me ask. Did you all check with people before talking about the stories from
others. For instance, in trying to generate some publicity, I would love to
share a few of the stories, esp. Psychomommy getting pulled out of the mud
by firefighters. That is beyond classic funny! I don't want to step over
any privacy lines.
----------
From: Cadenza
Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 23:27:40 -0500 (CDT)
To: cadenza74@earthlink.net
Subject: Cadenza has something for you...
Cadenza [ jjriska@yahoo.com ] has sent you a news
article.
Story:
http://www.projo.com/yourlife/content/projo_20030506_letter.4098a.html
Letterboxing may be the ultimate game of hide and seek
On the Tupperware trail
05/06/2003
BY BRYAN ROURKE
Journal Staff Writer
GLOCESTER -- The empty parking lot must mean something. Danger
abounds. Stay away.
But Christopher Martin and Kim Calcagno approach.
Their car pulls into the Durfee Hill Management Area. They step out and
fearlessly face the forest.
It's quiet, the calm before the kill.
Yes, they're here to hunt. And judging by their attire and demeanor,
they've got more than mushrooms on their minds.
The 36-year-old Providence man holds a map -- not the kind with roads,
but clues, as though looking for buried treasure. Take 10 steps from the
stump; turn right at the rock; that sort of thing.
And the 31-year-old Holbrook, Mass., woman is the keeper of the
compass.
Into the woods they walk, without weapons, apparently prepared to
pounce on their prey with bare hands, rip off its stay-fresh top and
pull out its plastic innards.
They're here to hunt Tupperware.
That's right. It's out there, hiding and living in the wild, feeding
off who knows what -- leftovers most likely.
Or perhaps it's not eating at all, but storing food for later.
So call in your pets and small children. We're going after it. We're
tracking its scent, assuming its seal has been broken.
If not, that's fine. Martin and Calcagno say they've got all they need
for their pacifist brand of hunting, which they call letterboxing.
It's part hiking, part orienteering, part stamping and scavenger
hunting. Here's how it works: Letterboxers create their own signature
stamp and carry around notebooks. A person hides a notebook and a stamp
in a waterproof container -- most often Tupperware -- and others try to
find it by following clues found on the world's official and communal
letterboxing Web site: www.letterboxing.org
and eight countries.
When a letterbox is discovered, its finder stamps and signs the
notebook inside and stamps his own notebook with the letterbox's
stamp.
Wanda and Pete Miner of Charlestown are the reigning American
letterboxing champions, finding 2,780 so far. They got started as so
many letterboxers do, hiking. They're walking in the woods anyway. Why
not, they thought, add intrigue to their outings?
"At first, I was not impressed," Wanda Miner says. "Why would I want to
go and look for a box? Now here I am in love with the hobby."
The goal is to get out. See and appreciate nature. In return, receive a
reward.
"It's like someone has given me a gift," Wanda Miner says. "They're
giving me a special stamp, or leading me to a special place."
Letterboxing started in 1854. An Englishman put his calling card in a
bottle, hid it outdoors and others found it. For more than a century the
activity operated in obscurity, especially in the United States. Then,
in 1998, Smithsonian Magazine published an article about it.
Letterboxing burgeoned. Jay Drew is partly to blame.
The former Newport man, now living in East Lyme, Conn., his wife
Margaret and their four children, have hidden more letterboxes than any
other Americans: more than 350.
"There's something sneaky and fun about it," Drew says. "You have a
gleam in your eye wondering if someone will find it."
In most instances finding a box isn't difficult. Follow the directions.
That's all it takes.
But in some cases, it's not so simple. With about 10 percent of
letterboxes, the clues are cryptic.
With some, you must solve riddles, break codes or, even, translate
Polish. That would be the appropriately named Polish Box in Pulaski
Memorial State Park in Burrillville.
"That was evil," Calcagno says.
Fortunately, Martin works with a man who knows Polish. Unfortunately,
the box still couldn't be found, even after three outings.
As it turns out, someone stole it, or, as letterboxers say, it went
missing.
"That's why you want to be low-key about people seeing you," Martin
says. "You don't know what other people's disposition is."
Not everyone understands, appreciates and supports letterboxing. In
fact, some public park officials are opposed to it.
"They consider it littering," Martin says.
Environment not disturbed
Letterboxers, of course, disagree. You can't see the boxes; they're
hidden. But they're not buried because that would disturb the
environment.
"It's very important we leave no trace on the environment," Calcagno
says. "We tell everyone about boxing, but don't want them to notice us
while we do it."
That explains much. Calcagno is a naturalist at the Massachusetts
Audubon Society's Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary in Sharon. She didn't
know about letterboxing until Martin told her about it more than a year
ago. And she didn't know there were four letterboxes hidden where she
works.
But in hindsight, Calcagno says, it figures.
"There are four distinct places in the sanctuary where people visit."
As Martin and Calcagno walk into the woods, they enter a world of
staggering beauty, with a budding leaf canopy, a symphony of birds,
frogs and wind, and a relentless waterfall crashing on rocks. They stay
on the trail. This minimizes their impact on the environment. And they
pick up litter along the way.
Eventually, clues pull them from the path. But roughing it, Martin and
Calcagno are not. There's a code among letterboxers. Don't endanger each
other or the environment.
But still, there are mishaps. There are letterboxes hidden in the dead
of winter, that spring reveals in patches of pricker bushes and poison
ivy.
"I know what poison ivy looks like," Martin says. "I just don't notice
it when I'm walking."
Waist deep in mud
There was a Virginia letterboxer known only as Psycho Mommy who one
spring, after the winter thaw, walked into waist-deep mud and had to be
pulled out by firefighters.
This is simpler. Martin and Calcagno walk along a brook, come to a
waterfall and turn toward a stone wall, the preferred letterbox hiding
place.
"In New England it's easy because we have so many stone walls,"
Calcagno says. "Other places you go, you find a suspicious collection
of stones."
There's the letterbox, between the rocks, a hibernating full-grown
Tupperware container.
They open it. A note inside says "this is not trash." It's meant for
non-letterboxers. Martin and Calcagno stamp the notebook inside the
letterbox, read the messages left by others and add some of their own.
And off they go to look for other letterboxes, two in particular, one
called Laurel and the other Hardy. On their way, they come upon another
couple, a woman looking up into the trees and a man looking down at a
piece of paper.
It's Wanda and Pete Miner.
"If you see people in the woods and they have a piece of paper and they
appear to be lost," Martin says. "They're probably letterboxers."
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