Monthly Train-Calendar Report for May 2017

“Click-click-click-click-click” = one has to be right! (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—Every once-in-a-while the stars align and I get a great picture.
The May 2017 entry in my own calendar is one I’m very happy with.
It’s loaded Norfolk Southern coal-train #590, eastbound on Track One, rounding the curve towards Carney’s Crossing.
I’ve avoided Carney’s in the past. Both approaches are long tangents, particularly westbound. Eastbound is a little better, but can be a lighting problem.
My brother and I were chasing trains near Altoony, and we heard 590 on our railroad-radio scanners.
Carney’s was the only place we had time to go.
I set up my tripod at Carney’s; I would use telephoto — about 200 mm.
I decided to take multiple shots, but not motor-drive. That’s too fast.
Here it came, slowly hammering up The Hill. Carney’s is the west slope.
590 is a heavy train, but had only one helper-set pushing. “Click-click-click-click-click;” one has to work. Five altogether; this calendar picture is my third or fourth.
No sky, just trees in the background, and track in the foreground.
Keep it simple, dude.
Very dramatic, and if I may say so, not a helper-set, or a Crescent Cab (which I think looks awful).
7267 is an EMD SD70-ACu, rebuilt by Norfolk Southern from the many Union Pacific SD90MACS it acquired via EMD for conversion in its Juniata (“june-eee-AT-uh”) Shops.




Lookit the purty flowers. (Photo by Bruce Kerr.)

—The May 2017 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a Norfolk Southern intermodal freight framed by green foliage, and lavender flowers.
The flowers must be right in front of the camera, because they’re outta-focus. You can’t tilt current SLR digital cameras, to focus both near (foreground) and far (back).
Seems the contest judges do this every year = predictable as rain. Flowers in May.
Entrants can count on it. Photographer Kerr goes out to snag a flower picture — and thereby gets in the calendar. I’m sure others did the same.
Not that exciting a picture to me.
The railroad uses the calendar to promote itself.
The lead locomotive, #3602, is a new General Electric ET44AC, meant to meet Tier-4 emission regulations.
Burning hydrocarbon fuels, like gasoline or diesel-fuel, is dirty; it pollutes the atmosphere.
Railroad locomotives were unregulated until not too long ago. Tier-2 limited pollutants, Tier-3 more so. Now we have Tier-4, which severely limits pollutants.
Behind 3602 is 2760, an SD70-ACu, one of the ex Union Pacific EMD SD90-MACs rebuilt by Norfolk Southern in its ex-Pennsy Juniata shops.
Behind 2760 is 7519, a General Electric ES44DC, built in 1996.
All units are six-axle road power, 7519 is 4,400 horsepower, as is 3602.
2760 is 4,300 horsepower. (“AC” is alternating-current traction-motors, “DC” is direct-current — which had been the norm.)
The train is at the entrance of Rutherford (PA) Intermodal Terminal on the old Reading (“redd-ing;” not “reed-ing”) toward New York City. Reading became the Conrail main toward New York City after Pennsy’s electrified line became Amtrak.
The train appears to be trailer-on-flatcar.
I wonder if it’s 21E, the UPS train. 21E gets an extra unit = three instead of two. It’s very priority, vans cross-country, mainly UPS, but now also FedEx.
It’ll switch to BNSF (Burlington-Northern Santa Fe) near Chicago.




Stompin’ out of Englewood. (Joe Suo Collection©.)

—Another photograph from the Joe Suo Collection.
The May 2017 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a PRR M-1 (4-8-2) locomotive stomping out of Englewood, IL.
It’s 1941.
The reason Suo chose it is because the M-1 has a gigantic coast-to-coast tender; 25 tons of coal.
With a scoop to replenish boiler-water from track-pans, such a locomotive could go 7&1/2 hours without stopping.
As far as I know, Suo is the most recent owner of Audio-Visual Designs, founded in 1964 by Carl H. Sturner.
The calendar began as a collaboration between Sturner and photographer Don Wood to publish some of Wood’s fabulous train-pictures into a black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar.
Sturner was a railfan, and Audio-Visual Designs also published small railroad photo-cards for sale.
Audio-Visual Designs may also be involved in paraphernalia for tourist railroads; I’m not sure, and can’t get a helpful “Audio-Visual Designs” hit.
My first Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar was 1968 or ’69.
Wood’s most fabulous Pennsy pictures — the Mt. Carmel ore-train in snow, and the GG-1 through Elizabeth Curve — ran in the calendar.


His BEST photograph. (Photo by Don Wood©.)


STAND BACK! (Photo by Don Wood©.)

I cut out the pictures, matted ‘em, and put ‘em on my walls.
Thankfully I have both images in this computer.
Sturner died some time ago, Wood not too long ago. Audio-Visual Designs went through various owners, and is now apparently owned by Suo.
That calendar may have been Audio-Visual’s most successful product. Audio-Visual Designs is not a major calendar publisher.
I’d get that calendar every year, although I guess there were a few years it didn’t publish.
For years it was my only calendar. Now I’m up to seven; but mainly as wall-art that changes every month. Only one is an actual calendar.
Plus one is my own calendar, published by Shutterfly, with train pictures by my brother and I.
Would that Wood had what my brother and I have. He was using a 4x5 Speed Graphic, the norm as a news-camera back then.
He couldn’t take the multiple shots I often take — “one has to work!”
He was also setting shutter-speed and lens-opening himself. I shoot “shutter-priority;” lens-opening is automatic per metering by the camera.
My camera could also automatically set shutter-speed, but I shoot 1/400th or faster to stop blurring of a locomotive-front.
My brother’s camera is more “point-and-shoot.” Shutter-priority for him is nearly impossible, so locomotive fronts often blur in marginal light.
So there’s Wood out there with only one chance to snag a fabulous picture.
He better have his lens-opening right. Plus he has to be steady on his feet. I’ve seen pictures of him without a tripod. I tripod my telephotos; usually I can hand-hold 150mm or less at 1/400th or so — but not if it’s frigid. Tripod below freezing.
Wood was also using film and a darkroom.
During the ‘70s I was using the same, but 35mm versus his 4x5.
I’d roll my own Tri-X from bulk, and didn’t do color because Yellow Father (Kodak) wouldn’t let me.
I switched to digital 15-20 years ago with a Nikon D100.
Lenses were pretty good in the ‘70s, if you avoided zoomers.
Now all my lenses are zoomers, and I only have three. Back in the ‘70s I had seven or eight.
What’s really great is no more darkroom with stinky chemicals browning my fingers.
And no more Yellow Father dictating my color output.
Everything is now in this personal-computer, and I dicker with Photoshop®.
Need to boost fall-foliage color? I can do that; it’s called “saturation.”
Need to lighten locomotive running-gear to make it visible? it’s called “lighten shadows.”
I can also add sizzle to a picture with “unsharp mask” or “adjust sharpness.”
I couldn’t do any of that with Yellow Father.
But as always the photographer has to be an artist. —A) savvy enough to set up a fabulous picture, or —B) able to recognize a fabulous shot when they get one by accident.
That’s my dictum:  “Shaddup-and-shoot; ya never know what you’ll get.”
I have two photographs at the same location of the same Mt. Carmel ore-train. The one by Wood is fabulous, the other ordinary.
Wood would look at a scene and assess. There’s a mountain back there, but with any luck that column of belching steam will obliterate it.
Here comes a GG-1 charging Elizabeth Curve in north Jersey. Pan it, baby! It’s probably pushing 100!
That background building blurs, but what a shot!
Wood’s pictures eventually ran out. The Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar had to start using other photographers. One is Jim Shaughnessy.
But now the Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar seems to be faltering.
Suo is probably a railfan, but he’s not Wood.
Every once-in-a-while they publish a Wood picture. But they look like his rejects.
I continue to get the Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar. But it often has “Courtesy of Joe Suo collection;” the dreaded three-quarter views that clog train-books.
This calendar picture is a three-quarter, as was last month — also Joe Suo.
Three-quarters aren’t very dramatic. I think my brother and I do better — and that’s without steam.




Probably off Mighty Rockville. (Photo by Walter Zullig.)

