Blocked Off

Dear Diary:

I was biking west on 21st Street when I came to a barrier between Second and Third Avenues.

Whatever, I thought. I’m on a bike.

As I rode past the barrier, I noticed several police vans parked along one side of the street. The only sound was the click of a shutter. Looking around, I saw a photographer kneeling down and taking pictures of something I couldn't see.

I was continuing on when I had to stop suddenly. What looked like the entire 13th Precinct was standing there dressed in their finest, posing for what I figured was their annual photo.

About 20 officers turned toward me. I swallowed nervously.

They laughed and waved me on through.

“Give it a good kick for us,” one of them yelled as I pedaled away.

— Sydney Scott

Smoothie Showdown

Dear Diary:

I was stepping up to order at Planet Smoothie in Penn Station when a man who had just gotten a smoothie stomped back to the counter.

“What’s in this?” he said.

The cashier looked nonplused.

“Which one did you order again?” he said.

The man waved at the board on the wall. The cashier continued to have a nervous look on his face.

“It looks like strawberries, blueberries, nonfat yogurt,” he said.

“I can read,” the man said. “But it doesn’t taste like it.”

The people waiting behind me began to shuffle impatiently. The cashier shrugged and shifted his feet. Two other employees moved in closer. I started contemplating whether a smoothie was worth waiting out this scene for.

“I can make you another one if you like?” the cashier said.

There was a pause.

“Nope, that’s all right, it’s good, ” the man said. “I like it and I was just hoping for the recipe to make it at home.”

— Janine Yoong

Fifth Avenue, 1968

Dear Diary:

It was spring 1968, and my classes at Columbia University had been suspended because of student protests. I had also just quit my part-time job as the social secretary for a wealthy older man. He was not giving me enough hours for me to survive in New York.

So it was with a “What do I do now?” feeling that I decided to walk from near Central Park down Fifth Avenue toward 34th Street, where I had plans to meet friends for dinner.

I took my time, stopping to gaze in the store windows. One was a framing and print shop. I was startled when an older man who had apparently been watching me from inside knocked on the window. Before I knew it, he had come outside and was talking with me.

He said I looked a bit down. I told him I had just quit my job. He commiserated with me. He told me he had just broken up with his girlfriend. I commiserated with him

“Let me take you to lunch,” he said. His favorite restaurant was not far away. Since I had nothing to do until dinner, I agreed.

We had a wonderful lunch, and the conversation never stopped. It was as if we were two old friends.

We returned to the shop and he invited me in. He sorted through some drawers and boxes, and then he handed me two beautiful small wooden frames. He insisted on wrapping them before I went on my way.

I left the city that summer to get on with my life. The frames have housed two lovely paintings for 50 years. When I look at them, they evoke a crystal clear memory of my lunch with a stranger.

— Carol C. Neely

Smell of the Crowd

Dear Diary:

We went to see Elton John at Madison Square Garden. Not an empty seat in the place, and he still rocks the house. The music covered us like a favorite old sweater.

There was one big difference between the show at the Garden and the concerts of our youth. Instead of the smell of pot, there was a pronounced odor of Vicks in the air.

— Jack Hartog

Packed In

Dear Diary:

I couldn’t help but bristle at the woman throwing herself into the packed M train at the last minute, even though I had just done the same thing myself. She jostled me far too close to a man there in the car. He was clearly unhappy.

“Come on,” he said as the woman cleared the closing doors. “Wait for the next one.”

My backpack was dangling from my left hand. My book was in my right. When I was ready to turn the page, my left hand was tucked too tightly at my side to be any help. I tried sliding my right thumb beneath the page, but that didn’t work.

I had just decided to wait until the next stop to turn the page when the man I had been shoved into used his empty hand to turn it for me.

— Anna Gabianelli

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