Arriving in Manhattan to live and work, 1980

There could be more sidebars in this memory than quills on a porcupine.  For the sake of brevity, that will be avoided.  Having completed my time at Thunderbird Graduate School of International in Glendale, Arizona and, with a job secured in New York, I drove back to Louisville to spend a week or two with friends.  Then drove on to hometown Danville, Virginia to spend a short time before flying to New York to find an apartment, affordable and in a safe area.  At that time in New York there were many areas that were not so safe.

After accomplishing that, I flew back to Louisville to get all of my second hand furniture, books, and other things of questionable importance, as well as to sell my car which would not be needed in Manhattan.  My girlfriend Susan from Arizona, formerly from Vancouver, flew out to Louisville to joined me in a drive to Manhattan in a large U-Haul truck filled with my belongings.  With the help of friends it was loaded up and I managed to maneuver through my departure from the Cherokee Park area, one tree limb damaged but not the truck.

The truck was uncomfortable, hot, and felt wobbly at any speed over 55 miles an hour.  We stopped at a roadside motel one hour outside of New York, exhausted and needing a rest before the work ahead.  The next day the drive continued, but in heavy traffic going over the George Washington Bridge, the truck began to overheat, actual smoke coming out from under the hood.  Finally getting over the bridge we pulled over as soon as possible to let the truck cool down, and then began the drive to East 50th Street.  When we arrived, there was obviously no place to park, and unloading the truck and moving the furniture in seemed impossible at first. Then the barrel chested young super of the building came out and helped, absolutely necessary and lucky that he was there.

That accomplished, my next job was to return the truck to a Hertz depot, nearest one at East 117th Street in East Harlem.  Susan wanted to go with me, but I advised against that idea, very good decision.  After dropping it off there, no cabs or buses were available so I began to walk to a safer area.  The walk turned into a run as laughing teenagers began to throw bottles at me from the litter strewn streets. Finally a cab came by and took me back to my apartment.   During my absence, Susan had tidied things up and bought a large plant for a corner of the otherwise minimalist studio apartment that now seemed incredibly small, furniture does that.

Susan had job interviews scheduled at marketing firms for the next week and my job started two days after our arrival.  We had several nice dinners at restaurants that I could not afford, before she had to fly back to Arizona and wait to hear back from prospective employers.  That's it.  Still in New York, though not in Manhattan, where I lived for six years before moving to Long Island.

After not finding employment in her chosen field at that time, Susan eventually went to med school in New Mexico, became a psychiatrist, and still lives there to the best of my knowledge.