Curmudgeons at risk

 Another addition to the Aphorism page:

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Addition

 An addition to the Aphorisms page:

*

Nothing is perfect

I often use Nothing is perfect as a meditation concept. It offers at least five distinct aspects for mind-demuddling contemplation:

1. As a hallmark of everything that exists, imperfection means not only deficits of form or function, but also variability and finitude, the latter attribute encompassing death. As a result of that nature, imperfection in our experiences and in our existence is inevitable and should therefore be expected and accepted without rancor.
   
2. In light of the above, imperfection is an inbuilt and necessary quality of everything existent and is therefore to be appreciated in and of itself.
3. Only a state of nothingness can be perfect, because it includes no thing, things all being imperfect. Perfection is nothing.
4. In that regard, to what degree can the state of nothingness be appreciated by me, as I am necessarily something?
5. Can nothing, which has no features, have an attribute, perfect?

And yes, it is possible that Zen concepts may have influenced my predilection. Go figure.

*

Alarming!

 

I remember when I first began to hate alarm clocks.

In the wayback, I was working at a big city general hospital as an orderly, which is what male nurse aides were called back then. The guys, all of us college age, were sort of heavy lift specialists, coupled with some male patient care, particularly surgery prep: shaving the surgery site, administering enemas. Then there was helping folks who didn’t feel like walking to take a walk, feeding men who had no desire to eat, moving unmoving people into wheelchairs, or sitz baths, or onto gurneys, or X-ray tables, or removing bodies to the morgue—all the really fun stuff.

We worked a rotating shift schedule and I was working my first graveyard shift, 11 PM to 7 AM. The first night wasn’t bad, even though I hadn’t tried for any extra sleep.

I got to see my first bullet wound that night, down in ER. And I learned why the ER entrance was kept locked with an armed security guard at the door. The other orderly on shift, a more experienced guy, showed me the pock marks on the wall, repaired bullet holes from a street gang battle that, two years earlier, had spilled over into the treatment room where one of the wounded gang members had been brought by his buddies.

After that first graveyard shift, I went home, took a shower, had breakfast, went to bed about 8 AM, and slept until about 11 AM, when nature called.

I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up, had lunch, and took care of some chores. After supper, about 6:30, I laid down to catch a few more Zs.

But the Zs eluded me—until about 9 PM, when I finally drifted off.

Only to have the alarm, an hour later, drag me—like a calf that was stuck neck deep in the sucking mud—oh so exhaustively struggling, back to a mere semblance of wakefulness.

That night, I learned to keep busy because, if I sat down for more than half a minute, I would fall asleep.

For the rest of the week I tried a series of daytime schedule revisions, shifting around shower times, meal times, sleep times, activity times, shuffling and re-shuffling, trying to find the right pattern that would let me get sufficient sleep.

It never happened. My body would just not accept the reversal of the asleep/awake-night/day schedule. Swing shift was never a bother, since it approximated normal waking hours, but graveyard was the pits.

Fortunately, the work schedule rotated weekly, but I never did adjust to the graveyard shift.

And I came to dread the clock alarm, something that, up ‘til then, I’d accepted as a routine event of the work or school week. But now it had become a corkscrew, twisting and digging into my sleep-sodden brain, drawing and dragging me to a nauseous awakening.

Even now, years into retirement, an alarm clock still triggers that gut-wrenching reaction.

*

Wisdom from the movies

A work in progress . . .

That's part of your problem: you haven't seen enough movies. All of life's riddles are answered in the movies. - Davis (Steve Martin) Grand Canyon

The world is what you make of it, friend. If it doesn't fit, you make alterations.   - Stella (Linda Hunt) Silverado

I always figure you might as well approach life like everybody's your friend or nobody is; don't make much difference. - Paden (Kevin Kline) Silverado

Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something. - Man in Black (Cary Elwes) The Princess Bride

I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living, or get busy dying. - Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) The Shawshank Redemption

Que sera, sera. (Whatever will be, will be.) - Josephine (Doris Day, singing) The Man Who Knew Too Much

*

Things I was not expecting

This is a work in progress.

Back in the day, I'd never had guessed I'd be dealing with:

• Camouflage as fashion
• The internet
• Telephones as cameras
• Telephones as computers
• Unlimited information at my fingertips
• Fish finders
   
• GPS
• LEDs
• Avocados
• Artichokes
• Autoimmune disease
• Relinquishing my driver's license, at my own volition
• A mobility scooter as my primary transportation
• The Covid-19 pandemic

*

How to get along

This is a list, in no particular order, of the most practical advice that I've heard, read, or learned over the decades. While a few of these appear to apply more to business and employment, they actually apply in all interactions with other human beings.

pexels.com

• Don't save the best for last. As a practice, saving the best for last reduces our appreciation for all the lesser stuff because we tend to focus on the best parts. Conversely, when the best is gone, that which remains has a larger significance. (Since I deduced this while eating a watermelon slice, reserving the sweetest center for last, I dubbed it Watermelon Theory #1.)

• Don't expect or demand that things be perfect. When trying to make things work among human beings, insisting any plan or performance be perfect will likely debilitate the participants and defeat the purpose. However, it is not an excuse to fail to do your best work within the time and resources allotted. (This is a formalized version of my Watermelon Theory #2, which arose from a decision to swallow the seeds rather than spit them out. It's a long story.)

