Two years ago today on the Taconic State Parkway in Westchester County, New York, a woman under the influence of drugs and alcohol drove the wrong way and wiped out eight lives, including her own, when she collided head on with a car going the right way. Her husband has been in denial ever since, refusing to accept the toxicology reports. He is suing the owner of the car, a relative he deems responsible for allowing his wife to drive, and the family of the driver of the other vehicle, who he claims was driving recklessly. I don't like to make broad generalizations about our vast society, but sometimes it's hard not to. So many are infected with a sense of entitlement and a lack of responsibility that is downright scary. I think of it as the "culture of gimme." I don't understand how a suit was even allowed to begin against the other driver, who was killed along with his two passengers, even if he was speeding, which many of us do. He was guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What a farce.
Switching gears completely, I had a nice surprise today. A gentleman who has passed the floating bookshop countless times stopped and asked: "Did you go to Lafayette?" I looked him in the eye and told him my name. "I knew you looked familiar," he said. When Frank told me his name I had to look deep past the glasses and receding hairline to find the handsome face I hadn't seen in more than 40 years. He used to hang out in the schoolyard of P.S. 97, in what we referred to as the West Streets. Many of his friends were classmates of mine at St. Mary's Elementary School. I rattled off names we had in common. Our groups had played softball against each other. Their leader, Ronnie, was killed in action in Vietnam. Frank spent 1969 there, and when he came home it seemed all his friends had moved away. We knew the whereabouts of only one. Frank is a retired postman and lives in the same complex I do, two buildings over. I was so happy he spoke up. I would never have recognized him.
Thanks to the kind folks who purchased books the past two days and to the folks at Ipsos surveys for the check, which will begin defraying the biggest expense of the year - the car insurance bill. Also thanks to our stellar porter, Frankie, who gave me a box of books a former tenant left behind. Gracias, amigo.
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