My train-calendar for December, 2019

Norfolk Southern stacker 20T goes under the pedestrian overpass attached to Altoona’s Amtrak station. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—“I bet I can beat that thing to Altoona’s Amtrak station.” I said to myself. “And take the picture I’ve wanted to get for years.”
I had gone to Altoona alone in bitter cold, and drove directly up Allegheny Mountain. I didn’t go to my motor-lodge first.
Atop the mountain is Gallitzin (“Guh-LIT-zin”). I was headed for the overlook that looks northeast, the best place to hear scanner-chatter.
But I never got there. Something was already headed down Track One.
I drove across Main Street bridge over Track One, and 20T, a stacker, was starting down The Hill. It was headed for New Portage Tunnel.
Pedal-to-the-metal down Sugar Run Road, then into Altoona proper, 10-12 miles. I barreled up Ninth Avenue next to the Hollidaysburg Secondary. Then across 28th St. headed for the Medical Center.
Into its vast parking-lot, then around back. That puts me parallel to the old Pennsy main.
There it is! Altoona’s Amtrak station on the other side, with that gigantic vaulting pedestrian overpass — the picture I’ve wanted for years.
Now all I had to do was wait for 20T.
“Norfolk Southern milepost 238.8, Track One, no defects.” That’s 20T; I beat it, I’m gonna get my picture.
238.8 is far west of Altoona’s Amtrak station, but 20T’s headlight was in sight. 20T had already passed 238.8.
Camera on: check. Gloves off: check. 1/400th: check. Bitter cold, but here it comes.
Click-click-click-click-click! Multiple shots. One has to be right.
That shot has been in my head for years. That vaulting overpass makes it. Give your viewer something to go by.
I’ll try again but westbound; 20T is eastbound.
The shot has to be afternoon light. Morning light backlights everything.
There also is the possibility that overpass might throw a shadow if the sun is out.
So yes, a lotta planning went into this photograph. Eastbounds are usually on One; westbounds on Two — which is too far from this location.
I’ll try the other side, but this side works. And fortunately it was cloudy, a factor I failed to consider. If the sun had been out, 20T woulda been lit wrong.
7607 and 8040 are both General Electric ES44s, 7607 an ES44DC (direct current), and 8040 an ES44AC (alternating current). Both are 4,400 horsepower.
20T is a long double-stack, but I think had only these two units. Stackers aren’t top priority, but close.
Top priority seems to be trailer-trains (TOFC), as was the case years ago. Or perhaps Amtrak, although I think Amtrak might fall second to TOFC.
Keeping Amtrak on time isn’t too hard. The plodders are mixed-manifest — the product of loose-car railroading. In-the-hole (siding) to let that stacker pass. How many times have I found a mixed-manifest stopped in front of Railstream’s Cresson webcam?

• RE: “Scanner-chatter.....” —Back then every time a train passed a lineside signal, the engineer had to call out the signal aspect on railroad-radio. I take along my radio-scanner to hear that, so I know where trains are (I know the signal locations). This is no longer the case with Positive-Train-Control and in-the-cab signaling. All I (we) get are lineside defect-detectors, plus signal callouts at interlockings. (“We” being my brother-and-I.)
• Back when Pennsy was built (1846 or so), the Hollidaysburg Secondary was the original line to the Public Works portage-railroad. Instead of ripping it out when the railroad was completed over Allegheny Mountain, that original line became a branch. Pennsy had car-shops in Hollidaysburg.
• 28th St. is the main drag into Altoona from Interstate-99.

“You think too much! “—2

(There was an earlier “ You think too much.”)

—“I swear,” I would say to my pretty lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool.....
“Sometimes I think she’s jealous I talk to you.”
The other day my aquacise-instructor, who also is pretty, roared behind us barking “hello” as she passed. Little eye-contact, she wasn’t smiling.
Usually a person who knows you stops to say hello.
But I probably won’t say anything because -a) my perception reflects I think too much — a criticism I get from another lady-friend, and -b) my perception is debatable anyway.
My lifeguard friend is striking for age-64. She doesn’t look 64 on her lifeguard-stand. —She also swims laps.
This isn’t the first time I been stiffed — or so it seems.
My lifeguard friend and I are just pool-friends. I’m sure outside the pool I would bore her to tears.
She’s married, and so am I somewhat, even though my beloved wife died 7&1/2 years ago.
But I do enjoy hanging out with that lifeguard, and it seems she enjoys hanging out with me.
She’s the first pretty lady I had the nerve to be interested in. That counteracts my childhood — constant-readers know all about it. 70+ years marked-for-life.
I’m also surprised she seems interested in me. I’m 75 years old, somewhat obese, and way outta shape. Yet apparently I’m funny, which attracts ladies. That lifeguard is not the only one.
My aquacise-instructor also reverses my childhood. A while ago she wanted to walk our dogs together. That wasn’t me asking her; that was her asking me.
NO PRETTY LADY WILL SMILE AT YOU! Yet my aquacise-instructor does, and I melt every time she does it.
A while ago my lifeguard friend asked me to help remove a pool lane-divider. Suddenly my aquacise-instructor was lunging to do it for me.
Another time I walked over to say goodbye to another lifeguard lady-friend, and suddenly my aquacise-instructor was lunging between us.
Sometimes I think my 64-year-old lifeguard friend is using our friendship to skonk the aquacise-instructor.
Again: “You think too much!” Yet I also NOTICE too much.

• I do aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool, two hours per week — plus a third hour on my own.
• Eons ago my hyper-religious Sunday-School superintendent neighbor, the infamous Hilda Q. Walton, convinced me all males, including me at age-5, were SCUM. My parents heartily agreed; they also were hyper-religious. If they had come to my defense, Hilda woulda crashed in flames.
• “Q” stood for “Quincy,” her maiden-name.

