Stories For Your Pleasure

2006-01-02T15:56:00.000-05:00

1. CHAPTER BOOK - "FRANKLIN"

2. TEEN GAFFES

TEEN GAFFES

2006-01-02T15:29:00.000-05:00

SIT-DOWN NO. 1

SIT-DOWN NO. 2

SIT-DOWN NO. 3

Sit down - No. 3

2006-01-02T15:22:00.000-05:00

Dear Harry:

When I was in 7th grade, there was a school event in the wintertime called the “Variety Show.” It was held on a Saturday evening, like many of the school dances.

I got together with a couple of my neighborhood friends, Ed and Chip, and we got their parents or maybe mine to drive us down to the school (2 or 3 miles). After the mom or the dad – whichever it was – pulled away, we were about to go in when Ed said, “C’mon let’s hang out for a while outside.”

There were several other kids in the parking lot already doing just that, so Chip and I grunted, “Uh, okay.”

This was in the days before schools checked closely to be sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing, plus it was January or February, so it was already dark, so there was nothing to prevent our doing as we pleased. Also, it must have been unseasonably warm, or else we would have gotten uncomfortably cold after a while and that would have made us go inside.

But I know we never did go in and see that show, because there’s a great big blank in my memory when it comes to the kind of acts it featured and whether they looked and sounded polished or just amateur. Also, I have no memory of it in 8th or 9th grade, and I know why. For some reason, they didn’t stage the event at all, the next two school years. (Maybe because of certain students who chose to hang out and not attend.)

Anyway, as you have probably observed in your own school experiences, some of the guys in 7th grade already had girlfriends. So, milling around outside the school, there were three kinds of groups: those composed of guys (like my two friends and me), those composed of girls, plus a few guy-girl couples. Again, probably not much different from what you have observed.

Well, as the evening wore on and everyone had a chance to catch up on conversation with everyone else that they wanted to catch up with, people naturally had a tendency to look for new and interesting ways to express themselves. At the same time, nobody wanted to ruin a good thing by attracting too much attention. So, we didn’t start up any football games (which can be fun when girls are playing), and we avoided bothering people in the surrounding houses and apartment buildings (no Halloween-type pranks).

What probably would have worked: clandestine use of prohibited substances, but I don’t recall much of this going on. Of course, my lifelong ability to remain oblivious to things going on right in front of me makes me wonder if just possibly there was some drug/alcohol use occurring on the part of some of the other kids standing around us in little huddles that night.

Leaving that question aside, that brings us to the other major form of self-expression going on in the little “huddles.” This was something that even I could not fail to notice. In my particular huddle, it was carried on by Kevin and Lydia, who, I quickly found out, were “going together.” One moment, Kevin was talking with us, and the next, he had dragged Lydia into his arms and was kissing her. Then, after lingering in this mode for a while, they would unwrap, and Lydia would start talking. This seemed to go on and on. (Or at least that’s what my memory is telling me.)

This all seemed rather daunting to me. Several issues perplexed me. First of all, how did Kevin, in only the few months since September, get to know Lydia “so well?” They had not attended the same school previously. Second, where did he (and she) learn to kiss like that? Whenever the subject came up in the TV shows I watched, or in old movies, discussion seemed to focus on who was “a good kisser.” This, to me, implied that kissing was rather an art form, something to be learned, like pitching a baseball. And, come to think of it, I was already having enough trouble with pitching, after years of trying, so now I was supposed to learn kissing?

And then there was, of course, the question of what Lydia and Kevin would do next. Not that they were going to do anything more right then and there, in the school parking lot, but what happens after kissing? At what point does it happen? How is this done?

So daunting did it all seem that I chose not to think about it, which meant that I also didn’t do anything about it. And I pretty much persisted in that course of inaction right through high school until I began my senior year. (Except for a brief interlude in 8th grade that I have already described to you.)

So that brings us to senior year, when I suddenly sprang into action. Actually, that’s overstating it a little bit… maybe overstating it a lot. What really happened is that, as in 8th grade, certain girls let it be known that they “liked” me. In the first such instance, someone whom I had known since 1st grade, and who later was voted Senior Prom Queen, began sitting near me at basketball games. She would even make sure she was entirely alone. Even if I moved, she would reappear nearby after a suitable interval. All of this was to no avail. With someone as thick headed as myself, mere gestures were hardly enough.

So, a few weeks later, a girl who I’ll call Lucy got one of my friends to simply come right out and tell me that she was an admirer of mine. She was on the swim team, and she specialized in diving. Her father was reputed to be a member of a very conservative political society that was determined to rid the country of Communist sympathizers, but dating the swim team’s star diver seemed pretty glamorous, so …

Anyway, she got results: I steeled myself, picked up the phone, and asked her out to a movie. Of course, she welcomed this opportunity, and I drove the family car over to pick her up on a Friday evening.

While driving to and from the show, there was a problem: what to talk about? I had no idea what to say. Worse, I felt that there was no excuse for my ignorance. After all, I was a Senior, wasn’t I? I was supposed to be experienced now, supposed to know what to do. The fact that I had avoided these moments for all those years since I saw Kevin and Lydia kissing, that was no excuse. Lucy would be expecting me to be everything a Senior was supposed to be: experienced, mature, poised.

Sitting next to me in the car, she would say something about herself, and I would wait for her to finish, worrying all the while about what to say in reply. I was so preoccupied, that I never really heard what she was saying. Each time she finished with what she wanted to tell me, I had no idea what she had been talking about.

So, I filled the empty conversational space with descriptions of my friends and what I hoped were funny stories about them (probably including stuff that my friends would rather I hadn’t said, but I was desperate for material).

Anyway, after the movie, while I was in the midst of worrying about whether I had said too little or too much (but never even thinking about whether I had been a good listener), all of a sudden, the car was rolling to a stop in front of her house! Oh, oh: what do we do now? Oh dear, she didn’t get out of the car. She seemed to be waiting for something. In fact, she was turning toward me!

Not having the faintest idea what to do, I leaned toward her. Our lips touched. They remained touching for a long series of moments, immeasurably long though in fact probably brief.

We parted, and she smiled. But now I was really worried. In fact, I was in a state of anguish. Was this is a good kiss, or an amateur kiss? I had no way of knowing, since I had never done it before. But I was a Senior, and I was supposed to know all about these things.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Why? It was really nice,” she smiled.

“But nothing happens!” I exclaimed (thereby sealing the fate on that particular relationship).

Why on earth did I say that? Because I had gotten the idea that people got turned on from kissing. Hadn’t I seen just that sort of thing happening in umpteen things I’d watched on TV? They started kissing, and they became more and more passionate. It had to be turning them on, right? It was inconceivable to me that when two people touched lips that’s all that happened – just the lips touching. So, when nothing happened (besides feeling her lips touching mine) I thought something was wrong. We were supposed to be getting turned on.
Where did I get ideas like that? That’s easy, all you have to do is go back to Kevin and Lydia. The only things I “knew” were the things I had mulled over for myself (sitting at home in my room) or seen others do. I had no first-hand knowledge, not even of kissing (not counting giving my mother a kiss good-night, which I knew wasn’t supposed to turn anybody on).
To forestall confusion about these things, my mother (at the suggestion of another friend’s mother), had tried to do her part by giving me a book that purported to explain it all. After seeing Kevin and Lydia, I went back and read that book a second time, but I never found anything in it that made it clear just what happened when people were kissing. Of course I wouldn’t, because nothing happens.
But then, in another sense, things do happen when you start kissing someone. You do become more passionate, if you are able to relax and let it happen. But that’s just what was missing. Never having done anything like that before, I was anything but relaxed. Somehow, my brain addled by anxiety, I developed the expectation that touching lips was going to immediately result in arousal. Oh, well.

To make up for this disaster, I called her the next morning and asked her out again on Saturday night (to another movie, of course). She consented, but suggested I simply come over to her house.

When I arrived at her front door, she ushered me into the front hall, where I stood with her while she introduced me to her mother, who was sitting a few feet away in the living room. (Thank goodness, her father wasn’t there.) Then, she escorted me downstairs to the basement, and we settled on a game of ping-pong. (Shades of 8th grade!)

After awhile, we had had enough swatting at the little ball and retrieving it from the far corners of the room, so we stopped. Just like four years before, suddenly it was quiet. Upstairs, in the living room, the noise of the paddle hitting the ball must have been noticeably absent.

But now we were Seniors, so, even in a very conservative household, there could be no question of Mom intervening. We were on our own, and this realization hit me like a cold blast.

We had seated ourselves on a bench beside the table, and once again, Lydia turned toward me and looked up at me. I was petrified that her mother, or worse, her father, would suddenly bound down the stairs, find us kissing, and manhandle me straight out the front door.

Or was I? I don’t want to make it sound like there actually was a good reason not to kiss her. Any red-blooded male would have done it, right? But instead, I started telling her another crappy story. She listened patiently, but when I concluded she suggested that perhaps it was time to say goodnight.

There’s one more memory of that evening that doesn’t need to be part of the story, but I think I’ll put it in just to emphasize how hopeless your old man let himself become as a teenager. Back upstairs, in the front hall again, I turned to her as she held open the door, leaned toward her and planted a kiss – on her cheek.

“Oh, how sweet,” she commented.

I believe that was the last thing she said to me that year (or any year, for that matter). A few days later, when I called to ask about the coming weekend – having vowed to myself that, this time, I would redeem myself – it seemed that she was “busy.” I tried again a couple weeks later, only to be given the same excuse. After that, what did I do? Yup, that’s right – I gave up.

So ended my one-weekend relationship with the school’s star diver.

Sit down - No.2

2006-01-02T00:14:00.000-05:00

Sit down, it’s time for another so-called “teenager story.”

This one wouldn’t even make a “5” on your Cousin Amanda’s scale.

In my senior year, I used one of my electives to take Modern European History, because it was taught by Mr. Truro (the Communist).

As it so happened, many of my classmates, including at least a dozen close friends, made the same decision.

