secret treasure

several weeks ago, we went to visit chris'

folks at their farmhouse in independence, tx.

independence has exactly one store. and nothing

else. independence is old. it was

founded in 1834 and their house was built in late 1800's.

it's a spectacular part of texas

for the trees alone. centuries old

live oak trees with gargantuan branches

that sweep the ground like octopus arms.

several months ago one blew over. evidently,

it had a sad, secret rotten center.

when it fell, it pulled up earth with it's roots.

hank, who's nine, was poking around and

came upon a lot of very old bottles.

old enough that some of them had roots growing

through their disintegrating, metal lids.

digging a bit, he discovered this one.

looking carefully inside he saw money!

he ran to

show us and we gently opened it. carefully

rolled inside was exactly $21.00.

here's the brow-wrinkler:

the bottle is old. it was buried deeply, with

other bottles with roots growing through them.

i did some research on other bottles

that had names and most were used in the 40's

and 50's.

the money is dated 2001.

theories?