Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

by **Ma3tt** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 10:22 pm

I got to thinking most of you out there like similar things... thinking about the past, good food, a challenge, etc..... so an off topic topic .....

If you could be born in any year what would it be....

for me I would like to be born in 1880 and live near Pasadena to be there at age 20 for the hiking boom, ride the Red Cars, see Mount Lowe in its heydey. and get to see some of the very first teardrops.

by **Arne** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:06 am

I was born in the golden years. My highest testosterone levels were post-penicillin discovery and pre-aids. I was a teenager during the muscle car and beach boys era. I could understand the words to the songs and though my hearing isn't what it used to be, I didn't suffer hearing loss from loud, malicious sounding music. I did the old fashioned way, using no hearing protection at the drag strip tuning dragsters.

If I had a wish, it would have been that my parents had moved to California, San Diego preferably, so I could have spent my teen years there when it was livable and wasn't wall to wall people. And I could have bought a couple of houses, sold them in the late 90's and retired to Colorado where the air is still breathable.

And, now, I'm still healthy and am enjoying a very nice retirement in the high tech era. I can travel and do my investing using my wi-fi laptop from most any area in the USA. I have power everything and air-conditioned everything, which makes my life much more comfortable than that of my parents.

And last, but not least, my dependable van can haul our butts and our tear drop trailer to the many places we have gone and will continue to go...... I think I timed everything pretty well.

by **angib** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 11:09 am

arnereil wrote:I was born in the golden years.

My observation is that everyone over 30 believes this.

Just about every single person of every age at any time believes that music was at its best when they themselves were 20. Same age as when they had that perfect combination of real cars (not like you get today) and near-empty roads that you could drive them on.

Arne, I bet your parents said the exact same thing - and, hey, in their day when people sang pretty tunes about nice things, they had the basic courtesy to wear a suit, a tie and nice short hair while they sang them....

And look on the bright side - the advances in medical science that have been achieved since those golden years means that you'll probably live long enough to hear your kids say the self same thing!

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose - the more things change, the more they stay the same. For a nice illustration of this phenomenon, try this link:

"Students today can't prepare bark to calculate their problems. They depend on their slates which are more expensive. What will they do when their slate is dropped and it breaks? They will be unable to write!"
(The quotation is from a teacher's conference in 1703.)

Andrew

by **Arne** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 12:09 pm

I think there is a difference.. My parents grew up during prohibition, then the drepression, then world war 2. My parents were lucky, they lived on a farm and had food, and my father had a job.

When I was a teen, there was no war that I can recall. The Korean Conflict was over, Viet Nam had not started. By time it did, I was too old for 'the draft'.....

Our Golden Years were simpler, I think. My mother stayed at home and didn't work... We diddled with alcohol, but not heavily. No drugs. Welfare, bankruptcy, babies out of wed-lock were not the norm. Our movie stars did not flaunt their corrupt life styles, and they didn't try to tell us what our political beliefs should be....... we rode our bicycles all over town, knew our neighbors, lived in fear (kind of) of our parents being called by the school principle.......

Ah, I could go on, but I liked it more than than now. It was a simpler life, but still a lot of fun..

by **Chris C** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 12:22 pm

arnereil, I think we all pine for a "better life".............whatever that might mean to each of us. I was tired of traffic and moved to the country. Now, the little college town I live in is too busy for me, and I'm finding myself wishing for a "one stoplight town". Yet where I presently live would be such a blessing to people living in LA or San Fransisco, New York City or Boston. Dallas literally drives me nuts when I have to drive there. I ache for the peace and quiet of the mountains...............while others feel the same way about the sea. Why are we never completely happy with exactly when and where we are? Interesting, to say the least.

by **Arne** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 12:33 pm

Interesting you should mention that. I have a place in VT. Used to be a sleepy little town of 1,500 souls... Over the weekend, we went up and they seem to be getting way too civilized..... There was, gulp, traffic (no traffic lights yet, but I can see one coming)....

Honestly, I've found Viriginia and West Virgina to be very nice, at least in the areas I've been to. My favorite town, where a friend lives, has a population of 12.... It is in Highland County, VA, which is the least populated county in the USA, with 2,500 souls....

I am too invested in the area where I live, so will probably never leave permanently, but I do schedule my trips around rush hours, and use the tear drop trailer to 'get out of Dodge'..... and July and August, forget it. I leave the roads those months to families rushing places to relax.....

