It was May 1969 when Al DiStefano stood on a dock on Long Island, New York, watching the sunset.

"I was leaning over the railing," DiStefano said, "and the ring just slipped off my finger, and I watched it go down into the darkness. And I said, 'Well, that's gone. I'm never going to get that back.'"

That ring was set with a red garnet and engraved with the seal of Fordham University — from which DiStefano has just graduated — as well as his name and the year.

It rested underwater for over five decades until earlier this summer, when an electrician named David Orlowski took his metal detector to Cedar Beach in Mt. Sinai, New York.

"I was about up to my knees at low tide and got a really strong hit on the metal detector," Orlowski said. "I dug quite a few times, pretty deep, and finally

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