Today I learned about the history and mystery of seashells.

I love shells. I have loved shells since I was just a kid. I remember we had this giant conch shell in our yard and when I heard from a classmate in school that you can hear the ocean in a shell I was determined to test the theory. Being landlocked in the Midwest, nowhere near an ocean, I was really curious to know what the ocean sounded like.

When I got home, I went straight to the yard and picked up The Great Shell. It had sunken into the dirt with time and when I picked it up it was muddy and there were earthworms wriggling, exposed, and protesting its removal. I put the shell up near my ear, and I cringed as I imagined an earthworm popping out and tickling my earlobe. But sure enough, I heard the roar of the ocean. Wow! Magical!

And I think that’s when my love of seashells began.

I have a basket of shells in my bathroom. They remind me of the years my husband was in the Navy and beaches were more easily accessible. As I cautiously slid the shells into their weekly sink-bath I mused that as much as I admire shells, I still have a lot to learn about them. So, today I learned about my favorite beach adornment.

Obviously, there’s the whole original purpose of a seashell. A house for an invertebrate. (Which is why those wormies must have felt right at home in The Great Shell from our yard…) But I already learned all about mollusks and bivalves and all that in high school biology class. Here’s what I learned today:

• What I didn’t know is that the study of seashells is called Conchology. Which is fun to say. To me, it sounded like a celebration word that you'd shout during salsa music. But when I said it aloud a few times in a row, Waybums thought I was pretending to be a train.
• One of the world’s best collections of seashells is at the Smithsonian in D.C. Now, there's a place to learn stuff...
• I learned that seashells were one of the earliest recorded forms of currency, and the greater inland they traveled, the more value they held. (Actually I knew this to some extent, having read Anna Lee Waldo’s book Sacajawea. Lewis and Clark’s expedition loaded up on seashells when they finally reached the Pacific because they would be able to use them for trade on the way home.)
• I always wondered why seashells had perfect little holes bored into them. I thought perhaps it was just something stores did before the shells were sold, but today I learned thats not the case. If an octopus is hungry and catches a snail, it’s not like he has some sort of gastropod can-opener he can use. But he does have a handy built-in drill that he can use to bore into the shell and do some damage. There are a lot of sea snails that drill into other shell-bearing critter's houses and then use their proboscis to suck them out of their protective shells. Yeesh. Who needs Sci-Fi when there's stuff that freaky in the real world? And it makes sense that these holes are found in the shells that wash up on the beach because their owners are no longer around using them. So, predation is the leading cause of holey shell syndrome in seashells. The other leading cause is jewelry makers.
• This little fact is of particular historical interest. I learned today about antique collectibles known as Sailor’s Valentines. The Girls Back Home probably prefered to believe was that their seafaring fellas would collect teeny shells from their destinations and during their downtime they would make fancy designs for their ladies’ fair while they were pining away for them. Usually the designs would adorn the top of a box, or a bit of jewelry. Or a jewelry box. As romantic a notion that may have been, it was much more common for sailors to swing by Barbados and pick them up at a souvenir shop. Handy for those sailors with a gal in every port, because they’d never have time to swab the deck if they was always makin’ purdies.

But the thing I really learned today was that collecting seashells was just a great excuse to go to the beach. It's times like this, driving down snow tunnels on every street, that I miss the sand in my toes and the salty sea air. It's like a treasure hunt, to dig around in the sand and find a swirly shell or an oyster shell or even bits of driftwood.

Baby Waybums and Me at a beach in Japan

As I was drying off my bathroom shells, I handed one to Waybums and told her that she could hear the ocean if she put it up to her ear. She put it up to her ear and her eyes widened, she sat the shell down and she ran off. She came back with her trusty kitty mug, held it to her ear and said:

"Mother! Did you know there's the ocean in my cup, too?"

I held it up to my ear, and sure enough there was that ocean sound. You know...that might have been nice to know before I got dirt and earthworm goo on my face as a kid. ;) I take comfort that Waybums is a bit more clever than I was.

Yep. You learn something new every day. As far as tomorrow goes...
I'll keep you posted.