Robert Pence

Very inviting-looking. It's wonderful to find these enclaves from an earlier time amid all the concrete and glass and asphalt.

An exterior view of Youngstown's Liberty-Paramount Theater from 2008. One of the vintage photo murals at sidewalk level, showing the theater and the street activity in more prosperous times.

Wow! I've heard some brazen harassment before, when I was working temporarily in a branch office and the plant manager didn't realize I had come in early. I thought he was far over the line in the way he was talking to his secretary, all sleazy, verbal stuff, but he never went so far as a rant or threatening violence. Later I told the secretary that I heard all that and that I'd vouch for her if she wanted to file a complaint with HR. She didn't want to stir up anything because "I need this job." I thought the company was more aggressive in enforcing its published non-discrimination policy; I knew they put real penalties behind some HR policies, going as far as dismissal in cases of discrimination for sexual orientation. The secretary said it worked the way it was supposed to if a man was victimized by a man, or if a woman was vicitmized by a woman, but in a case of man vs. woman they'd always find a way to excuse or dismiss the man's behavior.

Norman Rockwell Museum and Quabbin Reservoir, Massachusetts - 2000 All Photographs Copyright © 2008 by Robert E Pence The Normal Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, was the site of the third Rockwell Kent exhibit on my itinerary. The scenic property overlooks the Housatonic River. The permanent gallery exhibits of Normal Rockwell's work gave me a fuller appreciation of that artist's craftsmanship. Quabbin Reservoir was created in 1938 and covers more than 380 square miles in central Massachusetts. It is a drinking water reservoir and is closed to recreational activites except for limited fishing in designated areas. Access is by gated roads in a limited number of locations.<p />

Mount Washington Cog Railway, New Hampshire - Road Trip 2000, Part 7 All Photographs Copyright © 2007 by Robert E Pence In operation since 1869, the Mount Washington Cog railway is the oldest mountain-climbing cog railway in the world. It was conceived and built as a tourist attraction, and never served a commercial/industrial function like the logging railroads that have been preserved and/or restored. Trains ascend to a visitors' center at the 6,288-foot summit of the mountain, taking about three hours for the round trip. It's pricey ($59 adult, $39 child, $54 senior), but I thought it was worth every penny. Winter trains ($31) only ascend to the water tank at Waumbek, 4,000 feet. In winter, the summit has the most severe weather in the eastern U.S., and you definitely wouldn't want to go there then. The locomotive that initiated service on the railway in 1869 Birdsell steam traction engine of the type that powered farms, sawmills and other industries in the early 1900s Because of their internal design, locomotive boilers cannot be operated safely under load when severely tilted. The cog railway locomotives are built with the boiler sitting nose-down on level track, so that it's nearly level when ascending the mountain. The wheels only carry the weight and guide the locomotive on the rails; propulsion is entirely by a toothed cog that engages the rack between the rails. Gear reduction results in furious reciprocating and spinning producing not much forward speed but lots of tractive effort. Filling fire extinguishers - when you see the embers that escape the spark arresters on the ascent, you understand why they carry the fire extinguishers. The water for the tenders & fire extinguishers is captured from a stream flowing down the mountain. Leaks don't cost money; the water is free, and the pressure comes from gravity. See the bright red spot on the lower right? That's one of many embers that rain down from the stack when working up the mountain. I don't have any photos from the summit; by the time we got there, it was fogged in so thick that I could barely see my feet. Lines painted on the pathways help people find their way to the visitors' center when it's fogged in. They use a front-end loader to fill the coal dock, but from there on, coaling is pretty much a manual operation with emphasis on filling every nook and cranny. Maintenance shops are about a half mile down the hill from the visitors' center and boarding area. No roundhouse or turntable here; a transfer table moves equipment to shop and car barn bays. Some tractor collectors would love to get their hands on this vintage Terratrac crawler. This old building was in pretty precarious condition. I didn't venture far inside to get these photos, because I feared the slightest disturbance might bring it down on me.

