Recession? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Recession.

Thursday August 22 – Latrobe, PA-New York, NY via Yardley, PA

Yes, I am technically on the East Coast. After all, Pennsylvania is an Atlantic port state. I won’t really feel it, though, until I hit The Philadelphia area and then drive up the New Jersey Turnpike to New York City.

I’m stopping later today in Yardley, PA, just west of Trenton, NJ, to visit my Cousin Roberta, the daughter of my Dad’s brother. A few years older than I, she was my very first boyhood crush and remains to this day an easy audience for my unique sense of humor. I can’t stay long in Yardley; I’ll have to find camping as I near New York City early this evening. The closest camping to the city is 35 miles south of NY at the strangely named Cheesequake (sic) State Park.

My drive from Latrobe to Yardley will be mostly on the Pennsylvania Turnpike/I-76. Getting to the turnpike is a soothing 45-minute drive along the lush and rolling state roads of Western PA. I’m glad it is so soothing; when I reach the turnpike entrance it is a rude awakening.

Even though I grew up in New York City, I’ve been in Seattle since 1974. Toll roads are a rarity in the Pacific Northwest but I remember them well from my younger days; they are the norm on the East Coast. On many turnpikes, instead of toll booths every few exits, you grab a ticket at the freeway entrance and pay accordingly at your exit. As a teenager I took the 90-minute drive on the Jersey Turnpike many times to sustain a brief romance in Philadelphia. In addition to paying the $0.31.9 per gallon of gas in 1965 the toll from the Holland Tunnel to the Delaware Memorial Bridge might have been as much as $3.95.

So you can imagine my sticker shock when I see the $26.95 it will cost me to cross PA on I-76. The next body blow is the $8.80 on the Jersey Turnpike from Trenton to the Holland Tunnel (under the Hudson River into NYC) followed by the $13.00 for the tunnel. YOIKS, that’s $48.75 before the rubber ever hits a New York City pothole.

You may be asking right now, “Wait, what happened the Cheesequake State Park?” Good question; by the time I get there – about 8:30 PM (EDT) – it is dark and the park is locked up like grandma’s jewels. This is a serious problem. My reservation in Brooklyn’s Camp Gateway National Recreation Area doesn’t begin until tomorrow night. Moreover, Camp Gateway doesn’t allow pets, which also irks me. In more than 5,000 miles, camping in mostly county, state and national facilities, this is the first that doesn’t allow pets. I’ll have to board Trooper.

I have no choice; I must tap into my network of New York friends for help. I cannot ask brother Steve. He has done so much already to support my efforts. I have friends in the New York Metropolitan Area I’ve known for more than 50 years. There is no hesitation to seek aid and, sure enough, one of my oldest pals offers to put me up in a hotel for the night.

I want to find a place near Steve’s neighborhood in Brooklyn and as I search I find a new trend. High-end chains have built properties in so-called “transition” neighborhoods. Their room rates are far below those of the average New York City hotel.

I select the Marriott Slum near downtown Brooklyn. There is 24-hour security around the property which is surrounded by graffiti adorned, abandoned apartments and warehouses. It doesn’t matter to Trooper and I; the luxurious bed, bug-free bathroom and large shower stall more than compensate for the view from our seventh floor room.

I get some of my best – and sometimes my craziest – ideas under the spray of a long hot shower. Tonight, as I wash away the last few hundred miles of bodily road grime, I am struck with inspiration.

I’m not planning to interview while in The Big Apple. My plan all along is to concentrate on the smaller cities, towns and villages in America. There is one section in this vast metropolis, however, that I cannot ignore, The Rockaways in Queens.

Hurricane/Super-storm Sandy blasted into America just north of Atlantic City, New Jersey October 29, 2012. While not the most powerful hurricane to strike America it was the second costliest in American history and by far the largest. At one point Sandy’s winds spanned more than 1,100 miles.

If you look at a map of America, New York City and Long Island are really off the coast of New Jersey. Sandy was an equal opportunity storm and did not discriminate between states. As such, both New Jersey and New York, especially The Rockaways, bore the brunt of the initial storm surge and made headlines around the world. Ten months later Rockaway is still rocked.

