Here's a story about an X-Ring that was a long time coming. It wasn't lost; it just took a long time to find me.

I left school as a 14-year-old, when my mother died in 1935, and spent the next four years working in the lumber woods. The outbreak of war in September 1939 found me enlisting in the North Nova Scotia Highlanders where I served until I was wounded during the invasion of France in 1944.

During the period of my convalescence in the Military Hospital at Debert I was visited often by Truro members of the Canadian Legion, one member of which convinced me to return to school so that I might continue on to university. I heeded his advice and graduated from StFX in 1951 with a BComm (magna cum laude).

If you look back to those days, you'll find the X-Ring ceremony and wearing of X-Rings did not have the glamour it does today. This, plus the fact that I was married, had a family of two boys by the time I graduated, and didn't have any spare cash (the X-Ring cost about $20 in 1951!), meant I left my beloved Alma Mater without one of its most treasured gifts.

But wait, the story hasn't ended! In April 2001 I was driving home from Florida with my eldest son, Rick, (also a StFX grad), when I mentioned to him that I was going to finally buy my X-Ring. Nothing more was said about it, but when I went to order, The Ring, I thought it funny that a deposit wasn't asked for by Cameron's Jewelry.

I went to pick up my ring the Friday before Father's Day. As I entered Cameron's and said I was there to pick up my ring, imagine my surprise when the young lady asked all the staff to gather around as she ceremoniously presented me with my ring and a Father's Day card signed by my five sons. My sons Rick, Dave, Drew, Bob and Greg had bought my X-Ring and had it presented to me. 50 years after I graduated!

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