When I was a little boy, I had a secret diamond mine……. When I was a little kid, I found diamonds. Sometimes I found oval, opaque rocks and discovered that when I broke them open, they were hollow inside and crystallized so that they sparkled and glittered in the sun and shone in several colors. I was sure they were diamonds. I planned to come back when I was grown and open my diamond mine and become rich. I never told anyone about this because I was pretty sure my folks wouldn’t believe they were really diamonds. Poor people didn’t own diamond mines. I figured that if I told anyone else, they might steal my diamonds. Years later, I learned that what I had actually found were geodes which are fairly rare but were not uncommon on the hills of our farm. I wonder if little boys still find diamonds? To be continued.....
@Ted Richards My wife's dad was an avid rockhound. He had maps from all over, purporting to show where large deposits of valuable minerals were to be found. Many such places were in the Desert Southwest, so I imagine he was pleased when I dragged his daughter off to Phoenix from Indiana, after we married. By coincidence, we went out to a desolate place 30 miles west called "Fourth of July Butte", on 4th. of July weekend. It was 115 degrees, we were all very uncomfortable, except the rock collector, who carried a special hammer and heavy bag slung from his shoulder. I realized I had been too quick to pre-judge the man, when hew picked up a baseball-sized, ugly light-brown rock, exclaiming "watch this"! His hammer cracked it in two, to reveal my first view ever of a geode, beautiful sparkly iridescent hues of light purple and gray! He never revealed how he knew, given the millions of rocks lying in abundance. Frank
When I was a little boy, I lived on a farm, and it was a great place for a little boy. I was a little guy during World War II. In those days, before we had electricity, we all listened to a battery-powered radio at night. We had no reception until nightfall and even then, it required a very long, complicated copper wire antenna positioned just so. I can remember my parents both hunched over the radio every night for the latest word on the Battle of The Bulge and later, the war in the Pacific. Favorite weekly shows were Fibber McGee and Molly and Amos and Andy. We had a small herd of milk cows and my mother milked them by hand twice a day. My job was to carry water to the corral so my mother could wash their udders before milking. I was so little that a half-bucket of water was awfully heavy. My father raised the alfalfa and grains that we fed the cows. Before I was old enough to go to school, we stored alfalfa hay in large haystacks. One time I found the hay knife, a wicked-looking blade about three feet long with very large coarse teeth and a handle at the top. I climbed a haystack and hauled the hay knife up with me, then proceeded to cut up the haystack. When I was done, I threw the hay knife over the side and jumped down after it. Apparently I landed on it for I had a nice slice in my leg just below the knee. I managed to get to the house and was taken to a doctor in the village. As I recall he sewed me up with a cigar clenched between his teeth.
I have some oval shaped rocks that I picked up by a river in Washington state. I wonder if there are diamonds in them.