Tristan Schmurr, Flickr.com

• Take on the job everyone dreads. It usually provides the most opportunities. (I've dubbed this one my Dirty Garage Theory, a conclusion from a time when I was about eleven years old and I decided, on my own, to clean and straighten up our family's two-car garage. I think my folks were still giddy about that when I went off to college.)
• If you can do a job sitting down, then sit down. Don't make a job
  harder than it has to be, for yourself or others. (This I credit to a co-worker, back in the day.)
• Fail often. Practice assumes failures, and you don't get good at

  

  Uline.com

  anything without practice. Embrace your failures. Learn from them; they're likely your most valuable lessons. (Lots of folks had this figured out long before I did.)
• When you've screwed up, own up to it without hesitation. It not only reduces the wind in your critics' sails, it can increase your respect among others. Still, it's always hard to do; better get used to it. (I figured this one out years ago when I went to the boss and told him how and why I'd made a mess of things, what I'd done to sort things out, and what I would do to make sure it didn't happen again. He regarded me in silence for several seconds, then grouched that I'd left him nothing to say, as I'd already covered all his points. He told me to get back to work.)
• When you've screwed up, go out of your way to make up for it, even if

  

  theblondecoyote.com, edited

  it costs extra. This is especially true if you've disappointed a customer, an employer, or a loved one. Or anyone else. (From A Passion for Excellence, by Peters and Austin.)
• Promise less, deliver more. Be absolutely certain you can deliver what, when, and for how much you promise. Better to underestimate than overestimate your performance. Then do better: more, sooner, or for less. (Also from A Passion for Excellence.)
• Don't save up your good times for retirement; take them when you can. (From a retired and disabled acquaintance in La Junta, Colorado, about 1972. From personal experience, I'm glad I followed his advice.)
• I saved the best for last. Do unto others as you would have them do

  

  Creative Commons

  unto you. You just can't go wrong when applying the Golden Rule. But, to avoid a common misunderstanding, treat others the way they'd like to be treated, the same as you'd want your preferences observed by others. For instance, just because you like licorice doesn't mean that other people do, too.

It's difficult to appreciate ideas like these until you've really fouled-up a time or two and are willing to look at yourself critically. And it usually requires the full development of the brain's frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is where fine judgment and evaluative abilities are centered. The maturing of that region often extends into one's mid-twenties.

Creative Commons

So, that's it, the best I've got, after sixty-eight years. I wonder if having this list when I was twenty-five might have made a difference? With a heavy sigh, I have to reckon not. Experience is the best teacher. But maybe having ideas like these in hand would have crystallized the lessons sooner. Maybe.

                                   *

Pizza advice

My preferred toppings are sau-

sage, mushrooms, and onions.

As I look back, two pieces of advice stand out as the most appreciated, in a lifetime of receiving advice. But, to diverge momentarily, why is it that advice comes in pieces, I wonder. Oh, and (SPOILER ALERT) title and graphics aside, this post has nothing whatsoever to do with pizza, other than as a play on the words, "piece of advice."

But, to return to the topic.

My first full-time job was in my early teens, during school summer holiday breaks in the mid '60s. I was a utility worker for an smallish outfit in Toledo, Ohio, called National Canvas Products. I worked at whatever job needed some extra help. Many of my co-workers were off-duty city firefighters. (Toledo's fire department worked a twenty-four hours on, forty-eight hours off, shift rotation.) And a fair portion of those firefighters were veterans of the various armed services during World War Two and the Korean conflict.

One summer, I fabricated and assembled canvas boat tops. They were one of several leisure activity-related products—tents, sleeping bags, boat covers, snowmobile windshields, ping-pong tables—the company turned out. Working on the boat tops, I performed various tasks, from bending the aluminum tubing frames on wooden templates, called jigs, to assembling and packing the shipping cartons.

Among those men I usually worked with was a fireman, Robert "Pat" Patterson. I suspect that his advice originated from time spent in the service.  I was standing at a fabrication table doing some small-piece hardware assembly job, when Pat came over with a stool and said to me:

"When you can do a job sitting down, sit down."

It was a good piece of advice, easily generalizable to various applications, all related to not making the work harder than it had to be. It served me well throughout my career, especially when I was a supervisor of other employees. Making workers' jobs easier almost always means that more work can get done.

    Mr. Majestyk was filmed largely

    on location in and around La Junta,

    including the community hospital's

    emergency room, with a couple of

    the nurses as extras.

The other piece of advice was offered about a decade later, while I was
working at the small community hospital in La Junta, Colorado. An older man, a retired business owner, was admitted to the hospital several times during my tenure as an orderly, a male nurse aide. He had a number of respiratory and circulatory problems that had a tendency to flare up and require brief periods of close medical supervision. Both of us being friendly type of guys, we developed an acquaintanceship.

One summer afternoon, my wife and I were riding our bikes around the shady residential streets when someone called out to us from the deep shadow of their front porch. Turned out to be my good acquaintance and his wife, who invited us to join them for some iced tea.

We enjoyed listening to their tales of an earlier and woolier La Junta and some of the trials of building a business there. But it was something he said, just before we went on our way, that stuck out. He'd lamented that the travel and activity plans they'd made for retirement were now impossible due to his maladies. He felt it was a mistake to have worked so hard during his life and to have deprived his wife of the enjoyments they'd both wanted. He said:

"Don't save up your good times for retirement; take them when you can."

I took this piece of advice to heart and followed it at every opportunity. And I am very, very glad I did.

*

Ice cold memory

Divine Word Seminary or "P-burg,"
as it was known at the other
SVD seminaries in the US.

Summertime, mid-1960s. I don't remember the year, for certain. I was at
my high school, Divine Word Seminary, a few miles upriver—the Maumee River—from Perrysburg, Ohio. It was an all-male boarding school, termed a "prep" seminary by the SVDs, known in English-speaking countries as the Divine Word Missionaries. The SVDs (the Societas Verbi Divini), a Roman Catholic religious order, operated several high school seminaries in the US, preparing young men for a college education and advanced religious training prior to entering the priesthood as missionaries.

The Maumee River, above the deepwater head of navigation. 

Along with a few other guys, I'd volunteered for some manner of hot weather duty. Maybe it was helping out with one of the vocational retreats for grade school boys or maybe it was some other sort of clean-up chores; the exact reason for my presence has faded with time.

