“It’s my wife’s hand”

Occasionally Yr Fthfl Srvnt fires up the Facebook of my aquatic therapy instructor.
She and I happen to be Facebook “friends,” and I’m glad we are. Although I woulda preferred Suckerbird and his lackeys not secretly troll my iPhone contacts without my permission to suggest her as a “friend.”
I like her profile picture, which is an actual photograph I “liked.” It was the first and probably last Facebook “like” I’ll ever do, born as I was during the previous century. (“We never went to no Moon!”)
I always liked that photograph. Apparently it was taken during a “Wine-Walk.” I see an easy smiler — I wish I could do that. I know other easy smilers, but they’re not photographed.
The other night I fired up another of her photographs, one of her cradling her newly born grandson. As a male, I flub mothering, but “I see my wife’s hand.” Maybe not exactly, but same veins, tendons, etc.
Long ago I photographed the hands of my wife performing the ceremonial removal of the air-conditioner bridge. We did this the end of every October, the end of the summer air-conditioning season. The whole-house AC condenser out back has an inserted “bridge” in an electrical box. If it wasn’t in, the condenser wasn’t getting current.
My wife is gone, and now I have new air-conditioning. It’s no longer the system that served 28 years. I.e. it’s no longer the original air-conditioning bridge.
So now I gotta get other ladies to show me their hands. Are they gonna look heavy like my wife’s hands? I remember being surprised her hands weren’t dainty.
Maybe they’re dainty with my aquatic instructor, but in the photograph I see my wife’s hand.

• “Suckerbird” is Mark Zuckerberg, head-honcho of Facebook.
• RE: “Aquatic therapy.....” —I do aquatic training for poor balance in the Canandaigua YMCA swimming-pool.

Wars?

“Bob, can you unhitch that separator so we can switch to two lap-lanes?”
It was *****-the-lifeguard at the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool asking me to help move a lane separator.
“Really?” I thought. I turned toward the pool edge.
I was in the pool, and suddenly ******-****, my aquatic therapy instructor, was leaping ahead of me.
“I’ll get it,” she said. “You can join the class.”
******-**** is trying to keep ***** from being friendly?
Dream-on, Hughes. Yer wishful thinkin’ is leadin’ you astray.
Yrs Trly is a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Sexual Relations. Hilda was my neighbor and Sunday-School Superintendent growing up. Together with my Bible-beating parents she convinced me I was of-the-Devil and disgusting.
“No pretty girl will ever wanna talk to you!”
Both ***** and ******-**** are interesting, both happily married, yet neither compare to my wife.
***** is managerial, and I drove city bus. We’d be at each other’s throats in no time. ******-**** is a wonderful lady, a “liberal” like me, although she probably wouldn’t approve the label. But we’re miles apart.
Since my wife died six years ago I discovered Mrs. Walton and my parents were full-of-it. They ruined me for 65-70 years.
My wife actually liked me. She was the first female who did. That made it possible for me to avoid females. I was scared anyway.
***** was watershed. She said hello to me in passing, so I decided I should be able to get up the nerve to say hello back. Instead of walking away as I woulda done 10 years ago, I walked over and said hello.
I’m awfully glad I did. It seemed to go over well. Faire Hilda was spinning in her grave.
******-**** and I have been working together over a year. I got a new dog, and ******-**** wanted to meet my dog. Three times so far, and I always hope she shows again.
I discovered women seem to find me attractive. Not physically (are you kidding?), but easy to talk to. No macho posturing, plus I’m funny (so I’m told). I’m also old enough to be harmless, not a “dirty old man.”
So contrary to how I was brought up, I find myself attracting females. Hilda and my parents are spinning in their graves.
Was ******-**** trying to shut down *****? I don’t think so. But contrary to Faire Hilda’s angry disbelief I find I hafta allow for that.

• RE: “Two lap-lanes.....” —Part of the swimming pool gets configured for lap-swimming. Each lap-lane is defined by a floating “separator” chain. I think each lap is 50 yards. The Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool is mind-boggling.
• 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 heart-defect caused stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability, and that defect was repaired. I recovered well enough to return to work at a newspaper; I retired from that almost 13 years ago.

