Stealth trip

Yrs trly went to Altoona (PA) the past week to chase trains; drive down Wednesday, March 19th, chase trains all day Thursday, March 20th, then return home Friday, March 21st.
I’m a railfan, and have been since age-2. I’m now 70.
Another lonely trip down the “proposed I-99 corridor.” That corridor is a joke! Hardly anyone uses it. Compared to other limited-access expressways I’ve driven, it’s empty. Millions of dollars were spent cutting away rock-faces, and building bridges, but there’s hardly any traffic. I pretty much have to road to myself. A car or semi might catch up from behind, pass, and then disappear.
Central Pennsylvania is not the Los Angeles basin. Long stretches of expressway cross utter desolation.
I almost wonder why this road was built? Apparently it was a Congressman.
I don’t mind. It cuts a seven-hour trip to five hours.
I don’t drive the Interstate to get across New York. The “proposed I-99 corridor” is in Pennsylvania. I use rural two-lanes to get down to Pennsylvania.
Once in Pennsylvania I can wick up the cruise to 65-70. It’s pretty much the “proposed I-99 corridor” all the way to Altoona.
There is a small portion south of Williamsport that isn’t limited-access. But it’s only about six miles. The rest is all expressway, except where the “proposed I-99 corridor” heads south from Interstate-80.
I also use a rural two-lane to cut a dog-leg; that’s perhaps eight miles.
Altoona is the base of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s assault on Allegheny mountain, what used to be a barrier to trade across Pennsylvania in the early 1800s.
The railroad is no longer “Pennsy,” it’s now Norfolk Southern.
But the railroad is still there, and has a lot of traffic.
I call the area “Allegheny Crossing,” because it’s where the railroad crossed Allegheny mountain.
It’s very much a mountain railroad. Trains often need additional locomotives to get up the mountain. Those helper-locomotives often stay on to help hold back the train descending.
Trains have run away.
I went alone this time.
Usually I chase trains with a friend in the area named Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”).
Phil is a railfan extraordinaire, and knows railroad operations in the area extremely well.
He used to give tours to railfans as a business, but gave it up due to liability considerations and a new car.
He used to drive tours in his previous car.
I did my first tour in 2008, and it was railfan overload. I think I saw 20 trains over a single nine-hour day, including two at once.
I have toured with Phil at least 10 more times since. When he gave up his business, he was still interested in leading me around. Some of those 10 times are me driving my car.
I take lots of pictures, and with those pictures I produce a calendar from a photo-site.
I say my calendar is by me and Phil, because the pictures are at Phil’s photo-locations.
Phil is very conscious of photo-quality, so how well I do is as much him as it is me.
I also began inviting my brother Jack from Boston since my wife died.
My brother, who is younger at age-56 — I’m the oldest — became more a railfan since I introduced him to 765 back in 1987. (”765 was a game-changer,” he says.)
He gets my calendar, so he’s used many of my photo-locations, which of course are Faudi.
My brother is not Phil, but we do okay. The line is occasionally quite busy; so we do fine despite not being as hip as Phil about local train operations.
My brother occasionally does quite well — I have used his pictures in my calendar, if his were better than mine.
I also have a nephew named Tom, the only son of my other brother from northern DE, and I’ve used his pictures too. My nephew is very much a railfan, his father isn’t.
Faudi, Tom and I have chased trains.
I have yet to get Faudi and my brother-from-Boston together.
I decided to go alone this time because -a) Phil maximizes train-count, so I miss locations I’d like to get.
If Phil hears a train in his railroad-radio scanner, we drop everything and try to beat that train to a photo-location.
I, on the other hand, am more interested in photos. I’ll miss trains to get what I want.
-b) My brother-from-Boston is still discovering many of my photo locations. We also have found some on-our-own.
He also likes to drive, which means we go where he wants to go, not necessarily where I want to go.
So in order to get two locations at the extreme ends of the Allegheny Crossing area, I decided to go stealth.
My trip was very sudden, mainly so a lady could paint my kitchen without intrusion. Otherwise I might have informed Phil; he probably would have gone where I wanted.
But my trip ended up being more than stealth. Life at home is a disaster since my wife died. It seems like life is no fun any more.
But I seemed to be having fun down in Altoona; and no one was around to distract from my sorrow.
I was leery of going alone. I’ve been down there alone before, and it was extremely lonely right after my wife died.
But back then I had Phil or my brother-from-Boston to distract me.
Not this time! I’d really be alone.
I suppose things aren’t as bad as right after my wife died. I found myself easily distracted by the trains.
Train-waits were longer than with Phil.
It was coldish, and often I was waiting 45 minutes or more. With Phil I might wait 5-10 minutes.
I started by driving clear up to Plummers Crossing, just east of Tyrone (“Tie-ROWN;” as in “own”), perhaps 15 miles north of Altoona.
Tyrone is where the railroad turns east toward Harrisburg.
Altoona-to-Tyrone is railroad-east, but mainly northeast.
I wanted westbound, and the westbound trash-train pulled through as I drove in.
I couldn’t get it — I was unable to set up. Westbounds into Plummers are telephoto.
I waited at least an hour before another westbound arrived, the empty coal-train pictured.


Westbound empty coal-cars into Plummers Crossing. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


There it goes; toward Tyrone. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Then I drove into Tyrone.
I’ve never done well at Tyrone. I took some pictures, but they’re not worth flying.
But I think I can make Tyrone work with strong telephoto.
The I-99 expressway leaps over the railroad and the notch it negotiates on a gigantic bridge.
Telephoto the railroad, and I get a dark background; no sky. Normal lenses at Tyrone never work because they always get sky and mountain. I also have to avoid a bridge.
The beautiful old Tyrone station is there, but I never can make it work.
From Tyrone I drove to what I call “Six Targets.” It’s actually at “McFarland’s Curve” north of Tipton. An old Pennsy signal-bridge spans the tracks, and has six target-signals on it. It makes a great photograph; the signal-bridge silhouettes the sky.
My scanner was telling me something was coming; I waited 5-10 minutes. Finally, the train was blowing for the grade-crossing in Tipton; it wouldn’t be long.


Eastbound stacker charges through “Six Targets.” (Photo by BobbaLew.)

From there I drove clear up to Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”) to get something on Track One under the Main St. overpass.
My scanner was silent; another hour in the cold.
Then I heard a train-engineer call out the signal at AR.
“AR” are the old telegraph call-letters of a signal-tower abandoned but not torn down.
AR is on Track One up the western slope of The Hill.
AR is also a signal-bridge.
I ain’t movin’. Something’s coming.
Finally it showed in the distance, slowly hammering up the grade.
I kept hearing “Train-400.”
Finally it filled my viewfinder, and 8102, the Norfolk Southern Pennsy Heritage-Unit, was on the point.


