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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Ladies Who Lunch (Open Thread)

Ladies Who Lunch (Open Thread)

by | 166 Comments

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This looks like a Norman Rockwell painting:

2016-08-23

The photo is one of a series of 1940s-era color photos taken by Farm Security Administration workers and reprinted in the Washington Post today.

The women pictured above were employed as “wipers” (whatever that is) in the “roundhouse” (whatever that is) at the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad in Clinton, Iowa, in April 1943. Photo credit: Jack Delano/Courtesy of Taschen

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

166Comments

  4. 4.

    KG

    A roundhouse is a building in trainyards used to turn the trains around. It usually has a turntable inside. And “wipers”, I’m guessing, were cleaners?

  8. 8.

    Trollhattan

    @smintheus: It’s like how I can drive my car forward into the garage, then forward out. A car turntable! (“Dad, what’s a ‘turntable’?”)

    Reason # the infinity why we should loathe our new billionaire class:

    Ian McKellen says he turned down $1.5m (£1.14m) to officiate at Napster billionaire Sean Parker’s wedding dressed as Gandalf the wizard.

    McKellen, who played the character in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, didn’t know the source of the offer when he was asked to marry Parker and his wife, singer Alexandra Lenas. The request came via a mutual acquaintance of Parker and McKellen’s, according to the Mail on Sunday. McKellen said he would have considered the offer if Parker hadn’t stipulated that he come in character.

    “I don’t go dressing up, except in plays and things,” McKellen said. “So I said, ‘I am sorry, Gandalf doesn’t do weddings.’”

  9. 9.

    rikyrah

    Ex-Aide Suggests Black Communities Not ‘Safe Environment’ For Trump Rallies

    By TIERNEY SNEED
    Published AUGUST 23, 2016, 11:35 AM EDT
    Donald Trump’s ex-campaign manager on Monday defended his former boss’ choice to deliver speeches supposedly aimed at black voters while in largely white communities, explaining that the last time Trump tried to give a speech in a black neighborhood it was “overrun” and “not a safe environment.”

    “You know what ‘ amazing to me is that no one remembers that Donald Trump went to go have a rally in Chicago at the university,” Corey Lewandowski said on CNN. “And do you remember what happened? It was so chaotic and it was so out of control that Secret Service and the Chicago Police Department told him, you could not get in and out of that facility safely, and that rally was canceled.”

    In March, the Trump campaign canceled a rally planned at the University of Illinois in Chicago because of protests outside of the venue.

    “And you showed the footage many times of the individuals who attended that rally. Donald Trump had that rally booked,” Lewandowski added.

    The other panelists pressed Lewandowksi on what that event had to do with the current scrutiny of Trump’s comments to black voters.

    “That is a black community. He went to the heart of Chicago to go and give a speech to the University of Chicago in a campus, which is predominantly African-American, to make that argument,” Lewandowski said, mistaking the name of the university where the speech was supposed to take place. “And you know what happened? The campus was overrun and it was not a safe environment.”

    …………………………………..

    First of all, it was the University of Illinois at Chicago, and that neighborhood has been gentrified, and his ass was run off because folks weren’t taking his nonsense.

  11. 11.

    ? Martin

    @catclub: Oiler is the next job up. Wipers main job is to learn the parts of the machine and how to be safe around it. Oiler’s job is to then know which parts need routine maintenance. From there you go to engineer.

  15. 15.

    smintheus

    @Trollhattan: Roundhouses in big depots often had circular sheds partly surrounding them, into which locomotives could be stored / repaired. My grandfather worked on the New Haven railroad long, long ago.

  18. 18.

    JMG

    @Iowa Old Lady: I heard McKellen on NPR years ago talking about how he was called back to reshoot some scenes from one of the Rings movies at the same time he was engaged in shooting an X-Men movie. Between Gandalf and Magneto, he was spending six hours a day in the makeup process. No wonder he never wants to wear the robes again.

  19. 19.

    p.a.

    One of the people in my am mallwalk is a retired engineer (New Haven/Penn Central, diesels). Bit cranky, some cool stories. Crushed a Mercedes stuck at a crossing- no injuries, the driver got out in plenty of time.