Eat-out with ******

“I’m gonna be very truthful here.”
“Uh-oh........” I thought to myself. “She’s gonna say something she’s afraid might hurt my feelings.”
We were eating out at an Italian restaurant, our weekly eat-out since our other companion was hospitalized.
All of us lost our long-time marriage-mates, me six years ago, the others five.
Now it’s just ****** and me, a super-confident lady in her 60s, versus a 74-year-old geezer loathe to do anything other than write. The other guy was also in his 70s, slightly older than me.
We all came to know each other at various grief-shares.
“Not having children makes grief much harder. Yer children become yer support-system, and also might say something yer marriage-mate mighta said.”
My feelings weren’t hurt. It locked me up = inability to cogitate what she said for lack of similar experience.
This is why I continue eating out with ******. She’s likely to say something worth hearing.
We’re far apart. ****** likes to travel, and I just walk my dog. I also apparently don’t “bore her to death.”
Recently one of her online suitors took her to the same restaurant. “Boring as Hell! He didn’t even ask my background.”
“Tell me all about yer background,” I gushed.
“Do you think I’m intimidating?”
“Probably yes. How does one entertain a ******?”
But I think I may be more intimidating myself. I know who I am, and like it. ****** may have lost a husband who made her more sure of herself.
I too lost “the best friend I ever had,” but for whatever reason I was already happy with who I was. I could stand alone. I got an extremely perfect wife, and don’t expect to replace her.
I miss having my wife around, but I can entertain myself.
As I understand it, ****** also had a difficult childhood. But in my case that made me able to entertain myself.
I hope ****** and I keep eating out together. We discuss her various suitors. “I really like this one,” she says, showing me an iPhone picture.
“Looks Republican,” I snap.

You wanna listen to this?

“You wanna keep listening to this?” I kept asking a lady I didn’t know. She met me earlier at Kershaw Park north of Canandaigua lake. I was walking my dog.
We met again. It wasn’t the supermarket, so we weren’t blocking aisles.
Somehow we started talking about my dreadful childhood. “Are you sure you wanna keep hearing this?” I asked. “This is long ago. It’s a sob-story.”
“It’s interesting,” she said; “but you can stop if you want.
If yer south Jersey how did you end up here.”
“Chasing my wife-to-be I guess. But that was Rochester at first.”
“Why Rochester?”
“Escaping my hyper-religious parents,” I said.
“That’s interesting. My parents were extremely Catholic,” she noted. “You Catholic too?”
“Nope,” I said. “My parents were tub-thumping, Bible-beating Baptists. My father was incensed I couldn’t worship him as worthy of the right hand of Jesus.
That made me rebellious and of-the-Devil. And above all stupid. As if I could lead a rebellion. That’s Patrick Henry.”
Yada-yada-yada-yada. Also the Hilda Q. Walton School of Sexual Relations. Hilda was my neighbor and Sunday-School Superintendent. All men, including me, were disgusting.
Mix that with overly judgmental parents, and imagine what that does to a callow five-year-old.
“My mother later became depressed my father was turning me away. I had to split. Run away from home, I guess.”
“So now you seem okay.”
“Sorta. You don’t just flip-flop a childhood like that.
The fact I’m even talking to you has Faire Hilda and my parents spinning in their graves!”
And much to my father’s angry chagrin I didn’t return the Prodigal Son. (“Slay the fatted calf,” etc. —What, pray tell, does the fatted calf think?)

The incredible iPhone camera

“We meet again,” said one of two pretty ladies as I walked Killian, my rescue Irish Setter, yesterday at nearby Boughton Park.
One had hair as red as Killian.
They had greeted us earlier — me and my chick-magnet.
“It looked like one of you guys was taking photographs,” I said.
“That would be me,” red-head said.
I took my iPhone out of my pants-pocket. “I’ve said this a thousand times. This is the best camera I ever had. And I also have a Nikon D7000. You see which one I carry.”
“Yep,” red-head said. “Carry it in yer pocket, and get fabulous photographs. Even manipulate.”
“What I do is e-mail ‘em home to manipulate with my Photoshop. And I hardly hafta do anything.
All I do is ‘shaddup-and-shoot;’ the iPhone is doing the technical stuff. That allows me to be more aware of composition.”
“In college I was a photo-editor, and was always altering tonality,” red-head said.
“So you remember darkroom days,” I said. “Brown finger-tips.....”
“....and the toxic smell of fixer,” red-head added.
“You probably also know what ‘burning and dodging’ are.”
“Yep,” red-head said. “Did ‘em all the time.”
“My brother took a fall-foliage photo, and I boosted the color-saturation with Photoshop. ZOW-EEE WOW-EEE,” I said. “You couldn’t do that 40 years ago.”
I hated to leave, but Killian was barking: “Come down outta that tree and fight!”
“There’s something else I wanted to say here, but I forget. I’m sure I’ll remember in a little while.”
“Enjoy yer photography,” they said as they walked away.
I remembered later. “This iPhone must be shooting through a pinhole. The depth-of-field is incredible.”
I bet red-head would get it.

