I got home late last night due to company softball (you just can’t turn down those rare Central Park games). Little G and Little Miss C were ready for bed and, after 12 hours alone with the kids, The Missus was too.

So I decided to take the later train, the slacker-esque 8:43, and spend an extra 27 minutes with the fam.

That particular train always seems to be early, so I climbed on my bike with time to spare, and patted myself on the back as I hit the overpass stairs at 8:40.

Alas, the train came jugging down the tracks within seconds. I bolted up the stairs and heard multiple voices behind me yelling “hold the train!”, including one Weeble-esque woman who wasn’t going to make it if sprinting was required.

Once again, I thought, the 8:43 is early. As I climbed on board, I saw a ruddy faced conductor sticking his head out the window.

“A couple stragglers behind me,” I said.

I went to hold the door, but a few guys were already doing so. All the stragglers made it, and the train was off.

The five-seater in front of me featured a family of four: Mom, Dad, two little blonde kids. The girl had a front tooth that was hanging on for dear life; a stiff breeze could spell a visit from the Tooth Fairy tonight.  

Moments later, the conductor came to check my ticket. He had a red beard to match his red face.

“Why is this train always early?” I asked. (Hey–someone’s got to speak up for us commuters.) “It’s only 8:41.”

I showed him my watch, which was just turning to 8:42.

His face lit up.

“Actually, with the new schedules, it’s an 8:41!” he said smugly. “The schedule changed. We’re not early, we’re on time!”

He was kind enough to not say the rest: “And you’re not!”

He punched my ticket and sauntered on to encounter the rest of the breathless Hawthorne riders.

How did I miss that, I wondered. I actually read the new Mileposts every month, and the Metro-North press release emails too. They’re about the M-8 cars that never seem to arrive for the beleaguered New Haven lin riders, right? That one escaped me.

I turned to my Blackberry, and then to the Times, and then to the girl with the hanging-on-for-dear-life tooth in front of me.

Would the thing stay attached until North White Plains?

Back in the saddle after a ten-day break, a spell enhanced by our furloughed Fridays here at the salt mine.

The break featured our annual summer block party, during which I chatted with a man who recently moved into the neighborhood with his wife and two small children. The man and I discussed walking to the train–he’s really the only other one I know of that walks from beyond the immediate vicinity of the station each day. We discussed our mutual surprise that no one else walks, and we both seemed to be pleased to hear that another human in Hawthorne eschewed the auto for the trip to the train.

The break also featured six days in Cape Cod, half of which featured a driving, sideways rain. During the wet first half of the week, me and Little G found a brief window of rain respite for a trip to the beach, where we encountered a woman and two small boys–one who, coincidentally, was also named Little G.

We lamented the lack of foul weather activities on the Cape (the kid museum, the acquarium that no one seemed to realize was closed Mondays), and she mentioned the trolley that runs from Falmouth to Woods Hole and back. A trolley sounded fun, but the details took the fun away: It’s a bus decorated like a trolley, it sits in the same miserable summer traffic on Rte. 28 as everyone else, and, while the back opens up to the air, it’s zipped up in the foul weather. Nothing doing there.

During the break, I also missed what sounded like a truly horrific LIRR disaster. Midweek, an editor at the freebie Metro paper hit me with an email, wondering if the esteemed steward of this very blog could turn around a quick story on the horrors of being a train commuter into NYC. Alas, I was far from a computer and turned down a freelance assigment for the first time in, oh, forever.

The legs were seemingly still on vacation, creaking as I pedaled the bike over the humpback Chelsea bridge.

The train station looked resplendent (OK, less crappy) with new windows all around. Before I’d departed, I’d seen a man and a van; both were there to install the new windows. The man wore a t-shirt that said STREAKER and had a naked stick figure running. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed “streaker” was some window-guy humor. (Ya, know, streaks on the windows and all.)

