Wolf Whistle

 

I saw them looking from across the truck stop, time after time. My first thought was a defensive, “What are you looking at, Buster?” Then I realized that they weren't looking at me at all, they were looking at the beautiful woman I had by my side. A woman in the truck stop is a rare thing and the drivers are lonely. I'd looked at other couples in just the same way before, envious of the lucky driver to have such a companion. This time I got to be that lucky man.

Of course some of the women one sees in truck stops are prostitutes, “lot lizards.” They're never as attractive or smartly dressed as Cate though, no one would mistake her for a whore.

We took another road trip out east, this time to Connecticut, for Thanksgiving. Shoshana had flown back from England to have Thanksgiving with Amir's family so we stopped in Cleveland on the way to see them. We had a full holiday meal with his mother. The timing was perfect since the kids were going to leave Thursday morning to drive to Buffalo to be with Amir's father. I was afraid we'd pack up after dinner and they would take us back to where we'd parked the truck, at a customer of Stonebelt's on the outskirts of Cleveland, but we played Cards Against Humanity till around midnight and we were all beginning to yawn. It was still too short of a visit but damned nice to see my daughter and her man.

I was restless that night, uncomfortable in the confines of the sleeper and I had to pee an inordinate amount, having to climb over Cate, slip my cloths and shoes on and stand behind the dumpster in the frosty stone yard time and again. Sometime before dawn I'd had enough and started my work day on the electronic log. It was a long trek all the way across Pennsylvania, through New Jersey and a bit of New York, past New Haven to Madison. Plus it was going to be one of the busiest travel days of the year, through some of the worst traffic in the nation. An early start was good.

It promised to be a full day but there was plenty of time. I'd calculated the trip and figured there would be a couple of hours to spare on my 11 hour driving time. On top of that we made good time. The load that we were carrying was light so there was no trouble climbing the mountains and could use the upgrades to pass heavier trucks that might have been governed just slightly slower than my truck, making the trip easier.

We ran into traffic in Jersey, of course, but that was to be expected. We were tempted to cross the George Washington Bridge in order to admire the Manhattan skyline but quickly chucked that option for the Tappan Zee Bridge. Traffic would be bad enough on 287 the afternoon before Thanksgiving as it was. Almost to 95 there was an overturned truck on the westbound side, traffic backed up and at a standstill. We were thankful that we weren't going that way.

All in all we were making great time, until we crossed the CT line. Almost immediately traffic slowed to a crawl and the overhead sign read, “Expect delays next 29 miles.” We crawled along. I thought, “Hmm, at 5 mph it will take us an hour to go 5 miles.” Of course it wasn't that slow all the way, traffic opened up occasionally. I wonder if I ever even got to ninth gear though, I'm sure I never got all the way to tenth. There was one time one of the signs said, "Bridgeport (or somewhere) 6 miles, 45 minuets."

I was seriously beginning to wonder if we were going to make it all the way to Madison legally. I was questioning whether I'd go on if my hours ran out. I was in good shape, despite my lack of sleep, but still, if anything were to happen due to some idiot, and there were plenty of those in evidence on the road that afternoon, it would automatically be my fault since I wasn't supposed to have been in that place at that time. And the logs were electronic, there was no possibility of fudging them like in the old days. Fortunately there were a couple of truck stops on the way. If we stopped we'd either have to finish the trip in the morning or have the Schneiters come get us. As it turned out I pulled into the service plaza that sits directly behind their house, where we were going to park for the weekend, with 11 minutes to spare.

 

Lost in the Fog

 

Fog is probably pretty common early mornings in the valleys that surround the confluence of the Whitewater, Miami and Ohio Rivers, outside of Cincinnati. I've driven through it there on numerous occasions, and have looked down more than once from the top of the hill in Kentucky at a lake of mist, the tops of the power plant's stacks rising out of it, belching their own vapors. I'm not familiar enough with the area to know the various forms the fog takes, or their frequencies though. I was in a fog the other morning that I can only call Epic.

What made it so dramatic was that it wasn't uniform. In places the fog was so thick visibility was reduced to a matter of yards; traffic crawled at a snail's pace. In others it was patchy, thick and thin, striated, or in dense clumps like dirigibles struggling to rise. But the best were the clear spots: blue sky above but with clouds filling the surrounding valleys, clinging to the hillsides in ragged tatters. The power plant was hidden, its stacks protruded from the wrack belching vapors of their own.

All in all it was awesome, it was Epic.

 

*                         *                         *

 

I guess fog is a morning thing, for the most part. A little while back, traveling down 37 with the sun lighting the landscape but not yet over the trees I was grooving on the delicate mists filling the hollows and rising off the ponds. I was surprised to find a dense fog when I turned into the industrial park in Mitchell. I supposed that it was due to the lie of the land and the proximity of the White River, the way that Martinsville is often shrouded in fog when everywhere else is only misty.

As I drove along, carefully, I thought I could see the start of the lifting of the veil. I could see a patch of density several stories up in the air. As I got closer I thought it strange that it was so localized, only in that one spot. Closer still and I thought, “Weird, that blob of mist is almost symmetrical.” That's when I first noticed that it was trailing tentacles. I almost swerved off the road, “What is it, a huge floating jellyfish, an Alien attack!?!”

Whew, it was only a water tower. It can be taxing having an active imagination.

 

*                         *                         *

 

I have long said, “When driving a big truck don't get lost in the mountains, and don't get lost in the city.” Having done both I know whereof I speak, but the wiser statement would be, “Don't get lost at all.” Driving a big truck is stressful enough when you know where you are. I was almost lost recently, right here at home in Southern Indiana with no mountains and no cities, in Amish country.

It's amazing how much industry there is in the Amish community. They don't drive themselves but many of their goods and materials are brought in on trucks. There are lots of roads in Davies County that are heavily traveled by semi-trucks, horse drawn wagons, buggies, bicycles, and the occasional golf cart. This is par for the course for me. We deal with the Amish mafia a lot.

I was on my way to Graber Farm Supply. I'd been there many times before, but this time I came in from another direction. They'd widened and sealed a section of road off of US 231 that made it easier than coming down from Odon like we used to. So, coming from the opposite direction I turned at the wrong intersection.

At first it was like, “Wait, is this right?” Then, as the road narrowed and went up and down some small hills I thought, “This definitely isn't right.” I wasn't too worried though, it's not like I was in the hills of Martin County or something, there were lots of trucks that went all over around there. But I got to an intersection beyond which the road narrowed again and went up and down some larger hills and thought, “Time to find out what's what.”

Fortunately there was a fellow who had seen me and I didn't need to go far to get directions. “Graber? If you stand over there by the barn you can see their buildings.” I knew that I wasn't far off. But what really struck me about our little conversation is that mannerism that I'd taken to be idiosyncratic to one individual were in fact communal; not just the accent. The world is always larger than we first imagine.

So I turned left, then turned left again. Everything was as my guide had said it would be. I went through the bend in the road, saw the grave yard on the right and thinking that I could see my destination ahead thought, “That's what I like about my job, it takes me to these interesting places.” But when I realized the complex of buildings wasn't GFS I was again gripped by anxiety. Let's remember that I'm out in the boonies with a big truck. These roads may be traveled by trucks but they aren't highways, and where I happened to be at that point they weren't even paved. They weren't nearly as bad as I've seen them in winter but it had recently rained and I was suddenly worried that I was still lost. “That's why I hate my job.”

I wasn't lost. After another bend in the road I hadn't been warned about the road leveled off and my goal came in sight. When I pulled in one of the hands came up and asked, “You make it alright?” I'm thinking, “What do you mean, I'm here aren't I?” but he continued saying, “We saw you go by. I called Herk 'cause if you'd gone down that dead end road it gets mighty narrow and the shoulders are soft. You'd probably have gotten stuck.” I checked my phone and there was a missed call from Herk. My dispatcher. It must have come in while I was getting directions.

Whew, catastrophe avoided. But I thought wistfully about the adventure, being on a road that had seen no more motorized vehicles than the trucks that had laid the gravel, the mail carrier and maybe the car of an estranged daughter? An adventure best left to the imagination, for everyone's sake.

 

*                         *                         *

 

You'd think that I'd be used to being treated as a stationary, unfeeling traffic barrel by now, but no, I guess you never get over it. I haven't anyway. The rudeness, the insensitivity. Is it my imagination or is it getting worse? In any case I'd like to know what makes everyone not only expect, but often demand that I accommodate them? When I last checked maneuverability, visibility, acceleration, braking for heaven's sake are all much easier on four wheeled vehicles. If I give up the speed and momentum that I've established it's going to take me a long time to regain it, and use a lot of fuel. What about the Environment? I don't know what you all are doing out on the road, but I happen to be at work.

