Ultradog MN
Well-known Member
- Location
- Twin Cities
When I was 17 I was horse playing around with my cousin. He was on his bicycle and I ran after him. Almost caught him so he jumped off and dropped the bike right in front of me. I tripped over it and broke a front tooth on the handle bars.
Mom was sad and Dad was mad but they paid for the dentist to make me a crown.
5 years later when I was about to get out of the Navy they gave me some outgoing dental work and in addition to a couple of fillings they made me a new crown. The dentist put the old crown in an envelope and said it was mine and that I should sell it for the gold.
When I got out at Treasure Island near San Francisco my brother flew out to meet me and we spent 5 weeks traveling around, visiting relatives in Oregon and Washington, camping out of the back of my pickup on our way back to Minnesota.
One of the things we did was to go panning for gold for a few days in California gold country. Not far from Sacramento somewhere on the American River is all I can recall.
It was nice there. Late July, camping out, clear flowing river, lot of hippie girls sunbathing nude on the big rocks on the shore, a couple of gold pans and a shovel and nowhere we had to be in a hurry.
The gold panning wasn't so great however.
Once you wash the small rocks and sand away you look for the fine black sand in the bottom of the pan that contains the gold.
The flecks of gold were so tiny that you had to use an eye dropper to suck them up and put them in a little bottle of water.
We did that for a few days and then decided to move on the next day.
That is when I remembered my tooth.
I dug it out of my seabag and used a pair of pliers to crunch off the white enamel then pinched it into a ball. Then I dug below a rock in the river and pretented to pan there for a while.
Then I let out a yell as if I had found the mother lode. It was real exciting for a while and even the hippie girls on the rocks who were normally well hidden raised up to see what the commotion was.
My brother came over and inspected my 'nugget' then started feverishly digging and panning under the rock. I let him do that for quite a while before I told him the truth, at which point he threw his gold pan at me for tricking him.
That afternoon we sold the gold we'd collected at a place in the town nearby. I don't remember the amount but including my tooth it was enough to buy several days worth of groceries and a 12 pack of beer.
In the morning we left. Out to the coastal highway, up through the Redwoods and on to the next leg of our journey home.
We didn't get rich. We're still not rich. But we did have the experience of panning for gold.
Mom was sad and Dad was mad but they paid for the dentist to make me a crown.
5 years later when I was about to get out of the Navy they gave me some outgoing dental work and in addition to a couple of fillings they made me a new crown. The dentist put the old crown in an envelope and said it was mine and that I should sell it for the gold.
When I got out at Treasure Island near San Francisco my brother flew out to meet me and we spent 5 weeks traveling around, visiting relatives in Oregon and Washington, camping out of the back of my pickup on our way back to Minnesota.
One of the things we did was to go panning for gold for a few days in California gold country. Not far from Sacramento somewhere on the American River is all I can recall.
It was nice there. Late July, camping out, clear flowing river, lot of hippie girls sunbathing nude on the big rocks on the shore, a couple of gold pans and a shovel and nowhere we had to be in a hurry.
The gold panning wasn't so great however.
Once you wash the small rocks and sand away you look for the fine black sand in the bottom of the pan that contains the gold.
The flecks of gold were so tiny that you had to use an eye dropper to suck them up and put them in a little bottle of water.
We did that for a few days and then decided to move on the next day.
That is when I remembered my tooth.
I dug it out of my seabag and used a pair of pliers to crunch off the white enamel then pinched it into a ball. Then I dug below a rock in the river and pretented to pan there for a while.
Then I let out a yell as if I had found the mother lode. It was real exciting for a while and even the hippie girls on the rocks who were normally well hidden raised up to see what the commotion was.
My brother came over and inspected my 'nugget' then started feverishly digging and panning under the rock. I let him do that for quite a while before I told him the truth, at which point he threw his gold pan at me for tricking him.
That afternoon we sold the gold we'd collected at a place in the town nearby. I don't remember the amount but including my tooth it was enough to buy several days worth of groceries and a 12 pack of beer.
In the morning we left. Out to the coastal highway, up through the Redwoods and on to the next leg of our journey home.
We didn't get rich. We're still not rich. But we did have the experience of panning for gold.
