Today's post is what it is because I got lucky on Trade Me. That is New Zealand's version of eBay. I have always loved beachcombing here, and have enjoyed finding a number of natural treasures over the years. However, I'm not above buying an item that I want if the opportunity arises. That's what happened last night. And I got this gem for a bargain.
I think my interest in such objects started in my youth. Years ago, (2010) after I had first been set free from the work-a-day world (When I retired), I wrote a story about my first experience in finding such a treasure. I have included it here.
Once you've plowed your way through it, or maybe just scrolled to it's conclusion, I'll tell you more about my latest find.
(I haven't edited this since I wrote it. In re-reading it now, I identified a number of passages I should change, but I haven't. And I apologize for the odd formatting. I copied it from an old document and messing with formatting in this blog app frustrates me. I've given up on that. You'll just have to put up with the imperfections...and at almost 72, I've got excuses.)
(Also, I published this story once before, as part of my 150th post. Perhaps, since I am now approaching my 600th post, you won't mind me repeating it....those of you who will actually read it, anyway.)
Dentist
to a Bear
From its beginning at the edge of ‘Jimtown’* and winding out of the little iron mining community of Wakefield, Michigan, heading generally eastward, was the bumpy, tire and suspension-destroying stretch of pock-marked pavement known as Castile Road. Houses had been built, for some reason, only along one side of it and as it progressed under the cables that ran between the Engine House and the only remaining mine shaft still in operation in Castile in my youth, the houses spaced along it started thinning out. By the time it started its climb up the hill where my house was located, they were few and far between. Beyond our house there were only 6 more before the road doubled back on itself at what we called ‘the horseshoe.’ Our house was essentially surrounded by wooded hills with all their rock outcroppings and cliffs that were common to the area.
I was the oldest
child in the family. My dad was always
working and my mother had her hands full with caring for the younger kids. I had my share of duties around
the house; washing the dishes and cleaning our bathroom were my
specialties. I also felt at times that I
was unfairly burdened with the responsibility of overseeing the play of my
several younger siblings in the yard.
Still, despite the many demands on my time, I managed somehow to explore
all the lands that lay within the area to which my legs could carry me.
We had a lot of
freedom in those days that today’s kids don’t enjoy. I certainly never considered my parents
permissive. If anything, I felt the
opposite. However, it wasn’t at all
unusual for me to head out in the morning with a lunch in my dad’s old World
War II canvas ammunition carrier and not return until late afternoon. I’d also usually carry the bayonet that fit
the rifle he carried while stationed in the Philippines. I used it as a machete most of the time. You’d be surprised at how often a boy of 9
needs to clear brush on any given hike.
When I opted not to take his bayonet, I’d take the even more impressive
knife that Dad had purchased in ‘the islands.’ It had a long, curved blade that
actually intimidated me with its sharpness and a hand-carved wooden handle and
case. Much later I found that this style
of knife is known as a Lahot in the Philippines, and was the style that many
farmers used when my dad was there.
Many of my
Saturdays during the school year and all my summers were filled with
innumerable hikes, either to one of the three largest hills that I could then
reach, or down what we had aptly named the “Junky Road,” because it served some
of the folks in town as a place to dump unwanted cars or appliances. The Junky Road started nearby at a bend in
the road just down the hill from our house and terminated in a large field
about a mile into the woods. No one
lived along it. It had been a mining
company access road that led past a couple of the deep vertical mine shafts
that were once a part of the system of active mine shafts in Castile Location
that carried ore to the surface. For
almost its entire length it sloped gently downhill. Along one side of it ran a deep ditch that
was dry most of the year, but in the springtime, when the deep snows of winter
were melting away, it could carry a couple of feet of rushing water.
One spring, this
ditch offered my friend Bill and I what we considered to be the prize of our
lifetimes. Since our definition of a
lifetime was, at that time, 9 years give or take, it wasn’t surprising that my
mother, when she found out about the prize and especially when she learned of
the manner in which we had retrieved it, did not agree with the value we placed
on it. In fact she was less than
enthusiastic about me keeping my portion of the find at all. After some discussion, she finally
relented. For my part, I felt that she
put some pretty unreasonable requirements on me for allowing me to keep
it. Mothers took all the joy out of life
sometimes.
