It's A Great Life: 12 - Anchors Aweigh
"Tourists come to Central City from all over the country. One morning we were on our way back with the horses and there was a car parked at the roadside with New York number plates. Standing by it was a family, parents and three boys, and the boys were delighted as we passed them 'Oh - look at all these cowboys,' one called out, little knowing that one of the cowboys was a baker from England. This really boosted my ego!''
Jack Merewood continued his autobiography.
Don's father, who had the unusual name of Pearl, was the city clerk, and his mother Mona ran a souvenir shop. Jessie, Dean and I were planning to take a trip, and though I could drive I didn't have a licence. I was telling this to Pearl as we were standing outside the courthouse. 'No problem,' he said, disappeared inside, and a few minutes later came out with a driving licence made out in my name.
The sheriff of the town was Floyd Campbell, a big man with a swarthy complexion, and Indian blood. He had a daughter Rosalie, a beautiful bronze-skinned girl with long black hair. I took to Rosalie perhaps even more than I had taken to Don! Don loaned us a couple of horses, we rode up high in the mountains. There was a meadow, where we dismounted - and picked flowers... We were on our own, not a soul in sight. I enjoyed the rides with Rosalie... One evening we went to the square dancing together, and then I walked her home. A wonderful evening.
There is a small town called Blackhawk adjacent to Central City - in fact one runs into the other - and Don had a friend there, Vic, who owned a restaurant. We went to see him, accompanied by the gang. We were in his kitchen and I couldn't believe the amount of food his customers left on their plates to be returned to the kitchen and thrown away. Back home in England food was still rationed and this seemed criminal waste to me. I said so, in a nice way. 'That's where I make my money, from the waste,' said Vic.
Outside the restaurant, the gang, numbering about eight or nine, had parked their cars, and hitched to one of them was a boat. They were on their way to launch this on Missouri Lake, a few miles away. As we were about to leave, Vic mentioned my car. I said I hadn't got one. He put his hand in his pocket, took out his car keys and said 'Here - take mine, it's the red Ford.' So in Vic's car I drove along with the others to Missouri Lake.
There was quite a large sign there on which were the words 'NO BOATING, NO FISHING, NO SWIMMING'. One of the boys had brought his saxophone and accompanied us as we all sang 'Anchors Aweigh' as the boat with Don on board slid into the water, launched with a bottle of beer poured over it (in lieu of champagne). We had a lot of laughs, and then we all went back to Central City. Next day Don and I went up to the lake again with the boat, he did some fishing and we both went swimming.
Once we rode horseback up the mountains and Don showed me a large crater. It was called the Glory Hole. Unbelievably it had once been a mountain, but a mountain filled with gold. Gold worth billions of dollars had been taken out of it, so much that all that was left of the mountain was the huge Glory Hole.
One night after a busy day Don said 'Well - what shall we do next?' I looked at a nearby clock and the time was midnight. Don continued 'What would you do next' I said 'Er well, I'd go to bed.' 'Too early for that.' So he got the car, we drove on a bumpy dirt road in the dark over a mountain top and came down in the town of Idaho Springs where we went to a tavern, had a drink, and arrived back in Central city at 3 a.m. After a few exciting adventurous days with Don, in the absence of buses I hitch-hiked back to Golden.
Dean's dad had moved out of Central City and lived in a cabin a few miles away in the mountains. A tiny stream ran through his land and there was a little bridge across it. In the middle of the bridge was a trap door which we lifted up to find cans of beer standing in the ice cold water. Dean and his family didn't like their dad living up there in these wild primitive conditions. He spent every day looking for gold, and they said he'd never find it. But I was intrigued by his stories of the prospectors and their search for gold. He knew that somewhere near his cabin was the Caledonian Vein. This had been partly worked as we could see, but he said they never struck gold there because they ran out of money. He had been given the land on which his cabin stood, and the surrounding area, by the Government on condition that he worked there and took care of it. One day he came back to the cabin to find that a bear had broken in and ransacked it in the search for food.
Dean's dad took me on one side and told me his family thought he was crazy and he would never find gold. He said some prospectors were like that, but not he, for he knew it was there, and some day he'd find it. Sometimes we'd go and find him pushing a wheelbarrow full of soil and rock out of the shaft, and this he continued to do into his 80s. But he never struck the Caledonian Vein and he died a disillusioned old man. Perhaps the gold is still hiding there. Will anyone ever find it?
Dean had a little old car, a 1938 Chevrolet coupe. He took a fortnight's holiday, and soon he and Jessie and I took off on a long and exciting adventure.
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To read Jack's vivid account of his wartime experiences To War With The Bays please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/to_war_with_the_bays/
