“We never went to no Moon!”

So I said to my niece’s boyfriend at a recent get-together.
“Biggest trick ever foisted on the American people,” boyfriend said.
“Walter Cronkite and the TV-News, in cahoots with Hollywood.”
Boyfriend was retelling where he was when Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon.
I forget details, only that it was broadcast on TV at some ungodly hour.
“One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
“Distort the video, fellas. Gotta look like it’s from the Moon.”
I do remember “Houston, uh.... Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
We were returning from a family reunion in northwestern PA. My wife’s father was driving their refrigerator-white ’63 Valiant four-door.
We were far from humanity in Potter County: “God’s Country.”
He had the radio on.
Down a hill we drove next to open pasture. “The Eagle has landed.”
YOWZUH! We did it! Kennedy’s promise fulfilled.
It’s interesting none of this is real to newer generations. John Kennedy was never assassinated, we never went to no Moon, etc.
My left knee was replaced on December 7th: “a date which will live in infamy!”
I say that, and many don’t get it. December 7th (1941) was the date Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese.
“Another Hollywood fast one, I tell ya!”
My brother’s wife in northern DE questions Andrew Jackson on the 20-dollar bill. “Who’s Andrew Jackson?” she asks. She suggests Ronald Reagan, an estimable choice.
I bet she knows Andy Jackson was our nation’s seventh president. Back in the early 1800s, which of course are another Hollywood fabrication.
The War of 1812, Napoleon, etc; are all stunts. Delivered by hoity-toity intellectuals to dissuade us from being anti-Trump.
And of course everything is hunky-dory to Trump and his cohorts.
As much a distortion as what they accuse.
What happened that history no longer exists? That “facts” prompt “alternative facts.”
Suddenly those of us born in the 20th Century are full-of-it.

Canned response

“Thank you for contacting Shutterfly.
We are sorry to hear that your order was not as expected. Please accept our apologies for the difficulties you are experiencing while using the Shutterfly website. Our engineers have fixed the issue.” (Yeah sure!)
“We would like to inform you that the issue is the new custom path calendar.” (My underlining.)

I DON’T THINK SO.
Constant-readers of this blog know I do an annual calendar of train-pictures my brother and I took near Altoona PA.
That calendar was done before Thanksgiving. I had Shutterfly print a single “proof” calendar in case anything was wrong. Before I spill over $2,000 for 65 calendars.
Every order is at least a week. Order then wait a week until it shows.
Meantime Shutterfly is also producing my Christmas-card, and I hafta mail ‘em; MSWord©’s “mail-merge.”
The “proof” arrived two weeks ago. All was okay except their printing. White blotches were stepping on my captions.
Never before. Two or three previous calendars, and all were fabulous.
I returned the proof, and also did a “feedback.” Christmas passed; the calendars were supposed to be Christmas presents. 2018 would soon begin.
I returned the calendar “return-receipt-requested.” Nothing yet. Just the e-mail response quoted above.
I can imagine “Vignish K” assembling a response from various computer files.
But did he actually read my inquiry: “I’d like to be able to order my annual train-calendar, but can’t if white blotches step on my captions.”
Okay, I’m sure others are pulling teeth wrastling Shutterfly’s new way of doing things. Enough for “Vignish” to think that was my problem too.
What I did in the past was overwrite a previous project. I can’t do that with a previous project discontinued.
What I did was figger out their new system.
I don’t think “white blotches on my captions” are inability to figger out that system.
To me white blotches are a printing problem — on their end.
I since generated a newer calendar, pretty much identical to my earlier “proof.” This is sort of what Vignish suggested, except they were generating from my proof calendar, and I was doing from scratch.
So another single proof calendar is ordered as of last night.
If I still get white blotches I’ll probably just eat it. 65-or-more calendars, well over 2,000 smackaroos. I’ll be halfway through January before I can ship!
More irksome is Vignish’s response = CANNED BOILERPLATE. (If I say anything it’s “Call Security!”)
White blotches mean someone other than Shutterfly next year. And who’s to say the others aren’t invisibly sub-contracted to Shutterfly?

We didn’t make it

Linda B. Hughes, 1944-2012. (Long-ago photo by BobbaLew.)

Today’s the day. December 30th, 2017 would have been the 50th wedding anniversary of my wife and I.
My wife died April 17th, 2012. Best friend I ever had, and after my childhood I sure needed one.
My wife’s mother was a piece-of-work. The first time we met she actually growled at me, as if to say “Look what the cat dragged in!”
I can still picture it. She on her sofa, growling at me.
We weren’t expected to last a year. I’d walk out after six months, or my wife would divorce me as insane.
“What does she ever see in him?”
Yet we stayed together. The years piled up.
After 30-or-more years my wife’s mother decided I was more-or-less okay. Still questionable as a pants-wearer (“All men are scum!”); but we hadn’t split.
That mother also made life difficult for my wife. “Martyrdom,” a sister-in-law suggests. She was my wife’s brother’s first wife. She was greeted by my wife’s mother toting a shotgun.
To me that was a misunderstanding. That sister-in-law quickly became favored, as my wife’s brother, a pants-wearer (gasp), left for another.
I think my wife’s mother decided I was okay as I began trying to keep my wife alive. My wife was vastly uncomfortable driving, so I always drove her to the cancer-center in Rochester. The hospital parking-garage woulda been utterly beyond-the-pale.
So when my wife’s mother made 100, she was thrilled to see me. —Like my wife made a wonderful choice.
We wanted to marry on the 31st, but my wife’s mother would have none of it. The 31st was a Sunday, and our doing so would muck up church activities.
Plus I wanted my wife to ditch her glasses. She looked prettier without.
My wife’s mother was aghast. My wanting a pretty wife was contrary to her being the frump her mother raised.
“You may salute the bride!” the pastor said. I quickly snapped to attention, clicked my heels, and saluted.
Kissing was a disaster. We missed. What I really wanted was to escape. My wife’s mother was cracking-the-whip, butting between us.
Home we drove after a short reception at her mother’s house. My family also attended.
When we got back to my apartment, I quickly became scared-to-death. Like what had I done? My wife was hanging her clothes in my closet.
I was terrified. Could I make this work?
I guess I did. Although it was also her.
But it wasn’t 50 years. She died before me, which always begs the question: “Why am I still here? She was the one good for 100.”
I’m still somewhat devastated.

• My wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely. That she liked me reversed my upbringing.
• “How come you always know to turn right outta this garage?” “Because that’s where the sun is!” “What if it’s raining?” “I know where the sun is supposed to be.” Similarly “How come you always know where the car is in this garage?” “Third floor, up the ramp, there’s the car.”

Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth

I have begun unsubscribing again; another feeble attempt to reduce my number of “junk” e-mails.
I guess Windoze calls ‘em “spam,” or perhaps not. Maybe they call ‘em “unsafe.”
I have two levels of spam-protection. First is RoadRunner, my Internet-Service-Provider. Second is this machine, my “AppleMail” e-mail app.
RoadRunner I pay little heed to — only when I’m away and hafta use their webmail.
RoadRunner filters out porn or anti-porn = sex-offender notification. Plus links, which occasionally contain viruses. Sometimes they get through, so I just “trash” ‘em locally.
AppleMail filters out unwanted business and charity solicitations, plus stuff I’ve labelled “junk.” What I’m doing is going through all the AppleMail “junk” to “unsubscribe.”
I don’t know as the average working person can do this; they just “trash” everything in one fell swoop. That’s what I used to do, but it can be dangerous, as valid e-mail may be in my “junk.”
Facebook and Amazon shipping notifications are occasionally “junk.” A rescue Irish-Setter site in north Jersey was made “safe,” but often ends up in “junk” anyway.
Being a retiree I have time to pore through “junk.” Come lawn-mowing I won’t. I also no longer have a dog to walk.
So go through all my AppleMail “junk” to “unsubscribe.” The “junk”-sites are often secretive about “unsubscribing.” “Click here” to unsubscribe buried in bottom text. Sometimes “unsubscribe” doesn’t look like a link — it’s not colored as such. (My mouse has to be the “hand” thingy.)
I hafta look for “unsubscribe:” perhaps 10-15 seconds per site; occasionally longer. “Unsubscribing” 30 or more junkers may blow an entire hour. Snowed in I can spare that, but start mowing and I hope I’ve “unsubscribed” enough already.
And then there are the sites a MAC can’t crunch. (I drive an Apple Macintosh — GASP!) Jesus drives a Windoze PC I was told. MACs are of-the-Devil. Apple is the Devil incarnate, or at least was.
Perhaps Windoze can’t crunch the sites either. All I get are tiny art-boxes enclosing question-marks. Those sites may have been generated by geeks in Indonesia with no ‘pyooter savvy whatsoever.
No “unsubscribe.”
Sometimes the unsubscribes want survey input: like why I do not wanna receive “delightful, life-affirming, money-saving marketing e-mails.” Oh come-on, dudes! Often I don’t answer, but sometimes it’s only one or two questions. Often the “unsubscribe” wants “e-mail preferences.” I gotta hunt for a full “unsubscribe;” and they’re usually secretive about it.
One of the responses may be “I never subscribed.” La-dee-dah! That’s true, but if I order anything online, I’m thereby subscribing. (I am?)
Various sites seem to all be using a generic website. It uses my browser, and always gets the same display. Fill in e-mail address and then click a “remove” button.
Sometimes the e-mail address autofills, but sometimes I hafta crank in my address manually. Make sure my sloppy keyboarding (stroke survivor) doesn’t type mistakes. My address is rhughes3@rochester.rr.com. Yesterday I erroneously put in a space (rhughes3@[space]rochester.rr.com) that made it invalid. Often that input is just dots, including the space. I hafta know I can make that mistake to solve it.
“We’re sorry to see you go,” the site always says. ZAP! “Unsubscribe successful.“

• “Windoze” is Microsoft’s Windows©. —MAC user posturing.
• A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. My previous Irish-Setter was from a failed backyard breeder.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.

Del Lago

(That head is a link, readers.)
“This is the first time in my entire life I been here, so I don’t know yer rules of engagement.”
I was talking to the attendant in the parking garage of Del Lago Casino and Resort. I was there to share Christmas buffet with a niece, my only remaining Rochester relative.
“Do you want self-park?” the dude asked.
“I was told I could park in here free because I have a handicap-tag.”
“You mean valet parking? We valet-park yer car for nothing.”
I handed over my keys.
“I see elevators. Is that where I go?
It looks like yer casino is way over there.”
“That’s the hotel,” he said. “The casino is right upstairs.”
Into the fray!
“It looks you guys are guarding the property,” I said to two attendants at the casino entrance.
The ringing din of slots washed over me.
“Enter here,” one of the attendants said.
“I’m headed for the buffet,” I said.
“Over there,” they pointed. The casino was HUGE, about the size of an airport-hanger. Ceilings looked 20-24 feet.
I ambled past bank-upon-bank of noisily ratcheting slots. Overweight geezers with oxygen lazily caressed lighted buttons — no levers, just buttons.
There also were gaming tables and a wheel-of-fortune. I noticed a fountain of water dripping from the ceiling.
“My guess is there’s a discount,” I said to the buffet cashier. My niece wasn’t there yet.
“$2 discount with a playing-card.”
“Where do I get a playing-card?”
“Other side of the casino at ‘Promotions.’”
Another long hike. At least I can still do it.
The line at Promotions was long, at least 30.
“Wanna just get a playing-card?” a uniformed attendant asked. “You can also get one at the Front Desk. Why wait in line? I don’t know what they were thinking.”
I turned and headed for the Front Desk. A flat-topped older minion was guarding.
“I was told I could get a playing-card here,” I said.
“You’ll hafta get that at Promotions.”
“They told me to come here,” I said.
“Easy now. Don’t get upset, sir,” flat-top snapped (“call Security”). “What you want is Promotions.”
“And they directed me here,” I said.
Back to Promotions to get back in line. By leaving I lost five places, but the line was much shorter.
Playing-card purchased I ambled the quarter-mile back to the buffet.
All this for a $2 discount.
“Got a pasta-bar?” I asked a buffet attendant. “I was hoping for spaghetti, since I never get to make it; too time-consuming.”
“No spaghetti.” Score one for Finger Lakes Racino.
“Hi, my name is Angela. I’ll be yer server.”
By now my niece arrived.
Angela walked away.
“Looked like a waitress to me,” I said to my niece.
“So what do you think?” my niece asked.
“Too far,” I said. “Over a hour getting here, and no spaghetti either. Finger Lakes Racino is 15-20 minutes, and they got spaghetti.”
I had already eaten when my niece arrived — they overshot their Thruway exit (ya gotta use the Thruway to get to Del Lago).
My niece’s boyfriend got dessert.
“What’s that?” I asked pointing to a tiny something on his plate.
“Mousse,” they said.
“Smallest moose I ever saw. Usually they’re the size of a horse, 1,200 pounds or so.”
On-and-on it went. Yada-yada-yada-yada. Driver’s license/ID renewal, cable-TV upgrades, etc. It had been months since we last got together. And my niece’s twenty-something daughter wasn’t there, which meant I could control my temper — which I wanted to control. She set me off once before.
“Mention rabbit-ears to a millennial, and they think yer talking about rabbits,” my niece said.
“And I remember when TV was on-the-air, and there were only three channels,” I said.
“Plus TV reception was via antenna on yer roof,” boyfriend added.
My niece is in her late 40s. Her mother is my wife’s brother’s first wife. My niece lives with her mother. My niece is divorced from her first husband.
“I used to visit my father every year during childhood, but he doesn’t remember that,” my niece said.
Alzheimer’s: I don’t think so. He just doesn’t remember. My niece’s mother, who also came along, noted she has failing short-term memory. Like me she’s also in her 70s.
But I don’t think it’s Alzheimer’s. I call it CRS-syndrome — Can’t-Remember-Shit. I have it myself. Too many memory-banks to peruse, and slower doing so. Often anything forgotten surfaces later.
We hung around about two hours, then decided to leave. My niece and her boyfriend would walk me to the parking-garage. I had a scanner ticket to notify valet-guy I was coming, so he could get my car.
“Just put it in the slot,” boyfriend said; a ticket-scanner was upstairs. There were two other slots, plus a large opening that apparently was ”the slot.”
“I’m glad you know how to do it,” I said. Everything is by machine any more; technology that often frustrates. I’d figger it out; it’s interesting.
But not right away. I got so I could do the off-site parking-pay machines at my wife’s hospital. Also the U-Scan machines at my supermarket.
This reminds of once in Altoona (PA) with my younger brother, ordering subs electronically. My brother interjected: “I speak English,” he bellowed, sending the counter-help ducking for cover.