The day of our
find, Bill and I had covered a lot of territory. It was one of those perfect spring days, when
almost all of the snow is gone from the sunny parts of the woods. It was warm and we could run outside without
our heavy winter coats, snow pants and boots.
We felt light and free and energized.
Our goal that day was to climb the southern face of Rocky Hill and eat
our lunch on one of its cliffs, overlooking our little town below. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the base of
the hill, we found that there was still considerable snow under the dense trees
that covered its slopes. Snow that was
soft and very wet and would not allow us to cross it without sinking. As an alternative plan, we decided to circle
round the base of the hill, following the snow-free meadows that lay there, to
the headwaters of Jackson’s Creek, which arose from a spring located in the big
field at the end of the Junky Road. We
would then take the Junky Road back home, and stop on the way of course, for
the first time that spring, to drop some rocks down the 2 inch pipe that vented
one of the concrete capped mine shafts along it.
We had a great
time. We followed ‘Jackson Creek’ from
its source in the field to our favorite spot along it located about a half mile
downstream as the crow flies. This was a
deep hole that we had once tried to swim in, but we found the water in it to be
so frigid, even in midsummer, that we couldn’t even pretend to enjoy it. Thereafter we contented ourselves with simply
trying to catch some of the minnows that made it their home.
On this visit we
found that the water had not broken free from winter’s covering of ice. We were mildly disappointed but contented
ourselves with retracing our steps to the sand pit nearby where we made a fire
and roasted a couple of wieners apiece for lunch.
This sand pit was
our regular dining area whenever we visited the creek. We had never built a fire anywhere else. We were very conscientious about our fires
and truly took our responsibility for seeing that it was ‘dead out’ before
leaving it very seriously. Since the sand
pit was some ways from the creek and we had no way to haul water anyway, we
couldn’t extinguish the fire by drowning it out. The expanse of sand we had at our disposal in
the pit solved our problem. We simply
buried the fire when it had burned down.
Once, the summer
before, while we ate our lunch, a man had showed up at our sand pit. He was carrying a large pistol stuffed in his
belt. We were at first uncomfortable
with his visit. We thought that no one
else knew about this pit. It was our
private place. Then too, the
presence of an adult instantly diminished our imagined dominant position within
our ‘territory.’ And, he was carrying a
gun. I wondered briefly if he could be a
‘hobo’ or some other threatening character, but when he greeted us, I
immediately recognized that he was one of the regulars I had often seen when I
turned in empty pop bottles for two cents apiece at Rolando’s Bar in
‘Jimtown.’ Finally, I was faced with an
uncomfortable dilemma. Here we were,
adventurers meeting in the wilderness.
Was I supposed to offer this guy some portion of our lunch? Cowboys on TV. always offered the other guy
some coffee or beans when they ran into one another on the trail. I didn’t want to because we didn’t have much,
but eventually, and probably hesitantly, I did.
I was relieved when he declined.
That day, we
didn’t put our fire out when we left the pit a few minutes later. The guy said it smelled so good, he thought
he’d keep it going for a while and enjoy it himself. I hoped that he’d be responsible when he put
it out.
He had told us
that he was going to do some target practice at the pit. A few minutes later, as we crossed the field
and were approaching the lower end of the Junky Road, we heard his shots
starting. We made plans to try to
recover some of his bullets on our next visit.
Neither Bill nor I had ever seen a real “slug” up close. We could hardly wait. Unfortunately, we never did find any.
I think that only
kids who suffer through an Upper Peninsula winter in the Lake Superior snowbelt
area that averages over two hundred inches of snowfall, can properly appreciate the
wonder of seeing bare ground in the
spring. This entire day had been one
long feast for our eyes as we explored all the secrets on the ground that had
for so long been hidden. And there was
another pleasure for boys in the springtime.
All that melting snow had to go somewhere. This past week at school we had gathered
several times during recess along the edge of “The Boulevard,” that ran in
front of Central School and had floated pieces of bark down the flowing
rivulets next to the curb and watched with fascination as they disappeared down
a miniature waterfall through the grates of the storm sewer at the corner.
