Saddle Sore

In 1972, or thereabouts, I was  working with a woman named Rose and we became good friends. In fact, later, we became lovers, but  that's another story. As we worked together day after day we got to know each other and when I found out she owned horses I knew that I wanted to become very good friends. I love to ride horses and, even though my  cousin had a horse, I never got to ride it. My aunt was  not a nice woman and she would not let me ride because I was overweight and she said I  was too heavy for the horse. Now I was only about 75 lbs. over weight. This was when I was 11 or 12, so I was about 185. A horse can carry 185 with no trouble, she was just a bitch. I really shouldn't say that about my aunt but it's true. So I never got to ride when we would go to my cousins house.

But I was planning to become friends and hopefully I would get to ride Rose's horses. Well we did  become friends and Rose finally invited me out to where she kept her horses. They had a barn and tack room combined together. They had all the stuff to feed and take care of the horses. Rose had 5 black and white pinto horses. She also had 3 daughters and a granddaughter. She was the nicest person I had met in a long time. She was also a generous person. She would always invite me to dinner at her house after riding even though she had her husband and her 3 girls to feed. They didn't have a lot of money but they would be generous enough to invite  me to dinner.

I remember the first time I went riding with Rose and her girls. It was a Saturday afternoon. I arrived before Rose and the girls. When they showed up, we went out to the pasture to catch the horses for riding. The horse that I was going to ride was named Chief. He was the biggest horse and since I was a big man, I needed a large horse to hold me. So Chief it was.

After running Chief down and getting a halter on him I brought him back to the barn and gave him some grain and started brushing him before saddling him. As I got him saddled  Rose asked me if I knew how to tighten up his cinch after you first put it on. Horses know how to expand their lungs when you put a saddle on them and then after you have them ready to go they exhale and the cinch strap would loosen and when you step in the stirrup the saddle will slip and you cannot get up in the saddle. So to tighten up the saddle you have to knee the horse in the rip cage and when you do, the horse will exhale and you yank up on the cinch strap and tighten it and the horse can't do anything about it. It's pretty easy it's just that you have to hit the right spot and hit it with just the right amount of pressure.You don't want to hurt them, you just want them to exhale.

Once you get the saddle tight and get everything else on it's time to go riding. I just love to jump on a horse and ride. I believe that there is nothing as exciting as feeling the  power of a horse between your legs. Nothing as strong as a horse. The only thing that feels stronger is sitting on a horse bareback. Sitting on a horse without a saddle is so much different, you can't imagine until you actually do it. Feeling those muscles against your legs and feeling those muscles  against your muscles. There's nothing like it. Rose said she was going  bareback riding the next weekend and I was welcome to join them. I was so excited and ready to go riding. But that was also labor day weekend, the first weekend in Sept. and my parents and my brother where going to Reno for a weekend of gambling and free drinks and pretty girls. So I had to choose between pretty girls, free booze and the chance to win money. Well I decide on horse back riding.

So after work on Friday I followed Rose to where the horses are and we take a nice long horseback ride before dinner. After our ride we go to Rose's house and have something to eat and we decide that I'll spend the night  so we can get up the next morning to go riding. We had dinner and watched TV that Friday night and we then went to bed and got up early Saturday morning and drove to the pasture.

After catching the horses we put reins on them so we could direct them and we got up on the horses bareback and rode them around. Just about noon time my mom and dad and brother stopped by on their way to Reno. They wanted to make sure that I hadn't changed my mind and wanted to go to Reno with them.
But this was the first time I had ever ridden bareback and it was great. The best time I had ever had on a horse. It didn't make my mom happy that I didn't go with them, but I didn't go.  I stayed in Fremont        and  had a great time.

