Legacy - 31. Spring Blizzard - Brad Reynolds

Saturday, April 12, 2016 - Twenty-seven Years Earlier

I felt like a zombie as I crawled out of the back seat of Paul and Linda’s Civic. It felt like I had just gone to bed a few hours before - actually, I had! We’d all spent our time until the wee hours of the morning trying to figure out how in the hell we were going to get to New York. We were supposed to have flown to LaGuardia last night, but all the airports up and down the east coast had been shut down by a fierce late winter Nor’easter. Of course our flight was cancelled, as was just about everything else heading east.

Our initial thought was simply to drive there. After all, under ideal conditions it would only take about fourteen hours by car. That was doable in a day - a very long day under ideal conditions. We, however, would be heading into blizzard-like conditions or the aftermath of a major blizzard at the very least. Although we were all game, our parents very quickly vetoed the idea. None of us had a truly snow-worthy car - among us we had a Civic, a Prius and a Volt - but even if we could have convinced Bruce’s dad to let us take his Explorer, there was no way the parental units would let us drive into a blinding snow storm. Leave it to them to be practical.

We were elated to find we could still get a flight into tiny Stuart International Airport in Newburgh, New York, just across the Hudson River from Beacon and its commuter rail station. It was only a 90-minute train ride to New York City and, according to the Metropolitan Transit Authority website, the trains were still running, albeit on a limited schedule. The cost was acceptable and so we booked the flight for the four of us, expecting to use our existing round-trip tickets for the return flight from La Guardia.

When the alarm clock sounded at 4:30 AM, just a little over three hours later, however, Kayla and I were anything but enthusiastic. Our flight was leaving at 6:54 and, allowing an hour to get to the airport and an hour to get through security, we had less than a half-hour to get ready. Breakfast would have to wait ’til we got to the airport - if there was time - otherwise we’d get something during our layover in Detroit or when we got to Newburgh at the latest. We’d already packed our luggage and I had no qualms about forgoing a shave. Perhaps I’d try growing a beard on this trip.

Before I’d even started dressing, the doorbell rang, announcing the arrival of Bruce and Linda. The fuckers were ten minutes early! Kayla was still in the bathroom getting ready, leaving me to answer the door. Quickly donning my boxers and a pair of jeans, I ran to the door and ushered Bruce and Linda inside.

“Oops, I guess we’re a little early,” Bruce said with a smirk on his face as he eyed my bare torso.

Linda was positively staring at me - I guess she’d never seen me shirtless before - and so I said, “If you’d like, why don’t you take a picture. It’ll last longer that way.”

Blushing furiously, she replied, “Sorry Brad. I’m in love with Paul but, man, you have way more hair!”

“Just like my bro,” I commented. “We were both shaving daily before we even turned fifteen.”

“I like my men that way,” Kayla said as she entered the living room, came up to me and kissed me on the cheek, but then added, “I could do without the stubble, however.” We all laughed in response to that.

“If you’ll excuse us, we’ll finish getting ready and be right with you,” I stated, and then returned to the bedroom to finish getting dressed. Moments later we were all carrying Kayla’s and my luggage down the steps from our apartment over the Kimballs’ garage, taking care not to wake the Kimballs up. As we loaded the luggage into the tiny Civic’s trunk - as much as would fit, anyway - the front door opened and out ran our little Stacy, who’d spent the night with Carlotta in the main residence.

“Daddy! Daddy!” she squealed as she threw her arms around my legs, leaving poor Kayla in the cold.

Bending down, I kissed her on the forehead and said, “Now be a good little girl and don’t give Carlotta any trouble.”

“Ci, Daddy,” our daughter replied, “Voy a ser bueno.”

Chuckling at the fact she was already speaking full sentences in Spanish rather than English, I told her, “Now go say goodbye to Mommy, and I’ll see you in a week.”

Giving Kayla little more than a cursory hug, she dashed back inside the doorway, where Carlotta was waiting. We knew it wasn’t unusual for toddlers to favor one parent over the other, but I knew it still bothered Kayla, as it would have bothered me in reverse.

