Moving Right Along

My last post about what to carry when traveling reminded me of another aspect of moving about the planet with baggage; that is, how we do it by train.

When I first came to Kent State University back in 1947, the main means of getting here involved a rather long session with trains. I left Springfield, Ohio, in the south central part of the state via the New York Central line. In a little town in the middle of nowhere, I got off that train and had to wait for two hours in an old wooden train station for the Erie line, from Chicago. It pretty much took all day. Car transportation wasn’t much better, even if I were lucky enough to catch a ride. I think  I was the only person from Springfield going to Kent State at the time. This was before Eisenhower and General Motors took over the country and replaced all the two lane highways with the super highway system we know today. I tried the bus once, but it was full of Appalachians headed for the tire factories in Akron, complete with whiskey bottles in brown paper bags. So the long train trip became my transport modus operandi for four years, by which time I was thoroughly sick of trains.

It wasn’t until I began traveling abroad that I fell in love with trains. I love the Victorian architecture of stations in England, places with names like Victoria, King’s Cross and the venerable Paddington. It was at Paddington where I met a man who had been a clock keeper there, who talked about the thousands of children being evaluated to the country during WWll, and how heart-breaking it had been to watch the parents saying goodbye to those children. The train station at Windsor is fit for a queen, one of the most elegant looking depots I’ve ever seen. I’ve been to the little station used in the Harry Potter films, when I took a steam-train through the moors in Yorkshire, years before those films were made.

When my friend Susan and I took the train from Munich to Florence, we passed through the Alps, covered with snow. We shared our compartment with a Greek businessman, who, of course, had relatives in Cleveland. He talked about the traffic rules in Athens, where one is allowed to use a car only every other day. He got around that by having two cars so he could alternate each day. The issue around this was the pollution’s effect on the antiquities of the city, so he wasn’t exactly doing his part.

Speaking of a compartment, that’s another thing I enjoy. It’s like.  being in one of those great thriller films, where the person across from you may be a spy or an escaped murderer.

On long trips, there’s the dining car, where you can enjoy a meal with constantly changing scenery, from snowy Alps to palm trees at Lake Como. From open country to the sooty backs of old faded brick buildings as you come into a city. I think it is a more active from of transportation. You’re not driving a car, but you are absorbing all sorts of sights, sounds, smells, atmospheres. You’re grounded, not aloft, attached to the earth and moving along it.

After a flurry of traveling abroad for over ten years or so, I have not been thee for a while and I do miss it. It’s a combination of age and hip replacements, I don’t have the stamina I once had for al the walking (once you get off the train), but I am so glad I have had the chance to enjoy and appreciate the fun and excitement of train travel.

 

The ThIngs We Carry

My brother Ed and I talked the other day via Facetime, just before he and his wife took off for a tour of Ireland. He talked about packing for the trip and we discussed how to manage with a minimum of bulky luggage. He mentioned that once he picked our older brother Bill up at the airport when Bill was returning from a 10 day trip to Greece. Bill greeted him at the terminal carrying a gym bag. When Ed suggested that they go to pick up his luggage. Bill lifted the gym bag. “This is it,” he said. He said he accompanied him to the car, with Bill downwind.

The first time I went to Europe, I consulted my sister, who has been on every continent except Antarctica. She told me to pack my bag, wait a few minutes and then take half of it out. I was traveling with my friend Susan, who had been abroad several times. She had 5 weeks off from her doctoral studies at Ohio University, and I had recently retired from my job at Townhall ll. My main objective was to visit my daughter in Germany, but I also wanted to go to England and Italy with a stop off in Zurich where y friend Ethel had been living since college. Susan had the great idea of our using Back packs for every day necessities, plus clean socks and underwear as carry-ons. I packed a lot of dark colored clothes. We were pretty much winging it after England. We had Eurail passes, which in those days were good for where ever you wanted to go.

We traveled like students, basically. No fancy hotels, no posh restaurants. We had an apartment in London, where we could cook Wearing black turtleneck shirts with a fancy scarf got us through a few concerts and stage plays. We ferried over to the continent, took a train to Munich and took off for Italy with only our backpacks, leaving our suitcases with Emily.

