Too often, the news is crowded with what is wrong in the world. Crime in its many ugly forms–murder, theft, burglary. Very infrequently is there ever a story about anything good – which is a shame. But in Saturday’s Rutland Herald there was an article about a hiker who found a wallet on the side of Route 7 which contained some cash, credit cards and a diamond ring. The 24-year-old, from NYC who was hiking the Long Trail spotted the wallet over the guardrail. He feared that something had happened to the wallet’s owner and there was no driver’s license in the wallet.

He was already well on his way into his trip and too far to hike all the way back to Rutland to the authorities. When he returned home one week later, he set out to find the wallet’s owner. After many tries, he was lucky enough to have a video store call the owner of the wallet, who in turn was able to reach out to the 24-year-old. After the contents of the wallet and the ring were successfully identified, the man returned the wallet by express delivery to its owner. The woman who lives a couple towns over from us, was reported to be thrilled to have her wallet and her ring back.

The man, who wouldn’t accept a monetary reward from the wallet’s owner, remarked that the good karma from doing a good deed for someone was more than enough reward.  Nice to know that there are honest people out there in the world. Nice, as a mother, to know that our children can be raised to do the right thing.

The complete story can be found here.