My calendar for October 2019

“The trash-train approaches old Slope interlocking.” (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

—“Make sure you get that tree!” I shouted to my brother.
He was already in Altoona. He usually arrives a day before me. I hadn’t left home yet, and he was set up on the 24th Street overpass in Altoona over old “Slope” interlocking.
He’d been up-and-down the railroad, maybe 50-60 miles, in search of Fall color. It was our annual late-October trip in search of an October fall-foliage picture for my calendar.
He called me from the 24th Street overpass: “This is the only place that has Fall color. Everything else is done! One tree is almost red.”
“Make sure you get that tree!” I shrieked.
The October 2019 entry of MY calendar is 63Z, the westbound trash extra on Track Three.
The Trash-Train stinks. It’s loaded with trash and garbage in containers to be landfilled out west.
The train has a helper-set leading. That’s two SD40Es added to help climb Allegheny Mountain. The grade over that mountain begins at Slope. I think there used to be a tower.
Slope is also the eastbound Altoona yard-entrance. It used to be a four-track main (the “Broad Way”); you can see where the fourth track was.
In Altoona the main separates into “express” and “drag” tracks. A westbound might come out of a drag-track, then cross over to Three (leftmost) from One. You can see the beginning of that crossover off One.
“Too dark!” my brother complains.
Well yeah, I probably shoulda lightened it more with my Photoshop.
But it’s also a cloudy day.
Fall-foliage last year fell flat. And there have been extraordinaries (see below).
Fall-foliage in Altoona is fleeting. It may be only a day-or-two. I look at area webcams, but driving there takes me five hours. My brother is nine hours — Boston.
Plus we hafta reserve accommodations in advance, usually a week or two for me, plus back then my brother was working. Recently he retired.
We can’t just drop everything. Ya gotta live in Altoona to get a guaranteed extraordinary Fall-foliage photograph.

This is just a shaddup-and-shoot = a potshot. It’s going away; you’re seeing the rear of two helper-sets on a coal-extra that just descended The Slide
atop Allegheny Mountain. EXTRAORDINARY!
(Photo by Jack Hughes.)

• “The Slide” is the ramp the Pennsylvania Railroad built up from its mainline to get to New Portage tunnel. It’s currently 2.28%; used to be 2.36% —Pennsy’s main is around 1.75-1.8%. “New Portage tunnel” was part of PA’s Public Works System, a newer railroad built to get around the original inclined-plane portage railroad. “Public Works” is early 19th century, meant to compete with NY’s Erie Canal. Public Works eventually failed, and was turned over to Pennsy, who could use a second tunnel atop Allegheny Mountain.

Should I make Safari® my default browser?

—New York state, in a fit of incredible largess, no doubt meant to keep Andrew Cuomo in office, sent a check for about 500 smackaroos, a rebate of school taxes. It has something to do with the fact my school-district kept its annual budget-increase below some gumint-mandated percentage.
The check came over a week ago, and I was holding it for online deposit via my iPhone.
I did it before. Photograph the check, which saves a trip to the bank.
Online deposit supposedly takes 3-5 minutes, but I often don’t have that. I also don’t often do online deposit.
The other night five minutes opened up, so I logged into my bank — or tried.
I got my iPhone logged in, but then the bank wanted a “Secure Access-Code;” an extra security step I’m not familiar with.
Since when is a “Secure Access-Code” gonna keep some ne’re-do-well from cleaning out my account if they already stole my phone?
That access-code could come via e-mail or phone. I didn’t notice it said “SMS” (text).
-So far 10 minutes.
I checked my e-mail: there it was, so I cranked it in. No idea if I did it right — it’s not displayed = security concerns.
Stroke-survivors suffer mistypes. I can’t see if I mistyped if it’s not visible.
“Naughty-naughty! Try again, LOSER!” (GPS-lady or The Donald?)
By now their system was inundating me with e-mailed access-codes, but they weren’t in my e-mail yet.
So I tried the first access-code again; good for 30 minutes. NYET! (Probably replaced by a new access-code.)
-15 minutes.
I tried again, and it locked my account. “Change password!”
HUH? What does my password have to do with an access-code?
Changing my password blows two devices: my computer and my iPhone.
-20 minutes.
I gave up exasperated. Born in the wrong century, and had a stroke. What’s invalid is ME. Every time I attempt fiddling computer-logic I get utter madness.
Try again the next morning. Go to bed!
Next morning “Change password” means call the bank.
“Please hold during the silence:” BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA!
-30 minutes so far.
Finally me and the bank’s service-rep tried to “change password.” She ended up doing it herself. Their system was lobbing hairballs.
(I know, wrong century, etc.)
“Are you using Firefox?” she asked. “We’re having ‘issues’ with Firefox.”
“Don’t you mean ‘problems?’” I asked.
“Have another browser?” the girl asked. I fired up my Safari®, and attempted to copy/paste my bank’s web-address from Firefox.
NYET! “Type it manually, not copy/paste,” she said.
Finally I was logged into my bank via Safari with my new password.
-45 minutes.
“Ya know I coulda just driven to the bank to deposit this check.” (I finally said it.) “I’m going that way anyway = a five-minute diversion.
Except I also need to log in on my computer, since I do all my banking online, and your system locked me out.”
So how many passwords so far? At least five over the past two years.
“You and your vaunted security got me to bed past midnight last night, then blew walking my dog this morning.”
Don’t know if she heard that. My iPhone died and cut her off.
But I can log into my bank with both my computer and iPhone. And was able to online deposit that check, despite various hairballs.
I guess five minutes is an hour in techno-logic.
Site-by-site my Firefox falls to Safari. Must I join the Dark Side = Google Chrome?

