Monthly Calendar-Report for March 2016

The Pennsy Heritage-unit is in the lead. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—The March 2016 entry in my own calendar is from my “stealth”-trip last year.
“Stealth” in that I told no one I was going, neither my brother-from-Boston, nor my railfan friend Phil Faudi from Altoona (PA).
Norfolk Southern’s Pennsy Heritage-unit, #8102, leads a heavy coal-drag up Allegheny Mountain into Gallitzin on Track One.
I had along my railroad-radio scanner, and thought I could get by on my own.
Track One is eastbound, and is not the original Pennsy line. It’s actually the New Portage Railroad alignment, and leads to New Portage Tunnel.
New Portage Railroad replaced the original Portage Railroad, which included inclined planes over Allegheny Mountain.
Both portage railroads were part of the State Public-Works System, a state-sponsored combined railroad and canal system, meant to make PA competitive with NY’s Erie Canal.
Railroad was used over Allegheny summit because it couldn’t be canaled. It used horses at first.
Public-Works was so cumbersome and time-consuming, Philadelphia capitalists founded the Pennsylvania Railroad, which made Public-Works moribund.
Public-Works eventually failed, and was sold to Pennsy for a pittance. The canal was abandoned, but part of New Portage Railroad’s grade was incorporated into Pennsy in the 1890s. This was because New Portage Tunnel gave Pennsy another Allegheny tunnel.
New Portage tunnel is also higher than the original Pennsy tunnel, 2,198 feet versus 2,167 feet.
It requires a ramp to get it back down to the original Pennsy alignment. This is known as “the Slide,” but at 2.28% it isn’t too bad. (It’s only eastbound = down.)
New Portage Railroad, and its tunnel, became Pennsy’s Track One, and it’s separate from Tracks Two and Three, which are on the original Pennsy alignment on the other side of Gallitzin.
New Portage Railroad east of the mountain became an alternate Pennsy route east. The original railroad via Tyrone and Spruce Creek was swamped.
I was about to leave this location, where Track One goes under Gallitzin’s Main St. Bridge. I had been there over an hour, and it was cold.
But suddenly I heard this train’s engineer call out the signal at AR Tower. AR Tower is abandoned, far distant but visible.
So I stayed put. I could hear the train coming, climbing slowly, perhaps 5 mph.
Finally it pulled into view, and what ho, the Pennsy Heritage-unit, #8102, was on the point.
8102 is one of 20 new locomotives painted in colors of Norfolk Southern predecessor railroads.
It’s a General-Electric ES44AC, 4,400 horsepower, AC traction-motors. The Heritage-units are used as regular road-power.
They are very popular, railfans chase ‘em all over the system. There even are websites that tell where the Heritage-units are.
After shooting this picture I quickly drove down the mountain to 24th St. Bridge in Altoona over Slope Interlocking.
I beat it, and shot again, but my Gallitzin picture was best.
My Slope picture is too backlit.




This is how it began. (Photo by Scott Williamson.)

—The March 2016 entry in my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a 1930 Ford Model-A five-window coupe with a 1948 Flatty.
Souped of course. Bored .30 over, two Stromberg carburetors, individualized exhaust-headers into an uncorkable exhaust— but only three instead of four, a Flatty given — and an “Isky” (Iskenderian) camshaft to increase breathing.
The motor also appears to have cast-aluminum cylinder-heads, probably high-compression, made by Edelbrock.
Old Henry’s V8 of 1932 was thrilling.
It gave sprightly performance even though stock.

“Old Henry.”

I should picture “Old Henry;” I’ve mentioned him enough. He founded Ford Motor Company, and his Model-T put America on wheels. He was irascible and cantankerous.
Old Henry refused to make a six — like sixes were the Devil Incarnate.
Ergo the Ford FlatHead V8, the foundation of hot-rodding.
It was cheap, responded well to souping, and could be worked on by backyard mechanics. An entire industry grew up in southern California to soup up the FlatHead V8.
And to counter all the sixes, Ford made a smaller V8: the V8-60.
It too was soupable; and found its way into midget-racing.
Ford eventually did a six, but not until 1941.
So what we have here is a 1930 Model-A chopped five-window coupe.
The frame-rails are American Stamping — I thought ’32 Ford at first.
It’s also using the ’32 Ford radiator-shell, the best there is.
Both the ’32 Ford and Model-A are Edsel Ford, son of Old Henry, who continually suffered his father’s scorn.
Old Henry thought styling a waste, and Edsel a dandy.
Ford didn’t have a styling-department like General Motors; yet fielded some of the best-looking cars of all time.
And GM was turning out turkeys.
It was mainly Edsel with “Bob” Gregorie.




The second Geep is a cabless B-unit. (Photo by Gene Collora©.)

—The March 2016 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a freight preparing to leave Hagerstown Yard in 1960.
The train is powered by three EMD GP-9s, the middle of which is a B-unit. B-unit Geeps were cabless. There is a small control-stand inside for hosteling the locomotive around an engine-facility.
But they can’t lead a train on the road.
Cabless B-units wouldn’t have worked but for multiple-units; more than one locomotive operated by the lead locomotive crew.
You can’t do that with steam-locomotives. Each steam-engine needed its own crew.
But diesel-locomotives can be wired together and operated in multiple.
Cabless B-unit road-switchers were fairly popular. But I haven’t seen ‘em lately.
A GP-9 was only 1,750 horsepower. It might take four or more to pull a train back then.
By now road power is up to 4,400 horsepower. One or two diesels might be enough for the train pictured.
Recent trains are also longer. Three units at most is usually enough.
Sometimes you’ll see as many as 6-10 diesels on a train; but only two or three are running.
I consider this picture very well composed. The fact it’s taken low to the ground makes the lead Geep seem imposing.
But I wonder if it’s a potshot. A yard-fixture of some sort is peeking over the central blister.




