AB1 Tour 2014 - Week 18 - Bar Harbor, MA

In the northeast, we seem to be seeing or hearing the term “wicked” everywhere.  There’s “wicked ale,” “wicked good lobster,” even “a wicked good guy.”  Our week in Maine went “wicked fast.”  On a “wicked nice day,” we took our “wicked walk.”  After an evening at the theatre, we relaxed with some “wicked cocktails” while playing croquet and hitting through some “sticky wicked wickets.”      WHICKEDLY WHEW!      Sunday, July 27, was our travel day, but we were going to break it up a little this time.  We scheduled a breakfast get-together with yet another Carleton College 1973 classmate, Bill Greenberg, who has a summer place nearby.  As usual, it was a real revelation.     I didn’t know Bill all that well at Carleton, but I’ve come to consider him a friend due to the quintannual (five-year) reunions the college stages.  2018 will be our 45th  ...      … I CAN NOT BE THAT OLD!      Bill lives outside of Boston in Belmont, but he and his wife have a summer place in Cape Elizabeth, ME, so we met up at a breakfast nook about 20 minutes from their house and just off the route to our next stop, Bar Harbor, ME (actually “Harrington,” but who’s ever heard of that?).      So on this day all these many years later, I finally discovered that Bill and I WENT TO THE SAME GRADE SCHOOL!!  How can that be?  Well, it was Eliot Grade School in St. Louis Park, MN, only he was in kindergarten while I was in first grade.  I probably didn’t know him cause I only hung around the cool first-graders, you know, the ones who had graduated from eating paste.      Bill caught up to me by the time we got to college.  Over a healthy breakfast of sausage, eggs, and cheese (all protein), I found out that after he got his degree in biology from Carleton, he went to the University of California-Berkeley (where all good hippies of that era went) to get his doctorate in computer science and engineering.      Good timing on getting into computers, Bill.  I was investing heavily in VCR’s at the same time knowing full well they’d be a necessity for everyone well into the 21st century.      Bill worked computers at M.I.T. for years and now, he’s retired.  Like us, he’s taken up a new vocation.  No, he’s not a vagabond world traveler like yours truly.  He went back to school and became … a pastry chef.  Next reunion, I’m expecting from Bill a lot of cupcakes … sugar-free, of course.      Our RV in the campground in Harrington was incredible, especially if you ask Diedre Kaye.  Sure, it had no cable TV, the nearby tenters partied late every night, and the gnats were the size of footballs.  But it did have a great view looking right out over the ocean inlet, and you could pick wild raspberries practically right out your door.  But here’s the thing that put them over the top as far as great campgrounds go:      THEY DELIVERED LOW-PRICED, ALREADY STEAMED, VERRRRY FRESH LOBSTERS RIGHT TO YOUR RV!!!!      I think Diedre thought she had died and gone to “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” heaven.     Tonight we’re having lobster dinner #1.  While we enjoy ourselves silly slopping melted butter all over the place, you all can talk amongst yourselves.  Here’s a little lobster trivia to get you started: -Maine lobster men catch and sell 55-60 million pounds of lobsters each year; -it takes a lobster 5-7 years to reach its legal size; in that time, they shed their shells 25-27 times; -a female lobster will bear 6,000-100,000 eggs; -there are more than 7,000 Maine lobster fishermen; they put out over three-million traps; -in the mid 1800’s, lobster was considered only good enough to use as a fertilizer or to feed the hired help or to prison inmates.  You probably wanted to be a felon in Maine back then so that you could be served daily what was then referred to as “trash fish.” -lobsters are not red; they’re a green-yellow in nature.  They only turn red after being cooked.  “Blue” is the rarest color lobster; only about one in two-million lobsters is blue; -the largest lobster ever caught was off Nova Scotia and weighed 44 pounds.  It was believed to be more than 100 years old; -despite the fact that they have 20,000 “eyes,” they have terrible eyesight.  They sense movement with their antenna.      And there’s your “Lobster 101” for today.  I hope you took good notes; there’ll be a test Friday.      We enacted our usual Monday rules which require little or no physical exertion on either of our parts.  The highlight of the day was making our way into town to see the Tom Cruise movie “The Edge of Tomorrow” at the tiny, single-screen, 1937 movie theater.  Kind of smelled like it hadn’t been cleaned since late 1938, but regardless, we had a good time.     Rallying ourselves the next morning, we made our way into the lovely little town of Bar Harbor.  Skimping as we do, we found free parking about three blocks off the center of the downtown action.  The extra walking does us good, so we never mind parking on the outskirts of these towns.      Our first stop was a visit with “The Custard Nazi” at Adelmann’s Deli & Grill (I told you two weeks ago that everything in my life can be traced back to a “Seinfeld” episode).  Custard, as I have come to convince Diedre the Food Sheriff, is OK for me because the eggs they put in it counteract any effects of the sugar.      IT COULD HAPPEN!      So as is her habit, she questioned the uninformed sales-girl about the custard and whether or not it “really” had any eggs in it.  Like a shot, the owner raced out from the kitchen and began giving my sturdy wife a hard time.  His bold protection of his product quickly convinced our gal that this, indeed, was custard.  I remained in the background quickly downing my serving just in case Diedre did find it to be “faux-custard.”  I’m no dummy …. usually.        Pressing my luck a bit, I “accidentally” stumbled into The Chocolate Moose store.  And I was on a hot streak … they had my absolute favorite (just in case you’re wondering what to get me for my birthday, Christmas, or St. Swithin’s Day), dark-chocolate covered, sugar-free toffee.  I was allowed to purchase six pieces by the ever-more benevolent Food Sheriff. Now on “carb-death-watch,” we were inspired to walk the won-derfully scenic, down-town Bar Harbor Shore Path.  It was built in 1880 and had an easement grandfathered in so that no future businesses or homes could keep it from the public’s use.  That made it particularly nice when the trail went right through some older woman’s living room before taking a left at the kitchen.   Lunch was at the wonderful “Pat’s Pizza,” especially significant since “Pat” is the name Diedre used to go by during her years on the run from the law.  For a while, she combined the two names and went by “Padiedre,” a name used by well over three people.  At Pat’s Pizza, Padiedre had her dream come true … no, not the one about Brad Pitt and the llama named “Ernie.”  Today she would have her first ever “lobster”pizza.  She truly was in “DD&D” heaven. As if that culinary cloud-nine wasn’t enough, we then made our way over to “Bar Harbor Brewing Company & Tasting Room” for, what else?  Some beer tasting.  At Diedre’s insistence, I fireman-carried her out of there at closing so we could make it to a vitally important appointment back at base camp.  It was, of course …      … LOBSTER DINNER #2!      The next morning, although technically a “recovery” day, still necessitated a three-mile walk for 1) my streak, and 2) Diedre’s Grand Canyon training.  So, we headed to Machias, ME.  “Machias” is Native American for “bad little falls,” so that’s where we thought we would hike.     As it turned out, Bad Little Falls Park was just the falls, scenic though they were, with no real hiking area, so after a quick look-see, we headed to Roque Bluffs State Park for our delayed-hike.  This was a just-OK, mostly forested park with little view of the ocean’s inlet.  DK immediately flashed back to her college days and her bad “acid trip” to Oz.  She became irrationally fearful of lions and tigers and bears.  All she could say was, “Oh my!”  