Still Life with Cats

1. bring a blankie

Fri I left my house at 7:30am with poeks to go to Canadaway or Fredonia as it is now known. We went through NJ to route 80 and followed that to 81. We made a few stops here and there to get gas, some soda, and to stretch. On 17, my car was itching for more gas so we exited and pulled into a gas station. As we were making the turn into the station P said, “What’s wrong with the radio?”

It was blinking and my car was turning itself off. I rolled the car right to a pump and turned it off and on and off and on only to hear a “click click click” noise. P went inside to see if they had jumper cables and I pulled out my AAA card. A tow truck guy pulled in and jumped the car which started it but after about 5 minutes it died again. AAA showed up and towed us a few blocks to a Firestone station. After 3 hours we were on the road with the knowledge that my alternator was not working properly and the new battery that I bought would die.

About 90 miles out and in the dark, the car died on route 17. I coasted with the small hope that maybe the battery would kick in again, maybe there’d be enough coasting power in it to get us to the next exit… maybe it was like in Back to the Future, where if I hit my head on the steering wheel it would start… but… no.

We waited and I was on the phone with AAA for what felt like forever, trying to map my location, trying to find a rental car, and trying to figure out what we’d do. I wasn’t scared of being on the road all night but I was nervous that we’d have to stay there for long time. After about 2 hours, we were towed to the town of Bath, the estimated population, in 2003, was 5,574. It’s a small place.

We got a room at the Super 8 Motel and ordered pizza. The next day I got up at 8am and called the tow company, which I have to say was awesome from start to finish in handling my car. The part wasn’t available in any part of town so they had to order it and that wouldn’t get there till Monday. I called my friends and J came and got me from Rochester. We waited for her in the Dunkin’ Donuts. We were staying on a strip of stores/hotels/whatever that was an exit off route 17 and another county road. There wasn’t much of a town to see from this area and reminded me of the strip mall style that is common in NY and NJ. Possibly common in all of America for all I know.

Finally we got to Fredonia around 4pm and checked into The White Inn. In the 1930’s, Duncan Hines discovered it and named it one of his family restaurants or something. Anyway, it’s got history behind it.

That night we went out to a bar where SUNY Fredonia Women’s Studies minor was holding the 10th annual Women, Rock, and Soul where students perform and its point is to raise awareness about the nightlife and how women can be subjected to bs. It was started to help support the Women’s Studies Minor which was getting its grounding in 97. I am like 90% sure that my year was the first super official year that kids could graduate with the minor. I saw some people I hadn’t seen since I graduated, which was weird but not bad… and my old prof. Also what I found really really odd was that there were a number of people who just “knew” who I was. One girl walked up to me and said, “You’re Kathy Mahoney?” “Yes.” “Oh, wow, HI!” ummm… ok apparently I’m famous. I asked McV what that was all about with everyone knowing who I was and she said that it’s cause the alumni are mentioned often and since this was the 10th anniversary, names kept coming up. I guess they rehashed how the Women’s Student Union and the minor had to battle to get recognized, in which I was one of the key players, but not the only player. I was just the big mouth who didn’t often make sense but did piss people off… it was fun.

Sat night was silly with drunk friends, drunk college kids, loud ass kids, and cops… can’t have a college town with cops and last calls. Sun we went to campus and saw that one of the dining halls has been transformed into this super nice building with a Starbucks (of course) and the bookstore… the shit thing is the half of the bookstore that had the clothing and things was closed for the weekend. So we could have bought some microwavable meals but not sweatshirts and I was planning on getting a sweatshirt or something. Some of the campus buildings were designed by Pei, as well as Ring Road. I think we had a song about driving around on Ring Road in circles cause you’re drunk and can’t find the lane to get into the parking lots.

Sunday evening was spent in the Super 8 in Bath… and Monday after we checked out of the hotel, we walked the 1.5 miles from the hotel to the garage slowly and stopped in many stores along the way to waste time. At 3:30pm we were on the road again and drove to NJ, ate food, watched Heroes, and went home.

My trip overall was great. I got to see some of the gang and had a lot of fun but it’s never enough time. Although this beats my usual record of visiting once a year or so… and in the spring/summer hopefully they will come down here around the same time and all of us can run around here.