Loaded coal-train hammers up The Hill. 8102 is leading. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

What a pleasant surprise.
8102 is one of 20 new locomotives Norfolk Southern bought delivered in paint-schemes of predecessor railroads.
Pennsy is one of the predecessors, and 8102 is painted as a Pennsy engine.
Time to think like Phil. If it’s a bog-slow coal-extra, I can probably beat it down into Altoona.
I was going to go to a location my brother found in Altoona, where the drag-tracks turn.
But I wasn’t sure it would use the drag-tracks through Altoona, although it probably did.
The railroad separates into express- and drag-tracks through Altoona.
So I went to 24th St. overpass over Slope Interlocking, where trains enter (or leave) Altoona Yard.
I was sure to get it there.


8102 again (at Slope). (Photo by BobbaLew.)

After about 20 minutes, I could hear it blowing for Brickyard-Crossing up the line.
I had beat it, although doing so was easy. The train was bog-slow. Two helper-sets were on the back, that’s four locomotives, to help hold back the train descending The Hill.
But the light wasn’t good. It was still early afternoon, so 8102 was entirely in shadow.
After Slope I drove up to Brickyard-Crossing. It’s the only grade-crossing in Altoona, and it’s actually Porta Road.
But a brickyard was once nearby, so railfans and the railroad call it “Brickyard-Crossing.”
I photographed a train approaching, then started to leave.
As soon as I did, the gates started down again.
Back up on the embankment!


I think this might be the UPS train, crossing Brickyard-Crossing. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Another train passed, then an eastbound being held on Track Two in the distance started.
I thought it might be 16G; I was hearing scanner-chatter about 16G getting a clear signal.
But it wasn’t. The eastbound I was seeing wasn’t 16G. It was an empty slab-train, all empty gondola-cars for carrying steel slabs.
After that I left, and as I did another train came up The Hill.
It sounded like it was the actual 16G; the train-engineer called out the signal past Brickyard as “16G westbound on Track Three,” or so I thought I heard. (Phil tells me 16G is eastbound.)
So I decided to see if I could beat it up to Cresson (“KRESS-in”). Cresson is the location of the bed-and-breakfast where I was staying, and the railroad is right across the street.
When I got there that train was was being held so the UPS train could pass. I also had heard scanner-chatter, the dispatcher wanting to get the UPS train moving.
The UPS train is a priority train; coast-to-coast.
If it’s late, the railroad is penalized.
It was mainly UPS trailers on flatcars.
And I had also heard the dispatcher talk about moving the UPS train.
The engineer also had the pedal-to-the-metal!


I think this is the UPS-train (at Cresson). (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Then I turned west where what appeared to be the grain unit-train was being held on Track One. Norfolk Southern brings a grain unit-train full of corn for processing into ethanol up in Clearfield (PA). The railroad is an old Pennsy coal-branch, operated by R.J. Corman Railroad Group.
Corman has to get that grain unit-train full of corn up to that ethanol-plant on time or it gets penalized.
I don’t know as it was the unit grain train since it usually would be on the Cresson Running-track, not the main.
An auto-rack train was next to it on Track Two. Both were stopped for the UPS train, but after it cleared they both started rolling.
Would this be my double (two trains at once)?
But the auto-rack slowed and disappeared behind the grain train.
But then the grain-train stopped, and the auto-rack train reappeared.


My double. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

One more stop; faraway South Fork to the south (railroad-west).
By now it was 5 o’clock and it would take almost a half-hour to get to South Fork.
South Fork and Plummers are the extreme ends of Allegheny Crossing.
In South Fork the railroad does a big curve toward Johnstown and Pittsburgh. It makes a dramatic shot when late-afternoon back-lit.
But by 5:30 my light was going away. South Fork has to be telephoto, and I was down to 1/200th at f/5. My lens will open to 4.5, but anything less than 1/200th and I get blurring.
I could hear 07T, Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian on my scanner, but that’s westbound, and I wanted eastbound.
I figured I would wait at least until Amtrak passed, but then I heard an approaching eastbound call the signals at SO past South Fork.
Pay-dirt!
It was 6 o’clock, but I had my photograph.


Redemption!  —Makes my trip worthwhile. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Both South Fork and Plummers are smashing photographs, the reason I made this trip.
Both will probably end up in next year’s calendar.
So I could return home a happy railfan.
But the sorrow hit as soon as I got home.
I miss my wife!
“Back to reality,” I’d always say when leaving Altoona.
And now reality is worse than it ever was.

• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly. —She wasn’t a railfan, but she always came along on my various railfan jaunts because she enjoyed seeing me happy. “Chasing trains beats chasing women,” we always said.

Via wi/fi at Station-Inn in Cresson, PA

“OKAY MOM, WE’VE SEEN THE IRISH-SETTERS. CAN WE GO HOME NOW?”!

Yrs trly is not in this photograph, but I think my dog, “Scarlett,” is. She’s at right with the guy that held her while I waited at a Porta-Pottie.

