Tang Knife in the Dumpster and SHADOWS ON THE TRAIL



Figure One - 2.7 inch long corner tang knife from Colorado 

Second Edition.  

My prehistoric book series called the SHADOWS ON THE TRAIL QUADRILOGY was inspired by a prehistoric artifact from the Folsom prehistoric culture. The artifact above and below has a story as well, but with this story I don't see a book series coming out of it. :-)  

I dubbed the 2.7 inch long corner tang knife from Colorado in the photograph above and below the “Tang Knife in the Dumpster” for good reason. Now, you can read the rest of the story.   

One Saturday in the summer of 2016, I took this magnificent corner tang knife out of its frame to study its flaking some more. After studying it, I carefully wrapped it up in bubble wrap and placed the bubble-wrapped artifact in the top drawer of my desk. There, I thought it would be safe. The next morning I planned on taking some photographs of the corner tang knife before I headed to my volunteer firefighter training session. 

Before heading to my training the next morning, I went to my desk to fetch the corner tang knife for some photographs in the morning sunlight. I looked all over the top drawer of my desk but I could not find the bubble wrap or the artifact. Well, I ran out of time and decided to do a more thorough search when I got home from training. After all, the bubble wrap did not just grow legs and walk away. Perhaps, I put it in another drawer? Off to training I went! We live in the mountains and our garbage goes into a community dumpster a couple of miles away. I loaded up several bags of garbage and dropped them off at the dumpster on my way to training.

During the entire training session all I could think about was the bubble-wrapped corner tang knife. Where did I stash it? I rushed home after training and scoured all of the likely spots I might have placed it. Nothing. My search came up empty. My wife had one of her girlfriends visiting so I asked Theresa if she had seen the bubble wrap in the top drawer of my desk. “Oh,” she replied, “I might have thrown that out.”

Figure Two - 2.7 inch long corner tang knife from Colorado

"Thrown it out?" I responded as politely as I could. 

"Maybe," she answered, nonchalantly. 

Well, we had a guest so what could I say? Panic set in as I thought about all the garbage I hauled to the dumpster. I jumped in my vehicle and raced to the dumpster. It was Saturday so everybody and their dogs were emptying their trash in the dumpster. The dumpster was packed. I jumped into the dumpster and dug through the numerous sacks of garbage looking for my sacks of trash. Does everybody use black drum liners? By now, the summer heat had turned the dumpster into an assortment of unappealing smells. Through a process of elimination, I found one of our garbage bags, and then another. I loaded the soggy garbage bags into my vehicle and drove them to our house where I could go through the garbage in our garage with some privacy. I had a real fun time. I did not find the bubble wrap or the artifact so I took the garbage back to the dumpster and jumped back into the metal container. I was going to make sure I had not missed any of our garbage bags.  

After an hour or so I gave up and went back to the house and sat down for lunch with my wife and

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her guest. After spending a couple of hours digging through garbage, lunch was not too appealing, but I tried to be social while keeping my mind off that corner tang knife. It was one of my favorites. I excused myself from lunch, telling my wife and her guest that I was heading back to the dumpster. I had a new plan. I dug through more garbage bags and did fine one of ours. In it, I found a piece of bubble wrap. Was it the bubble wrap? I did not know, but at least it was kind of a clue. Unfortunately, if it was our bubble wrap then the artifact was loose in the dumpster.  

By now, there was garbage strewn all over the dumpster. I had created garbage chaos from neatly packaged garbage bags. I needed an even better plan. There were two dumpsters sitting side by side, so I moved everyone else’s garbage to the other dumpster so all I had to look at was my own garbage. After removing most of other people's garbage, I was standing near the bottom of the dumpster, my feet planted in someone’s well-used cat litter, Flies and maggots and other assorted garbage-feasting bugs swarmed my air space or crawled across the bottom of the dumpster. My gag reflex had come off vacation and I gagged at the sight and the smells. I methodically went through each bag of my garbage, again. I found a bag of ours that I had somehow missed. I opened the bag and poured the contents onto the cat litter at the bottom of the dumpster. My eyes spotted it! Resting on top of used coffee grounds was the corner tang knife, still fully intact. I stared at it for an instant, thinking it might be a mirage. I picked it up and rubbed the coffee grounds from it. It was real and that's the story of the Tang Knife in the Dumpster”.  


You can begin my four book prehistoric adventure series with the first book in the series SHADOWS ON THE TRAIL. This was also the first book I ever wrote. Click the link below to join my adventure.    


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