Among them was Evelyn Kane, whom I had been stealing glances at ever since my seventh-grade Block class. (“Block” was similar to your core group of Social Studies, Reading and Writing classes, except that it met every morning in the same room, with the same teacher handling all the subject matter.)

Actually, I had done more than just stare at Evelyn from afar ―but not much more. I had asked her to dance at the junior-high dances and even walked with her through the halls from time to time (but not “take possession” arm-around style). And there had been other classes when we had the opportunity to work together as part of a group.

In Truro’s class, since we were all Seniors, we were permitted more independence, such as going to the library on our own, to research an assignment. On these occasions, I would walk to the library with Evelyn, share a table, and do the same work. Sometimes, our group would be a threesome or foursome or more, and sometimes it would be just the two of us.

Since the assignments were not time-consuming, there was time to chat. In this way, I became acquainted with her in a way that was more like my relationships with my longtime (male) friends.

I do not know why this did not immediately lead to a date, other than the usual reason of my lack of courage in such matters. The embarrassments of junior high that had made me swear off dating had finally worn off, at least enough so that, as a Senior, I began to date again, and to attend private parties thrown by my friends.

Perhaps it was a matter of already dating someone else that kept me from asking Evelyn out. That’s a shame, and for more than one reason. First, as the year wore on, my dating only seemed to lead to problems and a feeling of being pressured and, again, embarrassed. And second, of course, it kept me from truly getting to know Evelyn. (I should also mention that for a time Evelyn was dating a very close friend of mine.)

Looking back on these events from the far side of middle age, I can (finally) see a connection, or, more accurately, a disconnect, between “dating” and “getting to know someone.” In fact, in my mind, as a teenager (but also as an adult, since it takes me so long to learn these things), the two concepts are almost the opposite.

“Dating” was done as a means to an objective. The objective, as a teenager, can be summed up as “having a girlfriend.” Just exactly what all is entailed (and what acts committed) in having a girlfriend is something that varies from teenager to teenager. As an adult, dating continues to be associated with an objective (which might be termed “having a wife”).

“Getting to know someone” is not associated with an objective. One does not get to know someone for the sake of something else, one does it for its own sake; it is the objective.

And it could be the objective of dating. (Perhaps, in some advice books on how to bring up a teenager that are sitting on library shelves, vainly waiting for someone to read them, it is, at least officially, the objective of dating.)

What if getting to know people, rather than having a girlfriend, had been the objective of my dating? Would there have been less pressure? Would I have made better choices?

Perhaps I would not have passed up the opportunity to ask Evelyn out. If I had seen that the concept of having a girlfriend, with its attendant concept of loyalty to that person (implying you didn’t date someone else, which is, of course, called “two timing”), was less important than learning how to get to know other people (especially the challenge of getting to know members of the opposite sex), that might have made me less hesitant, wouldn’t it?

But I couldn’t see that. In fact, I wasn’t anywhere near that point as a high-school senior, as a college senior or even ten years after that.

What’s more, there’s a difference between “seeing it” and giving advice about it, as I am doing now, and actually acting upon it. Would I act upon it, if I were in your shoes, or is this just another respect in which I’m a hypocritical parent? As a test case, let us look at my father.

When my mother died, he seemed to have but one thought: find another companion. And yet, I am sure that when I was a teenager and he was middle aged, his advice would have been to date for the sake of getting to know people, not for the purpose of “having a girlfriend” (a companion).

So I freely acknowledge my hypocrisy. I don’t write these “stories” to show you that I know it all. I may know a thing or two, but am I able to put it into practice?

Rather, I write to illustrate possibilities for you. Just because everybody else, even your father and your grandfather, goes about dating as a means of having a companion doesn’t mean you are locked into the same fate. Escape is possible…

There’s another complication here: if “everybody else” does this, then whomever you are dating is likely to look at it as a boyfriend-girlfriend commitment. So how can you possibly buck a system like that?

I think I have something to offer in the way of an answer, now, in my late middle age, that I did not have before. It is that you can use this as a way to tell who is a better person to get to know.

What do I mean by that? After a date, you can think over the question of whether your date thinks it’s important to have some sort of commitment from you, or whether she thinks it’s more important that you get to know each other.

When I think back on the dating I did as a high-school senior, one of the dates was definitely expecting a commitment. That could have been a clue to me. I could have used that as a way to decide that it would be better to spend some time getting to know Evelyn.

What if, from the beginning of my teenage years, that had been the way that I had decided whom to date?

It would have been easier to date someone in the first place, wouldn’t it? I wouldn’t have had to worry so much about it being interpreted as some sort of commitment. I would have been able to gain experience in “getting to know people” right through junior high and high school, instead of waiting until senior year.

Perhaps it would have made me place less importance on dating customs (such as walking around the halls together, or inviting someone to go to the movies) and more willing to make less conventional arrangements to socialize (such as meeting to study at the town library, or participating in a club).

I admit there is a potential problem with my suggestions: peer pressure. Anytime you do something unconventional, they start in on you, right? (Even if it’s behind your back.)

Sometimes I think that peer pressure had me so scared that it kept me from doing anything at all. I thought the only way to escape it was not to be seen, and so, for a while, I would take the bus straight home from school, talking to no one … what a waste of years that will never come back!

But you’ve heard a lot about peer pressure, or bullying, already. You know the advice for dealing with it. The key ingredient, which only you can supply, is courage.

I may not have had the courage to buck peer pressure, but that doesn’t mean you cannot rise above my standard.

Finally, there’s a reason for dating to “get to know” someone that is so valuable that I think it outweighs all the other considerations and makes it important to act now.

By making an effort to get to know people, which includes deciding, after you’ve gotten to know them a little bit, which people are better people to know, you develop a skill that is at least as valuable as all of the knowledge from all of the classes you are taking, no matter what subject.

The “skill” is that you will get better and better at these decisions. You’ll get to the point where you can spot people who just aren’t going to listen and know they’re the ones to stay away from.

You’ll get better at getting people to listen to you, and that could not only mean a better kind of dating in your teenage years but a better kind of job later on. (To get a job, say, as a research scientist, it helps to pass your science courses with high grades, and to get a degree in an appropriate subject from a prestigious college, but it’s still a question of convincing the people running the research lab to hire you, and that takes skills of getting people to listen to you.)

Back to my “story.” (I freely admit that my “teenager stories” are ninety-percent lecture and only ten-percent story.)

It so happens that I did date Evelyn, but not until after we graduated, in the summer of ’72.

It was a double date. After baseball practice, I asked a friend if he wanted to get together that evening. He said that he and another friend were taking out dates. I said, “Oh really, who?” It turned out the dates were both girls I already knew. They would be going to a café with live music, and my friend enthused about the singer who would be performing. So, I asked if it would be okay with him if I came along ―with a date, of course.

“Uh, yeah sure, that would be okay,” he replied. Perhaps his hesitation meant that it really wasn’t okay, but I, being the fellow I was, with absolutely zero development in terms of being able to discern what people were really trying to communicate to me, went right ahead and called Evelyn. She consented, and I thought we had a good time, except for one thing: the other friend and his date did not show up. Was this because I horned in on the occasion?

Who knows, but if that interpretation is correct, then my friend must have had to call the other friend and explain that I was coming. Then the other friend must have backed out, and that would not have been what my friend wanted, not at all.

So, there’s a reasonable possibility that, because of my insensitivity, which was in turn because I had sought to avoid dating and other social contacts throughout most of my teenage years, I put my friend in a very uncomfortable position.

And if I put my friend in such a position, was I really behaving like a friend? After all, I had only to sense his hesitation. When I sensed it, I could have said, “Oh, you know, maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea after all. We’ll get together another time.”

At that point, if he truly wanted me to join him, he would have protested. Something like, “Oh no, there’s nothing wrong with it. Why don’t you see if you can get a date?”

Or, if he was relieved because he knew his other friend wouldn’t like it, he would have simply said, yes, another time.

Evelyn went to college at Michigan State, and, when I eventually ended up there, I would run across her on campus, every once in a while. Finally, at the end of the school year in my last year there, I called her up for another date, only not while we were at school. Rather, I called her in June (that would be 1976), between the spring and summer terms. She had graduated a few days earlier, and, because I had only one term to go, I was allowed into the Commencement ceremony too. Among the thousands leaving the ceremony (held in the 68,000-seat football stadium), we had – by chance – crossed paths outside, each with our parents there to congratulate us.

I had said I would call her, and so I did, when I got home from school, a few days later. The evening we went out was a Sunday, and all of the nightclubs were closed, so we ended up having dinner at a pizza joint.

I thought the date was a flop, and so I went back to school for my remaining term thinking that I wouldn’t see much more of her. Lo and behold, a couple of weeks later, sitting in the dining room of the small house I was renting with some friends, there came a knock at the screen door to the front porch. It was Evelyn of course, and she came in and sat with us for a few minutes. Her visit was one of the nicest things that had happened to me in a long time. I can’t say it was nice for her, though. She happened to arrive when I was having dinner with another woman I was seeing. So the few minutes that she stayed, with me introducing the two of them, were full of embarrassed silences.

And after that, I truly didn’t see her again. In December, I went away to be a Peace Corps Volunteer, and, while away, I learned in a letter from a friend that she had gotten married. It wasn’t until 1992, when I attended the 20th reunion of my high-school class, that I saw her.

As a footnote, that girl I was seeing when Evelyn came knocking at the door wanted to know everything about Evelyn. Why was she dropping by? How did I know her? How could I do such a thing as to ask her out when I was away from school?

Based on what I’ve said about using dating to make decisions about who are the better people to know, do you see a decision to be made here? Who would be better to know, the one with the courage to come calling at my door, or the one who reacts with jealousy?

You might ask, “Well, okay Edward, what decision did you see?” The answer, not surprisingly, is that, like your Grandpa, trying to placate his “girlfriends,” I ended up asking her to give me another chance. Soon after that, she stopped seeing me.

What if I had used her jealous reaction as the basis for a decision that Evelyn was the better person to make my friend? What if I had called Evelyn right away, after her visit? Hmmmmm ….

Sit down - No.1

2006-01-01T20:53:00.001-05:00

Sit down.

