West co guy: Just for you, I will post page one of a new story on mining in Mexico, second page on Sunday mornng.

****************************

Good sunny, lazy, no news, afternoon my friends:. Since nothing is stirring, I will post another bit on a misspent life..

One fine boring sunday afternoon, such as this, my German friend, A Koppen, burst through my front door. He enveloped me in his arms - he was over 6 ft and heavily muscled, while i, soaking wet, hit 145 - 150 - and delicately said "Jose thank you, you are going to be my assayer". "Assayer" I questioned? "Yes , you have three days to learn, then it is off the mine, I can't spare any more time.". , I thought "what the heck, I am bored here", so I became his assayer, and his alter ego, i.e. I did everything necessary to keep a mine operation running.

After bouncing around from different mines, including a bout at Cosala, Sinaloa, we ended up in the high sierras, literally on the back bone between Sinaloa and Durango. It was beautiful country between 6 - 7000 ft, densely covdred with Pine and oak. The mine was called la Colorados, it was at the end of a 10 hr drive from the last town from the west. The road ended there. To the west lay Culiacan, some 10 minutes by air. To the East there was some thousands of sq. miles of the deepest and wildest barrancas known to man. A country of still no maps, law, roads, but full of lost treasure stories. The most important was that of El Narajal, a lost gold mine of incredible richness..

We set up camp and rebuilt an older cyanide operation into a free gold, physical / chem separation. I left the old cyanide tanks in place just in case, constructed a assay lab and trained a Mexican to do assaying. I quickly established a relationship with the workers as being a friend, but also the boss, they kinda liked me, and since they trusted me, they told me of their many personnal problems. I became their father confessor.

About this time my lovely wife joined us up there. The mine was on the top of the left side of the steeply ascending valley, at 6000 ft in dense Pine an oak, perhaps 2 - kilometers wide. It was 2 kilometers from the mine down to the lower camp site and the dinning hall. I used to walk down with the men and eat in the dinning hall with them. This showed that we were well aware of the food quality up there and so stop any problems that way. I must admit that the food wasn't gourmet, but it was filling provided the Jalapeno can was kept on the table.. As time went by I became quite friendly with the cook and her twin daughters of about 13. Her hubby was the physical forman of the laborers of the mine.

Since the big house hadn't been finished yet, we stayed at the old building near the cook shack, The spot was a notch cut out of the mountain to form a flat area perhaps 20 meters around, with the hill sloping up in the back around 40 degrees and formring a cliff on the front on three sides. It was presently a comb ware house, office, and sleeping quarters. Koppen, and we had our own rooms. Koppen had brought his giant, black Rockweiler "Frank" who loved to eat Mexicans, or anyone else that was handy. I quickly decided that my best future was to become friends with Frank ASAP and soon we were non chomping friends. His favorite trick, encouraged by Koppen, was to quietly sneak up on my canvas cot, slid up and we would both end up using the same pillow. I have no idea how many times I woke to see that big black head full of teeth, just an inch or so from mine on the same pillow. I quickly learned that a yell or push to get him off only earned an extremely deep, thoroughly convincing growl, the same if I tried to push him off of the cot. I finally found that I could get up, then upend the cot sliding him to ground would work.

One day one of the men came to me very agitated, he said that some the men wanted to kill our foreman. I said that wasn't nice and we couldn't allow that. Since there wasn't any law up there, I had the role with no weapons .but he wouldn't say why, However peace was restored for a day or so. The next indication of trouble was when my wife was in the office, the door was violently shoved open and a group of men entered with the foreman in front who had a lil Llama .380 pressed against his head. My wife, who normally is shy , especially with Mexican machos, simply got up, walked over to the guy with pistol and gently pushed it aside saying " now this is not very nice". He just looked at her with his mouth open. She then asked "what is the matter? if you wish you can go talk with Jo', me, pronounced Ho)

They fumed and hawed a bit, then said "we have to kill him. he cheated one of us then fired him because he threatened to tell Jo or el senor Koppen, honor demands it, plus it will show others that we do not accept this kind treatment". She sent one of them up to the mill for me. when I entered some actually took off their hats in a sign of respect, which I was glad to see under the circumstances, although we normally were of backslapping, macho types of jokes friendship, but they realized that I was the Secondary boss up there..

I then faced them and asked "what is your problem senores" .?. (cual es su problema senores) they repeated what they had told my Bert., so I said "well, we can't let a legitimate complaint not be answered, but first, put that pistol back in your belt", which he sheepishly did. (authority reestablishment) We then discussed the complaint. I finally told them "Caballeros, it appears as if you might have a legitimate complaint, but you realize that I must check records and ask questions of different people to be true and meet our obligations no? They agreed and left.


pp1