"Echoes from the Thundermug": Married Life and Mining Camps, Part Three

Retirement Means Kicking Back

You won't see our smiling faces
and we won't have time to call
'til the cows are back in pasture
and the work's all done this fall.

Well, sir, the cows are back in pasture, but the work isn't all done and it appears unlikely that it will be done. We retired this year and when you retire, you turn the plow on its handles, buy a Winnebago and head for the homes of relatives and friends who extended invitations knowing full well we would never make it.

Everything about me was ready for retirement except my body, mind and bank account. I can honestly say I never planned for retirement and my wife will back me fully in that revelation. I always knew I would make a big gold or silver strike in time to place us with the jet set or Caribbean cruisers in our golden years. As a last resort, I pictured lightning zapping me, leaving Inez with enough insurance rewards to retire in style.

We didn't join any of the retirees' national organizations which lobby Congress to provide them with a lifestyle equal to or better than their lifestyle while working. We feel we had the best years of any generation before our time or succeeding and the young taxpayers owe us nothing but a right to die and a plot of ground to enrich. Revolt, young workers! Revolt before it's too late, but please wait until I've recovered my stake in social security.

We have a friend who also retired this year. His daughter is a stewardess and he can fly, standby, anywhere the carrier flies for $5 round trip. Recently he flew to Phoenix to meet a friend for lunch. From there he flew to Los Angeles for dinner and returned in time to watch the Johnny Carson show and sleep with his wife that night. Recently I went to the mailbox, took a side trip to John Martin's then checked McClure's buildings for a total distance of four miles and came home exhausted. I fell asleep watching the six o'clock news.

Heinie Leonard retired several years ago. He retired from manual labor some 50 years ago and from show and tell six years ago. Old Leonard planned well for retirement. He bought a lifetime service contract for his television, a standby ice cube maker and four shares in Loco Liquors. He takes his dividends in 90 proof. I haven't heard from Loathsome Joe for several weeks, but this happens each time the firm declares a dividend. He will rise to the occasion when delirium tremors reach a neutral stage.

Gordon and Cloy Duncan are retired. They dress like Internal Revenue Service agents and travel around scaring hell out of old friends. Cloy grew a belly in retirement to rest his arms on while telling lies. Every picture of Cloy shows him with his arms crossed over his belly, which should give you an idea of how many lies he tells. Gordie is looking for an elixir that will grow hair where his hat now rests. Bill Tingley's moonshine would grow hair on your tongue, but I never heard of anyone trying it on his scalp. Some claimed it was just a transplant from the dead mice and squirrels in his mash tub. If we had his recipe, we would try it on Gordie's extended face.

Some people retire gracefully. Our neighbor to the west, Clarence Howard, took care of his cattle ranch until he was 84. He joined every roundup, helped brand, castrate and ear mark, harvested hay and danced at the annual Powderhorn social. One early morning, he went out for a pail of water, returned to the kitchen of his log home and stretched out on the floor to retire permanently. Ranchers like to die with their boots on and black coffee in their stomachs.

We have adjusted to every other change in our lives and we will adjust to retirement, though it came sneaking in the back door before my employer handed me a pink slip through the front door. I had lied and bluffed my way for a steady string of paychecks until some busy-body in the office began checking my progress reports and found two years regression plus several requests for raises. I received a separation letter from the manager full of praise for my past services and advising me to call if I ever needed help. He immediately went to an unlisted number.

Noel L. "Bo" Roberts tried to console me with a letter full of advice on how to cope with time on my hands. He also sent me a picture of himself to show me how well a life of leisure has treated him. I have been checking the help wanted ads since.

Fame Is Short; Failure Forever

I have spent a lifetime practicing to be a failure and now that the goal is within reach, there are those who would deprive me of even that small measure of satisfaction.

Some years back, our district manager, David Stevens gave me a raise and a new title. I thanked him but told him I thought he was pushing me toward the peak of my incompetency too fast. He advised, "Hell, you reached that long ago. Just accept this raise for being more incompetent than we thought."

Tom Steven of the Gerontological Survey tells me it is not too late to make something of myself. Would he prove Inez wrong after all these years? Fame is fleeting but failures last forever.

Last week, during a visit by Jehovah's Witnesses, I was introduced as a geologist and several weeks before that I was introduced to a group as a writer. I am neither a geologist nor a writer. A writer can assemble his or her thoughts and produce a composition at will for the reading public. My mind runs on a single track easily derailed by something as trivial as the cook throwing a frying pan at a tomcat sharpening his claws on the dining room table.

Any claim to being a geologist is equally false. I am a field hand. A field hand carries sample bags and tools for geologists while looking for antiques. My dear old mother described me as a purveyor of falsehoods while Inez describes me as a damned liar. They are both right, but I think Mom Jo's description is more dignified. If people will remember I am a field hand, liar, and failure, it will save us all embarrassment.

I have always liked and been duly impressed by people who are sticklers for details, doing a job precisely right. While helping Bernie Soward timber a sloughing area in Commodore 5 tunnel, I asked him what angle he wanted on a stull.

"Saw it as straight as you can and it will have angle enough," he replied.

Paul Davis wasn't as easy to work for. Paul is the most exacting man I have ever known, always double or triple checking his figures. We ran a control line 20 years ago on Nelson Mountain in winter. Paul was on the transit, John Schofield on the chain with Duane Havens and I clearing brush. We neared a monument on Deerhorn Creek and Paul yelled from the transit, "The monument will be 212.4' on this bearing."

John stretched the chain to that reading and there it was, less than an inch error in this long line slipping and sliding in snow and cold over steep traverses. I couldn't believe this long-legged engineer, blowing frost from his nostrils, could have performed such a feat.

John yelled back, "I can't see it."

Paul checked his figures and yelled back, "It has to be there. Look around, brush some snow off."

We busied ourselves around the site and John cupped his mouth, "It just isn't here, Paul."

With that exchange, he came storming from his transit to where John Schofield had his foot on the monument. We were all laughing as Paul wiped steam from his glasses and vowed to break our legs.

Well over 40 years ago, I was Paul's chain man on a line from the Commodore Lode to Bachelor in the dead of winter. One never said, "I think," to Paul. Even that early in his career, he insisted on accuracy, a trait that brought him his own engineering company and the respect earned in a lifetime of honesty and giving every job, large or small, the best his profession can offer.

It doesn't seem that long ago, old friend, and I can still see you scribing the names "Lotta" and "Snow" in the aspen stakes used to monument those claims of Emperius Mining Company. Those were long, hard shifts for $4, but there were other rewards, mainly getting to work with one of the best engineers in the country.

Thundermug John Apologizes to His Friends, Family — Almost

I can't remember ever making New Year's resolutions. However, I am so pleased to see 1984 retire that I have decided to turn over a new leaf, clean up my act and apologize to those I have offended orally and in writing.

I received a tear-stained letter from Mr. H. "Heinie" Leonard, who was leaving for Arizona to avoid facing the public after my last revelations concerning his bathroom habits. I was so moved I even dropped a tear or two as I read the letter. Rarely have I felt ashamed of myself, and I vowed then and there to rectify this wrong.

I thought, in all honesty, I had written only the kind and honorable things I knew about this refugee from a lost weekend, old Lonesome Joe, alias Adorable Jones, but to restore myself to his good graces, I hereby apologize and state that he isn't a gentleman and a scholar like myself, and I hereby retract anything I've written that might indicate otherwise.

Mr. Wheeler hasn't escaped the poison pen. Here is a fellow who alerted the medical profession to the dangers of cholesterol by clogging the arteries of all us innocent folk who drooled over his prime rib and shrimp Creole. In truth, Shorty is an old and dear friend. More old than dear, but the reverse is true for his lovely wife, Peg. She did a remarkable job of housebreaking him, though he still can't pass a fireplug without pausing.

I also wish to make amends to my father-in-law, Paul M. Schriver, whose image I may have tarnished from time to time. Paul is the toughest old buzzard I have run up against in my lifetime. Over the past year, I have fed him so much arsenic that his toenails thickened and curled back like an old ram's horns.

He took two showers a day to keep the white, crystalline residue off his skin. The waste water killed every parasite in the Montrose sewer system and the stuff didn't even make old Paul's eyes mist. We will flush him out good and have his organs suitable for transplant in case I get a chance to run over him with my truck.

Over the past year, I have been taken to task for berating and debasing the love of my life, my beautiful wife, Inez. I was unaware of the foul image I was creating of my loyal and devoted companion of a third of a century and more. It is just that she totally confuses me. During my enforced sabbatical of the past two months, she tired of me pacing through the house, around the yard, up and down the street, so she sat me down and gave me some straight talk.

"You're hyperactive," said the stern faced, graying brunette. "You don't know how to relax. Practice letting each nerve and muscle from your toes to the top of your head relax. Think only of pleasant things."

"Listen, fuzzy," I reminded her. "Thirty years ago I had relaxing down to a fine art. I was able to relax so well that many times you had to get the neighbors to help carry me in the house, and you raised hell and repeat every time."

Solitary Journeys

We were talking about everything and nothing trying not to cry as I finished packing suitcases, boxes and bags with at least twice as much as I would need during our separation this winter. The old tomcat had retired to his hideout as he does when he senses we are leaving and refused to come back in the house. He will feel better when he finds only one has left and the fire in the heater will continue to crackle so he can stretch to full length on the rug before it and dream of the orgies he was part of before a veterinarian cut short his ambition to put a kitten in every home in Mineral County.

We had gotten along so well for two weeks, it was becoming hard to tell that Inez and I were married. Now here I am, leaving my favorite cook and a warm house to sniff for gold in an environment that appears not nearly as hospitable. The road is snowpacked but safe at moderate speed and I am again getting the feel of the Jimmy as I see a dark shape in the ditch just ahead. Two young fellows have skidded off the road becoming high centered and hopelessly stuck. I try to move them but it will take a much larger vehicle to grapple with this situation. They are comfortable, warming themselves by burning alfalfa or so it smells, and I continue my journey.

On reaching Delta I turn off on the Cedaredge road for a quick swing by the Turnipseed's home in Eckert. Les and I still feel invincible together and must check the pulse of the other now and then to be sure one won't be left to face, alone, the brunt of the repercussions from our misdeeds of yesteryear. Charlotte meets me at the door and blurts out, "Your mother and Inez are fine, there is no bad news but you have to call home." She knows how a telephone message scares me and makes sure I know this is a friendly message. Plans have been changed in my schedule since leaving home and I will change routes to Elko, Nevada and a reunion with confederates from the past two years exploration.

After lunch with Les, Charlotte, Digger and wife Pat, I head west again and enjoy dry roads to Green River, Utah. I choose to skirt Soldier Summit by staying on I-70 to Salina thence northwest to I-15 and Salt Lake. At Gunnison, Utah, darkness and icy roads force a halt for the day. I am gassing up at a self-service station when a little farmer speaks to me and asks me how I like the snow. "Them fellers in there don't like it but this is what makes the crops grow and keeps us eatin'," he continues. "Hell, the wetter it gits the better I like it. I wouldn't care if it snowed ten feet." I have topped off the tank and am replacing the cap as he steps in his old power wagon and starts out to a side street. He is still talking to me out the side window and waving with one hand as he crunches into the side of a new Ford pickup that had just driven up to a stop sign. I can't help feeling partly responsible.