The Houghton jones

—“Wait a minute!” I yelled to a cute young girl at my supermarket’s service-desk.
She turned and started walking away.
“Don’t go anywhere yet,” I yelled. “Turn around and lemme see your sweatshirt.”
It was purple, and said “Houghton College .”
“Class of ’66!” I said.
Her father was with her; she was embarrassed.
“Was it worth it?” he asked.
“Awfully glad I went there,” I said. “Found my wife there, and she was extraordinary. 55 years later Houghton still rings in my head.
I can still recite Shakespeare’s 116th Sonnet from memory, and I know what the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is, and also the Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan.
And you can be sure any text I do will be properly spelled and fully punctuated. That’s Houghton’s legacy: namely ‘GET IT RIGHT!’”
The girl was embarrassed. I bet that sweatshirt goes in her drawer. Her father was saving her — I bet he also was a Houghton-grad.
I revisited Houghton for our 50-year class reunion. We were known as “the radicals;” the ones who supposedly turned Houghton around.
Houghton was overly judgmental before us, but we challenged that.
And it wasn’t just we sinners. It was also the zealots.
We were the cusp of the ‘60s college revolution. It’s like after us they gave up!
Houghton is an evangelical college. People wonder why I went there. It was the Great Compromise with my hyper-religious father, who wanted me to attend Moody Bible Institute in Chicago like he did; and so become a Bible-Beater.
But in 1962 Moody was not a four-year college, and I wanted a BA. We compromised because Houghton was a four-year evangelical college. I also gained friendships among Houghton students on the staff of a religious boys camp in MD.
Houghton is much different than when we were there. Back then girls couldn’t wear shorts or sleeveless dresses.
And back then male students other than freshmen stayed in rooming-houses, not dormitories. Those rooming-houses were professors or college employees.
What I always say is Houghton went to-Hell-in-a-handbasket since I graduated. It’s no longer a self-proclaimed tiny island-of-decency. (Or is it?)
But the chimes in the bell-tower still ring off every hour like they did when we were there.
And Houghton is still evangelical, but I think more tolerant. They were tolerant to let me graduate.

• “Wait a minute!” is what I’m always accused of saying before I pontificate.
• RE: Sonnet 116: play the podcast readers! (It’s a link.)

“HI BEAUTIFUL!”

The grand entrance at Eastview mall, sundial in front, pleasure-dome at left.

—“If there’s one thing that makes me feel very old and stroke-addled its visiting the Apple-store in Eastview Mall.”
I said that to *****, a co-owner of the kennel that daycares my dog. I was returning to pick up my dog.
Eastview is bad enough. A gigantic shopping-mall, replete with pleasure-dome. It’s so big ya need a powered cart. Just getting to the Apple-store is a half-mile hike.
I saw geezers puzzling over a store-directory video. I did same my first visit. Push this, try that; scratch head. “The Apple-store is right over there!” a Good Samaritan said.
Constant-readers of this blog know Yrs Trly just bought an Apple iPhone 11Pro . 1,000 smackaroos.
“Is it worth that?” ***** asked.
“Yep,” I said. “All I do is look at it, it looks at me, and BAM, it unlocks. Can you say ‘facial recognition’?”
“No wonder it unlocks after looking at you,” ***** said.
“Oh, a smarty-pants, eh?” I said, reprising Moe of the Three Stooges.
Unlocking my i6 was two or three tries. Sloppy keyboarding is one of my minor stroke detriments. Plus whatever I mistyped is invisible.
That’s better than Microsoft. Mistype in Word®, and it might vaporize your entire document, off into Never-Never Land = start over.
I don’t know if “command-Z” works with Word®, but it saved my butt enough times in “Pages®,” Apple’s word-processor. (I’m doing this in “Pages®.”)
I’ve also used Apple’s “Time-Machine” to retrieve documents I somehow vaporized. Time-Machine backs up to an external hard-drive as I go along.
My question to Apple’s tech-mavens was why my e-mail seemed wonky. But was it really?
Tests by a bubbly techie indicated “Your phone is mirroring exactly what your cyberspace e-mail has.”
“Seemed my i6 got a lot more,” I countered.
Time for down-and-dirty = analysis for which the average geezer throws up his hands in despair.
No “inbox” beyond the two in my cyberspace e-mail, only two “sent” (the ones I never trashed), plus maybe 10 in “junk,” which I put there two weeks ago. —I hadn’t done anything pending my Apple-store visit.
“Usually it’s way more of each.” Think about it!
—A) The ones in “Junk” are inbox deletes from two weeks ago, and....
—B) I’ve gone to having this laptop on all day, to play Railstream’s Cresson webcam all day. That makes cyberspace e-mails go directly to this laptop only, and not my iPhone. No wonder my iPhone inbox has so few.
—C) I get occasional late-night e-mails when this laptop is off. Those appear in my iPhone inbox. I’m friends with a fellow Transit retiree who may be up at 3 a.m. (He, like me, also drove bus.)
“Okay, *****, send me an e-mail. I need to know if this thing will get it.”
“HI BEAUTIFUL,” she cranked.
We twiddled our thumbs as her e-mail bounced around cyberspace.
“Nothing yet,” I said. Then suddenly “GOT IT!”
A lot has changed since my wife died. “NO PRETTY GIRL WILL BE FRIENDS WITH YOU!” Yet now ***** is. —Among many others.
My overly-judgmental parents and holier-than-thou neighbor are skonked.

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. It slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty finding and putting words together.)
• “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 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. My friend is also a retired Regional Transit bus-driver.
• My “holier-than-thou neighbor” was Hilda Q. Walton, my Sunday-School Superintendent. She convinced me all men, including me at age-5, were SCUM. My parents heartily agreed. That marked-me-for-life. Only now, 70 years late, am I realizing they were WRONG!

Sorry.....

—“I seem to have unearthed a nest of crackpots.”
I’ll say that to *****, a lifeguard at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool.
*****’s mother is in my aquatic balance-training class, and I noticed her in my supermarket.
*****, who as far as I know is married, lives with her parents nearby.
“This is my husband,” her mother said — I forget his name.
“So you must be *****’s father,” I exclaimed.
“Yes, and she wasn’t easy,” he laughed. “I had an awful hard time raising her.”
I pointed to *****’s mother. “You should know I always partner with your wife in that pool.”
“Well you can have her!” he laughed.
“So how’s the nuts?” I asked. *****’s mother has a dark bruise on her forehead where a heavy jar of nuts hit her.
“One nut attracts the others,” I commented.
Her mother bopped me on the arm.
On leaving *****’s mother told me to “behave.”
“Yes mother!” I cried.
She bopped me on the arm again.
Fellow crackpots are hard to find.
A company representing my healthcare insurance left a message regarding a medical-procedure they approved. They didn’t say what it was, but left a call-back number.
“I had a hunch it was my MRI,” I said.
“And you were right,” the girl said.
Of course I was right,” I shouted. “I’m always right!
Then the hospital will call my doctor to report they couldn’t find a brain.”
How often do service-reps get to parry a crackpot? Make ‘em laugh! Get the endorphins flowing!
I told ***** that same joke the other day, and she said it was a repeat of one I told her long ago.
“Well, I guess I better lay off my jokes, since I may have blessed you before, and you’ll remember.
So are you the bastion of order and civility?” I’ll ask.
“How am I gonna make you laugh if I’m all joked out? And I love making you laugh.
My wife always told me the reason we lasted 44&1/2 years was because I made her laugh.
I got a custom-made teeshirt a while ago: ‘You’re young only once, but can be immature all your life.’
I haven’t worn it in this pool since I didn’t want you thinking I bought it just to make you laugh.
Okay, tell me this,” I said to *****. “How come ladies love laughing, yet men always pull that macho bit? They take a-fence, though none was offered.”

