As someone who has raised chickens, almost certainly, if the hen was under a bush, she had a nest hidden there.
4
@Eli
I thought the same myself. And a possibly abandoned cache of eggs.
Did the hen ask for relocation?
2
I was once sitting behind a pickup truck in traffic on the Staten Island Expressway. Chickens slowly made their way out of the bed of the truck and right onto the highway. A young Hasidic man jumped out of the driver's side and, one by one, scooped up each chicken and deposited it back into the truck bed. The poor chickens were en route to a less fortuitous end then our hen friend. It was the Kapparot--the eve of Yom Kippur--on which chickens are swung by their necks in prayer.
I admired their escape attempt.
1
Wishing all a happy first day of summer and a good and relaxing weekend.
Enjoy!
Allen
9
@Allen J. Share
O Allen, It seems your good wishes to all for a wonderful summer weekend have taken wings--possibly literally. And all connected to both our wandering hen in Riverside Park and her NYT "patroness," the lovely ballerina Cate Morris Leach.
On Saturday night my husband and I had the magical experience of seeing Misty Copeland dance Manon. To move so fluidly, simply defying gravity--Is she a floating swan or a hummingbird or a gauzy moth or a dragonfly lighting for the briefest of instants on a flower. Or all of these.... Pavlova must have danced this way.
Then today, when I should have been running down the beach, I sat with waves gently breaking nearby reading in this very newspaper of the delightful Mon. Maurice le Coq, a rooster of France, who has been taken to court where he is being sued by nearby "Cruella" condo-owner vacationers who object to his crowing twice every morning at ~6:00 AM!! All of France, it seems, is in a uproar over this!! Of course all Met Diary readers know which side to root for in this altercation.
But you can read about it all at this link. Should Maurice ever decide to visit our shores, thanks to Ms. Leach we all know where a beautiful hen resides in Riverside Park just waiting to be introduced!! Perhaps a beautiful love story will unfold.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/23/world/europe/france-rural-urban-rooster.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=World
Best to all,
Elissa
5
I am glad the chicken did not meet one of its obvious ends...outside of NY, especially rural the chances of its survival is probably close to zero.
5
I just reread this week’s five entries and they bring much joy. Lou Craft’s utterly delightful ode to Jewish delicacies is up there with his very best, and I can see the big grin on the boy’s face as he proudly holds up his book (replacing a Nook?) for Vicky Schippers to see. Isabel Hoth on hand to observe the swapping of the little girl in the stroller and the dog. Isabel—I keep imagining this switch being done at the pediatrician’s office, in restaurants, and in pre-school. And Cate Morris Leach and her father finding a red hen and THEN finding a policeman who had a hen house at his home in Queens. So many charming and amusing images here.
The only rather sad ruminations come contemplating those Selin Thomas saw from her Harlem window towards the late afternoon. The couple fighting in the park—one assumes (and hopes) they were engaged in a verbal argument of some kind. The painter unlocking his bicycle beside his burned, boarded-up house. Where was he living? And the man in the faded, rumpled, and baggy suit staring down as he cut across the park at a quarter-to-six “each day for years”—until the day he simply vanished. And I wonder, together with the Diarist, what happened to this nameless man who was “mostly indistinguishable from any other man.”
9
Dear Allen,
It occurred to me that the man crossing every day at 5:45 p.m. could be the “Most Peculiar Man” from Simon & Garfunkel’s 1966 album “The Sounds of Silence.”
(“And Mrs. Riordan says he has a brother somewhere, who should be notified soon.”)
Where is “somewhere”?
And who will notify the brother?
Sad but beautiful song. Many of us listened to it so many times that we knew it by heart. And we’d go on about our lives and we’d see many “most peculiar men” (and women) wandering on the sidewalks.
(“And all the people said, ‘What a shame that he's dead,
But wasn't he a most peculiar man?’”)
Dean
8
@Dean
Dean, you're right in labeling the My Harlem Window entry a beautiful, elegiac love song with laughter in their tears of all the living creatures of that street--human, canine, avian... The capsules we get of their lives from the very brief but concise words of Selin Thomas sound so very much like a track from Sounds of Silence. We might call it The Urban Blues.
And the illustration--well it just encapsules an entire world in its lovely, simple pictures. I love it!!
