May 1961. High School graduation: I spent my post graduation summer
working, playing baseball, fishing, and did I say working. Kansas
summers are hot and dusty but the summer after high school graduation
was different and sort of magical for the girls were beautiful and
dreamy and my mind was full of wondering--what would college bring?
Where would my friends settle? Would I see them again? Was I prepared
for college (not so much the first year)? What would it mean moving out of "home"? Would I make the college
basketball team (not a chance but the program paid for my tuition and
books)? All summer long I listened to the Hot 100 hits on an AM radio (no FM around)---mostly at night on that magic station in Oklahoma City, KOMA, 1520 on your dial.
Think left and think right and think low and think
high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try! Dr. Seuss
As one ages, they begin to contemplate on what has
been, and what could have been, in their life.
What sort of regrets does one have? What were the good things, and the
bad things? I certainly have not led a
perfect life but do have very few major regrets about how it has played
out. Thoughts about my past have been in
my mind “big time” this week since it has been 60 years since my high school
graduation. Wow, 60 years have zoomed by
since 17 bright eyed, small town kids marched across the stage to pick up their
diploma and flip their tassels. Of
course, kids across the country were doing the same things, many on that
particular night in May. After the event
I zipped home, collected graduation cards, often with a couple of bucks, from
several aunts and uncles gathered to drink coffee and eat my mother’s cake, and
then off I went with my friends to eat chicken fried steak at Bettys Fried
Chicken restaurant in Salina, about 25 miles away. The next day I dutifully reported to work at
my father’s gasoline station and that started a summer like most---6.8 days of
working each week with baseball games many nights and “dad can I borrow the car”
on Saturday nights. I also was anticipating attending college in the fall.
For other classmates, graduation meant different
events---some chose wedding bells, a few males enlisted in the Armed Forces,
some went to “Business College” or a college/university and others “found a job.”
All 12 males in the class were very aware that if you continued on in higher education
you “made you grades” or expected to get drafted. Those who chose the work
route had an even shorter time of freedom from Uncle Sam calling.
My current thoughts are revolving around how I lost
track of many/most of my classmates—all 16 of them. How could that happen? Well, we each just went our separate
ways. Oh sure, the first few years I
attended a couple of weddings and saw a few over the Memorial Day Holiday, but
most just seemed to fade out of my life and moved on with theirs. There were a few that I never saw again after
that post-graduation summer! At our 50th
year celebration there were 12 of us present---but again none of those that I
had not seen in 50 years; none were deceased.
The 60th was a smaller event with 6 alums present; two were
deceased. (I was absent due to earlier arranged plans).
Four years after the 1961 event, it was much the same
as a small-town kid walked across the stage in front of his parents and two
brothers, received his college diploma and flipped his tassel. That graduation was sort of sad for me as I
fully realized that I would never see many of my close friends again. The scattering of classmates was far and
wide. However, by this time I had a
career path in mind as almost immediately I headed for Colorado State
University to attend summer geology field camp in preparation for graduate
school at the University of South Dakota.
It’s time to say goodbye, but I think goodbyes are sad and I’d much
rather say hello. Hello to a new adventure. Ernie Harwell
The decision to attend USD was one of those that was a
“good one.” Absolutely no regrets. I was a small-town kid who attended a smaller
state undergraduate college and USD was situated in a small town and was full
of small-town kids and a small graduate program—I think there were five of us. One got much attention from the faculty.
My memories of USD are many; however, they would fill
many pages of this posting and drive away most readers. I will share that my roommate was a great fit
and went on to have a notable geology career in a well-known university. Our immediate problem was housing and so he
sent his mother over to find an apartment.
She picked out a basement in a house in a nice part of town that was
being remodeled into an apartment and signed us up. We arrived and found that the remodeling was
several weeks behind schedule, so we washed dishes in the bathroom sink and
laid our closet clothes on chairs. One
night we came home, and the apartment owner and his buddy were nailing up
ceiling plasterboard---sort of. They had
finished a big bottle of Four Roses and had much trouble hitting the
nails. The ceiling was full of round
holes! That called for a midnight
escape!
Our next domicile was a small mobile home with a fuel
oil heater that needed to be started by throwing in a hunk of lighted toilet
paper. Yep, that was quite the
stove. One morning I awoke really cold
and my roomie had moved his single bed/cot to a location in front of the oven
trying to keep warm. Seems as if the ole
oil heater was not working, and snow was drifting in around the windows and doors. That situation called for?---another midnight
escape.
After couch surfing for a few days, we finally picked
up a suitable dwelling but at an inflated rate.
We paid, went hungry a day each week, but survived until summer work
came along with the State Geological Survey.
Since our work was out of town, we received $5 per day for motel lodging.
The geological work was interesting as we were looking at past and future
landslides in the Cretaceous Pierre Shale in preparation for the construction
of Interstate 70. I also discovered a
young lady that is still an important part of my life---one of those no regrets
item.
No regrets about the rainbow that flashed into my life in South Dakota.
I have noted before in this Blog that the Black Hills
of South Dakota are sort of magical for me.
That first year at the University my friends would invite me to spend a
weekend with them at their parent’s home in the Hills. Wandering around the Hills was a fascinating
experience for a flatlander like me.
Even today I still find time for a yearly camping trip to western South
Dakota.
All of this irrelevant chit chat leads me to the
geology part of this posting. The Hills
are full of old mines and prospects and glory holes. Some are available for prospecting and
collecting while others are off limits.
