Class Ring Flushed But Not Lost–Even After 73 Years!

Anyone who knows me can tell you I am probably far more sentimental than I should be. Nostalgia is my middle name sometimes.

I used to save everything that had a value or meaning to me in some way. Boxes of tickets, books, and random STUFF.

As I get older, I have gotten much better at sifting through things and unloading more and more of the things I thought I could never do without.

One item that has gone missing and could have become a victim of divorce is my high school class jacket. Where the HECK did that thing end up? It’s nowhere to be found. And not likely something my ex would have ended up with since there was no sentimental attachment for her. And it’s certainly not something I would have donated. Oh well.

Maybe one day it will surface.

But I am reminded of all of this because of a neat and heartwarming story I read today about an old timer reunited with his class ring–73 years after he lost it!

Californian Jesse Mattos dropped his $29 ring in the toilet of his place of work–way back in 1938! My own father was barely a year old when this happened!

In March of this year, a sanitation worker by the name of Tony Congi found the ring in a bucket of debris from the Dunsmuir sewer system. Dunsmuir is a quaint town not far from Mt. Shasta where the ring was lost.

The worker matched the initials with the name Jesse Taylor Mattos.

How’s this for more evidence that there are no coincidences in the Universe (in my opinion anyway):

The sanitation worker also worked at the same butcher shop Mattos did years before. He also knew a mutual friend who put him in touch with Mattos.

Mattos’ wife died a few days before he was contacted by Congi and it was a boost that Mattos desperately needed.

The 90-year-old Mattos exclaimed after Congi met up with him to deliver the ring, “I felt like I was a lot younger again.”

What a wonderful story. In a sea of newspapers and headlines and radio and television stories heavy with doom and gloom, it’s refreshing to see a story like this one every now and again.

It renews my faith in humanity and the powers of attraction and good.