What did you just say?

Talk about ease of use....
Just go to this site and see what everyone else is saying.....


http://youropenbook.org/

fruitful

nothing is simple
or so it now seems
care to be taken
by each in its time

cross over and back

guess once, but not twice

refute with temptation

laugh with both hands

see always ahead
look back to make sure
do kiss with desire
cry, once in a while

breathe

sleep well

don't stay cold for long

there'll be enough time

Railroad Express Terminal - Is quickly returning to the place from once it sprang. Around 90 years ago, rail service was the end to the means. Cartage, waterways, and shipping had controlled the movement of goods for most of history. Countries and governments lived and died by their ability to control seaway commerce; Carthage, Greece, Venice, Portugal, France, Great Britain. Wars were fought over the trade of raw materials and finished goods. Even American freedom was borne in retaliation for what was deemed unfair trading practice.
The "Iron Horse" replaced "good ol' Sal" in a way that no one could have foreseen. Travel to reach frontier outposts that originally took months was now completed in days; months reduce to days, and days reduced to hours.
Everything was being moved by rail; people, money, raw material, mail, and finished goods. No longer would purchases through the mail-order catalogs need to be made out-of-season. Christmas gifts didn't need to be ordered in July. And the quality of goods improved with manufacturing centers and their economies of scale.
And while Buffalo may have had 14 different railroad lines servicing the area, and each with its own station, a majority of goods still moved through the larger depots and terminals. This one, the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Express Terminal, was one of the largest. During its "hay-day", movement of wagons and trucks was continuous, 24 hours a day. Measuring nearly one-quarter mile in length, it appears that it serviced no less than 4 different railroad spurs.

Now, it sits idle, awaiting its final collapse. No longer able to fight the elements, lacking a roof, walls, windows and solid foundation, pieces fall away daily. Columns slide apart under the water-weight. Roof panels disintegrate from lack of care. Cantilevered overhangs, that once protected dock men and teamsters, have long since surrendered to the inevitable rot and decay.

Except for this section. New life is supporting what was once hundreds of feet of awning. Here are 3 sections that have not given in.
Oh, to be that tree and hold on to the past as well.

Śmigły Wilno

or in it's full name......Wojskowy Klub Sportowy "Śmigły" Wilno.

One year, for Christmas, I purchased a soccer ball for my dad. I don't remember why I did. I just did. I thought it was something he might enjoy. Growing up, my dad never showed any natural athletic sport abilities. He didn't throw a football very well. And forget about trying to teach him how to toss a Frisbee. Horseshoes and Jarts were OK, but not too many kids play catch with their dads with Jarts. The thing was, he couldn't get the throwing motion down; like his rotator cuff didn't rotate.
(There was a trick us kids used to use to show off our coordination skills. You bend your arm up at the elbow until your hand is touching your shoulder. Then, rotate your hand so it is palm up on your shoulder. Then, while keeping you hand on your shoulder, raise your forearm up so that it is parallel to the ground. Then take a stack of quarters and place them as close to your elbow as you can. Without letting them fall, swing your hand quickly forward and catch the pile of quarters.........My dad could not rotate his hand the right way, thereby NEVER being able to catch the quarters.
But, he could play the hand slap game very well........I digress........)
So one sunny day, with my sister's kids in tow, my mom and dad decide it'd neat to have a picnic. Growing up, these would typically mean getting out the old galvanized Thermos cooler, making noodles salad and maybe some fried chicken, a watermelon, throw in a couple beers for dad and a jug of lemonade for us kids, and we'd travel to exotic places like Dufferin's Island or Ellicott Creek. This time, however, the trip was just down the street to Sheridan Park.
We nestled into a shelter, fired up some charcoal in one of those mandatory stationary grills, and headed out to the hill. I ran to the car and got out some toys for the grandchildren and even that soccer ball I decide to include.
Getting close to the group, I kicked the ball towards my dad. In an instance, it was like someone had flipped a switch. He suddenly turned into "Soccerman", with incredible skills and abilities!
With grandkids laughing and screaming with joy, he was able to dribble, pivot, and pass the ball without even watching his feet. He was constantly trying to keep a straight face, but I could see he was having the time of his life. When he took off his shirt and got down to his undershirt, I knew he was getting down to business. At one point, during our spontaneous game of "keep away", he passed the ball to me and I quickly returned it.
Then, to everyone's amazement, he started dribbling the ball over his shoulder. Yes, from a toe kick, over his shoulder, and then with the same foot flexed fully behind him, kicking back over his shoulder onto his toe. He did this without watching the behind-the-back contact, not once, but twice more. Then laughing, punted it out into the field for the grandkids to chase.
He was slightly out of breath at this point, but when I asked him where he learned to kick like that, he just said, "You baseball play. I soccer." And, he walked away.
I can only imagine that "his team" was very likely one that played close to the farm. Knowing that he always said his family lived near Wilno, I can just imagine him watching "Śmigły" Wilno. Who knows.....he might have even been on the team.......

