captainsblog | Aug. 31st, 2019

That was quite the week.

I had to work right up to my point of departure, thanks to two clients who were either absent from or totally unprepared for their initial hearing date in late July. The Monday before departure was just full of bad juju; people calling out of the blue, promised financial transactions from clients not going as promised. I got crap sleep that night, some due to all of that but some, I think, due to the antici-

SAY IT!

-of being gone for the better part of three days.

As stressed as the Monday workday was, the little bit of it left for Tuesday morning went smoothly. Both clients showed up, one hearing went perfectly fine, while the other didn't even have to proceed because the client had sufficiently cleaned up his toys in advance of it. I was out of workclothes and on 490 by a bit past 11 a.m., with my guests due to arrive sometime around 5:30. That left me a bit over six hours for the trip which, as I've mentioned, should take just that under normal conditions. Normal includes usually one stop for gas and even a pilgrimage to a beloved diner; it does not include hourlong backups on I-81, which in the summertime are virtually certain. So I tried to avoid that road altogether, taking the predictably long detour down Cayuga Lake and then through Ithaca.

It's always a comfort going down 89, which at times passes within 100 feet of the lakeshore. I also enjoy seeing the string of wineries we've been going to for ages, some still there, other new ones taking over or popping up in between. This time, lots more breweries and distilleries in the mix. But then, a sign promoting something to do when you've had more than one bottle of Cayuga White:

I wonder if they can handle a cow;)

I came out of the back country just north of Binghamton on the dreaded highway- I'd checked DOT websites for construction updates, which were all, What, like we'd tell you?!? Here, have an update on the Prospect Mountain construction site from February! - and, somehow, word leaked out on an overhead sign that there was a 30-minute backup at, what else, the Prospect Mountain construction site. I bailed onto US 11, grabbed Wendy's (no diner for you this time), and rejoined on the other side of the mountain for a nearly nonstop ride down 17, back onto the Thruway, over the Fredo Bridge, through the Bronnix, across the RFK and into the Citi Field parking lot by the very arrival time my friends had announced.....

except THEY were late. Stuck in traffic on Long Island.

So I parked- and almost got into the lot for free. The US Tennis Open was going on at the adjacent stadium, and there was this sign at the Citi Field parking gate:

I actually had her convinced I was a Mercedes (I certainly pay enough for their goddam car washes:P), and I would've been comped if I was going to the Open and not the Mets. So I bit the bullet and paid, so as not to jinx the team that night. (As we will learn, that didn't go all that well.)

At least this time I wasn't ferried halfway across the Fairgrounds like in 2016. So after noting my space was near this touching tribute to the late Bill Buckner-

- I headed over to the Apple to wait. This cheap and chintzy feature of Shea Stadium, where everything was cheap and chintzy, has been relocated outside the new ballpark and serves as a meetup spot for fans coming from different places and by different modes. There's even a plaque, and a chance to take bad selfies at it!

There's a much newer and nicer one inside now; we got to see it rise for rookie Pete Alonso's 42nd home run, which broke the team's record for such things. That was one of the few nice moments of the evening. Meeting these guys was the main one, though:

In the middle, my high school physics teacher, Al "Pistol Pete" Palazzo, who I hadn't seen since the year after I graduated. To his left, his lovely bride Risa, who I had met once and have followed stories from on social media in recent times. Their two sons and the GF of one of them are out of shot (you can only expect so much of the Cubs fan who took that;).

I only ran into one of my fellow fans from the blogging community- a Toronto 7 Line traveler from a year ago. This was my third try catching another dear friend I've never met in person, but every time I wandered to her nearby section, she was out of her seat. On the other hand, I got within handshake distance of the radio broadcast booth, and got these shots of our announcers practicing their craft:

(The TV booth is just past that, but Gary, Keith and Ron have guards below them to keep you from annoying them on the air. Howie presumably just uses the dump button- which probably should have been used for the entire series the Mets lost:P)

No matter, though; spending the evening with a mentor and an artist was joy enough. Al has now been retired from teaching for some time; we met up the next morning for breakfast in a little place just over the Nassau/Suffolk line, and it was good to share everything with them that night except the much-needed Mets win. At least we didn't suffer through rain or a 10-run Cub outburst like fans did the next night, or the "heroics" (?) of a no-name catcher singlehandedly beating the Mets' best pitcher the night after that.

But I had other plans for Wednesday and Thursday, which will follow in a sequel to this post:)

After Tuesday's game, I was back in the, back in the, back in the Nas-sass-sass-sau for the first night in several years. I'd been in the habit of staying north of the city the past few trips, but wanted to stay on the stadium side of bridges so I could take the train in for the second night of my planned events. More than a few years back, on the occasion of the funeral of a friend, I discovered a decent and reasonably priced (for the area) hotel on Sunrise Highway just across from the Merrick LIRR. That's where I landed the night after the game, and to where I returned after an evening in Manhattan. But first, a return to roots- because Merrick is just one "town" over from the house I grew up in, the schools I attended, and the memories that still stick.

That's a different coat of paint from my formative years, but it's the main named landmark honoring the 1600s tradition of Hempstead farmers leading their "cowes" out to the "east meadowes." I drove the length of Prospect Avenue on my way to meeting Al for breakfast, beginning on Merrick Avenue and ending at a shopping center at its terminus at Hempstead Turnpike- longago home to an A&P supermarket, but now hosting, among other small businesses, one of Long Island's local franchises of the fitness brand I belong to. I had one class left to use before the end of August, and I was up early enough to book the same class there I could have taken on Transit Road that morning:

It was just surreal- me, getting up to take an 8 a.m. gym class in East Meadow. Voluntarily. I was afraid the high school building, barely a mile away, was going to crash to the ground from the shock. (Spoiler alert: it didn't.)

