I Think We're In Harlem...

My sense of humor has always been just slightly off. I have been known to take great pleasure in keeping those around me slightly off balance. People who know me well attribute this to the fact that I am slightly off kilter myself.

I do not argue with them.

There may be no better example of my slightly warped sense of humor than an incident that happened while on a church mission trip with Joseph to New York City several years ago. Now I hate big cities. Despise them! My idea of a wonderful place to visit is some remote lake in the northwoods. Joseph, on the other hand, was in his element in NYC. I was convinced that they were going to use his face on the front of the new, "I Love New York," shirts. My face would appear on the, "I DESPISE NEW YORK WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING," shirts.

To give a bit of background; Joseph was going to NYC with a teen group from our church. The Youth Pastor called me one day to tell me that an anonymous donor had given money to cover the cost for me to go along as a chaperon. I was not very excited about the thought of going to NYC, but I went along to help.

Our group was comprised of 42 people and we stayed at a facility known as The Angel House in the East Village. The area around The Angel House was not a bad area, but it certainly wasn't Park Avenue, either. We occasionally heard gunshots at night. That didn't really phase me, but it gives you an idea of the kind of area we were in.

Our group was involved in many missions activities; distributing literature and doing concerts at various parks and locations around the city. Joseph even got to sing a solo during a mini-concert the group put on in Times Square! We also did some sightseeing while we were in town. We took the boat past The Statue Of Liberty and spent several hours at Ellis Island.

We also went to Ground Zero. While I am glad I went; I found the experience to be extremely emotional. I imagine that I will go back to the memorial and museum if I ever return to New York City, but the sights of the massive hole in the ground and the visible damage to the surrounding buildings were quite stressful. Many tributes still clung to the chain link fence they had built around the site; each one a grim reminder of a life that was snuffed out on that fateful Tuesday morning.

Our activities on one particular day had us taking the subway back to the station near The Angel House quite late in the evening. Two of the women in our group struck up a conversation with a young woman on our train. The women shared the Gospel with the young woman; who was very interested in continuing the conversation further. She got off the train at the same station our group disembarked in order to transfer to yet another train to continue toward our accommodations.

The women continued their conversation on the platform with the rest of the group hanging around the stairs that would lead to another platform where we would catch our next train. It became obvious as the conversation continued that we needed to split up the group to get them back to The Angel House since it was now approaching Midnight. I volunteered to stay behind and escort the ladies back to our accommodations whenever they finished their conversation. The rest of the group took off for the next train and returned to The Angel House.

I waited and I waited and I waited some more. The conversation continued for quite some time. The time really wasn't a concern except for the fact that the train we needed to take back to the station nearest The Angel House was no longer running by the time the ladies wrapped up their conversation.

The motto we lived by when I was in EMS was, "Adapt, Improvise and Overcome," so that is what I did.

Although the specific train that would take us directly to the station nearest The Angel House was no longer running; there were still trains running throughout the system so we would just have to modify our return journey through a couple of previously unnecessary stations.

No big deal.

At least for me.

The two ladies were a little unsettled by this time. The walk from our final station to The Angel House was a number of blocks. The streets of the East Village are still quite busy in the wee hours of the morning, and the ladies felt a bit intimidated. I really wasn't bothered because my attitude has always been that people don't bother you if you look like you know where you are going and know what you are doing. Don't be cocky, but don't look timid, either. Just behave like you would in any other situation.

We arrived safely back at The Angel House around 2:00 AM. Now The Angel House is a pretty secure building and you can't just walk into the building in the middle of the night. I had a cellphone, of course, so the solution was right there - call the group leader and have him come down and open the doors and outer gate from the inside.

My call was answered with a rather concerned, "Where are you?"

So, all that is background to finally get to the point where my rather warped sense of humor came into play. Without skipping a beat, I replied, "I'm not sure. I think we're in Harlem. The trains weren't running any more and I thought we got on the right train to get back, but..."

There was a very brief moment of panic as my words sunk in. Even my warped sense of humor couldn't let that go on for very long, though, before I laughed and told him we were standing outside the building.

Even he thought it was funny then.