Thanksgiving-gig

At the Thanksgiving-gig. (Photo by Karley Henderson.)

For Thanksgiving I did what I call a surgical-strike, all the way to northern Delaware to attend a Thanksgiving-gig with relatives in south-Jersey.
On Wednesday, November 25th (2015) I drove to my brother’s in northern DE, where I would stay the night.
Thanksgiving-day, November 26th, I crossed the Delaware River on the Twin Bridges (Delaware Memorial Bridge) into south-Jersey, to pig out on turkey with my relatives.
On Friday, November 27th, I drove home after driving back to northern DE after Thanksgiving dinner.
What follows are details of my trip:

—RE: Arguing with the GPS lady (Wednesday, the trip down):
Yrs Trly has inadvertently joined the techies by using GPS to guide his trip.
I’m impressed, but I’m not a very good techie.
I argue with the GPS.
As soon as I departed I took issue with the GPS lady.
“Turn north onto N.Y. State Route 65,” the road I live on.
“What you been smokin’, girl? Um, Delaware is south of New York, not north. You can just get stuffed!”
I turned south.
“You are on the fastest route,” it bragged. “You will arrive at (whatever).”
“You always say that,” I said. “It’s like 30 seconds after I click the start-button, you’re programmed to say that.
And you say that despite my refusal 10 seconds ago to take your first command.”
I use the Google-Maps GPS app on my Apple iPhone-6 (gasp).
I get map-commands, and a running map-display.
I have my iPhone mounted to the dashboard.
It gave me a better route across NY than what I’ve usually used.
I previewed my route, and decided I’d try it.
Except I didn’t preview it well enough.
In Williamsport (PA) it directed me to cross the river and take a highway south = U.S. Route 15, not an expressway.
Route 15 would eventually intersect Interstate-80, but so did Interstate-180 east out of Williamsport, which does a dogleg compared to Route 15.
I had decided to try 180, but the GPS lady kept telling me to turn south onto Route 15.
I didn’t.
All-of-a-sudden, deafening silence.
“Uh-oh,” I thought. “Now I’ve done it. I made her mad.”
Cue Garrison Keillor on “Prairie Home Companion.” His GPS lady says “That does it; I’m outta here! You never listen to me anyway.”
But my GPS lady woke back up 30-40 miles later when 180 ended at 80.
From there on I happened to follow her suggested route, Interstate-80 to the Pennsylvania-Turnpike Northeast Extension, then south.
As I say, I’m impressed. I pretty-much knew where I was going anyway, but she didn’t muff a single turn.
It made my getting to northern DE a snap, plus I never got to preview south-Jersey.
But GPS took me right to my cousin’s house in the south-Jersey rural outback, and by a different route than what I’d used before.

—RE: Giving my Aunt May the business (Thanksgiving day):
I arrived at my cousin’s about 2:30.
My cousin David, in his 60s, arrived about an hour later.
David was the main reason I attended this shindig; I hadn’t seen him in perhaps 50 years.
Our entire lives had been lived; we’re both now retired. My wife came and went, and he never met her.
What I knew about David, and he about me, wasn’t much.
“I see my Uncle Rob,” I exclaimed. “Same gait, same stature.”
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” David said.
We chewed the fat a while.
“I’ll want to know how your knee-replacement goes,” he said. “I may have to do that eventually myself.”
Then my Aunt May arrived, one of two remaining aunts I have.
She was born in 1930, which makes her 85. The other is 98&1/2.
Aunt May was 13, about to become 14, when I was born.
1930 makes her a Depression-baby, “a mistake,” she was told.
After my Aunt May, my grandfather was banished from the boudoir — Lizzie refused to sleep with him: “no more of that foolishness!”
My father, the oldest, was born in 1914, my Uncle Rob in 1918. May was the mistake. By then my grandmother, May’s mother, was 41 years old.
Dealing with a baby in the Depression was difficult, and guilt was hurled at my aunt.
The whole time she was growing up she was loudly badmouthed.
Does wonders for your self-image.
I know all-too-well, since I was first-born of two tub-thumping Christian zealots.
I was so smart they didn’t know what to do. Although my father was very smart too. He skipped a grade, and probably should have gone to college.
But as a child-of-the-Depression he was told to get a job.
Whither, Einstein caddying a golf-course.
My parents decided to badmouth and clobber me. And that included my mother, no matter what my younger siblings say.
I was told I was rebellious, as if I could lead a revolution.
I couldn’t kowtow to my parents. I don’t know as they actually told me I was a scumbag, or of-the-Devil, but the implication was there. I was treated as such.
It did wonders for my self-worth. I think my mother realized my father was losing me with his continual rages.
After college I walked out; left it all behind.
When I revisited my home over 20 years ago it got me crying.
I felt like I never had a family, just continual madness and putdowns.
Clearly my mother regretted I was gone. And my father looked forward to my return as the Biblical prodigal-son.
But I didn’t return, which probably made him angrier yet.
“Why do people become that?” I kept asking my aunt May.
Like why did her mother put her down? Why did my grandmother become that way? She was the only girl in a family of boys.
My take is something started an inferiority-complex that got passed along between generations.
Most of my time at this Thanksgiving gig was spent with my aunt May — two peas in a pod.
Our reaction to madness is to blurt wisecracks and snide remarks.
“Oh shaddup!” “Don’t start, MayZ.” “Oh, a smarty-pants, eh?” “Not so loud, Bobby. I’m right next to you. You don’t have to shout.” “Will you stop making me wet my pants? Every time I laugh: SPRITZ!”
(Both of us were wearing Depends; me because of my recent operation.)
Back-and-forth it went; Steaming piles: “Baloney-alert!”
I don’t know if anyone else can make May laugh, but I can.
She’s had a hard life. Worst was her upbringing: “What are you doing that for? What’s wrong with ya anyway?”
She apologized for her eldest brother, my father, treating me like he did.
“It ain’t your fault!” I said.

