Walking through the aisles of the west Los Angeles library in 1976 I noticed a book sticking out vertically from the others which were all stacked horizontally so I pulled it and thus my life and location changed, it was called 100 trails to gold. This must have resparked an old childhood interest of finding gold and treasure on the beaches of Brooklyn, N.Y. where I was born and raised. Soon I was reading everything I could on the gold subject and In Los Angeles that’s alot. Shortly afterward I thought there must be some gold left for me to find so I moved to Angel’s Camp,CA in the motherlode in 1977. Started out panning in 6 mile creek at the south end of town and struck the yellow right away, mica that is. After many outings and much reading and talking to people I discovered what bedrock was all about,and had my best panning day ever at one quarter of an oz. in two round pieces. After two years of panning and detecting with the old Compass 59B and 94B detectors some local old time miners took me under their knowledgeable wings and invited me to their diggings at the old Carson Hill gold mine where they did asessment work for the owners. I carried 5 gallon buckets of ore and muck up and down the hill to the pickup truck and then they ran the stuff through their mill and the gold that showed really surprised and stoked my fires.One day while driving by Angels creek in town I noticed a fellow in a wet suit so I stopped to watch him work and we later chatted about this thing he called fanning. Soon after I bought a wet suit top, mask, snorkel and was off on a 4 year adventure of coins,tokens, artifacts and small nuggets, until my 9 pennyweight day in two hours of work at a spot I was chased out of and where a subdivision now resides. My water days ended with a bypass in my leg from the combination of cold water,wet suit constriction and cigarette smoking. By now, about 1981 my old mining friends, Guy Castle and Chris Porovich told me about their many finds of pocket gold in quartz veins and with no knowledge and only a carpenters hammer and chisel I ventured out the two miles to the area and began breaking out quartz from a narrow vein. I was awed at what i saw upon panning this stuff out, lot’s of small specie and plenty of fines. This is the spot I’m trying to uncover now, more than 25 years later. Found some very beautiful pockets of gold and numerous quartz species over the years using just inexpensive hand tools. Lot’s of rattlesnake, cave in, highgrader stories that could be told. The pirate boy still lives inside and these type of adventures await all who are willing to try, read, try and keep trying….Dave