Last March I had written for the readers of this column that it had been years since I had last visited New York City, while extolling its cultural virtues. My enthusiasm must have rubbed off on my son, for lo and behold he announced to us about a month after the article was written that he had secured a summer job teaching sailing for an outfit on Pier 25 on the Hudson River. Well now, what a wonderful once in a lifetime opportunity, that for his parents was completely shocking and unexpected.
Logistically speaking, this turned out to be an interesting proposition. Not only did we now have to find him a reasonably priced place to live in Manhattan (lol!), but we also had to get him and all his gear down and back. The good news of course is that moms and dads will do anything for their kids, and that was the case here as well. Using some elbow grease and some old-fashioned resourcefulness, we were able to locate dorm housing for him at New York University, not too far from the sailing center. And since no train or plane could fit all the stuff he needed to fill his dorm room, our automobile would just have to do.
A confession here. I don’t mind driving, but I have a strong dislike for driving in traffic, particularly the heavy kind. My suggestion for others with a condition like mine is you might want to avoid driving to/from/in New York City. Maybe the weekends we chose to transport him there and back were unusually busy, but it felt like we spent an awfully long period of time stopped in the bumper-to-bumper variety. On one occasion it was a big fire bottling things up. On another was a 10k road race that required the city to close down streets. My joyful cup overflowed, however when we were able put the car away in a garage for a couple of days and walk around.
Moving on from the traffic and complaining, we really did enjoy ourselves once again while we were in the city. We love it there with all the great restaurants and things to do and see. With his dream job, as I will call it, he was able to take us out on the water for a pretty spectacular evening on a J-24 sailboat. In retrospect our only regret was something every parent experiences sooner or later, that between college and his NYC summer job, we didn’t see much of him this year :-(.