Burlington, Vermont and its Bikeway - 2000 All Photographs Copyright © 2007 by Robert E Pence Burlington seen from the Lake Champlain Ferry Valcour University of Vermont Congregational Church Church Street is pedestrian-only for about three blocks, lined with shops and restaurants and sidewalk cafes. The crowd is mixed; a lot of college students, but a fair number of middle-aged folks and seniors and, of course, tourists. Mainstream retailers are mixed in among the specialty shops. North Beach Campground was one of the best campgrounds I visited. It's run by the city of Burlington, and overlooks Lake Champlain. A path leads directly to the beach and connects with Burlington's bike path. It's a no-hills, no-traffic 2.5 mile cruise to downtown. North Beach Campground has a good beach, with shallows going 'way out. Winooski River, north of Burlington Burlington's bike path reaches about 14 miles along former Rutland Railroad right of way, including the causeway across Mallett's Bay. The path is well maintained and well utilized. In 2000, trail users crossed the Winooski River via bike ferry ($1.00). In 2004, a new bridge closed this gap in the trail. Lake Champlain beach north of the Winooski River The causeway across Mallett's Bay, built at the beginning of the 20th century by the Rutland and Canada Railroad, was in use until 1960. It was built by Italian laborers with huge marble blocks, some measuring six feet on a side. A gap about three miles out on the causeway remains to be closed by a bike ferry; demonstration ferries have operated on selected weekends as recently as August 2007. Trail promoters hope eventually to open the trail all the way to Canada. The black road bike is mine; despite the advice of the "experts" it is possible to ride skinny tires on gravel. You just have to pay attention. The sailboarder was really moving until he came into a dead spot in the lee of the causeway.

Adirondack Scenic Railroad, Adirondack Park, and Lake George, NY - Road Trip 2000, Part 4 All Photographs Copyright © 2007 by Robert E Pence Adirondack Scenic Railroad The Adirondack Scenic Railroad runs from Utica to Lake Placid, and operates excursions out of Utica, Thendara and Lake Placid. The line was originally built to carry the rich and famous in their private railroad cars to their "Great Camps" in the Adirondack Mountains. I rode the twenty-two mile round trip between Thendara and Otter Lake in the cab of an immaculate, sweet-running 2000- horsepower 1964 Alco C-420 locomotive. Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, NY The Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake consists of twenty-some buildings on more than twenty acres of land. It features exhibits on boats, hunting, fishing, logging, mining and farming, as well as examples of the summer "camps" of the wealthy and homes of the people who made their living in the area. The art gallery features a permanent collection and seasonal exhibits. The reason for my visit was an exhibit of Rockwell Kent's Adirondack paintings. They are beautiful and powerfully moving. Rockwell Kent's Clover Fields. The Adirondack Park consists of a patchwork of public and private lands. Efforts are ongoing to purchase private parcels and to obtain easements in order to facilitate the use of hiking trails and ensure access to scenic, historic and nature preservation areas. Scattered throughout the park are the remains of former summer homes that have burned or become derelict. Lake George, New York Mist rises from Lake George on an icy-crisp, crystal-clear autumn morning. Built in 1969 on Lake George, Lake George Steamboat Company's Minne-Ha-Ha is an authentic steamboat whose engine room is glass-enclosed so passengers can see the engine working. Her hull was designed by the H.M. Tiedermann Company of New York City, and her engines and paddle wheel were designed and built by Frederick H. Semple of St. Louis. Her boiler was manufactured by the International Boiler Works of East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania and produces about 200 horsepower. Lac du Saint Sacrement's keel was laid in 1979 at the Lake George Steamboat Company's Baldwin Shipyards. Her hull was launched in 1987, and she entered service in 1989. Her name is the name given to the lake in 1646 by a Jesuit priest. She is 190 feet long and her design retains the character of 19th-century lake steamers. Lake George Steamboat Company's Mohican was launched in 1907. She was powered by Fletcher steam engines and fueled by coal until 1945, when her owner converted her to diesel power for greater efficiency and passenger space on the second deck. Her superstructure was updated from wood and canvas to steel in the 1970s.

