Meeting 101-year Old Writer In New York

Jack is a lovely person who is 101 years old. My sister Zoya, my dad and I were packing up for a trip to New York. We were going there, especially to meet my father's friend Jack Goldfarb. He is a writer who has traveled around the world to more than 120 countries. He met my father more than 30 years ago in Nepal and was in Kathmandu at least three times. He has written for some of the world’s best publications including Conde Nast Traveler, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and others. I had never met Jack in person, nor had my four-year-old sister zoya. He sent me gifts and talked to me over the phone. 

We were packing until it was a bit late and Zoya and I went to sleep before we were done. The next morning, we woke up very early at 5 am, ready and excited. My mother went to work while we took an Uber to the Amtrak Train Station in Wilmington.

The train station was big. We started looking for the place where the train to New York would depart. It would be cold! It was a windy day in winter. A long silver and blue train came and its doors opened. We hopped right in! Zoya and I sat together while our dad sat just a few feet away from us in the next seat.

We were super excited because we had heard they go really fast. However, it was a bit disappointing because I couldn’t even feel the train moving. We were on the train for two hours. This was probably the same train that President Biden used to take the other way to Washington DC to go to work as a senator! It was fun looking out the window until I got bored. I looked at Zoya and saw that she was already sleeping, probably because we woke up really early.

It was a good thing that I had a paper that had my favorite songs in it. So I spent the rest of the way singing and did not realize when I, too, fell asleep. “Outside the Pennsylvania Station,” my father said and my sleepy eyes lit up. The buildings were tall and high, there were many bicycles in chains. 

“This place reminds me in many ways of Bhatapur!” I said to my father. Did I forget to tell you that I had brought my Canon 800D along with the ultra wide-angle 10 mm and telephoto 300 mm lens? Soon we could see the tip of the Empire State Building. Of course, then Zoya was hungry and we had to search for a place to eat. 

After eating, we were walking to Jack's apartment. There were so many things to take pictures of. I was so busy taking so many photos!

We arrived at Jack’s apartment and we called him on the phone and learned all the information we needed to get in the door. I was expecting him to be a bit old but he definitely did not look like a 101-year-old person. He was very happy to see us and so were we! He said that his life was going well and we wished that it would go on like this for many more years to come. 

Jack remembered how my dad and he had a good time when they were younger. I really did not know that they had gone to so many places and bought sculptures and taken photographs of animals and had published them together! While he was telling all this, of course, I couldn't help but notice that the walls were covered with different kinds of plates and there were 50 of them, at least two from Nepal. He said in the other room he had more shelves and they had my father’s books in them. He also talked about my writing and kindly said that I was so talented and I would leave my mark in this world.

Jack then showed us a big drawer filled with vases, glass animals and more. Because Jack was older we did not want him to speak for a long time; so we decided to leave. We had taken Covid tests in the morning to make sure we were not positive so we would not infect him. We were a bit sad that we did not get to meet Simone, his wife, because she was not feeling so well. Jack gave us gifts. A glass cat and a beautiful vase and I thought that was really kind of him. Zoya fell in love with the glass cat immediately and was to hold it close to her for days as my mother and father worried that she would break it.  

After a couple of hours we said goodbye to Jack. We took an Uber (taxi) to Liza’s who is a psychotherapist and a poet, but that is another story. We reached the train station late at 10 pm and waited for the train that went to Delaware where we lived. And again this time in the train we slept very well but I don’t think my dad did. We arrived in Wilmington and reached our apartment talking about Jack and how kind he is. We were also so happy to meet mom and we missed her so much during the trip. We then took a shower slept at 12:42 am.

(Vidheha studies in Grade Four at Etta J. Wilson Elementary School, Delaware.)