Marcy

Granny comes to the receptionist-desk Uzi blazing. (Photoshop.)

—“Grady, where do you get all this insane and outrageous stuff to write up?”
“Marcy, it’s everywhere!” I’d shout.
During my final years of employ at the Daily-Messenger newspaper in Canandaigua, the guy in the cubicle next to mine quit, and a new employee named “Marcy” moved in.
I called her “the new girl” at first, but stopped when I found she didn’t like it.
We were all in the Messenger’s gigantic newsroom — I guess we “produced” the newspaper.
Marcy was sort of an artist; and I was sort of an editorial-assistant. Marcy used her artistic and computer skills to generate pages for the newspaper, whereas I generated copy for those pages. Plus I even wrote a little, although it wasn’t reportage.
Marcy and I don’t have much in common. She’s more outgoing, and I keep to myself.
But apparently we both have the jaundiced-eye. or at least I do, and she likes it.
How we both got this way I have no idea, although in my case I know it’s a product of my childhood with hyper-religious parents.
Marcy is from the rural outback of western NY, whereas I am from the world’s arm-pit: south Jersey.
She is from Canisteo, (NY), and I know there is no cell-phone service in the Canisteo river valley.
I am from a sleepy south Jersey suburb, where the principal scenic attractions were gravel pits and oil refineries. (One could say my view of the world was determined by my south Jersey childhood.)
One day Marcy was in her cubicle on the phone telling her caller she worked under the “plaque-wall.” (The back wall of the newsroom was where the newspaper hung its many plaques.)
“Did I hear the word ‘plaque’?” I shouted. “Somebody say the word ‘plaque’?”
“There is no plaque in the Dental Hall of Fame!”
Marcy blew her coffee all over the floor!
In other words, she got it, and to her it was hilarious.
So began our relationship of continuous laughing. With 99% of the people I meet, I hafta explain what I just said. With Marcy, and my wife, I never had to explain anything = they always got it.
At the Mighty Mezz our coffee machines were in a lunchroom upstairs. About 9 AM I would leave my cubicle to go upstairs to get coffee.
“Ahl be bahk!” I’d say to Marcy, with my best Arnold Schwarzenegger imitation.
With anyone else I couldn’t do it, but with Marcy I could, because she would get it.
During my final years I was doing the newspaper’s website. I doubt hardly anyone looked at it, but I was obsessed with trying to put as much “art” on it as possible (photography, etc.).
I’d get in trouble for throwing too many pictures on it, but each picture was 10 to 15 minutes for me, so they weren’t time-consuming.
One picture we always did was the daily weather-drawing, submitted by a child for publication on the weather-page. Usually the child’s parents or grandparents submitted that drawing.
One time I was going on vacation the next week, so the question was who would do the website, since it was me doing it.
A management minion came over to harass Marcy, so I mentioned I was going on vacation, and wondered who would do the website.
“Dave knows how to do it,” minion said.
“But Dave doesn’t know how to do the weather-drawing, and you know what happens if we don’t publish that weather-drawing. Granny comes in to the receptionist-desk with Uzis blazing!”
“Ya lost me Bob,” minion said.
“I GOT IT!” Marcy yelled.
Come Christmas Marcy would decorate her cubicle with Christmas lights. I’d get there maybe a half-hour before her, so when she came in she would plug in all her Christmas lights.
“OOOO” and “Ahhh,” I’d say.
LAUGH ALERT!
We were always striking sparks like that = laughing.
When I first met Marcy I was doing writing like this for my family’s website, which was like Facebook became = exchange of family information, except Facebook was also identifying potential buyers. In my case acres and acres of deep female cleavage, I suppose because of my age.
I’d write stuff for my family’s website, then e-mail it to her also — I thought she’d like it.
Years ago I e-mailed her a report about my wife and I marching our Irish-Setter in Rochester’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. I reported members of the Brighton Volunteer Fire-Department were openly urinating on the manicured lawns of Rochester’s mega-rich.
“Grady, you should be blogging this stuff,” she’d say.
So here I am, over 14 years with BlogSpot; still crankin’ the same jaundiced-eye maunderings I long-ago wrote for my college newspaper.
Like retirement of “Sam-the-Soda-Machine,” an “institution” in front of our college’s tiny radio station, 12 watts.
And also the fact a secretary “liked” the tangle of varicolored wires emanating through holes in the wallboard as her office was remodeled.
“Marcy, it’s everywhere!” I’d shout.
Finally I gave her a very important pearl-of-wisdom: “Marcy, yer gonna get married someday. Whatever ya do, marry somebody who can make ya laugh. Do that and yer in it for the long-haul..”
I told her that because my wife always told me the reason we lasted 44&1/2 years was because I could make her laugh.
I’ve told that to many pretty young girls since: “Now listen to him,” an older lady-friend would say. “This is extremely important. Don’t let us down; don’t make a mistake!”
And I think Marcy married a guy who could make her laugh. Jealousy, exasperation, anger, who knows what. But if the dude can make ya laugh you’ll get over it.
Marcy and I are worlds apart, but I’m thrilled we still strike sparks.
And Marcy is out in Californy = I may never see her again.

• Marcy, and everyone else at the Mighty Mezz, called me “Grady.” See blurb at right.

Who’s hitting these things?

—“Who, pray tell, is hitting these things?” I’d ask. “When I haven’t even Facebooked ‘em yet.”
The way I do these blogs is: —1) I write ‘em into Apple’s “Pages” word-processor as voice-recognition, since my keyboarding is so sloppy.
Then —2) I publish ‘em into “BlogSpot BobbaLew,” so I can proof ‘em on my iPhone. I could “preview” ‘em on “BlogSpot BobbaLew,” but I haven’t yet seen a way of “previewing” on my iPhone.
—3) After proofing, as finished, I “Facebook” ‘em, which means my blog is okay enough for Facebook “friends” to read. I usually Facebook ‘em the day they’re published.
—4) The next day I e-mail “BlogSpot BobbaLew” links to others not Facebook “friends.” (My vaunted “Ne’er-do-Wells.”)
That way I get to see if there are any Facebook hits. First there was one, then there were two, now I get four or five.
But the other day I published a blog and got four “BlogSpot BobbaLew” hits before I even “Facebooked” it. So someone or something was hitting it directly from “BlogSpot.”
Four hits, but I can only think of two possibilities.
—One would be my lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool.
She’s probably computer-savvy enough to be able to Google “BlogSpot BobbaLew.” She’s probably more computer-savvy than me — I used to think my wife was more intelligent than I am.
I know I’m fairly smart, but I think my wife was smarter.
—The other possibility is the reader my friend in Californy uses to access my blogs. She was the one who started me blogging in the first place.
Perhaps her reader is grabbing my blog direct from “BlogSpot.”
Direct from “BlogSpot” might not be my finished blog = not “proofed” yet. (I’m trying to not publish until the blog has been proofed.)
Two hits outta four, and I have no idea who they are.
—If one is my lifeguard friend, why she’d wanna read anything I wrote is beyond comprehension. Mostly what I write about, at least recently, is my incredible and mind-blowing successes with women. Celebration of the end of my sordid childhood, whereby “NO FEMALE WILL HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOU!”
—My friend in Californy apparently likes reading my blogs: that I still write pretty much the same way I did years ago = my jaundiced eye. My twisted view and reportage of madness around me.
But those four pre-Facebook hits may not be getting the finished product.

