King Salmon, the Dogs & a Wedding Ring
King Salmon has a community of beach-goers, and dogs help build it.
Jody and I are the retired couple with Lucy, the little white blind dog. Elisha’s pup Nova is tentative with people, but will allow a pat or two in exchange for a treat. John walks Xena to the beach twice daily. Xena’s a black Lab who swims better than she walks, and delays her departure from the surf by retrieving her ball to John’s down-beach side.
Hamster is Christine’s rescue, once timid with other dogs but now a game player. Gina’s Kairos, the yellow Lab, has a saint’s answer to life’s slings and arrows. Kairos never takes offense.
The dogs bring us to King Salmon. And that’s where Jody lost the wedding ring she’d worn for 38 years.
It was either in the weeds of the dunes, perhaps as she managed Lucy and bagged her poop, or out on the beach. It was a high tide that day, so we were close to the cordgrass, and although Lucy still steps with spirit, she’s old and we didn’t walk more than a hundred yards. Still, that’s a lot of turf to hide a little ring.
Jody told Gina about the lost ring, and Gina, who has never met a stranger, spread the word. Soon people with or without dogs had their eyes open for us. A woman we’d never met greeted Jody with, “Oh, you’re the one who lost the ring.”
John and Xena extended their walk by scanning the trail through the dunes. I bought a metal detector, and we found a bottle cap, a buried pipe and a piece of wire.
But no ring.
Until just nine days later, when Jody received a text from Elisha. It included a photo of Christine’s hand holding a note with John’s phone number, and the message that he and Xena had found the ring.
John didn’t have our number, so he gave the note to Christine on the beach. She bumped into Elisha, who was able to message us.
So we all connected — first with someone to advertise the lost ring, and then someone to find it, someone to take the “Found it!” message, and someone to deliver it.
Jody’s finger is once again encircled by her wedding band. More broadly, our lives are encircled by the rich community of beach-goers at King Salmon, as well as the dogs who bring us there.
Dan & Jody Greaney live with Lucy on Humboldt Hill.
