Friends Forever
Dear Diary:
We were besties at an upstate New York summer camp, two inseparable girls who lived five hours away from each other the rest of the year. For teenagers who didn’t drive, it might as well have been opposite sides of the country.
The camp would frequently bring us into Manhattan for field trips, setting us loose on our own in the belief that we would be safe and would return to the bus on time. My friend and I always made a bee line for Washington Square Park.
As our last summer at camp came to an end, we promised that if we didn’t see each other during our college years, we would meet five years to the day of our last trip to Washington Square Park. We picked a specific time and vowed to wait a couple of hours in case either of us was running late.
We stayed in touch for a time through letters and phone calls, but those eventually faded. Still, we were both the type to keep our promises.
I was an art history major, and I arranged for some research to bring me into the city on the date of our planned reunion. I went to the park. She didn’t show up. I was sad, but I understood. People move on.
I still visit New York on occasion, though rarely in August. Whenever I do, I take a trip to Washington Square Park.
“I never forgot you,” I say in my mind to my friend when I am there. “I hope life has been treating you well.”
— Deborah Malick
Burgers and Fries
Dear Diary:
Our son and daughter-in-law were expecting a baby, so when we got the 3 a.m. call, off we went to the airport to catch the next flight from Minneapolis to New York.
We arrived in time to wait (and wait and wait) in the lobby at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. For lunch, we had burgers and fries delivered from a nearby deli. We scarfed it all down as though we had never eaten before.
Around 5 p.m., we went upstairs to visit the soon-to-be parents with some other family members who had driven in from Cleveland. In the elevator back to the lobby, they said that they had ordered dinner and that it should be there soon.
When the delivery arrived, it was the same burgers and fries ordered from the same deli. We scarfed it all down against just as we had before.
Twenty hours after getting that call in Minneapolis, little Ayla Jordyn arrived. And we were hungry all over again.
— Henry Stein
Page Turner
Dear Diary:
A young woman steps off the train. As she does, she drops a paperback book.
“Miss,” passengers yell. “Miss! Miss!”
The book tumbles to the floor of the car as the door closes behind her.
“Oh, well,” one guy says.
The book lands in front of a woman. She bends down, picks it up, opens it to the bookmarked page and starts reading intently
— Drew Watson
Taste Test
Dear Diary:
I was standing near a big pile of fruit being sold by vendor on 23rd Street from whom I had been buying for years. It was early August, when apples available on the street that look OK on the outside are sometimes brown and soft on the inside.
I was employing a discreet system that the vendor and I had implicitly worked out: I stood on the gutter side of the stand, picking out individual apples and giving each a tiny bite followed by a quick visual inspection.
The small bites ended up in the street. I showed the occasional overripe apple to the vendor, who disposed of it and allowed me to pick out another.
Normally, it was a quiet, private routine. But on this August morning, a young man who was passing by looked at me pointedly with a knowing smile on his face.
Sensing that I needed to go public, I looked his way.
“Sometimes you have to check,” I said in a fairly loud voice.
The man’s smile widened.
“In summertime,” I added as he continued down the sidewalk.
“Have a good day,” he said, the smile still on his face.
— George A. Smith
Christmas Help
Dear Diary:
It was fall 1966. I had just moved to New York from Oklahoma. My first job was as Christmas sales help in the men’s department at Bloomingdale’s. I was stationed near the Third Avenue entrance by a section of the store called Peterborough Row.
On one of my first days there, a woman rushed in the door trailing two very small, frisky children, a boy, a girl. They began to play with a mannequin, and I reached for the security phone.
My adviser, a man who was known as Fat Freddy, said I shouldn’t bother: It was Phyllis Newman and her children.
By then, the boy and girl had pulled an arm off the mannequin. Ms. Newman picked it up, looked around and banged it on the counter.
“I believe this is yours,” she said.
And with that, the three of them sped off.
— Robert Eaton
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‘The Camp Would Frequently Bring Us Into Manhattan for Field Trips’ - The New York Times
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