A Long Drive to Warwick, New York, to Visit My Niece

The Long Drive to Warwick

I went to Warwick, New York, to spend Thanksgiving with my niece, Reagan, and her family. I haven’t seen her in 11 years. She was 21 when I last saw her, and now she’s a grown woman with a husband and two young girls.

The drive took about 6-1/2 hours. Much of the highway in Pennsylvania was in such poor condition that it was patched all over. The constant hammering of bumps began to give me a headache. I took a cup of coffee for the trip, and passed the first rest stop; next rest stop 19 miles. I can wait. Next rest stop: No facilities. (Maybe they should have mentioned that back at the last rest stop.) So park, trot and squat in the bushes.

When I crossed the border into New York, the signs said, “State Speed Limit 55 Miles per hour.” At least I think it was New York. I was on a four lane highway with a fenced median (two lanes on either side). The car ahead of me continued to speed along at 75 miles per hour, and I slowed somewhat. As I crested a hill at about 67 mph, there in the median was a highway patrol SUV. After I passed I looked in my rearview mirror and saw red and blue lights flashing. Busted!

Damn! No! No! No ticket! My adrenals seem to be in working order, because my entire body was flooded with adrenaline. I could feel it in my skin, my chest, my legs. The lights receded as traffic prevented the SUV from entering the lane. I cast about for an exit, some way to escape this monster bearing down on me. Then the lights were gone. Maybe I was safe.

The lights reappeared in the mirror. Damn! I can’t believe I’m going to get a ticket. But the radar god was gracious that day. The SUV pulled someone else over. Now, what to do with all this adrenaline?

New York is really anal about their seatbelt laws. Solar-powered signs littered the highway with “Click It or Ticket. It’s the Law.” Why is this so important that you need all this hardware every 30 miles? Fines double in work zones. Two tickets for work zone violation result in suspension of license. Cell phones verboten.

A Trip Down Musical Memory Lane

My back was hurting and I was tired as I got close to Warwick. (I was listening to Eckhart Tolle on CD, which is probably not wise on a long trip. I switched to the radio.) I saw a sign saying, “Welcome to Florida.” My reptilian brain panicked! How could I have gotten to Florida??? Then my evolved brain intervened and read the sign again, “Village of Florida.”

This reminded me of a trip I took to Italy, intending to go to Rome. Instead of driving south through Austria and down the west coast of Italy, I took a wrong turn and drove east through Austria. When my boyfriend Dennis woke up, he discovered my error. Whoops. We ended up in Lido di Jesolo and pitched a tent. We went sidewalk shopping and kept seeing T-Shirts and posters with the word Venezia on them. What is Venezia? Oooooh, it’s Venice! the place of $6 cokes and dirty waterways. Not a bad outcome after all.

I was listening to Seventies on Seven and John Denver was singing Rocky Mountain High. An avalanche of memories fell on me. From when I bought John Denver albums as a teen. A girlfriend who was in love with John. Memories of my grandfather’s house in Chico, California, and hearing the feather bed song, hunting the creek for crawdads. I began to cry, deeply touched by the beauty of the John’s voice. For a lost childhood, a lost innocence, a whole life ahead of me. A time when mortality was never considered.

The next song was by KC and the Sunshine Band. Now I was back at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, in the summer for Army basic training and AIT. Time off was celebrated in hot, stifling bars dancing to 70s disco, and getting ripped on cheap beer, dripping with sweat, meeting lots of boys, falling in love with a drill sergeant (or two).

Then Mr. Bojangles played. My memory of this song was painfully jumbled with memories of other depressing songs of loss that my mother played after my father left us for another woman, a woman we all knew because our family was friends with her family, and she worked for my father. But then her husband died, and my dad took his place. Sammy Davis Jr.’s version of Bojangles was my mother’s favorite.

Bette Midler singing Breaking Up Somebody’s Home and Skylark. Barbra Streisand, Peggy Lee, Neil Diamond, a rotating playlist about broken love to intensify the effects of her drinking and pain. My favorite heartbreak song was John Denver’s Please, Daddy, Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas.

I finally arrived at my niece’s. Here, another piece of my past, held in my arms. The only family I’ve seen in a couple years. Perhaps the only family I care to see.

The last time I saw her was when I visited my sister (her mother) right after her husband left for another woman. It was a visit to hell punctuated by the crying and screaming of yet another drunk woman suffering another crushing loss. And my niece, a young woman, trapped in the same home.

I chose not to have children. Didn’t want to pass on this legacy, and didn’t feel strong enough to overcome it. Will my niece embrace the tradition if her husband leaves her, and pass the legacy to her girls? I hope it never comes to that.