Things sure are different

—The other night, Wednesday, August 28th, Yr Fthfl Srvnt attended a “celebration-of-life” for one who once worked for the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper.
He was “Maintenance,” so I hardly knew him.
What was supposed to be a somber occasion turned into a chance for Messenger retirees, or ex-Messenger, to get together. To relive the hoary days of the BEST job I ever had, 1996-2005.
The Messenger changed owners soon after I retired. I started as an unpaid intern after my stroke, and they hired me as I recovered.
I drove transit bus before the Mighty Mezz, and my stroke rehab wanted to get my job back driving bus.
I refused.
“But you’ll make a lot more driving bus,” they said.
“But it wouldn’t be fun!” I told them.
Those were glory-days at the Mighty Mezz. We all were rather whacko cranking that newspaper.
A pretty young girl attended this shindig. She wasn’t Messenger. She was relation to the maintenance-man. Not exactly gorgeous, but stately and statuesque, the prettiest girl there. I woulda been scared of her 10 years ago.
I was sitting at a table eating, and she came over and sat across from me. 10 years ago I woulda left the table.
But things are different since my wife died. (That was over seven years ago.)
We struck up a conversation: “I don’t know you,” I said.
She smiled a smile that would brighten the room.
I’m no longer terrified — and she was looking right at me.
Direct eye-contact, me with her. The kind of thing she’s been able to do all her life, and I’m just getting the hang of at age-75.
“You talkin’ a-me?” reprising Robert De Niro in Taxi-Driver.
Things sure have changed since my wife died.
A gigantic flip-flop occurred. As you all know I’m a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations. Hilda was my Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor. Together with my hyper-religious parents she convinced me all men, including me at age-five, were SCUM.
“NO PRETTY GIRL WILL TALK TO YOU!”
Just the other day, walking my dog in nearby Boughton Park, I ran into a lady I’ve seen before. (I blogged that; click the “blog” link readers.)
We stopped on the path and talked a long time. Enough for me to think she might be looking for an out.
“I see gray hairs,” I commented.
That’s a flirt, readers. It meant I noticed her hair, and declared it pretty in an ungoogly way.
She loved it; I’d got the endorphins flowing, and she wouldn’t leave.
10 years ago I coulda never flirted. And 10 years ago I would have avoided that pretty girl at our “celebration-of-life.”
Things sure have changed since my wife died. And I think she’d approve: “At long last he’s beginning to realize he’s not scum.”
I garner many lady-friends just being myself = make ‘em laugh = make the endorphins flow.
That girl told me how women love laughing.
“My dog is waiting,” I said, as I started to leave.
I started out, but saw pretty-girl again on my way out.
I tapped her arm, and told her “it was pleasant meeting you.” (FLIRT ALERT!) (Gasp!) In other words, I made a point of saying goodbye.
She pretty much said the same, smiling broadly while looking directly at me. She said something that indicated her remembering our talking.
I cried driving home afterward; 10 years ago I never coulda done that.
Hilda and my parents spin in their graves! 14,000 rpm; enough to power FL south of Orlando.

• 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.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I worked after my stroke.
• A recent crotch-rocket motorcycle might be capable of 14,000 rpm. A Detroit V8 will start tearing itself apart at 8,000 (if it gets there).

Being walked by my dog at Kershaw Park

All rocks checked! (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

—“Any interest in doing Kershaw?” I ask my silly dog.
Boink! SLAM! Lurch! Bonk! “Sure Boss. LET’S BOOGIE!” Nuzzle-nuzzle.
Off we motor for Kershaw Park at the north end of Canandaigua Lake; Killian barking the whole time, about 15 miles.
“Every weekend I bring Killian to this park to be petted,” I said to someone. “It’s socialization with humans,” I said; “plus socialization for me,” I thought to myself.
Yrs Trly is a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations. Hilda was my Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor. “No one will talk to you!”
Together with my hyper-religious parents she convinced me at age-five I was SCUM.
Most days I take Killian to a park near my house, but we don’t meet many humans. I also walk rail-trails with Killian, but they lack water in summer.
My nearby park has ponds — it used to be a town water-supply. And at Kershaw people put out water-dishes. I don’t let Killian drink out of the lake.
Boink! SLAM! Lurch! Yanka-pull! Retractible-leash at full extension (15 feet). “Looks like he’s taking you for a walk,” some lady says.
Barking at all-and-sundry. “Here comes loudmouth again!”
I have his leash under his belly between his legs. “He’s all tangled up!” some girl says. “That’s intentional,” I say. “Attached above his neck I can barely control him.”
“You need to show your dog who’s boss,” someone says.
“Killian knows who the boss-dog is. ‘No treats unless you eat that supper!’”
“Oh what a pretty dog!” some girl gushes.
“Oh what a pretty girl,” I say to myself.
“Killian, you have no idea,” my hairdresser says.
That silly dog leads me into boy/girl situations I previously avoided. “No pretty girl will talk to you!” per Hilda.
I bet her husband was fooling around.
I walk Killian out onto a pier, and “Oh, I didn’t see you here.”
“Oh what a beautiful dog!” a pretty young girl says.
“Oh what a beautiful girl,” I think to myself. “And here I am talking to her,” thereby skonking Hilda and my parents.
Killian is dragging me into disproving Hilda.
We pass a small brewery where three pretty ladies are outside having beer after outdoors yoga.
“Oh what a pretty dog!” one says; and she’s the prettiest.
“Do I bring him over there?” I ask, 100 yards away.
I was enthusiastically invited, of course.
10 years ago I never woulda done that. Much has changed since my wife died, mainly Hilda and my holier-than-thou parents were WRONG.
RE: Socialization for me. Here comes some dude in tattered jeans. “I’m not wearing my jean-jacket, but your jeans are in the running. Almost as tattered as my jacket.”
That happened on three different occasions. 10 years ago I never woulda said anything. I’d-a kept to myself.
While walking at Kershaw I pass people. I can tell, as can Killian, if I should avoid or get friendly.
Obvious are the smilers. “Oh what a pretty dog!” Yanka-pull! Lurch! Boink!
I try to rein in Killian, but I get pulled toward the smilers.
“Pet me!”
“You know what’s gonna happen if you stop petting? You’re gonna get bonked.”
“Keep it up! I like it!”
“How old is he?”
“10; look at his muzzle. Wildest, craziest 10-year-old I ever had. He’s also a rescue.”
“What’s his name?”
“Killian, as in ‘Killian Irish-Red.’”
“He’s so soft.” Pet-pet.
“And you’re so pretty,” I think to myself. 10 years ago I woulda been scared.
Killian has Hilda and my parents spinning in their graves. 14,000 RPM. Enough to power FL south of Orlando.

