The Road North

THE ROAD NORTH

or

THE WRONG TURN

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no telling where you might be swept off too.”

                                                                                      --  Bilbo Baggins 

It was the afternoon of December 23, and I had most of my shopping done. Ann called.  “Can I ask an enormous favor?”

This was early in our friendship, and I hadn’t yet realized that a phone call like this could turn into an adventure.  I might wind up being a hero (see Chapter Six: Heroics);  or saving the Indians (see the forthcoming Chapter Six: Saving the Indians); or even carrying an air conditioner (see the forthcoming Chapter Six: By the Way, the Elevator is Broken).  

“Can I ask an enormous favor?  I hate to  bother you, but could you give me a lift to the Port Authority Bus Terminal later today? I could take the subway, but I’ve been wrapping presents for my family, and I realize how many there are ...”

“Of course. You’re not taking the train?”

“I’m mad at Amtrak.”

“Greyhound?”

“Adirondack Trailways. I’m mad at Greyhound.”

So, that evening I went over to her apartment. She was just finishing wrapping, taking endless pains with ribbons and bows.  She could charm the most bitter cynic with her enthusiasm for Christmas.

I had thought I realized how many “how many” would be, but when I saw them, I couldn’t imagine how she’d get them upstate on the bus. We loaded the gifts and her suitcase in the car, and set off. At the end of the block I made a snap decision and turned right rather than left.  Ann didn’t notice till she saw the sign for the Thruway.

She was shocked. “You don’t have to ....”

“I must have made a wrong turn.”

We debated the issue through Yonkers, and she finally agreed to be driven to Schenectady.

And so off to the north, the “long talk on the dark road” as we came to call it.

After about an hour, we stopped to get something to eat.  The TV was on in the restaurant, and we watched the fall of Communism in Romania.  She was horrified by the violence.  I was too, but my strongest reaction was amazement at what I was seeing.  It hadn’t been that long ago that the conventional wisdom among many of the people I knew was that the Cold War was all over but the shooting, and that the West had lost.

I couldn’t understand how Ann could not be as amazed as I was.  She couldn’t understand how I could think of anything but the immediate human toll.

Eventually, off into the darkness again. It was colder now, and the stars much brighter. 

Suddenly, a faint thumping sound, slowly getting louder.  I said “I’m going to pull over and ...”  ... and the left rear tire disintegrated.  I don’t know how I got from the center lane to the shoulder in what Ann said was a very smooth and calm motion, so I can’t claim credit for it.

It was colder still, and I felt clumsy with the jack and wrench.  Even though I had pulled as far to the right on the shoulder as possible, I felt that traffic was passing inches behind me as I struggled with tire.  Ann alternated using the flashlight to light what I was doing, and to motion oncoming traffic to move left.  All the while she served as a cheering section, saying “think about Disney World, think how warm it will be”.  We were  going there just after New Year’s.

Northward again.  The Long Talk, getting to know each other better. Hopeful things, Sad things. Funny things.  The lights of Albany before us, and then receding.  Finally, what I was told was a rare privilege: I saw the big “G E” on the General Electric “Works” lit up in red and green, instead of white as it was most of the year.

And then her parent’s house. I hadn’t been there before, and I was very impressed: there was a snowmobile outside the garage.  Ann punctured my sense of being in the remote Far North.  “That thing didn’t run when my brother bought it, and it’s never run.”

The car windows seemed to have fogged up, but when I tried wiping them I realized it was ice.  As I got out of the car the first breath told me the air was bitterly cold.   Ann’s mother came out to greet us.  “It’s gone up to two below” she said.

Several trips to get all the packages inside.  Great joy from the dog to see Ann, and mild interest from the cats.  Great joy on my part to see that her mother had just taken Christmas cookies out of the oven.

Coffee and cookies and the story of the Great TIre Adventure for her parents and brothers.  Then I said “Merry Christmas” to her family, and “I’ll see you next week” to her.