So taking it unto myself as the “alleged” man in this duo, I began channeling “The Karate Kid,” assuming the super-aggressive “crane kick” pose, an almost indefensible attack position (remember, I said “almost”).  Sure enough, that class of second-graders who passed by cut us a wide berth.     We were back on the road the next day for an extensive search of northern Maine, at least that part still abutting the ocean.  We started just a mile away with a visit to “Wild Blueberry Land,” home to all things blueberry.   Of course, their chef convinced Diedre to try a small slice of his wonderful blueberry pie (of which I was entitled, by binding legal document, to have a bite).  I think this is the place that inspired Roald Dahl to have one of his kids turn into a giant blueberry in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”  (I’ll need Diedre to verify that I know what I’m talking about here, because I don’t.)      OK, one of my “things” is to see famous, yet somewhat inane, sites, either historically or naturally significant.  That’s why I dragged poor Diedre to Eastport, ME, on Moose Island, where we would be able to catch a glimpse of “Old Sow.”  No, that’s not the name of the 1972 St. Olaf “College” Homecoming Queen.  Old Sow is the 2nd biggest whirlpool in the world.  The problem was, nobody in Eastport seemed to know where it was.  One shop gal had lived there all her life (so far) and had never seen it.  COME ON!  Haven’t you people ever had all-night keg parties at weird places back in high school?!      Finally, we found one guy hanging up his laundry who knew about Old Sow.      “It’s no big whoop,“ he said.  “It’s just where the tides cross at a certain time of the day.”      Of course, he and everyone else were not aware of when that would be.  So what could I expect from a guy hanging out his laundry?     Maybe we were making a bigger deal about this than it was.  We looked out where we figured it should be, noted the light currents SLIGHTLY swirling, and then moved on for our tour of downtown Mooseport on East Island … OK, switch the “moose” with the “east.”  The highlight of this little, non-descript town (see, I can refer to a small town using an adjective other than “lovely”) was a statue of a fisherman.  Unfortunately, it was not a nod to the city’s epic seafaring past.  No, it had actually been built in 2001 for Fox TV’s mini-series “Murder in Small Town X.”         Really?      Moving on.      We made it over one town for a wonderful seaside lunch at the Water Street Tavern in Lubec, ME, the eastern-most city in the country.  Eating on the bay, you could see a lot of islands … at least you could when we started.  When we ordered, it was blue sky, sunny, crisp air, and sailboats all over the place.  By the time our meals were served, fog covered the bay completely.  You couldn’t see the islands or even the light house, which really kind of defeats the whole “light-up-the-bay-so-the-ships-don’t-crash-on-the-rocks” scheme of things.  But when I finished my meal, it was the “blue sky, sunny, crisp air, sailboats” thing again.  By the time I paid the bill, you guessed it, the fog was back.  This was at like three in the afternoon.  Go figure.      Our Lubec town walk was a step up from Eastport … and I mean that literally.  How the heck does this guy step up into his house through this door?  We may have found Superman’s house; when he leaves, he just flies out the front door.  Got to be hell on his secret identity.    Just for yucks, we did a little real estate search.  We were very close to buying this place as a summer cabin, but we disagreed with the seller: we wanted it repainted, while he wanted to burn it down.  Too bad, because this would have been the eastern-most dumpy cabin in the country.  Just like the Kennedy assassination or 9-11, you probably remember where you were and what you were doing on this day at 4:44 p.m. and 32 seconds, EDT.  In Lubec, that was the moment that Diedre Kaye was the eastern most person on U.S. soil in this entire country of some 300-million people.  How about that?   To celebrate, we went to the easternmost gift shop where I had a western omelette.      So, to summarize our day, we went as far north in Maine as you could go while still being next to the ocean, saw no visible second biggest whirlpool in the country, and had no access to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s summer home in Campobello, a U.S. president no less, since, unbeknownst to us, it was across the river in Canada and we didn’t think we’d need passports on this year’s trip, except for maybe parts of New Jersey.  I mean, on the U.S. side alone, there were 11 customs agents, four with sub-machine guns, warily eyeing us as potential AARP-Card carrying terrorists, and everyone was subjected to full-body searches.  You know how ticklish I am.  Meanwhile on the Canadian side, there were two guys in flannel shirts playing checkers waving any and all in with barely a nod.   And unlike our visit to Key West, FL, and the southernmost point in the continental country, there was no actual signage labeling Mooseport … uh, Eastport as the easternmost point in the country.  They just told us it was.      Yeah?      Forget it.  We’re going home for cocktails and a game of gin-rummy.  I don’t know if lobster will be involved tonight.    OK, Friday, August 1, was our big day of the week, probably our biggest day in Maine.  Today we would be visiting Acadia (not “AR-cadia”) National Park on Mount Desert Island as so designated by Congress in 1919.  Opting against tours and crowded buses, we took Zippy on a joyful daylong drive/stop-and-look on the 20-mile long “Park Loop Road.”  Here were the day’s highlights:      -a visit to the parks only sand beach which some genius named “Sand Beach”; -a thorough soaking at “Thunder Hole,” a narrow granite channel where air gets trapped and then the irresistible tides cause a big explosion of surf;  -hiking to “Otter Cliffs,” the 100’ high pink granite buttresses which seem to rise straight out of the water;  -a physically exhausting half-trip up “The Beehive,” a 520’ high mountain with a honeycombed eastern face.  We doggedly climbed until we came upon “The Sign of Death.”  We then opted to retreat and live to climb another day;  -a nice, yet expensive, lunch (with the obligatory “Obaid Popovers”) at Jordan Pond and its view of “The Bubbles.”  Most women say these two mountains look like bubbles.  Most guys say they look like something else.  It’s no wonder they’re the most popular mountains in the state for guys to climb;  -and finally, Cadillac Mountain, the high point in the park at 1,530’.  In actuality, it’s the tallest mountain on the Atlantic coast north of Brazil.  It’s top is a big, bald granite dome, much like Chuck Pappas’s (inside Minnesota joke) from which you can see most of Maine (also much like Chuck Pappas).  All I could say while arriving at the summit was, “TOP OF THE WORLD, MA!  TOP OF THE WORLD!”     We made one last stop to bid adieu to Bar Harbor.  We visited the Internet Café as suggested by fellow Arizona thespian, par-extraordinare Petey Swartz.  Petey, a waitress there wants to know when you’re going to pay your bar-tab.     The West End Drug on Main Street, right out of my youth, has an actual 1950’s soda-fountain.  To reminisce, we tore off the top of the paper sleeved straws and blew them at the ceiling.  As like when we were kids, that got us thrown out of the place.      Our last stop entailed Diedre getting her “Growler” jug filled with beer at the Bar Harbor Brewing Company & Tasting Room.      Guess what kind?      You had to know it would be “Wicked Ale.”      Heading back to where we parked Zippy, I felt a lot like I was in Dogpatch, USA, walking down Main Street with Mammy Yokum” and her jug of “rheumatiz’ medicine.”  Yes, Diedre finally found something she likes to kiss better than strange men … WICKED ALE!      So, it’s lobster dinner #3 tonight and then we’ll be on our way tomorrow to my trip highlight, Cooperstown, NY, by way of Concord, NH.      I know, I know, you can hardly wait.

