Marcus Hook Train Station

Coming back from Avalon was tougher to figure out that I had anticipated.  Initially the plan was that we would drive back very late on Sunday - like leave Avalon around midnight - and then Dana would have her sister pick her up when we arrived, and Deb/Emily/Vicki would just crash at my place and Deb's parents would get her the next day, and I'd take Emily and Vicki to the train.

However, my parents turned out not to be so okay with that.  One option was for me to just go alone, let all the girls stay at the beach house, and then my parents would drive them home the next day, but I don't think anyone liked that.  It eventually came down to driving home fairly early on Sunday night (a little sad, I'd have liked to have hung out with everyone longer) so that Deb and Dana could be picked up right away and I could drop off Emily and Vicki at the train in Marcus Hook if I got there in time, or Emily's dad would pick them up as late as 10PM.

We ended up leaving sometime around 7:30, figuring that would give us enough time to at least get to the Marcus Hook train station (hardly off of I-95) in time for the last train at 9:37 that night.  When we got off of Route 55, it seemed like we would definitely have enough time to get to the station safely, so Emily talked to her dad and told him that.  Deb also told her parents that they could probably pick her up around 9:30.  When we got a little closer, Emily called her dad again to confirm that he shouldn't come and that they'd make the train.  Deb asked how much longer out of the way that'd be, and I'd said maybe seven minutes or something like that.

Well, turns out we got stuck behind a very slow-moving Acme truck on 322 before we even got to the big Wawa on the corner.  And it stayed with us in the part where 322 jogs.  It stayed with us all the way past King Philip Regional HS, right on up to the part where 322 actually becomes a two-lane highway, at which point I finally passed it because it was making me nervous that I wouldn't make it in time.  I think my car clock said something like 9:20 at that point, when we hit the 2-lane part of 322.  Keep in mind that my car clock is 4 minutes fast for some reason.

So I pay the toll and we go over the Commodore Barry bridge and things look good.  I thought for half a second that I missed the exit (was I supposed to take Chichester Ave?) but then I saw the sign for Market Street, 1/4 mile, so I knew I was fine.  I took that exit and made a right turn, because that was how I got there when I was coming up from DC on Friday night to pick them up from the train station.  I saw a sign for 452, so I was pretty sure I was on the right road.

After a little bit on that road, I started to think that I was going the wrong direction.  There were a lot of stop lights, and a lot of shopping centers that didn't look familiar, and it seemed like it was taking way longer than before, and the bridges seemed unfamiliar.  Dana was sitting in the front seat and I said to her softly, "Um, I think I'm going the wrong direction."  She turned a little bit, and I said softly, "S***," because I didn't want Emily and Vicki to get stressed out for something they didn't do and couldn't fix of control.  I kept driving for a little bit longer, and then I got to a huge intersection with a Walgreens that I swore was right near CN Skate Palace, and I knew for sure then that I was going the wrong direction.  I told them then, and I made a right-on-red at the five point intersection to try to turn around.  I tried to turn around in a small drive in the wedge to get back on Market St., but it was a no-outlet.  So I just did a U-Turn in the middle of the road and pulled back up to the light.

It took a while for my light to come up, but finally we got the left arrow and got back onto Market street.  I think that my clock said something like 9:34 then, adding some tension, even though that meant we still had seven minutes.  I still wasn't sure we'd make it on time.

I started driving fast, and almost even aggressively.  I was fuel inefficient.  We got a string of green lights, and then I pulled under a yellow light, and sighed, glad that I had made it.  After that, a truck pulled in front of me somehow - maybe merging right onto the road - and caused me to hit a red light.  I remember shouting "MOTHERF***ER!" at the situation.  I wasn't really angry, or upset, I was just excitable for some reason.

We drove on, we passed signs for 322, so I knew we were getting closer.  When my clock read something like 9:37, we finally passed I-95.  Four minutes.

I could see the flame from the refinery burning above the train station, so I knew we were getting close.

We came to another stop at a red light, and I saw a "Dairy King" store across the road.  God damnit.  I remembered it extremely clearly from picking them up the other night, and I should have known right away that I was going in the wrong direction when I didn't see it from turning off of 95 this time around.  I remember thinking it was a stupid play on Diary Queen and I was mad at them almost for making me relate it to Diary Queen.  I can't explain why, I just was.

We kept going.  All we needed to do was get over the bridge and then turn right, right again, and then we're at the train, right where we need to be.  Vicki kept asking if I needed to cross the tracks, or if she needed to cross the tracks.  I said that I had to, that's why I was crossing the bridge.

We kept hitting red lights.  9:38.  9:39.  More red lights.  I shouted curse words again.  We shouted for green lights.  Finally we got to the bridge over the tracks.  My clock read 9:41.

"Oh man, I hope we don't see the train pulling out of the station - how much would that suck?"

Vicki saw it - "Yyyyup, there's the train."  It was sitting at the station, not yet moving.  Vicki said that she would have to cross the tracks and there was no way she'd make it, but I assured her no, only I had to cross the tracks, and going over the bridge was all we needed.  At literally any second, the train could leave.  We were all just waiting for it to pull out before we got there.

