Robert Pence

When I was a kid, even into my teens, sometimes calling was at the family home, with the casket set up there. In the family home or at a funeral home, calling typically was two full days and prior to the funeral service on the third day. On the two full days, it started in the morning and ran into the evening, with breaks for meals. It was pretty exhausting for the family; I still remember how wiped out everyone was after my grandmother's funeral, and that was in 1960.

Richard, it's no big deal. My post was intended just as a comment on a difference I'd noticed between the two forum platforms. It's very easy for me to switch screen resolutions to view a thread that has big photos, and then switch back when I'm done; only takes a few seconds. Don't make this any kind of priority. You do an amazing job of managing the technology, and I'm sure you have better things to do with your time than chase this minor issue.

Damndamndamn! Magnificent set of photos! The inauguration had to have been an exciting experience; I can't think of anything more empowering to more people, regardless of skin color, on a national scale in my lifetime. We now have a president of stature comparable to other world leaders, and I'm looking forward to the repair and restoration of America's standing among nations. Among your Philadelphia photos, the mural in the last one is spectacular. The grit of Detroit is just incomprehensible. I haven't been there in many years, and when I last visited, the American automobile industry was still functioning and while Detroit had problems the same as many big cities, and worse than some, it was still a busy, active place. If any one image stands as metaphor for what has happened, it's Michigan Central Station. I'll shut up, now. Thanks for a great tour.

Excellent photos, and fortunate weather conditions. They're beautiful shots. This set sure highlights the difference between the buildings of an earlier era that had substance and symbolism and were built to last, and much of the contemporary stuff that is completely unremarkable and undistinguished in design, built to be ripped down in twenty or thirty years and replaced with something even less distinctive.

Watch this! It gave me chills, in a very good way! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7865518.stm

page/screen layout in photo threads - I noted in other comments that SSP and SSC run vBulletin, vs. SMF on UO, so maybe that defines the difference, but anyway - On SSP, the user's screen name, avatar, etc. appear at the top of a photo thread, and photos in a scrolling thread can use the full width of the page. On UO, the user's screen name, avatar, etc. permanently define space at the left side of the page, limiting the width of the viewing area available for photos. That require considerable scrolling with any image wider than 800 pixels. I have my resolution set to 1024x768 on a 21-inch CRT monitor. If I set the resolution higher to accomodate wider photos without scrolling, text becomes too tiny for me to read easily. Maybe that's not a problem for you whippersnappers, but for me ...

Enticing scene, Florida Guy! I could use some of that, right about now.

Ditto. And it's good to see these precious places preserved.

According to the cited article, the incident occurred around February 3 or 4 and both vessels are back in port. The British sub was towed to Scotland and the French sub returned home under its own power. Reading your post, one might have concluded that this was a crisis of the moment, with 250 sailors still trapped on submerged, wrecked submarines, a la Kursk.

Good shots, and the light rail seems to have good ridership. Quite an attractive area, overall. Edit: I vote for #45

An item in this morning's paper reported that a flower shop in Louisville (Cottage Flowers) was burglarized of its entire inventory of roses, vases, and computer just before Valentine's Day. It's a devastating loss for a small-town small business because that and Mother's Day are the two biggest times of the year.

Very nice-looking community, excellent photos. Looks very upscale; I wonder how the community will weather the bank collapse that's beating up Charlotte.

Neat photoset. I visited some of those places in the late sixties, and I recall seeing many abandoned brick kilns of the beehive style.

The committee should have called their bluff. CVS's market research doubtless told them that there were competitors (Walgreen) ready to build there if they didn't.

I can't think of anything in Ohio that quite compares to that! :-D Incredibly beautiful scenes!