What I do remember is finishing up, tired, hot and sweaty, and all of us heading up to the main building, where the Father with whom we'd been working promised us some cold Cokes. The five or six of us pulled several chairs together in a corner of the dining room, a roughly forty-by-sixty-foot expanse enclosed on three sides by floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the woodlot leading down to the river. It was an impressive setting, remarkable even by adolescent standards.

A couple minutes later, Father Whoever brought out a case of twenty-four

ten-ounce bottles and informed us he'd had them chilling in the freezer so they'd be plenty cold. And hope to tell, they were that! There were already a few tiny ice crystals that were floating on top and that cold, sweet, tangy liquid drained down my throat like nothing before. I was sitting with my schoolmates, talking and laughing, enjoying the contentment of a job well done and, as I've come to know, drinking the most satisfying drink of my life. We finished off the case.

Coke is still my favorite soft drink. Ever since, I've often recalled that time of a half century ago when enjoying an extra-cold Coke. As the one I was just imbibing when I decided to write this story. And no, I never became a priest.

*

New wheels

Well, new to me, anyway.

As I was experiencing more difficulty with the distances to the mail boxes and the trash and recycling dumpsters, I finally opted to buy a used mobility scooter, a Pride Victory. It should have the wherewithal for excursions to nearby shopping areas, only about a half mile from my door. It certainly does the trick for the weekly outdoor chores. The only problem is that now it's the main feature of my living room decor.

I'm also happy to report that the Norwegian problem appears to have resolved itself without the necessity of me having to get tough. Good thing.

*

Hey, Norway, I already said I was just kidding

http://audrey.yaresse.com/meander.html

Okay, this is somewhat unsettling: it seems the Norwegians, not being so sanguine about my last post (see below or click this link), may have tethered something of an electronic contact mine in the path of my internet surfing.

I was minding my own business, reading some on-line fiction, when I was struck by the author's odd use of the term, meander. I googled the word for images and found a site with an interesting photo of a river's convoluted path.

When I went directly to the site's current home page, I was confronted with a picture of Norwegians supposedly in spontaneous community service! What's more, I was bullied with a video taunting me with the fact that Norwegian has three more letters than the English alphabet. This was their proof that their culture is superior to our own. (WARNING: the lyrics in this video include two "F-bombs.")

Now I'm really worried. I will make this plea: if I should die unexpectedly, please be certain that my demise was due to natural causes—and not some nefarious revenge plot by the Norwegians!

* 

Sneaking in tongues

Image courtesy Google Earth.

Not for any useful purpose, but I've begun to study other languages by means of the "foreign" subtitles added to many of the movies and programs posted on YouTube. I've decided to start with Norwegian, as it seems slightly less complex than some other languages I've encountered. Plus, as a bonus, there are similarities to Swedish, Finnish and Danish. It's sort of like a Buy Three Get the Fourth One Free Sale. Of course, there're those odd letters, like the forward-slashed o (ø) and the haloed a (å), but I'm thinking they just threw those in to make it look hard. I'm not so easily fooled.

After the Scandinavian lingoes, I'll work my way through Northern Europe. I studied German in high school and I've a leg up on Polish, as I already know several prayers (thanks to my Mom) and a number of cuss words, thanks to misbehaving in front of my Dad).

And so, as they say in Oslo, Jeg bare tuller.

*

I'm still standing

Er, well, sitting, actually. In my new big-brand-name leather recliner. My former beloved recliner was, alas, a cheapie from a discount furniture emporium and soon gave up the ghost.

I'm just checking in here to mention that I am more likely to make entries at Uncle Genie's Other Blog as my life, in general, has become more static since I gave up the travel trailer, snow-birding, and driving altogether. Not quite as much of the day-to-day worthy of mention now that I am an apartment dweller.

But the brain keeps ticking over, and that stuff's more likely to show up on one of my other blogs.

*

On standby

I realize, of course, that there are millions of blogs on the internet. Short of devoting myself full time to developing a blog with commercial appeal, it is unlikely that this blog will attract any attention. What I write here is, consequently, purely for my own amusement.

For the time being, I have chosen to amuse myself elsewhere.

*

I'm hangin' up my spurs.

It's gotten to be a bit much, all the rigmarole that is required of my gratifying and enjoyable snowbird lifestyle.

So, I've decided to rent an apartment in Tucson. In addition, I'm going to sell both my GMC Suburban and my travel trailer.

As much as I love my Colorado mountain home, and as much as I dislike living in a city, health problems and increasing physical limitations suggest the need for an urban setting and the services it can provide. Much to my regret, Colorado's San Luis Valley is way too rural to provide that service base.

Since I need to go urban, I figured I might as well live close to the kids and grandkids. Besides, Tucson's always been on my short list of most tolerable cities—if you have to live in a city. Moreover, after the Rocky Mountains, I like the Sonoran Desert best.

Giving up driving is a choice I never thought I'd make—at least not voluntarily. The notion pretty much took me by surprise. But I don't enjoy driving like I used to, nor do I feel as proficient, and gas prices have really put the kibosh on the trips I had planned to make. Where once I put 20K+ miles a year on a car, nowadays it's under 3K, most of it in snow-birding twixt Tucson and South Fork.

I think I can depend on public transport in Tucson. Granted, I will miss the convenience of my own car, but I'll unload some significant expense items as well as some major headaches. In addition, I look forward to being able to afford to travel by Amtrak.

As the slogan points out, nothing is perfect.

*

Lost in time

6:17 A.M.

I'm sitting here and I realize I have absolutely no idea what day of the week it is. Not a clue. Seems like maybe the last hazy recollection I have it was possibly a Monday...or maybe a Tuesday.

Early morning traffic noise suggests it's a work day, so I guess that narrows it some.