Before Rockaway, though, I have to secure my campsite and get Trooper into his Pet Hotel – they don’t call ‘em boarding kennels anymore. I had more sticker shock finding a place for Trooper, $50 and up per night. I was ready to dress him up in my clothes, cover his head with a hat and pass him off at the campground as my enfeebled great-grandfather. Luckily, there is a PetSmart in lower Manhattan with a Pet Hotel for only $32.50 a night.

---

Friday August 24 – Brooklyn-Manhattan-Brooklyn

Today is housekeeping day. I will reluctantly part with my faithful canine companion for four nights so I can cheaply camp using my National Interagency Old Guy Pass for $10 a night and visit with my brother and his family. Sounds simple, right? Nothing is simple in New York City.

I drive mid-morning from Brooklyn to lower Manhattan because traffic supposedly will be light. I am almost correct, except in downtown Brooklyn where traffic is never light. Nonetheless I make decent time. Now all I have to do is find parking. Hahahaha. I only circle for 20-minutes before I actually find a legal spot not too far from PetSmart. I grab Trooper’s file with all his current vaccination papers and head for the “hotel.” Here’s where simple stops.

“Can I see your vaccination papers?” the check-in clerk asks. No problem. Wrong.

As she is going to make copies, the clerk looks over the file, shakes her head and returns to the front desk. “I’m afraid we can’t take Trooper,” she informs me.

“What do you mean?” I ask incredulously, “he’s current on everything.”

‘New York requires that he must be current with Bordatella (Kennel Cough. Uh, Pet Hotel Cough?) for the last six-months,” she says.

“He is current for the past six months,” I explain, “his vaccination is good for one year and he’s had it annually his entire life.”

“No,” she says as if instructing a child, “he has to have a shot every six months.”

“What?” I’m trying not to play irate consumer. “All his shots are current. Listen, I’m camping at Camp Gateway. They don’t allow pets. The nearest other campground is 40 miles away in New Jersey.”

With a not-my-problem look, the clerk has the final word, “Sorry, there is nothing I can do.”

“Crap,” I say to myself, “no way I’m commuting between Camp Cheesecake and Brooklyn.” I start mentally preparing to leave New York without much of a visit. Before acting hastily I decide to call Camp Gateway and beg.

Expecting the worst, I fare much better thanks to Ranger Pat. After listening to my tale of woe, Ranger Pat is beyond sympathetic. “I have two of my own,” she enthuses, “Let me talk to the chief.”

After a few moments, blessedly without audio entertainment or promotion, Ranger Pat is back with the good news. “Chief says it’s alright. Just don’t flaunt it.”

What a relief. While I love seeing my brother and sister-in-law I am jonesing to see my niece. She is three-and-half and I haven’t seen her other than on Skype since her first birthday. I am a sucker for kids, especially those with my blood running through their veins.

It is still early enough to avoid the home commute so my drive from Manhattan to Camp Gateway is a snap. Camp Gateway is part of the Gateway National Recreation Area created on Floyd Bennett Field, a former Naval Air Base at the south end of Flatbush Avenue. Before becoming a military base, Floyd Bennett, named for a Brooklynite Medal of Honor Winner, was New York’s first municipal airport. It opened in 1931 and was decommissioned in 1971. I remember touring the base with my family when I was about nine.

Coming off the Belt Parkway at Exit 11S, the airfield immediately looms on my left. I turn into what looks like a main entrance with a big white arch. Strangely I see no signs either for the park or the campgrounds. Surrounded by playfields and long abandoned runways I drive along the wide runways toward the waters of Jamaica Bay where I saw on an area map the campsites.

There are a few small signs with the names of campgrounds; none of them mine but oddly, no campsites in sight. Finally, after about fifteen minutes of meandering I see a couple of people and ask where the camping registration is. “It’s all the way back there,” one answers, pointing in the general direction of whence I came. “It’s in the Visitor’s Center.”

