J. Ann Tipton
Copy Editor
I'm waiting for the day when this email makes it to my inbox: " M i l l i g a n Community, Sorry for the mass e-mail, but this is an emergency. My mom told me it would happen-that if I didn’t get my head attached to my neck, someday I’d lay it down and then forget where I put it. Well, that day has come. I can’t find my head! I’m offering a cash reward because my head is important to me. If you find it, call me or e-mail me."
Don’t get me wrong. I'm not one who cringes or curses or throws furniture when an individual of our community sends a desperate "lost and found" e-mail. I don’t get bent out of shape or talk badly about the email that asks us to please look for a lost cell phone, keys, watch, ring, umbrella, shoe, coat, ATM card or can of Lysol. Actually, the first thing that often pops into my head is the question, "Did he look in the lost and found?"
Yes, believe it or not, there is a real lost and found on campus. Its history and existence is nearly as sketchy as the facts of the Hopwood tree. But, dear readers and colleagues, I have seen the lost and found, and it is good.
I took a trip to the lost and found (which, by the way, is located in the
Registrar's Office, first floor Derthick) on Friday to do some digging. I wanted to know what lost treasures I could find there and maybe help unravel an e-mail mystery or two.
Did you lose something last year? Don’t worry, it may still be in the lost and found since items remain in its forgotten care until… well, until the second coming of Christ it seems.
In the lost and found I happened across a pair of sunglasses, four umbrellas, three pairs of eyeglasses, a pair of bud earphones, four car keys, one room key, five unidentifiable keys, a single silver hoop earring, a disposable 35mm camera (complete with flash), a copy of
Greek Tragedies, a black music folder with 6 pieces of choral music, two spiral notebooks, a three-ring notebook, a computer programming textbook, a copy of Making Your Mark, a Milligan library book that's due on Oct. 30, a baseball glove, three sweatshirts and the best find of all: a Sunday school flannelgraph book about the prophet Elijah.I couldn’t help but think about the individuals who once owned these items. Are the eyeglass owners walking around bumping into things? Maybe the silver hoop earring was owned by a pirate who is now only identifiable by his eye patch. What could I find out if I took the disposable camera to be developed? Is a young Sunday school class still struggling to grasp the story of Elijah simply because they haven't been able to see a picture of him on the flannelgraph board?
I am, of course, being silly. It is interesting to me that there are so many important objects that haven't been claimed. Most of the lost items have probably been thoroughly searched for. I'd even venture to guess that entire dorm rooms have been turned upside down in search of many of the objects. How ironic that they're actually waiting for the owner to come and pick them up in the most obvious place for a missing item to be: in the lost and found.
Truthfully, I'm hoping that the owner of the flannelgraph book doesn't read
The Stampede. I may offer to take it from the lost and found prior to graduating in the spring.