Monthly Calendar-Report for March 2014

Rare 500-series engine on the eastbound Pennsylvanian. (Photo by Tom Hughes.)

— The March 2014 entry of my own calendar is another photograph by Tom Hughes, my railfan nephew from northern Delaware.
Tom is the only child of my younger brother Bill, who is not a railfan.
Pictured is Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian.

Amtrak’s eastbound Broadway Limited threads Gallitzin, PA. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

Years ago the Pennsylvania Railroad, which this railroad was — now it’s Norfolk Southern — had many passenger-trains every day.
Many were through to Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, St. Louis, etc. Even Amtrak continued Pennsy’s Broadway Limited to-and-from Chicago for a while.
I snagged a photo of it back in 2003, which I’d run in my calendar, but it’s vertical, and verticals don’t work with Shutterfly.
But Amtrak discontinued the Broadway.
Only one passenger-train remains on this railroad, Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian, both eastbound and westbound (two trains).

Amtrak’s westbound Pennsylvanian blasts Summerhill, PA on the old Pennsy main. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

And that train is state-sponsored; that is, it wouldn’t run except the State of PA is sponsoring it.
And it isn’t through. It’s only Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, although it may go up to New York City from Philadelphia.
East of Harrisburg it’s on Amtrak’s electrified Keystone Corridor, the old Pennsy Philadelphia-to-Harrisburg line.

Eastbound Pennsylvanian on Amtrak’s electrified Keystone Corridor. (Photo by BobbaLew with Tom Hughes.)

I managed to snag it with an electric locomotive, an Amtrak AEM-7, through Gap. PA. Gap is on Amtrak’s Keystone Corridor.
It’s a gap in the low ridge that has to be crossed to get to Harrisburg.
I was there with my nephew Tom. He was able to follow the train on his smartphone. He had it leaving Lancaster, so we wouldn’t have to wait long.
Trains can’t boom through Gap; too many tight curves.
The locomotive in Tom’s picture is rare. Usually Amtrak passenger-trains are pulled by General-Electric’s Genesis units, what’s pulling the Broadway.
513 is essentially General-Electric’s freight-diesel configured for passenger-duty.
Rare as they may be, I’ve seen 500-series engines many times on Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian.
The picture is off the 24th St. overpass in Altoona over Slope Interlocking.
Slope is the beginning of the vast Altoona yard complex to the east, and The Hill over Allegheny Mountain to the west.
Both Tom and I shot this train, but I had my gigantic telephoto lens on my camera. A more normal lens would have been far better, which was what Tom had.



Norfolk Southern Heritage-unit #8102 leads around Horseshoe Curve. (Photo by Lance Myers.)

—The March 2014 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is Pennsy Heritage-Unit #8102 on Horseshoe Curve.
Norfolk Southern painted 20 of its new locomotives in paint-schemes of predecessor railroads, one of which is Pennsylvania Railroad.
The locomotive is Tuscan-Red (“TUSS-kin;” not “Tucson, Ariz.”) with five gold pinstripes. It’s the paint-scheme applied to many Pennsy passenger locomotives. Tuscan-Red was Pennsy’s passenger color. The five gold pinstripes were called “cat-whiskers,” since they looked like that on Pennsy’s GG-1 electric locomotive. —They merged to a point on the front of the locomotive. 8102 does that too.
Horseshoe Curve is Pennsy’s greatest engineering triumph. It made it possible to cross Allegheny Mountain without insanely steep grades. Previous to Pennsy, Allegheny Mountain had been a barrier to east-west trade.
Pennsy was so proud of Horseshoe Curve, they used to announce the Curve an all Pennsy passenger-trains. And of course you could see the other end of your train.
The Curve became a historical-site; I consider it the greatest of all railfan spots.
The viewing-area is smack in the Curve’s apex.
The trains are right in your face!
And there are many of them; the line is still quite busy.
The Curve is no longer what it was under Pennsy.
Coal-ash from steam locomotives would keep the foliage down; now it’s blocking the view.
A few years ago the old Pennsy signal-bridge was replaced by newer Norfolk Southern signals.

8102 leads a train of empty crude-oil tankcars down The Hill. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

My brother-and-I managed to also snag 8102 on a train of empty crude-oil tankcars down The Hill.
Both he and I shot pretty much the same picture, but his was slightly better.
That picture is the August entry of my own calendar.



Too bad it’s a Model-A. (Photo by Scott Williamson.)

—The March 2014 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a really great-looking hotrod.
I can accept the flames, and usually I can’t.
It looks like a hotrod should, an immensely strong motor in a roadster body with stock one-piece windshield.
But it’s a Model-A, not a ’32 Ford, which would be okay except it has the Model-A radiator surround.

Note Model-A radiator-surround. (Photo by Scott Williamson.)

A ’32 Ford roadster hotrod. (Photo by Scott Williamson.)

I always think the ’32 Ford radiator-surround is classic, that it looks better than the Model-A.
A friend, since deceased, was building a Model-A roadster hotrod. It looked great, but mainly because he used the ’32 Ford radiator-surround.
The Model-A roadster looks as good as a ’32 Ford, except for its radiator-surround.
This car would be perfect if it used the ’32 Ford radiator-surround.
My friend never got his hotrod on-the-road. It needed to be wired.
He only had a few weeks, and was entirely clueless.
Friends would come out and try things, and end up blowing things or making things not work.
His car had the 6-volt/12-volt problem. The generator on his motor was 12-volt, yet everything on-the-car was 6-volt. Headlights and taillights would blow.
His car had a hot-rodded ’56 Pontiac V8. He figured it weighed probably 200 pounds more than what had been in there originally.
The frame was ’46 Ford substantially modified to fit the Model-A roadster-body.
His car still had the stock ’46 Ford shocks up front. But they were bottomed by that heavy Pontiac motor.
His car also had the stock ’46 Ford “Banjo” differential — called that because it looked like a banjo.
No way could it have endured the output of his motor.
The car pictured also has a heavy boat-anchor up front; except the ’57 Chrysler Hemi (“HEM-eee;” not “he-me”) was an incredibly powerful boat-anchor.
Plus the engine has a 6-71 blower on top. With that and those massive cast-iron hemi cylinder-heads, we’ve added 300-400 pounds more than what was there originally.
One hopes adequate front-suspension (shocks and springing) was installed to offset the added weight.
What it needs is the ’32 Ford radiator-shell.
My friend had the right attitude, one I agree with. “A hotrod is no fun if ya can’t drive it. The bitch has to run!”



Newish Pennsy F7s in Oil City, PA. (Mitchell Dakelman Collection©.)

The March 2014 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a brace of Pennsy F7 diesel-units in 1952.
The engines were built in 1950, and in essence were the final nail in the coffin of Pennsy steam.
Pennsy had F3s, but no FTs. The FT was the first EMD diesel freight-unit of the cab model, followed by the F2 and then the F3. The FT and F2 were both 1,350 horsepower, but the F3 was 1,500 horsepower — as was the F7.
“EMD” was General-Motors’ Electromotive Division for years, but GM sold it to Caterpillar with the recent GM bankruptcy.
The FT was introduced in 1939, and was configuring a submarine diesel for railroad service. The FT was produced in coupled sets of A- and cabless B-units, totaling 2,700 horsepower, coupled by a semi-permanent drawbar.
The railroads coupled two of these sets together to make four units totaling 5,400 horsepower.
The FT’s submarine diesel was slightly modified for railroad service; it used a 45-degree V separation instead of 40 degrees, and had a slightly shorter stroke.
Railroads were soon ditching semi-permanent coupling of diesel-units in favor of regular coupling of units and MU-ing (units in multiple = one engineer controlling multiple units; although FTs could be MU-ed).
Which why we see three units here, two cab-units surrounding a single cabless. —Although EMD also sold its F-units in sets of three semi-permanently coupled units.
Pennsy, a heavy coal-shipper, tried to stick with coal-fired steam-locomotion well after many railroads dieselized.
But the economic pressure to dieselize was immense. Not only could diesels operate without the lineside coal towers and water-towers you see in this picture. They also were better delivering their power.
Steam delivered its power through thrusting siderods. With thrusts those driving-wheels were prone to slip.
Most diesels are diesel-electric. The diesel-engine cranks a generator that powers electric traction-motors in the driving-wheel axles. Driving-torque was continuous, not thrusting. It was why some railroads tried electrification with wires.
Electrification was better than steam-locomotion. Diesel-electrics were electrification without wires, although marginal at first.
Marginal as it may have been, diesel-electrics were better for operating a railroad than steam.

