Yo-Mama

Long ago, 1955, when I was in fifth-grade, all the little boys in my class lusted after classmate Yo-Mama.
That was because she was extremely well-endowed with a gigantic rack.
That is, all the little boys but me.
Gigantic rack or not, she had a large moon-shaped face, always scowling, was built like a center for the New-England patriots, and seemed a mite portly.
I was more attracted to Surly Shirley, who lived in a large nearby apartment-complex, and sunned herself strapless outside on a blanket.
She wasn’t as well-endowed as Yo-Mama, but she was a tart.
She was the sexpot daughter of an Air Force daddy, and they lived in the apartment-complex because he might get relocated.
I’m a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of sexual relations.
Hilda was the Sunday-School superintendent of my parents’ church. She also lived next-door.
She convinced me as a pants-wearer no female would have anything to do with me.
My parents concurred by also convincing me I was “Of-the-Devil.”
Yet there was Surly Shirley, but she lived on the wrong-side-of-town, in an apartment-complex, for cryin’ out loud.
I also got the attention of a cute Jewish girl named Yada-yada, who despite going steady with a dude named Mike, chased me on her bicycle.
I biked away scared, no idea what I’d say. It’s the Walton legacy.
Shirley even sent me a cryptic note inviting me to a dance. I still have it; it’s in my safe-deposit box. (A dance, with my father?)
Yada was cute, but she was also from the wrong side of town, north of Marlton Pike. She was also Jewish (gasp), the wrong religion.
The girls Mrs. Walton would have me interested in were all older than me, somewhat boring as church-members, and hardly sexy.
There was only one non church-member from the right side of town, ????????????, same age as me, and two doors distant.
But she had become a trollop. She bleached her hair blonde, and would parade through our neighborhood in her skimpy yellow bikini headed for “Bare-Ass-Beach.” (“BAB.”)
I’d heard all about “Bare-Ass-Beach,” but wasn’t sure it existed until I walked to it one afternoon through the woods.
Sure enough, there they were with buxom Yo-Mama sunning themselves bare-naked on a small beach next to a muddy creek.
The beach was a tiny sandbar; no poison-ivy. How ??????? avoided poison-ivy walking through woods in her skimpy bikini I’ll never know.
A few hard-rocks with greasy DA haircuts were also sunning themselves bare-naked.
Plus a tall gangly girl named Barbara — I can’t remember her last name. She looked embarrassed to be buck-naked.
Such were the social-pressures of south Jersey.
I don’t recall any intercourse.
That Walton legacy is still with me, as it has been over sixty years.
I still feel intimidated by girls. And that’s despite all the girls that chased me when I drove bus.
So now I wonder if ??????? and Surly Shirley and Yada and Yo-Mama are still alive.
Yo-Mama is probably overweight, and Surly Shirley is probably upset she’s a fading sexpot.
?????? still lives in my old neighborhood. She’s alone, and has divorced a few times.
Too bad I didn’t visit her when I visited Hilda back in ’92.

• “Q” stood for Quincy, her maiden-name.
• “Marlton Pike” was the main east-west drag through our little town. Anything north of Marlton Pike was “the wrong side of town” to faire Hilda. We lived south of Marlton Pike. — “Surly Shirley’s” apartment-complex was far east of where I lived, thereby making it “the wrong side of town.”
• 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.

No Internet

The other morning, Sunday, July 27th, 2014, I fired up this here computer and opened my Internet-browser, which is Firefox.
This ‘pyooter can fool you. You think you’re getting Internet, but what you’re actually getting is the site stored in your computer’s memory.
Ask the site to refresh, and my browser has to get the site from scratch to bring it up again.
I was getting the “Firefox cannot load site” message with every refresh.
“UH-OHHH,” I thought to myself. “Looks like the Internet burped.”
This happens occasionally, sometimes related to a weather anomaly, like a thunderstorm, or utility-lines brought down by a car-accident, requiring rerouting over alternate circuits.
“Time to reboot my modem,” I said to myself.
All this is, is pulling the plug on my cable-Internet modem for 10-15 seconds, then replugging, which makes the modem reset.
So I did that, and got my Internet back.
Later that afternoon, I fired up again, and again no Internet.
I reset my modem yet again, but this time it didn’t get me back online.
“What fun is that?” I e-mailed an old friend who’s fooled with personal-computers since the Atari days.
I’m not as experienced as him. My first ‘pyooter was about 25 years ago, when state-of-the-art was a 386.
No SX cheap-shots for this kid!
At that time the average personal-computer was a 286-SX; “SX” being some way of making computers cheap by I forget how.
I did state-of-the-art, a 386-40 (40-meg hard-drive — this laptop’s hard-drive is 500 gigs; that’s 500,000 megs), with Windows® 3.0 as its operating-system.
We later upgraded to Windows 3.1.
Later I switched to Apple Macintosh, mainly because my employer, a newspaper, computerized with Apple Macintosh.
At that time Windows was disdained by the Apple-crowd, like it was inferior.
This seemed to be true. Various computer-functions under Windows prompted the hourglass.
That’s not true any more.
Windows seems to have caught up.
I advise previous Windows-users to not switch to MAC.
“Stick with whatcha know,” I say.
MAC is a whole ‘nother ball-game, and I don’t think it’s superior. MAC can drive a PC-user crazy.
My wife’s employer was PC-based, so she drove a Windows PC.
My MAC would drive her up-the-wall.
I am now on MAC number-three, this MacBook Pro laptop. I still have number-two, my G4 tower, but number-one, a beige G3 desktop, tanked. It’s probably cluttering some landfill.
My niece got my wife’s PC when my wife died. It was a laptop, and its operating-system was Windows-Seven. It replaced her big clunker laptop with Windows-XP.
I don’t watch TV hardly at all.
I prefer this here ‘pyooter and the Internet.
Which can lead astray, but I know that.
I’ve seen spellings of Hillary Clinton as both “Hillary” and “Hilary.”
And Dulles Airport as both “Dulles” and “Dullas.”
I also read a history-article that had Pennsylvania Railroad’s “Horseshoe Curve” originally built with four tracks.
Uh NO; one or two. It was later increased to three and then four. But it wasn’t originally built with four tracks.
So without my beloved Internet I climb the walls.
Finally I called Time-Warner, my Internet-service-provider.
“We value your call. Please hold during the silence: BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA!”
After a few minutes I reported no Internet to some high-school dropout.
After a few minutes more I got referred to Internet-Technical-Support.
Sounded like India — the guy could hardly speak English. But he fiddled my modem from wherever he was.
“It’s back,” I declared.
I then reported my modem was probably five years old: ancient in the ‘pyooter-world.
He suggested I should swap for a new modem; my original modem was free from Time-Warner, and the new modem would be free too. (It’s their modem.)
So drag-ass all the way to Time-Warner in deepest, darkest Rochester (NY) — I have a slew of other errands I could do along the way.
So Monday (July 28th) I took my dog and drove all-the-way to Time-Warner, about 20 miles one-way.
I now have a new modem, and it’s getting Internet.
Sweetness and light!

• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• My beloved wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• My current dog is “Scarlett” (two “Ts,” as in Scarlett O’Hara), a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s ten, 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.)

DREAD!

BEEEEEP! (Alarums-Alarums!)
Another gumint alert to my cellphone.
A flash-flooding alert.
“Dismiss!”
This is the second cellphone alert I’ve received.
First was an Amber-alert, notification of a missing teenager.
Scared me to death!
That child was found; probably because of that cellphone alert.
Well okay, but I have a feeling gumint minions will go bonkers with cellphone alerts.
Given some new technology to inflate their egos, we’ll get an alert for everything. Cellphone use interrupted so the gumint can alert us about the silliest of things.
Like heavy snow expected, or Granny behind the wheel.
So what will happen is what I just did: shut the damn things off in my cellphone settings.
Well, maybe I’ll turn my Amber-alerts back on. It’s worthwhile to counter a child-kidnapper.
But I don’t think I need gumint nannies interrupting my cellphone use to tell me to watch for ducks crossing.