I am caught up in the aftermath of the incident as they give details to the patrolman who is trying to keep the attention of the little farmer. He ignores the patrolman and tells me, "I never did see that durned pickup 'til I hit it, did you? It didn't hurt it much and didn't hurt mine none a 'tall." The patrolman looks exasperated and I see space enough to back out and leave them to their troubles. As I turn to leave, the little farmer grins at me again and says, "Y'all have a good night," seemingly unperturbed that his friendliness has cost him a court visit.

I stop at the first motel on my side of the street where a somewhat spastic elderly lady rents me a room for the night. She tells me of another accident of far graver consequences of the same day. Another farmer had recently been ticketed for not signaling as he turned from the highway to the lane to his farm. He argued with the officer, "Everybody around here knows me and knows I turn there so why should I signal?" Everybody, that is except a long haul trucker who was behind him this day as he swung wide and turned directly in front of the truck. Both the farmer and his wife were killed.

There is a lesson here for me but I fall asleep before I can sort it out.

I had hoped to sleep till daylight but a never failing built in alarm clock has me up sloshing warm water over a completely ice covered vehicle in pre dawn darkness. Ice free and packed again I pull out just in time to follow a truck apparently Salt Lake City bound. I feel safer behind such a rig with such adverse road conditions.

It is still dark when I reach Nephi and a roadside café that looks clean and well frequented. It is partially light when I return to the road but pelting rain is turning ice to slush and I begin to dread oncoming traffic as the splashing slush all but obliterates the road for seconds after the vehicle passes. Now we are on a divided highway, washed clean, and a speed of 50 miles per hour is possible again. Near the Utah State Prison I pass a small propane bottle caught on a railing, a little further a shag rug and then, resting in the median upside down with sides akimbo, a trailer house is losing its insulation to the wind.

Traffic is light to the junction of I-15 and I-80 where I always miss the exit due to confusing signs. I am determined to choose the correct lane this time as I don't have my traveling companion to share the blame but once again I am in the wrong lane and have to switch abruptly to avoid a downtown circle in Salt Lake City.

It is a long haul past the great Salt Lake in such foul weather. Strobe lights outline the stack of the copper smelter at Magna where low hanging clouds shroud the mountain behind. All parking spaces at view points are occupied and I wonder what is so attractive to so many with visibility at almost nil. The reason is soon apparent as I pass the Dugway exit and come upon a Greyhound bus looking shamefaced in two feet of mud 100 feet from the road. A cable runs from a winch truck to the bus and a patrolman is trying to walk the cable and avoid the sticky goo. He is unsuccessful. Barely a mile past the bus a truck and trailer are being winched from a similar predicament on the other side and perhaps two miles further a pickup, car and truck, all with rear end damage, face in different directions on either side of the glazed macadam. It will take some real detective work to figure out that collision. I slow to a crawl and thank the Lord I didn't reach this stretch of road in darkness.

Elko is wet and getting wetter as I follow Main to 5th Street and an overdue call home. Jim, his wife Leta and youngest offspring, Jerritt, are having lunch and invite me for dinner later in the evening and a reunion with Bob and Jackie Hawkins, Quayle and Joyce Lusty. Bob will be working from the Denver office this year where we will be on the same projects. Quayle is a mine geologist for Freeport Gold and is just recovering from a near tragedy. As he was landing a light plane at the Elko airport another light plane spiraled in and landed atop his craft. It made unique photographs and an exciting story but Quayle did not appreciate the piggy back ride.

It is like old home week at Freeport Gold. Joe McEnaney is all spruced up and sporting a tie for his new role in public/personnel relations. Wade Ellett is wading through paper both on and off his desk looking for one that says "go directly to the Commercial Hotel and take a break." Adjacent to Wade's office clouds of cigar smoke boil from the room where Tom Porter has achieved solitude by smoking this offensive leaf. Tom was resident engineer for a tunnel job at Creede three years ago, a veteran since then of two years in New Guinea production and now an engineer on the Jerritt Canyon Development.

We swap barbs as Wade calls David Deci, an old friend and formerly a mine manager in the Creede area. It is a nostalgic and pleasant reunion with Dave in his apartment. He recalls phoning Tankersley's while at Creede and asking to speak to Seth. A voice asked, "Who the hell is Seth?" He thought he had the wrong number, then learned even his family calls him "Tank".

I had forgotten many of the incidents that had made Dave's stay in Creede memorable. We laughed through them again and laughed longest over the note Pete Walker and I had exchanged that was hanging in the cage as Dave escorted stockholders to various workings in the mine. It read, "To the miners on P-vein, be advised that the hymn for tonight will be Rock of Ages; Chuckie Lehman will conduct the services." The stockholders were very impressed.

Elko isn't home but it will substitute for a time.

Wintertime Travelling Is Not for Us

I have always been afraid of traveling. City traffic petrifies me, driving at night makes me a quivering, nervous mass and the thought of pulling a small trailer house with a thirteen-year-old truck to Nevada on icy roads with a companion still mending from a major operation kept me constantly on edge. Inez kindly reminded me of Glen and Blanche Holzworth who pulled a trailer in every conceivable kind of weather and still travel wherever they wish, both octogenarians.

Her words didn't help but when at last in motion the trembling eased somewhat and by the time we reached Gunnison via icy, snow packed Colorado 149, I felt we could cross Antarctica with the faithful old four-wheel-drive Chevy. The start of the trip was not without the usual worrisome malfunctions. First I had crossed the electrical brake wires with tail and stop light wires necessitating an hour's delay in changing these. Then the hump in the pavement near Broadacres appeared unexpectedly and in clearing this hurdle our adjustable bumper and hitch dropped nearly to the macadam requiring another hour's delay as I used every spare bolt and several curse words to restore it to its former height, only to have it drop again just out of Montrose. Winter time, especially with such awesome beginnings as this one, finds travelers with trailers up Willow Creek without a paddle when looking for an overnight sanctuary. Thank the Lord our friends are liberally spaced in all directions. With no qualms we placed ourselves in the care of Les and Charlotte Turnipseed at their home in Eckert, broke bread with them and relived love affairs, mining experiences and drunken brawls of the forties and fifties. Les and I took more than the normal time to be domesticated and we are now paying for the excesses of those years.

Evening of the second day found us north of Provo, Utah with old Sol sliding behind the mountain holding the great copper deposit of Kennecott Mining Company. Thirty-six years ago Bertha Larson, Cherie, Lucille Wilson and I marveled at this great basin of the inland Salt Lake. Tonight that beautiful sight is hidden by acrid smog, only the highest mountains show above this reddish gray haze. We spot a sign that reads "Rest Area 1/2 mile", a wonderful feeling, a night of rest in a secluded area after this long day on the road, fighting to hold our course as semi-trailers seem determined to suck our trailer into their sides in passing, wondering if our speedometer is befouled when holding a steady 55 mph we are continually being passed by every shape of motor vehicle.

What a mis-nomer! The rest area lies adjacent to Interstate 15 with unending traffic. We park anyway, partake of instant onion soup and cranapple juice before working our way into a bed nearly hidden by plants Inez just had to take with us, presents wrapped and boxed for posting, suitcases, etcetera. We wake at 4 a.m. to the sounds of five diesel engines throbbing before, beside and behind us as truck drivers catch a few winks before beating the early morning traffic. I'm not sure I slept at all but can't account for three hours of the night so must have had at least that much rest.

I have never felt the monotony voiced by others in driving by the great Salt Lake. It is beautiful in every season and I regret we haven't time to view it from every accessible angle, but we are overdue now at our Nevada destination and wet weather is pushing in from the coast of California which will produce snow in our path in another day or two. We delay breakfast until our next fuel stop which is Wendover on the Utah, Nevada line. Here the figure of a large animated cowboy is waving us into the slot machines of a large casino, but we haven't time for instant fortunes. There is a feeling of returning home as we near Elko, for last winter we worked and lived with a wonderful group of people at a base camp near Jerritt Canyon where Freeport Exploration Company, in a joint venture with F.M.C. Corporation, has been probing sedimentary units in search of gold. We will see Dottie Vidano whose kitchen production added eight pounds to my midsection, and old Blue, the mongrel with the human-like eyes, wormed so many times he would stick out his tongue and say "ahhh" at the sight of a capsule.

And there is Elko, down the long slope and through the business section where we turn left at the Commercial Hotel, then right at the post office, over the railroad tracks and three blocks to Freeport's office and storage compound. Big Jim Collord has been expecting us and informs us we will stay in Elko for a period before returning to Jerritt Canyon. We set up the trailer for living and upon connecting the heat taped water hose to the city water works find we are frozen up from stem to stern. Inez is crying and I am beating my head before the first trickle of water reaches an outlet, luckily we have only one leak and that was easily repaired.

So here we are, the main railroad tracks beside us to the north, a switching yard to the south and the airport to the west. For a light sleeper it is a helluva place to camp but after three nights we are able to blot out all but the horrendous crashing in the switching yard.

We don't relish these changes of habitat in winter and I can't seem to stifle my fear of traveling, but through it all we can't help thinking of the sweetest and kindest senior citizens in the world who reside in Creede town. We are truly blessed to have these old folks, who are such an inspiration to us. We should love them, listen to them and help them in every way possible. They have helped us all in so many ways.

Times Are Changing for Women

I am pleased to report there is legislation pending that, if passed, will permit women to use men's bathrooms when in dire need and women's facilities overflowing.

It would probably be much simpler to install dozens of mirrors and little cubicles where the gentler sex could apply makeup, do their finger and toe nails and scratch removed from the more urgently needed facilities, but legislators in search of the female vote do not do things in a simple manner.

We were enjoying a buffet lunch at a café in a Colorado town with divided restrooms just opposite our booth. They were marked with rather small signs and coming from the side it is easy to mistake the women's sign for men's. We saw one woman enter the bathroom followed in short order by a man who was in turn followed by another woman. The second woman exited hurriedly with a blushing face and right on her heels came the first woman red as a beet who slid as far into her booth as possible.

I stopped eating to enjoy the next event and was rewarded when the man stepped out, looked up at the sign over the door and then kept his eyes riveted on his shoelaces until he was leaving the café.

During one of our extended exploration jobs in Nevada, we shared bathroom facilities with female members of the crew. Nature called and I was standing at the urinal when one of the gals entered, spoke to me and carried on a one-sided conversation as she performed her daily.

I don't believe I've ever been as embarrassed. I kept hoping for a power failure or any catastrophe that would permit me to crawl far away from women's lib.

Perhaps we will see a return of tipping our hats and giving up our seats to women. At least at sporting events and bus stations.

Finding Body Set Off Long Day on Divide

An unlikely prospecting partnership for sure — a 3-year-old dog full of vim and urine and an old grouch full of arthritis and memories — but in our situations, there isn't much choice.

