“Next time the jet”
—So began my journey to Fort Lauderdale via Amtrak.
My niece Jill lives in Fort Lauderdale; she’s my sister’s only child. That sister died over seven years ago of pancreatic cancer, and was slightly younger than me. I’m the oldest.
Catch train 280 to New York City in Rochester at 5:41 a.m. It ran late, but only a few minutes = 6:06 a.m. I had to get up at 3 a.m.
Change trains onto The Silver Meteor, train 97, at Penn Station in New York City.
Penn Station was a madhouse; a wonderful way to feel my age. I took along this ancient laptop, which is incredibly heavy.
(I had everything packed in a duffel.)
“Next time ask for help at check-in,” said an angry Amtrak lady, after I called my retired bus-driver friend in FL via cellphone.
People everywhere, and not enough signage to get me anyplace.
I had to ask the Amtrak police.
“This yer first time?” asked my Meteor car-attendant.
“Not exactly,” I answered. “Auto-Train first.”
“Different equipment,” the attendant said. She told me her name was “Linda.”
“That was my wife’s name,” I said; ”and she’s gone. And here I am doing this alone. Born in the wrong century.”
I staved off crying; my post-stroke lability. It’s slight, but I’d need to explain.
Rochester to NYC was “business-class;” airliner seats with tray-tables, but much roomier than in-yer-face airliner seats.
A snack bar was nearby staffed by an angry attendant, incensed I made him do anything.
My overnight “sleeping compartment,” on the Meteor, was a tiny module next to a center aisle. It’s about four feet by eight feet, and accommodates two. There is an upper berth in the ceiling that drops down, and the two seats fold into a lower berth.
The compartment also has a toilet, and a tiny sink that folds down. A shelf that flaps over the toilet steps up to the upper berth.
You can stand in it: you couldn’t in the Auto-Train roomette. But you clobber things doing so. Along with all the rockin’ and rollin’ you get on the railroad, which was fairly rough; you need sea-legs.
Dinner in the Dining-Car was part of my sleeper accommodation, but it was marginal. I do better in restaurants. Breakfast was pretty good: three pancakes and two sausage-patties.
I texted my aquacise instructor I didn’t sleep well = not a “Chessie-Cat” night. I only had two thin blankets, and things were so tight I couldn’t position the blankets correctly. Most of the night I was cold, despite sleeping in my clothes.
The Keed is finally in Fort Lauderdale, after enduring Amtrak’s overnight penalty-box.
“So what did you think of the train?” my niece asked.
“Next time the jet!” I snapped.
My niece’s daughter laughed: ”Uncle Bobby is so funny!”
I showed them my picture (above): Amtrak’s Houdini-box.
”Get any sleep?” my niece asked.
“Sorta,” I said. “But the train is a-rockin’ and a-rollin’. Airliner cattle-car seats are terrible, but that’s only five hours, not a day-and-a-half.”
Daughter laughed again at “cattle-car seats.”
“Katie (her daughter’s name is ‘Katie’) likes words Uncle Bobby comes up with,” my niece observed; “plus he always lets ‘er rip.”
Various hairballs came into effect. Worst was my niece’s iPhone gave up making and receiving phonecalls. We discovered this when she attempted to call me.
In south FL this is a disaster, since the portability of cellphones makes communicating by phone a necessity.
At least her text still worked.
Her teenaged son was practicing track at his school. My niece arrived to pick him up. She normally would call his phone, but no-can-do.
We were reduced to text, plus the school had games that cordoned off the athletic-field.
“I’m in the weight-room,” her son texted.
Actually getting to that weight-room took long enough for her son to go elsewhere, thinking his text was lost.
The act of merely picking up her son was taking hours, plus the equivalent of driving to Key West. The impossibility of cellphone communication was turning into an impediment.
That morning we rode “Brightline,” a new train from Fort Lauderdale north to West Palm Beach.
Brightline is a subsidiary of Florida East Coast Railway, and operates on FEC, whereas Amtrak operates on parallel CSX.
“So what did you think of Brightline?” my niece asked.
“I hope it lasts,” I commented.”It’s very pretty, but few were on it.”
Again, my niece’s daughter laughed.
We met my wife’s brother in West Palm, and ate out in a restaurant. He lives in Delray Beach.
“They’re revitalizing Fort Lauderdale’s downtown,” my niece said. Streets were turned into pedestrian walkways, and electric scooters scurried about. They’re activated and paid for by smartphone, after which the user just leaves them when finished. A capital idea, but not for snow.
My niece commented someone might drive off with your scooter while you were inside a store.
I never fell, but I’m slower than most. “You first,” I say.”I’m very slow; an aging geezer.”
Brightline competes with the automobile. Interstate-95 runs parallel, but is often a parking-lot. There also is a parallel commuter-rail that runs on CSX. It also is little-used.
60-70 mph on Brightline, Miami to West Palm, makes sense. Grab a scooter when you get off. Cars are everywhere, but often stopped.
Ya also gotta drive aggressively. Lane lines mean nothing. “CUT ‘IM OFF; CUT ‘IM OFF! The only way to change lanes is barge!
Three more years, and we’re outta here! That’s when Ty graduates high-school. I’m sick of the traffic-jams,” my niece exclaimed. (Ty is my niece’s first-born, now a learner’s-permit car-driver.)
Last day of a two-full-day “surgical strike,” which I had to explain to my Meteor attendant.
