Robert Pence

... and greet the late arrivals with a cheerful smile and pleasant demeanor. The customer isn't always right, and every business that has over-the-counter customer contact should have an enforcer on staff. I'm thinking of my high school geometry teacher, Mr. Pettyjohn. He was a big fellow, probably six-two or six-three, heavy but not fat, and in his sixties but quick as lightning and strong as a bull. In every class, it seems, there's one guy who will argue with the teacher at the drop of a hat, not because he really thinks the teacher is wrong, but just to get attention and be a pain in the ass, sort of like certain of our oft-suspended forumers. We had such a guy in our geometry class. He was pretty close to six feet tall, athletic, and fastidious about his appearance, especially his hair. One day our class disrupter was holding forth on what he claimed was an alternate solution to a test problem. Mr. Pettyjohn used to walk around the room as he explained things, and on this occasion as he got within his long-armed reach of the disrupter, he abruptly grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hoisted him out of his seat. He stood on the kid's toes while stretching him by his shirt collar until they were eye-to-eye, got in his face, and flatly stated, "You are wrong, and I am right. End of discussion." With that, he mussed the kid's hair and pushed him back down into his seat. Teachers probably can't do that any more, but there's still a place for men like Mr. Pettyjohn. You need someone like him to monitor after-hours returns.

In one place where I worked, the guy in the next cubicle was a helpful eavesdropper. When my phone would ring, if his keyboard was going clickety-click, it would go silent. I'd hear is chair squeak in a particular way that I'd learned meant he was positioning himself to hear better. As soon as I'd finished my phone call, he'd stick his head around the corner and give me advice on what I should have said or how I should have resolved whatever problem the call was about, etc. It never occurred to me until after he no longer worked there, that I should have had someone call me just to make my phone ring. They could have hung up as soon as I answered, but Doug wouldn't have known that, and as soon as I was sure he was listening, I could have given him an earfull by really going off on the supposed caller -- telling them I knew what they were up to and if they wanted to keep certain parts of their anatomy intact they'd better stay the f..k away from my boyfriend, etc. I wonder if he would have had advice to offer on that topic.

Salomon Farm Park, Fort Wayne Parks & Recreation From the Fort Wayne Parks and Recreation web site: "Salomon Farm Park was launched in 1996 through the generous donation of land by Chris Salomon. Mr. Salomon (now deceased), his daughter Lynn, and Salomon's late wife Maxine had discussed and conceived, perhaps twenty years earlier, the potential of their beautiful landmark farm becoming a historic working farm and park for others to experience. With the assistance and grateful acceptance of the Fort Wayne Board of Park Commissioners and the Parks and Recreation Department, the Salomon family wishes have come true. Construction on the Learning Center began in 2000 and was completed in 2001. Salomon Farm Camp was introduced in the summer of 2002 and sold out in its first year. "The period selected for the operating theme for Salomon Park is the 1930s. This era is a very significant watershed in farm life, as the 1930s represent a lengthy era of similar aspects of agriculture and domestic life. It also is somewhat unique to the "museum" genre as an era with great personal interest to older Americans as well as great opportunities for appeal, education, entertainment, and recreation for younger visitors." I captured these scenes at the park during Fall Harvest Festivals in 2009 and 2010: 2009 A threshing machine separates grain from the stems (straw) and hulls (chaff). The first primitive mechanical threshing machines were invented in the 1840s and were hand-powered. They began to replace hand-flailing as the method for separating grain. By the post-Civil-War era the machines had evolved in size and capability, incorporating winnowing along with threshing, so that the larger and more advanced ones required more power than could readily be provided by human or animal muscles, and in the 1870s steam power started to appear on farms. In the earliest years of mechanical threshing, grain still was cut by hand much as it had been in Old Testament times. As farm machines evolved, mechanical reapers were invented. By the time steam power came along, many farmers were using horse-drawn binders to cut grain and bind it into bundles that they stacked into shocks, left in the field to dry, and then transported on wagons to the threshing machine. Bundles are pitched into the feeder, where a conveyor carries them under rotating knives that cut the binder twine. Then the stalks go into the cylinder, where a whirling spiked drum combs the grain kernels out of the hulls. The output from the cylinder passes over oscillating sieves, or grates, where the heavier grain falls through, the chaff is blown upward by a forced draft, and the bulky straw rides along the top. The grain is collected at the lowest point in the machine and elevated to pass through an automatic weighing hopper before being discharged into a bagger or wagon, and the straw and chaff pass out the rear of the machine and into a blower, or wind stacker, that discharges them through a pipe into a stack. Straw stacks, like leaf piles, are kid magnets. Unlike playing in leaves, playing in straw stacks generally culminates in myriad chigger bites. After the threshing demonstration, they had all the kids gather around. Someone threw a large batch of quarters into the straw stack, and they turned the kids loose. Turning logs into lumber on a tractor-powered portable sawmill. Goats are inquisitive and sociable, and always a hit with school kids. Grinding grain with animal power. This mule-powered cast-iron mill appears designed to crush and grind ear corn, cobs and all. Members of the Dekalb County Horsemen's Association provided rides in wagons pulled by horses ... ... and mules. A very good display of horse-drawn implements and hand tools used on farms a hundred years ago and more. Now, corn is harvested and shelled in the field by combines fitted with special headers. Once, corn was either husked from standing stalks in the field, or the stalks were cut in the field, stacked in shocks to dry, and then brought to the barn where ears were husked and stalks and leaves were saved for winter forage for cows. The first stages of mechanization brought corn binders, either horse-drawn or tractor-powered, that cut the corn and tied it into bundles that were hand-stacked into shocks for drying. Corn shredders like this one mechanized the husking job using belt power from a tractor or gasoline engine. The complete stalks are fed into the hopper on top ... ... the ears are snapped off the stalks and husked and come out a chute into a wagon ... ... and shredded stalks and leaves are blown out a pipe at the rear of the machine. Shelling was a separate operation performed by a simple hand-cranked device, a more sophisticated machine like this one powered by 2 1/2 horsepower International Harvester water-cooled gasoline engine of the 1920s, or a higher-capacity cylindrical sheller, often at the local feed mill or grain elevator. Sometimes cylindrical shellers were mounted on motor trucks and transported from farm to farm by custom operators. I hope you enjoyed your visit to Salomon Farm Park and the Fall Harvest Festival.