Rochester, Skaneatles, and the Oriskany Battlefield Memorial, New York - Road Trip 2000, Part 3 All Photographs Copyright © 2007 by Robert E Pence The Eastman Kodak building in downtown Rochester, New York An Amtrak train crosses a railroad bridge directly above the 96-foot High Falls of the Genessee River in downtown Rochester A waterwheel ran a triphammer forge and provided power for the machinery in a fire engine factory across the street. A hand-dug raceway 30 feet wide and five feet deep carried water to power Rochester's earliest industries in what is now know as High Falls at Brown's Race Historic District. Rochester continues to produce hydroelectric power at the falls. I had first heard of Skaneateles, New York, on a music program on public radio, and the name stuck in my mind. I looked it up on the map, and it turned out to be on one of the routes I could take. Pronounce it something like "Skan-ee-at-uh-less," with the emphasis on the "at." Skaneateles Lake is sixteen miles long and three hundred feet deep and noted for its purity. Syracuse gets its water from the lake; the water is incredibly clear. Oriskany, New York - The 1888 monument commemorates the 1777 Battle of Oriskany, one of the bloodiest battles of the American Revolution. Sixty British Regulars and 400 Native Americans here ambushed the Tryon County Militia, 800 strong, as they marched to the relief of Fort Stanwix at Rome. General Nicholas Herkimer, though wounded, rallied his forces and directed the fighting until the enemy fled. Of the 800 militia, more than 500 were killed or wounded and almost all households in the area felt the effects of this battle for years afterward. Defeated at Oriskany and unable to force the surrender of Fort Stanwix, the British retreated to Canada. These reverses, with the defeat at Saratoga, thwarted Burgoyne's plan to divide the colonies by conquering New York.

Niagara Falls, Erie Canal at Lockport NY - Road Trip 2000 Part 2 All Photographs Copyright © 2007 by Robert E Pence The Niagara River seen from the pull-off adjacent to the hydropower water intakes. At Niagara Falls I parked along the road beside the upper rapids and used my bicycle to explore the area. A bicycle provides great mobility in an area where parking is scarce, and it's a good way to cross the Canadian border. I can go through the pedestrian gate without having to wait in long lines of cars. A monument to Nicola Tesla stands in front of the reconstructed portal from the original hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls. Tesla developed the alternating-current induction motor and much of the technology used to generate and transmit AC power over long distances. Erie Canal at Lockport, NY At Lockport, New York, the present locks take the place of twin flights of five locks each that originally raised and lowered canal boats over the 47-foot Niagara Escarpment. One flight of the old locks still exists, but I couldn't get a good photo vantage point because of construction equipment working in the area. The controllers, relays and motors that operate the Erie Canal locks at Lockport were built in 1916 by General Electric and all the original equipment is still in use. The brass is polished, the cast iron is painted, and everything is immaculate and well-lubricated. The lock keeper said they prefer the older relay-type control systems because they're more reliable and easier to troubleshoot than new solid-state equipment. The Niagara County tourism office at Lockport is located across the street from the courthouse. I didn't ask, but this building looked as though it might have been an old courthouse.

I hope it didn't get you worked into too much of a tizzy! :wink:

I've been dredging through my archives again, and tuning up a set of photos from a road trip to the Northeast in 2000. It's broken up into several parts to cover various points en route to see three exhibits then on display of artist Rockwell Kent's work. I may have/probably have posted some of this before, but if so it's been several. Besides, I have a penchant for repeating myself, so please indulge me. Geneva State Park, Jefferson and the AC&J Railroad - Road Trip 2000, Part 1 All Photographs Copyright © 2007 by Robert E Pence Geneva State Park, Ohio First night out; Geneva State Park is located on the shore of Lake Erie east of Cleveland. The land is mostlylevel and sandy with low vegetation and some forested areas, and mosquitoes thrive here. In the evening, I biked down to the beach with the notion of going for a swim. The no-see-ums almost ate me alive. Sound travels great distances over water. I kept hearing a dull booming, like strip-mine or quarry blasting. When a storm arrived hours later, I realized that I had been hearing a thunderstorm when it was still more than a hundred miles away. In the morning the surface of the lake was still stirred up by the previous night's storm. Near the beach lay a tree felled probably years ago by erosion, the stump and roots polished by the action of waves and sand. Jefferson, Ohio - Ashtabula Carson & Jefferson RR The 1872 Lake Shore & Michigan Southern depot at Jefferson, Ohio was derelict and facing imminent destruction when the local garden club took it on as a restoration project. It now contains museum exhibits. On land adjacent to the depot, the historic preservation group has relocated an 1849 church and a barn from the 1890s. There's alsoa one-room school in early stages of restoration, and the group has acquired a general store that they plan to move to the site. The Ashtabula Carson & Jefferson Railroad is a common-carrier short line that moves 750 – 1,200 carloads of freight annually and runs tourist trains behind a 1948 Alco S2 locomotive of former Erie Railroad provenance. The locomotive still has its original prime mover. It's smoky (what early Alco isn't?) and wheezy, an historic gem. It still wears its 1976 Bicentennial paint scheme. The train is made up of an Erie heavyweight passenger car, two Long Island Railroad commuter cars, a power car and a caboose. The pretty one-hour ride through mostly-undeveloped marsh and forested wetland passes over a former Lake Shore and Michigan Southern high-grade ­passenger line built in 1872.

