Coal Trains and High Fashion

There are alleged positives and negatives involved with coal trains. While I won't go into them here, allegations do exist. Today is the last day to put these allegations to paper and send them on to Washington, D.C., for the STB to use as it sees fit. (Trust me; there will be plenty of fits after the STB gives its ruling.)

Actually, this column isn't about coal trains. It's not about correct or incorrect facts and assumptions. It's not about saving lives, traffic routes, grain transportation, or real estate values. Nor is it about corrupt politicians, corporate swine, lions, tigers, or bears. It's about metallic pants.

As a youth, I'd watch television. Some programs and movies had futuristic characters. You could tell the futuristic individuals from contemporary folk by the metallic pants they wore. Some were distinguished even more by rings orbiting their biceps. (Much, I suppose, like how some athletes and musicians now have tattoos of barbed wire around their biceps.) In the future we were sure to do away with our cotton-poly blends in favor of some snazzy metallic fare. (Oh, what a glorious future!)

After seeing those pants, I wanted a pair for myself. I asked my mom if I could get a pair of those pants. She didn't answer, but my dad did. He lowered his slipper-bearing feet off the ottoman, relaxed the newspaper he was reading, and took the pipe from his mouth.

"Son, you may not have pants like that. For, you see, our society is too primitive to be able to produce such fine apparel. No, son, when society progresses further, we may be able to purchase such trousers. For the time being, though, we cannot. Perhaps by the year 2000, when we are colonizing moons, planets, and space stations; but not now."

With that, Dad put his feet back up and smoked his pipe. Mom went back to vacuuming (in pearls, a cocktail dress, and heels, no less). I went back to watching my program—dreaming of the day when a person could go into a store and proudly request of pair of metallic pants.

At least, that's how I chose to remember the exchange. Well, the year 2000 has come and gone. Not only do we not have metallic pants, we may just be building tracks here in Rochester for coal trains to pass through.

Trains? What century are we in, anyway? I thought trains were about extinct. Unfortunately, not. We still have them and are building them bigger so they can transport larger quantities of coal to and fro.

Coal? What century are we in, anyway? I thought we were going to move past fossil fuels and use clean and renewable resources so that our children could while away their time on a nice clean planet.

Nope. We're still using coal. We're still using trains. We seem to be stuck in a state of arrested development. We're still too primitive for advanced fuels. We're still too primitive for colonized moons. We're still too primitive for metallic pants with orbiting rings.

I oppose the DM&E expansion. Not for health and safety reasons. Not to protect our fair community. I oppose the DM&E expansion to force us out of our primitive rut by necessitating more advanced energy resources. If we don't get out of that rut, our children will suffer, our planet will suffer, and our very existence will suffer.

And I'll never get my metallic pants!

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If you have any constructive thoughts on my commentary, let me know. If, for some reason, you'd like my opinion on a certain topic and want to suggest a commentary topic, let me know that, too. My e-mail address for such endeavors is mark@wentzmania.com.

© 2001, Mark Wentz