 

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

 

I saw the old man sitting on his stoop but looked past him, kept walking. After all I was in New York City and that's the way people do it there; city mode, mind your own business. But my instincts told me that I should have acknowledged him, said hello. I felt as if I'd missed an opportunity to make both of our lives just a little better.

Jonah later confirmed that my instincts were in fact correct. Talking about the Brooklyn neighborhood he now lives in he said that everybody was really friendly, except the white people moving in. He said, “The white people are singular,” and made a flat plane of his hand, bounced the tip of his index finger against his forehead a couple of times then forcefully extended his arm away from his face. “Singular.” That's exactly what I had done with the old man thinking it was what was expected of me. Of course Jonah and Brandon are white, but then they're gay, perhaps there's a difference?

Over the course of our stay I found that to be true, that the people in the neighborhood were friendly. In fact I'd already noticed it, in a way. Not that people were friendly, but that they certainly weren't hostile. We'd gotten in Thursday afternoon and parked the truck at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where I'd loaded the back haul for our return trip. Tashicka, the security guard who is stationed outside of the facility we parked at saw us walking with our backpacks on, Cathy trailing a wheeled carry on bag. She asked to make sure that we'd cleared parking with the office, which we had, and where we were going. “Oh, that's right around the corner. I'm just getting off work, hop in, I'll give you a ride.”

If there were a theme for this trip it would be how nice everybody was, how neighborly, in a city known for cold indifference.

Apparently Tashicka trusted our vibe. Right around the corner turned out to be several miles away, through cross town traffic. The whole time her purse was sitting on the back seat next to me, open. Perhaps she was testing me, watching in the rear view mirror ready to claw me with her extravagantly painted nails if I tried anything. Between the demands of driving and her continuous monologue about her sister, her niece, and her friends I'd probably have had several chances to have stolen something, but even if I'd had the inclination I know better than to underestimate a native New Yorker.

An unintended consequence of the ride was that we had hours to kill before Jonah got home from work. If we'd had to orient ourselves and find public transportation at least some of that time would have been used up, but as it was we wandered around for quite a bit looking for some place to land for the wait. It was a residential area and there weren't many options. We finally found a little tree filled park right around the corner from Jonah's brownstone, but until then we got quite the tour of the neighborhood. The area is overwhelmingly black and we passed quite a few people, including groups of young black men loitering on street corners, but I never felt threatened. My radar never once registered danger, and believe me I had my radar on.

There was one time when we'd crossed the street to avoid just such a gathering when we accidentally walked right into the middle of another group of young black men coming around a corner. One of them was in front of us, separated from the group. He didn't pay no never mind, he turned around and started walking backwards, still talking to his buddies. But the rest of the group stopped and one of them actually called the guy ahead of us back, then they waited until we'd walked on a ways before they followed.

Courtesy, what a quaint old fashioned notion.

The park we found was quiet. We claimed a bench under some trees, basketball goals before us and playground equipment behind. After awhile school must have let out or something. The basketball court developed a real game and the playground got busy. Some beat cops came in and spent about twenty minutes talking to some young mothers watching their children. I remember thinking then that Sesame Street must have been somewhere close thereabouts.

*                         *                         *

But no, I haven't gone back over the road. I was determined not to let years go by before I visited my son again. I was asking for time off to do just that when they offered me a load to take out there, rather than buying a plane ticket. They said they'd find me a place to park. I waited for months for this to happen and then all of a sudden it did. There was enough lead time to clear everything with Jonah and Cathy, the woman I've been dating for about a year, so we did it. They still hadn't found us a place to park when we'd left, so I was biting my nails over that, but it all worked out.

Yes, believe it or not I actually volunteered to drive a big truck in New York City. As expected it was a trip. We drove out to the truck stops in Bordentown NJ to overnight, then enter the city in the wee hours to make a 8:00 AM delivery of cut limestone in Maspeth, Queens. I got the directions from the contractor but when I compared them to the map they didn't match. I called back. “I don't find Maurice Ave. off of the BQE (Brooklyn Queens Expressway), I find it off of the Long Island Expressway.”

”The BQE turns into the Long Island Expressway.”

”Excuse me but it doesn't,” I thought, but didn't bother to say. I could certainly get onto the Long Island Expressway. Then I went over the rest of the directions again from there, twice, because the dude was Scottish and a wee bit hard to understand. Coming from Brooklyn get onto the LIE east, get off at Maurice, turn left under the freeway then left at the second street, just past the BP station, park and call him. Got it.

Everything seemed to be going according to plan. I took the second left under the freeway on Maurice avenue and there was even a BP station there. We were on time despite an unexpected construction backup over the Verrazano Narrows. Parking, however, meant occupying my lane with my flashers on, but this was NY, people double park all the time. There was a grave yard on the right and a police impound lot on the left. I was just hoping we didn't end up parked in the latter.

I called the contractor. He said he'd be right there. Twenty minuets later I called back. He said he was looking for me, where was I again? I had to move a couple of time to allow other traffic to do things. In fact I was running out of road to move forward down when the contractor called back. I very carefully repeated the directions he had given me the evening before. “Oh, I know where you are.” He then gave me further directions and said I'd see him and could follow him then. Having looked at the map and compared the directions I'd been given the first time to the directions I'd been given the second time, and inferring from the street numbers that hadn't ever matched either I'd intuitively guessed that what he now told me to do was what I was supposed to do all along, but I wasn't about to go following hunches when I had explicit instructions. At least I was comfortable with this next step.

Sure enough when I turned onto 55th Ave. an arm waved out of a red pickup truck which then jumped into traffic in front of me. We were off. He led me through a warren of narrow streets driving like a New Yorker, which is to say fast, and without turn signals alerting me to set up for a left or right turn. I went through a red light to keep up with him. At one point I had to go up onto the sidewalk on the other side of the street to make a tight right hand turn, but then that's not unusual for NY either. We ended up on a narrow one way street above the Long Island Expressway.

There's more that I could tell you about the unloading process that you might find amusing but I'll move on to the next phase of the adventure, getting to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I'd gotten directions to that at the same time that I'd gotten directions to the Queens delivery, back in Jersey. We had our eyes peeled on the way in. “There it is, exit 30, cool.” Only that was on the way in. There was no exit 30 going west on the BQE. I got off at the very next exit which put us in downtown Brooklyn during noon traffic. Oops. I knew the general direction that we needed to go so I took what roads I could make turns onto but we weren't getting there. Cathy used Hello Google to map it. The congenial voice of Google kept telling me to turn left at the next street, only those turns were impossible with a big truck, even going left. These directions were clearly meant for a passenger vehicle, not a semi-truck. There was one road I could have turned down but a beer truck was double parked there with it's flashers on. We finally made it back to where I could simply ignore Google, which was trying to take us to a different gate, and follow my original instructions.

Oh yeah, driving in NY is always fun, especially in a big truck. Cathy tells me she has new respect for what I do for a living.

Given my druthers this would be a work in progress, but I figure I've left my readers dry far too often and won't withhold what I've already written until I feel it complete. Hopefully I'll be back with more on our trip to the big city and more...

 

Long Nightmare

 

I guess staying tuned doesn't yield high rewards. My apologies. Hey, I work long hours, and often have to be back at work soon after I get home. I worked a 14 ¾ hour day today, the difference being that they need my truck for training purposes tomorrow and I'm only supposed to call in around 9:00 to see if they're done yet. Why, that's more than 12 hours from now; unheard of.

So; (I get a kick out how people preface a remark with “So” these days. I've heard it a lot lately).

So; I was driving from Nashville back to Bloomington when I passed a sign for Nature's Way Landscaping. If I'm not listening to music then any little thing will spark a tune in my head. I started singing Nature's Way by Spirit, off of their Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus album, which I used to own back in the day.

Not that there was anything wrong with the music in my head, but I realized that I was near Bloomington and wondered if WFHB, the local community radio station was within range. I turned it on and it was. They were playing what sounded to be some obscure psychedelia. “Wait a minuet, I know that song...” It was The Morning Will Come by Spirit, off of their Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus album. I haven't heard or thought of that album for a dozen years, at least. How's that for serendipity?

So; (here we go again) it's been a little while but earlier we had a rash of oversize loads. We only have one trailer that is extendable and had only one truck with an oversize permit. Then we delivered three bridge beams to...I forget where, but we used the pole trailers that the precast outfit owns, the company that makes the beams. So my company bought two more permits and since then these oversize loads keep popping up. At $600.00 a year for the permit I'm sure they're just trying to get their money's worth.

