In
the fall of 1993 Gavin would start high school and unfortunately the workload
would increase – gone were the carefree days in a rural public school. That
meant we would be unable to just pull him out of school for a couple or three
weeks, there was now too much at stake to allow that to happen. Frighteningly,
a summer holiday was now required; frightening because that meant crowds and
congestion to me, something we had happily avoided for the last six years.
I was still not independently wealthy and
my “Freedom 55” plan seemed to have a few clouds developing on the horizon.
Therefore, this year we would choose to vacation a little closer to home and
for a shorter period of time. New York City looked like it would be a great
trip. This one was not so much poorly planned as not planned at all so
adventure ruled once again as we drove off into the unknown.
As we got to the George Washington Bridge
to get onto Manhattan Island I was perplexed by the numerous exits off the
bridge. None of them appeared to be particularly well marked so at that point I
made the decision to take the one that was least cluttered with garbage.
As we coasted to a stop at the bottom of
the ramp we were immediately swarmed by a large contingent of local youths. I
wasn’t sure if it was a gang attempting to hold us up in broad daylight or what
but they were heavily armed with buckets and squeegees. We were in Harlem -
“Welcome to New York boys”. At
one point I was reminded of the National Lampoon movie “Vacation” and I reacted
pretty much the same way that Chevy Chase had in the film. We heard gunshots
off to one side and I shouted to Karen and the boys, “Roll 'em up and lock the
doors!” I was relatively sure we were safe as the shots were from some distance
away but nevertheless it was nice to see Harlem disappear as we approached
uptown Manhattan.
As the Clampetts, or in this case the
Whiteheads, arrived in New York City with their matching grocery bags as
luggage their unfamiliarity and lack of understanding of the ways of this world
shone through with amazing clarity. The charging cabs, the constant horn
honking and the swarms of people would normally be a major source of irritation
to me but here it seemed totally normal and even necessary – after all this was
New York City, the Big Apple – and we were there to willingly take our bite of
the madness.
The New York Yankees are the pride of the
city and after a brief rest in our room we embarked on our greatest baseball
connection to date. (The original) Yankee Stadium was built in 1923 and had always
been the ultimate in major league stadiums so our love of baseball made this
visit almost spiritual. The game itself was nothing out of the ordinary but the
fact that we were in Yankee Stadium made it extraordinary indeed. Their
opponents were our own Toronto Blue Jays so ball park hot dogs and a coke put
the icing on the cake for us all. As we left the stadium I looked back at “the
bat”, the facility’s exhaust pipe that had been built to resemble a Louisville
Slugger, and thought how fortunate I was to have been able to share this moment
with my wife and sons.
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