Story of the Day 6/23/2011

"portrait a saint"







"portrait of a fucking idiot"








We lost Aaron, or to be more precise, he lost himself.

Aaron has spent the past few days visiting with various New York relatives, his aunt Amy, his paternal grandparents and his maternal grandmother.
On the morning that he took the bus from Binghamton to New York City, I woke up at 5 AM, ate some breakfast and drove him off to the bus station, then I checked to make sure that he got in the correct line, and onto the bus before I sped away, back to Ely's and Amelia's home.

When Ely awoke, he was amazed that i had gone to the trouble. "He's an adult."
"Yes," I replied, "He is a very talented adult, and he has also inherited your father's gene for getting lost easily. And you do realize that you have inherited it , too. " And I reminded him of the college visits Ely had taken Aaron to, this past January, where they had spent numerous hours terribly lost and driving through all of the wrong parts of Washington, DC and Rochester, and had ended up missing all of the carefully arranged college tours and appointments.

My terse recitation of this recent display of Ely's own navigational skills only served to quiet his condemnation of this "coddling" for about 20 minutes.

Some relatives are more realistic about aaron. Aaron's wonderful Aunt Amy , upon learning that Aaron was coming in, immediately offered to meet him at his bus, to feed him and then to make sure he actually boarded the correct train to get him out to East Rockaway to visit his Greenbaum grandparents.
And his father had arranged , in advance, ( via the internet) for a taxi to take him from there to my mother's place, in Brooklyn. And, my mother had been given very specific instructions, that today she was to take him down to Penn Station in Manhattan and see him onto the train to Wilmington.
And, either his aunt Lynne, or I would then drive to the train station, this evening, and pick him up.
So, basically, we were treating this very oversized 20 year old as if he were a very easily confused and confounded 6 year old who was quite unable to navigate any of this by himself.

What can I say, we are brilliantly insightful.

The first wrench in the works came this afternoon. Aaron's train left Penn Station ( New York City) at 3:35 PM. It was supposed to arrive in Wilmington a little after 5 PM, but, when it arrived in Princeton Junction, it sat , and it sat, and it sat.
For two hours.



Sarah and I arrived in Garnet Valley, at Lynne's home, close to 5 PM, and Lynne immediately let us know about Aaron's delay, and the reason for it. Some sort of broken signals.

And Aaron texted his aunt Lynne and let her know that the train had started up again
So we ate and we visited, and we atesome more, and when it got close to the new arrival time for the train, Lynne left for the station.

Lynne, very certain of Aaron's navigation inabilities, was there standing at the platform when the train pulled in. she watched the passengers disembarking, and didn’t see Aaron The train took off, and as the passengers cleared out, she still didn't see Aaron

And then she got a text.

From Aaron

He was still on the train.

And the train was moving. Away.

Well, after numerous back and forth texts, what had happened became known, Aaron had gotten up from his seat, and grabbed his suitcase, and headed towards the doors . And this was at the Wilmington station. But, you see, he had gotten up after the train stopped, and in the aisle on his way to the doors were a very fat woman and a very old man, and he had to impatiently get them to budge , so he could get to the doors. So, by the time he mad it to the doors, they had closed. And Aaron was still on the train.

Aunt Lynne is not a dumb bunny. She is one of those people who says, "Oh gee, a problem, what is the most efficient way to solve it?" And then she does whatever that is. And solves it.

So, Aunt Lynne went up to one of the Amtrak workers at the desk and explained that her very tall nephew was a fucking idiot, and he had not managed to get off the train in Wilmington, and now he was headed only God knows where, and could someone from Amtrak grab hm and get him settled on the next train back to Wilmington. Oh yes, and he is deaf and may or may not be able to speech read and understand the train conductor, (since his hearing aids are rendered useless for this by the noise of the train.)
Meanwhile,. Aaron has texted Lynne to let her know that the next station they will come to is Albany. Which caused some consternation, since the train he was on should not have been heading toward Albany .The conductor had told Aaron the next stop, but Aaron wasn't familiar with the name of the city, so he thought it was Albany. The Wilmington agent figured out it was Aberdeen, MD. Aberdeen is after Wilmington. But getting off at Aberdeen wouldn’t help, since no train was coming back from that station.