AB1 Tour 2014 - Week 17 - Cape Cod, MA

Sometimes you have to fool Penny, our erstwhile yet often stubborn GPS.  In order to get us out of the ravages of Jersey City, NJ, on Sunday, July 20, she kept trying to send us through the Holland Tunnel right in the heart of the busiest downtown in the country.  The toll people, in their infinite wisdom, wouldn’t let us go through the tunnel.  Penny thought otherwise; she just kept sending us back there.  So knowing I was at least as smart as a computer (Atari model, 1989), I told Penny we had changed our minds and were actually going to Seton Hall University, a location in the other direction from New York City.
     “Really, Penny,” I pleaded, “that’s where we want to go.”
     She was taken in by my clever ruse and very agreeably said, “Oh, I can get you to Seton Hall,  easy-peasy.”
     She can be folksy like that.
     So she takes us to Seton Hall which gets us to the freeway we originally wanted, the one that would NOT go right through the city.  But the ruse is not yet over.
     “Penny,” I says, “I guess we’re not going to Seton Hall.  We’ve decided to go to that RV park in Bourne, MA.”
     She gives me that funny look all kids do when they think their parents are being total doofuses, then shrugs her shoulders (I think, since I can’t really tell if she has shoulders.)
     “Whatever,” she yawns.  “I can get you there.”
     In the battle of wits between the GPS and me, well, I’d have to say I came out on top … although it did take us 2 hours, 15 minutes to go around NYC and accomplish the same six miles it would have taken going through the Holland Tunnel, so it’s hard to say which of us was the more clever.  Let’s call it a tie.
     Due to some miscommunication with the campground, our reservation was for six (their claim) rather than seven (our claim) days.  Now, we’re certainly flexible.  But what we’re not is indestructible … AB1, that is.
      Yes, we had an accident.  Don’t worry, it wasn’t a big one.  No cops were called, no insurance info was exchanged with another driver, mainly because there was no other driver.  Just a few miles from the campground, we had to cross one last, VERY narrow bridge.  Being the driver, I was watching the left side, trying to stay near the middle white stripe while avoiding oncoming cars.  Diedre’s side, on the other hand, was doing battle with staying away from the bridge’s all-too-near cement curbing, about two feet high.
     Diedre’s side lost.
     For a second, maybe two, our right side scraped the bridge’s curbing, creating an awful “SCREECH!”  I quickly overcorrected, narrowly missing a Greyhound Bus traveling in the opposite direction on the all-too-narrow roadway.
     It turned out the scraping was only along the wheel well protrusions, not the whole length of AB1.  And since we figure we weren’t going to get rich anyway selling the old girl (AB1, not Diedre) in 10 years, we tried to shake it off.
     But it wasn’t easy to forget.  New AB1 rules now call for me to alert Diedre at impending meetings with bridges.  She is then to go on heightened alert as head of “Bridge Patrol” duty.
     So far, so good. 

You probably remember (and you’d better because this stuff’s going to be on the quiz) that I lost a molar-crown on my last night in New York City.   Well, on Tuesday I (Diedre) found a dentist less than a mile away.  Dr. Glavin did a great job getting my crown back in place; I think he used a staple gun.
     Whatever.
     

    From the crisis of dentistry central we made our way on to Hyannis, MA, and the home of the President John F. Kennedy Legacy Trail.  This was a ten-stop walk through a most bucolic little town that highlighted many aspects of JFK’s life.  I enjoyed imagining just how electric the feeling was in 1960 as we stood in front of the Hyannis Armory where JFK gave his acceptance speech the night he was elected president.  I lucked out and was able to have my picture taken with the Kennedy family.  I have no idea what they were all doing skulking around that alleyway. 

     We also walked the waterfront to where the JFK Memorial was` located on Veterans’ Beach and followed it up with the first of what would be many lobster roll lunches.  It was “go-od!”
     