• I do aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool, two hours per week — plus a third hour on my own.
• My MRI will be a brain-scan.

“Addicted to the Cresson webcam”

My father and I about to set out in pursuit of trains (4/7/1946). (Behind is my Aunt Mary.) (Photo probably by my mother.)

—I said that to my contact at Railstream, source for the Cresson webcam.
Yrs Trly has been a railfan all his life. In 1946 my father, probably at my mother’s insistence — “Thomas, you gotta do something with your son” — put me in the wicker front basket of his red Columbia balloon-tire bicycle, to take me to nearby Haddonfield, NJ, to watch trains.
Free entertainment, and I was smitten. I was age-2.
At that time Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (“Redding” not “Reeding”) through Haddonfield was still using steam-locomotives.
By then many railroads had switched to diesel-electric locomotives, retiring their steam-engines.
PRSL used hand-me-down steamers from its co-owners, Pennsy and Reading. PRSL also had steamers of its own — but they also were hand-me-downs.
At that age I was terrified of lightning and thunder, and also camera-flash. But I could stand right next to a panting, throbbing steam-locomotive.
Ya never see steamers any more. Railroads are fully dieselized.
I always tell other railfans I was lucky enough to witness steamers in actual revenue service.
Pennsy, a coal-road, hung onto coal-fired steam locomotion as long as it could. But dieselization was so attractive even coal-roads had to switch.
With dieselization came retirement of water-towers and coaling facilities. Also servicing of steamers.
Haddonfield had grade-crossings, and also was a station-stop. Engineers whistled those grade-crossings, but my father said they were whistling for me.
He also claimed the train’s engineer was waving at me. Wrong! A train approaching from the east had me on the locomotive’s left side. That would be the fireman. The engineer was on the opposite (right) side.
I been chasing trains ever since.
It led me to various railfan pilgrimage spots: Cajon Pass and Tehachapi Loop in CA, Sherman Hill in WY, Cass Scenic Railroad in WV, and most importantly, Pennsy’s Horseshoe Curve west of Altoona PA, a trick to get over Allegheny Mountain without steep grades.
My brother-from-Boston became a railfan too after I introduced him to Nickel Plate 765, a restored steam-locomotive.
A few years ago Norfolk Southern Railroad brought 765 to its old Pennsy climb over Allegheny Mountain. Pennsy is now Norfolk Southern, but its crossing of Allegheny Mountain, including Horseshoe Curve, is still there.
That old Pennsy main became a main east-west trade conduit, and still is very active under Norfolk Southern.
After 765 my brother became interested in chasing trains around Altoona. I did that myself earlier with an Altoona railfan conducting day-long “tours”= train-chases.
That railfan took along his railroad-radio scanner tuned to 160.8 MHz, Norfolk Southern’s main operating frequency for that line.
Each time a train passed a lineside signal, its engineer had to call out the signal aspect on railroad-radio; e.g. “25V, west on Three, 245; CLEAR!” (“25V” is the train-number, “Three” is Track Three, “245” is the milepost signal location [245 miles from Philadelphia], and “CLEAR” is the signal aspect [clear block ahead].
My friend would hear that on his scanner, and suddenly we’d bootleg turn his aging Buick in hopes of beating 25V to a prime photo-location. (He knew the signal locations.)
My brother and I started doing that. We both bought scanners, and my brother also did a lot of research to know what trains we’d see.
Railroad-radio also broadcasts lineside “defect-detectors.” (No more caboose.)
“Norfolk Southern milepost 253.1, Track One, no defects” (dragging equipment, overheated wheel bearings, etc).
That got broadcast from the detector location after a train passed. The train’s engineer would hear that and continue, or “Stop your train!”
We’d hear that, and know an eastbound on Track One had passed 253.1.
A few years ago a railfan bed-and-breakfast in Cresson PA, over the mountain from Altoona, set up a video-cam to view trains passing through Cresson. This was done with Railstream, an operation to stream that video over the Internet. Railstream has other locations.
I tried that webcam — I forget why — probably from the bed-and-breakfast’s website.
The bed-and-breakfast, Station-Inn, is very much aimed at railfans; and there are many. Station-Inn used to be a hotel next to the railroad. Cresson is high up the mountain, and used to attract Pittsburghers in Summer.
Station Inn’s building was never torn down. Now it caters to railfans, but it’s rather rudimentary: steam heat and no air-conditioning. I’ve stayed there occasionally — but it’s unfriendly to seniors: no elevators, and long staircases to climb.
Breakfast is in a “Common Room” = jaw with other railfans — sometimes unpleasant for me.
That webcam is very active. Freight-trains galore! Stackers, unit coal, auto, and crude-oil trains, trailer-trains (TOFC), the Slabber, and the smelly trash-train. Mixed-freight manifests too. And sometimes the Tuxedos, or a similar railroad move.
Often a train’s engineer renders a tune on the locomotive horn — for railfans waving from Station Inn’s porch.
I also used to play Station Inn’s railroad-radio scanner-feed. But no longer, since train-engineers no longer call out the signals. That’s Positive-Train-Control and in-the-cab signaling. Many of the old lineside signals have been removed.
Train-engineers still call out “MO,” “UN,” and “AR” etc. Locations of nearby interlockings — crossovers usually. That scanner-feed also gets defect-detectors.
But that scanner-feed is distracting. Railroad employees also air jabbering not worth hearing.
That webcam gets everything: loud Harleys and macho pickups, and girlfriends screaming at loathsome lotharios. There also is Cresson’s fire-siren, and nearby church-bells.
Occasionally I hear an F-bomb. Is there a “deplorable” anywhere that doesn’t modify every phrase with the F-bomb?
RUMBA-RUMBA-RUMBA-RUMBA! “Sounds like 04T,” Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian about 9:15 a.m.
Later RUMBA-RUMBA-RUMBA-RUMBA! “Sounds like 07T,” Amtrak’s westbound Pennsylvanian, about 6 p.m.
Every morning I fire up this ancient laptop, it takes a few minutes, and log in to Railstream’s Cresson webcam. I run that webcam all day. It became background.
This is especially true if WXXI-FM, the public-radio classical-music radio-station out of Rochester I usually listen to, is holding one of its occasional begathons, which I can’t stand.
I also can’t stand opera.
“I YouTubed Schubert’s song-cycle, but there was one problem. They were singing!”

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN. It’s 1956, but it’s the exact location where my father and I first watched trains. (Photo by Robert Long©.)