The lady at the desk very kindly made some phone calls, and said that a conductor on the train he was on would give Aaron a ticket for the 188 ( the train coming back this way) and get him off and handed over to someone who would get him onto the right train and who would make sure that he got off at the correct stop.

So, Lynne texted Aaron. She explained to him what she had set up with Amtrak, and that he shoudl not act offended when the train conductor came to speak with him and treated him as if he were intelectually deficient . And then Lynne came home for teh duration, while waiting for the 188 train to come, since it would be coming from Baltimore , MD, which was the next stop.......


Time went by and eventually, we heard from Aaron that he was headed back on the correct train.

Via a slew of texts, I let him know that he was supposed to be standing, with his bag in hand BEFORE the train stopped at Wilmington, and be ready to disembark BEFORE the train doors opened. And Aaron texted me back that he was totally prepared, this time. His actual text back to me read : " I talked to the conductor and he gave me a ticket for amtrax(sic) 188 when i get off at Baltimore, I’m going to stand by the door before the train stops and push all the old and fat people out of my way. smile"

So a couple of hours later, Lynne , with Sarah in tow, headed off to the station in Wilmington.

About 20 minutes later, we get a text from Aaron that he is still on the train as it pulls out of the station in Wilmington, as he has not successfully managed to disembark.

And Lynne calls, both furious and a bit panicked about what to do. although, furious is probably not quite the right word, because , after all, she has been Aaron's aunt for 20 years , now, and in some dark recess of her brain, I think she knew this might happen. So, perhaps frustrated is a better term. And of course, the panic only lasted about 3 minutes, because, by then, the innate and essential Lynne had sprung back and she had , again, figured out the most efficient way to solve the problem

She , with Sarah riding shotgun, took off on a mad dash to downtown Philadelphia- where, of course, some sort of sports game was going on, so the normally unfriendly Philadelphia traffic was worse than usual.

With numerous very specific and detailed texts to Aaron to locate a conductor and make sure the conduct knew to make sure he had to get off in Philadelphia, we also did the ultimate and Aaron's Aunt Lynne and i both threatened that if he didn't get off the train in downtown Philadelphia, that we he would have to spend the night in New York City .


In the end, which was, thankfully, before the witching hour, Aaron was safely gotten by Lynne and Sarah, an brought back to Lynne and Joe's house.

Lynne has added:
When he missed Wilm the 2nd time, the Wilm agent asked if I wanted him to come back again. She, being from DE, was horrified that anyone should have to drive into Phila. I, of course, had been hoping to avoid it, but being a native, was not so daunted. I told her I wanted him off the train on dry land! I was fairly certain Phila would be a big enough stop that he'd manage to get through the door this time.

The reason he missed Wilm the 2nd time is the doors didn't open at all! Several people were trapped with him. Sometimes, there is a PA announcement that only certain doors will open at a particular stop, but if several people were at the wrong place, either they didn't make the announcement or the PA wasn't working & the conductor didn't know it. Usually this only happens at small stations though, & Wilm is a major city in DE.

When we got to 30th St Station, there was construction, so I had to drive around & find where all the taxis & cars were waiting. We texted Aaron which door to exit & Sarah got out to wave him over. I frantically asked, "Are you OK? Not sick, not hurt? Fine, now I'll kill you." I received several hugs for this, because, after all, it's Aaron.

The original time of arrival in Wilm (after the Princeton Junction delay) was 6:50. Sarah & I left the house at 6:25 & finally arrived home with our prize at 10:30. I hadn't realized it was a Road Trip Day, but spontaneity can be fun. ;)


And this is the same boy who will be traveling by himself to Israel in just two months.