Town Supervisor Maybury said it would be late August or early September when the town board decided what is going in to the old Hawthorne station spot. No word on it yet…

My mindset was glum as I stepped onto the 8:16, but I caught a break when I saw a beloved 1-3/4 seater, partially obscured by a swinging EMERGENCY EXIT conductor booth door, wide open and unlocked. Got it.

Almost an hour later, I learned that my breakfast deli is, presumably, now serving Guinness with breakfast. The Guinness brought me back to vacation, a pint and some pub grub at Liam McGuire’s on the Cape, sunburned, sandy, relaxed, smile for a nice family foto.

Alas, a hazelnut coffee would have to suffice.

Six weeks ago, as June turned to July, I left my July monthly at home, and used the expired pass to get to the city on the first day of July, as is Metro-North’s generous policy.

I’d picked up an $11 one-way for my return trip that eve, and casually showed the expired June monthly for the second time that day in July. What the hell, I figured. Worst case scenario, the conductor tells me it’s expired and I produce my one-way ticket.

Well, the dead monthly worked. (Ah, the benefits of being a 40-something white male!)

I stashed the one-way ticket for a family member’s future ride, and we grabbed it this past weekend to take the kids into the city. Little G used to harrass us to take us to the city to see his favorite skyscrapers; he’s on a first name basis with most of them: the Empire, the Chrysler, the Flatiron, the CitiCorp. Now he wants to go and climb the giant boulders in Central Park, cuz, you know, you can’t find great rocks anywhere but in the middle of New York City.

Little G also used to be fixated on the landscape flying by from the train, but it only held him captivated until White Plains this time. Guess he’s growing up. Little Miss C, meanwhile, was happy to partake in another favorite commuter pastime; zoning out to a personal music device, she and The Missus being biPods as they listened to Music Together.

Kids ride free on the train, of course, so The Missus used the freebie 11-bucker on the way in, and we figured we’d get the return ticket from a machine at GCT.

The conductor came by and didn’t so much as look at The Missus, or her ticket. “Am I invisible?” she wondered aloud.

So, yes, two free rides thus far on our $11 ticket.

Our public transit highlights in the Big City included Little Miss G throwing a giant tantrum on the downtown bus in front of the Plaza, as I had not let Herself, who is 2, climb up the bus steps. She screamed the entire ride from 59th to 42nd, but was good enough to polish the filthy aisle floor by rolling around on it in her pretty blue dress. The driver appreciated that.

As we returned to the great northlands, the conductor was much more attentive. An awkward guy of about 30 with a large nose, he stopped in front of The Missus and clicked her now-pretty-wrinkled ticket.

We cheekily asked him if we would get money back on the ticket, as it was a peak ticket and we were riding off peak. (The nerve, huh?) He shook his head and went into a long explanation about returning the ticket at GCT, getting the difference back, but then paying extra to buy a new ticket on board. We didn’t completely follow, but the message was there–no money back.

Hey, no big deal. Three rides on an $11 ticket. That’s….like not even four bucks a ride. (Too early in the week to do proper math, sorry.) It’s like 1982 all over again–without the smoking cars.

[* The headline almost works, but not quite. Again, too early in the week for a clever headline.]

I had a chance to take Little G to that new soccer stadium out in Harrison, New Jersey, right on the Newark border, over the weekend. It’s the home of the Red Bulls, but on Saturday it hosted an international rugby match, U.S. against France. There were no vuvuzelas, though there were Thundersticks–which Little G enjoyed way, way more than the match.

The stadium, which holds 25,000, is an ambitious endeavor. A soccer stadium! In the U.S.! In a town you never heard of!

Red Bull Stadium during construction last year, photo courtesy of Jersey Jim

Location is, of course, everything, and Red Bull Stadium was put there for two reasons. There’s a huge Portuguese population in Harrison (and Newark), and there’s a PATH station a few blocks away. (I also saw the New Jersey Transit trains chugging by, though I’m not sure where they stop in the area.)

