My calendar for May 2019

11J passes 26T in front of Altoona’s Amtrak station. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

—The May 2019 entry of MY calendar begins pictures taken by my brother Jack.
It’s train 11J, all auto-racks, westbound on Track Two, passing 26T, an eastbound stacker on Track One.
We are at Altoona’s Amtrak station. Amtrak’s Pennsylvanians, both eastbound and westbound, have to use Two. Normally One is eastbound, but Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian, has to be on Two so passengers don’t have to cross a track.
But it’s afternoon, so order is restored. One is back to eastbound, and Two is only westbound. The eastbound Pennsylvanian on Two is morning.
Amtrak’s Pennsylvanians are the only passenger trains left on this railroad. There used to be hundreds. And of course Amtrak is not Norfolk Southern. The railroad is Norfolk Southern, but Amtrak only has trackage-rights. The Pennsylvanians are subsidized by the state of PA.
There are two pedestrian overpasses near Altoona’s Amtrak station. The one my brother is on is covered. The second, visible, isn’t. Vagrants call the covered overpass “the elevator bridge;” the uncovered overpass only has stairs.
My brother likes either overpass, and always includes “Altoona Pipe & Steel” in his pictures. Altoona Pipe & Steel is the large warehouse visible top-right. It’s adjacent to the track, and has a siding.
The overpasses cross the railroad to Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum. Altoona used to be Pennsylvania Railroad’s shop-town. It employed thousands.
Pennsylvania Railroad is no more. Its railroad still exists, but it’s now Norfolk Southern.
My brother probably took the picture alone while I was driving to Altoona. He shows up a day before me, and also takes copious notes. I’m more interested in “throttle-to-the-roof” and “assaulting the heavens,” but we got so we pretty much know what to expect.
11J and 26T are regularly scheduled; coal and crude-oil run extra, as do trash, steel slabs, ethanol, and maybe grain. Railroading has gravitated toward “unit trains” = trains that avoid yarding. Yarding is time-consuming.
11J is all car-carriers, and it could be said a stacker like 26T is also a unit-train. It’s just double-stacked well-cars, and it runs loading to unloading.
“Mixed freights” are loose cars assembled into a train in a yard. Quite a few “mixed freights” are regularly scheduled, and don’t seem to have the priority of a stacker.
The railroad also runs “Trailer-on-Flatcar” (TOFC), and some are top-priority. 21E is the vaunted “UPS-train;” guaranteed cross-country service for UPS trailers, and now FedEx too. 21E gets top priority, all bow = no delay.
My brother noisily insists 21J is another UPS-train, but my Altoona railfan friend says 21E is the UPS-train. Tempest-in-a-Teapot, as far as I’m concerned. Most TOFC trains get two locomotives; 21E gets three. But I’ve seen 21J with three locomotives.
My brother keeps a crib-sheet he got from the Internet, but my Altoona railfan friend was a railroader. I don’t care that much; what I want is action.
And on Norfolk Southern’s old Pennsy main across PA I get it. Wait 15-20 minutes and here comes another — sometimes more frequent than that.
West of Altoona is Allegheny Mountain, once the barrier to trade with our nation’s interior. To conquer it helper-locomotives get added, and all locomotives are “assaulting the heavens” climbing the mountain.
“Throttle-to-the-roof” is steam-locomotive parlance. Wide-open-throttle in a steamer is the hinged throttle-lever taken to the cab-roof. “Run Eight” is full fuel-delivery in a diesel locomotive.)

“You talkin’-a’ me?”

That’s Robert De Niro playing Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976).
I was in the Canandaigua YMCA swimming-pool last Saturday doing my usual on-my-own balance-training.
My widow-friend, older than me, had already waved hello, and now I was poolside, stretching. I was facing out of the pool.
Suddenly my widow-friend was behind me striking up a conversation. I was stunned. “You talkin’-a’ me?”
I managed to engage, despite being flummoxed at first. Later I realized she might have been put off by my being so confused.
“A little history,” I said.
“My parents were Bible-beating Baptists. At an early age I was told I was stupid and reprehensible because I couldn’t worship my father.
‘No one will ever talk to you!’ I was told.”
She gave me a pained look, then told me the reason she skipped an eat-out was because her daughter came home from France.
A few of us eat out once per week. We’re all bereaved, and pay for our own meals. I had invited her.
“I had to do tons of laundry,” she said.
“So you’re the laundry-lady,” I snapped.
She laughed. Order restored. I love to see her laugh; she lights up the pool.
“They marked me for life,” I said. “That’s why I was flustered when you first talked to me. But that was all 70 years ago. I usually don’t say anything because it’s a sob-story.
When someone singles me out for conversation, especially female, I am stunned.”
“No pretty girl will ever talk to you!”

• I do aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool, two hours per week — plus a third hour on my own.
• “No girl will talk to you” is the infamous Hilda Q. Walton, my neighbor and Sunday-School Superintendent when I was a child. She convinced me all pants-wearers, including me, were SCUM; my parents heartily agreed. I’ve since discovered this was bunk.

