Feelings

   The benefit of being a caring and sensitive person, beyond the positive effect on the people you deal with, is that your enjoyments are more joyful; the highs are higher. The unfortunate flip side is that the lows are lower; hurts hurt more. It’s terribly painful to be palpably, gut-wrenchingly lovelorn and bereft.

    After only a couple weeks of getting used to the fact that [Ms. name withheld], with her insistent femininity and her curly light brown hair and flashing blue eyes, would never be more than a wish for me she crossed my path again, this time with the man she’s been with for a long time I’ve learned. I wish she hadn’t come in.

    Now even the activities I pursued to keep my mind off my wretched aloneness and her unattainability have lost their power. My motivation and joy of life have evaporated. Climbing into bed, pulling the covers over my head and waiting for the end of the world or death, whichever comes first, is not an option. Neither is getting blind drunk and forgetting that I ever wanted to love.

    My mission, if I choose to accept it, is to learn how to squeeze some joy out of the emptiness that comes from living long enough to become old. I refuse to self destruct. I don’t appreciate self pity or want pity but I don’t want to believe I’ll spend the rest of my life involuntarily celibate simply because I’m older.

    Frank Sinatra thought of his years as vintage wine. His songs speak to me ever more plainly with each passing day even though my wine has turned to vinegar. Maybe one of those who claim to love my voice will see it comes attached to a man. That might restore the wine’s sweetness.

“You give something to me, I’m thankful; You accept something from me, I’m blessed”

— Unknown

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Bureaucratic Logic, An Oxymoron?

    The city has removed the handicapped parking space I used across the street from my residence. Why? Because I didn’t recertify my continuing eligibility for a handicapped space. Why not? Because my doctor is too busy being a doctor and will not allow the dropping off of forms to be filled out.

    I tried that several years ago and the deadline came and went and the form had migrated to the bottom of his IN box. In all following years he completed the form during one of my two annual check-ups, usually May/June or November/December.

    So, what’s the problem? The city has a very strict protocol regarding the annual recertification. They mail the form in December. The form arrives after my fall doctor appointment. They WILL NOT issue a form manually for me to take to my doctor. It HAS TO BE MAILED and invariably on their schedule.

    The deadline for completing and returning the recertification of continuing need is March 15th and failure to meet that deadline “may result in the removal of your handicap parking signs and would require you to reapply and pay a re-installation fee”.

    In past years I have pleaded with the appropriate department to look at the fact that I have lived at this location for more than 20 years, that as long as I keep getting older instead of dying that my condition will not improve and that since I didn’t notify them of a vehicle change or a move that my continuing need at the same location was implicit. I pleaded with them to bend the deadline since I wished my life to be life-driven not form-driven. Could they “bend” the deadline? Of course they could! Would they? Need you ask? The sign is gone!

    The argument that the deadline is part of the city ordinances does not hold water since many city ordinances are routinely ignored. It’s a different kind of selective enforcement not to be confused with the city police department’s Selective Enforcement Unit. Specifically the ordinances pertaining to “Parking within the lines”. What lines? Sections 285-27 and 285-29 state clearly that “all parking spaces shall be designated by lines or markings” and that each parked vehicle “shall be entirely within the lines”. Before the installation of meters, 6 or 7 cars parked in 5 spaces. Since the installation of meters, 6 or 7 cars park in 4 spaces designated by imaginary lines emanating from the two double-headed meters in my block. No enforcement.

    According to a street department spokesperson, they “don’t do that”, that is, paint lines. According to another street department official, they’d have trouble painting lines while cars are parked there. That official DID NOT KNOW there’s a “no parking” time from 2AM to 6AM Mondays when the street is totally free of cars. No enforcement.