• “Haddonfield” (“hah-din-field”) is an old Revolutionary-War town in south Jersey near where I lived as a child. A railroad (PRSL) to Atlantic City went through Haddonfield, in the ‘40s and ‘50s when I was growing up. Before that it was Pennsy, and originally it was Camden & Atlantic. PRSL through Haddonfield was where I first watched trains.
• “PRSL” is an amalgamation of Pennsylvania and Reading railroad-lines in south Jersey to counter the fact the two railroads had too much parallel track. It was promulgated in 1933. It serviced mainly the south Jersey seashore from Philadelphia, by ferry across the Delaware River at first.
• “Cajon” (“kuh-HONE”) and “Tehachapi” (“tuh-HATCH-uh-pee”). Cajon is the pass through the San Gabriel mountains from the Los Angeles basin up to the Mojave Desert. Tehachapi Pass is up outta the huge San Joaquin valley over the Tehachapi mountains toward Los Angeles. The railroad loops itself to climb up to the pass.
• “Cass” was once a logging railroad. Side-rod steam locomotives could not do a logging railroad; it’s too steep and rickety. Special applications of steam-locomotive technology were developed = Shay locomotives primarily. The logging operation tanked, but the railroad was saved, to become a WV state park.
• “The Slabber” is an all open gondola-cars loaded with two heavy steel slabs just manufactured at a steel-plant. The slabs are being transferred to a rolling-mill to be rolled into thin sheet-metal, like for automobiles or appliances. “Slabber” is my brother and I; I’ve never heard railroaders use it.
• The “trash-train” is containers-on-flatcar filled with trash and garbage; all to be landfilled elsewhere.
• The “Tuxedos” are EMD F7s rebuilt by Norfolk Southern for executive train-service. They haul restored passenger equipment. There are four units: two A-units and two cabless B-units. They’re repainted black and/or dark brown, so are called the “Tuxedos.”
• “MO,” “UN,” and “AR” are telegraph call-letters of old railroad towers that used to be at those locations. “MO” and “UN” are gone, but “AR” is still there, though abandoned. All three locations are interlockings controlled by Pittsburgh. They’re signaled, and train-engineers call out the signal aspect.
• Amtrak’s “Pennsylvanians,” eastbound and westbound, are the only cross-state passenger trains left on this line. There used to be many.

The End

—So ends my nearly 55-year subscription to Car and Driver magazine.
It began in college, but after Car and Driver claimed Pontiac’s G-T-O was better than Ferrari’s G-T-O (1964).
Which got the effete sportscar junkies all upset, although I think the Ferrari G-T-O was totally unsuited to American driving.
That comparison also made Car and Driver notable. It started in 1955 as Sports Cars Illustrated.
The Pontiac G-T-O Car and Driver tested was a ringer. It had the 421 cubic-inch high-output motor, hot-rodded to the Moon. The standard G-T-O Pontiac was 389 cubic-inches, also hot-rodded.
My introduction to C&D began in the Houghton College laundromat when I picked up a discarded Car and Driver. It was more interesting than my Hot Rod magazines, which seemed aimed at high-schoolers.
Car and Driver was more erudite. It also avoided posturing that European engineering was superior. Suddenly Chevy’s SmallBlock got the attention it deserved. NASCAR was reported. European performance was attractive, but so was American performance.
A lot happened over those 55 years. C&D gave away a Sunoco Blue Z/28 Camaro much like the Penske/Donohue Trans Am Camaros. Pontiac’s overhead-cam six was installed into an XKE Jaguar.
C&D tried to get 200 mph out of a Firebird, but developed a flying machine. It wrecked in the desert, flipping numerous times. (Its driver survived thanks to roll-cage protection.)
Car and Driver brought BMW out of the doldrums. Its 2002 Tii could leave a bellowing 455 TransAm Firebird in the dust.
Head honchos came-and-went. Most notable was David E. Davis, Jr., followed by Leon Mandel — there were others between Davis and Mandel whose names I forget. —Editing a magazine has to be madness.
Another was Csaba Csere (“Chubba-Chedda”), head honcho from 1993 through 2008.
Long-time C&D writer (and one-time head honcho) Brock Yates, with the magazine since 1964 — hired by Davis — left in disgust when Csere didn’t wanna pay his retainer. Yates died in 2016, and Davis in 2011, but not before founding a C&D challenger, Automobile Magazine in 1986 — still being published.
I used to read Car and Driver and Road and Track cover-to-cover. I gave up Road and Track years ago. It wasn’t the good read Car and Driver was.
One-by-one the good writers at C&D disappeared. Best was Patrick Bedard, a former Chrysler engineer who could really write. (He raced the Indy-500 and crashed horribly — he survived.)
Plus my automotive enthusiasm wained as I got older. I ain’t Mario Andretti, and American driving conditions are no longer attractive.
“Them are 200-mph tires!” my niece’s ex-husband bragged, pointing to the tires on his mother-in-law’s Taurus.
“And where, pray tell, do you propose to do 200 mph?” I asked. “And you ain’t gonna get 200 mph out of a V6 Taurus.
You’ll be lucky if you can get 70 or 80. Traffic is so congested you might be crawling.”
In south FL I see Ferraris, Lambos, and Masers. HELLO! Rubber laid at stoplights, then 25-30 mph max. Their drivers are just profiling. “Look what I got!”
I became my paternal grandmother. Performance is for the car to start, and avoid repair.
No way do I chase trains in a Porsche. 200 mph; but where? Expressways became parking-lots.
Car and Driver, with its obsession for automotive performance, is no longer relevant. My iPhone, and this laptop, replaced pedal-to-the-metal.
It’s ironic my final issue has a Corvette on the cover. How many ‘Vettes have graced the cover over 55 years? Corvette sells magazines.
And it’s the new mid-engine ‘Vette. We been awaiting a mid-engine Corvette since the seventies.

• Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati; all hyper-expensive Italian supercars.
• I’m a lifelong railfan. I chase and photograph trains.

The difficulty of face-to-face communicatin’

