Category Archives: Culture

Aboard the Final Santa Fe Super Chief and the First Amtrak

Culture

By Braddon Mendelson

1971. My family was invited to Maryland to attend my cousin’s wedding, where my sister was to be a member of the bridal party. My mother decided it would be a great experience for us if we made a portion of the journey via train, a journey she had taken in the opposite direction as a young girl to visit her cousins in Los Angeles. On April 30, 1971, my mother, father, brother, sister, and I boarded the Santa Fe Super Chief passenger train #18 at Union Station in Los Angeles for a two-night excursion to Chicago (from where it would be a short flight to complete the second leg of the trip.)

Boarding coupon from the last run of the Santa Fe Super Chief. Now part of the collection at the California State Railroad Museum.

It was an exciting adventure for a nine-year-old boy. The suite we occupied in Pullman sleeper car #186 joined together bedrooms A and B.  It had eight bunks and two tiny bathrooms. Four of us slept on the lower bunks. My brother, Daryl, slept above me on an upper bunk, a memory he recalls vividly, recounting, “The ceiling was so very close to my face!”

I remember roaming through narrow passageways to explore different sections of the train: the dining car, lounge car, chair car, and observation car at the end. My favorite, however, was the dome car, the glass walls and ceiling of its upstairs deck affording a three-hundred, sixty-degree view of the surrounding territory. One could see whereto we were going and from whence we came. The beautiful vistas of the southwest surrounded us in hues of reds, yellows, and browns, canopied by a clear blue sky — a living diorama of color.

The whole family reacted viscerally to the power and beauty of transport by rail, the rhythmic clatter of the iron-on-iron wheels on tracks, the shifting scenery pushing past the windows in perspective — the closer landmarks at high speeds and the barely moving mountains in the distance – the sight of the last car following behind the arc of the train as we rounded a curve, but none of us fully understood at the time the significant role this particular ride would play in the history of the American railroad.

Snoozing in the Lounge Car. (l to r) My grandparents Jack and Sylvia Rose, mother Judith Mendelson, sister Margo Mendelson. Photo by Donald Mendelson.

On May 1, 1971, we woke up to find a notice had been placed under the door of our room, indicating that Santa Fe was officially out of the passenger train business, and operations were now effectively in the hands of Amtrak, a public-private enterprise. This would be the very last time anyone would ride aboard the legendary Santa Fe Super Chief.

To Passengers enroute Chicago:
Due to the operation of this train by AMTRAK, effective May 1st, you will arrive in Chicago at the Union Station, and not at the Dearborn Station.
If you desire, your train escort who will board at Kansas City, will be pleased to send a telegram on your behalf to notify friends or relatives who may plan on meeting you upon arrival.
We regret any personal inconvenience this may have caused you.

Santa Fe Railway

My parents later explained to me the historic nature of our ride, but it was not until research I did while sorting through photos and souvenirs after their deaths that I grasped the enormity of our adventure. The Santa Fe Super Chief was referred to as the “Train of the Stars,” the preferred manner of transporting Hollywood actors and executives across the country in style. The movie “3 for Bedroom C” starring Gloria Swanson was filmed almost entirely aboard the train. Presidents and dignitaries had used the Super Chief to traverse the nation from east to west and back. And my own family and I were on its very last run, an excursion indelibly etched into its history. We departed Los Angeles on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, and arrived in Chicago on Amtrak – a once-in-a-lifetime feat of railroad prestidigitation.

Reboarding the train, now operated by Amtrak, after stop at Albuquerque station. (l ro r) The author, his brother Daryl, mother Judith, sister Margo, grandparents Sylvia and Jack Rose, porter, unidentified. Photo by Donald Mendelson.

My mom saved everything from everywhere she ever went for her entire life, and ephemera from this trip was no exception. The receipts, ticket stubs and brochures were still in good condition. As they were of no benefit to anyone in a storage box in my garage, I scanned them for myself and then contacted the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. The curator agreed to accept the original items for their collection. These bits and pieces of a bygone chapter in the history of the railroad will be preserved forever, outlasting my memories.

As this fiftieth anniversary approaches, we can all wish a “Happy Birthday” to Amtrak, but let’s not forget it also marks the end of an important era in American transportation.

Related links:

California State Railroad Museum

Santa Fe “Super Chief” 1954 educational film

About Amtrak

Super Chief Wikipedia Entry

Judy Garland - On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe (Harvey Girls, 1946)

We Wish You – Nothing!

Culture, , , ,

Santa weighs inYes, I know it’s only November, but I thought it would good to get a jump on the whole “Merry Christmas” controversy that rears its bearded white head every winter.

Opinion columns and letters-to-the-editor of local newspapers will soon be replete with commentary by disheartened Christians, lamenting that public displays of “Christmas Cheer” are no longer politically correct. They will cite examples of schools not being allowed to exhibit Christmas banners or businesses prohibiting their clerks from offering Christmas greetings to their customers.