—RE: Driving the GPS lady crazy (Friday, the trip home):
Everything went fine until Williamsport, where I wanted to patronize Mighty Weggers.
I had come into Williamsport from Route 15, crossing the river, the route GPS suggested going down.
But no sign of Weggers.
I follow expressway along the riverfront, and Weggers is on the expressway.
But no sign of it. I got off at the “Maynard” Street exit, but “this doesn’t seem right. I want ‘Hepburn’ Street.”
Perhaps I had them backwards. I always patronize the Williamsport Weggers coming back from Altoona (PA).
So began my making the GPS lady crazy. She was trying to get me back on the expressway, and would stop in mid-sentence when I didn’t turn.
I finally ended up in far western Williamsport, so came to Mighty Weggers from the west, as I do after Altoona. By now the GPS lady was completely off-the-wall. She was having to recalculate every 10-30 seconds.
I changed routes in New York so I could go get my dog, who was in a kennel about 15 miles west of my house.
But GPS took me over a better route than I would have taken.

• Karley Henderson is apparently the girlfriend of my cousin’s son Daniel. She does photography.
• RE: “Apple iPhone-6 (gasp).........” —Some of my siblings claim anything Apple is inferior, even of-the-Devil. That’s because I have the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to use an Apple MacBook Pro instead of a Windows PC, thereby proving me rebellious and stupid.
• My left knee will be replaced Monday, December 7th. Arthritis; I’m bone-on-bone.
• My grandmother’s name was Elizabeth; my grandfather called her “Lizzie,” much to her dismay.
• RE: “MayZ........” —My uncle Rob called her “May-zie.”
• “Bobby” is me; BobbaLew.
• “Mighty Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester where I often buy groceries. They have a store in Williamsport, and are expanding in the east-coast megalopolis.
• Altoona, in central PA, is where I chase trains. The railroad crosses Allegheny mountain, and is quite busy. I’ve been to Altoona many times. —I’m a railfan, and have been since age-2.

“Five Minutes”

