Uncovered and reburied.
A friend once purchased an old station wagon from a much older original owner and brought it over to my place for the sort of cleanup and tinkering I enjoy doing on someone's new ride. While clearing out the years of accumulated dust and crud from the interior, I opened up the footwell vent box on the passenger side of the vehicle and found a thick envelope taped to the side of the box. Opening that up revealed several hundred dollars in assorted twenty and fifty dollar bills. Being honest sorts, we called up the prior owner of the vehicle and were told, "well, it was for emergencies involving the car so I guess it's part of the car: enjoy it." We certainly did: taking care of registration, inspections, plates and a full tuneup without spending any more of my friend's money was especially pleasant - and the last time I visited him he was still using that spiffy old wagon.


On the Upcountry Maui farm property I lived on for many years, we noticed a section of the land where the ground boomed if you walked on it with a heavy tread. After some impromptu soundings to determine the general dimensions, we hired some acoustic analyzers from O'ahu and determined the most likely place to dig for an entrance. We hit paydirt on our first excavation: a shielded entranceway to a twelve hundred square foot plus fallout shelter which we assumed was built during the Duck and Cover era of the Fifties. We called the prior two owners of the land and they said they had no idea it was there. As the owner before that was long dead, we concluded he was responsible for the heavy duty construction work. We cleaned it up and ran electric power and some basic plumbing to it, then effectively sealed it back up again: there really was not much else we could think to do with it as we had several perfectly good houses scattered across the property and were not inclined to rent out a cave to someone else.

I just realized we didn't tell Haku about the shelter when we sold the property to her: I guess that little bit of treasure has been successfully reburied.


Several months after my father had died and we had finished all the details of his passing, I returned to the islands to spend some quality time with my mother. During an episode where we cleared out dad's closet space, mom said I was welcome to the old training revolvers (we used blanks on hikes with the setters to acclimate them to gunshots for those unfamiliar with the practice) and his favorite shotgun. As we folded up his shirts and pants to donate to a local charity, mom handed me his overstuffed tie rack (nothing but high quality thin silk ties: my dad's formal fashions would do a rude boy proud) and a box filled with his various money belts saying, "he traveled with you the most: I think he would like you to have these. And if you find some money in them, so much the better." Five belts, seven hundred dollars. Thanks, dad.
( Felis Concolor, Fri 1 Jul 2005, 8:03, Reply)