“As I got to the front of the line, a man approached me from behind.”
Post office
Dear Diary:
I was walking my dog, Mango, early one weekday morning when I burst into an Upper West Side post office to drop off a pre-labeled package. I brought Mango inside.
The post office was almost empty and I expected to stay there for only a minute, as long as it took to take my package to the designated counter and have the label scanned.
But the counter I needed was full of packages, so I had to wait in a short line while an employee cleared it away.
As I got to the front of the line, a man came up to me from behind.
“Is that a seeing-eye dog?” he asked.
I thought it was a strange question, since Mango is small and fluffy, not what you would think of as a seeing-eye dog.
“No,” I replied.
“Well,” he said, “I thought it was because you didn’t see the sign saying no dogs allowed.”
And out he went.
– Diane Glass
Bright spot in the sky
Dear Diary:
I was up early catching up on papers for my classes when I heard a garbage truck driving down my street in Harlem. It was just before 6 o’clock and still dark outside. I realized I hadn’t taken out the trash.
I bagged the plastic and paper for recycling, but the truck had already passed my house when I got to the street.
I met one of the sanitation workers on the sidewalk.
“Plastic?” I have asked.
“Paper,” he said.
I chased the truck to the corner and threw my paper straight into it. It was then that my eyes saw an unmistakable point of light in the starless sky.
When he saw me stop, the worker stopped too.
I pointed upstairs.
“Venus,” I said.
His eyes followed my finger.
“This is Venus?” He said, his face breaking into a smile.
His colleague, who saw the two of us looking up, also looked up.
“Venus,” we all said together, standing there for a few moments without saying another word.
— Frederic Colier
B. Altmans
Dear Diary:
It was the last day of the B. Altman sale in December 1989. I left my husband in charge of our three young children, left our apartment on East 67th Street and headed to 34th Street and Madison Avenue.
On one of the store’s upper floors, almost devoid of merchandise, I found a Christian Dior women’s suit against a far back wall. It was marked down six times to $35.
I’ve tried it. It fit like a glove. I bought it. I wore it for 20 years until the skirt was lost during a move. Every time I wore it I felt like a million bucks.
I miss that suit. I miss B. Altman’s too.
– Martha E. H. Deegan
Polished
Dear Diary:
I often try to make something special for a good friend for her birthday. One year I thought I would incorporate a piece of a painting I saw in the store at the Metropolitan Museum.
So on a hot summer day, I took the bus downtown to Harlem Hospital, where I work as a children’s hospital clown.
When I arrived at the museum, the guards wouldn’t let me in because I had my ukulele with me.
Well, I said, do you have an idea what I can do so that I can run to the store and buy one item?
After thinking for a moment, one of the guards suggested that I ask Mary, the hot dog vendor whose cart was outside the door, if she would hold the ukulele for me.
She said yes, and I handed my 100-year-old Martin soprano over her steamy cart. It wasn’t a great environment for a vintage instrument, but a few minutes later I had the patch and Mary handed me my instrument back with a smile.
The pillow I made turned out beautiful.
–Phyllis Capello
A handful of change
Dear Diary:
When I was in college in the mid-1960s, I had a part-time job as a toll collector for the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority.
One evening, in the early morning hours, while working the night shift on the Cross Bay Bridge in Queens, I saw the headlights of a car approaching from Cross Bay Boulevard.
The lights seemed to move from side to side as the car approached the bridge and headed towards me.
The driver finally maneuvered into my lane, stopped, and reached into his pocket for change for the toll, which at the time was 10 cents.
He grabbed a handful of coins of all kinds and pressed them all into my outstretched hand.
“Here,” he said. “There’s got to be a dime in there somewhere.”
– Alan Weinschel
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Illustrations by Agnes Lee