How Did This Class Ring From the U.S. End Up Buried in Finland?
I'm not the most romantic guy out there, but I know a good love story when I see one. And the story of a high school class ring from Maine ending up buried in a park in Finland is one I needed to share. And it's quite the mystery if you ask me.
According to to the Bangor Daily News, this story starts on Valentine's Day 1973, in Bath, Maine when a high school senior named Shawn McKenna gave his 16-year-old girlfriend Debra his class ring. Not long after, Debra lost the ring when she took it off to wash her hands in a department store in Portland and forgot to put it back on.
Live went on and Shawn and Debra got married in 1977 - and stayed married for 40 years, until Shawn passed away in 2017. Then, last month, a man named Marko Saarinen was using a metal detector in a park in Kaarina, a small town in Finland, when he found the Morse High School ring. Buried in 8 inches of dirt. Debra had never been to Finland and even though Shawn had worked there for a while in the 90s, the ring had been lost long before. Marko contacted the high school and the alumni association immediately knew who it belonged to so he could send it back to Debra. She got the ring in the mail last week.
According to the story,"she thinks Shawn might be trying to tell her something. Mckenna said she’s felt adrift in the two years since Shawn’s death, and the sudden reappearance of the ring might be a message: Everything lost is eventually found. “He’s telling me to get my act together. To get going with the rest of my life,” McKenna said.
But how in the heck did that ring get there?
(Yeah, I know somebody probably walked off with it and chucked it into the park when they got to Finland, but C'MON! Don't harsh the story, man!)