“It’s like we’re all livin’ in a big ol’ cup... Just fire up the blender, mix it all up…"

If you’re checking in to see if I still like metal detecting, I do. I’ve been at it for 15 months and while I do not feel quite as enslaved by it as I did at the start – when, after a day of digging, I would feel kind of sick, as if having eaten too many eclairs – I am still very, very interested in doing it every chance I get.

In the last two weeks, my busy schedule (day job as a writer for a medical school, part time job teaching dance to sweet little children, walker of dogs, cooker of meals, marketer of Not About Madonna, and – oh, yeah – writer of songs) has made it hard to find time to get out there. But you know, give me 20 minutes at the end of a crazy day and I can dig the crap out of some dirt and come home with some history in my pocket.

First of all: my own yard continues to amaze. I’ve dug it countless times, but I’ve been revisiting it with my new Tesoro DeLeon and pulling out all kinds of new stuff.  One day about two weeks ago, a quick dusk hunt in the front yard yielded this.

Ladybug and The Boss

Isn’t that cute?

And then there’s the back yard. When I bought my first machine in January of 2011, the first place I went was the back yard and I immediately found a Civil War-era musket ball and not long after, a minie ball. But that was it, relic-wise. Until that evening two weeks ago. I stuck the ladybug in my pocket and went around back and – bing, bing, bing – found three more CW bullets (one of them quite smashed) and a more modern bullet.

Was there a camp here? A skirmish?

Here’s one “moment of discovery” for ya.

Another day, on my lunch break (I work from home) I went across the street to my neighbor’s huge yard that I have likewise hunted many times. Pulled this out!

Was very excited, until I turned it over.

Made me laugh and think about the ‘60s and how, if we’d had a car I would have LOVED to collect all the Shell Mr. President Coin Game tokens. I like how all this stuff is all jumbled up in the dirt. Civil War bullets, ‘60s Shell tokens, ladybugs, pennies. The land is like a big Christmas fruitcake. And I love me a good fruitcake, any time of year.

Last Sunday, Doug and Brenda drove me and Cheryl to a field about an hour east of Nashville. Do you want me to tell you where? I won’t do it.  I won’t tell. I will tell you though, that as we drove there, I thought about how badly I wanted to find a cool coin. I have NEVER found anything more interesting than a wheat penny. So, I put that out there.

We parked under a tree and climbed over a fence. (Yes, we had permission.) It was easy hunting, as the field had been plowed recently.  Doug believed there had been homesteads here, back in the 1700s and the bits of colored crockery and the old, rusty nails we found supported that.

Then I dug this!

Doug thought it was a Large Cent – a common penny in the early 1800s. When I got home, though, I took a picture and posted it on a numismatist forum. They were so helpful! At first, they said it was a farthing, but the final diagnosis is that it is a George III Half Pence. This would date it between 1770 and 1775. Here it is up close.

Note the BR... on the bottom left. That's the start of "BRITAIN".
You can kind of see the image of a seated woman, facing left,
with her right hand outstretched. Under the line at the bottom,
you can see "17..." but I can't make out the entire date.

Strangely, the flip side has been kind of defaced. Weird.

Who did that and why?

So I guess it must have come over on a ship, then made its way, from homespun pocket to homespun pocket, to a field in Tennessee.  That night, I took the half pence to a festive dinner party. It had fun.

Today, (Easter Sunday), Doug and Cheryl and I went back to that field. On the way, we got into a minefield of a conversation about various historical and social issues. Voices were raised and spit (mine) was flying (only a little) and heart rates (mine) were raised (quite a lot). I didn’t like it much; I don’t like conflict. But I thought of it as a wonderful opportunity for the exchange of ideas, even if you can never, in a million years, agree with some of those you receive in trade. I really, really, REALLY like and respect the people I go out digging with. The fact that we have some profound differences in the way we see the world might make me uncomfortable, but it’s the price – and privilege – of living in a country where all kinds of people live together and interact every day. We're like that line in my favorite Brad Paisley song: "It's like we're all livin' in a big ol' cup... just fire up the blender and mix it all up..."

