One Good Deed Deserves Another

A young guy helped me bring my busking gear up the subway stairs. When we reached the platform there was an unusually large number of people there, because the train wasn’t working. I forged my way through the thick crowd and the guy who helped me before followed behind me. When we got to the end of the platform, where it was a little bit less crowded, I turned back to the guy and said: “I’m forging the way for you”. He replied: “One good deed deserves another”.

A few train stops later, even more people got on the train and it was extremely crowded. A guy in a blue ball cap said to me: “It’s like in my country”. I asked him what country he was from and he said: “In Puerto Rico cars don’t move until they are full”.
I was lucky to get a seat on the train. When I was about to get off, I asked the Puerto Rican guy if he wants to exchange places with me, so that I could get off. He was happy to get a seat, as he was traveling all the way to Coney Island – the end of the line.

My busking spot was at the 59th street & Lex subway station.
After I played ‘Evergreen’ (the Barbra Streisand song), a guy told me that this was his mother’s favorite song. In fact, she is buried in ‘Evergreen Cemetery’. Many years ago there was a booth where people could go and record a song to pre-recorded playback. His mother recorded this song. The guy is sad he can’t find that cassette of his mother’s recording now. “She sounded just like Barbra Streisand, too”, he said, “very natural”.

Somebody put a wooden souvenir from Bulgaria in my donations box. It looks like a 3.5″ tall chess pawn, decorated with colorful hand painted motifs, and the word ‘Bulgaria’. The top screws off and inside there is a flask of rose oil that says ‘From Bulgaria Land of Roses’. It smells nice.

At 4pm Sesoko, the Kora player, came for his permitted busking spot.