In Florence, we found a pensione and our room with a view was a bus station, but who cared. My friend Ethel took us to a wonderful fondue place in Zurich and we walked through strings of fairy lights decorating the streets for Christmas.

Back in Germany, we had a great time eating good food and enjoying the lovely town and 1 year old Katina. And washing out a few clothes.

Besides being very tired of the same old clothes, the mobility afforded by packing light paid off as we boarded buses, trains and cabs. Since then I have always traveled light, even leaving clothes behind. We stayed in a B.and B. in London once where the Breakfast servers all seemed to have recently arrived from Bosnia, or some other war-torn country. I left a nice cardigan I was sick of, a tee shirt and a nightgown. I’ve done that several times in various places in England. Some entrepreneur should come up with disposable clothes for travelers. Several times, Susan and I have rented cottages, which work out well, since one has the advantage of a washer and dryer right there if you can figure out how to use them.

I have never gone so far as my brother, carrying only a gym bag, but if one can get away with it, it’s not a bad idea.

 

The illustration above has been enhanced by a terrific app I downloaded on my IPad, called PaperArtist. I do my blog illustrations these days on the IPad, with a couple of paint programs apps I have downloaded. I used to do the drawings and scan them, but now I can do it all on the computer.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

To say the least, it was the summer of my discontent. It began in June, along with the kind of humid weather that destroys my soul. I had no energy, no appetite, no anything. I was losing weight, along with the general malaise. A few tests suggested a thyroid problem, a lack of vitamin D, but nothing else. I finally suggested that perhaps my pancreas should be checked, since I had had pancreatitis last year. So I had an MRI, which disclosed a couple of cysts on my pancreas. I was referred to a gastroenterologist, who ordered a series of endoscopic procedures. The first was diagnostic, which was inconclusive. Another was to put in stents in the ducts, in case the cysts blocked them. The  last was to remove the stents after a few weeks. I was put on two drugs, one to assist the pancreas in processing digestion, the other to allay the acid caused by that stent implantation. What I didn’t know at the time was that these medications were also, over time creating a problem with allergies.

The upshot of all that was that I ended up with the worst asthma attack I have ever had, which also resulted in an episode of A-fib, which can cause all sorts of problems, like a stroke. So they put me on more drugs,, which made me dizzy. The A-fib came under control rather quickly, actually, but now I have a cardiologist telling me that I need to take yet another drug, the side effects of which are unknown to me. I shall see her next week and inform her that I shall not be taking her drugs,, thank you very much.

The pancreatitis I suffered from last year was from high blood pressure medication, by the way. The A-fib was caused by the asthma attack brought on by the pancreas meds. Are they trying to kill me, or what?

I read an interesting op-ed piece the other day about how doctors are now ruled by “procedures” and drugs. Yea, verily.

BY the way, the pancreas docs, all of whom are good, gentle, competent people, have names that sound like roll call at the Mosque. Unfortunately, like most docs these days, they do not listen to old women. There is an idea that we lose our minds after so many years and know absolutely nothing about our own bodies, cannot decipher prescriptions and their side effects and  therefore should be willing to trust their superior knowledge₌, which they get from drug salesmen.

And the last charming  medical Middle sterner told me that the cysts are benign.

August Eats

 

The Good food month is here, with fresh; locally grow produce filling the refrigerator and bellies. I put in a lot of Roma tomatoes this year and they are producing bunches of lovely bright red little globes glowing through the greenery, I use then for cooking, eating and looking at. They’re great with basil, onion, garlic, olive oil and balsamic vinegar over angel hair pasta. I also have the regular kind, ready for the BLT feast. I don’t ear a lot of bacon, because, you know, it’s full of all sorts of things that will kill you, but when there are tomatoes jumping off the vines, a person is obliged to combine them with good bread, mayonnaise and bacon. It’s obligatory.

Corn is excellent this year, too, all buttery with a touch of salt. Green beans are melt in your mouth tender and sweet. I haven’t planted beans in years, mainly because the squirrels just dig them up. The farmers’ market provides plenty. Gently steam them until they are tender, throw in a bit of butter and savor. The green peppers are scarce again, but there are enough to flavor other dishes and salads.