—The east end of Rockville Bridge is always a lighting challenge.
The May 2017 entry in my All-Pennsy color calendar is two Pennsy freights probably coming off Rockville Bridge.
It’s 1963.
The train with the F-units is waiting for the Geep-powered hotshot to pass, although that hotshot also has Fs.
It says the trains are eastbound, but I don’t know where I’m looking, like west across the river (not visible), or east toward Harrisburg.
I wonder if the trains are headed north up the Susquehanna. To Pennsy that’s east too. The hotshot is symboled BNY16 — that sounds like Buffalo.
Rockville is where Pennsy bridged the Susquehanna. The current bridge, a giant stone-masonry structure, is the third. It opened in 1902.
I always say it would take a direct hit from a thermonuclear warhead — an H-bomb — to take out that bridge. Although part of it washed-out and collapsed not too long ago.
The Susquehanna was a major barrier to building Pennsy. As Pennsy became a success, its bridge over the Susquehanna had to become substantial.
The current bridge can accommodate four tracks, although it’s been reduced to two and three. Two tracks across the Susquehanna were not enough back then.
The light in this picture tells me it’s early morning.
Later in the day, looking west especially, everything would be stridently backlit.
Even early morning is a challenge. Sunlight is coming from east-southeast = backlit yet again.
About the only place the bridge works is the western end, or far downriver in morning — and from the river’s west side.
Interstate-81’s crossing of the Susquehanna considered building atop Rockville. Thankfully that wasn’t done — it woulda ruined the view. I-81 uses it own bridge south of Rockville.
The bridge is a barrier to river navigation, although the Susquehanna isn’t deep enough to allow deep-draft ships.
That allowed Pennsy to build a massive low-level river-crossing; that is, it didn’t need a clear span, high enough or wide enough to permit large ships.
Yet Rockville is very substantial; it had to be to permit four tracks.
It’s endured numerous floods; the Susquehanna can run high. It’s draining a very large watershed.

Gwan to Syracuse

In 1956 my sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Dykehuisen (“DIE-kyoozin”), bewailed “so much potential is going to waste.”
Convinced by my parents, et al, of my stupid inferiority, I concluded it was just the usual badmouthing.
I had taken what I guess was an IQ test a year-or-two earlier, and nearly aced it.
But I felt that was because I followed their instructions, which were to “Guess the answer and quickly move to the next question.”
But I guess you hafta have pretty good marbles to guess right most of the time.
I guess I’m pretty smart, although it’s never gone to my head.
In college I nearly aced Physics — and that was despite prediction I’d never get hold of it.
All-off-a-sudden I understood algebra; that it was just a tool. Use it that way, and I could ace exams.
Others were trying to memorize formulas — which you could look up; like “gimme that Phillips-head, honey!”
Mired in useless garbage = no idea what they were doing.
A math professor wanted me to take calculus, expecting that unlike most I’d probably get the hang of it.
Other professors told me I should be a scholar.
There was just one problem: I’m a railfan. I’d rather chase trains.
As a result, any marbles I had were “wasted” chasing trains.
The other problem is I’m also an artist. Defined as “If I have anything to do with it, it better look good.”
I began dabbling in photography; first racecar, now trains.
My counselor calls that “a hobby.”
“You don’t know how many retirees I see bored silly.”
WRONGO-WRONGO-WRONGO-WRONGO!
“Not a hobby,” I say. “An avocation. Every job I had supported, and was thereby secondary to, the avocation.”
Recently I visited a friend I once worked with at the Mighty Mezz in Canandaigua.
I feel he’s another example of marbles gone to waste.
Although it’s not a waste to me, and my guess is it isn’t to him.
Photography has moved beyond the darkroom with its stinky chemicals.
With digital photography I can manipulate photos in my computer.
Yellow-Father (Kodak) didn’t allow that. Black-and-white yes, but color you handed over.
The software I use to fiddle color photographs is Photoshop-Elements®, an el-cheapo version of the full Photoshop® a newspaper or magazine might use.
It does most of what full Photoshop can do, or at least what I need.
My friend has become an expert in Photoshop, and I guess self-taught like me.
“Put that manual away!” I’d scream. “Real men don’t use manuals. Just show me.”
No manuals, no classes unless I think they’ll make possible what I want.
So, drag all the way to Syracuse to visit my friend, who I hadn’t seen in years.
But it was the old waazoo: “What can you show me that will improve what I’m doing? You already have. You got my ‘clone’ tool working, and now I’m dickering ‘levels.’”
We set up our MacBook-Pros side-by-side on the dining-room table of his rooming-house.
“What can you show me about ‘layers?’”
Yakita-yakita-yakita-yakita; punctuated by “Whoa-dude! Say all that again.”
We tried things on-my-own. “I want that grab to work for me, not just you.”
Thankfully my friend is party to this. “Here, you try it.”
“Whoa! Howdja do that?”
“Keyboard shortcut, man. Command-Option-D.”
I’d try it. Boom-zoom!
We worked together. “I want the results you got with my friend’s ’49 Ford. Your version looked better than mine.”
Thankfully, I already know enough to not zone out with a deluge of information.
But I think another thing is at play here: using what marbles I have to get what I consider a class-act.
The waste for me is to use those marbles to infer superiority.

• I see a “counselor” because of my wife dying — April 17, 2012.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 11 years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26th, 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.)

Ashes-to-ashes, dust-to-dust.........

If the cemetery-man won’t do it, the son must. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

“At least we didn’t dump her ashes in my trashcan,” I said to the good ladies boarding my dog.
How do I blog such a serious event after making a remark like that?
“You hafta understand,” I said. “She declared we’d never last a year.”
My wife’s mother died about about a year ago. She’d made 100, and thereby outlasted her daughter, my wife, who only made 68.
When I noted my mother-in-law’s ashes were in the car, and we were about to bury her, the ladies became sad and said they were sorry.
I broke them up with my “trashcan” comment.
“So how many years were you married?” they asked.
“44,” I said. “I think I changed her mind.”
“Mother could be very judgmental,” my brother-in-law commented.
“Yeah,” I said. “First time she met me, she growled at me.”
I wasn’t the blond-haired cherub desired by “Mother.” It was like “Look what the cat dragged in” — a complete and utter scumbag; similar to the same badmouthing I got from my own parents.
My wife’s mother met and was impressed by Blondie, deciding he was approved.
My wife-to-be had other ideas. Blondie dated her once, and returned to our college at 100 mph in his car.
Not only was Blondie a creep; he was also a fearsome “lead-foot.”
Who my wife-to-be liked was ME. She liked the way I thought; my observations that questioned superior-mouths.
This was the same thing that made college so revelatory. Adult authority-figures valued and solicited my opinions — instead of automatically declaring me rebellious and disgusting.
My wife-to-be was after me the whole time I was in college, although I never knew until my senior year. She was very shy.
We continued seeing each other after graduation — we were in the same class.
We married a year later. This seemed to make her mother angrier, or so it seemed. —The fact I thought my wife could be attractive, whereas “Mother” raised her to be a frump.
There were wars over glasses, the fact I thought my wife looked prettier without them, whereas “Mother” was used to her wearing them.
After a while my wife got contacts.
We passed a year, then the years piled up.
Then my wife developed cancer. That may be what changed her mother’s mind.
The fact it was always me driving her to cancer-treatments. I wanted to keep her alive.
She’d been the BEST friend I ever had, and after my childhood I sorely needed that.
She stayed with me despite my being half-insane = royally messed up.
When my wife finally died, it seemed I was approved after all.
Her mother was very glad to see me for her 100th birthday. “What am I doing here?” I asked. “Linda was the one supposed to last.”
“Linda” was my wife’s name.
“What am I doing here?” her mother crowed. “Linda died before me.”
It seemed the growling was over. My hair wasn’t blond — in fact, it’s no longer brown. Yet I seemed to pass muster.
My wife’s parents were from a tiny town in the rural outback near Corning, NY.
They moved to FL years ago, buying a house.
My wife’s father died of a stroke in 1989.
Even though they lived In FL, they long ago purchased cemetery lots in a town in NY near where they had lived.
My wife’s mother flew her father’s body up here to bury in that cemetery. She decided she wanted to be buried next to him when she died.
Digging a burial-hole up here in NY is near impossible during Winter. Her ashes were set aside.
My wife’s brother also lives in FL, and drove up here with the ashes.
The cemetery was difficult to find, and the cemetery-attendant wouldn’t answer his phone, or no longer existed.
My brother-in-law had to do something. He had driven up here from FL, and returning with the ashes seemed silly.
He decided to bury her ashes himself. We tossed shovels into my car, and set out for the faraway cemetery.
“What if a sherif-dippity arrests us? What if some neighbor blows us in?” I asked.
“Two geezers are in Hope Cemetery exhuming a body.”
Brother-in-law dug a small hole about a foot deep next to his father’s grave, and placed the small plastic bag of ashes in the hole.
Sod was replaced.
We stood somberly and brother-in-law read from my wife’s Bible:
“In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”
No one bothered us. We weren’t arrested.
Perhaps no one noticed, although it seemed a neighbor did.
The moving finger having writ, moves on.

