To the Editor:
This is a note of thanks to the U.S. Postal Service. My wallet fell out of my pocket at a Bennington gas station on Sunday. When I returned five minutes later, the wallet was gone and no one had turned it in. I figured it was lost forever.
Three days later, the U.S. Postal Service delivered it to my door in Connecticut. It was not in a box, not in a bag. Nothing. The postal carrier just rang the bell and handed my wallet to my wife. The cash was gone but I was grateful to have the wallet back—not so much for the credit cards (which I had already cancelled), but for the personal items: a picture of my kids, a discount coupon to our local diner, the names of the peaks on the John Muir trail that I hiked with my son.
When I called the Bennington Post Office to piece the story together and thank them, they said that they had found my wallet in a blue drop-off box outside the building.
To whoever kept the money, I hope you spent it well. And whoever thought to "mail" my wallet back to me, thank you. You may be the same person who kept the money, but I don't know for sure. Perhaps someone took the cash and tossed my wallet out the window and a good samaritan thought to mail it back. Or maybe it was the same person and they figured the cash was their reward for their good deed. Or perhaps they just needed a couple six-packs to make it through another day. Fair enough. This round is on me.
Either way, my faith in humanity was restored, at least somewhat. And I see the U.S. Postal Service in a whole new light.
Roger Grannis,
Ridgefield, Connecticut