.
There’s still plenty of stuff on the internets that won’t make you hate the human race. Via commentor SRV, in the NYTimes, Peter Mercurio explains how “We Found Our Son on the Subway“:
The story of how Danny and I were married last July in a Manhattan courtroom, with our son, Kevin, beside us, began 12 years earlier, in a dark, damp subway station.
Danny called me that day, frantic. “I found a baby!” he shouted. “I called 911, but I don’t think they believed me. No one’s coming. I don’t want to leave the baby alone. Get down here and flag down a police car or something.” By nature Danny is a remarkably calm person, so when I felt his heart pounding through the phone line, I knew I had to run.
When I got to the A/C/E subway exit on Eighth Avenue, Danny was still there, waiting for help to arrive. The baby, who had been left on the ground in a corner behind the turnstiles, was light-brown skinned and quiet, probably about a day old, wrapped in an oversize black sweatshirt.
In the following weeks, after family court had taken custody of “Baby ACE,” as he was nicknamed, Danny told the story over and over again, first to every local TV news station, then to family members, friends, co-workers and acquaintances. The story spread like an urban myth: You’re never going to believe what my friend’s cousin’s co-worker found in the subway. What neither of us knew, or could have predicted, was that Danny had not just saved an abandoned infant; he had found our son….
raven
Nice
WereBear
Okay, I teared up. I hope you’re happy!
I really am :)
geg6
AL, my John and I are still interested in the puppy in the rescue bleg last night if the BJ minions can find a way to get her here. Unless, of course, someone more local to the West Coast wants her. Do you have any news on that front?
raven
@geg6: I checked back this morning and it seemed like there was a big celebration but no details??
eta I’m sure you did too
Schlemizel
Look here. The world has worked long and hard to convince me that most of humanity is not worth the space we take up on this rock. Then you go linking to a story of decent people making the world a tiny bit better and mess up everything! Its like ripping a band-aid off & taking some of the scab with it. Its going to take a while for my shell to heal over again. STOP THAT!
aimai
New York/New York
Its a Wonderful Town
The Bronx is Up
And the Babies are Down (in the Subway).
What a great, great, great story. I only wished that the ending was “And that Judge was Sonia Sotomayor!”
geg6
@raven:
I’m going to email AL later when I get to work. Maybe we can find a way to do this. We may need Juicers to help out if it works out, but that dog is adorable and we NEED her!
raven
@geg6: Heck yes, I’m in.
WereBear
If it helps get that little funny-eared face into another good home, I’m in, too.
abo gato
Thank you for such a sweet story for a Friday morning.
raven
Here’s the dog bleg thread.
SiubhanDuinne
That is a great story. I love the symmetry, and I love that it was Kevin himself who suggested the judge.
WereBear
As I like to say, Love will find a way… if we stop getting in its way.
chopper
that’s a fuck of a story. still happy i’m leaving NYC for CA this summer tho. but you did get me with that one, new york.
Anya
What a lovely story! I so love feel good stories that prove there’s so much goodness in humanity. Kevin and his dads are fortunate they found each other. I wonder what happened to the baby’s mother?
When I was a kid, my mom used to scan the news for feel good stories like these, and she used to tell me and my brother about it. She always used to say, “there’s so much goodness in the world, we only hear about the bad stuff because it’s against our nature.” A story like this reinforces that believe.
JPL
@geg6: I’m in and it sounds like several folks last night offered to help.
I read the story last night when SRV posted a link. The comments were great.
JPL
Raven, Did Mika and Joe apologize for supporting Woodward yesterday?
raven
@JPL: Damning with faint praise comes to mind.
raven
@JPL: Except for some old negative dude.
Baud
I’m not in the mood for a feel good story. Does that ever happen to anyone else, or is there something wrong with me?
Schlemizel
@Baud:
No, it happens to me all the time. But then again I am probably not the model of personality you want.
But this story really did make me feel good – something most “feel good” stories do not. This is so random and was the result of the exact right mix of people at the exact right time that it makes me want to believe in fate. Those are 3 lucky people & one very fabulous judge.
