Editor:
On July 27, I was sitting in Tongva Park which was designed by the same landscape architect who designed High Line. I was reading, working the PC since I get WiFi from City Government in the park.
When I got home — it is only a 12 minutes walk — my wallet was missing. It was a shock. Not only debit, Mastercard, driver's license, Frequent Flyer card and Safeway shopping Card were gone. Also my International Health Insurance certificate.
I immediately went to Citibank to stop MC. Then to the DMV, where I wasted two hours and could not renew my driver's license because my Social Security card was gone also and which is needed to renew driver's license.
Four days later, on July 31, Sunday afternoon, the assistant manager called me from the lobby, telling me a homeless woman had brought my wallet.
The $195 cash were still in the wallet and all the documents also! Unbelievable. I gave to homeless woman who was dressed in Lumpen $100 and then felt shame that I did not give her all the cash. She could not really talk when I tried to find out more about who she is and how she ended up in the gutters. She was a schizophrenic, switched from depression to exuberance and thanked my like a kid on Christmas Day.
I wanted to share with some of my friends this unusual example of honesty of a woman who deserves to spend her days in a mental institution as they do in other countries, receiving psychiatric treatment and living a life in dignity, but now lives day and night in dirt and filth on the streets of Los Angeles, and returns the wallet she found under the bench I was sitting on!
I am humbled.
Karl Kränzle
Santa Monica
