tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79999949088935836742024-03-14T17:46:10.737+03:00The Rod and the RingThe Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.comBlogger144125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-15244496960470552072014-03-12T15:56:00.000+03:002014-04-20T14:24:18.535+03:00Tel Aviv<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>October 19 Wed</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>We arrived at 4:30 in the morning. When we deplaned,
we saw an Israeli attendant standing by the plane's door. I saw a pair of empty
wheelchairs behind her, but she told us very sharply that they were not for us.
She told us we had to walk a distance down a hallway where we would find
another attendant who would deal with us. Around several corners we came to the
beginning of a long concourse, where other disabled passengers were getting
into a golf cart. There was no room for us and the golf cart drove off leaving
us behind. This is where and when we lost our cool. Not one single airport
among all of those we'd passed through as we circumnavigated the planet greeted
us with the inconsideration we were met with here in our home country. Welcome
home world travelers! Some welcome! We had been met with deference and civility
and special consideration everywhere else. But this is Israel. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Our rough Israeli edginess had been smoothed over by
everyone else's pleasantness everywhere else in the world. It was time for us
to adopt that edginess all over again, now that we were back. The thought
crossed my mind that it was a mistake to have missed Israel so much. We
expressed our pique to the next attendant we saw, who called on her
walkie-talkie for another golf-cart and apologized for the rude reception we'd
received, but our smoldering thoughts were not doused by her words. Shortly
thereafter, another golf-cart rolled up and we were conveyed with an electric
purr to where everyone else had gathered for passport control. Here, an
attendant standing beside a wheelchair helped Razelle off the golf-cart and helped
her get comfortable in the wheelchair. We, as entering citizens, were beckoned
forward by the woman in the glass booth when she saw Razelle in the wheelchair,
so we didn't even get to or need to use our magnetic cards in the palm reader
that we had acquired on our way out of this same airport 121 days ago at the
beginning of our Odyssey. Onward we rolled to baggage claim where, without any
problems, every single one of our four bags came to us on the conveyer belt.
Our bags had circled the world and returned to their starting point, too, a slight
bit scuffed compared to their pristine condition at the outset, but without any
damage to them, for all the gorillas who'd stacked them in the bellies of all
the planes they'd been shoveled into and out of.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>All that remained to truly complete our journey now
was to get back to Beer Sheva from the airport. Shalev was waiting for us in
the arrivals hall. He had been given leave from the army to come after us. We
embraced and smiles broadened all our faces. Shalev led us to where he'd parked
the car. The first thing I noticed was how dusty it was. I had forgotten how
dusty the air is where we live in the Negev Desert. Shalev asked if I wanted to
drive, but I let him do that. I wanted him to know we trusted him and I sensed
he was pleased to show he could be responsible. We reached home as dawn broke and
herded all our bags into the elevator and up to our apartment. Time to
decompress! </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Four month's worth of traveling led us to where we
had started. It was odd to be in our home after so long a time away. We had
adjusted to calling each and every temporary accommodation all along our route
"home." But these walls around us now embraced us and welcomed us
back. Unpacking would wait until we had decompressed. Stories of our travels
jumbled together in the telling. Mail had accumulated. The house looked well
maintained. An infestation of moths had afflicted our stored food and needed
attention while we were gone. The smell of bug spray still lingered in the
cabinet. There was very little food in the house. We'd have to stock up again.
We had some laundry to do. But we welcomed all these with good cheer. Be it
ever so humble there's no place like home … Home Sweet Home.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Did this experience change us? Yes. Inwardly we knew
we had accomplished something monumental. No. We were back where we had started.
One thing did change worth mentioning. Razelle said our next trip has to be a
caravan trip through England and Scotland. I've always had the travel bug. Now
Razelle had caught it too. That made my day. In fact, it made everything worth
the effort. </b></span></div>
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The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-60514255048143116082014-03-12T15:53:00.001+03:002014-04-20T13:20:26.457+03:00London to Tel Aviv<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>October 18 Tue</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Waking in our hotel room and turning on the TV, we saw Gilad
Shalit himself being interviewed on Egyptian Television by a Palestinian
Reporter. It was painful to watch. He looked weak and out of breath, but intact
– something we were never sure of until now. He had the presence of mind to
tactfully and diplomatically answer the politically freighted questions the
reporter asked him – one last bit of torment before letting him go. The price
for his release was steep (as was the price of his captivity).</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Razelle still expressed no interest in seeing the sights of
London and I was again mindful of the problem we were going to face hauling all
our round-the-worldly possessions up to and through check-in one last glorious
time. As carefully and calculatingly as I had packed each hefty or
feather-weighted item into each bag in New York, here in London we had opened
and used some of those items and getting them back into the proper bag in the
proper position in that bag was more on my mind that the streets of London. I
had no way of weighing the bags here, so everything was based on my best
guesstimation, for the present. If it had all fit before, it had to all fit
again. It simply had to. We had acquired nothing new here in London.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>I sallied forth once more to forage for food. I now knew the
way to the Tesco <i>express</i> and I knew what they had to offer. I paid more
attention to the features of the landscape this time. Every time I crossed an
intersection I saw "Look Right" painted on the pavement. It surprised
me that I actually needed this reminder each time. Spending so many weeks in
the United States had caused me to unlearn this simple rule of pedestrian
survival. Every so often a big red double-decker bus came up behind me and
surprised me as it whooshed by because it was on the opposite side of the
street from what I subconsciously expected. Today's weather was a carbon-copy
of yesterday's. I began to suspect that Razelle was right about the sameness of
London's weather. At the Tesco <i>express</i> I bought the same food I'd bought
yesterday: tuna-and-cucumber sandwiches and chocolate and strawberry
milkshakes. I used as many of my "shrapnel" coins to pay for it as I
could, but I still received more shrapnel in change anyway. Beyond saying,
"Thank you" I had no need to speak and betray my origins, but the
cashier's reply of "Your welcome" betrayed his Indian sub-continental
roots. I walked further down Bath Street to a large traffic circle and watched
cars circling it clock-wise (which again seemed unnatural to my addled mind's
eye) then returned part of the way to the hotel on the opposite side of the
street (for a change of scenery). The empty expanses behind chain-link fences
on this side were parking lots for discarded soft-drink cans. Several hotels
more prestigious than ours were also located on that side of the street. Almost
no one was out walking. Of the very few who were, one or two of those who
passed me looked familiar from our hotel lobby. Apparently, I wasn't the only
food forager among its guests. Crossing back to the residential side of the
street I saw the double-decker buses approaching this time. I had a faint urge
to just get on one and ride it as far into London as it would take me. The
diagrams on the Plexiglas bus shelters indicated that enticing districts lay
ahead waiting to be explored, but the urge was too faint to act upon it, so I
kept walking. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Back at the room we ate our food. Razelle didn't want the
milkshakes so I drank the strawberry one and saved the chocolate one for later.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The boredom was getting to me. Our flight wasn't scheduled
to leave until 22:30, but getting to the airport 3 hours before that seemed to
be academic. Getting there even earlier made more sense to me. Leaving the
hotel this soon didn't make sense to Razelle, but my nervousness convinced her
to get her things together and help me convey it all down in the elevator in
several trips. The next airport shuttle was not due for about 25 minutes, but I
needed to be standing at the curb or it would just pass by. We checked out
without using our room the second night and the desk clerk was surprised. Had
we found fault with our accommodations? Were we leaving due to something they
could rectify? None of the above; we simply had a flight to catch. It was too
complicated to explain to the clerk so we left him flummoxed. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>I stood out in the cold with all our bags stacked beside me
and looked up the street for the shuttle as my breath condense before me in the
cold evening air. Razelle waited just inside next to the vending machines. When
the shuttle finally arrived we piled in with our bags and sat near the front
and started a conversation with the driver. I tried to place his accent. We
hadn't heard one like it yet since arriving in London. All I could guess was
that it was from an English-speaking country somewhere in the world. I told him
I guessed he was from Australia or maybe South Africa. He acted as though I had
insulted him. He said he was a genuine Brit from birth, thank you very much,
and he'd never lived anywhere else nor had he ever wanted to. We had been in
London a day and a half and he was the first native-born English speaker we had
heard in all that time (that we knew of). He did aspire to traveling soon
though, with the Missus, after he retired. We gave him one of our Gold
Jerusalem Hamsa refrigerator magnets and a nice tip as well for his
pleasantries (and to jettison some more of our "shrapnel"). Of the
original 100 Hamsa magnets we started out with four months ago, we have handed
out more than 80, counting that one. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Into the airport we went. The last hurdle remained to be
crossed and we would be truly homeward bound. I approached an idle check-in
clerk and asked him, "If our bags were a kilo-or-three over the limit
would that really matter?" He answered, "British Airways very
strictly enforces all its regulations." He pointed to an area where
several people were already busy with their baggage. There were tables and
scales available there for opening and weighing luggage. I took Razelle and all
our stuff over there and weighed each item. Their aggregate weight was over the
limit, not by very much, but still over. Beads of sweat formed on my brow as I
tackled this logistics puzzle head-on. Books out of one bag, shirts transferred
to it, one less coat in one bag and worn instead, lighter shoes traded bags
with heavier shoes, our carry-on bags stuffed even fuller. After perhaps twenty
minutes of this (while Razelle remained discretely silent, but intensely
attentive) I had every single bag weighing exactly 100 grams below the
regulation limits and each bag weighing exactly the same weight as the next.
And our carry-on bags accommodated the surplus weight without becoming
over-sized. Around me were fellow travelers struggling with the same challenge.
Some came with taped up heavy cardboard boxes for destinations in darkest
British Africa. They had no chance of ever making their stuff comply. It was
sad watching them. They hadn't a clue until they had reached the airport that
they would face this problem. In the end, they actually left items behind.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>We went over to our own check-in clerk for our British
Airways flight to Tel Aviv when that counter opened. I told the clerk what we
were told to say after our encounter in New York with an uninformed clerk
there. I set each item on the scale. Each item still weighed exactly the same
as the next, but their weights were actually 200 grams below the limit instead
of only 100 grams. Sneaky airport scales! The bags were accepted, duly tagged
and whisked away behind a wall and out of sight. The next time we would see
them, we'd be in a Hebrew-speaking country.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>A nervous man of slight build arrived with a wheelchair and took
charge of ushering us through passport control and boarding-pass inspection. We
reached a station beyond which I could not carry liquids. I still hadn't drunk
my chocolate milkshake. Too bad! I left it beside the turbine-wearing ethnic
Sikh inspector and passed through the metal detector. After I did he went off
shift and left his station. I said to our wheelchair pusher that no one would
notice if I just took back my milkshake in that case. I was joking. (Good thing
he had a sense of humor.) He allowed us to explore the duty-free shops on our
own rather than take Razelle directly to the boarding gate. Razelle found food
that appealed to her but after we purchased it we still had some heavy metal
"shrapnel" coins to try and get rid of. I wheeled Razelle to the
boarding gate and looked for one last something to spend them on. </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>A bookstore
had the kind of books Razelle has been devouring throughout our trip. I found
something she'd appreciate and took its picture with my cell phone and returned
to Razelle to see if I should get it: "The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's
Nest." That suited her and it was the last thing we purchased on our
entire trip around the world. </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>When our flight was called, Razelle in her
wheelchair and I were the first passengers allowed through the boarding gate.
But until someone came to us to push her to the plane we had to wait and watch
many of the other passengers pass through and walk down the ramp. Several
passengers really were stopped for having one too many carry-on bags or ones
that were too large in size. The guy downstairs wasn't joking about how strict
British Airways was. We had run the gauntlet without antagonizing the airlines;
others weren't so lucky. Finally we were wheeled to the door of our plane and
we found our seats and stowed our hefty (but not too hefty) carry-on bags. We
buckled up and prepared for our last flight. Five hours in the air and we would
reach our point of departure and our round-the-world experiences would be one
for the books.</b></span><br />
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The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-25523257961888470142014-03-12T15:48:00.000+03:002014-04-20T14:16:14.139+03:00London<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>October 17 Mon</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Our overnight flight brought us to London on the morning of
October 17th. We were met at the plane by a wheelchair, pushed by a man who was
obviously of non-native ethnicity. He expedited our entry into England and
patiently waited while we claimed and stacked our luggage and changed some of our
money into British Pounds. We had made it this far with all our stuff and hoped
to just identify our luggage and leave it at the airport to wait for our
connecting flight. But alas, here is where my lack of experience caught up with
me. Because we would be flying out of London more than 24 hours later, we
couldn't leave our bags. We had to take them to our hotel and come back with
them when we were ready to fly again. Our wheelchair attendant then took us to
the spot where the shuttle to our hotel would stop to collect us, and left us.
The shuttle driver who stopped for us was very muscular and wrestled most of
our bags into the shuttle. We rode the shuttle all the way around the perimeter
of Heathrow Airport on the opposite side of the road from the one I had been
driving on in America for so long that it looked odd to me again, even though it
shouldn't have, considering how much driving I had done in Australia so many
months ago. We and our bags were dropped off at the curb in front of the Hotel
Ibis, the accommodations I had arranged for while we were still in Atlanta.
Razelle watched over them while I went looking for a cart. A lot of
business-types were checking in at the same time, so carts were scarce.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>We checked in for two nights, even though we planned to only
be there one night.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>It cost us less to pay for the extra unused night than it
would have cost to keep our room extra hours past check-out time after the
first night (for which they would have charged us an hourly rate). Our flight
home – the last flight of this epic journey – is scheduled to leave late
tomorrow. The elevator was in great demand, so Razelle sat in the lobby with
some of our bags while I herded the others into the elevator. I found our room,
opened it and saw that it was a bit cramped for space. The window was partly
open and I struggled with its hard-to-work mechanism until I managed to get it
closed against the chill London air. The view from our room was of planes
coming in for a landing on Heathrow's tarmac against a backdrop of London's
leaden sky.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Razelle come up with me as I brought up the last of our
bags, and switched on our television. Most of our channels were an array of
more BBC channels than I even knew existed. There was also Sky News. We were
immediately transfixed by the latest news that greeted our eyes and ears. After
so many years without knowing the true fate of Gilad Shalit, here he was: the
subject of breaking news on Sky and BBC broadcasts. Gilad Shalit had been
captured in June 2006 by tunneling Palestinians in a cross-border raid from
Gaza and then hauled back through the same tunnel and hidden beyond
rescue. In the years that have ensued,
there have been public campaigns, secret negotiations, bumper stickers and
websites dedicated to securing his release, not to mention the shedding of
blood and loss of property on both their side and ours. There have been
national debates and hand-wringing over what price is too high (or whether
there is such a thing a too high a price) to pay to have this bespectacled slip
of a boy back with his family. And of all things, our last full day abroad,
here we see that Gilad Shalit will make it home ahead of us, in exchange for
over a thousand prisoners that Israel will be releasing (half now and half
later). We had to be in Europe to be able to see this kind of intense news
coverage. It reminded us of how little exposure we had had of Israeli news
during our sojourn in America, and served to prepare us for re-immersion into
the intense life we lead in the Israel that we are about to return to.</b></span></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Here we are in London, with a day and a half intentionally
budgeted into our trip by me for a window of opportunity to see something of
London's landmarks and instead we are watching television in our cramped hotel
room. Razelle had finally reached the point where leaving the cozy confines of
our hotel room had no more appeal than the sunless London sky outside our
window. We did venture forth to see what fare the dining hall had to offer for
the mid-day meal. I ordered fish and chips. How could I not order this while
here in London? The prices were a bit much, but the food was good. Our waitress
was another non-native individual. And I thought I had an accent (American
English, don't cha know)! Our waitress's accent was exotic enough that I didn't
understand her at first (not veddy Brittish at all!).</b></span></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Razelle and I went back to the room, but I was getting more
restless as the hours passed. I had only been to London once before, and that
was for a mere 4 hours on my way to immigrating to Israel in 1978. As it so
happens, that was on the 19th of October of that year. The weather then was
precisely identical to the weather outside on this October day. Razelle says
that that's not so remarkable; it's like this in London most every day. How
dreary! She has spent time here in the past and must know from whence she
speaks. </b></span></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Because of the cost of lunch, I decided that I would at
least venture forth on foot a reasonable distance from the hotel and see what I
could find foraging for food at a grocery store or even at an omnipresent
McDonald's (they're everywhere, there everywhere) and secure some food at less
expense. </b></span></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The hotel lobby has a giant interactive map on a central
pillar. You can select a category and it will show you where establishments of
that type are found. I waited very patiently while an oriental guest of the
hotel played and played and played with the options. I couldn't believe how
inconsiderate he seemed. I had nothing more urgent to do than study this
person, so I did. Eventually he became aware of someone staring at the back of
his head and with great embarrassment he left the map to me. </b></span></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Sure enough, there was a McDonald's restaurant within
walking distance. I set out to explore the neighborhood. Something about the
opposite flow of traffic and the overcast sky got me confused about which way I
was going. After walking a block I returned to the hotel and the map to try
again to set out in my intended direction. I followed the road that separated
the Hotel Ibis and Heathrow Airport (Bath Road) for about a kilometer. As I
walked a saw plane after plane come down out of the pewter-grey sky a few
minutes apart and noted their tail insignias. Most of the air traffic I saw
coming into Heathrow had British Airways markings. The constant wind had a
chilling bite to it that made my eyes water. The homes built almost at the sidewalk's
edge along Bath Road had planters with forlorn-looking flowering plants in them
that weren't too cheery this time of year. I crossed a slow-flowing creek and
saw a pair of mallards turn tail and hide behind the foliage at the water's
edge. A small plaque on the short stone bridge that conveyed traffic across
this creek announced that it had been erected in 1776. That date made me pause
in my tracks and marvel at its coincidental significance to me. I came to a
small commercial center that had small ethnic food stores and restaurants, and
a gathering of kids in school uniforms that were loitering in knots before
heading for home after school, which apparently had just been let out. They all
looked non-native to me as well (I couldn't guess whether from the Indian
sub-continent or from the West Indies, or perhaps from the Middle East). I
entered a small grocery store, called Tesco <i>express</i>. I studied the items
they had for sale and decided to get some ready-made tuna-and-cucumber
sandwiches for Razelle and some chocolate milkshakes and strawberry milkshakes
for both of us. I knew that the McDonald's was somewhere farther ahead but I
gave up trying to reach it now that I had food. I did however make a mental
note of the Kebab Centre and the Domino's Pizza I had passed. I paid for my
purchase with the paper Pound Notes I had gotten at the airport and was
rewarded with heavy coins in change. Now I know why Australian money is so
heavy and clunky. They have the same "shrapnel" there as Mother England
has here.</b></span></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Razelle had no enthusiasm or interest in salvaging what was
left of the day to see something – anything – of London, so we stayed put while
Razelle ate her sandwiches and I drank the milkshakes. </b></span></div>
</div>
The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-59875107084417659482014-03-12T15:44:00.000+03:002014-04-20T13:15:54.090+03:00New York to London<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">October 16 Sun</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today I awoke with excitement and anxiety at the onus of
moving along to another continent by air travel. The day of a flight I cannot
help but dwell on the fact that everything has to work out time-wise or
unpleasant consequences may ensue that I don't even want to contemplate. I was
now of a mindset to leave, but there was still half a day's worth of hours to
live through before flight time. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-2Cu1lfhPyaJVqRsJOJbI6e9cvUSQgFTVLJJyluo0wQvWNps7WSRfKd7YeNcswOdYijFPQUEai15K0NjEGjj6uM8btI5k_L3Xq9WL0NY24wI5U-4vq0UrrCy-45XWGquVni_q5wTARks/s1600/2011-10-16+17.05.30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-2Cu1lfhPyaJVqRsJOJbI6e9cvUSQgFTVLJJyluo0wQvWNps7WSRfKd7YeNcswOdYijFPQUEai15K0NjEGjj6uM8btI5k_L3Xq9WL0NY24wI5U-4vq0UrrCy-45XWGquVni_q5wTARks/s1600/2011-10-16+17.05.30.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBvNKIgg-3yG0LCK0bAxByjF5n4CHFRtuKI3t7xnHqmObjq35y6lQtjxdLujyNQq_q-urdmv7pwHuek7t0Ob5RH3bMA2E8fFZPFHFz3SJRbhizeauFjJs1K4_hyphenhyphen5OJ8RGQc6QFCW2UwNA/s1600/2011-10-16+17.05.03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBvNKIgg-3yG0LCK0bAxByjF5n4CHFRtuKI3t7xnHqmObjq35y6lQtjxdLujyNQq_q-urdmv7pwHuek7t0Ob5RH3bMA2E8fFZPFHFz3SJRbhizeauFjJs1K4_hyphenhyphen5OJ8RGQc6QFCW2UwNA/s1600/2011-10-16+17.05.03.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Razelle had scheduled one more family-member's visit at
Monte and Mindy's. Her first-cousin Nicki lives in Manhattan and was scheduled
to arrive at noon. She needed to be picked up at the Baldwin train station, so
Monte went after her at the appointed time, and Mindy also left to buy cold
cuts for a deli-style lunch in the house. Razelle and Nicki had much to talk
about and I was left to my mental checklists and last-minute re-thinking of how
to better pack all our luggage than I already had before – in fact, several
times before. I interacted with everyone present, somewhat, but my mind was
elsewhere. We had reached critical mass with all we had amassed on our journey,
and I was more aware of this than anyone else seemed to be.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0wimIZEhKRYICIhSz2UtnkCZtLr4uNS58njzxLVjPXsudLe0ciLDCj6m5nwBbqA2G1Y7vU4ArTsedv7Ev1X1Z2v5qQTNh0WnnzoSzC0Vp3435jRasJU2DKQUNyvilMYrBuOU4WPDiz6Q/s1600/2011-10-16+17.09.53.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0wimIZEhKRYICIhSz2UtnkCZtLr4uNS58njzxLVjPXsudLe0ciLDCj6m5nwBbqA2G1Y7vU4ArTsedv7Ev1X1Z2v5qQTNh0WnnzoSzC0Vp3435jRasJU2DKQUNyvilMYrBuOU4WPDiz6Q/s1600/2011-10-16+17.09.53.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgeXdG5_zx2NafkPH7XlBiNUvQiGh4G25XtJuQJLrfgF1bT-Ev5yhq1uFRRQlEn4Gm2oSkbsGUedmtGmV7DQC8Q0r23dAdRgeGql1g1YOcNq9nDPNkF68ApknEdxCY0rMsS0bakkzTDV0/s1600/2011-10-16+17.09.33.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgeXdG5_zx2NafkPH7XlBiNUvQiGh4G25XtJuQJLrfgF1bT-Ev5yhq1uFRRQlEn4Gm2oSkbsGUedmtGmV7DQC8Q0r23dAdRgeGql1g1YOcNq9nDPNkF68ApknEdxCY0rMsS0bakkzTDV0/s1600/2011-10-16+17.09.33.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After photo ops with everyone taking turns being in the
shots or taking the shots (Nicki's camera took that momentous occasion to
misbehave and not capture the moment) it was time to say good bye to her; Nicki
was the last in a long series of relatives Razelle and I had managed to spend
quality time with all over this continent. Monte took her back to the station
to meet her 6:30 PM train, and when he returned I was ready to pack our bags
into his car. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even though our flight was scheduled for 9:55 PM I was too antsy
to loiter any longer. There were too many unobliging variables to contend with
for me to be comfortable waiting any longer. This was it; time for one last set
of hugs and good-byes with Mindy. Monte and I struggled with the configuration
of the bags in his trunk and finally ended up putting some of them in his back
seat; not a reassuring thing at all. As Monte drove us to JFK he gave us an
earful about his less-than-pleasant experiences with Israelis, the very people
we were imminently poised to return to after some four months separation from
them. We pulled up to the curb at the British Airways departure doors and found
two luggage carts for all our stuff. One more set of hugs with Monte and we
turned, pushing our belongings through the terminal's doors and switched
mentally to "airport mode." </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The woman at check-in announced that we would have to pay
extra for two of our fours pieces of luggage. I firmly held my ground and told
her she was misinformed AND mistaken. This went on for a few moments until a
supervisor appeared. She had overheard the dispute from a distance and
approached the clerk. She informed the clerk that we, as round-the-world ticket
holders, were correct in insisting that we were in fact entitled to two pieces
of luggage each. The supervisor helped us further by making sure that our
luggage would be approved at the next and final leg of our journey so this
argument wouldn't happen again. (Our bags didn't all weigh what they should but
they were close enough). To further ameliorate the unpleasantness we had just
experienced she upgraded our tickets on this flight to London to first class!
