12. Fool’s gold and the magic carburetor

plus 50,000 zip-loc bags

Hello friends,

Get-rich-quick schemes have probably been around since the invention of money. Lust for gold — one of the early forms of money — has probably been around even longer.

The 19th-century gold rush centered in San Francisco, the seat of banking and supplies for miners in the foothills. Levi’s jeans were invented for gold miners — and I spent two years in my 30s working at Levi Strauss headquarters in San Francisco. The city is still prone to the “gold rushes” of the more recent technology age: the late 90s internet boom, the NFT craze, cryptocurrency, and even the get-rich-with-an-email-newsletter hype on this email platform, Substack, which is headquartered in SF.

Living here most of my adult life — and witnessing the get-rich obsessions of my stepfather — has taught me not to believe the hype. My skepticism began during our winter in Arizona, the year I turned 12.

Fool’s Gold

In the fall of 1983, we drove West in the 1969 Dodge pickup outfitted with black toolboxes lining the sides and a gold dredge in the bed. The truck towed an 18-foot camper trailer manufactured in the 1960s. Pat and Marian Boudreault and their young daughter Alicia (pictured above) traveled with us in a copper-colored comfort van with a teardrop-shaped window.

The summer before, Papa had begun dredging for gold in the Wild Ammonusuc River. He found a few nuggets and wanted bigger ones, and thought Arizona was the place to find them. What he didn’t know is that the lack of water in Arizona means dredging isn’t the best method to find gold.

After touring the Superstition Mountains and predictably finding more superstitions than gold, we parked the camper at the KOA Kampground in Tombstone. Papa spent a month building a carburetor from mail-order instructions. It was supposed to yield 80 miles to the gallon of gas for the truck, allowing us to travel further and longer on less money.

The magic carburetor failed on its inaugural family trip, leaving us stranded with smoke spewing from the engine in the middle of a long stretch of empty southern Arizona desert road. A good Samaritan drove us to Sierra Vista, where Pat Boudreault picked us up after a day working his job as a heavy equipment operator.

The failed carburetor and the failed gold quest turned to plastics. Papa bought a lot of 50,000 zip-loc bags — the mini bags (2”x3”) that gem and jewelry dealers use to store little stones and pairs of earrings — which we brought to the massive annual Quartzsite gem show. I bought that chunk of pyrite (Fool’s Gold) in the picture above at Quartzsite, and the road runner pin was a gift for my birthday that year. I’ll never know how much Papa made off that lot of zip-locs, but I do know that we always had plenty in the years to come, and they would come to store different types of substances.

We finished the winter in Florida, back at his sister’s property. It wasn’t easy for me, being homeschooled for 7th grade and constantly on the move to these odd places. My posture in this picture, taken at a stop in Cape Cod on the way back to New Hampshire, sums it up. They were having fun; I was exasperated.

Did your parents ever get into any schemes? What impact did they have on you?

Shortcuts are a myth

It’s true that some people put in a bit of work and seem to have special magic that makes them rich. It’s also true that many of these people had major backing, some unnamed source of support, or perhaps their stars were aligned in some special configuration.

I see life as more like going on a hike: one foot in front of the other, with no shortcuts, because a straight line up the mountain is brutal hiking. Driving to the top of the mountain ruins the reward (and the road spoils the view). And a helicopter spoils the experience for everyone else.

Tennessee Valley, Marin Headlands, March 29, 2025

Some of the spring views I saw this weekend above Tennessee Valley were drivable by military personnel during World War II, but now the road is disintegrated and walking or biking is the only way to get this expansive glimpse of San Francisco, the Pacific Ocean, and the abundant wildflowers popping up everywhere. A life can be rich in simple experiences of nature, and wacky stories of a stepfather’s schemes. Whoever said a rich life has to be about having lots of money?

Looking toward San Francisco over Rodeo Beach

May you experience the richness of life’s simple things this week.

Love,

Lee Ann

The harlequin flower, a South African plant growing wild in the Marin headlands.