Ann and her family made it clear to me that even I wasn’t crazy enough to drive back to New York that night, so I slept in the living room, close to the Christmas tree, enjoying its scent, and dreaming about the long talk on the dark road.

Then, the best Belgian waffle I ever had, and on the road again early on the 24th.  I got back in time to finish my shopping, and to do my best to imitate Ann’s careful wrapping.

Home for Christmas

Home for Christmas

or

How Can Something That Moves So Fast Take So Long?

Chicago, the third week of December.  Visiting Marie and Greg. Seeing some good shows.  Eating some good meals. Helping them pick out a Christmas tree.  Well, standing around while they picked out a tree.  Standing around some more while they picked out two trees (one for the living room, one for the dining room) since they couldn’t agree on one.  Helping them do last minute shopping.  Well, standing around while they did last minute shopping. 

Then, time to go back to New York.  I had, on a whim, arranged to fly out and return on Amtrak’s Lake Shore. I had told my family, as a joke, “I’ll be home for Christmas.”

A late lunch at Ann Sather’s Swedish restaurant.  A last show – an adaptation of Thomas Heywood’s The Fair Maid of the West  – at the theater that Marie manages.  The last bit of dueling, swinging from ropes, and swashbuckling, and it was really time to go. 

One more cup of coffee. Then it was finally really time to go.

In Marie’s car, heading downtown. Off Lake Shore Drive, with her usual remark, “well, we survived.” Under the L in the loop, and up to the entrance of Union Station.  “Have a good trip.”  “Take care of yourself. I can’t stand the thought of you waiting on windy L platforms.”  “I’ll be fine.”  “Love you.”  “Love you.”

Into the station with my suitcase and the shopping bag (with my last minute shopping from, Marshall Field’s). Onto the platform, and onto my car. A “sleeper coach”, one of the few remaining examples of the mid-20^th-century design that promised something sort of like Pullman comfort at something closer to coach prices.  About 40 passengers, where a Pullman might have 26.  How much smaller could the compartments be?

I found myself thinking of the old puzzle about the fox, the rabbit, and the lettuce, in a rowboat that would only hold two at a time.  I could stand in the corridor while my suitcase and shopping bag enjoyed the comfort of the compartment; or I could share the compartment with one of them, while the other was in corridor. Eventually I was able to squeeze all of us into the space.  How much legroom would I really need for an 18 hour trip?

Time for the Lake Shore to depart.  The first indication that it would live up to its reputation of “Late for Sure” was the late arrival of a connecting train from the west. But we eventually departed.  Rail yards. Abandoned factories glimpsed in the darkness. Christmas lights on the South Side.

Dinner in the diner.  I was seated with a young couple and their daughter, who was maybe eight. He worked for Kodak, and they were returning to Rochester from a combined business/holiday trip.  I amazed the daughter by showing her a trick I had learned from a New Haven Railroad waiter long, long ago: if you hold the glass in one hand and the can in the other, you can pour soda on a moving train without spilling it.  When we had eaten, the daughter politely told me it had been a pleasure to meet me.

Then, a visit to another survivor of mid-20^th-century railroad car design: a dome car.  Sitting up in the darkness, seeing the countryside slide past, watching the signals turn red as the engine passed them.  The dome was almost empty, except for a young woman sitting opposite me.  We chatted for a while. She was a December graduate of a very small college in the Southwest, heading east for her new job.  She was very concerned about how she would adapt to life in a big city. Utica.

I sat in the dome for hours, till I was nearly asleep.  Back to my compartment. The porter converted the seat into a bed, squashing my shopping bag in the process.  I discovered the heater control, with its two unmarked settings, which turned out to be “frigid” and “oppressively hot”. Fitful sleep.  I awoke to the almost inaudibly high squeal of brakes, and the sensation of the train slowing.  I looked out, and we were coming into Elyria, Ohio.  As the train slowed to a stop, the doors opened on a car in the parking lot, and a man and woman got out, followed by an older woman, and a young boy and girl.  The kids were very proudly carrying bags and suitcases for the older woman.  Seeing Grandma off on her Christmas trip east? 

