[PRCo] Re: Introduction
Dwight Long
dwightlong at verizon.net
Mon Mar 26 20:32:53 EDT 2012
Fred
Homer Laughlin?
If he were a member of PRMA, then it would only be fitting that the Museum
acquire one of the NB&R "chicken coops" and restore it in his memory!
Were they not just bought by someone else? Is the factory still running
under the new ownership?
Dwight
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
To: "Pittsburgh Railways" <pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org>;
<jimktrains at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2012 2:41 PM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: Introduction
> An open letter to Jim Keener ... I thought about making it private and
> then thought that some of it was good enough for all you to read.
> Topic 1: Can we interest you in working for the Pennsylvania Trolley
> Museum in your spare time. That way you get to meet a variety of the
> local "strange" people.
>
> I have to be there this Saturday to requalify as an operator ... an every
> year occurrence. By coincidence my requalification this year is the same
> weekend as the North Shore PAT tunnel opening so I'll get to participate
> in that show on Friday.
>
> But back to PTM. Some great people out there and most of them are
> focused in the same direction. One of the things I found nice and
> surprising was when I attended different museum functions I counted
> between 33% and 48% women. Now this a business where men normally go on
> Saturday's to escape the girls in their life. I asked Dave Hamley why it
> happened that way. His answer was a classic, "Guess no one told them they
> didn't belong." Bravo. I remember one lady telling me she comes to
> some of the picnics because one of the gay members cooks better than she
> does. That too was a great testimonial. And when one of our black
> operators (Homer Laughlin) died, a wreath appeared in the substation with
> his picture in it. No one seemed to look upon Homer as an African
> American; they simply looked at him as one of us. For those who wish to
> learn to operate, the spring training begins this Saturday. (I worked in
> one other museum where Blacks were driven away using the!
> N word. I much prefer the attitude at PTM. It's warm and friendly.)
>
> Dennis Cramer can explain it all and he is on this list.
>
> Topic 2: One does not get to see light rail lines, strange cities,
> different art museums or whatever the dream is by dream or wishing. It
> happens by buying an airline ticket or by getting in the car and turning
> the ignition key. But it comes easier for those with smaller homes and
> less expensive cars and other less expensive tastes; in other words it's
> all in where we chose to spend our income. I built my own house and paid
> the sucker off as quickly as I could and always owned cheaper cars which
> enabled me to spend more of my income wandering.
>
> About a year and a half ago I received an e-mail from Kevin Keefe of
> Kalmbach Publishing. Kevin was writing a piece on Bill Middleton's life
> and wanted my help. I shot an e-mail back that said, I'll pop into your
> office in a couple of days and we'll talk about it. The following Monday
> morning I appeared on his doorstep in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin with a bunch of
> color slides and we had lunch. He wanted to know if I always solved
> requests by simply driving a thousand miles. I said, "No but you are in
> route. I"m wander to the West Coast and and then back home." After
> lunch he said he wished he could put his wife in the car and do what I was
> doing. I said as I'm saying here, "Wishing never makes it happen."
> Somehow you have to find ways to arrange your work and time and money so
> that it does happen. Of course I'm retired now and if I want to go to
> Paris next week, I could but even when I was working I had ways of
> arranging my life. For example, when Ed Lybarger sa!
> id, "Let's go to Cincinnati next week to see a packaging museum..." I was
> able to say, "Why not?" And when US Air came up with a $99 fare to
> London about 20 years ago, I came downstairs and asked my wife if she
> wanted to go to a play this weekend. Yes, we went to London for a
> weekend to see a play. Derrick is the only other person I know who would
> do something like that.
>
> Travel in my family goes back a long time, Jim. My Pittsburgh
> grandfather used to talk about his summer drives to Virginia Beach in the
> 1920s. He had to back the "machine" over the mountains of Pennsylvania
> or Maryland. Why? Car had a gravity fuel system. You had to keep the
> gas tank above the carburetor. My Dad remembered riding with him into
> Meadville in the late 1920s and his future father-in-law stopped outside
> of town, got out a rag and dusted the car off. He would not be seen in a
> dirty car and at that time there were still a lot of unpaved main roads to
> put dust on your car. Grandpa and his brother owned an electrical
> contracting business in Pittsburgh that wired major buildings like small
> factories, small schools, stores. They had the money for vacations in an
> era when most people did not.
>
> After World War II when gas rationing was lifted, there is a movie of dad
> loading the family luggage into the '39 Chevy. From then on, every
> summer we had two weeks of wandering. The rules never changed. You
> picked an approximate destination or maybe a real destination in advance.
> You studied all the places you might want to see in route. If you got
> there, fine. If you did not, no problem. There will be another year.
> What was important was that you enjoyed seeing new things, trying new
> foods, learning about life. About 4:30 or so every night, you looked for
> a motel. In the 1950s, for example, our vacations were in the south.
> Mom saw all the ante-bellum mansions she could find. I saw all the steam
> locomotives that were still running. The only trolleys were in New
> Orleans. I learned that grits go with eggs. I also learned all about
> black and white bathrooms, drinking fountains, movie theaters, etc. Of
> course, after I grew up, I spent a lot of money !
> seeing some of those mansions that I could have seen for free in the 1950s
> if I had not been so stubborn ... but kids are stubborn when accompanied
> by parents.
>
> My rules today are the same that my parents used except that I have
> applied them on two continents so far. That forces one to try to learn a
> few other languages. I do not like tour groups. They tend to funnel
> you into stores where the guide and the bus driver get kickbacks on
> worthless trinkets made in China. If I want something from Germany, I'll
> buy something worthwhile like a Canvas totebag. Here a picture of me in
> England ... self portrait in a train station mirror. What do you see
> that I actually bought on that trip?
> Well, that was the time that Used Air temporarily misplaced my bags.
> That red shirt came from a British Home Store. More than once I bought
> a Wecker (alarm clock) in Germany when I dashed out in such haste that I
> forgot one.
>
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