I’m going to tell you a story.

I realize that, yes, you did say that you weren’t interested, but now I’m asking as your parent, saying “Harry, sit down and listen.” I mean it.

This is the story that I offered to tell you the other day, the one I said Cousin Amanda would rate higher than just the “5” that she awarded to my “Teddy Bear” story.

Also, to repeat what I told you when I made my offer, it’s the one from my early teenage years, when I was in junior high, like you. And yes, reading about Xanthe and Alastor and, especially, Marpessa (in Troy by Adèle Geras) is what reminded me of it.

Specifically, it was in late September of my eighth-grade year when someone – can’t remember whether a boy or girl – told me that Kim Brawn (not her real name) – a ninth grader – “liked” me.

So, the next time I passed her in the hall between classes, I took the fateful step of saying, “Hi Kim.” She gave me a big smile and said hello!

After that thrill, one of my thoughts was, “Maybe I shouldn’t be so nervous about my acne. Seems like it isn’t going to be such a problem for my social life after all.”

Those sentiments had a lot to do with who Kim was – a ninth grader – and also with her looks. Passing her in the hall that day, I was looking straight at her for the first time, seeing blond hair cut in a bob surrounding a heart shaped face. I was stunned, to say the least.

After football practice the next day, just when I was hanging up my jock strap (in my locker, which was in the hallway outside the locker rooms because all the inside lockers were given to ninth graders) she was suddenly there, right beside me, saying “Hi Ed!”

I was embarrassed that she might actually see my jock strap, so I froze. But after a moment I loosened up, and we started to get to know each other.

The next step in my junior-high days was always the same: the boy and girl began to parade around the halls, with the boy’s arm around the girl. (Don’t know if this happens in your school??)

It took me a day or two of trying to stumble along next to her as we went between classes, and then I got up the courage to put my arm around her. She accepted this, and it sure made walking together a lot easier.

At this point, I was baffled about what course to take with our budding relationship. Of course, I was fixated on what sort of touching should take place next. She, on the other hand, was at least capable of making suggestions for activities, such as coming over to her house after school.

And now we get to the meat of the matter, what happened at her house … and what could have happened.

The first time I came, I was introduced to her mother and her brother, Dan. Kim’s mom looked familiar; probably I had seen her at sporting events involving Dan, like Little League baseball. Dan I knew already; after all, he was only a year younger (which was another embarrassing thing – growing up together and then dating his sister).

Then, Kim took me up to her bedroom, and we sat down on her bed to talk, only to have her mother shout up to us from the kitchen, “Kim, you should know you’re not allowed to be in the bedroom with Ed, so come back down here right now!” That was really embarrassing, because I figured that Mrs. Brawn thought I should have known better, too.

Of course, we still wanted to be by ourselves, so we went down to the basement, and started to play ping-pong. We talked while we played, and I remember one thing she said that, though typically adolescent, is still a tender memory.

She had asked what I did during summer vacation, and I had described the house in Petoskey, so she responded by telling about her family’s cottage on a nearby lake. Then, she mentioned that spending all day down by the water always made for a deep tan in the summer. Looking at her opposite me, in shorts, I replied, “I can see that. You’re still really tan.”

Geras’ lines about Marpessa do a much better job of it, but for me, that memory triggers certain, shall we say, “longings,” and Marpessa’s affair brought it back – and gave me an idea to share with you.

After a while, the ball skittered off the table and under a bunch of belongings stored in a corner, and we had to crawl around looking for it. It was only a moment or two before Mrs. Brawn was on the alert, “What’s going on down there? I thought you were playing ping-pong?”

I realized that so long as she heard the sound of the ping-pong ball, she figured that there couldn’t be any hanky-panky going on. Of course, we protested that we were only looking for the ball.

I was actually relieved by her mom’s intrusion, because it took me off the hook. Down in the basement, I was becoming increasingly anxious about my old fear: what should happen next when it comes to “touching.” (There’s another “basement touching” story, from my high-school days, that I may inflict on you, sometime.) With Mrs. Brawn so obviously on the lookout, I didn’t need to worry about whether to take action on my plan of taking Kim in my arms and kissing her.

But what if I had done it anyway? Couldn’t I have made a game of it? And, if I had, wouldn’t that have been a surefire way of enlisting Kim’s cooperation?

Suppose that, when the silly summer talk had run its course, I had said, “What if we change sides after each serve?”

She might have replied, “What for?” “You’ll see,” I would have said, and then made my serve.
Before the next serve, I would have begun walking around the table toward her. She might have hesitated, and I would have said, “C’mon!” and gestured at her with my hand, only – and this is key – beckoned her around my side, not the other side.

She would have approached, probably smiling, and just before our paths crossed, I would have put my arms out to her. Her arms would have come up, and I would have brought her in to me, her faced turned up to mine, smiling more broadly.

And that could have been the story of my first kiss, to be followed by more and more of them after each serve. (But never for more than a moment or two, so as not to arouse Mrs. Brawn’s suspicions!)

It would, I feel sure, quickly have become a very interesting game: trying to see how much touching we could get in without setting off her mom. Most of all, it would have been a brilliant way to break the ice, to dispel all that anxiety about touching.

The beauty of it is, thanks to Mrs. Brawn, we simply couldn’t have gotten ourselves in the kind of trouble that Alastor got Marpessa into, could we? (I’m sure I would have tried to figure out a way to do something still more intimate with Kim. Perhaps I would have found some private location, like Marpessa and Alastor, though that’s difficult in the typical environment of a junior-high teenager.)

One thing it almost certainly would have done: prolong our very brief flirtation. As things actually occurred, after only a month, she got bored with me (a guy without the nerve to kiss her) and moved on to another of my eighth-grade friends.

The shocked disappointment I felt when that happened is probably the single strongest memory I have of those years. Again, as with the story of the botched party invitation of the year before, I resolved never to get involved like that again – in other words I decided to quit, to give up.

It might have been different, but I cannot go back and change it. All that we can do is go forward, and for you, “forward” just happens to be … eighth grade!

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By the way, this isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned Kim to you. Though you may not recall, I’ve mentioned her life – a tragedy – in connection with what I’ve confided to you about alcoholism.

For some reason, perhaps tied in with her mother, who committed suicide, Kim ended up an alcoholic. Even though she had help, she could not shake the disease, and she died of liver failure at age 40.

I doubt that it would have made any difference in that whole sad story had I had the presence of mind to initiate the little game I just described. Yes, it might have led to a lasting friendship between us, and we might always have kept in touch, but I imagine the roots of her family’s problems went much deeper than I could ever hope to reach. I do know that she had a loving husband, who cared for her through her last days, but could not save her.

My own life story, whatever it lacks, is obviously nothing so tragic as Kim’s. I regret not having been more courageous in eighth grade, and I cannot turn back the clock and have it to do again (even though reading about Marpessa makes me wish that Aphrodite would appear to whisk me back to my junior-high days). At least I am still here, living and breathing.

And my life story is only one-third written, isn’t that so? Remember that I’m going to live 150 years, right??

I may have been a quitter in seventh and eighth grade, but I can resolve never to quit again, regardless of what confronts me and however scary it may be.

May it be the same for you!

CHAPTER BOOK - "Franklin"

2005-12-28T22:41:00.000-05:00

CHAPTER ONE: Ridgefield Road

CHAPTER TWO: Wilton Station

CHAPTER THREE: Danbury Spur

CHAPTER FOUR: Eloise O'Hara

CHAPTER FIVE: West Chester

CHAPTER SIX: Grand Central

CHAPTER SEVEN: Lexington Avenue

CHAPTER EIGHT: The Moody's Building

CHAPTER NINE: Barclay Street

CHAPTER TEN: Chock Full O' Nuts

CHAPTER ELEVEN: St. Paul's (Broadway)

CHAPTER TWELVE: Reverend Tongeston

CHAPTER 12

2005-09-10T20:56:00.000-05:00

REVEREND TONGESTON

Franklin looked fixedly at Edward, then turned round to address the minister.  Edward was curious but had a hunch as to Ben’s intentions.

As always, Franklin began with the appropriate courtesies, except this time with a twist.

“I am at your service sir.  I hope, however, that you will forgive me if I omit my name until later.”

“Certainly, sir.  I am Stanley Tongeston, minister of this parish,” and he looked from Franklin to Edward.

“And I am Edward Blank, of Wilton, Connecticut.”

Franklin, resuming, said, “Reverend, do you have a moment to hear us out?”

“Please everyone calls me Stan, and yes, a moment or two.”

“Then I would ask that you open your mind as ever you can, further, it is most likely, than your dreams have ever taken you.”

Tongeston looked steadily at Franklin, then said, “I will.”

“Now that you have so pledged, I will tell you my name, though I have no illusions of converting you to my story.  My name is Benjamin Franklin,” and Franklin paused.

Tongeston continued to look Franklin steadily in the eye, and Edward saw that Franklin was using the pause to carefully observe Tongeston.

Franklin continued, “This morning, my man Williams had just sat me down in my drawing room when, without any drowsiness or other indication of sleep coming on, I found myself beside Edward here, riding in his vehicle, transported both as to time and place.”

Again Franklin paused, but Tongeston was onto him.  His thin lips pursed slightly as he stared back.  But Franklin held the stare a moment longer, and Tongeston’s look shifted, his brow contracting in a slight frown.  By all appearances, it was an expression he made frequently, his forehead marked by vertical lines slightly visible in the weak light of the nave.

Franklin then told their tale, in as much detail as five minutes’ time would permit, leaving off with their decision to come to St. Paul’s for refuge.

Naturally, Franklin waited again after relating all this.  The three of them sat in the pew together.  Edward felt strangely relaxed.  In the short interval before Tongeston responded, he was for once off the hook.  Nothing was expected of him.  Behind the minister, he caught a brief glimpse of a man and woman working to roll a harp case up the side aisle, perhaps for a Noon performance.

Tongeston opened his mouth and said, “And no one will believe you?”