Okay, if I had'a guess, since I'm thinkin' it doesn't feel like it's been a week since I last noticed, I'd say late in the week, maybe Thursday.

(Check my computer.) Ta-Da! Friday! Close enough for government work.

So that would make it what? Like maybe the 6th or 7th. (Check my computer again.) Ah, the 6th. Now we're cookin' with gas!

I am very easily amused.

*

Wordsmith

My MS Bookshelf American Heritage Dictionary (1992) does not include "equanimous." While surprised, I handled the revelation with equanimity.

In truth, I thought the adjective was "equananimous," about which inaccuracy I was not so equanimous. A web search showed me the error of my ways.

Other than continuing guilt for my historic lack of moral fiber and the never-ending struggles to keep my health-care clinic and mail-order pharmacy straight and timely on my prescriptions, my greatest chronic aggravation is the discovery of word usage and spellings about which I have spent the major portion of my supposedly educated life ignorant or sloppy.

It seems that wordsmithing must continue to be the subject of on-the-job training. I'm just annoyed that I've carried so much erroneous information in my head for so many years, and I wonder what other words I "know" that are, in fact, mistaken.

    Illustration by Theodor Kittelsen

    for Johan Herman Wessel's
    The Smith and the Baker.**

Watch them words!

I read on line. A lot. And I'm not averse to a little creative diction.

"She sighed her relent." This from a short story I was reading. Relent used as a noun; interesting. I liked it.

Wondering if it might be a noun, I looked it up. Nope, an intransitive verb. Of further interest, though, was an entry of an obsolete use as a transitive verb.

There were no examples, and I was too lazy to look elsewhere, so I decided to relent my search. Obsoletely.

One of my favorite, and fairly common, homonymics (a word I believe I just made up) is this error: "I should of" in place of "I should've." I mean, really, does what they write not have to make some sort of sense, beyond the sound of it? Or is the written language just something to be thrown in the blender and reduced to a mealy gruel that can sucked through a cocktail straw?

Speaking of cocktails....

*

And now for something completely different...

How I survived a train derailment

A caveat: This is a story from my ancient past, when I was a college student working summers as a freight train brakeman on the Penn Central Railroad. It was my first encounter with a world that was totally different from any previous job I’d had. It was an exotic, idiosyncratic reality: the railroad.

When I was working on the railroad, I had to learn a new language, a new cultural structure and social behaviors, and, above all, a new set of rules for survival—real sudden-death, six-feet-under survival. Working on the railroad was dangerous; safety rules and practices were paramount. The whole experience left quite an impression on me.

* * * * * * *

First, a glossary of a few railroad terms and customs as used on the Penn Central circa 1970. This is all from memory, so it’s possible some distortions or errors have crept in, but I think it’s fairly accurate in the important parts. At the time, I knew of no women working on freight trains either in the yard or on the road; my gender references reflect that. 

A GLOSSARY OF SOME RELEVANT RAILROAD TERMS

(Words in italics are also defined in the glossary.)

Gandy dancers laying new ballast.

Ballast. The supportive structure beneath the rails and ties, often a built-up and compacted layer of heavy gravel.

Black signal or black board. An unlit block signal. Trainmen often watched to the rear of their train to see what configuration the block signal changed to when their train left that block. A black board meant that there was no train in that block or in the next block behind it; if it were otherwise, the signal would remain lit. With no closely-following train to which your train might have to yield the right-of-way, your train then had operational advantages and the likelihood of a faster trip. Fast trips were good (see main line pay). Conversely, a “red board” (all red lights) or a “caution board” (yellow over red) meant that a train was following close behind, close being a relative term that could indicate from one to three miles or more.

Block signal

Block. A given section of main line track. If that section of track contained a switch or a crossover, a block might be only a few hundred feet long. If it was open, unencumbered track, a block could be a mile or more in length.

Block signal. An electronic signal device with a variable light display that governs a block the same way a traffic light governs a street intersection. Most often on tall poles, these usually red, yellow or green signal lights advised trainmen what to expect in the way of traffic, speed or other operating parameters within that block or in subsequent blocks. For the most part, block signals were automatic, responding to the movement of the trains, but they could also be controlled by the train dispatcher in Toledo.

Block signal for a
two-track main
line.

         As might be expected, red meant stop and green meant go, however, most of the main line block signals had three lights in a vertical row; beside the colors of red, yellow and green that each of the three lights could display, each light could also be set to flash. As a result, the various colors and flashing configurations could convey a fairly lengthy and complex pre-set list of messages, which list was in the timetable manual that each trainman was required to carry. Other than simple stop and go messages, block signals could indicate instructions such as “prepare to stop at the next block signal after this one” or “slow down and prepare to be switched to another track.”

          Because block signals were patterned to advise what was happening even as much as three blocks up the line, they allowed the engineer on a train to “see” miles up the track.

An 19th Century brakeman,
turning the brake wheel atop
a moving train car

Brakeman. A hundred or more years ago, before air brakes were standard, brakemen moved from car to car on top of moving trains, operating the manual brakes on each car; it was extraordinarily dangerous work.

          In my day, while setting manual brakes was sometimes still a duty when assembling or disassembling trains, most of the brakeman’s job on the main line consisted of performing visual safety checks on his own and passing trains, operating manual switches, coupling and uncoupling freight cars and their air brake hoses, originating or passing hand signals to advise the engineer how to move the train, and, when I was lucky enough to have a window seat, waving to kids in the cars stopped at grade crossings. For the most part, brakemen did the grunt work.

This "bay window" caboose was the

most common type on the PC.

Caboose. Ah, the good old days. All trains had a caboose when I was working on the railroad. Originally, the caboose served as crew quarters for a train, containing kitchen, toilet and sleeping facilities. In my day, while there was still a head and rudimentary kitchen and sleeping accommodations, chiefly the caboose served as a safety lookout and as the conductor’s office. The caboose had a small compressed air-powered whistle and a valve that could operate the train’s air brakes.

