"Get Off the Tracks Mike"

It was a relaxed weekend. On Saturday, I decided to take my son Zachary for a train ride on New Jersey transit. He is very fond of trains, and needed to get out of the house. I parked, purchased tickets. We waited inside the terminal as it was quite cold and windy. An excited passenger came into the terminal and said that somebody was standing on the tracks. Zach and I headed outside to check it out, and sure enough, about 50 yards beyond the terminal, a young man was on the Amtrak line (the fast one), standing there, with his arms out and to the side. That passenger who reported the incident went to the side of the track to talk to Mike. The police were nowhere to be found. We learned that the distraught man's name was "Mike". As some point, Zach shouted "get off the tracks, Mike!" Mike was not budging and the police still weren't there. Finally, Mike walked to the side and shook the interventionist's hand. But then he went back out to the track. The interventionist continued talking, and after a bit Mike left the tracks again. This time they went down the slope to the parking lot. On cue, two patrolmen sprinted along the train tracks and when I peered around the corner, Mike was on the ground in parking lot. Thank God the situation didn't end in tragedy. Hopefully Mike will work through his issues.

The train ride was uneventful.

Today was our annual "Holy Supper" ceremony at church - essentially Holy Communion. It was a nice service - and cathartic. We later dined for lunch with Grandma Dot and the Coons. Grandma recently fell and fractured a bone in her arm. At 93 years old, she is somewhat frail, yet still living on her own. Unfortunately, she has been falling an increasing amount in the past year. The topic of assisted living as an option has surfaced, but not yet been resolved.

I decided to purchase the CATraxx music cataloguing program, and entered about 200 albums this week, or nearly 3,000 songs. While business is slow in the off-season, I'll continue cataloguing. I was re-hired for the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Awards dinner in May. This year it's at the New Brunswick Hyatt.