I live most of the year in California, just north of San Francisco, where I don't have many opportunities for water detecting. But I spend my summers on Cape Cod with my family, and I get out detecting in the water with my detecting partner Rick just about every morning for 7 or 8 weeks during mid-June to mid-August. About a week ago, we hit an ocean beach at low tide, where I ended up finding 4 gold rings and 2 silver rings. I had a hunch that there might be more good finds there, so two mornings later I talked Rick into heading back to the same beach. My hunch paid off, and I ended up with a massive gold 1969 college ring in my scoop. The ring had obviously been there for many years, as a bunch of green crust had formed on it. Once I got home and got the ring cleaned up through electrolysis and gentle picking at the crust with toothpicks and a safety pin, I could see it was from Manhattan College, with the major EE for Electrical Engineering, and I could read a full name engraved inside the ring - Patrick F. O'Hagan. So I started Googling, and one of the search results brought me to a page from a book written in 2005 that told of the author falling in love with Patrick O'Hagan, the budding Electrical Engineer who played a bit of football at Manhattan College. Boom! Everything was a match, and I knew I had the right person. But who was this man, and why was he being talked about in a book? I was very intrigued to learn more. So I jumped over to Amazon, and purchased the kindle version of the book, and started to immediately read about the life story of the author, Christine Kehl, and how through a hereditary passing of a certain gene through several generations, she lost two uncles, her brother, and one son to Muscular Dystrophy. At the time the book was published had two nephews in wheelchairs wasting away from MD. It was a fascinating story of love and struggle and guilt and grief and perseverance. One part of the book talked about when Christine married Patrick in 1970 and they honeymooned on Cape Cod. Bingo! Could this be when Patrick lost his class ring? I finished the book, and immediately began searching for contact information for Christine Kehl. I found her email address. Better yet, a search on my White page's app revealed a phone number. So I called. And when a woman answered the phone, I introduced myself and asked if she was the author of the book. Yes, she was. So I proceeded to tell her that I came across her book while researching Patrick O'Hagan, because I had found his class ring while metal detecting in the ocean in Cape Cod. I think "oh my God" was her initial response. She said that she had bought the college ring for her then fiancé, and when they honeymooned on Cape Cod, he came out of the water with a distraught look on his face and told her he had lost the class ring. So, after a very nice conversation with both the author, AND her husband who's ring I found, the ring will be heading back to its rightful owner - 47 years after it was lost.
Check out the story covered by necn.com here.
Jim - MA, USA.
