Mom and me in Great Britain

September 5, 2006

Our first day in England, we visited Bath with it's Roman Baths (above) and the ancient stone circle Stonehenge (left)

Great Britain with Mallory's Grandma

September 5, 2006

When we saw ELIZABETHTOWN (the movie Orlando Bloom was filming in Kentucky when Mallory and I stalked him there), it inspired me to want to go on another road trip with Mallory, this time including my mother and my other daughter, Jessica. When I asked Mallory where she'd like to visit, she replied "Europe." One can't exactly drive to Europe, and I'm not in a position to afford the airfares. I told Mallory and Jessica that if they could save some money to pay for the plane, we would do it. They didn't save any money. So, instead, I suggested to my mother that the two of us should go. I've always wanted to see England and Scotland.

I heard about some low airfares (about $200 each way) to London through an email from Travelzoo. I booked two flights for September 4, 2006, and my sweet father picked up the cost as my 50th birthday present. Then I got busy on the internet, finding bed & breakfast facilities in London, Edinburgh and Paris. I also arranged a rental car through AutoEurope for us to drive from London to Edinburgh, on to Aberdeen in Scotland (where we have cousins), and then to Paris. Though I've never been to Great Britain, Mom has visited there a few times. However, she has never been to Paris.

So, here's the first half of our trip:

Mom and I had a great flight to London. Once arrived, we struggled a bit with getting suitcases up and down the underground stairs, and we found ourselves sitting close to an Indian couple and their small daughter. The woman was sneezing a lot and seemed quite miserable (this will be significant later). Anyway, we finally found our way out of the underground into Victoria Station. There we bought sodas (from a Burger King - in Victoria Station!!!) and rested a bit before tackling the walk to our B&B. We were staying at the Stanley House Hotel, which is only a few blocks south of the station, although by then we were so tired it felt like miles. Our room was on the first floor, which is one flight up in Britain, but at least we had a private bathroom. We showered and crashed - correction, tried to crash. There was a traffic signal right outside our balcony window, which was open to cool off the non-air-conditioned room. We were kept awake most of the night by loud motor engines gearing up and down at the light.

Day 1 - After our full English breakfast (fried egg, sausage, bacon, beans, grilled tomato and toast), we reported to the Golden Tours Office in Fountain Square (next to Victoria Station) for our Essential Monuments Tour. A nice air-conditioned coach took us to the Tower of London, where we saw all the sights, including the Traitor's Gate, the Bloody Tower, the White Tower and the Crown Jewels. Then we returned to the tours office to pick up more people before heading to Bath. Mom and I napped a bit on the way, but we also looked at the British countryside out the window. It looked a lot like the New Jersey countryside. In Bath we toured the Roman Baths Museum and the magnificent Bath Abbey. Mom and I grabbed a late lunch of fish & chips, served with a mysterious pile of bright green stuff which our waitress identified as "mushy peas." They're mashed peas, a peculiarly British dish, and the restaurant in Bath served a very tasty version. Then it was back on the bus to drive across the Salisbury Plain (made famous by pranksters nocturnally creating crop circles) to Stonehenge. It was fascinating to arrive at this legendary place, and see that it was sitting out in the middle of the fields, surrounded by herds of sheep. This was one of the highlights of the trip for me. U.S. friends who had visited Stonehenge told me not to bother, because the monument ordinarily is roped off, keeping visitors a good 20 feet away from the stones. However, our tour group arrived half an hour after the monument closed to the general public, and we were allowed to enter the stone circle and wander and take pictures to our hearts' content. We stayed for about an hour, until the sun had set. It was amazing! Then we re-boarded the bus for the long return trip to London. This time we napped a lot. Back at Stanley House, Mom and I visited a Night Spot (convenience store) for supper provisions. We dined on ice cream bars, bananas and toffee chip cookies, while watching British television. They have some surprisingly bawdy advertisements on their television. This night we closed the balcony window before going to sleep, and we got plenty of zzzzzzs.