PBY

The Cat beckons. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—I guess I’m gonna be able to blog that “Cat” after all.
The April 2017 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Consolidated PBY, a Catalina.
The “Cat” is a weird-looking duck; it’s amphibious.
(Although I guess the first PBYs weren’t amphibious, just a flying boat.)
Its gigantic wing is above the fuselage on a pylon, so it doesn’t dip into the water. That wing is 104 feet long.
There are retractible pontoons at the wing-ends. They also help keep the wing outta the water.
I decided to stop blogging all seven calendars. It consumed too much time.
But the incredible calendar-photo of that PBY has been grabbing my attention all month.
In my youth I had a PBY model. It was baby-blue plastic.
It was probably Revell, and given me as a Christmas-present.
Revell models were very well made. The airplane models had interlocking wing-tabs. The wings didn’t sag.
My PBY didn’t have interlocking tabs, but it was so well-made I sprung for other Revell bomber models. First a B-36, then a B-47, finally a B-52.
All had interlocking wing-tabs.
I also had an Aurora B-26 model, but its wings sagged. They didn’t interlock. The wings were held on by model cement. The wing-tabs, maybe a quarter-inch deep, fit slots in the fuselage. The wings quickly drooped.
That B-26 was also a Christmas-present.
The Catalina was used a long time, observation and patrol, and also search-and-rescue.
Many Navy fighter-pilots owed their lives to the “Cat.”
The Cats were first used after 1936, a response to a Navy request in 1933. Yet the final PBYs (in foreign countries) lasted into the ‘70s. The final PBYs in civilian service were retired in the early 1980s, serving as passenger transports and in fire-fighting.
They used two 1,200 horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-1830-92 Twin Wasp radial engines, a propeller airplane. Above the fuselage, those engines could be right next to each other.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some were later converted to turboprop, although I’ve never seen one. (I’ve seen turboprop DC-3s.)
I’ll let my WWII warbirds site weigh in:
“A total of approximately 4,000 Catalinas and variants were built between 1936 and 1945. Because of their worldwide popularity, there was scarcely a maritime battle in WWII in which they were not involved.
The PBY had vulnerabilities. It was slow, with a maximum speed of 179 mph, and with no crew armor or self-sealing tanks, it was highly vulnerable to anti-aircraft attack.
However it was these weaknesses, coincident with the development of effective radar, and Japanese reliance on night transport, which led to the development of the “Black Cat Squadrons.”
These crews performed nighttime search-and-attack missions in their black-painted PBYs. The tactics were spectacularly successful and seriously disrupted the flow of supplies and personnel to Japanese island bases.
The Catalinas also proved effective in search and rescue missions, code-named “Dumbo.” Small detachments, normally of three PBYs, routinely orbited on stand-by near targeted combat areas. One detachment based in the Solomon islands rescued 161 airmen between January 1 and August 15, 1943.”
My PBY became one of my favorite models.
It wasn’t painted. I never painted anything; I was afraid of ruining things. Better to accept an unpainted model than slop. My models often had decals. They were enough.
I remember once casting a tiny concrete weight to insert in the nose of my American Airlines DC-7 model to get it to fully stand on its tricycle landing-gear, not tipped nose-up on its tail-runner.
So now I wonder if the PBY pictured is watertight. It’s nose-wheel is in the hull; that cover could easily leak.
I also wondered if the PBY I saw was watertight. Being amphibious they could avoid water.

More iPhone wrastling

Tuesday is trash-day for The Keed.
My neighbors are Thursday.
Out here trash is not gumint. It’s private.
My trash-disposal is a private company.
I suppose finished they dump at a local landfill.
I hafta take out my trash the previous night because they collect before dawn.
I have two items: -a) one is my “blue-box” recyclables, and -b) the other is my actual trashcan, containing garbage and non-recyclables.
My iPhone, which I always carry, uses its camera-flash as a flashlight.
It was pitch-dark, and my trash goes roadside. I turned on the iPhone flashlight to properly locate my blue-box.
Headed back toward my house, I went to turn off my iPhone flashlight.
“Now what!” It’s showing me its music-menu. Instead of the flashlight menu.
Can I get back to that flashlight menu? I stabbed around, trying everything but the magic motion needed, a simple side-swipe.
As always, what do I know? And I don’t have time to drop everything and “play with it,” what other iPhone users advise.
It’s pushing 11 p.m.; I have an exercise-class the next day.
I’m trying to “Take Out the Papers and the Trash.” (That’s the Coasters YouTube link, readers.)
What do I hafta do to get that stupid light off? It’s gobbling my battery.
Back inside, flashlight still glaring at me, engage YouTube: “Turn off iPhone flashlight.”
Midnight approaches. I’m asking the wrong question, but I can’t think of a five-word way to ask the right question, which is “flip from music-menu to flashlight menu.”
YouTube searches, reflecting its teenybopper users, can’t crunch more than a few words.
So I killed my iPhone; that killed the flashlight.
Fired up again, the flashlight was off, and back to the flashlight menu. (I wasn’t expecting such.)
The next day, back to PC and Wireless, where I bought my iPhone, to ask my “question-of-the-month.”
First was “question-of-the-day,” which some time ago became “question-of-the-week.” Now it’s “question-of-the-month.”
“Simple sir,” the dude said. A simple side-swipe: zip-zap!

• RE: “Out here......” — I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.

Robo-calls

“Don’t answer the phone,” I exclaim. “If it’s that important, they can leave a voicemail.”
My iPhone has caller-ID. If I don’t recognize the caller, I don’t answer.
What happens when scammers take over caller-ID?
The national TV-news notes the increasing number of robo-calls by charities, scammers, etc.
I get maybe three-to-four per day. I never answer. Only legitimate phonecalls get answered; that is, people in my iPhone contact-list.
I got one the other day. On my voicemail “This is an emergency call from Microsoft. Yer ‘key’ is about to expire. After it does yer Microsoft applications will no longer work.”
Really?
WE SHALL SEE!
I got one of these calls some time ago. Hellfire and damnation if I didn’t immediately call back.
One of my computer apps was supposedly expired.
Funny, I could still use it. Weeks passed, and it still worked.
Despite prediction of ‘pyooter-Armageddon.
Beyond that, if my Microsoft “key” were to actually expire — and I don’t think it ever does; at least not the software license — I bet Microsoft, the dreaded “dark-side” of computing, so I’m told — would be plying my e-mail wanting me to re-up.
So just in case my Word© and Excel© stop working, I’ll keep the voicemail.
But the apps keep working.

• Some users of Apple computers consider Microsoft, etc to be “the dark-side.” I use an Apple myself; this rig a MacBook Pro.

RE: “BobbaLew”

”JohnaLouie” on the Sandy-Hill pool high-dive. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

“Bobba-LOOOO!”
After almost 12 years, and 2,241 published posts (this makes 2,242), I figger it’s time to explain “BobbaLew.”
“BobbaLew” is of course ME, Bob Hughes (“hyooz”), author of this here blog.
It’s the nickname given me in 1961 by John Lawrence (”JohnaLouie”) at Sandy Hill, a religious summer boys camp in northeastern MD on the upper reaches of Chesapeake Bay.
How I, an agnostic, got on the staff of a hyper-zealous religious camp is of course debatable.
I always say it was because I could sling a pretty good story — what I been doing all my life, and am doing now.
I started at Sandy Hill as a camper in 1954, terrified and homesick — I was 10 — but got so I could do it. 1958 was my final season as a camper; I did four weeks — previous stays were two weeks.
In 1958 I got involved in horseback riding. I wanted to get on camp staff as a stablehand (macho dreams).
“Horsemanship” was also questionable, since I could hardly ride at all.
But the stable-staff discovered -a) I would muck stalls, and -b) I could teach the camper horsemanship classes, allowing them to pursue dreams of macho manliness pretending to be cowboys.
Horsemanship class was three days per session: class instruction the first day (parts of the horse, saddle and bridle), then two days of ring-riding, trail-riding if feasible.
Trail-riding depended on proficiency of the campers. We hardly ever got to trail-riding.
A camp rule was at play: any camper should be able to at some time ride a horse. Most were terrified. (“Don’t hold the horn, Johnny!”)
In 1959 I did the first five weeks; in 1960 I did the final five weeks. For 1961 I did the full 10 weeks, although camp was only nine weeks. The first week was preparation and religious contemplation.
I remember the acrimony when we took communion from a common chalice — no communion-set. The camp nurse had a fit. —And of course it wasn’t wine spody-ody. Welch’s baby!
I was a Counselor-in-Training (“CIT”). I’d substitute on a regular counselor’s day off.
This meant I was supposed to give evening devotions. I had Bible-verses lined up, but I wasn’t good at it.
Lawrence was a CIT too; I think he was 16, his first season. I was 17; third season for me.
Lawrence and I became friends. He renamed me “BobbaLouie,” a take-off on “Baba Looey.”
Anyone on camp staff was automatically called “Chief,” so I became “Chief BobbaLouie.”
1961 was my best year on camp staff.
I was so experienced the cabin I was in was pretty much presided by me — the cabin had a counselor, but I ran things.
I did so as bleeding-heart dictator. Campers wanted in my cabin because it ran so well — no madness or intimidation. If I made deals, I kept ‘em. —Fair was fair.
And the sanctimonious judgmental zealots were no longer around.
The higher-ups would put the slum-kids in my cabin as a challenge. I usually succeeded, but not always.
I also got so I could ride fairly well, so I was promoted to “Assistant Horsemanship Director.”
It allowed me to avoid daily chapel services. I’d bring in the horses and feed instead.
The Horsemanship Director was also a cabin-counselor, so couldn’t be very involved.
Horsemanship was pretty much me.
Pay at the camp was a pittance, so my father intervened. No way was camp gonna help pay for college.
Camp lined me up to be Horsemanship Director, but my God-fearing father got me a better-paying job.
So much for faith!
Money was what always mattered. If that meant cutting corners with one of his contractors, Jesus would approve.
Never mind! I always liked the name “BobbaLouie.” It reflected my penchant for observing things with jaundiced eye.
So when my good friend Marcy at the Messenger newspaper suggested I blog, I decided to name it “BobbaLew.”

