Is it just me.....(part 2)

Steve -

In the US, trailer parks and their occupants are associated with the poor.

Over there, they tend to worship success and wealth more than we do.

Hence their disdain for people living in them.

No doubt some of our US posters will soon put me right, if I've got it wrong !

So this is like a mobile home / caravan type of thing - yes?

Not something you see as a short clip promoting a program or for towing junk in down to the dump.

If so then Elvis came full circle with his own trailer park out the back of Graceland, almost a mini Elvistown.

For a multimillionaire this hardly represented the "poor" as much as it might have represented his roots in childhood.

But some of these places we have over here are amazing, I wouldn't mind living in one. They just seem like any other property to me, there's okay ones and luxurious ones.

Why is it a "poor" thing ? If it is a poverty thing what program do US citizens have going to help those people out of poverty ?

Steve -

There is a world of difference between having a trailer [UK=caravan] parked out back of your mansion, and living in one as your main residence !

The US political system seems to be one of 'look after big business and the wealthy and powerful' first and foremost.

If these people are kept happy & wealthy with tax breaks & subsidies, there will be a 'trickle down' effect to the rest of society.

Of course, it doesn't work.

The poor just stay poor.

Colin......such a load of crap I've seldom seen. We have programs up the proverbial "wazoo" to help the poor. We just don't believe in making the common denominator of our economy equality........as in equally miserable. Anyone can get ahead here......if they want to WORK. Many do not. And even for them there are programs to assist them in their capacity of becoming the best drag on society they can be

Colin......such a load of crap I've seldom seen. We have programs up the proverbial "wazoo" to help the poor. We just don't believe in making the common denominator of our economy equality........as in equally miserable. Anyone can get ahead here......if they want to WORK. Many do not. And even for them there are programs to assist them in their capacity of becoming the best drag on society they can be

WORD

I find it funny how in the UK you can claim benefits larger then their national average. At least that is what I have heard.

No you can't Geno, but there are times when it appears so.

It's centered around the kids really. If there's a child under 16 still living at home then benefit is available.

10 years ago it was crazy. People living in mansions got their mortgage paid for every month.

Colin, that's why I asked what the citizens were doing to assit, not the US government.

It was mentioned that trailers wer symbolic of the poor that's why I see no diff in Elvis having loads out back of G'land.

Scatter -

You wrote:

Colin......such a load of crap I've seldom seen

Not a regular reader of my posts, then ?

But you must admit, there is a tendency, in the US, to worship success, power, wealth etc.

The subsidies paid to your cotton barons [for example] are astronomical, and a lot of them are millionaires to start with.

In the UK, although we all strive to achieve it, wealth is kinda looked upon as something not quite wholesome somehow.

I dare say the Brits are on to something. And Scat, I live "south of the Mason-Dixon" line. But if that's your politics to rag on the poor, so be it. Picking on "white trash" is the last acceptable US prejudice.

I've been to a goodly share of trailer parks in both New Hampshire and the Carolinas in my work(don't ask) and have found them to largely be peopled with hard-working, patriotic Americans. Realtively tidy yards and clean inside by and large. Good people live there. Not too far afield from Gladys, Vernon and Elvis, either.

That said, they are an atrocity of architecture.

Incidentally, in my time up north, I noticed New Englanders call shopping carts "carriages," not "carts."

English or maybe largely British phrases like "You're off your trolley" would be met with enquiring looks in the US I guess.

Or is that a Norfolk only expression Colin ?

Steve -

"Off your trolley" is a familiar saying from when I was growing up in Sussex.

Also "doo-lally-tat" [no idea of the spelling, these weren't ever written down] which originated in India, I believe.

I wondered also if "Off your Trolley" could have been an import from the US, maybe during the war with the GI's.

Similar to "you've missed the boat" in principal but meaning one must have been away the day they gave something out that one should have got. Or you've fallen off the tram or something with similar consequences.

I know we have some local phrases that have never escaped over the county border, but I don't know them all.

The U.S. unfortunately tore up nearly all of its old "trolley" network of light-rail trains after WWII, with GM pushing buses as an alternative. Almost any small city in the US (and I mean totally obscure, small cities) had their little trolley network. (You can sometimes locate the old tracks if you sleuth around a little, but mostly they've been paved over.)

Thankfully, they are are making a comeback, mainly known as "light rail commuter trains. For every new road built, they quickly fill up with traffic, so there's a push for an alternative to a traffic jam. For example, In metropolitan New Jersey, near New York City, they have installed new lines of light rail that work terrifically and put buses to shame, from what I know.

And thankfully up in Boston, the subway system there never really tore up their trolleys, so one can fully enjoy them there. They run up and down some of the bigger avenues and have a charm that a bus caught in traffic never will. And yes, by and large they are still called "trolleys" there, especially when they go to street level from the tunnel, or "tube" as you might say.

