Old Home Week

I had a great vacation recently. I’m going to tell you all about it.

The family flew to DC for an Easter weekend crew tournament, the GWU Invitational. Unfortunately Sonny Boy was injured so we didn’t get to see him row. He’s back in the boat this week. We did get a chance to meet his girlfriend though. Because he still believes in the Easter Bunny, I thought she would be another figment of his imagination, but I was incorrect. She’s a lovely young lady and I am wondering why she’s hanging out with my kid.

We had some great weather the first day of the tournament. We got to meet the coach and watch several races. There were participants from several schools. The boy ran into a couple of his high school teammates that are now rowing for Navy and Gonzaga. That evening we went out with the in-laws to Ten Penh. It was balmy even as we emerged after 9pm.

http://www.tenpenh.com/main.htm

The second day the rain started. It was a prominent feature of much of the trip. Fortunately I had come prepared for the weather. We met up with my son for lunch. He ate all of his and parts of ours. We had parked at the Watergate complex. Below is a pic of DJ doing some undercover work there.


















On Monday I flew off to Pittsburgh. My siblings and I had long discussed doing an old home tour and now we were actually pulling it off. We spent 1961 to 1965 living in the western PA towns of Latrobe and Greensburg and we were re-tracing our steps. And there were many of them. My brother and I were experienced walkers before the age of ten because the age of the automobile had not reached our house. The old man worked at St. Vincent’s College so we began our tour there. My sister was born in ’62 so does not remember much but my brother and I were flooded with memories. We took a long staircase we had traveled many times to my father’s library and headed back toward our old house. The rickety plank bridge over a stream had been replaced by a rickety, rusted iron plate bridge with a busted piping handrail. The lake we spent a lot of time at looked smaller. Many things did. We saw kids fishing, as they did 45 years ago. We climbed the hill toward our old abode. When we reached the crest, we faintly heard the opening bass lines of The Pretenders’ “My City Was Gone”. We continued forward but soon realized that the handful of college owned houses on the right side of the road, of which ours was the first, were no more. Besides for the house being gone, everything else was the same. The apple tree I had climbed dozens of times still stood, as did the walnut trees. Fields stretched into the distance and little traffic passed on the back road that was once our home.





















The next stop was Greensburg. The house search took a little longer because it was that much further back in the memory bank. Fortunately my brother was able to spot it. It had been painted an ugly shade of brown and now has some out of place, out of sorts lattice work on the porch. The only way I could confirm it was ours was by checking out the side steps, which I recalled well because I took a tumble and got a small gash on my head. I remember the alley being way down below the stoop but there were only three steps so again memory was playing tricks. This was the kid sister’s first home. We got a few pictures and went downtown. A quick tour uncovered a few slightly familiar spots. We passed a beauty shop that my brother’s friend’s family owned at one time. One day I was allowed to visit with him. That day my brother and his pal poured glue on a battery operated model car, lit it and let it take off. Even then I realized such a prank was both childish and dangerous, and I admonished them both.
























Now it was time to chow down. My sister had checked Chowhound to find a local restaurant. Chains abounded so it’s good she did her research. We tracked down Vallozzi’s and ordered an array of fried appetizers. If you are in the area, give it a try.

http://www.vallozzis.com/vision.htm

Over cocktails, my brother and I regaled our sister with the story of the Jeannette Long March. One day long ago, the man of the household and his two boys missed the bus home from the posh club we would go to on occasion to swim. Instead of waiting for the next bus, the old man decided we could hoof it. I think my brother had flip flops on so I’m sure his trek was a delight. I probably whined enough to get carried part of the way. I recall that we saw a flying squirrel on the way home. Either that or I was watching too much Rocky and Bullwinkle at the time. My brother and I obviously survived the peregrination and are better men for it.

The next day we flew to Philly, where my brother and I were born. We did a quick tour by car of some familiar sites. Sadly the neighborhood that three of my aunts had lived in were now the picture of urban blight, so we headed downtown. We had lunch with one of our cousins and then checked into the Marriott, across the street from the Reading Terminal. That evening the progeny of three first generation Italian-American sisters had a reunion repast deluxe at Bellini Grill. One cousin brought some excellent Italian wine, as many of Philly’s restaurants are BYOB, due to the exorbitant cost of liquor licenses. As we said our long goodbyes, we headed out into a frigid, rainy night. Our plans to walk back to the hotel lasted about 30 seconds before we hailed a cab.

http://www.bellinigrill.com/

The rain continued the next day as my sister drove us up the Jersey Turnpike to our next destination, Middletown, NY. We originally arrived on a summer day in 1965, so all three of us came of age there. We each had been back at least once in the recent past but this was our first tour together as adults. We went by the grade school, old homes, through the mostly abandoned downtown, and past the community college where our dad spent 18 years riding roughshod on the junior librarians as he smoked cigars in his office. Then the siblings dumped me off at Hertz and I was on my own.

I headed to Newburgh to see my high school friend JB. I passed a great view of the Hudson as I approached her house. I got to meet her three boys. When she called the middle one up from downstairs, he said “I don’t talk to strangers”. That’s my kind of kid. That evening I got to spend a lot of time chatting with JB’s Brooklyn born and bred hubby. We had a lot in common, and shared some of the travails of aging.

All the men were off to school and work the next day so JB and I had a chance to catch up. We ran through several names from our class of ‘74, recalled the pre-email days when we had an extended letter writing campaign, and discussed how we had both immersed ourselves in the academic life in the years following our high school graduation.

My last stop on this tour was NJ, to visit that perpetual motion machine that is The Wig. This was my first visit to his new home, a beauty built in 1890 which had been completely updated. I have to admit that he let me down a bit that first evening when he left me alone to go to a dinner with his congressman. I had declined a lunch invite with the Foster City mayor to make this trip. I had to console myself with the first-class cable TV package and caught “American Gangster”.

The next day my very generous friend got us tickets to the Yankees game. Oddly, I had never been to the old Yankee Stadium but I was able to catch the second game ever in the new yard, a warm sunny day in The Bronx. We were of the same mind that we should bail out after the 6th to beat the traffic. Our best laid plans failed us but it allowed me to watch Wig re-enact the car chase scene from “The French Connection”. He’s a very good driver. When we realized the Holland Tunnel traffic was impenetrable, we stopped for a pint at the Tribeca Tavern. It’s the type of place I would have hung out in 25 years ago, had I been hip.






















The tunnel lineup remained blocks long so we stopped for dinner at Tortilla Flats. The Wig had brought me there once in the ‘80s and it has managed to retain its popularity. This place features top shelf pitchers of margaritas and a tribute wall to Ernest Borgnine. I told my bud that I thought one of the characters in the Ed Burns movie “She’s The One” worked at Tortilla Flats but my brief internet research came up empty. I’ll have to rent that flick again.

http://www.tortillaflatsnyc.com/

Last Saturday The Wig dropped me off at nearby Newark Airport for my return home. There was a bit of a mix up for my connecting flight in Chicago but otherwise the trip was smooth. I bought a copy of Esquire to read on the plane. This was their “How To Be a Man” issue. I agreed with some of their premises, but not with others. However, it did make me reflect on what I’ve known for some time. A man with a close knit family, both nuclear and extended, is a lucky man. One who remains tight with his friends as the years progress, whether he has one or a dozen, has a surfeit of life’s good graces.