Experian®

Seems every morning I have some utter insanity to blog.
Be it the wonders of technology and this here ‘pyooter, or my continual wrastling with Facebook.
Two years ago a laptop computer was stolen at a bank in Boston.
That bank disbursed the pensions of retirees of Regional Transit Service in Rochester.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS). My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.
My stroke disability-retired me from Transit, although I was able to work at the Mighty Mezz.
The Messenger was the best job I ever had.
As a Transit retiree, I get a disability-pension.
That ‘pyooter had all the account information and Social Security numbers of those retirees.
That bank moved quickly.
Our retiree information had been compromised.
The bank purchased “Triple-Advantage®” credit-monitoring from Experian, although we individual retirees had to activate it.
I did, but nothing ever happened.
Every month I’d get an e-mail from Experian reporting no changes or suspect behavior.
That credit-monitoring lasted two years, I guess.
So a few months ago I began getting fevered notices from Experian to extend my credit-monitoring.
So I did, or so I thought, plugging in what I thought was the code the bank had given us.
No matter, Experian kept sending gloom-and-doom notices about my credit-monitoring ending.
Yesterday (Wednesday, September 29, 2010) we got a final-notice from Experian; our credit-monitoring had ended.
“What? I thought I renewed that.”
“Please call our ‘Customer-Care’ 800-number.”
I bet I get a machine.
“Please hold during the silence. We value your call so much it will be answered in the order it was received.
Please key in your account-number.
The system can’t process your request; goodbye!”
I won’t renew.
Every time our credit-card was compromised (twice, so far; over 40 years), it was the credit-card bank that notified us. —Once was only a couple bucks.
In each case they ate it.

• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost five years ago. (“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.)
• “We” is me and my wife of almost 43 years, “Linda.”

Slipping

This morning’s dream (Wednesday, September 29, 2010) was about being late for work at Regional Transit.
Transit had a word for it: “slipping.”
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.
Over that time I was never late for work once, although I tried awfully hard one afternoon.
A downpour began as I started my motorcycle, so I parked it and got in my car.
I made it to work with seconds to spare.
Regional Transit was the largest arm of RGRTA (Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority), transit bus-service in Rochester and its environs.
“Slipping” violated one of the three cardinal rules of Transit, which were: —1) Show up, —2) Don’t hit anything, and —3) Keep your hands outta the farebox.
We bus-drivers had a fourth rule never revealed to management — I’m sure they were aware of it.
It was DON’T GET SHOT!
Our clientele could be difficult sometimes.
When it came to fares and rules we didn’t push too hard.
Violate any of the three cardinal rules and management called you in.
You might get fired.
Management was very specific about “slipping.”
Report to work one second late, and you were late.
This seems silly, but I thought it eminently fair.
It took management favoritism out of the equation.
Avoiding “slipping” seems to have degraded since my stroke.
I often am late for various appointments, although when that happens ya don’t get the third degree.
At Transit I figured travel-time so I wouldn’t slip; 45 minutes from here in West Bloomfield to Transit in Rochester.
I might be 20-30 minutes early.
It allowed me to more thoroughly pre-check my bus; e.g. make sure all the lug-nuts were tight, all the lights worked, and the horn and wipers.
We were paid 10 minutes to pre-check our bus, but that wasn’t enough.
Most drivers performed a cursory pre-check, or did nothing.
But I wasn’t having a wheel come off.
One morning I was driving out in the country, switched on my high-beams, and nothing. Pitch-dark at 30-40 mph and nothing.
I also found loose lug-nuts enough times I always checked.
So this morning I was out in the Barns, yammering.
I thought I had enough time.
When I reported for my bus-assignment I was about two minutes late.
I had “slipped.”
First time ever.

• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.
• The “Genesee” (“jen-uh-SEE”) 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.
• The “Barns” are large sheds the buses are parked inside. The “Barns” are also where Regional Transit conducts its operations from attached buildings. We always said we worked outta “the Barns.” (1372 E. Main St., Rochester, a little way east of downtown.) —They were about 35 minutes from where we live.

Does anyone remember......

......it was president George W. Bush that instituted the TARP bailout funds (Troubled Assets Relief Program), not Obama-lama-ding-dong?
I have avoided the two most volatile topics in my blogs, politics and religion, lest I inflame readers.
But this is laughable.
People are blaming Obama for bailouts.
Enough madness and insanity occur outside of religion and politics.
Before Obama we were on the brink of depression more severe than the Great Depression.
And I hate to say it but Obama has a point.
“I say the sky is blue; the Republicans say no.
I say there are fish in the sea; the Republicans say no.”
No matter, the Tea Partiers will do anything to get their cronies elected, including take advantage of the ignorance of the electorate.
Somehow I think Sarah-baby would be totally unprepared, say, for example, the nuclear bombing of Baltimore by terrorists.
Just like Dubya with Katrina; “Brownie, you’re doin’ a heck of a job!”
A friend has it right: “Sarah is a PTA-mom in way over her head.”
Another friend, near Boston, remarked “Bristol Palin is a star on ‘Dancing With the Stars?’” (I call it “Dancing With the Tarts.”)
My wife said the same thing.
Plus she added “her only claim to fame is having a child out of wedlock.”
I got it; Balloon-Boy for president, or perhaps Octomom.
Years ago I would have said Clarabell from Howdy-Doody.
Leadership qualities are to spray bin Laden with a seltzer-bottle.
And then blow your horn.
Elect Moe; bring back the Stooges.

• My wife of almost 43 years is “Linda.” Like me she’s retired.
• “Clarabell” (“klara-bell”) was a mute clown on the Howdy-Doody TV show. He used to spray the show’s emcee (“Buffalo Bob”) with a seltzer-bottle. Since he was mute, he used horns on his belt. Howdy-Doody was a string puppet voiced by Buffalo Bob. The show started in 1947 as TV began.
• The Three Stooges; Moe, Curly, and Larry.

You’re doing what?

As a stroke-survivor with slightly compromised speech — my ability to string words together for speech, and/or talk fast, is slightly defective — I tend to avoid conversation.
I had just finished working out on a cardio machine in the Exercise-Gym at the Canandaigua YMCA, so I turned around to grab paper-towels and PakIt to wipe off the machine.
Behind was another stroke-survivor, one of many I see there, pumping a step-machine.
Every stroke is different, so even though he appears quite normal, he lost part of his vision.
His left side. There’s no brain-tissue to process it. It got zapped.
I usually don’t say much to him, avoiding conversation, but this time “Hey, old buddy; how ya doin’?”
“Okay.”
“We’re still alive,” I said.
“I visited my cardiologist the other day,” I said.
“Oh yeah? Wha’d he say?”
“‘You’re doin’ two 35-minute cardio sessions three times a week at age 66?’”
“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
“Do it or start falling apart,” I thought later.
Same with climbing steps.
The Canandaigua YMCA has a giant concrete staircase in front of its Atwater St. entrance, perhaps a 15-20 foot rise.
I ascend these steps two at a time.
“What are you doing that for?” people ask. “That’s the equivalent of an exercise workout.”
“Because I still can,” I answer.
“If I stopped I’d get so I couldn’t do it.”

• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty putting words together.)
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA exercise-gym. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east 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. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)
• Bottled “PakIt” is the spray-cleaner they use.

