My Entry
A Nice Ring To It
Many of us have been there. We unearth an exciting find. The gold and silver is shining back at us with a row of diamond teeth like a smile just happy to see us. Overcome with joy, we think of how lucky we are to have found such a special item and how to introduce it into our lives. But then the question of who else’s life has this touched? Who’s heart would it have a more special place than our own? Now it is a goal of reuniting the lost with the loved.
My mother would tell me stories of how she had lost her wedding & engagement rings long ago. Unlike most stories however she knew the general resting place of her lost items and it only became a question of getting the means to recover them. I recently got in to the hobby of metal detecting about 2 years ago and thought to myself, “what a great rescue mission this could be!” The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to complete the challenge I had given myself. I set out to find my mother’s lost rings and this is her story:
28 years ago, in a silly fit of anger at my husband, I removed my wedding band along with an antique opal ring he had recently given to me. Yelling at him, I threw the rings out into the backyard of our first house in Kalamazoo. The next day, I realized my actions and began to search frantically for the rings. Renting a metal detector, I attempted to find them with no such luck! Years went by and I rarely thought about them, as all hope was lost. My son, Ace, recently re-introduced me to metal detecting, joining SWMSS, and purchased a metal detector of my own.
Last month at the meeting, I was looking at the display of jewelry finds of the month and my eyes kept returning to an entry of 2 particular rings. I mentioned to several people that one of the rings looked just like my old wedding band and while the other ring was an opal, I could not recall it’s exact identity as it had been so long ago. I wanted to turn the card over so bad to see who had found the rings and I asked Ace if I should do that, but he told me not to since we had not voted yet.
After the voting and just before the break, Mike Walker, who I also spoke with about the rings looking very familiar said, “a young lady had come up to me earlier asking if it was possible to find out where the two rings were found and by whom.” He confused me at this point as he looked in my direction because at 58 years, I did not consider myself to be “young!” As I stood up realizing he was talking about me, I told my story of how I lost rings similar to those. Next, he asked if the newly found owner of the rings would also stand up to reveal themselves and all information about the rings. I was sitting on the far left side of the room and the only person to my left was my son, Ace. I looked around the room and didn’t see anyone standing immediately until I turned around towards Ace, standing beside me!
I could not believe he had done this for me! He’d heard the story over the years and had gone hunting at our old home, the one before he was even born, the day before the meeting! Ace and his father met me for dinner before the meeting that night in Plainwell. Apparently they had spoken on the phone the day before and both knew that the rings had been found and agreed to keep it a secret in order to arrange the surprise showing at the meeting. Needless to say, I thought it was the perfect way to return my lost rings! I am so grateful to Ace and so proud that he made the return such a special and fun experience!
This experience was so fun for my family and myself. So next time you hit that wonderful find buried beneath the ground, think to yourself what you’d rather have… the find… or the story of a lifetime? I really want to thank everyone that helped make this possible! In last month’s newsletter, there was an article that talked about SWMSS being a family of its own and it truly is one! Even as a new member, I have personally met a bunch of great people and continue to make new friends day in and day out. I’m so happy to have found a life long hobby and will hopefully get plenty of lifelong friends in the process!
-Ace & Patty Covey-
) and was able to find the troops website. It didn't have any contact information besides "email the webmaster" so I just told the webmaster my story and left an email address to contact me if there was somewhere to return the badge. Turns out the webmaster was the troop leader. He was very appreciative and gave me his home address to return the badge, and I got another email later that night thanking me again and saying how happy the boy was to get his badge back.
Then I won't win amazing contests!!! 