Wishing anyone and everyone a “Merry Christmas” is their birthright, they believe, and – dagnabit — no one’s gonna stop ‘em.

As a Jewish-American, I am slightly more-than-amused when a stranger greets me with “Merry Christmas,” and only slightly less-than-amused when someone who positively knows I’m Jewish wishes me a “Happy-Not-My-Holiday” — but even then, I just laugh it off.

What troubles me more is the significance behind all that wishing. It reflects a real-world naiveté — dare I say ignorance — to assume that everyone is a fellow Christian, or worse — that the United States is a Christian nation and that “Merry Christmas” is a universal American greeting. We are not and it is not.

Greeting everyone you meet with “Merry Christmas” makes as much sense as greeting everyone you meet with “Happy Birthday.”

To a non-Christian, you could just as soon wish a “Pleasant Hat Day,” as it would have the same impact.

As Americans, of course, we may choose to wish whatever to whomever. Even brainless speech is protected by the Constitution.

There are those folks who reply, “But, we don’t mind if you wish us a ‘Happy Hanukkah,’” as if their acceptance of this greeting exemplifies their tolerance and understanding of the Jewish experience.

I have no desire to greet anyone with “Happy Hanukkah” — or “Happy Pesach” or “Good Yontif” — unless they’re Jewish.

Moreover, most in the gentile world haven’t even a clue as to what Hanukkah is about (someone actually asked me once if it celebrated the “birth of our savior.”)  Yet despite widepsread ingorance of the Maccabean Revolt in 168 BCE — which arguably paved the road for the religious freedoms we enjoy today —  the rest of us are force-fed the story of Jesus everywhere we look. Non-Christians are subjugated to annual Nativity scenes, daily proselytizing and a national Christmas tree.

To gripe about losing Christmas to political correctness is disingenuous.

I have no problem with Christmas. I enjoy sharing in my friends’ celebration of their holiday and look forward to attending parties where the kissing of strangers is encouraged.

When December rolls around, if I know for certain that someone celebrates Christmas, I will wish them a merry one — and if it happens to be the anniversary of the day they purchased their lovely fedora, I will offer up a “Pleasant Hat Day,” as well.

So go ahead, offer a hearty “Merry Christmas” to everyone you meet. It’s your right – your constitutionally protected freedom of expression – to do so.

But don’t be surprised if some of us respond by exercising our consitutionally protected freedom to roll our eyes and sigh.

In case anyone asks,

Braddon

Lessons of Prop. 8

Culture, ,

I need to thank ProtectMarriage.com for teaching my six-year-old son about gay marriage. 

One of the red herrings the Proposition 8 hucksters threw into the political mix was to scare families into thinking that the concept of same-sex couples getting married would be a required subject in our public schools (and that somehow, that was a bad thing) if the initiative didn’t pass. 

How ironic that while they were spreading these lies, they succeeded — through their repetitious, misleading and reprehensible television campaign — in exposing every school child in the state of California to that very concept in which they spent forty-million dollars to warn us against.

My son loves studying the universe.  He can tell you about all eight planets in our solar system, and why Pluto is no longer a planet, but may be a planet again someday.  He can tell you how volcanoes work and how clouds are formed.  Prior to the Proposition 8 campaign, he didn’t know the meaning of “straight” or “gay” in the context of human sexuality, but he had seen these television spots so often he finally asked me what gay marriage was all about. 

I explained that gay men or women are people who choose to love someone of the same sex.  It was a simple explanation, which he understood completely.  I told him gay people want the right to work and play and be happy just like anyone else, but there are some people who want to take away their right to marry one another. 

“Throughout history,” I said, “there have been times when one group of people passed laws restricting what another group of people could do, who they could associate with, even who they could marry.  Those laws have always been wrong.”

A few examples rolled off the top of my head:

Adolf Hitler made it illegal for Jews to marry blonde-haired, blue-eyed German people.  He also wouldn’t allow them to own businesses or openly practice their religion;

Not too long ago, it was illegal in parts of our country for black kids to go to the same schools as white kids;

And there was even a time when lawmakers in our own state of California made it illegal for black people and white people to marry one another.

Although he easily grasped the concept of gay marriage, he could not understand how one group of people could be so mean toward another.  “Why?” he asked.

I have no problem teaching my son about gay people; having to shave a little of his innocence off by explaining the hatred that exists in the world was a little tough.  “One group of people hates another group because of who they are or how they look,” I said. “As their hates festers and grows, they spread lies and fear to attract more followers, until they have enough power to force the other group to obey them.”

“I wish everyone was treated equally,” he said.

“Me, too,” I said.

So thank you, ProtectMarriage.com, for informing my son — and millions of his counterparts across the Golden State — not just about gay marriage, but how hatred can manifest itself into the most appalling abuses of one group against another.