It’s spring! I can’t even put into words how glad I am to see longer days and green grass again. Springtime at my house is usually accompanied by yard cleanup days, tree planting, garden tilling, and prepping the grass for mowing. It’s also when I take the time to spread topsoil and re-seed areas of the lawn that need extra care.
Then, there’s the issue of holes in the yard. Holes under trees, holes under the deck, holes next to the trampoline—holes everywhere! Between the dogs and four children, holes seem to appear every spring as quickly as flies and dandelions.
This year is different, however. This year, some of the holes are mine.
When I was seven or eight years old, living in Florida, my brothers and I used to dig holes to China. In my opinion, this is a sign of a complete childhood. This was difficult because the water table in Florida is so high that we always struck water about three feet down. It wasn’t uncommon for water to fill our holes completely, transforming them into muddy swimming holes. I’m sure my mother had a hard time cleaning the dirt rings out of the bathtub after these adventures.
Moving to Virginia at age nine really changed our hole-digging exploits. Although it was possible to dig deeper, the rocky clay soil of the Valley made digging to China a much harder task.
“Hand me that sheet of plywood—the one behind the barn!” I yelled to my brother, Shea. “I’ve got an idea.”
Working together, we covered our hole with plywood and disguised it with grass clippings, hoping to keep it hidden from Dad and any other would-be passersby. Inside, we carved out benches to sit on and little shelves for our treasures. Inspired by a favorite childhood film, The Great Escape, we covertly spread the overburden in the garden in an attempt to further hide our mess. It wouldn’t be long before a torrential rain collapsed our bunker—and Dad made us fill it in again.
One Christmas, my mom bought us both an outdoor survival book. That’s where I learned about setting snares and traps. As soon as the weather warmed up, we were off to the woods, digging pitfall traps in hopes of catching an animal. We placed sharpened sticks at the bottom and covered the traps with branches and leaves. Looking back, it’s a wonder we never caught a neighbor’s pet or injured someone.
Holes were an important part of other types of play, too. Since we couldn’t afford fancy Hot Wheels tracks, we built our own in the dirt—complete with parking garages, highway overpasses, tunnels, and a spaghetti-like maze of roads that expanded endlessly under our parents’ deck. At some point, marbles joined the fun, and we created six-foot-wide dirt circles that I obsessively smoothed and leveled, removing any stone or root that could interfere with our games of Ringer. One of us was lucky enough to find a stainless-steel ball bearing to use as a shooter, which became the biggest prize of all in our high-stakes Keepsies matches.
I found my first arrowhead digging in the dirt of my parents’ root cellar. I discovered a lead hem weight while digging a grave for our family dog when I was 12. And I found a silver Spanish coin as a teenager while digging a new water line for my first employer.
Now, at nearly 40, I’ve found a new reason to dig holes. A couple of years ago, I needed to locate a property corner pin on a piece of land I purchased. My neighbor loaned me a cheap Bounty Hunter metal detector. It didn’t take long to find the pin—but I kept going. What else could I find?
“Hey kids, want to go treasure hunting with Dad?” I asked my four little ones.
With permission to search an old homesite deep in the woods, we were off. What would we find?
“Can I use the detector, Dad?”
I let each of them take a turn swinging it around. Before long, we unearthed the brass clasp of a long-disintegrated coin purse—but no coins. That was enough to get me hooked. I need a better metal detector, I thought. Friends and neighbors were happy to loan or sell me their 1980s classics, each needing repairs. A White’s Coin Master 5000. A Nautilus VLF. My garage is starting to look like a cross between a metal detector museum and an electronics repair shop.
Several times a week, I take the kids treasure hunting in the yard. We’ve uncovered at least a hundred aluminum pull tabs and canning jar lids. Our five-gallon bucket of trash metal has already overflowed into a second one. I’ve also collected a neat little pile of lead bullets, brass shell casings, three axe heads, a hammerhead, and many pieces of iron horse tack.
And yes—there are treasures, too. A quart-sized mason jar on my workbench is steadily filling up with coins—mostly pennies, dimes, and quarters. I’ve found over ten dollars in change in my yard alone, including several wheat pennies from the 1940s. It amazes me how excited I get over finding a coin buried six inches deep, even if it’s just a Lincoln Memorial penny.
Last night, I hit a spot in the yard with many high-tone signals. In short order, I had dug up three Hot Wheels cars. This brought me back to those early days of playing in the dirt, and I wondered which little boy or girl had left their cars in their dirt garage, forgotten by time.
This Spring, as I fill holes with fresh topsoil and grass seed, I am reminded that these holes are not just marks in my lawn, but portals to imaginative play. They are time capsules of stories from the past. Just as I dug holes to China, created marble arenas, and built car tracks when I was young, so are these holes a playground for my kids. Beneath the surface, between the grass roots and buried treasures, we’re planting new memories and growing our family’s stories.
