NYTimes Metropolitan Diary March 3, 2008

Dear Diary:

On a recent afternoon, I arranged to meet my daughter at the corner of 34th Street and Fifth Avenue. As I waited, a double-decker tour bus approached the intersection.

As I watched it travel east along 34th Street, I remembered that a patient of mine was a tour guide on just such a bus. On a whim, I looked up. As luck would have it, I saw her on the deck, microphone in hand, giving a tour. I waved, and as the bus turned south onto Fifth Avenue, she looked down and saw me.

Without missing a beat (I read her lips), she said to her group, “And there on the corner of 34th and Fifth stands the original Dr. Pepper.” The tourists all waved and cheered. I waved back as the bus made its way down Fifth Avenue.

Dr. Robert S. Pepper