When we got to the field, I didn’t do nearly as well as last week. Doug skunked us both, pulling out a veritable museum display case of colonial-era thingies, including a silver thimble and what I think will turn out to be another half pence coin. I found three partial horseshoes (now soaking in a jar in my bathroom… why? I have no idea), an old, G-shaped iron hook, a thing that Doug says is part of an colonial-era, two-pronged fork, a metal tab off a strap from when the field was used for maneuvers during World War II, and my very first Native American arrowhead. Also a couple of flattened beer cans. Of course.

Talk about your jumble of history: arrowhead (super sharp),
colonial fork thing and WWII strap tab...

Here's the "hook"... G-shaped, as if to say,
"Gee, aren't you spending a little too much
time metal detecting?"

Hot and tired, we headed back to the car whereupon Doug drove us around to various enticing historic sites where we did not have permission to dig, and to a couple where we did have permission, but no one was home. We stopped on a bridge and the three of us looked down into a copper-colored river. There, in the sun were fish, hundreds of them, all facing the same way. I don’t know my fish, but Doug and Cheryl saw bream, catfish, bass and something called “suckers” that I really don’t hope to have any direct contact with.  Funny thing was, all these different fish were floating together, facing in the same direction. Like they were listening to a speech or a sermon – it was Easter Sunday, after all. Maybe they were focusing on their similarities. I don't know what they were up to, but it was surprisingly ... organized.

Last stop was Bledsoe’s Station – a colonial-era fort which Doug and Brenda discovered in a farmer’s field 30 years ago. Now it’s a protected historical park. As we drove in, this is what we saw:

OK. That was surreal. We went over for a chat. These four picnickers were members of the Regency Society (“a group for Ladies and Gentlemen that is dedicated to remembering and preserving the history, culture and costume of the 1790-1820 time period.”) They very kindly allowed me to take their photograph even though I was quite obviously wrecking their lovingly crafted time machine ju-ju by hurtling towards them with my IPhone. Turns out two of them were from Michigan! My enthusiastic “Go BLUE!” was met with polite nods (these were lords and ladies of the Spartan variety).

And will you look at this! Here’s their blog about that very same outing.

http://rsatn.blogspot.com/

Once again, the mingling of history.

Finally, a tangent, filmed in the field where Indians hunted, pioneers chopped wood, WWII soldiers practiced before heading off to war and tractor drivers drank Budweiser just a year or so ago. So much of metal detecting is the hunt, the history rush, the holding of the ancientness. But just as much are moments like this:

1939

My four days in NYC led to a week of lovely, self-imposed hermitude. Al is gone, Sam is gone… it’s just me and the dogs and the splendid weather: an excellent combination. I’ve been going back to hunt The Eterna-Yard throughout the week. Found another old buckle and a whole bunch more wheat pennies from the ‘40s and ‘50s. Also one silver Rosie dime. I actually feel like I am having a relationship with that yard… like we’re seeing each other. Hanging out. Hooking up.

Today, Sunday, I drove about 50 minutes deep into the countryside to meet up with Doug, Cheryl and Brenda. For the record, I love my IPhone and those killer map apps. Just astounding.

I pulled up behind them at a gate at the end of a long dirt road after having passed flocks of chickens, roosters, guinea hens and a bunch of cows enjoying a cooling dip in the pond on this beautiful, hot day. Beyond the gate was a large river. Doug’s research had led him to believe that there was a ferry landing and a town here, many years ago. The town had been burned in the war. We walked around and did some half-hearted MDing. He found a minie ball, but no one else found anything. I, myself, was nearly sucked down into the core of the planet by evil river mud/quicksand, but I got free due to my strength and determination.

We had a really nice chat with the owners of this magnificent property. The man’s family had lived on this land for five generations. But he didn’t think the landing was here; he gave us directions to another road, just a mile or so away.

Here, the road just ran down into the river. It was definitely a landing, or had been. Nearby, though, Doug had noticed lots of buttercups: a sure sign of an old homestead. Was this the town?

(A side note: I maintain that the flowers in question are daffodils and that daffodils and buttercups are not the same. The parties involved were unable to come to an agreement on this.)

We parked next to the… flowers… and dived into the woods which were thick, but doable.  I was immediately visited by numerous friends and relations of Ticky McTickerson (see previous post) wanting to know his whereabouts. I told them he was still in New York, at the Carlyle, and would not be returning. Then I killed them.

