Young man

“Here’s your ticket, young man, and have a nice day!” said the smiling attendant at the Jackson St. entrance to the Strong Hospital parking-garage.
“I bet I’m older than you are,” I said to myself as I motored into the garage.
At least this is better than being knighted. Teenyboppers always call me “sir.”
The Jackson St. entrance to the Strong Hospital parking-garage has automated ticket-dispensers. But that entrance was closed for renovation.
Entering traffic was being detoured through half the exit, and a lady was dispensing tickets.
My wife has cancer, but supposedly it’s not fatal.
It’s treatable.
Actually, she has two cancers: -a) Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and -b) metastatic breast-cancer.
The Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma appeared about three years ago as a hard tumor in her abdomen.
That was poofed with chemotherapy.
The metastatic breast-cancer did not have a primary site; it never appeared in her breasts.
It was first noticed in her bones, where breast-cancer metastasizes.
We knocked that back with Femara®, the trade-name for Letrozole.
Femara is an estrogen inhibitor. Her breast-cancer was estrogen-positive.
Her breast-cancer just about disappeared.
Right now she’s having a very hard time.
The cancer, expanding lymph-nodes in her abdomen, was restricting her ureter-tubes, kidney-to-bladder.
One kidney was just about dysfunctional, and both kidneys were bloated.
The cancer was also constricting blood-return from her legs, causing swelling.
We’ve been to Thompson Hospital’s Emergency-Room in nearby Canandaigua five times.
On three visits my wife was given blood-transfusions for anemia; very low red blood-cell count.
The fifth time she was transferred to Strong, where she received her first cancer-treatments three years ago.
Strong — Wilmot Cancer Center — had been doing follow-up.
As soon as she arrived, they installed stents in her ureter-tubes.
Stents are expandable stainless-steel reinforcements that opened up her ureter-tubes.
And they managed to do both. We were expecting at least one outside drain to a bag. It’s all inside, and kidney-function is returning.
So now it was my turn to visit her in the hospital.
17 years ago it was me with my stroke.
She’s a wreck, but lucid, and I recognize my wife.
I’ve experienced this “young man” jazz all my life.
Years ago I’d walk into the Mens Room at Regional Transit early morning before pulling out a bus, and some compatriot would say “How are you, young man?”
“Fiddlesticks,” I’d say. “I’m older than you.”
I’d meet Kevin Frisch, Managing Editor of the Mighty Mezz, and he’d ask “How ya doin’, young man?”
“Come-on, Kevin,” I’d say; “I’m older than you.”
I guess I should expect it.
People always think I’m about 55, and are dumbfounded when I tell them I’m 67.
I look in the mirror and see a little old man with thinning gray hair.
To me I’m old, not young.

• “Strong Hospital” is one of three large hospitals in the Rochester (N.Y.) area. It’s on the southeast side.
• “Thompson Hospital” is the hospital in nearby Canandaigua. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-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, southeast of Rochester.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS). My stroke ended it.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over five years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years after my stroke.

Float your boat

I’m sure you all know Oprah Winfrey ended her 25-year reign on afternoon-TV.
She did by entreating her audience to do something they really enjoy, and do it well — entirely within character.
For me I guess it’s writing, what I call “slinging words together.”
Years ago, when I was in high-school 12th-grade, an English-teacher I was intimidated by took me aside and told me “Hughes, you write extremely well.”
I thought him joking.
“But it’s just slinging words together,” I protested.
“But you do that way better than anyone else I’ve seen.”
I didn’t do any writing until my senior year in college, when the college newspaper head-honcho, a student, asked me to report on building renovations.
I turned in a report much like what you’ve read here, full of whacko observation and reflection.
“WOW!” he said. He thereafter lassoed me into writing a biweekly column of the same whacko observation and reflection.
In prior years, that college newspaper published an observatory humor column, so they engaged a couple wannabees to write a similar column after the other guys graduated.
I heard later those grads preferred what I was writing; that the pretenders were lacking.
After college I sold photographs to City/East newspaper in Rochester (now “City.”)
I was trying to become a freelance photographer.
The publisher, a sports-car enthusiast, knowing I was also a sports-car enthusiast, asked if I knew anyone who could write sports-car coverage.
“Well, perhaps I could try it,” I suggested.
So began a three-year sojourn where I covered sports-car motorsport for City/East Newspaper.
But I was editing my stuff to death, killing it.
“Just leave it alone,” my wife suggested. “What you wrote at first was good, and adequate.”
Years later, at the end of a 16&1/2 year career driving bus for Regional Transit, a coworker asked if I could do a voluntary newsletter for our union.
I ran with it; generated a professional-looking newsletter with Microsoft Word.
No time for editing. Just let-er-rip!
We had Transit management terrified.
For once our story was getting in front of the local media, and politicians that funded Transit.
I’d scribble elaborate bus-stories on the back of blank time-sheets on my steering-wheel at layovers.
Then key them in when I got home.
I also attracted a cartoonist.
I’d write the story-line, and he would draw the cartoon.
Our best was the heavy motor-cradle dropping out of a bus on a lift in the Overhaul-shop.
It actually happened, and Transit-management tried to quash it.
Politicians would call our managers asking “What’s going on down there? You told me everything was hunky-dory.”
“Buncha union activists!” they screamed. “Don’t read that stuff!”
My newsletter, and my career driving bus, all ended with my stroke.
Stroke rehab wondered about a post-stroke job. I suggested writing.
They arranged an interview as an unpaid intern at “The Mighty Mezz.”
And so began an 11-year stint at the Messenger.
I later was hired, and even wrote a column for a while.
I also started writing stuff for my family’s web-site, and e-mailing them to a Messenger coworker, Marcy Dewey.
“You really should be blogging this stuff,” she suggested.
And so BlogSpot, where I’ve blogged almost every day for the past five years.
When MPN wanted to start a blog-page, they asked if I could contribute.
So now I do two versions, MPN and BlogSpot. BlogSpot is for nationwide consumption — it has explanatory footnotes.
I gave up my family’s web-site; I tired of all the pontificating and self-celebration.
So now I’m convinced.
My 12th-grade English-teacher was right.
I can sling words together better than most.
I don’t care that I can, I just keep shoveling.

• “Hughes” is me, Bob Hughes, Bobbalew.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.
• “Regional Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke ended that.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over five years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (11 including the unpaid internship). (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-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.)
• “MPN” is Messenger-Post Newspapers, which came into being when the Messenger bought the nine suburban Post weekly newspapers, sold when their publisher retired. Messenger-Post has a web-site, MPNnow.

The trouble with a smartphone is.......

