Monthly Archives: August 2006

A Short Vacation

General

My brother Perry had a few days in a row off, so I took some vacation days as well. He brought his new trailer up and Nina and I drove over in our motor home and met at Hoback Junction, Wyoming, just about twelve miles south of Jackson Hole on the Snake River. We arrived mid-day on Monday, August 21st and left mid-morning on Thursday, August 24th. We had a very nice time. Perry and Chris are a lot of fun to be with. We can talk about anything and everything (and usually do). Perry is eight years younger than I am. He was barely ten years old when I left home to join the Air Force. Consequently, we don’t have any of that childhood baggage that sometimes comes between siblings (we have some examples in our families). He’s very easy going and great to be around. We’re talking about doing some kind of a trip together next summer. He’s recovering nicely from the chemotherapy and they are quite motivated to live life as full as possible for as long as possible. We’d like to be part of that as well. I took a few pictures and have put them in the pictures! album.

Happy Birthday, Jared!

General

Twenty-eight years. Not nearly long enough, of course, but certainly a good start. I asked him what he was doing to celebrate and he said that he was just laying back and relaxing. Sounds like a nice day. Congratulations Jared and Happy Birthday!

Prospecting!

Ancient History, General

Dad Prospecting

Dad has wanted to go back up to the old Calcite Mine in Treasureton, Idaho for several years. He has a theory about the calcite that he wanted to investigate further and he also knew where there was an outcropping of sugar quartz. Usually where there is sugar quartz, there is gold. So after several weeks of talking about it, dad and I took the Tracker and headed up into the mountains west of Treasureton, Idaho.

All the years that I was growing up in Soda Springs, Idaho, my dad’s father (my grandfather Smith) lived in a small trailer in Treasureton, Idaho and ran a calcite mining and crushing operation. Calcite rock when crushed up into fine gravel is excellent chicken feed because of the high calcium content. The bags of calcite from the Treasure Canyon Calcite Company had as their catch phrase “Builds strong bones and shells”. Grandmother, on the other hand, lived about twenty miles south in Preston, Idaho. Grandfather would come into Preston to shop and whenever there was a family function. Otherwise, he lived at the calcite operation.

For a while my dad was also associated with this business, owning about a third of the company. There was a plan to run the calcite through a kiln making quick lime which would then be sold to the phosphorus plants in the area to clean the off-gasses from their process. The plan didn’t come to fruition as family politics intervened and eventually all the partners in the business sold their shares to dad’s kid brother. Uncle Ross later moved the business about ten miles north into Cleveland, Idaho, opened a new limestone mine and abandoned the old calcite mine completely.

Treasureton and Cleveland only exist in a few people’s heads anymore. There is a Treasureton Reservoir, but that’s about all. The old LDS ward house where I attended church during the summers from ages 12 through 14 when I was working on a farm in Treasureton was sold many years ago and is now a private home. All the other small buildings in Treasureton are gone. Even more interesting to me is that most of the farms in the area are no longer working farms. The two farms below the calcite mine are now owned by a man in Preston who has all the farmland enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program and lets the government pay him to not farm. That’s a program I simply don’t understand! Cleveland has suffered the same fate, although most of the farms in that area are still working farms. The old store is gone, the hot springs are lost from view. The Cleveland Ward building burned to the ground about forty years ago and has since been bulldozed over. The farm that grandfather Smith owned in Cleveland and where my dad grew up was sold to a cousin many years ago. The farmhouse burned down when I was about four years old — one of the few memories I have of that time. The school that stood across the street from the farm and church building has been demolished and no traces are evident. I’m sure that the people who built a home in that area have little idea of what was there fifty-six years ago.

