Ten Places I've Always Liked to Be

1. Blood Bank

For decades I've been a donor.  There was an incentive initially, membership in the Blood Bank which in a Tit for Tat arrangement insured my household for blood products in exchange for a periodic donation whenever they asked for one.  Later they tapped me as a platelet donor.  Ever since I've been one of their reliable repeat donors.  There have been misadventures, one episode dizziness, some minor hypocalcemic symptoms, one major infiltration, and a few aborted donations with single arm plateletpheresis when the line failed.  I've been put on hold due to anemia and once due to a cruise that allowed me to disembark in Belize.  But whatever the outcome, I am invariably treated nicely and somebody who I don't know might get some longevity.

Initially platelet donors got an premium, maybe a hat, travel mug, fleece blanket, any number of t-shirts.  Enough to compete with a Blood Bank Museum.  And I got discount coupons for a brew pub.  None of that matters.  What matters has been that I am always treated professionally, never badgered, and invariably find myself in my most cordial disposition, from the time I arrive until I depart from the post-donor canteen.  It's a culture where people always seem appreciative of each other.  My visits there, whether completed donation or aborted, always leave me returning home having been to the right place.

2. Mercy Philadelphia Hospital ICU

For my eight years there, every consultation or follow-up that brought me there had importance.  I could make a similar comment about the ICUs of other places I've worked other than my residency.  There is something special about the challenges of patients brought to the physiological extremes.  Records to read, often lengthy and complex.  Answers from the lab still pending in a situation of forced anticipation of what they will be.  And even when there is no uncertainty, whether a new diabetic already controlled by my arrival, a person admitted for something else noted to have a calcium that needs attention later in the office, or funky thyroid tests that pose no harm, the people there want my expertise.  And grand people they are.  Nurses of top skill, residents working their tails off as I once did there, senior ICU physicians who amid the calamities that they do their best to remedy still offer some playful banter or insights of the working environment of medicine.  It's a place where I am always welcome, indeed always part of the team that called me in.

3. Chinatown Bus

It takes about two hours on the road to get from the pick-up to the drop-off points between my home town and mid-town Manhattan.  While the sponsoring company has had its episodes of instability, I've never had a regrettable trip, often valuing those 4-5 hours seated on the bus more than the comparable time exploring various delights of Manhattan.  Fare is reasonable.  Departures and arrivals have always been timely.  Once the driver had to exit a highway to refuel, filling the diesel tank to over $300 worth, but for the most part they drive fast.  While one driver, usually nationals of Mainland China who have limited facility with English, got suspended for racing a semi in the adjacent lane, the drivers of the buses that transported me always made good time without a hint of recklessness.

Usually I drive a comparable route, never with Manhattan as my destination, though someplace else in or through metro NYC prompting the travel.  As the driver, one not used to the bridges, tunnels, or volume of other cars, my attention goes entirely to safety and staying on my planned route.  Being a passenger, especially one with a seat next to a picture window in a soft high-backed seat, affords me a chance to look around.  I cannot see the road.  usually I select a seat on the passenger side which allows me to see buildings with company names.  WiFi availability on the buses makes the travel more intersting.  I like searching the names on my device to see what these usually high-tech enterprises do.  There are a fair number of warehouses off to the side of the Turnpike.  As the bus approaches and then exits the Lincoln Tunnel, I get to see some waterfront and some of the secondary structures of Manhattan somewhat west of the core sections of mid-town.  Exit bus, get my bearings, make sure I know where the pick-up for home will be, not in the same place for each trip.  Then some tourism or visiting a friend.  Then an equally peaceful return trip, more often than not after dark.  Same seats.  The return route ends a little differently than the outbound route started.  It takes me through some battered sections of my home town, places I would not ordinarily drive, especially after dark.  But it's interesting to see how the marginal neighborhoods get by with gas stations and places for takeout and small businesses that have closed for the day.

The bus station, while I wait for my wife to retrieve me, always feeling more rested and more accomplished than when I left early in the morning.

4. In my green swivel chair

It currently sits in front of my desk in My Space.  It probably always took that position, though until my retirement access to my desk needed some navigation through clutter.  Creaating My Space took priority once I no longer had to go to work daily.  The desk, really a black laminate flat top measuring 36x72 inches straddled across two low off-white metal file cabinets, all purchased at the same time at Conran's, for the purpose of being my desk, now serves as my daily destination.  I do not know if there is still a Conran's, the founder being a British interior design icon of the 1980s.  I also don't know when I got my beloved green swivel chair, though I know where I got it.  The DuPont Company used to clear surplus office furniture once a month.  Hundreds of people would go there on a Saturday morning, mostly small business owners looking for cheap office furniture.  The line grew quite long by opening.  The rule, raise your hand and it's yours for the specified price.  Browsers, which included me the first few times, fared poorly, as the good stuff would be sold in minutes, leaving a few electric pencil sharpeners or plastic trays for dawdlers.  I learned quickly to enter the door with a desired purchase in mind, go for it, and raise your hand without hesitation.  I needed a desk chair and I got one.

