OLLI Intercession

Each semester, the Osher Institute offers a suspension of classes.  In the fall, this coincides with a long Thanksgiving Weekend, Wed-Sun.  In the spring, we get an entire week, Sat-Sun, which just commenced.  People do all sorts of things, from getting out of town to taking that special cruise to some movie or eating out time.  Others find OLLI their principal source of personal engagement, not really looking at this week off as an opportunity but as an interruption.

I had been using the week to make short overnight trips with my wife.  Not too much driving, less than three hours each way, but always with some mixture of leisure time and noteworthy must do at the new place.  We've been to the Poconos, which doesn't have a lot of must-do, and to DC which does.  This year, the break falls too close to Pesach, a time dedicated largely to spring cleaning.  No overnight trips, though I had considered a few days on Long Island.  Unfortunately, it's a much more expensive destination than the Poconos and a little farther, though with enough to do and see.  The hotels there seem to build their pools outdoors, probably based on economic calculations, though a little unusual for a region that has its warm weather limited to less than half the year.  But for me this year, it's stay home with one day trip.

At one time, I'd have earmarked a day with the Chinatown Bus in NYC.  In the past, I'd take an 8 or 9AM bus, arrive before lunch, have lunch, often a Kosher one, then either meet a friend or visit a place that makes NYC an international destination.  Perfect for OLLI intercession.  Alas, that daylight travel, at least economical and easy bus travel is no more.  The buses leave too early, return too late.  Getting to Philadelphia where buses are hourly and of nominal fare requires transportation or high-priced parking, as those buses no longer depart from the 30th Street Station but a more difficult location near the Historical District.  I guess that makes economic sense, as tourists coming to Philadelphia or NYC as their primary destination can make an easy side trip to sample the other.  But too disruptive for me.

That leaves my day trip to a place I can traverse by car driving myself in a single day, perhaps 100 miles or so.  Downstate in my own state seems my best option.  Fishing.  Either leisurely breakfast out before I go or lunch that I would not ordinarily obtain for myself once there.  Some form of amusement.  And the rest of the week with Pesach preparation, some early season gardening, or those same breakfast-lunch samplings accessible to me every day but never sought out.  

As retirement has become my new norm with OLLI as the most reliable form of social engagement, that shield from Loneliness, I don't really welcome that week-long suspension of classes.  I've not deprived myself of anything I want to do, so I do not really need the week to capture any missing experiences.  But while this free block of time is externally imposed rather than sought out, I need to seek out something a little different as well.