I have told you that I had managed to keep the discovery of the old diary a complete secret. Later, as I had read through the faded writing and the hints of a buried Confederate treasure started to emerge, I was even more secretive but finally the feeling was too great and I had to confide in someone. Who else but my Dad? He has always been there and was there when we found the hidden cellar beneath the old house.
On a warm afternoon while working at the camp I asked him to come sit in the shade in front of the Witches House and have a cold beer with me. We sat down and I began the story of everything that had happened. I told him about the bowling ball and finding the diary. I told him the story of Lt. Julian Christmas and how General Forrest had buried the treasure on our property. I told him everything I could think of about all of it and showed him the diary. At the end I showed him the puzzling final paragraph.
“The key beginning is a stone at the start of our dream
The answer to our hope is carved in the heart of the wood.
To find the first, you must find the second,
and your future will depend on ancient rock to guide you.”
Dad sat and we talked about the excitement of it and how much fun it would be to find the treasure but he did not seem to be as excited as I was. Finally, he said “ The truth is that the treasure is not here, it had to have been dug up a long, long time ago. As long as anyone that knew about it had survived the war, they would have made sure to get it as soon as they could.” He followed with the advice “Keep your story secret and don’t let anyone see the diary. It will be fun for you to look for it but I assure you it is long gone”
Maybe not, I thought to myself, I already knew where to start my search. The Strange Rock Carvings hidden in a small valley in the bluffs had to be the beginning point and I also knew the man that could help me decipher the hidden meanings there. He was a Yankee blogger from New York, an old submarine man that finished his career in law enforcement. What people did not know was that while on those submarines, he had specialized in code breaking. On the net, he is affectionately known as Cookie and his blog is called The Cook Shack. Go visit, email him, maybe he will tell you the truth of what we discovered.
On a warm afternoon while working at the camp I asked him to come sit in the shade in front of the Witches House and have a cold beer with me. We sat down and I began the story of everything that had happened. I told him about the bowling ball and finding the diary. I told him the story of Lt. Julian Christmas and how General Forrest had buried the treasure on our property. I told him everything I could think of about all of it and showed him the diary. At the end I showed him the puzzling final paragraph.
“The key beginning is a stone at the start of our dream
The answer to our hope is carved in the heart of the wood.
To find the first, you must find the second,
and your future will depend on ancient rock to guide you.”
Dad sat and we talked about the excitement of it and how much fun it would be to find the treasure but he did not seem to be as excited as I was. Finally, he said “ The truth is that the treasure is not here, it had to have been dug up a long, long time ago. As long as anyone that knew about it had survived the war, they would have made sure to get it as soon as they could.” He followed with the advice “Keep your story secret and don’t let anyone see the diary. It will be fun for you to look for it but I assure you it is long gone”
Maybe not, I thought to myself, I already knew where to start my search. The Strange Rock Carvings hidden in a small valley in the bluffs had to be the beginning point and I also knew the man that could help me decipher the hidden meanings there. He was a Yankee blogger from New York, an old submarine man that finished his career in law enforcement. What people did not know was that while on those submarines, he had specialized in code breaking. On the net, he is affectionately known as Cookie and his blog is called The Cook Shack. Go visit, email him, maybe he will tell you the truth of what we discovered.
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