After arriving home from Indianapolis it was time to pack up the Cleveland house and begin the move to the New York metropolitan area.

It was a bit nerve-wracking not knowing where we were moving to. All we knew for sure was that it was going to be more expensive than Cleveland.

Our worldly goods were picked up by the movers and headed for storage until we found a place to live. There was a lot of uncertainty and a lot of excitement, too, as Judy and I and the kids hit the road in our Pontiac station wagon.

I had made an open-ended reservation _ at least two weeks and maybe four or five _ at a midtown Manhattan Holiday Inn on the east side. My choice of hotel was heavily influenced by the fact that this particular Holiday Inn included parking in its nightly rate.

We took two days to make the 600-mile drive, but I wasn't in any hurry since I had used my credit card to guarantee the room for late arrival.

We arrived at the hotel at about 6:15 p.m. on a Wednesday. The small lobby was jammed with people checking in. I stood in line and, when it was my turn, I confidently gave the clerk my name. He looked at his computer readout and said sourly, "Your reservation has been cancelled. You arrived after 6 o'clock."

I replied, "That can't be right. My family and I are scheduled to stay here for up to a month and I guaranteed the room with my credit card."

He shrugged and said, "Your reservation was cancelled. We have no room for you. Next in line. ... "

I asked to see a manager. I explained the situation to the man calmly and he dismissed me with a bit of a sneer, saying, "We're completely full and you have no reservation."

I suddenly remembered that strange dinner in Cleveland with all the naysayers talking about how awful New York City was and why would we ever want to move there.

There I was, standing in the crowded lobby, my family outside in a car that was packed to its limit and no place for us to go. I was on the verge of panic when a desperate idea popped into my head.

I found a pay phone and a phone book outside the lobby and looked up the number of the Drake Hotel, where I had spent several weeks on my own when I started the new job. I asked to speak to the manager on duty.

When he got on the phone, I told him who I was and that I worked for the AP. I explained what had happened at the Holiday Inn and that I needed a place for my family and me to stay as we hunted for a place to live.

"Can you help me?" I asked, probably sounding pretty desperate.

With no hesitation, he said, "Come on over. We'll take care of you."

I was ecstatic!

When I got to the car and told Judy what had transpired, she said, "That sounds great, but will AP be okay with staying at such a fancy place for a month?"

I said, "Let's check in and we'll worry about the details later.''

We arrived in front of the hotel at 56th and Park Avenue after a short drive. I parked in the loading zone and told the doorman I was checking in. He looked at the car, with a Sears clam shell top and a load of suitcases, bags and boxes in the rear and said, "It looks like you're staying for a month."

I said, "Yes, we are." He laughed.

The manager was waiting for me at the desk. He shook my hand and said, "Let's get you checked in. By that time, Tory and Lanni, then five and six years old, had wandered into the lobby. I introduced them to the manager and the desk clerk and the manager said, "I think you're going to need one of our bigger rooms."

The doorman and a bellman, both smiling and bantering with the kids, helped unload the car onto a number of carts and the manager offered to keep the boxes and bags in a storage area during our stay. After the car was empty, the doorman said, "Are we parking the car? It's $40 a night." Even though AP was paying our relocation expenses, that made me a little queasy.

He suggested a city-owned garage across from the Port Authority Bus Terminal where you could park and lock and go in and out any time. "And it's a whole lot cheaper," he said.

After settling the family in our new hotel home, I drove over to the parking garage and was delighted to find out the rate was $12 a day. I then walked back to the hotel, enjoying the energy of the city.

The next morning, I went into the office and I told my boss, Wick Temple, what had happened. He said, "Good thinking. We have a deal with the Drake, so no problem on our end."

The people at the Drake, including the maids, adopted our family and made our stay there so comfortable and pleasant that more than once Judy wistfully asked, "Can't we just live here?"

She was making daily trips around Manhattan with the kids, learning how to use public transportation and finding her way around the city.

It was an ideal place to stay, within easy walking distance of the office, near Central Park and public transportation and lots of places to eat or take out that didn't cost an arm and a leg.

But, after a few days of fun, we knew it was time to find a place to live. And, thanks to Mom Rosée's loan, we were ready to buy another house. The big question was where?

