Guess the first time I ever became aware of detecting as a hobby was when I saw somebody detecting at Herman Park in Houston, Texas. I had no idea at the time what he could possibly be looking for, since it never occurred to me that people normally lose a significant amounts of change and jewelry in the grass. Struck me as an odd hobby and as one that probably had the most appeal for the Geritol set, but I saw how it could be sort of fun. Later, I read an article about people using detectors to find and plot the locations of shell casings at the famous battle site on the Little Bighorn, so when I moved to a village in Europe not far from the site of the battle of Waterloo, and one where Roman coins had been found, I realized that a metal detector would be an ideal instrument for finding interesting old artifacts.