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<body class='hmmessage'><div dir='ltr'><br>ATM card ranks somewhere between sliced bread and apple pie. <BR> <BR>Still remember calling Fred at work and 'casually' mentioning the cheap fare. To this day I swear that Fred stopped breathing!!!<BR> <BR>Another change - relying on travel agents for almost all travel arrangements. Now can search for good deals and book on-line.<BR> <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR><div>> From: fwschneider@comcast.net<br>> Date: Fri, 16 May 2014 15:54:52 -0400<br>> To: pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org<br>> Subject: Re: [PRCo] UMW blamed for diesels<br>> <br>> I do not wish to bore everyone.<br>> <br>> I love your last paragraph. Absolutely true. <br>> <br>> There are a lot of things that have changed in our lives that result in us doing things that would seem alien to our parents and grandparents. <br>> <br>> Computer linking of banks makes it possible for use to stick a plastic card in a slot in Delhi, Paris, London, San Francisco or anywhere we happen to be in the world and draw money out of our bank at home. We don't need that nuisance of travelers checks that our parents used or exchanging our cash for their cash. <br>> <br>> John and I have spent a lot of time studying family genealogy. I think we both understand the time when kids kissed mom goodbye, got on a sailing ship, and spent a month seasick on the North Atlantic and never saw their parents again. Now some of us do insane things like telling dad on Friday, "Watch the house please. Be back Monday. Taking Marie to London to the theater." Sounds crazy but at $75 one-way, US Air was just about giving those tickets away that January. Of course you have to love the English theater to do that. (I know Derrick understands because I think he told me he once did something equally crazy.) <br>> <br>> And John's suggestion of how the Interstates made it all possible? I think it was in the early 1970s that I first came to realize that. It may have been the week I drove home from San Francisco to eastern Pennsylvania in three days. Day 1 was Palo Alto to Salt Lake City. Day 2 was Salt Lake to Grand Island, Nebraska. Day three finished the trip … left Grand Island about 9 a.m. Saturday and pulled into my drive about 3 p.m. Sunday. <br>> <br>> Would I do that again today? Hell no. I'm retired. Reread paragraph 4. You call American Express, tell them to take their money out of your bank account, and then take another week or two to get home. <br>> <br>> But the real difference is being able to drive to California and back today without putting your car in the shop. In 1955 you couldn't drive from Pennsylvania to Florida without it winding up in a garage for repairs somewhere … new tires, the muffler fell off, timing is off, spark plugs need replacing, and you cannot go over 1,000 miles without oil change and greasing. I remember Jim Shuman talking about his 1953 trip with George Krambles and Bill Janssen to photograph the Milwaukee Road electrification in Montana and Washington. He had a brand new Pontiac so they took it … but they still had to get six oil changes and lubes in route! Jim's camera broke down too … he had to borrow GK's spare Retina. <br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> On May 16, 2014, at 2:38 PM, John Swindler wrote:<br>> <br>> > <br>> > Sounds like you visited Biltmore. <br>> > <br>> > Tennessee is only an eight hour drive from Lancaster. That's in 2014, not 1954. <br>> > <br>> > It was around two hours Gatlinburg to Ashville a month ago. Suspect your timing was better than ours - the flowers at Biltmore were just starting to bloom.<br>> > <br>> > Amazing the revolution brought about by interstate highways. We make spur of the moment trips today that would have been a major project during our parents/grandparents generation. <br>> > <br>> > <br>> >> Date: Fri, 16 May 2014 14:23:00 -0400<br>> >> From: shadow@dementix.org<br>> >> To: pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org<br>> >> Subject: Re: [PRCo] UMW blamed for diesels<br>> >> <br>> >>> Just one example to hammer it home. In 1955 we left the grandparents in<br>> >>> Marietta, Ohio about 9 a.m. one day and pulled into a model in Wytheville,<br>> >>> Virginia around 7 p.m. Wytheville is where US route 11 crossed US route<br>> >>> 19. Took the whole freaking day and by then they had a modern convenience<br>> >>> called the West Virginia Turnpike. Now the comparison. The end of<br>> >>> April, this year, I left Ed Lybarger's home in Washington County, Pa in the<br>> >>> morning, passed through Wytheville after lunch and holed up at Bruce<br>> >>> Bente's home in Hendersonville, NC for dinner. That's close to 300 miles<br>> >>> more than the long day in 1955 and I started the more recent trip on ice<br>> >>> and snow! Now the admission … we did pause on the 1955 trip to photograph<br>> >>> the Powhattan Arrow coming through Bluefield as well as the Virginian's day<br>> >>> local. (Dad was easy to convince.)<br>> >>> <br>> >> <br>> >> Gwen and I drove to Asheville 2 weekends ago. Left Pittsburgh at 5. Had to<br>> >> deal with outbound rush and an accident by Southpointe. Dinner (tasty<br>> >> pizza joint) just before 9 in Fayetteville WV ... thanks to the Appalachian<br>> >> Development Highway System, we didn't have to go out of our way to<br>> >> Charleston. Bedded down before midnight at a hotel in Wytheville. That was<br>> >> no big deal. The trip back from Chattanooga(*) several days later was<br>> >> straight through to Charleston for dinner via Kingsport and routes 23 and<br>> >> 119, then on home. Long, to be sure, but still nothing like the old days.<br>> >> <br>> >> * We had dinner that Monday night by the Lookout Mountain incline. Closed<br>> >> already. Tuesday we rode it. Like the Duquesne Incline, you can walk<br>> >> beneath the boarding area and see the machinery... which was built in<br>> >> Pittsburgh! Very different than Pittsburgh or Johnstown survivors which are<br>> >> true planes, theirs follows the terrain.<br>> >> <br>> >> <br>> >> <br>> >> -------------- next part --------------<br>> >> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...<br>> >> URL: http://mailman.dementix.org/pipermail/pittsburgh-railways/attachments/20140516/c529ac92/attachment.html <br>> >> _______________________________________________<br>> >> Pittsburgh-railways mailing list<br>> >> Pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org<br>> >> https://mailman.dementix.org/mailman/listinfo/pittsburgh-railways<br>> > <br>> > <br>> > <br>> > -------------- next part --------------<br>> > An HTML attachment was scrubbed...<br>> > URL: http://mailman.dementix.org/pipermail/pittsburgh-railways/attachments/20140516/77c89aee/attachment.html <br>> > _______________________________________________<br>> > Pittsburgh-railways mailing list<br>> > Pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org<br>> > https://mailman.dementix.org/mailman/listinfo/pittsburgh-railways<br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> _______________________________________________<br>> Pittsburgh-railways mailing list<br>> Pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org<br>> https://mailman.dementix.org/mailman/listinfo/pittsburgh-railways<br></div> </div>
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