Harley-Davidson Ring Saved from a Filthy Fate

Here’s a story that might seem humorous at first but turns out to be a testament to a man’s love of motorcycling and the memories of a fallen friend.

Ed Spalding of Terrace, British Columbia, Canada, and his close friend Roger Bourgoin bought Harley-Davidson motorcycles in 1991. To celebrate their purchases, the two also bought a pair of gold rings. Bourgoin was killed in a logging accident in 1993, but to this day, Spalding still wears the ring in memory of his friend.

While on a camping trip Aug. 28, Spalding discovered he had lost his ring after using an outhouse. After searching the grounds around the outhouse, Spalding realized the ring must have fallen into the outhouse pit.

For some people, if they had dropped something in an outhouse, they would have given it up for lost. The ring itself had some material value; Spalding purchased the ring, depicting an eagle clutching a ball in its talons, for $2500. But it wasn’t the price of the ring that was valuable, but the memories of Spalding’s friend, Bourgoin.

“It wasn’t what I paid. I really didn’t care about the price,” Spalding told the Terrace Standard.

Spalding went looking for help, calling in Denis Nadeau,  from a wet and dry vacuum services company and a fellow Harley-Davidson rider. Nadeau drove his work truck to the park and emptied the contents of the outhouse before bringing it to a dump where he and Spalding began to search through the detritus.

Eventually, Nadeau eventually found the ring by using a curved hoe to sift through a barrel of the waste.

“All of us with Harleys, even if we know each other just by nicknames, if someone needed help, we’d be there,” says Spalding.

[Source: Terrace Standard]

By Dennis Chung