We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet.

I think about how these New Yorkers, Irish New Yorkers perhaps, know how to have fun in the old-fashioned way, not at their phones but together laughing, shouting, singing.

MCSORLEY’S BY PHYLLIS VAN SLYCK 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 94

Tom says, “Let’s go to McSorley’s!”

I say, “The streets are full of slush. The wheelchair will get stuck.”

“It will be fun.”

“Right,” I mutter to myself. “Saturday before Christmas.”

We make it to 7th Street but small mountains of icy snow fill the sidewalk. The wheelchair wobbles precariously and comes to a halt.

“Pull me into the street,” Tom commands.

“That’s impossible,” I say, “look at the piles of snow between the cars.”

Then he tries to stand. “You can’t walk,” I remind him. He forgets he has Parkinson’s.

I turn the wheelchair around and try to pull it backwards. Still stuck.

“Can I help?” a young man asks. Kindness of strangers. This is in New York.

“Yes!” I say, “thank you. My husband wants to go to McSorley’s.”

“My favorite bar,” the young man rep…