Skeeter was farmed out to the Cadwell Ranch by a traveling daughter. No quarrel on his part, because he doesn't like towns or congestion and here he can run to his heart's content.

Skeeter is a Malamute, mostly mute. I have never heard a sound from this lean dog save for a panting tongue. I didn't invite him for this trip; I looked up and he was there, running ahead, circling behind, begging me with his eyes to hurry up. Rocks hold no interest for Skeeter. When you've seen one you've seen them all, he indicates with a disgusted toss of his head, but every marmot hole has a different smell, every pile of brush a chaseable critter and every stream a hole deep enough to lie in and lap up a new supply of energy.

He is on his way up main Spring Creek and I have to whistle to bring him back to the junction of East Spring Creek, where we will rest on a bare hillside and look for the top of a shattered spruce tree that caught the rotor of a helicopter, sending the craft to a whirling, shattering crash, June 3, 1963. I found the crash site and the pilot two months after the tragedy on another prospecting trip.

I have wanted to return in respect and offer a silent prayer for the soul of the man I found crushed under the right skid of the crumpled craft. I also wanted to tell Skeeter how I felt that day when I saw that death had been swift. Of the guilt feelings later because I had been relieved to find him just this way and not yards or miles away, showing there has been a struggle to survive. But Skeeter was on the far side looking over the crest of the hill to a meadow where he would now be chasing squirrels if my whistle hadn't changed his direction.

I had been on the divide June 3, 1963. It was a cold, windy day, as most early June days are in the high country. I had eaten crackers and potted meat on the lee side of an overhanging bank, warmed by an overhead sun and protected from a harsh west wind that was dragging fog, sleet and snow, in that order, from a Pacific front. Shortly after 2 P.M. the weather turned completely sour and visibility was so poor I slipped my rock hammer in among the samples of outcrops, pulled a stocking cap over my ears and headed southeast for the Equity Mine. Above the howl of the wind, I thought I could hear the throb of an engine but I was never sure of the direction or if the wind was playing tricks.

Skeeter is now laboring up the steep bank to me after a short bath in the willows. He humps up and shakes from stem to stern, showering my left side and jolting me back to the present. "Let's go, let's go," the pale eyes say, but he will have to wait. We are on our way back to recover the body and I can see us threading down the canyon as if it were yesterday. I had tried to postpone the trip until the following morning. Sheriff Harry Larson and Deputy Charles Steele sided with me, as they were aware of the rough terrain and the unpredictable weather, but the rest weren't to be dissuaded.

This was a hot news story and there would be headlines. There would also be two more men in stretchers before the day ended, Sheriff Larson with a crushed vertebrae and mortician Joe Doney with a broken collar bone and internal injuries.

It was foggy, raining lightly and darkness was closing in as Les Turnipseed led the way in his Jeep with the body in a zippered bag, cinched in a tubular stretcher. I made the steep pull with my passengers, stopped and went back to guide Harry past a slick spot that had given me trouble. I was too late.

I saw the nose of his Jeep slide to the left, grab momentarily, then slowly rise in the first roll, then another and another, finally toppling a small spruce tree that held it firmly. Joe Doney had been thrown downhill on the second roll and was now under both the Jeep and the tree with his face in wet mire.

I could picture the last minutes of this crop-dusting helicopter as it sped up Spring Creek Canyon, past the Cadwell Ranch to Bondholder Meadows. Baldy Chato on the left, Mineral Mountain on the right, Santa Fe, N.M., by nightfall. A short, easy route over the Continental Divide on a clear day. June 3, 1963, was not a clear day. I doubt the pilot could see much of anything until the pyramidal monolith that separates East and Main Spring Creeks loomed through the fog as the engine labored to gain altitude. A full 360 degree turn, a drop to restore visibility, a crack and shudder as the rotor clipped the forked end of the dead spruce, clipped it again a foot lower, then the craft destroyed itself and pilot in a grinding tumble to creek bottom, the wreckage nearly obscured by a growth of willows.

I remember the tortuous climb with the body over deadfall, through thick berry bushes, Charles Steele taking double turns on the stretcher so my old friend Don Zimmer, Sheriff of Saguache County, could take a breather and massage his feet, smarting in tight fitting boots. I remember Harry's sigh of relief when we made the last rise to the waiting Jeeps. Joe Doney would remember nothing for several days after seating himself in Harry's Jeep.

We are above a "blowout", as the old timers would call it. I point out a black hole to Skeeter where a hardy miner drove a tunnel 175 feet east at 12,500 feet elevation in San Luis Peak. My lungs are protesting as well as every other moving part of my body but I must reach a vantage point where I can see the remains of a cabin in the timber far below and marvel at the strength of a human soul to labor so for a dream. I can also see the last resting place of the helicopter and I wonder if the pilot glimpsed the tunnel or cabin before his life was snuffed out.

Skeeter is above me pacing back and forth. He sees the top of San Luis and he wants to put his paw prints on the very top, where you can sign a paper and say, "I climbed this mountain because it is here."

"Go ahead," I tell him, "but remember that the leftover steak and a sandwich are in my pack." He switched ends so fast he nearly bowled me over.

Man, Dog Search for Elusive Mine

It has been a long time. We tried to be steady and dependable, but Skeeter told me this might be the last year to find that gold mine, so we directed our mental and physical efforts toward that. We were partially successful. We found where it should be.

Everything suffered on the homestead. Inez was left with the ranch chores as well as the worry of where old Skeeter directed me as he has no knowledge of geology and only a faint recognition of the odor of gold or silver. He digs, though. He digs with a fury, pausing only to blow dirt from his nostrils when his head is out of sight. If we had all his holes from this year's efforts placed end to end, we would have an all-weather tunnel to Creede.

Most of the jobs were still waiting when we hung up the pack and hardware. Inie needed a cover over the back porch before winter. Last February when she stepped from the kitchen to the porch, she skated on a layer of ice and dropped four feet to the ground.

It was beautiful. She was still holding the cat food pan and milk upright, which pleased the cats, but when I asked her, since she was already down by the woodpile, to bring up an armload, she scattered Meow Mix and milk over a half acre. We built the cover and we painted it per her instructions.

Three goals I set for myself in the '40s have been trashed. I know now I will never marry Sophia Loren, I will not become wealthy and I won't ever become president. I only wanted to be president so Shorty Wheeler and Heinie Leonard could become wealthy. I thought we three could siphon enough from the taxpayers to retire in a lifestyle befitting our social standing. Old Leonard could have had his own distillery, Shorty could have buried the state in shrimp Creole and I might possibly have wooed and won Sophia.

Dog Is the Dogies' Best Friend as Well as Master's

Sure you have a few more flies and a south wind brings the aroma of eau de bull and bawling and snorts make sleeping fitful and you step more carefully, but I like the barnyard atmosphere. Makes me think of old Heinie and Shorty, and thinking of them makes me glad they are far away, with a mountain range between us.

JoJo the schizophrenic goat left for high pasture with the main herd of cattle and he is missed. Jenny, the pack mule, has shifted to hillside forage and no longer begs for corn cobs or neck scratching, but the chickens are still with me, as are a part of the Hereford herd and the two dogs from the nearest neighbors.

There is nothing like calving season to make the world seem suddenly right. An old cow separates from the herd with her tail twitching, finds the least likely place to give birth, a mudhole or a snowbank, flops down, whams her head on the ground a couple of times and expels a slimy mass that in 20 minutes will be nursing and in two hours will be trying to run and buck.

I had thrown table scraps to the chickens and was standing back watching them battle over a hard, mildewed roll. A two-day-old calf wandered up and put his nose down by a Rhode Island Red that had just lost out on the goodies and was scratching for a grain or two. She pecked him. She pecked him right between the nostrils. Only two days old and so much to learn. He jumped back, then tried it again. This time the cranky old hen gave him a fast double peck. Two other calves nearby saw him jump back for the second time and joined the game. She stood her ground admirably until a fourth calf showed up, then took off flapping and squawking for the safety of the coop.

Bandit, the malamute, was a doctor in another life, he tells me with a knowing look and low growls. We practiced together in the hard winter of '83-'84 and lost every patient. It hurt, but we got only the terminals. Forest and Curt Cadwell hogged the penicillin and warmest sheds for their own ministrations.

I had kept a close watch on an ailing calf elk near our place for several weeks, took water and hay to him and tried to make a closer examination, but for all his weakness and pain he could still flail away with his front hooves. Came the day when he could no longer fight, and we hauled him to a calving shed where Bandit took over. He smelled the calf, rubbed its nose with his own and growled his diagnosis. He then chased the other dog and two bulls away and bedded against the belly of our patient as we coaxed warm milk down his throat and readied a syringe of penicillin. It defies logic that a calf elk and a malamute husky dog could develop a kinship, but the calf never protested his presence and they nuzzled each other as I picked bloated ticks from the calf's body. We lost the case and we shed a tear but Bandit never left his side for longer than a trip to the nearest post.

Three weeks ago, I could see the old malamute's head above a corral rung as I left for work. I called him and he acknowledged the greeting but wouldn't come to me. I walked over to where he lay, pressed against the belly of a Hereford calf, where he had spent an overnight vigil, protecting and warming another patient. He saved that one. "See ya tonight, Doc," I offered as I left them.

Badger, Tomcats, Skunks Make Spring Lively

For the most part, we have tried to observe a policy of "live and let live" here in the wilds of the Cebolla.

A badger has made an appearance from time to time striking fear into the heart of Skeeter, our husky, protector of all dear and valuable. A short month ago, the badger emerged on a hillside west of our home, prompting Skeeter to conduct a search and control mission.

The search went well but control was lost somewhere in a downward roll from first contact. That old friend of man threw gravel for 40 feet as he rounded the corner of an outer shed. With eyes as big as saucers, he passed a message to get my butt back in the house.

"It's a jungle out there," he yelped. Basically, we have three problems we must solve before the cook leaves for better quarters and higher pay.

Two tomcats have been rearing to find mates and start families since the first hint of spring. With the nearest females of sparking age some two miles yonder, they are severely frustrated and vent their frustration by urinating on anything of proper height, mainly the windows, storm doors, irrigation boots and lower walls of the front porch. Our cook resents this to no end and I'm the boy who catches all her pent-up fury.

We might very well have lived through the seasonal turmoil if Feisty, the cross-eyed underachiever, hadn't urinated on her left jeans leg as she paused during her evening walk. Hell hath no fury like a woman so befouled. First time I had felt sorry for Feisty in weeks as he tried to straighten the curve out of his spine that made him run in circles.

A skunk sat on a stump;
the stump said the skunk stunk;
the skunk said the stump stunk;
later they were both right.

For three years running, McClures' skunk has hurriedly weaned her latest brood and left them in our care as she journeyed to higher pasture. Generally speaking, they have been well behaved as long as Inez kept their bowls full and no one unduly alarmed them. Skeeter suffered a few times in protecting his favorite bones and learned that discretion is the better part of valor when facing critters that can pivot and fire before he can close his eyes.

The old Mother Skunk returned last week to find the McClure's had sealed off her birthing quarters under their home last hunting season. So she crossed the meadow to our place to check out our maternity ward and found all entrances closed including the small door to the front porch where the cats' hi-pro diet rested in dishes that tantalized her smeller.