 

 

One of the first of these loads that I hauled was also the longest load I've ever hauled. It was 76' long and seemed huge to me. I was feeling all special driving down I-69 with my “Oversize Load” banners on, and the red flags flying from all the corners and the middle of the load. Then I came to a small traffic backup. It was due to two truly huge bridge beams, their ends supported on sixteen wheeled steerable platforms, with a squadron of State Police for escort. When we'd get to an overpass the Police would block off any entrance ramps and make a rolling road block so that only the beam itself, one at a time, was on the span. There was too much weight there for anything more.

When I finally got my chance to pass I felt like a micro bus next to those things. Humble Pie.

I was pulling another load almost as long out of the same place and had just gotten up to speed on US 30 out of Columbia City when I head a loud POW. I thought I'd had a blowout but when I turned my head to check my right mirror, to make a controlled stop on the shoulder, I saw that the back window of my day cab was a mass of cracks and was dimpled inward at its center. “WTF” was all I could think, then the window fell just like in the cartoons with a few chunks falling first, a few more, then suddenly the bulk of it all at once. A few lingering pieces continued to tinkle down even after I'd come to a stop.

I've seen rocks knock a ding in a windshield, but never saw nor heard about one breaking to pieces. I thought maybe I'd been shot at. I didn't want to but my safety manager insisted that I call 911. If I had been shot at then it should be reported. The sheriff who responded assured me that a bullet would have passed through the windshield, not shattered it. Looking at the extendable trailer I was hauling I saw how the front of the drive wheels were left exposed. The difference was between a rock flying up and hitting a window, and a rock being flung by a drive wheel directly into a window. Since then I've heard a plethora of stories about broken windshields, usually while bob tailing (without a trailer). As for me, I wore my hardhat all the way back. I figured if another rock got thrown I would no longer have a window there to protect me.

But the gravest misadventure that I had with an oversize load was outside of Greencastle. Usually the contractors on these oversize projects are very conscientious in scouting the route and making certain everything is safe and doable. They sometimes even have flagmen stationed at key locations to stop traffic. Yes, just as you've guessed, not this time.

Everything seemed straight forward enough, until I got to the turn that I was supposed to make that was in fact a one way street going the wrong direction. It turned out to be both easy and hard to get back on track. Easy because downtown Greencastle is laid out on a grid, hard because the streets are narrow and I was 60 some feet long. By completely stopping traffic I made it. After that I left town and it became a drive in the country, until I got to the job site spanning some “Unnamed Tributary” to the Big Walnut Creek.

Another thing that the contractors usually do is tell the driver whether to pull in or back in. In the absence of any instruction I'd pulled in. After a half an hour's deliberation they decided that the beam was positioned on the trailer wrong and I was going to have to back that behemoth out of the narrow wooded valley, then come back in backward.

It was mid morning and most everyone was at work but on the way up I spied a surly looking man watching me suspiciously from beside his house. “Don't worry old man,” I said to him though he couldn't hear me, “I won't get onto your lawn.”

The turn around would have been much easier if the intersection had been a cross street. I could have backed straight through, turned, backed straight through, turned, then backed straight through again. Unfortunately it was a “T”and I had to back out and back in again around the turn. On top of that it wasn't at 90° either. The way out was easy, the way back in not so much. I tried really hard to stay on the pavement but found it impossible. My job would have been a lot easier if I'd gone up onto the front lawn of the people across from the entrance, but I kept the damage to around the corner itself, where one might expect to see tire marks anyway.

This whole operation took awhile and every so often a car would come from one direction or another. When that happened I'd pull over to one side and let them by. On the way back in a car came from in front of me. I pulled over but it didn't pass. I motioned it on and it slowly came abreast of me and stopped. The man driving rolled down his window. He didn't look happy. He said something that I didn't catch, except that it was about his lawn.

“Oh no, here it comes,” I thought as I shut my truck off to hear what he had to say, and so that he could hear me apologize and assure him that he would be made whole. Instead he said, “I don't need to get by, I'm just going to pick up that trash off my lawn.” Looking in my mirror I could see the pile of fast food refuse he was indicating.

We chatted about the beautiful weather for a bit then he said, “You're pretty good at that,” indicating the truck with the long beam pointed the wrong direction. “Well,” I said, “I'm getting practice anyway.” At that his grim expression softened into a chuckle. Later he wished me a good day. “It can't get much worse than this,” I said, hoping for another chuckle. Instead his expression hardened and he asked, “You sure?” “No,” I had to admit. As it turned out he was right, but that's another story.

A little later I saw that same old man I'd seen on the way up still out watching me. I repeated my mute assurances then gave my attention to my mirrors. Suddenly I realized he was on the very edge of the road giving me a thumbs up, then he stood at attention and saluted. I was touched.

Wow, two strangers out in the country whose countenance I'd interpreted as hostile, yet both were congenial and gave me respect. I was reminded of my jaunt through the mountains of Wales. I think I told you about the narrow one lane road that GPS routed us across. We passed several pedestrians out there; a farmer, a shepard, a woman walking her dogs. I was worried about a Deliverance scenario, or better yet Wicker Man, afraid they were going to sacrifice us to some ancient Celtic god to ensure the harvest. Each time we approached their expressions were hard, each time we'd wave and each time they'd wave back.

 

 

 

Ghost Riders

 

Driving to work in the predawn darkness I saw something in the road ahead. It was big so I figured it was a deer, but wait, it looked like more than one. As I got closer it got stranger and stranger, like there was a whole herd, some large, some small, only they weren't ordinary deer. They looked really weird like alien beings or spectral manifestations, white walkers. Then another car topped the rise ahead of me and its headlights revealed the herd for what it actually was, a patch of ragged mist in a hollow of the road.

 

Real Thing

 

Damn, Winter has turned to Spring and Spring almost to Summer and I've uttered nary a word. Forgive me gentle reader.

So what have I been up to? About 5' 9”, but I might have started shrinking.

Sorry, working mostly, then hanging out with my womanfriend and playing computer games. How lucky could I be; Cate likes to watch me play; I can feed my addiction and entertain my date at the same time?

We went to see Lucinda Williams at the Bluebird last night. What a terrible venue. No seating, an air conditioning system that didn't work back in the 80's and hasn't been improved. I only hope that they finally cleaned up that sticky spot down by the church pew. And yet it was a fantastic show. You'd have had to have been there.

I wore my new tee shirt into the bar this evening but as much as I could say no one knew. The computer games are like that too. There aren't many gamers in the circles I frequent. I won't waste any words except to say that it's contemporary art, and there's some good shit out there.

So you have a sense of my personal life, and how good it is, and it is.

Yet work, which once promised to be something more has continued to be a nightmare. I used to travel the back roads in crappy equipment but I've been promoted to a decent tractor and am now doing regional stuff instead of that deep Indiana stuff. My loss.

It bears saying that a local driver organization dubbed me a “Master Truck Driver,” acknowledging my documented 10 years, if not the million + miles that are there, accident free, ticket free for more than three years. I almost earned that with JB Hunt, and the $10,000 that came with it, but there was always some little “incident” that kept me away from the jackpot. Nobody's perfect.

I got a certificate, a decal for my truck, and a coffee mug.

I was also awarded Driver of the Month at Stonebelt, the company I work for, and given a $100 gift certificate to Best Buy. Then I screwed up and broke some equipment. I told you I wasn't perfect. I won't be driver of the month again for awhile. I still hope to remain accident free.

So it's been awhile since my European vacation. I'd still like to share what that was like. I know I've been remiss as a blogger, but we're all friends here, right? Dare I say it?...Stay Tuned.

 

Live from Leeds

Greetings gentle reader. I'm writing to you from Leeds, England. My trip is winding down now. I've been here since the Sunday before last; in Europe, that is, I didn't just stay in Leeds. I've been to Wales, London and Paris. I've seen and done so much. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle telling you about it all. I don't think that I'll do another inclusive play by play like I did with the Thanksgiving trip. I think I'll just tell you stories as they occur to me, but I did want to give a shout out while I'm still here.

It's been a great trip but like any trip there were mishaps. I flew Luthansa into Munich for a five hour layover. I was beat, unable to get any real sleep on the 7 hour flight across the Atlantic. I ended up leaving both the case for my prescription glasses and more importantly my cell phone laying on a seat in the Munich airport. I already had the phone on airplane mode so I didn't think about it. Just as the plane was taxiing out of the berth I thought I'd check, just to make sure. That's when I discovered that it was gone. The Fundburo found it, but unfortunately they won't ship out of Germany. It was an old phone and needs replaced anyway. It's been instructive to be without. I'm constantly reaching for it, if only to check the time.

