Mystic Seaport to New Castle

This was a day that I had been dreading since we had planned this trip:  that stressful drive through New York City, on the way back home.  There is simply no other way to get from New England to North Carolina than going through this city (unless you steer a wide berth around it as we did in the first week of our road trip).  But as it turned out, it was not much more stressful than Toronto.

But first, we made a detour to North Haven, the town where my family lived until 1967, the year I graduated from high school. The town square was still there, picturesque as in many Connecticut towns; I almost did not recognize it at first, but then I pointed out to Martha the Episcopal Church up on the hill, and the big cannon that we used to climb on.  Still the same, since 1786.

Still, you can never go home again (see post of April 8), and it was ironic that I should be visiting this place after 50 years, as we had visited Barnardsville earlier in the same road trip.  I found the house I had lived in, after a little driving up and down the street.

But it had been gray, and had no awnings, and looked so much larger back then.  Here is a snowy photo I found in my archives, taken by my Dad ca, 1963 on his old 35mm camera.

Then we drove down to the end of the road where North Haven High School had been, half-a-block away, and found . . . an empty field.  Where had my beloved school gone?  I remember snow drifts up to the roof of this one-story brick building, and a big gymnasium and auditorium (I was in a class of 300 students when I graduated).  We stopped for gas and I asked somebody who seemed to be local.  "This may seem like a strange question, but I grew up here and left 50 years ago, and lived on Anthony Road right around the corner.  What happened to the High School?"  He was friendly enough.  "Oh, they tore that down four or five years ago, and built a big new school.  Had a class reunion for the whole school!"  Oh well.  Farewell to Miss Lee, my favorite history teacher ever.  And Miss Satterlee, who taught me French so well that I sailed through my language requirement when I was a freshman in college.  Farewell to the past, to all that.  There was nobody left on my old street, or in my old town, that I knew anymore.

Then the harrowing drive began, south and west toward "The Big Apple."  But my Google Maps app routed us down the Wilbur Cross Parkway and the Merritt Parkway, which were less stressful than I-95, almost like a four-lane Blue Ridge Parkway in places, with its stone bridges and wooden guardrails.  Then the pace quickened, and the next few miles were a bit of a blur as my faithful navigator, iPhone in hand, guided me through the Bronx and onto the lower level of the George Washington Bridge (bridges in North Carolina only have one level!) and finally onto the New Jersey Turnpike in all its odorous industrial glory.  Simon and Garfunkel was gong through my head:

Counting the cars
On the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all come
To look for America,

And in no time it seemed that the rest areas were more civilized, the drivers more courteous, the roadsides greener.  We made our way to New Castle, Delaware, and its historic district not far from our comfortable little motel.  Here the brick buildings reminded us of the South, of Richmond or Williamsburg.  It felt good to stretch our legs and walk on these quiet old streets.

They seemed like a million miles away from the Jersey Turnpike.  We found a little place called Penn's Place and sat in the sun in a flowery little courtyard, chatting with locals.  Two women behind us, however, were conversing in fluent French.  And then we decided to investigate the depths of Jessop's Tavern, located in the lower level of a ca. 1724 Colonial building.

I seemed as if we had stepped back in time from the hustle and bustle of the great metropolis through which we had just driven with so much anxiety.  It was as dark inside as if we had entered a page in a history book.

New Castle, Delaware.  This was a place I could enjoy visiting for a while, with its quiet brick streets and its big green waterfront park, miles away from New Jersey, hazy across a wide river.