This December we are continuing on with our popular Christmas meeting theme of 'Buy, Swap, Sell and Show!' What interesting goodies are you looking for or, perhaps, ready to part with?

       Here are a few items that were on the sales tables at our last Christmas meeting: metal detectors, treasure hunting gear, coins, gold rings, magic tricks, wet suits, old bottles, tokens, crafts, and much more!

        Also, we had tons of great stuff on display 'for show only' which was very cool! Do you have an unusual collection to show off? I'm sure it would inspire many of our fellow club members to see a display of our 'veteran hunters' best finds!

       For the 'sell' part of the Christmas meeting, I actually purchased some neat old books and some art work. They made great Christmas gifts! You'd better bring your wallets, friends!

        Do you have any treasure-related equipment to sell? Actually, your items don't have to be treasure-related, but they must be "G" rated.

      The meetings usually end with our great door prize drawings. Listen up folks! Our board members have loaded lots of goodies on their sleigh --- but they won't let me say more! Trust me, for December we have some great surprises in store!

       Don't forget we will be giving two more turkeys away at the Christmas meeting!

       Please remember, our December meeting is really a Christmas Party! Please bring treats: meat and cheese trays, cookies, candy--- well, you get the idea. Don't forget us sugar-free guys!

              Once again this year we are planning a silent auction. This silent auction is a club fund raiser and it relies on your donations. Do you have something that you would like to donate to the club? Perhaps it is something that you are tired of dusting?

         Recently my step father sold his home to my brother. For the last few years it was being used as a storage place for all of his treasures. Now the time had come to move everything out so my brother could move in. Howard turned the whole job over to an auction service and he told me that it was such a relief to get rid of all that stuff!

If you want to be free from some of your stuff--- donate!

          Some of you old time club members probably recognize that most of this newsletter is recycled from past newsletters. The mailing of this December 2008 letter makes my 14th year of doing this job. Frankly, it is getting harder for me to be creative.

        Well, friends, I wish this newsletter could be filled with nothing but Christmas cheer, but sadly the board wanted me to share a few selected threats with you.

        Yeah! That's it! This is all the board's fault! Ebenezer Board!

Just kidding, they are a great bunch!

      First, we all know that this is the time of year when it seems as if everyone has his hand out, trying to take all of our money-- right? Well, sadly the club treasurer wants to get his hand into your wallet, too! It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it!

       We absolutely need your dues in this month, please!

       Hey! Cheer up! Remember, the dues are still only $20.00 per family or single! Now that's what I call a 'family value!'

       Please pay your 2009 dues at this meeting or use the form that I have enclosed to mail your dues in. Remember, anyone who has not paid his or her dues before the January 2009 meeting will not have member privileges, like competing in Find of the Month or our massive door prize drawings!

       It's not that we are trying to be mean, it's just that it makes a big job a whole lot easier for everyone if we get the dues in on time.

Here is a dues form. If you don't want to chop up your newsletter just copy the info on a notepad and send it.

NAME                                                                

ADDRESS                                                          

CITY                                                                  

STATE                      ZIP                                   

PHONE                                                             

CELL                                                                 

 E-MAIL                                                            

Names of "club active" family members

Mail Check or Money Order for $20.00 per family or single to:
John Dudley
55344 C.R. 384
Grand Junction, MI 49056

          Hi friends and Happy Holidays! I am afraid that once again I am going to disappoint you with a lackluster newsletter. I have been extra busy trying to drum up business to keep my store open. I don't think the government will bail me out, like they are doing for the banks and the auto industry, so I have been taking advantage of resources like e-Bay to keep the cash flow going. I have noticed that even e-Bay has been slowing down. If you don't open your auctions to worldwide bids, you are going to have a hard time selling stuff!

          I am old enough to have heard stories from both parents and grandparents about the Great Depression and, most of my life, I have been thankful that I didn't have to live through that! Well, now I think maybe I will see some very tough times during my life. My grandfather actually did fairly well during the Great Depression because he had his business well underway and his company, Michigan Cottage Cheese, had a nutritious product that was very inexpensive, so it sold well, even during hard times. He was able to buy some property in Allegan County in the form of rental houses and also to hire drivers and production workers to expand his business.

         That was my Mother's father. My Dad's family was a different story. Grandpa Holden owned 40 acres southwest of Otsego where they farmed. It was very poor land for farming-- mostly made up of blow-sand! They raised a few dairy cows, a few beef cows and had a few pigs and chickens. The opening segment of the Wizard of Oz reminds me so much of Grandpa's place. The only difference was he didn't have work hands like Huck and the others, but he had Grandma and a bunch of kids.

