A talk with my cousin's kid made me see old things in a new way

I was visiting family in Tucson last weekend, and my cousin's 10-year-old son, Leo, was showing me his rock collection. He had a piece of pottery he found in the desert, just a plain brown shard. I told him it was probably from a ranch house, maybe 100 years old. He looked at me and said, 'But what if it's from someone way older, who lived totally different than us? We don't know their story.' It hit me that I, someone who reads about digs all the time, had just defaulted to the most recent, boring answer. I didn't encourage his curiosity. It made me think about how often we, even as hobbyists, might write off small finds without that sense of wonder. That kid saw more possibility in a broken piece of clay than I did. How do you keep from getting jaded about the common stuff you see or read about?

3 comments

3 Comments

richarddixon12d ago

That bit about defaulting to the boring answer, I get it. But sometimes the ranch house answer is the right one. Not every piece needs a deep story to be worth picking up.

holly70911d ago

Tell that to @henry_murray's boring house.

henry_murray12d ago

Ranch houses are boring on purpose.

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