I am fortunate enough to have a job where I have flexible work arrangements, meaning I get to work at home several days a week. This summer, in order to save money, we decided our eldest child will stay home with me 2 days a week in lieu of camp all five work days. Unlike our younger child, our son is old enough to fend for himself and not bother me while I work. However, not wanting him to spend the entire summer in front of the TV. I decided I will take a series of vacation days, a day here, a day there, to do something with him -- something I want to do as this age will be gone before much longer and I'll be the old man he wants nothing to do with. If this weekend was any example, my vacation days will be anything less than relaxing.
On Sunday, our temple sponsored a trip to Ellis Island and the Statute of Liberty for the religious school students and their families. I thought "great" a wonderful way to take our son and not have to drive or deal with parking. My wife wisely decided it would be great if she and our daughter spent the day at the mall (at 3, our youngest would've not had fun anyway). After reading the security requirements and what we can and can not bring, I began to think she was right.
The trip was pleasant enough, though we started off late when a family failed to arrive. My son was fairly excited to ride the bus but the first problem arose when the 7 year old snob disapproved of the snacks I bought (fine more for me!). As for me, since most of the trip mirrored my own NJ Transit bus commute, I just went into commute mode, ignored those around me, and read the paper. Much to his delight, and my wallet's chagrin, we discovered you can buy snacks like popcorn and chips pretty much everywhere (to be honest, it was worth it to buy those on site after all the security hassles you'll hear about next).
The last and only time I ever went to Ellis Island was sometime in the mid 90s when my now wife, who didn't grow up in the NYC area, was on a mission to cure me of the habit of New Yorkers to not go to tourist destinations, except for school (and since Ellis Island wasn't open to the public when I was a child, I had never been there). Back then we just bought the tickets at Batter Park and got on the boat. It's a little more complicated these days. We got off the bus at Liberty State Park and headed for the ferry terminal where we almost had to do a strip tease to get through security (mental note: get the next size down in pants out of the garage because the ones I'm wearing now won't stay up without a belt). We headed for the ferry and .... since we were a big group ... missed it. Sigh. We waited 15 minutes for the next one as the sunny skies became grayer and grayer.
While waiting for the boat my cell phone rang. Not recognizing the number I asked who I was speaking to. "MOM!!" "I forgot Josh got you a cell phone. I thought I told him to program my home phone and not my cell into your address book. No, we're not coming over to visit today. Why? Well we're on the line for the Ellis Island ferry .... hello?" My mom's social graces have really declined since her stroke last year. Nothing like a little Jewish mother guilt to start the trip. However, the rabbi, who was standing next to me during this exchange, absolved me from guilt. Those rabbis, sometimes they really come in handy.
We got on the boat and, since it wasn't raining, went to the top to sit outside and discovered my son was afraid of being outside on a boat. Fighting against traffic, we went back down a deck to sit inside. This turned out to be a good thing because about 5 min later the skies opened. An onerous sign I thought.
Fortunately, the rain stopped by time we got to Ellis Island and we lined up for out tour. It was a few minutes later I took the first picture of my son on Ellis Island, a place where his great grandfather and maybe a few great, great grandparents went through -- in front of the snack bar because his majesty decided he was now ready for lunch and the nice peanut butter and jelly sandwich was still sitting at home because I forgot to grab the bag before we left in the morning.
We started on the tour and it wasn't long until the "I'm bored" and "This is the worst day ever" started. I guess the tour was a little boring for a small child, I saw other children his age getting antsy, but I wanted to hear it. Instead I only heard parts of it while also hearing about the horrible injustice going on in our house because his younger sister was getting to watch whatever she wanted to watch on TV all day while he was being bored. He cheered up a bit when we went outside so he could chase the seagulls. Meanwhile I was able to look at the list of old family names I wrote down (between marriages and Americanization of some names the list was quite comprehensive) and hopefully took a few photos of the right names on the immigrants board thing outside the main hall.
Deciding he had had enough of Ellis Island, we headed to the ferry for the Statute of Liberty and time that perfectly. Before long we were on Liberty Island and headed to the statute. The last time I was there was sometime around 1980 when my mother led my sister's girl scout troop, and me and my brothers to the statute. To be honest, I think we were more excited about riding the subway from Queens into the city, but I do recall when we got there we took an elevator from the base to the foot of the statute and then climbed up those narrow stairs to the crown. No more.
First, you need to make a reservation to go into the statute. Then you enter a big security tent where you have to strip down again and go through an air puff security device (like the ones in airports now a days). The nicest thing about that was that it did help to keep the crowd in the statute's base down. But that tent was awfully warm.
Finally we're in the base. We go through the museum portion and head to the part where you ascend up to the foot of the statute. Hmm, where's the elevator? You mean I have to climb all 156 steps? It's a good thing I didn't start figuring out how many stories that was until we were climbing or I might never have done it. It was a good workout , but that ultimately led to the "I'm tired" complaints. We quickly walked around the base, looking at the really dark storm clouds over Manhattan from roughly the Empire State Building and north that fortunately decided to stay uptown and headed back to the ferry to catch our bus at 4. Now one nice thing about going to and from the statute to NJ in lieu of NYC is that the lines are shorter. The bad thing is service is infrequent and time consuming. Though we got on line for the ferry at about 3:10 we barely made it back to the bus on time. Some folks who stayed on Ellis Island the entire time were late because they didn't realize it would take 45 min for the ferry to do the Ellis Island/Statute of Liberty/Liberty State Park loop.
Soon we were back on the bus. I tried to sleep for the 50 min ride back home but my son decided I made a very good pillow and pillows shouldn't dare try to get more comfortable. So, 8 hours after we left, we arrive home, my son nice and refreshed and willing to admit he had fun while I was all frazzled and just wanted something to drink And then he asked what we were doing next weekend. Oy. When does school start again?
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