Posted on Wed, Jan. 19, 2005
Looking for the medallion this year?
Don't start here.
JOE SOUCHERAY
A fellow called me and insisted that not only should I give him
a heads-up on the location of the medallion for this year's
Treasure Hunt, but that I most certainly had a hand in writing the
clues. I think the same guy called me last year.
"I don't write the clues," I told him.
"Sure. That's what you say."
"If I wrote the clues, they wouldn't be so obtuse," I told
him.
"Nah, you write 'em."
"No, I don't. Look buddy, I'll tell you what I tell everybody.
The treasure is usually found in St. Paul, in a park or something
like that. In 1955 the medallion was found under a mailbox at
Seventh and Robert streets. I've always liked that one. Are you
still with me?"
"Yes."
"That is the sum total of my knowledge on this matter."
"Yeah, right."
Last year there was a bit of an internal dustup because I
accepted the role of ombudsman and went to bat for the public who
were lured to Phalen Park soon enough but then stood there in a
growing mass of humanity until the final clue. I suggested that
maybe the clue writer could dish out a little more of the 411 on a
clue-by-clue basis rather than wait until the last clue, which was
about two pages long.
Well, that didn't go over too well, and I'd already been called
Clueless Joe in a previous clue. What a weird fight this is. I
don't even know who I am arguing with. Somebody in this building
writes the clues, but, I swear, I don't know who it is.
One of the 2005 carnival buttons was in our mailboxes here at
the Pioneer Press. The button features three people with shovels
and ice choppers: man, woman and child. They might be a family, or
they might be friends who are caregivers to the child, whose gender
cannot be determined. But they do stride smartly across the face of
the button, looks of grim determination on their faces as they seek
what could be as much as $10,000, plus $1,200 in groceries and a
trip for two to Mexico.
When you think that for about the first 40 years or so treasure
hunters froze to death for about $2 and the chance to hear the
explosion of a Speed Graphic flashbulb, $10,000 is in a different
league entirely. And yes, that amount does bring out
quasi-professional bounty hunters with GPS technology and various
charts and graphs and usually cell phone communication with a
partner at the James J. Hill Reference Library who is
quickly trying to complete the bio on Miguel de Cervantes.
In the end, though, it is often a guy who
picks up the last clue,
drives to the location and then trips over the
loot.
You've got to be coy when that happens. One year in Como
Park, looking for the Holy Grail with my mother, I lost my
glasses in the snow. My mother dug furiously and found the glasses,
raising them aloft while shouting, "I've got them!"
Only to stare in horror as the park tipped under the weight of
the advancing pitchfork-wielding heathens.
"No, his glasses. His glasses," she said. <<br>