Winter had passed and school was out for summer vacation. One day I was up at my friend Kay’s house to spend the afternoon. She wanted to go over to her great grandpa’s old farm where her dad was working about a half a mile away. When we arrived he was cutting small brush along the branch and piling it up to burn. We liked the idea of a bonfire, so we helped him drag brush. Later, while we were walking beside the creek, Kay found the most unusual rock. The color tone was odd. It was almost a brownish – purple, with flecks of gold shining in it. We looked at each other and silently said “GOLD.” Kay’s dad didn’t think it was, but said we could send it off to be tested to see what minerals the rock contained.
As we sat by the fire Kay’s dad told us a story about her great grandpa, who found a few rocks with the gold flecks in them. He searched the farm over but could find no more. So then great grandfather decided to dig some holes in the hill. He did not find gold and grew too old to keep digging. We got very excited and asked her dad if we could clean out one of those old mines. “Sure,” he said and he gave us some tools to work with including a rope.
We should have thought that this was the same dad that watched Kay and me jumping off a high porch when we were younger. We were flapping our arms, trying to learn to fly. He was on his way to the granary and stopped to watch us. Standing there with a bucket in his hand he said, “Just keep trying. I think you’re gonna get it.”
So Kay and I worked every chance we got cleaning out the old gold mine. We moved leaves, tree limbs, sticks and rocks that had gathered in the hole over time. And dug down far enough until we needed our rope tied to a tree to get out. It was hard work and we were getting in deeper. Then we made an exciting discovery. It was a large, long white bone with big teeth. So we went running to Kay’s dad and asked him if it was a dinosaur bone. If it was, that was as good as finding gold, maybe even better. We would be famous. He studied the bone for awhile. Then he said, “It is probably a jawbone from Kay’s great grandpa’s old horse. When the horse died, it was buried in one of those gold mines.” We were greatly disappointed. As if that wasn’t enough – that very day the mailman brought the results of the mineral test that was done on the rock with the gold flecks. AND IT WAS FOOL’S GOLD! Well, we didn’t have time to dig for more gold or to dig up a whole skeleton of a dinosaur anyway. School would begin soon and we would be very busy.
Kay and I forgot about finding our fortunes and getting rich. We graduated from high school, found jobs, got married and raised our children. Over time we came to realize we already had good fortune. We were rich in our family, our friends, our community and our church. What a blessing.
