A Sunset Journey into History

Eve and I celebrated our seventeenth wedding anniversary on October 9, 2010 with a sundown wine-and-cheese trip aboard the parlor car "Marian" on the Strasburg Rail Road, through some lovely, pastoral Lancaster County, Pennsylvania countryside. Having spent the first years of my boyhood in the age of steam locomotives and elegant passenger trains, this was more of a sentimental journey than I'd expected. I can still remember living close to both the Pennsylvania and Reading railroad lines in the Schuylkill Valley across the river from Conshohocken and falling asleep to the sounds of trains passing in the night -- the chuffing of the engines and the haunting wail of steam whistles. The air horns on today's Diesel locomotives don't even come close to that melancholy quality. The Strasburg Rail Road is a wonderful window into a day we'll never see again in this country, except where historically-minded folks take the time and effort to preserve and re-create these extraordinary pieces of machinery...

The Iron HorseAnd the Sinews of the Iron Horse.

We came to this adventure expecting a good time, and we certainly got what we bargained for. However, we didn't expect to be riding in such distinguished company... Someone told President Roosevelt he had a lot of nerve to be traveling in luxury with a woman not his wife. Ah, well. Luxury it was, and a fitting capstone to seventeen years of wedded bliss -- ours, that is; not necessarily Teddy's...

At the Foot of Broad Street

IT'S PROBABLY NOT generally known, but at the foot of Broad Street in Philadelphia, at the U.S. Naval Base, is what's left of the Henry C. Mustin Naval Air Facility -- a military airfield now abandoned and slowly being reclaimed by Mother Nature. Grass and even small trees sprout between cracks in the concrete of what once were runways where vintage warplanes took off and landed in the 1930s through the 1940s and perhaps even into the '50s. My little springtime wandering brought me to this place, which I'd last seen in 1976 when I was stationed at the Navy yard as a liaison officer to visiting ships during the Bicentennial celebration. Here's a big hangar which now serves as a commissary for Navy Yard personnel, of whom there are fewer and fewer with every passing year (note the jetliner making its approach to Philadelphia International Airport several miles to the north of Mustin Field)... I wasn't sure whether I was venturing into forbidden territory as I drove north along the Delaware into the semi-wilderness of the old airfield. I didn't see any "Trespassers Will Be Shot" signs, but I remember the Navy Yard being a seriously security-conscious place back in my Cub Scout field-trip days, when they didn't even allow cameras to be brought through the gate.

Adjoining the airfield complex were a goodly number of abandoned row homes, which undoubtedly housed base families back when Mustin Field was a going concern. It was an eerie feeling to be wandering in the midst of a ghost town within the geographic limits of one of the nation's largest cities. It occurred to me that, homelessness being the urban problem it is, these structures might have been fixed up and put to good use in some fashion...

The Naval Base is also the last stop before the razor-blade factory for a number of ships comprising the nation's mothball fleet. Back in the day, the carrier Enterprise and the battleship Iowa were moored there, along with a host of cruisers, destroyers and other ships of the line. On this particular day, however, I saw mostly retired amphibious vessels and minesweepers. Here's an image of a dock landing ship of the type that steamed with our squadron deployed in the Caribbean in 1968 and 1969... And the strange-looking ship you see in this image is a Newport class tank landing ship that wasn't even in commission back when I was an LST engineering officer in '69... Back in MY day, the stars of the LST fleet were the Suffolk County class -- bigger than but essentially no different from the ships that landed tanks and vehicles over the beach at Normandy in 1944... Although I can say with a straight face that I served in the country's naval forces in the Vietnam years, I got real lucky with respect to WHERE I served. If I had extended my service contract for an additional year, I was looking at shore duty with a beachmaster unit in the Mediterranean. But I'll never know what an adventure that might have been because I opted to return to civilian life at the first opportunity.

I guess we can drive ourselves nuts pondering what might have been.

It was a rather melancholy thing to see what's become of Philadelphia's Naval Base, but I was glad to have dropped in for a look-see. The next -- and last -- stop on my sentimental journey was 1714 Sylvan Lane, Gladwyne, PA, where my family lived from 1957 to 1997. There were a number of trees in the front yard which survived the grading and landscaping during construction, and it appeared one of them had finally given up the ghost. The new owners had done something I've never seen before, and I must say it's one of the most creative and imaginative uses of a dead tree I've ever seen... My Dad was a talented whittler. I think he would have approved this piece of work.

