A Millennial Start

Our college guide was a fourth-generation WVU mountaineer whose pontificated family history about the campus, famous former grads, and even a local folklore tale about campus tunnels and hidden treasures had me chuckle with absurdity. To amuse myself while on this boring portion of this minority recruitment tour, I silently mimicked the guide's pesky behavior when I then locked eyes with a young lady who must’ve been watching me because she was holding her laugh under her hand. Following the shared experience and colloquial head nod; I knew she was someone I should meet once the group disbanded. We soon introduced ourselves and swiftly exchanged information in hopes to get to know one another as actual freshman students next semester. During that three-hour ride home, I was thrilled to be attending this school in the fall and I looked forward to seeing Joyce from Philly again.

I was assigned to Bennett Tower on campus, and my room was not-so surprisingly directly next to the residential advisor. While I waited for the elevator to go to the cafeteria, I read all the club announcement flyers posted on the board. I thought to myself, “of course, the nerd in you wants to join the ghost club and alienate yourself from making any new real friends,” I scoffed at the idea and stayed focused!

I recalled from the tour, how many people you could find on the downtown campus, mainly in the MountainLair and so I decided to go there instead of going back to my dorm in between classes. I spotted my favorite, Wendy’s, and proceeded to slowly eat my lunch while I soaked up my immediate environment. The ‘Lair, for short, was like Grand Central station; you could eat, sleep, even go bowing if you wanted however, today’s purpose was to absorb, observe and people-watch in wait of cute athletes. When I went to throw my trash away, I overheard a guy say, “dude, there’s like $20k hidden on this campus Bruh, just up for grabs.”

What!? I thought, I was instantly intrigued.

“Excuse me, did I hear you correctly? 20k just up for grabs? What’s the catch, I asked doubtfully?

“The catch is you have to find it! Legend has it, an old coal miner hid his prized possessions, which back then were like coins, silver dollars, Indian head nickels, shit like that. He hid them throughout the mountains along the Monongahela river allegedly, before they were mined. A few of his items had been discovered, and are on display in the local museum. But they claim there isn’t more. And it was noted he’d kept a record of where he’d hidden a majority of his stash. Year-to-date, it hasn’t been found, now probably worth more than 20k. School thinks it’s a myth. But if that were true, why have a display in the museum, right? School says if discovered, they won’t impose and allow whoever finds it, can keep it, and without tax! Something called historic tax exemption stuff! So there ya have it. Good luck to ya!”

Right, I thought!

While I waited for the PRT, I pondered what more I missed from that snore-bore college tour. I wondered about what details that tour guide might’ve actually shared. I boarded and stared out of the window while all I could think of was being the inconspicuous black girl from an urban city who unwittingly solves some tale by finding money.

“Jazmin, right?”

I turned to see who called my name, and it was Joyce from Philly! I beamed with excitement, as her timing couldn’t have been more perfect. She too had come from the ‘Lair and was headed back to Brook tower, where she lived. We quickly caught up and agreed to link after dinner. I went back to my room to rehearse how I was going to ask her to join me in locating this hidden treasure on campus.

I knocked on Joyce’s door who was listening to Biggie Smalls, and I received this as another sign of the beginning of a great friendship. I quickly started rhyming with and we were reenacting the video as if we were there! We laughed in fulfillment and I soon sidelined and asked her what she’d heard about the hidden money on campus tale?

Chile, yes, I remember the tour guide saying something about tunnels under the downtown campus and some kind of explosion, it changed the original plans of where to put the school statue. Something like that.

I asked, “did you know he recorded where he hid his stuff?”

“Like a map?” She replied.

“I don’t think it’s a map maybe more like coordinates, or markers, you know, like from the movies!” I stated.

That’s when I spotted a small dusty black book on her window seal. I nosily inquired?

“Girl that was in my closet, it popped out from the top shelf when my mother was sweeping and cleaning my room before I unpacked. I put it in the window seal because it was slightly damp. I forgot all about it!

“This book belongs to Roger Clemmons” is what the first page read. The next page looked like a 1997 freshman schedule. Then people’s names and what appeared to be dorm room numbers. It read like a typical male freshman notebook. I skimmed the remaining pages but I couldn’t interpret what any of it meant. I wondered why a student would use such a small notebook for anything but I put it back when I returned to my idea sales pitch for Joyce to join me while we became the collegiate version of Carmen San Diego. Yes, she laughed, called me crazy, and honestly, I couldn’t blame her.

