Gold Fever!

Gold Fever struck on Saturday, February 20th of 2010. Suddenly we were thrust back to 1849 and the Gold Rush of the early California Settlers. The dog with us was no longer a companion, but a guard and a hunter, there to watch over us. The intricate Native American scroll work on the rocks we scrambled over were no longer hundreds of years old, but made just yesterday. My jeans and sneakers became a calico dress and work boots as I traversed through the woods just off the trail. The rock formations that had fallen long ago and retained their original squared shape were no longer ruins, but a standing cabin, waiting to be explored. I had stepped slowly off the path and back in time.


When I was only a child, my Uncle Mike taught me how to go Gold Panning. I will never forget that day. We went into the mountains of Toole (pronounced Tu-ill-a) in Utah, about an hour or so from where my Mom and Dad lived. It was near a copper mine, and a small stream ran down the mountainside by the road way. We found a good spot to pull off and my Uncle pulled out his gold panning supplies. I remember the smell of mud under my feet, the gravel crunching as I made my way down the path to the stream. We found a good spot to dig into the water and started putting small amounts of the silt into the gold panning bowl. He taught me how to swirl it around, looking for the tiny flecks. Nothing turned up for the longest time. Just about the moment we had decided to pick up and move to another spot, something caught my eye. There in the aluminum bowl, among the ridges and dirt, sat a shiny flake. It sat atop the dirt in the bottom, just below the surface of the water. I called to my Uncle, who came over expecting it to be a false alarm, like we had been coming across that day.


Much to my surprise, my Uncle practically jumped for joy. I had found gold, the real deal. He picked up the tiny flake with a pair of tweezers, filled a small glass vile with some of the creek water, and carefully let the gold piece go into the water. I watched as it swirled around in front of my eyes.


We took a break for lunch, which was my first experience with M.R.E.'s. They weren't as bad as I had been lead to believe, but they weren't that great either. My favorite was the crunchy freeze dried ice cream. Uncle Mike explained that it was Astronaut Food. My cousin Michael seemed to be used to the "astronaut food" since they often went camping and gold panning together.


After our meager meal, we went back to panning. Strangers walked past, curious as to what it was we were hunting for, none willing to ask. After a while, it was obvious that we weren't going to find anymore in that spot, so we cleaned up the gear and put it all away. Uncle Mike locked up the car and we decided to see if we could find the location the gold might have washed down from. That was when I learned about Sluice Trails.


As we hiked our way up a winding road that went towards the top of the nearest mountain, Uncle Mike pointed out the trails of rocks and debris that looked very much like a land slide that had nowhere to fall from. He explained to me that they were sluice trails, the rubble dug out of the mines and dumped down the hill when it was proclaimed that they had no value as a raw ore. They left pyramid shapes down the face of the mountain, looking like loose piles that rolled as far as the terrain would allow. At the top, almost always, was a mine that had been closed up long ago due to safety concerns.


The fence we came to didn't even slow us down. My uncle had been a smoker for many, many years. He huffed and puffed his way up behind Michael and myself, feeling the full weight of the altitude and humidity in his lungs. Finally we reached a clearing at the top of the mountain, where it opened out to the crest of the mountain. All around we could see wilderness, and off between two of the mountains on our west, Salt Lake City loomed in the distance. What brought us all to our full height and made the blood start pumping through our veins with the force of adrenaline was the timber lined entrance to an old Gold Mine.


Uncle Mike instantly forgot about the elevation and started to breath heavily, this time from excitement. He stood tall at six feet and almost 4 inches, and the mine was considerably smaller than that. He pulled a Mini-Mag from his back pocket and instructed us kids to wait where we were. This mine had not been closed like 90% of all others he had seen. Michael and I sat on the grass and waited. When Uncle Mike ducked his head and started to walk with bended knees with that tiny flash light in front of him, I asked Michael why we couldn't go in.


"Dad said that we should never go into something like that because there could be bears or wild cats inside. He said it could be easy to get lost in there too," he explained. My uncle was always a dare devil, but that didn't stop me from worrying about him. Those were possibilities I hadn't even thought of before that moment. On pins and needles I watched as the light in the back of the cave faded in the darkness, finally disappearing around a turn to the right. Uncle Mike was nowhere to be seen.


A good ten minutes passed and I started to get nervous. Finally that familiar weak beam of light from the Mini Mag became visible again and Uncle Mike emerged from the man made cave. He stood to his full height for a moment, stretching his back, leaning to and fro, getting things back where they needed to be. He didn't say anything for a long time. Finally, he turned off the flash light and put it back into his pocket.


"It was an old mine, but there's nothing left. Looks like nobodys been in there for years." He almost looked relieved. "I didn't go too far in. There were too many branches going off. Didn't want to get lost." Something inside told me that he had, indeed, gotten lost and that the relieved look on his face was due to the fact he was back in the sunlight once more. "Pitch black in there," he mumbled to himself. "Pitch, tar black."