My brother is an interrupter, and when he's dominating a discussion and runs out of words, he'll fill the space with "umm" and "ahh" and stammering and starts and stops as he chooses words and tries to formulate what he's going to say next, in order to make sure no one else tries to jump in. He has lost much of his hearing, too, and won't use a hearing aid. It probably wouldn't do any good, anyway, as he doesn't seem to think anyone else has anything important to say. He probably lost his hearing due to atrophy from disuse; even when he could hear, he never listened. Another one about interrupting - my experience recently at a gallery opening is an example of what frequently happens at public events. I wanted to ask the photographer a couple of quick questions, so I waited patiently while someone else talked with him. Often when I show interest and pay attention without appearing impatient, I learn a few things just by standing by and listening. After a few minutes I got my opportunity to speak with him, and about thirty seconds in, a middle-aged woman approached, took his arm and turned him to face her, and started to tell him something she thought was important. It only happens when I'm talking with a man (speaker at a public meeting, artist, pastor, etc.), and only women do it. I've never had a man cut in physically like that. It's always middle-aged or older women, usually ones who think, justifiably or not, that they are of some social standing in the community or importance in the particular venue. I think it's rude of the interrupter, and thoughtless of the person being addressed to not tell her, "I'm sorry. I'm having a conversation with this gentleman. I'll be with you when we're finished." I don't think it's my place to ask her to wait her turn, so when it happens, I just walk away.

This was forwarded to me by a former co-worker. http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2539741

Excellent photo set. A former BF moved to Akron in the 1980s and I used to visit there occasionally. The downtown has spruced up a lot since then. Among my recollections is seeing a movie at the Civic. It's a John Eberson-designed theatre with Eberson's typically elaborate decoration that includes an ornate Italianate lobby and an atmospheric celing in the auditorium that's realistically like looking up at a summer night sky with clouds drifting slowly past twinkling stars. I was so captivated by the gorgeous theatre that I don't even remember what film we saw. I visited the art museum then, too, but haven't seen it since the new addition. The way they adapted an old building for their original space was appropriate and attractive, and I'd love to visit again to see the new structure and check out their collections and exhibits.

Hmmm. Probably best to just leave labeling out of posts. Even if we long-time forumers know the intent, newbies can see it and get a mistaken impression of what's appropriate or acceptable on UO. I'm gonna' shut up now, before I babble myself any farther into a corner. :oops:

Depends on the context. If I or any other openly gay forumer were to use them in a clearly well-intentioned kidding and non-personal way, I think most other gay forumers wouldn't even blink. If an openly hard-right individual used them, he/she would be suspended or banned after getting some remedial education in posts and PMs.

Sorry. Brain lapse. I let myself get caught up in the direction the conversation was going. I've fixed my comment; is it acceptable now?

Same rules and generalizations apply. The main differences between gay and hetero attempts to hook up are anatomical.

In my twenties I had a buddy who had a perpetual thirst and who was about 5'5", maybe 100 pounds. Three beers and he was ready to take on the first linebacker he saw. Fortunately the big guys always regarded him like they would a puppy barking at their ankles; sometimes they even laughed, which got him worked up even more. On one occasion my cousin and I were trying to take him home and he kept hopping out of the car at stoplights and trying to pick fights with the drivers of other cars. Finally we locked him in the trunk of my '50 Chevy to keep him contained.