Then, on my first trip out, only a few blocks from Shoshana's apartment I slipped on the ice and fell. I almost caught myself but still went down. Shosh said it was funny, after she made sure that I was OK. She thought I was going to recover too, and then I just sat down. She said it was rather graceful actually. I guess I was both deft and clumsy at the same time.

We rented a car to tour Wales. The rental guy never told us that it was a diesel. I almost put unleaded in the darn thing. It was a near miss that would have ruined both the car and the first stage of my trip. We lucked out on that one. What saved us was another mishap that turned out to be a blessing in disguise: I couldn't figure how to open feul tank hatch. I tried to pull it open, push and release it, then looked everywhere for a switch to no avail. Shoshana got frustrated with me so I said, "You try it." She couldn't figure it out either. While moving the keys to see if they were hiding something she noticed that it said "Diesel Only" on the back of the fob. It turned out that the hatch opened with a push and release, but you had to have the right "English" on it.

I can't really complain about the weather but we did have a hike planned in Snowdon National Park that was supposed to give us spectracular views of Mount Snowdon and other landmarks that I can't pronounce the names of. All we could see was fog, but hey, we still had a good time. The higher we got the foggier it got, and the deeper the snow got too. We lost our path and had to follow our own footprints out. The sun shone the next day.

OMG, driving was a trip. Being on the wrong side of the road wasn't so bad, but the roads are narrow as hell and there are often stone walls in leau of shoulders. They were windy too, in the mountains. I had to keep reminding myself that the highways were in fact wider than Robinson Road, where I live, and that I drive that road at 50 mph all the time. We had the GPS set on a town in southern Wales but it turned out to be so much work driving through the mountains, and the twists and turns were making Shoshana carsick so we switched it to our actual destination at Bath, England. Sure enough we started going east, but then it had us turn down what looked to be a long driveway. No, it was a road, one lane to accomodated two way traffic. What gets me is that there was actually a villiage back there! Shoshana said, "Now you've had the official UK driving experience." I include this little vingette in a list of mishaps which in point of fact it's wasn't. We returned the rental car rather dirty, but without a scratch.

Let's see, I lost a glove in Bath, though that's no great deal. Still, I look like a Michael Jackson want-a-be in some of Shosh's pictures with my one gloved hand.

I'm afraid I'm getting old. I haven't sucumbed to wearing glasses all of the time but when viewing art I do wear my prescriptions. They tend to alter my depth perception though and I must have tripped on stairs and minor floor undulations a hundred times. Then when I take them off again there is an ajustment period back to my unaided vision.

I'm not actually sure if I can blame it on that, in fact I'm sure that I can't, but I ran full into a glass door when leaving a Paris cafe. That was Shoshana's favorite, she couldn't stop laughing. It's a good thing she'd just emptied her bladder or we might have had other troubles.

So I've got one more day here in Leeds and then it's up early to head back to the States. Keep your fingers crossed that none of my mishaps from here on out are worse than those I've already endured. I've had a wonderful trip. I'll try to share some more of it with you, pictures as well.

 

Compound Stress Factor

I was on my way from Terre Haute to Carmel with a load of brick to deliver to a construction site when I got a message to scrap the delivery and meet Eli, another of our day drivers, at our yard in Indianapolis. Eli's truck had sprung an exhaust leak so we were going to swap tractors and I was going to take his back to Bloomington for repairs. It was late in the day so I dropped the brick there on the yard rather than haul it back and forth, hooked to an empty and headed home.

The truck that I was given to use the next day was a road tractor, which meant that it was big, with a significantly longer turn radius and severely limited visibility compared to what I was used to in my day cab. On top of that the seat wasn't air ride, it was on a mechanical spring and the spring was sprung. I sat too low and the seat couldn't be adjusted. In order to use the convex mirrors on the passenger side I had to half stand, and believe me, use of the convex mirrors is absolutely required. Then, once I got going I found that the engine was a dog, sputtering and low powered, and the transmission was stiff as hell. I could have gotten used to the transmission in time but I was having trouble with it then, especially when downshifting. There seemed to be a really narrow range of rpms that would allow it and it was off from what most trucks are at, or where the engine sounded like it was ready to be shifted. Again, I could have gotten used to it but at that time I hadn't even figured out exactly where its sweet spot was.

I started early and took a load of milled limestone to another construction site in Carmel, then went back to the yard and hooked to that load of brick I'd dropped. we didn't have directions when I'd picked it up so I called dispatch to get them. It sounded really easy: US 31 north to 136th street, then west a few miles to Pinto road, then north to the job site. I was going to look on google maps but my phone was acting up again, it's really old and tired, so I said screw it and took off.

To go west on 136th St. from US 31 North you have to go through a roundabout, under the highway and then through another roundabout. I was spending a lot of energy just managing the damned ungainly truck but when I got half way through the second roundabout 136th St. had disappeared. A road called Elgin Drive had taken its place and it was narrow and definitely residential. Another street went off to the south but it was unmarked and looked narrow and residential too. Rather than take a wrong turn I kept going around and around till I could get back on US 31 North and pulled over on the ramp.

I pulled up google maps and looked. That unmarked road was 136th St. It curved around to the west again after a little jog to the south. It was definitely narrow and residential, but then I was delivering to residential new construction, so that didn't bother me. What gets me is that my boss was looking at google maps as he told me how to get there. He could have warned me about that little jog to the south. It's stressful going anywhere you've never been before in a big truck because a wrong turn can spell real disaster. I made it in one piece though, once again.

I sometimes wonder if my boss doesn't leave out information on purpose from time to time. He sent me to a stone mill that I'd never been to out in rural Lawrence County today. He said I'd pass Washboard Road and then it'd be on my left. "Angelo's Stone," he repeated the name twice as if that was what to look for, a sign. I passed Washboard Road and then almost passed the mill. There was no sign at all, just a narrow lane heading back into the woods, but I spied some limestone back there so I put on my flashers and went to investigate. Sure enough that was it. What really gets me though is that the lane to Angelo's Stone is directly after a recycling public access site. I know for a fact my boss has been there before. Why the hell didn't he give me the information that I needed instead of stressing irrelevancies? Lord only knows what trouble I might have gotten into if I'd kept following that windy road out into the hills below Lake Monroe.

The things I put up with, I tell you. At least I was back in my own tractor today.

 

How I spent my Thanksgiving Vacation

I

I took my first vacation in four years recently. I took an entire week off of work over Thanksgiving and followed the same game plan as my last vacation: flying to New York City to visit my son Jonah, then taking the Metro North to Connecticut to visit my old friends Tom and Sue; then flying back out of Providence.

Here are some key words as back story: IU Co-op daycare, diapers, lice, dues; I 95 service plaza, OTR truck driver, son in school in NY, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving. You really can't get much better than this.

On my last vacation it was my daughter Shoshana and I, visiting her brother Jonah in the city first, then going on to New England to chill. She is now in England, which I am going to visit in January. My original plan was to fly to NY and visit for a day or so with Jonah, then go on to Europe, but Tom and Sue came into town last summer and said, “Remember the old times, remember Thanksgiving? Let's do it again.” I suddenly realized how utterly lame I was, giving Jonah a mere drive-by. He deserved so much more than that. So we did Thanksgiving again, in true fashion.

 

* * *

I love a window seat on an airplane, me and Georgia O'Keeffe. We took off from Indy, leaned, then climbed. I looked out the window and didn't so much see the shapes that I remember from maps (Talking Heads), it was more like Google Earth. I was looking down on Lake Monroe and that dense mat of green space I'm so proud of.

We rose through the layers, the ground still visible, but indistinct. I lost myself in the Michael Chabon novel I had on my Kindle. I looked out the window again later and realized we were over the mountains somewhere; Appalachia. There was a huge ridge, then little ridges, like waves running backward on the seashore of a different time frame. Then a river, and a city, Charleston, WV. I recognized it from the air by the shape of its freeways. As a truck driver I'd been on those freeways. On my way to Charlotte NC for a plane change I realized that I was following the course of the WV Turnpike, and that little mat of green space I was so proud of before lost all meaning next to the ridges of wooded mountain rising out of the haze, receding into the curve of the earth.

It was definitely the best view of mountains from the air that I've ever seen, and I've flown over the Rockies and the Sierras before. Michael Chabon and the Mysteries of Pittsburgh were forgotten. My neck was craned out the window. The sun followed us, always a hint of a rainbow in the lower right hand corner along with the hum of the engines. It would glint off of bodies of water and metal objects, adding sparkle to the view. At one point we paralleled the course of some mountain river that nevertheless ran fairly straight. The sun's reflection was like a flash flood of quicksilver moving at the speed of an airplane. I don't know if it was traveling upstream, or down.