Me and G, coming from the great northlands, drove in, an at times harrowing journey through those confusing Jersey highways seen in the Sopranos open. We parked in a giant parking garage built around the Harrison PATH station.

The stadium sticks out of the ground like a giant mushroom, and in between the parking garage and the stadium is a giant, fenced off square of dirt that’s about three city blocks square. Along the fence is an artist’s rendering of what the giant square is supposed to look like down the road. It’s a semi-urban oasis of multi-use development: restaurants, apartments, retail, offices, all built around the PATH station. It looks dreamy, as those artist renderings always do.

And just off in the near distance is the Newark skyline, which looks like a real city skyline, something between White Plains and, I don’t know, Buffalo or somesuch.

Will such a development happen? Frankly, if they pull off 25% of the development featured in the artwork, it would be a cool area.

Will Manhattan types move to Harrison, New Jersey? Hard to say. Certainly they flocked to Jersey City, which is a little closer to Manhattan, also accessed by PATH.

I always figured Newark would eventually be invaded by Manhattan people looking for cheap real estate and a really easy commute, either by New Jersey Transit or the PATH. That the city got a super-cool mayor in Cory Booker and took control of its huge crime problem only looked to open the door for a mini-influx.

In fact, after almost 20 years of either living in Manhattan or Westchester, I’ve never met a single person who lives in Newark.

Can Harrison sell itself–Major League Soccer, shops, transit–to urban hipsters? Time will tell. Maybe hosting a few big-name concerts at the soccer stadium would help people get familiar with the area. So would erecting something in the big dirt square other than weeds.

* On the 5:27 heading out of Gotham last night. Cattycorner to me in a six-seater is a traveler–woman of about 50, kinky brown Mrs. Roper-From-Three’s-Company hair, green t-shirt with an elephant and ‘Spirit of India’ on the front, ugly green suitcase between her legs. She’s wide open, taking-it-all-in eyes, and a big smile, like she’s enjoying every aspect of this trip.

 She’s sharing the six-seater with what looks like her daughter–20, grungy, not quite as excited as Mom.

Conductor comes by, cheap cologne announcing his arrival a few seconds before.

He takes Mrs. Roper’s ticket, then ventures on to the next row, the next row.

Mrs. Roper mumbles some foreign version of “excuse me.” Conductor turns around. Mrs. Roper wants her ticket stub back.

A seasoned commuter guy across the aisle says to her, “Souvenir?”

“Yes, souvenir,” she says with a big smile. “Souvenir.”

* I’m on the 8:43 this morning, feeling a bit guilty about occupying the aisle seat of an otherwise empty three-seater. A woman and her young son, around Little G’s age, gets on at White Plains. We make eye contact and I offer the two seats to my left.

“Sure!” she says.

Just like Little G, the boy, about 4, finds looking out the window better viewing than even Dinosaur Train and Cars. (Speaking of Cars, he rocks the Lightning McQueen sneakers.)

I take a break from the Times movie reviews (”Robin Hood” sounds lame, “Letters to Juliet” lamer, but “Best Worst Movie” might just work) and wonder about them for a second. Mom taking the boy to work for the day, or maybe Dad’s gonna call it a half-day and meet Mom and Boy for the circus, FAO Schwarz, the Brooklyn Acquarium?

Boy still stares out the window, Ritz Carlton twins glimmering in the distance.

“Bye bye, Dad’s apartment!” he says with a small wave.

OK, then.

* 9 a.m. arrival at GCT from Stamford this morning, our New Haven Line correspondent  ConnecticEnergy sees a man sleeping across a three-seat bench on a jammed train.

A man approaches, stares, and mutters, “Business Class gets everything.”

[image: threescompany.com]

I missed my weekly Monday slacker train, the 8:43, last week, and was determined to make the damn thing this week.

Just before I was to head up for the shower, I noticed the answering machine blinking. That means someone either called very late or very early–never, ever a good sign.

It was the guy next door. He’d seen our tail lights on on our car, and thought we should check it out.

