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.