A Man from Yonkers

He was sitting across from me at the doctor's office. Perhaps 10 years younger than I, he looked as if he might be a retired banker, although he was reading the Post rather than the Times or the Wall Street Journal. A tall, trim, good-looking man, he boasted a full head of white hair, and his shoes, which were beautifully shined, looked expensive. We had to leave the office at the same time, and as walked together out onto the street and towards our respective subway stations at Columbus Circle we struck up a conversation.

We agreed in praising our doctor for his patience, kindness, and good humor. As my companion spoke I concluded that banking was an unlikely profession for someone with his accent, which seemed to me to be uneducated. He lives in Yonkers, he said, in the cooperative apartment that he and his mother had shared until her death. He wears no wedding band, so I guessed that he's probably a life-long bachelor. Indeed, although he's not at all effeminate, he exhibits the slight fussiness that's seen in many men who have never married.

Perhaps he's lonely. At any rate, he kept up an almost continuous stream of chatter, as I said very little, maintaining eye contact, nodding and inserting an occasional comment to show that I understood what he was saying. He seemed grateful for an attentive listener.

Among the facts I learned about him are that he avoids sodium, especially as found in processed foods, but that he makes one exception. He cannot eat corn on the cob without salt. We discussed healthy eating, ending that topic when he asserted that no matter what he ate, when the Lord was ready to take him, he'd have to go. He seems to be doing his best, however, to help the Lord postpone that invitation, since he doesn't smoke, avoids fatty meats and sodium (except for corn on the cob), and, judging from the absence of visible small veins on and around his nose, doesn't drink heavily.

He's an enthusiastic Yankees fan and used to attend lots of ball games with his friends. Nowadays, though, he wouldn't dream of attending a game because of what he views as the exorbitant cost of a ticket. That's bad enough, he said, but you can no longer bring food or drink into the stadium, leaving you at the mercy of ridiculous prices for a hot dog and beer. Seats used to be inexpensive enough that whole families would attend games together, he told me, and they'd bring a full picnic hamper with them. Now he only watches the games on television. He didn't seem optimistic that the Yankees would win the pennant, although if they managed to win the next two games, they'd have done it once again.

"Do you remember Phil Rizzuto?" he asked. "Sure," I said, not telling him that I knew only that he was an old-time baseball player, but that I had no idea what he team he'd played for. (Later, a Google search told me that he was an outstanding Yankee short stop in the '40s and '50s.) His salary was only $35,000, my friend told me. We agreed that $35,000 was not a shabby salary in the '40s and '50s, but that even if you multiplied it by 10, it would represent small change for today's millionaire major league players. We both thought this crazy.

We had been chatting as we walked up 59th Street and were now on the corner of Ninth Avenue, where we stopped. I knew he had to cross the avenue in order to reach his subway at Columbus Circle, but he made no move to do so. He continued to talk. Finally, eager to avoid the subway rush hour, I asked him if he was going to cross the street. We crossed together, but before I could say something to end the conversation in a way that would not hurt his feelings, he said that he wouldn't keep me much longer, but that he had to tell me a story.

When he was younger, he said, he had some friends who were Giants fans. Once these friends went to Ebbets Field to watch the Giants play the Dodgers. His friends were only a few blocks from the field, but they didn't know how to reach it. They approached a policeman and asked for directions. "Who are you rooting for?" he asked. Later they realized that it was a mistake to have told him, because he sent them in the wrong direction, taking them out of their way by one or two miles.

But even after telling me that story, he did not stop talking. He continued to touch on a miscellaneous array of topics for at least another five minutes. I could see that he was reluctant to lose a good listener, and I was curious how long he could keep up his stream of talk, but I didn't want to get home late, and so I told him (truthfully) how much I had enjoyed talking to him, and then we both said goodbye and wished each other good luck.