Well, here I go again……
I love the city of New York. I have often noticed that people form either a passionate disdain or lifelong love affair with the city. Some even start out loving the place, caught up in its charm and promise, and end up hating it, drowned by its cruelty and forgetfulness. But one thing for sure, there is no middle of the road attitude for the place. You either love it or hate it. And I love it. Well as a visitor, I love it.
I think one of the many reasons for my adoration has to do with the city’s energy. Like no other place I have ever visited, I feel instantly connected to something much larger the minute I step on the streets of Manhattan. Of course the fact that its a mecca for live theater (and I am, by all accounts, a musical theater groupie) may be the other big reason I love the place.
On all accounts, it was a perfect place for the Duty’s to spend an all too rare nuclear family vacation at the end of September. James, Linda, Jill and Me. First timers, James and Linda had two big birthdays during our time in the city, which really were the big reasons we decided to go. Mom turned 60 and Dad, 62 (their birthdays are a day apart). First timer, Jill came as well despite having a torn ACL (however that would come in handy in instant seating at some of our stops). Our newest member of the family, Jill’s husband Hien, was unable to come due to lack of vacation days, and he was missed. However, one of the reasons Hien didn’t have enough vacation days was due to a week long vacation he took with my parents to Colorado earlier in the summer. Jill and I couldn’t go, yet neither Hien nor my parents ever seemed to mind our absence too much. My parents love their new son.
We had the ultimate hook up with lodging in my boss’ residence club, The Phillips Club, on 66th and Broadway at Lincoln Center. Two steps outside the front door, you bump into Juilliard. I brought some audition music just in case. Ha Ha. A hop and skip down the street, we were at Columbus Circle, and two more skips, Time Square. As I could write novels about the trip, I will highlight the top moments.
- Instant seating due to Jill’s torn ACL and massive knee brace at David Letterman. First time for all us to see a talk show filmed. Everything was small and time short. We spent a majority of time in pep assemblies leading up to entrance into the theater so we would all be properly pumped for the show. Had we gone a week later, we would have heard his big reveal. He didn’t lose any fans with us though. Awesome experience.
- Tour Bus, double decker, on the top. We bought the deluxe package (you knew James Duty would). Ended up taking the downtour twice to use up our tickets. Don’t recommend that. However, we got other extra tickets that we used. Funny Funny Funny tour guides. They weren’t trying to be funny btw. They just were. For instance, our first downtown tour guide, a boisterous New York woman of about 60, scolded us like children and if you were french speaking, she scolded in french. She would be totally offended if people talked during her spill, and she would scream in english and french “Share the Bus People!”. Mind you, her spill, her tour dialogue, was always about 5 buildings ahead of where we were. She was classic.
- 5th Ave Shopping and SoHo Shopping. Need I say more.
- West Side Story. Worth seeing. Not my favorite production but you can’t beat the classics. You will come away whistling “I feel pretty.”
- A day at Liberty Island. Always a must if you haven’t done it. We of course bought the photo you can have taken in front of the Statue. They put in a nice American Flag bordered frame. “And the Home of the Brave!”
- We decided not to eat in anything chained or national, and we were never disappointed. Of course you never would be in NYC! Every time you turn around, a great Irish pub or corner cafe was staring right back at you with a great menu.
- More shopping…… Really need I say more.
- Billy Elliot! Me=tears shed. Awesome awesome show. Made the whole trip worth it. Just go see it.
- Dad lived his lifelong childhood dream of seeing Harold’s Square and Macy’s. Really as iconic and American as apple pie and baseball and the whole bit. We have watched that parade out entire lives as a family (as most do). It will now be extra special.
- Got to see my good pal Scottie who also hooked us up with the Letterman tickets.
- Dad also got a special audience with Robin Roberts of GMA. Of course he would. He had a copy of the Checotah newspaper story about her when she came to the small town of Checotah (outside Eufaula) with Carrie Underwood a few months ago. I am sure Robin wanted that for her records, but bless her heart if she didn’t decide to come outside (after Dad had given the paper to the stage door manager which took it inside to her) and got a pic with James. I was already gone to Philly by this point and given that this was way way early in the morning, Jill and Linda did not make it. But there is a picture somewhere.
There were countless other things that happened that I am sure I am not remembering here, but it was a great trip had by all. At first, I didn’t know how the family would react to the city. There are so many people, and its not the cleanest place in the world. But given all the childhood moments that each got to live, I know that by the end of the trip, they all wanted to go back. So hopefully, maybe some of that love of the city rubbed off on them as well, and we can make many more trips to the big apple together. In fact James even called sometime after to share the real estate information he was finding. We both agreed that we couldn’t afford the upper west side (no brainer there), but it was comical to hear him explain the advantages of living there. I think he gets it, too.
, Kari. I usually get to see her once or twice a year. Kari and I came to OU together, and she lived in Norman for a couple years after graduation. She then moved to Dallas about 8 years ago, and of course has been there ever since. Kari and I have always enjoyed the same simple pleasures in life. We don’t need much for entertainment, a fact we really noticed on this particular trip in our, well I wont say old but our “not as young as we used to be” state as we both preferred to stay in and take naps on the couch in the afternoon as opposed to getting out and seeing the city. We did make it to the Village almost every day, and a sure sign of the times, we both did pretty good in refraining from buying things we didn’t need (but of course would have looked fabulous in ) Perfectly happy I was. We got to spend a little time with Kari’s good friend Steven and just enjoyed the company of good friends. It sucks that for even as close as we all are, we don’t see each other more, but thats the way it is I know. Look at these great photos of the two of us. Our friend Elaine found the one of the two of us at prom back in ol ‘95. Man look at that hair, on both of us! Kari cut hers off shortly after coming to college (she always had long hair growing up and I remember the day she cut it all off shortly after the start of our freshman year. We all had some tears that day, but I love her with short hair!). But honestly, look at Kari in these two pics. She doesn’t age! I’m so jealous.
