I love stroll I took down memory lane of trains.
You know when I was a kid, I loved watching the trains go by. Where I grew up you could hear the whistles on the Nickel Plate Berkshires in the night, and during the day it was only 3 miles to “The Standard Railroad of the World” the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Actually the western extension more properly called the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway (or the Fort Wayne). The Nickel Plate was a specialist in high speed freight, while the Pennsy was the western end of the Great Trunk Route from New York to Chicago (along with the New York Central, Lake Shore and Michigan Central).
This was such a route that James J. Hill, the Empire Builder of the Great Northern seriously doubted that the Panama Canal was needed, the American Railroads could handle freight cheaper from the Orient to Europe. It wasn’t true then, quite. It is now through the incredible efficiencies of container freight. There are quite a few ships that unload on our west coast ports, are loaded onto container on flat cars (COFC) trains, that run nearly nonstop to east coast ports, and are then reloaded for transshipment to Europe.
As I was growing up, I watched government nearly kill the American Railroad through regulation. I’ve written some on it and no doubt will more, but not today. I watched as the Pennsylvania went from running The Broadway Limited as one of the premier, not only all Pullman but all compartment trains in the world to that train being a forlorn E-8 locomotive with one daycoach. Then came Penn-Central which spread the misery all over the northeast.
I can remember Dad talking about the Pennsy during World War II. One train every three minutes day and night. He used to talk about waiting 3 hours to get across the tracks. Sometime in the 90s, Trains magazine ran a picture of the Fort Wayne near where I grew up, when Norfolk Southern wanted to buy it, with a high-railer pickup pushing an abandoned couch off the tracks. Thanks, US government.
Nebraska (I am calling him this for short) did a lovely tribute for St. Patrick’s Day to the U.S. Irish Brigades during our Civil War.
I’m a good Lutheran so I don’t celebrate Saints’ days but there a few, St. Crispin/Crispians Day, All Saints Day, and of course, St. Patricks Day. I suspect it has become more of a holiday in the States than in Ireland itself.
We all know the conventional parts: The green beer and milkshakes, the green rivers, the parades, the green beer and so forth. There’s more to it than that.
Way back when my forebears went on a bit of a tear and founded an empire, we managed to conquer all or parts of England, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, and not least there’s this province in France named after us: Normandy. Yep. named for the Vikings. While we were over there in Ireland we founded a few settlements such as Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, and a few others. You see, Viking has two meanings. Yes, we were warriors, if you go by our missions, you could probably have called us marines but, we were also traders who like to buy and sell stuff. So when we left, we left the Irish some new towns, and probably some new kids too.
Anyway time moved along till shortly after the Conquest of England, the King decided he ought to have Ireland as well. This was mostly by the Marcher Lords but King Henry II was perfectly happy with the idea. This war lasted all through the centuries, the Tudors tried, Cromwell tried it, the expatriate Scottish nobles tried it. Ireland resisted them all, even causing Captain Boycott to try his new tactics. Ireland became independent in 1919. And you thought the American revolution was a long war.
Here’s where we slip back across the ocean. You remember I mentioned those expatriate Scots? They became one of our immigrant streams: the Scots-Irish. Many, many of them came to the southern colonies, and most became patriots during the revolution, afterward settling the Old South and the southern parts of the Old Northwest. They were a stubborn, independent lot, not willing to give up a jot of their independence, and imparting a good bit of that to all Americans.
I rarely have the patience to wade through the amount of research it takes to put together a really good post on politics. I get angry, disillusioned, sad, and angry every time I try. So you often get what I think with as much research as I can stand to do.
Luckily, I have friends who apparently have cast iron stomachs for this type of sleaze, and you’ve heard me refer to them often. Well, they have done it again.
I’m going to feature their post this morning. It deals with the ‘Inevitability’ of Mitt and the ruling class, and why we, The Little People, out here in flyover country aren’t buying it anymore. By the way, I have an instinctual problem in buying that Romney, who lost to John McCain who lost to Obama, is the only guy who can beat Obama the incumbent. It Does Not Make Sense, and I’m not stupid enough to believe it.
Can we win, long term? Sure!
We are the smart ones, remember? Yeah, us Conservatives, we know how to think, to plan, to execute, to continue the mission, and accomplish the mission. When I do this sort of stuff in business, I start with the US Army’s operation order:
Situation:
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America is going broke and losing the freedom of the individual
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We needs to return the US to its historical roots while not relinquishing our presence and force for the good and right world-wide
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Reinforcements are everywhere there is someone who thinks rationally. One could start with my blogroll and the one found at those sites. One could also look for conservative media and commentators.
The Mission:
The American Counterrevolution. Take America back to the Constitutional Republic the Founders envisioned, while remaining the only people who will go out into the world to fight evil.