Calendar-chase

So begins the mad calendar-chase, my attempt to get all seven calendars I use.
They aren’t really calendars. What they are is wall-art that changes every month.
In fact, I really use only one as a calendar, plus I keep appointments in my iPhone.
It’s July, for cryin’ out loud!
And I already have one 2015 calendar, my All-Pennsy color calendar.
“Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence, but once the largest railroad in the world.
I’m a railfan, and have been since age-2 — I’m 70.
And I’m a Pennsy railfan.
But the “All-Pennsy color calendar” sells out quickly.
I have to order early. There have been times I missed it.
The “All-Pennsy color calendar” is published by Tide-Mark Press, who publishes other calendars.
I can’t be the only Pennsy railfan. You’d think they’d publish enough to not quickly run out.
I had forgotten to order, but then an order-form  for the Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar arrived, the calendar I got for years.
In fact, for a time it was my only calendar.
The first Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar was published in 1966.
My first was ’68 or ’69.
The first Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendars were a collaboration of photographer Don Wood and publisher Carl Sturner.
Wood had taken many photographs of the Pennsylvania Railroad, particularly steam, in the late ‘50s.
The calendar eventually ran out of Wood’s extraordinary photos, and began using other photographers.
But they published as good as Wood.
Both Wood and Sturner are now gone.
Wood was an inspiration for me.
About 1970 I took a trip through central PA trying to find Wood’s photo-locations.
It didn’t work. It was pouring rain, but most importantly everything had grown in since Wood had been through.
So now I have my two most important calendars, although my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar won’t come until September.
Although it is ordered. My All-Pennsy color calendar is already here.
That leaves five more calendars.
I usually receive an e-mail notification for my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar in August or September. I order online.
I usually get a catalog from Oxman Publishing, source of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar, usually in September or October. I order that online too.
Three to go.
I try to order my Motorbooks Musclecar calendar by October or November. It’s online at Motorbooks, a large supplier of motoring books. They publish the calendar themselves, one of many they publish.
That leaves only two. My Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is ordered snail-mail from a  Trains Magazine ad, usually in their December issue.
That is, I’m usually ordering it around the end of November.
I’m also putting together my own calendar at that time, which I send out as Christmas-presents.
My calendar is photos I recently took where the old Pennsy main, now Norfolk Southern, crossed Allegheny Mountain in central PA.
The line is still quite busy, and my pictures are stuff shot with Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”), the railfan extraordinaire from that area who was leading me around.
Phil was doing it as a business at first, but gave that up after -a) too many near-misses with him driving, and -b) a newer car he didn’t wanna abuse.
He cut back to leading me, and others, around with us driving. Now he can’t even do that. His wife has Multiple Sclerosis, and I’d rather he take care of his wife.
I’ve gotten so I can do pretty well on-my-own — I consider myself one of his graduates — and the line is quite busy anyway.
So quite a few pictures are already set aside to process for my calendar — which is great fun.
My calendar is produced by Shutterfly, and although it’s adequate, it’s not as good as my first calendars, which were Kodak Gallery, which tanked with the Kodak bankruptcy.
Most of my pictures are Faudi-and-me, but some are just me.
Just about all the pictures are at Faudi photo-locations.
I’ve also begun using photos by my brother Jack, from Boston, if his were better. Also my nephew Tom, from northern DE.
Faudi still leads me around somewhat; but from his house.
He monitors his railroad-radio scanner at home, then calls my cellphone.
This works great; he can still lead me around, yet be around for his wife if she has a problem.
Which is fine with me. If he cares about his wife, I can understand that.
My wife is now gone, but I jumped through plenty of hoops trying to keep her alive.

• My beloved wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.

Falling into a time of inactivity

Yrs Trly has managed to remain fairly active for someone my age (70).
I was walking my dog long walks at a nearby park, and working-out at the YMCA in nearby Canandaigua.
But now I seem to be falling into a period of relative inactivity.
All because my left knee is hurting. It has me hobbling.
I had to give up walking my dog, and pretty-much give up aerobic exercise at the YMCA.
I was referred to an orthopedist, who I visited Wednesday, July 23rd, 2014.
Over a year ago I slammed hard on that knee when I fell on ice walking my dog at the park.
My knee pretty-much recovered, but became a bother again over a month ago.
People were advising left-and-right; ice, cold-pacs, hot-pacs, Ace bandage, etc. I tried ‘em all, but was still hobbling.
I went to my regular doctor, and he prescribed X-rays to see if anything was broken. It wasn’t.
He suggested I see an orthopedist.
I thought this needed a referral, but I could go there myself. We set up an appointment over two weeks ago. That is, at least two weeks passed between my call-up and the actual appointment.
A kindly orthopedist walked in, poked around, and ordered X-rays of his own. My previous X-rays weren’t load-bearing; he needed load-bearing.
He handed me a hospital-gown, since I had taken my pants off.
“So the nurses don’t follow you down the hall.”
“Uh, sure Doc,” I thought to myself. “As if some lithesome young tart is gonna be attracted to someone my age.”
I ain’t Adonis. If anyone’s attracted to me it will be the same thing that attracted my wife, my penchant for humorous snide-remarks that skewer conventionality.
I never was Adonis. I’m not some square-jawed Clark Kent.
I also have noted most girls are turned off by snide remarks, humorous or not.
But my wife wasn’t, and endured 44-plus years of madness because I made humorous snide-remarks.
But now my wife is gone. I no longer am the person I was with her.
But I still make snide-remarks.
I end up wondering why I always elicit the same favorable response from those attracted to humorous snide-remarks.
Which seem to be potshots and snide-remarks in return.
Although thems that respond favorably are a minority.
My wife wasn’t gorgeously cute or attractive.
But she wasn’t fat or obnoxious.
I always told her she had what mattered, which was what was between her ears.
There were a few others like that in my past.
I had a female cousin I could talk to, and I remember a strange-looking girl in college who clearly had what mattered.
She was a good thinker, and showered me with enlightenment.
My wife was like that too, although perhaps not as open about it.
My wife could occasionally say things that were enlightening.
But now she’s gone, and I’m left to my own devices, which appear to be adequate.
Other widows and widowers I know might be more desirous of replacing a marriage-mate.
But not this kid!
“Whatever attracts me,” I say; “has to be as attractive as what I had.”
And I don’t expect that to readily happen.
My wife was in the minority.
I’m not on-the-hunt.
So my orthodontist displayed the X-rays on his computer-monitor.
My right knee looked fine, but my left knee is almost bone-on-bone, even bone-on-bone in some places.
That is, my cushioning cartilage is almost all worn away, or worn away in some places.
The definition of arthritis; I had him define it.
So now I’m shot up with Cortisone, and not in so much pain.
The orthopedist drew off almost a half-cup of fluid swelling.
I also have been prescribed physical-therapy, to supposedly build up muscles around my knee.
And supposedly give me an aerobic option I can do.
But bone-on-bone may lead to knee-replacement. For now we’re seeing if I can get by without it.
My father (long-gone) apparently had a knee replaced, and my sister-in-law (still alive) had a knee replaced.
I don’t remember either.

• My beloved wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.

Marcy, it’s everywhere

Uhm.......

Now that I’m pretty-much caught up with my blogging — my August 2014 Monthly Calendar-Report was finished two weeks ago — I worried I’d have nothing to blog about.
But something always appears, fulfilling my advice to Marcy there’s always utter madness to blog.
Marcy is my Number-One Ne’er-do-Well. We worked in adjacent cubicles at the Messenger Newspaper. She was the first I sent stuff to. She thought them so hilarious she began filing them in her computer.
They were just stuff I was filing on my family’s website. Now my vaunted Ne’er-do-Well e-mail list comprises maybe 20-25, and what I blog is not always madness.
Marcy was also the one that got me into BlogSpot blogging. My family’s website tanked, so now my stuff only flies on BlogSpot.
As I say, madness is everywhere; all I have to do is see it, then blog it.
One time Marcy asked how I had so much insanity to blog about: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” I shrieked.
Perhaps a week ago a solicitation came for me to financially support some effort to memorialize WWII female aviators (WASPs)
They’re apparently building a museum at an airfield in Texas.
The envelope has a so-called “bird’s-eye view”of a proposed hanger-extension — illustrated above.
I wondered if that bird could fly.
Obviously the viewing bird was still on the ground; the “bird’s-eye view” appeared to be a side-elevation.
Every “bird’s-eye view” I’ve seen before was from up in the sky looking down.
I know I’m picking nits. But I worked for a newspaper, and right-wing extremists were all-too-happy to point out our mistakes, especially grammatical errors.
“Well, you know what they meant” wasn’t good enough for the extremists, unless it was their mistake.
They’d loudly claim we were too liberal and therefore stupid; that they could do a better job.
Often they sent us Letters-to-the-Editor we’d have to clean up. They’d go ballistic we did that, and phone to castigate our publisher (the head-honcho).
We had to make them say what they meant.
We should have published ‘em as is.
I remember once getting a phonecall from some lady screaming about “freedom-of-the-press.” All because we had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to doctor her letter so it said what she meant — that we were too liberal and therefore stupid. What press freedom had to do with her beef we had no idea. She was doing a Rush Limbaugh imitation. She was soaking her telephone’s mouthpiece just like Limbaugh soaks his gold-plated microphone.
Sometimes they’d copy/paste directly from the Limbaugh website. We could tell because such letters were cogent and well-written. Obviously someone was ghosting for Limbaugh.
Once an extremist called and started angrily haranguing our City-Editor. He got her crying. Our Executive-Editor had to take over and shut him down. Extremist-dude called back, and we put him on infinite hold.
So some underpaid graphic-artist imports the architect’s side-elevation onto his envelope template.
And then labels it a “bird’s-eye view.”
And the overpaid mavens don’t catch it.
Well, we know what they meant.
It wasn’t us, the dreaded media, a newspaper (GASP).
So therefore it doesn’t matter — unless it’s a newspaper.

• A picture of “Marcy” is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells.
• The “Messenger Newspaper” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger, from where I retired almost nine 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.)