We descended, metal objects became more numerous and neighborhoods and ball fields replaced the wooded ridges.. We banked again and the post modern skyline of Charlotte came into view. Phase one of the trip was successfully over.

 

* * *

Shortly into the second flight, from Charlotte to Newark, we crossed a front and the ground was lost behind a floor of cloud. The tops of clouds are cool, but you can only look at them for so long so I went back to my book. When I surfaced again I found that the cloud layer had broken up and that we'd apparently flown east, then up the coast. There was a lot of water below us. I can't be sure but I suspect we were over the Chesapeake Bay and Maryland's Eastern Shore. The ground was a patchwork of irregularly shaped elements. First, irregularly shaped islands, but the fields on those islands and the mainland were of all different forms, following, I suppose, the irregular topography. They were different colors too, some green, trees, some yellow or brown, winter fields and pasture. I swear, it looked just like a Jean Dubuffet painting.

Alternating between my book and the window I looked out again and saw that we were flying over a toy model of Philadelphia. There could be no mistaking those two pointy buildings. We began to descend over thickly settled terrain. Then there were the circles of oil storage and the semi conductor circuitry of warehouses, with the semi trailers the connections, and the warehouses chips. We followed the NJ Turnpike in. I don't know how many times I've driven down “transportation alley,” with the maritime port, the railroad, the turnpike, and the airport all contiguous with one another. I could see the huge cranes of the harbor off to one side with both Newark and New York ahead of us as we landed.

 

II

It's really easy to get into the city from EWR. There's a shuttle from the airport right to a NJ Transit station, and thence a train to Penn Station. From now on I'm always flying into Newark. I called Jonah from the platform, waiting for the train, He gave me directions to get to his apartment. I said I'd get a $20 metro card and he told me about a 7 day unlimited card for only $10 more. I did that, of course.

At Penn Station I got onto the A train platform, The train had just left so I tried to find a way over to the local platform, for the C and E. I couldn't see how to do it. I thought, "My card is unlimited for 7 days, I'll just go out and come back in on the local side.” I was getting my card out as I descended from the platform and it slipped out of my hand and went twirling over the railing onto the stairs on the other side, littered with spent cards. Keeping my eye on my card, my brand new $30 metrocard, I reached through the railing and retrieved it. I hoped that I had the right one anyway! There was only one other person ascending the stairs at the time. He eyed me and gave a wide berth. I'm just glad a herd of people weren't going by just then or it would have been impossible. I would have had to collect all of the spent cards and try them all.

Having averted that disaster I exited through the turnstile and tried to reenter at the local platform. The card reader said, "Card just used." I should have known, a precaution to prevent me from repeatedly swiping all my friends in, right? I called Jonah who said I could either wait 10 minutes or go to another station, I decided to walk down to the next station, a walk that would be enjoyable simply by the fact that I was in the City; better than just waiting around. I did enjoy walk, but was really tired of the clickety clack of my bag's wheels on the sidewalk by the time I got to the next station!

 

 

I met Jonah and his boyfriend Brandon on the corner of Delancy and Essex and we walked back over to his apartment to put my stuff away. He lives in a high rise apartment building this time, not like the walk ups he's lived in, or that modest apartment building in Brooklyn. It's a Stuyvesant style complex originally built to house garment workers. He's on the 20th floor in a cute little, insanely expensive two bedroom apartment with a view of the Manhattan Bridge and downtown Brooklyn. He doesn't have a lease and could save money by moving but it's like a full time job looking for an apartment in NY. He likes being in Manhattan and wouldn't find anything cheaper there anyway, so for now he's good with it.

 

 

Then we went out. My son knows me, he took me to a beer place first. They had 20 beers on tap from all over the world and coolers in the back with literally hundreds of choices in bottles and cans. I had an American Porter from an Alaskan brewery, then a Belgium something or other that turned out to be a surprise because it was dark and chocolaty, not at all what I expected from a Belgium, but it was really good. My aficionado friends will be peeved with me, I know, but I didn't take notes.

Next we went to another beer place, a brewery, where we had dinner. I had an Indiana Pale Ale. Brandon didn't know from IPA and thought it was always Indiana, not India. It too was a really good beer, and the food was good. All this time Jonah and I were talking and talking, reminiscing about old times, getting caught up on what's happening now, you know, everything. Poor Brandon was left on the sidelines but contributed occasionally. At one point Jonah apologized to him because he looked bored but Brandon said, no, not at all and proceeded to recount the entire thread of the most recent conversation. He was engaged.

I guess they've been a couple for about a year and a half. He's a really nice young man, I like him. He had to work the next day though, so we started thinking about calling it a night. They decided that we should head back to the neighborhood and have one last beer at their favorite bar. Jonah had treated at the first place and we went dutch at the brewery so I said that I'd get this last round. They said that depending on who was tending bar we might not have to pay at all. When we got over there hip hop was blasting out of the door, which apparently was uncharacteristic for this bar. They didn't think that any of their friends would be playing hip hop so we went down the block a ways to another bar but hip hop was being played there too. They liked the first bar better so we went back.

As soon as we walked in it was like "Jonah!!! Brandon!!!" Their friends were there, and behind the bar too. I watched closely and sure enough the drinks were free. I was introduced around and we settled into moving to the music and having semi shouted conversations. This one young woman was dancing and getting everyone else to dance, so I got to see Brandon doing some moves. Then she turned to me and I thought, "Oh shit, I'm on." I just started improvising. I was doing all this stuff with my upper body, I'm not even sure where this stuff was coming from, it wasn't like anything I usually do, then I finished with some footwork. I guess I nailed it because Jonah, who'd been sitting got up and shouted, "Yeah, I'm loving it!" and started dancing too. We ended up staying for several more beers.

We said goodnight to Brandon then Jonah and I got a couple tall boy IPAs in a can for a nightcap in his apartment. His roommate was still out so we didn't have to be quiet. We continued our ongoing conversation, finished our beers and went to sleep.

 

* * *

That was Saturday night and Jonah had to work on Monday, as well as having just gotten over a cold, so we kept it low key Sunday. We took the train down to World Trade Center Plaza to look at that, then walked down to Battery Park. Then we came back to the neighborhood and had lunch at Jonah's favorite restaurant, my treat. Afterward we came back to the apartment and played Mortal Kombat where he mostly kicked my ass, then turned on Law & Order. Jonah fell asleep on the couch and I went in the bedroom and took a little nap. Brandon came over later. They'd talked about cooking but it wasn't going to happen so we went out to eat. Then Brandon went back to Brooklyn and Jonah and I got some beer to drink at home. We continued our conversation about everything, then called it an early night.

 

 

 

III

I stayed in bed Monday morning until Jonah and his roommate were off to work, so as not to be in their way. Once they were gone I got up an prepared myself for my first day alone in the city. There were several art exhibits that I wanted to see, two at the Met and one at the MOMA, but museums are closed on Mondays, of course. My plan for the day was to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to my old haunt in Dumbo, an area that I'd chanced on during an earlier visit, where I'd made friends and had returned to several times before. I didn't want to do that until early afternoon though, so I set out first to take care of some business.

I went up to Grand Central Station to arrange our trip to Connecticut for Thanksgiving, to get train schedules and tickets for the three of us since Brandon was coming with. That went so smoothly that it was still too early to head east so I exited the station and just started walking along 42nd St. "What is that grand neoclassical building up there?" I wondered. It turned out to be the NY Public Library. I imagined that the architecture would be cool, with some cavernous cathedral like central room or something, so I crossed over and entered.

I was actually coming in at a side, or back entrance and was confronted with a labyrinth of marble clad vaulted passageways and stair cases, I found myself going up, and up again. I finally crested into the kind of room I was imagining, high and vaulted with foreshortened paintings on the ceiling of gods and angels, and it turns out that wasn't even the main room. The real treat, though was an exhibit of the prints of J.M.W. Turner and Thomas Moran hanging in the high wide hall that bisects the building; free and open to the public whenever the library is open, including Monday.

I'd heard of Moran but Turner was one of the greats. Called “the painter of light” his atmospheric paintings border at times on pure abstraction, before there was even Impressionism. But these were prints, not paintings, and with the Turners strictly etchings, a medium that lends itself more to delineation rather than atmospheric effect; yet they were incredibly atmospheric. Turner made me see a rainbow, arching past the edge of a distant storm, in black and white. Moran was awesome, don't get me wrong, but he was a follower of Turner, rather than a contemporary. To my mind the show was all about Turner.

