Highmountain
Hero Member
I got the idea for this at a Purcell family reunion in the early 1980s near Waxahachie, Texas. My ex and I flew up in our old Cessna 140 and my dad picked me up at the local strip, so I didn?t have my metal detector with me and never expected to miss it.
But when all those flop-eared long-nosed cousins and uncles I hadn?t seen for 30 years finished talking about the Dallas Cowboys and everyone drifted out to the front porch one of the cousins dragged a new Bounty Hunter out of the trunk to show around. Suddenly there was a mass migration to the various cars as though the party was breaking up and everyone was going home. Trunk lids popped open and all manner of metal detectors appeared over the space of a few minutes.
Evidently metal detecting is something that is genetic among that bunch, as dominant a gene as flop ears and long noses. A dozen or so Purcells swinging coils beat talking about football, so that?s how the rest of the outdoor phase of the reunion was spent.
Back at home afterward my ex and I were planning for one of the giant barbeques we?d do every couple or three years, preparing the place to host 100-150 people for a summer afternoon and evening. In the past every time we?d done it the kids became a problem once the initial shock of being loose in the company of a lot of other kids wore off.
We had several acres of land and my ex-and I had been in a habit of tossing all our metal change in a jar at the end of each workday, where it became a jarful, then a spittoon full, then a spittoon and several jars.
That family reunion gave me the idea of a way to keep all those kids busy. I separated out most of the dimes and quarters, but the pennies and nickels I scattered all over 3-4 acres. Then I made sure several metal detectors were available.
The smaller kids treated all that change like an Easter Egg hunt, but the older ones fought, argued and stood in line to spend an hour with a detector with half a dozen other following them around, waiting for their turn.
I?m not a big lover of kids when they come in groups that large, but that barbeque was far and away the least troublesome of the ones we had over the years, kids-wise. I suspect some of those kids had their first intro to metal detecting on that day and are probably still doing it.
Something to think about.
Best to you,
Jack
But when all those flop-eared long-nosed cousins and uncles I hadn?t seen for 30 years finished talking about the Dallas Cowboys and everyone drifted out to the front porch one of the cousins dragged a new Bounty Hunter out of the trunk to show around. Suddenly there was a mass migration to the various cars as though the party was breaking up and everyone was going home. Trunk lids popped open and all manner of metal detectors appeared over the space of a few minutes.
Evidently metal detecting is something that is genetic among that bunch, as dominant a gene as flop ears and long noses. A dozen or so Purcells swinging coils beat talking about football, so that?s how the rest of the outdoor phase of the reunion was spent.
Back at home afterward my ex and I were planning for one of the giant barbeques we?d do every couple or three years, preparing the place to host 100-150 people for a summer afternoon and evening. In the past every time we?d done it the kids became a problem once the initial shock of being loose in the company of a lot of other kids wore off.
We had several acres of land and my ex-and I had been in a habit of tossing all our metal change in a jar at the end of each workday, where it became a jarful, then a spittoon full, then a spittoon and several jars.
That family reunion gave me the idea of a way to keep all those kids busy. I separated out most of the dimes and quarters, but the pennies and nickels I scattered all over 3-4 acres. Then I made sure several metal detectors were available.
The smaller kids treated all that change like an Easter Egg hunt, but the older ones fought, argued and stood in line to spend an hour with a detector with half a dozen other following them around, waiting for their turn.
I?m not a big lover of kids when they come in groups that large, but that barbeque was far and away the least troublesome of the ones we had over the years, kids-wise. I suspect some of those kids had their first intro to metal detecting on that day and are probably still doing it.
Something to think about.
Best to you,
Jack
Upvote
0