In about two weeks, Monday, December 7th — “a date that will live in infamy” — Yrs Trly will enter Thompson Hospital in nearby Canandaigua to have his left knee replaced.
It’s finally going to happen, it seems, although I predict a possible postponement.
I been tryin’ to do this over a year, although there were a multitude of hoops to negotiate.
One was removing my prostate.
I’m bone-on-bone, and hobbling. Often I can hear it grinding as I walk.
Hospitalization may be three or four days, then I have a long bit of rehab, maybe a month.
This is not at home, since I’d be returning to an empty house.
Rehab will be at a facility away from my house; perhaps the hospital. That hospital has on-site rehab for knee replacements.
In preparation for being away from home so long, I thought I’d do something about the mail.
At first I was gonna “stop mail,” and hold for pickup by my friend that daycares my dog.
But he suggested forwarding to his grooming-shop.
Good idea. I’ll do it. Just go to USPS.com and set up a forward. “Done in five minutes.”
I began this process yesterday at 11:45; 11:50 is five minutes.
Finally at 1:15 I felt satisfied I had set up my “forward.”
That’s one and one-half hours. Whither five minutes?
In my humble experience, things always take way longer than predicted.
First was trying to type “USPS.com” into my browser-bar.
As a stroke-survivor my typing is erratic.
I set up bookmarks, or copy/paste the web-address.
I took at least three tries, about 10 minutes, before I got in.
Then it was make sense of USPS.com, and nowhere did they have “forward.”
After a half-hour I gave up, and cranked “Post Office Forward” into my Google search-bar.
AHA! A valid link.
Thank goodness for Google, although I’m mad at them for trying to take over the universe.
I clicked the link, and began my stroke-addled typing again.
First it wanted me to “log in.”
FER WHAT!? So the Postal-Service can sell my info to Amazon, Facebook, etc, or shower me with useless drivel?
But I couldn’t set up a “forward” without “logging in;” which seems funny because I don’t need to “log in” to “stop mail.”
It took at least a half-hour to “set up an account,” at least three tries. E-mail addresses that aren’t valid, unmatching passwords, the old post-stroke typing waazoo.
When I finally got around to setting up my forward, my forwarding-address wasn’t valid — they wanted a house-number.
I had to call my doggy-daycare friend to get a house-number they never use, so it’s not on their business-card.
Later that afternoon I decided to sign up for LikeLock®, which I’ve wanted to do for years, but haven’t because it’s an online process.
“Easy as pie,” they claimed. “Only five minutes.”
I decided I’d try their free 30-day trial: “Please enter promo-code.”
Again the post-stroke mistyping.
All-of-a-sudden a chat-window appeared: “Any problems?”
“Not yet,” I answered.
“Thank you for choosing LifeLock®. Have a nice day!”
The chat-window disappeared.
LikeLock® is justifiably hyper. They wanted to verify my e-mail address.
“Send e-mail,” I commanded.
Nothing.
I clicked again.
Again, nothing.
Any way I could bring back that chat-lady.
Not that I could see.
I called their 800-number. “You’re talking to a stroke-survivor,” I said. I have to say that to explain my stony silences, stuttering, and asking them to repeat.
I hate making phonecalls, but had no alternative.
“I can’t verify my e-mail,” I said.
“Look in your spam-folder,” she said.
“Not there,” although I should explain my Internet and e-mail delivery were bog-slow because the gamers were on up-the-street.
We spazzed around, but I fired up my junk-folder again, and there was LifeLock®.
“You have to add LifeLock® to your safe-contacts list,” she said.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said; “since to me my ‘contact-list’ is contacts I e-mail.
But apparently “unjunking” LikeLock® was the equivalent of “adding to my safe contact-list.”
Why is it things need translation or redefinition to make sense?
“Thank you for being tolerant of a 71-year-old stroke-survivor with bog-slow Internet.”
Starting up LifeLock® took at least an hour, and I was afraid I’d hafta spill because it was getting too dark to walk my dog out back.
So how does one set up a Post-Office “Forward,” or LifeLock®, in only five minutes for each?
I think if you designed the website you could do either in five minutes.

• December 7th, 1941, “a date that will live in infamy,” according to President Franklin D. Roosevelt before Congress, is the day Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech (difficulty finding and putting words together), and left me with sloppy fingers. I pretty much recovered — I can pass for never having had a stroke.

Glowering Intimidator

The other day (last Thursday, November 12th, 2015) I had a medical appointment in nearby Canandaigua at noon.
After setting up my dog inside my house, I aimed my car out the driveway toward State Route 65, the road I live on.
After traffic cleared, only one car, I turned south on 65 toward the center of our little town, what there is of it.
The center of our town is the traffic-light, where 65 ends at its intersection with east/west 5&20.
The road 65 is on continues south as County Road 37.
5&20 is NY State Route 5, and U.S. Route 20, both on the same road.
5&20 used to be the main east/west road across western NY before the Thruway, Interstate-90. It followed an old indian-trail, and separated about 20-30 miles west.
State Route 5 goes up along the lake. I remember driving it back in the ‘70s chasing a restored railroad steam-locomotive, Norfolk & Western #611.

611 chuffs down 17th Street in Erie on the old Nickel Plate. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

We were skirting Lake Erie.
I’m a railfan, and have been since age-2 — I’m 71.
At the traffic-light I would turn left toward Canandaigua.
As I began my turn I noticed a glowering intimidator nipping my bumper, shaking his fist and yelling, and lunging to my right as if trying to pass illegally in the right-turn lane for County Road 37.
That right-turn lane goes away.
Clearly, I wasn’t driving fast enough. I was driving at a reasonable and normal speed, instead of blasting my turn like race-driver Denis Hulme (“hyoom”) rocketing his Big-Block Can-Am McLaren out of the hairpin at Mosport (“moe-SPORT”).