It was still a bit early when I emerged from the Library into the City again, and since I found that I'd forgotten my camera I went back to Jonah's apartment. My next destination was the Brooklyn Bridge so it was on the way, and with a seven day unlimited metro card there was no worry of a spent fare. I wasn't sure if the doorman was going to give me grief but he just nodded politely as I passed on my way to the elevators.

 

* * *

 

 

I really lucked out with the weather. It was a gorgeous sun shiny day with temperatures in the mid 60's. It had been a bit humid in the city, but out over the water was just beautiful. On the other side of the bridge I headed north and west, back toward the water. It had been so long since I'd been there that I overshot my mark on Water Street and had to backtrack. And then there I was, where I used to be. Much has changed down there, but that little corner of it was still similar to what I remembered, though of course none of the people I knew back then were still there, or I didn't see them anyway.

 

 

I had a nice lunch in the bar I used to frequent, then went next door to Jacques Torres' chocolatier shop. They make the best chocolate confections. There was a line all the way back to the door and I thought, “Man, these guys have really gotten popular.” Soon a woman came down the line with a tray of samples and I realized that I'd had the good fortune to get there just as a tour was passing through. She offered me a sample and I declined saying that I wasn't part of the tour. She said, “Go ahead, you have to stand in line behind us.” So you see, it truly was good fortune. She came back several times with more sample trays and I was able to eat my fill before I'd even purchased anything, and could save what I bought for later.

After that I went down to the waterfront and kicked around a little, watching the boats, the birds, the people, and the waves lapping the mossy rocks along the shore. then headed to the F train, which just happens to be the same line that Jonah lives off of. I was feeling the need for a nap. Once again though, it having been so long, like maybe ten years or something, I overshot the subway station. The neighborhood I was in started getting a little sketchy, the way that the City can, and I realized that those weren't Stuyvesant style apartment blocks, but Projects. I knew I'd gone too far, but hadn't seen the metro station. There was group of men standing outside of a drugstore. Maybe not the folks you would think of asking directions of, but there was a woman school crossing guard with them and it seemed safe enough, and in broad daylight. They were all very nice, and helpful. I'd known that there was something significant about Jay Street when I'd passed it; like maybe the York Street Station should be called the Jay Street Station?

 

 

The evening was low key again, being another work night for Jonah. We didn't see Brandon and I can't even remember what we did for dinner, then got some beers and chilled at home. It was wonderful though, being with my son. Shannon, Jonah's roommate was out and we sat on the couch and talked and talked. It having been so long since I'd seen him, four years, and the last time being with his sister present, which did alter the tone of the communication, I was afraid that he'd drifted farther and farther away from his old dad, that maybe we wouldn't even have anything to say to each other. Thankfully it was just the opposite. I really like the man that he's become. At one point we were discussing vast things, solving all the worlds problems and I thought that we were in agreement, but Jonah was adamant that I just didn't understand what he was saying. I'm not sure if it was the pigheadedness of age, or shortsighted youthful exuberance that led to that misunderstanding. Probably I just missed what he was trying to say.

 

IV

I played by the same game plan Tuesday, laying abed until I had the apartment to myself, then leisurely preparing myself for the day. I did a lot of walking on Tuesday. I started out walking Jonah's old neighborhoods in the East Village, to see again the buildings that housed what I used to call “my Manhattan apartments,” since I was paying the bills back then, when Jonah was in school. Believe me, I had plenty of opportunity to sleep at my Manhattan apartments, being an over the road truck driver. I think that I was one of a very few if not the only Midwestern truck driver that actually asked to be sent to the North East, where the traffic is hell and the roads were originally laid out as cow paths in the Seventeenth Century.

 

 

 

Then I spent 5 hours walking around the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's a huge labyrinthine building. There were two exhibits that I specifically wanted to see, A collection of cubism never before shown publicly, and Cezanne's portraits of his wife. It was my stated intention not to get a museum map, nor to ask directions to either of the shows, but to wander instead, stopping to look at whatever caught my eye until I discovered the shows on my own.

 

 

 

Madame Cezanne presented herself almost immediately, a compact little show of paintings and drawings, sometimes just a page of a sketchbook that had her face along with other studies. Very few of the paintings were highly finished and some decidedly unfinished. It was interesting but I don't think that anyone who was new to Cezanne could have understood his depth or importance from them.

Then I wandered, oh did I wander; through the Middle Ages, the Classical World, the Ancient Near East, the Far East, Oceania, into European painting and finally Impressionism, Post Impressionism, Modernism and Contemporary. I had to be close to the Cubism show, right? But then the trail turned cold again and I found myself outside the entrance to "Assyria to Iberia," a show dedicated to the Ancient Near East and its influence on all of the Mediterranean civilizations through the Phoenicians. One of the things that had most moved me in my earlier wanderings was the Ancient Near East, those huge winged lions guarding the Ishtar Gate, so I went in. Awesome. The great, terrible and beautiful Ancient World.

After that it was starting to get late and my feet were sore. I was on the verge of asking where the cubism show was when lo and behold I saw it. It was an interesting show. Nothing monumentally important but definitely some nice pieces. I learned more about Gris, who I'd never really studied before, and also learned that it was the influence of the Italian Futurists that got Picasso and Braque to introduce color back into their pallets. Did I know that before and forgot, or how did I miss that? I think I knew it but had forgotten.

The show was from the private collection of Leonard A. Lauder. This rich bastard collected all these works with the express intention of donating them to a museum one day, which he is now doing; donating them to the Met. With a heart like that I shouldn't call him a bastard, should I? Almost as interesting as the show itself, though, were pictures of Mr. Lauder's home, or one of them anyway. These pictures hung on the walls, above the sofa and in the hallway. How awesome would that be to live day in and day out with art like that? I wondered briefly if he ever regretted his gift, thinking how bare those walls would be. But what was I thinking, I'm sure he immediately refilled that space with something equally sublime.

Having fulfilled my goals I went back to the Impressionist wing. I knew that they have three galleries devoted to Degas; his paintings, his pastels and his sculpture, but I hadn't seen him yet. After some more pleasant wandering, back through galleries I'd already been in, giving me a chance to deepen that experience I found Degas, and finally felt satisfied. I was on my way toward the exit when I remembered an exhibit of mourning cloths that Jonah told me about, at the Costume Institute. This time I did ask. It was all the way over on the other side of the building past ancient Egypt. I just did a quick walk through of Egypt and the exhibit since Jonah would be getting out of work soon and we had dinner plans with Shannon's mother.

 

* * *

 

From the tidbits I'd picked up along the way Lisa was nothing like I'd anticipated. I was expecting a high society fashionista, instead she came in wearing jeans and immediately communicated how down to earth she was. She saw me, put out her hand and said, “You must be Dad.” I didn't know how down to earth until the car ride, though. We were heading to a pizza place on Avenue C, essentially retracing the path that I'd walked that morning, but there was some kind of a situation up ahead on Houston Street with lots of flashing lights. We had time to talk before we had to find a parking place.

It turned out that Lisa had grown up in the neighborhood, at a time when the Lower East Side was a very different beast than it is today. Not only, but she was the daughter of a barkeep, lived above the bar which is still in operation to this day though no longer in her family. Her connections had helped Shannon buy the apartment when they first went public, at a much lower price than would have been possible, or within Shannon's means later. I wish I could remember more of what she said about the neighborhood, but one thing does stand out: a neon sign hanging off the corner of a building saying KATZ. “Best pastrami sandwich in New York,” Lisa said. Information like that is to die for.

 

V

Wednesday dawned, my last day in New York. Before I left the apartment I gathered all my things and packed my bag. Then I deflated and folded the air mattress that I'd been using, folded the sheets and searched for traces of myself to make disappear. I was ready to leave, all I had to do was come back to the flat and grab my bag.

Up until now my breakfasts had been left overs from the lunch before but I'd eaten at the Met on Tuesday and wouldn't have wanted to carry food around with me even if I'd had any left. So I decided to check out the doughnut shop Jonah had pointed out. Lisa had recommended it too, asking if I'd eaten there yet.

They featured three varieties: glazed, cake, and creme filled, with a number of interesting flavors of each. I saved my receipt so that I could remember what I'd had but have long since lost that. I tried one of each of the kinds. I know that the glazed had dark chocolate icing, the cake was orange and something, but I don't recall what the creme filled was except that there was hazelnut in it. They were all very good, and a rich cappuccino set the flavors off wonderfully. I don't usually eat doughnuts, but these were superb. I dreaded the sugar crash that I feared would come though.

