Random thoughts: Gold panning memories
Life magazine puts out a smaller version of its magazine every week. This week's picture on the front showed some children panning for gold. The children were standing in a shallow stream, jeans rolled up, and each held a wide-mouthed tin pan — made just right to dip in the cool water.
They were ready to dip in the sandy river bottom and find some gold. Their faces were alight with expectation.
I remember just such an occasion. We were having a family reunion at Cripple Creek, Colo. There was a small stream running through the town. There you could buy wide-mouth tin pans, just like the ones prospectors used to use.
Being a generous grandmother, I bought one for each child, and they spent a wonderful afternoon panning for gold. They have found some small pieces that looked like gold but nothing they could take to the assayer's office.
I hope the government doesn't build an expensive wall between Mexico and the U.S. Walls don't work. Look at the ugly Berlin Wall.
I'm reading a book about the Great Wall of China, built centuries before Christ. It was to keep Mongolians out but it didn't work.
I have a T-shirt to prove I walked on that wall. I didn't walk very far as it was uphill. It was wide enough for six horses to ride abreast. People of all nations and varied dress were there.
When I was a child in Sunday school, they taught us not to build a wall to keep people out but to build one to take people in.
— NORMA HANNAFORD
