Prospect Park Lake

Dear Diary:

I was walking in Prospect Park at sunset. I paused by the lake for a few minutes to admire the way the light was reflecting off the water.

As I wandered off, a man on a bike pulled up next to me and made a gesture that suggested he was trying to get my attention. Curious despite myself, I stopped.

Using the Notes app on his phone, he explained that he was deaf. Then he showed me a video he had taken a few minutes earlier. It showed a hawk sitting on a branch above where I had been standing at the time.

I moved.

It flew.

— Grace Brunson

Blocked In

Dear Diary:

There was a time when, if you were patient, you could find unmetered parking spots on a few blocks in the West 50s within walking distance of the Theater District.

During most daytime hours, these spots were restricted (“No Standing,” “No Parking” and so on). But they typically became available to anyone in the early evening, so I would try to time my arrival for then if I was going to a Broadway show or a restaurant in the area.

Once, I found a spot that was ideal, parked my car and went about my business in the neighborhood. When I was ready to go home, I returned to my car, got in, started the engine and signaled my intention to pull out.

Almost immediately, another vehicle appeared alongside mine and then pulled up a little past it, waiting for me to leave. Just then, a small truck pulled up behind, also ready to claim the spot once I abandoned it.

Now I wasn’t going anywhere. The two vehicles had blocked me in.

I rolled down my window and asked the drivers whether one of them would move so that I could pull out. Neither was willing, so I remained blocked in.

Finally, I turned off my engine, got out of the car and took a walk around the block. When I got back, it was all clear and I was able to drive off.

The city installed meters on the block shortly after that.

— Frank P. Tomasulo

Going to Budapest

Dear Diary:

Overheard while walking through Brooklyn Bridge Park:

First Man: “Are you going to Budapest?”

Second Man: “Yes.”

First Man: “Why?”

Second Man: “I am going to Budapest because I have a ticket.”

— Brant Thomas

Selling Slices

Dear Diary:

I sold pizza from a stand at the New York World’s Fair in 1964. I charged a quarter a slice — highway robbery! — and most of my transactions were uneventful.

Sometimes, though, when I would get down to two or three mismatched slices, I would get an order for just that many.

Initially, I handed them over as is. That invariably led to complaints about one slice being so much smaller than the others.

Eventually, I devised a solution. I trimmed the larger slices to match the smallest one so that they matched and served them that way. Then I would hold up the extra bit I had just cut off.

“By the way,” I’d say, “here’s a little free bonus slice just for you.”

Presto! Complaints turned into tips.

— Fred Essenwein

‘Toe, Heel, Please!’

Dear Diary:

All my life I have been told I have a heavy footfall. My father used to wonder how such a small person could make such large racket. My childhood ballet teacher reprimanded each of my steps by commanding, “Toe, heel, please!”

More than two decades later, I learned the hard way that grace still eluded me.

I had just moved into a new apartment when my downstairs neighbor knocked on my door. He had seen and, apparently, heard several tenants come and go over the years.

“I’ve never heard anything like it,” he complained. “Even my grandson wonders what goes on up there.”

I tiptoed and toe-heeled carefully for several weeks, but I must have fallen back into my old ways because there a sharper knock on my door about a month later and another one a few months after that.

I began to lose sleep over the sleep my neighbor was losing because of my footsteps.

Determined to make things right, I began to wear socks all the time to cushion my heels’ impact on the floor, tried to limit the pacing around that I sometimes do when I’m working from home and consciously tried to glide from room to room.

So my heart sank when just before the holidays, I heard another knock and saw my neighbor staring back through the peephole.

“My name is Fitz,” he said when I opened the door, offering a hand and a smile for the first time since we had met a year earlier. He handed me a basket of fruits and cheeses. “I just wanted to apologize if I was too harsh and say thank you. The noise has been much better.”

— Madeline Berg

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Illustrations by Agnes Lee

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