Krooze-night

Scarlett. (This is four years ago; now she’s gray in the muzzle.) (Photo by Linda Hughes.)

The other morning (Monday, July 14th, 2014) I took my dog to Petco in nearby Canandaigua (“cannan-DAY-gwuh”).
Petco is a pet-supply store. I needed a small bag of dogfood.
They allow pets in the store as long as they’re leashed. I decided to take my dog instead of abandoning her in my house.
WHOA! Yanking and pulling every-which-way when I let her out of my car. A silly lunging monster; this is the high-energy Irish-Setter I brought home.
I may be lame and old, but I can still hang on to my dog.
We went into Petco.
Yippee; a new place to check out — lots of food and toys.
Lunging this-way-and-that; I’d get pulled down aisles.
I managed to find my dogfood, then got in line to check out.
“Awww; can I pet your dog? She’s beautiful.”
The store had treats on display below the checkout counter. My dog glommed a few.
Well, obviously this was a great idea. Take my silly dog some place she’s never been, but I get the dog I brought home five years ago.
One of my supermarkets in Canandaigua, Wegmans, holds a car-krooze on Thursday nights. A fellow widower I eat with bought an SS-Camaro he shows at this show.
Being a car-guy myself. I’ve wanted to attend this show, but always felt like I had the dog-problem. I felt like in order to attend this show, I had to abandon my dog in the house.
But after Petco, I decided I should take my dog to the show.
So, off we went, headed for the Thursday-night Wegmans car-krooze.
I found my friend and his Camaro right away. We exchanged greetings, and I immediately began walking around.
Lunging and pulling: “Oh, what a pretty dog?”
“Can I pet your dog?”
“What kind of dog is it? You don’t see Irish-Setters any more.”
I had along my camera, and didn’t get far before I saw the gorgeous 1962 Pontiac Bonneville convertible pictured.


A ‘62 Bonny — one of the best-looking cars ever. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

I almost said something, but didn’t, because it’s not 1961, which I consider one of the best-looking cars ever.
‘62 is almost as nice, but not as nice as the ‘61.
The only thing wrong is GM’s failure to give up the knee-knocking “Wrap-Around” windshield.
Both the ‘61 and ‘62 Pontiacs still have that tiny vestige of a Wrap-Around windshield.
The Wrap-Around wasn’t gone until the 1964 model-year. Other ‘61 and ‘62 GM cars have that same windshield, Chevrolet, Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac.
I continued my wandering, being pulled this-way-and-that.


Ersatz 427 Cobra. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

“Is it an actual 427 Cobra?” I asked the owner of the car pictured.
“It’s not. I had to pull out the original 427, then install a new motor. It’s 402 cubic-inches. But the car-body is 427 Cobra.”
“Looks like a 427,” I exclaimed, snapping a picture.
Next I came across the white ‘57 Chevy Bel Air two-door hardtop pictured, an excellent example of perhaps the most collectible classic-car, the ‘57 Chevy.


The two-door hardtop. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


The four-door hardtop. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

I saw at least three ‘57 Chevys at this show, none of which were convertibles, perhaps the most collectible classic-car of all.
Not many Tri-Chevys were in attendance; ‘55, ‘56 and ‘57.
I didn’t see any ‘55s, and I prefer the ‘55s.
I saw only one ‘56, a two-door sedan (a “post”), and it was leaving, although it sounded strong.
Hardtops are no longer made. They lack the vertical door-post up to the roof like a sedan. The front and rear side-windows of a hardtop interlace just like a convertible; which is where the name comes from: “hardtop convertible.”
That hardtop doesn’t retract, of course. Only Ford did that for a few years; ‘57 through ‘59. It was overly complicated, and its top was short.
A hardtop has no roof stiffness. Flip a hardtop and its roof will crush. Safety-mavens in the guvamint decided roof-stiffness was needed so a car could roll without killing its occupants.
The windshield might shatter, and other glass, but a car can end up on its roof without it crushing.
Okay, but losing the hardtop was a loss. It looked really great, especially if all the windows were cranked down.
The four-door hardtop was an engineering nightmare. The heavy rear door was hung off a post that didn’t go all the way up to the roof. You had to engineer chassis-stiffness that didn’t sag everything at that door-post. Otherwise the rear door wouldn’t shut, and/or the side-windows wouldn’t properly interlace and seal.
They managed to pull it off. I’ve seen many four-door hardtops, but never a one where the glass and door didn’t line up.
Maybe there was a tiny bit of sagging, enough to throw the rear doors out of alignment, but it was minimal.
I then came across what to me is “Best-of-Show,” the red ‘57 Thunderbird pictured.


Best-in-Show. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

I always liked the early two-seat Thunderbirds, especially the ‘57. And that’s despite its canted tailfins which look okay on a Thunderbird, but ridiculous on full-size sedans. —Think N.Y. taxi!
‘Birds weren’t as interesting as the early ‘Vettes, which lacked the style the T-birds had.
And the ‘Birds, though unsophisticated with a boat-anchor motor — compared to Chevy’s SmallBlock — were steel, not fiberglass.
Wandering complete, I then sat down next to my friend’s Camaro.
But I soon got up to visit a nearby Wegmans concession selling hotdogs, hamburgers, and soda-pop.
“Any chance I can get water for my dog?” I asked.
They proffered a bottle of bottled-water and a plastic drink-glass.
SLURP-SLURP-SLURP-SLURP; but she then knocked it over, spilling everything.
Later I went back for a hamburger, that night’s dinner.
It wasn’t easy to eat that hamburger with my dog continually trying to snag it.
I saved her a small piece; CHOMP-CHOMP-CHOMP-CHOMP!
I then continued wandering.
I came across a 1964 Corvair identified as a Yenko Stinger.
I don’t know as there were any 1964 Yenko Stingers; Wikipedia is telling me the first Yenko Stingers were the second-generation Corvairs, actually 1966.


A ‘64 Corvair Monza coupe. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Corvairs always interest me, since I had one myself.
They were General Motors’ most Porsche-like (“POOR-sha”) car, unique enough for opportunist Ralph Nader to make a life as a crusader against corporate evil.
The Yenko Stinger was a special version of the Corvair tuned by Don Yenko.
The motor was souped up, and handling supposedly improved.
But that was 1966; the car pictured (1964) may not be a “Yenko Stinger.”
My Corvair was stock; not even a four-speed floor-shift — it was PowerGlide.
It was my first legitimate car; not my first car, which was a Triumph TR-3 totally unsuited for transportation.
My Corvair was the first car I could drive in rainy or Winter weather.
My father purchased it used for $600 by cosigning the loan.
But I couldn’t pay it, which I never heard the end of despite later forking over hundreds of dollars for my younger siblings’ college educations.
The Corvair pictured looks like my car, which was also a black Monza coupe.
But it’s a ’64; mine was a ’61.
Other Corvairs were also at the show, including second-generation Corvairs, which I prefer.
Too bad GM had to give up on the Corvair. It was Nader, but mainly Ford’s Mustang, which is really just a reconfigured Ford Falcon.
There weren’t many hotrods, but there were a few.


A-bone. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


T-cup. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

One was a pretty red five-window Model-A coupe made into a hotrod, and there was a T-cup hotrod, all-engine, and not much else.
A five-window coupe has the fourth and fifth windows behind the door-posts. A T-cup is the tiny Model-T roadster body, which looks like a cup. T-cup hotrods are generally hardly anything.
Hot-rodders call the Model-A “A-bone;” Model-Ts “T-bone.”
I also came across the insanity pictured, a tiny Volkswagen Beetle re-engineered as a V8 hotrod.


As a friend says:  “Gas it and flip!” (Photo by BobbaLew.)

I had to take a picture. Look at the rear tires! The area that used to be motor is now all tires.
And of course when I asked the owner how he could drive such a thing, I got the macho-man response.
I then discovered my poor neighbor up-the-street still trying to sell his gorgeous 25th-Anniversary Corvette, which he had on display. A “For-Sale” sign was in its windshield.
“How much do you want for it?” asked a callow young dreamer.
“Eleven-six,” my neighbor said.
Dreamer walked away.
$11,600 is ridiculously cheap for what to me is a gorgeous $25,000 car.
I’d be interested myself were it a four-speed floorshift, but it’s automatic.
“So otherwise, how ya doin’?” my neighbor asked.
“Well, I haven’t burned the house down yet.”
My neighbor knows my wife died, and is also a car-guy like me.
My dog yanked me into a tree, nearly pulling me down in surrounding mulch.
We weren’t far from the food-concession, so “How about I give your dog a hotdog?”
“Sure, she’ll eat it,” I said.
The dude took a white-hot off his grill and broke it up for my dog.
CHOMP-CHOMP-CHOMP-CHOMP! Gone in a second.
I then headed back toward my friend’s Camaro, but a lady I met earlier produced a hamburger-scrap. “Can I give it to your dog?”
CHOMP!
We then decided to leave.
But not before my friend poured water into a paper-plate, so my dog could drink.
SLUP-SLUP-SLUP-SLUP!
Do I come again the next time (this coming Thursday)? We could only spare about an hour.
Plus it wasn’t that good as a car-show.
The only reason Wegmans holds these car-kroozes is because their current CEO, Danny Wegman, son of founder Robert Wegman, is very much a car-guy.
Apparently he used to street-race a 454 Chevelle.
Now as CEO of Wegmans, a very successful grocery because of his leadership, Danny can afford Ferraris, and has at least one.
I’ve seen Danny’s Ferrari in the Canandaigua Wegmans parking-lot. He lives nearby on Canandaigua Lake.
It’ s like what Ferrari has he got this week?
Yet no Ferrari was at the car-krooze. And no sign of Danny.
I probably won’t come, but at the car-show my dog was her old self, a nutty Irish-Setter.

