Artist believes item's return just part of the good nature found out there

Sep. 10—WATERTOWN — Well-known local artist William "Bill" W. Christopherson returned home from Las Vegas last week without a cent in his pocket.

It was not the result of a gambling spree gone wildly awry. It was a material loss nonetheless, which suddenly turned into a gain for the artist in his outlook on life, causing him to reflect: "My faith that there are mostly good people in the world has never been stronger."

Somewhere in the Red Rock Canyon, nearly 20 miles outside of Las Vegas and 2,500 miles from Watertown, one of those good people did the right thing — finding a wallet that Christopherson had lost on a hike and returning it to authorities. The person who found it remains anonymous, but Christopherson said they fall into a category: "I think most people are good."

His inspiring tale of lost and found can also be a primer on how to travel through U.S. airport security without any identification, which Christopherson had a crash course in via the internet.

Christopherson is co-owner and partner of the Orion Art Gallery & Studio in Watertown. As a business trip, he and Kristy Hoover, studio manager and curator at Orion, traveled to Las Vegas for a few days checking out galleries and exhibits while also catching a concert and exploring nature.

An artistic highlight was the Lighthouse Artspace on Las Vegas Boulevard, an "experiential entertainment" multi-plex. There, they saw the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit: 600,000 cubic feet of projection animating the work of the artist.

"We got lots of ideas, like how to expand our website," Christopherson said. "We talked to some of the managers out there. And Kristy was interested in curating and how to present different programs and how to improve our classes. We've got an expanding class schedule."

Hikes before flight

A few days before they were scheduled to board their plane for their late evening flight home on Monday, Sept. 2, Christopherson and Hoover made a couple quick trips: they viewed the Hoover Dam by walking a section of the Mike O'Callaghan/Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge in Boulder City, Nevada.

On Monday, before their flight home, they ventured to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, located a few miles west of Las Vegas. The area, managed by Southern Nevada Conservancy, encompasses 195,819 acres within the Mojave Desert. It features a one-way 13-mile scenic drive, with several stops at a variety of landscapes where people can explore on paths rated easy to difficult.

It was on one of those paths which Christopherson and Hoover explored where he lost his wallet. He suspects he lost it while taking a break. "I've got bad knees from all the hiking I've been doing," Christopherson said. "I take a break a lot of times and if I see a rock, I'll sit down to relax my knees. I have a habit of carrying my wallet in my back pocket, which is not a good idea."

He didn't discover his wallet was missing until he gassed up their rental car before returning it. "I said, 'Where the heck is my wallet? It's gone!'" Christopherson said. "I had no ID whatsoever and I was thinking, 'How in the heck am I going to get through security?" He used his phone to get some tips from web sites on how to do so. One article he found put him at ease.

"It said TSA (Transportation Security Administration) will work with you and they have plenty of ways to find out who you are and your identity. I was all positive. I was like, 'OK, no problem. I'll go to TSA and they'll be nice and they'll work with me to get through security.'"

That's not the way it went.

"My God, they were grumpy," Christopherson said. "But then, they were busy with so many people going through."

Eventually, after he said he was asked, "Don't you know where you are going?" by TSA, Christopherson found the right location where he was told ("barked" at) that he had to find two forms of identification. A prescription bottle satisfied one form of ID.

"I'm ripping my luggage and carry-on bag apart and I remember that inside this little notebook that I carry I had stuck a letter from my prescription company. I hadn't opened the envelope but I used it to write notes on its back."

TSA told him that was also acceptable as ID. But he was not good to go just yet.

"They have those little mats where they have people stand to screen you further if you don't have any ID," Christopherson said. "I stood on that mat for the longest time. It's like they send you to the 'bad' corner of the classroom."

After about a half hour on the mat, a TSA agent asked him what time his flight left.

"I told him 11 o'clock, and by this time it was quarter to nine or something like that. He goes, 'Ahh, We've got lots of time.' And I was thinking, 'Is he going to make me stand here for two hours?'"

Christopherson was eventually waved over to a "special station."

"They ripped apart everything I had and they had a special wand that they check for explosives and things like that. Finally, they let me through."

He borrowed $20 from Hoover, eyeing the cash with a grand plan. The Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas has scores of slot machines. "I was going to try to win more money," Christopherson said. "But I didn't and lost that."

He would later regret that more substantially. "The only food I had was the free nuts on the plane," he said with a laugh.

But he didn't lose hope that his lost wallet episode would turn out well. "I told Kristy that I had a gut feeling that somebody found that wallet."

A good call

Their flight left Las Vegas at 11 p.m. Labor Day, Sept. 2. With the changes in time zones, they landed in Philadelphia at 6 a.m. Sept. 3. The flight to Syracuse Hancock International Airport landed at 12:30 p.m. Christopherson's son drove the artist's car to Syracuse from Watertown, avoiding the airport parking fee.

"I tried to withdraw some cash from Community Bank in Cicero, but no one knew me there, and I had no ID," Christopherson said. "I had to wait until I got back to Watertown, where the ladies at Community Bank recognized me."

Once home, Christopherson worked his phone to replace his credit and bank cards and made plans to get a new driver's license. Previously, he had called Red Rock National Canyon asking them to be on the lookout for his lost wallet.

"I was just glad to be home," he said. "But I didn't know who had my wallet, what they were going to do with it or anything."

Alternatively, he thought maybe it was buried in the sand, sinking deeper into obscurity as the months and years went by.

But the following day, he received a call from Red Rock Canyon. Someone had turned in his wallet and they could mail it to him. He was expecting it to reach him on Tuesday.

"They didn't have a record of who found it," Christopherson said. "They said somebody just dropped it off. It's got everything in it, including the money, about 80 bucks or so."

The artist said he should have learned his lesson. He said that a few months ago, his wallet fell from his pants while he was hiking Santanoni Peak in the Adirondacks. "I had sat down and ripped my back pocket and my wallet fell out. The credit cards were spread out all over the trail and everything. At that point, I said, 'This is a wake up call. I'm never going to carry my wallet in my back pocket when I'm hiking anymore. I guess I didn't learn enough."

Christopherson said that he and his father climbed his first Adirondack high peak in 1966, Mount Marcy, when he was about 13 years old. Since then, he's done that climb several more times.

"Just last year, I started getting some of the other mountains while hiking with a friend of my daughter's," he said.

He's done five high peaks this year with a total of 18 high peaks completed.

At the Mike O'Callaghan/Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, Christopherson completed "The Hiker's 365 Adventure Challenge," hosted by My Adventure Challenge, a group committed to educating its members on the importance of preserving the environment and leaving a minimal impact on the trails explored.

"Now that I've done the 365, I'm going to give my knees a break," Christopherson said. "I'm getting back on my bike."

Christopherson has more adventures in art awaiting, with his Adirondack and Nevada hikes adding to his artistic vision. Originally from Syracuse, he came to Northern New York after graduating from SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry in 1977. In 2008 he completed a 30-year career as a landscape architect for the Thousand Islands Region of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

The experiences gained through traveling throughout Northern New York during his career inspired him to begin capturing the beauty of the region through his artworks. Many of his drawings, watercolors and oils have received awards recognition from the North Country Arts Council, the Thousand Islands Arts Center, the Sackets Harbor Arts Center and View Art Gallery, Old Forge.

"I've got tons of material for new paintings," he said. "I've got to buckle down and start doing more art. I've been doing too many other things."

But when he does hike far and wide, he will pack something extra:

"Next time I'm packing my passport. That would have saved a lot of aggravation."