[PRCo] Re: warmer temps

Mon Dec 22 10:30:30 EST 2008

Strange you should mention this, Dennis.  My wife and I were talking about these sorts of things yesterday, and the opportunities and blessings we have enjoyed that would have been just a dream to our parents generation, and incomprehensible to our grandparents and earlier.

Things like - how often did ones parents go to a restaurant (once), or how often did the family go on vacation?  I can count on one hand the number of family vacations during my youth, and all involved staying at a relatives to save meal cost.  My wife has a similar memory of a cabin in Wisconsin and her mother having to clean and cook the fish her dad caught.  And yes, both of the houses of our youth were heated with a coal furnace.  Today I can hear the heat pump doing it's thing.  And a garage attached to the house.  What a novel idea.  (Then again, my parents didn't have to deal with the "junk" filling up most of the garage.)

Two other things we talked about yesterday:  the electronic revolution that enables us to communicate with email for instance, and advances in medical technology that have kept many of us alive.  Speaking of history, a distant cousin died in the yellow fever epidemic in Cincinnati around 1875.  When was the last time you heard about a yellow fever epidemic in this country?  And what about polio?  I'm just thankful for the blood pressure pills as there is a history of heart problems in my families past.

So was your dad in the 28th or the 99th in December 1944?  Both had the misfortune to be in the wrong place (Ardennes) at the wrong time.  Another cousin was in the 28th, and even he claimed (and rightfully so) that he was never quite right afterwards.  In my dad's case, an uncle mentioned that he was stranded on Malta for awhile, something dad never mentioned.  Adds a whole new meaning to the word 'destitute'.  

Many of us would probably wish to go back 60-70 years to the time of the trolley, but I doubt if we would want to stay there for very long.  It was a far - far different world.

And the Andy Rooney comment rather says it all.  For many of us, we have reached the age where if we want/need something, we already have it.  As I tell my wife, all I want is for folks to take care of their health and drive safely.  Everything else will take care of itself.

Thanks for the reminder, Dennis.  

I started volunteering at PTM three years ago, and the unexpected joy has been to watch the faces of the young kids during Santa and Pumpkin weekends.

John

> From: dfc1 at windstream.net> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org> Subject: [PRCo] warmer temps> Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 08:17:46 -0500> > As Oscar Hammerstein II wrote; "Oh what a beautiful morning!" I have now been up for 2 hours and the outside air temperature has already doubled. It is now 6 degrees at 7:35 in the morning. Is it really that bad? Hardly. > We live in a wonderful time and I ask each of you when it was any better for you? I am sitting in a warm home with a gas furnace that automatically comes on when I need heat. I can control the heat from a small thermostat on the wall. Who remembers coal furnaces?> > My van is parked in an unheated garage, but once I get out on the road, it will warm up very quickly. I have not had to go through the annual change to winter treads for over 30 years. Remember putting chains on those rear wheel drive cars that were horrible in the snow?> > I have spent the past month decorating and remembering. As with most of you, my parents and grandparents are no longer here in a physical sense, but the holiday season helps us acknowledge the good and not so happy times of the past. As we get older, we place less value on material items. Andy Rooney said it best last night, "Don't buy me any gifts, If I really want it, I already bought it for myself." If life is so bad right now, why are most of us on this list without want?> > Offer to go to your local school and do a transit presentation to the lifeskill students. You will see some of the happiest children in the world and come home thankful for what you have. One of the worst heartaches in the world for me working with children was seeing them suffer and many times lose their battle with life from either disease, accident or by their own hand. The best part of working with children was seeing them grow.> > Would you want to go back to another time and live? If so, what decade?> > My dad was 15 when the stock market crashed. He then served in the Civilian Conservation Corps and spent Christmas of 1944 stuck in cold and bleak of what became known as the Battle of the Bulge. Want to go back to the 30's or 40's? > > We are having another peaceful transition of power next month in Washington as we inaugurate our first African American president. What a positive sign of our country moving toward opportunity without regard for race, religion, or sex. Are we there yet? Hardly, but it is a positive step. Do you want to go back to the 50's when it became so noticeable on a national scene that separate but equal was hardly equal? Television made the world a little smaller.> > We mark the 40th anniversary of the end of the tumultuous year of 1968 with the readings from the book of Genesis on Christmas Eve as the men from Apollo 8 circled the moon for the very first time and showed us the view of earth from space. We do live on a sparkling jewel! What a relief that was after the unrest we experienced with the assassinations of MLK and RFK, the misery of Vietnam, the inequity of peoples rights, and the Chicago riots. Want to go back to the 60's? > > Why have we noticed so much and had so much change? Advances in communication technology. Lincoln had to leave the White House and walk across the street to get news from the war front via telegraph. We are a group of people who share our joys and or sorrows on a medium that is once again changing how we view the world.> > There are two things certain in the world (no, not death & taxes): > > People resist change. Change is inevitable.> > I enjoy studying the past and know there were great times and not so great times. I tend to study history to see how it changed the lives of people and to see how people changed history. Change is happening at a faster rate than ever before and we need to be careful to not become too pessimistic. My glass is more than half full!> > Merry Christmas! > Happy Chanukah!> Blessed Kwanza!> And there is always Festivus for the rest of us!> > It is still 6 out, so some things do not change as fast as we sometimes wish they would.> > > Dennis F. Cramer> Trombone> > > 
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