In this interview, Ed Hamilton, born in 1907, recounts his life story, focusing on his diverse work experiences and his passion for music. He discusses his early life in Montana, working in copper mines and learning about mining techniques. After moving to California, he worked various jobs, including in the gold mines, before settling in Grass Valley. Hamilton describes building his own house while working long hours at the mine and later becoming involved in union activities. He shares his experiences working as a welder in shipyards during WWII and his return to Grass Valley after the war. Hamilton also talks about his ventures in the ready-mix concrete business and backhoe work, as well as his love for music and playing in bands throughout his life. The interview concludes with Hamilton reflecting on his health challenges and his contentment with his current living situation.

Full Transcript of the Video:

This is an interview by Bedford Lincoln of Mr. Ed Hamilton at 10846 Pine Hill Drive, Grass Valley.

Today is July the 18th, 2006.

So, Mr. Hamilton, can we talk about your early life? Where were you born? I was born in Verina, Iowa in 1907.

You want to know where I went from there? Yeah, where did you go from there? Well, my dad homesteaded in Montana, a little town called Outlook, Montana in 1910.

And I stayed there until I got through high school.

And then from there I went to Minneapolis.

I took up harbor training at the Mohler Barber College, and I found out after I worked at that for a little bit, at fifty cents I wasn't making it.

So I took off and went to Butte, Montana and worked in the copper mines down there where my brother was working there, too.

What did you do in the copper mines? Well, everything.

I learned it was interesting to know.

I didn't know anything about mining, and I wrestled the job for a couple of months, and I couldn't get a job.

So I was got talking one day when I was in the crew, went to the half stand there waiting to see if I'd get a job.

There was a big finlander.

He's about six foot four, big, husky guy, two fifty.

And he said, "How long have you been wrestling?" I told him about two months.

He said, "You really want to work?" I said, "Dell, I sure do.

You've got to work.

" "Okay, I'll take you home as a partner.

" And about that time the super tanner came out and he motioned to him.

He could see that tall guy out in there.

They wanted them big guys to know they're good workers.

And he said, "Con," went up there and he said, "You want to go to work? You got a partner?" "Yeah, I'm right here with this partner," he said.

"He wants to work, huh?" "Yeah.

" So there I was and I didn't know anything about mining.

That finlander, he taught me about mining.

And before I got to over there, I mean, he taught me a lot about mining and I stayed there for a couple of years.

What were you paid? I was trying to think.

It wasn't very much, but most of the time we worked on contract.

We got so much for breaking, timbering, and mucking.

We made a little better money on that.

We'll probably come out with, we might have got eight dollars a day maybe, something like that.

But anyway, I finally, the company decided that they would work us two weeks on and it would give us a week off.

That would just keep us from starving to death.

They wouldn't try to hold full time in the mine.

So I put them there and I went to work for a monument company and they had an old man, Kelly, who was running the quarry.

I went out with him and he taught me all this stuff about quarry and rock, how to drill it, how to open up a big boulder.

I worked there for all the spare time they had and then the rest of the time they put me setting tombstones during the memorial there.

I set tombstones in Dillon and De because they had all polished in number and letter and everything.

So we finally said, it came out one day and I had about two big nice stones and he came over to Dillon and he helped me a little bit there because they were pretty big ones they handled.

We had everything, we put them rubber pads, we'll put underneath them and if we had to pry, the bar was, had to have a rubber pad between and he finally helped me there and he took me lunch and then we got my old back to Dillon.

But I stayed in there for a while but that was, I wanted to go to California.

My brother had already taken off and I gave him my car.

I took my motorcycle and went back home to Montana, out of Montana and I helped the folks put in their crop, get into winter's coal and then I took off and went to Washington and worked in Apple that summer.

Then 31 I came down here in September and finally I worked around here cutting wood and doing a lot of jobs.

I was in the wood business here for a while, I was selling pine for two dollars a tear, oak for four, cutting it all, no chainsaw, it all cut, the hand cut, the hand saw and finally got a job off to the bullion.

What did you do as a bullion? I got a job there as a skip tender and palm man and I don't know how I ever happened to get that, it was a good job.

I wasn't going to know much hard work to it but it was, but men haven't known what to do.

You load the skips and send it up and it's good out and you take care of the pumps, start the pumps up, let them pump the water out and they have to pump up twice a day.

All the bottom of the shaft floor was working 1500.