Five years

This is the person I always perceived (she’s about 25). (Photo by BobbaLew.)

“A punch in the gut. Takes the wind outta your sails.”
So says my neighbor up-the-street, who also lost his wife to cancer.
Today’s the day.
On April 17th, 2012, my beloved wife of 44+ years died of cancer.
I’ve said it hundreds of times: she was the best friend I ever had; she actually liked me.
I had a difficult childhood. My parents, and others, convinced me I was rebellious and stupid. I suppose mainly because I couldn’t worship my hyper-religious father as worthy of the right hand of Jesus.
When I finally went to college, it was a revelation. Adult authority-figures valued and solicited my opinions.
Even my sister noticed. In college I “flowered.”
I met my wife in college. She had been “chasing” me over three years. —Although I never knew; she was very shy.
My wife also had a difficult childhood. But mainly it was her mother. She’d raised my wife to be a frump.
No one invited her to her high-school’s prom, despite her being class salutatorian. Her lot was the sidelines.
Not long ago I told her only brother I think I convinced her she wasn’t a frump.
This provoked anger from her mother. She declared we wouldn’t last a year.
44 years; I think I changed her mother’s mind.
I’m not easy to live with.
I often think my wife’s difficult childhood played in my favor. That she thought she couldn’t do any better.
So here I am at five years.
No longer sorely grief-stricken, but I still miss her immensely.
“Don’t start me crying,” I often say. All I hafta do is start thinking about her, and I tear up.
Fifty years ago I was confused and clueless, but knew enough to walk away from those I knew would never work.
Partly because of that I inadvertently ended with a really good one.
She liked me, especially the way I could make her laugh.
She liked the way I thought, or so she said. The crazy observations I came up with — always looking at things through jaundiced eyes.
This is why she “chased” me.
I often feel bad we never had any children; I knew she wanted ‘em.
But I was afraid I’d be like my father: abusive at times, but mainly distant.
I look around our house, which we both designed, and I notice little has changed. Bedspreads are still piled in the laundry-room, and bedding for her mother is still on the floor in a spare room.
Even attending my wife’s mother’s 100th birthday in FL was an act of incredible derring-do.
“Takes the wind outta yer sails.”
I’ve pretty much stayed put the last five years.

Pants-wearer brought to tears

“Dare I ask?” I rolled down the window of my car as I was leaving nearby Boughton (“BOW-tin;” as in “wow”) Park yesterday after walking my dog.
A mother was loading her minivan with kids, dogs, and a wood-sided Radio Flyer wagon.
The mother had been hauling a child and a dog around the park.
Suppose I’m guessing wrong? Embarrassing as Hell.
“Looks like one of your kids is Down Syndrome,” I said.
“That would be Hope,” she said smiling.
“I had a kid brother with Down Syndrome; born in ’54.
Classiest thing my parents ever did, was to NOT institutionalize him. and that was back in the ‘50s.”
“When they used to put Down Syndrome kids in institutions,” she said.
“They brought him home,” I said, starting to tear up.
“Oh, look at you,” she exclaimed.
Skirts love it.
A pants-wearer brought to tears.
“Yeah, but what you’re also seeing is a slight stroke-effect,” I thought. “It’s called lability; poor emotional control. It’s manifested by increased tendency to laugh or cry, in my case crying.”
It was much worse after my stroke, but I now more-or-less have it under control.
I considered mentioning it, but didn’t because it usually crashes in flames.
Just recently I tried to explain lability to my doggy-daycare ladies, and they were utterly buffaloed.
Weepiness was more appealing.
My guess is most overly labile stroke-survivors end up in nursing-homes — I didn’t — so lability is unknown.
This wasn’t the first time.
Years ago my wife was in a Rochester hospital recovering from a cancerous encounter with death. —She died eventually.
I went to visit, and there she was in bed, legs still ballooned from constricted circulation.
She was extremely depressing to encounter. I started crying.
A young nurse walked in, so I said “I’m sorry.”
“Oh that’s okay,” she cooed. As if to say “Boy-oh-boy, I sure wish my husband cared about me as much as this guy cares about his wife.”
Yeah, I care about my wife — best friend I ever had — but weepiness is also a stroke-effect.
So here I am tearing up about my Down Syndrome brother, who used to look people in the eye and say “I’m retarded; nyuk-nyuk-nyuk!”
I’m very emotional about him, but weepiness is also a stroke-effect.

• 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.
• My wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely. Best friend I ever had, and after my childhood I sure needed one. She actually liked me.

Victor Famblee Practice

(Compliments of Google.)

“Fat lotta help this thing was,” I said regarding my iPhone’s GPS.
The other day Yrs Trly had a medical appointment at Victor Family Practice in Victor, NY; about 11 miles north of where I live.
Victor is an old farm town taken over by hot-shot developers happy to rape taxpayers in the name of jobs-jobs-jobs.
Victor is now more-or-less a Rochester suburb.
Glitzy abandoned startups clutter the surrounding landscape. Some succeeded.
The first railroad into Rochester from the east skirts Victor to the south. It was built in the 1830s, and is long abandoned.
Lehigh Valley Railroad’s Buffalo Extension went right through Victor. It was an attempt by Lehigh Valley to become a bridge-line after the market for anthracite coal began faltering.
Lehigh Valley’s Black Diamond Express, Buffalo to New York City, went through Victor. LV’s Buffalo Extension was one of the best engineered railroads through its terrain, which was somewhat challenging.
The Buffalo Extension is now abandoned, and only a short segment remains: trackage into Victor operated by Finger-Lakes Railway.
Victor also had an electrified interurban line, Rochester to Syracuse or Canandaigua, I never knew which.
Victor has one major industry, Victor Insulators. It had railroad service on that first line to Rochester.
Now a connector has been built to get from what remained of LV’s Buffalo Extension up to the railroad past Victor Insulators. It was built by tiny Ontario Central. OC had originally owned the remainder of LV’s Buffalo Extension into Victor, but was taken over by Finger Lakes in 2007.
So now Victor is a jumble of development heaped here-and-there.
Victor Family Practice is located in downtown Victor amidst the jumble.
I knew how to drive to Victor, but had no idea how to find Victor Family Practice.
I decided to use my iPhone’s GoogleMaps GPS app.
Leaving my house I fired it up.
WHOA! It’s still mired in south FL showing me how to get from Fort Lauderdale Airport to my niece’s house.
It of course wasn’t doing what I expected, from “my location” to “Victor Family Practice.”
After a lotta stabbing around, and trial-and-error, while I’m trying to drive, I gave up.
I could get to Victor; after that was finding Victor Family Practice. I had earlier previewed the location in satellite-views.
But as I entered Victor, streets weren’t as earlier previewed — or so it seemed.
The old Lehigh Valley, which I hadn’t seen in satellite-views, was almost right next to State Route 96, the main east-west drag through Victor. My earlier preview indicated an east-west street just south of 96, parallel to the railroad.
It was named “Adams Street.” Next to the railroad was “Railroad Street.
Around the block I went. I pulled off next to Victor’s post-office, no longer downtown, to call Victor Family Practice.
To do that I hafta turn off Bluetooth, since my car’s Microsoft Sync likes to muck up.
Undo seatbelt, unholster iPhone from back pocket; fiddle off Bluetooth = at least a minute, while angry geezers shake their fists and blow their horns.
I’m way off the pavement with my four-ways flashing.
(Not made up, readers.)
It was about 1:15; Victor Family Practice is closed from 12:30 to 1:30 for lunch. My appointment was at 1:30.
Finally I drove up to 96, still looking for “Adams.”
I turned east, but noticed a tiny sign for Victor Family Practice.
I turned toward it, into a jumble of buildings plunked willy-nilly. One was signed “Victor Family Practice,” attached to a pharmacy, part of “Mead Square Development” (the drug-store was “Mead”).
I parked and went inside the building: tax-services, investment advisors, real-estate, and Victor Family Practice off to the side.
Don’t know as GPS woulda done me any good, but it mighta got me to elusive “Adams Street,” which I found on the way out.
Engage iPhone settings later at home. Permit GoogleMaps to access “my location” so it can crank that into the app.
I’m supposed to do all this without driving into the weeds?
Quite often I get unfathomable surprises from my iPhone.
If it weren’t for the fact I already know my way to Victor, I woulda had to pull over.
GPS is wondrous technology, but always seems to require human input.
How many times have I told the GPS-lady to shaddup? Or, “What you been smokin’, girl?”
And why does GoogleMaps have my house 500 feet south of where it actually is?
Every time someone is coming to my house via GoogleMaps, I hafta inform them.

