Educationally Speaking -- Gay Geiser Sandoval

How could a recreation of Ellis Island not be educational? After I

read a Daily Pilot letter to the editor saying as much, I hopped the

first plane to New York to study the issue. Well, that’s not exactly what

happened, but I did think it was prescient that the first newspaper piece

I read when I got back from New York was a reader’s complaint about

teaching the trials and tribulations of Ellis Island.

Each year, planning a family vacation gets harder, especially this

year when my kids have both joined the working world. With that in mind,

I planned a quick trip for the day after high school got out. What I

didn’t plan for was the extra training class my younger daughter needed

to take before she could guard Costa Mesa’s kids from drowning this

summer. She had to take it the Saturday we would be gone. When I was 16,

I might have decided to find a different job at that point and gone on

vacation. But she said work and summer school came first and stayed home.

I know most moms are totally self-sacrificing and would have stayed

home. But we had a free flight that had to be used, so my elder daughter

and I headed for the lights on Broadway. Figuring out how to get to

downtown Manhattan by public transportation was a big education in

itself. We traversed the U.S. by planes and got into Long Island after

dark. Numerous people had assured us it was safe to take the Long

Island trains at any hour of the day or night. We sat down on the train,

all by ourselves, with our luggage forming an island around us.

I guess my daughter was exuding pheromones because this guy came from

the far side of the car to sit by us. He proceeded to take off his shirt

and shoes and then offered to be her personal tour guide. She said she

was sending out “Don’t talk to me vibes,” but it wasn’t working. On the

way to Manhattan, we found out all about his lengthy stay in prison and

his recent hospitalization for numerous stab wounds. You just don’t get

that kind of experience if you rent a car. We later discovered that young

ladies all have a book open in the subway to discourage conversations

with weirdos. It really promotes literacy.

Eating in New York is also educational since the tables are about

three inches apart. The skinny person has to sit in the inside. One

night, we found out about the lives of all of the tables around us. Since

we were on West Coast time, we ate dinner after a jazz concert at

Carnegie Hall. There, we supped with a number of jazz musicians, a couple

celebrating their ninth anniversary, a novelist about to hit it big and

New Yorkers who left their old underwear all over Europe. Our last night,

a federal crime was being planned at the table next to us. This couple

was having a big discussion as to whether she was his girlfriend or his

business partner. It turns out he is from Italy and they are getting

married next week if her friend that they were meeting for coffee didn’t

get bad vibes over the whole thing. It was clear they weren’t marrying

for love.

In between eating, we took the Staten Island Ferry, which is the best

travel bargain ever -- free -- and gazed at the New York skyline, the

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, pretending that we had just been on a

three-month voyage from Europe in 1900 on our way to our new home country

that would satisfy our hopes and dreams. I was glad that, when we

disembarked the boat, we didn’t have to stay on Ellis Island. We swiped

our Metrocard and the subway whisked us to our hotel.

* GAY GEISER-SANDOVAL is a Costa Mesa resident. Her column runs

Tuesdays. She may be reached by e-mail at o7 [email protected] .