1. The torque of the tire that I had replaced on Thursday needed to be rechecked, so I buzzed the Sube over to the Nanuet Costco Tire Center where there was no line and Quincy got the job going right away and the job was completed in no time. I celebrated the quick work by going into the Costco Wholesale store and buying two cases of Polar seltzer water.
2. I piled the Polar and myself back into the Sube and hurtled across the Hudson River and the Tappan Zee Bridge to the Tarrytown train station and leaped on a train headed to Grand Central Terminal. Upon arrival, I took a second to soak in all the activity at Grand Central and to admire the grandeur of the place. I strode out the door and headed south on Lexington and dropped into Zucker's Bagels and Smoked Fish, here, for a Zucker's Traditional: a toasted bagel sandwich featuring Nova Scotia salmon, plain cream cheese, beefsteak tomatoes, red onion, and capers.
Properly nourished, I walked south on Lexington to 34th St., headed west to 5th Ave., admired the Empire State Building, and strolled south on 5th for about twenty-five blocks to Washington Square Park and sat for a while on a bench and surveyed the throngs of relaxed people enjoying the mild weather, being guided on walking tours, laughing at the entertainment of a couple of magicians, and soaking up the music of buskers, among other things.
I would have camped in Washington Park Square for a long time, but more urgent business lay ahead. It was almost beer o'clock.
3. If it's beer o'clock in Manhattan, especially in the West Village, East Village, or the Lower East Side, chances are good that I'm meeting up somewhere with Scott Shirk.
That was, indeed, the case today.
Scott took the train from Brooklyn and we met at the Blind Tiger Ale House on Bleeker Street, a rustic pub famous for its devotion to craft beers. Scott and I found a table against a wall and we had a couple of rounds of Victory's superb Dirt Wolf Double IPA. I don't think I'd quaffed a Dirt Wolf since March when Ed, Mike, and I bellied up to the bar at O'Hara's Irish Pub in the shadow of the One World Trade Center.
Scott and my conversation was wide-ranging: The Band, Richard Manuel, the gig Scott played last night, Apocalypse Now, other movies from forty years ago, Julie and Curtis' wedding, King Lear, and on and on.
Soon, though, it was time to head from the West Village to the East Village. We stopped for a listen to a jazz quartet made up of Japanese men in their twenties -- a great sound -- and made a quick stop at a street fair to look at some record albums and to eat a quick chicken empanada at a Puerto Rican booth.
Our plan was to descend underground into the grotto known as Jimmy's No. 43, but, alas, Jimmy'd gone fishing and so we opted for a dive bar, also beneath street level, the unpretentious Grassroots. We sat down at the bar on chairs whose stuffing was falling out and ordered up Black and Tans blending Bass Ale and Guinness and continued to talk about Shakespeare, Kellogg's Inland Lounge and the Broken Wheel (maybe that was at Blind Tiger -- but who's keeping score?!), more movies, death, and more of everything until it was time to stagger out and direct me to the right train to get back to Grand Central. I arrived at Grand Central, immediately found the track for the train back to Tarrytown, and returned to Nyack.
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