Native New Yorkers are avery special group. We are notthe people who scurry by visitors who are hopelessly lost and are trying tocatch someone's eye, and we are notthe people who are totally devoid of manners in the streets or in stores or,for that matter, anywhere. We are in fact warm and friendly, helpful andpolite, and amazingly talkative, and part of that is because we know for a factthat we live in the single greatest place on the planet. In my small amount ofglobal travel I came to love London (where I almost speak the language)and Rome (where every policeman, never mindthe populace, is so stunning that it's heart-stopping), but I can not imagineliving anywhere but on my island.

There was a period of timewhen people were wearing buttons that said, ?I AM NY,? but I don't wear buttonsso I never did. But I believe that I am an embodiment of that thinking, so muchso that I am virtually unable to make myself pass people on the street who arescrutinizing the street signs, or squinting at the bus numbers at a bus stop,or holding a map. There are maps of the subways and buses, of course, and allkinds of guidebooks, and maps of the streets. I have discovered that peoplewill not let go of their maps even when I stop to help them (and they want myhelp), so if we do not have a language in common (and I have only one) I oftenhave to physically turn them around to get the map and the island to face inthe same direction as the only help I can actually offer. (I get away with thatmore readily than I would if I were a man, but that's another discussionentirely.) I do, of course, locate the intersection on the map that coincideswith the place we are actually standing (the human version of the arrow marked?you are here?) and that can be a service as well.

The people who speakEnglish almost invariably tell me that they have had nothing but goodexperiences in making their way around the City, although we all agree that inthe business districts they have more difficulty eliciting help. The reason forthat, I explain, is that the people they encounter there are not native NewYorkers, but the commuter population who come here because they must in orderto earn their living (and often are not happy to be here). It's impossible forvisitors to tell the difference between ?them? and ?us,? but unless natives arerunning hopelessly behind to be on time to an appointment or an importantrendezvous we stop and make sure that our guests can find out how to get towhere they want to go, or at least get their bearings so they can decide what?snext on their calendar. We adore showing off our city.

On West 57^th Street on the way to the dentist I foundmyself saying to an American woman, ?It's morning and the Sun is over there.Therefore that direction is east.? She seemed surprised that she hadn't thoughtof that herself, as she learned that in elementary school too, and no thirdgrader had stopped to educate her. After I provided her with a little moreinformation about the buses that run on 57^th Street and acquainted her with the signsat the bus stop she seemed happy and secure that she could undertake the nextpart of her morning with no further assistance. Like most people for whom Istop she thanked me numerous times, and we set off in differing directions,each pleased with our meeting.

On the subway one Saturdaylast October on my way to the Union Square farmers market I was seated next toa young woman who was looking at photographs she had taken of the Empire State Building in her cell phone. From what Icould see they were not terribly good photographs - the postcards one can buywould have been better images, but she had taken them herself. She was seatedto my right, and on her right was another young woman, while two others werestanding in front of them sharing a pole. One of the standees was wearing asweatshirt that said, ?Indiana State University,? the other was wearing ?Columbia University.?
As I am indeed proud of myplace I was the one who started to talk first (that's not unusual, actually). Isaid to the girl next to me, ?So you've seen the Empire State Building. Where else are you going and howlong are you staying?? ?We're going now to Ground Zero.? (This is a term thatused to mean the whole of Manhattan Island during the Cold War, but now ofcourse it means the plot of ground where the World Trade Towers used to stand.) And then she added,?We have to leave tomorrow,? ina mournful tone. I gave the necessary instructions about having to be in thefirst six cars of the train in order to get to Ground Zero, and then to makesure to include all four of them in the conversation I said, ?You are wearing asweatshirt from Indiana State University. Are you ladies from Indiana?? ?Yes,? said the Indiana State University advertiser, ?we are.? She wasinterrupted as she started to say more by her friend the human Columbia University billboard who said proudly, ?I hadthis sweatshirt before I cameto New York.? I nodded.
?So what else have you seenso far?? All four began to talk at once, spilling out their feelings abouthaving come to New York for United Nations Day in the hopeof bolstering the work of the UN. We were getting dangerously close to my stopand I knew I was going to leave them very soon, so I said, ?The UN was the bestidea of the 20^th Century, and perhaps the worst disappointment, butI'm really glad you have taken the time and made the effort to come here to tryto reinforce what my generation had hoped for.? Three of them began to talk atonce, but the girl seated furthest from me was quiet. When the cross talk dieddown she said, thoughtfully, ?Thank you for what you just said. Of course wethink we are the first ones to want peace and tranquility for everyone. We needto remember what has come before.? I lovedher, of course.
I stood up and explainedthat I was getting off at the next stop, and said, ?You four have made mehopeful for what's coming in the future,? which they all loved, and when thetrain stopped and I got off I deliberately headed to the stairway that wouldallow me to look through the windows of the subway car, where they were in aconclave which I believe I had started. I was, as always, proud to have spokento people visiting the City, and to have given them a little something to thinkabout and take home to Indiana. And I was indeed very pleased thattheir generation is optimistic about the future of the human race, and they?retrying to figure out how to undo the enormous damage that has preceded them.

The thing about true NewYorkers is that we talk. We talk to each other and we talk to ?outsiders.? Wetalk in the buses and subways, on line in the supermarket and post office, inelevators, in the street when the light is against us as we wait to cross,everywhere. And once someone starts a conversation it leads to people feelingmore comfortable about striking up other conversations. Children know all aboutthis, of course, but we adults need to be reminded. Children, after all, talkto one another in the playground, on the sports field, in the hallways atschool, and are so good at this that they need to be instructed not to do itwith strangers and not to be so garrulous in their classrooms. But once we areold enough to distinguish among people who are unknown to us we can do it too,and I talk quite a lot to lots of different people.

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