Radio Announcements, Years Ago

This is the third time I’ve take this bus in as many months.  I’ve gotten myself the front seat on a Trailways that is otherwise full of people.  This seems to me to the best seat by far, but perhaps they know something I don’t.  Surely if we stop abruptly, I’ll be flying headlong into the windshield rather than the seat in front of me.  Mahwah, Paramus, we’re soon flying through all the Jersey towns I knew from New York area radio announcements, years ago.  And we’re awfully deep into Jersey before we make the inevitable turn into Manhattan, which would be fine if my destination were Manhattan, but I’m on my way to the Newark Airport. 

Somewhere near Paramus, Route 17 crests on a hill and the Manhattan skyline becomes visible for the first time.  It’s the first instance I’ve processed the fact that the luxury condo tower, 432 Park Avenue is actually taller than . . . anything.  It seems much taller than the Empire State Building which is obscured by those new buildings in the Hudson Yards.  Nostalgic maybe, but somehow this is unsettling.  Later, swinging around the Jersey-side of the Lincoln tunnel, the differential is laid out in even greater detail.  I’ve checked and if you don’t count bolt-on antennas it is now the city’s tallest construction. 

I’ve got two big suitcases, but there isn’t much in either of them.  My plan is have capacity so I can bring things home.  I ask a kid in a staff-like uniform where the Newark airport bus is and asks: which one, suggesting that one of them is up and down again on the adjacent escalator.  I try to look for signs and eventually wheel-up to the Port Authority information kiosk upstairs.  He too is disarmingly friendly despite his thick deez-dems-doz brogue and helps to clarify that one is cheaper and one is faster.  “Thanks.  I’ll take faster.”  Out to Forty First St. and up to a group of cops, the youngest of whom points me to the make shift kiosk and soon I have my ticket.  It will be here in fifteen minutes, explains a grizzled old guy, well-suited to his role, and fortunately the bus is on time. 

Rougher, louder, I’m less sensitive to noise pollution on this bus and spend much of the time arguing with my colleague in China on the phone.  Unwinding the spin, now up and out of the Lincoln Tunnel on the Jersey side I try not to waste too much time savoring the what an ass-backwards plan this is for getting to the airport.  My ticket spits out from the United Self check-in which always requires assistance to China as some attendant always needs to check your valid visa and after a quick glance I see the dreaded word “middle.”  “No, no, no, no.  Hey, I booked this on line with the lady and had an aisle seat and . . .”  Now I’m getting a grating reminder from the attendant that “well, sometimes they switch the planes and that means . . .”  I’m ready for combat until she shows me the flight plan that I have some special part of the section which only has two seats.  That’ll do. 

Starbucks for an espresso and a bit of charging, an email or two.  I need a two-pronged plug that takes a usb chord to charge my iPhone as I’d gallantly left “my” charger home with the family.  It’s been a while and I grab a copy of The Economist as well.  The Met gift shop and I grab a Degas tee-shirt for the daughter of the colleague I’d been arguing with.  It is Mid-Autumn Festival after all.  I get over to the gate with ten minutes to spare and confirm I’m OK to grab a tuna wrap and a juice at the last-minute shop behind me.  Last one on, there is no one sitting beside me.  Plenty of room.  A bit sad to see the Beijing direct flight is only half-full though.  Later, after I’ve finished the Economist, which I’ve smeared with greasy potato chip fingers, I gingerly read Paul French’ “Midnight in Beijing” through in straight shot, somewhere over the Hudson Bay and muse about Beijing in 1937 and about Beijing today.  This is gift for a friend, so I try to leave it looking new. 

Wednesday, 09/11/19