I am so excited this morning. I heard the President’s speech about the high speed train system. I swear, every time he steps up to the mike, I get more hopeful for the future of this country.
Images of the future look positively clean and space-age, as gleaming trains speed across the country. Indiana to Wyoming in just over three hours would be a possibility. I could do a book tour without getting on an airplane.
Now, I really would like to take an old fashioned train trip, watching the scenery float by; having lazy conversations while eating in the dining car. My great grandfather worked on trains. Way back then, they used to throw the dishes out at the end of the line, rather than wash them. When great-granddad got off work, he would go to the dish pile and collect the unbroken dishes and bring them home.
There were three adults and six children living in that home and it was the depression. These dishes were a big help. I still have an oval plate and two coffee cups. The cups had two handles on them so that you could sip your coffee with less chance of spilling it on you.
I don’t think spilling will be an issue on a train going three hundred miles an hour. That track had better be smooth.
I can’t wait.
Okay. It was the depression and trains threw dishes away at the end of the line instead of washing them? I’m thinking hard about this and there is nothing about it that makes sense. I’m thinking that grandpa liked to snatch a dish or two every once in a while and made up that story about them throwing the dishes away so he wouldn’t look like a thief to his kith and kin. Not that anyone could blame him, since it was the depression and all. But really…did no one ever consider that maybe train companies weren’t rich enough to throw dishes during the depression…or even now?
Amazing, isn’t it. The story is that it was cheaper for them to buy/make the dishes than it was to hire people and facilities to wash them.
I have now brought up this question with my mom. She has absolutely no respect for her grandfather, so suggesting a bit of theivery to add to everything else he did is not a problem.
I shall let everyone know what the answer is. Always has seemed stupid to me but a lot of things big business does seem stupid to me.
[...] is in answer to XUP on a blog I wrote a couple of days ago We have an exciting future ahead of us! « Savanvleck’s Weblog about my great grandfather bringing home railroad dishes that were dumped out at the end of the [...]
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