More stroke-addled

“You mean to tell me,” I snapped; “I gotta jump through all these hoops just to get a $60 rebate?”
About two months ago I purchased a complete set of tires from Goodyear. They said I was entitled to a $60 rebate.
Instead of a check, they sent a debit-card containing $60. I blogged it, because it seemed like an attempt to sign me up for a debit-card.
Relatives, among others, weighed in. It was just a card with a $60 balance. I’d use it until empty, then shred it.
So I decided to activate the card.
“Welcome to card-services; please enter your 16-digit card-number.
Now your zip-code.
“NYET! Not what’s associated with your card.”
I was giving them the wrong zip-code.
Referred to an Indonesian service-rep, I repeated my erroneous zip-code.
“Not what’s associated with your card.”
“That zip-code has been on this house since it was built — that was 27 years ago.”
A number of factors are at play here:
—1) My mailing-address is not the town I actually live in. It’s the post-office of the town adjacent. I don’t know the zip-code of the town I live in, only my mailing zip-code.
My town has a tiny post-office, but my mail comes from the adjacent town.
—2) Even though the zip-code on my mail may be incorrect — often it’s the town I actually live in — I get my mail anyway. The post-office apparently disregards an incorrect zip-code.
So, any number of things could have gone wrong.
—The zip-code on my rebate was incorrectly entered, and/or
—The post-office delivered my rebate despite an incorrect zip-code.
Plus I was declaring the wrong zip-code.
“The zip-code you guys have is WRONG!”
“You’ll hafta call Goodyear and have them correct the zip-code.”
Phonecall alert!
It ain’t easy for me to make phonecalls. 24 years ago I had a stroke due to an undiagnosed heart-defect. It has since been repaired, and i recovered fairly well.
One tiny remaining detriment is slight aphasia, manifested in difficulty making phonecalls.
Calling Goodyear would lead to a 1-to-3 hour wrastling-match.
Half the reason I use e-mail is doing that still works. Phonecalls don’t.
“Ya mean I gotta jump through all these hoops for $60? My time is more valuable than that!”
(My card is activated. I later discovered I was rendering the wrong zip-code. Stroke-addled, probably.)

There they are again......

There they are again...... (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

.......just like every year, about the time Linda died. (She planted ‘em.)

• My beloved wife (Linda) of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely. Best friend I ever had, and after my childhood I sure needed one. She actually liked me.

Stroke addled?

“Three hours shot to Hell, but the Arrowhead Mills puffed-corn cereal is ordered from Walmart*.”
So I said to my sister-in-law in FL on her landline voicemail.
I call my sister-in-law “Amazon Lady.” Not the “Amazon-Lady” at the Canandaigua YMCA, musclebound and striding about like Arnold Schwarzenegger — although she’s a nice lady.
My sister-in-law is expert at fiddling the Amazon website, a surfeit of contorted machination.
“Here I am calling you again,” I said. “Last time was also because of Amazon.”
We have deduced I have various problems with Amazon.
It appears I have two accounts, one under an e-mail I still use, and a second under an e-mail I left long ago.
If I hit my Amazon bookmark, and enter the password I normally use, it logs me into my ancient account.
So it’s fairly active. I ordered corn-puffs through it recently.
But my “Subscribe-and-Save” dog-food is via the more recent account.
Subscribe-and-Save is Amazon’s thingy where you sign up for something every month or two, like dog-food or Huggies.
It took an act of Congress to deduce I had two accounts. Like why is there not a Subscribe-and-Save on the ancient account, the only one that logs me in, so I (we) thought it was the only one I had.
My more recent account doesn’t like the password from my ancient account, so won’t log in.
So, what to do?
Set a corrected password for my recent account, set up a new Subscribe-and-Save on that account, than vaporize the ancient account and discontinue the Subscribe-and-Save on that.
Easier said than done!
Resetting a password is usually easy. Request a password reset, and Amazon gives you a code that proves it’s actually you.
Really? Suppose some ne’er-do-well has hacked my e-mail?
Moving ahead, Amazon e-mailed me a code.
It bombed!
Call Amazon Lady.
A while ago I had Amazon Subscribe-and-Saves for puffed-corn cereal and puffed-rice.
Amazon ran out-of-stock for puffed rice — I had to buy it at Lori’s Natural Foods. (That’s their jingle, readers; via YouTube.)
I decided to try online elsewhere. Mighty Walmart* had it.
They also had puffed corn, so cueing our Prez to Amazon: “You’re fired!”
Last February I needed corn-puffs, but Walmart* would no longer log me in. All-of-a-sudden my usual password was invalid.
Switch back to Amazon, but it’s my ancient account because my valid password logs into that.
But I (we = Amazon Lady) don’t see my dog-food Subscribe-and-Save. It’s on the other account.
“I don’t really wanna Subscribe-and-Save the corn-puffs,” I said.
Plus Amazon is always sending me into the ozone. Their site is so packed I can’t crunch it.
This is the bane of a stroke-survivor: encounter Amazon’s 89 bazilyun buttons, and lock up.
“So call Walmart* and reset your password for them.”
Not that simple. Telephone calls for me are difficult. It’s called aphasia, a common stroke-effect.
I hafta serenade each person I call asking for patience during my stony silences while I try to get words out. And if I ask for a repeat.
I’ve found I usually get understanding, but if I don’t ask I often get anger (I have).
So I called Mighty Walmart*.
They e-mailed a reset code.
“Nothing yet. This is what happened before. Lemme look in my junk.
Nothing from Walmart*.”
We tried again and again; at least four more times.
“Nothing from Walmart*,” each time.
Then I happened to notice five “Customer-Service@Walmart” e-mails in my junk.
“Whoa!” I exclaimed. “Here I am looking for ‘Walmart’ instead of ‘Customer-Service@Walmart.’”
SLAM; password reset, corn-puffs ordered from Walmart*; Amazon fix delayed.
“You did good,” I told the girl. “Parrying a 73-year-old stroke-survivor with slight aphasia. Make sure your husband knows.”
Looking back at all this, three hours of precious time lost, I wonder if my long-ago stroke affects my ability to parry stuff like this.
I seem to make better sense of things writing out this blog. Not confronting a screen, or a service-rep counting seconds.

• 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. It slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty finding and putting words together.)

