Days 22-26: Penultiumum - Storming the Fort, the long haul, and the beginning of the end

Current location: Ambler, PA
Time / distance traveled since last post: About 17 hours, about 950 miles
Total time / distance traveled: About 110 hours, about 7100 miles

 
 I write to you today from the internet cafe that was tantamount in the development of my caffeine addiction during my younger and more vulnerable years: the Starbucks in Spring House, PA. When I was in high school I had several friends who worked here and would hook me up with a free or discount hot beverage made with love. During my college years this became a stomping ground for inadvertent high school reunions, which have done a good enough job keeping me informed as to who has died, become drug addicted, or - in rare instance - succeeded, such that I don't have to ever actually GO to my high school reunions when they should come. I had intended to write this yesterday, but alas a high school reunion developed and I was distracted. My bad!

It's been quite a while since I have written, which I largely attribute to two factors:

1. Spending time with my family is a difficult activity about which to write, as few to none of my readers know my extended family, forcing me to either attempt to characterize them (which would possibly cause offense, since endearment is difficult to portray in prose alone) or to just say "Well, I guess you just had to be there..."
2. Since the majority of my readers are based in the north east it is highly likely that they (you) are familiar with the environments of my return passage and thus this leg of the journey will be much less interesting, so I haven't exactly felt as though my readers are sitting at home clicking the refresh button over and over waiting for my next post.

In any event, I shall finish what I have begun, and so I give you the second-to-last chapter, the penultimate post, if you will, which will bring you up to date as of yesterday afternoon when I first began this post.

When last we saw our hero he was driving with mother in tow from Lake Geneva to his grandmother's home in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. The ride was a swift and uneventful one, lasting a bit less than an hour on the quiet country roads of southern Wisconsin. I had gone to Fort to visit Gramma at least once a year since before I could remember, every time by airplane, until now. No single place personified the childlike wonder of getting into an airplane and almost magically appearing in a new impossibly far away location the way that Fort did. Though at the tail-end of my trip, it was so important to me that I tie Fort into the contiguous driving map of my psyche that Gramma was the first contact I called when planning my expedition.

Arriving in the small town of 11,000 or so (which is a big deal compared to the miles and miles of surrounding farm land) from a brand new direction (usually when I fly-in it is to Milwaukee, resulting in an attack on the town from the north east as opposed to the south). As soon as I passed The Fireside (an awful dinner theater that is what puts Fort Atkinson "on the map") all the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fall into place. Instantly the magic of my father's family's home town felt contextualized, which almost felt underwhelming. I began thinking that maybe I don't want this place to lose its magical feel. I then decided that I would NOT drive to Milwaukee on this trip, so that any times I fly-in in the future may maintain a little bit of that boy-like wonder. I am only human, after all!

Pulling up to the house and parking on the street (I dared not park in the driveway, since I always seem to pick the wrong side and block my Uncle David in or out, about which I would never hear the end) I sprinted to the front door to ring the bell. Some 30 seconds later my mom caught up and my Gramma opened-up the door to welcome me with the priceless grandmotherly words, "You know the door was unlocked!"

"I'm home!" I said as I hugged my now borderline dwarf grandmother as tightly as I could without risk of snapping her bones. Letting go finally I saw the little white haired woman smile ear to ear as she approached my mom (who had not been in Fort in over 15 years) for a hug as well. I can't put into words just how I feel about my Gramma, aside from to say that she is an endlessly loving and forgiving woman who is completely frank about whether her love for you in that moment is based on your own merits or on the unconditional obligation of being a grandmother (which for some reason makes it feel all the more sincere when a woman can say "I'd disinherit you for that if I didn't love you so much." We spent the remainder of that afternoon catching-up over cups of coffee as my uncle returned home from work.

