Welcome to the NJTP! Recently I had the “opportunity” to cruise it up and down after quite a long hiatus. In a strange way I actually kind of enjoyed being there, a modern memory lane of sorts for me. I realized that I’ve been driving back and forth on that tedious road for about THIRTY YEARS through college, working in DC, law school, the Army daze, and living in Richmond… Wow, we’ve both come a long way, yet we are still driving that exact same road through life.
Are you acquainted with the New Jersey Turnpike? In some ways I feel like that is where I grew into adulthood — or at least that is where I benchmarked my life with every trip from Washington to Boston and back, and so on several times a year. At least it symbolizes that to me, a frozen image in my mind, forced reflection while driving.
In case you are wondering, for the earlier growing-up years, the frozen image that springs to mind is spending hours upon hours at Marshall’s with my mother, two sisters, and then-toddler brother riding around in the cart. We were all delirious with boredom, except my mother who was trying to buy clothes for five very antsy kids on a very strict budget. Looking back, she must have been delirious with stress. We had no idea how good we had it.
Of course now the NJTP has the EZ Pass, and we are all armed with GPS, cell phones, iPods, etc. Somehow, though, it is all still the same, exactly the same. Traffic and congestion never do seem to go out of style!
LibbY