Of all people, Diedre then noticed a sign for a Cape Cod Summer Wood-Bat Baseball League game at McKeon Park in Hyannis that night and suggested we go.  I think she was just trying to even things up as theatre now led baseball games 17-12.  The league, started in 1985, is for college players who have pro potential.  It’s really a nice set-up and the games are free.
     Tonight’s game gimmick was “Christmas in July,” so, of course, they got the big guy, Santa Claus, to jet in from his summer home in the Adirondacks to throw out the first pitch.  He brought the heat (baseball-speak), throwing high and outside, then settled back to watch the Hyannis Harbor Hawks play the Wareham Gatemen.  A kid pitching for the Hawks was from Eden Prairie, MN, where I worked for five years as the city’s athletic director from 1981-86.  I wondered if the kid knows who I am … then it dawned on me: I was gone SEVEN years from that job before this kid was even born … and he’s practically in Major League Baseball.
     I AM getting old and forgetful … I think … I can’t remember.
     The Hawks won 7-0.  Their pitcher from Stanford University, Marcus Brakeman, was dominant giving up just four hits and striking out ten in seven shut-out innings.  He helped run our record to 9-4.
     After a day off, we designated Thursday as “Road Trip Day.”  On our way, we passed through the little burg of Sandwich, MA, home of the Sandwich Glass Museum which my mother had dragged us to (willingly, right, Mom?) 51 years ago.  We didn’t stop this time, although we did see that in Sandwich, they had a little place called “The Sandwich Breakfast Place.”  Of course we stopped just so I could order a “Sandwich Breakfast Place Breakfast Sandwich.”  Is that a palindrome?
   

 Our first stop was in Wellfleet, a historical site I was almost as excited about seeing as Kitty Hawk, NC ... almost.  We stood on the actual location where Gugliemo Marconi (his friends called him “Googy”) made communications history from this seaside cliff by sending the first wireless message to Great Britain.  Marconi had vigorously studied the accomplishments of Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison which helped his greatest accomplishment hugely.
     This was the site of the first U.S. transatlantic telegraph station built in 1901-02.  Googy then started the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. of America, the predecessor of RCA.  The epic first message was sent January 19, 1903, just 10 months before the Wright Brothers flew.  The message was one from President Teddy Roosevelt to the King of England.  As you all remember from your grade school history books, Teddy famously said, “S’up?”  Years later in 1912, the station operator at the Marconi station heard the distress call from the Titanic.
     From there, we headed north with our goal to make it all the way to Provincetown at the end of the Cape Cod peninsula.  We soon stopped again, this time in Truro, MA, at the legendary “Corn Hill.”  Way back on November 16, 1620, sixteen “Truro” Pilgrims, led by Miles Standish, “found” some precious Indian corn on a spot they appropriately dubbed “Corn Hill.”  It saved them from starvation that first year.  It’s also where the Pilgrims took their first drink of spring water in the new world.  They were sure it must have been God’s providence (the Native Americans called it something else: “larceny” comes to mind), else they did not know how they would survive.
     NOTE: Upon arriving in the hugely charming little town of Provincetown, a woman’s cell phone was ringing.  She almost apologetically said to Diedre, “I’m not taking phone calls.  I’m on vacation.  Don’t’ you agree? ”
     “Oh, I’m not on vacation,” DK replied, “this is my life.”

     Provincetown’s huge Pilgrim’s landing monument cost $12/person to tour.  I wonder if the Pilgrims are still getting their cut of the proceeds.  No matter to us; we avoided paying the $24 to see it, and instead snapped a picture of it from the street.  Provincetown claims their monument commemorates the Pilgrims’ FIRST landing in America (not Plymouth Rock) when the Mayflower made landfall in Provincetown Harbor on November 21, 1620, after 67 days at sea.
     Hmmm …
     Perhaps I should have reminded them of a little place called … CORN HILL!
   
  Provincetown’s main street, just off the ocean, was a marvel to walk.  Diedre decided to do a little fishing.  Here she is with “the catch of the day.”  It was mighty good eatin’.
     On the way home that night, we stopped in the charming little town of Chatham (NOTE: all little towns in Cape Cod are “charming.”  It’s the law!)  We were trying to avoid the plodding traffic by taking in a movie.  “Chef” was one we had both wanted to see (I love science fiction movies while Diedre prefers the ones about food.  I’m not sure what this one was.)
     On our last night “on the Cod” (other people like to say “on the Cape,” although I think my version will resonate more with the kids and the fisherman), we got tickets to see the Old Jersey Boy himself, Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, at something called “The Cape Cod Melody Tent.”  It turned out to be an actual tent, although a big one.  They’ve been in business the last 60 years, so I guess it’s a pretty strong tent.  They bring in a lot of big name performers: Huey Lewis & The News, The Temptations, Boz Scaggs, The Moody Blues, and Greg Allman.  They finish this season with comic legend Bill Cosby.
   

 We were pretty stoked to see Frankie who would be performing that night at the age of 80 … again, are we really getting that old?  Fifty years ago, his group released “Dawn, Go Away,” “Silence Is Golden,” and “Rag Doll.”  That was a big year for them, but judging by tonight’s show, they’re still going strong.  Of course, Frankie is the only one still performing from the original group.
     The Melody Tent was set up in a theatre-in-the-round configuration with a revolving stage that allowed everybody to have 50-yard line seats part of the time.  Plus, no seat was more than 50’ from the stage.  Sweet!
     OK, because of our scheduling problems (see paragraph 1), we were on the road early the next morning, Saturday, July 26.  We had decided to spend the night in Exeter, New Hampshire, where we would have dinner with my uncle Judd (my dad’s younger brother and the father of cousin Duncan whom you met in last week’s blog), my wonderful Aunt Theo who has dutifully put up with Judd for all these many years, and their daughter, my cousin, and Duncan’s older sister, Morah.  Because this was an unscheduled visit and because we’re slated to visit them anew August 3-5, I’ll save all that good stuff for two weeks down the line.
     So now, it’s on to Maine, home of the ambrosia of the sea: steamed lobster.
     “URP!”

AB1 Tour 2014 - Week 16 - NEW YORK CITY!!

Here’s how I should write this week’s blog in real time about our adventures in New York City:
     “It was a blur … first we did ... and then we jumped on … and the next thing you know, we were over … but then after two hours sleep, we were … and then we did this … and then we did that ... “
     You get my drift.
   