Rochester held it’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade Saturday, March 15th, 2014.
A two-mile orgy of bands, dancers, drunks, blowing car-horns, and screaming sirens.
The Irish-Setter Club of Western New York (ISCWNY) marches their Irish-Setters in this parade, and my Scarlett-dog is an Irish-Setter.
The first St. Patrick’s Day parade we marched in was maybe 10 years ago, and my wife came too.
We’ve always marched our dogs in the St. Patrick’s Day parade; we’ve always had Irish-Setters.
I think this parade was my fourth or fifth, and my first since my wife died.
I wanted to do it last year — my wife died almost two years ago — but I couldn’t connect.
The St. Patrick’s Day parade is always a crap-shoot for weather.
Once it was 70 degrees, other times freezing cold and snowing.
The other day wasn’t too bad, about 38 degrees, but my hands were getting cold by parade-end.
That St. Patrick’s Day parade 10 years ago was my first blog sent to Marcy, who worked next to me at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper.
I don’t know why I sent it, but she thought it hilarious. I was reporting bare-kneed staggering drunks shivering in kilts, and members of a volunteer fire-department openly urinating on the manicured lawns of Rochester’s mega-rich out along East Ave.
We’ve lost track of that. It wasn’t actually a BlogSpot blog. I’d flown it on my family’s website.
And so began sending similar stuff to Marcy, which she collected.
Marcy is my number-one ne’er-do-well.
It was Marcy who suggested BlogSpot. That was eight years ago.
If anything, my blogging has mellowed since, although I occasionally get flashes.
I used to call my brother-from-Boston “The Almighty Bluster-King,” but not any more. He’s a tub-thumping macho Harley-dude, but has mellowed with age.
I think he’s also giving me a break since my wife died.
So here I am marching our dog in the St. Patrick’s Day parade.
It eventually started after a 50-minute delay. Crowds lined the streets — they were cheering and screaming. It was all I could do to keep from crying. The St. Patrick’s Day parade is a thrill, and my wife is gone.
I had to keep biting my lip.
That first parade the Irish-Setters were right in front of a local ambulance service, sirens blaring. It was unbearable.
And we were behind a giant black ’57 Chevy stretch brimming with buxom tart wannabees. The car was once used by Bo Diddley to transport his band, and we kept marching into it.
This time we were ahead of the blatting Pittsford Fire-Department Marching-Band, and trombones were in the lead; one trombone was green.
I can’t walk that fast, so the drill was to avoid getting swallowed by that band.
I had the advantage that the parade would stall. A group of tousled lassies was in front of us dancing an Irish jig. Waving little girls were on a trailer pulled by a honking dually pickup.
The parade would stall and I’d end up amidst the dancers.
The parade goes at least two miles including down the main-drag through Rochester.
I’m not young any more. I ache all over, but I kept going.
Next time I’ll march the middle of the street.
I’d head for the curb, to give spectators a chance to pet my dog.
Not a smart move! She scarfed anything and everything.
Supposedly chocolate is bad for dogs, but she probably scarfed every Tootsie-Roll she could find. She also glommed a discarded chocolate-chip cookie before I could snag it.
I had a dog with an upset stomach the next day, but now she seems okay.
Parade finished, I had to hike all the way back to my car, at least a mile-and-a-half — with a lunging, pulling dog.
And Rochester is no longer the Rochester I knew. The southeast corner of Main & Clinton had been reduced to a grassy field. That is, all the buildings that once crowded that corner are gone.
I found myself hiking up South Clinton toward Main St. — the police had Clinton blocked off.
I cut through to avoid Main St. — the parade-route. It used to be you couldn’t, but now you can.
I found myself passing Windstream headquarters, the supposed anchor of development in this block.
Windstream is fraught with controversy. First it was gonna locate here, then it wasn’t. Windstream is getting a substantial tax-break.
Yet it occupies only a small area of the block.
I passed Windstream’s front-entrance on a large concrete apron.
Is it possible to save downtown Rochester? Or must it become all grassy fields and aprons?
I passed the shell of what once had been an office-tower. The top was still there, but the bottom was nothing but rusty steel I-beams.
I’d say my dog was the least civilized of our group. All the others dogs were nervous — trembling.
My dog wasn’t shaking. Pig-out city awaited! Pizza, crackers, candy!
My dog was probably the oldest-looking dog, perhaps not the oldest, but more gray in the muzzle.
The other dogs were placid; mine was rambunctious.
Apparently the long parade was ending as I got back to my car.
A giant pink front-end loader was passing. Usually front-end loaders are yellow — why not green for St. Patrick’s Day?
I could comment about a front-end loader being in the parade, but such things are normal and expected.
About 10 tiny pizza-delivery HHRs passed, horns blowing, some white, some black.
The parade is as much advertisement as anything.
“We can dig it” was painted on the pink front-end loader.

• Station-Inn.
• “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. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the Messenger newspaper), and together they live near Los Angeles. (Mahoney is also pictured.)
• 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.)

RE: Manufactured News

There was about two feet of snow on these steps before I shoveled it out. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

A gigantic and crippling blizzard blew through our area the other day (Wednesday, March 12th, 2014).
It left 15-20 inches of snow in my driveway I still have to remove — I have a large snowblower.
It also prompted emergency declarations from various local authorities, even the NY state governor, Andrew Cuomo.
Still snowing that night I turned on the TV-news. The local news was all blizzard, but it wasn’t on the national news at all.
Here we are, snowed-in-SOLID, totally incapacitated, and not a peep. Philadelphia or Washington DC get snowed in even less, and that’s news.
It got me remembering how we “manufactured” the news at the newspaper I worked at.
Editors would decide what should run on the front-page that day. Since it was a local newspaper, we’d try to get a locally-written story in the lede.
But we also got news from Associated-Press via satellite, and sometimes national news would trump the local news.
So Limberger and his lackeys loudly fulminate about how the dreaded media manufactures the news.
As if Limberger ain’t media!
Like we held furtive meetings to advance our liberal agenda.
Uh Rush, a deadline is looming!
Instead of furtive meetings, generating that newspaper was always a slap-shot. A page editor would call another above him saying he had an eight-inch hole to fill.
“Try that time-bomb story.”
It wasn’t “All the news that’s fit to print;” it was “Whatever fits.”
So we weren’t sipping coffee and eating donuts, furtively laying plans to advance a liberal agenda.
We were trying to slam together a newspaper before a printing-deadline.
What ran in the newspaper was what fit. That’s was how the news was manufactured. What ran became news.
A local story might might run first, which left space that was filled with AP filler.
I remember when I did paste-up, a page-editor cutting out half an AP story.
It was cut to fit.
And there was no time to be analytical about it. A printing-deadline was looming.
His cut was at a sentence-end.
Yet the tub-thumping Conservatives LOUDLY accused us of a liberal bias. Like mere reporting wasn’t as good as laying on a Conservative slant.
An example might be how we reported Obama drinking Pepsi. We might report that as “Obama drinks Pepsi,” whereas a proper Conservative reporting might be “Obama declares war on Coke.”
The Conservatives weren’t too diplomatic. They once got an editor crying. Our Executive-Editor had to shut the guy down.
He hung up on him!
And sometimes “what fit” was a joke. One time we ran a local story about a fly-infestation in the lede. A farmer had spread chicken-manure on his field.
Well, I’m sure it was important to fly-infested neighbors.
But this is front-page news?
The fact we had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to report a fly-infestation demonstrated our obvious liberal slant.
So how, pray tell, do the tub-thumpers react to that?
I don’t recall as they did.
So I can easily imagine a gathering of national-news producers in New York City.
“What do we lede with today?”
“How about that blizzard in Rochester, NY?”
“Not Philly or DC. And it ain’t the I-95 corridor.
They get blizzards up there. Rochester ain’t Atlanta. They can deal with it.”
Thus a blizzard in Rochester doesn’t get reported at all.
Our blizzard moved east to New England the next day. That got reported, but only about 10 seconds.

• The “newspaper I worked at” 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.)
• RE: Paste-up........ —When I first began work at the Messenger, it wasn’t fully computerized; that is pages weren’t produced in a computer. We had a semi-computerized system, whereby copy-galleys were sent to an old main-frame, and from there they were projected onto photo-paper strips which were developed, cut, and pasted to page-dummies which were later photographed to make printing-plates. A “paste-up” person had to be precise pasting these galley-strips to the page-dummies to be square. —Before I retired, the newspaper was converted to full computer pagination, and paste-up was removed.