Saturday night we had a great Bar B Que and had a few rum and cokes or should I say, we had a lot of rum and cokes. After the drinks I was poured into bed, or rather onto the floor, for a good nights sleep. It's a good thing that I don't get hung over because I put away some rum that night. But what I hadn't planned on was waking up saddle sore. I was so sore that I couldn't even get up off the floor. When I did get up, I was so sore  that I couldn't sit down, I couldn't walk I couldn't do anything, stand, sit, walk, anything. My muscles were just toast, they couldn't move. But when Rose asked if I was ready to go bareback riding again, I said "Hell yes!". I headed out to the motor home and we loaded up and went to the pasture, got on the horses and spent another day riding. Yahoo!!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Gold vacation

It's July in 1980, I don't remember the exact week but John, his wife Sue and I are headed to Jackson, CA. and Electra road. We are headed out for a week of camping and gold prospecting. Mom and Dad are coming along. This is about the third time we've used our 3" dredge since we've bought it. We have been planning this trip for a month and we are leaving from work at noon. We got the early time off so we could get there and set up camp before it got dark. It's about a 2 hour drive to the Mokelumne River and Electra Rd. So we'll be able to set up well before it gets dark. So after picking up mom and dad and Sue, off we go.

We have been going to this spot for about 7 or 8 years and we can only hope that the spot we want is not taken. After our uneventful drive we get to the river and the spot we want is available. After pitching our tent and setting up camp we tackle the dredge. We have to put the frame together and then blow up the tire innertubes. After getting these together then it's time to put the sluice box on and the motor that has the water pump to pump the water thru the suction hose that creates a vacuum in  the hose and that sucks up the gravel and gold and deposits it through the sluice box. Also on the motor is a pump that pumps air into a holding tank for whomever is in the water. John was the one that was underwater and operating the hose. He has his scuba license so he is familiar with being underwater. I tried it but I did not do very well. Had trouble seeing and staying down. I wanted to float up and not stay on the bottom.

Now that we have the dredge set up we put it down by the water and tie it to a tree. We have to tie it to something because the river we're on and where we are it can rise if the power plant upstream kicks in and it starts running a lot of water from the holding pond through the power plant the river can rise. We always camp back far enough that we're not in danger of having the river rise so far that our camp would get flooded. Mom and Dad really don't have to do anything except relax and enjoy themselves. Their health has been declining and we didn't want them to have to exert themselves. They did some little things and helped when they could.

After a good nights sleep and a large breakfast it's time to hit the water and get the dredge working. Now as I said, John's job is to operate the dredge's hose underwater. My job is to stand by the sluice box and keep the larger rocks from stopping in the sluice box. If rocks that are between 2 and 3 inches get in the sluice and stop they can block other rocks and this could build up and that could cause us to loose gold. What happens is, the rocks stop and cause a riffle and the gold will accumulate behind the riffle and then it's dislodged, then any gold that was accumulating behind the rock could get washed down the sluice box and out the end and we would lose it. So my job is to prevent this from happening As John is putting on his wet suit I am filling the gas tank and getting things ready to put the dredge in the water. When John  is ready we pick a spot we want to dredge and we put the dredge in the water and  tie it to a tree and we also have an anchor and we set that in the river away from the land side of the dredge and we put the hoses in the water and make sure they're full of water so that when we start the pump it doesn't suck some air and won't make the pump bring up water.

Susie doesn't have much to do during the day. She does most of the cooking. John does a lot of the cooking at night. But Sue makes sandwiches during the day and takes care of John and me. This gives her time to nap during the day. Now the nice part about doing what I have to do is that Sue will make me a sandwich and bring it out to me. I am standing in waist deep water in this river and I don't have to stop to get a bite to eat. Now when John gets hungry we have to stop and let him come out of the water and get a sandwich or something else if he wants it.


Unless John has seen a lot of gold in the river as the dredge has been moving sand and gravel we will wait until the end of the day to do a clean up. This is where I have more to do. First we have to shut down the pump and bring the dredge to the edge of the river. The we have to clean out the sluice and to do this we put a large bucket at the end of the sluice and we lift up the metal riffles and slide what they call miners moss, which is very similar to indoor/outdoor carpet, out and into the large bucket. Then we wash down any rocks, sand, or black sand and gold into the bucket. If we have what is called pickers ,any gold that is big enough to pick up with your fingers, we pick those up before clean up and putting all this into the bucket.

