Some very good karma! A Boston cabdriver who returned a backpack filled with $187,786 in cash that was left in his backseat on Saturday, July 2, was rewarded for his good deed a few days later in a big way.
Royal Caribbean contacted Raymond “Buzzy” MacCausland on Wednesday, July 6, to offer him and his girlfriend a seven-day Caribbean cruise, along with airfare to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where the ship docks.
“We’re currently running a program called ‘Ticket to Adventure,’ where we reward people that do exceptionally selfless acts, and Buzzy certainly qualifies,” a Royal Caribbean spokesman said in an email to The Boston Globe.
Last Saturday, 72-year-old MacCausland, who drives for Independent Taxi Operators Association, picked up a homeless man in his cab. According to the Associated Press, the rider, who had a cast on one leg, got out of the cab to meet a friend, but intended to return to his ride.
After waiting for half an hour, MacCausland left and discovered the backpack shortly after. When he opened it to check for identification after he was unable to locate the man at his hotel, he saw the cash and promptly went to the Boston Police Department to hand over the backpack and its wads of $50 and $100 bills, the AP reports.
The police located the owner, who told The Boston Globe that he had spent the past six months recovering from drug addiction and was living at a homeless shelter. He explained that the cash was an inheritance from his recently deceased parents. According to the AP, he gave MacCausland a $100 reward.
Larry Meister, president of Independent Taxi, said in a statement to the Globe on Wednesday that the company is also planning to put together a monetary reward for its honest employee.
“I think it was the right thing to do,” MacCausland told the New York Daily News. “A lot of people said, ‘You should have kept it,’ but I couldn’t do that.”