Day 2 - Slept late and missed the hotel breakfast, so we got coffee and pastries at Starbucks. We addressed postcards to the folks back home while we ate. Then we had to make our way to the Tower of London again, to pick up passes for a Three Palace Tour. Now, here the learning curve caught up to us. We should have got those passes when we were at the Tower the day before, OR we should have taken the underground to the Tower on this day. Instead, we bought tickets for a double decker sightseeing bus. We did see a number of sights on the way to the Tower, and the tour guide did have some good anecdotes to relate. However, street traffic in London is even more congested than in Manhattan. It was well after Noon by the time we got to the Tower. We picked up our passes - which would admit us to the Tower of London (been there, done that), Kensington Palace, the Banqueting Hall and/or Hampton Court. Then we shopped for souvenirs and more postcards in the Tower Gift Shop and got some lunch at Tower Walk. Mom had KFC (sheesh), and I got shepherd's pie from a little deli kind of place. Then we got back on a sightseeing bus to return to the other end of London for Kensington Palace. This bus didn't have a live tour guide, only an audio tour which they gave us headsets to plug into. It was after four when we got back over near Victoria, where we had to change to a different line of the bus to get to Kensington. Well, the silly bus never showed up, so we spent more precious pounds getting tickets to the city bus. And then, when we finally got to Kensington Palace at just about 5:00, the gates were shut. DRAT! Well, we had learned from the first tour guide that the National Gallery would be open until 9:00 that night. So we got on another city bus to Trafalgar Square. We took pictures in the square, and got more sodas to quench travellers' thirst. Then we went into the National Gallery and looked at old Flemish and Italian masters for a while. There were plenty of overwrought paintings with religious themes, some renderings of mythological subjects, portraits, landscapes and still lifes. Before we reached the end of one wing, I was feeling extremely weary. We found the washroom and freshened up, then ducked out the back of the museum and found ourselves in Leicester Square. There was a charming little Italian restaurant where we were able to get a reasonably priced dinner of soup/salad, pizza and wine. I ordered hot tea, as well, because I was beginning to feel decidedly queer. By the end of the meal, I knew I was running a fever. I was shivering, and Mom said my forehead was very hot. We settled the bill, bought some ibuprofen at a newsstand, and got on the underground at the Charing Cross station. Wow! The underground gets one around London MUCH more quickly than the bus. Returned to our B&B, I undressed and lay down and felt like - well - you know. We didn't have a thermometer, but I felt as bad as I did when I had the flu in August and was running a temp of 103. I was worried that I had contracted another flu strain that would lay me low for days, and I was really worried that the Indian woman from the airport might have given me Bird Flu. Mom was worried that she ought to take me to the emergency room. After two double doses of ibuprofen, I finally fell into a fitful sleep. I awoke sometime in the wee hours in a sweat, and I knew the fever had broken. I felt wrung out, but no longer racked by body aches and chills.

Day 3 - With the mysterious illness magically gone, we were back on track to collect our rental car and drive to Scotland. We did go downstairs for Stanley House's full English breakfast. This time we found ourselves sharing a table with a retired couple from Tasmania - quite the characters. After I called the rental car place to let them know we were behind schedule, we packed and hauled our cases back to Victoria Station. Weakened from illness, I found it much harder to carry my luggage. I went into Fountain Square and bought a rack with big wheels on which to put my suitcase. That made it more manageable. The rental car place was at Heathrow, and after a little mix up - the first vehicle they gave me had a standard transmission, which I knew I wasn't going to be able to handle simultaneously with driving on the "wrong" side of the road - we got our little KIA, stumbled our way through the airport access roads and roundabouts, and got on the M25 Motorway that rings London. This took us to the A1/M1 for the North, which eventually (9 hours later) got us to Edinburgh. It wasn't bad at all travelling on the motorway. The lanes were wide, the roads pretty straight, and rest stops with food and gas placed at frequent intervals. However, once arrived at Edinburgh (well after dark), the conditions changed. Instead of intersections, they have these lovely little roundabouts (traffic circles), and as you enter a roundabout there is a sign naming all the exits out of the roundabout. Well, I couldn't watch the road and read the sign, and Mom couldn't read the sign fast enough. So, needless to say, we made several false turns before we got into the part of Edinburgh where our B&B was situated. Then, once we were in the old city, things got worse. The streets are very narrow, old world streets, but most of them are for two way traffic and have cars parked on both sides. The street signs, instead of being on poles at the corners, are located on the sides of the buildings. Took us a little while to figure that one out. Mom couldn't read the map and the street signs at the same time, so I pulled onto a side street to assess our location. We couldn't reconcile the streets on the map with the streets we were driving. Our salvation was Edinburgh Castle, which stands all lit up on a hill in the center of the city. We could see it from the road, and were able to figure out our location on the map relative to the Castle. This enabled me to get to the main thoroughfare that runs nearest the B&B. Then we stopped at a gas station to confirm the turn for the B&B. Please note that, in the U.K. as in the U.S., gas station attendants are mostly from India. Fortunately, this attendant was able to direct me. We were staying at Granville Guest House in Granville Terrace. Of course, when we finally found it, there were no parking places anywhere near. I left Mom at the Guest House and drove around until I found an opening a few blocks away. I was very proud of myself that I found the way back to the Guest House on foot. It was another shower and crash kind of night.

