Educationally Speaking -- Gay Geiser Sandoval
How could a recreation of Ellis Island not be educational? After I
read a Daily Pilot letter to the editor saying as much, I hopped the
first plane to New York to study the issue. Well, that’s not exactly what
happened, but I did think it was prescient that the first newspaper piece
I read when I got back from New York was a reader’s complaint about
teaching the trials and tribulations of Ellis Island.
Each year, planning a family vacation gets harder, especially this
year when my kids have both joined the working world. With that in mind,
I planned a quick trip for the day after high school got out. What I
didn’t plan for was the extra training class my younger daughter needed
to take before she could guard Costa Mesa’s kids from drowning this
summer. She had to take it the Saturday we would be gone. When I was 16,
I might have decided to find a different job at that point and gone on
vacation. But she said work and summer school came first and stayed home.
I know most moms are totally self-sacrificing and would have stayed
home. But we had a free flight that had to be used, so my elder daughter
and I headed for the lights on Broadway. Figuring out how to get to
downtown Manhattan by public transportation was a big education in
itself. We traversed the U.S. by planes and got into Long Island after
dark. Numerous people had assured us it was safe to take the Long
Island trains at any hour of the day or night. We sat down on the train,
all by ourselves, with our luggage forming an island around us.
I guess my daughter was exuding pheromones because this guy came from
the far side of the car to sit by us. He proceeded to take off his shirt
and shoes and then offered to be her personal tour guide. She said she
was sending out “Don’t talk to me vibes,” but it wasn’t working. On the
way to Manhattan, we found out all about his lengthy stay in prison and
his recent hospitalization for numerous stab wounds. You just don’t get
that kind of experience if you rent a car. We later discovered that young
ladies all have a book open in the subway to discourage conversations
with weirdos. It really promotes literacy.
Eating in New York is also educational since the tables are about
three inches apart. The skinny person has to sit in the inside. One
night, we found out about the lives of all of the tables around us. Since
we were on West Coast time, we ate dinner after a jazz concert at
Carnegie Hall. There, we supped with a number of jazz musicians, a couple
celebrating their ninth anniversary, a novelist about to hit it big and
New Yorkers who left their old underwear all over Europe. Our last night,
a federal crime was being planned at the table next to us. This couple
was having a big discussion as to whether she was his girlfriend or his
business partner. It turns out he is from Italy and they are getting
married next week if her friend that they were meeting for coffee didn’t
get bad vibes over the whole thing. It was clear they weren’t marrying
for love.
In between eating, we took the Staten Island Ferry, which is the best
travel bargain ever -- free -- and gazed at the New York skyline, the
Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, pretending that we had just been on a
three-month voyage from Europe in 1900 on our way to our new home country
that would satisfy our hopes and dreams. I was glad that, when we
disembarked the boat, we didn’t have to stay on Ellis Island. We swiped
our Metrocard and the subway whisked us to our hotel.
* GAY GEISER-SANDOVAL is a Costa Mesa resident. Her column runs
Tuesdays. She may be reached by e-mail at o7 GGSesq1@aol.comf7 .
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.