Internet speed follies

100 Mbps my foot! (Screenshot by BobbaLew.)

Spectrum, alias Spectrum/Time-Warner, previously Time-Warner Cable, my ISP (Internet-Service-Provider) and cable-TV service, brags my Internet has been upped to 100 Mbps (Megabits per second).
“Oh yeah?” I say. “WE-SHALL-SEE!” I happen to have an Internet speed-test on this rig. The results are screenshotted above.
Previously I was at 60 Mbps. I ran the speed-test and saw as much as 75+.
Other ISP’s, like my phone-company, mail special promotions to upgrade me to “high-speed” Internet of 25 Mbps or so. (??????)
As previously, even at 60 Mbps, when the kids up the street fired up their Internet games, my Internet went south.
I challenge it. On weekends I run streaming-railfan video from Cresson, PA, where the old Pennsylvania Railroad climbed and crossed Allegheny Mountain.
Video over the Internet requires a lot. I doubt 15-20 years ago it could be done. Years ago a webcam was at Horseshoe Curve, but it’s gone. Horseshoe Curve is the trick the railroad used to climb Allegheny Mountain without impossible grades. That railroad is no longer Pennsy; it’s now Norfolk Southern, but it’s still the same alignment as when first opened.
I run Cresson’s webcam on Saturday afternoons because Rochester’s classical-music station, WXXI, airs opera, which I can’t stand. 350-pound stringy-haired blonds screaming Ride of the Valkyries at the top of their lungs, stabbings, murders, star-crossed lovers jumping hand-in-hand off castle parapets into roiling ocean.
So fire up Cresson’s webcam — I’m a railfan. But each Saturday afternoon, especially in Winter, that webcam slows to a crawl. Often it freezes or dives altogether.
It will be interesting to see what happens with my speeded-up Internet. Spectrum’s techie promised my previous difficulties would disappear when a few months ago they upgraded me to 60. But it still slows anyway, and often freezes.
So la-dee-dah! Spectrum bragging is fine. They have speeded my Internet. But I wouldn’t surprised my Cresson webcam still locks come Saturday afternoon.

Toy not with the Master—#2

Constant-readers of this blog, and apparently there are a few, know a couple months ago I upgraded the operating-system on this Apple (Gasp!) MacBook-Pro.
I upgraded from OS-X Snow-Leopard (10.06), the original operating-system on this machine as purchased, to OS-X El Capitan (10.11), a recent OS-X iteration.
My rig had been infected with adware, apparently from the Internet. That was under Snow-Leopard. Plus more recent versions of my Firefox browser wouldn’t run under Snow-Leopard. Firefox could not be upgraded.
I was told more recent OS-Xs were better at fending off malware. The adware made this machine bog-slow.
So “El-Cappy,” which allowed Firefox upgrades. (A more recent Firefox might better screen out malware.)
Things are slightly different under El-Cappy. Ways of doing things under Snow-Leopard crash under El-Cappy.
El-Cappy also does much faster on a quad-core ‘pyooter. This eight-year-old rig is only dual-core. That’s slowed things some, but I don’t need rocket-speed.
I use Quicken-Essentials to do my checks, and I don’t do many. I pay bills online through a bank bill-pay.
I guess Quicken-Essentials wasn’t very successful. But it was what was available when my ancient Quicken-2003 quit printing checks. Apple did an OS-X rewrite that secret ly killed my 2003 check-printing.
I have Quicken 2015 or 2016, but I don’t use it yet. I’d hafta set up check-printing — that’s an entire afternoon.
So now I’m getting hairballs with Quicken-Essentials. Apparently printing checks was a last-minute add-on to QE. Quicken’s motive was that checks were dead. Everything would be online.
Plus printing under El Cappy is spastic. So far no catastrophic failures, but I often hafta retry, then dump my first printer-send. “Wake up,” I say to my printer. Fire up “system preferences.” Dump and resend.
With Quicken-Essentials you only get one attempt — although there is a reprint, but amidst the madness I never got that far.
Plus printing checks is different under El Cappy. Under Snow-Leopard I had the option of multiple checks, like three checks on a single check-page.
I no longer have that. Only one check at a time. I lost the multiple-check option. And of course I had to observe that. In other words, “guile-and-cunning” was engaged.
Second hairball: What if communication from El Cappy to my printer fails? Occasionally it does.
I’d rather print a check than do it manually. Manual is always messy with a stroke-survivor.
Engage more guile-and-cunning. What if I do another check identical to the one that didn’t print. Maybe that will print. Then I can delete the one that didn’t print.
Never mess with guile-and-cunning. Toy not with the Master! Getting a successful print may take two or three tries; and that’s only one check at a time.
Better printed than manual with tons of mistakes.

• RE: “Apple (Gasp!)......” —I been told Apple is Of-the-Devil. Jesus uses a Windoze PC.
• 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.

Railroad-radio versus Ride-of-the-Valkyries

“Norfolk Southern Milepost 253.1, Track Three; no defects.”
It’s Saturday, the day the classical-music radio station out of Rochester, WXXI-FM, airs programs I can’t stand, particularly opera.
350-pound stringy-haired blonds screaming Ride of the Valkyries at the top of their lungs. Stabbings, murders, star-crossed lovers jumping off castle parapets into roiling ocean.
Lineside defect-detectors are what railroads used to retire cabooses. Brakemen and the conductor rode the caboose, and kept an eye out for hot wheels and dragging equipment on their train ahead. They also monitored brake-line air-pressure, but an end-of-train radio thingy can do that.
(Norfolk Southern is the railroad. It operates what once was the Pennsylvania Railroad over Allegheny Mountain.)
On Saturdays I have WXXI on until 10 a.m., when the programming I can’t stand begins. Opera begins at 1 p.m.
A while ago a friend mentioned his joy attending a concert of Schubert’s song-cycle. So I YouTubed Schubert’s song-cycle.
“Only one problem,” I said. “They were singing.”
Yodeling and bellowing and sopranos screeching to the stratosphere. “Uh-ooooh; they goosed her again!” About all I can stand is Pavarotti singing “Nessun dorma”. He actually seems to enjoy it.
That railroad-radio is via my ‘pyooter. It’s from Cresson, PA. It’s “westslope.pls;” I play it with iTunes.
There also is streaming railroad video. I play that too. I can monitor railroading up the west slope of Allegheny Mountain. I’m a railfan, and have been well over 70 years.
Fairly often my brother-and-I — he’s a railfan too — go to Altoona PA to “chase trains.” We take along our railroad-radio scanners, so “Norfolk Southern Milepost 253.1,” etc, is much more pleasing than some 350-pound stringy-haired blond screaming Ride of the Valkyries.

Toy not with the Master!

Another stunt by Hollywood and the dreaded media. (Photo by Bryan Mahoney.)

“FER HEAVEN SAKE!” I yelled at my iPhone.
“Facebook wants a log-in. Sometimes it does, most often it doesn’t.
This some ‘every-couple-days’ thingy?” I asked.
I put my iPhone back in my pocket.
My iPhone also gets my e-mail. So I get Facebook’s e-mail notifications of postings by my “friends.”
My good friend Bryan Mahoney, a reporter at The Mighty Mezz when I was there, an actual friend, who now lives in L.A., was as in ‘Nam, and posted the above pic to his Facebook.
I got a Facebook e-mail notification, so viewed his picture on my iPhone. No problems, a slam-dunk. Later I got another e-mail notification Mahoney “liked” a comment I made, so I clicked that to “view on Facebook.”
Uh-ooooooh; Facebook wants me to log in.
What is it with you guys? Sometimes you want me to log in, but most times you don’t. —And of course I never get this on my laptop, perhaps because I never “log-out.”
I never log-out my iPhone either, that I know of.
This morning another Facebook e-mail notification from AnMari Linardi, also ex of the Mighty Mezz, also a Facebook “friend.”
I clicked it: boom-zoom; viewed her comment on Facebook. I guess she was on Facebook, because I immediately got another e-mail of her response to a comment I made.
CRASH; Facebook wants me to log-in.
Yet another unknowable from SuckerBird and his lackeys.
Engage guile-and-cunning.
My iPhone’s Safari browser still has two Facebooks running. One is AnMari’s original post, and second is Facebook demanding I log in.
Uhm, if AnMari’s original post is running, I’m already logged in. I guess I better not kill that, thereby avoiding their most recent log-in entreaty, which I dumped.
So now if I fire up Safari on my iPhone, I get AnMari’s original post. I dare not kill that lest Facebook want me to log in.
“Take that, SuckerBird!” I say. “I just ran rings around yer logic;” quoting Monty Python’s “Penguin” skit .

• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired 12 years ago. Best job I ever had — I was employed 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).
• “SuckerBird “ is Mark Zuckerberg, founder and head-honcho of Facebook.

