Lunch in New York

The Sounds of Acadia; The National Park Series; Randy Petersen, composer

I was never more proud, during my “cruise ship” years, than in October of 1994 when my Mom and Dad came aboard the Star Odyssey in New York City for a cruise up the Northeastern seaboard. Neither Mom nor Dad had been any further east than Ohio and they decided that a trip to the Big Apple presented the opportunity to visit family who had made the trek to South Dakota soooooooo many times.

On the weekend before the cruise, they spent some time with Mom’s sister and family in New Jersey. They had a good visit, took an expedition to Atlantic City, went to their church on Sunday morning and had an all around good time. They had made plans to buy tickets for the bus on Monday morning to go to NYC and then meet a cousin of my Dad’s, P. and her husband T., for lunch at The Top of the Sixes restaurant.

On Monday morning, they found out that the bus to NYC was FULL! No room. So Uncle D. #2 (Uncle D. #1 lives in Minnesota) said, “Quick. Get in the car. You’ll have to take the train.

Meanwhile, in the days before cell phones, South Dakota boy in the big city is waiting at the Port Authority Bus Terminal when he hears over the massive public address system, “Courtesy call for Erik Apland on the red phone.” Nothing chills the bones on a warm October morning like an invitation to a red phone in a massive bus terminal in Manhattan. “Erik, this is Uncle D. (#2), your parents are coming to Pennsylvania Station on the train in twenty minutes.” Okay. “Goodbye.” Wait… What train? Which track? Arriving from where? … Hello?

I arrived at Pennsylvania Station twenty-five minutes later and couldn’t make sense of the schedule. Mom and Dad had received strict instructions from me to go to the ship at the Port Authority if they didn’t see me when they arrived in New York. When I didn’t see them at the train station, I assumed that they went to the ship, so I headed back to the Star Odyssey. It was a looooong wait. But, finally, at around two o’clock in the afternoon, Mom and Dad tramped across the gangway, luggage in tow, and onto their floating home for the next seven days.

In the same way that many Americans sustain misperceptions of South Dakotans, or even Midwesterners, so do countless Americans carry a faulty image of the average New Yorker, presuming rudeness and boisterousness, and a reliance on enormous volumes of sound and obnoxiousness in order to obtain attention. “This is the way I do business, buddy, and if you don’t like it, there are other places in this town that can help you out.”

Typically, the restaurant for our lunch date with Dad’s cousin closed down at three o’clock, after the lunch rush. At two forty-five, the elevators opened at The Top of the Sixes with Mom, Dad and me inside … and P. and T. standing on the other side of the doors waiting to board the elevator to go down. After bearing witness to our warm embraces and passionate pleas to forgive our tardiness, a waiter standing nearby said, “Don’t leave yet,” and stepped into the kitchen. He re-emerged a few moments later to say, with a gracious smile, “You’ve waited a long time for lunch. Come sit down and we’ll get you some menus.” Mom and Dad, for years, recalled that moment as a highlight of the trip.

After reboarding the ship, Mom and Dad had dinner, danced to the music of my band, enjoyed the cabaret show, then watched our eleven o’clock departure from The City That Never Sleeps, sailing only a few hundred yards away from the Statue of Liberty. The next six days had us visiting Bar Harbor, Maine, Halifax, Nova Scotia, with a side trip to Peggy’s Cove, an excursion through the Saint Lawrence Seaway, Quebec City, Quebec and a disembarkation in Montreal, Quebec.

While in Bar Harbor, we each had a lobster sandwich, then boarded a mini bus that took us up Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. At the summit, we observed the lovely pink granite of Mount Desert Island and the tall spruce and pine trees that receive our nation’s first morning kiss from the sun.

Credits: To our New York waiter, for prompting us to cast off our preconceived notions of a New Yorker stereotype. We saw and see our American New York brothers and sisters with new eyes.