Two successful female brain-picks in one day

That’s AMAZING for a graduate of the “Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations.”
I imagine my constant-readers know all about the “Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations;” so I’ll just footnote it.
My first brain-pick was ****** ******, once an editor at the Mighty Mezz. She now directs Public Relations at Finger Lakes Community College, hired away from the Messenger by my old Messenger Executive Editor, who went to FLCC after the newspaper changed owners. That guy died of a heart-attack, so ****** replaced him.
I e-mailed ****** about passive-voice, which she abhors, as do I.
We’d met at Mighty Weggers, and discussed passive-voice.
I thought it was use of “has been” instead of “was.” But she said something about removal of the subject, and how Academia, overly guilty of that, drives her up-the-wall.
I never heard of that, so requested explanation.
“If my husband tells me the dishes weren’t done, I wonder if the dishes were supposed to do themselves. I asked him to do the dishes, but he’s not telling me he didn’t do them.”
“That’s passive-voice,” she said; subject deleted. “The one who didn’t do the dishes was my husband, but that wasn’t what he told me.”
Finally, passive-voice explained, or so it seemed.
And by a female of all things. Yrs Trly is used to getting shot down. If I make any contact with the opposite sex, I’m automatically on-the-make.
My other brain-pick was ****** **** ******, my aquatic balance-training instructor at the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool.
I tried non swimming-pool therapy at a nearby hospital, and they suggested a few things I wanted to discuss with ****** ****.
****** **** is a water-therapy instructor, and usually has clients.
“I’m available if you are,” I said to her after our class. (She leads the class.)
Yada-yada-yada. “What about this?” then “What about this?”
The way that non-pool therapy told me to get out of a chair, for example, didn’t contradict, but I was doing it wrong on both counts.
That I was able to pick her brain 5-10 minutes is amazing. —A) She usually can’t spare the time, and —B) I made too many mistakes with her, many at the behest of a boy/girl coach I don’t listen to any more.
Not too long ago a nurse for my semiannual physical asked if I developed any new allergies since my last physical.
“Yeah,” I said. “Ladies.”
“You better be glad I’m not giving you a shot!” she shouted.
I felt bad.
Like it or not I’m a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations, and much as I came to enjoy female companionship, it’s apparent any contact by me, a male (gasp!), makes them justifiably wary. “He’s on-the-make!”
Perhaps it’s because I’m a widower, presumably looking for someone to do my laundry, dishwasher, cook, etc, all of which I do myself. As I’ve done since my wife died seven years ago.
“Just be yourself,” my counselor advises. I guess “being myself” is to not suggest to a lady-friend. So far I’ve suggested four different widows join our weekly bereavement eat-out. Only one didn’t crash. One crashed three times.
Now word is getting around among those ladies I suggested. If I suggest, I’m on-the-make! If they suggest it’s okay.

---

The whole point of this blog is my surprise that a lady would respond to me. That’s Hilda: “No pretty girl will talk to you!”
The other day a lady-friend walked up behind me and called my name. I was speechless. I have to tell her to please bear with me; I’m a Hilda Walton grad.
Another lady-friend tells me I should get used to such contacts — that women love talking so me. “You’re funny, and not boring as Hell.”
“Or so it seemed” reflects my continuing confusion regarding passive-voice. I can’t get *******’s definition to jive with the “has-been” versus “was” of another editor friend.
So what does one do? Can you say “Google?”
“Passive voice produces a sentence in which the subject receives an action. In contrast, active voice produces a sentence in which the subject performs an action.” (That’s at https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/centers/writing/seven-sins-of-writing/1 .
*******’s explanation is the dishes did not receive washing; namely her husband didn’t perform the dishwashing, and he avoided saying so by using passive-voice.

• Hilda Q. Walton was my immediate neighbor and Sunday-School Superintendent when I was a child. Like my parents she was hyper-religious. She convinced me all males, including me at age-5, were despicable; “No pretty girl will talk to you!” Her husband was probably playing around. My parents heartily agreed, since I was already rebellious for not worshiping my holier-than-thou father.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 13 years ago. Best job I ever had. I was employed there almost 10 years — over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern. (I had a heart-defect caused stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well. That defect was repaired.)
• “Mighty Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester where I often buy groceries. They have a store in Canandaigua.

“Tag” and “share”

“Keep it short,” my good friend ****** ****** says, an editor at the Mighty Mezz when I was there.
She was expounding a basic tenet of newspaper production, namely the average person zones out after maybe six words. In fact, yer doin’ good if ya can get ‘em past a sentence.
This isn’t criticism; it’s just an observation.
Word-generators love the fact they can easily sling verbiage. More-than-likely the average reader will stop and glom a potato-chip.
So how do I say this without losing readers? It’s rather arcane.
My verbiage is aimed three ways: -1) blogging,-2) e-mail, and-3) Facebook.
The average word-slinger cranks directly into their blog, e-mail, or Facebook post box. Not this kid! I write first into a word-processor, in my case Apple’s “Pages.” I don’t use Microsoft Word® because it punishes sloppy keyboarding, a result of my stroke 25 years ago.
What I do is copy/paste from my word-processor into the appropriate post box. I don’t remember why I fell into doing this, but it probably was to offset some stroke-effect.
It also gave me the option of “Save-As.” I could save the document as a separate file on this ‘pyooter. E-mails are sometimes a document; even some Facebook posts are worth saving. I also wanna continually save my post, in case some mistype sends it flying to Never-Never Land. I’ve had that happen.
Apparently now a Facebook or e-mail post is much like a word-processor. I’m sure blogging is. Misspells get flagged, and you can even have it say “Naughty-Naughty” when you use passive voice.
But I like “Saving-As;” that is, saved as a separate document I keep saving. No doubt e-mail and Facebook are saving things too, but finding stuff ain’t easy. My folders are easier.
Now I find my way of doing things causes trouble. The fact I type separately disallows Facebook autofill of names. If I were to type directly into Facebook, instead of copy/paste from my word-processor, it would autofill names. And now I hear autofilling is the same as “tagging.”
Not that I care, but I do use Facebook occasionally, so wouldn’t mind knowing what was going on.
I e-mailed a blog-link to a lady in Valley Forge (PA) who interviewed me by phone regarding my getting another rescue Irish-Setter. The lady represents Above-and-Beyond English-Setter Rescue. She liked my blog enough to crank it on her Facebook and “tag” it. Maybe she meant “share.”
Terms like “tag” and “share” have special meaning to Facebook. Having been born in the prior century I have absolutely no clue what this stuff imeans — or so I’m told by youngsters.
My questions prompted a phonecall to my brother-in-DE’s wife, who uses Facebook a lot.
“So what’s ‘tagging?’” I asked.
“Yada-yada-yada-yada.” Translated: “‘Tagging’ is to tag someone.”
“I need to know what happens if I ‘tag someone.’”
As I understand it, the person “tagged” receives a Facebook notification they been “tagged.” They can thereafter read what they’re “tagged” in. I guess this only works between Facebook “friends;” i.e. I can only “tag” a “friend.”
Also as I understand it, tagging occurs only when a “friend’s” name has autofilled in a text or picture post. But I’m not sure of that. My Valley Forge contact said she “tagged” my blog. This implies something beyond autofill.
“So define ‘share,’” I asked my brother’s wife. “And not scantily-clad Cher. I need to know what happens if I ‘share.’” If I get a post from one of my “friends” I can “share” it, whereby people who aren’t my “friends,” but are “friends” of my “friends,” can read what I shared.
Utterly confused. What happened to Facebook’s “wall?” I suppose it still exists. What little I know is to post something to a “friend’s” wall. And if I post something to my own “wall,” my “friends” can see it.
And when I get a FB notification some “friend” commented on a “friend” post I can view that.
Or so it seems....
I gotta understand all this just to know my nephew had a baby?
That was months ago, and I never knew because I rarely fire up Facebook. No e-mail, no phonecall.
WRONG CENTURY, Dude!
Say something about rabbit-ears to a millennial and they think yer talkin’ about rabbits.

• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired 12 years ago. Best job I ever had — I was employed there almost 10 years — over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern. (I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well). (“Canandaigua”  is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)

“Why would I ever wanna lay off him?”

During my post-stroke employ at the Canandaigua Daily Messenger newspaper I learned how to OCR scan.
OCR is “optical-character-recognition.” A scanner and computer scan a document to generate a computer text-file.
Usually “Letters-to-the-Editor” were done at home on a word-processor and printer — a slam-dunk to OCR scan.
I could even scan typewritten documents. Hand-written no. An actual typist had to be the computer. My job-title was “typist,” but I never typed anything. My forte was computer-tricks. I could generate reams of page-filling copy.
My stroke destroyed a few things. But apparently left enough to engineer computer-tricks.
One day a manager came downstairs to our newsroom to OCR scan something. “Ya know, I bet I could do that,” I said to her.
“I bet you could,” she said. “Here, watch me.”
Levers and buttons galore = no idea what she was doing. But I’m gonna figger it out. Engage guile-and-cunning. I did.
Soon the Executive Editor was handing me word-processor Letters-to-the-Editor. I could usually turn around two or three in a couple hours.
Discussion followed. I began editing = making letters say what they meant.
“Hey BossMan; ya sure ya want me doing this?”
“Publish as-written and we look stupid,” he answered. “Beyond that what the writer meant often gets lost in contorted syntax and bad grammar.”
One day I got an extremely well-written letter. I was suspicious. Well-written isn’t Canandaigua.
I fired up Rush Limbaugh’s website, and there was the letter. Just copy/paste and sign yer name to it.
“Hey BossMan, looka this!”
“Wow! We’re not publishing that! Only locally-written, and Canandaigua residents aren’t Limbaugh’s lackeys.”
During my employ a hatchet-man was hired as “Executive Vice-President.” As a REPUBLICAN he wanted to lay me off. Stroke-survivors are just baggage.
The Executive-Editor overrode him: “Why would I ever wanna lay him off? He’s giving me two or three ready-to-run Letters-to-the-Editor per day.”
That Executive-Editor since died of a heart-attack. He graduated the same college as me, although I’m ’66 and he’s ’80.
I think that college, Houghton, can take credit for making us both sticklers for correctness. Erroneous spelling and bad grammar/syntax drove us up-the-wall.
Beyond that the Messenger newspaper was staffed by whackos. I fit right in.
I always thank that Executive-Editor for keeping me around. In my humble opinion, the fact I recovered so well from a stroke is partly because of that newspaper.