Now that the clean up of the dredge is done it's my job and John gets to relax a little. It's time to pan down our tailings. Tailings have small rocks, sand, black sand and gold if we're lucky. Now I grab the bucket, a gold pan and a metal cup to scoop the tailings out of the bucket. I find a nice rock that's close or even partly in the water for me to sit on and pan the gravel down and see if there's any gold. First I get a cup full of gravel and put it in my pan. Then I put the pan in the water and keeping the pan parallel with the surface of the water I take the pan and shake it vigorously so that the gravel and the water mixes together and the gravel becomes liquified and this allows the gold to settle to the bottom of the pan and then you start panning out the rocks and sand until you get down to gold and black sand. When you get down to black sand and gold you get a snuffer bottler and you can collect the small gold. A snuffer bottle is a small plastic bottle that you can squeeze and when you let go it will act like a vacuum and will suck up the small pieces of gold. For the VERY fine pieces of gold that's mixed in with the black sand you save in a plastic or glass jar to work on at home where it's easier and you can use other methods. We always avoided glass so if we dropped it it wouldn't break.

I had bought my first wet suit and I was planning on helping John with some of the work under water. Well after the first day I have what's called divers ear, divers ear is an inflammation of the ear canal from water that is between the ear and your wet suits head piece. Not serious but painful. By Wednesday I couldn't stand the pain any more and off to Jackson and the emergency room. The doctor said, "Yes, you have divers ear." He gave me some meds and sent me on my way and told me to stay out of the water. Now my ear is burning and I figure some air blown in the ear would help. So I am back at camp and I am fanning my ear with my hand and blowing in the air with my mouth. I didn't realize what I was doing until everyone was laughing at me and my mom asked me, "what are you doing." I then realized I was blowing out in front of me and it wasn't doing any good for my ear. What an idiot.

The next day I am still having ear problems, mostly pain. But I can work with the sluice box and John will have to work under water and he really didn't mind. Especially on Thursday, he was underwater in the morning at about 10:30 and he came up and over to the sluice box and said, "Hold out your hand." I put out my hand and John put a nugget of about 1/2 an ounce in it. I was so excited, this was our first real nugget. We had found some other nuggets that where only a few grams but this was something. I didn't want to drop it and since John went back down and I had to watch the dredge so I stuck it in my mouth. I knew it was safe there I wouldn't swallow it and I wasn't going to drop it. Sue had seen John come up and she yelled at me, "What is it?" I answered, "It's a big nugget and held it up so she could see it. When she saw that I was holding something that she could see from about 30 feet away she knew it must be big. She got excited and ran to the edge of the river and then she started wading out to me. When she got close enough to really see it and see how large it was she was like a kid in a candy store and she was so excited. Mom and dad come to the edge of the water to see our nugget and then said they would see it later. So back in my mouth it went and it stayed there until we finished dredging for the day and then it went in a bottle.

The rest of the week we didn't find any nuggets as big as the one we found on Thursday. Come Sunday and it was time to pack up and go home. We had about 1/2 an ounce of gold collected in our little bottle and this was not counting the gold in the black sand that we had to process. Our trip home was uneventful just as our trip there was. Mom and Dad had a good time and very relaxing. Sue enjoyed herself as did John and I. We worked hard but we had a great time and the gold was a nice reward.

A Strange Phenomenon

One of the strangest things that has happened in our lives has to do with FFRC (Friends of Feline Rescue Center) in Defiance, Ohio and their 24/7 webcam.

 Cyndi and I watch this webcam about 7 to 10 hours a day, not that we watch it constantly but it is on. In the time that we have been watching which is about a year and a half, we have seen little ones come and go, some are adopted into their forever homes and some don't make it. We are always elated when one of the kittens or older cats get adopted and goes to their new home. During the kitten season (which is between March and September) the center may have between 80 and 110 cats and kittens.

We have seen kittens come in and have been thrown from cars or maybe was sleeping under the hood and got hit by the fan and have had to have a leg amputated and they still get adopted. And some come in and they aren't strong enough and don't make it. These are the ones that are part of the phenomenon I'm going to discuss. It's amazing that you can see these cats and kittens come into the center and you watch them day after day and you learn their names and you look forward to seeing them every day. They make you laugh and they make you cry, some times happy tears and sometimes the other kind. And that's the phenomenon I'm talking about. You never get to hold these cats, you don't get to pet them, you never feel them purr and yet you love them. You love them to the point that when they pass away they just break your heart and you cry as if it was your own pet that you just lost.