Nice! I love small towns and small-town festivals.

Ausable Chasm, Port Kent. and Lake Champlain Ferries - 2000 All Photographs Copyright © 2007 by Robert E Pence Ausable Chasm I arrived at AuSable Chasm late in the afternoon and took a spot in the adjacent KOA campground. I almost had the run of the campground; I think there were only three other campers on the property. I was able to do some early exploring on foot, but the chasm itself is private property and can only be accessed by paying for the self-guided tour. From what I could see, it was worth waiting until morning to do that. The autumn weather had been drier than usual in the Northeast, and almost all the water coming down the AuSable River was being captured by the dam and fed to the two hydropower plants at the head of the chasm. Not much was left to go over the falls. Along the trails, the ground was blanketed with pine needles. The air was autumn-fresh and fragrant. Here, I'm looking down a notch that intersects the chasm. There are several of these, and faults and rifts are visible in the chasm walls. Port Kent, New York & Lake Champlain Ferries Port Kent, New York is just south of Plattsburgh, and is the point of departure for ferries across Lake Champlain to Burlington, Vermont. The Lake Champlain Ferries between Port Kent and Burlington carry full-sized tour buses, recreational vehicles and many cars on each trip, and they run frequently. The crossing takes about an hour. Amtrak's Adirondack trains between New York and Montreal stop at a shelter just above the Port Kent ferry landing. I saw about a dozen people get off the train with bikes, baggage, and backpacks and walk down the hill to board a ferry to Burlington. When I crossed the lake on the ferry Valcour, the sun was bright and the sky was blue with wispy white clouds. A brisk wind made the lake choppy, and occasional waves would slam into the bow sending sheets of spray flying across the forward part of the deck. The sightseers there soon headed for the stern or for the lounge and gift shop below. The wind was whipping a flag on a pole near where I was standing, and the rolling motion of the ferry was enough to cause the air suspension on the tour bus parked behind me to pant and sigh rhythmically as it tried to keep the coach level.

Beautiful, and really captured the feel of a day by the water. You may be car-free in Cleveland, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see you with a boat in one of the marina slips one of these days. Of course, you may have to do some research to make sure you get a water-dog that will become a best pal with the pugs.

Completely awesome photo set, with Cleveland views I've never seen before. Thank you for sharing that fabulous experience!

On the dairy farm where I grew up, we had hordes of barn cats, probably an ongoing average of about thirty. Once a female found her way into the house basement and had two kittens in the furnace room. The basement had no windows and no one ever went there during warm weather, hence no light. It wasn't until fall that we discovered the two kittens, by that time several weeks old. I never figured out how their mom found her way in and out, but apparently she never took them out to teach them to hunt. They had been raised in darkness, and although they appeared to have normal or near-normal eyesight, they couldn't execute the amazing leaps that are part of most cats' repertoire. Not that they didn't try, but their attempts often resulted in amazing failures and crash landings. They were resilient and persistent though, sometimes providing considerable entertainment for us kids. I think cats are pretty adept at quickly figuring out when you're directing your attention to something besides them, and quick to interfere with it (much like a possessive lover). When I'd spread my Sunday paper on the living room floor to read, she'd quickly sprawl in the middle of it on her back, demanding a belly rub. If I sat in my recliner with my paper on my lap, she'd hop up and plop down on it.

Beautiful. In 2000 early on a foggy morning I passed through there en route from Burlington to destinations in New Hampshire. Ever since, I've regretted that I didn't slip another day into my itinerary in order to spend some time there and in other small towns along the way.

