When I was a child growing up in a coal mining patch near Sutersville, PA. (pop. 967), America was swept by a popular song that went, 'How are you gonna keep them down on the farm, after they've seen Paree?'
Paree, of course, was Paris, the City of Lights that was visited by many U.S. soldiers during World War 2. I recently made a journey of a lifetime that took me to Reno, Virginia City, and other parts of Nevada where a new gold rush is starting up and where people play poker for fun as well as profit.
My trip covered more than 3,500 miles in an air-conditioned Greyhound bus. It wasn't an easy journey despite leaving the driving to those long-distance bus drivers. Whatever Greyhound promises in those ads, they still don't give you enough legroom for my six-foot-one-inch frame to stretch out while exploring our great country.
I made the trip to recharge my writer's batteries. A friend named Kit Knight lived in Yerington, a community 70 miles south of Reno. It had two gambling casinos and because of my passion for poker, it tugged powerfully at me. I told Kit I would accept her generous offer for me to spend a week in her home.
If you're like me, you probably have never heard of Yerington. Trust me when I assure you that this town of 3,400 people may soon become nearly as famous as Virginia City. It's about to become a boom town and the locals are predicting its population will more than double in the next couple of years.
Why? The answer is gold.
Kit is a well-published poet and film critic. Her late husband Arthur Winfield Knight was a novelist and college professor who taught creative writing. We became friends when I worked as editor of the Brownsville Telegraph in Brownsville, PA. and wrote a story about him. One of his books, 'The Golden Land,' about California, won him a nomination for a Pulitzer Prize.
He also wrote western novels, including 'The Secret Love Letters of Jesse James,' and 'Misfits Country', a fictional account of the making of 'The Misfits,' a film starring Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe, which was filmed near Yerington.
The last time I had visited northern Nevada was 40 years ago. I knew that Yerington was in the heart of the Comstock Lode country, one of the largest producers of gold, silver and copper in the world.
A writer is only as valuable as the stories he has in the back of his head, waiting to be written. I realized my stock on stories was running low and I needed new experiences. Nevada sounded perfect, especially when Kit offered to let me drive her 2005 Ford Thunderbird classic convertible.
In a telephone conversation, Kit, who has a great sense of humor, told me, 'This is my bribe car. As long as you agree to take me where I want to go, you can drive it while you are here. It's a beautiful car. Ford only made 10,000 of them and I have the only one in the county.'
How could anyone resist such an offer?
Unlike West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky, where small towns are dying because of EPA restrictions against the coal industry, Nevada is dynamic and poised for economic growth.
The Anaconda Mine near Yerington, along with other mines that produced gold, silver and copper, was shut down years ago. However, this is changing because of new technology that is revitalizing the old mines. Nevada Copper Corp. re-opened two mines in the area that are owned by Anaconda. One of the mines is called the Potato Patch.
Engineers estimate the mines will produce nearly a million ounces of gold, over two million pounds of silver, and 40 million pounds of copper. I confirmed this information with a deputy sheriff and the owners of one of the three casinos located in Yerington. The company plans to put up to 900 miners to work and pay them salaries from $90,000 to $120,000 a year.
A local gold prospector named Wayne Taylor who owns a four-wheel drive Ford pickup and I became acquainted. Wayne, in his early 30s, is married with a two-year-old daughter. He knows just about everything there is to know about gold and hopes to get one of those jobs mining gold. He took me for a ride in his pickup into the mining range 10 miles from Yerington.
The country is high desert with spectacular rock formations. There is a dormant volcano that produced all the minerals in the range. A couple of times we got stuck in the dry washes, but Wayne managed to maneuver the pickup out of the rugged terrain and we did some prospecting along the way. He showed me an abandoned turquoise mine and we picked up quartz that contained traces of gold and silver.
As we trudged up a narrow canyon trail, he pointed to a large rock and told me to pick it up. I did, expecting the rock to be fairly light, but it weighed me down. He brushed the dust off the 20-pound piece of quartz. It was stained black with traces of yellow.
'That's gold,' he said. 'It's trapped in the iron. This entire mountain range is filled with it.'
That evening after Wayne and I parted company; I drove Kit's blue T-bird convertible to the Pioneer Crossing, a friendly gambling casino across the street from the Yerington Post Office. As I walked into the cool air-conditioned casino, Walter, a dealer, came over to me.
'We're getting a poker game started,' he said. 'Are you interested in playing? It's a $40 buy-in and the stakes are $2-6.' His words were sweet to my ears and I took a seat.
We played poker until late in the evening. The game was friendly with colorful local characters being my opponents and I won about $150.
I am now in Phoenix and am planning another trip back to Yerington. I discovered a stream of fresh running water not far from those gold-bearing mountains and plan on testing them with my gold pans. I might even buy a metal detector for a serious workout. Wish me luck.
Author: Geno Lawrenzi Jr.
(Geno Lawrenzi Jr. is an international journalist, magazine author and ghostwriter and poker player who lives in Phoenx, AZ. He has published 2,000 articles in 50 magazines and 125 newspapers. If you want to share a gambling story or book idea with him, send an email to glawrenzi@gmail.com ).