MacEvangelist

Perhaps 15-20 years ago, during my post-stroke employ at the Mighty Mezz, I befriended a guy named Rob Hartle.
Rob is the MacEvangelist. He was trumpeting the wonders of Apple Macintosh personal computers, compared to Windows PCs.
Rob was a graphic-designer at the Messenger, a creator of display ads.
More than anything he was extremely savvy with computers.
At that time my wife and I had a humble Windows 386 PC, our first personal-computer.
Another Messenger graphic-designer named Lance Gardner was also telling how superior Apple computers were.
I began to think about replacing our 386 with a MAC.
It also happened about that time the Messenger was about to institute full computerization = generating pages in a computer instead of doing paste-up.
The Messenger was only somewhat computerized. Stuff got entered into a gigantic air-conditioned mainframe which spit out galleys.
Those galleys got pasted to full-size cardboard page-dummies, which upon completion were photographed to make printing-plates.
Full computerization took out the page-dummies. Plate negatives were sent directly from computer to image-setter.
The Messenger considered the Windows platform too, but decided on Apple because most image-setters were Macintosh based.
A PC had to translate to work a MAC-based image-setter. We already had one, and it liked to freeze. —Delaying publication.
Plus all-of-a-sudden Apple was selling desktop iMacs for peanuts.
Add Gardner and the MacEvangelist to the Messenger’s going Apple, and I decided to get an Apple myself.
A beige G3 desktop.
My siblings weighed in:
Apple was the Devil incarnate. Jesus used a PC. “Them Apples are just toys!” I was told.
I was rebellious and stupid.
It was the same sorry sing-song my hyper-religious parents serenaded me with the whole time I grew up.
I am now on Apple number-three (the rig I’m using here), a MacBook Pro laptop.
The motherboard on my G3 lunched long ago, leading to my G4 tower.
My wife, now deceased, had been a computer programmer. She drove a heavy Windows laptop from home, telecommuting.
But I became used to driving my MAC. And at the Messenger, despite my previous stroke, I developed tricks to generate reams of copy, and save time.
“I don’t know what he’s doing, but this macro is saving me hours. Plus he got so he could do the website.”
“Beep-beep-beep-beep!” Somebody’s running my macro.
The badmouthing from my siblings continued. I suppose because I wouldn’t switch = kowtow to their vast superior knowledge.
I started writing a blog, and began digital photography. I found I could process digital photographs with my MAC — no more darkroom, and much more powerful.
It also allowed me to fiddle color photography, which Yellow Father (Kodak) didn’t allow.
So now I generate an annual train-calendar with my MacBook Pro, plus I often include art (pictures) with my blogs.
Rob moved on, and now lives in Syracuse. I e-mail him fairly often.
I blog a Monthly-Train-Calendar-Report, scanning my four train calendars to be part of the report.
I did one recently, and it had heavy moiré in the sky. Moiré is due to scanning-resolution (300 pixels-per-inch [ppi]) not being the same as printing resolution (dots-per-inch [dpi]). That conflict generates a pattern of waves — moiré — in the scanned image, visible in the sky in this case.
I tried “despeckle;” didn’t work — sometimes it does.
I decided to try a much higher scanning resolution, 1,200 ppi. It worked, but blew a lotta time. 1,200 ppi is also so big I didn’t have enough RAM to fiddle. Good grief; I got four gigs.
—So I shot Hartle an e-mail, and so began addition to my ‘pyooter-savvy.
“Use scanning ‘descreen,’” he said.
Never heard of it, but my scanner had it.
—Next question: My Photoshop-Elements “Clone” tool no longer works.
“Reset tools,” he fired back.
Boom-zoom! My clone tool works again, and it’s been years.
—Next question: “I don’t understand ‘unsharp-mask.’”
“All digital photos could use it,” he shot back.
Engage ‘pyooter waazoo: try it and see what happens. It’s making pictures crisper.
But ya gotta be careful: “unsharp-mask “ overdone can blow a picture off the planet. So I always avoided it.
Previously I edited color-balance with “color-variations” = very sloppy.
Individual color “levels,” red, green, and blue (RGB), work much better = more precise.
I don’t understand it, but what I see looks better.
“Unsharp-mask” pictures also look much better.
“So maybe I should come visit sometime.” Syracuse is about an hour east on the Thruway.
Into the fray! 73 years old, but still hot to increase my ‘pyooter-savvy.
“I won’t have nothin’ to do with computers,” I heard a guy bellow. “I let my wife do it.”
“Well I do,” I said. “For me computers are fun.”
I was at the Canandaigua YMCA the other morning, and two older gentlemen decried their boredom since retirement.
One was born in 1953; that’s nine years younger than me.
“You’re lucky,” my counselor says. “I see all too many retirees bored silly, nothing to do.
Yet you continue to chase trains, then process your train-pictures with your computer.
Plus you’re always writing blogs.”
I never watch TV. I fiddle my MacBook Pro instead. It’s nowhere near as off-putting as Oprah.
Rob is younger than me.
Yet bring it on, baby.

• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 11 years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]). (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)
• RE: “train-calendar” and “chasing trains.....” —I’m a railfan, and have been since age-2.

Shark’s teeth

Mothers hide yer children! (Photo by Dan Lyons.)

I know I gave up blogging some of my calendars to save time.
But here’s this ’53 Buick glaring at me.
The shark’s-teeth Buicks are the angriest looking Buicks of all.
It started in the ‘40s, an expression of Harley-Earl’s fabulous Y-job of 1938.

Y-job.

After WWII, shark’s teeth, also known as “the waterfall grill,” found their way onto Buicks. My paternal grandfather had one, ’46-’48 or so. It replaced his Packard, which was only the el-cheapo six-inline, not what he wanted. My grandfather wasn’t old money.
His Buick was more what he wanted, although my grandmother poo-pooed it. It wasn’t a Chevrolet.
Starting in 1949 Buick moved beyond its immediate postwar models. They were larger and more substantial.
1953 is the final iteration of that ’49 Buick.
The 1954 Buicks became larger still.
(1953 was also the first year of Buick’s new “Nailvalve” V8, eventually retiring its old “Straight-Eight” overhead-valve inline eight begun in 1931.)
The “Skylark” began as a special custom model, pretty much hand-built at first. (This ’53 is a first Skylark.)
The top window/door-sills dipped; in fact, the doors had to be cut apart and welded back together to get the “dip.”
They follow the lines of GM’s last vestige of prewar styling: where the front fender melds into the rear fender.
I call it the “GM bump.” From 1955 through 1958 all GM cars had it, even lowly Chevrolet.

GM bump on a ’56 Chevy 150.

GM couldn’t leap quickly into a new styling direction. For a few years a body-flare was where running-boards had been.
The ’40 Chevy had running-boards. My parents’s ’41 didn’t; it had the flare.
That dip on a ’55-’57 Chevy looked silly. So did the WrapAround windshield.
But all el-cheapo Chevys had the GM bump; although the wagons didn’t.
This Skylark also has a cut-down windshield, and what could pass as a top-chop. Oldsmobile had a similar offering; it was called the “Fiesta.”
Same deal (more-or-less); custom built, except with a WrapAround windshield the Buick didn’t have.
Standard GM offerings didn’t have that body dip yet, nor the WrapAround, and wouldn’t until the next year.
Chevrolet and Pontiac didn’t have it until 1955.
This Skylark also has full rear-wheel cutouts. The surrounds aren’t skirted, or partially skirted.
The openings expose the full rear tires. Partial skirting partly hid ‘em. You could also get optional fender-skirts that filled the rest of the wheel-well.
Custom-car guys loved ‘em. They made a car look lower by extending the bottom body line. They had to be removed to change a flat.
The original Skylark lasted through the next year: 1954.
I remember a ’54 next to my elementary-school; visible from my fourth-grade teacher’s classroom, craggy old Mrs. Marlin. “Day-dreamin’ again, eh? Division tables for you, Hughes!”
I also note this Skylark lacks Buick’s trademark front-fender portholes.

A four-holer.

“Three-holer or four-holer?” a friend used to ask.
Four portholes was Buick’s RoadMaster, its premium model.
A Buick without portholes? (gasp). They lasted into the ‘60s, were dumped, and are now returning.
“Manny, the portholes are back!”
The Skylark name made it onto Buick’s earliest compact offerings, then the midsize models of the late ‘60s.
Now Buick is perceived as an old man’s car, what Pontiac was before Bunkie Knudson (“newd-sin”).
That waterfall grill continues. Except what’s offered now isn’t as threatening as a shark-teeth Buick.
I also can’t help noticing that biplane (“bye-plain;” not “bip-lane”). The car is 1953, but that biplane is late ‘20s or early ‘30s.