  20. 20.

    jl

    @rikyrah: And I see in news reports that Trump’s winner idea for getting us all out of the great 2016 crime wave alive and in one piece is letting ‘tough cops’ do what they want to do.

    Trump has really thought everything through. What do we total losers have to lose, anyway?

  21. 21.

    indianbadger

    The old roundhouse in Aurora,IL has been turned into a shopping mall. It is really nice. There is a good brewpub in it too.

  26. 26.

    smintheus

    @p.a.: I was once on a bus winding through small streets in Athens, maybe it was an articulated bus. We were stopped by an illegally parked pickup truck at a sharp bend whose driver couldn’t be found. Everyone in the neighboring shops had a different opinion, but the opinion that finally prevailed was that the driver should just continue onward. So he started the bus up, made the sharp turn, and crushed the pickup. And then carried on as if that was normal.

  29. 29.

    Mnemosyne

    @James E Powell:

    This was the bottom rung on the latter that climbed to the engineer’s seat.

    Given the era, I’m pretty sure that exactly none of the women in that picture were allowed to advance to being engineers. And even if they did, they got fired in 1946 when all the men came back from WWII.

  30. 30.

    jl

    I posted an old pic of roundhouse in Florida, and I’m in moderation. No attempt at a good deed goes unpunished on this supposedly full service blog.

  31. 31.

    Splitting Image

    Public Policy Polling has a new poll out that suggests Donald the Magnificent is pulling away in the critical swing state of Utah.

    Clinton might as well pack up and go home. Donald has this one in the bag. As goes Utah, so goes the nation. Or Wyoming. Maybe.

  32. 32.

    Mnemosyne

    @PaulW:

    Okay, you scared the crap out of me for a minute, because my (former) Congressman is named Adam Schiff. He’s a good guy.

    (I moved 4 miles away into a different district.)

  33. 33.

    ? Martin

    @rikyrah: This is a good background on what New Yorkers know about Trump that the rest of the country hasn’t quite caught onto yet.

    He bought an ad — people say he wasn’t a conservative — but he bought an ad 20 years ago in the New York Times calling for the death penalty,” Sessions said on the show. “How many people in New York, that liberal bastion, were willing to do something like that?”

    Indeed, 27 years ago, Trump reportedly paid $85,000 to run ads in New York newspapers advocating the death penalty and pushing a mob mentality in reaction to the city’s crime epidemic, including the brutal rape and beating of a young investment banker, and ahead of the teenaged defendants in that case — the Central Park Five — going on trial.

    There’s a twitch that develops in my typing fingers when I write words like “the System,” a phrase that is at once too vague and too certain, but there’s no other way to explain it. The System swung into action and the System — media, cops, prosecutors, judges and juries — put the Central Park Five in prison.

    There was just one problem. They didn’t do it.

    Trump called the settlement a “disgrace” because in his mind the Central Park Five got what they deserved, no matter if they were innocent of the crime.

    I remember when that happened, and I remember the advertisement, and I remember the public discussion that followed, regarding crime but also the age of the boys and whether they should be treated as adults. The crime was horrible but it was also clear that this was going to be one of NY’s ‘make an example of them’ moments that would override whatever rights the boys had. That Trump egged on that mob, and later refused to accept that he was wrong makes him utterly unqualified for anything in the public sector. Had Trump gotten his way, those boys would have been executed before they would have been acquitted.

  34. 34.

    Mnemosyne

    Speaking of ladies (and gentlemen) who lunch, it’s kind of funny that my office divides itself into two groups: people who want to be social eat on the patio, and people who want to be left alone to read (or comment on blogs) sit in the kitchen.

    The few days where it’s too hot or cold to sit outside get a little socially awkward sometimes.

  35. 35.

    Lizzy L

    To all the BJ folks who told me to talk to a reputable personal injury lawyer; a dear friend from Cincinnati called me this morning to suggest the same thing. So I have found a good local guy and we will talk this afternoon. Thank you!!!

  36. 36.

    jl

    Bigot to the bone. Looks like Trump is trying to winnow out everybody from his supporters except the classic white bigot vote.

