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Well howdy folks, It's finally that time again to inform you with another riveting newsletter from the middle of now where. If you're keeping track of these don't be a lookin for unlucky 13. Thought I'd save everyone from a terrible fate by scootin right on up to lucky #14. Now that you're all feeling lucky this might be the time to check out the Gold Point Ghost Town Gambling Hall on the website. You can play for fun or money. Check it out or e-mail it to some of your friends who like to play on line. Good Luck to ya!!!! Now that the commercial is over let's get started shall we. After all I haven't wrote to you all year. Hope you're all having a good year so far. I know mine is goin pretty good. Gold Point's is starting off all right also. First let's get into the donations. A fellow paper hanger at work, Bob, and his wife donated a wonderful realistic artificial christmas tree with all the trimmings. Lots and lots of lights and ornaments came in a couple of other boxes. It even had little pine cones on it. Red Dog used it and said she'd use it every year from now on. From Marith and Jim in Vegas we received an antique scale, a cigar cutter, some would call it a John Wayne Bobbit cutter also, and two very old fans. These items are hanging in the Saloon for all to admire. The Spearmint Rhino Gentlemen's Club in Las Vegas generously gave us a couple of beautiful blue eyed blondes. Sorry, just kidding. They gave us a badly needed 8 foot long beer cooler and a tall coke cooler. Both will be used to keep the liquid refreshments chilled for our parties. Steve, a contractor for them, and Bruce, kind of a local neighbor who lives in Lida Canyon, who is their maintenance man were instrumental in this gift. A month or so ago we finally got the 4000 gallon tanker brought here that was donated by Nye County to the Gold Point Fire Busters. We just got more freezer space for food and ice. Carl and Theresa, good friends and Drifters members, donated half the cost for this. A big thank you, it was much needed. Dan, Peg, and their boys, Drew and Bob, have been coming over on weekends to help with a lot of clean-up and hauling trash. This has been a big help...a big thanks to them all. He's even got "Ol' Yeller", a 1945 military jeep, runnin, so Sheriff Stone can run around Gold Point like Roy Rogers used to do in his jeep, "Nellie Belle". They also plan on donating a lot of their time and energy helping with the festivities. Dan has donated a Duster as a raffle prize. Next weekend we all are going to the oldest settlement in Nevada to pick up another fire truck. John, a friend from the tiny town of Genoa gave us a heads up on the possibility of a nice 1974 Seagraves Fire Truck. We wrote to Bill the Fire Chief up there and to the Douglas County Commissioners asking about it. To make a long story short---They donated it to us. They are even loading it with as much equipment as they can and putting our name and logo on it as well. Our friend and Drifter member, Theresa, took a black and white emblem and colored it in on the computer and Sandy forwarded it to the print shop that does the lettering for the equipment up there to see if it could be used as it was or the printer could play with it and make it usable. Bill kept calling Sandy back cause his district chief kept coming up with more great ideas. His name slips my mind at the moment but will report on it again later and will have his name for you then. After the Genoa Fire Department cooks breakfast next Saturday morning they will give us some training on it before we make the long drive back to Gold Point. Our friend and Commissioner, Ben "Boom" Viljoen will be meeting us up there for the presentation of the truck. I will be giving you a lot more information on it in the next newsletter. We had two small film crews up here last month. One from Russia and the other from Australia. The Russian couple was making a documentary on a ghost town for Russian television. They spent the weekend here interviewing everyone on camera. Then did some filming and interviewing of me on the streets of Las Vegas. They then came back up the following weekend for some more filming. We gathered up all the High Desert Drifters we could find and played out a skit for them. I'm lookin forward to a copy of the video. The Australian company is doing an eight part series on different towns around America for the Discovery Travel Network. I hope I got that right. Anyway, they are doing a special on Las Vegas and were looking for a town that might have resembled what Vegas may have looked like had it not been for the Railroad, Gambling and Hoover Dam. We were the most authentic looking for the part. They did a lot of filming around the Gold Point and a lot more inside the Saloon where we were all in costume sitting around gambling and drinking. Can't wait for this video either. They believe it will be shown later this year in the fall. The middle of April finds us being invaded by E. Vitus Clampus. For short title, the Clampers. Hope I got that right. I'm sure one of them will correct me if I'm wrong. They are the Las Vegas Chapter and will be erecting and dedicating one of their famous historical monuments and plaques here by the old Gold Point Post Office. There should be around 60 of them here for a couple of days. They are even going to make me a member. Now we can be an official Clamper watering hole. Now before I get into talkin about the chili cook-off, I got to let you know what Pat has been doing around here. First he extended the porch on the side of the Saloon another 16 feet. This will accommodate