The Houghton Paradigm (not “diggem”)

“So whadja get outta Houghton?”people ask.
“A wife,” I always say; “and a really good one.”
Houghton (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”) is my college. It was very religious when I was there. Still is, pretty much.
My wife and I were both Class of ’66.
Houghton was a compromise with my hyper-religious father, who wanted me to become a Bible-thumping zealot like him. He wanted me to attend his beloved Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, to learn how to browbeat street vagrants with religion.
At that time Moody wasn’t a college — it may be now. I wanted a four-year college degree. Ergo the “Great Houghton Compromise,” since Houghton was evangelical.
My father was angry when I graduated, since Houghton didn’t “straighten me out.” There were people at Houghton who woulda loved to “straighten me out.” But our professors were more inclined to value we students, and thereby guide us into Godliness.
Houghton also left what I call “The Houghton Paradigm:” namely “get it right!” They cared about us, and that rubbed off.
A sterling example follows: “Any text by me is gonna be properly spelled and punctuated.”
“Bob,” my hairdresser says. “You don’t need to do that.”
“Do too,” I say, wagging my index-finger. That’s Houghton’s legacy, the so-called “Houghton Paradigm.”
STORY TIME:
As a retired transit bus-driver I’m entitled to a negotiated vision-care benefit. I don’t use it. I instead use Eye-Care Center in nearby Canandaigua, and here’s why:
Years ago I was doing vision-care with an HMO near Rochester. They noticed a “scar” in one eyeball, and told me not to worry. Eye-Care Center was poking around, and “you’ll see the scar,” I said.
They went ballistic. “Scar my foot! That’s a retinal tear; you need that fixed right away.”
DROP EVERYTHING! They brought in Heidi Piper, MD, to repair the tear with laser surgery.
I found later Heidi was a Houghton grad, class of ’87. Well of course. Knowledgable and extremely conscientious, and cared about what she was doing = “get it right!”
And most importantly she wasn’t pulling rank.
Why are Houghton grads possessed of “The Houghton Paradigm?” I’m old, so eventually I’ll need cataract surgery. I’m pulling for Heidi.
And now my wife is gone. I miss her immensely; the BEST friend I ever had. Cancer took her over five years ago.
Things are different since then; it comes from living alone. If I run out of carrots, it’s my fault, not her’s. Living alone I hafta be more tolerant of foul-ups; often they’re my foul-ups. If something goes awry in my house, the one fixing it is me.
What a shame I had to lose my best friend to figger that out. She had to die never getting the slack she deserved.
One Houghton professor wanted me to become a scholar. She liked my insights, and penchant for pillorying know-it-all blowhards.
I couldn’t get interested. It seemed scholarly pursuit was obsessed with scoring points. “I’m smarter than you are. Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyaaaah!”
I had a life to live, and in accordance with Houghton’s paradigm. They cared about us, and that rubbed off.

• RE: “Retired transit bus-driver......” —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. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered well enough to return to work at a newspaper; I retired from that 12 years ago.

In the hopper

The remainder of my 65 annual train-calendars are in-the-mail.
Almost 3,000 smackaroos to produce, and 400 bucks to mail.
“Holy moly!” a girl once said.
But I love doin’ ‘em. Others my age (almost 74) are bored to tears, but not this kid.
“Wanna hear a story?” I asked the postal-clerk as I was leaving.
“Sure.”
“‘23Z, 249 on Four; CLEAR!’
‘23Z’ is the train-number, ‘Four’ is the track he’s on, ‘249’ is the milepost a signal is at, and ‘CLEAR’ is the signal-aspect, the equivalent of a green light.
Every time a train passes a signal, its engineer has to call out its aspect on railroad-radio. I have my scanner along, tuned to railroad-radio, so I’ll hear that.
I’m inside my car with my scanner on. My camera is outside, set up on tripod.
Outta the car! 249 is about 3/4s of a mile east; here he comes.
Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam! One shot is my calendar cover.”


23Z, west on Four, at the cut-out. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

“Wanna hear another story?” I ask.
“Sure.”
“‘04T, east on Two, 242; CLEAR!’”
How many times have I told that story? It’s in this “Too cold” link.


Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian at Plummer’s Crossing east of Tyrone’s station. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

“This is what it’s all about,” I say to pretty *****, my pharmacist. She’s totally unable to follow what I just said, but she’s smiling broadly.
“I got that sucker!” A snag of the century, snow flying, etc. “I can’t resist. Others my age are bored silly, but not me.”

Oscillococcnum

“So far so good, but I feel like I’m starting to get sick,” I texted *****-**** ******, my aquacise coach at the Canandaigua YMCA pool.
I began aquacise some time ago, to hopefully improve my balance, which at that time was dreadful. I suppose it’s better, but I still feel it’s lousy.
When I began *****-**** gave me her phone-number; probably so I could cancel — we started individually.
I never called her, but somehow I found later I could text her. She also gave me her e-mail address, but text limits verbosity, which as a word-slinger I generate way too much.
I also found I could avoid distracting *****-**** if she had another patient — client — user — whatever. (I could tell stories.)
As a stroke-survivor I find my verbal communication crash-likely; not bad, but slightly compromised. (“You talk just fine!”) Most often I forget things, or lose track of what I was gonna say. I often slur, so hafta repeat, speaking slowly.
I always have 89 bazilyun questions, and feel like I’m beating my head against the wall.
So text it became, usually mainly me.
But this time “Lots of C. Lots of water. I take Oscillococcnum at the first time of not feeling well.”
“What’s Oscillococcnum?” I asked.
“Homeopathic med found in most pharmacies. Ask your pharmacist, and do it today.”
DROP EVERYTHING! ‘Pyooterin’ aside.
“Okay *****-****, off-we-go.”
She sent the thumbs-up emoticon.
Off to see pretty *****, my pharmacist, who seems happier since she left RiteAid to go out on her own. I took along my iPhone so I could show ***** “Oscillococcnum;” (NO WAY am I gonna correctly pronounce that!)
“Back from drugstore. Now what?” Instructions were obscure.
On-and-on it went; at least 30 more texts, and that doesn’t include tomorrow. Every couple days I find myself deleting 20 or more texts from our ever-growing string. I think the first time, maybe a month ago, I deleted 75 in one fell swoop.
*****-**** and I hit the jackpot. Our text-string is much bigger than any of my others. And it appears the Oscillococcnum is working; that is, I don’t feel as sick-prone.

• RE: “word-slinger.....” — “But Dr. Zink (my 12th-grade English-teacher), all it is is ‘slinging words.’” “Hughes, you write way better than most.”
• 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.
• RE: “I could tell stories.....” —Shortly after my stroke I began meeting a stroke rehab counselor. “What am I today? A patient, a client, a user — whatever.” (They were changing that frequently.)

Mind-over-matter

“I think I actually deleted recording the 5 o’clock and 5:30 local TV-news,” I said to myself.
Little-by-little The Keed is learning how to drive that fantabulous remote pictured at left.
If you live in the Rochester area you know Spectrum, alias Spectrum/Time-Warner, previously Time-Warner Cable, changed its cable-TV signal to all-digital. This meant my DVD player could no longer record the local and national news.
I never watch TV anyway — I have too much fun on this laptop. The only TV I watch is the local and national news, recorded for viewing while I eat supper, which may not be until 7:30.
I set up a package a while ago, to -a) reduce cost, and -b) double Internet speed. TV had gotten much better, but I couldn’t record. The package made TV digital.
Internet-speed was doubled (so my speedtest says, but not when the kids up-the-street are playin’ their ‘pyooter-games). We plugged the TV-cable back into my old DVD so I could still record the news. Spectrum was still sending a signal my DVD could crunch. But last Wednesday they switched to “all-digital,” whatever that means, a signal my DVD could no longer crunch.
I needed Spectrum’s DVR to be able to record the news. Spectrum came out last Saturday to install their DVR, which swapped out their non-recording TV player.
“Don’t forget, yer talkin’ to someone born in the previous century,” I told the techie. “I gotta be able to drive this thing without pestering you guys.”
I still don’t know exactly what is happening: whether the actual recording takes place on their DVR here in my house. Or it’s at Spectrum’s palatial offices in Rochester.
“Go to Spectrum.com and follow their tutorial on how to use yer remote,” techie said.
“Yeah sure!’ I said. “I had a stroke; tutorials are mental overload. I have too many questions.”
So here I was to figger out this monster alone, no longer a wife to make suggestions and cheer me on.
In fact, I’m glad my wife is no longer around to endure my frustration. I usually figgered out things myself, but there was always the pre-solution blame-game.
Engage “try it and see what happens,” what got me able to work this ‘pyooter, then my iPhone. At nearly age-74 millennials are all-too-happy to tell me I’m over-the-hill. “Hill? What hill? I don’t remember any hill!”
56 buttons, fer cryin’ out loud!
Fiddling began that night. Ergo, how do I even know it’s on? Spectrum’s techie showed me a little, and also programmed four recordings: local news at 5, 5:30, and 6, plus the national news at 6:30.
My ancient DVD was still connected, and I could use it if my TV was reading it instead of my new DVR. The news probably recorded, but I couldn’t find it.
My DVD was still set up to record news pre-digital, but if so it wouldn’t play.
Or so it seemed. Who knew if it was doing things correctly.
I was able to get my old DVD-player to play a train-video I had (I’m a railfan). I watched that instead of The Donald’s latest 3 a.m. tweet from his Great White Throne.
I tried again the next night and got the national TV-news to play. This wasn’t just fiddling the remote. It was also figgerin’ their contorted interface.
My mower-man provided the following: “How do I know it’s on or off?”
“I need a clicking on-off switch so I know it’s on,” I responded. “What I get instead is some ‘pyooter-move flashing ‘on’ at me.”
“It better not talk,” my mower-man said. “If there’s anything I can’t stand it’s my car talking to me.”
Engage guile-and-cunning (the heavy hitter).
I got it to play both local and national the next night, plus the next couple nights. Except 6 p.m. local was programmed for 6 p.m. sharp. Often the 6 p.m. local starts at 5:59, so I need to change the start time.
Also it was still recording 5 and 5:30, and I watch neither. How do I delete? Sounds like another techie visit. Every night I poked around after supper, and last night I inadvertently discovered deletion of those two programming setups. I doubt I could do it again. I probably could, but wouldn’t know what I was doing.
So now it’s programmed to record only 6 p.m. local and 6:30 national. —As always, we’ll see what it does tonight. Out of 56 buttons I use only 23. I try others, and nothing happens.
Mind-over-matter.
“I’m just a mechanic,” my mower-man says.
“That silly remote looks like the Starship Enterprise,” I comment.