• Kershaw Park has rocks between it and the lake to stop wave erosion. Often “bite-size bundles of protein” hide in the rocks.
• The photo has Killian with his Easy-Walk® harness, which I no longer use.
• My hairdresser is a dog-person. He wants to see Killian. I always take Killian along for haircuts.
• A recent crotch-rocket motorcycle might be capable of 14,000 rpm. A Detroit V8 will start tearing itself apart at 8,000 (if it gets there).

“Don’t you wanna stop talking?”

“I see gray hairs,” I said to a pretty lady I occasionally see when I walk my dog at nearby Boughton Park.
That’s a flirt, readers. I noticed her hair was pretty, and said so in an offhand, unobnoxious way.
She ate it up.
We talked at least 15 minutes. She also was walking her dog.
This was so contrary to how I was brought up. “No pretty girl will talk to you!”
I’m a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations. Hilda was my Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor. Together with my hyper-religious parents she convinced me at age-five I was SCUM.
“Don’t you wanna leave?” I kept thinking.
“No!” Yada-yada-yada-yada.
Topics I usually hold back got discussed:
“What you’re hearing is slight aphasia. I had a stroke almost 26 years ago,” I said.
I’m talking about myself, but no “see-ya-later.” I flirted, as it were, so keep talking. (I got the endorphins flowing.)
“‘A-P-H-A-S-I-A;’ Google it. It can be so bad the person can’t talk. In my case it’s only slight.”
“I don’t hear anything,” she said.
“You don’t, but my brothers do,” I said.
We also discussed lability, another stroke-effect. “You start talkin’ about my wife, and I start cryin’; that’s lability, poor emotional control.
What I always say is I’m running on seven cylinders, as opposed to a V8. Part of my brain was killed, but quite a bit was left,” I added. “My speech-center was killed, but something else is doing it. I also lost nine years of classical piano-training, and I no longer can hold a tune.”
On-and-on it went, our nervous dogs wondering what was going on.
We’re disproving Hilda and my parents. “No pretty girl will talk to you!”
She was probably in her 40s, and married of course. Yet even though my wife is gone, which supposedly makes me a lonely widower, I’m safe because I’m 75.
And not on-the-make, nor lonely.
We’ll meet again; probably another 15 minutes. I look forward to it.
Female company I enjoy, especially having thought I’d never get it.

• My beloved wife died over seven years ago.

It’s the smile

“I need to talk to you,” I said to a cute female therapist at the Thompson Hospital Physical-Therapy department in Canandaigua.
That’s a flirt, readers; and she ate it up. She smiled and flashed her eyes at me.
I never did talk to her — no contact, although I tried. I woulda told her it was her smile.
Weeks ago I pointed out that same thing to her. “Don’t take it serious,” she smiled. “I always do that.”
Not long ago I blogged my very first “girlfriend” — 1962, for crying out loud — whose birthday was August 12th. I included a photo of her, and realized why I was smitten was because she was an easy smiler.
She was sitting on a bench in front of the Lenape Park roller-coaster, smiling.
(Lenape Park is long-gone.)
I realized I’ve always been a sucker for easy smilers. —Despite being a difficult smiler myself.
I did a Google Image-Search of that first girlfriend, and out of almost 330 million Americans, “that looks like her!” I recognized the smile and eyes.
She apparently never married, found religion, and died not too long ago.
I’ve had a Facebook at least 10 years, and happen to be FB “friends” with my Canandaigua YMCA aquacise instructor. —Long story here: “Thanks for the fast-one, Mark!”
Over those 10 years I’ve done two FB “likes;” I don’t do much with Facebook.
One “like” was of a picture my aquacise instructor posted of herself. I actually liked the picture. I realize now the reason I liked it was because she’s smiling in it — same as that first girlfriend.
As you all know I’m a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations: “No pretty girl will smile at you!”
Not too long ago I asked my aquacise instructor to not smile at me. When she does I’m done. Any promises I made to her or myself are toast.
I’m a pushover for easy smilers, probably because of Hilda and her “No pretty girl will smile at you!”
That aquacise instructor isn’t the only one. I make ‘em smile left-and-right. It’s irresistible.
If I learned anything at all since my wife died, it’s -a) flirt = make ‘em smile, and -b) my parents and Hilda were WRONG!
The other day I handed a blog I wrote last January to the lady I blogged about. “I’ll give you this if you don’t consider me some hot-pants loathsome lothario.”
Probably all that registered was “hot-pants,” but it cracked her up.
That’s a flirt, dear readers. I made her laugh.
And I think the ladies love the reaction they get when they smile at me. That therapist, for example.

• I did aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool, two hours per week — plus a third hour on my own. I dropped out for the moment, and am now doing balance training at Thompson Hospital’s Physical-Therapy department in Canandaigua. I also still work out in the YMCA’s swimming-pool.
• “Mark” is Mark Zuckerberg, founder and head-honcho of Facebook.
• My wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012.

