A New Day - A New York

Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath

and a glass of good wine.

St. Thomas Aquinas

My first impressions from the night before of New York City were not favorable.  It was a sorry place. 

Rude, intolerant, tense up-tight and rushed were the prominent mannerism I had seen displayed in New York City, a sorry and base set of circumstances under which to try and conduct a pleasant life.  

I will try anything twice. 

- Mark Suneson

My initial day in the City was one of frustration and great malcontentment.  
It was a sorry place.  
Into bed, a room surprisingly quite above the madding streets for a night's sleep and the promise of a good warm shower in the morning.  Let us go forth with a new day, and I will once again try an enjoy the journey.

The sun was unseasonably warm for a late September morning as it burned through our window three floors above the hustling pavement that was but a block from the East River.  The mounds of sacked garbage that had been heaped high on the sidewalks as we came back to our hotel late the previous night had been removed.  [I don't know where all of this refuse goes, but I have heard that there is a fleet of scows that sail into the ocean and dump all of the waste from New York, probably offshore New Jersey].  

Garbage from last night now gone.  Open, garbage-free sidewalks were a good omen for my second day in town.  I'd like to have a good day. I needed to have a good day. 

It was to be a day of adventure orchestrated mostly by our knowledgeable and capable hostess, Kaileen, with some input from us out-of-towners.

Breakfast at a New York Deli

I wanted breakfast. I was not interested in paying extravagant hotel prices for a meager breakfast in their lobby diner.  Kaileen and Grant did not seem to want or need much in morning munchies, but for this day and this time, I needed a civilized start to the morning.  How about a deli breakfast?   Kaileen knew just the place and so we walked to a busy corner deli that she knew.  So New York.

Sue orders her breakfast from the displayed choices behind the deli counter

Kaileen and Grant split a morning bagel in New York corner deli

After my lox omelette and OJ I was ready for our adventuring and sight-seeing.  We had agreed we were not going see the big tourist draws in the city on this trip; no Statue of Liberty, no United Nations Building, no Empire State Building, no 9-11 Memorial and not interested in Trump Tower.  It was a mile walk to where Grant would begin his position as journalist and feature writer for Wall Street 24/7, located at 5th and Lexington.  His office, we were told, would have a free beer tap available to employees and overlooked the Financial District.  So we made it to the front door of his new work location, but did not go in.  I guess we were not yet worthy to see the interior.

Fountain and Impressive Entrance
to Grant's Office Building af 5th & Lexington

It was then a short distance from Grant's work address to hoof it to Central Park, which I was hoping would assuage my jangled soul from fighting New York street traffic the night before.  We walked past a golden statue of General William T. Sherman and into Central Park.  We paused to watch people launch RC boats into a pond and traveled along the shaded and well kept trails of the famed Central Park.  I did like the relatively tranquil place in and of its own, with glorious outcroppings of schist; but perhaps all the more for its respite from the hassle and hustle of the surrounding city.  Kaileen led us to Belvedere Castle, a stately towered and turreted stone weather observatory of a bygone age.  We ascended the stone steps and took a commanding view of the turtles in the pond below us and of the large buildings edging the Park.

Belvedere Castle
Central Park, NYC

Cockatrice over Belvedere Castle Transom

Sue, Grant and Kaileen on the Parapet of Belvedere Castle 

The view from Belvadere Castle Parapet built upon Central Park Schist Outcrop

Kaileen and Grant
Above Central Park on a warm September morning

With Autumn colors just beginning to manifest, we strolled up and down some small wrinkles of pleasant topography and pause for some photos at the Oak Bridge while a couple struggled in a row boat below us.  The photo of Grant in Central Park with the New York skyline behind him was to be a subtle facebook post to let every one of his fb friends know, he was at last in NY.

