It is the kind of thing that has happened to all of us. We misplace something, drop something or just lose something that we never expect to see again.
Sometimes in life, we all have to navigate some twists and turns.
"I'm kind of nervous, to be honest with you," Beth Hamm lamented in her rural Brown County home. "I just couldn't understand why he wanted to come all the way out here."
"I couldn't believe it. Trying to find someone 22 years later is pretty hard," Alan Hamm, Beth's son added.
And some fits and starts.
"So the letter went a roundabout way to get to him," Beth added.
Indiana to Florida and then to Illinois and now back to Indiana.
This story actually started here in Nashville way back in 1993, when the Hamm family had come to town to go to the True Value lumber yard. That is when young Allen, then age 9, found something when he was playing in the dirt.
"Hey, hey. Come on in. Good to see you. Did you bring the ring?" Beth Hamm greeted her visitor at the front door.
"We brought the ring," her long-anticipated visitor replied.
Kurt Altmann didn't know what to think when he received Beth Hamm's letter and even now as he walked in her front door.
"Kurt, you don't know me. My name is Beth. I am legally blind, so sorry about the writing. Anyway, my son found something about 20-21 years ago that might belong to you," Beth's letter to Kurt read.
His class ring that even had his name engraved in the side - "Kurt 1985." Beth Hamm had always meant to try to find the owner and return it, but the twists and turns of life seemingly always got in the way. Now, thanks to the Internet, timing and technology seemed right.
Little did she know after all these years that her timing could not have been better. That letter brought Kurt's life full circle.
"My mother, it was one of her things that I remember that she wanted to give me and she passed away August 7. It was uncanny that you found me after all these years," Altmann told her.
He had moved to Indiana after graduation from Thornwood High School in Illinois for work and then moved on. But he accidentally left a little piece of family history behind in that Brown County lumber yard.
"I remember her wanting me...buying the ring for me, you know. That was cool. Kind of touched me, you know," he remembered.
And now the woman he never knew, the woman who can only see shapes and colors and would have to use a special viewing machine to even see Kurt's 1985 high school picture, would demonstrate the foresight to bring it all back to him.
"After losing her..." then Kurt Altmann's words trailed off.
"I'm glad you got it back," Beth Hamm interjected.
"Thank you hon," Altmann said as she stepped forward to give him a hug. So now, Kurt has found more than his ring.
"That is what has come out of this is friendship," Altmann continued.
"Yeah, we look like Mutt and Jeff," the diminutive Hamm retorted.
His mom's memento is back on his finger.
"I'm just glad you got it back," Hamm declared.
"That's happy moments right? That is what it is all about," Altmann said.
And now, he has a story to share and it all starts with his high school annual, which fittingly enough, is named "Special Delivery."