—“NO ONE WILL TALK TO YOU!” That was my neighbor and Sunday-School Superintendent when I was a child.
Her name was “Hilda Q. Walton.” The “Q” stood for “Quincy,” her maiden-name.
I won’t need to explain Faire Hilda to constant-readers. For those unknowing, there’s a footnote below.
What, pray tell, does that have to do with my difficulty face-to-face communicatin’?
For 60-plus years, per Hilda, I pretty much avoided talking to anyone. Now since my wife died I find it pleasant.
My wife liked me from the get-go. That allowed me to keep to myself.
Hilda triumphant! She made me antisocial.
Now with my wife gone, and 70 years late, I became more sociable.
I’m striking up conversations with everyone, even complete strangers.
“No one will talk to you” was bunk. Faire Hilda, plus my parents, who heartily agreed, were WRONG.
“Yer funny,” a lady-friend says.
Most people love talking to me. A few don’t, plus I hafta be careful. I’m used to talking to someone who understood big words and figures-of-speech.
That of course was my beloved wife. She became used to how I talked, and liked it.
She always scheduled to be in my college classes. (She was the same class as me.)
“I like the way that Hughes-guy thinks. He’ll make a completely off-the-wall observation that has credence. Like why didn’t I think of that?
He also skewers conventional wisdom, yet isn’t haughty about it.”
She was incredibly shy, but always lined up to be next to me. She got herself on the college dishwashing staff because I was on it.
I didn’t know she was interested until my final year in college. She’d say hello to me 10 yards after passing. She was extremely embarrassed when someone clued me in.
But now her enjoyment of my talking is gone.
I find myself saying things similar to what I’d say to my wife. She understood me, but most don’t. I usually hafta explain.
Examples:
“What’s yer dog’s name?”
“Killian, just like on his collar.”
“Kelly? Killer?”
I changed to “Killian, as in Killian Irish Red.”
He’s an Irish-Setter, plus I’ve said his name twice, and rendered a handle.
I walk Killian into woods on Lehigh Valley Rail-trail, and we get mauled by mosquitos.
On exit a stranger on mountain-bike pedals toward the woods. 10 years ago I wouldna said anything, but things changed after my wife died.
“You keep goin’ that way, and yer headed into mosquito-city.”
“HUH? City? What?”
I shoulda said “You keep goin’ that way, and you’ll get mauled by mosquitos.”
I gave up referring to Walter Cronkite as “Crankcase.” My wife would figger it out, but others get exasperated = “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“We took the deer-flies for a walk.” I told that to my wife after walking our dog in a nearby park. Our dog attracted deer-flies, and they followed us all around.
I say that to others, but so far only my wife got it.
“I have wonderful news,” I said to my wife one day after passing the American Legion up the street.
“Of all the places on this vast planet Santa could visit, he’s coming to tiny West Bloomfield.”
“This is why I married you,” she cried.
Another no-no is big words. My wife, who already had an extensive vocabulary, usually got ‘em.
“Excoriated,” I said to a person once.
“I’ll hafta look that up.”
I try to keep big words outta these blogs, since Joe SixPak isn’t gonna drag out his Funk & Wagnalls.
But I’m too used to using obscure language. And face-to-face is so pleasant I feel I should cut back.
“Yelled at! Badmouthed! Whatever.” —My listener isn’t stupid. “Excoriate” isn’t a word he commonly uses.
So now after 44&1/2 years married to one who made sense of my obscurities, I gotta learn face-to-face communicatin’.

• Hilda Q. Walton was my immediate neighbor and Sunday-School Superintendent when I was a child. Like my parents she was hyper-religious. My parents agreed with her that all males, including me at age-5, were disgusting.

Wings folded

(It’s a Corsair; four-bladed prop too.)

—“I feel like I folded my wings some since I last came here.”
I said that to my so-called bereavement counselor the other day. She spends more time dealing with my childhood than the death of my wife.
“I’m not as forthcoming as I was recently. I feel striking up conversations isn’t worth it.
Yet I just flirted with your cute receptionist. I wouldna done that 10 years ago.”
“Flirt” isn’t the word I used. I talked to her, but realized later that was flirting.
She loved it. I thought enough of her to start a conversation.
“I’m pretty sure I saw you the other day at my supermarket. But I didn’t say hello because I wasn’t sure it was you.”
Note usage of “you,” plus I was looking her straight in the eye.
10 years ago I wouldna said anything, and looking her in the eye was impossible.
“NO CUTE GIRL WILL TALK TO YOU!”
That’s Hilda Q. Walton, my immediate neighbor and Sunday-School Superintendent when I was a child.
Hilda convinced me all males, including me at age-5, were SCUM. Her husband was probably fooling around.
I noted that had my parents come to my defense, Faire Hilda probably woulda crashed in flames. But they heartily agreed; I was already stupid and disgusting for not worshipping my holier-than-thou father.
People tell me to “Get over it!” —My childhood that is. Through 75 years on this planet only two people out of thousands understand where I come from:
—One is my 89-year-old aunt, who probably suffered a worse childhood than mine. She was born in 1930, the height of the Depression, so was unwanted = a mistake.
—Second is my father’s brother’s only son, a cousin. “I don’t know how my father ended up being as decent as he was after that madhouse he grew up in.”
That uncle also told me he very definitely wasn’t the favored one. That was my father.
I could go on-and-on. What’s notable is my entire childhood is being flip-flopped since my wife died.
“NO PRETTY LADY WILL TALK TO/SMILE AT/BE INTERESTED IN YOU!” That marked me for 70 years. Fear of people in general, pretty ladies especially.
But now at last Faire Hilda and my parents drift into the filmy past. I’ve collected too many female friends — they pile up. Add that receptionist.
You can be sure I’ll say hello the next time I see her. And much to the angry chagrin of Hilda and my parents, she’ll like it.
Which makes her a slut, which she’s not. No sluts for this kid!

• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I still miss her. BEST friend I ever had, and after my childhood I needed one. She actually liked me.

“WOW!”

