I’m up too early to go find JP, or to have an early morning restaurant coffee. Sigh, that would be nice. One thing I don’t like about Miami is the lack of good used bookstores. There are some with strange hours and high prices, but nothing nice like the old PWAC (People With Aids Coalition) for prices and selection. The city shut them down, saying they wanted stores that sold “new” stuff in that area, Biscayne Blvd and 41st St. Instead, Miami has franchises of Borders, and Barnes and Noble, home of the sixty dollar cookbook. And the five dollar coffee and cookie.
My car. It’s got 173,500 miles on it and still cruises like a charm. You can’t beat Cadillac quality, but I will never own another one. Just too expensive on the upkeep. I bought this one second hand in Seattle in 1988. It was originally sold in Florida. I will need a new car soon, and I have long since become convinced of the value of keeping off the local lists. I may buy again in Washington state and have Wally drive it out here. (He writes that despite all predictions by the doctors, Maggie has actually improved to the point she has been home for the holidays. They have not, it seems, have told her how serious her condition really is.) I still haven’t really studied the possibility of having my cars registered to a Washington corporation, but I have always been against using motor vehicle registrations and information for ulterior purposes. So I protest, and have done so successfully for some 25 years.
In the same condensed book as “Menfreya in the Morning”, is the old “Ninety and Nine”, a story I read decades ago. I like it, especially the court martial passage. The lawyer can force the accused to answer a question containing words the accused does not understand. The prosecution can speculate on motives without any proof or evidence. The court can compel witnesses to admit wrongdoing even though the witness is not the one on trial. But, of course, the worst thing for me is that if the accused is found guilty, in addition to being punished, he is marked for life. That’s one old English tradition needs a bullet in the head, even today. Once you are punished, that is it. Another thing I don’t like about modern court is the fact that even if you are found innocent, all the evidence, testimony and records of what went on are not handed back to you with an apology. So that you can destroy them if you so desire.
While I’m on it, another thing I don’t like is the courts preference for the testimony of police. They get up there and say things that imply they know you well enough to know your motives, which is rarely the case. Which one of us chums around with police while doing illegal activities? They quote if you have a criminal record. Do you have a criminal record now? If the record is yours, why did you give it to the police? Are the records 100% accurate, that is, are they facts? Then why are they quoted as facts? The police go after you over your acts or your motives, depending on which harms you the most, but you can’t do the same to them, because all know that their motives are nothing but good, no matter what the methods, right? That is why police have such total respect and support everywhere they go…
The related problem is that others see police tactics and figure it is okay to do the same things themselves. My health insurance company, which insures only me and has only my name on the policy, wants me to list members of my family and relations and which of them are insured and by whom. Now, I can answer all truthfully and say I do not know, but to process the claim, I have to answer no. I don’t recall ever agreeing to give information about any third party when I signed up for insurance. Therefore, my default answer is the one which gets my claim approved. You want information on my brother, you ask my brother, not me. It is not even your business whether I have a brother. A typical case of they want information without telling you why, and that is wrong when they can hold off on their obligations until they get what they want. There was nothing on the policy about any of my relations when I signed up.
Later, I called JP to meet up at Our Lady of Lebanon, but before that I went to the railroad museum. I remember the first time on a train and I was only 3 years old. For once, memory was backward because the trains seemed so much larger now that I recall. Fifteen foot ceilings, and big windows. It’s near the MetroZoo, in the northwest corner of the complex. I met a dude with a light bucket, member of the astronomy society. nteresting chap, I may take in their next club meeting. Back to the train museum.
It’s on a site arranged to look like a rail yard of old rusty cars awaiting restoral. Yes, exactly like a mechanical elephant’s graveyard, almost too realistic I’d say. Many of the cars brought back familiar memories. We must have traveled in the coaches during the day a lot. I conclude that people, and the designers, must have had some fairly weird ideas about privacy in those days. The seating was clever, but still knee to knee with toilets half the size of today installed in one corner of the cabin. A good sweaty one would have killed the bystanders. People must have been on average half the size of today to even fit in the hallway and accomodations, much less get past each other.
Of particular interest were the “cells”. These were compartments designed with the minimum privacy and elbow room for one traveler. They were shoehorned against each other, each with a private toilet which could not be used if the bed was unfolded. The staterooms, I think they called them, were devoid of any distraction other than the passing scenery, that is except the obvious. Joining the Mile Low Club, I think. Anyway it was noteworthy to see how the airline industry has tackled many of the same problems with space and food. If you get them there quicker, there is a huge savings in the logistics of human consumption and byproduct over a two day cross-country run. The dining cars were like, well, dining cars. And the menu prices just as outrageous. $1.35 for scrambled eggs, toast and coffee! Do they think this is Paris!
A mystery, but just. There were several custom travel cars open, these were like mobile homes. Meant for family or group travel, I am certain. It’s just that the design and function of many things didn’t make sense to me. Some features seemed too permanent for travel, others not useful or big enough. The entire cross-country trip was stated as less than three days, so why the need for a practically full size kitchen where the logistics of getting everything needed was worth more than three days using the dining car? The people around me seemed constantly preoccupied by the fact there was no television in the units, berths, compartments, bars, dining rooms, or at all. How did people survive such long journeys without it? There was one car, for the record, that had what appeared to be a mini-movie theatre, but may have been a totally useless on-the-rails sales training room.
Privacy was definitely of a different order. The restrooms had waiting areas, and the cubicles could hardly be comfortable for more than a twelve-year-old. One could only hope the clacking of the rails and onrush of fresh air spared everyone anything like modern day scrutiny would make of their bowel movements. Probably a lot of polite smiling took place. Even the president’s car was cramped sideways where it would have made far more sense to turn all the furniture along the line of travel and give everyone plenty of room to move around. The larger cars, some 84 feet long, could have been split into two and given everyone lots of luxury. And again, the priorities were all wrong, who really needs a full size medicine cabinet each on a train trip? Some of the lower class berths had open fold-down toilets right in the compartment.
Still the airlines could take a few lessons. One is the huge (comparatively) windows with a real view. Even if it is just clouds and empty space, it gave everyone something for distraction. Endless miles of cloudbanks can’t be much different than endless miles of prairie. It would add to the romance of travel. The worst seats on the train were still nicer and larger by about a quarter over the average airplane, and the trains respected the need to stretch out while sitting. For all the talk, it seems clear to me that what really drove the railroads out of the passenger business was the fantastically increasing costs of keeping them fed and comfy on the much slower rail speeds to get there, what good is a cheap ticket if it now costs you ten times as much to provide a bed and bath along the way. The coach class cars are a study of the minimum space needed per passenger in the long run.
Later, when I met up with JP at the church, it was food time. We ate middle-eastern food, expensive I’ll say, and chatted with the family. Then we headed over to the other church, where his girlfriend started up with her tricks and scams again. She does drugs, and everything else is the result of that addiction. Now she wants to rent a U-Haul and move back into his place. To trash it and pawn all his valuables again. But who am I to stand in the path of true love. Oh, you should have seen some of the younger Lebanese women with their dancing shawls. Ah to be 21 again. JP kept pointing out people who owned this or that shopping center but they all looked like it. I only wanted to watch the pretty women again. His sister Tammy was there, but she looks so much like other women I’ve known that I just know I’m going to forget her name at just the wrong time.