We gave her one of our Jerusalem refrigerator magnets as a token of our
gratitude (to learn that she was Jewish and intended to visit Israel soon
herself). After all our concerns about getting this far, everything turned out
for the best. We flew to London in the lap of luxury. So this is what it feels
like to be in peerage instead of steerage.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
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The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-12205604527585161832012-08-07T23:27:00.001+03:002014-04-23T11:25:06.390+03:00New York day 3<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLOp4E9bIk8rBVGQ0g3Xn2lcstXgn66KAbxa2Ejk0aU6icz77_LTAShvHR8LpD2a44mvJ8x4zKQon7k-NTW022r0ni9iF06VggUUS8iKTIVaFrqliooQvhjP7TYmFja0oHeGXFONj4ZhU/s1600/Oceanside-Westbury.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLOp4E9bIk8rBVGQ0g3Xn2lcstXgn66KAbxa2Ejk0aU6icz77_LTAShvHR8LpD2a44mvJ8x4zKQon7k-NTW022r0ni9iF06VggUUS8iKTIVaFrqliooQvhjP7TYmFja0oHeGXFONj4ZhU/s1600/Oceanside-Westbury.jpg" height="200" width="127" /></a></div>
<br />
October 15</div>
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This is our last full day in the USA. Hard to
believe that tomorrow we fly again after being such terrestrial creatures
(albeit wheeled ones) for so many days and months now. It's been so long since
we've been in an airport; such a distant memory.</div>
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<br /></div>
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It is Saturday and we have always made it a point to
get to a synagogue whenever possible for Shabbat morning services. The fact
that we chose not to go today testifies to the tension I was under by now to
get the packing resolved before the Baldwin, NY Post Office closed today at 2:30
PM. I had to resolve the packing issue by that deadline or it became someone
else's burden – and I didn't want to place that burden on anyone else. When I
awoke this morning, I still didn't know if the remaining items Razelle and I had
decided would be accompanying us back home would cause us to exceed the weight
limit. I dug a bathroom scale out of its storage space in Monte and Mindy's
home and weighed myself, then stood on the scale again holding each of the
items of luggage in turn and calculated their weights. Some were grossly over
the limit, some were happily well under the limit. The problem was that we had three
semi-hard boxy back-pack-type bags, and one completely soft duffle-like bag. Fragile
items had to go into the bottoms of the boxy back-packs. Larger flat pieces
that wouldn't fit into the deformable duffle-bag also had to go into the
back-packs. These items tended to be heavier, leaving me the light soft items
to fill the duffle, but not sharing the weight distribution evenly among them
because of this.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Ilyssa watched me stepping on and off the bathroom
scale several times and announced she had a better device – a hand-held
spring-loaded scale that hooked into the bag's handle; as the bag is pulled up
off the floor, its weight can be read. Doing the math after using this device,
I saw that the combined gross weight of all four bags came to just a bit less
than the airline's limit. It would require creative thinking and artful
packing (and packing is a fine art, believe me) to balance it all out. I applied this fine art as I
transferred items from bag to bag to bag to bag until the weight was evenly distributed, eventually, to my
ultimate satisfaction – and relief.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Then Razelle brought me some more items that hadn't
been accounted for earlier and the process began again. We had some
maneuverability with the carry on bags: these had weight limits we didn't see
ourselves even reaching, and size limits we already knew we wouldn't exceed. Every
item Razelle brought me just bumped something out of the bags and into the
carry on – until that ceased to be practical. Still, I was convinced before
noon that we were "good to go" to the airport tomorrow without
needing to pack any cardboard boxes and mailing them or paying extra at the
plane for them.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Now that that was off my mind, I had time to
interact with Monte. He had purchased an articulating ladder and he needed help
mounting it on the inside of his garage wall. It took the two of us to do this
efficiently and I was happy to be part of this project. Afterward, when we went
out to the back yard, we discovered that the Sukkah Monte had erected had been
damaged by yesterday's storm. Its metal structure had suffered damage and would
need to be repaired; so, together, we collapsed it entirely and stored it away.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Razelle had souvenirs of Israel she had promised to
send to Joan in Connecticut – laminated placemats depicting the Mona Lisa of
Galilee (a mosaic-tiled floor in the ruins of ancient Tzipori). Monte gave me
the keys to his car and I drove to the Baldwin Post Office to mail the package
to Joan from there. Whoa! After driving that van, driving a car again felt
strange! I brought the car straight back to Monte after completing my mission
and he left in it to keep an appointment.</div>
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<br /></div>
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After yesterday's experience at the restaurant in
Manhattan, there was no way I was going take a chance on having that happen
again. Already, while we were staying with Mark and Evelyn in New Jersey, my
cousins Sherry (Mark's sister) and David had reserved time with us this
evening. This was to be another family gathering involving Mark and Evelyn
coming up from New Jersey, Monte and Mindy and Razelle and me. Razelle and
Mindy and Sherry brainstormed earlier over the phone about just which
restaurant we would meet at. It had all been settled by yesterday, but today, when
I objected (quaked and panicked at the very thought of it!) the plans were
changed. The restaurant was replaced with a pizza party.</div>
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<br /></div>
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We rode with Monte and Mindy to Sherry and David's
home in Westbury, Long Island, NY. Mark and Evelyn had arrived ahead of us. It
was a wonderful reunion. I haven't seen Sherry and David in about a dozen years
and that was at a bar- or bat-mitzvah where we hardly had time to really talk.
This was a very pleasant reunion of first cousins around a kitchen bar and
dining-room table over pizza and pretzels and nuts and fruit and soft drinks.
It was quiet and conducive to conversation. I learned that David had had a long
career as a dentist, so naturally my saga of the tooth that had plagued me during
the trip was a topic of discussion between us. Monte and Mark talked about
paranormal phenomena, and Sherry related to Razelle what I had been like as a
small child. Mark and Evelyn have traveled extensively all over the country and
the world, so Evelyn and I had many travel experiences to compare. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCa2QlXMM5NRWIjAbwn_m9E2VnwBUr9XyO_uWybBaIzVuMlMx41W1JfwgImrfAQMMu9WEEL54ZqjxSsCY50_yMNoSDN7EqFjUnes6ctjpOHmfp_b1-YEo1yoqoYUrkCESDcjSeyjXBVFc/s1600/2011-10-15+20.24.41.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCa2QlXMM5NRWIjAbwn_m9E2VnwBUr9XyO_uWybBaIzVuMlMx41W1JfwgImrfAQMMu9WEEL54ZqjxSsCY50_yMNoSDN7EqFjUnes6ctjpOHmfp_b1-YEo1yoqoYUrkCESDcjSeyjXBVFc/s1600/2011-10-15+20.24.41.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHCXf1W9Qlh1w3N7Sl4DIlYsWo5-I-zjlYCgTi3P6tqSre_T8UZt3KZ0q13g0fZVop38KN1XqbyoqOrXMEA-_QPf2bGJ_OIKi4_9D9Rj8oHJnAGHWZXuDBNxPXXSYN-_yljCncKhHNAOQ/s1600/2011-10-15+20.21.51.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHCXf1W9Qlh1w3N7Sl4DIlYsWo5-I-zjlYCgTi3P6tqSre_T8UZt3KZ0q13g0fZVop38KN1XqbyoqOrXMEA-_QPf2bGJ_OIKi4_9D9Rj8oHJnAGHWZXuDBNxPXXSYN-_yljCncKhHNAOQ/s1600/2011-10-15+20.21.51.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>I remarked after we took photos of several family groupings
that this was the perfect moment to call cousin Belle Fields in Columbia, SC.
Bell is 98 years old and we had stayed overnight in her home on our way north
from Florida. Belle has been the family chronologer and repository of family
memories and publisher of the Serbin Splatter newsletter for as long as I have
cognizance of such things. Belle spoke to each of us in that room in turn. This
important moment seemed to me to be the culmination of all the travels Razelle
and I had done throughout America. During the time we had available, we had
packed in as many visits with as many of Razelle's and my relatives as we
could. And Belle was our witness to this. She promised to write something about
this in the next edition of the Serbin Splatter. Now I look forward to seeing
how she parses it.</div>
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<br /></div>
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We all parted shortly after that. Mark and Evelyn
had a distance to drive to get back home to New Jersey. We didn't have far to
drive, but it seemed to be a good moment to leave also. Back at Monte and
Mindy's I looked at the bags assembled as they were in the "staging
area" near the door to the garage. I hoped I hadn't overlooked something.
It was a little hard to digest the fact that, except for the flights into and out
of London, we were, in essence, truly on the threshold of successfully circumnavigating
the globe. I took that thought to bed with me in anticipation of tomorrow.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-63380391425920703082012-08-05T10:43:00.000+03:002014-04-23T11:12:59.153+03:00New York day 2 and New Jersey<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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October 14 Fri</div>
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I awoke ahead of everyone else in the house this morning.
This is the day we've anticipated for the past 10 and half weeks. This is the
day we part with the van. Originally, Monte was going to follow me in his car
to North Middletown, New Jersey and after the van-returning process was
complete, drive me back. But Monte really couldn't afford the time away from
his business this would involve today, and I didn't mind at all. Adventures on
Wheels advertises on their website that they provide free shuttle service to
the airport, so I figured I could get that close from New Jersey on my own
without a problem and call Monte from there to see where he was by then in the
scheme of things. </div>
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It felt odd driving the van all alone without Razelle by my
side and without a single item of our possessions in it, except for the GPS
mounted in front of me and my small backpack on the seat beside me. I had a
supply of dimes and quarters in the driver's door to cover the tolls in New
Jersey and bills in my billfold to pay for the Verrazano Bridge crossing. I
monitored the odometer as I drove from the Sunrise Highway to the Belt Parkway
to the Verrazano Bridge and across Staten Island to the Garden State Parkway.
As my GPS counted down the miles and my odometer counted them up I could see
that I would reach my destination without the compulsory 5000-mile oil change
being an issue. I would have about 120 miles leeway since the oil change in
Columbia, Missouri. As I slowly moved along, accompanied by so very many other
New York drivers this morning during rush hour as we threaded our way past a
"serendipitous" stretch of highway construction, I switched on the
radio for company. I came across an intriguingly annoying but captivating voice
that stopped me from scanning the radio any further. So this is what "Imus
in the Morning" sounds like! It was my first exposure to his show (and
served to advance my understanding of the local culture one more notch). Imus
and company kept me company all the way into New Jersey. I had occasion to use
the wipers intermittently while doing all this.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Three miles from my destination I pulled into a Quick Chek
gas station. It had a bathroom, and a coffee shop. I needed both and I had time
for both. This was where I filled the van's tank with gasoline for the very
last time. I brought the receipt with me to the drop-off location, as
stipulated, to show that the tank had been filled within 10 miles of their
establishment. There was a homeless woman loitering here with a cardboard sign
and I appreciated that she didn't approach me. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I pulled into the "Road Bear" lot. I now
understand that Road Bear is the name of the entire network and
"Adventures on Wheels" is what Road Bear offers. Finally, that
distinction has been cleared up. I walked into the office and was greeted
cheerfully. I handed over the paperwork. They were expecting me by 10:30 AM and
I had navigated all that traffic and arrived with plenty of time to spare. The
significance of 10:30 AM – that's the hour of day I picked up the van in Agoura
Hills, CA, 74 days and 13,600 miles ago, and that’s when they wanted it back.
The receptionist seemed to be the person who took my frantic calls when I was
still in California and the van was not behaving well. She was pleasantly
surprised to meet me! She said a long time had passed since we last spoke and
she wondered whatever had become of me and the van; and then, here I was and
here the van was. I related some of our adventures and told her that in fact it
was all on the Internet in the blog I was keeping. She asked for the URL for
the blog and for a moment I hesitated. I tried to recall if I had written
anything in it that would actually dissuade potential customers from renting
it. I was quite unhappy with it at the very beginning and only learned to like
the van and rely on it with the passage of time. I certainly looked after it as
if it had been my own property and had returned it in the same condition I
received it; no, actually in better condition, considering all the work that
was done in Hayward, CA by their mechanic there. After a few second's pause, I
gave her the URL and helped her with the spelling and punctuation so that
anyone curious about our "adventure on wheels" could find it and read
all about it. </div>
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The local mechanic came back with his inspection report: all
was in order. She told me that within a few days I would find my bank account
credited with the amount of my initial deposit and the cost of the oil change
in Columbia, MO, based on the invoice I handed her. I was done here. That was
that. Now "van-less", I asked to be taken to the airport so I could
return to my brother's home near JFK. The free shuttle they advertised wasn't
available at that hour, though. It was scheduled to go to Newark Airport
several hours later to pick up a customer, but JFK was never an intended
destination. Oh, I didn't know that! I asked if I could at least get a ride to
the nearest train station. That they gladly did for me, and I was driven to the
Middletown, NJ Transit Station. I paid for a ticket to Penn Station in
Manhattan and the train soon arrived. I kept track of my location using my GPS
in the train, even though it got confused often because it wasn't set up to
follow railroad tracks.</div>
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At South Amboy, NJ, a group of 6 nerdy guys in weird black
outfits and makeup carrying makeshift costume weapons got on. They didn't
accost any of the other passengers, but they were rowdy and loud – and
shockingly foul-mouthed. I overheard them talking about riding the train into
Manhattan for a Comic Con Convention. The other passengers were mildly annoyed
by their behavior, but said nothing about it to them. Even the ticket inspector
let them carry on (he was only annoyed with them for moving from the seats they
first sat in to a different set of seats without moving their ticket stubs as
they did so – this is how he knew who paid for which segment of the train
line). So, I took my cue from the other passengers and silently disapproved of
their crudeness and inconsideration, and held my tongue all the way to the last
stop at Penn Station, NY.</div>
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There is a lot to see in New York City. I called Razelle
from Penn Station to see if she and Monte and Mindy wanted to meet me in
"the City" since I was already there and do some of the sightseeing
Razelle and Mindy had talked about earlier. Razelle said they weren't ready for
that and I should continue traveling on the Long Island Rail Road to the
Baldwin Station and then call to be picked up when I got there. I was very
pleased with myself when I finally did alight at that station. I had
independently traveled the entire distance back to my starting point of the
morning by public transportation. It hadn't cost much either (less than any other alternate method of travel would
have cost).</div>
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<br /></div>
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I decided to walk the last mile from the Baldwin Station to
Monte's. This gave me the chance to stop at the Post Office along the way and
check when it's open. The sign on the door showed that there is still a window
of opportunity tomorrow for sending a parcel of our possessions to Beer Sheva
if we can't get them all to fit within the weight limits the airlines have set.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Razelle said that one of her "bucket list" items
for this trip was to ride in a horse-drawn carriage through Central Park. I
fully expected we would be leaving Monte and Mindy's in time for Razelle to
have this dream fulfilled. But she lost her enthusiasm for it when the weather
reports said that stormy and possibly destructive weather was headed that way.
By the time we did all leave together for Manhattan in Monte's car, dark
threatening clouds hung ominously low ahead of us over the Manhattan skyline.
The heavy showers they produced were brief, but convincing enough to justify
leaving this item on Razelle's bucket list for a future visit.</div>
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We crossed into Manhattan on the Queensboro Bridge and
Razelle pointed out the landmark smokestacks that can be seen in so many motion
pictures filmed from this approach. This was a seminal moment for Razelle.
During our entire journey across America, it was the signs announcing the
direction to "New York" that had been her guiding compass. For the first
time on this trip Razelle was finally in New York, New York. She was thrilled.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Between Monte's GPS and mine, finding a parking garage near
the Fig and Olive restaurant should have been a simple thing, but neither of us
could find one with our navigational devices. The parking garage we did
eventually find simply came into view on its own. It was on 50<sup>th</sup>
Street between Madison and Park Avenues, several blocks from our restaurant on
52<sup>nd</sup> Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues. We walked this
distance and stood before the Fig and Olive to wait for Barry and Brenda's
arrival. Razelle, Monte and Mindy chose to stand under an awning in a dark spot
in front of a cultural center displaying a sculpture of dismembered-anatomy that I
found disturbing. I crossed the street to a brightly-lit bridal-dress store
instead and stood alone. It was so much cheerier there.</div>
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Presently Barry and Brenda came into view and we all went
into the Fig and Olive. We were met at the door and escorted up a set of stairs
to a table reserved for us. We were handed menus and we began to study them.
Shortly after we were seated Ilyssa and Mike also arrived and joined us at our
table. </div>
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<br /></div>
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While we were reading the menus the ceiling lights were
suddenly dimmed. Razelle and I exchanged glances. She knows I am not
comfortable eating in a restaurant when I can't see my food. The place filled
up quickly with patrons, who began to converse among themselves very loudly. I
couldn't hear my own voice while speaking across the table to others in our
party and I could hardly hear them either. I had something to share with Barry,
but trying to explain it was hard to do. I wanted to give Barry a chance to
read Phil Markowicz's book, which Phil had sign for me personally. At least Barry
and I had spoken of it while Razelle and I were with them in Florida, so Barry
recognized the book with no explanation needed as I handed it to him.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The place was rather pricy, but this is Manhattan after all.
In light of that, I made a point to order a few of the least expensive entrees
on the menu. I ordered a dish of assorted olives, a glass of inexpensive
full-bodied red wine and a plate of creamed pasta with black mushrooms and
scallions (this seemed more Italian than Greek, but that didn't bother me; it
sounded like the meal I'd had in Canberra that I liked so much and wanted to
try again). Razelle also ordered simple inexpensive items to keep the cost of
our meals within a reasonable range. As our waiter took our orders, Razelle
requested that he calculate our check separately. She insisted this was what
she wanted, but he said he couldn't do that. Brenda said we could work this out
later and the waiter went off to the kitchen. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The din grew worse, the crowd of patrons grew denser and the
food took forever to arrive. Waiters bumped into us as they passed our table
and argued among themselves over who ordered what among the various tables of
patrons they were serving. I grew hoarse trying to be heard and eventually gave
up trying to talk at all. After a ridiculously long wait our food finally
arrived. I was extremely disappointed. Considering how long we had waited, I
couldn't understand why my pasta noodles were so badly undercooked. The sauce
was OK, but the scallions were too plentiful and too sharp to allow the
mushrooms to be enjoyed. I drained my glass of wine but only ate half the pasta
dish. I passed around my olives and they were eaten by others at the table and
only a few were left when the bowl was returned to me. I could take no more of
this place and got up from the table to take a walk in the fresh air outside.</div>
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Like a moth seeking light in the dark, across the street I
saw a brightly lit passageway leading through the building before me. I went
straight there, then continued through the passageway onto 53<sup>rd</sup>
Street. Before me I saw a small cluster of delicate trees in a food court. Even
in the darkness of night these trees served to lighten my disposition. I turned
left. At the corner I found myself awestruck by the incongruity of a large gray
gothic cathedral set among modern glitzy towers of glass and steel. I crossed
the street to read the sign: St. Thomas Church. What an amazing discovery for
me to find this here. I turned left again onto 5<sup>th</sup> Avenue and came
to a pair of large department stores. One was a Hollister clothing store. I
remember seeing someone in Hawaii with a shopping bag that bore this brand
name; now, finally, I understood what the name represented. The other was a Zara
department store. In front of it an obese, bearded and unwashed man was
protesting the affluence this store represented and claiming it only sold
clothing to an elite segment of society. Perhaps this character had wandered up
here from among the protesters on Wall Street who were making news at this
time. Passers-by didn't even engage him in argument. He seemed to need
psychiatric assistance. As I prepared to turn left again at the next corner
onto 52<sup>nd</sup> Street I noticed another cathedral one more block ahead on
51<sup>st</sup> Street. I walked closer to get a better look and saw that it
had scaffolding around its base. It was being restored. It's spires pointed
way, way up toward the firmament above Manhattan, but still they were
out-competed by the towers of commerce on the surrounding streets. This short
tour outside the restaurant took no more than fifteen minutes, and I was glad I
had seen a little of the "color" of Manhattan this night. I was
loathe to return to the restaurant, but knew I had no choice. I mounted the
stairs and rejoined the family around the table. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Shortly after I sat down the bill was brought to us. It had
been equally divided three ways. Our "share" (Razelle's and mine) greatly
exceeded the cost of what we'd ordered. I
looked at Razelle and she was in shock. This could not be so! We had purposely
ordered so little and Razelle had insisted before we ordered that we be billed
separately in anticipation of this problem. The atmosphere at the table took on
an uncomfortable pall. It was embarrassing to be disputing this here. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Never during our entire trip had I ever felt so trapped by
circumstances. This moment, without a doubt, was the lowest point of the entire
trip for me. Barry saw our distress and after doing the math gave Razelle back some
of the money she felt we should not have paid. That also made me uncomfortable,
because now Barry was bearing the cost of this. There was no gracious way to
repair the atmosphere. What a mess.</div>
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<br /></div>
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We parted at the entrance to the restaurant. Barry and
Brenda headed back to their Hotel in preparation for tomorrow's cruise. Ilyssa
and Mike went in a direction of their own, and Razelle, Monte, Mindy and I
returned to the parking garage. The time we had spent in that restaurant was so
protracted that the parking bill had ballooned. Razelle covered the parking
bill for Monte. It was the least we could do to try and repair the evening. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Back at Monte and Mindy's I continued to feel bad that this
evening had ended this way. That feeling stayed with me until I fell asleep.</div>
</div>
The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-18099113242561156702012-08-04T15:10:00.000+03:002014-04-23T10:20:29.794+03:00New York day 1<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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October 13</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">
Sukkot I</div>
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<br /></div>
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We awoke this morning in the quiet coziness of our quarters
in Monte and Mindy's basement, surrounded by our round-the-worldly possessions.
Some semblance of order among them was taking shape, but much thought will still
be needed before it is all reduced to what will fit into our luggage and what
will stay behind and what (if necessary) will be packed into another parcel or
parcels and shipped ahead (or by now behind, because if we send it/them from
here it/they will arrive in Beer Sheva after we are scheduled to conclude this epic
journey).</div>
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<br /></div>
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We went upstairs when we heard human activity above us
(hearing Missy the family beagle's padding feet earlier didn't have the same
significance). More piles of our possessions cascaded from where we had heaped
them beside the dining-room wall, and another cluster of boxes and bulky items occupied
a space in the front hall "staging area" nearest the garage where
they will leave this place when we do in three days. I opened the refrigerator
door and rummaged through the items we had taken out of our van's little
refrigerator and had stashed within it. On the kitchen counter were several
other consumable items that we hadn't managed to consume by this point. I ate
some of these and self-consciously considered how it must seem to our hosts to
have our stuff intruding upon their living spaces.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Mindy joined us for a light breakfast; then we rode in her
car to Sukkot morning services at the Beth Shalom/Oceanside Jewish Center. This
is the last in the series of conservative congregations we will visit during
our round-the-world sampling of Jewish houses of worship. The weather we drove
through was overcast but a half-hearted drizzle added a subdued sparkle to all
it landed upon.</div>
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There were several lulavim and etrogim on a table at the
back of the sanctuary. I received a nod of approval to take a set from someone
watching me eyeing them so I selected one of each and joined Mindy and Razelle already
in their seats. As the point in the service arrived when these are prayed over
and shaken in six directions, the Rabbi climbed to his podium and warmly gave
the clearest and most cleverly insightful explanation I can recall hearing
about the proper technique on how to "Shake your Lulav." The enthusiasm
of the congregants was infectious. Because we were sitting next to Mindy,
someone linked me to Monte and approached to ask if I was his brother. I
confirmed this and he offered me the last Aliyah to the Torah. I asked if
Razelle could join me in this honor and he was pleased to have us go up
jointly. Razelle and I stood before the Torah here and it meant a lot to us to
have this honor at the conclusion of our trip across this continent and before
our flight to the next.</div>
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After services we sat in the huge Sukkah they had built on
the lawn beside the parking lot. There was plenty of room for everyone. The
only problem was that the folding chair I sat on seemed imminently poised to
poke its legs through the drizzle moistened grass the permeable-roofed Sukkah
was built over. It was rather cool out in the Sukkah and bunches of concord
grapes in bowls on the table seemed to be the perfect choice to pluck and munch
on during this holiday season.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Mindy drove us back to her place and we changed out of our
synagogue clothes and into casual wear. For me the task at hand was to continue
consolidating our stuff. My greatest concern is not whether or not we can fit
everything we want to take back home with us into the four bags we are allowed
(plus carry on). I am concerned about the weight restrictions. It's not about
paying extra for an extra-heavy bag – that's just not allowed by the airlines.
It's about having extra boxes that get charged extra baggage fees and balancing
these fees against paying the postage rate for sending them. How many extra
boxes are we talking about? I had no clue at this point and the task looked
overwhelmingly daunting. But that was my department and I was trusted with it
while Razelle and Mindy planned how to see Manhattan properly.</div>
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Our last days here in the area have been tightly packed with
planned visits to and from relatives on both sides of the family. This required
some juggling of schedules and logistics to make it happen. Tomorrow I return
the van so whatever transpires, transportation will of necessity involve others
doing the driving. These visits include meeting Barry and Brenda in Manhattan
tomorrow, where they are staying before their cruise of the Canadian Maritimes,
and visiting my cousins Sherry and David, who live a short distance away, on
Saturday, where we will be joined by Mark and Evelyn who we stayed with in New
Jersey on our way up here. The morning of the very day we fly out of Kennedy
Airport, Sunday, Razelle's first cousin Nicki will come out to us by train from
"the City." Razelle has more cousins very nearby in New Jersey, but
because Sukkot lasts two days here in the Diaspora (today and Friday) and is then
immediately followed by Shabbat, we aren't able to include visits to them during
this trip. They observe these days strictly and traveling to see them wouldn't
be acceptable to them (we can't call them either). No amount of juggling the
logistics can trump these religious restrictions.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Tomorrow is the day our "Adventure on Wheels"
comes to an end. Mindy and Razelle sorted through restaurant options and Monte
and I sorted through carpooling options for returning the van. Eventually the
restaurant that was settled on, from information on their website and from
their proximity to Barry and Brenda's hotel, is a Greek restaurant called "the
Fig and Olive" on 52<sup>nd</sup> Street in Manhattan. Razelle and I have
found that the Greek restaurants we have visited during our travels always
reminded us of cuisine back home. We are looking forward to eating there
tomorrow.</div>
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<br /></div>
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In the meantime, while I had daylight to work with, I went
out to the van and went over every inch of it looking for anything we might
have left behind. I brushed up all the crumbs and swept the dust out the door
that we'd tracked in during 74 days of calling this van our home. I gave Mindy
the grand tour of this "Bordello on Wheels" as Razelle likes to call
it, with the mood-lights on behind the mirrors in the ceiling. Mindy was duly
impressed. She had asked for photos of the interior of this van so she could
consider such a cross-country trip with Monte some day. Well, this was her last
opportunity to see it for herself, and now she has. Tomorrow it goes back to
New Jersey.</div>
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This evening we stopped at an ATM machine and topped up our
cash supply in case we needed some for unexpected contingencies in the coming
days. Then we treated Monte and Mindy to a meal at the Outback. We have found
that of all the food chains we have sampled as we've crisscrossed this
continent – and we haven't even made a dent in the choices available to American
diners – this is the one we have gravitated to most often. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Back at Monte and Mindy's, Razelle and I made some executive
decisions about which items we are going to jettison and leave as gifts to
Monte and Mindy or as contributions to the community they live in. Then we
called it a night. I fell asleep still sifting through our stuff in my
dream-fogged mind ….</div>
</div>
The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-31633327122023786082012-05-09T17:56:00.003+03:002014-04-23T10:15:14.500+03:00Connecticut to New York<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh30RQlQcBfan-j_6LEwyNhzoAlBoR3a9EZHvXQewVQ78emZnWk3etX9EQUVMeq853jp32lUmTnfPPICXeEXppqqP1JrK9oNA8cdxcaognQFuecASq6Oe50u2XvDMkMrM13wfGCsi_OMR0/s1600/Trumbull-Oceanside.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh30RQlQcBfan-j_6LEwyNhzoAlBoR3a9EZHvXQewVQ78emZnWk3etX9EQUVMeq853jp32lUmTnfPPICXeEXppqqP1JrK9oNA8cdxcaognQFuecASq6Oe50u2XvDMkMrM13wfGCsi_OMR0/s1600/Trumbull-Oceanside.jpg" height="200" width="183" /></a></div>
<br />
October 12</div>
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Erev Sukkot</div>
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Throughout this trip we have visited many places and
done many things that were on my so-called "bucket list." Razelle
hardly ever mentioned things that she would have considered bucket-list items. During
the past two days we did a number of things in Connecticut that could be
labeled as such, but the one thing Razelle very passionately wanted to make
sure we did while in Connecticut was take the Ferry from Bridgeport, CT to Port
Jefferson, Long Island, NY. We made a dry run to the terminal two days ago so
we'd know where it is and to find out about tickets. This morning we awoke
before dawn so we could pull this off. I was also eager to experience this, so
we both got ready for the day with the same eager anticipation. An added bonus
to taking the ferry was that this part of the distance we would travel today
would not be on the van's odometer. I was mindful of how close we were getting
to the obligatory oil change and I was hoping not to have to do this before
turning in the van two day from now (October 14th) </div>
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We decided to take the 7:30 AM ferry so we wouldn't
have competition for space on board. We were told to arrive half an hour early,
which meant leaving Debby and Zvika's in the dark around 6:30 AM. It was
genuinely cold here at that hour. By the time we lined up at the dock dawn was
breaking in shades of pewter grey, it was so heavily overcast. The smell of sea
air and the sight of gliding gulls made our excitement palpable.</div>
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The chain was dropped and we were motioned to drive
aboard. My van was guided into the forward-most position in the parking bay,
meaning we'd be first off once we had gained the opposite shore. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbzr7FWwEyRDG92EARx7J6w2f5P5Qq2ATEZ43AHd1DNOKWI2xOX8YYpDcoJtLp2X2MmkaDoQOZXWijtieFmvup6XKW0HOc6va43mACLu1buphhITSu346vlzbXkpmAKrAd26DACOK_vVY/s1600/2011-10-12+08.03.26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbzr7FWwEyRDG92EARx7J6w2f5P5Qq2ATEZ43AHd1DNOKWI2xOX8YYpDcoJtLp2X2MmkaDoQOZXWijtieFmvup6XKW0HOc6va43mACLu1buphhITSu346vlzbXkpmAKrAd26DACOK_vVY/s1600/2011-10-12+08.03.26.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>The ticket window was in the enclosed passenger area.
