Summary

A Book of Archaeology – This chapter begins with the author’s recollection of a favorite childhood Christmas present – a book that described the science of archaeology, with writing and pictures portraying some of history’s great archaeological excavations. As he details his memory of the book and its pictures, the author recalls how, “at the end of the long cool shafts, the empty passageways [there was] the sealed chamber, the treasure” (28).

The author then describes what he remembers being told of his parents’ respective childhoods, specifically how they both grew up poor in the Southern United States. He also describes his first stirrings of same sex attraction, and connects the latter experience with a late-in-life conversation with another gay man. That man, the author says, had a conversation with his own mother about finding male figures attractive, a conversation that let him with...