• 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.
• 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.

Make ‘em laugh

“Oh goodie!” bubbled *****, my pretty young pharmacist. “Your calendar; I was hoping we’d get one. I look forward to it.”
Every year Yrs Trly has Shutterfly make a calendar of train photos my brother and I took near Altoona, PA. I send ‘em as Christmas presents, although I was delayed this year by printing issues.
Almost $3,000 for 65 calendars. “Holy moly!” said another girl.
“Don’t forget I really love doin’ ‘em.”
I am a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Sexual Relations. Hilda was my Sunday-School Superintendent, also my next door neighbor.
In concert with my parents she convinced me as a child all pants-wearers, including me, were scum. That no girl would ever wanna talk to me.
As a result I was always intimidated, especially by pretty girls.
My wife offset that by actually liking me. My wife liking me made it possible for me to avoid talking to girls.
Now with my wife gone I’m discovering girls seem to enjoy my talking to them.
“Ya wanna hear a story?” I asked *****. “Got a minute?”
“Sure,” ***** smiled.
“04T, east on Two, 242, CLEAR!”
I had to explain everything, and even then I’m sure she didn’t follow.
But she loved it. I was talking to her.
Mrs. Walton is now up to 14,000 rpm. “She won’t wanna talk to you.
But there she is, a pretty girl, smiling broadly.
***** wasn’t the first calendar I handed out. I delivered another to the nearby kennel where I occasionally daycared my dog before I put her to sleep. There I met ******, a co-owner of the kennel.
“Yippee, the calendar. We got a space for it.
“Wanna hear a story?” I asked.
“Sure.”
“04T, east on Two, 242, CLEAR!”
Again, no idea what I was talking about, but she was thrilled.
“Wanna hear another?” I asked.
“Sure,” she giggled.
This story was totally unrelated to chasing trains, but I had her holding her head in laughter.
Now Mrs. Walton is up to 20,000 rpm. She could power a town.
I keep discovering girls love my makin’ ‘em laugh, even when my stories aren’t that funny — even the pretty ones I previously avoided.
In other words, Mrs. Walton and my parents were full-of-it!
“Wanna hear a story?”
“Sure!”

• 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.

Hippo sighting

Two I1sa’s ready for duty. (Courtesy Joe Suo Collection©.)

—The January 2018 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is two I1sa Decapods (2-10-0) in Northumberland, PA.
They are probably preparing to take the famous Mt. Carmel ore-train up to Lehigh Valley Railroad at Mt. Carmel. From there the ore will continue to Bethlehem for its steel mills.
The ore probably came by ship to Pennsy’s Philadelphia docks. It was transloaded for delivery up Pennsy to Northumberland. There it will become the famous Mt. Carmel ore-train.
When first put in service after 1916, the I1s was so big crews called ‘em hippos. They’re not modern, mainly a gigantic 2-8-0 Consolidation with an extra driver-set.
Other railroads had Decapods, but only Western Maryland had Deks as large as the I1s. I1sa is a modification of the original I1s. “S” stands for superheat, although by then most steam-locomotives had superheat. I think all the Pennsy Deks were superheated — the letter “s” later fell out of use.
“A” was a modification of valve-events whereby steam was admitted to 78% of piston-stroke instead of the original 50%. This was probably to better use steam that HUGE boiler could generate — although I’ve heard Deks run out of steam (I have recordings).
The I1sa wasn’t a modern steamer with a high-capacity boiler. Its firebox grate was only about 70 square feet, a standard Pennsy firebox (the K-4s Pacific (4-6-2) is also 70 square feet. The Dek also lacks a combustion-chamber. Modern high-capacity steamers had combustion-chambers and 100 square-foot fire-grates.
Pennsy’s Dek also suffered many of the problems 10-drivered steamers have.
Mainly it’s long heavy drive-rods on small drivers, drivers too small to adequately counterbalance heavy side-rod weight.
The side-rods had to be heavy enough to withstand what a Dek could put out. Making them long enough to power five driver-sets made ‘em heavier yet. A K-4 was only three driver-sets; plus its drivers were much larger, so could accommodate more counterweighting.
A K-4 has 80-inch drivers; a Dek is 62-inches.
Deks rode rough. Minimal counterweighting with heavy side-rods limited a Dek to about 50 mph. And that was if you could stand it. Heavy vibration slammed you up-and-down.
Deks were the first Pennsy engines with stokers. Coal consumption was so extreme even two firemen couldn’t keep up. Deks were also hard to fire.
The Dek’s gigantic boiler/firebox made two other locomotives, the K-5 Pacific, and also the M-1 Mountain (4-8-2).
Only two K-5s were built. That boiler was too much for three driver-sets.
But the M-1 was probably the most successful steamer Pennsy had. The M-1 also had a combustion-chamber.
Pennsy had another 10-drivered steamer, its J-1 2-10-4. The J-1 wasn’t a Pennsy design; the railroad needed new power for WWII, but the War Board wouldn’t allow them to develop their own new freighters. Pennsy had to shop existing power on other railroads.
The J-1 is Chesapeake & Ohio’s T-1 Texas, also a 2-10-4, but slightly restyled. Its boiler/firebox is radial-stay T-1, not Pennsy’s trademark slab-sided Belpaire.
Furthermore the J is modern power. C&O’s T-1 isn’t Lima Locomotive, but it follows’s Lima’s “SuperPower” principles.” Mainly a HUGE boiler/firebox with appliances that enhance steam generation, The T-1s were made by American Locomotive Company.
After the war Pennsy developed even bigger 10-driver power, but they were duplex to reduce side-rod weight — 10 drivers, but four drive-pistons. Two powered six drivers, and the second two powered the four remaining drivers.
The J-1 suffered the same problems as any 10-driver steam-locomotive, mainly a HUGE rod-set to power five wheels per side. But those wheels are larger (69 inches) so could accommodate more counterweighting.


The Mt. Carmel ore-train. (Photo by Don Wood©. —To my mind, this is his best picture.)

An I1 was difficult, yet Pennsy had many, 598 total. They were especially good at mountain railroading. Pennsy’s Mt. Carmel branch is uphill. The extremely heavy Mt. Carmel ore-drag got two Deks pulling, plus two more pushing = four Deks total.
I was told the last steamer used by Pennsy was an I1 dragging coal into Altoona (PA) on November 27, 1957. —But I was also told the last Pennsy steamer was L-1 class 2-8-2 No. 2369 from Renovo on December 2, 1957.
Whatever. Both the I1 and L1 are early 20th century — fitting for Pennsy steam-usage ending with a whimper.
The last steamer on my beloved Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (PRSL) was 5351, a K-4 Pacific, on November 2, 1957.
A ex-Pennsy 0-6-0 switcher remained in service on Union Transportation Company in New Jersey until July 17, 1959.
The Deks pictured use the gigantic “Coast-to-coast” tender, probably purloined from a retired Mountain or J. The Deks weren’t first used with a “Coast-to-coast.”

