Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
How things have changed! The picture on the left shows three siblings born over a hundred years ago - about 1905. The second photo was taken about 1953 - almost 50 years later. The first shows the grandfather and the second shows the grandson and friends. All of the people in the photo on the left have passed away. All of the people in the second photo are still alive but now in their seventies.
Metal detectorists generally like to find old things. It is commonly said that when they dig up something old, it is like touching a piece of the past.
When you dig up an old coin, the past might not seem that different from the present, but when you dig up other items, it might be very apparent how much things have changed. You have to remember how much life has changed.
The people shown on the left grew up without electric lights, telephones or TVs in their home. Penicillin wasn't discovered until 1928. They had outhouses. They grew up on farms, milked cows with their hands, fed the chickens by hand with corn they raised on their own farms and butchered their own meet from the animals they raised. They went to town to get supplies once a week. They were born at home, and the funerals were held in their own home.
One of the things that impresses me most is how each person takes such a unique path in life. Each person starts out with a different physical constitution, different personality traits, and makes different decisions, encounters different opportunities and challenges. I know the people shown above and how their life started out and in the case of the first photo, how it ended up.
The little girl on the left was the most cheerful, giggly person in the family through her entire life. She always laughed and brought laughter to the family. Her husband (not shown in the photo) was almost the opposite), always working day to night only stopping to eat and sleep. She spent a lot of time growing food in the garden, canning food, and preparing meals.
The group on the left were the World War I generation, and the second group the Viet Nam War generation. It is a sorry fact that we can pretty much describe generations by the wars.
I can tell you a bit about each person in those pictures, but you don't want me to do that. If you look closely at the face of each person in those photos I think you'll get a sense of the individuality of each person.
When I look at those photos, I see the promise, the hope and the potential and possibilities of each of those young lives, even at a point when not one of them knows or really cares much about what the future will bring or what path their life will take. And each life is so very unique. Each person lives their own life. No two of them, even though they came from the same locale, had the same experiences. Each one encountered unique situations, challenges and opportunities, and responded to them in their own way. Each person has their own unique story. Despite the many generations each generation is unique and each person in that time and culture is unique. There will never be another you. Nobody else will have the same set of experiences. No one else will live your story. Nobody will know that story and what drove your decisions and feelings like you.
Despite the uniqueness of each person, people share a lot in common despite the different times and places. As a child you started out very much the same, with the same innocence, hope and promise of life - not knowing what lies ahead or how it will all turn out.
In your later years there are many personal stories that you be familiar with from beginning to end. You can look back over long years and see how people started out and also how many ended.
While the human spirit remains basically the same across different times and place, things change. You can see that in the photos. But that is only window dressing. The objects change, but no matter what generation or millennium you are born into, there is that same precious human spirit that encounters challenges and opportunities and successes and failures.
I'm not talking about metal detectors today, or a particular item that was found, but I am talking about the context of it all. Metal detecting is a part of your story, maybe a large part or small part. And the finds you make were once a part of someone else's story, also either big or small.
I don't think people often take time to consider how different things are now compared to a generation or two ago, let alone a century or two ago. Not only is it difficult for us to imagine, it might be nearly impossible to how it was different. The time we live in colors how we look at things from other times and places.
Things have changed, but not so much the people. The objects and surroundings have changed, but on the inside, I think people are still very much the same. No matter what the time or place, people have hopes and dreams, fears and anxieties, highs and lows, and commit brave acts of courage and kindness, and sin. The basic human condition and spirit is still the same.
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People often read old posts in this blog. I've noticed that the post I did on magnet fishing gets a lot of readers. People seem to be interested in that.
I noticed that Kellycodetectors.com is selling magnet fishing equipment. Here is one example from their online catalog.
The more I see of reality TV, the more I'm sure it shouldn't be called that. Too much of it is staged or faked. In many cases, especially with some of the "treasure" shows, there is outright deception. There is one that aired recently that showed some magnet fishing. That segment was definitely fake. If you watch it closely, you'll catch the deception.
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Here is the list of the top nine most read posts in the history of this blog. Of course older posts continue to accumulate readers and have an advantage.
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The National Hurricane Center weather map now shows no storms.
The surf will be small for a while.
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| Source: MagicSeaWeed.com |
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net