I keep finding examples of how Astoria is very different than my former home of Manhattan. There’s the obvious of a less frenetic pace and a more neighborhood feel. But then there are the other, smaller differences.
Walking out of Astoria Park today after enjoying some of the beautiful weather we’ve been getting (okay, I’m sure that they had beautiful weather in Manhattan today as well), a small boy of maybe 10 years old and four feet high walked up to me and said, “Can I use your cell phone?”
The little alarms which I’ve developed as a city dweller for all these years went off inside of me, conjuring up all kinds of troubling possibilities. Could he be a runner for some illegal activity, and wanted to use my phone to make an untraceable call? If it wasn’t related to something illegal, then what about the recipient of this call, possible his mother or father, seeing my name pop up on their cell phone as their son spoke to them? Would they think that their son was in some danger hanging around with a stranger?
Well, none of these things were true. This little kid said that I should dial *67 before dialing the number he wanted to call, and said that he would do it if I didn’t know how. Holy cow, this kid was telling me how to keep my number private while calling his parents!
I made the call, handed it to the kid, and he had a short conversation in Greek, after which he handed the phone back to me and ran off. His call started with him saying “Poppy,” so I figured that he was talking to his father.
Something like this would never, ever happen in Manhattan. Ever. And if it did, I would never hand over my phone.
Since moving to Astoria, I sometimes feel like an explorer in a boat going down an unexplored river. I never know what I’ll find.
Stumble It!
Comments