Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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| Favorite 2024 Finds by John H. |
Happy New year to you and your readers! These are all my favorite finds for 2024. All were found on South Hutchinson Island south of the power plant to Bathtub Beach. 7 gold rings, 16 silver, 62 total with 3 returns. I think the pendant with the real is my favorite, it tested as 14k. It is probably one of the cheap ones from a museum gift shop with a low quality coin in it but I still like it. It tried to get lost in the ocean twice. I find a little less coins every year, it seems as though they are not being circulated as much...
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| Reale in Pendant Found by John H. |
Congratulations on the great finds, John. Thanks for sharing. Everybody likes to see what is being found and is inspired to see what is out there to be found. Too many people have been giving up.
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| Jammed News Year Eve Beach Photo provided by Mark G. |
Thanks to Mark G. for the photo.
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As midnight on New Year's Eve approached, the sound of random fireworks grew more frequent. I've done this about eighty times before and it all seems very familiar. Dick Clark's Rockin New Year's Eve program is on again minus Dick Clark. Many of the 2025 party-goers probably don't know about his American Bandstand TV program where their grandparents could have danced to the music of the day.
The routine familiarity of the New Year's Eve events set off a seemingly endless stream of memories for me. Some memories seemed random and very unexpected, but the most precious are memories of family members who shared my New Year celebrations in the past.
I remember grandpa. I always remember the time I took my wife home for the first time and my grandpa met her and said she didn't seem like a stranger at all but a regular part of the family. That was precious to me. We had Christmas dinner at grandma's house. Yes, it was grandpa's house too, but grandma ran the show and orchestrated the merriment.
The day after meeting my wife, grandpa went to the hospital and passed away a few days later. I'm still so glad he met my wife even if it was only one time many years ago.
I remember mom. Her passing still seems fresh to me. I disposed of her possessions last year, which were numerous, including many mementos from generations. Talk about boxes of memories. I sold her house last summer - a not so easy task.
In a strange way my mom seemed very much like a sister to me as well as a mother. Despite the age difference, we grew up on the same country hillside overlooking the creek in the valley and the road we both walked to school. WE passed the same spreading oak and old barn and studied in the same school rooms.
She played in the same green fields, attended the same elementary school and got her Baccalaureate degree from the same college as me. She returned to school as an adult and graduated college the same year I graduated high school.
Her family was stable as could be and had deep roots in the area. The road had her surname as did the hollow on the other side of the hill over which we both watched the sun go down every day of our youth.
My dad was the opposite in many ways. He was a street kid. I don't think he knew for certain who his father was. He worked from a young age and barely attended school. He split from his family. I never knew any of his family.
Dad was a fighter. Mom would never do anything to receive a reprimand let along a spanking. But when one teacher threatened to spank my dad, it didn't happen. It wouldn't have been a spanking. It would have been a fist fight. And the teacher thought better of it.
Mom's family provided deep generational stability, and my dad was adopted into it. They were in some ways opposites but together made a perfect match.
My mom's uncle and aunt were also mine. Mom's uncle and aunt were always referred to as Uncle Bill and Aunt Ellen. It was quite a while before I figured they were not my uncle and aunt because that is what we always called them, and that is who they were to me.
All this reminiscing about people who are no longer around might seem depressing to you, but it is not depressing to me. The memories of all the good times and precious people are with me every day. They are too numerous to mention. If I started on all those precious memories, it would never end.
The memories sometimes don't seem like memories at all to me. Sometimes it seems more like time travel.
Those old times are still with me. I am what I am now, but I am also what I was then. For me the past never left. it is just another layer.
The biology of those people lives on in me. Their nurturance, presence and acts molded me. They and the events of the past are encoded in my brain.
And now I fondly look back, and with much greater understanding and appreciation, sincerely say what I should have said more often back then, "Thank you!"
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As you can see from the photos above, it is a good time to do some metal detecting and see what you can find.
Happy New Year!
TreasureGuide@comcast.net