Friday, June 1, 2012


Grandpa's rows were straight as an arrow, and one afternoon while he sat and sipped on some Old Crow whisky he shared his secret with me - which was nothing more than two stakes, a good eye, and a string line. After fresh Spring rains had fallen, I would tag behind him and Molly. Much to my surprise, the most beautifully crafted arrowheads would surface to the top of the recently tilled ground. Grandpa said that this part of the country used to be an Indian reservation. I bought that story then, and I collected as many of them as I could find, stashing them away in an El Producto cigar box. As time went by, however, I realized that I had never seen arrowheads of this size and different curves made out of stones. Not in any museum, National Geographic or any type of educational television shows. Some of these spear stones were up to four inches long, which made me wonder what kind of game they were hunting. Also, given the time frame that the early British colonies came and settled across the state of Virginia, wouldn't the Indians have just gradually moved westward? I decided that there was no way that there was once an Indian reservation in this part of the state. I deeply believe that those arrowheads were from the prehistoric era and were used for killing much larger, perhaps prehistoric, game than what we've seen in these parts for a long, long time. Maybe even a giant wooly mammoth?

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