Large windows enabled us to see out while comfortably seated on benches
provided for our convenience. Above the ticket window was a banner with the
catchy slogan: "Break the Sound Barrier". We were about to cross Long
Island Sound under that banner.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjCVFYADjW8TSoRhy0ekWCr3Z_FtDLWeGq9f7Jn5S700A5e3FvXGv0kySlSp65KU0LzgLRyOXj3g0e54LLIP4tlZlaGChXo0z39labg3MYgjX2-kfiFV8_Yk5Lf3zCi2CfXalOSRh-U48/s1600/2011-10-12+08.08.24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjCVFYADjW8TSoRhy0ekWCr3Z_FtDLWeGq9f7Jn5S700A5e3FvXGv0kySlSp65KU0LzgLRyOXj3g0e54LLIP4tlZlaGChXo0z39labg3MYgjX2-kfiFV8_Yk5Lf3zCi2CfXalOSRh-U48/s1600/2011-10-12+08.08.24.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyqth9pxqeiNzCAPSoN783R2G47TBeapuE3_JVsb5OOSW7HRxMRlOZ-3BZOblOUVXzQ_hiVoXW98q1jqWdotItsdXb39-nStatMnEJjPoMDW-VkRChzZAkjpcKbXg7tAwDj4ySOxWbeiU/s1600/2011-10-12+08.05.46.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyqth9pxqeiNzCAPSoN783R2G47TBeapuE3_JVsb5OOSW7HRxMRlOZ-3BZOblOUVXzQ_hiVoXW98q1jqWdotItsdXb39-nStatMnEJjPoMDW-VkRChzZAkjpcKbXg7tAwDj4ySOxWbeiU/s1600/2011-10-12+08.05.46.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>During the ferry ride Razelle found an interesting
gentleman to talk with. He was a builder from Bridgeport with large construction
projects to oversee on Long Island; this ferry was his daily commute to and
from work. While they talked I explored the ferry. Razelle stayed put because
the motion of the rocking vessel was too much for her leg. I went up to the
open-air top deck, where I was exposed to the elements. The strongly whipping
wind was cold enough to make my eyes water and numb my cheeks; the choppy water
and ominous grey sky added to the nautical feel. The motion of the deck made
walking a strait line a challenge. Only one other person was crazy enough to be
on that deck along with me. Eventually, the wind chill got to be too much and I
rejoined Razelle and bought both of us hot cocoa in paper cups.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDd5B6SPo9mmXoFvKNrayq3p_MTSkaF1Ub2xMoiFf7MD-29GkxpiKXe7RIqxfvs5kxYdeUMXWGu48hcBMf5eFg7nyNcffy3SVT6c3KtMMR3RggXviZiNPjjxd8EuRa_0_7buZXD6oY8U0/s1600/2011-10-12+08.35.27.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDd5B6SPo9mmXoFvKNrayq3p_MTSkaF1Ub2xMoiFf7MD-29GkxpiKXe7RIqxfvs5kxYdeUMXWGu48hcBMf5eFg7nyNcffy3SVT6c3KtMMR3RggXviZiNPjjxd8EuRa_0_7buZXD6oY8U0/s1600/2011-10-12+08.35.27.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>Port Jefferson, NY was a pleasant surprise. I'd
never been east of Ronkonkoma on Long Island before. This place looked like a
New England seaport, rather than an Empire State community. We drove the van
off the ferry and headed through this quaint port directly south across Long
Island to get onto the Sunrise Highway near Patchogue, NY. Driving west on this
Highway was a pleasure – until we reached Lindenhurst, NY. On-off ramps were
replaced by traffic lights and traffic became heavy. It was stop and go the
rest of the way into Baldwin, NY. The advantage of not taking the Long Island
Expressway seemed lost by this point; nothing could be done about it now, so we
just crawled with the flow. </div>
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We had a destination in Oceanside we wanted to reach
before we stopped at Monte and Mindy's. Our GPS had us on a course that would
take us directly there, but on a sudden whim, I broke off from this course and
drove past Monte's house, to show Razelle where it is. At the precise moment we
were passing it, my phone rang. It was Monte. He called because he needed to go
to a meeting and needed to leave a key with us. I wheeled around the next block
and greeted Monte in the driveway. He handed me the key. It was too perfect an
occurrence to be coincidental. Monte and I have been telepathic before. Razelle
was stunned that we'd done it again.</div>
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We continued on our way to Simcha Boutique, in
Oceanside to keep our appointment with the proprietor. Razelle wanted to buy
more handcrafted head-coverings to wear in the synagogue, made by this woman,
like the ones I'd purchased for her via the Internet in the past. We had thought
this boutique would be just around the corner but it was two miles away and involved
a number of maneuvers to get there; however, my GPS was up to the task. After admiring
her work and making our purchases, Razelle gave this women one of our souvenir
magnets. It was important to reach this boutique as early as we had because the
holiday of Sukkot would start at sundown, and the proprietor had to travel yet,
to be with her family.</div>
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We then made our way to a CVS pharmacy I knew of at
a strip mall at Atlantic Avenue and Long Beach Road in Oceanside, not far from
Monte and Mindy's. We turned in another roll of film that needed to be
developed. While we waited for processing, we wondered in and out of some of
the shops. Again, no luck with the "talking book" quest I was on for
Noga. An SUV, parked beside our van at this strip mall, had a bumper sticker on
it advertising the Gilbert & Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island.
Some day we have to contact this company. The owner of this vehicle would have had
a lot in common with us, I surmised. At the end of an hour I went back into the
CVS and got our developed pictures. </div>
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We drove to Monte and Mindy's house and parked the
van – for perhaps the last time – on the side street beside their house. This
is our final address in the United States. We've driven 13,500 miles to get
here. Early on I wouldn't have wagered that the van would make it this far. But
it certainly has.</div>
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<br /></div>
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We used the key and let ourselves in and sank into
the living room furniture to decompress from our travels. Missy the beagle
greeted us. She remembered me. She asked me to let her out into the back yard.
I double-checked that the back gate was secure so she wouldn't leave the
confines of the back yard and I saw that there was a Sukkah out there! Monte
had put one together for this Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot). </div>
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Members of the family began to arrive soon. Ilyssa
arrived and greeted us warmly, Mindy arrived with a cheery welcome, and, closer
to meal time, Monte come home from his business appointment and, through the
fatigue behind his eyes, smiled broadly and shared in the warmth of this family
moment. </div>
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<br /></div>
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While dinner was being prepared I set to work
bringing in items from the van, one trip after another, after another. Missy
had to be kept behind the gate so I needed to be mindful each time I went
through it to keep it secure against a beagle breakout. Some of these items
ended up in a cluster in the front hall and some in a gathering heap next to
the fireplace. Once I knew what our sleeping arrangements were to be (the
entire basement suite was ours) I began dragging more stuff down the stairs to
arrange them around the furniture down there. We had much work ahead of us for
the next leg of our around-the-world journey – onward to London! – and the
scope of this task was overwhelming at this stage. We had expanded the volume
of our possessions beyond what the luggage and the airlines would allow and the
task at hand would take a lot of thinking. If we used our time prudently we
would be properly packed by departure time four calendar days from now. If it
didn't all fit I would need to know soon enough to organize boxes and masking
tape so we could send the excess baggage that way – or not, if it would cost
less or be more efficient to take it all on the plane with us and pay extra baggage
fees. It was too soon to answer that question. I had to do some consolidating
and some research before I could say.</div>
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We gathered around the dinner table for the festival meal and the doorbell
rang and one more person joined us at the table. Ilyssa introduced us to her
boyfriend Mike. We did the blessings over the wine and bread for this holiday
and, while we ate, conversation was lively; there was so much to relate all
around. After the meal Mike and Ilyssa went out together and we all settled
down for a quiet evening. Each of us had something to do.</div>
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Eventually, I had to stop sorting through our stuff.
Tomorrow would be another day. It was time to get some sleep.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-74267185908972346092012-05-09T00:38:00.002+03:002014-04-23T09:59:38.865+03:00Connecticut day 1<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
October 11</div>
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We awoke at Debby and Zvika's, totally refreshed from
a good night's sleep. Today was going to be dedicated to anything Razelle
desired. Our visit here to her native environs was meant to be as significant
as we could make it for her. I had my trip down memory lane while we were in
Orlando, FL, now it was Razelle's turn. But first, a breakfast of bagels and cream cheese from our own inventory.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPvjV5pxsXeQTM-aTbjEx5DL26AUHStP6BTvdwJzcOHpahxBcd7O1nbnOg1uI5WxvK-e_2DDbfLjSmjh40cSuS0B82xDfJY5sQ7sVblVoKkz2tzQbbM0_4QEAXXScDHbVoOwXJl28w2vk/s1600/2011-10-11+10.33.16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPvjV5pxsXeQTM-aTbjEx5DL26AUHStP6BTvdwJzcOHpahxBcd7O1nbnOg1uI5WxvK-e_2DDbfLjSmjh40cSuS0B82xDfJY5sQ7sVblVoKkz2tzQbbM0_4QEAXXScDHbVoOwXJl28w2vk/s1600/2011-10-11+10.33.16.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiajlEwM_8G2EPLdktNFf4ZVtoaVp9PbuxPczLHO2zYNTAB6IS6venCsCpp33nobXrK8MJpj_kbDsloCxtu3FkwV9pnHZQLOoWbjiBAQthJBRm97OBfKGfuQA49qXMazCVF2zTrxRir-GQ/s1600/2011-10-11+10.30.10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiajlEwM_8G2EPLdktNFf4ZVtoaVp9PbuxPczLHO2zYNTAB6IS6venCsCpp33nobXrK8MJpj_kbDsloCxtu3FkwV9pnHZQLOoWbjiBAQthJBRm97OBfKGfuQA49qXMazCVF2zTrxRir-GQ/s1600/2011-10-11+10.30.10.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPLlsFjrucmAvnVZpR8uHtD31oGKJ_3fyqvXu7IqhBtanp40YFZ-DpQ09EXyHQ9lW71a3Az05QS7oQlYDa8KOxZywfMcL0Wtmk2bX-_6D2w6UwCUsLluroVwl_PcncT1mqe8UHfHR9w8s/s1600/2011-10-11+10.31.12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPLlsFjrucmAvnVZpR8uHtD31oGKJ_3fyqvXu7IqhBtanp40YFZ-DpQ09EXyHQ9lW71a3Az05QS7oQlYDa8KOxZywfMcL0Wtmk2bX-_6D2w6UwCUsLluroVwl_PcncT1mqe8UHfHR9w8s/s1600/2011-10-11+10.31.12.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwqDCoDRB7kZOe1PdQB3FSjK03jtyO-eZwxdLweJU6WbWYAhMNftDC2ROHDz5syCDlXcm0uhoA7Y945syQMSgCGEpz_utudgghIsxz0l6a3NummzXnFInBzh_wMyhFgo_Ggcmj8YAeYuQ/s1600/2011-10-11+10.44.44.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwqDCoDRB7kZOe1PdQB3FSjK03jtyO-eZwxdLweJU6WbWYAhMNftDC2ROHDz5syCDlXcm0uhoA7Y945syQMSgCGEpz_utudgghIsxz0l6a3NummzXnFInBzh_wMyhFgo_Ggcmj8YAeYuQ/s1600/2011-10-11+10.44.44.jpg" height="150" style="cursor: move;" width="200" /></a>Leaving Debby and Zvika's subdivision of Trumbull,
CT led us along Twin Brooks Drive through a lovely municipal park. The clear
morning sunlight accented the colors of the autumn leaves against the crystal blue
sky and reflected their hues off the still waters of the brook so invitingly
that driving through this park without capturing this scene for posterity would
have been a virtual sin. I framed several images with my digital camera and
snapped the virtual shutter. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisfMLnjYSBFw4T33F-aIo50AM7l11y_s-5qTK4holduc7YB3aQfrf28AqkFygNFy2jcXaTHm2JKqFlRZfmfS7JXnQ9Y9jg1GgMPaNP8p-w2Rqa6RgB1cyxtOAsmmItWyky8YhnO3rbnkA/s1600/2011-10-11+10.44.58.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisfMLnjYSBFw4T33F-aIo50AM7l11y_s-5qTK4holduc7YB3aQfrf28AqkFygNFy2jcXaTHm2JKqFlRZfmfS7JXnQ9Y9jg1GgMPaNP8p-w2Rqa6RgB1cyxtOAsmmItWyky8YhnO3rbnkA/s1600/2011-10-11+10.44.58.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAgMVUS6OkfnxTy1uN6fSSLP6HdLngIBMq6Ycy0KX5dUcF4Xaj_j5mnaGYOw5ok51IJzyIEEpoE0PW-OOQ4OcZpk1nAL69yDD4H2Z9dw8yPjONp80gwHLbFwuoQnRmLCv2AYvTSXrrfTE/s1600/2011-10-11+10.45.31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAgMVUS6OkfnxTy1uN6fSSLP6HdLngIBMq6Ycy0KX5dUcF4Xaj_j5mnaGYOw5ok51IJzyIEEpoE0PW-OOQ4OcZpk1nAL69yDD4H2Z9dw8yPjONp80gwHLbFwuoQnRmLCv2AYvTSXrrfTE/s1600/2011-10-11+10.45.31.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg11H6NJb5iorWVSntDxrlElw-_DbLQ40beKKDJdTDqZZ-6ukO0enHewYlGsAOdZOAzI6sHz3KP9JiPIgffe8jmHzHPkpYgDKe-tK5Y2flX2mDHEvUycFSXSAuYB_0UvWJV5FUEu9Ik9OM/s1600/2011-10-11+10.45.56.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg11H6NJb5iorWVSntDxrlElw-_DbLQ40beKKDJdTDqZZ-6ukO0enHewYlGsAOdZOAzI6sHz3KP9JiPIgffe8jmHzHPkpYgDKe-tK5Y2flX2mDHEvUycFSXSAuYB_0UvWJV5FUEu9Ik9OM/s1600/2011-10-11+10.45.56.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuqLi9Es-2J6LhAT-eS1Zj8TwoRVigRnbv7LqVRcVtghvmkqAnH2s0wP1fkB0kXXZqxTL2YzHlyMYxPyAxv1HN07sohfp7MerB3lI4zCFrLpDI5bvlpBx9F7chhJVvbn5ANYVWqJLu-18/s1600/2011-10-11+10.46.25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuqLi9Es-2J6LhAT-eS1Zj8TwoRVigRnbv7LqVRcVtghvmkqAnH2s0wP1fkB0kXXZqxTL2YzHlyMYxPyAxv1HN07sohfp7MerB3lI4zCFrLpDI5bvlpBx9F7chhJVvbn5ANYVWqJLu-18/s1600/2011-10-11+10.46.25.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwnS3uOH7WfV_R8SFuvfCiXNsor2L5-q5yETFAiVHu0i8cQPPDI5zMXHI2bfBrUiy-FP4TKcPHlWcASWklRjkXKI534wginnFbxbmLn0-zuIedq-v-dVs7XcdR_QL8UpI0j35CLx_pEW4/s1600/2011-10-11+10.45.43.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwnS3uOH7WfV_R8SFuvfCiXNsor2L5-q5yETFAiVHu0i8cQPPDI5zMXHI2bfBrUiy-FP4TKcPHlWcASWklRjkXKI534wginnFbxbmLn0-zuIedq-v-dVs7XcdR_QL8UpI0j35CLx_pEW4/s1600/2011-10-11+10.45.43.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBEhM1MC1rWV49WhoKYWZwT39wJLIm8vu-Icibl_g9dX9KaC1iMIobPXJHHsYlYNex2UWTCClD9ni6JdIp8g1kxMSyAZTkrE9zyMVsXAoY7aoniOnDR6qy9Hq02ESJvBZTqjek66hUcNY/s1600/2011-10-11+10.46.37.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBEhM1MC1rWV49WhoKYWZwT39wJLIm8vu-Icibl_g9dX9KaC1iMIobPXJHHsYlYNex2UWTCClD9ni6JdIp8g1kxMSyAZTkrE9zyMVsXAoY7aoniOnDR6qy9Hq02ESJvBZTqjek66hUcNY/s1600/2011-10-11+10.46.37.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwmGFIDWtU6BPm04cm7rAyu5YQzSvcTIVdxkKH7Rupl2O2Jd8a2rR6V3znQlFcPCak7kxCSFYRRg4Ufsx3iWvROt64-gpBJ66xUpBpXPh7THHWNyweBP4CpEm1bj3alFEyAnQMceff7S8/s1600/2011-10-11+10.46.48.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwmGFIDWtU6BPm04cm7rAyu5YQzSvcTIVdxkKH7Rupl2O2Jd8a2rR6V3znQlFcPCak7kxCSFYRRg4Ufsx3iWvROt64-gpBJ66xUpBpXPh7THHWNyweBP4CpEm1bj3alFEyAnQMceff7S8/s1600/2011-10-11+10.46.48.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>We came to a covered bridge as we exited the park. I
pulled into the driveway of an auto repair shop and jumped out to take pictures
of Razelle posing with this iconic New England bridge and the autumn colors
behind it. A woman came out of the shop and asked, "Can I help you?"
I said, "No thanks, I can do this by myself," and continued to aim my
camera at Razelle and the bridge. She then said, "You can't park
here." I answered, "I don't plan to park here. I'm just going to take
a few pictures and then drive off." It wasn't until much later that it
dawned on me what she was really trying to say without actually saying it. This
is what I call a "Rip-van Winkle moment." Being away as long as I
have been, I find myself missing the subtleties of speech and behavior that
others who have lived here all along would not miss. This has happened over and
over again as I travel through this, my native land.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqOoIPkAtWgTixd2U5ySvGKa4Hc0Pjj4GLipKlU6pFbJreAYZ06fgJrfik4GAJ-1QPk3ZfdrjwvrmW1gLgek7WOCuiwd5zViu3Zzoo4pXKcXuVO4Qq2d1eMqa0wpAic_h_5CpdSXkVeRw/s1600/2011-10-11+10.57.29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqOoIPkAtWgTixd2U5ySvGKa4Hc0Pjj4GLipKlU6pFbJreAYZ06fgJrfik4GAJ-1QPk3ZfdrjwvrmW1gLgek7WOCuiwd5zViu3Zzoo4pXKcXuVO4Qq2d1eMqa0wpAic_h_5CpdSXkVeRw/s1600/2011-10-11+10.57.29.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixzlmk-jEPyYyX3agmxBr53EOPLZtBQAK2XrgGQ7ruztxSx5kxx_b-6Yt_gEuUSPP08mVGVRCXuhNPU5Bgfg3DXtTql54-SfVTyxGlFUIfEaM14tbADgw2AEvflEUR9Y4fFcPdLC4Dt78/s1600/2011-10-11+10.56.16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixzlmk-jEPyYyX3agmxBr53EOPLZtBQAK2XrgGQ7ruztxSx5kxx_b-6Yt_gEuUSPP08mVGVRCXuhNPU5Bgfg3DXtTql54-SfVTyxGlFUIfEaM14tbADgw2AEvflEUR9Y4fFcPdLC4Dt78/s1600/2011-10-11+10.56.16.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>Near the entrance ramp onto the Parkway, Razelle saw
a sign that said "Bridgeport" with an arrow pointing the way. She had
to take a picture of this sign to remind herself that she had been here. And I
had to take a picture of her taking this picture.</div>
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We drove to the Jewish Cemetery off Black Rock
Turnpike in Fairfield where Razelle's parents are buried. But before we went in
we made three stops along Black Rock Turnpike, all of them in the short
distance between Tunxis Hill Road and Stillson Road: the ATM machine at Patriot
National Bank where we withdrew another $250 in cash; the CVS where we finally dropped
off the film Razelle has been trying to get developed and the Katona Corner
Postal Unit to mail our Washington Metrorail passes back to Ralph. This postal
unit was very well hidden and it took a lot of help from passersby to zero in
on it.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVmRmrJhXCkJ-jnkWOIrng29ShT98amE9y4714doVVvw-leEJNKbhCD_9pONiae3ope2gHgVuSBHtrEOeSj2VwoGAD3wKJFiSrKVn2UGGlwtj_Tda_OR8gV3RtbX5oQTRYUFTHulfbRp4/s1600/2011-10-11+12.16.02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVmRmrJhXCkJ-jnkWOIrng29ShT98amE9y4714doVVvw-leEJNKbhCD_9pONiae3ope2gHgVuSBHtrEOeSj2VwoGAD3wKJFiSrKVn2UGGlwtj_Tda_OR8gV3RtbX5oQTRYUFTHulfbRp4/s1600/2011-10-11+12.16.02.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkIjINaIMYIhJfr6uejRQ76_0Ti7bN1LA7ecKHTra_c89LoXGSXTa5klpOW281Q8szptU6scaQ7dZPAzrLZtW6qeo_i7svArHe3ikbkB7yAu26WmDlhS2iOo_23uZQB680bLrWpWsEuhY/s1600/2011-10-11+12.16.11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkIjINaIMYIhJfr6uejRQ76_0Ti7bN1LA7ecKHTra_c89LoXGSXTa5klpOW281Q8szptU6scaQ7dZPAzrLZtW6qeo_i7svArHe3ikbkB7yAu26WmDlhS2iOo_23uZQB680bLrWpWsEuhY/s1600/2011-10-11+12.16.11.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>Then we went to the cemetery and straight to the graves
of Ruth and Milton, Razelle and Ralph's parents. This was Razelle's first
opportunity to visit her mother's grave since she was interred here two years
ago in my presence. Razelle took out the pages Ralph had prepared for her, contain
prayers traditionally said at graveside, and prayed from them while I split the
ball of ice we had carried all this way across America to place half of it on each
of their graves (as I had done on my father's grave when we were in Ohio). These
represented the spiritual place we had visited in Wyoming (the Medicine Wheel) where
we had said the mourner's prayer (Kaddish) for each of our fathers around the
anniversary of their respective deaths.</div>
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<br />
Many more of Razelle's relatives are buried in the plots
that surround her parents' graves. Razelle related to me who had been whom. One
more grave of importance eluded Razelle. We called Ralph on my cell phone and
he directed us to the grave of Razelle's dear childhood friend Frances, who had
died suddenly of leukemia when they were college age. I left Razelle to her
thoughts while she prayed at this grave, but remained nearby.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJjbfP65__bCfTrESZw4PUCEvQX85-waYxnGTKnhA3BGVcE12f9XikAVvaejyIT21CogSGOcc9wvE5OGmami803Qqm4dDoIh71x_a0pa4GTX3_Bn1D5AuUCTN6BSEu7hDik46xK6OHvsM/s1600/2011-10-11+13.14.39.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJjbfP65__bCfTrESZw4PUCEvQX85-waYxnGTKnhA3BGVcE12f9XikAVvaejyIT21CogSGOcc9wvE5OGmami803Qqm4dDoIh71x_a0pa4GTX3_Bn1D5AuUCTN6BSEu7hDik46xK6OHvsM/s1600/2011-10-11+13.14.39.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>After a while we got back into the van and began our
tour of landmarks that had been important places in Razelle life. We stopped to
gaze at the home in Bridgeport where her Aunt Hilda and Uncle Ernie had lived,
then we drove up to the Sheridan School that Razelle had attended during her elementary
school years. School buses were parked across the street waiting for the imminent
ringing of the bell. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0x3v5o0lpKjm4TlAVVDYfot6cjDyGxMYCqJNsn8om-cqAoM4CvF74YTYfSDfKuxTS-1x5yJZLJ_w54LOmwgMvH6bs2LOt3lfvTfLZErDC0JsJIJKDUgq0wZBVGtAJltLvMWVuU_bK17o/s1600/2011-10-11+13.27.25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0x3v5o0lpKjm4TlAVVDYfot6cjDyGxMYCqJNsn8om-cqAoM4CvF74YTYfSDfKuxTS-1x5yJZLJ_w54LOmwgMvH6bs2LOt3lfvTfLZErDC0JsJIJKDUgq0wZBVGtAJltLvMWVuU_bK17o/s1600/2011-10-11+13.27.25.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDUlcGFP-iDbtS0z956GlT6WpsiQAqJRcXTQK-dybuqEItsRF96OG2e1SfLqXO0kCZcsQMpoiOcWqM1KK92_4p0yISGXMfyae34ZAcfY-jSkt5juuIzgZcC1ttJE3guZj0yIoUrXVGZ4U/s1600/2011-10-11+13.25.55.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDUlcGFP-iDbtS0z956GlT6WpsiQAqJRcXTQK-dybuqEItsRF96OG2e1SfLqXO0kCZcsQMpoiOcWqM1KK92_4p0yISGXMfyae34ZAcfY-jSkt5juuIzgZcC1ttJE3guZj0yIoUrXVGZ4U/s1600/2011-10-11+13.25.55.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>Razelle then guided us to the house beside Lake
Forest Reservoir where she had lived with her father and mother and brother in
earlier days. So much of what her father had wrought with his own hands to
landscape the property still remained in place. Razelle paused on the steps
leading into the lake and gazed pensively over their waters. She would have
liked to have gone into the house and looked around, but the current occupant
didn't offer to let her do that when he answered the door and Razelle didn't
ask. We moved on.</div>
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Our next destination was Joan's home in Woodbridge, CT. Joan had been friends with Razelle and Frances; and Joan had been at our wedding. Razelle and I had a wonderful visit with Joan on the back porch of her home in a forested setting. Autumn in New England, slices of cheese and fruit, and nostalgic reminiscences – who could have ask for a more pleasant way to catch up with friends?</div>
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When Joan's husband Harold came home from work, we followed them in our van to a nearby shopping plaza in Milford, CT. Harold and I looked for the "talking book" Maayan wanted for Noga, but there was no such thing in the toy store there. Razelle and Joan went looking for overalls for Noga at the Oshkosh Store. They had better luck.</div>
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We took the Merritt Parkway back to Fairfield and, before exiting,
entered a rest stop. This has been here for as long as Razelle can remember,
but she had never in her life stopped here before. There's a first time for
everything. We returned to the CVS in Fairfield to retrieve the now-developed
pictures then drove to Debbie and Zvika's to leave the van. </div>
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Debbie drove us in her son Gabe's car (so she informed us) to
the Chinese Restaurant she had picked out for our postponed reunion with her mother
(Razelle's Aunt Mila) and now with her sister (Razelle's first cousin) Vicky as
well; they arrived shortly after we did (Zvika was already waiting for us when
we got there). Aunt Mila has been doubly blessed with longevity and acuity of
mind and spirit. We were duly impressed with her wit. It has been a long time
since Razelle and Mila and Vicky have all been in the same place. They had a
lot to catch up on during this meal. The menu here was built upon the supposition that everyone
around the table would pick and choose from a set of main dishes placed in the
middle of the table. It was hard for us all to decide which dishes we wanted
these to be so Debby took a poll then decided for all of us.</div>
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After the meal Vicky drove away with Aunt Mila and we rode
with Debby through the dark in a light rain that bejeweled the windshield between
intermittent swipes of the wipers. The effect was pleasingly hypnotizing
(particularly since I had the luxury of being a passenger and not the driver, for a change). We made light conversation about our kids and their achievements; interesting
how quickly our little ones have come of age and now have lives of their own. When
we arrived at Debby and Zvika's home we got ready for bed, our last night in Connecticut.
