I have found that unless I do this, my GPS system seems to get lost.
I call my GPS “Suzanne.” She has this gravelly quality to her “voice”...a warm-throated static that is reminiscent of the late, great comedienne, Suzanne Pleshette, of Bob Newhart fame. I would pay good money for “GPS Suzanne” to say...”Oh, Bob!” I swear, she’s a dead ringer.
I digress...
So, with Suzanne on the ready, I punch in my morning’s destination -- Wayne, New Jersey.
With Suzanne coaxing me onto the BQE fly-over en route to the Brooklyn Bridge (which for some reason Suzanne repeatedly calls Brooklyn Branch) the glory of a fall morning in the City strikes me full bore.
A luminous Lady Liberty -- glowing turquoise -- the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings gleaming in the first rays of sunshine.
The drive across the bridge is awe-inspiring with a wall of towers beckoning across the river. I, and my fellow, rush-hour sojourners inch along nicely.
A sluggish trip toward the Holland Tunnel and then we pop up into the industrial wasteland that is Jersey City.
Among the U-Haul parking lots, road construction barricades and shells of once prosperous construction and manufacturing houses from the 70’s, one can still spot occasional dollops of charm.
One house, in particular, with a backyard snugged up against a gravel yard was a flash of nostalgia within an otherwise dismal landscape. This was a one-family, two-story clapboard with cement stairs -- sweet, potted greenery lining either side of each step. In the midst of the urban decay all around -- this family held onto their own. It was an American dream surrounded by inevitability -- the dream will be subsumed under the crush of industrialization. The front yard, with pink rose and trimmed bush can only survive so long with speeding cars 20 feet from the front door and toxic dust producing industrial sites encroaching the rear.
All of this is a snapshot as I speed by and I allow myself a novelization of what I’ve seen. I see the tiny matriarch of the once large, Italian family sitting quietly now, engulfed in an old Lazy-Boy rocker that once belonged to her long-dead husband. Television on, she is deaf to everything except for the six-day-a-week crunch of shoe on stairs as the postman delivers more Chinese food menus and St. Jude’s donation requests. This is the only human contact she has over the long winter days when none of her children visit.
I digress...
Suzanne and I are going along nicely...we are now suddenly into stretches of fall foliage with fiery, luminescent branches whipped by the wind of the traffic. Auburn, goldenrod, lime, burnt umber, scarlet, carnelian, pale yellow, butterscotch, dusky purple...it is as though a windstorm has blown through a Benjamin Moore store -- wild colors flying through space.
Arriving in Patterson, New Jersey I am underwhelmed. Perhaps another foray, another day I will find a Patterson I can love, but for now I am happy to be passing through.
Wayne has a lovely sign as you drive in from the West. Unassuming, dark, blazer blue, with white and gold lettering. Unassuming, but informative. Winding roads take you through what is a nice part of town.
For business reasons I am going to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Wayne where I will visit a man in hospice care. I am early, and always seeking adventure, I explore Wayne in search of charm.
In my mind’s eye I always have the feeling that any town I visit in the Northeast will be populated by folksy sorts running mom and pop places that serve up fresh coffee and cinnamon rolls.
As I roll past one...two...three mini-malls, I remember that charm is often overtaken by ‘necessary growth.’
I do find a form of charm. The Wayne Hills Diner -- which admittedly is a garish explosion of chrome, champagne pink booths and frosted glass dividers. The diner is not charming physically, but do decide to stop in as the parking lot is surprisingly full for 9:30 on a workday. Driving up to park, I notice that each head in every booth is gray-haired. If that many senior citizens like this place, then it likely has a reasonably priced, marginally high-quality breakfast.
Foregoing my “charm standards” I settle for a cheap meal.
Although the interior fails to impress, it is certainly clean. The staff is warm and the short stack pancake special was $3.95 and could easily have feed two gals.
Charm has many forms. The people in the diner were friendly and accepting of an obvious outsider driving a little green Honda, sporting a short hair-do and an all-black ensemble, topped off with quirky glasses.
Despite the decay of physical charm, if we don’t just “drive by”... but actually go inside and initiate human contact, a human charm can unfold.
