LETTERS ANNEX : Good Samaritans

Regarding your Aug. 1 Travel Insider article “Some Mishaps End With Thanks, Not Complaints”: I made a note of those places that helped Loretta and Bryan Duberow after their car malfunctioned. The next time I go to the Central Coast, you can be sure I’ll stay at the Inn at Morro Bay, fill up my car at the Chevron station and tell my friends in San Luis Obispo about Perry Ford--all who went the extra mile to help somebody.

There ought to be a special column every week about such businesses and people. It renews one’s belief that there are good people out there and they should get our patronage.

HERMAN WURZ

Venice

I have a wonderful tale to share.

My husband and I returned from a trip to the Middle East with a bevy of suitcases, including a carry-on that had all my jewelry plus some diamond earrings that we purchased in Israel for our daughters. The cabdriver loaded us in the taxi, and off we went. Upon our arrival at home, we realized that our case with the jewelry was missing. We made a report to the baggage claim lost-and-found and to LAX. We assumed that was the end of the story and our jewelry.

About three months later, we received a box in the mail with our suitcase inside. Attached was an apology from the airport for taking so long in recovering our lost parcel. All the jewelry was intact.

The world and LAX are clearly filled with people of integrity.

PAMELA CROMER

Newport Beach

Your article reminded me of an incident last summer in El Salvador.

We had gone to the beach with my wife’s brother, who lives in El Salvador, and were driving home to San Salvador. We had taken a back scenic road home. The car broke down about 15 miles outside the city, in a very remote spot, right at sunset. My wife and I became alarmed as it got darker and we could not fix the car or find anyplace to phone.

Just before it got completely dark, a Salvadoran couple with their young daughter stopped to help us. First they helped us try to start the car. When this was not successful, they got out a very long rope, hooked it up to our car, and towed us all the way to our house in San Salvador.

When we offered them money, they refused it. They ended up accepting a Coke at our house as payment for their remarkable hospitality. Later in the week we invited them to dinner and made some wonderful friends.

MALCOLM COLLINS

Pasadena

On a recent trip to Germany and Austria, I used a pay phone at one of the rest stops by the highway. I carelessly left my shirt-pocket-size notebook in the phone booth and didn’t realize I had done so until I was deep into Austria and needed to make another phone call.

The notebook contained all the names, addresses and phone numbers that I might need on the trip, as well as a few back in the U.S. Fortunately, I was able to get by for the rest of my trip with only a few inconveniences.

About 10 days after I returned home, I received my beat-up- looking notebook, which I’ve used for years, in a padded air-mailed envelope, with a brief note as to where it was found.

I was overwhelmed thinking that someone unknown to me, as I was to them, took the trouble to return this notebook to me and asked nothing in return.

LARRY W. HUOTARI

Ventura

Your article was terrific. It reminded me of the time my wife and I took a bus out of Mexico City to visit the pyramids. We asked the driver what time the last bus returned to the city, and we were told 6 p.m. After a wonderful afternoon at the site, we arrived at the gates about 5:45 p.m. and wondered why no one else was around. As 6 p.m. came and went, and 6:15 came and went, we became concerned. It began to rain.

Suddenly, tiny headlights approached. A local man and his daughter pulled up in a beat-up Volkswagen and asked why a pair of tourists had missed the 5 p.m. bus back to the city. After I explained, using my very modest Spanish and sign language, he invited us into the car and drove us for many miles to the nearest town’s bus station, then told us what to say and where to go. Hours later, we arrived back in the city and walked to our hotel.

It was not the last time we encountered kind gestures in Latin American countries.

THOMAS R. MILLER

La Canada Flintridge