Cheaters

Yr Fthfl Srvnt caved.
I decided to carry my cheaters in my front shirt pocket. I always need ‘em. “I can’t read that. Where are my cheaters?”
I held out as long as I could, into my 70s. But my vision started degrading. My railfan brother, who accompanies me to Altoona, PA, to photograph trains, turned 60 last year.
He also wears cheaters. His eyesight degraded before mine — probably his genealogy. He also carries his cheaters.
“Wait a minute! I can’t see that!” Out come my cheaters.
“I can’t even sign my name.” I probably could, and often do, but cheaters help.
The ones in my pocket are my ‘pyooter glasses, 1.5X, I have others elsewhere, all 2.5X. I have five 2.5s, all compliments of Canandaigua Eye-Care Center.
I had an insurance benny of $100. Five times $20 is $100. “But I don’t need five pairs of cheaters,” I said.“Your benefit is $100; anything less is out-of-yer-pocket.”
So five pair of drugstore cheaters elegantly dispersed throughout my house, in my car, etc.
Silly as that was, I prefer Eye-Care Center. As a retired RTS bus-driver, I’m entitled to a negotiated vision-care benefit.
PASS! I prefer Eye-Care Center, which is paid by my health insurance.
The reason is Heidi Piper, M.D. , Houghton College, 1987. I could tell she was a Houghton grad as soon as I met her. “Get it right!” Extremely professional, and she cared about what she was doing instead of pulling rank.
I graduated Houghton in 1966.
Prior to Eye-Care, I was using vision-care at an HMO near Rochester, (I don’t know that HMOs exist any more.) They looked in my eyes, and noticed I had a scar.
“You’ll notice the scar,” I informed my Eye-Care Ophthalmologist. They went ballistic. “That’s a retinal tear; you need that fixed right away!”
DROP EVERYTHING! Heidi was brought in to do laser eye surgery. M.D. from St. Louis University School of Medicine, internship at Strong Memorial Hospital in Obstetrics and Gynecology, general surgery and Ophthalmology residencies at Penn State-Geisinger Medical Center, but BS from Houghton. Feet-on-the-ground, no posturing.
Why are so many Houghton graduates like that? I think it was because our professors weren’t elitists. They cared about us, and it rubbed off.
I’ve met a few Houghton grads over the years, and they all weren’t elitists. Feet-on-the-ground. The Executive-Editor at the Mighty Mezz was Houghton 1980.
Even a guy who was a complete jerk at Houghton now has his feet on-the-ground.
So now I’m awash in 2.5X cheaters, and I need ‘em.
When it comes time for cataract surgery I’m gonna advocate for Heidi.

• “RTS” equals Regional Transit Service, the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired 12 years ago. Best job I ever had — I was employed there almost 10 years —worked there over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern.

What happened?

The other night, in pursuit of long-ago bus-story, I started thumbing through old columns I wrote for the Canandaigua Daily Messenger newspaper.
Following my stroke I began as an unpaid intern, and was eventually hired. I preferred that over bus-driving. Writing was what I always wanted to do. Bus-driving was originally supposed to be temporary.
One day at the Mighty Mezz — I don’t think I was employed yet — I said to no one in particular: “If I were to write anything at all for this newspaper it would be that presidents don’t seem to wear hats.”
“So write it,” an editor said, instead of shutting me down.
They published it! So began my weekly column, which ran Wednesdays on their Op-Ed page.
To be fair, there was no charge. But I guess they thought well enough of it to never change anything.
So here I was reading column after column, perhaps 40 or more. It took at least two hours = to bed at midnight.
What happened? I don’t write like that any more. I found myself editing the way I do now; reduce excess verbiage, avoid passive-voice, etc. But where was the flair I had back then?
Thinking about it — I know, I was told at the Mighty Mezz “that there thinkin’ is dangerous” — it might still exist if I had what motivated my columns.
Like if I were writing about hot-air balloon rides (“Oh, the humanity”), wrastling with the I.R.S., bus-driving, etc. the flair would resurface.
As I age I pretty much stay put. Events that prompt colorful writing don’t occur much any more. Plus many of my columns dealt with childhood events.
But I feel like my colorful writing drifted away, perhaps for lack of anything dramatic to write about.
Writing (“slinging words”) is the talent I was apparently blessed with.
RE: “slinging words.....” —“But Dr. Zink” (my 12th-grade English teacher), “all it is is slinging words.”
“Hughes, you do that way better than most.”
I thought him joking at first, but later realized my writing works pretty good. Thankfully my stroke didn’t take that away.

Following is my “Presidents don’t wear hats” column:

---

When is the last time you saw a president wearing a hat?
If you were born or came of age after the early ‘60s, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve never seen a president wearing a hat.
My compatriots here at editorial central batted the idea around, and we all agree Harry “The Haberdasher” Truman wore hats, and Ike wore hats and was known to wear an Ivy League cap over his balding pate when he played golf. And Lyndon Johnson may have donned a 10-gallon hat at his Texas ranch, and our more recent presidents may have allowed the occasional errant telephoto to capture them with baseball hats or caps while piloting speedboats or golf carts.
But no president since Kennedy — which includes Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton — allowed himself to be caught doing his job wearing a hat. It’s as if somewhere behind the curtains in the Oval Office a shrouded media maven utters, “Thou shalt not wear a hat.”
What brought this on was the observation of our current president, Bill Clinton, on the TV news performing affairs of state at the new Lockerbie monument. The temperature was probably 45-50 degrees in Arlington Cemetery, and there’s Willie, sans hat, and no topcoat. Just the uniform presidential blue suit. It makes you wonder if the dude wears skivvies.
The image still exists of President Reagan in Reykjavík, sadly walking the sidewalk by the sea, downtrodden because he hadn’t been able to finesse Gorby into giving away the store. He was wearing a topcoat, but no hat. The famous shock of red-dyed hair was exposed to withstand Iceland’s icy blast.
It’s striking that since Kennedy no president has dared wear a hat... like it’s a symbol of yooth and vigah.
Well, I don’t know about you, but when the temperature drops, I put on a hat. I’ve tried to be presidential and do without, but I just get chills... and then sniffles... and eventually a cold.
Many years ago, my grandfather instructed me in this seemingly simple tenet of basic common sense.”Wear a hat,” he used to say.
I, for one, will be glad when our leaders return to sanity and wear hats. As far as I know, the president still pulls his pants on one leg at a time, so I’ll support the first candidate man — or woman — enough to wear a hat.

• 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.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired 12 years ago. Best job I ever had — I was employed there almost 10 years —worked there over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern.
• 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.

My own calendar

(I decided to cut back even further.
Not many were reading my monthly calendar-reports. Doing them took gobs of time. A HUGE stack of cardboard sits in my garage awaiting chop-up for recycling. Lawn-mowing and laundry got delayed. Blogging on insanity got reduced, which is what I enjoy.
So I will blog only my own calendar. I still have three other train calendars of varying interest. Plus three other non-train calendars occasionally worth blogging. Still seven calendars, but more wall-art that changes every month.
If another calendar is worth blogging, I’ll do it.)


Herzog! (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—The January 2018 entry in my calendar is two helper-sets (four SD40Es) pushing a heavy Herzog ballast train toward The Mighty Curve.
I.e. the train is going away. The locomotives are pushing it toward Allegheny summit.
We are at Brickyard Crossing, where the old Pennsy main crossed little-used Porta Road, the only grade-crossing left in Altoona.
A brickyard used to be adjacent, but no longer is. The railroad, and railfans, still call it “Brickyard Crossing.”
A Herzog ballast train is extremely heavy. The cars are loaded with rock ballast, the stuff a railroad lays down between ties.
The lead locomotive has radio controls to operate the ballast cars. The train can dump ballast as it proceeds.
The train is probably going somewhere the railroad needs ballast. The ballast is quarried from rock crushed into 2-3 inch chunks. It drains well. You don’t want water puddling on the railroad roadbed. Wet spots sag, making bumpy track. It may even wash out or become inoperable.
When built, Allegheny Mountain was Pennsylvania Railroad’s greatest challenge.
In the early 1800s that mountain kept Philadelphia from trading with our nation’s interior. The Appalachians didn’t reach into NY state; therefore the Erie Canal.
To compete PA built a combination canal and portage railroad to Pittsburgh. Allegheny Mountain couldn’t be canaled. Grading back then was so poor the portage railroad had to have inclined planes.
Canal-packets were transloaded onto railroad flatcars, then winched up the planes by stationary steam-engines. Transloading was so cumbersome and slow Philadelphia capitalists came together to found a private common-carrier railroad much like the original Baltimore & Ohio. By then railroading was superseding canals.
John Edgar Thomson, who had built railroads locally, was brought in from GA. His primary trick was Horseshoe Curve, looping the railroad around a valley. It eased the grade over Allegheny Mountain enough to make through railroading possible.
Helper locomotives were needed, but a train didn’t hafta be sectioned to get over Allegheny Mountain. There also were no switchbacks. With switchbacks a train climbs into a switchback-tail, then reverses up to the next switchback-tail before continuing forward.
One wonders why Allegheny Mountain couldn’t be tunneled. That’s a four-to-seven mile tunnel. By now it could be done; but not back in 1840.
I overheard a tourist at the Mighty Curve ask why the railroad didn’t just trestle across the valley. “Because it would be too steep,” I responded. “Do that and ya gotta break the train.”
I also heard a lady ask “where’s The Hill?” 1.75% doesn’t look like much, but it’s a railroad. A heavy coal-train might be over 100 120-ton cars. 4% (four feet up for every 100 feet forward) would be near impossible. 6 or 8% highway grading would be impossible.
There are railroad grades exceeding 5%, but to climb them ya gotta break the train into multiple sections. Exceed 5% or 6% and adhesion railroading no longer holds the rail. Ya gotta cog it.
Steeper highway grading may seem advantageous, except trucking uses much more fuel. And those trucks aren’t moving over 12,000 tons. Every one of those trucks needs a driver. A 12,000-ton coal-train may only need two crewmen — additional on helpers over the mountain.
Railroading is so much more efficient, truckers hate it. But railroading is no good carrying and delivering small lots of freight, like a single trailer-load.
So double helper-sets shove the heavy Herzog train up Allegheny Mountain. Those helpers will probably stay on to hold back the train as it descends. Dynamic braking, dudes. (That’s a Wiki link.)
I could add here I try to run snow-pictures for January, February, and December. Melting snow if possible for March, and rain for April — although it may just be cloudy.
The weather has not accommodated, and both my brother and I are getting older. I’m soon to be 74, and he’s 60. When it’s frigid we dress for it. Four-five layers and long underwear for me. What we do is wait inside the car, out of the icy blast, monitoring our railroad-radio scanners. As a train passes a signal its engineer calls the signal-aspect on railroad-radio, and we’ll hear it.
“591 west on Two, 225; CLEAR!” Out of the car! Here it comes! Often I already have my camera outside on tripod.
Winter last year was lousy. Not much snow at all. I’ve seen better. Drifts blow and switches freeze. Water dripping in tunnels becomes icicles. The railroad has to knock ‘em down lest they shatter windshields.
Years ago my wife and I went to Gallitzin atop Allegheny Mountain. At least three-four feet of snow had fallen. Gallitzin was clogged. Front-end loaders were clearing the main drag.
That was after we started chasing trains with Phil Faudi, my expert railfan friend from Altoona. I wondered how we’d ever do it, but we did — and got some fabulous snow-photographs.
This Herzog picture is two-or-three years ago, long after that Gallitzin trip. (RoadRailer is along side on Track One, and the ‘Railer is no longer running.)
And now the picture I woulda liked to use:


Missing original. (Westbound stacker on Four.) (Photo by BobbaLew.)

What you see here is the blog-pik: 72 pixels-per-inch (screen-resolution), 5.597 inches wide (blog column width). What the calendar needs is far tighter resolution — my camera shoots at 300 pixels-per-inch. Crop the original and I usually get more than 300 ppi.
Shutterfly wants over 100 ppi, and justifiably. Enlarge a 72 ppi to calendar size, and one gets jagginess. The picture pixelates.
So do the original for the calendar. I can’t find it. Memory-chips are missing.
Oh well.... Such is life. Now everything I shoot goes camera-file on my computer. It seems able to swallow. 500-gig hard-drive, and I’m only 25% full. Hundreds of pictures are on it.

56 buttons

“Don’t forget,” I said to the Spectrum techie; “yer talkin’ to someone born in the previous century.”
Spectrum/Time-Warner is my cable-TV provider, also my Internet.
Spectrum will switch to all digital next Wednesday. I can imagine the torrent of phonecalls from angry Grannies: “Where’s Dr. Phil?”
“What’s on the telly, Dora?”
“A penguin.”
The techie came out to switch me to a DVR (theirs) which would crunch their new digital signal.
Yet another remote, this with 56 buttons. I already have two other remotes: my TV remote has 38 buttons, and my DVD remote has 52.
“You got so many buttons it’s intimidating. When I was a kid we only had three channels. Now yer channel-lineup looks like a thousand; both sides of an 8&1/2 by 17 sheet of paper with print so tiny I gotta use cheaters.
And back then TV was over-the-air. We had an aluminum antenna on the roof that howled in the wind.
It’s much better now. Too bad Howdy-Doody and Camel-News-Caravan weren’t what we have now.
Mention rabbit-ears and Millennials think yer talkin’ about rabbits.
Wait a minute! Yer toggling back-and-forth between this button and that? I gotta be able to drive this sucker!”
And contrary to what I was told, the new remote doesn’t turn on my DVD. TV yes, but not my DVD. Only my old DVD remote does that.
Nothing new: my old DVD remote had a button for turning on my TV, but it didn’t work either.
Techie gone, I’m left alone. “Try it and see what happens,” what got me able to drive this ‘pyooter.
“Got Internet?” the techie asked before he left. “Go to Spectrum.com, and they got tutorials that walk you through drivin’ our remote.”
“Yeah sure,” I said. “I had a stroke. It’s called ‘information overload.’ I can’t compute all that.” (I already told him I was a stroke-survivor.)

• 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.

I had a stroke (Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk)

“Yer talkin’ to a stroke-survivor,” I told the service-rep at Spectrum/Time-Warner.
Spectrum is my cable-TV and Internet. They’re going digital next week, which retires my DVD player. It won’t crunch their new digital TV signal; I hafta have a Spectrum DVR.
At first I wasn’t telling people I had a stroke. My aphasia isn’t bad, hardly noticeable.
It makes sense to spill in advance. My contact won’t get angry when I can’t get words out. “I may hafta have you repeat what you said, or you me.” Contacts become very tolerant. “If I stutter or slur, it happens all the time. Ask me to repeat. That way we communicate. My aphasia is slight, but that’s all it is.”
“Oh that’s okay Mr. Hughes; you sound fine.”
I had it happen before. I couldn’t get words out, so my contacts got angry. They thought I was angry. Sometimes Aphasia is so bad the stroke-victim can’t talk. Sometimes they can’t write — but I sure don’t have that problem. You know all-too-well my muse can’t shaddup.
My aphasia is only slight. Often stroke-victims don’t know they have it. I met a guy at the Canandaigua YMCA: “You had a stroke. I hear it.”
“What are you taking about?”
I’ve met other stroke-victims I barely understand. Yet they aren’t aware. Thankfully I’m aware of my Aphasia. It’s slight enough I can pass for never having had a stroke. But I have Aphasia.
One stroke-victim I knew used voice-recognition on his SmartPhone. I had to translate: what did he mean? More important: why did he not edit his voice-recognition?
Maybe he wasn’t aware his voice-recognition was messy.
I needed to set up a service-call for Spectrum to come and convert me to digital. “Make sure yer boss knows you did a good job.”
I always say that, but can because I warned my contacts in advance.
“You may get a survey regarding my performance. But that’s random.”
“In that case make sure yer boss knows. Tell ‘im; you have my blessing!”

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. It slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty finding and putting words together.)

Continuing adventures with *****

“Fer cryin’ out loud!” I exclaimed. *****-the-lifeguard at the Canandaigua YMCA pool just told me she was 62 years old.
“I had you pegged in yer 40s,” I said.
“Well thank you,” she said.
The other day ***** was poolside as I was getting out. It seemed she wanted to shoot the breeze. I happened to notice her knees. Yep, wrinkles, age-spots, also crow’s feet around her eyes; she mentioned ‘em before. To me that’s 40s, not 62.
Driving home I did the math: amazingly in my head, not my iPhone calculator. My brother-from-Boston, who accompanies me photographing trains in Altoona, PA (we’re railfans), just turned 60 last year. He was born in 1957.
“That makes you 1955, right?” I would ask.
1955, the year Chevrolet turned things around. Before 1955 Chevrolets were turkeys. ’55 was first of the Tri-Chevys, 1955, ’56 and ’57. Probably the greatest Chevrolets ever made. All through high-school and college I lusted after a 1955 Chevy Two-Ten hardtop, four-on-the-floor, SmallBlock V8.

Mitchell’s Two-Ten hardtop. (Four-on-the-floor; converted to a 283 V8 from the six.) (Long-ago photo by BobbaLew.)

“Another useless fact,” I’d say. “In 1955 I was 11 years old. Still in south Jersey with my parents; we didn’t move to DE until I was 13 going on 14.
If yer 62, yer not far behind me. Also not far from retirement. I think I retired at 62, but not intentionally. I was getting so-called dizzy-spells, later deduced a medication side-effect. No more dizzy-spells after I stopped the medication.”
“So when ya gonna take her to lunch?” my hairdresser asked.
“Oh no,” I said. “That’s her move, not mine. I’d do it if she wants — I like talking to ***** — but I’m sure I’d quickly bore her to tears.
I’m too used to living on-my-own, and can easily entertain myself. I’m up to midnight every night, alone in my house, processing photos, “slinging words” (writing), solving ‘pyooter problems, etc. I never watch TV.”
Anyway, I have this habit of getting people upset. Just recently I tried to tell my aquacise coach I still miss my wife, and crashed in flames. I don’t want that to happen.
What I said yesterday is: “Yer where I was 20 years ago. Do this, do that, keep running, continue to eat right, and thereby remain young.”
If she’s 62, it becomes “10 years ago.”
Suddenly at age-49, POW; a totally unexpected stroke, caused by a heart-defect I didn’t know I had. That defect was repaired long-ago with open-heart surgery, chisels, buzz-saws, the whole kibosh.
And enough steel mesh to trigger the detectors in airport-security. Not actually, but I have a metal knee; I hafta tell the airport X-ray people.
“Total knee replacement, prostate removed, hernia repaired; this wasn’t supposed to happen.” I remember my doctors wondering why a guy who ran had a stroke.
I love jawing with *****, and hope I run across her when I show for aquacise.
But 62? HOLY MACKEREL!