Nickel-Plate 765, the BEST restored steam-locomotive of all, was in Altoona for employee-appreciation trips. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

Steam is of course more dramatic. I remember how railfans complained when railroads dieselized.
Steam-electrics were tried. Coal would be burned to boil steam that cranked an electric generator via a turbine. Sometimes the burning coal cranked the turbine directly. But usually the turbine couldn’t endure the flying ash.
So even heavy coal-shippers, like Pennsy and Norfolk & Western, eventually dieselized. With dieselization those coal and water-towers could be taken down.
All that was needed was a fuel-rack, and unlike coal, which was more difficult to transport, diesel-fuel was liquid.
With the F7, Pennsy was signaling the end of steam.
If it’s 1952, and those locomotives were built in 1950, they aren’t very new.
But they’re still as-delivered. The streamlined front coupler-pocket is still there, and the locomotive-number is still in the keystone up front.
Oil City is in the oil-patch in northwestern PA. The capture of crude-oil from oil-wells began in northwestern PA.



A 1970 440-6Pak RoadRunner. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)

—The March 2014 entry in my Motorbooks Musclecar calendar is a 1970 440-6Pak Plymouth RoadRunner.
The RoadRunner was Plymouth getting back to musclecar roots, although I wouldn’t call the standard RoadRunner a musclecar.
It doesn’t have a gigantic hot-rodded engine, over 400 cubic-inches. To me a musclecar needs that giant motor.
The stock RoadRunner was only 383 cubic inches, which is still pretty large. But not gigantic. Musclecar roots were basic transportation with hotrod motor and four-speed floorshift.
Pontiac debuted the idea with its G-T-O, but musclecar prices were getting extreme. The average Joe could no longer afford a musclecar.
But he could afford a RoadRunner.
A fabulous street-racer to make the owner of a souped-up Tri-Chevy trade his car.
The Tri-Chevys are 1955 through ’57, and introduced Chevrolet’s fabulous SmallBlock V8.
RoadRunners were a smashing success.
And this RoadRunner is a 440-6Pak, which means it ain’t the 383. 440 cubic-inches and three two-barrel carburetors. A 440 makes it a musclecar.
Trembling bodywork and shake the pavement!

This is a 1969.

Note different grill. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)

Also, this RoadRunner is still of the first generation, 1968 through 1970.
That first generation is the best-looking of the RoadRunners. The second generation, 1971 through 1975 (the end), looks bloated.
The 1970 RoadRunner is still the attractive, lean body of the first RoadRunners, but the grill was redesigned.
The calendar-car is also the famous purple paint — “In-Violet Metallic” (“Grape?”) — which looked fine, but usually degraded. Areas of the purple paint turned blotchy.
It was worse-looking than how silver auto-paint often faded.
My family had a silver ’57 Chevy Bel Air stationwagon which looked fine when I was around, but began to look awful after I left.
That Chevy was purchased while I was in college, and lasted until well after I graduated, moved to Rochester (NY), and got married.
My family still lived in northern DE at that time. (I’m the oldest child.)
Chrysler fielded numerous cars in this color. Seems every one I saw turned blotchy.
I never really liked the RoadRunner; it was too big!
But it looked great, and the concept was great too.
A 1970 RoadRunner almost looks better than ’68-’69.


M-1 Mountain (4-8-2) leads freight off Rockville Bridge. (Photo by Fred Kern.)

—The March 2014 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is a Pennsy freight-train, pulled by a Mountain steam-engine (4-8-2), pulling off Pennsy’s Rockville Bridge toward Enola (“aye-NOLE-uh;” as in “hay”) Yard down the Susquehanna (“suss-kwee-HA-nuh”) river across from Harrisburg.
Enola is the yard Pennsy built because Harrisburg was congested.
Freight often got shuttled from Harrisburg to Enola Yard.
Enola had become Pennsy’s dispatching center for freight west. Lines from the east funneled into it.
But Pennsy had a Mikado (2-8-2) for shuttling freight to Harrisburg, or else back.

Mikado (2-8-2) leaves Enola with transfer for Harrisburg. (Photo by Don Wood©.)

The fact this train is pulled by an M1 Mountain (4-8-2) tells me it may be from Buffalo or Erie.
Freight-trains to the north were often pulled by Mountains.
Rockville Bridge was Pennsy’s original crossing of the Susquehanna.
The bridge pictured, a massive stone-arch constructed between April 1900 and finished in April 1902, is installation number-three.
The first bridge, I think, was wood, and only two tracks.
The Susquehanna was a barrier between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh.
I think the second bridge was iron, but still only two tracks.
By then Pennsy was moving a HUGE amount of freight, and Rockville was a bottleneck.
The stone-arch is still the current bridge, but can accommodate four tracks. It remained four tracks a long time, but some were removed. Parts of the bridge are two tracks, and parts are three.
It’s 48 stone arches of 70-foot span, 3,820 feet long total bridge-length.
It doesn’t need to be high. The Susquehanna isn’t deep enough for sea-going navigation. Rockville doesn’t need to clear ships.

The old Reading bridge in Harrisburg. (Photo by Bruce Kerr.)

With the opening of Enola Yard, Rockville was no longer as important as it was.
Enola is on the wrong shore of the Susquehanna from Harrisburg, but there are numerous railroad-bridges across the river to Enola other than Rockville.
Reading Railroad (“REDD-ing;” not “REED-ing”) had one (above). The bridge is now part of Norfolk Southern, which Pennsy became after Conrail was split up and sold in 1999.
But Rockville soldiers on. It would take a direct hit from a thermonuclear warhead to remove it.



There will always be an England! (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—HUP-HUP!
The March 2014 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar to me is laughable.
The guy in rear cockpit, the machine-gunner, is standing at attention and saluting in front of a waving Union-Jack.
Stiff upper-lip, I tell ya.
Especially when the Messerschmitts blast this turkey outta the air. —And you die in flames.
The airplane is a Fairey “Swordfish.”
Every time I see this picture, and I’m gonna have to look at it an entire month, I think of Gilbert & Sullivan.
This airplane, and its saluting machine-gunner, are worthy of a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta.
Gilbert & Sullivan had a field-day with the British military, making fun of its fustianism.
“I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” from Gilbert & Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance.
I can visualize some bespectacled desk-jockey speccing the Fairey Swordfish, oblivious that Hitler’s Luftwaffe would be all-over-it, and blast it out of the sky.
As if a stiff upper-lip is gonna overcome the Luftwaffe.
The airplane crashes in flames, killing its pilot and machine-gunner. But that desk-jockey is still gallantly sipping his spot-of-tea.

Spitfire. (Photo by Adrian Pingstone.)

Hawker Hurricane. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

Firefly. (Photo by Max Haynes.)

