My calendar for May 2021

Helpers push unit coal up the West Slope. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—The May 2021 photograph in my annual train-calendar is an image I mistakenly used in at least two prior train-calendars, maybe three. —Mistakenly used again.
It’s helpers pushing a long heavy coal-drag up the west slope of Allegheny Mountain. The train is eastbound on Track-One going through Lilly PA.
The photo was taken years ago shortly after I started chasing and photographing trains with my Altoona railfan friend Phil Faudi. At that time Phil was running a business helping railfans like me chase and photograph trains.
$125 for a full day of chasing and photographing trains — sometimes 30 or more.
Phil was extremely knowledgeable. He knew the railroad, the schedule, and train-numbers. At that time train-engineers were calling out signal-aspects on railroad radio.
We’d be motoring to another photo-location in Phil’s old Buick, he’d hear something on his radio scanner, and suddenly we were doing a bootleg turn to zoom back to the nearest photo-location.
Phil gave up his business, so now it’s my brother and I chasing trains.
That I mistakenly used this image at least twice before, flies-in-the-face of my continually badgering my brother to not repeat a view I already published.
“Aww-man! Brickyard again? We done those bridges in Altoony all too many times!”
Also, the train is going away, and is identified as C-51 in an earlier calendar. That makes it a local (I think), and as I recall it was loaded coal brought out of the Portage or South Fork Secondaries.
Back then the SD80MACs were still in use.
The SD80MACs were supposed to reduce locomotive usage on the old Pennsy main across PA.
That didn’t work out.
What the SD80MACs were good for was dragging heavy trains at slow speed, e.g. coal-drags.
So they were reassigned to dragging heavy coal trains out of the South Fork secondary, or out of Sonmon coal loadout on the Portage secondary.
The Portage secondary is the original Pennsy mainline that was bypassed in 1898.
Both are onto the west slope of what used to be the Pennsy main up Allegheny Mountain.
The railroad is now Norfolk Southern.
South Fork is where the Johnstown flood of 1889 began when a retention-dam near South Fork washed out killing over 2,200.
This coal-drag is either from South Fork or Sonmon.
I keep forgetting I already used it.

She’s talking to me

—“Have a nice day!” chirped pretty ******* as I walked away from her to do grocery-shopping.
She’s not gorgeous, but she’s young and cute.
All I did was say hello to her, and the reason I do is because she always smiles at me.
She’s a big sturdy girl, whose smile makes her a pretty-little-thing.
Her voice sounded like she wanted to talk. But I ain’t pushin’ her hard. Let her feel at ease!
I managed all three of my lady-friends at that supermarket yesterday (Friday, April 30th), ******* being the first one. ******* is the cutie-pie.
“There are three I know in this supermarket, and you’re one of them,” I said to *******, who would be “Long-Tall-Sally,” except I don’t call her that to her face.
I think her height and skinniness embarrass her, and I refuse to hurt her feelings, bleeding-heart liberal that I am. (“GASP!”)
I used the restroom before my long drive home, and when I came back out, there was pretty ******* stocking asparagus or something.
She’s a store-employee in Produce.
“I wouldn’t bother you, but someone just told me you’re a twin,” I said to her.
“Yes I am,” she said smiling.
“We worked together here a while, but then my twin-sister quit.”
“She’s talking to me,” I thought to myself. “And freely; she’s at ease.”
“No pretty ******* will talk to you, Bobby! You are disgusting and sinful! Your heart is full of lust!”
Yet here I am talking to pretty *******, and it seems she wants me to.
Give a female a chance to talk, while not hitting on her, and she won’t walk away.
“Identical?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” ******* said. “We looked a lot alike, but my sister’s hair was darker.”
“Yada-yada-yada-yada-yada” until I finally left.
“Yes *******,” I thought to myself. “There are dudes out there who just wanna talk.”
Although I admit to a smidgen of perversity to our relationship: I’m a guy, and ******* is a pretty young girl.
We’re wearing masks, but her twinkling eyes are ravishing!
The purveyor of “No pretty ******* will talk to you……” spins in her casket.
14,000 rpm, enough to power FL south of Orlando.

• “Long-Tall-Sally” is a rock-’n’-roll song done during the 50s by Little Richard.
• A recent crotch-rocket motorcycle might be capable of 14,000 rpm. A Detroit V8 will start tearing itself apart at 8,000 (if it gets there).

Puh-leeze!

“AHEM!”¯

—“Mark, is there any way I can delete these buxom ‘friend-suggestions’ from my laptop Facebook?”
Thankfully, they’re not on my iPhone Facebook, not yet anyway.
Just the other day each “friend-suggestion” had an “X” which vaporized the “friend-suggestion.”
I’d see some chesty vixen in my “friend-suggestions.” “Oh for Heaven sake!” Followed by zapp! GONE!
Sanctity and order restored!
Last night no Xs on a deluge of scantily-clad hotties (pictured above).
“Now what?” I probably fired up a few sluts by mistake in my feeble attempts to delete.
“Goodie; that Hughes guy is firing up our slatterns.
We got one Mark!”
“Hit him with more. He’s a dirty-old-man!”
“Mark, you’re barking up the wrong tree” — although they’re probably fake accounts. “Friend” something that poisons my computer?
“No way José!”
I think of two of my actual lady-friends. Neither are well-endowed. Both are rather flat.
But when they smile at me I am smitten!
One is old enough to be a grandmother, but here she comes. She wants to talk with me, ergo she wants to hang out with me. (“She’s faking it!”)
The other is a tiny little thing. She probably weighs less than 100 pounds.
Two children so far. I’m always amazed, and I told her.
If either of these two smile at me, and their eyes tell me — we’re wearing masks — I am DONE!
That indicates they enjoy my company, which counters “No pretty lady will enjoy your company, Bobby! You are EVIL and disgusting!”
That second lady-friend jumps away from her workstation, smiles, and comes to talk with me. (“NOPE!”)
Mark and his busty tarts get avoided.
Maybe if he lobbed smilers at me I’d be tempted.
But even they wouldn’t be my actual lady-friends, and I have quite a few.
And they’re all smilers. Many are flat as a board!

• “Mark” is Mark Zuckerberg, founder and head-honcho of Facebook.
• “Evil and disgusting” is a legacy of my childhood, convinced of that at age 5 by Bible-thumping zealots.
• “All I need is one of your smiles, Sunshine of your eyes, oh, me, oh, my…..” —Scotch and Soda, The Kingston Trio, 1958.

Here she comes again

—“It looks like she’s coming my way again,” I thought to myself at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool.
I was sitting on a bench poolside, early for my aquatic balance-training class.
“I hope so; it looks like she is.” She stopped, not right next to me, but close-enough. And she coulda gone elsewhere.
That would be *****, my pretty lifeguard friend, who my brother in Massachusetts now badmouths as a “looker;” since I had the awful temerity, unmitigated gall, and horrific audacity to describe ***** a “looker” for age-65.
“FLIRT” is another derogatory term my brother uses. My numerous lady friends are all “FLIRTS.”
“I don't know if you’re interested or not,” I said to *****; “but I decided last night all my dealings with women are severely distorted by my childhood.”
“We know all about it BobbaLew,” she said. “All of us in some way were affected negatively by our childhoods.”
“Tell me more,” I said. “Like how your father always said you were a handful to raise.”
“He always said that,” ***** said. “And I got tired of it.”
“Like that time I met your parents in my supermarket.
Your mother I recognized, since I always partnered with her in our aquatic balance-training class.
‘Well you can have her!’ your father snapped.”
“They always got along pretty good,” ***** said.
“Crackpots!” I exclaimed.
“During childhood,” I said; “I was convinced at age-5 no girl would ever have anything to do with me.
But now so many do, and it’s just talking. Strike up a conversation with a girl, devoid of hitting on ‘em, and they won’t leave. Especially the pretty ones.
Women love to talk, and I like talking with women.
I’m the product of overly-judgmental, hyper-religious Bible-beaters,” I told her.
(I won’t repeat her response — taste and decorum.)
***** is not the most talkative person in the world, but here she comes.
Often it’s me walking toward her, but just as often it’s her walking toward me.
Here I am poolside quietly waiting for my aquatic balance-training class to begin, and here comes *****!
It looks like she wants to talk — with me, the lifelong scumbag.
(“DREAMIN’!”)
How we ever got there after all the flubs I made with her I’ll never know.
But I sure like talking with *****.
I hope my liking that isn’t too distorted.

• Per Matthew 7-1 of the King James Version, Jesus said “Judge not, that ye be not judged…..” My Bible-beating parents woulda loudly adjudged me “rebellious” for even bringing that to their attention.
• As my wife told me: she once heard a Bible-beater exclaim “if the King James Version was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.”

The curse of Hilda Q. Walton

—Would that I could run a photo of my pharmacist lady-friend, but I dare not because I don’t want her being stalked by some drooling geezer.
She’s become a good friend, and sadly my reaction to her is vastly distorted by my hoary childhood.
I keep thinking of her as “pretty *****;” and I don’t wanna think of her as “pretty,” because to me that’s flirtatious.
The Internet has become a repository of vipers and loathsome lotharios. I don’t want such people stalking *****.
Our friendship is also surprising.
I first met ***** years ago when she was working at a big-box pharmacy across the street from where she is now.
At that time I always thought of her as “angry *****.”
She gave me a tetanus-shot once, and “uh-oh, here comes ‘angry *****;’ gotta be on my best behavior. She always looks mad as Hell.”
She apologized to me about that later, and I realized it wasn't “angry *****” I was seeing; it was “up-the-wall *****.”
Sorely misused by her bosses; degreed in pharmacy, but being used as a clerk.
Now that she came across the street to set up her own pharmacy, she became much friendlier.
I never saw ***** smile across the street, but now in her new pharmacy I see her smile.
It’s extremely pleasant, and I really like the new *****.
Totally unexpected.
We became friends largely because of her little boy, age-6, who apparently is a serious railfan.
I’d give ***** one of my annual train-calendars, and she’d pass it along to her little boy. He was so thrilled by it he’d take it to bed.
Now he has many of my train photographs plastered all over his bedroom wall.
I also loaned them a couple of my train DVDs, plus I e-mailed them a few YouTube train-video links.
(***** gave me her business card, which has her e-mail address on it.)
GOSH! A girl, and a pretty one too.
She contradicts “No pretty girl will befriend you, Bobby! You are EVIL and filled with lust!” I.e. the curse of Hilda Q. Walton.
*****’s willingness to talk with me — and her eagerness is extraordinary — is extremely pleasant.
She’s not gorgeous; she’s probably late 30s or early 40s. But not long ago she was pretty enough to intimidate me — and still is.
I have other lady friends, age-58 through age-65, who are still attractive.
But it’s mainly because I can talk to them; ***** too.
My being so smitten by ***** is a function of my hoary childhood. (“Thank you Hilda and my parents”)! Sanctimonious and overly-judgmental Bible-beaters all!
Yrs Trly worries about his reaction to *****. I worry I’ve lost it!
I’ll be meeting ***** again sometime, and I worry about making a fool of myself, e.g. depressed if ***** is a little standoffish.
I also worry about ***** perhaps being more forthcoming (“impossible”).
I already blew it with another lady-friend, and I don’t wanna do it again — nor lose her.
Overreaction dudes, all thanks to Hilda and my parents.