Browser wars

Bookmark by bookmark, Apple’s Safari® skonks mighty Firefox®, the Internet browser I used for years.
Now I run two Safari bookmarks.
It started when SuckerBird and his cronies, in infinite wisdom, decided to make Facebook no longer work with Firefox. I couldn’t post anything, and “notifications” hung.
“Maybe it’s Firefox,” said my brother in northern DE. I called him — he’s my Facebook maven.
“They like to do that,” he added. Unannounced of course.
“Try something else,” he noted. I happen to have Safari on this laptop. It came with my OSX.
So I copy/pasted my Facebook address from Firefox into Safari’s address-window.
Viola! That worked.
La-dee-dah! Firefox is my default browser, and I have 89 bazilyun bookmarks.
“Do you wanna make Safari your default browser?”
“Absolutely not! Not as long as it quits when I try to enter my Google-account password.”
I run one other website as background all day. It’s a streamer from a webcam in Cresson, PA. It looks out on the old Pennsylvania Railroad through Cresson. That railroad is now Norfolk Southern.
It’s been kinda flaky recently; like maybe I need to empty my Firefox cache. I have to research how to do that, usually YouTube.
So I decided to copy/paste my streamer link into Safari. The streamer works there too. I bookmarked it. Now that’s two Safari bookmarks.
I still prefer Firefox. It’s easy to use, and not allied to a major ‘pyootering firm.
“Why not Google Chrome®?” my brother asks.
“Google is trying to take over the the entire known universe,” I say.
Two bookmarks so far. But that’s two more than this Firefox fan had two months ago.

• “SuckerBird” is Mark Zuckerberg, founder and head-honcho of Facebook.

Profilin’

The 2020 mid-engine ‘Vette. (Photo by Greg Pajo — Car and Driver.)

—A while ago a fellow retired bus-driver sent me something about a new mid-engined Corvette.
My reaction was “It’s about time;” followed by “It may be too late.”
People were advocating a mid-engine ‘Vette back in the ‘70s. “Mid-engine” meaning the engine is behind the driver, yet in front of the rear driving wheels.
Racecars started doing this in the late ‘60s. Locating engine-mass behind the driver, yet ahead of the driving wheels, allows -a) rear-wheel drive to work better, -b) rear brakes work better, and -c) it reduces polar moment of inertia, allowing quicker turn-in.
All capital ideas, I was smitten! The most desirable hotrods of all time, were the Can-Am cars ’69-‘71. (Canadian-American Challenge Cup.)
First the mid-engine Chaparrals of the United States Road Racing Championship in the middle-to-late ‘60s, then the McLaren Can-Am racers ’69 through ’71.
They were mid-engine two-seaters powered by unlimited Big-Block Chevy V8s. (The Chaparrals were Small-Block at first.) Incredibly light and incredibly fast. Can-Am cars were essentially run-what-ya-brung; the only limitations were two seats and covered wheels.
Most desirable was the fact they were powered by Detroit-iron (although those Chevy Big-Blocks were usually cast aluminum).
I will never forget the sound of a Can-Am field coming toward me. Rolling thunder! Gobs and gobs of torque! That’s goin’ to my grave.
“The new C8 Corvette is an engineering moonshot,” says Car and Driver magazine. “A marketing leap of faith, and a statement about what an American sports car can truly be.”
Just packaging everything required ”moonshot engineering.”
Yr Fthfl Srvnt says the mid-engine ‘Vette may be too late. Us aging car-guys are dying off, replaced by techno-geeks and gamers not interested in automotive performance.
Conspicuous consumption of hydrocarbons, and all the noise it made, is no longer attractive. I’m guilty myself: coal-fired choo-choo trains, a screaming Ferrari, the Packard-Merlin V12 in a Mustang fighter-plane.
Top speed of the mid-engined ‘Vette is projected at 190 mph. Where, pray tell, do you propose to do that?
Yer lucky if you can average 50 on L.A.’s freeways. I have an old train video that shows a bumper-to-bumper traffic-jam inching into Philadelphia.
My almost 55-year subscription to Car and Driver is winding down. My attraction to performance automobiling wained.
My paternal grandmother won: automobiles are only a means of carting our bodies pillar-to-post. Performance is a sham to sell cars to macho wannabees.
There goes a Shelby Mustang: WHOOP-WHOOP-WHOOP! Probably good for 175, which you can’t do on Canandaigua’s City-Pier.
Would I buy this mid-engine ‘Vette? I’d just be profilin’. I’m not Mario Andretti — a mid-engine ‘Vette would be way faster than me.
So there’s my YMCA buddy in his red C5 Corvette, the “shampoo-bottle.” He’s parked in the sunshine on Canandaigua’s City-Pier, top down.
“Aren’t you the guy with the Spitfire?” I ask.
“Yep, but I got this too,” he boasts.
He’s not doing what his car will do. He’s profiling. (“Hey, look at me!”)
And most ”moonshot engineering” will suffer the same fate.

STAND BACK!
Race-driver Denis Hulme blasts an M8D McLaren
out of the hairpin at Mosport (Ontario, Canada).
(1970 photo by BobbaLew.)

• A Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches. It was made in various displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation. The Chevrolet “SmallBlock” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first to 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The SmallBlock is still manufactured, though much updated. The “Big-Block” could be immensely powerful, and the “SmallBlock” was revolutionary in its time. The Can-Am McLarens used the Big-Block, although usually cast in aluminum to save weight. Corvette uses a 6.2-liter (378+ cubic inches) version of the SmallBlock, vastly developed since 1955, good for 495 claimed horsepower.
• Corvettes came to use “C” for each version. The first Corvettes (1953-1962) are “C1;” the first Sting-Rays (1963-1967) are “C2;” the manta-ray Corvettes (1968-1983) are “C3;” the “C4” was from 1984 to 1996; the “C5” was from 1997 to 2004); the C6 was from 2005 to 2013; the “C7” (currently on sale) is 2014 to 2019. Usage of C-letters came after the C4.
• An editor-friend and fellow car-guy at the Messenger newspaper said the C5 Corvette reminded him of a shampoo-bottle. I always call the C4 the “disco ‘Vette.”
• For years Triumph made a tiny sportscar called the “Spitfire.” It looked great, but needed a lotta engine winding to get anywhere. It’s motor was tiny. I remember only 1,200 cubic centimeters, 73+ cubic inches. Although there may have been slightly larger motors later. A friend bought one for her first car. She let me drive it, and I had to wind the dickens out of it. It was four-speed floor-shift.