    Trump: I Would Stop Crime By Letting ‘Tough’ Cops Take Charge
    TPM

    “I know police in Chicago,” Trump replied. “If they were given the authority to do it, they would get it done.”
    “How? How?” O’Reilly pressed.
    “You have unbelievable—how? By being very much tougher than they are right now,”

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-oreilly-stop-crime-tough-police

  37. 37.

    greennotGreen

    This is the second time this has happened. I commented:

    I love this photo. So many Rosies!

    And poof! My comment disappeared. I noticed, however, that just like the previous disappearance, the original post had not yet been assigned a category when I submitted the (admittedly, not very astute) comment, in case that means anything.

  38. 38.

    Brachiator

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    You’d think IP rights would prevent using a Gandalf costume all on their own. After all, McKellen isn’t really Gandalf. He doesn’t keep the robes in his closet.

    I bet you he does. I would not be surprised if the other main actors from the Lord of the Rings films did not keep some of the costumes and props.

    I thought I read once that the actors who played Frodo and Sam kept their hobbit feet props, but this might also be a dream I had once.

  39. 39.

    MikeS

    @? Martin: You had to be a fireman (shovel coal into the firebox) before you got to be an Engineer. My Grandfather was an Engineer on the PRR before the Great Depression and got demoted to fireman with the job cutbacks in the early thirties. He died of lung cancer in 1933 so I never got to meet him but I do have a pictureof him as part of a train crew.

  40. 40.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    Ian McKellen says he turned down $1.5m (£1.14m) to officiate at Napster billionaire Sean Parker’s wedding dressed as Gandalf the wizard.

    McKellen, who played the character in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, didn’t know the source of the offer when he was asked to marry Parker and his wife, singer Alexandra Lenas. The request came via a mutual acquaintance of Parker and McKellen’s, according to the Mail on Sunday. McKellen said he would have considered the offer if Parker hadn’t stipulated that he come in character.

    “I don’t go dressing up, except in plays and things,” McKellen said. “So I said, ‘I am sorry, Gandalf doesn’t do weddings.’”

    @Trollhattan: I set rich motherfuckers on fire for free. Best entertainment you can have at a wedding, in my humble opinion.

    WAITING FOR MY INVITE HINT HINT

  42. 42.

    Carolus

    Wipers, aboard ship and in industrial plants, are basically go-fers. They get tools, perform some cleaning details, paint, grease fittings , chip corrosion,
    etc.

  44. 44.

    Jack the Cold Warrior

    During WWII, Rosie the Riveter did much more than rivet. Several of my aunts worked in the big electronics plants in Baltimore making radio and radar parts. And my mother joined the Women’s Army Corp, drove officers around for awhile, then was trained to be a Physical Therapist to rehab the thousands of wounded coming back from the battlefields. Including my father, who had his femur shattered in Normandy. Not exactly meeting “cute”, but it’s how they met.

  45. 45.

    D58826

    @smintheus: And the turntable was outside of the stalls but gave access to each one. Locomotive could be turned (duh) as well as positioned in any stall without the need of a track to each stall

  46. 46.

    amygdala

    Since this is also an open thread, has anyone been on the White House tour? It took a couple of weeks to get Nancy Pelosi’s website to validate my zip code, but my request (for November) finally went through. Just entered my supplemental security info for the WH. Not sure what happens next, and understand why that wouldn’t be publicized widely.

    Just trying to figure out when I can book flights. And keeping my fingers crossed. Wouldn’t mind seeing Bo and Sunny.

  47. 47.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @lamh36:

    What about Layla Grace???

    If you posted an update earlier, I’m so sorry, I missed seeing it. Or are we still waiting?

  49. 49.

    Cacti

    Russian hackers have breached the New York Times.

    I’m guessing for exposing Manafort’s under the table cash payment arrangement.

    I wonder if Saints Greenwald or Snowden will condemn this attack on the free press. (yeah right)

  50. 50.

    Miss Bianca

    @amygdala:

    has anyone been on the White House tour?

    Not since I was 10! Obviously, I was not in charge of the logistics on that one! And since that was in 1974, I’m sure protocols have changed a lot since then!

  51. 51.