That was where the water all ran into that and we pumped it from there up to the surface.

What was your pay there, do you remember? I didn't see what we did get there.

That's hard to remember that.

It wasn't very big pay, I know that.

It was probably around five dollars a day.

Oh okay.

And then finally they had problems with the Empire mine because they was giving them trouble over saying that they were on their legs.

So we did some what they call work, just tracing the legs and some different shaft form over where the freeway is now.

And we found the ledge over there but they couldn't prove anything.

You can't fight the big company so in the meantime I had taken.

Excuse me Mr. Hamilton, do you remember much about that controversy between the Empire and the footy on about that ledge? It was a matter of laws but the only thing is, which is when you get a big company you got a lot of money and that bullion was a pretty small office and they couldn't buck them.

Do you remember going to court over that? I think they did but of course I wouldn't know too much about that because they were getting involved in that.

But anyway after that I had taken a course in diesel engineering and I went down to LA and I got a permit from the mine man there and it looked pretty well.

He let me go for three months and went down there and did my shop work and got my certificate for the diesel engineer.

And came back and I worked there until the mine closed.

Until the booty on mine closed? Yeah, the booty on closed and the Idaho and Maryland had taken over from them and they took all them in and bought a pair and I went over there.

But in the meantime I got a job.

They had a Robison mine up near Quincy and they were putting in a big diesel engine for power there and it was a stupid thing to do.

But they went through down to Texas and they bought this big old engine and weighed about 45 tons.

They all lit up here, tore it all down and brought it back up here.

I went through all the bearings and the connecting rods and I blew all the bearings and all that work got it set up low.

And then when they got that down they turned it over to the guys that was supposed to run it.

And I came back down and of course that was Idaho Maryland was involved in that and they had been up there.

So they put me to work here in Idaho Maryland and I got a job there.

I think I was running a drift when I first went there on about 2000 and I worked there for about three years I think.

We got 598 a day.

You got 5 what? 598 a day.

Oh okay.

And that was top pay.

That was for Timmerman and Motorman and Oishman.

The miners got 475.

And anyway we worked there a few years.

In the meantime in 1940 I was working out there and in '39 I dug a basement here all by hand all the dirt away 28 by 34.

And I started this off on the 10th they made.

We moved in in September.

My wife lived, done all of it, raised two little girls.

One of them was just born while I was doing it.

She lived in the garage and I don't see how she ever managed it but she did some of them.

And she slept in the garage and as soon as I got the floor on here I was in the basement.

A little cooler down there.

I could sleep down there.

And I worked eight hours here on a, it's up to eight hours, worked eight hours on a house, eight hours on mine.

And I mean that was a lot of work.

This is a four bed Ramon and I built it all in about, well from May to September and from where we could move into it.

And then.

What day of year did you finish building this house? In 1940.

1940? Yeah.

I did some work since and on it you know I did a lot of finished work and stuff but I didn't quite, I mean it was little when I moved in.

But anyway, the superintendent had a brother-in-law at the Idaho Maryland and he was one of the efficiency supposed to be experts.

And he said, "Well, you guys come down from the stokes and stuff.

" He said, "You come down an hour early.

That's when time and a half or Saturday came in.

" He said, "Dad, I see you work at six hours or eight hours.

" Well, he said, "Well, we say you got six hours to get you down.

So you have to work six hours at the old time before you get the time and a half.

" And I made me so dang mad I went and got the union.

I brought them in here.

They had a company union here and they called it Mine Workers Protective League Actors.

Mine Older's Protective League is what it was to keep unions out.

So they put, they finally found out I was president of the union.

So they got, they had a notice that I was supposed to meet them down there at the hall and they put them, they voted me out of the union.

I couldn't belong to their union.

But I had about 1,300 members in there in the union.

We went on strike and we saw for three weeks and they finally started us to death.

We had to go to back.

So when I'm back to work and they promised they wouldn't hold it against us.

I had a pretty good job.

By then I was running a motor on the 2000.

And so anyway if I went down that morning and I got on the motor and the boss said, "No," I said, "You don't ride the motor anymore.

" "No," I said, "Well, I don't know.

" He said, "You don't ride the motor.

" So they put me back in the stink of this hole they had.

They put you where? In the back, in the, in the, in the, way back in the back, bad air.

Yeah.

And it was the worst stinking hole they had in the mine.

