Driving to New York

Driving in New York City is stressful. I am not surprised that many New Yorkers do not own a car – more than half of total households according to recent census estimates. New York’s great public transit system makes this possible.

My wife and I have a pied-à-terre in the Forest Hills section of NYC. In the past, we traveled there by train from our home in West Chester, PA. We got very adept at it and came to affectionately refer to travel on the rails as the “four-train cocktail:” One train took us Philadelphia, the next to Trenton, the third to New York’s Penn Station and the fourth, a subway to Forest Hills.  Once in our apartment, we could get to just about anywhere in New York City via the subway system.

We would drive occasionally when we needed to bring a load of things to the apartment, but then we had to find a parking spot – never an easy proposition in our neighborhood. And even when we found a great parking spot, we would have to move the car to another spot to accommodate street sweeping on Thursdays and Fridays.

Train travel took a little longer than driving, but it was more relaxing and spared us dealing with the stress of bumper-to-bumper traffic and finding a place to park once we arrived. Then, along came COVID. New York was hit particularly hard in the early days of the pandemic. So much so that our main reason for coming to New York – to visit our son and his family – disappeared as they moved into our home in West Chester. They stayed with us for five months during which time we traveled to New York only once or twice to check on things.

Once we were fully vaccinated in the spring of 2021, we felt bold enough to resume our visits to our Forest Hills apartment, but not bold enough to travel there by train and subway. Instead, we drove. By car, it’s about 135 miles from West Chester to Forest Hills. Our GPS tried to direct us through Manhattan but driving into the heart of New York City to get to Queens seemed crazy to us. So, we exited the New Jersey Turnpike at the Goethals Bridge, crossed Staten Island on I-278, crossed the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, and continued on I-278 through Brooklyn, eventually getting on I-495 after the Kosciusko Bridge, and finally exiting onto Queens Boulevard in Forest Hills.

We got quite comfortable with this route and enjoyed marking our progress by various landmarks such as the beehive dome of St. Michael’s, the stained-glass water tower designed by artist Tom Fruin, and the iconic Brooklyn Bridge. We also caught occasional glimpses of the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty. When traffic was lighter, the stretch from the Verrazano to Forest Hills took us about 45 minutes to traverse. However, when traffic was heavy, it could easily take twice that long, and, most times, traffic was heavy.

The alternative was to take the Belt Parkway from the Verrazano Bridge, which our GPS often advised us to do. But there is comfort in the familiar, and perhaps because I am older and not as open to trying new things, I persisted in driving on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (I-278) even though I knew we would be crawling along at 20 miles per hour or less.

Perhaps out of frustration that it could take up to two hours to cover about twenty miles, my wife and I decided to give the Belt Parkway a try. From the Verrazano the Belt Parkway route takes us about seventeen miles to Exit 19 near John F. Kennedy airport. Exit 19 puts us briefly on the Nassau Expressway before exiting onto the Van Wyck Expressway (I-678 North), and finally, Queens Boulevard.

In contrast to I-278 which runs through the heart of Brooklyn, the Belt Parkway winds around Brooklyn’s southern edge with parks and beaches on one side and businesses and apartment buildings on the other. You see glimpses of Coney Island, such as the flower-like parachute tower and the Cyclone roller coaster.  Shirley Chisholm State Park and Rockaway Beach are other destinations that can be viewed while driving along the Belt Parkway. There is far more greenery on this route and enclaves of single-family homes which are largely absent along I-278.

Most importantly, traveling the Belt Parkway significantly cuts the drive time to our Forest Hills apartment. Now in most cases we can make the trip in less than three hours. Traffic is lighter and moves faster than it does on I-278 resulting in a less stressful driving experience. We recently began to rent a parking space in our apartment’s building, so that has reduced the stress of finding a spot on the street.

