Lost Memories of the Nature Preserve

A Carpenter, A Researcher, An Explorer

Home was marked with an ever-changing flag that waved on the porch. Every few weeks, Maggie would change it to better fit the season. For fall, she had two Halloween flags, two "Welcome, Autumn!" flags, one Thanksgiving flag, and one transitional flag with frosted pumpkins. This week's flag was the second "Welcome, Autumn" flag, and it blew in the faint, damp breeze.

"Dad, dad!" Sean called, running into the garage where Dante was sanding an old kitchen table.

"Sean, sean!" Dante called back.

"We found buried treasure, but mom says we have to give it back," Sean said after hugging Dante.

"Well, that's probably the right thing to do. What did you find?" Dante asked.

Maggie kissed her husband and felt his cold nose brush against her cheek. The smell of sawdust and rain mixed to create the perfect cologne.

After Sean finished telling the story, embellishing it here and there with thoughtful exaggerations, Dante nodded and went back to sanding.

"From what I hear, your mom is right. Pictures are really important to people. The capture a moment of time that can never be visited again, so giving them the photo back would be the right thing to do," Dante said.

"Can we keep the bug, at least?" Sean asked.

"The fly? No, we should probably return that, too," said Dante. "But I have an idea. Why don't we make our own time capsule and bury it where you found your treasure?" Dante smiled.

While Sean and Dante worked on their time capsule, Maggie sorted through pages after pages of Hank Longfellows on Google. It didn't take long until she came across an obituary for a "Hank Longfellow" of Roberts, Colorado. He passed away peacefully in his sleep on April 7th, 1989. Although no pictures were available on the article, there was a mention of Hank as a "lifelong fisherman" who was born July 6th, 1920. The photographed man looked to be middle aged, and with a quick calculation, Maggie noted that the obituary Hank Longfellow would've been around forty at the time of 1959. This was all the confirmation she needed, and she put away her laptop. Hank had waited a while to be found, but he could surely wait another day. Tonight, after all, was pizza night.

Morning broke with a chill in the air and a grumbling Dante. He was never much of a morning person, and he had office work piling up. Maggie watched as Dante poured his coffee and watched as the cream pooled inside the mug.

"Lots of work to get done today?" Maggie asked.

"Mhm," Dante hummed as he continued to stare at his coffee in silence.

"Anything fun this week?" Maggie asked, knowing she was already toeing the line of asking too many questions this early.

"Nope," Dante said. His staring contest continued.

"That's a bummer. How did that photoshoot at the stadium turn out?" Maggie asked, hoping to turn his Monday dread into a more positive outlook.

"Don't know. I won't get them back until Wednesday." Dante sat down at the kitchen table and ran his fingers through his thick, coily hair.

"Gotcha," Maggie said, concluding that coffee was the only thing that might remedy his Monday blues.

"Mom! Dad!" Sean trotted into the kitchen with his stuffed cat in hand.

"Good morning." Maggie smiled.

"Hey, sport," Dante said between sips of coffee.

"Can we go to the stadium today?" Sean asked.

"Well, dad's working from home today. I think I found out who Hank Longfellow was last night, and I want to find his family today. It would be cool if we could send out their time capsule in the mail today, wouldn't it?" Maggie said.

"Then can Mikey come over today?" Sean asked. "I want to play Explorers."

"Sure, you can invite him over. I'll give Mikey's mom a call in a couple hours. I'm sure they are still eating breakfast and waking up," Maggie said.