Since moving into my home three years ago, I've learned considerable amounts of it's history. My place was built in 1884 by a Civil War vet, and his granddaughter killed herself here in 1905 and still haunts the place. It was reworked in 1942, though parts of the house are still original. It passed through several owners before I bought the place in 2003.

I run a group of teens called the LS Kids. Monthly, we have meetings in my place, and we've discovered some interesting things in the past. The most notable was the small hidden room on the second floor---To this day, I have no idea what it was used for.

We also have three dogs. Not long ago, I discovered that the receptionist in our vet's office is the daughter-in-law of the man who owned the house in 1942. She mentioned to me that he was the sort of guy who was always saving money and hiding it in furniture and walls. So if I was ever renovating, I should keep an eye out for any cash that was squirreled away years ago.

There's never been much chance of me renovating---I'm not too up on home repairs. If the wall collapses due to water damage, my approach is to tell my wife that it's supposed to do that.

But recently, I noticed a small shelf-space that sits at the bottom of our stairs. It's about three feet square, and hollow. I've used it to hold my cigar humidor. I've been walking past this thing for three years, and never really looked at it before.

But....Possibly?

I called the Kids, and asked them to come over this afternoon. "We're gonna damage my house in search of lost treasure," I said. Every explorer needs to carefully choose his moment. In this case, the correct moment was when the explorer's wife was out of town on business.

A few of the Kids came over, and we cracked the top off. My plan was, essentially, to replace the whole thing so that it was invisible when my wife returned in four days. Failing that, I planned to call up the maintenance guy from the museum where I work, and beg him to fix this and save my marraige. Failing that, I planned to drain my bank account, put all the money in there, pretend I found it, and hope my wife didn't notice the year on the bills.

We pried the top off this thing, which wasn't too difficult---Someone had pulled that off before. Inside was a big hollow space that had been used for something, once upon a time. It contained two unpaid electric bills from 1950, a quarter, a piece of colored paper with the name "Marcy" on it, two tiddlywinks, and a piece of Lego.

The Kids were a little disappointed, until I explained to them that I'd fix the thing so we could lift off the top and have our own secret hiding spot. They liked that. And, you know, I'm glad that quarter was in there. Now, at least, I can claim to have found money.