Amidst the frequent squabbles about who signed the logbook and who didn’t, accusations of cache policing and armchair logging, sometimes a story comes along and really makes you stop, think and realise that sometimes you need to just let it go. I received an email from sir-drumalot asking me to share this story.
I recently received an email through
Geocaching.com from someone that I’ve never met. It was in reference to a hide of mine in a small parking lot on Main Street. This lot is nestled between local businesses and is typically crowded. The walls are brick, with some areas having been painted with solid colors. Nothing special about the location to the ordinary citizen. To the initiated, a small prize awaits in a small hole about 7ft off the ground. I had hidden a green bison tube dangling from a small piece of white/rusty coat hanger just under a large sign that reads “Parking Available”.
The cache location
The person who contacted me was very interested in the logsheet, which had been replaced 3 days prior by another cacher. I informed her that I did not have the logsheet, but I know who replaced it. I immediately contacted him, but he had already discarded it. She had contacted me for her friend, who was desperate to have it. Throughout the day I received several inquiries about this same cache hide through various channels. A co-worker texted me, my wife’s friend called, and I was forwarded a Facebook post. As I am the only active geocacher in town, they had all assumed that I knew the hider not knowing that I actually hid it. It didn’t take me long to figure out that my simple hide had a profound meaning to someone. I contacted the desperate searcher through Facebook asking of the logsheet’s importance.
Here is what she sent back:
My boyfriend and I had a relationship, it started long before we even knew it. On New Year’s Eve we were each other’s first kiss, our first hug, our first laugh and our first touch. We drove around reminiscing about where he grew up, his family, the love of his music, jeep … me. And we drove to main Street, he pulled it out the wall and told me to sign it, he said I can write as big as I want. So with a small Sharpie he had on him, I wrote “J ❤s S 1-1-17” across the sheet. And we would drive back and forth, and just look at that wall, he would grab my hand and smile and kiss me as soft as he could. And I would keep a gum wrapper if I found one of his. That paper shared a moment for us, frozen in time. No one or nothing else in this world mattered, except for us two, in the middle of Main Street at 2 am, and that geocache…
I nearly burst into tears as I read it. Her boyfriend had died just a few days before that logsheet got changed. I happened to know the young man. I had watched him and his friends grow from pesky teenagers into young adults. I wasn’t close to him by any means because of our difference in age. But somehow this new information has had an impact on me. She did make mention that she had a picture, and she sent it to me. She has given me permission to share this story. I am not one for telling stories, but I feel that’s it’s a lovely story.
Thanks to sir-drumalot for sharing this story with us. Do you discard full logsheets straight away? Or do you keep them? What if you changed the logsheet on a cache you don’t own – would you offer to send it to the cache owner?
Sarah
