This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

I just posted a page of photos from my recent trip to Dublin, Ireland.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

(P.S. to the CEPIC folks who asked about my Diana camera: I’ll post those pictures on this blog in a few days, after I get the film processed.)

A DART train (Dublin’s metro) and the brand new Aviva stadium, where the conference was held.

Waiting to see the Book of Kells.

Hipster globalization.

Look left, or you’ll get smooshed by a double-decker bus.

Howth harbor.

Boats sailing toward the island called Ireland’s Eye.

A sign in Howth advertising today’s seafood catch.

“May we be gathered in the nets of God.”

Not a recommended way to summon the fire brigade.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

Planet Hollywood, double exposure

The Strip, 8 a.m.

Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon

The Monte Carlo

The New York, New York

The Excalibur

CVS

Fremont Street

“I’m going to give you some advice,” this man told me. “Writers should not be photographers.”

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

Centralia is back in the news today thanks to an AP story about the star-crossed Pennsylvania town’s last days: “Few remain as 1962 Pa. coal town fire still burns.”

I was briefly fascinated with Centralia when I lived in Pennsylvania. I drove there one Saturday to gawk at the smoldering streets take some pictures of the desolate place. I think these muddy old digital camera shots actually do a good job of reflecting the town’s atmosphere of unease and sadness. Here’s a post I published on my blog in 2002, with more pictures below:

March 2, 2002 – For my road trip this weekend, I visited Centralia, the town where the ground is on fire.

Centralia is a remote mountain borough about mid-way between Harrisburg and Scranton. In 1962, a pit of burning garbage set fire to a coal deposit beneath the town. As smoke and gas began to fill the streets, the state offered money to all 1,100 or so Centralians and ordered them out of the town. Most of them agreed. But a handful of loyalists remained. There were 21 of them there in 2000, according to the Census. Their few surviving buildings sit on crumbling streets, separated by wide, barren lots. Incredibly, there appears to be a functioning municipal government, complete with a fire truck, an ambulance and an office labeled “Police.” The fire continues to burn, and you can see white smoke wafting out of a hill from wherever you stand in town. At the main intersection, opposite an abandoned restaurant, somebody has posted a heart-shaped sign that says “We love Centralia.”

This town was apparently a big story in the 1980s, and interest picked up again thanks to Bill Bryson’s popular book “A Walk in the Woods.” Now, spread by word-of-mouth and the Internet, Centralia is a weird cult roadside attraction. It is also a textbook-worthy example of small-town loyalty in defiance of good sense.

You can learn more about Centralia — and download a folk song that puts Billy Joel’s “Allentown” to shame — through this web site. You can also visit a somewhat official site, run by the plucky folks who live in this God-forsaken town, at Centraliapa.com.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

Yesterday I traveled from BWI Airport in Maryland to New York City carrying several bags of gifts, including two sharp kitchen knives and a big bottle of delicious Belgian beer. No one asked any questions—because I was on an Amtrak train!

Bags are never searched or screened on the train. Knives? Liquids? Guns? Drugs? Explosives? They’ll never know! No metal detectors, no dogs, no TSA. You can board an Amtrak train without ever showing anyone your ticket or ID. (Conductors check the tickets along the way.)

Why isn’t there a security system? Because Amtrak is an open network. Many of its stations are minimally staffed platforms in the middle of nowhere. Stations are often shared with commuter railroads. If Amtrak stepped up security in the big stations, they’d have to step it up everywhere, and that’s financially impossible. It would be like running an X-Ray machine at every municipal bus stop. Unlike air travel, which is inherently special and scary, train and bus travel is cheap and commonplace. The flexibility of ground transportation is too important to the economy be saddled with expensive, all-reaching security restrictions.

Should that make us feel OK? Why have the U.K., Spain, Israel, India and other countries had horrific transit bombings, while none has happened in the U.S.? There is no reason.

And yet we board our trains and buses as naturally as walking down the street. I guess you can only worry so much.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

Here’s what we did. I’m going to include Friday and Sunday, just for good measure.

Friday

• Dinner at Franny’s on Flatbush Ave in Brooklyn.

Saturday

• Breakfast at Lindo’s diner on 5th Ave in Brooklyn. Spinach and feta omelet, black coffee.
• Grocery shopping at various markets along 5th Ave: Eagle Provisions, Lopez Bakery, Big Apple produce. Make turkey sandwiches for lunch.
• Ride the subway into Manhattan. Go for a walk through High Line Park. Buy a cold soda and drink it outside on the folding chairs in the little traffic triangle at 14th Street and 9th.
• Walk to the Lomography store on 8th Street and check out the funky cheap plastic cameras.
• Walk through Washington Square Park, which is filled with people dressed like pirates for Talk Like a Pirate Day.
• Beers at the Village Pourhouse on 3rd Ave, where a large group of well-mannered Virginia Tech alumni have crowded in to watch the Tech-Nebraska game on about 30 big TVs. Tech comes from behind and scores a winning touchdown with under 2 minutes on the clock. The place goes crazy.
• Ride the subway back to Brooklyn. Stop for a slice at any random pizzeria.
• Go see a concert at Southpaw on 5th Ave. Tonight: The Brooklyn Country Music Festival.

Sunday

• Bagels at the Bagel Factory on 5th Ave. in Brooklyn.
• Church potluck lunch.
• Unwind from the busy weekend with a long walk through the Green-Wood Cemetery.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

By four o’clock on a Friday in late August, with all sensible work having ceased after lunch, Manhattan is in the midst of a mass exodus. The commuter trains teem with office workers bound for summer excursions, overstuffing the luggage racks with rolling suitcases and sipping bottled beer from paper bags.

I boarded the five-thirty-six train, the first leg of a relaxing journey to Fire Island. Then came a noisy cruise on an antiquated ferry, which landed on that narrow finger of sand that serves capably as a leisure retreat. My trip came through the invitation of friends, Leslie and Brian, who have rented a summer house there. Arriving after dark, I settled comfortably into their airy bungalow, delighted by its bright decor and cushy sofas.

In daylight, Kismet revealed itself as a well-manicured village of sidewalks. Precocious children and their sunburned parents stroll from porch to beach, from dock to porch, keeping time by a fire whistle that sounds daily at noon, or thereabouts. Cars are forbidden here—rusty bicycles and red wagons are favored for whatever limited transportation is required. Goods must be carried in by ferry, or else purchased at one of the island’s overpriced variety shops. To solve the vexing problem of beverage supply, delivery services on the mainland will check an order onto the ferry as freight to be delivered to you, provided you pick it up at the dock.

It was near the dock where Brian nabbed a thief. Saturday morning Brian left the house to pick up a freight delivery, and as expected he returned a few minutes later with a haul of beer and soda. “You won’t believe what just happened,” he told us.

As Brian walked to the dock, his eye chanced upon on the contents of another wagon, which a man was towing in the other direction. “Hey, that’s my beer!” Brian declared.

There was a moment of confusion. But the facts were resolved with a simple examination of the shipping labels, all of which were clearly marked with Brian’s name. The thief, defeated and muttering, attempted to cover up his tactless crime. He conjured up a fantasy in which he would have discovered the mix-up upon arrival at his home, surely, and then have delivered the beverages to Brian—a stranger whose address he did not know.

Brian, being a good man reunited with his beer, exercised no further prejudice against the disingenuous sot.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.