Next morning, I joined my floor neighbor, on the other side of the RA. He and I shared this awful 8 am biology class and we quickly developed the ritual of smoking a bowl of marijuana before learning. In passing the bowl, I casually asked if he’d heard about the hidden money campus tales? After he exhaled, he said his advisor, Professor Clemmons claimed it to be true. He said when he was there as a student, he and his buddies went out to find the treasures on a Christmas break. They’d agreed to stay on campus and look for it while everyone was off-campus. They’d only found some army dog tags, a busted lighter, and an antique wooden box of hand tools.

I had to catch myself when I blurted, “Is his name Roger Clemmons?” He replied, “yeah, how’d you know that?” I quickly made something up about reading up on club founders and ghost sightings on campus, anything to take attention away from me oddly knowing his professor.

I skipped class to find Joyce and anxiously prayed she hadn’t tossed that book out yet. As I waited in her dorm lobby, I imagined what in that book could we uncover that Clemmons himself, missed? My presence must’ve alarmed her because her eyes grew big when she saw me waiting. Maybe she thought I had some girl crush, but her body language, softened when I mentioned the hidden treasure again.

“Oh girl, I thought you were joking about that!” She chimed.

“That black book, you found, do you still have it? I anxiously asked.

“What you want with that? She questioned.

“Ok! So, boom, I was serious about finding that hidden treasure campus thing!” And here’s why! I told her all about my smoke session and when I was done, she agreed that the coincidence was worth exploring.

“Girl, how are we going to find something we don’t even know exists?” She excitedly asked.

“Professor Clemmons, the founder of the folklore club, probably has a clue where the treasure is but it’s not like we can just walk up and ask him? Grabbing the book, “this holds the key and we’re gonna uncover it together! Don’t you know fresh eyes solve mysteries!” I said.

“What you gone do with some rolled up coins!?!” We both fell out laughing and I added, “it’s just the matter of finding something people don’t believe in, guess that’s what motivates me. Plus, it’s not like we here on scholarships!”

TRUE! Joyce chimed.

We got started at Evansdale library to copy the book's contents, pulled an old yearbook from the shelf and the map we used to identify some of the symbols discovered in the book. Joyce matched the abbreviations to a few campus buildings, and I located the areas where discoveries were previously assumed. Then we marked off old mines in the mountains and retraced Professor Clemmons’ crew and where they’d originally trekked in ’97. Then I went to the computer and researched the local museum display, which was a dead end. We sat there stewing and pondering until it dawned on me. We were taking this way too seriously and maybe this myth isn’t all that complicated at all. I argued that things back then, couldn’t nearly have been that complicated like life is today.

“That treasure is probably way closer than we think. Think about it, let’ say the blast did relocate the treasure, perhaps someone discovered it and was forced to re-hide it knowing it wasn’t there’s or maybe they knew who it belonged. So, say they re-hid it, placed it obviously where only they know, where they could hide it in plain sight. What if they thought like a mountaineer and lived like a coal miner and buried it? I gotta hunch it’s buried under the Mountaineer statue in front of the MountainLair!

We screamed, The Tunnels! We grabbed the map and lined the explosion to what we determined were tunnel markers in the black book. The notes now made sense. The mountaineer statue IS significant, its rifle is pointing downward, an indicator of the tunnel opening. We ran out of the ‘Lair and to the statue in search of an opening.

Low and behold, they used artificial turf to cover the tunnel trap door but put real grass overtop, so at first glance, it all looks the same behind the statue. Joyce was on look-out while I climbed down the scariest tunnel I will ever travel. I used my cellphone light to see where I was and I nearly fainted when I saw a makeshift shelf with all these artifacts and what I assumed was a coal miners lunch pal. I grabbed it and reached up to hand it to Joyce. She helped me up from the tunnel and we ran to the PRT station.

We stared at each other, the pal, each other and yelled at what might actually be inside!

Like the movies, we opened it together and it was INDEED the hidden money treasure! The silver dollars were tightly rolled in cloth and the Indian heads were stacked ten rows high that lined the bottom of the pal while the paper money was thin and fragile. We were stunned because the pal was light, hardly any weight, yet when the money was out, it was remarkably heavy. Made me wonder how they were able to hide it so easily or often because you wouldn’t think money of that weight would be in something so small, and not heavy! She trusted me with it and I went to my dorm room with the assumed treasure.

The next morning, we met at breakfast to discuss the next move. She brought with her the student paper, The Daily Anthenaeum, the DA for short.

Her mouth dropped and when she swung the paper around, the front cover read “Two Freshman Students Find 100yr Hidden Campus Money!

We silently cheered in glee and then our faces and smiles went to question, but how did they know about our finding so fast?

RIGHT!!!