U.S. tourist pays Italian parking ticket - 18,000 days late

Robert Atherton’s mantra has always been this: better late than never.

As in cleaning the garage, getting a health checkup or, say, paying that parking ticket he got 50 years ago in a small town in northern Italy.

Not long ago, the 67-year-old Phoenix engineering firm owner was going through a suitcase he carried on an excursion to Europe, a foray with two high school buddies in 1964.

And there it was: a ticket he got for parking his motor scooter in a no-stopping zone in Lerici, a village in the oft-traveled northern region of Liguria. Atherton had thrown the ticket into his suitcase and forgot about it.

The ticket, as it turns out, stipulated that the fine must be paid within 15 days. So Atherton did what any responsible tourist would do. He paid the 1,000-lire fine, valued at about $1.50.

Half a century later.

Not just that, but in a sense of duty that seems exaggerated in today’s fast-paced world, he determined the amount in today’s dollars and sent $50 in cash and a letter to town officials “to make up for my forgetfulness.”

Atherton has no regrets.

“It was the right thing to do,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “People told me that I should just hang it up on my wall as a memento, but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to square things away, to own up to what I did.”

But he had no idea what would happen next.

An Italian newspaper, Il Gazzenttino, ran a story describing how the mayor of Lerici was surprised to receive the ludicrously late payment. Marco Caluri called the gesture exemplary.

Even though it was more than 18,000 days late.

“I thank Mr. Atherton on behalf of the town, and I will not forget to write back to him,” he told the newspaper.

Then London’s Daily Mail picked up the story with the headline: “Paid After 50 Years!”

Atherton told The Times that decades ago, the trio had traveled to Milan and bought three new Vespas to ride on their trip. They lived on the cheap, staying in youth hostels.

The night in Lerici was the group’s last in Italy. Atherton said he recalled seeing the paper attached to his bike one morning. In a hurry, he tossed it into his suitcase and motored north into Austria.

Fast-forward 50 years.

Atherton was going through his old suitcase and a diary of the trip. He wanted to write a series of emails to his 15 children (that’s not a typo; two are his; 13 are adopted, two by guardianship) saying, “This is where your dad was 50 years ago today.”

That’s when he found the official-looking form filled out in Italian: It was dated July 2, 1964.

Atherton got help translating the ticket. Realizing his error, he got the friends to help him write a conciliatory letter in Italian to Lerici town officials.

But the story shrinks the world even more: Atherton has since learned that Mayor Caluri is the son of the police officer who wrote the original summons.

He received a letter from a man who once lived in Lerici and married a woman there, telling him of the mayor’s connection to the ticket-writing cop. He got another letter from a resident in Rome, who offered to take Atherton to dinner next time he’s in town.

Atherton says he recently received a letter from Mayor Caluri, thanking him for his gesture.

He said that considering the circumstances, he would understand if the note arrived late.

john.glionna@latimes.com

@jglionna