• “Hilda Q. Walton” in the headline is an active link.
• My brother and I photograph trains down near Altoona PA, where the old Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain. The railroad is now Norfolk Southern. Every year I take 13 of our 89 bazilyun photographs to assemble into a calendar — I do it with Shutterfly. I give those calendars as Christmas presents.

The Big Hand

—I used to say it was no fun drivin’ bus unless you could put the hammer down at least once per day.
That was my late afternoon trip to East Rochester on the 2100 line — on the expressway.
This was before our Gillig 500s, so we were still drivin’ our GM 400s, “Park-and-Ride” soft-seaters with a non turbo-charged 8-71 diesel motor drivin’ a three-speed auto-tranny.
Our 4s were ungoverned, so could boom-and-zoom.
Most 4s were sickly by then, but a few weren’t.
I remember 436. “If I were to steal anything, 436 would be it! By the time you discovered this thing missing, I’d be in North Carolina.”
I’d tell that to the bus-placer when returning to “the Barns.”
No pedal-to-the-metal with 436! 90-100 mph on the Thruway!
I had #417 this trip. It had snowed, but it wasn’t too bad.
The expressway was clear, so I could boom-and-zoom.
Until I got to the off-ramp for Fairport Road.
I turned into the off-ramp, and all of a sudden the back end was sliding.
I counter-steered, and suddenly all four corners were sliding.
The Fairport Road exit off I-490 is a cloverleaf. Shortly after the off-ramp the exit turns right maybe 50–60 degrees.
No warning signs, so it was a fairly open turn.
But 417 was shlippin’ and shliddin’. Open land was ahead — no trees — but it looked like we were in for a bouncy roller-coaster ride into the boonies.
25–35 souls on oboard, plus one terrified bus-driver.
Suddenly a Big Hand dropped from the sky urging 417 around the curve.
Straight for a short distance, but here comes another 50–60 degree curve to merge onto Fairport Road.
Again, the Big Hand!
“WHEW!” I exclaimed to no one in particular as we merged onto Fairport Road.
“I didn’t know anything was wrong,” said my regular riding shotgun.

• “The Barns” are at 1372 East Main St. in Rochester, large sheds for storing buses inside. An operations/administration building was attached. We bus-drivers always said we were working out of “the Barns.”
• With a “governor” the bus won’t do any more than about 55 mph.

Never again

806-bus is an actual Regional Transit bus in the ‘80s. Except our 800s were 102 inches wide. The 7s were only 96 inches wide. (403 train on Main Street? Makes me wonder who’s drivin’. Not this kid; NO WAY would I drive that 400 line — and get mugged?)

—Maybe two-thirds into my 16&1/2 year career driving transit-bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS)……
Yr Fthfl Srvnt had a run whose first “half” was a Park-and-Ride from Eastview Mall, into the city through Rochester’s glitzy southeastern suburbs.
I’d deadhead out to Eastview on Interstate-490, the Eastern Expressway — “deadhead” means no passengers.
Revenue was inbound from Eastview. I covered a suburban line marked as a bus-route. It had posted bus-stops.
Getting out to Eastview was non-revenue = “deadhead.”
I usually was assigned one of our newer 700-series buses. By then they were 3-6 years old; I forget.
A 700 had a non-turbocharged 8-71 V8 diesel motor. That’s 71 cubic-inches per cylinder, eight cylinders arranged in a V, four per side.
They used a three-speed over-the-road automatic tranny, Allison I think. They also weren’t speed governed.
Our 700s were supposedly dual service. They could be used as a city bus. They had thinly cushioned plastic seats, but not lounge-chairs.
They could also operate rurally, i.e. boom-and-zoom on an expressway.
My pull-out was around 6 AM. I drove down E. Main St. to get onto the Eastern Expressway.
One morning I had 728 bus.
Okay, no passengers, and we’re on an expressway; “PEDAL-TO-THE-METAL!”
“Let’s see what a 700 will do!”
Bucketing and slamming, but under control.
80 mph on-the-clock in something the size of a living room!
Everything slamming every-which-way. Incredible racket!
I backed off. NEVER AGAIN!
Probably Mario Andretti coulda got up to 90 or more, but I’m not Mario!
The racket was frightening.

• “Park-and-Rides” were trips from suburban or rural end-points, usually through Park-and-Ride parking-lots, where passengers would park their cars for a bus-ride to work in Rochester.
• Each segment of a bus-run was known as a “half,” since most bus-runs had two segments. A few bus-runs had three segments = three “halves.” (???????)
• “Speed-governed” is the bus won’t do any more than about 55 mph. I.e. the “governor” won’t allow over 55 mph.
• I should mention that the 800s, and 900 series buses which came later, used a turbocharged 6-92 V6 motor. (92 cubic-inches per cylinder.) They were essentially city buses, and I think they may have been “governed.”
• I consider Mario Andretti to be the greatest racing driver of all time.

All to myself

—“How do I tell you this without being perceived a ‘lonely hot-to-trot widower;’ a ‘loathsome lothario’?”
I said that to my aquacise-instructor at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool.
I still think highly of her; she leads my aquatic balance-training class.
She was the first pretty lady to smile at me in my entire life — my wife is another story.
I took her smiling at me ALL WRONG; a product of my early childhood.
“No pretty lady will smile at you, Bobby! You are EVIL and disgusting!”
Then “just because a lady smiles at you, doesn’t mean she’s interested in you.”
(That last quote is another lady friend.)
That aquacise-instructor, married like most of my lady friends, finally gave me her borders.
Most of my other lady friends gave me their borders early. “I like you liking me; it makes me feel attractive; but be careful!”
For years I never knew what was going on with my aquacise-instructor. Incidents occurred, misread per my childhood, that egged me on.
My childhood leads me into misreading any contact I have with women — the misperception being the lady is interested in me.
I got past that, but well after that aquacise-instructor first smiled at me.
Unfortunately she was an early female contact, which makes her my first mistake. (Thank you Hilda!)
Which regrettably means I learn all this at that aquacise-instructor’s expense.
So how do I say anything to her without being misperceived?
Fortunately, she still seems to want me to like her. She’s not leaving me behind.
And this was especially fortunate considering what I wanted to tell her was I really enjoyed having her all to myself the other day.
Previous to the pandemic we were averaging 20-25 for the aquatic balance-training class.
Now we’re down to 3-5, and only one class per week instead of two.
And last week no one showed up except me, which meant I could have that aquacise-instructor all to myself.
“Hooray-hooray! At long last you get to see up close and personal what I been fighting the past couple years. Neuropathy which just gets worse and worse and worse and worse.”
What I didn’t say was how much I enjoyed going face-to-face with a cutie I still like. (Taste and decorum readers; I didn’t wanna get misperceived, i.e. I didn’t wanna lose her.)
Probably half of what I said didn’t even get comprehended, but it looked like I didn’t lose her.
When I left later she waved frantically at me from a distance.
Under my previous way of thinking, that would indicate her being interested in me.
Not any more! What a shame I had to get here at her expense.
Never again am I gonna think some lady is interested in me.

• Hilda Walton (“Hilda”) was my hyper-religious Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor when I was a child. She convinced me all males, including me at age-5, were SCUM. My Bible-thumping parents heartily agreed, since I was already rebellious for not being able to worship my holier-than-thou father.

A new reality

—“Back to reality,” I used to say my wife, as we arrowed onto Interstate-99 out of Altoona headed home.
Back to the semi-depressing life we lived in western NY near Rochester. Where things often went wrong, and I’d feel I deserved it, reprehensible and disgusting that I perceived myself to be.
Rail-fanning Altoony was always fun, trains climbing Allegheny Mountain with incredible frequency, all “assaulting the heavens!”
“All American railfans, BY LAW, should be required to visit Horseshoe Curve.”
(The “Mighty Curve” is just west of Altoona.)
The allure of Altoony continued after my wife died, but so did “back to reality!”
Even recently, chasing and photographing trains with my brother, “back to reality” continued.
Last February I noticed a difference. Returning home no longer seemed so unpleasant.
I thought about it (“Uh-ohhh…….”), then realized the difference is lady-friends.
Nickel Plate 765 at 70 mph is thrilling, but so is my pharmacist lady-friend turning toward me smiling. She’s happy to see me. “We can talk.”
Back home to Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool, there to be joyously greeted by my lifeguard friend(s), and my pixie aquacise-instructor with her smiling eyes.
There would be pretty ******* at my supermarket, who I no longer call “pigtail-girl,” since that’s demeaning.
She always smiles at me when I say hello, and that’s all I do. Although we talked a tiny bit more recently.
“Kyle, Kyle, crocodile,” the ear-worm ***** gave me the other day at that supermarket.
“Kyle” is her son.
Plus the pretty young jogger I chance meeting along Lehigh Valley RailTrail.
Plus all the other girls with whom I strike up conversations.
And per my lifeguard friend, it’s not flirting.
But if I strike up a conversation that tells that girl I was attracted to her. “Goodie!” A guy I can talk to, and he’s not hitting on me.”
My all-knowing brother near Boston noisily disputes my joyous encounters with lady friends.
“DREAMIN’!” he bellows; as do my other critics.
So why is my leaving Altoona no longer “back to reality?”
Lady-friends, I realized.
Totally inconceivable a couple years ago.
But now so many joyous lady-friend encounters occur even my rail-fanning is becoming secondary.