Thoughts of a dead battery flew around my brain. There’s never a good time for a dead battery, but this time might’ve been worse than the rest. Of course, I only need my trusty Trek to pedal to the station, but The Missus had planned a full day with Little G’s school up in Priusville closed for the day: a trip to Muscott Farm, music class (”Hellloooo, everybody!!!), other fun stuff.

I ran out to the car, and found my keys exactly where I presumably had left them the day before: not only in the ignition, but turned to the start-the-car position! [Why oh why do I feel compelled to reveal my stupidity, time and again, to a few hundred people I don’t even know on this site?]

I turned the key back to the off position, and went to start ‘er up.

Deader than Dustin Diamond’s career.

I went inside to break the news to the Missus [Editor’s Note: Funny how one of the Google Ads that went up based on this post was “Divorce Mediator”], and to call the guy next door. Quick note about the Guy Next Door: he’s saved our asses several times since we moved in 3 1/2 years ago, most notably, when we burst a pipe not long after moving in.

Guy Next Door (GND) said he’d be right over. I popped the hood of the car and stared in, pretending I knew what I was looking for. (Like that old comedian Jake Johannsen once quipped, perhaps a snowman who’s hat had fallen off…Here you go, Mr. Snowman! And boom, the car starts.)

GND said we had to roll our car back to the end of the driveway so he could hook his car up to ours. Alas, we couldn’t shift out of Park. The 8:43 simply wasn’t happening. I knew I needed a break to make the damn 9:16.

We cracked open the car manual and, like a pair of freshman car thieves, figured out how to pop open the transmission console, unscrew a few things, and, well, I’ll not reveal more in case real car thieves are reading this.

We got the car out of Park and rolled it to the end of the driveway, where GND had room to pull up next to our listless ride.

The initial jumper cable hookup didn’t work, so GND hooked the black pliers-with-fangs up to some other part of the crap under the hood to “ground” it, whatever that means. Bingo, our car started humming again.

I thanked GND profusely and asked him what sort of beer he prefers.

“Cold ones, outside, with the neighbors,” he said with a smile.

I assume he was talking about me, and not the nice old lady on the other side of him who recently passed away.

I hustled inside to shower and make that 9:16. As I showered I wondered how the heck I left the keys not only in the ignition, which I’ve never done, but turned into the Drive position. I could blame it on the kids–they’re always playing in the car and leaving all sorts of dials turned and switches flipped.

But no, it wasn’t Little G or Little Miss C.

I played back my last time in the car. Me and Little G had hiked at Hardscrabble yesterday. I brought my Hold Steady CD because I saw the band Friday in Ardlsey and the songs are still stuck in my head. We hit Starbucks in Briarcliff after.

When we got home, I had my coffee, my Hold Steady CD (the Missus don’t wanna hear that), Little G’s water cup, his snacks and, of course, Little G.

That might explain leaving the keys in the ignition. But not having the key turned forward.

I thought some more.

It was around 4 p.m. The Missus baked a ham, so we weren’t using the car to pick up dinner. I remember deciding to shut the windows, which I occasionally forget to do. But I’d already removed the keys from the ignition when I thought of it. I put them back in, and had to turn the car on to shut the windows. Then I got sidetracked.

There it is. Explained, if not exactly understood.

I’m locking the car tonight. And not, God willing, with the keys inside.

I had a very positive chat with new Mount Pleasant Town Supervisor Joan Maybury yesterday.

I’d called Town Hall looking for an update on the Hawthorne/Valhalla Train Station Meeting held Monday night, which I’d hoped to attend but the bedtime stories with Little G ran late.

Maybury getting sworn in across from her predecessor, Robert Meehan. Image: Journal News.

I was happy to see Supervisor Maybury not only call me back–she doesn’t know me–but call me after 5, which tells me she’s not simply punching the clock.

