Performance Art

On the way into Manhattan a well dressed, middle aged, black man walked through the door of our subway car and started singing an acapella version of Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me.” He was wearing a small mic and he had a small PA in his backpack with a great reverb setting. We changed trains and a group of three musicians got on. They too had a black singer and they did a beautiful version of “Hooked On A Feeling,” a song I thought I never wanted to hear again.

On the way back to Rochester we were one stop out of NYC when a couple got on the train in Croton on Harmon. We held our breath as they walked by. I tried to give off bad vibes but they sat down across from us anyway in the one seat in the car that faced the opposite way the train was traveling so they faced us. I tried not to look directly at them but she had died blonde hair and dark glasses. He had a pot belly and hearing aids in both ears and he was wearing a faded Lynyrd Skynyrd t-shirt. They talked non-stop to the people next to them and we quickly learned they had been babysitting the woman’s granddaughter while the child’s parents took a Carnival Cruise. Apparently the two year old is brilliant and this couple had the time of their life babysitting her.

He was in the National Guard and has diabetes so the woman scolded him for buying a big bag of chips from the snack bar. She was drinking a large Diet Pepsi and reading a magazine called HELLO! which had a picture of Elton John and his partner holding a little baby on the cover. Growing up with six siblings I got pretty good at tuning out a crying baby but this was something else altogether. They said whatever popped into their heads to whoever would listen and they acted like this was completely normal behavior. Peggi suspects it was some sort of performance art.

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