Lido

Lido!

—“Lee Iacocca, 1924-2019.”
Not much mention in my October 2019 issue of Hemmings Classic Car magazine. Just a small brief with picture.
Iacocca (Lido Anthony “Lee” Iacocca) was immensely important to automobiling in the ‘60s and ‘70s. He then led Chrysler out of the doldrums in the ‘80s.
Iacocca took risks. He saw a gigantic market in the postwar baby-boom: Boomers desiring performance.
People were buying Corvairs as sporty-cars. Corvair was originally intended to parry Volkswagen.
The formula for a sporty-car already existed. Make Ford’s Falcon long-nose, short-trunk, and viola: the Mustang.
Ford Motor Company had just failed with the Edsel. Henry Ford II (The Deuce), grandson of Old Henry, was leery.
“If that thing fails,” he told Iacocca; “your ass is grass!”
Lido’s Mustang went on to become the most successful marketing play in automobiling.
Thereby skonking General Motors, who had to play catch-up with its Camaro. The first Camaro was 1967; Mustang was introduced in ’64.
Iacocca became the president of the Ford, but clashed with The Deuce. After he was fired he became head-honcho of struggling Chrysler Corporation, on the verge of bankruptcy.
The new K-car was developed — a Ford reject — and Lido saw a market for front-drive minivans, an outgrowth of the K-car. Ford had considered minivans, but didn’t bite.
It took Iacocca to take the risk.
Heavy industry in our nation is no longer willing to take risks. What matters is bottom line keep the income steady.
Leaders like Iacocca, with willingness to take risks, are OUT. Investors are more concerned with steady income; resulting in stifling do-nothing conservatism.
Were it not for Iacocca we might still be driving turkeys. The Mustang is still being made in concept = long hood, short trunk, V8 motor, and relatively small.
Are General Motors, or the Japanese and Germans, capable of such insight? Is even Ford capable? (The Deuce fired Lido.)
Do we have such leaders in our country any more?
In looking for that picture, I did a Google image-search. Hundreds upon hundreds of images; many with “rest-in-peace, Lido.”
I think such leadership died with Lido.

100,000 miles

Made it! (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

—My 2012 Ford Escape, purchased not long after my wife died over seven years ago, has turned 100,000 miles.
58 long years ago, when I got my driver’s license, getting 100,000 miles out of a car was amazing.
The infamous “Blue-Bomb,” a 1953 Chevrolet , made 100,000 miles, and was the only car our family had which didn’t fail during a vacation-trip. It also was the car in which I learned to drive.
By 100,000 miles it no longer had heat. But it was our only car which started in cold weather. Our replacement, a ’57 Chevy four-door sedan, wouldn’t crank in cold.
The Blue-Bomb finally failed inspection — my father never maintained his cars. The brake shoes were worn into the backing-plates.
Like my Escape the Blue-Bomb was used — “pre-enjoyed,” the salesman said. 5,000 miles on the Chevy, 2,200 on my Escape. My salesman told me my Escape’s original owner died soon after delivery.
100,000 miles over seven years is almost 15,000 miles per year. Many of those miles were trips to Altoona, PA to photograph trains with my brother. Some Altoona trips were just myself. Plus there were trips to south Jersey to visit relatives.
I never made any long trips. Altoona is 255 miles. South Jersey via northern DE is about 365. (I have another brother who lives in northern DE.)
Our “Faithful-Honda,” a 1989 all-wheel-drive Civic stationwagon, made 162,000 before my wife’s accident totaled it. It was the BEST car we ever owned.
My 1993 Chevy Astrovan, purchased because I’m a Chevy-man, made 140,000 miles.
My Escape is beginning to rust, but not heavily. The Japanese sorta defeated rust, and my Escape is essentially a Mazda Tribute, slightly restyled then rebadged to be Ford’s Escape. —Ford affiliated with Mazda a while ago; Ford’s Probe being essentially a Mazda.
Ford cut loose from Mazda, and is now independent. The newer Escapes are very much Ford. 2012 was the final Mazda Escape.
So far only one unplanned repair. Something was making the radiator-fan work. My Ford dealer was familiar, so it was fixed.
The entire exhaust-system was replaced behind the catalytic-converter. 75,000 miles on the original. I bet it’s stainless-steel. Years ago an exhaust-system rusted away in maybe two years.
And the shock-absorbers are original. Even my ’83 Volkswagen GTI needed new shocks. My ’72 Vega GT needed new shocks at 33,000 — tires too.
But it may need new shocks, although I’m inclined to get a newer car.
100,000 miles, and it still feels fine. Maybe a new car next year. My 2012 Escape is extremely dog-friendly, and newer Escapes aren’t.
I don’t look forward to switching, and I’d like to go smaller. No gigantic pickups for this kid.
I also would like to buy American. I can still see that oily black pillar of smoke towering over the Arizona.
This is a flip-flop. 50 years ago I preferred ferrin-cars over American. Now I’m back to American.
And it’s also weird that a Chevy-man prefers Ford.

