Where is Steve?

I saw something shiny in the weeds when I was mowing the field. It was lying on the ground nearly covered completely over with dirt, the only thing showing was one corner and what looked like a belt clip, I had to see what I had found.

I parked the Cub Cadet next to it, climbed off of the tractor, and began to dig around my discovery with a rock. I bet that I was squatted down next to the tractor for a good ten minutes; from the road it probably looked like I was praying to the tractor.

I could have been praying for the blades to be sharp enough to cut the mustard weed. I told you about mustard weed a long time ago, once when I was contemplating being To Old To Cut The Mustard, I could have also been praying that I would be able to drive faster than negative one miles per hour to get through the thick stuff, or I could have just been taking a siesta.

But no I was actually on a mission, I was busy excavating a treasure, uncovering a rare item from some bygone era, this was a serious deal folks. Seeing me squatted down scratching the ground with a rock I bet the neighbors are still wondering, "What the hell is he doing out there?"

As the dirt fell away I found another Forgotten Tool, an old tape measure someone had either lost or thrown away, but how did it end up in our pasture?

On the front of the tape measure professionally installed with a label maker is the name “Steve” and underneath there are some more letters possibly spelling out a last name, or maybe something else.

This tape measure could have been part of a fine tool collection in an upscale toolbox years ago, or a member of a working class tool belt. Wherever this tape measure belonged the owner was proud enough to add his name to the tape. So who is, and where is Steve?

Steve could be the tape measures name, maybe the owner had all of his tools named, you know like Harry the hammer, Paula the pliers, Phillips screwdriver, (the owners name is Phillip and he hasn’t thought of a name for the screwdriver yet) and Steve the tape measure to name a few.

These tools could have been working on a project with Phillip and hurriedly put away late in the evening as the sun was going down, years ago I am saying, before we had the property, and Steve was left behind, lying on the ground while the owner drove away in his truck.

The next morning, Phillip could have opened his toolbox to clean and polish the tools, and as he opens the lid with a look of horror on his face he cries, "Where is Steve?"

Or there could have been a young man named Steve working on the property behind ours, this property is actually up on a hill above us, and Steve could have been one of the workers who built that home.

Can’t you see Steve up on a ladder measuring this and that with his tape measure, stretching to find a length and yelling the measurements down to another worker, the worker cuts the materials and then passes the boards up for Steve to nail into place with a fine hammer like Harry.

On one measurement the tip of the tape hangs on the end of a board, Steve yanks and twists, he pulls and yanks some more, finally the tip of the tape breaks off, sending the tape sailing back into the tape measure with a whine and a thunk that tells Steve his Tape measure is now broken.

Frustrated Steve turns and tosses the tape measure into the air, the poor little broken tape measure lands amongst the weeds in our field, face down with his clip facing up into the sky, hiding the name of the worker in the dirt, broken and humiliated the little tape measure cries “Where is Steve?”

About forty years ago there was a lot of fill dirt hauled onto this property to build it up, I have found a lot of small items, like copper tubing and fittings, reflectors, nuts and bolts, just random items, not a lot but usually after a good rain something pops up, this tape measure could have been mixed in with the fill dirt, and forty years later his little clip was finally exposed enough for me to see it,

Scratching around the tape measure with a rock, leaving a hole in the ground in a perfect shape of this tape measure, the little tape measure is finally turned over to have light shine on his front side, the first light he has seen in many years, as his sight clears while I am rubbing the dirt off of the name label, I feel a slight vibration and hear…

Where is Steve?

Have you ever found something and wondered where it came from?