• A “rescue Irish setter” is usually an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill — or perhaps its owner died. (Killian was a divorce victim.) By getting a rescue-dog I avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Killian was fine. He’s my fifth rescue.
• “Burning and dodging” are part of photographic printing. Print-paper and film sensitivity are more extreme than the eye. Print a negative to print-paper and usually the sky — clouds — bleach out. That area gets additional exposure = “burn-in.” Dark areas of a print usually over-expose, so what information may be on the negative gets lost. To save that, one “dodges” that area = blocks exposure with a piece of cardboard, whatever.
• RE: “Boosted the color-saturation.......” —Reds are more red, yellows more yellow, greens more green, etc.
• A “pinhole” is a tiny light-emitting hole that projects any image passing through it — the hole is as if done with a pin. A small pinhole will project near-infinite depth-of-field (area in focus), like from infinite to almost to the pinhole. An iPhone is in focus from infinite down to almost a foot or two. The wider the lens (not a pinhole), less will be in focus.

Another late night

Last night yrs trly stumbled upon a video posted to the Facebook of my aquatic therapy instructor.
It was how to take impressive iPhone photographs. It prompted a deluge on my part — another late night.
It’s because I consider my iPhone camera mind-blowing. My aquatic instructor also has an iPhone. Some of my photos on this blog were iPhone. Take a photo, then e-mail it home for Photoshop if needed — often it’s just crop and resize.
My iPhone camera was reason to stop carrying my Nikon D7000, a bulky digital single-lens reflex. I’d be walking my dog at a nearby park, and often I came upon a “photographer” photographing lovers.
“This thing is fabulous,” I say, unholstering my iPhone. “When are Nikon and Canon gonna catch up?”
The “photographer” was usually driving a megabuck digital single-lens reflex, often with a gigantic telephoto lens. Lovers are around 80-100 mm, not 300. Why are “photographers” driving telephotos? To me the test of a photographer is how well they drive wide-angle. It requires an eye for composition, plus imagining what you’ll get.
I don’t consider myself a photographer. I take photographs of trains, and became aware of lighting. I have some idea of composition, but really I’m just “shaddup-and-shoot.”
Artistic input is to peruse my photos and decide what worked. There are photos I planned, but didn’t work.
Train-photography with an iPhone doesn’t work. I think an iPhone opens shutter-speed to allow low light. I shoot “shutter-priority” with my Nikon. I need 1/500th or even 1/1000th to stop a train. My brother’s “point-and-shoot” compares to my D7000, but often it widens shutter-speed blurring a locomotive-front.
Beyond that with an iPhone I don’t get a viewfinder. I compose better in a viewfinder, and the image displays only on the iPhone screen. My Nikon also has a large screen to display the image, but I use the viewfinder.
A viewfinder puts the shutter-trip right in-my-face. With an iPhone I gotta hold at arms-length to view the image, and the shutter-trip is also at arms-length. What I get is spastic, especially if it’s moving.
The video had interesting suggestions, but failed to note the importance of lighting and composition. We were told to “pay attention;” that extraordinary photos are all around us. It displayed two ho-hum photos of grass and wood flooring. The wood flooring was fairly interesting because of its pattern of light and shadows — not noted.
The video also failed to note the most grievous error of Smartphone photographs. No verticals please. Rotate yer camera 90 degrees. Most photos are horizontal. Yer TV is horizontal. —My niece’s daughter, a millennial, implied I was stupid to suggest she rotate her iPhone camera.
Nevertheless I’m impressed with my iPhone camera. My mother’s Instamatic was antediluvian.

• RE: “Train-photography......” —I’m a railfan, and have been well over 70 years.

She had a point

(Sorry readers. I can’t put a picture of the e-mail on here due to insanity from PhotoBucket, my usual image-source. I’m trying to set up my own domain to escape PhotoBucket.)