• Click that “Chevrolet” link, readers. That’s Dinah Shore singing “See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet.”
• My brother and I are both railfans. Altoona is where the Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain — the railroad is now Norfolk Southern. The railroad is extremely busy. Every year I do Shutterfly calendars of train-photos my brother and I took. I send ‘em as Christmas presents.
• We called it “the Faithful-Honda” because over 162,000 miles it never was in the shop. Even my wife liked the Honda, and she hated driving.

Rained out

“It looks like we might get rained out.” I said that to my silly dog as we started toward Rochester.
Today, Saturday August 17th, was our annual Transit retirees picnic at Ellison Park east of Rochester.
I’m sure constant-readers know of my 16&1/2 year career driving transit-bus for Regional Transit Service. If not, see footnote below.
It was a stupid, meaningless job for a college-graduate who can recite Shakespeare’s 116th Sonnet almost entirely. But it paid well, so I stayed with it. —I always say it paid for our (my) house, which I now fully own.
It was dry when we started, but a dark horizon-filling cloud was approaching from the west. It started raining as we neared Rochester, then began pouring on the I-590 expressway.
It was coming down in buckets as we drove into Ellison. I circled the parking-lot, and “Guess we gotta give up!”
I never got out of my car.
For me to attend that picnic, it has to be not raining. The picnic is in a lodge, but I can’t go in, since I have my dog with me.
Registration and signup (?) is more-or-less outside. They were under a roof. But I’d hafta trudge a downpour to get to it.
“Gotta go home,” I said to my dog. “We can’t have fun if it’s pouring.”
Ellison is a wonderful place to hike your dog: smells and critters galore.
I never fit well at Transit. I’m not loud, and I don’t modify all spoken phrases with the F-bomb.
My bus-driving ended with my stroke almost 26 years ago. I feel like I’m no longer a bus-driver. In fact, I’m no longer that person.
My stroke occurred at a lucky time. I had no idea how I’d do 14 more years.
My stroke led me to the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper. Fulfillment for a word-guy.
But I don’t regret Transit. I made many friends, and it gave me the ability to finally shut down my overly-judgmental father.
As I motored home the downpour stopped. It poured later here at home.
I always feel out-of-it at these Transit retiree functions. But “so much for our annual Transit retirees picnic; we coulda had a good time.”

• 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.
• Click that “116th Sonnet” link, readers. It’s an audio-clip.
• RE: “our (my) house......” —I live alone (with my dog) in the house my wife and I designed over 30 years ago. A contractor built it for us. My beloved wife died over seven years ago.
• At Transit I was a union-employee. Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 282.
• Transit retirees call themselves “the Alumni.” It’s an official club sanctioned by ATU Local 282.

14G

14G through J-town. (Photo by Scott Williams.)

—The August 2019 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is train 14G heading eastbound through Johnstown, PA next to the Conemaugh river.
I hafta blog this because it looks like something I would photograph.
Visible is the Johnstown Inclined-Plane, which was built partly to help Johnstown residents escape flooding. This was after the catastrophic Johnstown Flood of 1889, when a dam broke upriver.
Damage was tremendous, and over 2,200 lives were lost.
Water equal to the flow of the Mississippi washed away Johnstown. The Conemaugh can flood, and the valley Johnstown is in is narrow.
Other floods occurred since, making the inclined-plane worth doing. Supposedly 17 inclined-planes once served Johnstown. They carried both freight and passengers.
The Johnstown Inclined-Plane ascends 896.5 feet up Yoder Hill to the borough of Westmont. Track-gauge is eight feet, a grade of 70.9%; it climbs 502.2 feet. The cars are big enough to carry 65 people, or even an auto.
The incline was owned and operated by Bethlehem Steel (successor to Cambria Iron Works), but transferred to public ownership in 1935. The incline was designated a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1994.
Yrs Trly has never been to Johnstown; not yet anyway. The mainline of the Pennsylvania Railroad passed through Johnstown on its way to Pittsburgh. The railroad is now Norfolk Southern.
Railroaders call it “J-town;” probably others too. I have an old railroad video where the dispatcher calls it “J-town” on railroad radio.
A freight-train went into emergency in “J-town.” So the train we were on had to slow and “make noise” passing the crippled train.
I’ve seen 14G many times, but always in the Altoona area. Sometimes it runs in two sections. My brother wondered what “04G” was.
“Sure it wasn’t ‘M4G’?” I asked. “That’s a second section of 14G.” (Second sections are designated by the letter “M.”)
This photo looks like something I’d take myself. Scenery dominates; the train is secondary. That incline, plus the river in a narrow concrete culvert, everything closed in by mountains, all bespeak PA.
Johnstown also had heavy industry. Its steel plant is partly visible. I hope the photographer saw all this = let the scenery dominate.
My brother photographs trains in-yer-face. Which is fine for my calendar: a classic three-quarter view of an on-charging train.
I, on the other hand, look for scenery. Background and foreground dominate, but it needs a train. Sky matters, as do hillsides and foliage.
“I need that station in my picture,” or “That signal-bridge is my frame. Every photograph needs a frame.”
Maybe Williams’ picture is a potshot, but it looks composed. He tried various vantage-points, then settled on this.
He lives in Atlanta, but is native to the old Pennsy main across PA.
This photo wreaks of PA and Pennsy.

• A 70.9% grade is 70.9 feet up for every 100 feet forward. Only two cars, all connected by cable. One counterweights the other.
• RE: “into emergency....” —All the individual car-brakes engaged, stopping the train. This was due to a broken air-line. Each car is “air-braked;” and the brakes set if the air-pressure goes away.
• RE: “my calendar......” —Every year I do a Shutterfly calendar of train-photos my brother and I took. I send them as Christmas presents.

“Ka-bloo-ey!”

