Friday, August 10, 2012

The last honest man in Whitestone?

From the Times Ledger:

A Flushing woman was shocked when she lost an envelope containing nearly $3,000 last month, but she was even more surprised when it was returned to her without a dollar missing.

On July 16, Barbara Fitzpatrick, a 65-year-old retired teacher, went to the bank and withdrew $2,900 and placed it into a white envelope. She was going to use the money to buy a new computer after running some errands.

But while she was walking through the parking lot of the Whitestone Pathmark near Ulmer Street and 31st Avenue, the envelope somehow wormed its way out of her pocket. She noticed the missing cash when she got back in her car to drive home before heading to Best Buy.

Little did she know that just after the envelope fell to the pavement, a man named Nino Lercara was leaving a nearby shop with some newspapers in his arm.

As the 64-year-old retired mason was walking back to his car, he noticed the envelope on the ground and picked it up without thinking, placing it on top of the newspapers he then stacked in the passenger seat.

Curious, he took a peek inside the package on the way home and could not believe what he saw.

“When I opened the envelope, I pulled off on the side. I saw 20s,” he said. “It was $2,900.”

He immediately called his wife of 43 years, Nina, who told a stunned Lercara to turn around and see if he could locate the owner of the envelope.

Fitzpatrick could not believe her eyes when she returned to the parking lot and saw Lercara waving the envelope in the air.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lercara for Mayor....Diogenes is happy today....

Anonymous said...

You sure the envelop didn't fall out of jimmy meng's car?

Anonymous said...

If Schenkler or Nussbaum had found the money, they'd have opened up a rub joint with it.

Ann Jawin
would have attended its opening
to cut the ribbon.

Anonymous said...

The feds should have cut open the apple in Meng's fruit basket.

It had another $20,000 stashed in it.

Anonymous said...

Once again, this is not Whitestone. Why you won't publish this comment is beyond me. Are you that fearful of admitting your headline is wrong?
That's pretty cowardly and pathetic.

Queens Crapper said...

It very clearly states in the article that the hero lives in Whitestone - he is pictured standing on the steps of his home there. If you had read the article, you might have understood that. I was saving you the embarrassment of realizing that you are an ignoramus, but since you insisted...

Anonymous said...

I did read the article. It clearly does not say that in the body of the article. Sorry I didn't bother to read the picture captions.
You are right, and I am not embarrassed to admit it. I don't need you to protect me from embarrassing myself by censoring my comments. I don't think anyone else does either.

It irks me that people commonly refer to the area around Pathmark, the DMV, the 20th Avenue box stores, and parts of College Point as Whitestone. I erroneously thought you were making the same mistake.

Just so you know, there are plenty of good people in Whitestone who would do the same.

Queens Crapper said...

And it irks me when people care more about the name of a location than the content of the post. Does the location where it happened matter more than the fact that it happened at all?

Anonymous said...

Which is more unbelievable, that someone was good enough to return the money, or that someone was foolish enough to casually walk around with that much cash without properly securing it?

Hey, the guy did the right thing. Obviously you find it more surprising than I do.

Queens Crapper said...

It's definitely more unbelievable that the money was returned. Foolish people are all over the city. Honest people are much harder to come by.

Anonymous said...

Well, you got me there.

Anonymous said...

Actually the credit of honesty should be on the wife, not the husband because the husband probably was 'clueless' as to what to do.

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