"I do NOT vant to be alone"

I read this wonderful post over at  a cat among the pigeons about Greta Garbo, and that reminded me of an unexpected encounter I had a few years ago.

I was waiting for the bus, when a very, very old man sat down next to me and started talking. He was quite clearly very lonely and soon he was telling me all about his life and how he used to work as a cabin boy on a big Atlantic cruiser. He'd met tons of famous people, and he told me all about who were nice and who weren't. And then he said: "But my favorite was always Greta Garbo. Such a lady! She'd always ask for me the moment she got on board. People think she didn't like company, but that's not true. She loved chatting; she just didn't like all that fuss and being treated like a star. We got to know each other quite well, and when she was in New York she used to go eat Sunday dinners with my sister's family in Brooklyn. See, she'd get a little homesick every now and then so she liked being able to speak Swedish and not being treated like she was anybody special. A lovely lady, she was; warm and very well-mannered."

And then his bus arrived, and I thanked him for his stories and he got on board and I never saw him again. But I can't help thinking that if a former cabin boy remembers you so fondly 70 years or so later, you really must have been something rather special.