And I worked there about three, four days.

And I was running a trucker pulling on a flat stove and they had a, a trucker, what they call a tugger, a little motor with a cable on it.

And it'd drag down and it would drag the rock down into the cars.

And I didn't hear it coming.

That big polar come down ahead of it.

And he hit me right in the head.

And I drove my light through my hat and cut my eye all open.

It's one that didn't kill me, but anyway, I, it was about a mile out of the main shaft.

I walked out there, the guy went with me.

We got out there and I went to, went to the hospital.

I was there a week or two.

When I got out of there, it was really the best thing that ever happened.

Because as soon as I got out there, I was good, pretty good with the Union.

So I went down and told the carpenter man, "Union," I said, "I want a carpenter's car.

" Sure.

So they gave me a car.

I went to Sacramento.

I got on.

First day I went down there, I got right on, went out to Batherfield.

I worked all through the sewer plant there.

And it went through the sewer plant? Yeah.

They had to build a sewer plant there, a meter.

Yeah.

And then from there, one of us working there, the boss come out to them and they said, "Dee, listen, I had a welder.

" He said, "But the little plate was just squared on the glass of iron.

That's the only thing they needed.

" And I said, "Well, if you got a machine," they said, "Yeah, it's down there at the pumping plant.

" I said, "Well, I can weld that on there because I had taken some welding training and planted it at Grass Valley.

" So anyway, I went down and got the welder, hooked it on my car, and I had a trailer.

I was told the trailer, I was with me.

I had a hitch on there, so I just went down there and got the welder and I brought it up and welded that in.

And I said, "What do I do with this machine?" He said, "Take it right back there and stay there.

" He said, "That guy's been down there two weeks and he hasn't got one pipe with old water.

" So I went to weld him pipe down there.

And when I finished that, I went down to the Bay Area and I went in as a pipe welder.

And I also had a carpenter's guide, but anyway, I worked there in the winter and then in the summer, next summer, I went to the carpenter river.

I went over to Camp Stoneman, M.

Beale, and Fort Ord.

I think I worked three to four camps, right there in the camps.

And I came back to the shipyards and then, if I was being there, I couldn't get out.

So anyway, I worked there and I took my certified test.

And the certified welders got a dollar sixty an hour and the journeyman only got a dollar thirty-five.

But -- What year was this? 1940 -- about '42, I think.

'42 is where I was 43.

Anyway, I stuck in there for about two years.

But then I finally got a leaderman's job and I had a crew of ten men.

I trained some of them.

I own welders.

Could not like pipe welders.

So you don't train them right.

It's a little different than the welding was on the ships.

And I finished it there just about 1946 or '45, I guess it was.

And I finally got out of the shipyards and they put me in the 180 three times and I'd go up to the officers and tell them, and they said, "Well, we can't lose our leadermen.

They're the ones that know how to build a ship.

" So they would get me a deferment.

I got three deferments.

I never did that.

Otherwise I would have to go into service, which I would never have liked.

I'll tell you, I didn't want that.

So anyway, when I finally finished up there, I got out of it so I didn't have to stay anymore.

I went over to Standard Sanitary where they made bathtubs and sinks and stuff before the war.

But during the war they were making hand grenades and incendiary bombs.

And they converted the plant over to that.

Well, then I helped to convert the plant back to bathtubs.

They had to start up the furnaces again, put in new lines and air lines and stuff.

And I worked there and then another outfit went on strike.

So I didn't want them.

I didn't want them.

So I got my tools, put them in my tuck and put all my stuff and I came back to Grass Valley.

Mr. Hamilton, if you want to take a break, I can turn the camera off and you can rest a while if you'd like.

No, that's fine.

Okay.

I have to drink a lot of water because I've had bladder infection several times and I'm not drinking enough water so my daughter got this.

Good for her.

I drink a couple of bottles of that Liberty.

Yeah, that's fine.

So you came back to Grass Valley.

Yeah, I came back here.

Of course, I had the house here anyway.

So then before I came back I noticed down there they were pouring a cement slab for a new dry there at the Standard Sanitary and I went to Grass Valley on behalf of that, a ready-mixed plant.

So I built a plant here.

A ready-mixed plant? Yeah, 1945.

I'd never seen a plant, but I built one.

I run it for 14 years and I couldn't make enough out of that.

So I finally, I bought a tractor and a backhoe.

