NOTE: I got behind posting, so this isn’t a mis-print, it’s a catch up post.
I’m on a plane headed to Kansas from Newark, NJ after two solid weeks of being on Eastern time. It’s been a great trip, and I actually got a lot more done than I had anticipated.
The captain just announced that “There’s not much to see, but we are passing over Bowling Green, KY”. It’s funny, but this is really the first time that I kind of understand why people on the coasts call this flyover country.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Midwest. I love every inch of flyover country. I love the stories of the families in the houses that dot the landscape below. I have a strong affinity for the truckers who drive mile upon mile moving goods across this nation. There’s a train moving down below, and I love the fact that our railroads and highways keep this nation humming.
But after two weeks in The City, as New York City seems to be called by so many, I do finally understand why they think that nothing happens outside the five boroughs. Despite having grown up in and around Chicago, I was still shocked at the number of people in New York City. The traffic in NYC baffled me. I couldn’t imagine actually trying to get around in a car, let alone in a truck. I saw deliveries being made by bicycle. We saw packages being carried on one woman’s head, stacked high enough that she had a strap on them because her arm couldn’t reach the top. We saw guys pushing carts and two-wheelers down the street laden with all sorts of things.
Deliveries went up front steps. They went down alleys. They went into the ground on slides that looked like they were installed in the 1800’s. In one case we saw an actual delivery slide that was installed in 1850. It was the second one in that building, the first one having been destroyed by water over time.
The City is a vibrant, rocking place. I thought it was busy during the day, then I experienced Times Square at 11:00PM on a Saturday night. I’ve never felt so much energy, let alone seen so many people all in one place. I thought Times Square was crazy busy, but we walked for blocks and blocks and it was that way almost everywhere that we went. I just couldn’t fathom it.
As the first week came to a close, and my second week as a temporary resident of Jersey City, NJ progressed, I began to talk to more and more people. I figured I would just find something to talk about, and start talking. I asked a guy at a bike rental shop if he ever looked at a group and thought “Oh my God, they will never make it back here!”. That opened up a 45 minute conversation about bicycling in NYC. He was fascinated with the idea of riding across Kansas, and admitted, somewhat sadly that he’d never been outside NY and NJ. He told many of his co-workers that I’d ridden across Kansas earlier this summer, and that generated more and more conversations. It was funny, but I became somewhat of a celebrity to those guys.
They had some interesting questions about the Midwest. Just as I had trouble imagining how you live in such a place that has massive piles of garbage hauled out to the curb twice a week, how you get around when everything seems like it’s in gridlock 24×7, and how the simplest tasks (like grocery shopping, doing your laundry, and delivering furniture) take on a life of their own, they asked questions that I never really considered. They asked about sitting in a car with “nothing but fields to look at”, they asked about wildlife, they asked about mowing grass on our 14 acres. It was as if we were explorers venturing into each other’s territory for the first time.
One of the guys put it really well when he said “You can get anything you could possibly want, in any color, flavor, or style within a few blocks of where we’re standing. Why would you want to drive for an hour or more to do the same thing?”
Honestly, I’d never thought of it that way. So with opened eyes I started to look at all the things that NYC offered that are different than what we have in the Midwest.
One of the first and most obvious to me was the range of food options. The food carts are so prevalent. I even made the plan to buy food from a cart. I walked from the World Trade Center Memorial to Central Park. If you look on a map, that’s the better part of Manhattan. I visited several things along the way, including Battery Park and it’s amazing views of the Statue of Liberty. I stopped in at the Scholastic Bookstore on Harry Potter’s birthday to see their display. I stopped in several shops to pick up some souvenirs. I explored Grand Central Station, and even had a root beer float and fries from the Shake Shack.
I passed dozens of food carts, but I just couldn’t get up the gumption to actually buy anything. Then I passed this one cart that had Lamb Gyros on Pita listed as one of their offerings. I walked past and the aroma was amazing, but I continued walking. Then I stopped dead in my tracks. If you’re the guy who was walking behind me and you happen to read this, honestly, I’m sorry that I caused you to crash into me.
But something grabbed me and caused me to turn around and step up to the food cart. I ordered a Lamb Gyro on Pita. The vendor, in very broken English asked me if I wanted hot sauce or white sauce. I was a bit apprehensive about the hot sauce, and I’ve only had white sauce on gyros, so I went with that option. Then he said “all the rest” and I said yes. If you’ve ever eaten with me at Subway you know that’s my standard response anyway, so no big surprise. But to see the chickpeas and corn and lettuce and tomatoes and cucumbers and green chiles and some unidentified vegetables loaded onto that Pita really got me salivating. After wrapping it all in foil, and then in a second layer of foil, the vendor put it into a bag with five or six napkins. My total bill, $4.
I barely made it 100 yards before I had to dig it out of the bag. It was piping hot, so it took another block or two before I could eat much. But there I was, walking up Broadway in NYC eating a Lamb on Pita Gyro from a food vendor. I felt so accomplished!
After more exploring, I successfully navigated to the NY Port Authority, purchased a bus ticket, and got on the 123 bus back to Jersey City. It’s fortunate that my daughter’s apartment is at the last stop, because I still struggle with getting off at the right stop on public transportation, but I’m getting better.
I managed to go an entire week without really doing any substantial office work. I got some projects wrapped up, and some loose ends tied, but I spent most of the rest of the week helping my oldest daughter prepare for her move back to the Midwest. She’s decided that it’s time to “come home” to where she feels a bit more comfortable. But she also absolutely loves the fact that she was able to be that Kansas Girl who went to The City and did OK.
As we talked about her impending move, and all the things that we need to do, it was interesting that we were contemplating driving across flyover country. Part of me wanted to go back to the bike rental shop and offer for a couple of those guys to ride along with us just so they could see how the other part of the country lives.
