I was riding home from a welding class at Fullerton Jr. College when something on the roadside caught my eye. I rode on another couple of blocks before it hit me — that looked like one of those business bank pouches. I turned around to check it out.
Sure enough, that's exactly what it was. I tucked it inside my leather jacket and rode home. Parking the bike in the garage, I went inside to see what I'd found: a stack of checks and about a thousand dollars in cash.
Now, in case you're wondering — I was raised right. So I made the decision to just keep it.
Kidding.
I hopped back on my chopper and rode straight to Grover's TV — I knew that was the place because it was written on every one of the checks. I walked in and asked the guy if he'd lost anything. He said no. I held up the bank bag. Are you sure?
He about dropped. His wife had lost it — set it on the roof of her car while digging for her keys, then drove off and forgot all about it. He was relieved, and I felt good that I'd been able to help.
That should be the nice end to this story. It isn't.
When Mark got home that evening, I mentioned my little adventure. He got all excited and blurted out that the guy owed me a reward. I told him it was no big deal. He wouldn't let it drop.
Off we went, back to Grover's TV. Mark walked straight up to the proprietor:
"This young man just did you a good deed, and you owe him a reward."
The proprietor said it wasn't that big a deal — most of it was checks, and he could get those replaced. By now I was uncomfortable enough that I walked to the front of the store and stared out the window while Mark kept right on singing my praises.
Eventually the guy conceded that I'd restored his faith in today's youth, somewhat — but he still wasn't keen on paying out any reward. Mark kept negotiating anyway, and started angling for a free TV.
It was pretty funny. We walked out of there with a television — free, if you didn't count the trip home to get my car so we could haul it.
It had a little screen, almost round, couldn't have been twelve inches across. Every payday, we'd pull all the tubes out of that thing, take them down to Raley's, test them, and hope it held together another two weeks until the next check came in.