FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Mark Ost]

Oh...inspired by the Gail's thread Houston Fine Mineral Show Report, with Gail Spann do I have a GREAT STORY. AND it is geological (sort of). My wife, when we first were married, used to go with me to the Appalachian mountains, where doing geology on the road was my idea of a vacation ( I have used my wife as a scale for large features under the pretense of taking pictures, but that is another story). Anyway we pulled into the usual Days Inn where I made my base of exploration. There were half a dozen HUGE trucks from Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming; you get the idea. Well My daughter made friends with other children at the pool and it turns out the truck owners were the wranglers (livestock handlers) for the movie "Gods and Generals" These guys came in around 6 and let me tell you they were real cowboys, not just hats and belt buckles. Anyways we made friends with one of the families. I was showing the children some geology, being very careful to respect their somewhat fundamentalist outlook. The parents were visibly relieved at that. Hey, you don't mess with young (or old) children's belief systems. Anyway my wife went to Houston a few years later to tour Texas and traveled west from there. She ran into them out in the middle off nowhere loading bulls for a rodeo, Cody, the father, had a Christian Bull Riding Ministry. Go figure the odds. I would like to have gone to visit some meteor craters in Odessa Texas but someone has to pay the bills, so was not there. Probably better since when I drive and do geology (simultaneously) no one is safe on the roads.

[Mark Ost]