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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;quick dog, post: 89050, member: 4093&quot;]Speaking of coin stories.&nbsp; In the summer of 1968, I had graduated from Cal State Los Angeles and was ready to go to graduate school in South Dakota.&nbsp; I took a job with the National Geographic Society in the little Mexican town of El Rosario, Baja California del Norte.&nbsp; We were collecting dinosaur bones and mammal teeth.&nbsp; It was the best job that I ever had.&nbsp; We lived on the beach in what amounted to a MASH compound.</p><p><br /></p><p>I was an arrogant and competitive young man at the time, and tried to compete at anything possible.&nbsp; I arm wrested every Mexican that I cound find, but never Heraculo, a 72 year-old Pala indian that was built like a WWF wrestler.&nbsp; Anyway, I thought that I was a pretty good pistol shootist.&nbsp; The little town of El Rosario had a sheriff, Chu Cho.&nbsp; He was a really nice man that looked a bit like Cesar Romero.&nbsp; He packed a Ruger Mark II .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol.&nbsp; I had done a lot of shooting with such a gun.&nbsp; The local Mexicans were awestruck by Chu Cho&#039;s expertise with his pistol.&nbsp; He could &quot;shoot the head off a chicken&quot;! (<i>This was really &quot;old&quot; Mexico.&nbsp; The raod from San Diego to Los Cabos had not yet been constructed.&nbsp; It took 18 hours to drive from El Rosario to San Diego in those days.&nbsp; There were no modern buildings, and very few Americans anywhere</i>.)</p><p><br /></p><p>I challenged Sheriff Chu Cho to a shooting contest in the desert.&nbsp; In retrospect, this was incredibly rude and foolish.&nbsp; I was 22 and completely unfettered.&nbsp; A crowd of Mexican fishermen and peasants gathered around, including Chu Cho&#039;s unofficial deputy.&nbsp; There were cowboy guns and holsters, sombreros, cerapes, a white mule, the whole nine yards.&nbsp; This was right out of <i>The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly</i>.</p><p><br /></p><p>We started, with his gun of course, shooting at match boxes at about 30 feet.&nbsp; It was pretty much a stand-off.&nbsp; Neither of us missed.&nbsp; Then I pulled a Mexican Peso out of my pocket and placed in on a cactus about 75 feet away.&nbsp; Chu Cho shot first.&nbsp; bang.&nbsp; It was the first miss of the afternoon.&nbsp; I took the gun, aimed carefully, and squeezed off a round.&nbsp; The peso flew into the air and the little dusty crowd erupted in cheers.&nbsp; I eventually walked over and found my coin.&nbsp; Yep, it had a 5 mm dent in the middle.&nbsp; I pocketed the trophy and we called it a day.&nbsp; :thumb: </p><p><br /></p><p>A few months later, I bought a new truck, which I still have, and took off for Rapid City.&nbsp; I left some of my possessions back in Alhambra.&nbsp; When I returned from grad school two years later, my parents had moved to Glen Ellen, Sonoma County.&nbsp; I inquired about my famous peso.&nbsp; To my absolute horror, my dad had thrown it away.&nbsp; I incredulously asked him why he had kept newspapers, rocks, and coat hangers, yet threw away my wonderful Mexican coin.&nbsp; He replied that &quot;it had a dent in it and was damaged.&quot;&nbsp; He truly had no soul.&nbsp; :headbang: </p><p><br /></p><p>In all the time my father was around, throughout my childhood, I never heard him tell a joke or come up with an insightful fun thing to do.&nbsp; The man, who was an international banker, tossed out my prized Mexican peso because it had a frigging dent in it.&nbsp; <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie3" alt=":(" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><br /></p><p>If I still had that coin, I would have shown it to you guys by now.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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