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. . . TRADITION see "HOME & FAMILY" for related links Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. --G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton (18741936) English essayist, novelist, and poet. _Orthodoxy_[1908] Severe change has psychological effects about which we know very little. Among other things, severe change weakens, or even destroys, tradition. Destroying tradition, of course, was a prime objective of modernism for nearly a century. And today we're reaping the results in terms of personal alienation and social dysfunction. For tradition is the outward expression of those inner collective images that form the cohesion of civilized life. Any society that loses its traditions weakens its psychological moorings. So constant change, as a desired principle, however convenient in the short term, cannot anchor a civilization for long. --William Van Dusen Wishard Author, head of World Trends Research.  ;void(0)) TRAGEDY . . see "UNHAPPINESS" for related links That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy. --Thomas Carlyle (17951881) Scottish historian and political philosopher. _Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufeldrockh_, 3.4, [1835] Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune. --William James (18421910) American philosopher. The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love. --W. Somerset Maugham (18741965) English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer. _The Summing Up_, 77 [1938] It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn't a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is sin. --Benjamin E. Mays (18941984) American educator and president of Morehead College. The tragedy of man is what dies inside himself while he still lives. --Albert Schweitzer (18751965) Franco-German theologian, philosopher, and mission doctor. _The Philosophy Of Civilization_ [1923] The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means. --Tom Stoppard [Tomas Straussler] (1937 ) Czech-born British playwright. "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead_ [1967] The composition of a tragedy requires testicles. (On being asked why no woman had ever written a 'tolerable tragedy.') --Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (16941778) French writer and philosopher. Letter from Byron to John Murray [2 April 1817]. The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel. --Horace Walpole (17171797) English writer and connoisseur. _Letters_ "To the Countess of Upper Ossory" [16 August 1776] ;void(0)) TRAINS . . see "TRAVEL" for related links Photograph: The California Zephyr in Colorado. - On May 10, 1869, the tracks [of the transcontinental railroad] met at a place in Utah they christened Promontory Point. The crews had laid 1,775 miles of track in just over three years. Five days later a special Central Pacific train, loaded with company bigwigs, engineers, and state dignitaries came puffing in from California in a rainstorm. The Union Pacific train bogged down in floods and came shrieking in three days later, complete with its own company directors and official guests, and three companies of infantry and a regimental band. It promised a gallant and decorative ceremony. But in the course of their labor the crews had collected a more colorful assortment of interested parties: saloon keepers, gamblers, whores, money lenders, odd-job rovers. And these, with the cooks and dishwashers from the dormitory trains, made up the welcoming party. Five states had sent along gold and silver spikes, and they had all to be exhibited and applauded. But the chosen symbol was a golden spike. The great Governor of California himself, Leland Stanford, stood ready to drive it into the last sleeper, a piece of California laurel. The band stopped its tootling. There was a prayer. The telegraph operator, high on a pole, finally connected with San Francisco and New York and was ready to flash the first coast-to-coast commentary. It was a single sentence: "Stand by, we have done praying." Then the Governor of California flexed his biceps, lifted the hammer, gave a mighty swing at the spike and missed. But the faithful telegraph man had already tapped out the news, and New York fired a hundred-gun salute, Philadelphia rang the Liberty Bell, and a San Francisco paper announced the "annexation of the United States." --Alistair Cooke [Alfred Cooke] (19082004) British-born American broadcater and journalist. _America_ [1973] & see: [When building the transcontinental railroad] the ends of the two tracks neared each other, the race took on a ludicrous quality. Each company [Central Pacific & Union Pacific] adopted the questionable theory that it could claim a sort of squatter's rights to lay track as far as it had prepared roadbed without regard to where the other company's railhead was. Each dispatched teams of road graders far in