• Another lady-friend (a critic) once told me what women love doing most is talking. My pharmacist lady-friend is very much a talker; and much to my surprise.

On hangin’ out with pretty ladies

—Yrs Trly has to get used to the idea a pretty lady may wanna hang out with me as much as I wanna hang out with her.
“No pretty lady will wanna hang out with you, Bobby! You are despicable!”
I noticed if I strike up a conversation with a pretty young girl, devoid of hitting on her, she likes that I was attracted by her enough to do that.
So now suppose (“Gimme that remote Luke! He’s a-doin’ that there thinkin’ again!”) I tell my lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool I wanna tell her a tiny story.
I bet that pleases her — “he wants to tell me a story = I’m attractive!”
I’m making her feel good.
“Some day I got a tiny question for ya! It ain’t much. Not now, yer on duty!”
Readers, I just set her up. She wants to hear the question, and right now.
“Goodie! He wants to talk with me. Ergo, I’m attractive!”
Suddenly the girl wants to hang out with me. I just inferred she attracted me.
(“If any guy did that with me I’d call the Sheriff!”)
So of course my lifeguard friend came to my side — “that Hughes guy is fun to hang out with.” (“Impossible!”)
I have to get used to this readers. “No pretty lady will hang out with you” is in my past, but keeps holding me back.
After my childhood, it’s hard for me to imagine a pretty lady wanting to hang out with me.

It’s becoming second nature

—“Thompson-Health Physical-Therapy, ****** speaking, how may I help you?”
“******,” I said. “Someone I know,”I said.
“Hi Bob,” she said.
“Yes,” I thought to myself. “I know you, and you know me. I like it!”
****** could thereafter deliver her COVID-19 speech.
I was Bluetoothing from my car as I approached, and pretty ****** is one of the “temperature-ladies” per COVID-19. She takes your temperature with one of them infrared guns as you check in.
****** is astonishingly pretty, as is her sidekick, who has prettier eyes, but she’s not as overall pretty as ******.
****** is not gorgeous. “Gorgeous” are the smilers.
****** smiles at me occasionally, but she’s not lighting up the room. If she were to do that we would be in deep trouble.
I’m always a sucker for the room-lighters.
****** was setting up a wheelchair for someone as I came in.
“I checked in with her,” I said to her sidekick, pointing at ****** as she arrowed the wheelchair outside.
I noticed ****** as soon as Physical-Therapy restarted maybe eight months ago.
****** is extraordinarily pretty, and by then Yr Fthfl Srvnt wasn’t as scared of pretty girls as I was maybe two years ago.
So how do I befriend an extremely pretty girl?
By then I’d had numerous successes telling ladies they had pretty eyes. So I thought I’d try the “pretty-eye” bit on ******.
KEE-RASH! I made her nervous — I could see it. A “lonely hot-to-trot widower” eager to flirt with every pretty girl that comes along.
I backed away; no words exchanged for over a month. I figgered I lost her completely, but one day while entering ****** left her workstation to go out.
“Hey! Where ya goin’?” I asked. “You can’t leave! Who’m I supposed to talk to?”
Dare I say it? She melted! (“Impossible!”)
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll be back.”
Apparently I said the right thing: “all is forgiven if we can talk.”
Leaving Physical-Therapy is via a side door, not the lobby. The parking-lot is separated from the lobby by huge glass window-wall.
One afternoon while heading to my car, I looked inside, and there were ****** and her sidekick sitting at their workstation.
I knocked on the glass, and ****** et al waved back excitedly.
“That Hughes guy is nuts, but he wants to say hello to us. Ergo we’re attractive!” (“DREAMIN’!”)
There have been numerous waving encounters since.
The other day I looked through the window-wall, and pretty ****** waved at me before I did anything.
Usually I hafta get ******’s attention first.
And pretty ****** is the one most likely to wave at me.
I hafta get used to this readers: “No pretty ****** will be your friend, Bobby! You are EVIL and disgusting!”
Enter pretty ****** — and I thought I lost her forever.
I should take it for granted a girl and I are gonna enjoy talking with each other. It’s happened too many times.

• Anything red is my critics, except for “flirt,” which I always do you red.
• I’ve had critics get mad at me, if they find me pleasantly jawing with a lady friend. (“You don’t wanna talk to that guy!”)

Here she comes

—Here we go again readers! Another turgidly boring blog celebrating what to me is another fabulous female encounter…
Yet to the average person it’s just another normal contact between persons of the opposite sex.
“I have a tiny story if you wanna hear it,” I said to my lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming pool.
That lifeguard friend is impressive, a “looker” for age 65.
I always feel like I overreached, that I’m unworthy.
She was flitting about performing lifeguard duties, mainly sanitizing per COVID-19.
I interrupted her once or twice, but she gave me the “wait” signal.
Flitting finished, here she came!
“WOW!” I’d think to myself. “A ‘looker’ wants to talk with me!”
Actually I take it in stride. I’m not so surprised any more.
My confidence increased with so many fabulous female encounters.
No matter! I can't help but like it. She’s happily smiling and eager to hear my story. (“Impossible!”)
She walks right up beside me, then waits to hear my story, looking right at me, still smiling.
You’ve heard this before, readers: “No ‘looker’ will wanna hear your story, Bobby! You are EVIL and disgusting!”
That night I happened to eat-out with two fellow bereavers. Both are widows: one lost her husband ten years ago, the other eight years ago. My wife died nine years ago.
Both of these friends are critics, and have given up reading my multitudinous “girlie” blogs.
I sit quietly and let my friends chat. I occasionally say something, or they say something to me.
These eat-outs are pleasant, but I don’t say much.
Comments were made regarding the fact I celebrate my girl-encounters too much.
“Those blogs aren’t sex bragging!” I said.
“I celebrate that I can interact with women at all.”
When interacting with women occurs, which is often any more, I notice and usually end up blogging it.
So my lifeguard friend wants to hear my story. This is entirely contrary to my upbringing.
Free at last from the albatross that held me back over 70 years — terrified and unable to interact with women.
“You’re taking this too seriously” translates to “you think too much!”
“Get over it!” they all shout.
“It ain’t easy,” I say; “to reverse ‘marked-for-life’ over 70 years.”
Over 77 years I met thousands, but only two seem to understand my hoary childhood.
One is my aunt, 90 years old, who probably had it worse than me. Her mother, my grandmother, always told my aunt she was a mistake — never shoulda been born.
The other is my cousin, my father’s brother’s only child. ‘I don’t know how my father ended up being as decent as he was after the childhood he had.’
I can't just slam-dunk reverse ‘marked-for-life’,” I say.
Then “you need help!” one critic said.
“That would be my bereavement-counselor,” I said. “She’s my bereavement-counselor, but all we ever talk about is my dreadful childhood.
Her advice is not that I bow and scrape to my all-knowing critics.
Her advice is that I keep making friends (talking) with ladies, that by so doing I prove my badmouthers WRONG.
So here came my “looker” lifeguard friend, a girl (GASP!), and she wants to interact with me.
Sorry dudes; I really like it! It counteracts “No ‘looker’ will ever associate with you!”
The fact she’s impressive isn’t as mind-blowing as the fact she wants to associate with me.

Pretty please

—“Um it was very very sweet of you…
…..just very very kind of you….”
“*****,” please, “puh-leeze, pretty-please; don’t lead me into another one of them crazy boy-girl relationships where I make the mistake of thinking the female is interested in me.
Your words could lead me astray; befallen by the ghost of Hilda Q. Walton, wherein ‘No pretty lady will ever be interested in you, Bobby!’”
(Are you?)
Or should I say “befallen by the fact Hilda’s hot-shot RCA-engineer husband was fooling around with the secretaries and receptionists in his office……
Driving Faire Hilda into a jealous rage, such that she noisily declared all males, including me at age 5, were SCUM.”
***** is my pharmacist — she’s head-honcho of my pharmacy.
Her son apparently is a serious railfan. I gave ***** one of my annual train-calendars, and she passed it along to her son.
I’ve given her my train calendar the past couple years.
Now her son’s bedroom is plastered with many of my train pictures; and he takes my calendar to bed with him.
He’s only six.
Mrs. Walton was my hyper-religious Sunday-School superintendent neighbor when I was a child.
Holier than holy! Worthy of the right hand of Jesus — a Bible-Beater; sanctimoniously full of righteousness and superiority.
That lede quote is from a voicemail ***** left me while I was at my urologist with my phone on “do not disturb.”
I play it over and over, and it’s probably a voicemail I’ll never delete.
Guilty as sin: I’m always a sucker for thinking some pretty lady might like me. That’s countering Faire Hilda with her noisy blustering that no pretty lady would ever like me!
So what’s next?
I could have e-mailed a response to *****, but I decided against it.
Careful dude: don’t get too involved!
Supposing she were interested in me?
The safest thing for me to do is to assume she’s not.
She’s a married lady, and her husband, who I’ve met, is a really nice guy.
But not too long ago she badmouthed him a little, or so it seemed; which has me worried.
My wife and I made 44&1/2 years, but not all marriages are made in Heaven.
If ***** is attracted to me in any way at all, it’s because we can talk.
***** seems to love talking, which was surprising to me, since she didn’t seem the type.
“We could talk forever,” she once said to me.
“Yeah, we probably could,” I thought to myself later.
Talk-talk-talk-talkity-talk! I could do that; but beyond that I’m leery.
With Faire Hilda mere talking between members of the opposite sex was EVIL and Of-the-Devil.
***** hits me pretty hard, and Hilda spins in her grave.
Yrs Trly doesn’t wanna make the many mistakes I made with a previous lady friend.
My response to her was clearly messy.
Never before had a pretty lady seemed interested in me; so tact and reason got tossed aside.
Then she wanted to walk dogs with me. Me, the lifelong scumbag? “I think she’s interested in me!”
Off-we-went! Me completely devoid of sense. She also did a few things which increased my thinking she was interested in me.
I’m not making those mistakes with *****.
Hilda’s noisy insistence no pretty lady would ever associate with me is what got tossed aside.
I have too many lady friends, and I attract ever more. Let ‘em talk or make ‘em laugh, and I attract ladies.
Perhaps my best first move was to not respond to *****’s voicemail. That first lady-friend I woulda. (Text, e-mail, FB message, etc.)
I decided face-to-face is a lot better than the written word.
The written word gets easily misinterpreted, plus with face-to-face I get immediate reaction.
So it will be face-to-face with *****.
I’ll try to not think ***** is interested in me. If she wants to talk, and that’s all I can do, she’ll let me know.
I think her voicemail indicates she likes talking.