 A lot of people figure you can’t camp in New York City, but I’ve got to tell you … they’re right.  Our most urban campground was actually in Jersey City, NJ, just a short 9-minute ferry ride to downtown Manhattan, or an excruciating 45-minute, sweaty train ride on the New Jersey PATH subway.  Our campground was a bit Spartan, but we were there for the city, not the camping.  And besides, from AB1, we had a great view of the harbor and the Statue of Liberty.
      I was tentatively excited my first night in town.  After quickly setting up camp, we bolted off for the first of eight plays (six for me) in eight days.  Tonight we were going to see old “Harry Potter” himself, Daniel Radcliffe, in “The Cripple of Inishman.”
     Once across the water, I hailed the first vehicle to come by, hopped in, and excitedly asked the driver, “Is there any chance this is “The Cash Cab”?
     He looked at me dryly and slowly responded, “No, this is city bus 7A.”
     Well … anybody could make that mistake.
     My first impression of the city was one that fit the stereotype I had lurking in the back of my mind, of the city being just one big, mean, den of iniquity.  As we walked through Times Square, I was taken aback by a street performer aptly named “The American Cowgirl.”  She was a topless, guitar-playing cowgirl.
     Now, that wasn’t as exciting as it sounds.  She was about 75 years old and was letting it all hang out … and down … way down … right there in front of hundreds of tourists.  Not the greatest first impression of Diedre’s beloved New York City.
     Diedre was just so excited by all the theatre she was going to see.  I rallied from the “Cowgirl” exposure, so to speak, and fired up when I saw there was a giant “Hershey’s” store AND it was right across the street from a giant “M&M’s” store.  It was legendary—the battle of the chocolates … like Godzilla versus King Kong.
     Our “fine” first meal in megalopolis cost us $53 for a chicken sandwich and a jumbo lump crab cake hors d’oeuvre's.  I guess you had to expect the higher prices.  But it gets worse.  The ceiling-tall window-door right next to our table was open.  A grubby New York guy was standing about 11 inches away from Diedre’s food while he was eating some vendor-cart “corn-on-the-cob.”  And of course, he was, so to speak, “cutting the cheese.”
     “WAITER!  CHECK, PLEASE!”
     Normally, our first night in a town includes setting up camp, grabbing a quick nap, and then ambling off for pizza at a nearby eatery.  But this was New York!  There was no time to waste!
     

We were off to see play #1, “The Cripple of Inishman,” starring the aforementioned Daniel Radcliffe.  It was performed at The Cort Theatre, built in 1912.  This restored classic building was the best thing about the night.  The show was average but spending $200 for average tickets made it a bit below average.   

And then it was back to the absolutely packed and sweaty PATH train (subway) for our trip back to camp; it took forever. 

 We experienced smells we had never smelled before.
     These were not auspicious signs for my introduction to The Big Apple.

     It would get better.
     

Stadium #23 on the 2014 Alexander Adventurers' Trek

We had changed our usual Sunday-Sunday travel schedule in order to see major league games at both Yankee Stadium and at the Mets’ Citi Park, since both teams rarely are in town on the same time.  Sunday, July 13, was our Mets game in Queens at their relatively new ballpark.  It was a day game which would allow us plenty of time to get to play #2 that evening.
     Queens is an interesting borough.  It’s said that more languages are spoken in the 109 square miles of Queens than anywhere else on the planet.  I’d believe it.
     Led by third-baseman David Wright’s two doubles, the Mets crushed the Florida Marlins 10-1 on a mostly nice day at a mostly nice stadium.  That bumped our home team record to 7-4.  That would be good enough for the lead in the National League East if Diedre and I were a whole team.
    We hopped off the subway after the game in “Hell’s Kitchen.”  No, that’s not where I cook when Diedre’s out of town.  It’s a very ethnic, plethora of wonderful and exotic smells: down the street I spotted an Afghan restaurant next to a Mexican eatery next to an Indian one beside a Caribbean diner next to an Irish Pub next to something simply called “Humus.”  Well, that could be anything.  And then … and then … well, that was as far as I could see, but you get my drift.
     Since I get to choose all the baseball games we go to, Diedre gets to be in charge of our theatre schedule.  But here’s where she made a key mistake: she asked me what I wanted to see that night.  I quickly answered, “Rocky,” the musical of the Sylvester Stallone movie of the same name.
   

 Diedre blanched once, swallowed hard, and then went quickly to “Genie,” her combination magic-lamp/cell phone for some reviews.  To her surprise, they came back positive … VERY positive.  Sooo … game on!
     “Rocky” was staged at The Winter Garden Theatre.  The play’s book (writing) was credited to Sylvester Stallone and Thomas Meehan.  And it had been Tony nominated.  For $45, it seemed like a pretty good deal …
     … and it was!
     Much to my classically trained, theatrical wife’s surprise, “Rocky” absolutely KILLED!
     The songs were good, the voices sufficed, but the story and the set grabbed the audience by the throat and wouldn’t let go.  In an incredible bit of staging during Act II, the first 10 rows of audience members made their way on stage and sat on the bleachers behind the ring, all the while the play was still going on.  And then, the entire stage and bleachers rolled forward right out into the theatre, coming to rest on top of the now vacated 10 rows of seats.  We had a great view from the first row of the balcony, but when the stage moved out into the audience, “great” became “stupendous.”  We were now looking straight down on the ring and the fight.
     I got to tell you, by the end of the fight, everybody in the place was on their feet cheering!  It was as if they all now really felt they WERE at a boxing match, not a play.
     I was exhausted.  Diedre was thrilled that the show turned out so unexpectedly good.
     On our way back to the PATH train, I had another exposure to some street theatre.  Now you remember last night and the topless granny to whom time had not been good, both to her and her assets, so to speak.  This time there again were tons of people hanging around two women … two VERY good looking blonde women.  They, too, were topless, although their’s was definitely not a case of “swinging low.”  They also had the good sense and loophole-achieving ability to avoid the cops coming down on them by having their bodies painted.  And ever the capitalists, they were charging guys to have their pictures taken with them.  Let me tell you, there were no shortage of takers there.  Now, that’s something you don’t see every day in Mesa, AZ.  I mean, you may catch a glimpse of the occasional topless granny, but those are usually more a case of just being a little forgetful.
     After an oh-so brief night of sleep, we were back at Monday morning.  The AB1 Kitchen was shut down for the week to permit maximum time in the City.  We had breakfast at The Old Amish Market (yes, we were still in NYC) after a very nice nine-minute ferry ride from Jersey City, as opposed to the 45-minute, total sweatbox, idiot New Jersey train ride we took to go the same distance the night before (the ferry stops running at 9 PM, so that’s why we got stuck using the PATH train for return trips).  Oddly enough, at the Amish Market they had electricity, they had television … they had it all.
     Kind of shatters your belief in their beliefs.
     I quickly learned that in New York City, crosswalks are more of a “suggestion” than a “rule.”  Cars and cabs don’t really stop for you.  It’s like they’re at the “Bear at the Fair” shooting gallery.  Similarly for pedestrians, the “don’t walk” sign … also just a suggestion.  Both sides kind of take it for what its worth and then go about their business.
   

