In the summer of 2020, I spent some more time at my friend’s house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It was the middle of Covid and I had a lot of time on my hands – and a metal detector!

One of the more interesting objects I found was this little painted soldier. He looks as if he’s from the Second World War. I wonder about the kids who were playing with him the day he got lost. Did they have to leave suddenly, and forget to grab him? Or was he dropped as someone walked by?

In preparing the photos for this post, I had some fun with the third photo using Adobe Photoshop’s new AI generative tools (a little plug for my real job - let me know if you’d like to know more). I think he’s on an island in the South Pacific…