Category: Personal Story

Tonight before a friend and I headed to dinner, an email popped in my inbox saying someone commented on a post on SteveRogers.info.  Few people comment directly on my blog, and the person who did tonight happened to be a relative I have never met.

They were Googling my uncle David and found this post from over two years ago, and I then received the following comment:

We’re related. David is my mother’s (Geraldine’s) cousin. Her mother (Josephine) was your grandfather’s sister. I saw another Rogers in the news today, and decided to Google David, and found your blog. I guess we’re something like second cousins twice removed, or something like that.

My only David story is that your grandmother gave my sister and I some Steiff puppets that belonged to David and his brothers (including your father, presumably) when we were little. One was a monkey, the other a rabbit. I still have mine. We grew up in NJ, partly in Fair Haven and Rumson, so we’d visit the cool old house in Middletown occasionally. I remember they had a huge bulldog. I also remember that your grandmother warned me that Yale was very dangerous.

Hope all is well!

– Kathy

My mother was not a fan of my grandparents’  dogs.  My dad loved ’em.  Yale is probably still dangerous though.

Freshman year of college on parent’s weekend, my roommate’s and many of my friends’ parents came to town but mine did not.  It was a couple of months into school, and everyone was preoccupied with their visitors.  I returned to the dorm on a Friday, and was an absolute slug.  I did not leave the dorm until Monday morning after a weekend of pizza eating and watching TBS/TNT movies.  It was a fantastic weekend of relaxation.

Yesterday, I wasn’t feeling extraordinarily well and had a relatively unproductive day.  I went to bed at the normal time begrudgingly setting my alarm.  However, it never seemed to go off in the morning.  My oversleeping then led to a splendid day.

With it raining and dreary outside, I plopped myself down and watched my favorite two episodes of The West Wing recently DVRed.  I emailed a friend asking if she wanted to go to lunch, with a passing notion I may go into work.  During our email exchange, the university sent out an email saying all computers must be rebooted that night (what I needed to do at work eventually required a program running overnight).  Therefore the administrative Gods seemed to say: “Steve, don’t go to school.”

I showered, with the only debate in my head of being where to go to lunch.  I didn’t want pizza, but wanted fries, and then buffalo sauce, but not wings.  And bingo it hit me, Winberries’ buffalo chicken wrap.    Perfect.

The next question was how to spend my day off.  I looked at potential movies, and decided to give Harry Potter as a mindless escape for the day.  There was enough time for lunch before the movie.

Driving to Winberries on a rainy day, I pulled into a spot right in front of the door.  There was already money on the meter, walked in, ordered, and continued to read a political junkie book.  I was distracted by The Proclaimers “I would walk 500 miles,” a regular on the Steve playlist.  My wrap arrived, and satisfied my craving for buffalo sauce and fries.

I then proceeded to Harry Potter,  driving past three Americanist political science faculty along the way.  Continuing my remarkable random music luck, “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow” popped on the radio.  After stopping for gas, my GPS easily guided me to the theatre.  Got my ticket, discounted for being a pre-five o’clock show.  I was contemplating a small popcorn, priced at $5 but discovered the kids fun pack which got me the popcorn, a soda, and my childhood favorite of M&Ms for only a $1.25 more.

I went in the theater, and I was the only one to do so.  It was the first time in my life I was the only soul in a movie theater.  Given this opportunity, I had to use my cell phone during the movie.  So I did, and called my friend Vicky.  While only a voicemail, I was sure to be loud and obviously on a cell phone.  I then checked out, snacked on my popcorn, and watched the wizarding world.  (The M&Ms got eaten about halfway through).

After Snape killed Dumbledore (sorry for the spoiler), I drove home,   guiltily indulging in a few of my favorite recent pop songs.  At home, I had multiple messages telling me that I had missed the first CSDP happy hour of the year (for non Princetonians, I never miss CSDP happy hour, I even set it up on days the professor who runs it doesn’t).   Since Josh left, I have turned to this professor more for advising.  I had met with him yesterday, so I jokingly emailed him apologizing for missing the happy hour.  He then replied humorously, which I appreciated (even moreso, since a big thing for me is being able to joke with those I work with).  So even missing CSDP happy hour proved to work out.

My roommate then popped in and said he was going to New York for the night.  So the apartment was mine.  So I then did what I did six years ago as a freshman in college. I then watched a junk movie, ordered pizza, watched two more episodes of West Wing, and now another junk movie.