• “Andrew Cuomo,” son of Mario Cuomo, is the current governor of New York.
• 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.

On instability

—“Please forgive my mistake of thinking balance itself was separate from ‘improving one’s balance.’”
I’d say that to my aquacise instructor, whose aquatic balance-training class at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool I temporarily gave up.
I switched to dry-land balance-training at a hospital physical therapy.
My hospital therapist and I have been around-and-around about this. She says “improving one’s balance” is not improving balance itself.
Years ago the guy who daycares my dog, my groomer, noticed my balance was disappearing. That aquacise instructor uses the same groomer, and said she could help me.
So I switched from “Wellness-Center” workouts to the Y’s swimming-pool.
At first that aquacise instructor and I were one-on-one. But then she advised switching to her aquatic balance-training class.
I did that 2-3 years. But it seemed my balance was getting worse.
“I can’t fix that,” my dry-land therapist says. “That’s the neuropathy in your legs. Your feet are no longer telling you you’re falling off balance. All I can do is improve your ability to offset faltering balance.”
And, uhm, I guess that’s what “improving one’s balance” means.
No one can fix failing balance. That comes with advancing age, plus I have neuropathy. (It isn’t diabetic neuropathy.)
Apparently “improving one’s balance” means keep from falling — which I hardly do any more.
To me that’s due more to changed mindset, plus strengthening muscles that catch imbalance.
Those muscles wasted away too, but to me it’s mainly mindset: roots, rocks, sidewalk edges, curbs = anything that makes me stumble.
The goal of balance-training, I guess, is to keep me from falling, which can be bone-breaking.
Actually improving one’s balance can’t be done. What can be improved is one’s ability to counter bad balance.
I noticed. The other day, walking my dog in a nearby city park, I encountered the dreaded gazebo. It has 3-4 concrete steps, which my dog descended.
Steps coming = engage mindset. I can do this; I have before.
Years ago descending steps was automatic; now I gotta exercise extreme concentration.
I started down, but stumbled on the second step. STAGGER ALERT! But I didn’t fall. That’s my strengthening of muscles that counter a fall — they caught it.
That’s the at-home exercises my dry-land physical-therapy has me doing.
A few days ago an HVAC guy came to set up my furnace replacement. Down into my basement he went: step-step-step-step; quick as a bunny.
“Get to my age and you won’t be able to do that,” I said. Step-step, step-step, step-step. One side-step at a time, and holding the railing.
Even though I temporarily dropped the class, I still do the swimming-pool. “I hope I can rejoin your class,” I tell my aquacise instructor. “But first I gotta feel more stable walking.”
I walk in the shallow kiddie-pool, where water-resistance is only below the knees. Doing that without staggering is challenging. I do better on dry-land.
Sometimes I feel that aquacise instructor missed the mark. A lot of what we did in the class required balancing on one leg.
I felt I was wasting my time. More went into staying upright than “Walk proud! If I see you hunched over your shopping-kart, you in deep trouble!”
I’m not as bad as I was. Still messy, but slightly more stable. Enough to notice; despite stumbling I didn’t fall those gazebo steps. No hands either — I was holding back a dog.
I’m also more aware of instability. I can’t just lunge out of a chair. “Slow and deliberate,” another aquacise instructor says. I lunged out of a chair once and ended up on the floor.
Getting off my riding-mower has to be done just so. If not KEE-RASH! (A head-hit.)

• The Canandaigua YMCA “Wellness-Center” is a workout gym with exercise machines: strength-training and cardio. I started that years ago, mainly the cardio. There also are weights, but I never did that.
• RE: “Neuropathy......” —The nerves down my legs to my feet don’t transmit like they used to.
• “HVAC” = heating-ventilation-air conditioning. My furnace is old, and apprised as unsafe.

RE: striking up conversations with complete strangers

—My Internet-browser, Firefox 69.0.1, makes daily suggestions of articles I might wanna read.
The other day it suggested something about striking up conversations with complete strangers. That it’s beneficial.
I find myself doing that a lot more since my wife died. Before I kept to myself. “NO ONE WILL TALK TO YOU, ESPECIALLY PRETTY GIRLS!”
Yrs Trly is a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations. Together with my hyper-religious parents, she convinced me I was despicable and disgusting.
With her all males, including me at age-5, were SCUM! With my parents I was rebellious because I couldn’t worship my father.
A lifeguard at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool turned that around. She said hello to me by name in passing. I’m sure she was just being sociable, but I was dumbfounded. “NO PRETTY GIRL WILL TALK TO YOU!” But there was that lifeguard.
There were earlier contacts, but that lifeguard blew me away. She flip-flopped my entire childhood.
Suddenly Faire Hilda and my parents were WRONG! I find this out 70 years late.
Similar contacts occurred since. I even “fell for” that lifeguard, for lack of a better term. Despite my many flubs, she kept talking to me, and we seem to have got past my “falling for her.”
“Gotta say goodbye to this receptionist,” I said to my therapist as I walked out of my hospital physical-therapy. Got a smile!
I flirt like crazy. I always get a smile. This is so contrary to how I was brought up = I can’t resist!
Wave goodbye to two ladies who fondled my dog at Kershaw Park. SMILE ALERT! They love it; the attention, I guess.
“That receptionist knows my name,” I said to my therapist. I get my therapist laughing too.
Both male and female. Although with men ya gotta be careful, lest ya get some macho Trump wannabee. Ladies are more fun.
“I think Pittsburgh is spelled with an ‘H’,” I said to a complete stranger in my supermarket.
“No, it’s ‘Gettysburg’,” she smiled.
A while ago a lady walked toward me after I parked my car in a supermarket parking-lot. She was wearing a “Delaware” teeshirt, and I didn’t know her from the Moon.
“I’m from Delaware,” I said, which began a conversation.
“My daughter attends University of Delaware in Newark,” she said. “She loves it!”
“That’s about 20 miles south of where I’m from,” I said. “I’m north of Wilmington.”
“So why are you here?”
“Long and sorry story,” I said. ”You don’t wanna hear it!”
I wouldna done that 10 years ago. Things sure have changed since my wife died, partly because of that lifeguard. “NO PRETTY LADY WILL TALK TO YOU!” Yet there was that lifeguard.
So begins the article. (The entire article is on my Facebook.)