Walkin’ the dogs

“Any chance I can interest you in walking our dogs together again?”
I would ask that to my aquacise instructor.
“It’s always me and Killian, but it would be more fun if you and Maya were along.”
Last summer that aquacise instructor and I walked our dogs three times in quick succession, and it seemed the third time she was waiting for me.
That went to my head. Friends advised me to be more forward, but it was my fault for taking their advice.
It’s the old boy-girl waazoo, which I’m no good at after 44&1/2 years of happy marriage. It’s like I did everything I could to make our being friends impossible.
There’s also the fact she’s my aquacise instructor. Our being friends is out-of-character.
All she can say is “no.” That would be tragic, since she’s the only dog-person I know.
There’s perhaps another, but I’ve never met her dog.

• I do aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool, two hours per week — plus a third hour on my own.
• “Killian,” is my current dog, a “rescue Irish-setter.” He’s ten, and is my seventh Irish-Setter, an extremely lively dog. 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.
• My aquacise instructor’s dog is a Samoyed named “Maya.”
• My wife died seven years ago.

Dreamin’

Compare this picture to the church pictured in my recent Hilda Q. Walton blog. (That pik is 1992.) (iPhone photo in 2018 by BobbaLew.)

—Erlton Community Baptist Church is no more.
That was in my dream three mornings ago before awakening. I went to that location in my dream and Erlton Community Baptist Church was completely gone.
That’s an extrapolation of my contact last Thanksgiving when I found it was no longer a church. It became a school.
The actual church-building was still there, but stripped of its steeple (see picture above). And my neighbor’s Sunday-School addition was still there, the large flat-roofed two-story brick edifice behind the church.
Which was probably why it became a school. Except it has a church-building attached, replete with sanctuary and baptismal font. My guess is the school is probably a Christian academy. But what, pray tell, do they do with a baptismal font?
In my dream the church building was entirely gone, along with the earthen fill that allowed a basement. All that remained was my neighbor’s Sunday-School addition.
My hyper-religious father and that neighbor, the infamous Hilda Q. Walton, the Sunday-School Superintendent, who I’ve blogged many times, brought Erlton Community Baptist Church into being. It was an attempt to bring religious fervor to our Philadelphia suburb in south Jersey.
They got an abandoned chapel and rehabbed it into a church.
Our suburb exploded in population after WWII. Our new church was quickly overwhelmed. It needed expansion, plus additional land on which to expand. Land was given, but our church needed to be moved to it. That involved temporarily closing a major highway. That was 1948 or ’49.
In its new location the old chapel was raised up on blocking so a basement could be built underneath. The building was lengthened so what had been three windows per side became five.
The front was extended to include stairs to the basement. I don’t remember if our first church had a baptismal font, but if not one was added. An old side-wing remained, but my neighbor advocated a huge Sunday-School addition. That was her gigantic two-story brick edifice added in 1954 or ’55. It totally mismatched the old wooden church-building.
That addition is probably why our church became a school. Why Erlton Community Baptist Church tanked I have no idea. It probably ran out of zealots. Plus that church was kinda small. There was talk of widening the sanctuary, but that was never done. That woulda required a complete rebuild.
What’s pictured above is how it’s been since 1949; minus its steeple, of course. Part of my neighbor’s Sunday-School addition is also visible.
Finding my old church defunct was depressing, but it was also the vehicle for making me feel inferior as a child. I could say my parents were always calling me “Of-the-Devil,” but my Fort Lauderdale niece notes all humans are “Of-the-Devil” before seeing the light.
“Stupid” or “disgusting” might be more correct. I was also “rebellious” for not worshiping my father as worthy of the right hand of Jesus.
Some will rightly criticize bringing up my dreadful childhood again. That’s all long ago, and Hilda’s insistence “No pretty girl will talk to you” has been thoroughly skonked.
But they marked me for life, such that revisiting my childhood is extremely depressing. So far I’ve done it twice, and never will I do it again.
And now the church my father helped found is no longer a church.
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on.”

• Our church was originally called “Ellisburg Community Baptist Church,” since it was originally in nearby Ellisburg. The move transferred it into Erlton.
• That final quote is from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.

Welcome to the blogosphere

“I was so aghast I decided to retire from the business the next day.”
That was my good friend Rob Hartle of Syracuse blog-complaining about the posturing of a self-proclaimed “writer.” She was badmouthing his pointing out numerous spelling and grammar errors in a proposed book he was to edit.
Rob and I worked together years ago at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper. He was a graphic-designer creating ads, and I worked in “news” doing anything and everything — sort of an Editorial Assistant.
Also at the Messenger was the Executive Editor, a graduate of Houghton College like me. He too was obsessed with correct spelling and grammar — we Houghton-grads were like that: “get it right!”
Rob was “aghast” this so-called writer took him to task for discovering her errors. “No one cares about that any more,” and “that’s my style.”
“You tell ‘em, BossMan,” I’d say to the Executive Editor when he took flak for pointing out errors. I think the reason he refused to lay me off, despite my post-stroke addlement, was because I thought like him = “get it right.”
Rob decided to begin blogging. I hereby render my blog-secrets having done it perhaps 15 years.

