It's in the genes

Mary Beth Boyd says I have a gift.
I blame my dad.

You should see him with a pair of divining rods (made from two wire clothes hangers). He blew my first mother-in-laws mind years ago when he found an old well on her property with a pair of them. She’d been looking for the old well for years, he found it in about fifteen minutes.
Walking in Linda’s back field in a pair of faded overalls and a wad of Red Man chewing tobacco in his cheek with a determined look on his face. Focused on the divining rods in his hands, he looked like a country preacher or moonshiner, serious in his business.
The rods swayed back and forth until they crossed over above a spot in the ground and he grinned like a mischevious kid, a dribble of brown spit running down his chin. Sure enough, after a little digging, the old well was discovered.
I found all of these UNDER the sand in Pensacola when Mary Beth and I visited last year.

We’d left the pups at the rental and walked to the beach to sit at the water’s edge and enjoy the ocean.
Not a shell in sight, but I felt them. I buried my fingers under the sand-and bam. The motherload. Beautiful shells of all kinds.
Mary Beth and I both had two good stacks in no time. We gave some away when people would stop and look, but no one asked how we found them.
Until we met these two.

Ashley and Heather immediately turned into kids. They were laughing and digging for buried treasure. Ashley was so cute, filling the top of her suit with shells while the water knocked her around. I shared my shell finding tip and Heather shared a story.

She told me she had dreamt of her aunt last night who passed a year ago. In the dream her Aunt Sama was giving her gifts and she said she knew that it meant that she was going to have good luck today. They’d been looking for shells all day, but hadn’t found any good ones. She was sad and confused about the dream until they met us.
I found out Heather’s aunt wanted her to be a writer. She’s going back to school this year to get her on the path.
As they were leaving she said they were going to drop some of their shells for other people to find.
That’s the way that the world goes round.