The Cowboy From Queens

     Our son Joel was eighteen months old when he and I left for Spain the first time. We boarded a plane in Dallas at the old Love Field terminal and flew to New York City.
     I was barely into my twentys, still wet behind the ears and a little scared about my first international travel. When we arrived at Dulles Airport in New York, I hailed a cab that drove us to a nearby hotel. We had one night's lay-over and my dad had given me enough money to cover a hotel room. He knew that trying to corral a toddler in an airport overnight, would be next to impossible.
     After we were settled into our room we watched television for a while then toured the lobby and ground floor, where we found a barber/beauty shop, (the first time I'd ever seen one combined), a gift shop (with nothing in it that I could afford), a restaurant/bar, (much too fancy for a lone mom and her baby), a newsstand/shoe shine stand and a dress shop. When finally my arms felt like they would break from carrying my chunky little boy, I decided to call it a night and return to the room. When I got there, I dressed us for bed and called room service to send up supper. The conversation when something like this:
     "This is Mrs. Gehrke in room 305. I'd like to order supper, please."
     "Excuse me, what did you say?"
     I repeated, "This is Mrs. Gehrke in room 305. I'd like to order supper, please."
     "I'm sorry, Mamm, I can't understand what you're saying. Would you repeat it please?"
     I repeated it twice more before I finally asked, "Excuse me, are we speaking English here? I just want supper!"
     He said, "Oh, you mean dinner?"
     "Yeah...dinner, whatever... just bring me two hamburgers, okay?"
     "Got it! Two hamburgers...they'll be right up!" That was my introduction to New York City  and the cultural confusion had only just begun.
     The next morning I arose wondering what we would do until seven p.m. when our plane was scheduled to leave. I'd made arrangements to stay in the room until five-thirty but that was a long way off. I was so eager to get to Spain, having been separated from Ted for over a year, that I was antsy and couldn't relax anywhere. I woke up early, dressed us both for the flight, then took Joel down to the restaurant for breakfast. Determined not to repeat the ordering fiasco from the night before. I could at least, point at a menu in the restaurant.
     We ate a good breakfast, I bought a magazine and we went back up to our room to wait. Sometime that morning Joel got whiny and bored so I picked him up and began playing with him on the bed. I had on one of my nicest dresses that I wore on special occasions. I had saved it to wear for this special occasion to meet my husband for the first time in a long time. The dress was made of Japanese silk which had been brought back from Okinawa by an uncle in the Navy. I'd had a dress made of the silk that was on the fashion of a traditional Japanese kimono...a fitted sheath with the standup color and diagonial opening that closed with three gold buttons. It was very beautiful and about three years old at that time. I was sitting on the side of the bed and Joel was climbing my body then jumping onto my lap over and over again. Apparently I had the skirt pulled tight at the knees because on about the third jump I heard a "rrrrip"! I looked down at my dress and at Joel's fat little leg sinking through a tare about eight inches long.
     After I got over the initial shock and shed a few tears about losing my beautiful dress, panic started to set in. I started to realise that I had nothing else to wear! The clothes I'd worn from Texas were wadded up in a wrinkled ball in my overnight bag. The blouse had food and dirt adorning the front of it and the skirt was so wrinkled it looked like I'd slept in it (which in truth, I had for several hours on the plane). I thought about washing the blouse in the bathroom sink but in those day you didn't just wash something out and put it back on. It would have to dry then be ironed and so would the skirt. I couldn't afford emergency laundry service from the hotel. My room service had eaten up my reserve money. Our luggage was already on the airplane and completely inaccessible to me, so I just sat there in a panic, staring at the torn dress. Finally I called down to the front desk and asked if there was a clothing store or dress shop near the hotel. I thought maybe I could afford a cheap blouse and just wear the wrinkled skirt with it. The desk clerk said, "Oh certainly, we have a very nice boutique right here in the lobby."
     Well I had no idea what a "boutique" was, but I hoped it had something to do with clothing. Never dreaming that it was code language for "expensive", I put on my long winter coat, grabbed Joel and rode the elevator down again. Once there the bell hop pointed me to the dress shop and I went directly there.
     I knew the minute I entered the place that although it did contain women's clothing, I was in the wrong place! I could tell by the smell of it that it was way out of my league. I looked around at the elegant apparel, hoping a clerk would not see me before I could get a look at a price tag. I clamped a hand over Joel's mouth and crept behind a rack of dresses and scarves, picked up a tag and felt my face flush when I read, $215.00!  It was a plain, green, wool, sleeveless, dress with about two yards of material in it. I couldn't believe it! I was about to panic again, because a snooty looking, elderly woman in spiked heels was eyeing me from across the room. I flashed her a pathetic smile and practically ran for the door without a word.
     Back at the desk, I once again was trying to make myself understood by an equally snooty desk clerk, while I asked where I might find a less expensive clothing store nearby. He said that we were not too far from the "garment district" of Queens, New York and that he would call a cab to take me there.
      As we arrived in the "district" I became a gawker. I'd never seen anything like it. Clothing stores lined both sides of the street with racks and racks of clothing out on the street and it was mid January! I was confused to see people, pushing these racks full of clothing up and down the sidewalk, to where I wasn't sure. The sidewalks and stores were crowded with shoppers. I wondered, How am I going to handle Joel and try on clothes in this crowd?  My cabbie didn't speak English, at least not Texan English, so I couldn't ask him any questions. I was on my own.
     Just as he pulled up to the curb to park, Joel started squealing when he spied a policeman on a horse. They were standing on the corner in front of our cab. I paid the cabbie and got out, then walked over to the policeman and asked, "Can my son pet your horse?" 
     He nodded and flashed us a friendly smile so I held Joel up and he began to pound away on the docile creature's neck. The policeman and I started talking and he asked where we were from and what we were doing in New York City. I told him that we were on our way to Spain to join our daddy in the Air Force and that Joel had ripped my dress this morning and I had only a couple hours to buy something to wear on the plane. "I just hope I can keep him inside a dressing room while I try on clothes." I said.
     He hesitated a moment then said, "Would you like to leave him here with me? I won't be going anywhere for another hour or so."
     It took me about a minute and a half to decide to trust him. I handed Joel up to the man and he straddled the horse in front of the policeman. He was so delighted that he laughed out loud.
     I ran across the street to the nearest dress shop, grabbed the first skirt and blouse in my size, ducked into a dressing rrom and put it on. I paid for the outfit and wore it out of the store. I was back in fifteen minutes or less. The policeman hailed another cab for us, kissed Joel on top of the head and waved goodby as we took off back to the hotel.
     By the time we left I had decided that New Your City wasn't such a foreign place after all. Anyplace with cowboys that liked little kids, most definitely felt like home to me!