As so often happens, my first signal was my best find of the day: a beautiful brass buckle. 

We also dug a lot of big pieces of lead. Found a large cistern, still filled with water (extremely creepy, as in likely-place-to-hide-the-body…)

We all were very excited about this spot and will return. We are confident that there are some CW hotspots nearby. We just haven’t found them yet.  There is also the scenic beauty factor to consider: oh-so pretty. I wanted to be an Native American maiden with braids and SO BAD. Looking at beauty like that makes you want to simplify your life.

I got back to Nashville by about 3:30 and walked and fed the citizens, then, since there was still valuable daylight just hanging around in the sky doing nothing, I headed out to a vacant lot nearby that I’d been given permission to hunt. Very disappointing: rocky soil that was hard to dig, pesky power lines and nothing but trash.

I was aware that people in this (very exclusive, tucked-away) neighborhood were checking me out and soon a car pulled up and the couple inside asked me if I had permission to be there. I did, but I had unwittingly crossed over into non-permission regions. They were nice about it though and I appreciated that. I left soon after.

The only thing I came away with was a Mercury dime.

When I got home, I cleaned it off: 1939. That was so long ago.

A few minutes later, I got a phone call from Ann Arbor. Al flew there from NYC today to celebrate his mom’s 97^th birthday. (I was just there a couple of weeks ago and decided not to go.)

Everyone was there, around the Hill family dining table. I could hear the hilarity, the clinking of cutlery. Helen got on the line, said she missed me. I love her so. She has been such a wonderful mother to this motherless girl. (Her own mother died in the 1918 flu epidemic, when she was only three, so we have a sad bond).

“Helen,” I said, “how old were you in 1939?”

She thought for a second. “I was 24. That was the year I drove out west and camped for the summer in California.”

When she got back, she said, she had a telegram waiting for her from the University of Illinois offering her a position teaching English.

“It was also the year the war started,” she continued. “That was in September and everyone was on edge….” She paused. “When I got to Illinois, I saw this tall, dark, handsome man in the halls. He didn’t notice me much, but I noticed him! And eventually, he noticed me…”

“Helen, I’m so glad you got that telegram and went to the University of Illinois and noticed that tall, dark, handsome man,” I said. “If you hadn’t, my life would be so different now.”

“So would mine!” she laughed.

“So 1939 was a very important year, wasn’t it?” I asked.

“It was. It was a very important year.”

Dirt Girl Takes Manhattan

Good gracious! So much to tell.

There’s been a bit of a lull in the MD arena for me over the past couple of months – not for lack of effort, but definitely for lack of noteworthy finds. Here’s a quick recap of February before I get to the entomological, sterling silver, urban weirdness of mid-March…

The Yard That Keeps On Giving

There’s a yard near my home I’ve hunted at least a dozen times and it never disappoints. Just when I think there’s nothing left in it, it delivers afresh. One February afternoon I ran over there for a quick look-see and noticed something: a two-foot-wide strip of grass that ran between the long driveway and a tall hedge that marked the border of the next property. Could there be anything in there? There was. My first signal yielded three silver dimes (two Mercs and a Rosie) all in the same hole. There might have been a wheat penny in there too. 

Dimes were all in the same hole; adorable Esso was in another.

Further down the driveway, got a real honker of a signal and pulled out this cool, old finial (the top of a lamp, or maybe a flag). Not particularly old, but very pretty. 

Some kinda finial.

Then, in the back yard I found a tiny Esso sign, probably part of an old, toy gas pump. That was a good day.

West Side Delights

Through a friend of a friend, I made contact with a lovely 80s-ish couple over on the other side of town. They live in a densely populated neighborhood that is very hilly.  And, as I am learning, hills in Nashville = Civil War encampments. I had friends visiting from out of town and we drove over on a sunny but chilly afternoon for some hunting that I was pretty sure would deliver some goods. I gave Annie and Rod my tried and true Cibola to play with while I took the Tesoro DeLeon I was trying out and thinking of buying. Unfortunately, the house was right under some power lines and the frequency interference made it almost impossible for me to hunt, so I just helped them.  We dug some coins and some trash and had fun. Then, as we were getting ready to go, I grabbed the Cibola and took one more swing and pulled this out.  Looks like the mouthpiece of a small bugle or something. Love it!

