1,000 years of guys in hats bench sitting

Above, ensconced on a Paris sidewalk. Below: at the Met Museum, when the hats were better.

It’s a good way to pass time, sitting on a bench, sometimes in silence, sometimes in conversation … watching the passing world. In New York now, I wait for spring—which will come while Vermont is still crusted in ice and mired in mud—to sit in Washington Square or Tompkins Park, or on the Coney Island/Brighton Beach boardwalk, and follow this millennia-old pleasure, as the sun turns warm and first flowers bloom.