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke. Prior to my stroke I drove transit-bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke ended that after 16&1/2 years (1977-1993).

BEST job I ever had

Waterfront on Canandaigua Lake at Onanda Park. (Photo by Lynn Brown.)

“If I were to write anything for this newspaper at all,” I said to Kevin Frisch (same as “fish”), a hippie longhair editor at the Messenger newspaper in Canandaigua.......
“It would be about the fact presidents don’t wear hats.”
“So write it,” Frisch said. Instead of “Don’t be silly. You had a stroke. There is no way you could write.”
So I did, and the Messenger published it as an OpEd piece. Thus beginning the next phase of my recovery after a stroke.
I was still an unpaid intern at that time.

Joy Daggett is at right; her husband Roger is beside her. Joy is the one who hired me for actual paid employ.

Yr Fthfl Srvnt with Severe-head (Mark Syverud) at left.

Peggy Carroll with Steve Circh (“K”). I started with Peggy, and Circh and I would switch the office TV to Teletubbies so we could lob nerf-balls at it. Kenny Carr, who I really didn’t know, is at left. He worked out back.

Kathie Meredith with Chris Goverts. Goverts was office handyman, and I did a lot with Meredith, known by Matson as “the Detail-Queen.”

Two of my all-time favorite people: Syverud and Lenore Friend, both editors. The little boy is probably one of Lenore’s children.

Fabulous Fritz Cermak (left), talking to Elsie Race. I don’t know what Fritz did, but he was great to have around. I think he was Distribution — he worked out back.

Another one of my favorites, Sarah Allen, now Connor, a newsy I occasionally worked with. At right is MaryAnn Gumaer, an office-person.

We attracted police attention. Anne Johnston, at right, was police-reporter at the Messenger, so she and the deputy knew each other. The deputy was doing marine patrol.

The organizers of this shindig: AJ (Anne Johnston) and past reporter Rachel Dewey. Rachel is holding the vaunted “Quote-Book,” full of salient phrases uttered by Messenger staff. —Organization was mainly Anne; Rachel came in at the last minute to help.

I had driven bus 16&1/2 years for Regional Transit Service (RTS), the supplier of transit bus service in Rochester, NY and environs.
My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended it. It was because of an unknown heart-defect, a patent foramen ovale (“PAY-tint four-AY-min oh-VAL-eee”), that has since been repaired.
My entire left side was paralyzed, I was crying constantly, and my speech was monotone gibberish. I was talking way too fast — my timing was ruined.
Bus-driving was supposed to be temporary while I continued searching for employ as a writer (“word-slinger” I call it).
But I stayed with it because the pay was pretty good, and the job wasn’t awful.
As a bus-driver I was pretty much on-my-own, free of office politics. The only danger was our clientele, but that could be avoided by judicious run picking.
Toward the end of what turned out to be my final year, I fell into producing a voluntary newsletter for our bus-union. I was doing it with Word© on our home computer.
Our union more-or-less walked away from it, so it mainly became an outlet for my writing. A fellow union-member passed it out to politicos who funded Transit, and they loved it because I could spin a pretty good tale = my bus-stories.
It was an immense amount of work, but I loved doing it.
I’d scribble my bus-stories on whatever scrap-paper I could find: Transit time-sheets, even the tiny transfer slips we issued to our riders.
It ended up being the house-organ Transit often lacked.
Transit Public-Relations was supposed to publish a bimonthly house-organ, but often failed.
And of course my newsletter was pro union. Those politicos would call Transit Public-Relations wondering about something they read in my newsletter: muggings of bus-drivers, etc.
“What’s going on down there?” they’d ask. “You told us everything was hunky-dory.
“Don’t read that newsletter!” Transit Public-Relations screamed. “It’s written by union activists!” (Gasp!)
My post-stroke rehab wanted to get my job back driving bus.
I wasn’t interested. That newsletter was too much fun. It was the writing I always wanted to so.
So instead of going back to Transit, I was taken to the Daily-Messenger newspaper in Canandaigua to be considered as an unpaid intern.
“Seems okay to me,” said fellow Houghton grad Bob Matson (1980; I’m 1966), Executive Editor, head of the news department.
Despite how messed I was — although I wasn’t costing him anything.
I started with Peggy Carroll, typing “Names and Faces” into their system. Organizations sent us press-releases, which we converted to page-filler.
Of course the newspaper ran as much as possible, since that was what readers wanted.
Then editor Kathy Hovis-Younger learned of my union newsletter, that it was “paginated” in my home computer.
Hovis did the weekly “Community-Page,” the only paginated page in the Messenger at that time.
“Pagination” means generating an entire newspaper page within a personal computer.
For my newsletter I used Microsoft Word®; the newspaper used QuarkXpress® 4.0 I think, on a Windows 486.
Kathy had me try it. “Wow!” I said. “This here Quark runs circles around Word.”
I was assigned the Community-Page.
“Kathy, are you sure you want me doing this? I might crank something that shouldn’t be.”
Off we went. Kathy approved what I did, and when she went on vacation I was on-my-own.
Still unpaid of course.
The above exchange with Frisch took place and my column began.
Soon Messenger photographer Rikki VanCamp was taking a mug-shot to run with my column.
My column wasn’t costing them anything either, but apparently they thought well enough of it to publish it.
It ran once a week until I got the local flag-police upset by saying my dog was more alive than Old Glory.
I rescued my dog first — my flag blew to the ground, and my dog got herself hung on my 5-foot chainlink fence.
I was finally cleared to drive, so was no longer using a cab to get to the Messenger.
The newspaper’s paste-up department was looking to replace one who’d left.
Our newspaper was done an old way. News-galleys from a mainframe computer were waxed and “pasted” to full-size cardboard page dummies.
Complete, the dummy was photographed to make a page-size negative with which to “burn” a printing-plate.
I said to Joy Daggett, the newspaper’s production manager, “I bet I could do that paste-up.”
Did the Mighty Mezz have the moxie to hire a stroke-survivor?
I worked for that newspaper almost 10 years. I’ve said it many times: “BEST job I ever had.”
During that time paste-up was disbanded, and the Messenger went to full pagination within personal computers.
The Messenger also merged a local newspaper chain, and doubled its space by adding on.
My initials are carved into the concrete subfloor under the new entry. Along with many others.
With paste-up disbanded, some left, but I hung around because I was interested in computer-junk.
“I don’t know what he’s doing, but this macro is saving me hours.”
Before I retired I was doing the newspaper’s website, which I figured out on my own.
“Grady,” (see blurb at right); “yer doing too many photos.”
“It’s a visual medium,” I’d say. “10-15 minutes per picture; easy as pie!”
After I retired the Messenger had to transfer ownership.
It was owned since 1956 by George Ewing, Sr. (“you-ing”). No one within the Ewing family could make the investment needed to take the Messenger to the next level of computerization.
Senior also retired, and has since died, as did Bob Matson, the guy who took me on. Heart-attack.
The Messenger is no longer the great place it was for me; I’m sure I woulda been laid off.
Last weekend two long-gone Messenger employees organized a reunion of old Ewing employees.
I went — how could I resist?
The Mighty Mezz was the BEST job I ever had. The main reason I recovered as well as I did from a stroke.

