Thank you so much for your article ”The wonder of it all spans the decades” (by Larry Townsend, May 17) that appeared in the special Travel section, ”Students on the go.”
That particular Sunday I was heading into my first week of finals after having returned to school at age 24. After having read the article and the entire Travel section that Sunday, I decided to stop stalling and ”. . . go now.”
I carried that section around for days as I fantasized about London and all of Europe. I followed the advice in the travel articles and I am booked on a flight to London July 13. I still can`t believe I`m actually going to Europe! SOURCE: Susan Wyatt.
GREAT ADVICE
DATELINE: PEOTONE, ILL. Thanks to you, my husband and I had a pleasant weekend May 30-31 in Milwaukee. We celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary by more or less following your account of a visit to Milwaukee that was published in the Travel section (by Charles Leroux, May 17). Your article was put to good use as I carried it with me at all times, and when the question was asked, ”What next?” I was ready with an answer. SOURCE: Doris Kruger.
KUDOS FOR MACKINAC
DATELINE: MACKINAC ISLAND, MICH. The article on Mackinac Island (June 7) was one of the finest I have ever seen. All Mackinac Islanders look for errors and discrepancies in every article printed about us. We know that the article will be full of half truths and outright mistakes from one-day visits and poor research.
However, your article was absolutely correct in every detail. The historical research was perfect and the phrasing exceptional. Len Barnes knows our island and he obviously loves it. SOURCE: Katherine M. Bond.
RIDING THE RAILS
DATELINE: CHICAGO Regarding Bob O`Sullivan`s article about a train trip he took in 1942 and his encounter with a black porter (June 14): In late 1928 and early 1929 I was a messenger in the treasurer`s office of the Pullman Building in Chicago. I saw paychecks being printed and noticed that my checks were for $30 for a half a month`s work and the porters` checks for half a month were $15. I wondered mightily about it and was told that porters were expected to take in about a dollar a day in tips and, therefore, their pay would equal mine.
As for the porter`s name, the man who told Bob to call all of them George was merely following a Pullman dictate of long standing. Every man when hired for the job of porter was told that at work he would be known only as George. The idea was to spare the travelers the need to remember various names. The irony of it is that the idea to use ”George” came from none other than the head and founder of the company, George M. Pullman.
SOURCE: Everett Strangeman.
DATELINE: GENEVA, ILL. I, too, took a long train trip in 1943 as a 15-year-old. Heady with independence and self-centered as teen-agers will be, I went to bed the first night rather later than usual. Consequently, it must have been about noon when I finally decided to rise. Having put on my bathrobe and slippers in my cramped upper berth, I stuck first one foot and then the other out of the curtain onto the ladder. When my head followed, I saw every eye in the crowded car turned directly on me at the top of the ladder in my island of unmade bed and drawn curtain. All the other passengers had risen at a normal hour and their beds had been converted into seats. To make matters worse, my bed was toward the end of the car farthest from the ladies` room and I had to crawl down the ladder and make my flip-flopping, red-faced way through the crowd on the long walk toward ablution. SOURCE: Nancy A. Mavrogenes.
BORCOVER`S BAGS
DATELINE: BERKLEY, WIS. Bravo, R. Merrill Ely (who criticized Travel editor Alfred Borcover in a previous Voice of the Traveler letter for a June 14 column in which he wrote that he spurned taking suitcases aboard airplanes in favor of packing everything in one carry-on bag and one carry-on garment bag! Couldn`t agree more about people like Borcover, dragging their bags over my head on their way to crushing a coat or hat in the overhead baggage compartment. SOURCE: Jim Young.
DATELINE: EVANSTON How could you possibly promote the use of carry-on luggage in your column? I am one of those who feel that carry-on baggage, other than a purse or briefcase, should be banned forever from the flight cabin. Where does excess carry-on baggage usually wind up? In the overhead storage compartments. So what does one do with his blazer, suitcoat, raincoat or overcoat with all the bags taking up the space? If you happen to find space for them, you have to watch for the clod that arrives in time to bury your jacket under a 38-pound pouch that should have been checked. And then there are the dirty shirts and slashed cheeks one receives from an inconsiderate ”I-always-carry- my-bag-on-the-plane” fellow passenger. And deplaning? A real game of ”dodge
`em” as the bags are removed.
You shouldn`t have done it. Withdraw your suggestion. Check your bag and travel with dignity.
SOURCE: Edward E. Brush.
INSIDE `RUSSIA` DATELINE: WILMETTE, ILL. On your story of bureaucracy in Russian travel (Alfred Borcover, June 21): My experiences on two trips are the opposite. You quote your Russian guide as saying, ”You are not yourself, you don`t belong to yourself . . . you are always on the alert.” Nonsense. On my first trip the guide was not only well spoken, even witty; we had a lot of fun. On an impulse I said,
”Let`s go to the Black Sea beaches.” No problem. We were on a plane that afternoon. No spooks, no bureaucrats. On a later trip I got a guide full of facts and figures, so I told her to get lost and received another who gave no problems, but took me around to the places I wanted to go. No spooks, no bureaucrats, no trouble. Are you sure you didn`t lead your guide into those nervous statements you quoted?
SOURCE: Russell Packard.
DATELINE: CHICAGO It is wrong to use the word ”Russia” interchangeably with ”the Soviet Union.” ”Soviet” designates a citizen of the USSR regardless of his national origin, but ”Russia” designates Soviet citizens who are inhabitants of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, also known as the Russian Federation and as Russia. Russia is only one of 15 Soviet republics.
Also, Thom Shanker`s statement that ”the Soviet Union celebrates its 70th birthday” this year was in error. The Czarist Russian Empire fell in 1917 and in its place the USSR was created in 1922, a ”free” union of the 15 Soviet Republics. So 1987 is the 70th anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, not the creation of the USSR.
SOURCE: Vera Romuk, Secretary, Bielarusian Coordinating Committee of Chicago. DATELINE: NEW LENOX, ILL. Since when has it become acceptable in journalistic circles to refer to the Communist youth organization, Young Pioneers, as a ”Soviet scouting organization”? Such wording not only seriously underestimates the intent of this organization, but also insults the entire Boy Scouting movement. SOURCE: Carlynn Negele.