Grumman TBM Avenger. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The March 2016 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Grumman TBM Avenger, a dive-bomber that carried a torpedo.
“TBM” means it was built by General Motors, but it was Grumman’s design. —Actual Grummans were the “TBF.”
They were big airplanes, but could fly off aircraft-carriers.
It’s single-engine, but the motor is a 1,900 horsepower Wright R-2600-20 “Cyclone” radial.
It’s air-cooled, two rows of seven cylinders each, 14 cylinders total.
The plane would dive at a ship, and drop its torpedo.
With any luck the torpedo would sink the ship.
Last month I said our 41st president, George H.W. Bush, flew Dauntless dive-bombers, and was shot down in one.
WRONG!
He was actually flying Avengers. He was also shot down in one, but was rescued after parachuting.
So somewhere on the Pacific bottom rest the rotting remains of Bush’s Avenger, its corroded R-2600 thoroughly seized.
The Avenger was quite the airplane, it carried a crew of three.
A double machine-gun turret is at the rear of the cockpit canopy.
A single machine-gun worked out of a rear dorsal-turret not visible.
My WWII warbirds site says the plane had a third machine-gun location at a so-called “ventral” location, but I don’t see it, and wasn’t aware of it.
If so, who manned it?
At 10,545 pounds, maximum takeoff weight of 17,895 pounds, that R-2600 is dragging around a lot of airplane.
The wingspan alone is 34 feet two inches. Top speed at 16,500 feet was 276 mph.
The Avenger was not a fighter-plane. 276 mph is not 400 mph.
Stick that R-2600-20 in a smaller, lighter plane and you have a fighter.
But you can’t carry a torpedo on a fighter-plane.
Fighters were no good sinking ships.
I don’t recognize the plane’s markings — I was told they are New Zealand.
New Zealand had Avengers. Which may mean the plane flew off land.
The Avenger had a range of over 2,300 miles, which means it could take off from New Zealand, fly out over the Pacific, drop its torpedo, then fly back to base.




Advancing the railroad’s agenda. (Photo by Greg Ropp.)

—Another picture my brother or I might take.
The March 2016 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a trainload of M-2 Bradley fighting-vehicles from Fort Benning, GA to the port of Charleston.
Sorry, but to me this is more Norfolk Southern patting itself on the back than good photography.
“Norfolk Southern is committed to delivering reliable service to support the transportation needs of the armed forces,” it says.
It’s not that good a picture. The locomotive is not razor-sharp.
The fact the train is all Bradley fighting-vehicles is also distracting. A mixed freight or even double-stacks would look better.
The locomotive is too in-your-face.
The photographer also made it a point to wait until afternoon light to get direct lighting on the locomotive-face.
The picture needs modeling, like the front of the locomotive partially in shadow.
My brother and I got a similar in-your-face photo down near Cresson (“KRESS-in”) PA, but it was fall foliage, not a trainload of Bradleys.

Autumn splendor. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

I used my brother’s picture in my calendar because all my hand-held shots were blurred.
I guess I hafta start using my tripod. (Too old, I’m 72.)
My brother’s photograph is one of the most fantastic pictures we ever got.
Would that those trees in this calendar-picture were orange, and the train was mixed-freight. Also that locomotive-face was razor-sharp.
And maybe I’d use a picture with the locomotive back about 10 feet — it’s a nice curve. And maybe earlier in the day, so the locomotive-face was modeled some.
Sorry, I’m more a photographer than a drum-beating CONSERVATIVE.
Those Bradleys look a little wider than the flatcars they’re on — an oversize load. Railroads call ‘em “high-and-wide.”
2655 is an EMD SD70M-2, 4,000 horsepower.




1964 Chrysler Imperial. (Photo by Dan Lyons©.)

—What we have here is a classic “Go-to-Hell” Chrysler.
The March 2016 entry in my Tide-mark Classic-Car calendar is a 1964 Imperial hardtop.
I look at this car and wonder how it’s any more attractive than a Plymouth Fury of that vintage.
It’s a barge.
In the late ‘60s I rented a car while my Triumph was in the shop. All I could get was a Plymouth Fury four-door.
I remember it well.
It’s hood was big enough to land a Navy Corsair fighter-plane; it was that big and flat.
From 1961 through ’63 the Imperial looked distinguished. They had standalone headlights. No other Chrysler had ‘em.

Standalone headlights.

What happened?
This thing looks no different up front than any other Chrysler. —HUGE expanses of flat sheetmetal with a plain-Jane front-end.

The rear of a ’64 Imperial.

What photographer Lyons shoulda done was focus the rear of this car. It was much more dramatic in back.
I suppose a driver would think this car grand, intimidating to a mere Chevrolet.
Set the Cruise at 90, then blast up the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Which is what they were good for. People used to see how fast they could cruise the entire PA Turnpike, Philadelphia to Ohio. Power a Chrysler with a Hemi, and you could boom-and-zoom.
Pedal-to-the-metal!

