Survivor Journals

Bob of If I Die Before I Wake has invited nine journallers to participate in a Cyber Survivor Adventure.

Every couple of weeks, the group will be issued a "challenge entry". The site will post a excerpt from the challenge entries, as well as the link to the complete entry found on the journaller's own journal site.

After the challenge entry is posted, the nine journallers will vote one of the writers off the site.

The "ousted" journaller will actually remain on the site, but rather than posting further challenge entries, they will act as a judge and commentator.

The first challenge entry has been issued, and can be found at the Survivor Journal website. The actual entries should be completed by
October 1, 2000.

Please take the time to visit, especially once the challenge entries are posted. There is a message board to post your thoughts/comments and also a instant poll where visitors can vote for who they would want to see kicked off the site.

The reasons behind Survivor Journals are simple.

1. To try something new.
2. Increase the interaction of the journal community.
3. The challenge.
4. Increased exposure to all journals involved.

So take a look around, explore all the journals involved.

If you would like to take part in Survivor Journals, Year Two, let Bob know!

GIVE ME A RING SOME TIME

December 6, 2000

The jeweler didn’t call again today.

It started in November of 1999. My engagement ring is a single half-caret diamond, which belonged to Walt’s grandmother, which is set in a simple gold band setting. Many years ago, I lost the diamond and we managed to find it in the back of our van. It was reset and I had no further problems until November of 1999.

I was putting something into a drawer in my desk, caught the diamond on something again, and it fell onto the floor.

Amazing. I could actually find it on this floor. But I did.

I took the ring back to the Davis Jewelers, the folks who had fixed the ring many years before. It was a simple fix. Just put it in a new setting--nothing fancy. Same thing I had before.

No problem. Come back in two weeks.

Two weeks later, I returned. And was told that there had been a problem with the fix and they had to send the ring back again. I was told to come back in two more weeks.

And then the fire struck.

It was a fire that broke out in a narrow passage way between Baskin Robbins and the Crepe Bistro. The fire damage closed those two businesses, the book store next to the Bistro, and the jeweler’s next to Baskin Robbins.

At first I didn’t think too much of it, except that I wondered how I was going to get the ring back.

A further complication was that the claim tag for the ring was in the car that was stolen, so I had no proof that the ring was there.

Weeks passed. Then months. I tried calling the jeweler but all I got was a recording saying that the voice mail was full. I wrote a letter, but received no reply.

After some time, a group of concerned citizens met to discuss the problem of the Davis Jeweler’s. I was out of town the night they had the meeting, but I still had faith that the jewelers were going to eventually make everything right, so I didn’t take note of the name of the people organizing the meeting.

More months passed and I finally called the Davis Police. The person I spoke with didn’t know anything about any case against the Davis Jeweler. I called the newspaper that had run the story. They remembered something, vaguely, about the story, but didn’t know the people involved. They’d get back to me. They didn’t.

More months passed. In the interim I periodically called, wrote half-heartedly. Naturally there was no response. I heard that some folks had even sent registered letters, which were not answered.

Then I saw that Baskin Robbins and the Crepe Bistro were reopening. The building where the Davis Jewelers had been was opening too--but it was now an import store.

I read that some people had filed a suit against the jeweler and so, a year after I first took the ring in to be fixed, I called the police again. This time all I had to say was "I need to talk with whoever is handling the case against the Davis Jeweler." There was an instant recognition and I was promised an investigator would call. She called within the hour and took all the information. She said I could find out the status of the investigation by calling the district attorney’s office.

I called the DA and again there was instant recognition of the name of the case. They said that some people had actually taken the owners of the store to court and when they appeared in court, they got their jewels back. The DA felt that the owners were just overwhelmed by the trauma of the fire and weren’t thinking clearly.

Suddenly last week, out of the blue, I received a call from one of the owners of the jewelry store. She wanted to meet with me "either Monday or Tuesday" of this week so that she could return my ring.

So I stayed home all day Monday and now I’ve stayed home all day Tuesday and, of course, she did not call again. I tried calling her at the number from which she called me, but there is no response.

Tomorrow I will be gone all day.

I’m wondering if I will ever see my ring again.

And if I do, I sincerely hope these people don’t expect any money for whatever work (if any) they’ve done to it.

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