Well, enough of this stuff that bores others to tears.... I'm off to walk the dog....

by **jbbooks** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 3:05 pm

arnereil wrote:I was born in the golden years. My highest testosterone levels were post-penicillin discovery and pre-aids. I was a teenager during the muscle car and beach boys era. I could understand the words to the songs and though my hearing isn't what it used to be, I didn't suffer hearing loss from loud, malicious sounding music. I did the old fashioned way, using no hearing protection at the drag strip tuning dragsters.

If I had a wish, it would have been that my parents had moved to California, San Diego preferably, so I could have spent my teen years there when it was livable and wasn't wall to wall people. And I could have bought a couple of houses, sold them in the late 90's and retired to Colorado where the air is still breathable.

And, now, I'm still healthy and am enjoying a very nice retirement in the high tech era. I can travel and do my investing using my wi-fi laptop from most any area in the USA. I have power everything and air-conditioned everything, which makes my life much more comfortable than that of my parents.

And last, but not least, my dependable van can haul our butts and our tear drop trailer to the many places we have gone and will continue to go...... I think I timed everything pretty well.

Same goes for me, but, I'd like to have been in the old west , say about 1880's, but then again health care and hygeine(sp?) left something to be desired. So I guess I'll stick with the life the Good Lord gave me.

by **Nitetimes** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 3:33 pm

I don't know so much about the timing, but to know then what I know now. OH, the fun I could have had!!!! And the trouble I MIGHT have stayed out of.
But I can't say I haven't enjoyed life that's for certain, but I have to agree that the mid 1800's could have been interesting to live in, of course if I spent as much time enjoying things in that era as I have in this one I probably wouldn't have lived to enjoy it as long. People had a funny way of getting dead young back then, I think Mr. Smith, Mr Wesson, and Mr. Colt and a few others had something to do with it!

by **Arne** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 3:36 pm

Just a historical note: A cowboy's average life expectancy was 32 years old. You know that straw they always seem to have handy? How do you say 'cowboy catheter? Being in the saddle for 12-14 hours a day, 6-7 days a week, makes one of those 'problem bicycle seats' look pretty sweet. Their diet, beans and hard tack, gave them health problems.....

Oh, yeah, I hear you about the historical part, but it boils down to the dream vs. the reality.... I do think it would be very interesting to visit....

I've just read Hornet's Nest, by Jimmy Carter, and am now reading Charlston, both mid-1800s historical novels... also, Morgan's run about the first convict ships from England to Australia..... they give a bird's eye view about the times, including how the rich and famous treated the average worker-bee..... not much romance to those times.

by **Dukie** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 12:28 am

I would've liked to have been born in 1950. That way I would've been 16 right in the hayday of the musclecar era. And I would've been able to buy A Roadrunner Superbird for a couple thousand instead of a couple hundred thousand. Plus all the cool stories my grandparents told me about when candy cost a penny, and you could get a burger at McD's for $.15, it just sounds like an easier time to live. No one was worried about Osama or his hooligans causing problems. It was just the BIG RED BEAR to the west.

by **madjack** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 12:45 am

...I was born in '53 and times were great...15 cent burgers, gas was 15 cent a gal and no Osama but we had the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy's assassination, Vietnam and LBJ which led to Tricky Dick Nixon and Watergate and we can't forget the constant threat of Nuclear Annihilation from the "Big Red Bear" who by the way was from the East(the west was US). All of that lead up to Jimmy Carter, double digit inflation and a prime rate around 22%. So just remember, when the "old" folks tell ya how great it was, that the view is probably thru rose tinted glasses
madjack

p.s. having said all that I feel just about like arnereil about those times

by **asianflava** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 1:21 am

My wife and I went to the LBJ Library about a year and a half ago. We went there to see the miniature White House but the line was so long that we just checked out the other exhibits. We thought that times are rough now, it is probably not as bad as it was during the Kennedy/Johnson and Nixon administrations.

Not only was there a Vietnam going on, there was Civil Rights, and cold war threats. Not to mention assinations. There was strife both inside and outside the country, as well as the potential for global nuclear war.

We went back 2 more times but never were able to see the miniature White House. The line got longer each time we went back.

by **Guest** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 3:01 am

I'm quite content as to when I was born... 1957.
Now as for some of my choices I've made along the way?...
I wasted a good amount of time during the "partying" chapter of my life, but I doubt that I'd go back and change that.
One thing I would change or do differently would have been to get to know the person that I married a bit better prior to making those vows...
Had I taken the time, I doubt that I would have married her.
We met at the end of May and were married in September.
She was 8 months pregnant when we met and being a labor coach, helping bring Colton into this world was one of the highlights of my life... she also gave me a daughter a year and a half later, so it wasn't all for naught, because these two kids have really blessed me. :thumbsup: