A devastated 13-year-old Mike Lebow searched the bottom of Lake Tahoe 53 years ago, desperately trying to find the bracelet he'd lost while swimming -- the bracelet his mom had given to his dad as he was shipped off to war.
So imagine the surprise that University of Manitoba psychology Prof. Michael Lebow felt when he answered his phone several weeks ago.
Michael Lebow holds a bracelet lost in Lake Tahoe when he was 13. It was recently returned to him by a treasure hunter.
A man with a metal detector had come across the silver bracelet in about one metre of water.
"He said, 'Did you lose a bracelet a couple of years ago?' I said, 'I haven't been there in half a century,'" Lebow said.
George Miskovsky tracked down Lebow on the Internet from the names of family members engraved on the bracelet. He then shipped the bracelet from California, without asking for anything in return except for a photo of Lebow and his wife holding the family heirloom.
"It's nice to know there are people like that," said Lebow, who took the bracelet to a jeweler to have it cleaned. "It's like new, it's beautiful."
Lebow recalled that his mother had given the bracelet to his dad in Detroit, just before his father joined the navy.
"My father had worn it during the Second World War. My mother had given it to him before he shipped out," and his dad gave it to his son after the war.
"I'd always coveted it," Lebow said.
The family moved to California after the war, and his uncle took Lebow on a camping trip to Lake Tahoe.
"I lost it when I was 13. I went in the lake to swim, and, of course, I lost it," Lebow said. "I searched for it. If I could have dragged the lake, I would have."
He said it turned out that Miskovsky's Internet search popped up far too many Mike Lebows. But when he wrote his first psychology book, Lebow dedicated it to his sisters, Julie and Esty, and that showed up on a website.
A second Californian with computer know-how helped Miskovsky hunt down Lebow, following a trail of hits on the psychology books and academic papers that Lebow has written, to the U of M website.
While his parents are both deceased, the uncle who took him on the camping trip still lives in California, he said.
"My sisters were delighted, my uncle was delighted."
And in his next psychology book, Lebow said, he'll include a thank you to Miskovsky.
nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
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