After more than seven decades, a 90-year-old man was recently reunited with his high school class ring.

Jesse Mattos said he accidentally flushed the beloved ring down the toilet 72 years ago. He never thought he'd see the jewelry again.

That is, until he got an unexpected phone call from Dunsmuir, Calif., city worker Tony Congi.

"He called me up, told me 'I found your ring.' (I asked) 'What ring?'" Mattos recalled. "He says, 'Well it's your ring, I think. Because it's got your initials in it. And I looked in the year book, and you're the only one in '38 that had those initials.'"

Congi found the ring in a backed up sewer line. Inside the ring were "Class of 1938" and the initials "J.T.M."

Mattos said it's amazing the man went through all the effort of finding him.

"That was an expensive ring," Mattos said. "It cost $29. In those days that was expensive!"