Re: Happy Thanksgiving
- From: Rumpelstiltskin <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:48:03 -0800
On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 06:50:31 -0800, Rita <Rita@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<snip>
The problem was an anomaly and yes, I will continue to ride
Amtrak as it is the normally the most pleasant way to travel
from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Flying would mean changing
planes in LA and I enjoy the ride up the Pacific Coast.
All the old people in my car had cell phones and so we were
able to keep in touch with our kids who would be picking us
up. They knew when to finally come to the station.
I guess some in soc.retirement shun cell phones but my
experience is that most seniors do have them and consider
them an important safety device among other important
uses.
I shun cell phones, but you've hit on the one time I say
to myself that I wish I had one. That's when I'm flying to
Boston and, if I had a phone, I could call my sister in
Swansea to tell her on what train I'll be arriving in Attleboro
from Boston. There are telephones in the train station,
but they're not part of a real telephone system. They just
take your money and don't connect you.
Calling my sister actually hasn't been a problem after
the first couple of times, because now I plan to get a plane
that will arrive at a time when I can get a commuter train
easily. (I'll wish again if the plane is ever very late, though.)
It's also now much faster and easier to get from Logan
airport to the South Station train terminal, now that there's
a "Silver Line" which gets one to South Station without
changing subway lines twice. The "Silver line" is actually
a bus, though the name sounds like a Boston Subway line
(such as "red line" or "green line"). The Silver line seems
to be administratively part of the subway system even
though it's a bus line.
I didn't have to coördinate the plane and train so carefully
in the old days, when one could stash one's suitcase in a
locker at the airport or train station, because then one
could traipse around Boston until it became time to take
one's train. Boston is a very traipsworthy city if one's not
schlepping a suitcase.
At least they still have a clock in the train station in Boston.
One day people will wake up and realize we don't know
how to make clocks anymore, the way people in the Dark
Ages woke up one day after the fall of Rome and realized
they didn't know how to build aqueducts or coliseums
anymore. In San Francisco, if you're on Market Street,
you can always walk out into traffic and look down the
street to the Ferry Building clock, as long as you're within
fifteen blocks of it or so. From Union Square, there used to
be a clock on Macy's until Macy's "modernized" their
facade. You can still see a clock high on a skyscraper
from Union Square, if you look down Maiden Lane at just
the right angle, while you're standing a tad bit north of
the statue of some babe on a high pedestal holding spear
that's in the middle of Union Square. That's the only
clock that I know of that's still visible from Union Square
these days. You have to know where it is or you'll be
unlikely to spot it.
.
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