And so, surfeited with nostalgia, I charted a course for Reading (which is not an easy place to get to from Philadelphia when the traffic is heavy), and the next day I was back in harness, slogging away through the swampland known as The Practice of Law. If I keep practicing, and if I live long enough, I just may get it right.

Springtime in the City

One pretty day last April, I got my usual case of springtime wanderlust. Since nothing dramatic was going on at the office, I proudly and unabashedly decided to go off on a little frolic to my old home town, Philadelphia. Since I was in no particular hurry, I drove down Kelly Drive, along the east shore of the Schuylkill. In the East Falls section of the city, I visited Castle Ringstetten, the upriver clubhouse and social quarters of the Undine Barge Club, one of the venerable rowing clubs whose boats are housed along Boathouse Row several miles downriver....

Many years ago, I put in a lot of miles pulling an oar (or, in some cases, a pair of sculls) up and down the Schuylkill, wearing the colors either of the Undine Barge Club or The Haverford School. Won my share of medals and trophies and plaques and other hardware, which still collects dust around the house. Castle Ringstetten was locked up tight that day, but I remember what a wonderful museum of late nineteenth-century Philadelphiana the place contains. Back then (and still today, I'm sure), Undinians gathered there for several dinner meetings every year, each time beginning the meal with the traditional "Handle Oars!" (pick up silverware); "Toss!" (bang silverware on table); "Let Fall!" (drop silverware back on table, with as much noise as possible).

Well, I didn't get inside, but I wandered around back, where it appeared some horticulturally-inclined folks had been at work on an azalea garden... By this time, I was good and hungry, so I wandered down to Fourth and Bainbridge Streets for a visit to the Famous Fourth Street Deli...

The Famous, as it's known among those who love it, was a favorite haunt during my Naval Reserve days at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in the '70s and the '80s. The fella who ran the place in those days -- David something-or-other -- would spot a bunch of us in uniform coming through the door and holler to the waitress who usually served us, "Stand by, Maggie! The fleet's in!"

My salivary glands still experience a Pavlovian torrent at the memory of huge piles of warm beef brisket on an onion roll, with cole slaw and Russian dressing, and a great big Kosher dill pickle. So, I guess you know what I had for lunch that day. It took some determination to finish the thing, it was so big, but I certainly wasn't going to allow any of that to escape.

Burping happily, I toddled off to my next destination, which I'll tell you about next time.

Something new? What?

All righty, then. Summer 2010 vanished in the space of a few rather silly blog entries about vacation trips.

"Get some new material, man!" I hear a still, small voice urging somewhere in the distance.

"What new material?" says I. "There's nothing new under the sun. It's just the same old merry-go-round, day after day."

"Ah. You're not paying attention, then," replies the SSV.

So, your humble correspondent will now try to get back into the habit of taking more notice of what's going on around him.

Count on it. But don't bet the ranch -- yet.

End-of-Summer Wrap-Up, 2010

Anyone glancing from time to time at this electronic feuilleton could be forgiven for thinking I lead a hopelessly humdrum life, having reported on nothing in the entire summer of 2010 other than a three-day trip to various points north of here. Lazy? Maybe. Humdrum? No! For example, one stifling night in July we heard a loud snap and a crash in our front yard. The harsh light of day revealed this...

It may not look like much in the picture, but it was a HUGE limb from the aging sweet-gum tree in our front yard, and it missed my car by a couple of feet. It served as a neighborhood conversation piece for several days, before a tree specialist removed it.

Then, at the end of August, there was the Family Vacation From...uh...I mean, the Family Vacation to the Nether Regions -- namely Virginia. This epic adventure was the brainchild of my wife Eve and her daughter Taryn; I was informed in no uncertain terms that this trip was to orbit exclusively around Taryn's daughter Kyla, age 7, and I had no authority or responsibility whatsoever, but only the privilege of paying for gas and meals. I had certain reservations about this, but I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut and bring a good book to read.

First on the agenda was Virginia Beach. I have fond memories of Virginia Beach, having lived there in the winter of 1969, when it looked like this one cold night...