Thankfully the Brits fielded airplanes much more worthy of WWII air-combat than the Fairey Swordfish. Like the Supermarine Spitfire, and even the Hawker Hurricane.
Fairey even produced a much more worthy design in the Fairey Firefly.
Apparently the Fairey Swordfish isn’t even a WWII warbird; that is, it’s not on my WWII warbirds site.
Although it was used at the beginning of WWII, and achieved a number of exploits, namely the sinking of one and damaging two battleships of the Italian Navy, and the famous crippling of the German battleship “Bismarck.”
Wikipedia has it, so I’ll let them weigh in:
“The Fairey Swordfish was a torpedo bomber biplane designed by the Fairey Aviation Company and used by the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy during WWII.
Originating in the 1930s, the Swordfish was an outdated design by the start of the war in 1939, but remained in front-line service until VE Day, outliving several types intended to replace it. It was initially operated primarily as a fleet attack aircraft; during its later years it was used as an anti-submarine and training craft.
Its primary weapon was the aerial torpedo, but the low speed of the biplane and the need for a long straight approach made it difficult to deliver against well-defended targets.
Swordfish torpedo doctrine called for an approach at 5,000 feet followed by a dive to torpedo release altitude of 18 feet.
Maximum range of the early Mark XII torpedo was 1,500 yards at 40 knots and 3,500 yards at 27 knots.
The torpedo travelled 200 yards forward from release to water impact, and required another 300 yards to stabilize at preset depth and arm itself.
Ideal release distance was 1,000 yards from target if the Swordfish survived to that distance.
The problems with the aircraft were starkly demonstrated in February, 1942 when during the Channel Dash, an attack on German battleships by six Swordfish led by Lieutenant-Commander Eugene Esmonde, resulted in the loss of all aircraft with no damage to the ships.”
Sadly, the Swordfish looks like WWI aviation “improved.”
It’s still a biplane (“BYE-plain;” not “BIP-lane” — I say that only because yrs trly mispronounced it “BIP-lane” for years), and its landing-gear doesn’t retract.
I see this airplane is carrying a torpedo; obviously aimed at sinking enemy ships. It is a torpedo-bomber after all.
But to torpedo a ship, you have to get to it.
I have a hunch the Luftwaffe would take down that Swordfish before it did.
Naval defense could do the same from the targeted ship.
In which case the torpedo falls silently into the ocean with its airplane.
Never to be used in anger.
I’m left wondering if a stiff upper-lip took out any enemy ships; but apparently it did.
Part of the reason it disabled the “Bismarck,” was because it was too slow to defend against.

Not “kewel”

Facebook has done it again!
Another trick supposed to make us smile and utter “kewel.”
I use Facebook to pass along grammar-questions to various authorities I know.
One is always monitoring his Facebook; I can get an immediate answer.
So I blasted him with the following question: “year-around” or “year-round?”
He answered right away, from Virginia.
“Year-round,” he said. “Although you can also ask Frisch (‘Frish’).”
“Frisch” was an editor at the Messenger newspaper while I was there.
Now he works at the Gannett (“Guh-NETT”) newspaper in Rochester, NY.
He’s a good friend, and I rely on him.
That first guy, Paul Long, worked at the Messenger too. Unlike Paul, Kevin is not on his ‘pyooter all the time. Paul is.
With Kevin I might have to wait all day for an answer.
So I copied my question to Paul, and pasted it on Kevin’s Facebook.
My paste still had Paul’s name, so I wrote “Kevin” over it.
All-of-a-sudden a listing of all the “Kevins” on Facebook appeared under my wall-post. Kevin Spacey, Kevin Bacon, etc.
“Kevin Frisch” was the leader.
I hit “enter,” and it auto-filled “Kevin Frisch” instead of just “Kevin.”
Why thank you, Facebook; you just made my wall-post overly formal.
I tried to edit down, but it did it again.
Um, Suckerberg, do you have any idea what your programmers are up to?
They’re shoving me this-way-and-that — turning my wall-posts into something I don’t want.
Kevin is a good friend, not “Kevin Frisch.”
Well, he is, but I don’t like Facebook taking over.
Not kewel, Facebook.
As anyone who follows this here blog knows, Facebook and I have a tortured relationship.
I put up with it because many of my real friends (as opposed to “Facebook friends”) use Facebook.
But I rarely look at it.
And it seems every time I do, I hafta figure out a new Facebook interface. It’s what I hate about it most.
Them Facebook programmers can’t leave well-enough alone.
It’s as if rolling out a new Facebook interface signifies techno-savvy.
And I’m no longer getting invites from Linked-In.
Did they finally give up?
I sensed Suckerberg in the background.

• The “Messenger” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over seven years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]). (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where I 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.)
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• “Suckerberg” is of course Mark Zuckerberg, founder and head-honcho of Facebook.

Voice-Recognition

I keep being pleasantly amazed at how good the voice-recognition is on my iPhone.
I keep my grocery-lists on it, mainly because I’m always carrying it, so can enter things immediately.
I had been keying into my iPhone’s virtual-keyboard before. That virtual-keyboard can be irksome.
My hairdresser, a techno-geek, suggested I try voice-recognition. It’s what he always does; and he’s the guy that got me into a SmartPhone.
I was leery of that because of how awful the voice-recognition was on my car’s Microsoft Sync.
“Please say a command.”
“Call Cathy,” I say.
It calls someone else, like my railfan friend down in Altoona, PA.
So I was leery of trying my iPhone’s voice-recognition.
But my iPhone is pretty good at taking commands.
“Call Cathy,” I’d say.
It would call Cathy, unlike my car.
So I tried voice-recognition on my iPhone.
First was a text.
I texted my brother in northern DE, and it goofed a little, but not enough to disable communication.
So I didn’t edit.
Then the other day I decided to try voice-recognition on my grocery-lists.
CHALLENGE TIME:
“Naproxen-Sodium,” I said.
“Naproxen Soon,” it cranked.
Wow, a simple edit, and faster than that virtual-keyboard.
“Bananas,” I said.
“Bananas,” it cranked.
Wow; not bad!
That night I tried another challenge.
“Canned chicken,” I said.
“Canned chicken,” it cranked.
The next morning I said “oranges.”
It cranked “oranges.”
When I compare this to the voice-recognition in my car I’m pleased. Would that Ford had engaged Apple instead of Microsoft.
What I hate most is the voice-recognition in my car putting through a phonecall into the hinterlands I can’t get out of.
If I command it to call my brother (“Jack”), or my niece’s husband (“Kevin”), it will do so.
But it’s unreliable.
There’s my railfan friend in Altoona, PA wondering why I called.
Thanks Sync for making me look stupid!
Disconnect my iPhone from Sync, and it will actually call who I commanded through voice-recognition = I can depend in it.
Bill has to stop counting his billions and get his act together.
“We’re working on it,” he always says.
Steve already has.

• “My railfan friend down in Altoona, PA” is Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”). I’m a railfan myself, and together we chase trains down in Altoona.
• “Bill” is Bill Gates, founder and head-honcho of Microsoft. “Steve” is Steve Jobs, recently deceased of pancreatic cancer, founder and head-honcho of Apple Computer. —The iPhone is an Apple product.

Still a “Crusty Curmudgeon”

Anyone who follows this here blog knows yrs trly just attained the ripe old age of 70, February 5th, 2014.
That means I have attained “old fartdom,” as defined pertaining to men my age.
Namely, 60-to-69 is “crusty curmudgeon,” 70-to-79 is “old fart,” and anything beyond 80 is “geezer.”
But there’s just one problem. As I see it, I don’t feel or act like an “old fart.” I still act like a crusty curmudgeon.
Yesterday (Monday, February 17th, 2014) I had to visit my dentist, my dental hygienist for a teeth-cleaning.
Fortunately I managed to not upset anyone, but I felt like I might.
“How are you?” my hygienist bubbled.
“Well, sore from staggering my dog through 18-inch deep snow,” I said.
Comments like that don’t register with someone in their late 20s or early 30s. The mere act of walking doesn’t cause aches and pains.
I let it go. No sense upsetting someone with things they can’t comprehend.
Most of the people I meet are younger than me, so they don’t understand where I’m at.
They think since I appear all right, I’m just like them.
But I’m not.
The game is to not let this upset anyone, that is, not be a crusty curmudgeon.
After the dentist I drove to a nearby natural-food store to order cereal.
I no longer can get it through Amazon, so back to the natural-food store.
“Actually,” I said; “I can still get from Amazon, but they want an arm-and-a-leg. So you guys win!”
Still a crusty curmudgeon; diplomacy and tact are for old farts.
Order complete, I checked out what little I had, two candybars.
“Miss anything?” the young clerk asked.
“Well, if you have it,” I said;” I could use a case of Glendale Farms Organic Grape-Juice.”
“We no longer carry it,” the girl said. “But we do have various other grape-juices.”
I cut her off! “No thanks; I’ll just buy it at the supermarket,” I snapped.
Diplomacy and tact are for old farts.

RoadRunner

The 1974 RoadRunner featured.

