I stopped at McDonald’s to pick up two caramel sundaes to bring to the nursing home.  My dad and I ate one apiece and then he went back to sleep.  I sat with him for a couple of hours and then took my leave in order to purchase a suitcase.  He was really groggy when I left and did not want to go down for a cigarette, which was unusual, but the weather was turning nasty so I told him to continue sleeping and that I would be back in the evening.  When I was shopping in Vestal, though, the rain turned torrential and started creating major problems in the tri-city area.  I got the hell out of there but only made it a few miles down Vestal Parkway and had to turn in to a shopping center perched high on a hill in order to avoid being swept away by the river that had formed on the side of the parkway.  The rain eventually blossomed into another major flood for this already flood-battered area, and I was stranded between McDonald’s and Outback Steakhouse for a few hours as things went from bad to worse.  I took a couple of photos with my cell phone, though you can’t see very much given the conditions and the poor picture quality.  Nicole Howard came to rescue me with her SUV, thank God, and I was back at their home by late evening after a very interesting ride.  This would have been a terrible night for the nursing home to have called to tell me I needed to get over there because we were nearing the end with my Dad, right?  I had no car and the second worst storm of the year was taking place.  Well, of course they did.  They called me via Steven in California (smart, right?) and he called and said my Dad had taken a bad fall, that he had asked for me and was not expected to make it much longer.  I had to wake Marie and Nicole, which I am sure they appreciated, being restaurant people who never get enough sleep, and Nicole drove me to the nursing home in all that mess.  When I got to the room, the nurses were repositioning him to make him more comfortable.  I told him I was there and he opened his eyes and looked at me.  He didn’t say anything and never opened his eyes again.

Matt and I got up at 3:45 a.m. to drive the 80-odd miles from Binghamton to Syracuse to return a rental car and hop a plane to a plane to Oakland, CA. There was so much fog on 81 North that I was white-knuckled by the time I pulled into the rental car return at the airport. Anyone who has driven on a highway in dense fog at night with nothing but tractor-trailers on the road knows what I’m talking about. Only after I pried my fingers off the steering wheel did I feel a sense of happiness about the two of us remaining alive. We schlepped our bags to the United check-in and tried to, well, check in. Turns out our flight from Chicago to Oakland was cancelled and they took the liberty of putting us on another flight that would trap us at the airport for over four hours. “Nay.” said I. “Get us to San Francisco instead!” They did, and it was on a 747, to boot. Oh, the joy of those large planes with their multiple lavatories and wide aisles! I became nostalgic for the days when there were lots of large planes in service on US routes, and one would encounter them often. United also upgraded us from Economy to Economy Plus, giving us 5 glorious extra inches of legroom. Things were looking up, indeed. How we got those dozen ears of sweet corn from Pennsylvania through security twice I’ll never know.

Today we were excited about going down to Stevensville, Pennsylvania, where my parents and I lived during the mid 1970’s to early 1980’s.  We had purchased a large, triangular piece of property in this Northeastern Pennsylvania town of less than 400 people, a beautiful place what with the hills and foliage, in 1972, and then started building a house in the summer of 1976.  Due to the usual delays, the house was not yet complete in the fall, so my parents arranged for me to move in with neighbors who lived about a half mile down the road so I could start school on time.  Problem was, I never met the people, the Yanavitch’s, and I was very unhappy about moving out of Queens at age 14.  At that time the thought that the neighbors might be axe murderers or molesters never entered my mind — that was only later, in a sort of “thank God they were great people” rumination when I was old enough to grasp the possible outcomes of such an arrangement.  It turns out I loved living with this family, who seemed, initially, too good to be true.  I was always waiting for the shoe to drop, but it never did.  Martha and Joe were in their 40s then, Joe working heavy construction and Martha sewing and taking care of her family, including two children, both of whom were away at college at the time.  Taking care of a household in this neck of the woods includes growing things and freezing and canning the results.  Deer meat figures into the equation.  The nearest store is miles away and there are no sidewalks.  Although only 250 miles from 42nd and Broadway, the lifestyle is light years away, for better or worse.  During the four years I lived in this town I both loved it and hated it, depending on how a whole host of other things were working out in my life.  Mostly, though, I took to it, particularly the cooking and canning part.  I liked all the local recipes and the way people lived — how different it was from life in a Queens apartment.  It’s too bad it all fell apart in 1981, after which I returned only as a guest, as I did today.  The drive down was wonderful, and I recognized all the familiar smells along the way.  When that specific hay and cow poop odor wafted in, I knew we were getting close.  Martha made deer meatloaf and a bunch of comforty sides.  There was also cake, but, my goodness!, ’twas from a mix and topped with canned frosting.  I wanted so much to believe that this would never happen here.  That I could “come home” to this house and all the modern crap that is eaten everywhere else for the sake of convenience would never rear its head.  Back in the day Martha would have spread her famous boiled frosting on a real butter cake.  She laughed and laughed as I bitched away about the cake.  Later she took Matt for a spin in that crazy dune buggy she rides around in.