R and J in the USA

There are many signs we are running into that we are almost home – the familiar terrain, the stretches of interstate highway that we’ve driven many times in our lives when going from the point A of our house to all manner of Point Bs in the northeast, or the intersections we see on our GPS map of our route that shows us crossing our path of travel that we took on our way to our very first state of the trip almost 11 months ago.

But, perhaps there is no greater sign that we are back in our neighborhood than when we walked into the Senate Library at the Pennsylvania Statehouse and the Senate librarian struck up a conversation and asked us where we are from (to which we, of course replied, Rochester, NY), and responded, “Oh! Home of the garbage plate! Is Nick’s still standing?” 

Though we were more than 4 hours from home in terms of our itinerary, we are officially in the 4 hour radius of our home town now. It’s a wild thing to contemplate after all of this time and all of these miles, but such contemplations are for another post. This post is about George.

Not all Senate librarians are interested to talk, but George was a great conversationalist and we had a great time exchanging notes on travel, capitol buildings and life. We talked about fishing in Sodus Bay and gave him the tip to check out Irondequot Creek for great fishing in the Rochester area. We talked about dinosaur bones at the Pennsylvania State Museum and he proudly passed on a story that ended with his son’s name being written on a dinosaur tooth there (and not illegally so). We learned that George was originally from Cape Cod and would always have a special affinity for Boston, despite now having lived in Pennsylvania for near 40 years. He was kind, curious and eager to be helpful. He also showed tremendous interest in our trip, which is always nice.

George was a particularly great person to talk to at this juncture in the trip as he had some complimentary things to say. We are not doing this to impress, but, hey, everyone likes hearing nice things every once in a while.

”Wow. I am so impressed by your determination.” He commented.

”Wow, thank you!” We replied. We had never really thought of the trip that way, but, as he spoke, we could both kind of feel that pool of determination under the surface quietly fueling us both through this trip from start to finish – a quality that was part of pulling this thing off that we kind of took for granted. Sometimes you need an observant and insightful human to reflect something back to you to even notice it is there.

We happened to come into the senate library just as George had been doing some thinking about an upcoming trip he’s been planning to NYC.

”Have you ever been to NYC before?” We asked.

”Yes, in 1984.”

”It’s changed a bit since then.” Julie said. Of course, Julie was only 5 years old in 1984, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

George laughed in agreement, “Yes, I’m sure it has!”

”But, at the same time,” Julie continued, “it also hasn’t. NYC is NYC through and through.”

George continued on with a NYC story of his own.

”I once did a favor for someone and they reciprocated.” We were intrigued and impressed by George’s mysterious and economical use of words.

”So, that landed me staying in the Astoria.”

”Wow!” Julie exclaimed.

”It was a big favor.” George said, once again, communicating a lot with few words, and also leaving a gaping hole of mystery in the center.

”Actually, he still got the better deal.”

That must have been some favor, we were thinking. Since George didn’t offer any more detail than that, we allowed our imaginations to fill in the blanks.

”I was in the elevator,” George said, “and the person I was with started smacking me on the shoulder saying, ‘That’s Rod Stewart! That’s Rod Stewart!’ Rod Stewart turned around and said hello. Then the elevator opened and we all stepped outside and he just disappeared out into the crowd, blending right in.”

”That sounds like NYC!” Julie said. “And, wow, how neat. And, gosh, 1984, that was Rod Stewart at the height of his Rod Stewart-iness.”

George asked us for our top 5 capitol building rankings. Now that we had been to 49 capitol buildings (well, we had only been to the outside of Connecticut’s having arrived there on a Saturday when they were closed, an omission that we would be remedying in the next 10 days), we were still in more of a position than most to make such a ranking. 

It was hard to pull out our top 5 since, for the most part, each capitol has something spectacular about it. Even so, we made our list and made clear that we could easily say that Pennsylvania’s would be in the top 5 (George, understandably felt it should make it into the top 2). We let him know our pick for, “If you can only go visit one out of state” – Nebraska.

”You know, I’ve had people come in here working through all 50 capitols and, every year, they take a trip and knock 4 or 5 off their list in one trip. You are the very first people I’ve ever met that are doing all 50 in one trip!” George said.

We didn’t start this trip to do something that no one else has done. It’s just something we wanted to do. Also, we’re sure there is someone else somewhere that has done it, but, either way, it made us feel good. 

George made sure not to let us leave without a good dinner recommendation and more kind words. 

George was the kind of friendly and engaging, thoughtful person that made us feel right at home. He was easy to chat with and some people just have that quality.

Home is where the heart is, and in that way, we’ve been home this whole time. But home is also where you come from and where your house is and the place where you know the street names and the hot spots and the neighborhoods. And through a conversation peppered with anecdotes of places that were in our literal and proverbial backyard, George helped remind us that we are, indeed, almost home.