Traffic was light, as would be expected at five o’clock on a Saturday morning, and we made it to the airport in less than a half hour. That left us plenty of time to get breakfast and make our flight, or so we thought. The trouble was, our airport, the largest within a one hundred mile radius, served nearly two hundred thousand college students, most of whom were on spring break. It seemed as if all of them had descended en mass. The east coast might be snowed in, but that hardly was of concern to Midwestern kids intent on traveling to points south. Unfortunately, a lot of the airplanes that were supposed to take them south originated with flights from the east coast, which was where those planes were going to stay for at least another day or two.

Even at such an ungodly hour on a Saturday morning, the place was packed with people trying to deal with cancelled flights and altered travel plans - mostly kids, many of whom were traveling on their own for the first time in their lives, barely adults and ill-prepared to deal with the situation. The result was pandemonium. The ticket counters, which were intended to serve the handful of passengers who needed to make changes, were populated with long lines that snaked their way out the doors, leaving scant space for those of us whose flights were still flying to get to the kiosks and check our luggage.

Actually, we already had our boarding passes, which we’d printed out early that morning. Still, we had to check our luggage and that meant standing in a very, very long line for close to an hour. I reasoned that if it took as long to get through security, we were totally screwed. Fortunately, they had a priority line through security for flights leaving within the half-hour, which totally saved our asses. We made it to the gate with scarcely ten minutes to spare, but were huffing and puffing like crazy from running through the airport. So much for getting breakfast!

I guess I’d done more flying than most kids my age. I’d even been to Europe - twice! Traveling’s fun, but the hassle of dealing with airports, delays and the unexpected is a royal pain in the ass. I thought the worst of our difficulties was behind us now, but I was wrong. No sooner had we departed the gate and taxied around the tarmac for a bit than we came to a screeching halt, quite literally. We waited and waited and waited, and then finally the captain announced that we were being asked to wait on the ground due to ‘congestion’, and to please be patient.

Patient my ass - we only had an hour and fifteen minutes to make our connection! When a half-hour had passed, I got more than a bit nervous. When it had been another fifteen minutes, I was on the verge of panic but, then, I was hardly alone. All of the passengers on the plane were griping, some of them loudly, about how they were missing their connections. The captain came back on to let everyone know that there were extensive delays throughout the country and that chances were good our connecting flights would also be delayed. He said he’d have connecting gate information for all of us once we were finally airborne. Of course I couldn’t help but think about how little that would help us if our connecting flight left the gate and ended up sitting on the tarmac the way we were now.

Finally, after waiting for just under an hour, the captain announced we were cleared for takeoff. We were airborne scarcely a minute later. Why we didn’t have more advance notice, we’d probably never know. With less than twenty minutes left for our connection, however, I was really worried about whether or not we’d make our flight. Even if we made the connection to Newburgh, chances were good that our luggage wouldn’t and would be placed on the next flight, perhaps not arriving in New York via Newburgh until tomorrow night. What a mess!

With nearly an hour of flying time to Detroit, I thought I might take a short ‘power nap’, but there was just too much going on around me. There were five seats across in our row. Bruce had the middle seat and I had the aisle seat next to him. Across the aisle from me sat my Kayla and next to her, in the adjacent window seat, sat Linda. With Linda and Kayla talking non-stop and a stream of announcements from the flight attendants, sleep was obviously going to be a lost cause.

The airline was offering free Wi-Fi on our flight, sponsored by a new start-up called Indigo, and as Bruce and I weren’t really all that talkative, we both ended up getting out our iPads and going on-line. As Bruce and I started to surf the Web, we listened in the background to the announcements being made by one of the flight attendants. As he read the list of connecting flights, I became a bit concerned when he didn’t mention our flight to Newburgh but figured it was such a small destination that it didn’t rate a mention. Still, there were at least four of us connecting to the flight, so I pressed the call button to get the attention of one of the flight attendants so I could ask them.