Today was the day we had picked to drive up to the old mine and over the top of the hill to where dad remembered the sugar quartz to be. Yesterday he picked up the key to the gates from the present landowner in Preston so we could get through the three gates — one at the road, the second at the end of the first farm and the beginning of the second farm, and the third at the end of the second farm and the beginning of government (Bureau of Land Management — BLM) land. We took my Tracker because it had a little more ground clearance and four-wheel drive. The road once we got on to the BLM land was overgrown and in some cases difficult to find. A couple of times we had to get out and go looking for where the road went. But, we made it past the place where dad nearly lost the truck (and almost his life) when the truck, loaded with eight tons of rock, slipped out of gear and the engine died. We drove past the place where the old worn-out trucks and equipment from the mine had been abandoned and then arrived at the mine. It’s quite overgrown but still very evident as a mine. We drove up over the top of the mine and down the dirt track leading to the Bear River. Dad recognized the outcropping of sugar quartz and we took several samples of rock. We turned back around and went to the top of the hill where I took several more pictures. Then we drove back down the mountain, out the gates, and back to Soda Springs. Our day of prospecting was complete. Dad will send some samples of the sugar quartz in for assay work. We’ll see what the report says. I had a good day and would like to go back up there again Real Soon. I’ve put some pictures from the day in the pictures! album.

Gillette Family Reunion

E-Mail Musings

On even numbered years the reunion is held on a Saturday afternoon. On odd numbered years, the reunion is held the second weekend of August, usually in Hanna, Utah. The event this year was held at a small park in Bountiful, Utah. It’s limited to adults only whereas the event in Hanna is for full families. The even-numbered-year event organizing rotates amongst the families of the five children of Perry Chappell and Minnie Viola Hardy Gillett (grandpa spelled his name with no ‘e’ at the end. Grandmother didn’t like that spelling, so she added the ‘e’). The five children are John (deceased), Perry (deceased), Art (deceased), my mother Arlene, and Marjorie. This year it was my mother’s turn, so she turned much of the work over to her four kids (me included), except for the worrying. The event went very well.

We took the motorhome down so there would be a place for Bradica (the dog). We met mom and dad in McCammon and they rode down and back with us. We’re on our way back home (we’re near Malad, Idaho). We’ll be back home in about an hour and a half. We’ve had a nice day.

Eighty-Second Birthday

General

Saturday Perry and Chris joined Nina and me in Soda Springs to celebrate mother’s eighty-second birthday. We had a cleaning assignment at the church building which we elected to do earlier on Saturday. We arrived at the building at 7:45 and finally got home about 11:30 a.m. — tired and worn out. We vacuumed the hallways, classrooms, and chapel. It is a big building and we were mighty happy to be done. Another family in the ward finished up the cleaning assignment later that afternoon. As it was, we didn’t get to Soda Springs until about 1:30 in the afternoon.


We had a delightful visit with mom and dad and with Perry and Chris. Perry grilled steaks and corn on the cob for dinner. Nina made up some peach cobbler (rather than birthday cake), and we all had a good time.

Now that Perry’s chemo treatment is completed, he’s grown his hair back! It looks much the same as before, with the same receding hairline. We’ll be going camping with them in a couple of weeks in Hoback Junction, Wyoming (just south of Jackson Hole). Another nice summer break from work. Life is good.

Thursday Evening Ride

General

It’s 7:30 p.m. and I’m home from the bike ride. Big thunderstorms are roaming the area and getting wet was not on the agenda. We did go through a couple of small showers in the dash to get back home before the big rain. It started a major rain about five minutes ago. I’m liking being inside and watching the rain and thunder outside! Now my bike ride is quite a bit different than my son Jim’s bike ride. Check out his post on his son Steven smoking him on their bike ride around the area. I firmly believe that all good bikes have a motor….

My iPod goes with me on the bike rides. Lots of big music while motoring through the backways of southeastern Idaho is just, well, fun. I didn’t get through the playlist before we got back home, so I’m sitting at the computer with my headphones on listening to the rest of this classical playlist:

  • Overture: Die Hebriden (Fingal’s Cave), Op. 26 (Mendelssohn)
  • Swan Lake, Op 20 (Tchaikovski)
  • Pilgrim’s Chorus: Begluckt darf nun dich (Wagner)
  • Zadok the Priest (Handel)
  • Sanctus (Gonoud)
  • Ave Maria (Bach, Gounod)
  • Sanctus (Plank)
  • Christ on the Mount Of Olives: Hallelujah (Beethovan)
  • Ave Maria (Schubert)
  • Requiem, Op 9: Sanctus (Durufle)
  • Te Deum, Op. 103: Te Deum Laudamus (Dvorak)
  • Alleluia (Beethovan)
  • Panis Angelicus (Frank)

The whole playlist is about sixty-five minutes long and contains lots of very bombastic music. Just right for riding on a motorcycle!

