Originally posted by eric
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Originally posted by eric View Post
Shawn, Maine is indeed beautiful. But I could do without the snow.
We have all that in Eastern TN except for the snowmobile trails and ice fishing, which I'm totally fine with....
Honestly, I'm not a winter person, I absolutely cannot stand snow anymore, hurts my knees and hands with my joints. Never been much of an ice fisher, let alone a regular fisher, not a snowmobiler, but I can't see myself anywhere else.
At work dealing with snow is one thing. On my days off, I really don't want to shovel and snow blow the driveway. Haha
And here I tried getting a job at Montana Rail Link... Pretty positive they get snow sooner than we do with far worse temps! Yikes.
-Shawn K-
Derby Rail Shops
Maine Central Mountain Division: 25% Track, 12% Scenery.
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I didn't see myself in TN until we got our IL and TN property tax bills on the same day....If you like what you see here at Trainsim.com, be it the discussions and knowledge in the forums, items saved in our library or the ongoing development of our TSRE Fork, I hope you'll consider a paid membership to help support keeping the site operating.... Thanks!
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With all do respect, Eric I think context is needed here as well. I grew up in Southern West Virginia on the Kentucky border and probably the poorest part of the state. Although we were flanked by what was known as "The heart of the billion dollar coal fields" this region didn't see much of those billions and coal companies make their money, pack up and leave or start new companies with new names in order to dodge paying workers.
I think there's an issue when you look at numbers primarily. Their living at a level that's considered poverty and then there's real poverty. Not to say people in Illinois don't experience poverty, but being the dumb uneducated hillbilly with bad teeth and living in extreme poverty is sort of what we're known for.... Oh and coal.
My grandmother is 86 and lived a very rough life of plowing peoples gardens with a mule and making a merger living raising a garden, cows, hogs the whole none yards til this day. My young life was growing up with her where we worked the garden, dug ginseng, or "sang" as we call it. We used an outhouse for number 2 and a buckets inside the house for number 1. She has no indoor water and one light bulb in the house. This is largely due to her husband dying in 1972 and she never had the heart to finish putting indoor plumbing in her house.
We burned wood and coal for heating and this is common place in our part of the region. I think there's poverty and then extreme poverty. Would you believe she still lives this way til this day? If you ask why we allow her to live this way then you don't understand the people and their will in this area. She most likely feels that if she stops working she will essentially die. This is all she knows. Shes uneducated, dropping out of the third grade and can't read or write. That's how things were in the 30s and 40s around here. People had to raise gardens to eat and stay home to work. That mentality is still here today as the economy is only worse as the coal is no more and the railroad is a shell of it's former self.
I would say without a doubt there are third world conditions in America and I loved it when younger as it's all I knew. The sense of community and helping each other and closeness of family were all we really had. Probably the happiest I ever was with no air conditioning and working for everything including drawing water from a well into 5 gallon buckets full of iron bacteria. We're proud because we're survivours and we pick up the pieces and keep moving forward. You can't pull up our boot straps and get a job here.. there are no jobs. The nearest Walmart or hospital can be an hour away. Not everyone lives in Nashville, or somewhere that makes you think poverty in the South is a myth. We have been used and discarded and left to pick up the pieces. In time of war were known to answer the call to serve as I did in 2001. I find it funny all these New Yorkers and northerns alike coming South now that their cities are falling apart. Anyway, enough rambling. I'd invite you to visit here and see if your opinion changes much.
The cities you flee from now are the ones my brothers with major head trauma, no legs and arms, or paid the ultimate sacrifice were avenging after 9/11 only to come home to this. When Iraq would blow something up after we built it and we'd rebuild it again. Only to think of my own home conditions and how in some ways has it better than me. They had a country who cared.Last edited by Snowman; 10-13-2024, 23:03.
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Originally posted by Snowman View PostI grew up in Southern West Virginia on the Kentucky border and probably the poorest part of the state.
And yes, we've been there. Being poor in Chicago is by no means on the same level as being poor in Appalachia.If you like what you see here at Trainsim.com, be it the discussions and knowledge in the forums, items saved in our library or the ongoing development of our TSRE Fork, I hope you'll consider a paid membership to help support keeping the site operating.... Thanks!
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