I am glad to say that I found my second Texas A&M class ring of the year today. Josh emailed me this morning and let me know that he was throwing football in the Gulf yesterday when his class ring that he has had on his hand for 22 years went flying into the waves. He immediately began to search for it and some kind strangers helped but the waves just knocked them around and the sand swallowed up the heavy gold ring. Luckily he called me and I showed up this afternoon and after getting all the information I could, I began the search. Josh stayed hopeful for the first hour and watched as I uncovered 2 different earrings and some other bits of metal. I could tell he was starting to get down as I went into the second hour but I assured him that this was normal and the ring could move in heavy surf and sometimes it’s just not where you think it is but I wasn’t giving up. Josh was kind enough to get me a Gatorade and as I took a break, I asked him to recreate exactly what happened the day before again. I picked up another detail or two that allowed me to slightly adjust my search. Sure enough, on the second pass I heard a good signal that had possibility so I called over Josh. He was definitely not getting his hopes up but I have to say that when he saw the gold flashing in my scoop, I have never had anyone get so excited so fast. He grabbed it and ran for the beach and then stopped, came back and started jumping up and down high fiving me. I told him we should high five on the beach so we didn’t lose it again and we headed that way. By that time, there were tons of people that came up to see if I had really found it. It was just an awesome time and totally why I do this. I feel like I’ve made a great new friend in Josh and I am truly happy that I could give him back something that has been such an ever present part of his life and his memories. Congratulations Josh and thanks for calling me!
Recently I was in Gulf Shores Alabama with my son and his baseball team to play in the Little League World Series. The day before the tournament started we decided to take all the kids to the beach for a day in the sand and surf. Everything was going great and eventually a bunch of us started throwing the football to each other in waist deep water. I was wearing my Texas A&M Aggie ring like I always do when I reached out for a pass and felt it slip off of my finger. I immediately went in to panic mode trying to find my ring. I enlisted the help of the other parents we used snorkel gear, etc. but due to the waves churning up the water we were not able to find my ring. I searched for more than an hour before I came to the realization that I had lost my ring.
As an Aggie I cannot tell you how much our rings mean to us especially since I was wearing it when I met my wife, I was wearing it when we got married and I was wearing it when I held all three of my children for the first time. In fact, it has largely remained on my finger for the last 22 years and up until that fateful day it had never once slipped off of my finger.
That night I called my wife to let her know that I had lost my ring and how upset I was and like any good wife she did her best to console me saying she would buy me another one. In my heart I knew that it would not be the same because it would not have those memories attached to it.
I did not sleep much that night and woke up very early the next day still sick to my stomach. It was at that point I decided to search the Internet to try and find somebody that might be able to help and I cannot tell you how happy I was to come across theringfinders.com website and Dave Cartee. I sent him an email and he called me back asking how he could help. I told him about the ring, how and where I lost it and he immediately agreed to help me find the ring.
We met that afternoon, after my son’s baseball games and he went right to work. He explained his technique of laying out a grid and that he would search an area larger than the one I had told him I lost the ring in in case the waves had moved it from where I dropped it. To say he was very detailed would be an understatement. As the first hour passed he could tell I was getting anxious and at that time others were coming up asking what I had lost. It took off like wildfire as more and more people told me how sorry they were that I had lost my ring and said they would pray that we would find it. Dave never lost his smile and he continued to tell me that he would find it no matter how long it took. Well I am happy to say that after about 2 hours he got a hit on his detector that was a bit closer to the shore than I knew I was so I was not to excited but he seemed to be staying in that spot and he finally called me over to let me know that his detector had found something. He used his scooper to dig down in to the sand and pulled it up to the surface and as the sand started to sift through I saw something that I thought was lost forever…my Aggie ring. Without even thinking I reached in to the scooper and pulled out my ring. I immediately started jumping up and down and high fiving and hugging Dave. At one point I think I almost knocked him over in my excitement. We had dozens of people come up and say that they could not believe we found the ring.
I cannot tell you how happy I am that I found Dave and I cannot recommend him enough. Dave thank you so much for taking time out of your day to help a complete stranger find something that had so much sentimental value to me.
My son lost his High School ring last week at Orange Beach. He was about ten yards out in the water. The name of his school is Fountainblue High and the year is 2018 on it. It has a red stone on it with a soccer player on one side. We are so sad that this happened. We have been hurt broken since. My son is the only one with my last name who has actually graduated across stage and received the wonderful gift for all the hard work he has done school. If you could do anything it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.