So we've been to Erie I think five times now. We haven't gone to downtown Erie, just the myriad shopping opportunities on Peach Street near I 90. We've even come home in the dark once, and didn't make any wrong turns - there are a couple of tricky places.
When our little miss Yinny Yin Yin was ailing, we found the vet's office recommended to us. It is about three miles north near Saegertown. Carmen did a wedding at a hall about five miles out of town to (I think) the east. She got lost going to the rehearsal, but the wedding day went just fine. A couple of weeks ago we drove to Woodcock Dam where, it turns out, many many people from Greater Meadville go to walk - with or without dogs - in the fresh air outside the Big City.
Carmen has gone to conferences in Ohio - one in Columbus and one out beyond Cleveland almost to Toledo. If I had gone I might have stories to tell, but somebody has to feed the cat and not be a minister. Turns out I excel at both of those tasks
Two weeks ago, our friend Karen came from Orlando. This gave us the golden opportunity we've been waiting for: Pymatuning Spillway, out by Linesville twenty some miles west of here, boasts the area's biggest attraction. The fish are protected and people throw them bread. They are big and they are numerous. Where there are people casting their bread upon the waters, there are also ducks. Put "ducks walk on fish" into your search engine and you'll see pictures of Pymatuning Spillway. So on a cold, rainy day, we drove west on Conneaut Lake Road, through Conneaut Lake the town, and on to Linesville. As luck would have it, the center of town was in the throes of a road repair project, and the turnoff to Pymatuning was blocked off. But after four times through the intersection we were able to ascertain that many people were turning left a few blocks further on, so we followed them around to the road to Pymatuning.
It turned out that we were the only ones willing to stand out there in the rain throwing bread that Monday morning. Even the fish were hesitant to come to the surface. We saw some but not many. It was good weather for ducks, however, and three loaves of day old surplus bread from the day old surplus bread store went to the ducks. So now we've done it. As long as nobody around here finds out that the ducks didn't walk on any fish that day, we can get away with saying we've been there done that and check it off the list.
So that's the latest from the exploring northwestern Pennsylvania front. More later, I'm sure.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
The Big City
In 1987 we moved from Vero Beach, Florida to St. Cloud, Florida, about 75 miles away, to start our new life together in a new locality. We were completely anonymous and happy to be that way. Carmen had a job lined up at a title company in downtown St. Cloud. I had nothing, but soon got a job lined up at a plant nursery in Narcoossee, about seven miles from home. I started out riding a bicycle, but soon bought a small motorcycle. This opened the door to a bigger and better job in Orlando, 25 miles from home.
What this rambling is getting at is that when I worked in Narcoossee, seven miles from St. Cloud and fifteen miles from Orlando, the Narcoosians used to talk about going into town for one reason or another, and I came to realize after a while that in Narcoossee, "The Big City" was St. Cloud, gateway to Kissimmee!
We hadn't lived in Meadville for long when we realized that "The Big City" where everyone goes for shopping and entertainment, is Erie. It's 35 miles up the road, either Interstate 79 if you want to get there fast, or Main Street or Park Avenue out of Meadville, each a pretty country drive which meanders some and changes names a couple of times, but soon enough becomes Peach Street, where the big furniture stores and the Target and the Sam's, a bunch of chain restaurants and pretty much everything Meadville lacks is located. There's even an international airport in Erie where you can fly to Cleveland, Pittsburgh , Detroit or London, Ontario.
We actually flew in and out of there back in April for our candidating week (see "Joy In Meadville" a few postings back) but we were only there for the airport and car rental services. It was mid-July when we found ourselves in need of an air conditioner and the local stores were all sold out! We called around and found one in Waterford, up US 19, almost to Erie, and decided to go ahead up there. We've been back twice to The Big City!
Of course, the folks who live in Saegertown, Conneaut Lake, Woodcock, Geneva and Cochranton think of Meadville as "The Big City!"
And all of us, Erie included, occasionally go to Pittsburgh or Cleveland, each about 90 miles from here, when we want to go to a REAL big city. I guess it's all relative.
What this rambling is getting at is that when I worked in Narcoossee, seven miles from St. Cloud and fifteen miles from Orlando, the Narcoosians used to talk about going into town for one reason or another, and I came to realize after a while that in Narcoossee, "The Big City" was St. Cloud, gateway to Kissimmee!
We hadn't lived in Meadville for long when we realized that "The Big City" where everyone goes for shopping and entertainment, is Erie. It's 35 miles up the road, either Interstate 79 if you want to get there fast, or Main Street or Park Avenue out of Meadville, each a pretty country drive which meanders some and changes names a couple of times, but soon enough becomes Peach Street, where the big furniture stores and the Target and the Sam's, a bunch of chain restaurants and pretty much everything Meadville lacks is located. There's even an international airport in Erie where you can fly to Cleveland, Pittsburgh , Detroit or London, Ontario.
We actually flew in and out of there back in April for our candidating week (see "Joy In Meadville" a few postings back) but we were only there for the airport and car rental services. It was mid-July when we found ourselves in need of an air conditioner and the local stores were all sold out! We called around and found one in Waterford, up US 19, almost to Erie, and decided to go ahead up there. We've been back twice to The Big City!
Of course, the folks who live in Saegertown, Conneaut Lake, Woodcock, Geneva and Cochranton think of Meadville as "The Big City!"
And all of us, Erie included, occasionally go to Pittsburgh or Cleveland, each about 90 miles from here, when we want to go to a REAL big city. I guess it's all relative.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Small Town Travel
One of the pleasures of living in a small town is that I can walk to the grocery store, the bank, Carmen's church, the haircut place, the post office - pretty much anywhere I want to go - in less than a half hour. Just this morning I walked to the downtown supermarket at 6:00 because we were out of coffee ! ! ! Then later I walked to the bank at 9:00 and opened my own checking account.
Walking downtown is, more often than not (and not at 6:00am) a social occasion. I see people I know nearly every trip, and people I don't know are likely to smile and say hello. A far cry from Boston.
I generally walk Chestnut Street, the main drag running east and west from downtown to our house. It goes past a couple of funeral homes, an assisted living place, several churches, the Y, Diamond Park, the Historical Society of Crawford County, the local office supply store, the Academy (live)Theatre, a bunch of restaurants, an ice cream shop and - The Stereoscopic Museum! Someday I have to go in there. It's only open a couple of afternoons a week.
Chestnut Street dead-ends into the Downtown Mall, anchored by a Big Lots. The mall contains a liquor store, a couple of flea market styled miscellaneous crap stores, a haircut place, a snack and sandwich shop, a Dollar General and a few more stores I can't recall. The Greyhound bus stops out front, and tickets can be bought at one of the miscellaneous crap stores. The public transit buses also stop at the big bus shelter out front.
Way out yonder on the other side of the tracks is where the interlopers reside: Home Depot, Walmart, Staples and the Giant Eagle grocery store. It's too far to walk and I wouldn't want to anyway!
It reminds me of Vero Beach, Florida. I lived there for about sixteen of my first thirty-four years. I walked everywhere. When I worked at a grapefruit packing house, I started work at 5:30am about once a week, and I could pretty much expect to be pulled over by a cop in the downtown area each time. I thought about that today as I walked downtown at 5:45. The other difference was: I was wearing a hoodie in August! That NEVER happened in Vero Beach.
Walking downtown is, more often than not (and not at 6:00am) a social occasion. I see people I know nearly every trip, and people I don't know are likely to smile and say hello. A far cry from Boston.
I generally walk Chestnut Street, the main drag running east and west from downtown to our house. It goes past a couple of funeral homes, an assisted living place, several churches, the Y, Diamond Park, the Historical Society of Crawford County, the local office supply store, the Academy (live)Theatre, a bunch of restaurants, an ice cream shop and - The Stereoscopic Museum! Someday I have to go in there. It's only open a couple of afternoons a week.
Chestnut Street dead-ends into the Downtown Mall, anchored by a Big Lots. The mall contains a liquor store, a couple of flea market styled miscellaneous crap stores, a haircut place, a snack and sandwich shop, a Dollar General and a few more stores I can't recall. The Greyhound bus stops out front, and tickets can be bought at one of the miscellaneous crap stores. The public transit buses also stop at the big bus shelter out front.
Way out yonder on the other side of the tracks is where the interlopers reside: Home Depot, Walmart, Staples and the Giant Eagle grocery store. It's too far to walk and I wouldn't want to anyway!
It reminds me of Vero Beach, Florida. I lived there for about sixteen of my first thirty-four years. I walked everywhere. When I worked at a grapefruit packing house, I started work at 5:30am about once a week, and I could pretty much expect to be pulled over by a cop in the downtown area each time. I thought about that today as I walked downtown at 5:45. The other difference was: I was wearing a hoodie in August! That NEVER happened in Vero Beach.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Four Fifty, Four, Three Fifty, Three
Fortunately for two weary humans and two herbally drugged cats, the trip from Albuquerque to Meadville, PA was pretty uneventful. We had a few arguments with Hermione, our GPS. We had a long walk for short gain the first night, a gut-buster pork steak the second and a teen-ager convention the third. The most distressing thing that went wrong was that the batteries in our little CD player were missing and somehow we just couldn't seem to get them replaced. Still!
Shyanne Moving And Storage came for our stuff on the morning of Monday the 5th of July. We spent Monday night cleaning and working out how to pack the car. Tuesday morning we put out trash in our can and that of the absent next door mean lady, loaded the car and Carmen rubbed "Rescue Remedy" on the ears of the kids. The garbage truck came, I returned our can and the neighbor's to their desired locations, and off we went! It was a little after ten by the time we gassed up and headed for the interstate.
I could hear the glee in Hermione's voice when she said "Drive four hundred thirty miles and exit right." We were on the "one-Interstate-a-day" plan. I-40 took us to Oklahoma City. We passed "The Largest Cross In The Northern Hemisphere" in Texas - the highlight of the trip. It was wet from recent rain when we got to OKC, and darkness was approaching by the time we got the car unloaded and the kitties settled in. We walked outside to look for a place to eat. There were the usual McD and BK and Taco Bell, but we were in the mood for something a little less fast. There was a billboard almost directly overhead touting "Cracker Barrel - Turn left here, one block" so we walked a block to the turn, turned down a street with no sidewalks, walking in wet grass or out in the street, cut across a grassy field and landed wet-footed in the restaurant. The food was good old Cracker Barrel food. Afterward we looked out across the grassy field and saw the lighted sign of our motel. We struck out toward it and were almost there when we realized we were fenced-in fy a "fun center" with putt putt golf and an arcade. We followed the fences to another road, the on-ramp to the interstate, walked on the grass or in the street to the highway and cut across a gas station to our motel room. If we had it to do over again, we would settle for something fast.
Day two was I-44 to St. Louis. The most fun that day was driving through Tulsa, where Carmen had lived and worked for a couple of years in a previous life, and seeing what had changed and what had not - in the midst of pretty much solid construction from one end to the other.
Columbia, Illinois is the suburb of St. Louis where our cat-friendly hotel was. Hermione had never heard of the address, so I had to call for an alternate. We arrived with plenty of daylight left, and were advised to go to the shopping center for dinner at Bully's Bar-B-Q. For some reason I can't now fathom, the 23 ounce barbecued pork steak sounded good to me. My guts wrestled with that pig for two days after I ate - the whole thing! The next day I was further nauseated when we passed a series of signs for a steak house featuring the "50 Ounce Belly Buster - FREE!" if you can eat it all in some specified amount of time. If I had it to do over again, I'd go with the barbecued chicken.
In keeping with the tradition - this was my third time in St. Louis, and the third time I failed to even catch a glimpse of the famous arch. I did see the river, however, which I failed to do the first two dead-of-night incursions.
Day three was Interstate 70, which I ran quite a bit back in my truck driving days and my bus-riding days. It runs all the way to Baltimore, my point of origin. Today, however, we only ran it as far as Columbus, OH. The memorable part of the trip was in Indiana when we broke out the CD player. While I went into a grocery store, Carmen tried to get the player up and running. She discovered that there were no batteries in it, which made it dysfunctional. She called my cellular phone, which I was turning on on my way back to the car in the rain. She heard her message at the same time I did.
The hotel in Columbus was right beside some major athletic field where high school kids from all over Ohio were gathered to compete in various sports. There was no peace at any place at any time in that hotel. Friday morning was our earliest departure of the trip.
We had an ongoing argument with Hermione from the time we exited the parking lot of the hotel until we were settled into the mainstream of Interstate 71 many miles north of Columbus. I never really figured out how she wanted us to go, but evidently once we got going on 71 she was okay with it. I think she still wanted to go back to Massachusetts, and 71 was an acceptable compromise route. It was raining as we drove through northeastern Ohio, and rained all the way to Meadville, where we stopped at the Real Estate office for our keys before driving the final few blocks home.
Home. Wow, that sounds good!
Shyanne Moving And Storage came for our stuff on the morning of Monday the 5th of July. We spent Monday night cleaning and working out how to pack the car. Tuesday morning we put out trash in our can and that of the absent next door mean lady, loaded the car and Carmen rubbed "Rescue Remedy" on the ears of the kids. The garbage truck came, I returned our can and the neighbor's to their desired locations, and off we went! It was a little after ten by the time we gassed up and headed for the interstate.
I could hear the glee in Hermione's voice when she said "Drive four hundred thirty miles and exit right." We were on the "one-Interstate-a-day" plan. I-40 took us to Oklahoma City. We passed "The Largest Cross In The Northern Hemisphere" in Texas - the highlight of the trip. It was wet from recent rain when we got to OKC, and darkness was approaching by the time we got the car unloaded and the kitties settled in. We walked outside to look for a place to eat. There were the usual McD and BK and Taco Bell, but we were in the mood for something a little less fast. There was a billboard almost directly overhead touting "Cracker Barrel - Turn left here, one block" so we walked a block to the turn, turned down a street with no sidewalks, walking in wet grass or out in the street, cut across a grassy field and landed wet-footed in the restaurant. The food was good old Cracker Barrel food. Afterward we looked out across the grassy field and saw the lighted sign of our motel. We struck out toward it and were almost there when we realized we were fenced-in fy a "fun center" with putt putt golf and an arcade. We followed the fences to another road, the on-ramp to the interstate, walked on the grass or in the street to the highway and cut across a gas station to our motel room. If we had it to do over again, we would settle for something fast.
Day two was I-44 to St. Louis. The most fun that day was driving through Tulsa, where Carmen had lived and worked for a couple of years in a previous life, and seeing what had changed and what had not - in the midst of pretty much solid construction from one end to the other.
Columbia, Illinois is the suburb of St. Louis where our cat-friendly hotel was. Hermione had never heard of the address, so I had to call for an alternate. We arrived with plenty of daylight left, and were advised to go to the shopping center for dinner at Bully's Bar-B-Q. For some reason I can't now fathom, the 23 ounce barbecued pork steak sounded good to me. My guts wrestled with that pig for two days after I ate - the whole thing! The next day I was further nauseated when we passed a series of signs for a steak house featuring the "50 Ounce Belly Buster - FREE!" if you can eat it all in some specified amount of time. If I had it to do over again, I'd go with the barbecued chicken.
In keeping with the tradition - this was my third time in St. Louis, and the third time I failed to even catch a glimpse of the famous arch. I did see the river, however, which I failed to do the first two dead-of-night incursions.
Day three was Interstate 70, which I ran quite a bit back in my truck driving days and my bus-riding days. It runs all the way to Baltimore, my point of origin. Today, however, we only ran it as far as Columbus, OH. The memorable part of the trip was in Indiana when we broke out the CD player. While I went into a grocery store, Carmen tried to get the player up and running. She discovered that there were no batteries in it, which made it dysfunctional. She called my cellular phone, which I was turning on on my way back to the car in the rain. She heard her message at the same time I did.
The hotel in Columbus was right beside some major athletic field where high school kids from all over Ohio were gathered to compete in various sports. There was no peace at any place at any time in that hotel. Friday morning was our earliest departure of the trip.
We had an ongoing argument with Hermione from the time we exited the parking lot of the hotel until we were settled into the mainstream of Interstate 71 many miles north of Columbus. I never really figured out how she wanted us to go, but evidently once we got going on 71 she was okay with it. I think she still wanted to go back to Massachusetts, and 71 was an acceptable compromise route. It was raining as we drove through northeastern Ohio, and rained all the way to Meadville, where we stopped at the Real Estate office for our keys before driving the final few blocks home.
Home. Wow, that sounds good!
Friday, May 7, 2010
VERY LARGE ! ! !
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010 - a date which will live in infunny: intern and acting associate minister for the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque, Carmen, was given the task of driving to Socorro, NM to make a personal appearance at the branch congregation there. Of course, she took me, her navigator / photographer / purse watcher along to navigate, photograph and watch. The senior minister told her to be sure to see "THE VERY LARGE ARRAY" at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory while in the neighborhood.
We were both kind of excited at the prospect. We'd seen the movie Contact, with the radio telescopes looking like satellite dishes spread across the New Mexico desert. Carmen told her friend Karen, "There are hundreds and hundreds of these huge dishes spread across acres and acres of desert!" We left Albuquerque early enough to drive 70 miles, find the church, eat breakfast and go see the Array, with plenty of time to return to Socorro for the 4:00pm service (they rent space at an Episcopal Church, and those folks are out of the way by 3:30.)
The trip down was unremarkable with the exception that it was very windy. We gassed up before we set out for an hour and a quarter of driving in light traffic. Our directions took us right to the church, we ate breakfast at a nearby Denny's and got ready to head west to THE ARRAY. The camera was ready. I pulled out the GPS to input our destination. I typed in Very Large Array - she never heard of it. I typed in National Radio Astronomy Observatory - she never heard of it. I tried VLA (as it was called on a few signs) and NRAO (on a few more) with no luck. It appeared we were stuck with my Rand McNally Road Atlas for navigation - how twentieth century!!!
As a tribute to my theory that computers are making us stupid, we made a wrong turn and ended up going fifteen miles out of our way before we found the right road out of Socorro (the big city!) The first sign we saw said "VLA - 44 Miles" It didn't say that it was uphill all the way. I don't know how much elevation we gained on that drive, but I do know that we used nearly a half tank of gas going up there. The surrounding mountains were gorgeous, even when they were partially obscured by clouds of dust stirred up by the spring winds. There was a tiny little sign with an arrow pointing south off of Route 60 to VLA. It was a tiny little road, hardly adequate to handle the millions of visitors they would get if it were locatable by GPS.
