Grandma's Treasure

My grandmother was dying. They called us to the hospital, but only let one of us in at a time. My dad went first, since she was his mother. My grandmother spent little time with him. my mother went in next. She spent aliitle more time with my grandmother, but soon she came out.

At last it was my turn. I went in the room, and the sunlight filtered in through the slatted blinds. The room whizzed and whirred with all the machines attatched to my grandmother. Her skin was a grey. I crept up close to my grandmother's face.

"Hi grandma," I said. "It's me. Bill."

"Oh, Bill," Grandma said. "You were always my favorite. All the others were only after the money. They've been looking for buried treasure in my yard for decades, but they haven't found it. But I'm going to tell you where it is. It's buried under the p ..."

And with that she died. I broke down and cried. I love my Grandma. She used to bake me cookies, and give me candy. I used to read to her, first my chidren's books, and then the newspaper and magazines. And now she was gone. 

My parents were surprised I came out so soon, until I told them Grandma had died. Neither one of them broke down and cried. Instead they had a discussion on whether to bury or cremate her. Fortunately, Dad remembered she had a burial plot next to Grandpa and had purchased the vault, and opening and closing of the grave well prior to her death.

My parents and I went to the undertaker who had handled Grandpa's funeral. Grandma had preplanned that too, so the undertaker went over the order of service Grandma had requested. When a question arose about whether we should do this or that, the undertaker would insist this is what Grandma paid for, and it was non-negotiable.

The service was beautiful. The only dry eyes in the house were my parents, my Aunt Louise, and my Uncle Hank and his wife, my Aunt Christine. Aunt Louise and Uncle Hank were my dad's sister and brother. I was the only family member at the burial.

Two weeks later we were at Grandma's lawyer's office to hear the reading of the will. Mr. Shauver asked each of us for our driver's license to verify we belonged at the reading. When he saw mine, he smiled.

"Oh, you're 18," Mr. Shauver said. "Excellent."

When he had checked all our iicenses he began the proceedings.

"We are gathered together to read the Last Will and Testament of Elizabeth Marie Carson," Mr. Shauver said. Opening the will, he began to read:

"I, Elizabeth Marie Carson, being of sound mind and body, do hereby will and bequeth:

To my son, Clarence Owen Carson, I give Grandpa's golf clubs, together with his golf bag and his golf balls.

To my daughter, Louise Harriet Carson, I give my set of pots and pans, together with my collection of cookbooks, hoping that you will one day learn to cook.

To my son Hank William Carson, I give my pet parakeet, since you were the one who taught him such filthy langauge.

To my daughters-in-law, Barbara Anne Carson, and Christine Susan Carson, who I promised to remember in my will, Hi Barbara and Christine.

To my beloved grandson, William Conner Carson, I give my house and all its contents, save those items already bequethed, my car, and my bank account, together with my stocks and bonds, to do with as he sees fit.

This being my last will and testament, I hereby ascribe my name: Elizabet Marie Carson.

Witnessed by: Roger Dumont

Diane Short

"This concludes the reading of the Last Will and Testament of Elizabeth Marie Carson," Mr. Shauver said. "Have a wonderful day."

"When will we get our stuff," Aunt Louise asked. 

"As soon as the will is probated you can make arrangements with your nephew to get your bequests. That can take as little as four weeks or it could take several years. I would think it will be a short one."

"Thank you so much," Aunt Louise said. "Mom's cookbooks had the most beautiful pictures."

We left Mr. Shauver's office, and the complaining began.

"Grandpa's golf clubs?" Dad said. "I don't even like golf. They got me a toy golf club as a kid. The only thing I hit with it was Louise. I went with Dad to the golf course ONCE, and I hated it."

"Her parakeet?" Uncle Hank said. "I hated how the bird would say, 'Polly want a cracker' everytime I came near. So I taught her new words to say. Plus, I'm allergic to birds, or at least parakeets. I was teaching him to say Goddamnit and I sneezed right after saying it. So whenever he says 'Goddamnit' he always finishes with 'achoo'."

"Well, nothing's saying you have to take the bird," I said.

"And leave something else for you, Mr. Favorite," Aunt Christine said. "No we'll take the bird."

"How did you get to be her favorite?" my mom said.

"Well, I visited her everyday, and I read to her," I said. "I reminded her to take her pills, and I helped her to the bathroom. And it was me that found her when she fell getting up from her chair because she'd had a heart attack. Should I go on?"

"No," my dad said. "But know that after the will in probated, you will be moving out of my house."

The next five weeks were very cold at our house. My mom and dad didn't say a word to me, unless they absolutely had to. If they needed to communicate with me, they would slip notes under my bedroom door.

Finally the will was probated, and Dad told me to get out today. I rented a trailer and a hitch for my car, and I proceeded to move all my belongings out of my parents' house to my house. That sounded so strange to my ears to say "my house" and not "Grandma's house."

But anyway, my parents didn't lift a finger to help me. I was forced to remove the drawers from my dresser and take them to the trailer, and the muscle the 100-pound carcass of the dresser down the steps to the trailer. The same with my desk. My hamper was the only other thing I chose to take.  