—That’s what I keep saying. (And not “zow-eee, wow-eee.”)
Unholster new i11Pro, look at it, it looks at me, and BAM!
Instantaneous unlock.
Sometimes it unlocks without my looking at it.
This solves the most irksome problem I had with my i6. The fingerprint thingy no longer worked — it was probably my protective case, which made it erratic from the start.
Then I have to key in the unlock code on my i6’s virtual keyboard, which for a stroke-survivor is always a shot-in-the-dark. And of course what you typed is invisible. Figger two or more tries over a minute or more. I’m supposed to use Siri to find the nearest Taco-Bell, with my brother lunging the car all around?
With my new i11Pro all I gotta do is take it out.
Can you say facial recognition?
It that worth $1,009.42?
In a word: YES!
Fortunately I can afford 1,000 smackaroos.
No Corvette, no speedboat, no motor-home, no kids to put through college. All my wife and I ever did was save-save-save.
I may even be able to pay for it out of current funds.
I coulda bought an i11; that’s only two lenses instead of three.
That’s me, the aging photographer. The third lens is zoomable telephoto. The first two are normal and wide-angle. Don’t know if the zoomer is digital or actual.
That third lens cost 3-4 hundred more. I already was impressed by the camera in my i6. Resolution is only 72 pixels-per-inch, but picture-files are so big one can crop without getting jaggies. (“Jaggies” are when a picture “pixilates;” The pixels are made so large they become visible.)
I keep telling people my iPhone is the best camera I own. (I also own a Nikon D7000.)
All I hafta do is aim-and-shoot; everything is automatic.
“Robert-John, ya forgot yer flash!” (That’s my 89-year-old aunt.)
“Don’t need it!” I say. Given enough light my iPhone will shoot available-light indoors.
My i6 was great fun once I got it unlocked.
I wasn’t doing much with it. Just my grocery lists, photos, texting, and Siri commands. I used it to GPS too, but most times the GPS is already in-my-head, and that GPS-lady better agree.
(“What you been smokin’, girl?”)
The Apple-store was mayhem. It was Sunday afternoon, and the place was mobbed.
I was accosted by a greeter as soon as I walked in. He directed me to a far-away table. I was then accosted by number-two, also a greeter, as I walked toward the table. She led me to the table.
I was carrying this laptop. “What do you need? A data-transfer between computers?” —That was techie number-three, the girl running the table. (I guess that table was ‘pyooter-to-‘pyooter data transfer.)
Then came techie number-four: “Yer number-four,” I cried. Four techies within a minute, and none were who I was appointed to see.
“I’m switching from this i6 to an i11Pro,” I said.
“Wrong table,” said number-four, as I was led to another.
This ancient laptop, which I carried, weighs a ton; and I ain’t young.
“So what’s your laptop for?”
“I was told to bring it.”
“If everything is on the cloud we don’t need it.”
“Thought so,” I said.
“All we’re transferring is data from yer i6.”
Such transfers and setup take hours. During which time Techie Number-Four fiddled other customers.
I sat and waited: “Do I hit ‘continue?’” This was only occasional = lotta thumb-twiddling.
“I got a dog waiting at home,” I kept thinking.
At least four customers came-and-went during my setup. My e-mail wasn’t showing a number of folders, which meant Techie Number-Five, a guru specializing in ‘pyooter wisdom. We logged into my mail-server, and that solved that hairball.
“My grocery-lists have to be the same, and the ones I had weren’t on ‘the cloud.’” So we “clouded” ’em.
“Well,” I said; “I guess that’s everything.” I shook number-four’s hand, even though he was already helping someone else.
Earlier I said to him: “I’m 75 years old, and I ain’t dead yet.” Wife gone, as is my balance, plus I live in a house full of junk.
But I expect at least five-seven years out of this i11Pro.
More-than-likely it’ll be antique by 2025. —No icons by then, all voice-command. No “home” button on my i11.
“What I need more than anything is a bathroom.” Two-three hours with no bathroom is a bit much for one lacking a prostate.
At least I was sitting = “Get off yer feet!”

• 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.
• “Siri” (“Sear-eee”) is Apple’s iPhone assistant. It works by voice-command. “I need a Taco-Bell in Altoona, PA.” “Here, check it out!”
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I still miss her. BEST friend I ever had, and after my childhood I needed one. She actually liked me.
• Perhaps 4-5 years ago my prostate was removed as cancerous.

Ain’t dead yet!

—“Okay, ****** ****, you’d probably wanna know. I’m gonna trade this here i6, which has been acting wonky, for an i11.”
****** **** is one of my so-called “flirts” — my brother-in-Boston calls ‘em “flirts.” She’s one of my friends at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool who happen to be female.
****** ****, like me, has an Apple iPhone. I happen to have her phone-number, so I’ve texted her way too much.  I have other female friends at that swimming-pool, but fortunately for them I don’t have their phone-numbers.
I’ve had my i6 at least five years, maybe more. I got it as a promotion from Verizon to renew my cellphone contract. I upgraded from an i4.
I never did much with it — mainly I figgered how to take advantage of its many features.
My grocery-lists are in it, and I take photos with it. I text and e-mail with it, and I also use Siri. But most everything else is via this laptop. I also write these blogs and process photos in this laptop.
I carry my iPhone in a rear pocket, which gives me the advantage of updating my grocery-list when I run out.
“It’s mainly a phone,” I say. Plus “best camera I ever had.”
I say that to photographer wannabees fiddling their Nikons with giant phallic telephoto lenses.
It allows me to just aim-and-shoot. I also have a Nikon, but I only set shutter-speed with it. Train-photos have to be fast: 1/400th or more. Aperture and focus the camera sets automatically.
But with an iPhone I just aim-and-shoot. Everything is automatic. It won’t stop a train, but it’s great for snapshots. Or even more professional.
But my i6 was acting wonky. I suspected its battery. It ran out of volts very quickly. It died during phonecalls.
I’d already been to the so-called “dreaded Apple-store,” totally unlike most brick-and-mortar stores. I was attempting to solve the volts problem. New charger, new cable. It would quickly do 100%, then just as quickly run out.
The gigantic shopping-mall the Apple-store is in is also intimidating. Climate-controlled, all sweetness-and-light. Except for the distances one has to trudge to get anywhere. Ya need a powered wheelchair. I’m glad I walk my dog miles at a time.
“Any way to test the battery in this thing?” The Apple-store has greeters.
“Take a seat next to the big video-screen. Figure 10 minutes max.”
I hardly sat when a beaming young techie introduced himself. He was clad in a black long-sleeve teeshirt with a tiny white Apple logo, as were all the staff techies.
He looked like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook = androgynous.
I visited this Apple-store years ago when it was much more intimidating. It’s less so now. I suppose they can afford it. Apple seems on-a-roll.
That first techie wasn’t whom I ended up with, who would be Joe, age 29, skinny as a rail.
“Your iPhone is swollen, he cried. “It’s the battery.”
We tried to do something — I forget what — and my i6 died.
“We need house-current,” I declared. We ambled to a so-called “Genius-Bar,” and Joe got a charger.
The Genius-Bar was awash with glistening iPhones.
“This thing is an antique,” I said. “I’m embarrassed to be here.”
“We’re not on commission here,” but Joe was hot to replace my i6. He whipped out his i11, which cost maybe $1,200 when he bought it two years ago.
“It unlocks by facial recognition.” Which solves my most irksome i6 problem: unlocking it. The fingerprint thingy worked for a while, but was erratic. It was probably my protective case.
I’d have to key in the unlock code, which for a stroke-survivor is a shot-in-the-dark.
An i11 also has two camera lenses. One is normal, and the other is wide-angle. I guess there also is an iPhone with three lenses, the last being telephoto.
I never cared that much. Resolution is only 72 pixels-per-inch, but the image is so big you can crop quite a bit.
By now I had given Joe “the speech.” “You’re talking to a stroke-survivor. I have aphasia. It’s slight, but can be so bad the person can’t talk. I may have to ask you to slow down or repeat. Sometimes I lock up or can’t get the words out, I’ve had people get angry. I found if I inform listeners in advance, I usually get understanding.
He then noted the most recent iOS upgrade to my i6, 12.4.2, will be the last upgrade Apple will do for an i6 or earlier. The iOS upgrade to his i11 was 13.something.
An i6 doesn’t have the more powerful processor anything since has.
“Well, I guess it’s about time,” I said.
My i6 gets traded for an i11. Nearly 700 smackaroos = “I can afford that.” Over a thousand I’d be leery.
We couldn’t do anything because I wasn’t sure of my Apple-ID password, that accesses my i6 contents on “the Cloud.” Everything backs up automatically.
I’d return Sunday to retire my i6.
Slowly I trudged out of the mall. I’m sorry, but doing this asserts I ain’t dead yet.
I began tearing up. I fully expect to wake up every morning for many years.
My cardiologist tells me to “Get outta here,” as does my doctor. “See me in six months/two years”/whatever!
My inclination was to keep my mouth shut, but ****** **** would wanna know.
She did.

