Search Prepared or with Buddy the Helicopter?

This is Mr. Fenn’s recent quote:

“Summer is settling in and the Rocky Mountains are beginning to warm up some. The weeds are doing very well in my yard, and the humming bird feeders just outside my kitchen window are busy.

Santa Fe is full of treasure hunters and the Collective Works book store is selling about 35 copies of my books each day.”

Many years ago I was the first to publicly speculate that Mr. Fenn hinted through scrapbooks and even suggested he hides his hints in the least suspicious ones. Back then I was laughed off Dal’s blog for suggesting such a crazy idea. Roll forward four years and this concept seems more mainstream than crazy. Now that doesn’t make me right, but it did show I was thinking ahead of the curve.

I bring this up because Mr. Fenn released a “Search Prepared” scrapbook at Dal’s recently and it is a very common sense warning to all searchers to search smart now that search season is fully underway. However, Mr. Fenn has to always include some interesting preamble that catches the attention of the alert searcher.

The most obvious aberration is Mr. Fenn’s use of the word, “Collective” vice “Collected” Bookstore. Now we all know he is aware of the real name and he loves to make these errors on purpose to see if we are paying attention. To solve this one it is important to take the other language into consideration. He is talking about the seasons changing or cycling and he mentions hummingbirds. The unique characteristic of the hummingbird is that they are the only bird that can hover and fly backwards like a helicopter. Cycling season hints to the helicopter control stick or “cyclic” and the “collective” is a helicopter control mechanism affecting power or vertical control while in a hover.

The TOTTC book has a nice story about Skippy and his home made helicopter and the trip he took in the helicopter to his special place while stationed in Vietnam and he was rescued by the Candy Ann helicopter. Forrest also has spoken fondly of his helicopter flying experience and even recently said if he had to live life again he would like to be a helicopter pilot.

So what is so important about the helicopter? He is likely hinting about it in his other sentences and recent public posts and or interviews. Mr. Fenn also suggests in this scrapbook to "Take a buddy or two with you when you search," which begs the question is our search buddy a helicopter and is he suggesting the scrapbook title should be search with a helicopter vice search prepared? Reminds me of that Fred Wolf (love the name) cartoon Budgie the helicopter, where Chuck's Buddy the Tarhe Helicopter retired from the Airforce to deliver cargo. Those that belong to my Searcher's blog will know the significance of the Tarhe helicopter (in the photo above). One thing for sure, he knows how to make solving the poem fun.