Hulme blasts Moss Hairpin at Mosport about 1970, in his Can-Am McLaren, the greatest racecars I’ve ever seen. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

I wasn’t pedal-to-the-metal!
I drove transit-bus 16&1/2 years for Regional Transit Service (RTS), a public-employer, the supplier of bus-service in Rochester and environs.
In order to drive a bus safely, you had to allow for idiots and wackos.
I still do it! My braking-distances are way more than suggested. I still wanna stop without throwing my passengers outta the seats.
So okay, let the dude pass when we get outta town.
But he fell behind as we drove out of town.
That is, until I slowed for a pickup signaling a left-turn ahead of me.
Another car was between me and the pickup, and I doubt Mr. Glowering Intimidator saw the pickup.
All he saw was me, obstructing his fevered attempt to be a NASCAR racer.
On my bumper again, shaking his fist and yelling.
It became apparent I and my leader were going to have to go around the pickup on the right shoulder.
But I got a raving maniac behind me.
He was already lunging for the right shoulder, so I backed off and let him by.
My leader had already moved to the right shoulder, surprising Mr. Intimidator, who was more obsessed with me than ascertaining the whole picture.
He had to back off; at least he didn’t rear-end my leader.
Drive eight hours a day, and you get madness like this.
“Oh Dora, look, a bus. PULL-OUT! PULL-OUT!”

• The Nickel Plate mainline did street-running through Erie, PA.
• Sports Car Club of America’s Can-Am series, back in the early ‘70s, was the BEST racing I ever saw. Unlimited two-seater fendered sports cars with hot-rodded aluminum Big-Block Chevy motors generating almost 800 horsepower — the ultimate hotrod on twisting road-circuits. One of the road-courses was Mosport near Toronto. The Can-Am waned after Porsche (“poor-sha”) developed a 1,000 horsepower turbocharged Can-Am racer.

Mumbo-Jumbo

“Provider notice: Authorization is required for this service and no active authorization is on file. Important member information about this denial: Please refer to the ‘benefit limitations and exclusions and/or coverage limitation’ provisions as described in your summary plan description or plan document.”

Versus:

“A claim for services you received has been submitted to Value Options on behalf of MVP. This explanation of benefits is being provided to help you understand the amount charged by your provider and the amount of benefits paid by Value Options on behalf of MVP. It also includes any Copayment, Coinsurance, Deductible and any Non-Covered Charges for which you are responsible. The amount shown above may include amounts that you paid to your provider at the time of service. If you received covered services from a participating provider, that provider has agreed to accept the Allowed Amount, minus any Copayment, Coinsurance and Deductible, as payment in full. If you receive services from a non-participating provider you may also be responsible for the difference between the Billed Charges and the Allowed Amount.”

MAKE SENSE A’ THAT, DEAR READER!
All in the same letter!
(“MVP” is my health-insurance.)
I have a college-degree, earned after cogitating mountains of drivel.
It sounds to me like that first quote is my health-insurance denying coverage.
The second quote talks like my claim will be paid.
As usual I hafta call “the provider” to see what gives.
The provider is “Boike Counseling” (“Boy-key”), and the “psychotherapist“ is Judith Taylor, LCS.
It was suggested I seek counseling after my wife died. I was devastated back then, not much now. That was over three years ago. I wasn’t “referred.”
All of this is interesting since I’ve already seen Judith Taylor 8-10 previous times. And this is the first time I received a letter like this.
My health-insurance also sent previous notifications her claim was paid.
I may have to also call my health-insurance. It wouldn’t be the first time. Not too long ago I got a similar letter saying my health-insurance wouldn’t pay the claim because the service wasn’t “specified.”
That is, “it wasn’t coded,” I was told.
When I ran all this by my health-insurance I was told to not worry. It wasn’t my problem — they would take care of it.
So why the letter? I wouldn’t be surprised to get the same response from Boike.
As if a stroke-survivor can easily parry phonecalls. I usually hafta tell the other party I had a stroke, and may not make sense, or lock up.
At which point some get angry!
What is it with these guys they feel they occasionally hafta jerk your chain?
Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth caused by legal mumbo-jumbo, all so the bloated fatcats can buy their Mercedes.

• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty finding and putting words together.)

The Deed is Done

Amidst all the madness, this was apparently not published. The operation was Wednesday, August 26th.

