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<p>[QUOTE="lordmarcovan, post: 3126395, member: 10461"]In 1994 a North Carolina coin dealer told me this tale, or the bare bones of it, anyway.</p><p><br /></p><p>It allegedly happened near Orangeburg, South Carolina, in the wake of the wide swath of destruction wrought by <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Hugo#Meteorological_history" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Hugo#Meteorological_history" rel="nofollow">Hurricane Hugo</a> on the Carolina Lowcountry.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now bear in mind that the tale I'm about to tell you is from a secondhand word-of-mouth story I heard 24 years ago, so it's been embellished over many retellings, and by now it's more legend than factual account.</p><p><br /></p><p>(<b>Edit</b>: and I've embellished it even <i>more</i> here, after making it into sort of a short serial. Ever go to the movies and see "<i>Based On Actual Events</i>" at the beginning of the film? Well, sometimes you've got 90% fiction painted atop 10% fact. Think of this tale that way, though even the few "facts" are hearsay. But something <i>like</i> this <i>might</i> have happened. I for one like to believe that it did.)</p><p><br /></p><p>I found the story plausible the way it was told to me.</p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway ...</p><p><br /></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633"><b>Once upon a time,</b> around the year 1989, there was a homeowner near Orangeburg, SC, who was cleaning up storm damage on his property. A giant live oak tree had been toppled by Hurricane Hugo, which was an extremely devastating major hurricane.</span></font></font></p><p><br /></p><p>I imagine the scene might have looked something like this photo I took last September, when Hurricane Irma felled two big oaks onto my father's house here in coastal Georgia. And that one was just a "near miss"!</p><p><br /></p><p><font size="4">(That's my daughter standing next to the root mass of one of the fallen trees. Note the roofline of Dad's house in the background.)</font></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]796769[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633">So anyway, imagine this guy with a fallen oak in his yard. He has a tree crew come out, and there are chainsaws roaring for a day or two, until it's all cut up and hauled away.</span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633"><br /></span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633">But then there's this great big deep crater left in his yard, where the roots of the tree had been in the ground for a very long time. Centuries, probably.</span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633"><br /></span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633">What's he to do? Well, our homeowner gets himself a truckload of fill dirt brought in, and fills in the crater where the huge tree had been, tamping it down and packing the dirt into the hole as firmly as he can, so that it won't subside later. Eventually, he'll probably lay some sod, or plant grass over it. Maybe plant azaleas or something.</span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633"><br /></span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633">But that's for later. It's sweaty and dirty work down in that hole, so when he's done filling the earth back in, he goes inside the house and shucks off his muddy coveralls in the laundry room, then dives into the shower. The shower is a blessed relief. He's exhausted, but he had promised to take his wife out that night, so he gets dressed in clean clothes for their dinner date.</span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633"><br /></span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633">Then he goes to retrieve his wallet from the back pocket of his grubby coveralls in the utility room. But he can't find the wallet anywhere. Becoming frustrated and maybe a bit frantic, he forces himself to calm his mind and mentally retraces his steps.</span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633"><br /></span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633">Had the wallet been in his back pocket at all? Yes, it had. He had paid the tree cutting crew. And then the guy who brought the truckload of dirt. And then he'd put the wallet into his back pocket with his bandanna.</span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633"><br /></span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633">And he remembered pulling the bandanna out of his back pocket to mop his forehead... when he was <i>down in the bottom of the hole</i>.</span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633"><br /></span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633">Oh my gosh! He'd probably just accidentally <i>buried his wallet</i>!</span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633"><br /></span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633">The Mrs. must have paid for dinner that night.</span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633"><br /></span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633">Later, after dinner, or maybe in the predawn hours of the next day, he's back out there in the dark with a lantern and a shovel, and begins to<i> re-</i>dig the hole he had just filled in. He has to go all the way down to the bottom of it, too. </span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633"><br /></span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633">Finally, he sees the corner of his mud-encrusted leather wallet sticking out of the last shovelful of loose dirt.</span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633"><br /></span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633">Relieved, he goes to stick the shovel into the firmer, unexcavated dirt at the bottom of the hole so he can bend to pick up the wallet, but as he jabs the shovel down, it strikes something in the ground with a sharp "thud" - almost a "clang" - jarring his wrist. The shovel falls down instead of sticking in the dirt.