After I captioned these posters, I realized that some of them have been previously posted on this blog and that’s not a surprise – the same sets of posters are floating around the internet with only quality of scans to differentiate them.
This set is about the need to be vigilant because the enemies are always lurking nearby, eavesdropping on the state secrets and trying to sabotage the Soviet country.
Couple of weekends ago I was sitting at the Harvey House Diner inside the almost empty Union Station, drinking a strawberry milkshake and reminiscing. Not that long ago this place was crowded with thousands of people as the second largest train station in the country, filled with sounds, voices and emotions. Today it spends it’s days quietly, ironically populated by the dead. I am not old enough to remember the glory days of the Union Station but in another place and another life I rode my share of rails. There is something special about traveling by train. It’s an experience rather than just a means of transportation. On a long train ride you have time to relax, to think, to read, to sleep, to talk, to eat, play cards, meet people, sleep some more, and, most importantly, to look outside the window. You actually travel to your destination; you see changing landscapes; unknown places slowly pass before you; you wake up in the middle of the night at some station you’d never heard off, its sleepy inhabitants getting on the train and you can hear them walking through the rail car; you see a sunrise and then a sunset hundreds of miles later and the train keeps chugging along making that rhythmical sound that only a train can make and gently swaying from side to side. Finally you arrive, your train is greeted at the station by the sounds of a brass band and waving crowds trying to see a familiar face through the dusty window. You are tired and continue swaying even on the solid ground. A happy reunion or a new adventure awaits.
Many of my trips started at this train station:fun trips, work trips, trips that I loved and some that I didn’t, like the one to the army, or a trip to the unknown country when I left one last time, not knowing if I am ever coming back. Many times my parents or friends were there to wave good-bye or to meet me when I was coming back. I may not remember every time but I do remember the feeling, feeling of someone waiting for you. I think at least once in a lifetime everyone should travel by train, even for no other reason than to experience it.
In the meantime, you can always spend a slow lunch hour at the Union Station and imagine all the hustle and bustle of the past, the tears of joy or sadness, emotionless voice of the announcer, the constant hum of the crowd, whistles of the conductors, in other words life that used to be there and and now is not.
Union Station,
Old walls still remember
Sounds of life.
Starting with this post and continuing here, I promise this is the last one using the set of photos from 1938 Kansas City. There are many reasons why I do this, but the main two are: I enjoy it and I feel like somewhat of an explorer, possibly drawing attention to the photos that haven’t been seen for many years if ever. Any old photos of this quality are fun to browse through but I especially enjoy finding the ones related to this area or to my previous life in the USSR. You may find all my previous photo-posts here.
Just like the previous batch, this one ends with some vintage NSFW, not that I am trying to compete with TKC, but the fact that a Life Magazine photographer even submitted these in the end of the 1930’s is in itself amusing. Interestingly enough, this is not a unique occurrence in the Life Photo Archives, I had few more shared in my post about the Persephone.
All the photos are linked to the larger images, feel free to click and look at the detail.
In calendar years I am 38 but just like the dog years go by much faster then the human years, I think I am much older then an average American born in 1969. To prove that, I will list a few items that I and my parents used in our everyday life that were not antique, just normal things you could find in an average household, and then we will see what age group will admit to knowing what these are:
1. Calculating aids.
The Slide Rule. In the movie Apollo 13 when the spacecraft was in trouble bunch of geeky-looking engineers whipped out these little secret weapons. Some people can still beat a computer with this thing, if not in speed then in physical strength. I actually learned slide rule use in school and used it for a period of time. We didn’t have calculators, I think I got my first one in the 8th grade.
My Mom was an accountant and she used abacus at work. Some people could do miracles with this things. Try to multiply two numbers using the abacus and you will know what I mean.
Lastly, to finish this high-tech roundup I’d like to mention trigonometric tables. In the absence of calculators to find values of trigonometric functions, squares, square roots, logarithms and other math calculations we had to page through these tables. It wasn’t hard to do but sure makes you appreciate your little scientific calculator.
2.Reel-to-reel tape player. This is the exact model that we owned. My Dad purchased it when I
started talking to record my first words. This player worked fine for the next 22 years and probably long after we left it to somebody. It was very heavy but I remember dragging it around town to record music from friends’ tapes and records. This is how music was downloaded in my time. Get some tape, bring your recorder to a friend’s house, wait for a couple of hours while it’s recording, lug your player back home.
3. Color TV. In 1976 or 77 my Dad bought our first color TV. It was still a rarity. This TV was extremely heavy and had vacuum tubes inside. There was no cable, just 3 over-the-air channels and no one even knew what the remote control looked like. You could always tell that TV was on by glowing tubes inside.
