Archive – Day 6
Thursday, April 15, 1993
Looking Back...
This day we went to lower Manhattan. My writing started out well enough, but then I ran out of time or passed out or something and didn’t finish it. Too bad I didn’t write more. For a travel journal, there’s not a whole lot about the places we travelled to.
Tax day! And where else did we spend this day of financial hell but in the capital of financial hell, Manhattan.
I actually felt comfortable in the city. I didn’t feel out of place in New York like I did in other cities, but I felt as though my ancestry was welling up inside of me and I felt as though I belonged here. I think that, with a different beginning in life, I could have made a perfect New Yorker. Even now I feel that with a little practice I could almost fit in. And on Sunday we are going to the Village, spending time with liberals and seeing, to some degree, what that lifestyle is like.
But anyway, we cannot concentrate on the future but on the present. Or, in this case, the recent past. The day in Manhattan.
We started on the subway, which is completely different from what I expected. It was just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill train. A few screwballs floating around, but no graffiti, no trash, very little dirt, actually as pleasant as a train can get when it’s careening through darkened tunnels filled with dispassionate businessmen and ordinary dregs.
I have more to write about, but I just can’t get it out. So, I will have to stop and hope it is remembered.
