I lost my pouch containing a cellphone and house keys several weeks ago while walking my daughter-in-law's dog. We were picking up aluminum cans along the way for recycling and to later donate some of the proceeds to various charities. Picking up cans for recycling helps our motivation for walking. We try to pick up no less than a minimum of five cans a day when going for walks. I think the pouch may have come off my shoulder unnoticed as I was bending to retrieve a can.

Well, to make a long story short, I'd given up hope of ever finding the pouch. We'd tried to back track and walk the same route in an effort to find it, but didn't have any luck, although we did get another bag of aluminum cans to recycle. I'd long since alerted the cellphone company to have the phone shut off. Then this week I get a phone call telling me the bag had been found and the gentleman offered to drop it by the house. I'm sorry I missed you when you came by. The hubby forgot to get your name. I had a thank you card ready but failed to tell the hubby, figuring I'd make it back home before you arrived. 

So, I'll just say it all here. Thank you so much! Your kindness, and the effort you went through to locate the owner of the pouch is greatly appreciated. As there was no identification inside the bag, other than the keys with a few local discount store cards on it and the phone, which had long been turned off.

Brenda Washington 

* * *

That’s pretty cool Ms. Washington. I hope whoever the nice guy is reads Chattanoogan and gets a proper pat on the back. Also, nice of you to share your story. I’m tired of hearing so constantly, even though it’s true, how dire we have allowed our human situation to become. Good people and what they do is apparently no fun anymore so much thanks to you as well as the nice guy.

However, it reminded me of a bad day that I created for myself that, but for a good guy, almost turned really ugly.

About ten years ago, one of my brothers, a friend of his and I decided to sneak off after lunch and do a little dirt riding at Prentice Cooper. It’s a pretty close by place to go and I had the bike and everything in the truck from being fixed at the shop. It was a no-brainer plan.

So we get there and get unloaded and suited up and take off through the woods like a rocket. After I guess about five miles, you come to a deep creek that takes a little bit of finesse when the water’s high and there is a logical place to stop and take stock on the other side so that’s what we did.

My bike has a pouch on the rear fender where I put things like car keys and the wallet and a water bottle. I took a drink and we took off again. Three or four miles later, brother and friend were ahead of me and I was screaming up a hill trying to catch up. When you ride a dirt bike, even though there’s an engine doing all of the pulling, you’re still working a serious sweat and breathing hard. I charged full throttle up the steepest part of the hill with my mouth wide open so I could suck as much air in as possible.

I was riding into the sun and semi-blind but I’ll never forget the flight path of an equally full throttle June bug coming the other way. You would think something like that would get hit by a visor, a face guard, a goggle, a nose, a tooth or a lip but no. The first thing this fat guy hit was the little wiggly thing hanging in the very back of my mouth.  We were both going about twenty so the collision was about 40 and there was no direction to go but further in and down.

Yes, I wiped out and yes he was six-legged writhing as I tried to gulp him down. Picking myself up, all I could think of was to not toss my innards because I still had my full face helmet on and the sight of that would be post traumatic forever. I needed water out of a straw in a very special way so I scrambled for the pouch on the fender.

What I saw was that I had forgotten to zip it back up by the creek about four miles ago. Water bottle, wallet and car keys were all gone and I was in the deep, deep woods.

Brother and friend returned and found me in a real twisted way. They gave me a drink and we went back to the creek in slow motion, looking for my scattered salvation along the dirt road. When we got there, there was no sign of anything. We spent a good deal more time searching but to no avail. I was toast.

There were many options available to me at this time but they were all very negative ones. We gave up looking and limped back to the trucks to figure out the option that held the least pain. When we got there, there was a guy in a Jeep sitting there staring at us. I was walking around fretting and he came over to me and said “You missing this?”

In his hand were my wallet with plastic still in it, the car keys and the water bottle. When he saw my pouch contents in the dirt, he picked them up and came back to the parking area and waited. Simple as that.  

I was beyond incredulous. “How long have you been here?” I asked. He said “About an hour and a half but I figured you’d be in a real fix if you didn’t have this stuff. And I couldn’t just leave it here where somebody could walk up and take it.”  

So he sat there by himself for an hour and a half while I was out on my illicit joy ride. What a guy!

I don’t remember his name, Ms. Washington, but isn’t it wonderful to know that even today you can still find genuinely good people out there? What’s even more insane these days is that sometimes they, total strangers, go way out of their personal way to find you.    

It’s still good!

Savage Glascock