In late August 2010, it bore a much closer resemblance to a popular Atlantic beach resort town...

We shoe-horned five persons and all their gear into an average-sized motel room in one of the beach-front high-rise hotels. The grandparents spent three luxurious nights slumbering fitfully on a fold-out sofa-bed while the huge-screen TV flickered violently and soundlessly because one of our number (who shall remain nameless here) proved nocturnal, insomniac, and utterly oblivious to more traditional notions of allowing others a decent night's sleep.

On Friday of that weekend, after a frantic and fruitless search for my GPS device which had gone missing in the chaos of our living quarters, we set out in caravan, to proceed up the James River peninsula. Colonial Williamsburg was our focal point; but, lurking in the background like a black widow spider in a bad mood, was (ominous music) BUSCH GARDENS!! I would rather crawl on my belly through broken glass and plunge into a pool of isopropyl alcohol than go to Busch Gardens in the middle of summer with a seven-year-old child. Call me an old grouch if you want; I come by it honestly and I named this blog accordingly.

I remember Williamsburg from November 1960, when my parents and two brothers and I spent the Thanksgiving holiday there in one of the historic inns on Duke of Gloucester Street. It was good to get back and wander around for a couple of days. Here are a couple of images of the Governor's Palace...

I have great respect for the folks who put so much effort into maintaining Williamsburg as a faithful representation of the way things looked in that part of Virginia when it was still a British colony. I also have great respect for my son-in-law's father, who arranged for us to stay in one of the apartments at the Historic Powhatan Village, part of an international time-share resort empire whose name I've forgotten. Where the quarters in Virginia Beach were a bit too cozy for comfort, this place was a sheer delight.

It broke my heart when Eve told me we would not be able to join the kids at Busch Gardens on Sunday, because we had to drive home and be ready to rejoin the ratrace the following day. When I learned of this change of plans, I felt as if the governor had issued a pardon moments before the death-row warden could throw the switch.

And so, we hit the open road and made our leisurely way north, past Richmond, Washington, Baltimore, York and Lancaster, back to our home and our sweet-gum tree which mercifully had not dropped any more limbs. With only a modicum of shrill back-seat driving from somewhere on my right flank, I brought Eve's beloved PT Cruiser back to port unscathed. And then...

...peace reigned over the realm. And I found my GPS unit in my suicase, right where I'd left it several days before.

The Road Trip: Finale

I simply MUST complete the June 2010 road-trip saga before the summer ends.

So, without further ado:

I arrived at Harvard Yard around 4:30 Friday afternoon, after an uneventful straight shot across the Mass Pike from the Berkshires. As it turned out, I was just in time to walk with Lindsay from Grays Middle to Nora's day-care center down on the Cambridge bank of the Charles River. I'd hoped to have a current picture of Nora for you, but I've already mentioned the camera casualty that rendered that impossible. Here's one from a year earlier... The face and hair are more filled-out, but the personality is just the same -- albeit quite a bit more verbal. That evening, Brad and Lindsay (and Nora) treated me to a birthday dinner at John Harvard's Brew House, a popular Cambridge watering hole with a pleasant rathskeller ambiance and a menu of some old favorites as well as some unusual items, such as pulled-pork sliders and pizzas built on crusts baked from dough incorporating spent grain from the brewing process. It was good to see the kids -- all three of them -- and settle the dust from the road with a bite of food and a glass or two of the local ale.

Back at the apartment, Lindsay whipped an ice-cream cake out of the freezer and we polished off a decent chunk of it at a table in the Yard as evening descended and the campus began showing early signs of the impending rush of summer students expected the next day.

One of the objectives of this trip was a visit to my Dartmouth classmate and best man John Kornet and his wife Diana (best known as Pokey). Brad and Lindsay had a function to attend on Saturday afternoon, so I headed down the South Shore to Cohasset, where the Kornets live in waterfront splendor. After almost being completely stymied by weekend traffic bound for Cape Cod (which makes Philadelphia-to-South-Jersey weekend traffic look like a walk in the park by comparison), I arrived to find the annual Arts Festival in full swing on the grounds of the First Parish Church... This was a gala function indeed. John was manning a display featuring a group (whose name I have sadly forgotten) whose function is to produce and distribute complete portable disaster relief shelter and equipment packages for rapid deployment to worldwide disaster sites such as post-earthquake Haiti. It was fascinating to see how much equipment, including cooking equipment, utensils and a tent to shelter up to ten people, could be packed into a rectangular box not much larger than a full-size household refrigerator-freezer. Here's a shot of John and Pokey...

