Why walk when you can ride.

I think I will walk


I got a news flash in the old in box and on reading it, I was moved to a chuckle.  I was not laughing at the overturned tractor trailer on the  HELIX, that begat traffic hell.  I really wasn't laughing at the poor man who had a panic attack mid tube of the Lincoln Tunnel and decided to leave his car and walk out causing yet another epic traffic incident.  Traffic in Northern NJ is such that it is a frequently cited reason for leaving the state, behind property taxes and cost of living.  It is frequently number one on the quality of life complaints.  One need only visit Paramus NJ on a Saturday in late fall to understand, it rivals Washington DC or Los Angeles for annoyance driving. 

I was laughing about all the memories that I had of my commuting days from NJ into NYC to attend Law School.  I was a gainfully employed middle management type when I got the notion that the corporate world was not my cup of tea.  I mean dealing with the inanity of corporate life sometimes caused me to wonder .  Like the Senior VP who would tell me that his life revolved about  bailing out of work early on Friday in Atlanta and heading over to Birmingham Alabama , because they  had the best go go bars and then Saturday in Tuscaloosa to watch the Tide roll, and how he would schedule meeting for Friday and Monday in Alabama so he could write it all off.  Shareholders none the wiser for his 3 day work week during the season.KL

Seeing no real attraction in remaining a minion of an Atlanta based company as a  Yankee of the first order I decided that if admitted I would go to Law School, even if that meant going at night.  Which is exactly what happened.    So it was that I found myself every second week of August for four years RUNNING loading myself in the car  precisely at the close of business every day, tuning into the traffic report and in an allotted 3 minutes time deciding which of 14 alternative routes I would take to make sure that I arrived no later than 6PM at my seat in anyone of my classes in lower Manhattan,.  Elevator time included.

I still have nightmares of missing classes and not graduating, after 40 years.  I wake up and realize that it really is over . Such were the memories of the commute.  Now I have to laugh.

Hey what is not funny about following a dump  truck into the maw of the Holland Tunnel only to have its bed raise and a load of gravel spill out blocking all traffic from entry.  Or what is not amusing about a guy running around inside the tube with a bowie knife trying to car jack commuters as the cops chased after him.  The guy apparently knew all the maze like utility tubes worked into the tunnel structure  and he was able to avoid capture or getting shot for better than an hour.  The cops at the mouth giving individual instruction to drivers as they entered. Windows up, doors locked and whatever you do don't stop.  I caught a glimpse of the guy on the catwalk, and like most others gave him a beep beep salute as I passed.

I can laugh now at the craziness of traffic but I did not laugh the night that all traffic lights on Tonnele Avenue went out in a black out.  Mayhem ensued.  Tonnele Avenue in Jersey City was at that time a series of staggered lights and was also a road described by some as the only road in the US that makes you wish you were dead.   I worry not about dystopian future for I lived in dystopia itself on that night. Fender benders and fisticuffs among the hapless hoards of lightless drivers.

I survived blackouts, flooded roadwasy , daily rides on the depressed highway.  Yup, the actual name of the road leading to the tunnel is the depressed highway, sums it up pretty well.

I also survived 4 consecutive  Halloween nights.  You see on Halloween they have the Grennwich Village Gay Halloween Parade and on Halloween night it draws one million spectators, fully half of whom enter the city through the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels.
So there I would sit in monumental traffic jams  among car loads of cross dressed revelers looking for a good time and I would think darkly that I was missing the first hour of Con Law One, or Contracts 2.  Hey maybe sitting in traffic was less painful.

So I chuckled at the thought of the guy bailing on his car causing mayhem, secure in the knowledge that I do not have to ever do that again.  Although I would still like to relive that one night when the pigs escaped the truck on the plaza, now that was funny.