Misapprehensions and lessons hard learned
Misapprehensions and "book-larnin'"
This is just to give our 'newbies' whom may be reading our discussions without posting, just to give you a few giggles. Believe it or not, there IS a lesson buried in the 10,000 words of verbal diarrhea too. I hope you will get a laugh out of it.
I tend not to think of myself as getting older, it only hits me when I happen to pass a mirror and see the goofy looking old man peeking back! Also when I try to remember some of our adventures over the years, and count how many years ago that really was.
I remember well my first trip to Arizona - I was crestfallen to find out that NO ONE takes a mid-day 'siesta' in Arizona, despite my reading up everything I could lay hands on and all those old Westerns on the boob tube. My next shock was meeting my first "real" cowboy - I had thought that was only in the "old west" days, surely there couldn't be any REAL cowboys still working on the range, right? Wrong, and how wrong I could be, later even got to find out just EXACTLY what cowboy work really is when I worked for a couple of ranchers in Wyoming! As long as we have cattle and love our beef and leather, there will be a real need for real cowboys. But it is not at all like the Westerns portray it, it is hard, cold, hot, dusty, dirty, dangerous and thankless work, but also cowboys work for some of the best kind of people there are in the world, ranchers. And don't visit the western states and start bragging in the saloons that you are a cowboy either, or you will find yourself on a jughead horse miles from a road working cattle faster than you can say "I was just kidding buddy!"
I have also frequently picked on our instructor here Don Jose', Dueno afortunado of the Real de Tayopa, over mules. I have not admitted that we have had several mules of our own, purchased to take to AZ with us for pack animals. The first two were males, two years old and had never been touched by the hand of man! So it was a bit of a 'rodeo' getting them broke to saddle and drive, but after a year of working with them, they became like pets. One which had been named "Ivan the Terrible" became very attached to Beth (Mrs Oro) to the point that he was very protective of her, if ANYTHING seemed like it might be a threat to her, Ivan would charge it (literally) and fight to the death! Our son-in-law found out about this the hard way one fine day when he came to visit and we were working in the back of our place, and I will never forget seeing him standing on one foot, on top of an eight foot fence post, hollering for HELP to come and get this nasty mule away from him! But when the first two mules seemed to be such a success, we then bought a third, a black Molly mule (unimaginatively named "Molly" and she knew that name so we didn't change it) which really soured me on mules. When we bought her, she seemed to ride and drive fine, but after getting her home, she proved to be the nastiest one of the bunch - would kick you in a flash, so quick you could not hope to get out of the path of her hoof, bite you if you came in reach, bucked like a rodeo bronc, and killed two of our most beloved dogs in a matter of seconds when they were picking up the crumbs of horse feed that had dropped on the ground. The dogs didn't know any better, the male mules would even step ever so carefully around the two rabbit hounds so as not to step on them but not that black b-tch (rhymes with 'ditch') of a molly mule, she stomped and bit them to death so fast I could not even get to the dogs before they were dead. Beth had to stop me from killing that mule, and Molly went to the auction soon after that episode.
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Then there was my very first trip to Nome, so many years ago now. I looked up the weather and climate data, what to do etc and figured on it being pretty durned cold despite being summer. I packed heavy flannel shirts, long underwear, extra sweaters, down filled vest etc thinking to be comfortable while we were out prospecting. On stepping off the Alaska Airlines plane in Nome, I felt really smug and smart in packing for the cold, as it was about 50 F and a cold wind blowing off the Bering sea. We hired a cab to drive us out in the direction of the Kourarok range and drop us off, and on passing the first range of hills north of Nome, I soon realized what a huge mistake I had made in packing and wearing the heavy clothing. It was over 80 degrees, the Sun was beating down, NO wind and boy howdy did we ever sweat the whole time we were there! I had other lessons to learn on that first time too, like that old northwoodsman wisdom of hanging your food in your backpack, at least 20 feet up a tree, to keep the bears out of it. And there were PLENTY of bears in the area we were working - signs were everywhere and I saw a number of them at a distance. Well what they don't teach in those books on the north woods, is that on the Seward peninsual where Nome is situated, there
are not ANY trees much taller than I am! And I am a short guy! (
HAY now I heard that remark and YES they DO stack it up that high!) Oh to be sure, there are some decent size trees at the eastern end of the peninsula, but not where the gold country is. The answer there is to simply put your food a good ways from your camp, maybe 100 yards or so, in a spot where you can see it but not close enough to your camp to attract a hungry nine foot Alaskan brown bear in to have a bite to eat. If the bears get your food, its gone, but at least you will be alive to hike back to town for more food. Don't eat in camp either, eat over by your food cache, and wash up good before you get into your tent or shelter. (We didn't have a tent just a Whelan lean to shelter, a little safer than a tent as you can see what is outside on the front at least. I am still partial to the old Whelan shelter design as a great prospecting shelter.)
Funny aside on that cab ride, the cab driver told us that if we decided to head back to town, just hike out to the road and the first vehicle to come along would give us a ride. Well sure enough, we had no luck in the creeks we went prospecting and decided to go back to Nome and head in another direction so hiked out to the road planning to hitch a ride with the first vehicle. And to be sure, the very first vehicle to come along, stopped and gave us a ride - but it was a couple of days before we saw ANY vehicle on that road! (haha) Not exactly heavy traffic on the Nome-Taylor road in those days. We ended up hiking most of the distance back. I could add a bunch more humorous incidents of those trips to the North country, lessons hard-learned, often by trusting what we read in books and magazines, finding out what a joy it is to hike across soggy Muskeg with eighty pounds of stuff on your back and a CLOUD of mosquitos eating you alive etc but this post would get too long and boring.
I am getting carried away with this but the 'moral of the story' is that while books are great, you can learn much useful information from them, but don't take everything as gospel and nothing beats the old "boots on the ground" for a school to learn from. Experience is a hard teacher but some folks will learn by no other, and I must admit I am in that hard-learning bunch!
Anyway good luck and good hunting amigos y amigas, I hope you find the treasures that you seek.
Oroblanco (older but little wiser!)
Coffee anyone?