Unlikely I would have purchased one like mine from a store.  Swivel and recline mechanisms have served me well.  Spring cushion lasts forever.  I don't know when it was built, probably not long after World War II and likely purchased for somebody whose salary wasn't all that high.  Seat made of cloth the texture of burlap, a shade of green with maybe a hint of yellow in the dye.  It's frame is faux silver base metal, four pedestal base which gives it a tad less than optimal stability.  The armrests are a brighter green, maybe a shade deeper than a traffic signal, and with edges that have worn through the vinyl in a few places.  Yet always adaptable to my seated comfort, bringing me within arms reach or a quick swivel to anything on my desk that attracts me.

5. Trader Joe's

After a number of years, I've accumulated products that I preferentially seek at TJs.  Bread for sure.  Alternate over several kinds, but gravitate to their pumpernickel.  Risk having some staples withdrawn, as happened to me biweekly purchase of four top notch minichallot for shabbos motzi.  And cheese.  They list ingredients.  Without getting into controversies, I accept microbial enzymes or microbial rennet as a non-animal product, irrespective of who adds it to the huge commercial vat.  I'm not much for snacks, but sesame crisps, fruit bars, and TJ cheese curls often have a place in my cart.  Frozen tuna, if I can find two relatively equal size steaks of about a half pound each.  Almost like nutritious fast food once defrosted.  And best price on eggs, salad greens, and bananas.

Lots of places sell food.  TJ also sells wanting to be there.  Start with being among other shoppers who also want to be there.  Displays easy to locate, nothing shelved so high that an attendant needs to be summoned.  Never had a dysfunctional shopping cart.  Even at the height of Covid, when the number of shoppers inside the store at any one time was capped, the line never had aggressive customers pushing beyond their turn.  Once inside, shoppers do not clog aisles with their carts nor do vendors create aisle obstructions with delivery or shelving.

My state does not permit alcohol sales in supermarkets.  It is sold in other TJ states, and at an impressive discount.  Even without this inducement, I've never left TJ feeling irritated.

6. The UPenn Campus

I've had three sessions, an undergraduate experience, my specialty fellowship, and my children's time there.  And from time to time, I've returned to the campus for a variety of activities that could be completed in one day.  It's large.  It's diverse, which is what attracted me to attend as an undergraduate.  Yet from the Children's Hospital at one end to the Dental School at the other, it can be comfortably walked.  I always found quiet spots, from my dorm room, to a pond, to unoccupied nooks in their central and specialty libraries.  When hungry, I could go to a hoagie place as an undergrad or a lunch truck as a medical fellow, always within my willingness to pay what they charged.

A university depends on the diversity of its people.  As an undergrad, it bordered a scruffy neighborhood with hoodlums in training who would push people off the sidewalk when unsuccesssful at extorting a quarter.  The university took security very seriously as these incidents moved from annoyances to threats.  The campus had museums, worship, sports, an international center, people handing out leaflets or protesting some injustice.  I could be part of the crowd rooting for the Quakers.  Or I could read the Wall Street Journal by myself on a recliner in the Medical Library just an elevator ride downstairs from my department's laboratories.  But whether part of the pageant or self-isolated from it, I could always find for myself the best place at the right time.

7. Cruise Ship

There's a lot to do.  Time at sea.  Time eating. Time getting wet. Time exploring new places.  I've taken three cruises, the Western Caribbean, Alaska's Panhandle, The Adriatic.  Each with a different cruise company.  While none of these were the biggest on the Seas, they all had lots of people, some more eager than me to engage with other travelers, some less.  The crew originated from everywhere, often the only person I ever met from that native country.  Cabins are small enough to discourage camping out there for extended times.  Walk around.  Stop for food scattered multiple places on pretty much any route taken.  I like hot tubs, less attracted to pools, though they are warm and one had a Thessaloniki theme that I never quite figured out.  Array of food maybe too vast.  Attracted to meatless things not readily accessible at home, but hard to pass up pizza lying on a tray for the taking, croissants and similar breakfast pastries, or a tuna sandwich at midday when I'm used to eating nothing at midday.  I rarely attend shows, but always enjoyed whichever I watched on a cruise.  Ports of call bring me to places I've not been and likely will not return.  At home I have things.  At Sea I generate experiences and memories.  While I've been imprinted to be wary of people who are paid to be nice to me and to avoid people who indulge me, the liners do their best to hire people who are innately motivated to show their good dispositions and the pampering fits the job description.  So for a week I can be a sport and let people do things for me that I would do myself pretty much everyplace other than a resort.

