I have a small piece of brass plate, about 3.5 X 5 inches. There are several windows cut in it, holes drilled, and other pieces of brass attached to it. I discovered it several days ago when my Christmas present metal detector started pinging in what we call the back yard, three lots that adjoin the two where our house stands. I dug down and there it was, a mystery piece of metal, interesting, because the work done to it implied at one time or another it was part of something larger.

My first thought was perhaps it was a piece of an airplane, because from about 1955 to 1970 my cousin’s ranch that adjoins our place housed a small local airport. I called my wife’s cousin, a retired Air West pilot to talk about the piece and ask about FAA records for possible crashes. During the conversation he asked if there was any writing on the metal. I’d seen none at a casual glance but upon closer inspection, I found some. Nicely engraved on the brass were the words Waterbury Clock Company, who first made clocks in that little Connecticut town, starting in 1857, ruled the US clock market until the great depression, and eventually became Timex.

The piece in the dirt probably has a cousin in the house because I have a complete Waterbury mantle clock that once belonged to my great-grandmother, the same person who used to live on the property we now inhabit and may have owned the piece I found in the dirt. That sounds symmetrical, and now I’m off to try and date everything. It’s looking at though we might be heading back to at least the early years of the 20th century, which would make these pieces well over 100 years old, and that’s some serious time traveling when you think about it, which why I like these old pieces; you can touch them and reach back into the past you never knew and have it become real in your hands, if only for a moment, and if only in your imagination.