New York City. Circa 1960.

New York City.  Circa 1960.  A distant memory.  My mother wakes me at 11:00 pm.  I dress and she drives my father and me to the train station where we board the midnight train to Manhattan.  My father still works for the D & H so he knows everyone in the Pullman car.  We settle in.  And I sleep ‘til dawn when Dad wakes me.  We have arrived.

There is always a ritual to these arrivals.  We cross the street from Grand Central Station and have breakfast at Horn and Hardett’s.  I survey the food choices.  Too many!  I slip nickels and dimes into the automated food slots and out comes breakfast. 

We are in New York to visit my Aunt Sheila.  Somehow, probably by Subway, we get to Rego Park.  I do not know how long we stay.  It could only be for the weekend.  Aunt Sheila always has small bottles of Coke and serves delicious greasy bacon with eggs for breakfast.  Her home has a faint smell of camphor.  My bedroom is the room her son, my godfather, grew up in.  On the walls are photos from high school and the awards he was given.  I can always feel her pride.

In previous visits, my father had arranged tickets to see a live Radio broadcast.  I have a faint, dim remembrance of siting very close to the stage and being asked a question I could not answer.  We seemed to be in the front row.  Another time we were in the audience of a live taping of the Howdy Doodie show and yet again for some early TV variety show before the years when all of this was transported to Los Angeles.  It all seems so very long ago.

On our visits to the City, my Dad would bring me to Macy’s and let me ride the wooden escalators from street level to the top floor then down again.  Afterwards, we’d cross the street in eat at Tad’s Steak House.

In high school, my aunt gave me specific directions on how to get to and from Rego Park to the City on the Subway.  The only stipulation was that I be back in time for dinner.  I was 16, or younger, and alone in the City.  I’d play a game that gives me the shivers today, but probably established my fearlessness in travel.  I’d arrive at Grand Central, pick a metro line, select a station, ride to it, get out, walk around, then return to where I’d started.  I wandered around neighborhoods I probably should not have been in.  I was fearless, yet cautious, and somehow knew my limits.  I always got back to Grand Central and I made sure I never told anyone.

With my limited funds, I’d go to a Broadways ticket box office and buy a balcony or Standing Room only ticket.  For $5.00 I was seeing my first shows at Wednesday matinees.  (Just yesterday, I paid $108.00, 40% off, to see a show.  But maybe those $5.00 was equal to the $108.00 today.  Life’s changes.)  Sometimes I’d buy a ticket to Radio City Music Hall where I’d see a movie than a live Rockette’s show.  A long time ago in a very different New York.

Such beautiful memories.

Many years later, after my father’s death, I found myself in New York in early November.  I could feel my father’s presence.  I scrapped any plans I had and decided to make a pilgrimage to my father. I went to Macy’s, rode the escalators, had lunch at Tad’s, returned to Grand Central and paid homage to the ghost of the automat that had stood across the street. In the end, it was a happy visit.  New York, my Dad and me.   Then and now.

New York would dominate my urban life for years.  When I needed to be in a city, it was always New York to which I’d travel.  Expect for a brief period in the late 1970’s after I’d been mugged, I’d return often to “The City.”  Each March, somewhere around my birthday, I’d splurge on three theater tickets.  My birthday bash/theater binge.  I stopped doing that the year I drove through nightmarish snow to get home.

There are only glimpses of the New York I remember as a youngster and young man.  It is so much cleaner now.  42^nd Street is only a specter of the street I’d wander down as a young man.  Looking back on it, a teen ager should never have walked into the shops I’d investigate in those days.  Horn and Hardett’s is long gone.  Tad’s still has a presence but not in the low 30’s where my dad and I ate.  All the porn shops are shuttered.  In their place are restored theaters and trendy tourist shops.  It’s returned to the 42^nd Street of my parents’ generation and it’s all for the better.

I feel very old lately.  No longer young, on the cusp of old.  It’s a sobering feeling.  Looking at the hordes of young people who still gravitate to the City, I see myself.  It still lures people in and probably always will.

New York.  Seven decades of memories.

New York

In the End

Plattsburgh, New York

December 13, 2017

Latitude 44˚ 58’

In the end, I spent a month and one day on the road, tackling four countries in a way of travel I used to do but no longer do much of.  I flew, took trains and busses and felt as if it was 1985 all over again.

In the end, Latvia and Lithuania were two new countries added to the ongoing list of “countries visited.”  I would very much like to get to 100 by the time I turn 70. 

In the end, almost all of the trip was new, which is exactly what I wanted.  I’ve become far too comfortable in Mexico and it was time to break out of that rut.  I’ve heard far too many older people say how difficult it is to travel and I’m making this commitment now not to be one of them.

In the end, I glutted on Christmas markets and still did not have enough.  There is no end to them on this continent and I have no doubt I’ll do another trip of this sort.  I loved the short, cold and cloudy days and long dark nights.  I really never tired of living in shades or browns, grays and blacks.  There will be plenty of sun later on when I return to Mexico for the winter.

In the end, travel has changed—some ways for the good and some for the not so good.  I was able to stay in my own apartment and avoided hotels because of Airbnb.  That I liked.  A lot!  What I did not like was having to plan every element of this trip months in advance.  Because so many people are traveling these days it’s far more difficult to be serendipitous.

In the end, there are some definite perks to travel today that simply did not exist even a generation ago.  How nice to exit a train and not wait for a bus.  Uber at your service requires a Smartphone and a data plan, but it’s well worth it.

