It was the day before Easter, Holy Saturday, and it had been a
difficult week. On Tuesday night I could feel the beginnings of what would
become a bout with the flu. Fortunately, it only lasted about thirty six hours.
Unfortunately, my wife came down with something similar just when I was
beginning to feel healthy again.
We had planned to have a family get together on Easter Sunday,
but called it off by Thursday afternoon. We didn’t want to take the chance of
passing on whatever it was that we had to our loved ones. So instead of
preparing for guests on Sunday, there was time for a Saturday afternoon ride.
There are many years when I cannot get out for a ride this
early in April. But there had not been as much snow as normal, and the
temperature was in the fifties. After putting on my leather jacket, helmet, and
cold weather gloves, I rolled my 2004 Harley Davidson Lowrider out of the
garage and cranked it up. The familiar rumble of the Screaming Eagle exhaust
was music to my ears. After the week I had endured, it was going to feel great
to be out riding.
I headed east out of Green Bay toward Kewaunee and the Lake
Michigan shoreline. It is usually a bit cooler near the lake, but I enjoy
riding in this part of northeast Wisconsin. Over the winter I had decided to
take a few more pictures on my rides, so I planned to make a few stops along
the route I had chosen.
Along the road east there are a couple of interesting places
for photos. The first is the Bellevue Veterans of Foreign Wars Post. They have
a display with a life size soldier in front of an old deuce and a half truck.
It is pretty impressive. I carefully wheeled into the gravel parking lot,
weaving among the water filled potholes. After taking some pictures I
acknowledged the VFW members who were outside grilling up their lunch. After
donning my gloves again and zipping up my jacket, I was on my way east.
After a few miles I turned into the hard packed gravel driveway
at Aissen’s Tree Farm. The Aissen has had this farm for several years and their
product has provided the centerpiece for many of our Christmases. They offer
precut trees or you are welcome to trudge off into the hills and cut your own.
I did this for a few years, but now I enjoy a cup of hot chocolate while
perusing the precut versions in the pole building. Once we pick out the perfect
tree, the elves will cut it to size, wrap it in netting and load it in the
truck. Usually there are some tasty cookies available for a snack before
bringing the tree home for decorating
At County Road AB I turned north. This is farm country and I
enjoyed seeing the neat dairy farms and the cows back out in the pasture after
the long winter. Passing through the little village of Ellisville I noted a
good crowd at Janda’s Bar. Entering Montpelier, I waved to one of Kewaunee
County’s finest parked in the St. John Lutheran Church parking lot. I was
feeling great and thinking that this ride was just what I needed to put the
week behind me.
The village of Luxemburg is just about in the center of
Kewaunee County. There are a couple of big sweeping curves just before you
crest the hill on the south end of town and this is one of my favorite
stretches of the ride. This little town holds a special place in my heart as I was
the principal of the Catholic school attached to St. Mary Parish. I served
there for twelve years and retired in June of 2014.
The first things you see when coming down the hill are the
Simonar businesses on the west side of the street. There is the gas station and
convenience store, the auto repair shop, the all-terrain vehicle and boat
dealer, and the sport shop. St. Mary Church is at the bottom of the hill on the
east side and has anchored the south end of town for over 130 years. This area
was the center of town until the railroad came through about a mile north. This
area is still called South Luxemburg by the locals.
The old cemetery is directly across from the church. There used
to be an apple tree just inside a wrought iron fence and in the fall I would
often walk across the street to enjoy one of the apples. An interesting thing
to note is the altar near the west end of the property. This was taken out of
the church when a new altar was installed. It was moved from the church into
the cemetery. After a few pictures and a walk among the headstones I continued
into the center of town.
The Canadian National railroad tracks stop on the west side of
Main Street. Luxemburg Milling has a siding, but the tracks are not needed
anywhere to the east. So the right of way has been turned into a bicycle trail.
I have ridden a few miles on it and it is quite scenic as it heads toward the
little town of Casco and Lake Michigan.
Main Street is lined with the businesses you would find in most
small towns in America. There is an implement store with big showroom windows.
In the winter there are snow blowers featured and then riding lawn mowers in
the summer. Burdick’s Bar and Grill has just been remodeled and is a popular
place for either a cold beverage or a hot meal. If you want to eat at Billy’s
on Main on Friday or Saturday night, expect to wait for a table. The small
bowling alley offers morning, afternoon and evening bowling. Al’s barber shop,
which I visited on a monthly basis for twelve years, is next to an auto shop
that will turn your daily driver into a track star.
The most impressive building is the new Bank of Luxemburg. Much
to the dismay of some citizens, the old bank was torn down and a new one built
right behind it. So there is a parking lot over the old site and the new
building sits far back off the street. I
remember taking the students into the old bank and singing Christmas carols.
There was a balcony on the second floor and the bank employees all came out of
their offices to enjoy the singing. They always provided cocoa and cookies for
the kids, too.