My Uncle David, like all Russells, is a piece of work. He's the type of guy that you just need to understand that if he's messing with you or telling you that you're doing something wrong it is because he wants you to be as comfortable and happy as possible. He is probably best personified by the origin of his nickname. My brother and I as well as my Uncle Clay's kids have Uncle Davids on both sides of our families, and so my cousin Mark (around the age 7 or 8) once asked this UD how he could refer to them differently so that he wouldn't get confused any more. Uncle David said to him "You know, you don't need to call me 'Uncle David,'" to which the young man responded "What do I call you then?!?" Though his original intention was to say that he could just call him "David," he looked down at the innocent young face with his eyes wide-open in anticipation and couldn't resist the opportunity. "You can call me Uncle David Sir!" Thus, UDS was borne.

Now having some glasses of red wine, Gramma served-up a favorite dish of mine (which at 89 years old she still remembers), Reuben casserole, complete with corned beef, sauerkraut, Russian dressing and more. I swear I ate half of the pan that night, and we all laughed and ate the night away.

I'm not going to give a minute-by-minute break down of my three day and three night stay in the old safe haven of Fort Atkinson, lest I bore you to death, so I'm just going to provide a list here of significant events:

• My mother and grandmother watching hours and hours of TiVoed royal wedding footage.
• Visiting the next small town over, Cambridge WI, which is nearly shut down due to economic woes.
• Going to the Friday Night Fish Fry at The Fireside. The FNFF is a staple of Wisconsinite culture in which pretty much every restaurant's menu is thrown out the window in lieu of a single menu item, a slight variation of fish and chips with a heaping bowl of coleslaw as an appetizer (the Midwest is fucking weird, man).
• Visiting my father and grandfather's graves just up the street from Gramma's house, the headstone of which creepily has my grandmother's name and the dates "1922 -         " underneath it (Seriously? We couldn't just pay a second engraving fee at some later date?).
• Going to the farmers market in Madison, which is one of the biggest college towns in America (okay so it's a state capital too, sue me).
• Eating my Uncle David's delicious cooking on Saturday night, this time a full pound and a half of grilled shrimp served with a fresh summer salad and relish which is not unlike a pico de gallo.

After dinner on Saturday my mom and I packed the car and said our goodbyes (which is never easy at Gramma's house), heading east towards my mom's home in Ambler, which was projected as a 15.5 hour drive, taking us back through Chicago and then through the worst place on earth, Gary, Indiana (home of the Jacksons, so you KNOW it's bad). Driving all the way through Indiana, we stopped for the night in the last Days Inn of the trip in Toledo, Ohio (a middle of nowheresville) at about 1:00am (it was only midnight by our perspectives, considering that we crossed time zones somewhere in Indiana). Sleeping rather peacefully, I awoke around 9:00am the next morning and we drove basically the whole day through Ohio and then Pennsylvania (which is a huge fucking state), stopping at a Sheetz for lunch (goddamn I love me some Sheetz). Arriving in Montgomeryville (which houses "The Mall" so far as I had always been concerned as a kid) I brought my mom to her first ever Chipotle, which she described as "Very tasty. I'd come here on days when I've only had Greek yogurt all day and can splurge for dinner." ...and you all wondered where I get it.

Arriving at my mom's house in Ambler at about 7:30pm, I resigned the rest of the evening to attempting to write this entry, which was quickly derailed by the news of Osama bin Laden's death, upon which time I watched NBC until I fell asleep. The next morning I awoke and showered then went to the Wawa at which I was once employed to have the sandwich for which I had become famous during the summer between my junior and senior years of high school: a Genoa salami shorti with Swiss cheese and spicy mustard (extra meat and cheese, and a yellow vitamin water to drink). After lunch I went to this very Starbucks to attempt to write before getting enraptured in conversation.

So that takes us up to yesterday afternoon! Ladies and gents, today I am to return back home to Baltimore, thus signifying the end of this almost 1 month long expedition! Please give me a day or two to compose a worthy final post, but feel free to get in touch otherwise for conversations, hangouts, high fives and the sort. Thanks so much for reading.

Stay posted!