MORE COMMENTS OVERHEARD THIS MONTH IN NEW YORK, HAD I BEEN THERE TO EAVESDROP

"Many people find it very entertaining that I met my wife while competing against her as a contestant on the TV game show 'Jeopardy'. She did better than I did on that show, but she was very modest about her success. Since neither of us was the top winner for that particular show, I invited her to lunch immediately after the show and we ended up playing Jeopardy together at our dining table inside a pastrami joint. Each of us would take turns pretending they were the emcee of that show, and the designated contestant would reply with a question. Our lunch together was sheer ecstasy for each of us. Even in our married life today in the Bronx, we like to play 'Jeopardy' together every Sunday in our living room. When people ask me what's the secret of our marriage lasting this long, I always say it's 'Jeopardy'."

"What bothers me the most about the graffiti I see defacing public property everywhere I go here is that half the time I feel fairly sure I can guess who did it, based on all the scum of the earth I have encountered as a New Yorker. I almost feel guilty by association, since why was I associating with those deranged lunatics in the first place?"

"My cousin's church group has established an 'Adopt a Reikker's Island Inmate' program. The whole idea is to help rehabilitate otherwise-hopeless cases by visiting them once a week at their prison cell to offer words of encouragement. My cousin Paul says he was assigned to a serial rapist as his inmate to adopt. Paul says he's doing so well with that inmate that my cousin plans to add that success story to Paul's resume under 'Volunteer Accomplishments'."

"My biggest surprise as a New Yorker is that no one ever established an American Graffiti Museum here in Manhattan. Our city is definitely one of the top cities in the world for graffiti art. So why not celebrate this emerging art form by creating a museum in its honor? Maybe some disciple of Andy Warhol will donate $1 million toward that cultural-enrichment offering."

"I expected to find an 'Encyclopedia of New York City' in the New York Public Library, but so far I've failed to locate that type of encyclopedia. Do you know who publishes that reference book, so I can call the publisher directly and order one for my own home library collection? I love the idea of having a home library that makes me look very knowledgeable about all things New York. That should impress my party guests, most of whom are aware that I've only been here for five years."

"My aunt from Ohio was very disappointed to find when she came here to visit that there is no indoor botanical garden inside Madison Square Garden. She was planning to take photographs of the nice variety of pretty flowers in bloom there, so she could send that as a text message to Uncle Bill back in Columbus."

"I cannot decide which is more fraudulently named---New Jersey's official state motto of 'Garden State', or our city's famous tourist site called 'Madison Square Garden'. Either way, you could go crazy trying to find the public botanical garden to sniff the fragrant flowers at."

"My friend Terence came up with a terrific idea for a new non-profit group here. He says there should be an 'American Island Cities Association' and New York should be an official dues-paying member of that group. There could be annual meetings, and lots of discussion about how to make the most of life in an island city. At the very least, the group could sponsor a complete list of each and every island city of the United States, including the cities of Hawaii."

"My friend Pierre is so intense about tennis that the first question he asks about every mayor of New York is: Does he play tennis? If a newly elected mayor of New York City cannot play at least intermediate-level tennis, Pierre loses all respect for that mayor."

"Mary naively assumed that if she paid the full rate to attend a Broadway performance here, she would automatically qualify immediately after that eventfor the opportunity to have a lengthy conversation with any of the actors she admired the most that evening. I told Mary it doesn't work that way---she'd be lucky just to get an autograph after the play ended."

"I almost get the impression that there are a lot of Broadway Groupies here. They center their leisuretime on the Broadway scene, and they insist on hosting frequent and lavish parties where the honored guest is a live-theater actor. The other thing about Broadway Groupies is that they collect dozens of autographs from Broadway entertainers, and they immediately let all their friends know within seconds after they have added yet another actor's autograph to their collection."