I could tell stories

“Will I be assaulted?” “Why am I so stressed?” “What am I breathing in?” “Will I have a bathroom break?”
The January/February issue of my “In Transit” magazine arrived the other day. On its cover was a bus-driver worrying about all those questions.
That wasn’t them all. The bus-driver was a lady.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs.
During that time I was a member of Local 282, the Rochester division of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), which represents bus employees, including mechanics.
“In Transit” is their magazine. They’re in Washington DC.
“In Transit” says bus-employ is the most difficult job in the world — that transit is routinely rated a least healthy occupation.
A graphic depicted health problems prevalent among transit employees: high blood-pressure, diabetes, lower back-pain, asthma, depression, lung disease, cardiovascular problems, carpal-tunnel, etc, etc, etc.
All were apparent in transit employees, especially bus-drivers.
—1) “Will I be assaulted?” This was our greatest concern. What I most abhorred was our clientele.
I’d pick country runs to avoid city folk. We picked by seniority; three times per year.
We drivers had an unwritten rule: “don’t get shot!”
Better to avoid contretemps. Rip-offs weren’t worth losing your life.
—2) “Why am I so stressed?”
“Oh Dora, look, a bus. PULL OUT, PULL OUT!”
Suddenly I hafta stop nine tons of hurtling steel without tossing my passengers out of their seats.
Driving bus I was on guard all the time: 100% concentration.
Eight hours of constantly parrying Granny and NASCAR wannabees.
Even now I can’t drive car with the radio on: it’s a distraction.
I’d come home from work utterly bushed.
Take a nap, to bed by 8 p.m., then up at 3 a.m.
I’d pick runs that minimized port-to-portal.
Out-of-the-house to back-home was about 12 hours. I’d get paid for eight.
—3) “What am I breathing in?”
Our buses were stored inside large sheds (“The Barns”). Mechanics came out each morning to fire ‘em up. This was in case they needed to be jumped.
Once lit, they’d rev to the moon to pump up the air — or just let ‘em idle.
Garage-doors on the Barns were kept closed to keep out the weather. The Barns filled with exhaust.
There also was the possibility exhaust might fumigate inside your bus.
I heard reports of a driver setting off smoke-alarms in his house after driving his first stint.
—4) “Will I have a bathroom break?”
A serious challenge: “Can I hold it until my next opportunity?”
Often that opportunity was out the door in some semi-private location.
Or between the closed rear clamshell doors if your bus was empty.
I factored bathroom breaks into my run-picks.
Transit management, free to use bathrooms willy-nilly, protested our need to widdle.
A retired bus-driver told me about hopping off his loaded bus to take a leak on a city street.
My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended my bus-driving. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
I did it for 16&1/2 years; many drivers more than 30.
It was supposed to be temporary, while I continued looking for work as a writer, mostly in ad agencies.
But it paid fairly well, and I enjoyed doing it at first — mainly the operation of large highway equipment.
But after 16 years I was tiring of it, mainly the clientele.
My stroke was somewhat a blessing. It ended my bus-driving, and got me into the Mighty Mezz; best job I ever had.
I made many good friends at RTS — many of whom I still main contact with after almost 24 years. —And that includes people in management.
People tell me what a stupid, meaningless job bus-driving was, but it paid for my house.

• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 11 years ago. I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)
• RE: “up at 3 a.m.” —My final run, before my stroke, pulled out at 5:05 a.m. (There were runs that pulled out earlier.) A trip in was about 45 minutes. Leave house at 3:45 after glomming breakfast.

Monthly Train-Calendar Report for April 2017

April showers bring May flowers! (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—The April 2017 entry in my own calendar is westbound stacker 21M passing Altoona’s Amtrak station on Track Two.
It’s pouring!
Every once in a while a deluge passes through Altoona. My brother Jack and I had seen it on our Smartphone weather-radar apps.
We were in Altoona — it still wasn’t raining — but it was in Cresson (“kress-in”), up on the mountain, marching east.
So we headed to the Amtrak station, where there are walkways to the Railroaders Memorial Museum across the tracks.
A rusting yellow coach is on the museum lead.
Altoona was once the major shop-town for mighty Pennsylvania Railroad.
One of the walkways is covered, the other isn’t — it’s visible.
We went up on the covered one. No thunder-and-lightning this time, just a deluge. We were under cover.
Here it came! 21M in the downpour, wipers boogying.
As you can see, Track Two is right next to the station platform.
Both eastbound and westbound Amtrak Pennsylvanians use Track Two, to ease passenger access.
Track Two is normally westbound, but the eastbound Pennsylvanian uses it too.
Amtrak’s Pennsylvanians are the only passenger-trains left on this line. There used to be many.
On the station platform, westbound Norfolk Southern freights are right in yer face.
Directly east (right) is open right-of-way where track used to be. East of that is Track One, normally eastbound.
To the right of One is a controlled siding, meaning it’s signaled. To its right is Main-9.
Both tracks are a secondary main through Altoona, and lead toward its only remaining yard, which is at “Rose.”
The two left-most tracks are used for through trains, although those trains can stop at CP-Rose to change crews.
The secondary tracks are not used for yard-switching.
Altoona used to be a major marshaling point for Pennsy freights.
It was at the foot of Allegheny Mountain, so helper locomotives had to be added.
Pennsy also built shops in Altoona as well as yards.
They even built locomotives there, and had extensive testing facilities.
Pennsy was at the forefront of railroad technology. It used to test its locomotive designs in a test-plant.
That test-plant and Altoona-Works are gone.
Only the towering old master mechanic building remains, containing most of the museum’s artifacts.
The museum added a roundhouse to avoid storing rail equipment outside; that includes GG-1 #4913, in the red paint-scheme.
I’ve said it before: Pennsy’s GG-1 is the greatest railroad-locomotive of all time.
A large locomotive shop remains in Juniata (“june-eee-ATT-uh”) north (railroad-east) of Altoona: Pennsy’s old Juniata Shops, now an asset to Norfolk Southern Railroad.
Long story! Norfolk Southern now owns and operates the old Pennsy main across PA.
Altoona is no longer the vast facility it was.
Helpers are still added, when needed, in Altoona for Allegheny Crossing.
Those helpers can also hold back a heavy train descending.
Helpers now get added at Antis, railroad-east of Altoona/Juniata.
Those helpers can also detach on-the-fly if they have “Helper-Link.”
When we left, we had large puddles to ford, but it was only sprinkling.




If it’s Herzog, it’s probably ballast. (Photo by Lance Myers.)

—The April 2017 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a Norfolk Southern ballast train crossing Mayes bridge near Lewistown, PA.
It’s probably ballast because the cars are all Herzog hoppers that automatically dump ballast.
Ballast, usually two-to-three inch rock, is deposited between the rail-ties. There may be as much a 2-3 feet of ballast under the rails, often more.
Good ballast promotes good drainage. If it starts to fill in with soil, it might not drain well, in which case the track sinks in the wet spots.
Not well tended, weeds grow in the soil (“weed-grown right-of-way”), and track can become rough.
I’ve ridden terrible track = so bad about all you could do was 5-10 mph. Speed had been limited by law.
My brother and I have occasionally photographed Herzog trains. Often the locomotive has a radio control for auto-dumping the cars.
The Illinois Terminal heritage-unit, #1072, an EMD SD70ACe (4,400 horsepower) has this.


The Illinois Terminal heritage-unit leads a Herzog ballast train up The Hill. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

The train dumps new ballast as it rolls along.
Maintainers appear afterward with ballast-tamping equipment.
Maintaining a smooth railroad is a science. Many factors apply, especially ribbon-rail in long lengths.
It’s gotten so when new track is laid, paved sub-base, just like a highway, is laid first. Ballast goes atop that, then the track.
The calendar-picture train is to a quarry.




Overreach? (Joe Suo Collection©.)

—The April 2017 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a gigantic Q-2 duplex (4-4-6-4), probably the most powerful steam-locomotive Pennsy had, 115,800 pounds of tractive-effort.
After WWII Pennsy went hog-wild developing the steamers it hadn’t developed in the ‘30s. They were pouring investment into electrification in the ‘30s.
So when WWII began, Pennsy was ill-prepared. It had to move mountains of burgeoning war-traffic with tired old locomotives.
The War-Board didn’t allow Pennsy to develop a new steamer. Pennsy had to shop around. They tried Norfolk & Western’s “A” articulated (2-6-6-4), and Chesapeake & Ohio’s T-1 2-10-4, a Lima (“lye-MUH;” not “lee-MUH”) Locomotive SuperPower design.
Pennsy chose the T-1 — they loathed articulation.
C&O’s T-1 became Pennsy’s J. It had appearance modifications, but was pretty much the T-1. That is, it lacked Pennsy’s trademark slab-sided Belpaire (“bell-PEAR”) firebox.
One could say the J brought Pennsy up-to-speed regarding “appliances,” which it previously abhorred.
Like feedwater heat, boosters, front-end throttles, etc; stuff that enhanced steam-usage and generation.
Pennsy wouldn’t use ‘em, fearing they might need a lotta maintenance.
The Qs had the Belpaire firebox, plus appliances.
The worst problem was they were duplex, Baldwin Locomotive Works’ trick to reduce heavy side-rod weight that pounded the rail. This was especially true in 10-drivered steamers.
So reduce the number of side-rods by adding drive pistons.
Trouble is, on a single non-articulated frame you hafta provide space for those extra cylinders.
Add 10-20 feet to driver wheelbase. Do that and you run into the track-curvature problem.
Bend that around a curve, or through a switch, and drivers splay off the rail.
Some drivers are blind (flangeless). Much smaller steamers e.g. Consolidations (2-8-0) and even K4 Pacifics (4-6-2) have blind drivers.
You didn’t see Qs in PA. Even a Decapod encountered the curvature problem.
I’ve never seen Qs on Horseshoe Curve.
Across Indiana and Ohio were long tangents that could run a Q. That was west of the Appalachians.
The Pennsy I grew up with was east of the Appalachians. If I’d encountered a Q in south Jersey I’d be stunned, and probably crestfallen. Compared to an E6 or K4 the Q was too big.
The other problem with duplex was uneven weight on each driver-set. With less weight a driver-set is more likely to break traction.
Pennsy’s T1 passenger locomotive did that. A driver-set might start spinning wildly at 100 mph. That can damage valve-gear.
As I understand it, the only way to stop slippage was to cut throttle to the entire engine. You weren’t cutting throttle to just the spinning driver-set — you’re cutting both.
I don’t think operation had advanced to separate throttles for each driver-set.
I suppose that mighta happened eventually, but dieselization was coming.
Articulated locomotives could have the same problem.
The biggest problem with a duplex was its long driver wheelbase.
Turnouts and switches had to be reconfigured to accommodate a Q.
No Qs were saved. The only engines Pennsy saved were its classic steamers: engines they actually owned. The Js and Qs and T1s were owned by equipment trusts. Not even a J was saved.
The only engines saved were through the ‘20s; and that was extraordinary. Railroads scrapped their retired steamers.
(No New York Central Hudsons [4-6-4] or Niagaras [4-8-4].)
The collection of saved Pennsy steamers is now at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania near Strasburg, PA.
(I’m pretty sure there’s a preserved NYC Mohawk [4-8-2].)




