"Hey Mike, Come Over and Get Your Wedding Band"
August 19th 2003
Written by Chet Chin
George Miner and I met at 7:00 AM at the Shady Glen Restaurant in
Turners Falls. I ordered blueberry pancakes but had to settle for plain
pancakes because there were no blueberries. It looked like the beginning
of a bad day, but that's not the way it ended.
Around 8:00 AM, George and I arrived at the First Congregational Church
in Montague Center, Massachusetts. This is the church where Beth and I
were married on Nov. 28, 1998. We broke out our metal detectors (with
permission, of course) and began a somewhat methodical search of the
parking area. Around 10:30, I got a pull tab signal that looked
suspicious because of the audio tone and visual display on my White's
Spectrum XLT metal detector. I decided to dig the target and I'm glad I
did. Under about 2 inches of hard packed dirt, just outside the kitchen
door, I found a 14K white gold wedding band! Inside the ring were two
sets of initials and the date 7/29/78. We quit shortly afterwards.
George had found some interesting items too. He showed me a Girl Scout
pin and some other things that he had found. My mind was going wild with
the prospects of getting the story on the lost wedding band.
I got home around noon time and told Beth she had some homework to do
because she grew up in the local area and knows just about everyone.
With a few phone calls and some great detective work, Beth located the
owner of the ring. His wife Ann played the organ at our wedding! The
ring had been lost just a year ago at Montague Old Home Days, a yearly
local celebration and fund raiser (food booths, kid's games,
entertainment, auction, etc.) for the church.
Mike showed up around 1:15PM, after only an hour and fifteen minutes of
research! Is this a record? I asked him if it would be ok if Beth took a
picture of us while handing back his wedding band. The smile on his face
tells the rest of the story.
