Check out links at end of each chapter...
Chapter 1 - May 14, 2009 - Tutu Troubles
Chapter 1 - May 14, 2009 - Tutu Troubles
Chapter 2 – Oct. 07, 2009 – About My Friends
Chapter 3 – Oct. 15, 2009 – The Inheritance
Chapter 4 – Oct. 22, 2009 – Finding Answers
Chapter 5 – Oct. 29, 2009 – A New Friend
Chapter 6 – Nov. 05, 2009 – A Treasure Map
Chapter 7 – Nov. 12, 2009 – A Treasure Hunt
Chapter 8 – Nov. 19, 2009 – And Beyond
Chapter 9 – Nov. 26, 2009 – Lost Data
Chapter 10 – Dec. 3, 2009 – Found Data
Chapter 11 – Dec. 10, 2009 – The Castle Cellar
Chapter 12 – Dec. 17, 2009 – Forever Never Ending
RosFrankie and Beyond
Chapter 7
A Treasure Hunt
And Mary-Ann-Drusillda was born knowing more mathematics than any of the teachers at my school could ever hope to know. Mary-Ann-Drusillda spends her time learning and experimenting with different math formulas by communicating with other mathematicians around the world. She tried going to school once but the teacher got mad at her because she corrected his math when he gave a friend of hers an incorrect failing grade. She decided that school would just slow down her learning and interfere with the time she has to do experiments. Mary-Ann-Drusillda knows a lot about math but she has a difficult time understanding people and psychology.
I asked my mother once if it was alright to not go to school, and my mother told me it depended on what someone wanted to learn, or needed to learn, and on the school and the teachers. She told me about a man named Bill Gates who had to drop out of one of the best colleges in America in order to become the richest man in America. My mother did not know why this college could not find a niche for Mr. Gates to be successful in, and, at the same time earn his degree. ‘Maybe’, my mother said to me, ‘When you grow you will understand the problem with that college because I can’t understand it at all.’
I know that Méabh never went to school at all but grew up with various tutors who taught her whatever she wanted to learn whenever she wanted to learn it. Some people don’t enjoy learning but Méabh was always a very aggressive learner, often learning things which other people wished she would not learn. And Lordy doesn’t go to school generally but only occasionally to see some friends, because he spends his time with computers learning things which have not yet been invented to learn so the teachers can’t teach him anything he wants or needs to learn, even though they try hard and wish they could teach him something. But he is just always learning things which they don’t know anything about yet. Sometimes, when he does go to school, he will spend some time with the teachers teaching them what he has learned. The teachers like to learn from Lordy and he doesn’t mind teaching them because they let him make ‘improvements’ on their computers, and that is something he always likes to do for relaxation. He also likes the mud bog, of course, but, for some reason, he doesn’t like to bring his computers into the mud bog.
No one knows anything about the butler But’s education and no one wants to ask. Not even Méabh, because But was working at the castle before she was even born and she learned very young that he does not like to talk about his past. The thought of it puts him in a foul mood, and, generally, he is in a foul mood enough without any reason for getting any fouler.
Some how it all seems to all work out alright and balance. At least for the moment. I don’t know what would make it become unbalanced and I hope I will never find out. Of course, with the moon going around the earth, and the earth turning around the sun, and the sun being one of many revolving solar systems in a galaxy in a universe with many other galaxies which seem to go on forever, things are bound to tilt and get off kilter some time or another. I just don’t know what, where, when, or why. Maybe someday I will talk about it with Méabh. Maybe someday I will even ask one of my teachers at school. But I’m not sure about that. I’m not sure if they will yell at me for asking questions. And then the other kids might call me names because ‘other’ kids who call people names have problems which I don’t quite understand, and when I ask my mother what their problem is, my mother says, ‘Maybe they will grow and learn to solve their problems. Maybe not. Maybe they don’t even know they have problems to deal with and they don’t know what questions to ask or where to find the answers. I honestly don’t know. All I know is that people who call other people names, or make fun of other people, have low self esteem and feel inferior and unsure of themselves.’ I don’t really like this answer my mother gives me because it sounds like I should feel sorry for the people who are mean to other people, but I rather do not feel sorry for them at all and rather think they should be punished, like, maybe never be allowed to eat ice cream, or be forced to wear shoes too small which pinch their feet, or else have to spend every Saturday cutting up onions all day long. But I give my mother a big hug anyway because I think my mother needs a big hug. And, of course, the big hug always does make my mother feel much better. It makes me feel better too.