Before anyone responded, however, Bruce said in a somber voice, “Don’t bother asking . . . our flight’s been cancelled.”

“What!” I exclaimed, as did Kayla and Linda, all at the same time. I wasn’t even aware the girls were listening.

Rather than say anything, Bruce turned his iPad towards us, so we could all see the Delta Airlines website with our flight status being listed as ‘Cancelled’.”

“Fuck!” I said. “Why didn’t they tell us it was cancelled before we got on this airplane?”

“They probably didn’t cancel it until after we pulled away from the gate,” Bruce responded.

“What are we going to do now?” Kayla asked - it was a very good question.

“I’ve tried logging into Delta’s reservations site,” Bruce noted. “I can check flight status, but I can’t seem to review or change our reservation. It’s like the whole reservations site is down.”

“It probably is,” I replied, “or it’s so overwhelmed by all of us trying to log in to deal with our cancelled flights. We might do better the old fashioned way, over the phone,” I added. “It’s too bad we can’t use our cell phones while in the air.”

“Maybe we can,” Bruce suggested with a smirk.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “You’ll catch hell and a big fine if you get caught.”

“I don’t intend to use the cellular network,” Bruce responded. “Using the Skype app on my iPad, I can make calls using the free Wi-Fi network on board this plane.”

Plugging his ear buds into his iPad, Bruce proceeded to do just that. It turned out there was a special hotline for flight cancellations and he got through after only a slight delay. Moments later, he shouted, “Thursday? Forget that. Can you get us into any New York airport any earlier than that?” After a moment, he turned to me and said, “The best they can give us is Tuesday night into Albany, and there’ll be an extra fifty dollar charge . . . each.”

Shaking my head, I replied, “We’ll take a Greyhound bus if we have to. Just ask for a refund.”

After speaking to the agent, Bruce turned back to me again and said, “I’m on hold. The last thing I want to do is to spend the night in the Detroit Metro Airport. I spent an overnight at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport once, and it was awful. It’s only when you’re trying to sleep that you realize the seats have fixed armrests, so you can’t lay down on them, and every twenty minutes like clockwork, you hear, ‘May I have your attention please. This is a special airport security announcement. Do not leave your baggage unattended. Any baggage left unattended will be seized, searched and destroyed . . .’ Over and over it’s the same thing. Why it’s so important to hear it for the fiftieth time at three AM when you’re trying to sleep, I’ll never know.” It was so funny the way he described his experience. Bruce’s inflections were exactly like the real thing.

“While you’re on hold, I’m going to check to see if we can get a reservation on a bus or a train,” I announced.

“Sounds like a plan,” Kayla interjected from across the aisle.

A bus would probably be our best bet and it would certainly be more affordable, but I already knew from past experience that a lot of people who take the bus do not practice much in the way of personal hygiene. There was also a real safety issue. It would be much safer to travel into a snowstorm by train than by bus. We’d already checked out some of our options last night, but that was from home. We could have taken a bus to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and then changed to one heading to New York, but the closest we’d probably be able to get was Allentown, if that.

When we’d looked into taking a train from home, the only viable train, Amtrak’s Cardinal/Hoosier State, would have taken us to Washington and then up the coast to New York. The last thing we wanted to do was to take a train up the east coast in the middle of a blizzard.

Checking on-line, I discovered that a bus from Detroit would take nearly a full twenty-four hours when all was said and done, and there were two transfers involved - one in Cleveland and one in Pittsburgh. I had much better luck checking Amtrak’s site.

“OK, here’s the deal,” I announced to everyone. “Amtrak’s Lakeshore Limited departs from Toledo at 3:20 tomorrow morning and arrives at Penn Station at 6:35 the same day. It looks like it’s still running, too. The fare is $101 a piece and there are still some reserved seats left. What do you think?”

“Three-twenty! Ugh!” Kayla responded.

“How far is Toledo from Detroit?” Linda asked.

