Solo Trip
Dear Diary:
At 35, I set off on my first solo trip to the Upper West Side. My husband and I were visiting his parents on Long Island, and I was going into the city to spend a few days with my sister.
Dragging a small roller bag, I found my way to the correct subway line and even found a seat. A gaggle of teenage girls sat across from me. Their liveliness reminded me of my teenage self.
At the next stop, a young man with a rolled towel tucked under his arm entered the car and sat next to me. I continued to look straight ahead. My eyes were focused just above the teenagers’ heads.
Suddenly, I detected some motion from the young man’s direction in my peripheral vision. Knowing that subway etiquette dictated I remain totally oblivious, I continued looking straight ahead even though I could still see small movements to the side.
I noticed the teenage girls becoming quite animated, their eyes moving from my face to whatever was moving next to me. Eventually, their excitement prompted me to look to the side.
The towel was now unwrapped, and standing in the young man’s lap was a pigeon, which he was stroking with a toothbrush to the bird’s apparent pleasure.
I can only imagine my expression as I faced front again. When I did, the teenagers burst out laughing.
Thankfully, the next stop was mine.
— Barbara Y. Phillips
Wiggly
Dear Diary:
I dropped off my well-worn boots at a shoe repair place near the office that I had found online and that had good reviews.
Expecting a street-side shoeshine parlor, I instead found myself ascending a freight elevator and fumbling down an old, winding hallway.
Inside a large bright room was a man behind a counter with a small cactus that had one pink flower on its side.
After getting the estimate and paying the deposit, I noticed a series of old photos. One was a close-up of the man behind the counter playing an instrument.
I asked if he was a musician.
He said he was, and then asked if I had an extra moment.
Not really, but I’ll try, I said.
He pulled out a case, took out a clarinet and proceeded to play a sinuous, wiggly tune.
Did he write it?
“I just made it up,” he said.
Was it Middle Eastern-style jazz?
“Not quite,” he said. He told me he was from Uzbekistan — Bukhara to be exact.
Benny Goodman? I asked.
“Not just him,” he said. “All.”
— Mia Tran
Gene Palma
Dear Diary:
Anyone who lived or worked in Midtown Manhattan in the 1970s and ’80s knew Gene Palma as the guy who “played” Sixth Avenue. He even had a cameo in “Taxi Driver.”
With shoe-polish blackened hair and heavy makeup, Gene would play his drum on the sidewalk. Sometimes, he would bang his sticks on newspaper vending machines, or sit on the curb and play the street itself.
In the winter, to avoid the frigid north wind that swept down the avenues, he would move onto the side streets. Once, when I saw him on 52nd Street, I asked why he moved onto the side streets every winter.
“The sound’s better,” he said.
— Jace Weaver
Foraging With John Cage
Dear Diary:
In 1959, I signed up for a mushroom identification course at the New School taught by the composer John Cage.
In those days, I often accompanied my uncles when they gathered mushrooms in the woods near Greenwood Lake in New Jersey. I thought it would be a good idea to really know something about what we were picking.
The class met on Sundays, in a park off the Palisades Parkway. About 15 of us walked around with baskets and picked mushrooms.
It was all very casual. We just walked in the park, saw different mushrooms and learned about them, including which ones were harmful. I still remember that the amanita is poisonous.
Cage was instrumental in starting the New York Mycological Society, and he also got me started on collecting mushroom-related things: prints, ceramics and so on.
Nowadays, I get my mushrooms at the local Acme or ShopRite, saute them in butter, or pickle them with vinegar, and dress them with garlic and olive oil.
— Adriana O’Toole
Staten Island Ferry
Dear Diary:
For most of my adult life, I lived on Staten Island and commuted to Manhattan for various jobs in the financial district. Most days I drove my car to the Staten Island Ferry terminal to catch the boat to Manhattan.
One day when I was driving to the terminal, I noticed a smell that seemed to be coming from the car’s engine compartment.
After parking and getting out of the vehicle, I leaned over the hood with my nose slightly against it to quickly check whether the smell was indeed coming from my car.
Not smelling anything, I began to walk toward the terminal. As I did, I heard a woman just behind me speak.
“Now I’ve seen everything,” she said. “You just kissed your car goodbye.”
— Philip Peters
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