 That morning we began our walk-about of Lower Manhattan.  First we did a quick sprint through Chinatown, then onwards for a self-guided tour of Little Italy.  From there, I was greatly excited to finally arrive in “The Bowery,” a site I had dreamed of visiting ever since my daily 4 PM viewings as a nine-year old of “The Bowery Boys” films we all so loved as kids.  I mean, was their any friend of yours who DIDN’T do Horace DeBussy “Satch” Jones imitations?  Personally, I was a Terrence Aloyisius “Slip” Mahoney fan, even swiping my father’s good hat and pinning it in front a’ la Slip.
     I spent that part of the day vainly searching the neighborhood for any trace of “Louie’s Sweet Shoppe,” the movie land home-away-from-home to Slip, Satch, Whitey, Gabe, and the rest of the gang.  I even had Diedre use Genie to see if there was a facsimile sweet shop in the area.  To my dismay, nothing showed up on-screen.  Hey, what a great idea for a business!  A reproduction of Louie’s Sweet Shoppe.  We’d probably only get a clientele in the age 60-75 age range.
     Moving on.
     We then made it over to the Washington Square area where we had a nice visit with our Terravita (Arizona) friend, Lynn Hagman, at her lovely apartment overlooking just about all of Manhattan.  From there, we headed over to the much talked-about “High Line Park.”
     This place was great.  It’s a one-mile public park that used to be an elevated railway track; now it’s flowers, plants, art, and great views looking down on the city as you walk the mile.  My cousin Duncan, who lives in Rob Petrie’s “New Rochelle,” came by with his daughter, Claire, and his girlfriend, Diane, to join us for the High Line walk before the five of us went out to dinner.  During the walk, Duncan did point out that the section we were currently walking on had once been part of the building where the Oreo cookie was invented.  My heart skipped a beat.

     

Monday would be the only day Diedre didn’t see a Broadway show, but she would be back the next day with a vengeance, ferrying to the city on her own to secure theatre tickets at the half-price booth for the rest of the week .  I, on the other hand, took my only day-off from the urban madness and instead went to a neighborhood bar to catch the Major League Baseball All-Star game with my buddy, Strauss (see both Atlantic City and Philadelphia blogs) who had driven in from Philly to watch the game with me.  He’s such a good guy.
     During the game, a reporter did an interview with the man I hate most in baseball history while he (the most hated) sat next to the man I admire most in baseball history.  One was Commissioner Bud “Sleazebag” Selig and the other was “Hammerin’” Hank Aaron.  What are the odds?  I’ll let you guess which is which.
 While we were getting our athletic fix of baseball, beer, and bratwurst, Diedre was improving herself artistically by seeing Broadway show #3, “Once,” at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre (opened in 1927).  “Once” was the winner of eight Tony’s in 2012 including Best Musical.  Needless to say, my wife loved it.

     Afterwards, she met up with two New York actresses, Heather Cambanes and Aryn Nemerov, who had once worked for our theatre company, Darkknight Productions, back in Scottsdale, AZ.  They had both been so young when they worked for us, college age, but now they were women of the theatre.  Time does march on.
    Summoning all the courage I had left after driving an RV in New Jersey, I decided to take my first ever solo New York City subway ride.  I would be venturing from Lower Manhattan to the stratified atmosphere of Upper Manhattan.  Diedre said I would not need a canister of oxygen.  She, meanwhile, would be off and about the city doing that Broadway thing she do so well (show #4 was an “If/Then” matinee at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, a musical with John-Travolta-name-manglee Idina Menzel.  A discount ticket was $45).
     I have to admit that when I fearlessly came out of the deep recesses of the bowels of the subway station and up into the daylight, I felt like one of the Morlocks from the movie, “The Time Machine” (the original one with Yvette Mimeaux).  Yes, I was now emerging from the darkness and up and into the blinding sunlight.
     “I’m hungry now,” I thought.  “I think I’ll have an ‘Eloi’ sandwich.”  (If this needs explaining, see the above-mentioned movie.)
     On Lexington and 61st, I spotted a “Famous Original Ray’s Pizza” established in 1964.  For me, it was a “Seinfeld” moment.  I knew from watching Jerry’s show that this was better than FORP’s rivals, “Ray’s Pizza,” “Famous Ray’s Pizza,” or “Original Ray’s Pizza.”  They’re all different.  This goes to show you that my whole orientation of New York is based upon nine years of watching “Seinfeld” episodes and then another 16 years watching his reruns.  What I saw on “Seinfeld” is all I know about New York … actually, that pretty much sums up all I know about life in general. 

My trial subway trip was taking me to “The Society of Illustrators’ Museum of American Illustration” which was created on February 1, 1901, to promote the art of illustration.  I, of course, had mixed that up with “The Comic/Cartoon Museum,” which is really more my speed.  You know, like “Superman” and “Doonesbury.”  I was sadly mistaken at the SIMAI, which was like “The New Yorker” cartoons: lightly drawn and not-funny jokes.  There was $5 I would never see again.
     Speaking of “5,” our 5th show of the week would be the controversial, yet superb “The Book of Mormon”at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre, book, music, and lyrics by my close personal friend, Robert Lopez (see last year’s Chicago blog to clear up what I just wrote).  TBOM was the winner of nine Tony’s including Best Musical.  Therefore, it was no cheap deal.  We were, however, sitting in the second row, but were so far to the right that we qualified as Republicans.  The show was funny, but from that hard angle to the right, it was hard to keep abreast of all that was going on in the show.
     Thursday was an absolute monster day.  We started out with our usual rise-and-shine, ferry, Amish breakfast, but then before the day was over, we set a personal “Grand Canyon training” record as we wore out shoe leather to the tune of 11.75 miles.
     NOTE: Here’s an observation:  I hear more cars honking in one week in New York City than I hear in Arizona in two years.
     Whatever.
    
