Treasure Hunting

Excerpts from an article seen on the internet*:

Forrest Fenn, an art dealer and a former Air Force fighter pilot, announced in a self-published 2010 memoir, “The Thrill of the Chase,” that he had buried a lockbox full of gold coins and nuggets, precious gems and ancient artifacts. He offered clues to its location, hidden in the 24 verses of a poem published in the memoir. Since then, he estimated, more than 65,000 people had joined the search.

Mr. Fenn has said that the treasure is somewhere in the Rocky Mountains and 5,000 feet above sea level, a suggestion that has tempted people into some of the more unsparing wilderness in the southwest. He recently specified that it is not in an area that an 80-year-old would find difficult to gain access to.

Mr. Fenn, 86, is a cheerful eccentric whose Santa Fe gallery attracted frequent visits from an eclectic group of celebrities in the 1970s and 1980s. A 1986 profile in People magazine reported that President Gerald Ford, the former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, and entertainers like Robert Redford, Cher and Steve Martin were among the customers paying high prices for oil paintings and Native American art and artifacts.

He dreamed up the treasure hunt several years after that profile was published, when he learned he had kidney cancer. Originally, he had planned to have himself interred with the buried riches, but after recovering from the disease, he decided to create the treasure hunt. And so, he said, shortly before publishing “The Thrill of the Chase,” he went out alone and buried the treasure. In a New York Times profile last year, he estimated that it was worth $2 million.

There were no witnesses, he said. The tens of thousands of people who have joined the search are relying entirely on Mr. Fenn’s word, and the clues contained in his poem, for guidance.

Several websites obsessively track the hunt.

“I believe the greater tragedy of life is not living it,” one supporter said “It is more harmful NOT to encourage people to chase dreams and not to encourage them to go live an extraordinary life filled with adventure and fun.”

That sentiment echoed Mr. Fenn’s. Growing up, he spent most of his summers in Yellowstone National Park, and he was shot down twice in Vietnam, where he flew 328 combat missions in 348 days.

“As bad as it was, it was my great adventure and it taught me that life is precious,” he said of those near-misses. “When I die I want it to be because I’m all used up.”

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Totally love the idea……

jm

Jue 2017

*here