Pilgrimage to Cartwright’s

Gathering of Eagles. (Photo by Gary Coleman.)

The other day (Thursday, March 29, 2012) was the annual foray of a group of Regional Transit operations retirees to Cartwright’s Maple Tree Inn out in the middle of nowhere in the eastern hills of the Genesee valley (“jen-uh-SEE”).
Maple Tree Inn is only open during maple-syrup season; that is, when sap is running in their giant stand of sugar-maples, middle February through April.
Cartwright’s is a maple sugaring operation.
They boil the sap down into maple-syrup, and then serve it with all-you-can-eat buckwheat pancakes they make in their restaurant-kitchen.
That’s all they serve, all-you-can-eat buckwheat pancakes with maple-syrup, plus ham and/or sausage. Plus coffee of course. They’re not a normal restaurant.
The vast Genesee valley in western New York was the first breadbasket of the nation.
Wheat was grown in the valley and then shipped north on the long-abandoned Genesee Valley Canal to Rochester, NY, where it was -a) milled into wheat-flour, and/or -b) shipped east on the Erie Canal.
The Genesee valley has the Genesee River flowing through it, running south-to-north across Western New York, and it empties into Lake Ontario just north of Rochester.
The river flowed over falls in Rochester that could be harnessed for water-power. Rochester was first known as the ”flour city,” water-powered wheat milling. (Now it’s called the “Flower City,” since it became a rose-cultivation center.)
The Erie Canal also went through, so wheat and/or milled flour could be shipped east.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability.
It was an interesting job at first, mastering the safe operation of large vehicles.
But I was tiring of it, especially our clientele, who could be abusive.
Most weren’t, but the job was becoming boring. I had tried just about everything.
I dreaded I had about 14 more years to go, but my stroke ended it suddenly.
My stroke was a godsend of sorts, since it directed me to the Messenger newspaper in nearby Canandaigua, the best job I ever had.
And it seemed upper management at Transit wanted no connection whatsoever with what we bus-drivers were doing.
It seemed all they wanted was to collect their bloated paychecks for driving a desk.
Often we’d get buses with failed air-conditioning, but the air-conditioning always worked in the Administration-Building.
If it wasn’t, it was fixed right away.
Plus we bus-drivers were a pack of ne’er-do-wells, unionized (gasp).
There were cheats and liars among us, but management acted like we all were.
Our relationship was always adversarial.
There was a pecking-order at the Messenger too, but the relationship with upper-management was not adversarial.
The Messenger was a happy ship. We low-line employees were valued.
Then too perhaps it was what we were doing.
At the Messenger mental input was required to put out a newspaper, whereas at Transit we were just driving buses and parrying the clientele.
Then too it might have been our pay-rate.
My income at Transit was fairly substantial, due mainly to our bus-union.
At the Messenger my pay was peanuts, perhaps partly because I was stroke disabled.
But mainly we weren’t unionized.
Stories were bandied about among us Transit retirees about some of the insanity rained down upon us by Transit management.
Like the time a bus-driver got off his bus to use the restroom in a nearby supermarket.
His bus was shut down and safely secured in the plaza parking-lot, at the layover-point where it was supposed to be. —He had called in his departure to bus-radio.
While he was in the store, some granny lost it and slid her car into the parked bus.
Management, in its infinite wisdom, decided this was his fault, and fired him.
(It was his bus, so he was obviously responsible.)
The bus-union had to jump through hoops to get his job back.
The driver was put on probation.
Um, the bus was shut down and safely secured where it was supposed to be, and he was inside the store.
Yet some granny lost it, so that’s his fault.
But it was his bus, and he had rocked the boat. So fire him!
A second story was my own recounting involving a schoolbus.
The schoolbus stopped and then restarted, clipping a car on the crossroad, which was through.
Probably due to a blind spot.
“It that had been a Transit bus,” I said; “that driver would have been fired right there!”
“If that schoolbus had been on the through road,” another driver commented; “and tee-boned the miscreant car, even though the schoolbus had the right-of-way, Transit would have fired the bus-driver.”
“That’s true,” I thought to myself.
You always had to allow for the NASCAR wannabees and ignorant grannies to avoid accidents.
“Oh look, Dora. A bus! Pull out; pull out! Heaven forbid we get caught behind a smelly old slowpoke.”
It seemed Transit management immediately assumed bus-drivers were at fault, no matter what.
If anything happened it was rocking their boat, which apparently was just to collect their bloated pay, and glom free donuts jawing at the water-cooler.
Rocking the boat equals blame the bus-driver.
I got called on the carpet myself for various insanities.
And I was one of their favorites; I always showed up on time, and rarely took time off.
They even fired a driver for not showing up while he was on vacation.
Our union was always parrying madness.
So we gathered the other morning after 9 a.m. in a plaza parking-lot, south of Rochester.
We then set out on the long 40-50 mile journey to Maple Tree Inn, about an hour.
I did not make the drive myself, unlike last year and perhaps the year before.
It seems I’ve been to this shindig at least four times, the first time driven to it.
But the roads are familiar to me.
Maple Tree Inn is just southeast of the tiny rural town of Short Tract, and I know the way to Short Tract.
It’s up the side of the Genesee valley from Houghton (“HO-tin;” not “who” or “how”), where I attended college.
Houghton College is also out in the middle of nowhere — a tiny island of suburbia out in the outback. Houghton used to be called Jockey Street, and was along the Genesee Valley Canal.
It was a den of iniquity, drinking and fighting and prostitution.
People used to race their horses up the main drag; hence the name “Jockey Street.”
Christian zealot Willard Houghton arrived and set out to clean up the town.
A seminary was founded therein, which later became a college.
I would make the drive with Vinny Arena (“uh-REE-nuh”), a retired bus-driver who started shortly after me, and drove bus 27 years before being disqualified due to a medical problem.
This was because I knew the way, and Vinny didn’t; so Vinny could drive there in his own car (he had to go somewhere else after the shindig).
Vinny recounted his failure of his first bus-driving test with the state, a story I’ve heard before.
He also explained his massive weight-loss. Vinny was once 20 pounds shy of 300 pounds.
Like me, Vinny works out at the YMCA, but not the same YMCA as me.
Vinny is now down to 189, and looks skinny.
Like me, he’s 68; but if he keeps pumping that treadmill he’ll last a while.
There were 12 of us at this shindig, two of whom were lower management; not high-and-mighty.
The rest were mostly retired bus-drivers.
One of the managers was Gary Coleman (“COAL-min”), who once was a road-supervisor and also worked bus-radio.
A road-supervisor supervised bus-drivers from a company car, and settled arguments with passengers.
The other was Dave Brown, who had also been a road-supervisor. He also worked the radio, and dispatched bus-drivers from the Dispatch Office.
Both Brownie and Coleman started as bus-drivers.
I rode back with Ron Palermo (“puh-LAIR-mo;” as in “Moe”), the retired bus-driver who organizes these shindigs.
Three were missing, Norb Dynski, a retired bus-driver who has been to these shindigs before.
Also Gary Colvin (“COAL-vin”) and Tony Coia (“KOY-yuh”). They always battled each other to see who could eat the most all-you-can-eat pancakes.
The only number I remember is Colvin eating 14.
I ate four, my limit, with two sausage-patties.
I also took pictures, but Coleman did better.
Also missing was Art Dana (“DAY-nuh”), a retired bus-driver who died a while ago at age-69.

• “Gary Coleman” is a Transit retiree. He’s not in the picture because he was the photographer.
• “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 14 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.
• RE: “Unionized (gasp)......” —All my siblings are flagrantly anti-union.
• “Houghton College” is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about two-three hours per visit.

And so began.......

......the frenzied wild-goose chase of trying too keep up with our gigantic lawn.


Off we go! (Photo by BobbaLew.)

(4.7 acres; I mow about 2.5.)
I had to do the first mowing yesterday, Tuesday, March 27, 2012.
Usually I don’t have to start mowing until April, but we had a long warm-spell in March, temperatures well into the 60s, 70s, and even 80s.
I could see our grass was growing, some over seven inches high.
I had to suddenly get out our 48-inch zero-turn lawnmower, and remove its three blades for sharpening.
A “zero-turn” is a riding-mower; “zero-turn” because it’s a special design with separate drives to each drive-wheel, so it can be spun on a dime. “Zero-turns” are becoming the norm, because they cut mowing time in half compared to a lawn-tractor, which has to be set up for each mowing-pass.
I had to suddenly turn over the blades to my mower-man, and usually it takes him a week or two to sharpen them.
But he cracked the whip, and had the blades ready in a couple days.
I would need those blades quickly.
Back on they went; ready-to-mow. But it was raining. Our lawn was boomin’-and-zoomin’.
Our lawn is comprised of four segments, actually five if you include the immediate backyard which has to be mowed with a small push-mower.
I’ve tried it with the zero-turn, but it’s kind of abusive.
It’s big and heavy and leaves turning-divots.
The other four segments are large, and can be mowed with the zero-turn. They are -1) our immediate front-yard, about a half-hour; -2) the south wing, about an hour; -3) the north wing, almost an hour, and -4) our gigantic Back-40, almost two hours.
The front grows fastest.
I don’t mow the entire lawn unless I need to; I can usually only mow a segment or two.
The south wing needed mowing; our front-lawn was perhaps a day behind.
The north wing and the Back-40 were perhaps a week behind, although the north wing grows slowest.
Our immediate backyard, the small mower, would need mowing first. It was perhaps two days behind the south wing.
I mowed both the south wing and the front yard yesterday, about two-and-a-half hours.
Our zero-turn has a habit of throwing its blade drive belt on engagement. I was expecting to have to rethread it.
But it didn’t.
Off we went! Boomin’-and-zoomin’.
May is usually the cruelest month, the lawn growing like gangbusters.
I might have to mow twice per week, lest our grass get too high and stall the mower. (It’s happened.)
I’ll be mowing through October, which compromises motorcycle-riding.
I managed to stay ahead of it last year, although I’m always factoring in rain.
Do I dare? Check the weather-radar on this computer, and outside do I see a shower coming?
Plus I get the usual madness keeping the zero-turn going.
Last year I had to replace the blade drive belt, a gigantic thingy that set me back 70 buckaroos!
Plus I got it stuck in mud a couple times.
One time a friend had to pull it out with his four-wheeler.