Lenore

Lenore at the Mighty Mezz 13 years ago. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

“I write a blog; been doin’ it 10 years,” I said to Lenore Friend, with whom I worked at the Messenger Newspaper after my stroke.
“Yeah, I remember that,” she said. “You called me ‘Queenie.’”
“I remember that vaguely, but I’m 72 years old,” I said. “I don’t write like that any more.”
We were in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise Gym. I just finished my workout, and she just began hers.
The Canandaigua Daily-Messenger still exists, but the Mighty Mezz I worked for is gone.
It was owned by the Ewing (“you-ing”) family during my tenure, and they had to sell after I retired.
I’ve said it before: best job I ever had.
My pay was a pittance, but sometimes it’s better to work for a great place.
We were a happy ship: snide remarks and sick jokes. I fit right in.
Beachballs flew around the newsroom, and nerf-balls bombarded the office television when “Teletubbies” came on.
I started after my stroke as an unpaid intern, but soon was employed.
They had the moxie to allow me to try things which contributed to my recovery.
During my time there the newspaper switched to computer generation of pages, and I reveled in it.
I always say what remained of my brain after my stroke took off, and they encouraged it.
My official job title was “typist,” but I never typed anything. I figured out computer-tricks with Microsoft Word®, among other software. I generated reams of copy that might blow an entire page.
Like school honor-rolls or wealth management columns. Once we got contributors to e-mail — and that was a struggle — I could process with Word and have ready to publish in a day or two.
My wife and I developed a way of doing our stockbox in five minutes instead of two hours.
Editors were amazed by some of my tricks.
“No way can you do that stockbox in five minutes!”
“Can too,” I said.
A stroke rehab counselor visited to suggest he could get my job back driving bus.
I refused.
My biggest fan was our Executive Editor.
He eventually left when ownership changed to become head public-relations honcho at a nearby community college. He hired away Lenore.
I always think highly of him because he took me on when I was a wreck from my stroke.
He since died of a heart-attack, leaving Lenore to become that college’s head public-relations honcho.
I always liked Lenore. I suppose there may have been a time I didn’t; I don’t remember.
I know it’s also possible I was perceived as negatory. I’m not approachable. This may have been exacerbated by my stroke.
But there we’d be late Saturday night, putting together the last of the Sunday paper. Lenore was Sunday Editor, and we were still doing paste-up. I was pasting-up back then, and it always seemed Lenore and I were finishing the Sunday paper — except for Sports. Lenore left.
My calling her “Queenie” was actually veneration, although it could be perceived the other way.
She’s a newsy, and I like that. She also could write well.
No wonder that previous Executive Editor hired her away.
What really did it was as follows:
A stringer faxed us a story about a town-meeting.
Since I became proficient at O.C.R. scanning, a news-editor asked if I could scan the fax. They wanted to run it on the front page.
A stringer is someone not on the newspaper staff, who gets assigned and paid for filing a report.
O.C.R. scanning is producing computer-text of a typewritten document. Optical-Character-Recognition, a computer software.
It’s a lot quicker than retyping into the system.
“When you’re finished,” the editor said; “give it to Lenore.”
So I scanned it, and it was dead.
What appeared was the stringer’s story rewritten by Lenore. She gave it a kicker, and made it more lively.
Lenore saved the story! I was impressed. —And only the stringer’s byline.
My guess is “Queenie” was when I first began blogging.
Just about every superior I worked with at the Messenger was venerable: best job I ever had.

• 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 stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
• RE: “Paste-up........” —Back then newspaper pages were pasted up on full-size cardboard page dummies. Story galleys were waxed in back and stuck to the page dummies. Those completed dummies were later photographed to produce a full-size negative of the newspaper page, with which a printing-plate was produced. Production of the story galleys was computerized, but it was an ancient mainframe based system.
• A “kicker” is the first line of a story. It’s meant to attract readers.

They cut me slack

I’ve said it hundreds of times: “the Messenger newspaper was the BEST job I ever had.”
But I began to wonder. Perhaps it was good because previous jobs were difficult, sometimes awful.
I was always encouraged at the Messenger, like what I was doing was worthwhile.
But occasionally I’ve heard comments about the Messenger, that don’t apply to me, yet make me wonder.
Like perhaps the Messenger was cutting me slack as a stroke-survivor.
They were amazed at some of the things I came up with, especially my time-savers.
“You’re doing that stockbox in five minutes?” they’d say. “That’s not possible!”
“Is too,” I’d say. “I have a Quicken portfolio of the stocks we run. All it is is a copy/paste. I don’t type anything.”
Sit back and watch ‘im fly!
Long ago they started me doing the “Weather-Almanac” information: sunrise, moonrise, sunset, moonset, etc. I was doing it from the Farmer’s Almanac with a fudge-factor.
Then one afternoon I walked out of my garage at home after work. “What’s that moon doing up there?” I said. “I had it setting four hours ago.”
I always questioned my procedure for Weather-Almanac information. So my wife and I got on our computer and discovered the “Naval Observatory Site.” I could plug in “Canandaigua,” and it rendered sunrise-moonrise-sunset-moonset for Canandaigua.
So much for my Farmer’s Almanac — in the trash.
“You did that?” the Executive-Editor crowed. “That’s amazing!”
“Yeah, I said; “at last our Weather-Almanac info will be correct.”
A while after I started at the Messenger I was drafted into proofing ads. This went fairly well, until one day a local car-dealer gave us an ad for a special offer: a used Ford-Explorer for $30,000.
That seemed reasonable to me; it was low-mileage, and had a lot of options. So that is what we published.
The car-dealer went ballistic, as did our Executive Vice-President, Andy Kavulich (“kuh-VEW-litch”), a staunch REPUBLICAN and our newspaper’s hatchet-man.
No matter the car-dealer provided me with erroneous information. As a stroke-survivor I was clearly incapable of proofing ads.
Kavulich sought to get even. He would lay me off.
But the Executive Editor intervened: “What do I wanna lay him off for? He’s providing me with at least four-to-six ‘Letters-to-the-Editor’ every day, plus he has the best attitude of all my employees.”
I had learned how to scan “Letters-to-the-Editor,” Optical-Character-Recognition (OCR), to turn a typed or printed letter into a computer text-file.
I was one of the few that could do it, and it was something the average low-level Messenger employee poo-pooed.
So I wasn’t laid off, and Kavulich eventually was fired. He made too many enemies, and valuable employees were lost.
Then also were my honor-rolls. Local schools would provide their honor-rolls, which we published. Long lists of page-filler.
But typing up an honor-roll took weeks.
So I developed ways of processing them in Microsoft Word©.
My Word was an antique; 6.1, installed from eight three-inch floppies.
But it would do what I wanted. And if not I’d e-mail the honor-roll home to process with my Word98.
For printing in the Messenger an honor-roll had to be just so, last name last, comma after the name, alphabetized.
Some I had to OCR scan, some were sent e-mail. I never typed anything, although my job-title was “typist.”
I’d open my text-file in Word, then fiddle. If it was last-name-first I’d “convert-to-table” so I could reverse columns. After that I would alphabetize, a Word function.
Sometimes the honor-roll would be all capital-letters. Word had a decapitalize function that skonked that.
I also had a trick for inserting commas en masse. Converting back to text there’d be a paragraph-return after each name. All I did was a find/replace, find the paragraph-returns and replace with “comma-space.”
BAM! Ready-to-publish!
I kept my completed honor-rolls as Quark© files. Then all I had to do was paste my new honor-roll file over my old honor-roll listing.
Under appropriate headings already there; like “Grade-Nine High-Honor,” etc.
Boom-Zoom! I could crank an honor-roll in about two or three hours.
And the page-editors loved it. A complete honor-roll might blow almost an entire page.
And our readers loved it. “There’s Johnny in the Messenger,” Granny would say.
Honor-rolls ended when I retired.
Editors required “ready-to-print” honor-rolls in the format I used, and the schools refused.
The schools continued sending honor-rolls as they had in the past, and all the Messenger could do was type them. Back to completed honor-rolls taking weeks, if ever.
I offered to teach a typist my Word-tricks, but nothing came of it. They probably decided what I was doing was beyond the ability of the average Messenger employee.
So they were often amazed at some of the things I did.
“Give ‘im a ‘pyooter, and watch ‘im fly.”
But I think the fact I had a stroke played into it.
“This guy had a stroke?”
I was doing my tricks on what was left of my brain. Everything works. It didn’t at first. My recovery is based on what was left — apparently enough to pass for never having had a stroke.
My left side, which was paralyzed at first, is no longer paralyzed.
Listen carefully and you can hear it in my speech.
One’s speech-center is the first thing to go in a stroke, so what is generating my speech is a part of my brain that wasn’t designed for speech.
I often have difficulty finding words, so there is hesitation and stoney silences.
So I think they were cutting me slack at the Messenger. “He had a stroke, and he did that?”
“Beep-beep-beep-beep;” the sound of one of my magic macros used by someone else on their computer.

• The “Messenger newspaper” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger, from where I retired over nine years ago. I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern.)
• “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.
• My wife died April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty finding and putting words together.)
• “Quark” is the paginating computer-software, essentially a glorified word-processor, we used to generate the newspaper in our computers.

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.)

RE: Manufactured News

There was about two feet of snow on these steps before I shoveled it out. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