I stopped at a few places around town to take a few more
pictures. My hands were getting a little cold each time I took my gloves off, but
it didn’t bother me very much. On the north end of town I came to the only
stoplight in Kewaunee County. Turning west I passed Sonny’s Pizzeria. Sonny’s
was the site of many staff lunches over the years, but I still wasn’t feeling
like I wanted to eat too much. So I took a photo of the place and kept moving.
Highway 54 goes west and then south into Green Bay. I kept
going east until I got to Green bay and then took Nicolet Road along the shore.
The wind was strong, so I pulled into the driveway of the little park across from my alma mater,
the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay to get a few pictures of the waves. The
park was still officially closed, so I could only get a few feet off the road
before coming to the chain across the drive. I pulled off my gloves and walked
toward the shoreline. The picnic tables looked lonely amid the brown grass and
colorless trees. I tried to get that feeling in a couple of pictures. The sun
was beginning to go down, so I bundled up again and hurried back into the city.
I had two more destinations in mind. Broadway Street is the
first street on the west side of the Fox River. It has a rough and tumble
history, but is now one of the most upbeat and promising streets in town. There
are several boutiques, a couple of craft breweries, and many great restaurants
either on the street or nearby. My first stop was Beernsten’s candy store. It
was Easter after all, and I needed to pick up a few chocolate treats. It was
not easy to limit myself, but I chose a half dozen pieces made of dark
chocolate. Next, I walked about a half block south to the Kavarna coffee shop.
This is just one of the many businesses that are beginning to make Broadway a
destination. A hot cup of coffee was just what I needed. I shot a few more
pictures and rode home happy and contented.
After putting my bike in the garage, cleaning my helmet, and
hanging up my jacket, I went into the kitchen to wash my hands. Unbelievably,
my wedding ring was gone! I checked my gloves immediately, but it wasn’t there.
I could feel my face flush and my heart race as I told my wife what I had just
discovered. While I hoped it had come off somewhere near home, I knew it could
be anywhere that I had stopped to take a picture. We did the only thing we
could, and that was to jump into the truck and retrace my ride.
We searched every place that I had stopped. I tried to walk the
same route I had walked. At the places near businesses, we told the proprietors
to be on the lookout for a gold wedding band. As we got to the last stops, my
worst fears were coming true. After we got home, we called the Kewaunee County
Sheriff’s Office and the Brown County Sheriff. We called the Bellevue VFW,
Aissen’s Tree Farm and the Luxemburg and Green Bay Police Departments. I put an
ad on Craigslist. We looked everywhere in and around the house and checked my
pockets over and over again. There was no sign of it.
We have been married for almost 41 years and I never take my
ring off. Over the last couple of years it has felt a little looser than it had
before. In fact, it had come off a couple of times last summer when I took off
the gloves I use to work in the yard. Looking back, I knew that it was my own
fault for not getting the ring resized.
I knew I wanted to get another ring. There was no way to ever
replace the original, but I wanted to get one. We decided to wait until May. We
had a vacation planned for late April and we would get a new ring when we got
home.
Over the next week we tried to just forget about it, but it
seemed that we were always looking for it or expecting it to turn up. We looked
in the early shoots of grass along the driveway and the flower beds near the
house. We looked and relooked all over the house. Ten days passed and then my
wife got a phone call we will never forget.
I was out riding my bicycle when Officer Schmitz from the Green
Bay Police Department called. At first she thought something had happened to me
on the bicycle. But he asked if she was missing a gold wedding ring. After
describing it and realizing it was mine, she drove through her tears of joy to
the Community Police building on Green Bay’s west side.
When I got home and saw that her car was gone, I thought she
must have gone to the store for something.
We had decided to grill hamburgers that evening, so I was getting the bag
charcoal off the shelf as she pulled into the garage. She got out of the car
and displayed a gold ring on her thumb. She asked if it looked familiar. After
all this time I absolutely could not believe it was mine, so I checked the
inscription. Once I realized we had gotten it back, we hugged and both shed
tears of joy.
Officer Schmitz explained how he came to have the ring. Cafe
Madrid is one of the restaurants on Broadway. It is owned by a young couple
with two little girls and a baby boy. One girl, Zeah, is five years old and her
sister, Kelly, is eight. On Monday, nine days after I walked past their
restaurant on the way to Kavarna, Zeah found the ring in a crack in the
sidewalk outside Cafe Madrid. She wanted to give it to her boyfriend, but her
mother convinced her that she should try to find the owner. Officer Schmitz was
in the area that day and Zeah gave him the ring. He told her he would not
retire until he found the owner.
The Clerk of Courts heard about it and began to match the
initials in the ring with the wedding date that was also inscribed. The phone
call that we made to the police also came into play, and by Wednesday afternoon
Officer Schmitz had identified me as the owner.
That evening we went to Cafe Madrid to bring the little girls a
treat and meet their parents. The girls are very sweet and their parents are
honest, hard working people. We thanked them profusely, took a few pictures (of
course) and stayed for an excellent meal.
What was one of the saddest days of my life led to making some
new friends and experiencing one of the happiest days of my life. The next day
we took the ring to the jeweler to have it made a bit smaller.
