We were able to board the ferry without incident but now we had a new issue: We were starving. (We were 18 years old, remember!) Food was not sold on the ferry, and the trip would be 45 minutes with no guarantee of a restaurant at its end.

But I did have my trusty electric frying pan. I found an electric outlet next to a water cooler and got permission to plug into it. Soon, I was scrambling eggs (while Chris pretended not to know me).

One of the crewmen, a skinny guy with an exaggerated drawl but no teeth, was fascinated by the procedure. I'll give ya ten dollars fer that thang, he offered.

Thanks, I laughed, but it cost me $20 and it's brand new. I got it from Sears, I added helpfully. You could buy one there, yourself.

He didn't seem to have heard me. I'll give ya ten dollars fer it, he repeated.

So I repeated my answer. This continued while I finished cooking, ate my eggs, cleaned the pan, and packed it away. As we drove off the ferry, he called after us, I'll give ya ten dollars fer it! Even now, I wonder once in a while if he ever bought an electric frying pan for himself.

Virginia

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel was officially opened in 1964, but in fact it was still under construction when Chris and I crossed it in 1969. It connects Cape Charles, Virginia, with the town of Virginia Beach.

Virginia Beach, of course, was the home of Edgar Cayce and was and is the location of his Association for Research and Enlightenment. At the time I made this trip, I had only recently heard of Edgar Cayce (he was not a topic covered in the Catholic high school I had attended) and the fact that we were passing through a town so associated with him didn't register at all. Consequently, in my mind, I have no special memory of passing through Virginia Beach on this trip. In any case, I took no photos.

Once we had crossed the Bridge-Tunnel, we stopped at a payphone and I attempted to call my half-brother, Walter, since it appeared that we would be able to reach his home in New Jersey before midnight.

I was raised with my two sisters, by my mother, who was my father's second wife. His first wife had also given him three children, a boy and two girls. They were all adults, or nearly so, by the time my sisters and I were born.

Because I was a boy, I particularly identified with Walt. There was an interesting family quirk regarding his name. My father was also named Walter, but for some reason, everyone in his family called my dad Bill. When he named his first son Walt, everyone called the little boy Billy. That's how I originally was introduced to him.

However, when Billy married a woman named Beth, she would have nothing to do with such nonsense. Despite the fact that he preferred Billy, Beth insisted that everyone in the family call him Walt and would make a fuss anytime anyone forgot and slipped.

Still, I wrote Billy—I mean, Walt—letters frequently, even though I seldom got a letter back. But now that I was 18, I was determined not to miss this opportunity to visit him. After all, who knew when I might ever be up so far North again?

So I called his house, but there was no answer. Chris and I stopped every fifty miles or so to try again. Finally, someone—Walt and Beth's older daughter, Diane, who was almost my age—did answer. She was excited to hear from me, and though she wouldn't commit to allowing Chris and me to lay our sleeping bags on her kitchen floor, she did urge us to come by.

New Jersey

It had been twelve years since I'd been in New Jersey; and, of course, I had never driven in it. But I was able to find Morristown on the map, and lead us there; Diane had given me directions to the house itself and soon, although it was now around 10 PM and we were navigating in the dark, we found it, sitting on the side of a steep hill. I turned into the driveway and had a scary moment when I realized I had never tried to climb a really steep hill before, especially not in a car with a manual transmission. But, after a few false attempts, we made it to the top of the driveway and I firmly engaged the emergency brake.

Before we could even get out of the car, Beth appeared at the end of the driveway. I was ready to get emotional, but Beth neither hugged me nor even shook hands. Instead, with the coolness of a Vulcan, she said, It isn't convenient for you to stay here tonight. You are going to stay with Betty Ann and John. John is on his way here right now and should be here within 30 minutes. Walt is in Boston on business, and I am entertaining guests in the basement. You may wait in the kitchen with Diane until John gets here. Then she was gone, and in fact that was the last time I ever saw her.

Diane was perfectly pleasant, and offered us water and some leftover peas, which was actually all that was left in their showroom-clean refrigerator.

Meanwhile, while I remember Betty Ann from my babyhood (I had attended their wedding with my folks, I was probably 4 or 5), I had never written her a letter and didn't recall her husband, John, at all. I wasn't at all sure what to expect.

I needn't have worried. When John arrived in his station wagon, he not only hugged me, but Chris as well, and gave every indication of being truly happy that we would be visiting. We followed him in the Valiant to the neighboring town of Parsippany, where he lived with Betty Ann and their three children.

By now, of course, it was very late. John put us in his office, a room in the basement but because the house was situated on such a steep hill, it still had windows looking out into the woods. Betty Ann had pulled out the sofa bed and Chris and I were so tired I felt like I'd never seen anything more welcome.