Most important is to get read. For that to happen you hafta not bore or turn off readers. I call this “The Messenger jones.” Most readers, especially of newspapers, are not that literate. Yer object is not to display yer own literacy, but to attract the illiterate.
This blog gets maybe 15 hits on average — sometimes quite a few more. I “Facebook” these blogs, and e-mail 25-35 blog-links. I write pretty good, but don’t require my blogs get read. Facebook might get 1-3 hits; my e-mail links 10-30.
Anything can be “blog-material,” especially if it’s whacko.
Some of my blogs are railfan or automobile oriented. “I skip the railroad blogs = too technical!”

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Herewith my blog-secrets.
—1) Start with a quote. Not always, but readers love dialog. (That’s my second secret — read on......) The quote leading this blog is direct from Rob’s e-mail, minus a “that.” (Another secret.) A quote is likely to draw in a reader. As we used to say at the Mighty Mezz: “If we get ‘em past the first sentence, we’re doin’ good.”
—2) Let dialog tell the story. You’ll hafta make it up. Actual dialog is messy. Readers prefer dialog over self-exposition.
And never go beyond what you heard. All yer doing is making what you heard sensible.
—3) Let your readers fill in the blanks. You don’t hafta explain everything. Readers love filling in blanks. I was guilty of this years ago, but my wife stopped it. Explaining everything bores readers.
—4) “Keep it short.” That’s an editor at the Mighty Mezz. Cut-cut-cut! “You don’t need to say that.” Say too much and you bore readers. Reduce verbiage = as spare as possible. I can usually reduce multiple words to one. Sometimes I delete an entire sentence or paragraph.
A retired RTS bus-driver tells me the same. This blog can get nationwide readers; but mostly doesn’t. If something needs explaining I might footnote it. Readers can skip footnotes.
—5) Avoid obscure words. Joe Sixpak is not gonna drag out his Funk & Wagnalls to look ‘em up. He’ll cast yer blog aside. (At the Mighty Mezz we said “fish-wrap,” or “line the bottom of the birdcage.”)
Obscure words are okay, but only in self-defining context. “Aghast” was questionable, but was in self-defining context — plus I ain’t deleting a key word from Rob’s quote.
—6) Avoid passive voice. That’s something taught in Creative-Writing class. I used to do word-searches for “have” and “had,” also “‘ve” and “‘d.” I’d use passive voice by mistake, but not any more. These blogs get five or more read-throughs. Sometimes passive voice is required, but usually it’s not.
—7) I also did word-searches for “that.” Most times “that” can be trashed.
—8) “The participles go dingle-dangle-dingle.” This is just a way of saying grammar matters, along with spelling and case.
At the Messenger CONSERVATIVES loudly cleaned out the ears of our head-honcho. They claimed the reason we made mistakes was because we were “liberial” (the kerreck CONSERVATIVE spelling).
—9) Read your blog through; multiple times even. What you wrote can often get perceived different than you meant. I try, but my proofer is gone, she died seven years ago. I hafta rely on myself, and months later I often hit misperceptions.

Blogging is really self-exposition, but you hafta make it attractive to get readers.

So “welcome to the blogosphere” Rob. Don’t be surprised if you leave it. I only do it because I so much enjoy slinging words (writing). The Hughes muse never shuts up! Blogs come to mind as I walk my dog at the park or on a rail-trail.
Sometimes I get an opening quote. Then off-we-go, and “get-it-right” factors in.
A friend wants me to edit a proposed memoir, but she can’t get started. That’s okay, most people aren’t word-slingers, but I am. I also don’t wanna lose a friend with my blog-secrets.
My bereavement-counselor tells me I’m lucky to not be bored by retirement, as many are. I like slinging words!

• 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 time at the “Mighty Mezz” (Messenger newspaper) began about two years after my stroke, first as an unpaid intern. They hired me in ’96, and it became the best job I ever had. —I was employed there almost 10 years — over 11 if you count my time as an unpaid intern.
• 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 ended that. I retired on medical-disability, and that defect was repaired. I recovered well enough to return to work at the Messenger newspaper; I retired from that over 13 years ago.
• My wife was my proofer. She died seven years ago.
• My 12th-grade English-teacher told me I wrote extremely well. I thought him joking. “But Dr. Zink (his name was Zink), all it is is ‘slinging words.’” —“Hughes, you do that extremely well.”

“You’re angelic”

“Hooray-hooray! I was hoping I might run into you eventually.”
I said that to *****, a lifeguard at the Canandaigua YMCA swimming-pool where I do aquatic balance-training.
I have a story, if you wanna hear it,” I said.
“Sure,” she said. (This is so amazing.)
It’s not always ***** on duty.
***** and her husband live with her parents in an apartment in the town next to mine.
*****’s mother, age-88, also does the aquatic balance-training, so is in my class.
“I often partner with yer mother,” I told *****. “And I prefer yer mother, since we seem to be cut from the same cloth.
So here we were, your mother behind me, bopping across the pool.
Suddenly I heard your mother utter a nasty word, and it was a four-letter word. It started with ‘S,’ and ended with ‘T.’
‘I heard that,’ I shouted.
‘I can do a lot worse having a bad day at home,’ yer mother said.
‘Don’t forget I drove bus,’ I snapped.
What I usually say to people is “compared to some of the goofballs I parried driving bus, you’re angelic!”

