“Sounds like a damn fool to me, George…”
I only post this story to make a point, that society, and the press, are always stunned when a poor guy is also an honest guy. Is it a form of snobbery?
Poor Man Is Honest: Society Is Stunned
SANTA ANA – When Kim Bogue lost her wallet last week, she had little hope that she’d recover it or the $900 and bundle of credit cards inside.
With a team of co-workers, she twice searched the Santa Ana civic buildings where she works as a janitor. They pulled bags from dumpsters, rummaged through offices, and checked all the bathrooms, but found nothing.
That same weekend, a homeless man who roams the Santa Ana civic buildings also was searching for something. He made his routine visit to the trash bins nearby to look for aluminum cans. Instead, he found Bogue’s wallet wrapped in a plastic bag. That Monday, the man, who declined to be identified, gave the money to Sherry Wesley, an Irvine woman who works in one of the buildings.
“He came to me with the wad of money and said ‘This probably belongs to someone that you work with, can you return it?'” Wesley said.
Bogue, a Garden Grove resident, received a call from her boss with the good news. Someone recovered her wallet after she accidentally tossed it in the trash with her lunch.
Grateful, Bogue gave the man a $100 reward, which he split with Wesley.
Wait, so this Wesly person actually took half of the homeless guys reward? This person with a real job didn’t offer the whole reward to the homeless person who actually found the wallet? Seems like she should have turned down his offer.
I don’t think this is really snobbish. I know a lot of people who aren’t homeless who would keep the money for themselves.
This man was just very honest.
And, yeah, I can’t believe that Wesley didn’t give the homeless guy the whole $100…
Someone give that man a job in the White House!
No no… homeless dude split the money with the phone jockey. Phone jockey should have refused, but Wesley did right…
Let me see if I got this right…
a) Homeless guy finds wallet with $900 that was lost by the janitor.
b) Homeless guy approaches “Wesley” that works at the same place where the wallet was lost.
c) “Wesley” takes 50% comission from reward for making sure wallet gets back to original owner.
Wesley is an a-hole for keeping any of the money.
Is Wesley a lawyer?
Good find!!
We need more of these types of stories to stop us from all becoming cranky geek cynics… oh, wait… hehe
The homeless man decided to split the money with Wesley. Wesley also gave him a steak dinner and donated the rest to her church where she helps the homeless on Sundays. Plus the homeless man pays a little for his free meals. Sounds like the homeless man has some good principles…maybe he wanted to help the homeless also? Too bad nobody asked why he gave half to Wesley.
No, no. The wallet’s owner gave the homeless guy $100 reward. The homeless guy gave Wesley half of it. Wesley gave her half to the church, plus gave the homeless guy a special steak dinner on Sunday.
I would have asked the homeless guy to keep the whole $100, but I don’t fault Wesley for giving her half to the church. She didn’t keep it for herself.
Basic principle…
If the wallet had been stolen or Lost for ever….
I would have been happy just to get the cards and ID back…
Used to be a 10% gratuety was given.. But, I would REALLY think MORE would have been better…IF she didnt need the money.
These kinds of story’s, while told in astonishment by blond bimbo newsreaders on t.v., are great to see…….lets us know that honest people of all walks are still out there.
Makes you hope that when the humanity ending big meteor slams into mother earth, it spares the honest ones.
What the heck is a civic janitor doing with $900 in their wallet. I’m moving to Santa Ana and changing professions!
I’ll vote for snobbishness.
I have lived for most of the last 20 years in a small African town*, surrounded by poor people who have a deep understanding of the difference between a lack of dignity and a lack of money. That distinction that is lost, by and large, in urban North America.
In that town it would be unthinkable for someone, no matter how poor, not to return a wallet found lying on the ground intact.
There are a number of factors. Fear of God for Christians, Fear of gods for pagans; What would the neighbours think (they would be dismayed that a wallet would go missing like that in their town);
Strong community and understanding of communal responsibility leads to the understanding that when you don’t have material goods, your good name and integrity are even more precious.
*The town’s name is Wurupong. It’s in Ghana. Do a search on the tag “nkonya” on flickr.com to see what things look like there.
I serve the homeless with Sherry Wesley every week and I must inform you that she is so honest that she was the first person the homeless man approached to return the wallet. She never accepted half of the reward for herself. The homeless man knew her homeless group was struggling to buy a deep freezer to store donations to prepare hot food and he insisted that she do whatever she wanted with the money. Thanks to them and a kind hearted lady, we now have that deep freezer.
To the comment “Awake” made. You really should know the facts before you put your mouth in gear!!!
Sanna Ware