As I stood just off of the trail looking at the base of what had once been a cabin in the woods while patting Muggsy the dog on the head, I talked with Sarah about which way we should go next. For some reason the image of my Uncle stretching out his back came to me. Like he did that day, I put one hand on my hip and leaned way over, cracking the bones on the right of my back in place before repeating that on the other side.

Sarah and I decided that we would follow Lou back towards the established trail. We walked past a tree with the exposed roots, I snapped a picture of the green glade with bare trees while Muggsy paused to sniff the air, and we stumbled upon a small section of the dry river bed where rocks sat under a felled tree at a cliff. We would have to walk the length of the tree to make it up the cliff, or walk the long way around. Always up for an adventure, we decided to try the climb. Muggsy ran ahead of us, bounded up the tree and leaped onto the grassy edge just beyond. He sat there panting, looking at us and wondering what was taking us so long.

I climbed down the edge towards the rocks in order to begin my climb and lost my footing. I feel on my hands and knees into the mud and silt at the base of one of the rocks on the down stream side. When I picked myself up to wipe the mud off of my hands, I froze. My hands glistened and shined like I had thrust them into a pile of glitter.

I gasped. Sarah thought I had hurt myself and rushed over to help. Muggsy ran down the tree and bounded towards me. Instantly I shot my hands up into the air to stop them both from treading on what I had found. There in the dirt before me, bright as the sun, tiny flecks of yellow stared up at my face.

I yelled loud enough for Lou to hear, and his head appeared over the cliff. As he looked down from the top, the disbelief was apparent on his face. Sarah, however, squealed with delight. We looked for a long time for a piece big enough to carry out with us, but I knew that there was no way we were going to find an actual nugget. It didn't stop me from looking though. Long moments passed where I rubbed the gold flakes into my hand, watching the soft metal blend with my skin.

"Come on, it's just Fools Gold" Lou said from above.

"Iron Pyrite is a hard stone, Lou. This is soft, malleable. There's no way this is fake. This is the real deal!" Excited, I continued to stare at the surface of the ground near my hand print for a long time. Finally, after a failed attempt to find something in which to store the precious substance, we gave up. We mentally marked the spot and reluctantly climbed to the tree. As we reached the end of the tree and started to scramble up the cliff side, Sarah turned to me.

"Look at this," she almost whispered, her eyes glowing as brightly as the gold we had discovered. She had set her hand into the dirt on the short cliff in order to find purchase and saw the entire hillside sparkling in among the dirt. She held up her hand to me to show that her hand now resembled mine, shining in the sun light with tiny golden flecks.

Sarah gouged out a hand hold in the hillside and balled up what she had removed into a large, smooth, round lump of earth. She tossed this up to Lou, who reluctantly caught it as gingerly as a little girl would grab a hold of a worm she had been asked to hold. The mud kept it's shape and we climbed the rest of the way up the hill.

Sarah was a trooper that day. She carried her mud ball prize all the way out of the mountain, a good two miles from where we had found it. Right now that mud ball rests inside a sandwich bag at my home, just waiting for me to "pan" the gold out of the earth and take it to a jeweler. I have no doubt in my mind that what we found that day was indeed gold. Separated and saved properly, that small lump of earth might be just enough to make a very nice necklace pendant in the shape of an "S" just for her, and that's just what I plan to do with it.

Yes, there is still gold in the California Mountains, if you're lucky enough to stumble across it.

Guitar Girl - The Story of Terry Ray Day

It had been such a long day. The drive home had made it seem even longer, winding my way through traffic for more than an hour. I pulled my car up to the house and gathered my things to climb out. My quickly wilting hand picked rose was in one hand, my keys, phone, purse, and little blue pine tree berries in another.

About the time I closed my car door with my hip, the sound reached me. I closed my eyes and listened as I heard someone up the street play the guitar with a gentle touch to a soft melody. Somewhere in the distance, a kid called for his mom to read him a bedtime story. The birds sang the day away. People went inside turning out their porch lights as they went. The man and the music played on in the most beautiful melody I’ve heard in such a painfully long time. It’s amazing, all the memories that can come from just a simple sound.

Daddy learned to play the guitar while I lived in Arkansas as a kid. I use to play with his guitar if ever he left it where I could reach it. I remember him playing "Home on the Range" so sweetly. I don’t think I really paid attention to the sounds of a guitar before he played for me. Ever since then, the sound has always brought back memories of my childhood, of my father playing guitar for his children.

A friend in Arkansas named Jeff tried to teach me to play guitar. Stevie RayVaughn blasted through my speakers for the first time when my roommate gave me a CD of his. I was dancing to the Guitar solo in "Freebird" by Lynard Skynard with Eric in Arkansas shortly after meeting my dear lifelong friend Robert. Another friend, Terry, played for me the first time I went to his house. The Guitar is a powerful instrument. It can take you back in time in mere seconds, transporting you to a world that no longer exists but in memories.

Terry – what an interesting character he was. Terry Ray Day was his name. When I first met Terry, he was the very most popular guy in school. He had one particular spot in the hallway where he always sat with his friends. He had long, rebellious red hair and vivid green eyes. When he stood up, he towered over me at about six foot four inches, and was still only in the 11th grade. Everyone in school knew who Terry was.