I digress!

Greg -

As a boy, growing up in Brighton, Sussex [UK] we had 'trolley buses'.

These had the double shafts linking to overhead cables, so ran on ordinary tyred wheels [without rails].

Very efficient, quiet and environmentally friendly.

So, of course, they had to go !

But you must admit, there is a tendency, in the US, to worship success, power, wealth etc.

Yep...and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Gene Simmons put it best when it comes to success:

"there's a simple answer to anyone who sits at "the table of life." Eat as much of life as you have appetite for. Don't be bothered if the person sitting next to you has an appetite bigger than yours.

In other words, keep your eyes on your own plate....and off mine."

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The Socialism of many countries are failing in my view. If others want to keep this attitude...let it go on. The farther away from #1 they are, the better. I'll take my freedom thank you...and that includes free to be rich, free to pick my insurance, and free to pick our transportation!

TROLLEY's...are you kidding? Dude I will take my Toyota anyday. I can ride a light rail for some parts, but screw it as the main source of transportation. What the hell for!

Geno -

You wrote:

TROLLEY's...are you kidding? Dude I will take my Toyota anyday. I can ride a light rail for some parts, but screw it as the main source of transportation. What the hell for!

I don't think anyone was suggesting that.

Just remembering times long gone by.................

Geno, I think Colin meant that to worship that is all that is seen to focus on, not that there's anything wrong with it in itself, just maybe at the cost of ignoring poverty in some parts of the world through no fault of those in poverty.

The trolley thing was really about the difference in our use and meaning of the same word.
I'd said to someone about pushing a trolley around a supermarket and they thought I must be smoking some Jamaican herbal leaf mixture.

You call it a cart.

Greg -

As a boy, growing up in Brighton, Sussex [UK] we had 'trolley buses'.

These had the double shafts linking to overhead cables, so ran on ordinary tyred wheels [without rails].

Very efficient, quiet and environmentally friendly.

So, of course, they had to go !

Colin, I'm just going to have to tune out the ranting of Gene about "socialism" in the U.S. and in Europe. C'mon! I usually tune out such remarks here (and again, welcome back, Geno ) but really.

By his standards, he must still be smarting over Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal ( that which the current President here foolishly thought he could deal a death blow to what's left of it)...If America ever went to a purely capitalist economy, it'd collapse rather quickly. Throwing around the term "socialism" is bad form in the U.S. and frankly probably insults the real socialists as there's not much a socialist movement to speak of anymore.

Colin, I'm pleased to report that during my time up in Boston, neighboring Cambridge and Watertown, Massachussetts still employs that same style of "trolley-buses." And they do quite well, thank you. In the some U.S. cities, only a fool drives around in a car to go to work. But in others, there's no traffic to speak of really and, since the roads are subsidized along with cheap gas, the automobile makes perfect sense in large parts of the USA, nevermind the population difference.

So as for the "every man in a Toyota" solution, that may work out in the hinterland, but in congested urban metropolitan areas like Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C., (to name a few), the real ticket is to be on a train, not tied up in traffic. Trust me: I see people with major league salaries happily taking the train. People buy homes based on access to such train lines. It's the only serious opton in populated centers. You can kick back, you have a seat in most cases, you can read a book (I'm working my way through Jorgensen's ELVIS: A LIFE IN MUSIC at long last) and you don't have to piss and moan about the Bush gas-price hikes.

Besides, face it Gene, we Americans drive way too much and of late drive absurdly, disgustingly self-centered SUVs. Bring on the "high" gas prices, I say. Do I want to pass a law against it? No. But , but in time, we'll wise up. I don't like feeding the Middle Eastern regimes that support terrorism and I assume neither do you.

And I commend you for at least driving presumably economic Toyota.

But even they are getting too big.

It's going to take gas lines and prices like '79 to wise folks up here. Today's SUVs are already looking like the big old boat-like Plymouth Badillacs that no one wanted all of a sudden in the '70s.

Gregory......you have taken my initial post well beyond the bounds I intended. My reference to trailer parks was a shot at Brittney's wardrobe choice. It was not intended as a slight of the poor, it was a reference to the well-known stereotype of the dress code one supposedly sees there. When I was a boy, and my friends and I saw someone who dressed "slutty" (not a reference to wealth or the lack of it), we referred to her as a "trailer park babe". The fact that it is not a slight of the poor is illustrated by the fact that as I was talking to a childhood friend from Connecticut a few weeks ago, we referred to Paris Hilton with that term.

But I agree, it has an unintended backhanded slight to those who live in trailers, and for that I offer my sincerest apologies to any I offended. This was simply a term I grew up with, and I'm ashamed to say I never purged it from my vocabulary. Consider THAT done.

