Licked by those hungry hounds, the East and Hudson rivers, Manhattan stands tall in square-toed boots....great gift my imagination...something my father had little of, although he once had a house built with the back facing the street. One was supposed to drive around to the front. No one ever did. Imagination.

I escorted my friend Chris to the hospital for some routine work yesterday. She tells me of being as a small child, at the Hindenburg blimp disaster. She sid it happened in seconds and that she thought the people were in the balloon part of the airship.

Later, when taken to the movies, a newsreel showed the disaster again and she dove under the seat thinking the newsreel was real. She thought movies real too and refused to go to them. Later at the opera, when the heroine died, she dove under the seat again and was startled when the heroine came out, after the opera, and bowed.

I didn't think to tell her that when my mother,sister and I went to see the movie Snow White I dove under the seat when the witch appeared. My mother yanked me up. It was my first lesson.

Chris also seen a small plane hit the Empire State building and she saw one of the twin towers fall on 9/11. We share a love of Enzio Pinza who she first heard at the La Boheme performance and who I heard on a soundtrack of South Pacific.

I would like to recall that I sang "Some Enchanted Evening" while on the farm while plucking chickens but I don't think I did. Father had the baseball bat and I didn't trust his temper. I did sing that song and I sang too the title song from "Oklahoma." My father liked Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald. Now there was chicken plucking music if I ever hear it.