Jane and I moved to Vienna in December of 1975 and soon joined First Baptist Church. The building’s third-floor hallway had an in-wall cabinet with a “LOST AND FOUND” sign. Only one item was displayed, a green Pyrex bowl. 

That bowl remained unclaimed for decades. Those stairs can be challenging, plus the owner probably transitioned to a higher plane. I’ve long been amused by the bowl’s lingering stay, and intrigued by other lost and found stories.

In the early 1950s, Papa Joiner’s vacant childhood home burned to the ground. A neighbor saw my elderly grandfather poking through the ashes with his walking stick and was concerned. Papa Joiner assured the man he was fine. He said he’d lost a dime there as a kid and was hoping to reclaim it. 

James Woodward found a couple of guns during the 1950s that someone apparently lost intentionally. Last summer I showed James a piece of wood that nature had carved into a pistol shape. My faux gun reminded him of a 38 revolver he rescued from a creek near Aunt Jeanie’s Kindergarten during his youthful ramblings.

His excitement was tempered when James’ father told him to go see Sheriff John Byrom Fokes. James hoped to get the pistol back, but that never happened. Another temporary treasure was a 16-gauge shotgun he found under a bridge. A spent 20-gauge shell, wrapped with string to hold it in, was in the chamber. Once again his father sent him to the sheriff.  

There are multiple ways of losing guns, but what seems most plausible is someone tossed them in the water for nefarious reasons. Perhaps there are unsolved cases connected to those weapons, but that’s just speculation.

Mrs. Lessie Holland gets credit for an old and unique lost but not-found story. She married Mr. John Holland after the accidental death of his first wife, Ophelia. Whether he gave her a diamond ring or she already owned it, my mother doesn’t know. When she noticed the ring had slipped off her finger one day, she frantically searched their cleanly-swept yards.

Her suspicions eventually turned to the free-range chickens on their farm. One by one she killed them all and searched their every craw. The ring wasn’t found, but meals were easy to plan.

Mr. G. L. Arflin’s jewelry story has a better ending. Money was tight when he and Mary Ransom married in 1956. He would sometimes joke that when they got rich he was going to buy himself a diamond ring. His wife began discreetly saving money she made from selling cakes, never charging more than $5. In the 1960s she surprised him with a 1.1 carat symbol of her selfless love.

In 2004 he lost the ring but had no idea where. They had been to Cordele that day and he had also worked in the yard. Thirteen years later, in June of 2017, Mr. G. L. was on his riding mower, planning to cut grass along Mocassin Creek, which runs through his property. He stopped near the bridge on Highway 230 and sat for a few minutes for no particular reason. Something shining on the grassy bank, about a foot from the water, caught his attention.

How his ring ended up in such a precarious position without being washed downstream remains a mystery. And for the sun’s reflection to be so perfectly timed, miracle is the word that comes to mind. That diamond ring now tenderly reminds him of the precious jewel he loved throughout 66 years of marriage.    

Lost and found stories have many dimensions, but John Newton deserves special mention. As a young captain of a slave ship, a raging storm got his attention while at sea. Newton underwent a spiritual awakening that changed his life and eternal outlook. 

He left the slave trade and wrote the beloved hymn “Amazing Grace,” whose familiar lines include these: “Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.”

Whether it’s guns in a creek, diamond rings, a green bowl, or a missing dime, there’s satisfaction in finding something that’s been lost, or disappointment if we search in vain. Only one quest, however, has everlasting consequences. It doesn’t really matter about an unclaimed bowl, but there’s no such thing as an unclaimed soul. Lost or Found is a choice we face. It’s up to us which road we take.