Hop To It

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This was just what the doctor ordered.

We had a busy weekend here in the Big Apple, with Halloween on Saturday night and the New York City Marathon kicking off on Sunday morning.

I confess I've pretty much lost interest in the whole trick-or-treat schtick over the years. I love seeing the kids in their costumes going from house to house and getting so excited, but I'm not into dressing up myself.

On Saturday, my sister and I met up with our cousin Jill for a night out in Chinatown, and after hitting a few places, we ended up at Wo-Hop's, a legendary eatery on Mott Street that has been the scene of many a late-night meal.

I recall a midnight ride to Wo-Hop's in the Eighties with a bunch of friends as some of them sang "Let's Go to Wo-Hop's," a revised version of the hit song by Danny & the Juniors, which, like me, debuted in 1957.

We started our evening a little earlier this time out.

Wo-Hop's seemed a lot smaller than I recalled, and the food, I'm sorry to say, wasn't particularly impressive. But it was great catching up with Jill and getting out in the world.

I was returning from the gents at one point when I spotted a bottle of Dr. Brown's, an iconic New York soda, by my chair.

It turned out that the wayward beverage had rolled over from a neighboring table, and it served as an introduction to a lovely young couple named Reina and Fernando.

I believe they were in their twenties and lived in Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood, a crime-ridden hellhole when I was growing up, but now a bit more livable and, this being New York, much more expensive.

Reina was dressed in a 1940s nurse outfit that may or may not have had real bloodstains, while Fernando had some kind of funky suit thing going on.

Generation Rap

They were just so... nice. Funny, friendly, and so full of life, it was a joy talking with them.

Reina told us about her dog, Nef, short for the Egyptian queen Nefertiti, whom she had entered in a doggie costume contest wearing a crown, only to lose to a mutt dressed as--oh please--a pumpkin.

There was no hostility between the boomers and the zoomers, no generation gap, none of the “back in my day” stuff. We were all getting along just fine.

This was a reminder that there are good people out there, and you should be grateful anytime you run into them.

When the fortune cookies arrived, Fernando's message read, "The future is a blank canvas, paint it with your ambitions."

At my age, the canvas is rather small, but I wish all the best for these lovely young people, and I hope they paint their masterpieces with the brightest colors in creation.

We bid them goodnight, stopped to get tea and dessert, and then parted company with our cousin.

I was a little nervous about taking the train home on such a funky night and pushed for the express bus, but it turned out the subways were crammed with mobs of young people in brilliant outfits.

Vampires, medieval knights, Roman centurions, and some guy in a hideous monster mask carrying a speaker in one hand and a headless corpse dummy in the other--it was as if the Village Halloween Parade had gone underground.

This morning, my sister and I met up on Fourth Avenue to watch the New York City Marathon. It's always fun to cheer for and slap palms with people from all over the world as they race through your hometown.

I wonder what it's going to be like next year when Halloween and the marathon happen on the same day.

I'll keep a bottle of Dr. Brown's handy.

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