    Another routinely unenforced ordinance is the practice of “plugging” the meter. Section 285-33 specifically prohibits extending the parking time beyond the established limit for parking at that location. If the meter says 2 hour limit, it means 2 hour limit. Come back after 1 hour and 59 minutes and drop some more coins in and you would be in violation. And then there are the ignored ordinances pertaining to speed, pedestrian crosswalks and loud exhausts and radios. No enforcement.

    I am not handicapped in the usual sense of the word. Is it even acceptable to use that word anymore other than on the golf course? People are not handicapped or disabled, they’re differently abled. Is that more politically sensitive?

    My “handicap” is PVD (Peripheral Vascular Disease) with circulatory insufficiency, neuropathy and intermittent claudication. Wow, what a mouthful. Simply, my blood vessels can’t get enough oxygen to all the right places quickly enough. Walking hurts and I have to stop frequently to let the pain subside.

    I will miss the convenience of having that handicapped parking space so close to my home. If I can’t get home and park before the Fulton activities or the Ware center activities or the Chameleon activities or the Tally Ho activities, I have to park a block away or stay out until the crowds have gone.

    I will not reapply. I’ll walk. It may be painful but the pain in my legs eventually subsides. And now, the annual pain in my derriere from dealing with the city will also subside.

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Rail Testing and Real Testing

    In the late 1960s and early 1970s I worked for Sperry Rail Service testing railroad rails to find any developing defects within the rails which could result in a broken rail ending in a potentially devastating derailment. One of our test routes was through West Virginia on the Norfolk and Western railroad.

    The terrain between Williamson, WV and Bluefield, WV is quite hilly and isolated.  The testing is done at a speed no more than 13 mph and to completely test both main tracks between those two points took several days. At the end of each testing day, a tie-down spot was chosen about midway between Williamson and Bluefield in the railroad town of Iaeger, West Virginia. That put us at the most convenient location for a quick return to the spot where testing stopped at the end of the previous work day.

    In Iager, the tie-down spot for the night was in front of the old freight station where the necessary facilities were available to us. After completing the daily maintenance on our rail test car, we were free to enjoy the pleasures of a small town evening on the town.

    One of those pleasures was Marie’s bar where many of the local young women would socialize and might offer a challenge to “Flip you a quarter for the jukebox”. It was an easy challenge. The odds were generally 50/50 and either way, some music would result from the quarters put up by the loser of the toss. It was music since Rap didn’t exist yet. Anne Murray’s Little Snowbird or any of Merle Haggard’s or Charley Pride’s songs would likely have been among the choices.

    These young ladies were not B-girls hustling for the house. They were just local ladies out for some socializing. And the challenge was honest, not underhanded. And therein comes the real testing.

    I had the opportunity last evening to socialize among some younger local ladies. A couple of them seemed eager to listen to a crooning Old Dinosaur. Their interest felt genuine until they INSISTED I have a shot with them. Rachel asked what I would like. I told her Windsor and she ordered for the three of us including her friend Emily.

    They listened to my next song, applauded and chatted a bit longer and then left. I hung around for another song or two and asked the bartender, an inexperienced trainee, for my tab. I was shocked to discover the round Rachel ordered for us was on my tab.

    Unlike Iaeger, where the ladies who want something ask for it, these two B-girls-in-training chose to use underhanded means to get a free drink. Had they asked, I might have offered to buy them a drink. They chose instead to hustle. How cheap!

    The real test is in trying to determine whether the small town taproom in an economically depressed small town will have more genuine honesty than would an upscale lounge in a thriving community.

    I think it’s time to start thinking in terms of rich white trash rather than the more common counterpart.

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Railfan? What’s That?

    I grew up close to a railroad crossing and if I remember correctly, the sound of a steam locomotive whistle blowing a long, long, short, long warning (Rule 14 L on most railroads described in rule books with these symbols  ——  ——  -  —— ) before crossing Main street was the first outside-the-house sound I heard. Little wonder then that as I became old enough to wander around on my own that I’d wind up in the railroad yard watching trains as their crews shifted cars replacing empty cars with new loaded cars for the town’s industries.

