I still recall from an early age touting that “I’m not getting married, I’m going to be a bachelor”. I remember being asked many times the question of when I was going to get married and other jokes about a girl friend, always culminating in the eventuality of me getting married. It seemed like a continual family joke as my parents and grand parents found never ending humor in a little kid making such a proclamation.

 I was a little “horse trader”, always looking to trade something I had for what ever you had, it was just what I did. It often caused my father to just grin and shake his head when he thought I had traded down hill. Never fear tomorrow was a new day and there were times he asked if I didn’t feel like I had taken advantage of another kid. There were other times the party line would ring our number with a parent wanting back what had been traded, my Dad would see to it, straight away. I knew the deal had to be undone, no matter how I felt, as I felt I never made a deal that wasn’t “even steven” or a “square” deal.

  My Pop was a Marine, son of Dutch immigrants, Gramps was a Pentecostal Preacher, Pop was a brother of 12 siblings 4 being sisters. I never met his Dad, he died when my Pop was 12. Gramps preached on Sundays and cut and dragged timber from the woods of Tennessee, in an area between three small towns, Henderson, Finger and Sweetlips. They didn’t get church paid “Parsonages” or salaries, as now for the most part do.

 After Gramps died the family returned to Poplar Bluff, Missouri where they had started.

 They lived in an old shack on “Pikes Slew” just outside of town. As a child I visited Granny on the slew and with the exception of electricity, nothing had changed. The shack had an old out house and water was still hand pumped from the well and baths were a # 10 wash tub with a few gallons of water and a rag with soap. My Pop called them airplane baths. I didn’t get the joke for several years to come. A dab under each wing and a scrubbing of the cockpit was the description, good old Pop, could make a joke of anything. He rarely ever cursed or spoke crudely. As a first grader, I was asked what my Pop did for a living, not knowing I asked him and he told me that he just drove around in a truck and told dirty jokes. The next day in class I repeated his comment after all I believed it. This was the first of parent teacher meetings of several I would experience.

  It was the depression era as well as the coming of WWII. One by one the sons enlisted and joined the fight, mainly for the money to send home to feed the rest of the family.

  Granny went to work as a cook for the school.

  After the war my father loaded an old pick up truck and headed for Arizona to gain work in one of the copper mines. He worked his way up from a truck driver to a shift foreman over the coarse of 40 years. Working for Kennecott in a small town called Ray. We were forced from there to another small town the mine company was responsible for creating as they were claiming the mineral rights under Ray, and now I often joke I’m from nowhere. Where the town sat is one deep strip-mining hole.

  We were poor, but I never knew it, so was everybody else. We were equal so it seemed just normal. My upbringing was Marine Corps strict and I was a “drug kid”, 3 times a week I was drug to church, twice on Sunday and Wednesday evenings. This took priority in our life. My Pop walked the walk, God, family, country and work.

  He raised me to be a doer, we didn’t call “the guy” for anything, and we did it ourselves.

  I took my first job at 10 years old. Every day when school let out, Theopholis Miller (an old family friend) picked me up after school and took me to the mine. We worked cleaning the office and aid station buildings, emptying trash and sweeping and mopping floors. On Saturdays we waxed and buffed the floors and did a special job on the restrooms. I was paid fifty cents a day and a dollar for usually 6 to eight hours on Saturdays. I thought I was rich, after all it paid better than collecting soda bottles along the roadways.

  This is where I found out about the “Old Spanish Miner”. I overheard conversations of some of the men working the mine, about an old miner and they were taking a collection to buy groceries and take them to him. I enquired about this man wanting to know more.

  The old mines in the area fascinated me and one of the ministers at the Baptist church I attended often took church youth on outings into the desert. Mr. Amos had a ’56 Chevy Bel Air, we would meet at the church, sometimes 10 of the kids would show up. It was probably a funny sight to see the car packed and 3 or 4 of us riding in the trunk with a piece of rope holding the lid that would bang us in the head as we bounced down the road to where we would set out and hike into the mountains visiting and entering old mine tunnels along with the ruins of small towns. I spent many days and hours during my youth back packing and sight seeing these old places. For this interest, hearing of the old miner I got excited and had to know more.

  After quizzing Pops about it I was finally granted permission to accompany the two men who took food weekly to miner. At the time he was probably in his early seventies, much too old to do much digging in his tunnels. He spoke broken English and mixed it with Spanish. His name was Radulfo Viato After snooping around, I found his homestead to be fascinating; his lifestyle fell into my childhood dreams. Apart from being a confirmed bachelor I added a gold miner to my dreams. I was going to make it big, with a gold mine.

 As time went on, I visited the old guy as often as I could then one day “the” letter came, it was 3 months before my 18^th birthday, I was to report to the Army induction center only 3 weeks after finishing high school. I visited Radulfo one time after that. He was either 80 or darn near it. I never thought once the last would be the last.

  I quit school after a major fight with Pops, he was preaching that the draft was 2 years and if he let me go it would be 4 years. He said being a Marine wasn’t worth multiple tours in combat I would get with the Corps. Even after being spit on, I would disagree to this day.

  At 17 I passed the GED test and enlisted in the Marine Corps rather than face the draft and the reporting to the Army, 30 days after my 18^th birthday. I preferred to follow in my fathers’ footsteps.

  Myself, Pops and my Senior Drill Instructor found it humorous that a letter was sent out regarding me as AWOL from failure to report to the Army recruiters’ office in Phoenix.

  I remember getting the letter from home that the old miner was found dead one night when the men had gone to deliver his groceries. I was sad, but hardened to death. Memories of him faded away during my 8 years in the Marines, and the 26 months I served in theater. I never thought much about him until 1988 when I looked at and put my money on this 200 acre plot of land. Even then it was a bet for financial gain, that the $525.00 an acre would turn to much more in dollar value. These lands are rich with history of both Indian and early settler history and their get rich quick schemes. I suppose times are changed, but mans grasping at the wind is ever going forward. Until they realize the truth of life, they will never be satisfied.

  Seems as though things have now traveled full circle, I am a confirmed bachelor, after a couple of failed attempts at married life. I'll still trade just about most anything. I've never hit a lick at gold mining, though. I'll always be a Marine and forever the Marines will be my family. This plot of dirt is my only home, it's paid in full, but I'm a temporary fixture here, in the end I'll leave it for greener pastures.