Model-train socializing

Rochester-Junction as modeled. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


Rochester-Junction for real. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

The other day (Saturday, March 8th, 2014) I attended an open-house of the Rochester Model-Railroad Club.
Even though I think model-railroading is silly — I prefer real trains. I attend because it’s a chance to fellowship with a retired RTS bus-driver who’s a model-train buff.
I enjoy his company; he always prompts a few laughs.
I also attend because people tell me I need people in my bereavement. Well, yes; but they are not my wife, who died almost two years ago.
The Rochester Model-Railroad Club has a giant layout in the basement of a church. It more-or-less models the Lehigh Valley Railroad of the ‘50s.
It has all the flaws of model-railroads: mainly too much track in not enough space.
Curvature on a model-railroad is way tighter than reality. You’d need an entire basement to accurately model just a tiny segment of a real railroad.
The joy in model-railroading is operating trains. Although a model-railroad train is much shorter than a real train. A real train might be 100-or-more cars. A model-railroad train might max out at 30 cars. Often they’re only 10 cars or less.
A model-railroad my neighbor-and-I built about 1959 would stall a five-car train — in which case a big hand drops from the sky and helps the train up the hill. That hill was too steep and on a tight curve. Real railroads have to compensate (reduce) the grade on a curve.
Another problem is how model-trains operate. Real trains are often slow compared to model-trains. Getting a real train moving, or stopped, is an extremely slow process. A model-train is up-to-speed in seconds, and stops so quickly it would throw passengers out of their seats.
The other hairball is what powers the trains. With model-railroading the track is energized; real trains generate their own power on-board.
It used to be, and in many cases still is, that power-delivery through the track-rails was varied, which varied train-speed.
In other words, no electricity through the rails equals a stopped train.
Now miniature computers are in the model locomotive. Track power is constant, and use by the model locomotive is varied by computer direction.
But energizing the track is not real. Plus it causes problems where a negative rail abuts a positive rail, which often happens.
If a model-train crosses such a polarity reversal, all-of-a-sudden it reverses.
More real to me would be unenergized track with battery power for the model-trains, and radio-control to vary train-speed.
A LITTLE HISTORY:
Lehigh Valley Railroad was founded mainly to move northeast Pennsylvania coal from Lehigh valley (where it was mined) to the New York City area.
The northeast Pennsylvania coal is “anthracite,” which burns cleaner, although it doesn’t have the heat-content of “soft coal.” Anthracite is rockier = harder.
As the market for anthracite began to dwindle, Lehigh Valley built an extension to Buffalo in 1892. Lehigh Valley had already begun using Erie from Buffalo as a feeder-connection at Waverly, just north of Sayre, PA. But it wanted its own railroad.
The idea was to grab bridge-traffic from Nickel Plate and thereby avoid New York Central toward New York City.
The Buffalo Extension was Geneva to Buffalo; Lehigh Valley had already built to Geneva.
At least two railroads built Buffalo Extensions. One was Lehigh Valley, the other was Delaware, Lackawanna & Western.
Lehigh Valley’s Buffalo Extension was very well engineered. It crossed difficult terrain, yet could boom-and-zoom.
People venerate Lehigh Valley, now gone. Even the Buffalo Extension is gone.
The Buffalo Extension was probably the best-engineered railroad across western NY. It also would work well as a current railroad, since it avoided cities.
So that this club would model it isn’t surprising.
Their model has the confined-space flaw. Packing 150+ miles of railroad into a basement is impossible.
It has to snake back-and-forth like spaghetti. Lehigh Valley’s Buffalo Extension was straight and fast.
The layout models some of the towns the Lehigh Valley went through.
But it can’t be too realistic.
The model-railroad has to horseshoe-curve 180 degrees to get to the next town.
And some towns are missing. I miss the long grade from Geneva toward Ithaca beside Cayuga Lake. I think Lehigh Valley had two alignments up this hill, the newer easier than the older.
Ithaca isn’t even in the layout. Ithaca is the location of Cornell University, which Lehigh Valley’s color was: Cornell-Red.

A Finger Lakes Railway U-boat in Lehigh Valley’s Cornell-Red. (The train is a railfan excursion into Victor on a short portion of the original Lehigh Valley Buffalo-Extension alignment. Finger Lakes now operates the segment to get freight to Victor Insulators via a connector to the old NYC “Auburn” line.) (Photo by Bobbalew.)