I and my aquatic therapy instructor at the Canandaigua YMCA happen to be Facebook “friends.”
I’m glad we are, even though I do little with Facebook.
The fact we’re “friends” is due to a fast-one by SuckerBird and his cronies. Explaining that would contradict my “One Topic per Blog” rule.
She penned a reverie about how pleasant life was growing up in her little town. I didn’t comment, wanting to not pop her balloon.
I got Facebook e-mail notification, I think.
My childhood was dreadful: constant fear of being “rumbled” (her word was “fight;” my word is “mugged”), shot with a zip-gun, or slashed by a switch-blade. Plus continual badmouthing by my hyper-religious parents.
My childhood was in south Jersey, the den-of-iniquity for Quaker Philadelphia.
But she had a point. Namely how unpleasant life has become compared to back then.
A recent e-mail reminded of this. I got notification, supposedly from Wells Fargo bank, my debit-card was frozen. Suspicious activity, it claimed.
Uhm, I don’t have a debit-card. I don’t even have a Wells Fargo account — that I know of. Weren’t they the bank accused of opening unauthorized accounts to meet sales goals?
This was my second Wells Fargo notification. A few weeks ago I trashed another e-mail notification from “VNB,” allegedly a bank, although I never heard of ‘em.
The Wells Fargo e-mail was another multicolored notification, elegant and valid-looking.
My aquacise instructor justifiably decries we gotta lock our doors. Ne’er-do-wells didn’t seem to be so profligate in the ‘60s or ‘70s — ‘50s for me.
My childhood was frightening, but she had a point.
What if I get an e-mail saying my actual credit-card is frozen?
Suspicious as Hell = I’m calling the bank. I bet they tell me the e-mail is a scam.
“VNB” claimed my credit-card was frozen. It wasn’t. Unlike most I have only one credit-card (gasp!), and it ain’t “VNB.”
Fifty/sixty years ago we weren’t awash with vipers. She had a point.

• “SuckerBird” is Mark Zuckerberg, head-honcho of Facebook.
• A “zip-gun” is a rudimentary pistol. The lower mast of a car-radio antenna is the same internal diameter as a .22 caliber bullet. A gun can be made with that antenna-mast to shoot .22 caliber bullets. Zip-guns were common — punks and “greasers” had ‘em; cue Bruce Springsteen.
• A “switch-blade” is a pen-knife opened by spring-button — instead of manually pulling out the blades.
• Today (Sunday, September 9th) I received another frozen account notification, this supposedly from Bank of America. I’m not Bank of America; my credit-card is another bank. In the trash! (It’s no longer the world I was born into.)

One topic per blog

My aquatic therapy instructor and I both have iPhones; which allow us to text each other. That allows me to ask questions without distracting her from another client.
Except it became more than that, the bane of a liberal-arts college-grad — me — prone to excess verbiage. I can recite Shakespeare’s 116th sonnet from memory, but the microwaves in my supermarket Market-Café are beyond comprehension.
Occasionally I delete from our long text-strings, and perhaps 95% is ME. Which is fine pertaining to her, but that indicates I’m saying too much.
Worse yet are texts I regret sending. They’re like e-mail; I can’t get ‘em back. I can retract published blogs, but not e-mail or text.
The average person can’t handle a torrent of verbiage. I get such torrents occasionally from a guy I went to college with, and enjoy reading ’em. 500+ words on average. Delicious for me, but overkill for most.
I think he enjoyed my calling our get-together at our 50-year college reunion “A Conclave of Heathens.” Our college was religious, and we weren’t.
My texts are always too long. Occasionally that instructor sends a text of similar length, but more often I say “you actually read all that?” referring to a previous text from me.
I recently instituted limitations to my word-generation:
—1) No more than one topic per text.
—2) If it doesn’t pertain to aquatic therapy, don’t send it. Shooting-the-breeze is best done face-to-face, or not at all. It’s not fair to lob excess verbiage at that lady.
—3) It’s text, man; not “War and Peace.” The fewer words the better = cut-cut-cut!
I use voice-recognition, then edit. “You don’t need that” = ZAPP!
My text-app makes suggestions. Often they’re only one word.
Engage old Mighty-Mezz rule: “Keep it short.”
The fact my aquacise instructor is not a word-geek is not depressing. (Maybe she is.....) She’s a nice lady, a pleasant offset to my word-geek college friend, who I also enjoy.
She’s also an easy-smiler, and I wish I could be. That’s another story. One topic per blog.

• “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds. Or bends with the remover to remove. O NO! It is an ever-fixed mark; That looks on tempests, and is never shaken. It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.” —Opening lines of Shakespeare’s 116th sonnet.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost 13 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 heart-defect caused stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well. That defect was repaired.)

