Jacket was at cleaners - for 45 years

(Winston-Salem Journal) - Lloyd Pardue wondered for years what had happened to the Eisenhower jacket that the Army issued him as a young soldier during World War II.

After he was discharged, Pardue wore the warm, short-waisted jacket to shovel coal and mow the yard during chilly weather.

One day, the jacket disappeared. Had he thrown it away because it was so filthy? Had it gotten lost at the dry cleaners?

Pardue wasn’t sure. Years passed and, eventually, he forgot about it.

Last October, Mimi Bourquin strolled into Pardue’s yard carrying a garment bag. “I have your dry cleaning to deliver,” she yelled to Pardue, who was toiling in a flower bed.

Inside the bag was Pardue’s jacket - with a bill for 85 cents pinned to the front.