The old jewelry box

Easter morning, 27 years ago, I can remember hoping the Easter Bunny would bring me something that I had wanted for a long time: a beautiful, musical jewelry box, with a twirling ballerina on top.

He didn’t forget. I was so excited that I was running all over my room trying to find small items to put in it. Before long I had a collection of fossils, candy, my mom’s old jewelry, some old coins, a few letters my friends had written me and other items that I can’t remember, because who knows what else I put in there at that age.

Fast-forward quite a few years.

Late one evening, I had just got off work in West Union, Ohio when I looked down and saw something shiny on the ground near my car. I was in a hurry so I just picked it up, put it in my pocket and went about what I was doing. When I got home that night I took it out and saw it was a class ring. The ring said, “Steve” on one side and “Manchester High 97,” on the other.

I can’t recall why all those years ago I wouldn’t have called someone or took action to return it. I guess I could just chalk it up to my young age, but I put the ring in my jewelry box, and forgot about it.

The box has since journeyed from Ohio to Michigan to Canada and back to Ohio, where I left it in my parents’ hallway closet over ten years ago.

A few weeks ago, my mother messaged me to say they were traveling to Kentucky from Ohio to see Charles, Cassidy and I. She also sent me a photo of that old jewelry box and said, “I bet you’ll find all kinds of neat stuff in there.” I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had forgotten all about it! It looked to be in pretty rough shape, but I could see a few items in the photo, like my old nametags, necklaces I’ve worn until they fell off, rings, trinkets and other small items I’ve collected over the years.

A few days later, after my parents visited, Charles and I were sitting at home and decided to take a good look in the box.

It was in rougher shape than I thought. The ballerina was long gone and the lid was broke, but the memories of my childhood were still intact inside.

Charles picked up the forgotten class ring and jokingly said, “Steve just called, and he wants his ring back.”

I remembered finding the ring years ago and knew right away what to do.

We went straight to Facebook. Yes—the power of social media. If I would have had it back then I’m sure I would have returned it sooner and you wouldn’t be reading this.

Charles saw the initials SMR in tiny print inside the ring and we knew his first name was “STEVE.”

Within ten minutes of posting a picture of the ring in a Manchester yard sale group we found the owner!

Steve Rigdon, who has since moved away from Manchester, said he remembered loosing that ring back in the early 2000’s and just didn’t know where. He figured it was gone forever and was happy to get it back.

“I don’t have a lot of items left from my high school days. It is so nice to know that there are still good people out there. Thank you so much for finding it and keeping it safe all these years!” He said when we spoke on the phone.

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep after finding that ring the second time without returning it. Any good person would. I would want someone to do the same for me. Once again, we’ll chalk it up to age, because now that I’m older, there’s nothing as precious as memories, and I wouldn’t have had this one if it weren’t for that old jewelry box.