‘It Was the Start of a Frosty Relationship’

Snappy Driver

Dear Diary:

As an ad man in the 1960s, I used to regularly go to a restaurant called Le Chanteclair on East 49th Street between Fifth and Madison.

The place was adorned with car racing trophies and memorabilia, and the man who ran the front of the house was from France and always elegantly dressed.

Not long ago, I picked up a book at the library called “Faster: How a Jewish Driver, an American Heiress and a Legendary Car Beat Hitler’s Best.”

Turns out the elegant Frenchman at Le Chanteclair was René Dreyfus, the driver who beat Hitler’s best.

— Neil Fox

A Truce

Dear Diary:

In 2014, my wife, two young children, small dog and I moved to a section of Brooklyn where some considered us to be interlopers.

Before we moved in, the cable company told us it needed access to our neighbor’s yard to hook up our service. Our neighbor, a longtime resident, refused.

When the work proceeded anyway, our neighbor cut the wire. It was the start of a frosty relationship.

The rift extended to our dogs. Ours was typically skittish and submissive. Our neighbor’s walked slowly and wanted no trouble. They hated each other.

On the occasions when our paths crossed, our dog would lunge and bark. Our neighbor’s dog would regard ours as if she embodied everything that was wrong on the block.

Years passed. We went through a pandemic together. Time gave us the chance to put down roots. The frost began to thaw. When we saw our neighbor on the street, we began to nod, then wave a little, and eventually would say, “Hi,” without stopping to talk.

The truce extended to the dogs. Late on one cold December night, I took ours outside to the curb. In the distance, our neighbor and her dog were walking slowly toward us.

There was nobody else on the street. When they reached their gate, our neighbor paused. It was silent.

“How old is she?” I heard her ask.

“Fourteen,” I said. “How about him?”

“Nineteen,” she said.

Neither of us spoke for a second.

“Isn’t it amazing that the feud between them seems to be over?” I said.

“I think they just got tired out,” she said.

“Yeah, maybe,” I said. “Or I guess it’s possible that things can change.”

“Maybe,” she said.

We all went inside.

— David Neibart

Lost and Found

Dear Diary:

I was jogging near my house when I saw a crumpled $50 bill on the ground.

For a second, I was elated at my good luck. Then I noticed that the bill had fallen right next to a crumpled receipt from a nearby grocery store. The slip of paper had the time of the transaction, just 10 minutes earlier.

I brought the cash and the receipt to the store and handed them to my favorite cashier.

“Oh,” she said, scanning the items listed on the receipt: canned beans, cottage cheese and tomato juice. “I know this grandma.”

Then she left the register and ran off toward the woman’s house.

— Anya Kamenetz

Night at the Opera

Dear Diary:

I made it my practice to attend the opera whenever I made one of my frequent visits to New York from my home in Georgia.

One particular evening at the Metropolitan Opera stands out. As was my habit, I arrived early enough to get settled in and chat a bit with my fellow operagoers.

On this evening, “Rigoletto” was on the bill, as I recall. A nicely dressed older man was sitting to my left.

After a decent interval, I asked if he lived locally. He told me that he was from Philadelphia and traveled by train to attend performances in New York and then returned home by train each night.

As we chatted, he told me he had maintained a subscription with the same seat since the new house had opened at Lincoln Center in 1966.

He also said his advancing age had rendered the travel to and from Philadelphia more and more difficult and that he planned to surrender his subscription after that season. This performance, he said, would be his last.

We chatted a bit more about some of the great performers and performances he had seen until the chandeliers went up and “Rigoletto” began.

Throughout the evening, I found my thoughts returning to his love of opera and the way time can separate a person from the everyday pleasures that are essential to feeling at home in the world.

As the curtain calls ended and the applause died away, we stood up and shook hands. I thanked him for sharing his story with me. He nodded, turned and disappeared into the crowd filling the aisle and heading to the exit.

— Dan Funsch