The most recent issue of my Hemmings Classic Car magazine (April 2014) features a 1974 Plymouth RoadRunner with only 7,200 miles.
Such a car is a find, but it’s not the best-looking RoadRunner to my mind, the first, 1968/69.

This is a 1969.

In fact, the car featured isn’t a four-speed floorshift. It’s a TorqueFlite automatic.
The RoadRunner was Plymouth returning to musclecar roots. Basic transportation with a hotrod motor and floor-shifted four-speed.
Plymouth’s intermediate sedan with 383 four-speed.
It was a smashing success! It wasn’t a musclecar with a gigantic hotrod motor.
But such musclecars were getting out of the price-range of the average buyer.
Plymouth was marketing a car the owner of a souped-up Tri-Chevy would want. Plymouth was also selling the GTX, a competitor to Pontiac’s G-T-O. But it wasn’t selling — it cost too much.
I remember driving a RoadRunner-type Plymouth during my college days. But it wasn’t a RoadRunner — it was 1964.
It was a 383 four-speed. A friend got it to replace his 413 300G Chrysler.
I slammed it through the gears, and in seconds was doing 120 on the clock.
It felt big and blowzy, but getting to 120 was effortless.
Here was a car to replace the SmallBlock Tri-Chevy, although I kept wanting a four-speed ’55 Chevy Bel Air hardtop with 327 ‘Vette motor.
My neighbor in Rochester had a ’68 RoadRunner.
But it was automatic transmission, more a mom’s taxi.
But a least with a four-barrel dial-exhaust 383 it could get out of its own way.
Some drunk totaled it. Plowed into it with his big beige Catalina hardtop coming home from the tavern.
3 a.m. the driver was pounding on our door.
He was bleeding profusely, so I called the cops, and told him to go back to his crumpled car.
I was not turned on by his apology.
By now my neighbor was out.
Drivers were always totaling cars on our street.
Her RoadRunner was first; next was an Omni, then came my neighbor’s Cutlass-Supreme, which had been restored.
I think her RoadRunner got totaled in 1978, which means by then it was 10 years old.
But it was a nice car, even if it was only a mom’s taxi.
A dreadful loss.
But it wasn’t what to me is the RoadRunner concept; a 383 four-speed street-racer.
I never really liked the RoadRunner; it was too big!
But it looked great, and the concept was great too.

• “Tri-Chevy” is 1955, 1956, and 1957.

“Lollygag”

Yesterday (Thursday, February 13th, 2014) I took my car to the local Ford-dealer in nearby Canandaigua to have its oil changed.
I used to do this myself — I have a pit in my garage. But with advancing age it’s got to be too much trouble.
Ford wants money, an oil-change ain’t free. It was free for my Honda CR-V, which my Ford Escape replaced.
I do it along with working-out at the YMCA, which is also in Canandaigua.
I drop my car off, after which they take me up to the YMCA. Then I call them after working-out, so they can come and take me back.
Working-out is at least two hours, enough time for an oil-change.
So I dropped my car off, and a young kid pulled up in a tiny white Ford Focus, the company courier-car.
We then motored up to the YMCA, and I said I’d wait at the door after I called back.
Workout complete, I called. The kid would come up and get me in that same tiny Focus.
I climbed in, and we headed back to the Ford-dealer.
He almost got T-boned coming out of the YMCA, a dangerous intersection where a railroad-bridge abutment blocks your view.
“I avoid this intersection,” I said.
Down through Canandaigua we motored on the main drag, back to the Ford-dealer.
To get to the Ford-dealer, we have to make a left-turn across a busy highway.
GrandPap was slowly approaching in his gray Dodge pickup.
“Come-on, Dodge,” the kid shouted.
“Phbt!” we had to wait for the Dodge.
“I can’t believe all the people out here lollygaggin’,” the kid exclaimed.
“Yeah, me, for example,” I thought. “I get passed all the time by angry Grannies shaking their fist at me.”
My car’s a V6, which means it’s probably strong enough to out-accelerate all those angry Grannies in their four-cylinder Kias.
But I can’t charge.
I had a stroke over 20 years ago, and I suppose it slowed me some.
I also drove transit-bus before my stroke, and it made me overly safety-conscious.
It seemed the only way to avoid Granny was poke.
And poke as I might, it seemed I could run on schedule.
And poke as I might, it seems I get where I’m going. Maybe 5-10 minutes later than the hurriers, but without incident, or even near-incidents.
“Lollygag;” what a beautiful word.
I set it aside for a blog — this blog.
It’s a word rarely used, and I wondered how the kid came upon it.
I almost said something.

• 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 I 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 east. —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.)
• 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 environs.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.

Texas Roadhouse

Sunday December 22nd, 2013, I ate out with my niece, her husband, their daughter, and my niece’s mother.
They live altogether in that mother’s old homestead west of Rochester in the suburbs.
My niece and her mother are my only close relatives; that is, that live nearby.
My wife’s mother, still alive at almost 98, lives in central Florida; and my wife’s brother lives down near south-Florida.
My wife died April 17th, 2012.
My own family are all over the east coast.
Both my parents are gone — my wife’s father is gone too.
I have a younger brother who lives in northern Delaware, where my family once lived.
Another brother lives near Boston, and a sister lives in Lynchburg, Virginia.
My sister who died in December of 2011 lived in a condo in Fort Lauderdale. Both my parents moved to south-Florida before they died — mainly to be near that sister.
My sister’s only child, a daughter, also lives in Fort Lauderdale.
My brothers also had children, as did my sister in Lynchburg. I’ve rarely seen them.
I’ve never seen my Florida niece’s children at all.
My wife and I had no children.—Fear of being like my father.
My Rochester niece’s mother is my wife’s brother’s first wife.
He’s had four wives, but my sister who died had four husbands.
I have a nephew by his second wife, and two nieces by his third wife. They all live near Atlanta.
I’ve been loudly excoriated by my siblings for having erroneous politics and religion.
I’m a Democrat (Gasp!), and more-or-less agnostic (double-Gasp).
Worst of all I’m a “liberal” (double-triple Gasp!). —My brother-in-Boston spells it “liberial,” and my deceased sister called me a “bleeding-heart liberal.”
Although sometimes my brother-in-Boston spells it “liberila;” and loudly insists spelling makes no difference unless you’re a newspaper, part of the dreaded media cabal with its liberal agenda.
—In which case a tub-thumping Conservative would do a better job of cranking out that newspaper, toeing the Fox-News line of fair-and-balanced reporting (yeah-sure!).
When my sister called me a “bleeding-heart liberal,” I said “WHAT DO I KNOW? I’ve only been married once.”
Eating out with my Rochester niece was at “Texas Roadhouse” in deepest-darkest Henrietta south of Rochester (NY).
“Deepest-darkest Henrietta” because during my career driving transit bus I had a short trip taking developmentally-disabled from downtown Rochester out to a school in Henrietta.
To get to that school I had to drive through a Henrietta suburb.
I noticed the houses were tiny development houses with flat-roofed garages or porches added-on. Additions done on the cheap.
And those garages were often bigger and higher than the house.
They were designed to accommodate a ten-wheel PeterBilt or Kenworth truck.
The trip was strange. Those tiny houses with oversize garages looked weird.
Then too, I live in an extremely rural area. If I look outside at night I might see a light or two.
My road out front, a state highway, might average a single car every two-to-five minutes.
Henrietta is opposite.
I found myself amongst hundreds of cars.
All on Jefferson Road, that had to be widened to 6-8 lanes to accommodate all the traffic.
It’s not fearsome — I did drive bus, after all. But it ain’t rural.
Jefferson Road is lined with glittering theme-restaurants much like Texas Roadhouse.
20 years ago it wasn’t like this — and all I could think of was how those 89 bazilyun cars were fouling the atmosphere.
You could probably see Jefferson Road from the International Space Station.
And would all those restaurants survive if gasoline were $20 per gallon?
My railfan friend in Altoona, PA predicts that day is coming, and highways in this nation are already overloaded and crumbling.
Traffic in Rochester isn’t too bad, but in other locations rush-hour becomes a parking-lot.
I’ve driven Interstate-10 near L.A. and it’s 10-12 lanes wide. Giant Hummers and Expeditions cruise the passing-lane at 100-plus. On giant chromed spider-alloys with tires thin as banana-peels.
Texas Roadhouse wasn’t bad, but was overbearing in theme.
The place is awash in rootin’-tootin’ cowboy paraphernalia, part of which is the saddle.
The deal is if it’s your birthday, you’re supposed to ride the saddle — western complete with saddle-horn.
Fortunately there’s no horse, although I suppose that might add to the restaurant’s atmosphere.
Particularly the smell of horse-droppings.
The saddle is just atop a wooden frame. It ain’t rockin’-and-rollin’ as it would be on a horse.
My niece’s mother had along a friend who is in his 90s. It was his birthday.
He didn’t ride the saddle, but our waitress loudly announced his birthday, and had the entire establishment do a “YEE-HAA!”
Poor guy.
You can be damn sure I ain’t patronizin’ Texas Roadhouse on my birthday.
We’ve eaten out at other theme restaurants along Jefferson Road. One restaurant had talking moose-heads.
MARCY, IT’S EVERYWHERE!
So I motored slowly out Jefferson Road, headed home after eating out at Texas Roadhouse.
The 89 bazilyun cars disappeared as I turned south on Pinnacle Road. Back to relative peace-and-quiet.
My niece eats out quite often.
My wife and I didn’t. I was afraid of too much salt in the restaurant fare, so we ate at home. —Too much salt I can taste, and is hard to take.
Now that my wife is gone, I still prepare a lot of what I eat at home.
But eating-out is pleasant.
It’s a meal I don’t hafta prepare.
And the company is pleasant.
But I hope I can avoid the “YEE-HAA!”