Lido

Lee Iacocca.

The May 2012 issue of my Hemmings Classic Car magazine has a so-called “interview” of Lee Iacocca (“eye-uh-COKE-uh”), the guy who shepherded the new 1964 Mustang into production, and eventually headed Chrysler Corporation, saving it from the brink.
I plowed through it, but it wasn’t that good.
Lido Anthony Iacocca is perhaps the most important car-guy of our time.
He managed to get Ford Motor Company to develop the Mustang, and this was just after Ford crashed mightily in flames with the Edsel fiasco.
The Deuce, Henry Ford II, head-honcho of Ford at that time, grandson of company-founder Old Henry, was justifiably skeptical.
The Edsel had been a disaster. Focus-group research made it look promising.
But no one was buying. Edsel’s styling was laughable. A lollipop-sucking Mercury!
But Lido was a car-guy, and he knew the demand was there for a sporty-car that wasn’t the weird Corvair Monza.
He convinced The Deuce to gamble, and then Ford made buckets of money. The Mustang was the sporty-car Americans wanted.
Conventional underneath — a modified Ford Falcon — the sporty flair of a Corvair Monza without the weirdness.
Lido is from Allentown, PA, and is an engineering graduate of Lehigh University.
He always wanted to work for Ford; his family liked Fords.
After graduating college, he hung around a local Ford dealership, and found what he really liked was to sell cars.
A marriage made in Heaven, a seller of cars as well as a developer of cars.
But more than anything Lido was a car-guy, as opposed to a corporate bean-counter.
What he developed reflected his car-guyness, particularly the Mustang.
He wasn’t the developer of the Mustang as much as the guy who convinced The Deuce to do it.
But Lido had a later falling-out with The Deuce, and was let go.
Strange products were in his resumé beside the Mustang: the Maverick, the Pinto, and particularly the Lincoln Mark III, a car he was most proud of, reflecting his penchant for gaudiness.
Out of Ford, Lido was snapped up by ailing Chrysler Corporation.
He set upon two missions: -a) to make a success of Chrysler’s humble K-car, and -b) add Jeep to Chrysler’s product-line. —He correctly surmised the new Jeep Grand Cherokee was desirable.
Perhaps Lido’s greatest achievement at Chrysler was development of the K-car into a minivan.
No one yet had a minivan; even Ford had bypassed the concept.
And it was Ford that initiated the concept.
It was the Mustang all over again; develop an existing platform into something the public wants.
Soon everyone was marketing minivans, even Ford with its Windstar.
Just like the Mustang it generated imitators —And Camaro had the fabulous SmallBlock V8.
Lido is now 86, and still involved in the car-biz.
His puss decorates National Parts Depot, a parts source for ‘60s and ‘70s American cars — “American history,” he says.
I guess he’s National Parts Depot’s head-honcho.
Chrysler moved on after he left, but Lido’s lasting legacy is the ’64 Mustang, the car America wanted.
What Lido regrets most is he let Chrysler merge with Daimler-Benz, manufacturer of Mercedes Benz.
The merger didn’t go well, and Chrysler is now back on its own.
Lido is obviously a car-guy. He counts numerous Ferraris, a Lambo, and a Dodge Viper in his stable.
This “interview” didn’t do him justice.

• The Chevrolet “SmallBlock” 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 SmallBlock. 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 “SmallBlock” was revolutionary in its time. (The SmallBlock is still made, although much improved.)
• A “Lambo” is a Lamborghini (“lam-bore-GEE-nee;” as in “get”), made in Italy, perhaps even more a supercar than a Ferrari.

C7

2014. (Ugh!)

The April 2012 issue of my Car & Driver magazine features “25 Cars Worth Waiting For,” one of which is the new C7 Corvette which will debut for the 2014 model-year.
C7, eh? (Seventh Corvette version.)
I wonder if it’s a new chassis?
The C5 and C6 Corvettes are the C4 chassis, uprated of course, to make the car handle better.
It sounds like the C7 Corvette is still the same chassis layout, a leaf spring in the rear.
And to my mind, the new C7 is much uglier than the C6, which was one of the best-looking Corvettes EVER.
They made that chassis handle pretty well, to me the result of big tire-footprints on chassis-geometry optimized for those tires.
But you put similar tires on a C4, the disco-Corvette introduced in 1983 as an ’84 model, and it might handle about as well.
The chassis is also quite low to the ground, and very well balanced.
The transmission, its weight, is in the rear.
Corvettes always suffered from excessive weight; they’re hardly a feather-light Lotus.
The Corvette’s advantage would be blunderbuss acceleration between corners.
I saw this at a race years ago. A 427 ’70 Camaro creamed a Porsche (“POOR-sha”) on the straights, but the lighter and more sophisticated Porsche was all over the Camaro in the twisty parts.
Corvette has always been special to me, although the earliest Corvettes were mainly its fabulous SmallBlock V8 motor.
The chassis was essentially that of a ’53 Chevy, which compromised the SmallBlock.
Corvette was much better after 1963, the first Corvettes with independent-rear-suspension (IRS).
The IRS was rather crude, but helped the SmallBlock V8.
The C3 was essentially the crude C2 chassis with a dramatic Mako Shark body.
But it was still the SmallBlock engine, although you could get it with a Big-Block.
The Big-Block was also available in late C2 Corvettes, and the largest was a gigantic 454 cubic-inch version in the C3.
Maximum acceleration, but such a large heavy motor threw the balance off.
On a twisting byway a BMW 2002 could leave it behind.
In other words, don’t ask a 454 Corvette to corner — the trees were waiting.
Unfortunately the C7 Corvette takes its styling-cues from the new Camaro, which to me is incredibly ugly.
The new Mustang is much better looking. The Camaro is so slammed it looks like a tank.
Chrysler debuted gun-slit windows on its new 300 sedan, and GM quickly jumped on the bandwagon. The new Camaro has gun-slit windows, as does the Chevy Volt.
The C7 Corvette doesn’t look as bad, but its rear-end is that of the Camaro.
Taillights slammed rectangular into a tiny panel framed by rear-fender extensions. —That panel slammed atop a gigantic bumper-piece.
Also too much styling filigree.
To me this is sad because the C6 Corvette was one of the best-looking Corvettes ever.
At least Corvette remains the individualized offering it always was. In the ‘80s John Z. DeLorean (“de-LORE-eee-un”), head-honcho of Chevrolet, wanted to shorten the Camaro into a two-seater and call it a Corvette.
Thankfully, this didn’t happen.
Car-and-Driver wishes all Chevrolets were as good as Corvette, although it still needs better seats.


C6.

• “Independent-rear-suspension” is to make each rear-wheel independently sprung from its opposite. Most car-suspensions are (were) the Model-T Ford layout, each wheel firmly attached to a common axle — so that as one wheel was bumped, the opposite wheel was effected too.
• 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. The SmallBlock is still produced, although much improved since 1955.