I think it's brass.

Cheryl and I went back to that yard for a serious hunt about a week later and I pulled out a beautiful uniform button and a three-ringer bullet. Nice yard!

Cover Girl

At the beginning of March, I learned that not only was my OHIO (see earlier post) featured in American Digger Magazine, it was front and center on the COVER.  

Yup. I done dug it.

OK, now for more current events…

As many Dirt Girl Unleashed readers know, my husband, Al Hill, tours the world as music director for soul diva Bettye Lavette. A few months ago, the schedule revealed a choice gig: three weeks in March at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City – my hometown. These days, I am an entirely lapsed (failed) New Yorker. I just can’t do cities any more, particularly that one. Being a squeamish, tender, introverted sort, I am severely compromised by:

1.     dirt

2.     bugs

3.     globs of spittle on the sidewalk

4.     loud noises

5.     huge crowds

6.     rude salespeople

7.     lack of grass

So I mostly stay in Tennessee, preferably in the woods. But here was a chance to go to New York and stay in one of the nicest, fanciest hotels in the world AND a chance to hang out with my sweet family of origin. Not to mention a chance to try a wee spot of urban MDing. You need a permit to do anything serious and sadly Central Park (a block from the Carlyle) was completely out of bounds. But I got permission to hunt two friends’ backyards: one in Harlem and one in Brooklyn. Excitement!

Your Dirt Girl packed carefully. I disassembled the recently purchased DeLeon and crammed it into a backpack. Also packed the nicest dress I have and some lovely pleather boots.

Our room at the Carlyle was not large, but luxuriously appointed and altogether agreeable to me. See, there has been much talk of the resurgence of an insect I will call schmedbugs. These critters are apparently EVERYWHERE in New York City, to the point that people in luxury high-rise apartment buildings will throw all their fancy furniture out onto the sidewalk and post signs on the pile warning; “BEWARE! SCHMEDBUGS!” Hotels are not safe. No place is safe.

So I arrived terrified, but was instantly soothed by this lovely, spotless hotel.

Friday morning, it was off to dig in Harlem. Great to see my dear, college friend, Loi, who lives in Astor Row – one of the neighborhood’s most architecturally significant blocks. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astor_Row)

Her yard made for hard digging though. Lots of flotsam and jetsam. But I unearthed some interesting ceramic shards and part of a 45 record. 

Pretty, huh? Sure would love to know what record that was.

I’d like to go back and dig every single back yard on the street. Yum. Here’s me in Harlem.

I know. Dork. But I just don't care.

After a wonderful dinner with my family, I headed back to the hotel to see Bettye’s show. Strangely, her performance sits nicely into any story about things that are hidden and revealed. That woman digs down deep. A stellar show. Very proud of Al, who played Bobby Short's piano all night. Afterwards, the two of us communed with the spirit of the great Mr. S. by attempting to mimic his optimistic expression.

It's hard to see just how cute this dress is. I bought it in Ann Arbor at Adorn Me.

Al looks way more optimistic than I do.

Friday night, things got weird. About 4 a.m. I woke up with a start. I could feel something crawling on me. I shook out my pjs and swiped off the (fancy, 400 thread count) sheets. “There aren’t any schmedbugs at the Carlyle,” Al mumbled in the dark. I believed him and went back to sleep. Just my ‘magination…

About an hour later, I felt something again. I slapped my hand to my ribcage and sprinted to the bathroom and turned on the light. There was a BUG on me.  Much whimpering. Al came and bore witness. We captured the varmint, still alive, and tucked him into a tiny plastic bag. Then, of course, we hit the Internet.

Guess what is NOT a good idea: looking at giant, gory, up-close photos of schmedbugs in the middle of the night. We could not decide if “Bernard” -- as we began to call our new charge -- was, in fact, of the offending breed. Tiny and evil, it looked not unlike any number of other insects. But what was it doing in my bed? At the CARLYLE?

Miraculously, we got back to sleep.

In the morning, we called the front desk and let me tell you, that was one speedy hotel manager who appeared at our door with his reassuring Swedish-seeming accent. He took Bernard downstairs. Shortly after, I overheard this phone call:

Hotel Manager: Well, sir, it’s not a schmedbug. … tell me: do you have dogs?