.....they’re too small.
A few months ago I purchased a Motorola Droid-X smartphone from Verizon.
I’m using maybe 15 percent of what it’s capable of.
I also got a small manual, but it doesn’t go into all the pre-loaded apps, or the 89 bazilyun apps available at the app-store.
In other words, what I know was gleaned by winging it, deducing it myself.
Yesterday (Tuesday, May 24, 2011) I visited my hairdresser in nearby Honeoye (‘HONE-eee-oy;' rhymes with 'boy') Falls, the guy who interested me in a smartphone.
He has one himself, and finds it great fun.
“So how’s your Droid coming?” he asked.
“Miniaturization is an enviable goal,” I said; “but the geeks need to realize us users ain’t miniature.
Great! Access the Internet out in the middle of nowhere on your smartphone, but the display is so tiny on that small screen, I hafta expand and scroll.
And the virtual-keyboard is too small for the average user.
My laptop, with my added-on standard keyboard and mouse, is all over my smartphone, which is ponderously slow — often requiring retyping.
So far, the only advantage to my smartphone is to Bluetooth the Internet from it to my laptop out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Or tether,” the guy suggested.
“But that costs money,” I said. “Same with Verizon’s receiver.”
We discussed whether his laptop was a Bluetooth receiver.
“2010,” he said.
“I bet it is,” I said. “I bet Bluetooth is in your System Preferences.
But for e-mail I prefer my laptop. My smartphone also downloads my e-mail, but I rarely respond in it.
Too ponderous for a word-guy like me, and voice-recognition can’t process the 40-dollar words I use, and Heaven forbid I punctuate.
The guy voiced a question into his smartphone, ending with “question-mark.”
It put in the question-mark after his question.
“But your question was simple,” I said; “not something a word-guy like me would ask, full of complicated words.
And ya mean I gotta voice every punctuation-mark?
On my laptop it’s just a simple keystroke.
And typing on a virtual-keyboard is a struggle.”

• “Honeoye Falls” is the nearest village to the west to where we live in western New York, a rural village about five miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.
• “Tethering” is to hard-wire, smartphone to laptop.
• Most cellphone-services can supply a plug-in USB receiver-chip that downloads their Internet from the satellite and their network. $40 extra for Verizon.

Positive-Train-Control

In a little less than five years, American railroads are to institute Positive-Train-Control (PTC), where off-locomotive computers override human input.
If a train exceeds its track-authority, a distant off-locomotive computer overrides the train-crew’s actions, activates the train-brakes, and brings the train to a stop.
Previously train-control was done by humans. Elaborate systems were in place to keep trains from crashing into each other.
But pile-ups occurred, occasionally with the volatile freight often carried by trains, dangerous chemicals and flammables.
Trains crash into each other causing massive fiery explosions, and/or release of toxic gases over a wide living-area, e.g. chlorine.
Sometimes such accidents were the result of human foul-ups allowing a train to exceed its track-authority.
Other times a train may just derail, or encounter a broken rail.
Two factors are at work that may not be apparent to a public used to highway transit.
—1) Trains share the same pathway, the track.
They can’t just steer around a threat to avoid it.
A second train following a first train has to be kept separate. They’re both on the same track.
If the first train stopped, the following train has to also stop. If not, it will dutifully follow the track right into the rear of the lead train.
—2) Trains can’t stop very well.
Slam the brakes of a highway vehicle into emergency, the wheels stop rotating, and the momentum of the vehicle overcomes the tires’ contact with the pavement.
The vehicle breaks into a lurid skid, which may continue on the pavement, or may go off into the boonies.
Whatever; the vehicle eventually stops, often in less than 100 yards.
Do that with a train, throw the train-brakes into emergency, stop the wheels from rotating, and the train may skid more than mile before it stops.
The contact-patch of steel wheel on steel railhead is tiny, compared to a tire on pavement.
Which is why trains can move so much more. There’s little rolling-resistance, which makes slowing difficult.
This has to be factored into train separation.
A following train has to be far enough behind to stop safely if its leader stops.
It used to be humans did this.
But humans make mistakes, with possible dreadful consequences.
So now humans are taken out of the picture, train-control by distant computers instead of human train-dispatchers — and engine men.
The locomotives are in constant radio-contact with far-away computers that can override human input.
Nice idea, but anyone familiar with computers knows they can hang.
If I am correct, I think Washington’s (DC) Metro service had Positive-Train-Control, yet it let a speeding Metro commuter-train plow into the rear of a stopped train.
With tragic results, including fatalities.
People immediately jumped on the train-engineer, but she’d been led into a trap.
She threw her train into emergency, but it just slid into the stopped train.
The accident also killed her.
Positive-Train-Control made the mistake; it switched her train over to the occupied track.
Physics were at play: -A) trains share the same track, and -B) it’s hard to stop a train.
There wasn’t much the train-operator could do.
I’ve heard it myself on my rail-scanner.
“Where we goin’? I see we’re being crossed over to Track One.”
This wasn’t the way it was driving bus.
You were dodging threats, but you could.
And if you needed to, you could stop fairly quickly.
You weren’t looking at a mile-long skid.
Another problem with Positive-Train-Control is incompatible systems, the fact that one railroad’s PTC may be different than another railroad’s.
It’s Macintosh versus PC, and never the twain shall meet.
That negates railroads sharing locomotives, or another railroad having trackage-rights.
Both BNSF and Union Pacific share Union Pacific’s Tehachapi line (“tuh-HATCH-uh-pee”). BNSF has trackage-rights.
Suppose Union Pacific and BNSF have incompatible PTC systems; can BNSF continue to use the Tehachapi line?
Probably most trains on the Tehachapi line are BNSF.
Another fear among railroaders is Positive-Train-Control may burp and stop everything.
Rendering rail transit useless.
At which point humans take over to maintain fluidity.
Expect that to happen, and foul-ups like Washington’s Metro.
Anyone who’s used a computer knows how it can become discombobulated and just stop.
Positive-Train-Control. A nice idea that might do more damage than it’s worth.
I get the feeling it’s more for computer-engineers than railroading.

• RE: “Driving bus......” —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.
• Apple “Macintosh” computer versus PC (personal-computer), usually Microsoft Windows. (This computer is a Macintosh — fear and loathing among my siblings, who are all PC users. [Macintosh is of-the-Devil.]) —Both computer platforms are constantly at war with each other.
• “BNSF” = Burlington Northern Santa Fe, a major western railroad, a merger of Burlington Northern Railroad and Santa Fe Railroad a few years ago.
• The line through Tehachapi Pass in California is originally Southern Pacific, but SP was acquired by Union Pacific.

Facebook “friends”

My Facebook is telling me I’m “friends” with four fellow graduates of Brandywine High School in northern Delaware. (Class of ’62.)
One is Russell Donovan, who graduated in my class.
One is Lynne Huntsberger Killheffer, who I dated, two classes after me.
The others are my younger brother and baby-sister, who also attended Brandywine, both much later than me.
Funny; my sister-in-Fort Lauderdale, two classes behind me (she graduated with Huntsberger) is not mentioned. My sister must not have Brandywine in her profile, yet we are “friends.”
My blowhard brother-in-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, has nothing to do with Facebook. (He also is a Brandywine grad.)
Probably a security-concern, which I more-or-less agree with.
I’ve been tempted to dive from Facebook, but haven’t. People I know use it for communication. E-mail is better, but Facebook is more open.
Huntsberger is a result of her own fishing expedition, as is Donovan.
But the other two aren’t. They’re siblings — of course they graduated Brandywine. They lived in the same house I did.
The import of this, of course, is for me to find more Brandywine grads.
No thanks.
Seems to me some time ago Facebook had a search-engine for finding other Brandywine grads on Facebook.
I tried it, making no “friends.”
Most were classes way after me — the school still exists, I guess.
I graduated almost 50 years ago; the third class to do so at Brandywine. The school was brand-new at that time, a counter to the coming post-war baby-boom.
The few from my class were people I never knew, socialites. —I’m not a socialite.
What few I might be interested in had long ago disappeared.
I hung around with some from the Class of ’64.
The only ’64 grad on Facebook was Huntsberger, who to me I thought had disappeared, but she fished me out.
I probably showed as a Brandywine grad in a Facebook search, so she struck up the old acquaintance.
“One of the few who I could make laugh,” I said, utterly surprised.
“Thank goodness we never married,” I said. “I was a total mess.”
I’m a graduate of the Hilda Walton school of sexual relations.
All boys are uncouth scumbags, totally unworthy of girls.
Hilda Walton was my Sunday-School Superintendent, and next-door neighbor. A God-fearing Christian zealot.
It took decades for me to see Hilda was totally wrong, that girls might actually like boys.
So Facebook is telling me I’m “friends” with four fellow Brandywine grads.
Congratulations, Facebook.
Two count, and two don’t. The last two are siblings.

