
My requirements for my new computer were dictated by experience at the Messenger.
My ‘pyooter there was a simple IMAC, a hand-me-down from a reporter who had moved on.
But we added memory.
With it I could drive the Messenger’s web-site.
It was probably an ancient processor, but it was adequate.
So I decided for mega-RAM on my new G4.
I don’t want shoveling into “virtual memory.” I had that on my Messenger IMAC before we added memory.
It came with 1.2 gigabytes of RAM; two additional 512 megabyte chips.
It also came with two operating systems: OS-X and 9.2 — I could fire up either.
9.2 was very similar to the 8.6 we were driving at the Messenger at that time, so I chose 9.2.
I was scared of OS-X at first, but switched to it when my 9.2 started going flaky.
I’ve never looked back.
“Once you’ve driven OS-X,” I tell people; “you’re done! Anything else is a pretender.”
Best of all, over four-five years of use, I’ve never had it crash.
9.2 was doing that all the time.
I’ve had to force-quit applications under OS-X, but never a total reboot.
When I replaced the G3 with the G4, the Mac Shack transferred the entire contents of my old computer onto my new computer as “old computer.”
In other words, Mac Shack did it.
My wife got a so-called “easy transfer cable;” intent being to do the same thing herself.
AHEM! If there’s one thing I’ve learned after 65 years on this planet, it’s nothing is ever easy; nothing is as promised.
So here I am quietly beavering away, while my wife tears her hair out in the other room.
“Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 2.53 GHz, 1066 mhz, 3M L2 cache,” my wife said, pointing out her new processor.
“1066?” I said. “That was the year of the Battle of Hastings.”

• My wife of 42 years is “Linda.” She retired as a computer programmer.
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• The “Messenger” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired four years ago. Best job I ever had. (“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.)

old Cycle World

A couple days ago, I stumbled across an old Cycle World magazine, January 2009.
That is ancient; well before Mark Hoyer became the new Editor-in-Chief (my most recent issue, January 2010), and well before the redesign and upgrades in magazine production (December 2009).
The magazine went to perfect binding, and increased paper weights.
Cycle World is the last of the general motorcycle magazines — the survivor.
There were others before.
I started with “Cycle Guide” long ago, and as I recall, was transferred to “Cycle” when Cycle Guide folded.
Cycle then folded, and I was transferred to Cycle World.
I’m sure motorcycle magazine publication is a difficult balancing act.
Objectivity can be near impossible.
Publish a review perceived as negative, and the manufacturer pulls its ads.
The previous head-honcho was David Edwards; interesting, but fairly old.
His tastes reflected that.
Always biased towards old-style motorcycling, and older motorcycles.
E.g. the fervent dream that someday hoary old Norton would get back into production.
I continue to get Cycle World, despite my motorcycling being more-or-less over.
Before retirement, I had reason to ride — get to work.
Now I don’t; naught but the pleasure of riding, which is nice, but not that strong.
I still have my motorcycle; a 2003 Honda 600 cc CBR-RR.
It’s adequate; way faster than me.
A while ago I took it for inspection to the place I bought it: Canandaigua Motorsports.
They shook their heads in amazement; an undamaged crotchrocket.
Usually the crotchrockets were delivered in the back of a pickup for repair.
The rider lost it in a curve, and dumped it into the weeds.
“I just putt,” I said. “Too old for racin’.”
I’ve waved off would-be racers.
What I do is cut off the address labels and take my spent magazines to the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym for deposit in their racks.
What happens after that I don’t know — perhaps the dumpster out back.
Most of what’s in the racks are “Fortune” and Sports-Illustrated, “People” and Cosmo.
The magazines get used as reading material as people work out on the cardiovascular trainers.
E.g. some flaccid bimbo reading Cosmo about how to improve her sex-life.
Um honey; first ya might wanna take a shower!
Some guy works out with my Car & Driver magazines.
Usually my magazines aren’t around for long, although a fairly recent Cycle World is still on display.
I was about to take this old Cycle World to the YMCA, but paged through it.
WOOPS! Maybe not.
The three columns I read are still dog-eared, and I don’t recognize anything.
There also is a giant treatment about a new Buell (“Bule;” as in “mule”) motorcycle, the first in years without a Harley Davidson engine.
Buell is now bust. It was affiliated with Harley Davidson, and used Harley Sportster engines for a long time.
This new motorcycle was the first Buell since 1983 with an other-than-Harley engine.
It won the Pro Daytona Sportbike national championship in 2009, but Buell went bust shortly thereafter.
It’s a V-twin, so it doesn’t put out the kind of power the Japanese inline fours generate.
It excels because of its engine size; 1,125 ccs. That’s 125 ccs over a liter. Maximum size for the Japanese inline four crotchrockets is a liter, or perhaps slightly more.
The Japanese liter crotchrockets are generating 150 horsepower or more.
Buell’s 1,125 cc V-twin, made by Helicon, might get about the same.
By comparison, Harley Davidson’s V-twin is ancient, an old design.
Ya might get a hundred horsepower out of an enlarged and hot-rodded Harley engine.
40 years ago that was state-of-the-art, but no longer.
And the Harley V-twins are still air-cooled. Buell’s new motor was water-cooled; which is easier to work with.
The rear cylinder on a Harley V-twin ran hot, because it wasn’t in the air-stream.
So it looks like I shouldn’t part with this Cycle World yet.
Looks like it disappeared into my vast pile of unread magazines.