High-School Science-Project

Within the past year my deceased wife’s older brother, who’s still alive, and I’m good friends with, suggested I try online bank-deposit with my iPhone.
“Capital idea,” I thought. Save having to hit the bank just to deposit a check — which I don’t get often, maybe four or five times per year. Most deposits are electronic.
NY state mailed a property-tax rebate as a check. Endorse, then try online deposit.
Everything has to be done with my iPhone so the check can be photographed. That requires my bank’s app for iPhone. I installed it months ago.
I fired up the bank app; it wanted my log-in. CRASH! Insanity began: “invalid password.”
“NOT! I got it right here on a sticky.”
Oh well, nothing new. Maybe it timed out.
“Forgot password” — done it so many times it no longer drives me up the wall.
The bank wanted to send an “access-code,” so I could reset my password.
“Call this iPhone,” I instructed.
Ring-ring; “This call is auto-generated. Yer access-code is **-**-**-**.” (That’s secure?)
With that I could reset my password. I did, but then CRASH! “You can’t use an earlier password.”
I tried a variation, but that too was an earlier password. CRASH yet again.
“This is turning into a high-school science-project,” I yelled. “All I wanna do is deposit this check. Five minutes becomes a half-hour.”
“Not enough characters, no capital letters, no numbers. NAUGHTY-NAUGHTY!”
Manual set-up might take 10 minutes. 10 more minutes to go through the bank’s auto-window, which I pass anyway on my way to Canandaigua; plus my dog (now gone) loved it because the teller always gave her a MilkBone.
“Time-saving technology” is taking more time. (20 minutes manually versus 30 minutes online.)
Finally I was logged in. Now the actual transaction. I don’t do this often enough to remember procedure, but knew I had to photograph the front and back of the check with my iPhone.
Mysterious unknowable buttons: engage “try it and see what happens.”
I tried a button which snapped a picture. “Well, we got the front.”
Flop check then shoot again. The magic button was trigger-happy — my first attempt was way off-center. I tried a second time: off-center again, but not as bad.
Third attempt: centered enough to be acceptable. NOW WHAT? How do I get it to process? “Menu,” “submit,” nothing that indicates “process.” Again engage “try it and see what happens.”
Flying blind as usual; but I guess it processed.
“Time-saving technology” apparently means added minutes.
Okay, fire up laptop and bring in my bank.
“Invalid password.” (My laptop browser memorizes passwords.)
Why yes, I just changed my bank password with my iPhone; so I tried that. BOOM-ZOOM; IN!
“Update memorized password?” my browser asked. “I guess so.”
I know others my age who would throw up their hands.

• RE: “Manual set-up might take 10 minutes.......” —That’s to print. Just handwriting a deposit-ticket might take a minute. Whatever I do, I still gotta hit the bank.

’57 Desoto

’57 Desoto Fireflite Sportsman. (Photo by Dan Lyons.)

—What happened that 60 years later glamour-boats like this are no longer made?
The January 2018 entry in my Tide-mark “Cars of the Fab ‘50s” calendar is this 1957 Desoto Fireflite Sportsman.
I paged through all the other 2018 entries, and none are as dramatic. And that includes a ’55 Chevy convertible, the car I lusted after all through high-school and college.
It’s a Desoto; Desoto was discontinued in 1961. I thought it a Chrysler at first, since it’s somewhat a Chrysler badge-engineered into a Desoto. When I was a child, Desoto was supposedly competition for Oldsmobile, and maybe Buick.

(This is actually a ’58.)

(This may actually be my church-people’s car; it was this color, and also a four-door sedan.)

It has all the Desoto trademarks, like taillights with individual lenses. In the early ‘50s it was the toothy grille.
A family in my church had one; they always bought Desotos. I remember a pea-green ’52: kind of droll.
This ’57, by comparison, is gorgeous.
I thought ’58 or ’59, but ’57 was the first year of Chrysler’s “Forward-Look,” marked by gigantic tailfins.
Chrysler looked okay, but better was this Desoto. Plymouth and Dodge looked awful, especially Dodge. Giant fins grafted to taxicabs. My wife (deceased) learned to drive in her family’s ’57 Plymouth. It was so big it intimidated. And it rusted almost immediately.
For whatever reason this Desoto looks all-of-a-piece. Its side-trim isn’t overly exuberant, and its front-end looks great.
The ’57 Chrysler, by contrast, looks sorta plain. Huge fins and quad headlights on a gigantic barge. Its grille is stupid (except the 300-C).
I remember a “Forward-Look” Chrysler garaged in my childhood suburb. The entire trunk (and fins) wouldn’t fit. Everything behind the rear window was out in the driveway.

1957 Chrysler 300-C.

Better-looking was this Desoto. The stylists got it right. Quads and tailfins set off by that gorgeous grille.
Its chassis was pedestrian. It’s still the ancient solid rear axle with heavy center differential. Its giant V8 was up front driving that rear axle via a long driveshaft. (Same as the Model-T Ford.)
And I think the rear-suspension is Hotchkiss. That heavy axle is suspended by outboard leaf-springs. Goose the motor and everything twists, steering you into the boonies. NASCAR allowed trackbars to hold everything in place.
The front suspension is also not as good as now. It’s independent, but not long-travel MacPherson strut.
Steering was also marginal. It wasn’t rack-and-pinion, and nowadays car-companies go overboard to develop superior steering feel.
Brakes were terrible. Fine for Granny and docile cruises to the supermarket; start usin’ ‘em hard. and they fade. They were drums which expanded away from the brake-shoes as they heated.
Disc brakes came later, not as prone to fade. Discs came into use in the ‘60s. ’57 is before discs, although the car pictured may be converted. Kits are available to convert older cars to discs. (A friend converted his ’62 Impala.)
The tables have turned. Suspensions are much better, as are brakes and steering. But oh what a glamour-boat this would be to majestically cruise the interstates. Now cars are much safer to drive, but they look like soap-bars.
People used to race these behemoths on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Fastest were the 300 Chryslers with the early Hemi. Flat-out from Philadelphia to the Ohio border. I think ’57 Desotos were also Hemi.

Reality is what you make of it

“Here I am yet again, to continue my struggle against aging.”
I would say that to *****, a lifeguard at the Canandaigua YMCA pool. I’m there both Tuesday and Thursday for my aquacise class, to improve my balance.
I’ve done it for months.
People tell me I walk better, and occasionally I’ve noticed. But I still feel clumsy. —Or should I say “tippy?”
What ***** doesn’t know is my talking to her has my parents and Sunday-Superintendent neighbor spinning in their graves.
***** said hello not long ago, so I got up the nerve to say hello back. “Why would she ever wanna talk to him? He’s scum.” This is mainly my neighbor, who apparently abhorred men. But my parents more-or-less concurred — although mainly it was because I couldn’t worship my hyper-religious father; which convinced them I was rebellious.
Telling a little child that is bad. 70+ years with that albatross over my head.
“I can’t say much,” I’d say; “but ********* tells me yer a whiz-bang manager. Years ago at a boys camp I was too; I called it ‘benevolent dictatorship’ = my rules, but eminently fair. If I made deals, I kept ‘em. No favoritism.
That worked at camp; everyone wanted in my cabin. But it doesn’t work in marriage. I dropped it to make things work.
Now I find myself more an artist and writer. ‘Slinging words’ (writing) is the talent I was blessed with. I’m discovering I wasn’t as disgusting as my parents told me.
Any artistic talent I had with my hands disappeared with my long-ago stroke. But the artistic bent in my head remains. If my name is on it, it’s gonna look good!”
I doubt I’ll say all this to *****; she’s interesting, and I don’t wanna bore her to tears. She also laughs at my jokes, which can be awful. —My wife used to do that.
This blog is titled “reality is what you make of it.” Maybe it should be “reality is what you perceive,” the old philosophical mystery I left behind at college.
I wonder if what ***** perceives is what I perceive. I used to wonder about that with my wife. If, for example, what she perceived as “red” might be “green” to me.
I couldn’t get into her head. We all called it “red,” but what she perceived as red might be different to me.
Around-and-around it went. I finally gave up; life beckoned.
Now with my wife GONE, I find myself rediscovering reality, and it seems to be independent of what I perceive. Everything seems to be surprise-surprise, independent of what I think or expect.
History hurls imponderables at me: “What sense does that make?”
So there’s ***** guarding the pool from her lifeguard stand. It seems normal, but I wonder if she perceives what I perceive.
“Hello *****” equals 14,000 rpm for my buried neighbor.
“If yer a whiz-bang manager, celebrate it. You probably already do.”

• 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.

