We might never know where or when Charles Stran came across the ring. The man was a painter in Baltimore for nearly 50 years, so he might have found it in one of the many properties, commercial as well as residential, where his work took him.
He might have been removing wallpaper or sanding a spackled seam or rolling a primer across a ceiling. He might have had one of those moments when, in the course of routine, the eye catches something unusual — say, a flash of gold where the wall meets the floor in an old house. He might have noticed the ring as he dipped his roller in paint and raised it toward the ceiling.
Or maybe Stran found it in the dusty corner of an office building.
He might have picked up the ring, examined it and looked around for its owner: Deborah Walls. The ring was from the Frederick Douglass High School class of 1976.
Maybe Stran thought of contacting the school. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he forgot. We don't know.
Or it might have been as simple as spotting the ring on a sidewalk.
I remember a man who turned up someone's ring while he was preparing his vegetable garden in the spring.
A college friend lost her high school ring while in graduate school in the 1970s; a maintenance man in the apartment she rented found it behind a refrigerator, stowed it away and waited until he retired to hunt down its owner. My friend and her ring were reunited 35 years after it went missing.
Chuck Stran, the son of Charles Stran, hopes something like this happens, which is why he contacted me.
His father died four years ago at the age of 83. He never mentioned the ring. His son found it while going through his father's effects.
"I have no idea how he obtained it," he says.
The Strans lived in Woodberry until the early 1990s, when they moved into an apartment on Roland Avenue in Hampden.
"They liked to walk in the neighborhood for exercise," Chuck Stran says. "My dad might have found it on one of their walks."
The Strans were members of Good Shepherd United Methodist Church in Hampden.
"The church took donations for a thrift shop they ran," says Chuck Stran. "Maybe [the ring] came into his possession that way."
Certainly that's a possibility.
Some people cherish their high school rings and know exactly where they are at all times — in a jewelry box, in a sock drawer, in a safe deposit box. I generally imagine this to be true of Baltimoreans of a certain age. They always ask, "Where'd you go to school?" And they don't mean college. They mean high school.
But some have more school pride than others. Some lose interest in their rings after they stop wearing them — because they need the finger for another ring, or because their fingers get too fat.
Some lose their rings by accident or by theft.
So maybe a high school ring goes on a long journey that ends in a box in a thrift store.
And maybe someone culling through donations finds it, and that someone puts the ring away with the idea of finding its owner some day, but never does.
Something like that might have happened with Charles Stran. We don't know.
Chuck Stran's mother, Shirley, has health problems that prevent her from explaining the presence of the ring among her late husband's effects — assuming she even knew about it.
About nine months ago, Chuck Stran contacted Douglass High about the ring.
"They responded by suggesting I donate the ring for their display case," he says.
He found that idea unsatisfactory.
He conducted some Internet searches, but had no luck finding the owner of the ring.
So, look, if Deborah Walls (Douglass High, Class of '76) or a member of her family reads this, please get in touch if you want the ring back.
As for how Charles Stran came to possess it, we might never know.
As for why he left it behind, his son has a theory.
See, Chuck Stran was a member of the class of 1969 of Northwestern High School. He lost his high school ring four or five years later, while on a fishing trip with his dad to the Outer Banks of North Carolina and Ocean City.
"Maybe," Chuck says, "Pop left the ring knowing that I would aggressively pursue the effort to find the owner, having lost my own."
Maybe. And maybe Chuck's ring from Northwestern will turn up some day. Who knows?