My mom had packed up all my trophies from youth sports, my senior picture, my baby memorabilia, my baby pictures, my first year book, the blanket I used to drag everywhere and countless other memories that moms and dads should keep for themselves. She cleaned out the bathroom of every trace of me, and gave me my shampoo, my conditioner, my beachtowel, my razor, my toothbrush, and the cup with the picture of the girlfriend who dumped me two years ago. At least she packed them in boxes and put them in my back seat.

I left a 4:15 p.m. and stopped by the hardware store fora couple of "No Trespassing " signs, and arrived at Grandma's, uh my house at 5:00. I unloaded the trailer into the living room and returned it, so I wouldn't get charged for another day. Then I went home and muscled my dresser up the stairs and into my room.

By then I was starving, so I went to MacDonalds and got two Big Macs, a large fries, and a Sprite. I took them home to eat. When I got home, it was dark, and I thought I saw a car like my dad's going down the street away from my house towards his house. Before I ate, I put the "No Trespassing" signs up.

I was exhausted, so after dinner I went straight to bed. I've always been a light sleeper, so when a car pulled up in my gravel driveway, I woke up. I looked out the window to see my Uncle Hank's car in my driveway. I called 911.

"Hello," the dispatcher said, "what is your emergency?"

"Hello," I said. "I've got a prowler, 714 Kennsington Court."

"We'll send somebody out," the dispatcher said. "Please stay on the line."

Within minutes a police car pulled in front of my house. An officer got out, and shone a flashlight in the backyard. He saw something moving, so he moved closer.

"Hold it right there," the officer said. "Come out here with your hands up."

Uncle Hank and Aunt Christine came out with their hands up.

"We have the homeowner's permission to be here," Uncle Hank said.

"Dispatch," the officer said into his walkie talkie, "The suspects say they have the homeowner's permission to be here. Can you confirm that with the homeowner?"

"Sir," the dispatcher said, "Do your Uncle Hank and Aunt Christine have your permission to be there?"

"No, ma'am," I said. "I never gave my permission for them to be here." 

"No," the dispatcher said to the officer. "The homeowner never gave them permission to be there."

"Thank you," the officer said. Addressing Uncle Hank and Aunt Christine he said, "The homeowner said he never gave you permission to be here. And there are 'NoTrespassing' signs posted. I'm going to have to arrest you for trespassing."

He cuffed them, Mirandized them, and took them away to the city jail. 

"Mabe a night in jail will make them think twice before they come here again," I said to myself.

I went back to bed, and slept until 8:05. I got breakfast, and set to figure out how many things in my Grandma's yard started with "p". 

I started in the front yard where she had a pine tree and peonies and a front porch. In the side yard, she had petunias. In the back yard she had a back porch, a peach tree, a perssimon tree, a pergulla, and a decorative pond.

I figured any buried treasure would be in a metal box. So I went to the hardware store and bought a top of the line metal detector. It cost more than a thousand dollars, but Grandma had $390,875 in her checking account she had given to me.

I took the metal detector home, and read the manual. I turned it on and headed out the back door to investigate there. The metal detector sounded when I crossed the back porch, but I figured it was detecting the nails in the porch.

Grandma made the best peach cobbler from the peaches from the peach tree every year. So I started there. It sounded. I found the spot where it had sounded, dug down, and found a Liberty quarter. I scanned all around the peach tree without getting any more hits, so I decided to rethink my strategy.

"The perssimon tree was pretty," I said to myself. "But Grandma never made anything from the perssimons. She probably wouldn't mind if it died from burying something under it."

I took my metal detector over to the perssimon tree, and it sounded. I dug down where it sounded and found a horseshoe. I continued scanning and I came up with a 1925 penny, an earring, and an old bottle with a metal lid.

I tried the pergulla next. It sounded on nails that were dropped while building the pergulla, an 1883 Liberty Head nickel, a campaign button for Wendel Wilke, and a thimble. At least the pond didn't register a needless hit; I'd bought a waterproof metal detector. Neither did the petunias or the peonies. That left the pine tree.

I scanned under the pine tree and it immediately sounded a major hit. I went to the garage and got a shovel. I started to dig where metal detector had sounded. I hit something metal. I excitedly uncovered my water supply line. I reburied the water supply line and resumed scanning. I uncovered a rollerskate key, a total of 84 cents in modern coins, a Mercury dime, a Benjamin Franklin half dollar, and a set of earrings.

By now it was four o'clock, and I had not taken a break for lunch. I decided to order a pizza and have it delivered. I went inside to find a phone book. Grandma had a landline, so surely she had a phone book.

I looked in her telephone stand to no avail. I looked through her desk. I looked in the kitchen; no phone book. I looked in her night stand without luck.

I looked in her junk drawer; no phonebook. I looked in the piano bench and there was the phone book. When I removed it something caught my eye; buried under the piano music in the piano bench, there was a large, flat metal box.

I dug it out and opened it. It was full of pictures of my dad, Uncle Hank, and Aunt Louise as kids. I forgot about ordering a pizza until I had gone through all the pictures. There was dad missing his front tooth. There was Aunt Louise making mud pies. There was Uncle Hank drawing moustaches on all of Aunt Louise's dolls. There was the three of them dressed in their finest clothes; must've been Easter. This was the treasure my family had been looking for for decades.