Percy.

A Philadelphia radio-evangelist named Percy Crawford used to always buy “Go-to-Hell” Chryslers. His religious camps were up near the Pocono Mountains in northeastern PA. So he would put the hammer down on the PA Turnpike Northeast Extension.
And if the State Police pulled him over, he preached at ‘em. Tell ‘em the Lord was his copilot, and he the pilot, of course.
By 1959 the Hemi was gone — 1958 was the last year they were available, at 392 cubic-inches.
I think the Hemi began again in 1964, Hemi heads on the B-block for NASCAR.
Such Hemis had to be available for the street, but I doubt this car is a Hemi. It’s probably a 413 B-block.
Perhaps with long cross-ram intake manifolds and two four-barrel carburetors outside the rocker-covers.
Would I want such a car? No! That gigantic Fury turned me off.



Steam helps diesel. (Photo by Tom Harley.)

—The March 2016 entry in my All-Pennsy color calendar is an H-8 Consolidation (2-8-0) — probably a yard-switcher — helping a long freight led by F-units get out of Englewood Yard near Chicago.
It looks frigid; steam is filling the air.
Pennsy didn’t buy into heavy 0-8-0 yard-switchers. They developed ‘em, but as 2-8-0 Consols were downgraded from road-service, they were reassigned as yard-switchers.
They also could run small peddler freights out on the high-iron.
The first freight steam-engines I saw were Consols coming out to Haddonfield (NJ) with local freight.
A Consol might shove a loaded coalcar up onto a business’ trestle to receive coal dumped through its hopper-chutes.
This was back when people heated their houses with coal.
The Consol would shunt loaded boxcars into sidings, or empties to be loaded.
This was before trucking became what it is today.
Those F-units are only 1,500 horsepower, and I see three: two B-units and a single A-unit.
I surmise that because only the lead locomotive has radio antennas.
At that time Pennsy was one of the few railroads with radio communication. Pennsy pretty much led the way with technical advances: like signaling in the cab, etc.
Lineside signals might indicate stopping, but then the block might go “clear in the cab.”
Stopping a train often took a mile or more, so a train might come upon another lineside signal before it could wick up again. With cab-signaling the train could wick up before that next signal.
Three F-units are not much to start a train, particularly where all the wheel-journals are cold.
When this picture was taken, 1951, roller-bearing wheel-journals were just coming into use. Wheel-Journals at that time were packed with grease, etc., stuff less likely to free up on starting.
Between the frigid temperatures, and those low-powered diesels, the diesels would have a hard time starting that train.
Engage aging technology; hook that H-8 yard-switcher in front of those diesels to get the train rolling.
Once rolling the diesels would be enough; the wheel-journals would be warmed.
Diesels were better-suited for railroading than side-rod steam-locomotives. With their electric traction-motors they apply constant torque. A steam-locomotive applies torque pulses.
I rode behind a steam-locomotive at Steamtown in Scranton (PA), and could feel it pulling side-to-side with each piston-thrust.
F-units are what put steam-locomotion out to pasture. The first F-unit was the FT in 1939, followed by the F-2 and F-3, and eventually the F-7. There was also an F-9.
Pennsy was slow to dieselize, they were shipping mountains of coal mined in PA, and were therefore tied to coal-fired steam-locomotion.
But dieselization was incredibly attractive. Steam-locomotives were hard to maintain, as opposed to diesel-locomotives, essentially a big truck.
Steam locomotives also needed lineside watering facilities = water towers.
They often also needed lineside coaling facilities.
Diesels didn’t need much of anything, just fuel, which unlike coal was liquid.

---

An MG-A.

—Boy am I glad I didn’t buy one of these. If I had, I might not be here, or paralyzed from the waist down.
The March 2016 entry in my Jerry Powell “Classic-Car” calendar is an MG-A.
I don’t know what year it is; it doesn’t say. It doesn’t even say it’s at MG-A.

An MG-TD

“MG” stands for Morris Garages in Great Britain. MG sold sportscars in this country after WWII, namely the TD and later the TF.
They were fairly popular, mainly because the American manufacturers weren’t offering sportscars.
The MG-A was much more modern than the TD or TF.

“The Beast.” (Photo by BobbaLew.)

I bought “The Beast” instead; a gutsy 1958 fish-mouth Triumph TR-3 that had been drag-raced.
My mother was appalled, and terrified. Her first-born son bought a car that could kill him.
“The Beast” made no sense at all; it wasn’t basic transportation.
I bought it during Summer of 1965, before my senior year at college.
It was open exhaust when I got it, and had drag-slicks on it.
Which made it a handful in rain.
Fortunately it still had the original Pirelli Cinturatos; I changed out the drag-slicks.
I also had Midas put a muffler on it, plumbed into the original open pipe, which I shortened.
That exhaust was at least two inches in diameter, and I hacked off the tail-end bologna-style, making it my so-called “organ-pipe.”
Despite it not being basic transportation, it was great fun.
The sound alone was gorgeous.
Those drag-guys had it rejetted for maximum performance, and exquisitely tuned.
I considered buying an MG-A or Triumph, but found my Triumph instead.
One night my wife-to-be and I went for a ride, top off, on back-country roads.
I entered a curve fairly fast, but it was covered with gravel.
The Beast began a lurid slide off the road, then flipped into the weeds — as TR-3s liked to do; they were nicknamed “coffins.”
We had our seatbelts on, racing belts I’d got from Rochester, right up the river from my college.
So the belts kept us in the car. The windshield was broken off, so we ended up on the hood and trunk.
The car flipped over its right side, so I was thrown partially out under my door.
The TR-3 has cutaway doors like an MG-TD. I ended up under that cutaway, face-down in the weeds.
Had it not been for that cutaway, I might not have made it, or broke my back.
We wiggled out of our seatbelts and walked away.
An MG-A doesn’t have that cutaway.
If I’d bought an MG-A instead of The Beast I might not be here.
A friend killed himself in his TR-3. He was racing a narrow back-country road in northern DE. That was in the mid ‘60s.