Baud
@Schlemizel:
Thanks. I’ll try to remember to read it later when I’m in a more receptive mood.
Suffern ACE
@Baud: there’s clearly a brain tumor causing that, most likely the result of a magic marker you spent too long sniffing when you were six even though your mom warned you. Your fate of not feeling joy at this point in your life was sealed long ago.
If you want, we can turn this into a feel bad story and cynically note that it was written to help sell a screen play for a movie that by the time it comes out will cost $30 a ticket, and be protected by copyright laws that congress will have made so tight that just mentioning it in passing will result in a death sentence.
kay
Well, the NYTimes has that Boehner has refused to negotiate with the WH, which I thought was crystal clear from Boehner’s public statements.
He didn’t and doesn’t see any upside to meeting with them. It’s not complicated.
So why have they spent the last week pretending it’s simply a matter of Obama reaching out?
That’s obviously not true. It was never true. Boehner has as much as announced it.
I didn’t even need “deep background”. I just read Boehner’s public statements for the last 2 weeks.
Ash Can
This story was an excellent way to start the day. Thanks for the link!
JPL
@kay: I think the negotiations should be on CSPAN. After Woodward was able to take over the airways yesterday with a lie, transparency is key.
Anya
@Baud: I’ll reverse it for you: A mother felt compelled to leave her newly born baby in the subway. Do you feel better now?
Schlemizel
@Anya:
And now that she has read the story she is going to come forward and demand the child back – or ransom from the parents to make her go way.
Its a real feel bad story!
Emma
I am SOOOO glad I have a very private office. Sniffling on the job is not professional behavior!
some guy
as an adoptive dad of two awesome kids, that story made me cry. it brought back a rush of memories of our own beginnings into parenthood, and I am so glad you chose to share that with us.
Baud
@Suffern ACE: @Anya:
Thanks for trying to cheer me down. You guys are the best! ;-)
Schlemizel
@Baud:
I often think of myself as a little black ray of unsunshine on the world.
Anya
@Schlemizel: She’ll turn out to be a born again Christian and she’ll come against two gay men raising her baby. One Million Moms would take up her cause and there will be stores about how she “chose life” despite the poor young mom’s godless liberal family pressuring her to abort the child. Better yet, since the child is brown, maybe the family is Muslim.
Anya
@Baud: I think you should meet my mom. She lives for feel good stories.
jeffreyw
Thread needs moar French toast.
gvg
As a Foster mom with a grandma who was adopted and I think 5 cousins, some on each side who were adopted and then some of my cousins have adopted more and my sister now has a adopted son, well of course I cried. I’m waiting to get one to keep myself. Had some disapointments this year but I have to believe.
By the way, contrary to urban myth, there are kids waiting for homes.
The Other Bob
As an adoptive dad, these stories really hit me. It’s rare that a child comes to a family through adoption in such an unplanned way.
Adoption has impacted me in many ways that would not surprise you, but in some ways that really caught me off guard. No matter what I did in life, my kids were going to be born. As our lives progressed, I was fortunate enough to have my lifeline intersected with theirs, allowing me to be their dad. Knowing this, how can I regret anything I did in my life that might have altered my life trajectory and caused me to miss out on being these kids’ parent?
My kids gave me, and continue to give me, many gifts.
Shrillhouse
I’ve got something in my eye…
NotMax
Didn’t read the whole thing, but it didn’t occur to the finder to walk to the nearest token booth and ask the clerk to call a transit cop?
Baud
@Schlemizel: @Anya:
I’m not usually this way. It’s just the mood I’m in right now.
Kay
@JPL:
I think there’s a basic misunderstanding (and maybe it’s deliberate, I don’t know) about the Tea Party and the US House. I talked to a lot of Tea Partiers last summer. The Tea Party people are the activist base of the GOP. That’s what they are.
They see the Tea Party as owning the US House. I think that’s true. Boehner does not in fact have a working majority in the House, which is why he has to keep going to Democrats.