Day 4 - We were awakened at 6:12 a.m. (I know because I sat bolt upright and looked at the clock) by an unearthly howling in the pipes. We found out later that this sound was produced by other guests taking early morning showers. We tried to sleep for a little while longer, but finally gave it up (the pipe howling returned), got up and dressed for breakfast. The fare was exactly the same in Edinburgh as in London, except the sausage was a different (more peppery) variety. This guest house was much more nicely appointed than Stanley House. Beautiful wallpapers and ceiling moldings, tasteful window treatments, and a monster philodendron growing up the wall and all the way around the ceiling in the dining room. After breakfast, we drove to Edinburgh Castle, where the car park, which the guest house proprietor had assured us of, was closed for construction. Grrrrrrr! We parked illegally in a spot marked for residents only, and we got the parking ticket to prove it. We picked up some souvenirs and postcards in the shops in the Royal Mile (road between Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace), then went into the Castle for the tour. Edinburgh Castle is more of a fortress, which contains tiny St. Margaret's Chapel (more than 900 years old - you can have a wedding there, so long as you don't want more than 20 guests), the barracks for the Highland Guards, an Armory, a couple of war museums and the crown jewels - the Honours - of Scotland (even older and more steeped in legend than the British crown jewels). There is also the very moving Scottish National War Memorial, and breathtaking views across the city from the Castle battlements. I took tons of pictures there. After the tour, we lunched on very pricey soup and rolls, plus I indulged in a bottle of Heather Beer (brewed in Scotland). Then it was back on the road for the three hour drive to Aberdeen.

The Orlando Trail

July 19, 2004

I just got back last night from my road trip to Kentucky with Mallory. Mallory wanted to go to Elizabethtown, Kentucky because they are making a movie there this summer, starring Orlando Bloom (a.k.a. Legolas in the Lord of the Rings films). I told her if that was what she wanted for her vacation, I would take her, but I didn't want her to be too miserably disappointed if we didn't manage to see Orlando Bloom. However, I went on the internet and found some discussion forums where the fans in Kentucky were talking about when and where they had cited the adorable Mr. Bloom. I booked a cheap hotel near Louisville, and got the address of the luxury hotel in downtown Louisville where the film crew was supposed to be staying. I also got the address of some location shooting in Versailles, KY, and the address of the resort hotel outside Lexington where the cast was reportedly staying during Versailles filming.

Mallory and I left home at 7:30 on Friday morning, and, after a long but uneventful trip, arrived at the Microtel Inn in Louisville at about 7:30 p.m. We cruised the surrounding area in search of a place to buy shampoo and face wash, which we'd forgotten to pack. We couldn't locate a single shop that was open. Our hotel was in an industrial park, surrounded by distribution centers and manufacturers' showrooms. We did find a Dairy Queen where we got banana splits as a late supper. Proper nutrition is an important factor in parenting.

Saturday a.m. we learned from the front desk clerk that there was a Wal-Mart just one traffic light further down the road from the Dairy Queen, and we ventured out to get our necessary toiletries. Then Mallory cleaned herself up into a fit state to meet a movie star, and we drove into Louisville. Our first stop was the Brown Hotel, where the charming ladies in the gift shop told us that the film people had indeed been staying in the hotel. Orlando Bloom himself had been in the gift shop with his dog, and had stood in the same spot where Mallory was standing. But they were checked out for about 10 days, returning next week. We bought some gift items, then decided to find a place to eat lunch. We walked up Louisville's 4th Street, which is undergoing gentrification as a downtown mall. There are a Hard Rock Cafe, a TGI Friday's and a Red Star Tavern in one block which is closed to vehicular traffic. But we kept walking to Market Street, where we found a cute restaurant called The Old Spaghetti Factory. I had spaghetti with mushroom sauce, Mallory had spaghetti with butter and Mizretha cheese. While we ate, we discussed our game plan for the rest of the day. Mallory decided she would like to drive to Lexington to see if we could run into Orlando at the resort there.

