Free cash might be the last thing you'd expect to receive from someone standing with a cardboard sign in the middle of a road -- but that's exactly what smiling strangers got from a mystery man at an intersection in Parker, Colorado, on Monday.

Drivers who took the time to stop were surprised by the man, who gave them money rather than accepting theirs.

"No, no! You don't give me, I give you!" he said.



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Though the man identified himself as "Carl Ramsey" to the strangers he gave cash to, he told ABC affiliate KMGH that Carl Ramsey was actually a late friend from high school who passed away decades ago after he was "killed in a farming accident."

"I am not Carl Ramsey, but today I represent his spirit," he wrote in a letter to KMGH. "Carl was my friend in high school. The guy was a very loving, caring, young boy with an infectious laugh. Each time you saw him he had a new humorous story to tell. When he started talking with you, not a minute would go by before a crowd would gather following intently listening to his every word."







He added that people around Carl always "had a smile" on their face.

"As the years have passed, my imagination has tried to envision what his life would have been like," according to the letter. "Today you have seen a small glimpse of Carl Ramsey. In this gesture of giving others a buck for a smile, his amazing spirit lives on."

Though the man declined to reveal his true identity to KMGH, he signed the letter to the station as "friend."