    Mnemosyne

    @greennotGreen:

    In a police state, you have nothing to fear! Well, except for a bureaucratic error leading to your arrest and execution because your name is one letter away from that of the notorious terrorist Harry Tuttle.

  52. 52.

    ET

    @amygdala: I have several times when each of my nieces came to visit in DC, but each time it was a slightly different process so I don’t know about offering advice.

  53. 53.

    rk

    Andrea Tantaros is suing FOX News and calls it a “sex fueled playboy like cult”. I can’t say I’m surprised. You have an organization whose sole purpose is to spread lies and hatred. Can sexual perversion be far behind? I’m just surprised it took so long.

  55. 55.

    amygdala

    @Miss Bianca: I would hope so! Have wanted to go, especially with Obama in office, and didn’t get around to making the arrangements when I was in DC last year for a conference. So giving it a go now, and hoping for the best.

  56. 56.

    germy

    @rk: Scott Brown tweeted that she’s lying. He says he would never do that stuff.

    Somehow I’m unconvinced.

  58. 58.

    amygdala

    @ET: Thanks. I’m guessing that’s probably intentional on the part of the Secret Service or whomever.

  61. 61.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    @Trollhattan: McKellan should have gone as Freddie from “Vicious”, with Derek Jacobi (Stewart) and Frances de la Tour (Violet) and made the occasion as awkward as possible, with Freddie and Stewart commenting (loudly) on the theme and Violet continually groping the groom.

  62. 62.

    dmsilev

    @amygdala: I took the tour, but that was about 15 years ago so I’m sure the logistics of ticketing and such are completely different now.

  64. 64.

    Cacti

    @rk:

    Andrea Tantaros is suing FOX News and calls it a “sex fueled playboy like cult”. I can’t say I’m surprised. You have an organization whose sole purpose is to spread lies and hatred. Can sexual perversion be far behind? I’m just surprised it took so long.

    Also saw that she alleged being groped by ex-Senator Scott Brown (R-Himbo).

  65. 65.

    evap

    @amygdala: I did a tour last year, it was great! You get to see just a few rooms. There are secret service dudes in each room and they are experts on their particular room and will tell lots of interesting things about them.

  67. 67.

    nutella

    @rikyrah:

    It’s amazing how many lies Corey Lewandowski can fit into just a few sentences. That rally was cancelled because the snivelling coward Trump heard there were protesters so he never even left the airport to go to the venue. He claimed the police had told him to cancel because it wasn’t safe. The police department denied they made any recommendation. It is highly unlikely the Secret Service said anything like that either.

    The venue was at UIC (University of Illinois at Chicago) and the protesters were students and faculty who were not pleased to have a racist speaking on their campus. They gathered peacefully outside the arena with signs and chants. Presumably they represented a cross-section of UIC students which includes every kind of minority since UIC is the college of choice for ambitious children of recent immigrants who live in greater Chicago. And we have white immigrants too so I’m sure they were there as well.

    Trump made it less safe by not showing up, the miserable coward, because that made his white suburbanite audience disappointed and angry as they passed through the crowd of protesters. However, to everyone’s credit, there was talking and shouting but very little violence. The only incidence I heard of was the police hitting a CNN photographer.

    Anyway, that’s why Trump only goes to white neighborhoods now. He’s terrified of protesters. They might yell at him or muss his hair and he couldn’t stand that.

  70. 70.

    Betty Cracker

    @jl: If you keep posting naked links, you’ll end up in moderation. If there’s someone around to see your complaint and fish your post out, you’re in luck. If not, oh well! This is what we call “full service” around here, but self service helps.

  71. 71.

    Ceci n'est pas mon nym

    Speaking of the title “Ladies who Lunch”, did anyone ever actually go to see the musical Company? I only became aware of it because a theater group I was involved in at college was considering it, and I was given a copy of the score to look over. (They ended up doing Candide)

    I might have actually seen a local production somewhere years later. I seem to have a vague memory of that. But it’s not a musical I hear a lot of people mention.

  72. 72.

    pat

    @rikyrah:

    Can we please get rid of the fiction that Trump is speaking TO African Americans?