******

“You want someone ‘normal?’” I said to ******. “Why, pray tell, would you hang out with me?”
“Yer funny,” she said. “Not boring as Hell.”
Perhaps it’s because I’m like her deceased husband: snide remarks, wry comments, put-downs, etc.
For example: “It’s not a date until I pay for yer meal!” “I’ll hafta forget my wallet.” “I’ll bail you out, but I expect to get repaid.”
****** and I are far apart. Except we both lost our beloved marriage-mates, ****** five years ago, and me six.
Our friendship began with a third person, a guy who lost his longtime wife five years ago. A daughter suggested I eat out with him, which relieves me of cooking a meal.
I met my widower friend earlier at a church grief-share. He was distraught. I thought I could help. ****** might also have come to that grief-share.
Eons ago ****** and her husband founded a successful local business. She sold after her husband died.
Later we all moved to a hospital support-group, although that didn’t last long. I suppose by then we no longer needed grief support, although that was three years ago, and only now am I returning to reality — or so it seems.
****** occasionally ate out with me and my widower friend, although recently he fell, plus he might have had a stroke. He was hospitalized.
So now it’s just me and ******, a super-confident lady in her 60s, versus a clumsy 74-year-old loathe to do anything. I enjoy the company of ladies, but don’t need it. I get by on-my-own; plus I know who I am, and like it.
****** enjoys men, and is outgoing enough to pursue. She’s involved in online “Silver-Singles” (whatever), and I’m not interested.
This often leads to “dates.” Some widower took her to dinner, but was “boring as Hell.” Poor guy. How does anyone entertain a ******? “He didn’t even ask my background!”
So here we are: me a complete opposite of ******, but apparently not “boring.”
“Yer dog actually likes you?” ****** snaps.
“Follows me room-to-room. He knows I’m the park-dude.”
“Don’t gimme that!” ****** yells. I noted I needed a nap after walking my dog.
“Pup!” I shouted. “Early 60s ain’t 70s. Plus you just told me you fagged out after four days babysitting yer grandchildren.”
RE: the guy who took her to dinner.... —Probably afraid of freaking her out.
I, on the other hand have a habit of saying things that get me in trouble. Who was to know my penchant for snide remarks would appeal to ******?
(Does it? I haven’t lost her yet.)

• The other day ****** and I visited my widower friend in a local VA hospital. He was tired, but looked good.

My calendar for September 2018

61N, a “slabber” at Cassandra Railroad Overlook, returns empty for more steel slabs. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

Sorry readers. I can’t put the calendar-picture on here due to insanity from PhotoBucket, my usual image-source. I’m trying to set up my own domain to escape PhotoBucket.

—“How come you always prefer yer photos over mine?” my brother asked.
“WHOA, dude!” I said. “That’s not how it works; if you got the better picture, I use yours. If I got the better picture, I use mine.
And the chooser is ME. If you don’t like what I chose, you do the calendar.”
It just so happens 10 of the photos in this year’s calendar are mine, but only three are my brother. The cover is also mine, but I’ve used his.
The September picture is my brother. It’s train 61N, an eastbound empty “slabber,” on Track One at Cassandra Railroad Overlook. “Slabbers” transfer heavy steel slabs to a distant rolling-mill. There the slabs get rolled into steel sheet, usually for auto-body parts or appliances.
The train is all open gondola cars loaded westbound with two thick steel slabs per car. 61N is returning empty for another load. Loaded a slabber can be heavy enough to need helpers over Allegheny Mountain.
Slabbers run extra, and don’t work at track-level. A train of all gondolas is not as photogenic as regular boxcars or a stacker. If I’m at track-level and hear an approaching slabber on my scanner: “Aw Man!”
I’ve noticed a slabber becomes photogenic if I’m above the train. I did one in Altoona from a pedestrian overpass, but my brother’s pic is fabulous. Cassandra Railroad Overlook is an old bridge over the old Pennsy main near Cassandra.
A Union Pacific locomotive is in the lashup. It could be run-through, but my guess is it’s a Union Pacific cast-off purchased and overhauled by Norfolk Southern, then returned to service before repaint.
North of Altoona are Pennsy’s old Juniata Shops, a gigantic facility to repair locomotives. It used to be steamers, but now it’s diesel. It also used to construct locomotives.
My guess is Juniata Shops are partly why Norfolk Southern wanted to buy the old Pennsy segment of Conrail. I went through Juniata Shops back in 1999 when Norfolk Southern took over. Most memorable was a gigantic EMD V16 hanging from an overhead crane.
Hundreds of Union Pacific castoffs await rebuilding in Juniata Shops. I think Union Pacific 5204 is an SD70M (not positive), not young, but not old.
I also doubt Union Pacific has a Juniata Shops. So auction the marginals, then let Juniata Shops rebuild ‘em. Railroads even subcontract to Juniata Shops. Juniata has even built new engines for manufacturers.