We plan to get an early start tomorrow.<br />
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<br />
October 10</div>
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I woke up this morning ahead of everyone else in the
house. I took a shower and noticed that my shampoo was missing; it had been left
behind at the Rabbi's house in Virginia because I hadn't taken the time to
search for it when we left there before sunrise. Oh well.</div>
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I checked my email and messages on Facebook this
morning. Because our remaining visits with friends and relatives are so closely
interwoven, and because there isn't time left here in the Northeastern US to
reschedule anything, it is important that I stay current with these now. I
found email Maayan had just sent, requesting that we try to buy a cosmetic
product for her here in the States before we return home. We must be getting
close to the end of our journey around the world if Maayan is now sending us
last-minute requests. She also asked for a talking book that speaks English, so
Noga can hear English while she looks at the pictures. Searching the Internet I
found that Macy's carries the specific line of cosmetics Maayan asked for.
Searching further, I found a Macy's en route, in West Nyack, NY. The scavenger
hunt for requested gifts was on.</div>
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Mark and Evelyn drove us in their car to a diner
near their home they particularly like, where we had breakfast before we hit
the road. It was a nice send off from a very nice visit with these cousins. </div>
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Where we slept last night is less than 10 miles from
the endpoint of our journey in this van; Adventures on Wheels in North Middletown,
NJ is where we are scheduled to drop it off in four more days – so near after
coming so far. And yet, we still have about 800 miles left before we are due to
change the oil, according to our rental agreement and maybe 500 miles still to
cover before we finish connecting all the remaining dots we have promised to
connect before this road trip in the van comes to an end – as I said, in only
four more days (audible sigh). Yesterday's traffic taught me a valuable lesson:
Don't be stupid! Take the toll roads! Being that today is Columbus Day in the
United States, a lot of people would be on the roads during this extended
weekend. </div>
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We took the Garden State Parkway all the way into
the state of New York, our 36th state. Toll booths on this Parkway are different
from the ones we had encountered on the bridges we paid to cross earlier in our
trip. These booths require fistfuls of coins, which are tossed into a basket to
get a green light so you can proceed (there is no barrier, just a camera to
keep you honest). The first toll plaza we came to sent Razelle into a panic. We
had been hoarding quarters for most of our trip so we could use them in washing
machines and dryers as needed. But just yesterday, Razelle turned her cache of
quarters into paper bills because she thought we wouldn't need them any more, now
that we were at the end of our travels. Fortunately, I still had about $10's
worth of quarters left in the driver's elbow-rest on my door of the van. These
were more than enough for the three toll plazas we had to pass through before
we reached the New York State Thruway (not a spelling error) and turned in the
direction of the Tappan Zee Bridge. Before we crossed the Hudson River on this
bridge, we visited a humongous shopping mall, called the Palisades Center Mall,
in West Nyack, NY. </div>
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The Palisades Center Mall is the largest mall we'd
seen on this trip! It is four stories high and packed with shops of every kind.
You need to refer to maps at the elevator and escalator points just to keep
track of where you are and where the stores are you want to reach. We entered
the mall near where we'd parked the van; the Macy's store I wanted to get to
was too far away at the opposite end of this vast building for Razelle to walk
there with me. She stayed put and I sallied forth to get what Maayan asked for.
They had exactly what she wanted. I sent her a message while I stood there with
the clerk to ask how many she wanted and promptly got her answer. Isn't it
amazing what can be done with gizmos and gadgets nowadays?</div>
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Leaving the mall, we crossed the Hudson River on the
Tappan Zee Bridge. The toll is collected after you have reached the other side,
unlike what we'd seen elsewhere. I continued driving until we came to
Interstate 95. I pointed out to Razelle that we had just entered Connecticut,
or 37th state, to which she replied, "Oh no, I didn't want to be
here!" She was upset that we were not on the Merritt Parkway (not upset
that we were in Connecticut). I reprogrammed the GPS to guide us there. This
led us back into Port Chester, NY, where we stopped for tuna sandwiches for
Razelle at a convenience store/pit stop. Then we re-entered Connecticut and
drove east on the Merritt Parkway. Razelle was now very happy. The Merritt
Parkway is such a breathtakingly beautiful way to get to Bridgeport-Fairfield,
CT. As soon as we were on it, Razelle had flashes of nostalgia for all the times
she had lived in Connecticut and traveled this road. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBNPVJT2KS_HrsYmOo-Nc5-KGCIgOrXBqyehWBAJo5nfEaRIEAQ3ZK6Edr08aOLiTDPZQwVMyjV0ON5lKklsOcn4dPo2idX5LbraExqRUxiO9-T7qyqTx51oPxiiyeBdmhMSOCXBK9jsQ/s1600/2011-10-10+13.46.49.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBNPVJT2KS_HrsYmOo-Nc5-KGCIgOrXBqyehWBAJo5nfEaRIEAQ3ZK6Edr08aOLiTDPZQwVMyjV0ON5lKklsOcn4dPo2idX5LbraExqRUxiO9-T7qyqTx51oPxiiyeBdmhMSOCXBK9jsQ/s1600/2011-10-10+13.46.49.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>Our timing couldn't have been better. The trees were
changing color here in New England this fine October day. Red and yellow and
orange hues greeted our eyes wherever we gazed, all the way to the horizon and
back again. We didn't want to miss the experience of seeing fall foliage during
our trip around the world and here we were, immersed in picture-postcard
scenery that thrilled us at the sight of it. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEXB3co61Ap9N64T7tUt3CvdCkdDsjk5e8xWAbmrcgRdyPqNe8DIcEkegcmsdkj1uEAPEzlKRkA8qEi_DNI1C7T_v3NtiFfkVQ6tTlVTTTBCZAvRSlUWPMV1T3B6Hb6JWMtpzfxzdrShY/s1600/2011-10-10+13.45.09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEXB3co61Ap9N64T7tUt3CvdCkdDsjk5e8xWAbmrcgRdyPqNe8DIcEkegcmsdkj1uEAPEzlKRkA8qEi_DNI1C7T_v3NtiFfkVQ6tTlVTTTBCZAvRSlUWPMV1T3B6Hb6JWMtpzfxzdrShY/s1600/2011-10-10+13.45.09.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSPxIfBRNIMy0GG5rGp_v95kdvMYOFSmbVCUfqBbA03vYBTsBj6CMFo1zzLnM9eRfY5Jl7lZ2p0O_npBbfCOFNNkeUTHq-QbFMcsXMgJlDWG8uBgAXO1txGbH95H6KumfeK4C8m3IJlX4/s1600/2011-10-10+13.45.39.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSPxIfBRNIMy0GG5rGp_v95kdvMYOFSmbVCUfqBbA03vYBTsBj6CMFo1zzLnM9eRfY5Jl7lZ2p0O_npBbfCOFNNkeUTHq-QbFMcsXMgJlDWG8uBgAXO1txGbH95H6KumfeK4C8m3IJlX4/s1600/2011-10-10+13.45.39.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>We exited the Merritt Parkway onto Stratfield Road in
Fairfield, CT and took it directly to Ahavath Achim, the synagogue where
Razelle and I were married. We met someone there who remembered Razelle's
mother and he called the young rabbi we'd corresponded with, who promptly
arrived to greet us.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlkVk_DSbGxIjoKUsICwafxQIv-VW8cBk3QTafuKWOxs-S02Aptj0US5-U5moQETEiu-7nrYsAUsJDpv6H2B60Mt-Aro6HPSFN96p0C8N6naf_kl6-jeydE8iU4zRRx4b_8oTZuF7ejt0/s1600/2011-10-10+13.54.51.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlkVk_DSbGxIjoKUsICwafxQIv-VW8cBk3QTafuKWOxs-S02Aptj0US5-U5moQETEiu-7nrYsAUsJDpv6H2B60Mt-Aro6HPSFN96p0C8N6naf_kl6-jeydE8iU4zRRx4b_8oTZuF7ejt0/s1600/2011-10-10+13.54.51.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtZx94d0iV6EZFqef_WcArZAVcj3k2jiZkM0-brSVnCpphvRYhjaYzYM3Kt22_ZCdy5jdQ0w7lTvL4J_BZHkC7wha9FXO_KlRSoMl2D77XTCTT9VGSyikX1y9CTlptQW00yOSdAzCGFmI/s1600/2011-10-10+13.55.20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtZx94d0iV6EZFqef_WcArZAVcj3k2jiZkM0-brSVnCpphvRYhjaYzYM3Kt22_ZCdy5jdQ0w7lTvL4J_BZHkC7wha9FXO_KlRSoMl2D77XTCTT9VGSyikX1y9CTlptQW00yOSdAzCGFmI/s1600/2011-10-10+13.55.20.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><br />
We searched the memorial plaques together and found the
ones with Razelle's relatives' names on them – most importantly, the one bearing
her father's name.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZgmVxs8x5Fzh2dXuj8SiHB7sJ-_mNpFw7DDvfCNTqKNz9-CPR8kaUGg_yQJ_6q83-A7YnTaj6aDuhfrN2yMa84FlLUVGFK2C5_UEfGe2r12Zh7TgKRyORBCSvWh_VNJbEB1odUBJnlKY/s1600/2011-10-10+14.16.03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZgmVxs8x5Fzh2dXuj8SiHB7sJ-_mNpFw7DDvfCNTqKNz9-CPR8kaUGg_yQJ_6q83-A7YnTaj6aDuhfrN2yMa84FlLUVGFK2C5_UEfGe2r12Zh7TgKRyORBCSvWh_VNJbEB1odUBJnlKY/s1600/2011-10-10+14.16.03.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>Our next stop was in front of the home on Melville
Avenue where Razelle had last lived before immigrating to Israel, and where I
had stayed during visits with her mother Ruth while she still lived there. Lots
of memories! Particularly important to Razelle was the view of the stream and
dam and duck pond behind this home.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoZou0HqfuNIaeeJM_xg9waAuFSx7wrnBMHf-62VIMgXWgOHPURLv59jYoMi0NeJf-3QDlWkStMbu8NgexMYbotkq1BHjVDdhazLb8hJ2fR2awmUKHTJN1PlE3MuDqnJnAKP6ua8NYy84/s1600/2011-10-10+14.16.53.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoZou0HqfuNIaeeJM_xg9waAuFSx7wrnBMHf-62VIMgXWgOHPURLv59jYoMi0NeJf-3QDlWkStMbu8NgexMYbotkq1BHjVDdhazLb8hJ2fR2awmUKHTJN1PlE3MuDqnJnAKP6ua8NYy84/s1600/2011-10-10+14.16.53.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg21Rbcdx334zS2lR326G0QdkJELJuWsYpjlrveG8ybj-TY3xPgW281JbcYaLp4h0DmccAPKIjJFhukLIm2TUM9lzbSFBcNNIHFxCocycFIJeLtkvxCkWgYWrCWN55-1VIPldhkyIJ_4xM/s1600/2011-10-10+14.16.28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg21Rbcdx334zS2lR326G0QdkJELJuWsYpjlrveG8ybj-TY3xPgW281JbcYaLp4h0DmccAPKIjJFhukLIm2TUM9lzbSFBcNNIHFxCocycFIJeLtkvxCkWgYWrCWN55-1VIPldhkyIJ_4xM/s1600/2011-10-10+14.16.28.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a>I walked around back and took several
snapshots for Razelle while she stayed with the van, then I ran into a former
neighbor of Razelle's mother, who was excited to meet us. He took us to his
door and called his wife out. She was thrilled to
tears to be able to see Razelle again. She remembered seeing me at Ruth's
funeral two year ago. Our next stop was to be the cemetery where Razelle's
parents are buried, but our visit with these neighbors was too precious to tear
ourselves away. The cemetery visit will wait until tomorrow. We chatted with
these nice people for as long as we could afford to, then got into the van and
drove to our next rendezvous.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCr418VHiEJhFn7geMoG0eXsQ-BNl581iLocO7kNy_ynUUNS8GTQ76d8QqBK40qCljlfCB5jVg9Lk5a_lO_wv0KTpeQkScgo7IyP4WmXLh1NKfV6u7V7BKjUaH1nAWacapRcODcZUQBiM/s1600/2011-10-10+14.36.51.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCr418VHiEJhFn7geMoG0eXsQ-BNl581iLocO7kNy_ynUUNS8GTQ76d8QqBK40qCljlfCB5jVg9Lk5a_lO_wv0KTpeQkScgo7IyP4WmXLh1NKfV6u7V7BKjUaH1nAWacapRcODcZUQBiM/s1600/2011-10-10+14.36.51.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_o2_Bw9GkbCtByHo1OOPhMJkJCTuyLCfdZ4OltfIZZ_465UJNjO8PtCl5koaJeWsFOnTyjffxvxdsQtYaRHYvfyHXllfDlBpY4i86ktbWLBgw5vnEStLiQgJVTJQf2QExEjn7VxiLklQ/s1600/2011-10-10+14.37.02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_o2_Bw9GkbCtByHo1OOPhMJkJCTuyLCfdZ4OltfIZZ_465UJNjO8PtCl5koaJeWsFOnTyjffxvxdsQtYaRHYvfyHXllfDlBpY4i86ktbWLBgw5vnEStLiQgJVTJQf2QExEjn7VxiLklQ/s1600/2011-10-10+14.37.02.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a></div>
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My first cousin Brenda had lived in North Carolina
and I wanted to visit her there while we were down that way. But her family was
recently transplanted to Boston just before we started this trip, so that
wasn't going to happen. For quite a while now we have been corresponding and
trying to coordinate a rendezvous with Brenda and Stewart somewhere during our
journey. The only opportunity left was to meet them half way between Boston, MA
and Fairfield, CT today, Columbus Day, because they and the kids had the day
off to travel. That halfway point was Springfield, MA. The time we had arranged
was perfect for supper and the restaurant we chose was the Olive Garden. Having
set my GPS to get us there, I knew how much travel time it entailed and that is
why we broke off our visit with these neighbors when we finally did. We drove back to the
Merritt Parkway and headed through Hartford, CT rush hour traffic into
Massachusetts, our 38th and final state of this trip. We reached our
destination in Springfield with 5 comfortable minutes to spare. This far north
we expected the fall colors to be even more dramatic than they were in
Connecticut, but they weren't. Why that was so is a mystery to me.</div>
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I was anticipating that my cousins would arrive in their
oversized recreational vehicle so I kept a lookout for one to pull into the
parking lot. I know how much they love traveling in their RV and I'd heard so
much about it; but they arrived in a less ostentatious vehicle and walked up
behind us to greet us before we were aware they had arrived. They all went into
the Olive Garden together, except me. There is a Walgreens across the traffic
light from the Olive Garden and Razelle sent me over there quickly with her
film to have it developed while they ordered. Razelle asked that the photos be
developed with a matt finish, but Walgreens could only develop them with a
glossy finish. I called Razelle's phone but she didn't answer so I brought the
undeveloped film back to her. She was not pleased.</div>
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Brenda and Stewart have two kids. I had met Jeremy
when he was very small. He's grown so much since. This was my first opportunity
to meet Heather. I enjoyed watching the interactions among them all while we
talked and ate. Brenda has been following my blog and knew everything I'd
written so far. Razelle, Brenda, Stewart and I talked about the art of
parenting. We also talked about mutual travel experiences; we had Walmart
camping in common, for example. Unfortunately, our family reunion could only
last so long, but it was certainly worth the effort.</div>
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<br /></div>
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While I was eating the food I had ordered, which was
nothing more than a plateful of succulent iceberg lettuce with blue-cheese
dressing, a standard favorite of mine, I bit into something and felt a crunch. I
ran my tongue over the teeth on the left side of my mouth and discovered a
sharp edge on a tooth that had not been that way before. What is it with me and
dental disasters?! Of all the hazards of traveling far from home, I've made it
this far without mishap, [knock on wood]. But in the dental department I
haven't been able to get a break! There was no pain so I don't know what the
damage will turn out to be. I just have to hold my breath and hope I can get
back to my dentist before this turns into something urgent. </div>
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<br /></div>
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We all went out to the parking lot and said our
goodbyes. We headed in opposite directions, they toward Boston and we toward
Trumbull, CT, where Razelle's first cousin Debbie lives, and where we will
spend the night. We re-entered Connecticut and received a call from Debbie
almost at the same moment. "Where are you guys?" Debbie wanted to
know; "We've been waiting for your arrival so we can all go out to eat. Aunt
Mila was hoping to greet you, but she can't wait any longer." Apparently
some wires had gotten crossed. We couldn't be everywhere at once and we didn't
know about this miscommunication until Debbie called. This was what our last
days in the United States were turning into. We had masterfully juggled all the
balls we had in the air, but one of them had just fallen. We apologized to
Debbie and she said that the dinner date with Aunt Mila would have to be
rescheduled, without fail, for tomorrow.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The ride back to Trumbull was hard on me. The bright
lights of oncoming traffic on the un-illuminated Parkway gave me a lot of
grief. But we made it safely, and with a little guidance on the phone and with flashing
of porch lights when we were not certain which house was the right one, we
pulled into Debbie and Zvika's driveway and turned off the motor. We had
covered a lot of territory this day. We spent some quality time talking with Debbie
and Zvika before the bed beckoned. Razelle and I found the crisp cool night air
inviting and argued half-heartedly with Debbie about sleeping in the van once
more, but Debbie prevailed and we slept on comfortable beds in their home
instead. <br />
<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-67366722411208257692012-05-07T13:53:00.000+03:002014-04-23T08:27:48.022+03:00Virginia through Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania to New Jersey<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifiPXIKpRIcFQ6_pHJ0MWamQfiIqQ5lH3y8PMKTAyNpFRUHG2hEdjNDhi8U6n_Tzd1yQBzdrizRQ91sXdZajzMuM_I1MVvLte1ladKFkX1W39_LBrD-J6MsLlFW1IbA-W2-XQppyG49es/s1600/Hampton-Matawan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifiPXIKpRIcFQ6_pHJ0MWamQfiIqQ5lH3y8PMKTAyNpFRUHG2hEdjNDhi8U6n_Tzd1yQBzdrizRQ91sXdZajzMuM_I1MVvLte1ladKFkX1W39_LBrD-J6MsLlFW1IbA-W2-XQppyG49es/s1600/Hampton-Matawan.jpg" height="200" width="149" /></a></div>
<br />
October 9</div>
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We awoke in our van while it was still dark outside.
The pre-dawn air was pleasantly cool. We took care of preparations for
traveling (including one last visit to the Rabbi's house to use the bathroom)
then turned the key and drove off.</div>
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The GPS told us our destination in New Jersey was some
350 miles and at least 7:30 hours away. I expected it to take longer. We wanted
to reach my cousins' house in Matawan, NJ at a decent hour so we could spend
some quality time with them; and there were some sights along the way I thought
would be interesting to stop for, since we were in the area.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixHcJJq8Cbmu44_Dnf_wtULTPrZV29yWS88TurhvkiYPe_zkrcdGygvq4ybwhwm7NCsfE2ZoYvMB5eNLJPojJzZ5_yrvGuwHv55ghL_ecr1vlapva21AP90PHGDuYW4FHCHLage8qyK_o/s1600/2011-10-09+07.40.53.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixHcJJq8Cbmu44_Dnf_wtULTPrZV29yWS88TurhvkiYPe_zkrcdGygvq4ybwhwm7NCsfE2ZoYvMB5eNLJPojJzZ5_yrvGuwHv55ghL_ecr1vlapva21AP90PHGDuYW4FHCHLage8qyK_o/s1600/2011-10-09+07.40.53.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhraCK8ybv_fGphPpFYP9z9KjVmVcpR1AHBUlu0kyes4q0pAQDxnT90TglyjmxvP1wKRWPfYKsce-D1UL6ODeKH4XW3ONRnmcZUGvKtvbTq-t1nXHCmLJQxXSDT9Hyij0v1TbK1NjVup8I/s1600/2011-10-09+07.39.22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhraCK8ybv_fGphPpFYP9z9KjVmVcpR1AHBUlu0kyes4q0pAQDxnT90TglyjmxvP1wKRWPfYKsce-D1UL6ODeKH4XW3ONRnmcZUGvKtvbTq-t1nXHCmLJQxXSDT9Hyij0v1TbK1NjVup8I/s1600/2011-10-09+07.39.22.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a>The van needed to be gassed up before we set out (fuel
prices were good in Hampton, VA). We also needed to replenish our cash supply; however,
the ATM at the gas station had a limit on how much cash it would dispense that was
lower than our intentions. A bank we came to next had a drive-through ATM, but
it was closed. These stops delayed us and we didn't quite reach the Chesapeake
Bay Bridge-Tunnel by sunrise, which occurred a few minutes after 7:00 AM. The toll
booth was no problem; the woman inside cheerfully took our fee. This is the third
bridge we've had to pay to cross (the other two were the Mackinac Bridge in
Michigan and the Governor Nice Bridge in Maryland). Otherwise, we've avoided
and hope to continue to avoid paying tolls.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9dPmdmuRgkMOT0b6X3C_YAfaaP4Wi1ISQ1rMa3gzaldyT7wtgn-f0TSwGxVJ-5I2WaHxmacscSBZcwZsrAoSNtUWVKVnLyBFZoQ4u79XAf8bV7Qjiftn4Xet8skcRB7CmZ5hYkPk0wtU/s1600/2011-10-09+07.41.35.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9dPmdmuRgkMOT0b6X3C_YAfaaP4Wi1ISQ1rMa3gzaldyT7wtgn-f0TSwGxVJ-5I2WaHxmacscSBZcwZsrAoSNtUWVKVnLyBFZoQ4u79XAf8bV7Qjiftn4Xet8skcRB7CmZ5hYkPk0wtU/s1600/2011-10-09+07.41.35.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimVI86VfsEZ53bQkodz0yhIdpGkwkbeCvkKqXX6EgFIP7QwjxDcyW0h55EkCXVMTcA9xuxCbJbJuVF506Iz3Pag8TE7lnmlVt3ECHRIxW01Rp7aYTHUAKW0DeOQ6N6taepXuLGmCeEPb8/s1600/2011-10-09+07.40.30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimVI86VfsEZ53bQkodz0yhIdpGkwkbeCvkKqXX6EgFIP7QwjxDcyW0h55EkCXVMTcA9xuxCbJbJuVF506Iz3Pag8TE7lnmlVt3ECHRIxW01Rp7aYTHUAKW0DeOQ6N6taepXuLGmCeEPb8/s1600/2011-10-09+07.40.30.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>We had the bridge-tunnel almost completely to
ourselves. The sun was up less than half an hour when we stopped at a rest
plaza to take pictures of it, glinting on the open water. Seagulls posed among the
salt-sprayed rocks and we found bait-sized squid dumped in the parking lot
beside our parking spot. It seemed odd that those seagulls hadn't bothered to
pounce on them. The entire bridge was lined with light posts at regular
intervals; each light fixture had its attendant gull perched upon it and as we
drove this gauntlet of gulls, Hitchcock's movie the "Birds" came to
our minds.</div>
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<br /></div>
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We drove north through the Delmarva Peninsula, still
in Virginia, and I watched my GPS counting down the miles to Maryland. We
finally entered Maryland once again and drove past a lot of green landscape but
saw no banks from the highway in any of the towns along the way. </div>
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<br /></div>
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We then entered Delaware, our 33rd state. Oddly, as
we drove within this state, we saw almost no license plates from this state.
These had eluded us throughout our trip and they continued to be elusive even
now that we were in Delaware, proper. </div>
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<br /></div>
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We pulled into Greenwood, DE for fuel and cash. I
saw a drive-in ATM at the bank across the highway so, while Razelle was busy in
the convenience store attached to the gas station; I walked across the highway
and patiently stood in line behind a car with an elderly couple in it taking
care of their ATM transaction. When they pulled away they looked at me
suspiciously. The cash withdrawal limit here was $250, same as everywhere else.
I resigned myself to that and followed through with my transaction. </div>
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<br /></div>
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At the food court where Razelle was waiting for me I
studied the giant map of Delaware on the wall. I saw that ahead of us lay two
choices, a toll road (Delaware 1) or a free road (US 13 – the DuPont Highway). We
haven't taken a toll road yet and I planned to keep that record intact today. Avoiding
these meant that getting through Dover took us a while, so we stopped at a Walmart
in Dover to use the bathrooms (we certainly know our way around a Walmart store
by now). There were a lot of Delaware license plates parked here, but not an
overwhelming majority. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Half way to Wilmington, DE we finally entered expressway
traffic and drove along with a vast number of other Sunday-slash-Columbus-Day-weekend
drivers. We entered Pennsylvania, our 34th state and within the first mile came
to a visitors' information center and pulled in. I had it in mind to drive
within Pennsylvania up to where George Washington crossed the Delaware River
(Washington Crossing, PA), so I asked for tourist pamphlets for that section of
Pennsylvania. When I got back to the van, Razelle was on the phone with someone
we were scheduled to see in the coming days – so much tight planning, so little
time left to do it all. I explained to Razelle that Washington Crossing was my
next destination, but she wasn't interested in seeing it. OK, so I altered the
route in my GPS and pointed us toward the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia instead.