“There it goes again,” I yelled.
Every time I tried to crank my Google-account password into Safari it quit.
Three times in a row, and as I recall, the same thing happened a few weeks ago.
“Do you wanna make Safari your default Internet browser?”
“No way José! Not when you keep bombing all the time,” I exclaimed.
Apple’s Safari is one of two Internet browsers I have on this machine. My other is Firefox 68.0.1. It’s default.
I been using Firefox for years, ever since a friend suggested it. His was Windoze PC, mine is MAC.
He no longer is a friend. He become angry when I had the awful temerity, unmitigated gall, and horrific audacity (cue Sharpton) to suggest I no longer was the wuss I was in college. (He was a classmate.)
And now Facebook, in its infinite wisdom, apparently walked away from Firefox. Unannounced of course. Firefox isn’t Internet-Explorer or Safari, the two computer-company heavies. It’s independent. (Gasp!)
Facebook stopped working under Firefox. I couldn’t post anything, etc.
So I fired up Safari, which I previously never used. I copy/pasted my Facebook address from Firefox to Safari. Facebook worked under that.
“Thank you Mark!” My brother in DE suggested this, not Facebook; they never announce anything.
I was attempting a BlogSpot search on their edit-page. (This blog is BlogSpot.) Firefox of course, and something was wrong. I couldn’t scroll back to 2012. Usually I can.
So I fired up Safari to try my BlogSpot search there.
ZOINK! My Safari isn’t Google-savvy. Google-account password wanted.
I happen to have all my passwords in a small notebook. Every time I started to enter it: Ka-bloo-ey! Safari quit.
Fat lotta help Safari is. I use it for Facebook, or when Firefox fails — which is hardly ever.
So, what do I do?
I tried force-quitting Firefox, then fired it up again. I can force-quit an app with MAC OS-X.
Back in business; the scroll-function now worked.
“Do you wanna make Safari your default Internet browser?”
“NOT YET! Gotta not bomb, and be as pleasant to use as Firefox.”

• “Windoze” is Microsoft Windows®. The scuttlebutt among Apple-geeks is that Microsoft is inferior. My siblings all use Microsoft Windows computers, but since I use an Apple Macintosh, I’m stupid and disgusting. (Jesus uses a Windows PC.)
• “Mark” is Mark Zuckerberg, head-honcho of Facebook.

Kitselman’s birthday

Skinny as a rail; perhaps 90 pounds. At Lenape amusement-park (defunct). (Long-ago [1962] photo by BobbaLew.)

(At the rate things are going, this blog may not get published until tomorrow night, or the day after that.)

—Today’s the day, August 12th: Gail Kitselman’s birthday. If she’s still alive (I don’t think she is; see below), she’s 73. She’s Class of ’64 at Brandywine High-School. I was ’62, which makes me 75.
Gail was my first “girlfriend” (?), but not the first girl I dated. That would be ***** ***********, also Class of ’64 at Brandywine.
Gail and ***** are both at the instigation of my sister, also Class of ’64. My sister died almost eight years ago. She’s slightly younger than me; I’m first-born of seven, four of which remain.
Twice I blogged Gail’s birthday, first in 2014, then again last year. Usually her birthday passes unnoticed.
Both Gail and ***** were unsuited for me, messed up as I was from my tortured childhood. The one I married was very well suited, since she also had a difficult childhood.
Except that put off escaping my childhood. So now, 50 years late, I find women attracted to me. And they no longer have to make me feel worthwhile.
Gail’s mother thought I was wonderful. I guess I was Gail’s first boyfriend.
Her father, a high-powered executive, thought me a waste. “He’ll never amount to anything;” and I didn’t.
After graduating high-school, and before college, I’d pedal my stripped balloon-tire bicycle about four miles to her house. We’d talk outside on her porch into darkness.
Gail’s mother would give me the keys to their ’58 Plymouth, so I could take Gail to an outdoor ice cream stand. Often her mother took me home, my bicycle in the trunk. It was too dark for me to ride home.
I managed two “dates” with Gail. One was a day-long retreat to Ocean City, NJ with my church youth-group. The other was a visit to an amusement park (pictured above) in southeastern PA. That amusement park soon failed.
My sister was thrilled to see me and Gail strolling hand-in-hand on Ocean City’s boardwalk at dusk. At last “Bobby” was getting the hang of it. My sister was on her second steady boyfriend, the one who ended up being her first marriage and divorce. (Four marriages for her; me only once.)
I lost track of Gail. ***** is a Facebook “friend.” That was her doing, not mine.
I visited Gail at Brandywine during my first year at college. She wanted to move on. I was too messed up, and we were 365 miles apart.
The other day I Google-imaged Gail, and I think I found her. Amazing; almost 330 million people in our nation, and “that looks like her.”
Apparently she never married, and found religion. My hit was the same as that of a Facebook “friend” back in 2014. —Gail Kitselman at some New York City church, Director of Volunteer Ministries.
It said she died, and her church was devastated. There also was something about Gail lifeguarding at a Cape May, NJ beach. That sounds like Gail, much more athletic than me.
Her caring about people also sounded like Gail.
A Google-search said her birthday was January 1st, 1946. That’s not August 12th, but it sure looks like her. Same eyes, and same smile.
I always consider the first two girls I dated to be extraordinary. They weren’t el-cheapo.
A third girl I dated around then was forgettable. A trollop. I could tell stories.
Thank goodness for the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations. It kept me pure through ignorance.

• My beloved wife, the BEST friend I ever had, is also gone. She died over seven years ago.
• “Brandywine” is Brandywine High School, north of Wilmington, DE; from where I graduated in 1962.

Make-‘em-laugh-3

Waiting. (iPhone photo by Jack Hughes.)

