Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Treasures Under Foot


I’ve done a lot of digging around my property. Sure I could have hired excavators and I have in the past, but every time I have done so they end up destroying something. One collapsed the top of my septic tank, another drove over some fruit trees. One even went off course to bury some utilities and dug a trench through an approved septic field rendering that field unusable.

Since then I only employed excavators on land away from the house. I’ve dug a foundation for a house addition by hand. I dug to level the land for a green house by hand. I dig all my fence post holes by hand. I dig my own drainage trenches and trenches for underground irrigation. Oddly where ever I dig I find things that were left behind years ago. Some times is garbage and broken bottles, but often it is an old toy and especially marbles.

I remember back as a child I would burry marbles. It was like burying a treasure, and to kids of my generation they were as good as currency. I figured that if I could remembered where I buried them, I’d always have access to my treasure if I needed it. It was akin to people of my grandfathers’ generation buried their money or kept it in their mattresses because they didn’t trust the Federal Reserve. I knew I couldn’t deposit my marbles in a bank, and that they would be safe in the ground. I’m sure someone has long ago dug the marbles I left in the back yard on Island Road.

I have a pint sized jar of marbles that I’ve found over the last nineteen years on the property where I now live. Sometimes I look at them and wonder if an adult who once lived here as a child will ever come to seek them out. If they do I will happily hand them over.

7 Comments:

Blogger LeLo said...

We have a gravel walkway in the front/side of our house. Last year we dropped 6 bags of marbles into the gravel. The path sparkled with color and fun underneath our feet. Visiting kids to our garden loved finding them, and one day last summer AdRi came upon an excited group of neighborhood children swarming our walk collecting the marbles into their pockets. They're all but gone now, but come spring we'll dump more of them into the gravel: marbles are like little special wonderous gifts. Lucky you for finding and saving them!

6:06 AM  
Blogger Beth said...

OMG - your post brought back such wonderful memories of playing marbles as a kid. Puries, steelies, cat's eyes, aggies - all those great words came back to me. And we kept them all in those blue (velvet?) Crown Royal Whiskey bags. (Maybe just available in Canada?)
Thanks for the memories!

6:38 AM  
Blogger Jaggy said...

My grandma always kept her marbles in an empty can of Hershey's chocolate syrup. When we'd go visit, we could play with them. Now, whenever I see one of those dark brown cans sitting on the shelf, I think of marbles instead of chocolate.

8:08 AM  
Blogger Evil Witch said...

I still keep marbles in a crown royal bag. And one small crystal ball.
Nice of you to offer up your buried treasure to its original owner.

11:35 AM  
Blogger The Guy Who Writes This said...

Cool, everyone has a marbel story. Too bad we lost the Astoria Marble man last fall. Wasn't his presence at Sunday Market a charm?

Nice going Lelo, keep the magic alive!

Royal Crown and chocolate syrup. Interesting back grounds, ladies.

12:58 PM  
Blogger Dave said...

You seem to think beyond where most people would not consider thinking. I think it would be a sweet ending if the marble owner did show up. :-)

3:46 PM  
Blogger The Guy Who Writes This said...

Thanks, Dave. That would indeed be a sweet ending. Somehow I never grew out of those things I valued as a child. I see by the comments left here that we all still haven't grown out of the things we valued back then. It is an unexpected surprise to me.

4:20 PM  

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