We finally got tickets for Jersey Boys.

Even though they were seats in the very last row of the August Wilson Theatre, we felt extremely fortunate. The press reviews were ecstatic only to be matched by the opinions of good friends whose ideas we respected.

The LIRR train ride to Penn Station was uneventful. The cab ride in the rain, to 52nd Street, also was just as normal. We were early (the curtain goes up at 7 p.m.) and after a long debate we entered the Cosmos Diner (52nd Street and 8th Avenue).

We ate leisurely and we were a half block from the theater. And then it happened. Into the diner strides this tall man with a wide open face. He is accompanied by an attractive woman and they find a seat in the far corner of the diner.

Lorraine and I start speculating. "Who is he?" He looks so familiar but neither of us could place from where we knew him. It was making us edgy but we could not place this tall stranger. Was he an actor or an old friend?

As we were leaving, I could not stand it any longer. I do not like to approach celebrities but I was aburst with curiosity. I went over to his table and said "Either you live in my condominium or you are an actor!" He said quietly, "I am an actor!"

"What have you acted in recently?"

"The Sopranos!" said he.

"Heshy!" I screamed loudly in the quiet diner.

"That's me!" he said evenly.

For those of you who are not Soprano fans, Heshy is a loudmouth, no goodnik and small-time hood affiliated with Tony Soprano and his gang.

I shook the actor's hand and we left to see the show. I brought binoculars (last row) and I inquired of the ushers, whether audio augmentation was necessary. They said "Don't worry, you will hear everything." She was right. The music was terrific and it brought back the songs of the 1970s and 1980s. The lad who sang the Frankie Valli part, John Lloyd Young, went from falsetto to tenor to base in his voice range.

We left the theater humming Sherry.

It was still raining and cabs were scarcer than hen's teeth, when we jumped into a Pedicab. "Twenty dollars to Penn Station." Agreed. The driver, a Korean named John, bundled us into the cab, placed a warm blanket over our laps, zipped a plastic lining over the cab and started pedaling the 18 blocks on 7th Avenue. On the way I practiced my Korean which I learned while serving in Seoul, 46 years ago. Another Big Apple experience. We were home by 11:30 p.m. and warm and comfortable.

It began to bother me. "Who was Heshy?" "What was his real name?" On my Dell computer I punched in "Heshy-Sopranos" and it jumped out at me. His name was Eric Konigsberg and he had recently written a book called Blood Relation. He was a midwesterner, who sensed something exotic and mysterious about his family. He discovered that his father's baby brother was a brutal, cold-blooded killer serving time for murder in an upstate NY prison. Eric interviewed his great uncle "Kayo Konigsberg" in prison. Uncle Heshy was a brutal no-goodnik killer but a charmer who acted as his own lawyer.

Eric Konigsberg took on his characterization and name from the family black sheep, Harold (Heshy) Konigsberg.

A little event, a little research and an interesting story pops up.

That completes the tale of "A Night in The Big Apple."