She tore hell out of a rug under the door in her efforts to get inside, tired fast in her delicate condition and gave it a furious blast of perfume then vaulted down to the doghouse where Skeeter was keeping a low profile and released a charge right up his nostrils. He passed me in the doorway as I went out to offer assistance and went straight to a rug by the bed for help and sympathy. The mistress is a little more sensitive to such smells than I and hied herself to the guest bedroom, retching and crying.

Today, Skeeter and I are constructing a box trap which we hope will catch all three problems. If the United Parcel Service will make delivery, McClures can keep package and contents at no extra charge.

Miner Recalls Days in Amethyst

When times were good

It had been a long time between meals that day as we slipped through the front door to pay Floyd and Darlene Dooley a visit. Actually, we had come to visit Floyd, as Darlene was no more anxious to see us than our own wives.

Frank Yanchunis was loaded, Les Turnipseed was loaded, and I was more so. It had been a hard winter. We had kept the crusher and ball mill at the Emperius reduction mill chomping and grinding with our output from the Commodore and Amethyst Mines. We had rammed tons of dynamite home with little round sticks, we had breathed dust and powder smoke through protesting nostrils and today we had taken a holiday to smell the first daisies of spring. We had paused to prime the pumps in a brief flurry of uptown activity, and after that, we forgot about the daisies and eating.

Floyd moved his chair back from the table in the cramped quarters of the kitchen and stood to one side so Frank and Les could pass by and occupy the chairs on the other side. I followed their stumbling feet as best I could, but when I got abreast of Floyd's meat pie — he had just broken the crust before we knocked — my nose and stomach refused to go further. As Floyd shared a joke with Frank and Les, I shared dinner with Darlene and the boys. Clyde and Phil were little shavers then and they thought it was great sport that an old drunk would plop down and eat their Dad's meat pie.

I felt bad as I mixed the last of the crust with the remains of the juice and Floyd wrestled with the lid of a jar of peanut butter for a makeshift sandwich. Darlene had only made enough meat pies for her crew. In spring, you should expect company.

Floyd and I drove connecting tunnels in the Amethyst 5 tunnel many years ago. I previously wrote of how the big Irishman scared me nine points on a ten-scale system when I thought my round had blown him to smithereens. A different time I felt my way through the cloud of smog generated by a jackleg drill to find Floyd laying across the vibrating rockeater fast asleep for all intent and purpose. I never knew what to expect from him. When he didn't open his eyes carrying on this pantomime, I relieved myself on his boots. The warmth from the contents of my bladder prompted him to check downward. He cut the air to the drill and turned the air blue with choice swear words.

That evening as Darlene flitted by him in household duties, he begged, "Help me with this boot, honey, my socks are wet and I can't get it off." Darlene squatted and with much jerking, twisting and pulling she managed to slip the boot off. "Will you take my sock off too," he asked and she dutifully pulled his sock off, wrinkled her nose and laid the wet rockford over the back of a chair. With that accomplished, he went on, "My socks are wet because Jackson urinated over my boots today." It was weeks before I ventured within rock throwing distance of Darlene.

Another day, another dollar (in the hole). We were stoping a block of ground between the 5 and 7 levels of the Amethyst Mine, a rotten-smelling place with bad air and so hot candles softened and flopped over. It was necessary to keep candles burning to be certain we had enough oxygen to survive. When the flame was strong enough to flicker, we felt safe. When it was reduced to a small, orange blob, we got the hell out and waited for a better day.

We were startled by someone yelling, "Help, for God's sake help me, Kenny's trapped." It was John Picoti, who worked with Kenny Swinehart driving a service raise from 9 level to 7 level. When we got there, Gene Patton was standing clear of falling timbers and boulders still cascading from over a hundred feet above, where Kenny had been when lining sets collapsed into the manway.

John explained the predicament as dust cleared. He had been pulling ore from the chute as Kenny cleared off the bulkhead. He thought he heard timber cracking, then all hell broke loose and he dove for cover.

The first thing we had to do was get to the hang-up, now fairly quiet, and try to make contact with Kenny and get air to him. Floyd grabbed a scaling bar, I took an ax, and with Pat and John standing by on the level we headed up. It was a terrible situation. Timbers were crossways holding tons of muck, drill hoses were entwined in the mass of broken boards and boulders of ore as large as a man.

Kenny was calling, his voice faintly penetrating the cave: "Get some air to me — it's gassy — I have the air hose by me."

What Kenny didn't know was that the air hose was pinched somewhere in the cave and, though we had turned the valve, very little air could pass through. We were scared stiff. The only recourse was to brace ourselves as securely as possible and pass the debris by us to thunder down the manway hoping John and Pat could keep it clear enough at the bottom to get us out. We took turns poking and wedging, tiring quickly in the stale air but able to goose bursts of rock that pelted us and knocked rungs from the ladders.

Ton by ton, board by board we cleared the ten feet between our footholds and Kenny's perch. As Kenny maneuvered carefully by us so as to not dislodge remaining timber, I looked at Floyd. All I could see was a dim glow from his lamp and the whites of his eyes. The lead dust had blackened us like soot. A trickle of blood found its way down his cheek from a cut above his nose. He wiped at it with a hand that looked like it had been through a meat grinder.

That was 30 years ago, old partner — seems like only last month or last year that we stood side by side and helped save a man. I say helped, because we both were asking someone with far greater power than our own to get us all safely out of that hole.

It's There — All You Need Is Shovel, Willing Back

Do any of you remember the song "Dear Okie, if you see Arkie, tell him Tex has got a job fer 'im out in Californy, a diggin' oil wells, all he needs is a shovel"? It was popular during the exodus of dustbowl farmers and others from the midwest during the Depression.

I don't know if you can dig oil wells with a shovel, but you can darned sure dig lead, silver and coal mines with one and maybe in your own back yard. I was probably the most gullible prospector in Colorado for a number of years and, on occasion, I still get caught up in the end-of-the rainbow search. I believed every bonanza story told me in the first part or handed down through generations.

Did you know that Jack Kehr eats breakfast within 30 feet of a bituminous coal bed? I'll bet he doesn't know it either. I was told, on good authority, that when Lynn Lezotte and a helper dug Herbert Barnhart's water well, they struck a coal seam and that Mr. Barnhart burned the amount hoisted from the hole in his kitchen stove. Jack now lives in Mr. Barnhart's former home, the well has long since disappeared, but that coal seam is still there for the taking. I scoured the mesa from top to bottom and sifted dirt around the well without finding a trace of coal.

Do you know that midway between the propane storage yard and the old Creede dump, an outcrop of brecciated chert and travertine assays 27 ounces silver per ton? And less than a thousand feet northwest of the old pickup that runs the tow rope at McKinney Spring, a small pit was dug on siliceous sinter that assays 18 ounces silver per ton. It only cost me $12 to learn that the decimal point had been shifted two digits to the right by the promoters and I was knocking chips off .27- and .18-ounce silver.

I'll bet none of you know that there is a vein of carbonate lead ore in the east fork of the west fork of Deep Creek. A man by the name of Stevens and his son, while cutting mine props, discovered the lode. It ran well over 50 percent lead. In fact, it ran so well it ran clear out of Deep Creek and is probable somewhere near Silverton by now.

How about a couple of true stories? When Scooter and Gust Jackson dug the hole with pick and shovel that provided water for the Wright-Williams reduction mill behind Creede's cemetery, they passed through a stratum rich in manganese dioxide. Ben Helmick, mine-mill manager, had a sample assayed that gave results of .23 ounces gold per ton. Grab your shovels and head for Slaughterhouse Gulch. That black layer in the Creede formation will bring you over $70 per ton at today's quotations.

And locked up in the La Garita Wilderness Area rests a high-grade gold vein stumbled onto by a little fellow from Saguache named Maes who herded sheep for the Hazard family. I met Mr. Maes in the head waters of Rat Creek, where we traded stories and Tokay on 1962-63 prospecting trips. The first I learned of his find was in conversation with Wally Johnson of the Forest Service. Mr. Maes, in moving sheep from the Rough Creek drainage, passed by a small shaft nearly hidden by windbent, stunted spruce growth. Later, he returned to the shaft and gathered samples of the quartz which Wally had analyzed.

The results gave a figure near $2,000 per ton in gold. Wally told me that Mr. Maes had died and we made plans to search for the shaft the next summer, but we failed to meet again. The one facet of the story that stuck in my mind was that the poles holding round rungs for a ladder were still sound and the rungs were held in place by leather thongs.

Several years after I first heard the story, a group of hunters were gathered in Cadwell's house near Cathedral with one telling of chasing a wounded elk in Rough Creek Basin near the divide. He said, "I darned near fell in a little mine shaft that was mostly covered by brush. Strange thing about it was it had a ladder of sorts tied together with leather straps."

All you need is a shovel.

Rough Troop Rides Range to Jackson's Quiet Retreat

"Bolt the door and hold it 'til I can get some shells in the rifle," I yelled to Inez. My first thought was that an earthquake was about to hit when I saw the calves head for high pasture with their tails pointing at the sky, the chickens squawking and running in circles, and Sport, who had never before failed to defend our house, cowering and howling behind the garage. Animals sense tremors minutes before the ground begins shaking but a glimpse out the kitchen window alerted us to the problem. What looked like stragglers from a Pancho Villa raid or the last of Quantrill's raiders were approaching from the north.

That brave girl stood her ground as I looked high and low for the box of .308s. Then I heard a sigh of relief followed by, "Why hello, Randy, where did you come from?" And there he stood, kinfolk from Creede and new champion single-jack driller, Randy McClure. Off in the willows a hunched figure struggled to tether his horse, then hobbled into the sunlight where we could identify him as Mike McClure, so crippled I thought he would drop before he made another step. My heart went out to him, but then I saw the reason for his stumbling gait. His left foot was in his right boot and his right foot was lodged in his left boot. For three days he had traveled thus and not one of the crew had noticed. "Thank the Lord," he moaned, "I thought I had gout." He switched the boots to the right feet.

And on they came. Kim Wintz following Jaylee, a captive from a foray on the way. Jaylee means Cute Chick in the Ojibwy tongue, I believe. Tom Payne was riding tall in the saddle, but not by choice. Tom had his chaps on backward and couldn't sit in the saddle, or anywhere else for that matter. Bringing up the rear rode Ken Wyley, their intrepid guide, who had visited me once before while building a house in this area.

They had ridden over the divide from the head of Rat Creek, a beautiful trip by horseback or afoot where quartz crystals glisten in sunlight on a south-facing slope, and down East Mineral Creek where Wallace Leary and others prospected silver-bearing rock near a volcanic neck, past the junction of the main stream where cutthroats used to lay in shaded waters near overhanging banks and willows. Three graves of early-day pioneers can be seen below the trail if you know the site, marked by circles of rocks and slight indents, and mountain sheep watch intruders from cliffs of quartz latite outcrops.

