[PRCo] Re: Introduction

Mon Mar 26 21:24:13 EDT 2012

Herman Brown.

On Mar 26, 2012, at 8:32 PM, Dwight Long wrote:

> 
> 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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