The finest chocolate ice-cream in the entire known universe

Yesterday (Wednesday, September 22, 2010) I had occasion to patronize Mighty Tops in Canandaigua.
This was because I had to buy groceries I can only find at Tops. Usually I shop Weggers.
This was after working out at the Canandaigua YMCA.
Every time I shop Tops, I check out the Ben & Fat Jerry’s, to see if they have any chocolate.
Ben & Fat Jerry’s is the best chocolate ice-cream in the entire known universe.
Usually they’ve had it, but six months ago they ran out — or more probably I ran them out.
Thus began a frenzied chase to -a) find Ben & Fat Jerry’s chocolate at other stores, and/or -b) find an acceptable replacement.
Unable to find Ben & Fat Jerry’s we tried various replacements, but they all came up short.
Breyer’s was too airy, Weggers too rich, Perry’s not too bad, and Turkey Hill tasted like bubble-gum.
Others that failed were Edy’s and Friendly’s; both not chocolaty enough.
Häagen-Dazs was comparable, but even that was lacking compared to Ben & Fat Jerry’s.
So I perused the ice-cream coolers at Tops.
There was Ben & Fat Jerry’s in the usual place, the usual array of garbage-filled flavors; sauerkraut supreme, lotto lettuce, Dublin Mudpie, whatever.
But whoa!
What’s this?
A pint of Ben & Fat Jerry’s chocolate, the finest chocolate ice-cream in the entire known universe.
“Holy mackerel!” I exclaimed.
I immediately reaching in and grabbed it, just like Indiana Jones grabbing the sacred icon.
In so doing I noticed a second pint.
I grabbed that and shut the door.
But then I noticed two more.
I reached in and snagged them.
I now had four pints.
I was able to leave Tops with four pints of the finest chocolate ice-cream in the entire known universe.
There’s only one problem.
We still have leftovers, a partially consumed Häagen-Dazs, and a half-consumed Friendly’s.
I felt I’d lost track. Taste-buds maxxed out.
But rudimentary taste-test applied, Ben & Fat Jerry’s is still the slam-dunk winner.
I still have one more possible replacement to pursue, a Target store-brand of Belgian chocolate.
But it has chocolate-chips mixed in; I don’t know.....
I tried the Henrietta Target, but they were out.
Plus their ice-cream display was tiny.
A second Target is in Chili (“CHEYE-lie”) Center, 30 miles away.
To make such a trip, I need another errand in that direction. I may not have any until October.
And I have my doubts.
I don’t think I’d like ice-cream filled with chocolate-chips.
Ben & Fat Jerry’s is indeed the finest chocolate ice-cream in the entire known universe.
I’ve chased all over creation for it, and even tried to have Tops order it for me.
Nothing ever happened, but now it’s back.

• “Mighty Tops” is a large supermarket-chain based in Buffalo we occasionally buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east 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. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)
• “Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA exercise-gym.
• “Ben & Fat Jerry’s chocolate ice-cream” is Ben & Jerry’s chocolate ice-cream; the best for sale. I got “Ben & Fat Jerry” from a fellow employee at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost five years ago. Best job I ever had.
• “Perry’s” is local.
• “Henrietta” is a large suburb south of Rochester.

Everyone keeps telling me I’m a miracle......

.....and I might just start believin’ yaz some day.
I went to my cardiologist yesterday (Tuesday, September 21, 2010)
“Ya look great, better than last year,” the cardiologist said.
“Well, maybe so,” I said. “If you say so.”
“You’re doing two 35-minute sessions three days per week on cardio-machines at age 66?” he said.
“That’s phenomenal!
And you’re still running?”
“Yep,” I said. “Although what I say is my knees still let me.”
“You’ve lost weight, and your blood-pressure is normal.
Another 10 pounds and you’d be at 175.”
“I’d rather be at 140,” I said.
This is not the first time I’ve heard talk like this.
People tell me I look great, and I’ve gotten the “you’re 66” look.
My wife tells I look better than years ago.
I look in the mirror and I see an overweight man; not grossly obese, but carrying excess poundage.
I see my shadow and I see a semi-hunched little old man.
My hair is white and thinning.
My hairline is receding.
People ask how I am, and I say “Okay, I guess......”
A few months ago we renewed a prescription for hay-fever nasal spray, and we co-payed $85.
We wondered about that since my co-pay last year was $45.
We called my medical insurance, a Medicare Advantage plan.
“Your husband has only one prescription beside this?
Usually someone his age might have 10.
Lessee; you’re nowhere near the donut-hole.
That prescription is Tier 2. It was last year too, but we had to increase the co-pay.”
(Tier 2 are apparently non-generic. I guess there are even Tier 3 and up that co-pay even more.)
I have to concentrate to keep my mouth closed, avoiding the slack-jawed look of my father as he aged.
I’m forgetful and make mistakes.
But people keep telling me I’m a miracle.
Well, maybe so.

• I also had a stroke at age 49 (October 26, 1993).
• “We” is me and my wife of almost 43 years, “Linda.”

Dana

Art Dana. (His trademark blue “Ford” hat is visible [see below].)

“It was a religious, non-religious ceremony,” my wife observed as we walked out of the Art Dana (“DAY-nuh”) memorial service toward our car.
Art, recently deceased, was the retired bus-driver from Regional Transit with fairly severe Parkinson's disease.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS), the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY and environs. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.
Art's wife died four years ago, so he lived with his sister in Pittsford. He was 69.
Art and I had similar interests, particularly hot-rod cars and trains, although in Art’s case it was model-trains. I prefer the real thing.
His memorial service was in a chapel at White Haven Memorial Park near his home in nearby Pittsford. White Haven is a cemetery, but also has granite burial-vaults.
“Uncle Art told me what it was like to belong to a motorcycle gang,” said a relation in a eulogy of sorts.
I got the impression relation was pretty straight.
Nice as he was, I don’t think the straights would have approved of Art.
Art went his own way, pursuing interests that would inflame the straights; e.g. motorcycles and hot-rod cars.
His baby-sister, the one he lived with, also delivered a eulogy of sorts.
“Is that my baby-sister I hear?” she reported he always said when she came home from work.
He had to be dependent on them, his baby-sister and her live-in boyfriend (or husband; I never knew) “Johnny.”
That was Art. “Hughzey,” he’d say; or “Brother Hughes.”
Weak and frail but always smiling.
“Arturo,” I’d respond.
He always seemed thrilled to see me.

Joe Libonati.

“Libonati” (“lib-ih-NODD-eee;” as in “odd”), I cried, as we walked across the parking-lot.
That was Joe Libonati, another retired RTS bus-driver Art was friends with.
Libonati was after my time at Transit.
It was Libonati and me that tried to extract the steering-box out of Art’s hot-rod 1949 Ford (pictured below).
“Did you bring that Camaro?” I asked Libonati.
“No; that car’s just to look at, not to drive,” he answered.
“Heaven forbid a drop of rain get on it,” his wife observed.
It’s a new black Camaro with a Corvette engine. —I’ve never seen it.
“This all seemed so sudden,” we said.
“We never knew what happened,” I said.
“Art fell a few times,” Libonati said; “and broke a collar-bone.
We went to a restaurant in the Camaro, and when we returned home he dropped like a stone in the driveway.”

The last hot-rod — that’s Art driving.

“At least he’s in a better place,” Libonati’s wife said.
“I don’t know about that,” my wife said later. “Far as I know, this is all you get.”
A small wooden cremains urn was on a table in front of the lectern, Art’s blue “Ford” baseball cap atop it (see picture above).
I bet I get the same; a cremains urn with my striped railroad engineer’s cap atop it.
Art was always wearing that hat. Ford did indeed build some of the best cars to become hot-rods.
Their wedding-picture was also on that table.
“You can tell they’re from our era,” my wife said. “Look at those glasses and the hair.”
“He looks like Woody Allen,” someone said.
“More like Buddy Holly,” I said.
Strains of “Not Fade Away” wafted through my head.
When I first started driving bus, Art had a pony-tail. It got him in trouble with management.
“Uncle Art also told me what it was like to drive bus,” relation also said.
I bet that caused a few gasps.
“Three o’clock in the morning? I could never do that!”
Sadly it seemed a large portion of Art’s life was left out of that memorial service, his job driving bus so many years.
But not many RTS people were there.
The service ended with recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.
Funny how religion always gets dragged into these death-things.
I bet Art never darkened the door of a church his entire life.
Although he kept floating strange ruminations by me.
Like “I bet others were here before us.........”
Regrettably I could not respond favorably.
“Art was a happy man,” his sister kept saying.
This was true, and it rubbed off on all those lucky enough to have met him.
And he fell into bus-driving, a job that could be irksome, but payed fairly well, and could be finagled to be pleasant and bearable.
“It paid for my house,” I always say. And it allowed Art to pursue his various interests, including his beloved cottage in the Thousand Islands.
Art and I were different people.
He loved hunting and fishing, and I don’t.
But we were both car-guys, smitten by what the internal-combustion engine and gasoline could do.
And we were both dog-persons. We both knew and appreciated that.
We both also married well.
What I say now is that Art is lucky enough to have avoided the possible consequences of his enthusiasms, rising sea-levels, unbreathable atmosphere, etc.
And also the possible decline and fall of social cohesiveness.
That self-righteous fat-cats put an end to people like Art and me.
He also avoided the nursing-home.

• “Pittsford” is an old ritzy suburb southeast of Rochester.
• “Hughzey” is me, Bob Hughes.

“Those” Bleep!

