Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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Sometimes you can't get there from here. At least that is how it feels.
I started this post several times and it just wouldn't come together. I'll try again.
Two Sunday's ago was the type of day I wait for. We were finally getting some good hunting weather. The wind was blowing and the surf and tides were high. It was the type of day I really like to detect, but I had a flight scheduled and wouldn't be able to detect the Treasure Coast that week. To rub it in, the flight number was 1715, which seemed to me to be a cruel joke.
Don't get me wrong, I love metal detecting up north. I just hated the timing.
The return flight one week later was terrible too. I was scheduled to arrive at the Palm Beach airport at four something in the afternoon, but due to a severe storm, we ended up in a holding pattern around DJT until fuel ran low and we had to land in Miami, where we sat waiting for the weather to clear so we could continue on to DJT. We went to Miami to refuel. We deplaned and sat on the ground in Miami waiting for things to clear. Then after all that, when we finally got to the Palm Beach airport, we still had the long drive home.
This post has been something like that flight. I just couldn't get it done. I don't know what attempt this is. Probably attempt number six or seven.
When I began hunting the hills of West Virginia, people would always tell me there is nothing there. They wondered why I wasted so much time metal detecting there, but when I first detected there, it was back when I was primarily hunting rings and felt like I was on the ring trail. I had a very positive mindset. I believed, just like I do today, there was stuff to be found everywhere, and even if there wasn't, it was worth checking. Who isn't open to being surprised?
On my first hunt up there, I hit a gold class ring from the 1930s. Everybody was surprised, but no one changed their mind. They still couldn't understand why I was wasting my time.
I've detected those hills quite a few times now, and I could easily think, like everybody else, that it is a waste of time, but I don't see it that way. My previous hunts have shown me that a lot went on around there. I've found evidence to show there is a lot in the ground - a lot more than I have picked up so far. It might not be Miami Beach, and maybe there isn't anything fancy or real valuable, but I have proven that there are interesting things out there, and there are things to discover. There are surprises.
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| Metal Detecting this Fall. |
Maybe they were right from their point of view. It is tough hunting, but they don't realize that. In fact, it is downright taxing. And I haven't made a killing. No big cache. No super valuables have come out of the ground. But that is not what it is all about for me.
A few years ago my wife and I took her 95-year-old mother and a cousin down the hill. They grew up in the area, and the hill was an important place to them. They played on the hill as youngsters. They walked up and down the hill to town. So did their parents, who selected the place because it reminded them of the place they immigrated from in Europe. I think we all knew at the time that my wife's mother and the cousin, who had a terminal cancer diagnosis, were on their last walk down the path. And it was. Both are now gone.
I read a couple books about one of my ancestors. His parents brought him and his brother to the area from out east. They were the first settlers in the area. They crossed the Appalachians with their magre belongings in their wagons. They build log cabins, made a life in the wilderness and built a fort to protect them from the indigenous tribes. Their cabin was burned and the parents killed. The young boys were captured by the Indians but escaped. One with a musket ball in his clavicle. He later became famous as an Indian scout who had a musket that the Indians thought was somewhat magical because it seemed like it was always loaded. He became famous as an Indian Scout. The two book described him with the same qualities I could see in my own father who came up rough and all his life was ready and willing for a fight.
When in the those woods today, I feel at home even though I didn't grow up there. I always think of my ancestor silently stalking the woods. I know he was there from what I've read.
My wife and I both feel we have deep roots with those towering trees. It is a magical place to us. It seems more than coincidence that brought me there. \
I can imagine what went on there before, and my imaginings are supported by the evidence of the things I discover there, which includes everything from arrowheads to horseshoes and other items from the wagon trail days and old coins as well as items dropped in much more recent times.
What I became very clear to me as I struggled with writing this post is that metal detecting for me is not primarily about the economic value of the finds. It is about the curiosity, discovery, learning, surprises and a lot of things. But the bottom line for me it is about Dasein, which is a German word literally translated as "Being There." It is a word popularized by Heidegger that plays a big part in Existentialism. I tell you that part only so you could look it up is you so desire.
It can be a deep magical, almost mystical state. It is being very aware of the immediate time and place in which you find yourself. It is the opposite of the inauthentic existence derived from outside sources and others.
Metal detecting finds are to me a trail of evidence which paints a clearer and clearer picture. The finds are remnants of previous peoples and times. They are physical remnants of previous times. They are the footprints of those who "were" before.
Every Fall, my wife and I silently sit on a log in the forest and listen. The breeze whisper as the colored leaves flutter to the ground like the snow that will soon do the same. It has done the same for centuries. Others who have gone before experienced it. Time disappears. It collapses into the present. It becomes immediate experience.
In my better moments, I detect the same way. It is a meditative state. The coil moves back and forth like a hypnotist's pendulum. It seems to move by itself while the ground passes and the tone absorbs total attention.
The immediate environment is one of many ages. To one side on the hill is an indigenous camp that I can see through the tomato garden that is there is now. I can see where the wagons struggled up the steep narrow and winding path along the ravine, and the spring where Indians, horses and pioneers stopped for a drink of cool water. And the log cabin that once stood near the path, the deer on the opposite hill alerted to the sound of me walking through the leaves, the children at playing as they travel the path to and from school; immigrant workers walking down to the factory to work. It is all there. All at once. In the moment. It is all One. It is peace. It is Being there!
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That was difficult to try to explain in such as short post, but I tried and that will have to do for now.
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| Wabasso Beach Cam From Around 10:30 Monday Morning. |
Nothing special in forecast for the next few days.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
