I used to ride the streetcars to school. There was a conductor who stood on the back in the open and a motorman who drove. I had two brothers in law who worked on them. The one who was the conductor had the route that I took and if there was no one else on the back of the car he would wave me in free. I got to spend that 5 cents at lunchtime on a candy bar. They had a little changer attached to their waist and would click it when they got a rider. It held $5.00 worth of change. Then later they switched to trolley busses which were a pain sometimes as the trolley would come off the wires and the driver would have to get out and attach it again. There was only the one guy on the trolley busses. It helped tho as you didn't have to stand in the open in the street to wait for it as you did with the streetcars. I am not sure when they converted over to the busses but I started taking the streetcars in 1942 when I was in 3rd grade. Lillian in Parma Heights, Ohio -----Original Message----- From: RAROSE10@aol.com To: COOK-CO-IL-L@rootsweb.com Sent: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 3:12 AM Subject: [COOK-CO-IL] (no subject) A friend of mine let me borrow her book on Chicago called ENCYCLOPEDIA CHICAGO. I am going to buy a copy of it for it is how Chicago started and it brings back memories.One memory was the opened street car.There was a contractor at one end and a motorman in the front.It was runned by over head wires.The street was made of bricks. Then There was the first bus which left people off and on at the curb It also had over head wires ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to COOK-CO-IL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ________________________________________________________________________ Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.