Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 495

Today in microfashion…

Today in microfashion…

"She helps me when I’m feeling bad."

"She helps me when I’m feeling bad."

"I don’t need a caption."

"I don’t need a caption."

"I lived in Poland, so we were persecuted from the first day of...

"I lived in Poland, so we were persecuted from the first day of the war. First they took us from our home, then they put us in a ghetto, then they made us march, then they sent us to the camps. I was separated from everyone, but my brother later told me that my father froze to death. But I have children now, and grandchildren, and great grandchildren— a great big family, all of them educated. Look at everything that came from just one person who escaped. Just goes to show that you can never kill a people with hate. There will always be someone left to carry on.”

Rumi has returned from his Wild West Adventure at Drowsy Water...

Rumi has returned from his Wild West Adventure at Drowsy Water Ranch, and his mom has provided me with some photos to share with you guys.  She wanted to write a very long ‘thank you’ note to everyone, but I assured her that seeing Rumi have a great time would be more than enough thanks for everyone who donated.  Here’s a little excerpt from a long recap of the trip that she sent me.

"He got quite good at identifying a significant number of the herd (they have 121) and would get up early to watch them come in from pasture, feed them, and would stay at the stables until late to feed them again and watch them go out at night.  Just being with the horses, feeding them, watching them, getting to know them, being treated like a regular ranch-hand by the wranglers who let him lug around buckets of feed in the mud…that really was the most soul-filling thing for him.  He is a different person for this."

"Who’s had the biggest influence on your life?""Probably...

"Who’s had the biggest influence on your life?"
"Probably my mother."
"What’s her best quality?"
"She’s a very strong woman. She plays the role of my mother and my father."
"Where’s your father?"
"Oh, he’s there."

"I was a special education teacher."“Do you remember a...

"I was a special education teacher."

“Do you remember a specific moment in your career when you felt like you made the biggest difference?”

“Actually, I do. I was in Philadelphia, and teaching a class of children with IQ’s between 50 and 80. Shortly into the school year, one of the class members dropped out, and the school replaced him with a new boy. So this little boy named David shows up at my classroom door, and I let him into the class, but I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. For weeks, I couldn’t make out a word. Luckily there was one girl in the class who could understand him, so she would translate everything for me. Then one day, I looked up from my desk, and noticed David reading a book on the floor. I knew that no 6 year old with an IQ below 80 was reading a book, so I walked up to him, and without saying a word, I closed the book. He looked up at me and screamed: ‘Fuck you!’ I was so happy that he’d said something I could understand that I picked him up and kissed him. We learned that he had a cleft palate, which we found a doctor to fix for free, and by the time I left the school, he was moving along just fine.”

"I write in my journal everyday."“Why’s...

"I write in my journal everyday."

“Why’s that?”

“So much happens in life, I think it’s good to live it again and get some distance from it. Or else everything is in a muddle, like on a merry-go-round.”

"My four year old daughter recently asked me where babies come...

"My four year old daughter recently asked me where babies come from. I told her that when mom and dad love each other, they ask God for a baby, and he puts one in mom’s stomach. That one backfired a little bit, because now she keeps bugging me to ask God for a sister."

"He was in an accident where he got knocked off his bike and hit...

"He was in an accident where he got knocked off his bike and hit his head on a pipe. He was in a coma, so I got a big group together from the church and we went in there every day and did poetry readings, singing, range-of-motion exercises, and a lot of ‘hands-on’ work. The doctors said that if he didn’t wake up after a month, it was a bad sign. And he woke up after one month, to the day!"