“Only in America”: The Strange and Unusual in New York

The inspiration for this blog post came from one quite atypical situation.  As I was looking out at the Statue of Liberty on the pier at Battery Park,  sea breezes rustling the trees, sun setting behind the Manhattan Skyline, I overheard what I will refer to as a “ruckus”.  It started with a lot of laughing and shouting, “dude, you caught a (insert expletive here) shark!”  As I turned to the “ruckus” I observed a man with a very large fishing pole struggling to pull in a fish.  The excitement was obviously building as the reel was spinning, the colorful language was flying, and there was every freak and geek (yours truly included) passerby stopping to investigate.   In a few moments, lying on the pier and gasping for breath, was indeed a shark.  About 3 feet in length and bloody from the fight, the sight astounded everybody.  I overheard a comment from one of the fisherman, “who says there aren’t sharks in the (insert expletive here) East River.  As I moved in closer, one of the fisherman told me to be careful, as it was not yet dead and could actually still be dangerous.  I thanked him and explained, “I need to get a picture of this, we don’t have this kind of thing in Colorado.”  The same man replied, “we don’t have this kind of thing in New York.”  It was that moment that it became my goal to keep an eye out for the strange and unusual happenings in the greatest city on earth.  This should be eventful, but difficult to top the “fish” story.

The tourist.  Probably the most interesting of characters in New York.  People, unfamiliar with their surroundings, oblivious to the hard working New Yorker behind them trying desperately to get to work on time, and pathetic in most every other social setting.   It is not the tourist himself that is strange and unusual (of course, the tourist is strange), but moreso, the respect that New Yorkers pay to such ridiculousness.  They smile, laugh, engage (much like one might do at say, a monkey exhibit at the zoo), and make light of the tourist and their odd behaviors.  The strange and unusual?  Police officers, firemen, cab drivers, and those New Yorkers just trying to live their lives strangely accept the tourist and laugh with them (that is of  course until the tourist walks away).