As always seems to happen when I get together with these folks (altogether too seldom), the years fell away and we were reminiscing (and swapping lies) about the good old days and wondering where the time had gone. It was a great visit. Too short, but a great visit. I drove back to Boston in a thoroughly mellow mood, enjoyed a home cooked dinner with the kids -- all three of them -- and watched a movie (whose title I have conveniently forgotten) about the mistreatment of women in certain Muslim societies which, although nauseating, couldn't dampen my good spirits.

Next morning, it was time to bring my Road Trip to a merciful end and head for the barn. I took my leave after breakfast (that Lindsay knows how to make pancakes) and was home well before sundown.

I don't know what all this proves -- if anything -- other than the realization (which I've hinted at before) that we can revisit old haunts and old friends and cherished relatives, but we cannot turn back the clock or the calendar. That isn't news, I know: perhaps Rabbie Burns said it best in the ballad of Tam O' Shanter:

"Nae mon can tether time nor tide..." v>

The Road Trip - Chapter II: On to the Berkshires

It was good to shake the dust of Poughkeepsie from my feet. The place baked in the relentless sunlight and just looked tired, dusty, and best seen in the rear-view mirror. The road (U.S. Route 44) then took me north and east, through Millbrook and Amenia in Dutchess County and across the line into Connecticut. In Canaan, U.S. 7 meets Route 44 and heads north into Massachusetts. I had programmed my GPS device to take me to Southfield, Mass., the home town of my dear departed law school friend and classmate Jim Stevens, seen here in June 1978 with my daughter Lindsay, then just a year and a half old, at the top of the World Trade Center (remember?) in New York City... And with your humble correspondent at the Scottish games in Round Hill, Connecticut, in July 1991... A tiny village in the southern Berkshire Hills, Southfield has come a long way since I visited Jim there first in late 1974. We were both first-year law students then and had bonded in our mutual bewilderment at the utterly baffling stuff we had been studying for the past several months. Jim was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and his academic abilities sustained me through many a bout of despair over the mysteries of Marbury v. Madison and other landmark Supreme Court decisions he'd already studied in his undergraduate history courses. In those days, Jim worked holidays at the Southfield village store, which then did double duty as a general store and the municipal post office. Today, new owners have turned it into a Yuppie-chic gourmet cafe and restaurant catering to the burgeoning throngs of urbanites who have established vacation homes in the area... Ultimately, Jim Stevens's story is a tragic one (in keeping with the tone of my road trip? I hoped not). After a long and hard-fought battle with a recurring brain tumor, he died just about 13 years ago to the day, the father of a wonderful son, veteran of many years of criminal prosecution work in the Manhattan District Attorney's office and then a well-respected country practitioner in Great Barrington. It was fond memories of that friendship, so many of them centered on Jim's beloved Southfield, which had brought me there on my 65th birthday, to lay a wreath (figuratively) at his resting place in this idyllic little town seemingly in the middle of nowhere...

My daughters called him "Uncle Jimmy." He was godfather to Lindsay, and honorary godfather to Janet. I was godfather to his son, Armen. While were were at Villanova, he was an almost regular weekend guest in our home, where we tried to feed him up a bit from the diet of cold cereal and freeze-dried mashed potatoes which sustained him during the week in the rooming-house where he lived. His boyhood hero was John Wayne; I remember giving him for his birthday in 1975 a big book of photo stills from movies in which the Duke had starred -- and snippets of whose dialogue Jim could rattle off by heart.

This was another rather melancholy stop on my sentimental journey into New England, but in the end an uplifting one, so I thought. Sometimes it's good to remember places and people who have held vast tracts of one's interior landscape.

Now, it was time to drive up through Stockbridge, Lenox and Lee, get on the Mass Pike, aim the car east, and make a beeline the 112 miles to Boston, then Cambridge, then Harvard Yard, and to turn away from the land of the melancholy to a place of joy, youth, energy -- and Nora Jeanne Molyneaux and her parents!