I didn't want to just drive past this whole swath of geography without stopping
for something of tourist value. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Still avoiding toll roads I steered us into
Philadelphia's highway system. Within Philadelphia we left the Delaware
Expressway and took the Vine Street Expressway, and ran right into the tightest
congestion of Sunday-slash-Columbus-Day-weekend drivers one could have only wished
to avoid. By now the Liberty Bell had also lost its appeal to Razelle. The Vine
Street Expressway dumped us in slow-motion onto the Schuylkill Expressway (I
can't pronounce it; it's lucky I got the spelling right), which afforded us a
glimpse of the back side of one of Philadelphia's most important museums ("Rocky"
ran up and down its front steps in the eponymous movie) across the water (when
retaining walls didn't block our view). Our speed picked up after that and forward
progress looked promising. We'd had our fill of Philadelphia by now and our thoughts
turned to New Jersey. </div>
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<br /></div>
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We exited onto Roosevelt Blvd (US 1) and continued
to move along well – until we came to our first traffic light. We were now in a
residential neighborhood of strong ethnic character (black). The boulevard
consisted of the express lanes we were in, separated by a divider from the local-traffic
lanes used by drivers getting on and off at side streets. Express or no, every
mile or so we came to another set of traffic lights – and they were always
against us. While we sat at red lights we heard car radios beside us blaring rap
music with the "N-word" in the lyrics; very puzzling to me how such a
word that is so offensive to them can be so casually incorporated in their
music (and played so loudly). Finally, with the residential traffic behind us,
we came to the Delaware River and crossed it without having to pay a toll, to
enter New Jersey our 35th state (thank you New Jersey for the free pass).</div>
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<br /></div>
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New Jersey – that magical word pair. For more than
12,000 miles our focus has been on getting our van back to New Jersey without
incident, through all kinds of terrain and climatic conditions, and we did it! Our
van bore New Jersey license plates and it was finally on home soil. We blended
right in with all the vehicles around us.</div>
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<br /></div>
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We thought traffic in Philadelphia was bad. New
Jersey wasn't an improvement. We only had 40 more miles to go to reach Matawan.
Most of this distance was between and not within cities on an arrow-straight
section of US 1. The maddening thing was that because this section is straight,
we could see all the cars in a line ahead of us, stopping more than going for
most of those miles. We called ahead to let Mark and Evelyn in Matawan know we
were about an hour away (when that seemed to be the case) but it took us much
longer than that to reach our turn-off from US 1 toward Old Bridge and Matawan.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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By the time we reached North Brunswick, NJ we needed
to fuel up again. We were lucky to pull right up to a pump. A single harried
turban-wearing Sikh gentleman was responsible for pumping everyone's fuel. An
argument broke out with a customer who had pumped her own gas. In New Jersey,
as I understand it, self service is forbidden. Security cameras monitor such
things. The customer gave the Sikh gentleman her phone number so she could
explain to whoever might want to fire this attendant that she was to blame,
not he. </div>
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<br /></div>
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It was a relief to get off the road by the time we
pulled into Mark and Evelyn's driveway, some ten hours after we had set out
this morning before sunrise. We would have been here sooner and with less angst
if we had taken toll roads: the bane of the East Coast from my perspective, but
a fact of life from Razelle's perspective. From now on, I won't avoid them
anymore.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Mark and Evelyn came out to greet us when they heard
us pull into their driveway. Mark is my first cousin, and close enough to me in
temperament to be practically a sibling. My affinity for him and Evelyn is such
that in no time at all we found ourselves conversing on a wide range of
common-interest topics and enjoying ourselves immensely. Razelle has a great
deal in common with them too, with their background in cinema and literature.
We four never exhausted the topics that came up; each segued into another. Meal
time didn't interrupt our conversations and our fascination with them. We
gathered around the table as Evelyn, who had taken our dietary needs into
consideration – I with my ring and Razelle with her food allergies – brought
out a number of different dishes for us to choose from. We found plenty to eat.
The featured main dish was salmon. Once this trip is over we should
consider compiling a "Chinook Cookbook". Each of our hosts did something different
to personalize their presentation of this fish.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Mark is a movie critic and he sometimes has the
privilege of viewing films before the general public does. He was excited about
a documentary on "Shalom Aleichem" he had reviewed and thought we'd
appreciate viewing. It turns out, through research I had done on our family
tree, that the towns in the Ukraine our forbears (Mark and mine) may have come
from are quite likely the same towns in the Ukraine that claim Sholem
Rabinovich as their favorite son. Razelle and I watched this documentary with
great fascination. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I began to have trouble staying awake by the time
the film ended. Mark and I took apart the couch we were sitting on, tugged on
it this way and that, and – voila! – it was a bed! Razelle was very impressed
with this item of furniture – an authentic Castro Convertible. She has always
wanted to own one of these. It wasn't long before I was fast asleep on it.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-20713679698443425892012-05-06T01:02:00.001+03:002014-04-23T01:20:21.769+03:00Virginia day 1<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4azTJfXyVImZTtkrwbPlfCQknSWNkkgogrX8XtSJw9IcIoE31pcUfuKAt9APZxrywDVyrQWWKAYxj1tD1bSmYr4BbQZf03GYJ6LfjANHdrurq-bmSYc7ra_V036q-5xKLcmlVA8nZDnA/s1600/Hampton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4azTJfXyVImZTtkrwbPlfCQknSWNkkgogrX8XtSJw9IcIoE31pcUfuKAt9APZxrywDVyrQWWKAYxj1tD1bSmYr4BbQZf03GYJ6LfjANHdrurq-bmSYc7ra_V036q-5xKLcmlVA8nZDnA/s1600/Hampton.jpg" height="181" width="200" /></a></div>
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October 8</div>
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Yom Kippur</div>
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<br /></div>
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We woke up often during the night. Apparently all
the hydrating we did had to go somewhere. We have jars for this purpose in the
van, but we had never filled them as full before as we did last night. I
wondered what the point was in hydrating so thoroughly when it all seemed to
have been processed by daylight.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Services began at 9:30 AM so we had time to just
relax in the van and wait for that hour to approach. We were fasting so there
wasn't much else from our usual morning routine to do, except to freshen up a
little. We went to the social hall ahead of the scheduled time and waited for
others to arrive. We sat in the same seats we had occupied the night before.
Sitting there in the seat beside ours was the woman chazzan who had led Kol
Nidre and the other cantorial prayers so movingly last night. We told her how
much we appreciated the quality of her voice and the sensitivity of her
interpretation. I told her I could tell she must know Hebrew because her
pronunciation was so consistently correct. People arrived steadily and filled
up the seats and we had the chance to watch them and notice what they wore and
how they greeted each other. I find this a fascinating aspect of being a guest
in the congregations we've joined in prayer each Saturday and on this Holy Day.
</div>
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It was both a Saturday and a Holy Day (Yom Kippur is
considered to be the Sabbath of Sabbaths). The services incorporated all the
elements of a Saturday service, plus all the added prayers that remind us that this
is the Day of Atonement, the last day to pray for forgiveness for our sins of
the past year. The Torah was read clearly, followed by the Haftarah, which I
found hard to follow because of the reader's accent. So many extra prayers are
incorporated into the Yom Kippur service that the praying goes on a lot longer
than at any other time of the year, except Rosh Hashanah. This is good, though,
because while we are involved in prayer so intently, we don't dwell on the fact
that we haven't eaten or drunk since the afternoon of the day before. </div>
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When services were over we went straight to the van
to lie down a while; resting quietly while fasting helps make the time pass
better. However, it was too warm in the van to rest comfortably during the
middle of the afternoon, so we eventually gave that up and retreated to the
Rabbi's air-conditioned house. Shosh was in the living room with her little
ones. Razelle and I began to talk about all the places we have visited and all
the synagogues we've worshipped in along the way from Singapore to Australia to
Hawaii to mainland USA from California to Florida to here. The more we talked
the more entertaining we became. Rabbi Gila was working on a study session that
was scheduled for 4:15 PM before the afternoon prayers were to begin.
Overhearing us, she decided that our experiences would fascinate the
congregants who would be showing up for this study session. It isn't every day
one gets to meet round-the-world travelers, especially not Jews like ourselves
who placed such an emphasis on visiting Jewish congregations along the way. </div>
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<br /></div>
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At 4:15 PM we moved our discussion to the sanctuary.
We would be praying in this lovely space for the rest of Yom Kippur now,
instead of in the massive social hall. I really like the architecture of this
sanctuary, and I'm glad that Razelle now had the opportunity to sit in it as I
had on my previous visit and pray here. It's interior is constructed of the
warmest wood and is very inviting. That's how I feel about it, anyway. </div>
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<br /></div>
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An intimate number of congregants arrived at 4:15
PM. We were introduced to them as members of the congregation in Beer Sheva
where Rabbi Dror had previously served. They were told that we had paused here
to worship among them on Yom Kippur on our way around the world. We expected to
be asked questions about the trip, but instead they focused on the fact that we
were from a Conservative congregation in Israel and wanted to know more about
our synagogue and its members and our ritual practices. We answered their
questions until it was time for the afternoon prayers. </div>
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Before these prayers began, an officer of the
congregation whispered into my ear that the rabbi had told him I knew how to
blow the shofar (ram's horn). He asked if I would be interested in blowing the
shofar here at the closing of the prayer services. My heart skipped a beat. I
was thrilled to be asked and consented without hesitation, except that I didn't
have a shofar with me. This officer led me into the Rabbi's study where three
shofrot were set on a table. I picked up the one that looked most like my own
at home and tried to see if a tiny sound would come out. I blew a staccato
breath into it and a tiny toot came out. This one seemed promising so I wrapped
it in a prayer shawl and took it back to my seat next to Razelle. I gave her a
peak at it and a beaming smile lit up her face.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The Torah service came up quickly and Razelle and I
were invited to have the honor of raising and dressing the Torah scroll after
it was read. Next, the Book of Jonah was read by a congregant and I couldn't
help chanting along under my own breath because I have had this honor many
years in a row now, back in Beer Sheva. </div>
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<br /></div>
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During the silent part of the evening prayers that
followed next, the members of the congregation were encouraged to go up to the
ark one-by-one on their own initiative to say a personal prayer while the ark
remained open for the last moments of Yom Kippur. I took a turn. I gazed upward
into the open ark and prayed for so many things in one go: for health of loved
ones, for safe passage the rest of our journey and for the safety of Israel. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Finally we reached the end of the prayer service.
Four gentlemen (myself included) went up before the congregation and lined up
in front of the ark. I was left-most among them. Two of these men had long
showy horns, the one to my right had a short horn ornamented with silver, and I
stood there with the short, unadorned horn I had selected in the Rabbi's study.
The note was called out and all four of us started at the same instant. The
congregation held its collective breath as the four horns mixed their sounds in
a blast that reaches the innermost parts of a listener's very being. Soon the
longer horns both became silent, and only I and the man to my right with the
ornate horn continued. Finally he ran out of breath too and I continued solo as
long as I dared before I stopped with an upturn of the note I'd held so long. I
was pleased with myself and very honored to have been asked to do this here. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The congregants appeared visibly moved. The man to
my right shook my hand. Apparently he is actually a musician and he knew what
kind of breath control this required. Rabbi Dror told me she missed hearing me
do this. It was she who had taught me in the first place and it pleased me to be
able to do this here for my teacher. I looked out at Razelle and she was
crying. I came to sit beside her and she was too moved to speak.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Following the service we all filed into the social
hall again. Food and drinks and tables and chairs were set up there for us to
break our 25-hour-long fast: bagels and lox and cream cheese – again. Razelle
had seen the High Holiday prayer book in the window of the gift shop. The woman
in charge was willing to sell us two before she went home to her family. I had
to go out to our luggage and come back with some money because I wasn't
carrying any on me during this Holy Day. She waited and I even rewarded her
patience by presenting her with the exact amount. We now own our own set of
these prayer books. </div>
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It had been a long day for all of us. We went back
to Rabbi Dror's house for a short while so we could say our good byes. We
intended to start our journey before sunrise tomorrow. We wanted to reach the
Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel by sunrise so we could appreciate the effect.
Rabbi Dror needed to get some rest after all the officiating that her function
requires of her. It was wonderful for us to have been able to see her in action
and to interact with her on this personal level, too. We bid her good night and
went out to our van. We fell asleep still glowing from the events of the day.</div>
</div>
The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-24148893488195774212012-05-05T18:28:00.001+03:002014-04-23T01:12:33.836+03:00Maryland to Virginia<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-MacNhXw0utyPD09ToScaQC8RZkguogRwlGNUYjCm_vYMIKRkoOdLvcc2cJ-xv0N8LOLKC9YDRFY_20vFWaWdLYfhIGmMw7N2gMKlyfkIYO63BK6IUc8NA6TQ2BYptuULyL-sJ4iBf3E/s1600/Baltimore-Hampton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-MacNhXw0utyPD09ToScaQC8RZkguogRwlGNUYjCm_vYMIKRkoOdLvcc2cJ-xv0N8LOLKC9YDRFY_20vFWaWdLYfhIGmMw7N2gMKlyfkIYO63BK6IUc8NA6TQ2BYptuULyL-sJ4iBf3E/s1600/Baltimore-Hampton.jpg" height="200" width="117" /></a></div>
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October 7 </div>
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Erev Yom Kippur</div>
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<br /></div>
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We woke up early this morning. Ralph was the only
member of his household awake also. A low sun was hidden behind low clouds as I
dragged our bags out to the van and did my best to avoid the heavy dew on the
tree lawn. It was cold enough in the van to warrant turning on the heater. A
swipe with the wipers to clear the dew off the windshield and we were off on a
new day of travel. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The route I programmed into the GPS showed we had
4:45 hours to our destination in Hampton, VA. This route was designed to avoid
the congested interstate loops around Baltimore, Washington and Richmond. We
headed directly into the heart of Baltimore on Reisterstown Rd and noted the
look of the old row homes we drove past. They must have had a glorious past.
They looked stately, uniformly made as they were of dark red brick with white
trim. Many had bay windows. Sadly, poverty lapped at their doorsteps – wooden
porches on too many of them needed repair, or had been ripped away altogether.
Some were boarded up. A patina of poverty spoiled their historic dignity. We
came to the business district and traffic moved along well. A broad boulevard
named for Martin Luther King flowed well also, as it took us up to the baseball
stadium and around the football stadium to where the Baltimore-Washington
Parkway begins. We picked up speed and were pleased with ourselves for taking
this route directly through Baltimore without any delays. The Beltway was
flowing too, as it took us to the beginning of Interstate 97 which set us on our
southward course to the Crain Highway (US 301). I depended heavily on my GPS to
keep track of all these different names and numbers and Razelle marveled at how
many of these had to be navigated just to get us through the municipal maze. </div>
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<br /></div>
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We passed through bucolic Chesapeake landscape and
made good time. I was weary of a school bus we caught up with as it drove its
morning rural pick-up route, but I managed to get past it before it made any
stops. We pulled into the Walmart in Waldorf, MD to buy beverages to drink for
the rest of the drive. We would be starting our Yom Kippur fast late in the afternoon,
so drinking fluids as much as we could before we had to stop eating and
drinking by that time was an imperative now. The chill of the morning had
turned into a bright warm day. It felt good to be cruising along watching the
scenery pass (I speak for myself; Razelle didn't get the same pleasure out of
this).</div>
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<br /></div>
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Just before coming to the Governor Harry Nice
Memorial Bridge we pulled into a visitors' center on the Maryland side for a
pit stop. The staff on duty thought we'd just entered Maryland and they wanted
me to sign a guest register. I humored them and signed, even though I was
leaving their state. I showed them that I hailed from a very distant land. They
showed me a signature that came from an even more distant land: from the United
Arab Emirates. That was certainly a "gotcha!" in Maryland moment. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Before we could cross this bridge we had to pay a
toll. Not a problem – they accepted cash. The bridge itself is quite narrow –
one lane in each direction – and an amazing piece of engineering with steel
elements going every which way and forming a webbed tunnel high in the air
above the broadest part of the Potomac River. Upon reaching the opposite shore
we were in Virginia once again.</div>
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<br /></div>
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This part of Virginia has so much to offer history
buffs. We passed signs leading us to landmarks worth spending the day – if not
an entire week – stopping to take in. But we were hard-pressed to reach our
destination before the fast began and the solemn Holy Day commenced. At Port
Royal, VA we took the Tidewater Trail (US 17) all the way to Newport News
before getting on an Interstate highway. Signs pointed out the way to the
birthplaces of Madison and Washington and to historic Yorktown, Jamestown and
Williamsburg. We said to ourselves, "next time we're here we'll see
these." We've been saying this everywhere we've been along this trip.</div>
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<br /></div>
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When we reached Hampton, VA my GPS failed to give me
sufficient notice which lane to be in and I missed my exit. Odd that it would
be lagging behind all of a sudden. I maneuvered my way back to where I needed
to be and we reached Rodef Shalom Temple just as Rabbi Dror was leaving to run
a quick last-minute errand. The timing couldn't have been more serendipitous.
She let us in so we could rest in her living room then, shortly thereafter, she
returned. I had been here once before on a previous visit so I felt comfortable
with this. Rabbi Dror and I had communicated by email and she was expecting us
– welcomed us – to observe Yom Kippur at her congregation and stay here for the
duration of this sacred day. She had prepared a meal for us in her kitchen:
baked salmon and steamed string beans. We had been hydrating ourselves all day
and continued to drink water here up to the last minute before the fast began.
Rabbi Dror gave us instructions how to stow anything uneaten and rushed off to
prepare herself to officiate during the service. I had time to take a quick
shower before we had to go to the Temple building ourselves.</div>
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<br /></div>
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We climbed into the cocoon of our van in travel
clothes and emerged as butterflies, dressed in our "going to worship"
apparel, including a shirt I'd just bought for this day, and a set of earrings
Razelle had bought for herself at the same time. As we entered the synagogue, I scanned the
faces looking for any I might recognize, so I could reintroduce myself to whomever
that might be. No one recognized me. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Razelle and I took prayer books from a table and
found seats in the far corner of the large social hall where the service was
being held. When Rabbi Dror took the podium to begin the service Razelle and I
looked at each other and smiled broadly. Of all the congregations we'd been to
on this trip, this one was the most significant to us. This was our Rabbi – our
Rabbi Gila. She may have been gone for 10 years, but as far as we were
concerned, she was only away on permanent loan. She still belonged to us. We
settled in and enjoyed the service. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The Kol Nidre prayer was about to begin. A woman
chazzan came to the podium and we all rose for the prayer. Her voice moved us.
We were most definitely in the right place for Yom Kippur. Razelle and I
followed the service in our prayer books and noticed how wonderfully these had
been compiled. Razelle decided we had to order a pair of these for ourselves.
Rabbi Dror gave her sermon. It was special to us because her delivery and
content took us back to the days when she had led services in our synagogue.</div>
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<br /></div>
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When the services were over we returned to the
Rabbi's house. We adults were all fasting now. We sat in the living room and talked.
Her daughter Shoshanna was there with her little ones, a precocious 5 year old
daughter and a newly born infant. We
knew Shosh from Beer Sheva and had been at her wedding. Shosh and Razelle talked
a bit, but the little ones needed attending to, so Shosh excused herself and
turned her attention to them. Rabbi Dror showed us what sleeping arrangements
we could improvise if we stayed in the house, but this meant one of us on a
single bed and one on the carpeted floor beside it, or alternatively, one on an
upstairs single bed and the other on a downstairs single bed. We really did
weigh these options, but in the end we opted to sleep in our van as we had
originally planned, parked as it was beside her house on an unobtrusive patch
of perfectly flat pavement in the cool night air with a breeze whispering
through the branches of the woodlot at the edge of the pavement and the chirping
of crickets to lull us to sleep. We pulled the van doors shut with us inside
and made the bed comfortable for a good night's sleep. We hadn't slept in the
van in a long time and we missed its coziness. It was the right choice.</div>
</div>
The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-76205702089565304472012-05-05T00:27:00.000+03:002014-04-23T01:00:40.229+03:00Maryland day 4<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf3sDqYNWASANp1RrG6ADl8QKW4B9TOXL85izvckpZQlJwfx2fH29Fz-zJ9LXago9Cc0R8_sA5TglQ3YfUu-oyUknb2rsnU-_Qrx50kSwsuZW9Qxb1IyEIlaBGBAdmcCJ-4dl0bwnHjJA/s1600/Baltimore-Owings+Mills.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf3sDqYNWASANp1RrG6ADl8QKW4B9TOXL85izvckpZQlJwfx2fH29Fz-zJ9LXago9Cc0R8_sA5TglQ3YfUu-oyUknb2rsnU-_Qrx50kSwsuZW9Qxb1IyEIlaBGBAdmcCJ-4dl0bwnHjJA/s1600/Baltimore-Owings+Mills.jpg" height="145" width="200" /></a></div>
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October 6</div>
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<br /></div>
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I spent this morning finishing up a set of blog
updates (three more are now written, bringing us as far as Detroit). I was in
the process of composing them when Razelle called up the stairs to tell me that
Tanya and Mel had arrived (right on schedule) and were waiting for me to come
down so we could go to a restaurant with them. I signed out of my programs and
shut down my laptop's open applications, then switched it off, which took a few
minutes, then descended the stairs to find an affable Mel and an impatient
Tanya. She must have been on a tight schedule, yet she managed to squeeze us
world-traveling relatives into it; my slowness in joining them must have been
cutting into other tasks she had scheduled.</div>
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<br /></div>
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There wasn't much time for conversation in the front
hall as I got myself ready to walk out the door and follow them down to the
vehicles parked in the street. We followed Mel and Tanya's car with our van and
drove out Reisterstown Rd yet again. We understood they wanted to take us to a
kosher Chinese restaurant, so when the Kosher Bite came into view we assumed
they were taking us to the same restaurant Ralph and the boys had taken us to.
But, no – our destination was a little farther up the road: David Chu's China Bistro.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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I have to say this place had a convincingly
authentic Chinese atmosphere to it. There were so many dishes to choose from on
the menu I didn't know where to start. The waitress spoke with a Chinese accent.
Tanya and Mel made small talk with us at the table while we waited for the food
we'd ordered to arrive. We spoke of our experiences on this trip as we always
do. Mel asked general questions, Tanya asked more specific ones. Eventually we
came to the end of the meal and rather than tarry over a cup of tea and
converse some more, Tanya paid for the meal and announced to us what size tip
Razelle and I were to leave on the table. She was in a hurry to leave and she
took Mel with her. That was our visit with these relatives. We had not seen
Washington DC to our satisfaction earlier. Today would have been a good day to
go back there to catch what we'd missed two days ago, but our pre-arranged family
visit with Mel and Tanya had taken precedent over going there today. Yet here
we stood, Razelle and I, in the parking lot at David Chu's, watching Tanya and
Mel entering traffic and vanishing from sight and we felt that the time with
them had been an empty formal social exercise and not much more. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I needed to shop for shirts because I hadn't packed a
white dress shirt for this trip that would be appropriate for Yom Kippur
services. We drove further out Reisterstown Rd until we found a Target store
near the Baltimore Beltway. I went straight to the Menswear Department. I found
socks my size (a rare occurrence) but no white dress shirts. I took the socks
to the cashiers' area and selected a $50 Virgin Mobile card good for unlimited data
access for a full month, while I waited in line to purchase both. I'd learned
yesterday that it would be a waste of money to spend less. Back in the van I
called Ralph to ask where he bought his white dress shirts. He suggested we
head for a store called Casual Male XL, located in Towson, MD. I set my GPS to take
us there, but on a whim, I changed the GPS settings to first take us to a
closer shopping plaza that had a JC Penney and a Macy's in it at the nearby Owings
Mills Mall. That's where I found the shirts I was looking for. The shirts
looked so good that Razelle prevailed upon me to buy more than just white ones.
I didn't know my size so I tried on several shirts in the dressing rooms until
I had the right sleeve length and collar size. I made a point to leave all the
pins and cardboard parts on the dressing room bench where they could be used
again to restore the shirts I'd tried on to their original display appearance.
