Starting a new life in New York City in February 1946 almost 60 years ago had to be exciting, a dozen things happening simultaneously. Newly married, 3 months out of the Air Corps, maybe alive because Truman dropped the atom bombs and we didn't have to invade Japan. New job; rented furnished apartment from a wonderful old lady on lower Fifth Avenue on the edge of Greenwich Village. Walked the 30 blocks up to 40th Street and my office each morning.

Pretty soon wife, Jacqueline, got a job as assistant to the head of the talent department at CBS, a great radio network. National television was some years away. The New York Herald Tribune was our newspaper.

And we didn't miss much. We went to almost every new Broadway play and could meet for drinks, dinner, theater for a combined sum of less than $20. Subway home.

On this particular night we were going to a new musical "Kiss Me Kate, "South Pacific," I don't remember. We'd meet at La Champlain on 49th Street, which featured a four-course country-style French dinner for what would be considered a pittance today.

I finished the day at a meeting way down in the financial district at the tip of Manhattan and took the Express subway to 42nd Street in the theater district at Times Square. There I planned to take the Local on the other side of the same platform which would let me off one block from the restaurant.

I debarked on schedule at 42nd and saw the Local just 20 feet across with its door closing. As a seasoned, know-it-all subway regular, I scooted across, wrestled the doors, squeezed in and they closed behind me.

Suddenly my whole world got weird. The car was unlighted and there weren't any people. With a lurch and shudder we got under way. I walked through to the next car -- pitch dark, nobody! By now we were in the subway tunnel and had only the ambient light from the walls outside, reds, greens, blinking, everything murky. Time passed. We were rambling, meandering, around curves, dipping to pass under the East River. Suddenly a guard carrying a lantern showed up.

He: "Good grief, how'd you get in here?"

Me: "Where are we going?"

He: "To the Yards."

Me: "Then let me off."

He: "No way. There's no stopping this train. I'll be back when we get there."

On the way to the Yards I might've thought, "where all subway cars eventually go to die." The Guard signified the angel of Death, Charon, in Greek mythology, who ferried the dead across the River Styx en route to Hades. I didn't really think that but what I was experiencing wasn't the least bit humorous, just eerie and lonely.

Finally, finally we emerged into the twilight; we had arrived. Were we in Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn? I had no idea, but here he came again with his damned lamp.

He: "Get off here. Walk back to the tunnel about a block. Stay in the middle of the track. You'll find a wall ladder. Climb up, go through the door, up some stairs. Another door and you're a block from a subway."

I followed orders (you have to be a New Yorker!) and did not get electrocuted. Emerged. Rode back. She'd been worried sick. We ate fast and made the show.

As I write this, another analogy comes to mind. I remember "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner," Coleridge's magnificent narrative poem. Maybe I was the old Geezer himself, all alone on his ship surrounded by dead shipmates and knowing that, if he survived, he had to tell his tale to someone.

"All about, in reel and rout

The death fires danced at night;

The water, like a witch's oils,

Blue-green, and blue and white."

Anyway, to get back to reality, the show was fantastic. I splurged for a cab home. I'd had enough of the New York subway system for one day.

Attorney Austin Cunningham has been the president of five business companies and in 1988 was named Outstanding Elder Citizen of the Year for South Carolina.

You must be logged in to comment.