Aztek

Aztek

A friend of mine responded to my “Ugliest car of all time” blog wherein I declared the 1959 Oldsmobile the ugliest car of all time.
He protested the Pontiac Aztek was the ugliest car of all time.
He’s right! Even the ’59 Olds pales by comparison.


A ’59 Olds.

He and I are far apart in age, I much older than him. Such that I had forgotten the Aztek.
The Aztek is from his era. By the Aztek, I was no longer interested in cars. So even though it was dreadfully ugly, to me it was forgettable. I no longer cared by then.
But 1959 was my youth. (In 1959 I was 15.)
And just about all GM’s offerings in the 1959 model-year were dreadful. Depressing to a car-enthusiast.
The ’59 Chevrolet was the ugliest Chevrolet of all time.

Photo by BobbaLew.

The ugliest Chevrolet of all time.

But the ’59 Chevrolet was laughably ugly.
Worse yet was the 1959 Oldsmobile, depressingly ugly.
It was as if GM stylists had lost touch.
Sweep and style had been shoved aside by production economics.
Sweep and style cost money to implement. How much sweep and style can we afford?
But the Aztek is disgustingly ugly, an affront to those partial to practicality over sweeping styling.
It was as if GM stylists were mad at soccer-moms.
They fielded a disgusting box, totally devoid of style.
Immensely practical, but dreadfully ugly.
The ’59 Olds was ugly too, but not as much as the Aztek.

Rip-off

Yesterday (Friday, May 20, 2011) my car needed gas.
I figured there was enough to get to nearby Canandaigua, where I was running an errand anyway.
I’d use the Sunoco station on the main drag, where regular was $3.99.9 per gallon, the lowest I’ve seen.
I tell my financial-advisor my indicator of the viability of the economy is not the Dow-Jones; it’s the price of gas.
The price of gas was inflated by opportunists, but now that’s falling apart.
The economy is still weak, but the price of gas keeps slowly rising.
When I got to the Sunoco, the pumps I’d use were occupied, and doing so blocks the unoccupied pumps.
I thought I’d go around the block and come back on the main drag.
I turned onto the main drag, but the U-turn I’d need to come back was prohibited.
I’m not driving a Cadillac.
There is a Valero station across from the Sunoco.
It had a sign out front that said $3.95.9 per gallon cash price.
I’d use my credit-card, but figured they’d be the same price as the competition across the street.
But no.
$4.05.9 per gallon.
What a rip-off!
All because -a) the Sunoco pumps were occupied, and -b) I couldn’t do a U-turn on the main drag.
“But that sign says $3.95.9 per gallon,” my wife cried.
“That’s the cash price,” I said. “No indication of their credit-card price, which was way more than the competition across the street.
I try to pay attention to the price-per-gallon, but in this case Valero made out like bandits.
Their sign was a trap.

• “Canandaigua” (“cannan-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 live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.)

The joy of speakerphone

Last week I ordered a storm-door from Mighty Lowes in Canandaigua.
It replaces an aluminum storm-door which corroded and is disintegrating.
The storm-door had to be ordered, came in, and now we had to sign contracts. Us old-folks would have it installed.
A guy from Lowes called and left a message on our landline. I was to call back.
I’d use my cellphone.
Calls on the cellphone avoid the silliness of charging me long-distance to call 15 miles, although it would probably cost less to use the landline.
Whatever, my cellphone bill would be the same, yet my landline bill would reflect a call to Canandaigua.
I have taken to using speakerphone on my cellphone.
It works very well, and -a) it allows my wife to overhear my phonecalls, and supply answers when the old stroke-survivor is trying to speak answers for phonecall questions, and -b) it negates holding the phone to my ear, which can be erratic.
I called Lowes, switched on the speakerphone, and was promptly put on hold.
“Please hold during the silence. BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM!”
I laid down my phone, and fired up this here laptop.
This was great.
I could get things done while on hold.
Years ago, during my employ at the Mighty Mezz, I was doing a meeting with Human Resources — I think the lady’s name was Amy.
She had been the Administrative Assistant for Andy Wolfe, head-honcho of the Post weeklies before he retired and the Messenger bought them.
Amy had to make a phonecall pertaining to me, and was put on hold.
I think she was doing the same thing, monitoring speakerphone while doing something else. —Except she was on landline.
Finally, activity; my Lowes phonecall was being transferred.
More holding.
I updated our credit-card account in Quicken.
This was great!
Multitasking.
I could get things done instead of twiddling my thumbs holding.
All thanks to speakerphone.

• “Mighty Lowes” is the nationwide hardware supplier, a big-box store.
• “Canandaigua” (“cannan-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 live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.)
• RE: “Us old-folks......” —We’re both 67.
• A phonecall to nearby Canandaigua on my landline is long-distance, apparently due to different phone companies. (This goes back years.)
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty finding and putting words together; e.g. phonecalls.)
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over five years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years. (During my employ, the Messenger bought the Post weeklies [newspapers — I think there were nine], when their owner and publisher, Andy Wolfe, retired.)
• “Quicken” is my financial computer software, where I keep record of our accounts.

No Wrap-Around

(Photo by Richard Lentinello.)

The July 2011 issue of my Classic Car Magazine (July? Come-on guys, that’s two months away) features a great-looking 1955 Lincoln that has me wondering.
It doesn’t have a Wrap-Around windshield.
Really? —By the 1955 model-year, all Detroit was jumping on the Wrap-Around bandwagon.

A Wrap-Around on a ’55 Chevy.

Even the Low-Price Three had ‘em, Chevrolet, Ford, and Plymouth; although Chrysler’s version, on the Plymouth, was slightly different.
It wrapped around the top as well as the bottom.
Which meant both Ford and Mercury had ‘em the 1955 model-year, but Lincoln didn’t.
That was rectified in the 1956 model-year, when Lincoln was made much longer and more dramatic.
The ’55 Lincoln was a great car, although more a gussied-up Mercury than a Cadillac competitor. (Longer in the tail though.)
Although in the early ‘50s, the Caddy wasn’t that dramatic.
But by 1955 it was a land-barge.
Lincoln didn’t become a land-barge until the ’56 model-year.
A return to the greatness the brand had in the ‘30s and ‘40s; V12s, the Zephyr, and the first Continental.
In the early ‘50s Lincoln had fallen — it was more a Mercury.
Ford was in no position to do what General Motors was doing: field all-new ever larger cars every couple years.
Ford was essentially the same car 1949 through the 1956 model-year, although with chassis and motor upgrades.
The early ‘50s Mercurys were the proposed Ford rebadged.

