When I was 14 and walking home from school I found a wallet laying at the edge of the road. I opened it and found $320 in addition to tons of stuff like papers and credit cards - all worthless to me. To a kid that was a fortune!
From his driver license I searched through the phone book, called his phone number, and left a message to call me if he had lost something. He called a few hours later and identified his wallet. We made arrangements for him to come to my house and retrieve it.
My mom stood with me when he came to the house (watching out for me). I answered the door, he grabbed the wallet and without a word turned and left. It soured me on the whole good Samaritan thing, but didn’t kill the sense of ethics my folks taught me.
In truth I don’t know what I would do if I dug up a treasure in my backyard. I do know that the last one on earth that I would want to profit by it is the government.
Wow, what lack of gratitude...but I think doing the right thing doesn’t require gratitude.
It’s nice that you can be proud of what you did - what a good thing. :-)
You did the right thing. I’m sure he thought the money was gone and too embarrassed for anyone to question how he might have lost it in the first place.
About once a week I go to the bank and get some walk around cash, been doing it for 20+ years. I’ve also been doing business with the same bank for as long. I use a money clip and the tellers are always kidding me about my expensive money clip, a clip from an old cell phone holster. it doesn’t bend and expands enough to carry a large amount of bill’s. Around 5 years ago I got a call from one of the tellers at the bank asking me if I was missing something and I said no. She chuckled and said maybe I should check my pockets, yep my money clip was missing. I keep it and my truck keys on the same side and I guess when pulling the key’s out in the parking lot I’d pulled the clip out also and never heard it hit the pavement. A young man about 20 years old with a wife and child had found it in the parking lot and took it into the bank and handed it to the teller. She gave me his name and phone number and I called and offered him 100 dollars for his honesty which he refused. In talking to him I found out he liked to hunt so I invited him out for a weekend deer hunt which he took me up on. he got two nice whitetail bucks and a 10 inch tom turkey. We filled his freezer. 8 days later one of my buddies mentioned needing a tech hand for his pump business and I called the young man up and sent him that way. He’s been working there ever since and makes a damn good living, he takes care of all my down hole pumps on the ranch. Big jump from a minimum wage stocker at our local Walmart. The money clip had 638 dollars in it.
I hope this story helps with you moral dilemma? (wink wink)
I had the same “found wallet” experience. But the owner who came to my house to pick up the wallet was appreciative. A good lesson was learned.