Before today, I never really thought of thought of train tracks as a marker of social class. I knew that Winnetka's tracks were below ground, and I always just assumed it was because they didn't like the noise or the sight of the train. I never knew the whole story. But when we were discussing it in class, I realized that it is a very obvious marker of social class. Seeing a big ugly train roll through your town everyday blowing the horn very loudly is unwanted. In a small rural town, people probably wouldn't think much of it. But in Winnetka, the train was a nuisance. When I was sitting in class, a story I heard on the news struck me. It was about a two year old autistic boy in Gary, Indiana who crawled away from his mobile home and was hit by a freight train thats tracks were right behind the house. Here is the link. As tragic as this is, it is a marker of social class. Because the circumstances are different, I don't think something like this could happen around the North Shore. Most people in the North Shore don't live within crawling distance of a train. It would be disruptive and I don't think people from around here would put up with it.
3 comments:
I also think it is interesting when you get on the train from the city or from the kenilworth stop. You get looked at differently depending on where you are entering from. One day it we had no school and a bunch of my girlfriends and I spent the day in the city shopping and such and caught a late, busy train that was completely filled with people, and one lady screamed at us because we were too loud and called us awful name refering to where we were from and another lady had to tell the lady to stop. It was one of the scariest things because we got picked on for being too loud versus a group of persay less fortunate teenage boys a few seat behind us. It just seemed unfair and disappointing, like because we were on the train we were all equal and it was ok for them to call us out because they take the train everyday.
I think that the assumption that it could never happen in the North Shore is not entirely true because of proximity to the tracks. It might be true in most cases, but one of my best friends from growing up lived right next to the tracks and we would sometimes stay up at night and watch the trains pass. But it is true that it happens in more rural areas, and the story about the little boy that was autistic was very tragic, and I remember hearing about it.
I am going to have to agree with Hannah on this one. I do not think that necessarily this is a matter of sicaly class. While the train tracks are not especially close to homes in our neighboorhoods I do not by any means think that this is not possible.I think that this could really happene anywhere.
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