Ansel had shared classes with me for all of my life. Some years we were in the same class, and other years he was in another class, but we knew each other well. We worked for the same masonry company for a few weeks as rising seniors on the new Quality Inn in Edgewood. With no experience, we were laborers and scaffold riggers. One day, Ansel cane to work all excited. He had gotten his new high school class ring. Back then the 14-carat gold ring was $31.50. A bargain by today’s standards. We were on the second-floor scaffolding and Ansel was showing me his ring when he suddenly dropped it. Ansel made a valiant grab, but missed, and the ring tumbled into the open block wall. We heard the faint clinking as the ring fell inside the twelve-inch block wall down to the bottom of the ground floor. Ansel scrambled down the scaffolding, picked up a brick hammer and punched a hole in the concrete block directly below where the ring had fallen. No ring. He moved over to the next web and knocked another hole. Still no ring. He moved to the other side and hammered a third hole in the block wall. Still no ring. He was poised to make a fourth hole when the foreman shouted, “Hey! What are you doing?!” Ansel was more panicked over his ring than afraid of the foremen. But the foreman had no compassion for the missing ring. “Drop that hammer and get back up there rigging the scaffolding!” Ansel began a protest, but the foreman’s angry look stopped any discussion. The ring was now an artifact to be discovered in fifty years. Maybe. Ansel was heartbroken, but the boss was guarding his block wall. Each one had their own perspective. Solomon said in Proverbs 21:2, “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts.” Our own point of view is right … according to how we see things. But the good Lord knows what is best for all of us. I’m not sure if Ansel bought another ring or not. But Quality Inn and Suites is still there. And so is a gold ring, Edgewood High School, 1967.
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