Far off in the distance we could see about ten dishes sitting out in the middle of nothing. "That isn't the Very Large Array," Carmen said questioningly. "Oh no," I replied. "It must be just a few to whet your appetite for the immense spectacle that awaits beyond." We drove and drove, made a right turn onto the property of the observatory and headed for the Visitor's Center. Carmen stayed in the car while I went inside to find out what we had to do, where we had to go to see the Array. There was a little display with post cards and maps of the walking tour for 25 cents each and a slot to drop your quarters into. I did a little reading: "The VLA consists of 27 dish-shaped antennas that are connected together to form a single large radio telescope..."
"See that Array over there?" I said, pointing to the ten. "That's as Very Large as it gets. Yes, they're spread out over many square miles, but there are only twenty seven of them. I guess we saw pictures of large clusters of dishes, heard about hundreds of square miles, and assumed the rest." "Well, the church is paying mileage for me to drive my sorry butt all the way up here for this!" she said. We realized as we left that the terms "Very Large Array" and "Very Large" anything would thenceforth mean a great expectation followed by a puny reality.
The good news: gas consumption was much less on the way back down to Socorro.
We were both kind of excited at the prospect. We'd seen the movie Contact, with the radio telescopes looking like satellite dishes spread across the New Mexico desert. Carmen told her friend Karen, "There are hundreds and hundreds of these huge dishes spread across acres and acres of desert!" We left Albuquerque early enough to drive 70 miles, find the church, eat breakfast and go see the Array, with plenty of time to return to Socorro for the 4:00pm service (they rent space at an Episcopal Church, and those folks are out of the way by 3:30.)
The trip down was unremarkable with the exception that it was very windy. We gassed up before we set out for an hour and a quarter of driving in light traffic. Our directions took us right to the church, we ate breakfast at a nearby Denny's and got ready to head west to THE ARRAY. The camera was ready. I pulled out the GPS to input our destination. I typed in Very Large Array - she never heard of it. I typed in National Radio Astronomy Observatory - she never heard of it. I tried VLA (as it was called on a few signs) and NRAO (on a few more) with no luck. It appeared we were stuck with my Rand McNally Road Atlas for navigation - how twentieth century!!!
As a tribute to my theory that computers are making us stupid, we made a wrong turn and ended up going fifteen miles out of our way before we found the right road out of Socorro (the big city!) The first sign we saw said "VLA - 44 Miles" It didn't say that it was uphill all the way. I don't know how much elevation we gained on that drive, but I do know that we used nearly a half tank of gas going up there. The surrounding mountains were gorgeous, even when they were partially obscured by clouds of dust stirred up by the spring winds. There was a tiny little sign with an arrow pointing south off of Route 60 to VLA. It was a tiny little road, hardly adequate to handle the millions of visitors they would get if it were locatable by GPS.
Far off in the distance we could see about ten dishes sitting out in the middle of nothing. "That isn't the Very Large Array," Carmen said questioningly. "Oh no," I replied. "It must be just a few to whet your appetite for the immense spectacle that awaits beyond." We drove and drove, made a right turn onto the property of the observatory and headed for the Visitor's Center. Carmen stayed in the car while I went inside to find out what we had to do, where we had to go to see the Array. There was a little display with post cards and maps of the walking tour for 25 cents each and a slot to drop your quarters into. I did a little reading: "The VLA consists of 27 dish-shaped antennas that are connected together to form a single large radio telescope..."
"See that Array over there?" I said, pointing to the ten. "That's as Very Large as it gets. Yes, they're spread out over many square miles, but there are only twenty seven of them. I guess we saw pictures of large clusters of dishes, heard about hundreds of square miles, and assumed the rest." "Well, the church is paying mileage for me to drive my sorry butt all the way up here for this!" she said. We realized as we left that the terms "Very Large Array" and "Very Large" anything would thenceforth mean a great expectation followed by a puny reality.
The good news: gas consumption was much less on the way back down to Socorro.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Joy In Meadville
Friday, April 9th, 2010 - at 4:00am we pulled the old Rav4 out of the garage. Not much traffic in Abq at that time of the morning, so we arrived at the airport in record time for our 6:00 flight. We wanted "Long Term Parking," which we thought was just a matter of which automatic ticket lane you chose going into the garage. Upon closer inspection, after getting our automatic ticket, we noticed the concrete barrier that funnels "Long Termers" out to the outside parking lot beside the garage. Oh well, it saves about three bucks a day over "Short Term," and we were committed anyway.
It was a much longer haul than usual for our five bags - including the biggest suitcase I've ever seen, just purchased the night before. Carmen had over twenty events on her Meadville candidating itinerary, and looking good for each was/is important (she's still there with four days to go as I write this) and I was included in six events on Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday and Tuesday. House shopping was also built into the week. Suffice it to say that we needed a lot of nice clothes and some more casual clothes to navigate our time in Meadville. Rolling our stuff across the whole width of the parking garage ground floor was an unexpected pain in our butts.
The next pain was the ticketing check-in. Our paperwork said to check in at USAir. The computer kiosk wouldn't work for us, and when the humans tried to access our info, they never heard of us. Finally it was determined that our first carrier was really United and THEY had our info. This turned out to be true. Of course, checking bags is now a luxury item, especially when the biggest suitcase in the universe weighs 56 pounds. So we shuffled some shoes and jackets to the three other cases until Giganto was down to 50.0 pounds.
Security was surprisingly easy. My hearing aids didn't make any trouble. The carry-on with the camera, GPS, chargers, surge protector and miscellaneous other electronics went through unchallenged. The "geezer bag" with my hearing aid case, spare trifocals, vitamins, anti-coagulants and compression stockings made it through with no problem.
Ahn, my finger-poker at the UNM Hospital Coumadin Clinuc, told me to drink lots of water and walk around the cabin frequently during the trip. So I brought my own water with me and asked for water during the beverage service between Abq and Denver. There never was a time when the aisle was clear for walking unless the seatbelt sign was on. From Denver to Cleveland we actually got sandwiches with our water, and I managed one quick romp from one end of Economy Class to the other! The "puddle jumper" from Cleveland to Erie wasn't in the air long enough to even get a drink of water, and getting to the plane was a dead run from one end of the Cleveland airport to the other, down the escalator, up the escalator, out the door, down the steps, across the tarmac in the snowy weather, up the airplane steps and crammed into a sardine can, so I had my "walk" beforehand. Other than that it was a very pleasant experience.
Erie International Airport services puddle jumpers to Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto and Pittsburgh. The up side to this tiny airport is that the car rental agencies have their cars right there, fifty feet from the terminal. I waited outside in the snowing weather with our brood of luggage while Carmen dashed out to the lot and fired up the Nissan Versa. The trunk was big enough to hold everything! We pulled Hermione, our GPS, out of the electronics bag, and were on our way to Meadville, about 35 miles south.
We stayed (Carmen is still there) at the house of an absent friend of a church person. It's an old brick duplex apartment with a drive-in basement, a living room and kitchen on the ground floor, two bedrooms and a bath on the second floor and another bedroom in the attic. The first thing we learned about it was that the front door hinge screws were pulling out of the frame. The second was that it is full of antique treasures and fragile knick knacks. As Carmen says, it's the kind of place where you need to put a coaster under your coaster. Cat toys and scratching posts everywhere. There is one chair in the living room that is dainty and frail looking and surrounded by fragile fru-frus - that is where I always wanted to sit and wave my arms around willy nilly. The water pressure could barely qualify as pressure, the shower head is about five feet high, and the water heater has trouble keeping up. Boy am I glad to be home.
About a half hour after our arrival at the duplex, we were picked up for our first event, dinner with the search committee - the people responsible for choosing the candidate for the next settled minister - and their spouses. It was a lovely evening.
Saturday morning Leslie, our real estate connection, picked us up for a day of power house shopping. We looked at eight or nine possibilities, most of which did not ring our chimes. Most required quite a bit of work to make them our happy home. One was really excellent until we got to the back yard, where the retaining wall was crumbling and falling down. The last one we looked at before lunch was our second choice in our online previews. It became our first choice. The location - five blocks from the church on Chestnut Street - and the excellent condition sold us. After lunch Carmen went back to the duplex to polish her sermon and I continued on with Leslie to look at two more unacceptable houses before returning to her office to start up paperwork for a contract making an offer on the Chestnut Street house. That finished, I brought the contract home for Carmen to sign, and the game was afoot.
That done, we showered and changed for our dinner at Mary's house. A few more church people were there, and Janellen, a chaplain at Meadville's own Allegheny College. It was a lovely evening.
Sunday morning was Carmen's first encounter with the congregation at large. A big crowd came to meet the candidate (and her husband) and to hear her first sermon in Meadville. She had a meeting with the youth group while I was being courted for the choir, building maintenance, set construction for the community theatre and my justly famous corn casserole (thank you, Karen!) In the afternoon we attended a four-hour open house at the beautiful home of the church matriarch, Mirriam. It was a lovely evening. After that we took our first opportunity to buy groceries, went home and collapsed. Leslie called with the counter-offer from the sellers, and we countered that before we went to bed.
Monday was office hours at the church for Carmen, and walking around town for me. I found everything I was looking for: the Walgreen's, the downtown grocery store, the hearing aid place, the bus station and the downtown bus shelter with the transit map. Yes, Meadville has a small transit system! Back at the duplex, Carmen called to say that we got the house and I should get together with Leslie while Rev. Emerson did her nursing home visits. So I walked back downtown to the real estate office and we made the appropriate changes to the contract. "What home inspector do you want to use?" she asked. "I don't know. Somebody local who can do it tomorrow." We picked out two local companies. Leslie went to the reception desk to ask the receptionist to call them - but one of them was standing right there. "Can you do an inspection for me tomorrow?" she asked the tall black man at the counter. "No, I'm booked up tomorrow. But I can do it tonight." So I took the amended contract home for Carmen to initial the changed pages and sign before her Worship Committee meeting, and at 5:30 met the inspector at the house to measure rooms and walls while Paul inspected. I handed the contract pages over to the sellers - who still live there - and was home by 7:30. Wow.
Tuesday was my "geezer lunch" with some guys who could get to Montana Chops and Ribs (or is it Ribs and Chops?) at lunchtime. Mike came all the way from Tionesta to pick me up and haul me there. I met Cassandra, the GPS built into his Lexus. There were six of us, and I think one was younger than I. Rick is about a year older. The rest were WAY older. But we had a nice lunch. It's good to feel like a youngun sometimes, especially after years of being the old guy at work and nine months of age discrimination during my job search.
After lunch I walked to the real estate office for a copy of the inspection report. It didn't include the leaking tub faucet. Carmen called Paul and got an amendment going, then called Leslie and got an amended contract going. The new plan was for me to stop by the office on my way out of town on Wednesday to sign these new documents before I left.
Tuesday evening was dinner with the Board. Our neighbor next door to the Chestnut Street house was there. She's on the church Board and the Meadville City Council. She loves cats, and her husband is allergic. She wants to be our cat sitter when we go away. Assuming we a) are called by the congregation on Sunday the 18th and b) close the house deal successfully. Anyway, the food was good, the president's cat was beautiful, and it was a lovely evening.
Wednesday, April 14th was a crazy day. The easy part was going to the church for Carmen's office hours. I helped her carry her stuff in, then we said our bye byes. I walked the four blocks to the real estate office and signed the contract amendment page, then walked back to the Versa and fired it up. I remembered how to get to Interstate 79, and drove north toward Erie, expecting to arrive at about 10:00 for my 1:30 flight to Cleveland. The car was due back at 11:00, freshly filled with gas. Well, there was some nasty construction at the end of 79 and I ended up going the wrong way on 12th Street. I looked for a gas station as I looked for a place to turn around. Turning around, gasless, I was in the wrong lane and ended up going south on 79. I exited and came back around for another lap. Was this Boston?
This time I exited correctly, found a gas station and parked in the rental car return zone. The agent was very happy that I was a half hour early. Not much going on at Erie International Airport. That taken care of, I wended my way to the Continental desk to check my two bags. I would have to check the smaller one on the puddle jumper anyway, so I decided to check it all the way. My ticket agent was very nice. The flight to Cleveland was oversold, so she was able to put me on a Delta schedule through Detroit and Minneapolis upgraded to First Class so that my upgrade and two checked bags were free! I like that.
The Detroit plane loaded on time, but was delayed for take off for thirty minutes so that I had to haul butt from Terminal C to Terminal A to make the flight to Minneapolis. I was glad not to have a carry-on bag to haul along with my butt. First Class was very cool. The flight attendant hung my jacket in the closet, and kept the water and ice flowing. Ahn would have been proud. I also had a banana and a package of biscotti. I know from personal experience that the sardines packed in back in Economy were envious.
In Minneapolis I had to haul my jacket from A to G, but I had time to purchase and pound down a Double Whopper on the way. Little did I know that a real meal was being served in First Class on the three hour flight to Albuquerque. My southwest chicken salad was very good, with bread sticks, fruit and a brownie for dessert. My flight attendant poured me at least seven glasses of water. I had to use the facilities twice on the plane and once in ABQ Sunport.
We landed at about 7:30 Mountain Time, about twelve hours after I drove out of Meadville. My luggage came through just fine, I found the Rav4 just fine, drove it home just fine, and it was a lovely evening with Remus J. Lupin and my little blind girl.
It was a much longer haul than usual for our five bags - including the biggest suitcase I've ever seen, just purchased the night before. Carmen had over twenty events on her Meadville candidating itinerary, and looking good for each was/is important (she's still there with four days to go as I write this) and I was included in six events on Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday and Tuesday. House shopping was also built into the week. Suffice it to say that we needed a lot of nice clothes and some more casual clothes to navigate our time in Meadville. Rolling our stuff across the whole width of the parking garage ground floor was an unexpected pain in our butts.
The next pain was the ticketing check-in. Our paperwork said to check in at USAir. The computer kiosk wouldn't work for us, and when the humans tried to access our info, they never heard of us. Finally it was determined that our first carrier was really United and THEY had our info. This turned out to be true. Of course, checking bags is now a luxury item, especially when the biggest suitcase in the universe weighs 56 pounds. So we shuffled some shoes and jackets to the three other cases until Giganto was down to 50.0 pounds.
Security was surprisingly easy. My hearing aids didn't make any trouble. The carry-on with the camera, GPS, chargers, surge protector and miscellaneous other electronics went through unchallenged. The "geezer bag" with my hearing aid case, spare trifocals, vitamins, anti-coagulants and compression stockings made it through with no problem.
Ahn, my finger-poker at the UNM Hospital Coumadin Clinuc, told me to drink lots of water and walk around the cabin frequently during the trip. So I brought my own water with me and asked for water during the beverage service between Abq and Denver. There never was a time when the aisle was clear for walking unless the seatbelt sign was on. From Denver to Cleveland we actually got sandwiches with our water, and I managed one quick romp from one end of Economy Class to the other! The "puddle jumper" from Cleveland to Erie wasn't in the air long enough to even get a drink of water, and getting to the plane was a dead run from one end of the Cleveland airport to the other, down the escalator, up the escalator, out the door, down the steps, across the tarmac in the snowy weather, up the airplane steps and crammed into a sardine can, so I had my "walk" beforehand. Other than that it was a very pleasant experience.
Erie International Airport services puddle jumpers to Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto and Pittsburgh. The up side to this tiny airport is that the car rental agencies have their cars right there, fifty feet from the terminal. I waited outside in the snowing weather with our brood of luggage while Carmen dashed out to the lot and fired up the Nissan Versa. The trunk was big enough to hold everything! We pulled Hermione, our GPS, out of the electronics bag, and were on our way to Meadville, about 35 miles south.
We stayed (Carmen is still there) at the house of an absent friend of a church person. It's an old brick duplex apartment with a drive-in basement, a living room and kitchen on the ground floor, two bedrooms and a bath on the second floor and another bedroom in the attic. The first thing we learned about it was that the front door hinge screws were pulling out of the frame. The second was that it is full of antique treasures and fragile knick knacks. As Carmen says, it's the kind of place where you need to put a coaster under your coaster. Cat toys and scratching posts everywhere. There is one chair in the living room that is dainty and frail looking and surrounded by fragile fru-frus - that is where I always wanted to sit and wave my arms around willy nilly. The water pressure could barely qualify as pressure, the shower head is about five feet high, and the water heater has trouble keeping up. Boy am I glad to be home.
About a half hour after our arrival at the duplex, we were picked up for our first event, dinner with the search committee - the people responsible for choosing the candidate for the next settled minister - and their spouses. It was a lovely evening.
Saturday morning Leslie, our real estate connection, picked us up for a day of power house shopping. We looked at eight or nine possibilities, most of which did not ring our chimes. Most required quite a bit of work to make them our happy home. One was really excellent until we got to the back yard, where the retaining wall was crumbling and falling down. The last one we looked at before lunch was our second choice in our online previews. It became our first choice. The location - five blocks from the church on Chestnut Street - and the excellent condition sold us. After lunch Carmen went back to the duplex to polish her sermon and I continued on with Leslie to look at two more unacceptable houses before returning to her office to start up paperwork for a contract making an offer on the Chestnut Street house. That finished, I brought the contract home for Carmen to sign, and the game was afoot.
That done, we showered and changed for our dinner at Mary's house. A few more church people were there, and Janellen, a chaplain at Meadville's own Allegheny College. It was a lovely evening.
Sunday morning was Carmen's first encounter with the congregation at large. A big crowd came to meet the candidate (and her husband) and to hear her first sermon in Meadville. She had a meeting with the youth group while I was being courted for the choir, building maintenance, set construction for the community theatre and my justly famous corn casserole (thank you, Karen!) In the afternoon we attended a four-hour open house at the beautiful home of the church matriarch, Mirriam. It was a lovely evening. After that we took our first opportunity to buy groceries, went home and collapsed. Leslie called with the counter-offer from the sellers, and we countered that before we went to bed.