Proof positive that Grant and Kaileen are at last together
In new York City

We four worked our way across the paved park trails which brought us out at the New York Museum of Natural History.  Kaileen stepped up and got us into the exhibit halls where the preference of the parents were catered too, escorting us through the labyrinth of exhibits halls first to the rocks, gems and minerals and then to Dad's special interest, Reptiles and Amphibians.  Teddy Roosevelt had numerous quotes of his engraved into the walls of the museum's entry hall covering conservation, government, manhood and the nation's natural heritage and treasures.  Bully! Bully! Good ol' Teddy!  

A fond look at a Galapagos Tortoise

With way too much to taken-in in a day, we were out of there and on to catch the subway to a lunch spot.  Again, with Kaileen as our guide, she had selected a favorite Vietnamese pho shop where we were seated at a large wooden common table with other guest while we all slurped our pho and inhaled our vermicelli. Good and tasty cuisine - one of my favorites.

Vietnamese lunch in Manhattan

A ride on the New York Subway

After lunch Grant took his mother by Murray's, an expansive cheese shop so she could oogle and ogle over the selection of cheese (Murray's- soon to be a source for many well received Christmas and birthday gifts for his mother).

We walked back through Washington Square to catch another train, but not before I had a bit of repartee with a blackman who cajoled and pleaded with me to have a seat and play a game of chess on the board he had set out.  Others in Washington Square were also on the lookout for chess players to challenge.  I waved my hand and told him, "He would bust my chops in just a few moves if I took up his challenge to play a game."  He quickly replied, "I don't want to beat you, I want to teach you!"  I appreciated his offer, but did not have time that afternoon to play Queen's Pawn to QP4.  He reluctantly let me go, but I had to admire his ardor.

We descended to the subway where I watched a large rat trundle between the tracks as we waited to change trains and get back to Manhattan's Upper Eastside.  We quickly boarded and left the subway rat behind, though I am sure more were in the shadows at our stop where we climbed the stairs up to street level.   It was late afternoon, and we had walked several city miles.  Mindful of St. Thomas Aquinas cure for sorrow, I'd had a good night's sleep, a warm shower to begin the day and now for a good glass of wine.  Grant and Kaileen recommended we stop for some refreshment at the Spotted Dog.  We sat down at a sidewalk table, and ordered drinks all around.

Though first impressions are difficult to overcome, the second day in New York City was better than the first. 

Cheers!

To Grant and Kaileen and the fulfillment of dreams!

I was quite pleased to see Grant and Kaileen together and they both obviously are enthusiastic about New York life and opportunities.  It is good, so very good, to see all of this come to pass for him and Kaileen.  I am well pleased and satisfied for them.  And after all, it really is about them and their choices.

As I said before,

CHEERS!

If you can make it here, You can make it anywhere 

-Frank "Ol' Blue Eyes" Sinatra

New York, New York!

Grant's dreams were now just over the horizon where the sun was rising, and all we had to do was get across the rest of Ohio, a smidge of West Virginia, the long part of Pennsylvania, across New Jersey and then go either over or under the Hudson River to get onto Manhattan Island. New York, New York!  My study of the road map seemed to show going under the Hudson would be the best route.  I had a route selected to get us to and through the Lincoln Tunnel.  But, while in snarled New Jersey traffic, we saw a sign that pointed us toward the Lincoln Tunnel, but at different exit than the one I had planned.  Uncharacteristically of me, the confident navigator, I changed my route and inched toward the signed exit that promised to get us to the tunnel.  The result was not unexpected, but still, a glacial-paced movement of trucks and cars.  I can wait, but I was not sure if our next turn was to be to the left or to the right, and therefore, I had no confidence in which traffic lane I should be squeezing into.  I had hoped against hope that we might arrive in Manhattan in daylight, but that hope was fading with the ever darkening sky.  I veered onto the approach for the Lincoln Tunnel, choosing a lane that would require us to scratch out $15 (!) for a toll [I'd always heard New York is expensive].

