Since he was old enough to toddle around the marina, Zach has been slowly but steadily excavating this place. Some kids are train kids or car kids... my boy is a digger. We took him to Mexico when he was 2 and he brought his trusty blue shovel and spent hours picking away through the rubble, unearthing the Mayan empire one stone at a time.
"One day mama," he muses so very often. "One day I am gonna find something amazing and museums will be begging me for my treasures." A certain mama may have been known to toss a coin or schmaltzy ring in his path, just under the sand or dirt to keep him encouraged. He always seems to find
something on his own though, a tooth, a fish bone, a funny rock. And so he digs, and digs, and digs... someday mama.
So I barely looked up from my toddler chasing (does that girl EVER stop running in the opposite direction?) when he came breathlessly from his excavation site behind the dinghy racks to declare he'd "found something". He sang over and over, "An arrowhead, an arrowhead, an arrowhead!!" You need to understand that I have heard that excited declaration before. Many times before. Any rock in a vaguely triangular in shape is an arrowhead to a little boy. But then he brought me this.
Wow, that's really an arrowhead! A real find! We looked up arrowheads and tried to figure out this from that without much real luck. So a few phone calls later we had an appointment to meet with an archaeologist at
Historic London Town & Gardens where Zach does some homeschool classes. He was coming unglued with excitement to meet a "real archaeologist" and share his find.
We came away with the information we were seeking. The arrowhead is at least 4-thousand years old. It was underwater for a long time, probably used for spear fishing. He showed Zach how to clean his find properly and suggested he keep it in a safe place and keep digging in that spot. But Zach came away with so much more. "You know what I liked about his office mama? It wasn't full of computers, it was full of rocks and books, my favorite things in the world. And he was wearing dirty boots and listening to loud music. I liked that."
He set up his room now with his rocks and books prominently displayed, and music can be heard from time to time at a louder than usual volume. The dirty boots are always present and the digging and dreaming continues.