Yo Quicken

In nine years of using Quicken 2003 for MAC, thousands of checks, I never had the strange anomaly illustrated above.
The written amount and numerical amount always agreed.
I download and install Quicken Essentials for MAC, and I get an unfathomable mystery.
.....Which I see no way to fix.
I tried the “edit,” and I got only the numerical amount, which was correct.
This was the way it was for my ancient Quicken 2003 for MAC, except the numerical and written amounts always agreed.
The written amount was never a penny less.
This anomaly means I have to test-print every check on a blank sheet of paper to see if the two figures agree.
So if they don’t, I can hand-write the check.
My wife did Google-research to see if anyone else was getting the problem, and found that Quicken Essentials didn’t even have a check-writing function at first.
The assumption was that everyone would be doing things electronically.
Well I do, but occasionally I have to use checks.
I can’t pay my water-bill electronically, or even my newspaper subscription.
And my newspaper uses the same bank I do.
I authorized an electronic bill-pay to that newspaper, but the bank had to issue a check.
If I’d known, I would have paid by check myself.
There are other bills I can’t pay electronically, and bills I pay in a roundabout fashion.
My auto insurance has screwed up with electronic bill-pay, so I pay my local insurance-provider, in which case a human (their receptionist) intervenes to assure proper credit.
Sometimes a human is required to get the system to not screw up.
And sometimes I wish a human were around to catch my own errors.
Like the time I mistyped a credit-card payment by a penny, and the credit-card bank went bonkers, saying I hadn’t fully paid a bill, and started charging me interest on that penny, plus a $10 service-charge.
A human woulda caught that mistake, and probably called me.
“Are you sure you wanna short your payment by a penny?”
So I often need to pay by check.
Some of the charities we give to don’t do online donation yet.
Or they require credit-card information I don’t want to divulge.
That is, they don’t do PayPal.
I have to issue a check.
You can’t just assume all money disbursements can be electronic.
And good old Quicken 2003 printed an attractive check.
Quicken Essentials for MAC does okay too, now that it prints checks.
Users were all up-in-arms with a checkless Quicken Essentials.
But what do I do if the written amount is not the same as the numerical amount?
I had to hand-correct and initial my correction.
And now I have to test-print every check to see if it’s wonky.
You’re losing me, Quicken!
I know I’m not using all your glitzy bells-and-whistles.
All I’m doing is keeping track of two accounts.
And printing checks for one.

Older than dirt

My wife’s 96-year-old mother has sent something in her most recent letter.
I will attempt to OCR scan it:

Someone asked the other day, “What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?”
“We didn’t have fast food when I was growing up,” I informed him. “All the food was slow.
“C’mon, seriously. Where did you eat?”
“It was a place called ‘at home,’” I explained. “Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn’t like what she put on my plate, I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.”
By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn’t tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.
Here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it:
—Some parents never owned their own house, wore Levis, set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country, or had a credit card.
—My parents never drove me to school. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, slow.
—We didn’t have a television in our house until I was 10. It was of course black-and-white, and the station went off the air at 11, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God. It came back on the air at about 6 a.m. and there was usually a locally-produced news-and-farm show on, featuring local people.
—I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone was a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn’t know weren’t already using the line.
—Pizzas weren’t delivered to our home — but milk was.
—All newspapers were delivered by boys, and all boys delivered newspapers. My brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. He had to get up at 5 a.m. every morning.
—Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least they did in the movies. There were no movie ratings because all movies were produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.
If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren.
Memories:
—My Dad was cleaning out my grandmother’s house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt-shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of our ironing board to “sprinkle” clothes with because we didn’t have steam irons.
How many do you remember?
-Headlight dimmer switches on the floor.
-Ignition switches on the dashboard.
-Pant-leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
-Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.
Older Than Dirt Quiz
Count all the ones you remember, NOT the ones you were told about (ratings at the bottom).
-1) Candy cigarettes.
-2) Restaurants with tableside juke-box terminals.
-3) Home milk delivery in glass bottles.
-4) Party lines on telephones.
-5) Newsreels before the movie.
-6) TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were on until TV shows started again the next morning; there were only three channels [if you were fortunate]).
-7) Peashooters.
-8) Howdy Doody.
-9) 45 RPM records.
-10) Hi-fi records.
-11) Metal ice trays with lever.
-12) Blue flashbulbs.
-13) Cork popguns.
-14) Studebakers.
-15) Wash tub wringers.
—If you remembered 0-3, you’re still young.
—If you remembered 3-6, you are getting older.
—If you remembered 7-10, don’t tell your age, and
—If you remembered 11-15, you’re older than dirt!!! THAT’S ME!!!

My wife’s mother lives in a retirement-center, but still “independent-living.”
She still writes letters; computers and e-mail are anathema.
She has macular degeneration, and uses a print-magnifier, a machine which projects the image of a page in its enlarging screen, that is, enlarged type.
She’ll probably make 100, despite claiming she was at death’s door all her life.
She still walks to church, and takes care of “the old folks,” people much younger than her.
When we visit it’s “you kids sure are having fun with your gizmos,” this laptop and my SmartPhone.
My wife’s older brother visits often, and he too has a laptop and SmartPhone; “gizmos.”
(We’re both 68, he’s 70.)
I’d add a few things to this printout.
—A) Our bread was delivered door-to-door by a breadman in a delivery-truck, just like our bottled milk.
—B) My father’s ’39 Chevy — the first car I remember; I was born in 1944 — had a large foot-button beside the gas-pedal. When depressed, it engaged the starter; you couldn’t start the car unless you depressed that foot-button, which I guess was the equivalent of a starter-solenoid.
—C) Our first car with turn-signals was our ’53 Chevy; the car I learned to drive in. Everything before that was arm out the window. —I fell behind a Model-T Ford the other day. Its driver stuck his arm out to signal a right turn. (The car was a black tea-cup roadster with its top up; no side-windows.)
If a younger driver had been following, he would have been dumbfounded.
—D) Studebaker? Anyone remember Packard?
—E) We also had a party-line, but only one other party was on it. Calling that other party was near impossible. (My wife’s party-line was 10 parties per party-line; only two telephone-lines to her little back-country town.)
My wife says define “rubbering.”
“Rubbering” is to listen in, inadvertently or intentionally, to other calls on the party-line.
If anything significant happened in town, like a fire, the whole town jumped on the party-line, a massive conference-call.
My wife’s grandmother once lived in Lawrenceville, PA, just south of the New York border. Her telephone had a hand-crank, no rotary dialer. You cranked to get the operator.
Go back far enough and our family’s first telephone service was through an operator switchboard. You told the operator who you wanted, or what number.
—F) Our first TV, in 1949, was also black-and-white, made by RCA (Radio Corporation of America), not in the Pacific Rim for Wal*Mart — although it was purchased from Sears, where my father worked as a second job.
It received its signals, only three channels — all from Philadelphia — over a flimsy two-pronged aluminum antenna attached to our chimney.
All TV transmissions were over-the-air, like radio, not via cable or satellite-dish. And all houses had that flimsy antenna, which you hoped a hurricane didn’t topple.
And that TV used orange-glowing hot cathode-ray tubes to function. It wasn’t transistorized.

DETAILS:
—My recently-deceased slightly younger sister and I walked to school every day, six blocks.
50 miles each way, uphill both goin’ and comin’.
And it was always snowing, even in summer.
Turn around and the snow turned with you. It was always in your face.
Barefoot in snow eight inches deep!
We also rode our 50-pound bicycles to school; and locked them in a bicycle-rack.
When I drive through a nearby village I see mom at the end of the driveway in her idling minivan, teenagers without jackets inside, waiting for the schoolbus that takes them around the corner to the school.
No wonder today’s youth are flaccid and out-of-shape. —Heaven forbid they dress for weather; baggy shorts in a blizzard, for crying out loud.
My wife rode schoolbus, but her trip was over four miles on country roads without sidewalks.
—My mother’s sprinkler-bottle was an old glass Pepsi bottle, and she used to hang our laundry on a clothesline outside to dry. We didn’t have a dryer until I was a teenager and we moved to a house in northern Delaware that had a laundry-room. —I’m originally from south Jersey, a suburb of Philadelphia.
And our first fully-automatic clothes-washer was a Bendix purchased from Sears. Bendix no longer exists, and I see Bendix was not the actual manufacturer of its washing-machines.
The dishwasher was my mother, and the Bendix was in our kitchen, and it was often broadsided by our cat, sliding a corner on our linoleum for his supper.
I don’t remember a wringer-washer, just the wringer.
My wife explains doing laundry with a wringer-washer, an all-day affair, involved everyone carting tubs of water heated on the stove before school.
Completed laundry would be hung out to dry.
I’ll say a few things about Howdy-Doody and 45 rpm records.
Howdy-Doody was the first TV program I watched regularly along with The Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy.
Howdy-Doody was a string puppet; the program’s emcee was Buffalo-Bob in cowboy-garb.
The kids all sat in the Peanut-gallery; and another character in the show was Clarabell the Clown, a mute who was always spraying Buffalo-Bob with a seltzer-bottle.
The first Clarabell was played by Bob Keeshan, who later became Captain Kangaroo.
The Lone Ranger was played on TV by Clayton Moore; and his Indian sidekick, Tonto, was played by Jay Silverheels.
The Lone Ranger’s horse, a white stallion, was called Silver, and Tonto’s horse, a paint, was called Scout. (“Hoppy’s” white horse was Topper.)
45 rpm records succeeded 78s (78 rpm). 45s had a big hole in the center, and if I’m right were an RCA marketing invention. (Our family had 78s; and even had a Silvertone recorder that would cut 78s [like of my maternal grandfather, who died in 1954].)
I still have a few 45s in my record-collection, all classic pop records.
One is much better from iTunes. The iTunes download doesn’t have the warp the 45 rpm records had. (And every pressing had it — you’d hear it on the radio.)

What a chuckle this addenda was. Especially the sprinkler-bottle.

I can’t believe it

Bach.