• The “Thruway” is a toll interstate from New York City to the Pennsylvania state line west of Buffalo. It’s the main east-west highway across New York state. —It more-or-less parallels the Erie Canal, avoiding mountains. Across western NY it’s Interstate-90. South of Albany to New York City it’s Interstate-87.
• My beloved 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.

Monkeyshines

Every once-in-a-while Yr Fthfl Srvnt’s Internet goes south.
.....Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth!
I noticed I’m dependent on Internet. No TV for This Kid — not interested. Hardly any reading either; although I miss it some. (Magazines are all I can spare.)
Most of what I do involves the dreaded Internet. This blog is posted by Internet; photos get uploaded via the Internet; online orders are by Internet; my banking is over the Internet; I even do a little surfing and Facebook on the Internet.
No Oprah or Dr. Phil.
Every morning as I eat breakfast my pencil comes out, I engage my legal-pad, and I start “slingin’ words:” what I call writing.
“But Dr. Zink” (my 12th-grade English-teacher), “all it is is slinging words.”
“Hughes, you do that better than most.”
My muse won’t shut up.
But writing — blogging — needs the Internet. So do all the train-pictures my brother and I take. (We’re railfans.) Pictures go to PhotoBucket over the Internet. My Shutterfly train-calendar is also via the Internet.
If my Internet tanks, I climb the walls.
Yesterday morning I started to publish a blog, and got the weepy cartoon-character that indicates “no Internet.”
NOW WHAT?
Partly it’s because I’m clueless about what goes on.
Computer lingo is rife with abbreviations I don’t know. And I don’t understand how my Internet works. I think “ISP” stands for “Internet-Service-Provider,” and apparently I have an Internet-address I don’t know.
My ISP is Spectrum, previously Time-Warner. My Internet is via cable. The cable drives a large Internet modem near this laptop. The modem is Spectrum.
I’m hard-wired, but that modem also has an internal wireless router. I can get my Internet wirelessly.
My hard-wire has its tiny plastic retaining-tab broke off at the plug, so the plug can drift out. My first “no Internet” test is to try wireless (then reinsert plug).
Still weep-boy.
I tried hitting sites I have bookmarked; weep-boy is occasionally only that specific site. That can be confusing because sometimes refreshes get generated by cache in this rig.
Yet I still was getting weep-boy.
This rig has an Internet diagnosis. I’ve never used it, but tried this time. After maybe 10-15 minutes of silent horsing, it declared I had no Internet, so I should contact my ISP. (Ya don’t say!)
I had to walk away. Off to my local YMCA to slosh around in their swimming-pool. An attempt to improve my balance, which is dreadful.
Perhaps my Internet would return while I was away, or a thought might occur while driving. They have before.
The weather was lousy: snow and dicey driving. How come my Internet always tanks in marginal weather, bad enough to suspect weather-caused failure. It has before, like in thunderstorms that knock out electrical-service.
I have a standby generator, and usually my iPhone works. Cell-towers seem to have backup, and usually my landline continues working too. This laptop can be battery powered, and the local Internet station seems to have backup too, so my Internet continues even when the power fails. Years ago it didn’t.
Returned from the YMCA pool, still weep-boy.
Call Spectrum with fear-and-loathing. I never like phonecalls. I hafta tell my contact I had a stroke, so may have difficulty communicating. It’s called aphasia, a stroke-effect, slight in my case. It can be so bad a stroke-victim can’t talk. My contacts say I sound fine, but I’m aware. Difficulty getting words out.
And usually in large corporations one’s first contact is a machine. Despite minor post-stroke brain-addle I’m forced to navigate. Occasionally I hafta start over, especially if the machine’s programmer entered garbage. Often things go into Never-Never-Land, or run you in circles.
I call “technical-help” with dread. Sometimes I get an Indonesian with no technical savvy whatsoever, and little command of English beyond “We’re deeply, deeply sorry.” (Microsoft comes to mind.)
“Don’t worry, Mr. Hughes. I’ll solve yer issue in seconds.” Okay, but he didn’t sound American.
For whatever reason this rig was trying to connect to our old “D-Link” router, which Spectrum couldn’t connect. Which was why wireless was added to their new modem.
That new wireless is locked, so wanted a password. The one I was given no longer computed. If it had, I might have had wireless Internet.
The techie gave me a new password, and with that wireless worked, I guess. My hard-wire plug had also loosened. Reinserted my hardwire Internet returned, or so it appeared. Although the techie zapped my modem.
Madness left-and-right! Try this, try that, “before you hang up.” “I guess I have it,” I told the techie. “Although I may hafta call you back.”
“Merry Christmas,” the techie said. In Indonesia?
“Make sure yer boss knows ya did well parrying a stroke-survivor,” I told him.

• RE: “Dreaded Internet....” —Because the Internet is not a reliable source. Anyone can post anything, including fatuous errors. I’ve seen different spellings of “Hillary” (as in Hillary Clinton), and “Dulles” (as in Dulles Airport). In Internet site claimed Pennsylvania Railroad’s Horseshoe Curve was first built with four tracks. WRONG! Two tracks at first, three in the 1890s, then finally four. (Since cut back to three.)

“Why would I ever wanna lay off him?”

During my post-stroke employ at the Canandaigua Daily Messenger newspaper I learned how to OCR scan.
OCR is “optical-character-recognition.” A scanner and computer scan a document to generate a computer text-file.
Usually “Letters-to-the-Editor” were done at home on a word-processor and printer — a slam-dunk to OCR scan.
I could even scan typewritten documents. Hand-written no. An actual typist had to be the computer. My job-title was “typist,” but I never typed anything. My forte was computer-tricks. I could generate reams of page-filling copy.
My stroke destroyed a few things. But apparently left enough to engineer computer-tricks.
One day a manager came downstairs to our newsroom to OCR scan something. “Ya know, I bet I could do that,” I said to her.
“I bet you could,” she said. “Here, watch me.”
Levers and buttons galore = no idea what she was doing. But I’m gonna figger it out. Engage guile-and-cunning. I did.
Soon the Executive Editor was handing me word-processor Letters-to-the-Editor. I could usually turn around two or three in a couple hours.
Discussion followed. I began editing = making letters say what they meant.
“Hey BossMan; ya sure ya want me doing this?”
“Publish as-written and we look stupid,” he answered. “Beyond that what the writer meant often gets lost in contorted syntax and bad grammar.”
One day I got an extremely well-written letter. I was suspicious. Well-written isn’t Canandaigua.
I fired up Rush Limbaugh’s website, and there was the letter. Just copy/paste and sign yer name to it.
“Hey BossMan, looka this!”
“Wow! We’re not publishing that! Only locally-written, and Canandaigua residents aren’t Limbaugh’s lackeys.”
During my employ a hatchet-man was hired as “Executive Vice-President.” As a REPUBLICAN he wanted to lay me off. Stroke-survivors are just baggage.
The Executive-Editor overrode him: “Why would I ever wanna lay him off? He’s giving me two or three ready-to-run Letters-to-the-Editor per day.”
That Executive-Editor since died of a heart-attack. He graduated the same college as me, although I’m ’66 and he’s ’80.
I think that college, Houghton, can take credit for making us both sticklers for correctness. Erroneous spelling and bad grammar/syntax drove us up-the-wall.
Beyond that the Messenger newspaper was staffed by whackos. I fit right in.
I always thank that Executive-Editor for keeping me around. In my humble opinion, the fact I recovered so well from a stroke is partly because of that newspaper.

