[PRCo] Re: Seasonal thoughts

[Bob Rathke]

I will continue this way-off-topic string of e-mails with an anecdote along
the lines of Fred's incident in Krakow. My "small world" meeting also
occurred in Europe.

First, I need to set the stage: my office is in Morton Grove, Illinois, and
I live in Buffalo Grove, about 20 miles north of there.

At a trade show in Frankfurt, Germany last year I met a Swede, and I
introduced myself as being from Morton Grove, Illinois.  In the course of
the conversation he mentioned that he was familiar with "Buffalo Grove".
I was surprised since I hadn't spoken the words, "Buffalo Grove."
I repeated that I work in Morton Grove, and added that I live in Buffalo
Grove.  It turned out that before moving back to Sweden in 2006, he
lived in Illinois and worked for a company in Buffalo Grove, only two
miles from our house!

Bob 12/23/08


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Schneider Fred" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 10:43 AM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: Seasonal thoughts


> There are good teachers and bad ones.   I've seen both.    Sadly all
> of mine of both classes are now pushing up daisies.   The only two I
> know that are still living is the driver ed teacher ... not doing
> well in Virginia, and the French teacher (she was just out of college
> when I had her and her husband is very ill now).   Funny, it was Miss
> Nolan then.   Now it's just Joan.   I need to call her.
>
> And Mark ... Perry High was where both my mother and her brother went
> to school.  Now, you want to know how small the world can be?   I was
> sitting in a hotel in Krakow, Poland, having dinner one night about a
> dozen years ago.   A couple who had been on our tour to Auchwitz the
> day before came through the door.   I motioned to them that the other
> seats at my table were vacant.   They joined me.   During the dinner
> table conversation I discovered that they were not only Pittsburghers
> but that he knew my uncle from Perry High.
>
> On Dec 23, 2008, at 10:47 AM, Bob Rathke wrote:
>
>> I started St. Ambrose School on Spring Hill after WWII.  I'm left
>> handed,
>> but never remember one incident when a teacher or relative ever
>> tried to
>> correct me. And I was not the only left handed kid in class.
>>
>> I can only assume that Parochial schools on the North Side were more
>> progressive than those in other parts of the city.  :-)
>>
>> Bob 12/23/08
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Mark McGuire" <macmarka at netzero.net>
>> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
>> Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 7:09 PM
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Seasonal thoughts
>>
>>
>>> My dad had already met my mom before he went off to the war. When he
>>> returned as I learned much to my father's dismay, that he and my mom
>>> concieved before they were married. My mom was a Perry High
>>> graduate who's
>>> mother(my grandmother who took me on my first trolley ride) was
>>> "right off
>>> the boat" from Italy. My dad went to Central Catholic. After they
>>> married,
>>> they moved to Castle Shannon on a street you all are familiar with
>>> called
>>> Kilarney Drive. I was just an infant when they bought a brand new
>>> home on
>>> Lovingston Dr. near the Dormont border. I was the only one of seven
>>> children that never went to a Catholic school. And I was glad of that
>>> after hearing the horror stories from mom and dad. Dad was left-
>>> handed and
>>> one particularly cruel nun used to whack him on his left hand with
>>> a yard
>>> stick to make him write right-handed.
>>> My grandmother and I would walk down Biltmore Ave. and then up the
>>> other
>>> side to get to the trolley stop at Dormont Jct. My only regret is
>>> that
>>> seeing how much I enjoyed riding the trolleys, she never took me on a
>>> trolley ride to my uncle's house on Franklin Ave. in Wilkinsburg
>>> before
>>> the east end lines were abandoned. North Side lines were pretty
>>> much gone
>>> by the time I was 4 years old and taking my first trolley ride.
>>> Ah, memories. Nobody can ever take them away from us can they? I
>>> wish I
>>> could remember more than I do.
>>>
>>> Just a small little joke about my 50-50 Irish-Italian blood.  I'm
>>> half
>>> Irish and half Italian. That means I get so drunk I want to beat
>>> the hell
>>> out of myself.
>>>
>>> -- "Dennis F.  Cramer" <dfc1 at windstream.net> wrote:
>>> My dad returned home in June of 1945, met my mother and they were
>>> married
>>> in
>>> the Jefferson Avenue Methodist Church in Washington in August.
>>> Talk about
>>> getting along with your life.  My brother was born in 1950 when
>>> they lived
>>> in Versailles and I did not come along until 1953.   By that time
>>> our home
>>> was in Liberty Boro.
>>>
>>> My father had a V-mail that his father had sent just before the
>>> end of the
>>> war where he stated he felt it was a mistake for us to let the
>>> Germans
>>> take
>>> Berlin and it would probably lead to problems.
>>>
>>> Many young children (and dogs) do not take kindly to beards.  I have
>>> sported
>>> one since 1977 and have had varying results with the nieces and
>>> nephews.
>>> I
>>> never had a child pull my beard when I was Santa at PTM.
>>>
>>> What killed the trolley?  Cheap cars and cheap gas.  No
>>> collusions, no
>>> backroom politicking, just a desire for people to feel independent.
>>>
>>> Yes John, we have several tunes in our quintet book from the
>>> 40's.  Beside
>>> the wedding stuff and the Christmas stuff, we also have a pretty
>>> broad
>>> range
>>> of popular music from the Civil War to the present.  Right now the
>>> folder
>>> has about 175 or so tunes.
>>>
>>>
>>> Dennis F. Cramer
>>>      Trombone
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>
>