Local history buff and Marion County Tax Collector George Albright called to tell me about two Ocala High School graduation rings that had been found.
One is from 1935, the other 1936, inscribed with the initials BR and SFB respectively. The 1935 ring was spotted on the sandy shores of Lake Weir, where, more than 80 years
ago, the beach would have been the lake, making this discovery all the more remarkable. Albright has assumed a private investigator role to deliver the rings to the owners or, most likely, their families. If you have any information to help him crack the case, please email him at galbright@mariontax.com.
This got me thinking about my high school class ring that I never owned. I had my sights on something else, a jewel found only at the finest (and only) catalog showroom in Ocala – Service Merchandise. It was a gold ring with a cluster of three opals. I visited the store’s jewelry counter so often the sales clerk finally asked me if I had any intention of purchasing the ring.
My parents offered to buy me the official high school class ring, a kind offer knowing money was tight for my family as we were just peeling off the edge of our country’s economic recession in the early ’80s. Neither mom nor dad had the opportunity to go to college. They were proud their youngest daughter would soon graduate high school and attend college on scholarship. The class ring was expensive, and I couldn’t justify the cost for something I wasn’t in love with.
But that opal ring, well …
It would be my first real piece of jewelry with precious gems and gold unlike the metal mood ring that colored my finger a moldy green. Plus, it was way cheaper than the class ring.
And it was kind of like the opal ring a girl in my class got for her 16th birthday a year prior, one I admired. In science class, she sat across the aisle from me and would hand me notes to pass to her best friend sitting behind me. When she’d hand me her note, her ring sparkled a faint light of envy in my eyes.
A few months before graduation, mom and dad surprised me at dinner with a gift bag from Service Merchandise placed on my dining table chair.
Sweet Jewels! My very own opal ring. The three gem-cluster was comprised of little opal-ish chips, probably lab-created in China. But I had my very own ring! Instructions for “Opal Care” were included in my gift bag, advising me to rub the stones in baby oil to prevent cracking. Every morning before school, I’d saturate my ring in oil so it would be protected and shiny the whole day through. And shiny it was. On my hands. On my clothes. The car steering wheel. My homework. Miss Social’s notes that I passed to her BFF. (Hey, smudges happen.)
I wore the ring every day the rest of high school. And college. And graduate school.
But, somewhere between grad school and my first apartment, I lost my ring. Maybe it’s buried in the sand somewhere waiting to be found. Unlike the Ocala High School rings, it does not bear engraved initials of its owner. But its meaning will forever be etched in my heart, just not for the desires of an impressionable 17-year-old girl with oily hands.
When I think of my ring, I see my mom and dad at the dinner table beaming with wide grins. They didn’t have to buy me a piece of jewelry. But they wanted to commemorate my rite of passage – high school graduation – with something I’d always remember.
And what I remember, what I cherish still to this day, was the memory of my parents centering their lives around their family, honoring celebrations big and small.
“What’s that on your chair, honey?” my parents asked in feigned curiosity as I walked into the dining room.
Love. In a bag with instructions to care for that which is precious.