When I was young we had no video games or the like
to rob ourselves of precious time for exploring and
hiding simple treasures.
I remember a tree , cedar tree, on the hill above our house
that had limbs that extended out and down to the ground.
It made a perfect hut and a special place to play
after the chores were done.
One year we, Lynn and Leesa and I if I remember correctly,
buried a special treasure under that tree.
I don't remember if it was in the summer
or in the winter when the snow had drifted
over the top of the tree making it into
a real snow cave. I would have been
somewhere between 6 to 11 years old.
(Added note: I have talked with Lynn and Leesa
and so far Leesa is the only one who remembers doing it also.
She also thinks we were in an elementary school timeframe.)
Anyway we buried a can of treasures and I didn't remember
what was in it but over the years when I have
had a chance I have gone several times up the hill
and looked for that treasure. I never ever found it probably
because my memory of the hill was skewed over the years
and the path to the hideout obscured by time.
Well today September 25th of the year 2016 I received
a text from my nephew in Duchesne, who lives
on the old farm where I was raised, with this image attached
and asking if any of us remembered anything about this treasure.
He said they had been clearing trees up on the hill
and found it while removing an old dead tree.
Well I remembered it and was kind of shocked
to find that it had been found.
I thought that maybe over the years someone else had found it and
removed it from our secret hiding place under the tree in that cave.
Craig said that I may not have found it because the tree was now dead
and I would have been looking for a live one.
I was also probably thinking that it was further up on the hill
I was also probably thinking that it was further up on the hill
than where it actually was located.
Anyway it was fun because he said he had also found evidence
of rocks lined up to mark a trail and
of dead branches moved to cover the area better.
Well we had made a border to the trail into the cave with
rocks and we probably made the cave a little more
secluded with other limbs, that part I don't really remember.
Needless to say it has been pretty fun
realizing that a treasure that we had hid as boys
was found so many years later by our nephew.
It is also really fun to now know what I as a boy considered
a real treasure. There probably would have been coins in it
had I been rich enough to let go of a penny or nickel.
However it housed for us 30-30 and .22 shells, rocks,
hazelnuts, round toothpicks, a wooden domino, marbles,
pencil erasers, a suction cup, little train car, green rubber hammer head,
yellow plastic ring from a vending machine or cracker jack box,
and a carved wooden face much like what I have
carved on several scout campouts as an adult.
They were all stored in a can made to last over the decades
that used to have Cocoa in it.
Yep it was a treasure can filled with many of my
boyhood treasures. I am surprised that I would part with any of
them but maybe they were all things that belonged to Lynn instead.
I have since hidden coins in walls while building our house
and while remodeling the house Dawna lives in now.
That was while we were getting it ready to live
in when Marie and I were married.
If I remember correctly they were of the year when we did it
1975 and again in our current home in 1983.
(Just a note in case you ever remodel or tear down this home.)