Prompt-sheet

Last night I unearthed a vestige of my long-ago time driving bus, the prompt-sheet illustrated above.
Driving bus was supposed to be temporary, but I stayed 16&1/2 years until my stroke suddenly ended it almost 25 years ago.
It was supposedly temporary while I fruitlessly looked for work as a writer. It was pleasant at first. Especially when we lived in Rochester five minutes from work. There also was learning to operate large vehicles.
But it became drudgery after we moved to West Bloomfield. I was now 45 minutes from work, and could no longer work the kind of work I had been doing.
Bus service follows the need. Primary was getting people to work in the morning, then home at night. Service was aimed at rush-hours. Early morning runs, then late afternoon.
There were bus-lines that ran all day, but mostly we were serving the rush-hours.
The prompt-sheet illustrates this kind of work. 2203 is bringing people in from suburban Penfield, and 2007 is taking them back home out near Brockport on the other side of the city.
After we moved I could no longer do this kind of work. 45 minutes was too far away. I had to switch to morning then mid-day. It also meant a change in clientele — I was no longer carrying suburbanites. I was carrying mid-day jerks inclined to mug or cheat me.
With our move bus-driving became no longer fun. It was largely the clientele I was tiring of, and driving only city-runs meant no more expressway blasts. I used to say it was no fun driving bus if I couldn’t boom-and-zoom at least once in an expressway passing-lane. Up-and-down a city street was drudgery.
Never mind! I made many friends among my fellow employees, and passengers loved having me as a driver. They could depend on me. I’d ridden bus myself in the ‘60s. I knew where passengers were — very important out in the boonies.
If they weren’t there I looked for ‘em. If I saw ‘em running after me, I stopped.
When I went on vacation I warned my passengers. I usually started late, arriving downtown on time, but my replacement might start on-time (earlier), so “be at yer stop about five minutes earlier.”
Also “you guys know where the regulars are,” when I started a run in the rural outback. “I need somebody riding shotgun. I don’t wanna miss anyone.”
The passengers loved that. “We got a good one, Martha.”
I was getting those passengers downtown or home on time no matter what! I’d ridden bus myself. I used ramps to get around traffic-jams, and I developed a secret route — not expressway, which was often clogged during blizzards.
I don’t remember what 2203 was, but I remember 2007. It was a Park-and-Ride taking suburbanites home out near Brockport. I had a large “articulated,” the buses that bent in the middle; our first “bendables.”


2105, one of my all-time favorite rides. (Long-ago photo by BobbaLew.)

They were bog-slow, but rode extremely well — much better than our city buses, which after suspension overhaul rode like lumber-wagons.
You had to be careful. Driving an “Artic” could be difficult. They easily got stuck, plus the trailer steered. You dared not turn a corner lest that trailer side-step into a four-wheeler.
There also was the challenge of backing: righty-lefty, lefty-righty. They also were so slow ya had to jump the traffic-light. Hit the accelerator when the other direction turned yellow. If ya don’t, the trailer may still be going through the intersection when yer light turned back red.
Bog-slow or not, I loved drivin’ ‘em. Head for the passing-lane, and put-the-hammer-down! They’d krooze at 65; top-end for them.
After we moved, “Artics” were no longer an option. Artics were Park-and-Ride; I could only do city work. (Park-and-Rides were rush-hour.)
My prompt-sheet details times I needed to know to do my run. I taped it to my video-recorder in my kitchen where I watched recorded news while eating supper.
Most important was “Report.” Show up late and yer run got assigned to an “extra driver.” If that happened there was a good chance you got sent home to lose the day.
Others might report exactly on-time, but not this kid. “Report” was five minutes before pullout (mighta been 10). We got paid for that, but it wasn’t enough to fully inspect bus safety.
With me it was wheel lug-nuts; occasionally I found ‘em loose. I didn’t want a wheel coming off; 500-800 pounds (whatever) spinning aimlessly into traffic, and me off the road.
I also needed the extra time in case something mucked up. The one time I was almost late a downpour started as I got out my motorcycle. I had to park it and get my car.
“Up” and “out” is roll outta bed until starting my car. I was allowing an hour to get dressed and eat breakfast.
With 2203 I’d get back home about 10:45 a.m. I was free until “Shower” at 2:40. That was about five hours between “halves.” (Some runs had three “halves;” make sense of that!)
During that time I took my dog to a nearby park and ran. After we moved I no longer had that: my running withered. I used to run footraces.
That long break was wonderful for my dog. My wife didn’t leave until 7 or so, yet I was back by 10:45. The dog got a chance to run at the park, but was alone again about 4 p.m. She’d monitor the squirrel population. My wife got home perhaps an hour-and-a-half later, then me maybe two hours after that.
The shower was because I ran. I also was getting paid extra to work a run with such a long break. All that was lost by moving. I was tiring of it; at 16&1/2 years I still had 14 to go. My stroke was somewhat a blessing; it ended my bus-driving.
It was a “stupid, meaningless job,” but it paid for my house. Driving bus was a challenge. First was the clientele I fell to after moving. Second were Granny and the NASCAR wannabees. You had to forever be on-guard.
“Oh Dora, look; a bus! PULL OUT, PULL OUT!” I came home frazzled.

Too cold

Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

“04T east on Two, 242, CLEAR!”
“Good grief,” I exclaimed. (I was in my motel room.)
“He hasn’t even made Altoony yet. He still has to make a station-stop there, plus another up in Tyrone. I might be able to beat him to Plummers.”
My train-chasing got better over the years. Used to be railroad-radio chatter, which I get on my scanner, was completely undecipherable.
Now I know 04T is Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian (even are eastbound), Track Two on The Hill (the center of three tracks) can be either direction, and milepost 242 is railroad-west of Altoona.
242 is also the location of a signal, and a train’s engineer has to call out the signal aspect on railroad-radio as he passes the signal. “Clear” means the track-section ahead is unobstructed.
“Plummers” is Plummers Crossing, a dirt-track unprotected grade-crossing railroad-east of Tyrone-station. I wanted to snag an eastbound at Plummers, and better yet it was Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian.
BOOM-ZOOM! Into the car with my camera.
I already glommed breakfast, a sausage McMuffin from Mickey-D’s. On to Interstate-99, which more-or-less parallels the railroad up to Tyrone.
Pedal-to-the-metal, 70 mph krooze. About now it’s pulling into Altoona’s station. Up past the Pinecroft, Bellwood, and Tipton exits.
“04T east on Two, 227, CLEAR!” 227 is Fostoria; I had my scanner in the passenger seat. I’m even with him.
“04T east on Two, 225, CLEAR!” That’s McFarlands. I’m still even.
I took the Tyrone exit, then 453 toward Plummers. As I started in I heard him calling his Tyrone arrival. His Tyrone stop is maybe three minutes.
I quickly parked, and heard him whistle off as I got out. As I walked behind my car with my camera, I heard him throttling up.
There he is! I’m gonna snag that sucker! Click-click-click-click; a snag-of-the-century.
This is what it’s all about, readers. The absolute joy of train-chasing. I’m almost 74, and I can’t quit!
I’m a student of Phil Faudi, my railfan friend in Altoona. I’m not as knowledgable, but I doubt I coulda pulled this off without what Phil taught me.
At home I monitor Railstream’s Station-Inn webcam in Cresson. I noticed snow, and I need snow pictures. Drop everything! I’m retired, and with no beloved dog, I no longer hafta arrange boarding. Off to Altoona for snow pictures, a 5&1/2-hour drive.
Not much snow in Altoona, so I figgered I’d go up on Allegheny Mountain. Higher elevations often get more snow.
Up to Gallitzin, the summit. Driving around I noticed a stacker starting down The Hill on Track One. Can I beat that thing down to Altoona’s Amtrak station, where I wanted to get a picture? Boom-zoom; Route 22 expressway down to Altoona, then park across the tracks from the station.
“20T, 238; CLEAR!” The double-stack was 20T, and milepost 238 is maybe two miles west.
It’s coming, and I’m gonna get my shot! Click-click-click-click; thank you Phil.


20T passes Altoona’s Amtrak station. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

That was Thursday afternoon; 04T was Friday morning. After Plummers I went to Spruce Street, railroad-west of Tyrone station.
Nittany & Bald Eagle was shuffling freightcars dropped by NS local C42. Nittany & Bald Eagle is the shortline that operates the old Pennsy Bald Eagle branch. Norfolk Southern has trackage-rights, so it’s built to the hilt.
A long curve approaches Tyrone. It’s a great picture, but needs telephoto. I parked roadside, and set up my tripod with camera and telephoto. C42, minus its dropoffs, went west, probably to Gray Interlocking, to get back on the main. C42 was backing, so a crewman was on the rear car, radioing the engineer to keep going.
Back inside my car, tripod and camera outside, I began waiting. It was bitter cold, but no wind inside my car. Finally here it came; C42 got a signal. Click-click-click-click.
C42 at long last, a local with GP38-2s; east to “the sand-plant,” per my scanner.


To the sand-plant. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

That was all I could take. My feet were freezing despite being inside my car. Normally I get two or three extraordinaries, plus 20 or more good photographs. My brother adds maybe 20 more photographs, two or three of which may be extraordinary.
This visit only got three trains, one of which happened to be an extraordinary picture. There woulda been more had it not been so cold. I had to return to my motel-room; to thaw my frozen toes and finger-tips.
So this visit was a washout. I been to Altoona near 100 times, if not 100 already. Three washouts so far, maybe four. And this trip was one of those.