Fitful sleep.  Awoke somewhere in upstate New York.  Breakfast in the diner.  I thought of my Rochester dinner companions, who would have been off the train by then.  Back to the dome, more crowded now, to see our entrance into Syracuse, with snow blowing against the glass of the dome.  A woman with an English accent, looking at the outskirts of Syracuse:  “Oo! It reminds me of Birmingham.”  Somewhere off in snowy Syracuse were my second cousins.

More Upstate New York. Coffee in the lounge. Very late arrival at Rensselaer. The dome car and others uncoupled to form the Boston section, so the rest of my sightseeing would be through a compartment window. I moved my bags to a compartment on the right side, to have a view of the Hudson.

Departure, even later, from Rensselaer.  Repeated announcements that there would be only one call for lunch in the diner; and then finally the predicted “first and only call.”  I ate lunch. As I headed back to my car, the “second and final call” for lunch was made.

At long last, onto Metro-North, where we actually made up some of the lost time.  Then onto Amtrak trackage on the west side of Manhattan, where the recovered time and more was lost, sitting outside the entrance to Penn Station.

Then Penn Station.  Against all odds, I was home for Christmas.

 

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The Other Way to Go

 

December Third

(December third, long, long ago)

He was drunk, of course; they’re always drunk,

down by the railroad station at night,

and cold in the early December gloom,

with the buttons gone off his coat.

“Excuse me”, he said, his hand on my shoulder,

“I lost my carfare, I want to go home”.

He pointed across to the bus at its stop,

and beyond it the neon sign “BAR”.

I gave him some money to buy him a drink

(the night was very cold). As he took it,

his hand shook, but he tried to stand straight.

“Thank you, God bless you” the ritual ended.

He crossed the street to the bus and the bar;

and got on the bus to go home.

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Descent into the Dark

No, not the blackout, although I’ll mention that too. This should have been posted a few weeks ago, on November 5^th, but one thing and another (the other one being the blackout) delayed it.

“Descent into the Dark Day” is the Monday after standard time resumes; the day that those who work a 9 to 5 schedule come out of work and find daylight almost gone. I’m not going into the arguments for and against saving daylight;  just remarking on the feeling of the darkness coming upon us sooner than we’re used to, and the hint of winter coming upon us sooner than we’d like.

A while ago, I quoted Archibald MacLeish’s “You, Andrew Marvell”, and since I like it so much I’ll quote it again:

To feel how swift how secretly

            “To feel how swift how secretly

            The shadow of the night comes on...”

The clock goes back on Saturday night/Sunday morning; and on Sunday I did notice every time I came out of my sage’s Study, through the Great Hall and into the Orangery, to look out over the Middle Yard, that the light looked different for the time of day.  But it’s on Monday, as every year, that it’s most striking.  The shadow of the night has gained a whole hour.  The cold is coming.  And even though decorations seem to appear earlier each year (not to my taste: see “Bringing in the Tree”), the lights of the holidays and the warmth of celebration seem far in the future.

Let no one think that sages are afraid of the dark.  But there’s always a sense of uneasiness about darkness where we’re used to seeing light. The dark school building, with the one red light on an upper floor seeming to make the darkness greater; the empty parking structure with a handful of dim bulbs. The building glimpsed from a moving car, somewhere between South Orange and Woodlawn.  It used to have candles on tables by the windows when I first saw it, years ago. A restaurant or bar?  But now the windows are dark.  Whatever conversation or conviviality used to be behind those windows is gone now.

And this November in particular, with most of Woodlawn in the dark, the early dusk is striking. Standing in the dark Orangery, across the darkness, with headlights and flashlights here and there, towards the distant lights of Norwood and Wakefield.  Walking the streets, which seem to be emptier of people and cars each night. 

            “And evening vanish and no more

            The low pale light across that land.”

 

 

 

 

 

(I had originally also mentioned that as we moved from October to November, we went from apple to pumpkin pie; but now we've moved on to mince, so I cut the pie section entirely)

 

 

 

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