THE CIRCLE COMES AROUND ON WEDDING RING

Mention gem to me and I think of a guy's name or a place you shoot hoops.

With apologies to my friends in the jewelry business, I've never been much for baubles.

During high school, I wore a St. Christopher's medal around my neck, a nod less to personal faith than to fashion of the times. When the chain broke one day, I never replaced it.

When my senior class was ordering school rings, I suggested to my mother we could save the money, since I probably wouldn't wear it. She suggested to me that I would regret not ordering one. I did as she said, paraded the ring around school with my classmates a few days, then stored it in a case where it has remained for years.

Over the course of the 1980s, I wore a watch purchased for less than $20. It kept great time until the day it didn't. Also, the imitation gold metal was becoming pockmarked from years of exposure to my wrist sweat. Despite these flaws, I clung to the watch with foolish loyalty for a time, vainly believing it might restore itself to timekeeping grace.

It was replaced by a watch sanctioned by the folks at Disney, a gift from my children, and Mickey never misses a beat; with regard to a necessary instrument of my profession, I regard the watch as a nice bit of whimsy.

Never will I wear a watch that costs more than a single car payment or one that would make a televangelist feel he's made the big time.

I wear a wedding ring. Here's where the story gets good.

For the first 16 years of my marriage, my nuptial band shared space with my high school senior ring. My memory is that I kept it on my hand at least until the end of the ceremony and possibly through the reception, but not much longer.

My wife accepted this with good humor, though I was perfectly inarticulate in explaining why I wouldn't be wearing it. In fact, I wasn't quite satisfied in my own mind about the reason, though I suspect there was some vague fear of any ring getting caught on something unforgiving and removing a digit. More likely, I just didn't want to and was at an age where compromise came hard.

Thus, over the years and various family moves, the ring I accepted from my bride on our wedding day traveled in a velvet-lined case with me only having a vague idea at any given moment of its location. My life seemed full despite this ignorance.

The custom of exchanging nuptial rings dates back centuries, and it supplies wedding ceremonies with moments that are both humorous (since most ring bearers would rather be playing Nintendo) and deadly earnest. This minor exchange of personal property is meant to symbolize a sharing and bond between man and wife.

Traditions find like this find themselves either enhanced or denigrated in lesser rites, such as a boyfriend handing over his goliath senior ring for exhibition on the tiny knuckle of his steady. In my day, the girl would fashion a rubber band into a tight loop across the ring's opening, allowing this worthy bit of symbolism to float a quarter-inch above the finger. It looked funny, but that's what you did for love.

That's what the girls did, at least. You seldom saw boys try to squeeze their girlfriend's class ring onto their pinkie in a show of devotion.

I am unsure these manners apply to today's young people, though occasionally I will see a fast-food clerk with a mammoth class ring on a chain looped around her neck. I offer as mere speculation, and not a generational affront, the presumption that young couples today may even exchange earrings as a sign of commitment.

One problem is that some people assign unseemly motives to men who regard wedding rings lightly or, worse, as items of easy mobility. It is a cad who pauses outside a bar to slip his wedding band into a pocket, fearful tan lines or a tell-tale indentation will give away his deceit.

Such behavior gives a black eye to married men who don't like rings for ambiguous reasons.

When the time came for my oldest son to choose a senior ring, my wife and I dug out a box of keepsake jewelry and showed him our own. And there was my wedding ring. As we sat around discussing the options that must be narrowed before buying a senior ring, I slipped on my nuptial band. For reasons that are no more clear to me than why I never wore it in the first place, I haven't taken it off.

It is believed that young people, despite occasional rebellion, most often take comfort in the traditions of their elders. Sometimes, however, the young people grow old before they recognize the value of traditions.

My wedding band gleams a good deal more than my wife's. Some detailed ridges that run along the ring have worn thin on her band, while they remain evident on mine. See, I tell her now, that is the measure of my caring, taking such good care of my ring all those years.

She nods and laughs, knowing probably all that time that the circle comes around.