Garbage-in, Garbage-out

“Grady,” asked my friend Marcy. (“Grady” was my nickname at the Mighty Mezz — see blurb at right.) “Marcy” worked in the cubical next to mine; she in her late 20s or early 30s, me in my early 60s.
“I wanna know how you dredge up so much insanity to blog?” she asked.
“Marcy, it’s everywhere!” I exclaimed.
Sometimes I worry about running out of blog topics. This has been especially true since -a) my beloved dog died, and -b) I cut back to blogging only my own calendar.
I tried to walk that silly dog as much as I could. And at first I was blogging all my seven calendars. (Before you question my sanity, only one calendar is used as an actual calendar. My calendars are wall-art that changes monthly.)
Blogging seven calendars gobbled a lotta time. Mowing got shoved aside, and laundry went undone. A giant stack of cardboard sits in my garage awaiting chop-up for recycling.
So I cut back to blogging only my four train-calendars. (I’m a railfan.) But even that gobbled time, and wasn’t getting many readers. I e-mail blog-links to maybe 32 people, and usually get 10-15 readers per blog. Often more. My Monthly Train-Calendar Reports were only getting 5-6 readers. Many of my readers aren’t interested in trains.
I do a calendar of pictures my brother and I took near Altoona, PA, where the old Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain. That railroad is no longer Pennsy; it’s now Norfolk Southern. But it’s still very busy — that railroad is a main trading conduit between the east-coast megalopolis and our nation’s interior. (The other is CSX across NY.)
What I usually say is “wait 15-25 minutes and a train comes” — often more frequent than that. Trains are so frequent ya might see two or three at once. Much of Allegheny Mountain is three-track railroad; two tracks approaching, and at one location there are four tracks.
Allegheny Mountain is also a challenge. It’s a 1,016 foot rise in elevation. Helper locomotives are often needed to conquer it. Summit is at 2,194 feet.
My brother and I get fabulous photographs there. I plug ‘em into a calendar made by Shutterfly. I send ‘em as Christmas presents, and they also give me plenty to do.
I never watch TV. What I do is -a) take and process photos for my own calendar, -b) make the calendar via Shutterfly, and also -c) “sling words.” (What I call writing.)
Every morning as I sit down for breakfast, my pencil comes out, I engage my legal-pad, and I start “slingin’ words.” I never can get my muse to shaddup!
Mostly there’s some recent insanity to blog — I depend on it. “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”
The other day it was my iPhone. It has a calendar thingy I update so I can schedule appointments away from my home calendar. —Like at a doctor’s office.
iPhone’s calendar-app isn’t challenging, but the other day was a hairball.
I had to crank in a doctor-appointment, and after I did, that appointment wasn’t in my iPhone calendar. Actually it was, but the calendar-month wasn’t showing me. Not that way.
Finally after three tries I gave up! All I did was write down the appointment on my wall-calendar.
What was I doing wrong? Nothing I saw. Perhaps the calendar-app was not programmed right. Not the first time.
“Garbage-in, garbage out:” words I gleaned long ago from an old RTS bus-driver whose son programmed computers.
Do I really wanna let computers drive my car? That’s what I said after this iPhone hairball. They’re gonna hafta pry my cold dead fingers off the steering-wheel. NO WAY am I gonna let my car self-drive 70 mph bumper-to-bumper.
As a retired transit bus-driver I want slop — that is, five or six times the usual braking distance to avoid slamming on the brakes. Brake hard and ya toss passengers onto the floor.
I suppose I’m no longer driving bus, but I can’t dump old habits. I still drive “professionally,” and thereby anger others.
My guess is some hoity-toity ‘pyooter engineer inadvertently blew it. On viewing another way, that doctor-appointment was there the three times I entered it. But it still wasn’t in my iPhone’s calendar-month as first viewed.
Garbage-in, garbage-out!
I hear horror-stories from fellow ‘pyooter-users about the various “fixes” and “patches” for programming hairballs. My opinion is someone mucked up programming the calendar-app for my iPhone.
I’m told Apple’s recent “High Sierra” operating-system is a disaster. It was floated way too early; it hangs and locks up.
Memories of Windoze-95. We had it on a PC at the Mighty Mezz, and had to pull the plug to shut it off.
Oh well, I’m only cranking an appointment into my iPhone — no big deal. And it’s in there but not viewable the first way I tried to find it, which is the way I try to find it at a doctor’s office.
‘Pyooter-guru at the Mighty Mezz would just laugh and say “it’s in there, ain’t it?” As if we should value insanity.
Well pardon-me for trying to avoid madness. Am I supposed to look at things a second way to avoid first-way craziness? If someone mucked up, and is thereby driving me up-the-wall, I’m supposed to just chuckle?

• “Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. A picture of her is in the following blog: Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. —That blog was written years ago, so -a) is not a good as recently, and -b) Marcy has since married and moved to Los Angeles.
• “RTS” equals Regional Transit Service, the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 11 years ago. Best job I ever had — I was employed there almost 10 years —  worked there over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern.

Car-mags in repose

Ya don’t snag photos like this with a Porsche. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

After over 50 years, I decided to let my life-long subscription to Car and Driver magazine lapse.
I lost interest; Car and Drivers are piling up in my bathroom.
Same with Cycle World. I subscribed to various sport-motorcycle magazines since the early ‘80s, shortly after I bought my first motorcycle (1978-or-’79).
Cycle World is also piling up, and about all I read are the columnists, one of whom is excellent.
Car and Driver began in college. I discovered a throw-away Car and Driver in a laundromat. It was much better than my Hot Rod magazines, which seemed plebeian and illiterate. —Aimed at high-schoolers, yet Car and Driver wasn’t.
I switched to Car and Driver, and then Road & Track. (I also subscribed to Harpers, but quickly ditched that; I needed study-time more than posturing.)
Both Car and Driver and Road & Track were interested in European performance, which seemed better than Detroit’s bloated turkeys.
Particularly Road & Track. Yet Car and Driver was also smitten with Detroit performance, particularly Chevy’s SmallBlock V8, which I loved.

(iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

For years I was a car guy; still am somewhat. I still attend car-shows: “Hey, looka that! An actual Plymouth Superbird.”
But I never became an enthusiast driver — I was scared.
I flipped my Triumph sportscar in college, and that put the damper on performance driving.
I think only once have I exceeded 100 mph, plus once inadvertently on motorcycle.
I don’t like poor performance. What I drive/ride better respond well to the tiller, plus have adequate power.
No flaccid handling, and tires better be responsive.
I’ve become my paternal grandmother. A car has to start and run reliably. No roadside shenanigans, or gobs of shop time. A Ferrari or Lambo was once desirable, but now only profiling.
Driving became pillar-to-post. For that a Ferrari is overkill. You don’t patronize the supermarket in a Ferrari.
I also drove transit bus 16&1/2 years. It determines how I drive now. My following distances are five-six times the norm; I still avoid tossing passengers outta their seats.
No bumper-to-bumper at 70 for this kid!
I drove bus very carefully; which passengers loved. So now the four-wheelers are often angry at me. I don’t charge in front of traffic, or cut others off. I glance both ways before venturing into a traffic-light controlled intersection, lest some texter inadvertently run the light.
It’s “professional” driving, what my bus-company wanted. I never hit anything except once, and contrary to standard company practice I wasn’t canned.
And now another paradigm entered the fray: the ability to successfully chase trains. I’m a railfan, and love photographing trains. For that I need more ground-clearance and All-Wheel Drive. Chasing trains often involves high-crowned icy farm-tracks.
My railfan friend in Altoona (PA) has a Buick sedan, but it’s only front-wheel drive. It also has less ground-clearance. Years ago we had to give up a snowy location because his Buick couldn’t do it. All-Wheel Drive woulda done it.
Another location he had to drive off-center on the crown and shoulder, lest he smash the oil-pan.
I never worry about this. I easily charge dirt-tracks in pursuit of a photograph.

The Keed returns to his train-chaser. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

My car isn’t a Jeep, but it’s an SUV.
A ‘Vette might be more interesting, but no good for chasing trains. It ain’t All-Wheel Drive, and might hole something.
And where, pray tell,  do you stretch out a ‘Vette, and get away with it? 180 mph? LA-DEE-DAH! Try that and you inflame the gendarmerie.
Fancy-dan Masers and Lambos ponderously trolling crowded parking-lots in south FL at 2-5 mph.
Auto enthusiasm seems to be dying. Performance has wildly leapfrogged what’s needed, which is pillar-to-post. 70 mph expressways are so crowded you spend more time idling in stopped traffic.
And now self-driving cars are threatening. Yer gonna hafta pry my cold, dead fingers from the steering-wheel.
Garbage-in, garbage-out! NO WAY am I gonna let technology drive my car. This ‘pyooter lobs enough unknowables at me. (“What prompted that?”)
So Car and Driver is no longer relevant. You can’t chase trains in a Beemer.

• “Lambos” are Lamborghinis, “Masers” are Maseratis, and “Beemers” are BMW, also called “Bimmers.”