• RE: “this is so amazing.....” —As a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations, I am dumbfounded ladies like ***** wanna talk to me. Hilda was my neighbor and Sunday School Superintendent when I was a child. “No pretty girl will ever wanna talk to you!”
• 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 over 13 years ago.

“So long”

Linda Button Hughes, 1944-2012. (Long-ago photo by BobbaLew. [She’s probably 25.])

—Today’s the day: April 17th.
Seven long years ago, April 16th, 2012, I took my beloved wife to Hospeace House near Naples (NY), a hospice.
My wife gave up — although I should say she gave up after I solved an immense hairball on-my-own. I left magazines and papers in the rear pouch of her wheelchair at faraway Strong Hospital, actually Wilmot Cancer Center (“will-MOTT;” as in Mott’s applesauce), where we decided to stop medicating.
Solving that meant finessing the vaunted Strong Hospital answering-machines, which kept running me in circles.
“I guess I can check out,” she probably said to herself. “He seems able.”
She wanted to remain alive because I was always messy communicating due to my heart-defect caused stroke in 1993.
Her cancer was winning; her legs were swelling again.
Cancer-swollen lymph-nodes in her abdomen were restricting circulation.
She’d already been hospitalized once — due to swollen legs.
Chemo stopped the lymph-node swelling, but we were limited in the amount of chemo. We tried a hyper-expensive alternate chemo, but it didn’t work.
All it did was dangerously reduce her white blood-cell count.
“She’s on fire!” I said looking at her CAT-scan (I think it was a CAT-scan). Cancerous metabolism shows up yellow and red in a CAT-scan.
I wheeled her into Hospeace in a wheelchair; I don’t think she coulda walked. This was the BEST, and only, friend I had until then.
People are amazed we really didn’t have any outside friends — just the two of us.
I could tell stories about my dreadful childhood, and how she reversed it.
My stroke made my speaking somewhat wonky. Particularly phonecalls, and solving extreme problems.
We were a TEAM. My wife was always the one solving problems involving phonecalls.
That ride to Hospeace was our last together; one of many. All the way to the Pacific Ocean in 1980, then Montana and Yellowstone in ’87. Cajon Pass and Tehachapi Loop in CA. Mulholland Drive Overlook in the Hollywood Hills.
And how many times to Horseshoe Curve in PA, especially after my stroke?
I probably got more difficult as I aged, but she always hung with me. She probably hurt, but she wouldn’t tell me.
“Don’t forget,” I told her during that last ride. “You always had what matters: what’s between the ears.”
She still seemed fairly lucid — I think she understood. But her fabulous mind was fading as death approached.
Yet for some unknown reason I felt I’d eventually be taking her home. No one ever escapes hospice alive.
“I had a pretty good life,” she said earlier. She claimed she was happy, yet she also had a difficult childhood. Her mother raised her to be a frump.
And here I came along thinking she could be pretty. “You get rid of them bat-wings (glasses) and you’ll look a lot prettier.” Her mother was appalled.
She coulda done better than someone like me who’s half-insane. But she probably felt I was what she deserved.
She always liked me; what attracted her in college. The fact I thought so independently, making cogent wisecracks and snide remarks that skewered conventional wisdom.
I also could make her laugh = something I delivered to other young honeys. “*****, yer gonna get married some day. Whatever ya do marry someone who makes ya laugh. Do that and yer in it for the long haul.”
“I have wonderful news,” I told my wife once. “Of all the places on this vast planet Santa could visit, he’s coming to tiny West Bloomfield.”
“This is why I married you,” my wife said. She always told me the reason we made 44&1/2 years is because I could make her laugh.
Her mother was convinced we wouldn’t last a year.
And now our time together was drawing to a close. She was the one good for 100; her mother made it, outliving her daughter. I might make 100, but I kinda doubt it. Neither of us smoked, drank, or did drugs. Plus we ate healthy, and used to run.
I visited the following day, April 17th. I also took our dog. My wife was so drugged on morphine I’m not sure she knew I was in the room. Our dog was in there too.
I was told she might awake, so I put our dog in the car.
Finally I left; she never awoke. “So long,” I said, touching her hand.
Hospeace called that night to say she “passed;” hospice-speak for “died.”
We’d already made funeral arrangements: She’d be cremated; her ashes scattered around a sugar-maple her father bought us years ago. Her father was long-gone, but she always liked that sugar-maple. She felt she was her father’s daughter — her mother was a pill.
So now it’s seven years. And finally I feel like I’m returning to the real world. A grief-share I attended said a year-and-a-half, a kid brother suggested two years. A co-leader of that grief-share, who I now am friends with, said she’d never tell anyone seven years.
I suppose one never gets over something like this. But for a long time I felt like I wasn’t living in the real world. Such that I notice things seem more real now than before.
My stroke also took away reality — that lasted 10 years.
And now I am no longer who I was while married. Far more sociable than I was then, when I didn’t need to socialize already having someone who liked me.
And females no less. “No girl will ever talk to you,” versus all the female friendships I’ve made since my wife died.
I always consider my wife Step-Two in leaving a dreadful childhood. College was Step-One.
Now I’m onto Step-Three: mind-blowing success at making lady-friends.
My wife had to die for me to get to Step-Three. If she hadn’t I’d still be at Step-Two.