Last week the Canandaigua Daily Messenger newspaper, where I worked almost 10 years after my stroke, published a headline regarding the Canandaigua School District “huddling” about what to do with Evans Field.
Evans Field is where Canandaigua Academy (high-school) plays all its football games.
It’s not a part of Canandaigua Academy’s facilities, I suppose because originally Canandaigua Academy was in another building in Canandaigua.
Evans Field has become an institution. Playing CA football games there is a tradition.
But Evans Field is old and in need of improvement.
Since it’s not attached to the high-school, getting state funds to improve it is difficult.
“‘District to huddle on Evans Field,’ eh?” I said. “That sounds like my old buddy Kevin Frisch (“Frish”), the current Managing Editor of the Messenger.”
I sent him an e-mail: “RE: ‘District to huddle on Evans Field.....’ —You’re baaaack!” I said.
He had been away, vacation perhaps.
“Wait until you see today’s headline,” Kevin responded.
“Hail Mary for Evans Field,” it blared.
That night I watched the local TV news, Channel 13.
“Hail Mary for Evans Field,” they said.
“They stole your headline,” I fired off to Frisch.
“Those” Bleep! he responded.
“Not the first time,” I responded back.
When I worked at the Mighty Mezz our Police Reporter, who was really good, would research a story, publish it, and Channel 13 would steal it, presenting it as if they had done the story.
“Those” Bleep! Kevin said again.
I would have said “goofballs,” but Kevin’s description was appropriate.
I really like Channel 13.
Their head anchor is the same age as us.
He balances the younger ones who don’t have his broadcasting experience.
And he’s pleasant about it. He doesn’t ruffle feathers.
He’s not the Simon Legree Spiderman is battling.
He’s become a father-figure.
But they’re always doing that; stealing from the Messenger.

• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, retired on disability from my previous job driving transit bus for Regional Transit Service in Rochester, and thereafter went to work for the Messenger Newspaper in Canandaigua. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city, southeast of Rochester, to the east 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. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, also southeast of Rochester.)
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over four years ago. Best job I ever had.
• “Channel 13” is one of three local TV channels in the Rochester area; ABC. —The others are Channel 10 (NBC) and Channel 8 (CBS). I think Fox has one too; which makes four. Public television has one too; that makes five.
• “Us” is me and my wife of almost 43 years, “Linda.” (We are both 66.)

Cellphone use while driving is illegal

I am calmly motoring west on County Road 39, returning from Boughton Park (“BOW-tin;” as in “wow”) after walking our dog.
A glowering intimidator has zoomed up behind me in a full-size black Chevrolet pickup truck.
He’s climbing my back bumper.
I try to wick it up a little.
I’m approaching the intersection with Bement Road, semi-blind on one side, the view partially obstructed by a berm.
Bement Road has a stop-sign on each side. County Road 39 is through.
I’m doing 45-50 mph.
Suddenly a creme-colored Toyota Corolla pulls out from the semi-blind (north) side, right in front of me.
I execute a giant swerve, and hit the brakes.
“She has her cellphone,” we both cry.
It’s glued to her ear, and she’s not seeing us at all. —She’s looking ahead.
If I’da T-boned her, which I didn’t, she wouldn’t have seen me at all.
“Like, where did he come from?”
I thought cellphone use in this state while driving was illegal.
No matter. Everyone is doing it.
Later, in Honeoye Falls, a girl turned around me with her cellphone plastered to her ear.
At least she didn’t try an insane maneuver.
A while ago I nearly got backed into in the Honeoye Falls MarketPlace parking-lot — I had to jump out of the way.
Then the driver was incensed I had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to disturb her cellphone call.
She wasn’t about to take her cellphone from her ear; she never stopped yammering.
“Sorry Mother, some guy just hit my side-window with his fist. I don’t know what that was all about.”
I too have a cellphone, but it goes in my back pocket when I drive.
If it rings, I ain’t answerin’.
It’s goin’ to voicemail.

• 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.
• My wife was riding shotgun.
• Cellphone use in NY while driving IS illegal.
• “Honeoye (‘HONE-eee-oy;' rhymes with 'boy') Falls” is the nearest village to the west to where we live in western New York, a rural village about five miles away.
• “MarketPlace” is a fairly large independent supermarket in Honeoye Falls we shop at.

Trivia tripping

Howdy.

A columnist in the motorcycle magazine I subscribe to (Cycle World) wonders if he’s the only one old enough to remember the TV program “Sea Hunt.”
I don’t remember it, but the reason is because Sea Hunt is after my time.
What I do remember is -a) “Plunk yer magic twanger, Froggy”, -b) the Katzenjammer Kids, -c) Clarabell spraying Buffalo Bob with seltzer in Howdy-Doody, and -d) Jay Silverheels addressing Clayton Moore as Kemo-sabe in “The Lone Ranger.”
(The “Plunk yer magic twanger, Froggy” link is not the original; it’s Andy’s Gang — looks like Andy Devine.)
The audience of children in Howdy-Doody was the Peanut Gallery. Clarabell was played by Bob Keeshan.
Silverheels played “Tonto,” the Lone Ranger’s sidekick. His horse was a pinto named “Scout.”
Moore played The Lone Ranger. His horse was “Silver,” white and fast.
The bullets from his pistol were made of silver.
Their theme-song was Rossini’s William Tell Overture.
Hopalong Cassidy was played by William Boyd.
Another TV-western icon from those hoary days was Gene Autry, the first singing cowboy.
His sidekick was Smiley Burnette, and his horse was named “Champion.”
Their theme-song was “Back In The Saddle Again,” sung by Autry.
He was soon followed by Roy Rogers, who married Dale Evans.
Their sidekick was Pat Brady, who drove a cantankerous Jeep named “Nellybelle.”
It had a habit of starting and leaving undriven if Brady kicked the tires.
Rogers’ horse was “Trigger,” and his dog was named “Bullet.”
How many times did Rogers jump from Trigger into Nellybelle to stop it?
Sea Hunt is much later, well after TV was established.
I’m a child of the ‘50s, when TV was first starting.
I think the first TV news program was “Camel News Caravan,” with John Cameron Swayze. (Actually it was the first news program to use TV news footage instead of movie newsreels.)
My father, who was anti-smoking, used to turn down the ads by Camel cigarettes.
This was well before remotes and muting. You used to have to go up to the TV and turn down the volume knob.
Soon everyone in our family was doing it.
That was our family’s first TV, a 1949 RCA console with a round 12-inch black & white picture-tube.
The first TV I ever saw was my paternal grandparents, a giant box with a tiny flickering 8-inch circular picture-tube.
We used to watch Jack Benny and Bing Crosby.
My grandfather loved Bing Crosby. He’d whistle along.
Back then there was no such thing as cable. You got your TV via broadcast.
And there were only three TV channels out of Philadelphia, ABC (WFIL, Channel-6), CBS (WCAU, Channel-10), and NBC (WPTZ, Channel-3).
Your TV came through a twin-sparred antenna atop your house.

• I grew up in south Jersey, east of Philadelphia.

Silver Sneakers pedometer

The week including Labor Day (last week) is always maintenance week at the Canandaigua YMCA.
The Canandaigua YMCA is closed all week for maintenance.
Which means a vacation for me from working out.
Unless I wanna drive all the way to Geneva. PASS!
I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, 2-3 days per week.
I do it mainly to keep the old ticker going; cardio machines, and also strength and balance training.
I’m 66.
It seems a challenge sometimes, but my blood-pressure is down without medication, and I’m slowly losing weight.
The cardio machines are over 900 calories. I figure 1,000 calories per session.
I also had a stroke a while ago (1993). It compromised my balance.
My balance seems improved since I began the balance-training.
Working out also kills time; about 3-4 hours per session.
So here I was not working out for a week.
—The usual surfeit of grocery visits and errands, which normally get hooked to working out.
I had to go to the Canandaigua Wegmans, a drag without a trip in the same direction, e.g. the Canandaigua YMCA. We live in West Bloomfield.
But now it’s back to the old grind.
The torrent of all-important errands and medical appointments hooked to working out, and walking our dog, and mowing our HUGE lawn.
Everything has to be wedged in.
We have to keep a schedule.
And mowing lawn is weather-dependent, as is walking our dog.
It’s madness and exasperating, but I’m probably in better shape than most my age.
So yesterday (Monday, September 13, 2010) I was given a pedometer as I walked into the YMCA.
I scanned in at the front desk like I usually do.
“Robert?” a voice said.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“A gift for being one of the first 50 Seniors here today.”

• My health-insurance pays my YMCA membership; it’s called “Silver Sneakers.”
• “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 city of Geneva is about 20 miles further east. (We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)
• “Wegmans” is a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.
• “Robert” is of course me, Robert Hughes.

A retired computer programmer weighs in.......