Some Northwest Indiana towns belie the wasteland perception. Valparaiso is indeed a pleasant community with an attractive, active CBD and a Lutheran-affiliated university that features an architectural-landmark chapel; Crown Point has much of the feel and function of a county seat in farm country; East Chicago, surrounded by blighted and crumbling cities and experiencing financial difficulties of its own, still successfully maintains a valiant effort to keep order and attend to public services with progressive approaches to vital functions like wastewater treatment. That city was among the first to switch from chemicals to UV light as the final step in treating sewage plant effluent and has made water-quality improvement visibly effective. Trout have been seen swimming in the plant's effluent stream. Chesterton, served by South Shore trains at heavily-used Dune Park Station, also site of the railroad's general offices. The town is cute and tidy and has a pleasant old-time downtown square. Dune Park Station is within walking distance of Lake Michigan beaches at Indiana Dunes State Park. Michigan City is the easternmost stop for most South Shore trains, but a few each day run through to South Bend, 35 miles to the east. Washington Park features Lake Michigan beaches, a much-photographed lighthouse, and an interesting zoo built up the side of an ancient grassy dune. There's a vintage stone observation tower at the summit of the dune. Michigan City is a dumpy, great semi-intact downtown grid that's pretty neglected with a big outlet mall on the periphery and a casino off the beaten path (and a nuclear cooling tower looming over it all). The South Shore Metra runs down the middle of the street in the Downtown which is pretty cool. There is lots of suburban sprawl big box stuff in those other areas with highway infrastructure investment from the state...I guess I was meaning the pockets of historical traditional parts that dot the area, it all seems very neglected with a high degree of disinvestment (or vision) by the state IMO. Gary is just abysmal, it makes Ohio's version's of the redheaded stepchild (which I think of the Youngstown, Lorain, Sandusky type places) look like the emerald city. Chicagoans flock to the east side of Lake Michigan in Michigan and bypass NW Indiana to vacation every summer weekend. Everybody knows the "nice stuff" starts as soon as you cross the state line into Michigan. It all seems like a huge missed opportunity, and bad planning and investment. A couple of notes: The cooling tower is part of NIPSCO's (Northern Indiana Public Service Company) coal-fired power plant. The plant's unit coal trains are a major revenue generator for South Shore Freight, a separate entity from the commuter rail operation that shares the same tracks. The South Shore/Metra affiliation ends at the Illinois line, with Hegewisch the easternmost station of that segment. Incidentally, the railroad's Gary station shares waiting-room and possibly ticketing facilities with intercity bus sevice in a space contiguous with the convention center and connected to the passenger platform via a skybridge. It's a heavily-used station serving commuters from a wide area.

Oil and gas wells once were plentiful in the part of Indiana where I grew up. Along the Indiana-Ohio line and extending maybe 60 or seventy miles to the west, with a northern boundary about forty miles south of Fort Wayne and running southward for maybe seventy miles, at peak there were thousands of producing wells. Glass manufacturing grew up in some places like Dunkirk and Winchester and Muncie, and others like Montpelier became home to iron foundries and rolling mills. Muncie successfully got into both of those bonanzas. Municipalities gave away free gas to attract industry, and many "experts" believed that natural gas was inexhaustible and was made inside the earth as fast as it could be drawn out. Towns and developers advertised the abundance of their gas supplies by lighting wells and by piping gas to brilliant "flambeaus" or torches in their downtowns. Train travelers through the area at night told of the countryside being lit "as bright as day" by the displays. More gas may have been wasted than was ever put to productive use. In places, heedlessly drawing off gas at rapid rates depressurized oil deposits and reduced the productivity and probably the lifetime yeild of some oil wells. Seven miles south of the farm where I grew up is the town of Petroleum, so named because of the great number of oil wells in the vicinity. The wells mostly dried up, and so has the town. Its businesses now consist of a large grain terminal along the Norfolk Southern Railroad, a trucking company's offices and shops, and a couple of auto repair places. I can remember when it still had a feed mill, a hardware store, and a drug store with a soda fountain. I was pretty young then, and the soda fountain distracted me from noticing much of anything else. Here's a "drinky bird" that's bigger than most of the ones in the eastern US. This was near San Angelo, in West Texas, where I spent a little time while in the USAF. There's a huge collection of the equipment used in the oil fields in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio in earlier times in oil and gas production, at Coolspring Power Museum, between Punxsutawney and Brookville in Pennsylvania. Much of the equipment is restored and operable, and work goes on continuously to create authentic working demonstrations of the equipment as it was used in the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries.

