A train ride

From: STEVEN BEA
Sent: Thu 5/12/11 5:47 PM

HI Everyone,
Marissa and I took the subway to the 2nd biggest park in New York, in Brooklyn, to play disc golf. Stan, Beth, and Jacob will appreciate that we could not find any of the facilities, so we just made it up as we went along, aiming for trees, ducks, and icky nearly naked old men in speedos. On the subway back to Queens I pointed to a slumped, sleeping man without socks, without a belt, obviously homeless. Marissa asked if that was the kind of patients I get in the hospital. I said yes and pointed to his edematous feet and bet that he would have sores on them that he wasn't even aware of. Then 4 young men got on and announced that they would entertain us. They proceeded to breakdance, and they were good, nearly as good as Cirque du Soleil. I didn't give them a dollar. Then they got off and Michelle got on. She called the whole car to attention and told us how she was a widow just fired, with 2 small children to raise and she doesn't smoke drink or do drugs. I didn't give her a dollar either. Then the homeless man woke up, staggered down the aisle, and began to chant something that sounded like "damn bad dancer" or "badass madman", and holding out his hand. I gave him a dollar. I figured he needed a drink. He continued ranging up and down the aisle, forgetting to beg, and finally went out the door between the cars, where the sign says "do not go out the door between the cars", and peed into the darkness. We were afraid we were going to see him fall to his death. He came back in tracking wetness, and several times opened the doors again to shout at someone or something out there. At the next stop half the car got off; Marissa pointed to me that they were all getting back on the car behind us. He stayed with us to the end of the line. All in all, New York is a much nicer and more pleasant place than I remember from the early 1970s.
Off to Manhattan tonight for an art show.
Steve