“You are the first to hear our story, but yes, a lack of belief has been evident in all others we encountered.  So much so that, until you, we have not attempted to tell the story,” said Edward.  And he saw by a slight nod from Franklin that he had been right in anticipating what to say.

“Perhaps you could give me some more background about yourself, Edward,” said Tongeston.

“Certainly, it’s only natural you should want to know,” said Edward, all the while knowing that Tongeston could not, at least yet, ask for “additional background” about Franklin.  At least, he could not pose such questions and adhere to his earlier pledge.

“I’m a commuter, working at Moody’s just around the corner.  Each morning, I drive from my house in North Wilton to the train station in South Wilton, there to ride to Grand Central.  Ben and I took the subway from that point, just as I do every day.”

Tongeston did not say anything, and Edward did not see any need for another pause, so he added, “I have a small family in Wilton, just my wife and son, who is three years old.”

“Moody’s, that is another financial firm?” asked Tongeston.

“Yes, credit ratings.” Edward replied.

“Has anything like this happened before?”

“No.”

And now it did seem the occasion to pause, this time to let Tongeston think, perhaps decide.

CHAPTER 11

2005-09-10T20:50:00.000-05:00

SAINT PAUL'S (BROADWAY)

“Aha, that is indeed a trump card, and I see that you save yourself from accusations of hindsight by rightfully pointing out that the war stemmed directly from principles that were most wretchedly compromised, to the point that, thinking back on it just a moment ago, I grimaced while staring out the window.”

“And yet, for the first time, thanks to your clear thinking – not to mention your willingness to engage in these discussions, which is rare enough in our present-day world with its relentlessly mercantile outlook – I see that my notion of a Southern slave state withering on the vine is romanticized.”

“Yes – today, it would wither, but in my time, certainly not, and probably not for far more than the hundred or so years that elapsed between the Convention and the War.”

“I agree, so we are left with the question whether it is better to have lost more than three hundred thousand in war dead during 1861 to 1865 or for hundreds of thousands more to have endured slavery for further decades.”

That is the question,” agreed Franklin, but said no more.

Looking silently down into the bottom of his empty coffee mug, Edward said, “Shall we be on our way?”

In answer, Franklin slipped off his stool, and they made their way back out the door, then proceeded on to the corner of Broadway.

The crowd at the corner charged off with the change of the light, leaving Edward and Franklin to straggle along behind.  Franklin said, “The signal said, ‘Don’t Walk,’ but everyone …”

“Yes, but they are really looking at the traffic signal,” said Edward, hurrying Franklin along, for now the pedestrian signal had cycled back to a flashing ‘Don’t Walk.’

“What signal?  Oh!” said Franklin, craning his neck up and back at the traffic signal.  “So that’s how it is they stop of themselves.  I had thought it like the parting of the waters.”

“Very funny, now here is a place you should recognize,” and Edward pointed beyond Vesey Street at the columns of St. Paul’s church.

“How true, shall we go in?”

And, after another perilous street crossing, Edward helped him up the steps and through the doors which, thankfully, were not locked.  Once inside, they paused to let their eyes adjust, then took a pew halfway to the altar.  There was no morning service, or, if there had been, it was over.

At first, each sat in silence, being of the same mind:  to reflect upon what had happened that morning.

Franklin was first to speak, “I suppose that panic might be the reaction of many of my contemporaries to finding themselves in such a fantastic situation.”

“An understandable reaction.  One can hardly be expected to calmly take in the occurrence of the impossible.”

“And yet, neither of us has succumbed.”

“But in my case, there is the additional consideration that your appearance comes in fulfillment of my longtime wish.”

“I happen to have a habit of daydreaming about the future, so that may constitute some connection between us.”

“Wouldn’t you say that most everyone daydreams about the future?”

“I have not commonly found such habits in my contemporaries, no.  What is more,” Franklin added, “my daydreaming, like yours, takes a most specific form.  For example, I muse as to where the knowledge of electrical properties may lead, and in my musings, I find it pleasing to imagine future conversations.”

Edward gave this some thought.  “Come to think of it,” he said after some moments, “there may be some evidence in the history of our fiction literature that supports what you say about daydreaming.  In the last one hundred years, a new genre called science fiction has arisen.  Since such writing was almost unknown in earlier centuries, I take it to be strongly indicated that future thinking was not yet popular.”

“Which would accord with what we have observed and discussed, indicating an acceleration in the pace of change,” said Franklin.

“Or at least accelerating technological change,” added Edward.

“But have we not just observed,” objected Franklin, “that there has been an impact on everyday habits of thought?”

“You are right.  I withdraw my qualifier and concur that, merely by virtue of your habit of daydreaming about the future, you have a connection with my wishful thinking about time travel.  Now, where does that leave us?  Ah yes, it gives us some explanation as to how we can have survived an occurrence such as this without going into a state of shock.”

Unbeknownst, the minister had approached them, and now, still wearing the robes of his morning commuter service, he said, “Gentlemen, how can I be of assistance to you?”

CHAPTER 10

2005-09-10T20:44:00.000-05:00

CHOCK FULL O' NUTS

Franklin stopped walking, “You don’t say!  The very same document?”

“Yes indeed.  In fact, the original is on permanent display in the National Archives Building.”

“Why, this news alone is enough to make me thankful that God has seen fit to transfer me from my life and times to these.”

Franklin then added, “And now it seems that I have become a particular case in point, when it comes to the protection of liberties.”

“True, there is no one in quite your position.”

“Moreover, I owe it to the recent decisions vis-à-vis incarceration of the mentally ill that I have not been, on sight, removed from these streets.”

“You might be a trifle more generous there.  If I have given you the impression that the streets were actively swept of in-costume pretenders, then I owe you an apology.”

“You have not and you do not – ‘pretenders’ if you will, were not uniformly ‘swept from the streets’ even in my times.  I was reasoning that, as in the few conversations that have occurred in the course of our journey today, the mere act of giving my own name begins a sequence that might end with the conclusion that I present a public danger.  At the very least, my own name precludes entrance to most private buildings in this age.”

“Ah yes, I see that now. It is true that, if we wind the clock back, say, fifty years, we would have to take much more care not to provoke suspicion.  At the very least, I would have had to suggest to you that an alias be used in speaking with strangers … and that you change your clothes,” he added, looking down at Franklin’s sparkling white stockings.

At this moment in their walk along Barclay Street toward Broadway, a crowd had developed around a side entrance to the Woolworth Building at a point where a donut vendor’s stand narrowed the sidewalk, so Edward offered an arm to Franklin.

But the other said, “You know, it must be all this excitement, but I find myself suddenly famished.  I had not eaten when I was so suddenly whisked from my house this morning.”

Edward said, “This food is a baked product, basically a small cake.”

“Yes, and coffee.  Such breakfast fare became my custom in France.”

Eyeing the crowd around the vendor, Edward pointed beyond the building entrance, to the Chock-Full-O-Nuts shop and, even though he would never have set foot in the place if left to his own devices, said, “We can get the same in there and have a place to sit.”

Franklin took his arm, and they were soon seated at the counter.  Fast food with Ben Franklin:  it might seem a contradiction in terms – certainly a visual contradiction, the swivel stool clashing with his garb – but the important thing was to do what he could to provide some comfort for the other.  To do otherwise would be an unnecessary additional strain on the Franklin equanimity, which must certainly be undergoing quite a test already.  In any event, Franklin, as usual, adapted rapidly.  Edward heard him muttering to himself, “The place is marvelously clean.”

“How’s the twentieth-century coffee?”

“I find it quite pleasing for an establishment that I take to be of rather ordinary pretensions,” replied Franklin, turning his head to look down the counter at their fellow coffee-sippers, who numbered just four.

Speaking quietly, Franklin offered still another interesting observation.  “I was just now observing the others here at the counter, and they all appear to be of foreign extraction.  Is this a reflection of an active foreign commerce?”

“No, their presence does not reflect that, though the tonnage of foreign commerce through the Port of New York and New Jersey is in fact at an all-time high.  Rather, they live here and in all probability, are your fellow citizens.”

Hearing this, Franklin, who had, upon their arrival, immediately discovered that the stools would rotate (directly making several experimental turns back and forth while peering intently downward), now turned all the way round to look out the plate-glass windows.

“Remarkable, the size of these glass plates,” he said.

“Yes, more technological improvements,” agreed Edward.

“But the streets are full of citizens of what I called ‘foreign extraction,’ though that term was, I see now, a poor choice.”

“Here in the central city, yes, though the country as a whole remains approximately eighty percent of European extraction.”

Franklin stared silently a moment longer, then pursed his lips and turned back to the counter.

When he had taken another sip from his cup, Edward asked, “Is there something that troubles you?”

“Yes, but it is not of this time.  It is that I regret so the things we had to do at the Convention in order to get a document that would keep Virginia and the others.”

“Slavery, you mean, though the term somehow never made it into the document.”

“Bit clever that, wouldn’t you say?”

“What if you had let them go their own way?”

“Then we would not have had a Union.”

“They could have joined later.”

“What good in that?  We would still have had to tear the heart out of the law.”

“On their own, as a slave state, they would have slowly been isolated.  Even in your time, the British had interdicted the slave trade.”

“The British and the rest of Europe care not the least for the origins of the raw materials they purchase.  If they did, by the way, they would have had the devil of a time purchasing anything, the way slavery was used throughout the Americas – and the East for that matter.”

“Yes, that is a very telling point, and, in a way, still true today.  I suppose it forces me to play my trump card.  But before I do, I would ask whether there wasn’t something even more fundamental at stake.  The Constitution has been described as ‘a bundle of compromises.’ Historians chose that characterization specifically to dispel thoughts that it is an embodiment of ideals.  The message is, ‘No, it is in fact a very practical document.’  But that idea can only be stretched so far.  You could not compromise away the democratic process and institute fealty to a monarchy.  And I say that your colleagues went too far in compromising away the democratic process entirely for a certain segment of the population of ‘foreign extraction.’  Furthermore, where there is too much compromise, there are sown the seeds of future discontent and friction.  And that brings me to my trump card:  less than a hundred years after the Convention, friction had grown to the point where it flashed out into war, the single greatest conflict in the history of the nation.”