When I do finally ask my teacher, Ms. Wiseman, about the magic ink on the treasure map which Méabh gave me, my teacher says, ‘Oh, if you ask me about the poetry of Emily Dickinson, I can answer any of your questions, but I don’t know anything about magic ink. However, I have a neighbor, Dr. Keddy, and she is a chemistry professor at the University, so I will ask her for you. Is that alright?’
I think that this is quite alright, because Méabh always says that the smartest people always know that they don’t know much and that they will try to find out where to learn things they know they don’t know. It’s nice to have a teacher who teaches how to find things out which even the teacher does not know. Yes, I think that this is quite alright and that maybe I will enjoy my time in Ms. Wiseman’s class.
A few days later Ms. Wiseman hands me a bunch of papers which Dr. Keddy had found for her. ‘Dr. Keddy told me to tell you that there are many types of magic ink. These papers have much information which you can study and use. Dr. Keddy said that some magic inks require the application of special salts, some need special light, and some are heat sensitive. She suggested you try the heat first because special salts and special lights can be hard to find. You can try using a flat pizza stone and oven for heat…or a hair dryer…or a hot iron…and sometimes, even Ben Gay will work.’
‘Oh, thank you so much for your help, and please thank Dr. Keddy,’ I say to Ms. Wiseman.
‘We are always glad to help students learn, especially when they are as self-motivated and hard working as you are RosFrankie. Even when you might get something wrong, it always makes a good teacher feel good to know that you try hard. That is what makes our own hard work worthwhile and enjoyable.’
Later that day, when I go home, me and Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy decide to try the hot iron on the treasure map first because it is the easiest, since we do have an iron which heats easily and safely. And sometimes things go right the first time. Much to our surprise and pleasure, it works and we find we have an interesting map of an island with only a couple of roads on it. There are also written numbers on the map which look like temperature and time but these numbers confuse us all because the numbers are written in a strange way. They are at the bottom of the map and look like this:
Lat - 43 degrees - 46 minutes – 019 seconds – North
Long - 69 degrees – 19 minutes – 087 seconds – West
‘What an odd way of mixing up temperature recordings and time recordings. Forty-three degrees and forty-six minutes. Very incomprehensible!’ Mary-Ann-Drusillda says as she scratches her ear.
‘Maybe,’ Lordy, ever the computer expert, says, ‘Maybe there is a printing error with the hot iron.’
‘I wonder if it’s about cooking. Maybe it will make sense to HOG,’ I say.
I get the instinctive feeling that all of these numbers are important but the numbers just don’t make any sense to any of us.
‘Well,’ says Lordy, ‘I suppose I can always do that old stand-by trick and google these configurations to see what comes up.’
‘You might as well because we can’t think of anything else and Méabh is too busy doing other things to have time to help us and I don’t even know where HOG is. I guess we are on our own.’ So off he goes home because he forgot to bring one of his laptops with him, which is unusual. He even forgot his cell phone with the special ex-ray camera, instant weather updates, stock market quotes, translator for universal critter language and a special ‘Future Predictions’ tool which is always wrong anyway.
Right after he leaves, Brant and Cana and Puff drop by. They all look at the map after I explain the problem, and they all say together, ‘We know where that island is. We fly over it. It’s somewhere on the way to Iceland.’
Me and Mary-Ann-Drusillda are quite excited with this information until I realize something and say, ‘There is a lot of ‘way’ between here and Iceland. We could never search it all even if we live to be one thousand years old. We might as well not get too excited about it all. It’s not like we don’t have lots of other interesting things to do. After all, it’s just a treasure map.’ I try to keep the disappointment out of my voice, but I think my friends can all hear it clearly.
