A New York moment

Today was a spectacularly beautiful day. My husband had to go to work. I really did need to work on tax stuff but it was beautiful. I convinced my youngest, who loves to live his life from one of our living room couches, to come out for a walk with me. Believe me, he wasn't eager to get out into the sunshine.

We walked down to 72nd street. For me it was fun to see people out in their Easter finery. On our way back, we noticed a crowd around a storm drain at Broadway and 86th. Someone had clearly lost something down the storm drain.  A couple of people were working with a yellow grabbing pole trying to get the lost object. I would have walked by. But this sort of a scene is irresistable to my son. He quickly got himself into the center of the circle of people. A young woman had dropped her cellphone down the storm drain.

A very New York crowd of people of various ethnic groups, ages and social groups quickly gathered to give advice and cheer on the the people actually doing the work. Some people simply asked what the commotion was. Others stopped to watch and to offer advice.  Someone had gone into one of the stores to get a roll of the always useful duct tape.

My son is built like the adolescent that he is. He is long and gangly with skinny arms and legs. I don't know if he suggested putting his skinny arms between the grates of the storm drain, or if members of the advice giving crowd put him up to it. After about 10 minutes of various attempts, my son got the cellphone and gave it to the owner.

As we washed my son's arm and hand off from the strom drain crud, the mom of the young woman whose phone my son rescued handed my very surprised son a twenty dollar bill.  A very happy crowd dispersed into the spring sunshine.

Maybe my youngest will be more willing to leave the house knowing that there are adventures to be had outside of our apartment.