THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 8, 1994 TAG: 9407060095
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: IDA KAY'S PORTSMOUTH
SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
Well, so much for the ``good old days.''
Over the past weekend as I was moving around some old books, a yellowed letter fell out. The aging missive, postmarked Sept. 2, 1944, was addressed in neat handwriting to my grandparents.
It was a bread-and-butter note from a young woman in Connecticut, who obviously had visited in their home. As we all know from recent news, there was a war going on. Edenton, where my grandparents lived, was running over with Marines stationed at an air base there. It was a very small town with few public accommodations, so local people with extra space opened their homes to families and friends who came to visit the Marines stationed there.
The letter from Shirley L. Cunningham of Bridgeport, Conn., interested me for two reasons. In the envelope was a negative of a photograph of my grandparents, which probably was the reason the letter was saved and somehow got lost in the books I have from their home.
The contents of the letter also set me to thinking.
``We had an awful time coming home Saturday night,'' Ms. Cunningham wrote. ``The boat was late. The water was quite rough, and the boat was terribly crowded.
``The train ride was worse than that, though! Besides being very dirty, we nearly froze to death - and couldn't sleep. When I got home, I had a big breakfast and went right to bed.''
Fifty years ago, the train was the way to travel between here and New York. Certainly until the war was over, it was about the only way because gasoline for automobiles was rationed and the steamers were at risk in seas sometimes infested with German U-boats.
It wasn't until 1946, when the country finally was past the Great Depression and World War II, that I rode the train to New York for the first time. In my mind, that always has seemed like a wonderful way to travel. I remember getting on the boat in Norfolk to cross the Chesapeake Bay and then riding the sleeper to New York, where one awoke refreshed and ready to see the sights of the big city.
But, then, I was a young teen-ager and probably didn't notice rough water, dirty train cars or lack of sleep. I was focused on a good time.
When I read Ms. Cunningham's letter to my grandparents, I couldn't help but examine my own recollections of the same trip and wonder about the accuracy of my memories of those train trips to New York.
The mind has a way of distilling events of 50 years ago, but who would have it any other way? For instance, I'm sure my grandparents to whom Ms. Cunningham wrote had flaws, but I don't remember any of them.
The fact is, despite all the hassle of getting to and from airports, the trip from Norfolk to New York by airplane probably is a lot easier - and it certainly is quicker. Also, since the advent of the interstate highways, you always can drive to the Northeast.
The train trips may never have been as good as I thought and, if they were, they for sure never will be the same again.
I think Portsmouth sometimes suffers from a collective memory of the past that remembers only the good things and refuses to look to the future that not only will be different but also could be better.
As a resident and advocate of Park View, I frequently hear from people who grew up in the neighborhood the phrase, ``It's not like it used to be.''
Well, that's true, but neither is anything else is like it was 40 or 50 years ago.
Just because things change doesn't mean the future can't be as good or better than the past.
I think sometimes in this city we too often forget that we must be ever planning and implementing change, perhaps for the better.
The city's survival depends on maintaining houses and neighborhoods, not on tearing them down. It depends on recycling commercial and industrial properties, not razing them to create more vacant land that serves no use.
Instead, we must refashion the city. Just because it isn't ``like it used to be'' doesn't mean we destroy it, either by design or by neglect.
And, who knows? Maybe, like my memory of the train to New York, it never was quite as good as we thought it was anyway. by CNB