Mike Burke (left) returns her husband’s lost ring to Sheila Banser as her son Kyle (right) looks on. Photo by Deb Smith
BY DEB AND TIM SMITH
When you write for the Sentinel and spend hours of your working time conducting business from your semi-official “office” on the sidewalk overlooking the 4-corners of beautiful downtown Mendon, some crazy stuff is bound to happen. But this one compellingly bubbles to the top of the “crazy cauldron.”
The long-story-short gist of this piece is that the “Lost and Found Ring” mystery that graced the front page of last week’s issue of this paper has reached a gratifying resolution, drenched in a double dose of irony. But before we get to that, please allow us to reset the table for any readers who missed the prologue a week ago.
One evening last month, as we sat by the fire in front of our place on Rush Mendon Road, working on a story for the Sentinel, we saw a car drive past us, pull a U-turn, and swing around to a stop right in front of us. Clearly a person with a purpose.
Our surprise guest turns out to be Mike Burke, a man who we had never met, but a familiar name as he had written a Letter to the Editor contributing his thoughts regarding an article we had written.
In addition to seizing the opportunity to make a personal connection, Mike had a local nugget tucked in his back pocket that he thought might be worthy of a news story. Right here is where we’ll tap into last week’s piece about the lost and found ring.
In the spring of 2022, Mike and his wife embarked upon a walk around the Town of Mendon’s Semmel Road Park. Before launching the initiative, Mike took a bathroom break during which he found what appeared to be a man’s wedding ring on the floor. The ring bore the inscription of “S.F.L. to R.O.B.” and the date of 3.22.68.
In last week’s story, we intentionally withheld the date because we needed a means of corroborating any potential claim of ownership. If you put out all the pertinent information, there’s no way to prevent any Tom, Dick, or Harry from making up a story in order to snag the ring, take it to a pawn shop, and pocket a few easy bucks.
The way we put it in the article was to say, “There’s also a date on the ring, but we’re keeping that to ourselves for now – if you know the date and can offer a description that matches the ring, we’ll turn it over!” So that gets everyone up to speed on where we left the story last week. Now, we’ll fast forward to the evening of this past Thursday, the day that the Sentinel arrives in most subscribers’ mailboxes.
With an autumnal chill in the air, we had moved our operations inside, but our home working space still offers a fishbowl view of the hamlet, looking through the wall of display windows that served to front the commercial building we live in, which was a mom-and-pop hardware store when we were kids.
Through those windows last Thursday, we see a car pull up and park directly in front of our place which is the sure sign that we’ve got visitors! As they approach our front door, we realize that it’s Kyle Banser and his mom, Sheila.
This initially presents itself as a social call as Kyle and Tim worked together at the Mendon-Honeoye Falls Summer Recreation program for decades, and we were always friends with Kyle’s parents. Sheila’s husband Otis, who passed in 2023, was a longtime employee of the Town of Mendon, and somewhat of a local celebrity who was known to all by his nickname of “Otie.”
After welcoming them in, we soon come to realize that this is not strictly a social visit. The Bansers are here to solve the mystery of the “Lost and Found Ring.” In an intriguing connection of the dots, the wedding ring that Mike Burke found in 2022 belonged to Ralph Otis Banser, husband of Sheila and father of Kyle, the folks we are now talking to in our home!
The backstory relevant to how this played out was that for many years Otie Banser was the man who mowed the lawn at Semmel Road Park, so the fact that he would use the bathroom there would not be at all surprising. He always took his ring off and put it in his pocket when he was working, so when it turned up missing, there was a lot of acreage on Semmel Road where the ring could have fallen out and, for that matter, Otie had no way of knowing if he’d lost the ring at the park or somewhere else.
Obviously you have no choice but to accept a loss like this, and subsequently Otie spends the last year of his life without the wedding ring. Fast forward to the present and last Thursday afternoon when Sheila Banser pulls her issue of the Sentinel out of her Semmel Road mailbox and is shocked to see two pictures of her husband’s wedding ring adorning the front page.
Kyle, who lives with his mom, teaches phys ed at Pavilion, and the high school happened to have its Open House Thursday evening, so Sheila is unable to share the news until Kyle calls to inform her that he’s on his way home.
The ensuing conversation with his mother is difficult to process.
Sheila launches into an impulsive rambling thread of conversation where she is able to express key components of her story while never being quite able to put the big picture in context. Kyle hears, “Your father… in the mailbox… his wedding ring… front page of the Sentinel… there’s pictures…” Kyle has no choice but to cut the conversation short and tell her he’ll be home soon.
Upon arriving home, he reads the article and says, “Mom, let’s go visit Deb and Smitty and share the news that we’ve solved their Sentinel mystery!” In explaining the chaotic exuberance of the circumstances in play, Kyle jokes that, “All the way home I’m thinking that one of my old mug shots might have made the front page.”
Subsequently, a ring reunion is scheduled for this past Saturday at our home in Mendon. Mike Burke and Sheila Banser meet for the first time in what turns out to be a truly emotional moment. Upon seeing her husband’s wedding ring for the first time in over 4 years, Sheila says, “This is so unbelievable. I truly never thought I would see this ring again.”
The Sentinel is certainly enjoying a sense of satisfaction in knowing that we were able to play a role in this small-town story.