“It’s an hour south of Detroit,” I answered, but it’s just as close to the Detroit airport. We wouldn’t even have to go into Detroit.

“OK, let’s do it,” Linda replied.

“Is everyone in agreement?” I asked and got nodding heads, if not enthusiastic responses from everyone, and so I made the reservation and put it on my credit card.

Next, I checked for ground transportation options and discovered that the only way to get to Toledo from the airport via bus would be to take a bus to downtown Detroit, and then another from there to Toledo. True, we had the time but, for only a little more money, we could hire a limo to take us directly to Toledo. I made us a reservation.

It was just after nine in the morning when our plane pulled up at the gate. Seeing the long lines of passengers waiting to change their flights, I was sure glad we’d taken care of things while still on the plane! We were all starved but we needed to claim our checked luggage before doing anything else. Unfortunately, all of the restaurants at Detroit’s McNamara Terminal - and there are many good ones - are located behind security. The intent was clearly more for Detroit Metro to serve as a hub for passers-through than to serve the people of Detroit.

After picking up our luggage, we found that our only choice was to grab a quick bite at the Coffee Beanery, or wait ’til we got to Toledo. We ended up getting coffee and bagels, just to tide us over. The limo dropped us off at the Toledo Central Union Plaza at just after eleven and, after checking our luggage for the day, we decided it might be nice to see the famed Toledo Museum of Art. Sam had recommended it highly and as long as we were in the neighborhood, why not?

The walk to the museum was just over two miles and took us forty minutes. The sky was overcast, the temperature was in the teens and even though we were all bundled up, we were chilled to the bone by the time we arrived at the museum. Fortunately, the museum had a very nice café and after checking our coats, that was our first stop. We all had a bowl of soup and a sandwich, which was just what we needed. The desserts looked sinful but we planned to have a big dinner later in the evening, so we chose to save our appetites.

The museum itself was much nicer than I’d expected. It wasn’t nearly as large as the one back home, which was built on grounds donated by the Eli Lilly estate, but the art collection itself was way better. It was truly world-class. I’m hardly the art fan that Sam is, but I had to admit that the Toledo Museum of Art was outstanding.

We stayed until the museum closed at six, and then we walked back to the waterfront and strolled along the promenade, which highlighted a number of modern sculptures. I’m sure in the summer it must be very nice, but it was just too damn cold that evening! At a little after seven we headed for dinner at the Maumee Bay Brew Pub, a restaurant and microbrewery that Sam recommended highly.

It was a shame that none of us was old enough to order any of their beers, but they had a homemade root beer that was perhaps the best I’d ever had. For an appetizer we all had the signature cheddar beer soup, which was truly amazing. Kayla and I got a spinach artichoke pizza and a veggie pizza to share, as we were both vegetarians now, just like my brother, and Linda and Bruce got burgers with fries. I was absolutely stuffed by the time we were through.

The restaurant closed at eleven, leaving us with four hours to kill before we had to catch our train. We asked our server what there was to do in the downtown area, thinking we’d just hang around and walk to the Amtrak station when it was time, but he warned us that Downtown Toledo was no place to be on a Saturday night. He had an excellent suggestion, pointing out that the Franklin Park Cinema was only a six mile taxi ride, straight up Monroe Street. He called us a cab and we got there in plenty of time for the 11:40 showing of Conversations With Myself, a sci-fi thriller I’d been dying to see.

The movie was a bit long and by the time we called a taxi and waited for it to show up, we didn’t get to Central Union Plaza until just after three. The train was already in the station and we just had time to retrieve our luggage, find our train car and get ourselves on board before it pulled away. Our seats were a grouping of four, with two seats facing the other two across a table in between. I grabbed the forward-facing window seat, and Kayla sat next to me, with Bruce across the way.

