Rocks & Minerals

Here’s a little story I’ve never told my children.  I’m not sure I understood all of it myself until today when I realized where it all started.  I’ve always loved rocks and gemstones.  Today I realized I probably first became fascinated with them, actually studying them, the summer of 1956.  My father took us to Mexico City, Mexico that year.  It was the first of seven vacation trips I made with my mom and dad there before my 19^th birthday.  And if you’re doing the numbers in your head right now, your right.  I was very young on that first trip.

Later when I became a teen and learned to investigate the Junior High School Library on my own, I discovered a little book there called Rocks and Minerals.  I would be an old man before I actually owned a copy of the book.  As a teen, all I could do was check it out of the school library for a few days.  I loved the thing and studied it from cover-to-cover.

The reason that first trip to Mexico was important is that’s where I first saw some of the beautiful artwork that could be made from stones.  Back then you could buy oodles of trinkets carved from Onyx Stone on the cheap.  Dad bought this huge carved onyx ashtray that was 10 or 12 inches across and must have weighed 8 lbs.  For years my parents kept the gaudy thing on a living room table.  At my young age I thought it was a work of art.

Later at my first opportunity, I talked my mother into buying me one of those flat white boxes of stones native to some state we were visiting.  Maybe you’ve seen them.  They look like a thin, little box that might hold a small notebook or something.  Inside there was a card onto which were glued 20 or 30 simple rocks with their names written below each.

That gave me a real sample of each type rock on the card.  I had such exotic minerals as limonite, hematite which the Rocks and Minerals book told me were types or iron ore.  My dad worked at U.S. Steel in Birmingham, AL.  He knew all about iron ore.  I pestered him to tell me what he knew.  I just knew I wanted to be a geologist when I grew up.

I’m not the only one in the family who was interested in rocks.  My dad’s brother built a house out of rocks.  He was kind of a rock hound and collected Quartz crystals and such that he found laying on the ground.  After he retired, he bought a lapidary, polished and cut rounded stones, and made belt buckles out of them.

As young kids my neighbors and I would collect fossils in the slate and sandstone bedrock by the railroad near our home.  They had cut through the rocks to make a level railroad “bed.”  This made for easy diggings in the ancient rock.  When I discovered there were all sorts of dinosaurs that lived back in ancient times I just knew I wanted to be a paleontologist when I grew up.

That was before I realized there were other ancient things one could learn from digging in the soil, things like arrow heads.  My cousin had a huge collection.  Studying them was really fascinating.  I found out I could learn more by checking out another book from the school library.  I just knew I wanted to be an archaeologist when I grew up.

But that’s the study of things.  What about the study of the people who made them.  My dad had already introduced me to genealogy and I was really interested by the time I was 14.  Family records only go back a few hundred years, though.  What about the people who lived in earlier times.  Where did they live first?  From there, when and where did they move?  How did they live?  I just knew I wanted to be anthropologist when I grew up.

But that was before I learned about electronics and I just knew I wanted to be an electronics tech when I grew up.  I almost got the chance, too, when the Vietnam War came along and put a halt to all my other dreams including my dream of being married to a special someone.

I enlisted in the USAF, studied electronics, and eventually spent a work career with an AT&T company.  While there, I held all sorts of jobs but never forgot my first interests in rocks, minerals, fossils, and such.  While I was working as a supply person for the phone company, a man with Joy Manufacturing happened by my storeroom one day.

In case you don’t know, Joy makes those huge machines you see around mining operations.  This man worked with geologists all day every day.  When were began talking about rocks I told him about my days collecting rocks, semi-precious gems, and fossils.  He quickly told me some of the beauties the geologists find in deep mines.  The next day he brought me a huge fern leaf fossil that was maybe 10 inches long and a large stone covered with tiny Quartz crystals.

I can’t recall what happened to all the minerals collections I had in boxes.  I’m sure I gave them away.  I have one grandchild who said she loved rocks and minerals.  She got the fossil, the Quartz, and a rock with a seam of Turquoise in it.  I think I also gave her a 2-1/2 karat Amethyst that I bought in Mexico for around 5 pesos (it had a large flaw).   I kept the Rocks & Minerals book I bought, though.  It reminds me of how much I loved stones when I was a kid.

What of the “careers” I “gave up”?  Well, they required a lot more education than I was able to get along the way and they didn’t pay well.  I never regretted not pursuing them although I did regret not getting the higher education.  Instead, I studied computer science in college and got a career in a data center.  When I retired I ended up supervising a volunteer group that included 3 guys who had Ph.D.’s in Chemistry so I guess I chose the right career.

As for my kids, they were never that interested in rocks and minerals.  Only a couple of granddaughters were interested.  I bought some of them bags of polished rocks when I got the chance. Maybe one day they’ll be able to share this story with their grandchildren and let them know who in their family was first interested in stones.