A Pirate's Delight LbNA #21300 (ARCHIVED)

A Different Kind of Letterbox
(5 boxes but only 1 treasure)


Things you should know before setting out on this hazardous, but challenging, journey:

· This is not designed for the little nippers (<10 years old). Ideal: 11-13.
· Operation of a compass is essential; also, rudimentary map-reading skills.
· A “pace” = 1 of my steps = 3 yards – no, scratch that – make it 22 inches.
· All compass headings are magnetic unless otherwise noted.
· The magnetic variation (declination) for the Wellesley area is 16º W.
· A “clue” may consist of several steps before you find a container (tennis ball can) with a “hint” to direct you to the starting point for the next clue. This will make it possible to break the hunt into sections over the course of several days, so you can come back and pick up where you left off.
· The treasure (yes, genuine Spanish doubloons) is located in the final box with stamp, etc.
· If there’s no treasure there you’ll know somebody else beat you to it. Just stamp the log, let out an anguished scream of frustration and jump in Bezanson Pond. But before you drown I would like you to provide the following information: age of primary hunter (if parent, admit it) and the time it took him/her to get to the treasure. This will help me design the next hunt.
· Discretion is advised (demanded!) when digging up or replacing hints so that other spying pirates won’t know where to look. Hints will usually be hidden under rocks, brush, etc. and will NOT require serious digging.
· A pencil and paper will come in handy for those with attention spans < 2 minutes. Clearly, you’ll need a compass, and a calculator wouldn’t hurt.
· To save time in the field you are strongly advised to read all the clues at home before you start – no sense lugging text books, computers, encyclopedias, sextants, etc. through the woods.
· My e-mail address for complaints, suggestions and desperate pleas for assistance is: PhineasTS@comcast.net







Clue 1:

Go to Centennial Park, across from 148 Oakland St. in Wellesley, MA. If you can’t find the parking lot or convince your parents to take you there, you’re not quite ready for this, so stay at home and read a good book about pirates.

Park in the designated parking area, but watch out for the chocolate lab and that nasty miniature schnauzer when exiting the car. (There are lots of dogs here.)

Go to the Wellesley Parks sign and get a map for Centennial (just one per family, please), but beware of the giant tarantula guarding the maps……well, maybe it was a daddy longlegs. If no maps are there e-mail me and I'll send you one.

Head in a westerly direction looking for a large circular depression surrounded by barbed wire, bunkers and units of the 101st Airborne Division……………sorry, that was a different letterbox………….I meant to say:

Follow the path just to its west
Then look for the work of other troops
Who sought to keep you toasty dry
While plying trails of winding loops.

The specific object of your search was described by Ralph Waldo Emerson in a hymn which contains, in the first stanza, the words:

“Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.”

There are two lines preceding those, and your immediate objective is the one that’s described in the 3rd and 4th words of the first line. No fair asking your English teacher! You should know these lines, anyway.

If you’re a student, you’ll be delighted to hear that we’re going to cover a good part of your high school education during this hunt, so you won’t feel you’re missing anything at school. If your principal asks why you’ve been skipping classes, just tell him you’ve been treasure hunting in Centennial Park and he’ll understand.

Unfortunately, you’ve got a clue to solve before you can study more poetry, math and physics, so let’s get going. If you’ve spent more than 5 minutes so far, this hunt may take you longer than planned. Anyway, from Emerson’s dedication follow the trail in a SW direction until it intersects with another. Continue looping around to the W and then NW for about 2/10 of a mile until it turns abruptly ENE.

You should NOT continue to follow it blindly to the NE, but take Robert Frost’s “road less traveled” straight ahead……………..it could make all the difference. After about 63 paces, look 90º to the right for a triple oak about 7 feet from the path.

Sight through each crotch of the tree (a straight stick might help) until you see a double (or V) oak about 22 paces away. Dig for Hint 1 at the base of this tree on its north side.






Clue 2:

Looking straight ahead from your new location, take the compass bearing of the “Code #1” in front of you, then answer the following multiple choice question. The result will be sent to your math teacher.

Its true bearing is:

a) 396º ± 13º
b) 4 x 22 – (3+6) + (6+3) x (infinity – 17)
c) the number of blueberries in a Friendlies pancake
d) None of the above
e) All of the above

If you chose anything but (d) you ought to give serious thought to another hobby – say, crayon coloring books or painting-by-the-numbers. Or, you might even consider getting your education at (shudder) school.

OK, enough of these higher mathematics. Take the trail 90º to the left and follow it to the intersection with another – about 2/10 of a mile. Hang a right on that one and slog on a short distance until you come upon a circular boulder field just off the right side of the trail. It was obviously put there by aliens, but that’s another story.

Approximately in the center of the field you’ll see a V-oak with half of one side missing (poor guy)……………aliens evidently dislike oaks.

Facing NW with your back against the tree take a compass reading of 330º and walk about 17 paces in that direction until you come upon a (gasp!) cement block with an embedded pipe……….. definitely not alien.

Making sure there are no copperheads around the cement (they love cement), push a straight stick in the metal hole until it hits bottom. Then stand behind this weird assembly and sight along the line of the stick while the dog-walkers on the trail laugh themselves hoarse at the ridiculous image you present. Try to look intelligent as though you’re surveying the land for the town and, when they’ve finally passed, you should see the rounded back of a boulder shaped like a tortoise under the arch of a sloping black birch.

The tortoise’s back has an “X” scratched on it and its “tail” points toward a tree nearby. Look in the rotted base of that tree for your next hint. Be careful of the fire ants that have been known to consume a small dog within 5 minutes.







