Class Ring, Memorial Bracelet, and Paranoia

In the fall of 2013, I found a class ring a park in Schuylkill County. I thought I’d be a Good Samaritan and return it to its owner. The owner of the ring graduated from Pottsville High School in 1970, so I went to the town library and they had a copy of the 1970 school yearbook. The inside of the ring had the owner’s initials, and I could only find one person that graduated that year with those initials so narrowing down the owner was easy. The library also had a city directory and I found a person matching that name. A phone number was included so I called but the number was no longer valid. I wrote down the address from the directory, but it was getting late and I needed to be getting home.

A couple of months later I was back in that area and decided to try again, so I went to the address and knocked. Nobody answered. I tried a neighbor’s door, and the neighbor confirmed that the guy who lived there had the same name, so I knocked again. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I left a note on his door to let him know that I found his ring and would be happy to return it to him. I didn’t want to just leave the ring unattended on his doorstep, so I asked him in the note to call or email me with a description of the ring. I included my contact information and waited to hear back from him. I’m not sure what else I could have done, so the ball is in his court now.

I’m still waiting.

I graduated in 1976, so that makes this guy probably six years older than me. Maybe at that age he was no longer interested. Or maybe he thought it was a scam of some sort. It would be sad to think that was the case, and I’m not sure how I would have felt in the same situation.

I also found a Marine Corps memorial bracelet on a beach in North Carolina, and looked up the family online and contacted them. There was no response from them either, so maybe people are naturally wary of this sort of contact.

If anyone has any suggestions for returning these items to their rightful owners, feel free to comment below.