Shouts & Murmurs: Of Younger Days

Ian Frazier

When I was sixty-three, a cheeseburger at a diner on Fiftyseventh Street cost $24.95, you could ride the Staten Island Ferry for free, and a kid could get a pretty decent college education for a quarter of a million dollars. Life was slower then, partly because of my newly acquired hip problem, but I did not know enough to appreciate the leisurely pace. I was always wanting to hurry up, to go faster and farther, to cross the street before the “Walk” signal ended. Now I wonder—why in the world was I in such a rush, back when I was sixty -three? Obviously, I did not want to get hit by a car, and there never seemed to be enough time to get across all twelve lanes of Queens Boulevard,…

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The New Yorker (Digital) - 1 Issue, Mar-16-15

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