Clue 3:
Just 26 symbols reflect
The glory of Rome,
But you’ll only need these
To point the way home:

19, 8, 1, 4, 15, 23


With your back to the Giant, face in the direction of its (see results of above poem) at sunrise on the Spring (or Fall) Equinox, compute the magnetic bearing, subtract 66º and follow that heading for about 90 paces until you see a rectangle that might – or might not be – square. If it has four 90º angles and you think its area is (pi)r², you’re in big trouble with your math teacher. However, if you can prove that its area is (pi)r², you can have your teacher’s job and you’ll be a likely candidate for the Nobel Prize in mathematics next year.

If this mysterious rectangle contains alien markings with the symbols ۞, ﯔ or €, run for your life and call 911, but if you see the number N, where N = 7³ - (7x11), you should follow the path in an easterly direction. DO NOT COLLECT $200 IF YOU PASS……………sorry, that’s a different game.

Continue your trek around to the north until you come to a large branch that overhangs the trail. The base of the tree is rotted and ideally suited for hiding a clue, but I resisted the thought and decided to take the noon sun shot with my trusty sextant………no, that was when I was Blackbeard’s navigator in another century.

I meant to say that I spotted a large twin oak (with two separate trunks) about 42 paces away on a bearing of “Code #2” and located on the south side of a secondary trail. If you can do this while there are still leaves on the trees, you should immediately contact the Pentagon and offer your services – they need people with X-ray vision.

From that tree follow the trail SW to the T (no, not the MBTA, knucklehead) and take a left. Follow that (past a tree with a single arrow) until you see two more arrows pointing right and left on the same tree. Flip a coin, then take the trail that you climbed previously unless that was before you started this hunt, in which case your sister might have been on it earlier today, thus nullifying the flip in the first place. Did you use a nickel or a quarter? Pennies don’t count. We sometimes accept silver dollars in a pinch, but you should have used a gold doubloon like real pirates.

Walk southwesterly toward a tree with two more of those strange arrows. From there continue for about 1.2 furlongs until your hat floats……..cancel that………..until you intersect a trail on the left.

Take that trail to the ENE, being careful to ignore all the obvious hiding places along the way (especially that one on the right under the palm tree) until you get to a meadow with a four-way intersection. When the light turns green proceed straight ahead, but only after looking both ways (your parents have requested that I report back to them on this).

You’ll pass by a breeding area for large rocks piled together as though an intelligent glacier once decided it would make a good hiding place for future clues.

Finally, you’ll come to a fallen tree across the trail. After beating the top of the log with a large club to scare out the wildcat that lives there, look under the large rock nearest the trail beneath the fallen tree and you’ll find what you’re looking for.





Clue 4:

Go ESE to the first intersection, then SSW about 200 paces to another intersection and start looking for a duplicate of an object you blindly stumbled across in a previous clue, but this one is about F feet lower, where

F = (number of quarts in a peck) + (number of cubic feet in
a cubic yard) – (number of feet in a fathom) – [4 x (number of
eyes in a Cyclops)]

Cross it to the east and pass (on the left) six homes belonging to the descendants of dinosaurs. Do not touch them (no, not the dinosaurs, dummy) or get too close, as they’re sometimes inhabited by very strange critters. When the trail splits take the one that passes parallel to a way so fair and continue until you enter a rectangular graveled area.

Go to its SW corner and observe to the north a wooden gift from those who study botany. Go to that gift and then face toward a small flag protected by a pit of silicon (more chemistry here).

Whip out your compass and take the bearing of a “Code #3,” then compute its reciprocal and walk in that direction for X paces, where X is equal to:
(the number of pints in 3 quarts of rum)
plus
(the number of ounces in four gulps……er……in one pint).

Contemplate the delicate branches of the albino tree in front of you, then face NW and walk to a solitary evergreen not far away. From there follow a bearing of (C – 17)º, where C is the average human body temperature in Centigrade. Since you’ve probably led a sheltered life and haven’t memorized that conversion formula, it is:

Fahrenheit = 9/5C + 32º

Now walk in that direction until you find yourself opposite a tribute to the elusive ruffed grouse and look around the base of a gnarled oak for your last hint.






Clue 5:

Read the words as you would a book, then remember (or record) the letters (not numbers) in positions 4, 5, 11, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25. Call this string of letters “word.”

Proceed to the intersection of the main loop trail and “word” (Code #4). Look for a gray stake nearby, stand next to it and start walking on a heading of Y degrees (unless you’re on a gangplank, in which case start begging for mercy), where Y is equal to:

[(the number of feet in a yard)³ x 10] – 10

Continue on that trail for about 175 paces. If this too exhausting you won’t be able to carry home the loot anyway, so maybe you should come back another day with a wheelbarrow and someone you can trust, maybe your grandfather. Gold doubloons are heavy, you know, and grandfathers aren’t likely to run you through when they see the treasure.

Look for a large V-oak on the right that’s only 3 feet from the path.
From there walk 20 paces on a bearing of 105º to another large oak, disregarding the mango tree on your left.

Then take up a heading of 190º to a fallen tree pointing in the same direction. From the trunk of the fallen tree walk 13 paces along its side, then look 90º to your left. Observe another large standing oak close by with a hole about 3 feet up the trunk.

Search for a straight stick at least 5 feet long and place it in the hole as far as it will go. If you detect the presence of water, watch out for the cottonmouth water moccasin that guards the treasure. Its bite could end your hunt within 30 seconds, but if you’re still standing after that time, sight along the stick and dig where it points. You may be rewarded with a pirate’s dream (if someone else hasn’t beaten you to it).

Congratulations!


Phineas T. Spaulding
Pirate First Class