Right about now my prostate is probably rotting in some medical waste-dump. The maggots are probably already at it.
Anyone who reads this blog knows Yrs Trly had prostate cancer.
I’ve never been really clear about this. I don’t know how bad it was — I guess it wasn’t.
We’ve been monitoring my PSA for years. That’s Prostate-Specific-Antigen in my blood, an indicator of prostate cancer.
It’s always been kind of highish, although certain other things can make it high, like infection or sex.
But a few months ago my PSA came back really high, so we decided to do a biopsy.
Prostate cancer is also indicated by lumps or bumps on the prostate gland, felt by the Doctor poking around in your butt. My prostate was always smooth.
But the biopsy indicated prostate cancer, apparently inside the gland.
Supposedly this is quite common for men my age. I’m 71.
My father had it, which was after I left, so I never knew.
It was treated with radiation — his prostate wasn’t removed — which is what they were doing back then.
In my case, various treatment options were considered, one of which was radiation.
But my Doctor said radiation was good for about 10 years.
I said I expected I might be around longer than that.
So we decided to remove my prostate, and this is much less invasive than it was a few years ago.
The removal and re-plumbing is done through 4-5 small incisions with the Da Vinci robot. The surgeon is driving it through a computer.


The robot is over the operating-table.

I know a guy who had the same surgery, and he’s fine.
It’s still a major surgery. They’re poking around with power-drills, Skil-saws, and pipe-wrenches.
I had to do a “pre-op;” this surgery would involve hospitalization.
Finally the appointed hour came, 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, August 26th.
(I woulda done this earlier, but I’m still pooped.)
I was wheeled into the operating-room. The many tentacled Da Vinci robot was along the wall.
For the umpteenth time I was asked to recite my name and birthday.
“Robert John Hughes, February 5th, 1944, which makes me an old geezer.”
During my hospitalization I must have repeated that hundreds of times.
I was then asked to tell my surgery. “We’re removing my prostate,” I said.
“Is anyone here with you?”
“Nope.”
After that, lights out.
I woke up a few hours later in the recovery-room, oxygen in my nose,
Sit quietly and don’t ask questions. You’re in the hospital; their rules apply.
After recovery my hospitalization began.
-Day One: I couldn’t move.
-Day Two: I could get up in bed if someone was pulling me.
They said I was cleared to be discharged after two days, but I said I wasn’t confident. Getting up was still a struggle, and I’d be going home to an empty house.
-Day Three: A Physical-Therapist came and showed me how to get up using my elbow as a prop.
Worked like a charm.
I would be discharged, and no longer to an empty house. My brother-in-law had driven up from Florida.
I still had the catheter, and would have it until the following Thursday (September 3rd).
I had to figure out how to change bags; a leg-bag during the day, a bigger bag at night.
I could recount various travails of hospitalization:
-A bed shaped like a ditch.
-The gentleman next door yelling for help at 1 a.m.
-Lights on: “We’re here to check your vitals, Mr. Hughes” at 2 a.m.
-My intravenous would go wonky, and start quietly beeping — not loud enough to attract a nurse, but it would keep me awake.
-And then there was the telephone in my room that rang at 3 a.m. I finally unplugged it. I was using my cellphone, which I can shut off at bedtime.
The hospital’s rules are inviolate, but vary with each nurse.
Once I thought I’d try walking, but had red hospital socks, an indicator I was unstable.
“I’ll get a walker,” the nurse said.
“I never had no walker before, and I’ve already walked many times.”
“But you have red socks. I’ll get a walker.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “If I hafta use a walker, I ain’t interested in walking. To me that’s not productive.”
I was allowed to walk without a walker and without incident, confident and strong. Seven laps, far more than the average patient.
As seems to be the case with all hospitalizations, your ability to go to the bathroom (“number-two,” they said) triggers your discharge.
So when that finally happened, why did I have to run to the bathroom myself, instead of with a nurse, as required?
A five-to-ten minute wait after the call-button was average, and sometimes it was never answered.
And why was it always me looking out for myself when a nurse forgot a pill or something? “I can’t sleep with that light on.”
A lady came around to take my dinner-order. The primary entré was goulash. “Anything else?” I asked. I chose baked-fish.
Dinner arrived; it was goulash.
So the deed is done, and I don’t regret it.
I’m recovering slowly, I guess, but I need to nap a lot.
I’m told that’s the anesthesia; it takes a long time for it to wear off.
This surgery surprised me.
It’s not invasive, but still a major surgery.
It clobbered me a lot more than expected.
And then there are the Depends. I hadn’t been told to expect that.
I’m pretty much back to normal; all I’m left with is needing naps and Depends.
I made the mistake of telling my surgeon it was “all his fault,” when he visited during Day-Two, which was when I could barely move.
If I regret anything, it’s saying that.
Here I am slamming around as if nothing happened. He extended my life, and saved me from a horrible death.

