Stories, Stories, and More Stories

I was taught that selling is the most important part of business.   I have learned, over time, that the best way to sell is through stories.  So I tell stories about my rocks, my gold, my products, my cabs, whatever I happen to be talking to someone about.  But recently I have noticed that selling is also about listening to other people's stories.  And boy have I heard some doozies this week.   I have heard stories about rocks, stories about gold, stories about cowboys and indians, stories about prospectors and old mines, and stories about sharks (yeah, go figure, in the desert, stories about sharks).

Yesterday I received a box of core samples from the Homestake Mine in South Dakota.  They are beautiful.  Some of them sparkle with visible gold- really prize pieces, and I wonder now that I have them, if I want to sell them.  But even better than the core samples are the stories that came about because of them.   People love to tell stories.  This week, for some of them, I really needed to break out the hip waders- because the ____ was really beginning to pile deep.

Gold, mining, and prospecting seem to attract the whoppers, as far as storytelling goes.  Now I expect to hear the ones about the 5 ounce nugget that got found and then lost again, or found and given away "way back when...when gold was still $100 an ounce".  Or about the guy who found a huge nugget out in a wash, but doesn't know where it is anymore, or it was stolen, or some other reason why it isn't in his possession.  Or about the guy whose claim was producing 10 ounce nuggets and then the government took it away. Or the guy who used to do alot of prospecting but doesn't anymore because he has found "too much" gold and wants to give other people a chance to find some.  There was even the guy from Oregon who "found gold nuggets in a drawer one time, and I thought they were rocks so I threw them out".  (Gee, I'd like to go through his trash).

Yesterday, when I was looking through my new box of Homestake Core Samples, of course, I was inundated with stories about the Homestake Mine.  "My grandfather's friend's nephew knew someone who worked there..."  "My friends' father found hundreds of nuggets laying on the ground around the Homestake Mine right after it was shut down."   Some are believable, some are not.  It makes you wonder where the stories come from, and if the people who tell them actually believe them.

But my favorites are the ones that speak of things as if they are fact, when in actuality they are just someone's made up perception.  Those are the ones that you just have to nip in the bud because they are so off-base you can't stand to listen to them anymore.  Yesterday, a man told me that the Homestake Mine was shut down by the government because the government decided that they didn't need any more gold since Fort Knox was already full.    I stopped what I was doing, looked at him in awe, and said, "Really?"  "Where did you hear that?  Because that's not what I learned when I visited the Homestake Mine in Lead, SD this past summer".    He looked surprised and said, "Oh, you mean you have actually been there?" "Yeah", I said, "I have actually been there- been to the mine, seen all the artifacts in the visitor center and museum, watched the video, and toured the parts you could tour. It's a really interesting place and the video in the visitor center is really informative."  He said, "Well, anyway, those samples are really cool," and then he left, probably in search of someone who really didn't have a clue about the Homestake Mine to tell his ridiculous story to.  (For a great book about the Homestake Mine, "Homestake, The Centennial History of America's Greatest Goldmine", click this link http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006XJXHW/?tag=roinmyhe-20.)

And then there are the pathetic ones. There was the guy who was looking for crystals in Crystal Hill, where hundreds of people every winter go to hunt for crystals, and discovered a mine shaft with gold in it- but no one has ever heard of this mine before even though it is only 11 miles out of town.   "And then what did you do", I asked. "I just left it alone because I didn't want anyone else to find out about it."  "You've never been back there to it to go get some of the gold?"  "Well, no, I don't have a car anymore, and I don't have time, and I don't want the government to find out, and...blah, blah, blah..."  Seriously?  You found an abandoned gold mine just outside town and didn't even go back to it?  And no one else in Quartzsite has ever even heard of it?  Really?

And then there was the guy who was wandering around in the desert one day and found a huge pile of Sleeping Beauty turquoise on the ground, not near Globe, where the Sleeping Beauty Mine is, but out on BLM land near Quartzsite.   Hmmm...  Funny how I always have to go to a specific site where a specific rock is found to find that specific rock.  "What did you do with it?  I'd love to see it," I said.   "Well...I didn't have a way to carry it back, and it was hot, and it was getting dark, and then I couldn't get back there until the next month, and then I couldn't remember where it was anymore."   "So you didn't keep any of it?"  "Well...no."   Go figure.

Oh, yeah, and then there was the one who was walking around with the sparkly 5 pound rock the size of a grapefruit, polishing it with a wire brush, and telling everyone it was gold.  He came into my booth on Tuesday and asked me if I would buy it from him.  I said, wow, that's a beautiful, shiny rock with lots of pyrite on it, but no thanks, I'm not looking to buy any pyrite right now.   He said, "It's not pyrite- it's gold- I'll give you a great price on it".  Hah.  I'm sure you will, I thought.  He proceeded to tell me how he had been out walking in a wash near town and he found this huge rock covered in gold just sitting there on the ground.  "Really?"  I said, "In the middle of Quartzsite, in the middle of the day?  And you are just walking around with it like that in your hand showing it to everyone?".

The stories never cease to amaze me.  Just when I think I have heard the doozie of all doozies, then someone else comes along with one to top that one.  And people wonder why I don't own a television.  I have way better entertainment listening to all the stories than anything I could watch on TV.   Al, whose business is next door to mine, and I have developed a ritual at the end of each day.  A ritual of swapping stories about each other's stories.  It seems almost as if the same people go from booth to booth and tell the same story, but change it up to match the merchandise- the same lost huge gold nugget story, becomes the lost antique gun story.  "My grandfather's nephew's friend was in WW1 and had a gun like that.  A real beautiful gun, worth a whole lot of money.  I found it in a closet one day, but now I have no idea where it is...oh, and I almost had something like that once, too,...oh, and like that, too."

So tommorrow I will be getting in some Lake Superior Agates and some more core samples, this time from the Dewey mine in Idaho.  And there is no need for me to try to sell them.  They will sell themselves, no doubt to people who will come in to tell me more stories.  This time the stories will be about Idaho, and Lake Superior.  But in reality, they will be the same old stories, just like all the fishing and hunting stories about the big one that got away, only twisted around and molded to fit rockhounding and prospecting situations.  "I remember that 150 pound fish I almost caught, but it broke the line...biggest fish I've ever seen...I remember that 8 point buck that I almost shot... biggest buck I've ever seen, ...I remember that 10 ounce gold nugget I almost got, but it fell out of my pan back into the stream...biggest nugget I've ever seen..."

And the stories go on, and on.  Tommorrow the entertainment begins again.  And I will once again be convinced that I have no need to pay $100 a month for satellite TV to entertain me.  I have an entire town full of people that are very eager to come and do that.  I will be open at 9:30 am.  First program of the day?  Only tomorrow will tell, but I'm sure it will be a good one.
______________________
WANT MORE ABOUT THE BLACK HILLS OF SOUTH DAKOTA?


HERE ARE ROCKS IN MY HEAD'S RECOMMENDATIONS:

The Real Deadwood: True Life Histories of Will Bill Hickock, Calamity Jane, Outlaw Towns, and Other Characters of the Lawless West    http://www.amazon.com/dp/1596090316/?tag=roinmyhe-20

       

Deadwood: 

       Stories of the Black Hills   http://www.amazon.com/dp/1596912391/?tag=roinmyhe-20

Gold Rush: 

The Black Hills Story

  http://www.amazon.com/dp/0962262196/?tag=roinmyhe-20

Deadwood: 

Music From HBO Original Series [Soundtrack]

 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00076YPUI/?tag=roinmyhe-20