• Hilda Q. Walton was my immediate neighbor and Sunday-School Superintendent when I was a child. Like my parents she was hyper-religious. She convinced me all males, including me at age-5, were SCUM; “NO PRETTY GIRL WILL TALK TO YOU!” Her husband was probably fooling around. My parents heartily agreed, since I was already rebellious for not worshiping my father.
• Kershaw Park is a small city park north of Canandaigua Lake — City of Canandaigua. Many people walk their dogs there on leash with poopie bags. I take my dog there once a week to socialize with humans.

VitaminWater®

—“This is the stuff that always runs out,” I said to a lady perusing VitaminWater® in the funky water aisle at my supermarket.
“High in vitamins, antioxidants, and electrolytes,” it claims.
I was pointing to “orange-orange,” but she misunderstood. She thought I was referring to “dragon-fruit,” which she just loaded up.
Cut her some slack! She’s not stupid! Make a sudden remark and it’s usually misunderstood. You’re breaking someone’s reverie.
I loaded up four “orange-orange;” four for five smackaroos. “I always check, because often they don’t have it.”
“My son likes ‘dragon-fruit,’ so I load up on that,” she commented.
Months ago my aquacise instructor at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool began talking about her insistence we “stay hydrated.”
“So what do you suggest?” I asked. “For me it’s coffee regularly, soda occasionally, and grapefruit-juice cut one-to-one.
“VitaminWater®,” she said. I didn’t realize it was a brand.
All over my supermarket I looked. Bottled fizz-water, Gatorade, Polynesian Exotica at $4.95 per tiny vial, etc.
Finally I happened to notice it — that it was a brand.
Suddenly VitaminWater was in, and coffee was out.
I cut it two water to one VitaminWater. And it’s not “Zero,” which is Aspartame. Never in a million years!
I also spike it with one packet of Emergen-C®, plus a heaping teaspoon of powdered fiber.
I’ve wanted to get off coffee for years.
“So I guess you and I are the ones running this stuff out,” I said to the lady. “Me the ‘orange-orange,’ and you the ‘dragon-fruit.’”
VitaminWater comes in many flavors, but it looks like “orange-orange” is the one that sells.
Every time I’m in that supermarket I check out the VitaminWater. Often all the other flavors are there, but not the “orange-orange.”

• For 2-3 years or more I did aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool. I dropped out for the moment so I could try dry-land balance-training at a hospital Physical-Therapy. I continue to use the pool on-my-own.
• I’m not sure about “dragon-fruit;” in fact, it may not exist. She may have been loading up on something else.

Doomed?

Doomed? (Maybe not.) (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

—A tiny sapling grows in the gutter off my garage-roof.
It’s pictured above.
I have no idea how it got there. No trees are near my house, so theoretically leaves, etc. shouldn’t accumulate in my gutters.
In two weeks a son of my Canandaigua YMCA aquacise instructor comes to landscape around my house.
I hope he brings a ladder. I have one but it’s heavy. It’s wood.
I’m also 75 years old with questionable balance. I could probably remove that sapling myself, but it would be challenging.
Working off a ladder is okay assuming I can grab it with my hands. No top step for this kid! My feet alone are unstable.
One of the Canandaigua YMCA lifeguards also does landscaping. She helps her husband, who I guess is head landscaper.
She’s not an office lady. She physically helps her husband, ripping out shrubbery and trimming trees.
I told her I needed a man with a string-trimmer and a chainsaw. I have 4.7 acres, much of it reforested. I have paths cut but trees fall across ‘em.
But she lives far south of me; so their landscaping business is too distant.
“Any suggestions?” I asked.
“****** ****’s son does landscaping,” she said.
****** **** is my aquacise instructor.
We collared ****** ****. She gave me her son’s business card.
Big trees from little trees grow. Maybe I should replant this sapling.
Years ago, when my wife and I lived up in Rochester, a Norway maple helicopter-seed germinated in our garden. We didn’t rip it out. We let it grow.
It became a sapling, and we transplanted it to West Bloomfield when we moved here — which was 30 years ago.
That sapling is now a giant tree; 15-inch trunk, maybe 40-50 feet high. I hafta mow around it, and its roots hurl me on my riding-mower.
I’m told Norway maples are intruders, a weed-tree. But it looks pretty good to me. I also have another we paid for. It’s much larger.
I’ve heard complaints about helicopter-seeds, but my mower chops ‘em into mulch.
Those maples also drop many leaves come Fall, but my mower mulches them too.
So perhaps that little sapling isn’t doomed. It may be a sugar-maple. My nearest tree is a sugar-maple, purchased by my wife’s father. He died shortly before our house was finished.
Every Fall its leaves turn red, then drop for mulching. My Norway maples aren’t as pretty.
My wife’s ashes are dispersed around that sugar-maple. She always thought highly of it since her father bought it.
So I’m not sure I wanna toss that gutter-sapling. Nearby is a giant tree that was once a sapling.
Perhaps 40 years from now, assuming that sapling survives, whoever owns my house can brag to neighbors a giant sugar-maple was once a gutter-sapling.

