‘Toward the End of the Walk, a Bird Somewhere Ahead Burst Into Song’

Birdsong

Pricey Diary:

On Presidents’ Day, about three dozen folks of assorted ages gathered on the Brooklyn Botanic Backyard’s entrance for a household chook stroll. You couldn’t have requested for higher winter climate: sunny, not too chilly, gentle breezes.

Our information, a lady sporting a bucket hat adorned with colourful chook prints, made some preliminary remarks, and we had been on our approach.

“Yellow-bellied sapsucker,” she referred to as out 10 minutes into the stroll.

The group stopped in its tracks. Binoculars had been raised, fingers pointed, sighting ideas shared.

The opposite birds we encountered included a downy woodpecker, a Cooper’s hawk (a blue jay’s warning cries alerted us to its presence) and a white-throated sparrow camouflaged in a bush’s dense branches.

Towards the tip of the stroll, a chook someplace forward burst into tune.

“Cardinal,” the information introduced, and the search started.

Within the flurry of exercise, I questioned whether or not anyone else was listening to the good whistled tune.

“Isn’t the singing fantastic?” I requested, loud sufficient for everybody to listen to.

At the least one different member of the group, a person, heard me.

“Feels like a automotive alarm to me,” he stated.

— Roth Wilkofsky

‘Free Sweets!’

Pricey Diary:

It was round 1952. I used to be 10, and I favored it that my household needed to change from the downtown D to the native AA at West Fourth Avenue.

The vertical I-beams on the platform there had merchandising machines that distributed miniature Suchard chocolate bars for a penny a pop.

I all the time pulled on the little plungers to see if chocolate bars would seem magically with out the requisite pennies.

Someday, ta-da!: The plungers on all 4 machines weren’t working, and I used to be filling my pockets with free candies simply because the native pulled into the station.

As I obtained on the prepare with my household, I noticed one other boy approaching.

“Free candies!” I yelled, pointing to one of many machines. “It’s jammed!”

As we pulled away within the course of Spring Avenue, I used to be pleased to see the opposite boy busily “milking” the machine at a livid tempo.

— Giulio Maestro

A Little Late

Pricey Diary:

I boarded the M104 and took a seat behind a gray-haired lady dressed all in black. The white tag on her sweater was sticking straight up from her neckline.

I tapped her on the shoulder.

“Excuse me,” I stated. “Would you want me to place your tag inside your sweater?”

“Sure,” she replied. “The place had been you three hours in the past?”

“It is best to have referred to as,” I stated.

We each laughed.

— Jane Seskin

Coleslaw

Pricey Diary:

Early one sunny Saturday in 1975, my pal Beth and I climbed the steps to the elevated tracks in Far Rockaway and caught the A.

The prepare bumped and rumbled alongside the seashore roads, into Brooklyn after which by means of the tunnel into Manhattan. The lights within the automotive flickered because the prepare screeched into every cease alongside the way in which.

At Washington Sq., we jumped off, climbed the steps to the road and emerged into the brilliant daylight of a wonderful fall day.

We wandered by means of Greenwich Village, stopping at outlets the place youngsters only a few years older and much hipper than us oversaw considerable inventories of artwork posters, handcrafted jewellery, T-shirts and a broad assortment of different, superbly random objects.

The profusion of products was past thrilling to us. We drank within the sights and sounds, flapped enthusiastically over a couple of small purchases and tried our greatest to tune into the tradition surrounding us.

To economize, every of us had introduced a sandwich alongside. At one level, we discovered a aspect avenue. We sat on a curb between two parked vehicles and had our picnic.

Beth’s sandwich had coleslaw on it, one thing I had by no means thought so as to add. It created a seismic shift in how I considered meals.

Later, we caught the A at Union Sq., ensuring we obtained residence earlier than darkish.

— June Holder

Class Present

Pricey Diary:

I used to be working as a fourth-grade instructor at a non-public faculty on the East Facet. As a year-end reward, the dad and mom had their daughters scratch their names right into a silverish image body, which was given to me wrapped in yards of tissue paper inside a Tiffany field.

I put a gracious look on my face as I unwrapped it. I held up the body and smiled at every of the 15 ladies who had “signed” it.

After faculty, I sneaked right into a pawnshop on Lexington Avenue. The person on the counter seemed approvingly on the Tiffany field.

I eliminated the distinctive blue lid, took the body out of the tissue paper and handed it to him.

He stared at it for a few seconds.

“Inform you what,” he stated. “I don’t need this, however I’ll purchase the field.”

— Mary Jo Robertiello

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Illustrations by Agnes Lee