We just had a very sad example of this just last weekend. Our little Bravo, a black 3 month old, small for his age, kitten. He was born with defects to his back legs. One was stiff and shooting kind of straight out and the other one was pulled in kind of tight and they both caused him some pain and they did nothing but get in the way. So the vets decided to amputate both legs. They waited until he was at least 2 1/2 pounds. While he gained weight he built up strength in his front legs. Strength enough that he could pull himself all over the center and he could go up and down stairs. He was a cute bundle of fur and all the volunteers at the center loved him as did all the viewers on the webcam. 

Well on Wednesday Aug. 15th Bravo had his surgery and when he came home he was yelling in a lot of pain but Jacci (the centers director) gave him some pain meds and took care of him that night. The next day he was not in as much pain and he was doing so good and he was actually walking with his two legs and he was actually lifting up his little torso and looking for his friends to play with.

No comes the sad part, that night just before midnight Bravo started to go down hill rapidly and Jacci tried everything she knew and was on the phone to the vet 4 times trying to save this little guy. But just a little after midnight he passed on and made his trip over the Rainbow Bridge. Now when Cyndi and I found out we just broke down into tears. This for a little black kitten we had never petted, we never held him and never heard him purr. How this happens I don't understand. I don't know why we could shed tears for this little kitten we never touched just watched on a webcam.

I'm sure this is also the same thing that others do when movie stars and singers or sports people have passed on and others that never really knew them cry also. A very strange phenomenon if you ask me.

Marriage and Gold Prospecting

John, my brother, got married to Sue Brown in 1976. For their honeymoon they went to Southern California, where they planned to go to Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm and all of the tourist attractions in Southern California. They also planned a trip to KEEN engineering, to buy a 3" suction dredge for us to use  for gold prospecting. But I get a little ahead of myself.

John and Sue got married on a Saturday 3 days before John turned 30. I tell everyone that he was 30 when he got married. The reason I say he was 30 is because as we were growing up I said that "My brother wouldn't get married until he was 30." He is not cheating me with three days. So he got married when he was 30.

They were married in a small church in Santa Clara. There were about 30 friends and family. Mostly friends because all of our family lived back east, most of them in Pennsylvania. Sue's family was there, about 10 to 15. It was a very nice ceremony with a little humor. Of course I had the job of helping John get ready. So when John wasn't around I took his shoes and with white shoe polish I wrote HELP. HE on the sole of one shoe, his left. And LP on the sole of the right shoe. Now when he knelt down, you would see HELP on the soles of his shoes. Now it was about 10 minutes before the ceremony and we were waiting in an area outside of the church. John was just pacing around and I was worried that all his pacing was going to wear off the shoe polish on the soles of his feet.

Finally it was time and we walked into the church and stood at the alter with the priest waiting for Sue. The wedding march played and Sue came down the aisle. She was beautiful and was taking her time. She was aware of the word on the bottom of John's shoe. We told Sue so that if there was any laughter she wouldn't panic. If she hadn't known and during the ceremony she heard them laughing or giggling she would have panicked thinking, her dress was torn, her hair was falling down,, something, so we gave her a heads up. She was a good sport.

Now we were at the point where we had to kneel. I was John's best man and Sue had her maid of honor and we also had to kneel when John and Sue knelt. As soon as we knelt,  I started to hear some giggling at the front of the church, and it slowly started to move it's way towards the back of the church. Pretty soon everyone was giggling, they were trying to keep the giggling to a minimum but it wasn't easy. And the most exciting part was that John put his feet side by side. It was great, no gap between the letters HE and LP. HELP looked like it should, all one word. I know the friend of ours that was taking pictures got a very good picture of the feet. I am sorry that I can't scan it and include it with this story but those pictures were lost during one of John and Sue's moves.

The reception was also small, we had it at one of Sue's friends house and we used the garage and back yard. We had a great time and the happy couple had a great time. After most of the formalities were done, you know, the toast, first dance, garter throwing, bouquet tossing and so on, John and Sue make their way to the back yard to open presents. They got everything they wanted. They didn't need a lot because they had been living together for a while and had a lot of their household items. After the presents were opened they were getting ready to leave. John came up to me and gave me the key to his apartment to check on things while they were gone.

