Lost St Mary Charm & Chain, Ocean City NJ

My parents took my 2 kids away to Canada for a long weekend. It just so happened to be my weekend off, so me & the Mrs. headed for Ocean City NJ. We found a nice place to stay Fri & Sat nite, 1 block from the beach. So we headed down early Fri morning. Stopped at Atlantic City on the way down to catch the Titanic Exhibit. Wow some really nice jewelry there. Sure wish I could find something like that.

The life guards leave OC beaches at 5pm on Fridays, so guess who was on the beach at 501pm. I took my XLT because low tide was earlier in the day, so I decided just to do the dry sand for now. No sooner did I step on the sand and turn on my XLT, I was approached by a crying 12 y/o girl. She asked me if I had found anything today. I explained that I just got here, and asked here what she lost. She explained that she lost a silver chain and a charm of St. Mary. I asked her if she had an idea of where it might be. She said yes. She had taken it off and put it on her towel, so she wouldn’t lose it in the water. Well she forgot that she did this and when it was time to leave she lifted her towel and shook all the sand of it. Oooopppppps.

I followed her to the spot. Searching in the sand were her mom, dad, sister and friends. I started to work a grid pattern. Boy the people who visit NJ beaches are SLOBS!! I found a ton of trash and 12 cents. We started to draw a crowd. After about 30 minutes the family thought I would never find it. They were going to leave the beach. I told the dad to give me the address of the place they were staying and leave a phone number. I told them I was only going to be there for 2 nights, they were leaving the next day. He did so, but I could see it in all their faces, they thought they would never see me or the necklace again. He offered me $5 for searching. I declined.

After they left I enlarged the search area. About 10 minutes after they left, guess what I found!!! If St. Mary wasn’t attached, I would have never found this chain. It was so thin!! Well I ran over to my wife and showed her. We left the beach, got changed and went to the boardwalk to make the phone call to meet up with the family. Darn, no-one home just and answering machine. I left my pager number.

The Mrs. & me were starving, so we decided to head to Mack’s & Manco Pizza on the boardwalk. Just as we were entering the building, I was approached by a man. He wanted to thank me for searching for the chain, it was the dad. I could only recognize him by his shirt. I said, we just called & left a message, as I pulled out the chain from my wallet. Well the girl was ready to cry again. Everybody was happy. They couldn’t believe I found it. We traded names, and phone numbers. I told them I might do a small article for one of the hobby magazines. We took a few pictures. The chain was from the girls 1st Holy Communion. She won’t be wearing it to the beach again!! Boy never had such a good feeling. This was my 1st returned item!!!