I thought the saving grace for driving in New York was the fact that the city was laid out in a nice orthogonal grid where the streets (and some avenues) were sequentially numbered.  As I had it figured, we would come out onto 33rd, count down the avenues until we reached 3rd Avenue, turn left and proceed 3 miles to 62nd Street. Bingo!  Alas, nothing in New York is really as it seems.  Once we'd crossed under the Hudson we emerged smack dab in the middle of New York traffic and all the horrors that entails - only as (mis)fortune would dictate; we had arrived while President Trump was also in Manhattan.  Oh Lordy, the chaotic mayhem that passes for normal in this town has now been turned into a herculean navigational task for us newcomers.  All of the turns and exits that normally would have gotten us to where we wanted to go were blocked by police cars with flashing blue and red lights.  We ended up being forced to the very eastern edge of Manhattan and driving for miles northward on the Franklin Roosevelt Drive into Harlem before we could exit and return south. My passengers quickly found an opportunity to seethe with contempt for Trump for causing our problems, but when I suggested that the very same dilemma would've confronted motorist if was President Obama leaving the UN, they would hear none it.  I further suggested this seems par for living on a crowded island where most seem to feel the world revolves around all and only things New York.  That bitter opinion was met with a sigh of disapproval, for their part this was an exciting place - if only the Secret Service would allow us to get where we wanted to go.



Before we had realized the tangle that the presidential motorcade had caused, I was impressed (not favorably) by New Yorker's callous approach to those that share social space with them.  Pedestrians strolling, sauntering, darting and dashing into the street and cutting in front of cars, cabs and buses; driving here meant not only watching for the moves of other drivers but sharing the street with not only motor traffic, but with foot traffic in the hundreds. Chaos.  We crept back toward our destination on the Upper Eastside where Kaileen was tracking Grant's GPS position on her phone and wondering why we'd detoured into Harlem.  It became a group navigational effort to get us 62nd Street.  Of course there is no parking available along narrow 62nd Street where Kaileen had a 6th floor walk-up i.e. no elevator, only stairs.  The lack of parking was anticipated, so our plan was to use what we used to call a "Chinese Fire Drill"; where the car comes to a stop, and all of the passengers pour out of the vehicle and run around, only rather than reseating themselves in a different configuration, my passengers were to throw open the rear hatch of the 4Runner SUV, grab armloads of all of Grant's worldly belongings and rapidly cast them onto the curb.  Sue would guard the pile there on the street, while Grant would carry his stuff up the six flights to Kaileen's place - and now to be his place too.  Meanwhile, once my pit crew shouted "She's empty!" and closed the rear hatch, I would then step on the gas, cease blocking the through traffic on the street and head for our boutique hotel a few blocks away. A simple plan that almost worked well.  

Kaileen and Grant's Place
Upper Eastside, Manhattan

Grant and Sue at the top of 6 Flights of stairs

I was solo now, navigating NYC traffic and looking for our hotel's porte cochere.  I looked at the corner where the hotel should be, the light turned green and I saw nothing that looked like I was expecting a hotel to look like.  So I found myself quickly back on Roosevelt Drive heading toward Harlem... again.  Only this time I knew where I was going, I'd just run this route before.  I worked my way back to Manhattan, got to the same spot where the hotel was expected, but found myself being pushed by flagrant horn-honking traffic to move onto Roosevelt Drive... once again.  By now the Presidential motorcade had passed so I could take an early exit off of FDR Drive and return south.  This time I pulled into a parking garage a couple of block away from York Ave and 61st so I could get a good look around while on foot.  It turns out the hotel had no porte cochere [bad assumption on my part there] and no street-level marquis to designate it as the hotel [one had to look up several floors to see the sign, which I failed to do while driving] and the undistinguished parking garage was on the other side of the block, again not signed in any way.  But I'd found not only my reasons for missing the hotel, but now I found the hotel itself.  I guess I should be happy, but I'd just shelled out $45 to pull into the parking garage a few blocks away, so I hauled our luggage to the hotel and checked in, leaving the SUV where I had parked it 3 blocks away.  The desk clerk acknowledged my reservation for two nights and inquired, "How was your trip in tonight Mr. Suneson?"  I replied, "Horrid! Perfectly Horrid!".