• “Linda Hughes” is my beloved wife of over 44 years, who died of cancer April 17th, 2012. My friend’s wife died about a year later, also of cancer. They were married 51+ years.
• My current dog is “Scarlett” (two “Ts,” as in Scarlett O’Hara), a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s nine, 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.)
• “White-hots” are hotdogs made of white meat. “Red-hots” are hotdogs made of red meat. “White-hots” and “red-hots” seem to be specific to Rochester, NY.

Faux Pas

The other night, probably Monday, July 14th, 2014, I worried I might have stepped in it.
An old friend, who now lives near Los Angeles, had recently changed his Facebook profile-picture.
This guy is Bryan Mahoney, who worked at the Daily Messenger newspaper in nearby Canandaigua while I was there.
I used to say he was the best reporter the Messenger ever had during my tenure. All because he had the moxie to try Roseland Water-Park’s 100-foot water-slide when it opened.
Adventures like that prompt the best writing.
Mahoney married Marcy Dewey, my number-one Ne’er-Do-Well; the one who got me blogging.
There was another photograph of Mahoney with Marcy all dressed and made up for some weirdo gig.

With Marcy.

The profile-pik.

It was clearly Marcy in that other photograph, but in Mahoney’s profile-picture, while identical, it looked like Mahoney’s companion might be someone else.
Whatever, it was good to see Mahoney smirking.
While his companion might be Marcy, it looked more like a female impersonator, a cross-dresser.
For Mahoney to do this is really cool.
So I said it looked like a female impersonator, the cause of my later anguish.
A while ago I stuck my foot in it royally with snide remarks about photos they ran in Facebook, photos from a funeral.
I have to be careful. I’m more likely to say things I later regret. This is a stroke-effect. I had a stroke over 20 years ago, and an effect I was left with is poor emotional control.
Otherwise, I recovered fairly well. I can pass for un-stroked.
Mahoney saved my ass; he deleted my comments.
So I worried I might have done it again.
But I guess not.
No histrionics.

• The “Messenger” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost nine 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. (“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.) —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.
• “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. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells.

Airshow

Tailhook. (The tailhook has red-and-white paint, and would snag a cable on the aircraft-carrier deck, to keep the airplane from going into the sea after landing.) (Photo by BobbaLew.)

On Saturday, July 12th, I and a friend, Jim LePore (“luh-POOR”), also a widower like me, attended the Geneseo Airshow (“jen-uh-SEE-oh;” as in “Jell-o”).
It was probably a mistake for oldsters like us, since it involved lots of walking over poor footing under beating sun. We’re both 70, Jim slightly older than me.


(Photo by BobbaLew.)


(Photo by BobbaLew.)

The Geneseo Airshow is probably the premier airshow in the area, especially if you like old propeller airplanes.
It’s put on by 1941 Historical Aircraft Group (HAG; National Warplane Museum), a club that restores old airplanes.
They’re based at Geneseo Airport, which is only a grass strip.
Geneseo Airport is next to the Town of Geneseo, essentially a university town in western New York. Geneseo has a college, a branch of the state university system.
I’ve been to the Geneseo Airshow a few times, and I’d say it’s no longer what it was.
The Airshow would attract WWII warbirds from all over, many Mustangs, usually a B-17 or two, even a B-24 once, and there are only three still airworthy.
The Geneseo Airshow was always a bit frustrating. Too many Stearman and Texan trainers! And old Piper Cubs painted olive-drab.
But the good stuff made it worth going to.
One time a DC-4 came, and supposedly a Lockheed Constellation, although I’ve never seen one. (What I’d give to see one; the Connie was the best-looking airplane of all time.)
Last time I went, about 10 years ago on my motorcycle, a P-38 Lightning was gonna show.
It did, and was badly in need of restoration, but airworthy.
But not much was there this time. Stearmans and Texans galore, but only one B-25.


The one-and-only B-25. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Once there were at least five or six.
And it was dreadfully hot. The only shade was under an aircraft-wing. I remember once riding out a downpour under the wing of a B-17.
But there were no B-17s, and I think Historical Aircraft Group (HAG) used to have one.
I saw three Douglas DC-3s — the Army Air-Corps called ‘em C-47s — including “Whiskey-Seven,” the HAG C-47 that flew all the way to Normandy for the 70-year D-Day remembrance.


Two of the C-47s. That’s “Whiskey-Seven” behind. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Quite a few paratroopers parachuted out of C-47s behind enemy lines; parachute-jumps out of “Whiskey-Seven” might have been re-enacted.
The conventional wisdom is that three things won WWII for the Allies: the Jeep, the GMC six-by (a truck), and the C-47.
But essentially that’s all the WWII warbirds there were, three C-47s.
Although there were two P-51 Mustangs, and a single Corsair, the inverted gull-wing Navy fighter pictured on top.


The Mustangs. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


The Corsair. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

But it wasn’t the maximum Corsair, only a three-bladed propeller, instead of four.
There also was a P-38 Lightning, but I never saw it running.
It was being towed when I saw it.
In order to do this, I had to get up at 5:30 in the morning. It takes an hour and 20 minutes just to get around to eating breakfast. That’s making my bed, getting dressed, unloading my dishwasher, and making coffee and opening gates outside.
Breakfast to departure-time is another hour and 20 minutes, which includes morning ablutions.
So I was leaving my house at 8:10, headed toward my old friend in Canandaigua who daycares my dog at their grooming-shop.
Getting to that shop takes 20-25 minutes, followed by 5-10 minutes jawing at the shop, and then 5-15 minutes over to Jim’s house, which is on the other side of Canandaigua.
Jim would drive his truck to the airshow, but over roads I’m not familiar with.
Fabulous vistas of beautiful rural western New York opened before us, and then it was a straight shot to Geneseo.
Amidst heavy stop-and-go traffic we drove in, and headed for handicap-parking. Jim has a handicap tag.
But we missed it, and parked far from handicap parking, which was poorly signed.
Thus began our long hike over poor footing, lumpy pasture.
A jitney for handicappers passed, so we got on. It took us toward the flight-line, which was parallel to the grass strip.
We got off next to a Douglas A-26 HAG has restored. It looked pretty good.


The A-26. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


The Twin-Beech is at right; all the rest are Texan trainers, except for that lone Beechcraft T-34. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Next to it was a Twin-Beech, painted as a Marine C-45.
It too looked pretty good.
I eventually wandered away from Jim, because it looked like the Mustangs, etc. were far away.
Flyovers were beginning; it was the Stearmans.
Then the small tiddlers.
The one-and-only B-25 then landed. I was about to cross a taxiway, but an army of security-personnel prevented me. The B-25 would use that taxiway to get to its parking-spot.
The B-25 pulled in with me behind the prop-wash.
Oh what a relief it was to feel wind, but it almost knocked me to the ground.
The B-25’s engines stopped — in a cloud of oil-smoke — the security-personnel let us cross the taxiway.
I hobbled slowly across. I’m lame; I have a problem with my left knee. It’s swollen and hurts.
I hobbled slowly toward the Mustangs. At first I only saw one, but then I saw two.
And they were both two-seaters.
The Corsair was also there, and the so-called “star of the show,” a deHavilland Mosquito. Two Merlin V12 engines.
By then I decided to try to locate Jim. We were both carrying cellphones. But his was off.
I hobbled around some more, and after a half-hour or so, I got him.
We talked about where we were, with no knowledge by either party of anything.
So we agreed we’d head for the giant hanger HAG has.
The hanger was open, so I hobbled inside.
Still no Jim, but interesting stuff was in there.
A wingless airplane fuselage was off to the side; unpainted aluminum.
What appeared to be a short twin-engine wing-section was beside it, also unpainted aluminum.
I have no idea what it was.
Various complete airplanes were parked here-and-there, mainly biplanes.
A short section of an Ercoupe fuselage stood at one side, complete with wings, but devoid of cockpit and dashboard and engine.
It was also devoid of the trademark Ercoupe double-rudders.
I wouldn’t have known what it was, had I not overheard an enthusiast talking: “the Ercoupe was supposed to put Americans in the air. It steered like a car.”
I’ve heard this before. So was the Piper TriPacer, and the early Cessna 172s.
Uh, sure; Granny in an airplane. She has a hard enough time driving a car.
And if your Ercoupe cripples, you fall from the sky, and crash in flames. —And probably die.
Thankfully, Granny in an airplane didn’t happen.
My brother in northern Delaware, who once had his private pilot’s license for a Piper Cherokee he co-owned with his father-in-law, tells me how frightening it was to land.
I then hobbled back out of the hanger and called Jim.
He was at the “crew-tent” waiting for me.
No idea what the “crew-tent” was, but I could see tents, so off I went again.
Another long-ass hike across lumpy pasture in the hot sun.
It took at least 20 minutes to get to the first tent; without hobbling it might have taken 5-10.
It just so happened the first tent was the “crew-tent,” so I found Jim sitting outside under an awning at a table.
Finally, off my feet!
“Did you find a food-tent?” I asked. Jim had been looking for a food-tent.
“No,” but there was a line of food-concessions we headed toward.
Jim had a better idea. “How about we head out, and stop at a Kentucky Fried-Chicken?”
Great idea. Better than waiting in line in the hot sun.
So we headed back toward the parking-area, hoping we’d see a jitney.
One appeared, so off we went in search of Jim’s truck.
Jim tried the horn-blow on his radio-key, but nothing.
We wandered around. By then we were the only two on the jitney. It had a capacity of about 20.
“I think I see it,” I said. It was the Harley decal on his rear window.
We then drove out, air-conditioning on full-blast.
On the way home we stopped at a combination Kentucky Fried-Chicken/Taco Bell.
Was the airshow worth going to?
We were both bushed from so much walking, and it wasn’t as good as it has been sometimes.

• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. Jim’s wife died about a year later, also of cancer. He had been married 51 years.

I hardly watch TV

 “I hardly watch TV at all,” I said to an old friend.
I had to reset my DVR after a power-failure.
I had it do a channel-scan: 61 channels, 20 of which are non-digital.
I get them over cable, the cheapest and most basic video-service.
(I also do cable Internet.)
I remember when there were only three channels: ABC, CBS, and NBC. And they all broadcast over-the-air.
Our house in Erlton (“EARL-tin;” as in “Earl”), like all houses back then, had an antenna on the roof, then a double antenna-wire down inside our house to our TV.
Then we got a fourth channel. It was educational-TV out of Wilmington, DE, Channel-12. ABC out of Philadelphia was WFIL, Channel-6, CBS was WCAU, Channel-10, and NBC was WPTZ, soon replaced by something else I can’t remember the call-letters of, Channel-3.
I come from the Howdy-Doody and Lone Ranger generation.
“A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty ‘Hi-yo, Silver!’”
Our first TV was a giant heat-box by RCA (Radio-Corporation-of-America) that was black-and-white.
My mother once worked at the RCA plant in Camden, NJ, assembling radios.
RCA went defunct in 1986.
When that TV finally died, shortly after my family moved to northern DE in December of 1957, my father refused to replace it.
He declared TV was Of-the-Devil, a waste.
I remember my 11th-grade English-teacher, an avowed Christian like my father, unable to understand I couldn’t watch “Julius Caesar” like his other students.
Color-TV began in the late ‘50s, but I felt it wasn’t worth it.
In fact, I didn’t buy a color-TV until the ‘80s, a Sony Trinitron. —Remember Trinitron?
For years my wife-and-I had no TV at all. Our first TV was a black-and-white Sears portable from the early ‘70s. I remember watching the Watergate hearings on it, and Nixon’s audio-tapes.
Bespectacled John Dean wiggling, and Sen. Sam Ervin, upraised index-finger wagging, reciting Galatians 6: 7-9 “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap!”
I still have that TV. It’s downstairs in my basement. It got its signal from rabbit-ears, over-the-air TV.
So I guess I inherited my father’s values concerning TV; I feel it’s a waste. About all I do is record the news, which I watch on delay while eating dinner.
I’m not the least bit interested in “Dancing With the Tarts,” “American Idol,” and other bits of trash.
Nor am I interested in some overly-buxom floozie explaining why her boobs are so big.
I have no interest in droll Dr. Phil, or Dr. Oz. And “Oprah” turns me off — as does fulminating on “The View.”
The cardio machines at the YMCA are cardio-theaters. They have an integral TV-set. I shut ‘em off.
But unlike my father I don’t fervently study the Bible.
What I do is monkey with this computer, and sling words.
Every once-in-a-while this ‘pyooter lobs some stinking hairball at me, which I get to figure out.
And just about every morning I’m slinging together one of these blogs while I eat my cereal. —Which is what I’m doing right now.
I end up killing time writing these blogs, and have no time for TV.
My TV reflects my values. It’s just the cheapest flat-screen I could find, maybe 14 inches wide, not some gigantic 48-inch “plasma-baby.”
Where my money is, is this here computer.
And its peripherals.
My gigantic scanner cost over $2,000.
My printer is also gigantic; it can print photo-quality up to 17 inches wide.
I also have a lot of money tied up in software, Photoshop-Elements, plus optical-recognition software, for example.
How many people have optical-character-recognition (OCR) software? I might need it. Those David P. Morgan articles in “Trains of the 1960s” are from OCR scans.
This laptop itself, an Apple MacBook Pro bought reconditioned by Apple, not new, set me back about 1,700 smackaroos.
I think my TV cost about $250.
My brother-from-Boston is incensed. He can’t understand why I don’t have a 48-inch plasma-baby to watch “Junkyard Dogs,” Howard Stern, and the Bachelorette.

• “Erlton” is the small suburb of Philadelphia in south Jersey where I lived until I was 13. Erlton was founded in the ‘30s, named after its developer, whose name was Earl. Erlton was north of Haddonfield, an old Revolutionary town.
• 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.)
• “Plasma-babies” are what my brother-from-Boston calls all high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs. Other technologies beside plasma are available, but he calls them all “plasma-babies.”

Plunged into the Stone Age

The other night (Tuesday, July 8th, 2014) the bereavement support-group I attend — my wife died over two years ago — held their regular monthly meeting at a combination delicatessen/café in nearby Canandaigua.
It wouldn’t be our usual meeting. We would eat out instead.
What we usually do is sit in a circle in a small conference-room in a hospital cancer-center and tell our latest achievements.
As if anything we do is an achievement, although I guess it is.
It’s hard to think of anything as an achievement when you’re always sad.
I was joined by a girl who worked at the Messenger newspaper when I did, who lost her beloved husband to melanoma a while ago.
She’s not a regular at these meetings, but we surmised it might be nice to talk to others who understand.
Most don’t understand bereavement, what you go through. They also might say something stupid, and are surprised we hadn’t “got over it” in a year-or-so.
While consuming our entrees, a gigantic deluge occurred outside.
We’d look outside, and it would be pouring.
It looked like we’d get soaked retrieving our cars.
But then the rain stopped, and the sky cleared to the west.
I fired up the weather-radar on my SmartPhone and indeed the deluge had passed.
We would be able to retrieve our cars without getting soaked.
When I returned home I noticed the clock on my stove was flashing — indication the electricity had gone off.
The digital clock on my microwave was reading “88:88,” another indication the power had dove.
I went outside for some reason — probably to retrieve my dog.
I could hear my stand-by generator blasting away.

My stand-by generator. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

I guess the power was still off.
At least the stand-by was working.
Perhaps two months ago the power failed, and my stand-by wouldn’t crank. Its battery was dead.
I fed the dog, and went to bed, in the dark.
A neighbor and I replaced the battery, a car-battery.
The failed battery was original, at least six years old, maybe 10.
The stand-by doesn’t push everything.
I only push essentials, most of the rooms, plus freezers and furnace, etc. Even my water-heater needs electricity, although it’s gas. —Plus the opener for my massive garage-door.
So here I was in my house with everything pushed by that roaring stand-by generator.
I hoped my electricity would return before bedtime, so I didn’t have to sleep versus that supposedly “whisper-quiet” stand-by below my bedroom window.
Hours passed. Still on the stand-by. I had got home around 7 p.m., and it was approaching 10 p.m.
Anomalies were occurring.
My bedroom had no lights, as intended, but my bathroom had lights.
My DVR and TV were both dead. Both are on a backup-battery that I guess went dead during the outage. They’re on that backup-battery so the DVR doesn’t lose its settings, which it will when my stand-by delays 30 seconds before starting.
What I didn’t expect was the outlets to my TV and DVR were being pushed by the stand-by. My original thought was they weren’t.
No matter, all the DVR settings were lost; so needed to be reset.
I’ve done it before; I unplug everything when I go to Altoona to chase trains.
My porch-lights also didn’t work. I don’t remember cutting them out.
Then I discovered my dishwasher was powerless. Was it on its own circuit, avoided thinking my wife would wash the dishes if the power dove?
Then the whole-house air-conditioning came on at 9:15 like always, to lower my inside temperature from 75 degrees to 72.
I thought we avoided the whole-house air-conditioning when we set up that stand-by.
Air-conditioning, no dishwasher, no porch-lights; strange anomalies.
Then about 9:50 my hard-wired smoke-detectors chirped signaling return to the grid.
I went into my bedroom; it had lights, and the stand-by was off.
I started my dishwasher and went to bed. No “whisper-quiet” stand-by generator.

