In New York City: An Incantation

The Sunday before we moved to Sodom, I went with my daughter to church, a sweet little Methodist church in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Except to mark an occasional death I have not been much of a churchgoer lately, but on this Sabbath my girl Whitney was to sing solo, and I felt drawn to a front pew, aisle. I am happy to report she did herself and her old man proud, and I carried the memory of her lovely performance with me to the city (she stayed on to see to her schooling) as well as something the preacher said. At one point in his sermon -- and here I must confess to an annoying lifelong lapse: I have trouble tracking sermons, and I could swear I heard someone say this one was taken from the Book of Macadamia Nuts -- the pastor said, "Now we shall all rise and sing hymn No. 508, Lead On, O Kinky Turtle." At that, my fellow parishioners fell to mumbling. The good reverend then blushed crimson and admitted that title stuck in his head because his own child called it that. Recovering his composure, to say nothing of his solemnity, our guide next instructed us to stand and "sing hymn No. 508, Lead On, O King Eternal."

Well, in the days since, the phrase lead on, o kinky turtle has assumed a profound significance in the course of my wanderings. I use it in a kind of incantatory fashion, muttering "lead on, o kinky turtle" whenever I feel shorted, stiffed, put upon by outside forces. I keep it handy, as you would a rabbit's foot, for there is a lot of bullying going down in this town, my new home, and one must strive not to be caught without a device to ease the pressure gathering under the hood. Lead on, o kinky turtle. The first time I invoked the expression was on the George Washington Bridge. At a quarter past one, I was 20 miles from the Hudson River. At half past three, I was across.

I am not new to New York -- I moved here first in 1966, second in 1976 and now third, a symmetrical ten years after that. But I bring with me this time a condition I did not have before. I have age. I am a grumpie, a gray, upwardly mobile professional (although, silly me, during the last absence from the city I forgot to make a zillion dollars, the requisite for settling in today). Less amused, and no doubt less amusing, I no longer suffer everyday brutalities in stride; hence the need for the incantation. Of course, to be fair, any period of adjustment is rough on the nerves. It gets all the more complicated when you find yourself running short on patience and long on temper -- a consequence of having age. And if you don't cut yourself some slack somewhere in this stretch, you may overhear a relative phoning the guys in the white jackets. Maestro, eight bars of some "for instance" music, please.