I did it!

This all came about last week when my incredibly cute Physical Therapist came out to the lobby to greet me and take me back to the Therapy-Gym.
I locked up, as stroke-survivors often do. It’s called aphasia, the inability to get words out for speech; I couldn’t strike up a conversation.
My writing still works fine.
“You have to realize,” I told her the other day; “I had a stroke, and you know that already. I often lock up, and can’t get words out.”
“I also have another problem,” I said. “You’re incredibly cute.”
“There, I said it,” I thought to myself.
“Heh-heh-heh,” she laughed warily, as if to say “Uh-ohhh; another lust-filled geezer hot to hit on me.”
“No, actually I’m a graduate of the ‘Hilda Q. Walton School of Sexual Relations,’ whereby I’m totally unworthy of female companionship.”
“I should explain,” I said.
“Hilda was my Sunday-School Superintendent and neighbor when I was a child. Together with my parents she convinced me I was disgusting, disreputable, and of-the-Devil; that I was only attracted to sluts and slatterns. —No girl approved by Hilda would ever have anything to do with me.
According to Hilda, all pants-wearers were evil.
She actually generated two sons; how I’ll never know.
Her husband must have been a real charmer to get her to do anything at all.
And worst of all, he smoked Lucky-Strike cigarettes. NO WAY could I ever do anything with a smoker.
“Beyond that, we have a business relationship,” I said. “You’re the Physical Therapist, and I’m your patient, client, user, whatever it is today.”
“I’m also 72 years old, no longer in pursuit of procreating the species.”
“Okay, face me.”
I looked her straight in her pretty eyes, which I wish I could portray as a picture on this blog.
She’s really smashingly cute, perhaps 25 or so.
“Thanks to Hilda, I’ve never been able to talk to pretty girls,” I said. “I’m intimidated.”
“Well, I’m not intimidating. You can talk to me. I like it.”
So here I am, eye-contact with an incredibly cute girl; something I thought I’d never do.

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.

Jaundiced eye

While I was at Houghton (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”) in the middle ‘60s, my college about 70-75 miles south of Rochester (NY), the yearbook was done by the junior class, that is, the yearbook-editor was a junior.
And the editor of the student newspaper was a senior.
I don’t recall how the yearbook-editor was named, but it seems to me the newspaper-editor was elected.
That is, during the year previous, proposed newspaper-editors were nominated, and an editor was elected for the following year.
For some strange reason, seniors above me wanted to nominate me. I had no interest at all, mainly because I had no management experience.
I suppose those guys liked the way I thought, that I had a habit for skewering the high-and-mighty pronouncements of others.
That was good for my fragile ego, but not enough to run a newspaper.
If I had been elected — highly unlikely, since I was a sinner, and the college evangelical — I would have been replaced after the newspaper crashed in flames.
Named was a guy named “Harold Baxter,” who despite being in our class, was I think three or four years older.
It was a good choice; at least the newspaper wouldn’t crash in flames.
That newspaper had to reflect the evangelical values of Houghton, and under “Bax” it would.
Bax called me in one day and asked if I could do a report on renovations in the Administration Building.
I went and interviewed various secretaries, wives of heavy-hitters at the college.
I asked one if she liked the profusion of tiny multicolored telephone-wires emanating from her walls.
She said she did (really), so off-I-went writing it up.
Bax was impressed. He was smitten with my deadpan reporting of silliness.
My reporting was laughable.
Bax then asked me to do a humor-column similar to my report.
At that time the newspaper had a humor-column that anchored the edit-page.
It was a tradition started by a guy named Dan Willett, son of a Houghton professor, and second-in-command at the newspaper.
Willett and someone else pointed out some of the silliness that went on around the college.
A similar humor-column ran the next year, and again under Bax.
But by then that humor-column was crashing. The guys doing it weren’t Dan Willett.
I decided to lead my column with “Of Men and Things,” which I think is Biblical.
I wrote up retirement of “Sam the Soda-Machine,” long a fixture on campus outside the old Fine Arts Building.
I was the only one that did; the other guys missed it.
“Of Men and Things” became a biweekly column, running on the back page, even though the official humor-column also ran.
Willett, who had graduated, returned to the newspaper office to weigh in.
“This guy Hughzey is writing the kind of stuff we wrote; the official humor-column falls flat.”
And so it’s been ever since. I call it observing with a “jaundiced eye.”
There’s madness and silliness everywhere. All you hafta do is observe and report it.
And do so in a deadpan fashion, as if it’s normal.