Driving in New York will never be as stress free as it is in our small town of West Chester, PA (population 20,000). So, until we feel safe to resume our four-train cocktail, we will follow the advice of our GPS and take the Belt Parkway when driving to New York.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

I’m not much of a sports fan these days.  I feel guilty watching football knowing that some of the players will end up with brain injuries or suffer disabling pain for the rest of their lives from the bone crushing collisions that are part of the game.  I never got into basketball because my hometown, Pittsburgh, never had an NBA team.  And hockey, well, I follow the Penguins, but I rarely have had the patience to sit through an entire game. But baseball, well, I suppose you never forget your first love.

As a young boy growing up in Pittsburgh, I was a devoted Pirates fan. Roberto Clemente was my hero, whether making his signature basket catch, throwing out a runner trying for home, or banging out hits and driving in runs. Like many Pittsburghers, I grieved when “The Great One” died in a plane crash on his way to delivering aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.

Besides Clemente, there was second baseman Bill Mazeroski, the hero of the 1960 World Series and master of the double play. Fans were always thinking “home run” whenever Willie Stargell came to bat. And we all prayed that Steve Blass would be able to solve whatever ailment caused him to lose the ability to throw the ball over the plate. I’ve had the good fortune to watch the Pirates win three World Series titles in 1960, 1970 and 1979, and keep hoping for one more before I buy my ticket to the field of dreams in the sky.

Beyond the Pirates, I remember being able to watch so many great players when I was growing up in the 1960s. The Giants had Mays and McCovey, Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry. The Dodgers had Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. The Cardinals were always tough when Bob Gibson was pitching and the Cubs had “Ferguson Jenkins and his orchestra” to quote the Pirates colorful announcer, Bob Prince. There were also great players in the American League like Al Kaline, Rod Carew and 30-game winner Denny McClain, but I only got to see them in the All-Star Game or the World Series.

My love affair with baseball continued as an adult, especially after the Pirates moved into PNC Park, a short, pleasant walk from downtown where I worked. But with free agency and big market teams spending money like drunken sailors, small market Pittsburgh didn’t seem capable of putting a winning team on the field. Then in 2013, after a 20-year drought, the Pirates made it to the playoffs.

I was one of the 40,000 plus fans that squeezed into PNC Park to watch the wild card game between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. It was the most exciting baseball game I ever attended. In the bottom of the second inning with Cueto pitching, Pirate fans began to mockingly chant, “Cue-to, Cue-to.” Clearly affected by the chant, Cueto dropped the ball, and the fans went wild. Then on his very next pitch, Russell Martin clubbed it out of the park. The fans were delirious.

Pittsburgh went on to win the game 6-2, but subsequently lost the Divisional playoff to St. Louis. In the past few years, the Pirates have again become perennial losers, but that doesn’t keep me from monitoring their progress in the standings.

I now live closer to Philadelphia, and I am trying to become a Phillies fan, but it’s tough when you lack history with the team. Also, I am struggling with how the game has evolved from the baseball that I learned in my boyhood. So many statistics are bandied about today that measure things that I haven’t a clue about. And don’t get me started on the universal designated hitter rule, the expanded playoffs and the pitch clock that have been added by the recently approved collective bargaining agreement.

But despite all the changes that have taken place over the past sixty years that I have followed baseball, when I hear the crack of a bat or the pop of a ball striking leather, I will be there watching my favorite sport and cheering on my favorite team. 

Start Me Up

If you start me up,

If you start me up, I’ll never stop* 

Recently, I was getting ready to leave for an out-of-town trip. My wife’s car was behind mine in our driveway and had to be moved before I could get my car out. My wife got in her car, I got in mine, and we started our engines. In my rearview mirror, I saw my wife get out of her car and begin walking down the driveway toward me. 

“Did you remember to take any snacks for the road?” she called to me.

I got out of my car. “No,” I replied.

“I’ll get some for you,” she offered and ran back into the house. With both cars still running, I decided to move hers to the street. Then I backed my car to the street and waited. A few minutes later, my wife returned and handed me the snacks. I thanked her and drove away.

A few hours later after arriving at my destination, I discovered her keys in my coat pocket.  After moving her car, I had shut off the engine and pocketed her keys. Of course, I also had my set of keys, which included the only extra key to her car. Consequently, my wife would be unable to drive her car until I returned three days later.