In the end, Airbnb put me in multiple apartments where I could prepare my own meals and not worry if the tenant next door is making too much noise in his hotel room.  Airbnb as allowed me to live in neighborhoods that were never available in the past.

In the end, I wonder if travel today hasn’t lost something in comparison to the past? Do we truly ever “get away?”  There were days I was in touch with people at home almost hourly, either via texts or FaceTime, Messenger or WhatsApp.  There was a day when I was 100% in France, or wherever, and there was minimal contact with home.  I don’t want to go back to that, but there was something nice about being fully present in the place you’re at.  That’s a bit lost these days.

In the end, I see why people take tours and cruises. They’re so much easier.  All one has to do is show up.  I’ve had to orient myself to 10 different locales is the past month.  It’s good for the brain, but at this point I’m ready to coast, go home and not have to do that again—for a while.

In the end, almost everything I did was new, which was what I wanted.  Outside of Paris, which might as well have been new considering how long it been since I’d been there last, every destination was a new experience.  I’ve missed that in travel and am glad I made this choice—a choice I’m going to make more often. 

In the end, I was so ready to fly home.  My body hurt in ways it never hurt before in traveling.  That, plus the facts that I was tired of the cold, tired of the cloudy days, tired of being alone.  It was just time.

In the end, the Little Engine did quite well.  I knew I could, I knew I could, I knew I could.”  But it was time to go home, and gladly so.  I took the wizard’s advice, clicked my heels three times and said, “Home.”  “Home”

“Home.”

Strasbourg and Paris: Third Sunday in Advent

Paris, France

December 12, 2017

Latitude 48˚ 51’ 52

Strasbourg had all the ingredients for a good visit.  A light spray of snow lay on the ground as I exited the train station, and a wet, heavy snow clung to branches and on cars.  It was below freezing and white clouds breathed out of my mouth.  Snow.  France.  Christmas.  Cold.  It was going to be a good stay.

It was still the first week of Advent, that deep blue season of darkening days that preceded the white feast of Christmas, and I was in this city, with two-days on my own in what many consider the best French city to experience a Christmas market.  The day was blue and cold—colder than any other day I’d spent on this trip. The air was chill and the wind blowing from the north had winter in it.  I wandered about the city and came upon the center city quite by accident.  Security was heavy and the crowds—even by 1:00 pm they were horrific.  People were everywhere and the only way to move was slowly and in a crowd.  But…once in the center city, with its medieval styled houses, its twin pair of canals, and the blue sky all was forgiven.

Christmas markets, in my opinion, are best seen at dusk.  When I walked into Strasbourg’s central square--Place Kléber--I felt that I had swallowed sunshine.  It was not yet dark, but a 4:15 dimness had set in and the light was at its best to experience this beauty.  Every building was lighted, and in the center, with a backdrop of very old and well restored half-timbered houses, was a massive Christmas tree—one of the most beautiful I’d ever seen. It was equal to Radio City’s Music Hall’s tree, to the tree in Old Town Square in Prague. wove from one market to the next.  There were easily ten of them in the city, and were connected in a zig-zag fashion and were easily connected through good signage. It was difficult to enjoy them because of the crowds, but I managed them nonetheless.  There was nothing in particular that I wanted to buy, but walking through them was a treat.

By 6:00 p.m. I’d had enough.  I made my way back to the tram and to the apartment where I’d rented a private room in someone’s home—a young couple, not more than 30, who were teachers.  They were out for the evening which was perfectly fine by me.  I was happy to be alone in a warm room.

Mid-morning on Sunday, a heavy snow began to fall and it took no time for snow to cover the ground.  It blew in great swirls, and I should have been excited.  But the day before had been so cold that nothing I was wearing was keeping me sufficiently warm.  That evening I’d lost a glove, and the prospect of heading out into the cold and snow was depressing.  When I left the apartment, a steady drift of snow crunched under my feet.  It would be a day of going to the movies.  In my travel-weary frame of mind there was nothing more I wanted to do than spend a quiet Sunday at home. 

Monday, I left for Paris on the 10:30 am TGV—first -class.  Ninety minutes Strasbourg to Paris at a speed of 311 km an hour.  307 miles.  Plattsburgh to NYC in an hour and a half!  Is there any hope for Amtrak?  I checked my luggage at the guest house where I would spend the night, then too off.  It was going to be a marathon day.  And a disappointing one.  My sources---the Internet—told me there were Christmas markets at the base of the Eiffel Tower, around Notre Dame and on the Champs Elysees.  There were none.  Well…I was disappointed.  Who wouldn’t be.  I slogged all over places I seen before and wasted an entire day.  Or did I? The city was lit up beautifully for Christmas.  The Champs Elysees was lines with hundreds of thousands of tiny lights.  I saw the Eiffel Tower go electric twice and even got to ride a giant Ferris wheel.  So maybe it wasn’t such a bad day after all.  It just wasn’t what I’d planned to do.

But I was tired and the day was less than pleasant.  A dismal gray drizzle was what I faced when I stepped out of Gare de l’Est, and even though that stopped it was still raw, gray and cold.  Suddenly it seemed the right time for this trip to come to an end.  I’d seen enough. I was quite happy to get back to my room, pack and go to bed. 

The trip had come to an end and that was OK. 

There will always be Paris.  Another time.