Al: Why, yes, we do. I mean, at home. Not in the room.

Hotel Manger: Well, sir, it’s a tick.

Al: Oh, well, then, all right. Thank you.

Click

Hotel Manager: (to entire hotel staff) Those filthy Tennessee heathens and their ticks! We haven’t had a tick at the Carlyle since 1934! Harumph!

(OK, that part I made up.)

But sure enough, when we got downstairs 15 minutes later, instead of one or two clerks behind the (shiny, marble) front desk, there were about 25 highly coiffed hoteliers, all standing in a line, staring at me and Al with frozen smiles. I can't quite remember what I did as I walked past them toward the tender mercies of the front door, but I did one of two things: a “thumbs-up” – as if to say, “whoo-hoo! Ticks rock, dude!” or I mimed wiping sweat from my brow – as if to say, “Close one, Carlyle! No schmedbugs for you today.” Whatever I did, I was horribly embarrassed and spent the next hour wondering how a tick (if it was a tick) ended up on my ribcage.

No, I’m not done. There’s more metal detecting to describe.

After a fun East Village lunch with meta-cool young blogger Royal Young, Al and I headed out to Brooklyn to reconnect with old Ann Arbor friends Esther and Alan. They have a dog named Molly -- rescued from a bad situation in East Nashville and now living the good life in Brooklyn. Here's Molly communing with the spirit of Bobby Short by attempting to mimic his optimistic expression:

After hugs and kisses and chit chat, I headed out back to have my way with their yard. It was really pretty out there, but there were problems: I had to dodge lots of valuable underground plants plus there were big, fat power lines above playing havoc with my signals. So it was slow going. BUT I found this sterling silver fork (?) handle!

I really, really love it. Wonder who “M.F.C.”  was…

Here’s me in Brooklyn, right before I stepped in doggie diarrhea which put an end to my hunt.

Yes, sometimes I wear a skirt to hunt.

Sunday I didn’t dig at all. Sang songs and read from Not About Madonna at the Rockwood Music Hall on Allen Street and saw lots of old friends. Much fun. And Monday, back to Tennessee.

On the plane, I thought about the tick. First of all, yes, I have dogs. One of them is irritating me as I type this. But I have never seen a tick on them, nor have I ever seen a tick in my house. Plus, the hotel manager’s insinuation irked me: what, they don’t have ticks in Manhattan? Central Park, lovely as it is in the springtime, has to be crawling with them. I walked through the park once during my trip, but stayed on the paths. I didn't roll around on the ground, I promise.

In the end, I'll never know how it happened, but I prefer to think that my metal detecting gear was the portal. That while digging Civil War relics in deep Tennessee woods, a few days before my trip, Ticky McTickerson fell into my fanny pack, flew Delta to New York City, then crawled into bed at the Carlyle Hotel.

“Aah,” he thought. “Now we’re talkin’.”

Happy Dirtday (be forewarned: not the usual recap...)

50 some-odd years ago tonight, I hurtled head-first through the body of a woman who did not want me.

She tried, she really did. There were times she did the best she could, times when she was wondrous (I think... it might have been an act) and times she really just fucked it up altogether. Ultimately, when I was 22, she quit being my mother; she resigned; she cut me loose. I haven't seen her in over 30 years.

It was early in the morning on January 27^th when I was born in Mt.  Sinai Hospital in New York City. And every year, right about now, if I'm awake – and I usually am – I sense (or imagine) a gentle wrinkle in the air, a tiny flaw in the denseness of time, that causes me to feel close to her again and sadness falls upon me like an annual shawl. It doesn't last.

About 20 minutes ago I went to bed. I stared up wide-eyed at nothing, knowing I had to just get up and write this down.

See, Dirt Girl Unleashed is where I get to figure out what it means to dig in the dirt. Why I do it.

My mother was with me the first time I did this. I was maybe 11 years old and we were down near the South Street Seaport, before it got all gussied up. I don't know why we were there. She was just really fascinated with the oldness of the area and wanted me to be fascinated too. And so I was, because I loved her wildly and I was a wide open child.

As we were walking back to the bus along the cobblestoned streets – there was no one around – I saw a hole in the ground, a small construction site. There must have been some traffic cones, but I don't remember. I just knew I wanted to go down there. Could I? She said I could.