Monday was office hours at the church for Carmen, and walking around town for me. I found everything I was looking for: the Walgreen's, the downtown grocery store, the hearing aid place, the bus station and the downtown bus shelter with the transit map. Yes, Meadville has a small transit system! Back at the duplex, Carmen called to say that we got the house and I should get together with Leslie while Rev. Emerson did her nursing home visits. So I walked back downtown to the real estate office and we made the appropriate changes to the contract. "What home inspector do you want to use?" she asked. "I don't know. Somebody local who can do it tomorrow." We picked out two local companies. Leslie went to the reception desk to ask the receptionist to call them - but one of them was standing right there. "Can you do an inspection for me tomorrow?" she asked the tall black man at the counter. "No, I'm booked up tomorrow. But I can do it tonight." So I took the amended contract home for Carmen to initial the changed pages and sign before her Worship Committee meeting, and at 5:30 met the inspector at the house to measure rooms and walls while Paul inspected. I handed the contract pages over to the sellers - who still live there - and was home by 7:30. Wow.
Tuesday was my "geezer lunch" with some guys who could get to Montana Chops and Ribs (or is it Ribs and Chops?) at lunchtime. Mike came all the way from Tionesta to pick me up and haul me there. I met Cassandra, the GPS built into his Lexus. There were six of us, and I think one was younger than I. Rick is about a year older. The rest were WAY older. But we had a nice lunch. It's good to feel like a youngun sometimes, especially after years of being the old guy at work and nine months of age discrimination during my job search.
After lunch I walked to the real estate office for a copy of the inspection report. It didn't include the leaking tub faucet. Carmen called Paul and got an amendment going, then called Leslie and got an amended contract going. The new plan was for me to stop by the office on my way out of town on Wednesday to sign these new documents before I left.
Tuesday evening was dinner with the Board. Our neighbor next door to the Chestnut Street house was there. She's on the church Board and the Meadville City Council. She loves cats, and her husband is allergic. She wants to be our cat sitter when we go away. Assuming we a) are called by the congregation on Sunday the 18th and b) close the house deal successfully. Anyway, the food was good, the president's cat was beautiful, and it was a lovely evening.
Wednesday, April 14th was a crazy day. The easy part was going to the church for Carmen's office hours. I helped her carry her stuff in, then we said our bye byes. I walked the four blocks to the real estate office and signed the contract amendment page, then walked back to the Versa and fired it up. I remembered how to get to Interstate 79, and drove north toward Erie, expecting to arrive at about 10:00 for my 1:30 flight to Cleveland. The car was due back at 11:00, freshly filled with gas. Well, there was some nasty construction at the end of 79 and I ended up going the wrong way on 12th Street. I looked for a gas station as I looked for a place to turn around. Turning around, gasless, I was in the wrong lane and ended up going south on 79. I exited and came back around for another lap. Was this Boston?
This time I exited correctly, found a gas station and parked in the rental car return zone. The agent was very happy that I was a half hour early. Not much going on at Erie International Airport. That taken care of, I wended my way to the Continental desk to check my two bags. I would have to check the smaller one on the puddle jumper anyway, so I decided to check it all the way. My ticket agent was very nice. The flight to Cleveland was oversold, so she was able to put me on a Delta schedule through Detroit and Minneapolis upgraded to First Class so that my upgrade and two checked bags were free! I like that.
The Detroit plane loaded on time, but was delayed for take off for thirty minutes so that I had to haul butt from Terminal C to Terminal A to make the flight to Minneapolis. I was glad not to have a carry-on bag to haul along with my butt. First Class was very cool. The flight attendant hung my jacket in the closet, and kept the water and ice flowing. Ahn would have been proud. I also had a banana and a package of biscotti. I know from personal experience that the sardines packed in back in Economy were envious.
In Minneapolis I had to haul my jacket from A to G, but I had time to purchase and pound down a Double Whopper on the way. Little did I know that a real meal was being served in First Class on the three hour flight to Albuquerque. My southwest chicken salad was very good, with bread sticks, fruit and a brownie for dessert. My flight attendant poured me at least seven glasses of water. I had to use the facilities twice on the plane and once in ABQ Sunport.
We landed at about 7:30 Mountain Time, about twelve hours after I drove out of Meadville. My luggage came through just fine, I found the Rav4 just fine, drove it home just fine, and it was a lovely evening with Remus J. Lupin and my little blind girl.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Hermione
We named our Garmin GPS Hermione. She has a British accent and she thinks she knows everything. It was a short leap.
Last summer the first thing I did after the pink-haired texting teenager left was to take a list of museums and production companies, a pile of resumes and my newest home-printed business cards on the road, guided by Hermione. I was still very unsure of Albuquerque's layout, and under Hermione's care, didn't even need to try to learn it. So, one by one, I entered addresses and followed directions to faraway places. There were two conditions I encountered: either the place was out of business, or it handled only online applications. After I finished the list, I told Hermione to guide me home. She guided me to Interstate 40 eastbound and said, "Drive four hundred thirty five miles and exit right. I exited onto Wyoming Avenue and reprogrammed her to our new home in Albuquerque.
Yesterday, after our Easter dinner with Carmen's Intern Committee chair and her family, we switched on Hermione and told her to take us home. She was very upset when we refused to make all the right turns she suggested, which we knew would take us out of our way. Finally, I took her in hand and looked at her trip info. Once again she was trying to take us home to Massachusetts. I guess I never actually explained to her that our new address was also our new home. Or maybe she just wants to go back to Watertown. I reckon we'll never know.
Last summer the first thing I did after the pink-haired texting teenager left was to take a list of museums and production companies, a pile of resumes and my newest home-printed business cards on the road, guided by Hermione. I was still very unsure of Albuquerque's layout, and under Hermione's care, didn't even need to try to learn it. So, one by one, I entered addresses and followed directions to faraway places. There were two conditions I encountered: either the place was out of business, or it handled only online applications. After I finished the list, I told Hermione to guide me home. She guided me to Interstate 40 eastbound and said, "Drive four hundred thirty five miles and exit right. I exited onto Wyoming Avenue and reprogrammed her to our new home in Albuquerque.
Yesterday, after our Easter dinner with Carmen's Intern Committee chair and her family, we switched on Hermione and told her to take us home. She was very upset when we refused to make all the right turns she suggested, which we knew would take us out of our way. Finally, I took her in hand and looked at her trip info. Once again she was trying to take us home to Massachusetts. I guess I never actually explained to her that our new address was also our new home. Or maybe she just wants to go back to Watertown. I reckon we'll never know.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Three And A Half Weeks
Here I am, right in the middle of a long dry spell. Three and a half weeks ago I finished "Two Weeks And Two Days With Two Cats," and in three and a half weeks we fly to Meadville, Pennsylvania to meet and greet the congregation. Our interaction so far has been with search committees and a few associated ministers. I'm sure there will be a story or two involved with the three-flight travel each way to and from Erie, and the scouting of Meadville.
It bugs me every time I go to one of my blog sites and it says how long it has been since I last posted on each one. That is why I'm here today. I am not here to tell you about yesterday, when I caught the 7:20 #2 bus south on Ventura, east on Academy and south on Eubank to Central Avenue(Historic Route 66) where I caught the #66 toward the theatre, but got off at the Alvarado Transportation Center downtown and took a picture of a store called "The Gizmo Store" to email to a friend in Massachusetts who works as a professional gizmologist (my terminology) before walking from there to the theatre and finding nobody there, waiting an hour then catching an eastbound Rapid Ride to Louisiana Avenue where I took a picture of a wacky Vietnamese restaurant then caught a #66 east on 66 to Home Depot and Sam's, then a #2 home. I mean, what would be the point in telling you that other than to update this blog beyond "Three Weeks Ago?" That would just be crazy.
It bugs me every time I go to one of my blog sites and it says how long it has been since I last posted on each one. That is why I'm here today. I am not here to tell you about yesterday, when I caught the 7:20 #2 bus south on Ventura, east on Academy and south on Eubank to Central Avenue(Historic Route 66) where I caught the #66 toward the theatre, but got off at the Alvarado Transportation Center downtown and took a picture of a store called "The Gizmo Store" to email to a friend in Massachusetts who works as a professional gizmologist (my terminology) before walking from there to the theatre and finding nobody there, waiting an hour then catching an eastbound Rapid Ride to Louisiana Avenue where I took a picture of a wacky Vietnamese restaurant then caught a #66 east on 66 to Home Depot and Sam's, then a #2 home. I mean, what would be the point in telling you that other than to update this blog beyond "Three Weeks Ago?" That would just be crazy.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Two Weeks And Two Days With Two Cats
Two weeks! I must have said it five or six times. Two weeks on the road with two cats in late June and early July driving from Massachusetts through the South visiting my parents in Blairsville, Georgia and her family in east Texas on our way to Albuquerque just sounded like a bad idea. Dovetailing with this plan, however, was a good solution to the timing problem involved with a two-week road trip: PODS - Portable On Demand Storage. We had two sixteen foot PODS delivered to our driveway. We loaded them ourselves over five days, then the trucks came as we were putting the lock on the first one and stuffing the last of the stuff into the second one. They were hauled to Albuquerque, where they would await our call for delivery. Perfect.
Carmen had flown to Albuquerque the day after her graduation from Andover Newton, made arrangements to rent a house during her internship there, and brought back a key to the place, as well as lots of pictures of it.
I'll spare you the details of our packing and moving stuff. Suffice it to say that our Freecycle account got a major workout, and still we left behind about three pickup truck loads of stuff for our landlord and their handy man to deal with. Carmen at the wheel, where she would stay for the entire trip, we pulled out of the driveway in Watertown at noon on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009, four years and two hours after Carmen had pulled into the driveway in Belmont, Mass. We stopped at a sub shop for lunch to take with us, and made for the Mass Pike, serenaded by two howling kitties. Two hours later we gassed up in Sturbridge, brought the cats up front to hang out with us, and headed out on Interstate 84. Territories were established. Yinny Yin Yin hung out between us on the shift console, and Remus J. Lupin dove down between my feet. This was pretty much the configuration for the entire seven days we would all be in the car together.
We barrelled ass through Connecticut and that ninety or so miles of New York on the way to Pennsylvania, narrowly missing New Jersey. Once in Pennsylvania I got on the phone to Choice Hotels and lined us up a pet friendly room at a Quality Inn near Scranton. This motel was nice enough, but the best part was the little hole-in-the-wall mom and pop Italian restaurant in the strip shopping center across the street. After an excellent dinner we went next door to the Dollar Store, where we found a Moses action figure for Carmen's altar, and a tiny hand broom and dust pan for our kitty litter clean up in the motel room. We (I) needed it!
We left pretty early Thursday morning, kitties in their carriers and snack bag handy. Carmen decided that today was a good day to start listening to the borrowed lecture CDs about Islam. I set up the new technology bought for the occasion, a device that transmits your separate device's output to a blank channel on your car radio. It works great until you near a city where that blank frequency isn't blank any more. I was drafted to take notes as well as to pause the lecture when discussion or clarification was called for, and to change discs and radio frequencies when necessary. This took us through Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia and into Virginia, where we stopped for gas and lunch. Time to put away the technology and bring the kitties out of exile. We parked in the shade, set up a litter box on my side, put down a small dish of water, and we went inside the fast food joint for gut bombs and rest room action.
When we returned we found the water spilled, litter on the floor and Miss Yinny Yin Yin camped out among the pedals on Carmen's side. I carefully opened the passenger door and grabbed ReLu, handed him to Carmen, removed the litter box to the special resting place on top of the carriers in back, got back in the car, took ReLu from Carmen, and he dove to his spot on the floor. Carmen opened her side, grabbed Yin, handed her to me, strapped herself in, and we were ready to go again.
We spent the night near Roanoke in a somewhat seedier motel next door to a Shoney's, where we ate for old times' sake - we hadn't seen a Shoney's in four years. The next morning we gassed up and got ready for the final push to Blairsville, Georgia. We did some more Islam lecture listening before gas and lunch in Greenville, South Carolina, then did the kitty shuffle to tide us through the afternoon. We were getting pretty durn good at the kitty shuffle by now, just in time to spend a week at the "cabin" in the mountains of north Georgia.
We exited Interstate 85 onto US 76, which winds through the mountains all the way to Blairsville and beyond. We didn't need gas yet. We drove on past Clemson, Seneca and Westminster, South Carolina. We entered Georgia. For some unknown reason, we didn't get gas in Clayton - maybe because we didn't know that the next thirty five miles would be a gas-guzzling roller coaster ride with no gas available until Hiawassee. We were white-knuckling it for the last ten, hoping not to run out in the wilderness. We didn't. We pulled into the first gas station in Hiawassee and filled 'er up. Plenty of gas to get to Blairsville.
It was a pleasant week with my parents. We talked and laughed, went grocery shopping and "cabin" carpet shopping, ate at some of North Georgia's finest restaurants, and watched the flying squirrels eat sunflower seeds from the squirrel-proof feeder in the dead of night. Fun stuff.
We left on the morning of the 4th of July. Our plan was to NOT be in Crosby, Texas on the 4th of July, and this plan accomplished that goal. We headed south, around the west side of Atlanta and on into Alabama on Interstate 85. Carmen was nervous about driving a ferrin Toyota with Massachusetts tags through the deep South, but the biggest excitement of the day was in southern Alabama, where a rock from a dump truck ahead of us bounced off the highway and cracked the windshield. Carmen's nervousness about this did not abate when we drove into a horrendous nasty thunderstorm in Mississippi. We felt as if we were back in Florida again, in tropical weather. We pulled into a motel near Biloxi, got a room and the four of us hunkered down to wait out the storm. First the cable TV went out, then the power went out, and we were stuck in the dark in the horrendous heat. But the best part: the bathroom ceiling was cracked and crumbled and looked as if it would fall in at any moment. This was not a restful stay, especially after the storm ended and the locals started up their fireworks.
July 5th was a better day. We plowed on through Mississippi and Louisiana, gassed up and had lunch at the Cracker Barrel near Lake Charles, then hung with the kitties and headed down the home stretch to Crosby, Texas.
We were issued a room with a faulty latch on one of the two doors, and a house full of peeps who were not at all accustomed to having cats around. Cat feeding time is a delicate arrangement involving two separate rooms and one of them quiet enough for our little blind girl to be calm enough to eat, while Remus cries and tries to get to her feeding place. The bathroom that was Remus Lupin's feeding station had three doors, one of them with the aforementioned latch (which I fixed very soon after our arrival) and the other two opened and left open randomly by the aforementioned peeps. There was a cage of birds in the living room which were made no less attractive to ReLu by moving them up to the loft. And the serenity factor was totally absent unless everyone was asleep. Even when all but one was asleep, that one, Carmen's sister, climbed up on a glass-topped coffee table and crashed through, leaving a horrendous gouge in her leg and blood everywhere. Our three days in Crosby were not as serene as the seven in Georgia. But we had some fun. We shopped at Walmart, Sandra and I went for hearing tests, and we got our windshield replaced. The Wednesday that was our last day in Crosby we had a cookout in the ninety some degree heat, and we ate inside in the air conditioning.
Thursday morning we packed the car back to its former state with one major exception: the back seat was left open for Carmen's thirteen year old niece Brittany to ride with us to Albuquerque. She was to help us unload the PODS and get a taste of life outside of the Crosby Circus. She had her text-friendly cell phone and her portable DVD player, so she was good to go. We wended out way through Texas on those long straight roads until we got to Interstate 45, then it was on through Dallas, with gas and lunch on the far side. Then on north on Interstate 35 in mounting traffic toward Oklahoma City.
I called my Choice Hotels connection again, and we figured out a pet friendly reservation in Oklahoma City, where it was now one hundred five degrees with as much humidity as you could ever want and then some. The guy gave me directions to the hotel, and in the thick of rush hour traffic, we found that the exit we were told to take was closed. We exited at our next opportunity. I called the hotel and asked for the address while Carmen was busy firing up the Garmin GPS. After another half hour of battling our way through traffic ans stiffling heat, we made it to the hotel. The pet friendly rooms were on the third floor.The air conditioner was simply not up to it. By 6:00 in the morning when we were packing up to leave, the room had almost cooled down. We got out of there as fast as we could.
The Garmin was now programmed with our address in Albuquerque. She guided us out of the hotel, to Interstate 35 south and onto Interstate 40 west. Then she said, "Drive four hundred thirty seven miles and exit right." Across western Oklahoma, across the Texas panhandle and into New Mexico we went. We tried to point out interesting stuff to Brittany, but she had never heard of Roger Miller or Historic Route 66. She was much more interested in texting her friends, "Whatcha doin?"
We were getting pretty hungry as we entered New Mexico. We all agreed that the Dairy Queen in Tucumcari, advertised on billboards for many miles, sounded like a good place to get some lunch. We took the exit and followed the signs, mouths-a-watering. We arrived at the place only to find hundreds of motorcycles parked in the lot and hundreds of unsavory-looking humans crowding the building. We moved on. The snack bag was getting mighty low, and it got lower. Horses headed for the barn is what we were. We plowed ahead three more hours and finally achieved Albuquerque. Ms. Garmin told us to exit onto Wyoming Avenue, guided us to Academy Road and Ventura Blvd., Freedom Way and DeVargas Loop, to Bent Road and all the way to number 9516. At last, the trip was over!
We set up the litter box in the shower in the master bedroom, put out dry food and water, turned on the AC and went out in search of something to eat. Garmin tried to help us with that, but we ended up finding a little hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant without her help. Then we went to the Walmart and Smith's Grocery Store near the house and stocked up on some necessary items.
The ensuing week was one of discovery, work and frustration. Our cellular phone service worked perfectly everywhere but in or around the house. Our land line with DSL would not be installed until Tuesday. The PODS people kept trying to call us to schedule delivery but couldn't get through. If we called them we had to have account numbers and passwords ready in a spot where the phones worked. Carmen finally borrowed Brittany's super duper phone and got everything straightened out. POD 1 arrived Monday morning, traded out for POD 2 on Wednesday.
Once my stainless steel shelving was here I began my early morning routine with feeding kitties, making coffee, eating breakfast and assembling shelf units. When we saw that there was space on the two-car garage for two more sets, we went to Sam's and bought a membership and two more sets of shelves. Now both sides of the garage are lined with shelves, and one car space is piled with stuff. Moving in July will be much easier than last year.
