Good morning, each and every gentle reader out there. I have important UOPTA news for you all. My parents left Sunday morning to be out of town for the next three weeks. Since they're the most frequent commenters in this space, I'm asking you all to please pick up their slack a little. Then you can be "slackers" in the most positive way imaginable. Ok, so I can think of a few slightly more positive ways that involve saving lives, but this is damn close.
A month or so ago, I was running out of ideas for posts. I told my mom that and she started rattling off things that popped into her head. I asked her to email me them so I wouldn't forget, and I've gone to that list fairly often since. Today is no exception, friends, for nothing else is jumping around in my brain and begging to be transferred to paper. So here goes:
My senior year of college, I took an Independent Studies course from a professor with whom I grew quite close during my time at UCSB. (I had to use correct grammar while talking about an English professor - ending with a preposition there just seemed wrong.) The course was designed to help me and one other student learn about specific poets and their works, to work on our own poetry portfolios, and then to attend a conference in Pennsylvania to meet the people we had been studying and take workshops from them. The conference was in West Chester, and I flew in and out of nearby Philadelphia.
In any case, I'm going to skip over the conference itself for now and get to the story I'm intending to tell. That ok with you? I can go off on random tangents for 300 words first if you like? Nah, I'll save that for later this week. My flight was to leave Philadelphia at around 6pm, so my initial plan was to hang around West Chester until lunch time and then take a shuttle over to the airport a few hours before departing. My plan wasn't anyone else's plan though, because the final shuttle left West Chester at 8:30am. Not having other options, I decided to take the shuttle and then see if I could explore Philly a little.
I got to the airport, and I remembered talking to my mom just before the trip about Philadelphia. "If you have time in the city," she said, "there's a place on South Street that's famous for cheese steaks. I can't remember the name, but it's a man's name like Bill's or Tom's." I remembered South Street because of the song telling me to meet someone there, so I took that information with me to the big sign that said "Information."
I explained to the lady at the desk that I had about 8 hours before my flights, and I was interested in seeing the city - especially South Street. She showed me where the lockers were to stuff my carry-on, and where I could take a train from the airport to downtown. I looked at the map she gave me, and I saw not only South Street on it, but the Liberty Bell as well. This was exciting, because it was hands-down the most independent thing I had done up to that point in my life. Here I was, taking a train alone in a city I knew absolutely nothing about to find a sandwich place of some name somewhere on a street my mom told me about. I felt grown up, and I liked the idea of being a stranger.
The train part was easy. I got on the one that has a sign saying it was going where I wanted, I waited for the exit that the lady told me. Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible with my map, I took a zig-zag way to South Street to make sure I passed the Liberty Bell. I blended in with a tour group for a minute in hopes to learn a little more about the famous crack, but the tour was neither in English, Spanish, nor Pig Latin, so I was out of luck. The bell was smaller than I expected, but it was impressive nonetheless. It's almost as important to our nation's history as the clock tower in "Back to the Future," after all.
Finally, I made it to South Street. I randomly started walking in one direction, hoping I'd stumble across the place I was looking for. After a few minutes, I asked someone. He said he had no idea which place I meant, for there were tons of cheese steak places. I realized his point was probably right on the money, but I wasn't discouraged yet. I turned around, and a few minutes later asked a couple who seemed to be from nearby. "Oh, your mom probably meant Jim's. Keep walking this way for a while and it'll be on the right. You'll smell it when you get close."
They were right. I found Jim's and ate a fantastic meal. I sat alone at a table on the second floor, surrounded by families on vacation and businesspeople on lunch. I looked around for something I could pretend to be reading, but was out of luck. After wolfing down the sandwich, I thought I'd slowly meander back to the train station, stopping in stores along the way. I went outside and took a deep breath, looking forward to my next couple of hours as Peter the Independent Traveler. I stepped across the street and was pleased to not have a definite plan of action. It was so un-me, but I could see myself getting used to it every once in a while.
And then, out of nowhere, the sky opened up. Where there had been a pleasant sunshine just a minute before was now just rain. Hard rain. Lots of hard rain. I looked around me to see if anyone else had the same surprised look, but no one did. Instead, they all instinctively and immediately produced umbrellas and continued on their way without missing a step. I didn't have an umbrella, so I had to quickly devise a plan. Here it was: walk briskly, find as many overhangs and awnings as possible, get back to the train, and spend more time than anticipated in the airport. One problem with the plan though: not a single overhang or awning anywhere in the whole city (or at least on the route I took). It was unreal. The rain kept pouring down and I walked as quickly as I could. Passers-by actually pointed and laughed at me, and I understood why. I was the only person without an umbrella, and I was 100% wet. The phrase that kept going through my mind was, "I couldn't be more wet if I jumped into a pool." I was that drenched and people thought that was funny.