        Grandpa, my Dad and uncle were hunters because they had to be! Dinner could be squirrel, raccoon, or even 'possum! In the 1950's they still used an outhouse and right beside the kitchen sink Grandma had an old fashioned water pump with the long, manual-pump handle! That was the extent of their indoor plumbing. Grandpa would take on carpenter work whenever he could find it and Grandma did odd jobs as well.

        When I think about my Grandma Holden, I see her sitting in her chair with her knitting on her lap and a ball of yarn on the floor. This was the day after Christmas and she was working on next year's Christmas presents. Grandpa also made presents. I still have one at the side of our bed. It is a stand with a checkerboard top, with squares made of maple and walnut. It was all handmade; in fact, the wood didn't come from a lumber yard-- it was harvested and milled on site.

        Everything was homemade! Butter was churned and all meats were butchered on site. Grandma made her own soap and candles, the kid's clothes and things like table cloths and doilies. During the time I was growing up, I saw them go from wood heat to coal heat and, finally, to fuel oil. The most amazing part of my story was that Grandpa told me that they were so poor that they had only heard about the Great Depression, but when it came and went, they hardly even noticed it.

       Well, they were not really poor; they had a hard working family that was self sufficient! They didn't have much money but they were used to squeaking by, day by day.

       Grandma's knitting came to an end in the early 60's. She went to work in the cheese plant in the room where potato salad was made. I loved stopping in to visit her after school and the room smelled so good! She washed and salted fresh celery for me to munch on. If my Grandpa Loebel, her boss, was making a batch of pressed farmer's cheese, he brought me a piece to add to my after school snack. One day there was a terrible accident when Grandma Holden was working the potato dicing machine and she lost many of her fingers! She taught herself to knit again with fingers on only one hand.

       As I write this, I keep remembering more things. They always had a beautiful Christmas tree and 99% of the decorations were homemade. Strings of cranberries and popcorn were traditional. One year they received a gift of Christmas lights that had liquid-filled tubes that bubbled! Man, I thought they were so neat! Today, we have some of those lights but, because of the modern safety standards, the lights are not hot enough and half of them will not bubble.

       Another memory is that at milking time, the barn cats would gather around for a squirt of fresh milk, just like our cats do when we open a can of tuna fish. Outside, there was always the music of the squeaking windmill.

        They had a way of making us feel lucky to help out. I loved to help gather eggs with Grandma in the hen house! Even pulling weeds and picking berries was considered a good time. When I was young, Grandpa managed to do some horse trading to come up with a somewhat tired John Deere tractor, but I always marveled at his original homemade tractor that was either a shortened Ford Model-T or Model-A frame with oversized rear truck tires. I think they called it a Doodle Bug. That thing could pull a plow or even provide power to run a small buzz saw.

        I also remember watching Grandpa work the cream separator, sausage grinder and sausage press.

       My father and the man who is now my stepfather were childhood friends. It is said that from the time school let out for the summer until it started in the fall, nobody ever saw them wearing shoes. Some of their valued possessions were their cane poles in the summer and homemade fishing poles for ice fishing in the winter.

      My grandparent's home always smelled good to me. The smell of Grandma's homemade cooking mingled with the smell of grandpa's pipe.

      They also always had hunting dogs. I don't remember them ever having a young dog, even though I am sure they raised each one from pups. They each had names, but they were usually referred to as good " coon dogs."

      Here we had two families who went through the depression in very different ways, but both ways worked out OK. In both cases, each was thankful for God's provision.

1. STERLING SILVER RING                                                                                        By: JOHN DUDLEY

2. RING MISSING STONE                                                                                   By: GREG STONEROCK

3.ANTIQUE SILVER RING                                                                                            By: JACK BARNES

4. MAN'S 14K WEDDING BAND                                                                                  By: BRUCE WOOD

5.OLDER STERLING RING                                                                                         By: MIKE WALKER

6. POSSIBLE INDIAN JEWELRY                                                                   By: JOHN ASSENMACHER

Bruce Wood was our winner with his nice 14-K white gold wedding band. Good job, Bruce.

1.1907 INDIAN HEAD PENNY                                                          By: TIM PETERSON

2.1916 MERCURY DIME                                                                    By: DORIS ARNDT

3.1948 S SILVER QUARTER                                                            By: MIKE WALKER

4.1865 2-CENT PIECE                                                                        By: JACK BARNES

5.1841 LARGE CENT                                                                                By: RON FALK

6. 1867 SHIELD NICKEL                                                      By: JOHN ASSENMACHER

7. 1858 FLYING EAGLE                                                                     By: BRUCE WOOD

8. 1890 & 1900 INDIAN HEAD 1¢                                                 By: TRACY OSBORNE

I left the meeting early because I wasn't feeling well. So the winners are a surprise to me. The winner in the Coin category was Jack Barne's 1865 U.S. 2 cent coin. This was a group of very nice coins!

