All posts by Mike

Trawlin’ for scrap, suburban-style


Treasure hunter by Les Chatfield (Elsie esq.)

This past year I was given one of the strangest gifts I’ve received in quite some time, and the the more I think about it the more it makes me smile.

My folks gave me a metal detector. You know, the kind you use on the beach to find buried treasure.

Except I don’t live anywhere near a beach, and I’m pretty sure there isn’t any treasure other than very old manure in my cow-pasture-turned-yard.

But here’s the thing: I’m keeping it. And I keep looking for a reason to use it.

Because these are tough times we’re living in, dawg, and you never know when you’re going to want to trawl the neighborhood for scrap.

Make a museum

My daughter claims she wants to be an artist, and decided (all on her own) that she wanted to create a museum featuring her favorite "cruisers" (her word for art projects) that she had made in the past year.

So she went through the archives, selected a bunch of her favorites, and we decided to take the idea seriously. We all dressed for the occasion, hung the art in the living room, invited Grandma and Grandpa Morrow, served appetizers and champagne, etc.

It was a full weekend project, but we all had a blast.

She was so proud of herself.

Not to pat ourselves on the back, but here’s the thing I learned: if you have kids, and they are enthusiastic about something (anything), take the time and effort to really honor it.

It wasn’t convenient, and it wasn’t my first choice of how to spend last weekend, but it made my daughter absolutely shine with pride, and her interest in “being an artist” has grown even brighter.

And if you don’t have kids, what are you enthusiastic about? What can you make the time to honor for yourself? What’s your museum?

PS—I decided to try Animoto to make a quick montage of some of the pictures. It’s too short (you only get 30 seconds for free), but kinda nifty.