"TC" <do-not-reply@i-do get-enough-spam-already-2498.com> schreef in bericht 
news:4a8dfce7$1@news.povray.org...
>
> Well, travelling with a steamer is an overrated experience - like most 
> things we regard as quaint or romantic.
>
> Very nice if you do it from time to time, for pleasure, when you are in 
> for a bit of romance. Beatuful to behold, especially on pictures.
>
> But when have you do it often, every week, then the charming experience 
> becomes less so. I remember how everbody rushed off to close the carriages 
> windows whenever a tunnel was near. If you forgot - or did not know the 
> line - let us say it was not very pleasant.
>
> We all are longing for the past, but we tend to remember just the pleasant 
> things. Rural life, 40 years past, was it nice? If in winter you had to go 

> doing it in high summer, when the flies were swarming and the odour was 
> horrible. No warm water boiler (you heated bath-water once a week on the 
> coal stove), no showers, coal ovens as heating in the winter. That was 
> rural life in East Germany in the late sixties and early seventies...

I certainly do agree with you, and in East Germany that experience remained 
longer too. We (oldies) have now forgotten (younger generations never 
experienced it) about how the cities smelled and looked in winter in the 
1950's in most parts of Europe: coal and wood burning in every appartment, 
smelly cars and trucks (much more than nowadays), smog... We complain about 
pollution but forget that already a very long way has been travelled.

Thomas

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