Elissa
9
Dear Dean,
Oh yes, a very haunting song for a very haunting image.
Thinking of “The Sounds of Silence” takes me back as well to the film it served during the opening credits, “The Graduate.” The late sociologist Philip Slater has a fascinating analysis of the film in his 1970 book “The Pursuit of Loneliness: American Culture at the Breaking Point.”
Slater argues that the scene at the climax of the film during which Benjamin wields a large metal crucifix to fend off the pursuers and then to bar the church doors behind them has two metaphorical meanings. First, by appropriating it Benjamin transforms it back into a symbol of true feeling and real emotion rather than one reflecting stale convention and hollow ritual.
And second, the crucifix has traditionally been used to ward off vampires, and the adults in the film are nothing if not vampiresque, feeding their pale and empty lives by living vicariously through their children. In Slater’s view, Mrs. Robinson is the quintessential vampire.
My favorite exchange involves just six words and also comes at the end of the film. Mrs. Robinson, grabbing Elaine as her daughter starts to go to Ben, says “It’s too late,” meaning the wedding ceremony is over. Elaine’s wonderful replay: “Not for me!”
Stay well Dean. To quote one last lyric that comes to mind when I see your postings: “It’s so nice to have you back where you belong.”
Allen
10
When I was growing up my mother brought home a live duck. We fed and played with it all week. That weekend my grandfather took the duck to the basement and that night we had pan roasted duck for dinner.
None of us kids would eat it.
15
Just getting to read this lovely and uplifting set of vignettes now--each one a sheer delight.
Lou Craft--You did write your "Peon to Greengrass" set to the tune of the raucous sailors' number "We Ain't Got Dames!!" from South Pacific, yes?? The first 3 stanzas follow the Rodgers and Hammerstein rhythm and melody exactly!!
Elissa
6
I think it’s “There Ain’t Nothing Like a Dame!”
2
@Pam B
Hi Pam,
Currently, it's listed officially as "There is Nothin' Like a Dame" --the first line of the repetitive chorus.
I remember being terribly sick at age 5 or 6 with the measles, a dangerously high fever, and having ice cold compresses on my forehead as I slipped in and out of consciousness. "Keep her awake as much as possible" the doctor had said. So my mother kept me downstairs all day lying on a sofa next to the RCA console with a tv, radio, and both short (45 rpm) and long-playing phonographs blaring the soundtracks from both Oklahoma and South Pacific all day long. I think I can still recite the entire libretto from each show!!
Elissa
8
When I was in high school I was the promoter for Oklahoma play, so, yes I too can recite all. And my mother was obsessed with it, after a couple of cocktails, we all had to hear it again! I loved South Pacific and watched the movie often. My dad liked that one, he was in the South Pacific in WWII. And he loved music, bought the first “hi fi” in our little town!
7
The dog in the stroller reminds me of the fine day in Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard, having sailed in for a Labor Day weekend, when my now husband and I decided on a whim to get married, no one was invited. Walking to the clerk’s office to get the license, we encountered a woman with a perky little black and white dog in a stroller. I took a picture. Later I told everyone that was my maid of honor!
13
Pam,
Sweet! How wonderful.
4
How sweet, I’m glad you can still find live chicken in Central Park.
4
I love reading the comments as much as the diary entries. You all made me smile. Thanks.
25
When I was in New York, the only chickens I saw - live, that is - were in the live-poultry store in Chinatown, or maybe it's Little Italy. I'm not sure where the dividing line is.
Go in...zip-zip-zip...and you've got a fresh chicken! I didn't know they did something like this in the big city.
3
@Omar Temperley - yikes, and I thought it was bad enough for me when I ordered a shrimp dish in London and they served them with the heads still on! The rest of the group shared my shrimp dish and I ordered something else.
I do enjoy Chinatown and especially window shop when on a long lunch break during jury duty - I think I'll avoid the live poultry shop!
2
Chicken in the park! Wonderful. wonderful.
16
Would the Law and Order actress be one Ms. Alice Connorton, with the long red tresses? Underused and undervalued in the thespian world, she deserves and has earned more roles.
6
"I found a paper bag in the trash and we coerced the bird into it."
Coerced?
I have very little personal experience with chickens, but are they like cats in this regard?
