[Rockhounds] "list where the knowledge of many is shared freely"

[Drew]

On 12/21/07, Ted Kowalski <Ted at crystalgems.com> wrote:
>
> Two summers ago, I and my son spent the day breaking up a large
> quartz/biotite boulder looking for emeralds at the Crabtree mine near
> Spruce
> Grove NC. While we were whacking this boulder with a sledge, an older
> gentleman stopped to watch. Half an hour later, he asked if we would like
> to
> try his sledge. We had a 12 pound sledge, he had a 24 pound sledge. A 24
> pound sledge is harder to swing for long, but really packs a punch. Anyway
> to keep the story short, this gentleman, nicknamed Stoneman, spent the
> next
> six hours working that boulder over with us. At lunch time he looked at my
> marked map and added some more marks. At the end of the day, he sat with
> us
> and our Gatorade and told us some terrific stories and collecting areas.
> We
> did not discuss collecting sites while whacking the boulder. Stoneman,
> sadly, passed away several months later and left a huge hole in the NC
> rockhound knowledge continuum.
>
> Ted Kowalski
> Fredericksburg, VA USA


Just to set the facts... it was in Spruce Pine, not Spruce Grove... I know,
I know, I'm a nitpicker...

Also, Stoneman's name was Robert Creason, and he was a well-seasoned
rockhound.  He was a great guy, and I dearly miss digging with him.  I
shared a campsite with him once down in Franklin, NC and he shared a lot of
stories with me about his growing up and rockhounding across the US.  We had
breakfast together at Hardee's and then we went to my first corundum site
(Cherokee Mine in the Cowee Valley, which is a native stone bucket mine).
He never grew tired of me asking, "Is this corundum?" (when all of it was
quartz)... he knew a lot about Chunky Gal mountain and had a lot of "secret
spots", but as Ted said, if you spent some time with him he would dole out
some of those spots.

Drew


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