Today, as we hiked
back up the Junky Road, we had an even better opportunity to play with the
water. It was running noisily down the
ditch on the left side of the road and was at least two feet deep. We found that we could get a really good
splash when we tossed in large pieces of the iron ore that lay everywhere along
the road. In fact, we noticed that
because the water was moving so quickly, the splash would actually travel with
the water for a few feet, rather than just staying in one spot like it did if
you threw a rock into a lake.
We were about two
thirds of the way up the Junky Road when we saw it. It lay completely submerged under the flowing
water and was hung up in some ice and large brush that clogged the ditch at
this point. It was the remains of a
black bear lying on its back. Most of
its fur remained but its entrails were gone and the hide and meat covering its
ribs had either been eaten or rotted away.
We could count them all, right up to its breastbone. Its paws were all missing. Its head was still covered with fur, but its
eyes were gone and its mouth was open wide in a ferocious snarl. What meat we could see was gray and little
bits of it were moving back and forth in the swirling water. It appeared to us that the water was slowly
washing ‘our’ bear away and that we had to act quickly if we were to salvage
any portion of him.
We ran to my house
and with the wisdom of children who do not want to be questioned by their
parents, snuck in the back door and went quietly down to the basement where my
dad kept his tool box. I grabbed a pair
of pliers and just as quickly, exited the way we had come. Before long we were back at the bear and
beginning our operations.
Most of the bear
was visible, but was frozen into the ice below him. We would not be able to pull him out of the
water. Since his paws were gone, claws
were out of the question as trophies. His teeth though, were there, waiting to
be pulled.
His head was
fairly near the surface of the water, no more than a few inches below it. To pull his canines then, we had to reach out over
the ditch, submerge our hands in the freezing, rushing water, and pry away at
what we discovered were very firmly rooted teeth. It was hard to see clearly just how good a
hold we had on a tooth because the moving water refracted what we were
seeing. We worked alternately with the
pliers for quite some time. We could
only stand to keep our hand in that frigid water for a couple of minutes before
we had to turn the pliers over to the other while we would blow on our hands to
warm them again. Soon, our pants were
very wet from kneeling at the edge of the ditch, and from slipping in now and
then as we tried to gain more leverage, and we were wet to the elbows of our
coats from reaching below the surface of the stream.
But we were triumphant. We each had a genuine bear’s tooth. We knew of no other kid in our class who
could make that claim and we each intended to drill a hole in our tooth, string
it on a leather boot lace, and wear them to school on Monday. What a sensation we would make and how
thrilling it would be to tell the others of our adventure! There is nothing that would elevate the
status of a boy like having a bear tooth to wear. We had seen innumerable Indians on TV. that
wore all sorts of feathers and teeth and claws when they went on the war path
or were making medicine. It’s true we
only had one, but it was a start. I
think as we trudged home, cold and wet but happy, that bear was already getting
bigger in our minds and by the time we told about in school, it would be a
monster.
When we got to my
house, our elation caused me to put aside any fears that my mother might not
find a rotting bear’s tooth to be an acceptable keepsake. We happily showed her what we had. She asked how we had come to have them and I
told her that we had pulled them ourselves out of a carcass that was in the
ditch. I said that it looked like the
bear was about half rotted away, but that since it was underwater, it didn’t
smell or anything. We hoped, I said, to
recover more of his bones and maybe his whole head, once he thawed out of the
ice and we could pull him up onto the Junky Road.
At this point, my
mother, who was the daughter of a prominent lawyer in St. Paul, and had spent
her youth in gracious and dignified living before getting married and ending up
in the backwoods of the Upper Peninsula, for a few seconds simply stared at me
in disbelief. I realized, with a sinking
feeling, that giving her an exact description of the events, the recovery process
and most of all, the condition of the bear, had been a big mistake. My tooth was confiscated, the condition of my
clothes was noticed and worst of all, she stated her immediate intention of
calling Bill’s mother with the whole story.
By the time she
returned from the telephone, I had my wet clothes off and she proceeded to see
that my hands were sterilized. It took a
lot of washing and with her coarsest bar of
old-fashioned brown laundry soap to satisfy her that they were finally
clean enough, but the process must have softened her resolve a little because
she did finally agree that I could keep the tooth if I kept it in a bottle of
alcohol. I asked her if I couldn’t soak
it in the alcohol for a really long time; say, a couple of hours, and then
drill it and string it on a leather strap.
