Ep.4
Rockthumpers
RR: Ok, can I bowguard you for rock talk? Do you- are you into rocks? I know you’re into rocks. Are you into rocks?
Mike: Into rocks?
RR: Yes.
Dan: Are you a rockthumper?
Mike: No, I should be though, sounds like it.
Dan: You’re fine.
RR: You’re great. ‘Sup Kent?
Kent: Hey, how are you kids doin’?
Mike: Doin’ good, old man.
Kent: I know, right?
RR: So, Dan, tell me about your rocks.
Dan: I don’t even know where to start.
RR: Ok.
Dan: I have boxes of them. I have travelled with them for years and years in all kinds of different places. Um, I’m a geologist, I went to school for geology.
RR: Oh!
Dan: I don’t practice geology, but still enjoy it, but I wouldn’t- I’ve been collecting rocks since I was a little kid. Like it’d be,…even go out and visit my aunt. On her gravel driveway, I’d be pickin’ out agates out of the gravel driveway.
RR: Where are you from?
Dan: Portland. Portland, OR, born and raised.
RR: Willamette?
Dan: Yup.
RR: Yup.
Dan: Willamette, but..
Kent: She’s not from here.
RR: Sorry!
Kent: Willamette Oregon, no such place, but whatever.
Dan: T-guard, Twillateen(sp?), I’ve heard ‘em all.
RR: Whatever.
Dan: I was the exact same way when I moved out here. I’s be pronouncing stuff- I didn’t know how to pronounce Ponderay(sp?) for years.
Kent: That’s how he got his name, Box-o-Rocks.
Dan: I’m about as smart as one.
Kent: Our house is full of rocks.
Dan: Oh, yea?
Kent: We buy ‘em. Collect ‘em and buy ‘em wherever we go.
Mike: Another rockthumper!
RR: Yea! You wanna tell me about your rocks? I…
Kent: They’re hard, and big, and…beautiful.
RR: Cool.
Kent: A lot of ‘em are from South America.
Dan: Oh yea, so like a lot of nice gemstones?
RR: So like, crystals?
Kent: Agates.
RR: Wow.
Kent: The….what’s that green stuff that’s poisonous? Has little swirls in it?
RR: That’s…such a vague….I….
Kent: No,…there’s a lot of green rocks that are poisonous…
Dan: There’s a lot them.
RR: Kryptonite, maybe?
Dan: Malachite, serpentanite,….Serpentanite might be poisonous.
Kent: Yea, the brain’s…..yea, it’s malachite. It’s a big green rock we have. It’s about this big, and it’s polished and it’s gorgeous. But yea, a lot of…a lot of South American stuff.
RR: Why… do you like rocks?
Kent: Huh?
RR: Why do you like rocks?
Kent: Why do you like the outdoors?
Mike: You’re being interviewed.
RR: I have entire blog about why I like rocks. So when I say, “Why do you like rocks?” you could say, you just like rocks. That’s fine. But like I’ve got some philosophical ideas-
Kent: When I grown up we had a guy on the street,..
RR: That’s cool.
Kent: …who did some rock work. And he’d put out these piles of rocks for kids to go through.
Dan: Mmhmm.
Kent: And so we’d dig through for agates. Ya know, we’d go to the coast a lot, go to the San Juans a lot, and we’d find rocks on the beach there. Ya know, who doesn’t like crystals and agates and anything that’s shiny?
RR: A lot of people, turns out.
Kent: Who don’t like it?
RR: A lot of people do, but I think that people tend to outgrow it. Because it’s like a “kid thing.”
Kent: So, we went to a rock show in Madras, OR, um,…..couple summers….six, seven summers ago. And, ya know, all these people just- like a big flea market, there’s hundreds of tables of material.
Dan: Mmhmm.
Kent: Ya know, the problem becomes -like the gun shows I go to- you don’t know who is going to be taking, ya know. And everyone’s trying to get something for what they have so, ya know what I have is gold but what you have is dirt. A lot of it was beautiful. But one thing I bought was actually a sphere-making machine. I haven’t used it yet.
RR: Cool.
Kent: They’re expensive and they’re hard to find and I was thinking I’d get to it. Cause spheres are my favorite, uh, shape rather than natural.
Dan: Yup.
Kent: Um, so, some day maybe. I’ve got the grit for it and all that other stuff. Of all the other things I could’ve chosen to do as a hobby, making spheres would have to be the hardest one.
Dan: Mmhmm.
Kent: Guys were shakin’ their heads when they saw me with it, so.
RR: Do you have thunder eggs?
Kent: I grew up with those.
RR: Well, right, but like Madras, OR…big thunder egg territory-
Kent: We actually….was it Anderson’s Ranch?
RR: I only know of Lucky Strike and Richardson’s.
Kent: Oh that’s what I meant. Anderson’s is a flyfishing name in Boise. So, ya, Richardson’s Ranch…we went there and it was close. But it gets hard on the joints when you’re our age and you start hammering rocks with hammers while you layin’ on the ground or kneeling on the ground or something. It’s like oh my god, just give me a backhoe. So much easier.
Dan: That’s cheating.
RR: Last time I was there, somebody had like a power tool. They brought a mini generator in their truck. They had kids!
Kent: That’s one way to do it.
RR: They had like a teenager and like a small kid and like….
Dan: Rock hammers work great if you know how to use ‘em.
RR: Mason hammers or rock hammers?
Dan: Rock hammers.
Kent: Real rock hammers?
Dan: I carry a- well I don’t have my mason hammer with me- but I carry that just ‘cause I like to paddle on it. Like….dig through stuff. But the rock hammer, with the pick-
Kent: I’ve got one of those. What’re they made by the company with the blue…
Dan: Estwing?
RR: Yup.
Kent: I’ve got one of those. There’s a…when we would go up to Curlew Lake, ...just outside the town of Republic. They’ve got, ya know, the Civil Mines(sp?)- part of the park.