Easter

Had to force the forsythia to bloom this year because of an early Easter

I always loved Easter. When I was growing up, we would drive down from Upstate New York to my grandmother's house in North Bergen and later in Jersey City. The forsythia were already blooming in New Jersey--showy yellow bushes, even along busy Route 17, which was a shopping mecca even then. We passed signs for towns with exotic names--Ho-ho-kus, Moonachie--on our way across the Meadowlands on Paterson Plank Road, originally a toll road in colonial times with broad wooden planks over the marshy stretches. It was one of my father's favorite routes and allowed him to tell the story of how Secaucus was once dotted with pig farms.

We always arrived on Good Friday evening in time for a dinner of canned Franco American Spaghetti and fish sticks or tuna salad on hard rolls. Saturday we ventured into New York City--my father and brothers and me--while my mother stayed with Grandma and my aunt and went visiting. My father loved the city and had his favorite haunts--the old Barnes and Noble and Scribner's bookstores on lower Fifth avenue, the odd lot stores on Vesey Street, years before the area became the World Trade Center. He always had a must-see exhibit on banking, stamps, coins or equally boring subjects to a young girl.

I was fortunate when my brother reached the age when he could shepherd me around the city on his own. He was probably 16 and I was 10. We went to the Museum of Natural History and I weighed myself on the different scales representing each planet. We didn't have a pen or pencil on us, so my brother had an elaborate system of bent pages in a sightseeing booklet to keep track. When we got back to Jersey City it was a little confusing. Was I 13 pounds on the moon and 189 on Jupiter or vice versa?  We always met my father afterwards and ate at a "nice" restaurant -- one even had fingerbowls which I managed to use correctly without embarrassing my siblings. I was dressed in my Easter finery, a yellow spring coat with cape sleeves and looked lovely until you noticed my black sneakers peering from below. My mother's motto had always been "be comfortable."

Easter Sunday we attended Sacred Heart Church in Jersey City, a beautiful, dark, mystical church with huge columns and small overhanging chandeliers. My uncle sat by himself (why?), while my aunt and grandmother and the rest of us squeezed into 'their' pew.  Dinner was the traditional canned ham with creamed corn and other staples of the 50's and early 60's. I had eaten candy all day long, so the menu was unimportant to me.

As time passed, the Jersey City neighborhood deteriorated and the park around the corner where we had played became off limits. A trip to the local store to get milk became less carefree, as we plotted our course to avoid the people hanging on the street corners, particularly near the corner bar.

Easter Monday was a glorious day. We would pile in the car to go to the shore to visit two sets of cousins--but never together. The early day was spent at one house, after an agonizing wait in the car, while my aunt did the shopping for the party--hotdogs, sauerkraut, cheetos, ice cream. As the sky darkened, we headed to our second cousin's house, a few miles away. As a kid, you don't really question things, but it was odd. My two aunts had a long standing feud which went back to some rivalry over their first borns. Eddie's new shoes or Patty's new dress had not been sufficiently praised. Years passed and life went on around the dispute.

We returned back to Grandma's late Monday night, exhausted and happy. The next day it was back up the Thruway and home, feeling happy and a little lighter knowing that our next trip would be to go "down the shore" for a long, leisurely summer.

Tramping through the Meadowlands

You can't get a more iconic place in New Jersey than the Meadowlands--exotic wetlands, bird sanctuary, water resource and graveyard to mobsters, crisscrossed by the Jersey Turnpike, with the New York City skyline in the background. The email from the NJ Audubon Society was inviting: come visit Harrier Meadow - NOT usually open to the public. Why is an exclusive event so irresistible? Not exactly a pass to Studio 54, but I wanted to be an insider -- even if it's just in the birding world.

Reclaimed landfill along Disposal Road

I showed up promptly at 9:30 at the Meadowlands Environmental Center in Lyndhurst, following my GPS and a few scattered signs. After passing a number of  non-descript office buildings, the road yielded to scrubby fields. We carpooled for the short ride to Harrier Meadow in North Arlington, along Disposal Road, prompting me to muse on the uniqueness of birding in Jersey. 

A birder's landmark: Look for the tire!

How many wildlife sanctuaries abut reclaimed landfills? How often does the leader of a birding hike instruct you to focus your binoculars on the cinnamon teal or the shoveller ducks swimming near those black truck tires? It makes observation easier for me because I always felt challenged locating the three branched cottonwood with the birds at 9 o'clock. I'd have to sneak peeks at everyone else to see which direction I should be facing.  But tires? Now that's an easy landmark to spot.

