December 9, 1996

A good estimate for an eight hour trip by car would be about 480 miles. That would take us down the Lodge freeway in Detroit, across the border into Canada, back into the U.S.A. at Buffalo, New York and to the edge of Syracuse. But far be it for us to be conventional; we did the whole trip in less than a mile. "That was one heck of a long mile," I said as we pulled into the parking lot of the Fairfield Inn. I looked again at the trip odometer numbers. They had been sitting at .9 since we hit the Canadian border and just then they were turning over to 1.0 miles. I rolled the car around the lot a few laps. Nope, 1.1 didn't look like it was going to happen. "Either the world is really a small place, or this thing is stuck."

"Makes ya wonder if this baby really has 98,000 on her," John said, "Maybe those are just the slow city miles." It appears that our odometer only turns over numbers when we're moving very very slowly. "Think about it, this car has no highway miles on her."

There's nothing like a long road test to bring the kinks of a car to the surface. Fortunately for us, that was the only problem we found. The plus side of having to carefully watch the fuel gauge was discovering that we were getting close to 40 miles per gallon - not too shabby.

We hit the road again the next morning, watched the numbers crawl to a 1.5 and then stop again as we picked up speed on the New York Thruway. "It looks like it's going to be another short ride into Boston." It was a sunny one too. We missed the big storm that left the roads heavy with wet snow. By the time we arrived on them they were plowed, dry and their shoulders were lined with trees glimmering with snowball ornaments. The feeling of 'being home' struck us both as we turned off the Mass Pike toward Worcester. Buildings that we hadn't seen in a long time brought back waves of memories, as if we'd been away a lot longer than we had and we were seeing the land of our youth roll by. Around our old stomping grounds, we saw the tides of development. The old Lexington farmhouse has been restored, the lot sub-divided and three new homes built; the red house we'd passed so many times on our walks to downtown Arlington has turned purple and green. The Chinese restaurant is now a Staples store; Computer City has moved in; and Jordan Marsh has been bought out by Macys.

It was going to feel funny moving into a new apartment here. We drove past our old one and I wanted to open the door and walk in, like waking up from a science-fiction cryogenic sleep - everything would be exactly as we'd left it. Instead we called our old landlord. A year-and-a-half ago we'd said good-bye to him and we'd give him a call when we returned. He'd commented that maybe, if the timing was right, he'd have something available. Funny thing is the timing was right. Timing it is said is everything and this was just one more reason to keep that old cliche in use. Chris did have an apartment, right around the corner from our old one and, as luck, or timing, would have it, the tenant who had just rented it had to back out of the deal.

We had anticipated a long and difficult search for just the right apartment - 'timing' has reduced that hunt down to one phone call. We took a look at the apartment, the second floor of a two-family house, and we took it. Over tea we talked with Chris and his wife about the apartment and about our travels. "Just like old times," Chris said. Yes, just like old times.