Lost and found

Deepa Bharath

A day at the fair could have been Daniel Aicklen’s worst.

Aicklen, his wife and grandchildren walked through the gate at the

Orange County Fairgrounds at 11 a.m. on Aug. 1, the fair’s final day.

They enjoyed the rides, food and sights -- until Aicklen got a call

on his cellphone at 4:16 p.m. from a woman who said she had his

wallet.

“I was shocked,” said Aicklen, a former Newport-Mesa resident who

enjoys coming back to the fair. “I reached in my back pocket and she

was right -- it was gone.”

A maelstrom of negativity swirled in Aicklen’s mind. His wallet

held three $100 bills, his driver’s license, other identification

cards and most importantly, his credit cards. Aicklen left his family

members at a magic show and hurried toward the Sugar Shack, near the

children’s area, where the caller had asked him to come.

“I talked to this friendly face at the counter and told her my

name,” he said. “And she said, ‘We have your wallet.’”

It was as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders,

Aicklen said.

“I looked through my wallet and everything was there, intact,” he

said.

Aicklen asked Suzanne Wilson -- the woman who handed him the

wallet -- how they found it.

“And she said her co-worker, Kevin, had found it on a bench on his

way to work,” he said.

It all came back to Aicklen.

“I had sat on the bench to rest my tired bones for a bit,” he

said. “The wallet must have slipped out of my back pocket onto the

bench.”

Aicklen pulled out some money and asked Wilson to give it to Kevin

Prendergast. But a second later, he heard Prendergast yell out to

him.

He was sticking his head out the window of the concession stand

that sold cotton candy and soft drinks.

“He thanked me but politely asked me to keep the money and have a

good afternoon,” Aicklen said. “He was so matter-of-fact about it.”

Aicklen was impressed by the young man’s integrity and sense of

honor, he said.

“In that confused and crowded environment, anyone could have

picked it up,” Aicklen said. “I feel very fortunate that an honest

young man found it. It could have been an awful day. But it turned

out to be a great one.”

Ray Cammack Shows, the company that runs the rides and concession

stands at the fair, encourages honesty among its employees, spokesman

Tony Fiori said.

“We do it because, first of all, it’s a good policy as a human

being,” he said. “Secondly, it’s not something people normally expect

from us.”

The company usually does not allow employees to take tips, but

Prendergast refusing the reward was “just him being a good human

being,” Fiori said.

“It’s great when people recognize these acts and come forward,

because that way we can use it as an example in future training and

explain to our employees that a good deed like that really pays off,”

he said.

The incident that could’ve ruined his day transformed itself into

a positive reinforcement of Aicklen’s faith in humanity.

“It felt good to know that such honorable people still existed,”

he said. “It made my day.”