Victor Kerlow

Dear Diary:

Last summer during a hot midday stroll on Eighth Avenue from Columbus Circle to 57th Street, I decided to count the coins in my trouser pocket. I took out a handful and started counting them, when one dropped to the sidewalk.

Amid the lunchtime crowd streaming past me, I crouched on the sidewalk and picked up the coin. I was about to get up when I noticed a pair of women’s shoes pointing directly at me. A sharp New York voice, accented just like mine, announced as if in awe, “At last I found someone in this city bending down to pick up a penny off the sidewalk.”

I looked up to discover a fashionably dressed woman, perhaps in her 60s. I had the coin in my hand and, showing it to her, admitted, “It’s a quarter, not a penny.”

A moment of dead silence while she stared at the coin.

“Well,” she snapped, “that doesn’t count, does it!” and stormed off across town.

I rose, quarter in hand. Then I began wondering:

When was the last time I had seen anyone in this city picking up a penny in the street?

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