Dylan Stafford

The Aggie Ring–the class ring at Texas A&M University–is a mighty work of art, a huge hunk of gleaming gold on your finger that proudly identifies you from across the room, or across the Grand Canyon. Using Google Earth, most Aggie Rings can now be seen from space on sunny days. My wife considers it big, clunky and way too large for a normal ring, but she’s from New Jersey so we just agree to disagree.

When I was an exchange student in Spain I had people honestly ask me, “Is that an NBA championship ring?” In America I never get confused for an NBA athlete, but in Europe, the glistening of my Aggie Ring made them assume I had just won the title.

The ring is solid gold, with a large oval crest befitting Texas, where everything is bigger. A&M was an all-male, all-military school until 1963, and the ring is covered with military details: a canon, sword and rifle, and lots of stars. Since every Aggie Ring is the same, it is easy to spot a fellow former student. As an underclassman, the hype and anticipation of the ring builds slowly as class credits accrue. At the end of junior year, the magic threshold of 75% of the degree complete means it is finally time to order the ring. A trek across campus to the Alumni center leads to verification of eligibility, then measurement, then the purchase and the wait.

On the day that the rings arrive, the excitement is a Christmas + Birthday + First Date cocktail that perfumes the air on campus. I still have the box that held my Aggie Ring and I still remember sliding it on my finger the first time. The ring is worn with the class year facing inwards until graduation, and then turned around and show the world the class year.

An optional step is to christen the ring, or as we say it in the south dunk your ring. This requires going to the Dixie Chicken, the watering hole on the north side of campus with the dusty deer heads on the walls and the beer-sticky floors, and dropping the ring in a 60 ounce pitcher of beer. With friends circled around chanting encouragement, proud Aggies chug a pitcher and retrieve their new ring. The class year, I was the class of 1991, determines the number of seconds available to gulp your pitcher. I had 91 seconds, but I don’t know what the students did when 2000 rolled around–100 seconds or 10? Knowing Aggies and beer, I’m confident they thought of a solution. 

I raised my 60 ounce goblet with both hands and took a very big drink. One gulp, two gulps, three gulps and more. As long as I kept breathing through my nose and didn’t cough, I could do it. I poured the entire contents into my gullet and at the very end, as the pitcher first leveled off and then raised, the cold gold prize slid down the side of the glass and clunked against my teeth. I grabbed the ring with my lips, setting down my pitcher and waving my ring around in the air proudly, like I’d just won the NBA title.

Back in my adult life in California, I often take off my ring during the day when I am typing. It is big enough that it rattles around on my finger, and when I have a full day at the keyboard it gets annoying and therefore I’ll take it off and set it to the side. At rock concert, or anywhere I am clapping a lot, I’ll drop the ring in my pocket because it’s so big it will bruise my other hand when I clap too much.

Last November, almost 6 months ago, I couldn’t find my ring. It wasn’t in any of the normal spots where it should have been, where I keep my keys, the bathroom, the bedroom. I checked the pockets of all my pants in the closet. I retraced my steps. I assumed it would be sitting on my desk at work waiting the next day. But it wasn’t in any of those places. I kept looking and re-looking and began to get discouraged. I asked my wife if she’d seen it. I asked my colleagues at work and filled out a “lost and found” report. Nothing. Weeks became a month, and 2009 became 2010, and it dawned on my that I’d lost my ring.

One of my best friends at Texas A&M, Jeff, is the son of an Aggie father. Ronnie was class of 1959 and he was an airline pilot for American Airlines. While on a trip overseas, his Aggie Ring got stolen from a locker in Spain. He was sentimental for the original with all of its nicks and scratches from over 30 years of wear and tear, but he dealt with the loss with grace and dignity.

Jeff’s sister Sarah was two years ahead of us in school.  After her junior year, Sarah ordered both her ring and her dad’s replacement ring at the same time. She bought her dad’s ring and he bought his daughter’s ring and they got them together. Ronnie’s shiny new ring looked out of place on his weathered hand, but his smile fit perfectly.

Life is busy so I didn’t stop everything and have a funeral for my missing jewelry, but it crossed my mind often that something was lost. I kept re-looking in places I’d checked already, hoping somehow to have overlooked it. I finally had the thought about a month ago, “Humm, I wonder what the phone number is to call and order a replacement ring.” That was when I realized I had accepted the ring was gone.

Ronnie lost his ring after 30 years and I had lost mine after 20. My dad tells me that my grandfather had a saying, Take care of things while you have them, but once they’re gone, don’t worry about them any more.

This week I’m celebrating 9 years of sobriety, or slowbriety as I like to call it. My life is different now than 20 years ago in college when I dunked my Aggie Ring and whooped it up wearing a clown’s face of wet beer around my mouth. Monday morning, I was driving to work with my 34 month old son Jackson behind me in his carseat.

“Daddy I’m hungry. I want peanuts.”

I survive Los Angeles traffic by keeping water and snacks in the car. Lately, I have been buying the 32 ounce glass jars of peanuts for my commute on the 405. I’ll grab a handful and reach backwards with my right hand, while my left hand, and eyes, stay focused forward on driving. I’ll feel Jackson’s little fingers gently scooping away all of the contents of my palm, the way a kitten or puppy will take food from your hand. Sometimes he eats everything, and sometimes cereal, peanuts or trail mix end up in every nook and corner and cover the floor. He always asks for more, but when I’m driving I can’t tell if he’s eating or playing.

My Toyota Rav 4 had been in the repair shop for a week, not the “unwanted acceleration recall” but for a banged up bumper. I’d cleaned out the car before I dropped it off with the mechanic.

“Jackson, I don’t think I have any peanuts, but I’ll check.” I opened the console between the seats. The 32 ounce jar of peanuts was gone, as was the navigation device, the CDs and the granola bars which normally are stored there. The console was almost empty, but something caught my eye on the bottom, something gold and adorned with military insignia.

Reaching in and pulling out my long lost ring, not believing it as I slid it back onto my finger, my brain rapid-fired thoughts. How had I not looked here? Why had I ever put it here anyway? I never put it here, did I? Why didn’t somebody at the repair shop find it and take it? The thoughts came quickly but needlessly. I didn’t need answers to any of those questions. The weight of my too-big ring back on my finger was all I needed to know.

I called my wife Marisa. “Happy Birthday to me! Guess what I found?”

Birthdays in sobriety are a big deal. Birthdays show newcomers that it works if you work it, that there is a good life available without drinking. My first sponsor told me to not just celebrate on my actual birthday, but to celebrate for the whole week, to take time and to celebrate the miracle of the milestone, be it a week, a month, three months, a year or even multiple years. If I couldn’t stay sober, I couldn’t be a faithful husband. I wouldn’t be a consistent worker. I’d be a much more sporadic father. It’s a good thing to celebrate, another year.

Do I miss the conviviality and companionship of my drinking days? Only when I am waxing nostalgic. That chapter is closed. None of my friends are waiting for me at the Dixie Chicken. If I went there now, there’d be a new generation of kids. The floors would still be sticky, but I’d be an “Old Ag” as we like to call them.

I’m grateful for today. I’m grateful for the serenity that life offers now. It is all new behavior, unfolding and revealing itself in small, beautiful slices. My son is a gift. My wife is a gift. My life today is a gift.

I’m grateful for slowing down and experiencing more. Ronnie relaxed and ended up sharing his new ring with his daughter Sarah. Jackson got hungry and helped me find my ring. Those 91 seconds were exciting, but these 9 years are fulfilling. It’s good, being here now.