Slow Start
Dear Diary:
I purchased the e-book “Lessons in Chemistry” and gave it to my daughter. Every week later, she referred to as, and we organized to meet close to her condo on Second Avenue within the 70s so she may give the e-book to me.
As she passed it over, she informed me why she used to be returning it so quickly.
“I just couldn’t get into it,” she mentioned. “The beginning was too slow.”
Just then, a girl walked via and interjected.
“Wait,” she mentioned. “It’s very slow in the beginning but gets better as you get into it.”
— Ethel Bass
Swamped
Dear Diary:
It used to be 1961, and I used to be status on the Bergen Beach coastline with my buddy Ricky. We had been two 13-year-old Brooklyn boys, peering around the Jamaica Bay waves searching for a canoe.
We had been the fourth leg of a cross-bay relay race from the John Rueger Sea Explorer Base in Sheepshead Bay. The different groups had way back passed off their canoes, that have been headed to the end line.
Ricky and I waited, questioning the place our workforce used to be. Then we spied now not a canoe however two heads bobbing within the waves.
As they were given nearer, we discovered the canoe had gotten swamped. It used to be stuffed with water to the aspect rails, however nonetheless afloat. Our teammates pulled ashore, and in combination we tipped the canoe over to sell off out the water.
Ricky and I jumped in and paddled off furiously. We hadn’t gotten some distance when water began to fill the canoe once more. There had been holes within the backside.
A Sea Explorer escort boat quickly pulled up along us, and we had been informed to climb aboard. The different groups had been on the base, and the race used to be completed. We had been an hour, perhaps an hour and a part, at the back of everybody.
As we rode again within the escort boat, I used to be furious and ready to give the organizers a work of my thoughts. I by no means were given the risk.
We arrived simply because the award rite used to be finishing. Our workforce used to be referred to as to the rostrum, the place we had been presented as winners of the Good Sportsmanship award: a espresso cup emblazoned with a sailboat and the phrases John Rueger Sea Explorer Base.
Sixty-three years later, I nonetheless have it
— Bob Berlan
Sheep Meadow
Dear Diary:
One day
I noticed him reduce a crimson lilac
Right off a bush
At Sheep Meadow
At the top of a spring rain,
In the ’60s
When the grass used to be nonetheless inexperienced,
And perhaps he labored there,
Or used to be only a vacationer
Who pulled a small purple vase
Out of his jacket,
So I requested him what it used to be for,
But he simply smiled,
An outdated guy who mentioned not anything,
He will have to have identified
That the distinction
Of crimson lilacs
And purple glass
Was like track
In Central Park
— Kathryn Anne Sweeney-James
Bowling Shirt
Dear Diary:
I used to be in graduate college in Manhattan with a scholar task as a dressing up store supervisor within the basement of a construction on Washington Square.
The identical safety guard used to be on the entrance table each day, and occasionally we made small communicate. I in the end defined that I labored within the dress store, and he informed me about how he lived on my own, had a protracted bus experience in every morning and favored to pass bowling together with his workforce on Tuesdays.
One day, he got here down to the store in his bowling blouse with an ornamental patch in his hand. He requested relatively shyly if I may assist him. He normally ironed the patches on, however they’d at all times come off when the glue were given too outdated.
I informed him I might feel free to assist him. I stitched the brand new patch on, tacked the others down smartly and taken the blouse again to him on the finish of the day. He thanked me effusively, and I mentioned it were no hassle.
I got here into paintings a couple of weeks later on a uncooked, chilly day when the wind used to be whipping cold rain down the streets. As same old, I mentioned hi to my safety guard buddy.
A few hours later, he got here down to my basement workshop with a cup of chili and a container of rice. They had been each piping sizzling.
“You looked so cold this morning,” he mentioned. “And it’s one of my favorite lunches. I go to the Chinese restaurant next door special for the rice.”
I left after that semester and not realized his identify. But now it’s certainly one of my favourite lunches, too.
— Claire Dawson
The Monster
Dear Diary:
I used to be visiting New York City from France. I had stupidly rented a automotive that used to be too massive for my functions.
One evening in Greenwich Village, I may to find just one vacant house and I sparsely sponsored this monster into it. Then I heard a girl’s voice and grew to become round.
“Is it a new car,” she mentioned, pointing to the hydrant the place I had parked, “a new driver, or both?”
— François Lonchamp
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Illustrations via Agnes Lee