---

ADDENDUM: Another eating-out a Texas Roadhouse; Sunday, February 9th, 2014, in honor of my 70th birthday, which was almost a week ago (February 5th).
As these shindigs do, it took a momentum of its own:
—1) Some sort of pre-arrangement seemed to be in play, whereby my niece’s husband was expected to order a steak dinner, yet part of this dinner was to be shared with my niece’s mother.
My niece’s husband switched, causing weeping-and-wailing and gnashing of teeth.
My niece’s mother was justifiably upset all plans seemed to have gone awry.
I watched quietly as bickering began. I wasn’t even aware it was bickering at first.
“Blog material,” I said to my niece.
“Forget about it” all seemed to say. My niece’s husband didn’t want the steak dinner. He thought it would be unsatisfactory.
My niece’s mother thereupon got fried onion-rings with a coupon, enough to feed a family of five in Bangladesh.
I ordered only a bowl of chili. Last time I ordered a pulled-pork sandwich, but that was too much. A pulled-pork dinner would be extreme overload.
—2) After dinner I went outside to survey the new car my niece’s husband had just purchased.
He goes through 3-4 cars per year. In the amount of time I own one car, he might own 30 cars.
He’d told me all about it.
He was behind the wheel, so I leaned on his open car-window.
“You parted with your truck?” I said.
“That truck had the best V8 ever made. Chevrolet’s SmallBlock was a major step forward when it was introduced, but Ford has caught and passed it.
The SmallBlock was revolutionary when it debuted almost 60 years ago. But GM never modernized it. They rested on their laurels.
Ford brought a modern double-overhead-cam V8 to market, but GM never did. They could have double-overhead-cammed the SmallBlock, but they didn’t. All they did was develop more horsepower out of an old design.”

Ford’s double-overhead-cam V8 in a ’56 Ford pickup. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

I saw a 32-valve double-overhead-cam Ford V8 in a ’56 Ford pickup. I was thrilled to hear it run. The guy ran it up through the gears leaving the car-show.
“This car has 32 valves,” my niece’s husband trumpeted.
“It does not!” I said. “It has a 24-valve V6.” (Or maybe 18 valves, three valves per cylinder.)
“It’s a 32-valve V6,” he said.
“That’s not possible,” I said. “Even five valves per cylinder, and Yamaha had that for a motorcycle, ain’t 32. Six times five is 30; 32 is two valves too many.”
And so began a torrent of yelling.
“You can try to intimidate me all you want, but you’re wrong!”
I certainly had plenty of would-be intimidators driving bus.
“But this motor is special,” he said; “three valves per cylinder.”
“Six times three is 18,” I said.
‘“It’s a 32-valve V8!”
“A few seconds ago you were telling me it was a V6,” I said. “I got you so confused.”
This argument had turned unfortunate.
I don’t want my nieces’s husband thinking I’m giving him a hard time.
But a 32-valve V6 is just plain impossible.
And I had let the argument get outta hand.
It’s the fact I once drove bus, and am not about to buckle.
So passed another visit to Texas Roadhouse, and hardly what I expected.
Fortunately I didn’t have to ride the saddle, nor endure a “YEE-HAAA!”
I hope we eat out again, and if so I’ll cut my niece’s husband some slack.


• 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 environs. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
• 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 blog, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —My ancient blog says Marcy and Mahoney live in Boston. They did back then, but now they are married and live in Los Angeles. Ried now lives near Denver, and the Messenger is no longer the great place it once was. By now it’s almost staff-less. Only Wheeler is still there. —The blog also has my wife being alive, which she was at that time.

Is it actually working?

My wife and I each had separate computer-systems.
My wife died almost two years ago; I miss her dearly.
The fact we had separate ‘pyooter-systems was a reflection mine was more a toy, a personal-computer for our home. Hers was also a personal-computer, but she worked from home on hers.
Hers was a Dell Windows PC, mine is an Apple Macintosh (Gasp!). This is a reflection that her employer used PCs, while my newspaper was Macintosh.
My system was more elaborate and costly than hers. I have a gigantic Epson scanner with an 18-inch platen. It was the largest I could get and still be a scanner.
I figured I needed that big to scan large documents. Merging scans with Photoshop was too imprecise.
My printer, Epson, is also huge. It’s a photo-quality inkjet that can also print large documents.
My wife didn’t need that. All she had was her ‘pyooter and a small HP printer.
No scanner, although her printer was also a scanner. If she needed something scanned, I’d scan it and e-mail it to her.
Our systems weren’t networked. E-mail was our network. We each had separate e-mail addresses. Mine was local, hers was Yahoo.
I’d just crank something for her into my e-mail, and e-mail it to her.
No doubt people will say we should have been networked, but that’s an afternoon of dickering, even wireless, and trial-and-error. E-mail solved the communication problem right away.
This is like using your cellphone to communicate with someone at the other end of the bus instead of yelling, or seeing where your brother is in WalMart*.
Communicate via some faraway universe, when your contact is in the other room.
When my wife died her PC went to my nearby niece. I still have my wife’s printer, which I use only as a copier. It’s one of them combination thingies: printer/scanner/copier/fax machine.
But it ran out of ink (it’s inkjet).
And since I had never used it, I had no idea how to change an ink-cartridge.
I went to OfficeMax and told them what I had, an HP OfficeJet. Since there are 89 bazilyun HP OfficeJets, OfficeMax could only guess at the ink-cartridge.
I also told them I might need help loading that cartridge, since I had no idea how to do it.
Time was flying. A month passed between running out of ink and buying the cartridge at OfficeMax.
At least another month passed after buying the cartridge.
I analyzed the printer. It had a flap on the right side that looked like where a cartridge should be, but it was empty.
I hadn’t removed an empty cartridge.
I lassoed a friend into helping me.
It wasn’t rocket-science. We should be able to change a printer-cartridge without unscrewing things.
But he was in the same boat as me. We were both mystified.
My wife’s printer sat for another month.
Then Wednesday, January 29th, was too cold to take my dog to the park, so I decided to take the printer to OfficeMax.
They had sold me the wrong cartridge, so they began an exchange. They also couldn’t insert the new cartridge for lack of a power-cable.
That flap was the right place, but the cartridge rode the printer-mechanism, which slides into place in that flap-area with the power on.
So I tried it at home. Sure enough the empty cartridge moved into place for changing as I turned on the printer.
I had a hunch it shouldn’t be rocket-science to change a printer-ink cartridge.
Okay, cartridge changed, test-time; time to try copying.
I inserted a document to copy into the feeder.
I pressed “copy.”
Instead of copying my document, it printed some instruction-sheet from within itself about how to align the printer-cartridges.
WHA....?
The instruction-sheet was a simple pictograph with only a one-sentence instruction. —Translated into every possible language on the planet. Most obscure was Sandskrit.
I shut off, and tried again.
Nothing.
I noticed a tiny digital readout atop the printer rendering who-knows-what in gibberish.
My new Epson printer has that.
My old Epson printer used the computer-monitor as its interface.
“Printer maintenance?”
With my old printer my computer triggered that.
With my new printer that tiny screen tells me, and I have to hit “okay.”
My wife’s printer had one of them tiny screen interfaces — with obscure stuff you could hardly see.
Engage guile-and-cunning.
Back to square-one: shut the damn thing off.
Must I go back to OfficeMax, only to have their techies tell me I’m stupid?
(No Indian tech-support for this kid!)
What’s that tiny screen jabbering about?
It marches by so fast I can’t read it, plus it’s so poorly lit I can’t see it.
Back to square-one again: shut it off!
Re-insert document to copy; hit “copy.”
It did it.
No rhyme or reason; I have no idea why. It just did it.
Okay, try again. I shut off and re-inserted my document to copy.
It did it again.
Is it actually working?
I used to get this at the Messenger newspaper.
“The trouble with you,” they’d say; “is you think too much. Don’t think, just do.”
“But guys,” I’d say. “I can’t do the website if I don’t understand what I’m doing.
If it throws some steaming curveball at me, I can solve that myself, instead of hurling the mess into your lap, in which case you justifiably perceive I’m over-my-head.”
So regarding my wife’s printer: “Works, don’t it!? Just laugh and quit thinkin’ about it. It ain’t your prerogative to understand why.”
So I put the cover on it, stuffed it away, and hope it copies next time.

• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• RE: “Apple Macintosh (Gasp!)......” —All my siblings use PCs, and noisily claim I’m rebellious, stupid and “of-the-Devil” to use a Macintosh.
• The “Messenger newspaper” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger, from where I retired over seven years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]). (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where I 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.)

Are they kidding?

Or......
Why do I keep getting this stuff?
I am now 70 — as of yesterday, February 5th.
This stuff seems aimed at Boomers, people in their 50s.
“Flirting is ageless?”
Oh, come-on!
I don’t flirt, although perhaps I should.
There is a guy in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym. He’s in his 60s.
He’s in fairly good shape, but not Adonis.
He’s always trying to flirt with the young honeys, striking up conversations.
They’re turned off. They tell him to buzz off, and then behind-his-back they say he’s a creep.
A while ago I asked a pretty young thing if she was using an exercise-machine I could use.
She slinked away; not a single word.
Creep alert!
The YMCA Exercise-Gym is awash in pretty young honeys, but I keep to myself.
I’m not about to frighten some poor girl.
It’s like Facebook, which I hardly peruse.
That is, I have a Facebook, but I hardly look at it.
And you can be damn sure I don’t click those silly ads on the right-side of the page.
“ObamaCare has failed; vote now.”
“Obama presidency soon to crumble due to scandal worse than Clinton;” with Michelle screaming.
Who flies this stuff? The supermarket tabloids? Rush Limbaugh?
Stupidest are the ads for bulking-up. The tiny head of John Travolta atop obscenely bulging muscles that look unreal.
To me this screams PHOTOSHOP.
If I were Travolta, I’d demand the ads be taken down. Perhaps he already has; I can’t find such an ad to screenshoot.
Thankfully the e-mail program on this laptop puts “Flirting is Ageless” in my junk-folder.
But my iPhone doesn’t. I suppose I could get an iPhone e-mail app that junks stuff, but it’s not worth the bother.
I’m only trashing 10-20 spam e-mails per day.
If some e-mail starts parading pictures, I automatically trash it.
I might get only 2-5 valid e-mails per day. It ain’t like I’m swamped.
Trashing 20 e-mails only takes a minute or two.
So why bother for an iPhone e-mail app that junks stuff?
But this here laptop does junk stuff. I had to make “Flirting is Ageless” non-junk to screenshoot that silly picture.
So there’s the silver-haired Adonis grinning like a Cheshire-Cat.
Like all I gotta do is click the ad, and I too can be grinning like a Cheshire-Cat.
As I say: Why do I get this stuff at age-70?
Do they think I’m gonna fall for it?
In the trash, baby!

• 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 I 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 east. —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.)

Jean

During the summers of ’59, ’60, and ’61, I was on the staff of a religious boys-camp in northeastern Maryland.
It was on a Chesapeake Bay tributary, and was a great place.
I was a Counselor-in-Training (CIT); only age 15-to-17 those summers.
The Counselor-in-Training program was aimed at making experienced campers like me into valuable camp-staffers.
How I got hired is anybody’s guess. I was sort of a misfit — mostly because I wasn’t religious. —I always say it was my ability to sling words on the application.
In 1960 there was a girl on the camp-staff; her name was Jean.
She was skinny and only semi-attractive, but she was the only girl on the staff.
There were others, like the camp-director’s wife, for example. But they were all attached or spoken-for. Jean was single. (The camp nurse was also female, but she was a bespectacled drudge.)
Jean supervised the camp dining-hall.
As the only girl in camp, she flirted profusely.
1960 was the worst year I ever worked at that camp.
I worked as a stablehand in the horsemanship program.
The long-time previous camp senior-staff had quit, and was replaced by the stodgy guy that hired me.
That guy quit after two summers (only one summer with me; ’59), and was replaced by zealots from Delaware-County Christian School near Philadelphia — people who apparently convinced the head-honcho they could do a better job.
They didn’t. What they did was set themselves apart from the camp. They let the camp run itself, since it could.
What they did was be on vacation the entire summer from schoolwork.
Their stupidest move was taking over the camp speedboat. No one else was allowed to use it. They’d lazily while away the summer-days cruising Chesapeake Bay, and water-skiing fellow senior-staffers.
Those Delaware-County Christian School guys lasted only one summer. They were a bunch of lazy layabouts the head-honcho saw through; which was good for him, since he was usually a jerk.
Meanwhile, in the camp itself, there were a bunch of zealots from Philadelphia College of Bible (now renamed Cairn University), who considered themselves holier-than-thou.
As a CIT, I shared a cabin with one of these guys. Our campers stayed in cabins, 10 to a cabin, with a supervising Counselor, and sometimes a CIT. (I think there were only four CITs, but many more cabins, perhaps 15 or so.)
It was awful; that guy was always loudly badmouthing me, passing judgment, and declaring me “of-the-Devil.”
Toward the end of the summer I got switched to a porcine red-head who was weird, totally unfit to be a counselor. I had to protect my campers from this pervert.
So 1960 was the worst summer I ever had at camp.
Jean was the bright-spot.
I wonder if Jean is still alive, and if she found the good mate she deserved? — A bright-and-shining beacon amidst madness.

