On the way to Italy, I stopped in New York / New Jersey to visit my aunts and cousins. I totally spaced and didn’t take any pictures with the family. Aunt Debbie, Aunt Carol, and I visited the original Bierachs at Evergreen Cemetery in Bushwick. My 3GGF & 3GGM have a large marker. My 2 great grandparents and great grandfather are also there with no marker. And we laid flowers on my grandfather’s memorial in Clifton, NJ. Aunt Debbie filled in a clue for me about my Irish Great Grandmother by finding her funeral card. After my 3 nights in Clifton, it was fun to be on NJ Transit heading to Penn Station, then the A Train to Columbus Circle and to the Red Eye Grill, which aptly says “Welcome Home” on the door. I spent a lot of time here in the 2010s. After a nice salad, headed down to Lombardi’s in Little Italy. Lombardi’s is definitely not the same without the coal oven. It was OK, better than anything near home, but I won’t go back.
Then off to Long Island, where I met some old friends for dinner and stayed at an old beach hotel. In the morning, I went for a 3.5 walk along the boardwalk before getting lunch with my friend Seth and heading to JFK.
