A Lost Wallet, a 3 a.m. Meeting and a New Friendship

I have already told the story of how my wife took our four youngest grandchildren on a junket to Disney World in Orlando, Fla., and lost her wallet the first night out.

Calamity was forestalled by the honesty of a young Argentine who found it in a McDonald’s parking lot and telephoned our home here. It was 10:30 p.m. our time before I returned home and found his message on my answering machine. I phoned my wife and gave her his name and phone number. It was then 1:30 a.m. in Orlando. She phoned him and he gave her the name of his motel and his room number, saying he’d wait up.

Then, compounding her anxiety, not to mention her embarrassment, she went to the wrong motel (same name) and woke up the wrong man. It was nearly 3 a.m. when she found the right motel and knocked on the right door and a young man appeared.

He was Diego Fernando Viviani, who was visiting Orlando with a group of Argentine friends. The wallet was intact except for a few coins, which he apologized for using for phone calls. It contained about $400 in cash and all her credit cards.

My wife told me that she threw her arms around the young man and pressed a $100 bill into his hand. He accepted it reluctantly.

She got his address in Argentina and wrote him a thank-you note when she got home.

Now the sequel. She has received a letter from Diego, in painstaking English, which reveals a young man of rare honesty, modesty and wistful aspirations.

What seems most important to him is that he has made a new friend.

“I was very happy when I received your letter. . . . I realized that you have me in mind and it was very pleasant for me to read that we are friends.”

He said it was time to tell her something about himself:

“I am 20 years old. I am studying to be a lawyer. (I am in third year. You must go five years to university to graduate.) I have a sister (24 years old) and my parents (49 my father, 47 my mother). We all live together, and we all have a good relationship between each other. I have lots of friends. I have a girlfriend, her name is Constanza, and I love her very much.”

That is a picture of the nuclear family, Buenos Aires-style, at its best.

“I will like to see you again, but it is too expensive for us here in Argentina to go to U. S. A. Life there is cheaper than here. But I will try to save money to go to L.A. once more. I don’t know when! . . . I will not forget you!”

Diego’s description of his family relations perhaps explains why he went out of his way to return my wife’s wallet. “My parents were very proud of me when I told them what had happen. But I am sure I did what I have to do, the correct thing and the only way an honest man can behave. I am very proud . . . with my behavior I proved that Argentina has a lot of excellent persons who live a very honest life, and they work hard, they believe in God, they love and have the same good manners that other people have in the rest of the world.

“Denise, I am very happy because I have a friend I can count on! I’m sorry if I made mistakes in my writing. I tried to do my best. I will like to receive more and more letters from you, and I’m very anxious to know everything about you. I’ll hope you are having a good time, and I think you’ll agree with me life is worth living !”

Viviani seems to embody many of the character traits we value in America, but which seem to be more and more in short supply. We have wondered what the chances would have been for the return of my wife’s wallet had it been found by a 20-year-old American.

Surely many would have gone to the same trouble Viviani did to return it, but many would not have. The odds of getting it back, I suggest, would not be good.

Not the least noble of Viviani’s generous acts was his waiting up until 3 a.m. while my wife tried to find his motel.

I am even more curious about the man whose tourist-town motel door she knocked on at 2:30 in the morning, saying, “I’ve come for my wallet,” or “Are you the man who has my wallet?” or something like that.

She never found out what he thought. He didn’t open the door. But I’ll bet he is still regaling his buddies with the story.