‘But,’ says Mary-Ann-Drusillda, ‘It has numbers on it. It has to be a logical numerical code. We just don’t know the key to the code. But if it has numbers then that is the same as if it has a clear logical pathway.’
Mary-Ann-Drusillda knows lots about numbers. ‘Unless, of course,’ she continues, ‘the numbers were written down wrong by someone.’ Yes, she knows lots about numbers.
Just at that moment Lordy, with HOG by his side, comes running back excitedly, and shouts, ‘Latitude and Longitude!’
He shows us a print out from a site called World Atlas. Com which divides the world into a grid system using numbers. Mary-Ann-Drusillda is quite excited. ‘I just knew it! I knew the numbers could be counted on!’ she says. She understands immediately upon looking at the grid of the world, that they can find any place on earth just by using the numbers the same way one plays tic-tack-toe. On the map, each degree [°] equals 60 nautical miles, which is the same as 69.05 statute miles. Thus any place located at 41 degrees North is 41x 60 = 2,460 nautical miles North of the equator, which is the same as 2,831 statute miles. Each minute ['] on the map is 1 nautical mile which is 1.15 statute miles.
credit: Google Images
‘Isn’t math just the most wonderful tool ever!’ Mary-Ann-Drusillda exclaims. We all are not too sure if math is that wonderful but we are sure that we don’t have to give up our adventure of following the treasure map.
Using the latitude and longitude numbers, we calculate that the map is a map of Monhegan Island which is off of the coast of Maine near Boothbay.
‘But how will we ever get there?’ I wonder.
Brant and Cana don’t hesitate to say that I and the others can ride on their backs just like Puff does. Lordy, ever practical, says, ‘Even though your wings are strong, RosFrankie weighs 3 to 4 times as much as you do. I don’t think that it would be realistic to think that we can achieve that feat.’
HOG, ever the dreamer, says dreamily to everyone else, ‘But this is a story and we are writing it so we can do anything we want to do in it. It is OUR story’
‘Yes,’ says Lordy, ‘but it is suppose to be a story about learning, and asking questions and finding answers and doing things, and it isn’t very good for it to be too much fantasy with too much fantastical stuff in it…it’s about science and life and believability and learning. It’s suppose to be an educational story. Art is okay in it but we can’t be writing about impossible things to do or we will lose our credibility. No one reading it will believe any of it.’
HOG, who never gives up on dreams lightly, often feeling that dreams are actually much better than reality, says to Lordy, ‘Don’t you remember that Garfield cartoon when Ode the dog chased Garfield the cat up a tree, and when they were sitting high up on a tree branch together, old Mister Practical John comes alone and says, “Odie, don’t you know that dogs can’t climb trees?” and Garfield looks at John the way he looks at just about everyone and says, “It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you don’t know what you can’t do.” Lordy you are acting like old Mister Practical John!’
‘Exactly!’ Lordy answers, ‘That was a carton and we are a story! An educational story! Dogs can’t climb trees and we shouldn’t have that in our story. It’s simply not very scientific.’
‘But you are a ladybug who surfs the net! That’s not scientific either.’
‘I am a computer bug! Computer bugs are very real.’
Finally I say to them both, ‘You are both right, don’t argue. We can, like Emily Dickinson recommends, “tell the truth but tell it slant.” We are writing this story so we will figure out a believable way to get to this island Monhegan. So we must do what works. And if that means that we must try to fly on the backs of geese, then we will try it!’
‘It could be dangerous,’ says HOG.
‘Yes,’ I respond, ‘but not knowing something could be much more dangerous! We will do our best!’
At this point in time, and time always working in its own mysterious way, my mother comes to tell us all something which she and my father have just decided. ’This year your father really wants to spend our vacation time vacationing on Monhegan Island near where he grew up in Maine. And you can bring any of your friends who want to come.’