I climbed down into the hole and began digging into the side, down below the street. There was stuff in there. Pieces of porcelain, bits of broken iron pots, curves of old, blown glass, brick, all kinds of stuff from early New York, all churned up and packed down and paved over. Excitement. I grabbed what I could and brought it home. I cleaned it up and showed it to anyone who came over.

We had a huge dictionary in our apartment – maybe the Oxford? It was housed in a stiff, cardboard box and in the top of the box was a small drawer that held a magnifying glass. That's where I kept the pieces of Old New Yorke. They're probably still in there.

Last night, I dreamed about that apartment. My mother and I were living there again, together. It was neither good nor bad, just neutral. But I looked up at the ceiling and saw that the place where the walls met the ceiling was twisted and cracked. There were other cracks too, along the floors. Soon, it would all fall down.

Tomorrow, to celebrate my birthday, I will go out into the countryside with some good buddies and turn on my machine and walk slowly through fields and forests. If we're lucky, we'll come across the remnants of an old home, or a Civil War encampment. And when I hear the signal, I'll get that sweet rush – yes, I know: serotonin – and dig down and see what the ground has for me. And I'll hold that bullet or that thimble or that button in my hand the past will thrill through me as if I'm standing too close to a bell.

And somehow, what's lost is found.

One Man's Trash...

I was going to talk about trash, since that's mostly what I dig. But this weekend's hunts uncovered a different sort of refuse and I kind of fell in love with it.

Saturday I was on my own, right here in Inglewood. Drove over to the next street where my mailbox flyers (“Hello! I'm a crazy lady! Can I come metal detect your property?”) had resulted in permission to hunt two huge yards owned by a very nice woman and her sister-in-law. I'll be working on these yards for a good while; they're that big.

Started out in back, where the owner said her son had lost his high school ring about 40 years ago. I was very excited about this until she mentioned that they were pretty sure they'd built a garage over the area where he lost it. I checked the entire perimeter of the garage, but only got triangular snippets of aluminum siding, which I hate with an almost terrifying rabidity.

The owner's great-granddaughter, a very self-possessed young lady, came out to help me and I found myself begrudgingly handing over a couple of old toys and interesting iron thingies I dug up. She really was quite persuasive, with her little bangs and fashionable attire. Apparently, this child does commercials and I can see why. I was about to give her my Tesoro Cibola and just go home. (She actually was very helpful and polite, holding my shovel and all. I do love digging with kids.)

Then I dug this.

Whit Hill, Junior Sheriff.
Don't mess with me.

Ooh, she said, I think I'm keeping that!

Hmmm. I said. Now, let's talk about it. What are you going to DO with it? Won't it just sit in a box in your room? 

(My internal monologue: It's MY JUNIOR SHERIFF BADGE! MINE! GIVE IT! MOMMMM!)

Luckily for all involved, the young lady saw my logic. Soon after, she got cold and went back inside. I spent a long time excavating a very deep hole. Dang, it was deep. Found a lot of burned wood in the bottom. I think it was a campfire or something. Very strong signal tho: the lid of some kind of large can. And, as so often happens, I filled the hole while muttering, What Am I Doing Out Here?

Dug a lipstick and a penny and went home, sore and grumpy.

Sunday, Cheryl was fighting a cold, so Doug and I headed out to dig. Destination: downtown Nashville,  an area behind the new convention center. The lot was maybe an acre and had just been bulldozed: dark, dark mud, filled with broken pavement and bricks. There was another guy there detecting but I didn't mind. Actually, this was my first experience of urban construction-zone detecting and I was glad for the company. For the record, I would never have done this alone.

The first thing I noticed, as we started sweeping the area with our detectors was that there, in the gross, sticky, asphalty mud, were thousands of pieces of crockery. Flowers, colors, beautiful glazes, graceful shapes. It was like being at the beach, picking up shells. I couldn't stop myself.

Here's a sampling. 

Pretty blue flowers

So delicate...

Whatever this once was, it was big.

Bone china?

Oh! I've forgotten to mention the bottles! I'm not a bottle collector, but that could change. I couldn't just leave them there...