—It seems my younger brother may be slightly put off by my garnering all my lady-friends.
He’s still married. My beloved wife died seven years ago. I find since I gain friendship easily with ladies.
I’m safe, I guess; no longer in pursuit of a wife. I live alone, and I’m not bored or lonely. Relationships with women are new to this kid; and 50 years late.
I also am a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations. “No pretty girl will talk to you!” I’m surprised I do as well as I do.
My brother and I were in Lilly (PA) last month, trackside to photograph trains. Lilly is railroad-west of Altoona, eastern base of the railroad’s crossing of Allegheny Mountain.
“Here, take my picture,” I said, handing my brother my iPhone. I was sitting about 15 feet from the track, and my camera was set up on my tripod.
“Wha-fo?” my brother asked.
“So I can text that picture to my aquacise instructor. She seems to care,” I said.
That aquacise instructor is just a friend, but one of many ladies who care when I go to Altoona. Railroad photography is a balance challenge.
They are all my lady-friends at the Canandaigua YMCA swimming-pool, where I do aquatic balance-training. Lifeguards, etc.
I make ‘em laugh, I guess. And they love it, plus many others outside that swimming-pool.
And I’m not trying. Just shooting the breeze makes ‘em laugh.
A while ago a YMCA lifeguard came over and gave me what most red-blooded American males consider the “come-hither” look. Smiling, eye-contact, etc.
No; it was “talk to me, make me laugh!” She’s still a little suspicious, but “talk to me, make me laugh!”
Entirely unexpected for this dude. “No pretty girl will smile at you!” Yet here she was smiling at me.
The other day my dry-land balance-training therapist at a nearby hospital wheeled out a full-length mirror so I could see my feet were pointing in error.
“Oh what a depressing sight!” I wailed.
“Of course,” the therapist laughed. “You’re older.”
The difference between now and 30 years ago is 60 pounds,” I said.
When I walk out of the bathroom stalls at the Canandaigua YMCA swimming-pool I wonder why in the world the pretty ladies wanna talk to me.
Similarly my doggy-daycare kennel is staffed by multiple attractive ladies.
“As you can see, the boat didn’t sink.” I said that to a kennel owner on returning to pick up my dog after a Transit retiree Erie Canal cruise.
I had that lady rolling on the floor — she was the only one there, and she’s cute.
A few days ago one of my swimming-pool ladies said “laughing gets the endorphins flowing.” I guess that’s what I’m doing = make ‘em laugh.
Not long ago I suggested the kennel ladies join me for an eat-out at a nearby restaurant.
“How did that old geezer get all them honeys hangin’ all over him?”
Make ‘em laugh!

• “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.

Another female surprise

Having walked into the kennel that daycares my dog, I noticed a pretty young employee I befriended a while ago wearing a “State College Altoona” teeshirt.
“Altoona?” I asked.
“This teeshirt is borrowed,” she said. “It’s my friend’s. She’s a student at State College Altoona.”
“Been to Altoona hundreds of times,” I said. “Took that train-picture near Altoona.”
I pointed to my train-calendar. That kennel has one since they always board my dog when I go to Altoona.
“Altoona is the eastern base of Allegheny Mountain,” I said. “It’s where the railroad crossed that mountain about 1850. That was the Pennsylvania Railroad. Now it’s Norfolk Southern.
I always love Altoona,” I added. “Lotsa trains, and they’re always ‘pedal-to-the-metal’ climbing that mountain.”
The kennel is owned by two ladies, both in their middle forties. They never charge me anything, except when I board my dog. The price of my daycare seems to be make ‘em laugh — which I can’t help doing.
That young lady is one of their recent successful hires. I call her “Long Tall Sally,” a Little Richard song, since she’s taller than me, and I don’t know her name.
“Just one thing,” I told her a few days ago. “Please, please, puh-leeze; don’t start smoking.”
She loved it, since I wasn’t some overly-judgmental religious zealot.
“I am so glad I never started, and I’m old enough to be your grandfather.
Some day you’ll wanna stop, which isn’t easy. Even then your lungs will already be gunked up.”
What’s notable here, of course, is I struck up a conversation with a pretty young girl. Years ago if the Altoona teeshirt were on a guy I coulda said something. But not on a pretty young girl.
I’m a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations. Constant-readers know all about Hilda. (Click on link otherwise.)
“No pretty girl will talk to you!”
For 50-some years I avoided pretty ladies. That’s Hilda — and my hyper-religious parents.
But now since my wife died, I find those zealots were all WRONG!
Long Tall Sally always smiles whenever she sees me.

• Just recently my bereavement-counselor noted I still am surprised I find myself so successful with women.

“Delaware”

The other morning, after walking my silly dog at a nearby park, I went to a supermarket in Honeoye Falls to buy a few things.
After parking my car, and opening the windows to keep my dog from overheating, I got out and walked toward the supermarket.
A lady approached. She was fairly cute — probably in her late forties. She was wearing a gray teeshirt with the word “Delaware” printed on it.
“Delaware?” I asked.
“Yeah Delaware,” she said.
“I’m from Delaware,” I said; “north of Wilmington actually.”
“My daughter attends University of Delaware in Newark,” she said. “She loves it.”
“Newark is about 15-20 miles south of where I’m from,” I added.
“So what are you doing here?” the lady asked.
“Long and sorry story,” I shouted. “You don’t wanna hear it.”
What’s notable here is I spoke to this lady at all. I’m a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations.
“No female will talk to you!”
I could explain Faire Hilda, but I’m sure constant-readers already know all about her. (If not, click the link, readers.)
I’ll just say that with my hyper-religious parents she convinced me all men, including me at age-5, were scum. Her husband was probably fooling around.
If I learned anything at all since my wife died, it’s that Hilda and my parents were WRONG!
They marked me for life, and my wife, having liked me from the get-go, made it possible for me to continue fearing women.
So now, 50 years late, I find women seem to enjoy talking to me. I make ‘em laugh, and that seems what they want more than anything.
Ten years ago I woulda observed that lady’s teeshirt, then never said anything.
“No pretty girl will talk to you!”
I struck up a conversation, leaving Hilda horrified.
14,000 rpm in her casket; enough to power FL south of Orlando.