• The “Messenger newspaper” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger, from where I retired almost nine 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.)

Morgan had it wrong

Still dead weight pulled by a powerful locomotive. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

I have subscribed to Trains Magazine since 1966, which is the year I graduated college.
Which makes me what magazines call a “constant reader.”
I don’t remember if I subscribed while in college, or after; but I’m a railfan, and have been since age-2 — I’m 70.
I subscribed because of David P. Morgan, who was editor at that time.
He’s a railfan much like me, and communicated the drama of railroading, which is why I’m a railfan.
Morgan retired in 1987, then died in 1990.
Trains went through a few editors after Morgan, some moribund.
Now they’re in pretty good hands, although it’s not Morgan.
I don’t read cover-to-cover any more; I don’t have time.
I try to read what interests me, but even then I may not have time.
Not long ago I read writings of David P. Morgan in Trains of the 1960s, a magazine-format special put out by Classic Trains Magazine.
It reminded me of some of the things Morgan wrote about, which I consider because they never came true.
Morgan liked the propositions of his columnist John Kneiling, an iconoclastic engineer who wanted changes in railroading.
And Knieling made sense, or so it seemed, with his proposal that every freightcar be self-powered, taking advantage of its heavy load to get traction.
This ends the practice of dragging dead weight with a powerful locomotive, what railroads have always done, and still do.
Kneiling proposed having a separate power-source in the train, and then wiring the power throughout the train.
Made sense to me, and also Morgan.
But there are problems:
—1) Railroads have a hard enough time maintaining an integral air-line throughout the train for brakes.
I monitor a railroad-radio scanner, and occasionally a train reports it’s “gone into emergency” (stopped) because of an air-leak.
Couple together 100 or more freightcars and you have potential for an air-leak. Not just at the coupling-hoses, but also within the cars themselves.
100 or more wiring connections beg failure.
If anything can go wrong, it will.
Everything from the disconnect on goes dead, and the train stalls.
Years ago my wife-and-I rode Amtrak’s Silver Meteor to visit her parents in Florida.
We got on in Wilmington, DE, and the train had head-end power; that is, the train-cars got their electricity from the locomotive.
About 10 minutes after we got on, the power-cord from the locomotive unplugged, and we rode all the way to Baltimore, our next stop, in the dark.
In Baltimore the cord was replugged, but five minutes after leaving it came unplugged again.
We rode all the way into Washington DC in the dark.
We rode Auto-Train a few years later without incident, but I worry about power-transfer through cords.
Not to mention that cord has to be pretty heavy to power 100 or more traction-motors.
—2) Doing traction-motors for the nation’s entire freightcar fleet is a monstrous investment. I suppose it could be done piecemeal with a power-cord from the locomotive to the traction-motored cars.
But even that would be a monstrous investment. Unpowered freightcars have to be wired to pass along power to the traction-motor cars. Or segregated, wired cars from unwired cars.
Traction-motored cars are a nice idea, and I can see it happening some day.
But not right now, and probably not initiated by the rail-industry.
I’m more inclined to expect some shipper to try it — shippers have already tried electric brake-activation.
—I remember during the ‘60s passenger-service from Washington DC up to New York City was planned with individually-powered coaches, much like commuter-coaches, except they could do 150 mph.

The lead car of a New York-Washington express.

I think this was actually instituted; I’ve added a photo at left.
But since then Amtrak, which took on railroad passenger service from the railroads in 1971, has gone back to locomotive-pulled trains. Dead weight coaches pulled by locomotives, just like it’s always been.
And the self-powered express coaches were getting their power from an overhead wire, not a power-cord.
Morgan was a great writer, but he got it wrong following Kneiling. Kneiling’s unit-train concept of long trains of only a single commodity, e.g. coal, which ran point-to-point, including through classification yards, was adopted by the railroads.
But those unit-trains are still dead weight pulled by a powerful locomotive.

• The lede photograph is the Norfolk Southern Monongahela heritage-unit pulling a unit-train of loaded crude-oil tankcars through South Fork, PA.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.

Our sacred Honor

(Photo by BobbaLew.)

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”
“We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

PUH-LEEZE!

Yrs trly holds all his image-files in PhotoBucket.
So that every image you see in this here blog is via an HTML image-tag (e.g. <img src="??????????????????">
<span style="font-weight:bold;"></span>Caption. <span style="font-style:italic;">(Photo by BobbaLew.)</span></span>) embedded in the body-text — this site interprets HTML — that indicates an image-source at a PhotoBucket http address.
The carets make those portions of the tag invisible. I add a caption and overwrite the photo-credit when I have to.
That isn’t how it was long ago. This site had its own image-repository, which I think was Picassa.
But then suddenly that no longer worked — perhaps I had maxxed it.
So my wife and I set about finding some other image-repository, and ended up with PhotoBucket.
I upload an image to PhotoBucket as a digital image-file, and then this blog-site displays the picture via the HTML-tag and http address.
Apparently there’s a lot more to PhotoBucket than what I do with it. And in fact my image-files are pretty small.
They are only 72 pixels-per-inch, 5.597 inches wide.
You can go hog-wild with resolution and image-size.
My camera shoots 300 pixels-per-inch, and could go much higher.
But 72 pixels-per-inch, 5.597 inches wide is what displays correctly on this blog-site. Exceed 72 pixels-per-inch and the image displays too big.
Six inches seems to be this blog-site’s default column-width.
I suppose I could dork around.
But I use BlogSpot’s default settings since my whole point is cranking words.
So last night I set about cranking all the pictures I would use in my August Calendar-Report.
I scan each calendar-picture, then dicker a little with my Photoshop-Elements. This includes resizing.
I then upload my finished picture to PhotoBucket.
When I first started using PhotoBucket, perhaps five years ago, there were no ads.
But now, like all marvelous computer-apps, PhotoBucket has resorted to ads to enhance its bottom-line — or avoid bankruptcy.
I didn’t mind at first. PhotoBucket was running ads of maybe 5-10 seconds.
YouTube does this too, although it gives the option of turning off the ad — or waiting until it ends in perhaps 15 seconds.
PhotoBucket’s solution is to allow you to go ad-free; for a price, of course.
My Station-Inn webcam can be ad-free. It’s only $8.95 per month, and I’ve sprung for that. If it’s not ad-free, it shuts off after five minutes, then runs an ad you may be able to skip when you reconnect. Or perhaps not. —Some macho baseball-star hawking “five-hour energy.”
But for what little I do with PhotoBucket I see no sense in going ad-free.
So I upload a picture, then PhotoBucket wants me to rename it. During which their ad starts playing.
Recently it was off-road bicyclists crashing down a path to frenzied rock-music.
I might hear five seconds of it before switching to something else, which shuts it down.
Meanwhile, that’s five seconds of being blasted across the room.
Last night it was an ad for a war-game.
All-of-a-sudden noisy explosions and flaming fireballs. Tanks got blasted to smithereens.
I hurriedly rename my picture-file so I can shut off the racket = switch out of the ad.
The ads have become even more irritating; I have to be sure they don’t scare the bejeepers out of me.
But I ain’t about to go ad-free with PhotoBucket.

• “HTML” is Hyper-Text Markup Language, a background instruction system made invisible in text by surrounding carets (“<” and “>”). I use it only to embolden, underline and italicize text, although it can do other things. I do paragraph drops with it. My picture-inserts and links are also via HTML-tag.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• “Station-Inn” is the bed-and-breakfast I stay at when I’m chasing trains in the Altoona area. Station-Inn is actually in Cresson (PA, “KRESS-in”) on the western slope of the railroad up Allegheny Mountain. Station-Inn caters to railfans like me; I’m a railfan and have been since age-2 — I’m 70. Station-Inn has a video-camera aimed at the railroad across the street. With it I can watch trains passing Station-Inn over the Internet.

Monthly Calendar-Report for July 2014

Double at Lilly. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

—The July 2014 entry of my own calendar is an eastbound mixed-freight on Track One passing a westbound stacker on Track Two.
The picture is by my brother Jack Hughes. It’s from the overpass in Lilly, PA, on the west slope of The Hill.
The eastbound is climbing, and the stacker descending.
The overpass in Lilly is a Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”) location, Phil Faudi being the railfan extraordinaire I take pictures with in the Altoona, PA, area.
Those pictures are the basis of my calendar.
Lilly is the other side of Allegheny Mountain; Altoona is the east side, where the climb up Allegheny Mountain begins.
Altoona is a railroad-town — or was. It was very important to the Pennsylvania Railroad (“Pennsy”). Locomotives for Pennsy were built there, and it was Pennsy’s shop-town.
Pennsy, of course, no longer exists, although its railroad does.
It’s operated by Norfolk Southern, who got most of the ex-Pennsy lines with the Conrail breakup.
Pennsy had merged with arch-rival New York Central in 1968, and Penn-Central went bankrupt.
Conrail was founded as a way to continue northeast rail-service by including the many bankrupt northeast railroads, of which Penn-Central was largest.
Conrail was government at first, but eventually privatized. It was broken up and sold in 1999. CSX Transportation got most of the ex-New York Central lines, including the mainline across New York State.
Norfolk Southern got most of the ex-Pennsy lines.
Norfolk Southern is a 1982 merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway.
Norfolk & Western was mainly coal, but Pennsy had a lot of coal-traffic. Norfolk Southern still ships a lot of PA coal.
I’ve been to this overpass many times. My brother Jack is reprising my Faudi photo-locations.
In fact, this overpass is where I saw my first “double,” pictured below:


“We’re gonna get a double, Bob.” (Photo by BobbaLew.)