    I spent many happy hours there talking to the train crews and to the men who would be unloading the cars — sometimes sand for the molders in the foundry or pig iron ingots to be melted in that foundry and poured into molds creating some useful product.

    I didn’t question why I enjoyed being there. It seemed natural for a boy to enjoy these things. Years later I analyzed the attraction and found some parallels.  Even though trains were being pulled by diesel electric engines instead of steam locomotives beginning in the early 1950s, the display of sheer power was part of the fascination. But it was not only the power, it was the almost magical containment of that power — a dynamic equilibrium between latent inertia and kinetic motion.

    It can be fairly equated with dynamite and poetry. A stick of dynamite, slit lengthwise and set on fire would simply burn - fast, but still just burn. It would not explode. It’s the containment that gives it its explosive power. Once the container can no longer contain the expanding gases the expansion bursts forth instantaneously.

    And with poetry it is the containment of words, ordinary words, which properly measured and restrained acquire a power that the individual words do not possess if expressed in prose.

    With trains, try to imagine the sight and sound of 3 or 4 diesel locomotives each having approximately 4,000 horsepower moving a train of 100 or more cars at a speed of 50 miles per hour or more confined between two ribbons of steel.

    THAT is contained power.
    THAT is the dynamic equilibrium.
    THAT is the attraction.

    The word fan is probably a shortened form of the word fanatic as is often applied to describe someone with any strong interest in an activity. The word buff is sometimes used but that is usually reserved for a police or fire follower. Aficionado was used by Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises to describe a person who had aficion or extreme devotion to the sport of bull fighting.

    Railfan is probably the best word to describe an enthusiast of railroad operations — the sights, the sounds, the smells. Among the sights are the wayside signals the engineers need to know the meanings of to proceed safely into the next stretch of track. Learning to read the signals was a most satisfying accomplishment. It helped me know what was likely to happen next.

    Signals have a default indication until just before a train will come past that signal. If you know the default indication and some other indication is displayed, it is safe to conclude that another train will soon be there. Add to that knowledge a radio scanner and you will have a handy tool to assist in the train watching experience.

    Another sight that was enjoyable but is rapidly disappearing in this age of ubiquitous graffiti artists is the often colorful slogans adopted by the various railroads for their railcars back when there were hundreds of individual railroad companies. Some of the more entertaining were: Better by a Dam Site, Chattahoochee Industrial Railroad (CIRR), Be Specific, Ship Union Pacific Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR), Southern Gives A Green Light to Innovation Southern Railroad (SOU), The Sole Leather Line Wellsville, Addison and Galeton (WAG), The Bridge Line to New England and Canada Delaware and Hudson (D&H), The Road to Paradise Strasburg (SRR), The Nickel Plate Road New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (NYC&St.L aka NKP).

    These days, railroads are just as likely to lease their rolling stock from lessors such as RBOX for boxcars or TTX for container carriers or UTLX for tank cars. The days of catchy phrases and company sponsored artwork are gone. Why spend the money to adorn your own equipment if its going to be obliterated by graffiti?

    Graffiti or not it can still be an enjoyable break from the routine to sit by the tracks and anticipate the arrival of the next fast freight on its way from somewhere to somewhere else.

Manheim PA looking west

Manheim, PA looking east

Manheim, PA looking east from Oak street

Lebanon, PA at East street looking at "High Green" for a westbound on track 2

Lebanon, PA at 8th street looking west at Clear signals at CP Wall interlocking

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Martinis and Manhole Covers

    While trying to avoid excess wear and tear on my car’s tires and suspension system by straddling or steering around manhole covers it occurred to me that there’s a conspiracy between municipalities and auto repair facilities.

    I wondered about the term “manhole covers” and whether it was now politically incorrect to refer to those things as “manhole covers” and if so, what a more PC term would be. I seriously doubt that “womanhole covers” would be well received. Person hole covers? People hole covers?