• “Houghton College” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.
• RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. —At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to blog, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”

Survey

Yesterday (Thursday, February 18th, 2016) I was accosted in the Mighty Canandaigua Weggers by two earnest college-girls wanting to administer a survey about sustainability.
“So have at it!” I said.
I was showered with a barrage of questions, but I only remember five:
—1) “Do you turn the water off when you brush your teeth?”
“I guess so; I use an electric toothbrush.”
—2) “Do you turn off the lights when you leave a room?”
“Usually, although sometimes I leave them on if I’m gonna return.”
—3) “Do you recycle?”
“Yes,” I said emphatically.
—4) “Is your toilet a lo-flo?”
“Yeah, but I hafta use so much water to unplug it, it’s no longer lo-flo. It’s a plumber’s dream.”
—5) “Do you use plastic bags?”
“Not if I can avoid them.”
My wife is gone, but I still do her bit.
In my kitchen are four paper sacks in which I recycle: cans, glass, plastic, cardboard.
I also shred a lot of paper, which I bag up for recycling.
Most depressing is I can’t recycle my garbage.
We used to keep a mulch-pile; I still have it.
But it’s too much trouble, and the main reason we had it, our garden, is no longer a garden.
We used to grow tomatoes, peppers, string-beans, and squash. We even grew beets at one time, and zucchini the size of the Graf Zeppelin.
I used to take our bounty to the Messenger newspaper where I worked after my stroke. One zucchini was used to club reporters.
But those days are gone with my wife.
I still recycle stuff.
It’s silly and unmanly, but I don’t want to leave a giant footprint.

• “Mighty Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester where I often buy groceries. They have a store in Canandaigua. (“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 in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)
• My wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.
• The “Messenger” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over ten 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).

100 Years

Most of the attendees at the birthday-party. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