• “RCA” is Radio Corporation of America; 1919-1986, based in Camden NJ.
• My brother and I photograph trains down near Altoona PA, where the old Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain. The railroad is now Norfolk Southern. Every year I take 13 of our 89 bazilyun photographs to assemble into a calendar — I do it with Shutterfly. I give those calendars as Christmas presents

“Get over it!”

—“I have one tiny story if you wanna hear it.”
I would say that to my lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool.
She’ll probably wanna hear my story.
“We could talk forever!” says my pretty pharmacist friend.
Two years ago she gave me a flu shot, but she hung around afterward.
“Don’t you wanna leave?” I kept thinking.
Nope! We had started talking, and she wanted to continue.
A friend of mine, a retired transit bus-driver like me, commented about how all my recent blogs seem to be girl-oriented.
Continuously celebratin’ my joyously newfound relationships with women.
(This is the guy whose writing advice I’ve taken before — mainly about not explaining everything.)
My newfound lady-friends counteract my hoary childhood, which left me thinking no girl would ever have anything to do with me, especially not pretty girls.
So now, 70 years late, I find those overly judgmental zealots were WRONG!
They marked-me-for-life: totally scared of and unable to relate to women.
How I even managed to attract a wife is another story. Some day readers.
Girl-oriented, but not sexually. I’m continually amazed I can even talk with women, and they wanna talk with me.
Over the past few months I have gotten much better at striking up conversations, including with pretty ladies.
I keep doing it, and thereby gain confidence.
So I mentioned to this friend I was sorry I kept being so amazed at these pretty-girl interactions.
I think he got it = that my continual girl-oriented blogging was not sexual bragging. Just that I was continually amazed I could even talk with a girl at all, and they seem to wanna talk with me. (Gasp!)
“Only a slut would talk to you, Bobby! You are despicable!”
Interacting with women is entirely new and unimaginable to someone like me, a scumbag ever since age 5.
“No attractive lady will ever associate with you! Don’t even think about it!”
This was my hyper-religious Sunday-School superintendent neighbor, the infamous Hilda Q. Walton.
Had my Bible-thumping parents come to my defense, Faire Hilda woulda crashed mightily in flames.
But I already was “rebellious” because I couldn’t worship my holier-than-thou father.
My retired bus-driver friend was not the first to decry my “girly” blogs.
Years ago another friend decried my continual mention of the “Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations.”
“Hilda is dead and gone, as are your Bible-thumping parents. So get over it, Hughes!”
Many others have complained, and the number of my blog-readers has declined over the past few months.
I find myself blogging every fabulous female encounter.
Every day something!
My friend suggested I blog other topics beside my female encounters, and I have a few ideas in mind — mainly regarding my bus-driving, and my auto-styling and music preferences.
Plus various insanities regarding my iPhone, technology, and my computering.
But after the childhood I had, and suddenly free of the albatross I carried 70+ years, these extraordinary female encounters are what get my attention first.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My friend was also an RTS bus-driver.

She melted

—“Don’t go yet!” I keep saying to myself. “I wanna say goodbye to you.”
I said that to *****, a new lifeguard at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool.
I was leaving, and she, shift finished, was turning into the women’s locker room.
She melted, and turned back toward me.
“DREAMIN’” my critics would scream. “She was faking it.”
If indeed she was faking it, she’s really good at it.
I had this sorta thing happen before.
I told a girl she was very pretty, and she blushed.
“I’m 76 years old (this was last fall — now I’m 77) and you’re a pretty girl.”
I was amazed I did that.
Maybe a year and a half ago I met a stunningly beautiful “looker,” probably in her early 30s, at a party. We talked some; she wondered why I was sitting alone.
As I left the party I tapped her on the shoulder and told her I really enjoyed meeting her.
I did that? I cried driving home.
Me, a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations, terrified and unworthy of pretty girls?
“No pretty lady will ever say anything to you, Bobby! You are EVIL and disgusting!”
Now I have lady friends galore, and many of them are smashingly pretty.
It seems I attract ‘em, probably because I encourage ‘em to talk, also because I don’t seem crazy with lust.
There is astonishingly pretty ****** of Thompson Hospital’s “temperature-ladies.” She always says hello to me when I walk in. (“Goodie! That Hughes guy. He always makes me laugh and feel attractive.”)
And *****, the lady who runs my pharmacy. “We could talk forever,” she tells me, smiling.
“Yeah, we probably could,” I think to myself later.
***** is a talker, much to my pleasant surprise. She didn’t seem the type.
Then there is my older lifeguard friend at that same swimming-pool.
We been friends for years, and she’s impressive for age 65. She looks late 40s on her lifeguard stand.
Her lifeguarding is a retirement gig.
And I goofed up every one of these ladies at least once. Twice for my older lifeguard friend.
Yet that lifeguard keeps hanging with me.
After my first flub I thought I lost her forever, but she seemed happy to see me on return.
My second flub wasn’t as serious as my first, although I also thought I lost her with that flub.
I tried “happy to see ya” on her myself. And amazingly that worked.
I guess normal people don’t hold grudges like my father did.
***** was another “happy to see ya,” after I came on too strong with her once.
I also came on too strong with ****** at Thompson at first, and thought I lost her too.
I kept my distance a couple weeks, then “Hey, where ya goin’? You can’t go anywhere. Who’m I supposed to talk to?”
“Don't worry,” she smiled. “I’ll be back!”
Suddenly “all is forgiven if we can talk and laugh!”
This is not the world I grew up in, where I was guilty even if proven innocent. —Overly-judgmental Bible-beaters, eager to declare me rebellious because I couldn’t worship them.
So now maybe I have a new friend at that YMCA swimming-pool: *****, who I apparently hit really well.
“A guy who likes me as a person instead of a sex object.”
She’s fairly cute and attractive, a girl who would attract the lust-crazed little boys hot to score her.
They probably say things hoping to attract her.
But apparently “Don’t go yet! I still wanna say goodbye to you” really hit the mark.
Think about this readers: (“hand me that remote, Luke”) I coulda just walked out of that YMCA totally avoiding *****, etc.
Instead “I wanna talk to ***** one more time.”
No wonder she melted; she deduced I cared about her, and not just to procreate the species.
Admitted, the fact she’s a girl, and I’m a guy, indicates a small amount of perversity on my part.
But by being friends with *****, hopefully saying the right things, we counter “No pretty girl will have anything to do you!”
And together. I like it! (GASP!)
70 years late Yr Fthfl Srvnt learns this.

• “Talking” defined: “I like that you wanna talk to me” (the girl), and “I like your talking to me = I wanna hear your pretty voice” (me: the guy). Pointless yammering about nothing; but enjoying our shared company.
• Tell her point-blank. Don’t hold back or be evasive. Tell her DIRECTLY! I’ve yet to get smacked; and the lady will probably like your having told her.
• The “temperature-ladies” are in the lobby of Thompson Hospital’s Physical-Therapy department per COVID-19. Pretty ****** takes your temperature with one of them infrared temperature guns.

Cancer always wins

June 30th, 2007; 14 years ago, and five years before she died: Tuesday, April 17, 2012. Nine years ago today. (We were doing a train ride on Tioga Central railroad in central PA.)

