Robert Pence

Me, too - I went through basic training at Lackland in January and February of 1962, and my experience was just the opposite of yours. It was chilly/rainy/drizzly/damp and we rarely saw sunshine, and our days started well before daylight. Our barracks were ones that were built as "temporary" before World War II from white pine with exposed wall studs, and you could see light through the cracks between the wide planks that were the only things between us and the outdoors. They were awful firetraps, and we had frequent fire drills in the middle of the night; it was amazing how fast we could get 60 guys from a dead sleep to outdoors. Our enemy wasn't heat. It was the combination of damp and chill, and I think about one-third of the guys on base (including me) got an awful deep chest cough with night sweats that lasted a week or two. At night the barracks sounded like a TB ward. I only knew of a couple of guys who got full-blown pneumonia, though, and had to be hospitalized. I was a cocky little bastard then, anal as all hell about rules and procedures, and before long I was squad leader over a squad with some guys who didn't give a sh!t and kept dragging the rest of us down. I whipped things into shape. The sloppy guys thought I was a SOB, and I kept getting yelled at by the TI - he literally kicked my ass once - but he didn't replace me so I figured I was doing the job right. :whip: After basic, I was at Lackland on casual status until late April waiting for my school to open up. That was pretty good duty; I had a permanent-party room in one of the barracks and supervised work details, mostly cleaning classrooms. I had a fair amount of free time and nobody bothered me much.

Sorry about that. I'll fix the links. My site was getting out-of-control cluttered and I restructured it for more consistency and easier navigation. I was fully aware that I would break a bunch of links in the process, but I think they're easily fixed. In most cases I just changed directory names on my host.

Those towns can be pretty interesting. They're dense and busy and colorful. I seem to remember children begging a lot in some places. The food smells were enticing, but I'd never buy anything from a cart on the street.

Were you a student, or the model?

Excellent photos. They make San Antonio's downtown look more urban than any other pics of the city I've seen. Visitors tend to concentrate on the Riverwalk even with their cameras.

Looks to me like they're just itchin' for an excuse to kick a**! I wouldn't try anything; some of those guys fight dirty.

Can you say National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956? Dwight D. Eisenhower promoted the defense aspect, but lobbying by auto makers and the trucking industry provided the decisive push to make it happen. That does relate directly to passenger rail, because the Interstate Highways enabled the trucking industry to siphon away much traffic from the railroads, resulting in mergers, consolidations and elimination of route-miles. Some railroads were already underwriting their passenger operations with freight revenues. The economic pressures brought by the loss of freight to trucks contributed directly and/or indirectly to the loss of much railroad passenger service.

Cute and tidy!

I love those photos! Looking at them, I think that things didn't change much from the sixties into the nineties, and looking around town now, I'd say they're still very much like that in a lot of respects. I never attended art school, but for a long time beginning in the late sixties I lived in the same neighborhood as the local art school (The art school moved; I'm still here)and hung out with that crowd. Some of those photos could easily have been taken at some gatherings I attended.

Indiana's courthouses, along with those in some other Midwestern states, were partly products of regional rivalries that sometimes got out of hand. By the late 19th century, a lot of counties still had courthouses that predated the Civil War. Often of brick or stone construction, they still had interior construction that was all-wood, and they heated with multiple coal stoves. They were subject to fires that destroyed land title records and court records, and the fires weren't always accidental. A movement began to construct fireproof, all-masonry courthouses, and it evolved into rivalries between commissioners in neighoring counties, striving to create the most imposing monuments to themselves. Under the laws of that era, voters had little oversight or control over how commissioners committed taxpayers' dollars, other than to vote them out at the next election. That happened a lot after bonds were issued to build those palaces. I think about a half-dozen of the courthouses of that era have been lost because of poor maintenance (counties couldn't afford to take care of them, once they were built), or ironically, fires. Three or four of the pre-Civil War buildings still stand; my favorite is in Paoli (Orange County). The building and its setting are near-perfect: One of several outstanding examples of the extravagant-courthouse era is the courthouse in Lafayette (Tippecanoe County). It was built in 1884 at a cost of $500,000, and a recent renovation cost $15 million. The building has over 100 columns on the exterior, and stands 212 feet tall. The walnut entry doors weigh 500 pounds each.

