It was unusually warm for a mid December Saturday as
I guided my ship into the cold waters of the St. Louis River off the Boy Scout
Landing in Duluth Oliver
Bridge Big
Lake
It was around noon when I began my journey, and I
couldn’t shake the odd scene from my mind that I had seen only minutes ago.
Just prior to my launch and about 100 feet from the
boat ramp I had spotted what seemed to be a lost treasure of several china cups
and saucers just off shore in about 3 inches of water. It was an odd sight indeed.
Did they come from the Titanic?
Or did a bunch of burly Finnish fishing guys from Duluth
I am not sure.
Nevertheless it was such an odd sight that I decided to investigate
further after returning with a large catch of bluegills and marlin.
I fished for awhile by the old bridge but then
realized that, irrespective of the warm weather conditions, it was December and
any marlin or bluegill with a half of a fish brain would have long ago headed out to the
Atlantic via Lake Superior and the St. Larry Seaway (with just a smidgeon of a
left turn by Niagara).
So I paddled back to the landing.
When I was within about one half mile from my
destination the eagle that I had been chasing earlier with my camera suddenly
swooped down out of the overcast sky and landed on the bow of my craft. Which is toward the front.
And looked at me with his eagle eye.
“Danny!!!” said the eagle in a stern voice with a Boston
“That’s odd,” I said to myself. “Why would an eagle from northern Minnesota speak with a Boston
Continuing on to the landing, I ignored the wisdom of
the old eagle and decided to investigate up close and personal those mysterious
dishes.
What I saw astounded me! The dishes, which just a couple hours prior
were semi-submersed in ice-cold December water, were no longer covered with
water!
My first thought was, “Where did all that water go?” I mentioned this to my son-in-law a week later and he said something that to him made a lot of sense. “There’s a dam on that river, right?” I just stared emptily at him as I tried to decipher his line of reasoning.
My first thought was, “Where did all that water go?” I mentioned this to my son-in-law a week later and he said something that to him made a lot of sense. “There’s a dam on that river, right?” I just stared emptily at him as I tried to decipher his line of reasoning.
One thing I did know for certain -- the mysterious
disappearance of the water had to somehow be connected to the mysterious
appearance of those dishes.
In fact, the water had gone down so much that, as I
eased my ship toward the archeological site, my small craft became lodged in the
sea bed. Eventually the Coast Guard sent a fleet of Fisher Price tugboats to
assist me in my plight and I was able to free the Vanderyak.
I went back to the landing, loaded my kayak onto the
truck and commenced to investigate the now-on-dry-land dishes. There were several cups and saucers with
markings that they had been handcrafted in England
and a place called “Avon .” I carefully loaded the fragile cargo onto the
truck and then I called my wife with the news that “nope I didn’t catch anything
but I had a wonderful time” (which is my never-changing voicemail message on my
cell phone).
But then I told her about the dishes. She seemed mesmerized as I related the scene
to her and the fact of the disappearing water and that I had found some sort of
ancient unburied treasure in the form of cups and saucers. Maybe it was the money pit from the famed
Oak Island Treasure. (Check out The History Channel [channel 63] at 7PM Central
Time every Tuesday!)
After I got home my wife examined the dishes and was
astonished. (Ok, maybe “astonished” is a
little bit too dramatic; but she was definitely “stonished!”)
The next day I put the muddy, dirty dishes in a small
box and placed them next to the desk in the basement family room.
The following Friday, December 18th, my
wife and I drove to Phillips ,
Wisconsin
When we arrived home that Sunday evening, what my
wife witnessed as she opened the basement/family room door startled her. I was still unpacking the car when she
rushed out to the garage and uttered dramatically, “MAYBE THOSE DISHES REALLY
ARE HAUNTED!”
As she gesticulated wildly and nonsensically about a
horse being in the middle of the floor and how did it get there and is it
connected to the dishes and should we call Horses-R-Us or the Titanic
discoverer Robert Ballard, I on the other hand reacted with a totally calm Sherlock-Holmes-like
demeanor when I opened the door.
“YOWZZZERRRSSSS!!!!WHATONEARTHISGOINGONINTHEBASEMENT!!!!”
Somehow, the Victorian era reproduction horse/toy was
in the MIDDLE OF THE FLOOR LOOKING AT US. And that horse hasn’t moved off from the shelf
it was on for years! (The proof is in
the dust!)
And to make this story even more dramatic and mysterious
and scary, for that horse to get from the shelf to the middle of the floor it
would have had to have fallen off the antique book it rests on, hit two cameras
on top of the computer tower, avoided an assortment of desk paraphernalia like
three-ring binders and a hole punch and speakers and a broken Hershey bar and
dried out donut, avoided lots of stuff on top of the filing cabinet; then on its way off the desk missed two camera bags and a
computer bag and rolled out into the middle of the floor unbroken and upright. All the while positioned to look directly at us when we opened the door!
After the hair on the back of my neck went back to
its normal position, I surveyed the scene again and alleviated all of my wife’s
fears with this simple bit of wisdom, “Hey the Vikings won! Who cares if the basement’s haunted?”
(Note: the events stated above are ALL TRUE except
for these – I didn’t go fishing for marlin, I didn’t have a beak to nose
conversation with an eagle, the Coast Guard never did send any tubgoats, and
there WASN'T ANY DUST on that old book!)
