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Like many of the dads in our suburban New Jersey town, my father commuted daily to New York City. Back then, the New Jersey Transit train system was called the Erie Lackawanna. He disappeared into the dark each morning and caught the train to the city. He never took an umbrella to work, even on days when it poured. Why wasn’t he ever wet when he got home? “Well, I walked between the raindrops,” he would answer. “One day I will show you how.” And show me he did. Once a senior in high school, I was allowed to travel into the city with friends after school. After exploring the streets of New York for a few hours, we’d meet up with my Dad at his office on Park Avenue. It finally occurred to me why he was never wet on a rainy day. The Erie Lackawanna took me to Hoboken, NJ where I changed for the PATH train. This train went underneath the Hudson River into New York City. Once at 33rd Street, I transferred to the trains that exist in the great underground labyrinth of the NYC subway system. The last one winded up in Grand Central Station. The terminal connected to the Pan Am building, which in turn connected to 230 Park Avenue where my Dad worked. From Maplewood, NJ to midtown Manhattan. Forget about the rain-you could get there and never even see the sky. I still prefer the mystery of the original explanation.