advance of its track laying crews. As a result, the rival crews overlapped each other for almost 200 miles in Utah and Nevada, often working side by side. The death rate from accidents skyrocketed as workers set off blasting powder charges without warning their rivals. --_The Wild West_ Time-Life Books [1993] p. 84 - The Loco Motive machine was to be upon the railway at such a place at 12 o'clock. So of course we were at our post in 3 carriages and some horsemen at the hour appointed. I had the satisfaction, for I can't call it _pleasure_, of taking a trip of five miles in it at 20 miles an hour. As Accuracy was my great object I held my watch in my hand at starting and all the time, and as it has a second hand, I knew I could not be deceived. During the five miles, the machine was occasionally made to put itself out or _go it_; and then we went at the rate of 23 miles an hour, and just with the same ease as to motion or absence of friction. But the quickest motion is to me _frightful_; it is really flying, and it is impossible to divest yourself of the notion of instant death. It gave me a headache which has not left me. Altogether I am extremely glad to have seen this miracle, but having done so I am quite satisfied with my _first_ achievement being my _last_. --Thomas Creevey (17681838) English politician. (After riding in a railroad carriage at 23 mph [14 November 1829].) Quoted in Jacques Barzun, _From Dawn to Decadence_ [2000]. I thought the perfection of rapid transit had been reached. We traveled at least eighteen miles an hour when at full speed, and made the whole distance averaging as much as twelve miles an hour. This seemed like annihilating space. --Ulysses S. Grant (18221885) American Unionist general and 18th President of the United States [1869-1877]. (On riding the railroad in 1839.) - The railroad track is miles away, And the day is loud with voices speaking, Yet there isn't a train goes by all day But I hear its whistle shrieking. All night there isn't a train goes by, Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming But I see its cinders red on the sky, And hear its engine steaming. My heart is warm with the friends I make, And better friends I'll not be knowing, Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take, No matter where it's going. --Edna St. Vincent Millay (18921950) American poet. - kap shares some thoughts with USENET: Today is the last day for the 'Desert Wind' a train that ran from Los Angeles to Chicago passing through Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and other towns. So Las Vegas won't have any Amtrak service anymore. I wanted to take that train but kept putting it off. When I was young we took the California Zephyr from Chicago to San Francisco no rush just looking out the windows at the scenery and wondering what people did in all those remote places. But my favorite train trip was taken when I was 15 to the Canadian Rockies. The trip was sponsored by the American Youth Hostel and it started in New York and went to Montreal from there we travelled across Canada to Jasper in Alberta. We then had 2 weeks to ride our bicycles from Jasper to Calgary about 20 miles each day. This was by far the most beautiful place I have ever been. The Canadian Rockies, with their towering peaks, glaciers, wildlife, green lakes, and solitude are truly majestic and peaceful. Perhaps I didn't feel that at 15 at the least I enjoyed the mountains but I have thought about the trip many times since. Typically the 20 miles daily was divided into 10 miles uphill and 10 miles downhill. Now the 10 miles downhill were fun and attained rapidly at speeds approaching 60 mph (how I didn't kill myself is a wonder kids!) But neither my friend Chris nor I was about to ride 10 miles uphill. We thought that would be stupid. So when we saw a truck we hitchhiked. Naturally, every day we arrived at the next hostel before everyone else. They thought we were really good cyclists. One day I showed everybody what a clutz I really was. Keep in mind that we really did ride downhill at speeds approaching 60. We went to buy a cake at a country store and on the way back to the hostel I hit a rock and feel off my bike (on level ground.) The chain fell off and my leg landed square on the exposed spokes. The doctor told me I had just missed the artery and 20 stitches later was back in the hostel. Because I was told not to ride the rest of the trip, Chris & I were given permission to hitchhike to each overnight stop. Glad they gave us permission! So we reconnoitered around Lake Louise & Banff & took a quick dip in a placid green lake that looked quite inviting. We were out in 10 seconds as it was freezing. After 4 or 5 days my leg felt much better and since we were on level ground (the area around Calgary is flat as a pancake), I figured it would be ok to ride. I promptly fell off the bike and rolled into a ditch on the side of the road. There was nobody within