DEAR ABBY: In January 1983, my wife and I sailed on the Queen Elizabeth II from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to San Francisco. We were in the middle of a bon voyage party when a young man around 30 peeked into our stateroom. He was a visitor on board, and asked if he could see what a cabin looked like. I invited him in, and we chatted for a few minutes.
As he was leaving, he asked me to do him a favor and purchase four QEII World Cruise T-shirts for his children. (The ship's shops were closed while we were in port, and he would have to disembark before they opened.) He told me what sizes to buy and gave me $30 to cover the cost of the shirts, plus mailing. He gave me a business card -- he worked for a financial organization in Fort Lauderdale.
"How do you know I won't just keep the money and not send the T-shirts?" I asked. He said he had faith in people's honesty.
To make a long story short, I lost his card, so I couldn't send him the T-shirts. When we arrived in San Francisco, I got a Fort Lauderdale telephone directory and made over two dozen calls to different financial companies, but I couldn't locate the young man.
My wife has been nagging me all these years to write to you because we still have the T-shirts. You could put my mind at ease and restore a young man's trust in people by printing my letter. And if you do, I hope he sees it. -- EUGENE GAZZOLO, AUBURN, CALIF.
DEAR EUGENE: It's never too late to make the effort to right a wrong. Should the man see your letter in my column, he will finally know why you didn't send the T-shirts. Then his trust in people may be restored. If I hear from him, I'll let you know.