> "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
> 
> 
Not by personal experience, but just by looking at old photographs on 
the Montreal skyline dating back to the 30's and 40's, then going to the 
approximate place from where those photos where taken can be instructive.

Back then, from the Mount Royal, you just can't see the horizon, in any 
direction. There was that low lying bank of dark gray smoke in the way.
Now, with a population over 20 time larger and largely more than 1000 
times more cars in the streets, you can see the horizon.
(most of the areas now covered by the city where fields)

Back then, the outer wall of any brick or granite house more than 5 
years old where mostly black.
Now, those same walls have recovered ther original colours, mostly due 
to the rain.

And, now, old peoples that lived during that time are complaining about 
the polution levels we expeiencing now... And say that in ther time 
there was no polution.
In my view, it's just that back then, nobody imagined that the polution 
could be mesured. Some did'nt even know of the word...

Now, there are trees in the city that bear some moss and/or lichen. 20 
years ago, NO trees had any moss nor lichen.


Alain

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