Gifts from the waves: Beachcombers collect half-century old sea glass, fossils
WAUKEGAN, Ill. - Walking along a beach in Waukegan on a cool, windless, foggy November day, Tarah Hoffmann looks for the glimmer among thousands of ancient rocks embedded in the wet sand.
"Look, look," she says, reaching to select a one-inch, somewhat triangular-shaped piece of translucent, lavender-colored glass resembling a semi-precious stone.
"It depends on the waves. You never know what they'll bring you," Hoffmann said. She has been collecting sea glass and fossils from the Lake Michigan shoreline since she was a child. Her husband, Mark, and now her 6-year-old daughter, Anyah, also have become sea glass beachcombers.
Tarah has at least 10 large glass Ball jars flowing with
