Treasures I Have Known and Loved -and Lost...

             There is a great deal of hoopla going on around and about Fowlers' Bluff these days. Heavy equipment behind the store promises that the pirate "treasure" will finally be taken from the Suwannee River. This isn't just a "hype." There is real stuff down there and only in recent days has there been the technology to retrieve it. Several tries have been made in the past, and one, close to successful, had it within grasp-only to have it crash through the limestone shell of the river floor to whom knows where. The stories vary as to the successful finds a century ago and the beneficiaries are notably silent as to what was found.

These stories made me think about my own little treasures and treasure hunts; not at all as dramatic as the Fowlers' Bluff Scenario, but every bit as unique.

            Tampa has pirate lore and I am a native Tampan. Jose Gaspar sat on the riverbank and once a year "invaded" the town. Pirates, regardless of what it says in the Phantom comic strips, were romantic creatures. My father refused to let me become a pirate as I wanted~(he later refused to let me become a riverboat gambler)--but he did allow my brothers and me to bury "treasure."

            At the time of the first "treasure" I was too little to participate. My brothers sunk a hole to water level (which was about 3 feet) and put in it the first "Engle Treasure Chest." This was circa 1944. I will explain later how I know what was in it. Each item was sealed with paraffin. Individually, each item was wrapped in waxed paper and sealed with wax. They put the "treasure" in a mayonnaise jar and waxed the lid as well. It was buried exactly 12 inches from the stoop of the wash house. I know this is true because one day my second brother and I could stand it no longer~we dug it up. We vowed we'd never tell Tommy that we did so and re-planted it.

            The day came when my parents planned to move us all to a larger house. I wrote my brothers--"what about the treasure?" Only a twelve year old girl could be so obsessed! I got their permission to dig up the "treasure." I received strict instructions on how to re-bury it on the new property. Of course I looked again: a 1943 penny (lead), a model car, an authentic statement as to who was burying what and some other junk important at the time. I took great pains to find a spot that was inviolate: a cemented fish pond, with waterfall. No one would ever remove that! My brothers were away at college and my sister too young to care, I replanted that "treasure" exactly 18 inches square from the curve of the NW corner of the fish pond rim. Jack and Tommy were pleased.

            Thirty some years later my parents planned another move. Only I thought of the "treasure." Eighteen inches out from the NW corner of the fishpond stood a 35 ft. palm tree! It was a pretty tree and only two of us now know where its roots lay.

            I asked daddy if he would cut down the palm tree. I explained to him about the treasure. He smelled my breath. That treasure lays every bit as buried as the one in the Suwannee River.

            There is something magical about treasure hunting. It reaches out and grabs the imagination, conjures up images of the people who hid the caches: wide eyed youngsters or jaded gangster-pirates.

            This treasure burying comes naturally to me. My grandpa Eddie buried all loose change (which in those days was sometimes gold) and paper money as well. When he died my mom and grandmother spent several weeks digging up fence posts and the cellar floor searching for grandpa's treasure. Someplace in Ohio someone may plow a field someday and exclaim: "Lookee what I found!" It will be a tobacco tin filled with rotted green paper and jingling with goldpieces.