Traveling Mercies

For his birthday, my mom got my dad a GPS. He drives a lot, and sometimes gets lost, so it was an appropriate gift. I (for reasons to be detailed in a later post) was against it, but it wasn't my gift to un-give.

So I was very happy when I came home from my travels in New England to learn that dad had gotten rid of the GPS.

"I couldn't understand it," he said, "It wouldn't let you see ahead about the choices it was making" (a complaint with which I wholly agree), "and it said this word, this word I didn't understand."

"Ahn-roft," he said the word was. I puzzled and puzzled, through English, through rudimentary German and Spanish, but got nothing. "On ramp?" "Off ramp?"

"I decided," he said, "before I returned it, that it was a word of blessing. A travel blessing for the road. Turn right. Ahn-roft."

So, in the spirit of the now-returned GPS:

Ahn-roft, to all you travelers in distant lands.

Parking Authority

On second street, the parking sign was very confusing: "Zone 1 Permit Parking. 8AM - 10AM and 3PM - 5PM, weekdays." Nate and I puzzled over it for a while. On one hand, this was the neighborhood where we were looking for housing and for jobs for connections in general. "On the other hand," Nate said, "I don't want to get a ticket." And it was his car.

We were about to risk it. Having received a parking ticket in every municipality in which I parked during my high school years (total of four, accumulated in a two-week stretch), I consider myself somewhat learned in the arcane meanings of ambiguously worded signs with white, red, and/or green writing.

An authority more venerable than I sat across the street. I had seen him, out of the corner of my eye, on our approach. Old guys sitting on stoops are no rarity around town. "Let's ask that guy," said Nate.

He had an eye patch, a Hawaiian shirt, and a white captain's hat. His hair was also white. He did not, expectations to the contrary, have a pipe.

"Excuse me, uh, sir, do you know about parking regulations around here?" Nate asked from across the street. He didn't respond, except, maybe, to smile slightly, so we crossed three lanes of fast-moving traffic. We were committed.

"Do you know, if we park here now, will we get a ticket?"
"I'm a little hard of hearing."
Nate stepped right up on the stoop and repeated his question.
"Ah," said the man. His remaining eye glinted. "You're fine now, but once the time comes, they'll getcha." He gestured to his watchless wrist. "Right on the dot." His words were hard to understand. Any dialogue transcribed is mostly based on guesswork, except for the following:  "They's a bitch."

We nodded, laughing along with him at the unfairness (or, perhaps, the all-too-fairness) of it all, and made sure that we were back before Zone 1 Permit Parking began at 3PM.

Jon Stewart is Wrong

This video, for me, shows why Jon Stewart is on the forefront not only of the "fake news" genre, but also of political punditry in general. Most of this clip is devoted to his index card stunt as he demonstrates the hilarious meaninglessness of a particular bit of Fox News. That bit is good TV in general, and part of Stewart's ongoing feud with the right-wing network.

But the outstanding part of this clip is later, when Stewart shows clips of Charlton Hesston's NRA post-Columbine damage control speech. His reading of those sentiments in the light of current events is canny, and during that reading he admits that he was wrong. Sure, it's a convenient moment for him to admit that, and sure, he distances his current self from his past-self via a silly photo, but still, he admits, on air, that he was wrong. That's more than many "serious" news commentators are willing to do today, and that is what has increased my respect for Stewart and his show.

After a Long Hiatus...

... I am back. Not back in any sort of permanent location (I'm in Allentown till Monday, when I move to temporary apartment-hunting base camp in Hershey). It's been too long. I was afraid that this blog might have hit that point that so many of my friends' post-college blogs hit, where they fall apart and never return. This is not the case with any of the blogs that I currently link to. Good work, y'all.

Jim Thorpe's iconic steeple, from the porch of the historic Harry Packer House.

But I don't want to be too blog-aware, so let me use the rest of this post to recommend the greater Jim Thorpe area as a lovely vacation destination. The family reunited (the four of us hadn't been in the same place at the same time for ages) at "the camp" outside of Jim Thorpe. It's a nice little place, although I feel bad about my family being rich landowning types. It used to be a motorcycle garage, and the small pond is too glutted with tame sunnies to make swimming at all enjoyable. They nibble at your skin in what they believe to be a completely non-threatening way that ends up coming off as far too piranha-esque to be comfortable. So I guess I feel a little okay about the place. We went kayaking. We took a plane ride. We visited an art gallery. We went out for dinner. We toured an old historic home. Note how I used "old" to avoid having to deal with the tricky question of which article precedes "historic" (I prefer "an," but it sounds so snooty).