I sold the plant to Hansen Brothers because they were already delivering gravel to me so they had the gravel.

They wanted the plant pretty bad.

I understand now they've bought out the big plant in Colfax now.

They're getting pretty big.

So anyway, I run a backhoe for about 10 years, I think.

I put in sewer lines and septic tanks.

In the meantime, I had a sister-in-law in Montana over at Chester, Montana.

So we'd go up there in the summertime.

I'd work here in the winter.

In summer we'd go up there and I helped them for two, three years running combine.

We went there every year for 30 years and I'd go up there and go fishing.

I'd get retired.

I'd give up.

The wife came out here in 1935.

She was a schoolteacher in Montana that I had known before I came out here.

In fact, I had a little orchestra right out of high school and she was going to put on a dance at her school and wanted somebody to play for a dance, see if she could make one of you get a little pan out for the school.

So I went over there and I met her and I went back the next day and helped her clean up the floor and put the desk back in the school.

I took her to a few shows and I went to build her course.

I didn't see her then again until the next summer she came down to Dillon which is 50 miles from Bill.

It's a normal college there.

She went down there for summer training in school teaching and I used to go over there on the weekends and see her there.

I did that all the time.

She was down there.

Bill went there and of course worked in the apples and then I came to Grass Valley and I worked around here then from then on.

You were a musician though.

Yeah, I've had about four different bands.

I had to band right out of high school.

I had to band when I came back after the war.

I started the next day or next night at the Marmetals.

I played the Marmetals for five years every Saturday night in reality.

I had an old med dentist and a good pea on the drums and Bob's name.

He had a guitar.

I'd laugh.

What instrument did you play? I played fiddle and we played out there.

I think we had a five-piece band there.

Afterwards, after I retired, I had a little band.

Actually I started, we had a kitchen band first and I was a little lady who played piano.

She got sick and couldn't stay where she was in her mobile.

I'd helped her in her mobile.

Sometimes I'd fix her windows and stuff.

Anyway, she went to the rest of the medivu.

I went up to see her one day and she said, "Why don't you come up here and play with me?" I said, "Okay.

" So I started up there.

Then my neighbor, Barry, up here came on, played the guitar.

We got a guy who played harmonica.

We had another guy on the Ristix and we had another guitar.

We had about a six-piece band up there.

We played for 12 years after she died.

Red took over the piano.

We played there for about 12 years.

Did you make any money at it? No, it was all just donations.

It was just a fun job.

We enjoyed playing and getting together.

They enjoyed just coming up there because of people.

It was a lot of entertainment for them.

After that, I decided in 2000, my wife passed away.

I was here stuck alone.

The kids, I have two daughters and they said, "Well, maybe we should go down to Breadheart and stay there where you have care.

" So I went there and I saved a year, but I didn't like it down there.

I wanted to be back in my own home.

So I came back here.

I have a lady, a friend of mine that comes down here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and she makes my meals and cleans house.

Is that the lady that I talked to? Yeah, probably was.

Anyway, she's a very nice lady.

She's a neighbor, my daughter, and my daughter who's out there near Chicago Park.

What's your daughter's name? The one that's out there is Dorothy.

Dorothy, what's her last name? Shedwick.

Shedwick, yeah.

They have a big place out there.

He just finished a big garage, 34 by 34.

Wow.

A really nice floor in it, everything, beautiful place.

He's got a big house there, a lot of other buildings.

But anyway, my other daughter lives in Livermore.

Her husband has worked at Livermore Lab there, the Atomic Energy Deal.

He worked there.

He's retired from there now and she worked out there in the badge office.

But anyway, this neighbor of Dorothy's, that's how she got acquainted.

We went out to her place a couple of times and she said, "Well, I'll come out there and help you three days a week.

" And she's very good on computers.

And I got a computer here and I was working that.

But about two years ago, I owed him all the ones.

Got the feeling I didn't shouldn't be driving anymore, so I turned the license and I give the car and the pickup away and I put my daughter in.

How were you when you gave up driving? It was two years ago.

I was 97.

Okay.

I got a little scary about it.

I had a friend down in Citrotyte.

I used to go down and see her.

And I got big crazy drivers on that, 18.

I was just wild.

They were driving 65 and they passed me on both sides of the 80-mile an hour.

Oh, yeah.

Cutting in and out.

So I figured, well, if I ever got in an accident, they'd say, "Well, I don't look high.