• 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.
• The only chemo that succeeded was hyper-strong, and might cause heart-problems. It also took away her hair.
• Cajon Pass and Tehachapi Loop in CA, and Horseshoe Curve in PA, are all railfan pilgrimage stops — I’m a railfan. Cajon Pass is Santa Fe Railroad’s climb out of the Los Angeles basin up into the high desert. The railroad is now Burlington-Northern Santa Fe, plus a second railroad is now in the pass: originally Southern Pacific, but now Union Pacific. Tehachapi is where the Southern Pacific railroad climbed the Tehachapi mountains south of San Joaquin Valley. A loop was required to get up to Tehachapi pass — the track passes over itself. (Santa Fe has trackage-rights.) Horseshoe Curve, west of Altoona, PA, is by far the BEST railfan spot to which I’ve ever been. The railroad was looped around a valley to climb Allegheny Mountain without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. The viewing-area is smack in the apex of the Curve; and trains are willy-nilly. I’ve been there hundreds of times, since it’s only about five hours away. “Tuh-HATCH-uh-pee,” and “Kuh-HONE,” (not “Cajun”).
• I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester. (Adjacent is the rural town of East Bloomfield, and the village of Bloomfield is within it.)

Dancing cats

I went all the way to Fort Lauderdale to get this. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

—The other morning when I unplugged my iPhone from my charger it displayed a “memory” I might wanna “share:” pictures from my recent trip to Fort Lauderdale to visit my niece.
I just got back.
No idea specifically who trolled my iPhone photographs, but my guess was SuckerBird and his cronies. Since I just installed Facebook “Messenger” on my iPhone.
But it may be something else, since I had an earlier Fort Lauderdale “memory” which I don’t think was Facebook. Some background program sorted my iPhone photos by location and date, and created a 2017 “memory.”
But I’m more inclined to think this was Facebook. (It wasn’t; read on.....)
Do I really wanna “share” this stuff? La-dee-dah! One picture (above) is of my niece displaying a new wheeled suitcase I bought to replace my cumbersome Ferrari duffel.
I used that duffel to make the trip, angering all-and-sundry. I traded it to my niece’s teenaged son, a lover of exotic cars. I always said that duffel was the closest I’d get to owning an actual Ferrari.
Also suggested were pictures I took of Sammy the Samoyed dog. I took those pictures in a dog-park because my aquacise-instructor, who I text too much, also has a Samoyed.
But I think Sammy was more impressive, mainly because he was so big: a giant white puffball.
Also suggested was a picture of my niece’s German Shepherd that wasn’t one of my photos. My niece took it awhile ago, and “air-dropped” it to my iPhone. Take that, goofballs! I just defeated yer fancy logic!
A friend suggests Facebook is for those lacking a life. I admit I follow my aquacise-instructor’s Facebook most every day — we are “friends.” Mainly because she often posts something worth reading, as opposed to dancing cats.
Another friend says Facebook is for arguing politics. One-up The Donald, or maybe even Limberger (Limbaugh), if that’s possible. Strident bellowing to boost a lie.
That guy says he no longer Facebooks, bringing sweetness and light to his life.

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Now that I’ve actually “shared” the photos, I don’t think it’s Facebook. Something, probably Apple, trolled my iPhone photos, setting aside those from my trip. GPS sorted ‘em into “albums.”
A text was sent from iCloud of all those photos, including one I reshot four ways.
That started a text-string of all those to whom I “shared.” There were only three. I’ve since realized I had other Smartphone users, at least three more.
Of the original three, my baby-sister — don’t call her that, even though we’re 17 years apart, and I drove her and my mother home from the hospital — texted back.
So did my aquacise-instructor. Some of the pictures were I and my niece’s children sticking our tongues out, a Hughes tradition.
With my iPhone I can access all human knowledge. Yet I get tongues out and dancing cats.

• “SuckerBird” is Mark Zuckerberg, founder and head-honcho of Facebook.
• RE: “the tongues out Hughes tradition......” —Years ago we called my mother “Motor-Drive.” She’d flutter ponderously about with her Instamatic photographing all-and-sundry. At a family picnic I hoisted my niece, about age-10 at that time, atop my shoulders, and my mother attacked: “I gotta get a picture.” “Hey Jill,” I said (her name is Jill); “stick yer tongue out.” In that picture both our tongues are out. That quickly became a tradition = all attempts at family photography by my mother were met with tongues out.