• “Robert John Hughes” is me, “Bobbalew.”
• RE: “an empty house......” —My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly. My “brother-in-law” is her brother.

“Lana”

The REAL Lana Turner. My friend was prettier in the face, but the hair is similar.

In December of 1957 my family moved from south Jersey to northern Delaware.
I was 13, soon to become 14, and had started eighth grade.
My father had got a better job at a new oil-refinery in northern DE; he had previously worked at a Texaco refinery in south Jersey.
We had to move so my father’s daily commute wasn’t untenable — about 15-20 miles replacing 100+.
He started in 1956, commuting in our ’53 Chevy.
By then the Jersey Turnpike had opened, so he was using that, along with the Delaware Memorial Bridge.
I don’t remember this move being traumatic, but I’m told I was traumatized. Although I think that may be my siblings insisting they knew me better than I know myself.
I don’t think the move itself traumatized me; it was more that I’d have to make new friends.
As if someone totally unsure of himself could do that.
My family moved in early December, but decided I should stay behind to finish 1957 in my old school.
That’s just 1957; a full eighth-grade would finish in June of 1958.
I would live out 1957 with my paternal grandparents in nearby Camden, NJ, and take the bus out to my suburb, where I’d catch the schoolbus to my school.
I have no idea how I got back to my grandparents. What I remember is hanging around my old neighborhood in the predawn darkness hoping my friend Joe would come out so we could walk to our schoolbus stop.
We were in brand-new Delaware Township High-School, since renamed Cherry Hill High-School, as was the township. Later a second high-school was added called “Cherry Hill High-School East,” and Cherry Hill High-School was renamed “Cherry Hill High-School West.”
I think we might have been the first class, proposed to graduate in 1962.
We were the cusp of the oncoming post-war baby-boom. 1944, my birth year, makes me a war-baby, not post-war baby-boom. WWII ended in 1945, but our area was growing. I had to do double-sessions in fifth grade.
Seventh grade was the new high-school, and the school was only partially finished. Only the academic-building, “D” building, the classrooms.
“A” building wasn’t finished yet, nor was “B” (the auditorium), or “C” (the gym and cafeteria). “A” was shop-classes, mechanical drawing, art, and home-ec.
Delaware Township High-School got students from all over the area, not just my little suburb’s elementary-school.
With Delaware Township High-School my pool of possible friends vastly expanded.
Among them was a girl I’ll call “Lana.” I can’t remember her name, but she was extraordinarily beautiful in a “Lana Turner”-like way.
Not a cute sexpot.
She had long shoulder-length blond hair, waving onto her shoulders. She lived alone with her mother, I think a divorcee.
She had a steady boyfriend, a hard-rock greaser.
But she was attracted to me, always singling me out for conversation, the pimply kid.
I was clueless, no idea what to do.
I’m a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Sexual Relations.
Hilda was Sunday-School Superintendent at my parents’ church, and also my next-door neighbor.
She did her best to convince me I was totally unworthy of female attention; that my attraction to sexpots was disgusting.
The girls she wanted me to like were older, and hardly sexy.
Hilda’s legacy still haunts me, even at age-71.
I of course learned Hilda was wrong. There were plenty of girls interested in me, and many were cute and/or sexy.
And that was despite how screwed-up and unsure of myself I was.
I still have a scribbled note a cute sexpot left in my school-desk inviting me to a dance. It’s in my safe-deposit box.
DANCE! With my father? Utterly inconceivable.
I was dragged away from a school sock-hop I was deejaying when my father pounded on the school-door.
I had been invited to play my saxophone. My friends were dumbfounded when my father dragged me out by the ear.
Shortly after I moved a schoolmate came and invited me to join his circle of friends. He invited me to a dance.
I had to put him off. My father would have gone ballistic and beat me to a pulp.
I visited Hilda in 1992; by then she was in her 80s.
Her husband was gone, but she lived in the same house next to our first house.
By then she was no longer Sunday-School Superintendent, but she took me back to our old church — she still had a key — and then badmouthed all the travesties being visited upon her beloved Sunday-School building by younger pups.
That two-story Sunday-School building, much like a regular school, was her doing, her private preserve. Where she told us children alcohol would rot our brains, and anyone wearing pants, like me for example, was unworthy of female attention.
So I wonder how faire Hilda would react to “Lana;” the fact an extremely beautiful girl was attracted to me.
That didn’t happen. Our family moved, consigning Hilda, and “Lana,” to the filmy past.

