“Try it and see what happens!”

—“Time-Machine® was unable to back up to Seagate-Backup-Plus.”
Seagate-Backup-Plus is my external hard-drive (one-terabyte), USB’d to this laptop to backup.
“Time-Machine” is Apple’s backup gizmo. It backs up everything I do on this laptop. If I create a document or picture my Seagate gets it too.
It’s saved me occasionally. Sometimes I mistakenly vaporize a complete file. Like I erroneously hit ⌘-Q (quit) instead of ⌘-S (save). Stroke-survivors do that = sloppy keyboarding.
My Seagate has it from a few minutes ago = before my error. So Time-Machine can restore my file.
Never-Never Land skonked.
But “Time-Machine was unable to back up to Seagate-Backup-Plus.”
It’s happened before.
My Seagate external replaced an earlier external that had an independent power-supply. Occasionally it needed reboot. What I did was pull out the power-cord (“pull the plug”).
My Seagate doesn’t have a power-supply. I can’t disconnect.
What to do? Call my MAC guru, or engage what marbles remain after my stroke?
Seems someone told me USB plugs come powered and unpowered. Those to my printer and scanner are powered, but my keyboard and mouse are unpowered. —Still last-century = hard-wired.
The one to my Seagate was powered, as far as I knew. So pull that USB and see what happens.
It’s the way I learned everything about techno-gadgets. My hairdresser was on his phone rendering ‘pyooter-advice to a friend. “Try it and see what happens!” he said.
Last night after reconnecting everything I fired up Time-Machine. It was backing up as far as I could see. It had a blog I started a half-hour earlier.
Every time I do such a thing I remember I’m 75 years old, and run on what gray-matter remains after my stroke — seven cylinders, I always say.
“Get outta here with them computers and Smartphones,” a friend bellows.

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.
• The splat-key (⌘) is Apple’s command-key.
• RE: “Seven cylinders......” —A typical Detroit V8 automobile engine has eight cylinders. Thanks to my stroke I lost one.

Christmas at del Lago

(I shoulda photographed it myself at night.)

—“I found it,” I said to a youngish dude guarding the casino entrance at del Lago Casino and resort. “You must be 21 or older!” a big sign screamed.
Dreadlocks, very dark features, the sort of person that would terrify a honky into silence.
He looked like a refugee from Joseph Avenue’s projects, someone I waited for driving bus. I broke all the rules. If that kid was running after me, I stopped. I might be what kept him out of prison.
That casino-guard turned toward me.
“The way out,” I said.
He smiled. It always works. Take notice of him, he’ll appreciate it.
As a bus-driver I had plenty of terrifying honkies.
I was at del Lago with my Rochester niece. She’s my only Rochester relative. We would do del Lago’s buffet for Christmas dinner.
My niece came with her boyfriend, who is very interesting. My niece lives with her mother in her mother’s childhood home.
My niece’s boyfriend is after her husband, who she divorced (or he divorced her — I don’t know).
Del Lago is a gigantic new casino-resort, but it’s out in the middle of nowhere. The attraction is its casino.
It’s right next to NY state’s Thruway. In fact I hafta use the Thruway to get to it. It’s about an hour east of my house.
I always feel it’s too far. Finger Lakes Racino, an old horse-racing track that added a casino, is closer.
Every time I approach I wonder if del Lago can survive. There it stands. Six stories of glittering apparition. Parking galore = pave all surrounding pastures. It always seems like overkill, but the casino was extremely crowded. I don’t think the hotel and spa were.
“If all those people are waiting to get into the buffet, we sure hit the right time,” I said.
We were calmly eating our buffet servings.
“It’s the dinner rush,” my niece observed.
To do this I hafta leave my dog in the house. 3:45 p.m. to 8:30; almost five hours. One hour out, then an hour back.
Depressing to my mind, since my dog wants me around.
Flaccid Harley-mommas lazily caressed big trigger-buttons on the slots.
Geezers crossed the floor in slow-moving motorized carts.
It seemed the entire time I was there I was lost. Plus I’m not a casino person. All I was doing was asking directions of those who looked like del Lago employees.
The last time I was at del Lago, which was also my first time, was another buffet dinner with my niece.
That was two years ago. I never do the casino. My “gambling” (quote-unquote) is investing. And I let someone else do it for me.
Usually my niece’s mother comes along, but she was sick.
“Companionship,” my niece’s boyfriend said. I’m only just getting the hang of it, and 70 years late.
Why do I keep attending my YMCA aquatic-therapy class? Hang out with my lady-friends, of course. —They seem to like it.
This is all so contrary to how I was brought up. “NO PRETTY LADY WILL BEFRIEND YOU! All boy-girl relationships are evil and disgusting.”
And 10 years ago I probably woulda avoided that casino guard.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs.
• “Joseph Avenue” is sorta Rochester’s slum area. It’s lined with crumbling low-rent subsidized-housing projects. Often my bus-driving was to take kids from those projects to a technical high-school on Rochester’s western outskirts.
• “No pretty lady will befriend you!” is the infamous Hilda Q. Walton, my neighbor Sunday-School Superintendent when I was a child. If my parents had come to my defense, Hilda woulda crashed in flames. But they heartily agreed.