Retracing my steps by about a mile, I park in front of the obviously restored clean white building that serves as the Visitor’s Center but, still, no signs mentioning camping. Inside, however, is the perpetually cheerful and helpful Ranger Pat who seems genuinely thrilled to meet Trooper and me. After signing us in, Ranger Pat unfolds a map and draws a red line directing us from YOU ARE HERE to site 39 just off Runway 24B.

Twenty minutes later I am still circling up and back on Runway 24B looking for #39. There are no helpful signs. Looking for the umpteenth time at Ranger Pat’s map I notice that her red line turns to dashes and ends at a small side road next to the runway. At the end of the small road I see a battered and branch covered Do Not Enter sign. Having seen no signs to this point I figure this one is left over from the Navy days and I enter. A few hundred feet in, the road narrows to a path and dead ends with trees scraping both sides of the Jeep. I pull a nifty U-turn in the cramped space and slowly work my way back. This is when my day goes from Sunshine Ranger Pat to National Park Police Officer Asshole.

He is standing about fifty feet away from me at my point of entry, legs spread in a commanding posture and a hand raised in the air. Actually, he is a welcome sight; I’m certain he will guide me to my campsite. He will, but not before asserting his absolute authority over me or anyone else within the sound of his booming voice.

As I creep closer I hear his dulcet tones through my closed windows, “STOP THE DAMNED CAR!!” I stop the damned car.

I lower my window, license already in my hand. “Hang on, I’ll get the registration out of my glove box,” I say.

Officer Asshole only speaks in bold letters. “Can’t you read the sign? It says DO NOT ENTER!”

“I’m lost officer. Can you direct me to my campsite? I’ve been circling for almost a half hour.” I say all of this calmly and politely. I am well versed in Traffic Cop 101.

Officer A. ignores me. “That sign says DO NOT ENTER. You are in violation of the VTR.” The last sentence is delivered like Perry Mason nailing the lying witness.

“Uh, VTR?”

“Those are the Vehicle Traffic Regulations (‘you fool’ is the implied end of that sentence). Let me see your proof of insurance.”

“Listen officer, I really thought that sign was outdated. As I said, I’m lost. Can you just point me to my campsite?”

“Don’t you know how to follow MY commands?” His bold letters are nearly upper case. “Show me the insurance!”

By now there is nothing I can say that won’t incite him further so I hand him the insurance ID and stew silently. This is new territory for me, silent stewing.

After I show on his computer warrant and crime free, Officer A. strides back to my open window, hands me my papers and in only a slightly less self-important roar, points down the now-violated lane. “See that trailer at the end of this road? That’s your campground just to the right.”

He turns imperiously to leave, as if he’s just granted me a reprieve from Big Sparky. “Welcome to New York,” I say to the back of his head, certainly loud enough for him to hear. Officer Asshole needs to work on his people skills.

---

Sunday August 25 – The Rockaways

I cannot count the number of times I’ve driven through the Five Towns of Nassau County, NY to reach the magnificent white sand beaches of Long Island’s South Shore. From my early youth until I moved from the city in 1974, I sunned, swam and socialized in Long Beach, Lido Beach, Atlantic Beach and The Rockaways.

In high school my crowd’s favorite hangout was Beach 32^nd Street in Rockaway. Before obtaining driver’s licenses we got there via the subway, The Long Island Railroad or BMT (By My Thumb). On any given hot muggy day five, ten, fifteen or 20 blankets would join to form our own ad hoc beach club sometimes with nearly 100 of us trading screaming teen hormones.

We romped in the frothy waves of the Atlantic Ocean and patrolled the boardwalk, teeming with New York’s ethnic potpourri and concession stands hawking great fries, greasy burgers, kosher hot dogs and a multitude of sugar laden treats. The rides and carnival games were a few miles to the west at Rockaway Playland, the poor man’s Coney Island.

The warm memories are gone in a New York minute, or as Johnny Carson once said, “The time between a NY traffic light turning green and the guy behind you honking his horn.” Standing on the boardwalk today is a forlorn, lonely experience.

