My world growing up was an enclave of Manhattan. I remember that I used to go with my father to park our car in a garage across the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge in Queens. For years, the parking attendant was a kindly older Black man named Booker whose world seemed to be within the confines of that garage—he was always there. He and my father struck up a New York friendship of brief sports conversations and family inquiries, deepened by the impression that Booker shared Southern roots. When Booker died, my father gave his family money for the tombstone. I remember feeling good about this gesture.
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