Yrs trly gets up each day about 6 a.m.
As a retiree, I don’t need to, but I can.
I also am a retired bus-driver, so I’ve had worse.
My worst was get up about 3 a.m., so I could pull out a bus around 5 a.m.
A lot of that time was getting dressed (uniform), eating breakfast, and then driving in.
Just getting to the bus-company, from out here where we live, took about 40 minutes.
When we lived in Rochester (NY) it was five minutes.
But we moved out here to the country because our house in Rochester needed total rehabilitation.
Plus its layout was goofy.
We wanted to build our own house, and the only available land was out in the country.
That was 1990; my stroke was ’93.
My stroke ended my career driving bus, although I eventually returned to driving.
My recovery was almost complete, although I have tiny stroke deficits.
I even went back to riding motorcycle, which my medical advisors consider miraculous.
It was a serious stroke, but apparently one you can recover from.
It was the same as that suffered by New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi (“brew-skee”), caused by a patent foramen ovale (“PAY-tint fore-AYE-min oh-VAL-eeee;” as in “hey”) in my heart that passed a clot.
That hole has since been sealed — open-heart surgery.
I actually get up about 6:05 a.m.
Our clock-radio comes on at 5:40 tuned to WXXI-FM, 91.5, the classical-music radio-station out of Rochester we listen to, publicly supported.
5:40 is still the nationwide all-night classical radio-feed out of Minnesota.
At 6 a.m. WXXI returns to local production, and it puts on recorded birdsong as it switches.
Then at 6:01 they switch to the NPR (National Public Radio) news-feed from Washington, DC.
That lasts about four-five minutes, and I roll out when they announce it’s NPR.
(WXXI is affiliated with NPR.)
Sometimes I don’t, but 98 percent of the time I do.
It isn’t that hard.
Today is Wednesday, March 21, 2012.
March 21, 1685 was Johann Sebastian Bach’s birthday.
I admit I am very much a Bach partisan.
To my mind, Bach wrote some of the greatest music of all time.
It’s very orderly and devoid of emotion (at least in my humble opinion).
The college I attended, Houghton College in western New York (“HO-tin;” as in “oh,” not “how” or “who”), was very much into Bach.
They held a Bach Festival I think every four years.
This was so a four-year student could enjoy a Bach Festival.
In fact, I was corralled into doing a poster for the Bach Festival.
I did a poster of Bach winking — an embellishment of the standard Bach illustration (above).
People were appalled.
I had committed sacrilege.
It was as if Bach was at the right hand of Jesus.
I wasn’t mocking Bach.
I loved Bach.
My greatest joy at Houghton was hearing Bach played.
Next to the Chapel-Auditorium was the original Music-Building, a brick structure that was always hot inside.
Music-students would have all the practice-room windows open, even in Winter.
A gorgeous cacophony of Bach music washed over us as we exited the Chapel-Auditorium.
(That Music-Building has since been torn down.)
The Chapel-Auditorium installed a mighty pipe-organ (3,153 pipes), and it was a baroque organ, not a Mighty Wurlitzer = schmaltz.
I’d listen in awe to students practicing Bach on that organ.
And if that college lets that organ go, they ain’t gettin’ another red cent!
That organ is the best physical asset they got.
A lot of my ancient record-collection is Bach.
And I have the entire Bach organ catalog.
Perhaps 12 hi-fi 33&1/3rd rpm vinyl records in a big green cardboard box.
Ya need two hands to lift it.
So I always remember March 21.
And for whatever reason there was no mention that today was Bach’s birthday — at least not early when I had the radio on.
Bach was the greatest composer ever.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke ended that. I retired on medical-disability.
• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty finding and putting words together.)

Why does Quicken hate MAC-users?

Yesterday afternoon (Saturday, March 17, 2012) I took on an incredible challenge, starting a new checking-account in my recently downloaded and installed Quicken-Essentials.
My ancient Quicken-2003 would no longer print checks.
Long Story. This seemed to start after Apple did an “update” to my OS-X Snow Leopard. (I always let it.)
I’ve been told by a MAC-maven, who I trust, this “update” wasn’t supposed to do that.
But all-of-a-sudden all my older software applications, like Quicken 2003, no longer worked.
This included my AppleWorks-6, my Photoshop-Elements 4.0, and my Fine-Reader Express Optical-Character-Recognition (OCR) software, all of which go back about six years or more.
My Apple “Pages” word-processor would open my AppleWorks files.
I guess “Pages” succeeded AppleWorks, which is no longer made.
I had to purchase and install a new Fine-Reader (100 smackaroos), and a new Photoshop-Elements (-10; 76 bucks).
I downloaded and installed Quicken-Essentials for MAC.
It of course wouldn’t read my ancient Quicken-2003 files.
Rather than call Quicken to attempt to convert — as a stroke-survivor I have difficulty making phonecalls — I decided to do my new Quicken from scratch, balance-forward my old Quicken-2003 files, and create new Quicken-Essentials files.
I don’t do much with Quicken. I only keep track of accounts. —I don’t do budgeting or all the fancy bells-and-whistles.
We’re down to only two accounts, my checking-account and my credit-card.
I only do it so I can reconcile. And those banks better not make any mistakes.
So far they haven’t.
I worked for a bank eons ago, so have a pretty good understanding of how things work.
Those accounts better reconcile to-the-penny. If they don’t, I’ll figure out why.
And if the bank erred, they’ll hear about it. At full volume!
And so began the wrastling-match. Set up a checking-account in Quicken-Essentials, and try to get it to print checks.
Setting up an account went fairly easy.
There was little to carry forward; just two Electronic-Fund-Transfer (EFT) deposits, our Social-Security, and one uncleared check from last Christmas.
All of this was trial-and-error. There’s no startup manual at all, and “Help” was no help at all.
But I managed to do it after blowing about an hour.
Next was to attempt to print a check.
I created a small check to my dental-service, a $4 bill to pay, but it wouldn’t print unless it was “to be printed.”
After perhaps another half-hour, I ascertained I had to make the check “to be printed;” a checkbox.
Nothing like my Quicken-2003.
The check got created and deleted at least four times before I found that “to-be-printed” checkbox.
With that the check appeared in the “to-be-printed” window, I printed it on blank paper, but it printed the size of a giant business-check.
My Quicken checks are much smaller.
“Make sure your check-format to print is the same as your checks,” said Quicken-help.
Some help that was! Nothing about setting check-format.
We Googled “check-format in Quicken-Essentials.”
Fevered discussion-groups where self-declared “gurus” and “Jedi-masters” say “Why does Quicken hate MAC-users” and “So much for Quicken. I’m switching to iBank.”
I had to keep making the $4 check “to-be-printed” over-and-over, an edit function.
“To make the check ‘to-be-printed’ again, click the edit-function.” So I did.
No sign of the “to-be-printed” checkbox, but I did notice an “edit-check” button in the edit window.
I tried it. VIOLA! The “to-be-printed” checkbox appeared.
There was no indication in Quicken-help I would see that “edit-check” button in the edit window.
I just noticed it. Trial-and-error.
Thanks for all your help, Quicken. It’s always trial-and-error that notices these things. The “edit-check” button in your “edit-check” window was my noticing it. It wasn’t predicted.
I could make the check “to-be-printed” again, so it would reappear in the “to-be-printed” window.
None of these shenanigans were in my Quicken-2003.
Next problem (or is it “issue”): alter the check-printing format to be what I had.
After I clicked the “print checks” button I noticed (there’s that “notice” bit again) I could select from three check formats: “business,” “voucher,” and “wallet.”
Well I had no idea, so I tried “wallet.” (The old “trial-and-error” bit again.)
WHOA! It printed the same size as my checks, but somewhat misaligned.
That format-menu was in a strange place; or so it seemed. It was after the “print”-button instead of before.
Next step: “adjust alignment.”
After about a half-hour of searching I found the “adjust alignment” checkbox.
Reams of blank printing-paper got used fiddling the alignment to put things where they belonged on my check.
And everything moved as a unit. Too far left and stuff prints off the check. Offset that, and you’re into something already on the check.
After about 15 tries everything lined up fairly well; “the best I can do.”
I was ready to print an actual check.
That check to my dental-service went out in this morning’s mail.
Next is our credit-card account; which has a slew of carried-over entries.
Plus I have a slew of checks to print.

• “OS-X Snow Leopard” is my computer operating-system. “Snow Leopard” is a recent version of OS-X (operating-system 10). My computer is an Apple Macintosh.
• Optical-Character-Recognition software reads a scan of text, recognizes the letters, and creates a computer text-file.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.
• “Electronic-Fund-Transfer” is just that. Instead of the payer issuing a check for me to deposit to our checking-account, the payer deposits the funds electronically directly to our account.

HMMMMMNNNNNN......

(In fulfillment of our paperwork-reduction requirements.)

• RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. 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!”

