Good Enough

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• July 30, 2025

“Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate.” – Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean

Few things in this world excite me more than rockin’ concert where I can get up and dance to the rhythm of ethereal music. Jumping up and down, I’m either your favorite person at a concert or a complete embarrassment. While lost shaking my booty, I don’t really care if anyone thinks I’m cool or crazy, I’m just having fun. My sister and one of my best friends recently saw Cyndi Lauper at Jones Beach Theater on Long Island. A lot of Long Islanders (where I’m from) will tell you Jones Beach is their favorite place to see a concert. It’s not my favorite, as I’ve been rained on and the acoustics aren’t great since it’s outside, but it is stunning on certain nights, with pastel sunsets over the water.

Of course I was a dancing fool at the Cyndi Lauper concert. It would be a disgraceful insult to my mother, Donna, had I not let loose. Donna is legendary for being the first to the dance floor. Like many kids growing up in the 80s or 90s, “The Goonies” is one of my favorite childhood movies. Especially growing up on the South Shore of Long Island where we spent every moment of summer on the beach, adventuring in the sea and through dunes. We even did find a pirate treasure once! Well… not a real pirate treasure. When we were kids, my parents along with some other parents made a treasure chest, hiding a map in a bottle which we discovered, following clues to a small chest full of jewelry, fake gems, foreign money, real money, and other things. It is one of my most treasured memories. We believed we found a real pirate treasure long after we stopped believing in Santa Claus. And when we finally figured out it wasn’t a real pirate booty, but a hunt put on by our parents, instead of disappointment, we were grateful to have such a cool mom and dad who kept adventure in our adolescence.

“Good Enough,” is the Cyndi Lauper song from the Goonies (the music video is playing on the TV in the beginning) and it is everything quintessential about the 80s and childhood. Anyone who hasn’t let their inner child wither away is still a Goonie from my perspective. My sister and I were stoked Lauper played it at the concert.

At 36, a part time employed writer, who once worked for radio (was replaced by AI) and pursuing TV writing which is also becoming a dying format, I’d say my life plan was/is actually, a pretty bad plan. Retirement? The future? A restless adrenaline junky with enough brushes with death to make you wonder if fate is a calculated plan, I’d be surprised if I actually do make it to old age, even if I’m closer to being old than I’d like to be. With prices rising and pay for comedy gigs lowering, I almost always feel as The the way the Goonies did when they were wondering how they were going to keep their home and lifestyle. Like everyone, I wish I was more successful, but fame and fortune were never really the drivers behind the wheel of my journey as a writer and artist, it’s more of a calling, and as I get older I’m grateful just to live the life as a bohemian artist and not be stuck at a job I hate. It’s good enough for me. If only I can maintain it.

One of my best friends, Katrina, aka “Pieces” has many talents, but perhaps one of her best skills are how good she is at puzzles. I mean literal jigsaw puzzles but also solving mysteries or being a maestro at chess. Stuck at home post surgery, she became obsessed with treasure hunting because of the Netflix docuseries, “Gold and Greed.” Pieces started putting together pieces and in thinking about who would be crazy enough to drop everything and find a treasure, she picked up the phone and called me.

In brief, “Gold and Greed,” is a three part docu-series about Forest Fenn and his treasure. In 2010, an 80 year old ex military and art dealer decided to put together a real life treasure worth millions. The map was a poem in a autobiography he wrote. For a decade, people searched. Some people even died! Causing much controversy around the hunt. Treasure hunter, Justin Posey, who is a brilliantly smart midwestern software engineer was not the finder of Fenn’s treasure, but was extremely close. Posey bought some of Fenn’s treasure when it was up for auction after Fenn’s death (RIP) and wrote his own book, with it’s own poem as the key, keeping the venturous spirit of wilderness exploring with life changing loot on the line.

Since up to this point, my retirement plans include selling a screenplay, finding a buried treasure worth millions might actually be only slightly more probable than my other hopes and dreams. True, I don’t really have the money to be jumping on planes to the great American West, but I do have time and more importantly, freedom. I’ve got nothing holding me back. Freedom, truly, is it’s own treasure.

Hiking and exploring nature are things I love to do anyway (which is how and why I broke my foot in May!). I’ve been known to wake up and drive four hours to see a waterfall just because I felt like it that day. I don’t think there is a kid on Long Island who didn’t wish they found Captain Kidd’s treasure (which is supposedly buried on Long Island somewhere). I am a Goonie. A star gazing, wave chasing, story loving, kid at heart Goonie. Though I am an existential writer so I do say “die” a lot (haha).

“BOTG” stands for “boots on the ground.” If you go down the rabbit hole of online forums for “Beyond the Maps Edge” along with thousands of other treasure obsessed fools, you’ll see these four letters come up a lot. Of course, deciphering the cryptic poem is part one. A lot of people have very good theories, but you’ll learn quickly that conspiracy lends itself to crazy and people are always bringing their own meanings to everything.

Pieces and I intend to make a pass, BOTG, at places we theorize the treasure may be. We are far from certain we’ve found the exact location, but how much regret would we live in if we never went? Additionally, even if we don’t strike diamonds in the ground, we are going to Big Sky for a meteor shower, so when we’re done looking down in the day, we can look up to the Heavens at night and see sparkling tales of meteors shoot all across the sky (there is also a meteorite in the treasure chest).

In a world pitted against each other with political divide, a looming sense of science fiction predicted doom for humanity and every other dang atrocity spotlighted on the news and social media reminding us how awful the world is, here we have someone like Justin Posey—a lover of nature—giving the world something as whimsical as a not so simple treasure hunt. Or maybe it is simpler than we’re thinking? The hunt is on. Of course, we all dream of being the one. Hell, I wouldn’t have to wait for someone to buy my screenplay to make a movie.

There’s an old home video of the treasure hunt from when we were kids. I think I’m around 8 years old. When the treasure is found, I scream and dance like I now do at rock and roll concerts. I still remember the feeling. How great it would be to feel that way again.

Only a fool would go out looking for a treasure. But I guess it’s a good thing I’m a fool. That’s good enough for me.