It took about an hour to drive to the Marriott Griffin Gate Resort in Lexington. It's a big hotel with a golf course, a few restaurants, indoor and outdoor pools, exercise room, sauna - all the things lacking at the Microtel Inn in Louisville. We tried the same ploy of pumping the gift shop personnel, but only got a minimal reply from the young woman who sold us chocolates and postcards - yes, the film people had been around. We went into the lounge, I ordered a Cosmopolitan and Mallory ordered a Shirley Temple, and we prepared to chat up the bartender. He was very busy getting ready for the evening crowd, so it took a while before I was able to casually ask if the film people came into the lounge. He said yes, and I said was it the camera crew who came in and he started to say the actors. Then he recollected himself, and told us that he wasn't supposed to talk about the film folks - orders from the management. By now my first Cosmopolitan had made me light-headed, and I told Mallory we would have to stay put until I was sober enough to drive.

A group of men came in, and we got into a friendly conversation. They turned out to be horse traders who had come for a thoroughbred auction which was taking place on Monday. When we told them we were from New Jersey, the oldest of the men (he told me he has a 7-year-old granddaughter) said he used to live in NJ. He said he currently has a farm in Florida where he raises horses until they are old enough to be trained for racing. Eventually, the horse traders invited us to join them for supper at a nearby steak house. I thanked them for the offer, but told them that we couldn't go to a steak house because Mallory is a vegetarian. They left, and Mallory and I explored the dining possibilities within the resort.

We walked around the outdoor pool, alert for the possible presence of our quarry. We strolled over to the adjacent Mansion Restaurant, where we perused the menu and found that their standard fare was all meat dishes. The staff told us they could make vegetarian dishes to order. We thanked them, went back to the hotel and checked out the menu at the Garden Cafe. It was traditional southern fare (always meat), but there were some vegetable offerings in the appetizer list. We decided we would eat there a little later, and then sat guarding the front door and elevators for a while. A gaggle of squealing little girls brandishing bits of autographed paper alerted us to The Presence, but by then Orlando had apparently made it through the gauntlet and disappeared into the elevator to the guest rooms.

We had spotted a couple of gentlemen in the lounge earlier who looked like they might be film crew types (facial hair and glasses - the Stephen Spielberg look). After the little girls had cleared out of the lobby, one of the Spielberg types, who was sporting a T-shirt with ASYLUM printed across the front, came out of the lounge and greeted a distinguished looking gentleman who had just come in the front door. They stood right next to where Mallory was sitting, and I could overhear snatches of their conversation. Phrases like "Orlando really clicked with the character today," "Cameron loves him," "He is Drew [Baylor, the film's main character] now" confirmed that the Spielberg-look had been an accurate clue. When the two men eventually moved away, I could tell by Mallory's suppressed excitement that she had overheard, too.

We had a delicious dinner (potato skins and caesar salad for Mallory, southern fried catfish with corn pudding and greens for me) while Mallory kept an eye on the balconies and elevator banks. After dinner we returned to the lounge. Mallory stuck with Shirley Temples; I switched to vodka tonics. The distinguished gentlemen who had talked with ASYLUM T-shirt was eating at the bar. Various unidentified people came and talked with him, but no movie stars appeared. A combo began to play about 9:00, and by 9:30 Mallory was pretty disgusted with things in general and wanted to go to bed. We still had an hour drive back to our hotel, and during the time Mallory hatched a plan for Sunday. She wanted to get up early enough for us to pack, check out and drive to Lexington by 7:00. Yikes! She was hoping we could get to the resort early enough to catch the film crew heading out for the day's shoot.

