Talking with the triplets (I know it should be "to" but I am on even terms with them) I often discover things from my (very near) past that don't exist anymore and give rise to huge astonishment (to ALL of us).
Take smoking:
The children often play "train journey" with me - each of them has grabbed one of my posh little trolleys (two in soft silver pink, one in grey-black -- and the one triplet with a remarkable tendency to luxury and elegance always grabs the stylishly understated grey-black one!), sit on my sofa and present their tickets.
I am ticket collector and locomotive driver in one person, and - as everywhere in the world staff isn't easy to get - also serve a hot chocolate in the on-board restaurant.
Well, to come back to the "Once upon a time"- bit:
I told them that in my youth people smoked in trains.
I remember that sometimes when one could only get a seat in a smoking compartment after a journey the clothes in my suitcase stank of smoke (some of these compartments were only separated by a curtain, if I remember it right).
Both, the triplets and I, were very astonished that smoking was allowed in trains, or at breakfast tables in a hotel, or in private households where a guest would politely ask if it is alright to smoke and then didn't even wait for the answer...
PS: I have a vague feeling that it should be "smoking on trains" - would that be better?
- Thank you, Tasker - I corrected it from "in" to "on".
Smoking on trains. And on buses, in offices, in the street, at work in pubs, and in the street, and in cinemas and theatres, and in shared houses, and friends houses, everywhere, thick hanging in the air, not me, but it is why I have cancer.
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