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke. Prior to my stroke I drove transit-bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke ended that after 16&1/2 years (1977-1993).

SHEESH!

“Ya mean I gotta open a new account just to cancel my doggy’s medical insurance?
Rob Peter to pay Paul?”
About two weeks ago I had to give up on my beloved dog “Scarlett.”
She was 13 years old = an old dog.
Never before have I had an Irish Setter last that long. She was Irish Setter #6, and rescue #4.
Scarlett hung with me despite my wife dying over five years ago. She became “The Queen.” I spoiled her rotten. I let her prewash the plates and pans, walked her a lot, and helped her hunt — even at 3 a.m. in snow.
She started having seizures perhaps two weeks earlier. My local vet prescribed anti-seizure pills, and I gave ‘em to her.
She spit one out, then almost immediately had another seizure. There was probably cancer in her head. Off again to Veterinary Specialists & Emergency Services near Rochester. It was too late to visit my local vet.
They hospitalized her overnight, but taking her home was too risky. Emergency-vet was 40 minutes from my house. What if I had to go there late-at-night again? Beyond that, she’d probably only get worse. She already looked old, and was hard-of-hearing.
Extremely loyal though. BEST dog I ever had.
So I gave up — except my boarder calls it “caring for my dog.” That boarder runs the kennel where I boarded my dog during long trips. They loved my dog too, and came for moral support.
So now my dog is back to dust; ashes dispersed in a nearby park she loved.


My dog’s ashes are between the bench and the pond. (The kennel owner is sitting with me.) —Scarlett would go down into the pond to get a drink, plus hunt for frogs. She also addressed geese out on the pond (LUNGE).

That kennel also cremates dogs.
I’m DEVASTATED! I knew this would happen sometime, but held off as long as I could. Scarlett meant the world to me — but she got old, and boss-dogs usually outlive their secondary dogs.
So now I’m dispensing her stuff. Dog-food, treats, medications, etc. And telling anyone that knew her, which I never can do without crying.
“How do I tell you this without crying?” I was delivering a donation to a nearby charity the other day. I did so previously, and usually had Scarlett with me. The attendant loved Scarlett, and always fussed her.
I still had to cancel my dog’s medical insurance — which I never used because filing a claim meant giving up hours of time. Even though a bill might be over $1,500. I could usually slam-dunk it; like my time was more valuable.
My wife set up that medical insurance long ago, probably because a previous dog got cancer. We didn’t have the insurance then, so treatment was out-of-pocket ($6,000). If Scarlett got cancer we/I woulda filed a claim.
I clicked “new account.” Filled stuff in. “Our records indicate this policy number is already associated with an existing Pet Account Access page login ID.”
AW MAN!
I called the medical insurance. They referred me to their website.
“Our records indicate.....” etc, etc.
Beyond that their site was mental overload.
Step-by-torturous-step I slowly pored through it; I got better things to do.
This is turning into a high-school science project. All I wanna do is cancel my dog’s medical insurance.
“So send a letter!” There goes maybe an hour or so: compose letter, address envelope, mail from a nearby post-office drive-by mailbox. On-and-on it goes. My time is precious. I can’t easily spare an hour.
“Or cancel online.” Sure; if I can figger yer website. At which point the service-rep calls Security. Geezer-alert! Older friends I know throw up their hands if “online” is suggested.
Sometimes I think the world is leaving me behind. Every online contact wants an account. Fer what? So they can sell my information to thems that e-mail me hottie-links?
I shouldn’t need an account just to cancel it.
Is this the new century’s paradigm? (Thank you, Suckerbird.)

• A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. (Scarlett was from a failed backyard breeder.) By getting a rescue-dog we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett wasn't bad.
• “Suckerbird” is Mark Zuckerberg, head honcho of Facebook.

RE: “Outta the house”

“A massive sugar-hit is all wrong.”
That’s what I woulda told ***** the lifeguard at the Canandaigua YMCA swimming-pool.
She was not there today, Sunday. As she said to me once, she’s entitled to a day off per week.
I usually only see ***** twice per week, the Tuesdays and Thursdays of my aquacise class at the YMCA pool.
She learned my name, and seems to enjoy my serenading her with sick jokes.
Talking to her also reverses my parents’ convincing me I was totally unworthy of female attention. With ***** they spin in their graves.
“Were it not that I also have to hit Weggers here in town, I woulda skipped this pool,” I’d add. (It was the sugar-hit.)
Sunday is not my aquacise class. It’s on-my-own. I’ll probably text that to ******-**** too. She’s my aquacise coach.
Last night the lady who boarded my dog for long trips had her annual Christmas-cookie exchange. She has a boarding kennel. She loved my dog too, and came for moral support when I put my beloved dog to sleep.
When my wife died five years ago I was quickly told I needed people. So I started doing that despite being a loner. I go to everything I can: fulfillment of that advice.
But I’m not sure I “need people.” It’s pleasant to attend, but I return to an empty house — and I’m not bored or lonely therein.
My counselor, begun because my wife died, tells me I’m lucky to have so many interests. Many retirees don’t. In my house this laptop awaits: train-pictures to process, I do an annual computer calendar of train-pictures, words to key in (this blog for example), wrastling computer problems......
Every morning, during breakfast, engage pencil and legal-pad, and “sling words.” That’s what I call it: writing I guess. (My muse won’t shut up.)
It’s the talent I was blessed with. Been doin’ it since college, even before I guess.
“But Dr. Zink” (my 12th-grade English-teacher), “it’s only ‘slinging words.’”
“Hughes, you do that way better than most,” he told me.
I began to realize “the best friend I ever had” was me. My wife was second, but sorely needed after my childhood.
I noticed in college I could entertain myself, i.e. I had my own life to live. Sick of studying I drew ’55 Chevys, which at that time were my main automotive lust.
Drawing was vaporized by my stroke = unsteady hands. Fortunately I didn’t lose my writing. Some stroke-victims do. Even though I return to an empty house — no dog either —my writing awaits.
I suppose that’s what made my father angriest: the fact I didn’t need his approval to make myself happy.
So here I was at this cookie exchange. I always feel a little out-of-it at these shindigs. Like my primary goal is to not offend anyone; “no politics or religion,” I told someone. “I don’t wanna lose friends.”
“Ya mean I can blurt anything?” I remarked — except I defer of course.
“With Blasio New York City is returning to becoming a cesspool,” someone commented. Ain’t touchin’ that with a 10-foot pole. Amazingly I detailed a Rush Limbaugh faux pas without offending anyone. But no Trump comments.
“Well *****,” I said as I started to leave. “No supper fer this kid. Too much sugar.”
“I’ll walk you to your car,” ***** said. It was snowy. “I’m glad you came; get you outta the house.”
“I return to an empty house,” I commented. “But not lonely,” I thought later. As always I’ll entertain myself, usually with this here laptop.

• “Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester where I often buy groceries. They have a store in Canandaigua. (“Canandaigua” 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.)
• RE: “train-pictures” and “calendar of train-pictures....” —My younger brother and I are both railfans. We frequently go to Altoona, PA, to chase and photograph trains. Altoona is where the Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain, long ago a barrier to east-west trade. That railroad is no longer “Pennsy;” it’s now Norfolk Southern. But it’s still extremely busy. I use the pictures my brother and I took to create an annual computer calendar.
• I graduated college in 1966. ’55 Chevys were very desirable in the early ‘60s.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.