In fact, I got much more of a sense of “public servant” than “politician” from Supervisor Maybury, who took over the town’s top job when Robert Meehan was appointed to a county job by new County Exec Rob Astorino. (For what it’s worth, Maybury, Meehan and Astorino are all Hawthorne residents, making our dinky hamlet Westchester’s center of power. ) 

Working with the civic group Mount Pleasant Today, Maybury is making the “kinda dismal” (her descrip) appearance of the Hawthorne station–the sorry state of the old station house, the Exxon Valdez-ian oil spills left behind by the taxis housed there–a priority. The stately grandfather clock, which the town has been raising funds for pretty much since we moved in over three years ago, is going up in May or June, Maybury said. 

“There’ll be a rejuvenated look to the area,” she said. “We’ll certainly clean up the building.”

That may include getting the cab company’s storage junk out of the main room and opening it up to the public; Maybury hinted that the town would push Mount Pleasant Taxi to be better, cleaner neighbors or set up shop elsewhere. The town may entertain suggestions from the community as to how to best use that space; a coffee shop or book club were two off-the-top-of-her-head potential uses from Maybury.   

The greenery fronting the station will also get a face lift, with rose bushes and other flora. “We hope to see a whole new scape there,” said Maybury. “We hope by August it’s 100% better, and we have plans to make it even better after that.”

Valhalla, meanwhile, is getting 104 new parking spaces. Bids are due back in April, and the town is shooting for September. That lot also has security cams, and Hawthorne’s soon will too.

Maybury gave me all the time I needed, and even threw it back to me–as a daily commuter, she said, what do I want to see done? (No one ever asks me what I want!) I mentioned the busted bike rack, and she said the highway deparment plans to fix it. I mentioned how some sort of sidewalk or paved path connecting the bottom of Bradhurst, going under the highways, to the rear train station entrance on Broadway–it’s currently a muddy and somewhat dangerous shoulder of Rte. 100–would encourage people to walk from the area around Hawthorne elementary school to the train.

Maybury agreed, and said it was going on her to-do list.

Of course, what polititicans–or public servants–say and what they actually do can be vastly different animals. But Maybury encouraged me to call again, and follow up on the issues we spoke about until they’re completed.

Accountability from holders of public office? Maybe it’s the start of a trend.

First off, a big thanks to Straphanger Joe for stepping in to keep the site fresh in my absence.

The family vacay was great–sun, beach, and an endless supply of buffet food and cerveza in the Dominican Republic. All we needed was a decent flight home Saturday to close the happy loop.

Indeed, New York was downright besieged by nasty weather. Despite the Male Stewardess on Delta assuring me that a little wind in New York wouldn’t slow us down–the CNN on our tiny airplane TV said winds were about 68 mph at JFK–the plane banged a left as soon as we crossed the U.S. coast, and headed for a surprise stop in Atlanta instead of JFK.

Atlanta Hartsfield is legendary for its busy-ness; add untold thousands of pissed off New Yorkers, sunburned and perhaps even still sand in the crotch, rerouted from the likes of the DR, Puerto Rico, Orlando, etc., and it was just mayhem–no one knowing where to go or what to do, people cutting lines to nowhere, a jammed airport suddenly swollen like the banks of the Bronx River. The worst of human nature at its best.

Two little ones in tow, we saw no hope in crashing in the airport, and quickly booked a room at a nearby Hilton for what certainly seemed like a reasonable rate, at least by New York standards. Thank God for the Blackberry.

We checked in around 10:30 p.m. and, after getting Little Miss C and Little G to bed, I huddled over the Blackberry again from our bathroom. Calls to Delta’s main line got the immediate busy signal, but calls to the Sky Miles club (like I’m really a member) actually were met with a human. I got a nice lady named Bobbie who repeatedly attemped to get us on a flight the next day, but as soon as something became available, it was quickly grabbed.

“It’s like…moving pictures,” she said, not quite the apt metaphor but I got the picture.

She eventually got us on two flights: the Missus and Little Miss C on an 8 a.m., and me and Little G on an 8:15er.

