Gregg Larabel, Author at The Ring Finders | Page 5 of 16

After traveling through Europe on their honeymoon and enjoying the married life, Steve J. never lost or misplaced his white gold wedding band. This past weekend Steve and his wife Kristi decided to take a weekend drive to the West side of the state from Lansing and swim in the Great Lake of Michigan at Rosy Mound. Somewhere between the beach, water and coming home Steve discovered his ring was missing while washing his hands when he got home. Steve immediately went on line and found The Ring Finders (Tom Townsend). Tom was not available so he referred me to them. After getting their story I told them I would go out the first thing in the morning to search. Steve had pinned the area on Google Maps and sent it to me.

I got out to the park at 6:30 am and immediately packed up for the 3/4 mile trek up and down 500+ steps to the beach. At the time I didn’t know whether his ring was lost in the water, the sand or in his car driving back home. The pin he made for me showed they were swimming, between the last 2 buoys to the South so I started a grid search from shore to the end of the last buoy up to my chest with several passes and only finding a crusty Quarter and a dime. I decided to change my grid from E and W to N and S. The area was at least half a football area. On my last N/S grid I got a hit and there it was. SWEET!

I took some pictures of the ring and the area and text Steve and said “is this your ring?”

Kristi said a little prayer last night that I would find the ring and before all my ring searches I say a prayer: “Lord, guide my eyes and ears, my hands and feet, guide them to the ring I seek, Amen” I’m sure someone was looking over my shoulder and guiding me to that small piece of gold in a very large body of water.

I received a call from Robert H. yesterday, he said he lost his wedding band 3 years ago and wanted to know if I could find it. After getting some information on the lost ring I told him I could be out in the morning. Today, Dave Boyer my Ring Finder partner, and I went out to Robert’s house and got to work. Robert lost his ring while taking a large flat rock out of the pond in about 3 to 5 feet of water. While taking a shower afterwords he noticed the ring was missing. He posted the lost ring on Facebook and got several message to give me a call because I was a Ring Finder.

I put my waders on and started my search from the shore to about 4 feet getting no signals I went back and put my swim suit on so I could go deeper in the water. The first 3 feet of the bottom of the pond was sand, then about 3 inches of black mud and the rest of the bottom was sloppy grey clay. Dave directed me to the left and front of the dock and I got a high pitch signal on my detector unlike a gold signal, but I dug it anyway because that was the only signal I got out there. After a couple scoops of mud and clay I finally got something in my scoop. At the very bottom of my scoop, after squeezing a gallon of soft clay, was his gold wedding band. Needless to say Robert and his wife Marlene were very happy and amazed, that after 3 years, his ring was back on his finger.

Last week during one of the worst snow storms and low temperatures in the state of Michigan, I received a call from Joel C. telling me he lost his 14K gold wedding ring while placing money for his snow plow driver under the blue cap on his LP Gas tank. I told Joel that I could come out and search for his ring the next day although it was -10 degrees and about a foot of snow. Alyssa C., Joel’s wife, explained that he cleared the snow off the gas tank, pushing the snow down towards him, then placing the plow fee under the blue cap (see picture). I set my detector to discriminate out the steel gas tank and proceeded to search in front and behind the tank and around the driveway and snow piles that had been plowed later that night after he lost his ring. After an hour or so of searching I then questioned Alyssa with several probing questions as to whether Joel remembered having the ring on during the day and what took place that evening, I stop the search and said I will be back after the weather warmed up in the following days.  I called a Ringfinder friend, Jon Hamil, from the other side of the state to meet me at their house to help with the search. We both made the 1 1/2 hour trip from opposite sides of the state and began our search in now a snow free area. Jon and I went over the same area as I did before with no success.      After an hour searching outside we went in the house checked the couch, sink drains and garage, still no ring. Going back out to the yard John used a system he developed and discovered the ring on top of the yellow children’s discarded plastic slide (see picture).  I looked on the slide and there was the ring. I was dumbfounded by it’s presents and questioning myself how it landed there in a snow storm. I guess it doesn’t matter because it made Alyssa smile and she gave us each a hug and sighing with relief that the ring was found she immediately called Joel to tell him the good news.

Grand Rapids, Michigan. I got a call yesterday from a fiend, Matt V, I met at a local gas station. He was trying to start his car in this -10 degree temp and it wouldn’t start so he put the key, with a little metal wrench on the ring, in his coat pocket and walked around the car to his shed. When he reached in his pocket to get the key out for the shed, his car key fell somewhere in the snow which he hadn’t realized until he needed them again. His wife reminded him that the guy at the gas station was a Ring Finder and could help find the key. After raking the snow searching for the key he gave me a call and after a short search I found the key by the shed door. 

On my way to work today, I received a call from Josh K. about his wife loosing her heirloom ring (her mom gave it to her years ago). Jayne K. was raking leaves in the front yard and playing with her daughters in the leave piles afterwards. Shortly after they finished raking and playing, Jayne noticed her ring missing. Josh borrowed a metal detector and went over his front yard. Not being familiar with the detector he was unsuccessful. Josh had 11 bags of leaves that he searched one bag at a time with no luck. Josh went to the internet and looked up lost rings, detecting services and found The Ring Finders. He was a little skeptical about someone coming out and searching for a ring but after his call to me and telling him I would be out at 4pm he was very happy I could get there so soon.