“Double” means two trains at once. The line has three tracks. There have been triples, although I’ve never seen one — I don’t think.
Multiple trains on this line are so common it’s hard to remember.
My first double was my first “tour” with Phil — he calls ‘em “tours.”
We were on the Lilly overpass, and “We’re gonna get a double, Bob.”
Phil monitors a railroad-radio scanner. The engineers of trains call out the signal-aspects on the radio as they pass a signal.
A coal-extra was hammering slowly up Track One, and suddenly here came a stacker on Track Two.
Two front-ends! Never in all my years of railfanning had I seen two front-ends side-by-side, although I long ago saw three trains on Horseshoe Curve.
Phil was excited, and so was I. I snapped the picture above and included it in my first calendar — 2011.
My brother’s picture is also a double, and I think better than mine, since mine lacks balance. His is also better lit.
But Jack’s picture is not two front-ends.
Plus I say the stacker is descending because that’s what my brother told me.
Track two is signaled both ways. The stacker could be climbing.


Mustang! (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—Could there be a WWII warbirds calendar without a North-American P-51 Mustang?
The July 2014 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Mustang, the most venerated fighter-plane of WWII.
The Mustang is probably the most venerated propeller airplane, and that’s despite its age.
They’re raced. The Mustang is only 1,695 horsepower, not the 2,100 horsepower of last month’s Grumman Bearcat. But the Mustang is lighter.
Is there anything wrong with the Mustang? I’m sure there are compromises, but the only one I know of is taxiing. As a tail-dragger, its long nose obscured where you were going.
The Mustang had to be yawed side-to-side.
And of course compared to recent engine-technology, it Packard-Merlin V12 is ancient. As far as I know, it’s pushrod. Plus it’s not fuel-injected; it’s carbureted, so the motor can starve for gas in extreme G-loading.
Even the Messerschmitts were fuel-injected, but the Mustang was faster, and could out-maneuver a Messerschmitt. Hitler’s Messerschmitts were ‘30s technology; the Mustang is early ‘40s.
The Mustang is Britain’s fabulous Supermarine Spitfire with even more horsepower, and a laminar-flow wing.
The Mustang switched to the Rolls-Royce “Merlin” V12, but Packard (the car-manufacturer) got even more power out of it.
Apparently the Mustang pictured is not one of the later bubble-canopy Mustangs.
It’s a P-51C, and has the earlier non-bubble cockpit of a P-40 Warhawk.
But it’s the Merlin V12, rated at only 1,490 horsepower, same as the Spitfire.
I should let my WWII warbirds site weigh in:
“One of the most effective, famous and beautiful fighter aircraft of WWII, the P-51 was designed to fulfill a British requirement dated April 1940.
Because of the rapidly-mounting clouds of war in Europe, the U.K. asked North American Aircraft to design and build a new fighter in only 120 days.
The NA-73X prototype was produced in record time, but did not fly until October 26th, 1940.
The first RAF production models underwent rigorous testing and evaluation, and it was found the 1,100-horsepower Allison engine was well suited for low-altitude tactical reconnaissance, but the engine’s power decreased dramatically above an altitude of 12,000 feet, making it a poor choice for air-to-air combat or interception roles.
The first Merlin-engine versions appeared in 1943 with the P-51B and the P-51C. Both new versions had strengthened fuselages and four wing-mounted 12.7-millimeter machine guns.
The Merlin-powered Mustangs were exactly what the Allied bombers in Europe desperately needed, and they became famous for their long range and potent high-altitude escort capability.
The most significant variant, the P-51D, featured a 360-degree-view bubble canopy, a modified rear fuselage, and six 12.7-millimeter machine guns. 7,956 were built.
After the war, the P-51 remained in U.S. service with the Strategic Air Command until 1949, and with the Air National Guard and Reserves into the ‘50s. It became one of the first fighters to see combat in the Korean War.
In the last 40 years, surplus Mustangs have been modified and used extensively as civilian air racers, but the latest trend is for private owners to restore them to almost perfect, historically-accurate condition.
As public appreciation for the Mustang has grown, the monetary value of the few remaining examples has skyrocketed.
War-surplus P-51s, once auctioned from storage for less than $2,000, are now usually valued at nearly a million dollars or more.
The restoration of existing airframes has become a small industry in the U.S., U.K. and Australia, and the total number of flyable examples, despite one or two accidents each year, is growing.”
The Mustang also had range. Unlike earlier fighter-planes it could escort a long-range bombing-run from England over Europe, clear over Germany, where it could fight off the deadly Messerschmitts.
Quite a few Mustangs were saved; around 150 are still airworthy.
The Mustang airplane even has its own website, one of many.
One could argue the car was named after the airplane, but I don’t think so. The car was named after the horse, as was the airplane.
Just the same, the Mustang is a fabulous airplane. Every American should be required by law to see one fly. I did, and I will never forget it! That’s goin’ to my grave.
Not only is the Mustang graceful and beautiful, it’s a great airplane.



Rest-in-peace! (Photo by Rich Borkowski.)

—The July 2014 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is probably the last entry in the contest-calendar by photographer Rich Borkowski.
Sadly, Borkowski is gone; he died September 17th, 2013.
Obviously the railroad felt very highly of him, probably also as an employee. Borkowski was a dispatcher.
They ran a full-page memorial of him as an ad in my Trains Magazine.
Borkowski had some of the greatest photographs ever in this calendar.
I can think of one; what I consider the most extraordinary photograph ever in this calendar, a fabulous depiction of the old Pennsy mainline.


The BEST ever. (Photo by Rich Borkowski.)

The railroad is bridging a creek outlet on the old Pennsy main north of Harrisburg. The creek is flowing into the Susquehanna (“suss-kwee-HAH-nuh;” as in “and”) River, and the viaduct is Pennsy’s standard stone-arch.
The bridge is overkill, but Pennsy moved a lot of traffic. That viaduct is wide enough for four tracks, although it’s down to two. I’ve seen it myself along parallel U.S. Route 15. And fortunately for us Borkowski knew it was much more symbolic than it appears in reality.
July is the month of our nation’s independence. Borkowski wanted to include a flag.
The old Pennsy crossed a massive truss-bridge over Rochester Riverfront Park in Rochester, PA.
The park was flying a gigantic flag.
A westbound Norfolk Southern trash-train poked through the giant rusty truss-work, and BAM! Borkowski had his picture.
Better yet, the giant flag, a 40-footer, is flapping in the breeze.
A photograph for July 4th, but not as good as the stone-arch viaduct picture.
Borkowski will be missed. I do okay myself, but I’m not him.
There is another photograph which I think is his, but I’m not sure.


Here’s another. (Photo by Rich Borkowski [I think].)

I wasn’t slugging photos with the photographer’s name at that time.
It’s where Pennsy’s low-grade Sang Hollow Extension began west of Johnstown. The train is taking the Extension — the main curves to the right.


The photo the railroad used in the memorial ad. (Photo by Rich Borkowski.)

This photo was used in the 2010 calendar. It depicts a trash-train threading West Park in Pittsburgh.
As I hear it, Norfolk Southern is no longer hauling trash.



’32 Ford three-window coupe hotrod. (Photo by Scott Williamson.)

—The July 2014 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a 1932 Ford three-window coupe made into a hotrod.
To me, this is the best-looking hotrod of all, a chopped ’32 Ford three-window.
“Three-window” because it doesn’t have the two small windows behind the doors like last month — which make it a “five-window.”
Plus the top has been “chopped,” three and one-half inches cut out of the vertical posts, and then rewelded, to lower the top.
There are two things wrong with this car:
—1) is the headlights. I don’t know what they are, but they’re hardly stock. Stock headlight nacelles would look much better.
—2) is the flame-paint. A stock ’32 Ford coupe is one of best-looking cars of all time. We can thank Edsel Ford for that, Old Henry’s son, who he continually badmouthed.
Were it not for Edsel, Ford Motor Company probably would have tanked. Old Henry was convinced all people needed was the Model-T.
But American car-buyers wanted style as well as function.
Ford Motor Company started failing again after WWII. They were mired in antique engineering.

The car that saved the company.