Eventually I made it to the train, and people looked at me like I had an arm growing out of my forehead. "Why didn't he bring an umbrella?" they wondered. "Didn't he know that it randomly pours like a plague without any warning in this town?" No, he didn't. I got back to the airport (after leaving a nice puddle on my train seat) and an employee stopped me. She told me that she was a mom, and it was her duty to make sure I had some dry clothes somewhere so I wasn't "going to catch my death" while waiting for my plane. I assured her that I had a sweatshirt in my carry-on, and she let me go.
I got my bag and went to the closest men's room. There I stood, as far away from everyone else as possible, changing into a dry sweatshirt that clashed with my wet hair, pants, and shoes. Over the next several hours, I slowly dried off as I read, wrote, and ate before an uneventful flight back.
Was Peter the Independent Traveler defeated? Yes and no. I did get soaked to the bone, ridiculed, reprimanded, and almost deathly ill. But I also found Jim's, and that has to cancel out at least two of those.
Have a great day, gentle readers, and bring an umbrella with you today just in case. You never ever know. Please post your comments and/or write to ptklein@gmail.com with thoughts, questions, stories, and Car Watch items for Follow Up Friday.
A month or so ago, I was running out of ideas for posts. I told my mom that and she started rattling off things that popped into her head. I asked her to email me them so I wouldn't forget, and I've gone to that list fairly often since. Today is no exception, friends, for nothing else is jumping around in my brain and begging to be transferred to paper. So here goes:
My senior year of college, I took an Independent Studies course from a professor with whom I grew quite close during my time at UCSB. (I had to use correct grammar while talking about an English professor - ending with a preposition there just seemed wrong.) The course was designed to help me and one other student learn about specific poets and their works, to work on our own poetry portfolios, and then to attend a conference in Pennsylvania to meet the people we had been studying and take workshops from them. The conference was in West Chester, and I flew in and out of nearby Philadelphia.
In any case, I'm going to skip over the conference itself for now and get to the story I'm intending to tell. That ok with you? I can go off on random tangents for 300 words first if you like? Nah, I'll save that for later this week. My flight was to leave Philadelphia at around 6pm, so my initial plan was to hang around West Chester until lunch time and then take a shuttle over to the airport a few hours before departing. My plan wasn't anyone else's plan though, because the final shuttle left West Chester at 8:30am. Not having other options, I decided to take the shuttle and then see if I could explore Philly a little.
I got to the airport, and I remembered talking to my mom just before the trip about Philadelphia. "If you have time in the city," she said, "there's a place on South Street that's famous for cheese steaks. I can't remember the name, but it's a man's name like Bill's or Tom's." I remembered South Street because of the song telling me to meet someone there, so I took that information with me to the big sign that said "Information."
I explained to the lady at the desk that I had about 8 hours before my flights, and I was interested in seeing the city - especially South Street. She showed me where the lockers were to stuff my carry-on, and where I could take a train from the airport to downtown. I looked at the map she gave me, and I saw not only South Street on it, but the Liberty Bell as well. This was exciting, because it was hands-down the most independent thing I had done up to that point in my life. Here I was, taking a train alone in a city I knew absolutely nothing about to find a sandwich place of some name somewhere on a street my mom told me about. I felt grown up, and I liked the idea of being a stranger.
The train part was easy. I got on the one that has a sign saying it was going where I wanted, I waited for the exit that the lady told me. Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible with my map, I took a zig-zag way to South Street to make sure I passed the Liberty Bell. I blended in with a tour group for a minute in hopes to learn a little more about the famous crack, but the tour was neither in English, Spanish, nor Pig Latin, so I was out of luck. The bell was smaller than I expected, but it was impressive nonetheless. It's almost as important to our nation's history as the clock tower in "Back to the Future," after all.
Finally, I made it to South Street. I randomly started walking in one direction, hoping I'd stumble across the place I was looking for. After a few minutes, I asked someone. He said he had no idea which place I meant, for there were tons of cheese steak places. I realized his point was probably right on the money, but I wasn't discouraged yet. I turned around, and a few minutes later asked a couple who seemed to be from nearby. "Oh, your mom probably meant Jim's. Keep walking this way for a while and it'll be on the right. You'll smell it when you get close."
