An addendum to this morning's blog: New York

So here I am in Manhattan, and apparently able to write and send my blog.  The trip up, apart from some significant turbulence which continued until we touched ground, bounced a bit somewhat crazily and came to a halt, was routine, the walk from the gate to the skytrain exhausting because I was carrying a heavily laden--with all my paper files, etc.--briefcase on a shoulder strap, as well as an overnight bag with various electronic bits and pieces plus the pharmacy that defines my robust dotage.  The hour long ride on the A train to Columbus Circle is oh, so convenient, but oh, so interminable at the end of a flight.  I was interested in my reaction as the train filled up from stop to stop almost entirely with African-Americans.  After living in the de facto apartheid that marks Sarasota I was so intensely aware of the black faces that surrounded me, and embarrassed by the fact that almost until the train came to Manhattan the seat next to me remained unoccupied in a very crowded train.  A day spent on the streets of Manhattan restored me to a sane perspective, a reminder that most people are young, that the future belongs to those who mingle racially, that young gay men wear the greatest color combinations, dashing hats, and are proud of their dashing get-up, that I had forgotten how to maneuver briskly on a crowded sidewalk, that the immense baby carriages of all the young couples are here to trip up and send into oblivion all the old people living too long on their entitlements, that people are slim and beautiful and excited in Manhattan, that there are lots of well to do blacks, that the range of combinations of obviously sexually engaged persons is endless.  A visit to the International Center for Photography on 43rd and 6th to see Roman Vishniac's superlative photographs of the vanished world of Eastern European Jews and their village life reminded me intensely of the New York I first knew in the late forties, the city populated with those who had fled the horror of Europe, middle aged women in fedoras sat drinking "Kafe mit Schlag" in every corner shop, when I knew for sure that I wasn't in Iowa anymore.