There was a white SUV in front of me going maybe 30MPH over the 30MPH bridge.  I honked at it, hoping it would speed up.  But it didn't.  I just had to follow it, and the second I could, I swerved right to get to the station.  I considered going the wrong way on a one-way residential street to get them there a few moments earlier, afraid the train was pulling out as I drove past the houses, unable to see clearly what was happening.

Finally I found a street - maybe the third street - that was one-way in the direction I wanted to go, so I swerved right.  The speed limit sign said 15, but I sped up as much as I could, and slammed on the brakes at the stop sign at the end.  All I had to do was cross that street in front of me and I was at the parking lot.  But at any second, that train could leave.

So I slammed on the pedal and bolted into the parking lot.  The train still hadn't left.  I thought I saw some people getting on but it looked like they were the last ones, and maybe the train would leave right then.  I pounded down on the brakes, forced the car into park, turned it off, took out my keys, and ran into the train.  I almost did one of those sliding screeching parallel park deals, like in the movies.  Vicki and Emily got out to get their bags.  I ran to the people getting on the train, for some reason thinking they could do something, and shouted, "Wait!  Don't let the train leave yet!"  As if it would do any good...

Vicki and Emily were shouting at me, "JEFF.  THE TRUNK.  OPEN THE TRUNK!"  So I jumped off the stairs on the train car and opened the trunk from as far away as I could to let them get their bags out, then immediately back onto the train.  It looked like more people were getting on, but again, I wasn't sure.  I saw a person who clearly worked for SEPTA so I figured I'd plead my case to him.

"Hey, I have two friends getting on in a second, don't let the train leave."

Like a jerk, he responded "Well they better get on now, because the train's leaving."  What a douche!

When I turned around, Vicki and Emily were at the steps of the train.  Holy crap, they had made it.  We hugged each other for a half second each and said goodbye, and they stepped onto the train, and it pulled away.

If we had done anything at any point on that whole trip to delay us by 10 seconds, they wouldn't have made the train.  The whole experience felt a little like a movie.

Peace out.

Battle of Chicken Coop

One day in 11th grade in Mrs. Rock's AP US class, we had to have a debate where we broke into groups decided by which battle we thought was the most important in the US Civil War, and then had to argue and try to win people to our side.  Mrs. Rock had told us in the past that someone - maybe Justin S? - had once defended the Battle of Cowpen to the bitter end as the most important battle, but most kids would always take Gettsburg or Antietam.

Finding inspiration in the Battle of Cowpen, Steve Baruti, myself, and one other student whom I forget (maybe Kyle W?) decided that we were going to make up a battle and defend it.  So we created the Battle of Chicken Coop on the spot.  I forget exactly how the story goes, but I remember that we wanted it to have lighting involved, and bears, and overall the story was something like this...

There was an ammunition store being held somewhere in the South, before the other larger battles of the war.  As it turned out, the North discovered that this huge ammunition store was actually being kept in a chicken coop on a southern farm.  So the North decided to go after the ammo, and stormed into the farm one stormy night to try to take control of it.  After having some initial success in the siege, lightning struck right on top of the chicken coop and detonated a bunch of the ammo, and in the confusion, the South regained a winning position.  However, by the grace of god, a pack of angry bears came out from the woods nearby and attacked the Confederate soldiers, allowing the North to win the Battle of Chicken Coop in a landslide, thus transferring a large amount of firepower to the Union.

I remember we wrote down the story of it on a piece of lined notebook paper.  We started the debate, and everyone introduced what happened in their battle and why they thought it was the most important.  I think most of the kids in the glass knew that we were making ours up, or they figured it out pretty quickly.  Steve and I were definitely having a good time, and so were some of the other kids, but I think I remember some kids just getting upset about it.

Mrs. Rock seemed a little suspicious about this "Battle of Chicken Coop" that Steve and I seemed to know about but she didn't, but we assured her that it was real, and we kept it going for most of the class.  Somewhere about 50 minutes into the class, she started to get more suspicious - I think maybe the bears were getting to her - and she started to look for mentions of it on the Internet.  By the end of the class, after Googling and Wikipediaing herself out, she concluded:  "I think the Battle of Chicken Coop is bullsh*t."  Steve and I probably laughed, but continued to assure her that it was real.  I think we walked out of the door still insiting it was real.

The next day she referred to us making up the Battle of Chicken Coop, and I think we finally acknowledged that we did make it up.  In either case, we took the piece of lined notebook paper that we wrote it out on and stapled it to the corkboard on the wall by her door, closest to the window.  I don't know if it's still there or not, but I'd love to see it if it was.

Peace out.

Voice of the Pope

"An agency will filter all radio ads to make sure they are in keeping with the high moral standards of the Catholic Church," reports the BBC.

...and all violating ads will be promptly relocated to a new media market, where they can sort of pretend all those violations never happened.

Apologies to my Catholic buds.

Peace out.