Hudson Line

Dear Diary:

I had lived and worked in Manhattan for many years, but when my wife and I married in 1991, we decided to move to Cold Spring and try to balance country life with commuting to our jobs in the city.

One night after work we went to see a friend’s play in the Village. We went out for a bite afterward and wound up catching a late train to Poughkeepsie. As was our habit, we got on the first car because our apartment was just a block from where we would get off.

The car was full when we left Grand Central, but the only ones left after we stopped at the Croton-Harmon station were us, sitting in one of the middle rows, and an older man who was toward the front of the car.

As the train pulled out of the station, the older man stood up and took a case down from the overhead rack, took out a guitar and began to play. We could tell that he was very good, so we moved closer and sat next to each another in a corner four-seater facing him.

And that’s how, after a night out in the city, we enjoyed a private, half-hour concert by Pete Seeger on a folksy train ride home.

— Christopher Cavanaugh

Solitary Sunday Walk

Dear Diary:

During a solitary Sunday walk through Central Park on the day before my birthday, I heard a saxophone playing “Happy Birthday” off in the distance where someone was celebrating their own birthday with a picnic.

Amused by the coincidence, and struck by an impulse to share the moment, I turned to a pleasant-looking couple walking along behind me who, tennis rackets in hand, appeared to be on their way from the park’s public courts.

“Pardon me,” I said, “but I just have to share this. Tomorrow is my birthday, and I’m pretending that song is for me.”

The woman smiled broadly.

“Tomorrow is my birthday, too,” she said, “and I’m doing the same thing!”

— Eric Mathern

Morning Routine

Dear Diary:

In 1975, I spent three months working on a construction project connected to the Roosevelt Island Tramway.

Most mornings, I would drive from the construction site at East 59th Street and Second Avenue to Roosevelt Island via the Queensboro Bridge.

I got into the habit of stopping along the way at a takeout place across from the Con Edison plant in Queens. Every day was the same: I ordered coffee and two corn muffins from an earnest young man who didn’t speak much English.

And every day, with a half-dozen Con Ed workers lined up behind me, the young man would take a corn muffin off the rack very deliberately, hold it carefully on its edge and slowly slice it in half.

After buttering each half diligently, he would put the halves back together, ensuring that they were perfectly aligned, and wrap the muffin in wax paper as if it were a prized birthday gift. Without rushing, he would repeat the entire process with the second muffin.

After following this routine for several weeks, I wasn’t very hungry one day and ordered just one corn muffin with my coffee.

The young man looked distressed. I glanced over his shoulder and saw two perfectly wrapped items on the shelf behind him.

“No,” I said, “make that two corn muffins.”

Every morning after that, my muffins were always waiting for me.

— Jon Windham

Beneath a Bridge

Dear Diary:

There we were: two young women in a car, lost in the streets beneath a Manhattan bridge and trying to find an on ramp. This was years before GPS, which would have made figuring out where we wanted to go a cinch.

We spotted a woman whose small shape seemed to form a question mark weighted down by the sacks of whatever it was she was hauling. She was walking alone and looked a bit worn and tired.

We pulled up alongside her.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Can you direct us to the entrance of the bridge?”

She paused for a moment.

“Sure,” she said. “You go and you go and you go until you smell the doughnuts and then you’ll see the entrance ramp.”

We thanked her and chuckled at the absurd response, but we decided to heed the advice anyway.

We drove along, windows down, until we did indeed smell doughnuts. And, yes, the entrance to the bridge was straight ahead.

— Maryann Syrek

Waiting Room

Dear Diary:

I was in the waiting room at my doctor’s Midtown Manhattan office. The room was occupied mostly by older men and women.

After I had been there for a little while, another older man entered. One of the people who was already sitting there looked at him.

“You know,” the man in the chair said, “you look just like my son-in-law’s father.”

“Really?“ the new arrival said. “When he was alive or dead?”

— Mark Weiss

Read all recent entries and our submissions guidelines. Reach us via email [email protected] or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter.

Illustrations by Agnes Lee

Source: Read Full Article