    He is talking ABOUT them to white audiences who are nodding their heads at every lie and exaggeration. IOW, just more dog whistles.

  74. 74.

    ? Martin

    @Miss Bianca: Frogs are used anywhere you have a crossing without a switch. Common in rail yards, but also elsewhere. With single-track (one set of rail supports trains going in both directions) you almost always want switches, but when double-track became more popular the frogs became necessary. In a double-track switch, you’re only switching one track (the one entering the switch) but the others (the ones leaving) need to cross, and that’s what the frog allows. Critical invention for railroads.

  80. 80.

    Miss Bianca

    @Ceci n’est pas mon nym: We did a production of it at Northwestern when I was in the theater department there. As I recall, it was a student-directed production – someone’s MFA thesis production, maybe – and two of my buddies were in it. One of them was the one who got to belt out “Ladies Who Lunch”. It was awesome.

  81. 81.

    ? Martin

    @lamh36: Rick Hasen thinks it was rightly decided:

    I have been very skeptical of this litigation, mostly for the reasons given by the majority in the outset of this opinion. Ohio’s early voting/no excuse absentee balloting period is exceedingly generous. And while I might support Golden Week as good policy, I worry when courts are used in this way to prevent every cutback in voting, especially after voting rights proponents had settled a suit with Ohio on favorable terms (very favorable given that the legal theory advanced, especially under Equal Protection, seemed rather weak). I also have worried, and worry, that cases like this make bad law when there are more serious voting cutbacks, although this opinion is written in such a way that major damage appears to have been avoided.

  82. 82.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @lamh36:

    Gorgeous! Welcome to the world, Layla Grace. We’ll try to make it a good one for you!

    Thank you, Lamh, and big congratulations to everyone involved!

  85. 85.

    Miss Bianca

    @smintheus: Not sure – I’m guessing, from knowing approximately when he immigrated to the US, sometime in the late 19th-early 20th centuries.

  91. 91.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Miss Bianca:

    Long, long time ago. We were students at the same time. My roommate/best friend was a theatre major and dated him one summer (1962). He wouldn’t remember me at all, but I’ve never forgotten him.

  93. 93.

    glory b

    @jl: My grandfather and a few other relatives worked for the Florida East Coast Railway! They started hauling railroad ties, pretty much the only work black men were given, later moved up a bit and my grandfather retired as an engineer at the Air Force base.

    I have a great uncle who lost half of a foot working for them.

  94. 94.

    sunny raines

    @smintheus: no. you described a turntable – a rotating beam for turning steam locomotives. The roadhouse is the building around the turntable with stalls where steam locomotives were repaired. Most were 2 or 3 stalls up to 10 or so, but some, like the Reading Railroad had roadhouses that were complete donuts around their turntables.

  95. 95.

    Gindy51

    @evap: We did it in 1965 and got to pet Lyndon Johnson’s dogs, so cool. I was 7 and sis was 5, so the dogs were the highlight of the whole trip. We wore dresses, hats, and gloves everywhere, had cute saddle shoes and little black purses.

  101. 101.

    Roger Moore

    @Trollhattan:

    Reason # the infinity why we should loathe our new billionaire class

    More like reason #infinity why we should implement very high tax rates on the highest incomes and have a steep estate tax. Though I guess it’s better that the ultra-rich should spend their money than leave it sitting.

  103. 103.

    laura

    @lamh36: congratulations on welcoming a new member to your family -and a gift to the future.
    Blessings of peace and love.
    Also, she is a lovely babe.

  106. 106.

    Prescott Cactus

    “A roundhouse is a big building where trains turn around and wipers work, but that’s not important right now.”
    Leslie Nielsen

  111. 111.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ceci n’est pas mon nym:

    No, but I saw the documentary (about the recording of the cast album). Does that count?

    Apparently, Sondheim has been workshopping it with the central character as gay (since it’s now kind of obvious that he is), with Alan Cumming taking over the role that sings, “Ladies Who Lunch.” Some people are (understandably) a little pissed because there are already very few parts on Broadway for middle-aged actresses, and now one is being taken away?