 We knew we had to make a planned trip to the World Trade Center monument to pay our respects.  It strikes you hard when you’re standing on the hallowed ground where in one day, 2,977 people from 90 countries ranging in age from two to 85 were killed.  It hurts even more when you realize that 400 of those deaths were first-responders who died while performing their heroic duties.
     It was hard to keep from misting up when looking down into the two massive buildings’ footprints, now with free-flowing water going down into the abyss.  There were several thousand people crowded all around the openings, yet the place was eerily quiet. 
    One small ray of light struck both Diedre and me: the survivor tree.  It was a Callery pear tree that had been reduced to an 8’ stump in the wreckage at Ground Zero.  Miraculously, it had been nursed back to health by the City and now stood 30’ tall, full of leaves and blooms.  It really embodies the story of survival and resilience.

     From there, we took off for our long awaited march across the Brooklyn Bridge.  Years ago, a fellow I knew was in need of money, so he let on to me that he owned the Brooklyn Bridge and that he might be able to let it go for a song.  No dummy, me, I couldn’t pass that up.  So now all these years later, we’re finally in New York City, and I thought I’d drop by and take a look a look at my investment.  Yessiree, that bridge is going to be worth a lot of money to me someday.  The Brooklyn Bridge: it took 14 years (1869-1883) to build, but just 26 minutes to walk across.  All I can think is:
     KA-CHING!
     From the bridge, we made our way into City Hall Park.  It was great fun watching the guys play chess just like we had seen in the movie “Searching for Bobby Fischer.”  But challenge as I might, I couldn’t get any of those so called “experts” to take me on.  It might have been because I was trying to get them to play “Jenga.”
     Who knows?
     Another … well, actually “two” more of Alexx’s New York observations which you don’t need to pay attention to :
     1) nobody speaks English, and
     2) everybody smokes.
     I didn’t think anybody still smoked, but out east (and especially in the south), everybody has a ciggy-butt dangling deliciously from their bottom lips (“sarcasm” alert just sounded).  I mean, this city is becoming just one big ball of cancer.  Everybody’s going to drop dead here any minute.
     Deep breath …
     

We kept exploring the city, returning once again to Little Italy for a light lunch, then wending our way across the island to find the house that Peter Brown, subject of my most recent (and only) book, “The Fastest Gun in Hollywood: The Life Story of Peter Brown,” lived in as a youth.  From there it was back to the Chelsea Square cave mall under the High Line Park.
     Play #6 was the strangely titled “Kinky Boots,” a show I thought I’d hate but which turned out to be my favorite one of the week, even counting the sports-oriented “Rocky.”  It was staged at The Al Hirschfeld Theatre.  The book was written by Harvey Fierstein while music and lyrics were by that girl who just wants to have fun, Cyndi Lauper.  Who’d have thought those two goofs could put together something as great as this.  Six Tony awards including Best Musical were soon to follow.  We agreed with the Tony electorate.

 After the night’s show, we met up with yet another one of our actors, this guy from our time in Minnesota where he and Diedre were part of a rehearsal group who had professional acting as their goal.  Keith “Skip” Maxwell had been on Broadway for many years since Minnesota and was still making a living at it.  I was intrigued to find out in that night’s beer-conversation that Skip’s brother, Jed Lowrie, plays professional baseball for the Oakland A’s.
     When we got home that night, I thought I’d check with “Penny,” our GPS, to find out the exact mileage to our next campground in Cape Cod, MA.  Penny is usually pretty accurate concerning the mileage and drive time it’ll take us to get to any destination.  We have her programmed to help us avoid all toll roads.  The RV/car combo is not cheap at toll booths, so we usually don’t mind the extra 10 miles or 20 minutes it takes by not using the allegedly speedier turnpikes.  This time, however, her computing took an inordinately long time for her to route us.  And when it finally came up … it would take us … THREE-THOUSAND, TWO-HUNDRED MILES!!
     WAIT, WHAT?!
      Yes, 3,200 miles and about 50 hours to make the trip using no toll ways.  She was sending us through Akron … that’s OHIO!
     I quickly reprogrammed her, this time USING toll ways.  That route would be 2,960 miles less ... hmmm … well, not being total idiots, I guess we’ll use the toll ways … JUST THIS ONCE!

     Today is Friday, July 18.  Our long-awaited week in New York is almost over.
     It seems like wherever I go in New York, there are things that remind me of a late 50’s TV show and its theme song (which I can’t get out of my head, and which now, you, too, won’t be able to).  It goes like this:
“There’s a holdup in the Bronx;
   Brooklyn’s broken out in fights.
There’s a traffic jam in Harlem
   that’s backed up to Jackson Heights!
There’s a scout troop short a child;
   Khrushchev’s due at Idylwild …
CAR 54, WHERE ARE YOU?!”
     I think the musicals are finally getting to me.
     Friday was another instance where Diedre and I went our separate ways during the day and then would meet up for the theatre that evening.  I started out on the subway, now being an old hand at dealing with the mole-people.  My destination was way north in Upper Manhattan: the National Track & Field Hall of Fame.
     Diedre and I have developed a long-standing rule regarding theatres and restaurants: call first and make sure they’re at least: 1) open, and 2) still in business.  I should have extended that rule to Halls of Fame.
     I took the subway to what seemed like the nether regions of the solar system.  It was all the way out to 136th Street, about an hour-and-a-half by Morlock Metro.  Upon arriving at the Hall, I was aghast to find out that the place was closed for electrical work.  I pleaded my case, so tearfully that the young lady behind the desk, also with tears in her eyes, let me in just to look around the first floor (there were three levels).  Here, for you sports freaks, are just two of the wonderful things I did see:
1)      the baton Jessie Owens held as he anchored the winning 4x100 gold-medal relay team at the 1936 “Hitler” Olympics;
2)      a picture of Forrest Smithson who won the 1908 Olympic 110-meter hurdles event.  A very pious man, Forrest even competed carrying a Bible in his hand.