He shouldn't be driving anyway.

It's his fault.

" So I said, "Well, I'll just give the car and pickup.

" They gave that to my daughter.

And I got this other gal to come out here and she takes me wherever I want to go, cooks my meal, make the clean thousand.

And it worked out pretty good.

And that way I can be here.

And I got my plant of night tomatoes and my squash there with a fireplace.

It's the only place I can put it because the deer come through here about four of them every night.

And they wipe out my rose bushes.

I never seen roses.

Once in a while it can bite.

But I put a little wire in the above.

The thing starts off.

They can't quite reach over there.

And it's too narrow to jump over.

I mean, no place to land.

Mutts gets so close in there.

So they haven't really bothered Mutts.

And I've been gotten by there for two or three years and I'll have pretty nice tomatoes there.

Anyway, that's about the end of the story there.

I guess I'll be here in November.

I'll be 99.

So what year were you born? '07.

'07? 1907.

So next year I'll be 100 when it goes November of '07.

You're doing extremely well, aren't you? Let me ask you a question about mining.

Did you ever have any dealings with silicosis? No, not really.

I've been fairly healthy.

I've had some terrible operations though.

I think in 1975 we were coming back from Montana, which tonight is stopping Solar Springs, Idaho, and do some fishing there.

And we had a friend there.

And I had a terrible plague of pain one night.

I went into the hospital and the doctors thought I had pincytes in the operas and it all wasn't a appendix.

So they said, "Well, there was two old doctors there.

They were brothers.

" And they said, "I think we didn't like the looks of the fluid that was with bronzer intestines there.

" So they pulled them all out through that opening and they found two feet of gangrene, like two feet of my intestine that died.

So they wiped them into spliced them back together and they said, "Well, maybe it wouldn't.

" And I stayed there a week and they finally got the ambulance.

It was 75 miles to Pocatella and they said, "When did you get to down at the big hospital in Pocatella?" So I went down there in the dog look bed and he said, "Well," he told the wife, he said, "I don't know what to do," he said.

And I was swelling up a little bit.

So finally he said, "Well, we'll just put him on the interview, as he leanies and see if those intestines heal up.

" I was in there about three weeks and I finally got -- I couldn't nothing but intravenous for all that time, three weeks.

And I got so weak.

And finally they got started giving me a little hard candy and stuff like that and they got stuff going through me and got a few bowls of soup.

I finally got out of there and I had my son-in-law come up and get my trailer and pick up.

My daughter came up and flew me back to -- well, by the other dog was down there.

They flew me into there.

And then I got in my car and my son-in-law came down and he picked up my car here and he brought it down to me.

And we came back and the wife was with me all the time.

And I stayed down there with my daughter for a while and we came back here and I laid around here.

But I finally got to where I could get around a little bit.

But I never did really get my health back.

We used to go from 1980 to 1990.

We went to our trailer to Arizona, Mesa, Arizona.

And I had a little band down there we played around the Trina Corps where we were.

And we had a lot of fun with that.

And the scholars -- I think most of them were Canadians.

They called them snowbirds.

And we had this little band.

We played down there.

We had a guitar and a drummer and a piano on the fiddle.

Which is a pretty nice little band.

And we played out to the park and we played different places.

We were at the Mormons and they had picnics out there.

We used to go out and play with their picnics.

And they're nice people.

I enjoyed being with the Mormons.

We had some really nice friends in the Mormons.

And then we went -- sometimes we'd go up to their place in Idaho.

And one summer we'd all clear up to Canada.

And they had a party one night.

They played for us when we was there.

And when we had 21 people that were from Mesa, that had been to Mesa when we knew down there, 21 people showed up for that party.

So there was a lot of Canadians there right around Saskatchewan.

So it was a lot of fun.

What was your wife's maiden name? Her name was Stu B.

And then there's a funny -- What's her first name? Jenny.

Jenny Stu B.

Jenny Stu B.

They called them Stu B.

Most of them.

Our sister -- her sister married up there in Montana, a big farmer.

And she had -- her husband had a sister, Lillian, and a sister-in-law, Lillian.

And Lillian was with Jenny's sister.

So in order to separate them, everybody called her Stubby.

Nobody ever called her anything but Stubby up there in that country.

So that kind of separated a little bit.

But anyway, the -- I was trying to think what I was going to say there.

I'm just frustrated by things like that.