On opening a Kershaw Park doggie-poop bag

—Yrs Trly walks his Irish-Setter Sunday mornings at Kershaw Park north of Canandaigua Lake.
Kershaw has a rule about picking up after your dog, and provides biodegradable doggie-poop bags in dispensers.
Long ago my aquacise instructor and I walked our dogs at Kershaw. Had I not been with her, I probably woulda avoided a poop-bag.
Long story; related more to my not wanting to make a scene. Now I get a poop-bag if I don’t have one already.
But they are nearly impossible to open. They’re plastic, I guess, designed to fit flat in the dispenser. It’s two pieces of plastic mated together, and very hard to separate.
26 long years ago Yrs Trly had a stroke. It was caused by an undiagnosed heart-defect long since repaired. It was caused by a patent foramen ovale (PFO).
Prior to birth a passage exists between the upper ventricles of your heart. It allows you to use your mother’s oxygen.
After birth, breathing on your own, the hole is supposed to seal closed. Mine didn’t, and it passed a blood-clot to my brain, a thrombosis (thrombotic stroke).
Patent foramen ovale’s are fairly common.
“Why in the world would a runner have a stroke?” my doctors asked. (I was running back then.) Can you say “P-F-O?”
Before repair I was tested to see if I needed bypasses. It’s open-heart surgery.
None needed. I was a paragon of heart-health except for my P-F-O.
One effect of such a disaster is disconnect from reality. I had this after my wife died too. I had it perhaps three-or-more years after my stroke, and only now, seven years after my wife died, are things becoming real again.
It’s like nothing is real. Things happen with which I can’t connect. I do things with which I can’t connect. I try to explain this to anyone and I bomb.
“Things don’t just disappear,” said a friend to me long ago. But to one unattached to reality, it seems they do.
Pieces of dog-kibble drop to the floor and disappear, so why look for ‘em?
That’s my reaction to Kershaw’s doggie-poop bag. I try and try, but I can’t get it open. So why bother? Let it go.
This is the way things are to a person unconnected to reality.
Years ago, before my stroke, my younger brother and I set to load our motorcycles on a trailer for a trip to my sister in VA.
His motorbike fell over in the street, breaking a brake-lever.
“Well, I guess I can’t take my motorcycle,” he said.
“Baloney!” I said.”All we hafta do is engineer something to mimic that brake-lever.”
We grabbed a piece of 3/4-inch copper tubing, then hacksawed it to about 3&1/2 inches. We hammered the tubing onto the stub of the broken brake-lever, then wrapped it with black electrical-tape.
“In business,” I said. We loaded his motorbike.
He replaced that brake-lever after we got back.
Disconnects with reality make such repairs beyond-the-pale.
I can’t get the poop-bag open. Such is life. Let it go.
I tried again later at home, knowing if the bag is pre-opened I can use it.
It occurred to me to wet my thumb and forefinger to friction the matted panels.
VIOLA; worked like a charm.
This is a major step forward to someone like me still off in the ozone somewhat.