So if we said there was the US House, the Senate and the President, the Tea Party ARE the US House. That’s how they see it. Whatever gets said about the US House is a reflection on the Tea Party.
They’re really legalistic, in that they take the most narrow definition of any word, for example, “passed”, and repeat that. So, they think the accusation of intransigence, or the charge that they can’t “pass” anything is false because they HAVE passed Tea Party budgets and such, it’s just that they never get past the Senate. So if I respond and say it doesn’t matter if they technically govern (pass laws) in the House, because just passing something in the House doesn’t mean shit, they reject that. They’re not responsible for the Senate or the President. The facts are that the Tea Party House passes bills.
Now you and I would say that’s an inability to compromise and an inability to actually complete a task, but they see it the opposite. They believe they’re the only part that works.
Boehner is now repeating this Tea Party argument. He’s saying that the House has done their job, and it is up to the Senate to act. That’s the position of the activist base of the GOP. I don’t think he believes it, he knows passing one chamber isn’t “lawmaking”, but they sure believe it.
Gex
Facebook’s inline ads indicate that they figured out I’m Asian. Reminds me of the 90’s when Sprint and MCI would call in Chinese to sell me a long distance plan.
Guys, I was born in Shakopee, MN. Do people with French last names get ads or sales calls in French? I guess only white people become Americans. Brown people are always immigrants.
JGabriel
You know, I’m usually pretty jaded, but …
NO, THAT’s NOT A TEAR IN MY EYE! I HAVE ALLERGIES! STOP IT! SHUT UP AND STOP MOCKING ME!
Where was I? Oh, yeah. That really was a … I’m not sure my cynical self can type this word:
har…heartw… heartwarming story.ETA: Thank you, Anne & SRV, for pointing it out to us.
.
Schlemizel
@Baud:
Sadly, I usually am. Its a disability that gets no respect.
It really is a great story though, I hope you are feeling up to it soon. Not just because it is a great story but just so you are feeling up to it.
Aimai
@Kay: Kay what a brilliant ethnographic insight. You are the baloon juicer I would most like to meet in person.
Anya
@Baud: I hope you feel better soon.
JPL
@Aimai: second
The Other Bob
@Schlemizel:
Let’s not purpetuate the Lifetime Channel urban legend that biological mom’s can reclaim their kids at anytime. I know you were just screwing around, but I feel compelled to dispell that myth.
Kay
@Aimai:
Thanks! They’re really well-versed on what goes on, IMO it’s because a lot of them are older, so they can watch C-SPAN for hours, but it’s wrong to say they’re “uninformed.” They seize on a crazily technical reading of rules and phrases and words. They have the vocabulary, just not the common sense application, how the rules have to work.
One older man got really, really upset when I said “you guys have to govern” because he was pointing to bills that had passed the House, and really screeching about Reid (they loathe Reid, I cannot imagine getting so worked up over Harry Reid, he’s so…grim and dry) not doing anything. To his mind, the Tea Party House teed up the proper bills for Harry Reid and Reid is just abandoning his duty to pass them out of the Senate.
People like that are difficult to deal with in my work, the seizing on a word and just hitting it over and over, as “that settles it! I win!” not so much because we think differently, although we do, but because it doesn’t matter. We still have to get something done. It doesn’t matter if they win the dictionary definition fight. It’s a waste of time.
Lawyers usually do it not because they believe “that settles it!” but because they have nothing else or they’re stalling. Tea Party people believe it is settled.
MrSnrub
@The Other Bob: As another adoptive dad, I totally agree.
Our adoption story: our son was what is termed ‘an emergency placement.’ His birth mother planned on adoption, but never contacted any agencies. When she went to the hospital, they called our agency. The social worker on call went out with The Book of potential adoptive parents. An hour later, on Christmas Eve, we got a call out of the blue telling us that we were parents.
I still get something in my eye when I think about it.
The confluence of events and coincidences that allowed it to happen just astounds me when I think about it: if his birth mother went to another hospital, if the hospital called a different agency, whatever it was that was in our profile that caught her attention.
