One of my many lowly paid correspondents is Lil’
Tone, valuable because he is well-traveled, with an eye for the unusual and an ear
for the peculiar.
We are all about unusual and peculiar. It’s our
bread and butter, our burger and fries, our Haggard and Jones.
He has reported from Yankee Stadium on A-Rod’s 600th
homer – “100 percent prima donna,” reported Lil’ Tone, who is nonetheless a fan
of the Bronx Bombers – but he is just as apt to record show-stopping events at
the Love’s in Minden. I would recount here, except it can only be appreciated
audibly.
“That little encounter makes an episode of ‘Swamp
People’ look like “Downton Abby,’” he said. “Only in Louisiana.”
A man of the people, Lil’ Tone is.
But what I wanted to tell you about today was yet
another trip he took to The Big Apple this very summer. North Louisiana born
and bred, Lil’ Tone married above his raising and latched onto a big-city
Tallulah girl who knows the ins and outs of life in the passing lane. If she
doesn’t know where it’s at in New York City, it’s not worth going to.
I would love to make this trip someday with Mr. and
Mrs. Lil’ Tone, sort of be the groomed Chihuahua in their Prada tote. From
their Gotham Central base around West 57th Street, they walked
through Central Park daily for the usual “language salad.” Lingered at the
Museum of Modern Art and a photo exhibit at the Guggenheim. Dined at Gramercy
Tavern and also at an Italian place of food and fun in the West Village. Saw
Phillip Seymour Hoffman in “Death of a Salesman.”
Sweet.
But no matter how big the town, it’s still made up
of individual people, one at a time. In the middle of the masses are the
moments, played out in different venues the world over, familiar reminders that
the intimate world will forever turn one touch at a time.
“Monday night we went to this
restaurant where I ordered a hamburger,” Lil’ said. “Instead of bacon, it had a
piece of pork belly topside. No A-1 in sight but still pretty dang good.
“Then
last night we went to Carnegie Hall to hear a pianist named Lang Lang. Yes, I
certainly could make a lot of jokes about his name but they would all be lame
lame. Suffice it to say that my wife and her piano buds have been hopping on
one foot about this concert. The rest of her posse heard it over the internet
while we we were rockin' the house inside ‘The Hall.’ It really was pretty
spectacular and my betrothed got teary-eyed more than once during the concert. He
played two encores and folks in the joint were quite festive.
“But
in the middle of all that, a little episode that caught our eye right near us
was this little girl who was about 7 or 8. Every so often, she would put her
arm behind her seat and hold the hand for a while of this little old hunched
over lady sitting behind her. We supposed it was her grandmother or even
great-grandmother. She would hold her hand for a while and then take it back. It
seemed to be an effort for the little old lady to reach up and hold that little
girl's hand, but she did it quietly and willingly each time. Small thing in the
middle of the Naked City but a reminder of many things for me.”
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