As of Sunday, February 14th, 2016, my wife’s mother was 100 years old.
February 14th, 1916 to February 14th, 2016.
Model-T Ford to Man-on-the-Moon; although that was 47 years ago.
This was the first time I didn’t look for a combination Valentine/birthday card. I looked for a 100-year birthday card instead.
This was also a great adventure for me: my first attempt at flying anywhere since my wife died almost four years ago.
Her mother outlasted her. That ain’t supposed to happen.
I also think my wife mighta made 100 too, had she not developed cancer.
I don’t know about me. I never smoked, and I work out.
My paternal grandfather made it into his 90s.
My wife’s brother is still alive; he’s 74. He tends to his mother, who he lives near. She’s still in independent-living in a retirement community, but is near blind, and can hardly hear.
My brother-in-law will also make 100 if his health holds.
In celebration of this momentous occasion, all my mother-in-law’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, would appear.
This included me, who married her only daughter, now gone.
This also included her brother’s first wife and daughter, the son of his second wife, the two married daughters of his third wife and their husbands, plus his fourth wife, who has an eating disorder and is somewhat weak.
Plus three great-grandchildren.
His first wife still lives in Rochester (NY) like me, where she grew up. She would come down to FL with her daughter’s boyfriend, who would drive.
That daughter, my niece, is divorced from her husband, but they have a daughter. That great-granddaughter would come too, but not my niece’s ex-husband. I don’t think my wife’s mother was told of the divorce, for fear it would kill her.
My niece’s boyfriend was presented as “an old family friend” who once lived in FL so knew the way.
I also think my wife’s mother may be beyond being aware of things.
My niece, her boyfriend, and her mother all live in Rochester.
The others all live near Atlanta, GA.
There is plenty to get my wife’s mother upset.
Her only son is now on his fourth wife, and apparently had other girlfriends along the way.
“Why couldn’t he be satisfied with his first wife?” to whom he should go back. She likes her a lot. “It’s awful, I tell ya!”
My wife’s mother growled at me the first time she met me — she actually growled.
But now after 44+ years and shuttling back-and-forth to my wife’s cancer treatments, I’m wonderful!
It was noisily predicted we wouldn’t last a year.
So now after 100 years her entire world has gone to Hell-in-a-handbasket. She’s given up. —Gone are the “good old days” when youngsters used to venerate their parents, and change happens so fast she can’t keep up.
Her only daughter did not become a Bible-thumping Christian zealot, and her only son didn’t stay with the one she approved.
So amazingly I’m the bright-spot. —The guy who once prompted “Look what the cat dragged in.”
I haven’t been able to do much since my wife died.
That is, not fly anywhere; I couldn’t get up the gumption.
I’ve driven to my brothers’ in northern DE and Boston, and to Altoona PA many times to chase trains — I’m a railfan.
I went to my 50th high-school reunion, and a recent family Thanksgiving gig.
I told my wife’s brother I probably wouldn’t make FL until his mother died. But he suggested she would rather be alive to see me.
My wife’s brother’s first wife suggested an el-cheapo airline, Allegiant, that flies direct to Sanford, near my wife’s mother, who lives in De Land.
But Allegiant only does this on Friday and Monday, up to Rochester and back both days.
So down on Friday, back Monday.
Down Friday/back Monday means staying a day longer than I can usually stand.
So I decided to take this here laptop, to key in stuff in my hotel room.
I also suggested my wife’s brother pick me up and cart me around. That way I could avoid renting a car, and we have a good time trading snide remarks, verbal flatulence, and sick jokes.
So into the fray!
I dropped my dog at the kennel, and drove to Rochester’s airport.
After parking my car I got in the Security-line, where insanity began.
I had this laptop at the bottom of my carry-on, and it had to be in a single bin.
Unpack everything!
“Go ahead of me,” I kept saying.
And of course a TSA lady was incensed I didn’t have my Driver’s License out for ID.
Well, both hands were full; I was carrying a cane and my carry-on, and the line moved quickly.
The cane aids stability since my left knee was changed.
I then got sent through the full-body X-ray, and triggered Armageddon.
I told them I had a metal knee, but that wasn’t what triggered it.
Agents began patting me down, and I was directed into a small room with a supervisor.
“My watch?” I asked. I also had forgot to take out my iPhone.
“What about under here?” they asked, patting down my left pants-pocket.
“I’m wearing Depends, if that means anything,” I allowed.
The Depends are to counteract slight incontinence following my prostate removal last August. It will clear away.
“Oh, in that case you’re cleared,” the supervisor said. “That would trigger it. It’s not an underwear bomb.”
72-year-old geezer jailed for wearing Depends. “Book ‘im, Dano!”
I hate to be a pest, but the TSA indicates the terrorists won.
In Sanford my wife’s brother picked me up immediately, and drove me to a new Hampton Inn in De Land. Where I could doff my long-underwear and down-jacket, needed in Ra-cha-cha, but not Sanford, where it was 70 degrees, for crying out loud.
We ate at a restaurant, where our waitress insisted I pig out on the mega-costly hamburger. She wouldn’t take “no” for an answer, insisting I wasn’t a man.
“But I ain’t hungry,” I said. “Health-food is for wusses,” she kept saying. “I know all about you anti-salt geeks.”
We ate at a restaurant to avoid eating at my mother-in-law’s retirement-center cafeteria. But my brother-in-law’s mother insisted I show. “He’ll need a nap!” she exclaimed.
Into the fray yet again, where I could sit quietly at her folding card-table bored silly.
Except this time I was more talkative, which I guess made her feel good.
I sat in a couch, and “Usually he never says anything.”
But now with my wife gone, I do more talking, and I see it has advantages. “Strike up a conversation; ya never know what ya’ll get.”
The next day, Saturday, we decided to get lunch at a McDonald‘s — “All I ever get there is a grilled-chicken snack-wrap,” I said.
We sat down to eat, and an older gentleman, I think he said he was 91, strode in wearing a WWII Veteran hat.
“Holy mackerel,” I said, pointing. “I thought you guys were all dying off.”
And so began our long foray with Harmon, at least 20 minutes at first.
“I was sent to Pearl Harbor in 1942,” he began. Yada-yada-yada-yada.
We encountered him again later, and the life history continued.
He was born in Virginia, or was it West Virginny, then moved with his parents to Indiana.
I think he said he ran away from home in a V8 ’32 Ford into deepest, darkest Illinois, where a farmer hired him to milk cows.
The farmer always insisted he drive his or his wife’s car instead of his ’32 Ford, to bring the car back instead of taking off. “That Ford had a ’36 motor, and purred like a kitten.”
Harmon took off in a bus, I think; I ain’t sure of details. That may have been to return home. But then he decided to drive all the way to Californy.
He picked up a hitchhiker who offered to pay gas, etc. all the way to California.
But in the Sacramento Valley Harmon wanted to go north, and the hitchhiker south.
“I brought you all the way to California,” Harmon argued.
The hitchhiker was left by the side of the road.
On-and-on the story went, at least an hour-and-a-half.
We finally escaped. Harmon needed someone to talk to, and we were it.
“See,” I said to my brother-in-law. “Strike up a conversation, and ya never know what ya’ll get.”
Harmon even sang to us.
“Ya can be sure I’ll never try that again. We been in that McDonald’s over two hours.”
I thereafter returned to my hotel-room. “Of course your mother is thrilled I’m talkative,” I said to my wife’s brother. “I ain’t tied to her card-table attempting to fix her typewriter. I’m doing what I enjoy, keying in verbiage.”
Others arrived while I was in my room, but not the son of brother-in-law’s second wife, who was “running late.”
Finally, din-din. Brother-in-law had ordered a giant spread of finger-food: sliced meat, cheese, shrimp, etc. We all ate hardly anything; the homeless at the local shelter will have a field-day pigging out.
Sunday, the next day, would be my wife’s mother’s birthday. A party had been arranged including a grand 100-year cake and ice-cream.
But we’d all go to her favorite restaurant first, a buffet.
We gathered in the hotel’s party-room before going to the restaurant.
My brother-in-law’s fourth wife sauntered in —HOORAY, she did it. This was half the reason I came myself.
I know it ain’t easy for her, driving all the way up here alone. She lives in DelRay Beach, my brother-in-law’s condo — his second home is his apartment in De Land.
“Don’t kill yerself getting up here,” I’d told her. “It would be nice if ya could come, but don’t kill yerself.“
Part of her incentive was it was her mother-in-law’s 100th birthday. The other part was meeting my niece.
Like me, she’d rather just stay at home; with me it’s sling words.
“Stress,” I kept hearing, something I’m all too familiar with.
We’re not a happy family. “We’re afraid of spilling the beans,” we both said; “and prompt fevered blubbering by all-and-sundry,” perhaps even kill my wife’s mother.
I can see it now: “Oh Debbie” — my niece’s name is Debbie.
Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Offset by thinking I’m wonderful.
A boat rocked by a stormy sea — that cruise-ship had it easy.
After the dinner, back to the hotel for the party.
My wife’s mother came in behind her walker, helped by my brother-in-law’s first wife.
“Ya won’t have 100 candles to blow out,” my wife’s brother declared.
Something was wrong with the massive cake, maybe 1,000 years.
Part had to be chopped off to make it 100, and then the chop slathered with smeared icing.
The cake was way more than we could eat. Pig-out city again at the homeless shelter.
As the party wound down, I left, my wife’s mother departed with her walker, and various grandchildren fell to playing cards.
Back to my hotel-room to continue keying in. My time in FL was not wasted; I keyed in a lot.
I came back down a few hours later to get in-room coffee, and they were still playing cards.
The party had beer and champagne. My wife’s mother woulda had a fit if she’d known.
I tried some champagne, or I think that’s what it was. It tasted like wine, but didn’t make me tipsy, which I don’t want. Perhaps it was the cake.
I would hafta get up at 5 a.m. to make an 8 o’clock flight at Sanford.
With my brother-in-law driving, it would take about 45-50 minutes to get to the airport.
The complimentary breakfast opened at 6 a.m.; we hoped we could scarf a banana before leaving.
At the airport I found the Security-line, and madness began again.
The ID check was staffed by an automaton who talked so fast I couldn’t understand her. I could have told her I had a stroke, so she needed to talk slower.
But I could tell she’d just get angry, plus my followers were angry already.
She pointed to two options: an X-ray machine that would catch my metal knee, plus another about 75 feet across the room. “Your choice,” she whispered.
I had already binned all my stuff at the nearby machine that would catch my knee, so I chose that one, at which point a dude suddenly jumped in replacing the one manning the machine.
“I have a metal knee,” I said.
“You can’t use this one,” he bellowed.
“I was just directed to this one,” I complained.
“Here, follow me!” An agent appeared to direct me to the other machine across the room.
I figured I could come back across to retrieve my stuff, but probably left my cane at the first machine.
“I’m wearing Depends,” I said.
The machine did its bit.
“He’s okay,” an agent shouted.
Back across the room to retrieve my stuff, plus repack my carry-on.
“Where is my cane?” I asked.
“You’re not allowed in here,” an agent said, pretending to be a linebacker.
So went my cane. I’ve been doing okay without it, but like having it.
My cane remains at Sanford airport, a victim of terrorists and the madness they caused.
On the plane with minutes to spare. “Last call!” Crammed in a cattle-car seat.
Back to Rochester; “Back to the frozen tundra,” I said to the passenger beside me.
Snow was on the ground, and it snowed me in the next day.