A gigantic and crippling blizzard blew through our area the other day (Wednesday, March 12th, 2014).
It left 15-20 inches of snow in my driveway I still have to remove — I have a large snowblower.
It also prompted emergency declarations from various local authorities, even the NY state governor, Andrew Cuomo.
Still snowing that night I turned on the TV-news. The local news was all blizzard, but it wasn’t on the national news at all.
Here we are, snowed-in-SOLID, totally incapacitated, and not a peep. Philadelphia or Washington DC get snowed in even less, and that’s news.
It got me remembering how we “manufactured” the news at the newspaper I worked at.
Editors would decide what should run on the front-page that day. Since it was a local newspaper, we’d try to get a locally-written story in the lede.
But we also got news from Associated-Press via satellite, and sometimes national news would trump the local news.
So Limberger and his lackeys loudly fulminate about how the dreaded media manufactures the news.
As if Limberger ain’t media!
Like we held furtive meetings to advance our liberal agenda.
Uh Rush, a deadline is looming!
Instead of furtive meetings, generating that newspaper was always a slap-shot. A page editor would call another above him saying he had an eight-inch hole to fill.
“Try that time-bomb story.”
It wasn’t “All the news that’s fit to print;” it was “Whatever fits.”
So we weren’t sipping coffee and eating donuts, furtively laying plans to advance a liberal agenda.
We were trying to slam together a newspaper before a printing-deadline.
What ran in the newspaper was what fit. That’s was how the news was manufactured. What ran became news.
A local story might might run first, which left space that was filled with AP filler.
I remember when I did paste-up, a page-editor cutting out half an AP story.
It was cut to fit.
And there was no time to be analytical about it. A printing-deadline was looming.
His cut was at a sentence-end.
Yet the tub-thumping Conservatives LOUDLY accused us of a liberal bias. Like mere reporting wasn’t as good as laying on a Conservative slant.
An example might be how we reported Obama drinking Pepsi. We might report that as “Obama drinks Pepsi,” whereas a proper Conservative reporting might be “Obama declares war on Coke.”
The Conservatives weren’t too diplomatic. They once got an editor crying. Our Executive-Editor had to shut the guy down.
He hung up on him!
And sometimes “what fit” was a joke. One time we ran a local story about a fly-infestation in the lede. A farmer had spread chicken-manure on his field.
Well, I’m sure it was important to fly-infested neighbors.
But this is front-page news?
The fact we had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to report a fly-infestation demonstrated our obvious liberal slant.
So how, pray tell, do the tub-thumpers react to that?
I don’t recall as they did.
So I can easily imagine a gathering of national-news producers in New York City.
“What do we lede with today?”
“How about that blizzard in Rochester, NY?”
“Not Philly or DC. And it ain’t the I-95 corridor.
They get blizzards up there. Rochester ain’t Atlanta. They can deal with it.”
Thus a blizzard in Rochester doesn’t get reported at all.
Our blizzard moved east to New England the next day. That got reported, but only about 10 seconds.

• The “newspaper I worked at” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over seven 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.)
• RE: Paste-up........ —When I first began work at the Messenger, it wasn’t fully computerized; that is pages weren’t produced in a computer. We had a semi-computerized system, whereby copy-galleys were sent to an old main-frame, and from there they were projected onto photo-paper strips which were developed, cut, and pasted to page-dummies which were later photographed to make printing-plates. A “paste-up” person had to be precise pasting these galley-strips to the page-dummies to be square. —Before I retired, the newspaper was converted to full computer pagination, and paste-up was removed.

Dreamin’

“It’s too bad I’m retired, and no longer have a job,” I said to my wife in a dream.
My wife died well over a year ago, but she’s always alive in my dreams.
“I’d feel more like living if I had a work-schedule to follow,” I said. “Even Transit might be more pleasurable than having to come up with things to do every day.
I really miss drivin’ those 500s,” I said, tearing up.
My wife put her hand on my shoulder.

A bat-wing Flxible-Flyer (not RTS — the front-bumper is different too). (The bat-wings are the signs along the top-edge of the bus; RTS had these.)

The 500s were buses made by Flxible.
In my dream a 500 was roaring by, wound to the moon, driver riding high.
Our 500s were fairly simple. Basic bus with a two-speed auto-tranny and V6 6-71.
They leaned a lot in curves, and rode fairly hard.
But they were great fun to drive.
You’d floor the accelerator, and off you lumbered. The racket was a thrill.
And you were right there up ahead of the front-wheels, ridin’ high.
They’d go through anything; 18-inch snow once.
We also had GM buses, but they weren’t as much fun. —Except they cornered fairly well; didn’t lean as much.
But they’d cripple at the slightest: all kinds of sensors that shut down the bus.
The 500s had sensors too, but let you keep operating even with a “hot engine” or “lo oil” light.
If a bus crippled, there you were, trying to explain to Granny why she’d have to miss “Oprah.” (Granny might bop you over the head with her cane!)
I hated crippling a bus; primarily because long ago I’d been a bus-passenger myself.
My career driving transit-bus started May 20th, 1977.
Turnover in bus-drivers was horrendous, so I quickly moved up the seniority-list.
The job was supposed to be temporary, but paid quite well.
Our union had negotiated a cost-of-living escalator.
Only four survived my driving class. We started with five, but one couldn’t stand it.
Out of those four, two were gone in not too long, one fired and one quit.
There were at least two classes right after me, maybe three. Three classes is 15 behind me.
I found driving a bus to be a joy, particularly the 500s. Mastering the operation of a large vehicle was fun.
What mattered was placing the back-end. Since it didn’t steer, it crabbed inside the front-end. It could climb curbs and take out utility-poles.
You see this with tractor-trailers, semis.
The driver puts a huge swing on the truck to make sure his trailer doesn’t hit things.
It’s the same with a bus.
The rear-wheels are 33 feet behind the fronts on the average 40-foot bus, so you have to drive the front-end so the rear won’t hit things.
And with a bus you always had the accelerator floored.
You had to. It was the only way to get it to move.
But of course there was much more to driving bus than operating the vehicle.
You were parrying the public, usually the dregs, who could be capricious and difficult.
We bus-drivers had an unwritten rule: “Don’t get shot!”
For that reason a lot of madness got overlooked, and rules were broken.
That comment about Granny bopping me over the head is not made up — it actually happened.
I could tell stories; I drove bus 16 & 1/2 years.
By 16 & 1/2 years I was tiring of it: too much madness.
My stroke ended it. I retired on disability, but recovered quite well.
I had driven everything interesting, and was now just parrying the public.
And the 500s I started with were gone.
504 was my favorite, a so-called “soft-seater 5.”


Not an RTS bus, but similar to 504 — it has the air-conditioning blister.

504 was one of our original “Park-and-Ride” buses, one of only six with air-conditioning.
Those air-conditioned 5s, 501 through 507, had three-speed over-the-road automatic transmissions.
We had six other soft-seater 5s, 571 through 577, but they were two-speed like the city 5s, and were also governed like the city 5s to 55 mph.
Hit 55 on the expressway, and the motor went away. 55 was all they would do.
501 through 507 weren’t governed.
507 I never saw; it apparently had been destroyed.
501 through 506 I drove often, since I would pick rural runs. —Rural runs were much more pleasant than city runs.
But I preferred 504.
Apparently 504 had been re-engined with a fresh 6-71, so it went like stink.
504 was good for 65-70 mph on the expressway, even with the air on. Glorious! Ridin’ high. Boomin’-and-zoomin’.
I used to say drivin’ bus was no fun unless you could boom-and-zoom at least once every day.
I also used to say 504 was the one I was making payments on.
Every afternoon I’d walk from our parking-lot through our bus-barns before pulling out my rural-run.
Looking for 504, and if I found it, could I get it out?
Often I had to move buses to get out 504, and sometimes I had to back 504 out of the barns.
Backing a bus took skill and faith. You also had to make plenty of noise with your horn. We didn’t have backup beepers then. —Plus you couldn’t see behind the bus.
The guys in middle-management who assigned buses loved me. Transit had considerably expanded its Park-and-Ride services before I started, and got 35 buses to accommodate. Three-speed ungoverned over-the-road 8-71; our 400s.
So when a driver reported to pull out his country Park-and-Ride, he’d bellow for a 400.
Yet here I was asking for 504.
504 was better than most of our 400s. It was more powerful and faster.
By that time our 400s were wearing out.
I remember riding out to a car-dealer to pick up my repaired car.
I sat in the back with other passengers.
That 400 hardly ran. Every time that thing upshifted it sounded like the tranny was gonna come through the floor.
That poor bus-driver had to take that thing all the way out to the boondocks? It was a cripple waiting to happen, and it was cold.
There was one good 400, 436. But all the other 400s were douche-bags.
I used to say 436 was the one I’d steal.
During my final year at Transit, before my stroke, I became intimately involved with my bus-union.
I started doing a voluntary union newsletter on my computer with Microsoft Word©. I’d generate the newsletter, have my wife print it on her laser-printer where she worked, and then copy each page on the union’s copier, perhaps 400 copies per page.
Then a fellow union-member and I would arrive in the Drivers’ Room at 4:30 a.m. to pass them out.
It was a marriage made in Heaven. A confident word-slinger (me) generating words.
I’d write long bus-stories I ran in the newsletter, write-ups of my various experiences driving bus.
The newsletter had immense power. That fellow union-member was distributing that newsletter to various local politicians that funded Transit.
And the politicians would read it, since it was an interesting read.
For once the union’s side of things was getting out; the opposite of “everything’s hunky-dory” from Transit public-relations.
If a bus broke apart and fell off a lift — it happened — we cartooned it. We also cartooned some of the insanity of our passengers — the muggings, the floozies, etc.
We also cartooned some of the insane promulgations of Transit management.
The end result is some politician would call up Transit public-relations and ask “What’s going on down there? You were telling us everything was hunky-dory, yet I have this union newsletter that implies it isn’t.”
A copy of my newsletter went directly to the Transit head-honcho. What fires did he have to put out this time?
He’d thereafter call in his head of public-relations, and ask why I was doing a better job.
That public-relations head had a gigantic salary, and was supposed to produce a glittering and self-congratulatory house-organ every two months.
Yet he often failed. We might see that house-organ twice a year.
Of course he failed. He was driving a desk and guzzling free company coffee.
Yet here I was, a mere bus-driver, producing this voluntary newsletter, which everyone loved, even people in lower management.
And mine was monthly, not bimonthly. I’d list birthdays, etc.; stuff the house-organ should have listed.
My stroke ended it, as it did my bus-driving.
People probably thought that newsletter was the cause of my stroke, but it wasn’t, even though it caused late nights and was struggle to put out.
I had an undiagnosed heart-defect, since repaired.
So as I recovered from my stroke, my recovery-team asked me what I wanted to do.
Did I want to return to bus-driving? No I didn’t! What I wanted to do was something similar to my newsletter, word-slinging.
So I was taken to the Daily Messenger newspaper in nearby Canandaigua to be considered as an unpaid intern.
I was allowed on, and after a year began actual paid employ.
My position at first wasn’t slinging words, although they began publishing a weekly column by me.
My pay was peanuts compared to Transit. My column was no charge.
I was encouraged, and soon began computer-tricks.
After a couple years, an advisor from my stroke rehabilitation team showed up, and asked me again if I wanted to return to bus-driving.
“Absolutely not!” I told him. That newspaper-job was the best I’d ever had. —Happiness was more important than good pay.
In the end I was doing the newspaper’s website, and generating pages of copy for print. A lot involved computer-tricks that made such copy possible.
I had created various computer-functions that saved time — all because it was technically interesting.
But having driven bus so many years I find myself having bus-dreams.
And I miss those old 500s.
This morning’s bus-dream (two days later) was piloting a bus over a raggedy-ass rat-race like I was doing just before my stroke.
But at least this dream was sensible, instead of driving a bus through contorted hallways, and into cul-de-sacs I couldn’t escape.
It was on Transit’s north-south 500-line, busy taking malcontents out to “Wuh-fay,” our county’s Welfare-building.
Before my stroke I was driving the 800-line, Main St. through Rochester.
It was awful. Eight continuous hours of stop-at-every-stop, and no break at all except once at a hospital.
Straight-eights were rare; only three out of hundreds of runs.
Our union only allowed those straight-eights because a few drivers wanted them. Our number-one in seniority had one, and another old head had one.
By then I was about 30th in seniority — out of about 250 drivers.
Most drivers wanted a lunch-break.
The only advantage to that line was it relieved in front of the bus-barns. I could walk directly to my car in the company parking-lot.
I wasn’t being relieved downtown, and waiting for a bus back to the Barns.
My dream had my wife in it, which tells me it’s a dream.
My wife is gone, and no longer shares the bed.
I reach over, and no wife.

• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• “Flxible,” not “Flexible.” — Flexible-Flyer is the sled (I had one as a child, fastest sled in town).
• “Transit” (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 26, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability.
• “Tranny” is the transmission on a motor-vehicle.
• A “6-71” is a six-cylinder diesel engine of 71-cubic-inch cylinders. “8-71” is eight cylinders. (Other cylinder displacements were made; for example 53 cubic-inches, and 92 cubic-inches. [Our later bus-engines were turbocharged 6-92.]) —Diesel-engines were first made inline; for example a 4-53. Later they were made as Vs; for example a V6 6-71.
• “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.
• “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.”
• RE: “Relieved.......” —When your driving-shift ended you were relieved by another bus-driver, if the bus ran continuously all day long. (The opposite was to “pull-in” back to the Barns.)

The cord is cut

I cancelled my subscription to the Daily Messenger newspaper out of nearby Canandaigua a couple weeks ago.
Thus ending a pleasant relationship that goes back well over 15 years.
The Daily Messenger was where I ended up working following my stroke, first as an unpaid intern, then as an actual employee. —I was employed there almost 10 years.
It ended up being the best job I ever had, although I’m always comparing it to Transit, which was terrible.
The Messenger was a happy ship. Management was not Simon Legree. They encouraged you and let you fly.
Management came to your defense. They didn’t treat you as enemies or inferior.
I always appreciated they hired me despite stroke addlement. I’m sure I was still messed up as an unpaid intern, yet they hired me. Moxie!
I became valuable as I recovered.
My attitude contributed.
I was always thankful they hired me, so I tended to be positive.
A manager was fixing to lay me off, but another manager came to my defense.
That manager doubled my wage-rate during a salary-freeze, so I could get off Social-Security Disability. He wanted me to work more hours, which would have exceeded my SSDI income-limit.
And that first manager was eventually fired.
I always felt somewhat unused considering my ability, but I was stroke-addled. My ability to communicate and think were slightly compromised.
What I achieved was really my own doing, and they encouraged me.
As an employee I got the newspaper free, even into retirement.
The Messenger, hurting, changed owners, and began charging retirees.
We continued to get it, even though I had to pay for it, but only my wife was reading it.
I never had time to read it, even when I worked there.
So after my wife died I was just trashing it.
Directly into the recycling!
I had two trips to make in September, so I called Messenger Circulation to arrange two vacation-stops.
Then I asked if I could just cancel my subscription.
“You don’t want the paper?” they asked.
“I never get to read it,” I said. “It just goes into my recycling.”
And so the cord is cut.
The Messenger is no longer what it was. It’s thin and small.
I remember complaints about the cost of newsprint. What about the cost of staff?
Like that fantastic building-expansion I was witness to is too big for what it is now.
When I was in their employ it was doomed by the Internet.
But it was a fabulous job.
I wanted the Messenger to look good, and they concurred.
I wonder if it will last?

• “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. —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS; “Transit”) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke ended that. I retired on medical-disability.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17, 2012. Like me she was 68. I miss her dearly.

I need a magnifyin’ glass

“Gotta get my magnifying glass out to read these here Sunday comics,” I said.
The Mighty Mezz, the beloved Daily Messenger newspaper in Canandaigua, where I worked almost 10 years following my stroke, the best job I ever had, is being squeezed by the cost of newsprint.
Evidence of this is squeezing six pages of Sunday comics onto four pages.
Each page is 20&1/2 inches by 11 inches, so a single double-sheet (four pages) is 20&1/2 inches by 22 inches.
During my employ the Messenger bought its Sunday comics as part of a package.
Now they print them themselves. Probably cost less.
Six pages is one full 20&1/2-inch sheet by 22 inches, plus a half-sheet at 20&1/2 by 11.
Going from six to four pages dumps that half-sheet.
The whole time I was at the Mighty Mezz I heard about the exploding cost of newsprint.
I’m sure other factors were at play, mainly getting news from other sources, particularly television and the Internet.
I’m guilty of this myself.
Although I remember the TV news often stealing stories from the Messenger, and then reporting them as if they had done the spadework themselves.
The Messenger was mainly local, so their competition was the local TV news.
The Internet is more national, although it could do local with a local output.
But I don’t see anything yet, although the Messenger is now a local Internet output. —They were during my employ, when I did their web-site.
So how do you compress six pages of comics into four pages?
Mainly shrinkage.
Some can be run full page-width; e.g. Peanuts and Beetle Bailey.
Each are around 9&3/4 inches wide, although Peanuts is 4&1/2 inches deep, and Beetle Bailey only 3&1/2.
Some were switched to vertical, e.g Doonesbury and Blondie.
Doonesbury is 13&3/4 inches deep, Blondie is 15 inches deep.
That leaves holes on the right side of each page about 6&1/2 inches wide.
We have a slew of comics to still run, assuming we don’t delete any; e.g. Dilbert, Spiderman, Shoe and Prince Valiant.
Also B.C. and Garfield among others.
So shrink each comic to fit, a simple computer function.
Except in so doing you make the text inside the word-blurbs so tiny, ya need a magnifying glass to read ‘em.

• “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.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• I retired from the Messenger almost five years ago.

“Those” Bleep!

Last week the Canandaigua Daily Messenger newspaper, where I worked almost 10 years after my stroke, published a headline regarding the Canandaigua School District “huddling” about what to do with Evans Field.
Evans Field is where Canandaigua Academy (high-school) plays all its football games.
It’s not a part of Canandaigua Academy’s facilities, I suppose because originally Canandaigua Academy was in another building in Canandaigua.
Evans Field has become an institution. Playing CA football games there is a tradition.
But Evans Field is old and in need of improvement.
Since it’s not attached to the high-school, getting state funds to improve it is difficult.
“‘District to huddle on Evans Field,’ eh?” I said. “That sounds like my old buddy Kevin Frisch (“Frish”), the current Managing Editor of the Messenger.”
I sent him an e-mail: “RE: ‘District to huddle on Evans Field.....’ —You’re baaaack!” I said.
He had been away, vacation perhaps.
“Wait until you see today’s headline,” Kevin responded.
“Hail Mary for Evans Field,” it blared.
That night I watched the local TV news, Channel 13.
“Hail Mary for Evans Field,” they said.
“They stole your headline,” I fired off to Frisch.
“Those” Bleep! he responded.
“Not the first time,” I responded back.
When I worked at the Mighty Mezz our Police Reporter, who was really good, would research a story, publish it, and Channel 13 would steal it, presenting it as if they had done the story.
“Those” Bleep! Kevin said again.
I would have said “goofballs,” but Kevin’s description was appropriate.
I really like Channel 13.
Their head anchor is the same age as us.
He balances the younger ones who don’t have his broadcasting experience.
And he’s pleasant about it. He doesn’t ruffle feathers.
He’s not the Simon Legree Spiderman is battling.
He’s become a father-figure.
But they’re always doing that; stealing from the Messenger.

• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, retired on disability from my previous job driving transit bus for Regional Transit Service in Rochester, and thereafter went to work for the Messenger Newspaper in Canandaigua. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city, southeast of Rochester, to the east 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. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, also southeast of Rochester.)
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over four years ago. Best job I ever had.
• “Channel 13” is one of three local TV channels in the Rochester area; ABC. —The others are Channel 10 (NBC) and Channel 8 (CBS). I think Fox has one too; which makes four. Public television has one too; that makes five.
• “Us” is me and my wife of almost 43 years, “Linda.” (We are both 66.)