Now, my wife had a number of errands to run in my absence that absolutely required a car. Fortunately, my daughter lives only a mile away. She and her husband have two cars and offered to let my wife borrow one of them. Like many newer cars, theirs doesn’t use an actual key to start it. Instead, it uses a fob containing a microchip. You push the starter button, and the chip links to the car’s computer system to start the car and keep it running until you push the starter button again to turn it off.

My son-in-law drove the loaner car to our house, picked up my wife and drove back to his house. With the engine still running, he got out of the car, said goodbye to my wife, and walked into his house. My wife climbed into the driver’s seat, and being the smart woman she is, started looking for the key fob. Unable to find it, she called my son-in-law on her cell phone and asked him where he had put the fob.

He paused for a second and said, “Oh. It’s in my pocket.”

“How far could I have driven without the fob in the car?” my wife wondered.

“You would have made it back to your house. But you wouldn’t have been able to start the car again once you shut it off.”

“Then I would have two cars in front of my house that I couldn’t start.”

“Sorry. I’ll be right out with the key.”

After my wife described this episode with my son-in-law, I pondered whether this was a man-thing, subconsciously holding onto the car key in the same manner as controlling the TV remote. I hope that’s not the case. It would be sad if it were.

You make a grown man cry,

You make a grown man cry.*

 

* “Start Me Up,” M. Jagger, K. Richards

Light Bulb Jokes

Don’t you just love those old light bulb jokes? They usually go something like this:  How many persons (of a certain group) does it take to change a light bulb? We laugh because the joke pokes fun at the target group, be they lawyers, psychiatrists, or jugglers. The joke is funny because changing a light bulb is easy, right?

Or so I thought. We moved into our current house about five years ago.  It’s a 1950s era house, but it was completely remodeled before we bought it. A few months ago, I noticed one of the lights over the bathroom sink was not lit. I reached up into the fixture to unscrew the bulb. There was no bulb like any I had ever seen. Instead, there was a glass bit about the size of my little finger beyond the second knuckle. I tried to twist it like unscrewing a regular light bulb, but it wouldn’t move. I got a flashlight and craned my neck to look up into the fixture to see if I could figure out how to remove the burned-out bulb. I saw the little glass bit sticking out of a round ceramic piece. Now was the ceramic piece and glass one unit that could be unscrewed, or were they separate pieces? I grasped the glass piece and tried twisting, but nothing moved. So, I tried gently tugging the glass, and it slowly came out.

I’d never seen a light like it, but after some investigation via the internet, I discovered that it was a type of halogen bulb. I found a place online that sold them, and after my order was delivered, I gently pushed one into the empty fixture. I felt a sense of pride when it lit up. Not only had I figured out this new-fangled light bulb, but now I had several spares ready for when the next one burned out.

A few months later, the light in our shower burned out. With my newfound sense of confidence, I figured I could get this done in no time. This fixture had a glass cover, which I assumed was to protect the light bulb from shower spray. I carefully tugged at the cover to expose the bulb, but the cover didn’t come off. Instead, the whole fixture came out of the ceiling, though it was still attached to my home’s electrical system by a wire. I jiggled a few parts of the fixture trying to figure out how to access the bulb, and then all the other lights in the bathroom went dark. Apparently, I had tripped a breaker, yet still had no idea how to get to whatever bulb type was inside the fixture.

At that point, I realized that changing this light bulb might just be beyond my limited handyman capabilities. I carefully pushed the fixture back into the ceiling, reset the breaker, and called my electrician. Since this was not an emergency, it took a few days for the electrician to come. I felt slightly less incompetent when he struggled to figure out how to remove the old bulb – an R20 LED bulb. Since I did not have an appropriate replacement, the electrician had to drive to the local hardware store to purchase one.

The bottom line was a bill for $93 from my electrician, which I was grateful to pay. I had hoped to learn from him how to do it myself the next time the bulb needs to be replaced. However, the only thing I learned was I needed to keep his number handy when that next time happened.

Oh, and how many jugglers does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but it takes three bulbs.