Travel is so broadening
A trip off-Island is a good thing, and I’m slowly getting back to my pre-pandemic routine of traveling to the city every once in a while. For purposes of comparison with our magnificent Christmas tree and blazing menorah soon to light up the Center, I traveled by car to New York to see that place all gussied up for the holidays.
I planned my departure time to New York around free street parking, dictated by an arcane and pitiless set of rules known as “alternate side parking.” The New York Department of Transportation says alternate side regulations are meant to make it possible to clean the streets, but everyone knows they are really meant to keep people from claiming a parking space indefinitely. The rules of alternate side parking make cricket look like tic tac toe.
Alongside the actual regulations of alternate side are unofficial practices that are understood and accepted within neighborhoods. In my neighborhood, it has always been illegal to double park, but during alternate side parking restriction time, it’s okay to double park as long as you leave your phone number visible on the dashboard so you can be summoned to move your car.
It’s polite to hang out nearby and get to know the other double parkers, or chat with the doormen along the street. If you are antisocial (which is acceptable, this being NYC) you can go to your apartment as long as you can lean out the window and see the car. It’s understood that only an idiot parks on the legal side of the street if they need to get out during alternate side restriction time because they will be blocked by double-parked cars.
So, when I arrived to find a parking spot on West 101st street a few minutes before 1 p.m. on a Monday, the stakes were high. Finding a good spot would mean not having to move the car until Thursday. To have any chance of finding such a spot, I had to move the car into position at the end of the street so I could pounce on the open spots as soon as possible.
My faithful hound Mabel was in the back of the car getting increasingly nervous as the wind picked up, ahead of an approaching thunderstorm. Just ahead of me, a large panel truck pulled up next to a correctly double-parked Subaru and stopped, effectively blocking the one-way street. I was stuck behind the truck, and soon so were two other hapless would-be parkers. The heavens opened, and the wind buffeted my car.
In the eyes of the law, the Subaru and the truck both deserved tickets. But the parking mavens of 101st street thought the Subaru driver, who double-parked with his phone number visible, was well within his rights. The driver of the debris-hauling cargo truck parked at the opposite curb blocking 101st street during the fifteen minutes before the end of alternate side parking deserved to be drawn and quartered.
Doormen came out of their lobbies and pointed. One of the stalled drivers got out into the storm, pulled her coat over her head and pleaded with a guy in the truck to move, but he insisted the driver had already gone inside and there was nothing he could do. Somebody ran off to find the owner of the Subaru just as he arrived to move his car. Traffic began to thread down 101st street around the illegally-parked truck and everyone on the block agreed it was a damn shame to push out a legally, illegally double-parked car.
Once I found free parking, I had fun in New York, seeing the sights, seeing family and walking all over town. It’s basically the same thing I do on Shelter Island except there is a subway involved. My faithful hound went back to Shelter Island without me, and I took the bus home.
Non-emergency cellphone calls are forbidden on the bus from midtown Manhattan to Greenport, but that did not stop the guy sitting way back in the last seat from settling in for a Friday afternoon chat via speakerphone with some friends. The stink eye from every passenger seated near him forced him to switch from speaker to ear buds.
He began a new series of calls to friends informing them that he was on his way to the Hamptons for the weekend. The passengers seated nearby learned every detail of his plans.
“Please stop. I can hear every word,” pleaded the bookish person in the seat directly in front of him. Finally, he gave up, put down his phone and dozed off. Our auditory relief was short-lived. Soon, the sound of his snoring ripped through the back of the bus like a chainsaw on the trunk of a 7-foot Douglas fir.
If you’ve ever hosted a big, happy party, you know the feeling of relief and exhilaration when the last guests leave. That’s how I felt on the ferry ride back to Shelter Island after my November sojourn. Back in my now-quiet home, just a little worse for wear from all the traveling and visitors, ready to keep pursuing happiness.
Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth.
