Friday, November 20

Crosswords and Crayons

Today on the subway I was people watching, as I’m wont to do when I don’t have any reading material (which I didn’t). I was particularly interested in the homeless-looking man across the way from me. Not that I have a perverse interest in the actions of the homeless on trains or anything, but because I couldn’t quite figure him out.

By all appearances he looked homeless: long scraggly hair, a certain unwashed quality to both his skin and his clothes, bad shoes, etc. But a couple of things threw me off. 1) he was wearing a New York City Parks and Recreation Department jacket and 2) he was holding a New York Post (a rag, yes, but decidedly not free) and preparing to do the crossword puzzle - another seemingly non-homeless thing to do.

And as I sat there, silently debating whether the P&R Dept. has some interesting hiring processes or if this is just a new homeless man, he pulled out his writing utensil and got to work on the crossword.

It was a crayon.

Now I’m not sure if it’s just a crazy homeless man or the City is seriously cutting back on funding. Either way, it was my stop. And I left him to his puzzle.

NY,NY

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