Good Turn Returned
A Boy Scout’s good deed returning a wallet with $800 in it brings his own missing wallet back to him. Sounds like a Saturday Evening Post cover, but it’s true. Grand Rapids Press:
A Boy Scout is loyal, helpful, friendly and, in the case of 11-year-old scout J.R. Bouterse, about 30 bucks richer. All supporting the adage that what goes around, comes around.
If you missed Tuesday’s front-page news, J.R. is the Scout from Allegan County who made international headlines for his decision to return a wallet he found containing more than $800.
He figured he should do the right thing but also acted out of empathy, because he had recently lost his own wallet in a park near the same Dorr church where he discovered fast-food manager Jessica Cutler’s cash.
“I knew exactly how she felt,” J.R. said of Cutler’s pain.
And now he knows exactly how it feels to be reunited with something lost, thanks to an Allegan County twosome who read Tuesday’s story and realized they had J.R.’s wallet.
Nancy Bosse, 56, and granddaughter Rachael Bosse, 6, attended the same Easter egg hunt that J.R. observed, and they stayed after to play in the park.
“We were there longer than anyone else,” Nancy said. “And as we were leaving, we both saw something on the ground.”
The kindergartner’s first words? “How are we going to get this wallet back to the person, grandma?”
J.R.’s wallet contained no ID — only about $30 (some $15 less than he had thought) and a makeshift “credit card” he uses to access a home-based bank account designed to teach him about saving, giving and spending.
Nancy Bosse decided to turn the wallet over to an area bank, instructing it to direct the cash to next year’s Easter egg hunt if no one claimed it.
But as she read of J.R.’s find — and loss — on Mlive.com, she figured she and Rachael had the Scout’s stash. A phone call confirmed it.
All very heartwarming, kind of like Norman Rockwell channelling O Henry. Once upon a time I could have rattled off all the moral qualities I was supposed to possess, but most of what I remember now of my own Rudyard Kipling channelling Hunter Thompson/Apocalypse Now Boy Scout experience has more to do with sneaking beer and cigarettes in noodle shops, burning stuff, being tortured by older scouts and torturing younger ones, crashing around the jungles of Thailand and Malaysia, and a lot of snakes. Also, knot tying, whittling and good deeds for orphans. All under the tutelage of the good paratroopers of the 101st Airborne and 5th Special Forces* who kindly gave their time to Bangkok’s Troop 702 … “Better Than You.” And as we regularly kicked the other troops’ butts in lashing together bamboo signal towers, etc., at those Jamborees on the River Kwai, it turned out we were. Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent, but they didn’t say anything about modest.
* Thank you, CSM Joe Bossi, 101st Abn. (Ret’d). Thank you, S/Sgt. Pete Olson, 5th SF. Thank you, Col. Thompson.
Topics: Boy Scouts, ancient mysteries
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:02 pm on Thursday, May 1, 2008
One Response to “Good Turn Returned”
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May 1st, 2008 at 10:27 pm
I believe that most people are fundamentally good. Not all, but most. And not all of the time. But enough of the time to make humanity a worthwhile enterprise.