—“Don’t forget, you always had what matters: what’s between the ears.”
I said that to my wife as I took her to hospice the first and last time.
Nobody ever gets out of hospice alive.
44&1/2 years, no kids, and many many train chases.
Over those 44&1/2 years there may have been 10 times we didn’t share the same bed.
She’s been gone nine years, but I’m still sorta married. I developed many lady-friends since she died, but all we do is talk. I can’t get physical.
My wife and I fought cancer over 1-2 years — cancer always wins, or at least it did back then. I don’t know about now. (It kills its host, after which it gets killed itself.)
Yrs Trly always thought it lymphoma, but I guess it was breast-cancer. But not from a primary site.
We first noticed a hardening in her abdomen, which was lymph-nodes swelling with cancer.
So first we thought it lymphoma, fairly curable.
But apparently it was breast-cancer metastasized into her lymph-nodes.
She apparently was told that, but she didn’t tell me, perhaps to protect me from the horror.
Back-and-forth we went. Chemo reduced the swelling lymph-nodes, and she also took a breast-cancer medication, an estrogen inhibitor.
We beat the cancer back, enough so she could join me walking our dog.
My brother commented she seemed normal, but her lymph-nodes would swell again, cutting off back-circulation from her legs, which ballooned.
Chemo again, back to fairly normal.
We once drove to Altoona (PA) to train-chase with Phil Faudi, my Altoona railfan friend.
We stayed in a trackside railfan bed-and-breakfast in Cresson. Its called “Station-Inn.”
By now she probably was hurting, but she wouldn’t tell me. She liked seeing me have fun, and chasing trains has always been fun, and still is. (I’m a railfan.)
We drove down to South Fork south of Cresson to photograph trains. Then we would drive back north next to the railroad.
My wife decided she’d get out when we passed Station-Inn. But when we got there she didn’t. She decided she preferred seeing me happy.
Later the lymph-node swelling got so bad it constricted her kidney drains. One kidney was completely dysfunctional.
A urologist installed drain stents, which freed us from outside kidney drains.
She’d also get anemic. Numerous blood-transfusions were required, plus occasional overnight hospitalizations in Canandaigua.
At one of those hospitalizations she was at death’s door. She was so whacked, and her legs so swollen, she was transferred to a hospital in Rochester.
Chemo one more time, which brought her back.
At that hospital she was ornery as Hell. She wanted to get outta bed herself.
I also helped her walk. “She did this for me when I had my stroke,” I’d say; “so now I’m doing it for her.”
I also remember a nurse acting like “I wish my husband cared as much about me.” I was crying.
When I drove her home I decided I’d become a good boy, no longer the jerk I had been.
I crashed mightily in flames — I guess habits die hard.
She had to give up sleeping with me. A medical supply brought a hospital recliner bed we put in our living room. A lady she worked with gave us a sit-up cushion so my wife could share the bed with me.
We had always been very attached, but the sleep-cushion didn’t work. She had to sleep by herself, and fitfully.
By then we were doing pain management, and drugs for that, mainly morphine I guess, made her constipated.
We also were doing stool-softeners and laxatives. Plus we were messing up and missing drug administrations.
Finally a social-worker came and advised hospice.
THE END; a tragic loss!
She tried to hang on because as a stroke-survivor myself I came to depend on her.
It was her making phone calls, and solving life’s various insanities.
I remember her crying once in Thompson Emergency distraught she was being taken from me.
I visited her one last time at HosPeace, taking along our crazy dog.
She was so whacked-out she was unconscious: “asleep” the nurses told me.
I put the dog back in the car, and visited one more time.
“So-long,” I whimpered as I walked out, caressing her shoulder.
Friends tell me she knew I was in the room, but I doubt it.
HosPeace called me later that night to tell me she had “passed.”

• RE: “44&1/2 years……” —My wife’s mother noisily insisted we wouldn’t make three months. (“Look what the cat dragged in!”)
• RE: “Occasional overnight hospitalizations…..” —“Theatrics!” I’d tell her. “They won’t think you’re serious, unless I take you in in a wheelchair.” She refused!
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect long since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke. I lost my ability to play piano; even to hold a tune.
• “HosPeace,” near Naples (NY), is the hospice where she died.

No woman will ever be attracted to you!

—“With any luck sometime I’ll get to tell you my ***** story.”
I’d say that to my lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming pool.
If things go anything like usual, I’ll get the sudden ***** “drop-everything” look.
This happened before.
“You go swim your laps!” I told her. (She swims laps to stay in shape, and looks pretty good despite her age.)
“No, I wanna hear your story first,” she said.
To someone with the childhood I had, the fact a pretty lady would wanna hear my story is beyond comprehension.
“No pretty lady will wanna hear your story, Bobby! You are EVIL and disgusting!”
I think ***** joined with another of my lifeguard friends to coach me in my ongoing endeavor to successfully interact with women.
70+ years avoiding women. “No female will ever have anything to do with you! All males, including you at age-5, are EVIL — hearts sullied by lust!”
I long ago made a deal with that other lifeguard, that she not give up on me, inexperienced and clumsy as I am.
She hasn’t. And I think ***** and I may have a similar deal. Not ironclad or specific, but a deal mayhap.
A while ago she said she would show up on the same day I showed up for my aquatic therapy class.
“Well in that case,” I said to myself; “I guess I better show up. I do like meeting *****.”
15–16 consecutive times so far.
She counteracts my hoary childhood just by wanting to hang with me.
“While you were in Florida,” I would say; “I struck up conversations with two of your new cohorts, ****** and *****.
With ****** I bombed. That poor girl may have been hit-on sometime. With her I’m a loathsome lothario, eager to FLIRT with every pretty young thing that comes along, to make myself feel desirable.
***** is a different story.
A week later she was lifeguarding, and she kept glancing at me. Not making eyes or flirtatious; just tiny nanosecond glances every time we passed each other.
‘I think she wants me to speak to her,’ I thought to myself. Just let her know she still attracts me. I spoke to her a week ago, so I should wanna speak to her again. (I finally did, and successfully.)
Our relationship continued. She lifeguarded again a week later, and seemed hurt I didn’t say hello. I didn’t want her to think I was chasing her.
Finally I said something to her, then ‘don’t walk away; I wanna say goodbye!’”
Readers, Yr Fthfl Srvnt has come a long way since his wife died.
(Two months ago I woulda walked out without saying anything. Say hello to a pretty young girl? Impossible!)
“BAM! She smiled at me; I’d made her feel attractive. I could see it in her eyes.
And *****, I am better at interacting with women, I guess.
She wanted me to like her, I still do, and it’s not EVIL or lust-crazed. (GASP!)
All we do is talk, and women love talking.
And much to my pleasant surprise, women seem to gravitate toward me, probably because I encourage ‘em to talk.”
“No woman will ever be attracted to you!”

“Get thee behind me, Satan!”

—Having completed my aquatic therapy class at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming pool……
And having entertained my various lady friends there……
Yrs Trly would drive home and then return to Canandaigua for shot number-two of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.
The vaccination clinic was in conference rooms adjacent to Thompson Hospital’s Physical-Therapy department. So it would use the same entrance lobby as Physical-Therapy.
I shuffle in and “hi Bob.” It’s my beloved “Temperature-Ladies” I see every week.
“YIPPEE; it’s that Hughes-guy that makes us laugh and feel attractive.”
“(DREAMIN’)!”
The same sorry litany I been hearing all my life:
“No pretty lady will enjoy meeting you, Bobby!”
“Where’s ******?” I asked. Usually it’s pretty ****** and ***** with her gorgeous eyes. ****** is astonishingly pretty. ***** is heavier but has gorgeous eyes.
“You guys are the main reason I continue Physical-Therapy,” I thought to myself. “We talk and laugh and ****** says hello to me. We seem to enjoy each other. (“IMPOSSIBLE!”)
Think about it readers: (“CHANGE THE CHANNEL!”)
Being happily greeted by pretty girls improves my mood. When my physical-therapist asks how I am, I project happiness.
But it wasn’t ****** this time. It was someone I knew but not “looker” ******.
“Not this time,” I said, pointing to the vaccination clinic.
But I had to stop and entertain my lady friends.
“You’re hitting me with them eyes again!” I said to *****. “Your husband gets to see ‘em all the time, but me only occasionally, and only if I’m lucky.”
I shuffled into the vaccination clinic, there to fill out forms.
“I forgot my glasses,” I said. The girl filled out the forms for me.
Not far away was another lady with gorgeous eyes. She also had a gigantic rack. Something to entice my lecherous male friends.
“Do I say anything to her or not?” I’ve gotten good at it, but there’s that gigantic rack.
Her eyes were incredible.
I was led into another room. But she followed.
Perish-the-thought I get surmised a lonely hot-to-trot widower, attracted to that gigantic rack.
Thankfully nothing happened. She was led back into the first room, and I was led into a vaccination booth.
Too bad she had that rack. Her eyes were so gorgeous I woulda said something.
It’s also too bad she can’t enjoy the company of men just liking her as a person, instead of a sex-object.
“It’s your eyes,” I woulda told her. “You were blessed!”
“Get thee behind me, Satan!”

• “Get thee behind me, Satan!” is Jesus in various Bible passages (King James version) rebuking the tempter.
• Heard once by my wife: “if the King James version was good enough for Jesus it’s good enough for me!”

Forbidden fruit

—Sixty-plus years after first being attracted to women, Yr Fthfl Srvnt finds himself attracted to women for pretty much the same reasons as long ago.
The attraction is partly sexual of course, but mainly it’s because women are forbidden fruit.
Long ago my hyper-religious Sunday-School superintendent neighbor, the infamous Hilda Q. Walton, convinced me no female would ever have anything to do with me.
I shouldn’t even try; females were verboten! Any interest I had in women was EVIL and salacious!
Things are much different since my wife died. Suddenly “forbidden fruit” wants to associate with me.
It’s thanks to my dog, who I lost last August. He got me used to interacting with pretty girls: “oh what a pretty dog! Can I pet him?”
Also, by “thinking too much” (“hand me the remote, Luke….”) I ascertained what works to engage pretty girls, and what doesn’t.
“I know you!” the opening line I’ve used hundreds of times. That tells the girl I wanna interact with her; and just talk, not sexually.
“You look familiar!” She smiles, and off we go!
Pointless yammering. “I wanna hear your voice, and you want me to be attracted to you.”
“YIPPEE! He wants to talk to me!”
The first girls to attract me, sixty-plus years ago, were ******* ******* and **** *******. (I remember their names.)
******* was a cute little sexpot, the daughter of an Air Force man who never was home.
She lived in a large dingy apartment-complex, and would sun herself in the courtyard in a strapless bathing suit (GASP).
She was fully aware of her sexual attractiveness, and drove all the little boys crazy, including me.
I’d ride my clunky bicycle over to those apartments so I could ride around looking for her.
I’m sure she was aware I was doing that, as was her cohort, who wasn’t as attractive.
Too bad I wasn’t who I am now. I woulda struck up a conversation.
Women love to talk, and I’m no longer scared of sexpot cutie-pies.
If anything, that cutie-pie appreciates that some innocent dude like me just wants to talk. I experience it like crazy!
My other female desire was **** *******, not a cute little sexpot, but attractive enough.
She lived in a tract-house, part of a new development north of the main drag. (We lived south.)
She was Jewish; my mother woulda been appalled.
I’d ride bicycle up there so I could watch her house. I hoped I’d see her. (They had a mega-finned ’56 Packard.)
One time she followed me down a street, hoping to talk to me, mayhap.
I was terrified! The idea of an attractive girl wanting to talk with me was utterly beyond comprehension.
I ran away! “No pretty girl will talk to you, Bobby! You are EVIL and filled with lust!”
So girls have always been “forbidden;” frightening even.
UNTIL RECENTLY!
I think of an incident that occurred just the other day. An example of the many fabulous female encounters I experienced since my wife died.
A couple weeks ago I struck up a conversation with a fairly attractive new lifeguard at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming pool.
A week later she showed up again, and kept glancing at me.
She wasn’t making eyes, but I realized she wanted me to talk to her again.
Let her know she still attracted me; tell her by just wanting to talk to her a little.
Finally, “I know you!” She turned and smiled. I’d made her happy.
Every time I rethink these pleasant encounters I choke up.
“No female etc. etc.” But it keeps happening!
Would that 65 years ago I’d been who I am now.
******* woulda been worth a trial conversation, and I woulda let **** catch up.
The whole idea of an attractive girl wanting to associate with me was beyond imagining back then.
Not anymore! I strike up conversations with pretty girls willy-nilly!

