I was walking the dog today, through a greenbelt-type wooded area near the elementary school. There are tons of squirrels out there, and he loves to chase them all, though he’s never caught a one. Suddenly he takes off after a big fat grey and disappears into the trees. I run after him. I find him looking anxiously up a mossy maple where the big fat grey is pointing down at him and laughing fit to bust.
Laughing myself, I walk up to him and clip his leash back on so we can go home. Then I notice the suitcase.
There’s a big black hard-shell suitcase by the tree, half buried in wet leaves. (Is it so unusual that my first thought was of it being full of money? I don’t think so.) I stoop down and brush soggy decayed leaves off of the suitcase and give it an experimental tug. It’s heavy. Heavier than money would be. (I don’t think my second thought, chopped-up body parts, is that unusual either.)
One of the catches is broken, and the other opens readily when I pull on it. I open the suitcase warily. There is a clinking noise. (Welcome to my third thought: gold coins.) As the top lifts, I see…
…lots of glassware.
Inside the suitcase is an assortment of serving trays, perfume bottles, salt and pepper shakers, ashtrays, and bowls, all made of glass. Most of it clear, some of it green, and one particularly nice pale pink serving platter. Everything is wet and muddy, with pine needles sticking here and there. It’s obviously been hanging out in the woods for at least a few years.
How odd.
I take the dog home, fetch the car and drive back to get the suitcase. Feeling slightly shifty, I load it into the hatchback and hurry home. I meet my husband in the kitchen. “I’ve got a mystery!” I crow excitedly, and together we open the suitcase and examine each bit.
Besides the glassware, we find: an old box-type camera (no film), a metal advertising sign reading “Harold’s Club or Bust, Reno, Nevada” with a picture of a conestoga wagon, a tiny yellow plastic box containing what appear to be two gold dental fillings, a black beaded hair ornament (badly decayed), a slimy leather wallet with a masonic symbol on one side and the initials J.J. on the other, and a creepy ceramic figurine of a boy in blue marked “made in japan”.
Some of the glassware is broken, there are three lids with no bottoms, and none of it looks particularly valuable. I think the green and pink stuff may be depression glass, or reproductions of it. One of the bowls has the name “Catherine” etched onto the lid.
So tell me. What is all this stuff doing in a suitcase in the woods?