Dirty little secrets of the newspaper biz

(Photo by Jack Haley, Messenger/Post.)

“Who is that gentleman on the front page of my Friday Messenger?” I asked myself.
“He looks familiar.”
“Jim Terwilliger” (“trr-WILL-eee-grr”), the caption said.
Actually “Jm,” I minor typo I consider inconsequential, since I used to work at the Messenger.
Minor except to the tub-thumping Limbaugh Conservative crowd.
Noisy accusations of “stupidity” and “incompetence” and “fevered agenda.”
Terwilliger was one of our financial advice columnists.
He worked at Canandaigua National Bank, their “Wealth Strategies Group.” Probably still does.
Every Sunday the Messenger ran a column of locally written financial advice, and Terwilliger was our best source.
We had others, of course, but they weren't as regular as Terwilliger.
One other was pretty regular, but his column was “boilerplate;” i.e. not locally written.
They were written by minions in New York City.
His columns were web-printouts.
They even had the web-address on them.
I'd crank that web-address into my Internet browser, and there would be the column.
Boom-zoom; copy/paste, ready-to-print.
Slam-dunk easy, but not locally written.
Jim would e-mail me his latest column as a Word®-attachment.
All I had was Word 6.0; ancient.
His columns opened as “text-only.”
All Jim's bullets and formatting had been vaporized.
Jim would call our head-honcho, who at that time was George Ewing, Jr.
“When are you gonna get that poor guy a more recent version of Word?”
I had a work-around.
I'd e-mail his columns home, where I had Word-98.
It would open all Jim's formatting.
I'd print it, and then massage his column for printing in the Messenger — a couple “find/replaces.”
What that involved was Quark®-tags to do Jim's formatting. I think those Quark-tags were HTML tags. I had macros to fiddle.
Completed, I'd e-mail it back.
I had taken it upon myself to get a weekly locally-written financial advice column in the Messenger, and Jim was my best contributor.
We ran everything he sent.
The article says in 1952 he was age-9.
Which makes him a year older than me.
In 1952 I was age-8.

• The “Messenger” (“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.) —As a retiree I get the Messenger free. (“ Messenger/Post” because the Messenger bought all the Post suburban Rochester weeklies when their publisher retired.)
• “Canandaigua National Bank” is the major bank in Canandaigua. It's independent — local. We have our checking-account there.
• “Quark®” was the computer software the Messenger was done with during my employ.
• The Messenger was previously owned by the Ewing (“YOU-wing”) family. They owned it during my employ.
• “HTML” is hyper-text markup language, slightly more elegant than “text-only.” With HTML-tags you can embolden, underline, and italicize text. I use HTML in this blog. My pictures are via HTML tags.
• “Macros” are recordings of repeatable computer functions. I'd run a macro on a whole story, or column, to process it for print.

Don’t Mess with the Comics!

About a year or so after I retired from the mighty Mezz, they began printing the Sunday comics in-house.
Prior to that, if I’m right, the Sunday comics were purchased as a package, or part of a package, from an offsite printer.
I’m sure this change was made with great consternation.
As my wife says, “don’t mess with the comics!”
It’s kind of like the daily lottery numbers.
If someone inadvertently forgot to put them on the page, Granny would call head-honcho and ream his ears out.
We noticed the disappearance of “Nancy” — no great loss.
Also the disappearance of “Marmaduke” — a tragedy for dog-lovers like us.
Every time Marm took his master for a walk, hanging on for dear life, we could identify with that.
But they managed to keep “Monty,” and so too “Spider-Man,” which I considered expendable.
About the time of that switch, the Executive Editor at that time, Robert Matson (“MATT-sin”), wrote a column of his various misadventures hiring reporters.
He detailed how one interviewee stalked out in a huff when Matson explained the importance of good spelling and grammar.
I always liked Matson. He had the moxie to look in the eyes of a severely messed up stroke-survivor (me), and say “looks normal to me!”
He also gave me a HUGE raise, so I could get off Social Security Disability.
The Social Security guys in Geneva were dumbfounded. They had never seen such a thing.
Matson and I were on the same page regarding spelling and grammar.
I think good communication requires it.
Both Matson and I are graduates of nearby Houghton College, him in 1980, me 1966.
I think Houghton engendered that — that creativity counts in good writing, but it needs correct spelling and grammar.
I wrote Matson a congratulatory e-mail, telling him to stand his ground.
I also suggested Spider-Man was a waste, that I didn’t read it.
“NO WAY!” he cried. “No way am I dumping Spider-man. That’s the best comic we got.”
Oh well, difference of opinion.
Matson is one person, and I’m another.
I’m glad he likes Spider-Man.
But I wonder why every Spider-Man comic seems to have a scowling villain? (See picture.)
I’d like to think Matson likes Spider-Man because it’s laughable.

• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired 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.”
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and was taken on as an unpaid intern at the mighty Mezz about two years later. Later I was hired. I retired in December of 2005.
• Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s four, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up.) —When taken for a walk, she pulls, and quite hard.
• “Houghton College,” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.
• “Geneva” is another city about 15 miles east of Canandaigua. It’s at the northern end of Seneca Lake, a so-called “Finger-Lake.” —The nearest Social Security office is in Geneva.

BILLS WIN

“BILLS WIN, BILLS WIN, BILLS WIN,” shrieked the Facebook page of my friend Paul Long.
“Do you mean to tell me the lowly Billy-goats beat the mighty N.Y. Jets?” I asked.
“I’ll look it up,” my wife said from the other room.
(My wife has her own rig. In fact, our ‘pyooters aren’t even networked. We use e-mail.)
“Yep,” she said. “Bills 16, Jets 13.”
Paul Long was sports-editor at the mighty Mezz during the final years of my employ.
We worked in nearby cubicles; him the Sports-Editor and me doing their web-site.
The web-site ran local sports stories, and I was always trying to fly sports pictures — even though I had been advised not to.
He was a great guy to question; like if something had a misspelled word.
Sports was always kind of a mess at the Messenger the entire time of my employ.
When I first hired on, the Sports-Editor had loud angry temper tantrums, and would tear up what he had asked for, blaming us.
He moved on, but no one replaced him. Sports was done by two sports-reporters.
Then a guy hired earlier as a sports-reporter, but who went on to generate a lot of the paper, was made Sports-Editor, but it was like herding cats.
His sports-reporters had previously done the entire section.
Despite this, Sports was always a premier section.
It had local bias, so covered local sports.
Then Long was made Editor, but was saddled with two prima-donnas.
It wasn’t a marriage-made-in-heaven, but still Sports shone.
Long is from this area, so is a Buffalo Bills fan.
In fact, he’s a fan of just about every local sports team.
I remember Syracuse basketball made the National Championship during Long’s tenure; a fact he celebrated.
Also the Buffalo Sabres.
But sadly the Bills have become a laughing-stock, particularly after last week when they were beat by the lowly Cleveland Browns.
They made so many mistakes.
I rely on Paul, not being a sports-fan myself, and he said team-owner Ralph Wilson was too cheap to hire the talent needed to field a good football team.
Well, probably so; but he did hire Terrell Owens, whom I’m sure cost a pretty penny.
But one super-talented player can’t save a football team.
To me, the Bills beating the Jets is a fluke, much like when they beat the New England Patriots long ago in 2003.
Yeah, sure; what about next week?
I bet they lose. No confidence. They’re not winners.
“They lost everything when Flutie (“FLOO-dee”) left,” my wife says.

• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost four years ago. Best job I ever had. I worked there after my stroke (October 26, 1993); almost 10 years. My stroke disability-retired me from driving transit bus at Regional Transit Service in Rochester, NY, which I did for 16&1/2 years.
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• “This area” is Western New York.
• “Flutie” is Doug Flutie, a previous quarterback for the Buffalo Bills — a winner.
• Paul Long moved to near to Charlotte, NC, to become a sports-reporter at a local newspaper nearby.

“Various vagaries”

This morning’s (Thursday, October 8, 2009) dream (nightmare?) was about the various vagaries of production of this here newspaper, which despite the noisy blusterings of tub-thumping Conservatives, ain’t easy.
Anyone who reads this blog, assuming there are any at all, knows I had a stroke almost 16 years ago on October 26, 1993.
They also know I worked at this newspaper almost 10 years after that.
It was the best job I ever had, and over those years I did a number of things, and found flower in doing computer functions.
What I remember is doing obituaries (“obits”), and the “Night-Spots” column for the weekly “Steppin Out” tabloid.
I eventually ended up doing this here web-site, although earlier iterations thereof.
The last one I was doing was iteration #3, the paid web-site.
This newspaper’s current web-site is probably iteration #6 or so.
The “Night-Spots” file was a large computer file I’d update weekly by overwriting.
Doing so meant phonecalls, or accessing night-club web-sites.
It was tedious, but phonecalls were the main hairball.
My ability to do phonecalls had been compromised by my stroke, so I tended to not do them.
I always felt “Night-Spots” was poor because of my inability to do phonecalls, but I was told otherwise.
What I turned in was usually cut to fit.
I was told I was doing a fabulous job.
My dream was I had just completed my dreaded “Night-Spots” file, so I was ready to “send” it.
I had walked away from my cubical, and when I returned, my ‘pyooter was gone.
This sort of thing could happen in the production of a newspaper, although in my case it never did.
I walked around nervously trying to scarf up an unused computer — I did this occasionally when mine crashed.
But no luck.
Much worried jabbering at other work-stations, but no unused ‘pyooters.
My “Night-Spots” file would be needed for the next day’s newspaper production, but I had no way to “send” it.

