Derek Halberg was back on the Cape from North Carolina around Christmas, 2022, and seeing as the family concluded that his remarkable father-in-law Peter Johnson shouldn’t be wielding weedwackers and chainsaws anymore (with Peter’s wholehearted agreement), Derek was doing just that on a handsome trail through family land to Little Pleasant Bay in Orleans.
The reviving forest is protected by conservation restrictions, and Derek is sympatico; he runs a land conservation organization in North Carolina when he’s not wacking brush up here, so he married into the right family.
It was cold, work and winter gloves in play. When enough was cleared the troupe tromped to the bay for a look at Pochet Island, Sampson Island, Money Head, and the mouth of “the River” that leads up to Nauset Marine. Not for long; wind pushed them off.
On the hike back Derek realized something very upsetting: His wedding ring had slipped away.
He and Christy (Johnson) had been married in 1999, kids college age now. Of course that ring meant a lot; for the next three hours he combed the trail, even went to a hardware store and rented a metal detector to sweep the ground. He figured the ring must have come off changing gloves, so he kept retracing the trail, never searching the beach itself. He found nothing except one dime, not even an old dime.
When he broke the news to Christy she was fine but he remained upset. He remembered how he had asked the jeweler to inscribe the inside of the band with their initials, CMJ and DEH, plus the wedding date, which the jeweler thought was a little tacky, but Derek insisted.
Then life, as it does, carried on.
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Fast forward 16 months to May 8, 2024 and another wedding anniversary, this time Sarah and Bill Dermody celebrating. They have a home in Brewster, Sarah with deep Orleans roots in a family who own land beside the Johnsons’ at Little Pleasant Bay. She often visited her grandmother as a kid, still loves taking her big dog walking the bay.
Sarah got a surprise anniversary present that day – a metal detector. Excited, she went straight to the bay and fired it up, took a couple of steps, not far at all. Then she heard it go off, dug into the sand maybe six inches down, and there it was! A ring! In perfect shape
So she wrote a note, made a few copies to put in neighborhood locations, folded one and wedged it into an old garage door on the Johnson land:
“I found a man’s wedding ring on the beach yesterday, it read. “I sure hope we can find the owner.” She added a description, including an inscription, and her phone number.
The Johnsons don’t stop down to the garage much that time of year. So the note sat there, rain pouring, squirrels scampering, for more than a month until June 12, when Christy stopped by. It was still there, still legible. Christy called right away, and next thing you know, Sarah appeared at Peter’s door in Brewster. Like something out of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, the ring had returned.
Sarah believes she’ll never find anything else with that detector. She’s only taken it out once since, realizing it’s only good at the beach. If you’re in hard dirt you can’t dig down and get something out, especially if you’re on someone’s land and need to make a big hole. Plus she’s a little embarrassed walking around with it.
For Derek, the whole thing renews faith in humanity. He figures Sarah could have just taken it, but it wasn’t about making money for her, it was finding something she could connect to a person.
Now thanks to her, his family has one more great Cape Cod story to share.
