Gifts - Jan 20, '04

Hi all,

My wife must love me; I am sure this is true because she enjoys buying me gifts.

Last weekend my Motorola friends and I went hunting for Apache Tears - small to large stones made from Obsidian. This semi-precious gemstone is actually known as Merikanite Obsidian, it is nature's glass in irregular rounded shapes from the size of peas to the size of softballs. Walking along the sandy bottom of a dry wash we were able to easily find the stones by the scores. They're so numerous that you soon get picky about what you will bend over to pick up. The stones are found only near Superior, AZ. - when polished and held up to light its smokey brown hue is semi-transparent. The local stones are the only obsidian nodule that should be called an Apache Tear.

But why are they called Apache Tears? Well, around the 1870s, the US Calvary chased down about 75 Apaches on a mountain overlooking what is now Superior, Arizona. Rather than face defeat, the outnumbered Apache warriors turned and rode their horses off the mountain cliff. According to the legend, when the families of the warriors learned of the tragedy, they cried and upon hitting the ground their tears were turned into the translucent stones.

So when I reached home with my lode of newly acquired gemstones I realized that I didn't have any way to polish them into translucent specimens worthy of keeping. I commenced to grouse around the house, berating the fact that now I needed to find a tumbler. But then, after one of her sewing meetings last night, Sharon stopped and bought me a new tumbler so I can polish my small lode of stones.

It was a wonderful, loving gesture. But I just kinda wish that so many of the boxes containing her gifts to me were not marked as, "Toy - for children, age 10 or older"!

Take Care,
Rog and Sharon