Where your treasure is there will your heart be also

If there is one thing that defines my dad, it is that he is an avid coin collector and treasure hunter. Sure he has more faults than the average guy, and he offends almost everyone upon first meeting them, but you can't say he doesn't know his coins and his ancient history.

I have many childhood memories of my dad telling us random facts about this or that Holy Roman Emperor, which king was married to which country's queen, and which royal offspring were horrifically deformed because of all the inbreeding. Yes, I know all about Leopold the Hogmouth. And I've seen his lovely coin as well.

I've had to watch countless documentaries of recovery missions for sunken treasures, and we've all been been quizzed on the seven wonders of the world. (But don't ask me to list them today.) Our annual Christmas traditions include passing around a handful of coins that existed at the time of Christ's birth, and which "May have been handled by Cyrenius himself."
I must admit I've been impressed by 2,000-year-old coins bearing the likeness of Zeus, and I can't help but snicker when I recall several different people trying to impress me with some really old coins from the eighteen hundreds. Ha.

While these endless lessons on history may have seemed redundant at times, they did instill in my siblings and myself a great interest in history and learning, which thankfully spilled over into our school work and grades. Well, for most of us. It also caused each of us to go through an annoying stage where we all try to sound smarter than each other, and prove that we know more than everybody else. Okay, we're still that way...I guess thats where the holiday Trivial Pursuit game comes in.

As we've grown older, my dad has made attempts at passing his love of coins on to his children, especially his three sons. When my two oldest brothers were little, he bought them both child size metal detectors so they could go out hunting with him. It soon became obvious that Dain wasn't that interested in the hobby, but Thain would go out with him once in a while. I'm not sure if it was really that exciting to him, or if he was just glad to spend some time with dad? But then, Thain has always been the sensitive type. Maybe he could sense how much it meant to dad to have someone share his interests.

More recently, dad has tried to establish coin collections for the two of my brothers still at home. He has spent quite a bit of money and time trying to set these collections up. While Thain was on his mission in Slovenia, it seemed like my dad bought him a new rare coin every week. More recently, both he and my youngest brother were given sets of silver half-dollars and rare dimes, which took quite a while for my dad to accumulate.

Now let me tell you a little about my youngest brother. He's a smart guy, and just like the rest of us, he knows he's smart. But paradoxically, he could also be described as not being the sharpest tool in the shed. When he was a young kid, he'd do the stupidest things. He hammered a big hole in the wall in the basement, made knife holes all over the couch, and cut open his own mattress. He has a case of cleptomania, and a major problem with lying.

You'd think maybe he was an angry child, or had ADD or something to explain this behavior. But he always seemed completely normal, and would lie right to your face to deny that he did any of these things, even if you saw him do it!

He is now out of high school, and on the surface he is a normal, bright teenager. But he still does some pretty moronic things. Like when he spent his dime collection on food from Dairy Queen. Or when he spent his silver half-dollar collection on a singing valentine for his girlfriend and some more food for himself. (Yes, he had a job at one point, but decided it was too much effort to show up any more.)

When my dad realized that my brother's collection was missing, he thought he must have sold the coins at a pawn shop, or to a collector perhaps. He was angry enough...but when he realized that the coin collection worth hundreds of dollars had been spent at face value? I'm sure you can imagine the depth of the disdain he must feel towards my brother, not to mention the hurt and betrayal.

While I still love my brother, I can't believe he would do something so foolish and hurtful. And based on his history, he probably won't even acknowledge that anything has happened either.

To this day, my dad spends each night with his 'treasure' (yes, he actually calls it that,) spread out around him, as he handles and rearranges them for hours on end. My brother, Thain, dutifully preserves the coins my dad continues to buy him, perhaps saving them for his posterity. And my youngest brother? I don't think he's getting any more rare coins. At least not in the near future.