This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 8:17 pm and is filed under Spaziergänger in NYC by Werner Schmidt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
A Walker with a Mission
Most Germans, like most Americans, have two legs. Germans use their legs for lots of fun things, like playing soccer, or pushing the gas pedals of their Porsches. But most of the time, though, they utilize their legs to walk from point A to point B. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well, it isn’t.
The German writer Kurt Tucholsky once observed that German drivers do not use their cars to just get from here to there. They drive in order to teach other motorists a lesson about proper driving. German pedestrians are even worse. You don’t believe me? Why don’t you ask the chauffeur of the white stretch limo who tried to make a turn from 48th Street while I was exercising my inalienable right to cross Second Avenue when the sign says “Walk”? That made quite a sound when I threw my attaché case squarely on the hood of his Town Car. Or the frenzied, cell-phoning mother on Broadway and 96th Street, running a red light while rushing her daughter to school. Sure, my foot hurt afterwards, but what a kick her minivan got!
Those were the olden days, when I was fresh off the boat and had not yet given up on educating my fellow New Yorkers. But the longer I have lived in the City, the more I have mellowed.
I realized how placid I had become one recent, unexpectedly balmy afternoon, when 42nd Street was all bathed in golden sunlight. I was strolling home from a good day at work. Munching on an apple, I was crossing Second Avenue, when a cab, not without elegance, forced its way slaloming through the pedestrians, the cabbie visibly proud of his driving skills, his arm dangling out of the rolled-down window. All of a sudden the apple in my hand became agitated.
“Look at this Knallkopf,” my apple yelled at me, “why don’t you throw me through the open window and hit this Rindviech on the head? That’ll show him. If everybody drove like that, this town would go to hell! Who does this Depp think he is?”
“And who do you think you are?” I replied. “You are a perfectly juicy Macintosh from upstate, so don’t start acting like a German Boskoop.”
“I know,” the apple grinned broadly. “This was just a test. You’ve lived here for how many years now? Slow down for a second, so you won’t get run over, and then eat me all up.”
And that’s what I did.
January 10th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
Finding the right site…
I guess I am growing tired of the same old type of sites that have boring cams. They seem to have the same old ugly girl doing nothing and just taking money from everyone. I know a lot of people that have sites put up these affiliates and I do myself …