Appearances by Richard “Doc” Stockman, John Deere, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Land Pro Equipment
By Chuck Wiser, I Write the words to share what my eyes see and my heart feels
It’s a little too early to be dreading the onset of winter but morning temperatures just barely in the 40’s are a harbinger of things to come. Fortunately, a couple of heart-warming holidays will help to brighten things up. Halloween is a treat, literally for the young-of-age children, and those adults still young at heart. Thanksgiving is typically a time for family gatherings and sharing the memories and remembrances of the past summer and the expectations of the next coming year. Thanksgiving and Memorial Day were the most revered family gathering days for my childhood family, wherein all of the grandparents, aunts and uncles gathered typically at my grandparent’s farm in Rushford. Christmas, more recently, now, is usually, a closer “single-family” celebration time given the weather and the joys of our “close nit” sharing of gifts and blessings.
The motivation for that start of today’s Wramblings, is the resumption of the Genesee Valley Chorus 2026-2027 singing season, and its start, including the winter seasonal music. This is another invitation from me, for anyone that enjoys singing, and especially now, in that we will be performing some “winter favorites.” A few of the songs to be performed include; “Ding Dong Merrily on High,” “It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas,” “Silent Night“, and “White Christmas.“ We’ve only had one and a half singing practices so there is plenty of time for you to begin the sharing of this seasonal music and the warmth and joy these songs bring to not only you, but by sharing it with the public. We meet at 6:30 each Tuesday at Grace United Church in Wellsville, and all are invited and welcome.
A couple of months ago our microwave oven bit the dust. It has taken some time to replace as it was a “built-in” and we needed one to fill that particular, now vacant, space. Compounding the problem was the fact that the electrical source for the microwave came from an outlet that was in an adjoining, now covered, wall. In order to effectively access that outlet would require the removal of an oven “built-in” beneath the microwave space. My “better half” was against my performing that “operational procedure” and was reluctant to get any “contractor” (and their expense) involved. I finally found a microwave that might fit but as of now it sits on our countertop, and I’m left to deal with the vacant space above the oven and its gapping 20” X 20” opening. I’m tempted to convert that to an additional cupboard. The only reservations that I have about that are its location above the existing oven. I suppose dishware, or pots and pans, could be alright in that location, but they are already comfortable in their “under the island” home.
For that short time that we were without the services of the microwave I was in withdrawal. I knew I used it quite a bit and was spoiled by its “immediacy” of warming anything that needed a little warming, but also to do it quickly with anything as simple as reheating my large morning coffee drinking vessel contents in a 16-ounce insulated Yeti mug, but which is not microwaveable. I normally sip my morning coffee, often into the early afternoon, and especially if I take it with me on my frequent shopping adventures. I’m a big fan of Yeti vessels and have them in 3 or 4 different sizes and configurations. I have one as small as 8 ounces and one that holds over 2 quarts. I use the largest one merely as a “transport vessel” that I can take with me on a longer journey and from which I can dispense it into a smaller more “drink friendly” size container. There are likely less expensive brands, but my experience is that they are not quite as good, insulation wise, as the Yeti cups. “I continue now”, he says, as he takes a sip of coffee.
I broke my only “rule of logical process” recently as I was working on a small project. I proceeded with working on it and before long it ended up being a 4-hour project instead of a 15-minute fix in that, I went a more complicated route to accomplish what I was doing. Upon completion I sat back and told myself; “Self, you forgot your problem-solving instructions and procedures learned many years ago.” That self-imposed instruction, when I remember its wisdom, says: “Start with the simplest possible solution or method to accomplish the task first, then progress to more complex methods if the first doesn’t succeed. I would share the simple project that I was working on but that isn’t the simplest way to continue with my Wramblings. I will mention that the philosophy behind my wisdom was most likely taught to me by one of my earliest “Engineering/Designer” vocation mentors. Richard “Doc” Stockman was an engineer that was very instrumental in the development of my engineering and design education. These were not schoolroom lessons, but life long taught lessons of reality. Over my 8 years (2 nights a week) formal engineering related education I learned more from my work colleagues than I did in the classroom. As a matter of illustration, many of the best faculties that I learned from had their teaching career started by their earlier industrial working experience careers, many of which were at The Air Preheater Company.
