The Six-Minute Memoir: Fifty-Five Short Essays on Life by Mary Helen Stefaniak

Author:Mary Helen Stefaniak
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

TRAVELS

I LOVE NEW YORK

A Cornhusking, Cheese-Headed Hawkeye Bites the Big Apple

MAY 2001

Until recently, I guess I had a midwesterner’s idea of New York City. It was a cold, indifferent place, where faceless millions prey upon each other in their struggle to survive. Although I personally knew two New Yorkers who did not fit this profile, I assumed they were exceptions to the rule.

What can I say? I’m a midwesterner, no matter how you look at it. I was born in Wisconsin, and grew up there, raised my children in Iowa City, and now I teach in Omaha, Nebraska. When I was asked to speak at a conference at Columbia University in March of 2001, I almost said no, daunted by the thought of being alone in New York City.

My New York experience began with my Chicago-to-LaGuardia flight, which was cancelled. This, I learned, was very New York, very LaGuardia. I bounced from gate to gate in search of another flight, worked my way from the bottom to very near the top of two different stand-by lists, and finally got a seat on a three o’clock flight that was cleared to take off at 4:30. On this flight, at 4:30, a speaker crackled and the pilot said, “Folks, there’s no good way to tell you this.” Something hydraulic was broken, and we had to return to the terminal instead of taking off.

While passengers up and down the aisles groaned about yet another delay, I met my first New Yorker of the trip. Joseph Levy, a hardware store impresario from Brooklyn, who had the window seat beside me, turned to me and said, “Better they should find it now than later.”

I agreed, heartily.

Next, Joseph Levy reached down and plucked a plastic grocery store sack from the big nylon gym bag open at his feet. “A long time we’ve been on this plane already,” he said. “My wife and my mother both make food for me.” He hefted the sack. “It’s too much. I can’t eat it all. Here, if you get hungry, it’s yours.”

I wondered politely if food would be served on the flight.

“Oh,” he said, “I don’t eat that airplane food. I’ve been to the plant. Here, take something. I got candy—you’re sure you don’t want anything? If you get hungry, don’t even ask. Don’t ask. Just help yourself. Just like you’re at home. Better you should eat it, and I don’t make my teeth any worse than they already are.”

He smiled broadly.

I tried to think of what ulterior motive Joseph Levy might have for offering candy to a stranger like me, but everything about him pointed to simple generosity. He discreetly made use of his cell phone while I rummaged through the sack. Once I’d found my candy bar, he flipped the phone shut and asked me if I’d ever heard of “Darattzappa.” I hadn’t. He said he’d just come from selling a pile of them in Milwaukee yesterday. I said I was from Milwaukee.

“No!” he said. “Really?”

He reached again

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