Well, of course, we are all most excited. Naturally, HOG, who might talk powerfully of dreams and dares and riding on the backs of geese, is not really very brave or very comfortable with the thought of traveling anywhere and decides not to go. We all understand this fear of travel she has, and we also appreciate the fact that she will always encourage us to do the things which she herself is afraid to do. Somehow or other, she gives us confidence in ourselves. Brant and Cana and Puff have a previous engagement to visit friends and relatives on the Chesapeake Bay but they will keep their antennae tuned in to listen just in case we get into any trouble and may need their help. Their antennae work better than a cell phone.
In what seems like forever, but was actually a short while, myself and Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy are on Monhegan Island and staying at the Bert Poole Cottage which is, according to locals, ‘way out there.’ Since the island is only one mile wide and two miles long, I ask my mother why the locals describe it this way as ‘way out there’ and my mother says, ‘It’s a matter of perspective and what one is used to. Don’t worry. You’ll understand it better when you are older and have been exposed to more things yourself. Then you will look back and wonder why you ever thought your mud bog was big, because when you get bigger, it will seem smaller.’ This thought, to me, is anathema.
Me, Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy explore this wonderful enchanted island even before we attempt to find the treasure on the map. The island seems much more exciting than even an old treasure map. The first day we are on the island, I notice that there are no dogs on the island. I ask a person at the general store about this and I am told that dogs, being super sensitive, are afraid of the ghosts and that when dogs come to the island, they generally run back down to the end of the town pier and wait for the first ferry to come and take them back to the mainland.
‘You have ghosts here?’ I ask, with a gulp in my throat.
‘We have two ghost Bassett Hounds. One, named Lazy, who waits at the beginning of every woodland path and won’t let any children pass until they give him a dog biscuit. The other, named Guvnor, stands on the roof of the hotel and howls all night. He makes a very fine fog horn. Would you like to buy a box of dog biscuits? We sell a lot of them.’
‘Yes, please. Two boxes.’
‘Tell your parents that adults have to give Lazy a drink of Guinness Beer. They can buy that here by the bottle or the six-pack or the case. We also have a deer ghost.’
‘Oh,’ I ask, ‘What should we do if we see a deer ghost?’
‘Nothing! Just leave it alone and let it be. It never bothers anyone. It’s a beautiful creature and this island is officially, by the United States Government, declared to be a Deer Ghost Protection and Preservation Area. You can shoot pictures and you can just be mesmerized by it’s natural beauty but you can not frighten it or hurt it. People who hurt it have been known to cease to exist in their current form.’
I think that seems fair even though some times when I think things are fair I realize eventually that they are not fair and that I only thought that they were fair because I don’t know everything and, many times, even reading ‘THE’ books does not help enlighten one because knowing everything is something which is really hard to do. In fact, it has never been done.
Me and Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy are quite excited to explore this place which is so very new and strange to us. None of us have ever been on an island before and we think it is wonderful that we can always smell the sea and hear the waves crash against the rock cliffs, no matter where we go on the island.
We have no trouble finding and feeding the Lazy Ghost. We also see the Deer Ghost but when we do, we are too entranced to remember to try and get a picture. We also find some wonderful little fairy houses in the forests. These houses are made from broken twigs, fallen leaves and various pieces of forest debris. However, we never see a fairy. The fairies hide from us because they are not ghosts and they tend to be a little more afraid of any big clomping critters which often visit their island home.
And, to the fairies, we seem like big clomping critters. I guess it’s a matter of perspective, just like my mother says. We explore around the island and we find a famous artist house, whales basking on the sea, dolphins playing like jumping-jacks, ospreys nesting on day marks, ospreys nesting in construction cranes, ospreys nesting in nests which they have nested in for over 150 years, puffins sliding down boulders, geese flying by in a perfect v-formation, a sailboat which screams around Nigh Duck Rock with the people on board screaming, fog which came in on big giant feet rather than Carl Sandburg’s little cat paws, and a smaller island next door called Manana. We don’t know what the name ‘Manana’ means and decide to look it up in ‘THE” books when we get back home.
We find so much stuff and things. Lots of interesting stuff and things. But we do not find a treasure. Except, of course, everything we found is a treasure because life is a treasure.