7
@wquinlan No they are not. I've been the owner of quite a few chickens over the past 26.5 years...
3
@wquinlan
I have a lot of experience with chickens, and mine can't be coerced to do anything. I could just imagine their suspicion if I turned up with a paper bag in hand!
9
Isabel Hoth - Perfection.
4
So glad the hen was saved!
No, not just because hens are cute (not especially!) and all that, but because it is, like us, an animal that feels pain, hunger, and fear.
19
Wonderful illustrations.
14
Oh my, I’m still chuckling minutes later about that last story - picturing the mother switching out the dog and the toddler in the stroller. And the chicken story! What a perfect ending for that little red hen.
The free gifts from the universe are the best. Vignettes unfold wherever you live! Just keep your eyes open.
24
Isabel Hoth - lovely!
...and immediately I thought of that lady of the Nile...
2
Wonderful stories today - special thanks to Mr. Craft for his wonderful craft, and to New York City's finest for rescuing the little red hen who needed his help.
19
With today's stories, I imagined the views from that Harlem window, so different from my own .I love that specificity about the planes heading West and South, the regular cast waling by.
Then Greengrass for a nosh; Window Seat had me sharing a little grin with the boy in the window.
By the end of Strolling the smile had taken over my face.
The power of Metropolitan Diary!
42
Selin Thomas - thank you, thank you, thank you. This is such a evocative diary entry. Makes me wish I was able to fly over there now.
23
The headline immediately reminded me of The Stairway to Heaven lyric, “If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now/It’s just a spring clean for the May queen”
25
Good entries!!
14
@AJ
Hello, AJ! I like all these entries as well--and especially like to read all the comments each week. It is also fun to know another person in Tennessee agrees!
4
Dunno about "My Harlem Window", but that's probably because I look out my window(s) and see the coastal range, trees, clouds and the Pacific Ocean. The ocean I can sometimes hear.
But, then again, I don't have life access to the Met...
14
Dear HapinOregon,
Did you mean the art museum or the opera company, or perhaps both? Access to these wonderful institutions would certainly be a blessing, as would the beautiful views—and sounds—you enjoy from your home. Perhaps the best would be being able to divide one’s time in such a way as to be able to enjoy both.
Stay well and enjoy the scenic beauties about you.
Allen
35
About twenty years ago, I found a rooster in Fort Tryon Park. That's unexpected.
21
@Sarid 18
All these stories about finding chickens reminded me of an auto trip to Bear Mountain Park in the late 60's. My wife and I noticed a chicken (also red) tied with a ribbon to a tree in the woods. There were pennies scattered on the ground nearby. There were other ribbons on its other leg. We thought this must be some voodoo ritual and put the chicken in a cardboard box we found in a trash bin.
Nobody wanted the chicken. Even friends in Westchester who had lots of land.
Back in Manhattan, we stopped at the ASPCA shelter and left it off. The attendant eyed it hungrily. We thought (guiltily): that's probably every chicken's destiny.
11
Love these stories! Poignant, humorous, joyful. And poetic. Thank you.
46
A splendid set of Diary entries to begin the new week, altogether delightful to read, reread, and contemplate.
The two entries about gazing out the window, especially Selin Thomas’s account of the passing hours and what they brought, made me think of Jane Jacobs’s landmark 1961 book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” and the many ways in which the urban renewal gurus of that era neither understood let alone valued the life and vitality in New York’s traditional neighborhoods and blocks.
And Lou Craft’s marvelously inventive ode to Barney Greengrass is pure and utter joy. It highlights all of the basic food groups in one delectable recipe for happy dining. A dollop of sour cream should tame those rambunctious latkes just enough to devour them. A toast to you Lou Craft—with a bottle of Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray Tonic and a large hunk of chocolate covered halavah.
38
@Allen J. Share
Dear Allen from Inwood,
I’m replying to your comment from last week about your trips from Inwood to Sea Gate when you were a boy and about your visits with your Uncle Aaron and Aunt Lachie. I picture you in the back of Uncle Aaron’s big car, perhaps a 1950 Buick, with your fingers stained pink from the pistachio nuts.
I would wager that many of us have, or had, an Uncle Aaron and an Aunt Lachie. In my case, it was Uncle Isaac and Aunt Ninny. Aunt Ninny’s real name was Jinny, but one of my cousins, as a baby learning to talk, could not pronounce "Jinny." And so it was: "Aunt Jinny" became "Aunt Ninny." That’s what we called her when we were kids. She seemed to like it.
