Sword thrust towards the Heavens posted 10/14/2009 5:15:20 PM | 14 kudos what's this?     report abuse

ColdinWisconsin

I get called into the office. It doesn't happen often and I'm feeling a bit like the adolescents that I work with...frantically running through my mind all of the naughty things I've done and discarding the ones my boss couldn't possibly know about.

He tells me to shut the door and beckons me to one of the empty punishment seats. They are all punishment seats really. Can't think of anyone off the top of my head who have sat in them without either crying or fighting the desperate urge to wet their pants. He's a good guy, but he scares the merry hell out of the kids with a glance. I envy him that.

He seemingly ignores me for a moment while he snaps a folded newspaper from on his desk open. He scans for a moment and begins to read. Goose bumps cover my arms and quickly spread to my legs and everywhere in between as he reads.

It seems a 50 something year old man from England was traipsing through a friends land last month with a metal detector. Retired and all, he's got nothing else better to do than dig around hoping to strike gold or find some junk to bring home and pile on the mantelpiece. If he's real lucky, he might even score a few crusty bones to gift to his kids when he dies.

His deep voice slowly fills the room as he continues to read about this lucky son of a bitch who landed on the mother load. After over a thousand objects were removed from the area, this tea drinking, metal disk swishing guy had found the largest 7th century loot pile in the history of the world.

My boss isn't even half done with the article and he goes quiet and kind of stares of into space. I only realize this now as I was pretty much doing the same thing.

Does it say if he's single?

Mike (not his real name) bursts out laughing. I'm mostly serious here and he knows it.. Pretty much why it's so funny.

We have the same secret passion he and I. I soak in the tub for hours reading my Archeology magazines and he does miles upon miles on his elliptical while reading his National Geographic. We exchange our bloated and sweat stained fantasies once a month. We are good enough friends that we wouldn't think of telling each other what is inside. Reading about these ancient discoveries is about as close as either one of us is going to come to holding one in our hands.

He looks down and goes back to reading the Journal/Sentinel. I glance at the clock for a brief moment wondering how my 54 kids are doing with the distract administrator watching them and I catch the high-pitch giggles. Nervous laughter you would think, but I'm actually so hopped on on crust cross and moldy bones juice I'm ready to implode.

He reads on about the jewelry, the bones, the structures, the crosses, just fookin' everything. My boss looks at me and grins big enough for me to see each and every one of his teeth. It's a first for us. We've never broken the taboo of telling each other about this stuff, we've always left it to the other to discovery these wonderful articles for themselves.

It's how I want to die Mike. (he raises his eyebrows at me) I want to be found dead from a stroke. Once hand clutched over my heart, body covered in 7th century crosses, 40 jewel filled necklaces around my throat and a rusty coin finder clutched in one hand. All this while the water from the rain slowly rises to cover my body in the grave I've dug for myself while hauling out those treasures.

He rolls his eyes and says, "Screw that. I wanna be found dead from starvation having never gone home and just worked the site until I looked like a political activist gone mad. No jewelery on me he says...it would ruin the picture. He wants to be found flat on his back while one rigor mortis arm thrusts an ancient sword towards the heavens." All this, he says, after he's arranged monolithic stones to spell out his name so as to give proper credit to his discovery.

Dammit.

Brilliant.

And now I want to die right next to him.

Do you think he found one object and ran and told the neighbor? Called the museum or somthing? Do you think he could possibly have been that stoooopid and unselfish?

No way he says. The guy had to have gone on digging and freaking out until the battery ran out on the metal detector (it was 14 years old) Making piles and sorting it by either which ones he found first, or which ones he thought would fit in the trunk (boot for the Englanders) of his car. And really, who cares? Do you really care what he did? I'd rather talk about we we would do.

I tell him I would have dug with my Ace Hardware gardening tools until they were slivered stumps...just like my limbs would be because I would dig with my fingernails until I had found every scrap of it.

The bell rings and we both glance up shocked, realizing that 480 kids are plowing down the hallway to lunch and neither one of us is doing our job.

"I'll make you a copy of this", he promises as he hops all 6'6 of himself out of the chair and bounds out the door. I myself move much more slowly. Drunk-like almost. He's had more time than I to digest this whole thing after all.

I come through his office door and there is the secretary and two teachers looking at me with no small amount of pity and a pinch of horror too. I've been in there with the door closed for quite a while and I know they are looking for blood shot eyes or a wet spot on my pants.

I do cry later on that day. While I'm soaking in the tub. My place to either read a mammoth book or get lost in my own thoughts. My imagination is pronounced enough for me to easily place myself as the discoverer of this grand excavation of the past.

To touch the ancient. To honor the past. Their lives. Their deaths. Our mother's and father's ancestors. And while most of you already think I'm crazy, I would have lovingly pick up those bones and brushed them against my lips while whispering my own prayers to our ancestry.

And yes, I do believe I could love Terry Herbert even with that horrific tie. That bastard has earned the right to look like a knob and be admired.

The photo'shttp://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/gallery/2009/09/anglo-saxon-hoard.php?img=1

***


Herbert, from the town of Burntwood, found the gold on a friend's farm on July 5 and spent the next five days scouring the field for the rest of the hoard. Herbert recovered the first items before professional archaeologists took over the excavation.

"Imagine you're at home and somebody keeps putting money through your letterbox, that was what it was like," Herbert said. "I was going to bed and in my sleep I was seeing gold items."

Oh yes Terry...I do believe I could imagine that....

A picnic basket, my beater jeans and favorite hiking boots. A rust metal detector, sprinkles of rain and a few digging utensils. The most important ingredia

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