Taking shelter in the Strand, an encounter with a very tall man and more reader tales of New York City in this week’s Metropolitan Diary.
Absurdity
Dear Diary:
My wife and I were walking back to our West Village apartment on a cold, rainy winter evening after an early dinner of Indian food in the East Village.
As we approached Broadway and West 12th Street, it started raining harder. I glanced up at the sign above the entrance to the Strand bookstore.
“Let’s go in until the rain passes,” I suggested.
“That could be a while,” my wife said.
“That’s OK,” I said.
We walked inside, shaking the rain off like wet dogs.
“There’s a collection of stories I want to find,” I said. “I think it’s called ‘Russia’s Lost Literature of the Absurd’ or something like that.”
I heard a voice coming from behind a nearby stack of books. I couldn’t tell if it belonged to an employee or someone else.
“It’s not lost,” the voice said. “It’s right there, in the ‘Absurd’ section.”
“Oh, thank you,” I stammered. “Where’s that?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
— Doug Sylver
Very Tall Man
Dear Diary:
My sister and I used to walk everywhere in the city, traveling from Brooklyn Heights to the top of Central Park.
On one of our trips, we became incredibly tired, so we found a bench to rest on. A very tall man was sitting next to us eating a hot dog. He had three of them and offered us the other two.
We politely declined. It was 1973. I was 15, and my sister was 10.
The very tall man asked us about our lives, and we told him about ourselves.
As we said goodbye, my body began to tingle. I realized that the very tall man was Dave DeBusschere of the New York Knicks, my favorite sports team.
Walking back across the Brooklyn Bridge later, I thought about how cool it was that one of my idols could be an ordinary person like me, eating hot dogs on a New York bench.
— Jennifer Wallick
To Karine
Dear Diary:
To Karine, the early riser,
Breakfast maker, stabilizer,
Medical communicator,
Piloting the elevator,
On and off a city bus,
Paying for the both of us,
Making sure I get a seat,
And stand upright on my feet
In the park the local creatures,
Wait for handouts — double features,
Peanuts, fluffy bits of bread galore,
Picked up from the asphalt floor,
Here they come, just as we said:
Robins, finches, sparrows, starlings,
Cardinals, blue jays are the darlings,
Squirrels sighting peanuts beckoning,
Seize the prize, ignore the reckoning,
On and off and in between,
Here they come to greet Karine
Nosing to a double nut
Friendly to their habitat
Underground and in their nest,
Squirrels hide the very best,
Of their harvest for the winter,
When there’s only ice to splinter,
And the squirrels stay indoors,
On their cozy upper floors,
As the snow gets deep and deeper,
Every squirrel is a sleeper.
Only ducks can navigate,
Polar ice on which we skate,
Gloveless, shoeless, unlike us,
They’re afloat and make no fuss,
Upper-body: warm as toast,
Thanks to down-coat coast-to-coast!
Still they come ashore to flirt,
And collect a sweet dessert!
Mr. Drake and Mrs. Duck,
Faithful partners, full of luck
When their relatives, the geese,
Come in squadrons, land with ease,
Nibbling shoots of precious lawn,
All my friendliness is gone
Let them fly to Nova Scotia,
Manitoba or Kenosha,
Not to kill with acid spill,
Our parkland, dale and hill
So Karine and I can walk,
Through the seasons of New York
Anyway, that is a promise,
Merry Christmas, Mister Thomas
— Thomas F. Naegele
Best Seat
Dear Diary:
There’s a tavern on the corner across from my apartment building that I’ve been visiting for lunch on a more-or-less weekly basis for some time.
The staff there is friendly, the place has tasty bar food and there is an inviting outdoor seating area where one can watch the passing parade.
But the benches at the outdoor tables are uncomfortable for this old-timer, so whenever I visited I would bring a souvenir stadium cushion that I got at one of my alma mater’s bowl games.
On one particularly cold day, I didn’t bring the cushion because I had decided to eat inside. As I was escorted to my table, I heard one of the waitresses yell out from across the room.
“Go Rutgers!”
— Walter Staab
Cinderella Story
Dear Diary:
I was waiting to cross the street on a chilly night in Brooklyn when I found myself standing next to a woman who was clutching a bottle of wine to her chest, swaying back and forth and singing the theme from Disney’s “Cinderella.”
Noticing her companion’s apparent indifference to what she was doing, I joined in loudly, singing along with her until the light turned green.
As I crossed the street, I heard her turn to her companion and say: “See? That’s what I miss about New York City!”
— Kevin Hershey
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Illustrations by Agnes Lee
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