When I was a boy, two of my cousins and I would pack into Uncle Isaac’s big old Chevrolet on a Sunday morning in the summer. We would drive to a nearby lake that was well stocked with fish. Aunt Ninny and one of the cousins would get a wood fire going beside a picnic table while Uncle Isaac and my cousin Jimmy and I would go fishing out in a rowboat. We always caught some fish. We’d come back to shore, and Uncle Isaac would clean the fish while Aunt Ninny made bacon and eggs and pancakes in a cast-iron skillet over the wood fire. Then she would fry the fish that Uncle Isaac had cleaned. We were always so stuffed that we could hardly fit back into the Chevrolet for the trip home.
I haven’t thought about that in years. Thanks for the memories, Allen!
Cheers!
Dean from CT
49
Dear Dean,
What a lovely memory of those Sunday outings with your aunt and uncle and your cousins. I loved the story of how your Aunt “Ninny” got her funny nickname. It reminded me of a book I read years ago by Lauren Kessler entitled “Stubborn Twig” about three generations in the life of Masuo Yasui’s family in Hood River, Oregon. When I had heard references to “Uncle Datso” in the beautiful film about her family that Lise Yasui crafted I always thought that was his Japanese name. Then while reading the book I discovered that he had been given that nickname because whenever someone said something that interested him in conversation he would always reply “is dat so?”
Like many New Yorkers, especially in the era we were growing up, neither of my parents ever learned to drive so cars always held a special fascination for me. Several years ago I astonished my Cousin Harvey when I told him that I remembered the pink Plymouth he would pick us up in during the mid-fifties that had, in place of the gear shift lever attached to the steering column, a set of push buttons on the dashboard. Isn’t it amazing how certain memories remain so vivid after more than a half-century?
But one thing I have never done is to go fishing, unless you count the tiny fish that swam into my little wire mesh basket down at what we always called the Yacht Basin in Inwood Park when I was in grade school, connected to one of my classes at PS 98.
Stay well Dean, and thanks for the memories.
Allen
34
"Chicken in the Park" reminds me of the old sea chantey titled "Chicken on a Raft." I think that the chances of finding a chicken in either place are equal.
Two of today's Diary entries feature views from windows with great illustrations by Agnes Lee. I spent about five minutes looking at her illustration for "My Harlem Window." She managed to capture almost every person, animal, and object mentioned in the entry. Wonderful.
I read Lou Craft’s song about Barney Greengrass ten or eleven times. I call it a "song" because it has a rhythm and a rhyme that that want to be set to music. And then there’s "borscht" rhyming with "courscht." I’m still smiling.
And finally, there’s "Strolling," where the dog replaces the little girl in the stroller. I’d love to say, "Only in New York," but I would add, "Also in New Haven."
The Metropolitan Diary is a fine way to begin each week. It makes the rest of the news manageable. (Almost!)
58
@Dean:
my guess was that the dog owner knew he was old and getting tired.....
15
Today’s Diary is magical! Great to see Lou Craft is back with more unctuous, rambunctious rhymes! Today’s is a gem.
Also charmed by the stroller swap, the Chicken Escapée (Agnes Lee almost fooled me that it was a peacock), and the two window stories looking out at each other from Brooklyn Heights to Harlem.
Today is the perfect day to enjoy the paper over a glass of borscht and hot buttered pumpernickel toast. Thank you, Metro Diary, for the hearty nosh.
53
@Paul Klenk
"enjoy the paper over a glass of borscht " - can't beet that!
And Lou Craft's poem is particularly hitting the spot this morning. I was thinking I'd love a book or e-book of his Diary entries, but then I realized a simple search got that for me. For all we (or at least I) kvetch about technology's demands and bad aspects, sometimes it delivers what we want in seconds.
31
@Freddie
" - can't beet that!"
:)
23
Hi Freddie,
I love your singular off-beet sense of humor.
Thanks for all the smiles and enjoy a great week.
Allen
24
Indeed. The best way to while away a rainy day is to read a book on a widow seat...
31
@yl -
Is that anything like a widow's walk? :-)
16
Joan P, no.
4