Greenberg model-train show

This is probably my least crowded shot — and a grizzled geezer is holding court at left. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

The other day (Saturday, March 10, 2012) yrs trly attended a Greenberg model-train show at the Dome-Center in deepest, darkest Henrietta.
“Henrietta” is a rather effusive and obnoxious suburb south of Rochester (NY).
The show wasn’t actually in the Dome, a large geodesic dome that goes back to perhaps the ‘70s.
It was in an adjacent Exhibition-Hall, a normal uninspired building.
Both the Dome and the Exhibition-Hall are exhibition venues, and the Dome looks its age.
I was originally going to attend this show with Gary Colvin (“coal-vin”), like me a retired bus-driver from Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, where I worked 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) prior to my stroke.
Gary likes model-railroading, and is working on a layout in his basement.
I’m a railfan, but not much of a model-railroader.
I prefer the real thing, and model-railroads collect dust.
But Gary did not attend. He lives far from Henrietta, me about 15-20 miles southeast.
Gary lives far east of Rochester, perhaps 40-50 miles out, maybe even farther.
The show was awful, super-crowded and awash in dusty junk.
As a child I was smitten with Lionel® model-trains; even had a few myself.
But now I think Lionel is junk compared to what’s available nowadays.

Photo by BobbaLew.

My HO GG1 model.

I have an HO-scale Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 (“Jee-Jee-ONE;” I only say that because a friend was mispronouncing it “Jee-Jee-Eye”) electric which is much more true-to-form than Lionel’s GG1, and that’s despite Lionel’s GG1 is perhaps the most collectible engine they made.
Large Lionel steam-engines were on display. They’re much smaller than actual scale, but the track is O-gauge (one-and-1/4 inches apart).
A full-gauge steam-locomotive in O-gauge would be a couple feet long.
Some steam-locomotives had six-wheel “Buckeye” trucks beneath their tenders, but they weren’t actually six-wheel.
Six-wheels would have never negotiated Lionel’s tight curves; the trucks were actually four-wheel, with a casting added to the center of the truck to mimic the middle wheel.
A six-wheel truck would have never stayed on the track. The curvature was much tighter than even a 19th-century industrial siding in the real world.
My friend Art Dana (“DAY-nuh”), since deceased, also a retired bus-driver from Regional Transit, had an HO model of a gigantic Union-Pacific “Big Boy” (4-8-8-4), the largest steam-locomotive ever made.

Photo by BobbaLew.

Look at how far the boiler-barrel of this thing offsets coming around a curve.

The entire model was articulated, even the rear engine-truck, not seen in the real world.
Articulation was needed to make a long engine negotiate track-curvature, although with the real Big Boy, only the front engine-truck was articulated.
It could swing side-to-side, but the rear engine-truck was solidly mounted to the boiler.
Negotiate a switch and the front engine-truck of a real Big Boy might swivel a couple feet.
But on Art’s model-railroad layout, the boiler-front sashayed perhaps 15 scale feet to the side (see photo above).
And that was HO (half-O, 16.5 mm [0.64961 inches] between the rails), much truer to scale than Lionel. But even HO curvature is way tighter than the real world.
Everything under Art’s Big Boy had to swivel for it to stay on the track, even the rear engine-truck.
And railing it (getting it on the rail) was a beast; 12 wheel-sets.
It was very impressive, but unrealistic.
Greenberg sponsors model-railroad shows nationwide.
Vendors show up with huge collections, hoping to sell something.
Plus there’s other stuff attractive to railfans, like books, videos, and tee-shirts.
My GG1 model came from the Tiger-Tracks model-train show two years ago at Rochester Institute of Technology.
Tiger-Tracks was a much better show.
I also bought a book there three years ago, and took Dana to Tiger-Tracks the year before that.
Dana left with a set of Santa Fe HO coaches for not too much. They were very realistic and pretty.
Colvin left with some N-gauge equipment last December — the second time for the two of us. N-gauge is about half HO; 9 mm (0.354 inches) between the rails. Colvin’s model-railroad is N-gauge. —Supposedly too delicate for children, but you can get more track on a tabletop.
Local model-railroad clubs set up huge model-railroads that operate.
A large trolley zoomed back-and-forth at perhaps a scale 100 mph, stopping at stations in a scale couple feet. Do that in the real world, and ya got passengers injured on the floor.
Grizzled geezers were holding court here-and-there.
“Can I hep ya?” bellowed one, almost knocking me over as he grabbed my arm.
“No thank you!” I said. “Just looking.”
So began a long dissertation about Atlanta’s abandoned railroad-station.
Didn’t I wanna contribute to this worthy cause?
“Nope!” I said, attempting to break free of his halitosis and grinning gaze.
Of interest to me were the live steamers, actual steam-locomotives in miniature.
A tiny fire, often fueled by alcohol, heats water in a tiny boiler, and the steam generated propels the locomotive.
A few were operating on display, in giant G-gauge, 45 mm (1.772 inches) between the rails.
A live Shay steamer was slowly plodding around the circle of track, and a second live-steamer was booming-and-zooming on another track.
A guy stopped that engine and added something from a clear plastic gallon milk-jug, fuel or water. —He thereafter fiddled a tiny valve under the locomotive’s cab-roof, and off it went.
I’ve seen live-steamers that actually burn pulverized coal.
There was a third live-steamer of a really old design, a vertical boiler atop a tiny fire, kind of like the first steam locomotives about 1827.
The fire was almost invisible.
What’s nice about live steamers is they actually emit steam — instead of fake smoke-puffs that smell like burning wax.
Live steam also smells like burning alcohol. There’s no mistaking the pungent aroma of burning coal on a real steam-locomotive. Nothing matches it.
At another G-scale layout a gigantic Pennsy articulated about four feet long lumbered slowly forward, pulling a train of about 10 cars.
First of all, Pennsy never had articulateds; at least not in quantity. And secondly the caboose was New York Central.
The speed the train was operating was realistic, but the chuffing sound it made (an on-board recording) did not synchronize with the drivers. The drivers were rotating slightly faster than the chuffing sound, which should be four chuffs per driver revolution.
And furthermore an articulated with two driver-sets emits a chuffing-sound that’s not regular: “Ka-chuff, ker-chuff-chuff!”
The engine looked like Norfolk & Western’s A-class, a fantastic locomotive, but hardly Pennsy.
And only 10 cars behind a 2-6-6-4 is overkill. Such a locomotive is good for perhaps 100 cars.
Also of interest is DCC train-control.
Instead of track-current being varied to determine train-speed, the track is full current, and a tiny computer is in each locomotive. It receives signals to determine how much current the engine uses.
By doing so it’s possible to have multiple trains on a single track, stopped or operating at different speeds.
Instead of all trains on that track operating at the same current-draw.
I could only stand about an hour.
A motorized train, led by a drooling Thomas-the-Tank-Engine, was slowly navigating the parking-lot outside, its lawnmower engine puttering sullenly.
$3 per ride. Sign up inside, and wait out here in the gazebo.
“Mommy, can we ride the train? Pleeze? Pretty pleeze?”
“Watch the car sir,” said the engineer to me, a rather weighty girl.

• For 16&1/2 years I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service in Rochester, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke ended that. I retired on medical-disability.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.

Tempest

Anyone familiar with West Bloomfield, the extremely rural western NY town we live in, knows the ground immediately beneath our feet is comprised mainly of sand.
Apparently the Great Glacier, receding north after the last Ice Age, left behind deposits of sand in our area, some in heaps, some just a layer.
We found this to be true when our contractor dug the cellar-hole for our house.
It was sandy, and kept caving in.
Our back-porch was not supposed to have cellar under it, but does because a distinct foundation-trench kept caving in.
The contractor had to give up and include cellar under our porch.
West Bloomfield has a number of abandoned sand-pits.
One remains, Elam Sand and Gravel (“eeee-lum”) on Routes 5 & 20.
“5&20” is the main east-west road (a two-lane highway) through our town; State Route 5 and U.S. Route 20, both on the same road. 5&20 is just south of where we live. It used to be the main road across Western New York before the Thruway.
Elam is on the east side of West Bloomfield, and is a model operation.
It’s well-screened from its surroundings; that is, one hardly knows it exists.
An almighty tempest has arisen.
A life-long resident of West Bloomfield, Gary Evans, wants to sell his land, which is unsuitable for farming, to Elam, who will mine it.
Residents across the street are all up-in-arms.
They don’t want a gravel-mine across from their McMansions.
It’s the old waazoo. People move farther out to escape suburban blight.
And confront country reality — that rural landowners do pretty much as they please.
We’re one of those people, although in our case it was more to escape Rochester (NY).
Although I wasn’t that cognizant of it at that time.
What I was escaping was an old house that needed to be completely refurbished.
And the only way to design and build a new house was on rural land.
Land far from Rochester; West Bloomfield is about 20 miles south, and very rural.
Our land fronts a main highway, and is backed by a giant plot of land.
A while ago, the land behind us changed hands.
We were afraid of the new landowner putting in a suburban development.
I don’t think he could have accessed our main highway, so no suburban development; at least not yet.
I guess the owner is just holding it as a hunting preserve.
Developing it as a suburban development would be messy.
It’s somewhat hilly and swampy, with creeks draining through it.
(I used to walk our dogs back there — previous owner.)
But if the new owner developed it as a suburb, we don’t feel we could stop him.
After all, he owns the land.
I suppose if Elam wanted to open a mine behind us, we’d probably resist.
Even though their other mine is well-hidden.
It seems the people resisting Elam are the same people, or similar, as those that resisted a proposed cellphone tower.
Where were these people when telephone-poles were erected?
Phone-poles too are a blight!
Pardon me for saying so, but the Elam resisters are expressing the same suburban values they tried to escape.
There is concern about traffic; Elam’s heavy trucks clogging roads.
As if giant tractors don’t already do this? I bet at least six-eight farm-tractors per day pass our house — many are two lanes wide.
My neighbor across the street has a farm-field behind his house. Often there’s a tractor roaring away on it.
There also is a pig-raising operation nearby. Sometimes we get the putrid odor of pig manure.
This is the country; you expect things like that.
And people mining the sand underfoot.
If you don’t want it, you shouldn’t be living here.
What you want is Pittsford or Mendon.