But Old Henry’s grandson, Henry Ford II (“the Deuce”), pushed through the 1949 Ford, the car that saved the company. It updated the engineering.
I notice this car’s body is high atop its frame-rails, probably the stock location.
The car also looks to be riding at stock height, not lowered.
About the only move toward “lowering” is chopping the top.
The motor looks fabulous. It’s a 350-Chevy with triple carbs. The carburetors are Stromberg 94s, which seem before the time of a 350-Chevy.
You also have to hope you don’t encounter a bug-infestation, or drive a dusty dirt-track. The carburetors are unfiltered. Their open mouths yawn directly into the atmosphere.
Although I have a feeling this car is a trailer-queen.
Unfiltered carbs just about take a car off the road. —I also don’t see a wiper.
Just-the-same, a chopped ’32 Ford three-window coupe is the best looking hotrod. I saw one recently at a car-show, but it was red. (I prefer yellow.)


Best-of-show. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Even with auto-tranny — I don’t know what it was; I prefer a four-speed — I should have asked what the owner would want to part with it.
The calendar-car is also on bias-ply tires, what were available back then.
I’m leery of that. Modern radial tires are much better = easier to drive.
As my deceased bus-driver friend once said: “A hotrod is only okay if you can drive the bitch.”
I’m sure a hotrod would be a handful even on radials.


A box-cab P-5. (Photo by Jim Buckley.)

—My All-Pennsy color calendar is as much portraits as it is drama. The January picture was the one-and-only DD-2 electric locomotive (4-4-4-4).
The July 2014 entry is a box-cab P-5 (4-6-4) locomotive awaiting assignment at Enola (“aye-NOLE-uh;” as in “hey”) Yard across from Harrisburg.
The P-5 was Pennsy’s first attempt at passenger locomotion as it began electrifying its New York City to Washington, D.C. line.
As I understand it, the last portion electrified was into Washington D.C. as a “New Deal” project in the ‘30s. —That is, the railroad would have not done it but for “New Deal” financing. Ahem, the railroad, a bunch of esteemed CONSERVATiVES, were happy to take a government handout = manna from Heaven. Conservative principles my foot! Free market my foot!
Perhaps more precisely, the railroad could not easily afford to electrify the line.
That’s a large capital-investment, and it was the Depression.
The New Deal, and cheap labor, made it possible.
Often the dreaded guvamint is instrumental in promulgating positive social policy, for example the Eisenhower Interstate System.
That line into Washington D.C, still exists, and became the basis of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, which the public seems to prefer over flying.
Airports are located far from city-centers; the Corridor stations are right downtown.
The Corridor was even extended to Boston, with electrification recently installed. Pennsy ended in New York City, although New York, New Haven & Hartford was electrified to New Haven.
The P-5 didn’t work out as a passenger engine. It couldn’t boom-and-zoom.
Pennsy developed a passenger engine that could boom-and-zoom, the GG-1.
The GG-1 was overkill for what it was asked to do, but overkill was what was needed.
So, what to do with the P-5?
Pennsy geared ‘em down for freight-service; they would live out their lives moving freight.

A steeple-cab P-5a at the sand-tower at the Wilmington (DE) shops. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

A brace of box-cab P-5as also at the sand-tower at Wilmington shops — next to a GG-1. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

There were two kinds of P-5s. Pennsy tried a steeple-cab version after the crew of a box-cab was killed in a grade-crossing accident.
With a box-cab the crew was right up front at the point of impact.
A steeple-cab had that long nose in front of the crew. The GG-1 is also a steeple-cab.
Some railfans make the mistake of calling the steeple-cab P-5 a P-5a. But the box-cabs  and steeple-cabs are identical electrically. They both are P-5a.
There also is a P-5b, essentially a more powerful P-5a with slightly different appearance.
Since the steeple-cabs were safer, they were usually run in front of box-cabs. The P-5s could be multipled.
I never did very well photographing P-5s; The freights on the New York to Washington main weren’t as frequent as GG-1 powered passenger expresses.

This is AWFUL! (Photo by Bobbalew.)

I include the only photograph I ever got of a P-5, but it’s dreadful.
And a box-cab is leading.
It’s a freight negotiating the Edgemoor yard-entrance, next to the old “Bell” commuter shanty, long removed.
I’m photographing from the shanty.
I only took it because it was there. I have it slugged as “DontBother.”



A 1967 Pontiac G-T-O convertible. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)

—The July 2014 entry in my Motorbooks Musclecar calendar is a baby-blue 1967 Pontiac G-T-O convertible.
I was planning to run it last, but the July 2014 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is even worse, the worst diesel-locomotive ever marketed, the Baldwin Centipede.
I always consider the first G-T-O, the ’64, the best.


A ’64 G-T-O. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)

The G-T-O was an interesting concept: a full-size car’s motor in the smaller and lighter mid-size body.
It was a smashing marketing concept, and sold like hotcakes.
Especially when they hot-rodded that motor for extreme performance.
“G-T-O” stands for “Gran Turismo Omologato,” a badge copped from Ferrari.
Which got sportscar enthusiasts all upset.
“Homologated” (“Omologato”) meant it was homologated for racing.
Then Car and Driver magazine declared it even better than the Ferrari — a ploy that made it a viable car-magazine.
Which it was, for American highways. But on a racetrack that Ferrari would run circles around that Pontiac.
Try to drive a Ferrari G-T-O on American highways, and you’d be over your head.
At least with a Pontiac G-T-O you just hop in the seat and drive.
And what fun that could be, with a motor that could put everything else behind you.
But the Pontiac G-T-O wasn’t very well developed. Floor it in a curve and it could spin you into the trees.
After 1964, Pontiac started using its ’65 and later mid-sized offerings as the basis for its G-T-O.
To me, they don’t look as good as the ’64. —In fact, they’re ugly.
While I was in college the Dean’s son got a ’65 G-T-O.
He kept driving it in Winter, so it loaded with salt-spray.
I secretly scrawled “cheap American trash” in the salt on the flanks of his car, causing weeping and wailing and gnashing-of-teeth.
I was dragged before the Dean, guilty as charged.
For whatever reason they let me continue my college education; they were threatening to can me.
Never did I imagine I would cause such a ruckus; all the guy had to do was wash his car.
But my doing this was equal to -a) wearing tight pants, a-la-Rolling Stones, and -b) my poster of Johann Sebastian Bach winking (GASP!) for their quadrennial Bach-festival.
Apparently labeling the Dean’s son’s G-T-O “cheap American trash” was sacrilege.
1967 was the final G-T-O version with the stacked headlights.
For 1967 Pontiac scrapped its expensive triple-carb option, and increased engine-size to 400 cubic-inches.
Later G-T-Os look better.

Da Judge.

Although by then the G-T-O moniker wasn’t enough.
Pontiac had to bring out a “Judge” version of its G-T-O.








Not demoted yet; Centipedes front a passenger-train. (Photo by Milton A Davis©.)

—The July 2014 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is perhaps the worst locomotive mighty Pennsy ever fielded, the Baldwin Centipede.
The Centipede was Baldwin’s first attempt at building a dedicated passenger locomotive.
Other railroads had a few, but as I understand it, the Centipede was collaboration between the Pennsylvania Railroad and its long-time locomotive supplier Baldwin Locomotive Works near Philadelphia.
Pennsy built its own locomotives, but if need was high enough they’d farm out to Baldwin to build locomotives of Pennsy design.
Baldwin built 475 I-1s Decapods (2-10-0) for Pennsy.
The Centipede was an attempt to build a diesel as successful as the GG-1.
Its driving-wheels were on a sub-frame like the GG-1. Most diesel-locomotives were “trolley-motors.” Their traction-motors were in rotating trucks, front and rear.
They still are.
The Centipede had two diesel-engines, a total of 1,500 horsepower per unit.
EMD (Electromotive Diesel, GM’s locomotive division) had two engines in its E-unit passenger locomotive. But the E-unit was a trolley-motor, two independently rotating six-wheel trucks at each end.
And only four of those wheels were powered. The center wheels were unpowered.
Baldwin Centipedes were unreliable and hard to service. Each locomotive was built as a single build, so wire-routing and location of parts was different for each locomotive.
And a crippled trains plugs the railroad.
You can’t just drive around a crippled train; it’s blocking the track you need.
If a train cripples you have to send a rescue locomotive.
Nothing moves until you move the cripple — unless you have multiple tracks.
Worst of all the Centipede wouldn’t multiple. Railroads quickly discovered diesel-electric locomotives could multiple, just like electric locomotives.
That is, one engineer could control multiple locomotives. It’s not that way with steam-locomotives. Pennsy multipled steam-locomotives, but that’s a crew for each locomotive (Pennsy could afford double-crewing).
The Centipedes were quickly downgraded. Unable to multiple, they couldn’t even front freight-trains.

Centipedes return around Horseshoe Curve for another shove up The Hill.

They were assigned as helpers on Pennsy’s famous grade over Allegheny mountain, as pictured at left.
Couple ‘em to the tail of a train, and let ‘em shove.
And hope they didn’t cripple on the way up The Hill.
I’m wondering if they could even use the loop-track atop The Hill at Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”), with that long driver wheelbase.
Pennsy would turn helpers atop The Hill, and send them back down to Altoona to shove another train.
At least you could operate the Centipedes from either end.
The Centipedes might have to go all-the-way to Cresson (“KRESS-in”) to use the “MO” crossovers to avoid the Loop.