We were all exhausted, having been awake for nearly 24 hours and having had only a few hours sleep the night before. The next thing I knew, it was morning and the view outside our window was one of pure white. The train had just come to a halt, so I assumed we’d pulled into a station, but I couldn’t see a thing. Noticing that Bruce’s eyes were open, I asked him quietly, “Where are we?”

“Based on the time, we should be passing through Rochester,” he answered, “but it’s been snowing heavily for the past hour or so and we’ve been creeping along.”

“We’re in Buffalo,” a passenger across the aisle from us informed us, and we thanked her.

Stretching her arms above her head, Kayla looked over at me, smiled and kissed me. I kissed her back.

“Yuck . . . morning breath!” she exclaimed.

“Yours isn’t so great either,” I replied.

Reaching into her purse, she handed me a stick of gum and took one for herself. I never much cared for chewing gum but, given that it would be a while before we could brush our teeth, I was grateful for my wife’s foresightedness.

“Could you spare a stick for me?” Bruce asked.

“And me also?” Linda added.

“Sure,” Kayla replied as she handed a stick of gum to each of our friends. Then turning to me, she asked, “What time is it?”

“About 10:15,” I answered.

“And we’re just now getting to Buffalo?” she asked.

“Take a look out the window,” I suggested.

When she did, she quietly answered, “Oh shit.”

“I didn’t think the snow was supposed to reach this far west,” Linda commented.

“This isn’t the same snowstorm,” the lady across the aisle informed us. “This is lake effect snow, coming off Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. It’s very common in these parts and a frequent cause of delays on the Lakeshore Limited during the winter months. I’ve seen it snow here as late as early May.”

“How long do these storms usually last?” Linda asked.

“A day or two,” the woman answered, “or sometimes a week or two.”

“But the trains still go through,” Bruce stated more than asked, seeking confirmation.

“In a matter of fashion,” she replied. “Sometimes the train just falls farther and farther behind as they de-ice the rails ahead of us. Sometimes, when things are really bad, they only clear the rails in one direction and we have to wait for trains coming the other way . . . both passenger and freight. At times like that it can take forever. Then I’ve seen it get so bad, they have to stop the train right where it sits and wait days until they clear the rails.”

“Fuck,” I said quietly to myself.

“Well, we might as well get some breakfast,” Kayla suggested with a sigh, and then asked of no one in particular, “Which way’s the dining car?”

“It’s two cars up, that way,” the woman replied, pointing toward the front of the train, “but you’re too late for breakfast,” she added. “There’s a lounge car one car back,” she said, pointing the other way, “and you can get some snacks there to tide you over until lunch.”

“We’ll go check it out,” Kayla announced as she tugged me from my seat. As we walked back, she said, “You, my darling husband, need a shave. You’ve got quite a beard going already.”

“Actually, I thought I’d take this time to see how I look in a beard,” I replied.

Wrinkling her nose, my wife responded with a sigh, “I guess every guy needs to try growing a beard at some time in their life, but I think you’ll look better without one.”

“We’ll see,” I countered.

When we got to the lounge car, we discovered there really wasn’t a lot to choose from, particularly for vegetarians. If it weren’t for Kayla and I eating fish, we’d have had to settle for a rather unappetizing tossed salad. There were some pastries that would have probably sufficed for a breakfast snack, but we were too hungry and the pastries weren’t very appetizing. We ended up getting tuna salad sandwiches for ourselves, roast beef sandwiches for Bruce and Linda, and coffees all around. The sandwiches were barely edible and the coffee was vile, but they filled the immediate need.

The train still hadn’t budged when it came time for lunch a few hours later. At least the food was fairly decent, albeit grossly overpriced. It was just after that that a conductor announced we would be staying put for at least a few more hours, until the snow abated enough to clear the tracks. There was little point in going forward, only to get stuck in the middle of nowhere. The Amtrak station in Buffalo was little more than a shack in the shadow of Interstate 190, but at least we were in a decent sized city if worse came to worst.

With little else to do and without even a deck of cards, we surfed the Internet and played games with each other on our iPads and other assorted devices. At least there was Wi-Fi on board, and there was a power outlet by the seat for recharging our toys.