“Next time the jet”

Not my penalty-box, but another. (Toilet at lower left, center table folded away.) (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

—So began my journey to Fort Lauderdale via Amtrak.
My niece Jill lives in Fort Lauderdale; she’s my sister’s only child. That sister died over seven years ago of pancreatic cancer, and was slightly younger than me. I’m the oldest.
Catch train 280 to New York City in Rochester at 5:41 a.m. It ran late, but only a few minutes = 6:06 a.m. I had to get up at 3 a.m.
Change trains onto The Silver Meteor, train 97, at Penn Station in New York City.
Penn Station was a madhouse; a wonderful way to feel my age. I took along this ancient laptop, which is incredibly heavy.
(I had everything packed in a duffel.)
“Next time ask for help at check-in,” said an angry Amtrak lady, after I called my retired bus-driver friend in FL via cellphone.
People everywhere, and not enough signage to get me anyplace.
I had to ask the Amtrak police.
“This yer first time?” asked my Meteor car-attendant.
“Not exactly,” I answered. “Auto-Train first.”
“Different equipment,” the attendant said. She told me her name was “Linda.”
“That was my wife’s name,” I said; ”and she’s gone. And here I am doing this alone. Born in the wrong century.”
I staved off crying; my post-stroke lability. It’s slight, but I’d need to explain.
Rochester to NYC was “business-class;” airliner seats with tray-tables, but much roomier than in-yer-face airliner seats.
A snack bar was nearby staffed by an angry attendant, incensed I made him do anything.
My overnight “sleeping compartment,” on the Meteor, was a tiny module next to a center aisle. It’s about four feet by eight feet, and accommodates two. There is an upper berth in the ceiling that drops down, and the two seats fold into a lower berth.
The compartment also has a toilet, and a tiny sink that folds down. A shelf that flaps over the toilet steps up to the upper berth.
You can stand in it: you couldn’t in the Auto-Train roomette. But you clobber things doing so. Along with all the rockin’ and rollin’ you get on the railroad, which was fairly rough; you need sea-legs.
Dinner in the Dining-Car was part of my sleeper accommodation, but it was marginal. I do better in restaurants. Breakfast was pretty good: three pancakes and two sausage-patties.
I texted my aquacise instructor I didn’t sleep well = not a “Chessie-Cat” night. I only had two thin blankets, and things were so tight I couldn’t position the blankets correctly. Most of the night I was cold, despite sleeping in my clothes.

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The Keed is finally in Fort Lauderdale, after enduring Amtrak’s overnight penalty-box.
“So what did you think of the train?” my niece asked.
“Next time the jet!” I snapped.
My niece’s daughter laughed: ”Uncle Bobby is so funny!”
I showed them my picture (above): Amtrak’s Houdini-box.
”Get any sleep?” my niece asked.
“Sorta,” I said. “But the train is a-rockin’ and a-rollin’. Airliner cattle-car seats are terrible, but that’s only five hours, not a day-and-a-half.”
Daughter laughed again at “cattle-car seats.”
“Katie (her daughter’s name is ‘Katie’) likes words Uncle Bobby comes up with,” my niece observed; “plus he always lets ‘er rip.”
Various hairballs came into effect. Worst was my niece’s iPhone gave up making and receiving phonecalls. We discovered this when she attempted to call me.
In south FL this is a disaster, since the portability of cellphones makes communicating by phone a necessity.
At least her text still worked.
Her teenaged son was practicing track at his school. My niece arrived to pick him up. She normally would call his phone, but no-can-do.
We were reduced to text, plus the school had games that cordoned off the athletic-field.
“I’m in the weight-room,” her son texted.
Actually getting to that weight-room took long enough for her son to go elsewhere, thinking his text was lost.
The act of merely picking up her son was taking hours, plus the equivalent of driving to Key West. The impossibility of cellphone communication was turning into an impediment.
That morning we rode “Brightline,” a new train from Fort Lauderdale north to West Palm Beach.
Brightline is a subsidiary of Florida East Coast Railway, and operates on FEC, whereas Amtrak operates on parallel CSX.
“So what did you think of Brightline?” my niece asked.
“I hope it lasts,” I commented.”It’s very pretty, but few were on it.”
Again, my niece’s daughter laughed.
We met my wife’s brother in West Palm, and ate out in a restaurant. He lives in Delray Beach.
“They’re revitalizing Fort Lauderdale’s downtown,” my niece said. Streets were turned into pedestrian walkways, and electric scooters scurried about. They’re activated and paid for by smartphone, after which the user just leaves them when finished. A capital idea, but not for snow.
My niece commented someone might drive off with your scooter while you were inside a store.
I never fell, but I’m slower than most. “You first,” I say.”I’m very slow; an aging geezer.”
Brightline competes with the automobile. Interstate-95 runs parallel, but is often a parking-lot. There also is a parallel commuter-rail that runs on CSX. It also is little-used.
60-70 mph on Brightline, Miami to West Palm, makes sense. Grab a scooter when you get off. Cars are everywhere, but often stopped.
Ya also gotta drive aggressively. Lane lines mean nothing. “CUT ‘IM OFF; CUT ‘IM OFF! The only way to change lanes is barge!
Three more years, and we’re outta here! That’s when Ty graduates high-school. I’m sick of the traffic-jams,” my niece exclaimed. (Ty is my niece’s first-born, now a learner’s-permit car-driver.)

