M15 Bus
Dear Diary:
I was on the M15 city center bus home at around 9:00 pm on a Tuesday when it suddenly stopped near the Midtown Tunnel entrance. Roadwork.
“They didn’t tell me about it,” the driver said. Oh my God.
“I don’t know how you do this,” I said.
He laughed.
He explained that he couldn’t drop me off while we were waiting because we had just left a stop and that would be very dangerous.
Suddenly, the bus looked as if it could move again.
Thank you! said the driver.
“Harry Louis,” I said.
“What did you say?” he asked.
I repeated myself.
He laughed.
“You can’t come to my church on Sunday and say that,” she said.
“I would love to go to your church,” I said. And I added that when you’re at church on Sunday, you’ll remember the girl who said “Harry Louis” instead of “Thank God” and smile and maybe even say “Harry Louis”.
After getting off at my stop, he passed me and honked the horn and we waved at each other.
It felt good to make her laugh.
— Nancy Kahn-Rosenthal
sounds familiar
Dear Diary:
It was Opening Day at Yankee Stadium in April 1971, and a huge crowd was ready to see the Bronx Bombers begin a new season.
My aunt had reserved us a seat next to the family of the players and our field view was excellent.
As fans began to pour out of the stadium in the ensuing kick-offs, I noticed some approaching a man sitting a few rows ahead of us and politely greeting anyone who asked for his autograph.
I couldn’t even tell who the man was. So my curiosity overcame me and I slowly went to where he was sitting and handed me my pen and my report card.
After I finished signing, I looked down and was delighted to see that I had just received an autograph from George Plimpton.
—Paul Hensler
Carer’s Pleasure
Dear Diary:
First, a regular slice of pizza and iced tea
then a walk to Central Park
Freehand drawing in Frick —
Fragonard, Goya, van Dyck.
Later, still penniless, abandoned, alone,
Walking along Madison Avenue to 86th Street
Street, window shopping in every boutique.
In my favorite bistro,
sacrificing to enjoy two glasses of wine,
usually Malbec
and then a Ruby Port.
Keeping a diary at the bistro table, making a drawing
better plan for myself while eating
steamed vegetables and duck confit or
sometimes fig flatbread pizza
and cheese. Bread pudding for dessert.
Drawing an infinite number of nude models in the league
filling smooth newsprint pads
and fancy sketchbooks, then
Homecoming at the Bronx show
portraits to my death and drawings of life
His father was so pleased with his face that even in his own
delirium and fever, nude flushing
By the bedside I sing for my father,
the hand trying to remember the unimportant
the essence of anatomy, beyond its discomfort
bones, trying to keep my feelings steady
and still –
graceful and graceful as a merciful art model,
posing nude on a platform in class
for me, a caregiver and a daughter
drawing strength, trying not to fall apart.
— Tiffany Osedra Miller
Raleigh 3-Speed
Dear Diary:
It was about 20 years ago, and I was coming out of a business meeting with the librarian at the Explorers Club on Manhattan’s East Side.
As I was unpacking my bike, someone from the club came by. He stopped and commented on the age and make of the bike, which is a former Raleigh.
I explained that some of my friends bought it for me at a garage sale in Massachusetts and it was probably made in the 1960s.
The man laughed and said he was working in a Raleigh factory at the time.
When we nodded as we thought about the possibility that he might have built this bike himself, he asked how it was holding up.
I am happily informed that two of the three gears are still working.
He took a tool from his pocket and stuck it in the wheel.
“Now you have three gears again,” he said, tilting his hat as he entered the club.
— Maria Reidelbach
Quick Return
Dear Diary:
I came out of a meeting on the Upper West Side on a cold winter evening and hurried downstairs to catch the bus home. At the time, I was wearing a knit hat with silver tinsel inside.
A group of guys, probably in their late 20s, came out of a bar.
“Nice hat,” one of them exclaimed sarcastically but well-mannered.
Without a second thought, I went back to my adolescence.
“Beautiful face,” I shouted.
When I arrived at the bus stop, I could hear him and his friends laughing in the distance.
— Irene Biggs
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Agnes Lee’s drawings