• “Marcy” is my friend in Californy. Years ago she wondered where I got so much madness to report.

Garbage-in, Garbage-out

“Grady,” asked my friend Marcy. (“Grady” was my nickname at the Mighty Mezz — see blurb at right.) “Marcy” worked in the cubical next to mine; she in her late 20s or early 30s, me in my early 60s.
“I wanna know how you dredge up so much insanity to blog?” she asked.
“Marcy, it’s everywhere!” I exclaimed.
Sometimes I worry about running out of blog topics. This has been especially true since -a) my beloved dog died, and -b) I cut back to blogging only my own calendar.
I tried to walk that silly dog as much as I could. And at first I was blogging all my seven calendars. (Before you question my sanity, only one calendar is used as an actual calendar. My calendars are wall-art that changes monthly.)
Blogging seven calendars gobbled a lotta time. Mowing got shoved aside, and laundry went undone. A giant stack of cardboard sits in my garage awaiting chop-up for recycling.
So I cut back to blogging only my four train-calendars. (I’m a railfan.) But even that gobbled time, and wasn’t getting many readers. I e-mail blog-links to maybe 32 people, and usually get 10-15 readers per blog. Often more. My Monthly Train-Calendar Reports were only getting 5-6 readers. Many of my readers aren’t interested in trains.
I do a calendar of pictures my brother and I took near Altoona, PA, where the old Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain. That railroad is no longer Pennsy; it’s now Norfolk Southern. But it’s still very busy — that railroad is a main trading conduit between the east-coast megalopolis and our nation’s interior. (The other is CSX across NY.)
What I usually say is “wait 15-25 minutes and a train comes” — often more frequent than that. Trains are so frequent ya might see two or three at once. Much of Allegheny Mountain is three-track railroad; two tracks approaching, and at one location there are four tracks.
Allegheny Mountain is also a challenge. It’s a 1,016 foot rise in elevation. Helper locomotives are often needed to conquer it. Summit is at 2,194 feet.
My brother and I get fabulous photographs there. I plug ‘em into a calendar made by Shutterfly. I send ‘em as Christmas presents, and they also give me plenty to do.
I never watch TV. What I do is -a) take and process photos for my own calendar, -b) make the calendar via Shutterfly, and also -c) “sling words.” (What I call writing.)
Every morning as I sit down for breakfast, my pencil comes out, I engage my legal-pad, and I start “slingin’ words.” I never can get my muse to shaddup!
Mostly there’s some recent insanity to blog — I depend on it. “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”
The other day it was my iPhone. It has a calendar thingy I update so I can schedule appointments away from my home calendar. —Like at a doctor’s office.
iPhone’s calendar-app isn’t challenging, but the other day was a hairball.
I had to crank in a doctor-appointment, and after I did, that appointment wasn’t in my iPhone calendar. Actually it was, but the calendar-month wasn’t showing me. Not that way.
Finally after three tries I gave up! All I did was write down the appointment on my wall-calendar.
What was I doing wrong? Nothing I saw. Perhaps the calendar-app was not programmed right. Not the first time.
“Garbage-in, garbage out:” words I gleaned long ago from an old RTS bus-driver whose son programmed computers.
Do I really wanna let computers drive my car? That’s what I said after this iPhone hairball. They’re gonna hafta pry my cold dead fingers off the steering-wheel. NO WAY am I gonna let my car self-drive 70 mph bumper-to-bumper.
As a retired transit bus-driver I want slop — that is, five or six times the usual braking distance to avoid slamming on the brakes. Brake hard and ya toss passengers onto the floor.
I suppose I’m no longer driving bus, but I can’t dump old habits. I still drive “professionally,” and thereby anger others.
My guess is some hoity-toity ‘pyooter engineer inadvertently blew it. On viewing another way, that doctor-appointment was there the three times I entered it. But it still wasn’t in my iPhone’s calendar-month as first viewed.
Garbage-in, garbage-out!
I hear horror-stories from fellow ‘pyooter-users about the various “fixes” and “patches” for programming hairballs. My opinion is someone mucked up programming the calendar-app for my iPhone.
I’m told Apple’s recent “High Sierra” operating-system is a disaster. It was floated way too early; it hangs and locks up.
Memories of Windoze-95. We had it on a PC at the Mighty Mezz, and had to pull the plug to shut it off.
Oh well, I’m only cranking an appointment into my iPhone — no big deal. And it’s in there but not viewable the first way I tried to find it, which is the way I try to find it at a doctor’s office.
‘Pyooter-guru at the Mighty Mezz would just laugh and say “it’s in there, ain’t it?” As if we should value insanity.
Well pardon-me for trying to avoid madness. Am I supposed to look at things a second way to avoid first-way craziness? If someone mucked up, and is thereby driving me up-the-wall, I’m supposed to just chuckle?

• “Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. A picture of her is in the following blog: Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. —That blog was written years ago, so -a) is not a good as recently, and -b) Marcy has since married and moved to Los Angeles.
• “RTS” equals Regional Transit Service, the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 11 years ago. Best job I ever had — I was employed there almost 10 years —  worked there over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern.

The great coat-hanger debate

I don’t know if this actually happened, but supposedly sometime during my childhood a noisy argument occurred regarding how coat-hangers should be arrayed in a closet.
On one side was my Uncle Bill, who built the entire Ben Franklin Bridge (click the link, readers) single-handed with only a toothpick.
On the other side was my Aunt Betty, youngest of my mother’s many siblings. My Uncle Bill — his actual name was “Ethelbert” — was oldest.
The Ben Franklin Bridge opened in 1926 — at that time it was called “The Delaware River Bridge.” It spanned the river between Philadelphia and south Jersey, actually Camden. It was a gigantic steel suspension-bridge. For a few years it was the world’s largest.
My Uncle Bill also claimed to have invented the submarine-sandwich; “although them greazy eye-talians ruined it substitutin’ ‘maters for the cucumbers.”
He also noisily claimed to be the world’s biggest leprechaun. He was a big man, seemed over six feet 200 pounds or more.
My Aunt Betty could be just as strident. During her final days she lived in a so-called “manufactured home.” You dared not call it a house-trailer. She would angrily correct you.
(I post this in hopes it gives you some idea why I think the way I do.)
I’m not sure it was my Aunt Betty, although she was the most vocal of all my mother’s female siblings.
Oldest was Aunt Bea (Beatrice), the most normal, and second after my Uncle Bill.
Others included my Aunt Mary, eventually declared insane, although her husband bled to death after a bathroom accident.
My mother was perhaps the most emotional. If siblings were arguing, she’d start crying.
My mother was second youngest, followed by Aunt Betty.
I also am not 100% sure it was Uncle Bill, although I’m pretty sure, and wouldn’t put it past him. He was the self-declared all-knowing knower-of-all-things.
There were other male siblings, like my Uncle Herb, a collector of Lionel toy trains, and my Uncle Bucky (Walter), who my parents apparently loathed. He probably got my hyper-religious father upset mocking religion.
There also was another uncle who died young; plus “twins” who died during childbirth — I think.
I imagine the following exchange:
All my mother’s siblings arrive at my Uncle Bill’s. They go to hang up their coats.
“How come your hangers all face the same way?” someone asks.
“IN CASE OF FIRE!” Uncle Bill bellows.
Aunt Betty pipes up: “Easy pickings for burglars. Alternate hangers delay burglars.”
So began loud posturing. No one dared question Uncle Bill — except Aunt Betty, a self-declared equal.
Happily I was not witness to this argument. I’m sure the walls shook.
My mother probably interceded with tears.
(I remember Uncle Bill ending a family discussion by banging a pot on the kitchen table; I was party to that.)
So how indeed are my own coat-hangers arrayed?
All face the same way, placating my Uncle Bill.
How are they in the Pentagon, or shipboard in the Pacific fleet?
I bet Kim Jong-Un’s hangers are scattershot = not even alternate.
(He needs a hair-stylist — so too does The Donald.)

• RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to blog, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”

Yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda

“Good Morning Mr. Hughes:
I received your e-mail questioning the login that is required on the Water Authority’s website in order to change the contact information on an account.
The Water Authority takes security very seriously, and it has become a focal point for the Water Authority over the years with regular media reports of security data breaches and individuals’ private information being obtained fraudulently. Because of these factors, the Water Authority has instituted policies and procedures to protect our customers’ private information.
When the new customer Contact Information page was created recently, the team assigned to this project gave very serious thought as to what information would be required in order to make a change to an account. It was decided that the regular login requirement was most appropriate in order to protect the information the Water Authority already has on file as well as to protect its customers from those persons with malicious intent. Although we realize it is one more step for our customers, we believe it is worth it to avoid the possible risks.
If you wish to provide me with your cellular phone number, I would be happy to add that to your account and eliminate the land-line number we currently have (585-???-????).
Please let me know if I can assist you with anything else.”

(Congratulations if you read all that. I couldn’t!)

The other day I received a letter from Monroe County Water Authority, the supplier of my water-service.
It suggested I update their information for contacting me.
Made sense. They probably had my landline, which I no longer answer and am gonna dump.
They needed my cellphone number. I always carry that cellphone; and answer if identifiable (caller ID) — otherwise, they can leave a voicemail.
Saves from the deluge a solicitations and scammers.
The letter suggested I update via their website.
I fired it up, poked around a little, and then it wanted me to log-in.
I cranked in my account-number, but it wanted a secret password = it wouldn’t log me in.
WHAT?
End-of-story!
They want a secret password just to log-in?
Well, okay, but why should I hafta log-in?
They suggested I set up an account.
For Heaven sake!
This is the advice I get from just about every website.
Like the web-developers are marching in lockstep like trained elephants.
Sure; set up an account so them sites can better know me; my age (for example), my race (I always put “honkie”), my political preference (“bleeding-heart liberal”).
All so Facebook can purchase that info to suggest Facebooks I might wanna join, like “tits-and-ass” (my age), “deport all Muslims,” and “impeach The Donald.”
HELLO; all I wanna do is change my telephone info.
The letter suggested I could do that by calling “Customer-Service.” —To me that ain’t “logging-in.”
So I’ll call customer service — instead of setting up an account — to allow the minions at N.S.A. to tap my phone.
But I happened to notice a “contact-webmaster” on their site.
I cranked the following: “I shouldn’t hafta ‘log-in’ just to change the contact-info you need. FOR HEAVEN SAKE; it’s just my water-service. (You probably have my land-line, which I’m gonna pull. You want my cellphone number.)”
(What I shoulda said is “set up an account” instead of “log-in.”)
The next morning I fired up my iPhone, and the gigantic response, above, clogged my e-mail.
Corporate mumbo-jumbo alert!
It’s depressing to think someone’s getting megabucks to crank such gibberish. (I coulda cut that e-mail in half!)
Yeah, I know; security and all that.
The excuse Suckerbird and his lackys use so they can plumb my address-book, whatever.
If you managed to read the response, it said I could e-mail my cellphone number.
Um, that ain’t logging in. —That’s what I did.
Now to watch for crew-cuts eyeing me warily through binoculars from their white, antenna-festooned Transit-vans up the street.

• “Mr. Hughes” is of course me; “BobbaLew.”
• “Suckerbird” is Mark Zuckerberg, head-honcho of Facebook.
• RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired 11 years ago. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to blog, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” (Marcy is now married to MaHooch, and they live in L.A.)

Is it any wonder?

“What happened?” (Photo probably by my mother.)

My brother’s wife in northern DE has been digitizing old family slides like the picture above.
She posted some on our family Facebook.
Most were taken by my mother (“MD” = “Mother-Dear”).
The picture above looks like my mother took it. Line up everyone on a sofa under a wall-mirror, switch her Instamatic to flash, then wonder why a big starburst was in her picture.

“It’s the Mississippi I tell ya!” (Photo by Mother-Dear.)

Photos like this go back a long way. In 1952 my parents took another brother to Arkansas for cancer treatment — he eventually died.
As our car crossed the Mississippi River she took a picture. It’s posted above.
Um, what I see is blurred bridge railing, her first of many blurred bridge railing pictures.
“It’s the Mississippi I tell ya! Why are you always so disrespectful?”
My sister in Lynchburg, VA (Falwell-land) entreated me to name those in the picture.
I’m the oldest, she’s the youngest; we’re 17 years apart. There were seven in our family; four remain.
I can’t. The picture is 1963; I was away in college.
My first guess was my cousins Patsy and Judy were in the picture, along with my cousins Denny and David Broadwater — I couldn’t remember David’s name at first.
I’m told I have 60 cousins (gasp). I have many aunts and uncles, and they all had many children.
A cousin Diane weighed in saying it was a visit to or from my Uncle Bucky (Walter).
She identified herself, the others, and wondered who “Patsy” and “Judy” were.
So I responded with the following long-winded post:

