New Jersey…You Were Born To Be My Baby

 

New Jersey…You Were Born To Be My Baby

12/7/2015

 

“Ladies and Gentleman, we have turned on the fasten-seat-belt sign for your safety. As you can see out you windows, we are passing over Lower Manhattan, New York as we make our arrival into Newark, New Jersey. We here at United would like to extend our sincerest appreciation for allowing us to serve you in our travel needs.

The current temperature on the ground is 58 degrees Fahrenheit with only a small chance for rain. The current time is 9:55 local time. We ask that you sit back, relax with your seat-back in the forward position, and your trays up while we make ground contact here in about 30 minutes. Thank you for flying again with United Airlines…where your mile-high club is our club. Jissoseph out!”

I couldn’t believe the site outside of my window. It was pitch dark out in the sky. Both moon and stars were nowhere to be found. There were just enough clouds in the sky to make it look like the horizon was being ripped open. My attention was on the ground, as the ground shifted from left to right as the United airlines flight that I was on was making final approach adjustments.

I remember thinking, Good God, I had no idea that New York was so damn big. It was enormous. I was grateful that I not only had a window seat, but that I also had a great pilot who took the scenic route for whatever reason so I could see the big apple at night. I was in love.

As we flew over the massive amount of yellow, white, red and blue city lights, I could see major bridges. I could see multiple lanes of traffic. I could see so much of life going on that I was having a hard time wrapping my head around it. I wondered many things: Of all the lights in all those building, houses, cars, and whatever else, how many people were having sex at that moment? How many people were reading stories to their children? How many people were committing crimes or having a crime committed against them? How many people were being born and how many people were currently on their death bed?

With so many lights and millions of people in my view at once, I could say with certainty that all those things were indeed happening at that moment. It was amazing. As we made our decent, we passed over and out of view of New York city. The lights were still massive in quantity, but they were more sporadic and not so densely packed together. Thousands of feet turned into hundreds of feet until I could make out much more clearer details of the houses, streets, and cars, and then finally the airport itself.

I could see the tower. I could look towards the nose of the aircraft and see the runway lights. At this point of the flight, I began to relax a little bit. I knew that if for whatever reason that we began to fall out of the sky, at least there would be rescue crews to meet us right away. Turbulence scares the hell out of me. When I feel it at 35,000 feet, I always imagine a wing or an engine falling off and the plane doing an instant nose dive. I imagine the screams, the way it must feel to have your stomach go up into your chest. I see the land coming up very quickly and the sound of the airplane plummeting face first into the ground. I see no way out of the predicament. I see the sexiest flight attendant on the plane in destress. I see her running down the aisle, knowing full well that all the training she received won’t make much difference when we are going towards the ground at 800 miles an hour. She doesn’t mind when I grab her but. She agrees that a sex rendezvous is the best outcome as we perish and our loved ones to never hear from us again.

Luckily, there was no turbulence, and we were coming in just fine. The landing was a bit rough. I remember us hitting the tires to hard that for a second I expected an in-flight emergency because the shocks must have been busted from that landing. I looked over at the other passengers too. The fact that there were no similar reactions made me think that I might just be a little bit paranoid. Either way, I don’t like to fly much.

New Jersey is a wonderful state. I stayed out in a town called, Somerville. That part of New Jersey was founded over 400 years ago. I did not realize that there was so much time invested into a part of America that I had never traveled to before. I stayed a few blocks away from the train station from which I would travel to New York later.

Those small towns in New Jersey made me think of musicians like Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, and John Cougar Mellencamp. I thought of the east coast rappers that were not only from New York, but also guys like Naughty-By-Nature, who endured the mean streets of the east coast. I had barely made it into the city when I knew full well that I was in the heart of America. Like Bruce Springsteen once sang, this is my hometown..this is your hometown.

For some reason I started this kick of visiting Ivy League schools. Am I a wanna-be? Am I fooling myself into thinking I could have belonged into such a club? I just wanted to see art and visit the oldest institutions of higher learning. The first school on the list was Princeton.

Princeton was only a 20 minute drive or so from where I was staying. Princeton was of course beautiful. The day was sunny. The school was tucked away in one of those small towns where you could probably see two old men setting on their porch, talking about war and politics, and maybe the sale going on at the local antique shop, while some of brightest minds were being molded. I enjoyed my time there. I visited the art gallery for the school. I checked out all the old buildings and I witnessed the beauty of the school’s church.

Finding the church on the middle of campus made me think that you don’t have to be living on a prayer to realize that being able to expand your mind is not only a thing of beauty, but it’s a spiritual thing. The sciences may argue in proof of no God, but the arts argue in favor of a creator because it magnifies the existence of the human soul.

New Jersey….you were born to be my baby. Jissoseph out!