• My wife of over 44 years died April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely.
* RE: “Attempting to fix her typewriter........” —Every time we’ve ever visited my wife’s mother in the past, she tried to get us to fix her ancient typewriter. We’d rethread the ribbon, but it needed repair to move the ribbon.

Suspenders

Suspenders. (Photo by Richard Lentinello.)

The first thing I said when I took my April Hemmings Classic Car magazine out of my mailbox was “suspenders.”
The car, pictured above, is a 1955 Pontiac Safari stationwagon, Pontiac’s version of the Chevrolet Nomad.

Silver-Streak illustrated.

“Suspenders” are the twin silver-streaks on the hood, the last vestige of Pontiac‘s “Silver-Streak,” whereby a chromed fluted silver streak was applied to the center of the hood. Bunkie Knudson (“NUDE-sin”) had been brought in to reverse Pontiac’s reputation as a stodgy GrandPap’s car, make it more appealing to the youth market.
The ’55 and ’56 models were the last Pontiacs with Silver-Streaks, but two instead of one.
Knudson was making the car very appealing. I had a young cousin in the Air Force who had a ‘56, a very attractive car.
The ’57 Pontiac did not have the Silver-Streak at all.
“Suspenders” goes back to a friend I had at the Messenger newspaper, Kenny Rush.
Kenny was a car-guy like me; his pride-and-joy was a black ’56 One-Fifty Chevrolet two-door sedan in his past, a “Post.”
He had removed the original motor, and wrenched in a 350 SmallBlock.
“The only thing wrong with that car,” he told me; “was it wouldn’t stop.”
He also told me about beating a 383 RoadRunner with it in a streetrace. He thereafter couldn’t stop.
Kenny was the “Golden-Boy” of the Messenger’s paste-up department. The newspaper was not yet computerized — it was the late ‘90s.
Typesetter machines made galleys on photographic paper, and those galleys were cut and waxed so they could be pasted to a full-page cardboard dummy of each newspaper page.
The completed page-dummy was then photographed to make a full-size negative of each newspaper page. The negative was used to burn a printing plate.
With computerization newspaper pages were “paginated” in a computer with Quark® software.
The completed pages were sent from computer to an image-processor, which generated a full-page negative of the page.
The negative was developed and fixed in a film-processor, then used to burn a printing-plate.
With computerization paste-up ended. The paste-up tables were removed.
By then the original Messenger offices were doubled, and the image-processor put in a separate room.
A second image-processor and developer was added.
Kenny was kept on to tend the image-processors.
Other paste-up people quit. I and the head of paste-up fell into other computer functions.