It was close to midnight. We’d lost an hour coming from the Dominican, and were about to lose another due to daylight savings. We shut out the night’s misery and slept.

And woke up five hours later to get the kids together and get to the airport.

It was pitch black and cold behind the Hilton in Atlanta. The queue for the freakin’ airport shuttle was 50 deep, despite a pair of short buses making the run.

Our clothes better suited for the Dominican than ATL’s surprising chill, we lost about 10 minutes waiting for an available bus—an amount of time that would bite us on the ass later.

The airport was pretty much the same madhouse as the night before; massive lines for everything. We finally checked luggage and the Missus and Little Miss C bolted for their 8 a.m. flight, us boys a bit behind.

[LUGGAGE UPDATE: It’s noon on Tuesday and our three suitcases are still AWOL.]

[LUGGAGE UPDATE II: It’s 3 p.m. on Wednesday and our three suitcases are still AWOL.]

[LUGGAGE UPDATE III: No luggage as of 10:30 a.m. Thursday.]

Security was downright slammed; the girls breezed through, though, as Little Miss C was in a stroller. They made their plane.

Me and Little G, however, stuck in security, missed it by five minutes.

And so our 12 hour ordeal at Hartsfield began, as we rode the monorail to various stops (A, B, E) and attempted to go standby on various flights (9:50, noon, etc.). The standby boarding passes piled up in my pocket like spent OTB slips.

The system is more crooked than a New York governor. We were #s 17 and 18 for the 9:50 flight, then #63 and 64 for the nooner. If you think you’re prioritized because you’re traveling with a hungry, underslept 4 year old, you’re sorely mistaken.

The standby crowd gradually got to know one another as we schlepped from gate to gate like migrant workers. We got to talking with Tom from Ardsley, a 40-something who was traveling with two senior citizen females, perhaps one of them being his mother, and one of them in a wheelchair.

In between playing dinosaurs with Little G (Little Foot goes to a scary place called Meat-Eater-Ville and has a close call with a hungry T Rex called Sharptooth, played over and over and over with minor variations), we kept calling the Sky Miles hotline on the Blackberry, and were told the earliest possible flight to New York was Tuesday morning—a full 48 hours away.

Just as we’d looked into flights to Baltimore, Phila and Washington, Tom From Ardsley had tried Cincy, Detroit, anywhere that would get him and his ladies out of Atlanta and toward New York.

We realized there are two approaches to getting nasty with an airline employee. You can get just simply downright nasty with no real strategy for getting results, as we’d seen the mook dumbass in the Yankee shirt do the night before as he rammed his SmartCart (the only smart part of his operation) past a line of stranded stragglers to show an airline employee he was angry about the disorganization and lack of communication. (In fact I sat across from the aisle from that mook dumbass on the flight to the DR; when the 8:30 a.m. departure hadn’t happened by 8:35, he yelled, “It’s 8:35, c’mon, let’s go-oohhh!!”

The other approach is what Tom From Ardsley did—yell and scream but do it in a way that nudges the employee into producing some sort of gainful result.

After failing to successfully cajole an employee at the Blackberry store near our gate to let us have a courtesy charge, we bought a new charger–35 bucks, if you’re scoring at home. After a brief charge, we got on the horn again, and scored our first break in 24 hours: a flight the next morning.

Suddenly our mood lifted; I began seeing Atlanta in a positive light. Get a hotel room downtown, see the sights with Little G, drink the native Coca Cola, see where Andre 3000 grew up, be up in the air inside of 24 hours. It sounded eminently doable.

Meanwhile, Tom From Ardsley was working a Delta employee pretty hard, and got results: a flight to Newark that afternoon. Tom told me he’d told the man that me and Little G needed to get out that day too, and that we should talk to the Delta guy.

I weighed my options: the flight the next morning was OK by me, but leaving that day would be unthinkably good. I approached him, hoisting Little G up to eye level so the Delta guy could see the sadness and tiredness in the whelp’s mug.