Brittany helped us unload the PODS as much as she could with one hand tied to her phone ("Whatcha doin?") and she still had no clue about closing doors to prevent cats or air conditioning escaping the house. Still, she helped unload and carry stuff in. So we all took the Sandia Peak Aerial Tramway to the top of the Sandias one afternoon, we went to Old Town for supper and souvenir shopping one evening, and we went to the Family Fun Center for go-carts, bumper boats and putt putt golf on the night before she flew back to Houston. It was fun, but we were all glad to have it over.
So we got our phones and computers fired up, and I began dilligently searching for a job. I am still searching, although I have had a few things going on. I've been an extra now on all three TV shows filmed in Albuquerque. I built most of the scenery for Albuquerque Little Theatre's production of White Christmas. I worked eleven hours on the Isletta Pueblo exhibit for the Albuquerque Museum. I fabricated an ox head for the First Unitarian Church Christmas play. And I've written a fascinating blog about my adventures on the road since 1972. Add that to about two hundred games of Scrabble on Facebook and you have a life well lived.
I hope I can find a job in our next location.
Catch you sometime after July!
Carmen had flown to Albuquerque the day after her graduation from Andover Newton, made arrangements to rent a house during her internship there, and brought back a key to the place, as well as lots of pictures of it.
I'll spare you the details of our packing and moving stuff. Suffice it to say that our Freecycle account got a major workout, and still we left behind about three pickup truck loads of stuff for our landlord and their handy man to deal with. Carmen at the wheel, where she would stay for the entire trip, we pulled out of the driveway in Watertown at noon on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009, four years and two hours after Carmen had pulled into the driveway in Belmont, Mass. We stopped at a sub shop for lunch to take with us, and made for the Mass Pike, serenaded by two howling kitties. Two hours later we gassed up in Sturbridge, brought the cats up front to hang out with us, and headed out on Interstate 84. Territories were established. Yinny Yin Yin hung out between us on the shift console, and Remus J. Lupin dove down between my feet. This was pretty much the configuration for the entire seven days we would all be in the car together.
We barrelled ass through Connecticut and that ninety or so miles of New York on the way to Pennsylvania, narrowly missing New Jersey. Once in Pennsylvania I got on the phone to Choice Hotels and lined us up a pet friendly room at a Quality Inn near Scranton. This motel was nice enough, but the best part was the little hole-in-the-wall mom and pop Italian restaurant in the strip shopping center across the street. After an excellent dinner we went next door to the Dollar Store, where we found a Moses action figure for Carmen's altar, and a tiny hand broom and dust pan for our kitty litter clean up in the motel room. We (I) needed it!
We left pretty early Thursday morning, kitties in their carriers and snack bag handy. Carmen decided that today was a good day to start listening to the borrowed lecture CDs about Islam. I set up the new technology bought for the occasion, a device that transmits your separate device's output to a blank channel on your car radio. It works great until you near a city where that blank frequency isn't blank any more. I was drafted to take notes as well as to pause the lecture when discussion or clarification was called for, and to change discs and radio frequencies when necessary. This took us through Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia and into Virginia, where we stopped for gas and lunch. Time to put away the technology and bring the kitties out of exile. We parked in the shade, set up a litter box on my side, put down a small dish of water, and we went inside the fast food joint for gut bombs and rest room action.
When we returned we found the water spilled, litter on the floor and Miss Yinny Yin Yin camped out among the pedals on Carmen's side. I carefully opened the passenger door and grabbed ReLu, handed him to Carmen, removed the litter box to the special resting place on top of the carriers in back, got back in the car, took ReLu from Carmen, and he dove to his spot on the floor. Carmen opened her side, grabbed Yin, handed her to me, strapped herself in, and we were ready to go again.
We spent the night near Roanoke in a somewhat seedier motel next door to a Shoney's, where we ate for old times' sake - we hadn't seen a Shoney's in four years. The next morning we gassed up and got ready for the final push to Blairsville, Georgia. We did some more Islam lecture listening before gas and lunch in Greenville, South Carolina, then did the kitty shuffle to tide us through the afternoon. We were getting pretty durn good at the kitty shuffle by now, just in time to spend a week at the "cabin" in the mountains of north Georgia.
We exited Interstate 85 onto US 76, which winds through the mountains all the way to Blairsville and beyond. We didn't need gas yet. We drove on past Clemson, Seneca and Westminster, South Carolina. We entered Georgia. For some unknown reason, we didn't get gas in Clayton - maybe because we didn't know that the next thirty five miles would be a gas-guzzling roller coaster ride with no gas available until Hiawassee. We were white-knuckling it for the last ten, hoping not to run out in the wilderness. We didn't. We pulled into the first gas station in Hiawassee and filled 'er up. Plenty of gas to get to Blairsville.
It was a pleasant week with my parents. We talked and laughed, went grocery shopping and "cabin" carpet shopping, ate at some of North Georgia's finest restaurants, and watched the flying squirrels eat sunflower seeds from the squirrel-proof feeder in the dead of night. Fun stuff.
We left on the morning of the 4th of July. Our plan was to NOT be in Crosby, Texas on the 4th of July, and this plan accomplished that goal. We headed south, around the west side of Atlanta and on into Alabama on Interstate 85. Carmen was nervous about driving a ferrin Toyota with Massachusetts tags through the deep South, but the biggest excitement of the day was in southern Alabama, where a rock from a dump truck ahead of us bounced off the highway and cracked the windshield. Carmen's nervousness about this did not abate when we drove into a horrendous nasty thunderstorm in Mississippi. We felt as if we were back in Florida again, in tropical weather. We pulled into a motel near Biloxi, got a room and the four of us hunkered down to wait out the storm. First the cable TV went out, then the power went out, and we were stuck in the dark in the horrendous heat. But the best part: the bathroom ceiling was cracked and crumbled and looked as if it would fall in at any moment. This was not a restful stay, especially after the storm ended and the locals started up their fireworks.
July 5th was a better day. We plowed on through Mississippi and Louisiana, gassed up and had lunch at the Cracker Barrel near Lake Charles, then hung with the kitties and headed down the home stretch to Crosby, Texas.
We were issued a room with a faulty latch on one of the two doors, and a house full of peeps who were not at all accustomed to having cats around. Cat feeding time is a delicate arrangement involving two separate rooms and one of them quiet enough for our little blind girl to be calm enough to eat, while Remus cries and tries to get to her feeding place. The bathroom that was Remus Lupin's feeding station had three doors, one of them with the aforementioned latch (which I fixed very soon after our arrival) and the other two opened and left open randomly by the aforementioned peeps. There was a cage of birds in the living room which were made no less attractive to ReLu by moving them up to the loft. And the serenity factor was totally absent unless everyone was asleep. Even when all but one was asleep, that one, Carmen's sister, climbed up on a glass-topped coffee table and crashed through, leaving a horrendous gouge in her leg and blood everywhere. Our three days in Crosby were not as serene as the seven in Georgia. But we had some fun. We shopped at Walmart, Sandra and I went for hearing tests, and we got our windshield replaced. The Wednesday that was our last day in Crosby we had a cookout in the ninety some degree heat, and we ate inside in the air conditioning.
Thursday morning we packed the car back to its former state with one major exception: the back seat was left open for Carmen's thirteen year old niece Brittany to ride with us to Albuquerque. She was to help us unload the PODS and get a taste of life outside of the Crosby Circus. She had her text-friendly cell phone and her portable DVD player, so she was good to go. We wended out way through Texas on those long straight roads until we got to Interstate 45, then it was on through Dallas, with gas and lunch on the far side. Then on north on Interstate 35 in mounting traffic toward Oklahoma City.
I called my Choice Hotels connection again, and we figured out a pet friendly reservation in Oklahoma City, where it was now one hundred five degrees with as much humidity as you could ever want and then some. The guy gave me directions to the hotel, and in the thick of rush hour traffic, we found that the exit we were told to take was closed. We exited at our next opportunity. I called the hotel and asked for the address while Carmen was busy firing up the Garmin GPS. After another half hour of battling our way through traffic ans stiffling heat, we made it to the hotel. The pet friendly rooms were on the third floor.The air conditioner was simply not up to it. By 6:00 in the morning when we were packing up to leave, the room had almost cooled down. We got out of there as fast as we could.
The Garmin was now programmed with our address in Albuquerque. She guided us out of the hotel, to Interstate 35 south and onto Interstate 40 west. Then she said, "Drive four hundred thirty seven miles and exit right." Across western Oklahoma, across the Texas panhandle and into New Mexico we went. We tried to point out interesting stuff to Brittany, but she had never heard of Roger Miller or Historic Route 66. She was much more interested in texting her friends, "Whatcha doin?"
We were getting pretty hungry as we entered New Mexico. We all agreed that the Dairy Queen in Tucumcari, advertised on billboards for many miles, sounded like a good place to get some lunch. We took the exit and followed the signs, mouths-a-watering. We arrived at the place only to find hundreds of motorcycles parked in the lot and hundreds of unsavory-looking humans crowding the building. We moved on. The snack bag was getting mighty low, and it got lower. Horses headed for the barn is what we were. We plowed ahead three more hours and finally achieved Albuquerque. Ms. Garmin told us to exit onto Wyoming Avenue, guided us to Academy Road and Ventura Blvd., Freedom Way and DeVargas Loop, to Bent Road and all the way to number 9516. At last, the trip was over!
We set up the litter box in the shower in the master bedroom, put out dry food and water, turned on the AC and went out in search of something to eat. Garmin tried to help us with that, but we ended up finding a little hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant without her help. Then we went to the Walmart and Smith's Grocery Store near the house and stocked up on some necessary items.
The ensuing week was one of discovery, work and frustration. Our cellular phone service worked perfectly everywhere but in or around the house. Our land line with DSL would not be installed until Tuesday. The PODS people kept trying to call us to schedule delivery but couldn't get through. If we called them we had to have account numbers and passwords ready in a spot where the phones worked. Carmen finally borrowed Brittany's super duper phone and got everything straightened out. POD 1 arrived Monday morning, traded out for POD 2 on Wednesday.
Once my stainless steel shelving was here I began my early morning routine with feeding kitties, making coffee, eating breakfast and assembling shelf units. When we saw that there was space on the two-car garage for two more sets, we went to Sam's and bought a membership and two more sets of shelves. Now both sides of the garage are lined with shelves, and one car space is piled with stuff. Moving in July will be much easier than last year.
Brittany helped us unload the PODS as much as she could with one hand tied to her phone ("Whatcha doin?") and she still had no clue about closing doors to prevent cats or air conditioning escaping the house. Still, she helped unload and carry stuff in. So we all took the Sandia Peak Aerial Tramway to the top of the Sandias one afternoon, we went to Old Town for supper and souvenir shopping one evening, and we went to the Family Fun Center for go-carts, bumper boats and putt putt golf on the night before she flew back to Houston. It was fun, but we were all glad to have it over.
So we got our phones and computers fired up, and I began dilligently searching for a job. I am still searching, although I have had a few things going on. I've been an extra now on all three TV shows filmed in Albuquerque. I built most of the scenery for Albuquerque Little Theatre's production of White Christmas. I worked eleven hours on the Isletta Pueblo exhibit for the Albuquerque Museum. I fabricated an ox head for the First Unitarian Church Christmas play. And I've written a fascinating blog about my adventures on the road since 1972. Add that to about two hundred games of Scrabble on Facebook and you have a life well lived.
I hope I can find a job in our next location.
Catch you sometime after July!
Around And Around And Around We Go!
In November of ought five, our friend Anthony came to visit, but he didn't want to stay with us, which was a relief. He searched around "nearby" hotels, looking for one with smoking allowed rooms at reasonable rates. He decided on The Royal Sonesta in Cambridge - close to Belmont - and there he stayed. I knew the location of the Sonesta, because it was a couple blocks upriver from the Museum of Science, where I had just spent a month working on the brand new Star Wars exhibit, produced and installed by Mystic Scenic Studios (currently showing in Anchorage, Alaska.) I could get there by Red Line and Green Line and sixty nine bus. Easy peasy.
I went and collected him on Saturday. He wanted to go to the North End and sample the pizza and the cannolis at the places recommended to him by people in Orlando. I had figured out how to get close to Hanover Street by the Green Line, which we did, and found Hanover Street. The pizza recommended by Orlandoans was not so good, but Bostonians recommended Regina's about three blocks off of Hanover. That was good pizza! The cannolis recommended by Orlandoans were not so good, but Modern Pastries, recommended by Bostonians, now those were some good cannolis! We found our way back, and I learned a few things I didn't know about the Green Line - like that not very many north/westbound trains go all the way to Science Park. You have to look for the "Lechmere" designation on the front of the front car.
On Sunday we were scheduled to go to the IMAX theater in Framingham to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I was going to go get him and bring him back to Belmont by Red Line and #73 bus, but Carmen got all adventurous on me and wanted to try driving to the Royal Sonesta. Hmmm. I googled up on it, including their directions to the place, and we set out.
Getting to Memorial Drive was easy. Follow the #73 bus overhead wires to the big clusterfucked intersection near Mount Auburn Hospital, and go right instead of left or straight. Memorial Drive follows the west bank of the Charles River, with minimal opportunities to make a wrong turn - mostly - until you're within sight of the Museum of Science. There it splits three ways. The only choice that's marked is the one that goes to Charles Town. The most likely looking one took us across the river into downtown Boston. We got swept onto Storrow Drive, chose a lane, and ended up on the Tobin Bridge to Chelsea. We got off the highway as soon as we could, I studied my maps, and we tried again. Coming off the (toll) bridge this time, we chose a lane and went right back into downtown Boston again. Damn! We found a bridge, crossed the river and made it to Memorial Drive again. We went for another run at the tree-way split. This lane took us into the city a different way, we found our bridge again, and returned to Memorial Drive. I said, "Well, we've only got one choice left." She said, "Here, use my cell phone and call Anthony. I'm not going around this merry-go-round any more." I called Anthony and told him to take a cab to Belmont and we'd meet him there.
It was some small consolation to us that the Cambridge Cab driver didn't know how to get to Belmont. We had to talk him through it, chased him down and caught up with him at Waverley Square. We paid for the cab, hauled ass to Framingham, and barely made it to the movie in time.
Not long afterward I was riding with a lifelong Boston resident who got caught in the same vortex twice before finally making it to the Museum of Science. Afterward, he needed gas, so he drove across the highway into Charles Town. Aha! If we had taken the Charles Town option...! There again, once you know where to go and how to get there, you can see the markers pointing the way. But they're not going to just tell you how to go. "If you don't already know, you don't deserve to know. And by the way, fuck you!" And welcome to Boston.
I went and collected him on Saturday. He wanted to go to the North End and sample the pizza and the cannolis at the places recommended to him by people in Orlando. I had figured out how to get close to Hanover Street by the Green Line, which we did, and found Hanover Street. The pizza recommended by Orlandoans was not so good, but Bostonians recommended Regina's about three blocks off of Hanover. That was good pizza! The cannolis recommended by Orlandoans were not so good, but Modern Pastries, recommended by Bostonians, now those were some good cannolis! We found our way back, and I learned a few things I didn't know about the Green Line - like that not very many north/westbound trains go all the way to Science Park. You have to look for the "Lechmere" designation on the front of the front car.
On Sunday we were scheduled to go to the IMAX theater in Framingham to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I was going to go get him and bring him back to Belmont by Red Line and #73 bus, but Carmen got all adventurous on me and wanted to try driving to the Royal Sonesta. Hmmm. I googled up on it, including their directions to the place, and we set out.
Getting to Memorial Drive was easy. Follow the #73 bus overhead wires to the big clusterfucked intersection near Mount Auburn Hospital, and go right instead of left or straight. Memorial Drive follows the west bank of the Charles River, with minimal opportunities to make a wrong turn - mostly - until you're within sight of the Museum of Science. There it splits three ways. The only choice that's marked is the one that goes to Charles Town. The most likely looking one took us across the river into downtown Boston. We got swept onto Storrow Drive, chose a lane, and ended up on the Tobin Bridge to Chelsea. We got off the highway as soon as we could, I studied my maps, and we tried again. Coming off the (toll) bridge this time, we chose a lane and went right back into downtown Boston again. Damn! We found a bridge, crossed the river and made it to Memorial Drive again. We went for another run at the tree-way split. This lane took us into the city a different way, we found our bridge again, and returned to Memorial Drive. I said, "Well, we've only got one choice left." She said, "Here, use my cell phone and call Anthony. I'm not going around this merry-go-round any more." I called Anthony and told him to take a cab to Belmont and we'd meet him there.
It was some small consolation to us that the Cambridge Cab driver didn't know how to get to Belmont. We had to talk him through it, chased him down and caught up with him at Waverley Square. We paid for the cab, hauled ass to Framingham, and barely made it to the movie in time.
Not long afterward I was riding with a lifelong Boston resident who got caught in the same vortex twice before finally making it to the Museum of Science. Afterward, he needed gas, so he drove across the highway into Charles Town. Aha! If we had taken the Charles Town option...! There again, once you know where to go and how to get there, you can see the markers pointing the way. But they're not going to just tell you how to go. "If you don't already know, you don't deserve to know. And by the way, fuck you!" And welcome to Boston.
Unmarked
It was a rainy Sunday in August of 2005. I had already a) talked to the Business Agent of IATSE Local 481 and been told that if I like to build scenery, I should go to work for Mystic Scenic Studios (which is the same thing Local 11 told me) and b) filled out all of the applications and big-ass checks required to be considered for membership. What I needed to do was get recommendations from two members in good standing. I had had a short telephone conversation with a Jake Forrester, and made arrangements to meet him and show him my stuff at the next IATSE business meeting. This rainy August day was the day of the business meeting in Woburn. I already had been to the IATSE office by MBTA, but, being a rainy Sunday, I decided to take the car. The meeting was to be held at the Red Roof Inn near the office. Easy Peasy.
I studied my Rand McNally map of Greater Boston before I left, and my Google map of Woburn, and the Woburn page in the Atlas of Eastern Massachusetts. All of these lay open to the appropriate sections on the passenger's seat. My NAB bag with my portfolio and resumes was in the back. I set out on this epic journey of about ten miles with trepidation in my heart. In two months in Massachusetts, we had been lost six or seven times already, and that was with a navigator diligently working to keep us on track. I was on my own.
