quarters

When I was about ten years old, I was fascinated by the idea of buried treasure. I was also somewhat interested in collecting coins. Sometimes when I got some money from doing chores or yard work, I would go to the bank and get rolls of quarters in the hope that there would be some valuable pre-1965 silver quarters in amongst the quarters of more recent mintage which were worth a mere twenty five cents. I got a few silver quarters this way, but I'd end up with a bunch quarters. Sometimes I would spend them on video games or other things, and sometimes I would re-roll them and exchange them for dimes or fifty cent pieces. At one point I had twenty or thirty dollars worth of quarters, and when I piled them up it seemed like a lot, maybe even enough treasure to bury. So I dug a small deep hole in the flower bed in front of our house and put the quarters in it. It was satisfying to see all of those shiny coins in a hole in the dirt. It felt good to cover them over, stamp on the dirt to pack it down and move the mulch in the flower bed around to disguise the fact that a hole had been there. I was the only person in the world who knew there was buried treasure in the flower bed.
I do not recall exactly why, but a few hours later, I felt compelled to dig them up. Maybe I was impatient to experience the joy of finding and recovering the buried treasure. Maybe I just wanted to make sure it was still there. Perhaps someone had been spying on me while I was digging and burying and had come to take what was mine. If someone said they had found some money, and I claimed it was mine, how could I prove it? So I went back to the flower bed and started digging. I got to the depth where the quarters should have been, and there was nothing, nothing but a lot of dirt. Then I began to wonder if I was digging in the right place. I had disguised the original hole pretty well, but I was fairly sure I was digging in the right place. Or maybe I simply hadn't dug deep enough. I realized that I should have made a better mental note of exactly where and how deep the quarters were buried. I recalled the old movies and pirate stories that had seemed so enchanting, "thirty paces north from the old oak tree…" How could they find the stuff like that if I had lost mine in a flower bed? Or maybe someone had already come and stolen my treasure. I expanded the hole by digging at the edges. I deepened the expanded hole. The shovel hit something hard, and I felt a sense of relief, sure that I had found the quarters. I dropped the shovel and got down on my knees and reached into the hole and found small stone with a scrape from the shovel. I started to look around to see if anyone was watching me, perhaps chuckling softly while jingling pockets full of quarters. Cars would occasionally pass by, but the drivers were oblivious to me, not sneering and laughing. I went back to digging, expanding and deepening the hole further. Finally there was a metallic crunch and this time, it was not a rock, it was treasure. I started pulling the quarters out. It seemed somehow disappointing because they were dirty coins mixed with dirt, not an appealing pile of wealth shining at the bottom of a hole, like they had been when I buried them. I kept finding more mixed in with the dirt at the bottom of the hole. Eventually, I could find no more quarters at the bottom of the hole, so I moved the little dirty pile to the sidewalk and rinsed them off with the garden hose. At last the shiny wet quarters seemed like treasure again as the dirt was washed away.
I felt satisfied that I had found and recovered my treasure, but then I counted the quarters. I was missing five quarters. I went back to the hole and felt around in the dirt, but found nothing but a few small stones. I ran my fingers through the top of the pile of dirt I had dug from the hole. Nothing. I carefully scraped the sides and bottom of the hole with the shovel, and felt around in the dirt at the bottom again. No more quarters. I checked all around in the flower bed, and carefully looked over the ground between the flower bed and the sidewalk. All to no avail. I began to wonder if maybe I had miscounted the money when I put it in. I began to imagine pirates arguing about their shares of treasure and whether one had pocketed part of the money to cheat the other. I almost wished I had had a partner in this endeavor so there would be someone to blame for the difficulty finding the quarters and the fact that some seemed to have disappeared.
I filled the much larger hole back in, stamped down the dirt, and re-rearranged the mulch to hide the fact that there had been a hole. I gathered my quarters in a towel and dried them as well as I could. I sprayed the sidewalk off, cleaned the shovel, cleaned my shoes, and took the quarters back to my room. I took a shower and changed my clothes, then did a load of laundry with the dirty clothes.
I thought about the merits of a treasure chest and a treasure map. I also thought about a bank account where money might grow with interest, instead of shrinking due to loss. I felt pretty inept and annoyed that I had lost $1.25, but at least no one ever suspected.
At least I don't think so.

t p

I think it was around the time of the building of the tepee that my other grandparents came to visit. I have this memory of going to the bathroom to poop and my step-grandmother accompanying me, as if she was under the impression that I needed supervision for this task. I was rather young, but quite used to the solo bowel movement by then. I remember thinking it odd that she sat down on the edge of the tub and unraveled some toilet paper from the roll and folded it over so it was ready for use. I can picture her sitting there with folded toilet paper in her hand, as if waiting for me to be done, but talking casually about something unrelated to defecation. I don't know if this ever really happened. It may be a confused conglomeration of bits of memories of other things that did or did not occur.

teepee

I remember one time our grandad (on mother's side) came to visit when we were young. He made us a tepee out of wood and tarpaper. I think it was down towards the end of the driveway. It smelled of tar inside. Isn't tarpaper carcinogenic? I don't think grandad suspected that back then. I came to hate him later, for reasons unrelated to the tepee. I just remembered there are pictures of the tepee. They were on mini-slides from an old 110 camera.


You can see the edge of my mother's dog Casey on the right side of the picture above.




In the picture above, I'm holding my dad's bow saw. He had that saw for a long time. We cut a lot of wood with it. Cutting things with a saw was good fun for us.