  114. 114.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @glory b:

    Lol. I’m a good person for the most part, but there are certain individuals whom if you don’t have anything nice to say about them, come sit next to me.

  116. 116.

    Politically Lost

    That could easily be my Grandmother! My Grandfather was in the Pacific in ’43 but, he and my Grandmother worked for Clinton Engines (in Clinton Iowa) before and after the war. After the war he got a big promotion at Clinton Engines and became regional sales rep for all of Southern California. They were the first of the Iowa farm ancestors to leave the state. I’ve visited a dozen times over the years and laid them to rest just a few miles from where that picture was taken. How fucking great is that!

  119. 119.

    Steeplejack

    @jl:

    As has been said ad nauseam, the cause of moderation was the naked hyperlink. FYWP currently doesn’t like those. If you take 10 seconds to dress it up, your comment goes through fine.

  120. 120.

    Lurker Extraordinaire

    @amygdala: When I was younger, my parents took my brother and I to D.C. to take a tour, but when we showed up, they said no tours were going to b given that day.

    We didn’t find out until we returned to our hotel room that night that the OKC bombing had occurred that day.

  123. 123.

    Shana

    @Ceci n’est pas mon nym: It’s wonderful. There are a couple of versions available on DVD, one with Raul Esparza and one with Neil Patrick Harris both as Bobby. They’re both terrific and worth checking out.

  124. 124.

    PST

    @nutella:

    @rikyrah:

    It’s amazing how many lies Corey Lewandowski can fit into just a few sentences. That rally was cancelled because the snivelling coward Trump heard there were protesters so he never even left the airport to go to the venue. He claimed the police had told him to cancel because it wasn’t safe. The police department denied they made any recommendation. It is highly unlikely the Secret Service said anything like that either.

    I got a huge laugh out of Lewandowski’s mendacity too. I live less than a mile due north of the rally site and often walk by to get to the restaurants in Little Italy. UIC has a pleasant campus with gentrified neighborhoods on three sides and the medical district to the west. The area is racially and ethnically mixed but far from predominantly black. Fewer than ten percent of the students at UIC are African-American, which is an embarrassment, but it totally gives the lie to the Trump gang’s claims. Many students are Latino and Asian. On the night Trump was scheduled, my wife and I, white people at perhaps the upper limit of middle age, heard about the protest and decided we would take a stroll down the street, contribute our shouts and jeers, and then have some Italian food. Our plans were spoiled when, as nutella notes, Trump chickened out early despite the peacefulness of the crowd. We heard about the cancellation before we even left home, so we wondered off in another direction instead. Trump was so far from actually appearing that we got the impression at the time that it was all a set-up, with the goal being from the outset to provoke a protest. Among other things, security was lax and fake invitations were everywhere, guarantying that the hall would be full of protesters with signs. If the hope was violent confrontation, however, neither the protesters nor the police cooperated, with only a hint of disorder in a few places where Trump fans and normal people found themselves toe to toe. Most of what we saw (on TV) was the grabbing of signs. I think the anger at Trump came more from Latinos than anyone else, which was natural given what he was then saying night after night. In any event, the UIC debacle provides no shred of evidence that Trump cannot safely venture into a black neighborhood. If he wanted to stand in front of an African-American audience and ask for their votes he could find more willing venues than he could ever want, although I suspect that the applause would be subdued. But of course, that was never what he had in mind.

  125. 125.

    Politically Lost

    Nope. Got it wrong. Called my mom to look at the pic and she told me I had it all wrong. They didn’t work at Clinton till after the war. But, they did work at a fishing lure company near Clinton before the war.

  128. 128.

    Dmbeaster

    Roundhouse was a structure for train engine maintenance. The engines were brought into the structure from one track onto the turntable, which was a rotating length of track slightly longer than the engine. Radiating from around the turntable were many short lengths of track where each engine could be parked for servicing, and the engine would be rotated on the turntable to the desired spot. The circular turntable and the radial nature of each short track resulted in the round structure. The turntable itself did not have to be enclosed (sometimes it was open air and the service bays were one continuous semicircle shed open to the turntable), but for weather protection, it would be one enclosed round structure.

  130. 130.

