This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Digger is moving. Now that he's retired, he's thinking of going somewhere that doesn't get much snow. I suggested he stay in Utah. We get less snow every year. Pretty soon we'll get none.

But he's determined. He says being retired requires not only a change of pace but also of place. Sitting around the same house he spent his looks and youth to afford isn't quite the climate of freedom he expected.

Anyway, he's cleaning out his garage and dumping every bit of useless junk he's collected onto friends. He's offered — and I've turned down — an outdated set of encyclopedias, two stuffed gophers and pinup calendars from 1988-2011.

He tried to give me a military entrenching tool with a broken handle. Since it's the same shovel I broke on a tree when he and Sonny set me up with a fake metal detecting find, I told him where to stick it.

Lately, Digger has taken to waiting until I'm gone and then leaving stuff at the house. Last week I came home and found a divining or dowsing rod on my porch.

For those of you unfamiliar with the various methods of hunting treasure, a divining/dowsing rod is essentially a crooked stick that, when pointed appropriately at the ground, will reveal the location of all sorts of stuff.

This includes diamonds, silver, gold, water, rubies, emeralds, oil, propane, human graves, guns, and just about anything other than common sense.

OK, that was uncalled for. I hadn't even tried the dowsing rod and I was already making fun of it. With the rod was an instruction manual and even a little plastic packet of gold to hide and find.

I read the manual with care. Not only will the rod find treasure, but it might also cure or at least alleviate arthritis.

Hang on. I have arthritis all over my body and so I don't need any help finding it. But curing it sounds intriguing.

According to the manual, success with the dowsing rod depends on the way in which it is held, positioned, aimed and otherwise manipulated. Above all is practice. Using the dowsing rod a lot increases the odds of finding stuff.

This brings me to the packet of gold dust included with the rod. It looked like ordinary sand, but I figured maybe the gold was microscopic. So I gave it a try.

I had some of my grandkids hide the "gold" in the backyard and then I looked for it with the dowsing rod.

Could I find it? Hell, no. I looked for half an hour until one of the kids remembered that the gold was "hided" in the pocket of another grandkid who had run home to go the bathroom.

When we finally got things scientifically arranged, I gave it another try. I gave it 10 tries. Nothing. The dowsing rod failed to register a single dip or hit.

That's when I got suspicious. What kind of person would tape two plastic rods together, tell another person how to use it, then give away a packet of REAL gold to try it out? With gold at better than $1,100 an ounce, not a smart person.

Closer examination revealed the packet of "gold" to be sand of a variety every bit as common as the stuff in my grandkids' sandbox (minus the cat business). Therefore the problem lay in the substance.

I needed real gold. I knew where some was — in my wife's jewelry box. I found a ring, tossed it over my shoulder into the back yard, and went looking for it.

That was four hours ago. At this point I should mention that I have two gold teeth. If I don't find my wife's grandmother's wedding ring by nightfall, you can call in an expert dowser to locate my grave.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley. Find his past columns at http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/kirby