miles and if the fall had opened the stitches... Well, you're reading this post aren't you? No they didn't open & the rest of the trip passed by uneventfully and very quietly. kap - - Daddy, What's a train? Is it something I can ride? Does it carry lots of grown up folks and little kids inside? Is it bigger than our house? oh, how can I explain When my little boy asks me, "Daddy, what's a train?" I remember when I was a boy living by the track Us kids'd gather up the coal in a great big gunny sack And then we'd hear the warning sound as the train pulled into view And the engineer would smile and wave as she went rolling through She blew so loud and clear That we covered up our ears And counted cars as high as we could go I can almost hear the steam And the big old drivers scream With a sound my little boy will never know I guess the times have changed and kids are different now Some don't even seem to know that milk comes from a cow My little boy can tell the names of all the baseball stars And I remember how we memorized the names on railroad cars The Wabash and TP Lackawana and IC Nickel Plate and the good old Sante Fe Names out of the past And I know they're fading fast Well, we climbed into the car and drove down into the town Right up to the depot house but no one was around We searched the yard together for something I could show But I knew there hadn't been a train for a dozen years or so All the things I did When I was just a kid How far away the memories appear And it's plain enough to see They mean a lot to me 'Cause my ambition was to be an engineer --Song, written and recorded by Utah Phillips, "Daddy, What's a Train?" - - "From A Railway Carriage" by Robert Louis Stevenson (18501894) Scottish essayist, poet, and novelist. Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches; And charging along like troops in battle, And through the meadows and horses and cattle: All of the sights of the hill and the plain Fly as thick as driving rain; And ever again in the wink of an eye, Painted stations whistle by. Here is a child who clambers and scrambles, All by himself and gathering brambles: Here is a tramp who stands and gazes; And there is the green for stringing the daisies! Here is a cart run away in the road Lumping along with man and load; And here is a mill and there is a river, Each a glimpse and gone forever! - ^ "Removeable Feast: The Last Steak on Amtrak" By Raymond Sokolov _The Wall Stret Journal_ [8 April 2006] Bryan, Ohio - A truck zooms past us as we lumber by fields of corn stubble. But we diehard rail passengers haven't paid 4½ times the bargain one-way airfare from New York to Chicago to cover the same distance in 18 hours instead of two because we care about speed. [ . . . ] A dinosaur myself, I deplore this devolution of the railway diner from those glory days of rolling refreshment I took for granted from 1943 to the mid-'50s. Mythic trains such as the Wolverine from Detroit to Chicago had crystal and napery and gracious service. The Santa Fe Railroad's Super Chief, an 8-year-old's fantasy of elegance made real, even had a private dining room. These trains spawned a whole romantic culture of rail travel, in movies such as "Twentieth Century" or in Mary McCarthy's once-daring story of a sleeping-car romance, "The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt." Now we are left with that diminished thing, the airplane-disaster film. Those of us who remember a better, slower time take to the rails. Most of us are eligible for the modest discount Amtrak gives to seniors. This winter, Sally Lesh, a writer with eight children who has spent 40 years, half her life, in the remote hamlet of Gustavus, Alaska, crisscrossed the lower 48 on Amtrak. Here she was, somewhere west of Albany, N.Y., loving the spectacle of Alex serving the entire diner by himself with the grace of an ice dancer. [ . . . ] At 10:45, 90 minutes late, we creep into Chicago's stately Union Station. I still make my noon flight, but the only food is cheese crackers. The poky Lake Shore Limited is looking better and better. But we will never see its like again, I think. In my head I keep hearing the Jimmy Buffett tune, "I ate the last mango in Paris," but with new lyrics: "I ate the last steak on Amtrak. I caught the last diner out of New York. And Jimmy, there's nothing more to be done." ^ My face a negative in the slate window, I sit in a lit corridor that races through a dark one. --May Swenson (19191989) American poet. _Riding the 'A'_ [1963] - "Happy Hour on Rails May Sound Its Last Call" By Jennifer Saranow _The Wall Street Journal_ [15 February 2007] For the past 20 years, Charles Lawrence has left his Manhattan office job in time for the New Haven line 6:04 p.m. or 8:04 p.m. train from Grand Central Terminal. There, the 50-year-old commercial real-estate broker from Fairfield, Conn., settles into the bar car, buys a beer and chats with other regulars. Their latest topic of