    Tom Q

    @Ceci n’est pas mon nym: Was privileged to see the original Broadway production, in 1970. A total revelation — one of the greatest evenings I ever spent in a theatre.

    Coincidentally enough, I ALSO saw it at Northwestern, a few years later (1974). Probably not the production Miss Bianca is talking about (I’m guessing she’s a good bit younger than I), but I, too, was an NU theatre major.

    And, to hop onto Ms. Dunne’s comment: I, too, knew Bud Beyer. He came along as an acting teacher my senior year. Very insightful teacher. (He was also having a fling with a woman friend of mine at the time.)

  131. 131.

    daddyj

    @qwerty42:

    This is probably from the same photos

    Totally. I think in the lunch table shot, the red-bandana-lady and the woman directly across from her are the same women pictured climbing onto the engine. Somebody’s great (or great-great) grandmas!

  135. 135.

    haroldo

    @SiubhanDuinne: Could this Bud Beyer have taught in the Green Bay, WI, public schools as a drama teacher (mid-to-late ’60s)? This would be an even longer shot.

  138. 138.

    1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)

    @lamh36: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

    babybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybaby!

    Or should that be:
    bébébébébébébébébébébébébébébébébébébébébébébébébébébébébébé!

  145. 145.

    qwerty42

    @daddyj: … I think in the lunch table shot, the red-bandana-lady and the woman directly across from her are the same women pictured climbing onto the engine. …
    I think you’re right! The lunch table shot is really something.

  150. 150.

    Roger Moore

    @PaulWartenberg2016:

    Mnemosyne, you got a neighbor!

    More than one. Adam Schiff was my Congressman, too, until I got redistricted into Judy Chu’s district. Mnem, Bill, and I have met once or twice at BJ get-togethers here in So Cal.

  154. 154.

    haroldo

    @Tom Q: He seems to have had a fling with a friend of mine in GB (if my creaky old memory is working well). It’s comforting, in a sense, that the collective memories of the ol’ Prof are of a coherent whole.

  156. 156.

    Miss Bianca

    @Tom Q: You were an NU theater major? Frabjous day! An excellent department, if I say so myself!

    @Josie: I was there in the PhD program between 1991-1997.

  157. 157.

    Miss Bianca

    @SiubhanDuinne: Also, did I mention I was Bud’s TA when he taught the Intro History of Theater course? I even got to lecture a couple times – he was generous that way.

  163. 163.

    workworkwork

    @Grumpy Code Monkey:

    McKellan should have gone as Freddie from “Vicious”, with Derek Jacobi (Stewart) and Frances de la Tour (Violet) and made the occasion as awkward as possible, with Freddie and Stewart commenting (loudly) on the theme and Violet continually groping the groom.

    YES!!!

  164. 164.

    Tripod

    No roller bearings, they’d just pack in cotton waste and grease, pretty much every moving part got greased, and the boilers were clad in so much goddamed asbestos.

    Good old timey industrial union jobs, working class, cradle to grave, blah, blah, blah… except as soon as the Diesels came in they fired everyone. The fifties were a rough time for low skill labor, and any other narrative is bullshit. Places like Vaughn NM that were once bustling communities built to serve steam locomotives are now ghost towns.

    In fact the devastation in the verticals was so complete modern excursion operators and museums can’t get the grease they used to use. No demand, so they don’t make it anymore. They make due with something close, and lots of digital thermal sensors.

  165. 165.

    Marshall Eubanks

    The old steam locomotives weren’t intended to be run any distance in reverse; the roundhouse was primarily so that you could reverse the direction of the locomotive, so it would be pointing in the right direction going back out. (The roundhouse, basically a big lazy Susan with a building around it, was for cities and congested areas. Out in the country they could use a big loop of track to do the same thing.)

    Diesels were made not to care which way they ran, so could be run “backwards” on a return trip, which meant the railroads didn’t need roundhouses any more, and they were eventually mostly torn down or sold off.

  166. 166.

    asiandate

    I do agree with all the ideas you have introduced on your post.
    They are very convincing and can certainly work.
    Nonetheless, the posts are very quick for newbies. May just you please lengthen them a little from next time?
    Thanks for the post.

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