Once I got to our room, I reconnected with my wife, Grant and Kaileen, and they said they'd meet me in the lobby in a few minutes.  Kaileen suggested dinner just up the street at an all-night diner, so New York.

Walking back to our hotel after a late dinner, we were met by the sight of a car stopping on the street and a man getting out and pissing like a race horse a great torrent onto the pavement while calling on the name of "Sweet Jesus"; all right there in front of God and everyone on 62nd and York.  Witnessing the Great Pee within an hour or so of my arrival in new York City gave rise to some vivid first impressions, they being as follows:

   President Donald Trump (of New York City) is a prime reflection of his native environment, like the skyline and Trump Tower and so many other edifices around town, NYC has a look of wealth, opulence, glitz and class - but a closer look at street level shows that underneath it is just a crowded, uncouth place where people freely piss in the street- while invoking the name of Jesus.  
   There is the constant inane tweeting of Trump and the constant inane tweeting and honking of car horns.  To what end for either, I can not say.  My impression is NY denizens are proud of their lack of grace, and display such short-comings to all others packed in the same street with them.  I learned to ignore these useless and ignorant NY horns in only a few minutes, as they mean nothing of import, like the presidential tweets.  At one point I was the second car from the intersection, the car in front of me was being help up by a traffic cop even though the light was green, the car behind me immediately leans on his horn, imploring me to move along - "buster!"  He should have been able to see that the cop was holding all of us up.  Just go ahead and hit your horn, see how much that helps anybody in this situation. I ask myself, "What are these folks thinking?  I see no decency in their conduct with their fellow citizens."
   Comparing the Trump White House with New York City; Rules, What Rules?  Lanes marked 'Buses Only', are filled with all manner of vehicles.  I can only conclude, "Only", is taken as a suggestion.
   Rules, What Rules?  I actually witnessed a driver stop for a red light, but the traffic cop was telling him to pull into the intersection despite the red light.  The driver hesitated and did not move into the intersection quick enough, so the cop stopped the driver and started chewing him out.  The driver was adamant in his own right, throwing his hands off the steering wheel while telling the cop he was only stopping for "A RED Light!"  The cop wouldn't have it an lit into the guy.  Every other place I've been, red means stop and green means go - and when everybody follows that social and legal code, traffic moves smoothly (more or less).  First Impressions: New York is a different place, with different rules (or no rules) for social norms and civility, or as may be the case, not 'different' norms, but completely lacking what passes for civility in other locations.  I think what I saw in my first day in New York City explains a lot of what I see from President Trump.  

But, hey. Grant loves the Big City life - "so much to do and experience!"  One could rhetorically ask, Can all 8,538,774 New Yorkers who choose to live there be wrong?  As a contrarian who prizes civility, social grace and some space and an accommodating approach, I'd have to answer, "Yeah, all them crude knuckleheads, they are all wrong."  
  

Long Road, Big Apple - An Epic Move

Grant called with the good news that he had an offer to start work with 24/7 WallStreet.com on October 1st.  After all of the shouting and back-slapping across the wireless phone waves had died down a bit, he asked if we were still good with the plan to help him move?  We were.

He began to immediately pare down his belonging to a minimum so as to fit into Dad's 4Runner for the move to the Upper Eastside of Manhattan.  In anticipation of his departure on Monday, September 25; he had prepared the paperwork to transfer his Toyota Camry back into our names (won't need, won't want & can't afford a car in NYC), and made an appointment with an oral surgeon to pull out 2 wisdom teeth first thing Monday morning just before we leave town.  His mother accompanied him to the tooth-yanking shop and then she ran some errands while Grant was under anesthesia to pick up pain medications, gauze and other stuff one typically needs in their travels to New York while oozing blood from empty tooth sockets.  I stayed back at his place to prepare for the drive.  Once they both had signed the vehicle transfer papers before a notary public, he and his mother joined me in our cross country drive to New York, New York!  One last spit of blood into the Missouri soil and his soft assurance to his mother under semi-glazed eyeballs that he was feeling fine and ready to go, I pulled onto I-70 East and drove toward his new destiny.

