You never know what surprises you are going to uncover for the duration of a home or garden renovation. We have discovered these gems as a fossilized pigeon couple and a crumbling concrete gnome smoking a pipe.
That does not prevent me from relishing tales about homeowners who find out wads of money and shed Rembrandts stashed in walls and under floorboards.
But the tale that lately snagged my attention is more down-to-earth. A Michigan house fixer tore off his concrete slab porch and discovered 158 buried bowling balls. It seems they were being rolled there in the 1950s when the home was created.
Why?
There is no sensible motive for somebody to plant 158 bowling balls underneath a porch, and the mystery has stirred national curiosity. Immediately after all, we’re a country of bored folks and bowlers.
In my situation, I’m the bored mother of a kid who at the time basically lived at Carl Richard’s 4th Street Bowl. Even though the child is now grown and on his have, he’s left lots of scruffy bowling balls driving in closets and the garage.
Some designer balls are worthy of big bucks, but these utilized bowling balls have the identical benefit as 10-yr-previous TVs and absolutely free upright pianos. I suspect the Michigan house owner will not be placing it wealthy with his buried treasure.
Fortuitously, crafty folks have suggestions on what to do with a graveyard of dead bowling balls. For case in point, by gluing and grouting glass shards on the spheres, they can be upcycled into artsy backyard gazing balls. A tomato patch with 158 gazing balls, on the other hand, might be blinding.
My beloved artwork recommendation is a large ladybug, and it is so easy that I can picture myself performing it.
“If you will purchase me a gallon of pink exterior paint, I’ll completely transform that 12-pound bowling ball in the garage into a ladybug for our porch,” I chirped to my husband or wife when he was headed out the doorway to Lowe’s.
He appeared at me as if I’d just rolled 4 gutter balls in a row.
“Why do we need a 12-pound ladybug sitting down on the porch?” he questioned.
I shrugged. “I thought it’d look lovable beside the crumbling pipe-smoking outdated gnome.”
Fortunately, we really do not have any designs to rip off our porch. With our treasure-looking luck, we’d almost certainly be like the Michigan man and discover extra bowling balls. Or worse, the musty baggage to house them.
Marti Attoun’s “Booth 186: My Secondhand Occupation in Classic Corsets, Moose Heads and Other Moth-Eaten Antiques,” is out there as an e-e book on Amazon.