“What they been smokin’?”

“100,000 smackaroos?” I asked.
“What they been smokin’?”
Yrs Trly gives to charity, making me a target for every possible charity buying my address from charities I gave to.
I cut back. I used to give to national charities when I itemized deductions. Better to support cancer research than McDonnell Douglas or Boeing.
Now that I’m retired, entitled to a higher age-based standard deduction, I cut back to only local charities.
I usually get one or two charity solicitations per day — in my mailbox. Who knows how many I get over my phone, which I gave up answering. Only if my caller-ID identifies a caller I know.
Years ago there were three charities I gave $500 per year. One was Railroaders Memorial Museum in Altoona, PA, location of The Mighty Curve, which as a railfan I’ve been to many times.
The others were -a) Houghton College, which I graduated in 1966, and it meant so much to me, and -b) WXXI-FM, the classical-music radio station out of Rochester I regularly listen to.
I prefer classical music, and have WXXI on all the time. WXXI is public radio, partially funded by givers like me.
I cut back since retirement. Railroaders Memorial Museum and Houghton are now $100 per year, and WXXI is now $600 per year as a sustaining member = $50 per month. (I listen all the time; it’s worth it.)
I haven’t been to Horseshoe Curve in years — there are other railfan locations nearby I go to. And Houghton seems to no longer be what it was when I graduated.
As a railfan I supported Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society for restoration and maintenance of Nickel Plate 765, by far the BEST restored steam-locomotive I’ve ever seen. $100.
Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society is part of a large charity organization based in Fort Wayne, IN. Every year before Christmas I got a solicitation from that organization. I could check off Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society.
There it is again in my mailbox, just like clockwork — Christmas is two weeks away.
I opened the solicitation. HOLY MACKEREL! They’re suggesting a $100,000 gift.
It gets crazier and crazier. I know inflation makes a $100 gift puny. First it was $500, then $1,000, then $5,000, then $10,000. What do they think I am, a bottomless pit?
Now $100,000. DING! That rings the bell.
They ain’t gettin’ no $100,000; are they nuts?
I imagine some overpaid charity CEO merrily flaunting the speed-limit in his megabuck Mercedes.

P-38

“Forked-tailed devil.” (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The December 2017 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is one of my favorite propeller airplanes, a Lockheed P-38 Lightning.
As desirable as the P-51 Mustang. All it lacks is the Packard-Merlin engine.
As far as I know, the P-38 was a first product of Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson. who later became head of Lockheed’s famous “Skunk Works.”

F-104 StarFighter. (“Widow-Maker.”)

“Skunk Works” lasted a long lime with Johnson at the helm. Many airplanes were Skunk Works; perhaps best was the F-104 StarFighter.
In 1939 an experimental pre-production P-38 set a cross-country speed record. Californy-to-New York in 7 hours, 2 minutes, not counting two refueling stops. But the airplane suffered carburetor icing and crashed.
Despite that the Army Air Corps was still interested. The P-38 required monkeyshines to convince the Air Corps. Being twin-engined, it didn’t meet the requirement for single-engine fighter-planes.
A new category was begun to allow the P-38, so-called “intercepters.” And with two engines a P-38 also needed more wing.
No matter, it still was gorgeous; also a worthy fighter. It was maneuverable and fast — the first fighter to exceed 400 mph.
Moreover its guns were in the nose, not the wings. You didn’t hafta worry about getting your target into the “convergence-zone:” the area ahead of the plane where wing-shot bullets converged.
With a P-38 it was just aim-and-shoot.
The P-38 also had counter-rotating engines. The engine and propeller on the left rotated the reverse of the one on the right. This counteracts rotation effect, which had to be balanced (“trimmed”). If both props rotated the same way, the airplane drifted from straight ahead.
Pilots loved the P-38. They could get away with grievous mistakes.
Years ago I went to a historic plane airshow because I heard a P-38 would attend. It landed and parked. Motors off the props stopped rotating. “Oh yeah,” I said; “counter-rotating props. I forgot.”

First P-38 I ever saw. (Long-ago photo by BobbaLew.)

The airshow P-38 wasn’t much to look at. Restoration had just begun. But it was a P-38, and airworthy. I guess P-38s are rare; my WWII warbirds site says only about five remain.
As a child I had a plastic model of a P-38. I think it was yellow, completely unpainted. I never painted anything — too sloppy.
Apparently that twin-boom tail could be troublesome. Power-dive a P-38 and those twin booms would vibrate toward 500 mph. Controls would lock up. Some P-38s crashed because of that.
P-38s were also turbo-supercharged to operate at high altitude. It’s too bad they weren’t the Mustang’s hot-rod Packard-Merlin V12. But I’d be willing to bet some P-38s were converted.

The greatest airplane of all time. (Photo by Brian Johnstone.)

What I say now is “the next airshow I attend will have a ‘Connie’ in it.” I think Lockheed’s Constellation is the greatest airplane of all time. It uses the P-38 wing, enlarged of course.
It too was developed by Kelly, etc. Why is it so many Skunk Works airplanes looked great?

• The F-104 StarFighter was called a “widow-maker” because it needed much higher approach and landing speeds. An unknowing pilot might crash.

Banquet

Alumni Christmas banquet. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

Another Alumni Christmas banquet drifts into the filmy past.
The “Alumni” are union retirees of Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs.
Our transit union is 282, the Rochester local of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union.
Transit had a club for long-time employees, and I was in it. It was called the “15/25-year Club;” I guess at first the “25-year Club.” But they lowered the employment requirement, and renamed it “15/25-year Club.” The requirement was lowered even more; I joined at 10 years.
The Alumni was a reaction to the fact Transit management retirees ran roughshod over union retirees — a continuation of the bad vibes at Transit: management versus union.
My employ at RTS ended in 1993 with my stroke; and the “Alumni” didn’t exist then. The Alumni is a special club — you have to join. It’s an offshoot of Local 282.
I arrived early; driving was challenging due to snow.
I also got lost, but not actually lost. Just going the wrong way due to misperception.
The banquet was to begin at 11 a.m. I arrived about 10:45. Only a few others were there by then, and driving was difficult enough to prompt thinking I might be the only one that showed.
“That means you get to eat everything,” said ***** *********, president of the Alumni.
After 11 a.m. more trickled in. In not too long the banquet-hall was filled; 60 attended.
My fellow retirees are hand shakers, not huggy-poo, thankfully. Lots of hand shaking, then a lady I didn’t know shook my hand and greeted me. I didn’t let go. “Yer hand is ice ice-cold,” I said. “Gotta transfer some heat.”
I think she was also a retired bus-driver like me, but I didn’t know her from the moon. She may have been after-my-time. My stroke ended my bus-driving 24 years ago
I’m glad she said hello. Also glad I didn’t let go.
Driving bus was a job I was tiring of after 16&1/2 years. My stroke was somewhat a blessing.
Shortly before my stroke I began a voluntary newsletter for my bus-union. It was great fun.
Following my stroke I said I’d rather do something similar than return to driving bus. I started at a newspaper in nearby Canandaigua as an unpaid intern. Stroke-survivors often return to work that way, but soon that newspaper hired me — incredible moxie on their part, but I was recovering fairly well.
Bus-driving meant parrying Transit’s management, although bus-drivers could be jerks too. Management wanted us to be “professionals,” yet refused to call us “professionals.”
In management’s favor, some bus-drivers were unprofessional, so I find it hard to think we were all “professional.” I feel I was, and I wasn’t the only one. You had to be somewhat professional to not get fired.
Management was probably afraid calling us “professionals” might prompt us to want higher pay. Certainly the nonprofessionals among us didn’t deserve it. Yet our union represented all, both professional and nonprofessional.
Table-by-table we slowly sauntered into an alcove to fill our plates. Pasta in tomato-sauce, tiny boiled potatoes, barbecued chicken, roast beef, and some sort of cooked greenery. All I had was the pasta and roast-beef — I never can eat much.
There also were salads, plus a grandiose cake for dessert. I guess there was also a bar, but hardly anyone was drinking.
Yada-yada-yada-yada-yada. Knee-replacements, pacemakers, hip-replacements, back fusings and open-heart surgery. A profusion of canes was noticed — no canes for this kid yet: I should be able to walk without a cane.
Like-it-or-not, we’re all getting old. The Alumni’s sparkplug announced he was giving up his sparkplug function.
“The moving finger having writ moves on.”
I hope the Alumni continues without him, but not by me. I have plenty of other interests.
But we all shared driving bus. It wasn’t easy, mainly our clientele, although I tilted toward suburban runs.
Also the four-wheelers: “Oh, LOOK, Dora! A bus; PULL OUT, PULL OUT!”