“Wait just one cotton-pickin’ minute!”

—“That’s a deposit, not a charge,” I said. “The account-balance increased $35.”
My first job long ago after college was a bank.
“Rules are made to be broken,” I was told.
I’m 75 years old, and had a stroke. But my checking-account better balance or they’ll be Hell to pay.
The $35 was apparently a correction by Eye-Care Center of Canandaigua. They charged me for something my insurance pays.
Clueless as usual, I let it slide.
Now it seems Eye-Care Center sees their mistake, and they’re crediting me.
I mistakenly entered a $35 Eye-Care charge to my account-record to agree with my bank, then deleted a $50 ($35 + $15 copay) charge by Eye-Care, thinking they charged me $35 instead of $50.
But still off. I started poking around. following the bank’s account-balance up through that $35. Everything agreed, but suddenly I realized the bank-balance was increasing $35 instead of decreasing.
My bank’s website makes deposits look like charges. The only indication it’s a deposit is lack of parentheses.
How about charges in red? It’s a website, dudes = get programming.
So in other words GOT IT! I’ve yet to have my bank make a mistake; it’s always me.
All I could think of is how a stroke-addled geezer would throw up his hands in exasperation. Or in my case, do a “contact-us” and drive my bank crazy.
In their favor, I really like my bank. They’ve never mucked up, and are understanding when I do a “contact-us.”
But that account better balance or they’ll be Hell to pay.
Eons ago a previous bank lost my Transit paycheck, then charged me their loss.
I went to the bank and did a grandstand. “I got a receipt! You better credit my account or I ain’t leavin’.”
That bank was replaced by a vastly expanded supermarket.

• Eye-Care Center was doing my annual eye checkup.
• 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.
• “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service (RTS), 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. I recovered well enough to return to work, but not driving bus.
• A “grandstand” is full-frontal dressing down of those in power. Loud enough to scatter customers.

Mano-a-mano with the GPS-lady

—“I might hafta GPS that Christmas Luncheon.”
I said that to **** ******, a fellow retired Transit bus-driver like me, who also happens to like trains.
That was last Sunday. We attended a model-train show at a nearby college.
Webster, the location of the Transit retirees Christmas Luncheon, is about 30 miles north of my house. It’s also much different than it was 30 years ago. The list time I visited I was driving bus for Regional Transit.
One of my favorite afternoon “halves” was two trips to Webster.
The road our luncheon would be on may not have existed 30 years ago. Now Webster is much more congested.
**** gave me directions, but it’s been 30 years.
“How ya gettin’ up there?” he asked.
“I’d probably go up 250,” I said. But let the GPS-lady decide.
I have a cantankerous relationship with the GPS-lady. She better agree with the GPS in my head.
One time she directed me up a one-way street the wrong way.
“What you been smokin’, girl?”
I took my dog to my nearby kennel, then fired up the GoogleMaps® GPS-lady.
“Continue three miles on Cannan Road.” After perhaps a mile “Cannan Road” becomes “Bennett Road.”
But not to the GPS-lady.
“We’re on Bennett Road,” I said.
“Turn right onto Strong Road.
“Okay, but we’re turning off ‘Bennett,’ not ‘Cannan.”
So far so good, despite the GPS-lady being drunk.
She had me using expressway instead of 250. Less direct, but probably quicker.
Finally Barrett Drive, probably non-existent 30 years ago. Suddenly there was Webster Columbus Center (Knights of Columbus), location of our Christmas Luncheon.
The old bus-driver (me) happened to notice it on my right. The GPS-lady seemed confused.
The GPS-lady announces when I arrive, but was probably confused by my missing the entrance.
Arrival was also very sudden. “Your destination is 400 feet.”
I’m supposed to measure that? I’m also drivin’ my car.
That GPS-lady seems to be everywhere.
My supermarket recently installed a self-checkout.
“Please place your bag in the bagging area.”
“There’s that GPS-lady again.”
A few seconds pass, then “Please place your bag in the bagging area!”
“I’m tryin’!”
And then of course, you dare not bag your bananas as two separate bunches when you weighed them as one item.
“NAUGHTY-NAUGHTY!” the GPS-lady shrieks. “He’s tryin’ to rip me off! CALL SECURITY!”
***** has to appear to override the GPS-lady.
I even had the GPS-lady turn in an alarm because she thought my bag was unscanned groceries.
As bus-drivers we pretty much knew our way around despite lack of a GPS-lady.
My bus-driving ended 26 years ago with my stroke. Webster was much different back then.
It’s still “where life is worth living,” but I woulda been all over creation without that GPS-lady. I also probably woulda taken 250 with its 89-bazilyun traffic-lights. Add 10-15 minutes.
But that GPS-lady better agree with what’s in my head.
“Please place your bag in the bagging area.”
“Yes mother!”