• “Pittsford and Mendon” are suburbs southeast of Rochester.

Wonders never cease!

The other day (Wednesday, March 7, 2012) I got a call to my SmartPhone while driving home from the Canandaigua YMCA, where I work out.
I didn’t answer it. I don’t. That SmartPhone stays in my back pocket while driving.
My cellphone service has voicemail. I’m not about to be distracted while driving. Not after what I saw cellphone use could do while driving.
It took me across the double-yellow. I’m not having that. I ain’t answerin’ that phone!
A missed call; from an unknown number. My SmartPhone identifies calls from people in my contact-list. This was not one of them.
A message had been left, so I fired up voicemail.
It was a machine. Wonders never cease. A machine left a message.
It was MVP, my healthcare insurance. They wanted to ask a few questions. They left an 800-number that wasn’t the caller number.
So I called the 800-number later after I got home.
A machine answered.
“Blah-blah-blah-blah.”
I guess it had voice-recognition.
“Do you consider your health improved, about-the-same, or worse over the past year?”
“Improved,” I said.
If it were an actual human, I would have said “slightly improved.”
But I knew a machine couldn’t crunch that.
“Blah-blah-blah-blah.” Various questions amidst long dissertations that sounded like my mother.
“Wear your rubbers! Look out for your health! Blah-blah-blah-blah.”
Then “did you discuss exercise with your doctor last visit?”
“No,” I said.
The machine seemed crestfallen, but a machine can’t crunch a more specific answer.
“Blah-blah-blah-blah. You should discuss exercise with your doctor. Exercise is beneficial.”
The machine and its programmers erroneously presumed I don’t exercise.
Most people don’t.
What usually happens is I initiate the discussion about exercise by saying “I work out.”
The doctor is not suggesting I exercise; he’s not initiating the conversation.
What usually happens is my doctor tells me to keep it up, and then he wishes he could exercise as much as I do.
A machine can’t handle that.
Which is why my health improved slightly. I’m not short of breath, and my heart doesn’t pound.
I don’t see stars, and I can get up if I fall, which happens occasionally.
I also can climb stairs. I’m way ahead of the average person at age 68.
I see people younger than me in powered wheelchairs, and I don’t have a handicap tag like my much younger brother. —He’s 13 years younger than me, and thinks exercise a waste.
I don’t have arthritis, and my knees are what I was born with.

• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about two-three hours per visit. (“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 14 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)

Thank you, Time Warner

Last night (Wednesday, March 7, 2012) our “Life-is-Good” (LG) DVR recorded the evening TV-news from a channel I don’t have programmed.
Apparently the channel I have programmed was vaporized from our Time Warner cable-feed, so the DVR recorded an adjacent channel, NBC as opposed to ABC.
Seems there was a notification of changes in the channel-lineup, but it was obtuse. —I don’t remember it saying specifically what would happen.
I don’t know if I have this right, but in the great forward progress of TV transmission, some channels are offering both digital and analog transmissions.
The local ABC affiliate no longer is (as I see it) — perhaps just digital. Used to be they had both analog and digital, 13-0 and 13-1.
The other affiliates may have been only analog. The CBS affiliate was, and the NBC affiliate had both digital and analog: 10-1 and 10-0.
It seemed the dashed number indicated digital or analog. But maybe not.
Even the CBS affiliate is now both digital and analog, 8-1 and 8-0.
The ABC affiliate is just 13-0, and I can’t imagine it going back to just analog.
So 13-1 had been vaporized, the channel I had programmed.
We proceeded through the news of the NBC affiliate. —This is the only TV we watch, nothing else is worth watching, and even the news is debatable.
Then it was time to figure out what happened, plus reprogram the DVR.
The “Life-is-Good” owner’s-manual for the DVR is still at hand.
By now it was fast approaching 9 p.m., at which point us old geezers are at about 85 percent.
Like I’m supposed to make sense of mysterious technical esoterica when our mental-capacity is compromised.
I can hardly read, that is, concentrate on what I’m reading.
That’s a stroke-effect, inability to concentrate.
And imagine a 90-year-old Great Granny trying to figure all this out.
Exasperated, she calls Time Warner, and they send out a youngish service-techie.
“Simple, ma’am,” he says. “Just reprogram your DVR to record 13-0.”
“13-1, 13-0, HUH?”
Life used to be fairly simple. There were only three TV networks. Then there were four or five, and now there are 89 bazilyun, including the sanctimonious zealot network, the Rush Limbaugh bellicose network, and the “pig-out for Diabetes” network.
I stayed away from FOX with their obvious anti-liberal bias, and their penchant for airing steamy tabloid news. They should call it the T&A network.
Now we have to avoid cutesy Mother Sawyer at the ABC Evening News — a FOX wannabee.
I managed to reprogram the DVR to 13-0, plus the NBC Evening News. So much for Mother Sawyer.
By now it was approaching 10:30, down to about 65 percent.
An entire evening of computer machinations had been blown.
Thank you, Time Warner.

—Addendum as of this evening:
Apparently the Local ABC affiliate’s digital feed was not vaporized. It just wasn’t working last night. Tonight it was back.
So blow another two hours deducing this, and then reprogramming the DVR from 13-0 back to 13-1.
Thank you again, Time Warner.

• RE: “Us old geezers......” —We’re both 68.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my ability to concentrate. I pretty much recovered.

Mexican standoff

Yesterday (Monday, March 5, 2012) I had to patronize the Mighty Tops supermarket in Canandaigua after working out at the YMCA.
So northward on the main drag I motored toward Mighty Tops.
The main drag eventually intersects North Road, and Tops is in the northwest corner.
So I must turn left onto North Road. There is a dedicated left-turn lane, but it’s not a stop-light. It’s not busy enough.
If opposing traffic presents an opening, you can turn left.
An opening presented itself, so I turned left, followed by a glowering intimidator right on my rear bumper.
As I completed my turn and started accelerating down North Road, Mr. Intimidator rendered a hand-motion that I should get moving.
The entrance to Tops is perhaps 200 feet from the intersection, and turns right.
Signaled, I made the turn in, and waved a hearty hello to Mr. Intimidator.
Mr. Intimidator followed me right into Tops.
“Uh-ohhhhh......” I thought to myself.
Possible Mexican standoff coming!
It didn’t happen. Mr. Intimidator disappeared and parked somewhere else.
I walked inside Mighty Tops, expecting Mr. Intimidator to greet me.
That didn’t happen either, but if it had I would have smiled and said “Oh, was that you back there climbing all over my rear bumper?
As a Transit bus-driver I learned to look out for drivers like you, the NASCAR wannabees and frenzied flunkies that feel entitled to drive with no regard whatsoever for the other guy.
People that cut me off, follow too close, make agitated cellphone calls to mother to complain about their marriage-partner, or fiddle Facebook.
So hit me with your best shot! My SmartPhone is right here in my back pocket, and I’ll dial 9-1-1 and get the police up here right away.
In fact, perhaps I should call the police up here right now.
Get your license so the police can arrest you for assault, even if that hasn’t happened yet.
Stoop to the level of Limbaugh — facts don’t matter; in fact they’re an impediment.
Road-rage on the local evening TV-news.
See me in court, Mr. Intimidator!”

• “Tops” is a large supermarket-chain based in Buffalo we occasionally buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.
• “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 14 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about two-three hours per visit.
• 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.
• 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. I retired on medical-disability.

Correction

“Thank goodness we didn’t happen to have done our income-tax yet,” my wife said yesterday (Saturday, March 3, 2012).
She was perusing a “corrected” 1099-R from her pension administrator, which reduced her pension income $19.32.
An accompanying letter apologized profusely for any inconvenience.
Uh sure, a white Econoline Ford van festooned with antennas is across the street, its muscle-bound, buzz-cutted occupants warily eying our house through dark glasses and binoculars.
“How do I know I should trust this one?” she asked.
“Was it done in India by ex-Microsoft employees?”
A reduction in our income of only $19.32 won’t effect our taxes much.
But I know how our government is.
Guilty until proven innocent.
In fact, guilty as adjudged by the media.
“Trying to pull a fast-one, eh? Call Security!
We’ll ruin your reputation; even call in Rush Limbaugh.
Stoke him up with OxyContin so he can froth at his gold-plated microphone.”
The fact the pension administrator made a mistake is insignificant.
They got big-time connections in Washington DC.
They can fish for a bailout.
“Too big to fail. You’re just small potatoes.”