“Delightful, life-affirming, money-saving marketing e-mails.”

Oh, fer cryin’ out loud! (Screenshot by BobbaLew.)

Last night Yr Fthfl Srvnt plowed through his many “junk” e-mails, hoping to reduce the number by “unsubscribing.”
I hafta pore through ‘em lest I miss something valid. Occasionally valid e-mails get “junked” despite my never labelling their senders as “junk.”
(MAC calls ‘em “junk,” I guess. Windoze calls ‘em “spam.” —And never the twain shall meet.)
I “unsubscribed” a while ago, but they were piling up again. Order something online, and the deluge begins.
When “unsubscribing,” some allow me to say I never signed up — which is true, but it seems just ordering something online signs me up whether I wanna or not.
I ordered a Lamborghini teeshirt online from RedBubble for my niece’s teenage son in Fort Lauderdale — he’s old enough to prefer Lambos over Hess toys.
So now RedBubble is deluging me with offers. I happened to order a sofa pet-protector from OverStock.com, so now they began showering me.
Gotta stop!
Every day I delete 89 bazilyun “junkers” from my local e-mail. And “unsubscribing” is usually a minute or more.
Most are plebeian, but some want survey input. Like I gotta explain why I don’t want “delightful, life-affirming, money-saving marketing e-mails.”
GET REAL, dudes!
Yer wasting my time = I got better things to do. Every day I gotta trash 89 bazilyun “junkers.”
My brother in northern DE tells me the value of a person is determined by the number of e-mails they get. If that’s true I must be vastly important — unless it’s referring to valid e-mail. I get about 5-10 valid per day, plus stuff that sneaks by my “junk” filter. I have two “junk” filters. The porn and virus-links get junked out in cyberspace, i.e. before they get to my local e-mail.
“Local” is on this machine; that has junk filtration too = the second barrier.
Sometimes virus-links get to my local: immediately trashed. Sometimes valid e-mail goes to “junk.” I’ve even had it happen out in cyberspace.
I depend on webmail working — it usually does. I hardly ever look at it; only when I travel.
I go through my local “junk” to weed out stuff that shouldn’t be in there; although I have trashed the entire kibosh — one fell swoop.
All-of-a-sudden RedBubble was blasting me with e-mail; they were appearing as “junk.” OverStock.com was also blasting me. I figgered it was about time to start “unsubscribing.”
At-long-last, “Wright-Brothers” flying stuff is “unsubscribed.” Bomber-jackets, Mustang clocks, wooden airplane models, WWI propellers. Why would I ever want that? All because years ago I purchased a mahogany model of a TWA Lockheed Super-G Constellation, to me the greatest airplane ever made. And I got it from “Wright-Brothers.”
I gotta blow at least two minutes to unsubscribe Wright Brothers, versus 10-15 seconds per e-mail trashing the blizzard from Wright Brothers.
So finally the deed is done — and a second time. No more Wright Brothers, Overstock, or RedBubble — I hope. My first try was unsubscribing other stuff which amazingly hasn’t reappeared.
It never ends. In a month-or-so I’ll hafta do it again for the online order locations I used, but never signed up for their “delightful, life-affirming, money-saving marketing e-mails.”

Gap

Yr Fthfl Srvnt is discovering a gap occurred just after my wife died.
Last year was the first year I got Christmas decorations up — that’s four years since my wife died.
It was partly because the YMCA in Canandaigua, where I belong, offered to help oldsters like me decorate for Christmas.
What they really did was find my Christmas decorations, buried under junk in my basement.
They strung Christmas-lights on my front porch railing, which my wife used to do. But they were short of time. I said I could put up my electric window candles myself.
I did ‘em again this year, but just the candles. Window-candles are inside — porch-railing lights are outside.
Magazines pile up next to toilets, so some piled up in a window-well next to my master bathroom toilet. The magazine piles have to be rearranged to put in the window-candles, and in so doing I noticed stuff I would have read but didn’t.
Then I noticed the magazine dates all were 2012 after my wife died. I was so devastated things I normally woulda done got shoved aside.
So there they sat five years awaiting my recovery. They’re mostly Trains magazines, which I’ve subscribed to constantly since late 1966. (I’m a railfan.)
“How did I ever miss this?” I ask.
One had a map of Pittsburgh railroads, and I vaguely remember that. Another had features on EMD’s E-unit, plus some lady becoming a locomotive engineer. Stuff I’m inclined to read.
I remember how unreal my wife’s passing was. She was the BEST friend I ever had; also my first female friend. I could tell stories; but I’ll spare you the boredom.
Only to say I was convinced by my parents and Sunday-School superintendent (also our next-door neighbor) I was completely unworthy of female attention. That all pants-wearers, me included, were SCUM.
Yet my wife actually liked me. This was contrary to what I expected. She actually chased me, although I didn’t know it. She was extremely shy. —She too had a difficult childhood.
So suddenly she was gone; the best friend I ever had. I’m not easy to live with, but she hung with me over 44 years. She kept liking me.
When she died a giant gap occurred. It was like after my stroke 24 years ago. Things seemed unreal. Still are somewhat. I plug along, but keep feeling I’m not in the real world.
So now I’m discovering the gap; the hole that opened after my wife died.
That E-unit thingy is gonna get read — five years late.

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.

