`Find Them As Strange As You Do'

My oldest son finished the Austin Marathon with a sore right foot. His time was superb until mile-18, when he felt a pain that alternately burned and stabbed. Around mile-21 he contemplated quitting but persevered. He walked and ran, and for the home stretch tore out of sheer Kurp cussedness to the finish line. A doctor diagnosed a stress fracture, and swore him off running for at least  two weeks, which has Josh steaming, of course. I couldn’t be prouder.

Austin update: the hipster-to-civilian ratio in our capital has peaked at 30-to-1. Visible tattoo density is higher still. I borrowed from my daughter-in-law her beat-up hardback copy of the posthumously published Meyer Berger’s New York (Random House, 1960). The volume collects samples of his column, “About New York,” published in The New York Times between 1953 and 1959. Berger was a great American writer who never stopped being a great reporter. Apropos of Austin, Berger writes in his preface “Our Town: Open Letter to a Visitor”: 

“If you wander into Greenwich Village and come across men and women who affect Bohemian dress and Bohemian manner, don’t go away with the impression that they alone represent New York. The visitor from Flatbush and from Hunt’s Point in the Bronx find them as strange as you do.”