The Delta guy was Michael Hagans, a handsome black man with a gigantic, winning smile. I told him my new pal Tom From Ardsley said he had some magic powers to get people home. Hagans smiled that megasmile and began typing.

He typed for several minutes. On cue, Little G whined about how miserable he was.

“It’s OK, Little G, I know you’re exhausted,” I said, pinching his bottom to maximize the look of despair on his face. “This man is going to do his best to help us get home.”

I may have muttered something about the kid’s emergency medication back in New York, I’m not sure.

Hagans asked if we’d go to Newark. Sure, the gals went to JFK, but they’d probably be home long before use anyway. Absolutely, I told him.

Typing. More typing. More freakin’ typing. Magic fingers coming up with the winning keyboard combination.

“OK,” said Hagans. “You’re all set. Two seats flying to Newark at 5:30 today.”

I shook Hagans’ hand, though I would’ve preferred to kiss him. Little G gave him an emphatic high five. I hugged Little G.

“Keep taking care of your family,” Hagans told me, words I may not forget for a long time.

We were over the moon. We celebrated by riding an escalator to a Heineken-branded restaurant, which was set apart from the rest of the dreaded airport. We got lunch and set about working on Little G’s airplane Lego model we’d bought at the gift shop. Buying it was alternately brilliant and foolish; it would occupy a bored, cranky four year old for hours, but it also required intense concentration to put together, and that was in short supply after the previous 12 hours’ events. Plus, I’m just not that hot at models and other spatial-relations-related exercises.

The food came, a chicken cordon bleu sandwich, a grilled cheese, some chips, Sprites. The house music played some country broad – Shania, Trisha, I dunno – covering, fittingly, Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home.” “I’m on my way, I’m on my way,” she twanged. “Home…sweeeeet…home.”

And, five hours and endless dinosaur role playing later, we were. I must’ve stared at my boarding pass a dozen times, making sure it was real, treating it like the golden ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Our seats were in the rear of the plane, but that didn’t stop us from pushing to the front as soon as they started boarding the rich people and using the face of an exhausted four year old to our advantage. They let us on, and we locked into our seats like we’d never give them up—whether or not Delta found the nine people it needed to opt for the $600 voucher and night in Detroit to solve its little overbooking problem.

Soon as the wheels went up, Little G fell asleep. I looked down at him, curled up so tiny in his seat, and it just hit me, my mind a jumble of SmartCarts and droning Delta announcements and Monorail rides and Little G scared by the unnecessarily loud auto-flush toilets. I dropped a tear the size of a whiskey shot on my sleeping son.

PAST PLANEJOTTINGS INVOLVING DELTA HERE

How could I forget, one of the main highlights from our Metro-North excursion to the city Sunday. We were heading home and had just arrived in Valhalla. “Get ready,” I told Little G. “The next stop is ours.”

The conductor then announced that the next stop wasn’t in fact, Hawthorne, but Mount Pleasant. The Mount Pleasant stop is that teeny tiny little platform near where Stevens hits the Taconic; it’s for those taking the train up to visit the dearly departed, such as Babe Ruth, in Gate of Heaven cemetery.

The Bambino rests eternally in Hawthorne.

The train eased into Mount Pleasant, but to say it was a “stop” flatters it a bit. The conductor said the last car was the only one that would open. No one got off and no one got on. We may have stopped for three seconds.

Nonetheless, it was my first stop ever at Mount Pleasant after almost 3 1/2 years on the rails–though I did come close three years ago. This actually qualifies for “exciting” for me these days.

[image: findagrave.com]

Since I don’t spend nearly enough time riding the rails to New York City, we packed up the gang to head in for a day trip yesterday. Little G is obsessed of late with two colossal things: skyscrapers and dinosaurs. So we threw it to him: see the dinos at the Museum of Natural History, or see the skyscrapers in midtown.

He opted for the buildings, which meant we could take the train.

