Someone stole my laptop in New York a few weeks ago. It either happened as I navigated the crowds in Grand Central, or on the sidewalk as I lowered my head against a blustery and rainy day, or on the subway platform...
Loved this! Great story and insightful reflection. I had things stolen from me while in Nepal but when I realized that my second pair of sneakers could mean the young man helping to carry our packs would be able to work and that my rain jacket would protect the second from the bitingly cold night air, I let them go. Before I left I gave away everything I wasn’t wearing - medicine, extra socks, a watch, etc. Nepal humbled me and horrified me. We need to take better care of one another.
"Kids reveal you to yourself, through their purity and directness." I love that. Good reminder. Do the right thing, even when the right thing was not done to you. I am glad you got some sort of justice out of the situation, and learned a really great lesson for your future self!
What an engrossing (series) of stories. They made me think a lot about the concepts of "lost" and "found" and what it is to possess something. Not to always make it about baseball, but to make it about baseball: there is this thing called the "lost home run" where essentially a player hits a home run, or does anything else, only to have the records of the game struck when it is canceled due to inclement weather. Never happened, they start over another time. There have been several hundred lost home runs, and even Hank Aaron hit (didn't hit?) one, meaning if not for the rain, the all-time home run record would have been different. Is an action a possession? An accomplishment? Can you really lose these things? Baseball says you can.
When our son was 15, we took him with us on a trip to Europe. We were presenting papers at an academic conference in Uppsala, Sweden, and we decided a family adventure together would be great fun. We decided to make Prague, and then-Czechoslovakia, our post-conference adventure. It was 1990, the wall had come down only a year earlier, Prague was one of the great cities of Europe, and the Czechs were plainly an amazing people.
We booked train tickets from Uppsala to Malmö, and then another train to Prague. When the train gets to the Baltic Sea, the cars have to be moved onto a roll-on/roll-off ferry for the voyage to Germany. And it was when the train was about to move from just past the Malmö station and onto the ferry that we discovered the camera case with our Nikon 35mm and several lenses had been left on the train from Malmö (actually, our son had been charged with keeping track of the case, but alas….).
My solution? I would leave the car and quickly run back to the station — across a field! — and ask Swedish rail to try and see if the case had been turned in to their lost and found, or if not yet, to keep an eye out for it.
It was an insane plan. Doomed from the start. I never made it to the station. As I was running I saw the train moving — toward the ferry. I panicked. I ran back toward the now moving train. It disappeared into the bowels of the RORO ferry. I was far behind it. Running along the tracks.
On the train, wife and son were panicking. Not over my safety, but over the fact that the train was going onto the ferry, I was nowhere to be found, and I had all our passports and money. They asked the conductor: Where is he? What should we do?
There was a Czech girl on the train who spoke English and offered to translate. My wife explained what had happened. What I had done. The girl translated. The passengers in our car heard her Czech translation. They gasped. They cried out in horror. The poor man is lost. The conductor responded: “I know nothing of him.” More gasps from the crowd. Bowed heads. Lost, he is. So sad.
Meanwhile, I somehow managed to get into the ferry — through the train entrance, on the tracks! — to where the cars had been moved. Sweating and breathing hard from my desperate run, I searched for our car. And I finally found it.
Having survived my insane plan, my wife and son relieved to see me alive but very pleased as well over being reunited with our money and passports, thoughts of our lost camera, the lenses and the case, faded. It was gone. No need to cry over spilt milk. Be happy things did not turn out disastrously (like: I do not make it to the ferry and they arrive at German border control with no documents, or money).
After two fantastic weeks in Czechoslovakia, we returned to Sweden (round trip tickets to Europe were cheaper if we arrived and departed from the same place). At Malmö station again, decided to check, just for fun, with lost and found. No real hope the case was there, of course. Someone somewhere in Sweden is enjoying our camera.
I describe the case to the staff person at the counter. He checks in the back room. He returns with our case, camera and lenses all still there. Chances of this happening on the Metro-North or at Grand Central Station? Not very good. Maybe around zero. At least I thought so until I read Dan’s story about his laptop. Swedish and New Yorker honesty at its best.
Really great piece! I appreciate you sharing it this way, directly, connected with other personal experiences, and knitted together with reflection. I’d imagine the urge to turn it into fiction might have been strong(er) in a younger you? Or not.
Also, one very small note: when referring to folks from the country of “Colombia”, I believe the correct spelling is “Colombian”.
I found myself initially satisfied with the justice in your camera story, and then following your emotions when you thought on the story later. Thanks, Dan, for the reminder of the power of cooling off with reflection.
