I had it in my mind to see the Atlantic. And not just the Hudson River and the Upper Bay with 360 degrees of man-made concrete and steel skyline, but the actual Atlantic Ocean, where I could stand on the sand and look east to see the water filled up to the horizon, and beyond that the lands of Europe and Asia, which I had only dreamt about, and to where my Honda would never take me. The Atlantic, which I had never seen before, was Land’s End on this trip, and to not go there, to turn back after New York, would be like not sitting to the end of the credits at the movies. Which I nearly always do because I love the music, and I love that end-of-the-film feeling, and I love reflecting on it all. (And sometimes I recognize a name of an old friend or two.)

Julie was a tad dismayed that I would ditch out with no convincing explanation or any idea of when I would return, but I bolted off anyway, for the day. I had called a friend in Princeton, Sue, figuring I’d stop by and maybe crash at her place if the day got long and I didn’t have it in me to get back to the city. She wasn’t home, and I went anyway. I had ten or fifteen dollars in my pocket. It was all I had, enough for a meal or two, and still it didn’t worry me.

I stopped at Liberty Park on the way out of town and gazed out at Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. My grandfather on my father’s side arrived at Ellis Island at the age of three, and checked in with his father who was coming over from England to stay with his brother in Brooklyn, the address of whom, I later found out, was directly across the water from where I was standing with my camera, with the Statue of Liberty between us.

Albert Hawkins, father of Albert Hawkins Jr., was 31 at the time. He came over from England with his wife and toddler on a ship called the St. Louis. He had $50 dollars in his pocket, so we had something in common, but I can’t imagine it.

I can’t imagine it because I can’t imagine a country so great that it would compel me to leave everything behind and go live there. This was in an age before cars, before television, before all the Great Wars. The only thing they had going for them was word-of-mouth, scattered news reports, maybe a picture of Liberty herself, and the sheer, wide-eyed hope of the frontier on the other side of that watery horizon. I imagine Albert’s brother in Brooklyn sent him a letter that read something like: “This place is good and safe. There is work here. Come on ahead. Bring your family. You can stay with me.” And so went the Hawkins to America.

It’s what made this country great. Because when you think about it, everyone who ever moved here took a fantastic risk. We are, many of us Americans, derived from ballsy men of courage. These immigrants had little more than a wing and a prayer. They had their family. They had the guts to say, “We are going somewhere else. And when we get there, if we find that it is not a better place, we will make it so.” And so they did. No other country can claim this.

But at the time I was standing there in Liberty Park, I knew not of this, and was hardly grateful for any of it. I just wanted to get a shot of me leaning on the front hood of my car, in my leather jacket, looking cool, with the Manhattan skyline and the torch of Liberty held aloft behind me. I’d made it, after all! So I placed the camera on my tripod. I aimed the car and meticulously lined up the frame. I set the little self-timer mechanism and ran over and waited... I don’t remember smiling -but I might have- and just before the shutter tripped on what I was certain would be the most iconic shot of the whole trip, an errant gust of wind whipped up off the river and knocked the camera over, sending it toppling backwards into the mud. I heard it click when the camera was pointing straight up at the clouds, and when I went to fetch it, the back popped open unexpectedly, exposing the film. It was mid-roll. I immediately slammed it shut, wiped off the camera, advanced the film and took another shot, but in the end, it never came out. That area on the negative it is just a big white blotch. All light. No more revealing of the moment than if the negative had not been exposed at all, and was all a starless black.

I still had the day. I got back in my car and headed to Asbury Park, New Jersey. The only thing I knew about the place is that it was where Bruce Springsteen got his start, famously playing at The Stone Pony, all those years ago, sparking that Jersey Shore sound and making famous the Asbury Park boardwalk in so many of his evocative lyrics.

I was a fan, so I killed two birds when I pulled into the quiet town and wandered down to the windswept, desolate boardwalk that afternoon. There was the Atlantic Ocean. I came, I saw. It was as uneventful a moment as the place was empty, and it wasn’t long before I’d had enough of the lonely streets, the biting cold, and the dismal grey day, and got back in my car and headed over to Princeton.

I called Sue when I got there, and she was still not home, so I wandered around town a bit and took in the autumn colors and tried to ignore the very obvious signs of the impending winter. After about an hour or so I called Sue again, and still nothing, so I went in to a cheap looking diner with a broken neon sign that read “PJ’s Pancake House” and ordered a large plate of fries and a cup of coffee. I opened my journal and jotted down a few notes, without writing anything of substance. I thought about scribbling out a couple postcards, but didn’t, and ended up just staring out the window for a while, sipping coffee. The waitress looked after me, but kept her distance, and I remember sitting there gazing out into the darkness and slowly, turning over in my mind, I was having a new thought. Something was occurring to me. Some slow, heavy bubble of conscience was welling to the surface of my psyche, and was quietly making itself known.

I wanted to go home.

***

Julie was glad I was all right. She was worried when I came in late, but knew how I was, and found it in herself to forgive. She had the next day off, so we had a bagel at a deli for breakfast, and pizza in Little Italy for lunch. She showed me around her art studio and introduced me to some of her artsy mates. We took a subway (my first, a thrill) and toured the Museum of Natural History, and finished off the day in Central Park, which I found utterly prepossessing. I told her I was heading out tomorrow, and was thinking I would just drive straight through and skip some of those famous sights I’d had in mind; Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone, etc. I wanted to try and get home to be with my family for Thanksgiving, for once. She just laughed at the concept, and I didn’t mind it, and laughed with her. It was Wednesday after all, and Thanksgiving was only seven days away. I must be crazy.

When we got back to her place at the YMCA, I had a parking ticket on my car -one of several I had collected while I was in town. (Amazingly, I hadn’t been towed.) I pointed it out to Julie, “See? This town doesn’t want me to stay.”