A DIFFERENT KIND OF KINDNESS FROM A STRANGER

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Corey Simmons got on the New York City subway, heading from Manhattan to Brooklyn to pick up his son from his grandmother about two weeks ago.

He knew he needed to open the green folder on his lap, but he hesitated, because inside lay his son’s math worksheets that father and son were supposed to complete together. Simmons, 40, was never great at math.

His son, who is in third grade, had just failed a test on fractions. Simmons wasn’t sure he remembered the difference between a numerator and a denominator.

He opened the folder and started on a problem, but wasn’t sure if he was doing it correctly. That was when a man got on the train and sat next to him.

“He looked like a professor or something,” Simmons said. “He looked kind of smart in the books, like he knew something about math.”

So Simmons, a clothing designer, started saying out loud that his son had failed a test, hoping to get the attention of the man. Simmons usually keeps to himself on the subway, like everybody else, but he said he needed a hand, and the man looked like he could help...READ MORE