It may not be the most interesting SteveRogers.info post, but it was a fantastic way to spend a the last Friday before year two of Princeton starts.  Some days you just need to be a sleep in, enjoy some guilty pleasures, and be a slug.

The life stage of weddings seems to be beginning…

Matt & Katie, this May.

AJ & Lauren, within the next year.

Sean & Lizzie also engaged…

Brian & Allison, looking at you…

West Wing fans will recognize the title of this SteveRogers.info blog post as the title of Season 4, Episode 1 (and 2), where Donna, Josh and Toby got stranded in Indiana.

Well that happened to me today.

For a little background, I left St. Louis on Monday for Milwaukee to see my sister.  On Tuesday, I went to Madison and back to Milwaukee to respectively see my uncle, the Madison state capital, and then go to the Brewers-Cardinals game with my sister and brother in law.  Wednesday I drove down to Chicago to spend a day with a friend from college, Rachel.  Today, I woke up left Chicago and headed east to Princeton.

Two hours into my trip, there was a truck in front of me towing some vehicle on a trailer.  A metal pipe or something similar bounced off the trailer.  I could not really avoid it, and was originally thankful it bounced under my car.  However, this pipe happened to puncture my gas tank, which I figured as my gas gauge went from quarter full to empty in five minutes.  I was able to get off the highway and to a gas station, with my gas light well lit.  My car wouldn’t start again after I had turned it off.

The gas station was not a service station, but there were some locals (who spent their mornings at the filling station) who looked under my car and confirmed there was a hole in the gas tank.

I apparently ended up somewhere in South Bend, Indiana.  Called AAA, and they had me call the fire department before they would allow a truck to tow the car.  So I called; explained the situation; and said I was at such and such gas station.  They asked if it was the one with the deli, and I said yes.  The firemen showed up, checked the car, said it was fine, and proceeded to eat lunch at the deli.

I made calls to AAA, State Farm, the parents, and then organized my notes (phone numbers, confirmation numbers, etc) from the day.  There were three girls working at the gas station/deli, and there were people who came in, chatted, continueing conversations from the previous day.  It was a bit of a scene out of the little farm town and everyone knew each other at this filling station.

3 minutes after I got food from the deli, the tow truck arrived.  The driver was very nice and said that things like this happened often.  On my way out of the gas station two of the girls working there wished me luck.  The tow truck driver hitched up my ’97 Honda Accord, and we drove off to Rick’s Auto Body Shop.

Rick’s was a small shop on Mayflower road with nothing nearby.  I got there and explained my situation, and we relatively quickly got everything approved with insurance for them to fix my car, which would be done by the next day at the earliest.  During this time, Rick himself (an elderly gentleman) came down and introduced himself.  The shop was run by a father (Rick) and son (Dan).   Again this place was classic Indiana it seemed, with a big ol’ bible quote on the wall, and Dan and Rick closing up shop by 4 to go fishing.

Using the shop’s computer and dial-up internet, I found Rachel’s parents’ home number using reverse white pages.  They welcomed me to stay with them while my car got fixed, and even offered to pick me up.  Now, I needed a car to get back to Chicago.  Dan then drove me to the South Bend airport, and we talked with one memorable quote  from Dan asking if Princeton was one of those Ivy Leagues (the farmer/Indiana accent/drawl made the quote).  He was a good guy, who was happy with his life, and looking forward to fishing with his dad and son.

I got dropped off at the airport, but the airport rental car places apparently could not process insurance claimed rental cars.  So Laura, the manager of Enterprise who was just getting off work, continued the trend of midwestern hospitality and drove me another local Enterprise.  During our drive, she pointed out the good restaurants and told me about her job.  She was very nice.  One we got to the other Enterprise, they set me up a car that is only costing me $15 a day.

I brought my GPS with me (I love that thing) and there was no good spot to mount in the car.  Cleverly (I thought it was very clever) I mounted the suction cup to the passenger side visor mirror.  I then made my way back to Chicago, and hung out with Rachel and her family for the rest of the night.

So today, I drove from Chicago to South Bend and back.  While it is annoying to have your gas tank get punctured at the beginning of a 13 hour drive back to Jersey.  I was thoroughly impressed with how smoothly AAA and insurance processed things.  Additionally, it is hard to get mad when you had friendly people at the local South Bend filling station; a patient and helpful tow truck driver; a father-son auto repair shop; a rental car manager who drives a customer to another location on her way home; and a welcoming (and fun) family in Chicago.

The Midwest is the best.