8. Talley Day Park

Go To quiet time.  The park, part of the county recreation system, sits adjacent to my Go To library.  They share an access road and the few outdoor picnic tables and benches at the library face the park.  They have very different purposes.  The park is a small one as parks go.  Facing the main road, kids play mostly league soccer on an athletic field.  At the opposite end, farthest from the road, sit two fenced dog parks, one for small dogs which I usually find vacant, the other for large dogs whose owners sit on benches while their pets romp with each other.  I've been to the large dog section a few times while trying to improve my camera skills.  The dogs are fun to watch and will sometimes come over seeking attention.  My destination on nearly all visits, though, is an unfenced central field in the middle, surrounded by parking spaces.  A covered pavilion can be rented for birthday parties or similar events.  The county provides a couple of grills, kept fairly clean by users or staff.  A playground attracts mostly preschoolers.  My destination, though, is a seat at one of the metallic benches made of parallel rods.  Comfortable.  Usually no competition with anyone else for a seat.  I sit down, usually with some pre-determined expectation of for how long.  Rarely more than 20 minutes.  I will look at the cell phone screen but not do any exploration with the device.  I have taken pencils and a pad to draw, but I usually don't.  There are metallic picnic tables a few steps from some of the benches.  I've sipped a soda, ate a sandwich once.  Never brought any food from home there.  But mostly I sit for the allotted time, facing the playground, its activity having no material influence on my experience there.  I come for a few minutes of quiet time, not in my car, not reading anything, not interrupting another destination to be there.  And the quiet break that I seek always happens.

9. Standing in the surf

By now I've been to a lot of large salt-water bodies with waves.  Atlantic. Pacific.  Caribbean.  Mediterranean.  No water park wave pool comes close.  Some are places near where I lived.  Rockaway to visit the Great Aunts whose primary address was Beach 19th Street.  My first liking to waves.  Then the Cape and coastal New Hampshire while living in Boston.  Not very many of these trips.  Short rocky beaches, often chilly.  Then the Delaware Beaches, for some years with kids, more recently alone or as a couple.  Another Aunt lived near the Jersey Shore, which included a municipal beach pass.  Kids enjoyed it, even my infant son.  Great waves.  Lot of jellyfish.

And then distination travel.  Never vacationed with a beachfront as primary attraction until my honeymoon.  The two years later, bargain airfare made the visit to California too hard to pass up.  While Disneyland and Beverly Hills took top priority, my most enduring memory may be time on Redondo Beach in mid-June.  Not at all crowed.  Waves larger than anything I'd experienced at Rockaway, though not so powerful as to upend the young me.  Just pleasant crashing.  My job afforded ample income to sample many others, maybe one every two or three years, whether Virginia Beach with my toddlers as an alternative to Rehoboth or a once in a lifetime journey to Tel Aviv.  While standing amid the waves constitutes a tiny fraction of my time at each place, even those like Acapulco or Hawaii that would deplete their tourists in the absence of a beach, the attraction remains the same.  A few minutes at a time venturing about waist deep, watching for the next crest, positioning myself, having nature change that position, then feeling the undertow as the wave the just moved me invisibly receeds.  One of my favorite bodily pleasures, replicated over decades in numerous locations, but always with the same elemntal pleasure.

10. A brewery I've not been to before

Each brew sample intrigues me in a different way.  Few really warrant a second visit.  As a student in St. Louis, the Annheuser-Busch complex stood in walking distance from my apartment.  One afternoon I committed myself to a visit, only repeated one more time.  Tourists, and there were a substantial number even on a weekday afternoon, were shuttled on a tour, where the guide, a college classmate who I didn't know but dressed to be on display with A-B logo printing all over his conspicuous red and white pants, took the group around, pressing buttons that would turn on advertising tapes of Ed McMahon, giving the spiel that he memorized, and evading any serious inquiry about the products but reminding us how wonderful they were.  Amid this, tuning out the guide and Mr. McMahon, we could see the actual production and packaging of their beer.  A quick visit to the Clydesdales followed, magnificent creatures, then what any just of age visitor would wait for, a trip to their tasting room where each visitor was allotted two plastic cups of the brews of their choice.  Cheap stuff I would buy myself.  For me it was Michelob and one forgettable other.   One later visit, also A-B complex, this on a trip to Williamsburg with amusements at Busch Gardens.  A shuttle train brought us to the brewery, this smaller than St. Louis but without the hype.  

Craft beer then edged its way in.  Many varieties, each different, each personalized by a brewmaster.  What was available depended on what day you arrived.  Early Dogfish Head, a slew of different ones on a visit to Denver, a few very small ones near me.  The State of Delaware tried to promote its own industry.  Visit the requisite number, I forget how many, get the promotional passport stamped, and they would send you a glass stein with state decal, which I've still never used.  The project took me to numerous small towns in rural parts of the state, places I would never consider driving to without this incentive. Some were basically converted warehouse space with tanks.  But those were the ones where the owners conducted the tour, generating enthusiasm for their product in particular and beer recipes not yet created in general.  Each one with its liquid creativity to admire.