Like a time capsule, what’s left on the train is often a good indicator of what the societal trends are at a given time, says lost and found manager Casey Arasa.
Judging by the number of lost karate gis, interest in the martial arts and being properly uniformed for them is booming in the suburbs. Yoga, too — at least according to all the dropped mats — remains quite popular. But trend spotting gets more difficult when the items are bizarre ones, and there are certainly plenty of those.
One day last month, the lost and found contained: a surfboard, several boogie boards, a Louisville Slugger baseball bat, a set of dentures, a stroller (without the baby), a battered white commodore’s cap and — Mr. Arasa’s favorite — a pair of metal crutches, leading one to envision a poor sprain-kneed commuter hobbling toward the 6:15 to Hicksville.
The lost and found collects 10,000 items a year, with a 50% return rate. My own return rate too is 50%–lost the remote-control car, found the Blackberry.