• “This here newspaper” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost four years ago. —This blog also appears on their web-site.
• “The ‘Steppin Out’ tabloid” was a weekly tabloid magazine of local entertainment, etc., published with the newspaper.
• The “current web-site” is MPNnow; “MPN” standing for Messenger-Post newspapers. (A few years ago the Messenger bought nine weekly suburban newspapers [suburbs of Rochester] when their publisher retired; the “Post” papers.)
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.

Blogging for the Messenger

The mighty Mezz, the fabulous Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I worked for almost 10 years, and from where I retired 3&1/2 years ago, and the best job I ever had, wants me to blog for their web-site.
I was a little leery at first — I think the world of that newspaper.

A LITTLE HISTORY
—My stroke was October 26, 1993, and suddenly ended my 16&1/2 year career of driving transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester.
It was a fun job at first, handling large equipment without incident.
And fiddling a clientele that could be dangerous.
But I was tiring of it.
I had successfully driven every new challenge, including buses better suited for the Orient.
Living 45 minutes from work, I could no longer work the schedule I could work when I lived five minutes from work.
This meant no schoolwork, which was canceled when school was off.
Schoolwork meant a full day’s pay for maybe only four hours of work.
I had to switch to regular daily runs. No more time off. —Possibility of engaging wacko monsters and druggies. And seniors that blew you in for enforcing the rules, or bopped you with their umbrellas.
—During my final year at Transit, I started doing a voluntary union newsletter.
It was great fun; I was sole editor, writer and reporter. Also the paginator, the one who put it together. (Word.)
It became more than a union newsletter; and got little union participation, and no endorsement for fear of lawsuits. I had to run a disclaimer on top saying it wasn’t a union organ.
It was apparently quite successful; even management liked it, and they could be jerks.
I was writing reflections on what it was like to -a) drive bus, and -b) parry our clientele. For once these stories were getting out.
A Union compatriot also circulated my newsletter to local politicians, who had previously been told everything was hunky-dory at Transit.
They’d call up Transit, and I was accused of being a “Union activist.”
Well so be it! Everything was not all sweetness-and-light at Transit.
—But my stroke ended all that. No more Transit; no more newsletter.
Post-stroke rehabilitation began, and a counselor wondered what I could do as an unpaid intern.
I suggested something similar to my newsletter; and to them that meant newspaper.
As a result I interviewed at the nearby Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, as an unpaid intern.
The Executive Editor, Bob Matson (“Bossman”) said I seemed normal, so I was taken on; although I suppose I wasn’t.
I had an outside job-counselor at first, a lady to advocate for me, and parry management regarding any limitations I had.
Then a guy left from the paste-up department (the Messenger was pasted up at that time; not ‘pyooterized).
They needed to hire a replacement, so I suggested maybe I could do it.
Thus began my 10-year employ with the mighty Mezz. (They hired a stroke-survivor).
I had another job-counselor at first, but he was bored-to-tears.
It seemed I didn’t need any help. —I wasn’t about to use my stroke as an excuse. On Saturday nights, and early Sunday mornings, I could stay awake through complete production of the Sunday paper, and the job-counselor would fall asleep.
—The Messenger finally ‘pyooterized; no more paste-up department.
They were fixing to lay me off — many were laid off that had previously been paste-up.
But I moved on to Optical-Character-Recognition scanning (“OCR”); more-or-less figured it out myself.
I thereafter began scanning a slew of letters-to-the-editor; so many the Executive Editor thought it crazy to lay me off.
And before I was hired I began writing a weekly column for the Messenger. It was sort of blog-like, and lasted a while until I got the flag-police all bent outta shape.
End of column; but thereafter the Executive Editor had me doing a weekly column of things 10, 25 and 50 years ago in the Messenger. (The Messenger is over 200 years old.)
This involved looking at old microfiches. But mistakenly I was drawn more to the ads; 23¢ for a loaf of bread.
—As the Messenger became more-and-more ‘pyooterized, we began a techno department. One function was to fiddle the Messenger web-site.
I figured it out, and got so I could drive both iterations two and then three. I was included in this techno department — although more bottom of the totem-pole. I was probably included because I had figured out so many ‘pyooter tricks that saved time.
In the end I had gone back to part-time (I started part-time), but flying the Messenger web-site every day.
It meant I could determine how it looked; within the parameters of what I was driving.
Things would go bonkers, and it often didn’t fly, which meant parrying our web-service long-distance in far-away Ann Arbor, MI.
I’d return home and fire up this ‘pyooter to see if it had flown. Often I’d fix things from here at home.

But at the end of 2005 I retired — I was experiencing dizzy-spells.
But they were a side-effect of the blood-pressure medication (a calcium-blocker) I was taking. When I stopped that, the dizzy-spells ended.
My friend Marcy, still at the mighty Mezz at that time, suggested I blog the insanities I was posting to my family’s web-site, and also e-mailing to her.
She had a blog at Blog-Spot, so I set up an account.
I’ve been blogging ever since.
It’s a retirement schtick, sorta. A way to kill time.
Every morning I begin writing as I sit down to eat breakfast. After breakfast I key in what I wrote.
That’s what gets blogged; and also e-mailed to all the so-called “Ne’er-do-Wells,” an e-mail list of everyone I e-mail my stuff to, one of whom is Marcy, now living near Boston.
I don’t fiddle our family’s web-site any more; too much negative blustering from various siblings.

So now people at the Messenger want me to “blog for the Messenger.”
I looked at previous blogs, and it seemed what I was doing was okay.
“Blogging for the Messenger” also seemed less serious than “working for the Messenger.”
They gave me the keys to upload blog-material myself, so it’s very much like Blog-Spot. I don’t have some suit looking over my shoulder — although I’d almost rather.
I’ve done this blog-gig long enough to more-or-less edit myself. They keep an eye on their bloggers, but I feel I can stay outta trouble; having worked there.
Okay, so do it. Not everything that appears on this Blog-Spot blog, but some. —Stuff that -a) doesn’t need explaining, and -b) no waving the red flag at my siblings.

• “Pagination” is to assemble all the parts of a newspaper-page in a computer.
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• RE: “Pasted up; not ‘pyooterized....” —Each newspaper page was “pasted up” by sticking waxed news-gallies to a cardboard page-dummy, that when completed was photographed to make a full-size negative a printing-plate could be “burned” from. With computerization, each newspaper-page was thereafter paginated in a ‘pyooter. The completed file was thereafter sent to an image-processor, that produced the full-size negative a printing-plate could be “burned” from.
• “Optical-Character-Recognition scanning” is to produce a ‘pyooter text-file with a scanner. The software deduces what characters (letters) are scanned.
• “More-or-less figured it out myself” is more figuring out the ‘pyooter filing system, and what is happening.
• RE: “Within the parameters of what I was driving.....” —I wasn’t the designer of the Messenger web-site, but I could decide the content. I flew a lotta pictures, since it was a visual medium.
• “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. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells.
• This blog is at “Blog-Spot.”

“See the U.S.A., in your Chevrolet”

I’ve been having an e-mail exchange with good old Allison Cooper.
Allison Cooper is one of my vaunted Ne’er-do-Wells, and the exchange comes out of her reading my “Old Greenie” blog, wherein I say our Faithful Hunda was the best car we ever had.
Allison has a Honda herself, a Civic, and apparently thinks the world of it.
Allison became a reporter during my employ at the mighty Mezz, and is now a Managing Editor.
I suppose this means to a large extent she determines what’s in the newspaper.
Although I know how it is. Titles get bandied about to go with salary increases and/or promotions, although what usually happens is you take on more grunge work — the actual production of the newspaper.
I never actually paginated the newspaper, just processed reams of copy that ended up getting published.
I guess my title was “Typist,” although I rarely did typing.
I was more an Editorial Assistant.
What I did was computer tricks to generate reams of copy.
Columns and calendars and honor-rolls and weather information and stock information.
Stuff got parceled according to what you could do, and everyone shared the load.
To me it was a happy ship.
My writing was earlier, and didn’t involve pulling teeth from local politicos.
But that went away as I did ever more computer tricks, including the newspaper’s web-site.
A reporter would try to bend a story out of some tub-thumping politico with an agenda. (Seems Conservatives were worst at this.)
That was Allison, and she was good at it.
Allison belonged to a writers’ group at the newspaper, a defacto organization of would-be writers.
I wasn’t part of this, and wasn’t hurt by it.
One morning Allison came over to jaw with Marcy about their next meeting, and the banter began.
“I don’t know what you guys are talking about,” I said; “but when it comes to writing, I just pick up my shovel and start shoveling.”
“Sure; easy as pie for you, Grady,” Marcy said.
Yeah, I guess so; I’ve come to conclude.
My 12th-grade English teacher was the first to point it out.
“All it is is slingin’ words together,” I said to him.
“But you can do that better than most. You’re a natural,” he answered.
My first actual writing was in college, a biweekly humor column in the college newspaper during my senior year.
I fell into it. It was secondary; there was a higher-billed humor column.
But I was told what I was doing was better.
Years after graduating I was trying to freelance sportscar racing photography, and a small weekly newspaper in Rochester wanted to start sportscar racing coverage. An owner had a Porsche (“poor-sha”).
They wanted to know if I knew anyone that could do it, and I suggested myself.
And so developed three summers of biweekly sportscar coverage; although it wasn’t always racing. Often it was a feature, like rallying, autocross, or a car-show.
But it was a hairball. Too much navel-picking; i.e. fiddling for correct grammar and usage.
Doing so could kill good writing.
Later I went to driving bus — a real job, although stupid and meaningless — and after about 15 years I fell into doing a voluntary union newsletter.
I didn’t have time for navel-picking; I had to rely on my ability to write, which was fine — way better than my employers, who I drove crazy.
But then the stroke ended that; ending my career driving bus.
I recovered well enough to do an unpaid internship at the mighty Mezz, and that turned into a job; grunt-work at first.
They were about to lay me off when the newspaper computerized; but I got enough of a handle on computer tricks for the Executive Editor to continue my employ. —The guy fixing to lay me off was fired; although not because of me.
I was part-time at first, and my income was limited by Social Security Disability (SSDI). But the Executive Editor wanted me to do more work, so offered to make up my SSDI, if I could go full-time. This was in effect doubling my wage-rate.
Seemed doable, so I did it. I always appreciated that that Executive Editor had so much moxie.
I fell into doing the newspaper’s web-site, and developed computer-tricks to make doing it a little easier.

