I pick up stuff, either while bike riding or walking the beach. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I am Indiana Jones. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, I am a nut pushing a shopping cart full of junk talking to himself. On Sundays, I survey my gathered treasures and gloat.
A mere year ago, while biking through Hopewell Boro, I found a Rolex. Actually, it was a Casio, but what’s the difference. Both tell time. The watch had been run over, but it worked. The watchband was ruined. A few months earlier, I found an irreparable watch full of seawater on the beach with a perfectly functioning watchband. The two finds were quickly joined. Clearly, this match is confirmation that there are mysterious divine forces at work in the universe.
This true fact had been established years earlier when I found a bicycle tail light missing a lens four miles from the beach and a week later found the missing red lens in a beachside parking lot.
But by far the most convincing sign of divine order occurred five years ago while I was biking on Route 579 and found a right-side deer antler. Three years later, I found the left antler. Only then did I display the pair in my trophy room between the stuffed grizzly that I slew armed with just a Bowie knife and my collection of perfectly mounted and preserved earwigs.
On two occasions just prior to Halloween, I found a pumpkin on the side of the road. After trying to locate the rightful owner by yelling, “Did anyone lose a pumpkin?” I tucked it under my arm and rode home just like Washington Irving’s headless cyclist.
Speaking of headlessness, last year I found the decapitated body of a Canada goose decoy. I called the manufacturer and, in a moment of wild extravagance, ordered a replacement head for $5. When the head arrived, I screwed wheels into the decoy creating a magnificent child’s pull-toy, the only one of its kind.
While I have yet to find Captain Kidd’s treasure on the beach, much less a single doubloon or gold ingot, I have found an enviable trove of children’s toys including 34 multicolored plastic shovels and nine Hot Wheels cars, each representing some child’s broken heart.
More practical than found toys are found tools, and I have amassed a formidable collection including pliers, wrenches and screwdrivers (all sizes), pruning shears, a vise grip, and a tape measure. Hapless mechanics and landscapers obviously left tools on their cars, drove off, and scattered the treasures for me to find. In June, I found a nasty little folding knife which had clearly been employed in some horrible crime before being discarded.
Once I found a tackle box full of saltwater flies by the road and immediately figured out the [embarrassingly stereotypical] backstory to its provenance. An irate spouse driving with her husband began screaming at him for neglecting his responsibilities. “That’s right, Mr. Bigshot Fisherman. Why bother mowing the lawn or picking up the kids from soccer when you can go out on your boat and catch porgies.” Then she threw his feathered hooks out the truck window.
On occasion I’ve found money, dollar bills fluttering across roadways or half-buried in the sand. Unlike the true hunter-scavenger maniacs, I do not search for treasure with a metal detector although I have run into people who displayed with consummate pride diamond rings that they had found. I hate them.
One afternoon, I spotted a cell phone while biking on Route 29. Before I could figure out how to contact the owner, the phone rang and a desperate, angry contractor wanted to know where his phone was. When he showed up at my house, he explained that everything, his business and his personal connections, was contained in that phone. He offered me a $20 reward. I declined the big bucks basking instead in my own aura of unadulterated nobility and virtue.
Years earlier while biking through the Sourlands, I found a wallet containing credit cards and cash. I turned it all over to the constabulary hoping that they’d be as noble and virtuous as I was.
But my greatest triumph occurred just this past August when I found a wet, sandy hat on the beach that turned out to be a genuine Tilley. I had never heard of a Tilley, but when I Googled it, I found out that they are worn by yachtsmen and well-to-do surfers (of the waves, not the Internet) and they float, hence its appearance at my feet. Most notable, Tilleys are indestructible and cost at minimum $84! That hat is worth more than my entire wardrobe. Now it’s all mine.
Remember to vote early and often.
Robin Schore lives in Titusville.
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