• I learned how to drive in that ’53 Chevy, known by me as “the Blue Bomb” (it was navy-blue). It was a pig; PowerGlide-six.
• “Camden, NJ” is the urban extension of the Philadelphia area in south Jersey. My paternal grandparents lived in Camden.

Fall-Foliage attempt

Westbound 23M through autumn splendor. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

My brother and I went to Altoona (PA) two weekends ago, hopefully to get fall foliage pictures chasing trains.
We both are railfans, me since age-2. My brother is 13 years younger than me. I’m 71 and he’s 58.
The railroad is Norfolk Southern over Allegheny Mountain, the old Pennsylvania Railroad main.
Pennsy no longer exists. It merged with New York Central in 1968, and Penn-Central went bankrupt in two years, the largest corporate bankruptcy at that time.
Both Pennsy and New York Central had been busy conduits of railroad traffic to and from the east-coast megalopolis. Other railroads served that area too, and all also failed.
So when Penn-Central failed, northeast railroading became a mess. The government stepped in and engineered a fix, Conrail, and both the Pennsy and NYC mains became Conrail.
Norfolk Southern is a 1982 merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway. Conrail became successful and privatized. It became interested in selling.
CSX was gonna buy all of it, but Norfolk Southern wanted part. Finally a deal was struck, so Conrail broke up and sold in 1999.
CSX got the old New York Central main across NY, and Norfolk Southern got the old Pennsy main across PA.
Norfolk Southern was successful in selling its railroad service, so the old Pennsy main is still very busy.
The Allegheny Crossing area is very interesting to a railfan like me, with multiple trains letting it all hang out, wide-open climbing, and trying to prevent runaways descending.
There are other places with greater train frequency, but not operating at extremes.
Most of the area is forested with deciduous trees, so turns orange during October.
I publish an annual calendar of our train-pictures, so need photos specific for each month. That is, snow for January, February, December, and maybe March, bare trees for April, November, and maybe even May, Fall-color for October, and greenery the other months.
I should explain chasing trains, since people ask.
My brother and I both have railroad-radio scanners. As a train passes a signal the engineer must call out the signal-aspect: “clear,” “approach” (slow, prepared to stop), or “restricting” (stop). The engineer will say what track he’s on, his train-number, direction, and signal-location — “UN, 21E, west on Two, clear!” (“UN” being the signal location, “21E” the train-number.)
Often the train-engineers are female.
Since I know where the signals are, we’ll know if that train is coming, or if we can beat it to another location.
The railroad also has lineside defect-detectors that broadcast on the railroad-radio. “Norfolk Southern milepost 253.1, Track One, no defects.”
The defect-detectors serve the purpose caboose trainmen once served, to look for train defects: hot wheels, dragging equipment, etc.
Track One is eastbound, and I know where milepost 253.1 is. So that radio broadcast tells me if I’ll see the train, or if I should move.
So we ram all over the area “chasing trains.” The railroad is still quite busy, maybe even busier than years ago. The idea is to photograph the train at a scenic location, grist for my train-calendar.
Trains are frequent; we don’t have to wait long. Although there may be slow times, or trackwork closing a track or two.
There also is a schedule of freight-trains running every day. Plus the railroad runs extra trains, like coal or crude-oil.
We may photograph 20 or more trains while the sun is up. One time we got 30.
Although that was with my railfan friend from Altoona, Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”).
I began chasing trains with Phil years ago, while my wife was still alive. He was doing it as a business.
Then he quit the business. He had been doing the driving, and had too many near-accidents.
Then he began helping me chase trains: me driving and he riding shotgun monitoring his railroad-radio scanner to tell me where to go.
Then his wife, who has Multiple Sclerosis, became a worry. He was afraid of her falling without him around if we were out chasing trains.
So now he stays home, but monitoring his railroad scanner, and calls my cellphone while I’m out chasing trains.
This works pretty good, although he can only monitor Altoona and the east slope of The Hill. A bed-and-breakfast for railfans broadcasts the west slope railroad-radio feed on the Internet, and we can get that on our Smartphones.
“Fifty miles of railroad,” my brother will say. In Altoona that’s our scanners, plus our Smartphones getting the west slope Internet feed from the bed-and-breakfast.
We don’t do as well as with Phil, who used to do sudden U-turns to beat a train to a location.
But we do okay. The line is busy enough we don’t have to wait long.
A train might appear and we shoot, then we wait for the engineer to call out a signal so we can identify the train.
With Phil the signal-callout came first, and he might suddenly U-turn to beat that train to a photo-location.
As is commonly the case, my brother drove to Altoona Wednesday, October 21st to chase trains alone Thursday, October 22nd while I drove down.
For him the trip is nine hours; for me it’s five. He’s coming from the Boston area; me from the Rochester (NY) area.
Thursday was cloudy, but he did okay.
Fall foliage was debatable. Phil said it peaked a week earlier, but there was still plenty of orange around.
Up on Tunnel Hill overlook, atop Allegheny Mountain, I have seen total orange over the valley.
But it was still fairly green.