The car that saved the company.

It’s just that Ford managed to field the all-new 1949 “Shoebox” Ford (at left), the car that saved the company.
If Ford had continued building the sorts of cars it had been building pre-war (and pre 1949), it would have failed.
The General fielded an all-new post-war car in the 1949 model-year, dickered it quite a bit for 1953, and debuted all new cars in 1954 — with the exception of Chevrolet and Pontiac, which waited until 1955.
I saw a ’55 Mercury stationwagon once, and it was clearly a ’55 Ford stationwagon trimmed as a Mercury.
But the 1955 Lincoln didn’t have a Wrap-Around windshield.
Amazing!
Even mid-‘50s Mercurys are Ford take-offs.
Well, the Lincoln was sort of unnoticed by me at that time.
What stood out was the fabulous new ’55 Chevy.
Which looked at now is all styling gewgaws.
The ’55 Chevy was smallish and light at that time, but now it’s big and blowzy.
The ’55 Lincoln is sort of the same car, although with styling reminiscent of about 1953.
Compared to the ’55 Caddy it was a wuss.
The Wrap-Around windshield was a fad; it lasted about six-or-seven years.
The bottom dog-leg of a Wrap-Around windshield had a habit of slamming knees.
Lift your legs to exit the car from the front-seat and BAM!
The Wrap-Around windshield was a trick by the curved-windshield manufacturers, that they could sharply curve the glass at its corners.
Curved one-piece windshields had just come into use.
Automakers are so raking their windshields now, to make their cars more aerodynamic, they have to put side-glass ahead of the front doors.

• “The General” is General Motors.

Online bill-pay

For some time we have been using online bill-pay.
In fact, ever since we opened our new checking account a few years ago.
I like it, mainly because I’m instituting the bill-pays.
Not the payee.
That’s all I need, a payee instituting multiple bill-pays by mistake and overdrawing our account.
I’ve seen it happen.
A friend of mine trying to reverse multiple payments to pay back her college loan.
With some guy in India who could barely speak English from a public-relations prompt-book, baffled by her questions.
The multiple mistaken charges had overdrawn her account, triggering automatic bank penalties.
No; I’ll go it alone.
I don’t trust the SYSTEM.
If anything can go wrong, it will.
So I access our checking account online to institute bill-pays myself, and update our records.
I found myself locked out the other night.
“Next morning,” I said.
Still locked out the next day, so I called the bank.
“Did you recently update to FireFox-4?”
“Yes, I guess I did, actually.”
“FireFox-4 won’t accept our bank’s digital certificate. I hafta install a cookie.”
FireFox is my Internet browser. I gave up on Microsoft Internet-Explorer years ago.
BlogSpot suggested I switch to FireFox, plus there were elements that didn’t work with Internet-Explorer.
Plus I had an old college friend advocating I switch to FireFox, what he was using.
So I switched. Like Internet-Explorer it’s a free install.
Then the barrage began.
Every week or two I’d get an update from FireFox, all of which I’d dutifully install.
A few weeks ago I got an e-mail suggesting I install FireFox-4. I was using 3.8-or-9.something.
I held off.
Things were fine with what I had, and an earlier FireFox upgrade destroyed their “history” feature, what I use to keep about 10 tabs permanently open.
Then I recently got a FireFox upgrade message — sure, why not? I’d seen ‘em before.
“Congratulations. You’ve upgraded to FireFox-4.”
“Oh well, what the heck,” I thought to myself. “We’ll try it.”
All was hunky-dory over a week until I tried our bank.
Locked out, and no idea why.
Cookie installed, “We’ll try it,” I said — I was driving this here laptop while on the phone with the bank.
“Invalid user-name or password,” it said.
“Same one I used before.”
“Do you know your password?” the girl asked.
“Sure. Same as before,” I said.
“Here, try this......” She gave me a temporary password.
It let me log in, and thereafter I could reset my password back to what it was.
“What was the name of your first pet?”
“This some new angle?” I asked. “Password plus security-question to log in?”
“That’s the way it’s always been!”
“Not for me,” I said. “No security-question before.
That’s no problem, as long as it’s lettin’ me log in.”
Logged in, I set up a natural-gas bill-pay, and updated our records.

Bin Laden won

“For security, please key in the last four digits of your Social Security number.”
“Beep-boop-beep-boop!”
Finally a service-representative came on the line, an actual North American human being, after hours of holding and wrastling with their machine.
“For security, I need the last four digits of your Social Security number,” she said.
“Hmmmnnnn.......” I thought to myself. “I thought I just keyed that in.”
“Yada-yada-yada-yada.”
Don’t rock the boat!
I’m at a gas-station in nearby Bloomfield.
I slide my credit-card.
“Debit?” it asks; “yes or no?”
Except I can hardly read the display — I thought it was asking “credit or debit.”
I look at the keypad; no “credit” or “debit.”
But it does have “yes” and “no.”
So I peered again at the display, observing it said “debit, yes or no.”
So I hit the “no” button, but before I did the pump just zoomed ahead.
It authorized the charge without my punching “yes” or “no.”
I’m at a supermarket in nearby Canandaigua, in a checkout line, having surveyed all the tabloids while waiting.
“Oprah preggers by alien,” “Jesus returns, and boy is he mad,” and “Are they for real? Celebrity’s ugliest beach babes. Guess who!”
I slide my credit-card though the card-reader. “Credit or debit,” it asks.
I punch “credit.”
“Credit or debit,” the gum-snapping checkout girls asks.
“I thought I just entered that,” I say.
“WOOP-WOOP-WOOP-WOOP! Ne’er-do-well alert! Security at checkout four.”
Burly skin-head thugs appear, muscles rippling.
“Wassa matter, Maureen?”
“This dude just gave me a hard time.”
“All I did was suggest I had just entered ‘credit-card’ on your machine, so your clerk’s asking was superfluous,” I said.
“You in deep trouble, boy. Call the Police! Call the Sheriff!”
Awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity.
“What are you, some kind of terrorist?” the head skinhead asked. “A Muslim?
Slammer for you, baby!”
Bin Laden won.


• 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.
• “Canandaigua” (“cannan-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where we live. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.

Blood transfusion

Another 2 a.m. foray last night (Sunday, May 8, 2011) to rescue my wife from Thompson Hospital’s Emergency-Room for discharge.
My wife has cancer, but supposedly it’s not fatal.
It’s treatable.
Actually, she has two cancers: -a) Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and -b) metastatic breast-cancer.
The Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma appeared about three years ago as a hard tumor in her abdomen.
That was poofed with chemotherapy.
The metastatic breast-cancer did not have a primary site; it never appeared in her breasts.
It was first noticed in her bones, where breast-cancer metastasizes.
We knocked that back with Femara®, the trade-name for Letrozole.
Femara is an estrogen inhibitor. Her breast-cancer was estrogen-positive.
Her breast-cancer just about disappeared.
What we’re getting now is anemia, low red blood-cell count coupled with complete fag-out.
The counter for that is blood transfusions; she received two units.
Not the first time.
About three weeks ago the same thing happened, and I took her to Thompson’s Emergency-Room.
That was our own doing.
Thompson did a blood-test and gave her two units of blood transfusion.
This time it was our family doctor, who had done a blood-test for infection, and found her red blood-cell count low.
“No wonder I’m draggin’ so much,” she commented.
“Well, for now, at least I’m all right,” I said, as we drove home in the gloom, looking for deer in the high-beams.
It wasn’t that way 17 years ago, after I had my stroke.
When I looked like she does now, like I’d been hit by a Peterbilt.
She hadn’t been discharged yet, so my wife was hooked up to 89 bazilyun beeping monitors, an utterly wasted waif, swollen legs under Auschwitz-survivor torso and arms.
She also lost most of her hair with the last chemo, over a month ago.
Some has grown back; longish peach-fuzz.
We’re not young; we’re both 67.
I look awful, but I work out at the Canandaigua YMCA.
“Keep the old ticker goin’,” I say.
I guess I’m in fairly good shape.
My wife doesn’t work out, and right now she can’t.
“It’s amazing someone so able-bodied could become such a wreck,” she says.
(She almost fell yesterday.)