The first part I knew: Trapelo Road to Route 60 north - called Pleasant Street because at that time (they have repaved it since) it was small sections of pavement between potholes, giant cracks and fallen away edges with steep precipices to avoid. Crossing from Belmont into Arlington the road got much better. Then all I had to do was find Route 3 and follow it to Woburn.
I was not disappointed. I found Route 3 just fine, but following it to Woburn was a different matter altogether. Twists and turns, barely marked intersections, totally unmarked forks in the road. I had it for a good long stretch, and was feeling good about my progress, when suddenly I passed a sign that said "Welcome to Somerville," and I knew things had gone awry. I found a parking lot where I could study my maps, and tried to figure out where I had gone wrong. In fact, I have studied those maps ten or twelve times since, and STILL don't know how it happened. So I figured out a way to get to Woburn by taking the Mystic River Parkway and the Fellsway, and thanking Carmen for the compass mounted to the windshield, I set a course roughly north northwest. It was a beautiful drive most of the way, past the Fells, a vast chunk of parkland around a series of ponds.
After about fifteen or twenty minutes of holding to a NNW course, I came out of the wilderness and onto city streets. I knew I wanted Washington Street, but I really had no idea what street I was on or where it was in relation to Washington, if indeed I was anywhere near Woburn. I forged ahead, keeping watch for the ever-elusive Massachusetts street sign. There! A major intersection. I was on... wait for it... Washington Street! I pulled off, studied my maps, and found the major intersection. I was within about six blocks of my meeting, which was scheduled to start in about five minutes. Woo Hoo! I continued on and found the Red Roof Inn. I parked and went in search of my meeting. No sign of it anywhere. I asked at the front desk. Their meeting room was closed for repairs, and the IATSE meeting had been moved to some other location.
I used the pay phone to call the IATSE office. I got a recording telling me to where the meeting had been relocated, and set out again. I found the building, found the unlocked entrance door, found the room with the IATSE meeting in full progress, and decided to wait outside until it was over. An hour or so later, the doors opened and people were streaming out. I went in and asked about Jake. He was pointed out to me, and I set out my pictures and resume while he talked business to a couple of members. When he got to me he seemed impressed with my portfolio and resume. Then he said to me: "You know, working in the movie business in Massachusetts isn't enough to make a living. We all freelance at other places to make ends meet. The best place to go is Mystic Scenic Studios. They aren't Union, but they pay pretty well." He told me about a few other places to talk to about freelance work, promised to get me recommended for membership, and I went home by a way I knew: Interstate 95 to US 20 to Route 60 to Belmont.
A few days later, after emailing my resume AGAIN to Mystic Scenic Studios, they hired me for four happy years. In September IATSE voted me in, told me I had to pay them about 900 more bucks to maintain my membership, and a couple of months later put me on the NIGS list (Not In Good Standing) for not paying them 900 bucks. Not many months after that, Jake came to Mystic for a freelance gig. He was not at all unhappy with me for the choice I made. It was a good choice.
I studied my Rand McNally map of Greater Boston before I left, and my Google map of Woburn, and the Woburn page in the Atlas of Eastern Massachusetts. All of these lay open to the appropriate sections on the passenger's seat. My NAB bag with my portfolio and resumes was in the back. I set out on this epic journey of about ten miles with trepidation in my heart. In two months in Massachusetts, we had been lost six or seven times already, and that was with a navigator diligently working to keep us on track. I was on my own.
The first part I knew: Trapelo Road to Route 60 north - called Pleasant Street because at that time (they have repaved it since) it was small sections of pavement between potholes, giant cracks and fallen away edges with steep precipices to avoid. Crossing from Belmont into Arlington the road got much better. Then all I had to do was find Route 3 and follow it to Woburn.
I was not disappointed. I found Route 3 just fine, but following it to Woburn was a different matter altogether. Twists and turns, barely marked intersections, totally unmarked forks in the road. I had it for a good long stretch, and was feeling good about my progress, when suddenly I passed a sign that said "Welcome to Somerville," and I knew things had gone awry. I found a parking lot where I could study my maps, and tried to figure out where I had gone wrong. In fact, I have studied those maps ten or twelve times since, and STILL don't know how it happened. So I figured out a way to get to Woburn by taking the Mystic River Parkway and the Fellsway, and thanking Carmen for the compass mounted to the windshield, I set a course roughly north northwest. It was a beautiful drive most of the way, past the Fells, a vast chunk of parkland around a series of ponds.
After about fifteen or twenty minutes of holding to a NNW course, I came out of the wilderness and onto city streets. I knew I wanted Washington Street, but I really had no idea what street I was on or where it was in relation to Washington, if indeed I was anywhere near Woburn. I forged ahead, keeping watch for the ever-elusive Massachusetts street sign. There! A major intersection. I was on... wait for it... Washington Street! I pulled off, studied my maps, and found the major intersection. I was within about six blocks of my meeting, which was scheduled to start in about five minutes. Woo Hoo! I continued on and found the Red Roof Inn. I parked and went in search of my meeting. No sign of it anywhere. I asked at the front desk. Their meeting room was closed for repairs, and the IATSE meeting had been moved to some other location.
I used the pay phone to call the IATSE office. I got a recording telling me to where the meeting had been relocated, and set out again. I found the building, found the unlocked entrance door, found the room with the IATSE meeting in full progress, and decided to wait outside until it was over. An hour or so later, the doors opened and people were streaming out. I went in and asked about Jake. He was pointed out to me, and I set out my pictures and resume while he talked business to a couple of members. When he got to me he seemed impressed with my portfolio and resume. Then he said to me: "You know, working in the movie business in Massachusetts isn't enough to make a living. We all freelance at other places to make ends meet. The best place to go is Mystic Scenic Studios. They aren't Union, but they pay pretty well." He told me about a few other places to talk to about freelance work, promised to get me recommended for membership, and I went home by a way I knew: Interstate 95 to US 20 to Route 60 to Belmont.
A few days later, after emailing my resume AGAIN to Mystic Scenic Studios, they hired me for four happy years. In September IATSE voted me in, told me I had to pay them about 900 more bucks to maintain my membership, and a couple of months later put me on the NIGS list (Not In Good Standing) for not paying them 900 bucks. Not many months after that, Jake came to Mystic for a freelance gig. He was not at all unhappy with me for the choice I made. It was a good choice.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
MBTA
I lived in Greater Boston for four years and five days and never drove to work once. Most days I got up at 3:30am, fed the kitties, ate breakfast, drank coffee, made my lunch, cleaned up the kitchen, took out the recycling and scooped the litter boxes before leaving the house at 5:00. From Belmont I took the #73 electric bus to Harvard Station, the Red Line subway to Downtown Crossing, the Orange Line to Forest Hills Station, and the #34E bus to downtown Norwood for the half mile walk to Mystic Scenic Studios. With a few exceptions, the trip home was easier. There was a Commuter Rail station a hundred or so yards from Mystic's back doors. The Franklin Line couldn't get me TO work on time, but even if I had to wait an hour for the next train, it got me home sooner than going back by the bus and the Orange Line. The Commuter Rail took me to South Station where I caught the Red Line back to Harvard and the bus home. When we moved to Watertown, the only difference was the #71 bus instead of the #73.
When I worked on Mystic's crew at the Museum of Science, I had many different ways to go, mostly starting with the bus to Harvard. I could take the #69 bus to Lechmere Station and walk five blocks to get there about 6:20. I could take the Red Line to Charles/MGH Station and walk ten or more blocks to get there a few minutes before 6:00. I could stay on the Red Line one more stop to Park Street Station and take the Green Line to Science Park Station, nearly across the street. That Green Line thing I did when it was raining or snowing heavily. During the last year there I discovered another way, the earliest possible way. The #57 bus out of Watertown Yard (not to be confused with the Watertown Busway, where the #71 goes) had a 4:30 am bus that went all the way to Haymarket Station, where I could catch the first Green Line train and be at Science Park by 5:30.
In four years I was late for work four times, two of them being weekend schedules. One morning it was snowing to beat hell, but I got to work my usual half hour early. People were calling in one right after another to say they were stuck in bad traffic. Mr. Ray, the owner, said to all of us there, "Jim Emerson takes fourteen trains to get here, and he's early!" I was stranded once, when the bus that served the Park School area where we were installing cabinetry, only ran until 8:00 pm, and we finished work at 9:30. Probably ten times there were breakdowns or other emergencies that could have made me late if I didn't build in a fat cushion of time every day. Going home was a different story. I was much later than usual getting home due to MBTA malfunctions probably ten times in four years. But they always got me home.
One afternoon I got a call at work. Carmen had been taken to Saint Elizabeth's Hospital in Brighton due to chest pains. She was in no danger, but I should come there to support her and see her safely home. I ran out the door and jumped on the Commuter Rail train to South Station. I ran to the Information booth. "How do I get to Saint Elizabeth's Hospital in Brighton?" I asked breathlessly, a wild look in my eye. The Information man got a puzzled look. "Hmmm," he said, "I think the Green Line goes down there somewhere." He smiled, happy to have helped me. First of all, I knew that the Green Line splits into four routes "down there" and his advice was meaningless. Second of all, there was a System Map on the wall behind him. All he had to do was turn around and look. I came around the counter and looked it up for him. Red Line to Central Square, #47 bus to Brighton. Thank you very much for the Information.
Carmen, as we know from "The End Of The Beginning Part 1 and 2" loved to go to Harvard Square. She even worked there for a few months. Her haircut person was there. There are funky shops and funky restaurants, including our favorite, The Border Cafe. And, from Harvard Station one can get anywhere, like Porter Square or Logan Airport or Quincy Market or the Prudential Center or Beacon Hill or the theatre district. We went to Rhode Island by Commuter Rail out of South Station. We went to Salem, Mass by Commuter Rail out of North Station. I went to North Georgia by Amtrak out of South Station. We (almost) never drove into the city.
While most of the time my MBTA ridership was commuting to work, there were a bunch of times I went out for adventures. During our second winter there was a long cold spell, lows in the teens to single digits, highs in the twenties for weeks in a row with no snow to ruin any pond ice. I had my skates at the ready, and one Saturday morning I looked up the routes to the Fells, where there were many large ponds. I packed my skates, got on the #71, Red Line to Downtown Crossing, Orange Line to Malden Station and #99 bus to the medical center across the street from Spot Pond. I expected to see dozens of people on the ice. There was nobody. It was quiet, peaceful, perfect. I skated for two hours all by myself, on ice that was at least 8" thick. I mosied on home a tired but happy camper.
I once rode the Red Line all the way to the south end of the line, Braintree, on a Saturday and took a bus from the station to the only Red Wing shoe store within my reach. Good shoes.
I rode to the shop in Norwood and back one day when I was working overnight shifts at the Museum of Science. I took the camera and made my parents a photo essay about my commute to work and the layout of the shop. I got the camera home just in time to head out for work.
The website, http://www.mbta.com/ is an excellent source of information. All the schedules for all their transportation are there. I found out early, though, that the Trip Planner can't be trusted. When Mystic hired me and told me to be there Monday at 7:30, I went to the Trip Planner and entered my starting point and destination, with 7:30 as my arrival time. The planner flat out told me it couldn't be done. So the preceding Saturday morning, on a Saturday schedule, with a signal malfunction at Downtown Crossing, I tried it. I made it to Norwood in plenty of time.
I became active in the MBTA community. I was a member of Transit Works, a loosely organized group of customers who did a little bit here and a little bit there to at least show them that somebody was paying attention. I attended a couple of brainstorming meetings about how to improve service and efficiency. The coolest thing was the Transit Diary. For two weeks I carried this fat book around. It contained six-page questionaires about forty rides: one six-pager for the 71 to Harvard on Monday morning, one six-pager for the Red Line to Downtown Crossing on Monday morning, etc. for forty "links." It asked about time, crowdedness, cleanliness, odors, politeness and helpfulness of drivers and other employees, safety issues, all kinds of stuff. It was a pain in the butt to keep up with, but it was kind of fun as well. Plus, gathering that information blow by blow for two weeks made us realize that, by and large, the system really works well - especially for as old and as massive as the system is.
I miss the big old "Charlie on the MTA" world. I used to say that I was a Boston gopher. I'd ride through tunnels underground, pop my head up and look around, then go back to the tunnels. For years I had no idea how to get from Harvard Square to Porter Square on the surface, or from Park Street Station to Downtown Crossing. I learned the latter one morning when the Red Line was stalled at Park Street, and I followed a (grumpy) crowd that decided to walk those six blocks rather than wait. Little by little I learned my way all around Boston, under and over. Then we moved away to a city with a third rate transit system. I sure do miss the MBTA.
When I worked on Mystic's crew at the Museum of Science, I had many different ways to go, mostly starting with the bus to Harvard. I could take the #69 bus to Lechmere Station and walk five blocks to get there about 6:20. I could take the Red Line to Charles/MGH Station and walk ten or more blocks to get there a few minutes before 6:00. I could stay on the Red Line one more stop to Park Street Station and take the Green Line to Science Park Station, nearly across the street. That Green Line thing I did when it was raining or snowing heavily. During the last year there I discovered another way, the earliest possible way. The #57 bus out of Watertown Yard (not to be confused with the Watertown Busway, where the #71 goes) had a 4:30 am bus that went all the way to Haymarket Station, where I could catch the first Green Line train and be at Science Park by 5:30.
In four years I was late for work four times, two of them being weekend schedules. One morning it was snowing to beat hell, but I got to work my usual half hour early. People were calling in one right after another to say they were stuck in bad traffic. Mr. Ray, the owner, said to all of us there, "Jim Emerson takes fourteen trains to get here, and he's early!" I was stranded once, when the bus that served the Park School area where we were installing cabinetry, only ran until 8:00 pm, and we finished work at 9:30. Probably ten times there were breakdowns or other emergencies that could have made me late if I didn't build in a fat cushion of time every day. Going home was a different story. I was much later than usual getting home due to MBTA malfunctions probably ten times in four years. But they always got me home.
One afternoon I got a call at work. Carmen had been taken to Saint Elizabeth's Hospital in Brighton due to chest pains. She was in no danger, but I should come there to support her and see her safely home. I ran out the door and jumped on the Commuter Rail train to South Station. I ran to the Information booth. "How do I get to Saint Elizabeth's Hospital in Brighton?" I asked breathlessly, a wild look in my eye. The Information man got a puzzled look. "Hmmm," he said, "I think the Green Line goes down there somewhere." He smiled, happy to have helped me. First of all, I knew that the Green Line splits into four routes "down there" and his advice was meaningless. Second of all, there was a System Map on the wall behind him. All he had to do was turn around and look. I came around the counter and looked it up for him. Red Line to Central Square, #47 bus to Brighton. Thank you very much for the Information.
Carmen, as we know from "The End Of The Beginning Part 1 and 2" loved to go to Harvard Square. She even worked there for a few months. Her haircut person was there. There are funky shops and funky restaurants, including our favorite, The Border Cafe. And, from Harvard Station one can get anywhere, like Porter Square or Logan Airport or Quincy Market or the Prudential Center or Beacon Hill or the theatre district. We went to Rhode Island by Commuter Rail out of South Station. We went to Salem, Mass by Commuter Rail out of North Station. I went to North Georgia by Amtrak out of South Station. We (almost) never drove into the city.
While most of the time my MBTA ridership was commuting to work, there were a bunch of times I went out for adventures. During our second winter there was a long cold spell, lows in the teens to single digits, highs in the twenties for weeks in a row with no snow to ruin any pond ice. I had my skates at the ready, and one Saturday morning I looked up the routes to the Fells, where there were many large ponds. I packed my skates, got on the #71, Red Line to Downtown Crossing, Orange Line to Malden Station and #99 bus to the medical center across the street from Spot Pond. I expected to see dozens of people on the ice. There was nobody. It was quiet, peaceful, perfect. I skated for two hours all by myself, on ice that was at least 8" thick. I mosied on home a tired but happy camper.
I once rode the Red Line all the way to the south end of the line, Braintree, on a Saturday and took a bus from the station to the only Red Wing shoe store within my reach. Good shoes.
I rode to the shop in Norwood and back one day when I was working overnight shifts at the Museum of Science. I took the camera and made my parents a photo essay about my commute to work and the layout of the shop. I got the camera home just in time to head out for work.
The website, http://www.mbta.com/ is an excellent source of information. All the schedules for all their transportation are there. I found out early, though, that the Trip Planner can't be trusted. When Mystic hired me and told me to be there Monday at 7:30, I went to the Trip Planner and entered my starting point and destination, with 7:30 as my arrival time. The planner flat out told me it couldn't be done. So the preceding Saturday morning, on a Saturday schedule, with a signal malfunction at Downtown Crossing, I tried it. I made it to Norwood in plenty of time.
I became active in the MBTA community. I was a member of Transit Works, a loosely organized group of customers who did a little bit here and a little bit there to at least show them that somebody was paying attention. I attended a couple of brainstorming meetings about how to improve service and efficiency. The coolest thing was the Transit Diary. For two weeks I carried this fat book around. It contained six-page questionaires about forty rides: one six-pager for the 71 to Harvard on Monday morning, one six-pager for the Red Line to Downtown Crossing on Monday morning, etc. for forty "links." It asked about time, crowdedness, cleanliness, odors, politeness and helpfulness of drivers and other employees, safety issues, all kinds of stuff. It was a pain in the butt to keep up with, but it was kind of fun as well. Plus, gathering that information blow by blow for two weeks made us realize that, by and large, the system really works well - especially for as old and as massive as the system is.