Of course, it being me and Mallory, we didn't quite make the planned schedule. By the time we dragged ourselves from bed, dressed, packed and checked out, it was 6:30. We reached the Lexington resort about 7:30, and there were no signs of film crew. Mallory did a little reconnoitering and decided she wanted to get breakfast in the same restaurant where we had dined Saturday night. They had a reasonably priced breakfast buffet that featured lots of fresh fruit and pastries, in addition to the indispensable bacon, eggs, sausage and waffles. We had spotted no film people by the time breakfast had been consumed.

Mallory decided she would actually like to see something besides places where me might find Orlando Bloom. We drove a short way down the road to the farm where we had been told the Thoroughbred auction would take place. It said Fasig Tipton on the gate, and we drove right in. There were dozens of barns, and handlers were walking horses around outside while potential buyers made notes on pads. Other folks were on cell phones, apparently discussing which promising fillies/colts they were going to bid on. Mallory and I walked around the fences, admiring the horse flesh. Because the day was damp and chilly, I was wearing an orange sweater which may possibly have been the cause of unruly reactions from some of the green young horses - rearing, whinnying, and one handsome creature actually tried to bolt. We blithely looked our fill, took some snapshots which should impress our horsey relatives in Virginia, and got back in the car.

Mallory wanted to try one more place where Orlando might be. We drove the half hour to Versailles, through rolling country divided by neat fences blackened with tar. There were horses lounging in the morning mists in many of the fields. When we got to Versailles we crisscrossed the area, cruising residential streets and public buildings, hoping to find a film crew in action somewhere. After driving around for 3/4 of an hour, Mallory suggested that we stop in a convenience store and ask somebody if they knew where the crew was filming today. In the store, I waited a while for Mallory to do the asking, but she said nothing. So I asked the ladies at the cash register if the movie people were in town. The response was kind of comical. "Yeah, they've been all over here, terrorizing us," reported a thin woman with a blonde ponytail and a thick drawl. "At first it was kind of exciting, but now I just want them to hurry up and leave." A direct question ellicited the information that they were not filming today (it WAS Sunday), but that they would be on the street right in front of the store between 7 and 8 on Monday morning. We paid for our snacks, thanked them for the info and went back out to the car.

Mallory was getting pretty discouraged. She now knew exactly where Orlando would be Monday morning, by which time I had to be back at my office in New Jersey. I said we could make one more pass at the resort, but by noon we had to hit the road. We drove back to Lexington by a different route, to vary the scenery and because I couldn't find the road by which we came into Versailles. We didn't have any trouble relocating the resort by this different route, and I gratefully made use of the luxurious restroom facilities in the lobby area. Mallory went off to sleuth on her own. After the restroom, I visited the gift shop to pick up a couple of sodas to put in the cooler for the drive home. I took them out to the car, then went back into the lobby looking for Mallory.

I didn't find her there, nor could I find her making the circuit around the hotel pool and Mansion Restaurant. So I sat down in a comfy chair near the resort's front desk and started reading over the script of LOVE LETTERS, which I will be performing next Saturday. A few minutes later, Mallory appeared around a corner with a bemused smile on her face. She had FOUND him! She had gone around outside the hotel in the opposite direction from the way I went, and she had encountered the object of her fantasies walking his dog on the grass. She approached while he was talking to some other girls, but his dog ran right up to greet Mallory. When Orlando turned his attention to her, Mallory told him the little fiction I had suggested - that she was on a cross-country scavenger hunt and that one of the things to be hunted was a snapshot of Orlando Bloom. He regretfully told her that because of the film publicity contract he couldn't allow his photo to be taken, but he could give her an autograph. She rummaged in her little purse and found the ticket stub from my production of BAREFOOT IN THE PARK, and he signed the back of it for her. And that was that.

Mallory sat in a happy daze for the first six of the twelve hours it took us to drive home. Finally, I had to seek my due. I asked if driving her all the way to Kentucky AND providng her with a plausible story to tell Orlando Bloom didn't make me the greatest mom in the world. She acknowledged with an enthusiastic kiss to my cheek (all she could accomplish while I was driving). I felt amply rewarded.

What I Learned While Looking for the Jersey Devil

March 10, 2003

My last two weekends have been rendered mildly hideous by chauffeuring duties. I have driven to the Bronx Zoo on a gray winter’s day in an aborted search for the Sandhill crane. And I lost another day, which was at least sunny, though still cold, driving to what seemed like the ends of the earth in the Jersey Pine Barrens.