Harry Founds’ ’56 Two-Ten. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Kenny had a picture I took long ago posted on the wall in that image-processor room: a mildly customized ’56 Chevy Two-Ten Post. It wasn’t his One-Fifty, but it looked great.
I took the picture in high-school.
As I recall, my ’56 Chevy picture was only a four-barrel 265, but four-on-the floor. The guy sold to a high-school classmate so he could buy a 409 Chevy.
Sadly Kenny developed ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease. Kenny was my age, and the last I saw him he was in a wheelchair, no longer working for the Messenger.
Kenny eventually died, but I had learned a lot from Kenny — despite noisy badmouthing (see profile above-right), I got so I could paste-up pretty good.
The guy who followed me was also badmouthed, and used to kick trashcans around.
“Suspenders” was Kenny’s word, the hood-trim on ’55 and ’56 Pontiacs.
Other Kenny words were “four-holer” versus “three-holer.”
“RoadMaster” Buicks had four portholes on each front fender. Anything less, like a “Special” or “Century,” had three portholes per side, a “three-holer.”
RoadMasters were more powerful.

• Over ten years ago I retired from the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper. 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.)
• The Chevrolet “SmallBlock” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first to 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The SmallBlock is still manufactured, though much updated. The Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the SmallBlock. It was made in various larger displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation. The “Big-Block” could be immensely powerful, and the “SmallBlock” was revolutionary in its time.
• “Nosing” the hood of a ’56 Chevy was big-bucks. The hood-ornament was on a quarter-inch emboss that had to be cut out and replaced. The car’s previous owner did it, not Harry. —Harry totaled the car, a tragic loss.
• Dudes, click the “409-Chevy” link.

Another bunny-rabbit

Yet another bunny-rabbit has met its Maker.
My gray-faced, 11-year-old dog has dispatched another bunny-rabbit.
Proving yet again any critter inside her fence is dead meat.
Kitty-cats have had to jump that fence, it’s five-foot chain-link.
If this isn’t her 20th, we’re close.
This happened at quarter after midnight.
I usually go to bed around 10 to 10:30.
About midnight I get up to go to the bathroom.
I also let my dog out.
Usually the dog goes out, goes to the bathroom too, then comes back to the door to be let in.
Not this time. Flat disappeared. Where’s the dog?
Bathrobe on, I stepped outside to call the dog.
Nothing.
I went back inside to put on my slippers and get a flashlight.
Back outside I went, and the dog was in my garden with a dead bunny-rabbit in her mouth.
I walked over to get my dog.
Trot-trot-trot-trot. “Oh no ya don’t. I know how you are. You throw out my bunny-rabbit. This rabbit is mine!”
And so our merry-go-round began; back-and-forth around our yard, dog carrying her bunny-rabbit.
I’m only in my bathrobe, and it’s freezing.
Finally I gave up. “That’s it,” I said. “I hafta go back to bed. Enjoy your bunny-rabbit.”
Lights out.
After perhaps a half-hour I heard a chirp, my dog wanting to come back in.
“Yer not bringin’ that disemboweled bunny-rabbit in here!”
I went over to my garage — which is attached, turned on the light, and opened the back door.
The dog scampered in without her bunny-rabbit.
Now, how can I get that bunny-rabbit in the garbage-can in my garage?
I shut the dog in the garage, and got my small bathroom trashcan. Back outside to retrieve the partially-eaten bunny-rabbit  with kitchen-tongs.
The tongs go in my dishwasher.
Into my bathroom trashcan went the bunny-rabbit.
She had eaten the back half; will probably need to be dewormed.
Back into the garage to empty the carcass into my garbage-can.
“Can we go back to bed now?”
I filled my bathroom trashcan with hot water. It had blood in it.
I now have an extremely sick dog. I had to take her to the 24-hour emergency vet near Rochester, since it was the weekend, and my regular vet was closed.
She threw up her entire supper.
That rabbit cost me $214.67, and right at the moment I don’t have my usual bouncy dog.

Birthday

Today (Friday, February 5th, 2016) is my 72nd birthday.
My wife died at 68, almost four years ago.
She woulda made 100 if she’d not developed cancer.
Leaving me wondering why I’m still here.
I don’t expect to make 100, although I’ll probably make 90 if my health holds.
My paternal grandfather made his 90s.
I never smoked, and I work out.
My wife’s mother will turn 100 on Valentine’s Day.
Model-T Ford to man-on-the-Moon.
Which means my wife died before her mother.
Yer not supposed to outlive yer children.
My wife’s mother also wonders why she’s still alive.
She’s still in independent-living, a small apartment in a retirement-center in De Land, FL.
She helps out “the old folks,” who are of course way younger than her.
She can’t see — macular degeneration.
Her 74-year-old son keeps tabs on her.
Which I find ironic since they were always at each other’s throats.
My wife’s mother turning 100 requires a HUGE shindig. Relatives from all over the country are going to De Land.
I reserved to fly down Friday the 12th, and back home Monday the 15th.
Dare I say, I’m scared.
I know that’s not manly, but I had a stroke over 22 years ago.
My wife and I used to fly to Orlando to visit her mother.
My wife, having visited her mother more often than me, was familiar with Orlando Airport.
I used to let her lead. This happened with other things. My wife used to make phonecalls for me, and sort out problems.
My stroke left me somewhat incompetent, more tentative than anything.
My flying down there is the first time I’ve done anything like that since my wife died.
I’ve made long motor-trips, and been to Altoona, PA many times to chase trains — I’m a railfan.
But I’ve never flown anywhere. It was always me and my wife.
Now I’m alone. I’m more comfortable just staying put, and fiddling this here ‘pyooter.
My wife’s brother will pick me up.

• My wife of over 44 years died April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.