A Tale of Two Cities: Ash Wednesday - a Southerner in New York

Seeing Snow Birds in my home town with dirty crosses on their foreheads reminded me of my first Ash Wednesday experience.

Last year, I was in Manhattan on Ash Wednesday. As a native Floridian, I was somehow completely unaware that a LOT of people actually walk around with black crosses on their FOREHEADS - like it's totally normal - until I set out on my morning walk to work in mid-town.

I couldn't help myself, and I stared... squinting my eyes to make sure I wasn't hallucinating as I noticed, at first dozens - then hundreds, of people walking around with these CRAZY dirty marks on their foreheads.

A year later, I'm still shaking my head as I recall working that day with people in my office on 5th Avenue - in Gotham - the apex of civilization in the modern world - looking me square in the eye - as if nothing was extraordinary about having this intentional smudge on their heads.

Can you imagine?? Sitting around a conference room table, talking about the technicalities of some computer system while half a dozen people look back at you with the equivalent of a dollop of mustard drying their hair?

It was like being in the middle of an elaborate prank.

Just thought I would share.