Post by gilmourfan on Aug 19, 2005 19:37:24 GMT -5
Wallet found in sea lost in 1966
JAY LINDSAY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
No good after 90 days? LOL
BOSTON — Back in 1966, James Lu
beck bent over to secure his sailboat
against a gathering storm and his wal
let slipped from his back pocket into
Marblehead Harbor. The wallet and
the credit cards inside were seemingly
gone forever.
Then Lubeck got word recently
about a mind-boggling discovery: A
fisherman had hauled in the wallet’s
sheath of credit cards in a netful cod,
flounder and haddock.
“I can’t find the adjectives,” Lubeck,
74, said in an interview Friday. “I don’t
know how many people would have
done that.”
Fisherman Antonino Randazzo
hauled in the catch in June roughly 25
miles from where Lubeck lost the wal
let. The sheath was caked in mud, but
the 10 to 12 credit and identification
cards were in pristine condition.
“It is incredible,” he said. “Life is
full of mysteries.”
Randazzo, 44, said he initially feared
the wallet belonged to someone who
was lost at sea, but when he looked at
the cards, he noticed that the expira
tion dates were from the late 1960s.
The only Lubeck listed in the Mar
blehead phone book was a Jonathan.
Randazzo called and nervously inquired whether James Lubeck was home.
He was relieved to learn from James
Lubeck’s daughter-in-law that he was
alive and living in Connecticut.
Later, when Lubeck got a call from
his son about the recovered wallet, he
initially had no idea what he was talk
ing about. He eventually recalled the
details — and the $300 in expense
checks that had been lost with the wal
let.
“Thirty-nine years ago, $300 was a
lot of money,” he said.
The checks, cash and leather of the
wallet are gone, but the value of the
find isn’t in what was recovered, but
what happened afterward, Lubeck
said.
“It’s the idea that somebody reached
out,” Lubeck said. “And the puz
zlement of that moving so many
miles.”
JAY LINDSAY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
No good after 90 days? LOL
BOSTON — Back in 1966, James Lu
beck bent over to secure his sailboat
against a gathering storm and his wal
let slipped from his back pocket into
Marblehead Harbor. The wallet and
the credit cards inside were seemingly
gone forever.
Then Lubeck got word recently
about a mind-boggling discovery: A
fisherman had hauled in the wallet’s
sheath of credit cards in a netful cod,
flounder and haddock.
“I can’t find the adjectives,” Lubeck,
74, said in an interview Friday. “I don’t
know how many people would have
done that.”
Fisherman Antonino Randazzo
hauled in the catch in June roughly 25
miles from where Lubeck lost the wal
let. The sheath was caked in mud, but
the 10 to 12 credit and identification
cards were in pristine condition.
“It is incredible,” he said. “Life is
full of mysteries.”
Randazzo, 44, said he initially feared
the wallet belonged to someone who
was lost at sea, but when he looked at
the cards, he noticed that the expira
tion dates were from the late 1960s.
The only Lubeck listed in the Mar
blehead phone book was a Jonathan.
Randazzo called and nervously inquired whether James Lubeck was home.
He was relieved to learn from James
Lubeck’s daughter-in-law that he was
alive and living in Connecticut.
Later, when Lubeck got a call from
his son about the recovered wallet, he
initially had no idea what he was talk
ing about. He eventually recalled the
details — and the $300 in expense
checks that had been lost with the wal
let.
“Thirty-nine years ago, $300 was a
lot of money,” he said.
The checks, cash and leather of the
wallet are gone, but the value of the
find isn’t in what was recovered, but
what happened afterward, Lubeck
said.
“It’s the idea that somebody reached
out,” Lubeck said. “And the puz
zlement of that moving so many
miles.”