‘Well,’ I say to my parents when we get back to the cottage, ‘We actually found many treasures. We just did not find ‘THE’ treasure.’
‘Are you sure? my mother asks us.
‘Actually,’ says Lordy, ‘technically speaking, we don’t even know what our treasure is. We just know it is on this island. We assume. We theorize. We think. Maybe.’
Tired from walking all day, myself and Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy lie down on the living room floor by the big stone fireplace and start to fall asleep. We don’t get to actually fall asleep because just as we are falling asleep and looking up at the ceiling and the wall over the fireplace, I yell loudly, ‘Eureka!’
‘Have you solved a problem?’ Lordy asks.
‘Have you added up how many trees grow on this island?’ Mary-Ann-Drusillda asks, wondering how I could do it faster that she was doing it.
‘Better than all that!’ I answer as I jump up, ‘Look over the fireplace mantle.’
And there, over the fireplace mantle, was a frame and inside the frame was an old piece of paper with just a big red X on it and the words Treasure Map.
‘Another treasure map. It is just like a Scavenger Hunt. One map will lead to another.’
We ask people on the island where the map came from, but no one on the island knows where it came from. It was just always there hanging over the fireplace in the Bart Poole cottage. Like many things on the island, material and immaterial, it just always was and it always will be. Myself, Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy get out the hot iron, and, after pressing the map, we get the new latitude and longitude. This time the code reads as follows:
Latitude: 41 degrees 23 minutes 449 seconds North
Longitude: 070 degrees 30 minutes 900 seconds West
After we get the new lat and long from the map, we carefully replace it back into the frame and leave it on the wall where it just always was and always will be.
‘It must be a very important treasure,’ says Lordy,’ for the pirates to go through all this trouble.
‘Maybe it wasn’t pirates,’ my father says.’
‘What do you mean?’ we all ask in unison.
‘Well,’ he rambles, [My father does not talk that much, but when he does, he tends to ramble so one has to really listen because everything he says seems to be really important.] ‘There is an old saying: One critter’s trash is another critter’s treasure. It all depends on what one wants or needs. Years ago many critters considered common everyday table salt to be a treasure which needed to be kept under lock and key. All because salt was not common but very needed and desired. Salt was a major source of preserving food, among other uses. People also treasured a certain red dye from Mexico which they used to color their clothing. In fact, the color of their clothing often indicated their importance in particular societies. Very particular. And, of course, herbs were extremely valued as a treasure because of their medicinal potential. There were no drug companies. Only herbs which often only grew in far away and strange and inhospitable places which were very difficult to get to. And, of course, your everyday common variety types of jewels and gold and arrows and bullets which people often needed to protect themselves. And maps and charts and atlases were considered to be the property of governments and in some countries it was illegal to copy them. Punishable by death. And it was illegal in China, years ago, for anyone to teach the Chinese language to foreigners. So the treasure could be many different things depending on who is defining the treasure. Could even be some old books. Yes, indeed, that would truly be a great treasure!’
My father really likes books and often brings home many more books than he has places to put books. Sometimes he just piles them up and uses them as chairs, which works out fine because we often have more visitors than we have chairs.
‘Then,’ says Mary-Ann-Drusillda thoughtfully, ‘we might not get richer but we might get smarter.’ Mary-Ann-Drusillda is not sure if she likes this or not. She seems to be plenty smart enough already, and, very often, the smarter she gets, the more trouble she gets into.
Well, we consult our WorldAtlas.com and calculate that the new coordinates are actually on another island. This island is called Martha’s Vineyard and is part of Massachusetts.
‘Oh dear,’ I say, ‘how will we ever get there?’
‘Oh, that’s perfect,’ my mother says, ‘Your father and I were planning to stop over there when we take you all back home. I just have always wanted to pet the black dog which is such a great sailing dog. I just love it, the way things seems to always eventually turn out right and fit perfectly, even when no one thinks they will.’
[Photo of book from Blackdog.com]![]()
Before long, me and Mary-Ann-Drusillda find ourselves in Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard, standing in the woman’s bathroom at the bus station, while Lordy waits outside.
