I walk with my head down. I think a lot of people must think I’m either lowly in spirit or lack confidence or something like that. After all, we are all taught to stand fully erect and hold our heads high, (especially us girls). But hey, I’m not a model, and far be it from me to pretend, and besides, there’s a good reason I do this…..I find stuff.

Sometimes it’s stuff not much worth mentioning, and sometimes it’s just curious stuff. Other times it can be lucrative. Ever since I can remember I’ve looked down on the ground when I walked. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been finding things there, until it finally became a habit to look for things while I walked.

When I was very young, I used to take walks in the woods, (back when it was considerably safer to do that). I was always finding birds eggs, rare flowers, interesting mushrooms and cool nature stuff. Once, I found a snake with frog’s feet sticking out of its mouth, and tried to save the frog. I also found that poking big ant piles with a stick was not a wise choice either. I remember one cold winter day on my trek through the birches; I found a stashed six pack of beer. I turned it into my mom, who then figured out it belonged to one of my teen-age brothers. He wasn’t really happy with me. Then a few other winter finds were: I noticed a snow bank that had been recently plowed had a funny look to it, and I crossed my street to investigate. I found dollar bills sticking out of it, half plowed into it, covered with grey snow, and they kind of formed a spiral staircase effect from top to bottom. I think I plucked like ten to twelve of them from the packed bank. Also, when our community ice skating rink melted down for the spring, I spied a whole bunch of change in a mound, at one end of the rink underneath the plastic. When I ripped through it, I got about eight dollars in change out of it. No one else that was with me saw it there. They all had their heads up.

I find pennies all the time. Most people do. I happen to pick them up. The other day I turned in a canister of them I had been bending over to retrieve for a year, and it yielded about twenty bucks. Hey, that’s twenty I didn’t have. People are funny about pennies. They get them for change and they just throw them out or let them drop. If they drop a dime, they’ll bend down for it, but not for a penny. Probably not for ten pennies even though the value is equal. Anyway, I’m waiting to find that rare one that someone was too lazy to bend down for.