Everything about Milburn had little things which looked familiar, but I couldn't put it all together. So much had changed since the mid 1960s. In looking for Short Hills, we ended up on the wrong side of the railroad tracks with a too-short trestle for the RV to pass under. Bummer. I did point out to Rob that my grandpa took the train to the city everyday right from this depot, but that was it. No visits to our home in the old carriage house my parents had remodeled around us as small kids, and no visit to my mom's parents home either. Bart took this photo on his way through. (Photo of 59 Montview Ave.)
We left for Summit. I couldn't even find the main street until I asked some girls where Kent Place School was. My mom and I both went there, she for two years, I for SEVEN (four as a boarder). Rob thought it looked boring (had to admit he had a point) and the gate was a bit narrow, so we didn't go in, but it gave me my bearings for a trip to the best bakery in the world.
The premier offering at Trost's had always been their eclairs and they had one left. Rob tried a baklava. The shop looked smaller and a bit past its prime. A man took my order. This NEVER would have happened in the old days. I remember multitudes of bustling, apron-clad ladies and there was always a wait and "Take a number". (Maybe Atkins is taking its toll on the sweets industry.)
I had convinced Rob that we needed to bypass the Big Apple (that was not easy!) A couple of hours down the road and over the Tapenzee Bridge, we reached Mary Helen's, after much directing by her over the cel phone. This made us 1/2 hour late for an event she was signed up to attend and had gotten us included in.
Greenwich is amazingly rural for a suburb of the Big Apple. It is a place of mansions and wealth and, amazingly, the "yuppie palaces" are built to resemble the older mansions, so you can hardly tell the difference unless they are under construction. As we were driving to the event, Mary Helen said that some of the newer mansions are practically empty inside, that the outsides were designed to impress, at the cost of the furnishings. Brother..
We got to the event and met Megan, the young woman who would be delivering the evening's presentation. Everyone else there, except Rob, of course, was at least 50. There were about a dozen people in all. Fresh shrimp with red sauce, finger-sized hot quiches and loks with caviar on crackers put off our hunger.
Megan was the product of a local prep school and Harvard, but her work in Kenya over the past 5 years was nothing short of extraordinary. She looked like a debutante, but was the only American white to work in the NGO which took street kids from Nairobi and gave them what they needed to thrive. It was a non-denominational, Christian-based organization, an essential in this spiritually-centered culture.
Homeless Children International-Kenya had recently decided to work exclusively with girls who had little support from other sources. It is their goal to admit 30 girls per year off the streets of Nairobi, to give them food, shelter, education in the local public schools (this takes having to buy a deck, books, etc.), medical care (they typically have everything from worms to dysentary), therapy, a clean place to live and to determine, if possible, where they are from and who their families are. The first year is the most intense and determines for each kid whether they go on in the program. The youngest candidates are 4 years old and are picked up in the early morning as they are first awakening on the streets.
Currently, there are boys in the program and they will be supported until they graduate. The organization is raising money for land and buildings and additional personnel so they can expand.
Kenya is primarily a rural country, and families send their kids to the city in desperation when they can't afford to keep them. Sometimes a group of kids will go together and if the organization can coax in a group, they tend to do very well, because they self support and correct.
For years, the schools in Kenya were private and a whole generation of kids went uneducated for lack of funds. WIth the new regime, schools were again made public, but with the huge influx of kids, as many as 80 kids might be stuffed into one classroom. However, it is common for these kids to relish Saturday classes! Education is seen as a real opportunity to rise out of poverty.
One thing which impressed me about Megan's work was that if a child wants to leave before he or she is 18, they are welcome to. Each kid is lovingly attended and the photos which were passed around showed delightful smiles and kids who obviously loved being there and loved each other.
I am strongly considering sponsoring a child. If more young people from this sheltered, upper-class existence got involved with work like this, we would have a different world. The goodness individuals like Megan spread in the world can't help but counteract the horrors perpetuated by our leaders, but it takes lots of little projects and lots of nerve. Megan's parents were worried about her safety. With the goodwill she has spread, I would hope she will be well protected. Find Megan and her kids at www.homelesskids.org/kenya. Her email: megan@homelesskids.org.
Mary Helen took us out to dinner at her club and instantly we were back in the lap of luxury. The food was sensational!
May 22
A tap on the door around 9:30am signaled that Mary Helen was ready to make breakfast for us. She is so gracious and giving. After breakfast, I had the first bath (as opposed to showers) since I left home and then she and I visited for hours, talking about family and sharing our understandings of healing. At 13, my dad had made her her first radio. She had been six, sick in bed and had a HUGE crush on him ever after.
I worked on her arthritic hands and told her about my healing work with sound and music. I showed her Grace's paintings and she said she wanted to see any family photos I had. Mostly, they were still in the camera. I took some photos of the lovely pond in her back yard with its newly blooming lilies (Photos of Pond Lilies and Mary Helen).
Mary Helen led us back to the highway so we wouldn't get lost again. We drove to Mystic and I tried to stay awake for a movie, but Rob had that one alone.
May 23
It was COLD this morning. A nice change but challenging. We got going around 12:30 and bypassed Mystic due to a wrong turn. I really had to get my sea stuff fix, so we turned back. Rob didn't have an opinion either way until we got there. We both loved the ships and displays, which included printing with a letterpress, barrel making and other older crafts. A favorite display was about seagoing dogs. Rescue dogs can smell a human under the water! But there were also stories about dogs who had "enlisted" during WW2.
The Charles W. Morgan, one of the last old whalers, was smaller than my memories of it as a child. In fact we had to duck under the beams so we didn't hit our heads. When I was a kid, it was imbedded in concrete, but in the 1970s, it had been rehabbed and made to float again. Rob wanted to go sailing, but we were due at my brother Bart's in Marblehead for dinner. (Photos of Mystic)
LATER: This was an intense week! An amazing synchronicity occurred. As we were heading for Tom's River, Rob grabbed another Grisham novel on tape off the shelf. The TESTAMENT starts with the first person account of an old codger billionaire who tricks his 6 deadbeat kids and 3 estranged wives into believing they will be inheriting his fortune. He makes his last will and leaves everything to an unknown love child, a missionary deep in the Brazilian jungle. Then, he jumps off a ledge to his death, with the instruction that the will not be read for a month. After our family's recent departures and some of our own odd allotments, we were in stitches. It was just what we needed.
2004 Tour Home
