25 Comments

I enjoyed your writing as always, but I’m not sure I completely understood where you stand. Doesn’t London have a rather successful history with this policy? I personally prefer walking or riding the subway and do like the hustle and bustle of city life. But a bit less traffic might be a good thing.

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"Do you get my drift here?" Your drift is more like what turned out to be waves of just plain good luck. The paths crossed enough and so did your darling's and so did the other reactants. Ker-Pow!!!!

Remember your chemical reactants in the lab: "Reactants must be moving fast enough and hit each other hard enough for a chemical reaction to take place. Increasing the temperature increases the average speed of the reactant molecules." Might I add that temp increases are a major factor.

You and she reacted. Ker-Pow! Be glad lad! You all might have been back where you once were and you wouldn't be where you are. My "lovely wife" was standing on a corner and both of us were going to a graduate's party. Pow! And a Venn Diagram. If you want to know more, let me know.

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Good morning, Harrison: We grew up in Nebraska, a small town of less than one thousand. We lived just over one block apart for all of our school years. We knew of each other only by basic public conversation and rummer. Our youthful separation was due to her being Methodist and I a Catholic. Then, after we were both out of high school, we met formally. Today, married for 63 years and inseparable even though she broke an ancle a couple weeks ago. We have been to Manhattan many times and love it for the walking. As a professional photographer, I was commissioned many years ago by the New York Institute of Photography to help develop a wedding video franchise for them. It flopped, big time, I told them that was going to happen the third day we were together at our first meeting. It took them almost three days to tell me what they really wanted of me. We, wife Betty and I had a ball with their money and experienced a world of real life's big-time adventure for a couple years. Sincerely, RR

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I met my wife in a similar way. She would ride her bike as a evening constitutional and I had a similar habit. We kept on bumping into one another until we started to meet on bikes just ride together. It was totally innocent, just a bike companionship that turn into something more.

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"Congestion Pricing" is shorter than saying "This is a city run by Democrats and we've found another way to get more money out of you which we will funnel into our own pockets but tell you it will go to mass transit". Isn't life expensive enough without having another tax levied on our shoulders.

I agree with you GK. Leave it alone, let the congestion do what it does and so be it. What would life in a city be if not for the congestion, the noise and the confusion? This tax will do little to stem the tide of what makes it a city, it will only make it more expensive to be there, go there and do business there. Eventually, this will bite them in the shorts and no one likes their shorts bitten.

Back in the day, I used to train into the city and walk from Grand Central to the Javits center for the Motorcycle Show. I would never take a cab or Uber the distance. How does one experience a city and not walk its streets? You can't get a dirty water dog or pretzel from the back seat of a cab, so why bother?

"Congestion Pricing"..... Laughable.

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Euphemisms such as the term used here can keep the scourge of political blaming

at an odor-free distance not likely to infect others (recently called 'social distancing'),

and add a small taste of poetry to the written word.

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My first wife was in a sorority just two doors away from my fraternity at the University of Minnesota, so a neighbor. But my second and forever wife moved from Omaha to Minneapolis, landing just as my first marriage was ending. She was in a training program where she met a woman who was married to a man I had just met in a therapy group. They then arranged for us to meet. That was 43 years ago. (We were together five years before we were ready to commit again.) So many improbable things had to happen at just the right time for us to find each other. Like firing two pistols and the bullets hitting each other in mid air. Romance, it seems, has infinite ways to germinate.

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I met my future bride in church when on my first time there I noticed the prettiest young woman in the choir loft checking me out. It's been a wonderful and sometimes wild ride from there that's gonna be forty-four years this Friday, May 17th. She's still beautiful, and I'm still lucky!

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Love this

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To each their own. Risking life and limb, only to arrive late at an appointment, and eating in the noisy, polluted street does not sound like my cup of tea. Your description of a "Minnesota State Fair on amphetamines," with all sorts of delicious choices sounds tempting, though. The most exotic food for sale in my hometown is pizza.

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Yes, I get your drift and then some. It was probably a rhetorical question, but I'm compelled to express my outlook on drifts anyways. I find it remarkable the way birds who soar most efficiently, higher, and pleasurably, merely extend their full wing span while facing drifts at the right angle to propel them. They are exemplary at catching the drift.

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Ruth Hallenberg! A name I haven’t heard for decades, but your mention brought back such a vivid memory of her from Anoka Junior high school choir practice. Thank you for that sweet memory! ❤️

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I live in the mountains along the Yellowstone River and it takes me less than five minutes to get from my home to my office. There are occasional car jams (maybe one to three vehicles) due to deer sauntering across the road to get to where the grass is greener. Train tracks bisect the town and separate our neighborhoods into north and south numbered and alphabet streets. We have two train crossings and one underpass to access the south side. If anyone is ever late for anything, we just blame it on the trains. Life is like being at the Minnesota State Fair on cannabis.

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Many years ago, yes, I met a wonderful man at a bus stop. We rode the bus, talked incessantly and were together for 2 years. Incredible really. Sadly, everyone now wears those while buds in their ears which takes them into an alternate place other than where there are. Impossible to strike up a conversation about the Yankees or weather!!

I live in the 70's, own a car and drive our 14 yr old dog to the Vet on 26th street, run many errands downtown and the extra 15.00 or whatever it is is absurd. It is very upsetting. I am a 3rd generation New Yorker and while NYC is in my blood, it's getting harder and harder to reside here, raise a daughter etc etc. But where to go? Nowhere. That's the thing!!

Keep strong and good luck with your book. Did I see you at Kossars o 72/WEA? If you have the biale, splurge and have it with toasted with butter. Much better that way!!

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I lived in Manhattan for a few years. I even owned a car while there and drove to work (in Manhattan). I am happy to no longer live there.

If you put a gun to my head and told me to drive into Manhattan, I would have to think about it. Enjoy the congestion.

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Maybe a small village in Europe?

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