“It’s beginning to sound like this was a visit TO or FROM Uncle Bucky.
The lamps seem familiar, but not the location of the couch.
What I remember is a couch that defined the entryway into our house in DE; that is, it was north (south/east/whatever Jack says).
It seems by 1963 the organ woulda been on the south (east/whatever) wall — not a sofa.
The oldster who is Uncle Bucky I thought might be David Broadwater, Aunt Ginny’s son (I remembered his name).
I wasn’t part of this visit; and how do I know it wasn’t MD visiting Uncle Bucky in Camden?
I never saw much of Uncle Bucky — he was sort of on-the-outs.
All I remember is Uncle Bucky drove Public Service bus, and he and wife Francis had many kids.
And one, ‘Joan,’ was murdered by her boyfriend, shot.
‘Patsy’ and ‘Judy’ and also ‘Denny’ are the last of my Uncle Bill’s (Ethelbert) kids. He had many before them, but the only one I knew was my cousin Dougie, who was a navigator on one of Strategic Air Command’s KC-135 tanker planes. He also owned a V8 ’56 Pontiac two-door hardtop.
Dougie was in his 20s by then, ‘Patsy’ about two years older than me, ‘Judy’ my age, and ‘Denny’ two-three years younger than me.
And we all know my Uncle Bill built the ENTIRE Ben-Franklin suspension-bridge between Philly and Camden single-handed with only a toothpick.
And he invented the submarine-sandwich; but ‘them greezy eye-talians ruined it by replacing the cucumbers with ‘maters.’
Also that he loudly proclaimed (engage pots on kitchen-table) to be ‘the world’s biggest leprechaun.’
When Ben-Franklin Bridge opened as ‘Delaware River Bridge’ in 1926, my paternal grandfather told me he was the first across in his ’34 Packard.
Is it any wonder I became a ‘slinger of words?’
My mother claimed she was related to Betsy Ross and Daniel Boone, and her ancestors came to America on the Mayflower.
‘Judy’ was great to talk to, hyper-intelligent like her mother (my Aunt Marion). I used to say I wanted to marry someone like Judy, and I did.
Patsy had something wrong with her — supposedly a product of earlier intermarrying within the Connor Family.
Denny and I lobbed water-balloons from the attic-floor (fourth) of their giant house on Lansdowne Ave. [Actually E. Baltimore Ave.] We got one successfully into the back seat of a top-down Buick convertible.
The owner stopped and pounded the front door. My Uncle Bill sent him packing! This was the time of the giant famblee conclave to decide what to do with Aunt Mary’s kids.
Aunt Mary had been put in an insane asylum.
It was also the time my Uncle Bill pounded the kitchen-table with pots, and my mother started crying.”

477 words. Far as I remember Facebook once had a word-limit.
I guess not any more; my 477 words posted in entirety.
Of course, a 477 word post is 472 more than average. I’m a word generator.
Usually it’s “You go girl” or “Congrats.”
Notes:
—My brother Jack in Boston redefined the compass direction of a road that goes east past our old neighborhood in northern DE.
He loudly declared it was south, which I guess it is other than past our neighborhood. It’s probably signed as “south,” although I would call it southeasterly.
Like many in our family he brooks no criticism. If I disagree I’m stupid and of-the-Devil; cue The Donald.
—RE: the lamps.....
My mother refused to remove dust-covers from her lampshades. Were they her lamps? Could be.
—My Uncle Bucky and his family lived in a row-house in Camden, NJ, across from Philadelphia.
—Our family had an electronic organ as well as a piano.
—My Uncle Bill, whose actual name was “Ethelbert,” was first-born of my mother’s family. He became a civil engineer, self-employed I guess, and was want to brag about his exploits.
—My Uncle Bill always pronounced “Italians” as “eye-talians.”
—The Ben Franklin Bridge is a giant suspension bridge across the Delaware River connecting Philadelphia with Camden, NJ. It opened in 1926, and was the first cross-river car-traffic artery that didn’t use ferries.
—RE: Lansdowne Ave.
At the time of this conclave, my cousins Patsy, Judy, and Denny lived with their parents is a giant house in Lansdowne, west of Philadelphia. The house was in the corner of E. Baltimore Ave. (”Baltimore Pike?”) and Wycombe Ave. —The house has since been torn down.
The Buick was on Wycombe Ave.
Their house was much bigger than needed, except my Uncle Bill had a gigantic ego.
—Rumors have surfaced about earlier intermarriage among my mother’s ancestors. They’re used to explain Patsy, my Aunt Mary’s insanity, and one of my brothers having Down Syndrome.

My old friend at the Messenger newspaper, Marcy Dewey (now Mahoney) used to ask where I got so much insanity to blog.
“Marcy, it’s everywhere,” I’d say.

Jaundiced eye

While I was at Houghton (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”) in the middle ‘60s, my college about 70-75 miles south of Rochester (NY), the yearbook was done by the junior class, that is, the yearbook-editor was a junior.
And the editor of the student newspaper was a senior.
I don’t recall how the yearbook-editor was named, but it seems to me the newspaper-editor was elected.
That is, during the year previous, proposed newspaper-editors were nominated, and an editor was elected for the following year.
For some strange reason, seniors above me wanted to nominate me. I had no interest at all, mainly because I had no management experience.
I suppose those guys liked the way I thought, that I had a habit for skewering the high-and-mighty pronouncements of others.
That was good for my fragile ego, but not enough to run a newspaper.
If I had been elected — highly unlikely, since I was a sinner, and the college evangelical — I would have been replaced after the newspaper crashed in flames.
Named was a guy named “Harold Baxter,” who despite being in our class, was I think three or four years older.
It was a good choice; at least the newspaper wouldn’t crash in flames.
That newspaper had to reflect the evangelical values of Houghton, and under “Bax” it would.
Bax called me in one day and asked if I could do a report on renovations in the Administration Building.
I went and interviewed various secretaries, wives of heavy-hitters at the college.
I asked one if she liked the profusion of tiny multicolored telephone-wires emanating from her walls.
She said she did (really), so off-I-went writing it up.
Bax was impressed. He was smitten with my deadpan reporting of silliness.
My reporting was laughable.
Bax then asked me to do a humor-column similar to my report.
At that time the newspaper had a humor-column that anchored the edit-page.
It was a tradition started by a guy named Dan Willett, son of a Houghton professor, and second-in-command at the newspaper.
Willett and someone else pointed out some of the silliness that went on around the college.
A similar humor-column ran the next year, and again under Bax.
But by then that humor-column was crashing. The guys doing it weren’t Dan Willett.
I decided to lead my column with “Of Men and Things,” which I think is Biblical.
I wrote up retirement of “Sam the Soda-Machine,” long a fixture on campus outside the old Fine Arts Building.
I was the only one that did; the other guys missed it.
“Of Men and Things” became a biweekly column, running on the back page, even though the official humor-column also ran.
Willett, who had graduated, returned to the newspaper office to weigh in.
“This guy Hughzey is writing the kind of stuff we wrote; the official humor-column falls flat.”
And so it’s been ever since. I call it observing with a “jaundiced eye.”
There’s madness and silliness everywhere. All you hafta do is observe and report it.
And do so in a deadpan fashion, as if it’s normal.

