You Know You Are Old When

[masseyrider]

Funny thing, he told me that he kept track of his winnings for a whole year one time. By the end of the year he said he was $10 ahead. LOL, He never took a cut of the winnings, it was just a place for the locals to hang out.

Uh huh!
And I just buy women a night out because I'm a nice guy.
Now aboot that swamp land...

 

[WinterDeere]

Every single technician over a certain age can smell this picture…

 

[MossRoad]

Every single technician over a certain age can smell this picture…

...

Every single technician over a certain age had to apprentice with that guy.

 

[Oaktree]

“You know you are old when”:

You can remember when local railroad tracks had active trains running on them, but now they’re abandoned and overgrown with 30’ tall junk trees growing out of them.

Inactive, yeah. Abandoned, probably not. Abandoning a railroad RoW means giving up all rights to it, something most railroads are reluctant to do, because that pretty much eliminates the possibility of EVER getting that RoW back.

There's a bit of a bru-ha-ha up this way regarding this. Many of these old RR beds have now become ATV/snowmobile trails, with ownership retained by the RR or some rail-related entity. In the last couple years that entity has rescinded permission to use these for recreational purposes, saying that they plan to restore rail service, even though those tracks haven't seen a train in decades. This has been quite disruptive to the OHRV community with major sections of trail now off limits. Outdoor tourism is a big part of the economy here.
It's been so long since they've been used/maintained that the rail bed has significantly deteriorated, to the point where everything will need to be completely rebuilt, something that's gonna cost $$$$$. I see shirt loss here. I just don't see enough potential to EVER recover that kind of investment.

 

[MossRoad]

Inactive, yeah. Abandoned, probably not. Abandoning a railroad RoW means giving up all rights to it, something most railroads are reluctant to do, because that pretty much eliminates the possibility of EVER getting that RoW back.

There's a bit of a bru-ha-ha up this way regarding this. Many of these old RR beds have now become ATV/snowmobile trails, with ownership retained by the RR or some rail-related entity. In the last couple years that entity has rescinded permission to use these for recreational purposes, saying that they plan to restore rail service, even though those tracks haven't seen a train in decades. This has been quite disruptive to the OHRV community with major sections of trail now off limits. Outdoor tourism is a big part of the economy here.
It's been so long since they've been used/maintained that the rail bed has significantly deteriorated, to the point where everything will need to be completely rebuilt, something that's gonna cost $$$$$. I see shirt loss here. I just don't see enough potential to EVER recover that kind of investment.

We have a rail line running along one property line on our place. A wooden trestle bridge, too. The RR officially abandoned it and ownership reverted to us.

 

[lman]

I had two Amish kids in my class until they turned 16, then they dropped out to work on the farm. At one time we probably had a couple dozen Amish kids in our school out of 500 or so total students.

All of the Amish now have their own school to 8th grade here. It may have been different back then. There were no Amish where I grew up about 30 miles away.

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[BravoXray]

All of the Amish now have their own school to 8th grade here. It may have been different back then. There were no Amish where I grew up about 30 miles away.

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There are a couple of Amish schools in my township and the neighboring ones, but there weren't any when I was in school circa 1960, Amish kids went to township schools.
I knew a couple of Amish girls who had English (what Amish called non-Amish people around here) girl friends, and would stay overnight at their homes. They usually had a couple of changes of regular clothes they would put on, remove their head covering (aka crocheted crash helmet), let their hair down, grab a pack of cigarettes and go cruising in town.
There were stories about how wild they were, but I never dated one of them.

 

[WinterDeere]

There were stories about how wild they were, but I never dated one of them.

Lots of local jokes about getting your fingers poked with straight pins, as the Amish girls knew how to fool around, but had pins rather than buttons holding their dresses closed.