‘This can’t be right! We must have miscalculated,’ sighs Mary-Ann-Drusillda.
‘No, we didn’t,’ I say, ‘Look over here on this wall in the last stall. It’s another framed paper with an red X on it and the words Treasure Map.’
When we ask the friendly people at the bus stop about the framed paper, they tell us that the paper was found under a rock when the town dug the foundation for the bus stop. No one could decide where to put it, so they decided to just hang it in the bathroom until town meeting could come to a decision about where to hang it permanently. That was over twenty years ago. Old New Englanders generally don’t like to rush an important decision, and when everyone has to agree on something, sometimes things get discussed for a very long time. The town was still discussing where to place their treasure map. Some people think it should be in the Harbor Masters office. Some people think it should be in the library. One person who only lives on the island a few weeks each year thinks it should be at his house because his house is bigger than any other place in town and he has the most bathrooms. So, well all this heated discussion is going on, the treasure map stays at the bus station waiting for its ticket out of the last stall in the ladies bathroom which doesn’t even have a bath.
Well, carefully using the hot iron trick again, me, Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy get the new lat and long and then we gently replace the paper in the frame.
The new lat and long, according to our calculations, leads us to Boston. Naturally, my parents think another side trip to Boston is a great idea, but Lordy is a wee bit concerned. It appears to him that the X on this map is right in the middle of the Charles River in Boston. As a ladybug, he is not really too very thrilled to contemplate learning to scuba dive and going under the strong currents of the Charles River.
‘Maybe these numbers are wrong,’ he says.
‘Numbers are never wrong,’ says Mary-Ann-Drusillda.
But, as things often happen, Lordy does not have to learn to scuba dive after all because what we find in the middle of the Charles River is the Boston Science Museum on a bridge crossing the river.
And at the Science Museum, we find the mother-lode of treasure maps. It’s called: ‘Sunken Treasures’ and it was produced by the National Geographic Society in July 2001. This map locates many sunken ships and list some important explorers. We also see many other maps with many other treasure indicators. [But the National Geographic map is so interesting that it really can not be described adequately in the words of critter language but must be studied visually. Find it!]
‘Well,’ I say, ‘I think we don’t have to ever worry about being bored or never having anything fun to do, because we could spend 100 years looking for lost treasure, and we still would not have time to look for more than a small percentage of lost treasures.’
‘Yah,’ says Lordy, ‘and these maps don’t even include the treasures which people hid in their back yards and in their attics and in their old wells, and which no one ever bothered to record any where in written form.’
Mary-Ann-Drusillda looks at him inquisitively for a second and then says, ‘That’s right! Treasures can be buried anywhere in anyone’s back yard. Even in Daisy’s Field. I can’t wait to get home again and tell HOG that our haystack could be surrounded by buried treasures. She’s gonna roll right up into a ball with excitement.’
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘and I think we all better look carefully when we are walking around so that we don’t trip on all the newly dug treasure holes which she will be digging in the yard as she looks for treasure or else we might sprain our ankles.’
‘Well,’ says Lordy, ‘at least we know she won’t be digging in the mud bog. The mud bog will always be a safe place to be.’
And, it seems like in the blink of an eye, myself and Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy are all back home reminiscing about our adventures with treasure maps while we are basking in the warm soft comforts on the mud bog, with HOG standing by the side of the bog with her shovel in hand, digging holes looking for buried treasure.
When I show Méabh the Sunken Treasures map and tell her all which we have learned, she gets most excited.
I ask her, ‘Are you excited because of the Sunken Treasures map and all the sunken treasures which are all over the world?
Méabh answers me, ‘No. Well, yes, but I am more excited because you have learned things which I do not know. That means that now you can start teaching me things rather than me always teaching you. It’s like nurturing a plant and then watching it grow all by itself, and then later it starts to enrich you with strawberries or blueberries or flowers.’
