Planes, Trains, Automobiles and the Internet! August 17, 2014

“LOST MUSKET DIARY” Sunday July 17, 2014

Mostly Sunny 90F/32C in Rancho Las Musket

ARCO Unleaded = $3.75 gal/ € 2.80 gal

Greetings,

                My Italian friends could expect to pay Euro €2.80 per gallon if they fueled up here in Rancho Santa Margarita. Mike tells me that petrol is costing him the equivalent of $10 to $12 dollars a gallon, €7.47 to €8.96, in Rome. That’s why he does most of his commuting on a Vespa. Only when he’s carting dear old dad around the Eternal City does he bring out the four-wheeler. And he does the driving when I’m in Italy. Or Laura takes the wheel. That’s because I am not Italian, and my California driver’s license does not entitle me to practice “Driving Italian Style!” While Californians moan and groan at the cost of motor fuel…. (”Remember when regular was 25 CENTS a gallon?”)….visiting Italians would consider $3.75 or € 2.80, a real deal. However, Romans are not chained to their gas pumps the way most Americans are.

                Not much is said these days about Benito Mussolini, a member of the original “Axis of Evil” along with Hirohito and that one-time Austrian corporal. But, if you ask around, the most frequent comment about Mussolini, especially from an American will be, “he made the trains run on time.”   Now, I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, but Italy has a very modern transportation system. The high speed trains of Trenitalia connect all of the major cities and link up with other European high speed intercity rail systems. I’ve taken the high speed from Rome to Florence and back and I’d love to see the Italians build one for us. San Diego to San Francisco or L.A. to Las Vegas would be a great start. Rome itself has a light rail-subway system that gets you around the city quickly. Only drawback is that there are just two main lines through Rome. Building a modern metro system has been slowed considerably by the fact that Rome is an ancient city. Modern Rome is built upon layer upon layer of earlier Romes, which date back almost 3,000 years. Every time the earth is turned along a planned metro route, more ruins and more antiquities are unearthed. There’s a stretch of boulevard near Mike and Laura’s old house that abruptly ends at an archaeological excavation of an ancient Etruscan settlement more than 2,000 years old. Italians take their history very seriously.

                Be that as it may. It’s quite easy to get around the city. For example, I used to step out the front door of my apartment building in Mostacciano, walk a few steps to the bus stop and hop a bus for a 20 minute ride to Palasport, Rome’s Staples Center, to switch to the subway. Thirty minutes later I would come up from the underground right at the Coliseum. It reminded me of my student days back in New York City. “Drive? Are you nuts?” Same deal in San Francisco, or Pittsburgh, or Chicago. Los Angeles? Not quite there yet, but a lot closer than 20 years ago. And unlike Los Angeles, Rome’s metro will take you all the way out to the airport. Hmmmm! I didn’t really intend to do a post on Italian transit; I really had modern personal communications in mind. I really had modern personal communications in mind,

but I got distracted by the price of gas this morning. Under FOUR BUCKS a gallon!

                Back in prehistoric 2005, when I took my first trip to Italy, keeping tabs on the home front was done by telephone at a considerable cost. It’s gotten easier since then as cell phone service has improved and internet communication via Skype and Viber and others have come on line. Last week, Mike called from Rome via Skype. He was having dinner with some mutual friends of ours, expatriate Americans all. We had met during my trip last year. Mike directed the call. There was the wide shot of the table with everybody and then the cell phone was passed around and I had a chance to chat one-on-one with each of them. It really gave me something to look forward to on my next trip in November. A few days later a Facebook connection was made good, again on Skype, and I was talking live with a former colleague in the news business in Guangzhou, China. Marc has posted a video that he had shot of one of China’s high speed trains, shot from the high speed train he was on as the two came into the station alongside each other. Another friend of mine, who now lives in New Zealand, and I chat occasionally via Skype. Yes sir, folks. The world is your oyster in full stereo sound and living color. The heck with letting your thumbs pound the keyboard while texting. Pick up the phone and talk to a real person via TV. It’s a lot better than driving. Before I go, here’s the almanac.

Today in history:

1563 - King Charles IX of France (13) was declared an adult. As an adult, he became King of France, and tried to exterminate Protestants.

1590 - John White returns to Roanoke, NC to find no trace of colonist's he had left there 3 yrs earlier. This was the fate of the first English colony in the New World, alas.
1786 - Davy Crockett, Greene County, Tennessee was born, frontiersman/adventurer/politician (Alamo), (d. 1836) Thanks a lot, Walt Disney!
1498 - Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander IV, 1st man to resign the cardinalate marries Charlotte d'Albret of Navarre. And you thought Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson were the first royal abdicators.

Ciao,

Mike Botula