Railroaders place to shoot the shit.

Was at one time a big mob town.....today is merely the Camden NJ of Ohio.

Damn near every on of us has lived through this shifting, changing time, from the 20th Century, Post WW-II Era, and into the 21st Century, where everything, is new, and weird!

The country that we grew up in, most of the BJ gang, being the "Baby Boom" generation, born during the years 1946-1964, or post war (WW-II), knew what life was like. Life was predictable, safe, and secure. Everybody's old man worked. Everybody's mom cooked, and made yer lunch for school... And TV was pretty damn cool tu!

Hardly anybody noticed the Korean War thing. Unless yer dad participated, or yer old man's unmarried uncle was killed there, or another relative was there.

Vietnam changed everything. Again. Most of us came of age during that little 'police-action' which turned out very badly for Uncle Sam. But the country moved on, and adapted to the loss of "Indo China" to the Commies!

The real changes started to be noticed during the mid 70s, through the 80s. We (The US) started eliminating those good paying, solid manufacturing (factory) jobs to lower wage countries. Entire industries disappeared, seemingly overnight, including iron, and steel making...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_Belt

Now your trains run on imported rails, made by steel mils in China, Korea, Japan, or another low wage, non-union mill somewhere. Perhaps Russia. Which already sells wheels to GE, and freight car builders here.

We talk about creating jobs, putting the unemployed back to work all the time. But doing what? Most of the people who had the skills needed to fill the industrial jobs that made the United States strong, and vibrant are gone. What's left? Read all about it above. The "Rust Belt" states.

Education? Higher education. To do what? Reinvent the mouse trap, that's what! By the time your four-year undergraduate (BA, BS, BFA) degree is completed, where do you find work to pay off the $180,000 debt you took on putting yourself through four years of college.?

It's laughable! Not everybody, and there's thousands of us, retirees, job seekers, unemployed, under-employed, drop-outs, and hopeless, formerly long-term unemployed, and not looking for work at all... Waiting for something.

Maybe the next big war. Some big thing ta get us out of the malaise the US has fallen into since the Post War years off 'boom' then bust that we knew as kids, from the 1940s, into the 1950s, '60s, '70s...

Yep. America the Beautiful. Where are ya now? Certainly not in Ohio. Not now. Maybe next week, or not ever again.