Efforts to Locate Treasure of Oak Island Thwarted
Recently, outside Kennedy Center, a group of men stood at the edge of yet another freshly dug hole, their boots caked in the mud of a dream that refused to die. For the twenty-fifth time, they had come up empty-handed—no glittering gold, no ancient relics, just the same stubborn earth swallowing their hopes with each failed attempt. The men were hardened by labor and accustomed to disappointment, yet somehow, their spirits were not broken by another empty hole. Maybe it was the lure of the legend, the thought that just one more dig, one more clever adjustment to their methods, might finally reveal the fabled treasure of Oak Island. They exchanged tired but determined glances, already planning the next expedition. If fortune had not favored them yet, then surely, it was only because they hadn’t dug in quite the right spot.
DSU Professor Gabe Mydland, who, when not setting afire his intellectual energy in the softest science of all, “psychology,” has been instrumental in leading these recent digs in the Madison area. Something of an amateur sleuth, he’s devoted his substantial cerebral gifts to locating the fabled treasure. Naysayers have often pointed out that Madison isn’t even on Oak Island, nor on any island at all, but Mydland dismisses the blowhards with a mere gesture. “Oak Island was a metaphor, repressed in the mind of the pirate who buried it. A pirate would have a pronounced, Jungian sense of the cultural symbolism of islands, insofar as they transcend borders and therefore even thousands of miles.” When asked if the treasure might therefore, too, be a deep symbol, Mydland went silent for a long while, his usually animated hands now limp at his sides, and he looked out the window at a distant lilac bush that shimmered in the South Dakota wind. A single tear rolled down the craggy face of the old professor.
Another employee snookered into digging in the hard-packed earth in January was Instructor Scott Richardson. Taking a break from the digging to answer our questions, he dusted clay off his old jersey that bespoke his younger years as a pitcher for his university baseball team. “Yeah, so far we’ve only found a rusty can of Heilman’s Old Style and a chunk of wood. But Professor Mydland promised me a full bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos if I found anything else. I’ve done much worse for a lot less.” Richardson suddenly stopped talking and stared into the distance at a leafless lilac tree that tremored nakedly in the harsh wind. “A helluva lot less,” he repeated to no one in particular.
DSU maintenance crews used the opportunity afforded them by Richardson’s frenzied digging to repair a water main under the sidewalk.
