A Cousin Encounter of Another Kind (Three)

(TO SEE PART ONE OF THIS SERIES CLICK HERE)

My wish to return to Brooklyn and actually getting there were two different matters.

Matter #1: Transportation.
Even with a new Gamin GPS (my old Magellan just stopped taking a charge) I was tentative about following a talking compass through New York streets filled with New York drivers. Each and every one of us, I was sure, would be vying for the same parking spot.

My brother passed on going but suggested rail to Penn Station. Then transfers to Brooklyn.

Matter #2: Finding the right time to visit.
 My cousins and I had talked just before Easter. I wanted to finish up my teaching semester – and then put off the mini-odyssey because my daughter was well into her third trimester. She would be moving into a new house in a few weeks. And, we joked, she was getting as big as a house herself. I wasn't going anywhere until my grandson was born.

I finally set the day trip for mid-August, a month after the birth. And then the sciatica kicked in. The sciatica I brought on by putting 1200 miles on my car in two weeks as I drove back and forth to the hospital in Worcester, MA where Patrick was born, and then to his home just south of there.Who knew, moving foot from gas pedal to brake to gas pedal, over and over, would further irritate the inflamed nerve?

The Doctor apparently knew –  as soon as I told him how I'd worn a groove in the I-84 fast lane the previous few weeks. He ordered me off the road -four days at least. And a muscle relaxer.

Finally, a week after Labor Day I set out for Brooklyn. I boarded a 6 A.M. Amtrak train and pulled into Penn Station by 9. I asked a transit worker in uniform to direct me to the N train connection my cousin had said to take.

“You have to go out on the street for the subway entrance.”

Subway? On the street? I thought. This was getting  complicated. Thankfully it was second nature to the police officer on the corner of 33^rd Street and 8^th Avenue who directed me a couple of blocks uptown to a subway entrance.

I was almost there.

(to be continued - one more time!)

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