Your characterization of the majority of those who live in trailer parks is also very true.Populated mostly with decent hard-working, God fearing people. And here in Florida, a great many retired military veterans, the very people who vouchsafed our freedom.

Also, most would be shocked just how NICE most of these places (at least here in Fla) are, especially those by the shore. The grounds are usually immaculate, and the insides of the homes are surprisingly well appointed.That being said, however.......I'd be outta there like a SHOT at the first sign of foul weather .

Scat, I've been called on it myself and I've officially grown weary of PC policing of language in reference to perceived ethnic slights, so carry on accordingly! (I refer here , for just one example, the current Mexican Government stamp controversy that has folks in an uproar) I just meant let's think about this, as long as we're tip-toeing around other people.

Also, I may be "enlightened" on trailer parks, but I made the mistake of putting them down in front of my old boss a few years ago. Good thing we were friends because she told me her DAD lived in one and chatised me for my elitist attitude!



They're kind of neat, in a way, if ghastly.

And pave the roads in them, will ya?

Steve -

In the US, trailer parks and their occupants are associated with the poor.

Over there, they tend to worship success and wealth more than we do.

Hence their disdain for people living in them.

No doubt some of our US posters will soon put me right, if I've got it wrong !

Colin......please note my response to Gregory above in reference to disdain for the poor. I am not guilty of it (since I have been there)......and I apologize for my thoughtless misuse of the term in reference to Ms Spears. In fact.....truth be told, when I was a single lad, carefree and carousing, I shared a trailer for 2 years with 2 other guys that I worked with while we were stocking shelves at a local supermarket named "Winn Dixie". That was our "Bachelor pad", close to Dominos Pizza (at LEAST 3 meals a week there), several billiard halls, sports bars, and the ocean. Paradise indeed, and close to everything 3 young men on the prowl could possibly need .

As for programs for the poor and the infirm, we've been down this road before, and you know I support them......just not for the able-bodied and indolent. But I suppose somehow the Government deems it fiscally responsible to simply throw money at people rather than assess their actual need. It's a shame, because those who are allowed to abuse the system keep adequate funding from some who are truly needy. That's why I give every week to private charities which feed, clothe, and train the poor. It's easier for me to hold them to an account.

Now on to the trolleys!!!! I grew up in a little town in the mountains of Connecticut named Wolcott. And even there.....in the idyllic countryside.....we had a trolley system that led to the closest large town, Waterbury. It was not operational when I grew up, since as Gregory noted, most were dismantled post WWII. Gladly, they have now refurbished the cars, repaired the still extant tracks, and have service up and running again!!! My brother (who is the vice president of an large insurance company and quite well off) rides a trolley to the train station every day. It's a charming, economical, and environmentally friendly way to travel. I've always HATED buses. The Brits are to be commended for keeping theirs going all these years.

Scatter, I know Connecticut (have some family there) and I didn't realize the trolley even has come back there, but I"m pleased to hear it. I heard they were making a comeback. Buses (and I used to drive one in a small city) are no comparision to being on the rails.

"Light rail" is truly coming into its own as more and more Americans spent more time stuck in traffic for their work commute.

At the same time, we love our cars (I do too), apparently love the suburbs ( a new report says our cities are no longer growing as they had in the '90s) and continue to stretch out into to what were even recently country fields. I'm not a big fan of that, but that's the path we've chosen for now.

It seems like we Americans empty out our cities for all but the most poor and most rich and let (usually very hard-working) new immigrants take over whole sections of cities.

I'm not sure if it's a recipe for social cohesion - at all.

My point is we are FREE to drive our SUV's...or imported Toyota's.

Scatter, I know Connecticut (have some family there) and I didn't realize the trolley even has come back there, but I"m pleased to hear it. I heard they were making a comeback. Buses (and I used to drive one in a small city) are no comparision to being on the rails.

"Light rail" is truly coming into its own as more and more Americans spent more time stuck in traffic for their work commute.

At the same time, we love our cars (I do too), apparently love the suburbs ( a new report says our cities are no longer growing as they had in the '90s) and continue to stretch out into to what were even recently country fields. I'm not a big fan of that, but that's the path we've chosen for now.

Greg.....it's very limited service, and I'm not sure whether or not it's more nostalgia oriented than not. But I hope it catches on. I believe he used to catch the trolley around Simsbury.

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Hilarious thread!

I just gotta say that I find the pic icky myself, because it seems she's let herself go so!!

I find pregnant women lovely, but she's gotten to be such a slob. And he is worse than she. Seeing they're so wealthy, no you do not have to flaunt it, but fertheluvofpete, take a shower and spend 5 min. cleaning yourself up. Grunge was out 5 years ago!