My Ring Finder friend, Dave Boyer, and I showed up at their house at 4pm and proceeded to search the front yard. I made about 6 passes in a back and forth grid pattern and on the 6th pass I got a nice signal and saw her gold ring. I told Josh that I gave up and hesitated a bit and said “because I found it”. Josh’s eyes lit up and with a big smile and a bear hug he said “thank you”.  Jayne was not home at the time but I’m sure when she found out her ring was recovered she will have a very nice Thanksgiving.

I received a text today at 3:11 pm from Alan O. telling me Tom Townsend (a Ring Finder) referred me as he was unavailable. Alan’s sister-in-law Stefanie C. was visiting Alan’s parents home on Mona Lake in Norton Shores, Michigan. Stefanie put her ring in Alan’s hat for safe keeping and it fell onto the dock and into the water. They thought it was about 3 feet of water on a sandy but weedy bottom. I texted Alan back right away and told him I could be out there, with my Ring Finder partner Dave Boyer, in about an hour.

When I got to the home we introduced ourselves and got our equipment out and went down to the water. We reached the end of the dock where the ring fell in and it was about chest deep. We searched an area where Alan felt the ring would have went in the water but didn’t get any signals so I searched under the dock because it had perforated holes big enough for a small ring to fall through. I got a good hit on the platinum ring and after 3 scoops there it was. Alan yelled up to the ladies sitting on the deck, “they found it!”

Alan text Stefanie letting her know the ring was recovered and said he will mail it to her. Stefanie lives in Pittsburgh, PA. and will send me a picture of her with the ring for our Book of Smiles.

While I was out searching for a ring today in Grand Haven, MI, I got a call from Ken L. about his wedding ring he lost while playing with his grandchildren in about 4 to 5 feet of water at the 8th avenue Park in Georgetown, MI. Although it was lost over a month ago I thought I would take a chance to see if I could find it before another detector did. I told Ken and his wife Janet that the chance of finding it would be slim and they should prepare themselves to to put in a Craigslist ad when they get home.

After about an hour of doing a grid search from 3 to 5 feet I decided to call it quits but told the couple I would get a hold of one of my club member friends who detects the park often. I messaged Terry Sparks on Facebook and got an immediate response to call him. I put Ken on the call and Terry said yes indeed he found the ring after Ken identified it with the engravings of his and Janet’s initials. After getting an address they were off to pick up the ring. I love the fact that I can depend on other metal detectors in our network to help out when needed.                                                                                                                          Thank you again Terry for your honesty and dependability.

By the way I did not recover the ring in Grand Haven due to lack of visibility in the river, I will be back in September.

After recovering a ring earlier that evening, I got a call from Jen M. about her husband, Mark M., loosing his wedding ring at Pere Marquette Park in Lake Michigan. The area where it was lost was a cove where people park their boats and swim. They were in about 4 to 5 feet of water when Mark’s ring came off. My Ring Finder partner, Dave Boyer, and I made arrangements to meet Jen at 8am in the morning, I was concerned that another Detector would find it before we got there.

The day was cool and dark and dreary it stormed but we were never weary on our 45 mile trip to the lake. We met Jen, she showed us the area and in the rain we started our search. The waves were rolling about a foot which made detecting a little rough trying to keep our balance. I got a good signal out about waist level which turned out to be an old can top. Moving out deeper about up to my neck with the rolling waves I got a great signal and put my scoop into the sandy bottom several times and about the fourth scoop I saw the white gold wedding band at the bottom of my scoop. We walked up to the beach and Jen was in her car out of the rain. I held up the ring and Jen got out of her car and asked if she could give me a hug, so in my wet clothes we hugged and she was one happy lady. She immediately called her husband to tell him the good news. Another day of making someone happy, I love my job.

My Ring Finder partner, Dave Boyer, received an email from Guillermo R. about a friend who lost a diamond pendant just after Osman K., her new fiance, proposed. They were deep in the woods of Saugatuck State Park up on an Oak tree lined trail. After his proposal Abby’s friend ran up to her and gave her a hug, at that time Abby dropped the pendant out of her hand. They searched a couple of hours through the leaves and the rotted undergrowth to no avail. That night they searched the internet and found TheRingFinders.

We met Abby and Osman at the park the next morning and made our way up and around the park paths to the spot of the proposal. We searched up and down the hill and finally after about 30 minutes I got a very faint signal on my Fisher F75 detector. I looked down and still didn’t see anything until I pushed some dirt away and I saw a little glimmer of gold . There it was, Abby and Osman smiled in amazement and Dave couldn’t believe it was such a small item we were searching for. We used our Garret (carrot) pin pointer and it would not register.

Abby and Osman are students at Hope college studying special education for the Blind. We said our good byes and wished them well. By The Way, she did say “YES” to his proposal.