The tall one says "Dr. W.B. Caldwell's Syrup Pepsin"

Metal-wise, I didn't do very well. I was trying out a new machine that I didn't know how to use and it was on fire, with constant signals. When I thought I had a good one, I found I just couldn't dig with my usual Home Depot mini-shovel. I needed more of a pitchfork approach in this stuff. In truth, I just wasn't physically strong enough to hunt this site. The only real “find” was a corroded metal disk. I've been cleaning it ever since I got home and it appears to be a token from the Sam Davis Hotel, which was on or near this spot and was torn down in 1985. Sadly, it's too cruddy to photograph well.

This...

came from this...

An hour later, Doug and I found ourselves way east of town at an early 1800s home site about to be gobbled up by a subdivision. The grass was so tall it was hard to swing the machine, but I managed to bag the leg of an old, cast iron stove which looks suspiciously like a leg of lamb. (I'm fairly sure it had been dug by a previous metal hunter and left there for me. I personally think it will make a fine.... wall hanging?)

Doug pulled out a beautiful, old door hinge. I got a mason jar lid. Tired, we stood there and just looked around. We could see nothing but trees, hills and brambles, but the sound of thousands of cars and trucks just over the next ridge and plane after plane coming into BNA – not to mention a huge mountain of bulldozed earth next to us – were a reminder that the sweet wildness of this place would soon be gone.

My Arms Hurt

My arms hurt.

They do. In places that have never hurt before.

It was a good weekend. Saturday morning, bright and early, Cheryl was in my driveway and for once I didn't make her wait. We drove over to Doug's and he and the Lovely Brenda drove us all around the strip mall blightiness that is now suburban Nashville, pointing out where the farms and mansions and plantations used to stand until someone decided it would be better for them not to exist. Most are now paved over by Kmart parking lots and the like, but every now and then you get a glimpse of what used to be: a few feet of an old stone wall in between two office parks. A single ancient, towering tree and a crumbling chimney in a vacant lot filled with trash and abandoned shopping carts.

D and B had things to do so Cheryl and I got back in the car and stared at each other. Now what? Soon, we were trudging through the thick mud of a construction site (wide open) and into some deep woods. Our destination: the remains of a 1700s-era inn. At first, we weren't sure we were in the right place. It looked more like a dump. Actually, it was a dump. People seem to have been trashing this spot for 100 years or more. Rusty washtubs, pipe, construction materials, hundreds of bottles and cans, many of them really old, and of course, plenty of TUPoM (twisted, unidentifiable pieces of metal).

And yet, it was beautiful. Tall trees, blocking out the bleak, weak winter sky. On the ground, interspersed with the garbage, were the green stalks of daffodils, fooled by this warm January. I wondered who planted them.

We found the ruins, or some of them anyway: a huge stone threshold, the remains of some walls.

I spent the first ten minutes or so feeling jumpy and nervous. I'd forgotten my headphones and every beep from my Tesoro Cibola seemed loud enough to wake the ghosts of long-ago innkeepers who might smite me with their phantom fireplace pokers. I just couldn't relax. Cheryl got down to business and immediately bagged the day's first find: a sterling silver belt-buckle engraved with the letters “CBN” only in a much better font. See the picture? 

WHO is C.B.N.? Any ideas?

Isn't that pretty? I got to work.

An hour later, all I had for my trouble was an ugly, flat, corroded button and an old bottle that was small enough to fit into my pocket. There was just too much trash to accomplish anything. Cheryl, of course, found a very cool brass (?) medal-looking thing from the Willimantic Cotton Company. I almost drooled. We left. The only hope for good hunting at that site is a full-on clean up.

The next day I rode with Doug and Arthur to a Place in Tennessee (vague enough for you?) and met Cheryl there. We honked the horn as we passed the house of the nice people who'd given us permission to hunt their property, then parked and started walking up a steep path to the top of a ridge.

Certain details have been changed. Like the fact that there was a zebra farm nearby. And a monastery. That should throw all you site stalkers off. (No really. I did change some details. Or did I?)

After quite a lot of trudging, we reached our destination: a lovely grove of trees. This was officially Cheryl and Doug's site and they'd done a good job “preparing” it (i.e. removing as much fun stuff as they could) before inviting us in. This is the way it's done, and it's totally ok and understandable. I was just grateful for a chance to hunt this nice hill.