Twenty-three years ago John and Gene Wardell, Scooter Jackson and I spent a pleasant camping-prospecting trip here. John and I also stopped a budding forest fire on the West Fork that could have been a disaster had it reached thick timber. It had been started by a careless sheepherder.

Now this group was on their return trip by a different route, which led them to our Spring Creek retreat. Gathered in the living room for the first exchange of falsehoods, Inez couldn't take her eyes from Kenny's boots. "Those are the most real-to-life alligator skin boots I have ever seen," she said. "Honestly, I can almost see them move."

She was at least half right. They were moving. It was Kenny's own skin, or had been. This mountain man guide had led his troops through four miles of buck-brush and swamp trying to find the trail in East Mineral Creek, which was never more than a hundred feet to the north. The brush had worn everything but the uppers of his boots away. Turning to Kim, I noticed he had the ends of two Kleenex tissues hanging from his nostrils and his bandanna neckerchief still over his mouth like the rear drover in a Texas cattle drive. He told me he had slept downwind of Kenny's feet and was still afraid to take a full breath.

We wanted the captive, Jaylee to stay with us but she said after she broiled the newspaper their steaks were supposed to be wrapped in for last evenings meal, they had promised to return her to her people.

What a crew, I thought as Randy took charge of Jaylee, Tom took his scout's position still standing tall in the saddle, Mike with his boots on the right feet, Kenny, the guide, running his right index finger over an old Utah highway map looking for landmarks and Kim galloping to get upwind of those alligator-skin boots. It was a ragtag outfit but I would turn drill steel for anyone of them swinging a ten-pound sledge.

We drove up to the main ranch house to inquire if our visitors had passed without undue panic among the guests. The tourists had gathered by the gate for one last glimpse, arguing among themselves if they had just seen a sheriff's posse or the object of a sheriff's posse.

One old fellow with his thumbs hooked in his belt sauntered up to me and advised, "They ain't goin' a get very far if they don't get that tall black hatted un's topside and bottomside pointin' the same direction."

"Tom's one of Siamese twins," I said. "The surgeon got confused when he was separating them at the pelvis, and now neither one knows if he's coming or going."

We have enjoyed and appreciated Shorty Wheeler's column and must comment on the trip he enjoyed to Crested Butte and wrote about.

The readers may not know that Mr. Wheeler was an authority of considerable repute on Rocky Mountain wildlife some 50 years ago. He could identify every species from the "Shaw Springs Ruby Throated Warbler" to the Blue Creek "Earthus Horribilus", a bird of a different caller.

Moves Keep 'Em Hopping

Neighbors still keeping their distance

With five moves in eight years behind us, we still haven't been accepted by our neighbors and we are still unpacking odds and ends from the first move. Our neighbor to the east tightened and repaired the fence that separates us and waves from a distance or at least waves a crooked finger. The west neighbor runs his cattle through our pasture on occasion and lets his dogs water the gate posts. I don't believe they are unneighborly, but they probably saw my old partner throw one of her tantrums.

One of the boxes I just unpacked had cedar sawdust in it dating back ten years to a time we visited Dean and Ev Hammond. Dean told us to sprinkle cedar sawdust by onions and other garden plants to protect them from cutworms and other culprits. Another box turned up old papers. A 1931 issue of the Del Norte Prospector with a Creede Candle section reveals that our own Mabel Wright wrote the "Up-River Notes" for that period. In June, the Wright brothers held their semi-annual branding rodeo and offered 18 furnished cabins for tourists arriving by train — "Trains met on notice".

Did you know that in June 1931 the Creede basketball team defeated the Lake City basketball team by a score of 15-11? All free throws, I suspect, as those ball games could more correctly be called "free-for-alls". After the game, a dance was held attended by Mr. and Mrs. Billy Weaver and Mr. and Mrs. Allen Hosselkus of Creede, as well as many others who were not sober enough to give their names.

A 1927 issue of the Creede Candle informs us that Lynn "Key" LeZotte had the misfortune of mashing one hand between two tram cars at the Fluorspar Mine in Wagon Wheel Gap. This caused the hand to swell double its size, but there were no broken bones.

And the new hydroelectric plant in North Creede had been generating power since Dec. 1, 1926, after 13 months of darkness caused by fire destroying the old steam/electric plant by Humphreys' Mill in November 1925.

Here's one for the Creede Chamber of Commerce: The Champion Mine, located by J.W. White in 1892, produced its first ore from a shaft sunk on high grade silver bromide. The ore was raised to the surface in buckets hoisted by a horse windlass and was reported to assay more than 2,000 ounces per ton. A Mr. Listy organized the "Kentucky Belle Mining Company" which leased the Champion Mine and continued production. Later, the Champion and Monte Carlo Mines became the property of the Champion Mining Company and the aerial tram was installed to drop ore from a hole in the face of the cliff to holding bins 1,400 feet below. At the time this aerial tram was the longest free swinging tram in the world. Seventeen hundred feet from anchor points in the cliff face to the delivery point. Surely this would be of interest to present-day visitors in the Creede area.

Paul Davis and Alvie Wintz prepared a report for Dr. B.B. Grichter of Des Plaines, Ill., in the late '40s of the Champion and Monte Carlo mines at which time the workings were open and accessible. I remember they chipped a sample from a narrow seam that assayed over 6,000 ounces of silver per ton of ore. My dad, Bill, cobbed high grade from wall rock with a moil and cobbing plate in 1910 when Charlie Gratton leased the property and shipped a small amount of ore via the aerial tram. On my last visit to the mine, the heavy cobbing plate was still in place by the waste rock.

There's still silver in them there hills and I believe leasers could still turn a fair dollar if we had a purchasing agent or smelter in the state and could place MSHA and OSHA in a dark hole with a solid plug on it.

Faithful Mate Never Forgot Him

He was standing just off the sidewalk bordering a parking lot, ramrod straight, silhouetted against fading sunlight. I was returning from an evening walk on Hillcrest Ave. as I approached this gentleman outfitted in khakis, from a cap pulled down to alter the position of one ear to the military-like shirt and trousers with cuffs tucked into hiking boots, giving the impression of an old soldier at last bugle call.

I spoke and raised my right arm in a partial salute as I passed. He grunted, and when I was several steps past, he asked, "You don't know what I'm looking at, do you?"

We live near a nursing center and I am in contact, at various times, with many of the patients. Neighbors east of our home think I'm one of the disabled and avoid me on my walks. One fellow, waxing his car, became so flustered when I spoke to him and acted like I wanted to visit that he dropped his wax can and retreated to the interior of his garage, backward, watching me with fearful eyes. When I'm home and available, I visit with the ones allowed to walk near the center, and these are pleasant meetings because, like children, they aren't caught up in the calamities of the world and can talk about daily wonders that most of us take for granted.

It didn't surprise me when the old fellow questioned me. I went back, stood beside him, and asked, "What do you see that I'm missing?" He pointed to the top of a large, naked, cottonwood tree over two blocks distant.

"You see that tree," he said, "the big one, stands just to the left of that house?" I agreed that I saw the very one he pointed at.

"My wife is buried by that tree," he said. "Everywhere I walk, I can see the top of that tree and I remember her."

His eyes began to glisten as tears welled up waiting for release. It had been only two days since I had been reduced to a blubbering mass as "America the Beautiful" was sung at memorial services for the lost astronauts and I wasn't ready for another cry, especially near a busy thoroughfare and a well-used parking lot.

"She had Alzheimer's disease, you know."

He was recovering his composure. I wasn't.

"We thought it was funny at first," he went on. "She was cashing a check and the girl asked for our telephone number, she couldn't remember it. Another time, we were at some friends playing cards and she couldn't remember the suit or much of anything else.

"It didn't worry us until she began forgetting to put on clothes and left burners on and she'd go for walks and forget which house was ours. It was embarrassing for both of us and I finally took her in for a checkup and the doctor told me he was afraid it was Alzheimer's disease and would get progressively worse.

"Hell, I didn't know what he was talking about. Old folks always get forgetful, you're probably forgetful, but we don't die from it."

Old Bill Jackson used to say, "If you can't think of anything to say you better keep your lips buttoned." I kept my lips buttoned as I faced this tormented man, his lower lids finally letting the dammed-up tears roll down his cheeks and drip off his beard to spot the khaki shirt.

"Don't ever let them tell you it's a blessing she's gone..." he said. "Sure, I had to care for her and watch her every minute but, by God, she was there and I could touch her... Sometimes we would visit for over an hour and she would remember things I had long forgotten. Then she'd get that blank look and it might be a week before she would remember anything again... but she was alive and she... mostly didn't know anything was wrong.

"I cooked for her and I coaxed her into eating two good meals a day. I saw that she took her pills regularly, but when I had to get nursing care, they would forget to feed her and she couldn't remember if she had eaten, so she just wasted away."

So there we stood, his tears running freely, my tears soaking a handkerchief as I prayed for words that would comfort this lost soul. He understood, grabbed my shoulder, and apologized.

"Every day I went in with a wash cloth and dabbed the matter from the corners of her eyes. When she opened her eyes, I would look right at her and ask, 'Who am I?' She would grin and tell me, 'Why you're my husband, you crazy old guy, why do you ask?' In 54 years she never forgot. She was my only reason for living... my only reason... for living."

Miner's Trick Kept Friends Believing in 'Banana Belt"

It's the little things that count. In the winter of 1956-57, Floyd Dooley and I were working together in the Amethyst mine, stoping upward from 7-level to 5-level.

It was a particularly cold winter and rather than switch to company transportation at the Commodore 5 portal near town, we drove on to the upper workings in my pickup, always arriving a few minutes before the rest of the crew. Floyd was full of the old Mick and would stop at the large cola thermometer hanging on the outside compressor house each morning to warm the bulb by match flame and send the mercury to a point some thirty degrees above the initial reading.

Someone from the next arrival would always note the temperature and remark how much warmer it was at the Amethyst portal than at the Commodore, which was about 800 feet lower in elevation. Gene Patten said it had always felt warmer to him there and our foreman constantly reminded us that we were working in a banana belt. For the price of a kitchen match each day, Floyd made the rigors of the job more bearable and the rest of the crew swore to the Commodore crew that it was always 20 to 30 degrees warmer at our diggin's.

* * *

I have always liked Paul Dunkel. His father, Shorty Dunkel, and I mined near each other for years and it was a pleasure to have the opportunity to work with Paul for a brief period. I was helping Paul load his round in a mucker drift one day. I was handling the tamping stick, or powder pole as it is also known, while Paul fed sticks of DuPont dynamite in the edges of the holes.

I gave him a tongue lashing for switching ends on the sticks. The crimped ends of the serrated paper holding the explosives were supposed to point outward, giving the most efficient expansion in tamping, I told him, courtesy of E.I. DuPont specifications. Paul is an easy-going sort and he advised me, in a humble way, that I was wrong, that the other way gave a tighter load.

We argued for several minutes then shoved a stick with primer to the end of a hole, expanded it then measured the depth on the tamping stick. Next we rammed a stick home with the crimped end out, packed it tight and again measured the hole depth on the tamping stick. I snickered to myself at the chance to show this upstart a thing or two as we rammed a stick of dynamite in his way. Lo and behold, his way gave over an inch tighter pack. You can teach an old dog new tricks.

