Ok, Ok! A Cross Country Encounter

Before moving to New York City in 1995, my wife and I lived in the Upper Haight neighborhood of San Francisco. Back then the sidewalks were filled with panhandlers on every block. Mostly runaway kids, wannabe hippies, and old hippies.

The call of the panhandlers ranged from the basic “Spare some change?” to the more prosaic “Need money for weed.” Locals learned to coexist with them—they were simply part of everyday life in the Haight.

There was one guy that always stood out to me—not because of his appearance. He was young, goateed and typically dressed in a long, grey tweed overcoat. What stood out was his distinctive response when turned down after asking for money.

His line was a simple, softly delivered “Spare some change?” in a quiet, non-threatening voice. When handed money, he would mumble a subdued “Thank you” without making eye contact. But when turned down, his reply was an optimistic, sing-song, gravelly “OK, OK!” with the pitch rising on the second “OK!”

I heard his patented “OK, OK!” almost daily during the years we lived in the Haight. It’s burned into my memory.

One day, during our first summer in New York, I was walking down Thompson Street, a block or two south of Washington Square, when I heard that unmistakable phrase: “OK, OK!” I froze, looked around, and there he was—the same panhandler from San Francisco, now doing his thing on the streets of Manhattan.

For a moment, I was confused. Had I first encountered this person here in New York? No, it was definitely the same person I’d seen a for years on Haight Street. Questions raced through my mind: What was he doing here? How did he get here? And, of course, the paranoid —was he following me?

I was too freaked out to ask him what he was doing in New York and it was none of my business anyway. I crossed the street and put a couple dollars in his cup. He looked up and met my eyes. I nodded and he nodded back, almost like he was expecting me. Was that possible?

After that encounter in the West Village, I never saw him again. But I’ll never forget him—a fellow former Californian, now making his way in New York City.