Kay
@Aimai:
I also think it’s just really interesting, because I don’t remember ever seeing that before, where controlling one chamber is the focus of the activist base of a political party. It’s such a weirdly fragmented view, and of course it won’t work, ever, because there are two chambers and the President that have to be dealt with, but what do you do with that, if you’re a Democrat or even John Boehner? This huge point of pride for them, they captured the US House! You have to tell them, “well, but there’s still the Senate and the Prez.”
I don’t know. I guess a strict reading of the constitution would lead one to believe that the House had independent powers, and they do, to a certain extent, but not independent and apart from the upper chamber and the executive. They want to be perceived as positive, but they can’t get anything done, affirmatively, with just one chamber. I mean, they can say it as often as they like, but just ignoring the upper chamber and the executive can’t be called “governing.” You can’t split out the House like that. It will never work.
Cassidy
Today is a good day to not hate people.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: @Kay: You make great points in in both of these comments. I think the Tea Party people in the House and their supporters are missing the forest while staring at their one tree. They see the job of the House as passing bills. They do that. Therefore, as you said, they believe they are doing their part. The rest of us see the House as a part of a federal government that should be governing and we see the whole thing failing. They have an extraordinarily blinkered view of the world in many ways, and this is one of the manners in which in manifests itself.
As far as their pride in taking the House goes – they see government as their enemy and they have taken and are holding enemy territory.
I will admit that there probably are contradictions between the two points I am making here, but that does not mean that the Tea Party folks don’t actually hold both views at the same time.
Phoenix_rising
@Schlemizel:
OtherBob was on myth patrol for ‘adoption isn’t permanent’ so I’ll catch part 2 of this compound myth, which I know was just your effort to cheer down Baud:
If this blog at NYT.com, or perhaps the based-on-real-life movie that the playwright dad has sold to Hollywood, results in this boy getting to find out who left him on the A train platform, and perhaps if he’s ready someday meet her–that would be yet another blessing to throw on the pile of Good Stuff.
Opening an adoption doesn’t mean that you’re negotiating visitation between two sets of parents, it means you’re adding some extended family you didn’t used to know.
While it’s true that many people adopted as babies never ask, it’s human to want to know who you look like. Tirelessly pursuing my kid’s roots was the most important gift I have ever given her. Better than a pony!
ruemara
This made me cry a bit. I love the story. I’d always hoped that by now, I’d be stable in my life (good career, cozy little house, multiple mutual funded investments) and have adopted 2 kids. Plus 2 kitties and a big furball dog of monster proportions. Never really fantasized about marriage or getting pregnant, but I always wanted to adopt and give some kids a loving home. It’s wonderful that Kevin just had some amazing universal synergy of Danny and Judge to turn something that could have been tragic into a wonderful family.
Cassidy
@kay: Because Democrats. That’s why.
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
Sometimes people tell me what’s supposed to be a “feel good” story and I end up thinking, “What the hell? What exactly about that story is supposed to make me feel good?”
I may send this story to my coworker later today, but I’m going to check with her first, because she may find the thought of the abandoned baby and the awful things that could have happened to him too distressing to be able to appreciate the happy ending.
TaMara (BHF)
Thank you AL and SRV, I needed that.
LAC
Damn, that story just started the waterworks. I HATE THE WATERWORKS! :)
BTW, anyone else get teary at the “story corps” segment on NPR? Just me? Ok…
dance around in your bones
Gawd Damn, that made water leak oughta my eyes.
Anne Laurie, for all the shit you take on this blog, you still bring quality comments and stellar Internet finds.
Even if John Cole ignores your emails and bigfoots on your posts, please know how much you are appreciated.
The Other Bob
@MrSnrub:
Amen brother.
The Other Bob
@Phoenix_rising:
Amen again. Pretty sure it was a tragic circumstance that forced a decision on the part of a desperate new mom. If so desired by both parties, a meeting should not be assumed to be a negative or nefarious.