• ****** **** and I go back three or more years. We both use the same dog-groomer, people I once worked with at the Mighty Mezz. I been working out at Canandaigua’s YMCA for years, since before my wife died. My Messenger friend noticed my balance was failing, and told ****** ****. She does aquatic balance-training in Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool, and thought she could help me. We were one-on-one at first, but now I’m in one of her classes, and have been a long time.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost 14 years ago. BEST job I ever had. I was employed there almost 10 years — over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.
• “Siri” (“Sear-eee”) is Apple’s iPhone assistant. It works by voice-command. “I need a Taco-Bell in Altoona, PA.” “Here, check it out!”
• RE: “Train-photos......” —My brother and I are both railfans. We often go to Altoona, PA, to photograph trains. Altoona is where the Pennsylvania Railroad began crossing Allegheny Mountain in 1846. It’s now Norfolk Southern, but it’s still the same alignment. Every year I do a calendar of train-photos my brother and I took. I send them nationwide as Christmas presents. I use Shutterfly.
• RE: “Tearing up......” —Another stroke-effect is lability = poor emotional control. It manifests in increased laughing or crying — crying in my case. It’s only slight, but I’m more likely to start crying.

Amazonian Madness

—“So tell me, Mr. Hughes, what is your issue?”
That was “Customer-Service” at Amazon, an actual American: I was amazed!
“What you guys call ‘issues,’” I said; “I call ‘problems.’”
I was reflecting my frustration. Every time I try anything with Amazon, I get madness.
I apparently have two Amazon accounts, one with my old MyWay e-mail address (BobbaLew25@MyWay.com), which I no longer use. The second is my current e-mail (RHughes3@rochester.rr.com). I have passwords based on my old RTS badge-number. Nothing works with either account — I never can get on.
My brother-in-law suggested I “change password” for one of the accounts, and no longer use the other. I would “change password” for RHughes3@rochester.rr.com.
I’ve done this before, but easier said than done. This is Amazon: the fount of utter insanity.
Amazon’s service-rep said I couldn’t do that. “Just open a third account with RHughes3@rochester.rr.com.
Goodbye!” End of service-call. Back to his day-long donut-break.
Okay, fire up Amazon on this laptop. “Are you sure you wanna open a new account with RHughes3@rochester.rr.com? We already have one with that address.”
“HUH?” Service-rep is off glomming donuts. It’s just me and this laptop.
“If you click ‘yes’ that closes the other account.” Not sure that’s what it said, but I clicked ‘yes.’
Okay, continue setting up new account, I guess. It wants a “master password” to do that.
“HUH again!” My new password won’t be the master password — or is it? I sure don’t know a “master password.” Didn’t know there was such a thing.
I tried my old RTS badge-number. That worked! I guess it’s my so-called “master password.”
Fill in account info: cellphone number, street address, etc. Then do a new password.
Do it a second time to verify password.
Invisible of course, and stroke-survivors do mistypes.
“NAUGHTY-NAUGHTY! There was a problem.” —Don’t you mean “issue?”
For crying out loud! All I’m tryin’ to do is online order some cereal. Almost an hour so far with Amazon. Wal*Mart takes five minutes, but they’re outta stock.
I gave up. Amazon “Customer-Service” some other day. It won’t be the first time I used something other than Amazon to online order my cereal. (It’s worth the extra cost.)
I did just that. I was online ordering a physical-therapy brace, and they offered the cereal I wanted. Oh why not? Amazon loses yet again.

• RE: “Old RTS badge-number...” —RTS equals Regional Transit Service, the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years. My “badge-number” was my employee-number.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments, like sloppy keyboarding. I can pass for never having had a stroke.

Mighty Weggers

If a Ferrari is in the parking-lot, it’s Danny. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

(Following is an overly verbose response to an e-mail from a college classmate who graduated Houghton College when I did. He read something in the NY Times about Wegmans opening a store in Brooklyn.)

—When I came to Rochester in October of 1966, after Houghton, but mainly to get away from my hyper-religious and overly judgmental parents (college was too much fun).....
There were two supermarkets near my humble $10 sleeping-room: a Mighty Weggers, and a Star Market adjacent.
Weggers was preferable, and always has been. Weggers seemed customer-driven, while Star seemed driven to line the pockets of its stingy owners.
Star eventually went defunct, replaced by Mighty Tops out of Buffalo, which also seems owner-driven. One open checkout for 89 bazilyun customers = get in line.
When Linda and I bought our house in Rochester, both Weggers and Star were up-the-street. But Star had a bad location: parking one floor below its store.
That Star closed, and Mighty Tops opened a grand new supermarket even closer to our house. But service there seemed questionable: one open checkout for 89 bazilyun customers.
Wegmans is a famblee business — it’s not public (that I know of). With Wegmans you’re dealing with the Wegman family, not stockholders.
Wegmans was founded in 1916 by John and Walter Wegman as the Rochester Fruit and Vegetable Company. They were succeeded by Robert Wegman, son of Walter. Robert died a few years ago, and was succeeded by son Danny, a car-guy. 454 Chevelle as a youth, now Ferraris (see photo above).
Weggers seems driven by the new business paradigm: just spend the money; you get it back in increased business.
When I drive back from photographing trains in Altoona, PA, my first stop is Mighty Weggers in Williamsport (PA). It seems like returning home.
Williamsport’s Weggers clientele seems crude, as if they’re trying to shop above station.
Flaccid thunder-thighs in short-shorts, and acres of deep cleavage.
The Williamsport Weggers also seems in a poor section of town, surrounded by junkyards and cluttered contractor sites. The west branch of the Susquehanna River is nearby.
Weggers was originally Rochester, and expansion out of Rochester was mainly Danny. He lives in nearby Canandaigua, a lakeside estate. You could say my Canandaigua Weggers is his store. If a Ferrari is in the parking-lot, it’s Danny.
Last Thanksgiving I drove back to my original digs in south Jersey. It was very depressing, reflecting my childhood, I guess. But there in the vast parking-lot of defunct Garden State Park, once a gigantic horse-racing track, was a glitzy new Weggers.
Danny kinda re-aimed Weggers: poor folk tossed in favor of suburban rich wannabees.
Weggers in Brooklyn is betting the people there will wanna appear rich.
Weggers more-or-less set the bar for other supermarkets. Their bananas are superior. No sickly Wal*Mart pretenders for this kid! “Hey Luke; lob me that plum. I’ll bat it outta the store with this here banana!”
Wegmans staffs to the hilt. Chipper employees everywhere, overly friendly, and all wearing Weggers uniforms. Never any waiting. Completely off-the-wall returns. Better to lose five buckaroos than lose a customer.
There are three supermarkets I shop. The nearest is pricy, Weggers not too bad for price, and Mighty Tops isn’t Weggers. Both Weggers and Tops are 25 minutes away in Canandaigua.
Wegmans claims “consistent low pricing.” They avoid door-buster sales of stuff I don’t need.
I’m mainly Weggers, but only because I know the store. Not their pharmacy though — that’s pretty ***** at the high-price supermarket. Weggers would be more convenient, since I’m in Canandaigua so often.
But pharmaceuticals are infrequent enough to patronize pretty *****. She seems to like having me as a customer. She knows me, and has my train-calendar. As do my hairdresser, dog-boarder, post-office, etc.
She looks forward to it, so she says. (“Oh goodie!”) I once  told her a long story about one of my train-photos. In one ear and out the other! But she loved it. I was telling her a story.
Things are much different since Linda died.

