Setting Things Right
Published 5:00 am Tuesday, September 23, 2014
- Rocky Dearman of Dearman Optical shows a copy of a letter and a $50 bill that he received in the mail recently from an anonymous person who confessed to stealing a pair of frames in the mid to late 60s.
After more than four decades a wrong is righted
At least 44 years after the fact, pangs of guilt prompted a person who stole a pair of eye glass frames to make amends.
Optometrist Rocky Dearman said while going through the mail recently, he found an interesting letter. It contained a $50 bill and a brief note, which read:
“In the mid to late 60’s, I took some wire frames for a pair of glasses, valued at $20 from McCormack Optical when it was located on 8th Street. This has bothered me since, so I wanted to make it right. I hope this $50 is enough compensation, along with my apology.”
There was no signature on the letter, Dearman noted, explaining that the eye care business was originally named McCormack Laboratory, and when Dearman’s father joined, it became Dearman-McCormack Optical.
“The letter came in and I just figured, well, we’ve got another bill,” Dearman said. “I looked inside and I was real puzzled. I saw the $50 bill. I thought somebody was pulling a joke on me.”
After thinking about it, Dearman said he concluded that it was apparently a straightforward attempt to simply make amends for a wrongdoing.
“I think that more than likely that their conscience got to them and they are trying to make right some of the things they had done in their past,” Dearman said. “That’s the only thing I can make of it.”
Dearman said the rough financial times that some people are having makes the incident more meaningful.
“You know times are hard right now and the first thing I thought about was ‘Wow,’ they did that and they probably need this money even more than I do, but they are trying to give their mind a rest,'” he said. “With all the junk and mess that’s happening in the world, at least somebody was trying to the right thing even after all those years.”
The anonymous person paid two and a half times the original value which was perhaps an adjustment for inflation.
According to an online CPI Inflation Calculator, $20 in 1965 would have the same spending power as approximately $150 today.
