Petrified

I'm afraid I may have lost a family 'heirloom' and I'm bummed.  I wanted to give it to Lukas, as I am sure he would appreciate its intrinsic value. 

I hadn't thought of this item in quite some time.  But I certainly remember growing up with it on the shelf of my bedroom.  I am also fairly positive I had it when I moved into my first house 20 some odd years ago.  From there however things get pretty fuzzy.

I thought of it a couple of days ago when Mrs. LIAYF showed me a divided box of interesting specimens from the natural world - fossils, slices of rock, and geodes.  She had collected them for several years and recently put them together for him.  I looked at it and thought "I know what would go perfectly as an addition to his collection!"  But I wasn't sure where to look.

That got me thinking.  Where might it be? 

Tonight, I returned to the garage to search for it.  No such luck.  But I did find...


-
 My pickle jar of original Mt. St. Helens ash, that I scooped off the top of a fence at our Southwest Washington state farm back in May of 1980.

My jar of 'soil' from the ground breaking ceremony for Safeco Field, dug up by yours truly back on March 8th, 1997.  No, it's not just another jar of chunky ash.

And...

An old cigar box filled with, among other things not one - but two harmonica's, a few cool old coins dating back to the 1850's, and a mint Topps baseball card featuring perhaps the best right handed pure hitter to ever grace the diamond - Edgar Martinez.  The real value in this card however, is that it proves that Edgar at one time actually ran.

Now as awesome as all of these things are, they were not the item I was looking for.  As a matter of fact the heirloom I was looking for was actually waaaay cooler than any of these things.

Frustrated, and now fearful that I had permanently misplaced my most prized boyhood possession in desperation I turned to Mrs. LIAYF to see if perhaps she had seen it.

"Honey, I seem to have misplaced my petrified turd.  The one my grandpa gave me when I was a boy.  It was found in a fossil field.  Have you see it?"

(Blank stare)

"It's about this high (holding my hands about 8 inches apart) and the bottom is flat so it could sit upright like a sculpture. Ring any bells?

She just replied with an incredulous look "You have a petrified turd?". 

"Well, I did have one."  was all I could muster.

And now I am afraid I may have lost it for good, which is too bad since altough Mrs. LIAYF may not comprehend, I think Lukas would have really understood its value.