Re KJP's post of Kunstler's commentary, I suppose Kunstler is taking some grim satisfaction in that his predictions in "The Long Emergency" may be coming true. Re elective expenses, the only two that I have from that list are my cell phone and internet connection. No cable, no TiVo, no mortgage, no car payment, no netflix, no satellite radio, credit card paid off every month, etc. I have the most basic cell phone service; no data, etc. I need to be reachable wherever I am in case of family emergency. My mom is 97 and in a nursing home. She's seemed like she's been teetering at death's door for the past four years, though, so maybe "emergency" isn't the exact word. I have internet service because without it I'd be downtown in Freimann Square, standing on a bench and holding a Bible high in the air and railing about how the bankers' greed has brought God's wrath upon America and how it's all catching up with them and they're taking the rest of us hard-working folks who tried to save for a decent retirement right along with them, and how they're going to burn in Hell for all eternity for it. Hmm. Maybe if the bankers knew that, they'd pay for my FIOS.

Hmph!

Found your bracelet. Matching pair, in fact. Color goes with anything. :-)

I think the photo seicer posted is the limo for an alabama wedding party. They were inside at the rehearsal dinner when the photo was snapped.

You could wait outside a store until someone comes along who's close to your size. Give them some money and have them go in and score the stuff for you. Edit: or go to Goodwill.

Sorry. I can't help you there. You'll just have to work on getting the North Shore interurban service restored, with some of those gorgeous Samuel Insull-era stations and fast, frequent service all the way to the loop. Both of the 100-mph Electroliner sets still exist, one in storage at Rockhill Trolley Museum in Pennsylvania, and the other at Illinois Railway Museum.

Are you referring to my Van Buren Station shot? I can email you one. 800x500, 72dpi?

You Are 50% Boyish and 50% Girlish You are pretty evenly split down the middle - a total eunuch. Okay, kidding about the eunuch part. But you do get along with both sexes. You reject traditional gender roles. However, you don't actively fight them. You're just you. You don't try to be what people expect you to be. A lot of those questions are lame, but I guess that's the way they have to be for a short quiz. Shooting a gun - not dangerous if you know what you're doing and pay attention. I don't look at it as "fun" but as a technical challenge. I haven't been on a firing range in a long time, but I used to be quite good with either a rifle or a pistol. Boring people are fine with me; I'm pretty boring, myself. I live in a mess, but at least it's my mess, not some other slob's. I used to swear a lot, until I realized how retarded it sounds when other people do it. Mostly now I'm limited to an "AWSH!T" when I realize some folly is about to blow up in my face and it's too late to change anything. When your sweetie has a one-night stand, it soon turns into one night a week, and then weekends and then keeping a razor and toothbrush over there, and then you don't see him again until he shows up to get the rest of his stuff, if he doesn't sneak it out while you're at work. And maybe some of your stuff with it. Brains worked for me. I was pretty when I was younger, but I was too much a nerd to realize it and work it to my advantage. You're right (Yes, dear) I'll go along rather than arguing with someone who just doesn't get it. Besides, it's easier to agree just to get them to leave me alone. Then, I can go ahead and do what I was going to do anyway. I am not passive-aggressive. I'm just pragmatic. Flexible - see above. Shameless - see above. If they just don't get it, that's their problem. Cars, powerful or cute? - Neither. Reliable, economical, comfortable, room to haul lots of sh!t (yes, boring). Love my Ford Focus station wagon. Dreams - Mostly I forget them soon after waking. The few that stick in my memory well into the day and beyond sometimes come true, occasionally in exacting detail. But mostly I'm still sweet and innocent, provided you don't try to mess with me. :angel:

Stay right where I am, stock up on ammo and dried and canned food. :x

I'll second that. Damn nice!

That first place really inspires confidence in the business advertised on the sign. Of course, the banner hanging from the porch assures me that these are righteous folks, so it's probably just fine. :|

Wonderful tour! There's so much of the nation's cultural history rooted there. For a few years in the 1930s my mom was a public health nurse in New York City, and her work often involved checking on the welfare of expectant mothers and newborn children. It took her into some of the worst and most squalid places. From her stories that I can remember, I think she loathed the Bowery then. She wouldn't believe it if she saw what's happening there now.

Once there was a city there. It will take a while for the last remnants to disappear under weeds and debris. One of my great-great-grandfathers died in Danville, hit by a train on the way back to Indiana after looking into some farmland in Iowa or Kansas. His wife had died a year or two before, and my great-grandmother, then age 14, and her two younger brothers were orphaned.

Is anyone else getting an "Exploit Windows Metafile" threat alert from AVG on photo 101-1281.jpg when they open this thread?