.....on the Dominion Optical-Scan voting system.
“You would think in an age of iPads and iPods and iPhones and iEverything, they could come up with something better than this,” my wife said.
“An iVote perhaps.
A touch-screen voting system that automatically tells you if you voted wrong, and prints out the screen in case your vote needed to be hand-counted.
Scan your ballot, after which the system tells ya you voted wrong? That’s backwards!” she said.
My wife retired as a computer programmer.
“Yeah, but ya gotta allow for the Granny factor,” I said. “After all, it’s Granny that votes.
It was my wife’s 94-year-old mother who once told us “I ain’t callin’ no cellphone.”
Requiring us to continue our landline.
She’s called our cellphone since.
It was also my wife’s mother who loudly declared, “Computers! I sure am glad you understand ‘em.”
Granny walks into the voting-booth, faces a touch-screen, and has a heart-attack.
The ambulance is called.
Mercy-Flight lands in the parking-lot.
Election-inspectors put her on the gurney.
The brochure (pictured) has me voting for the best flavor ice-cream.
Chocolate, of course.
Where’s sauerkraut supreme?

• My wife of almost 43 years is “Linda.”
• “Mercy-Flight “ is the local helicopter ambulance service.

Go-with-the-flow

Art backs his classic ’49 Shoebox (“the Cherry Bomb”) outta my garage. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

My good friend Art Dana (“DAY-nuh”) is gone.
A sorrowful end to an interesting life.
Art was the retired bus-driver from Regional Transit with fairly severe Parkinson's disease.
It somewhat debilitated him, mainly the shaking, but also weakness.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS), the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY and its environs. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.
Art's wife was gone, so he lived with his sister in nearby Pittsford.
Art was 69.
Art and I had similar interests, hot-rod cars and trains, although he was more model-trains. I prefer the real thing.
Another friend apparently copy/pasted Art’s obituary that ran in the Rochester newspaper. It follows:
“September 3, 2010 at age 69. Predeceased by his parents, Arthur L. and Victoria Dana; his wife, Maryann Dana and his dog, Sunny. Beloved brother of Victoria Dana-Seeber (John Laboy); loving uncle of Hillary Dana-Rumi (Fares); great-uncle of Joseph Dana Alley; many relatives and friends. He was a retired driver for Regional Transit Service. He had a tremendous love for all animals and great respect for nature. Arthur was an avid fisherman and summer resident of Cape Vincent. A Memorial Service will be held September 18th from 1-3 PM at White Haven Memorial Park. In lieu of flowers, please send contributions to the Humane Society At Lollypop Farm or Parkinson's Disease Research in his memory.”
We don’t get the Rochester newspaper.
We get the Canandaigua Daily Messenger, where I worked almost 10 years after my stroke.
It was the best job I ever had, although it paid peanuts.
My bus-driving job paid much more.
A job-counselor was willing to try to get my job back driving bus, but I told him to forget it.
I preferred the Messenger.
The obit sounds like it was written by the funeral-home; the way it usually was at the Messenger.
Art apparently started driving bus a year or two (perhaps three or more) before I did (May, 1977), but we didn’t really become friends until much later.
I remember him having a pony-tail at first.
He ended up being a mentor of sorts. My attitude toward bus-driving became his, which was “go-with-the-flow.”
During my final year I suggested to him I was having a hard time staying awake.
“Well, Hughzey,” he’d say; “ya gotta do whatcha gotta do.”
What that meant I had no idea, but at least I was talking to someone who had experienced the same thing.
For a long time he lived in Rochester in a neighborhood that was deteriorating around him.
My last visit was to see his classic American-Flyer S-gauge model-train layout in his basement.
His house was a fortress, yet he complained about kids keeping him up all night dribbling basketball in the street in front of his house.
His house was surrounded with chainlink fence, and his dog was a guard-dog.
An abandoned factory was across the street.
After my stroke I drifted away from the bus-company, and lost track of Art.
That seems to be the way it was. I visited Transit a few times, but never saw any of my old contacts.
Art kept driving bus, and like many others, put in about 30 years. I only did half that, and was tiring of it.
We lived far from Rochester, about 20-25 miles, so visits became infrequent.
I also began working at the Messenger in Canandaigua, farther still.
Art, like me, never had any kids.
All he had was his dogs, and he was always telling me “One is never enough. I’d take ‘em all, if I could.”
But when I visited it was only one dog, and his wife.
His wife died after my stroke, so I wasn’t aware of it.
Dogs kick the bucket too; they never last long enough.
Art moved out of his house in Rochester when his sister suggested they share a house in nearby Pittsford.
By then his wife was gone, as was his dog.
Someone suggested I call Art, so I did.
Thus began our two- or three-year journey of me visiting Art.
I could see he was a mere shadow of his former self; it was the Parkinson’s.
What the obit doesn’t say is he was a hot-rodder, a child of that fabulous time in the ‘50s when hot-rod (fast) cars were the dream.
He had built hot-rods himself, and innumerable motorcycles; including one for himself.
I remember the sight of him and Jimmy Tranquil driving down Main St. in Rochester in a 1932 Ford hot-rod roadster Jim had bought.
It was frigid cold, top down in the breeze, but Art, bundled to the hilt, was grinning from ear-to-ear.
Art showed me a fabulous Model A roadster hot-rod out in his garage he had almost finished.
The car had a souped-up ’56 Pontiac V8; which had been a hairball to restore for lack of parts.
All the car lacked was proper wiring, and Art was fumble-fingered.
People would help, and mess things up even more.
What I regret now is that I didn’t tackle the job for him — I had rewired my ’52 Chevy pickup.
Start-to-finish; the whole thing.
Which is how I would have done Art’s hot-rod, using wiring already in place.
Wiring takes analysis and understanding.
His car was throwing the 6-volt/12-volt issue at him.
I think Detroit went to 12-volts in 1955; a ’56 Pontiac would have a 12-volt generator.
Yet his taillights were ’51 or ’52 Pontiac (6-volt).
You can use the wiring, but not the bulbs.
12 volts blow them out.
Plus with 89 bazilyun friends dorking around, not everything worked. Wires were probably crossed.
He also was having the Parkinson’s problem.
He had to give up and unload the car.
It was due for inspection, and the wiring was still a mess.
So he traded for his vaunted “Cherry-Bomb,” a hot-rodded and customized 1949 Ford two-door sedan.
The motor was a classic Flat-head V8, with Offenhauser cast-aluminum high-compression cylinder-heads.
It had a floor-shifted three-speed transmission.
The difference was it was a finished hot-rod.
I should explain the picture:
Art felt the steering was too sloppy, that it might need rebuilding.
He needed to extract the steering-box.
I have a pit in my garage, so Art suggested we needed my pit.
Art drove that old car all the way out to my house, about 20-25 miles.
We worked on the poor thing, but were unable to extract the steering-box.
Ya have to remove a floor panel, which we weren’t aware of.
Art felt awful we had to leave the car unfinished in my garage, but I kept showing it to everyone.
He got his friend “Louie” to come out and work his magic.
Louie has a few Shoebox Fords himself.
Floor-panel removed, he had that steering-box out in a jiffy.
They then rebuilt that steering-box up at Art’s place, and then put everything back together at my place.
The picture is of when Art backed the Cherry-Bomb outta my garage.
But the steering was still sloppy — back to Square One.
The steering of early ‘50s Fords is notoriously sloppy.
Louie and Art installed a Volvo steering-box suggested by a nationwide early-‘50s Ford restorer. —To cure sloppy steering.
But it was late.
The Parkinson’s was making Art weak. He had me try the steering, but I didn’t have that much of a problem with it.
But it was too much for Art; he decided to sell the car.
The end of his hot-rodding; no more motorcycles either, plus he had given up driving.
I had attempted to do a few things with Art, since we both shared Traumatic Brain-Injury (TBI).
Him Parkinson’s and me the stroke.
We chased trains once, but it was more jawing about Traumatic Brain-Injury.
We also attended a farm-tractor parade, but what I remember most was his difficulty getting up.
Recently it was his HO model-train layout; more running-track.
No scenery; just two running-tracks.
Various problems arose, but we kept horsing with them.
Art was deteriorating; about all he could do was watch his model-trains run.
But apparently his wiring was wonky (or one of his two transformers), since one track was full-throttle, yet the other could be modulated.
But I never got to science it out; unfortunately I have a life to live, with 89 bazilyun all-important errands and medical appointments.
It was Art that suggested “with Hughes ya gotta get an appointment.”
Which is the way it was.
I always had to wedge Art in.
So there he’d sit moldering in his basement, or watching TV.
Plus the guy his sister lived with (or was married to; whatever), got a full-time job, so he was no longer around the house.
Art would be on his own.
Not too long ago, Art was telling me he wished it would get over.
He was tired of the Parkinson’s.
My guess was he probably could have accepted the weakness, but the shaking was driving him batty.
He used to complain about that.
A few weeks ago I saw Art at a Transit retiree picnic. He seemed rather frail.
So it was a sorry end to an interesting life.
I’m told he died on the operating table, whatever that means.

