Remembering the Triumphs of Newark

After that excursion, what else could we do but go back to the ferry terminal and catch the boat back across the Hudson to Jersey City? At the hotel we retrieved our bags, went down the escalators, got our car back from the valet service, and in a few moments we were making our way towards the entrance to the Turnpike, to head back home.

It had been an awesome trip into the City, and an awesome stay with K and R at their place in Mercer County. In a few days Red and I would heading back to Arizona. As it happened my rendezvous with Zeke in Brooklyn immediately set into motion follow-up calls from him in which he hoped to get me on board with the project involving the streaming music service, and even to get me to go up to Portland the following week to help out on it. It always seems like there's some kind of conveyor tube that whisks me from New York to Portland. It's almost a trope within my life, so I was hardly shocked when I worked out that way, and I wound up going up there for a week. But that's a whole different story.

In the meantime Red and I had to get back home. R. drove us to the airport, and to my delight, we crossed over the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers, and we actually got a little lost in Newark because R. got off at the wrong turn, and that kind of thing punishes you badly in Jersey. He wound up cutting through Newark itself to follow the GPS instructions one he got off at the wrong exit. Newark is one of my favorite cities, and it was treat to see it at ground level on our way to the airport.

Our flight had us waiting at gate where one could see out the window to the Busch brewery. The sight of it reminded me again of the night in August 1985 where I spent the night under a fir tree in the island outside the front of the airport by the parking lot. I had eleven dollars in my pocket, and to my name, and a needed every last sent to augment the ticket voucher I had in order to get back home from a summer in Europe. It was one of the most serene nights of my life, to be young and broke and sleeping carefree under a fir tree at Newark Airport. It was so long ago.