That was out of the question. She
tried then to make me feel better by suggesting that I could still bring it to
school. Moms just don’t understand. The prospect of bringing my bear’s tooth to
school in a bottle of alcohol was too terrible to even consider. The other boys would immediately ask why I
hadn’t strung it on a cord instead of doing something stupid like putting it in
a jar. My status would actually be
diminished.
My bear’s tooth
stood for a while in its jar on top of the cupboard in our kitchen where we
kept our dishes. Each time I looked at
it, I imagined what could have been. I thought that if only I had claimed to have found the tooth lying on the ground
somewhere, I’d be wearing it proudly.
In those days Mom
hauled us off to confession every other Saturday afternoon. Such was my disappointment and bitterness over this
episode of parental unfairness, that I vowed then to lie in the future if I
found another such treasure, and I didn’t care if it was a sin.
I was strictly
forbidden to return to that bear and apparently, once the ice had melted
underneath it, it got carried away by the current. In any event, it wasn’t in the ditch when I
walked down the Junky Road the next time.
I stopped momentarily where it had been in the ditch and once again
fantasized a very different ending to the story. I could just see the bear’s huge, gleaming
white skull, cleaned and nailed to a board that I’d hang on the wall in my
bedroom. I decided that it would be
worth giving up my bear-tooth pendant so that I could glue it back in to its
proper place in its snarl. I didn’t know
if Bill would give me back the other tooth, so that I could complete my trophy,
but knowing his mother, I doubted that he still had it anyway. He sure hadn’t worn it to school.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My bear tooth unfortunately disappeared all those long years ago. I discovered that soaking in isopropyl alcohol had damaged my trophy. When I took it down one day from the shelf on which I stored the jar, I discovered that the tooth had started to dissolve. I threw it out. Owning a fuzzy approximation of a bear's tooth was pitiful. I wish I had taken a picture of it while it was in its prime. I'd be able to show it to you now.
Fortunately, for all of us, I do have pictures of some of the current treasures I value, and I have just received the newest one, the one I bought recently.
If you read my post, "A bit of this, a dash of that," then you saw a shot of a couple of my favorites glued to a hat. We'll look closer this time.
This star fish came in on a wave as I stood watching the surf at Anawhata Beach. I couldn't believe it.
I think that this looks like some creepy-crawly critter on steroids. In fact, it is a rhizome from beach grass that I found on Bethells Beach and trimmed, dried and shellacked.
These are two jaws from puffer fish. Puffer fish do not have separate teeth. They have a sort of plate that is powerful enough to open shellfish and to scrape algae off rocks.
I found one on Kaiterakihi Beach and one on Birthday Beach. (Birthday Beach is our name for an area a few miles north of Muriwai Beach. We visited it once on Allie's birthday and couldn't find another name on the map for the site. So, we named it.)
Both of these were still very much a part of dead puffer fish that I found on the beach. I removed the front of the head of each of them and placed them in plastic containers, which I then wrapped up, hoping to eliminate any odors. I was only partially successful. My family was brave and put up with me. I cleaned them at home, sterilized them with boiling water and bleach, and shellacked them.
Mom would have had a conniption fit.
This is the upper portion of the skull of a snapper, a very popular and delicious game fish. I found it on Maraetai Beach.
This is sea salt taken from water I (and grandsons Amiri and Arram) collected at Muriwai Beach.
I bought all these from a guy on the western coast of the South Island. They are barbs from the tails of sting rays.
Nasty looking, aren't they?
And here is my latest acquisition. A shark jaw. The seller told me he got it from a friend of his who harvested it from the Pacific waters off Tutukaka, which is about 138 kilometers or 83 miles due north of Auckland. He didn't know what species of shark it is, but I've been doing some research. I've looked carefully at the shape of its teeth and think it's a school shark.
(It's about 6.25 inches across and almost 7 inches top to bottom.)
It feels good when a long-awaited goal is reached. I no longer have school friends, but I do hang around with a number of other guys here. I'll have to just casually mention at some point about my latest acquisition and ask if they'd like to come over to our apartment to take a look. I think I'd find it rather cumbersome to wear around my neck. -djf
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