Oh, I was going to say, when we were in Mesa, those 10 years we went down there, there was a lot of real good dance halls.

And we danced at least three nights a week, different courts around there and places.

There was one that had a dance hall.

It was so big, and they had about a couple, 300 people in it.

It wouldn't -- in one time, they played one stanza of music, which usually grown four or five times in an ordinary dance hall.

You wouldn't make it more than one time around that dance hall.

It was that big.

It was immense.

But it was a nice floor, a good floor, and good music there, too.

Q.

Mr. Hamlin, let me ask you a question.

Were you ever an actual miner? Did you have a drill rock? A.

Oh, lots of them.

Q.

Did you drill with pneumatic drills? A.

I drilled with every kind of a drill.

I run -- I run a jackhammer.

I run what they call a wiggle tail.

A wiggle tail is a stopper that doesn't rotate the bit you have to do.

They have to take your handle, and you work the handle.

Q.

Oh, okay.

A.

In order to turn the drill.

And then the other ones, and they have the regular stopers that have water and rotate, too.

You know, automatic rotary tension.

And I driven a drift in 2000.

I had two automatic liners.

They don't crank them.

You know, normal liners were you drill holes with them in your drift.

They have a crank on them.

You crank them in.

But they came out with automatics.

I had two automatics, one on each side of there.

And I'm running those two automatics.

One was running.

I would turn the air, turn it back on, and it would back off by itself.

Take the steel out, put on a longer bit, next bit.

You know, they go -- you start out with a two-foot, and then you go four-foot.

And then every two feet you had to change.

And they drilled about -- usually about six feet each hole.

Q.

How did you protect your ears from all that noise? A.

I didn't.

That's the reason I've got hearing it.

Q.

Oh, okay.

A.

Head-rotting my eyes.

That, and when I was in the shipyard, they'd have chippers up on the deck, you know, where they made a bad weld.

They would go in there with chippers, and they'd chip that weld out and re-weld it.

And I mean, you'd get four or five of those chippers going over top of the head, and it'd blow your head out when they were so loud.

Q.

Yeah.

The drills that you were drilling down in the mine, do they have the high-pressure water in the tip of the drill? A.

At what? Q.

High-pressure water.

A.

Oh, yeah.

That was water.

Q.

To reduce the dust? A.

Yeah.

That was water that runs through the machine all the time.

Q.

Was that extremely effective in reducing the dust? A.

Oh, yeah.

There was no dust after they got the machines where -- the ones that jack them were for the first -- they run dry, old jack-emers.

And the old wiggle-tails were run dry.

But the rest of them all had water on.

Q.

Okay.

A.

There was not much dust in at all.

But of course, they came -- the mine owners claimed there was no silicone in it.

They had a doctor's affidavit, so they said there was no silicone in it.

The guys were dying with the stuff, but they got away from the building.

They never did -- they never gets sued for it.

But they did keep the dust down pretty well.

Q.

So apparently some people still got silicosis.

A.

Oh, yeah.

I think they did.

And the guys -- especially the guys that worked on them before they got water on everything.

I think most of the time when I worked on them, I don't think there was any driving machines working anymore.

But everything had water.

And I've driven -- I've driven razors, instokes, in-dres, crosscuts.

I don't know if that's the case.

And I've run hoist, and run hoist, and run pumps, running -- all of -- everything they had in mind, I've driven it sometimes.

The only thing I haven't done is diamond drilling.

I've seen a diamond drill.

I think I could run a diamond drill.

But I had -- never had a chance.

Q.

Did you ever have anything to do with the holocore drills? A.

Well, they're all holocore.

All of them that have water on them.

Takes feet of water down through right to the bit and all through.

Q.

But I'm thinking about the holocore that went out to that three or four hundred feet and brought back a section of drill that they could assay and find out if there was any gold out there.

A.

Well, that's what they call diamond drill.

Q.

Oh, is that -- okay.

A.

That's diamond drill.

They drill a core.

And they drill that whole country out there.

In fact, they're drilling it now.

Again, out of Maryland.

They're trying to open it up.

I don't know.

I think it looks like a stock scheme to, you know, sell people stock in a gold mine.

But they have a lot of done on diamond drilling, and they claim they've got gold.

But I doubt it because there's no stress ever come this side.

I don't know.

They have run out there a little ways, but they -- and at the end of the time drill that whole country, all of it.