Wrastling with Microsoft

Yrs Trly is an Apple guy.
I’m told Apple Computers are the Devil incarnate; that Jesus uses a Windoze PC.
At first I was told Apple is the superior platform. Now it’s because Apple doesn’t snow me like Microsoft. I can drive Apple stuff. Microsoft lobs tons of gibberish at me that make doing anything just about impossible.
Microsoft also seems to punish my being a stroke-survivor. I had a stroke 24 years ago. It was caused by an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I recovered fairly well, but lost some, like my ability to play piano and hold a tune. (Nine years of classical piano-training out the window.)
Quite a few marbles were left. I can still sling words (write), and figger out ‘pyooter hairballs. And now my wife is gone; she died over five years ago, and was my cheering-section. Some unfathomable ‘pyooter hairball would surface, and she’d make suggestions. Together we figgered things out.
I miss that, but so-far-so-good. Various hairballs have arisen, but I’ve been able to keep driving this rig.
But I avoid Microsoft. I have MS-Word and Excel, both for MAC. But only because Word has tricks my Apple word-processor won’t do. Plus I had an Excel class long ago, so got proficient in it.
Apple has similar computer applications: its word-processor is “Pages,” and its spreadsheet app is “Numbers.” Perhaps either could do the tricks I do with Word and Excel, but I’m not interested in learning either when I already do what I need with Word and Excel.
The word-processor I usually use (I’m using it now) is Apple’s “Pages.” It’s what replaced “AppleWorks,” which I guess started long ago as “ClarisWorks.”
Word is a pain! Hit a mistaken key, and you’re punished. You’re looped off to Never-Never Land — like what you spent hours typing flat disappears. And who knows where it went? Thank you Bill! (“Bill” is Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft.)
Microsoft seems to think sloppy keyboarding, a stroke-effect, is reason for committal to assisted living; i.e. handicaps mean yer stupid. Apple seems to think otherwise; it encourages the handicapped, and I’m only slightly handicapped. Were it not for that, marbles would be wasted.
I can still write; so some help Microsoft is. Here I am, muse boppin’ along, and ZAP! Into the ozone! Apple doesn’t do that; it’s my friend. I keep telling my Apple guru this laptop is my favorite toy.
One of the fancy-dan “tools” Word has is making labels. You can also address envelopes, but my printer won’t feed envelopes.
My mailing addresses are all “Pages” files, so what I do is copy/paste into Word’s label tool. At least my printer will feed Avery’s label-sheet, so my envelopes get labels.
What I was doing for Christmas-cards was individual labels for each address. Should I “save-as” each label?
I while ago I tried Word’s vaunted “mail-merge.” Perhaps I could get multiple labels onto a single sheet I could “save-as.”
I tried it; found I could “save-as” a single label-sheet with maybe 10 or more addresses.
Printing that reduces my time making labels to about 1/10th of what it was. That was a year ago. I cranked a few, then put everything aside until this year.
I fired up “mail-merge,” and there they were, what I did last year. One problem though. They weren’t my “Charcoal-CY” font, an Apple font I guess.
Word apparently has its own fonts, and won’t use fonts already in this machine. I wrastled some; apparently Word labels can use “Charcoal-CY” at first, but won’t reopen with Charcoal-CY. A Word default font takes over.
So fire up Word’s gigantic font-selection. Charcoal-CY isn’t in there. Anything similar? I poke around changing label fonts, and every time I do I hafta scroll Word’s gigantic font-selection from the beginning.
I don’t have all day. And every time I try a font, it gets added to my “favored fonts,” or whatever it’s called. Bigger-and-bigger it gets.
And ya gotta get your spee-glass to see the tiny font samples. Maybe some 23-year-old Microsoft techie can see that, but I can’t. (“Nursing-home for you, baby!”)
And atop that gigantic one-column font-selection, way too big for a single screen, are mysteries wrapped in conundrums, the old Microsoft waazoo. Why have they gotta lob all this garbage at me? It’s enough to make me look for a way to make labels with “Pages.”
(Bill Gates dies and enters Heaven. Saint Peter sets him up in a small cottage in the shadow of the estate of Edward John Smith, captain of RMS Titanic. Gates complains: “How come I get such a tiny cottage, yet Smith gets an estate?” “Yes, Mr. Gates,” Saint Peter says; “but the Titanic crashed only once.”)

Scarlett

BEST dog I ever had. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

“The dog and its housekeeping staff reside here,” says a doormat into my house.
The people who kenneled my dog when I took long trips came to my house with my beloved dog’s ashes to help me disperse.
That kennel also cremates dogs, and they loved my dog too.
They also knew how much my dog meant.
They came for moral support, and noticed the doormat.
“I think you should take Scarlett to the park,” the kennel-owner said.
“I thought about that,” I said.
We put the small wooden box of ashes on the passenger-seat of my car.
“Last time,” I said to the dog crying. We headed toward the park.
Past the cows and alpacas along Baker Road. She’d always give them a good talking-to.
Then down Elton Road toward Ionia where we’d occasionally see 200-pound “Flopsie,” in her G-string, bouncing along with her cocker. Scarlett always serenaded them too.
Boughton Park was her favorite place. Me walking her on leash. To her we were hunting.
Sniff-snort! Yank-lurch-BOINK! “I got it, Boss!”
Scarlett was the BEST dog I ever had. Together we survived the tragic death of my best friend, my wife of 44+ years.
“Scarlett did her job,” a friend told me. “She kept you going despite the death of your wife.”
“Yes,” I thought later; “I guess she did.” Feed-the-dog, walk-the-dog, pet-the-dog, let-dog-out, let-dog-in, even at 3 a.m.
I remained Boss-dog, but Scarlett became The Queen.
I let her prewash all plates and pans. I mixed canned meat in her supper. Everything but ice-cream, which made her throw up. And no chocolate = poisonous for dogs.
When she discovered toilets were hydration-stations, I quickly accommodated. Flush immediately after using and before guzzling.
I videoed her slurping out of a toilet, which offended some. Others thought that hilarious. I also started closing toilets around my house.
I never had a dog as spunky as Scarlett. 13 years old, 91 in human years, and she’s chasing a rabbit. I’d let the dog out at 3 a.m., and “where’s the dog?” She’s sniffing around a pallet I have as an improvised step out my garage back-door.
It’s pitch-dark, but take everything apart, then lift pallet in bathrobe and bare feet. She’d snag a mole, a “bite-size bundle of protein.”
“What am I doing at my age bringing home a dog like this?” That was nine years ago; I was 64 at the time.
I promised I’d try my best to give her a good life. After all I was still in pretty good shape, never smoked, no alcohol, and was running back then.
Then my wife died from cancer. Yet Scarlett hung with me. I was a mess for some time. I felt I wasn’t giving her a good life.
Scarlett stayed loyal until the end. She started having seizures, so I took her to Veterinary Specialists & Emergency Services near Rochester. They kept her overnight and stabilized her.
We’d see Scarlett a final time, me and the kennel people. Attendants wheeled her in on a gurney; she looked dead.
The head bobbed up: “Yippee! The Boss is here! I hear him!” In 10 minutes she was sitting on the gurney. 10-15 minutes later she was standing.
“Take me home, Boss. I’ve had it here!”