We didn’t start moving again until after eleven o’clock that night, some thirteen hours after we’d arrived and fourteen hours behind schedule. Even then, travel was slow going due to the snowy conditions and we didn’t arrive in Albany until eight o’clock, Monday morning, some seventeen hours after our scheduled time. If there was a silver lining in all of this, it was that the Nor’easter had finally petered out. Even then, it wasn’t until two o’clock that afternoon that we left Albany for the final leg of our journey, putting us into New York’s Penn Station at 6:30 on Monday evening, nearly three days after our planned arrival.

“I can’t believe you guys made it!” Sam exclaimed as he greeted us and helped us carry our luggage off the train.

“It was touch and go there for a while,” I admitted, “but we were determined.”

“Obviously!” Sam agreed, but then added, “Unfortunately, I have some bad news for you guys. With the snowstorm and all, most students couldn’t leave the city for spring break and so the University cancelled all reservations for guest housing for the week.”

“What do you mean they cancelled all reservations?” I asked with incredulity. “How could they do that?”

“Brad, the occupants of the rooms you were supposed to get are still there,” Sam explained and it finally dawned on me what he meant.

“What are we going to do?” Linda asked.

“Well, I discussed it with my roommate,” Sam went on, “and if you don’t mind slumming it in The Village, you’re welcome to room with us. The girls can have my bed and the three of us guys can sleep on the floor in the living room. I managed to scrounge up some extra pillows, blankets and futons from our neighbors, so it shouldn’t be all that bad.”

“An old-fashioned slumber party,” I noted. “I like it.”

As we made our way to the exit, Sam stopped us and said, “I should warn you guys . . . this was a record snowfall. We got 43 inches in Central Park.”

“Holy shit!” Bruce exclaimed. “That’s over three and a half feet!”

Laughing, Sam went on, “I hope you guys brought some good water-proof boots with you, ’cause otherwise your feet are going to get really, really cold and wet.”

Even with my good hiking boots on, my feet still got wet. There was just no place for the city to put that much snow and so the sidewalks were piled high with the snow they plowed from the streets. Getting from Penn Station to the line at the taxi stand meant climbing over snowdrifts with our luggage. Getting from the SUV taxi we hired to Sam’s apartment in The Village was even more of a challenge, and then we faced walking up three flights of stairs with our luggage. When we finally got inside, Sam introduced us to his roommate, Dion, and to Dion’s boyfriend, Wallace, who was spending the night.

In spite of the cramped quarters, the less than ideal sleeping conditions and the weather, we all had a blast and the week went all too fast. We went to all the major museums, took in a couple of Broadway musicals and a couple of off-Broadway shows as well, visited the new World Trade Center and enjoyed a variety of New York cuisine. The crazy thing was that by the end of the week, the temperatures were well into the seventies and some of the lower lying areas had some serious problems with flooding.

All in all it was a great week and one we wouldn’t soon forget, but our adventure was far from over. When we went on-line on Saturday night to check in and print our boarding passes, we discovered that when we failed to board our rescheduled flight on Thursday, our reservations were cancelled. We’d naïvely assumed that we’d still be able to make use of our existing tickets for the return flight, but our tickets were for a round trip only and even though we were paying more than we would have if we’d made one-way reservations in the fist place, it just didn’t work that way. Not only did we lose the entire purchase price of our tickets, but we had no way to return home for the resumption of classes on Monday.

Because there was a backlog of travelers trying to leave the city, the soonest we could get a flight from any area airport wasn’t until the following Friday. We all had exams that week so that would never do. Amtrak was booked up and even Greyhound and Trailways were full. We even considered splitting up and hitchhiking our way back home, but that wouldn’t have been safe. Once again, we were screwed.

In the end, Paul drove Bruce’s father’s Explorer all the way to New York in one day, arriving late Sunday night. We then took turns driving through the night, arriving home in time for our afternoon classes on Monday.