Today I’d planned to write about the 200th anniversary of the Brooklyn Museum, the trove of treasures from every era and inch of human creativity, but, alas, I slipped on some ice and took a tumble on the subway steps at Grand Central on the way. Nothing broken but not because I was suddenly balletic. I was dressed like a Vermonter, wrapped in more layers than an Egyptian mummy. As I walked down the steps, gingerly, I’ll note, I thought about my three church friends who’ve fallen this winter, and in a second or two I joined their hobbling ranks. “Go figure,” as they say in Brooklyn.
New Yorkers are unusually good in a crisis like this. Strangers helped me up, sat me down, and gathered what fell from my book bag, which is really a man bag. I started carrying one a few years ago. Hand sanitizer, my date book, a bottle of Perrier, moisturizer, lip balm, tissues, a bottle of Tylenol, which I’d need, spare glasses, and pens galore had scattered. I wish I could say I carried a copy of National Review. I did have the latest catalogue from the silver dealer S.J. Shrubsole. I was thankful for that small bit of grace. Shrubsole is a classy place. I thought, “At least no one can say I’m a bumpkin,” though I surely looked like a derelict one. No need to call 911, though people were willing to do it. If I’d fallen in Boston, I would have been mugged.
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