With all 6 cylinders fired up in earnest by mid-morning, we would make it about half-way to The City, necessitating a stop in the heartland.  I'd planned our end-of-Day #1 layover for outer edge of Columbus, Ohio.   While Grant was prepping the back reaches of his jaw after yesterday morning's trauma, and Sue was getting all pretty, I went down to the dining room with my trusty Cholula bottle (travel size).  Breakfast comes with the room, but ranging this far from Texas, one should not assume what the term "breakfast" truly includes to a Buckeye.  Therefore, not that I don't trust people from Ohio, heck, my doppelganger James Garfield, was from Ohio; but just maybe them folks don't know no better and I sure can't trust 'em to have a good bottle of that satiny heat that comes from the Cholula Hot Sauce bottle on the breakfast table to make hotel eggs taste almost worthy.   I'd just sauced up my helping of eggs, when a man came to my table and reached for my Cholula!  I looked up with what must have been a face that expressed something like; 
   "Why howdy pilgrim, I want to know what kind of a man tries to touch another man's Cholula? Are there no common manners in these parts or are you spoiling for a tussle? 
   His quick look into my stern face brought him quickly to the recognition of his usurping ways, as he said, "Oh.  Is this your bottle of hot sauce?"
   "Yes sir.  I don't leave home without my Cholula - especially when I'm this far from Texas."
   "Sorry, I thought... say, do you mind if I use a bit of your hot sauce?"

Now with our shared affection for flavor and the need of starting the day off with a face full of happy taste buds, I kindly lent this traveling salesman from Cleveland, my personal bottle of morning merry-making for his hotel eggs.  He was mighty appreciative, and I was happy to oblige. 

We grab a bite in DuBose, Pennsylvania
where we share our lunch with large chickens and a T-Rex

I found it surprising how few towns were visible from Interstate 80 as we traversed east across Pennsylvania for most of the day, getting ever closer to New York.  The exits seemed few, especially for what I would have considered a populous state, and those few exits offered no glimpses as to fueling stations or the types of businesses or towns set off into the wooded landscape.  I recalled my Dad speaking with a member of Scottish Black Watch Pipe and Drum Corps while touring the US and performing in California, when one of the soldiers was asked about his impressions, he offered that their trip across Pennsylvania had "too many bloody trees".  Now I see his point.  Around mid-day, around the middle of Pennsylvania is was apparent that we would have to come off I-80 and drive some ways through those bloody trees and find a town and maybe some local fare.  I chose DuBose [doo-bwa? doo-bows? or something entirely different?], PA for a lunch stop.  We didn't find much once we got into town that looked too enticing, so we turned back toward the interstate where we'd seen a restaurant place with several parked pickups and cars at the northern edge of DuBose.  We'll give it a whirl.

The cuisine was average at best, but the accumulation of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, Sasquatch and an Amish Buggy with a break pedal at the edge of the parking lot was curious.  I was not sure of the connection, if any, but upon parting for an evening arrival in New York, I thought;  If having just seen an Amish buggy, Sasquatch and a T-Rex doesn't prepare me for New York and its traffic and sights, nothing will.  Let's ride! 

An odd assortment off I-80 in Pennsylvanian
Maybe this will prepare me for what I will find in New York City

A French Kiss in DuBose?
Or
Bad advice: Looking a gift T-Rex in the mouth (i.e. You should never...)