Seventy years

As of today, Wednesday, February 5th, 2014, yrs trly is 70 years old.
I have attained “old fartdom.” 60-to-69 is “crusty curmudgeon;” 70-to-79 is “old fart;” anything past 80 is “geezer.” I suppose beyond 90 is “extreme geezer.”
I suspected I’d make it. I also expected my wife would, but she died of cancer almost two years ago at age-68.
If my wife hadn’t died, she would have made 100. She had the genes. Her mother is still alive at almost age-98.
I don’t know if I’ll make “geezerdom,” but I might.
My father died at age-79, but my paternal grandfather made his 90s.
I work out, and I used to run footraces.
In fact, I was still running until my wife died. She would take the dog.
I continue to walk my dog about four miles at a park. The old ticker seems to be doing okay.
I have this dreadful feeling friends may make a fuss.
I don’t like being the center of attention.
No doubt my Facebook will be awash with birthday wishes.
My niece suggested I eat out at a nearby Texas Roadhouse.
They have this tradition of celebrating birthdays by having all their customers yell “YEE-HAAA!”
I don’t want that.
I also share dinner with GriefShare participants on Wednesday-nights.
Today is Wednesday.
So one brings a cake, and they all sing “happy birthday.”
I guess I can stomach that.
But as I say, I don’t like being the center of attention.
There have been bumps along the way.
About 21 years ago I had a stroke. Totally unexpected.
My doctors were buffaloed. I was in excellent health, running footraces at the time.
But I had an undiagnosed heart-flaw, a patent foramen ovale (“PAY-tint four-AY-min oh-VAL-eee”), a hole between the upper chambers of my heart that passed a clot. (New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi [“brew-SKEE”] had one and it also caused a stroke.)
I recovered fairly well (so did Bruschi); I can pass for normal.
I’m left with slight defects. My speech is a tiny bit compromised, and my balance is questionable.
Most people don’t notice a speech-defect, and I do balance-training when I work out.
About eight years ago I started having what the medical-establishment called “dizzy-spells.”
It felt like my heart had stopped, and was no longer pumping blood to my brain.
I retired because of it, and began a battery of tests.
We tried everything, brain-scans and nighttime heart-monitors.
Finally a neurologist suggested my dizzy-spells sounded like a side-effect of the calcium-blocker blood-pressure medication I was taking.
So I stopped taking it. No dizzy-spells since.
Then my beloved wife of 44+ years died, and this was after wrastling with cancer over five years. It often seemed like it was in remission, yet it always came back. I was her taxi-driver.
When she died I was numb for a while. I always wonder how my dog dealt with my numbness. I felt I was no longer in the real world — I felt the same after my stroke.
But now I guess that numbness is over; I feel more in touch with reality.
I still get depressed, and guess I always will.
She was the best friend I ever had; and believe-you-me after years of being “stupid” and “of-the-Devil” I needed that.
So now I have attained “old-fartdom.”
In honor of that, I have a cold which may scotch celebrating.
We’re also getting heavy snow which may close everything.

Monthly Calendar-Report for February 2014

(February 4th, 2014 — not too bad, considering I started this calendar-report half-way into the month.
I try to start these things earlier.
It would have been a week-or-two later except it was too cold to take my dog to the park.
I’ve been told people look forward to these calendar-reports more than anything.
No doubt people wonder why I’m so far behind being retired.
I find I’m swamped, especially with my wife passing.)



Eastbound stack-train on One crosses Brickyard Crossing. (Photo by Tom Hughes.)

— The February 2014 entry of my own calendar was taken by my nephew Tom Hughes, the railfan son of my brother from northern Delaware.
It’s a stacker downhill on Track One at Brickyard Crossing.
The road isn’t Brickyard Road; it’s Porta Road, and as far as I know it’s the only grade-crossing in the Altoona area — that is, the only place a road crosses the mainline at grade.
Porta Road sees little traffic; the gates are down often.
There was a brickyard nearby, but it’s gone. It was replaced by warehousing and truck-docks.
But the railroad still refers to the area as “the brickyard.” Railfans will always call it “Brickyard Crossing.”
The railroad’s continuing to call it “the brickyard” reminds of radio-transmissions out of “CSX-Baltimore” regarding “Whiskey-Block” and “Cherry-Tree” on the old Baltimore & Ohio main. I bet that cheery-tree is gone.
Brickyard offers various photo-locations. Tom’s photo is from up on an embankment northwest of the tracks, the best location for eastbounds assuming the sun’s not out.
If the sun is out, a photo is horribly backlit. The only place to shoot eastbounds if the sun is out is the other side of the tracks — in which case you’re down at trackside, or even below the tracks.
Yrs trly was down at the grade-crossing, hoping for a westbound.

From the embankment. (Photo by Bobbalew with Phil Faudi.)

My November calendar-entry. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

Westbounds can also be shot from up on the embankment — I got a really good picture there once.
Westbound is a curve into Brickyard, and lineside greenery becomes your background — which you get with heavy telephoto.
The November picture of this calendar will be from the grade-crossing.
My November picture is also a double, one coming up, and one going down.
We saw a triple at this location, a train on every track. A stacker was climbing Track Two, and a mixed came up beside it on Three.
A slab-train then descended on Track One, but we weren’t in a good location to get it. We needed to be on the other side of the tracks. —And about the only way to fully snag a triple is from an overpass above the tracks.
Slab-trains are all gondola-cars loaded with steel slabs for rolling into plate. This train may have been empty.
The slab-train stopped, and another train came up Three. That’s my November calendar-picture. The stacker on Two had cleared.
So for an eastbound, Tom was in the better location, as long as the sun wasn’t out.
I shot this stacker too, but Tom got the better shot. Mine was down at the grade-crossing, trackside.



A K-2 Pacific — not a K-4. (Photo by Robert F. Collins©.)

The February 2014 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a K-2 Pacific (4-6-2) at Morris Park shop on Long Island Railroad.
The K-2 Pacific precedes the famous Pennsy K-4 Pacific.
If I am correct, it is more the lines west of Pittsburgh, the lines across Ohio and Indiana Pennsy merged to feed its main-stem east of Pittsburgh.
“Lines West” and Pennsy east of Pittsburgh seemed to be two different entities at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Lines east of Pittsburgh liked to get by with fewer drive-axles; for example the E-6 Atlantic (4-4-2). Build the boiler big enough and you can. The boiler of an E-6 is huge for an Atlantic. Most Atlantics were teakettles.
The K-2 was Pennsy’s concession to wanting a light-Pacific on “Lines West.” —It also was used east of Pittsburgh.
It doesn’t have the firebox of a K-4, which was large for a Pacific.
But apparently this K-2 worked well enough for it to be sent east to Long Island Railroad — a Pennsy subsidiary. The picture is 1937, which is late enough to retire most K-2s.
My bus-company did that. If a bus worked well, it wasn’t retired despite its age.
Long Island Railroad was essentially a commuter-line. As such it had Pennsy G-5s (4-6-0). There were also E-6 Atlantics, and probably even K-4s.
But apparently this K-2 worked well enough it wasn’t retired.

The only fully-assembled K-4. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

It looks like a K-4 from the front, but that pilot-beam is wood, the trailing-truck isn’t “Kiesel” (“KYE-zuhl”) like a K-4, and the fire-grate isn’t the K-4’s 70 square feet.
I also notice the K-2 doesn’t use the outside Walschaerts (“Well-shirtz”) valve gear of a K-4; it may be Walschaerts, but it’s not that of a K-4.
I notice it also has the older four-window locomotive-cab. K-4s were only two-window.
All the K-2s were scrapped. Only one fully-assembled K-4 remains, #3750 (above). It’s at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, PA. There is another K-4, #1361, but it’s apart.



Fury! (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

The February 2014 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Hawker SeaFury, very much a hotrod.
I’ll let my WWII warbirds site weigh in:
“As with many aircraft of the 1940s, the Hawker SeaFury fighter-bomber design was the result of a British wartime design specification which called for certain performance levels to be met by the new aircraft.
To meet Specification F.6/42, the Hawker design team began by modifying the Hawker Tempest into a smaller, lightweight version. By 1943, six prototypes had been ordered, five to be flown with three different engines, and one to be a test airframe.
The first flight of the new airplane (by now named the “Fury”) took place on September 1st, 1944.
Production contracts for the airplane had already been placed, with 200 land-based Furies to be delivered to the Royal Air Force, and another 200 carrier-based SeaFuries to be delivered to Fleet Air Arm.
The first SeaFury prototype, powered by a Bristol Centaurus XII, had first flown on February 21st, 1945, but the first fully-navalized version with folding wings did not fly until October 12th, 1947.
The Royal Navy also received 60 two-seat T.Mk 20 trainers in the early 1950s.”
This airplane appears to be one of those trainers — so one wonders if it qualifies as a WWII warbird.
The Bristol Centaurus XII radial generates 2,480 horsepower; which is a lot.
I notice it’s cranking a five-bladed propeller.
Furies are raced.
They’re probably not as agile as a Mustang, but they can attain 445 mph as built.
A Fury might need more room to maneuver, but there’s nothing like a blunderbuss motor.
It’s like car-racing a Hemi (“HEMM-eee;” not “he-me”). The Hemi was big and heavy, but also immensely strong.
This airplane lacks the beauty and grace of a Mustang (or Spitfire), but has that gigantic motor turning that five-bladed propeller.
I’ve seen twin four-bladed props on racing Mustangs, but that ain’t as-built.
This SeaFury is as-built.
Imagine being chased by one these things. Four 20-mm cannons! It probably caught up with you from behind.
The SeaFury was the Fury for aircraft-carrier service, although I don’t think the British were operating in WWII’s Pacific Theater.
That would have been the U.S. Navy with Corsairs and Hellcats.
The SeaFury did very well in the Pacific during the Korean War.



