Lost bottle opener found, makes 2,200-mile trek back to West Michigan

By Julie Dunmire

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    ADA, Michigan (WXMI) — Rhonda Mellor hunts for sea glass off the shores of St. Martin, in the Caribbean almost daily. The retired French teacher, from Iowa, spends her winters enjoying the warmer weather.

Not long ago, Rhonda made a unique find on the ocean floor with ties to West Michigan.

“Snorkeling is almost a daily occurrence for us. And one day, we happened to find a silver object that we brought home,” Rhonda Mellor said.

That silver object is a bottle opener, labeled for a West Michigan bar: The Dirty Shame.

The Dirty Shame Bar is located in Ada, up until a couple of years ago, it wasn’t called the Dirty Shame. But the name dates back decades.

“Even when it was the Riverbend, no one called it the Riverbend. It was always The Shame or The Dirty Shame,” bar co-owner John Molhoek said.

It’s a good thing for the name switch. A quick search on social media and Rhonda found the folks at The Dirty Shame in Ada, letting them know of her find in the ocean nearly 2,200 miles away. The only problem was getting the bottle opener back to Michigan.

“They had asked if I would mail it to them because they wanted to give it as a gift to the owners,” Rhonda said. “The mail system is kind of sketchy down here. I was afraid it would never get there.”

But what happens next in this story, is where the world becomes small.

“So it was kind of crazy how it came about,” Lisa Johnson said.

Rhonda posted in a local Facebook group in St. Martin about her find. Lisa Johnson, from Alto, near Ada, had just joined the group. She was leaving Michigan for St. Martin the next day.

“My mom added me to a group, just for St. Martin, of what to do, places to go,” Lisa said.

Lisa happened to be a Dirty Shame fan herself.

“I commented on her post, basically being like oh Mom this is crazy, what are the chances she’d find a bottle opener of our hometown bar?” Lisa said.

The chances are slim. Like finding a needle in a haystack. Or in this case, a tiny bottle opener in the ocean. Rhonda knows that to be true.

The Dirty Shame gave Lisa some shirts to bring to Rhonda, all the way in St. Martin, in exchange for the bottle opener. The bottle opener is estimated to be more than 50 years old.

“I’m from the Midwest, met someone from the Midwest, found a bottle opener from the Midwest, sent it back to the Midwest. It’s crazy,” Rhonda said.

Lisa met up with Rhonda, and the rest is history.

To the delight of the owners of the Dirty Shame, the bottle opener found it’s way back to the bar.

“It’s awesome, very cool story,” John said. “It’s a small world.”

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