Our 'Big Apple' Boy

Grant's talents at writing news stories landed him a real job directly out of The University of Missouri's Journalism School (aka J-School) as a video content producer at Newsy.  He anchored the on-camera delivery of digital news stories, and wrote content on wide-ranging subjects from his desk in Columbia, MO.  But, alas, the subject of his affection, Miss Kaileen, had graduated a year behind him and had gotten a journalism assignment of her own in New York City.  The bright lights and the bright countenance of his sweetheart beckoned.  He needed to find a gig in the 'Big Apple'. 

After many on-line inquiries, applications, phone and Skype interviews and several trips to NYC at prospective employer's expense, he landed a good job writing statistics-based stories for 24/7 Wall Street.  The company President offered him a job on the spot.  Obviously delighted, the big move to the big city (with the promised help from the the old folks) was quickly put into action. Grant starts work October 1st.

Can't bear to be here any longer
Kaileen and adventure await in the Big Apple.
Start spreading the news!

There are some logistics to settle first. He will not want or need his Toyota Camry in New York City, just to park a car in NYC costs the equivalent of a modest home mortgage back in Texas.  He was also having some trouble with his wisdom teeth, so after a very bad and painful experience in August to remove 2 of the 4 wisdom teeth, he was willing to get the last 2 extracted the morning of his departure to New York.  We parents were enlisted to load his pared down worldly possessions (mostly a few items of clothing and personal accouterments, a TV and a minimal selections of books and CD's) into my SUV; leaving his car in MO to be retrieved on our way back to Texas, where the Camry would them be re-titled back to us.  He and his mother thought it was a good plan.  I had reservations about a transcontinental road trip immediately following oral surgery - but I acquiesced acknowledging that it could work and be expedient.

Grant bids farewell to his Missouri residence outside of Columbia
The Wildlife Lodge

Sue and I left town Sunday afternoon headed for Columbia, MO; ETA around midnight.  Grant was still packing and cleaning up as we arrived.  We unfurled our sleeping bag across the bed in the basement of Grant's habitation, the dimly-lit "Wildlife Lodge" and caught a few ZZZ's before the eventful Monday morn was lit by the autumn Sun.  We were up a 6 AM, Grant had his appointment with a new, different and much better oral surgeon to finish the tooth yanking job at 8 AM. Sue drove Grant to the medical office, I packed up the 4Runner while Sue then left the patient and went to fill his Rx.  Grant quickly had 2 new holes in his head where his upper and lower right wisdom teeth once were.  The process was done under general sedation, so with his scripts filled, it was onto visit the notary public to transfer the car title.  While recovering from his anesthesia, he was asked to sign on the dotted line to transfer ownership of his car title to his mother.  The notary did not question the circumstances.  

Mother and son returned to the Wildlife Lodge to drop off the key and prepared for departure.  Grant stood in the parking area, spitting blood like a hockey player, changed out his gauze packing and settled into the back seat to sleep as I pulled onto I-70 for the great move.  Lunch time would put us in St. Louis. Grant was not too hungry, but suggested eating Italian at "The Hill".  A local enclave known for it's Italian food, and according to Yogi Berra, "The only place to get good Italian food in this country outside of Brooklyn".  So with that advice from Yogi - as well as the Yogi GPS that directed us toward "The Hill" and if we came to a fork in the road - take it.  We did. We enjoyed a fine lunch.

Some real good Italian food in St. Louis on "The Hill".

Traveling east on I-70 we cut across Illinois, Indiana and into Columbus, Ohio for the end of the first day.  My passengers did a lot of napping, and thus they missed seeing the 'Wold's Largest Rocking Chair', the 'Wold's Largest Golf Tee' and all other exciting curiosities of Middle America in Casey, IL.  If we had delayed to see the golf tee, I think we would have been treated to the world's largest mailbox, knitting needle, wind chime.  Big dreams for a small town.  But Grant has big dreams for a big town, and he was not to be waylaid by these interstate small-town tourist trap distractions.  Focus on the Big Apple.  Tomorrow all eyes would be open for our arrival in New York City. 

If we can make it there, we can make it anywhere.