They are usually only two or three lines long but contain much more than just a few words.
Lost and found ads not only include the description of an item, but they also encompass the hopes of the people who place them and a story that is much longer than the classified ad itself.
Animal lover Deanne DuFresne, an accounting tech at the University Housing Office, recently adopted Yuki, a six-year-old tuxedo cat, from a friend who was moving last December. DuFresne was excited about having another cat in her house, and although Yuki growled at her the first evening, the two made friends by the end of the next day.
“The second night, he was licking my face and jumping on my shoulder,” she said.
But the next day, Yuki broke the screen on the bathroom window and got out, and DuFresne became one of many people who hope to find a lost possession by placing an ad in newspapers.
DuFresne said she placed several classified ads in local papers and received some calls from people who thought they had seen Yuki, but none of the responses led to a reunion.
“I haven’t seen him since,” she said. “He just disappeared.”
Connie Berglund a University Health Center office specialist, also recently placed an ad in the lost and found category. Berglund found a bicycle in the middle of the street in front of her house.
“It looked like it was thrown,” Berglund said. “It was twisted and banged.”
She said she fixed the bike, which had a flat tire, and placed the ad. While she received an estimated nine calls during the first two days the ad ran in local papers, none of the callers turned out to be the owner of the abandoned bicycle, which is now fully functional.
“If someone steals [a bike], they’ll ride it as long as it works for them,” Berglund said.
She said she suspects her most recent find became useless when it had the flat tire.
Berglund said she plans to run the found ad for a few more weeks. If the owner fails to claim his lost possession, she said she will donate the bicycle to the police. She also suggested that people whose bikes got lost or stolen check with Eugene and Springfield police as well as with the Office of Public Safety, which is exactly where Sybil Ford reclaimed a treasured piece of jewelry she had lost after a Duck basketball game at McArthur Court.
Ford said when she realized that the silver butterfly pin, a special gift from her husband, was missing, she carefully retraced every step she had taken the night of the game. When she came back empty-handed, she decided to place a lost and found ad.
“I was hopeful,” she said. “I just wanted to cover all of the bases.”
But the phone call saying someone had found the pin never came, and Ford said she gave up any hopes of getting the pin back.
“I thought, ‘Well, that’s it,’” she said. The pin “was a unique-looking piece that I couldn’t replace.”
A couple of weeks later, however, Ford decided to make one last effort and check with OPS. She said she was delighted when she learned that someone had indeed found and turned in her treasured memento.
DuFresne still feels uneasy about Yuki being out and about all by himself without food and care.
“He’s out there with no ID,” she said. “My greatest wish is that somebody took him in.”