Breakfast over I bundled up and headed out the door on my way to the Museum of Modern Art, the MOMA. Tuesday had been chiller than that beautiful Monday, but Wednesday was downright cold, and it was raining. By the time that I emerged from under ground at Rockefeller Center the rain had congealed into sleet, and I was walking straight into the wind. No matter, I could brave a few elements on my way to see Matisse's cut-outs.

When I got there it seemed as though the museum was a giant vacuum sucking people in from all directions. There was a jostling crowd just to get through the doors. A woman caught the back of my heel with her baby stroller three times before I turned around to give her a hard look and she apologized. It was chaos, people milling everywhere so I asked an usher where to go for tickets and was directed to a long snaking line. I joined the cue. It wasn't long before the guy in front of me smacked me with the huge day pack hanging off his shoulder as he turned to engage another member of his party. Then it happened again, he was oblivious. We never got to whack number three, where I actually say something because I overheard a conversation with another usher that informed me that I was in the line for people who already had tickets. To get in the line to buy tickets I had to go back outside. So I did, and glad to be rid of Mr. French Speaking Backpack Slinger too.

The line was three quarters of a block long. I was really discouraged by the crowd, and probably suffering that sugar crash I'd anticipated. When I got to the end I kept on walking, then turned up toward the park, into the wind and the sleet again. I love the MOMA and wanted to stand in front of Monet's Waterlily Triptych once again. I also really wanted to see Matisse's cutouts, badly, but on that score it was a timed show and with such a crowd I might stand in line for an hour only to find that there weren't any available openings at a time that would work for me. I should have planned ahead and purchased my tickets online. There was a train to catch that evening and I still had to go back to the apartment for my bag.

So the MOMA was a bust, but the City called me. It was to be my last day there and I felt like walking her streets some more. My first stop would be Central Park. I bought a five dollar umbrella from a vendor on the street and was much more comfortable. I kept having to switch which hand held it though, but by the time that I thought of purchasing a cheap pair of gloves as well I was already in the park, alone. The weather being what it was I had the park to myself. What a change from the crowd that I'd just escaped.

 

 

I enjoyed the walk but it soon became apparent that it would be unsustainable. I'd brought a pair of long johns but having anticipated being indoors all day I hadn't worn them. It wasn't long before everything below the protective aegis of the umbrella was soaked and I was chilled. I decided to visit the Museum of Natural History and moved over to the west side of the park. After awhile I thought to myself that I might be getting close and should leave the park itself and walk along the street so as not to miss the museum. The park there was lower than street level and when I climbed the granite steps lo and behold I was directly across from my destination. I gave myself a pat on the back. It was almost like I knew where I was or something, a nice change after my tourist faux pas at the museum.

 

 

The exhibits distracted me from my discomfort and it wasn't long until I was dry, warm and happy again. I wandered the Museum of Natural History as I had wandered the Metropolitan, passing through the regions of the world, their flora and fauna and the different social systems indigenous to each. I probably spent the most time in Africa, looking at the tribal masks, and later again looking at totem carvings and masks from the Pacific Northwest. I reflected on how amid all those wonders of nature it was art and culture that grabbed my attention, once again. Then I wandered through prehistory, then went to outer space and ending up under the ocean. There was more to discover, I'm sure, but it was getting late and I thought it prudent to start making my way back to Jonah's and my luggage, and from there to Grand Central.

 

 

I exited the subway at the Broadway-Lafayette station to walk down Houston Street. I was after a pastrami sandwich. I wasn't sure of the cross street but I didn't think I could miss a big sign saying RITZ hanging off the corner of a building, and yet I did. I walked all the way to within sight of the FDR, the end of Houston. It was still sleeting and the wind had picked up. I tried to keep my umbrella pointed into the gale but the wind would sometimes whip around and spring it backwards. The trusty thing always went back into place though, I didn't have to abandon it on the sidewalk like so many others had. I must have passed the restaurant while wrestling with the wind or something.

When I told Jonah about it later he pointed out that the sign actually says KATZ, not RITZ, but still, a neon sign hanging off of the corner of a building with a four letter word ending in Z? I should have seen it. All that I can say is that everything looks different at night. Jonah just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Something to look forward to the next time you come.” I like the way he thinks.

I still needed something to eat. I wished that I knew where Jonah's favorite restaurant was, where we'd eaten on Sunday, but I doubted I could find it and I was running out of time so I chose a Mexican place catty-corner from Jonah's building. It was good. I told Jonah about it and he concurred, he'd eaten there before. I still had a little time so I ordered another beer, chatted with the young woman behind the bar and watched the soccer game on the big screen TV. Then I went back to Jonah's for the last time, grabbed my bag, said goodbye to the apartment, and headed for Grand Central Station.

 

* * *

 

I got there a little after 5:00 pm, before either Jonah or Brandon, and scoped out the trains. I identified the next four that we could take, which is as far ahead as the board went at that time. The first two were on the upper level, the second two the lower. Jonah got there just a little before the second train was scheduled to leave. We waited awhile, then I heard them say something over the loudspeaker about the 6:05 to New Haven track to be announced shortly. New Haven was our destination, where we would transfer to the Shore Line East. I looked at the board and sure enough the track number had been removed. Then, about 6:03 they announced the track for the 6:05 to New Haven, which was the same track that it had been scheduled to be on before. Brandon wasn't there yet anyway, so it didn't matter.

He arrived well before the next train, the 6:30 was due to leave and we went downstairs to board. I stopped and bought a water. Jonah and Brandon each bought tall boy beers so I thought, “What the hell,” and bought one too. When we got to the platform there wasn't a train there to board. We asked some of the other passengers standing about if we were in the right place and were, so we walked down a ways and opened our beers. Jonah and Brandon discussed their respective days at work.

The loudspeaker crackled that the track for the 6:30 to New Haven would be announced shortly. A few people left the platform then but I wasn't worried, I'd seen this trick before. Along about 6:25 a train began easing itself into the berth. “It's about time,” I thought. Then everything happened in quick succession. It must have been 6:27 or 28 when I noticed that there were crowds of people behind the doors of that train, waiting for them to open. The loudspeaker came on and announced that the 6:30 to New Haven was now boarding on track 19 on the upper level, just as the train doors opened and the crowds poured out. We, and everyone else still standing on the platform grabbed our luggage and ran.

Imagine it, running, with luggage and an open beer through Grand Central Station during rush hour on the busiest travel day of the year. I cut someone off at one point and happened to drop my bag handle just at that moment. I muttered "fuck," grabbed the bag by the strap and sprinted up the stairs two at a time hoping that would pass for an apology. This was New York, after all. We made the train on time and even found seats all together. I'd left my trusty $5:00 umbrella behind but no matter, Jonah had grabbed it.

 

V

Madison Connecticut.

I like to describe Madison's location thus: If you're traveling up I 95 out of New York the traffic is heavy until you get through the near permanent backup in New Haven, after that though the road reduces to a mere four lanes and it's smooth sailing until you get to New London, where traffic becomes heavy again, all the way through Providence and into Boston. About halfway through that pleasant little stretch is the town of Madison, on the shores of Long Island Sound. There are actually two Connecticuts. There is the urban blight welfare Connecticut, and the quaint down home Connecticut where famous writers retire. Madison is definitely in the quaint category.

So, back on I 95, there is a service plaza between the two exits which will take you to Madison. My friends' property backs up to that service plaza. Once upon a time I could park my truck and walk through a soccer field to get to their door, but they built condos in the soccer field and I was reduced to climbing the fence. They leaned an old shipping palette against the fence to be my ladder down. They said it was still there, in my honor, and while there I took a gander out back. Sure enough, it was there, though I'm not sure I'd want to trust my weight to it anymore, after all these years.

I think you can imagine what a boon that situation was for me as an over the road truck driver. It was always better to visit when someone was home, of course, but knowing where the extra key was hidden I could avail myself of Tom and Sue's hospitality at any time. I would jump the fence, walk Sox, the dog, take a shower, then listen to a little music before I had to be back on the road. Much more copacetic than the truck stops. Once, when I had some extra time I walked to the beach. That proved to be a long walk though, I don't think I'll ever do that again. It had seemed so close by car.

Tom and Sue are from Bloomington. Having graduated from IU they then worked there at a time when I was a student. We were members in a co-operative daycare, Sunflower, completely run and staffed by the members. Jonah and their daughter Kate are the same age, so we changed each others kids' diapers, frequently. They moved to Madison probably some time in the 90's, when Tom got a position at Yale managing a division of the library system there. When Jonah was in school in New York I would take my time off around Thanksgiving, park my truck at our yard in Jersey and catch a bus into the City. He and I would then take the Metro North to CT, just like we were doing now.

