METROPOLITAN DIARY

‘Heaven’
Dear Diary:

I was walking on Sixth Avenue in Midtown listening to music with my headphones on. The Talking Heads song “Heaven” was playing, and I was whistling along.

Suddenly, I thought I heard the lyrics coming from outside the headphones. Listening more carefully, I was sure I heard the lyrics coming from outside the headphones.

For a second, I thought I was losing my mind. Then I glanced to my right and noticed a man walking alongside me and singing. He had clearly recognized the song I was whistling and had joined in.

Seeing that I had noticed him singing along with me, he smiled and walked away.

— Joseph O’Sullivan

Allerton Avenue
Dear Diary:

I was a girl going to summer camp for the first time. My mother, my sister and I boarded the train at Allerton Avenue in the Bronx to go to the drop-off point.

Getting on the train at the same time was a young, professional woman who, we learned, worked in pediatric recreation at Bellevue Hospital and adored children.

My new friend, Sadie Brown, had the magic touch. In no time at all, I was swinging my legs, jumping up and down and telling her my whole life story.

Later, I sent her a postcard from camp. She replied by sending me my first special delivery letter on beautiful, little-girl stationery. I have it to this day.

“I like children of all ages,” she wrote, “and your smile was so magnetic, I felt that I would like to get to know you.” She signed the letter, “Your Train Mate.” I was hooked.

From that day forward, Sadie and I remained faithful train mates until she died over 50 years later. She was my special friend, teacher and mentor through constant correspondence, phone calls and visits through the years.

I visited her in Florida the year before she died and wrote a memorial of our lifelong “train mate” friendship that was read at her funeral service.

“This is New York,” I can hear Sadie saying now. “You never know who you’ll sit next to on the train!”

— Fran Quittel

How Many Slices?
Dear Diary:

I was sitting near the front door at Barney Greengrass on Amsterdam Avenue near 86th Street. I was waiting for some colleagues I was meeting for breakfast.

Then the phone rang. A balding man who answered listened to the caller briefly and then shouted across the store to a white-haired man who was behind the opposite counter.

“How many slices in a cheesecake?” the balding man asked.

“As many as you want,” the white-haired man replied immediately. “It could be three! It could be 12! It could be 16!”

The balding man smiled and put the phone back near his mouth.

“Sixteen slices,” he said.

— Stuart Bernstein

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/14/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html