In days of yore, the crowds started building early in the morning until wall-to-wall blankets hid the beach sand. Now, the beach is empty and the ocean much closer to the boardwalk than I remember, the result of erosion and storms. Instead of the noisy fun-loving crowd on the boardwalk there is an occasional runner or two and no concession stands. In their place are two almost permanent-looking construction trailers mounted on concrete footings.

I walk down the boardwalk for a block or two until there are no boards on the walk. Only their concrete supports remain, my first evidence of Sandy’s wrath. I walk down to the beach without any visions or illusions of yesteryear. Reality sucks.

With nobody in sight, I let Trooper off his leash to romp. His first discovery is the unwelcome taste of saltwater. With that out of the way he takes an introductory roll in the sand and goes off looking for a gnawing stick. As if from nowhere a security guard appears about 150 feet in front of us yelling, “No dogs on the beach!” Of course not. We make our way back to the Jeep on the dry side of the non-boardwalk. It’s time to look for people and their stories.

Working my way west and driving up and down the side streets Sandy’s legacy is more evident. Rented dumpsters dot the streets while boarded up and abandoned homes sit silently awaiting their final destruction. Still, there are many buildings that look either untouched by the storm or at least their rehabilitation is complete. In other areas, entire blocks are cleared with new developments changing the feel of The Rockaways created by decades of salt spray, sand and families in the mostly white mostly unchanged rentals and permanent residences.

Moving further west into neighborhoods with more homeowners I see lots of repair and cleanup activity.

---

Matt Quinby is hard at work swapping between a paintbrush and a broom on the front porch of his grey wood clapboard sided house less than a block from the beach. He defers to his wife Lee for an interview. Both are professors at the City University of New York. As a result, they were living collegial, recession-proof lives until that dark and stormy night. (Damn! I’ve been waiting for years to use that…).

“Sandy changed the nature of my classes,” she begins. “So many of my students were displaced, they couldn’t finish that semester or begin the next.”

“And,” she continues, “It certainly changed things here at the house. We lost everything to the water in the basement, the boiler, heater, the washer and dryer, etc. The most hurtful part of it was we lost mementoes, papers and irreplaceable photographs of the family. It was very difficult.”

The Quinby’s roof was also damaged and the combined financial hit was a hard one. “Insurance is hard to secure here and we had to pay for everything from our savings,” says Lee Quinby. “We spent about $12,000-15,000 dollars to replace everything and we were amongst the lucky ones.”

Becoming more thoughtful, she adds, “The whole thing made me feel more vulnerable. I’ve always had good things happen to me in life; bad things just don’t happen….until this.”

I hear many other stories this day, some similar and others worse. One man who doesn’t want to identify himself is removing debris from his front yard. “We had to leave. The water was at the front door,” he says, pointing to a porch where the door stood about five-to-six feet above the sidewalk.

“I am living with my son now and I come down on weekends to clean up. I’m going to have to tear down the house and rebuild.”

“Do you have that kind of money?” I ask.

“No,” my family will help.”

The most harrowing story I hear comes from 54-year old Ramona Muńo. Like the Quinbys she is less than a block from the beach. “My home was flooded. We had about five feet of water”

“I stayed here during the storm,” she tells me with a small laugh. “It was a little scary no, it was a lot scary. We left for Irene the year before and nothing happened so……. We thought it was going to be the same way.”

“We’re still recovering slowly,” she continues. “I had to take money out of my retirement account to make repairs. I’ll probably have to work three to five years longer now.”

When I ask her how the experience changed her, Ramona Muńo gets to the heart of her story.

“I used to think material things were important,” she starts out. “When you see yourself in a situation where you think you might die, those things become much less important. You realize how much more important are your family, friends and things like that.”

“Wait,” I interrupt, “Go back. You thought you were going to die?”

“We were surrounded by water. We didn’t know how high it was going to go. And there was a fire on the next block to the north. It was randomly jumping from house to house and we didn’t know how far that was going to go, if our house was going to catch fire.”

“Today,” she concludes, “I cherish the people in my life.”