• For 2-3 years or more I did aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool. I dropped out for the moment so I could try dry-land balance-training at a hospital Physical-Therapy. I continue to use the pool on-my-own.

I have hot-water

—“How do I compress a 20-minute orgy of techno-jargon into something that won’t zone you out?”
I’d say that to my lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool.
“At long last I can shower at home,” I’d say. “My hot water is back.”
She’d want explanation.
I always tell that lifeguard she was Step-Three away from my difficult childhood.
-Step-One was my college, Houghton, the first religious institution that didn’t automatically declare me “disgusting” and “Of-the-Devil” = a threat. —Professors wanted me in their class.
-Step-Two was my wife of 44&1/2 years, the first female who liked who I already was.
-Step-Three was that lifeguard. She said hello to me by name in passing. She was just being sociable, but I was dumbfounded.
“NO PRETTY LADY WILL TALK TO YOU!” Yet there was that lifeguard, stately and statuesque, a “looker.”
“You talkin’ a-me?” reprising Robert De Niro in Taxi-Driver.
Unaccustomed to dealing with women, I “fell for her,” for lack of a better term.
I’ll never do THAT again.
Thankfully that lifeguard and I got past that, probably because I never had her phone-number. I don’t even know her last name.
I (it’s no longer “we”) have a “tankless” water-heater. That means it heats water on-the-fly. There isn’t a standing tank of hot water continually being heated.
Water is heated on demand. Open a hot-water tap, and water runs through my tankless. It’s heated as it passes through.
As originally designed, our house had a tankless water-heater. But it was Swedish = hard to get parts. (I had to repair it after 2-3 years. Its heater-core corroded.)
It also used a pilot-light instead of electronic ignition. This was 30 years ago. Since the tankless mounted to an outside wall, the pilot liked to blow out in windstorms.
It did so after my stroke 26 years ago. I had to relight the pilot despite being stroke-addled.
A heating-contractor told us our system was illegal, so we installed a 40-gallon tank-type water-heater. Another tank-type was installed when the first gave up.
Then our gas supplier offered a rebate to go tankless, so we had one installed maybe 10-12 years ago.
It’s been supplying hot water ever since, but became undependable maybe five years ago.
Ask a heavy load of it, like my washing-machine, and it would overheat and cut out. It was the heater-core. I’d go down into the basement and reset it.
It only tripped under heavy demand = the washer. Lighter demand, a shower or my dishwasher, didn’t overheat it.
A few weeks ago it tripped during my shower. All-of-a-sudden a cold shower. I had to shower at Canandaigua’s YMCA.
3-5 visits by my installer, all covered by a maintenance-contract. Cleaned twice, and heater-core flushed at least twice; but still it tripped.
Last visit my maintenance-man was at wit’s end. It still tripped. He called the manufacturer tech-support, and they suggested a new “inducer-fan.”
That fan blows through the flame, and also the heater-core.
That fixed it. So how do I compress all this techno-gibberish into a story that won’t bore my lifeguard friend?
We word-guys have a habit of saying too much.
Getting her laughing — and I love seeing her laugh — won’t be easy.
Maybe I’ll just say “hot water at last!”

• For 2-3 years or more I did aquatic balance-training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool. I dropped out for the moment so I could try dry-land balance-training at a hospital Physical-Therapy. I continue to use the pool on-my-own, but felt like I was wasting time with the aquatic balance-training class.
• My beloved wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012.
• 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 (“our”) house was built in 1989. It’s super-insulated, and my wife and I designed it.

Balance considerations

—“What I really want is to be able to continue walking my dog.”
I told that to my Physical-Therapist at a nearby hospital.
It’s balance-training, which I did in a YMCA swimming-pool for 2-3 years — maybe more; I forget.
My balance was degrading, so a YMCA water-therapy coach, who uses the same dog-groomer I use, suggested she could help me.
I tried that, but it seemed my balance worsened over time. What got much better was my ability to counter bad balance. I hardly fall any more.
But it seemed like I was beating my head against the wall. A neurology-practice wrote me a scrip for dry-land balance-training at a hospital Physical-Therapy.
I decided to try that, dropping out of my pool balance-training class for the moment. I continue to use the pool on-my-own.
Dry-land seemed more specific to my balance problem, plus it’s one-on-one. Still, I like sloshing around in a swimming-pool, since it’s balance-challenging.
And maintaining balance seems a function of core-strength, which in my case went away, I guess.
“So how many falls over the past week?” my therapist asked.
“I cannot tell a lie,” I said. “Three falls.”
“This is what I worry about,” she said. “Every fall risks breaking something.”
Well yes, but for them a fall seems catastrophic.
“One was a gentle sit-down, and none were hard,” I added. “I’ve fallen enough to know how to do it. Roll it out to dissipate energy, and keep your head from hitting the ground.
I usually end up on my back. Plus when I start falling I grab things to ease my fall.”
I also analyzed my falls. In my house or on pavement seem catastrophic. I’ve done neither in years.
99% of my falls are on turf, or in woods. I go out of my way to avoid tripping. I watch where I put my feet: roots, rocks, “curb-coming.”
Paying so much attention wasn’t the case years ago. Compensation was fairly automatic. Now I hafta allow for questionable balance.
“I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up! Call 9-1-1! Call a tow-truck!”
Getting off my riding-mower has to be done just so. Otherwise I’ll trip and fall hard: I have.
So far one knee replaced. The one remaining is still the one I was born with, but it hurts occasionally.
I did rehab after that knee-replacement, “but you’re not discharging me until I know I can get up after a fall.”
“Falls are a definite no-no!” my therapist shrieked.
I had to move heaven and earth to get that therapist to allow me to try getting up from the floor, but he acquiesced.
I did it, so “you can discharge me.”
Both a cane or walking-stick were suggested. I tried each, but they are so hard to manipulate I decided to avoid both. It also seemed neither offset instability or would stifle a fall.
I don’t do that bad YET, and don’t wanna become dependent.
Dry-land physical-therapy continues, and I feel I’m getting better = more stable.