The purpose of these road trips was to help my teenaged daughter, Mallory, with a documentary she was working on as part of a school assignment to research unexplained biological phenomenon. Mallory borrowed her sister Jessica’s video camera to capture film for her project about the Jersey Devil.

The point of the Sandhill crane is that some people believe sightings of the bird, which has since disappeared from the Pine Barrens, were mistaken for sightings of the Jersey Devil. Unfortunately, Mallory didn’t perfectly understand the operation of the video camera, so, by the time we located Crane Walk at the Bronx Zoo, the battery power had been used up attempting to film cute, furry little animals.

But it was still an informative day. I saw buffalo in the snow for the first time in my life. We heard the lions roaring from a concealed place inside their winter enclosure, which was covered with supremely unconcerned peacocks. And we braved the potent odors of the World of Darkness, the Mouse House, the Giraffe House and the Monkey House to gaze at caged animals doing their best to overcome the boredom of life in captivity. We also saw a few animals that were equipped to survive the New York winter in outdoor enclosures – the grizzly bear, the snow leopard, the red panda and a particularly large and strident swan. Lastly, I learned that most of the people who are foolish enough to visit the zoo on a frigid March day are foreign visitors. Very few of the people around us were speaking English, and most seemed to be conversing in northern European dialects.

Between tolls and zoo admissions, we spent about $27 on our trip to the Bronx Zoo. Mallory got some in-depth instruction on the operation of the video camera before our trip to the Pine Barrens.

We headed down the Garden State Parkway ($1.40 in tolls, each way) on a gloriously sunny and cold day. Our destination was Leeds Point, home of the legendary birthplace of the Jersey Devil. We weren’t sure what we would find when we arrived in the town.

We got off the Parkway at Exit 44 and headed east on Alternate 561. We passed through historic Smithville, where there appeared to be an interesting collection of curiosity shops. But we continued on toward our destination. We passed the Leeds Point Community Church, with attached cemetery, and kept going toward the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. I thought the refuge might provide some good locations for filming. We passed an entrance to the refuge, after a sharp bend in the road, but we kept going to see if there was anything else of interest. I jokingly remarked that the road might just drop off the end of the earth. Little did I know. After a short space of driving through flatlands ringed with eerie winter vegetation, we came to Oyster Creek on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean and could go no farther.

We headed back to the wildlife refuge, and risked loosing important parts of the car’s undercarriage driving down a deeply rutted and snow-covered access road. The refuge turned out to be mostly swamp marsh, which we couldn’t explore without a boat. There were signs posted at the borders of the wooded areas, advising people that it is against the law to venture past the signs. After we’d scouted out these facts, Mallory and I got back in the car to return to “downtown” Leeds Point. As we came back around the sharp bend on 561, I noticed an ancient stone building with hand painted signs on its perimeter fence declaring that “Jesus is Love.” I noticed these things because I was busy rubber-necking for any signs of a Jersey Devil shrine or historic marker or anything.

We turned off 561 again at the Leeds Point Community Church, and Mallory wanted to continue down a street that was named Leeds Point Road. It made sense, so off we went. We drove the length of the narrow road, and glimpsed a couple of official signboards that we passed by too quickly to read. Mostly, we saw country homes, horse enclosures, and people out with their dogs. When we came to the spot where Leeds Point Road branched off of Route 9, we made a U-turn and drove back to read the signs.

The first one we came to was for a Leeds Point Wildlife Area, apparently part of some green project to preserve undeveloped lands. The second sign was another marker for the Forsythe wildlife refuge. We decided to scout the wildlife area for filming locations. But first, we had to figure out where to park the car. There was no access road (rutted or otherwise) at the entrance to the wildlife area. There were no public parking spaces anywhere in sight, only private driveways and “No Trespassing” warnings. After traversing the road twice more in search of a parking space, we finally left the vehicle a half mile up the road at a shopping center called The Shops at Leeds Point.

