Dick Alexander was an actor who owned a house on North 26th Street. His friends included Nick Nolte, Wilfred Brimley, and Michael Landon, star of 'Bonanza' and producer of the 'Little House on the Prairie' television series.
Dick was a friend of mine and when he suggested I move into the house with him, I took him up on his offer.
My Actor Friend
He was a hippie who loved to get into an alternative state. He smoked marijuana, used cocaine, had tried peyote and LSD, and was otherwise part of the Hollywood drug culture. Often his actor friends would come over to the house for some smoking, drinking and poker playing. They were fun to be around.
One evening...
...we had a full house of party goers and poker players. The other players included Al Blackman, a Phoenix artist; Joe Wilcox, a gold prospector who owned an Indian trading post in Sedona, AZ.; Paul DeGrucio, a photographer who had worked on stories with me for People Magazine; and Daniel Ohr, a young friend of Dick's who rode horses, smoked pot and who was game for anything.
And of course, my friend Dave Molina, who worked as a copy editor at the newspaper where I was employed, was there putting away his share of Coors Beer.
That night we played dealer's choice. It was a riotous evening. One of Dick's girlfriends cooked homemade lasagna for us and everyone had a good time.
Around 11 p.m., Joe Wilcox got up to leave.
'If any of you poker players are interested, I am going gold prospecting tomorrow morning on Rich Hill near Wickenburg,' he said. 'I plan to leave at 7 a.m. If you want to go with me, let's meet at the Big Apple Restaurant at 36th Street and East Van Buren for breakfast.'
Unbelievably, all the poker players showed up for the gold prospecting trip.
Dick, Danie, Davel and I rode with Joe in his pickup truck. The others followed in their cars and we pulled off the road near the foot of Rich Hill around 9:30 a.m.
Joe handed out the equipment we would need for our gold prospecting:
plastic gold pans, chisels, vials to hold the gold and a couple of sledgehammers to crack the bedrock in the steam that ran across the top of the mountain.
I carried a .22 Ruger with mini-mags for rattlesnakes or other predators, and Dick toted a .30-30 rifle. We were ready.
'Watch out for rattlers,' Joe cautioned. 'They enjoy shading themselves at the side of the trail and they will strike if provoked. Let's go.'
We headed up the mountain.
The climb was steep and spectacular. About a half mile up the trail, we could look behind and see the vehicles parked at the foot of the mountain. An eagle or hawk soared in the distance.
Dick wasn't in too good a shape from the night before, but he didn't show his discomfort. He just trudged along, looping the rifle behind his neck.
As we turned a corner in the trail...
...a rattlesnake slithered off toward the protection of the rocks. Dick whipped the rifle around, pumped a shell into the chamber, and blasted the rattler into the brush. Joe picked up the still writhing snake.
'Good shot,' he said. 'We'll cook Mr. Snake for our lunch. Rattlers taste better than chicken.'
The trek to the top of the mountain took about two hours. As we topped the final hill, we took one final look at the desert country behind us
We all found positions along the sparkling stream that ran across the top of the mountain and we started panning. Joe generously gave the newcomers instructions on how to separate the gold from the mud, clay and pebbles. I cooled myself off by sitting butt-deep in the rushing water of the stream. It was lovely.
I found a small nugget about the size of a pea and some gold flakes that I placed in my vial. The others discovered some color. Joe cracked open a boulder in the stream and recovered four gold nuggets.
Al Blackman didn't find much of anything, but a couple of days later while panning in Weaver Creek at the bottom of Rich Hill, he made a remarkable discovery. He found what he thought was a penny blackened by the sun and time. When he scraped the crud off the coin, he found to his joy that it was an 1873 gold $20 piece that was worth over $1,000.
Around 4 p.m., we packed up our equipment for the trip back down the mountain.
'How'd you boys like your gold prospecting trip?' Joe asked.
Dick smiled. 'Partner, it was worth its weight in gold,' he said.
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 ).
