11-26-2014, 12:31 AM
Hey guys, 11-25-2014
I do know some of it, but really don't know how some of you guys really feel about detecting. This could be titled ,"Why I Love Detecting", as Joe posted several days ago, but I'd like to call it a supplement comment and thread.
This is the way I think about metal detecting.
I know that sometimes I feel as if I am so far into a site, in "that" specific place, I'm almost there, right there, where that history passed long before my existence. Much as that kid in the video with the old Colt Army pistol. And sometimes I go back to that site over and over and over again to make another find, trying to make a connection again, trying to make the feeling come back. Attempting to understand why this thing/find is there. I cover a ton of ground. A ton. Other detectorists were there. It may be goofy on my part, or maybe a little nuts from another perspective, but to me it's almost like I am looking for a base, a target that gives me insight into where those people were, why were they there, was that find they lost important, did they make it through the day without it. Did it make a difference to them? What did they do? But in my heart I know overthinking a site can be just as foolhardy as underthinking it. A balance is needed. (And different coils and different detectors.) Imagine....a silver quarter and three dimes at one site, all separate, all alone in a 40 x 40 foot well overgrown area. Re-detected five times. Nothing but wheats and memorials. A walker half and a quarter on the side of a steep slope? A 1902 Barber dime plain out buried 4 inches down on a path in the woods in the year 2014. A 112 year old coin! Who was there? Why? Is there more I can find about that area? Questions abound.
These questions and areas sometimes bother me a great deal. You? Maybe I'm just sensitive and should take it for what it is. But then, where would the mystery be? Where would the spirit of discovery be that I find so, so much in metal detecting?
I understand more about my roots in metal detecting now more than I have ever before. Not exactly mine specifically, but those people on this site and those that were there, on those areas, at 4, 6, 8 and 10 inches down. It's opened my eyes in many ways.
Yeah, I know it may be a little quirky, but I think the real base for us as detectorists is much more than a terrific find. It's a challenge to our skill, our perseverance and our personal determination that we actually "are" detectorists. Really. And also why we do it, and search it, and find it, when the odds against it are absolutely phenomenal! I discovered that it is not much of a mystery to me as is the desire to know that it is out there. Everywhere. The finds are great; super nuggets, LC's, buckles, buttons and silver and so many others that the page here would be full of categories.
I can't believe it. But I've done it. And still can't believe it.
The hole is open, the find photographed and posted. But the thrill is never over. It remains in the next hunt, the next excursion into the past, the next piece of our own history as detectorists, finding things that will never ever, never be found again, in that spot, in that place. Our special individual place. The find we find.
Our find.
Believe!
Keep on swinging.
Happy Thanksgiving!!! We are all alive to live it!
Ed
I do know some of it, but really don't know how some of you guys really feel about detecting. This could be titled ,"Why I Love Detecting", as Joe posted several days ago, but I'd like to call it a supplement comment and thread.
This is the way I think about metal detecting.
I know that sometimes I feel as if I am so far into a site, in "that" specific place, I'm almost there, right there, where that history passed long before my existence. Much as that kid in the video with the old Colt Army pistol. And sometimes I go back to that site over and over and over again to make another find, trying to make a connection again, trying to make the feeling come back. Attempting to understand why this thing/find is there. I cover a ton of ground. A ton. Other detectorists were there. It may be goofy on my part, or maybe a little nuts from another perspective, but to me it's almost like I am looking for a base, a target that gives me insight into where those people were, why were they there, was that find they lost important, did they make it through the day without it. Did it make a difference to them? What did they do? But in my heart I know overthinking a site can be just as foolhardy as underthinking it. A balance is needed. (And different coils and different detectors.) Imagine....a silver quarter and three dimes at one site, all separate, all alone in a 40 x 40 foot well overgrown area. Re-detected five times. Nothing but wheats and memorials. A walker half and a quarter on the side of a steep slope? A 1902 Barber dime plain out buried 4 inches down on a path in the woods in the year 2014. A 112 year old coin! Who was there? Why? Is there more I can find about that area? Questions abound.
These questions and areas sometimes bother me a great deal. You? Maybe I'm just sensitive and should take it for what it is. But then, where would the mystery be? Where would the spirit of discovery be that I find so, so much in metal detecting?
I understand more about my roots in metal detecting now more than I have ever before. Not exactly mine specifically, but those people on this site and those that were there, on those areas, at 4, 6, 8 and 10 inches down. It's opened my eyes in many ways.
Yeah, I know it may be a little quirky, but I think the real base for us as detectorists is much more than a terrific find. It's a challenge to our skill, our perseverance and our personal determination that we actually "are" detectorists. Really. And also why we do it, and search it, and find it, when the odds against it are absolutely phenomenal! I discovered that it is not much of a mystery to me as is the desire to know that it is out there. Everywhere. The finds are great; super nuggets, LC's, buckles, buttons and silver and so many others that the page here would be full of categories.
I can't believe it. But I've done it. And still can't believe it.
The hole is open, the find photographed and posted. But the thrill is never over. It remains in the next hunt, the next excursion into the past, the next piece of our own history as detectorists, finding things that will never ever, never be found again, in that spot, in that place. Our special individual place. The find we find.
Our find.
Believe!
Keep on swinging.
Happy Thanksgiving!!! We are all alive to live it!
Ed