Sometimes English doesn’t make sense. We drive on parkways and park on driveways. Speaking of driving, Robin Williams asked the question: “Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?” After graduating college in Connecticut, I moved to Long Island. I didn’t know much about the island back then, except that there were not a lot of ways to get onto it. You had to cross numerous bridges and drive through NYC boroughs to get onto the island, including either Queens (which is actually on the island) or Brooklyn, which you had to access via Staten Island, another of the five boroughs. Once you drive through Queens or Brooklyn, then you go through Nassau County to get to eastern Long Island and Suffolk County where I moved and raised my family. You’ve probably heard of the Hamptons, home to many of the rich and famous? No, I didn’t live there. Major routes east and west on the island include the Long Island Expressway or “LIE” (hardly an “expressway”), the Northern State and Southern State Parkways (narrow and winding), and the Sunrise Highway (traffic lights galore). My 30 mile commute toward “the City” (NYC) into Nassau County via the LIE on a good day, without rain, snow or accidents, took about 60 minutes. On one particular winter day, it was snowing quite heavily and we were dismissed from work around noon. Traffic reports indicated that the LIE was not the best route home as traffic was at a stand-still, so I opted for the south shore route, the Southern State Parkway. Traffic was extremely heavy (as was the snowfall) and barely moving as I crept along. After about two hours, I was about half way home. I am a coffee drinker, which has its advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage of course is coffee is a diuretic and I had several cups during both my drive to work and time at the office. The advantage to all this was, I still had my commuter cup in the car and you can only imagine what I had to use it for. I could have gotten off the parkway and sought relief elsewhere, but there was a good chance I could not get off the parkway, then back onto it without getting stuck. Thankfully, this car was not a stick shift so I only needed one leg to both stop and start movement in traffic. It took a bit of maneuvering (not the car) but I was able to relieve my extreme discomfort and continue my long four hour drive home. P.S. I threw the coffee cup away. 12/11/23