A traditional "cupola" caboose
in faded PC green livery;

the PC still had a few of these.

    Most of my trips I rode in the engine as the head brakeman; rather than designating any authority, the title simply indicated I rode at the “head” end of the train. As the new guy, I was low man on the totem pole; the head brakeman did most of the work. The brakeman who rode in the caboose was called the flagman. Once in a while, I got to be the flagman.

Conductor. The train’s supervisor, responsible both for seeing that the train’s consist was properly configured when it reached the Division terminus and for the performance and safety of the train’s crew.

Consist. Pronounced CON-sist. The freight cars that make up a freight train.

Electric (battery)
signaling lantern

Crew. In those days, an Ohio state law actually required trains be tended by a squad of workers similar to what they’d had in the days of steam engines: a conductor, an engineer, a fireman and two brakemen. Nowadays, the sad fact is that most main line freights can operate with just an engineer and a conductor. Of course, we didn’t have radios back then. Hand signaling along a curved track often required one or two brakemen to pass signals to the engineer if the conductor was signaling from the rear of the train.

         Within this five-man crew there was a further subdivision, based on job duties: the engineer and fireman were of the technical caste while the conductor and brakemen were of the drone caste, even though the conductor was the train’s boss. Most of the men were friendly, whatever their job, but a few engineers and firemen were definitely snobby toward brakemen.

A "scissors" crossover

Crossover. A switch connection allowing trains to move between parallel main line tracks. Sometimes called an "interlocking."

Engineer. The train driver. On the road, he watched the block signals to determine train movement. When working on spurs and sidings, he watched the hand signals from the brakemen and conductor to determine train movement.

Extra board. The list of the names of temporary or new trainmen who fill in open assignments for crew members who are on leave, etc. Summertime saw many regular trainmen on vacation, so the extra board was filled with temporary help—like me.

    On the extra board, when you finished working a train, your name went to the bottom of the list and rotated to the top. I rarely worked with the same crew twice. My hours were, at best, irregular. I probably averaged about 10-12 hours off between assignments all summer. Eight hours between assignments was the minimum required by law, but that included commute time, shower, meals and what all. Many times I got a callout just 6½ hours after punching out, with instructions to report to a train exactly eight hours after I'd climbed down off the last one.

Fireman. In the days of steam engines, the fireman kept the boiler lit, fueled and operational and otherwise assisted the engineer. In my day, it was assumed the fireman was an engineer-in-training and was to assist the engineer. In actuality, except for taking over the controls on the very rare occasion that an engineer had to use the head while the train was moving, none of the firemen I rode with seemed to do much of anything. And even though they were guaranteed a window seat, some firemen didn’t even wave to the kids at grade crossings. I mean, is nothing sacred?

Gandy dancer. An old railroad term for maintenance-of-way workers: the men who put down the trackbed and track, and made sure it stayed there. The origin of the term is not certain.

Back up

Hand signals. Nowadays, trainmen use hand-held radios. When I worked the PC, crews weren't provided with radios—we used hand signals, a language of its own. There was a large array of hand signals conveying a wide range of information and instructions. A conductor might signal a brakeman to “uncouple the 4th car and close the air valve.” Or the brakeman on one train might signal a train passing in the opposite direction, “The brakes are locked on the 32nd car from the rear end of your train and the wheels are sliding.”

          But there were four basic hand signals: “go forward,” an up and down waving motion in front of your body; “back up,” a circular motion of your arm and hand; “slow down,” an arm raised up and held steady; and “stop,” either a wave from side to side across your body or both arms out to your sides waving up and down, like in the exercise called a jumping jack—except you don’t jump.

Proceed
forward

          At night, we used railroad lanterns—basically a flashlight with a large reflector and a semi-circular handle—or, if signaling over a considerable distance, we used what we called a fusee (few-ZEE). Most folks call it a flare; they are the fiercely burning chemical-packed tubes producing a bright red flame and are commonly used by highway patrol officers as temporary traffic warning devices.

          If you were far from the engine, you made your signals large, slow and obvious, especially at night. If you were close to the engine in the daytime, signals might be made with just short, simple movements of one hand.

Stop

          The up and down wave meaning “go forward” also, depending on circumstances, could mean “your train looks good” (as a safety check to a passing train), “the track is clear ahead” and “highball” (proceed at your maximum safe speed). The term “highball” referred to an early railroad semaphore signaling device that used an iron ball. When the ball was in its highest position, it meant that the track ahead was clear and the train could proceed at maximum safe speed.

          One thing the timetable manual made clear: any unusual frantic waving motion by someone next to the track meant STOP. Frantic waving saved a kid’s life one time—but that’s another story.

A rusty hopper in PC green.
Heh-heh! This  picture is from a
finely detailed model railroad.

Hopper car. An open-top type of rolling stock that is used for carrying loose bulk materials; it has opening doors on the underside or on the sides to discharge its cargo.

Hotel. The railroad hotel in Cleveland was a dingy old ramshackle two-story dormitory with food service, showers and a TV lounge. It was located in a rust- and soot-encrusted industrial area at the edge of the PC’s Cleveland yard. The rooms were tiny, just big enough to hold a single bed and a straight-back chair; a grimy window looked out on who knows what. On the other hand, the accommodations were free and the sheets were clean.

    The food was hearty and cheap. I once bought a T-bone steak dinner for $2.25, a small fraction of the price of a restaurant steak even in those days. Usually though, no matter what time of day I got in, I ordered breakfast: eggs over easy and hash-browned potatoes. And when they woke me up 6½ hours later to crew a train back to Toledo, I ate breakfast again. It was at the railroad hotel that a conductor I’d crewed with insisted that I drop my eggs on top of my hash browns and then pestered me to sprinkle them with Tabasco; I’ve been eating them that way ever since.

