Quote of the Day

A few days ago the fam and I went to the Murder/Drug/Corruption/Shithole Capital USA - otherwise known as Trenton, New Jersey - for a tidbit of business that according to the state just couldn't be handled anywhere else closer to home.

We parked the Jeep somewhere in the five-story parking garage and trekked across the old part of downtown toward our destination. As usual on these trips, BuddhaWife and I tried to fill the space in between stops with interesting and educational facts and figures about the area, which, fortunately, Trenton is full of.

On Christmas Day BW and I watched a film about Washington's crossing of the Delaware River, march to Trenton, and subsequent attack on the enemy soldiers encamped there. As we walked along the streets between the closest parking garage we could find and our destination 45 miles away, we were pointing out the sights that were likely already a part of the landscape when Washington's troops stormed the city. There are streams crossing through parks, buttressed with stone wall supports that look every bit to have been constructed 200 years ago; churches bordered by gravestones so weathered by centuries of rain, wind, and freezing winters that the names are now unreadable. Streets paved with brick and cobblestone stretching outward between columns of row houses that once housed the city elite, but have become Trenton's attempt to group all the crack dealers and gang members into one neighborhood. On a bridge spanning the Delaware River are huge iron letters forming the words "What Trenton Makes, the World Takes;" a long since forgotten time when New Jersey was the manufacturing hub of the United States.

But despite being immersed in the history of the area, the thing my son was most interested in was the sword-shaped stick he found in the park on the way from the garage.

As is typical in our family outings, the moment found my wife and I walking hand in hand, with our daughter walking next to us and our son ranging out ahead like a scout, ensuring our safety from whatever he may encounter by reporting it back to us. Or at least that's how it would be if this were 1860. Today it read more like my wife and I hurling commands at our son as he flitted around us like an electron in orbit: "don't touch that stay out of the water watch where you're going don't bump into other people now help her up from the ground and say your sorry now say it like you mean it and don't you cross that street in the middle of the block no you may not go on ahead of us and meet us at the car and stop throwing sticks watch where you're swinging that and no we're not stopping at 7-11 for a snack you just ate breakfast."

We eventually finished the task that required us to venture into the cesspool that is Trenton - and quickly becoming anywhere in New Jersey east of Interstate 287 - and finally reached the parking garage again. As we were waiting to load the elevator going up to the car,

FlyBoy: Can I take the stairs and meet you there?

Me: No son, stick with us.

FlyBoy: C'mon Dad, why not?

Me (knowing he had no idea where we'd parked): Because, my boy, you don't even know what floor we're on.

FlyBoy: Sure I do. We're on the ground floor. Why does that matter?