Henry R. Nau '63
Return of the Ring
Henry R. Nau '63 with his Brass Rat on his finger...for now.
This is an improbable tale about my 1963 MIT class ring. I have proudly worn the Brass Rat for almost 44 years—facing, I might add, in the right direction. That is, for all but two very anxious periods. In 2002, my ring suddenly disappeared, shortly after I had it enlarged to slide more easily over my knuckle. I had no idea where it went. One morning it was no longer in the tray next to my bed. (I did not sleep with it. After all, it's a lethal weapon when worn by a nighttime thrasher.) I concluded it slid off somewhere without my knowledge. Maybe enlargement made it too big. I was devastated. My wife and I looked everywhere for months but found nothing.
In 2003 I attended my 40th class reunion in Boston. I stopped at the Coop to look at new rings, but I didn't like them. They seemed bulkier, less shiny, and definitely too expensive. I was further distressed and became reconciled to an empty finger for the rest of my life. Then, 18 months after the ring disappeared, it suddenly reappeared. My wife was pulling apart the twin beds in one of our guest rooms when she noticed something flashing in the sunlight. She bent down, and there, tucked against a bedpost, was the ring! You tell me how it got there. Some licit or illicit tryst in the guest bedroom? My wife warns, "let's not go there."
Fast forward to Christmas 2006. My wife, daughter, and I were relaxing on Poipu Beach in Kauai, Hawaii. My daughter, Kimberly, persuaded me to go snorkeling. I remember faintly thinking I should give my wife my rings, but I didn't. We were in and out of the ocean in ten minutes. I'm no swimmer and was grateful to be back on solid ground. But suddenly I sensed—no ring. God, how stupid could I be? It was gone, this time somewhere in a stretch of 50 feet or more of the Pacific Ocean. I was truly ill. My daughter dove and searched valiantly, but get real! She'd never find it in a churning ocean surf. For at least a day, I was a kid who lost his favorite toy. Then I said to myself, Henry, at 65, you are going to lose a lot more in the next 20 years than a class ring. Get over it. And I did—well, sort of.
Two weeks later, I was back at home working at my computer. I teach international studies at George Washington University and write books that none of you—and few others as far as I can tell—read. The phone rang. It was Imani Ivery at the MIT Alumni Association in Cambridge.
"Are you Henry Nau?" she asked.
"Yeeesss," I replied warily, fully expecting another request for an alumni donation.
"I just got a call from someone in California who says he has your class ring. He gave us the initials inside the ring and asked if we could find you."
"You have got to be kidding," I sputtered and immediately lost my breath.
"Call him. He wants to talk to you."
So I did. The nicest man, Mike Mealue, answered the phone.
"Where did you lose the ring?" he asked.
After I explained, he replied, "Well, that's just where I found it, maybe 10 feet from shore in about two to three feet of water" (about where I had taken off my flippers). He said he was an amateur prospector and liked to look for stuff. He's too modest. He may not walk on water, but he performs miracles underwater.
One week later, I received the ring in the mail and put it back on my finger. Now, I sleep with it and, well, pretty much worship it. It's immortal, right? What happens next? I should probably insure it, put it in a safety deposit box, and hire the U.S. Marines to guard it. But that's not going to make this ring happy. It will find some way to break out and get lost again. So stay tuned. If I lose it again, my wife will tell the story. My heart will never survive a third time.
By Henry R. Nau '63
Published April 12, 2007