One of the pieces, “Zadok the Priest”, has some interesting connections between King Solomon and our day. The first chapter of 1 Kings lays out all of the palace intrigue around Solomon being crowned king by Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet. Fast forward to 1727. Handel received a commission to write four anthems to be performed during the coronation of King George II of England. He paraphased 1 Kings 1:38-40 as:

Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet anointed Solomon King.
And all the people rejoic’d, and said:
God save the King, long live the King, may the King live for ever!
Amen Alleluia!

Why would Handel pick this text about the coronation of Solomon for a coronation anthem for King George? Because according a somewhat dubious genealogy, European royalty is descended from the ancient Israeli kings. Solomon would have been a progenitor of King George, as was David. Generally speaking, people who have genealogical lines traced back to Adam somehow connect into the royal bloodlines of Europe and ride that genealogy back through Solomon and David.

There’s a further connection between Solomon and King George II. The link is the “Stone of Scone”. This rectangular piece of sandstone is installed under the seat of the King Edward Chair in Westminster Abby (where all the kings / queens of England are crowned). This stone is reputed to be the “pillow of Jacob”, where Jacob slept the night before his reunion with his brother Esau using stones for pillows and having a wonderous dream (Genesis 20:10-18). The next morning Jacob built an altar and placed this stone at the top of the altar. Several hundred years later, David finally captured Jerusalem and brought this altar stone to Jerusalem where it became the seat of his throne. Solomon would have been seated on this stone when he was annointed King of Israel. Somehow the stone made it’s way to Scotland, either by the Gaels (from whom Scotland gets the Gaelic language) or in some other way. At any rate, it was used as the seat of a throne in Scotland where the Kings of Scotland were crowned and annointed. King Edward I of England went to war with Scotland and brought the stone to London as part of the spoils of war where he installed it in a chair named for him. The king of England sits in this chair to be annointed with extra virgin olive oil specifically imported from the Holy Land as part of the coronation ceremony.

One of Handel’s coronation anthems was to be performed as the King was being annointed while sitting in King Edward’s chair on the Stone of Scone, the same stone that Solomon sat on when he was annointed. The anthem “Zadok the Priest” was that anthem. It became so popular that it has been performed at every coronation in England since that time.

King George II’s claims to fame are primarily that he was the last English king to lead his armies in battle. (We’re having some huge thunder outside. Have to save often so I don’t need to rewrite this long post!) He also succeeded in almost bankrupting the monarchy. His son, King George III, followed his father as king in 1760. He immediately set about replenishing the treasury. One of those methods was to place a quite onorous tax on the goods being exported from England to the commonwealth countries, including the Americas. That tax eventually included a tax on tea — precipitating the Boston Tea Party, a triggering event leading to the Revolutionary War. Thus the connection from Solomon through Handel to King George III and our independence. I really like “Zadok the Priest”. I have several different recordings of that anthem and they are included on three different playlists on my iPod. Great music to bike by — even if you’re being “smoked”, James!

Almost

General

Tonight we went to a neighborhood party. Since the party was just up the street, we decided to walk there and back. As we went out the front door Nina asked me if I had a key. I looked on my key ring and decided that I did have a key. The party was fun, we met a number of neighbors for the first time. When we got back home, none of my keys opened the front door. Not good. I worked the gate by the motorhome open. The garage door was locked. We used to have a lock box on that door just in case, but a couple of months ago Nina had misplaced her only house key. So I took the key out of the lock box and had several made, but never put the box back on the door (it’ll be there by tomorrow). Fortunately, the sliding door on the deck was unlocked. I was in without having to spend money or do damage. Phew!

The temperatures have suddenly gotten back to normal. We had a high of 102 degrees on Saturday and a high of 68 yesterday. We had temperatures over 95 every day for a couple of weeks. The heat wave has moved eastward and folks are really suffering that direction. The break in the heat is welcome. I might be able to mow the grass tomorrow evening!

Today is my mother’s eighty-second birthday. She doesn’t want a lot of fuss made about her birthday — so we’ll wait until this weekend or so. Birthdays are to be celebrated and the more one has, the more they are to be celebrated. Happy birthday, mother!