• I do aquatic balance training in Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool, currently one class per week — 45 minutes — less than usual due to COVID-19.
• During the ‘30s, Packard marketed some of the greatest automobiles of all time. Sadly, Packard never got around to manufacturing an el-cheapo entry-level automobile like the Big Three. By the 1950s, Packard was failing. Merged with Studebaker in 1954, S-P failed in the ‘60s. It stopped manufacturing automobiles in America in 1962; and lasted in Canada through 1966. The final Packards we’re essentially rebodied Studebakers.

“We could talk forever”

—This here blog is becoming catharsis for Yr Fthfl Srvnt.
My reader-count declines. 20-25 a while ago, then maybe 15, then ten or so, now maybe six.
Readers tire of my continually celebratin’ my mind-blowing successes with women.
Which after my childhood I never considered.
“No female will ever have anything to do with you, Bobby! You are despicable!”
All my life I paid for Faire Hilda’s husband fooling around. She became a self-righteous prude. Eager to tell little Bobby next-door, who was already an overly weak pushover, that all males, including him at age 5, were evil scumbags.
Had my hyper-religious Bible-thumping parents come to my defense, Faire Hilda woulda crashed mightily in flames. But I was “rebellious” for being unable to worship my holier-than-thou father, worthy of the right hand of Jesus.
Tomorrow (Monday, April 12th), if it’s not pouring rain, I will hike my 2.8 miles on Lehigh Valley RailTrail, chancing a pleasant encounter with a pretty lady.
Strike up a conversation, and they wanna talk.
After that rail-trail I will visit my pharmacy in Honeoye Falls, where I chance meeting pretty *****, who I will probably discontinue calling “pretty *****.”
“Pretty *****” is flirtatious (EVIL; gasp)! ***** has become much more than someone I could “lust after.”
She became a girl I enjoy talking with, who also happens to be pretty.
This wasn’t what I expected. She seemed aloof and distant at first.
But that was when she worked at a big-box pharmacy across the street.
What a waste! Degreed as a pharmacist, but used as a clerk.
Now she’s head-honcho of her own pharmacy. She’s much happier, I see it, I like it, and I tell her!
I also discovered she’s not aloof and distant.
Two years ago she gave me a flu vaccination, and we began talking afterward.
“Don’t you wanna leave?” I kept thinking to myself. (That’s Hilda!)
“NOPE!” She wanted to talk.
Finally, “back to work; sigh……”
And of course it’s just pointless yammering; she likes that I want her to talk to me, and I like hearing her pretty voice.
I admit a perverse and pernicious factor in our relationship. She’s a girl, and she’s also pretty. She counters “No pretty lady will ever talk to you!”
Of course ***** is one of many. I’ve noticed (“CHANGE THE CHANNEL! He’s a-doin’ that there thinkin’ again!”) women love talking, especially the pretty girls.
“YIPPEE, a guy not hitting on me, nor trying to snag me as a trophy-girl.” Talk-talk-talk-talkity-talk!
I will give ***** a pile of my old train-calendars I was going to toss.
“I can think of two railfans who’d want those old calendars, and one is only six years old.
“I favor the six-year-old!” I’d tell her. Her son is age-6, and takes my most recent train-calendar to bed with him.
“I was age-6 once, and I know what it means to have an adult other than your parents care about you.
In fact, I’m not sure even my own parents cared about me, but that’s another story,” I’d tell her.
“A long and sorry story; you don’t wanna hear it!
Let’s just talk,” I’d say to her.
She’d smile, and off we’d go.
“You know what woulda happened if you vaccinated me against COVID-19?” I’d say to her. “We woulda talked and talked and talked and talked while customers piled up.”
“We could talk forever,” she once told me.
“We probably could,” I thought to myself later.
Per my critics, if she’s faking it, she’s awfully good at it.

• For preverts among my readers, ***** is a tiny little thing. Not gorgeous, but pretty enough to have been intimidating. What I like is that she is such fun to talk with.

Misadventures with Mrs. ******

—“Been vaccinated against COVID-19 yet?”
It was Mrs. ******, my aquacise-instructor at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool.
She was behind me, suddenly blurting her concern for me.
No eye-contact beforehand. I blurt myself, although I try to establish eye-contact first.
She probably couldn’t.
What I perceive is her trying to maintain what interest I had in her since we go back years, and I made the mistake of thinking her interested in me.
(Enter critics bellowing: “DREAMIN’!”)
Not long ago Mrs. ****** finally gave me her borders. Most of my lady friends are married. They gave me their borders early on:
“I like you liking me, but be careful. You’re a pleasant distraction, you make me feel attractive; but I’m married!”
No borders from Mrs. ****** for years. And now that I have ‘em, she seems a little distressed I backed away.
She makes a fuss over me, but it’s just talk, which I love doing — with all my lady friends.
Talking with ladies reverses my sordid childhood — “No pretty lady will ever talk to you, Bobby! You are disgusting!”
I question whether I can regain my friendship with Mrs. ******. Too many mistakes have been made.
She picked the worst dude in the world to attempt to befriend; a guy whose experience with women was nil.
Regrettably she was the first attractive lady to smile at me — my wife is another story — and I blew that all wrong.
Then she wanted to walk dogs with me. Totally incomprehensible to a graduate of the infamous Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations.
Three times in quick succession = she’s interested in me.
I texted her way too much, but she responded to many of my texts, often immediately.
She tried to stoke my interest in trains (I’m a railfan). My wife wasn’t a railfan either.
A lot has changed since my wife died; nine years ago this coming Saturday.
I’m no longer who I was back then, and sadly my wife doesn’t get to experience who I became.
Mrs. ****** exhorts me to “keep evolving,” and apparently that’s what’s happening.
70 years late I emerge from my shell — probably much to the angry chagrin of Hilda and my Bible-thumping parents.
But unfortunately it seems the person I’m evolving into goes beyond remaining friends with Mrs. ******.
I know she means well, but too many prior mistakes on my part.

• Thank you Hilda! (Marked for life!)

It’s so surprising

—“Ya dropped something!” I yelled to pretty ****** at my supermarket.
She’s a store employee, and was stocking something in produce.
She attempted to move an empty carton to the front of her cart, and it tumbled onto the floor.
“WING IT!” I thought to myself. I was only gonna say hello, but “ya dropped something” instead.
Even saying hello could be perceived a FLIRT = EVIL intent. (GASP!)
She smiled when she saw it was me. I could see it! We were wearing masks, but her pretty eyes told me.
And that’s despite those funky black mascara-chips she wears. Her eyes sparkled!
I don’t wanna be perceived a dirty old man, so WING IT!
The old waazoo: make her smile! Let her know I like her, and without evil intent.
Before ****** was ****** in self check-out. We always know each other so “happy to see ya!”
She called me “BobbaLew.”
“You remembered,” I said.
She began a long dissertation about “I love Lucy” and Ricky Ricardo, who used to “Babalu” with bongos.
GOODIE! She’s talking to me. Let her! Don’t interrupt!
“It was ‘I love Lucy’ in the ‘70s when I was growing up,” she said.
“Well I’m ‘50s,” I noted.
Something was going wrong. I could see it! It looked like I hurt her.
How can I put us back to enjoying each other?
I told her the e-mail signature in my iPhone was “nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-nyuk:” Curly of the Three Stooges.
(“This guy doesn’t want me to hurt.”)
“My husband is a Stooges freak,” she said.
“I can’t stand ‘em!” she continued.
Talk-talk-talk-talkity-talk! And women love talking. Let ‘em; encourage it!
“Them Stooges have been around since the ‘30s,” I said. “That’s 80 years ago. And they’re still extant!”
What a wonderful way to make lady friends.
“We could talk forever,” a lady-friend tells me.
“Yes, we probably could,” I thought to myself later.
The simple exchange of emotions back-and-forth.
Before the supermarket would be 45 minutes of “water-walk” in Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming pool.
*****, my 65-year-old lifeguard friend at that pool — she doesn’t look 65 — would probably not be there. I’ve never seen ***** on Friday.
But pretty young ***** was lifeguarding. ***** is the one who last Friday kept glancing at me as if she wanted me to say something to her.
No procrastinatin’ this time; I’d talk with her as soon as I could.
“You I know,” I said to her as she walked past.
She turned and smiled at me. Our pointless yammering began. I don’t remember any of it, except I like talking with *****.
It’s the old “I like hearing her voice, and she likes my wanting to talk with her.”
Pool-time finished I walked over to her lifeguard-stand. She was on it.
It looked like she was pleased I had a little more to say to her.
She’s currently brunette, but said something earlier about once being blonde.
“So it sounds like you dye your hair,” I said to her; “which is okay with me, but please don’t dye it green!”
“I had it purple long ago,” she told me.
“Well you woulda lost me!” I exclaimed.
“There’s a lady up at Thompson-Hospital’s Physical-Therapy who dyes her hair fire-engine red.
I can’t talk with her. Her hair-color turns me off!”
“So what hair color do you prefer?” ***** asked.
“Natural,” I told her. “No tattoos either, or facial steel. No nose-rings. I told ***** once if she wanted me to stop talking to her, all she had to do was get a nose-ring.”
And talking about hair color is pointless yammering — it’s just talk.
But she isn’t telling me to get lost, or to stop talking to her. She wants me to talk to her. (It means I like her.)
All these fabulous female interactions reverse how I was brought up: “No female will ever associate with you, Bobby! You are disgusting!”
No hoary childhood for my many wonderful female friends. Just enjoy their company as much as I can.

