Lost Treasure Magazine May 2006

By Frank Colletti

A Happy Mother’s Day

I was sitting at my computer after giving my wife her Mother’s Day gift

When she asked me to stay off the PC today. A few minutes later a man from Shadyside, Pennsylvania called and asked if I knew anyone who would help find his wedding band today. His father had located me by going to the FMDAC web site and searching for someone near him. He had lost it the day before while riding his mountain bike on a trail west of my home. I told him it was Mother’s Day and it would be hard to locate someone, but please give me fifteen minutes to check to see if anyone was available.

He said he was recently married and had not told his wife that he had lost the ring. She asked him where he was going on  Mother’s Day and he said that he was going to get her Mother’s Day gift since she is going to have a baby.

I knew my friends Bob (Boobie) Hromika and Tom McCarthy were detecting over in Beaver, Pennsylvania so I called them. Boobie could make it and Tom had to be home by noon to be with his family. We met the man at the bike trailhead and started our search.

While we walked he told us that he wanted to leave the ring home but his wife insisted that he was never to take if off.

(Have you ever heard that one before?)

He said it was about one half to three quarters of a mile trail. Actually it turned out to be almost five miles. He never walked it, he only rode his bike on it. Well today he not only walked it but he worked hard showing us every step of the way. He would show us which side of the tree he passed or where he carried his bike over a fallen tree trunk.

We had a wonderful search with actually no trash. I ran in all metal and would go maybe twenty yards without a beep. It was really nice to be trash free, which is something we never seem to see any more.

After about three miles, the man came up to me and said he thought it a waste of time, he thought that someone may have found it. I suggested that we keep trying. He wanted to go look where he parked and had taken off his gloves. About that time Boobie, who was about twenty yards ahead of us, came back to where we were talking. I read his silent lips. Which said, “I found it”. I kept quiet and the man was explaining to me how it might have been lost when he took off his glove.

Boobie reached for a pack of cigarettes and asked the guy to hold something while he lit up. The guy closed his glove over the ring without looking. Boobie lit up and I said to him. “How about looking at your glove.”  When he opened it and saw his really beautiful platinum wedding band, he almost passed out. I mean this man was ecstatic, he just could not believe we found it for him.

While we were talking, Boobie had walked on along the trail, got the beep in a mud hole and had to dig it out of the sloppy mud, which was good because it had been on the surface of the ground someone would probably have found it.

The guy said we now had a ten minute walk out of the woods, which took about forty-five minutes because it was really about two more miles. When we arrived at the car, we unloaded our stuff and chatted  awhile and the man promised to mail a photo to us. He was very thankful and we were well compensated for our time and efforts to help him.

After he left, Boobie and I were sitting on the tailgate when we realized that we had just made someone’s first Mother’s Day a special one to remember and that good feeling that comes washing over all of us when we help someone find lost treasures. It was the best reward of the day.

Harry Niemeyer, President of the MidAtlantic Chapter of the FMDAC