</span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633"><br /></span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633">Shining the light, he can just see the corner of something <i>else</i> beneath where the corner of his wallet is sticking out.</span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633"><br /></span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633">Something metallic ... something with a gleam like ...</span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633"><br /></span></font></font></p><p><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633">... <i>gold.</i></span></font></font></p><p><i><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633"><br /></span></font></font></i></p><p><i><font face="Georgia"><font size="5"><span style="color: #006633">(To be continued)</span></font></font></i></p><p><i><font face="Georgia"><span style="color: #006633"><br /></span></font></i></p><p><i><font face="Georgia"><span style="color: #006633">...</span></font></i>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="lordmarcovan, post: 3126395, member: 10461"]In 1994 a North Carolina coin dealer told me this tale, or the bare bones of it, anyway. It allegedly happened near Orangeburg, South Carolina, in the wake of the wide swath of destruction wrought by [URL='https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Hugo#Meteorological_history']Hurricane Hugo[/URL] on the Carolina Lowcountry. Now bear in mind that the tale I'm about to tell you is from a secondhand word-of-mouth story I heard 24 years ago, so it's been embellished over many retellings, and by now it's more legend than factual account. ([B]Edit[/B]: and I've embellished it even [I]more[/I] here, after making it into sort of a short serial. Ever go to the movies and see "[I]Based On Actual Events[/I]" at the beginning of the film? Well, sometimes you've got 90% fiction painted atop 10% fact. Think of this tale that way, though even the few "facts" are hearsay. But something [I]like[/I] this [I]might[/I] have happened. I for one like to believe that it did.) I found the story plausible the way it was told to me. Anyway ... [FONT=Georgia][SIZE=5][COLOR=#006633][B]Once upon a time,[/B] around the year 1989, there was a homeowner near Orangeburg, SC, who was cleaning up storm damage on his property. A giant live oak tree had been toppled by Hurricane Hugo, which was an extremely devastating major hurricane.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT] I imagine the scene might have looked something like this photo I took last September, when Hurricane Irma felled two big oaks onto my father's house here in coastal Georgia. And that one was just a "near miss"! [SIZE=4](That's my daughter standing next to the root mass of one of the fallen trees. Note the roofline of Dad's house in the background.)[/SIZE] [ATTACH=full]796769[/ATTACH] [FONT=Georgia][SIZE=5][COLOR=#006633]So anyway, imagine this guy with a fallen oak in his yard. He has a tree crew come out, and there are chainsaws roaring for a day or two, until it's all cut up and hauled away. But then there's this great big deep crater left in his yard, where the roots of the tree had been in the ground for a very long time. Centuries, probably. What's he to do? Well, our homeowner gets himself a truckload of fill dirt brought in, and fills in the crater where the huge tree had been, tamping it down and packing the dirt into the hole as firmly as he can, so that it won't subside later. Eventually, he'll probably lay some sod, or plant grass over it. Maybe plant azaleas or something. But that's for later. It's sweaty and dirty work down in that hole, so when he's done filling the earth back in, he goes inside the house and shucks off his muddy coveralls in the laundry room, then dives into the shower. The shower is a blessed relief. He's exhausted, but he had promised to take his wife out that night, so he gets dressed in clean clothes for their dinner date. Then he goes to retrieve his wallet from the back pocket of his grubby coveralls in the utility room. But he can't find the wallet anywhere. Becoming frustrated and maybe a bit frantic, he forces himself to calm his mind and mentally retraces his steps. Had the wallet been in his back pocket at all? Yes, it had. He had paid the tree cutting crew. And then the guy who brought the truckload of dirt. And then he'd put the wallet into his back pocket with his bandanna. And he remembered pulling the bandanna out of his back pocket to mop his forehead... when he was [I]down in the bottom of the hole[/I]. Oh my gosh! He'd probably just accidentally [I]buried his wallet[/I]! The Mrs. must have paid for dinner that night. Later, after dinner, or maybe in the predawn hours of the next day, he's back out there in the dark with a lantern and a shovel, and begins to[I] re-[/I]dig the hole he had just filled in. He has to go all the way down to the bottom of it, too. Finally, he sees the corner of his mud-encrusted leather wallet sticking out of the last shovelful of loose dirt. Relieved, he goes to stick the shovel into the firmer, unexcavated dirt at the bottom of the hole so he can bend to pick up the wallet, but as he jabs the shovel down, it strikes something in the ground with a sharp "thud" - almost a "clang" - jarring his wrist. The shovel falls down instead of sticking in the dirt. Shining the light, he can just see the corner of something [I]else[/I] beneath where the corner of his wallet is sticking out. Something metallic ... something with a gleam like ... ... [I]gold.[/I][/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT] [I][FONT=Georgia][SIZE=5][COLOR=#006633] (To be continued)[/COLOR][/SIZE] [COLOR=#006633] ...[/COLOR][/FONT][/I][/QUOTE]
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