I miss the big old "Charlie on the MTA" world. I used to say that I was a Boston gopher. I'd ride through tunnels underground, pop my head up and look around, then go back to the tunnels. For years I had no idea how to get from Harvard Square to Porter Square on the surface, or from Park Street Station to Downtown Crossing. I learned the latter one morning when the Red Line was stalled at Park Street, and I followed a (grumpy) crowd that decided to walk those six blocks rather than wait. Little by little I learned my way all around Boston, under and over. Then we moved away to a city with a third rate transit system. I sure do miss the MBTA.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Mass. Hysteria
I wrote this story almost five years ago on this same computer when it was brand new. I thought, "I'll just copy and paste that sucker right in here! For some reason, that wouldn't work. That's okay, though. I can make it more of a Rand McNally and less of a history. The history began on April 30th, 2005, the date agreed upon when I would leave my job at F/X Scenery and Display to begin packing our five hundred tons of stuff. Carmen had applied to, and was accepted by three schools: Vanderbilt Divinity, Harvard Divinity and Andover Newton Theological School (ANTS,) in Newton, Massachusetts, where she decided to go. She had a friend from Lesley U that lived in Cambridge, MA and working together, by phone and internet, they found an acceptable apartment in Belmont. "Acceptable" meant that there would be room for about two hundred fifty tons of our stuff, and the rent was under fifteen hundred.
As it turned out, April 30th was a bit premature. Carmen was not willing to turn me loose on packing, and her attention was focused elsewhere. She sent me and my pickup truck over to the storage unit where we had put some of our stuff for decluttering purposes while showing the house to prospective buyers. I was to take an inventory. I rented a second unit and was able to declutter the house some more while moving inventoried items around. One unit was used strictly for stuff that would be stored in my parents' attic in the mountains of north Georgia. My parents had also offered to adopt our ten-year-old orange tabby, Mr. Peanut Butter, to save us from moving with four cats, and to save him from living in an urban apartment. I was scheduled to haul all of this to Georgia on the weekend of the 21st.
My next gig was to attack the massive stash of boxes we had been collecting for a year. To save room, I had nested boxes inside of boxes inside of boxes and stacked them tightly into the workshop corner of the garage. Suddenly, Carmen was willing to park her car in the driveway to give me room to spread the boxes out so we would know what we had. I organized them by sizes and pretty much filled the whole garage with them. I was sure we'd never use all of them. I was wrong.
Hmmmm, what now? Well, our friend Cathey was about to move to Charlottesville, Virginia. Maybe I could help her for a few days. I called her on May 11th, and she seemed delighted to have professional help. "Do you need any boxes?" I asked. "Gee, I guess I do!" she replied. I spent three days helping her pack, load and haul donations to the church for the upcoming rummage sale. She ordered a semi trailer to be dropped off so she could put her stuff into a sixteen foot section of it. While we were returning from one church trip we passed Lowe's, which suddenly reminded her: "The contract says something about plywood," she said. Something about two sheets of plywood to divide my section from the next section."
"Should I stop and pick them up now?" I asked. She wasn't sure exactly what was needed. "I'll have to look at the contract," she said. "It has to be some certain dimensions." We got back to her condo, and she fired up her computer. She searched around, found the contract and scanned it for the plywood clause. "Ah, here it is," she said after what seemed like a long time. "It has to be two sheets, four feet by eight feet." I reckoned I could conjure that up.
At the end of the third day, the trailer was loaded, plywooded and locked with a padlock, and all of the donations were at the church. Cathey bought me dinner at the Steak And Shake, and we were done. I had to find something else to occupy my time.
Sunday the 15th was one big thing off Carmen's list of things to worry about. She delivered a sermon about her call to ministry, what it means, what it's like and where do we go from here. I was very proud. After the service there was a cake, a lot of cards, a book for friends to write their thoughts in, lots of pictures taken and lots of tears and hugs.
On the 16th, Carmen thought I might could get started with the books. I was to sort them into subjects - religion, human interaction, death and dying, women's issues, nature, children's books, even a smattering of fiction - stacked on the benches in the family room to be boxed up later. I actually packed my own books: the encyclopedias, the Civil War history, the Carl Sagan, the Tom Robbins. My books: three boxes; her books would end up being thirty five boxes.
On May 21st, I was at the U-Haul place at 7:00am. After some looking, we found one eight foot trailer with all lights working. I hitched it up and hauled it over to the storage units where, armed with my four-page inventory, I loaded the trailer and truck bed with stuff bound for north Georgia. I drove to the house, unloaded the trailer, loaded in the furniture that was going, plus the Dell computer we were giving my dad to help him write a novel, and reloaded everything nice and tight. I tarped over the truck bed stuff, locked the trailer and called it a day.
The next day, Sunday, I loaded my Thermos with strong coffee, drank the rest of the pot, stuffed an unhappy Peanut Butter into a carrier, and was on the road at daybreak. The passenger side floor was equipped with a litter box, so when I had to stop near Ocala and drain off some coffee, I opened the carrier and placed Mr. Butter in the litter. When I returned, Peanut was lounging on top of his carrier, and there was a strong fecal odor in the cab. I scooped the litter, but there was nothing there. I looked in the carrier. Nothing. I searched the rest of the cab and found it. If you read my posting entitled "Adventures In Hauling Luggage," you'll remember the cap I bought in Anchorage. It now resides in a landfill in Marion County, Florida, with a big load of cat shit inside it. That boy done shit in my hat! I put him back in his carrier.
The only other item of note on this trip was a gas and gifts store in Arabi, Georgia. It had two cash registers. No waiting? HA! One register was for gas only. If you wanted a bottle of water or a cup of coffee with your gas, you had to stand in line twice, and the non-gas register didn't accept credit cards! Somebody lay awake nights dreaming up a way to make things difficult for the customers and the employees.
Beyond Atlanta, as the terrain got hillier, my good old Toyota T-100 pulled that heavy trailer with no problem. The hills became mountains. No problem. Up Smokey Estates Road, down White Oak Drive and up the steep driveway to the front porch we went. I opened the door and hauled Mr. Butter inside the house. I opened the carrier, and Peanut cowered inside. My parents and I ate supper and visited out on the treetop deck. Peanut slunk out of the carrier and into the bathroom, where he cowered some more. That night he stayed in my room, sealed off from their old cat, Charlie. Peanut was restless, and neither of us got much sleep.
I stayed two more days. We unloaded the trailer and truck bed, distributing everything to the proper places, and took the trailer to the U-Haul place in Blairsville. Of course we stopped for a few groceries on the way back, ate lunch and went upstairs to set up the computer. My dad was overwhelmed by the complexity of it. When I showed him how to use the word processing, he was as mystified as he was amazed. I believe I can truthfully say that after nearly five years and many hundreds of pages typed, he is still mystified.
Peanut and Charlie had some issues in the beginning. Charlie insisted on following peanut around wherever he went, disturbing him when he tried to rest. For his part, Peanut gobbled up whatever cat food he found, which interfered with Charlie's habit of nibbling a little bit here and a little bit there all day long. My parents insisted that they would learn to get along. I figured that since I was coming back through here in a month, I could take Peanut with me if things couldn't work out. As it turned out, Charlie died within a few months, and Mr. Butter is king of their household, as it should be.
Unencumbered, my truck flew back to Orlando, ready for the next task.
The next task was to neatly put the books back on the shelves, keeping them sorted if possible. A couple was coming to look at the house this weekend. I also did a little cosmetic surgery on the gutters and neatened up the boxes in the garage. I went to a movie during the house showing on Sunday afternoon. We didn't need my baloney lips-a-flapping while Carmen was selling the house. The best thing was, it was a great house, built solid and true in the fifties, and in much better shape than most newer houses. Krystal and Brad offered us a contract two days later. We scheduled the closing for June 20th, three days after the movers were scheduled to come. My departure was scheduled for the 16th, in case the movers got to Belmont at the earliest possible moment. We didn't want them to charge us for storage if we weren't there to receive our stuff.
After researching moving companies, we hired Lawson, a third generation moving magnate with a million moving stories to tell. We shuffled him out the door after only a few hundred. Meanwhile we were packing packing packing, and giving away tons of stuff. The church got a couple of truckloads. "A Gift For Teaching" got a couple of truckloads. Our friends who came to visit always left with something. I boxed up the books, we boxed up all of the pottery!, we gave the queen size bed and Carmen's giant desk to a family she worked with.
The plan was for me to drive my pickup with a U-Haul trailer loaded with everything she didn't trust the movers to move - computers, pottery, essential books - and our big boy kitty Remus J. Lupin. Then I could sell my truck for a great price because it had never weathered a New England winter with salt and sand on the roads. On the very day I was to go pick up my trailer, she changed our mind. Instead, we rented and loaded a fourteen foot Budget truck. She would sell the T-100 in Orlando. Then she and her mother, Sandra, would drive the little white kitties and as much stuff as they could stuff into the Rav-4 to Blairsville to see my parents, then on to Massachusetts.
One thing I had done a few days before was to buy a second Rand McNally Road Atlas, mark out the route, state by state, in pink highlighter, tab the pages numbered 1-10, and write up directions, route number by route number, all the way from the Florida Turnpike to 14 Upland Road in Belmont. I had my own copy of the directions, and as I went, I followed the same route to make sure everything worked. It did. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
So we cancelled our trailer and rented a truck. With it we hauled home another big bag of packing peanuts and two more wardrobe boxes - bringing the total to five. This was when I loaded the bed and the disassembled giant desk into the truck and hauled it to Melissa's house. Then I drove to the storage unit, emptied it and cancelled our storage rental. I drove home and backed up the driveway as the next horrendous thunderstorm hit.
It was apparent by this time that I wasn't going to get on the road tomorrow as planned. For one thing, the pottery had not yet begun to be packed. This was an ordeal beyond my wildest imaginings. Each piece was bubble wrapped and floating in packing peanuts in a box. Then the box was floated in peanuts nested inside another box. A group of three or four of these units were packed in more peanuts inside a big box. A lot of my job was running to the garage for the perfect sized box for each step of the process. Pottery took both of us an entire day. Pottery is a good thing to collect if you are going to be moving a lot. You know, it may be heavy, but hey, at least it's fragile. We called it a load at about 11:00 and went to bed - hey! There was no bed!
June 17th at 8:00 am, I pulled out of the driveway as Lawson's truck was maneuvering to back in. Remus and I took the easy route, driving a Budget truck to Blairsville and Belmont. Back in Orlando, the movers loaded the truck in yet another horrendous rain storm. Party Marty Haddad came over and helped Carmen with the last minute packing, but even so, the contents of the big storage place in the garage - The Bunker - escaped the move.
As soon as the movers were gone, Carmen went to the airport and picked up her mother. They spent the next couple of days figuring out what to take in the Rav 4, hauling more truckloads of stuff to the church and other places, and then selling the truck.
Our "little dog" Remus J. Lupin cried and cried in his cat carrier during the first several hours of the trip. I let him out to use the litter box when I stopped for gas and an exchange of liquids in Lake City, Florida. I didn't leave my hat in the truck. The fun thing here was a big sign over the rest rooms: NO LOITERING NO ALCOHOL NO PROFANITY. I saw the proprietor standing outside the store as I went in. "No profanity?" I asked. "That's Right," he said. "Damn!" I said.
There were no deposits in the litter, and Professor Lupin was back in the carrier when I returned. We continued on to Blairsville, arriving a little after 6:00. I put Remus and his litter box upstairs in our room while we ate supper and then unloaded a few more Georgia items from the truck. Mr. Butter came to me and said hello one time, then ignored me completely. He seemed quite at home there.
After breakfast (9:00!) we lit out. We were breaking new ground today, taking US 76 all the way to Interstate 85. I opened the cat carrier once we were well under way. Remus came out and curled up in my lap for a couple of hours. I kept seeing signs about shortcuts to I 85, and I even took one. It was a shortcut if one was headed south. It added about twelve miles to my trip. The directions I gave Carmen were better. I stopped for gas at the Interstate. Remus went exploring while I was out. He found the step-down well by the passenger's side door, and stayed there for the rest of the day.
Carmen called in the afternoon. The truck was sold, and she threw in the lawnmower as a bonus.
It's a beautiful drive through the Carolinas and Virginia. We switched to I 77 at Charlotte and I 81 in southern Virginia. The truck handled the mountains very well. We spent the night at the Days Inn in Winchester, VA, where Remus finally used the litter box.
After gassing and coffeeing up in Winchester, we shot through West Virginia and Maryland without blinking so we didn't miss them. Then it was a long hard slog through Pennsylvania. There were hundreds of miles of construction going on. At Scranton we jogged over on I 380 to I 84, which took us through New York and Connecticut, all the way to I 90, the Massachusetts Turnpike. After that I wished I'd had a navigator. Professor Lupin was absolutely no help down in his pit. I saw the sign that said I 495 to I 95, and exited the Pike. I went five miles before I could turn around and get back to the Pike. Then I got off on the real I 95 to US 20 and had to find State Road 60, which I was just lucky enough to see. This got me to Trapelo Road in Belmont, Beech Street, Upland Road and I was there! And - I was only seventy miles over the allotted mileage for a trip from Orlando to Belmont without furniture deliveries, visits to relatives, bogus shortcuts or wrong exits. Only fifty bucks (so far) added to the rental.
I loaded the Perfesser into his carrier and went to the door. I called Carmen as I went to the door, and gave her the blow-by-blow. I entered the little screened porch that serves the upstairs apartment as well, unlocked our front door and went in. I closed the door and opened the carrier. Remus ran out into this wide open empty space and found a rubber band - his favorite cat toy - on the floor. It was all bigger than I had imagined it to be. There was a nice big living room with an archway to the huge dining room. Then there was a swinging door to a tiny breakfast nook and a storage hutch, then the fairly large kitchen with a new gas range and small but fairly new refrigerator. Beyond that was a little mud room, the perfect place for litter boxes. This opened onto a deck with spongy floor boards and wobbly handrail. "I hope the landlord replaces this soon." I said. He did.
Back inside, I went through the other door of the kitchen and entered "the room of doors," a little square in the house that was nothing but doors - to the linen closet, the living room, the bedroom, the bathroom, the office and the kitchen. The bedrooms were bigger than I was anticipating. The bathroom was a shithole. Remus ran in there and cowered on the back side of the tub for the rest of the night.
I hung up the phone and went to the truck, bringing in the litter box and the rest of the stuff from the cab. The screened porch was a great cat lock. I could leave that door open, load everything onto the porch, close the door and open the door to the living room without fear of escaping kitties. I unlocked the back of the truck and began bringing in necessary items for the night: clothes, towels, toiletries, the Air Bed - stuff like that. Then I locked everything up and walked back down Beech Street to Trapelo Road. There I was confronted with a plethora of choices: three pizza and sub joints, two Chinese carry-outs, a seafood place, two convenience stores and - yes - a Dunkin Donuts. In Massachusetts there is a Dunkin Donuts within view pretty much wherever you are. Sometimes two. I opted for one of the Chinese places. It wasn't very good. The other one, of course, was excellent, we found out later that month.
June 20th - very close to the longest day of the year - Remus and I woke up to bright daylight outside. I looked at my watch: 4:30? I got up and fed the boy, then tried to go back to sleep. Before long I was out at the truck, making as little noise as possible. I brought everything inside and stowed it where it would go. I tried to take the steel shelving units to the dank and dark basement (Carmen hated it) down the steps from the mud room, but they wouldn't go. I tried the steps from the outside door, but they wouldn't go. I had to disassemble them all and reassemble them in the basement. Joy.
It was well after noon when I had the truck unloaded and cleaned out, ready to return. I showered, put on clean clothes and struck out for the Budget place in Cambridge. I only took one wrong road at an intersection that sported six ways to go, none of them marked. I figured it out within a quarter mile, and by the time I drove directly through Harvard Square, found Massachusetts Avenue going the right direction, got gas at a tiny station where I had to wait on the street while two guys argued about whose turn it was at the pump, and finally made it to the Budget place, it was after 2:00 and the mileage was seventy six over the allotment. Before I was all the way into the tiny parking lot, a guy came out, took the keys, wrote down the mileage, inspected the truck, signed my contract and sent me into the office.
"So how do I get back to Belmont?" I asked the woman at the counter. She started in with driving directions. "I just dropped off the only vehicle I have," I said. She looked kind of puzzled. She thought I could probably get somewhere near Belmont by Red Line. She thought there might be a Commuter Rail train out of Porter Square Station. I set out walking north on Mass. Ave. and after passing dozens of delicious smelling restaurants, found Harvard Station. I went inside, looking for a system map or something to tell me what my options were. When I got to the bottom of the second escalator I saw it: BUSES 74 and 75 to Belmont - up the ramp. I went up the ramp and waited for the bus. It came eventually, and took me to Belmont Center.
On the way I got a call from Carmen. The closing had gone without a hitch, the house was officially sold. She, her mama and the kitties were spending the night in a motel and striking out early in the morning. I wish I remembered more of her story of their trip. It was a goodie.
The walk from Belmont Center was pretty long. I wasn't looking forward to doing this twice a day. Once home I deposited my map and paperwork and set out again for something to eat. Also, I was primed to look for bus stop signs. It turned out that there was one right there at Trapelo Road and Beech Street: Number 73 to Waverley. Across the street: number 73 to Harvard Square. This was my introduction to a strange truth about the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority: once you know how to get somewhere, you can suddenly see how you could have gotten there much faster and easier. I remembered seeing WAVERLEY on the wall above the bus ramp down. If I'd known Waverley was on Trapelo Road, I could have saved myself a lot of walking. But that's okay. I like to walk.
So that's the story of the move to Massachusetts. The Lawson truck arrived on Friday the 24th at 6:30 am. Carmen arrived at 10:30 am, when the truck was almost empty and the apartment was almost full. All we had left to do was to get set up for the business of living, learn our way around Middlesex County, find jobs and do four years of Seminary. Then we could do all this again. And it was so.
As it turned out, April 30th was a bit premature. Carmen was not willing to turn me loose on packing, and her attention was focused elsewhere. She sent me and my pickup truck over to the storage unit where we had put some of our stuff for decluttering purposes while showing the house to prospective buyers. I was to take an inventory. I rented a second unit and was able to declutter the house some more while moving inventoried items around. One unit was used strictly for stuff that would be stored in my parents' attic in the mountains of north Georgia. My parents had also offered to adopt our ten-year-old orange tabby, Mr. Peanut Butter, to save us from moving with four cats, and to save him from living in an urban apartment. I was scheduled to haul all of this to Georgia on the weekend of the 21st.