• “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service (RTS), the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered well enough to return to work, but not driving bus.
• An RTS bus run was usually two “halves:” two sections of work, usually one in the morning and one toward night (or perhaps both at night). Eight straight hours was one “half;” some runs had three “halves” — make sense of that. Straight-eights were rare, but three “halves” fairly common. I worked rush-hours when we lived in Rochester = a morning “half” and then a late-afternoon “half.” Three “halves” usually involved school-work. When we moved to West Bloomfield I could no longer work the rush-hours, which paid more since they involved a split-shift with a break between “halves” of four hours or more.

“Make ‘em laugh” — continued

—“Slow down Big Monster!”
I shouted that to my silly Irish Setter as he lunged toward the door of the kennel that daycares my dog while I work-out in Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool.
It was Saturday afternoon, and started snowing while I worked out. It wasn’t awful, but the kennel parking-lot was treacherous. My dog had thrown me down before.
Suddenly two pretty women ran to my side. “Here, let me take your dog,” a cutie said, probably in her early 20s. The other was *****, age-47, one of the kennel co-owners, also the prettiest.
“NO PRETTY FEMALE WILL BEFRIEND YOU!” Yet here were two pretty females running to my side.
“No pretty female will befriend you” is the infamous Hilda Q. Walton, my hyper-judgmental neighbor and Sunday-School Superintendent when I was a child. She convinced me all males, including me at age-five, were despicable and disgusting.
Constant-readers won’t need explaining of Faire Hilda. Otherwise click the link.
Had my overly religious parents come to my defense, Hilda woulda fallen flat. But they heartily agreed. I was rebellious and stupid because I couldn’t worship my father.
The younger one decided I was not only safe, but fun. ***** made that apparent earlier as soon as I walked in, yelling “HI BEAUTIFUL!” (That’s a link to my “HI BEAUTIFUL” blog.)
Yrs Trly isn’t used to such adoration. Hilda, etc marked me for life.
But the pretty ladies keep piling up.
“Yer funny!” one tells me.
“As you can see, the boat didn’t sink.” I long ago said that to ***** after her kennel daycared my dog for a Transit retiree Erie Canal cruise.
That cracked her up. I made her laugh. “Why can’t all men be like that?”
I’m sorry I keep harping on this. After 70+ years I’m surprised by all the female friends I make.
I’m not Adonis, plus I’m overweight, a geezer, and socially unsavvy.
But women love laughing — one told me that a few months ago.
I make lady-friends left-and-right. Apparently I make ladies laugh just being myself. A lot has changed since my wife died.
After the childhood I had I didn’t expect such success.

• “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). The Erie Canal cruise was organized by our union retiree group.

“Uhm......”