It really was a pleasure to go shopping and come out of that store with
flattering clothes. I never liked shopping for clothes when I was huge, but
this time I was excited about the prospects of wearing these nice threads. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Razelle went to Macy's at the far end of the mall and
found something her size there she'd been looking for all across the country
(since Hawaii!). The clerk was very helpful and she and Razelle quickly became fast
friends. They commiserated about the fact that this clerk had a bad back, but
was not allowed to sit while she was on duty. This clerk was impressed with our
round-the-world stories and said we had inspired her to travel also. Razelle
gave her one of our magnets and her email address so the clerk (being Jewish
and about our age) could look us up when she gets to Israel. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Razelle also found a nice selection of clip-on
earrings in Macy's to finally replace the ones she'd purchased in Singapore and
left behind, sadly, somewhere in Western Australia. The price was good, but it would
have been even better if Razelle had applied for a Macy's membership card. This
required Razelle to give them her social security number. She balk at that and
forwent the discount. All in all, we had a very successful day of shopping. We
both came away happy.</div>
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<br /></div>
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We returned to Ralph and Anita's in good spirits. Razelle
returned to the mission at hand, which was to finish reading the rest of "The
Land of the Painted Caves." I went back to composing notes on all that had
transpired during our trip so I could work with them later while writing the
remainder of the blog. I activated my Virgin Mobile card and had no more
restraints on how much data I could consume on the Internet. This evening I was
finally able to post the entries I had been working on. For those who have been
following our progress on our blog, it will seem we have just reached Detroit
now, even though a month has passed since then. Those who have been following
us on Facebook at least know we have gotten to Baltimore. </div>
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<br /></div>
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In the evening, when Ralph and Anita and the boys
were all together, we had a chance to talk about the next leg of our journey
and how best to get through Baltimore tomorrow (either before or after rush
hour) so we can reach Hampton, VA before Yom Kippur begins and fasting
commences. Because it seemed best to me that we leave earlier than rush hour,
we decided to do all our packing tonight before retiring. We had more clothes
to pack away now, but our bags can accommodate this. And storing things in the
van is not a problem, either; it just means more clutter and less room to
stretch out. We have been carting along a pair of camping chairs we purchased
in Thousand Oaks, CA at our first Target. I don't recall that we ever used
them. We think they may be handy for seating in Ralph's Sukkah, so these are
staying behind in Baltimore and we hope they get used well here, with our
blessings. </div>
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<br /></div>
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One last gesture remained. Anita let Razelle go
through her cache of paperbacks to see if anything appealed to her for reading
material along the way. Razelle came away with perhaps eight more books to keep
herself occupied. Anita was glad she could do this for Razelle. </div>
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<br /></div>
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We needed to get up early the next morning so we
didn't stay up late. We went to bed reflecting on how nice our stay in
Baltimore had been. </div>
</div>
The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-46915609490802250402012-05-04T12:55:00.001+03:002014-04-23T00:51:25.034+03:00Maryland day 3<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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October 5</div>
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Razelle spent the morning reading Anita's copy of Jean
Auel's "The Land of the Painted Caves" the final novel of the "Clan
of the Cave Bear" series (as we call it), recently published and only available
in hardcover so far. Razelle has to get through this book and leave it behind
when we leave Baltimore so she was intensely involved in that silent endeavor.</div>
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<br /></div>
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While Razelle was at this, I took time to explore the
neighborhood on foot this crisp sunny autumn morning and go buy a charge card
to top up my laptop, this being the last day my $50-unlimited-use-for-a-month Virgin
Mobile card had left on it. Since we have only 10 days left in the US before we
move on to the next country, I thought it would be a good idea to only buy a
$10 card (or at least worth trying), which should be good for 10 days (if I don't
overuse it). I walked down to the corner traffic light at Reisterstown Rd and
Northern Parkway to the Walgreens store. They didn't have the right mobile card
denomination so I continued down Reisterstown Rd another block and found what I
needed at a Dollar Discount store.</div>
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<br /></div>
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All the people I passed along Reisterstown Rd were black. I
was the only white person I saw walking along this thoroughfare (alone). I
tried to be nonchalant about that, but not having lived in the US for so many
decades I had no idea whether or not I was being naïve about my safety. The
most disconcerting thing was listening to conversations I overheard as I passed
small groups of males, talking among themselves and letting the
"N-word" pepper their speech liberally. I also heard music someone
passing me on the sidewalk was playing loud enough to be heard; he chanted
along with its rap lyrics, which also had the "N-word" come up every
so often. I just glided through this scene as unobtrusively as I could to
return to the supposed safely of Ralph's street. Once there, I took time to notice
the shade trees that lined the pavement. My footsteps lightly crunched the
leaves that were beginning to fall onto the sidewalk this time of year. These
trees also dropped acorn/chestnut-type fruit (beechnuts?) onto the sidewalks
and tree-lawns and into the gutters. I may learn their identity eventually, but
for the time being they are not familiar to me.</div>
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<br /></div>
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When I returned Razelle asked to go out too. She was
interested in eating out somewhere. We got into the van and drove up
Reisterstown Rd in the opposite direction from the one I'd walked. Last night,
we drove a long stretch of Reisterstown Rd from that direction when we'd
returned from Washington and I had seen a lot of commercial centers, closed at
that late hour. I thought Razelle would like to see what kind of choices this
area had to offer (she was asleep as we passed last night so she missed seeing
it). One shopping plaza after another came into view. We found an old familiar
eatery that has never disappointed: IHOP, and we alighted there for a meal. For
a change, instead of ordering my usual bowl of grits, I ordered a bowl of
oatmeal. Our waiter was a tall thin and cheerfully talkative and attentive
black man. He seemed to have had a good education and I thought he might in
fact be a manager instead of a waiter, because he was older than the usual age
of the waiters we've encountered on our journey across America. He talked
economics with Razelle and remarked about the competitor across the street
adding solar panels on the roof of their business, so he revealed an awareness
of structural engineering too. Then a superior of his handed him a broom and
dustpan and I realized he wasn't a manager. I hope this man can find a job some
day, when the economy turns around, that can utilize his talents better. At
least he is working and there is dignity in that.</div>
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<br /></div>
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We returned to Ralph and Anita's. At the top of the stairs
in their house I entered our bedroom and violently ran my right knee into the
bedpost. I collapsed onto the bed and waited for the agonizing pain to subside
from my aching patella and feared that this might be the "end of the road"
for this road trip. If my right knee were now damaged I wouldn't be able to
drive anymore. I willed the pain away and after a while I dared to try
standing. My knee was tender, but otherwise undamaged. Whew, that was a close
call. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I worked on my blog and will soon be posting some new entries, finally. These will bring my blog up to our arrival in Detroit, a full month after the fact. I have fallen so far behind and
our last several days ahead are so packed with visits to people and religious
holidays that I don't see how I'll be able to catch up completely with where we
are currently located as we travel. I will finish this blog, I promise, no
matter what, even if it is written in retrospect from notes. I also used my new
Virgin Mobile card to do a lot of route planning on the web on Google maps. It is
getting to be critical now just how much distance we have left to drive. An obligatory
oil change will be due by the time we complete the projected distance I estimate
we still have left to finish our trip south to Virginia, then north to
Massachusetts then south again to leave the van in New Jersey. I wanted to determine
whether our route might go beyond the mileage still left before the oil change ends
up being my responsibility instead of theirs. It will be close. Doing this
research, however, I used enough megabytes that my 10-day card won't last past
tomorrow – an experiment in thrift that didn't have the outcome I was hoping
for.</div>
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Anita spent the afternoon cooking a special meal for us. She
is a holistic nurse and prepares macrobiotic dishes that one doesn't encounter
every day. This is what makes them special. There are roots and grains and
vegetables in her dishes you can't readily identify from common experience
because they are special too. When she tells you what they are you can't help
but smile. Of course you've heard of them, many times in fact, but rarely (if
ever) tasted them. These dishes take longer to prepare, so Razelle and Anita
had lots of time together in the kitchen to talk about subjects that interested
them and to bond as sisters-in-law. This is the longest time Razelle has spent
alone with Anita since she married Ralph. By the time Ralph came home from
work, all was ready. We all gathered around the table: Ralph, Razelle, Anita,
Yehudah, Yair and I, to eat as one large family.</div>
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That's what this part of the trip is for: to reconnect with
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The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-30602302688286265292012-01-23T02:16:00.000+03:002017-06-28T22:45:30.289+03:00Maryland day 2, including District of Columbia<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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October 4</div>
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Today's planned itinerary was to take us into Washington DC to see the sights and then to meet my cousin Guy at the end of his work day at the Department of Agriculture and go with him to his home in Wheaton, MD where his wife Hannah would get to meet us. That was the plan, at least.</div>
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Razelle didn't realize how long it would take us to travel from Baltimore to Washington, nor were the logistics of getting around in Washington clear to her. I had done the research and had failed to paint the full picture for her. So, as the day progressed, we found ourselves with less time to work with and progressively more adjustments to make to have the original plans come off somehow. Razelle had expressed a great interest in seeing Washington. Fulfilling her request was my noble intention. </div>
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Before we left Ralph's place I made several trips out to the van to bring in all the pieces of our baggage that we didn't want to lose while the van was left vulnerable all day in a metropolitan DC parking lot. We had the luxury of keeping it all in Ralph's house so we took advantage of that. </div>
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I set our GPS to take us to the Silver Springs, MD Metrorail station because there is a ticket agency near it where 1-day passes can be purchased. These passes cannot be purchased within the stations. It took us an hour to reach Silver Springs and when we got to the Metrorail station there, expecting everything to go smoothly, we found that a lot of construction was going on and there were no free parking lots. There were multistory parking garages, but the clearance at their entrances were too low for our van. We tried parking up the street at a lot in front of a pharmacy, but the sign said, "1 hour customer parking only." I returned to the ticket agency and sent Razelle in with instructions and money for the 1-day passes while I sat in the van beside the construction site. When she came out she told me they advised against 1-day passes so she didn't get them. </div>
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I could see that this Metrorail station was a bad choice, so I reprogrammed the GPS to take us farther away from the District to the White Flint Metrorail station in North Bethesda, MD. There were some open-air parking lots here, but they didn't look like we could use them. The multi-story parking garage entrance did have enough clearance so we pulled up to the gate. The woman at the gate had a terrible speech impediment; we strained to understand her instructions while still remaining sensitive to her disability. It eventually became clear that we had to buy two rechargeable magnetic cards that would have enough funds on them to cover the cost of our rides and still have enough left over on one of the cards to pay for parking when we returned. </div>
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Having parked the van, we headed for the station, but Razelle was hungry and didn't expect to find a place to eat along the National Mall once we got there. Across the boulevard we saw places to eat. Razelle settled on a bagel deli that looked just perfect. I had no appetite so I drank a couple of bottles of Snapple Pink Lemonade. </div>
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We then returned to the Metrorail station and finally were on our way into DC on the red line (the color was important to keep track of so we could get back to this station at the end of the day). After transferring to a blue line and riding two more stations we got off, took the escalator up and popped up out of the ground into a lovely warm sunlit fall day near the Smithsonian. As we looked around us we saw serious-looking government buildings, joggers on the paths in the National Mall, and the phallic spire of the Washington Monument poking skyward. To help Razelle orient herself I walked with her out toward the middle of the Mall so she could see the Capitol Building at the far end (the Lincoln Memorial and reflecting pool at the other end were obscured by the mound that the Washington Monument sits upon.</div>
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Razelle saw the distances and decided she couldn't walk toward the Lincoln Memorial and all the war memorials at that end. She said, "Just take me to see the Smithsonian Museum and that will be enough." She wasn't aware that the Smithsonian is actually more than a dozen museums spread out all along the Mall on both sides, and elsewhere around the District. She was getting more frustrated by the minute. Her knees hurt and her pain was increasing with each step. There were no benches to sit on and nubile joggers passing along the running paths only served to make her feel worse. She headed for the Smithsonian Castle with me in tow, but found that this was not a museum. She next went to the Hirshhorn Museum, where we found chairs to sit on in the outside courtyard. After she had rested a while we continued onward to the National Air and Space Museum. This was a museum that appealed to her very much. We went in and I left my driver's license with the concessionaire who gives out wheelchairs. Now we could relax and enjoy ourselves. </div>
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There is a lot to see in this museum. We paid to view a movie in the IMAX theater. In her wheelchair Razelle got VIP treatment. We took an elevator to the upper-level seats and an usher moved the velvet rope aside so Razelle and I could go in the exit and get comfortable. We watched "To Fly!" Razelle had to remove her 3D glasses to watch it because it was giving her motion sickness. I think the effect would have been more dramatic had we sat closer to the screen. I envied those who sat below us in the closer seats. </div>
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We toured most of the galleries and revisited a lot of history we ourselves had lived through. The space program began when we were impressionable children. The Wright brothers and Neil Armstrong and John Glenn were natives of Ohio, so the educational system where I grew up took pride in extolling the deeds of these "favorite sons." I also grew up near Cape Kennedy/Canaveral, and my father worked in the space industry so I followed all that very closely as a kid. Razelle, by the same token, worked for the Israel Air Force as a teacher, so all the aeronautics on display were systems she had taught about. Sikorsky helicopters were made in Connecticut near where she had lived so she took pride in that, too. </div>
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The museum closed at 5:30 PM and we were herded out at that time. Guy had finished work at 5:00 PM, but didn't mind letting us stay right up to closing time. I turned in the wheelchair and got my driver's license back. We met Guy on the street in front of the museum and walked with him to the nearest Metrorail station at L'Enfant Plaza. We waited with peak-hour crowds for a train that took us three stations to the Metro Center station so we could transfer to the red line. We caught that train and Razelle and I were able to sit, while Guy stood. </div>
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Along the way we had the chance to talk with Guy about all kinds of things, from his job to our genealogy. Guy spoke with Hannah on his cell phone about when we could be expected, but Hannah told him she'd be delayed because she was having the car serviced. The ride out to our station was sufficiently long that we had time to think of alternative plans because of the unavailability of their car. Guy and Hannah had a restaurant in mind near their home that served genuine Israeli cuisine. I got the address and programmed my GPS. Since we were going past the White Flint station on this line, we decided we'd get off there, pick up our van and drive ourselves to the restaurant to meet Guy there. It was a perfect plan, and that is what we did.</div>
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We met Guy at the Pita Hut. What a catchy name for an Israeli restaurant in the middle of Rockville, MD! It was the real deal, too, with an array of salads and a basket of pita and hummus and olive oil on the table to nibble on while we waited for Hannah so we could order. She called several times to let Guy know that the tire change was taking a lot longer than it was supposed to. She finally called to tell Guy to go ahead and order. Razelle ordered skewered meat and I had kebobs. For the hour we waited for Hannah in that restaurant we might as well have been in Israel. We soaked up the atmosphere while we listened to Israeli music in the background and heard Hebrew spoken among the staff. The only person in the room who couldn't speak Hebrew was our waitress. </div>
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Guy showed me material he had brought along that his great aunts in Arizona had sent him. These are the same nonagenarian sisters Razelle and I had met in Phoenix, and the same stories they had told us, word for word. I gave Guy some of my ideas about a restructured family circle, and reported to him how our visit to his great-aunt Belle and cousin Fred had gone in Columbia, SC. I also told him what I knew of the towns in Ukraine where our family may have come from. This is not definitive information, but a direction for further research. </div>
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Hannah was finally able to join us. She apologized profusely, but we told her it was not her fault. Guy handed her her food and she ate with us. We related some of our round-the-worldly experiences to her, and told her of our exploits with the van we'd been driving with all its foibles. I've always admired her gift of expression when she writes and I told her so. Razelle and Hannah talked about Hannah's job, which made for fascinating listening. I'm only sorry that we didn't have more time to spend with Hannah. We took Guy and Hannah out to see our illustrious "bordello-on-wheels" as Razelle calls our van. In the dark our mood lights looked really impressive, setting off the ceiling mirror the way they did. </div>
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We then got into our van and waved goodbye to Guy and Hannah. We still had the road back to Baltimore to traverse. All in all, what started out as a day that didn't meet our original expectations of doing Washington, DC justice turned into a day we really did enjoy. We had a good time touring the one museum we saw thoroughly, we got to ride the rails of Washington's train system and we got to spend time with Guy and some with Hannah, too. There's no point in dwelling on what could have been. It really couldn't have been or it would have been. Besides, we will be in Baltimore a few more days. We might have another chance to come back here. If we do, we will know how to do it better next time. </div>
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The road back to Baltimore was not illuminated by overhead lighting, so the headlights in my rearview mirror were especially annoying and fatiguing. I couldn't wait to finally reach my exit in Baltimore so I wouldn't have to endure those lights. But the exit I wanted was closed for construction at that time of night and we had to go several miles farther before we could get off onto a major city street and double back. We had a long way to drive on this thoroughfare, past a lot of commercial centers and gas stations. I made a mental note of the prices for gas and the names of the shopping outlets we passed. By the time we turned off the van at Ralph's my stamina had been spent. It wasn't long before I was in bed, asleep.<br />
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RAZELLE'S PHOTO FROM THIS DAY<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sculpture at Entrance to Air and Space Museum, <br />Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC<br /></span></td></tr>
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The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-59896615147407407252012-01-23T02:00:00.001+03:002014-04-23T00:30:24.861+03:00Maryland day 1<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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October 3</div>
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After yesterday's arduous long-haul to Baltimore, neither Razelle nor I felt driven to accomplish much today. We had reached safe haven at Ralph and Anita's and we stayed put until the evening. The house was quiet when we woke up. Ralph had already gone to work and Anita was out of the house, too. Razelle's nephews, Yehudah and Yair were home, but fast asleep. Their pet guinea pig in its living quarters in the living room was awake, but not a substitute for human conversation. I got out my laptop and got busy on several fronts at once. Razelle found reading matter to occupy herself with while reclining in bed so she immersed herself in that. There is no television in Ralph's house, so silence reigned supreme for most of the morning. The weather outside was cold and overcast and the ground was wet from rain that had come down when we weren't looking, matting fallen brown leaves on the ground where they'd landed. It wasn't very inviting weather, so staying in had that much more appeal.</div>
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Ralph had several containers of loose change from charity organizations that he was in the process of sorting and wrapping for them so the coins could then be taken to a bank. They were already separated into bins by denomination, and I found myself picking through the quarters to see which states were on the reverse sides. This turned into an engrossing project, and soon I had an array of quarters on the table, state-side up, arranged alphabetically, just to see if all the states were in there. All but one – Missouri was missing; a no-show-me state, if you will. </div>
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I caught up with my email and sent out a few answers. One answer was to a yahoo-group in Beer Sheva I have signed into. Some of the answers to my posting that immediately returned were from people who thought we were already back in Beer Sheva. Soon, my dear friends, soon … 16 more days to touchdown in Israel. </div>
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My blog has fallen so far behind by now that its original purpose of keeping people informed of our whereabouts has been lost, so it is understandable that they had lost track of our location. I still want to record events so they won't fade from memory or all blur together. I used this quiet morning to make lots of notes to myself in outline form so I could put them together in the blog later; even though the entries have fallen behind, they will still reflect the events of the day as if they were fresh memories. </div>
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This morning Razelle told me she hadn't been to Washington since she was 8 years old. I hadn't realized this when I originally left Washington off the itinerary. She insisted that visiting the sights there was important to her. I immediately started putting together a plan. I spent the morning researching transportation options into and around Washington, DC. In 2002, when I was in Baltimore with Shalev, our cousin Mel took us from Baltimore to Washington and back, several days in a row. We drove to a train station in Maryland on the edge of the District and parked the car in a huge, free parking lot, then took the train into the heart of DC. I envisioned doing the same with Razelle. I couldn't remember which station it was, but I didn't think that was very critical. </div>
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There are a few important people in Baltimore I had hoped to visit during this trip. Two of these are the abovementioned Mel and his wife Tania, who live very nearby, and two more are my friend Bill and his wife Paula, who live just as close by. Mel and Tania knew we'd be in Baltimore – just not precisely when; but I hadn't had any contact with Bill or Paula since my previous visit to Baltimore in 2009 during my mother-in-law's Shiva mourning period. I'd have settled for a nice chat on the phone with Bill and Paula, but they insisted on having us over this evening. </div>
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Yehudah and Yair eventually awoke and came downstairs to make themselves a meal. We had a chance to chat and soon Razelle came down to join the three of us. She and her nephews then spent a good deal of quality time together around the table, talking with her about their hopes and dreams and career choices. I listened from the next room and was pleased at how well this family reunion between nephews and aunt was going. (Not having a TV translates into people spending more time relating to each other; having an open laptop running in your lap kind of defeats this.)</div>
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Ralph returned home at the end of his workday. We finally got out of the house. We had dinner at the "Kosher Bite," a kosher eatery practically around the corner from where Ralph and company live. The Kosher Bite had a very eclectic selection of dishes to chose from. The Jewish part of Baltimore that Ralph lives in is pretty closely packed with kosher eateries and synagogues and Shabbat-observant families, so, naturally, all of these are relatively nearby. That's what appeals to the Jews who choose to live in this part of Baltimore. At the end of a truly filling meal we parted company with Ralph, Yehudah and Yair and drove off to visit with Bill and Paula.</div>
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Bill and I had walked a section of the Appalachian Trail together, along with my two brothers and another guy. We had been in boy scouts together, and his family and mine and one other were the only three Jewish families in our old neighborhood in Toledo, OH. We had a lot of memories in common from our teenage years. In November 2009 I was able to visit with Bill and meet Paula for the first time since I emigrated to Israel. It was a very special reunion, then. All our Appalachian Trail stories were fresh and spellbinding and entertaining for Paula to hear. I wanted to introduce Razelle to them and vise versa this time. It was late in the evening of a long work day; they had a guest from Israel visiting them who is an American expat living in Beit Shemesh, and their daughter needed help with math homework, so the circumstances of the previous visit were not repeated during this one. I am very glad that I was able to see them again and grateful they made time to include us in their evening. We will have to do this again someday, but plan it farther in advance next time. We left so they could get enough sleep to function the following day. </div>
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We drove back to Ralph's and found Anita helping Yehudah and Yair study for an imminent exam at their college. We left them to it. Anita found some books Razelle was interested in reading, which made Razelle very happy. I had travel arrangements to go over for tomorrow and contacts to follow through on for stops we plan to make during the final days of our trip. These were what occupied my thoughts. I worked on my laptop within earshot, but soon found myself nodding off. I excused myself and joined Razelle upstairs where she was already starting one of the books she'd just received.<br />
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The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-46809401145092385122012-01-22T01:02:00.011+03:002014-04-23T00:20:01.720+03:00South Carolina, through North Carolina, Virginia and District of Columbia to Maryland<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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October 2</div>
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Razelle and I woke up early this morning. We had planned an ambitiously long drive to leap-frog over several states to reach her brother Ralph by the end of the day, over 500 miles to the north and at least 9 hours of driving time away (I expected it to take us as much as 12 hours with stops). We set our alarm for 6:21 AM, that magic hour our talking alarm clock once got stuck on at home in Beer Sheva and which we have continued to use as our wake-up time during all the years Razelle needed to get up for work. </div>
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Belle was up and dressed when I passed her door on the way to the bathroom for the morning routine. We got to talking about family history and some of the events her sisters had related to me while we were in Arizona. She told me how our family made the transition from Ukraine to US, based on all the stories she had listened to and absorbed as a child at family gatherings. We were involved in this conversation when Fred and Irene reminded me that we had planned to get an early start. </div>
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Razelle and I put our stuff in the van and shivered in the morning cold until the van warmed up. The sun had just risen and was slanting into our eyes; it hadn't had time yet to chase away the cold. It hasn't felt this cold in the van since Butte, Montana. We followed Fred, Irene and Belle to an IHOP out by the highway. We passed the same synagogues again and I pointed them out to Razelle. I wondered aloud what the congregation that meets at the conservative synagogue might be like. It was intriguing to think about it.</div>
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We were seated for breakfast at the IHOP near a table full of policemen. Apparently Columbia's finest appreciate the fine cuisine here, too. Seeing the policemen reminded Fred to tell me that in South and North Carolina the highway patrol allows some leeway with driving speed, but he warned me that speed limits in Virginia are strictly enforced. I told him I'd keep that in mind while in Virginia. Fred and Irene were annoyed that our waiter was not getting our order out to us, and he and Belle let the waiter know that Razelle and I had a lot of traveling ahead of us and he was delaying us. Their indignation got results. I had my usual bowl of grits. What better meal than grits could there be to start a Carolina morning? </div>
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I shared my information about aid to Israel with Fred this morning. He thanked me for looking it up and said he would read the websites I'd gone to. We talked some more about economic philosophy at the table and I was pleased by how politely this went. We hadn't met all the family members in Columbia, SC that I had anticipated meeting, but we certainly spent wonderful "quality-time" with Belle, Fred and Irene. </div>
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We spent over an hour here at this "schlock market," as Razelle called it, without realizing that that much time had passed. Inside the large gift shop we saw a lot of really cheap merchandise, but still, we found things we deemed worth purchasing. I bought some backscratchers, and we bought a canvas tote bag that looks like it will last. We also bought a souvenir refrigerator magnet. They had coffee mugs that have "SOB" (South of the Border) on them, but I couldn't bring myself to get one. Razelle chatted with the cashiers, whose southern accents were the thickest we'd encountered during our entire time in the South. They were required to stand the entire time they were on duty. If they sat they would be fired. We really felt sorry for them.</div>
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We crossed into North Carolina right here and entered our 30th state. There must be a lot of good reasons to take one's time seeing things in this marvelous state … but we didn't. We fixed our eyes on the road ahead and drove. Well, I did, anyway; Razelle had her eyes closed in slumber most of the time. We eventually did stop to fill the tank and take care of our needs at a "Travel Center" truck stop in Kenley, NC (you'll need an atlas to find it). I tried out my credit card at the pump, but when asked to enter my zip code it didn't recognize it. I know the drill by now. I went to the cashier and waited for verification. The cashier on duty didn't know what she was doing and messed up. She had to wait for a manager to push the right buttons and undo what she had done. This was a tense moment, because I didn't want to go through what I'd gone through in Florida all over again. The problem was solved and I bought my gas. Razelle and I toured this truck stop; we looked at a display devoted to Edward Teach, AKA Blackbeard the Pirate; we looked at merchandise that catered to professional truckers and, of course, we used the bathrooms. This place also had hot showers and a lounge and game room with a TV in it. Sunday football was on and I could hear the men roaring their reaction to a play on the football field all the way from the bathroom. </div>