John Deere combines. (Photo by Tim Calvin.)

—The February 2014 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a single GE diesel-locomotive pulling a string of John Deere combines toward the Port of Baltimore.
I’ve seen tractor-trains myself, but usually mixed, not solid tractors.
Allegheny Crossing usually sees one mixed-train per day with tractors in it.
But they are often blue, which is New Holland, or red.
I have also seen carloads of yellow Caterpillar bulldozers.
Shipping large equipment like this by rail is attractive. Equipment like this is “Oversize-Load” on a highway, but not on railroad flatcars.
Four or more giant combines might fit on a 60-foot single-trailer flatcar.
Ship on the highway, and that load would be so wide, you’d need escorts.
Shipping by rail makes sense.
The locomotive is a General-Electric ES40DC, one GE’s Evolution Series, engineered to meet recent stringent emission requirements.
(“40” stands for 4,000 horsepower.)
Electromotive Division (EMD, once a division of General Motors, but now independent), with its two-stroke diesels, is having less trouble meeting emission-requirements as do General-Electric four-stroke diesels.
Two-strokes burn the fuel-charge at lower temperatures, and therefore generate less nitrogen pollutants than a four-stroke.
Electromotive Division has used two-stroke diesels since diesel-locomotion began in the ‘30s. EMD recently designed a four-stroke to improve fuel-economy, but two-strokes run cleaner.
Getting by with only one locomotive is fine if the run is mainly downhill.
And attaining the east coast is mainly downhill —except for Allegheny Crossing in the Appalachians, which may require multiple units, even helpers.



A 1971 Dodge SuperBee. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)

—The February 2014 entry in my Motorbooks Musclecar calendar is a 1971 Dodge SuperBee.
Dodge was envious of Plymouth’s smashing success with its RoadRunner, which wasn’t really a musclecar. It didn’t have a gigantic hot-rodded engine, although it could.  Standard was a souped-up 383 cubic-inch engine, which is still fairly large.
The RoadRunner was a hotrod on the cheap. Very basic, but a good street-racer. They came with a four-speed floorshift, or three-speed TorqueFlite automatic-transmission.
Otherwise, fitments were basic. A RoadRunner has bench-seats like the cheapest Plymouth model. They weren’t buckets. A RoadRunner didn’t set you back like a Plymouth GTX, yet you had that hotrod motor and floorshift.
The RoadRunner was phenomenally successful. Plymouth sold many — a marketing smash.
Fellow Chrysler brand Dodge was envious. They wanted a RoadRunner of their own.
And so the SuperBee, the RoadRunner concept rebadged as a Dodge.
That is, Chrysler’s intermediate body with a 383 floorshift.
This particular SuperBee has Chrysler’s Hemi motor, which makes it a musclecar.
You could option the Hemi in a SuperBee.
By 1971 the SuperBee was only an option-package on Dodge’s Charger. It was no longer a free-standing model.

A ’68 RoadRunner.

I never felt the RoadRunner concept was that attractive.
Chrysler’s intermediates were too big.
And the best-looking RoadRunner was the first, 1968.



M-1 Mountain (4-8-2) cools its heels awaiting clearance into Enola yard. (Photo by Fred Kern.)

—Sigh!
Another photograph by Fred Kern.
The February 2014 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is a Pennsy freight-train, pulled by a Mountain steam-engine (4-8-2), cooling its heels at Cove, PA, awaiting clearance into Enola (“aye-NOLE-uh”) yard down the Susquehanna (“suss-kwee-HA-nuh”) river across from Harrisburg.
Enola is the yard Pennsy built because Harrisburg was congested.

April 2013. (Photo by Fred Kern.)

Also April 2013. (Photo by John Molesevich.)

I always slug photography-files with the name of the photographer, so I know who to credit.
If I did a computer-search for “Fred Kern” I’d get 89 bazilyun hits.
Last month’s entry was by Fred Kern; next month’s entry is Fred Kern.
His Kodachrome© slides make this calendar.
I also ran a recent picture at Cove in the Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar.
At first I thought this train might be the same train I ran in an earlier Fred Kern picture in an All-Pennsy color calendar.
It’s not. That train was charging out of Enola; this train is waiting to get in.
The earlier train was westbound; this train is eastbound.
Pennsy’s Mountain was probably its most successful steam-locomotive design.
The firebox-grate is only 70 square feet; not small, but only adequate.
But the locomotive had a combustion-chamber to more adequately burn its coal.
The Mountains were well-suited for their assigned duties, which were to pull fast-freights.
They were used on Pennsy’s storied Middle-Division Harrisburg to Altoona, plus other routes.
On the Middle-Division the grade is not heavy, but always there. A Mountain might hold 40 to 50 mph uphill to Altoona.
After Altoona Pennsy became a mountain railroad, up and over Allegheny summit. —That’s slogging. The Mountains weren’t suited for that.
When this picture was taken, March 1957, steam would come off Pennsy in little over a year.
The locomotive is dirty and shows signs of deferred maintenance.
Its driving-wheels are covered with sand-dust. Sand is used to enhance traction on slippery rail. Sand might keep the drivers from slipping.
Even current diesel-locomotives use sand. Traction is always a challenge where the steel-wheel meets the steel-railhead. The actual contact-patch is tiny.
No matter how well-suited the Mountain was for the Middle-Division, it compared poorly to diesel-locomotion. Steam-locomotives needed water-towers and coaling-docks.
Pennsy built a giant coaling facility on its Middle-Division to re-coal its locomotives on the mainline.
That coal facility was removed with dieselization.
Concrete coal-towers still exist on some railroads. Removing them costs more than letting them remain.
Trackside water-towers didn’t block the railroad when removed. An over-the-railroad concrete coal-tower would block the railroad when exploded.
All a diesel needed was a fuel-rack. Plus its power-delivery was better than a steam-locomotive, which gave intermittent power-thrusts. Power-delivery from a diesel-electric was continuous. Electric traction without wires.



UGH! (Photo by Scott Williamson.)

—The February, 2014 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a really good photograph of what to me is a dumb-looking car.
The car is a throwback, a reproduction of a dry-lakes racer in southern California from the ‘40s.
Hot-rodders, backyard tinkerers, used to race on southern California’s vast dry-lakes. Edwards Air-Force Base is on Muroc dry-lake. Muroc is vast enough to land the Shuttle if need be.
A Shuttle runway is also in Florida. If the Shuttle landed at Edwards, it needed to be transported back to Florida.
This car appears to be a Model-T phaeton with the back-end hacked off. Apparently hot-rodders did this if they couldn’t find a Model-T two-seater roadster, a teacup.

The tea-bucket two-seater roadster body.

I’m sorry, but the teacup roadster is gorgeous.
This hacked phaeton is a joke.
This car also uses a hot-rodded four-cylinder motor, as many did in the ‘40s.
It not being a V8 makes it not a hotrod to me.
What it is is a lakester reproduction, albeit very well done.
I get the feeling the car’s owner found this chopped phaeton lakester, and decided to not let it go to waste.
And so a reproduction of a classic lakester, complete with four-cylinder engine.
I wonder if the engine is Model-T Ford, souped-up of course.
It doesn’t say.
Often restorers pull out the old Model-T motor, and replace it with a modern overhead-valve four.
The Model-T Ford wasn’t overhead-valve; it was a flat-head.
Souping a flat-head didn’t deliver much. It could be done, but doing so was like souping a flat-head Briggs & Stratton lawnmower engine.
A flat-head is side-valve, with contorted breathing. Overhead-valve breathes much better.
The Ford flat-head V8 was pretty much retired as a hotrod engine by the Chevrolet SmallBlock, which is overhead-valve.