After this, Méabh becomes very thoughtful. Then she starts to get all excited again. She says to RosFrankie, ‘And with all the treasures, and the possible treasures in places no one knows about, you have got me thinking that maybe there is some kind of treasure way down in the cellar of the castle. I’m going to go right now and start looking. Want to come with me?’
Sitting comfortably in my nice mud bog, I start thinking about the cellar in the castle. It is a very frightening place. Very dark. Full of strange sounds which echo in the fogs of the damp cellar. It has numerous tunnels and rooms and stairways and many strange creatures which are not listed in any books on strange creatures. Would I like to go there and explore? Well, of course I would. Who wouldn’t be excited to explore a place like the cellar in the castle? But I have been away from my comfortable mud bog for a long time. Right now I am very happy in my mud bog.
‘Not today,’ I answer Méabh and I know Méabh isn’t offended because Méabh always likes people to be honest with her and I also knows that Méabh knows that someday I will want to explore the cellar in the castle with her just to see what we might find.
But right now I just want to be in my most favorite place in the whole universe. The mud bog. Thinking about…….
Comprehensible
Kilter
Anathema
Latitude
Longitude
Manana
Questions:
Do you know who Carl Sandburg was?
Have you ever stayed at Bert Pooles cottage on Monhegan island?
Have you ever found a treasure map?
Have you ever buried treasure and then made a treasure map so you could find it again?
What other questions should be asked?
BTW:
Magic ink: simply write with lemon juice, it will dry invisible; then iron paper carefully with a hot dry iron, and the lemon will turn brown and legible.
Bill Gates: William Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, philanthropist, author, the world's third richest person (as of February 8, 2008),[2] and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen. Gates was the richest person in the world for 15 consecutive years. Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000. In 1975 he dropped out of Harvard University. They gave him an Honorary degree in 2007 and he gave them some money.
Emily Dickinson: I know much about Emily Dickinson, for various reasons. Read her poems, read her letters and read one or two other good factual books about her. But mostly don’t read most books written about her, because, since not much can be proven about her, many people make things up, and they can’t be proven wrong or right, one way or the other, so they feel free to just go on and on. And they do! Fact becomes story becomes myth becomes legend becomes anime becomes an over-active imagination, which is fine unless it is called ‘truth.’ Then it is just ‘lie.’ Always check your references!
Garfield cartoon & Odie & John: Long story, by Jim Davis, running in cartoons since 1968….the year the wizard and I were married. Of course, he wasn’t a wizard then…it took a few years of married life to make him wizardly.
Bert Poole Cottage: We stayed at the Bert Poole cottage on Monhegan Island in 1997. Lazy 8 was with us and he loved exploring the island as much as we did. The land was originally deeded in 1845 and the cottage built about 1907. It has a great fireplace, great ocean views and a propane refrigerator…..no electricity. Once you have been to Monhegan, a part of you always stays there. Just ask Lazy when you see him there guarding the paths….don’t forget the dog biscuits and the Guinness Beer. Guvnor was another Basset Hound who would climb on the hotel roof and howl at the moon. Fairy houses are made all through the woods with forest debris. One year there was a problem with deer ticks and Lyme disease, and the deer were mostly gone the next year, and the summer people blamed the winter people for hiring a hunter, but mostly no one is happy talking about it. The Maine artists Andrew and Jamie Wyeth have a summer house right next to the little fairy houses. Puffins and seals abound.
National Geographic: The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical conservation, and the study of world culture and history. The National Geographic Society’s characteristic logo is a yellow portrait rectangular frame, which identifiably appears on the margins surrounding the front covers of their magazines. On January 13, 1888, 33 explorers and scientists gathered in Washington, D.C., to organize "a society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge." After preparing a constitution and a plan of organization, the National Geographic Society was incorporated two weeks later on January 27. Gardiner Greene Hubbard became its first president and his son-in-law, Alexander Graham Bell, eventually succeeded him in 1897 following his death. Bell's son-in-law Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor was named the first full-time editor of National Geographic Magazine and served the organization for fifty-five years, and members of the Grosvenor family have played important roles in the organization since.