Okay, now I had John and Sue's key to their apartment and they were out of town. What practical joke do I make on their apartment? Corn flakes in the bed? Naw, too messy and they're going to be tired when they get home from all that driving. There's jello in the bath tub...hmmm... too hard to clean up. The light bulb goes on and I have good idea. Not too messy and pretty easy to clean up before they could go to bed. What is it you ask? I got a gross of balloons. That's a dozen dozens, which is 144 balloons for those non mathematical sorts. So about a week before their scheduled return I started blowing up balloons. I blew them up at home, at work during breaks and lunch. I got my mom helping. I'd blow up a balloon and stuff it in a garbage bag. When I filled up one bag I'd get another. Some of my 144 balloons popped while blowing them up and some had a hole in them. But after filling about 6 garbage bags I went to their apartment. They lived in the same apartment complex as I did. They were across the grass area about 20 feet away. I grabbed all the bags by the top where they were tied closed. When I get in their apartment I start dumping out balloons, I filled up the bath tub, I put them in the bed and then threw blankets over them. There were balloons in the living room, the bathroom, the bedroom, all over the place. It was great! I had to be careful as I left their apartment so none would escape. Some of the balloons tried to get away but I didn't let them.

So now John and Sue were on their honeymoon and having a great time. They were planning to get home on a Sunday and they gave me a call just before they were to get home. They wanted to know if everything was okay and should they stop at the store before they get home. I said yes, you need milk and some butter and some other things. They get home and when they get in the apartment they can't believe their eyes. They bust out laughing and popping balloons. Now Sue wants to pick up the balloons and put them in a trash bag and then pop them, that way the balloon part is in the bag not on the floor or wherever. But John wants to open the dredge box and look at it. So he pops the balloons in the living room and then goes out to the car and gets the box with the dredge in it.

3" Suction Dredge

We were now owners of a 3" suction dredge. Now we could get some gold, we could move the loose gravel over bedrock 10 times faster then we could before. This would help us get more gold. Gold is the heaviest metal and it will settle to the bottom of a riverbed and the dredge will suck the gravel on top of it. The dredge will suck up the gold too and the gold will be caught in the sluice box attached to the dredge. That was our new piece of equipment and we couldn't wait to go out prospecting.


 Wait till I tell you the story about the frozen wet suit.

My Cat, Tiger

Tiger was the runt of three orange tabbies my cat Tumbleweed had. Tumbleweed was a female orange and white long haired cat that I bred with an all black male long haired cat named Charlie that I had also. When I decided that I wanted to let Charlie and Tumbleweed have kittens I started to ask friends and family if they would like to have a kitten from my two cats. I was able to find 5 homes before the kittens were even born. But when Tumbleweed had her kittens she had six. Three orange tabbies, 2 calicoes and one black cat with a tiny white spot on his chest. The calicoes and the black one were spoken for. I had 2 other friends that didn't care what color the cat was so they would take one of the tabbies and I decided to keep the runt of the three orange tabbies. 

I named this little guy Tiger. I'm just a sucker for that name for orange tabbies, I had another orange tabby when I was a kid that we named Tiger. Tiger was very affectionate and he loved to curl up in my arms when I would lie on my stomach on the bed and watch TV. He was always in the bedroom when I was in there. I would eat in my bedroom because that was where my TV  was. Tiger was taught not to eat off my plate. I could leave the room and he would not take anything off the plate. I could leave for a long time and leave anything, fish, chicken or meat and he would not touch it. 

But Tiger loved ice cream and when I would bring a bowl of ice cream in the bedroom it was fair game and he would dig in. Now I know some will be grossed out, but I would let Tiger and my other cats eat out of my bowl.  I would no sooner set that bowl of ice cream down and he was in it. That was my boy Tiger. I'm sure by now you've noticed that I speak about Tiger in the past tense. Yes he is gone and I can't wait to see him as he waits for me at the Rainbow Bridge. Yes I am a believer that our pets go to heaven.

So Tiger I will join you some time soon and we'll have a great big bowl of ice cream.  LOVE YOU BOY!

