NYC

On The Town; Turtle Island String Quartet

I’m like Barnaby from “Hello Dolly”. I’m more inclined to spend the money to see the giant whale at Barnum’s than I am to go out to dinner, drinks, a show and then dancing. The dinner part sounds like fun; and going to see a play, or a musical, or a concert. But, by the end of the evening, I will have thrown down possibly two to three hundred dollars if I took a guest. That’s not me. So, when I go to the Big Apple, I tend to see things that amuse me at a smaller cost than the aforementioned “night on the town”.

In 1987, I went to New York City for the first time to attend the national convention of the Music Teachers National Association. My friend D. had won a spot in the national brass auditions in conjunction with the convention. During free time, I saw the Statue of Liberty – went all the way up to the crown – saw Madison Square Garden, Times Square, the World Trade Center and the Empire State Building.

I accompanied two South Dakota music teachers to the top of the Empire State Building. After a special afternoon concert, we figured that we had enough time to catch the late afternoon view from the ESB, enjoy a little dinner and make it back for the evening recital at the hotel. So, we hailed a cab. “Where to?” Empire State Building. “I’ll have you there in a minute.” And he wasn’t kidding. He drove fifty-five miles per hour up Sixth Avenue, the Avenue of the Americas, passing cars, changing lanes, honking his horn, barely missing pedestrians, talking on the radio – all the while, eating a sandwich. Three grassy prairie Lutherans sat in his back seat, completely immobilized phonetically, unable to watch what was happening, yet couldn’t stop looking – and all the while crossing ourselves. Everything after that paled in comparison.

I visited the Empire State Building a few months ago with my friend J. He is from New Jersey and had never been up there and was completely blown away. We followed it up with some sushi.

That’s what I like to do when I’m … on the town.

Credits: To Jerry Herman, for “Hello Dolly”. Hey, Mr. Herman, I went to CCM, too.

This is the thirty-seventh of my final forty-five CD’s.