• “Pittsford” is a ritzy suburb southeast of Rochester.
• “Cape Vincent” is part of the 1,000 Islands, in the St. Lawrence river in northern NY.
• “Hughzey” is me, Bob Hughes.
• “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.
• “Jimmy Tranquil” was another bus-driver, the reason Art took up bus-driving. Tranquil was also a motorcyclist.
• “HO” (“aitch-oh;” half-O) gauge is 0.14 in. between the rails, about 1 to 87.086. It’s very popular, since it’s small enough to be more realistic than Lionel (O-gauge).

Staples, that wasn’t easy

“For whatever it’s worth,” I said to the young techno-mavens at Staples in Henrietta; “it wasn’t easy.
In fact, it was a struggle.”
“What can I do to make things easier for you?” maven asked.
“Sorry I even said anything,” I thought.
“It was just a comment,” I said. “Your TV ads are always saying ‘Staples, that was easy.’
But it was a struggle.”
This is more an indictment of online ordering than Staples.
Actually, Staples is pretty easy.
The order was for ink cartridges for my Epson printer.
I’ve done it before, and Staples is a slam-dunk.
Order the ink cartridges and they arrive at my house in a day or two.
I order two or three blacks and one color.
Do it online and I’m not driving to a Staples store.
(The reasons I was at the Henrietta Staples were -a) it was nearby other errands, and -b) I’d made an ordering mistake.)
In fact, I do most of my shopping online.
I hate searching by car.
But every online shopping experience is a wresting-match.
And that’s not just Staples.
Web-sites to figure out, and hoops to jump through.
How many times have I called the store to correct an online order?
And quite often the site is wonky.
Things don’t work, or the site requires Internet-Explorer (the Granny browser).
What was supposed to take five minutes requires 30 minutes of hair-pulling.
This sorta stuff happens at the Staples web-site.
Not an Internet-Explorer requirement, or things not working.
Just figuring things out.
It’s not like walking into a Staples store, and saying “I need ink cartridges.”
Wrong turns and blind alleys.
“Where are the cartridges I need?” I ask the web-site.
“Lessee, Epson supplies,” I say.
“Epson 1280 Photo Stylus.
Gosh, there they are!”
Five minutes became 30 minutes.
Staples, it wasn’t easy.
It was a struggle.
“And $80.70 for three black cartridges is a fortune,” I said.
“We gave you a dollar discount per cartridge for ordering three,” maven said.
I’ve attempted to use el-cheapo cartridges, but they print awful.

• “Henrietta” is a large suburb south of Rochester, NY.

I don’t need it

Yrs trly has given up on Facebook.
I suppose this makes me an old fogey.
This is despite many of my friends communicating via Facebook.
One friend suggested the only time he fired up Facebook was when he was bored.
I get Facebook “friend” invites all the time, respond favorably to a few, and never hear from them again.
Do they fire up Facebook at all?
I gave up because Facebook changed something.
I was posting blog-links to Facebook as “notes.”
They worked fine for a while, but not long ago they stopped working.
Click a blog-link now and it goes to “page not found.”
I considered contacting Facebook, but a Facebook “friend” I hear from fairly often suggested I don’t.
He made sense.
Facebook is always dorking around.
Every time I fire it up something is slightly different.
It looks the same, but something is different in the background.
Like how it works.
And it seems every so-called “improvement” they make screws up something.
So his advice was I not contact them lest they screw something up.
So I walked away.
No more blog-links as Facebook notes.
My Facebook Internet tab is still on, but I rarely fire it up.
Posting a blog-link note was reason to look at “home.”
Usually just a few posts from friends that use Facebook.
And comments thereto; usually short and torpid.
My family had a web-site I walked away from too, but only because one family-member was continually badmouthing me.
My family’s web-site was much more active than Facebook.
And private.
You had to be a member; you had to be invited.
Facebook is the same, but there you have 89 bazilyun members (“friends”).
My family’s web-site (based in Utah) tried to upgrade years ago, but everyone rebelled.
What was wrong with the old way of doing things?
It worked fine.
That “improvement” may have crashed.
I used to have an Internet e-mail.
They upgraded it, making it much worse.
Mainly bog-slow.
I ended up walking away from it, back to my old RoadRunner e-mail, which I still had — and still use.

• “RoadRunner” is Time-Warner’s Internet-service-provider, via cable. I use RoadRunner.

The motorbike trip from Hell

1996 Kawasaki ZX6R. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

11-13 years ago, at about this time, I set out on what turned into the worst motorcycle trip I have ever taken.
Seems everything that could go wrong did, except I didn’t break down.
I ran out of gas, but before reserve, which meant I could find a gas-station.
And that was coming back, which meant it wasn’t the motorbike trip from Hell.
My trip was to northern Delaware, my brother, a trip I had made before on motorbike.
It was also since my stroke, but not my first.
I remember my stroke rehab people telling me my motorbike days were over, but I would hear none of that.
I told my driving instructor to not clear me unless she thought I could ride motorcycle.
When I finally tried it, it was slightly different, but not much.
I set out in my rainsuit. It was dry, but cloudy, and looked like it might rain.
Apparently a vicious thunderstorm blew through at home after I left, but I never saw it.
My first drama was about 2-3 hours into the trip, a monstrous parking-lot traffic-jam south of Blossburg, PA.
The road was four-lane Interstate expressway, but it was blocked solid, even out in the middle of nowhere.
I finally had to shut off.
We’d advance maybe 15 feet, and then sit for five minutes.
Finally after about an hour, the way cleared.
I stopped south of Williamsport to eat a sandwich I had packed.
Then into another lock-solid traffic-jam south of Selinsgrove.
Some of Route 15 west of the Susquehanna River was still three-lane, so the jam appeared to be where four lanes merged into three.
It appeared to be Labor Day traffic.
I’ve been over that road hundreds of times, and it never was that bad. (I lived as a teenager in northern Delaware.)
I continued south toward a bridge over the Susquehanna at Duncannon north of Harrisburg.
I expected the ramp to this bridge to be just that, a ramp; but instead it was a cloverleaf.
I was quickly off the road, into the weeds.
I was sure I was gonna drop my motorbike, but didn’t.
I came to a stop in the weeds, still erect.
I rode back to the cloverleaf.
In 30+ years of riding motorbike, that’s the only time I’ve gone off the road.
Thankfully there were no culverts, drainage-ditches, or Armco guardrail.
I crossed the bridge and continued south toward Harrisburg, but missed my turn east onto the Harrisburg Bypass.
I was headed directly into Harrisburg.
My street narrowed, and I was on streets I didn’t know.
I was also running out of gas.
I turned east (left) onto a main cross-street, hoping it would eventually intersect with the Bypass.
I pulled into a gas-station and tanked up. The owner was incensed I wanted to pay by credit-card. It was only a $12 purchase.
The street did indeed intersect with the Bypass, so I got on and continued on.
It’s somewhat challenging.
I almost got sideswiped by a front-wheel-drive Pontiac.
I don’t think the guy ever saw me. He just merged without looking.
But having driven bus I expect such things.
It was beginning to get dark; it was pushing 7:30.
By the time I got to Strasburg Railroad it was dusk.
Strasburg is a rural bypass around busy U.S. 30 through Amish country.
I’m also a railfan, so I always hit Strasburg.
Strasburg is also a rest-stop.
I continued into the gathering gloom.
By the time I got to Gap, PA, it was pitch-dark.
Night comes quicker in September.
Gap is where I turn toward Delaware on Route 41. It’s also where the old Pennsylvania Railroad surmounted a gap in hills; Philadelphia to Harrisburg.
I crossed Pennsy headed for Route 41.
I’d have to turn right (south).
The intersection was unlighted, and my headlight only got what was in front.
I turned right and sideswiped a curb, which I never saw in the gloom.
I managed to keep standing, so I stopped and put my sidestand down.
That killed the motor, and it wouldn’t keep running if I put it in gear.
I of course couldn’t see anything.
An enraged Chevy pickup went around me, honking its horn.
I also was atop a drainage-grate that could swallow my sidestand.
I paddled past that, blind as a bat, and restarted.
I continued down 41 toward Delaware, but it started raining.
I decided it was better to get on a main highway, U.S. Route 1, instead of continue on 41.
When I finally got to my brother’s house in northern Delaware, I just parked on his porch — which was the same level as his driveway.
It was 9:30.
I called my wife, who was worried sick.
My motorbike stayed on his porch until I had to ride back home; at least three days.
The motorcycle pictured is the one I rode.

• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke ended that.
• I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child.

Yet again

Another 5K footrace for this old codger.
Five kilometers (5K) is 3.1 miles.
42:01; still bog-slow, but three minutes 47 seconds faster than the last 5K three weeks ago, and this one had a killer hill.
This was the Crosswinds 5K, sponsored by Crosswinds Wesleyan Church in nearby Canandaigua.
I ran this race two years ago, my first race in years.
And I’ve lost track of my time.
I used to run footraces a lot, but not after my stroke.
Crosswinds Wesleyan Church is sort of a mega-church, but not like in south Florida. Thousands of members, but not that many. The Canandaigua area is not that large.
It has huge facilities, even an athletic field comparable to any school.
I was preregistered, but had to pick up my number-tag (above) and a teeshirt.
So, I walked tentatively into the church’s chapel entrance.
The old stroke waazoos kicked in; find the preregistration table, and interact with people. (I’m on-my-own.)
Try to avoid stuttering; don’t muck up.
Finding the preregistration table may involve asking someone.
I first encountered a lobby full of people hawking trinkets and baubles.
“Money-changers in the temple,” I thought. “Den of thieves.”
But the lobby wasn’t the right place.
I continued on.
I stepped into a giant room, a combination gymnasium and auditorium, I guess.
No seats, but it had a stage.
The ceiling was 60-70 feet above the floor, which was about the size of a football grid.
A giant jumbotron was on the wall, flashing sponsors of the race; all scions of the Canandaigua community.
Triumph of conventionality.
Throughout was the booming base of Christian rock music.
Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom!
I’ve never been able to make sense of “Christian-rock” music; to me “Christian-rock” is an oxymoron.
That’s because in the world I grew up in, rock-n-roll was of-the-Devil.
But now I’m told things are different.
Seems religion has co-opted what once were sins.
The high-school in Canandaigua is banning dirty-dancing.
Students protested and started dirty-dancing outside in the parking-lot.
The Police were called.
Grist for the local newspaper.
A student was invited to weigh in on this controversy.
“Things are different from when they were in school,” she said.
They sure are.
“Sock-hops” (so-called) at my high-school were so supervised they became moribund.
All the kids were attending an alternative dancehall, not a school function, that was poorly supervised.
There were no chaperones.
Other high-schools in the Rochester area have enacted dirty-dancing bans, and their school dances have crashed.
The kids aren’t attending.
This sounds a lot like when I was in high-school, and that was almost 50 years ago.
So now I’m told Jesus engaged in dirty-dancing, drank wine (spodie-oddie) and smoked dope.
Or so it seems.
All that religion stood against when I was a kid, is now approved of; and therefore I’m an old fogey.
Number-tag in hand, I walked back outside.
“15 minutes to race-start,” barked an electronic bullhorn. “Runners please congregate in the start area.”
Police had blocked off the road in front of the church.
There were about 400 of us, the right size.
Thousands is a log-jam.
Finally, “Five minutes until race-start,” then a minute, then 20 seconds, then five seconds.
“Ready, on-your-mark......” PRAMMPP, the blast of a freon air-horn.
I had to start on the shoulder; it was that crowded.
We crossed the 5&20 Bypass; traffic was backed up out-of-sight.
The Police had blocked it off.
Horns were blaring, and fists were shaking. “These joggers” were delaying getting my boat in the water.
After about a quarter-mile I pulled even with another guy about my age chugging along.
“I have a hunch I’ll be swapping places with you this whole race,” I said.
“I’ve never run it before,” he said; “and I hear it has a killer hill.”
“Yeah, but it’s at the end,” I said.
“66 and had a stroke,” I said.
He commented he was 68.
“The whole reason I do this,” I said; “is to keep the old ticker going.”
We rounded a corner, and “I bet that’s about a mile,” he said.
“No it’s not,” I said. “One mile is up ahead. It’s marked.”
Over 13 minutes to the mile-mark.
“Not too bad,” he said.
“Oh for the good old days when I could run the first mile in 6:28,” I said.
That was years ago, early 40s, and no stroke yet.
Also about 50 pounds lighter.
We ran down a slight grade.
“Down to lake-level,” I said; “then back up. That’s the killer.”
We turned on another street and up a slight grade.
“Is this it?” he asked.
“Not to lake-level yet,” I said.
He began chugging ahead, about 10 yards as we negotiated a zig-zag.
Down to West Lake Road, with an upgrade ahead.
“That ain’t the killer,” I shouted.
By the time we got to the killer hill he was maybe 25 yards ahead.
Then we started up the hill.
He kept going, but so did I.
Others were stopping, but not us.
But his lead kept growing; about 50 yards at the top.
I passed two ladies after the hill, but was passed myself by a power-walker about 70.
It’s somewhat depressing there are people that can walk faster than I can run.
The hill is a private road through a senior-center, and traffic was heavy.
We were impeding Granny getting to the Racino.
Finally, back on the road in front of the church, and “one-eighth mile to go.”
I tried to wick it up a little.
As the finish-line hove into sight, the timer-clock was still saying 41 minutes.
Can I do it?
I tried to run faster, but still chugging.
The clock went to 42 just as I passed it.
My friend had finished maybe 100 yards ahead of me.
Another reason I do this is I still can.
“These 66-year-old knees are still letting me,” I always say.

• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty putting words together.)
• “Canandaigua Lake” is one of the Finger lakes in Central Western New York. The city of Canandaigua is at the north end of it. (Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Central 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 Finger Lakes are a series of north-south lakes in Central New York that look like the imprint of a large hand. The were formed by the receding glacier.
• “5&20” is the main east-west road (a two-lane highway) through our area; State Route 5 and U.S. Route 20, both on the same road. 5&20 is just south of where we live. —A bypass was built around Canandaigua a few years ago. Previously 5&20 went right through it.
• “Racino” (“ray-CEE-no”) is a combination horse-race track and casino, in this case, Finger Lakes Race Track and Casino.

Helloooooo

Um.......... (Photo by BobbaLew.)

At least a couple times per week we visit nearby Boughton Park (“BOW-tin;” as in “wow”) north of Bloomfield.
Boughton Park is the old Fairport water reservoirs; it’s maintained as a town park.
When Fairport abandoned their reservoirs, the area was purchased by the three towns of Victor, East and West Bloomfield to maintain as a town park.
It’s sort of a nature preserve, and a wonderful place to walk our dog — leashed.
Only residents of the three towns that own it are allowed to use it, and we are residents of one of those towns, West Bloomfield.
You have to have a parking-sticker (illustrated above) on your car to park in the park.
Those stickers are obtainable from the Town Clerks.
For years we’ve dutifully obtained those stickers, and pasted them in the windows of each of our cars. Two cars, two stickers.
This morning (Sunday, September 5, 2010) we parked in the park’s Stirnee Road parking-lot.
We hiked our dog all the way around the park; about two hours.
When we returned, the flagrant red warning ticket, also illustrated, was under a windshield-wiper perhaps three feet from the parking sticker.
Okay, hair-splitting time.
Years ago I was on the Boughton Park Board, and I don’t remember a legal requirement that your sticker be on a side-window.
Of course, maybe things have changed.
We used to put our sticker in the side-window, but our Toyota Sienna van has tinted side-windows, so even though we had a sticker the park monitor never saw it.
So we put it in the windshield instead, so the park monitor could see it, since the windshield is clear.
Which is where I photographed it.
But apparently the park monitor didn’t see that either, so now my car can be towed even though I have a parking-sticker.
Marcy, it’s everywhere!

• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester. Adjacent is the rural town of East Bloomfield, and the village of Bloomfield is within it. “Victor” is a fairly large rural town to the north; “Fairport” is an old suburb east of Rochester on the Erie Canal.
• “Stirnee Road” (“Stir-nee”) is a small rural two-lane skirting the northwestern side of Boughton Park.
• Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s five, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't too bad.)
• For maybe five-six years I was on the Boughton Park Board, a volunteer commission that administered the park. (I ran out of time for it.)
• RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Mighty Mezz, from where I retired over four years ago. At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to write up, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” (The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper. 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.

Hurricane Earl

Hurricane Earl.