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In the parking lot, we ate in the van before we drove off. Razelle watched a lower-class family of several adults and several children interacting among themselves. One of the kids pretended to use a payphone and his father squelched the child's imagination by telling him it was a foolish thing to do. This cultural vignette gave Razelle, herself an educator, a pique of sadness to observe. She said that this father had no idea what kind of damage this does when he mocks his son's imagination. </div>
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Driving ever-northward we next entered Virginia, our 31st state. I felt the need to pull off the highway at the tourist information rest stop we came to just inside of Virginia. While we were here, we saw some other interesting characters using this place for the same purposes. The one that caught Razelle's eye was a young man in a grey jumpsuit bound with ankle and wrist chains being escorted by a pair of female officers. We watched him shuffle out of a prison van, past our van and disappear with his guards into the building.</div>
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We were not making good time today, and the widest part of Virginia lay between us and Ralph. I remembered what Fred had said about speed enforcement (and I remembered the convict in chains) so I set my cruise control for exactly the posted speed and watched other motorists pass me for a while. Eventually, though, I bumped up the speed on my cruise control a bit more until all of us were traveling north at about the same pace.</div>
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Not long after the first pit-stop in Virginia I had the need for another. I wondered what I'd eaten or drunk that made this next stop so urgent. We found an exit and a place to go and I took care of it. However, the farther north we went, the more often and more urgently I needed to go again; and again and again. I wasn't able to last more than 20 minutes to half an hour. I was getting very worried. This was beginning to look like a major health crisis and I didn't know if it was going to get worse or finally go away. To make matters worse, we went through Petersburg and Richmond on I-95 in very heavy traffic that at times slowed to a crawl. And, with a light rain and dusk becoming darkness, the lights were distracting. I was not a happy camper. One of our stops was at a rest area between Richmond, VA and Washington DC, where a large tour bus also stopped. The men's room was free, but the women's room had a line out the door, so Razelle had to be patient. By the time we left this rest stop I must have finally drained my kidneys. The rest of the way into the District of Columbia was a lot easier to cope with, and the traffic had thinned out. </div>
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I had programmed the GPS to take us right into Washington, DC, past the Washington Monument and Capitol Building and out again toward Baltimore. The idea was to reach these national landmarks during daylight. But alas, it was after 9:00 PM by the time we saw these. Everyone had gone home, and the streets were conveniently empty; but we didn't see much. We recognized the Pentagon, the Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building as we passed by them. But we didn't stop to admire the view. Our day wasn't over until we could turn off the van in front of Ralph's home in Baltimore. So we pressed on.</div>
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We entered Maryland, our 32nd state, and drove on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway (Razelle said it reminded her of the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut), past Columbia, MD to the Baltimore Beltway around the west side of the city. Eventually, we reached our exit and I urgently needed to go again, but at least I'd lasted close to an hour, which meant my problem was subsiding. </div>
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We reached Ralph and Anita's home by 11:00 PM. It had taken us 15 hours to get here. It was an ordeal, I must admit. We traveled from Columbia, SC, through the District of Columbia, past Columbia, MD, to get here. The grass was wet outside Ralph's home. We dragged a minimum number of items across their wet tree-lawn and into their house and called it a day. I was too exhausted for much of a visit with my in-laws, but Razelle had slept enough during the day to do the visiting for both of us.<br />
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The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-37824699780671313202012-01-21T14:49:00.003+03:002014-04-23T00:05:53.734+03:00Georgia to South Carolina<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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October 1</div>
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October has arrived. Today we reached South Carolina and are now one state closer to New Jersey. We have 13 more days left to do everything we have left to do and to see everyone we have left to see before we return the camper in New Jersey; and we have 15 more days left before we leave the US on the next flight of our round-the-world ticket. We haven't been on an airplane since the last day of July. </div>
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We awoke this morning in Dunwoody, GA and all ate a nice breakfast together, thanks to Uncle Sandy's toaster and coffee maker. By now, Uncle Sandy, albeit with some reluctance, allowed me to show him that I understood how to make myself a cup of coffee with his machine. Razelle and I then dressed for Shabbat, gathered our belongings, packed them into our travel bags and stowed these in the van. We had arranged to arrive at Belle's place in Columbia, SC today at 5:00 PM, so we needed to hit the road right after services. </div>
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This Saturday was Shabbat Tshuvah, the Sabbath that occurs during the days of repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Congregation Or Hadash assembled at their usual place of worship for these services – not at the nearby Jewish Community Center, but a bit farther away in the Weber Jewish Community High School. Razelle and I arrived early enough to take seats I was happy with. A while later, Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy arrived and, this time, they were pleased with my choice of seats and sat with us. </div>
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Today was a bat mitzvah. Both of the rabbis again took turns running the service, and did so in a way that put everyone at ease as they smoothly shared the tasks at hand with each other and with everyone else who had a role in it. The bat mitzvah girl did a great job, and her speech afterwards reflected the quality of the education she had received.</div>
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After services, we joined the congregants in the reception hall. During conversations at the table with Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy we learned that this building is a high school connected to the Conservative Movement and that Atlanta's Conservative Jewish community also has an elementary school and a middle school, too. The Reform and the Orthodox movements also have their own respective elementary, middle and high schools. There is a Hillel Organization for Atlanta's many university students; Habad is active in Atlanta; and, as we saw earlier, there are all kinds of study groups, social events, youth programs and summer camps for Atlanta's Jewish community. Razelle and I found all this information to be very impressive. </div>
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I wasn't originally sure why Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy chose to live in the Deep South, in Atlanta, but from what Razelle and I saw during our time in this community, especially among the congregants my aunt and uncle chose to join, I can understand now why this community appealed to them. Interestingly, this congregation has only been in existence for eight years. Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy explained that Rabbis Mario and Analia were originally leaders of a different congregation in Atlanta that didn't renew their contracts (their Argentinean accents were too strong then). So they started their own break-away congregation, called it Or Hadash (new light) and a majority of the original congregants followed them. In the short time that Congregation Or Hadash has been in existence it has outgrown one building after another. It now has a property of its own and fund-raising is going so well that construction of its permanent home will soon begin. </div>
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After we had eaten and schmoozed, I went looking for Rabbi Mario to introduce myself as a member of Congregation Ashel Avraham in Beer Sheva, Israel. When our own Rabbi Mauricio left Argentina to go to Israel, it was Rabbis Mario and Analia who took over his congregation in Argentina before they, in turn, went to Atlanta. Rabbi Mario remembered me from last December's visit and greeted me warmly. Then I went looking for Rabbi Analia. I found her working with children from the pre-school and elementary school. They were rehearsing the reading of the Book of Jonah, which they would be reading and enacting during Yom Kippur services next Saturday. Kids too small to even be in first grade were reading and chanting the Biblical text perfectly, while their proud parents hovered in the doorway. I was so moved by the sight of this. A new generation of competent Jewish children is coming up, here in Atlanta, here at Or Hadash, under the leadership of these two rabbis, husband and wife. I left the building with a warm feeling about this place.</div>
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We drove off and soon entered the interstate highway system on the ring-road around Atlanta (I-285) going east. We passed the exit to Stone Mountain we'd taken several days ago and recognized where we were. At the interchange onto I-20 the ramp was closed. We drove two more exits beyond it before we resigned ourselves to being stuck joining all the other cars on the exit ramp making the same back-tracking maneuver. The station wagon creeping up the ramp in front of us was rocking as if some amorous couples were arduously going at it. We saw forms switching seats as if several large restless dogs were going from window to window to look out. We never did figure out what was going on in that car. It went in a different direction at the top of the ramp and left us guessing.</div>
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Interstate 20 took us into South Carolina, our 29th state. We took this route all the way to Columbia, SC without any delays. We remarked to each other how funny it is that a drive of five hours doesn't seem like anything out of the ordinary now, after all the distances we've covered in this van. We reached Columbia about half an hour later than scheduled and drove directly to the address I'd programmed into my GPS. When we reached the street with the correct name I noticed that all the homes had three-digit addresses, not four. The demographic was also wrong. Turns out Columbia has two streets with the same name. (Now I understand why people keep giving me their zip codes when they give me their addresses. I never bothered with zip codes before. Live and learn.) I rechecked my notes to find out what I'd done wrong, made a quick call to let Fred and Belle know I was in town and reoriented myself to get to the right address. We saw a bit more of Columbia, SC than we'd planned – the correct address was on the opposite side of town – but we reached our destination.</div>
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Fred came out to greet us. It was perhaps an hour before sunset by now, and there was a definite nip of coldness in the air. We hurried indoors to find Irene and Belle waiting inside. I was concerned that our lateness and confusion had make us late for the reception of relatives Belle said she was arranging, but the three of them were all we found waiting for us. Several other relatives from this side of my family live in the area, but none of them could make it. </div>
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Belle is 98 years young. Her mind is sharp and her memory of names and relationships of family members covering generations before and after her own is phenomenal. She is a family treasure. Belle has been keeper of the family chronicles for as long as I have been cognizant of such things. Belle is witty, but she also has strong convictions when it comes to the current economic and political issues of the day. Razelle and Belle and Fred debated these issues and all three of them thrived on this repartee. </div>
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The five of us piled into Fred's car (Irene, Belle and Razelle in back, Fred and I in front) and we headed to a restaurant. Fred pointed out some of the important landmarks of Columbia we passed along the way. We passed two synagogues. The first was Congregation Beth Shalom, affiliated with the Conservative Movement and running a Jewish Day School. The entrance sign by the road has a menorah on it and clearly states that this is a synagogue. The second was the Tree of Life Congregation, affiliated with the Reform Movement. Fred explained how far back the Jewish community goes and how prominent it was in Columbia's history. I had grown up thinking that Jews in the Deep South had to be weary of discrimination. Fred said that this is definitely the Deep South, but being Jewish here never was a hazardous thing in his experience. </div>
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At the restaurant I ordered a lettuce salad. This is a quarter of a head of iceberg lettuce with the dressing of your choice poured over it. I tried to amuse our young waitress by asking her if she knew what a "newlywed salad" is. She didn't. When I told her the punch line, "lettuce alone without dressing," she didn't get it so I found myself explaining it (let us alone without dressing). When she brought it to the table, though, she said with a smile, "Here's your newlywed salad, sir." I think she belatedly got the joke while she was in the kitchen. </div>
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Belle's age has not affected her ability to keep up with the rate of conversation at the table; the only problem is that her hearing is not so good and the restaurant was a bit noisy. Once we were back at her place where it was quieter, we talked at length about our trip and our meeting with her sisters in Arizona and about ideas for updating the Serbin Circle genealogy chart. Fred and I were on the same wavelength. I believe that in the electronic age in which we live, family-members-to-come will more likely refer to computer displayed versions of the chart than to a paper version in a frame on the wall. The outer edges of the chart are growing fast enough by now that the print has to be made smaller and smaller to get it all to fit in a picture frame. I proposed some other shapes for wall display, because that is what Belle insists on. I've had the entire journey across the US to think about these ideas, but when I explained them to Belle they didn't appeal to her. I have a .pdf file of the chart in my laptop to refer to when I visit my far-flung relatives. I attached it to an email and sent it to Fred's smart phone. He was thrilled to be able to carry it in his hand-held device and view it whenever he wants, and to be able to forward this file to others who request it. Fred gets my point; Belle doesn't.</div>
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During our conversations, Fred and Belle expressed opinions about US aid to Israel and about how Israel uses the aid it receives from charitable organizations. After we'd all called it a night and retired to our bedrooms, but before I fell asleep, I searched the Internet for factual answers to the issues they raised. I will let Fred and Belle know what I found when I see them in the morning.<br />
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The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-44646873293110657652012-01-16T18:57:00.001+03:002014-04-22T23:46:28.641+03:00Georgia day 5<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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September 30</div>
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Today was the second day of Rosh Hashanah. Because we had to sit where we could find available chairs yesterday, Razelle and I were determined to get to services earlier today so we could pick where we wanted to sit rather than have chance determine that for us. The large hall set up for services had so many chairs that there ended up being four different kinds of these. I studied them yesterday and considered which type of chair looked most comfortable to me and I also considered where I'd be most comfortably positioned among the congregants. Razelle and I left ahead of Uncle Sandy and Aunt Joan and by doing so we reached the gate to find no line of cars waiting to get in and after I dropped Razelle off at the entrance I found a place to park the van in the primary parking lot. We were not encumbered today with prayer books because we knew from yesterday's experience that there were plenty of these available inside. </div>
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Razelle and I met in the lobby and she let me lead her to the chairs of my choice along the central aisle, far enough back that I could see a large part of the congregation. Razelle knows from experience that I have an obsession about where I sit in theaters and auditoriums and restaurants and at dinner tables. I don't have a good name for this syndrome, so I just call it claustrophobia. Some find this endearing about me; others, I suppose, find it exasperating. A short while later Uncle Sandy and Aunt Joan arrived and I motioned them over to where we were saving seats for them. Yesterday, Uncle Sandy had been eying the cane-bottomed chairs in the section closest to the stage. He mentioned to me that those were where he had hoped to sit today if he had the chance. Today he indicated to me that there were still several available seats up there and he wanted all of us to follow him to those seats. I was happy where I was and would not have been happy that close to the stage with the congregation at my back, so I stayed put. In the end, Uncle Sandy chose to sit where he wanted and Aunt Joan followed him, and I sat where I wanted and Razelle stayed with me. </div>
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Today's service ran as smoothly as yesterday's service. The second day of a two-day holiday is usually a bit more relaxed than the first one. From my vantage point I could watch the congregants coming and going and I felt very comfortable being among them. I noticed how they dressed, who greeted whom, who sat with whom; I noticed that I was one of very few men without a suit and tie, but this didn't make me feel at all self-conscious. There was very little ostentation in the way either gender dressed. </div>
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Across the aisle from me sat a woman with a stroller and a young toddler of 14 months (so I was told by her mother). This little girl was extremely charming and sociable. She crawled and stood, and even walked a few steps before plopping onto her bottom and grinning. She offered what she was holding in her hand when she saw I was watching her, then withdrew it with a smile and crawled off to flirt with someone else. I couldn't help but realize as I watched this little one and her mother how much of our granddaughter's development we were missing during this protracted trip of ours around the world, and how much I looked forward to seeing our children and grandchild again when we reached home. That will be in 20 more days. Could it be that soon? Yes, that soon.</div>
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The sermon was delivered today by Rabbi Mario Karpuj. He and his co-rabbi/wife both have a synergism between them that is inspiring to watch. One of the first things he said before getting down to the sermon itself was that he promised it wouldn't be too long and that today the service would end at a reasonable time so that people could stay to the end without worrying about the guests they had invited to their homes. I found this very refreshing. This rabbi and his co-rabbi/wife understand their congregation on a human level that is endearing. He and she both have a charisma that is beyond anything we had seen so far. It was a joy to watch them in action. This was Razelle's first real exposure to the power of Rabbi Karpuj's oratory. We glanced at each other as he spoke and understood that both of us were equally moved by his words.</div>
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The shofar blowing today was an exact replica of yesterday. The man who blew the shofar was so consistent that one had to marvel at that very aspect of his execution. I would guess that he plays a musical instrument in "civilian life." His long blasts today matched his times for yesterday. At the end of the last long blast he returned to his family, who met him with congratulatory handshakes and hugs. I identified with his sigh of accomplishment at a task completed. I know that moment. I didn't have that moment this year. I wonder who blew the shofar in my absence, back in Beer Sheva. </div>
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When services were over today, in the timely manner the rabbi had promised, most of the congregants were still there. We flooded into the lobby and mingled a bit before heading out of the building. An alert policeman in a smart uniform stood at a convenient vantage point and watched over us all as we milled around. I walked up to him and thanked him for keeping us safe. He actually smiled to hear this from me. Uncle Sandy and Aunt Joan introduced us to a few of the well-wishers who came up to them. Kids with pent up energy chased each other in the courtyard near the fountain. We stepped into sunlight and basked in the warmth it provided. This was another bright and clear autumn day. </div>
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We all returned to Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy's home, kicked off our dress shoes and changed into more comfortable leisure clothes. Lunch today was just the four of us. Rosh Hashanah segued into Shabbat and we continued to relax. Razelle, who has been perennially starved for news had her pick of cable news channels to surf among (CNN actually broadcasts its domestic version from right here in Atlanta). She hasn't had such a luxury anywhere else we've been on this trip … until now. This was a special treat for her; I wonder if Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy realize how special it was. We got to watch a rebroadcast of Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" with a face-to-face interview he did with Bill O'Reilly of Fox News. Oh, the sparks that flew between them during that one! </div>
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Not being as easily hypnotized by the boob-tube, I eventually returned to my laptop to work on my blog some more and post one more entry before I called it a day.</div>
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The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-34753260248144691482012-01-16T18:37:00.000+03:002014-04-22T23:45:01.457+03:00Georgia day 4<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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September 29</div>
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Today was the first day of Rosh Hashanah.</div>
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We ate breakfast and got ourselves organized for this special Holy Day with anticipation. Uncle Sandy and Aunt Joan left in their car shortly after we left in our van. We had our invitation to the services with us and knew the address of the Jewish Community Center where the services would take place. The GPS was already programmed and all was in order. The route we took led us past an orthodox synagogue and we easily identified the people walking along the sidewalk toward it as fellow Jews on their way to praying for atonement on this solemn occasion. We reached the parking lot and waited in line behind the other vehicles; then, when our turn arrived, we presented our invitation and were waved right in. We were pleased to see the level of security at the gate, but a little surprised that we were asked no questions, as we might have been had we been in Israel.</div>
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I dropped Razelle off by the entrance and found a parking space in the secondary parking lot because the primary lot was already full. It was a bright sunny autumn day with crispness in the air and a tinge of color in the foliage of the trees. I locked up and secured the van and followed the others walking toward the building to find that Uncle Sandy and Aunt Joan were approaching the entrance too. We had brought prayer books with us but inside we found a large stack of them available on the table. We found Razelle waiting for us in the lobby. Uncle Sandy led us all to seats half way to the stage. Most of the closer seats were already occupied. We had arrived in time for the Torah reading, during which the name of own city of residence – Beer Sheva – is mentioned. Every year, my mother at this point in the Torah reading would proudly remark to whoever was sitting beside her, "Beer-Sheva – that's where my son lives." </div>
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The sermon was delivered by Rabbi Analia Bortz, who we had met on Tuesday at the Torah study group. It was a rather long sermon, with a powerful message and many, many good points; perhaps too many of them. After the Torah was returned to the ark it was time for the Musaf service and the blowing of the shofar. The man who blew the shofar sounded very competent. His execution was not quite the way I was taught it should be done, but he was perfectly consistent with the way he did it. This congregation does it differently than my congregation in Beer Sheva does it. Halfway through the series of blasts there was a set of responsive prayers, led alternately by each of the rabbis in turn; then the remaining series of shofar blasts were sounded, culminating in a long "tekiya gedola" that was perhaps 15 seconds long. Razelle and I exchanged glances. We couldn't help but compare his shofar blowing to my own. We continued to pray the rest of the service and I expected it to be punctuated with more shofar blasts, as we do it in Beer Sheva, but these were saved to the end and completed with one more final long blast exactly as long as the previous one. Uncle Sandy and Aunt Joan excused themselves before the end because the service had gone on far past the scheduled time and guests were expected for lunch at their home. Many others began filtering out by this point and Razelle indicated that she would like to leave too before the end. I went back to the van and drove up to the entrance to collect her.</div>
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At my uncle and aunts place we found the table set and soon their three guests arrived. These were our hosts from last night and our hostess's mother, now being hosted in reciprocation by Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy. Once again the food was delicious and the conversation was congenial. </div>
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After our guests left we took the opportunity to rest for a while. In the last waning hour of sunlight, Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy and I walked down the street to the bridge over the brook that passes through their community. On this bridge we recited the prayer for the "Tashlich" service; then we tossed bits of bread into the brook below, to symbolically cast away our sins into the water that would take them away. We watched the bits of bread float away on the water's surface, and I remarked that the best kind of bread to use for casting away our sins would ideally be cinnamon ("sin"-amon) bread. </div>
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The rest of the evening was spent quietly. It had been a meaningful day of reflection. We were pleased that we could spend it with the congregation we chose to be with for this holy day.</div>
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The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-55599289891448348702012-01-16T18:13:00.004+03:002014-04-22T23:41:44.951+03:00Georgia day 3<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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September 28</div>
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This evening the High Holidays began, the holiest season of the Jewish calendar. We have the rest of our trip mapped out from here on in, to accommodate the series of holidays that will follow. We will be spending both days of Rosh Hashanah here in Atlanta, as well as Shabbat, which follows immediately thereafter. We have been in touch with Belle and Fred in Columbia, SC and are now scheduled to reach them Saturday afternoon. Belle is inviting all the local relatives for this family event, and I'm looking forward to seeing so many of them in one place. We world-travelers have a measure of celebrity attached to us, and Belle, now 98 years old and a celebrity in her own right, wants to do this visit properly. We met her younger (also nonagenarian) sisters in Phoenix and I have been looking forward to seeing Belle ever since. After we leave Belle, we are scheduled to visit Razelle's brother Ralph and family in Baltimore during the intermediate days before Yom Kippur, and then be in Hampton, VA for Yom Kippur services with Rabbi Gila Dror. We are very excited about the prospects of being in her synagogue for this occasion. From there we plan to fit in Connecticut so we can visit Razelle's friends and family and also to visit Razelle's parents' graves; and finally, we plan to spend Sukkot with my brother Monte before we fly out of Kennedy Airport to London. </div>
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That brings me to the hotel reservation in London. This morning I committed us to paying for two nights at the Ibis Heathrow, even though we will only actually sleep there the first night. This is because our check-out time on the second day for our flight to Israel is so many hours after their regular check-out time that it's cheaper to pay for an extra day than to pay the hourly rate for those extra hours. </div>
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Before Rosh Hashanah began, Aunt Joan had been busy preparing dishes for the guests she will be hosting after services on the first day, and also preparing something to take to our hosts this evening. Uncle Sandy got replacement watermelons in exchange for the bad one he'd bought earlier. Aunt Joan also had some cantaloupes to go with these, but a news item today said that some people had died from eating contaminated melons grown in Colorado, so we passed on eating the cantaloupe. We wanted to finish this trip without risk of contracting a food-borne disease. The prestigious Center for Disease Control is here in Atlanta, so we shouldn't have been so concerned – both Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy thought we were being overly cautious, and I'm sure they were right – but you never know....</div>
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Around noon, Razelle and I drove off in our van to look for a gift of our own for this evening's hosts. I remembered there was a Walmart next to a restaurant Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy took me to last December. The restaurant was called "Five Guys, Burgers and Fries." I located these with Google Maps and then programmed my GPS to take us there. There were several reasons I wanted to revisit this particular Walmart, even though there is a Walmart that is closer. I wanted to see if there were any campers using this particular Walmart parking lot (I had seen one there back in December, but no, there weren't any today). I wanted Razelle to be able to taste the award-winning fries this restaurant was famous for, and I wanted her to be able to grab a few fistfuls of the genuine unshelled Georgia peanuts they offer their customers for free. And, I wanted to visit the Walmart Garden Shop to get a gift planter with houseplants I knew would be easy for our hosts to care for. In December I had taken Aunt Joan in there to buy her an orchid plant, for her orchid collection, so I knew this section of Walmart would have what we were looking for. </div>
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All missions accomplished, we hurried back so Razelle could do a load of laundry in Aunt Joan's washing machine and dryer and have this task completed by 5:00 PM, before the start of Rosh Hashanah.</div>
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At sunset, Rosh Hashanah officially began, marking the entrance of the new Hebrew Calendar year of 5772. In that regard, Razelle and I are now in our second year of this four-month round-the-world trip (5771 and now 5772) . Razelle and I routinely attend services in the morning and rarely at night, so attending services tonight was not in our plans. We were looking forward to the holiday meal Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy had invited us to participate in with them at their friends' home. We four all piled into Uncle Sandy's car, with Aunt Joan as navigator. She was in charge of their GPS and I had mine with me as well in the back seat. Razelle read the address to me off a note Aunt Joan handed her and we had fun driving all the way there comparing GPS functions. Mine in the back seat always counted down the tenths of a mile sooner than theirs on the dashboard up front, defying the laws of physics, as it were (it should have been the other way around, when you think about). We reached our hosts' home in the Sandy Springs/Roswell GA area and were very impressed by the wooded setting, the architecture and size of their home. Razelle and I presented our gift of houseplants to our hostess. Uncle Sandy and Aunt Joan were impressed that we had come with it. They hadn't seen it until that moment. Our hostess was thrilled to receive plants as a gift. I gave her some instruction on how to care for them and we set them in the appropriate window.</div>
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Soon, we were all seated around a set of tables pushed together. We were about 18 people, including 3 or 4 families, with children from infants to preschool to teenage; their parents and grandparents. The mood was happy and festive. Uncle Sandy chanted the blessings over the wine and bread. I looked around and asked with a wink, "Which of you kids will be doing the 'four questions?'" It felt like a Passover Seder. Razelle and I really enjoyed being among these families and watching how they all interacted so nicely. The food was great and the conversation lively; it covered topics from the situation in the Middle East to the logistics of world travel, from child rearing to food recipes. Razelle presented a souvenir magnet of Jerusalem to each of the families and singles at the table as a memento of the occasion. </div>
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When the time finally came to return home, Aunt Joan and I got out our GPSs and tried to help navigate Uncle Sandy back home. My GPS had been switched off so it took a long time to find a signal and was useless during the critical first part of the journey in the labyrinth of rural streets. Uncle Sandy was pleased that his GPS was more reliable than mine. I know that I couldn't have gotten as far as I had across the US with nary a hitch without my GPS and I didn't mind that he thought mine was inferior to his. It got me where I had to go and I valued it very much, just the same.</div>