CHAPTER 9

2005-09-10T20:39:00.000-05:00

BARCLAY STREET

Franklin merely waited for an explanation, so Edward continued, “They’ll just ask for your birth certificate.”

“I see,” said Franklin.

Cynthia walked in at that moment, said hi to Edward, noticed Franklin and yet continued mechanically on her way to her desk upstairs (around the corner from Edward’s), intent on morning coffee.

“It’ll take a minute, but it will probably register with her that I have something unusual going on, so I think we’re best advised not to remain standing here,” said Edward, and then added, “But where to go?”  All the while Franklin stood patiently, regarding him mildly, a look that reassured Edward.

“Ah,” Edward said with some relief, “I think I know what to do.  The church will be our refuge!”

“Saint Paul’s or Trinity?” asked Franklin.

Smiling at his companion’s ever-dependable perspicacity, Edward replied, “Both, eventually, but for now, Saint Paul’s, because walking to it will only expose us to the street for a block or two.  We’ll turn around and go out the Barclay Street doors,” he added, pointing back down the corridor and past the guard’s desk, to the doors at the far side of the building.

And so for the second time they ambled toward the guard station, only this time, who should be standing there, apparently waiting for some personage to arrive, but the President of Moody’s.

He recognized Edward, though he did not know him from among his three hundred or so employees, so Edward smiled and said, “Good morning, Mr. Bohn, may I introduce you to my friend and companion, Benjamin Franklin?” realizing as he did so that he may have put an end to his prospects with the company.

John Bohn replied, “Delighted to make your acquaintance, sir!” and shook hands with Franklin.

“We had actually just decided not to go into the building after all, but rather to the church around the corner.  I’ve asked Laura for some personal time this morning,” said Edward.

Bohn took the hint smoothly, making way for them to pass by the guard’s desk, “Certainly, and a good morning to both of you!”

As they moved down the far side of the corridor, Franklin observed, “So, you place the bald truth before them, knowing that they will interpret it consistently as a type of insanity.”

“Yes, but with the omission of my own point of view, since, in their eyes, that would make me insane, too.”

“I wonder that we have not been arrested,” said Franklin.

“It is a change in custom toward the insane and mentally infirm that they are no longer automatically incarcerated.  In fact, we may encounter one or two of the genuinely deranged in our little walk just now,” said Edward, pushing open the Barclay Street door and holding it for Franklin.

“Remarkable,” said Franklin, stopping in the doorway.  (A habit of his – luckily, no one was approaching.)  “I think that immensely laudable.  You understate the magnitude of the change, sir.  It is a notable credit to your times and a sign of an expanded sense of humanity that such punitive treatment has been banished,” he added, then resumed his maneuvering through the unfamiliar glass doorway with his cane.

“I suppose you’re right.  I guess I take it for granted,” said Edward.  Then, forgetting how startling Franklin might be finding his first taste of a twentieth-century street scene, he rambled on, “though it’s within the last ten years that the unconditional release was ordered.  Prior to that, persons were institutionalized based on the professional judgment of qualified doctors.  A court put a stop to that by ruling that doing so constituted a violation of the rights of those so placed.  Their immediate release was ordered, unless there was a medical opinion that they posed a danger of violent crime.  The furor that resulted from the sudden arrival of dozens of deranged persons on the sidewalks of New York tends to obscure the justice of the basic idea.”

But Franklin said, “I apologize sir, for only half hearing you.  I was preoccupied by all this activity around me.”  He gestured at the traffic.

Hearing this brought Edward abruptly to the realization that he should have been more attentive to his newfound companion at such a key juncture.  And yet, apart from having to apologize, the street distractions did not seem to have upset Franklin.  Or at least, not yet, thought Edward.

“So, I see, yes … it would follow from the terms of the document produced by our Convention and ratified by all except the Rhode Islanders… yes, deprivation of liberty, of course!” mused Franklin.

“Would it please you to know that the ‘document,’ as you say, was eventually ratified by all thirteen of the former Colonies and remains in force today?”

CHAPTER 8

2005-09-10T20:30:00.000-05:00

THE MOODY'S BUILDING

Edward showed his company ID to the guard and said, “I have a guest entering with me this morning.”

The guard opened the guest register, and looked at Franklin, “Your name, sir?”

“Franklin, Benjamin Franklin.”

The guard looked up quickly, alert to a put-on.  She stared at Franklin, glanced at Edward, turned back to Franklin and asked, “Could I see some ID please?”

Franklin turned to Edward, “Is she asking for identification papers?  I always carry my ambassadorial appointment for that very purpose.”

“Yes, identification, and I have been thinking about that little problem.  I do not think that any papers you may be carrying will be meaningful.”

Franklin nodded, “Ah, yes.  I see your point.”

The guard said, “Perhaps a driver’s license, sir?”

Edward said, “He doesn’t drive.”

“Social Security?” asked the guard.

“That just might do it,” said Edward, and he turned to Ben.  “Sir, I believe we should walk over to the Social Security Administration, where it may be possible to obtain an identification card.”

“If you think it best,” Franklin replied.

“May I use the phone to dial upstairs,” Edward asked the guard.  A portable unit was handed over to him, and he dialed Laura’s number.  Franklin stared.

“Hi Laura, it’s Edward,” he said to the voicemail prompt.  “I’m going to have to take some personal time this morning, something’s come up.  Should be in before Noon, though.  I’ll keep in touch.”

Turning to Franklin, who was pointing at the phone while saying, “That instrument…” Edward said, “Let’s go.  We retrace our steps down the hall,” jerking his thumb over his shoulder.  “Then out the door, then just two or three blocks.  The walk should be interesting.”

But as they neared the Park Place door, Edward came to a sudden stop.

“What is it?” asked Franklin.

“I just realized … how stupid of me, but going to Social Security won’t help.”

CHAPTER 7

2005-09-10T20:23:00.000-05:00

LEXINGTON AVENUE

And so they were off again in conversation and off on their journey as well.  Edward offered a taxi, but Franklin discerned that was not his usual practice and insisted on experiencing a typical journey first, alternatives later.

So it was that Edward guided him by the elbow, slowly down to the Lexington Avenue subway platform.  The escalator was both thorny obstacle and object of curiosity.  Edward wished he’d asked an attendant to show them the elevator for handicapped access.  After all, Franklin’s gallstones had by age eighty-three reduced him to a slow, painful trudge.

Franklin, resolute about understanding every new mechanism he encountered, paused by the foot of the elevator and Edward was swept a few steps beyond by the crush, causing Franklin to exclaim, “I say!”

“In Britain, it’s called a ‘moving stairway,’ if that gives you the idea,” he said, once he’d swum back to him.

“And I see that the stairtreads collapse on hinges, here at the foot of the stairway.  They must form a flat belt underneath, then swing out again at the top.”

“I am not sure,” said Edward, “I don’t really know how an escalator’s underside works, come to think of it.”

“Again I say, we could have built it!” exclaimed Franklin.

“Yes, but how would you power it?” Edward replied.

“Watt’s steam engine, of course!  You cannot deny that what we have here is nothing more than another mode of public transportation,” Franklin shot back.

“Perhaps we should allow the crowd to move us toward the train platform,” said Edward.

“Train?  But you called it a subway,” Franklin cried out above the din, looking downward to be sure of his footing as the crowd hurried them along, “I had imagined a moving sidewalk.”

“Such things exist, primarily at airports, but that would be too slow for the four miles from here to the tip of Manhattan.  ‘Subway’ simply refers to a city’s underground system of trains.”

On board, more than one rider stood to give Franklin a seat.  He thanked the one in front of him kindly, and the other stared back, together with another dozen pairs of eyes crammed into the surrounding square feet.

Edward thought of the pictures he’d seen in the London underground years ago, in which Lenin was portrayed descending on one of those distinctive escalators.  And yet, for all he knew, Lenin really was in London in the early years of the century and so the portrayal was realistic.

Edward leaned over and shouted, “They have been called ‘cattle cars.’

Franklin looked up, “Oh yes, you read my thoughts.  One is moved to ask why people would subject themselves to this.  I suppose it speeds their travel?”

“When it’s running properly.  When there are delays, and sometimes I’ve been stuck in one place underground for half an hour or more, the crowding is just as bad as always.  In my opinion, people do it because it’s the only practical way to reach their place of work, which, in turn, they regard as their only source of sustenance.”

“So many people, in this New York of the future, so many lives to sustain.  Has it really come to that, that they have no choice but to submit to this?”

“I believe the choice is still in their hands, though clearly they do not perceive it to be so.  And what’s more, here am I, who am nothing but another of them, following the same path every day.”

“Except that here am I too,” said Franklin.

“Yes, perhaps, from today, things will be different,” agreed Edward.

And in just another moment or two, the train jolted to a stop at Fulton Street, and wending their way through the rat’s warren of walking tunnels, they emerged into the side entrance corridor of Moody’s building, with the guard station twenty steps away, in front of the elevators.  No one greeted Edward as they made their way to the station, and it was hard to tell if they were getting stares.

CHAPTER 6

2005-09-10T20:20:00.000-05:00

GRAND CENTRAL

“That will take some telling, much more than a morning train trip will permit, although I dare say you can read all about all of these things from historians and other authorities far better qualified than I.”

“But then I would lack the joy of conversation, which, evidently, I can have only with you,” replied Franklin, alluding to the evidence so far that, with one possible exception, no one was going to believe that he was anything more than a pretender.

“In any case, while I was in France,” said Edward, “décentralization was all the rage.  And that was in reaction to a history of extreme centralization dating all the way back to, yes, the Revolution and its aftermath of governmental reform.  By the way, it may have become the rage in response to events in this country.  That is because I arrived in France just after American voters turned out a centrist Administration in favor of one hearkening back to anti-Federalist, laissez-faire values.  Though it was protested to me that America was trying to turn back the clock, yet also there was a desire, out of an interest in efficiency and competitiveness, to disassemble much of the immense infrastructure entailed in governing every last detail from Paris.”