Check out:
Bill Gates, internet
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/writing/shapingtheinternet.mspx
Andrews, Paul – How the Web Was Won, Broadway, 2000.
Bagnall, Brian – On The Edge, Variant, 2005.
Black Dog
http://www.theblackdog.com/
Boston Museum of Science
http://www.mos.org/
Chesapeake Bay
http://www.baydreaming.com/
http://www.chesapeakebay.net/history.htm
http://www.mdsg.umd.edu/issues/communities/history/
Emily Dickinson
http://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/
Johnson, T, Editor. -The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Little Brown, 1960.
Johnson, T. Ed. -Letters of Emily Dickinson, Belknap, 2007.
Fairies
http://disney.go.com/fairies/
http://www.irelandseye.com/animation/intro.html
http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/700/fairies/index.html
http://www.fairyhouses.com/for_kids.html
Garfield cartoon
http://www.garfield.com/
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/sleep/starslp/missionz/comic.htm
Guinness beer
http://www.ivo.se/guinness/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfOlH4LOxFw&feature=related
Invisible ink
http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howtos/ht/invisibleink3.htm
http://www.iit.edu/~smile/ch9602.html
http://www.kidzworld.com/article/3844-making-invisible-ink-appear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_ink
http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryhowtoguide/a/invisibleinks.htm
Latitude and longitude
http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/imageg.htm
http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Slatlong.htm
http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html
www.educypedia.be/education/atlas.htm
Martha’s Vineyard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha's_Vineyard
http://www.mvgazette.com/
http://www.mvol.com/vineyardphotos/
http://www.theblackdog.com/product.php?productid=16437&cat=0&page=1
Monhegan Island
Faller, Ruth – Monhegan –Her houses & Her People, Mainstay, 1995.
http://www.monhegan.com/030509.html
http://www.monheganwelcome.com/
http://www.islandinnmonhegan.com/
http://www.monheganboat.com/
National Geographic Society
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/
http://www.trivia-library.com/b/history-of-national-geographic-magazine-part- 1.htm
Ospreys
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Osprey.html
http://www.ospreys.com/
http://www.raptorresource.org/ospreys.htm
http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/elpubs/pdf/EL86_5.pdf
Puffins
http://www.projectpuffin.org/
http://www.mainebirding.net/puffin/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoHD2GxcBMw
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Animals/CreatureFeature/Atlanticpuffin
Red dye
Greenfield, Amy – A Perfect Red, HarperCollins, 2005.
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/col-221.html
http://www.red40.com/index.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,945520,00.html
Sunken treasure
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18736741/
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1738445,00.html
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1044.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7634479.stm
http://www.mywonderfulworld.org/toolsforadventure/games/treasure.html
http://www.shipwreckregistry.com/
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1305/features/ship.htm
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6749705945536344056
http://history.howstuffworks.com/historians/treasure-hunting2.htm
Whales
http://whale.wheelock.edu/Welcome.html
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics/whales/bioacoustics.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/cetacea/cetacean.html
http://library.thinkquest.org/2605/
http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/KillerWhale/home.html
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/killer-whale.html
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS315US316&q=whales+pictures&revid=742665361&ei=Zl26Se27N5-atwfd-fHiDw&resnum=0&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=oF26SYbdBtKCtgfjztziDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title
Wyeth artists
http://urp.udel.edu/scholars/sample/artcst.aspx
http://www.brandywinemuseum.org/
http://studiozz.blogspot.com/2009/01/christinas-world-andrew-wyeth-are-you.html
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/exploring/ballet/nw/lessons/teacher_pak/chron_jamie.pdf
http://www.jamiewyeth.com/unsigned.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monhegan,_Maine
Next chapter: Chapter 8 - And Beyond due to be posted November 19, 2009
All text and images copyright 2009 Jule Dupre
unless otherwise noted.
Observe much - Think long - Say little...
[Credited to Oxford professor of C. Darwin]
Except, of course, in an emergency. Then you should
Look quick - Think fast - Yell loud!
[Credited to The Evil Grandmother]
Remember to always check your references!
Always question, but question with due respect.
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