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Last day of a two-full-day “surgical strike,” which I had to explain to my Meteor attendant.
Hairball #2: my niece’s dog had nighttime diarrhea, mounds and mounds, including her crate.
Everything had to be washed, and washing her dog requires two adults. The dog turns into a biting, lunging maniac. Her husband was in AK.
Sudden change of plans. Our annual visit to IHOP® for breakfast was scotched!
My niece is a taxi-mom. She rams all over south FL: drop off Ty, pick me up at my hotel, then take daughter to a softball game.
We watched that game: yelling and screaming by adults, but no fights (sigh). That daughter’s team lost. But “Bad call by the umpire.”
We used to get that at the Mighty Mezz: “How come my bench-warming grandson didn’t make yer “Team-of-the Week?” UZIs sprayed our Sports guys.
“The trouble with yer newspaper is it’s too liberial.” (The kerreck CONSERVATIVE spelling).
Next was dinner preceded by carting around kids. We also took her dog to a dog-park, where I struck up conversations with various ladies. I’ve learned; Faire Hilda and my parents are no longer in command. I’m not the scum I was noisily convinced I was at age-5.
That included talking with a pretty neighbor, a complete stranger, out watering her flowers. My niece noted: I’m much more sociable.  That neighbor looked about 60, but why not? Faire Hilda and my parents are in repose: 14,000 rpm in their graves — enough to power FL south of Orlando.
Contrary to my childhood I’m learning they all were wrong! “No girl will ever talk to you;” yet they love talking with me. I got ladies eating out of my hand! I had to lose the best friend I ever had, and I’m learning this 70 years late.
(That neighbor smiled at me).
And ladies make the BEST conversation — they’re not pulling that macho stuff. Strike up a conversation! If my contact gets defensive, leave her alone. It ain’t my fault = her loss!
My niece made chili, which we ate with corn-bread from the supermarket. That’s what I do. “You better eat them brussel sprouts; children are starving in China!” (That was my mother.)
We then went to “Cherry Smash,” an ice-cream parlor loaded with ‘30s-‘50s bitsa. Statues of Marilyn Monroe over the subway-grate, and the Blues Brothers playing poker.
“Happy Days” played on a TV monitor. Operating model-trains, model hotrods, fortune-telling machines, wavy fun-house mirrors; “Just imagine dusting all this,” I commented.
“Home-made ice cream,” my niece said.
“Does that mean it was made in someone’s home, then brought to the parlor to sell?” I asked. Illegal in FL per my wife’s brother.
I also couldn’t help noticing the aging lovers: some balding dude in his 60s, touchy-feely with a fading tart in her 40s or 50s. Forget the heavy mascara and skimpy clothes; companionship is what matters. Men are no longer hunks at age-60, but they still can talk.
I do way better than I expected: “No girl will ever talk to you,” versus “Talk to me; make me laugh!”
My visit concluded on a sour note: my niece’s son was driving, which began strident bickering between myself and my niece. This obviously depressed her daughter; I wasn’t the wonderful uncle she surmised.
Like her mother and grandmother I too possess the Connor penchant for volume to dominate an argument.
I also drove city-bus = used to bellowing ne’er-do-wells. What I usually did was stop: “I can’t drive this thing with you yelling at me!”
“Connor” was my mother’s maiden-name, and they were Irish = all-knowing know-it-all, knowers of all things.

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So concludes my annual visit to my niece in Fort Lauderdale, entirely different from where I live. Back to the frozen tundra, land of long-underwear and down jackets.
Back to my silly dog, who will be thrilled to see me. My dog is always priority-one. (Bunny-rabbits and deeries beware.)
Back to walking my lunging monster, which seems more normal than otherwise.

Actually I’ve decided train-travel is preferable to airline-travel, as long as it’s convenient, which Amtrak may not be. Fort Lauderdale is also a long trip.
And a roomette is preferable to a room, since close-in walls can catch a fall. It’s also nearly impossible to maneuver a duffel in a roomette.

• Yr Fthfl Srvnt now owns a wheeled suitcase. “I had to go all-the-way to Fort Lauderdale to obtain a wheeled suitcase.” I traded my yellow Ferrari duffel to my niece’s son: a car-guy. (In Fort Lauderdale I had time to do it — at home NOT!)
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments. One stroke-effect is poor emotional control (lability) = tendency to laugh or cry readily. My lability was much worse at first, but now only slight.
• A few weeks ago I Facebooked a picture of my “Chessie-cat” blanket. Years ago a stray cat was found aboard a Chesapeake & Ohio passenger-train. The railroad-crew adopted the cat, naming it “Chessie.” “Chessie” became the railroad’s mascot. The railroad later renamed itself “Chessie System.” —My aquatic-therapy instructor, who I happen to be Facebook “friends” with, “liked” (FB “liked”) that picture, which means she probably now knows what a “Chessie-cat night” is, which my roomette wasn’t.
• I do aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool, two hours per week — plus a third hour on my own. My “aquacise instructor” (“aquatic-therapy instructor”) is the lady who leads my class. That aquacise instructor and I both have iPhones; so can text (although I’ve done it too much).
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 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. (“Canandaigua” is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles from my home.)
• RE: “Faire Hilda.....” —My Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor was the infamous Hilda Q. Walton, who I’ve blogged many times.
• 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 ended that. I retired from RTS on medical-disability.

