After 29 years, man gets his wallet back

If you lose your wallet in the middle of a lake in the middle of nowhere, you'd think it was lost forever.

As Mississippi resident Herman Pittman recently found out, that's not exactly true. It's only gone for 29 years.

In 1974, Pittman was fishing in Katella Lake near Cordova. The lake has no road access, and so when Pittman dropped his wallet in the middle of the lake, he figured that thing was gone forever.

Last week, however, Pittman received a call from the Cordova Department of Public Safety dispatch center. His wallet had been turned in by a couple of people who were visiting his secret fishing spot 29 years later.

"He was totally jazzed about it," his daughter, Valley resident LeAnn Smith, said. "They called him and told him two fishermen had turned the wallet in to them. They still had a report about it."

Smith said her father worked for off-shore oil companies at the time and often flew around the state in a helicopter.

He knew a guy who lived on the lake, a "hermit" as Smith called him, and her father would deliver his mail to him when flying around Alaska.

"The guy let him use his boat to go fishing in that lake, and as soon as he heard the splash, my dad knew he lost his wallet he told me," Smith said. "When you drop your wallet in the middle of the lake, you figure it's gone forever."

Smith said her dad made a report to the Cordova Department of Public Safety because the wallet contained several company credit cards.

"He wanted to dot the i's and cross the t's," Smith said.

Evidently, a couple of fisherman were dropped off near the lake recently and they were trudging around in some of the muck near the lake's outlet.

The stirring of the bottom made the wallet rise to the surface.

While the leather wallet was pretty much tattered, most of the contents were still there.

"My dad thinks the social security was stamped in aluminum, and his driver's license was laminated," Smith said.

The Cordova Department of Public Safety dispatcher's office -- the same office Smith and her mother worked at during the same time her father lost his wallet -- still had a report.

The dispatcher tracked down Smith, who is retired and now lives in Picayune, Miss.

"I think he recently renewed his driver's license and that's part of a national record now, and that's how they tracked him down," Smith said.

"They are boxing it up and mailing it to him. The dispatcher said she had to work pretty hard to find him, but she did it."