There was an old miner that made a small fortune in gold but that was not all of his riches. When he was a boy he grew up around miners, yet, since his daddy didn't mine he was estranged to them. He heard his daddy denigrate them and call them drunks and lazy bums. It seemed harsh to the boy but he did witness their dirty clothes and some laughing and drinking in barrooms as he walked the sidewalks of town by the ginmill doorways. He was too young to realize that their course behavior was a snapshot of some folks, of any folks for that matter but not the actions of all miners. Still, his opinion was sullied long before he grew to be a young man. He never intended to be a miner, it never crossed his mind since his interest lied in woodworking and furniture making. He worked laborers jobs on farms and ranches, he dug ditches and cut firewood, he even moved fill dirt off of mine areas while he apprenticed in woodworking. He eventually became a journeyman woodworker and after he made some money he ventured to buy some land and start a homestead. He bought a tract in the hills and began clearing a serene spot in the woods at the edge of a small brook to build a house. One day he was dragging some rocks up out of the brook and a shining glint caught his eye. He reached into the water where he thought he saw something and pulled up a gold nugget. He couldn't believe his eyes! Just like that, he had found what is equivalent to money laying on the ground, just laying there, he didn't have to earn it. He sat back on the stream bank and laughed. After a moment of laughter, he jumped to his feet and danced a little jig. He was amazed at how rejuvenated he felt after working so hard in the dirt and rock and mud. That's when it struck him that he was no different than the hard-working miners of his youth that his daddy looked down his nose at. He worked with his hands to build beautiful things and he worked on his land to make his home. He got dirty and often suffered minor injury but he was contented. He was also a kind and generous man. He wasn't a drunkard and he certainly wasn't lazy; but now he felt something different, he felt transformed and he couldn't say why. He continued to work at making furniture, built and worked his homestead, and mined for gold in the evenings, yet something was different within him.
That first big nugget, though it opened up amazing opportunities, it was not the fortune; he had to search for more to amass his tidy sum. He learned techniques and applied new ways to mining and gained experience with each new nugget. As he aged and his hands struggled to make his beautiful furniture he still kept mining because he enjoyed it; he was a miner. He liked to work in the earth and learn new methods. He discovered much more than gold and things that it could buy for himself, he could share his wealth with others which brought him more happiness.
