Gold Pan

Everyone knows what a gold pan looks like: steel, round with sloping edges.
I used one all of the way through high school during the summer as I worked the dirt of my claim outside of Apex, Colorado - it now has a house built on it!

About 1980 I was working with a re-enactment group and they wanted to do a correct set ups for 1840's prospectors.  The only problem is that gold pans were never made from steel, steel was far too costly and rare in that time frame!

So, I researched this and found some real 1850's pans and they were all copper, it made sense once I thought about it.  And to find a copper "gold pan" was not hard, they are made by only one company as engraved presentation gifts.  They are really nothing more than a pan shape - it would never work as a gold pan at all!  And the company had no interest in production of a real pan.

With a little luck, I found a guy not far from my house whom owned a metal spinner.  A tool which will spin a plate of metal and with an assortment of attachments which will allow the shaping of the plate as it spins through application of pressure.  The guy made pizza pans mostly.

He was open to the idea of working in copper, so I drew up the design of what the pan needed to look like.  He blew up all over me!  How dare I tell him how to make a gold pan!  I walked away .... I had confirmed orders for 250 of these pans, but if he could not produce them, then there literally was no one out there to do it!

Advance 36 years and I am at a Christmas arts and craft show in the Seattle area.  Now remember, I have NO memory!, and yet, there is a guy there whom looks so familiar .....

So, I walked over to his booth to see what he had.  He ignored me, which is fine, everyone does - guess he did not know me - so maybe I am just confused.  But, he does metal spinning!  And I am thinking, " wait a minute ...."

I looked at this goods, mostly pizza pans in aluminum.   I found some 4" gold pans, interesting but they were just gold pan shaped.  And then, there it was: a copper shaped 18" gold pan ...  I gingerly picked it up.  I gently ran my finger over the curve, it was perfect.  My fingers told me that the grooves had all been spun in, again perfect, and it was only $12 ...

I handed him a $20.00.

"Well, that is $12.00 and there is tax - and you damn well better be paying the tax!"
I said nothing.  Just smiled.
"Okay, that is $13.14 with the tax and now I have to give you change!"
He said this so loudly and unpleasantly, even other dealers where looking at him to figure out what his problem was!
He tossed the money on the table, not bothering to count it, no thank you, no Merry Christmas ....
He just returned to staring off in the distance.

I started to move away when the lady in the next booth held out a bag to put the pan in.  "I am sorry, he is just a very unpleasant person ..."  She smiled and wished me a Merry Christmas.

And I walked away.
Surprised to have found him thousands of miles away ... 36 years later.
Happy that I at least had one pan for me, which was correct.
Irritated that he was selling my design.
Irritated that he had refused to do it when both of us could have made some real money!
Sorry for him, for he is a miserable - little - man ...

He was so rude, I honestly could not even wish him a Merry Christmas.  And yet, this season when we remember Jesus' birth ... to come, to die, for me and men exactly like that very unpleasant man.
Yeah, I felt bad about that later.
It was the least I could have done to have risen above his behavior.
To have tried to show at least God's love.