“I can assure you based on my years in Paris, that the seeds of today’s centralized bureaucracy had sprouted long before my arrival,” added Franklin.

At this moment, the train entered the long tunnel under Park Avenue.

“Now we will remain underground for the duration of our journey,” said Edward.  “That should only be another five or perhaps ten minutes, depending on the degree of congestion the railroad is experiencing today.”

The darkened windows seemed to dampen conversation, or perhaps they simply needed to take a breather from talk.  They passed the last few blocks under the city alone with their thoughts, hearing no conversation around them, only the rustling of newspapers and the track noises coming through the car’s walls.

Soon, Edward was helping Franklin along the underground platform, and they emerged into the soaring vault of the terminal.  Franklin looked up, and Edward paused to let him absorb the scene.

“So, a great city, and this vault … ”

“Its breadth is made possible thanks to developments in steelmaking during the nineteenth century,” offered Edward, and he continued to stand, awaiting Franklin’s next reaction.

“Here, at least, it is not uncommon to gawk at the spectacle,” he observed, and when Edward looked toward him, he turned his head to indicate a group of tourists, pointing up at the ceiling.

“Yes, you have come to the center of it all, and that is also a draw for tourists from around the globe.”

“What is the period of this building?”

“Nineteen-thirteen, the heyday of train travel.  In those days, this station and its sister, the former Pennsylvania station, sent trains everyday to all the corners of the country.  Now, they merely receive commuters each morning from Long Island, Westchester and Connecticut.”

“All cross-country travel is by car?”

“No,” said Edward, smiling, “a great deal is done by plane.”

“Come again?”

“’Plane’ is short for airplane, that is to say, a flying machine.”

“Flight?  The ability to fly?  This has been mastered, why did you not mention this?”

“I confess, I take a rather petty pleasure in surprising you with these things.”

CHAPTER 5

2005-09-10T20:09:00.000-05:00

WEST CHESTER

“Well then,” said Edward, “I’ll return to the conversational thread.  Let us move the clock forward another century, bringing us to the present.  The urbanized area, known as the metropolis, which includes the new suburban phenomenon made possible by the automobile, expands to the limits of all the counties surrounding Manhattan and its four outer boroughs, east, west, north and south, plus Fairfield County in Connecticut.  And that expansion has yet to abate, though its density is much reduced at its margins.”

“Will there be no farmland?” asked Franklin.

“That is an interesting question.  The answer is farmland there will always be – as I have said, the country still has vast open spaces.  Equally, it still has vast reaches of farmland.  But it is regrettable that the suburban expansion around almost every American metro area is absorbing countryside that was prime for farming.”

“Or else the urban center in question would not have come to be placed there,” said Franklin.

“Exactly,” said Edward.

“How is a metropolis governed?” asked Franklin.

“You have, in all innocence, posed a question that the country has yet to answer.  There is no metropolitan government.”

“Interesting,” said Franklin.  “Does that mean that relations between, say, the western part of the metropolis, in New Jersey, and the northernmost portion, in Connecticut, are left to chance?”

“It means that, with certain exceptions, such relations are not specified in advance by a governing body.  Rather, they are negotiated piecemeal.”

“Does any civic government persist?”

“Certainly.  Most of the municipalities of your day remain to this day, and several new ones have been created.”

“Incredible, and yet, I begin to see that, from a Federalist standpoint, it has a potential for efficiency – only so much government as is the absolute necessity.”

“That is indeed the fundamental argument used over the decades to oppose the creation of a regional government,” agreed Edward, but then continued, “As a result, there is no overall plan that would channel expansion away from prime farmland, only a heedless exploitation of individual desires for private holdings.  Cooperation has been limited to vital necessities, such as the system that draws water from the Catskills and transports it through tunnels to Manhattan and its boroughs.”

“You say, ‘Manhattan and its boroughs,’ this is therefore a unified government?”

“Yes, the City of New York,” Edward replied.

“Ah, but may I remind you, as you yourself said just a moment ago, that in my day, the City of New York included only the southern portion of the island of Manhattan, and that Brooklyn and what are today the other three boroughs were then separate municipalities?”

“I confess.  You are correct.  In fact, now that I truly think about it, instead of just pontificating, there is in the mergers of the boroughs into the City, beginning with Brooklyn a century ago, a major exception, a grand exception, to the predisposition to oppose regional government.”

“Are you thinking, as I am, that, apart from the western banks of the Hudson, these mergers took in the full extent of the urban area of that time?”

“That is exactly what I am thinking,” said Edward.

“So, we discover that, what seems to be an unbroken anti-Federalist trend dating from my times to yours in fact contains within itself a period when a single, centralized government was agreed upon and put into place, even including the termination of the separate municipal existence of a great city of over one million people.”

“Your ability to assemble facts continues to amaze me, though I suppose it should not,” said Edward.

“This is exactly what we debated at the Convention, as to the nature of the Federal government,” said Franklin.

“And those debates must be very fresh in your mind,” said Edward.

“Yes, and still more interesting to see that the substance of them has persisted over two centuries and more.”

“And not just in this country.  When I lived in France … “

“You lived in France, how interesting!  I would love to hear what has happened since their revolt,” interjected Franklin.

CHAPTER 4

2005-08-27T01:11:00.000-05:00

ELOISE O'HARA

“This is a map of the United States. It’s extra, so feel free to keep it,” said the stranger, looking steadfastly at Franklin.

“Why, how kind of you, madam!”

“May I introduce myself?” she replied.

“Benjamin Franklin, at your service,” said Franklin, and now the compartment really was quiet. Their seatmate had folded his newspaper.

“Eloise O’Hara,” said the lady with the maps.

“A pleasure, madam.”

“No, the pleasure is mine, sir.”

Edward held out his hand, “Edward Blank, Ms. O’Hara.”

“Pleased to meet you, and you sir: my apologies for this way I have of reaching over you,” she said to the seatmate.

“Oh, that’s all right. Don’t worry about it,” replied the stranger, embarrassed.

Edward asked, “Are you a regular on this run?”

“Yes, I get on at Cannondale. I’ll look for you tomorrow in this car,” and she turned to go back to her seat.

As their view continued to be limited to the blurred walls of the below-ground right-of-way, Edward decided to return to the earlier thread, and said, “In your time, New York was a bustling center of activity and population, just as it is now, but it ended only a half mile or so from the Battery. In the century that followed yours, it completely occupied the island. What’s more, across the East River, Brooklyn grew up as a city just as large, and the Jersey ports of Hoboken, Bayonne and Newark bustled on the Hudson’s opposite shore.”

But Franklin had other ideas. “What do you think of her?” he asked.

He was obviously referring to Ms. O’Hara, so Edward replied, “Very intriguing. I look forward to joining up with her, perhaps tomorrow. We could look for her when we get on …”

But now he felt he had gone too far, if not with Franklin, then with fate. How could he plan on another commute with Franklin, as if it would be this way from now on?

The other of course sensed this. “Yes, it is troubling isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry, I should have been more sensitive.”

“No, no. We must not stifle our conversation, much less our thoughts, for fear of broaching unpleasant subjects. Who knows? Perhaps by examining such questions as, ‘Will there be another day like this?’ we will uncover some means of getting me back, perhaps some means even of controlling the process.”

Meanwhile, Eloise balanced herself with a hand on the seatback grab bars and moved back down the aisle. Fortunately, she had an aisle seat that morning, so she did not have to disturb any more newspaper readers. And more important, she did not have to interrupt her own thoughts, even to utter an ‘excuse me.’

They had boarded at Wilton, but had settled in several seats in front of her, so she had been waiting for some pretext to approach them. The quiet commuters made it possible for her to overhear the discussion of U.S. geography, and she had the road map because of an article she was editing, so she seized the opportunity. For there could be no doubt about it, this was Franklin.

Of course, she recognized, in thoughts that ran right alongside, that this absence of doubt must be interpreted, according to all prevailing standards, as detachment from reality. But why consign one’s self to insanity without at least investigating?

The one thing that gave her hope was that she’d seen Edward on the train for many months. It was a thin hope, to be sure. It wouldn’t even take a psychologist to conclude that they merely shared the same delusion. But at least it was something to go on, a starting place.

What worried her was the same thing worrying Edward and Ben, that, when she looked for Edward tomorrow, he and Ben might not be there.

For a moment, she thought of Edward. She was becoming curious about him. Someone who shared the same delusion. Even if Franklin appeared only the once, mightn’t it be a good thing to get to know him?

Then a cold thought: had she fallen for a gag? Were the two of them at this very moment shaking hands over their success in taking in at least one commuter? Could they be recording their escapade? A wire, even a hidden camera?

But what of it? It would be fun to be the butt of such a joke, wouldn’t it? She had nothing to fear from the public exposure. A copy editor’s fate was decided in much more anonymous ways. She closed her eyes to let the roll of the train bring on sleep, and told herself that at least here was something, undoubtedly trivial, but something, to look forward to tomorrow.

;

STORY THE FIRST

2005-08-23T17:06:00.000-05:00

CHAPTER ONE: Ridgefield Road

CHAPTER TWO: Wilton Station

CHAPTER THREE: Danbury Spur

CHAPTER FOUR: Eloise O'Hara

CHAPTER 3

2005-08-23T15:03:00.000-05:00

DANBURY SPUR

Edward took up the thread, “Now again, as to the train, it is exactly that – a train, that is to say, a linked succession of rolling compartments like this car. It is similar in concept to a supply train, or an ammunition train.”

“At the head of the train is the engine, which is also a rolling car, only with an engine strong enough to turn not only its wheels but also to haul all the rest of the cars and we in them. You are correct in that, originally, the engines used descended from Watt’s, but this train uses oil-burning motors.”

Franklin asked, “What do you mean, ‘oil-burning motors?’”

“Ah yes … oil, of the type known as petroleum. Is that word familiar to you?”

“Yes, so these motors burn petroleum?”

“A refined form of it, yes. In fact, the fuel for my car’s internal-combustion engine is also a refined form of petroleum.”