The knuckle. Its "pin"

is attached to the chain

link visible on the cen-

ter beam; here the pin is

down, in the locked

position.

Knuckle or Janney coupler. The standard device for coupling railroad cars together in the U.S. The knuckle is efficient and semi-automatic; a locking “pin” has to be operated manually to uncouple. However, they require the significant force of a slowly-moving train to activate the coupling mechanism, and a brakeman or conductor must direct and observe the hook-up to assure that the pin has dropped into the locking position, and then to manually connect the air brake hoses. To uncouple, a trainman must operate a lever which raises the pin from the locked position. The pin is actually a solid iron bar about an inch-and-a-half thick and foot long.

Main line. In this case, the 120 miles of Penn Central tracks between Toledo, Ohio and Cleveland, Ohio. More specifically, that part of the right-of-way that was outside the boundary of a major railroad yard. The section between Toledo and Cleveland was double-tracked, meaning it had two parallel railroad tracks with intermittent crossover connections; this arrangement allowed for a significant advantage in the movement of trains. The main line was also known as the road.

Knuckles coupled;
another design of the Janney

         The PC Toledo East Division main line ran through the industrial areas of large and small cities and towns, but most of the right-of-way was through suburbs, farmlands and woodlots and sometimes ran parallel to highways, which provided me with another opportunity to pull on my big, leather, gauntleted work gloves and wave to the kids in passing cars. The main line also had stretches right on the shore of Lake Erie, frequently traversing bridges and causeways across rivers, inlets and small bays; it could be quite scenic.

Main line pay. Trainmen were permanently assigned to either the main line or the yard. Yard work had regular shifts, but the work was more physical. Main line workers, while dealing with very irregular hours, enjoyed a bit more of the panache of true railroading and, depending on circumstances, could earn more money than yard workers. Main line trainmen on the PC were paid both an hourly rate and by a formula that took into account the size of the consist and the distance you traveled. In the Toledo East Division, the maximum and usual distance was 120 miles and trains could sometimes have over one hundred cars, though 60 to 70 cars were more common. That mileage and the number of cars boosted your pay. The hourly rate wasn’t that much; you earned the highest wage with long trains that did little work and moved quickly to your Division terminus.

Maintenance-of-way. The operational division charged with maintaining the tracks, trackbed and related items upon which the trains moved.

PC, the Penn Central logo

PC. See Penn Central

Penn Central. The railroad that resulted from the merger of the New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad. It operated in the 1960s and -70s. In turn, the Penn Central, along with several other north-eastern U.S. railroads, was folded into Conrail. Because of its logo, the Penn Central was also known as the PC.

Fusee (see Hand signals)

Radios. Ha! We didn’t have radios back then. A few of the engines had two-way radios installed, but they were for communicating with the dispatcher in Toledo. When working to direct train movement, PC trainmen used hand signals.

Right-of-way. 1. The strip of land owned or otherwise controlled by the railroad along its tracks. 2. The superior claim of one train’s movement over another train. On the PC, the hierarchy of train movement went first to passenger trains, then mail trains, then trains with perishable goods (e.g., refrigerated food), then unit trains (i.e., trains with a consist of all-alike cars and cargo, such as coal hoppers or automobile carriers, also called “auto racks”), then mixed freight trains and, at the bottom of the list, trains with a consist of empty cars and finally, trains like TR-12 (see Work).

Road. Often, the road. Another term for the main line, specifically a term differentiating the main line from the yard. I worked on the road.

Rolling stock. Any wheeled equipment that could move along the railroad tracks. This would include locomotive engines, freight or passenger cars, cabooses, maintenance-of-way vehicles, etc.

Siding. A short section of railroad track connected at each end by switches to a main track.

Slow orders.  Written or printed orders always handed directly to the conductor and engineer specifying provisional speed restrictions for particular blocks of track, usually where gandy dancers were working or some other exceptional and temporary hazard existed.

Spur. A side track that connects with a main track via a switch.

A switch, set for the track
to the right

Switch. An arrangement of movable rails that allows a train to transfer between adjacent tracks.

Switch run. A regularly scheduled local train that works a spur line, factory yard or other routine assignment, mostly on feeder lines off the main line.

Territory. The geographic region governed by a specific operational division of the railroad, including all of the main line and spur, rights-of-way, trackage, block signals, buildings, and other appurtenances therein. The Toledo East Division was a territory.

Toledo East Division. I worked in the PC’s Toledo East Division, which extended from Toledo, Ohio to Cleveland, Ohio and included the main line between the two cities as well as a number of spur lines throughout northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan. The Toledo East Division was just one territory along one of the PC’s main lines, this one extending from Chicago, Illinois to Buffalo, New York.

Truck

Truck. The wheels and supportive undercarriage on which railroad cars move.

Union. The railroad workers’ union; I don’t remember which union it was. As a summertime vacation-relief employee, I never worked long enough to qualify to join; even so, membership dues were deducted from my wages. Still, the rules of the union contract with the Penn Central strictly governed my specific job responsibilities and working conditions.

Air brake hoses are joined here
in a loop below the knuckles.
A brakeman or conductor
had to manually join the hose
ends after the cars were
coupled.

Work. A main line term for having to stop at a siding, spur or local yard to pick up and/or drop off freight cars for/from your train. It may sound simple, but it was the slow, cumbersome, frequent and basic physical grunt work of main line trains—and it was mostly performed by the brakemen. Work involved walking long distances rapidly (running was strictly prohibited by safety rules), climbing on and off moving train cars, operating manual switches, coupling and uncoupling freight cars, manually connecting air brake hoses, setting manual brakes on freight cars, directing the engineer with hand signals and other duties. It was a rare and happy occasion when your train went the whole distance without work.

