Not every treasure has a map. Sometimes it’s the dollar you find in the pocket of your jacket. Other times, it’s your brother-in-law’s lost wedding ring. It really depends on the day, but the life lesson is to never stop looking for treasure- it’ll find you when you least expect it.
I was supposed to be in Cabo, not stuck at home. My wife and I had two tickets aboard the Carnival Firenze we needed to relinquish due to a family medical emergency. We had insurance, but still, it was supposed to be our first real vacation in a year, and we had to let it go.
Treasure was the farthest thing from my mind. At home with a little more discretionary time than usual, I had a chance to tackle a few simple errands. Among them, I had tested a 3D print using my library’s Makerspace, and finally, I had a good chance to pick it up.
While at the library, I grabbed a few other items, and while at the front desk checking out, something else caught my attention. Near the register, on the other side of the room, the library has a display set up for a “Library of Things” – tools, games, gadgets… it’s a really interesting mix of items that changes all the time.
While checking out, one item in particular caught my interest. Even at the distance, I could recognize the shape of a metal detector, with a blue tag indicating the item was in stock. It got me thinking about a disaster from a year ago – one that I had never fully let go of.
My brother-in-law lost his wedding ring at a Christmas tree farm near Beloit, Wisconsin. He first noticed it missing while we were waiting for our food to arrive at a restaurant near the farm, after spending most of the day searching for a good tree. It had been cold that day, and every time he took a photo, my brother-in-law took off his gloves. One of those times, his ring came off with it.
After dinner, we rushed back to the tree farm while daylight melted into night. We had been to many parts of the facility, including shops, groves, and even a petting zoo, and the ground had heavy leaf cover. As the farm closed for the night, the ring felt out of reach.
I had always harbored a secret thought that the ring could still be retrieved. I didn’t want to share it too broadly so as to get everyone’s hopes up, but I had heard stranger stories about treasures found using metal detectors. So in the present, at the library, I took the blue tag off the hanger and asked to rent the metal detector.
The next day, I was at the tree farm. It was bigger than I remembered. The tree fields are more than 300 acres in size, let alone the area set aside for the shops and petting zoo. Time for using logic to create my map.
I didn’t have many details, but one I had was very important. My brother-in-law lost his ring when taking photos, and I had many of those photos. I also remembered a few locations where he lingered for a long time, and using basic probability, I knew that more time and photos meant more chances of losing the ring.
I set my sights on one location in particular- after cutting a tree, my brother-in-law waited a while in one location for a tractor to arrive to bring him back to the shops. While waiting, he took a lot of pictures. It may have only represented about 30% of his photos, but that’s still higher than any other individual location.
We swept for a little while, hitting on some random metal like screws. I reviewed the manual and tuned the metal detector’s settings to screen out some of the noise and kept sweeping.
I searched the full target area with no results. My wife pointed out that maybe I wasn’t sweeping close enough to the ground- we tested with my own ring, and sure enough, we needed to sweep through the grass, not over it. I started over.
On the second sweep, we hit a muddled signal quickly. My wife started digging, and I got a feeling that I should keep going. I swept for about ten more seconds and got a strong signal. Based on the tone, it was either gold or nickel.
I stuck my screwdrivers into the ground- nothing. We peeled back some of the tall grass, swept again to pinpoint the signal, and tried again. My screwdriver struck something hard, about an inch under the surface.
I poked at the ground again and saw a flash of metal. Digging a little further, I saw it more clearly- the ring! I pushed the screwdriver through the ring and pulled it out of the ground. I couldn’t believe my eyes – we found it!!!
Our hands were shaking on our way back to the car. We clutched the ring tight, terrified to let it slip out of our grasp again. When we got home, I sealed the ring in an envelope to ensure it wouldn’t fall out of my grasp.
My brother-in-law was elated to see his ring again. He had already purchased a replacement, so now he has two!
One simple trip to the library resulted in a minor adventure leading to a golden treasure at the end. It wasn’t something I planned, but the best adventures rarely are. I don’t know who is going to be the next one to rent the metal detector from the library and what treasure they’ll find, but the journey itself is a story worth telling.
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