"Fore!"

Those of Polish decent seem to understand. Those who are not, but have a connection to someone who is, seem to understand. Those who do not have no great understanding at all. Apparently, anyone who questions Obama's decision to go golfing rather than show some public sign of sympathy or grief is challenging all of democracy.

I am not saying the man should have spent the entire day on his knees praying. Hell, even after a whole year of living in the White House, he can't even decide what church he should belong to. But, he should have used some respect towards a whole nation that was spending the day watching their President being interred.

Like I said elsewhere.....

I used to golf. I've got no problem with the President being a golfer. The fact that he disrespected the memory of 96 Poles is what has me upset.

"Well, I can't get to the funeral, so what else should I do? Go to a Polish church and attend mass?....No....Maybe head over to the Embassy and convey my sorrow....NAW.....Invite some of Poland's representatives, like the Embassador or UN Delegate to a solemn ceremony here at the White House.....NOPE.....I've got it! Let's go play golf! That's just like showing grief, right? Denial is one of the Seven Steps of Grief, isn't it?"

PUTZ!

I guess I need to explain.....The crash caused me to think of why the group was traveling......and then to what took place back then.....and who was involved.....and how close my dad's family farm was to the area....and how he was "detained" by the Soviets.....and ended up on one of those "cattle trains" to Siberia, where men, women, children, and the elderly were often left on them for days at a time, with no food, no water, no facilities, no room to move, without heat, watching friends and family get sick and, without receiving a bit of care, dying and remaining in the train car, only to get to one destination and be moved to another train….


to be separated, with men sent one way, women and children (sometimes) in another, left to build their own shacks from the scraps of lumber that might have been left behind in the forested wilderness, to make socks from mittens, and mittens from hats, and hats from socks, to suffer frostbite and hunger and lice and dysentery, to travel miles to a frozen lake, and there, to break through the ice in order to retrieve fresh water only to have it freeze again.....

...to finally be freed by the Soviets once Germany attacked, but only after being forced to admit to the Allies that Stalin had "detainees" from an Allied country, to travel by whatever means, again in cattle cars for days and weeks with the promise of food and clothing only to be denied, finally ending up in Iran and Iraq only to be sent further south to Palestine, .....to being outfitted and trained, but to only be used as back-up to the British Forces for fear that you would run away from battle, to distinguishing yourself time and time again once allowed to fight, to be THE armed force that takes Monte Cassino when the American and British were repelled for months and time and time again, fighting in the mud and blood, eventually in hand to hand combat, to again fighting the Nazi army each time you were called upon….

.....to find out after years of agonizing over being able to free your home land that the British and Americans "decided" that it would be better to "give" Poland to the Soviets as a "prize" for all the work they did in defeating Germany, leaving you without a country and an inability to go "home" for fear, once there, you would be returned to your "vacation" in Siberia, and to finally end up as the greatest man I've ever known? How did you survive? How did any of you survive?

PS. That even to this day, where the Batan Death March has always been considered a War Crime, none of the actions taken by Stalin, the Soviets, and the Soviet Army against the Poles, Lithuanians, Bulgarians, Hungarians, and others were EVER considered to be so. That may be why neither Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, Gorbachev, nor Putin has never felt the need to appologize. For them, it was, and likely continues to be, just business as usual because no one would dare accuse them otherwise.....