• “Houghton College” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.
• RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. —At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to blog, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”

Bluetooth follies

As I finished next month’s calendar-report, which I try to do in advance, and am well ahead this time.....
.....I worried I may not have any material to blog.
But as I said to Marcy once, my cohort at the Daily Messenger newspaper in Canandaigua, when she asked how I had so much madness to blog:
“Marcy, it’s everywhere!”
So here I am yesterday blithely motoring toward Canandaigua to work out at the YMCA.
My cellphone rings. My car has Bluetooth, so I fingered the answer-button on the steering-wheel.
After the usual surfeit of “hellos” that seem to come with cellphone use, a bubbly chipper girl started feverishly yammering at me at the speed of light — except it was a machine.
Oh, a call I wouldn’t have answered, except my cellphone, which has caller-ID, is in my back pants-pocket.
Something about reducing my student-loan debt with some program recently introduced by “Obama.”
Um, I graduated college 48 years ago, and paid off my student-loan debt in about two-or-three years. Including my National-Defense-Student-Loans (NDSL), a program initiated by President Johnson.
And people quite often ran from their NDSL debt.
“Obama?” Do you mean “President Obama?” The mention of “Obama” seemed hard, like she could hardly say it.
I get stuff like this all-the-time on Facebook and in my e-mail. Scotch your credit-card debt, refinance your mortgage, do a reverse-mortgage to get immediate cash.
For what? To buy a speedboat or Corvette?
Not interested! What interests me is not owing anyone anything, which I don’t.
I own my house and car, and pay my credit-card balance in full every month.
I was reminded of a fellow-worker’s comment: “Welcome to Ontario Honda. Please deposit your checkbook, wallet, and all credit-cards on our table, and we’ll happy to help you.”
It was “Ontario Honda” because this guy’s father worked there as a salesman.
I always did well at Ontario Honda.
“If you wish to speak to our representatives, please press ‘one’ now.”
Can’t! I’m Bluetoothing. My cellphone is inaccessible. My car-radio has 10 “preset” keys; perhaps they’re the same as a telephone keypad. I don’t know; never tried it.
“If not interested, please press ‘five’ now.”
Again, Can’t! I can’t do nut’in’.
“Beep-beep-beep.” Deafening silence from me; the call ended.
I don’t answer my landline any more. No caller-ID; and it’s always someone after my wallet.

• The “Messenger newspaper” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger, from where I retired almost nine years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]). (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)
• “Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Messenger. The “Ne’er-do-Wells” are a group of people I e-mail my blogs to.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about one-two hours per visit.
• RE: “My car has Bluetooth.....” —For those not technically savvy, my cellphone will radio to a Bluetooth receiver, in this case my car. I can thereby answer cellphone calls while driving, through my car-radio. I could also make cellphone calls, but I don’t because it’s unreliable.

Marcy, it’s everywhere

Uhm.......

Now that I’m pretty-much caught up with my blogging — my August 2014 Monthly Calendar-Report was finished two weeks ago — I worried I’d have nothing to blog about.
But something always appears, fulfilling my advice to Marcy there’s always utter madness to blog.
Marcy is my Number-One Ne’er-do-Well. We worked in adjacent cubicles at the Messenger Newspaper. She was the first I sent stuff to. She thought them so hilarious she began filing them in her computer.
They were just stuff I was filing on my family’s website. Now my vaunted Ne’er-do-Well e-mail list comprises maybe 20-25, and what I blog is not always madness.
Marcy was also the one that got me into BlogSpot blogging. My family’s website tanked, so now my stuff only flies on BlogSpot.
As I say, madness is everywhere; all I have to do is see it, then blog it.
One time Marcy asked how I had so much insanity to blog about: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” I shrieked.
Perhaps a week ago a solicitation came for me to financially support some effort to memorialize WWII female aviators (WASPs)
They’re apparently building a museum at an airfield in Texas.
The envelope has a so-called “bird’s-eye view”of a proposed hanger-extension — illustrated above.
I wondered if that bird could fly.
Obviously the viewing bird was still on the ground; the “bird’s-eye view” appeared to be a side-elevation.
Every “bird’s-eye view” I’ve seen before was from up in the sky looking down.
I know I’m picking nits. But I worked for a newspaper, and right-wing extremists were all-too-happy to point out our mistakes, especially grammatical errors.
“Well, you know what they meant” wasn’t good enough for the extremists, unless it was their mistake.
They’d loudly claim we were too liberal and therefore stupid; that they could do a better job.
Often they sent us Letters-to-the-Editor we’d have to clean up. They’d go ballistic we did that, and phone to castigate our publisher (the head-honcho).
We had to make them say what they meant.
We should have published ‘em as is.
I remember once getting a phonecall from some lady screaming about “freedom-of-the-press.” All because we had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to doctor her letter so it said what she meant — that we were too liberal and therefore stupid. What press freedom had to do with her beef we had no idea. She was doing a Rush Limbaugh imitation. She was soaking her telephone’s mouthpiece just like Limbaugh soaks his gold-plated microphone.
Sometimes they’d copy/paste directly from the Limbaugh website. We could tell because such letters were cogent and well-written. Obviously someone was ghosting for Limbaugh.
Once an extremist called and started angrily haranguing our City-Editor. He got her crying. Our Executive-Editor had to take over and shut him down. Extremist-dude called back, and we put him on infinite hold.
So some underpaid graphic-artist imports the architect’s side-elevation onto his envelope template.
And then labels it a “bird’s-eye view.”
And the overpaid mavens don’t catch it.
Well, we know what they meant.
It wasn’t us, the dreaded media, a newspaper (GASP).
So therefore it doesn’t matter — unless it’s a newspaper.

• A picture of “Marcy” is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells.
• The “Messenger Newspaper” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger, from where I retired almost nine years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]). (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)

Bugaboo Creek

My niece, my only relative in the Rochester (NY) area, likes to eat out.
She lives with her mother and husband and daughter in her mother’a homestead.
So I guess this technically makes more than one relative in the Rochester area.
Her mother is my wife’s brother’s first wife. I think my wife’s brother is now on wife number-four, I’ve lost count.
I’ve seen my niece quite a few times since my wife died, more than when she was alive.
My wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I was kind of stunned at first and devastated. I’m perhaps not as much now, but I’m still affected by it.
Obviously my niece is making an effort. I appreciate it, but she’s not my wife.
I’m told I need people around, and that’s what she’s doing.
But no one can replace my wife.
So when they eat out I get invited. This is on top of other visits.
Last Sunday June 16th was Father’s Day, an excuse to eat out.
Her husband, being a father, would pick a location.
A Golden Corral has recently opened in the Rochester area.
That was our first choice, but it would be so crowded we avoided it.
Our next choice was Red Lobster, but it too was crowded.
So they decided to keep looking when they passed.
Down the street was Bugaboo Creek, and it wasn’t crowded.
They stopped there, and called me to say they’d changed restaurants.
I was on-the-road by then — it takes about 35-40 minutes to get from my house to the road with the restaurants.
But my car is Bluetooth-enabled, so I answered while driving.
Her call promptly went south, so my niece tried again.
I know where Bugaboo Creek is; my wife ate there once.
Once inside I sat with my relatives.
This wasn’t a buffet; we’d be ordering from a menu.
Bugaboo Creek is a restaurant that plays upon the character of its name.
It conveys itself as swashbuckling, full of Canadian outback.
All I could think of is how do they keep this place dust-free?
The rafters were all open, and antlers were everywhere. There are mounted deer-heads and moose-heads. An old wooden canoe was up there.
Some trophy-heads have flapping mouths that talk or serenade you.
Every once-in-a-while a moose-head did this. It was so noisy we couldn’t hear it, and all l I could think of was “Marcy it’s everywhere!”
On the menu, “moose-juice” is listed as an alcoholic drink. All it is is pineapple-juice mixed with vodka. Coke for me!
My niece’s daughter got a soda-drink with an illuminated ice-cube. First it glowed red, then blue, then red, then blue, and so on ad infinitum.
Seeing this, all I could think of was “Marcy it’s everywhere!”
A loud waiter for the next table gushingly described a chicken entré. “We take the chicken out back at beat it.” Um, Marcy it’s everywhere!
Silliness was occurring all around me.
Someone brought a gigantic plate of nachos and dip while we waited for our entrés.
Her explanation was it was to compensate for our long wait. Funny, it seemed like every table got this.
I split an entré with my sister-in-law. There was enough in that entré to feed a family of five in Bangladesh.
My niece’s husband got a charred, greasy rack of spareribs. He also got what looked like an entire roasted chicken.
He dove in. How does anyone eat that much?
He also kept getting “bread.” Tiny rye-loaves that looked like turds. He’d saw off a slice and slather it with real butter.
He must have eaten four of these loaves.
So all I ate were five deep-fried chicken-strips and baked-beans from my sister-in-law’s entré. No nachos, no turd-bread.
The deep-fried chicken was excessive, like where’s the chicken? (Out back being beaten!)
So is it worth eating out with these people who aren’t my wife?
Yep! It’s always fun to socialize.
But I don’t know about Bugaboo Creek. It’s okay, but a friend described it well: “Chuck E. Cheese for adults.”

• RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to blog, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”

Winner of the insanity prize

(Note to Camerabanger: I poke around but I don’t see an address. rhughes3@rochester.rr.com and I’ll send a calendar.)

Are they kidding?

Venezuela’s claim our nation infected Hugo Chavez with cancer is the most insane assertion I’ve heard in years.
It qualifies for the “Marcy, it’s everywhere” award.
I admit I’m a so-called “bleeding-heart Liberal” who thinks Rush Limbaugh is a blowhard idiot (Gasp!), but I have an intimate knowledge of cancer.
My wife died from it.
Cancer is not the product of infection. You’re not “infected” with cancer. My wife and I lived in the same conditions for years, yet she got cancer, and I haven’t so far.
Cancer is not so much a disease, like flu or pneumonia. Errant growths are not stymied by the body’s immune-system, so develop into tumors that grow unchecked.
Challenging conditions like smoking or asbestos might prompt errant growths, although my wife had neither, and was a paragon of good health.
Yet she developed cancer. I’m probably not as healthy as she was, yet so far no cancer for me.
You don’t contract cancer by exposure. I’m pretty sure my wife and I were pretty close while she had cancer, yet I seem to be okay. (We slept in the same bed.)
So Venezuela’s assertion Chavez was infected by us is preposterous, even ridiculous.
Venezuela claims Chavez was in remission a few times.
So was my wife.
There are various strong chemos that do that, but her cancer always came back.
It killed Chavez too.

• RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to blog, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”

From the vaunted “Marcy, it’s everywhere” file

First I should explain “Marcy, it’s everywhere.”
“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to blog, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”
So begins detailing the insanity I experienced yesterday (Tuesday, March 5th, 2013).
I had gone to the Mighty Tops supermarket in Canandaigua after working-out at the YMCA.
I walked across the parking-lot toward the row of shopping-carts they store outside.
I got a shopping-cart, and started toward the store-entrance.
All-of-a-sudden Granny was charging me yelling “I’ll take it! I’ll take it!”
“So what did you do?” asked my friend who daycares my dog while I work out.
“I should have given it to her,” I said; “explaining I had just grabbed it for her.
But instead I told her I grabbed it for myself.”
Granny was incensed, of course, that I would be so rude, thoughtless and inconsiderate.

• “Tops” is a large supermarket-chain based in Buffalo I occasionally buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.
• “Canandaigua” (“cannan-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles east. —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about two-three hours per visit.

HMMMMMNNNNNN......

(In fulfillment of our paperwork-reduction requirements.)

• RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to write up, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”

Country Curtains

Our bay-window (the Christmas-candles are still up). (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Last Sunday (January 22, 2012) we went to our local Country Curtains outlet to try to engineer something for our bay-window pictured above.
Country Curtains is not Mighty Lowes or Wal*Mart. We had been to Lowes but our window is a challenge.
As you can see, our bay-window is entirely framed with wood, with wood molding. But the window-unit itself is vinyl, which means curtain mounting hardware can’t be screwed into the vinyl.
It has to be screwed into the wood framing or molding.
Other givens were at play, namely -a) whatever was installed allow light, or filtered light, into the room, and -b) whatever was installed would insulate, since the window is a very large hole in the wall.
A guy came out from Lowes to measure each window-pane for blinds mounted to the top-surround.
We thought about that, and decided against blinds.
Five individual top-casings, at the angle of each window-pane, would be partially obscuring the top of each window, in the top window-casing.
And blinds wouldn’t be insulating.
Individual insulating shades had the same problem, and would partially obscure with a stack when retracted.
The fact it’s a bay-window makes a single insulating curtain difficult.
A bay-window is not straight, so a rod for a close curtain has to be curved.
There are curved rods designed for bay-windows (we saw one at Lowes), but not the shape or length we have, even with adjustment.
Most rods are shorter, and don’t match our window.
So finally we decided on a single straight rod for an insulating curtain covering the window-opening.
Such a curtain would cover the window-hole, but could be pulled open (back).
The curtain would be hung on a traverse rod with pull-back strings.
Pulled open, the curtain would leave a stack, perhaps a single window-pane each side.
So off to Country Curtains to -a) purchase an insulating curtain, and -b) purchase hardware and a traverse rod.
We took along a Country-Curtains catalog, which my wife gets in the mail.
Country-Curtains is nationwide, but this was a local store.
The store was awash in faux-window curtain displays, pretty curtains everywhere amidst beautiful antique furniture also for sale. Very crowded and florid.
But then we detailed our requirements, particularly an insulated curtain.
Hemming and hawing.
Our window-opening isn’t a standard width. A standard curtain would be too small or much too big.
Except for one curtain, about the right width, but it would need to be shortened.
Everyone stared at me, my wife and the sales-clerk.
“Yer lookin’ at me? I’m supposed to pass judgment on this?
Well, I guess it looks okay, except it reminds me of a mattress-cover.
But it’s the only one that comes close to fitting.
I guess it’ll do.”
“Which color?” Blue or black or cranberry?
“Black looks gray,” I said. “And no cranberry” (a mattress-cover).
“I guess blue will look okay on yellow walls.”
It still looks like a mattress-cover, but it’s the only one that fits.
Next was hardware; the traverse-rod.
We bought a decorative traverse-rod, as opposed to an el-cheapo rod that looked like junk.
“Which end-insert do you want, our birdcage, our” (whatever) “or the fleur-de-lis?”
“The dagger,” I said; the fleur-de-lis.
Men, they just don’t understand.
I’m sorry, but if a Japanese maven fails in business, he falls on that traverse rod.
The sales-associate had the traverse-rod and various brackets in stock.
But the curtains and daggers have to be ordered.
Now, can I escape the store without forking over $500?
$408.78.
I noticed a small sign on the counter: a “certified clutter-coach” was going to give a presentation.
“Certified by who?” I asked.
“Marcy, it’s everywhere,” I said under my breath, chuckling.
The bracketry is so involved we probably will farm out installation.
I don’t have hours to figure it all out.
I’m not Einstein.

• RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to write up, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”

Marcy, it’s everywhere!

My wife has been invited to participate in a survey of what it’s like to participate in surveys.
Honest! I’m not joking!
I won’t name the surveyors. Protect them, as it were.
I can just imagine the survey questions.
“Please rate your most recent survey experience: -a) favorable, -b) somewhat favorable, -c) middling, -d) somewhat unfavorable, -e) unfavorable, -f) no opinion.”
Do we get a prize?
Rite Aid makes us eligible for a $10,000 prize-drawing, if we rate our shopping experience.
Is this thing for real?
It came in an official-looking envelope.
We passed. (No opinion.)

• RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Mighty Mezz, from where I retired. At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to write up, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —She now lives near Boston. (She’s the reason for this blog.)
• The “Ne’er-do-Wells” are an e-mail list of everyone I e-mail my stuff to.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over four years ago. Best job I ever had. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we 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 15 miles away.)
• My wife of 42+ years is “Linda.”

“Ya never know whatcha might see”

This morning (Saturday, June 13, 2009), since my wife was working at the Post-Office, I decided to take our dog to the so-called elitist country-club first thing, before breakfast.
A complete circumnavigation of the park paths in relative solitude; the early dog gets the squirrel.
We complete the first third, down the West Pond Trail, dog lunging and pulling merrily.
We cross the driveway and begin the East Pond Trail.
Down the steps, which are just halved railroad ties set in the hillside, then out along the long board walkway over the swamp.
Over another short walkway, and up a long grade.
Suddenly I see a couple off in the woods, clearly humping.
The girl, still fully dressed (up top, at least) is straddling the guy, supine on the forest floor, quietly humping.
“This way, meat-head,” I quietly say, trying to be unobtrusive.
“Marcy, it’s everywhere,” I think.
I avert my eyes so as to not embarrass the couple.
But my dog is gawking.
They’re clearly visible, about 20 yards off the path.
And it’s obvious what they’re up to.
I continue on, and suddenly hear heady yowling off in the woods behind me.
Climax!
As I often say to my dog: “Ya never know whatcha might see, Big Meat-head.”

My wife of 41+ years is “Linda.” Like me she’s retired, but she works part-time at the West Bloomfield post-office. (We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western N.Y.)

Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s almost four, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. She’s very high-energy, and very much a hunter.

“The so-called elitist country-club” is nearby Boughton (“BOW-tin” as in “ow”) Park, where I run and we walk our dog. It was called that long ago by an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked, because it will only allow taxpayers of the three towns that own it to use it. We are residents of one of those towns.

RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to write up, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”

Every dog I’ve ever owned I’ve called “Big Meat-head.” —They like eating meat.

Armchair aerobics

The other day (Thursday, June 4, 2009) I’m about finished our complete circumnavigation of the so-called elitist country-club with our dog.
She loves it. Every morning she demands to be taken there, and we usually can oblige.
It’s about a five-mile walk, completely around both ponds. —Boughton Park was once the Fairport Water Supply.
There are two jaunts through squirrel-lands, and a chipmunk land, plus the walk is almost entirely through woods.
But the footing is terrible; exposed roots, some knotted, cross at least 70% of the paths. They can trip you up and send you flying.
There also are ups-and-downs.
The Boughton Park Commission, which I was long ago a member of, got the wet spots bridged.
I did a brochure for them, and labeled one bridge the “Mead (‘Meed’) Skyway,” after the old farmer who built it.
It was a long wooden walkway, without handrails, elevated about four feet above a wide marshy slough. Reminded me of a skyway.
Don Mead was our maintenance-man at that time, a crotchety old guy in his 70s.
I’m almost done, descending the hill through chipmunk land, a somewhat open area next to an open picnic pavilion installed long ago by the Bloomfield Lions Club on a promontory.
I’m headed toward a peninsula out into the West Pond.
As I come down the hill, I see the older lady who arrives in the dark maroon Buick Century is sitting at a picnic-table out on the peninsula.
She’s facing away from me, overlooking the pond, and appears to be madly spinning a horizontal invisible beer keg with her forearms.
She’s also rocking back-and-forth in a swoon, as if conducting an imaginary symphony orchestra out over the pond.
She doesn’t see me — doesn’t even know I’m there. So I tread quietly behind her, headed out to the point.
All I can think is “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”
Uh-ohhhhhh; now she sees me. She’s rather embarrassed.
“What do you think of my armchair aerobics?” she asks, as I walk back the peninsula.
No comment; what can I say? —I’m sure I now have an inadvertent “deer-in-the-headlights” look.
All I can think is “whatever turns ya on, lady!” But I don’t say that; she’s embarrassed enough already.
“I learned this in Florida from my 86-year-old mother. She’s stronger than me. Every morning she and her friends do this in their retirement gym for a half-hour.”
“Well, a half-hour is what makes the difference,” I mumble.
I’m 65 years old. I get dragged five miles over horrible footing by a dog that pulls almost the whole way, and occasionally lunges off into the underbrush.
That lady is probably the same age as me; perhaps younger. I think staggering around this here park is more fruitful than spinning an imaginary beer keg.

“The so-called elitist country-club” is nearby Boughton (“BOW-tin” as in “ow”) Park, where I run and we walk our dog. It was called that long ago by an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked, because it will only allow taxpayers of the three towns that own it to use it. We are residents of one of those towns. —There are two large dammed ponds therein.

Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s almost four, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. She’s a hunter.

“Fairport” is a small suburb east of Rochester on the Erie Canal. It had its own water-supply, but switched to using county water. They sold their water-supply area to the Ontario County towns of Victor and East and West Bloomfield. The three towns turned it into a park.

We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western N.Y. Adjacent is the rural town of East Bloomfield, and the village of Bloomfield is within it. East Bloomfield is one of the three towns that own the park — West Bloomfield another.

RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to write up, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”

snippets

One of the consummate joys of working out at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA is that I get to hear amazing snippets from the infamous “Marcy, it’s everywhere” file.

