After 36 years, UR grad again has a familiar ring

"I was on a run with a friend and I sort of tripped over something. I heard this ringing sound and picked it up. I felt bad I might have scratched it up." Rob Lippman, who found Robert Rochester's ring Sometimes the power of the universe seems to unite things lost, then found.

Sometimes what rolls around just comes around.

An accidental discovery on a Carytown sidewalk after 36 years and a simple act of kindness to return a lost item to its owner have combined to create a rush of New Year reflections, goodwill and a gift.

"When I heard the ring had been found, it brought back so many good thoughts of school and of a time in my life I hadn't thought about for years," said Robert Rochester, a Bon Air resident who's lived in the Richmond area since his college days.

In early summer 1972, just out of the Navy and a year out of the University of Richmond, Rocky Rochester, as he's still known, was hunting for work. Not too successfully, either.

He was walking from Cary Street south on Sheppard Street to his car, his head full of rejections. He'd just dropped off a suit, he thinks, at Art Tailors, a fixture on the block since 1953.

"We were about to go into a recession, but I was so naive you can hardly say I was aware of it. It's not like I was at the end of my rope or something. I was just upset I couldn't find a job," he said.

He was living in a $100-a-month apartment with three friends. A year at college had cost $1,800.

"My father complained about that like crazy," Rochester said of the tuition.

Frustrated by the fruitless job search, he dumped his résumés at his feet beside his car. There was the crystal-like, telltale ping of his UR class ring hitting the ground. It rolled into the weeds, never to be found.

Until Dec. 6 this year. A Saturday. About 9 a.m.

"I was on a run with a friend and I sort of tripped over something. I heard this ringing sound and picked it up. I felt bad I might have scratched it up," Rob Lippman said.

A UR class ring. 1971. Initials ROR.

That was Robert O. Rochester, of course. The ring turned up just a few feet from where Rochester, now a SunTrust employee in the real estate valuation department, had lost it.

Lippman, a runner since 1967 who'd traveled the Sheppard Street sidewalk hundreds of times over the years, discovered Rochester's name in a matter of days with the help of the UR alumni office.

Soon, the long-lost ring was back in Rochester's hands. Virtually spotless, even shiny.

It doesn't fit any longer.

"I weigh the same as I did in college, but like most people my age the weight has sort of been redistributed," he said.

Lippman, 57, who works for the Department of Veterans Affairs and lives in Byrd Park, says he was glad to help.

Asked by Rochester if there was a charity he'd like a donation made to in return for finding the ring, Lippman mentioned the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

A close friend, D.K. Waybright, was a longtime supporter of the organization that helps dreams come true for seriously ill or disabled children.

"D.K. died this time of year in 2006," Lippman said later.

"That foundation was very important to him and, coincidentally, he was a UR graduate. 1963."

Contact Bill McKelway at (804) 649-6601 or .