Monthly Train-Calendar Report for December 2017

Going away, Dudes. (SD40Es push 10G up The Hill.) (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

—The December 2017 entry in my own calendar is eastbound train 10G pushing through Portage (PA) toward the summit of Allegheny Mountain.
The two SD40Es are going away. They’re pushing the back of 10G, helping it up The Hill.
Over the top, the pushers stay on, and engage dynamic-braking. Their traction-motors are converted into generators that help hold back the train.
Prior to diesel-electric locomotives there was no “dynamic-braking” equivalent. The train had to depend on car-brakes to prevent a runaway down a hill.
A descending train was usually swathed in brake-shoe smoke. Other tricks were employed to enhance freightcar brake performance.
Thanks to dynamic-braking all that is history. And helper locomotives no longer turn at the summit to return downhill for another push. They stay on to help the train descend.
Visible is 6304. Anything 6300 on Norfolk Southern is SD40E. They were converted by the railroad from an EMD SD-50, a locomotive that wasn’t very reliable.
SD-50s were 3,500-3,600 horsepower, asking a lot from EMD’s 645 V16 prime-mover. (That’s 645 cubic-inches per cylinder.)
Norfolk Southern, and Conrail before it, were using SD40-2s as helpers on Allegheny Mountain.
They were worn out. So rebuild and downrate an SD-50, 3,500 horsepower to 3,000 = the SD40E.
SD40Es aren’t just helper-service. I’ve seen ‘em in other applications. But many are Allegheny Mountain helper-service.
“And here I thought locomotives on the back end of a train were just the railroad transferring power,” my hairdresser says. “They were pushing = helpers.”
A helper-set is two locomotives. Sometimes the helper-set goes up front. Occasionally a train is so heavy it gets multiple helper-sets; e.g. a helper-set up front, plus two helper-sets pushing. That’s six additional locomotives.
And the crews hafta be extremely savvy.
As a long train crests a summit it wants to break apart. Up front is pulling downhill, and the back end is still pushing uphill. Engage “seat-of-pants!”
“I need ya to lean on me,” I’ll hear on my scanner = the train engineer radioing the rear helper crew.
Or “Full dynamic, guys. This thing is gettin’ loose.”




HERE IT COMES! (Photo by Robert Malinoski.)

—So here’s Malinoski out taking color photographs in 1954.
The December 2017 entry in my Tide-Mark All-Pennsy color calendar is an I-1 Decapod (2-10-0) near Snydertown, PA.
Malinoski was a premier railfan photographer. Not Shaughnessy or Don Wood, but pretty good.
He also shot a lotta black-and-white.
Would that photography back then was as good as it is now.
Steam-locomotives are much more dramatic than diesel-electrics. Steam locomotion is gone.
What steamers I photograph are restored. The best I’ve seen is Nickel Plate 765, a restored 2-8-4 Berkshire.


Nickel Plate 765. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

(“Berkshire” is the mountains of western MA, where the 2-8-4 wheel arrangement was first tried.)
765 is a thrill, but the good stuff was 70-80 years ago when steam was in regular revenue service.
By 1940 the massive switch to diesel-electric locomotion began.
Pennsy hung on to steam longer than most. They were a coal-road, so wanted to stay with coal-fired steam locomotion.
Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (PRSL) in south Jersey was still using steamers when I was born — usually locomotives from Pennsy and Reading, its cofounders.
Those PRSL steamers are what made me a railfan. That was 1946 or ’47. My father took me trackside — free entertainment.
I’ve been a railfan ever since. Back then I was terrified of thunderstorms, but could stand right next to a panting steamer.
In 1954 Pennsy had both diesel and steam — too many diesels were needed. Some steamers were well-suited for certain applications; like a Decapod on mountainous railroading.
I had to look up Snydertown in my GoogleMaps. It appears to be Pennsy’s Mt. Carmel branch. Deks led heavy ore-drags up to Mt. Carmel for interchange with Lehigh Valley Railroad — iron-ore for Bethlehem steel.
Pennsy probably received the ore at its massive dock in Philadelphia.
What’s pictured looks like it’s not the famous Mt. Carmel ore-train, which usually had two Deks up front, plus two more pushing.

4483, shorn of its drive-rods, boiler-cladding, and most of its valve-gear.

The calendar also makes a grievous error.
It says only one Pennsy Dek remains, #4483, that it’s on display at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg.
Wrong! 4483 is stored inactive near Buffalo, NY.
Anyone fact-check their calendars? Not their first mistake.




Engine change at Harrisburg. (Photo courtesy Joe Suo Collection©.)

—“Can there be a Pennsy calendar without a GG1 in it?”
I’ve said it hundreds of times. I’ve also said the GG1 was the greatest railroad locomotive ever built. Great to look at, and incredibly powerful.
The December 2017 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is GG1 #4901 next to E8s in Pennsy’s Harrisburg station.
My guess is 4901 brought a passenger-express from Philadelphia, and now the train is being switched to diesels to continue west.
Harrisburg is where Pennsy’s electrification ended, although they considered electrifying all the way to Pittsburgh.
As a teenager in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s in northern DE I saw many GG1s. And it seemed every time I did they were boomin’-and-zoomin’.
Train-engineers said the GG1 utterly trumped diesel-electric locomotives. It took three or four E-units to pull what a single GG1 could pull.
“Why bother with diesels when they got such a great locomotive in the GG1?” they’d say.
Unfortunately a GG1 needs overhead wire to operate — the electrification around Philadelphia, plus what is now Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor from Washington DC to New York City.
The old Pennsy main from Philadelphia to Harrisburg is now also Amtrak, and remains electrified.
Diesel-electric locomotives also have electric traction-motors. But their current is generated on board by the diesel prime-mover. Electrification by overhead wire is a nice idea, but requires a lotta maintenance. Some of Pennsy’s electrification was taken down by Conrail. On balance I guess diesel-electric locomotion does better economically than overhead catenary.
Those diesels had to have steam-generators. Steam from the steam-engine got piped back through the train to heat it. To continue using such passenger equipment diesels needed steam-generators. GG1s also had steam-generators.
Now Amtrak’s passenger cars are heated electrically, sometimes by running the locomotive at high idle, but also occasionally a separate generator.
So west out of Harrisburg can’t be the GG1. Go back far enough and it woulda been steam locomotives. The picture is 1954. By then Pennsy passenger service was no longer steam. Although a few might be if diesels weren’t available and steam was.
Pennsy wouldn’t end steam until 1957, and was using steam to haul freight from Harrisburg west until the end.
Electrification was better-suited to railroading than side-rod steam locomotion. Traction-motors deliver constant torque, whereas side-rod steam locomotives render pulses.
But overhead wire was costly. Diesel-electric locomotion solves that, continuing electric traction. But diesels weren’t the GG1.
The calendar makes note of that lady checking her purse on the GG1’s track. Tempest-in-a-teapot! That GG1 isn’t going anywhere yet. When it did its engineer would blast the horn.
But I understand. My limit is 10 feet from the outside rail, and not on the track at all. I won’t even step across the track.
Even 10 feet can be frightening. 20-40 mph I can stand; 80-90 mph NO WAY. There is a photo-location in Summerhill PA I can’t do. It’s too close to Track One, and there’s no leeway.




FAKE! (Photo by Roger Durfee.)

—The December 2017 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is another by Roger Durfee, an NS conductor from Cleveland, who’s had many entries in this calendar.
It’s a Norfolk Southern double-stack passing frozen Sandusky Bay in OH. I don’t think much of it.
It’s that pink palm-tree; I suspect it’s fake. No way could a real palm-tree survive in such weather. The tree at right seems more like it.
Durfee is following a rule of photography: namely, every picture needs a foreground. Include pink palm-tree in foreground.
No-no-no-no-no!
That silly palm-tree looks utterly out-of-it in frozen snow.
Near my house a guy planted actual palm-trees. They lasted maybe a year-or-two. No way could an actual palm-tree exist here in the frozen tundra.
Durfee has done better. He has an eye for scenery.
This is a joke!