After dropping off Kerrie and Molloy at the airport, the boys and I ventured into New York City to explore what we could with the remains of the day. We took the 59th Street Bridge onto Manhattan and I drove past Kerrie's old co-op apartment at 53rd and 1st. For the boys, it wasn't much to see, but for me it was such a fond memory of dating Kerrie (if not also the first 4 months of our marriage) of Friday-night drives from Boston to NYC, to then fight typical NYC Friday night traffic, to then endlessly circle the streets for parking, to then walk the dirty, grimy, crowded sidewalks to her welcoming arms to hear her loving refrain of, "What took you so long?"
We then drove across town to the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier, site of my first date with Kerrie. (In one of our initial conversations before our first date, it had come up that I had never seen an aircraft carrier and would like to. My wife, being who she is, made one available for me when I went to visit her for the first time.)
My employer is a member of the museum and I had free admission, but I had to pay for the boys (what is wrong with a Family membership?). Children 5 or under were cheaper and my 8 and 7 year-old sons successfully passed for 5 year-old twins. When I asked if the tickets included the submarine, they said, "Yes, but the kids have to be at least 6 years-old (to climb through the small bulkheads). Do they plan these age groupings to trap people like me? Daniel exclaimed, "Dad, I'm 7!" to which I skillfully replied in front of the ticket agent, "Yes, we'll tell them that when we get to the submarine."
I had taken the boys to the Intrepid about 4 years ago and they remembered it a little. They were both under 5, but passed as 6-year-old twins to get on the sub. Now four years later I was selling the opposite story.
The Intrepid recently completed a two-year renovation and the museum also includes a British Concorde and a cold-war submarine, the Growler. The Concorde was not much to see other than a walk down the aisle and a peak at the cockpit, but it was small and quite narrow and likely an uncomfortable ride, even if it was only meant as a three-hour flight across the Atlantic. The Growler had carried nuclear missiles off the coast of Russia for about 6 years before being decommissioned. The missiles looked more like small jet aircraft that would be pulled out of the bow of the sub and launched off the deck. It was interesting to hear our docent explain the purpose of the submarine -- to protect America during the Cold War -- and then look around and see nothing but Asians, Hispanics, and even my two little Russians. I may have been the only Anglo in the crowd. I couldn't know if they were tourists, citizens, legal immigrants, or illegal aliens, but it was clearly a different audience than might have been protected by the sub when it was in service, and it was difficult to know if they fully comprehended the importance of the sub's mission, or even if they cared.
The aircraft carrier is also a great collection of helicopters and other aircraft that sit up on the deck, including a couple of Russian MiGs.
On the Bridge of the Intrepid
Over time, the boys have picked up many references to Russia or Russians as "bad guys" from many of the older movies they see (even the light-hearted The Reluctant Astronaut with Don Knotts includes references to the space race with the Russians), or even in museums like this. As a result, it is just one more thing we need to manage relative to their upbringing; that being Russian is not "bad".