The layout starts at Buffalo, then horseshoe-curves into Caledonia (“Kal-uh-DOHN-yuh;” as in “California” and “own”). I think a junction with Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh, south out of Rochester, was in Caledonia. By the ‘50s, BR&P was Baltimore & Ohio; now it’s Rochester Southern, part of the giant Genesee & Wyoming shortline rail conglomerate.
The model then goes to Rochester-Junction, where Lehigh Valley had a branch north to Rochester.
That line is of course gone, although a small part of it still exists to serve a lumber-yard.
Livonia, Avon & Lakeville Railroad, a shortline, built a connector from its ex-Erie line toward Rochester to service that lumber-yard. (Lehigh Valley and Erie ran parallel into Rochester.)
Another branch came off Rochester-Junction, a Lehigh Valley line south to Honeoye Falls (“HONE-eee-oye;” like in “oil”), Lima (“LYE-muh;” not “LEE-muh”), and Hemlock Lake.
That line is also gone.
Rochester-Junction, what I pictured, is of interest to me.
Since it’s the Rochester Model-Railroad Club is probably why it was modeled.
Rochester-Junction had a grand wooden depot. I visited it numerous times.
By the time I visited, the ‘70s, it was derelict and abandoned.
I remember vandals trying to torch it. It burned down in 1979.
The club had exquisitely modeled it, although I noticed it had the passenger canopies on the east end instead of west, as in my “real” picture.
So maybe during the ‘50s the passenger-canopies were on the east end. —Although I can’t see Lehigh Valley investing in such an “improvement.”
Then I noticed the giant Lehigh Valley truss over Honeoye Creek. It was very well modeled, but only 200 scale feet from the building. In the real world, it’s 1,500 feet west. In other words, if that creek truss was where it is on the layout, my train would be threading it.
The layout continues east through Victor, a small town north of where I live.
The real Victor has a lot of trackside buildings. A few are modeled, and the modeled Victor is on one of those horseshoe curves.
That Cornell-red Finger Lakes U-boat is on Lehigh Valley’s Buffalo-Extension alignment in Victor.
Finger Lakes now owns and operates it. What used to be a 60-mph railroad is now good for about 10 mph.
And through Victor is not a curve. It’s straight-ish, boom-and-zoom!
The layout then does Geneva, which is somewhat modeled. It ain’t the Geneva I know, and most of Lehigh Valley’s alignment through Geneva is gone.
The layout also models Lehigh gorge, and this is extraordinarily well done. A large section is all trees in fall colors; they really did a good job on this section.
Although it’s loaded with track. I wonder if so much track was in Lehigh gorge? It also has tunnels; I wonder if Lehigh gorge had tunnels?
The model also has a long trestle, a model of an actual trestle on another railroad, New York, Ontario & Western’s Lyon Brook Trestle. But it’s much like Lehigh Valley’s trestle at Brooktondale, PA. (All the coal-hauling railroads in that area used trestles of similar design — NYO&W was also a coal-hauler, although it tanked in 1957.)
The layout passes giant Bethlehem Steel-Works, and that too is modeled.
It’s nice, but too pretty. That steel-works is spotless. In the real world, it would be weathered and dirty, belching fire, smoke, and filth.
Finally the layout ends in Jersey City, although it missed a few towns. In Jersey City it crossed a river through a long truss.
The river is plastic; it’s not actual water, which I’ve seen but never works. Tugboats are on the river. They may have been Lehigh Valley tugboats — I didn’t notice. I’m sure the railroad owned tugboats.
To get to New York City, Lehigh Valley’s freight had to be ferried. Lehigh Valley never crossed the Hudson.
A bunch of railroads, including Lehigh Valley, were going to bridge it, but never did.
Only Pennsylvania Railroad crossed the Hudson; they tunneled it, and that was just passenger-trains.
Lehigh Valley wasn’t mighty Pennsy, although its passenger-trains used Pennsy into New York City.
The layout is worth seeing, if that’s what turns you on.
But only five people at a time.
Crowd 50 in there, and it’s unbearable.
The aisles between segments are 3-4 feet wide. You’re cheek-to-jowl with everyone.
We could only stand about a half-hour.
Lehigh gorge is extraordinarily beautiful, but not when farting halitosis GrandPap is blessing you with stinkbombs, and breathing in your face.
Our visit was worth it, but “never again” said my retired bus-driver friend.
We then drove out to Despatch-Junction, a model-train shop east of Rochester.
It’s in the old “Despatch” railroad-station, hard by the CSX main, what used to be the New York Central main through what used to be called “Despatch,” but is now East Rochester.
My friend a had a $70 Despatch-Junction gift-certificate, given to him for his 70th birthday.
Despatch-Junction is awash with model-railroad paraphernalia, which I glanced at, but I was attracted to windows that looked out on the CSX main.
Hours passed, with people in the shop loudly arguing powerpak performance. A know-it-all store employee detailed how a Lionel transformer would light up the entire city of Rochester.
Finally, after hours of silence, I detected the rumble of an approaching train.
Model-trains are intriguing, but I prefer the real thing.
The train was westbound, and soon an eastbound passed.
“Where are the boxcars? Where’s the caboose?” cried the father of my friend’s friend.
The train was doublestacked truck containers. Some of it was trailer-on-flatcar.
And cabooses went out long ago. They were replaced by a small radio-device that monitors brakeline air-pressure, to inform the train-crew up front if it drops.
It’s what the guys in the caboose did, and look for flaws in their train. Now those flaws are detected by trackside defect-detectors that radio a report on the railroad’s operating-frequency.
Our final stop was a sports-bar for lunch. It’s in the shadow of the giant railroad-bridge where West Shore crossed Fairport Road.
West Shore was the line meant to compete with New York Central, but it was incorporated into New York Central.
A lot of it was abandoned, but this segment still exists, used as the Rochester Bypass.
The old West Shore line down the west shore of the Hudson River also still exists. It’s used as the CSX main toward New York City, although it doesn’t cross the Hudson.
The massive bridge is double-track, and was probably built by New York Central.
The line is now single track, although heavily used.

• 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.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• The “West Shore” was a line financed by the Pennsylvania Railroad to compete directly with the New York Central Railroad in New York state in the late 1800s. It was merged with NYC at the behest of J.P. Morgan, who got all the warring parties together on his yacht in Long Island Sound. The NYC got the West Shore for no longer financing the proposed South Pennsylvania Railroad (which was graded but never built, including tunnels, which were later incorporated into the Pennsylvania Turnpike).

Time to take stock

Yrs trly returns to his Escape on a jeep-trail, after snagging a train-picture. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

This is what I shot. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

A year has passed since I purchased the 2012 Ford Escape I now have.
I should take stock. It isn’t Ford’s new Escape, it’s the prior Mazda-based Escape. It had only 3,000 miles on it when I bought it.
I wondered why it had so few miles, and the salesman told me the guy who bought it new died almost immediately after he had it delivered.
The original-owner bought it from a dealer in central PA. After he died, it was sent to auction, where my local Ford dealer, Shepard Ford in Canandaigua, snagged it for resale as a used-car.
Shepard likes to sell low-mileage used-cars, and this thing was extremely low miles.
It’s a “Limited,” as opposed to “XLT.”
It has all the bells-and-whistles, most of which I don’t use. Heated leather seats, and satellite-radio, for example.
I don’t mind leather seats, but I haven’t subscribed to satellite-radio.
Why should I? I’d never play it. For me, radio is a distraction from safe driving. It’s the fact I once drove transit-bus, which required 100% concentration.
It also has Ford’s “Sync” computer-software, which includes GPS navigation and Bluetooth© to my cellphone.
The GPS navigation isn’t a display-screen, which I would like. It’s voice-prompt, and I don’t use it.
I always say the GPS is in my head. I have to know my way before starting — which I can do with GoogleMaps.
I’ll be a son-of-a-gun if I’m gonna have some disembodied broad busily recalculating, thereby getting me lost.
The Keed knows his way before he starts. We had to find a vet outside Buffalo (NY) to treat our cancerous dog. Buffalo was 70 miles away, and this vet was in a suburb.
I had to eventually put that dog to sleep, but I found that vet in an unknown area with GoogleMaps. —First try too, and without GPS.
Bluetooth to my cellphone via “Sync” is a disaster.
I can answer calls with it, but it may call someone other than intended when I make a call. It uses voice-recognition. If I command it to “call Cathy” (my cleaning-lady) it might call my railfan friend in Altoona, PA. The voice-recognition is terrible, and it’s Microsoft. Bill and his lackeys need to get their act together.
If I disable Sync, and just voice-command my phone to “call Cathy,” it will do it.
So what do I think of my car as a car?
Well, I probably didn’t need a V6 motor.
I was glad it had a V6; I would have been looking for a V6 Escape.
I usually tilt toward the stronger motor, or did in the past.
I figure my Escape weighs maybe 500 pounds more than our previous SUV, a Honda CR-V.
I was pleased it had a V6, but find it uses slightly more gas than our CR-V, 22 mpg versus 24.
This gets into how the number-of-cylinders affects fuel-economy. My salesman said a V6 would use more gas than a four.
This corroborates my own experience with lawnmowers. My first zero-turn lawnmower had a V-twin Briggs. My current zero-turn has a large Briggs single. It uses way less gas than did the V-twin.
My V6 is larger than the four, so would use more gas. But it’s like the number of cylinders affects gas-mileage.
My Escape also has a six-speed transmission, automatic of course.
It downshifts for the slightest hill. It’s always cranking 1,000-3,000 rpm on the tach.