22W east at Brickyard Crossing. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)


26T East from Eighth Street overpass in Altoona. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)


36A, all auto-racks, eastbound at Lower Riggles Gap Road overpass in Pinecroft. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)


67X west, an empty crude-oil train, led by only the barcode-engine, #1111, approaches the Lower Riggles Gap Road overpass. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)


16A east on Track One approaches the Route 53 overpass. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)


35A west on Four approaches the Route 53 overpass. (The two lead locomotives are recent shop overhauls; added in Altoona. That lead unit is not a wide-cab.) (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

My brother shot various locations, Brickyard and Eighth street bridge.
When I arrived he was at Pinecroft, where Lower Riggles Gap Road crosses the tracks on an overpass.
I usually avoid Pinecroft, because the tracks are straight both coming and going. Long straights; I think curves are more photogenic.
But he got the barcode engine, #1111. Look at the locomotive number-board and you’ll see the railroad has accommodated the railfans.
The number is tiny; a barcode.
Norfolk Southern does this — it doesn’t discourage fans. Other railroads might hate having railfans around; they can be unsafe.
Norfolk Southern painted 20 new locomotives in colors of predecessor railroads.
Railfans go crazy following them around. Websites detail the locations of these 20 locomotives, the so-called “Heritage Units.”
The locomotives are used as regular power, so if a train shows up with a Heritage-Unit, there’s usually a railfan contingent.
My brother’s oil-refinery security-detail wonders why so many photographers line the tracks into his refinery. A Heritage-Unit is leading a crude-oil train.
The railfans are even using drones over the refinery’s unloading facility. They get perceived as a terrorist threat.
About the only way to deal with this is for the FBI and the NSA to show up — and bust heads. Take cameras, drones, etc.
Do that and you ruin the railfan experience. Faudi used to always advise playing it safe; no trespassing, and stay off the tracks.
Drone footage was on You-Tube, but that was looking over a derailment in Altoona.
I never knew of the barcode-unit, but it makes sense. And apparently the railroad has played along by installing a non-stock number-board.
Our chase continued Friday; now it was me and him.
We also hit various locations. Alto Tower off 17th Street bridge, the Route 53 bridge over five-tracks, also Pinecroft and Portage.


Train 36A again passes Alto Tower (closed) in Altoona. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)


27N off the 1898 bypass into Portage. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


I3M, bare-tables for double-stacks, passes through Portage (PA). This train originally had another number (23Q), but changed numbers when recrewed in Altoona. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)


12G eastbound on One through Portage. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)


21E, the westbound UPS train, into South Fork. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


67Z westbound, an empty crude-oil train, from the Tunnel-Hill overlook. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

The sun was out; it was perfect weather, not a cloud in the sky.
But the sun moved quickly; by 4 p.m. we were getting heavy shadows in our pictures as the sun dropped low.
We also went up to Tunnel-Hill overlook near Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”) in hopes the valley below would be ablaze in color.
It wasn’t. And in Winter the railroad is visible across the valley. It wasn’t. It was still blocked by trees.
Finally we tried a location totally new, where the tracks railroad-west of the Route 53 overpass turn toward Cresson (“KRESS-in”).
There the sunlight was perfect, and the trackside foliage was spectacular.
That’s my lede picture, my October calendar-shot.

The October Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar picture. (Photo by Don Woods.)

The night before we tried to find the location of the Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar October picture railroad-west of Cassandra (“Ka-SANN-druh;” as in the name “Anne”) on the 1898 bypass.
We couldn’t find it, and guessed the photographer being Norfolk Southern management got to the location on a company rail-rider truck.
But I think our shot is better; the color more strident.
Plus all is in sunlight; the contest picture looks like high clouds.
My brother took one final picture, Saturday morning before he drove home.


27N, west on Three, through Altoona. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

I wonder how long I’m gonna be able to keep doing this. I’m 71, and somewhat unsteady on my feet.
But I can’t stop. Chasing trains is a joy!
I also learned I hafta mount my camera on a tripod, even the small lens.
Only my tripod-shots weren’t blurred.

• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.