Diedre had spent her solo-portion of the day meeting up with longtime friend and Kaye-Stuart
bridesmaid Pam Lubbers.  Their morning brunch get-together lasted until 3 PM.  So much to catch up on.
     Meanwhile, back at subway-central, I made my way down to General Ulysses S. Grant’s Memorial, also known as “Grant’s Tomb.”  President Grant died in 1885.  His tomb was finished on April 27, 1897, the 75th anniversary of his birth, and was dedicated in 1898.  My trip there was going to help me answer that age-old question:  “Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb?”  (HINT: I think it’s some guy named “Al.”)
     Anywho, I got there at 3:22 p.m.  And … it was closed … for the moment.
     WHAT?!
     Yes, it seems it’s only open for an hour at a time on even numbered hours.
     Again … WHAT?!
     At noon, 2, and 4, it was open for an hour.  Then they’d close for an hour.  How’s that for a national monument?
     So I figured, “What the hey?”  (I’m often thinking profound thoughts like that.)  I had 38 minutes to kill.  And of course, the nearby outdoors satellites were padlocked shut.  Nothing like sitting around at a national monument waiting 38 minutes to go.
     In the interim, I read some fun facts about the memorial:
-it’s 150’ tall;
-it took 12 years to build;
-Grant’s Tomb is the largest mausoleum in North America;
- over $600,000 was donated by 90,000 people to build it; it was the largest public fundraising effort ever at that time.
     I finally got in at 4 PM and paid my respects to Mr. and Mrs. Grant.  He has historically been criticized for drinking, but he did do a fine job as president in carrying out many of the programs originally proposed by President Lincoln.
     From there, I walked 30 blocks to the north end of Central Park, determined to see the whole of it for the first time.  Let me just say this:
     Central Park is one big ass park!
     I started on 108th and walked all the way to 56th , staying in the park the entire time.  In the center is one good-sized lake.  I found the softball fields where Seinfeld played against Bette Midler’s team.  There were a lot of games going on, and if I hadn’t had to meet Diedre for play #7, I would have hung around the fields until some team, short a player, would ask me to play.
     The park also has tennis courts and a running track.  It’s just a wonderful park with a little bit of everything there.   

 It’s funny: 51 years ago when I came here with my family (1963 for those of you at home keeping score), we had three or four days to see the basics, i.e. a Yankees game, Wall Street (my dad was a stock broker), Radio City Music Hall with the Rockettes, a cruise around Manhattan Island, and a Broadway show (“How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” with Robert Morse, Rudy Vallee, Charles Nelson Reilly, and one of my early first loves, Michelle Lee).  So other than a short, three day visit Diedre and I made here in 1994 as part of our dual mid-life crises where we saw just one Broadway play, this venture here in 2014 was my real first introduction to all things New York, sort of a “New York 101 Class.”  And I really covered the basics: the subway, the single pizza slices, the garbage in the streets, the people.  After all that, I came to the realization that I really was having a good time (except for Day 1 and the PATH (New Jersey) train).
     Of course, when I came here in 1963, my parents made me wear a coat and a tie (it was August, mind you) wherever we went.  I never could understand why.  Now 51 years later, I asked Diedre how I should dress for Broadway shows.  She looked at me with surprise in her eyes and said, “Anything goes!”
     And it did.
     You’d get to the theatre and everybody’s there dressed in anything from tuxedoes to an “I’m With Stupid>>” T-shirt.  This year it was hot, so I wore shorts to the theatre, although I did try to class up the act by wearing one of my collared baseball golf shirts … or should that be my “collared golf baseball shirts”?
   

 For play #7, we met up once again with our young Arizona actress, Aryn Nemerov, for dinner and the show, “The Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” at the Walter Kerr Theatre.”  It was OK, just not memorable.  For a murder-mystery musical, I expected a lot more slamming of doors and confusion with who was messing around with whom.  To each his own.
     Last NY day coming up.
     Saturday, July 19, again we ferried, ate Amish, and then walked.  This time, I saw a guy watching some workers clean the front window of a business.  He obviously couldn’t afford theatre tickets, so (I surmised in that way only I can) he brought his folding chair, set it up just off the curb, and watched them change the beauty supply window.  I figured they gave him a program so he knew what was going on.  When they got done, he applauded like mad (again, I assume; we were long gone by then).  Ah, street theatre; it just doesn’t get any better than in NYC.
   

Stadium #24 on the Alexander Adventurers' 2014 Trek

 Today was our day to see the “new” Yankee Stadium.  I had been to the old one before in 1963 (Yankees beat the Indians 3-0).  During our pre-game, external stadium walk, I saw T-shirts for sale that I really enjoyed.  They showed how seriously the locals took their rivalries:
-BUCK FOSTON!
-“M-E-T-S” STANDS FOR “MY ENTIRE TEAM SUCKS!”
-I’D RATHER MY SISTER WAS A PROSTITUTE THAN A METS FAN!
   

 We found the hallowed ground where the old Yankee Stadium, built in the Bronx in 1923, had stood.  We even found part of the iconic “Yankee Stadium frieze” near a youth baseball field standing exactly where the old stadium resided for almost 90 years.
     We were joined at the game by my cousin Duncan (his dad was my dad’s younger brother), his daughter Claire, Duncan’s lady-friend Diane, and her two kids (young adults) Joseph and Valerie.  We had great seats, although we had to take out a second mortgage to finance them.  In one of the rare instances where I cheered for the Yankees, they beat the Cincinnati Reds 7-1.
     

One of the highlights of the game, besides me getting a gigantic, refillable popcorn-bucket that I still use today when bailing out sinking boats, was Derek Jeter, in his third-to-last month as a major league player, getting a hit and an RBI, so that was great to see.  We also witnessed Carlos Beltran hit a home run while Cincy garnered a mere five hits.
     Home team record: 8-4.

     After this fine victory and then a nice dinner, the seven of us made our way “off-Broadway” (but not too far off) to see our 8th and final play, my favorite Broadway franchise, “Forbidden Broadway.”  Not great theatre, but a lot of laughs.  And the show was a depression-era fee of only $29.  You can’t beat that.
     DK’s week in New York was a record for her: she walked 47.5 miles.  I probably did the same, although instead of a walk, I called it “a forced death march.”
     OK, I was probably getting a bit smug with my enjoyment of the city, so New York had to bring me back to my knees.  While Diedre was extolling the virtues of our being able to see the Statue of Liberty right from our campground, I began noshing on a bar of Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy (sugarless, of course).  Soon enough, one of my crowns came dislodged.  No pain, and at least I didn’t swallow it, but nevertheless, it was New York’s way of telling me, “You’ve been here long enough, kid!  Time to move along.”
     And move along we shall.  Next stop: Cape Cod, Massachusetts.