the Classic Rock & Roll band. The rest of the original porch is for the two Bluegrass bands. He has made two more large picnic tables and benches for the larger crowd that is coming this year for the festive, festival, festivities. This weekend he is working on making a dozen old shipping grate boxes out of redwood. They are actually garbage can hiders/holders. We have done away with the old red 55 gallon drums. Seems we are getting to old to lift those heavy things when they get filled with trash. The new ones will have a removable lid and a galvy can inside with a trash liner inside it to tie up and remove. This way even old ladies can help out keeping them empty. Finally, the best thing he has done is finish sprucing up the House of Rude Information and Ticket Office. He even put in the old teller cage bars that Gary from Vegas donated at the first chili cook-off. This building is located right next to the gallows. It even has a small porch around it. We will use this for meal ticket sales and raffle ticket sales. Sodas for the kids can even be purchased here. This should take a lot of work away from the busy bartenders inside the Saloon. We've also cleaned out one of our storage cabins and are goin to buy 4 old military type bunks beds to put in for our helpers. A man named Cook once owned it. It's now appropriately called the Cook's Bunk House. lol. Well now it's time to tell you a little about this years 3rd Annual Firemen's Benefit Chili Cook-off this Memorial Day Weekend. The dates are May 28th, 29th, 30th and 31st. Ok, go write those dates down on a big piece of paper and stick it on your refrigerator. I'll wait a while to give you time- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -ok, that's good. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd place trophies in both categories have been made and are sitting in the Saloon. Awards Plus in Pahrump made them for us. They did an outstanding job and even donated an upgrade in them making them way better and bigger than we originally ordered. I will attempt to describe 1st place to you. It has a large wooden base with a 2 inch column rise from each corner about 20 inches to another wood base. On the four corners sit four gold chili pots. In the middle and on the bottom of the first wood base sitting on top of a column is a fireman holding his hose. Coming up from the middle of the top wood base is another tall column. Sitting on top of this is a loving cup. On top of that is a big 1st. From top to bottom the trophy is 40 inches. In addition to the trophies we are going to give out 4th thru 10th place Gold & Silver Medals with red, white & blue ribbons to wear around your neck. These will be presented in both categories also. The 4 bands have been booked. This year we have two Bluegrass bands, Blue Diamond Highway and Stuck in reverse, the country duo Gold Rush and a new classic rock and roll band from Hawthorne, Moab. This year the music will start first thing in the morning with breakfast and not stop till at least midnight and both Saturday and Sunday. Gold Rush with Corey and Joannie will also play Friday night. In addition to the ragged ole flag, including soundtrack, auction we will be auctioning off to the highest bidder an organ and a video poker machine. Linda from channel 41 in Pahrump will be helping with the ticket pickin during band changes in this years drawing. We hope to have another year with over 100 prizes. By the way, Linda is going to be our official "Miss Hot Stuff" this year and will be mixing with the crowd all weekend. April 26th she is having us on her morning show to help promote the Chili Cook-off. If you live in Pahrump be sure to catch us Monday morning. Gold Rush is also supposed to make an appearance. This years grand prize drawing is a Model 1897 Winchester Pump Shotgun made in 1937. It is a highly collectable Trench Gun. I looked it up in the blue book of guns and the value is $1000.00 This was provided by one of our gang members, Monolito Morales Gonzales Gonzales Gonzales. You have to be present to win this at 7 p.m. Sunday night and you could win this for as little as $1.00 I'm going to have Cindy, the winner of last years Model 94 Winchester 30-30 Rifle, pull the winning ticket for this years grand prize. The Flag ceremony is set for around 11:30 a.m. Sunday. As far as we know the Sea Cadets from Nellis are going to be here as a color guard leading in the two large American Flags. If you can only make it up one day of the whole weekend I would not miss Sunday the 30th. This is when everything is happening. We have made the bar-b-que dinners Saturday and Sunday night very simple to keep the cost down to $10.00 Saturday night is marinated beef tri-tips and Sunday is choice center cut top sirloins. Both meals come with all you can eat Sheriff Stone Fries, baked beans, corn and green beans and a drink token. Breakfast and lunch will also be available. This year the entry fee for the Chili Cook-off is $40.00 $20.00 goes into the prize fund, the rest goes to help pay some of the expenses such as trophies, medals and badges. With your entry fee you get a free Gold Point Volunteer Fire Busters Sponsor t-shirt and a badge. You can get your chili entry form and a flyer just by e-mailing us and asking. Our good friend and Drifter member, Cindy, has worked real hard on the new poster and entry form for this year. She is a real wiz on the puter at this kind of thing. Thanks Cindy, your talent really shows. So, if you want to see how far our little fire department has come in a year, come on out and see what it's all about. Happy Trails and Sunsets, Sheriff Stone &/or Red Dog Lil |