—“Is IT true?”
That’s a correction I posted to my aquacise instructor’s Facebook.
Look carefully and you’ll see it says “Is is true?”
That’s not her error; it’s whoever supplied it. Which makes it laughable: a Pearl-of-Wisdom with a glaring typo.
Grist for Limbaugh and his strident motor-mouths.
“The reason you make such mistakes is because you’re ‘liberial’.” (“Liberial” is the proper CONSERVATIVE spelling of “Liberal.”)
That aquacise instructor and I happen to be Facebook “Friends,” due to a fast-one by SuckerBird and his cronies. They secretly trolled my cellphone contacts after I installed Facebook-for-iPhone. I had just put my aquacise instructor’s phone-number in my contacts from her business-card.
I don’t mind, except it’s another Facebook fast-one. I look at her Facebook often, since she occasionally posts things I find interesting.
As above, for example.
It seems she’s like me = it’s her Facebook. Similarly it’s my Facebook. I delete preaching.
The only outside input I allow is “likes” and comments. No preaching so far. If that happened I’d probably end my Facebook.
We used to get similar typos at the Mighty Mezz. Stuff that passes spellcheck, yet needs fixin’.
Long ago I had a stroke, but I’m also a graduate of Houghton College. Houghton’s legacy is “GET IT RIGHT!”
The reason I fit so well at the Mighty Mezz, despite minor stroke deficits, was I was motivated to get it right!
“Okay,” I once asked another ex-editor lady-friend; ”where do you put the quote-marks, before or after the period?”
“Before,” she shrieked.
“Well, maybe at your newspaper,” I said; “but not at the Mighty Mezz.”
We better put them end-quotes after the period, lest the CONSERVATIVES phone our head-honcho to clean his ears out.”

• “SuckerBird” is Mark Zuckerberg, founder and head-honcho of Facebook.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired 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.

Make ‘em laugh — ∞

(“∞” because who knows how many “Make ‘em laughs” there will be.)

—“I just can’t leave this pool without making someone laugh.”
I said that to ***** a lifeguard at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool.
“And you’re it!” I said.
I then told her about my visit to Canandaigua’s Eye-Care Center.
“We’re gonna put these drops in your eyes to dilate your pupils,” I was told.
“I was a pupil in first grade,” I countered.
***** laughed. I love to see her laugh.
For age-64 ***** is striking. She looks 40-ish on her lifeguard stand.
Things are much different since my wife died. “NO PRETTY LADY WILL TALK TO YOU!” That’s the infamous Hilda Q. Walton, my holier-than-though Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor, who convinced me all males, including me at age-5, were SCUM.
My parents, already mad I couldn’t worship my hyper-religious father, heartily agreed.
Yet ***** said hello to me months ago. She was probably just being sociable, but I was smitten. Never before had anything like that happened; I previously felt unworthy.
“Congratulations Mr. Hughes. You have 20-20 vision; pretty good for age-75.”
“I didn’t see any numbers,” I snapped.
Again ***** laughed.
“And don’t be surprised if your mother repeats that same joke.” *****’s mother is in my aquatic balance-training class. I asked her to relay my visit to Eye-Care in case I missed *****. *****’s parents live with her.
As preparation for an MRI at Canandaigua’s hospital, I had to do a blood-draw at that same hospital.
“How are you?” a young pretty girl asked.
“No comment,” I said to her after a few seconds.
“Bad day,” I added.
A downer of course. “Maybe tomorrow will be better,” she smiled.
She said she was a Phlebotomy trainee from a local college, and would do my blood-draw with supervision.
“I hope you’re not draining a gallon outta me,” I said.
“Only one vial,” she said.
“Last time I did a blood-draw they had to transfuse me,” I said.
Blood-draw complete I started putting on my jacket. I noticed a small plastic bin labeled “Reusable sharps container.”
“So which is reusable?” I asked. “The sharps or the container?”
They all laughed, and they were pretty girls.
Make ‘em laugh; they eat it up.
A while ago another Transit retiree asked what my secret was, that I so easily attract lady-friends.
“Forget magic potions,” I’d say. “Just make ‘em laugh!”
A few months ago a really pretty young girl, who 10 years ago I woulda run scared from, told me what women love most is laughing.
It’s like since my wife died I found Faire Hilda and my parents were WRONG. Making ladies laugh is piling up. I no longer am scared of pretty girls. All I hafta do is be myself = make ‘em laugh.
“You’re funny!” another lady-friend tells me.
So now I’m a sucker for makin’ ‘em laugh. “I can’t leave this pool without makin’ somebody laugh.”
Pay-dirt!