So go to Jim Thorpe. And Moya.

This writing was curtailed because, right in the middle of typing it, I got a call from Harrisburg's Midtown Scholar Bookstore. They gave me a job! I'll be manning the coffee bar and helping out around the bookstore, not to mention putting in extra hours at the various art and music events that they host after hours. So if you're ever in Harrisburg, stop in.

On The Road Again

Remember that thing I said at the top of the last post about being in a place with regular internet access again? Well, it was kind of a lie. I'm leaving to do a stint at Spruce Lake, my old summer camp, for a week or so. I will have internet, but no time to write, so I leave you with some media:

Pictures from my time in NYC.

and

a video from previous years at Spruce Lake.

A Few Links

...now that I'm back in a place with regular internet access, and my computer is not buried deep within my backpack.

I.
I was talking (with somebody who cares about such things) about how testicles became synonymous with courage, as in the contradictory "she's got balls." Here is an answer.

II.
A fun article about a family bonding experience. My favorite part: He goes into Wal-Mart and needs a nap afterwards.

III.
And I just watched this movie. SPOILER ALERT: the shot at 0:38 ruins what was, for me, the biggest surprise of the film, namely, what are those orange things for. It sounds like I am being sarcastic about the (lack of) suspense in the movie. Be assured, I am not.

Tales from the Road: Schooner vs. Train

It's hard to even know what to write after coming home from a trip like the one I was just on. I want to distill it, to sum it up; to state what I learned. Maybe I will get to that at some point. Maybe I learned something that can be summed up (not so sure about that). For now, I'm going to devote the next few posts to sharing highlights from the trip. Not that these moments are better than the other moments, but they are self-contained, brief, and narratively satisfying. If we define better as "makes good blog reading" then they are, in fact, better. That is why they are being shared here.

---

The Mystic Whaler's crew is, in some ways, a bunch of pirates. Young, fit folks with a devil-may-care attitude. They cut sail theory class short in order to go to the dock for Fitness Club--not a club per se as much as Frances donning a ninja headband and carrying an armload of push-up handles, weights, etc. up from below. "We have a lot of clubs on the boat" said Nicole. "Laura started the Starboard Cuddle Club. She's the only member." "Though others have tried to join," said Miranda.

After dinner, Chris and Frances informed the crew that they were heading out to O'Neill's. "The gay bar?" asked Miranda. "That's just where we go," said Frances. "They have good bartenders there. And $1 drinks till 9."

So at quarter of, Chris came rushing back to the boat with his mandolin. "Come on you guys!" he said. We stragglers (Nicole had been on galley duty, I was helping with dishes, and Laura had just returned from shore leave) leapt onto the dock and started walking towards State St. I struck up a conversation with Chris about his mandolin: "So, the fretted part of the neck extends over the body of it here" "Most mandolin players get that cut off--it's in the best place to strum and it gets in your way..." when life got exciting.

In New London, the train tracks divide the waterfront from the town proper. The very-active train station is within eye and earshot of the Whaler's dock. As we started downtown, the crossing gates started down, red lights and bells between us and O'Neill's.

In that instant, I resigned myself to missing $1 well drinks; to missing any drinks at all. More expensive drinks were, by this point in the trip, beyond my budget. My comrades, the piratical crew of the Whaler, were more committed to the bargain. Before I knew what was happening, Chris and Laura were sprinting for the crossing gates, Nicole in hot pursuit. I tucked the mandolin under my arm like a football, said a brief prayer, and hit the pavement. Ducking under the closing gates, I saw the headlights of the train rounding the corner, its horn blaring, not only in deference to regulations mandating horn use when approaching level crossings, but also because it would be unable to stop in time if any of us ended up in front of it.

We made it (barely) to State St., the passengers on the station shaking their heads at us. Exhilarated, Chris took back his mandolin and struck up a sea tune. We all sang along as we jogged to O'Neill's: "I'm a'goin' downtown, wa-a-a-a-y downtown, I'm a'goin' down to Lynchburg town, to carry my tobacco down..."

We walked into the bar, Frances sitting alone at the bar with his ukulele. He joined us for the verse, and the bartender and the crowd at the table outside looked at us. We sat at the bar and Chris announced, in the centuries-old tradition of sailors around the world "We're from that big ship down at the dock."

Home I'll (Never?) Be

It's been a while. Sorry. I was traveling with limited internet access. Lots of great stuff, maybe some of it will be shared here, maybe not.

But I'm home in Allentown, at least for the week.

Oh, and the title: