Some things I did and didn't do

Thursday 1st November

I had some good plans for today, my last day in New York. I thought of going to downtown Manhatten and seeing the financial district and the Statue of Liberty. I thought of getting a ferry to New Jersey and seeing the site of the Burr-Hamilton duel, where the Burr, Vice President of the US, killed his rival. This would have made a fun day out, and shown how far the US has come since those lawless days of trigger-happy Vice Presidents.

In the end I did neither. The subway looks scary, and walking is impossible, with lights fixed to stop you for a minute at every block.

So I went to Central Park again. It's great. You can walk for more than 100 yards in a stretch. There are trees, grass, birds and squirrels. You start to appreciate these things more when stuck in the concrete of Manhattan. I juggled and got the rocking shoulder motion of the four-ball Mills mess just right. I passed some statues: Columbus, Walter Scott, Robert Burns, Shakespeare and King Jagiello of Poland. I guess this shows the shortness of white American history and the importance of immigration to New York.

On the Great Lawn I saw a man playing baseball with his two kids. I offered my services as a second baseman, and we had a good little game with imaginary runners on the bases. It turned out that the guy was from Nottingham, about 30 miles from Sheffield, my home town. So the only baseball game in Central Park was being played by two cricket-trained Englishmen. You can easily spot cricketers playing baseball, as they don't see the need for a glove, and turn inside pitches disdainfully to square leg.