My Escape’s independent-rear-suspension. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

The Escape also has IRS (independent-rear-suspension), illustrated at left; state-of-the-art.
IRS had been around for years, but hasn’t found much use yet. You mainly find it in racecars. It has the advantage of not having the opposite wheel affected by the bumped wheel. A solid connection between the rear wheels does this — plus the heavy differential is often part of that solid axle.
In an Escape, the differential is mounted to the chassis, so is not sprung. The wheels are driven by half-shafts — which are visible in the photograph.
The IRS on this car sold itself. Every time I saw one I’d note the IRS.
A Jeep Liberty looks even better, but it’s not IRS.
I don’t push very hard — although I probably could.
I can’t. I had a stroke, so can’t control a car at speed.
I might set the cruise at 65-70, but I get passed.
People are always shaking their fists at me, and giving me the middle-finger salute.
I guess 65-70 isn’t fast enough.
I can’t push, I’d be over-my-head.
So here I am driving a V6 when an inline four would be enough. Although I think a four would be slightly stressed dragging around 500 more pounds than our CR-V.
The main reason I bought the Escape is our CR-V was such a great train-chaser. (I’m a railfan, and have been since age-2. I am now 70.)
Our CR-V drove like a car, yet had All-Wheel-Drive. I often drive on icy farm-tracks and jeep-trails in pursuit of trains.
My Escape is the same as our CR-V, just slightly heavier.
An SUV also has a lot of ground-clearance. My railfan friend in Altoona, Phil Faudi (“FOW-deee;” as in “wow”) used his car to chase trains, and was afraid of bottoming on farm-tracks. There also were icy sections his car wouldn’t do.
I was always interested in these Mazda-based Escapes because they’re dog-friendly. The rear seats fold into a flat floor.
That floor is still three feet above the ground, a huge jump for an aging, arthritic dog.
But at least inside there’s plenty of headroom for a standing dog. Other SUVs I’ve looked at have -a) a ramped floor with not much headroom, -b) rear-seats that tumble forward and block the door entrance, and/or -c) worst of all, leave a gap behind the front seats a dog can fall into.
The Mazda’s rear seats fold into a flat floor that -a) doesn’t block the door, and -b) doesn’t leave a dog-swallowing gap.

The first-generation Ford Escape (would that my car looked as nice as this).

The first-generation Mazda Tribute.

A Ford Probe.

My car is the second-generation Escape, more a Ford, but it has Mazda underpinnings. The chassis is Mazda.
Ford affiliated with Mazda a long time. The first Ford Escape was essentially the Mazda Tribute SUV slightly rebodied.
Ford has since cut loose from Mazda, which is kind of a shame.
The new Escape is no longer Mazda-based. Some really great cars came out of that affiliation, like the Probe and the Escape. Mazda sold Ford’s Ranger pickup as a Mazda truck.
The Probe was supposed to be a Thunderbird replacement, I think, but I don’t know as it ended up like that. It stood alone, and was an excellent car, big for the Japanese market, but small for America. It was front-wheel-drive, and rather plain. I rented one in WV.
So I guess I’m pleased with my Escape. Sync can be irksome, but I use it little — mainly just for answering my cellphone hands-free while driving; and I don’t even like that.
My Escape seems as reliable as my Hondas were, and as my Chevrolet Astrovan often wasn’t — which I bought because I’m a Chevy-man.
My Escape is pleasant to drive, and I’m happy chasing trains with it.
So far I feel like it’s the only thing I’ve done since my wife’s death.
And too bad she’ll never see it. I think she would also be pleased.

• 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.
• “Bill” is Bill Gates, head-honcho of Microsoft.
• RE: “Our........” —My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• My “zero-turn” is my 48-inch 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 a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.

Canine adventures of widowerhood

Yesterday afternoon (Tuesday, March 4th, 2014), after working out at the YMCA in Canandaigua, I set about walking my dog around my property to close gates in a small backyard pen of chainlink fence.
Yaktrax on, since the footing was icy and terrible, I started into the woods on the south side of my property, next to chainlink fence my wife and I had installed years ago to keep our dog out of the highway.
As soon as I started, my neighbor’s dog, “Bear,” sounded the alarm.
“Bear” is a German-Shepherd, harbored by my neighbor to-the-south, not penned or tied-up.
Bear would soon be joining us, but he’s outside the fence, whereas my dog and I are inside the fence.
Sure enough, there was Bear as I trudged toward the back. As I exited my woods Bear was still around, and my dog was merrily chasing a rabbit across the field.
My dog is very much a hunter. A fenced rabbit is dead meat.
BAM! Got it! Off she ran toward my house with the rabbit limp in her jaws.
I continued along the fence toward my north woods, Bear tagging along outside the fence.
The north woods skirts the property of my northern neighbor, who rents a small cottage on his property.
As I turned west along beside his property, a pretty lady strode out walking her Rottweiler.
UH-OHHHH..........
Bear will want to say hello.
Sure enough, Bear found a hole and sauntered onto my neighbor’s property.
“Uh sir, your dog is on my property.”
“Not my dog,” I said.
This flustered the lady. She couldn’t blame me for wandering Lothario.
And so began our long standoff regarding how I could get Bear out of her yard.
Minutes passed, at least 10.
I found myself standing powerless.
As a widower I have no confidence at all. Taking command of a situation is no longer possible.
“What’s his name?” she asked.
“Bear,” I said.
“Perhaps you could call him,” she said, being pulled this-way-and-that by her lunging Rottweiler.
“Fat lotta good that’s gonna do,” I thought to myself. “I’m not his master, and furthermore there’s a Rottweiler over here to greet.”
“I’m just a 130-pound woman. I can’t deal with a lunging Rottweiler, and furthermore it’s icy.”
I found myself thinking she’s probably a divorcee, and no wonder. Her ex probably couldn’t stand the martyrdom.
I considered advising Yaktrax, but didn’t. Icy footing wasn’t her major problem. It was Bear in her yard.
I also tried calling Bear, but he stayed put.
“Well, I suppose I could get my leash, and snag Bear out of your yard,” I thought. “Except getting my leash, then snagging Bear, is 10-15 minutes of you getting tossed this-way-and-that, and trying to not fall.”
I left to get my leash.
Meanwhile, my hunter-dog was busily tearing apart her rabbit.
Leash in hand, I slowly trudged down the road to my neighbor’s driveway.
It’s gated, so what if the gate is locked closed?
It wasn’t, so I started in the long driveway.
Bear came to greet me, so collaring him was no problem, although I thought it might be.
After another 10 minutes of yammering, I took Bear out to the road. The poor girl’s adventure was at last over.
Up the highway I trudged with Bear — past my northern neighbor’s yard, my yard, and then toward my southern neighbor’s yard.
My road-frontage is 500 feet; a football-grid is 300 feet.
As I trudged along, my southern neighbor drove by, probably returning from work.
He got out of his car as he pulled in his driveway. His son would park the car.
“Bad dog,” he said, as he approached sheepishly with his leash.
“Fat lotta good that’s gonna do,” I thought. “Bear should be restrained.”
“You can’t go wandering like that,” his owner said.
So I wondered if the dog understands English. —Or German; it is a German Shepherd.
As I say, my ability to take command in these situations is severely compromised by my widowerhood, or so I feel.

• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• 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.)
• My current dog is “Scarlett” (two “Ts,” as in Scarlett O’Hara), a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s eight, and is my sixth Irish-Setter, a high-energy dog. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. [Scarlett was from a failed backyard breeder.] By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't bad. She’s my fourth rescue.)
• That’s probably my dog’s 10th rabbit.

They haven’t come after me yet

A year after I graduated college I began working for a bank in Rochester (NY), Lincoln-Rochester, which became Lincoln-First, and is now allied with Chase.
It wasn’t my first job, but was my first where my college-degree seemed to apply.
My first job was as a clerk in the tailor-shop of a large clothing-store called “National Clothing Company,” in Rochester. That store tanked perhaps 10 years after I left.
It was supposed to be Christmas-work, but turned into year-round employment.
It was fun, I enjoyed it.
I was learning a filing-system, and had it under control.
The tailor-shop was altering clothes, and had to keep track of what it was doing.
If a customer protested, I could look up what the tailor suggested, and been done.
The job turned into more than the tailor-shop.
I remember taking inventory one night for a big sale of suits from the Second-Floor. The Second-Floor was the premier men’s clothing outlet.
Most notable was the manager grabbing suits off the racks, and tossing hundreds of suits on-the-floor for counting. He was also rearranging things.
The floor was carpeted, but somewhat dirty. I was taken aback. Suits worth hundreds of dollars were being thrown on-the-floor. Some were worth $500; what now would be thousands of dollars.
I also worked the freight-elevator; it wasn’t automatic.
But I was shielded from the public.
Customers used an automatic elevator to get to the Second-Floor. There they were met by a greeter at the elevator-door who smiled and shook their hand and then directed them.
NO WAY was that clothing-store having me do that. I was perceived as scary and threatening.
Which was fine with me. I’m not a people-person.
I befriended quite a few people who had emigrated to our nation and found employ as tailors in our tailor-shop.
In other words, ferriners = non-honkies.
One Hungarian couple suggested I work at the bank next door. That it would pay more than my minimum-wage pay-rate, which at that time was $1.60 an hour.
Their son was a rising-star at that bank.
They helped me pick out a suit — actually two suits — and tailored them exquisitely.
I thereupon applied for a job at the bank. They hired me as a chief-clerk trainee for $100 per week.
I worked at that bank three years, and found I wasn’t a banker. Most loathsome was their penchant for breaking rules — like banking-law.
“Rules are made to be broken,” I was told.
The Chief-Clerk position was also being ended.
At that time each bank-branch was its own entity. The Chief-Clerk was to balance the branch and supervise tellers.
First I had to do teller-training. I was assigned to a busy bank-branch, and did okay — meaning I got so I could balance.
I then transferred to a busy city branch as “Head Teller.”
I wasn’t “Head Teller,” but I was doing large transactions.
It was during this time I learned the Chief Clerk there, a girl named Sandy, called herself the “Chief Jerk.”
Sometime along in here I was transferred to another bank-branch across from Kodak Park.
It was fairly busy, but was taking in huge deposits of unwrapped bills in grocery-bags from a nearby liquor-store. Christmas was coming, and everyone was buying liquor.
We were amazed the liquor-store owner never got hit; he was putting grocery-bags of unwrapped 20s in our night-deposit.
Years later he finally got robbed.
We had to wrap everything, and ship it to headquarters.
Other bank-branches were ordering cash perhaps once per week; yet we were shipping it three times per week.
I was then assigned to a suburban branch to learn the loan department.
The suburb was somewhat ritzy, and the Note-Department was essentially the Chief-Clerk, one Frank Welch, a farm-boy.
At that time each branch was its own loan-department, although only business loans.
That is, a business-owner might need a couple-thousand to purchase inventory. In which case the bank would loan him that money for a promissory-note kept on file at the branch.
When the note came due, the business-owner might pay it off in full, or just pay the interest and re-float the loan.
Such loans had no collateral, except loans to car-dealers, where the car would be collateral.
The other loan mechanism was demand-loans. They had no due-date, but -a) needed collateral, and -b) interest-payment.
This suburban office really had only one loan customer, an Executive Vice-President at Xerox.
He had hundreds of thousands of dollars in demand-loans, all collateralized by Xerox stock.
I remember him visiting our office one day, fat yet dapper in his Bermuda-shorts and tasseled golf-hat.
Everyone bowed and scraped. After all, this guy was our branch’s income.
With him I learned the bank’s favoritism toward large customers.
The branch-manager regularly approved the guy’s checking-account overdrafts. —That’s an interest-free loan!
Yet if some small-potatoes account bounced anything we were supposed to threaten the Sheriff.
Poor Frank! I drove him crazy with my questions, but I did successfully learn the notes.
I also nonplussed him when I pointed out our daily interest-accrual was inflating branch income by figuring interest on interest.
Changing that was impossible. To do so would decrease income from each branch, and branch-managers would be up-in-arms.
Interest-income should be figured on loans due, not loans plus interest due.
All bank-branches were doing this; the entire bank.
Plus we’re working with humans. A point-of-analysis might be beyond the bank’s employees.
After that loan-training, I was moved to a new branch trying to take root out in the hinterlands. I worked as a Chief-Clerk (“Jerk”), but under the actual Chief-Clerk at that branch, an old hand named “Nellie.” She had transferred from our busy Monroe Avenue branch in Rochester, a branch that made its money loaning to mobsters.
I remember my wife working at that branch. She hated the branch-manager, an avowed Christian profiting from mobsters.
That manager stridently professed his Christian faith, yet coddled gangsters and killers.
Nellie and I had a rollicking good time — she enjoyed her freedom from the madness that had been the Monroe Avenue branch.
But our new branch was failing.
Our manager had been an Assistant Branch-Manager at Monroe Avenue, and it was he that told me “Rules are made to be broken.”
He was breaking rules willy-nilly in a fervent attempt to make his branch a success.
But we were too early. Our area was not as well-developed as it would be 30 years hence.
After that branch I was named Chief-Clerk (“Jerk”) at our busy office in Henrietta. (“Deepest-darkest Henrietta”).
I was supposed to be the savior. I was supposed to straighten-out the Loan Department, and bring order-out-of-chaos by putting in a new lunch-schedule for my tellers.
I should have known. I laid out a new lunch-schedule, as asked, and my tellers promptly called in the branch manager, who reversed my lunch-schedule.
At this point I should have slammed the door of the branch-manager’s office and confronted him.
“You asked for a lunch-schedule, I do same, then you override what you asked for.
Who’s supervising the tellers, you or me?
If it’s you instead of me, cut me loose!”
But callow youth that I was I didn’t do this.
The Loan-Department was another hairball. It was goofed-up because a teller had been assigned to it, and she was clearly over her head. No one was giving her guidance. She had no training. —She didn’t understand what she was doing.
As a result, the daily income from the Loan-Department was way too high,  discovered by audit.
So I refigured it, causing weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth from the branch-manager, because my figure was much lower. (Gasp!)
The manager questioned my intelligence in front of the staff. Leadership by me was clearly impossible.
Being Chief-Clerk at this branch was turning into madness, yet callow youth that I was I continued.
At one point the Assistant Branch-Manager went toe-to-toe with the Branch-Manager. It’s what I should have done.
I began to hide. I’d go down to the lunchroom and rearrange the bottles in our soda-machine.
Upstairs I was parrying madness.
My daily input fell to putting out fires.
I did a lunch-schedule, but it had to be approved by both staff and manager.
Management’s suggestion was to have tellers put out the fires. A nice idea, but I’d have to show them how.
About all they could do was alphabetize signature-cards.
I did training in double-entry bookkeeping, but only one of my students got it.
Another insisted I skip the background, and just show her the motions.
(Which was why our Loan-Department got screwed up.)
I had to monitor customer-lines. If tellers started getting lines, our manager would go ballistic. I’d be loudly castigated — like I should be able to predict when lines would form.
“Where’s Maddy?” the Branch-Manager would bellow.
“Out to lunch,” I’d say; “per your lunch-schedule.”
“Go get her anyway,” he’d scream; “we’re swamped!
At this point I should have said “Oh you want me to endure the wrath of Maddy, not you.”
I’d go get Maddy.
“But Bob,” she’d say; “I’m out to lunch.”
“The boss needs your help.”
“Oh, in that case.......”
Maddy was queen of the teller-line.
Everyone loved Maddy. Customers always went to her because she knew everyone, and would cash their checks without question.
Every branch seemed to have a queen. Nellie was one, and then there was Pat Chatterton, an Assistant Branch-Manager.
At that office across from Kodak Park, the Chief-Clerk was the queen; and our office in Brighton had one whose name I think was Helen. She was Head-Teller. She supervised the tellers, relieving the Chief-Clerk of that duty.
Maddy was queen of the Henrietta branch, She also lived nearby.
I remember what a hard time I had getting my tellers to reduce their cash-drawers.
Mega-millions in the cash-drawer seemed to be a point of honor.
Before my being at Henrietta a teller was robbed of $33,000.
Well of course it was $33,000. $33,000 was what she had in her till.
“What I need is about $500 in your till —excess in your cash-truck. If you’re gonna be robbed, $500 is more reasonable than $33,000.”
Plus the Chief-Clerk position was ending. No longer would a bank-branch be its own entity. Everything would be proofed by headquarters, and headquarters would balance the branch.
Management thereupon guided me toward front-desk duty; meeting the public.
For which I was totally unsuited.
Headquarters thereafter decided I was unsuited for what was happening, so they got mad.
They decided the only bank-employ I was suited for was some kind of auditing from central dungeons.
I wasn’t interested, so the branch “laid me off” — or so they claimed.
The branch-staff held a big going-away party for me at some restaurant. Another good one ruined.
I remember the restaurant-staff congratulating me on my promotion.
“Yeah,” I said; “promoted out the door!”
I left behind a giant “pending-pile” in my desk-drawer. Stuff not important, but too difficult to farm out.
I always wonder what happened when they discovered my pending-pile.
But they haven’t come after me yet.
No one at headquarters ever questioned that branch-manager about excessive management turnover.
His branch was making money hand-over-fist.
But I would say it wasn’t him. It was more that the town around that branch had been heavily developed, and that branch was first in the area.