Tuesday the “Temperature-Ladies”

—Except this week it was yesterday, Thursday April 8th; usually my physical-therapy appointment is Tuesday.
I was taken into the Physical-Therapy lobby to schedule additional appointments. My scheduler would be *****.
“I don’t know if I should tell you this,” I said to her. “I probably shouldn’t.
****** is very pretty, but you (*****) have the eyes.
Regrettably I’m an eye-man. Men tell me I have it all wrong, but eyes are what attract me.
Your husband gets to see them eyes all the time. Me only once a week, if I’m lucky.
’The eyes are the window to the soul’,” I said.
“I've heard that too,” ***** said.
I covered my eyes. “I can’t look your way,” I told her. “It’s your eyes — WOW!”
Telling her that was entirely off-the-wall, but somebody’s gotta do it.
I bet she goes home with that ringing in her pretty head. I hope so, although my critics would tell me otherwise.
“My husband says I have ‘evil eyes’,” she said.
“Show me!” I shouted. “I wanna see yer evil eyes.”
She couldn’t do it. Of course not; she wasn’t mad at me. Her eyes sparkled instead; again WOW!
And they were brown; usually it’s blue eyes that get my attention.
No matter, her eyes were gorgeous, and our eye-contact was phenomenal.
“No pretty lady will look at you, Bobby! You are EVIL!”
She's not that pretty; ****** is prettier.
But oh them eyes!

• The “Temperature-Ladies” are two Thompson-Hospital employees who sit in the Physical-Therapy lobby per COVID-19. ****** takes your temperature with one of them infrared sensor-guns. Sometimes the other “Temperature-Lady” is *****. She peppers you with questions.

Harbinger of spring

(iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

—Every year, shortly after the robins arrive……
About the time my beloved Linda died……
These flowers blossom next to our woods.
I think they’re daffy-dills, but I defer to my lady friends who will be more savvy than me; male that I am.
To me they’re “flowers.”
Linda planted ‘em.
So every year I go out and take a photo, this time with my i11-Pro.
It gets harder and harder. I had to get down and sit to get this angle.
Not easy for a 77-year-old; then I hafta get back up.
My balance is so bad, standing would be near impossible. Nothing to hang onto, and the terrain was challenging.
Plus, standing over them flowers is a turgid photo.
I probably can do it again next year.
April 17th will be nine years since Linda died. Next year will be ten.
Them flowers ain’t goin’ anywhere.

• “Linda” is my beloved wife of 44&1/2 years. She died of cancer April 17th, 2012. Cancer always wins.

Say it! Tell her!

—“I try to come here without bothering you,” I said to my lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming pool…..
But it seems every week something bubbles up.
Yesterday I went to my pharmacy in Honeoye Falls. One of my lady friends runs that pharmacy.
When she saw it was me, she turned and smiled at me, then said ‘hello, how are you?’
True to form, I locked up, just like I do with you. I couldn’t say ‘fine, how are you?’
You even give me the words.
So later I thought why can I never say ‘fine, how are you?’
I began to think it dishonest. I hardly can walk, and my balance is dreadful. To say I’m ‘fine’ would be lying.
And I’m no good at lying.”
My friend laughed.
“It’s not lying,” she said. “Lying implies evil intent; and there isn’t any. You’re not being devious.”
“To me a more truthful answer would be ‘I ain’t dead yet!’”
My friend laughed again.
So what do I do to honestly tell someone I’m happy to see ‘em?
“There’s your answer,” I told my friend.” I can’t say ‘fine, how are you,’ but I can say ‘happy to see ya.’ And I am of course.”
Class finished, I walked through the pool to its edge. My lifeguard friend was going off-duty, but she was walking past poolside.
“Before you leave,” I interrupted; “15–16 consecutive weeks so far, and I like it!”
My friend smiled.
Go ahead! Say it! Make her smile!
70 years late Yr Fthfl Srvnt learns the absolute joy of interacting with women, even pretty ones.
My friend hasn’t smacked me yet, nor sent me packing.

• I do aquatic balance training in Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool, currently one class per week — 45 minutes — less than usual due to COVID-19.
• I am a graduate of the infamous Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations, whereby at age 5 I was convinced that “No pretty lady will ever associate with you!” My Bible-beating parents heartily agreed.

Saved by laughter, I hope

—If it’s Monday, there’s a pretty good chance I’m gonna hafta go to my pharmacy in Honeoye Falls.
There I might meet *****, head-honcho of that pharmacy. She also became one of my lady friends, much to my surprise.
Even a few months ago I woulda never thought ***** and I could become friends. Go back a couple years, and that woulda seemed utterly impossible.
I visited that pharmacy last week, and it looked like I was on-the-outs. Admitted, my experience with women is nil.
It looked like I had overdone it again: too smitten with pretty *****. It looked like ***** didn’t wanna talk to me.
Well okay; there was another girl there I needed to talk to, so hopefully that girl would be there.
More importantly, I was down to one pill on one prescription, so I needed it refilled. When I visited last week, it was to notify them regarding that prescription.
No notification yet!
And still no notification today (Monday, April 5th) either.
A third lady was serving me, but ***** was also there.
I wouldn’t bother her.
The third lady told ***** I needed that prescription refilled.
***** came over to tell me they needed to call the prescribing doctor.
YIPPEE! She’s talking to me. Maybe we can talk!
We talked a little about the prescription, but then “I have a tiny question if you can handle it.
My question is whether your little boy can read.”
“That’s your question?” she said. The poor girl was probably expecting one of my dreadfully long and boring dissertations on the meaning of life, etc.
Her son is six years old — I thought he was five — but he can read.
I’d give him the link to my April 2021 train-calendar blog, but I didn’t know if he could read it. I didn’t want ***** or her husband having to read it to him.
Her little boy is a railfan, but the blog only has one train picture.
“I have another tiny question if you can handle it.” It seemed like ***** wanted me to keep talking to her; she wasn’t walking away.
“I can't remember the name of your little girl.”
“That’s ‘Ellery’,” ***** said.
“As in ‘Ellery-celery’?” I asked.
“You are hilarious!” ***** shouted, laughing wildly — and I love seeing her laugh.
“At Transit we had a bus-washer named ‘Ellery.’ We used to call him ‘Ellery-celery’.”
Maybe two years ago a stunningly beautiful girl at a party told me what women like most is laughing.
By then I got so I could talk to a stunningly beautiful girl. I remember tapping her on the shoulder when I left to tell her I really enjoyed meeting her.
I also remember crying on my way home after the party, that I had so successfully engaged a stunningly beautiful girl.
It was probably my first attempt. She didn’t walk away. Direct eye-contact.
Go back to before my wife died, and I never coulda done that.
***** wasn’t walking away either: “I have another question if you can handle it. Who’s ‘Herman’?”
“That was my maiden-name,” ***** said.
“I did a Facebook search of you since I knew your full name,” I said. “Ya hafta know a person’s full name to do a Facebook search. Most of my lady friends I don’t know their last names.
I did one maybe eight years ago of a girl in my high-school class — same thing, I knew her full name.”
“You have a Facebook?” ***** exclaimed.
“Well sorta,” I said. “I put up with it — I don’t do much with it. The only reason I have one is because of a fast-one by SuckerBird and his cronies.”
“SuckerBird?” she shouted, laughing hysterically again. “How am I supposed to avoid this guy when he’s so funny?”
“I’m gonna Facebook search you!” ***** shouted. “We’re gonna be Facebook ‘friends’!”
“Really?” I thought to myself. “Me, the lifelong scumbag?”
I don’t know if I can handle this, readers. Yrs Trly is a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations, whereby “No pretty lady, etc. etc.”
And ***** is a pretty lady.
The fact ***** and I are friends scotches the infamous Hilda.
“No pretty ***** will ever associate with you, Bobby! You are EVIL!”
Saved by laughter, I hope.

---

Addendum for today: Tuesday, April 6th.
I had to revisit my pharmacy this morning so I could pick up the prescription I was out of.
***** was there. She turned and smiled at me, and then asked how I was.
I wish I was any good at this. My lifeguard friend at that YMCA swimming-pool does the same thing, and I lock up.
My ability socializing is nothing.
My lifeguard friend tells me what to say, but I never can get the words out.
My thought was if ***** is faking it, as my critics claim, she’s really good at it. She sure looked happy to see me.
She started telling me something about train pictures, and e-mail, etc.
—Enter what little experience I have talking with women = LET ‘ER TALK; don’t interrupt; she’s talking to you, and women love talking, especially *****.
I didn’t say anything for at least a minute; I let her talk!
She said some things I couldn’t make sense of, but I am not butting in.
“What railroad was it anyway? Livonia, Avon & Lakeville?”
“Yep!”
“Them guys, eh?” I said.
Our frenzied yammering continued: “we could talk forever,” she said.
“Yes, we probably could,” I thought to myself. “I love your talking to me, and it seems like you love talking to me.
Ya got me fumbling every which way = I’m lost!
I’m way older than you, yet you seem to thoroughly enjoy talking to me.”
I don’t get it. I’m a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations. “No pretty lady will talk to you!” And ***** is a pretty lady.
Again, if she’s faking it, she’s extremely convincing.

• “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service (RTS), the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove bus 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.
• “SuckerBird” is Mark Zuckerberg, founder and head-honcho of Facebook.
• Livonia, Avon and Lakeville Railroad is a shortline that operates quite a bit of the old Erie Railroad Rochester branch. By pursuing rail business it became very successful. LA&L also operates quite a few other small railroads that were originally independent shortlines.

BUNK!