The granite and pegmatites around Custer in the southern Hills were
often mined for mica (often muscovite, both scrape and large crystals),
feldspar (mostly potassium feldspar), and beryl (beryllium). A short journey to
the north lithium, found in spodumene, was a major mineral commodity while tin
was found in a few mines and later tantalum/niobium. Rose quartz, used as
decorative stone, was available at many localities, but especially just to the
south of Custer. Today I believe Pacer Minerals operating out of Custer is the
only mineral commodity mining operation in the southern Hills, and perhaps the
entire Black Hills. They produce high
purity muscovite for use in industry, lost circulation mica for the oil drilling
companies, and high-grade potassium feldspar for the ceramic industry. It is the only large K feldspar mine in the
country and uses the marketing name Custer Spar.
Rockhounds that explore the Hills today not only
collect the easily accessible pegmatite minerals like schorl tourmaline, quartz,
and feldspar but pound the Paleozoic limestones looking for Teepee Canyon
Agate, the source rock for the famous Fairburn Agates found out on the adjacent
plains. However, some of the more
serious collectors scour the old pegmatite pits looking for minerals suitable
for micromounts---the really tiny crystals, and especially for the often
brightly colored phosphates.
Perhaps the pegmatite most studied in the Hills is one
exposed at the Tip Top Mine in the Custer Mining District. This former
beryllium mine is the Type Locality for something like 12 colorful phosphate
minerals and tens of others are mostly hidden away in vugs and fractures; most
are microscopic, but all seem to have beautiful crystals. I have
written about several of these phosphates in this Blog. A couple of
years ago I had a personal tour of the Tip Top with noted mineralogist and mine
owner, Tom Loomis. I was looking for some of the tiny Tip Top
phosphates but especially for a nifty spray of tiptopite! But alas, no luck in
acquiring this rare mineral specimen.
What I did acquire, however, was several pounds of quarry rock for later
examinationas back in Colorado.
Periodically I bring out a rock or two and examine the
surface with a loupe and if no nifty minerals are present then pound it with a
crack hammer and start over with a new examination. Sometimes you win, most times
you lose! However, the wins are often fantastic if a small phosphate is present
(I am still looking for tiptopite).
All phosphates have the PO4 anion with
an oxidation state of 3- (phosphorus with a 5+ and 4 oxygens each with a
2- state leaves a total anion state of 3-). Among rocks and minerals
(to differentiate from chemically synthesized forms) primary phosphates
crystalize from fluids in late-stage magmatic crystallization, for example the
mineral triphylite (a lithium iron phosphate). Secondary phosphates form many
colorful specimens from the primary phosphates as they are altered by aqueous
solutions and oxidation into minerals like strengite (hydrated iron phosphate).
One of the rare secondary phosphates is the beryllium-rich
mineral roscherite [Ca2Mn5Be4(PO4)6(OH)4-6H2O]. Like other rare secondary phosphates in the
southern Black Hills, roscherite is found in miarolitic cavities in the complex
granitic pegmatites.
Roscherite spheres on quartz. Width FOV ~5 mm.
Roscherite usually appears as tiny rounded spherical
grains with a variety of colors possible—red, orange, brown, brownish yellow,
yellowish green. They have a measured
hardness of ~4.5 (Mohs), sort of a greasy to resinous luster, and leave a white
streak. Tom Loomis at Dakota Matrix has
stated that the
Roscherites at Tip Top are crystallized in a range of colors and the lilac
colored crystals may be Zanazziite, the Mg member…I
have never seen better Roscherite than the Tip Top mine. The Roscherite group
is growing, but as of yet, all Roscherites from the Tip Top mine remain plain
Roscherite. It is difficult to discern the different Roscherites based on color
alone, and there are several colors at the Tip Top mine (purple, orange,
black). My specimen recently brought to light has tens of tiny
greenish spheres clustered together on a quartz matrix.
A second specimen removed from the rough matrix revealed
small crystals of montgomeryite, again a rare secondary phosphate perhaps best
known from the Tip Top Mine [Ca4MgAl4(PO4)6(OH)4-12H2O]---see
Posting December 19, 2018.
Mostly transparent, striated, and terminated crystals of montgomeryite. Some have shades of salmon red-orange. Width FOV ~5 mm. The matrix of microcline feldspar has a druse of really tiny (submillimeter) rhombohedral crystals of whitlockite (tricalcium phosphate) with some crystal faces reflecting light.
Montgomeryite generally occurs as small lath-like
crystals that are flattened, striated, elongated and capped by a
pyramid. Crystals are translucent, have a vitreous luster, and
a hardness of ~4.0 (Mohs). At the type locality at the Little Green
Monster Mine in Utah the crystals are generally colorless to pale green and
occur in nodules that are of sedimentary origin. At the Tip Top Mine the lath-like crystals
are colorless to some sort of a red to orange to salmon to pale yellow color
and are associated with several other secondary phosphate minerals found in
oxidized phosphate nodules occurring in granite pegmatites (associated with the
Harney Peak Granite).
MAY 1961 MAJOR EVENTS
(from Wikipedia)
Graduation ceremonies were held at Tescott High School (Kansas).
The federal minimum wage was raised to $1.25 per hour.
Civil rights activists started their Freedom Ride via bus through the South.
Alan Shepard became the first American in space--non orbital 19 minute ride.
Nikita Khrushchev accepted President Kennedy's invitation to meet in Vienna (June 3) to discuss the future of Berlin).
President Kennedy gave his famous speech to Congress committing the US to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade.