I was worried about not fitting in with the crowd, but soon found out that it was equally split between experienced Auduboners and the newly curious. A busload of college students from Jersey City were definitely newbies. The contrast was striking: senior citizens with floppy outback hats or baseball caps, hiking boots, bug spray, sunscreen, water bottles, and pants tucked into socks to discourage ticks versus urban, carefree teenagers in shorts and sneakers, a few with white earbuds dangling from their ears, glad to be out of the classroom and definitely underdressed compared to their older safari partners.

We began with a short talk and demonstration from the Meadowlands study team, who were capturing birds, measuring them, recording data and then banding them for release. Mike, the presenter, was good and suddenly we were all enthusiastic, as two volunteers stepped up to hold the fragile Savannah sparrows in their hands and send them skyward.

Savannah sparrow

Blue Jay

Of the forty people, all had binoculars, but some had their bird books and shouldered hefty scopes and professional cameras. At various points along the hike, the leader would set up her high powered scope, trained on a feathery friend, for all to observe. As the woman ahead of me stepped back, allowing me my turn, I asked her, "What are we looking at again?"  She bent her head towards me, and shifty-eyed, lowered her voice, so only I could hear.  "A bird" she whispered.

My favorite part of the morning was the juxtaposition of nature and the modern, industrial world. Keep your eyes downward and you could have been in the Everglades, but raise them above the horizon and you were surprised how close the highway was, how many utility poles and lines there were, how illusive the city skyline appeared, like a faraway Oz. I was simultaneously "counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike" and gazing at the majestic flight of the harrier, a raptor, and namesake of the meadow. I was feeling pleasantly distracted with one foot in each world.

Degrees of Separation

I weathered my first solo trip to Westbury, Long Island yesterday to see Beth and Dave's new apartment and drop off the frozen wedding cake in time for their first anniversary.

On the deck

Nice kitchen!

I made the 48 mile trip in a relatively easy hour and 15 minutes, but why does it seem like such an epic journey? Part of it has to be the fact that you cross two major bridges ( a bridge too far?) and part is the anxiety of what will confront you on the road--accidents, construction, lanes closed in anticipation of construction, Yankee or Mets game traffic, beachgoers, bad weather, crazy drivers, car-eating potholes.....and being on the Grand Central as it approaches the Van Wyck Expressway. 


Remember this Seinfeld episode on Elaine's famous drive to JFK: "....and then I hit the Van Wyck....(start at 44 seconds)  

Click here to view

I had plenty of time to think about all this as I was driving, so I came up with my own scoring system to compare how easy a trip will be. It all depends on the Degrees of Separation, which is the sum of the number of major roads and bridges travelled.  


So for my Long Island adventure, the roads and bridges included:
Rt 208- Rt 4-GWB-Cross Bronx Expressway-Harlem River Drive- FDR Drive- RFK Bridge (formerly the TriBoro)-Grand Central Parkway-Northern State Parkway-Meadowbrook Parkway


That's a whopping TEN Degrees of Separation by my calculation, including TWO bridges and goes a long way towards explaining the formidable nature of the trip. Lewis and Clarke didn't take that many turns.


Let's compare the Degrees of Separation Score for other trips:

1. The Shore: 
• THREE: Rt 208-Rt4- GSP
2. Schenectady, NY:  
• THREE: Rt 208-287-NYThruway
3. The Bronx: 
• FIVE: Rt 208-Rt4-GWB-Cross Bronx-Deegan
4. Wilton,Connecticut: 
• FIVE: Rt 208-Rt287-TappanZee Bridge-Rt287-Rt95-Rt7
5. Brooklyn:
• SEVEN: Rt 208-Rt4-GWB-Cross Bronx-Harlem River-FDR-Brooklyn Bridge
6. San Francisco: 
• SEVEN: Rt 208-Rt4-GSP-Rt73-Newark Airport-SanFran Airport-Rt1
7. Gijon, Spain:
• SEVEN: Rt208-Rt4-GSP-Rt73-Newark Airport-Madrid Airport-Madrid Rail Station
8. Long Island:
•  TEN:  the clear winner (loser)

Sure, total time elapsed and miles travelled could figure into it. One could argue that this system should apply only to road trips and not include air flights or trains, but I'm sticking to my formula of number of roads and bridges. 


What do you think? Can you offer us any epic journeys of your own?