• I do aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool, two hours per week — plus a third hour on my own.
• “MRI” (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) was being used to scan my brain, to see if that’s why I have bad balance. “No sign of a brain, Mr. Hughes.”
• “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993).

Christmas story

Yr Fthfl Srvnt in 1950 (age-6) with the REAL Santa Claus. (I was probably asking for a Lionel train.)

—“Mommy,” I asked my mother as we cruised Collingswood in our ’39 Chevy. Collingswood is the Philadelphia suburb in south Jersey where my mother’s parents lived. It was near where we lived.
“How come every street-corner has a Santa?” I asked.
“Bobby, you’re always asking me questions like that. Why this? Why that? Why-why-why?”
Finally “those guys aren’t the REAL Santa. They’re just people dressed up in Santa suits; imposters I tell ya!
The real Santa is in Gimbels Department store in Philadelphia.”
“Wanamaker’s has Santa too,” I said.
“But he’s not the REAL Santa,” she barked.
“He comes to Gimbels every year at the tail-end of Philadelphia’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. He’s on the Fire-Department’s hook-and-ladder, siren wailing.
They raise the ladder to an open eighth-floor window in Gimbels, and Santa climbs up that ladder into the store.”
“But Santa comes to Erlton too,” I said. (Erlton was where we lived.) “He comes on an Erlton firetruck.”
My mother became angry.
“But everyone knows that’s ****** *******, Erlton’s Fire-Chief. Tug on his beard, and he smacks you and tells you to behave.”
So Santas everywhere, but they’re not the REAL Santa.
I visited the real Santa myself; that’s me pictured above. It’s 1950; I’m six years old.
I’m probably asking for Lionel trainset, and I got one, but it wasn’t much. Just a tiny circle of three-rail 027 track under our Christmas-tree, with a 2-4-2 steam locomotive. I think I also got two freightcars and a caboose.
Most everything was lettered “Lionel Lines,” even the locomotive. One freightcar was an open Reading gondola (“Redding,” not “Reeding”), and the other was a tankcar lettered “Cities Service.” Neither freightcar was “Lionel Lines,” but everything else was.
All were via my Uncle Herb, who later became a Lionel collector.
I suspected that Lionel set was my Uncle Herb, but I was told it was Santa Claus.
My mother used to put out an orange and bottle of Pepsi to prove Santa visited. This was after I had the awful temerity, unmitigated gall, and horrific audacity to wonder how Santa got into our house if we had no fireplace.
If he came down the chimney he’d end up in our oil-burner. And no way could Santa slide down a chimney-flue with a one-foot square opening.
“He came in the back door,” my mother yelled. “I left it unlocked. Jeeze, Bobby!”
My belief in Santa lasted until maybe age-8, when my parents told me the awful truth.
Even the Gimbels Santa was fake. It became apparent Santa was just another parental ploy to get children to behave.
“But don’t tell your sister; we’ll tell her next year.” (That sister since died of cancer.)
“Ya better watch out, ya better not cry, ya better not pout, I'm tellin’ you why, Santa Claus is coming to town.....”
I almost posted that picture to my aquacise-instructor’s Facebook. She posted a picture of her grandson crying after visiting Santa.
I’m not crying, but I’m age-6, not 18 months.
I was convinced it was the REAL Santa Claus. That facial-hair looks real.
But I doubt that geezer could climb an eight-story ladder.

• This blog makes my mother sound like an ogre, which she was when I was a child. As I got older, especially college, she began to realize my holier-than-thou father was losing me. When I finally left — the equivalent of running away — she was very depressed.
• Three-rail O-gauge, 1.25 inches (31.75 mm) between the running rails, was standard Lionel practice. The center rail provided electricity to pickups on the locomotive. 027 is O-gauge with smaller rail, tighter curvature, and model-railroad equipment smaller than scale.