Loved this! Great story and insightful reflection. I had things stolen from me while in Nepal but when I realized that my second pair of sneakers could mean the young man helping to carry our packs would be able to work and that my rain jacket would protect the second from the bitingly cold night air, I let them go. Before I left I gave away everything I wasn’t wearing - medicine, extra socks, a watch, etc. Nepal humbled me and horrified me. We need to take better care of one another.
"Kids reveal you to yourself, through their purity and directness." I love that. Good reminder. Do the right thing, even when the right thing was not done to you. I am glad you got some sort of justice out of the situation, and learned a really great lesson for your future self!
What an engrossing (series) of stories. They made me think a lot about the concepts of "lost" and "found" and what it is to possess something. Not to always make it about baseball, but to make it about baseball: there is this thing called the "lost home run" where essentially a player hits a home run, or does anything else, only to have the records of the game struck when it is canceled due to inclement weather. Never happened, they start over another time. There have been several hundred lost home runs, and even Hank Aaron hit (didn't hit?) one, meaning if not for the rain, the all-time home run record would have been different. Is an action a possession? An accomplishment? Can you really lose these things? Baseball says you can.
It's odd sometimes, how you grow from these experiences. Thanks for all of your honesty. Your kids are lucky.
Lost things that come back - a story….
When our son was 15, we took him with us on a trip to Europe. We were presenting papers at an academic conference in Uppsala, Sweden, and we decided a family adventure together would be great fun. We decided to make Prague, and then-Czechoslovakia, our post-conference adventure. It was 1990, the wall had come down only a year earlier, Prague was one of the great cities of Europe, and the Czechs were plainly an amazing people.
We booked train tickets from Uppsala to Malmö, and then another train to Prague. When the train gets to the Baltic Sea, the cars have to be moved onto a roll-on/roll-off ferry for the voyage to Germany. And it was when the train was about to move from just past the Malmö station and onto the ferry that we discovered the camera case with our Nikon 35mm and several lenses had been left on the train from Malmö (actually, our son had been charged with keeping track of the case, but alas….).
My solution? I would leave the car and quickly run back to the station — across a field! — and ask Swedish rail to try and see if the case had been turned in to their lost and found, or if not yet, to keep an eye out for it.
It was an insane plan. Doomed from the start. I never made it to the station. As I was running I saw the train moving — toward the ferry. I panicked. I ran back toward the now moving train. It disappeared into the bowels of the RORO ferry. I was far behind it. Running along the tracks.
On the train, wife and son were panicking. Not over my safety, but over the fact that the train was going onto the ferry, I was nowhere to be found, and I had all our passports and money. They asked the conductor: Where is he? What should we do?
There was a Czech girl on the train who spoke English and offered to translate. My wife explained what had happened. What I had done. The girl translated. The passengers in our car heard her Czech translation. They gasped. They cried out in horror. The poor man is lost. The conductor responded: “I know nothing of him.” More gasps from the crowd. Bowed heads. Lost, he is. So sad.
Meanwhile, I somehow managed to get into the ferry — through the train entrance, on the tracks! — to where the cars had been moved. Sweating and breathing hard from my desperate run, I searched for our car. And I finally found it.
Having survived my insane plan, my wife and son relieved to see me alive but very pleased as well over being reunited with our money and passports, thoughts of our lost camera, the lenses and the case, faded. It was gone. No need to cry over spilt milk. Be happy things did not turn out disastrously (like: I do not make it to the ferry and they arrive at German border control with no documents, or money).
After two fantastic weeks in Czechoslovakia, we returned to Sweden (round trip tickets to Europe were cheaper if we arrived and departed from the same place). At Malmö station again, decided to check, just for fun, with lost and found. No real hope the case was there, of course. Someone somewhere in Sweden is enjoying our camera.
I describe the case to the staff person at the counter. He checks in the back room. He returns with our case, camera and lenses all still there. Chances of this happening on the Metro-North or at Grand Central Station? Not very good. Maybe around zero. At least I thought so until I read Dan’s story about his laptop. Swedish and New Yorker honesty at its best.
I loved this whole thing Dan.
Really great piece! I appreciate you sharing it this way, directly, connected with other personal experiences, and knitted together with reflection. I’d imagine the urge to turn it into fiction might have been strong(er) in a younger you? Or not.
Also, one very small note: when referring to folks from the country of “Colombia”, I believe the correct spelling is “Colombian”.
Thanks! I’ll fix that.
Loved this Dan. Great insights.
Fantastic storytelling, Dan
Loved this <3
Dang that turn around at the end!!
I found myself initially satisfied with the justice in your camera story, and then following your emotions when you thought on the story later. Thanks, Dan, for the reminder of the power of cooling off with reflection.
Dan, this was wonderful!
It is Colombian, not Columbian
Beautiful as always.
being in Oakland, I love the maroon truck story 😎 And that you got your laptop back... I think you must have some seriously good karma Dan!