on the road

I'm hard pressed not to think the economy is doing better than is reported after driving to Baltimore on Friday and back on Sunday. There was scarcely anywhere to park in any of the stops on the New Jersey Turnpike, Delaware Turnpike and I-95 in Maryland. Every time we stopped--and we stopped more than usual because I have been hydrating so much that I have to plan ahead for rest stops. 3 times down, 4 times back--7 different stops and the same mobs at all of them. Long lines for Starbucks and in some cases, the women's bathroom. People buying $3 bottles of water like water was going to disappear somewhere in New Jersey. The traffic wasn't terrible but the traffic reports were. On the way down Radio 880 kept saying the GW bridge was a minimal wait. We spent an hour getting across the Bronx and Manhattan. On the way back there was supposedly a 40 minute wait on the upper level and we took less than 10 minutes. Go figure.

The Delaware River Bridge has a message board above the 4 or 5 lanes in both directions that says--has said every time I crossed it--"IN CRISIS...CALL..and then a #". Bern thinks its for people who have anxiety about crossing bridges (since she does) and I thought it was to convince people not to pull their car over and jump (though I don't really think about jumping off high places...well, I do....). Most likely it is for people in these edgy time who are having trouble getting through the day, but making a cell phone call on the Delaware River Bridge seems risky at best.

It's truly amazing to me that there aren't 3 or 4 pileups every 50 miles on I 95. thousands of people, in heavy traffic, going 80+. Don't tell me human beings don't have really good fine motor skills. And a lot of luck.

We visited Josh and Cathy--well, actually Cathy and the girls (our 3 granddaughters) because Josh was in Peurto Rico for a bachelor's party. Then, in a couple of weeks, all 5 of them are flying to Germany for 4 days for a wedding. These wedding rituals are out of hand, it seems to me. My best man, Dan Kiger and my father had a couple of beers sitting at my parents' kitchen table the night before my wedding. And the reception had cake and punch--and liquor for Bern's family and a few of mine in the basement of the Gary Country Club. That was it. And that was 21 days short of 40 years ago. Bern and I started dating when I was a Senior and she was a Freshman in High School. We've known each other for 45 years. I'm not sure what the strain of a 3 day bachelor's party on an island or a wedding in a European Union country would have done.

It reminds me of Roger Rose, who I saw at a 10 year high school reunion. He said, "those were the best years of our lives, weren't they?" I replied, "Lord, I hope not!"

I noticed over the years the expanding tendency of 'front loading' the wedding process to such an extent that many people get divorced still owing money on the reception.

Lord, I'm becoming my father, complaining about how things have changed....