Fascinating thread. Fort Wayne has had considerably less success in reusing architectural material. In the late 1980s cast-iron facade elements from two downtown buildings were saved for reuse in the replacement structures, but they disappeared. They had been stored on the property unsecured, and probably were stolen for scrap iron. In 1993 St Marys Catholic Church burned after being struck by lightning. It had been built using old European methods that allowed a building's shell to survive intact for reuse, even after fire completely gutted the interior. The loss was largely insured, but the congregation had been struggling just to maintain the old building. They run the biggest soup kitchen in the area, and have support active outreach programs to poor and minorities, and they felt that to recreate the former church would be an irresponsible use of their money. They arranged to have ornamental cut stone and other masonry elements preserved for use in a new, smaller church, and had the shell of the old one razed. When construction got under way on the new church, the old stonework was nowhere to be found. Perhaps it was stolen and sold into a big-city architectural market, or maybe the contractor failed to communicate and the stone got crushed along with the brick and other masonry rubble.

For the most part quite attractive and charming. This building, though, stands as a warning of what can happen if you don't keep an eye on those liberal artists:

Excellent analysis, KJP! And Consider that, despite the temporary lull, energy costs will continue to escalate. Energy costs have an impact on the cost of building/upgrading ROW and rolling stock, and the results of a dollar spent in the near-term on rail infrastructure will be much greater than the value of that dollar spread over the next ten or twenty or thirty years. I'm with Sherman, I want those highways to be fast. So why don't we build the rails AND increase the speed limits on freeways to 120mph. That'll speed things up and probably wipe a few hundred people off the roads (also sarcasm) In keeping with the sarcasm theme, I suggest that one day a month all traffic laws be suspended on non-urban roads. Intelligent people will know enough to stay out of the arena, and a sizable number of the others will be culled from the herd. Just helping Darwin along. :-D

This one in Cincinnati isn't bad at all, IMO. It fits nicely within its urban context. I don't know if it's a preexisting building, but the apparently real second and third storeys and the windows make it look like it is. It reminds me of some of the GC Murphy stores of the late 40s-early 50s.

I've attended wakes in recent years, mostly in small towns. There, I think the Catholics call it a wake, and it includes a rosary service. Stuffy German/Swiss protestants call it a viewing, and it includes a bunch of people standing around in suits and looking uncomfortable and saying awkward things like, "Oh, she looks so nice." Again, the protestant version among the German/Swiss folks who raised me has a sit-down dinner in the church basement after the graveside services, and don't you even think of mentioning alcohol. Respectable people keep their whiskey hidden in the garage.

That was part of my itinerary en route to some of the same places. While you're in that part of the state, Corydon is worth a look-around, too. New Harmony took me two days of meandering and browsing around; in addition to the historic settlement, there's stuff to see in today's town. At Vincennes, the Grouseland tour (William Henry Harrison's home) cost $5, but it was well worth it. It's a remarkable place; people with money lived quite well in the early 1800s, compared with the spare existence of Abraham Lincoln's family.

Nice. People keep up their properties there, or those cantilevered balconies would have given up a long time ago.

The memorial really is enjoyable, especially in nice weather. The semicircular limestone building was built by the State of Indiana in 1940 and houses offices, historic/educational display materials, and meeting rooms. It hasn't been changed much since it was built, and the interior is finished in dark wood. As I recall, it has a pleasant aroma from that. From there to the homestead is about a quarter-mile walk along a path through the woods. Although physically not far from a road and a railroad, the homestead is set in a way that makes it seem really isolated. The whole memorial is executed in a respectfully understated manner. I suppose it would be better known if it had more tourist-trap hoopla, but I like it the way it is.

It looks like you have some interesting photography to share; I look forward to seeing more of it. Around 800x600 pixels works well on the forums, and 72dpi is plenty good enough for on-screen viewing. Welcome to the Urbanohio.com forums!

Back on topic, I think prostitution should be legalized. More than one person has mentioned that legalization, regulation, and testing could reduce the STD risk, especially when compared with the risk involved in picking up a random hooker. I agree, too, that legalization could reduce the violence and exploitation directed against hookers by pimps and clients. I think most illegal activities for which there's a ready market bring with them a high sleaze and violence factor. When you make any desired commodity illegal, only criminals can provide it. Some criminals don't have a strong sense of ethics and compassion. I wonder, too, if legalizing prostitution might reduce unwanted pregnancies and illegitimate births of endangered children. A professional prostitute working in a safe environment is more likely to know how to avoid getting knocked up, and is more likely to take precautions, than a messed-up crack whore shoved out of a car on a street corner and told to come back with money or get a beating.