And so Hurricane Earl marches up the eastern seaboard toward my younger brother near Boston.
It reminds me of Hurricane Carol in late August of 1954; it’s following more-or-less the same path.
Out to sea, but brushing the coast. (I guess Hurricane Carol also hit Long Island and New England.)
Our family was staying at my uncle’s cottage in Ship Bottom on Long Beach Island in the south Jersey seashore.
Our family and my paternal grandparents.
My younger brother Tommy had died of leukemia in January of 1953. He hadn’t even made age four.
The uncle was my father’s younger brother.
The cottage was rather rudimentary; no heat, and no cellar.
It was on cinder-block pilings.
But it did have running water.
What I remember most was its living-room was finished in knotty-pine, not plaster.
And the ceilings were sponged plaster.
1954 was before wallboard.
It also had no air-conditioning. You had to open windows.
No lawn either; it was sandy orange gravel.
If ya had a lawn, ya hadda sprinkle it.
The cottage was about 4-5 blocks from the ocean-beach, and less than a block from the bay.
The vast bay, also salt-water, separated the island (a barrier island) from the mainland.
The hurricane struck with fury, even though 100 miles offshore.
It wasn’t serious enough to evacuate, but I will never forget it.
The wind was a-howling (80+ mph), and rain was lashing us.
My mother piled us kids into our humble ’41 Chevy; we were going to the beach.
In 1954 I woulda been age 10.
The beach was normally 150-200 feet wide, breakwalls to ocean, with about a 20 foot rise.
200 feet is two-thirds the length of a football grid.
The windshield-wipers on our ’41 were utterly swamped. No way could they keep up with the torrent.
And that was back when wipers were vacuum-powered; not electric, like they are now.
We managed to get up to the beach, and the ocean was clear up to the breakwalls.
Huge waves were crashing where we usually sunbathed.
Storm-surge, I guess.
My mother had brought along a flimsy cotton bedspread, and wrapped it around herself.
She got out of the car, and got deluged; I don’t think we ever got out.
The wind wanted to slam the door.
After the storm passed, we walked down the street to the bay.
Boats were tossed topsy-turvy, even some up in the street.
Our cat had survived outside by climbing up between the floor-stringers of the cottage.
I will never forget it; and that was 100 miles offshore.

• A ’41 Chevy in 1954 seems a bit crazy, but it was a really nice car in excellent shape. I think my parents had purchased a used ’53 Chevy with only 5,000 miles earlier that summer.
• The “breakwalls” were where the beach ended. They separated the beach from the houses and streets behind. They were usually made of old railroad ties (back then).
• Windshield-wipers were previously powered by engine manifold vacuum, but began using electric motors as an option during the middle ‘50s.

Land-Barge

1967 Dodge Coronet 440 convertible.

A couple weeks ago, while driving up to Rochester for a picnic, I passed a gigantic Mopar land-barge from the late ‘60s.
Mopar meaning Chrysler product, a Dodge, or Plymouth, or perhaps even a Chrysler.
It was a red convertible, top-down, and had four people inside it.
All were smiling.
The joy of convertibles is something forgotten.
My first ride in a top-down convertible was a white 1956 Buick.
I was in seventh grade. It was 1957.
My first car, long ago, was a roadster, a 1968 Triumph TR250.
We put the top down occasionally, but mostly drove top up.
Ya don’t see convertibles much any more.
Blame it on air-conditioning.
I do it myself.
Crank all the windows closed, and turn on the air.
Beats the draft of an open convertible.
Just the same, I miss having a convertible.
I can still remember joyous blasts over country roads top-down.
During my final year at college, I borrowed the ’62 Ford convertible of a friend.
It too was red.
I quite naturally put the top down.
Off to Canaseraga over rural country two-lanes.
No wonder those people in that Mopar were smiling.

• “We” is me and my wife of almost 43 years, “Linda.”
• “Canaseraga” (“Kan-uh-ser-AH-guh”) is a small rural town in western New York.

Staggers Act

Probably the primary national legacy of the administration of president Jimmeh Kah-duh, is the Staggers Act of 1980, deregulating the railroad industry.
My October 2010 issue of Trains Magazine has a large article detailing the significance of the Staggers Act.
To understand things one has to realize railroading was a major technological leap forward. It made possible the Industrial Revolution, whereby massive quantities of materials could be cheaply shipped to large, centralized production sites, and then the product cheaply shipped.
Produce from the midwest could be shipped to eastern population centers.
Railroading was a cash cow, and attracted unscrupulous promoters.
Everyone wanted a piece of the action. Merchants in tiny burgs were taken advantage of to get a railroad in.
The worst example may be the New York, Ontario & Western, which never actually attained New York, and built a horrible railroad through the Catskills.
It climbed at least three steep hills to connect all the towns it went through.
Its promotors would sell bonds of the NYO&W to merchants in those towns.
NYO&W is of course gone; it abandoned in 1957. It only lasted as long as it did, because it built a branch to Scranton, PA; an outlet for anthracite coal (to New York City).
Before railroading it was pack-horse and wagon, although canals had advanced that.
But canals couldn’t operate in winter.
With railroading came cut-throat competition; charge high to ship in a market where it was the only railroad, and low to steal from competing railroads.
Things were so outta control and confiscatory the Federal Gumint stepped in, instating the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate the railroad industry.
That was in 1887, a good idea at first, but as time advanced into the 1960s, and competing modes of transport had arisen, the Interstate Commerce Commission was holding back the industry.
Deregulation of the railroad industry was precipitated by the collapse of Penn-Central, a merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and arch-rival New York Central. Both had lines in the midwest that competed, and were unproductive.
Total collapse of eastern railroading was looming, so Conrail was formed, at first a gumint enterprise.
It looked like eastern railroading would be a financial sinkhole, that Conrail would forever need subsidy.
The Staggers Act is a compromise, full of arcana I don’t understand.
It wasn’t complete deregulation as proposed by Carter, but it significantly defanged the Interstate Commerce Commission.
It essentially fulfilled the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 (the 4R Act), which set the stage for deregulation, but didn’t work.
When my car needs gas, I patronize either of three gas-stations; their per-gallon price is often lowest. I avoid two other gas-stations, because their per-gallon price is higher.
This is called competition, chillen.
What the Staggers Act was allowing.
Railroads could set contract rates for rail-transportation with a shipper.
Without approval by the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Railroads could more quickly present a rate proposal, without the ICC slowing things.
Same thing with abandonments. Railroads were no longer the only commerce for small towns. There was trucking over highways, which wasn’t there when those railroads were built.
A railroad could abandon such branches, and better concentrate on their main stems, which were excellent at moving massive volumes of traffic.
Previously the ICC stood in the way of such abandonments, or selling off such lines to an alternative short-line operator.
People expected railroad rates to rise with the inflation at that time.
But they didn’t. They fell instead.
The railroads were competing for traffic.
Such competition would have made Penn-Central (and eastern railroading) competitive at that time, but the Interstate Commerce Commission was still in the way.
So now the railroad industry is extraordinarily successful.
Even in a time of deep recession.
It makes one wonder if price-competition is what our economy needs, an end to regulation.
The Staggers Act essentially reinstated the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad, which is suffering from the rationalization in the ‘60s.
Although now the operator is Norfolk Southern Railroad.
Pennsy was reduced to a two-track railroad, which is becoming a bottleneck.

Monthly Calendar Report for September, 2010

Throttles to the roof! (Photo by BobbaLew.)

―The September 2010 entry of my own calendar is my first picture at a place I’ve been to many times, a highway overpass over the old Pennsy tracks north of Portage, PA.
It’s the signal at milepost 257.2, and the signals are mounted on the bridge.
It’s my most successful shot there.
Other pictures are on Tracks One or Three; this one is eastbound on Track Two, the middle track.
Track One is also eastbound, but too close.
Track Three is westbound, too far, and the wrong way.

Photo by BobbaLew.

Nada!

My shot on Track Three also suffers from strident morning light. It throws a shadow of the bridge.
Track Two can be either way.
Eastbound (going away) looks better.
In this shot the lighting is more muted and hazy.
As I understand it, this is one set of signals always on.
Look carefully, and you can see the amber lights are on. —It’s the old Pennsy target. (Although signals come on for passing trains.)
Vertical is proceed, horizontal is stop, and diagonal is approach.
Other signals wink off after a train passes.
The overpass is a fairly substantial residential street.
That overpass can support heavy trucks.
It ain’t the spindly abomination over M&K Junction on the B&O West End I drove our Astrovan over near Rowlesburg, WV.
—Which I was afraid would collapse.
This location is a favored spot, but hard to get to.
You have to climb down a weed-infested embankment through heavy brush and poison ivy.
Last June the area was marked “no trespassing,” which we discovered after taking that strident morning-light picture.
Eastbound is upgrade. The locomotives (GEs) are hammering.