My next gig was to attack the massive stash of boxes we had been collecting for a year. To save room, I had nested boxes inside of boxes inside of boxes and stacked them tightly into the workshop corner of the garage. Suddenly, Carmen was willing to park her car in the driveway to give me room to spread the boxes out so we would know what we had. I organized them by sizes and pretty much filled the whole garage with them. I was sure we'd never use all of them. I was wrong.
Hmmmm, what now? Well, our friend Cathey was about to move to Charlottesville, Virginia. Maybe I could help her for a few days. I called her on May 11th, and she seemed delighted to have professional help. "Do you need any boxes?" I asked. "Gee, I guess I do!" she replied. I spent three days helping her pack, load and haul donations to the church for the upcoming rummage sale. She ordered a semi trailer to be dropped off so she could put her stuff into a sixteen foot section of it. While we were returning from one church trip we passed Lowe's, which suddenly reminded her: "The contract says something about plywood," she said. Something about two sheets of plywood to divide my section from the next section."
"Should I stop and pick them up now?" I asked. She wasn't sure exactly what was needed. "I'll have to look at the contract," she said. "It has to be some certain dimensions." We got back to her condo, and she fired up her computer. She searched around, found the contract and scanned it for the plywood clause. "Ah, here it is," she said after what seemed like a long time. "It has to be two sheets, four feet by eight feet." I reckoned I could conjure that up.
At the end of the third day, the trailer was loaded, plywooded and locked with a padlock, and all of the donations were at the church. Cathey bought me dinner at the Steak And Shake, and we were done. I had to find something else to occupy my time.
Sunday the 15th was one big thing off Carmen's list of things to worry about. She delivered a sermon about her call to ministry, what it means, what it's like and where do we go from here. I was very proud. After the service there was a cake, a lot of cards, a book for friends to write their thoughts in, lots of pictures taken and lots of tears and hugs.
On the 16th, Carmen thought I might could get started with the books. I was to sort them into subjects - religion, human interaction, death and dying, women's issues, nature, children's books, even a smattering of fiction - stacked on the benches in the family room to be boxed up later. I actually packed my own books: the encyclopedias, the Civil War history, the Carl Sagan, the Tom Robbins. My books: three boxes; her books would end up being thirty five boxes.
On May 21st, I was at the U-Haul place at 7:00am. After some looking, we found one eight foot trailer with all lights working. I hitched it up and hauled it over to the storage units where, armed with my four-page inventory, I loaded the trailer and truck bed with stuff bound for north Georgia. I drove to the house, unloaded the trailer, loaded in the furniture that was going, plus the Dell computer we were giving my dad to help him write a novel, and reloaded everything nice and tight. I tarped over the truck bed stuff, locked the trailer and called it a day.
The next day, Sunday, I loaded my Thermos with strong coffee, drank the rest of the pot, stuffed an unhappy Peanut Butter into a carrier, and was on the road at daybreak. The passenger side floor was equipped with a litter box, so when I had to stop near Ocala and drain off some coffee, I opened the carrier and placed Mr. Butter in the litter. When I returned, Peanut was lounging on top of his carrier, and there was a strong fecal odor in the cab. I scooped the litter, but there was nothing there. I looked in the carrier. Nothing. I searched the rest of the cab and found it. If you read my posting entitled "Adventures In Hauling Luggage," you'll remember the cap I bought in Anchorage. It now resides in a landfill in Marion County, Florida, with a big load of cat shit inside it. That boy done shit in my hat! I put him back in his carrier.
The only other item of note on this trip was a gas and gifts store in Arabi, Georgia. It had two cash registers. No waiting? HA! One register was for gas only. If you wanted a bottle of water or a cup of coffee with your gas, you had to stand in line twice, and the non-gas register didn't accept credit cards! Somebody lay awake nights dreaming up a way to make things difficult for the customers and the employees.
Beyond Atlanta, as the terrain got hillier, my good old Toyota T-100 pulled that heavy trailer with no problem. The hills became mountains. No problem. Up Smokey Estates Road, down White Oak Drive and up the steep driveway to the front porch we went. I opened the door and hauled Mr. Butter inside the house. I opened the carrier, and Peanut cowered inside. My parents and I ate supper and visited out on the treetop deck. Peanut slunk out of the carrier and into the bathroom, where he cowered some more. That night he stayed in my room, sealed off from their old cat, Charlie. Peanut was restless, and neither of us got much sleep.
I stayed two more days. We unloaded the trailer and truck bed, distributing everything to the proper places, and took the trailer to the U-Haul place in Blairsville. Of course we stopped for a few groceries on the way back, ate lunch and went upstairs to set up the computer. My dad was overwhelmed by the complexity of it. When I showed him how to use the word processing, he was as mystified as he was amazed. I believe I can truthfully say that after nearly five years and many hundreds of pages typed, he is still mystified.
Peanut and Charlie had some issues in the beginning. Charlie insisted on following peanut around wherever he went, disturbing him when he tried to rest. For his part, Peanut gobbled up whatever cat food he found, which interfered with Charlie's habit of nibbling a little bit here and a little bit there all day long. My parents insisted that they would learn to get along. I figured that since I was coming back through here in a month, I could take Peanut with me if things couldn't work out. As it turned out, Charlie died within a few months, and Mr. Butter is king of their household, as it should be.
Unencumbered, my truck flew back to Orlando, ready for the next task.
The next task was to neatly put the books back on the shelves, keeping them sorted if possible. A couple was coming to look at the house this weekend. I also did a little cosmetic surgery on the gutters and neatened up the boxes in the garage. I went to a movie during the house showing on Sunday afternoon. We didn't need my baloney lips-a-flapping while Carmen was selling the house. The best thing was, it was a great house, built solid and true in the fifties, and in much better shape than most newer houses. Krystal and Brad offered us a contract two days later. We scheduled the closing for June 20th, three days after the movers were scheduled to come. My departure was scheduled for the 16th, in case the movers got to Belmont at the earliest possible moment. We didn't want them to charge us for storage if we weren't there to receive our stuff.
After researching moving companies, we hired Lawson, a third generation moving magnate with a million moving stories to tell. We shuffled him out the door after only a few hundred. Meanwhile we were packing packing packing, and giving away tons of stuff. The church got a couple of truckloads. "A Gift For Teaching" got a couple of truckloads. Our friends who came to visit always left with something. I boxed up the books, we boxed up all of the pottery!, we gave the queen size bed and Carmen's giant desk to a family she worked with.
The plan was for me to drive my pickup with a U-Haul trailer loaded with everything she didn't trust the movers to move - computers, pottery, essential books - and our big boy kitty Remus J. Lupin. Then I could sell my truck for a great price because it had never weathered a New England winter with salt and sand on the roads. On the very day I was to go pick up my trailer, she changed our mind. Instead, we rented and loaded a fourteen foot Budget truck. She would sell the T-100 in Orlando. Then she and her mother, Sandra, would drive the little white kitties and as much stuff as they could stuff into the Rav-4 to Blairsville to see my parents, then on to Massachusetts.
One thing I had done a few days before was to buy a second Rand McNally Road Atlas, mark out the route, state by state, in pink highlighter, tab the pages numbered 1-10, and write up directions, route number by route number, all the way from the Florida Turnpike to 14 Upland Road in Belmont. I had my own copy of the directions, and as I went, I followed the same route to make sure everything worked. It did. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
So we cancelled our trailer and rented a truck. With it we hauled home another big bag of packing peanuts and two more wardrobe boxes - bringing the total to five. This was when I loaded the bed and the disassembled giant desk into the truck and hauled it to Melissa's house. Then I drove to the storage unit, emptied it and cancelled our storage rental. I drove home and backed up the driveway as the next horrendous thunderstorm hit.
It was apparent by this time that I wasn't going to get on the road tomorrow as planned. For one thing, the pottery had not yet begun to be packed. This was an ordeal beyond my wildest imaginings. Each piece was bubble wrapped and floating in packing peanuts in a box. Then the box was floated in peanuts nested inside another box. A group of three or four of these units were packed in more peanuts inside a big box. A lot of my job was running to the garage for the perfect sized box for each step of the process. Pottery took both of us an entire day. Pottery is a good thing to collect if you are going to be moving a lot. You know, it may be heavy, but hey, at least it's fragile. We called it a load at about 11:00 and went to bed - hey! There was no bed!
June 17th at 8:00 am, I pulled out of the driveway as Lawson's truck was maneuvering to back in. Remus and I took the easy route, driving a Budget truck to Blairsville and Belmont. Back in Orlando, the movers loaded the truck in yet another horrendous rain storm. Party Marty Haddad came over and helped Carmen with the last minute packing, but even so, the contents of the big storage place in the garage - The Bunker - escaped the move.
As soon as the movers were gone, Carmen went to the airport and picked up her mother. They spent the next couple of days figuring out what to take in the Rav 4, hauling more truckloads of stuff to the church and other places, and then selling the truck.
Our "little dog" Remus J. Lupin cried and cried in his cat carrier during the first several hours of the trip. I let him out to use the litter box when I stopped for gas and an exchange of liquids in Lake City, Florida. I didn't leave my hat in the truck. The fun thing here was a big sign over the rest rooms: NO LOITERING NO ALCOHOL NO PROFANITY. I saw the proprietor standing outside the store as I went in. "No profanity?" I asked. "That's Right," he said. "Damn!" I said.
There were no deposits in the litter, and Professor Lupin was back in the carrier when I returned. We continued on to Blairsville, arriving a little after 6:00. I put Remus and his litter box upstairs in our room while we ate supper and then unloaded a few more Georgia items from the truck. Mr. Butter came to me and said hello one time, then ignored me completely. He seemed quite at home there.
After breakfast (9:00!) we lit out. We were breaking new ground today, taking US 76 all the way to Interstate 85. I opened the cat carrier once we were well under way. Remus came out and curled up in my lap for a couple of hours. I kept seeing signs about shortcuts to I 85, and I even took one. It was a shortcut if one was headed south. It added about twelve miles to my trip. The directions I gave Carmen were better. I stopped for gas at the Interstate. Remus went exploring while I was out. He found the step-down well by the passenger's side door, and stayed there for the rest of the day.
Carmen called in the afternoon. The truck was sold, and she threw in the lawnmower as a bonus.
It's a beautiful drive through the Carolinas and Virginia. We switched to I 77 at Charlotte and I 81 in southern Virginia. The truck handled the mountains very well. We spent the night at the Days Inn in Winchester, VA, where Remus finally used the litter box.
After gassing and coffeeing up in Winchester, we shot through West Virginia and Maryland without blinking so we didn't miss them. Then it was a long hard slog through Pennsylvania. There were hundreds of miles of construction going on. At Scranton we jogged over on I 380 to I 84, which took us through New York and Connecticut, all the way to I 90, the Massachusetts Turnpike. After that I wished I'd had a navigator. Professor Lupin was absolutely no help down in his pit. I saw the sign that said I 495 to I 95, and exited the Pike. I went five miles before I could turn around and get back to the Pike. Then I got off on the real I 95 to US 20 and had to find State Road 60, which I was just lucky enough to see. This got me to Trapelo Road in Belmont, Beech Street, Upland Road and I was there! And - I was only seventy miles over the allotted mileage for a trip from Orlando to Belmont without furniture deliveries, visits to relatives, bogus shortcuts or wrong exits. Only fifty bucks (so far) added to the rental.
I loaded the Perfesser into his carrier and went to the door. I called Carmen as I went to the door, and gave her the blow-by-blow. I entered the little screened porch that serves the upstairs apartment as well, unlocked our front door and went in. I closed the door and opened the carrier. Remus ran out into this wide open empty space and found a rubber band - his favorite cat toy - on the floor. It was all bigger than I had imagined it to be. There was a nice big living room with an archway to the huge dining room. Then there was a swinging door to a tiny breakfast nook and a storage hutch, then the fairly large kitchen with a new gas range and small but fairly new refrigerator. Beyond that was a little mud room, the perfect place for litter boxes. This opened onto a deck with spongy floor boards and wobbly handrail. "I hope the landlord replaces this soon." I said. He did.
Back inside, I went through the other door of the kitchen and entered "the room of doors," a little square in the house that was nothing but doors - to the linen closet, the living room, the bedroom, the bathroom, the office and the kitchen. The bedrooms were bigger than I was anticipating. The bathroom was a shithole. Remus ran in there and cowered on the back side of the tub for the rest of the night.
I hung up the phone and went to the truck, bringing in the litter box and the rest of the stuff from the cab. The screened porch was a great cat lock. I could leave that door open, load everything onto the porch, close the door and open the door to the living room without fear of escaping kitties. I unlocked the back of the truck and began bringing in necessary items for the night: clothes, towels, toiletries, the Air Bed - stuff like that. Then I locked everything up and walked back down Beech Street to Trapelo Road. There I was confronted with a plethora of choices: three pizza and sub joints, two Chinese carry-outs, a seafood place, two convenience stores and - yes - a Dunkin Donuts. In Massachusetts there is a Dunkin Donuts within view pretty much wherever you are. Sometimes two. I opted for one of the Chinese places. It wasn't very good. The other one, of course, was excellent, we found out later that month.
June 20th - very close to the longest day of the year - Remus and I woke up to bright daylight outside. I looked at my watch: 4:30? I got up and fed the boy, then tried to go back to sleep. Before long I was out at the truck, making as little noise as possible. I brought everything inside and stowed it where it would go. I tried to take the steel shelving units to the dank and dark basement (Carmen hated it) down the steps from the mud room, but they wouldn't go. I tried the steps from the outside door, but they wouldn't go. I had to disassemble them all and reassemble them in the basement. Joy.
It was well after noon when I had the truck unloaded and cleaned out, ready to return. I showered, put on clean clothes and struck out for the Budget place in Cambridge. I only took one wrong road at an intersection that sported six ways to go, none of them marked. I figured it out within a quarter mile, and by the time I drove directly through Harvard Square, found Massachusetts Avenue going the right direction, got gas at a tiny station where I had to wait on the street while two guys argued about whose turn it was at the pump, and finally made it to the Budget place, it was after 2:00 and the mileage was seventy six over the allotment. Before I was all the way into the tiny parking lot, a guy came out, took the keys, wrote down the mileage, inspected the truck, signed my contract and sent me into the office.
"So how do I get back to Belmont?" I asked the woman at the counter. She started in with driving directions. "I just dropped off the only vehicle I have," I said. She looked kind of puzzled. She thought I could probably get somewhere near Belmont by Red Line. She thought there might be a Commuter Rail train out of Porter Square Station. I set out walking north on Mass. Ave. and after passing dozens of delicious smelling restaurants, found Harvard Station. I went inside, looking for a system map or something to tell me what my options were. When I got to the bottom of the second escalator I saw it: BUSES 74 and 75 to Belmont - up the ramp. I went up the ramp and waited for the bus. It came eventually, and took me to Belmont Center.
On the way I got a call from Carmen. The closing had gone without a hitch, the house was officially sold. She, her mama and the kitties were spending the night in a motel and striking out early in the morning. I wish I remembered more of her story of their trip. It was a goodie.
The walk from Belmont Center was pretty long. I wasn't looking forward to doing this twice a day. Once home I deposited my map and paperwork and set out again for something to eat. Also, I was primed to look for bus stop signs. It turned out that there was one right there at Trapelo Road and Beech Street: Number 73 to Waverley. Across the street: number 73 to Harvard Square. This was my introduction to a strange truth about the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority: once you know how to get somewhere, you can suddenly see how you could have gotten there much faster and easier. I remembered seeing WAVERLEY on the wall above the bus ramp down. If I'd known Waverley was on Trapelo Road, I could have saved myself a lot of walking. But that's okay. I like to walk.
So that's the story of the move to Massachusetts. The Lawson truck arrived on Friday the 24th at 6:30 am. Carmen arrived at 10:30 am, when the truck was almost empty and the apartment was almost full. All we had left to do was to get set up for the business of living, learn our way around Middlesex County, find jobs and do four years of Seminary. Then we could do all this again. And it was so.
Friday, January 29, 2010
The End Of The Beginning Part Two
About a month after the Thesis Presentation, in May, 2004, was graduation. Not only was my girl graduating, she was selected to be student speaker at the Adult Education session. We were headed to Boston again, this time with Sandra and Olen, made famous in the entry entitled Adventures in Hauling Luggage. And this time we weren't torturing anybody with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. We were torturing them with The Boston Pops, with John Williams as guest conductor.
I was Secret Keeper for our friends from Jacksonville, Pat and Linda, who wanted to surprise Carmen by coming to the graduation. I fed them the pertinent information about when and where the graduation was going to take place. I almost made it to the very edge of the event without letting anything slip.
We arrived on Friday, three days before graduation. We had plans for dinner out with Les and Susan, our friends from Orlando who now lived in Lowell, Mass. We rode the Doubletree Bayside shuttle van to the hotel, which was on the same chunk of land as the Bayside Expo Center in Dorchester, where the graduation extravaganza was being held. We called Les and Susan to let them know we had arrived, checked into our room and got ready to go out to dinner. After a while they came, and they drove us into downtown Boston. It was actually on this occasion that I decided that if I ever moved to Boston, I wasn't going to have a car. The traffic was ridiculous, the roads were in terrible shape, there were no street signs, and downtown was still torn up in the aftermath of the Big Dig. There was some seafood restaurant they had in mind to take us to, but they couldn't find it. We ended up going to Legal Seafood across from the New England Aquarium, right where we had caught our trolley tour and harbor tour a month before. They parked in a garage by the Aquarium, and after we had a very yummy seafood dinner, paid forty bucks to get the car out.
The next morning was time for Carmen to write her speech before Sandra and Olen got in. We had a room with two queen beds so we could all room together for the three nights. Carmen sat in the lounge off of the lobby all morning working on it. I went for a walk. I found the Red Line station and a grocery store. I bought a few snack items - fruit and such - and walked back.
The speech writing took most of the day.
Sandra and Olen arrived and checked in, and then we had to figure out where to eat. We consulted the phone book and my map of Greater Boston, and finally decided to go find a restaurant in Boston's North End, where there are hundreds of Italian restaurants. We took a cab the five or so miles and got out on Hanover Street. On a beautiful Saturday evening in May, there were people lined up out the doors, waiting for tables in the hundreds of restaurants. We walked down the street until we found one with a much shorter line. That was where we ate. We found out why the line was shorter - the food was not very good, but at least the service was lousy. We cabbed back to Dorchester where we watched TV until time to go to sleep.