• RE: “Kodak Park........” —For a long time Rochester was a one-industry town, namely Kodak. Kodak’s manufacturing facilities were in a large area in northwestern Rochester known as “Kodak Park.” Kodak Park had its own fire-department, police, and railroad. Film was manufactured therein, along with Kodak cameras. With the recent ascendency of digital photography, Kodak Park has become moribund, and many of its buildings torn down. Kodak also declared bankruptcy. Kodak Park has become a large industrial-park, with new small start-up industries occupying old “Park” buildings. —The bank-branch was across from Kodak Park.
• “Deepest, darkest Henrietta” is a rather effusive and obnoxious suburb south of Rochester.
• “Brighton “is a suburb southeast of Rochester. It’s between Rochester and Henrietta.

“LIES! LIES! LIES!”

Why are these people the same grinning Cheshire-cats as in my “Flirting is ageless” ads?

Yesterday (Saturday, March 1st, 2014) I received an invitation in my mail to tear up my AARP-card — which I’m not even a member of —  and join something called “Association of Mature American Citizens” (AMAC).
A so-called “conservative alternative to AARP.”
A gigantic letter was enclosed, detailing all the so-called slights of AARP.
Well, HEXX-KUZE ME, but it sounded like a Tea-Party diatribe.
“ObamaCare has failed,” it screamed.
Like what, pray tell, does that have to do with AARP?
Of course ObamaCare has failed, as has Obama.
He’s not part of the Kiwanian establishment that has run this country for years.
In fact, he’s the wrong race! He’s not even a honky.
IMAC of course states Social-Security benefits shouldn’t be taxed.
Yet McDonnell-Douglas and Lockheed-Martin should remain on corporate welfare. Our guys in Benzes and BMWs are more legitimate than mommas in welfare-Cadillacs.
I don’t think you’re gonna be able to continue corporate-welfare without taxing Social-Security.
A friend pointed out President Reagan had the borrowing-limit raised 11 times. As I recall, Dubya had the borrowing-limit raised at least once, without drama or histrionics, and probably more often than that.
Yet Obama tries to get the debt-ceiling raised and Boehner and his lackeys go ballistic and hold the American-public hostage.
Regrettably, I shredded the solicitation almost immediately. I shouldn’t have, so I could recount some of the insanity therein.
Another friend sent me an Internet-listing of accomplishments of Obama.
The national-debt is down, unemployment is down, and public optimism is up. All these so-called “improvements” are slight, but they came during political gridlock in Washington.
Would that I hadn’t shredded the solicitation. It would have made laughable reading.
What I remember most was “LIES! LIES! LIES! LIES!”
With that they gave themselves away. In the shredder!