Glenn Pelrine said he immediately knew it was gone.
It was a warm summer day in 1973, and Pelrine was waterskiing on a lake in south Middleboro when the gold ring slipped off his finger.
“The tow rope pulled it right off,” Pelrine recalled. “And that was it. It was gone.”
Pelrine was devastated. It was his gold class ring, complete with his engraved signature, from the Franklin Institute in Boston. He had only received it two years earlier, when he graduated in 1971 with a degree in civil engineering.
The Weymouth native spent the next few hours snorkeling and searching for the ring — hoping, he said, to catch it sparkling in the sunlight.
No dice. It was gone. And for 45 years, it remained lost.
Until it was found.
Enter the second character in this ring-reunion story: Carl Reed Jr.
Reed, a retired Middleboro fire captain, had picked up metal detecting about two years ago. He’d had a little luck here and there in Middleboro, but never found gold before.