Talking to people in the office, it seemed our best choices were Westchester County, suburbs north of the city, and the bedroom communities of New Jersey.

After checking with realtors and talking prices, we decided to concentrate on finding a place in Northern New Jersey, within an easy commute of the city and Newark Airport.

We knew that the mother of a friend had been on the New Jersey Board of Education, so Judy got her number and called to ask about school systems. Her advice, find a house in Westfield, which had a great public schools, low crime and at least some affordable housing.

We contacted a realtor in Westfield and Judy and the kids took a commuter bus to meet with him while I was at work in the office. I waited nervously to hear if there was anything in Westfield we could afford.

Finally, she called and said, "I have good news. There are two houses out here that we can probably afford. One of them is big and needs a lot of work and the other is small and needs a lot of work."

Since I wasn't terribly handy in those days, I said, "I guess we should go for the smaller one. What's the yard like?" Judy said, "There's enough of it for the house to fit on."

I said, "Go for it," I said. And we were house-owners again.

The deal for the house in Cleveland meant we would eventually sell it for $42,500. The new house in New Jersey, a tiny Cap Cod style built as a four-room home, cost $77,000. Remember, this was 1980.

It turned out to be a great move.

The first time Judy's mom saw the house, she said, "That's the smallest house I've ever seen." But it was deceptively big inside, thanks to a finished basement that included a bathroom and a summer kitchen and an attic that already had flooring and was ready for expansion.

Eventually, we hired a contractor to build the kids a suite upstairs, with two bedrooms and bath. We wound up living there happily for 16 years, all the way until both kids were away at out-of-state universities.

Our plan was to move into the new house just before the start of school in August. Tory would start first grade and Lanni kindergarten. But that gave us a couple of free weeks.

We stayed at the Drake for a few more days and, when it was time to check out, practically everybody on the hotel staff helped move us out. The doorman and two of the bellmen, sweating profusely in the August heat and humidity, helped put the clam shell top back on the car and load everything.

I tried to give each of them a $20 bill and they acted insulted and refused to take the money, saying, "We don't take money from family." Now that's a New York story you don't hear a lot.

It was too soon to get into our new house, so we drove back to Cleveland to say goodbyes to our friends and to pick up our second car. The plan was for Judy to follow me in the Datsun, but she was nervous about doing such a long drive.

We tried putting ads on school and temple bulletin boards to find someone to drive the second car, but to no avail.

The day before were were to head back east, Judy was out with a girlfriend and saw two young men hitchhiking not far from our old house. They had a sign that read: "Buffalo, NY. We're clean and we have references."

Judy asked the friend to stop so she could talk to the young men, but the woman was afraid of hitchhikers. Judy convinced her to stop a block away and she then walked back to talk with them.

My wife has no sense of geography and had no idea that Buffalo, NY was many miles from Westfield, N.J. After all, isn't New York State next to New Jersey?

No matter. Judy asked them what kind of references hitchhikers had? The clean and well-dressed youngsters both had documentation _ one was going into the Peace Corps and the other into a seminary. They had the time, but New Jersey was too far out of their way.

We were staying with another friend that last night and Judy gave the boys the phone number, just in case. Amazingly, after thinking it over, they decided they could visit a friend in New Jersey and then head for Buffalo.

They needed a place to stay for the night and offered to camp out in the backyard of the place we were staying. But the friend with whom we were staying was afraid to have them there. "You don't know who they are," she said.

Another friend offered her backyard to the boys and, when it poured rain that night, she wound up inviting them to sleep inside with no incident.

The next day, we set off in our caravan for New Jersey, me driving the station wagon and one of the boys driving the Datsun. I gave them money for gas and food and said we would meet them at a motel in Bloomsburg, Pa., about halfway to Westfield, if we got separated.

My biggest problem with those boys was that they refused to drive the speed limit and kept falling way behind. But, somehow, we always met up.

When we finally got to New Jersey, we dropped them off at their friend's house in East Orange. They introduced us to the family and we wound up eating a wonderful home-made Italian dinner with the boys and their friend's family before continuing our journey.

Judy, who was very pleased with herself for finding the boys, then followed me in the second car to our new home, where we started yet another adventure.