Early Sunday morning we trooped across the highway and under Interstate 93 to the JFK /U Mass Red Line Station. We went inbound to Park Street Station, then took the Green Line to Government Center. We walked through Quiincy Market and Faniuel Hall to the waterfront and took the same trolley tour that we'd taken a month before. This time, our driver was black, and his spiel included a plethora of information about the contributions and treatment of people of color throughout the history of Boston. We got off the trolley near Beacon Hill to explore a couple of old historic cemetaries. We found out that these grassy plots were used for cattle grazing hundreds of years ago, so the headstones had been moved closer together to facilitate cattle browsing among the graves. The headstones bore no relationship to the location of the actual graves.
We went to Harvard Square by Red Line. While Carmen and Sandra shopped, Olen and I staked out a table at The Border restaurant. We had a lot of chips, salsa and beer before the womenfolk finally came along for our early dinner. We had to get back to the hotel by about 6:00 to get changed and head downtown for the Boston Pops. I was excited to be going to a Pops concert, which completely mystified Sandra and Olen.
The Pops was a great time. John Williams did a program of movie music, featuring Bernard Herrmann, who, among many other credits, scored many of Alfred Hitchcock's movies; and Henry Mancini. Henry's daughter Monica was part of the program, singing "Moon River" and a couple of other Mancini classics. Finally, at the end of the evening, they did John's music from ET, and for the encore a Star Wars medley. Yes, even Sandra and Olen said they enjoyed the Evening At Pops.
It was pouring rain, a big fat hairy thunderstorm when we came out of Symphony Hall. Cabs were hard-fought commodities, but we finally got one. Back at the hotel, we flung the drapes wide open and watched the storm lighting up Greater Boston until it blew itself out. "Cold Mountain" was on Pay Per View, and we watched it.
First Breakfast was easy to find at this hotel. There was an Au Bon Pain in the building. It was good that I got there early, because soon after there were graduates and their families, faculty, speakers and Event Workers arriving hungry. When I went back up to the room, Carmen and Sandra were deep in discussion of a plan to bolt for Salem, Mass. directly after graduation. I had to steer them away from this plan without spilling too many beans about who we might want to have lunch with afterward.
We all got dressed up in our fancy duds and mosied on across the parking lot. Carmen was desperate to find out who her surprise guests might be. She had guessed Pat and Linda, but I had given no indication that she was correct. Soon she felt she had to go to the graduates procession area, and we staked out five seats on the aisle as near the front as we could get.
Eventually, Pat and Linda arrived, and took two seats on the aisle. As it turned out, Carmen's part of the procession came directly down that aisle. When Carmen saw the five of us she burst into tears. Luckily, she had a long time to compose herself before her speech. In fact, this gathering was only the prelude to Graduation. The big name speakers spoke here. Then the show broke up and divided into actual graduation chunks. We plowed our way through the multi-directionally milling crowds over to the Adult Ed section and found the best seats we could get. Sandra made her way up to the stage-right side of the stage brandishing her video camera, determined to get Carmen's speech.
Before things got under way, I saw a tall, thin black man in a nice suit moving toward the stage with a bouquet of flowers. "That looks a lot like Carmen's boss," I said to Olen. The man handed the flowers to a flustered-looking Carmen and went back to his seat.
Of course there were speeches before Carmen's speech. The person who spoke before Carmen was about a foot taller, and the microphone was aimed way up. Not being comfortable with audio equipment, Carmen's method of compensating for this was to stand on her tiptoes. She needed to be louder anyway, the microphone was still aimed away from her, and there were other speeches going on in other sub-graduations inside the Expo Center. I understood her, but only because she had practiced it on me a couple of times. I'm proud to say that six years later, she has learned to project her voice.
As soon as Carmen crossed the stage and was handed her diploma, Je'an Wilson jumped up and headed for the exit. He was a busy Orlando lawyer, after all, and he had a flight back in an hour. I intercepted him, introduced him to Olen and thanked him for coming, and he was out the door and gone.
When it was all over, we six piled into two cabs and hauled ass to Legal Seafood across from the New England Aquarium. A splendid time was had by all. And, Olen and I didn't have to go to Salem. After lunch Pat and Linda went back to their hotel to get ready to fly home, leaving us four to wander.
Olen wanted to get a picture of the Old North Church. We consulted the map and looked up the hill, but couldn't see it from the waterfront. We climbed the hill, still looking. Finally we asked a local, who told us how to get there. We found ourselves on Hanover Street, across from the restaurant from Saturday night. There was Paul Revere on his horse. We had to go around the block to see the famous spire. Olen got his pictures, Sandra got video, and we were done with Boston. Back to Dorchester we went, packed up our stuff and were ready to fly home to begin the next phase of the adventure, applying to Seminaries.
I was Secret Keeper for our friends from Jacksonville, Pat and Linda, who wanted to surprise Carmen by coming to the graduation. I fed them the pertinent information about when and where the graduation was going to take place. I almost made it to the very edge of the event without letting anything slip.
We arrived on Friday, three days before graduation. We had plans for dinner out with Les and Susan, our friends from Orlando who now lived in Lowell, Mass. We rode the Doubletree Bayside shuttle van to the hotel, which was on the same chunk of land as the Bayside Expo Center in Dorchester, where the graduation extravaganza was being held. We called Les and Susan to let them know we had arrived, checked into our room and got ready to go out to dinner. After a while they came, and they drove us into downtown Boston. It was actually on this occasion that I decided that if I ever moved to Boston, I wasn't going to have a car. The traffic was ridiculous, the roads were in terrible shape, there were no street signs, and downtown was still torn up in the aftermath of the Big Dig. There was some seafood restaurant they had in mind to take us to, but they couldn't find it. We ended up going to Legal Seafood across from the New England Aquarium, right where we had caught our trolley tour and harbor tour a month before. They parked in a garage by the Aquarium, and after we had a very yummy seafood dinner, paid forty bucks to get the car out.
The next morning was time for Carmen to write her speech before Sandra and Olen got in. We had a room with two queen beds so we could all room together for the three nights. Carmen sat in the lounge off of the lobby all morning working on it. I went for a walk. I found the Red Line station and a grocery store. I bought a few snack items - fruit and such - and walked back.
The speech writing took most of the day.
Sandra and Olen arrived and checked in, and then we had to figure out where to eat. We consulted the phone book and my map of Greater Boston, and finally decided to go find a restaurant in Boston's North End, where there are hundreds of Italian restaurants. We took a cab the five or so miles and got out on Hanover Street. On a beautiful Saturday evening in May, there were people lined up out the doors, waiting for tables in the hundreds of restaurants. We walked down the street until we found one with a much shorter line. That was where we ate. We found out why the line was shorter - the food was not very good, but at least the service was lousy. We cabbed back to Dorchester where we watched TV until time to go to sleep.
Early Sunday morning we trooped across the highway and under Interstate 93 to the JFK /U Mass Red Line Station. We went inbound to Park Street Station, then took the Green Line to Government Center. We walked through Quiincy Market and Faniuel Hall to the waterfront and took the same trolley tour that we'd taken a month before. This time, our driver was black, and his spiel included a plethora of information about the contributions and treatment of people of color throughout the history of Boston. We got off the trolley near Beacon Hill to explore a couple of old historic cemetaries. We found out that these grassy plots were used for cattle grazing hundreds of years ago, so the headstones had been moved closer together to facilitate cattle browsing among the graves. The headstones bore no relationship to the location of the actual graves.
We went to Harvard Square by Red Line. While Carmen and Sandra shopped, Olen and I staked out a table at The Border restaurant. We had a lot of chips, salsa and beer before the womenfolk finally came along for our early dinner. We had to get back to the hotel by about 6:00 to get changed and head downtown for the Boston Pops. I was excited to be going to a Pops concert, which completely mystified Sandra and Olen.
The Pops was a great time. John Williams did a program of movie music, featuring Bernard Herrmann, who, among many other credits, scored many of Alfred Hitchcock's movies; and Henry Mancini. Henry's daughter Monica was part of the program, singing "Moon River" and a couple of other Mancini classics. Finally, at the end of the evening, they did John's music from ET, and for the encore a Star Wars medley. Yes, even Sandra and Olen said they enjoyed the Evening At Pops.
It was pouring rain, a big fat hairy thunderstorm when we came out of Symphony Hall. Cabs were hard-fought commodities, but we finally got one. Back at the hotel, we flung the drapes wide open and watched the storm lighting up Greater Boston until it blew itself out. "Cold Mountain" was on Pay Per View, and we watched it.
First Breakfast was easy to find at this hotel. There was an Au Bon Pain in the building. It was good that I got there early, because soon after there were graduates and their families, faculty, speakers and Event Workers arriving hungry. When I went back up to the room, Carmen and Sandra were deep in discussion of a plan to bolt for Salem, Mass. directly after graduation. I had to steer them away from this plan without spilling too many beans about who we might want to have lunch with afterward.
We all got dressed up in our fancy duds and mosied on across the parking lot. Carmen was desperate to find out who her surprise guests might be. She had guessed Pat and Linda, but I had given no indication that she was correct. Soon she felt she had to go to the graduates procession area, and we staked out five seats on the aisle as near the front as we could get.
Eventually, Pat and Linda arrived, and took two seats on the aisle. As it turned out, Carmen's part of the procession came directly down that aisle. When Carmen saw the five of us she burst into tears. Luckily, she had a long time to compose herself before her speech. In fact, this gathering was only the prelude to Graduation. The big name speakers spoke here. Then the show broke up and divided into actual graduation chunks. We plowed our way through the multi-directionally milling crowds over to the Adult Ed section and found the best seats we could get. Sandra made her way up to the stage-right side of the stage brandishing her video camera, determined to get Carmen's speech.
Before things got under way, I saw a tall, thin black man in a nice suit moving toward the stage with a bouquet of flowers. "That looks a lot like Carmen's boss," I said to Olen. The man handed the flowers to a flustered-looking Carmen and went back to his seat.
Of course there were speeches before Carmen's speech. The person who spoke before Carmen was about a foot taller, and the microphone was aimed way up. Not being comfortable with audio equipment, Carmen's method of compensating for this was to stand on her tiptoes. She needed to be louder anyway, the microphone was still aimed away from her, and there were other speeches going on in other sub-graduations inside the Expo Center. I understood her, but only because she had practiced it on me a couple of times. I'm proud to say that six years later, she has learned to project her voice.
As soon as Carmen crossed the stage and was handed her diploma, Je'an Wilson jumped up and headed for the exit. He was a busy Orlando lawyer, after all, and he had a flight back in an hour. I intercepted him, introduced him to Olen and thanked him for coming, and he was out the door and gone.
When it was all over, we six piled into two cabs and hauled ass to Legal Seafood across from the New England Aquarium. A splendid time was had by all. And, Olen and I didn't have to go to Salem. After lunch Pat and Linda went back to their hotel to get ready to fly home, leaving us four to wander.
Olen wanted to get a picture of the Old North Church. We consulted the map and looked up the hill, but couldn't see it from the waterfront. We climbed the hill, still looking. Finally we asked a local, who told us how to get there. We found ourselves on Hanover Street, across from the restaurant from Saturday night. There was Paul Revere on his horse. We had to go around the block to see the famous spire. Olen got his pictures, Sandra got video, and we were done with Boston. Back to Dorchester we went, packed up our stuff and were ready to fly home to begin the next phase of the adventure, applying to Seminaries.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The End Of The Beginning Part One
Spring 2004 - The last packet for Lesley University was Carmen's Bachelor's Thesis, a big one about death and dying. She had been a hospice volunteer; she had done several death and dying workshops with co-workers and church people. All in all, it had been a happy-go-lucky six months culminating in a trip to Boston for the three of us - our friend Karen, Carmen and me. Phase one: Carmen's Thesis Presentation at Rolling Ridge Conference Center; Phase Two: exploration of Boston and a night at Symphony Hall.
We flew to Boston in the morning and grabbed a shuttle van to Rolling Ridge at North Andover. We were assigned our sleeping space in a big multi-bed room upstairs. Carmen's presentation was that afternoon, so she went right to work setting up her props and script. As her staff photographer, I went to work taking pictures.
The Thesis Presentation was very well done, with the usual exception: she needed to be louder. All of her stuff needed more volume. The crux of her message was (and still is) "We need each other" as the stained glass needs light (the candle wasn't bright enough) and as the wind chimes need the wind (the fan wasn't strong enough) but we got the message. She got her usual 4.0, paving the way to graduation in a month.
We spent the night in the big multi-bed room upstairs, ate breakfast with the students and faculty, stayed for a couple of other people's presentations (I explored the edge of the pond) and caught the early afternoon shuttle van back to Boston. We stayed in a hotel in Cambridge in an area I know very well nowadays. It's an easy walk from there to the Museum of Science, where I spent about a third of my working days during my four years at Mystic Scenic Studios.
That evening we caught a cab to Symphony Hall, where we participated in the pre-symphony dinner right next to the hall. The BSO was doing an evening of Mahler, with which none of us were familiar. Carmen and I simply enjoyed the experience of a live world class Symphony Orchestra. Karen was fascinated with the violinist near the edge of the stage. He looked as if he could keel over dead and land in her lap at any moment. Our seats were right up front.
The next day we ventured out on public transportation. From this perspective I can tell you we took the Green Line from Lechmere Station, got off at Government Center and walked through Faneuil Hall to the waterfront, where we caught a trolley tour of Boston. This was our first trolley tour, but by no means our last. Well, it was Karen's last one. Every guide on these tours has a personal slant on the history of Boston. This was the "dirt hauling" tour. Our guide was, we guess, descended from laborers who hauled dirt around Boston over the centuries. It used to be a land of hills and swamps. Many of the hills (including Bunker Hill) were leveled off and used to fill swamps. This was the focus of our driver's spiel - how much dirt, hauled from where to where, how many men, how long it took. After the trolley, we had an included-in-the-price harbor tour boat ride, which was a little chilly, but nice when the sun came out.
We flew to Boston in the morning and grabbed a shuttle van to Rolling Ridge at North Andover. We were assigned our sleeping space in a big multi-bed room upstairs. Carmen's presentation was that afternoon, so she went right to work setting up her props and script. As her staff photographer, I went to work taking pictures.
The Thesis Presentation was very well done, with the usual exception: she needed to be louder. All of her stuff needed more volume. The crux of her message was (and still is) "We need each other" as the stained glass needs light (the candle wasn't bright enough) and as the wind chimes need the wind (the fan wasn't strong enough) but we got the message. She got her usual 4.0, paving the way to graduation in a month.
We spent the night in the big multi-bed room upstairs, ate breakfast with the students and faculty, stayed for a couple of other people's presentations (I explored the edge of the pond) and caught the early afternoon shuttle van back to Boston. We stayed in a hotel in Cambridge in an area I know very well nowadays. It's an easy walk from there to the Museum of Science, where I spent about a third of my working days during my four years at Mystic Scenic Studios.
That evening we caught a cab to Symphony Hall, where we participated in the pre-symphony dinner right next to the hall. The BSO was doing an evening of Mahler, with which none of us were familiar. Carmen and I simply enjoyed the experience of a live world class Symphony Orchestra. Karen was fascinated with the violinist near the edge of the stage. He looked as if he could keel over dead and land in her lap at any moment. Our seats were right up front.
The next day we ventured out on public transportation. From this perspective I can tell you we took the Green Line from Lechmere Station, got off at Government Center and walked through Faneuil Hall to the waterfront, where we caught a trolley tour of Boston. This was our first trolley tour, but by no means our last. Well, it was Karen's last one. Every guide on these tours has a personal slant on the history of Boston. This was the "dirt hauling" tour. Our guide was, we guess, descended from laborers who hauled dirt around Boston over the centuries. It used to be a land of hills and swamps. Many of the hills (including Bunker Hill) were leveled off and used to fill swamps. This was the focus of our driver's spiel - how much dirt, hauled from where to where, how many men, how long it took. After the trolley, we had an included-in-the-price harbor tour boat ride, which was a little chilly, but nice when the sun came out.
We shopped our way back through Quincy Market, and ate an early dinner there before Green Lining it back to Lechmere.
An early riser, I was dressed and out walking hours before anybody else was up next morning. I found a grocery store and a CVS, and bought some stuff for my first breakfast. After a while we all came trooping out to Lechmere Station and caught the number 69 bus that takes Cambridge Street through the day-to-day business part of Cambridge all the way to Harvard Square. It passes the Fresh Killed Chicken store. During the time of day we went, the plain folk were out and about. One guy on the bus had a big clock on a chain around his neck like Flave-O-Flave.
This was my first time at Harvard Square, but by no means my last. We shopped at The Coop book store, and a couple of other places Carmen knew, then got on the Red Line outbound to Porter square.
It's a long escalator ride up to street level at Porter. Along the way, the work gloves of the construction crew are bronzed and attached to the housing between escalators. Kinda cool. Carmen has a long list of shops to browse on Massachusetts Avenue from Porter square south. Karen and I went into the shops with her primarily because it had begun to rain. This did not deter us from meandering from shop to shop all the way to Leslie University proper, which I now know is within a few blocks of Harvard Square. She went to the office to straighten out some stuff, and then we trooped all the way back to Porter, shopping in the funky little shops and eating lunch in the student-rich restaurant on Mass. Ave. whose name I can't recall. From Porter Square we grabbed the Red Line to downtown Boston and the Green Line back out to Lechmere. Wow, if I'd only known then what I know now about public transportation in Cambridge/Somerville.
Back at the hotel, we changed out of our wet clothes and tried to figure out what to do for fun on our last night in Greater Boston. Karen wanted to go to Target, but there was none nearby. The person at the front desk told us about Sears over on the other side of the Green Line. It was dark as we made our way around the route described to us. We found the Sears, and Karen bought a bag to haul her souvenirs in. We asked about nearby restaurants, and were directed around the corner to an Italian place (no longer there) and we found it easily. We ordered, but before our food came, Carmen saw a mouse run across the floor between booths and was so freaked she couldn't eat. What a fun night!
We took the hotel shuttle to the airport the next morning, and our adventure (Karen's nightmare?) was over.
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