Get the endorphins flowing

“You gotta quit smiling at me!”
I said that to a lady-friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool.
“Just saying goodbye,” I said. She broke into a smile that brightened the entire pool-area.
I hung around just to do that; I hadn’t walked out.
If there’s one thing I learned since my beloved wife died it’s to do such things. Call it flirting if you wish.
“NO PRETTY GIRL WILL SMILE AT YOU!” And there’s my friend smiling at me.
Another thing I learned is my Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor, and hyper-religious parents, were WRONG.
I learn that 70 years late.
When I go to Altoona (PA) to take train-photos, I always stay at the same motor-lodge — in hopes I’ll see the lady-friend I’ve seen before.
She recognizes me, and I recognize her. We wave and smile at each other, then talk.
We’re worlds apart, but it does us both good. Get the endorphins flowing. I make her laugh.
And she loves it. I can tell.
So I better do it. 10 years ago I wouldna; and that wasn’t because I was married.
Back then I was scared = frightened of ladies, especially the pretty ones.
I’d like to think my wife would be pleased I’m finally realizing I’m not scum. (That’s my Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor.)
That pool-friend isn’t the only one. Others smile at me too.
I’m 75 years old, out-of-shape, and never was Adonis. Yet ladies gravitate toward me. “Talk to me. Make me laugh!”
And I ain’t tryin’; it just happens.
Recently a pretty young girl told me ladies love laughing.
A few weeks ago a young Physical-Therapist smiled at me. I was smitten! Now I call her “Smiley;” we’re always smiling at each other.
It’s called “get the endorphins flowing,” and thereby make each other feel good.
I realized it was smiling that did it. I’m always a sucker for easy smilers. “NO PRETTY LADY WILL SMILE AT YOU!” My entire childhood is being flip-flopped.
So I’m sure I’ll try again with my pool-friend. Maybe I can get her to brighten the pool-area again. I will do us both good.
Just yesterday as I walked out of the hospital Physical-Therapy: “Gotta say goodbye to this receptionist.” Smile alert!

• For 2-3 years or more I did aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool. I dropped out for the moment so I could try dry-land balance-training at a hospital Physical-Therapy. I continue to use the pool on-my-own.
• Altoona, PA is on the eastern side of Allegheny Mountain, where the Pennsylvania Railroad crossed that mountain toward Pittsburgh. Pennsy is now Norfolk Southern, and my younger brother and I are railfans. We visit Altoona frequently to photograph trains, and that segment of the railroad is very busy, since it’s a main thoroughfare to the east-coast megalopolis.

“Was it me?”

—Yrs Trly posts links to these blogs on his Facebook.
That’s because some readers aren’t in my Ne’er-Do-Well list, which is those to whom I e-mail blog-links.
I usually Facebook the same time I publish a blog. It takes maybe 20 seconds.
I do the Ne’er-Do-Well e-mail the next day — 2-3 minutes. That allows me to see if anyone opened my blog from Facebook.
Every time someone opens my blog, BlogSpot (my blog service) tells me. It doesn’t tell me who or how, but I Facebook the night before I Ne’er-Do-Well.
Facebook may get 0-2 hits, which I see the next day when I do the Ne’er-Do-Well e-mail.
I Facebooked a blog-link the other night, and no hits the next morning. I have readers not in my Ne’er-Do-Well list, plus Ne’er-Do-Wells who open my Facebook link as “friends.”
I don’t know how Facebook works, nor do I care. I think I could limit FB “notifications,” but let ‘er fly!
Facebook is so complicated it’s not worth the trouble. Plus they like to change things unannounced.
So zero Facebook hits the following morning, and I had minor editing to do. Usually those edits are so minuscule it’s not worth worrying about Facebookers who read my blog before editing.
Fixes complete I noticed BlogSpot was showing me one hit instead of zero.
“Was that me?”
I don’t think MY firing up a blog is a hit. It wasn’t before.
At 8 a.m. eastern some faraway ”friend”may be firing up my blog. I also put a link to that blog into an e-mail to an old friend. He refuses to Facebook. “I have enough friends.”
“Was it me?”
“What, me worry?”
Alfred E. Neuman ascendent!
I have a Facebook “friend” (thank you Mark!), who gave up watching the news.
I can’t do it. How can I miss the latest 3 a.m. tweet from the Great White Throne?

