Thursday, September 27, 2007

GOOD NEWS, CHUCK! WE FOUND YOUR WALLET . . .

Periodically over the summer, Mike has worked at cleaning out the barn – an unhealthy task involving dirt we won’t mention here. Today he came in with an artifact – a zippered leather wallet, hardened with age and exposure, which he found on the second story. He had to spray WD-40 on the zipper in order to get it to work. Curious, we delayed our lunch in order to open the wallet.

Aha! Mike thought so – the wallet belonged to Chuck. Forgive us for looking through it – we couldn’t help it. Contents: driver’s license carefully signed “Charles Portfors Walrath” and issued 8-30-50; OHS student activity ticket for the year 1950-51 signed by Wallace Webster, principal; picture of a young lady in a demure formal with a barn in the background; picture of “mother and Vance” on steps of our house; picture of Chuck in front of our house; two pictures of toddler Kathy in warm-up suit (probably taken in 1951); a one dollar bill. I’m sure you were inconvenienced by this loss when it happened, Chuck, but hopefully it hasn’t caused undue concern over the past 55+ years.

It’s exciting to find something that actually belonged to someone who is still alive! We’ll send it to you, Chuck.

2 comments:

Hallie said...

That's really neat! I suppose you'll need to calculate interest on that dollar before you send it back. In what condition were the photos? Was it well preserved on the inside? I wish I had found it. Was it buried in the hay pile?

Kathy said...

Mike says we had no use of the dollar (a silver certificate) and therefore we don't owe interest. The photos were in good shape though rather stuck to the clear plastic (acetate?) holders. The whole billfold was hardened. Mike said he was sweeping and raking the hay, dirt and crap and loading it into a garbage barrel when he just happened to see the billfold -- lucky he didn't throw it away. KW