Hey! Where did all my good karma go?

What Possessed Me

For the better part of last week I was chaperoning a class trip. From Wednesday at 6:30 AM till just before Midnight on Friday night it was 140 7th graders, 10 teachers and 5 parents and 3 giant buses

The agenda was Boston. Honestly, till April 15th I always thought Boston was one of the many cities that is not New York. I knew lot of people in Boston that day... Running, watching or helping. Most of them got themselves accounted for on Facebook or on my running club's Google Group; Except one. I realized that it was my job as keeper of the membership roster to give him a call. When he answered I could not talk to him. I did not know it till he said hello, but I was not breathing while the phone was ringing or when I was pressing in the numbers. Anyway, "Boston is probably the only major city that if you fuck with them, they will shut down the whole city...stop everything.. and find you." Happy Gilmore

So, we ate lunch on the bus, and went directly to the

to me this sign says Boston

• Museum of Science (they changed the show,

  

  (Alex Ashlock/Here & Now)

  I did not get to go in the birdcage of death).
• then walked (some of) The Freedom Trail.  
• We had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. (I have been to the original, in Amsterdam.  Not the same kind of place.  It was a pot bar.)
• Holiday Inn  140 12-13 year-olds.  We taped their doors shut.  
• Breakfast in the hotel.  (Coffee!).  
• Back on the Bus to Salem.  (I see dead people)
• Lunch in a shopping mall.
• Bus to Fenway Park (I really don't give a shit about baseball, so I volunteered to stay in Salem with the  kids who opted to stay because on of the buses would not start.  I was so glad they made me go. Small part baseball, big parts history and architecture)
• Dinner and mayhem at Jay Gee's.
• Breakfast in the hotel.  (Coffee!).  
• A quick visit to the New England Aquarium 
• Lunch in a Pizzarini Uno (It was up the block from The Finish Line of the Boston Marathon.  Before I ate I got to pay it a little visit.  I am glad I got to see the
  makeshift memorial without 140 kids.) (I added my PPTC Cherry Tree Race Director hat to the heap.)
• Plymouth Plantation. (we were too hot and tired, but I did engage one of the "English characters.  She was great.  I told her we were visiting from New Amsterdam .  She smiled and said.  "Sir, you might think you live in a Dutch colony but the King of England owns all the land from the Canada River to the Floridas"  Yes, in 1625  the Dutch and the English were busy not fighting each other, but not recognizing each other either.).
• Dinner in a hotel at Sturbridge Village.
• Home at midnight.

These long days wrecked havoc with the batteries in  smart camera/phone so I don't have that many photos. (It was also kinda crazy that the teachers had to borrow their students phones to call each other).

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Looking back I might think this was an ambitious plan.  This might have worked if we were a few cars, but we had to deal with Boston traffic.  However our leaders were great at dealing with the fact that we had to some issues.  Like the fact that one bus died in Salem. (maybe it was a witch) and another lost it air conditioning (when it was 93 degrees).   We crashed into a few other school trips.  Most of them were all wearing matching t-shirts.  That would have made my job a little easier.

I was lucky to be in Bus A.  It was the only bus not to break down or loose it's air conditioning.  It also had the lead driver.  I got to witness an artist at work.  She drove that bus like a sports car.  She was also continually talking.  It first I thought she was on the phone the the other drivers.  Nosomuch.  She was insane, and contractually talking to herself or to the cars around us.  I am sure that if you ask the kids that sat near the front of bus A what their favorite part of the trip was, they will say Ms Dawn.

I am not going to use the space to brag about the fact that I stepped up to chaperon this trip.  I can do that, so I do do that.  I am glad that that parents that were waiting for the buses to come back thank me and gave me a pat on the back  (Not like last year when one said "Thanks for watching my brat, we had a second honeymoon when he was gone.")

There were two things I did so that the local community feel some love.  When we invaded the little mall in Salem to eat lunch we totally ruined the lunch break schedule for some of he locals. I noticed that  a women who came in just after us was looking at a 45 minute wait to get her sandwitch (that is how they are spelled in Salem).  I asked the manager to have her lunch made ahead of ours so she could move on with her day.


When our 3 buses rolled into Jay Gee's we added 150 people to the 10 or 20  that would have been here an that hot Thursday evening.  Needless to say, our 150 created a great rumpus.  We created a great bottleneck when the kids had to turn in their tickets for prizes.  I got some of the kids to give me their fun passes with most of the activities still available.  I gave them to the local girls that were still waiting on line to cash in their tickets.  I told them we can't use them back in Brooklyn so they should enjoy the rides.

So if I was so nice during this trip why was my bike stolen while I was gone?  (and why did I use so many parenthesis is this post?)?