[PRCo] Re: Perspective on nostalga

[Edward H. Lybarger]

I'll bet he wasn't really complaining about the heat in the back seat of the
Packard!

(This IS getting really off-topic, isn't it?!)

-----Original Message-----
From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org]On Behalf Of Fred
Schneider
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 11:21 AM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: [PRCo] Perspective on nostalga



As Edward is prone to say, "We must judge history in its own context."

The 1700s came in an era when no one had air-conditioning.  Packard actually
produced refrigeration cooled automobiles as early as 1939 but they were
less
than successful.  Trains had ice activated cooling back when but you had to
do
something to keep them cool with the windows closed to keep out the cinders.
(But while it cools, it also hads humidity.)  Greyhound had air-conditioned
parlor coaches before the war ... with a diesel to drive the bus and a
separate
gas engine to run the refrigeration compressor.  I don't remember a
commercially
air-conditioned bus in city or transit service until I rode in 1959 in one
built
by Southern that was part of the Dallas fleet.

The lack of air-conditioning wasn't an issue because we simply weren't used
to
it.  A 1700 wasn't hot because my bedroom was the only one in our house that
had
no cross breezes.   The dining room was hot.  The kitchen was hotter.  The
floor
of the closure plant, where I worked in the summer, was even worse with gas
jets
burning to dry the glue that held the cork in bottle caps.  And the back
seat of
the Packard was even worse with the windows all steamed up.  In those days,
hot
was the day we drove down the Connecticut River valley in a heat wave at 104
degrees.

Today I'm so used to air-conditioning that I go to northern Europe in the
summer
to cool down.  We're spoiled.  So we judge then by now.



Ken & Tracie wrote:

> Still applies today. I'm sure some of you cussed those sealed windows on
the
> 1700s on eighty five plus degree days when the humidity was up. :-)
>
> K.
>
> Bob Rathke wrote:
>
> > Reminds me of the old definition of "nostalgia":  fond recollections of
> > rotten times.
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