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

“That lifeguard was a godsend”

—I said that to an old friend with whom I attended college.
I’m currently on-the-outs with him because I had the awful temerity, unmitigated gall, and horrific audacity (cue Sharpton) to suggest I no longer was the wuss I was in college.
And as one who did a newspaper website, I knew what a “pixel” was — he insisted I didn’t.
He lives in MA, and I hadn’t spoken to him for some time. But I forwarded a recent e-mail from our hyper-religious college which I found depressing.
As non-believers, my friend and I were both ne’er-do-wells at that college. We both were almost kicked out on a “tight-pants” rap. We were mimicking the Rolling Stones.
We also wore our hair long — a-la The Beatles.
My friend almost got canned for frequenting bars, and me on an attitude-rap. I neither drank nor smoked.
I forwarded that college e-mail, and also included a link to my “History” blog. It mentions a lady named *****, who lifeguards the Canandaigua YMCA swimming-pool.
That “History” blog implies how ***** reversed my childhood. She said hello to me by name months ago. “NO PRETTY LADY WILL TALK TO YOU!” yet there was *****. I’m sure she was just being sociable, but I was dumbfounded. ***** is a “looker.”
***** is 64, but doesn’t look it on her lifeguard stand. Stately and statuesque, and no thunder-thighs.
Despite my continual flubs we became friends. We joke around, and I make her laugh. Another pretty girl told me women love laughing.
My wife always said the reason we lasted 44&1/2 years, despite my half insanity, was because I made her laugh.
I always hope ***** is on duty, and it seems she looks forward to me. —Get the endorphins flowing; I love to see ***** laugh. And she seemed rather serious at first.
“That lifeguard was a godsend” was just a verbal potshot.
But my friend ran with it, suggesting my meeting ***** was preordained from above.
This of course contradicts our non-belief; me agnostic, and I don’t know about him.
My friendship with ***** also contradicts my father. “NO PRETTY LADY WILL TALK TO YOU!” is as much him as otherwise. (See footnote below.)

• “NO PRETTY LADY WILL TALK TO YOU!” is Hilda Q. Walton, my immediate neighbor and Sunday-School Superintendent when I was a child. Like my parents she was hyper-religious. She convinced me all males, including me at age-5, were disgusting. My parents heartily agreed.
• A “pixel” is a tiny bit of digital information. It has all the RGB (red-green-blue) information to display that pixel at the right color. Computer resolution is 72 pixels-per-inch. (Our web photos were 72 ppi.) Resolution-for-print is usually 300 ppi. 72 ppi looks fine if displayed small. Enlarge a 72 ppi and the pixels get so big, the image “pixelates” (jaggies). Our web-photos were 72 ppi because that’s the resolution at which a computer-screen displays. Normally you can’t upsize a 72 ppi, but iPhone photos (72 ppi) are so large you get away with it when you downsize and up the resolution.
• I did aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool 2-3 years or more. I dropped out for the moment so I could try dry-land balance-training at a hospital Physical-Therapy. ***** lifeguards that pool, which I continue to use on-my-own.

Who was the third hit?

I Facebook these blogs.
But I wrote one the other day of which I was leery. There are “friends”on my Facebook not in my Ne’er-do-well list.
My “Ne’er-do-well” list is people to whom I e-mail blog-links. Those not in my my Ne’er-do-well list get my blogs from a Facebook link.
I usually get one or two Facebook hits.
BlogSpot tells me how many hits I get — but not who. Facebooking a blog-link takes 15-20 seconds. E-mail links take 2-3 minutes.
What I do is put out the FB link the same time I publish the blog.
I e-mail Ne’er-do-well links the next day. This also tells me if anyone hit the FB link overnight. My Ne’er-do-well links increase the number of hits. FB might get 0-2 hits; e-mail gets 8-20 additional — sometimes more.
Every time someone clicks a blog-link, a “hit” is recorded.
I was leery of putting a blog on my Facebook. I was afraid some FB “friend” might read it, and take it wrong. (The written word does that — even the spoken word.)
THREE hits the next day.
I put the blog-link on two individual “friend’s” Facebooks. That’s two hits. So who was the third hit?
It can’t be someone I’m Facebook “friends” with, since I didn’t Facebook the blog.
And I hadn’t e-mailed the link yet.
Someone must be following me on BlogSpot. Or perhaps Facebook notified my “friends” I posted to a “friend’s” Facebook.
I have no idea how Facebook works, especially since it likes to change unannounced.
I could recite chapter-and-verse. Like “thank you Mark!”
So who was the third hit? Will I get surprised? Is it someone I wanted to avoid?
I have a few actual friends savvy enough to follow me outside Facebook.
Then too that third hit may be someone wanting to sell me something. All I hafta do is supply my credit-card number, etc.
It’s happened.

• RE: “Hit......” —Every time my blog is accessed on BlogSpot a “hit” is recorded. (That doesn’t mean my blog was read.)
• RE: Misreads....... —People get what they want from written word, spoken word too. Often anger results, or “I never said that.”
• “Mark” is Mark Zuckerberg, founder and head-honcho of Facebook.

Eye-to-eye

—“I don’t know if you noticed,” I’d text my aquacise instructor; which I won’t to avoid being bothersome.
“But I looked right into your eyes. I couldna done that years ago. A lot has changed since my wife died.
And you’re not the only one,” I’d add. “It’s too bad she’s no longer around.
I been doing that hospital PT at least a month, plus your aquacise class about three years. Yet I feel like I’m getting worse.”
“I think you’re much better than when you were first here,” she said. “You don’t see it, but I do.”
“But I hafta hold a railing just to go down steps. If I don’t I start falling. No-hands requires setup and maximum concentration.
Standing on one foot is near impossible; even both feet is challenging.
I walk like a little old man. Normal walking requires balancing on one foot. I almost shuffle.
I wouldn’t bother you, but a friend told me I should.
I noticed I was looking you right in the eye.
‘NO PRETTY LADY WILL BE INTERESTED IN YOU!’ That left me unable to talk face-to-face with ladies all my life.
I couldn’t do it with my wife either.
Last week a pretty girl came to talk to me at a celebration-of-life. Eye-to-eye again. I even told her it was pleasant meeting.
Ten years ago I woulda left the table.”

