J. Frank Dobie was one of the best writers of stories of the Southwest. The book that I have read many times is Coronado's Children, a book about hidden treasures. It was often rumored that Coronado had stashed away lots of valuable treasure as he and his entourage traversed the southwestern states. It was storied that he had placed gold in this cave, or that cave, only to be lost due to the erosion of information with passing time. I have read these stories many times as they are written with such finesse that it is really difficult to tell whether they are tales or are they accounts of scattered information. The stories have captured the minds of many people as some have spent years looking for buried treasure.
Then I read a story of an early settler finding a man with a gunshot wound and helped him to a place where he could recover. As it was, the man died (that's an important part of the tale) but before he died he told of a stash of gold coins that he hid in a cabin that was being built about 20 miles away. He said he placed the bag of coins behind a the last stone laid in the wall that day, as the mortar was still wet and he could take the stone out and hide the money and put the stone back. Thus, when the owner resumed work the next morning, he would complete the stone work and the gold would be safe. Well, that's all that was told to the rescuer.
The rescuer didn't really believe the story----or did he? Years went by and finally he had to search for all the stone houses within a twenty mile range and, by jove, he found one that was built the same year as the one that was described by the now dead man. So, he struck up a conversation with the owner and as would be expected , the owner did not want his place torn apart by someone with nothing more than a old tale. Years went by, but the story never died. Two other people made attempts to convince the owner to let them survey the wall of the house with a metal detector. At one place, only 4 feet off the ground, they had an indication of metal. Convincing the owner to let them take out just one stone, they set about chiseling the mortar that held the stone in place. Do you know what they found? Nothing. The whole thing was probably written by a Dobie fan.
But look, treasure stashing and treasure seeking is important. There is even an app for a cell phone called geocaching, where people have stashed insignificant stuff for kids to find by using their phones and GPS to find these stashes. This is all a game and a simple one to keep the kids outdoors at least.
But all this gets me to thinking about the real thing. On my to-do list is to place something valuable inside a weatherproof container and bury it somewhere. There are many things that are valuable that no one wants anymore, yet they are valuable. So, these would all go in the waterproof container. Then I will create the map on how to find it by words and maps and the whole bit in order to make it difficult and exciting. I might even create some of the clues in an another language using Google translation service.
And even if no one finds the clues and no one is successful at interpreting the clues, then there is always the bulldozer operator who is moving earth around on this wild land where we live in order to create an apartment complex. He or she or it as it may be will see this thing just uncovered, get down off the bulldozer seat and say "lookie here, what might this be?".
You too could get excited about this, just go to your library and pick up a copy of Coronado's Children.
Then I read a story of an early settler finding a man with a gunshot wound and helped him to a place where he could recover. As it was, the man died (that's an important part of the tale) but before he died he told of a stash of gold coins that he hid in a cabin that was being built about 20 miles away. He said he placed the bag of coins behind a the last stone laid in the wall that day, as the mortar was still wet and he could take the stone out and hide the money and put the stone back. Thus, when the owner resumed work the next morning, he would complete the stone work and the gold would be safe. Well, that's all that was told to the rescuer.
The rescuer didn't really believe the story----or did he? Years went by and finally he had to search for all the stone houses within a twenty mile range and, by jove, he found one that was built the same year as the one that was described by the now dead man. So, he struck up a conversation with the owner and as would be expected , the owner did not want his place torn apart by someone with nothing more than a old tale. Years went by, but the story never died. Two other people made attempts to convince the owner to let them survey the wall of the house with a metal detector. At one place, only 4 feet off the ground, they had an indication of metal. Convincing the owner to let them take out just one stone, they set about chiseling the mortar that held the stone in place. Do you know what they found? Nothing. The whole thing was probably written by a Dobie fan.
But look, treasure stashing and treasure seeking is important. There is even an app for a cell phone called geocaching, where people have stashed insignificant stuff for kids to find by using their phones and GPS to find these stashes. This is all a game and a simple one to keep the kids outdoors at least.
But all this gets me to thinking about the real thing. On my to-do list is to place something valuable inside a weatherproof container and bury it somewhere. There are many things that are valuable that no one wants anymore, yet they are valuable. So, these would all go in the waterproof container. Then I will create the map on how to find it by words and maps and the whole bit in order to make it difficult and exciting. I might even create some of the clues in an another language using Google translation service.
And even if no one finds the clues and no one is successful at interpreting the clues, then there is always the bulldozer operator who is moving earth around on this wild land where we live in order to create an apartment complex. He or she or it as it may be will see this thing just uncovered, get down off the bulldozer seat and say "lookie here, what might this be?".
You too could get excited about this, just go to your library and pick up a copy of Coronado's Children.
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