After 56 years apart, a Fordham University grad has been reunited with his long-lost college ring — thanks to an electrician, a metal detector and a Mount Sinai beach sweep.
Al DiStefano had watched his beloved ring slip from his finger and disappear into the Long Island Sound as he hung out on a Cedar Beach pier in May 1969.
At 21-years-old, he thought the gold ring with the garnet stone and his name inscribed was lost forever.
“It was a nice ring,” DiStefano, now 77, told The Post. “It was important to me, I probably should have spent a little more time looking for it.”
More than five decades later, Dave Orlowski was sweeping Cedar Beach in Mount Sinai with his metal detector when he got what he described as “a good hit.”
After multiple tries, he unearthed a unique ring while standing in nearly waist-deep water.
“I was digging, digging, digging,” said Orlowski. “When I pulled up the ring, I couldn’t believe the size and condition.”
The ring commemorated Fordham University’s Class of 1969 is embossed with the school’s crest and ram mascot on opposite shanks. Inside, the engraving read “Alfred R. DiStefano” in cursive.
Orlowski, 56, of Port Jefferson Station, added the find to a collection of gold and silver he’s amassed from Long Island beaches and lakes over the past 25 years.
At first, the electrician and grandfather considered keeping it, estimating it could be worth $2,000 in scrap value because of its 1.3 ounces of white gold palladium.
But his wife, Denise, changed his mind.
“She told me it would be bad karma to keep the ring since we had the name of the person inscribed,” Orlowski said. “She asked me if I’d want my ring back in that situation, and that answered my question.”
He found the “Fordham University – Class of 1969” Facebook group and contacted an administrator. Karen Manning, a fellow Fordham alum, connected Orlowski with DiStefano through a mutual friend.
“David made me feel good about people again for going out of his way to try to find the owner,” Manning said.
DiStefano, who grew up in Hicksville, currently lives in Arlington, Texas, after leaving New York City in 1974 and moving around a bit.
The married grandfather of seven was shocked to learn his long-lost ring had been found just a half mile from the pier where he lost it. “Once in a blue moon, I’d think about the ring having a nice life at the bottom of the Sound,” said DiStefano.
“I couldn’t imagine how it could have been found.” He originally paid $110 for the ring in early 1969, just before his graduation. At the time it vanished, he couldn’t afford a replacement. DiStefano went on to medical school and retired in 2023 after a nearly 50-year career as a medical oncologist.
DiStefano said he thanked Orlowski “a hundred times” and planned to reward his good deed with some gifts from Texas that the crafty detector couldn’t find in New York.
“He mailed it to me, and I got it less than a week later — it’s in marvelous condition,” DiStefano said. “I’m wearing it now; I figured I ought to make up for lost time.”