4.Drafting Board. Before the AutoCad drafters stood in front of these and actually drafted. I had a drafting class in the technical school and my uncle let me use his board for some time. For those who don’t know, drafting is hard and tedious and I always sucked at it. That was the main reason why I chose to study electrical engineering – electrical drawings can be done with template. Until you drew a gear in 3-d with a quarter cut out you don’t know what pain is.
5. Kerosene Burner. My Grandma actually used this to cook. She lived in the rural area and when propane wasn’t delivered she fired up one of those. It was smelly but it did what it was supposed to.
6. Transistor radio. This is the exact model we had. The writing on it said “50 years if the Great October Revolution” so it was made in 1967. I mentioned before how we (and the rest of the country) listened to Western Short Wave Stations to get real news and happenings in the world. There were even shows with banned rock-music. The strange ting was that they kept making these radios and then had to scramble radio transmissions.
7. Our first washer.This was just a plastic tub with an electric agitator. The process was simple:heat the water in the bucket on the stove, dump it into the washer, put the clothes in, turn on. When the timer went off you had to manually empty it with the attached hose, repeat the process to rinse, then wring out the laundry and hang it outside to dry. Still, it was a miracle machine.
Couple of weekends ago I was sitting at the Harvey House Diner inside the almost empty Union Station, drinking a strawberry milkshake and reminiscing. Not that long ago this place was crowded with thousands of people as the second largest train station in the country, filled with sounds, voices and emotions. Today it spends it’s days quietly, ironically populated by the dead. I am not old enough to remember the glory days of the Union Station but in another place and another life I rode my share of rails. There is something special about traveling by train. It’s an experience rather than just a means of transportation. On a long train ride you have time to relax, to think, to read, to sleep, to talk, to eat, play cards, meet people, sleep some more, and, most importantly, to look outside the window. You actually travel to your destination; you see changing landscapes; unknown places slowly pass before you; you wake up in the middle of the night at some station you’d never heard off, its sleepy inhabitants getting on the train and you can hear them walking through the rail car; you see a sunrise and then a sunset hundreds of miles later and the train keeps chugging along making that rhythmical sound that only a train can make and gently swaying from side to side. Finally you arrive, your train is greeted at the station by the sounds of a brass band and waving crowds trying to see a familiar face through the dusty window. You are tired and continue swaying even on the solid ground. A happy reunion or a new adventure awaits.
that I loved and some that I didn’t, like the one to the army, or a trip to the unknown country when I left one last time, not knowing if I am ever coming back. Many times my parents or friends were there to wave good-bye or to meet me when I was coming back. I may not remember every time but I do remember the feeling, feeling of someone waiting for you. I think at least once in a lifetime everyone should travel by train, even for no other reason than to experience it.
The Slide Rule. In the movie Apollo 13 when the spacecraft was in trouble bunch of geeky-looking engineers whipped out these little secret weapons. Some people can still beat a computer with this thing, if not in speed then in physical strength. I actually learned slide rule use in school and used it for a period of time. We didn’t have calculators, I think I got my first one in the 8th grade.
Reel-to-reel tape player. This is the exact model that we owned. My Dad purchased it when I
Color TV. In 1976 or 77 my Dad bought our first color TV. It was still a rarity. This TV was extremely heavy and had vacuum tubes inside. There was no cable, just 3 over-the-air channels and no one even knew what the remote control looked like. You could always tell that TV was on by glowing tubes inside.
Drafting Board. Before the AutoCad drafters stood in front of these and actually drafted. I had a drafting class in the technical school and my uncle let me use his board for some time. For those who don’t know, drafting is hard and tedious and I always sucked at it. That was the main reason why I chose to study electrical engineering – electrical drawings can be done with template. Until you drew a gear in 3-d with a quarter cut out you don’t know what pain is.
Kerosene Burner. My Grandma actually used this to cook. She lived in the rural area and when propane wasn’t delivered she fired up one of those. It was smelly but it did what it was supposed to.
(and the rest of the country) listened to Western Short Wave Stations to get real news and happenings in the world. There were even shows with banned rock-music. The strange ting was that they kept making these radios and then had to scramble radio transmissions.
This was just a plastic tub with an electric agitator. The process was simple:heat the water in the bucket on the stove, dump it into the washer, put the clothes in, turn on. When the timer went off you had to manually empty it with the attached hose, repeat the process to rinse, then wring out the laundry and hang it outside to dry. Still, it was a miracle machine.
