John Hattaway

Last week I felt the need to go to the temple. For those who are not LDS, the temple is a place where we, as active and worthy members of the LDS faith can go and get outside of the influence of the world. Because we believe in life after death, the work that is done inside of the temple is primarily done for people who cannot perform the work for themselves. As a result, being in the temple means that we are doing work for the dead on top of getting outside the influence of popular media, screaming people, or whatever. In short, the temple is a place to go where we can meditate and feel closer to God.

With that said, I was encouraged by religious leaders and parents to take the time out of my life (especially before leaving Utah where the number of temples to total population is really high) and attend the temple. I, however, did not go for a variety of reasons mostly new baby and school related. My focus was principally on getting done with school and because of an accident that caused me to visit the emergency room on a Sunday night and then lay around at home taking narcotics for pain. Admittedly, some days I still feel bad in the back, but on the other hand I finished college and failed an important test.

The outcome of all that is that by last week I really felt the need to go to the Temple. However, the Boston Temple is closed for its semi-annual cleaning. Boston is something like two and a half or three hours in one direction, while Manhattan is three and a half or so hours in the other direction. Since Boston is closer, one would prefer to go to Boston. On the other hand, I like Manhattan. And since I both wanted and (felt I) needed to go to the temple, after discussing it with Erin we decided I should go down last Friday.

As a result, I looked up online and spoke to Erin’s family and made a plan about going down. Friday morning I woke up and drive to Wassaic station. That is about one-and-a-half hours from here. The train ride is approximately two hours long depending on what time of day and transfers. And that is just to Grand Central Station. I like Grand Central Station. Sure, you look up in the main lobby at the ceiling and the star scape is all backwards. The central clock was made by Tiffany’s, though I am don’t recall exactly what it is made of, though Mother of Pearl seems to rise to the surface. On top of which, there are more than 100 terminals for trains to come in. With all of that said, and given the prominence, I am always surprised that I can ride into Grand Central and not have a whole host of Homeland Security people milling about. The last time I was there was in 2005 when Jordan and I were driving back across the country and we stopped for him to experience West Point (too many swords) and then take a train down into Manhattan. In this case, he didn’t have any idea of what he wanted to be doing and as a result we road down in, walked around the city, went up into The Empire State Building, and then hung out in Grand Central Station while we waited for our train to take us back to the station where my car (the now deceased ’91 Honda Accord) was parked. Eventually Jordan went back with Jared and the two had a good time, which just proves that I am a bad traveling companion for most people because what interests me holds very little interest for my siblings (these days). Jared and Jordan also did some road trips and went to a convention (Jared and I did that and now Jared refuses to go to Canada). All of this equals me no longer being a road trip buddy and, honestly, not having a road trip buddy to ride with… with the possible exception of Erin who doesn’t like long road trips.

Anyway, the trip down was nice. The drive was nice. I saw some properties that, given a different set of circumstances, I would be interested in looking at. None of them were for sell, but, you know, barns are very interesting to me. The outcome of the drive was arriving just on-time to the train station and then buying a ticket with just enough time to actually get on the train and spend an extra hour on it while it made its way into Manhattan. Apparently, there was a fire in one of the subway tunnels that were affecting traffic into the city. As a result of that, the train ended up picking up more passengers and since I didn’t know what the schedule of the temple is/was I wasn’t worried about it.

I was specifically going with the need for a new job on mind. When I got to Grand Central Station I made my way to the shuttle and then jumped on the wrong train heading in the wrong direction. More specifically, I had to spend extra money and spend about twenty more minutes waiting for a train to get to where I needed to be. And then, when I finally got to the Manhattan Temple, everyone kept asking me if I planned to be in a specific session and I said, “Sure, but if I miss it I am patient,” only to then have a little old lady tell me they did sessions every two hours and not 30 minutes or so (as other temples do). So, I had to hurry to get into the one session, which was interesting as I had to rush to get dressed and forgot that temple clothing sizes are very different from what I normally wear and since I had no time had to fit my no longer that small waist into something it didn’t fit in to.

After that session I dressed, spoke (momentarily) to one of the workers (who gave me a tie pin I don’t think I will ever wear because as I don’t enjoy ties and I don’t wear them and when I do I don’t like to put holes in the clothes I do wear and as a result, I appreciate the pin but don’t really know what to do with it. My mother thought I would find a use and at present that use is giving my orange backpack something to do. Unfortunately, it is not much of something, but still… something.

The ride home began with me first stopping into one of the oddest bookstores I’ve been in in a while. It went up a couple of stories and down at least one and I was amazed and thought about buying the Barnes and Noble printing of the second book in a series I need to write about (and review) and didn’t because we don’t have the money and by extension I already know the Barnes and Noble around these parts doesn’t have a copy of that particular printing of the book and so I left. Got on the subway, this time the right train in the right direction, and then jumped the shuttle back from Times Square to Grand Central Station where I noted the next train to was heading back to Wassaic and so I jumped on the train heading north and proceeded to finish the book I’d brought with me that I was reading and then as I was finishing it (and an old lady decided to stop and tell me I’d planned the reading well) I was tired of sitting and tired in general and ended up standing for the rest of the time.

Anyway, by the time I got home I was physically and mentally and emotionally and (dare I add) spiritually spent. The day had literally started with me getting peed on by my son. I almost missed a train. Took the wrong one. And only by grace or providence did I make it to what I was there to do. In the end I wouldn’t trade the day for anything and at the same time I don’t know that I want to continue making trips like that. There was a time when I would leave in the morning, drive for half the day, do next to nothing when I got to where I was going, and then turn around and drive a half-a-day back.

At the same time, I believe I got the direction I went for; though, as things were wrapping up that day and as I crawled in to bed, I didn’t feel very much of anything.

Real Heroes Fly