i want MY country back

[datasuspect]

the country i remember had:

-elevators with ashtrays

-houses filled with kids and exposed electrical sockets

-vista cruiser station wagons with rear facing jump seats (best place to have fun away from parental gazes)

-largely unenforced open container laws (anyone else remember when road trips involved dad's beer cooler in the front seat?)

-truck stops with bars

-small towns with vibrant downtown commercial districts

-kids who would rather be dead than be inside the house

-adults who had serious conversations in smoke-filled kitchens about the affairs of their day

-being fed on Teamsters wages

-getting to fight, break stuff, and start fires

-distinct regional differences, down to food and beverage products you could get in abilene but not in utica

-religious whackjobs and extreme conservatives were largely laughed at and considered fringe elements, and NEVER taken seriously.

[Tobin S.]

1. Some truck stops still do have bars

;)

But they are not as common as they probably used to be and not all states have them.

Jubitz in Portland, Oregon has a cool bar. Many Montana truck stops have video poker and you can drink for free if you are playing. Some of them also have liquor stores in them.

South Dakota has similar set-ups at many of their truck stops.

Those are the ones that I can come up with off the top of my head. I run out that way quite a bit.

[datasuspect]

2. my dad was a driver

and whenever we took trips, he'd take more US highways than interstates.

they had all kinds of stuff back then (early/mid 70s). but we were going from illinois to iowa, illinois to texas, stuff like that.

i remember the big gate/lock thing in cairo illinois and remember being scared of it.

but taking trips back then was different. there were differences throughout different parts of the country. it wasn't just petro, T/A, pilot, corporate chains everywhere. sure they existed, but the lack of mom and pop services while traveling wasn't so PROFOUND.

i recently drove from chicago to boston, and it was a holy shit fest of goddamn mcdonalds on those atrocious turnpikes and tollways. just pure shit.

[Tobin S.]

5. I hear you

Yeah, the big chains have taken over the truck stop market. I'm sitting at a T/A right now in Dexter, Michigan, not too far from Detroit. Mom and pop places do still exist, but many of them are going downhill fast, and it's not uncommon to see a defunct mom and pop place across the interstate from the big guys: The Wal-Martization of the trucking industry.

It's to the point with me that I really dig it when I find a truck stop with a good restaurant in it where you can sit and enjoy a nice dinner. Many of them have the fast food chains in them- McDonalds, Arby's, Popeye's, and a bunch of them have Subway in them and I'm getting to the point where I'd rather go without than eat another sub.

[Arugula Latte]

3. Some of those things were good

but I have to say, the squelching of public smoking has been a HUGE step forward and I'm so happy we've come as far as we have (although there is still work to be done). Remember choking through a five-hour plane flight with people puffing away to your right and left? That was absolutely sickening.

[datasuspect]

4. i flew to phoenix when i was 15

and found the ashtrays in the armrests very convenient.

sorry, no offense, but i would consume the flesh of anti-smoking communist nanny staters if it were legal.

when i go to the bar and smoke and they get off the el and do their little girly coughing to register their opinion, i tell em, "go in the fucking bar, there's no smoking in there."

i am vehemently pro-smoking.

[Arugula Latte]

6. Luckily you're in the minority.

It's amazing how one cigarette can turn the air in a huge area into a stinking miasma. It's also amazing how some smokers think they should be able to pollute the air of everybody around them ... Hooray for the communist nanny state, sez I.

[datasuspect]

7. well

i hear ya, but i came up back when folks had to be a little tougher to get by.

[NoPasaran]

8. It was great sitting in the back of the plane, smoking in the old days

All the squalling babies and misbehaving children were in the front. Fresh air was way overrated. People weren't afraid to drink in the middle of the day, either.

[datasuspect]

9. we've become a nation of nancy pee pee pants people