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.