• “Thompson Hospital” is the hospital in nearby Canandaigua. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-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.)
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about three-four hours per visit.

Euphoria

The Bosch.

Our new Bosch dishwasher, pictured at left, was installed yesterday afternoon (Friday, May 6, 2011).
It means no longer having to wash our dishes manually before going to bed.
My wife has cancer, but supposedly it’s not fatal.
It’s treatable.
Actually, she has two cancers: -a) Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and -b) metastatic breast-cancer.
The Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma appeared about three years ago as a hard tumor in her abdomen.
That was poofed with chemotherapy.
The metastatic breast-cancer did not have a primary site; it never appeared in her breasts.
It was first noticed in her bones, where breast-cancer metastasizes.
We knocked that back with Femara®, the trade-name for Letrozole.
Femara is an estrogen inhibitor. Her breast-cancer was estrogen-positive.
Her breast-cancer just about disappeared.
Right now she’s having a hard time.
Doing dishes manually was a chore.
Our old Kenmore dishwasher was only three years old, but it committed the unpardonable sin.
Its rack was covered by rubberized plastic, and the ends disintegrated and came off.
Exposing the rack-ends to water, so they rusted.
That rust was being left on our dishes.
Beyond that, the top rack and spinner were adjustable.
The spinner was fed by one of three water-feeds, all protected by thin rubber diaphragms supposed to close if not used. (The spinner would open the one used.)
One unused diaphragm had disintegrated, which meant water was gushing out that port.
So much for fully cleaning the dishes in the top rack.
The Bosch had nylon coverings of all the racks, as did nearly every dishwasher we looked at. —Less prone to disintegrate.
Plus although the top rack and spinner are adjustable, there was only one port.
The feed to the top spinner was sliding.
This dishwasher is essentially my doing, in case I’m eventually left alone.
I let our dog lick off plates, and they have to be properly sanitized, even though they’re licked clean enough to put back in the cupboard.
About $950 from Mighty Lowes, including installation.
But in the euphoria of no longer having to do dishes manually, that $950 is forgotten.
And it’s very quiet; you hardly know it’s on.
In fact, it has a red on-light which illuminates our kitchen-floor.
That’s how we know it’s on.

• “Mighty Lowes” is the nationwide home-supply chain. “Lowes” has a store in Canandaigua. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-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.)

David E. Davis, Jr.

David E. Davis, Jr.

David E. Davis, Jr., a towering scion of automotive journalism, died this past March 27.
He was 80 years old, recuperating from cancer surgery.
One-by-one the icons who set my life course are passing away or retiring.
Replaced by the bubbling inanity of Facebook, where words are limited, yet gigundo video-files aren’t.
Davis was head-honcho of Car & Driver magazine when I first subscribed during the middle ‘60s.
I discovered Car & Driver.
An issue had been discarded in the Houghton laundromat, Houghton being where I went to college.
Car & Driver was the new kid on the block, a resurrection of Sports Cars Illustrated, which had failed.
There were other magazines biased toward sports cars, like Sports Car Graphic, allied with Motor Trend Magazine, and Road & Track.
I eventually subscribed to Car & Driver, primarily because -a) it was a superior read, and -b) it wasn’t biased against Detroit, which had fielded the fabulous Small-Block Chevy, almost European in character.
(I eventually subscribed to all three.)
Sports Car Graphic and Road & Track acted like Detroit was anathema, only fielding flaccid turkeys.
Yet sports car racers were fitting Detroit V8s into their cars — particularly the Small-Block Chevy.
I earlier had subscribed to Hot Rod Magazine, but it was pedestrian. Aimed at teenagers and the unwashed.
Hot-rodding had appeal, but Car & Driver had much better writing.
My first laundromat issue is after the infamous issue where Car & Driver made its mark, saying the Pontiac G-T-O was better than the Ferrari G-T-O.
Which it was for American conditions, pillar-to-post and straight-line acceleration.
Throw a curve at it and the Pontiac would spin into the weeds.
Same with asking it to stop.
On challenging pavement the Ferrari reigned supreme.
But wake up a Ferrari for the daily commute to work.
That’s the preserve of the Pontiac.
Leave it to Davis to come up with this comparison.
The other magazines were too anti-Detroit. (Sports car elitism.)
Davis was head-honcho at Car & Driver for a while when I first subscribed.
But he quit and was replaced by someone whose name I forget.
I recall thinking Davis was a pompous blowhard.
But apparently he set the direction of Car & Driver; everyone else there worked for him.
I’ve subscribed to Car & Driver all my life; I left Road & Track and Sports Car Graphic some time ago.
Some became like Car & Driver, and eventually Sports Car Graphic failed.
Now Motor Trend is the Car & Driver wannabee.
Davis founded a new magazine, Automobile, but eventually that failed.
He had since come back to Car & Driver as a columnist.
German car-manufacturer BMW can credit its success in the American Market to Car & Driver magazine.
I’ll let Davis do the honors:
“Nobody believes it, until I suck their headlights out. But nobody doubts it, once that nearly silent, unobtrusive little car has disappeared down the road and around the next bend, still accelerating-without a sign of the brake lights.
I learn not to tangle with the kids in their big hot Mothers with the 500-horsepower engines unless I can get them into a tight place demanding agility, brakes, and the raw courage that is built into the BMW driver’s seat as a no-cost extra.
What you like to look for are Triumphs and Porsches and such. Them you can slaughter, no matter how hard they try. They really believe all that jazz about their highly tuned, super-sophisticated sports machines, and the first couple drubbings at the hands of the 2002 make them think they’re off on a head trip or something. But then they learn the awful truth, and they begin to hang back at traffic signals, pretending that they weren’t really racing at all. Ha! Grovel, Morgan. Slink home with your tail between your legs, MG-B. Hide in the garage when you see a BMW coming. If you have to race with something, pick a sick kid on a bicycle.”

BMW 2002.