• I did aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool 2-3 years or more. I dropped out for the moment so I could try dry-land balance-training at a hospital Physical-Therapy. I continue to use the pool on-my-own.
• “NO PRETTY LADY WILL BE INTERESTED IN YOU!” is Hilda Q. Walton, my immediate neighbor and Sunday-School Superintendent when I was a child. Like my parents she was hyper-religious. She convinced me all males, including me at age-5, were disgusting. My parents heartily agreed.

“You think too much!”

—The other day it seemed *****, a lifeguard at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool, skonked my aquacise instructor at that same pool.
I enjoy my friendship with both, surprised to have it after the childhood I endured. I’m a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations . (See footnote below.) “NO PRETTY GIRL WILL BE INTERESTED IN YOU!”
I “fell for” both, for lack of a better term. Yet ***** and I seem to have got past that. Probably because I never had her phone-number.
I have my aquacise instructor’s phone-number from her business-card. Way too many texts, and it seemed she was interested in me. It probably was her way of doing things, but with my background I misread it.
When I walked into the pool-area the other day I didn’t notice ***** until she started pointing at me, smiling.
For a Hilda grad this is amazing!
I decided to let ***** make the first move, instead of me gushing all over her.
Here comes *****, “rotating” (the two lifeguards swap positions after a set time). But she wasn’t avoiding me — she was smiling as she walked toward me.
My aquacise instructor probably noticed. She’s very cute for age-59 or whatever it is. Not a bloated hag with thunder-thighs.
She seems too think herself the pool-cutie, yet here I am attracted to *****.
***** is statuesque. She’s 64, but doesn’t look it on her lifeguard-stand. No thunder-thighs either.
I wanted to also talk to my aquacise instructor, and not about business. But doing so was after a jolly good time with *****. My aquacise instructor seemed a bit put off by my trying to talk to her.
Sometimes I think ***** is using me to skonk my aquacise instructor:  “Think yer the pool-cutie, eh?”
Would I hang out with either one? We’re worlds apart in both cases. Plus I think I would quickly bore ***** to tears.
My aquacise instructor I could hang with, but we’re also worlds apart. She’s the classiest lady I ever met, and I’m the absolute antithesis of class.
Her husband probably gave her an engagement ring, and proposed on bended knee. Not this kid, and not because I was cheap. Can you say “ignorance?”
She’s also not my wife, who was extraordinary.
I like being friends with her, and regret having “fallen for her.” Never again will I do such a thing.
As for *****, our pool friendship is probably as far as we’ll go. I really enjoy it, but beyond that we’d crash.
***** also isn’t my wife. Thankfully I think they’re both married.
—As for my headline I can imagine certain readers telling me “I think too much.” I’ve heard that all my life.
I keep blogging this stuff because I’m so amazed.

• I did aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool 2-3 years or more. I dropped out for the moment so I could try dry-land balance-training at a hospital Physical-Therapy. I continue to use the pool on-my-own.
• Hilda Q. Walton was my immediate neighbor and Sunday-School Superintendent when I was a child. Like my parents she was hyper-religious. She convinced me all males, including me at age-5, were SCUM; “NO PRETTY GIRL WILL TALK TO YOU!” Her husband was probably fooling around. My parents heartily agreed, since I was already rebellious for not worshiping my father.
• RE: “Extraordinary.....” —I always told my wife “what matters is what’s between the ears,” and she had it. Over 75 years I’ve met thousands, and only three females were “extraordinary.” (Only one extraordinary male.)

More pretty-lady ruminatin’

—“Into the fray,” I always whisper as I amble out of the locker-room into the adjacent swimming-pool area at the Canandaigua YMCA.
That’s because many lady-friends may be present, and I hafta engage ‘em without crashing.
I glanced around, but didn’t happen to notice ***** on her lifeguard stand. Suddenly she’s pointing at me to get my attention.
How did I ever become friends with *****? She’s gesticulating wildly.
What is it with this Hughes-guy? He always blogs his lady adventures.
Sorry readers. I’m amazed I do so well with ladies.
Yrs Trly is a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations: “NO PRETTY GIRL WILL TALK TO YOU!”
No Hilda explanation this time; there’s a footnote below for non constant-readers.
I made up my mind beforehand to not make the first move. I wouldn’t walk over to *****’s lifeguard stand.
Here she comes! Smiling and saying hello.
“My cousin in NC told me how to talk to pretty ladies,” I said; “so I’d like to try on you, if I may.
What did you do before you came here?” I asked.
“That’s it!” she cried. “Ask a neutral question to start a conversation. And one that’s not loaded.”
“Last week I attended a Celebration-of-Life, and a pretty girl came over to talk to me,” I said.
Like “What’s that guy doing over there all by himself?”
10 years ago I woulda run away.
But now, thanks to *****, I’m no longer afraid of pretty girls.
“But our conversation was one-sided,” I added. “It was all me-me-me. I never know how to make it two-sided.”
(Enter NC cousin.)
I had hyper-religious parents who always told me I was disgusting. Plus Hilda telling me I was scum.
Things changed after my wife died, partly because of *****. *****’s a “looker,” who apparently just turned 64. She doesn’t look 64 on her lifeguard-stand.
“Will you still need me, will you still feed me; when I'm sixty-four.” I sang her the Beatles tune.
She laughed; I love to see her laugh.
That pretty girl at that Celebration-of-Life told me women love laughing.
My wife always told me the reason we lasted 44&1/2 years was because I made her laugh.
And here I am doing the same thing with *****.

