BELOW: The 14th St. subway station.
CENTER: The Woolworth Building in
lower Manhattan. FAR RIGHT: Anthony,
age 9, watches with pride as his mother
jukes, jives and shouts as part of a gospel
choir. Anthony helps his mother collect
smiles and spare change from Grand
Central Station subway riders.
The cure for winter-term blues is only 53 days away and cuunting
PHOTOS AND TEXT OY
TOM PATTERSON
February days are long in Eugene. Winter term
slogs slowly from hour to mind-numbing hour,
lecture to intolerable lecture. Students shiver
in the cold, ready to pack it in and give up the
ghost, using Daily Emeralds for umbrellas.
Is there no hope?
Is there no reason to smile?
Do not fret, friends. There is a light at the end of
the tunnel, and that light is spring break.
Say it aloud. Spring break. It rolls off the tongue
so nicely. Say it aloud slowly and watch the re
sults: Friends go silent. People stop mumbling un
der their visible breath and concentrate, wistfully,
on memories and fantasies and the happy smiling
sun.
Then the ideas coalesce in the brain. What to do,
O Lord, what should we do? Somewhere there
must be a place for us, a place to run to rather than
run from, a place where dreams have a chance of
coming true. Succinctly, we need a place to trade
thinking for drinking.
There are many nice places on Earth. Most col
lege students, when overrun by the tedium of win
ter term, feel the need to hit the open road. But per
haps your personal tastes run a bit more exotic. If
you really need to get away, you need to leave on a
jet plane. Perhaps to the city of dreams, the capital
of the world, a town so grand they have to say the
name twice. Perhaps to New York, New York.
Give my regards to Broadway.
This roly-poly cop, denizen of the Broadway Cafe, sure loves his soup.
SHY IT ALONN. SPRING SNEAK.