A
Anonymous
Guest
I'll never forget the first detecting trip I went on, it's as crystal clear now as though it just happened. Not because of what was found but because of how the guy the detector belonged to reacted to one of the finds. His name was Flavius Lockhart, it was March of 1967 and he had just moved here from Tennessee and got a job where I worked. One of his cousins had found an old iron pot with a few silver coins in it that washed out of a creek bank in Tennessee and Flavius bought a Ted Williams model Sears & Roebuck detector, made by Whites, so he could find a pot of money for himself. A few day after he started work he asked me if I knew where any old homesites were that he could hunt and if I did would I take him to the oldest one. I wasn't the least bit interested in hunting treasure but I was curious about the detector. I had never seen one and was curious as to how they worked and what they did.
There was a homesite not far from where we lived that dated, according to the property owner, to the early 1820's. He said it was the site where his ancestors had built their first home when they came in this area but it had burned around 1840 and they had built in a different place. I told Flavius about it and he almost went ballistic. He wanted to go after work that day but I had a prior commitment and told him we would go the next day. The rest of that day, and all the next, he talked nonstop about finding a pot of money, at least I think he did. He had, still has, a speech impediment and when he gets excited it's hard to understand him. He was also prone to blowing spit out when he talked fast so you didn't want to stand too close.
He brought the detector and we left straight from work the next day. By the time we got to the site, which required walking through some pretty bad undergrowth, he was so excited and talking so fast we (Joe Reeves, another friend, went with us) couldn't understand most of what he was saying. He fired up the detector, it had no discrimination and a 12 inch coil, and started swinging. Signals were few and far between and after half an hour and a few severely rusted pieces of iron, Joe and I were ready to call it a day but Flavius was just getting warmed up. An hour, a few shotgun hulls and more iron later he hit the jackpot, a signal that he said was something big. We dug down a foot, nothing yet but he was saying "This is it boys, this is it" over and over. Least that's what we think he was saying, sounded more like "thisshitboils, thisshitboils". Another foot down and he was almost hysterical. At about 30 inches Joe, who was digging, hit something solid. Flavius jumped in the hole and started scratching like crazy with his bare hands, then jumped out and I swear he did the Red Foxx thing like on Sanford and Son. You know, where he grabs his chest, stumbles backwards and says "this is the big one Martha" or whatever her name was. Flavius grabbed his chest, and jabbering incoherently he stumbled backward until he bumped into a tree. We looked and it actually was an old iron pot, upside down but an iron pot for sure.<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/cleotus/pot.jpg" align="left" vspace="2"hspace="2"/> Flavius was incomprehensible by then, blabbering a hundred miles an hour and spraying spit all over himself. Joe pulled the pot out of the ground, turned it over and it was full.....of dirt. Flavius wouldn't believe it, he got in the hole and dug and dug but nothing but the empty pot. He finally accepted there was no money and didn't say anything more all the way to my house.
I brought the pot home, it was the kind that was hung on a hanger in the fireplace to cook in, something like a Dutch oven. I was tickled over it. I cleaned it, painted it black and my wife used it for a flower pot until her one of her young nephews knocked it off the stand on the patio years later and it broke in half. As far as I know Flavius hasn't been detecting since but I asked him about 10 years ago if he still had the detector and he said he did.
I've thought about that countless times over the years. I've never understood why but to Flavius that empty pot was one of the biggest disappointments of his life, he told me so more than once. To me it was a wonder. I couldn't believe there was a magic machine that could see into the ground.....into the past. And it really is magic you know <img src="/metal/html/smile.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt="
">.
JB
There was a homesite not far from where we lived that dated, according to the property owner, to the early 1820's. He said it was the site where his ancestors had built their first home when they came in this area but it had burned around 1840 and they had built in a different place. I told Flavius about it and he almost went ballistic. He wanted to go after work that day but I had a prior commitment and told him we would go the next day. The rest of that day, and all the next, he talked nonstop about finding a pot of money, at least I think he did. He had, still has, a speech impediment and when he gets excited it's hard to understand him. He was also prone to blowing spit out when he talked fast so you didn't want to stand too close.
He brought the detector and we left straight from work the next day. By the time we got to the site, which required walking through some pretty bad undergrowth, he was so excited and talking so fast we (Joe Reeves, another friend, went with us) couldn't understand most of what he was saying. He fired up the detector, it had no discrimination and a 12 inch coil, and started swinging. Signals were few and far between and after half an hour and a few severely rusted pieces of iron, Joe and I were ready to call it a day but Flavius was just getting warmed up. An hour, a few shotgun hulls and more iron later he hit the jackpot, a signal that he said was something big. We dug down a foot, nothing yet but he was saying "This is it boys, this is it" over and over. Least that's what we think he was saying, sounded more like "thisshitboils, thisshitboils". Another foot down and he was almost hysterical. At about 30 inches Joe, who was digging, hit something solid. Flavius jumped in the hole and started scratching like crazy with his bare hands, then jumped out and I swear he did the Red Foxx thing like on Sanford and Son. You know, where he grabs his chest, stumbles backwards and says "this is the big one Martha" or whatever her name was. Flavius grabbed his chest, and jabbering incoherently he stumbled backward until he bumped into a tree. We looked and it actually was an old iron pot, upside down but an iron pot for sure.<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/cleotus/pot.jpg" align="left" vspace="2"hspace="2"/> Flavius was incomprehensible by then, blabbering a hundred miles an hour and spraying spit all over himself. Joe pulled the pot out of the ground, turned it over and it was full.....of dirt. Flavius wouldn't believe it, he got in the hole and dug and dug but nothing but the empty pot. He finally accepted there was no money and didn't say anything more all the way to my house.
I brought the pot home, it was the kind that was hung on a hanger in the fireplace to cook in, something like a Dutch oven. I was tickled over it. I cleaned it, painted it black and my wife used it for a flower pot until her one of her young nephews knocked it off the stand on the patio years later and it broke in half. As far as I know Flavius hasn't been detecting since but I asked him about 10 years ago if he still had the detector and he said he did.
I've thought about that countless times over the years. I've never understood why but to Flavius that empty pot was one of the biggest disappointments of his life, he told me so more than once. To me it was a wonder. I couldn't believe there was a magic machine that could see into the ground.....into the past. And it really is magic you know <img src="/metal/html/smile.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt="
">.JB