conversation isn't just sports or business, but whether the train's operator will eliminate the bar car itself. "It's this sense of community that ties people together," he says. "When there's no bar, people will just disappear take a seat and go home." The bar car has long played a central role in the life of the suburban rail commuter, a place where writer John Cheever drank and characters gathered in 1950s movies such as "Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys!" But the final whistle may be sounding on the era of the rolling happy hour. Citing financial losses or the need to provide more seats for commuters, rail agencies from New Jersey to New York to the northwestern suburbs of Chicago have already dropped or cut bar-car service. Now, local transportation officials are introducing plans to redesign the remaining cars on some lines with more seats and smaller bars, or proposing to do away with them altogether. Mr. Lawrence and his fellow riders are particularly worried about their cars. With total annual ridership up more than 50% since 1984 on trains from New York to New Haven, Metro-North Railroad and the Connecticut Department of Transportation are working on redesigning the line's 10 bar cars, in part, so they can better be used for seating even if a bartender isn't on duty. More worrisome to riders on the New Haven line: When Connecticut's Department of Transportation ordered 300 passenger-train cars in July, there were no bar cars among them. Other rolling bars are also threatened. Metra, which provides commuter service between Chicago and surrounding suburbs, has bar cars on three of its 11 lines, but plans to phase out the service over the next year or two as aging cars are eliminated. And in December, a member of New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority board proposed that the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North stop selling alcohol on rail cars and platforms because he is worried passengers may drive home from stations drunk. (Neither the board member, Mitchell Pally, nor the railroads say they are aware of specific incidents related to driving.) An MTA task force will recommend later this year whether the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North lines should sell and allow alcohol. (The task force's first meeting is scheduled for later this month.) Riders cite many reasons for frequenting the moving bars: wanting to stand and stretch their legs after a day at a desk, making business contacts or adding daily socializing without cutting into family time. Regulars on the New Haven line call standard passenger cars "prayer cars" "so quiet," one rider explains, "you can hear a pin drop." Brendan Kelly, a 46-year-old who works in television ad sales in New York, didn't know anyone when he moved to Fairfield in 1993. So he started riding the bar car as his father had done when he was growing up in Long Island. Now, whenever work allows, he heads for the car to meet a crew of about 15 men, most of them finance or media workers. Mr. Kelly's group has developed its own identity. They stand in the back-end vestibule of the 6:04 p.m. bar car and don't mix much with those at the front end. Mr. Kelly compares the scene to the one from the sitcom "Cheers" "everybody knows your name," he says and figures his experiences could be fodder for a TV show. Mr. Kelly and his wife socialize regularly with fellow bar-car riders, he says, whom he calls the "train guys." When he was out of work at the end of 2005, he says, he landed a job with a fellow rider who is also in ad sales. Others in Mr. Kelly's group have surrendered their own flower bouquets to fellow riders who have forgotten special occasions like anniversaries or birthdays. "It's a happy hour, and it's killing three to four birds with one stone," says Mr. Kelly. "We call it the bar that takes you home." From at least the 1930s through the 1970s, power brokers gathered in bar cars and more comfortable private club cars on their journeys home to wealthy suburbs. In their heyday, these cars ran from urban centers like New York and Philadelphia, typically serving martinis, scotch and bourbon to fraternities of businessmen enjoying cigars and poker games. Starting in the 1970s, when public-transit agencies took over the once-private rail lines, many bar cars and cushier club or parlor cars were abandoned to provide a more egalitarian feel to trains. In the 1980s, groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving formed and lobbied for stricter consumption rules. [. . . ] --- After returning from his honeymoon in Florida with his new bride Virginia, Luigi stopped by his old barbershop in Cleveland to say hello to his friends. Giovanni said, "Hey Luigi, how wasa da treepa?" Luigi said, "Everytinga wasa perfecto except for da traina ride down." "Whata you mean, Luigi?" asked Giovanni. "Well, we boarda da train at Grana Central Station. My beautiful