First We Take Manhattan

My wife (Queen Lodi of Brookmont) and I took our vagabond shoes and celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary in New York, New York. Neither one of us had been there before. We wanted to see if we could make it there because if we did, we could make it anywhere.

We stayed at a nice hotel in Times Square. Imagine the population of Atlanta, Georgia. Then imagine that population on a football field. That is Times Square on a Friday night. Yet, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, unless you count a grown man dressed as The Statue of Liberty. I didn’t see any spit or puke the entire time. I heard the bad Anglo-Saxon word for “making sweet love” just once, which surprised me because I thought it was the official New York Swear Word.

The one word I have never associated with New York is “polite”. However, the people were polite and friendly. In most of the customer situations we were in, they actually seemed like they cared. Maybe they sent all of the rude ones to live here in Atlanta.

Funny thing happened at the hotel. The young lady, who checked us in, saw us and said, “Hey”. “Hey” is Southern speak for “Hello”. This young lady was from Lawrenceville, Georgia (another nearby Atlanta suburb) and was a recent graduate of Georgia State University. You have a hard time finding anyone from Lawrenceville in Lawrenceville, much less in New York. I thought she might have been an aspiring actress or dancer. That’s why everyone moves to New York, right? Nope, she majored in Hospitality. She said she lived in the Lower Upper East Side or the Upper Lower West Side. She might live in Brooklyn or she commutes from Lawrenceville (I don’t know; I get lost when New Yorkers explain where they live.)

She gave us a lesson in Manhattan geography that was quicker than a New York minute. It is important to realize New York is nothing like Atlanta, because the names of the streets actually make sense. For example, the portion of 52nd street going east is called East 52nd Street. 52nd Street going west is called West 52nd Street. In Atlanta, the portion of the street going east would be called Peachtree Road Street Avenue or Upper Peachtree Street Ferry Road. The portion of the street going west would be called Peachtree Circle Street Road or Alpharetta Peachtree Parkway Boulevard. But the locals would call it: The Four Lane.

Walking is probably the best way to get around Manhattan. Driving is not recommended for anyone that is human, or least, is not getting paid to do it. Driving in Manhattan is real slow and every driver uses their horns to express their innermost thoughts, which are vulgar. In Atlanta, horns are used to either expressing greetings or “we are going to crash and both die in a fiery explosion”.

Of course, you can use The Subway. If you are as mentally challenged as we are, you might want to think twice about it. I knew we would have trouble with The Subway, because we’ve had trouble on MARTA. Once, when our son was five, we took the MARTA train to downtown Atlanta to eat at The Hard Rock Café. Coming back on MARTA, we somehow got on a train that did not go to our stop,which I assure you is almost impossible to do. After a good ten minute lecture from the MARTA Man advising us that we were in a restricted area, we finally made it to another MARTA train that went to our station. It was one of those messes I hope the boy doesn’t bring up in therapy, although he probably will.

Anyway, we wanted to get on the 1-2-3 train, but we went down into the hole of the N-R-B-D-E-I-E-I-O train. Fortunately, we didn’t get on that train. I think it went to Lawrenceville. We left that hole and went and found the 1-2-3 hole. However, it was the hole for the train going in the opposite direction we were going. We left that hole and finally found the correct 1-2-3 hole. After that, it was easy and we became experts on riding the subway, as long as it was the 1-2-3.


Next: Our fifteen minutes of fame.