The brake hose couplings are on the
right. I had to learn a special
two-handed twist grip to join the
coupling.

    A few trains had so much work—especially one late-night clean-up train always designated TR-12—that the crew could reach the 16-hour work limit and still not have arrived at the Cleveland yard. It would be put into a siding and have to wait until a relief crew could be driven out from Toledo. No one liked to be detailed to TR-12, including me. It not only was assigned a lot of work, it also was forced to yield the right-of-way to every other train, making for repeated, lengthy delays.

Common yard limit designator

Yard. An area where railroad trains are made up and cars are switched, stored, and serviced on tracks and sidings.

Yard day. Wages equivalent to working eight hours in the yard.

Yard limit. The official boundary of a railroad yard. The rules and practices of train movement and trainmen’s duties changed at the yard limit: yard rules versus road rules.

* * * * * * *

And now, how I survived a train derailment...

(Underlined words or phrases indicate

the first use of a term in the glossary.)

I was 19 that summer and had just finished my freshman year in college. I was working the extra board as a main line brakeman on the Penn Central, assigned to the Toledo East Division.

Early in July, some horrendous thunderstorms had muscled through the Great Lakes region. Throughout northern Ohio, especially along the southern shores of Lake Erie, there was considerable flooding and wind damage. The PC main line ran along that southern shore, sometimes along the shoreline itself.

Notably problematic for the Penn Central and the trainmen that worked it, was that the block signal system along the entire main line had been damaged by the storm—all the signals were black. Often, while operating trains on the main line, a black signal to your rear was good, indicating no trains were approaching from that direction with which your train might have to contend for right-of-way. But that was not the case this time.

Even under the best conditions, moving, manipulating and managing mile-long trains weighing thousands of tons and put together from dozens upon dozens of massive segments of rolling stock was a dangerous way to make a living. Without the block signals, it felt very much like trying to jaywalk a busy highway while wearing a blindfold; it was out and out scary.

There were slow orders covering the entire Division’s main line; even tracks that normally had a 70 mile-per-hour speed limit were now restricted to a maximum speed of 35 m.p.h. for all trains. As one might imagine, this really gummed-up the flow of train traffic.

First time I was called in after the storm, they couldn't even get us on our train and out of the yard within the required (union rules) 60 minutes, so I got paid a yard day after only two hours on duty—spent sitting on a bench in a locker room.

Next time I'm called in, they got us past the yard limit, though it still took more than an hour, so I earned a yard day plus my regular main line pay. But the block signals were still out and the slow orders remained in effect. All the movement instructions came via radio (though not all engines had radios yet) and via the phone boxes—actually small sheds—that were located every few miles along the right-of-way. We spent a lot of time standing still.

After about 12 hours, we finally made the Cleveland yard. I had a cheap but hearty meal at the railroad hotel and signed into a tiny room for the required eight hours of rest. Then it was another slow crawl past all black signals on a train back home.

My next call-out was for a switch run, a train designated the Red Arrow. I have no idea why it was called that. The name was far classier than the train and its work, which was tending to factory and agricultural spurs in and near several small towns in northern Ohio.

Brakeman operating a switch lever.

Part of our work that day was a bit unusual and was related to the storms from nearly a week before: replacing some trackbed ballast where flooding had left some gaps. Union rules said the train crew couldn't do maintenance-of-way chores, so a crew of PC gandy dancers met us at the site.

In front of the Red Arrow’s engine we were pushing a couple hopper cars loaded with the heavy gravel the PC used for ballast. The conductor said it might be interesting to watch, so I got down to scope out the process.

The dancers placed a railroad tie across the rails just in front of the hopper's rear truck. Then they opened the hopper's bottom dump chute to drop some of the gravel onto the track. Coordinating with the conductor, who'd taken charge of directing train movement, they pushed the hopper slowly over the washed-out spots. The railroad tie, pushed along by the truck's steel wheels and sliding on top the rails, acted as a spreader, and filled in the gaps with the new ballast.

The dancers then did their thing, using heavy digging bars and long-handled picks to jam the ballast in place and settle-out air pockets. It was hard, hot, dusty work; I was glad I was watching from the shade of a nearby tree.

After replacing the ballast, the last part of our assignment was to pick up a piece of factory equipment in some little town I don't remember the name of anymore.

Arriving at a short spur, we left the rest of the consist out on the switch line (the Red Arrow was the only train that worked that line) and took the engine across the switch. The spur, maybe a couple hundred yards long, led right into a large wood-frame machine shed. The shed looked like a giant 1940’s-vintage garage, with two sliding wood doors, each with a row of windows high up. If Paul Bunyan had owned a suitably-sized Packard, this shed would have contained it nicely.

The doors were closed and secured with a padlock; the conductor had a key and he slid the doors open. (For all the work the other brakeman and I did on this trip, we were about as useful as teats on a tractor tire—but, those were the rules.)

A double-trucked, drop-center flat car, empty

Inside the shed was an enormous machine, about the size of two semi-trailers and mostly contained under a green-painted metal hood; I had no inkling as to its purpose. It was already loaded and secured on an unusual piece of rolling stock: a heavy-duty, drop-center flat car. It had double trucks at both ends and its entire center deck was low to the tracks.

The conductor directed the engineer in coupling onto this monstrosity. With the knuckles connected and the air hoses joined, the conductor gave the hand signal to move out of the shed. It was an oversize load, so we were operating under severe speed restrictions; even so, the engineer barely idled out of the shed.

I was standing outside on the engine's catwalk with the other brakeman. We were just watching the show and enjoying the weather.

And, just like that: THUMP! A single, solid tremor rattled through the engine. And we weren't moving anymore.

The diesels revved for a second, and again. Then we heard the engineer cussing loudly.

The other brakeman and I had no idea what the problem was. I thought the thump was just us pulling slack out of the knuckles.