Virginia, she pack a biga basket a food. She broughta vino, some nice cigars for me, and we were looking a forward to da trip. Everytinga wasa Okey Dokey until we getta hungry and open upa da luncha basket. The conductore come a by, waga hisa finger at us anda say, 'no eat in disa car. Musta use a dining car.' "So, me and my beautiful Virginia, we go to dining car, eat a biga luncha and start to open a bottle of nice a vino! Conductore walka by again, waga hisa finger and say, 'No drinka in disa car Musta use a club a car.' "So, we go to club car. While drinkina vino, I start to lighta my biga cigar. The conductore, he waga his finger again and say, 'No smokina disa car. Musta go to smokina car.'" "We go to smokina car and I smoke a my biga cigar. Then my beautiful Virginia and I, we go to sleeper car anda go to bed. We just about to go boomada boomada and the conductore, he walka through da hall shouting at da top of hisa voice, 'Nofolka Virginia! Nofolka Virginia!'" "Next time, I'ma gonna take a bus!" . . see "LIFE" for related links see "TIME" for related links We are all of us balloons dancing in a world of pins. --Anthony Montague Browne (1923 ) British civil servant. _Long Sunset_ [1995] Do all that you can in the time that you have because before you know it, you're not there anymore. --Charles Dickens (18121870) English novelist. Ghost of Christmas Present, _Scrooge_ They are not long, the days of wine and roses; Out of a misty dream Our path emerges for a while, then closes Within a dream. --Ernest Dowson (18671900) English poet. "Vitae Summa Brevis" [1896] Woman's beauty, the forest echo and rainbows, soon pass away. --German proverb Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying: And this same flower that smiles today, To-morrow will be dying. --Robert Herrick (15911674) English poet and clergyman. "To The Virgins, to Make Much of Time" [1648] Ships that pass in the night, and speak to each other in passing; Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life we pass and speak to one another; Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and silence. --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (18071882) American poet. "The Theologian's Tale" _Tales of a Wayside Inn_ [1863] Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it. --Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121180) Roman emperor [161180] and Stoic philosopher. _Meditations_ The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. --Vladimir Nabokov [pen name Vladimir Sirin] (18991977) Russian novelist. Ev'ry day a little death On the lips and in the eyes, In the murmurs, in the pauses, In the gestures, in the sighs. Ev'ry day a little dies. --Stephen Sondheim (1930 ) American musical theater lyricist and composer. "Every Day a Little Death" [1973 song] When Fortune smiles, I smile to think how quickly she will frown. --Robert Southwell (15611595) English poet and martyr. _I Envy Not Their Hap_ Sic transit gloria mundi. (So passes away the glory of this world.) --Thomas a' Kempis (13801471) German ascetical writer. _Imitation of Christ_ [c.1420], bk. I, ch.3 I take delight in history, even its most prosaic details, because they become poetical as they recede into the past. The poetry of history lies in the quasimiraculous fact that once, on this earth, once, on this familiar ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing after another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cock- crow. --G. M. Trevelyan (18761962) English historian. _Clio, A Muse_ [1913] Joy and grief are never far apart. In the same street the shutters of one house are closed, while the curtains of the next are brushed by shadow of the dance. A wedding- party returns from church, and a funeral winds to its door. The smiles and the sadness of life are the tragi-comedy of Shakespeare. Gladness and sighs brighten and dim the mirror he beholds. --Robert Aris Willmott (18091863) English editor and author. ----- deciduous [di-SIJ-oo-uhs] adj. 1. falling off at a certain season or stage of growth. 2. shedding or losing foliage annually. 3. short-lived; not lasting; ephemeral. ephemeral (adj.) [κ-'fe-mκ-rκl] Lasting one day only; very short-lived, passing very quickly, fleeting. evanescent [ev-uh-NES-unt], adjective: Liable to vanish or pass away like vapor; fleeting. Ex.: The Pen which gives. . . permanence to the evanescent thought of a moment. --Horace Smith _Tin Trumpet_ end page | TABLOIDS - TALENT | TALK - TAYLOR (ELIZABETH) | TAXATION | TEACHERS / TEACHING | TEAMWORK - TELEVANGELISTS | TELEVISION - TELEVISION SHOWS | TEMPER - THANKSGIVING | THATCHER - THINKING | THOUGHT POLICE - THRIFT | TIME | TIME TRAVEL - TODAY | TOLERANCE - TOYS | TRADITION - TRANSIENCE | TRAVEL | TREACHERY - TRIVIA | TROUBLE - TRUST | TRUTH | TRYING - TYRANNY | | R | S | T | U - END | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos | |
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