Herewith, my exchange with Allison:
-Allison: “I love my Honda too!!!
5 years old, 50,000 miles (that’s with transporting the teenagers everywhere all the time). 4 new tires, oil changes, that’s it.”
-Me: “STORY TIME
RE: ‘The Faithful Hunda.........’
-Original rim-protectors replaced almost immediately; Goodyear GT+4s at first, the tires the N.Y. state troopers used. Second set of GT+4s when first set wore out. Wife pulled out in front of a motorbike, and the motorbike hit the left-rear door. Knocked the car out of alignment (I guess). Drove it to West Virginia, and wore the front tires to the cord. Had Ontario Honda align it, and purchased tire-set #3; the tire Goodyear replaced the GT+4s with. —I always buy quality tires; in this case they made it a much better car.
-Bought the car at Ide Honda. Had them align it and they screwed it up royally. Aligned it myself — I still have the tools. Started doing Ontario Honda instead of Ide. When they aligned it, they didn’t screw it up.
-Three batteries; first tanked at about 60,000 miles. Battery #2 at 130,000 miles. Replaced all the batteries myself — all Honda parts. —CR-V still on original battery; six years old.
-Replaced distributor-cap and ignition wiring when it got rotten (maybe 90,000). —Supposedly that is no longer a problem. Everything is now guaranteed for 100,000 miles.
-Did all oil/filter changes myself. Honda now has free oil-changes every three months. Since the oil-filter on the CR-V is a guaranteed skinned hand, Ontario Honda gets the job.
But the main thing is ‘The Faithful Hunda’ was a CAR; the CR-V a truck.
Neither have ever been stuck. The CR-V is electronic All-Wheel-Drive, but the Faithful Hunda was VISCOUS COUPLING (“viss-cuss”). When I was shopping around, that Honda dealer on West Henrietta Road called it “vicious.” (I walked out; laughter alert.)
-Allison: “Love it. I won’t ever buy anything else.”
-Me: “Holtz Honda. (I remember a Pontiac.)”
-Allison: “When I took my Pontiac to Ontario Honda to trade it in on my Civic, the interior lights were blinking and the door-is-ajar bell was constantly ringing, and it overheated at stop lights longer than five seconds.
And I had to climb over the gearshift to exit from the passenger door.”
-Me: “Two things......
—A) You may have got that Civic before I retired; which was late December of 2005. I just don’t remember it.
—B) RE: The travails of owning a General Motors product:
-1993 Chevrolet Astrovan, bought to placate Dinah Shore: “See the U.S.A., in your Chevrolet. America is waiting for your call. MMMMMM-WAH!”
(Our family had all Chevys.)
140,000 miles, by which time it was utterly tanked.
Drove it to the mighty Mezz many times; almost t-boned a full-size Chevy van in Bloomfield, driven by an utterly stupefied Granny.
It rode like a pig; the shock-absorbers were original.
Most frustrating of all were two things:
-1) The air-conditioning always leaked off its charge, so that it no longer cooled. —In summer it was an oven.
-2) The glove-compartment door had to be jimmied with a crowbar. The lock no longer worked. Being so bent, it no longer held the door shut, and there was a switch activated by the open door that turned on an inside light. I had the door taped shut with duct-tape (a use advocated by the American Duct-Tape Council), but the stickum on the duct-tape had become so filthy, the door would flop open.
Here I am driving down 5&20 and that stupid door would flop open.
There are other travails:
-a) A front torsion-bar broke. The torsion-bars were what served at springs. I drove that sucker all the way to Honeoye Falls on the rubber bump-stop, where Molye replaced both torsion-bars.
-b) The “Check-engine” light kept coming on. Coming back from D.C. at 94,000 miles it kept glaring at me. Its coming on seemed to be a function of how hard I drove it. —Hoselton (where I bought it — have ya ever been inside the Chevy portion of Hoselton? The floor looks like it survived a magnitude-six earthquake) was unable to diagnose the problem.
It was Molye that scienced out the problem; a faulty oxygen-sensor in the exhaust. That was after it hardly ran at all; so poorly I sideswiped a mailbox and scratched the paint.
-c) The oil-pump was outside the engine, attached to the block. The gasket that seals it broke and it began leaking oil profusely.
Molye diagnosed it correctly; their parts-guy was one of the best I’ve ever met.
He had seen the problem before, apparently, and they replaced the gasket. —No more leak after that.
-d) Like all cars now it had a lockout that wouldn’t allow ya to put it in gear lesson ya had your foot on the brake. It was an el-cheapo solenoid activated by the same circuit that shut off your krooze if ya hit the brake.
The stupid solenoid hung up twice, and wouldn’t let me put it in gear. Ya could unhang it if ya pulled it with your toe just so.
The second time was at the Auto-Train depot in Lorton, VA where ya were turning over your car for some stranger to load.
I was afraid I’d hafta toe that stupid switch for the stranger to load the van.
I liked it, but the Toyota Sienna we now have is much better. (Which begs the question, why are the Japs so much better at making cars than General Motors?)”

A little explanation here:

This Dinah Shore song was my siren-song during the ‘50s.
It posits the pleasant dream-world available to Chevrolet-owners.
No matter that the cars pictured (a ‘53 Chevy) were turkeys.
I learned how to drive in a ‘53 Chevy, and the reason I bought the Chevrolet Astrovan was partly to fulfill the dream of Dinah Shore.
About 1950 or so my father bought a used ‘41 Chevy from some guy in our church. It looked to be in excellent shape, and the ‘41 Chevy is one of the most popular used cars of all time.
Shortly after we bought it we went to gigantic Rohrer (“ROAR-errr”) Chevrolet on Admiral Wilson Boulevard outside Camden, NJ, and went out back into the shop-area. I was about six years old.
I immediately noticed a large Texaco star on a wall in the shop.
It was one of them shining moments. My father had recently begun employ with Texaco, and we had just bought a Chevrolet.
All was right with the world.
Who woulda ever thought back then General Motors would eventually declare bankruptcy?
And pay no head to Dinah and her “nothing will beat her.....”
A Ford would put Chevrolet on-the-trailer. —The ‘53 Chevy (pictured in the ad) was indeed a turkey.
It took the Chevrolet Small-Block V8, in the 1955 model-year, to make that line truthful.
And Rohrer Chevrolet is gone.

• The “Ne’er-do-Wells” are an e-mail list of everyone I e-mail my stuff to.
• “The Faithful Hunda” is our 1989 Honda Civic All-Wheel-Drive station-wagon, by far the BEST car we’ve ever owned, now departed (replaced by our CR-V). (Called a “Hunda” because that was how a fellow bus-driver at Transit [Regional-Transit-Service in Rochester, where I once worked] pronounced it.) —The “CR-V” is our 2003 Honda CR-V SUV.
• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over three years ago. Best job I ever had.
• RE: “Paginated.......” —Our newspaper pages were “paginated” in a computer using Quark software. —The page-editor would select stories to run, usually from Associated Press or locally written, or columns, etc. I had processed.
• “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.
• “Grady” was my nickname at the Messenger newspaper. See blurb.
• “Rallying” is low-level sportscar competition over public roads, trying to hit time-points exactly. —“Autocross” is one car at a time through a twisting course, usually in a parking-lot. The fastest car wins.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993; ending my 16&1/2 year career of driving transit bus. (From 1977 to 1993 I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY.)
• “5&20” is the main east-west road (a two-lane highway) through our area; State Route 5 and U.S. Route 20, both on the same road. 5&20 is just south of where we live.
• “Honeoye (‘HONE-eee-oy’) Falls” is the nearest town to where we live in western New York, a rural town about five miles away. “Molye” (“mahl-YAY”) and “Hoselton” (“hahz-ul-TIN”) Chevrolet (now Hoselton auto-mall; they also sell Toyota and Nissan); and “Ide” (“eyed”) Honda. “Ontario Honda” is the Honda dealer in nearby Canandaigua.
• The most popular used cars of all time are: -a) the 1941 Chevy; -b) the 1957 Chevy; and -c) the 1964 Chevy.
• “Camden” is across the river from Philadelphia, essentially an extension of Philadelphia into south Jersey.
• “On-the-trailer” is an old drag-racing term. (Drag-racing is standing-start to finish over a paved, flat two-lane quarter-mile drag-strip. —The first car to finish wins.) —The losing car gets put back “on-the-trailer” that brought it in.