I once rashly wrote that if the story I call "The Baby on the Roof" really had occurred, "wouldn't it have made the news in a big way?"
I've been hearing ever since from readers eager to prove that it did indeed occur and was reported as news. But I still think the story qualifies as legendary. It goes like this:While getting out of the car in a parking lot or by the roadside, a parent or parents accidentally leave the baby on the roof, still in its car seat.
Luckily, another driver alerts them to this grave mistake, and they rescue the baby before they return to the roadway.
In one variation, a mother is loading the car with groceries and so forgets her baby, whom she had placed on the roof. In the other, the baby is left up top when the parents are switching places at the wheel during a long trip.
I've heard from three readers who claim direct knowledge of a baby left on a car roof. One encountered a hospitalized child who had fallen from a car roof; one had a friend who forgot her baby on the roof; and one was a cyclist who alerted a driver about the baby on the roof.
I've also received many letters from folks who once read, heard or saw something in the media about a baby-on-the-roof scare. Details range from the incident happening in places from the Long Island Expressway to the California freeways, from 1979 to 1984. Some end happily, others tragically, with the child falling off the roof of the moving car.
I've collected only four dated clippings about babies on car roofs. Other such reports may exist, but I'll bet there aren't many. Here are mine:
Pasadena, Texas, May 1979: Baby found unharmed in infant's seat on highway, traced by police to parents who forgot her on roof when loading other children.
Loomis, Calif., August 1984: Baby of Canadian tourists forgotten in car seat placed on car roof falls off, dies of injuries.
Gulfport, Miss., January 1987: Baby forgotten on car roof falls, suffers broken collarbone.
Tampa, Fla., April 1988: Mother hears baby fall from car roof, stops to rescue same who suffers cuts, bumps and bruises.
Where do these reports leave us, legendwise?
I'd say that we have an ambiguous case. But regardless of whether these accidents really happened, by now "The Baby on the Roof" is a legend in the making.
As I hear the story most of the time, it's a simplified account of "some people" who forgot their baby on the car roof in one of two situations - while getting groceries, or trading places at the side of the road - but were warned in time to rescue the tot.
Some people who tell the story might have seen a similar news story, but most narrators are simply repeating a story they've heard.
Even if these performances are not genuine folk stories, they're awfully close to the mark.
P.S. "The Baby on the Roof" was the source of a hilarious scene in the 1987 film "Raising Arizona," which you need not write me about. I would like to hear any other examples of "Baby on the Roof" stories, though.
(C) 1989 United Feature Syndicate Inc.