Click his tootsies!
Viking Kitty is calling for monthly donors!
Donate monthly and help to end FReepathons
Sponsors will yack up $10
every time a new monthly donor signs up
Posted on 04/16/2012 6:24:43 AM PDT by Former Fetus
Alma Hoyt paced back and forth on the sidewalk opposite 222 Central Park West, shifting the bulky parcel under her arm. In this classy upper Manhattan district, the names on the mansions were synonymous with New York City's famous cultural institutions and foundations -- Astor, Guggenheim, Huntington-Hartford, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt --- and the smell of "old money" hovered like a hot-air balloon over the clean, well-kept streets.
Gone were the horse-drawn coaches and sputtering motor cars of a quarter of a century earlier, but the sights of Alma's youth passed before her eyes like flickering images in a nickelodeon. Governesses in long black coats and veiled hats wheeled lace-trimmed baby buggies across the broad avenue and down the flower-bordered lanes of Central Park. Red-jacketed riders with high-gloss boots and pale jodhpurs sat astride their chestnut and palomino mounts, clip-clopping along the cobblestones from the stables behind the brownstones towards the Bridle Path. And little boys in short pants and girls in ruffled pinafores licked All-Day Suckers and rolled hoops down the pavement.
It seemed as though a millennium had passed, for the stone gargoyles and griffins that adorned the stately brick facades were blackened with soot now and the once-quiet boulevard was choked with motor cars and clanging trolleys. Alma shifted the package one last time and strode resolutely up the stoop of 222. The heavy door was opened by a pinched-faced woman, a frilly cap on her head and a matching apron over her simple gray dress.
"Yes?" she asked in a condescending tone. Alma's lips quirked at the irony of the circumstances.
"I come to see Miss Sara Straus," she said. The maid eyed her shabby raincoat with disdain and Alma self-consciously patted her fresh permanent.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Bump for later
Very nice story. Thanks for posting it.
Bump for later
Great story!
A similar story could be written (and perhaps has been) about the cook on the Edmund Fitzgerald. The primary cook on this ore boat had taken ill on the day before the Ed Fitz was to make its last run in late November.
A call went out to the union hall in Superior, WI., and a replacement cook went aboard.
The replacement cook exhibited a forlorn outlook, mentioning to the captain of the local fueling tanker that he thought this might be his last trip.
He was right.
Excellent story !Thank you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.