Peaches, apples and pears are coming on, too. Beeckwith’s Orchards already have their cider available, which seems a little early. They no longer press the cider on the premises because of some health laws, but it’s still the best there is.

We’ve had a spell of sticky weather, after some beautiful crisp days and nights, so summer is ending the same way it began. It went too quickly, heat, humidity and all, but I look forward to fall and visits from my fafaway daughters.

Nature Here and There

 

\The garden is thriving, thanks to the rain, along with those beautiful August sunshine and blue skies. Yesterday was on of the most perfect, with billowy clouds against the bluest of skies. Not a day when one would think of driving over to Youngstown, but we went to the Mill Creek park, a great contrast to the Detroit-like ambience of the former steel. We went in search of Lanteman’s Mill, and an attempt to find a bizarre exhibit at the Ford Nature Center. The mill is an historic structure which has been restored to working order, actually grinding grain.

The whole experience was rather dispiriting. The park is beautiful in itself, but it is apparent that there is not enough money to maintain any kind of meaningful nature center, which was staffed by a couple of rather rather apathetic women who barely made eye contact. A few kids were trying to interact with some pitiful learning exhibits, and one room was full of mournful, moribund turtles in glass cages.

The exhibit I was looking for, which has haunted me for years was a few glass jars of pickled snakes. Years ago we saw these at the mill, along with drawers full of dead songbirds, which someone had probably donated to the place. Several years ago, I found the snakes at the Nature Center, but these were only a few of the birds left. I wanted John to see them, but there was nothing left. Apparently, collecting birds was quite a hobby, and they were preserved somehow, so that their feathers stayed bright. It had been such a weird sight to see those drawers full of little, colorful bird bodies and wonder how they had cone to be victims of some nut-case bird collector.

The mill, when we finally found it, was staffed by the same sort of uninterested employee. I asked her if they had corn meal or flour for sale. She replied that they did, when they had any, as if that didn’t happen very often. There were a lot of people wandering about, but not many seemed to be interested in touring the immense building. It is something like four stories high, which means a lot of stairs, too many for me right now, so we just wandered around. It’s obvious that this park needs better funding, but Youngstown is struggling, as are many rust belt cities. It actually is a very interesting place, with a first rate art museum, a state university, and great ethnic restaurants.

We drove back via Rte. 422, which I’ve written about before, the road that used to be lined with the pre-historic like remains of giant steel mill, most of which have now been demolished. However, thee are several new ones, much sleeker and stream-lined compared to the old ones. I miss them, even though they were depressing, but in a good, artistic way, making me think of the thousands of people who spent their lives in these industrial hives.

We seem to have our own little nature center right in the back yard. The see have been at the tomatoes. Since we will be having bumper crop of the Roma variety, I guess we can share without too much trouble, Poor deer are losing their habitat and frequently wander the neighborhood, looking confused, but enjoying the vegetation.

Reality Check

 

When one reaches an advanced age, that is, becomes a genuine geezer, one has a rather panoramic view of the history one has lived all those years. Events come and go and come again. The BIG Decision Makers develop policies that they deem necessary, start wars, decide who counts and who doesn’t, argue about what the Founding Fathers really meant when they constructed the Constitution, and even though we vote for them, the government machine takes over and we have no control over what happens. Really.

One of the areas I have seen kicked around is that of our right to privacy, out right not to have the government looking over our shoulder and using the information gleaned to abridge our “freedom.’

Let me take you back to the so-called idyllic 50s, the era that some people want to bring back. The scene is Kent State University, to Fr. James Fleming’s Social Theory class. It was a senior level class in which we studied how, over the centuries of civilization; men had developed the means of forming society in workable ways to create the best possible outcomes for all – or in some cases for a chosen few. Included among these social philosophers was Karl Marx, naturally. Now in the class was an older student we had never seen before,; since most of the rest of us had been together for at least three years as sociology majors we all knew each other. He was very quiet in class, not asking questions or commenting. He was also dressed very formally, not in the casual way of the average student,. One day, after class, he joined a group of us at lunch. He had a lot of questions about Dr. Fleming, a wonderful teacher and scholar from Georgia. “He sure talks a lot about Karl Marx,” he said. We just stared at him. “It’s a social theory class,” one of us said. “You can’t ignore Marx.” He didn’t look convinced. He disappeared from class soon after that. He had FBI written al over him. SO far as I know, Dr. Fleming was not assigned to a list of subversives, but the watching had begun.