Another day, I was looking for moss rock for a friend's fireplace construction. Paul Dunkel had several tons of beautiful moss rock he had hauled in from somewhere. Knowing money was tight for Paul and his new bride, I approached him about buying the rock. "You know," he replied, grinning from ear to ear, "you're the third person to offer to buy my rock. This is the first time in my life I have had something someone else wanted, so I'm going to keep it."

* * *

We have settled in for a long winter on the Western Slope. My sparring partner recently read an article on acupuncture and how it has helped various screen and tube personalities.

There is nothing unique or wonderful about the practice. She has needled me for 35 years without effecting a cure for anything but double vision. I quit drinking when I began seeing two of her and my father-in-law.

Whistle While You Work

Having worked with geologists for the last six years I have made some observations that I believe are worthy of passing along. They are a good-natured group, for the most part, and well they should be, as most of their time is spent in out-of-the-way places where the common herd seldom treks.

They are, as a whole, lousy drivers and you can usually follow one from bits and pieces of their vehicle, paint scraped off here and there and pedestrians up poles or behind them. A female geologist who joined us in the 1981 field season had once learned that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. She followed that rule of thumb in driving, much to the consternation of a poor old fellow in Wyoming who may still be mired in the median of I-25, a truck driver in Denver whom she forced to change lanes three times before he said, "to hell with it", and dropped back out of range and a policeman in Spearfish, S.D., who sat petrified as she ran two stop signs and a red light.

I had slid between the seats with my eyes covered after running the first stop sign. Bob Hawkins and Dave Jones braved the entire scene but were much better fortified from the last liquid refreshments than myself. That was one occasion when it would have been better to have staggered home than to be driven by a teetotaler.

Geologists like to read bumper stickers. Many a visitor has wished he hadn't pasted memories of his tour on a rear bumper when a 4x4 pickup played tag as a near sighted geologist read "Cave of the Winds", "Royal Gorge" and "Smile, Jesus loves you".

A part of their errant driving can be laid to their training to spot changes in rock formations. While driving from location to location their eyes are panning the surrounding vista for any hint of mineral deposits and they frequently stop at higher elevations to study the terrain as they relieve themselves on the hardpacked roads. A geologist will always have mud splatters on his lower pants legs and shoes.

Geologists will never talk when they know something of worth for fear of divulging confidential information. When they know nothing of worth, they will mumble a dialogue completely indecipherable, then ask for your opinion.

They will lose a complete kit of equipment, including themselves at least once in a field season and one geologist even lost an orange truck in the airport parking lot in Gunnison. He thought it looked like his truck but it was clean and didn't have a parking ticket in the wiper blade.

Geologists will always carry three items secured by a chain or shoelace around their necks. One will be a magnifying glass for use in locating splinters in their hands as they get their winter's firewood. Next will be a magnet for locating lodestone and swinging their compasses to the easiest hiking terrain. The third is a whistle and this is where I come in.

My job has been to locate them when they get lost and blast the whistle three times. My only failure in returning a lost geologist occurred in Squaw Canyon of South Dakota where Dave Jones had joined a group of nude bathers under a waterfall and got his whistle full of water. It was two full days before he could blow the bubbles out and sound his distress call.

Advice for Bea Jean

Someone boring you with details about his operation? Grandchildren? Bowling scores? Ask him if you can give him a tomcat or two or three.

I have never had conversations end so quickly or topics change so abruptly as the past couple of months' efforts in trying to find favorable homes for some good, reliable mousers.

We lost three helpings of Gourmet Mix and a feeding dish when Ed Wintz discovered a new dining place under the back seat of his vehicle and threw the rascals out. I thought they would be well underway, Slumgullion maybe, before they found the hitchhikers.

One each for the couples Ed and Bea, Gene and Bonnie Wardell, who visited on a snowless Sunday. Shaggy and Feisty would like Creede and Wagon Wheel Gap where they wouldn't have to sift through lonely hearts ads for female companionship. I told Shaggy how Bea Jean would fluff and dry him in her PermaPress and Damp Dry GE. I didn't tell him that the last one she tried it on went two cycles too long.

It was a good visit. I always marvel that Ed maintains his good sense of humor and composure with Bea Jean tormenting state troopers along the valley route. Last trip, she ran her seat belt through the steering wheel so it wouldn't wrinkle her jacket. Worked fine until she started to make a sharp turn.

Like she said, "the trooper was just looking for someone to pick on and besides body shop mechanics have to make a living too."

Gene Wardell looks well recovered from heart bypass surgery. His eyes kept turning toward the canyon guiding Mineral Creek waters to our meadow. Nearly 30 years ago, Gene and I prospected Mineral Creek headwaters, staked a few claims and caught a few fish. If we hadn't got so wound up in flicking lures to tempt cutthroat native trout, we might have found that gold mine.

We may just try it again if we can pack in a beauty rest mattress for Bonnie. She says she'll be camp cook, camp tender or both, but she must have something besides pine boughs and horse blankets to sleep on.

Ed and Bea Jean plan to join us. Ed says Bea Jean can sleep on anything that doesn't crawl or slither.

In 1956, I built a camper for our Jeep pickup so we could enjoy the headwaters of the Rio Grande in style. Before that we back packed all our gear stuffed in or tied onto the sides of my old barracks bag. We had the bottom of a partially burned tent, blankets, a skillet, two pots, change of clothes and fishing or hunting equipment.

The first trip with the new camper was made to Pole Creek via Little Timber Hill, a pretty hairy journey in that year. No troubles arose driving in, but during the first night thunder clouds rolled in and a slashing rain enveloped us.

The top edges of the pickup bed slanted inward on that particular style; in constructing the camper top I failed to lap over the outside edge. Water poured in. Within minutes our bed was afloat, joined by clothing, boots and food.

Morning was only slightly better. A steady drizzle convinced us we should try to drive out.

Some two-thirds of the way up Timber Hill, the front end of the pickup began sliding and I had no choice but to turn sharply to the right and give the engine throttle to prevent rolling. We rocketed to the bottom uprooting bushes and boulders in the wildest ride my Kansas girl had ever taken.

Bea Jean Wintz, if you ever drive Timber Hill, do not run your seat belt through the steering wheel.

The Road Starts Here

It may look like the end of the road, but actually it is the beginning. It just takes some people a long time to find out where good things start from, with and by.

Last year Ed Wintz drove his mother over Slumgullion Pass for a short visit. Dorothy looked as pert and chipper as ever, but ol' Ed shows the ravages from nearly 40 years of marital bliss with Bea Jean.

Many years ago we spent a wonderful day with George and Dorothy Wintz at the La Garita Ranch when they were adoptive parents of twin fawns. Dorothy entertained and fed the fawns in the house while George brought up the rear with whiskbroom and dust pan cleaning up the berries.

That day, also, was partially taken up by a deer hunt of the Ishi Yana bow hunters. During a drive to jump deer for those on stands, a bull elk was rousted from his bed and roared up a path occupied some distance away by Bea Jean. Bea Jean became rooted in fear at the sight of the bull coming directly at her. At the last moment, the bull swerved off the path, but Bea Jean, true to female tradition, lost bladder control. On the way back to the ranch, she walked into Bellows Creek and squatted in the rushing waters so the rest of her clothing would be wet and no one would ask any embarrassing questions. Ed felt the incident should be summed up in the year's activities.

Charles and Dorothy Steele and Alvie and Edith Wintz also found that you can get from here to there or there to here by dodging mud holes and looking for a junkyard with flowers. I wasn't home for the visits, but it pleased Inez and Mother Mary very much to have their company and swap tales after many years apart.

Randy McClure and Kim Wintz have been over twice. The last time to practice their soft-shoe routine for their next trip to Nevada. I caught a part of their act and was darned well-impressed. I thought they might have a bit part for an old hoofer, but they felt I was too soft for such a rigorous presentation. Well, fellows, I have been exercising and practicing daily and if not included in some small way, I should mention that I have also been practicing blowing a whistle.

Gene Wardell and daughter Laurie found the right trail and ended up at our home in hunting season as did A.J., Henry, Kenny and Trent Hosselkus. They liked the looks of the slow elk in the meadow better than the fast elk in the high country that had been chased with every weapon available since August. We were relieved when Trent was able to convince them that none of the herefords had four points or more. Trent certainly had his hands full on that safari. They followed bear tracks for three miles before surprising a jogger in waffle shoes as he rested by Cebolla Creek. Kenny thought they were following in the wrong direction, but Henry insisted the smell was getting stronger the way A.J. headed. He was right.

And Noel Loyd Roberts, better known as Bo, threatens a visit this spring along with wife Cleta. They have their passports and have had shots and immunizations, but I'm not sure if that is to leave Missouri or enter the United States. In fact, I'm not sure of anything about Bo Roberts. He writes he will be fitted for his third leg soon and after that will be traveling. I can't imagine why anyone would want that many legs unless he has become involved in smuggling. The last time I saw Bo, he couldn't run on two legs so he sure as hell doesn't need another one for speed.

JoJo the goat has just recovered from Bo's last visit, but still breaks out in a cold sweat when he sees or hears anything held together by baling wire with spare tires hanging from the corners and breathing fire from both ends. That goat has seen a lot of catastrophes in his lifetime, but nothing that scared him as badly as the sight of that junkpile on wheels and the fearsome critter at the steering wheel. He backed through two lines of Leann Cadwell's wash and strung it from Spring Creek to the top of Los Piños Pass.

Poached Eggs for Slim

Slim Meutze, in his late fifties, is a heavy equipment operator for Freeport Exploration Company. Slim, or Mitz as he is affectionately called by his co-workers, is a Nevada native and shortly after WWII he was working on a ranch near Elko. His teeth were bothering him severely and though money was tight he decided he just had to have them out and replaced with a false set of choppers. He went to his dentist, explained the problem, and said to get with it. The dentist, knowing of Slim's Naval service, suggested they go through the veteran's administration for financial help. The paper work went smoothly and in a short length of time Slim was sporting a new set of teeth.

Soon after this Slim started a new job with The Bureau of Land Management. The new line of work required him to be away from home several days at a time and an old suitcase served to house his belongings on those trips. He and his partner had requisitioned a flat-bed pickup from the bureau's motor pool, loaded it with barrels of gasoline and diesel fuel and lashed Slim's suitcase against the barrels before starting their journey. Slim had a small sore that was irritating as hell on his upper gum and at the first coffee stop removed his new false teeth and placed them among the clothes in the old suitcase then, again, lashed it to the barrels.

In Slim's words, "Well, we were clipping along pretty fair when ol' Jess says we must have picked up a real oil burner 'cause blue smoke is following us down the road. Now I can't see 'cause I don't have a mirror on my side of the truck but I notice how friendly everyone is, they are all wavin' at us and pointin' and we're wavin' back when Jess hollers 'jeesuscrist, Slim, we're afire'. I stuck my head out the window and sure enough smoke was pourin' from both sides.