FOR EXAMPLE
—1) The exercise-gym at the YMCA plays a boombox tuned to WDVI (“The Drive”), 100.5 FM, although it’s probably an HD feed.
“And now, presenting the lineup for S&S Limousine. First we have the Chargers and Chrysler 300s!”
“Next we have the magnificent land-yacht that holds 36 people! Granite floors, and lap-of-luxury seating!”
“36? Izzat all?” I thought to myself. I drove buses that seated 53; but they weren’t the lap-of-luxury.
The seats were green fiberglass-reinforced plastic, and hard.
And the floor was rubber on plywood. And if the frame warped or broke, the floor warped with it. We had one bus where the floor looked like ocean waves.
I think a so-called “soft-seater” held 49; and ya had to watch out getting up because a luggage-rack was right over your head.
Our buses were 40-feet long with a 33-foot wheelbase. Our bus-routes had to accommodate a mighty swing.
“30-foot wheelbase,” it crowed.
For cryin’ out loud; try to drive anywhere with that sucker.
My father died in ‘94, and our family got chauffeured to the cemetery in a stretch-Lincoln owned by the funeral-home.
Despite my recent stroke, I rode shotgun beside the stretch driver.
The turn into the cemetery was a sharp hairpin.
“NO WAY are we gonna make that turn,” I said. —The stretch had at least a 20-foot wheelbase; perhaps more.
“We’ll be all over the grass.” (It was raining.) “The rear will clip the hairpin, and the front will swing out,” I said. (Old bus-driver waazoo.)
When our niece got married they hired a stretch-limo. Thankfully I never saw it. I don’t know as the groom did either, as he was rather soused.
Almost killed his best man.
Same guy that carves the Thanksgiving turkey with a chainsaw.

—2) I’m walking down the main drag in front of the YMCA, shortly after exiting.
A 200-pound bespectacled Harley-momma is walking toward me from the other direction.
All-of-a-sudden: “Dat-da-da-Dah-Dah! Dat-da-da-Dah-Dah! Dat-da-da-Dah-Dah! Dat-da-da-Dahhhhhhhh.”
A “Ride of the Valkyries” ringtone.
(If my cellphone ever did that, I’d stomp it.)
Harley-momma unholsters her cellphone. “I can’t believe you were such a rat to put that thing away before ya took me for a ride!” she screamed.
“Okay,” I thought to myself. “Put away for future reference. I don’t believe the stuff I hear.”
All I could think was I sure am glad I’m not married to such a person.

—3) This isn’t so much a snippet as a traffic-incident; the sort of thing that rarely happens, but when it does, I can write it up, causing weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
I drive out of the YMCA parking-lot, west on Park Ave., under the twin railroad bridges, and then south toward the parking-lot of the West Ave. Shopping-Plaza. (I wrote this plaza up earlier.)
Granny blue-hair is ahead of me in a silver Subaru Forester.
We enter the parking-lot, and Granny sweeps far to the right, clear into the parking area.
I angle left to pass Granny, but then Granny makes a sudden sweeping move to the left, right in front of me, unsignaled of course, intent on parking in the handicap-slot of the Medicine-Shoppe Pharmacy to our left.
Since I wasn’t charging at 15-20 mph I could avoid her without drama; just a slight tap of the brakes.
She never demonstrated any knowledge that I was behind her. And sure used enough swing to make her turn — enough for a semi.
As they used to say at the bus-company pertaining to the driving of others: “EXPECT ANYTHING!”
No sign of a Dubya-sticker, but “Don’t blame me; I voted for Big Mac and the ‘Cuda.”

“Marcy” is my number-one ne’er-do-well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells. —Once Marcy asked where I got so much insane material. “Marcy, it’s everywhere,” I responded. (The “Ne’er-do-Wells” are an e-mail list of everyone I e-mail my stuff to.)

For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.

RE: “Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.....” —My siblings all noisily insist I’m an accident waiting to happen; since I can write up each (and rare) traffic-incident.

RE: “Since I wasn’t charging at 15-20 mph......” —My all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, insists you can — and should — do 15-20 mph in a parking-lot, which I say is too fast. He once dropped his motorcycle on top of himself in a parking lot when doing 15-20 mph toward an oncoming car. He broke many bones.

“Dubya-sticker” is a Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper-sticker. All insane traffic-moves seem to involve Bush-supporters. They seem to think they have the right. “Big Mac and the ‘Cuda” are John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Generation-Z alert

So here I am yesterday morning (Tuesday, September 30, 2008) taxiing my wife to Wilmot Cancer Center for a follow-up doctor appointment.
It’s about 9 a.m.; NASCAR rush-hour is almost over. I.e. no glowering intimidators and Jeff Gordon wannabees dancing madly all over the highway, angrily flashing their headlights, pounding the steering-wheel, and flipping the bird.
Wilmot is the southern outskirts of Rochester; the most direct route is Interstate-390.
Getting to I-390 is about 15-20 minutes; then 10-15 minutes on I-390.
I get off I-390 at an exit for the old 15A and then 15.
I cross 15A, and continue to 15; which I also cross.
15 and the ramp are a major intersection controlled by traffic-lights.
The ramp widens out to three lanes: a dedicated right-turn, a dedicated left-turn, and left or straight in the middle lane.
Going straight, I head for the middle lane.
Suddenly a filthy navy-blue Cavalier sweeps from the dedicated right, across the middle lane, into the dedicated left.
He can’t fully switch to the dedicated left, so he has his four-ways on, partially blocking the middle lane with his back end.
The old bus-driver waazoo kicks in: expect anything.
The light changes, so Cavalier executes a U-turn.
“He had both signals on,” my wife observes. “Left then right? Right then left?”
His cellphone is at his ear; probably giving a running account to significant-other at Dunkin Donuts.
Sorry chillen; couldn’t see if it had a Dubya-sticker — my view was blocked.
But I doubt it.
He looked like a Generation Z-er; or whatever the most recent generation is. Face-metal; purple-dyed iridescent mohawk.
But ya never know.
Maybe face-metal and purple-dyed mohawks are the latest REPUBLICAN craze.
Perhaps Sarah should dye her hair and burn her bra.

“Marcy” is my number-one ne’er-do-well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the Messenger newspaper), and together they live near Boston. (Marcy keeps a blog at Playtime at Hazmat.)

My wife of 40+ years is “Linda.” She had lymphatic cancer. It was treatable — she survived.

A “glowering intimidator” is a tailgater, named after Dale Earnhardt, deceased, the so-called “intimidator” of NASCAR fame, who used to tailgate race-leaders and bump them at speed until they let him pass.

“Jeff Gordon” is a NASCAR race-driver.

Chevrolet “Cavalier.”

RE: “The old bus-driver waazoo kicks in.......” —For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.

“Dubya-sticker” is a Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper-sticker. All insane traffic-moves seem to involve Bush-supporters. They seem to think they have the right.

“Sarah” is of course Sarah Palin; REPUBLICAN vice-presidential candidate.

Overheard on the local TV news

“Now that the Supreme-Court has restricted gun-laws, the Rochester City Attorney is evaluating the city’s handgun law to see if it complies with the decision.
Currently handguns are limited to those disabled or in pieces.”
Marcy, it’s everywhere!

“Marcy” is my number-one ne’er-do-well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the Messenger newspaper), and together they live near Boston. (Both Marcy and Mahoney keep blogs — Marcy’s is Playtime at Hazmat.) —She once asked me where I got so much material.