CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill. -- In 1965, Clarence "Corky" Iversen Jr. gave his girlfriend his class ring. About 44 years later, it was found buried in a cave in a Skippy peanut butter jar about 115 miles away.
He's still trying to figure out how it got there.
"Bonnie was in gym class one day and she said the ring was becoming a problem. I think they were playing volleyball," said Iversen, 65. "She set it behind a pole in the gym so she wouldn't lose it, ruin it or cut her finger."
When she went back, the ring was gone.
Iversen said he was upset about the missing $27 ring that his girlfriend, Bonnie Schwartz, only had for about a week -- but not enough to break up with her.
Iversen said the ring must have been buried for at least a year by the time he and Bonnie were married in the late 1960s. A note in pig Latin found with the ring says it was buried in 1965, but the rest is unintelligible aside from the initials "T.M.B."
Iversen was reunited with his ring with the help of Facebook, which he said a friend badgered him to join.
A man in Savanna, Ill., found the jar with a metal detector while exploring a cave with his brother.
Among the jar's contents was a picture of a man standing in front of a swing set wearing a waist-length black jacket and jeans. The Iversens are trying to identify him, thinking it might reveal how the jar made its journey.
The ring is too small for Iversen now, but that doesn't bother him.
"I'm thinking about putting it in a glass-covered shadow box or something," he said. "The story, at this point, is more interesting than the ring."
