Air Baths With Ben

It’s an remarkably stress-free trip down to Philadelphia. Philly is one of the few places with direct flights from Burlington. There’s a 6AM flight that gets me there in plenty of time to get a rental car and drive to my client. It does require me to wake up at 4:30, but this is no hardship to me. I’m a morning person. As my old buddy Henry David Thoreau said “I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks.”

Despite my religious convictions, it’s nearly impossible for me to greet the dawn in summertime in Vermont; there’s broad daylight at 4:30. But it’s cool as I pull out of driveway, and there’s a subtle touch of pink in the eastern sky. I think of Thoreau’s words “…The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night…All poets and heroes, like Memnon,are the children of Aurora, and emit their music at sunrise…It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. “

Of course, Henry didn’t have to fly coach, but the flight isn’t too crowded and I get some reading and preparation done in the air. Yep, there’s still a bit of dawn in me. I’d emit some music, too but that’s been provided for me — my rental car has a CD player again. I drive from the airport to the hospital where I’m teaching with Paul Simon singing about the Mamma Pajama. Traffic is light. As I pull off the highway I admire some of Philadelphia’s miles and miles of old neighborhoods. I see run-down yet homey-looking bars, gigantic Catholic churches, trolley tracks in the street, and ethnic stores. Near the hospital it’s mostly two and three-story brick buildings with stoops, and I note “POLKA Polsky Delikatesy” and the “Lithuanian Music Hall.”

I check in to my hotel after teaching my class. It’s a Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza. The extra “e” after “crown” is there, I suppose, to connote a measure of classiness, and the place does boast a lovely 48″ towel. But my nanobottle of shampoo is unaccompanied by conditioner. The shower cap and shoe mitt are pleasantly reassuring.

Vestigal “e” or no, there is something wrong with the room. When I arrived I noticed a mild but foul smell — insecticide, perhaps. Then, walking barefoot, I noticed that the floor was damp. Near the desk in my room the floor was downright wet. I began to wonder if some horrible accident– perhaps murder or suicide — had happened here and this was the attempt to clean it up. The odor disturbs me, but I soon grow used to it. Once I’ve unpacked, it will take more than a mere corpse to get me to change rooms.

Because I flew directly here and taught a class this morning my two spare dress shirts are hopelessly wrinkled, so I decide to iron. Here, dear reader, I must make a confession. When I said “barefoot” in the last paragraph I was understating…or maybe overstating. When I arrive at a hotel I often like to throw off my clothes. Like Benjamin Franklin, buried near here, I believe that the human body benefits from the regular practice of what he called an “air bath.” This can be risky, though, when one is handling a steam iron. I feel it’s worth it. Some people bungie jump, I iron naked.

After ironing, I open the drapes. I’m on the 12th floor, and my room looks directly out across the street at a chrome and glass office building. I quickly close the drapes and put on some clothes. I pull up a chair, and for a while take sadistic pleasure in watching the workaholics in their offices.

I drive to a yuppy restaurant near the University of Pennyslvania. After a softshell crab dinner at an outdoor table, I decide to test the limits of my geographical memory. I lived in this part of Philadelphia with my brother, then a student, for a few months in 1971. Sure enough, I can still find my way around 28 years later. Many of the buildings have been replaced, and the African-American neighborhood near my brother’s old apartment appears to be mostly Pakistani (judging by the groceries selling Halal meats and the women in Saris and head covers)