Imaginary girlfriends

—“Oh yeah, Jeep,” said an attractive young coworker long ago at the Mighty Mezz. “First made by American Motors.”
“It was not!” I screamed. “It was first made by Willys!”
As a life-long car-guy I know this stuff.
I since discovered even that was wrong. Jeep was first manufactured by Willys, but it was developed by Ford as a small four-wheel-drive scout-vehicle for the Army. It had to be drivable off-road.
The girl wasn’t beautiful, but was extremely cute. She also was an easy smiler — I’m always a sucker for easy smilers.
Normally a girl takes offense at my pontificatin’. Not this girl; she thought my blustering was “cute.”
Even though I was old enough to be her father. I was late 50s back then, she in her middle 20s.
Plus she was living with her boyfriend, who she eventually married and had kids with. My guess is he was also “cute.” That is, prone to just blurt out things that offended others.
I been told my girlfriends are imaginary.
I don’t know, but I folded my wings somewhat. I feel like my childhood was flip-flopped. “NO PRETTY LADY WILL TALK TO/SMILE AT/BE INTERESTED IN YOU!” That was my Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor when I was a child. She convinced me all males, including me at age-5, were SCUM.
Had my parents come to my defense, that neighbor woulda crashed in flames. But they heartily agreed, since I couldn’t worship my holier-than-thou father. I was therefore rebellious, and disgusting.
My beloved wife died over seven years ago, and I’ve since gained many lady-friends. Make ‘em laugh! Get the endorphins flowing! And thereby attract lady-friends galore.
At 75 years old with wonky balance, and somewhat overweight, I sure ain’t Adonis. But “You’re funny,” one tells me smiling.
Some of my lady-friends are shutting down, perhaps because I no longer am so smitten.
My earlier “falling for” ‘em is my childhood. Complete surprise a pretty lady would even talk to me.
I gained so many lady-friends I no longer am scared of pretty girls. If anything it seems the pretty ones prefer someone not on-the-make.
Last Thanksgiving a cousin, who since died of a stroke, asked if I had “any sweeties.” He knew I was a widower.
“What do I need a sweetie for?” I cried. “I already had one 44&1/2 years.”
I enjoy my so-called “girlfriends.” I’m fairly sure my Jeep-contact was while I was still a post-stroke unpaid intern. That newspaper later hired me, and that coworker drove me home one night in a blizzard. She had her boyfriend’s gigantic Ford Bronco.
She wanted to be sure I got home in one piece. I was a stroke rehaber who also happened to be “cute.”
I saw that girl not too long ago at a youth soccer-game. Her third son was playing soccer. That was shortly after my wife died, and things are different since. I’m more inclined to “flirt,” which to me is just talk. And ladies love talking.
I’d get her laughing too. A pretty girl once told me women love laughing. “It was pleasant meeting you,” I told pretty-girl as I left. Ten years ago I couldna done that.
I suppose I read more into these “girlfriends” than actually is the case. “You think too much,” a lady-friend tells me.
But they keep coming at me to strike up a conversation. Make ‘em smile, etc. Sometimes it’s me that strikes up a conversation; but often it’s them.
And much to the angry chagrin of my parents and that Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor, they never walk away.

• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired 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. (“Canandaigua” is a small city near 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.)
• 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 Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor was the infamous Hilda Q. Walton. Constant-readers know all about her. Otherwise, click the link. (And it’s way more than “14 blogs.”)

First-grade field-trip

Pennsy K4 Pacific (4-6-2) #5418 comes off the turntable at Camden Terminal Enginehouse — 1955. (That keystone number-plate is red.) (Photo by Charles Winters.)