• “Honeoye (‘HONE-eee-oy;’ rhymes with ‘boy’) Falls” is the nearest village to the west to where I live in western New York, a rural village about five miles away.
• A recent crotch-rocket motorcycle might be capable of 14,000 rpm. A Detroit V8 will start tearing itself apart at 8,000 (if it gets there).

Bereavement eat-out chronicles

Nifty. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

—For the past five or six years Yr Fthfl Srvnt has been eating out once per week with fellow bereaved people.
It started when the daughter of a recent widower suggested her father missed having someone with whom to eat dinner. We began patronizing a nearby restaurant.
His wife died a year after mine, and he was distraught.
A lady soon joined us. She was also attending the Grief-Share my widower friend and I attended.
Years ago she and her husband founded a successful flower-shop near Canandaigua. It lasted a long time, but then her husband died of cancer.
Occasionally another widow joined us. She and I worked together at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper. Her husband also died of cancer, but before my wife.
Time passed. My widower friend and I are both car-guys. He attends car-shows with two cars to display. I tagged along a few times, but he’s not a dog-person. He got upset if I brought along my Irish-Setter, which I always do.
Years passed, but we kept eating out one day per week. It was a meal I didn’t hafta cook myself.
We stopped attending that Grief-Share, or it ended — I forget. It was religious, which could be irksome.
The flower-lady and I gravitated to another bereavement group, and the widower joined us. We did that a while, and began eating out at a supermarket café. Attendance of the two widows was occasional; often it was just the widower and me.
Then the widower had a stroke at a car-show, or fell. He was hospitalized with a broken back.
So it was just me and flower-lady for a while, which gave us a chance to patronize restaurants ritzier than that supermarket café.
It also became apparent the widower didn’t like any restaurant that didn’t serve hamburgers — Mexican for example.
The widower recovered well enough to go back to showing his cars. He’s a car-show junkie, and me and flower-lady aren’t. Beyond that he wanted to avoid restaurants not serving hamburgers.
Having discovered I could talk to women, I suggested a few widows join our weekly eat-outs. Most bombed, which made me loathe to ask any lady. I always get perceived as “on-the-make.”
I have a female lifeguard friend at the Canandaigua YMCA swimming-pool who poo-poos that.
But I stopped the suggestions. Too many wipe-outs!
Only one widow success so far. I have no interest in remarrying. I’d be hard to live with, and have always been my own best friend.
I did far better than expected with the one I married. How she put up with me 44&1/2 years I’ll never know. She said it was because I made her laugh.
Often schedule conflicts keep flower-lady from attending our eat-outs, plus my widower friend is doing car-shows.
On two occasions it was just me and my one successful widow suggestion.
Just the other day we did Canandaigua Yacht Club, which she lives next to, and they have a restaurant.
What a nifty place! We sat outside on a porch up a hillside with Canandaigua Lake in view.
The weather was fabulous, and sailboats were out on the lake. And unlike the Mexican restaurant I also love, they serve hamburgers.

• My wife also died of cancer.

Bubble-top

Bubble-top. (Photo by Dan Lyons.)

(I wanted to do this last month, but ran outta time.)

—The July 2019 entry in my Tide-mark Muscle-Car calendar is a red 1961 Pontiac Ventura owned by Dennis MacDonald.
When this car was manufactured Yr Fthfl Srvnt was in Eleventh Grade. I was living at home with my holier-than-thou parents who convinced me I was rebellious and stupid because I couldn’t worship my father.
Our family had moved to northern DE by then. I’m native to south Jersey, a child of the ‘burbs. I also consider myself a child of the ‘50s.
By 1961 Pontiac was flowering under Bunkie Knudsen. No longer was it a doughty grandfather’s car. Bunkie made it a performance car.
In my humble opinion the 1961 Pontiac is one of the best-looking cars ever made, especially the “bubble-top” two-door hardtops.
I was so smitten by those Pontiacs I advocated my father buy one. My father was already looking for another car.
I made him extremely angry, that I, his first-born son, rebellious and stupid, would have the awful temerity, unmitigated gall, and horrific audacity (cue Sharpton) to suggest anything other than a used Chevrolet douche-bag. “Disgusting, I tell ya!”
My Pontiac dreamin’ was toast.
We were currently driving a 1953 Chevrolet two-door sedan, the infamous “Blue-Bomb,” the car in which I learned to drive, but a year late, since at age-16 I was “too immature.”
The “Blue-Bomb” became car number-two after a two-tone green 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air four-door sedan, PowerGlide six, came into our family. It was slower than our ’53.
I look at this calendar car and wonder about all that sheet-metal behind its passenger compartment. Were all cars like that back then? They sure aren’t now.
But it’s a Ventura, not a Catalina. The Ventura might have had that longer tail. But it does have the aluminum wheels, a lightweight extra-cost option.
“Bubble-top” since the side-pillars are so thin.
NO WAYwould a Bubble-top survive a rollover. That top would crush.
And pretty as it is, it wouldn’t be pretty to the air. Cars became bars-of-soap, to make them more slippery to the atmosphere. By so doing a car needed less fuel.
Look at cars now and it’s hard to tell which brand is which. They all look the same except for taillights and front fascia.
Not too long ago I was passed by a top-down ’64 Pontiac G-T-O. It too had a gigantic tail; trunk-space that could swallow multiple suitcases. (Remember suitcases?)
You could land a Corsair fighter-plane on its trunklid.
This Ventura looks the same, but is one of the prettiest cars of all time. —A “Cat” looks better.
The prettiest car was the Jaguar XK-E, but narrow. No doubt my saying that will prompt fevered blustering.
Years ago at the Mighty Mezz I declared the greatest rock-n-roll song of all time was “Louie-Louie” as covered by the Kingsmen.
I was bombarded with beachballs.

• 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. (I had a heart-defect caused stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well. That defect was repaired.)