As I’m writing this, I’m now awaiting a follow up call from a “Lawn Mower Sales and Repair” center several miles away. My “old” John Deere was having problems that I couldn’t fix so I took it to a somewhat distant sales outlet that specializes in John Deere products. When I dropped it off last Friday, I told the lady exactly what the problem was and showed her. The problem wasn’t whether the mower would start or not from a “cold start” but if it ran for a while and then I shut it off, it would not restart. Several hours, or the next day, the mower would start, and run normally, successfully. When I received a call this morning, supposedly the lawn mower had been serviced and the problem fixed. Per them, it was now running properly. When I asked her if they had explicitly tested the mower the way I described the problem, she couldn’t tell me whether the technician had specifically run, shut down, then tried to restart the mower. She said that problem wasn’t addressed on the work order. It was a different person than I had dealt with when I dropped it off, so I re-explained the problem and she advised that they would do another check to see if the “old problem” re-occurs. She did, and called back and said they would do a double check.
I now interrupt this Wrambling to Wramble to Springville. I just received the call that the tech’s just did another run-through and the mower was indeed fixed. I will continue this writing when I return.
*** Late Update…I’m Back! Fast forward a few hours and I HAVE returned. I now have so much more to Wramble on about that I might exceed my allotted “publication space”. I won’t include any pictures which tend to be “memory hogs” so I might get away with making this a “page” or so longer than usual.
The “aforementioned” Lawn Mower dealership I referred to above is Land Pro Equipment in Springville, NY. I have been very pleased with their service, and it is now my go to mower place.
They have become my John Deere products “salvation” recently as our near-by locals aren’t as specialized in that product line as they are. They did a great job, more quickly than first estimated.
I now have my mower back and all problems have been solved and fixed. The additional topics that popped up are relative to this travel experience, so I will Wramble on about that for a bit.
In years past having grown up in Friendship, NY any trips taken northward toward the Buffalo area were planned to be via State Route 16 from Hinsdale. Last week my northward trip was via Routes 19 to 243, to 39 and 68 to 304. Homebound, my intention was to come back via the “recalled” (almost) Route 16 North to South route. Somewhere I missed a turn, and lacking any signage route identifications, I didn’t end up directly on Rte. 16 South. I finally made it home, once I got to familiar locations. My Garmin was not any help at all, as it kept directing me to “fastest” routes vs, those that I recognized. I did get to see some scenic farmland areas, however.
On today’s trip I turned off the Garmin and went by my decades old memory cells and found the return Route 16 southward and to I86 in Maplehurst/Hinsdale without any problems. The trip was certainly “down memory lane” and I enjoyed every part of it…mostly. Be forewarned…upcoming is a Grammar Groan moment.
“Windy” is a win-dy way to pronounce something that could sound “whine-dy.” Who the hell ever came up with words identical in spelling that could have two completely different meanings and pronunciations? At one point in my life, I was inclined to be a journalist/writer, and thus also perhaps, by association, an English teacher. I would have probably spent an inordinate time on the frivolous play between similar but different words with similar meanings but different spellings, or words that were spelled the same but with different sounds and meanings. I have a “whole slew” of topics remaining but another just popped into my head, and for the sake of ending with a smile rather than a perplexed frown I will continue and pick up where the *** noted above, indicated its location. If the *** perplexed you, you can blame me.
The term/phrase “I’m Back” refers to an Arnold Schwarzenegger phrase first used in his Terminator movie but which was actually “I’ll be back.” He has since repeated that phrase with the English language categorization of past/present/future options difference of … “I’ll be back” versus “I am back.” I’m sorry for that ambiguity.
If you don’t want today’s real Grammar Groan, it would be best to exit your reading at this point. If I was your child’s English teacher, would you actually want me to teach “literal English” versus the topics such as “Pluperfect” versus “Past perfect”? I hesitate to mention that, but repeating the term “Plu-perfect”, still makes me smile. Fortunately (for me) some of you reading this most likely took English classes when they still taught grammar, as did my teachers in the 50’s and 60’s. It wasn’t, and didn’t, include “todays slang language”.I will end this with an English class session…The four types of “past tense” in English, are the past simple, past continuous, past perfect, and past perfect continuous. “Pluperfect” in the exact same grammatical tense, with “past perfect” being the modern English name and “pluperfect” being the traditional or Latin-derived name.
I will end now inviting any comments, cares, questions or concerns sent to IM.Wiserdad@gmail.com. If you have a similar curiosity share it and I will investigate it.