Steam was doomed. (Collection of Frank and Todd Novak.)

—The April 2017 entry in my All-Pennsy color calendar is two Pennsy EMD E8-As, 2,250 horsepower each, leading a combined westbound passenger-train, including the Allegheny, toward St. Louis, making a station-stop at Dennison, OH on April 13th, 1954.
Yrs Trly was age-10.
By 1954, railroading had begun its slow decline.
Train travel was falling to auto-travel and airplane travel.
Auto-travel can be point-to-point. Train-travel and air travel require renting a car, or being picked up.
Moving freight by rail was also faltering.
Freight in large quantities is still best moved by rail.
Rail is still the most efficient mode, even compared to water-travel (barging, etc.)
I read a comparison lately. Water requires 1.53 times more BTUs per ton-mile than railroading. And trucking requires over 8 times more energy.
And never in a million years are ya gonna get trucking to move what’s carried by a mile-long train of loaded 120-ton coal cars; or 250+ doublestacked loaded containers. All with a crew of only one or two or three, not 250+ truck-drivers.
No wonder the Teamsters hate the railroads.
Freight service by rail also became difficult.
To ship or receive freight a company had to have rail service.
The rail network couldn’t be as extensive as highways. Railroads have to be located where grades aren’t impossible. Highways can have steeper grades.
And highway construction and maintenance is paid by government.
Railroads are privately owned, a vestige of their 19th century heritage.
So the passenger-train pictured is a final siren-song of private rail passenger service.
And diesels aren’t as dramatic as steam-locomotives.


Nickel Plate 765, the BEST restored steam-locomotive on the entire planet. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

NKP 765.
(Be sure to click that link, readers. It’s a YouTube video.)
The magazine article also noted how quickly dieselization replaced steam locomotion. Diesels were stingier with fuel, and easier to maintain and fuel.
That fuel, being liquid, was easier to move and store than coal.
Diesels operated better on railroads, since drive-torque was constant instead of side-rod thrusts.
And diesels didn’t hammer the rail like side-rod steamers.
There were holdouts, and Pennsy was one. As a coal-road, it wanted to continue using coal-fired steam-locomotion.
(It was Pennsy that long ago began fueling its steamers with coal instead of wood.)
Diesels were that much better. Even coal-based Norfolk & Western capitulated; the final holdout for railroad steam locomotion. Norfolk & Western served the Pocahontas coal-region.
N&W gave up steam in 1960; Pennsy in late 1957.
Private railroading gave up passenger service in 1971 when nationally-founded Amtrak began running the nation’s railroad passenger service.
By then railroad passenger service was no longer an attractive choice. Railroad passenger service had become miserable.
Those E-units have the cat-whisker paint-scheme designed by Raymond Loewy (“LOW-eee”) for Pennsy’s GG-1 electric.
They’re also Tuscan-Red (“TUSS-kin;” not “Tucson, AZ”), the color of Pennsy passenger equipment and coaches.
Many houses in Altoona were Tuscan-Red.

Greenberg

611. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

“Better than last time,” we observed.
“Although it could use more N-gauge,” my friend said. “There was some, but it could use more.”
“My friend” is Gary Colvin (“COAL-vin”) a bus-driver retired from Regional Transit Service (RTS), in Rochester NY.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for RTS, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs.
My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
Gary and I are both interested in trains: Gary model trains, me the real thing.
Together we occasionally attend model-train shows. “Greenberg” was a recent show outside Rochester. It’s put on by Greenberg’s Great Train & Toy Shows.
On our way out we talked with a Greenberg organizer.
“Needs more N-gauge,” Gary said.
“Used to be mainly old Lionel, but we’re getting more HO and N.”
HO is 16.5 mm (.64961 inches) between the rails, N is 9 mm (.354 inches) between the rails.
The model-trains are usually smaller than track-gauge scale, but both look pretty good.
Model-trains have gotten much better looking than when I was a child, but still not as interesting as the real thing.
I always say my favorite track-gauge is four-feet 8&1/2 inches, which of course is real track-gauge.
Older Lionel O-gauge is 32 mm (1.25 inches) apart; Gary’s newest layout is N gauge — mainly because N doesn’t need as much space as larger gauges, particularly O, which is quite large.
O-gauge rail equipment is now scaled 1:48 to 1:43.5, much more realistic than it used to be. Years ago it was to a much smaller scale; but 1:43.5 is large equipment.
Scale a locomotive up to track-scale and you have a monster. Do it N-scale, and your model-railroad isn’t overtaking the basement.
“But even then,” I observe; “a model-railroad can’t be very realistic. Flanges on model-railroad wheels hafta be scale three feet or more.
Plus the rail has to be gigantic; high enough to keep flanges off the ties.
That’s rail over three scale feet high. High-performance rail on a real railroad might crank near 1.75 feet (138 pounds per yard), but I’ve never seen three-foot rail.
Rail in sidings, 90-110 pounds per yard, might be nearly a foot high. Yet that model railroad still has three-foot rail in sidings.
I tell Gary “I always prefer THE REAL THING.
“Yeah, but I can’t get the real thing in my basement,” he says.
There are other problems:
—1) First is curvature. Real railroading would need so much space to properly model Horseshoe Curve, ya’d need an airport-hanger.
Curves have to be tight enough to loop within a 4-by-8 sheet of plywood.
Curves that tight couldn’t be operated on a real railroad. Throw Norfolk & Western #611 (the 4-8-4 illustrated above) into a curve as tight as what’s pictured, and 611 would fly off the track.
You might be able to negotiate curvature that tight with an 0-4-0 switcher at 5-10 mph, but not a 60 mph express.
—2) Second is train-speed.
My neighbor and I were assembling an HO layout in his basement when we were teenagers.
We measured one afternoon. Our rubber-band drive Athearn Budd RDC (rail-diesel-car) got up to 250 scale mph. It stopped from that speed in about 150 scale feet.
Try that in reality, and you toss all your passengers out of their seats. (I know; I drove transit bus.)
—3) Third is train-length.
The train included at right had 40-50 cars: amazing! It was just two New-York-Central Baldwin Shark A-units pulling the entire train.
40-50 cars for a single model-train is astounding. We had a hill on our layout that a single Athearn F-unit might stall if it had more than five cars. (At which point a big hand descended from the sky and helped the train up the hill.)
Real railroading might pull 100 or more cars with two or three diesels.
So what it comes to is -a) the joy of operating a model railroad, versus -b) sensory overload of the real thing.
Plus the pleasure of exquisite modeling. Last summer we photographed  a fabulous N-scale layout at a model-train show in Syracuse. It was great to look at, but much more crowded than reality.
Track everywhere, most with curves so tight a real train couldn’t operate ‘em.
There also were roads, but roads were secondary to track. Roads might disappear off the layout, or dead-end at a factory. Buildings were cheek-to-jowl.
There also were tunnels, usually just for having tunnels. Trains would tunnel into a “mountain” only as high as the tunnel — what would have been daylighted long ago.
Behind everything was a diorama of filthy coal-fired smokestacks belching into bright azure sky.
Altoona, PA, where my brother and I photograph the real thing, is crowded trackside, but nothing like the model.
But “I can’t get the real thing in my basement.”
Nevertheless I enjoy going to model-train shows with Gary. We have a good time exchanging snide remarks and verbal potshots. Also pretending we’re The Stooges. (“Here, see this?” POINK! “Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk!”)