• I did aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool 2-3 years or more. I dropped out for the moment so I could try dry-land balance-training at a hospital Physical-Therapy. I continue to use the pool on-my-own.
• Hilda Q. Walton was my immediate neighbor and Sunday-School Superintendent when I was a child. Like my parents she was hyper-religious. She convinced me all males, including me at age-5, were SCUM; “NO PRETTY GIRL WILL TALK TO YOU!” Her husband was probably fooling around. My parents heartily agreed, since I was already rebellious for not worshiping my father.

History

—1) I always consider Houghton College my first step away from a dreadful childhood.
“How can you say that about our mother?” a sister asks.
“The mother you had is not the mother I had. Don’t forget we’re 17 years apart.” (I was first-born; she was last.)
Houghton was the first religious institution that didn’t consider me rebellious and disgusting — i.e. a threat. There were people who wanted me out, but professors wanted me in their class.
I was the thinker, the one who said things that made even them think.
My father was angry Houghton didn’t “straighten-me-out.” I’m the only Houghton grad — another sister only did two years — after me Houghton was verboten.
After Houghton I returned home, and the badmouthing and putdowns resumed. After a month I left for Rochester — Houghton had been too much fun.
And much to my father’s angry dismay, I didn’t return the prodigal son. Enough already!
—2) The second step was my wife, the first female that liked who I already was. (She died seven years ago.)
There was another before her who liked what she thought I could be. She was a really nice girl, but I cut ties foreseeing pain.
My parents were always put off by my wife. She didn’t “straighten-me-out” either.
—3) Step Three was a lifeguard at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool where I previously did aquatic balance-training.
This was probably two years ago; my wife had already been gone five years.
That lifeguard said hello to me by name in passing, refuting my parents and neighbor Sunday-School Superintendent: “NO PRETTY GIRL WILL TALK TO YOU!”
I was dumbfounded; that lifeguard’s a pretty lady.
There were others before her, but after that lifeguard things started piling up. If it weren’t for those others, I woulda never cranked the nerve to say hello back — and much later, of course.
That lifeguard is from a town just south of Houghton (Wellsville), so we had things to talk about. And she isn’t extraordinary like my wife was.

• My parents were Bible-beating zealots, as was Hilda Q. Walton, my immediate neighbor and Sunday-School Superintendent when I was a child. Hilda, with my parents hearty approval, convinced me all men, including me at age-five, were SCUM. (Her husband was probably fooling around.) —Because of her, et al, I’ve always been afraid of ladies, especially the pretty ones. (Things are changing 70 years late.)
• I previously did aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool, 2-3 years so far. I dropped out for the moment so I could try dry-land balance-training at a hospital Physical-Therapy department. I still do the pool on my-own.
• RE: “Extraordinary.....” —I always told my wife “what matters is what’s between the ears,” and she had it. Over 75 years I’ve met thousands, and only three females were “extraordinary.” (Only one extraordinary male.)

My train-calendar for September, 2019

“That thing has a slug in it!” (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

—My brother and I were in my motel-room near Altoona quietly perusing our day’s train-pictures.
“That thing has a slug in it!” I yelled, stumbling onto my brother’s photo published above.
A slug is a locomotive without the prime-mover (engine). It’s just traction-motors. It’s wired to a “mother,” and draws traction-current from it. A slug can’t run itself; it needs a “mother.”
The train is 12G eastbound on Track One. It’s rounding Bennington Curve near the top of Allegheny Mountain.
The lead unit (6918) is a Norfolk Southern modified SD60E with the “Crescent cab.” It didn’t have that cab originally, and may not be the “mother.”
That second unit (9333) may be the “mother.”
Usually slugs are used where additional tractive-effort is needed, like hump-service. The mother’s electrical output gets spread over additional traction-motors, in this case six.
874 is a former Norfolk & Western SD-40 converted into a slug (RPU6), probably by Norfolk Southern’s Juniata shops.
Most slugs I’ve seen are four-axle, but 874 is six-axle. (NS has a few four-axle slugs.)
You don’t often see slugs as road power. My guess is the Trainmaster needed engines for 12G, and the units pictured were all that was available.
“Take that slug off hump-service, and bring it over here. I need it!”
12G isn’t high-priority like a stacker. Highest priority would be Trailer-on-Flatcar (TOFC). 12G is only mixed freight, loose cars yarded into a train.
Often slugs are a complete locomotive without the engine. They can still have a cab to operate a train — or the control-stand might be removed, but not the cab.
This picture was probably taken in early October when trees are just beginning to turn.
Fall foliage for my brother and I is always a roll of the dice. We don’t live in Altoona — he’s nine hours away, and I’m five.
I look at various webcams in the area. Peak fall foliage may only be a day or two.
Last Fall my brother drove all over the Altoona area in search of fall foliage. He found only one location where trees weren’t done.
That’s next month’s picture.

• For those unknowing, most diesel locomotives are actually diesel-electric. The diesel-engine rotates a generator (or alternator) that generates electricity for electric traction-motors down at the wheels. The diesel-engine is not directly driving the wheels. It’s generating electricity for the traction-motors.
• Some railroad-yards have “humps.” Cars are pushed up the hump, then coast down into the yard. They’re sorted by which track they’re directed to, often assembled into a train. There also are “retarders” to slow the cars, making self-coupling possible without breakage. “Humping” avoids shoving cars with switch-locomotives = flat-switching. But either is loose-car railroading, expensive compared to unit-trains. Many yard humps are being removed. Not too long ago hump-yards were state-of-the-art. Unit-trains beat loose-car railroading.