Highway to hell....

or should i say "parkway" to hell....the belt parkway....an appropriate name, because if you travel enough times on this road you may want to take your belt and wrap it around your neck...and it seems to be the road i can never leave...from my early childhood in canarsie, youth through early-twenties in staten island...and now so many years later from long island to new jersey to see my mom....it is the road that comes to a grinding stop for no apparent reason, compounded by drivers with skills rivaling annie hall, and further frustrated by a construction project between exits 13 and 11 that has no ending in sight....i do sometimes smile at the dimming childhood memories i have...of being the first car waiting as the drawbridge went up and down for boats, or counting menorahs in the apartment building windows as we crept from the verrazano to knapp street to visit my grandparents..but that is dwarfed by the ultimate joyous recollection of visiting my parents for dinner on a sunday one november..our beautiful trip from forest hills...the glory of the van wyck...the majesty of the merge to the belt...and then nothing...oh, yes, did i mention it was marathon sunday...thinking how i could have walked faster and pondering what would be the degree of difficulty to climb into the backseat to change lauren, only six months old...would there ever be another staten island family dinner on that sunday...fuggedaboutit!