Within my first three minutes: a 58 and my very first uniform button! Also dug a gorgeous iron head of a sledgehammer and set it beside a noteworthy tree to retrieve later. What a doorstop it will make!

From there, the pace slowed somewhat. The four of us spread way out. After three hours of straight detector-swinging in fairly thick underbrush, I was dehydrated, hungry, in severe arm-pain, and starting to lose any edge I had. A couple of times, I got totally hung up in brambles and cut my legs trying to get loose. At one point I got up from digging a bullet and looked down to realize I'd lost my jacket – which included my phone. After much moaning and under-the-breath cussing and thrashing about, I found it. I also kept getting lost, for as the planet turned and the sunlight changed, the woods seemed to look different. At one point, I heard a lot of gunshots and retreated rapidly, heart pounding. For the record, folks, deer season is OVER.

But still, it was funner than fun. CRAZY fun. Don't know why. Don't care. Here's a pic of me and Cheryl having fun in the woods. 

Lady Diggers Whit and Cheryl

Isn't Cheryl adorable??? I'm so glad to have an awesome digging buddy who totally understands.

The day's take:

1 really nice BUTTON!

3 58s

1 William's cleaner bullet

1 fired (smashed) bullet

1 piece buckshot

1 brass piece of saddle decoration

1 fossil (not metal, just found)

1 sledgehammer head, forgotten, alone, leaning against a tree, somewhere in Tennessee

Still have some cleaning to do...

"Babe"

This one isn't earth-shattering, but it was instructive in some gentle ways.

A couple of days ago, I was down the street checking out my neighbors' yard. It was cold and I knew I wouldn't be out there long. Dug a few wheat pennies and the usual TUPoM (twisted, unidentifiable pieces of metal). Over by the driveway, got a good, solid signal and there, about 4 inches down, was a dog tag.

Dog tags are among my favorite things to dig; I've found 4 or 5 of them but this was the first that states the name of the dog: Babe.

It said, "I belong to Joe Corley" and gave the address -- one street over from me -- and the phone number, which only had six digits. 

As I stood there, thinking about Babe and Joe and who they were and what kind of dog Babe was and maybe it was Joe's first dog when he was a kid and maybe Babe had gotten lost and never found his way home and there were boyish tears and grief, or maybe joyous reunification over there on Winding Way, or maybe none of that happened and maybe Babe just enjoyed a life freer than most pets today, wandering the neighborhood at will, and maybe had a pooch over here on Camellia Place he liked to visit, or maybe a little old lady who gave him bacon and maybe, maybe, maybe...

OK, I never finished that sentence.

As I stood there maybeing, wondering, the neighbor whose yard it was drove up and I showed her what I'd found in her yard. I teared up a bit for some reason, feeling the rush of connection with the past, wondering if there was a reason for it all, something I needed to do, a message to deliver.

Came home and immediately googled Joe Corley. Turns out Joe was well-known around here, a respected businessman who owned a lot of property around Gallatin Road. A really great guy. A dad. Unfortunately, I learned all this from his obituary. Joe died last October. But his son, Russ, a local minister, was easy to find so I emailed him.

A few days later, Russ drove by to pick up the tag.

I wasn't sure what to expect. Would it be emotional for him seeing Babe's name again, on a shiny circle of stainless steel that had once hung from her warm, soft dogneck, tinkling slightly as she ran through the neighborhood, catching the sunlight on bright mornings? Would it catch his throat to see his dad's name engraved in the metal?

In fact, it was a calm and cordial exchange. He looked at the tag briefly, then put it in his pocket. Babe, Russ told me, was a boxer, a really nice dog who lived to be 13 years old. She died in the early 1960s: 50 years ago. Yes, Russ and his siblings had fun growing up over there on Winding Way. There were creeks to explore.

We talked about the weather, music (he saw my guitar). He warned me to be careful on my metal detecting adventures (he'd read my blog). Then he thanked me, we shook hands, and he left.

And in the silence after the closing of the door, I felt a little foolish. Like I'd been way too invested in his reaction. As if the magic of finding Babe's tag – or what felt like magic anyway – was just something I made up. And that sensible people would have thrown that tag in a plastic box with all the other tags and not thought about it again. That sensible people never would have been out there looking for it in the first place.