"All I could think about was my false teeth in that suitcase when we spotted a farm house near the road... we pulled in and began throwing dirt and water on her and finally put the fire out. I jumped in amongst the smoke and pulled my suitcase out an' says to Jess... by golly, I'm in luck, it only scorched the outside... but when I opened it my clothes fell apart and there in the bottom, all fused together, were my false teeth."

Last Valentine From David

We had guests for Sunday dinner and plans to show this Spring Creek group home movies and color slides of Creede area scenery, local characters and a smattering of scenes from the bowels of the earth, where brave men venture to dig treasure and bring forth tall tales of hell cats and she ghosts.

Everything went well until I started to round up the equipment for the great show. Only the screen could be found and it looked like it had barely survived an Indian raid. We decided the projectors were irretrievably lost along with cartons of film and changed the format so Inez could entertain with lewd dancing and bawdy songs or play the organ, whichever blended best with the mood of the party.

While turning everything upside down and going through every box yet unpacked, I uncovered one large box that Inez had dumped the memorabilia of a lifetime formerly cluttering the drawers of a desk and bureau, treasures I had protected through fire, flood, rages and ravages of a neglected wife. In one manila envelope, I had placed newspaper clippings, old photos and a Valentine that had been returned to me by David Blackburn a year before he died.

Valentines were a status symbol to us tads. The Valentine David returned to me was one I had given him. It had no date but it was a two-for-a-nickel Valentine, the kind you reserved for your Mom and best friends. Homemade Valentines counted for nothing and were discarded as soon as we were out of the classroom. Penny Valentines were kept for a day or two but two-for-a-nickel Valentines were kept forever.

There were two grades to each classroom in the old Creede grammar school and eight to twelve future leaders in each grade, so you could conceivably receive 21 Valentines, one from each little friend and one from the teacher.

Eddie Cahoon and I had an understanding. We didn't like each other until Valentine's Day rolled around. Just prior to one such occasion, Eddie announced that he wasn't going to give me a Valentine. That really hurt and as soon as I could corner him alone, I advised Eddie that if he didn't give me a Valentine I would punch him so hard in the nose he would blow down the back of his neck for the rest of his life.

Eddie didn't give me a Valentine. I could hardly control myself as he sat at his desk and snickered. It was less than a block to his home and I knew I had to catch him in the alley before he reached the street where his mother might see me pummeling him. Mrs. Cahoon was a large, ferocious woman and would very likely kill me.

I caught him in the alley and I bloodied his nose but I would much rather have had a penny Valentine from him instead of bruised knuckles. Both Wallace Leary and Bernard Shaw received the full complement of Valentines.

Here was the Valentine I had given David Blackburn in one of those years when you wished you could live forever. It was a two-for-a-nickel Valentine that he had tried to keep forever but David had a premonition of death and wanted me to know, before he left, that I was his No. 1 friend. I wish I had been as thoughtful and generous.

Voter Should Get the Blame

The press and television blundered around in muck and fog for months preceding the recent election with dire predictions that the rascals (incumbents) would finally be thrown out and John Q Citizen would reign supreme. Government of the people, by the people and for the people would be restored. The halls of Congress would quake in fear of these new, fearless patriots.

We may rejoice that one thing has emerged perfectly clear from all the rhetoric of the past political campaign. Congress is not to blame and our senators and representatives may once again hold their collective heads up. The culprit in the fiasco has been exposed.

The self-centered, self-indulgent, greedy American voter will have to wallow in blame for every past, present and future malfeasance, bribe, larceny, adultery or other corruption perpetrated and committed by any member of the Senate or House of Representatives.

Throw the rascals out of California and Texas, but let us keep our representatives who have brought us jobs and wealth with military bases, missile factories, airports, dams and grants of every type and description. Cut back on the burdensome entitlement programs in New York, Miami and Los Angeles, but touch not one dime of our own because we work hard and we deserve our allotment.

One lesson we have learned well is to cry long and hard before we are hurt. We can't give up a dollar of Social Security or another few dollars in income tax, but we always have a spare $5 or $10 for a few lottery tickets.

We gripe and groan when the donation request arrives from the Salvation Army, Red Cross and other well-deserving groups, but we graciously hand over the dollars for a six-pack of beer, a bottle of hard liquor or tickets to a filthy concert staged by even filthier spawns of cesspools.

We are beautiful, successful, fat and arrogant — model for all developing countries. Third-world citizens worry where the next spoonful of rice or crust of bread will come from while we count calories in lobster tails and T-bone steaks between cholesterol checks. We gripe at the rising cost of gasoline, but we can't walk two blocks to a grocery store or force junior to walk four blocks to school.

We want government to finance abortions while all manner of contraceptives are readily available. The most reliable contraceptive of all is to know where your teen-ager is and in what company.

No, Peter, we can't throw the rascals out because we are the rascals. Our representatives in Congress are only doing our bidding. We want the rich to pick up the tab. "Soak the rich" is the cry from every corner of our nation, but we forget that the rich stoke the furnace that provides jobs and opportunity for those of us with less ambition.

We clapped and crowed when Donald Trump ran into hard times, forgetting that his drive and foresight produced a payroll for over 20,000 workers, directly, and many thousands more, indirectly.

As a whole, we are afflicted with two grave illnesses, envy and greed, and we will continue to decline unless we address the source of infection or an enormous calamity brings us together with love and respect. For a starter, we could strive to go one day completely honest with ourselves and voice a good word for our neighbor. If that makes us feel better, we could shoot for a whole week of kinder thoughts and sharing with those less fortunate.

I rank with the worst of the rascals, but I am ready to give and I will give until the well runs dry with only two requests of our houses of Congress: no more new spending programs and no cost of living increases for any government employee or entitlement recipient until the national debt is retired.

Campaign '88 Leaves Wheeler in Las Vegas

Our campaign "88" lost air faster than a politician with the hiccups. We were no-shows in Iowa and New Hampshire with our campaign coordinator lost in the wilds of Nevada. Gordon "Shorty" Wheeler, when last heard from, had been rolled in Las Vegas by a little old lady working her way through college. Shorty is now pearl-diving in a greasy spoon on "the strip" to earn money for bus fare home.

And Heinie "Adorable Jones" Leonard, who has served us so faithfully in the past is resting on his laurels after winning the prestigious Kayenta Valley sheep shearing contest. Heinie clipped 14 woolies in three seconds flat with the front bumper and license plate of a late model car. He was made an honorary member of the Flatfeet tribal council when he donated the remainder of our campaign funds to the preservation of livestock on the Navajo highway. His fingerprints are also preserved for posterity in the magistrate's office in Kayenta.

Old friend Gordon Duncan is trying to take up the slack in the West while Shorty is blowing bubbles in Nevada and lacks only 49,990 signatures to get us on the ballot in the golden state of California. Several of the signatures are being challenged, but we feel certain they will be validated when we get new copies of the death certificates with proper dates affixed.

We need a breather anyway. Now we will have time to assess the odds against us and listen to the pulse of the nation. Advice comes from all quarters and we wish to assure those who have written that their suggestions are receiving careful consideration. From an old friend in Missouri, who wishes to remain anonymous, we are cautioned to soft pedal women's lib. In his words, "Keep 'em barefoot and pregnant and you'll never have any problems with the broads."

I fear we have let a little slack in the reins over the last 30 years for those dumpy little mop handlers with the droopy drawers and baggy eyes have invaded every sacrosanct dwelling of the superior male sex. Bo is right. Females should be greasing bread pans or washing diapers over a scrub board in the back yard and keep their fuel-injected tongues from the political arena.

From Tacoma, Wash., a constituent suggests we provide day care bars for husbands with working wives and finance a project with an excise tax on exercise books and cassettes. Such a bill would certainly have merit though we would rather re-establish working wives in the kitchen.

Even Inez has shown signs of sloughing her duties after listening to the ERA activists spout their baloney. I came home after a rigorous day of campaigning to find her curled up by the heater blowing smoke rings up a lamp shade and 86 pages into the "Perils of Pauline" while a Mrs. Swanson's potpie heated in the microwave. I have always believed it is right and proper to thump the blouse and skirt around in the privacy of your own home so long as you keep the noise level in acceptable decibels. Being so far out in the country, I may have gone out of that range this time.

Sue Scores a TKO

I met Jim Brink in the early sixties when he started mining duties for Emperius Mining Co.

Jim had originally ventured (or been driven) from Iowa via at least half the states in the union, Panama, France and Germany. His latest residence of record being in the Salida area from which he commuted to the mines of Leadville and Pinnacle.

Over the years, we have found we have much in common. Most notable, we are both afraid of his wife, Sue, who still retains the tone of command in her voice instilled during her tour of duty as a German Marine.

Jim boxed professionally as a young man and told me he never lost a bout in the ring. In assessing the scars around his eyes and a nose that looks like a discarded washboard I replied that it looked like he lost one or two. "Oh, well," he added, "Sue and I never fought in the ring."

When Jim and his family got settled near us on the mesa area in Creede, he kept an ear cocked for the sounds of construction in my direction. With his big black dog, Moose, he would wander over to the new building project to greet me with a growl that I never knew for sure meant "Good morning," or "I'm going to chew your leg off."

Jim's growl was more easily interpreted, "Have you mashed a finger yet, Jackson, or am I in time to watch you do it?" They both liked to see my fingernails turn black. Jim liked it better if a little blood seeped around the edges to give it contrast. It was inevitable I would reshape a finger while he shifted positions so of late I had begun laying the hammer aside for the duration of his visit.

On one such visit, we were lazing back against a stack of lumber enjoying the warmth of a winter sun with old Moose snorting and twitching as he rambled in a dream. Jim was reliving his early years as a boxer, or in Jim's case "a fighter." I thoroughly enjoyed the tales and Jim has a knack of relating his adventures so that a picture is woven in with the words.

From the boxing circuit in the Midwest we went into the Army and through the campaigns that ended with his capture by the Germans and the privations endured as a prisoner of war. Old Moose would stir now and then when the tone of Jim's voice indicated he should show some sign of appreciation for the story.

We have covered a score of years and now are involved in a late-night brawl where several of Jim's acquaintances are fiercely pummeling him on the ground. The town marshal had been called because of the disturbance and asked one participant, "What the hell's going on?"

"We're killing Jim Brink," the guy puffed, as he unloaded a kick in the direction of Jim's head.

"By gawd, you fellows clean up your mess when you're done," the marshal ordered, and returned to the warmth of his bed.

"Jim Brink, you come home, I need you." Jolted to reality by these words from Sue, who was now disappearing in the doorway of their kitchen. Moose had leaped to his feet and was pushing his head against Jim's leg to get him moving. Moose well knew the consequences of dalliance by his master and guided him to the alley where Sue had appeared again to be sure he wasn't sidetracked on the route home.

I had barely returned to my own work when I heard the sounds of voices in disagreement in an upstairs bedroom at Brink's, where Sue was trying to direct Jim in laying a carpet. I could see Jim backing up near an open doorway. Aware of the boost to morale of a cheering section, I hollered, "Don't back up an inch, Jim, stay in there and pitch."