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It was late when we returned to my aunt and uncle's place and we were full of good food and glowing from good company. We stay up just a little while longer to keep the mood going, but soon retired to our separate quarters. </div>
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It is a new year, on the Hebrew calendar at least, and we have new experiences to look forward to tomorrow.</div>
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And as they say in Atlanta, tomorrow is another day.</div>
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The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-3564748615017189382012-01-16T17:43:00.001+03:002014-04-22T23:26:42.439+03:00Georgia day 2<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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September 27</div>
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We spent the morning relaxing at Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy's home. When Uncle Sandy was up he offered to make us breakfast. He gave us several choices and then went about preparing them. Coffee was something he especially liked to make for us with his coffee-making machine. The toaster also got a good work out. Aunt Joan joined us for breakfast, and the TV was on in the den and visible from the dining room table.</div>
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I spent a great deal of my time trying to prepare blog entries that had fallen far behind by this point in the trip. While I made notes and produced blog entries I also monitored Facebook. I used Facebook often to chat with people I needed to reach. I also used Google maps to plot courses and calculate times and distances. I stayed in my room and worked on my bed with my laptop, and came out from time to time to be sociable, but mostly I concerned myself with getting the blog caught up.</div>
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Every Tuesday Uncle Sandy participates in his synagogue's Torah study group, called "Torah in the Woods." This group meets between 12:00 and 1:00 PM in the office of a marriage counselor. I attended one such session last year in December, moderated by Rabbi Mario Karpuj, and was very impressed with the level of scholarship of the participants. I told Razelle she was in for a treat when we got there. </div>
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I programmed my GPS to take us there, but Uncle Sandy insisted that we follow him. We went in separate vehicles because our plans were to see Stone Mountain afterwards, and we wanted to go straight out there from the meeting. As I followed Uncle Sandy, I noticed that he was taking us along a different route than our GPS recommended. I followed Uncle Sandy rather than the GPS, and Razelle and I both noticed how well he made sure he didn't lose us in traffic.</div>
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We parked in the office-complex parking lot and headed for the building. I heard my old shoes squeaking audibly as I walked and remembered I had wanted to wear my new shoes just purchased in Savannah. Those older shoes developed a squeak way back in Fiji and nothing I have tried since could make that squeak go away. I returned to the van and wore my new shoes for the first time. They felt comfortable, but unfamiliar as I walked on the pavement, stepping over the first fallen leaves of autumn. I reached the office where everyone else was now seated and helped myself to some lox and bagels and tossed salad. Because this was a meeting before the new month (Rosh Hodesh, in this case actually Rosh Hashanah) the lox were an added treat. These meetings take place at noon, because it is the lunch hour of the busy doctors and lawyers and other lay people who attend them. I was pleased to see a few familiar faces from my previous visit. This time the moderator was the other rabbi of Congregation Or Hadash, Rabbi Analia Bortz. These two rabbis are the congregation's husband and wife co-rabbi team.</div>
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The portion of the week was gone over sentence by sentence and discussed. Razelle and I had points to offer while Uncle Sandy listened attentively. I explained that Razelle and I lived in Israel and that I was a Hebrew-English translator – not a Bible scholar – and that was why I understood the subtleties of the wording but not necessarily the traditional interpretations that Bible scholars have come up with. Rabbi Bortz provided those, but so did the commentary in the several different texts we were all reading from. Razelle came away from this meeting as impressed as I had been my previous visit.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheWub7O8ZNwWgjVOrL91lDi4v0Y-EbZeNKe2zUjhZmXeaqBa6L4msFXsDCeHDhLXCmg79bn77Q-rqOhW4BVo04og2ILvS81r_-PaftGzSHcaDgXAgECChyphenhyphenWEejxNQCysbvuSYV7KDOMk8/s1600/2011-09-27+14.21.01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheWub7O8ZNwWgjVOrL91lDi4v0Y-EbZeNKe2zUjhZmXeaqBa6L4msFXsDCeHDhLXCmg79bn77Q-rqOhW4BVo04og2ILvS81r_-PaftGzSHcaDgXAgECChyphenhyphenWEejxNQCysbvuSYV7KDOMk8/s1600/2011-09-27+14.21.01.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>We drove away from this meeting to Stone Mountain. It isn't far from Atlanta and can be seen in the near distance from Dunwoody, where my aunt and uncle live. On a weekday this time of year, after Labor Day, the park surrounding Stone Mountain was nearly empty and the rides stood silent and idle. We paid an entrance fee at the gate and followed the concentric road system to the access point for the cable car to the top. There is a museum here, as well, but we didn't visit it. We had very little notice before the next cable car was ready to take us up. As we ascended, we could see the bas-relief carving on the side of the mountain. Its workmanship was not as impressive as Mount Rushmore's. The men who were glorified by this caving had lost while fighting for a rebellious cause. It seemed altogether wrong to champion their losing efforts in such a grandiose way. Had they won, I suppose, we would now be touring a country other than the United States. </div>
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At the top of Stone Mountain there is a visitors' center. There are vending machines here that can emboss souvenir pennies with likenesses of Stone Mountain and of the individuals sculpted into it. One of these individuals is Jefferson Davis, the president of the short-lived Confederate States of America. It occurred to me to have a penny embossed in such a way that Lincoln's original likeness would be discernable on one side of the penny and Davis's on the other. This way both contemporary presidents would occupy the same coin. I studied the machine and figured out how to do this without obliterating Lincoln. The cable car pilot was impressed by what I had accomplished. I seem to have been the first one he'd met who cared to do this. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtHBq2vE-GaNVCEfbc0x3JK8NdGNIpJfNZM3HtYEM4kvCPRUdVMnNXa5jqylcXAFpoDQnpzQrlZP2_5QGpfC1H_fyqnYGmCJLBPHloQeyMUbeF4X4R3qSoYZYzCVYIpPG2ugj3j4_QObg/s1600/2011-09-27+15.09.49.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtHBq2vE-GaNVCEfbc0x3JK8NdGNIpJfNZM3HtYEM4kvCPRUdVMnNXa5jqylcXAFpoDQnpzQrlZP2_5QGpfC1H_fyqnYGmCJLBPHloQeyMUbeF4X4R3qSoYZYzCVYIpPG2ugj3j4_QObg/s1600/2011-09-27+15.09.49.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>Razelle and I wandered around on top of Stone Mountain a short while and took in the view, then descended by cable car to the parking lot to leave. We saw some African-American visitors and thought it ironic that they would want to patronize this monument to those who preferred to see their ancestors remain slaves. I remarked to Razelle that the Confederate Soldiers Museum we visited in Alabama made sense to me – it was dedicated to the memories of those individuals who died fighting for a cause they identified with. But here at Stone Mountain the men glorified in this place were the ones responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands in a losing cause. By what rationale were these men heroes? It seemed obscene to me to elevate them to such a status.</div>
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We returned to my aunt and uncle's place in Dunwoody. I worked some more on my blog and was able to post two entries while Razelle watched TV to catch up on current topics. I contacted Jule, who was in Israel with me in 1974 and now lives outside of Atlanta. We spoke by phone and caught up on old times. We haven't heard from each other in 37 years, so it was nice to fill each other in on what has transpired in our lives during that time. </div>
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Uncle Sandy gave Razelle and me our tickets for Rosh Hashanah services. We will need these to enter the synagogue (actually the Jewish Community Center) and the parking lot. I entered the address printed on the ticket into my GPS. </div>
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Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy left us for a while during the evening. Razelle and I watched television and were especially entertained by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. We also got to watch the international version of CNN rather than the domestic version. Life on the road had denied us such pleasures. </div>
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It occurred to us that in not-too-many more days we will be winging our way to London. My, my, how time flies! We still don't have a place to stay in London, so I began researching accommodations there. We have crisscrossed the US for close to two months now in our van and have been so absorbed with doing it as well as we can that thoughts of accommodations further along have not occurred to us ... until now. </div>
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I used Jajah.com to call a couple of hotels near Heathrow Airport. It turns out that my scheduling of flights into and out of London 36 hours apart would require us to reserve two nights in London, even though we would only be sleeping there the first night and flying on the second. The reasons are complicated. It made me sad to realize that with all my flawless planning, my planning regarding London was indeed flawed. I went to bed without committing to a hotel booking. Tomorrow I will think about it some more and then make the booking. <br />
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The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7999994908893583674.post-11342756279172116122012-01-16T17:24:00.000+03:002014-04-22T22:55:33.018+03:00Georgia day 1<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on">
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September 26</div>
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This morning we awoke to the sounds of our neighbors packing up and leaving. The station wagon and trailer I'd seen at the edge of the parking lot were gone by the time I was out of bed. The night had passed without incident. I took time this morning to post two blog entries before we went to breakfast. The Indian man who had checked us in yesterday evening was replaced by his Indian wife this morning. Razelle explained to this woman that her husband's smile wasn't received here the way he thought it might and the woman was grateful for Razelle's insightfulness. This Indian couple had only been here a few days. The motel franchise they had previously worked at was in Kansas and the clientele there was much easier to deal with. This motel, and the tension I had felt during the night because of the crudeness of our neighbors, taught me something (as did the cockroach hatchling I found in our room): If the rate is ridiculously low, then the clientele and upkeep will be commensurately low, too. </div>
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As I locked the door so we could go to breakfast a cleaning woman, dressed in a sari, indicated that she was prepared to clean our room. I answered in the negative but I saw that she didn't understand a word I said. She did catch on though, and went to clean a different room.</div>
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Breakfast consisted of a few items on a counter by the check out desk. There was a table with four chairs around it, in case you wanted to eat sitting down. </div>
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We packed up and drove to the Reebok outlet. Razelle stayed in the van and read a book while I went in. I showed the salesperson what I was wearing (size 13.5, in black) and asked if anything like this existed in her store. I hadn't expected her to say yes, and she didn't. However, she did have size 13 shoes. They were of a style I'd seen advertized but never ordered because it would have been hard to return them if they had turned out to be uncomfortable. I humored her and tried on a pair. What a pleasant surprise! They were very comfortable indeed! She told me that a second pair would be half price. I picked out a pair of brown suede shoes that were equally comfortable and also bought a can of suede waterproofing spray. The past few days I had agonized over ordering shoes my size from the Internet site I always order from. I wasn't sure if I should have them sent to Razelle's brother Ralph in Baltimore, MD, or to my brother Monte in Oceanside, NY. But here I was, all set, with two pair of shoes I was really happy with! </div>
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It seemed more than serendipitous that our stay in Savannah would be next door to this shoe outlet. Razelle looked over her shoulder while I was shopping and saw an outlet store she also wanted to visit. When I came out grinning with my packages, she went into the other outlet store to investigate and shortly thereafter came out grinning too, with her purchases in hand.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheeNjpxlnKun71KTSBFZA5QORLHKa2bKO4g8OMhYWnaOKRtdWdthD4QGXe5Dv57mY52niyVM6OkJrlLI7C54UzNUOZuDKqFAhI2zOs2IsK3BxM3z_ezDC3r4OykT0n3guTW8ICXRI-wl4/s1600/2011-09-26+13.46.28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheeNjpxlnKun71KTSBFZA5QORLHKa2bKO4g8OMhYWnaOKRtdWdthD4QGXe5Dv57mY52niyVM6OkJrlLI7C54UzNUOZuDKqFAhI2zOs2IsK3BxM3z_ezDC3r4OykT0n3guTW8ICXRI-wl4/s1600/2011-09-26+13.46.28.jpg" height="200" style="text-align: center;" width="150" /></a>We then drove into the historic district of Savannah along Abercorn Street. The closer we got to this district the longer the beards of Spanish moss that hung down from the overarching branches of the trees that lined the road. It was very exciting to be moving forward along the pavement and yet backward in time into a scene straight out of movies set in the Old South. My GPS was programmed to take us to Congregation Mickve Israel, the Reform synagogue in the heart of the historic district.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji3wQD3fxBoKGacqcwTkC-XZTWw5-UpZKpcOWQUQ28f_CNFkpRxCS80hE-6F2PEQSTDfzoGBPSJ8Bha9Y-annDnJf969HgcEJK4uL-_-xwXHlPMXsL7n2occgoTDHqHNTf1H8bpAkGr84/s1600/2011-09-26+12.11.52.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji3wQD3fxBoKGacqcwTkC-XZTWw5-UpZKpcOWQUQ28f_CNFkpRxCS80hE-6F2PEQSTDfzoGBPSJ8Bha9Y-annDnJf969HgcEJK4uL-_-xwXHlPMXsL7n2occgoTDHqHNTf1H8bpAkGr84/s1600/2011-09-26+12.11.52.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVEdxdhiSgYE9UqJS5M79fOt3zHqwJhNkX7bF2Hmua3cNd1SrXbNAYTbOeyHtJ8pj8Qe4bvdiGiCocvP_v5Otxl-9frfNa7T457xFTLWPpZ8yeHowjSfeVe4W0gYO1pKHzyldC2jkX8Q4/s1600/2011-09-26+12.12.42.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVEdxdhiSgYE9UqJS5M79fOt3zHqwJhNkX7bF2Hmua3cNd1SrXbNAYTbOeyHtJ8pj8Qe4bvdiGiCocvP_v5Otxl-9frfNa7T457xFTLWPpZ8yeHowjSfeVe4W0gYO1pKHzyldC2jkX8Q4/s1600/2011-09-26+12.12.42.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVEdxdhiSgYE9UqJS5M79fOt3zHqwJhNkX7bF2Hmua3cNd1SrXbNAYTbOeyHtJ8pj8Qe4bvdiGiCocvP_v5Otxl-9frfNa7T457xFTLWPpZ8yeHowjSfeVe4W0gYO1pKHzyldC2jkX8Q4/s1600/2011-09-26+12.12.42.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpW6hRWqeJ9A_g879YcEVjkBMJwEGHDLMwm3PY4vYI6encpew2WsbZyLkfKbaekUxShsV0djL0lE9qygaX8YFgAYRH9uvIPoXh4BNsEpXwNbZiFfPTD_-MQ2GYVwJUGRm3xXkZhovXorM/s1600/2011-09-26+12.32.30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpW6hRWqeJ9A_g879YcEVjkBMJwEGHDLMwm3PY4vYI6encpew2WsbZyLkfKbaekUxShsV0djL0lE9qygaX8YFgAYRH9uvIPoXh4BNsEpXwNbZiFfPTD_-MQ2GYVwJUGRm3xXkZhovXorM/s1600/2011-09-26+12.32.30.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji3wQD3fxBoKGacqcwTkC-XZTWw5-UpZKpcOWQUQ28f_CNFkpRxCS80hE-6F2PEQSTDfzoGBPSJ8Bha9Y-annDnJf969HgcEJK4uL-_-xwXHlPMXsL7n2occgoTDHqHNTf1H8bpAkGr84/s1600/2011-09-26+12.11.52.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></a>We found a large commemorative plaque describing it as the oldest Reform practicing synagogue in the USA. I parked the van and fed quarters into the parking meter. Walking around the building we found an entrance, through which we were buzzed in. We were told that we could take a guided tour. That appealed to us very much. I went back and added some more quarters to the meter and then our guide took us, along with a second couple, to see the features of this venerated house of worship. She pointed out the cruciform shape of the building and explained that despite this shape this building had never been a church. It had always been a synagogue. It simply was the style of the day for a house of worship to be built that way. We got to hear a recording of the organ playing a liturgical piece from the High Holiday service. Each of the stained glass windows had a Jewish theme and a history. </div>
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Upstairs was a small museum with some important artifacts, including a deerskin Torah scroll, and letters written to the congregation by many of the US presidents, from George Washington to present times. The congregation gradually adopted Reform Jewish practices and by the beginning of the 20th Century it had joined the Hebrew Union. It was at about that time that my namesake great-grandfather Aaron and my maternal grandfather Herman immigrated to Savannah. The gift shop had books about the history of Savannah Jewry. I leafed through one of them and found a photo of my Grandpa Herman in it, taken in 1917 when he was 19 years old. Naturally, I bought a copy. From what I understood about the Jewish community of Savannah in the early years of the 20th Century, I would assume that my relatives most likely would have belonged to one of the other synagogues.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIVtI3YUHufcrnzKKre5VAQlZyRqrqC8Aly-KyaqME43qupPrb3FIQqovzPHVP5O8kudmXc_kdBV-Z5LVAYo3AyO28qH7yL_nyhAbaGu9O1ygserRVCg3Ym_gmA6Ub6bfxNDx0wJRsUiA/s1600/2011-09-26+14.18.03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIEudGETcyJ709zTwa9ZgbKu1b7_BpJ_wdQQYm-m2lUsamTGBxZhvfCvi6N8gwl-vUWE6qzlTrwHVXB_KKTqqygA0DqD3vYoCcVPh6P6VvlIFm7RJiXJsSXNFWaqwUcpoGFJv7-WaKoJ0/s1600/2011-09-26+14.13.26.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIVtI3YUHufcrnzKKre5VAQlZyRqrqC8Aly-KyaqME43qupPrb3FIQqovzPHVP5O8kudmXc_kdBV-Z5LVAYo3AyO28qH7yL_nyhAbaGu9O1ygserRVCg3Ym_gmA6Ub6bfxNDx0wJRsUiA/s1600/2011-09-26+14.18.03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIVtI3YUHufcrnzKKre5VAQlZyRqrqC8Aly-KyaqME43qupPrb3FIQqovzPHVP5O8kudmXc_kdBV-Z5LVAYo3AyO28qH7yL_nyhAbaGu9O1ygserRVCg3Ym_gmA6Ub6bfxNDx0wJRsUiA/s1600/2011-09-26+14.18.03.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a>It took some exploring, but I found the building our guide described as once having served as a synagogue, on the corner of Montgomery and State Streets, now part of the Savannah College of Art and Design. I parked the van next to a parking meter that had over two hours left on it (a gift from an unknown stranger), with Razelle inside, contentedly reading a book. After taking several photos, and trying to imagine my relatives worshiping here – though I wasn't overcome with a feeling of certainty that this was the right place – I walked back to Razelle and passed a Middle Eastern restaurant that advertized falafel. The juxtaposition of the landmark building I was looking for and the parking spot we didn't have to pay for and a restaurant that served the kind of food we missed seemed more than significant.</div>
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Razelle agreed to try out the restaurant. The proprietor was formerly an Iranian veteran of his country's war against Iraq. He was very opinionated, and talked at length about his interests. These involved improving ones mind by reading, and improving ones health by eating correctly. We decided not to tell him we came from Israel and he never asked. He spent too much time hovering over us and his falafel wasn't so great, so we were glad to eat and leave. He added up our bill in an odd way: each item was listed as its price with tax included, rather than adding up all the items and then calculating the tax as the last step. We got into our van and still had time left on the meter. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5JbbShqDdGVScJLdUeNhsljbpLR5PQSo_Zim3LMQ2XV-beY4_Fic0REzVigEOl2pv_WU4IOZg-tPd39AI6i0E_K9fOy_oH0DRd3_mujfu24_CtcDf0g3H_1VpsCeFeb3mtLG0emvwHO8/s1600/2011-09-26+15.27.01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5JbbShqDdGVScJLdUeNhsljbpLR5PQSo_Zim3LMQ2XV-beY4_Fic0REzVigEOl2pv_WU4IOZg-tPd39AI6i0E_K9fOy_oH0DRd3_mujfu24_CtcDf0g3H_1VpsCeFeb3mtLG0emvwHO8/s1600/2011-09-26+15.27.01.jpg" height="200" style="text-align: center;" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCzmjslLqb-wGs3wvXsLj4oQDC35A9rGwe6OVCPVM7KPZMLL-a11yhas6g4K9MYQeiHSggSNKt1SDi_w_PadH-OrWibQV2lC0ck8FFP3B1ecVqvhHn0hw-R4AHmxN0E97-QNXmZqm7mBE/s1600/2011-09-26+15.49.56.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></a>My reason for adding Savannah to our round-the-world itinerary was originally to visit my great-grandpa Aaron's grave. I was certain that I knew in which cemetery and in which plot I would find it. I had visited his grave once before in my lifetime, over twenty years ago, with my mother. However, when we arrived at the Jewish section of the Bonaventure Cemetery and I walked to the grave, I discovered that the information provided to me over the phone by the Bonaventure Cemetery office was erroneous. I walked into the office and asked the clerks to recheck their records. One of the clerks walked with me to the grave, to find that their records were indeed wrong. I gave them my email address so they could send me an update once they investigated further. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCzmjslLqb-wGs3wvXsLj4oQDC35A9rGwe6OVCPVM7KPZMLL-a11yhas6g4K9MYQeiHSggSNKt1SDi_w_PadH-OrWibQV2lC0ck8FFP3B1ecVqvhHn0hw-R4AHmxN0E97-QNXmZqm7mBE/s1600/2011-09-26+15.49.56.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCzmjslLqb-wGs3wvXsLj4oQDC35A9rGwe6OVCPVM7KPZMLL-a11yhas6g4K9MYQeiHSggSNKt1SDi_w_PadH-OrWibQV2lC0ck8FFP3B1ecVqvhHn0hw-R4AHmxN0E97-QNXmZqm7mBE/s1600/2011-09-26+15.49.56.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWMK_qwOuSUW7VFJf6c8Ih-PpT2ImUEZguGOKGyAPW4eIydhYIeU7oMgb0YZ7pEiETJeGO3JSPuKrrhxuv0BxIIIWdHdPscA3yPRGINWIMHU2LP22I0S0YvS9C-29iZDbyrJcdbLOxmSE/s1600/2011-09-26+15.36.33.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWMK_qwOuSUW7VFJf6c8Ih-PpT2ImUEZguGOKGyAPW4eIydhYIeU7oMgb0YZ7pEiETJeGO3JSPuKrrhxuv0BxIIIWdHdPscA3yPRGINWIMHU2LP22I0S0YvS9C-29iZDbyrJcdbLOxmSE/s1600/2011-09-26+15.36.33.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>Since I was already there, I thought I'd do a little more searching. I found the graves of other relatives ("bouncy-ball" Siegel – it's a long story – was my great-aunt and I found her grave) but not the grave I came specifically to visit. The cemetery closed at 5:00 PM and Razelle, who had waited patiently reading a book in the van during my futile hour and a half search, called my phone to tell me we were being asked to leave. I never did find his grave, but the long beards of Spanish-moss and the close and muggy atmosphere on this heavily overcast day gave Bonaventure Cemetery a dreary but peaceful atmosphere I will remember for perpetuity.</div>
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Savannah looks like a place worth spending much more time than we gave it. We even considered spending more time here riding around on a tour bus or horse-drawn carriage, but Atlanta beckoned and Rosh Hashanah is coming. So we left. </div>
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Driving to Atlanta from Savannah involved joining all the truck traffic from the Port of Savannah laden with huge boxy shipping containers. My GPS gave me a driving time of about 5 hours to reach Uncle Sandy and Aunt Joan in the suburb of Dunwoody, GA. We had heard from them more than once during the day. They wanted us to know they would not be home until after 10:00 PM, so I wasn't concerned about the slowness of all these trucks. As we got further along, traffic eventually sorted itself out and we were able to make better time. We reached Macon in the dark, after stopping at a rest stop at sunset for the needed pause that refreshes. We joined I-75 here (we've been on this road before, in Michigan, Ohio and Florida) and drove up and down the rolling topography in the dark. Trucks labored to climb the uphill parts and I, with my cruise control on, drove past them; then these same trucks came hurtling down the downhill parts and rolled on past me. This game of bumper tag in the night was getting on my nerves, and it seemed downright dangerous. I was relieved when we reached the loop road that took us around Atlanta to the east. The trucks didn't follow me on this detour to the suburbs. The tricky part was staying alert for the exit I needed to get off. I was exhausted from the strain of night driving and peering into headlights coming at me and also blinding me from behind in my rearview mirror. By the time we reached Uncle Sandy and Aunt Joan's subdivision I was more than ready to turn off the engine. </div>
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We were greeted by my aunt and uncle as we drove up their steep driveway, far too steep for us to even consider sleeping in the van tonight, although the weather was much cooler and inviting here in Atlanta at night than it had been in Savannah. They had only returned home themselves a short while ago from a wonderful lecture they had attended, so our timing couldn't have been better. We were shown our room and we dragged a few items in that we would need for the night. </div>
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Uncle Sandy made sure we felt welcome. He offered us things to eat, and tried to help us get set up with the Internet. There was a technical problem with that, so I used my own broadband USB modem. After a lot of getting acquainted and some eating, and some television viewing (Razelle was elated to see the news channels and the late night programming) we finally all went to bed. <br />
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September 25</div>
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Today's the day we pointed our van northward, toward the destination far to the north of us that will be our port of departure from this continent for our flight to the next one on this round-the-world trip. A sense of the imminent end of our journey came over us with this new directional orientation. </div>
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We hadn't packed last night, so that task was taken up this morning. This being my forte, Razelle left it to me to do. Barry brought up the condo's valet cart so I could stack everything onto it and get it down to the van in one trip. It was already hot and muggy when I exited the building, an hour later in the morning than I would have liked, considering how far we hoped to get today, but still not so late that it was problematic. </div>
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Barry and Brenda had errands to run in preparation for Rosh Hashanah, so we didn't tarry long saying our goodbyes. We expect to see Barry and Brenda again later, when we reach New York. They plan to be up there about the time we reach Monte and Mindy. Three brothers and three sisters-in-law gathered together; it should be a momentous event. I handed Barry back the keys he'd given me and we each drove out of the parking lot together, each to a separate destination. </div>
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Our first destination was a fabric store in Boynton Beach, FL, a few communities to the north. Razelle needed an item there to repair a garment that had gotten damaged in the laundry. Brenda had recommended the place (Jo-Ann Fabrics, next door to Wynn-Dixie – gee how those names take me back to my childhood in Orlando!). They had exactly what we were looking for. Thanks, Brenda. </div>
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As we walked back to the van it dawned on me that I had forgotten to retrieve the half snowball from Barry and Brenda's freezer. That half snowball had so much significance attached to it that I felt really bad about my mental lapse. I felt especially bad because Razelle had wanted to place it on her father's grave in Connecticut, as I had done on my own father's grave in Ohio. We had collected that snow in August from the mountaintop in Wyoming where we'd said Kaddish for our fathers close to the anniversaries of their respective deaths, and now we won't be able to honor Razelle's father they way I had honored mine. I called all the phone numbers I had for Barry. No answer at any of them. When I did receive a call-back from Barry it was clear that we couldn't go back and get it. I told them that the next time they were at a cemetery, it would make us feel better if they would put that half snowball on a grave there, it didn't matter whose. They said they would. </div>
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We drove northward on I-95, now with a purpose, all the way to Daytona Beach, FL. Along the way we passed exits leading to locations and landmarks that were all associated with memories forged during the formative years of my childhood in this state. With Savannah, GA our destination today, we didn't stop or slow our forward progress for any of these until we reached Daytona Beach. We passed the signs leading to the Kennedy Space Center without turning our heads (Razelle's eyes were closed so she didn't even notice). We left the highway at Daytona Beach and bought gas within sight of the Daytona Speedway – its high curved grandstands visible to our right. This gas station had no tuna sandwiches. I paid the proprietors cash for the fill-up. I wanted to get out of this state before I tried using my credit card again at any more gas stations. I waited patiently while the proprietors spoke to each other in Arabic. I haven't heard that language in quite a while. It reminded me of where this round-the-world trip was going to end in less than a month, back home where it started, where it's not unusual to hear Arabic.</div>
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Our GPS directed us around the eastern side of Jacksonville and across an impressive bridge over the St. Johns River on Florida route 9A. I was pleasantly surprised by how little traffic there was on this sweeping temporary diversion from I-95. We rejoined I-95 to the north of Jacksonville without ever becoming ensnarled in its afternoon rush-hour traffic. We soon entered Georgia, our 28th state, under an overcast sky. I remarked to Razelle that the sudden tropical showers we'd experienced in Florida would gradually become longer periods of steady rainfall the farther north we travelled. Razelle was pleased that we were on this interstate route, because I-95 leads straight ahead up the eastern coast of the US, past her hometown in Connecticut through and to places she knew well. For me, being on this highway gave me a sense of melancholy and anticipation at the same time. How are we going to return to our daily routine in Beer Sheva after traveling itself has become our daily routine? And then again, how much more of this traveling do we need to do in order to prove to ourselves that we can do it? </div>
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We reached Savannah, GA at dusk. We had our trusty coupon and travel deals booklet with us. We pick these up at rest areas whenever we enter a new region of the US. We saw a coupon for the "Relax Inn" on Abercorn Street in Savannah that offered us a tempting rate. However, when we left the highway in a steady downpour under darkening clouds, the "Scottish Inn" at the Abercorn Street exit, next to a sign pointing to several factory outlet stores, with a Reebok shoe store among them, caught my eye. We stopped some employees coming out of the Reebok outlet as they were locking it up and asked when it would reopen in the morning. "Nine o'clock," was their reply. The Scottish Inn advertized a competitive price on its marquee. Razelle went into the office and discussed arrangements with the Indian proprietor, then came out to the van to state that this place was acceptable to her. The people in the rooms near ours looked rather "hard-bitten". One of them complained to the proprietor about a faulty vending machine and he didn't like the proprietor's smiling negative response (that smile might work in India but here in Georgia it wasn't working well at all). Another person in the room next to ours was drinking beer in his undershirt without closing his curtains. These were to be our accommodations our first night in Georgia. I hoped we wouldn't regret staying at this motel. At least the steady rain would keep these people behind their doors. </div>
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We drove off through a vast puddle in the Scottish Inn driveway to go find food. Near the "Relax Inn," which we had eschewed in favor of the Scottish Inn, we found a lovely little Mediterranean restaurant that appealed to us. We were their last customers for the evening. They served us a salad platter with all of our favorite tapas from back home (hummus, falafel, fire roasted eggplant, stuffed grape leaves, rice and olives). We really enjoyed their fare. </div>
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The rain was coming down in sheets as we left the restaurant. Visibility was very poor. I didn't see the curbstone at the edge of my parking space and drove over it. After some 10,000 miles of driving this van it was my first oops. I backed up and got out to see what damage I might have done. I saw none, everything looked OK; lucky me. </div>
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Back at the motel, things were quiet. Our neighbors' rooms were closed and dark; that gave me a sense of relief. We settled on the bed and turned on the TV, curious to see what programs might be available. We came across an educational program that caught our attention: a program about the US Constitution and the issues of school prayer and gun control. As we watched for a few minutes a familiar face came on the screen: Razelle's cousin Jeanne, who we had only a few days earlier eaten a meal with in Ft. Lauderdale. The show was from a TV series originally broadcast in 1984 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">(<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;">The Constitution - That Delicate Balance)</span>.</span> Among others, it featured well known and regarded judges (Potter Stewart), congressmen (Orrin Hatch, Charles Rangel) and cabinet members (Attorney General Griffin Bell); also newsman Dan Rather and Harvard Law Professor Arthur Miller ... and Jeanne, holding her own in their company in a very impressive and confident manner -- a veritable "who was who" back then -- and we suddenly realized how much of a "who, too" Jeanne really was then and still is. We called her to tell her we were watching her on TV. She didn't answer so we left her an excited message. The program was a time capsule of sorts. After all the political discourse we've been exposed to during this trip, we could see how much the discourse had shifted from one foot to the other in the intervening years since we actually lived in the States. We fell asleep with the glow of nostalgia for those times this program elicited.</div>
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The Rod and the Ringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08658965995885621734noreply@blogger.com0