In Columbus, the state of Ohio had its own House Un-American Activities Committee, which forced the Ohio State University to establish a loyalty oath for all faculty, including graduate assistants.  To teach at Ohio State you had to swear that you were not and had never been a member of any organization that threatened to overthrow the government of the USA. They also established a gag rule on certain speakers invited to speak at university and class events. McCarthy and the Congressional un-American Committee were gearing up for the major witch hunts of that time. Nothing was too absurd: an acquaintance of my husband’s in graduate school was in charge of the classic film series, showing such films as “Grapes of Wrath,” “The Ox-Bow Incident,” “Citizen Kane,” etc., the kinds o films to stimulate discussion as both art and human behavior. (In those far-off days college students were actually interested in ideas, rather than special effects.) The young man was called before the Ohio Un-American Activities Committee because – gasp! – some of them had been written by the notorious Hollywood Ten, writers who had refused to testify against others who may or may not have once belonged to the Communist Party, or perhaps had fought with the rebels in the Spanish Civil War against the Fascists. It was the committee which decided what was subversive; they had a little list, which included groups like Blue Star Mothers, those dangerous government over-throwers who had had a son serving in WWII.  Our friend had to face these yobs who probably thought “Grapes of Wrath” was about the wine industry. Our friend was not hauled off for violating the loyalty oath, but the film series was cancelled.

The atmosphere in Columbus was oppressive, but worse was to come.

For reasons that I still do not understand, Joseph McCarthy was allowed to run roughshod over the civil rights of hundreds of people. People lost jobs, were black listed for years; He kept waving papers around, shouting that he HAD NAMES!!! Interestingly, one of the young lawyers on his committee was Robert F. Kennedy,

Two brave men stopped him, finally. One was Edward R. Murrow, and I you saw “Good Night and Good Luck.” you know what he did, when even the president seemed to cringe and avoid confronting that major villain of his presidency. The other was Joseph Welch, a Dickensian old Boston lawyer, who took him on during the Army-McCarthy hearings and smashed him but good.

Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover took up where McCarthy left off and created similar violations of free speech and illegal spying on American citizens, not presumptive terrorists, but civil rights workers, anti-war demonstrators, journalists, and commentators.

And now we have the IRS snoops checking out certain groups. It’s still wrong, but the magnitude of the offensive actions doesn’t come close to past skullduggery in the name of national Security.

In another sense, we are under constant scrutiny through our credit cards, computer pages, Twitter, Facebook, merchant preference cards, store cameras – we’re all in there.

Scary.

Black Beauties

They’re here. Here to brighten up my otherwise sweaty, unpleasant summer. The season is not a long one, but I do my part to consume as many as I can. I don’t remember their being around when I was growing up. IN those days we ate sweet green grapes, cold from the refrigerator. Now black cherries fill the bill.

One time when my friend Susan and I were in London, every day on the way back to the B. and B. from the Metro, we passed a wonderful fruit store, where we would pick up plums, peaches and black cherries for a pre-dinner snack. Soon it was just the black cherries. If we had enough left after dinner, they were good for dessert, too. I once spent a week up op Traverse City doing a storytelling workshop at the EMU branch there. Traverse City, MI is only the black cherry capital of the world, I think. There was black cherry sauce on chicken, black cherry cake, black cherry ice cream and black cherries on sale by the road side. I l loved it.

The best buy around here is at one of those discount grocery stores over in Ravenna. For all I know they come from Lower Slobbovia, but they are superb, sweet and juicy and beautiful to behold. That’s the extra kick with this fruit. You con sit and admire it before you eat it.