The walls fairly bulged with voices and commotion before a disheveled Jim Brink appeared at the doorway waving a fist in my direction, "Keep your damn nose out of my business," he said, "before you get me killed, Jackson."

I miss our visits very much but I have to admit I miss the German dishes Sue prepared and shared with us more.

Artful Insemination

In the year 1966, while driving a tunnel in a remote area of Colorado, I was privileged to share a pristine setting with a herd of cattle comprised of 50 Hereford females serviced by one old and wise Hereford bull who was assisted by two young and unwise bulls of the same heritage.

Heifers are unpredictable. They like the attention of Mr. Bull and vie for his courtship but the period for serious lovemaking is finely tuned and totally at the discretion of the female. The two young bulls would find a likely prospect or she would find them and they would run the length of the fenced pasture for hours at a time pausing only to butt heads and scatter compost as the heifer urged them to greater speed and frustration. I saw them corner a heifer by a willow patch one day with no clear line of escape. Like any modest and chaste young female would do, she backed into the willows until they refused to part further and sat on her haunches.

The old veteran lazed in the lower end of the pasture where there was shade and lush grass. At the proper time he would meet the trio of runners and, with a flurry of pushing and grunting, send the younger bulls from the bridal chamber and mount the heifer.

Another year, another day, a Limousin bull was brought by trailer to his harem. A ten year old cow who had furnished the ranch with no less than seven calves saw the bull being backed from the trailer by the handlers and galloped at full speed to the immediate area bawling like a lost calf. The experienced Limousin turned slowly, pushed her in the proper position then mounted and fertilized her egg in less time than it takes to write of it. The poor old T-bone producer stood in the roadway with a hump in her back, head bowed and a look in her eyes that plainly stated, "...migawd, this is all there is to it and I waited an entire year for a love affair."

Mother Bee's Tantrum Put an End to Party

I was following my bride on the Lake City cutoff between highways 149 and 50, alternately choking in her dust and trying to catch sight of her as, like all lady drivers, she thinks you have to drive like hell over the rough patches, then check your makeup and smooth your skirts over the smooth ones. Between the dust clouds, I passed a Wagoneer full of faces that looked very familiar, but I was still trying to locate the Blue Comet or parts of it ahead, so I didn't get a close look.

Inez stopped at a highway rest stop to pour me a cup of coffee and calm my nerves. As I slopped half of it on my trousers and pickup seat, she exclaimed, "Wasn't that Bee McClure in the station wagon I passed near the cattle guard?" We agreed that it was and in the next issue of The Miner learned that Bee and Patsy Louth had driven from Grand Junction on that day. I'm sorry that chance passing didn't end with a visit, but I want the readers to know that Elizabeth McClure wasn't always the gracious, gentle lady you now see in Creede.

Bee McClure, with malice aforethought, rudely and unfeelingly disbanded the "Upper Willow Creek Mineralogical Society" and "Tomkins Hardware Brotherhood of Mine and Mill Suppliers" in a tantrum because we were holding our annual meeting in the rear of the hardware store. What a turnout we had! John Smiles Doyle, state mine inspector; Newton Turnquist of Union Supply Co.; Bernie Soward from across the street; and Fred Ryden from next door providing refreshments; Tomkins Hardware staff with the exception of Bee; the crew from the Phoenix Mine; and scheduled as guest speaker, Sally "Tassels Freluv". Sally failed to show, having been held over in Durango for a previous engagement.

When caught up in the emotional fervor of such a convention, all sense of time is lost and strange things occur that severely tax the patience of wives, neighbors and policemen. Speeches and voting in of next year's officers were behind us as we turned to the awards phase.

Michael McClure was all of six years old this convention night as he ran from restroom to work tables preparing our drinks. Tiring of mopping up after us around his bar, he began weighting the dixie cups with galvanized flat washers to prevent spillage.

Bernie Soward presented Mike with a cash award for inventing the double washer cocktail and we were all giving him a combination prone and standing ovation for being the youngest bartender in the nation, if not the world, when a tornado, later identified as Mother Bee McClure, struck the convention hall, snatched our bartender and delivered the farewell address.

Newt Turnquist never returned to Creede. Smiles Doyle always left before nightfall thereafter. Pete Walker ended up down. Gene McClure ended up out and I was saved from a lynching only because I was so limber the rope wouldn't hold.

Lynn Meets the She Ghost

A short time ago we lost a little redheaded fellow that was as much a part of Creede as the thoroughfares and buildings. Creede is known nationwide not solely for its silver mines but for the characters, as well, who give it the flavor and richness that make people want to return. We lost a vital part of that when Lynn Lezotte died.

Lynn was relegated to a life of menial labor without many of the comforts we enjoy because of a childhood disease that left him severely handicapped. Lynn overcame these handicaps with a determination to be the best at whatever he was able to do and set an example for those of us more fortunate.

I worked with Lynn, Key, as he was affectionately known, in the early '40s loading silver lead concentrates of Emperius Mining Company for shipment to the smelter at Leadville. We shoveled this vile smelling mud into a dump truck from a small, square bin; drove it to a box car then shoveled it again into a wheelbarrow to transport it to the ends of the boxcars. Key would never let me handle the wheelbarrow, "It'll h-h-hurt your b-b-back John," he would stutter and take over the heavy loads even though he was troubled by "the lumbago" as he called it.

We worked together again after World War II in the Amethyst mine where Key loaded shaft buckets for hoisting as Gene Dooley and I ran stopes near the West Drift Sump, a shaft from Amethyst Five level that bottomed, vertically, 250 feet lower. Gene and I rode the rims of the cans with Key firmly wedged under the yoke, his carbide light singeing our boots as we were dropped to our place of labor. By riding the rim and holding the cable with one hand we could use our free hands to keep the can from spinning. On the rare times Key rode the bucket (or can), alone it would reach the bottom spinning like crazy where the hoistman would hold it just off the deck. There was no way a man could step in and stop the revolutions, only by kicking it hard against the wall rock could we slow it down, then hold it and pour Key out who by this time would be both suffering from the concussion and so dizzy he couldn't rise from his hands and knees. He laughed as long and hard at this routine as ourselves and vowed to pay us back in kind.

Key liked his beer and when he was loaded his yells would echo up both Willow Creek canyons. Each time we got together in a drinking bout he would tell me of a lost mine up East Willow Creek where as a lad he visited two fellows who had found a silver vein in a snowslide area, one had died and the other moved away leaving the mine to be buried by debris from the slides. We were always going to locate it and have our own diggings. After years of talking about it we got all beered up on Saturday and staggered into my old pickup with an extra case of brew, fired it up and headed up the canyon to find the "Mother Lode".

Needless to say we didn't find it and we very nearly didn't find our way back to Creede but I saw a side of Lynn Lezotte few men were rewarded with. Lynn wanted that mine for his friends, all his friends would share in it, all the widows and the little kids would share in Lynn's "Mother Lode".

In his retirement Key did chores for the widows and picked buckets of gooseberries and raspberries for their pies and jellies. This afforded him a link with the mines and miners he loved, always stopping to chew the fat with us and reminisce about the old days when we loaded ore cars with a number six square point shovel and hauled 'er out with a mule. The best berry patches were near the mines and when they ripened you could see a baseball cap moving around in the bushes and a little black dog scampering around chasing squirrels. From under the cap a voice barked at intervals, "D-d-damn you B-B-Blackie, you get the h-h-hell back here."

For you, Lynn, we will remember the hell cats and the she ghosts and we will always leave a sandwich for the Tommyknockers. You left us so much that is the least we can do.

Bless the Ladies

A little excitement in our day-to-day living should be welcomed by all of us. Who knows how the old ticker will respond in a genuine crisis if we don't rev it up now and then to check for defects.

We had been acquainted with the Dietzels since their first day in Creede. Will was the assistant ranger and they had moved into the Forest Service house near us. Before they had become well acquainted with the rest of the citizens, Will was driving home on the main mesa road one day. In swerving to miss a dog, he slid off the outer edge and rolled the Chevy Suburban down the embankment to straddle the kitchen area of Bill Leggitt's home.

After crawling from a broken window, he worked his way down and around to the rear door where he greeted Mrs. Leggitt with, "My name is Will Dietzel. I'm new in town and I thought I would drop in for a visit." When Mrs. Leggitt saw the oversized ornament atop their house, her heart had a trial run that would have qualified it for the Indy 500.

We were building just north of the Forest Service property. As the house neared completion, Sandy made several trips daily past the ditch where I was installing our water line from the city tap. Tiring of the constant dribble of dirt and rock as she vaulted the ditch, I took time to place a wooden walkway, for her convenience, near a stop and waste valve where I had begun coating the valve and cover with the stickiest, cruddiest grease I had in stock. On hands and knees I caught a generous helping of dirt down my neck as Sandy scooted on the walkway. Before she could teeter off the other end, the old devil plopped my hands in that bucket of grease and plastered it end to end on her feet. Instantly, I received a load of carrots and onions she was carrying, the container they were in covering my head before two fast passes from well greased feet nearly toppled me with a tailwind.

* * *

A sweet and naive little geologist at our camp near Jerritt Canyon, Nev., was as game as a human could be but bedeviled by mechanical problems of her vehicles. The battery of her own car would, invariably, be dead when she needed it and the pickup truck she used in her duties on the project continually kept her upset. The road to the exploration area was either filled with mud and puddles or partially blocked by drifting snow necessitating use of tire chains and playing hob with moving parts.

I was engaged in a wiring job in the kitchen of our cook, Dottie Vidano, when Debbie splashed into camp with only about half the cylinders in the engine of her truck firing. It had been a disastrous day on the mountain with a bulldozer sliding into the canyon and other assorted hair raisers that had left her one cup of coffee short of a nervous breakdown. When she staggered in for that sanity restoring cup, she asked me if I could do something; anything, to make the truck run better.

The wiring job was first priority. To gain time enough to finish it and not incur the wrath of the cook I instructed Debbie to take a tamping stick and "shove it up the exhaust pipe, rattle hell out of it and then twist it as you pull it out."

"It just needs to get the carbon shook loose in it," I continued. She couldn't thank me enough but looked quizzical. "What is a tamping stick?" she asked. I explained that a tamping stick was used to load drill holes and since we didn't have one to borrow Dottie's mop handle, that it would serve as well.

I continued my work glancing out now and then to see Debbie on hands and knees working furiously with the mop handle. I had made the last connection and flipped the circuit breakers on when Bob Hawkins, project senior geologist, slapped Dottie on the posterior and sat down to exchange pleasantries over a cup of fresh perked. I was just pulling up a chair when Debbie came trooping in wiping off the mop handle.

"I couldn't get it all the way in because of the bend in the pipe," she reported, "but I shook it real good. Do you think it'll be okay now?" I nodded and she left the kitchen to cross over to the office and check maps.

"What the hell was that all about?" Bob asked as the door slammed. When I told him the story, he blew half the coffee from his cup and warned, "Good God, she'll kill you when she finds out."

Before Debbie returned to the vehicle I took time to dry off the distributor cap, plug wires and coil. So far as I know, she still carries a mop handle to cure the ills of her vehicles.