• “Perfect binding” is to glue the pages along the spine, instead of stapling everything together.
• “Norton” was a longtime British motorcycle manufacturer. It tanked in 1978. —My first motorcycle was a Norton; 1975, 850 cc Commando.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym. (“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.)
• “Cosmo” is of course Cosmopolitan Magazine.

Wal*Mart

A little while ago I happened to shop a nearby Wal*Mart, supposedly the greatest store in the entire known universe.
That’s what my siblings all tell me, and the fact I don’t like it means I’m of-the-Devil.
This Wal*Mart is inconvenient.
They weren’t able to locate right on the main drag.
They share an entrance with mighty Lowes, and are off to the side.
I was looking for a supplemental electric heater, much like EdenPure®.
My neighbor across the street has one, and it seems fine.
So my wife bought one at a nearby hardware.
1,500 watts, it said.
“For crying out loud!” I shouted.
“It’ll be spinning the electric meter like a 78 rpm record.
Plug it in, and the level of Lake Erie will drop a foot!”
We took it back.
“Try Wal*Mart,” I was told.
“You can probably get an equivalent unit for $100 less.”
So I went to Wal*Mart.
I treaded gingerly into the vast store in search of an EdenPure®-like space heater.
Got kissed by a urine-smelling geezer as I walked in the entrance.
Got panhandled by a patriotic button-festooned vet selling tiny American flags.
Giant videos were shouting at me to spend-spend-spend.
Big-screen TVs in their video department.
Lady’s undies displayed on buxom Victoria’s Secret teenyboppers — Wal*Mart’s secret?
There was no rhyme or reason to the store layout.
Stuff was heaped in disarray anywhere and everywhere.
Overloaded display tables screaming at you with loud audio.
I dared not ask a store-associate.
Prior experience!
I did so some time ago, and got snapped at for interrupting their donut break.
Pudgy associates glomming donuts as they jogged toward the break-room.
I managed to stumble upon the heaters, but they weren’t like EdenPure®.
I ran from the store.
Over to mighty Lowes.
Much like Wal*Mart, but more organized and friendly.
Everything in long rows, with signs you can read from a distance.
And help like Ralph Calabrese (“kalla-BREE-zee;” as in “Al”), the local veterans’ advocate, a Korean War vet.
And other store-associates that don’t snap atcha.
Ask where something is, and they walk ya to it.
Still, not much heater selection. Nothing like EdenPure®.
I guess we end up spinning the electric meter — contributing to the greenhouse effect.
Future generations will be unable to breathe, because we wanted to heat the back porch.

• My siblings are all tub-thumping Conservative Christians.
• My wife of almost 42 years is “Linda.”