1.CIVIL WAR STORE CARD                                                              By: RICK BURCH

2.ARMY SERVICE RIBBON                                                            By: MIKE WALKER

3.1927 PALMOLIVE TOKEN                                                             By: JACK BARNES

4. 1907 GERMAN POET MEDAL                                                  By: TRACY OSBORNE

Rick Burch was our winner with a very nice Civil War Store Card from Ann Arbor, Michigan Druggists. Nice find, Rick.

1.HAME HARNESS BALL                                                                       By: DORIS ARNDT

2. ENFIELD RIFLE OILER                                                                             By: RON FALK

3.TOY KNIGHT W/SHIELD                                                                    By: MIKE WALKER

4.COW ID TAGS                                                                                             By: ANN FALK

5.FORD KEY                                                                                        By: TRACY OSBORNE

6.PIANO PATENT PLATE                                                                  By: JERRY LIPSCOMB

7.CARRIAGE STEP                                                                                     By: RON JENNER

8.VOLLEYBALL TROPHY TOP                                                       By: GREG STONEROCK

9. MERCURY TRUNK EMBLEM                                                              By: JOHN DUDLEY

10.FLOAT COPPER                                                                                    By: TOM BELLIEL

Jerry Lipscomb found a very ornate patent plate for a Gulbransen player piano! Some time back one of my customers found a token 'good for one tune' on one of these player pianos, very nice, Jerry.

1. 14K WHITE GOLD BRACELET                                                                  By: DIVER DEB

2. LOOK MAGAZINE TOKEN                                                                 By: MIKE WALKER

3.ANTIQUE BOTTLES                                                                                By: TOM BELLIEL

4. DAD'S ROOT BEER CAN                                                              By: GREG STONEROCK

Greg Stonerock won with a cone top Dad's Root Beer can. It is a bit rusty, but I can remember a meeting in which someone won with a pulltab!

Here is a note from our club webmaster, Dan Clark.

        We have a new link to the club forum (it is a new forum). I was able to migrate all user accounts and posts into the new forum. The link is http://swmss.org/phpBB3/

        I have a redirector in place for anyone who uses http://swmss.org/phpBB2 (note the two not three) but if they have a direct link to the portal page they will have to cut and paste the link shown there.

         I will also edit the link on the http://swmss.org web page.

        You should have been sent a new password, if not contact Dan Clark.

        The forum is without a portal page now. I can add it if needed but it is not the same as the old portal. This was done to prevent any further hosting cutoffs due to old forum software.

        In this way we have the traditional flat file web page for outside visitors at http://swmss.org and the portal is still available for those few who want to use it.

       Please direct all questions to Dan Clark at dan@dcdetec.com

       If you signed the attendance sheet at every meeting, for 2008, you will win a U.S. Silver Eagle! So far we have no winners and that is because you need to sign that sheet one more time! As I write this on December 8, 2008, there are 21 potential winners! Remember January is a clean start; make it your goal to have a perfect 2009!

        That awesome 1825 Capped Bust Half Dollar really got folks pumped up! The raffle started last month and the board told me that they project it to go to some lucky winner this month!

        Someone was looking in my display case and said; "Wow, is that like the 1825 Capped Bust Half the club is raffling off?"

        I had forgotten that I have one! I purchased the coin from my good buddy and master hunter, Rob Poth. To encourage you in your hunting, Rob found this large coin in Kalamazoo's Bronson Park during their sidewalk replacement project.

       The area where the coin was found was near the location where Abraham Lincoln gave his only campaign speech in Michigan. Michigan sure came alongside of her president during the Civil War!

      When the raffle is over, the club is going to get another coin like that one, which seems to be what the people want.

       We paid honor to the many veterans in the club at the November meeting, which followed Veteran's Day. It is only fitting that Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving are in the same month.

      We hear that our friend, Ron Davis is not doing well, so please continue to pray for him and his family.

      John Fredricks had carotid artery surgery and is doing better.

     On December 4 our dear friend Linda Randolf was to have her other knee replacement. The first knee had to be worked on or replaced 3 or 4 times because of infections. Pray for both Linda and Al.

     The Club sold nearly 80 50/50 tickets and the jackpot was split between Jack Barnes and Dan Clark.

      Silver Dollars were won by Ralph Bell and Ron Falk.

      Wayne Marvin won the big jackpot, the Silver Cache or, as some call it, "The Fish Bowl Treasure." There was a five month build up of silver, which was a nice bunch of coins! Wayne won by simply being in the right place at the right time!