 

* * *

 

We got in fairly late, the last of the guests to arrive. There were Tom and Sue, of course, Tom's son Patrick from his first marriage and Patrick's wife Shayna. There was Kate, her friend Abbie and Abbie's boyfriend Tyler. Then there was Jonah, Brandon and myself, so it was quite a crew. We got in late, but stayed up even later. I don't know what time it was when everyone wandered off to their respective beds. I know that Tom and Sue had retired earlier, and I too could have gone into the den to sleep, but stayed up basking in the glow of the children (the youngest of which is now 30 years old of course, but they'll always be kids to me). I ended up making a palette in front of the fire which I stoked, then dampened for a warm cozy overnight.

Thanksgiving dawned fair. As usual I was the first awake, but stayed curled up in my blankets until I heard activity in the kitchen. I don't seem to need a lot of sleep. The fire was almost out but I got it going again and this became my job throughout the rest of my stay there. I was the fire keeper. It was a standing rule that whoever went outside, for any reason had to bring in firewood, but I for the most part kept it fed and burning bright.

It was a laid back day, as Thanksgiving should be. There was a lot of activity in the kitchen, of course, but even that was pretty relaxed, most of the prep work already having been done earlier. Abbie decided to make ginger cookies from scratch but that was earlier in the day and didn't interfere with preparations for the meal. Tom cooked the turkey outside on the grill, as he usually does, freeing up the oven for green bean casserole and sweet potatoes. Everybody pretty much had a drink or a beer in their hand at all times and a good time was had by all.

 

 

You know the drill. After dinner, stuffed, we all retired to the living room to put our feet up on the coffee table and let our food digest. It would have been an eminently satisfying evening, but a dark little cloud hung over us. Both Jonah and Brandon had to work on Friday. We had a cab scheduled to pick them up at six thirty, to take them back to the train station in New Haven, a time that was rapidly approaching. Jonah joked that he'd be able to get some better sleep now that I wasn't going to be there any more. He hadn't complained before but apparently I had tossed and turned every night, and talked in my sleep. I'd said, “It hurts, it hurts so bad,” or something to that effect. Jonah said he'd been worried about me.

 

 

I was sorry to hear that I'd disturbed him, but I couldn't fathom what I could have been dreaming about that hurt so much. I thought I'd been enjoying myself. But then the cab showed up and it all became clear. I knew what had hurt so much. I hadn't seen my son in four years and very soon I wasn't going to see him again for some indeterminate amount of time. It sure hurt right then, as the goodbyes started. Sue cut the boys slices of pie, pumpkin and pecan to send with them, since we hadn't gotten to desert yet. All that I could think was that I mustn't let it go so long between visits this time, even if I were unemployed then under employed, as I had been, I still mustn't let it go so long.

 

 

VI

I stayed until Saturday afternoon. Thursday night I hung with the kids again and partied like I was 25 years younger than I am. Friday I went visiting with Tom and Sue, visiting their friends, most of whom I'd met before. We then ended up at their favorite bar. It's under different ownership, with a different name but it looked the same, and many of the same people were still there so it will always remain the Dolly Madison to me. Friday night I retired to the den to sleep, at an earlier hour. I thought perhaps I should act my age, but I ended up waking up and coming back out, closing down the bar again. So I moved my blankets back out to the living room and slept in front of the fire again. Saturday was just laid back until it was time to go to my plane. Where does the time go?

I flew back out of Providence, RI. It was the Saturday after Thanksgiving and I expected the airport to be mobbed, but it wasn't. It was just the opposite; there were hardly any travelers at all. I just had a short flight back to Newark and from there to Indianapolis. I could have gone back with Jonah and maybe saved myself a couple of bucks. But no, the City is never cheap and I needed to chill a little in New England anyway, and hang with my old friends.

Newark was far busier than Providence had been and there was a mix up, reminiscent of the Grand Central fiasco. The plane out of Providence was late, so my already tight connection at EWR was stressed. They said over the intercom that there were people with short connections and those with time to spare should stay in their seats. Nobody did though, except for one couple, and I was at the back of the plane so it took a long time to disembark. I wasn't too worried though since I was just jumping onto another United plane and generally all of an airline's flights come and go from the same terminal, right? Except this time. My plane, for whatever reason, was at terminal A, the only United flight not at terminal C, where I was.

The terminals at EWR are large and U shaped. I was at the far end of one of the arms and the woman that I asked directions of said that the shuttle to terminal A was at the far end of the other arm. So there I was trying to run again through a crowded station with luggage; no open beer this time at least. I got over to the other end of terminal C and couldn't find the shuttle. I had to ask again. The shuttle was all the way back at the bend of the U, so I was off again. In the end I made my flight. In fact I could have relaxed, it too was delayed. I'd set up text message flight updates but of course I was in such a hurry that my phone was still on airplane mode and I didn't know.

 

Epilogue

Boarding a flight to go home from a vacation can be a dismal affair. It usually is. The excitement is over and all there is to look forward to is going back to work; the daily grind. Ah, but I had an ace up my sleeve. I had my girlfriend meet met in Indianapolis. She lives in Muncie so we don't see each other that often. I wasn't looking forward to the end of my trip, but I was looking forward to seeing her. She took me back to her place and gave me a massage, eased my travel weary soul. Sunday, on my way home, finally, I was relaxed. I noticed that there was an awful lot of traffic, and they were driving horribly. Oh, that's right, that was the biggest travel day of the year. I just let them all pass me in their harried rush.

 

 

 

New Year's Day

So now, dear reader, I am afraid that I truly have neglected you. The writing for my travelogue has been finished for a week; all that I need to do is add pictures, the easy part. I apologize and promise to have it to you before I go to Europe on the 17th of this month, but for now there is something which I wish to share with you:

My girlfriend, Cathy and I danced the New Year in down at Player's Pub, then came back here to the ranch. We finally got up some time mid to late morning and hung out, eating pancakes and drinking coffee in front of the open wood stove; watching the flames and talking between the silences. Come early afternoon we got ready to go out visiting. Before we left I thought it prudent to bring in a load of wood; better to do it then rather than later. I was getting the wheelbarrow ready when I noticed Cathy looking wistfully into the forest out back. Cate's been to my house several times but though we've talked about taking a walk in the woods we hadn't done so yet.

"C'mon," I said, and started walking toward the back of the property. I thought I'd take her to the edge of the ravine and then we'd get the wood and go, but I found myself explaining about how beautiful it had been before they cut the trees; took out the mature timber for profit. "They took the Mysterious Forest and left the pretty woods," I said, or something to that effect. So then I wanted to show her the gorgeous stand of Shagbark Hickory that they'd left, and hope completely forgot about. It was just down the hill aways. On the way I pointed out where I had once identified an endangered species of plant (wish I could remember what it was) that happened to be right in the lumber jacks' skidder path.

After the Hickorys I took her a little further down to see the ancient Beech. While this land has been nothing but forest since this part of the world was made it had been logged once before, back in the day when they used mules and muscle instead of diesel and two cycle engines. Someone had carved an image of a tree into the bark of this Beech, along with the words, "DO NOT CUT THIS TREE DOWN," and "YOU ARE NOT GOOD." The letters are wide and distorted after all the years of growth, but still plainly legible. "See," I said, "someone has loved this land long before I ever got here."

I wanted to show her more. I mean, hell, we were already halfway down the hill, why not go on? So we did, and with every destination I was drawn to go further. "There's a spring fed pond back there," I said, "but it's kind of far and we should leave it for another day." But, while still not planning to go to the pond we kept going further and further. Then I saw a sign ahead, sticking up right in the middle of the valley. I was dreading this. We were then further into the woods than I'd been in fifteen years, since I started driving a truck, though I used to walk it regularly. "I'll be damned if I'm going to honor any NO TRESPASSING signs," I said. "I've got grandfather rights!" I strode ahead defiantly. As I got closer I thought it didn't look like a simple no trespassing sign. Then I got closer yet and started dancing. SYCAMORE LAND TRUST!!! I don't have to win the lottery to protect that land anymore, it's already protected! "See," I said, "somebody else loves this land besides me."

So yes, you guessed it, we went all the way to the pond and were both glad that we did. The temperature when we'd left was only 25° but the sun was shinning and the sky clear blue. It was a beautiful day. There was a thin skim of ice on the the pond. Leaves would blow out there and dance and the sun sparkled off the surface. We must have sat there twenty minutes at least.

On the way back we picked up as much of the trash that washes down from the road as we could, and vowed to return for more later. Then came the great challenge: climbing back up the big hill. We made it, of course, but when we got to the house we found the front door standing wide open! The fire was still burning but so was the furnace, fighting back the cold. We rushed in to find all of our valuables still intact. We were just going to get some fire wood, after all.