Our breakfast got pushed back to more brunch timey, which gave me time to stop at a Starbucks and deal with client business- and with the horrors of my internet provider. They would not let me email files from my usual program on my laptop, and their suggested workaround for that was to use their browser-based webmail. Ah, but I hadn't used that in ages, so it made me change my password, and that then screwed up my sending AND receiving on both that laptop and my phone for the rest of the day. But hell, I was on vacation anyway, it's all fixed now, and none of my clients crashed to the ground in those 24 hours, either.

We had a nice visit at a cool Huntington restaurant, followed by a visit to an indie bookstore around the corner from it, and when Mr. P headed off to his doctor's appointment, I asked Siri to find the way to our family plot. It was just twelve miles away, and my three relatives out there- Dad, Sandy and my uncle's wife Penny (the one so rotund she had to be dropped in sideways) are all still there, each minus the spouse they had at the times of their demises-

When I turned around to head back toward East Meadow, the skies opened. The Northern State was nearly flooded out in spots, and it was still coming down heavy when I took my remaining photos of the old home town and the home therein:

Clockwise from bottom right: one you pass when getting off the Wantagh to head down Carman Avenue, not a school facility as such but formerly known as the county "Children's Shelter," and the place for delinquents and "galoots" that parents would threaten to send their misbehaving children to; further down Carman, the edge of the real school property, a "temporary" building known to us as the "400 wing," still in use 50-ish years after it went up; and the entrance to the school itself. Classes don't begin until next week, so things were pretty quiet, but the memories were thick in the air.

Still thicker, though, was driving down the route I took for many of my three years walking to and from that school. (We had an austerity budget with no buses one year, and after-school activities often kept me there late the other two.) Powers Avenue, with its original brick Cape homes from the same era as the Levitt homes in the "town" next door, has both evolved and devolved in the 70-plus years since they went up. I'd guess the homes fall into four categories: the ones looking almost identical to how they did when I left in 1977 (including the home of our neighbors on one side who I believe are still there); falling apart with varying levels of zombieness present, including at least one halfway down the avenue with fencing and both CONDEMNED and FOR SALE signs out in front; complete teardowns, usually replaced by mickiermansions now taking up double lots; and those like our former home, updated but still recognizable:

No, I did not stop, either there or at Dom and Terry's next door; yes, that was still rain pelting down, which continued all the way back to the hotel, where I got in a brief geezer nap before catching the train from the station across the street.

----

Since I'd brunched, it wound up being pizza for linner in a classic Manhattan hurry-up-and-order joint right in Penn Station. Around this time, I heard from another old East Meadow friend, who in five minutes would be two blocks away from me on 7th Avenue. I waited for him, then walked him back to the train and we made plans for another East Meadow visit the next morning, and I continued up 7th and then Broadway to the club where yet another old friend of ours would be leading the New York Ska and Jazz Ensemble on its return to the US after touring Europe for months.

The band came on just past 8 and played for 90 minutes of intense and soulful music. They're led by our old pal Fred, mostly on the sax but on flute as well:

The rest of the group: Kevin Batchelor on Trumpet (who I also got to meet afterwards- very cool dude)-

Mark Damon on the bass, Earl Appleton behind the keyboard, Andy Basford on guitar, and Joey Gallo on the drums:

The seating was at rows of tables, and I had no plus-one for the other side of my real estate, so when a couple arrived to my left (Beth and Bill, I would learn), I asked if they wanted the seat across. Not only did this allow them to sit next to each other, it gave Bill a better view of the stage. I never met them before, probably never will again, but in 90 minutes of music they became part of a very fun story:

But in the end, it was Freddie I was there to see. He was out before the show and we got this shot together- two kids from Prospect Elementary who got assigned the clarinet, and one of them made much better use of his chops than the other one ever did;)

That picture, alas, is the last one of me you will ever see with those glasses. By the time I made the 10:02 back to Merrick, they were not on me or in my stash of book/ticket/memorabilia/Iridium t-shirt. I'd hoped they were left back next to Beth and Bill, but the club had not found them by the next night; more likely they fell off when I was futzing around in the 7th Avenue Times Square subway station with my expired Metrocard. I wound up walking and making the train, and I now have a new prescription and a need to find a replacement pair.

----

Thursday brought me back to East Meadow one last time; the sun had returned, so my prescription sunglasses did me fine for the whole trip home. Old friend Ted and I met at this longtime diner landmark, known to generations as the Empress but now rebranded in a Broadway theme:

But a diner's still a diner, and by 9ish, it was back on the road. Inbound was a bit more congested, and I had just one last stop before making home: my sister's, whose home I had sailed by in those 6.5 hours the prior day. She's actually been getting out more than me lately- here are some shots a friend took of her up at Cornell, where I might have set foot on campus once this century:

We ate and reminisced for about an hour, and I got back home at just about the aminals' usual 6:00 feeding time. Yesterday was quiet with a little bit of work, and today's been set aside for bathing the dog, getting my eyes checked (good shape- cataract surgery is still years away), and resuming our binge of Rita on Netflix.

And the Mets finally won- once they left the area, too:P