The BMW 2002 was introduced in 1966 (the year I graduated college), and was apparently a great car.
Car & Driver recognized this, and trumpeted its virtues.
Like independent rear-suspension, and MacPherson strut front suspension, all of which made it handle much better than Detroit-iron.
Fling a musclecar onto torturous pavement, and it rewards you with a spin into the boonies.
About the only way Detroit-iron could excel was in a straight line on smooth pavement.
On torturous pavement the 2002 left Detroit-iron in its dust.
The 2002 was the climax of BMW’s 1500 cubic-centimeter model that debuted in 1962. The 2002 engine was two liters.
They usually handled better than megabuck Porsches (“poor-SHA”) and the British sports cars, which lacked independent rear suspension (IRS). (The Porsche was IRS.)
Independent-rear-suspension is the opposite of the Model-T tractor layout, in use since time immemorial.
MGs and Triumphs were tractor-layout.
The tractor layout has two major disadvantages when it comes to handling:
—1) The heavy center differential is part of the sprung mass of the rear axle, exerting momentum, and
—2) Since both rear wheels are connected to each other at the ends of a solid rear-axle, a bump to one side also effects the other side.
Independent-rear-suspension negates these two detriments by:
—A) Mounting the center-differential to the car chassis, instead of as part of the rear axle (it’s no longer part of the sprung mass), and
—B) Disconnecting the wheels from each other, so that they’re sprung independently.
The tractor layout can be made to handle pretty well, especially if substantially located. —It’s what NASCAR uses.
But state-of-the art racecars are independent-rear-suspension, and have been for years.
So here was a great little car with independent-rear-suspension; it could make mincemeat of the British sports cars.
And Porsches were not as well balanced, with their engine out behind the rear axle. —I drove a rear-engined car, a Corvair. It felt like a dumbbell; like its rear weight-bias would make it swap ends at the drop of a hat.
NO WAY could a Porsche stay with a 2002, and were it not for Car & Driver, BMW might have become just another obscure auto-manufacturer to fail in the American market.

Brock Yates.

I have this horrible feeling next may be Brock Yates, a native Western New Yorker who worked as an editor with Davis at Car & Driver, and who continued to do so long after Davis left. (He was eventually fired, as too expensive.)
Yates is older than me; probably in his mid-seventies by now. (I’m 67.)
Yates is the only Car & Driver employee I’ve ever met; he still lives in Western New York in a restored mansion in nearby Wyoming County.
His automotive proclivities are pretty much the same as mine.
Yates is the guy who I write like most, although not by intent.
We both are shoot-from-the-hip writers.
But it’s not like I mimic him; I just happen to write that way.
Yates and I are far apart; he a Conservative and me a Liberal (dread!).
Yates has written some pretty outrageous stuff, but after reading his treatment of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, I respect that he remained objective despite being hornswoggled by the Harley mystique (which he walked away from).
So now Davis is gone; a pompous blowhard that resurrected the car-magazine.
But for him car-magazines might be a boring waste of time.

• “Houghton” (“HO-tin;” as in “oh,” not “how” or “who”) is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.
• The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first to 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the Small-Block. It was made in various larger displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation. The “Big-Block” could be immensely powerful, and the “Small-Block” was revolutionary in its time.
• RE: “Liberal (dread!)......” — All my siblings are tub-thumping worshippers of Rush Limbaugh, and “Liberals” are of-the-Devil.

Strange dream

Strange dream at wake-up this morning (Monday, May 2, 2011).
A gigantic black full-size Chevrolet diesel pick-up was idling unattended on a side-street near where we lived years ago in Rochester.
It was from the old Taylor Chevrolet on Winton at Blossom that went defunct years ago, was torn down, and replaced by a Tops supermarket.
But it was a 2011 model.
The idea was to make it available for test-drives.
No one was in it. It was just parked, idling.
“Well, I’ll try it,” I thought, as I clambered inside.
It was dark inside, but I toggled the floor-shifted automatic transmission into “Drive.”
Off we went, slowly toward Winton.
“NO WAY,” I thought, as I eyed its back far away in the inside rear-view mirror.
I once had a vehicle this large, a 1979 E250 Ford van.


Somewhere in South Dakota. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

It took two moves to get it into a parking-slot at Wegmans.
With its gigantic 138-inch wheelbase, the first move was to turn toward the parking-slot.
There wasn’t enough room to do a single swing.
Then you reversed, and turned again.
It was like docking a ship.
In fact, we called it “the Queen Mary.”
I loved that van.
It was gigantic, but no wasted space.
Once I stashed 38 dark-brown plastic sacks of leaves into it.
Culled from Irondequoit curbsides.
And it was only half full.
A lot of me was in that van.
I had rebuilt the entire cooling system.
BJR recored the radiator, three to four rows.
110 degrees with the air on, up to Mt. Rushmore.
(It didn’t overheat — it wasn’t even stressed)
We drove it all the way to Montana.
Camped out in it every night, and hadn’t planned to.
38 degrees in July near the Grand Tetons, and every American, BY LAW, should be required to see the Grand Tetons at dawn.
We also drove up Pikes Peak, another legal requirement, although I’m told it’s no longer gravel.
You didn’t make mistakes.
1,000 foot drop-offs awaited beside the road. (No guard-rails.)
The front-suspension of that van was long swingarm forgings Old Henry would have been proud of.
But now I’m used to smaller vehicles; our current van is our 2005 Toyota Sienna.
The gigantic Chevy pickup didn’t appeal.
I’m not into the macho gig.
All I did was drive around the block, and repark it.

• “Winton” Road is a main north-south thoroughfare on the east side of Rochester. “Blossom” Road is a west-east thoroughfare, that goes east out of Rochester a short distance where it ends at a T-intersection. We lived on Winton Road.
• “Tops” is a large supermarket-chain based in Buffalo we occasionally buy groceries at.
• “Wegmans,” is a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in nearby Canandaigua. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-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.)
• “Irondequoit” (“ear-RON-de-quoit;” as in “quoits,” the sport) is a suburb northeast of Rochester.
• “BJR” was an independent shop in Rochester that repaired radiators and heater-cores.
• “Air” = air-conditioning.
• “Old Henry” is Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company. The Model-T had an elegant forged beam-axle up front.

Monthly Calendar Report for May, 2011

Eastbound train 10G with SD40-2 helpers up The Hill on Track One at Summerhill. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

―The May 2011 entry of my own calendar is another rerun.
It ran as the January entry in my 2010 calendar.
That’s because my 2011 calendar is one I did for Tunnel Inn, the bed-and-breakfast we stay at in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin”) when in the Altoona (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in the name “Al”), PA area.
Altoona is the location of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s crossing of the Allegheny mountains, including Horseshoe Curve (the “Mighty Curve”), by far the BEST railfan spot I’ve ever been to.
Horseshoe Curve is now a national historic site. It was a trick by the railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades — the railroad was looped around a valley to stretch out the climb. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use.
I’m a railfan, and have been since age-two (I’m 67). The viewing-area is smack in the apex of the Curve; and trains are willy-nilly. Up-close-and personal. —I’ve been there hundreds of times, since it’s only about five hours away.
That 2011 calendar for Tunnel Inn crashed; the post-office lost the order.
We did a 2012 calendar for Tunnel Inn with the same pictures they can sell throughout the year.
Significant about this picture is that the helper-set on the point was two SD40-2s.
The SD40-2s were coming to the end of their careers as helper-sets on The Hill.
In 2008 they had been in that service about 20 years.
When I started revisiting the Curve a few years after my stroke, the helper-sets were SD40-2s.
The SD40-2 helpers are being replaced by downgraded SD-50s, downgraded and modified for helper-service into SD40-Es. Down to 3,000 horsepower; the SD-50s were 3,500.
Both the SD40-2s and SD-50 were six-axle EMD power. The SD40-2 was phenomenally successful, and lasted for years. —I’m told this was because non-EMD replacement parts were available and accepted. The Dash-2 EMD locomotives had updated modular electronics; not the antique stuff found in the SD-40.
SD-40s and the SD40-2 are discernible by their frames. The frame was that of the SD-45, longer to accommodate a longer hood to use a 20-cylinder engine.
SD-40s and SD40-2s have the shorter hood of a 16-cylinder engine, but still use the longer SD-45 frame.
This renders a “porch” ahead of the short hood.
The SD40-Es are a bit longer, and have the hood of an SD-50.
Lettering on the cab tells what each locomotive is; e.g. “SD40-E.”
This was my first train-chase with Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow).
I’ve written up Phil so many times, I’d only be boring constant-readers. If you need clarification, click this link, my January 2011 calendar-report, and read the first part — the January entry of my own calendar. It mentions Phil.
Phil keeps a notebook of every train we saw, but this train is not in it. (Nor is the location.)
We’re not sure of the train-number, although Phil thinks it would be 10G. Phil kind of knows what’s supposed to show up when, and has no record of 10G at other locations.
So we think it’s 10G.
I don’t feel train-numbers are that important, so I don’t keep record of them.
But knowing what will show up when helps Phil know what trains are coming.