Passing-siding as “Passenger-main”

My most recent issue of Trains Magazine, April 2012, reports Amtrak is suing Canadian National Railway for delaying its passenger-trains.
Canadian National is accused of intentional dispatching delays, that Amtrak’s trains are given short-shrift.
Canadian National has railroading in this country, the product of mergers. Namely Illinois Central to New Orleans and also in Michigan.
Canadian National rationalized quite a bit. Two-track mainlines were reduced to one track with occasional passing-sidings.
So doing reduces maintenance costs, but Amtrak claims it’s delaying its trains.
Freight-trains get stopped on the mainline, so Amtrak can go around on the slower passing-siding, the so-called “passenger-main.”
When Amtrak was instituted in 1970, Congress required participating railroads to not delay Amtrak’s trains.
“Unreasonable dispatching choices” were hard to prove, so only one suit came to fruition.
That was 1979 when Southern Pacific was accused of delaying the Sunset Limited.
Canadian National is now accused of deliberately delaying Amtrak trains. —So bad, Amtrak has to sue.
Canadian National has rebuffed repeated attempts to resolve various Amtrak problems.
For example, four regularly-scheduled freight-trains that often delay Amtrak.
This certainly is the opposite of what I’ve witnessed in central PA on Norfolk Southern’s Allegheny crossing.
Norfolk Southern seems to go out of its way to keep Amtrak on time.
But it’s only one train, Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian across the state.
Pittsburgh to Harrisburg is Norfolk Southern, Harrisburg to Philadelphia is actually Amtrak railroad.
“I’ve got Amtrak coming,” says Norfolk Southern’s Pittsburgh dispatcher on my railroad-radio scanner.
The Pittsburgh dispatcher controls Allegheny crossing from Pittsburgh.
Plus everyone seems to know when Amtrak is in the picture.
Suddenly the Red Sea parts, and Amtrak gets priority.
Although Allegheny crossing is three tracks, and the Pennsylvanian is usually on Track Two, so -a) it can make a station-stop in Altoona, and -b) it can avoid blocking freight-trains.
Although reserving Track Two for Amtrak can slow freight-train service. A priority freight might get shunted behind a slower train on Tracks One or Three.
But Norfolk Southern will do that. Amtrak gets priority.
And Track Two is definitely not a passing-track.

• I’m a railfan, and have been since age-two (I’m 68).

Monthly Calendar Report for March, 2012

Train 22W booms east through Altoona. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

—And now my own calendar starts to roll.
The marginal pictures are past, January and February, at least in my humble opinion.
The March 2012 entry of my own calendar is Train 22W charging east through Altoona approaching Eighth Street Bridge, from where we were photographing.
I like this picture because it depicts what Altoona was, the center of the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad, so-called “Standard Railroad of the World.”
Altoona is also the base of the railroad’s assault on the Allegheny mountains, previously a barrier to west-east commerce.
The Pennsylvania Railroad’s breach of the Allegheny-front made the opening of the midwest accessible to Philadelphia.
Previous to Pennsy the Alleghenies made trade with the nation’s interior near impossible.
All that could be done was packhorse over daunting trails, ponderously slow.
Plus a state-sponsored combination railroad/canal system that was also slow. Grading was so difficult at that time the railroad over the Alleghenies had inclined planes.
And Pennsy did it without inclined planes, steep grades or switchbacks.
Switchbacks are ponderously slow to operate. The train operates into the first switchback stub-end, stops, and a crewman gets off and throws the switch to the next switchback. The train backs up to the next switchback stub-end, stops, and a crewman gets off to throw that switch out.
The train can then operate locomotive-first, forward, perhaps to the next switchback, if there is one, or perhaps not (if two switchbacks climbed the hill).
Switchbacks came in twos, so the train ended up locomotive-first.
Switchbacks climb steep grades, like a ridge or mountain-front.
But Pennsy was a through railroad; no delay operating switchbacks, and the Allegheny-front was challenging enough to need switchbacks.
The Allegheny-front was also high enough to need steep grades. The grade up the eastern side of the Alleghenies averages 1.75 percent — that’s 1.75 feet up for every 100 feet forward.
That’s fairly steep, but not very. It’s not four percent, which would have been near-impossible for an adhesion railroad, that is, driving-wheels adhering the railheads without a cogged railway.
A train operating a four-percent climb would have to be broken into short sections, perhaps three or four.
Even 1.75 percent needs additional helper-locomotives.
1.75 percent doesn’t look challenging (“where’s the grade?” a granny once asked), but I once saw a train stall on the grade for lack of enough helpers.
But a single train could operate through the Alleghenies if you added a few helper-locomotives.
Pennsy breached the Alleghenies, opening up the midwest and west.
Trade over the Alleghenies was no longer the slow process it had been prior to Pennsy.
Altoona was where helper-locomotives would get added.
The railroad, when first planned, bought land in the area, and so Altoona was founded.
Altoona became a railroad-town, where Pennsy built and tested locomotives for itself.
Giant shop facilities were also built to maintain locomotives and cars.
The railroad also built a slew of classification-yards, many now gone.
The railroad also split into two alignments through Altoona, express and drag-freight. —It’s still that way.
22W, a stacker, is on the express tracks.
The two tracks to the right of the train are the drag-tracks.
This train was doing perhaps 30-40 mph, and had just descended The Hill (the Allegheny-front), probably on Track Two.
Altoona is no longer what it was.
All that empty space once had buildings and trackage.
And Altoona was two sections, east of the railroad and west.
East was suburban, and west was urban. —It still is.
A number of highway bridges were built over the tracks to motor between the two sections.
One is Eighth Street bridge, where this photograph was taken.
The roofed bridge in the middle distance is a pedestrian walkway to the Altoona railroad station from a railroad museum across the tracks.
Altoona is very proud of its railroad heritage, and has a Railroaders’ Memorial Museum.
The railroad once employed thousands of Altoona residents.
Many houses were painted with Pennsy passenger colors: Tuscan-red (“tuss-kin;” not “Tucson, Ariz.”).




Yak-3. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The March 2012 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a stunning photograph of an airplane I’m not familiar with, the Yak-3 fighter-plane.
That’s because it’s Russian, and American and British fighters, like the P-40 Warhawk and the Hurricane are more familiar.
And Hitler’s Messerschmitt Bf 109.
I’ll let my WWII warbirds site describe it:
“During the final two years of the Second World War, the Yak-3 proved itself a powerful dogfighter.
Tough and agile below an altitude of 13,000 feet, the Yak-3 dominated the skies over the battlefields of the Eastern Front during the closing years of the war.
The first attempt to build a fighter called the Yak-3 was shelved in 1941 due to a lack of building materials and an unreliable engine.
The second attempt used the Yak-1M, already in production, to maintain the high number of planes being built.
The Yak-3 had a new, smaller wing and smaller dimensions then its predecessor. Its light weight gave the Yak-3 more agility.
The Yak-3 completed its trials in October 1943 and began service in July of 1944.
In August, small numbers of Yak-3s were built with an improved engine generating 1,700-hp, and the aircraft saw limited combat action in 1945.
Production continued until 1946, by which time 4,848 had been built.”
This makes the Yak-3 sound like a stellar fighter-plane, in the league of the Mustang and the Spitfire. (The Mustang is 1,695 horsepower, the Spitfire is 1,478 horsepower.)
But I’m not familiar with it.
At least five newly-manufactured aircraft remain airworthy. (The new Yak-3s were built using the plans, tools, dies and fixtures of the original. They were powered by American Allison engines, and given the designation Yak-3UA.)




Two Pennsy E-2b experimentals. (Photo by Dave Ingles)

—The March 2012 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is a set of two E-2b experimental electric locomotives in Alexandria, VA.
If I am correct, Dave Ingles succeeded David P. Morgan as editor of Trains Magazine.
Morgan was the reason I subscribed to Trains in the middle ‘60s.
Ingles wasn’t Morgan. Ingles was more a fan, a stickler for detail — into louver-counts. “See that? The number of louvers indicate it’s a GP-9 instead of a GP-7.”
Morgan was more like me. Let the drama of railroading wash over him, and then describe it.
To Hell with louver-counts.
I’ve subscribed continuously to Trains since college.
Editors came and went after Morgan and Ingles.
It’s still not Morgan, but it’s in pretty good hands.
People in awe of railroading, but still slightly tilted toward louver-counts.
You almost have to be.
About the only way to make sense of what you’re seeing is to count louvers, or memorize train and locomotive numbers.
Locomotive use is too similar across railroading.
But I’m still a sucker for the drama.
A train climbing full-throttle up the west slope of the Allegheny mountains is more a thrill than knowing exactly what’s on the point, GE or EMD.
And when my railroad radio-scanner gets a defect-detector calling out an approaching train (“Norfolk Southern milepost 258.9, Track One, no defects”) I don’t care what’s on the point.
I’m like Pavlov’s dogs!
Still, Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”) and I were at a spot on the west slope of the Alleghenies last August, and a train passed underneath us climbing The Hill.
“Did you see that?” I cried.
“An actual SD40-2; I thought those things were retired!”
Phil probably knew what it was by locomotive-number.
“SD40-2” is stenciled in small white letters on the black cab-side. Those letters are what I saw.
The E-2bs were part of a series of electric experimentals Pennsy built to replace the tiring P-5s (4-6-4 electrics).
The E-2bs are alternating-current; the other units, the E-3b and c, are rectifier units, direct-current traction motors. The overhead wire is alternating-current.
As such, the E-2bs could be multipled with the P-5 (which was AC), but the rectifier units couldn’t be multipled.

