Here is an article I wrote about an interesting dig at a local school park.

Discovering the True Treasure

By: Kansas Digger

The day started well. I finally got dialed in with the Teknetics Omega 8000, I was hearing the deep signals easily, and the clad tones sounded like I was playing pinball. Then a scratchy high tone, with a solid 84 vdi number hit my headphones, it was my favorite sound in the world, and I knew as I dug, something great was about to appear. I searched with my pro pointer, locked onto the target, started scratching with my fingers, and suddenly, out popped a beautiful little sterling ring. I was still in silver bliss when I left to pick up my wife from work. I drove her home telling her what I had found and begged her to let me continue the lucky day. With a small smirk, and a roll of her eyes, she granted me the permission to continue the search for treasure. I kissed her goodbye, as I rushed back out the door, and dove into the car. As I backed out of the drive, my mind was racing on where to go. I decided to try the school down the road. The kids were on spring break, and I thought, “What perfect to detect our local school yards.”I arrived, and as I had hoped, the park was empty. I was off, collecting clad right and left.

As I was digging up a dime, I heard what may be, the worst sentence, a detector can here, while in the zone. A child’s voice, that at that moment, sounded like an iron tone, two inches deep, with headphones that have no volume control, say, “hey man, what are you digging?” At that moment, I knew, the day was about to take a bad turn.

Two young boys, with no prompt, took interest, and started following me so close, I could hardly swing my machine. I have dealt with this situation before, and keep my Teknetics Delta 4000 in the car for just this type of distraction. I gave them a quick tutorial, and set them adrift, to find their own treasure, hoping this might keep them out of my hair.

We detected for about an hour, and the sun started to fade. The youngsters had found nothing but trash, and I, being the kind-hearted soul that I am, decided to help them. I located a target hitting 80 on my Teknetics Omega 8000, it registered about two inches deep. I called the two, still eager youths over, and told them to swing the detector over the spot and dig it up. I walked away feeling proud thinking I had helped them find a copper penny, clad dime, or maybe a little silver piece. I found a few more clad coins, and was digging a good signal, when here they came, running, with giant smiles, as if I was the ice-cream truck.

In unison, they both fell into a baseball slide, arriving, dust cloud first, in front of me. They both started chattering incoherently, I pumped my hands and said, “Whoa, slow down, what did you say? A what? Let me see…” The boy on the left slowly opened his hand, and as if by magic, the penny or clad dime that I was sure I had bestowed to them, was actually an 18k gold engagement ring, with a huge diamond sitting right on top. I was stunned, I had never found a gold ring, and I had just handed this beautiful find to two kids.

They hung around, patting themselves on the back, while I loaded the detectors in the car. Then one said, "We are going to give this to our Mom, it will make her happy again, our grandpa died last week."

I paused, my eyes closed, straining not to burst into tears, turn, and grab them both in a bear hug. I took a deep gulp, and with as steady a voice as I could muster, said, “Cool, it’s supper time, I got to go, I hope she loves it.” I took a few laps around our small town, fighting to hide the tear rash that I knew my wife would notice upon first glance.

Later, after the kids had gone to bed, I sat at my cleaning table, slowly brushing the dirt off my pile of clad, and reliving the moment, again and again, in my head. My thoughts bounced between what I had done, what I should have done differently, and what was right. I remember thinking, I should’ve bought them off, I was being nice, why did Karma kick me, and, if any kid disturbs me again, I will let them have it. Although I felt good that they were giving it to their mom, but felt a little cheated. It just wasn’t fair in my eyes, why do I always get out detected, even when detecting with two kids who couldn’t even turn a detector on.

After I finished the clad, I started to clean the silver ring I had found earlier. A small consolation prize that I was hoping would sooth my mood. As I cleaned off the dirt, I noticed its inscription, WWJD, What Would Jesus Do. I smirked a bit, thinking of Jesus with a metal detector, turning all his clad into gold. Then I thought, maybe he turned the boy’s clad into gold. Maybe their mom needed that ring. Did he use me? I am not a religious man, but I think, on that day, maybe I started to believe a little more. I saw the boys with their mom several days later at the store. I didn’t say anything to them; they were distracted, being kids, begging for this and that. As I passed, I looked at their mother’s hands. There was the ring, on her finger, and just under it, was another, sterling looking ring, that read, DAD. My eyes began to fill, my wife, who always seems to know, slid her hand into mine, put her head on my shoulder, and whispered, I love you.