They were right. I found Jim's and ate a fantastic meal. I sat alone at a table on the second floor, surrounded by families on vacation and businesspeople on lunch. I looked around for something I could pretend to be reading, but was out of luck. After wolfing down the sandwich, I thought I'd slowly meander back to the train station, stopping in stores along the way. I went outside and took a deep breath, looking forward to my next couple of hours as Peter the Independent Traveler. I stepped across the street and was pleased to not have a definite plan of action. It was so un-me, but I could see myself getting used to it every once in a while.
And then, out of nowhere, the sky opened up. Where there had been a pleasant sunshine just a minute before was now just rain. Hard rain. Lots of hard rain. I looked around me to see if anyone else had the same surprised look, but no one did. Instead, they all instinctively and immediately produced umbrellas and continued on their way without missing a step. I didn't have an umbrella, so I had to quickly devise a plan. Here it was: walk briskly, find as many overhangs and awnings as possible, get back to the train, and spend more time than anticipated in the airport. One problem with the plan though: not a single overhang or awning anywhere in the whole city (or at least on the route I took). It was unreal. The rain kept pouring down and I walked as quickly as I could. Passers-by actually pointed and laughed at me, and I understood why. I was the only person without an umbrella, and I was 100% wet. The phrase that kept going through my mind was, "I couldn't be more wet if I jumped into a pool." I was that drenched and people thought that was funny.
Eventually I made it to the train, and people looked at me like I had an arm growing out of my forehead. "Why didn't he bring an umbrella?" they wondered. "Didn't he know that it randomly pours like a plague without any warning in this town?" No, he didn't. I got back to the airport (after leaving a nice puddle on my train seat) and an employee stopped me. She told me that she was a mom, and it was her duty to make sure I had some dry clothes somewhere so I wasn't "going to catch my death" while waiting for my plane. I assured her that I had a sweatshirt in my carry-on, and she let me go.
I got my bag and went to the closest men's room. There I stood, as far away from everyone else as possible, changing into a dry sweatshirt that clashed with my wet hair, pants, and shoes. Over the next several hours, I slowly dried off as I read, wrote, and ate before an uneventful flight back.
Was Peter the Independent Traveler defeated? Yes and no. I did get soaked to the bone, ridiculed, reprimanded, and almost deathly ill. But I also found Jim's, and that has to cancel out at least two of those.
Have a great day, gentle readers, and bring an umbrella with you today just in case. You never ever know. Please post your comments and/or write to ptklein@gmail.com with thoughts, questions, stories, and Car Watch items for Follow Up Friday.
7 comments:
Ok, I'll step up as the first slacker... I have a few stories of the sky opening up and getting 100% wet, all of which happened on the east coast (I love California). The best of these was when my Mom and I were in New Hampshire walking the .25 miles to see the Old Man in the Mountain (who looked a bit like John Kerry until the mountain lost its nose). We left the car under perfect blue skies, and only a few yards in, it started to rain. We were able to take a bit of cover, and it passed after 15 minutes or so, but it was certainly an experience...
Was that prof J. Ridland?
Yeah, I don't know if anywhere in California is really prone to these liquid outbursts. Thanks for being a slacker, honey.
And BKS, I was indeed writing of Professor Ridland. I ended up taking 4 or 5 courses with him by the end of my four years. If only I had met him before my junior year, I could've made it to the double digits.
I was in Pennsylvania with my fam and it started pouring. It was just how you described it. Thank god for sunny Cal.
jon
Hey Pete. I have been to Philly a few times and almost all of the ffamous Cheesesteak Places are named with random men's names. Off the top of my head, there is a Pat's, Gino's, Tony Luke's, Bill's and Steve's. I prefers Pat's as the best. You can actually order it with Cheese-Wiz for the cheese. Trust me, it is better than it sounds.
That kind of rain is cold, cold, cold. If you have to be somewhere without an umbrella let it be in a Hawaiian rain shower. Warm and quickly over. I know this is after the fact but I have a pet peeve I never got to vent. I hate it when a TV show is out of sync. They spend millions of dollars making these programs why can't the mouth & words move together ? What's up with that ?
Sue, you're right on the money with that pet peeve. Even the slightest fraction of a second off between mouths and sounds throws the whole thing out of whack. It's distracting enough that funny things aren't even funny when that's going on. Thanks for sharing that, and I also agree with you that Hawaii should be the only place where one gets caught in the rain.
Kev - Cheez Whiz? I don't know. That just sounds like too much. Something mild and light like provolone makes a lot more sense to me. And why have you tried all of those places and not Jim's?
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