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).