“How is it that you come by all this petroleum? In my time, it was quite rare to find it.”

“Are you referring to the appearance of petroleum seepages at the earth’s surface?” asked Edward.

“Yes, have you developed a means of artificially manufacturing it?”

“Alas, no, or at least none that is of practical use. Instead, we drill wells for it,” said Edward.

“These must be prodigious deep wells!” exclaimed Franklin.

“How do you know?” asked Edward, but Franklin had barely heard him. He was becoming distracted by the crowd of ten and twenty story buildings that was downtown Stamford.

“Astonishing,” said Franklin. “And this is present-day Stamford?”

“Yes, and most of this buildup has taken place in just the last twenty years,” replied Edward, adding, “A buildup which is much regretted by many of the city’s longtime residents, who vastly preferred what they thought of as the “old” Stamford.”

“Which, in turn, bore no resemblance to the village that I passed through during my life … and times,” added Franklin, with a quick look round him as he tacked on the last two words.

Deciding that he could be as brazen as he pleased and still be confident that not one fellow passenger would raise an eyebrow, Edward assured Franklin, “I would not be concerned. They are listening, but they simply do not believe what you are saying.”

“Oh! Well, come to think of it, why would they? However, that was not what gave me pause when I referred to, ‘My times.’ What passed through my mind, and not for the first time since I happily made your acquaintance, sir, is the perplexity of how I might return to my times.”

So, there it was, right out on the table. Edward, who had been about to speak, stopped with his mouth open. And was it only his imagination again, or had the compartment suddenly quieted? Their seatmate gave all appearance of continuing to read his paper, but his faced seemed to have stiffened a little.

Then again, suppose it to be true that all ears bent toward them, might that not be attributed to the behavior of an audience becoming intent on some entertainment, as at the theater? There need not be even the faintest beginnings of a feeling of belief that this was the real Franklin.

And yet, what was foremost in Edward’s mind was that, though he might be as free with his tongue as he wished when it came to the strangers surrounding them, yet a person in Franklin’s position deserved some sensitivity.

“Sir, please accept my apologies for being so insensitive,” Edward hastened to say.

“Not at all, sir, not at all.”

“And let me say,” added Edward, “that I will not rest until we have solved this perplexing problem.”

“Thank you. Well then, you have asked how I know that you must be drilling at great depths to be able to recover such vast quantities of petroleum. My answer is based on my knowledge of the depths where water is usually found in our deepest wells. I couple my knowledge of water wells with the fact that petroleum is only very rarely found in conjunction with water – even in those rare locations where there is petroleum upwelling of its own accord. Therefore, I surmise that you must have to go to deeper, perhaps down 200 feet, for petroleum.”

“Sir, our thirst for petroleum is such that we go literally to the ends of the earth to find it, and we drill many times deeper than the deepest groundwater. Oil is tapped at depths ranging from 200 feet, as you guessed, to more than 10,000 feet.”

“So, here we have yet another new field of knowledge, presumably with its own wonders in terms of equipment?” asked Franklin.

“That is true, that is true,” said Edward. “Perhaps we should again make a choice as to the direction our line of inquiry will take?”

But at that moment, Edward saw that the conductor was approaching them, checking tickets and greeting the more jocular of the regular commuters. (Edward was normally anything but, preferring to sleep his way in and, sometimes out of the city.)

Franklin saw Edward glance up and did likewise, just in time to receive a greeting that seemed to reflect the unsaid assumptions of everyone else in the car.

“Morning! Where’re you going and what’s the costume for?”

Edward looked at Franklin with confidence that this was a challenge that Ben would be able to handle without missing a beat.

“Ah yes, my attire. Well, you see sir, it is simply what suited my mood this morning when I opened my clothes closet,” then Franklin turned to Edward – there was still the question of ‘where.’

“Grand Central,” said Edward, handing over a twenty and his own monthly pass (and thinking what a treat it would have been for Franklin to see a hundred).

Surprise had passed across the conductor’s face for the briefest of moments, but he quickly recovered his morning aplomb, made change and moved on.

“Well,” said Ben, “to discuss the extraction of petroleum would be fascinating, but my sense is that so much is going by outside these windows that we owe it to ourselves to confine our discussion to what is right before our eyes.”

“I couldn’t agree more, sir. Well then, we had progressed to the point of my very inadequate explanation of the train’s oil-burning engines. Would it convenience you were I to let that cover the subject of the railroad for the time being and instead give you what I know of the present-day environs we are now passing through?”

“It would.”

“Let me state the context a bit more broadly than just Westchester County. All in all, the population of the New York area, including, in one continuous urban, or, as we say, suburban landscape, the island of Manhattan, the Long Island boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau and the western half Suffolk to where the remaining farms begin, Staten Island, the New Jersey counties of Bergen, Hudson, Union, Middlesex and Monmouth, and, of course, northward through the Bronx and Westchester to our present location and on into Fairfield County in Connecticut, is some fifteen million.”

“Astonishing, but still, no more so than the transformation of the countryside that was so evident before we descended into this ditch.”

“A ditch that we will emerge from only for a few seconds before descending into a tunnel,” added Edward.

“If that is the population of present-day New York, then what is the population of the country?”

“Approaching three hundred million.”

“Then, the suburban landscape, as you term it, must stretch along the whole coast!”

“No, for the country has grown in terms of land area as well as population, so much so that there are still vast empty spaces. You may think of the United States geographically as a westward extension of itself in your day – all the way to the Pacific coast.”

“All the way?” exclaimed Franklin, then, recovering his composure, “But then, that makes sense, doesn’t it, based on the beginnings in my day, under the terms of the Northwest Ordinance?”

“That has largely been the process, treaty and purchase, with one exception in which the Mexican possessions were taken by conquest in 1845.”

“And what of the British possessions to the north, is Canada also coast-to-coast, parallel to us?”

“Yes, and another one of your shrewd guesses, I see. However, not only are we coast to coast, but we have leapfrogged north to purchase the whole of Alaska from Russia as our forty-ninth state and extended into the Pacific to include Hawaii as our fiftieth, again by conquest, though some would claim by settlement.”

“Fifty states? And thirty-five still to account for … however, I should consult a map, not make you enumerate them. But what was that you said – Hawaii? Was that not where Cook met his fate?”

“It was indeed. But before his misfortune, his visit there revealed a nation, settled centuries before by intrepid sailors of outrigger canoes, of the Polynesian ethnic group.”

“So I recall from accounts I received of what came back to England in his diaries, but where comes the claim of settlement on our part?”

“Some Christian missionaries from Massachusetts sailed there several decades after Cook. The Hawaiians allowed them to remain to introduce European religion to the King and his people. From that point, the island became more open to trade, and later, to settlement, including European agriculture. The pineapple crop in particular became quite valuable, inducing the United States to call it a territory about a century ago, after an interlude in which their queen attempted to re-establish the realm of her forebears.”

“A sad story, if I correctly follow the meaning behind your understated account of it,” said Franklin.

“So that is how we come to have fifty states. That is, skipping over the story of, as you say, thirty-five of them. But perhaps I should get back to our immediate surroundings?”

“Yes, it is hard not to digress, isn’t it?” said Franklin, but at that moment, a fellow passenger, having come up the aisle from behind them, leaned over, saying “Excuse me,” to their companion in the aisle seat, and held out a folded bundle of paper which Edward recognized as a road map.

CHAPTER 2

2005-08-23T13:06:00.000-05:00

WILTON STATION

Franklin took the arm, smiled, and they stepped inside, receiving stares from a smattering of the passengers, but mostly being studiously ignored by the commuters poring over their morning papers.

What did they think? No doubt, some were absorbed in the news and simply did not see them pass. Those who stared, did they wonder at all? Did any of them think anything more than, “What next, must be some sort of event in the city. Pretty good likeness of Franklin, though.” And were there some who only appeared to be studying the Times or the Journal and were in fact determined not to give that nut in the costume the attention he craved?

“Well then, I owe you an explanation of the so-called internal-combustion engine, and more particularly, first, how its combustion process is initiated, and second, how the resulting explosive force is harnessed for transportation,” said Edward, all the while eyeing Franklin for signs of unease.

But the banquette, though too close to the one next forward for Edward to straighten his knees, was ample for a man of Franklin’s size, and this seemed to help him relax once again.

“Yes, exactly, do proceed,” said Franklin.

Pausing to gather his thoughts, Edward found himself thinking that, in all probability, all who listened were quite ready to assume their conversation was nothing more than the rehearsing of lines, or perhaps some kind of a gag.

“In a cylindrical combustion chamber, said Edward, concentrating to wall out his sensitivity about what the surrounding passengers were thinking, “fuel and air are mixed and then ignited by a spark.”

At this moment, the train got under way. In the usual fashion, this began with a backward jerk, followed by a wrenching forward motion.

Franklin stiffened, but as he observed the slow, easy acceleration, relaxed again, and Edward decided not to comment.

Resuming, Franklin said, “That explains initiation, now what about control?”

“As in the case of Watt’s steam engine, the chamber contains a piston, which is driven downward by the explosive force. The piston is attached to a crankshaft, and as the crank turns so do the wheels of the car.”

“Yes, of course, so in fact the whole process is as imagined in my times. Why, we could have built it!”

“And in a way, you did. Watt’s was the contribution of your generation, with each successive generation contributing a little more. By about the year 1900, the first personal motorcars were being offered for sale. Even now, nearly a hundred years later, refinements are still coming along every few years. For example, when I was a boy, starting the engine in freezing weather could be a struggle. Finding the right fuel-air mixture was mostly a matter of chance.”

“But now, a new component has been developed that solves the fuel-air problem in all weather conditions,” Edward continued. “Cold-weather starting is no longer a problem, even in the depths of winter.”

Franklin now seemed truly comfortable as he absorbed these words. The compartment seemed unusually quiet, but perhaps this was Edward’s imagination. His fellow riders barely spoke to one another from day to day, even though they saw, as he did, the same faces boarding the train each morn.

Edward paused. Wanting to give his companion all the time he needed, he waited until Franklin spoke.