We walked back to the Leeds Point Wildlife Area, and trudged in through brush and brambles and patches of fairly deep snow. We came to a clearing whose snow-covered surface was criss-crossed with deer tracks. Mallory started her camera rolling, since she had read that the Devil was supposed to have cloven hooves like deer. She also found a strange track among the deer markings. The single track looked as though it could have been made by a dog’s paw, except that, instead of toe prints, the paw print was topped with two pointed indentations like ears - or horns.

Then we spent some time with Mallory standing in the woods filming the trees while she read the script she had prepared. Then I filmed her walking through the woods and talking about the Jersey Devil. Finally, I showed her an interesting phenomenon I had noticed. There was an oak leaf lying in the snow, and the snow had melted away around the leaf. When we removed the leaf, the impression left in the snow looked like an unexplained footprint! Mallory filmed that, too.

We felt that we now had enough film of the woods, and our feet were starting to freeze. We walked back to the shopping center where we had parked the car. Mallory said she could use a slice of pizza, and I was thinking fondly of a certain porcelain plumbing fixture. We decided to visit the center’s pizzeria before getting back in the car.

Next to the pizzeria was a thrift shop. We dropped in to see if there might be anything for sale about the Jersey Devil. We found nothing for sale, but the store clerk, when Mallory questioned her, admitted to being a Leeds Point native. She said that when she was in her teens she used to hang out with friends in front of a local residence that was supposed to be the birthplace of the Jersey Devil. She wouldn’t let Mallory videotape her, but she did give us directions to the “birthplace.”

After a short stop at the pizzeria to refresh ourselves, we got back in the car and followed the directions provided by the thrift shop clerk. The way took us past Emmaus United Methodist Church in Smithville. We stopped there and at the Leeds Point Community Church to film the headstones of various Leeds family members. Legend has it that a certain Deborah Leeds gave birth to the “devil” in 1735. Most of the Leeds headstones we found were from the 19th Century, but there were plenty of them. We looked and filmed until the sun began to get low on the horizon, at which point I told Mallory we had better get to the birthplace before we lost the light.

When we arrived at the house to which the store clerk had directed us, it turned out to be that same ancient stone building with Jesus signs on the fence that I had noticed earlier in the day. Mallory elected to approach the owners rather than film surreptitiously. We parked the car along the side of the road and walked up to the fenced yard. There were painted cutouts of snowmen and shamrocks decorating the lawn all around the house, and there were some dogs (or at least one dog) in a pen in the back.

A woman of indeterminate age, dressed in a heavy coat and knit hat, was standing in the yard doing something with shrubs. When we got close, I called out a greeting, and began explaining that my daughter was working on a documentary as a school project. I got no farther.

The woman shook her head in the negative. Her opening remarks were something like “Those things never turn out well.” Then she said she believed that everything good came from God, and God was love, and she didn’t want to discuss “the other.” She claimed that she was a teacher, and that they were not allowed to discuss “it” in the local schools. She concluded her rambling remarks by saying that she was not going to say anything about what I wanted to talk about.

The interesting thing is that I never got as far as naming the thing that the documentary was supposed to be about.

Well, I was struck dumb by the woman’s words. I wandered up to the front of the house, by the main road, and thought for a moment about how we could sneak some film of the outside of the house. Then I walked back to the car with Mallory beside me, calling out to the woman as we passed, to thank her for her time. She didn’t respond.

When we got in the car, Mallory immediately told me to turn the camera on her. While I filmed, she proceeded to describe our encounter with the woman. When she had finished, I asked her if she wanted to film the house through the open window as we drove away. Mallory said no, that that would be kind of rude (bless the child, maybe I have managed to teach her some manners).

We drove home, pondering what we had seen and heard. I was interested to view the film, but we encountered another technical snag. My older daughter had lost the “cord” which was needed to hook the camera up to the television monitor to playback the film.

I’m feeling extremely discouraged that the project in which I have been participating is not going to end in success. Mallory will have to present the results of her research in report form, illustrated with pictures downloaded from the Internet. And I’ll have to be satisfied with recording my experiences in this little essay.

Still, I’m glad I had the experiences. And I’m glad I had them with my bright young daughter. I have renewed faith in the next generation (even if they don’t understand technology any better than my generation).

P.S. The cord for the video camera was eventually located, and Mallory was able to produce her videotape for the class. She got an A. I shared this little diary of the trip with Mallory's teacher. I got an A, too.