Yr Fthfl Srvnt has been a railfan all his life, and in 1951 I was in first grade.
I remember little other than my first-grade teacher was Mrs. Ford.
Perhaps for me Mrs. Ford arranged a field-trip to Camden Terminal Enginehouse of the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines. (“Redding” not “Reeding.”)
PRSL was the railroad from Philadelphia to south Jersey’s seashore resorts, mainly Atlantic City. Atlantic City succeeded because of that railroad, built in 1852 as the Camden & Atlantic. At first it had ferry-service across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.
Later the Pennsylvania Railroad took over Camden & Atlantic, and Reading financed a competitor. (See footnote below.) Pennsy also built a crossing over the Delaware to avoid the ferries. That bridge opened in 1896. It was mainly freight for south Jersey, but it also ran passenger-trains.
At that time our family lived in Erlton (”Earl-tin”), a south Jersey suburb of Philadelphia. Camden was nearby, and across the river from Philadelphia.
PRSL went through nearby Haddonfield (“Ha-din-FIELD”), where my father took me to watch trains. Free entertainment, and I was smitten. I was age-2 (1946).
And back then PRSL was still using steam-locomotives. Many railroads already dieselized, but PRSL used the steam-engines of its co-owners, Pennsy and Reading.
I was terrified of thunder, lightning, and camera-flash. Also loud noises.
But in Haddonfield’s railroad-station I could stand right next to a throbbing, panting steam locomotive.
I used to get in trouble daydreaming about PRSL steamers. “Bobby, you’re daydreaming again.” That was Mrs. Marlin in fourth grade.
“Nine times nine equals 81. So much potential is going to waste.”
I’m sure we rode to Camden Terminal Enginehouse via schoolbus. “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall....” my classmates were singing, and I didn’t join.
I’m sure my fellow students were bored silly. But not this kid!
What a joy it was to walk around on Camden Terminal Enginehouse’s cinders.
0-6-0 switchers, Consols (2-8-0 Consolidations), and passenger locos. All were steamers, mostly ex-Pennsy or actual Pennsy. Red keystone number-plates in full glory on the passenger-engines.
PRSL’s new Budd RDCs (Rail Diesel Car) were also there. Self-propelled stainless-steel commuter-cars powered by diesel tank-engines. Use of an RDC relieved railroads of commuter-trains powered by locomotives.
We also rode the roundhouse turntable, the height of our trip.
Camden Terminal Enginehouse is long-gone, as is 1951.
But what I most remember about first-grade was our field-trip to Camden Terminal Enginehouse.

An actual ex-PRSL RDC #M413 laying over in Ocean City, NJ. (My wife and I rode it about 1970.) (Long-ago photo by BobbaLew.)

A stupid, meaningless job that paid pretty well

—“Wait a minute!” I shouted to a short bearded gentleman walking away from Eastview Mall’s rest-rooms.
I was walking toward the rest-rooms, and he looked Sicilian.
He was wearing a black jacket emblazoned with “Amalgamated Transit Union Local 282.”
“That’s my old bus-union,” I cried.
He looked at me quizzically. “What bus company?” he asked.
“Regional Transit Service, RTS. I drove for ‘em 16&1/2 years.”
“Schoolbus?” he asked.
Absolutely not,” I said. “Schoolbuses aren’t the real thing. Nine tons of hurtling steel, 56 passenger seats, ‘don’t get shot’.”
“What’s your badge-number?”
“1763; with 16&1/2 years I made the first page” (of the seniority list).
“Badge-numbers are up to the 5000s. When did you drive bus?”
“May 1977 through October 1993. My stroke ended it. That was caused by an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I retired RTS on disability, but returned to work elsewhere.”
The dude was uncomfortable. Ladies never are. They love talking. The guy wanted to leave.
I gave him an out, but before I did I asked if he knew ***** *******
“Number-One on the seniority list. He should retire, but says he can’t.”
“He used to be a union official, but got voted out,” I said. “Supposedly suspect.”
Well, maybe so, but bus-driving is long ago for this kid.
“You have a college-degree, and drive bus? What was your major?”
“Bus-driving,” I always said.

• “Wait a minute!” is what I’m always accused of saying before I pontificate.
• RE: “RTS badge-number...” —My “badge-number” was my employee-number. RTS has incredible turnover = “Anyone can drive bus”/“fire ‘im!”
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.