After gazing out the window at the passing houses and back walls of shopping centers, Franklin said, “Shall we proceed on to the workings of the train, then? I concede that we have only scratched the surface of the workings of the car. For example, it might be interesting to know more of this new fuel-air regulator. And yet, things are happening so fast,” said Franklin, meanwhile gazing out the window as the buildings of the seven-story Merritt-7 office complex came into view, “that I fear we have time for only the most superficial descriptions.”

“Yes, I see what you mean,” said Edward.

The train took on more passengers, filling up for its express run to Grand Central. The moment came when a gentleman in a beige trenchcoat came walking down the aisle, stopped beside them, and said, “Is this seat taken?” pointing at the few inches of space between Franklin and the armrest.

Quick on the uptake once again, Franklin replied, “Not at all, sir. Not at all,” and moved toward the middle of the banquette. The new arrival squeezed in, opened his briefcase in his lap, took out his newspaper and surrounded himself with its pages.

Franklin looked back at Edward, plainly implying the question, what is the matter with him – no greeting? No conversation?

Edward, anticipating Franklin’s surprise, had opened his shoulder bag, fumbled out his pen, and scribbled on a piece of scrap paper, strange new custom – no offense intended – I’ll explain later.

When Franklin had read this, Edward said, “Now, as to the train,” but Franklin raised a hand slightly to indicate a question.

“It’s just come to me that this compartment is lighted, but I have no idea how. Would you mind another digression to explain how this is accomplished?”

“Not at all. These are electric lights. A generator produces electrical current, which is transmitted to the lighting units you see above you. Each unit contains a couple of tubes. In the tubes is a gas that is excited to luminescence by the electrical energy.”

“Aha, electricity! And does the generator operate in any way resembling the experiments of my time?”

“It most certainly does. In fact, its development owes much to the experiments you yourself conducted. As the train moves, a small part of its energy is used to turn the generator. The generator contains components that produce an electrical field. The components I’m a bit hazy on, not being an electrical engineer, but I believe they are either …”

“Brushes? Wire windings?”

“Yes …”

“So it is indeed as we imagined … one is tempted to conclude that all of these wonders come from the thinking of our age.”

“There are some yet that may seem to be entirely new, but yes, ultimately, the thinking was there in your age. I am reminded of Newton’s famously modest remark.”

“Sir Isaac Newton?”

“The very same. He said, ‘If I have seen far, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.’”

It occurred to Edward that one of those giants was just now sitting here beside him. Did this mean that, someday he, Edward, might also see far?

Then Edward paused, and, when he resumed said, “But that is not entirely fair. Allow me make amends. Having cited that overused line, I hasten to acknowledge that the subject of electricity has particular associations for you. Being given this opportunity – this very sudden opportunity – to see these lights, which are but one of the outcomes of your work, to react by clapping one’s hands in delight makes perfect sense.”

“Thank you, and if I may so, you have a bit of a way with words. Now, as to the luminescing gas, how is this accomplished?”

“You are right to ask for more than my assurance on that point, but again, the answer is too technical for me. Certainly one does not simply put electrical current in the presence of a gas and, presto, luminescence. But that you probably learned in your own experiments…”

“More probably from correspondence through the Royal Society and the Académie, but do go on.”

“Inside the tubes is a device called a ballast, but alas, that is as far as I can go – I only know the name of that device and nothing of its working.”

“No matter, there is plenty of time to fill in the details from the more technical sources,” said Franklin, but then they both looked at each other and frowned.

“Is there time, or is there not time?” said Franklin.

“I suppose there is no way of knowing,” answered Edward.

“But suppose there is not, is that not also good?” asked Franklin, hastening to add, “Even if I am, like Moses, only to have just a glimpse, that is itself nothing but a delight, as you noted a moment ago.”

“Yes, yes,” said Edward. “I see what you mean. And it is as true for me as it is for you.”

“A perceptive observation: the chance to speak firsthand with the past.”

Neither spoke for a moment, and the compartment was quiet as before. The train inched over a grade-level crossing where the bright headlights of a waiting truck glared at them through the window.

CHAPTER 1

2005-08-23T13:00:00.000-05:00

RIDGEFIELD ROAD

“Mr. Franklin! How do you do?” said Edward to the elderly gentleman sitting alertly in the passenger’s seat.

“Sir, I do not believe I have had the pleasure,” replied Ben Franklin, lately arrived in the twentieth century and still dressed in breeches, waistcoat, cravat … no wig though.

“Edward Blank, sir, and I have been taught about your work, as have so many American schoolchildren throughout the history of our country. May I help you by explaining what is happening?” They were moving south on Ridgefield Road at about the thirty-five mile-per-hour limit.

“An explanation of what is happening would be helpful, but more helpful would be to know what has happened.” There was certainly no panic in his voice. Curiosity was rather the sentiment that showed as Edward glanced over and Franklin smiled mildly, his eyes peeking over the square lenses of his glasses.

“Alas, that I cannot provide, I can only thank Divine Providence for obliging what has been a frequent daydream of mine,” —and hope that it really is God and not merely my own wishful thinking, thought Edward.

“So, an act of God,” mused Franklin, his face sober, gold glasses frames flashing as the morning sun topped the eastern ridges. “But you can tell me about what is happening, for example, about this vehicle we are in that is hurtling down what I take to be Ridgefield Road with no visible means of locomotion?”

“Certainly, only, if I may, could you tell me how you recognized Ridgefield Road?” Edward was elated that Franklin was, far from being flummoxed by the transposition in time and space, taking it in stride.

“Why, the sign we just passed had an outline of Connecticut and the house behind us on the left is, or was, none other than Isaac Morgan’s, well known in these parts as a tinsmith – and, I might add a Royalist.”

“Right you are, sir, and you provide me with valuable information about the age of what is today my own house, for if you noticed Mr. Morgan’s name, perhaps you also noticed the date on the plaque?”

“I am afraid I do not follow, sir. We are, as I said, hurtling along, at such a rate that, even with my spectacles, the inscription on the plaque you mention, which did catch my eye, could not be distinguished.”

“Then I am still more certain that you have helped me, for it is obvious that it was the house itself that you recognized. The inscription in question reads, ‘Isaac Morgan, 1790,’ but that is a conservative estimate of what has been conjectured to be an earlier date of construction. If the building is familiar to you, then it must have been there well before 1790, perhaps as early as 1768, another date for which there is some evidence.”

“So let it be, only now you have the trouble of having a new plaque prepared; however, another digression: how can it be that we are passing your house and not proceeding to or from it?”

“Easily answered, sir. We are indeed proceeding from it; however, I had a small errand to run this morning, dropping off a document at the house of a neighbor a few doors up the road, before proceeding south to catch the morning train.”

“The morning train?”

“Yes, but now you must choose: would you like to know more about trains, or should we begin with cars, which is the common term for this vehicle?”

Franklin again looked round at the dashboard and over at the speedometer, touched his pocket watch, which must have emerged while Edward was looking at the road, took a steadying breath, and then said, “Well then, perhaps … ‘cars’ then?”

So, it is a bit unnerving to him after all, thought Edward. Well, compared to the average person, in his day or my own, he is rock solid. Still, I must be considerate of what he is going through.

“The wheel I am resting my hands on is called the steering wheel. As you may have observed, if I turn it right, the car turns so, and likewise if turned to the left.”

“Yes but, what moves the car?” said Franklin eagerly, gesturing forward.

“The car’s four wheels roll, just like a carriage, in fact, the automobile manufacturers include some of the old carriage makers ...”

Franklin, interrupting, “But again, that is not exactly my question. There are no horses; therefore what is pulling the car?”

“The engine, forward, in the compartment in front of us, under the metal cover you see, called the hood, provides the driving force.”

“What sort of an engine is this, a steam engine, like Watt’s?”

“No, for personal vehicular transportation such as this, it has so far been found to be more practical to tap the force of explosive combustion itself, rather than build up steam pressure in a boiler.”

“I am not familiar with this method, how is explosive combustion controlled? How is it created in the first place?”

“Let us start with its creation, but first, here is the train station, where the automobile portion of our daily journey into New York comes to an end. I must park the car, and then we will board the train.”

“What do you mean by an automobile journey?” asked Franklin.

“Cars, that is, automobile being the more technical term for them,” replied Edward.

“But what a great many automobiles there are! Wilton has grown mightily, I see,” and, absorbing these observation-packed words, Edward began to worry less that it all might be too much for old Ben.

“The whole country has grown mightily, to the point where it and not Europe is now the center of the world,” said Edward, struggling to match Franklin in terms of the breadth and significance of the thoughts he communicated.

But Edward had evidently thrown more at Franklin than he was ready to absorb, for the other only said, “I take it this train is what I see in the distance, beside the platform?”

“Right on both counts. We mount the platform and enter the train car through the doors you see open, but the essential difference between rail and automobile transportation is that of the rails themselves. Take a look behind the train, at the tracks, and observe they consist of two steel rails, parallel.”

“Yes, so I see. And tell me, of these two new means of transportation, is it this one that first came to pass?”

“Yes, in about 1830, but how did you guess?” Again, the Franklinian powers of observation!

“Because of Watt, and because of your informing me that steam is less convenient for personal transportation vehicles. Watt’s work I can date to my times, so there I have a historical starting point —by the way, you still have not told me what year it is.

“Second, I observe that this is not personal transportation we are about to board; therefore, the steam engine cannot be ruled out as having played a role in its development and might have become available not long after my times.

“And third, I take it to be true a priori that people in general, given the choice, will choose to have their own personal transportation if at all possible. Therefore, I assume that the arrival of cars, the personal mode of transportation, must have had to await the solution of the direct combustion problem.”

“Thank you, sir. I believe I have learned something just by listening to the process of thought that you went through, and this is the year 1993.”

At this revelation, Franklin actually stopped in his tracks, worrying Edward on two counts: that he might miss the morning train and that, after all, it was getting to be a little too much for him.

Edward said softly, “Shall we board, sir? I see there is a vacant banquette available,” and, with Franklin leaning on his cane and the platform threshold before them, he offered an arm to the older man.