Think Different

 Think Different
By Bill Gallagher
740 Words


     Woz where are you?  Actually I know where you are and glad to see it, it was as easy as typing your name in google, simply woz, and well-ah! there you wuz.  I am bringing you into this because I used some apple stuff as the title, and in case it ever did show in search engines I want it known I am just an avid apple user when I can afford to be (Otherwise its linux except for movie maker), and this is tribute not piracy.  
     This article is about treasure hunting, really, so I will get on with it.  I knew a guy in Fort Lauderdale during the 80s named Joe Pacillo, he was a good bud when I worked at the Fed-Ex station on Mcintosh near Andrews in Pompano Florida.  Almost everybody in Fort Lauderdale/Miami/Palm Beach, and maybe even all of Florida were victims of self inflicted substance abuse, the more the merrier, so some of the memories from that time are a little hazy, not even considering the time thats passed since then.
     Like many others in the area, including me, Joe and his family were transplants from up north.  Just where up north doesn't matter, although in Joes case it was the NJ/NY area.  Everybody in Florida equates Up North with snow all over the ground for many months of the year, and thats a big area.  Includes ALL of Canada.
     As far as metal detecting goes, Up North is the best area in America because of age, old wealth, and lots of traffic.  To people in Florida that hardly matters at all though.  Because of the snow thing.
     One day at the station there in Pompano it came up that I liked metal detecting.  Joe made me some very nice business cards advertising my skill, because he had a printing press he ran in his spare time.  He suggested I take the cards and pass them out on the beach to hotels in case people lost stuff and needed a detectorist.  That never really took off but I learned a lot.  He probably suggested this because we both worked the Fort Lauderale strip and the Galt Ocean Mile during Federal Express deliveries and pickups at that time, and knew a lot of the local lodgings people.
     The best thing I ever learned from Joe came up in casual conversation, he was trying to explain his interest in my metal detecting.  He had an uncle in NJ who had a metal detector, and he liked to use it a lot, meaning the old guy knew it well.  He could tell what the targets probably were, and it wasn't even a discriminator, thats how long he had used it.
     Once there was a severe drought in the area where his uncle lived, and sand beaches started to form below this big bridge that linked two parts of town.  The bridge was special because on one side was a pretty wealthy area, but not the other side.  The bridge was like the proverbial set of RR tracks.  On the other side were old buildings in disrepair, and a poor population.  Slums.  
     Now the vast vast majority of people would not notice this, and neither did Joe Pacillos uncle, until he was pointed in the right direction, until circumstances piqued his native curiousity so that he figured it out.  
     The circumstances were these:  from the very first time detecting the sand beaches below this bridge Joes uncle would always come home with a burlap sack full of silver and gold and guns and even cash money.  It lasted several months and Joes uncle took an early retirement.
     The reason for this bonanza was because of the disparity among the haves and have nots, a common enough circumstance on this planet, but something most people tend to ignore.  Just one more unpleasantness among the myriad eyesores and stinx of this place.  
     You see, at this lovely garden spot on the earth, there had been many hundreds of burglaries over time, and the police learned quickly the bridge was a hot spot for this kind off activity, the have nots cruising over to break and enter the buildings of the haves, then running back across the bridge.  If they were pursued the loot went over the railing.  This apparently happened many times.  I am sure it has happened in many places too.
     Think Different.

PS -jp if u read this get in touch....b