field trip

Ma n' Pa, I'd like to say our arrival at Ellis Island was the day of wonder and excitement it was for our forebears, but the primary objective of keeping rein over the three 11 yr. olds it was my obligation to chaperone over-shadowed all others. Our itinerary was shattered in the first one-and-a-half hour long line for the ferry and the time was never recovered. Too ambitiously, we were sent to Liberty Island first for a tour of the lady- another line we never got to see the front of before bagging the idea and heading over to Ellis. By the time we arrived, the eleven year olds were completely working against me- absolutely no interest in the museum experience, mine was in preventing them from tipping over senior citizens.
My contention that we all might have been able to have this experience without the ten-out-of-twelve hours devoted to bus & ferry travel and waiting in lines was confirmed by young K. who, on the ferry back to the buses, asked if we were going to Ellis Island.

My back is torturing me today as a result of my role as pack-mule for the expedition- I'll take labor over 'recreation' any time. Luckily, or not, I'm unemployed and don't have to call in sick anywhere.

Well, I may not have had an opportunity to do any more useful research, but I think I did get a taste of what a trans-Atlantic passage in the steerage section and an alien processing might have been like. Love P.