In the Beginning...

In the beginning, we had...The Thrill of the Chase, A Memoir. And that's it. That's all we had. No Dal's blog, no ChaseChat, no other blogs or websites. I'm not sure when The Old Santa Fe Website came along, but anything about the book or the poem was not there before the book.

I'm going to now show you the answer to the first clue, which is the first stanza. I'll do my best to explain. Try to read with an open mind, and for a few minutes, put aside your biases and LISTEN.

As I have gone alone in there...

Remember, in the beginning, all we had was the book. No interviews, no Scrapbooks, no Jenny Kile. Well, Jenny Kile was there, but no Six Questions, no Weekly Words, etc... So, in the book, he said he sprinkled "clues" throughout to help, right? So, let's look in the book and see exactly where and when he says he was alone:

Pg 15: "So now I sit here past midnight, beside my juniper fire, REFLECTING BACK TO THE YEAR WHEN MY AWARENESS TOOK ITS FIRST FEW STEPS."

Pg 27: "I was proud to have THOUGHT of that IDEA ALL BY MYSELF."

Pg 56: "It was on a long, straight stretch of road with no cars or people around anywhere...I REMEMBER sitting down for about an hour to CONSIDER my lot in life and PONDER if anything was left of my future."

Pg 78: "Later, in ones REVERIE, those MEMORIES can come sparking back when ignited by something innocently said or something THOUGHT...So it is with me now, as I sit here past midnight, ALONE WITH ONLY MYSELF TO KNOW."

Pg 97: "I remember the air was quiet, even over the large populated areas. No one was around; no one was on the radio, no one to talk to. The impersonal lights were there, but I was all alone." Immediately after that, he covered Philadelphia with his thumb, and it took him "to another dimension in my MIND, a PLACE I would not visit again until the grave marker entered my life. Years later I would meld those THOUGHTS into ONE, the sum of which would change my life."

Pg 102: "No one else can think my thoughts, so I am myself ONLY TO ME."

Pg 102: "Why do the yellow and purple flowers flourish where no one is there to see? The answer is at last obvious to me. NO ONE HAS TO SEE WHAT IS THERE...What has made me think that I had to see the beauty that is there in order to confirm its existence?"

Pg 112: "Candor requires that I admit to having touched the painting. It happened in my office WHEN NO ONE ELSE WAS AROUND...This was exciting to me, and by touching it I COULD IMAGINE, in some small way, that I was a part of that company...I feel sorry for those that don't understand THAT DEPTH OF IMAGINATION."

Pg 124: "There comes a time (maybe it's an age) when all of us REFLECT ON THE HAPPENINGS that marked our passage through the brakes and thickets of life. Most are conjured up by reverential spirits and are RESERVED FOR TIMES WHEN WE HAPPEN UPON THE SOLITUDE OF JUST OURSELVES."
"A passing mood will bring THOUGHTS of loved ones FLOATING BACK to dominate a few moments of our time. The REVERIES are too many to be counted, but each one OCCUPIES A FAR CORNER OF MY MIND, waiting for another time. I love things when they do that."

Pg 125: "Those great places, which were personal secrets to me then, are now busy with the flourish of fishermen and women....I always thought that space was mine alone, and many of the MEMORIES there bred are even now SO PERSONAL THAT THEY EXCLUDE THE INTRUSION OF STRANGERS."

So, EVERY SINGLE TIME Forrest mentions being alone in the book, it's referring to thoughts and memories. He's gone alone into his MIND as he REMEMBERS times past. "In there" refers to his memories, his mind, HIS MEMOIR.

And with my treasures bold

I can keep my secret where

And hint of riches new and old.

Pg 133: "There are other subtle clues sprinkled in the stories."

These last two lines are the clincher. When he published this book, he had no idea of the cult-like throngs of people that would be looking for the chest. He didn't know there would be the Today Show. He didn't know of the myriad of blogs that would go up. He didn't know he would write Scrapbooks and answer Jenny's questions, or have ANY idea he would have an opportunity to hand out hints.

So where did he put the hints he talked about in this stanza? There is only ONE place-- HIS MEMOIR.

Old and new:
Pg 135: " I've always had a love for history and that's why I like to collect and talk about old things."
Later in the chapter, he talks about a "secret" way of creating a bronze, which he has now revealed as the "lost wax process." He loves bringing about old ways of doing things to make something new.

Old also refers to the method to solving the clues. Notice in the following quote he does NOT say he was leaving clues on WHERE to find the treasure, but HOW to find the treasure.

Pg 129: "So I decided to fill a treasure chest with gold and jewels, then secret it -- leaving clues on HOW to find it for any searcher willing to try. It was a PERFECT MATCH OF MIND AND MOMENT."

So, the answer to stanza 1, the first clue, is HIS MEMOIR. He also tells us that the stories hint at HOW you will find the treasure, not WHERE you will find it.

It can't be anything else, because when the book was written, Forrest had no idea how big this would grow.

So, yes, you DO need the book to solve the poem. Remember, Forrest said he learned from his father that he should always tell the truth, but not always tell ALL of the truth.

When he said all you need is the poem, he is not telling ALL the truth. But all you need is to solve the first clue, stanza 1, in order to figure out what else you need.

Also, in Forrest's most recent Forrest Gets Mail, he seems to have decided now is the time to start telling all the truth in regards to his book. There are two questions there where Forrest tells the interviewer that the poem IN HIS BOOK is enough to lead a searcher to the treasure.

And Forrest has also used the recipe analogy for cake baking as an analogy for solving the poem. You can say a recipe is all you need to figure out how to make a cake. But that's not really ALL the truth, is it?

You can tell a friend to find that delicious cake recipe online, and it'll tell her how to make a cake. All she needs is the recipe, but we don't tell her what the recipe calls for, like eggs and flour. She will definitely need those too, in addition to the recipe.

But we don't need to tell her what ingredients she will also need, because those ingredients are listed IN THE RECIPE.

That is the same principle Forrest refers to in that analogy. You can't bake a cake if you leave out an ingredient. Read and follow the recipe PRECISELY, and your conglomerate of ingredients mixed together and put into an oven will turn into something useful--a cake.

"In there, he can keep his secret where and hint at riches new and old."

And if only Forrest is alive to keep his secret, where does he keep it? In his mind, which he has shared with us through what? HIS MEMOIR.

Pg 136: "My part will be very small in the big picture but huge to me."

Arguments I will invariably hear against this answer:

"But he said clues weren't deliberately placed to aid the searcher."

My answer: They weren't deliberately placed. They were naturally placed.

"But there were the stories before The Thrill of the Chase posted online in The West Yellowstone Times, and My War for Me was also online."

My answer: True, but they had no connection with a treasure hunt when they were published. They only became connected with the treasure hunt when TTOTC was published.

Can you find the hint in this Scrapbook pic from Dal's?