I was stationed at Dover AFB from May 1963 until January 1966. I found Dover a pleasant, interesting place. Like Nathaniel said, the old square is rich with history, and although most of the government buildings around the green, although not old as such things go, are appropriately designed and nicely laid out. The downtown then was complete and active, and the relationship between civilians and military was good. Dover is just about 40 miles from the Atlantic beaches and a ferry that crosses to Cape May, New Jersey. Near Lewes, at the mouth of the Delaware Bay, is the site of Fort Miles, built to protect the entrance to the bay from enemy submarines during WWIi. The Air Force kept a couple of barracks and a mess hall there, and during the summer, airmen from Dover AFB could go there on their off-duty time. Barracks space was on a first-come, first-served basis. I think I was one of three people of approximately 8,000 then stationed at the base who had a bicycle. Mine was a black J.C. Higgins 3-speed bought at the local Sears store. Once I rode it to Fort Miles, but that wasn't entirely a pleasant experience. Because of the coastal location with sandy soils, low elevations (Dover AFB was 8 feet above sea level), and marshes, there are few or possibly no through back roads on the route from Dover to Lewes, and the traffic on US 13 was heavy and weekend drivers and passengers from the cities farther north thought it was great sport to throw fruit and cans and bottles and otherwise harass cyclists, of whom there were almost none back then. By the way ... Shermany? The proper nickname for Sherman is Shermie! :wink:

Like I sez --

Interest hasn't died in returning passenger trains to Fort Wayne, as demonstrated by three recent articles I found on the web site of the morning paper, the Journal Gazette. (http://www.journalgazette.net/) Geoff Paddock, founding board member of Northern Indiana Passenger Rail Association (NIPRA) is also city councilman for my district and has a knack for selling ideas that benefit the community and building coalitions to make them happen. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Last updated: August 9, 2012 2:24 p.m. Study to bolster push for Chicago-Fort Wayne-Columbus train Statement as issued Thursday by NIPRA: The Northeast Indiana Passenger Rail Association announced today that funds have been secured to conduct a feasibility study and to build a business case for the return of rail service from Fort Wayne to Chicago, with plans to extend service to Columbus, Ohio. read more: http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20120809/BLOGS01/120809526/0/SEARCH -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Last updated: August 10, 2012 2:14 p.m. Passenger rail’s return pushed Backers hope $80,000 study gives idea new traction in city Benjamin Lanka | The Journal Gazette FORT WAYNE – Local supporters of bringing passenger rail back to the Summit City hope an $80,000 study – financed partly by local governments – will help persuade the federal government to invest millions in the area. Geoff Paddock and Fred Lanahan, members of the Northeast Indiana Passenger Rail Association, announced Thursday they will pay Transportation Economics and Management Systems for the work. read more: http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20120810/LOCAL/308109966/0/SEARCH ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Published: August 12, 2012 3:00 a.m. Push to return rail service to city on track Frank Gray If you’re younger than 30, you probably have no idea that you could once catch a train in downtown Fort Wayne and travel to places like Chicago. That ended in 1992, when Amtrak moved its train station to Waterloo, about 30 miles north. According to City Councilman Geoff Paddock, the move happened because of a dispute over who would maintain a stretch of track in the northwest corner of the state. Four years ago, an organization called the Northeast Indiana Passenger Rail Association sprang into existence with the goal of bringing rail service back to Fort Wayne, which, according to Paddock, is the largest city in the state without passenger rail service. read more: http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20120812/LOCAL0201/308129936

It would be thoughtful and a convienience to other forumers if persons changing their screen names would post their former screen name in their custom title or signature line as "FKA whatshisname." There was some discussion about this some time ago and some people started doing it, but people have drifted away from it.

You don't like mine, complain to my parents. And good luck with that. One was interred in Bethel Church Cemetery, Wells County, Indiana, in 1992, and the other was cremated about a year ago.

I still shop LL Bean. I don't care about trends, and LL Bean carries clothing that's traditional, not trendy. It's never on the cutting edge, and it's never out of style. I want to look presentable, (There, my age gives me numerous options), and their clothes to a great extent are quality-made and traditional in style. I have their oxford-cloth button-down shirts in various colors that I've had for several years and they still look good and haven't lost their buttons (unlike me). I can wear them with jeans and a sweater, or I can put on loafers, a pair of wool or polyester dress slacks, and a nice matching vintage tweed sport coat and go out and be noticed, and not in a disapproving way.