Photo by BobbaLew.

E-2b #4939 (same as the calendar-picture).

Photo by BobbaLew.

DD-2 (left) and E-3c (right).

I managed to snag an E-2b years ago (about 1960) at the Wilmington (DE) shops.
I also snagged an E-3c, the last letter indicating the number of driving-wheels per truck.
A DD-2 (4-4-0+0-4-4) is also in the photograph of the E-3c. Only one DD-2 was built.
“C” indicated six wheels per truck; the E-3b had three four-wheel trucks per engine.
According to my Pennsy Power Book, which I will never part with, the Es were never replicated in quantity.
There were eight E-2bs, and ten of the E-3 locomotives.

E-44 #4463.

Rectification won in the end. It was the E-44c that replaced the P-5.
It had six diesel-locomotive traction-motors.
Rectification is change of the trolley-wire alternating-current to direct-current for the traction-motors.
Early E-44s had rectification by ignitron-rectifier tube.
Later E-44s used silicon diodes. The early E-44s were later switched to silicon diode, since it was less troublesome.




1969&1/2 Dodge SuperBee. (Peter Harholdt©.)

—The March 2012 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a 1969&1/2 Dodge SuperBee.
The SuperBee was Dodge’s response to the phenomenal success of the Plymouth RoadRunner.
Dodge dealers were jealous they couldn’t cash in on RoadRunner action.
The Dodge intermediate was the same as the Plymouth intermediate, which had been made into a cheap musclecar with a 383 cubic-inch engine and four-speed floorshift.
The RoadRunner could also be had with the Hemi engine (“hem-eeee;” not “he-meee”), and the giant 440 cubic-inch B-block.
This SuperBee is the 440 engine, a 440 Six-Pack.
That means triple two-barrel carburetion, a monster of an engine, that put fear into a G-T-O owner.
Of course, a 440 Six-Pack would be no good in a corner.
It would lack balance, a giant weight over the front wheels.
About all a 440 Six-Pack would be good for is straight-line acceleration.
Assuming you could hook up the lightly-loaded rear drive tires.
That 440 cubic-inch engine would spin the rear tires.
Your acceleration might go up in tire-smoke!

’69 RoadRunner.

Still, these early Mopar musclecars were the best-looking, although always a bit large.
The first G-T-Os are the best-looking musclecars.
And later Mopar musclecars are like musclecars gone to seed.
The early RoadRunner and SuperBee musclecars are Chrysler’s best-looking iterations.
Spare and lean, even though large.
My friend Kenny Rush was thrilled his 350 ’56 Chevy SmallBlock beat a 383 RoadRunner.




Three Pennsy diesels forward a trailer-train in 1967. (Photo by Gene Collora©.)

—When I first saw this photo I thought Slope Interlocking in Altoona.
But it’s not Slope.
The March 2012 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a trailer-train threading a cut out near Greensburg, PA, almost to Pittsburgh, far west of Altoona.
But Pennsy could not do doublestacks.
Double-stacked trailer containers require overhead clearance Pennsy didn’t have.
In fact, Pennsy’s tunnels weren’t enlarged to clear doublestacks until well after Pennsy was gone (1995).
And double-stacking trailer containers didn’t begin until well after this photo was taken.
That was 1984 out west by Southern Pacific.
The view is quintessential Pennsy, and very similar to Slope.
At Slope a highway-bridge crosses the old Pennsy mainline in a cut similar in depth.
Slope is where the grade over the Allegheny mountains began to the west.
It’s an interlocking because it’s where the Altoona yards began to the east.
It’s also where the main split into the express tracks and drag tracks through Altoona.
There used to be a tower there, but no more. The interlocking is controlled remotely.

Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.

Approaching Slope Eastbound on Track One.

I’ve taken pictures off that highway-bridge myself.
And apparently this cut out near Greensburg may be where a daylighted tunnel used to be.
When first built the Pennsylvania Railroad had a tunnel in this area, and it may have been where this cut is.
It’s quintessential Pennsy, wide four-track main.
The main west of Slope up The Hill used to be four tracks.
One track was removed in the ‘80s.
The calendar-picture is July 16, 1967, shortly before I visited Horseshoe Curve the first time.
The locomotives are what I came to know about then: an SD-35 (#6008), an SD-45, and an SD-40.
The SD-45, 20 cylinders, was easy to identify. It always had the flared hood-end.
The SD-35 only had two large fans atop the hood-end, sandwiching a smaller fan — 16 cylinders.
The SD-40 was also 16 cylinders, but it had three large fans, instead of just two large and one small like the SD-35.
The SD-45 didn’t work out.
They had a habit of breaking crankshafts.
The long V-20 engine is more a marine application (for tug-boats) put in the vibrating railroad environment.
General Motors (EMD) supposedly solved the problem, but the railroads didn’t think they needed 3,600 horsepower, temperamental as it was.
My interest in this sort of esoterica fell apart after these models. I wouldn’t know an SD-50 from an SD-60.
Ductwork on the side of the locomotive was also altered. That large vertical duct was modified into a so-called “laundry-chute;” bigger.
I know it if I see it, but what model it signifies I don’t know — or care.
What I’ve always enjoyed is Run-Eight operation, maximum fuel to the engines.
And wide-open an EMD seemed to be roaring.
Assaulting the heavens!
Recent General-Electric locomotives do that too, but the sound of an older EMD in Run-Eight is what I prefer.




I wouldn’t touch this thing with a ten-foot pole!

—The March 2012 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is great photograph of a hot-rodded 1932 Ford Phaeton (“fay-uh-TIN”).
A Phaeton, otherwise known among hot-rodders as a “Tub,” was among the first offerings of automakers.
And many were purchased, because it was the cheapest and most useful model.
It’s an open four-seater, similar to an open horse-buggy that seats four.
Bundled against cold weather, since it’s an open car.
You also get rained on, unless you put up the available canvas top, which this car has — although it’s been altered to make the car lower.
At least this car has the right motor, a humble Ford Flat-Head V8, but supercharged.
The ’32 Ford was the first cheap car available with a V8 motor. —That was because Old Henry refused to build a six.
It also was extraordinarily well styled, for which we can thank Old Henry’s only son Edsel.
Old Henry is Henry Ford, founder of the company, who thought styling was ridiculous.
He gave Edsel a hard time, but Edsel probably saved Ford Motor Company.
If Ford Motor Company had continued Old Henry’s anti-styling bias, it probably would have failed.
The Flat-Head V8 was a monumental leap, and made Ford attractive to hot-rodders.
The Ford Flat-Head V8 could be souped up by backyard tinkerers. They lost interest in hot-rodding the Model-T and its rudimentary four-cylinder engine.
The engine in this car doesn’t even have the finned high-compression cylinder-heads available from various manufacturers, Offenhauser (“off-in-HOUZE-er), Navarro, etc.
They appear to be stock cylinder-heads, which lack fins.
This car looks roadworthy too, like it could be driven in normal traffic.
(Although I remember following a friend’s ’49 Ford hotrod a couple years ago. It too had a Flat-Head, and spit antifreeze all over the road.)
Most hotrods look like trailer-queens only, monstrous motors that throw off a car’s balance, or engine-modifications that would never work in the real world.
Stuff to attract the show-crowd: “Oooo, a Ford Cammer” (very rare, overhead camshafts), or “four Weber carburetors; cool!” Worse yet is Hilborn Fuel Injection.
Webers and Hilborn Fuel Injection are racing applications, hardly streetable.
And a “Cammer” would weigh much more than the Flatty it replaced.
Not to mention it would probably crank out three times the torque; enough to twist the rear frame-rails, and destroy the rear-axle.
I wouldn’t drive this car even if given the opportunity.
Its appearance is a joke.
The best-looking hot-rods are the two-seater ’32 Fords, the roadster and the two coupes.



“See Rock-City.” (Photo by Doug Brown.)

―The March 2012 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a northbound Norfolk Southern coal train passing a “Rock City” barn at Bulls Gap, TN.
Very few “Rock City” barns are left.
Used to be Rock City barns were all over the southeast.
Rock City, a tourist attraction near Chattanooga, contracted with farmers to paint “See Rock City” on their roadside barns.
About 1953 or ’54, when I would have been nine or ten, my parents took us on a vacation to Arkansas, to visit all the people they came to know when my brother Tommy was taken to a clinic in northeastern Arkansas with leukemia.
My brother died early in ’53.
His leukemia was unbeatable, as it was with others who used the same clinic.
On the way back from Arkansas we visited Rock City.
“See seven states atop Lookout Mountain in Rock City.”
We also rode a cable tramway up Lookout Mountain.
We passed many “Rock City” barns coming and going.
To me this isn’t a very good picture.
The lighting is poor, and the train is too far away.
The photographer was more biased toward getting that “Rock City” barn.
(The train is also lost in the trees.)