Where do I begin? How about Sunday morning at around 10:20 a.m.?
That’s when my wife and I got into our 2016 Rav 4, the cute shocking blue SUV we had to help our daughter purchase when her vehicle had been flooded out in New Orleans a couple of years ago. For a simple trip to the Meadowlands for the Dolphins-Jets game.
By my standards, we left a little late. I like to leave for the game around 10:00, as the zealots fill up the parking lots fairly quickly, monopolizing the good spots near the exits which might allow a quick escape after another desultory Jets loss.
Part of the problem is entering the complex from Route 3 East, perhaps the easiest to access because it places my car near two large lots which I can access once inside the gates and still get me headed towards Route 3 West when I want to leave for home. Many times, the traffic merging onto Route 3 from Route 17 gets caught in the right lane headed to the stadium. That, in turn creates a major bottleneck involving vehicles not going to the game along with those out for a Sunday morning excursion.
That’s exactly what’s happened. Route 3 was an absolute mess. The line exiting to the stadium was enormous. And it moved at a snail’s pace.
Time was starting to become a small factor, as we like to begin our walk to the stadium just under an hour before game time, which allows us to get through security, play with my phone to access the mobile tickets, ascend the escalators to the top tier and hit the rest rooms before settling into our seats. This experience wasn’t making me all that happy, and I was getting hungry, perhaps because we made our own turkey sandwiches and I wanted to devour mine before the anointed time to pack up our belongings and trek to the ballpark.
In watching the line snake slowly to the exit, I noted an oddity. There was an 18 wheeler stuck in our line. I thought that there was no way he was heading to the parking lots or the stadium on a Sunday morning. Yet he was barely moving and a large number of cars decided to move past him and cut in front of the truck to get closer to the exit. He was creating a mini-bottleneck.
After having watched this unfold, I made a quick move to get into the next lane to my left and pass the truck, like so many others had, thereby moving us up in the queue. It proved to be a good move that went bad.
At that moment, the truck driver decided to exit the line where he didn’t belong. I beeped at him and skirted past his vehicle. His loud horn sounded in an angry response.
I found a spot further up and secreted the Rav 4 into a better position. Or so I thought. That was the good move.
It was a beautiful day and I had rolled down the windows to have the fresh air enter our car. Which proved to be the bad move, for as the truck burst past me on my left, the horn sounded loudly and the driver threw a paper cup with a top and a straw protruding from it into my open window with a loud ricochet off of the door frame.
The car was splattered with whatever carbonated beverage was in the cup. I was struck in my face with the lid. I immediately threw the cup out of our car. I was stunned and shaken.
The truck had sped off, so I could not obtain the license plate. No one seemed to care very much, for nobody asked if we were okay. But we weren’t okay. Not at all.
We made it to the gate. Part of the holdup was that of the four gates at that point, one was manned by an attendant who made me look young.
With the traffic so bad inside the complex, we entered Lot K, the one furthest from Met Life Stadium. We were a stone’s throw away from the New York Football Giants facility.
Then we assessed the damage. There was plenty of liquid on the rubber floor mat beneath the steering wheel. There were large stains on the window and the dashboard. Wiping them didn’t make it any better and in fact made the window in front of the wheel more than a bit blurry.
We tried to enjoy our time in the lot amongst the other tailgaters. We tossed the whiffle football we took from LBI in the summer of 1982. We did finish our sandwiches. Entering the stadium in a timely manner proved to be no problem.
As for the game, it was over with the first play from scrimmage. “Sauce” Gardner, the Jets first round pick for 2022, blitzed Miami QB Teddy Bridgewater, knocking him out of the game and resulting in an intentional grounding in the end zone safety. 2-0 Jets.
While the Dolphins waged a good battle, the Jets had the answers. In the fourth quarter, New York put an end to any Miami comeback. Final score was 40-17, and the Jets really deserved to win.
They played like a team on the rise. QB Zach Wilson was excellent. Offensive tackle Alijah Tuck-Vera was outstanding. Running back Breece Hall played like a beast, in one play dragging two Miami defenders nearly ten yards before being stopped just short of the goal line.
Despite the stadium being half filled with Dolphins fans, the atmosphere was much better than when we went to see the Jets lose to Cincinnati two weeks earlier. We left happy with the result and perhaps a little bit giddy for the future.
Until we returned to the car. Once more did I see the mischief that cretan trucker had created. Which angered me.
We had to wait an eternity for the lot to empty before we could easily access Route 3 and head home. It was then I realized what really had happened. I had escaped certain injury and possible death had the cup hit me in the face.
Although it was a little precarious driving home with a half-blurred windshield with the sun at a low angle, the car will get cleaned and look like new. I’ll be out a couple of hundred dollars.
Yet within my anger I felt lucky. Exceptionally so. For this was the third time that I escaped from a predicament to live another day unscathed.
While at Franklin and Marshall, my senior year roommates decided to head to Beaver College for a mixer, since women weren’t very plentiful yet on campus. The driver drank way too much whiskey and drove his Buick at over 100 m.p.h. on the three lane highway known as Route 30. He wanted to die and he was going to take us with him. Somehow we didn’t and he is a doctor in Illinois.
The second time was coming from my then-finance, who lived on Long Island. I had just passed through the toll plaza on Staten Island after driving across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. A car pulls up to me and forces me onto a sidewalk. He reaches down as if the had a gun. I screamed and took off. We reached speeds of over 90 m.p.h. as he chased me on the Staten Island Expressway.
I was sure my life was over. There is a narrow turn before the Goethals Bridge and a concrete barrier. I felt my destiny was to hit it. Except that the other car exited the highway at the last exit before the bridge.
Three times I lucked out. While I am still a bit shaken, this incident gave me greater perspective. Any morbid thoughts I have had have disappeared. I reached a goal—with all of the injuries I have had to my lower extremities in the past five to six years, I decided to run a cumulative mile out of the three miles I normally walk on Tuesday and run no more.
I look forward to my 50th class reunion at F&M next week, for I feel fortunate to even be in position to attend. I have perused the 2023 MLB schedule and have mapped out games to see in June in St. Louis, Kansas City, Milwaukee and ending in Chicago with a White Sox game. If I want to watch a game on TV, I’m going to watch it.
Trips which have been put off are back on the table. My son and I are on for an early April jaunt to see the Devils in Winnipeg.
Seeing friends is a priority. Ditto with family. Getting down over injuries or losses by my teams, at least for now, is in second place.
We never know how much time we have on this Earth. In this precarious nuclear age a second crisis like we faced 60 years ago in October is upon us.
I turn 72 on October 25th. I may be a bit heavier than I like and my clothes are a bit more snug—some of it is muscle from all of the upper body weightlifting. I survived COVID and recently received my newest booster.
I have a lot to look forward to. J-E-T-S cheers make me happy. I love my Yankees. Steph Curry enthralls me. I enjoy sports. So much so. I love writing this blog.
All because a paper cup tossed wantonly from a moving vehicle reminded me about all I have to live for.
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