ARCHAEOLOGY WITHOUT THE PASSPORT; DON'T WAIT!

Most of us would relish discovering another Tut's Tomb in the sands of Egypt...or a lost culture in the Aegean Sea...or a new scroll in the hills of the Holy Land. But that takes passports and perseverance. Much easier to uncover the sacred secrets of the past right around your own home...

Oh, they're there all right! We simply take them for granted. Much to our and our family's loss. You see, if we don't retrieve some of these relics now, after we're gone there will be few if any left to understand them. And so another inevitable little tragedy will be played out -- your children will innocently toss them sometime after the funeral.

Where to start...? With the usual suspects: Garage, attic, basement, and bottom drawers. How to spot them...? With archaeology's standard tools: Tireless digging and dusting.

Old photos are usually the premier find. Drying and yellowing in the most unexpected corners, they freeze forever in time the moments and faces and places which in mysterious ways explain how you got here. And even if the dreaded lack of dated captions denies you some of the facts, the images alone can help fill in some of the stories.

Letters are another prize. Especially the ones you don't remember you wrote or received. There, in a burst of surprised realization, your fingers can trace across feelings that once burned within you and within those you treasured. How incredible -- that you or they had such powerful things to say. And how stunning -- that it has taken you so long to re-remember them.

Then come the memorabilia of a 101 different past needs and nuances. Rusting skate keys, thingamajigs from childhood caches, autograph books, sealed prom corsages, ticket stubs, restaurant receipts, IRS documents, Christmas cards, Father & Mother Day cards. Also -- memory-be-praised -- little lost notes from little loving hands that once slipped into yours with such dependency. Remember?

Faraway tombs and scrolls will makes headlines. Become integral to Dan Brown's next novel. But your uncelebrated treasures will be worth more than all those millions. Because your un-museumed cast-offs hold within themselves the unrepeatable power of lives once lived, and loves once breathed.

The gift of archaeology is how it brings the dead to life. Now, while there is still life, be sure you don't permit them to die. All it takes are a pair of old gloves and a great beating heart...