My current pet peeve is a temporary situation. My street is closed for major repair of a badly-eroded riverbank, and the street normally is part of the Rivergreenway. The city posted detour signs rerouting greenway users for about two blocks, but many of them choose to follow the regular route by riding on the sidewalk. I'm not used to having to look out for fast traffic when stepping out onto the sidewalk by my house, but these clowns are riding on residential-neighborhood sidewalks at street-traffic speeds, and they pass pedestrians just inches away without any audible warning. It's not safe to assume that a pedestrian won't deviate from a straight-ahead path, but these morons bike just like they drive, without any thought to possible sudden changes in conditions ahead. If the weather's nice this afternoon, I think I'll put my lawn chair in the middle of the sidewalk and sit there and read, just to force them to slow down and go onto the grass in the park strip. There's a spot where there's an embankment on one side and a tree on the other. If any of them try to confront me, I'm prepared to 'splain things to them.

About thirty years ago I was sitting at the bar in Tula's, then Fort Wayne's most popular gay bar, now a parking lot. Some rough-looking drunk guy, obviously out of place, sat down next to me and after he got his drink, tried to start some sh!t with the very large drag queen who ran the place. Without a moment's hesitation Tula pulled out the pepper spray and blasted him good. I caught a generous amount of overspray, and several of us had to go outside for a while. I got a free drink out of it, but I think that may have been the last time I went in there.

Not too bad; still looks somewhat functional. The little pocket park looks nice, and the brick rows in the last photo have potential. On the downside are big utility poles embedded in the sidewalks. Every town and city trying to spruce up its streetscape seems to be going to those brick inlays in the sidewalks. That idea has been around for a while, and one would think that by now, designers would have learned that those don't hold up well in the freeze-thaw cycle and are an annoyance when trying to shovel snow from the walks.

I guess you'll just have to move to a nice suburban McMansion with a 3-car garage so you'll have space for your layout. :wink:

Looks like a neat place to walk about!

The cornice in the close-up is quite elegant. The whole facade of that building is fairly intact, despite some tackiness; what a glorious thing it could be, restored.

I love the hollyhocks. They're a great way to dress up a chain-link fence and draw attention away from it. Was Clark once a significant highway route through Cleveland, maybe Ohio 2, before the viaduct was torn down? I rode through there in 1961 with a friend and I recall looking into the valley from the viaduct and seeing lots of active smokestacks. I know the air was pretty acrid; It smelled of sulfur and made my eyes water.

The night shots bring back memories of my "midnight-skulker" years. I didn't prowl Columbus except maybe once, but the feel is the same as a lot of other places, walking lonely on deserted streets dimly lit by store signs and windows.

Nice job with the photos; Toledo has some interesting newer architecture. My first acquaintance with the city came in the sixties, when downtown had quite a bit more grit, but a fair amount of density and a lot more activity.

That's why I haven't taken up model railroading. I'd soon be selling all my furniture to make room for a whole-house layout, and nobody but the UPS guy would ever see me again. :laugh: Edit: Here's a tinkered-up photo of another crusher tower, not the one I described above. This one is located just west of the intersection of Indiana 218 and Indiana 116, just a few miles from our family farm. I'm pretty sure they don't do any heavy rock crushing in it any more. I think they just use it to load ag lime on the spreader trucks, but maybe they do the final-stage pulverizing in the tower, too. I remember hearing the booms and feeling the vibrations sometimes when they'd blast at that quarry. They're letting this tower go, and I don't know how much longer it will stand. This photo is several years old, and since it was taken the roof has gotten a lot worse.

It's evolving into a great layout. I especially like the town with its turn-of-the-century buildings, much like a lot of the places I remember from before the sprawlmeisters took over urban development policymaking. There's a limestone quarry near my hometown where the rock crushers used to be in a tower similar to the one at the far end of this scene: Dad knew someone who worked there, and one weekend he took us up through the tower. I must have been about ten years old then. I never got to see it in operation, but I remember that the whole thing was driven by a steam engine with the boiler in a separate building, probably to reduce the likelihood of the whole thing burning down. The quarry was a deep pit with tracks in it, probably narrow gauge, and they had two or three small saddle-tank locomotives that worked in the pit and a standard-gauge Plymouth with a big four-cylinder gas engine that switched the Nickel Plate rail spur up at the tower. There was a steep ramp, maybe 45 degrees, built of compacted crushed stone, with tracks on it that led from the bottom of the pit to the top of the tower. They'd push the cars loaded with big rocks blasted from the quarry walls to the bottom of the ramp, and then winch them to the top of the tower and dump them into the crusher. In one corner of the pit sat a huge derelict Marion steam shovel that local legend said had been used on the construction of the Panama Canal. It was mounted on rail trucks.

Nice! And a steam crane in the scrapyard; ever see a real one of those in operation? They're a machinery geek's wet dream, and to work one with any degree of productivity requires skill, coordination, and physical strength.

I suppose the mural was destroyed? I liked it.

When I hear other folks tell of their experiences with access providers in recent years, I'm glad I gave up on TV a few years ago. I've never had cable, and even before the changeover to digital took place I had unplugged my set. I haven't bought a digital TV, converter, or adapter for my computer. I have better things to do with my time than to sit around ingesting useless calories for the mind, and during the day when I'm working on projects I don't want the distraction; NPR in the background suits me fine, and sometimes I learn something useful. I don't miss TV at all, and in fact when I have to spend time in a public space where there's a TV that I can't turn off, it annoys me immensely.