• My friend’s e-mail was 148 words — fairly verbose for him. This blog-response is 769 words, the bane of a word-guy. On average an e-mail might be 10-15 words; my response might be 30-100 words. My Facebook comments might be 100 words or more.
• Class of ’66 at Houghton.
• $10 per week or $10 per month. I can’t remember.
• “Linda” is my beloved wife of 44&1/2 years. She died of cancer over seven years ago.
• RE: “Photographing trains in Altoona, PA.......” —My brother and I are both railfans. Altoona is where the Pennsylvania Railroad began crossing Allegheny Mountain about 1846. The railroad is still there, but now it’s Norfolk Southern. Railroad operations there assault the heavens.
* Every year I do a calendar of train-photos my brother and I took in Altoona. I send them nationwide as Christmas presents. Plus I also give one to pretty *****, et al. I use Shutterfly.

Pickle-face

I’m not the prez, but I think I’d share my umbrella with my wife.

—“I’ll tell ya what I most dislike about The Donald.”
I said that Saturday to one of my female lifeguard friends at the Canandaigua YMCA swimming-pool, who I somehow got started on an anti-Trump rant.
“It’s the way he thinks of women as mere toys, trophies.”
She twisted her face into an exaggerated grimace, what a friend calls the “pickle-face.”
I don’t know how Melania can stay with that guy,” she said. “No way could I share a bed with such a creep!”
“Melania sleeps alone,” I cried. “As does The Donald, except for his 3 a.m. Tweets from the Great White Throne.
I made too many female friends,” I added; “and you’re one of them.”
I avoid politics and religion in these blogs. It’s a good way to lose friends.
But a pickle-face is blog-material.
“The last thing I said to my wife as I drove her to hospice was ‘You always had what matters — what’s between the ears’.”
“A brain,” my lifeguard friend commented.
“My cousin in NC always turns down the TV when Trump comes on.”
“So do I,” exclaimed my lifeguard friend. “I can’t stand him! 9.5 minutes for Obama to announce the death of bin Laden, 48 minutes of self-congratulatory blathering regarding the death of al-Baghdadi.”
“As you know,” I added; “I once worked for the Messenger newspaper. I’m a word-guy.”
She used the word “minions” to describe Trump’s subordinates.
“I call ‘em ‘lackeys’,” I told her.
There goes Donald across the White House lawn to Marine One. It’s raining, and he has the presidential umbrella over his head, but not Melania. (See screenshot above.)
But some lackey extended the umbrella out over Melania with a Sharpie.
“Just like Alabama,” my lifeguard friend said.
“How many people understand that Alabama/Sharpie bit?” I asked.
“Well I sure do,” she said. “It makes us look so bad it’s depressing. How long do we hafta put up with this guy?
The poster-boy for everything CONSERVATISM supposedly stands against.”
He’ll probably be re-elected by turning off most voters.
Then declare himself president-for-life. Toss the Constitution!
Another friend worries about Trumpsters starting a civil war.

• I retired from the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper almost 14 years ago. The BEST job I ever had. (“Canandaigua” is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)

My train-calendar for November, 2019

25V claws toward the summit-tunnel atop Allegheny Mountain. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

—The November 2019 entry of MY calendar is Norfolk Southern stacker 25V doing the last of the climb up Allegheny Mountain.
It’s westbound on Track Three.
It was taken by my brother. He is on the dirt-track to Bennington Cemetery. The road is right next to the railroad. It could be said the road is part of the railroad right-of-way.
If I could do my 2019 calendar over, this picture would be the cover. I had already picked the picture below, but it’s dull. It’s by me, but often my brother does better. His picture is also sunlit.
Bennington was a coal-mining camp long abandoned. It established a cemetery, and that is still there. It’s off in the middle of nowhere, only accessed by this trackside dirt-track.
Getting to it involves a long drive down a twisting single-lane unpaved road from the actual summit. The railroad tunnels under the summit, and the mine-camp was railroad level.
I’ve never seen the cemetery. All I’ve done is this trackside location. I guess the dirt-track is gumint maintained, a public road.
At least it isn’t “no-trespassing.” Other trackside locations are attained by access dirt-tracks that might be locked by Norfolk Southern.
The dirt-track to Bennington Cemetery has you right next to the railroad. At least it’s safe, but trains are in-your-face.
So here my brother is probably right where the dirt-track turns away from the railroad toward the cemetery.
Trains slow as they climb the grade. This train probably started The Hill at 30-40 mph. As it neared the top it probably slowed, I estimate 15-20 mph for this train.
Allegheny Mountain is a constant climb of 1,016 feet over 12 miles. It’s hard to think of Pennsy as mountain railroading, but it is.
I see Armour-Yellow in the consist. That’s Union Pacific; so are they run-throughs, or Norfolk Southern rebuilds not repainted yet?
Diesel locomotives are so standardized railroads run power through. You may be on CSX. but there goes Burlington Northern Santa Fe.
Norfolk Southern is rebuilding Union Pacific cast-offs at its Juniata shops. I’ve seen NS trains with all Armour-Yellow power.
Usually run-throughs have a Norfolk Southern engine leading to properly interface with Norfolk Southern’s signaling system.
If a Union Pacific engine were leading, it’s probably rebuilt by NS, not yet repainted.

• The correct pronunciation of “Juniata” is “June-eee-AT-uh.” My mother insisted it was “Juanita.”

My cover-shot; an eastbound trailer-train on Track Two in Gallitzin. (Photo by BobbaLew.)