Even back in High School I loved to walk a lot. There wasn’t a while lot other than art that could keep me in my seat. At lunch I would roam the halls, usually alone since I didn’t have many friends. One day I wandered into Terry’s neighborhood. I felt really self-concious as I walked in front this popular guy and all of his friends. I felt the eyes of his friends looking me over and judging me, as was usual for me in those days. I was a social outcast in most circles, and this one wasn’t an exception. Some of them would laugh and joke to themselves and eachother.

"Hey look, it’s Nerd Girl."

"Shut up," Terry spoke over them. Shocked, I looked straight down at my feet, awaiting the verbal assault that was sure to follow, aimed at me. He was the coolest kid in school – surely he would want to out do the guys who worshiped him. I walked faster.

"Dude, she’s a nerd. We all call her Nerd Girl in Chemistry."

"Shut up," Terry repeated. "What’s your name," he asked me.

"Amanda," I replied without looking up.

"Well, Amanda, why don’t you come over here and sit with us a while. You know, kinda prove these idiots wrong," he thumbed at his posse of assorted jackasses. A few of them looked like they really didn’t like the idea of Nerd Girl sitting there, while others looked like vultures about to swoop in for the finish. All Terry had to do was give the guys an odd look, and they wiped the looks off their faces and cleared a spot for me to sit next to Terry.

I wound my way through the small crowd and had a seat, turning brighter red as I went. I didn’t know what I thought I was doing – the most unpopular girl in school was sitting with the very most popular guy? There were certain protocols that were to be followed. I was ignoring all of them. It was well known that Terry didn’t have a girlfriend, and hand’t had one in over a year. When asked why, he just responded that he hand’t found a girl that could hold his interest for long enough.

Terry began asking me questions. At first I was very quiet with my answers, terrified of what the general reaction of the crowd around us would be. I felt like I was being interrogated at first. Slowly I came to realize he was genuinely interested, and finally, I forgot the crowd completely.

"Where are you from?"
"Everywhere," I blushed.
"Where were you born?"
"Germany," I blushed harder.
"You’re German?"
"No," I hung my head.
"No? Why were you born there?"
"My Dad was in the military."
"Really? Cool! Where all have you lived then?"

As I rattled off the places I had been, the crowd faded out of my mind, though to them I was suddenly the center of attention. Terry asked me what each place was like, since most of the group had never been out side of the Utah borders. Everyone leaned in close when I started talking about California. Pretty soon everyone was asking me questions, and I was no longer Nerd Girl to them. Suddenly I was almost cool.

"Was it hot?"
"Did it ever snow?"
"How long were you there?"
"Ever go to Hollywood?"
"What’s L.A. like?"
"Have you been to Disney Land?"
"Ever seen any famous people?"
"Were you ever on T.V?"

The bell suddenly rang and we all went our separate ways to class, but a new aire surrounded me in the halls at school the rest of the day. People whispered, but didn’t giggle anymore. Something had happened.

"That’s the girl Terry Day wanted to sit with him," I overheard once and smiled to myself. "She lived in California," I heard another say. "I bet she knows a movie star."

"Amanda," Terry called out when he saw me the next day, "we saved you a spot." Sure enough, he didn’t have to give any funny looks. Everyone cleared a path to a spot right next to Terry, who had saved it specifically hoping I would show up. I waded through the crowd, for once being able to smile at the faces there, that welcoming sea of their anticipation smiling back. After all, I still had questions to answer. Mom taught me that making people wait was rude.

I went back to the group every day at lunchtime for a long time after that. People didn’t laugh at me in the halls anymore, I didn’t get spit balls in my hair in class anymore. I even started to care about my clothes and the style of my hair a bit more too. After a few weeks, Terry reached out and held my hand one day. A few glances were all we got. That day Terry walked me to class and kissed me before I went in. There was another shift in whispers, and people didn’t mind sitting next to me, or even having to work with me on projects after that.

One day, Terry invited me to his house after school. He was the first really genuine person I had known for some time, and I trusted Terry. It was not misplaced. That afternoon, after sitting on his porch swing and eating ice creams while staring down the view at Riverdale’s main road, he pulled out his guitar and played a while.

Terry played what was popular at the time; a Metalica song, Megadeath, ACDC, and others. He completely surprised me when he began playing a Classical piece I knew. It was beautiful! He played one after another, some I had never heard before. I loved it! It suddenly dawned on me… long hair, rebellious look, and classical music? He was once an outcast, just like me.

It wasn’t too much longer after that the world and life forced us into opposite directions, but Terry Ray Day made a lasting impact on my life with words and music that I’m certainly not soon to forget. I stood outside that night, listening to the guitar with my eyes closed, hearing Terry’s heart tell me that someone out there understood me. After such a horrible week, after feeling like I would never be OK again, I was miraculously reminded by the wilting rose, the four pine berries, and anonymous guitar music, that I wasn’t alone after all.

That was the last night I ever walked back through the door of that home I hated to the people I couldn’t stand.

I broke free the next day... but that's another story all together.