    Since the “stuff” underground which needs to be accessed periodically can be any number of things — electric power lines,  water supply lines, communication lines, gas pipe lines, sewage or storm runoff — which are essentially utilities, why not call them “utility access covers”?

    Which brings up the question, “Why was there never some standard for where these car jolting disruptions of a street’s smooth surface were placed”? Obviously, the access must be near the utility being accessed but with no standard before the utility is placed under the street, the street surface can become a jolting experience to travel.

    Drive in a straight line and, invariably, one or the other of your wheels will hit an access cover. Drive a few more yards and there’ll be another cover under the other wheel. A few more yards and you’ll come upon another cover in still a different location. To straddle or steer around these obstacles would make the driver appear intoxicated with all the swerving.

    American Standards Association in 1966 adopted a “Safety Code and Requirements for Dry Martinis” (It‘s the bright-light-through-the-vermouth-bottle-from-a-specified-distance-for-a-specified-exposure-time method.) No such standards exist for the non-disruptive placement of manhole covers. A driver swerving to avoid hitting a no-longer-flush manhole cover could appear to have consumed too many martinis, standard or not.

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Spring

    The prayers for re-leaf from the Moors of Brecknock have been answered and the morbid moors have become a tantalizing dell. The long winter nakedness is now gradually dressing in the clothes of spring.

    Birds test the branches for this year’s new real estate and the hummingbirds and butterflies will soon unknowingly pick up their pollination supplies while nourishing their thirst for nectar.

    Frank Sinatra wonders where have all the springs and winters of a lifetime gone. Well one of those springs is right here in Brecknock with September well into the future.

    An uncountable number of gentle greens welcome the ravishing reds among the passionate pinks and amiable amethyst arbors.

    Could this be anything but foreplay for summer?

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LST: Another Lovable Acronym

When I was in the Navy, LST was the abbreviation used to describe an amphibious support ship, a landing ship that could accommodate tanks of an Army or Marine Corps armored division. The abbreviation meant Landing Ship, Tank.

Fast forward to the present in East Hempfield Township which has no war, no need for a ship of any kind but their LST has just hit the scene with their Local Services Tax, a semi-generic renaming of the former Emergency and Municipal Service Tax.

I learned that this animal had reared its ugly head when I reported to work yesterday and picked up my most recent pay stub. It didn't take long to discover why my recent direct deposit was less than I calculated it should be — They started working on stealing $52 dollars from me. That's the total amount of the tax.

The tax language is clear. If the rate decided upon by the municpality is more than $10 (per year) then anyone earning less than $12,000 is exempt and the employer is required to stop the withholding of any instalments toward this tax.

Seems straightforward enough. Trouble is, though, the employee must present a request for exemption which requires knowing enough about the circumstances allowing exemption, knowing that a request for exemption must be presented to the employer and figuring out where to get the necessary certification application to be completed and presented to the employer with a copy of the previous year's W-2.

The employer (or their payroll service) KNOWS which employees earned less than the stipulated $12K last year and the year before that and the year before that. Wouldn't it be simpler for them to just simply NOT withhold the tax for those employees?

I spent more than an hour reading on line about the tax, downloading the certificate for exemption, downloading the request for refund of the amount withheld which should not have been withheld, completing the forms and assembling the packets including proof of last years earnings.

The amount withheld for the first installment was only $12 and I spent more than that (in time spent at my current hourly rate) just to stop this animal in its tracks. Had I not (and there's no guarantee I'll stop it in time to prevent another installment from being grabbed) I'd wind up being "shorted" on the next several checks.

Don't payroll services have account technicians to monitor and accountants to oversee the services they're being payed to perform? Why should a retiree working part-time to supplement Social Security have to jump through these hoops? Are attention to detail and logical thinking beyond the scope of payroll services?

I don't even live in the taxing municipality. 

Just another "Taxation without Representation" nuisance.

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