      Turkey winners were John Wise and Eric Osborn.

      My notes from Connie say, "Name tag winner Greg Stonerock." I didn't need to win mine; it was just given to me. Rumor has it that Greg is very proud of his new name tag! Of course he was proud of that rusty pop can, too! Greg knows that I like to tease him.

     That reminded me of a couple funny things that I heard. On Saturday morning at 10:00 am on 104.1 FM, you can listen to Car Talk with Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers. Even if you don't care anything about cars and auto repair, these guys are very funny. Anyway, they came up with a new word for those of us who come out from shopping and haven't a clue where we parked our car - - - "Mall zheimers."

     My friend lives out in the country near the area where my grandmother owns 500 acres. He has a son who is in 3rd or 4th grade. He rides on the school bus past Grandma's house on the way home from school. It was the second day of Michigan's firearm deer season. While we were talking he turned to his dad, having just remembered something. He is a very special boy they adopted and, like my granddaughter, he is a special needs child.

    "Dad, I saw a 6-point buck on the bus this morning!"

     His father, Dale, snickered and then asked Curtis, "What was he doing on your bus?"

     Maybe you had to be there?

       Silas Harter, his wife and two young daughters had just returned home from Christmas Eve services at the small country church they attended. Each year the Sunday School classes would treat the congregation to a Christmas play. This was always followed by a joyous evening of singing Christmas hymns.

      It was 1898, the winter the Farmers Almanac had warned would be harsh! Harsh it was! The sleigh ride to church was through falling snow- snow flakes as big as goose down. It came down so hard that even the warm backs of the horses were covered!

      For the ride back home, the sky had cleared. In place of the clouds there was a full Christmas moon, and what looked to the girls like a million stars. Their delightful singing went on the whole way home. It was the perfect Christmas Eve, and all thoughts were on the birth of the Christ Child.

     After tucking the girls into bed, mother adjusted the oil lamp wick, then curled up under the blanket she was knitting. "I will see to the horses and bring in more wood for the stove," whispered Silas to his wife as he lifted his hat from the nail near the door.

     As he wandered back out into the night the full moon made the snow look like a sea of diamonds, and bitter cold made the snow squeak under each step. Yes it was the perfect night for a Christmas Eve. Silas was feeling very good about his family, the farm, and his plans for both.

     That night before entering church, one of this neighbors paid Silas in gold coin for his team of the finest plow horses in the county. A farmer was nothing without his team and anyone else would have felt unsettled about selling, but it was all part of a plan, or you could say a dream that Silas had.

      The dream started only a few short months ago at the Allegan County Fair. A dealer from the Kalamazoo area was there displaying one of the most beautiful pieces of machinery Silas had ever seen -- an engine powered by steam! It was an iron horse that could do the work of six teams of horses! The best part is, all you fed it was wood! Wood is something Silas would never run out of, it seemed. And best of all, you don't have to feed this iron horse during the winter months. The salesman demonstrated how the steam engine could be used to saw wood, plow the field, and even power a machine shop!

     "To be a successful farmer in the 1900's you must have a steam engine," warned the salesman. "Makes a lot of sense," thought Silas.

      As he reached inside the barn door, he felt for the lantern. As the lamp sputtered to life the darkness turned into the familiar barn he and his neighbors worked so hard to build. This was his kingdom; a retreat where he could get alone with just his thoughts as he repaired the equipment or cared for the animals.

      Silas walked to the far corner of the barn where he hooked the lamp over a long peg on an overhead beam. At his feet stood a large empty wooden barrel which he rolled to one side. Behind the barrel was a stack of burlap bags. He stooped and lifted them from the ground and placed them onto the barrel. With the manure shovel, Silas dug into the soft dirt floor until he heard a familiar clunk. Setting the shovel against a wall that hid him from view of the door, he crouched down and felt for the wire bail handle on the buried container . Sitting the can on a nearby work bench he emptied its contents.

      Laying before him was a large pile of gold and silver coins; over three thousand dollars to be exact and tonight he would add another $160.00---all in twenty-dollar gold pieces! After checking the total count, Silas returned the coins to the hidden underground safe and again covered the can with dirt.

      The little family had a wonderful Christmas -- a Christmas they would never forget!

      Before the spring frost broke and the steam tractor was purchased, the Lord called his servant, Silas, to be with him. The farm changed hands many times and eventually became rental property. Sadly, the landlord let it run down to the point of no return. All that is left today is a small pit that was the basement of the once cozy little farm house. There is no sign of the old barn. After it collapsed, the aged silver wood was sold and hauled away. The bank of dreams? It's held firmly by the roots of a beautiful oak tree just waiting to be found.