Route 15

During the early and middle ‘60s I attended nearby Houghton College (“HO-tin;”as in “oh” — not “WHO” or “HOW”).
In fact, I graduated from there with a B.A. in 1966. I’ve never regretted it. It was one of the neatest lifetime experiences I’ve ever had.
During that time I was still living with my family in a suburb north of Wilmington, DE.
It meant trekking back-and-forth.
Quite a few other Houghton students lived in the Delaware Valley (which includes Philadelphia and south Jersey), so we’d share rides.
At first it was up the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike to where it ended at Scranton, then up to Binghamton on I-81, then across lower NY on Route 17.
Onto Route 19 at Wellsville, and up to Houghton.
About eight hours.
Many times it was Fred Zane from south Jersey.
I’d meet him where the Northeast Extension started, north of Philadelphia, although once he drove right through without getting me.
We had to chase him all the way up to a rest-area, where he happened to get off — halfway to Scranton.
Zane was driving with his father; he’d forgot.
Good old Zane; always in the ozone.
Another time was in the ‘56 Dodge of a fellow Delawarean’s father.
That was late 1964.
The Dodge overheated, and we had to have a mechanic replace the thermostat in his shop near Harrisburg.
An eight-hour trip took 10 hours.
But then I rode up with Bill Baynard, a Houghton student from southern Delaware.
He picked me up in his gray ‘52 Chevy fastback, and we drove majestically up Route 15 via Harrisburg and Williamsport.
Route 15 crossed 17 near Addison.
It was perhaps an hour longer, but what a road.
From then on any trips I made were via Route 15.
Over forty-some years I have driven that route hundreds of times.
Improvements and modifications have been made.
By now almost the entire route is four-lane expressway.
The only part that isn’t is the two-lane in NY from the NY/PA border up to Presho.
Just about all of the old two-lane Route 15 in PA has been retired.
Including many way markers.
Like the infamous Blossburg Hill with its “Get Right With God” sign.
We still pass Reptiland on Route 15 south of Williamsport.
And the small golf-ball water-tower in a valley below the highway.
Part of old Route 15 is under water thanks to Hurricane Agnes.
A giant flood-control dam was built near Tioga, requiring relocating the highway up on the hillside.
It formed Lake Hammond and a reservoir in two separate valleys.
Many expressway segments were just two-lane at first.
I remember riding my motorcycle on one near Mansfield about 1991. 60 mph in a downpour!
I was being pushed by a glowering intimidator; “No Passing,” of course.
I doubt I could do it again.
And north of Harrisburg you fall in next to the Susquehanna (“suss-KWEE-hanna”) river on the old “three-lane.”
It’s all four-lane now.
When it was three-lane, there were no-passing zones, and passing zones.
Drivers would stack up behind a slowpoke, and then all caravan by in the passing lane.
The best part is always the scenery.
Entire mountainsides on fire with fall foliage, and the Susquehanna.
I got so I crossed the river at Duncannon (“Done-CAN-non”) north of Harrisburg, and switched inland to an expressway that bypassed Harrisburg — Interstate-83.
Segment by segment, the old 15 has become history. Even the two-lane expressway west of Mansfield, and the two-lane through Lawrenceville. —15 used to go through Mansfield.
Even the gas-stations and restaurant by Steam Valley are being bypassed. For years the eastbound lanes were the old road.
But I like that route.
I tried to find something more direct, but it was desolate and unfriendly; lotsa smoking coal slag-heaps.
And I don’t need no map; or GPS.
Probably the last time I used a map on that route was to figure that Harrisburg bypass — that was at least 40 years ago.

• “Houghton College” is about 70 miles south of Rochester. It’s in western NY. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.
• Route 17 has since been replaced by a more-or-less parallel expressway: Interstate-86; the “Southern Tier Expressway.” It crosses southern NY, west to east.
• A “golf-ball water-tower” is spherical water-vessel standing on a single central leg. It looks like a golf-ball on a tee.
• 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.
• The “Susquehanna” river is a wide, but shallow, river that crosses PA and empties into Chesapeake Bay. Two forks meet near Williamsport, PA; one that starts in NY, and one that starts in PA to the west.
• “GPS” is Global-Positioning-System. Satellites are used to locate the exact position of a receiver on earth, and then software can be used to provide directions. Techies have converted to using GPS software in place of maps.

Another Dubya sticker sighting

I happened to patronize the Canandaigua Tops the other afternoon (Friday, December 11, 2009).
Tops has pedestrian lanes out into their parking-lot from the store entrance.
They’re clearly marked with yellow vertical signs saying “stop for pedestrians.”
They have a small red octagonal stop-sign on the sign.
I’ve stopped there in my car for pedestrians myself; shoppers leaving the store.
Leaving the store I amble gingerly into the pedestrian lane.
But I see Granny is madly approaching in her dark-maroon salt-encrusted Geo.
Oh well, “stop for pedestrians,” but Granny will have none of it.
I stop to avoid getting hit, and Granny roars by, waving as if to thank me.
WOOPS! The exit light is red, so I wonder if Granny will stop for it.
NOPE! She blasts ahead without stopping: right-on-red.
Sure enough! “Bush-Cheney 2004” on the trunk-lid.
The social compact is an impediment!

• “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.
• “Tops” is a large supermarket-chain based in Buffalo we occasionally buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.