Hairball #2: my niece’s dog had nighttime diarrhea, mounds and mounds, including her crate.
Everything had to be washed, and washing her dog requires two adults. The dog turns into a biting, lunging maniac. Her husband was in AK.
Sudden change of plans. Our annual visit to IHOP® for breakfast was scotched!
My niece is a taxi-mom. She rams all over south FL: drop off Ty, pick me up at my hotel, then take daughter to a softball game.
We watched that game: yelling and screaming by adults, but no fights (sigh). That daughter’s team lost. But “Bad call by the umpire.”
We used to get that at the Mighty Mezz: “How come my bench-warming grandson didn’t make yer “Team-of-the Week?” UZIs sprayed our Sports guys.
“The trouble with yer newspaper is it’s too liberial.” (The kerreck CONSERVATIVE spelling).
Next was dinner preceded by carting around kids. We also took her dog to a dog-park, where I struck up conversations with various ladies. I’ve learned; Faire Hilda and my parents are no longer in command. I’m not the scum I was noisily convinced I was at age-5.
That included talking with a pretty neighbor, a complete stranger, out watering her flowers. My niece noted: I’m much more sociable. That neighbor looked about 60, but why not? Faire Hilda and my parents are in repose: 14,000 rpm in their graves — enough to power FL south of Orlando.
Contrary to my childhood I’m learning they all were wrong! “No girl will ever talk to you;” yet they love talking with me. I got ladies eating out of my hand! I had to lose the best friend I ever had, and I’m learning this 70 years late.
(That neighbor smiled at me).
And ladies make the BEST conversation — they’re not pulling that macho stuff. Strike up a conversation! If my contact gets defensive, leave her alone. It ain’t my fault = her loss!
My niece made chili, which we ate with corn-bread from the supermarket. That’s what I do. “You better eat them brussel sprouts; children are starving in China!” (That was my mother.)
We then went to “Cherry Smash,” an ice-cream parlor loaded with ‘30s-‘50s bitsa. Statues of Marilyn Monroe over the subway-grate, and the Blues Brothers playing poker.
“Happy Days” played on a TV monitor. Operating model-trains, model hotrods, fortune-telling machines, wavy fun-house mirrors; “Just imagine dusting all this,” I commented.
“Home-made ice cream,” my niece said.
“Does that mean it was made in someone’s home, then brought to the parlor to sell?” I asked. Illegal in FL per my wife’s brother.
I also couldn’t help noticing the aging lovers: some balding dude in his 60s, touchy-feely with a fading tart in her 40s or 50s. Forget the heavy mascara and skimpy clothes; companionship is what matters. Men are no longer hunks at age-60, but they still can talk.
I do way better than I expected: “No girl will ever talk to you,” versus “Talk to me; make me laugh!”
My visit concluded on a sour note: my niece’s son was driving, which began strident bickering between myself and my niece. This obviously depressed her daughter; I wasn’t the wonderful uncle she surmised.
Like her mother and grandmother I too possess the Connor penchant for volume to dominate an argument.
I also drove city-bus = used to bellowing ne’er-do-wells. What I usually did was stop: “I can’t drive this thing with you yelling at me!”
“Connor” was my mother’s maiden-name, and they were Irish = all-knowing know-it-all, knowers of all things.
So concludes my annual visit to my niece in Fort Lauderdale, entirely different from where I live. Back to the frozen tundra, land of long-underwear and down jackets.
Back to my silly dog, who will be thrilled to see me. My dog is always priority-one. (Bunny-rabbits and deeries beware.)
Back to walking my lunging monster, which seems more normal than otherwise.
Actually I’ve decided train-travel is preferable to airline-travel, as long as it’s convenient, which Amtrak may not be. Fort Lauderdale is also a long trip.
And a roomette is preferable to a room, since close-in walls can catch a fall. It’s also nearly impossible to maneuver a duffel in a roomette.
• Yr Fthfl Srvnt now owns a wheeled suitcase. “I had to go all-the-way to Fort Lauderdale to obtain a wheeled suitcase.” I traded my yellow Ferrari duffel to my niece’s son: a car-guy. (In Fort Lauderdale I had time to do it — at home NOT!)
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments. One stroke-effect is poor emotional control (lability) = tendency to laugh or cry readily. My lability was much worse at first, but now only slight.
• A few weeks ago I Facebooked a picture of my “Chessie-cat” blanket. Years ago a stray cat was found aboard a Chesapeake & Ohio passenger-train. The railroad-crew adopted the cat, naming it “Chessie.” “Chessie” became the railroad’s mascot. The railroad later renamed itself “Chessie System.” —My aquatic-therapy instructor, who I happen to be Facebook “friends” with, “liked” (FB “liked”) that picture, which means she probably now knows what a “Chessie-cat night” is, which my roomette wasn’t.
• I do aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool, two hours per week — plus a third hour on my own. My “aquacise instructor” (“aquatic-therapy instructor”) is the lady who leads my class. That aquacise instructor and I both have iPhones; so can text (although I’ve done it too much).
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 13 years ago. Best job I ever had —I was employed there almost 10 years — over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern. (“Canandaigua” is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles from my home.)
• RE: “Faire Hilda.....” —My Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor was the infamous Hilda Q. Walton, who I’ve blogged many times.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke ended that. I retired from RTS on medical-disability.
posted by BobbaLew at 3:12 PM
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