More memories

I've written before about my love of my home in Indiana.  After my mother sold the house I dreamed about it nightly.  I can remember every inch of that house even though I can't remember what I ate for breakfast today.  I'm not sure why it calls to me the way it does, but as time passes the dreams aren't as frequent and I don't dwell on my idealistic childhood as much as I used to.  Except when something conjurers up the memories.  (Jeez, just like yesterday's post)

Yesterday when I got on the Internet to begin my blogging I ran through Yahoo's lead stories like I do every day.  I love keeping abreast of what is big in the news and what celebrities are doing what to whom.  There is always some interesting tidbit, fact or outrageous-ness that catches my eye and I'm off and reading the article, a lot of times forgetting why I sat down at the computer in the first place.  Yesterday's eye catching article was this one about a hiker who found an old rusted canister with a note inside written in 1972.  The author of the note was a 13 year old boy who had climbed a peak in the California Sequoia National Park and felt the need to document his accomplishment.  He wrote the equivalent of "a note in a bottle" asking the finder of the canister to drop him a letter at his address which he provided in the note.

Reading the article with a smile, I recalled the times that I had done the same.  I loved the idea that somewhere in the future someone, I usually pictured a kid, would find my note or a box of paraphernalia and read about my life.  I liked that I was leaving a part of me around to be found.

The first note that I hid was in my bedroom at the house above.  I had a closet that ran almost the entire length of my wall.  On either end the closet sunk back further from the opening of the doors so that you pretty much had to enter the closet to touch the side walls.  One time while in my closet, probably hiding from my brother's wrath, I noticed a small hole around the framework of the closet door.  It was big enough to stick my finger in about halfway and that gave me an idea.  I wrote, "My name is Cara and this room was my bedroom.  I hope that whoever finds this note loves this room as much as I did."  Then I folded the paper and jammed it into the hole.  I never messed with the note, but I loved knowing that it was there.  My only concern was that someone would find it while hiding in my closet as it was a great place to hide.

Eventually I moved away and my mother redid the room.  At some point the framing around the outside of the closet was replaced due to an ant problem.  I wondered then about my note, but my mother said nothing like that had turned up.  I couldn't find it, but decided that somehow it got inside the new framework to be discovered years later.  After the house was sold I wondered if in all the remodeling that was done by the new owners if anyone had found my note and if he were as excited about the discovery as I would have been.

The second note I hid was in the lifeguarding room of the country club where I worked for several years.  That room was a huge part of my life for many years.  In the room was a full length mirror attached to one of the concrete walls.  During a weather lull while some of the guards and swim team kids were hanging out in the room, I got the idea to write a note and put it behind the mirror.  We wrote something like, "The gang was all here" and we put the date and then each of us signed the note.  It was written on the back of one of the charge tickets that we filled out when members brought guests to the pool.  We had quite a time sticking the note behind the mirror as the area was quite tight and we had trouble getting the end of the ticket through.  Eventually one of the guards used a thin piece of wire to push the ticket through and we heard it drop to the bottom of the mirror.  I wonder sometimes if anyone ever discovered it when the room and pool were torn down years later.

The third thing that I hid was probably the best.  Each summer when I head back to Indiana I think about trying to find it and dig it up just for nostalgia.  I don't know how old I was, but my friend Michelle and I decided to bury a box of some of our possessions.  I think we were playing that we were explorers on the hill behind her house that had a small covering of trees we called a woods between her property and the people behind her.  We were digging around and we found something minute like a glove or a lighter or something (I have no memory now of what it was that we found) and we thought that was cool and wondered how it got there buried in the dirt.  That gave us the idea to do something just like it.

I have no memory of what we put inside the box, but I do think they were little trinkets that were important to us.  We wrote a note with our names, the date, and why these things were important.  It was sort of done like a time capsule with the note explaining what was happening in our lives on this date.  At least I think that's what it said.  Michelle and I dug a hole and buried the box on that hill in the woods behind her house.  I remember being very secretive about it and keeping an eye out for the people who lived on the hill behind her house as if they were going to come out later that night and dig up our box.  Later on we would occasionally check back to see if the dirt had been touched and then eventually it was forgotten.  I have absolutely no idea of the location of the spot, but I always wonder if anyone has ever discovered it or if anyone ever will.  Mostly now I think how cool it would be to dig it up myself and see what was important to us back then.  The two of us had quite the imagination.

The article on Yahoo yesterday said that the finder of the note was doing what he could to track down the author of the note who would now be 53 years old and hasn't lived at the address provided in years.  I certainly hope that Yahoo keeps track of the story because I want to know how it comes out.  It would finally be nice to have an ending to one of these discoveries at least.