And I'm sure if there's anything there, they'd have found it.

Q.

Yeah.

A.

But they never drifted that way at all.

Everything that drifted was mined all the way east and south, clear over to the Brunswick.

There's a drift on 2000 level around all the way from the out of Maryland to the Brunswick, which is about two miles from that.

And I don't know anything about the Brunswick.

I never worked there.

But I know pretty well I worked around on the Idaho pretty well.

And I know what's there.

And they talk about it.

And they're like, "What's that?" And they're like, "I don't know.

" And they're like, "I don't know.

" And I think they're like, "Oh, I don't know.

" And they're like, "Oh, I don't know.

" And I'm like, "Well, I don't know.

" And I'm like, "I don't know.

" And I'm like, "Well, I don't know.

" And I'm like, "Well, I don't know.

" And I'm like, "Well, I don't know.

" And I'm like, "Well, I don't know.

" And I'm like, "Well, I don't know.

" And I'm like, "Well, I don't know.

" And I'm like, "Well, I don't know.

" And I'm like, "Well, I don't know.

" And I'm like, "Well, I don't know.

" And I'm like, "Well, I don't know.

" And if they ever tried to open it up, I'd make the shaft probably would collapse anyway.

And most of the stope country that is stope would be all collapsing.

And if you get a ball moving and there's nothing you can do with it, you can never open it up.

The main tunnel down from the bottom 2,000 is pretty much all hard rock.

So it wouldn't move.

But that stuff has serpentine in it.

That stuff is livery.

I mean, it can move.

And there's so--when you figure the size of it, it's the main specialty of that stuff and moving.

Because I know they used to.

They lowered that 2,000 level, the 1 past 3, where I raised--they lowered that track twice while I was out there.

It was so much pressure was coming down in a squeeze-up.

And I know that was caused just from the ground that's moving.

But they lowered the track about 18 inches.

Wow.

That much.

They took it up, took the track up, relayed it and dug it at that bottom.

But anyway.

You about talked out? Just about, I guess.

Well, let's take a break.

Yeah.

I couldn't even lift on them though.

I put the things up a little.

Yeah.

I put a clean on them all.

I had a dutchman, what they call a dutchman.

It's a pole.

Yeah.

It holds up the shoe cross on it.

I get them all in my head and I drag that underneath it and I'd shove it up until it would go straight up and down.

And I'd go up the ladder there and I'd put them up all to myself.

And yeah.

I was strong in those days.

You must have been.

Yeah, I really was.

Did you do the cabinets? Not these.

I had these--the wife had these put in afterwards.

I'd done a lot of sugar pine and they were good nice cabinets, but they weren't fancy.

And she said, "I'd just love to have some nice cabinets.

" I said, "Well, I'll go ahead and get them.

" That's quite a few years later.

So we put them at a--I think we paid $800.

00.

So that's all for those cabinets.

Wow.

And Dick Tamilin, you ever heard of him down, Tamilin, his boy and another guy had a cabinet shop.

And they put him in.

I think later she had this desk put in there.

I think we paid more for that than we did for that all in cabinets.

And then it used to be my refrigerator was in there under the--under the stair--under the place there.

Anyway, why should I--I need a pantry so bad.

Well, I said, "I can make one, but you'll have to have your refrigerator out in the kitchen.

" Well, that's okay.

Well, you can see we-- Don't trip on the wire.

No, I see.

I can see that.

Oh, yeah.

See, I used to be back in there.

Uh-huh.

But it was kind of hard to do because it's all an angle.

Everything's got on an angle.

But it didn't end there.

But she was very happy.

She's got a nice pantry out of it.

Sure.

Nice pantry.

And this--all this stuff here, they put that all in there.

I think it was $800.

That was quite a few years later, though.

And we've got the main bedroom.

The master bedroom is up there.

And this here one is my bedroom here.

And then we have two bedrooms upstairs where the kids were.

Yeah.

She's got a very nice house there.

I think so.

I just put $5,000 more in it.

I put this--what do they call it? This siding, this plastic siding.

Oh, yeah.

I know what you mean.

I just had that done last summer and finished up the--all these double-pane windows, I put them in later here as I took the old windows out.

This used to be the coldest room in the house.

Now it's the warmest and the coolest because it's got the double-pane windows all the way in the-- Well, let's call that a day for the interview.

Is that okay? Yes, fine.