Seventeenth Visitor

Toni writes today:

Late afternoon Tuesday, we had an enjoyable visit at our place with Alan, my brother-in-law who has been married to my sister Connie for forty-four years. He was in town for the day from Toronto to attend a working luncheon for his role as an alumni committee member from the Williams College class of 1961 located in Massachusetts. After his swanky private club luncheon at 65th and 5th he walked to our apartment as he is quite familiar with the city. Connie and Alan met each other while living in Manhattan in the middle 1960s eventually marrying and living here until moving to Canada.

We had not seen him since he and Connie stayed with us at our loft in Kansas City in June of 2009 for Connie’s 50th high school reunion at Paseo. We spent a couple of hours talking about all sorts of things: The Williams College 50th class reunion coming this June, writing, life in NYC, and life in Toronto. Alan and Connie have lived in Toronto since 1969 except for a few years in the 1980s when they resided in Halifax and Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. Like us, they emigrated to Canada from NYC. It’s funny to think about my migration pattern mirroring that of my sister’s years earlier: starting from Kansas City, then to NYC, and on to Toronto. It will be the first time in fifty-one years my sister and I have lived in the same city (I’ve been encouraged to blog about that). Alan is a retired city planner and planning consultant who now enjoys writing for a hobby. He is on his seventh novel, and has written a mountain of political commentary articles over many years. He is what most of us call, “scary smart” and luckily most of the time we are all on the same page with our opinions. Sometimes I think he thinks it would be more fun if we weren’t as he is a debater extraordinaire. After we have settled in Toronto awhile he is encouraging us to write about the differences, similarities, pros and cons of U.S. and Canadian health care systems. I am pretty motivated to do this since one of my passions is myth-busting, and Alan would be a willing critic and mentor. I walked with Alan to the Newark airport bus stop located across the street from Bryant Park. What made this fun was I got a city planner’s lesson from him. He talked of things like how the street signs were different in Toronto, how terraces on skyscrapers help lessen wind shear, and food cart licensing. I left him at the bus stop and as I was headed into the subway I realized it was the first time in my life after a visit with him I said, “See you Monday evening”, instead of “Goodbye”. .