The greatest airplane of all time. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—I almost made this picture number-one.
The North American Mustang is arguably the the greatest airplane of all time.
Every American, BY LAW, should be required to see a Mustang fly, and above all, hear it.
I did years ago. and I will never forget. That’s goin’ to my grave.
But this is an earlier Mustang; not the plexiglas bubble canopy.
It may also be an Allison V12, which earlier Mustangs had.
The Allison is okay, but doesn’t have the crackle of a Packard-Merlin.
Supposedly this is a Packard-Merlin.
It’s also not that good a picture; I decided my own picture was better.
I can imagine Makanna out there in the open in the back end of a Texan canopy with his camera, in radio contact with the Mustang pilot.
“Now charge me,” he’d say.
The Mustang pilot has to avoid hitting Makanna’s airplane, yet get close enough to render a dramatic picture.

April’s Mustang.

And who could imagine a WWII Warbirds calendar without a Mustang in it. —This is one of two.
That looks like the Pacific Coast Highway below.
I drove it in 1980, but only a portion; San Francisco to the highway in to San Luis Obispo.
That included Big Sur (supposedly), but we really never saw what was pictured.
I guess you hafta go down to the beach. (Or Big Sur may even not be on the Pacific coast.)
It’s a nice road, and I’m sure was a challenge to build, but it quickly became boring.

Both of my All-Pennsy calendars are Decapods.

Hippo number-one at Columbus, OH. (Photo by Ben Young©.)


Hippo number-two at Enola, PA. (Photo by Jim Schmidt.)

—The September 2010 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar is a Pennsy Decapod (2-10-0) resting in the yard in Columbus, OH after dragging in the string of hoppers behind. It’s 1957.
—The September 2010 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is the Pennsy Decapod in hump service at Enola (“Aye-NOLE-uh;” as in “hay”) Yard across from Harrisburg, PA.
It’s amazing to think that for all its testing and research at Altoona, PA (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in “Al”) Pennsy never had a standout steam-locomotive design.
But they did have a standout electric locomotive, the GG1 (“Gee-Gee-One”), which I consider the greatest railroad locomotive of all time.
The Decapod was the quintessential Pennsy steam-locomotive. The first was in 1916, and they were all pretty much the same.
Pennsy had 598; 123 from Altoona, and 475 from Baldwin Locomotive Works near Philadelphia.
The Decapod was well suited to Pennsy operations. A gigantic boiler pushing gigantic drive-pistons.
They could be extremely powerful if operated slowly. Boom-and-zoom and they ran out of steam.
That boiler and firebox couldn’t keep up with high-speed steam demand.
Boom-and-zoom and they also vibrated heavily. The drivers were too small to mount the counterweighting needed to offset their heavy drive-rods.
But the Decapods were well suited to Pennsy’s mountain operations; slugging slowly up steep mountain grades.
Only one other railroad, Western Maryland, had comparable Decapods, and they were heavier.
They had similar operating conditions; mountain railroading.
Pennsy never really had any steam switchers. The only ones I remember were a tiny 0-4-0 and a slightly larger 0-6-0, of which they had quite a few.
Both had slope-back tenders for better vision while backing.
Pennsy experimented with 0-8-0s, but used unretired 2-8-0 Consolidations as switchers.
A Decapod was well suited for hump service; shoving a cut of cars up a hump grade.
Look carefully at each engine and you’ll see the center driver is blind — flangeless.
It had to be, so that long wheelbase didn’t start pulling rails on curves — and switches.
A Decapod was very basic; almost all of its heavy weight on its drive-wheels.
Bigger engines came later, but Decapods lasted until the end of Pennsy steam (1957).
The engine-crews called ‘em Hippos.

Pennsy’s J.

Nothing on Pennsy ever exceeded 10 drive-wheels, although the railroad did have a 2-10-4, the J. But the J wasn’t a Pennsy design.
Pennsy experimented with articulateds, but never really had any in quantity.
An articulated was labor-intensive, and the railroad could afford double crewing; e.g. two Decapods instead of one articulated.
The railroad that developed really good articulateds was Norfolk & Western. Their “A” (2-6-6-4) was a standout steam-locomotive.


Back-country railroading. (Photo by O. Winston Link.)

―The September 2010 entry of my O. Winston Link "Steam and Steel" calendar is rural railroading at its best.
A teakettle steam-engine is heading a small train up a creekbed, toward the summit over Bridge 52 over Laurel Creek.
We’re on the extremely rural branch through Green Cove far out in rural VA.
Headed for White Top.
It’s not the mainline.
The grade is 3 percent — difficult but not impossible.
The mail truck heads up a parallel dirt track.
Norfolk & Western hung onto steam locomotion well after most railroads dieselized.
On other railroads, this train would be pulled by an Alco RS3 or Geep.
Link has captured the essence of it, and appeared to be on the train.
A peddler freight out in the middle of nowhere.

#475.

The engine is #429, I think the same series* as the only N&W steam-engine still operating, #475, also a 4-8-0, on Strasburg Railroad in southeastern PA, a tourist line.
*Well, not exactly. 475 is one of an order of 50 M-class 4-8-0s from Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1906.
It was slightly different than 429.
We’re probably in the caboose.
The locomotive is a unique design. (Or at least 475 was.....)
It didn’t have a cab-deck behind the firebox.
The fireman shoveled coal straight from the tender-deck.
The engineer sat next to the firebox with his controls and water-glass beside the firebox.
It’s a teakettle, within the range of hand-firing.
I notice the mail truck is a Dodge.
I also notice the locomotive is popping off; that large feather of steam over the boiler.
The fireman has got the fire hot enough to boil up sufficient steam to lift the pop-valves, which protect to boiler from excessive steam pressure.

My two car calendars are both kinda plain.


Charger. (Photo by David Newhardt.)

―The September 2010 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a 1969 Dodge Charger R/T.

Daytona Charger.

It’s not the Daytona Charger (at left), with its special body for Daytona Speedway.
Since when do ya find a wing like that on a street car? And its aerodynamic front-end that doesn’t present a frontal slab.
The Charger R/T is the street car, and probably not the 426 Hemi Elephant motor.
It’s probably a 440-cubic-inch Wedge.
Still pretty substantial, but mainly because of its size, and the fact it was hot-rodded.
It only has one rocker-shaft, if at all, in its cylinder-heads, whereas the Hemi had two.
The Hemi had its valves splayed 90 degrees from the crankshaft, so the valves could be in hemispherical combustion-chambers.
A Wedge had its valves parallel to the crankshaft in a row.
Its combustion-chambers were wedge shaped.
Usually the intake-valves were aimed at the intake manifold, which aimed the exhaust-valves the wrong way; since they were all in a row and parallel.
A Wedge motor couldn’t breathe as well as a Hemi at high revolutions.
But the Hemi was notoriously heavy, being all cast-iron, with its huge cylinder-head castings.
Nevertheless the Hemi massively generated horsepower at high speeds.
It would finish explosively at the drag-strip, and was a dominator of circle-track stockcar racing, e.g. NASCAR’s Daytona Speedway.
Most Charger R/Ts were the 440 Wedge.
The Charger R/T is one of the prettiest of musclecars.
Especially good-looking, although not as much a musclecar as the GM offerings.
But an engine of 440 cubic-inches is essentially a musclecar, although GM was offering musclecars of 454 and 455 cubic-inches.


Black Widow (the real thing).

―The September 2010 entry of my Oxman Hot-Rod Calendar is a 1926 Model T pickup, a full-scale rendering of a Monogram model from 1960.
Building it was not easy.
All they had to work with was the model, which was not off an actual car.
They had to conceptualize some, although the basic hot-rod principles could apply.
The motor is a Small-Block Chevy, a 265 cubic-inch 1956 motor. The Small-Block replaced the Flat-head Ford.
Everyone was using Small-Block Chevys.
I saw one once in a ’32 Ford pickup hotrod in nearby Canandaigua, and it had Ford markings.
But it was clearly the Chevy Small-Block.
It had siamesed center exhaust-ports; the Fords don’t.
I was asked by a newspaper reporter if it was a Ford motor.
“Small-Block Chevy,” I said.
It ran in the newspaper as a Ford motor.
Hot-rodding concepts are pretty much the same; all they had to do is match the fenders, stance, appearance and paint.
Including that spider-web pinstriping.
Stance and appearance would be the most difficult.
How a car sits is a function of many factors. Often the car sits different than intended.
Not that good, really.
I’m sure it sold well as a model — that little boys could dream of owning such a car.

T-Bucket. (Called that because the body, an early Model T roadster, resembles a bucket.)

But the later Model Ts were not that appealing to me; just the T-buckets.
And the Model As and the 1932 Fords.
I notice the hubcaps are not exactly what was used on the model.
The model has chromed moons.
The real car has slightly dished hubcaps.