—“Here she comes,” whispered the tiny voice in the back of my head my hyper-religious parents told me was the Devil Incarnate.
“Say something to her! DO IT! Don’t be scared! You’ve done it before.”
I was hiking west on Lehigh Valley RailTrail, and a fairly attractive lady was jogging toward me.
“I used to do that,” I said to her.
She stopped.
“Do what?” she asked.
“I used to run,” I said.
And so we began: “Yada-yada-yada-yada-yada!”
“At least you’re still out here,” she said.
“Right!” I said. “77 years old, and I still can do it.”
She removed her sunglasses!
This is serious readers. Our eyes met. She wants to talk with me.
Pointless yammering. I like hearing her voice, and I’m not avoiding her.
“So glad I said something,” I said to her.
“Striking up a conversation always works. People wanna talk, especially women.”
“I’m glad ya said something too,” she said.
What’s happening here readers? I in effect told that lady she attracted me. Not lust; I just wanted to talk with her.
And perish-the-thought, I think she liked that. I was making her feel attractive. And not sleazy attractive.
“*****,” I would say to my pretty lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool; “I’m not used to this!”
***** knows my past somewhat: “No pretty lady will talk to you, Bobby! You are EVIL!”
Yet ***** talks to me, and probably was the first female to say hello to me without reason years ago. She probably was just being sociable.
I’m always stunned these little encounters with ladies work as well as they do.
My past tells me they won’t. Infer to a lady I wanna talk to her, and we strike sparks. “No lady will wanna talk to you!” Yet so many do.
I’ve had it bomb occasionally, in which case my bereavement-counselor tells me to try someone else.
Which I do; too many smashing successes have occurred.
My hoary past is reversed. The infamous Hilda Q. Walton and my Bible-beating parents spin at 14,000 rpm in their graves!
“If it’s fun it’s sin” was BUNK!
I bet that lady was happier when she finished running.

• As a result of my wife dying, I see a bereavement-counselor once a month. She’s become more psychiatrist, except she can’t administer drugs. Most times we talk about my dreadful childhood, and my recovery therefrom.
• A recent crotch-rocket motorcycle might be capable of 14,000 rpm. A Detroit V8 will start tearing itself apart at 8,000 (if it gets there). 14,000 rpm is enough to power Florida south of Orlando.

The eyes are the window to the soul

—“I normally don't say anything to anyone in this store,” I said to a lady in my supermarket. She was a complete stranger.
“I normally keep to myself,” I continued. “But your eyes are gorgeous.”
“You are so sweet!” she cooed as she caressed my arm.
She didn’t smack me, or spray me with mace.
Another time a lady butted in front of me at the frozen vegetables cooler.
“I just need these peas,” she said, excusing yourself.
Her eyes were also gorgeous, but she walked away before I could say anything.
I then went up to self check-out, but had forgotten my wallet. I put my order on hold and went outside into the parking-lot to get my wallet.
There she was again, getting into her car next to mine.
“I almost said something to you in the store,” I told her; “but you got away.
It’s your eyes. They’re gorgeous!” And they were; they sparkled.
“Why thank you!” she gushed.
I bet she went home and told her husband.
I could give more examples. I remember two other ladies: “You have the eyes,” I told them. “You were blessed.”
Again, not smacked, not maced.
And then there’s ****** at self check-out, who hides her sparkling eyes behind glasses.
I dare not tell her. We became friends, and I don’t wanna ruin that.
I probably became more spare with my compliments. Eyes are all we see anymore. That supermarket is awash in pretty female eyes, but I don’t say anything.
Although I’m more likely than years ago. My wife having died gives me freedom.
I also decided eye-contact makes eyes gorgeous. When my lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool looks DIRECTLY at me, I think how did I ever become friends with her?
Pretty *****, head-honcho of my pharmacy, has blue eyes, but they’re steely. Even direct eye-contact with her isn’t stunning.
But smiling eyes are gorgeous; and some eyes sparkle.
What matters to me are eyes, and apparently ladies like that.
“You were blessed” works, while “I’d like to get cozy with you” would get me smacked.
“No pretty lady will appreciate a compliment from you, Bobby. You are disgusting!”
I’m more willing to take risks after so many succeeded.
Go ahead! Tell her! Don’t be scared. She’ll probably appreciate the compliment.
“If some guy told me I had pretty eyes,” a critic told me; “I’d take out my mace sprayer.”
Versus: “You are so sweet!”

• “All I need is one of your smiles, Sunshine of your eyes, oh, me, oh, my…..” —Scotch and Soda, The Kingston Trio, 1958.

I think she wanted me to say hello

—One of two new female lifeguards appeared at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool yesterday.
Neither are gorgeous, but both are cute, i.e. not Harley-mamas.
Both are young, and probably not married. Both will make some dude happy some day, and it won’t be me, since I’m old enough to be their grandfather.
Yesterday was *****; the other girl is ******.
***** kept looking at me; not making eyes, but acting like she wanted me to say hello.
Every time we passed each other, our eyes would meet. Not much, but enough for me to notice.
She kept glancing at me.
****** pretty much avoids me, but not *****.
Yrs Trly’s experience with women is zilch.
What’s happening here readers? (“Uh-oh…… Change the channel! That guy’s a-doin’ that there thinkin’ again. Hand me that remote, Luke!”)
A week or two ago I struck up conversations with each of the two new lifeguards, probably each individually.
****** was probably turned off, but apparently ***** liked the fact I struck up a conversation with her — that I was attracted enough to her to do so.
No matter I’m an outta shape geezer clumsy as Hell. I’m male, and was attracted enough to say something to her.
That was her perception, even though all I was doing was striking up a conversation.
****** probably perceived me a loathsome on-the-make lothario.
I’m way past that, but I do like associating with females. They counter my hoary childhood.
So now ***** wants me to talk to her again = still be attracted to her. Ergo: I spoke to her once, so she wants me to speak to her again.
Finally, “I always confuse you with that other girl,” as I exited the pool. (A horribly weak opening line.)
“One of you has blue eyes,” I said.
“That’s ******,” ***** said. Our eyes met, and indeed *****’s eyes were brown.
“We talked about you the other day,” ***** said.
“Probably that I’m a lonely hot-to-trot widower,” I thought to myself.
But SO WHAT? Talk to her! Make her feel good! Let her know I like what I see!
Not a come-on; not hitting on her!
Just saying hello to her will make her feel so much better than if I were to avoid her completely.
70 years late Yr Fthfl Srvnt learns how to make a girl happy.
Do it! Make her feel attractive!
My 65-year-old lifeguard friend at that pool, older and wiser than the newbies, tells me “striking up a conversation” with a pretty girl, devoid of evil intent, isn’t FLIRTING.
I agree with her, but to me “striking up a conversation” can also make a girl feel like I’m attracted to her.
I’m sorry, but I’ve noted there are girls out there who like that. And they’re not Harley-mamas!

• Please note what differentiates these two lifeguards are the eyes. On so many different occasions a lady’s eyes are what attracted my attention. Not some sexual attribute: legs for example. If I’d done that, I woulda lost both. (“The eyes are the window to the soul.”)

“WAAA-ZUP?”

—“What’s up?” asked my aquacise-instructor as I peeked one last time into Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool area.
Or should I say “WAAA-ZUP?”
Yrs Trly has taken to looking into the pool area one last time before leaving.
That’s in case any of my fabulous lady-friends are in there that I should wave goodbye to.
“Oh,” my aquacise-instructor said: “he’s waving goodbye to ******.”
Normally when I make that last look, no one is by the door. People are swimming laps, and two lifeguards are on duty far away; one of whom was ******.
But when I opened the door, there were my aquacise-instructor and her cohort talking.
Lifeguard ****** is probably my all-time favorite lady-friend.
She’s not gorgeous, but she doesn’t look her age, which is 58.
We can talk about anything; we don’t have the dreaded boy-girl problem.
“I need your motherly advice,” I said to her recently.
Others might abstain, but not ******.
I also have my “pretty lifeguard friend” at that swimming-pool. But I don’t think I could run “motherly advice” past her — and she’s 65.
My aquacise-instructor is the cute little sprite with whom I made all too many mistakes, worst of which was thinking she was interested in me.
“What about your wife?” people ask.
I always feel like my wife was a special case. My being attracted to her was prompted by her being attracted to me. “I like the way that Hughes-guy thinks!”
I always felt I’d never attract a female; so her attraction to me was surprising.
That aquacise-instructor was the first not-my-wife female to smile at me — “No pretty lady will ever smile at you!”
Then she wanted to walk dogs with me. Three dog-walks in quick succession. To me that was totally incomprehensible.
“No pretty lady will ever walk dogs with you, Bobby! You are abhorrent!”
“She wants to walk dogs with me — the lifelong scumbag? She must be interested in me!”
My pretty lifeguard friend at that swimming-pool also prompted romantic interest about the same time.
“No pretty lady will ever say hello to you!” But she did.
“She too must be interested in me!” But we got past that after a while.
I thought I lost her twice. But she always returned. Maybe the fact we could talk brought her back.
****** and I can talk too, but my older lifeguard friend is somewhat intimidating. Perhaps because I almost lost her twice.
She’s also impressive — a “looker” for age-65.
But we seem to have got past any romantic interest. What we enjoy now is talking I guess.
Romantic misunderstanding of that aquacise-instructor continued for years. Things happened which piqued my misunderstanding. Plus she never gave me boundaries.
Finally, a few months ago, she did.
And now that she has, she seems a little miffed I reduced my interest in her to almost nothing.
As far as I’m concerned, what led me astray is my hoary childhood. Strident over-judgmental Bible-thumpers convincing me at age-five I was EVIL and disgusting.
That no female would ever have anything to do with me!
One enters the Canandaigua YMCA through a lobby adjacent to the swimming pool area.
In that lobby they do a COVID-19 pre-check.
During that pre-check I look up into the pool area to see if either of my two lifeguard friends, ***** or ******, are there. If they are, I wave, and knock on the partition-glass if I need to.
The other day, the only person I saw was my aquacise-instructor.
Do I wave to her or don’t I?
I decided I better not.