I’d never been to Princeton before. I don’t believe I’m chums with anyone who’s an alum of that institution either. I can think of friends and acquaintances that I associate with ever other Ivy League school. A quick Google search yields no dearth of alumni I recognize. Bezos and Michelle Obama get top billing over the obvious president of the university who later became president of the country, the increasingly maligned, Woodrow Wilson. James Madison was a graduate and JFK seems to have done his first year or so there as well. There is a long list of familiar names that follows.
We were considering colleges to simply drive through on Saturday. Cooped up for the past five months, looking over photos of summer trips we’d taken every other year that we could remember, we’re getting itchy. I’d mentioned that the week before last we all drove to Connecticut. We navigated through the Yale campus and then that of my old alma mater, Wesleyan, hoping to give my younger daughter a taste of what these places looked like. With her older sister we’d actually planned college tours, which don’t appear to be available just now. Most target schools are a three-hour drive away. Bard’s close. We could have pulled that off with a forty-minute drive. Princeton was precisely two hours away and that was the compromise we agreed on.
First, as we did in New Haven, my younger one was set on visiting Ikea. They don’t exist in Westchester or points north. But there were two we’d pass in New Jersey. There is a particular desk she wants, (The "micke." No. The "malm" won't do.) that was out of stock in our Connecticut Ikea run. And she’s announced it’s out of stock today at the Ikea in Paramus. But in Elizabeth, a few remain. And while we saw some lovely parts of New Jersey during the day the segue on Ikea Drive in Elizabeth was an unfortunate post-industrial wasteland. We snaked our way through the entire multi-football-field sized showrooms, quietly marveling at Elizabeth's remarkable multiculturalism only to find that it was . . . sold out. "No. I don't want the malm!" Another girl and her father were also flipping over boxes and searching adjoining bins presumably also looking in vain for a white micke.
The ride along Route One there in New Jersey, heading south towards Princeton was unfortunate. I thought the strip mall aftermath of Route Nine in Poughkeepsie was bad. Route One, which was presumably also a lovely old carriageway at some more tender time in American history, is now lined with menacing electric stanchions and unappealing, dying mini-malls. We were calling out what we saw. The girls noticed an Asian food market. "Korean barbecue!"Not one, but three adult movie stores. If that isn’t a dying business model, I don’t know what is. It seemed, unflatteringly similar to what much of Silicon Valley looks like, driving, always driving, from this office park to the next.
Route Twenty-Seven over to Princeton itself is an upgrade. By the time you reach the campus it all starts to look suitably faux Norman, faux Tudor. We did a loop or two and parked and found our way up to the main campus lawn, which is undeniably impressive. There isn’t much loot that’s more old-money than this in the United States. We entered the grounds and noticed the John Foster DullesLibrary of Diplomatic History. A Catholic, I’d assumed our former Secretary of State attended some place like Fordham. I conveyed the rather undiplomatic history Mr. Dulles encounter with Zhou Enlai from 1954 in Geneva, where John refused to shake Enlai’s hand. "The only encounter we'll have is an automobile crash." Further on we considered just who the patriot John Witherspoon was.
I think we were all looking forward to a chance to eat there in town. We’d seen a number of places where outdoor seating had been lined up. It all looked inviting. The girls got their bubble tea and my wife, and I chose an Italian place that looked swell enough but turned out to be shitty. I got ossobuco on a bed or risotto that tasted like a shoe after a while. No one else particularly enjoyed this, our first meal out in months. Ahh, but we were sitting outside, in a strange town and people were walking along and it was sunny and mild so we hadn’t much to complain about. My daughters sanitized their hands ceaselessly during the meal and I kept fumbling with my mask, a bit too late, after the waiter arrived.
Monday, 07/20/20
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