We bundled up the kids, packed the snacks, and I got a taste of what the rest of my commuting brethren enjoy each day: driving to the station and parking in the lot. It being a weekend and all, we had our choice of spots, so I took the one usually occupied by the Yankeemobile during the week, hoping to impose some sort of jinx on the spot.

The 9:53 was about five minutes late (what, you couldn’t be late when I was chugging into Hawthorne station on my bike today with seconds to spare, having read Little G one too many pages from one of his dino books this morning?), and it was pretty packed. The Missus had suggested seats near the front, to minimize walking along the Grand Central platform, so we set out for seats.

I saw what looked for all the world like an empty three-seater, but upon arriving at it saw a SnoozerLoserThree-Seat-User–a young woman napping across all three. (For the record, SnoozerLoserThree-Seat-User is just a working title…we’ll try to come up with a snappier term for those seat-sleeping types. If you can think of a good Word of the Week for this, please send it along.)

[The Missus snapped this shot moments before the woman woke up.]

We instead grabbed a pair of folding seats facing each other, but Little G–his first train ride since the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City in December–started howling because there’s no window next to the folding seats (handicapped people apparently don’t enjoy looking out windows, I s’pose). He and I relocated to a two-seater with a window behind the SnoozerLoserThree-Seat-User, and he was happy again.

North White Plains saw a cattycorner two-seater open up, so the Missus and Little Miss C slid in there.

And we were off.

It’s interesting to see what affect the SnoozerLoserThree-Seat-Users (SLTSUs) have on the train. At White Plains, we saw at least four different parties do just as I did: See what looked like an available seat (or three!), approach it, then look with dismay at the body lying supine across it. We get it, you’re tired, you’re hung over. But it’s not a victimless crime. Buy three tickets and I promise I won’t blog about you.

The SLTSU eventually woke up around Bronkers and then, to ensure she had all three the rest of the ride, spread her backpack and a second back across all the seats. No longer snoozing, she was merely a LoserThree-Seat-User.

Much like Little G’s beloved view out the window from the train, making the trip with newbies is a good reminder that there’s interesting stuff to be seen amidst the boredom of the daily commute. Little G’s favorite among the New York skyscrapers is the Chrysler Building, and we were all of a block south of Grand Central when we looked back and saw it in all its silvery majesty–a vantage point I’d hardly noticed in three years of walking that route. (Cue the Annie soundtrack: You’ll stay up, until this place shines….like the top of the Chrysler Building!)

We meandered down to 34th and Park and decided not to tell Little G about what skyscraping colossus awaited around the corner. It took seconds before his eyes went wide and he said “Look!!!” Indeed, the Empire State Building (the informal “Empire”, to Little G, who’s on a first-name basis with all the Gotham skyscrapers–the Empire, the Chrysler, the Flatiron) loomed like Kimbo Slice in the foreground.

Staring skyward as we were, we were pestered by the usual swarm of hawkers looking to sell us a trip to the top. We turned them down, but did stop at a gift shop to get post cards. Little G wasn’t having the 10 for a buck cards, opting instead of the 99-cents apiece ones: One of the Empire, one of the Chrysler, one of the World Trade Center, RIP, and one of the Brooklyn Bridge.

After a cold but fun frolic in the Madison Square Park playground and a pit stop at my work, we headed back for the train. We grabbed some sandwiches at Mendy’s (”You said lunch, Jerry. Soup is not a meal.”) and hit Grand Central with time to spare. I made a big show in front of Little G to drop a quarter into the cup of a homeless man huddled in the foyer of Grand Central (the hypocrisy…like I ever do that on a normal commuting day). Sensing a teachable moment, I paraphrased the man’s placard for Little G once we were out of earshot, telling him that the man did not have a job and did not have any money.

Little G found the positive in that way kids do: “If he doesn’t have a job, then he can play with his kids all day?”

I stammered through a response that said he could, but the toys would not be very good.

We hit the 12:48 with a few minutes to spare, grabbed a six-seater, busted open our Mendy’s bounty, and looked forward to one final view from the bridge.