1969 Mercury Cyclone Cobra-Jet 428. (Photo by Ron Kimball©.)

―Hooray-hooray, a Ford product has finally appeared in my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar, in this case a 1969 Cobra-Jet 428 Mercury Cyclone, Mercury’s version of the Ford mid-size car.
Fords always seemed to be at the bottom of the musclecar totem-pole.
Their reputation, true-or-not, was the Ford musclecars quickly fell out of tune. Making them easily beatable.
Ford never exceeded 429 cubic inches in its musclecars. GM went to 455 cubic inches in their Oldsmobile, Buick, and Pontiac musclecars. The Chevelle went to 454 cubic inches.
Nevertheless the Ford musclecars made excellent racecars in NASCAR, e.g. David Pearson’s Wood Brothers Mercury illustrated at left.
David was also known as “the Silver Fox,” because he could pull off a fast-one to win a race.
E.g. backing off as if outta gas, and then wicking it back up again to beat others who had backed off.
He also won the Daytona 500 in 1976 by driving his wrecked racecar slowly over the finish-line ahead of Richard Petty, who he had wrecked with, and Petty couldn’t restart. Petty would have won otherwise.
It was Pearson’s only win of the Daytona 500.
The Cobra-Jets were fabulous musclecars, but not the world-beaters the GM musclecars were.
Everyone bows to the GM musclecars, so it’s nice to see a Ford musclecar featured in this calendar. A 1970 Torino will be next month’s entry.



Peddler. (Photo by Chris Rotondo.)

―The May 2011 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is what appears to be a small local-freight on a Norfolk Southern branch.
A single GP38-2 is delivering empty tankcars for lube-oil to a refinery near Chester, WV.
Chester is in the West Virginia panhandle, adjacent to Pennsylvania and across the Ohio river from Ohio.
This is photographer Rotondo’s seventh attempt to get something in the Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar; all six previous tries failed.
What’s notable to me is that it isn’t three or more six-axle units blasting a long freight on the high-iron main.
It’s a local, a peddler, with only a single GP38-2, what used to be much more prevalent years ago.
A single small locomotive trundling out to our burg to switch sidings.
A single car here, a single car there; what trucks are doing now.
Where railroading attained supremacy is moving 200 or more freight-containers in one long train great distances across country.
That many containers on highways becomes ridiculous. A driver for each container or two, plus quite a bit more fuel. A rubber tire on a highway has way more rolling resistance than a steel wheel on a steel rail.
Plus interstate expressway requires a much wider right-of-way than a railroad.
But when it comes to getting that single container to its final destination, trucking makes more sense.
Industry used to locate next to railroads, but no longer.
To get that container to its final destination by rail required a small local freight like what’s pictured.
Shuffling cars from a yard in the center of town out to industry sidings.
Trucking is much more timely.
At least this train is all tankcars for an oil-refinery, but I doubt it’s more than 10 cars.
The train is doing track-speed, about 20.
Railroad tankcars make more sense than highway tanker trailers; more capacity.
The railroad is currently Norfolk Southern, but I bet it eventually becomes an independent shortline, perhaps owned by the oil-refinery.
This train reminds of what I see on Finger Lakes Railway, a shortline that took over the old New York Central Auburn (“aw-burn”) Road, which became part of Conrail.
The Auburn (which goes through Auburn), built in 1830, was the first railroad across western New York, although it was rather circuitous compared to the mighty New York Central main built shortly thereafter.
It also ended in Rochester.
It was never abandoned because it hit many small farm-towns. Plus it could be used as a bypass if NYC’s main was plugged.
Finger Lakes, where I see it in nearby Canandaigua, moves maybe six covered hopper-cars perhaps three days a week to factory sidings — track-speed, 10-20 mph, depending on location and track-condition.
Finger Lakes is peddlers like what’s pictured.



It’s stock!

―The May 2011 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a hot-rodded 1934 Ford two-door sedan.
What’s most noticeable about this car is its body is stock, a 1934 Ford two-door sedan.
No top-chop, full fenders, running-boards, stock bumpers.
Nothing is hot-rodded but the paint.
The color is not a stock Ford color, and of course the flames aren’t.
The engine is also not stock, a hot-rodded 302 cubic-inch Ford Small-Block V8, Ford’s response to the fabulous Chevrolet Mouse-motor introduced in the 1955 model-year.
(”Mouse” because the Chevrolet Big-Block is called the “Rat”-motor.
The Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches. It was made in various displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation.
The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first to 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured.
The “Big-Block” could be immensely powerful, and the “Small-Block” was revolutionary in its time.)
Ford’s first overhead-valve V8 was its Y-block in the 1954 model-year, called the “Y-block” because its block-casting went below the crankshaft centerline, making the casting look like a Y.
But it was a stone compared to the fabulous high-winding Chevrolet Small-Block.
Normally I’m not much for two-door sedans, but this is a great-looking car.
It helps it’s the stock body, not stripped of its fenders and running-boards, which hotrodders were prone to do.
Another easy modification was for hotrodders to swap out the bumpers for those used on a ’49 Plymouth.
Okay, but stock looks better.
It looks like the front-axle was “dropped.”
The front-axle on a ’34 Ford was a single forged cross-beam suspended on a single buggy-spring.
Quite adequate if well-located, like with forked trackbars.
I don’t know if this car has trackbars.
To install ‘em might require stripping the fenders.
The wheels were on kingpins at the beam-axle ends.
And those ends could be “dropped;” rebending the axle-ends upward so the axle-center sat lower relative to the wheels.
This way the front of the car sat lower to the ground.
This lowering of the front-end could also be attained by swapping out the stock front axle for a curved tube-axle — or even dropping the ends of the tube-axle.
The rear axle of the car appears to be at stock height, so the car is raked downward toward the front. —An aggressive stance everyone mimicked.
But it’s probably not the stock ’34-Ford “Banjo” rear-end.
(Called “the banjo” because the center differential casing, an iron casting, looked like a banjo.)
A Banjo couldn’t sustain the output of that hotrodded 302 cubic-inch V8.
The car is also an automatic transmission, a let-down to me.
An auto-tranny would lose the charisma of a Detroit V8 winding up through the gears.
For that ya need a four-speed Warner T-10, or perhaps a “rock-crusher,” GM’s four-speed that would withstand musclecar output.


A Dek crossing a road on the bucolic Elmira branch. (Photo by Phil Hastings©.)

—The May 2011 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar is a Decapod 2-10-0 Pennsy steam-locomotive crossing a road on the Elmira branch.
The Elmira branch is actually the old Northern-Central main north of Williamsport, in which Pennsy took a controlling interest in 1861.
The Northern-Central was north out of Baltimore, through York, PA, eventually across from Harrisburg on the west side of the Susquehanna (“suss-kwee-HANN-uh”) River.
Northern-Central went farther north, and crossed the Susquehanna north of Harrisburg on its own rickety covered bridge.
That bridge was abandoned when Pennsy took control. Trains would now cross on Pennsy’s massive Rockville Bridge.
Little is left of Northern-Central’s covered bridge, just crumbled stone piers in the river.
Most are gone, but one remains with a small Statue-of-Liberty on it.
Most of the Elmira branch was abandoned. It’s hard to even find the right-of-way.
The line went to Canandaigua after Penn Yan, and getting to Penn Yan was a struggle. Hills and tight curvature.
The line was eventually extended to Lake Ontario via a branch, and a massive pier built at Sodus Point.

Photo by BobbaLew.

The long-gone Pennsy wharf at Sodus Point.

Who built this extension I don’t know; Northern-Central before it was taken over, or Pennsy.
The idea was to transload coal or iron-ore into lake ships, which is what Pennsy did.
It’s a Pennsy hopper-train, but it may be returning south empty. —There’s no indication of direction.
Hastings was a giant of late steam railroad photography. Although he did other railroads beside Pennsy.
Pennsy was still using steam on the Elmira branch until steam was retired.
The Elmira branch was the preserve of the massive Pennsy Decapod (2-10-0), and following the line into Penn Yan you can see why.
Watkins Glen to Penn Yan is uphill. Decapods would be needed to conquer it.
Slow pounding up the grade, twisting and turning — dragging a long string of heavy loaded hoppers at 10 mph.
Most of of the Elmira branch was abandoned, although portions are extant.
Finger Lakes Railway operates into Penn Yan and Watkins Glen via trackage-rights over the Norfolk Southern Corning Secondary, ex New York Central, to Himrod Junction, where New York Central crossed Pennsy.
A segment is operated by Ontario Midland, Newark north to the old New York Central Hojack line near Webster, east of Rochester. Newark is where Pennsy bridged the New York Central main.
But the line to Sodus Point is gone, as is the wharf.
The line to Canandaigua is also gone.



Texan. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The May 2011 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a sunset photograph of a North-American SNJ-5 Texan trainer, an airplane I’ve never thought much of.
I feel that because so many are still around, over 350 according to my Warbirds site.
It seems every single-engined radial I’ve seen is a Texan.
I’ve seen a Corsair and a Bearcat, but Texans are a dime-a-dozen.
I’ve been to the Geneseo Air-show a few times, and it was overloaded with Texans.
My brother and I heard a radial-engined airplane overhead, and it was a Texan.
The Texan was a trainer, nicknamed “the pilot maker,” a step for prospective fighter-pilots from basic pilot training to fighter-plane hot-rods.
It was a very forgiving and friendly airplane, yet a step up from basic pilot training in Stearman or Ryan trainers.
It’s engine was a single-row Pratt-and-Whitney Wasp, nine cylinders, 550-600 horsepower, not a Double-Wasp exceeding 2,000 horsepower, where you were always hanging on for dear life.
I’ve seen video from a Bearcat cockpit, an airplane that seems too fast for its own good.
Barely controllable — always trying to kill you.
The Texan is a radial, but you’re not hanging on for dear life.
It would only do about 210 mph, not 400-plus.
The Texan is called the T-6. SNJ is the Navy’s version.



The “Queen Mary.” (Photo by Bill Janssen.)

The May 2011 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is a combination inspection and parlor car, a train-end observation-car, built by Pullman in 1925.
It’s the “Queen Mary,” a special Pennsy car. Also a heavyweight with six-wheel trucks.
It was purchased from Wabash Railroad in 1945.
As a tail-end car, I sort of don’t think that much of it, except it’s an observation-car — stand outside on the observation platform and watch the tracks disappear in the distance, especially if the train is moving.
A most pleasant experience, and I’ve done it myself, although never from an observation-car.
During the ‘60s, I rode the rearmost coach of a fast southbound train, Philadelphia to Wilmington, DE, on what became the Northeast Corridor.
80-90 mph, and looking through a window of the rear door through the vestibule, four-track main and overhead catenary (“kat-in-AIR-eee”) receding quickly into the distance.
The Pennsy line from New York City to Washington D.C. was fully electrified, and the current for the locomotives was delivered by overhead wire, called a “catenary” because it was suspended from a catenary of cables.
In the ‘80s it was the same window in the rear door of Amtrak’s “Lakeshore Limited” segment to Boston (another segment went to New York City), crossing Massachusetts. (The Lakeshore was from Chicago east — it still runs.)

Photo by BobbaLew.

40-50 mph south on the Tioga Central — that’s Lake Hammond to the right.

A few years ago it was an open car on the tail-end of a Tioga Central (“tie-OH-guh”) dinner-train, skirting Hammond Lake in Pennsylvania on the old New York Central line to Williamsport.
We were on new railroad laid with welded rail. Hammond Lake was the result of a flood-control dam which flooded the original line.
The railroad had to be relocated when the dam was built — after Hurricane Agnes. —The dam also flooded highways.
That relocation was the best railroad Tioga Central had. Everything else was bolted stick-rail, 33 foot lengths, good for about 20 mph.
The relocation was good for 40-50 mph.
Tioga Central is the shortline that took over the Williamsport line from Conrail.
It also moves freightcars with Alco locomotives, including an RS-1 from Washington Terminal (Washington Union Station, Washington D.C.)

Photo by Alex Ranaldi©.

Tioga Central’s Alco RS-1.

The RS-1 is the first road-switcher, fielded by Alco in 1941.
“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 changing to, and changed its name to “Alco.”
Alco tanked a while ago; they never competed as well as EMD (General Motors’ “Electromotive Division”).
Only a few Alco locomotives are still running, and they’re considered prizes.
The “Queen Mary” was used by Pennsy for important assignments, like specials to the Army/Navy game in Philadelphia.
Pennsy used to run special service to that game, and had an electrified yard next to the stadium.
Trains would wait there until the game ended, after which they would refill, and return to where they had started.
E.g. an Army contingent to New York City for return to West Point via New York Central, and a Navy contingent to Annapolis, which I think was served by a Pennsy branch.
The car lasted into Penn-Central, and upon retirement became part of a restaurant in Wayne, N.J.
It’s painted Tuscan-red (“tuss-kin;” not “Tucson,” Ariz.), the standard Pennsy passenger color.
Houses in Altoona were often painted Tuscan-red. Altoona was the major Pennsy shop town. (You figure it out.)
Also visible in this picture, top-right, is an “AC motor-stop” sign, the end of the overhead wire. Beyond that sign, electric locomotives could no longer operate.