My husband is a vendor at Iola (for the last 32 years), and family members from Wisconsin and Illinois usually get together during this time.
Our sons and their close friend came up for the event from Illinois and left early Friday morning for the big swap meet.
Unfortunately, they didn’t notice that the tailgate on the truck wasn’t latched, and one of their three bags fell out on County Road Q.
This was a big problem for the owner, as his medications were in the bag, as well as his iPad and clothing.
Once the loss was discovered, we had someone retrace the route, and the police were alerted.
We were all bummed out about this, but someone in our group said, Wisconsin people are nice … maybe someone will find it and you’ll get it back.”
There wasn’t even any identification in the bag, as the medication had been put into a different container from the original bottles.
But later in the day, a call came from home with the news that his backpack had been found and the finder was trying to track down the owner.
A connection was made, and the backpack was returned to the owner, completely intact.
In fact, the person who found the backpack apologized because she had to access his iPad in order to find the owner.
She found the bag on County Road Q while they were in the area camping. She refused any offers of rewards and left each of us convinced that “Wisconsin people are really nice.”