One of the coolest things to happen

This is another short story and it's about this laptop that I'm using. What I really want is a tablet, but this will be okay until I can get one. Now, how did I get this? First off it's an HP Pavilion with AMD Turion  64 Mobile Processor ML-34 (1.8GHz, 1MB L2 cache, up to 1600mhz system bus) 1024MB system memory, 80GB hard drive, Windows XP and 15" widescreen. 

On Thursdays I go to Anita's Knitting and Crocheting club and one day I was telling Anita that I want to get a tablet or a laptop because it's hard to sit at the desk and use the PC. Well, Anita said she would be right back and she went to her apartment and came down with this laptop. She said that she wanted a computer so she could play solitaire, but she wasn't using this laptop very much and it was a gift to her also. So passing it along to me was just paying it forward. And that's how I got this cool laptop. It was one of the coolest thing to happen to me except for the day we went out for brunch for my birthday. 


My birthday was on Monday, but I wanted to go out for all you can eat brunch. So we went out for brunch on the Sunday before my birthday. Cyndi and I invited our friends Alan and Jan to go with us. We were enjoying our meal and we had had a wonderful time. The food was great, the chef came by,  as did the owner. And finally the waitress came by and said, "I suppose you're waiting for your check. Well you won't be getting one. The gentleman at the table beside you paid for your meal. All four of you plus the tip. So you don't owe anything." We couldn't believe it and we don't know why he chose us but how cool is that? It must have been about $100.00. That has to be the second coolest thing to happen to me after the laptop.

A trip to the coroners office before I'm ready.

Let's start out with a disclaimer. This will not be very graphic but if your squeamish maybe you should skip  this story.

I have an AA in Law Enforcement that I got from De Anza Jr. College in Cupertino, Calif. One of my classes was Patrol Procedures and our instructor managed to arrange an autopsy for the class. Wow ,were we excited and everyone showed up. No one cut class that day. Not that anyone in this class cut class very often, especially me. The date was set and our instructor gave us the address where to meet him for our tour of the county facilities. The autopsy was going to be done at Santa Clara County coroners office. We had to meet our teacher so that we could sign in and get our visitor badges. After signing in and getting our badges we went down the elevator to the basement to the coroners office and their autopsy rooms.

As we entered the room there was a large table in the middle of the room. Obviously there was a body under the sheet that was on the table. As all of us gathered around, the person doing the autopsy told us that if we felt like we were getting sick or going to faint to leave the room. Our teacher had already had us buddy up so that if we did get sick or afraid that we might pass out, we had someone to help us. As our assistant coroner was ready to start he pulled off the sheet and exposed our victim to us. He was a male that was about 62 years of age. There was no known cause of death, that's why they were doing the autopsy. They did know that he died alone and that they knew he was an alcoholic and that was about all.

Not remembering the assistant coroners name I'll just call him the teacher since he was teaching us. He started out with an incision from just below the esophagus down to the belly button. This was to allow access to the innards. After the incision, he used an electric  saw to cut the ribs so he could get to the vital organs. After cutting the ribs out completely he then started to remove vital organs one at a time starting with the heart. The first thing is to weigh it and record that, then the lungs, then the next organs in their proper order which I don't remember. So far I am doing okay and only 3 girls have left the room. After removing everything and weighing them, and even slicing the liver, heart and some of the other organs, our teacher is going to examine the brain. He made an incision all the way around the head and then he brought the electric saw back out and started to saw the skull to gain access to the brain. This is when I lost it, I was getting dizzy and I was afraid I would faint or get sick. After leaving the room for awhile I felt better and I returned.

As the teacher got the brain out and started to slice it, he showed us things that indicated minor strokes and other things that were in the brain that I don't remember now. This was back in 1970 or 1971 so my memory is not the best. When I got back into the room, he was telling us things that they look for and showing us things that indicated that the man had died of natural causes. I was feeling fine and the info kept me interested. I really think that when he used the saw to cut open the skull, it seemed inhuman to me, even though he was dead, and that's what got to me. Really stupid to let that get you upset.

After it was all over I can say that it was the most interesting and exciting thing that I've ever been  lucky enough to see. I did finish school and I got my A.A. in Law Enforcement but I never became a policeman, because I could never make weight requirements. But I do not believe any education is wasted and I have been fortunate to have gotten an A.A. degree from De Anza College. I am very proud of my degree.