But the engineer came to the cab door and began yelling at us, "How fast do you think we were going?" We couldn't figure out why he was asking us that, and we glanced at each other, not sure what exactly it was he was referring to.

Exasperated, the engineer repeated the question, this time adding a few choice expletives.

I finally said "Uh, if you mean just now, then maybe one or two miles per hour."

Then he made the other brakeman estimate it and he said, "Couldn't been more than two miles an hour."

"Okay, remember that!" the engineer snarled at us.

He then warned the fireman to keep his mouth shut, and he went back to his seat, sat down, crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the engine controls, silently fuming.

Something important had happened, but I hadn't a clue as to what it was.

The conductor, who is actually the boss on a train, had been walking around looking beneath the engine. Finally, he climbed up on the engine, squeezed past me and the other brakeman and went into the cab to talk to the engineer. We’d moved to the engine’s cabin door over on the fireman’s side of the cab when the conductor went inside. The conductor had his back to us and we couldn’t hear what he was saying. The engineer gave a couple grudging nods, then he snapped at the conductor, "I'm not sayin' nothin’ else until I talk to my union rep."

The other brakeman and I still didn't know what the heck was going on. It was probably five minutes before the conductor came over and explained to us why we weren't moving anymore: we were on the ground (railroad-speak for being derailed); the engine wasn't on the rails anymore!

I couldn't believe it. That thump was us being derailed?

Not hardly.

To me, a derailment meant big-time smash-ups, spilled cargo and bodily injury, not a minor bump—especially since the senior crew members were so cranked up about it. I thought we got off pretty light for derailing a diesel locomotive. Heck, I’d been standing while it happened and never even came close to losing my balance (of course, I'd been following one of the cardinal rules for working on a moving train: always have ahold of something solidly attached to the train. In this case, it was the safety rail alongside the catwalk).

Later, I learned from the conductor that the engineer was reacting to the anticipated incident hearing that would likely result from the grounding. The engineer fully expected that company management would rake him over the coals for the accident. On the PC, according to employee lore, there was no greater sin than to put your train on the ground and there was no greater catchall than "employee error." The engineer was so concerned about the hearing that he’d refused to even admit that we were on the ground, even refused to tell the rest of the crew what he knew had happened. Nor would the fireman say anything, after the engineer had warned him not to talk to anybody about it. Incident hearings could result in severe disciplinary action, up to and including being fired.

Typical switch run engine. The head brakeman

sat in a center seat, enjoying a "view" of the

forward bulkhead; it made for a tedious ride.

I climbed down and looked under the engine but no rails were visible; everything was hidden by the undercarriage which was pressed into the muddy ballast. The recent storms had left many places still saturated.

Fortunately, the machine shed was right across the street from a little motel and diner; the conductor went over there to call it in.

Meanwhile, the engineer'd been sitting there in a giant pout. After a while he started muttering, "They're not gonna' pin this on me, damit! This wasn't my fault," over and over again.

The conductor came back after about a half hour and told us that things were still a mess throughout the territory because of the storm. They couldn't get a crane out there until the next day, so we were there for the night. He also explained to me and the other brakeman that management seldom found equipment failure as a cause for incidents, and tended to put the blame on crews, which was why the engineer was acting so squirrelly. He even warned us to talk to a union rep because we might be at risk. I was dumbfounded! How in the heck was I responsible for whatever it is that had happened? (In fact, I was long gone back to college before anything ever came of it, if it ever did.)

So, unprepared for an overnight, and filthy and sweaty (more from the heat of the day and the dust from the new ballast than from any real work), I crossed the street with the rest of the crew to the little motel. The conductor signed us in, on the railroad's dime, though we had to pay for our own meals (hey, union contract).

About 9 the next morning, the same gandy dancers showed up and finally, a couple hours later, two semi-tractor-mounted 30-ton cranes pulled up on the street next to the tracks. The plan was for the cranes to lift the engine, the dancers would repair the track, and the cranes would set the engine back on the rails.

70-ton railcar-mounted crane

The PC’s problem was that all the heavyweight railcar-mounted cranes were busy with storm damage elsewhere; the best they could get were these two 30-ton mobile lifters. Unfortunately, we had a 70-ton locomotive engine.

Well, the dancer boss got to head-scratching with a supervisor muckety-muck who had come out from Cleveland and they came up with a new plan: they'll have the cranes lift the engine one end at a time, fix the track under each end in turn, and set the engine down on each repaired portion. Downside is, the job will take about three times longer than it would have with a heavier crane. On the other hand, I'm getting paid to sit around and watch a really interesting project and, except for the lack of a toothbrush, razor, deodorant and clean clothes, I'm at peace with the world.

30-ton mobile crane

When they first lifted one end of the locomotive, it's discovered that one of the rails simply fractured under the engine. Best guess was that the relatively old ties and trackbed on the machine shed spur were further weakened by all the rain (we'd motored through some major puddles at several places), the spikes had let go, and the rail split under the un-supported stress. I was wondering how the bosses would blame that on crew error.

We were back on the rails by about 8 that evening. The supervisor from Cleveland decided not to move the heavy factory machine over the track until the entire spur could be inspected. We pushed the big flatcar back into the shed, and the conductor closed and locked the doors.

Three hours later, with the main line block signals back in working order, we were in the Toledo yard and my assignment with the Red Arrow was finished.

And I'd survived a train derailment.

PC main line freight passing a switch tower

But not without injury.

While watching the repairs, I had moved well away from the track so as not to be in the way. Several days later I discovered I'd wandered into some poison ivy—had it all over my right arm.

Speaking of injuries, there was the time I fell off a caboose as the train was picking up speed on the main line—me square on my keister next to the track and the conductor yelling from the back platform of the rapidly departing caboose, “C’mon! Run! You can make it!”

But that's another story.

*