Newark, NJ
28 D ELBARTON TODAY
transported across the country. This would not be the first time Jon would haul a massive piece of art coast to coast. A couple of years ago he tied a 26-foot stainless steel hockey player to a flatbed trailer and delivered it to Newark’s Prudential Center, home of his beloved New Jersey Devils. With him on that trip was Julio, his friend and metal-working assistant in LA. They made the cross-country drive in just a few days. This trip, however, was going to be different. Jon anticipated not just a drive across the miles, but a journey marked by chance encounters with people all across America – people who might have no direct connection to that day ten years ago but for whom this cross might nevertheless mean so much. This was more than a piece of art. This cross was a conduit for the hope and healing of a nation – or so we hoped, in much more modest terms.
But however his work would be received, Jon wanted someone to help tell the story. It was about this time a massive earthquake struck Japan, in the place my whimsical travels had led me to call home. While those of us living in Fukushima City were spared the devastation suffered by hundreds of thousands along the coast, no one knew what would come of the nuclear reactors heating up and exploding fifty miles and a minor mountain range away. Reports of damage and contamination varied wildly. What the coming days would bring was unknowable. My wife and I weren’t going to wait and find out, so we packed a couple of bags, scooped up our two little boys and hitched a ride out of town with a neighbor who had wisely filled his tank ahead of the impending gasoline shortage. Two tense, unpredictable days later we were in New Jersey,