“Look at that smokebox front!”

(Joe Suo Collection©.)

—The April 2019 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is three of Pennsy’s “Texas” war-babies, the J-1 2-10-4s. The locomotives that taught Pennsy a thing-or-two, or so it seemed.
Pennsy was throwing so much into electrification, it didn’t develop modern steam-locomotives in the ‘30s. It usually did so on its own — it even had a testing department.
Pennsy was also conservative. “Gadgets,” as they called ‘em, that enhanced steam generation, were abhorred. Gizmos could put a locomotive outta service. Pennsy moved mountains of freight. Hundreds of locomotives had to be available.
When WWII broke out Pennsy had many old and tired steam-locomotives. It needed modern steam power, but couldn’t develop anything on-its-own. War restriction wouldn’t allow it.
They had to shop around. Two steam-locomotives were tested: Norfolk & Western’s fabulous A-1 articulateds, 2-6-6-4; plus Chesapeake & Ohio’s T-1 Texas, 2-10-4, built by American Locomotive Company (Alco), but a Lima SuperPower design.
The C&O steamer won, but Pennsy had already tried articulation, and weren’t impressed. They had to go with Chesapeake & Ohio’s T-1 Texan, but without modification. Mechanically it’s C&O’s Texas, with only small Pennsy styling fillips. It couldn’t have the square-shouldered Belpaire (“bell-PEAR”) firebox, the trademark of Pennsy steam.
What it did have was all the “gadgets” that came with SuperPower.
The train at left is stopped in siding to allow the train at right to pass. Everything is J-1; left was doubleheaded. The trains are on the Sandusky line in OH, delivering heavy coal-trains to Lake Erie. The passing train is returning empty for more coal.
Suddenly Pennsy was developing modern steam-locomotives replete with “gizmos.”
Every time I look at this picture: “Look at that smokebox front. It’s HUGE!“
SuperPower was developed by Lima Locomotive Works. A gigantic 100 square-foot fire-grate was allied with a gigantic boiler and combustion-chamber, all to not run outta steam at speed — a hot-rod steam-locomotive.
The first SuperPower locomotives were 2-8-4, named for the Berkshire mountains in western MA, where they triumphed.
2-10-4s were enlarged 2-8-4s, but got into heavy side-rod weight, which Norfolk & Western addressed with its articulated A-1.

• Lima Locomotive Works, in Lima OH, as in “lima-bean” — not “lee-muh.”
• A couple SuperPower Berkshires are left, and two are running. One A-1 remains, but has been retired after recent railfan service. All Pennsy Js were scrapped, as were all C&O T-1s.

I can’t let this go unblogged

Ready-to-roll. (Photo by Mike Usenia.)
—The April 2019 entry in my All-Pennsy color calendar is four Pennsy I1 Decapods (2-10-0) readying for the Mt. Carmel ore-train. Two are visible, and two more are behind.
The I1 was Pennsy’s next step up from 2-8-0 Consolidations. The I1 was developed in 1916, and is essentially a Consolidation with an extra driver-set.
Except the I1 was also gigantic for its time. Enginemen called ‘em “Hippos.” Anything so big might be too heavy on other railroads. But Pennsy’s track and bridges could support a “Hippo.”
Hippos rode rough. Its 62-inch drivers we small. You couldn’t do much counterweighting. Plus 10-drivered side-rods were heavy.
You could get 50 mph out of a Dek if you could stand it. Riding one was like sitting in a high-speed pile-driver.
But the Dek was powerful. They were well-suited for the Mt. Carmel ore-train. 100 cars of heavy iron ore from Northumberland to Mt. Carmel: a 2% ruling grade; that’s two feet up for every 100 feet forward.
Two Deks were in front, and two Deks were behind pushing.
The Mt. Carmel ore-train was a final application of Pennsy’s Decapod. A similar application was the old Northern Central line from Williamsport north to Sodus Point coal-wharf in NY. Especially arduous was the northbound climb out of Watkins Glen to Penn Yan.
If the grade was steep that was great for a Decapod. I have audio recordings of Deks slamming a heavy train upgrade. 598 were built, a large quantity since Decapods weren’t for speedy railroading.
Decapods were draggers: 5-10 mph pulling heavy trains up grades. PA was like that, especially to the west and north. West of PA wasn’t Hippo country.
The calendar floats a questionable caption. It says the ore was turned over to Lehigh Valley to continue to Lake Erie.
I don’t know if that’s right— and they published mistakes before. I always heard the ore was headed for steel-mills in Bethlehem PA.
If their caption is right the ore would run over Lehigh Valley’s Buffalo Extension. To get to Lake Erie, why not all-Pennsy? Lehigh Valley can’t access ore unloaded at Pennsy’s Philadelphia docks. So it travels Pennsy to Northumberland, then over to Mt. Carmel.
There are steel-mills west of Buffalo, but also in Bethlehem. Lehigh Valley’s Buffalo Extension only goes to Buffalo, but ore could be transshipped to those mills.
But I’m more inclined to think the caption is wrong. Bethlehem via Lehigh Valley is more like it.