That Elusive Golden Screw

[HARDCORE]

12-5-2023

Legend has it that ‘Gold’ is where you find it, and I do remember that away back into my youth, and at a time when “The Gold Bug” had sunk its fangs deeply into the flesh and the imaginations of many s wandering ‘Los Angelino’, that I use to travel with my father (the sixty or so miles) into “The San Gabriel Mountain Range of Los Angeles County”, on one of our many forays out into the backcountry of L.A., searching for a dream, a little fresh air, almost invisible gold-strikes and even as an escape from reality itself!

But like most of we transplanted, “Post World War Two - Road Jockeys” we too were just intrigued by the tales of treasure and lost mines that almost titillated, the imaginations of every “geographical-transplant” who was ever drawn into this area after “The Big War” and who dreamed of things that never really were, save for those that are found in “Dime Novels” and within the fertile imaginations (and the dreams) of fools?

But onward we came (by the millions), hats in hand, and bitten by that same “Old Bug of Wanderlust” that had enthralled “Our Forefathers” before us (time and time again), and in eons that have long since vanished! And naturally, and just like our illustrious ancestors before us, we often had more dreams than could ever be housed within the confines of common sense and more aspiration than we had real brains!

But, once again, onward we came, in a thundering migration and in search of “That Golden Screw That (of late)”, has seen many of those wander-hungry pioneers, fleeing back to their places of birth, disillusioned (but far wiser), after having finally come to grips with the ghosts of those things that never really were!

Now don’t get me wrong, we adventurous fools were not alone in our quest to discover bigger and better things, as the woods after ‘The Big War’ were alive with those modern-day explorers who were also in search of the very same dreams, but as it is with most illusions, the fantasy soon began to wear thin, and the reality and disillusionment of that reality also began to take hold of our waistlines and our imaginations!

And so it was, with many of those searchers for wealth and fame, prompting many of us to realize that “Horace Greely” was all wet in his analogy of “Go West Young Man?”

And granted, there were also those who actually found their golden horde “West of the Rockies”, but many more merely settled down into a life of hard work and short supplies, eventually melting into that gigantic cauldron that encompasses “The Vast Pacific West Coast!”

But where does one go when reality finally does catch up to fantasy and wishful thinking?

“Go East Young Man perhaps?” But alas, the only thing that ever rises in the east – is “The Sun Itself!”

Finally, and getting back to the theme of this meandering piece of hodgepodge (The Golden Screw), although it is exceedingly true that most screws do indeed turn in but a single direction, it is also just as true, that the mind and the imagination of mankind - is forever searching for bigger and better things! And just maybe, it is this pox and disenchantment with the status-quo that draws mankind into his quest for a better life?

This was, after all, the reason why men like ‘Christopher Columbus and even John Cabot’
laid it all upon the line to venture into uncharted-waters in search of “El Dorado” was it not? Just as much so, in fact, as humanity now finds it essential to journeys to the stars and beyond, still in search of the great unknown?

And for as long as our race of beings still exists within this restricted quadroon of space and time, it should be clearly understood by us all, that the word “Satisfied” will never become a functioning part of our human-reasoning? And after all is said and done, maybe “El Dorado Itself” is really not all that far-fetched, and even possibly, “Maybe That Mythical Golden Screw” that binds us all together in today’s reality, is actually hidden just beyond the very next turn in human evolution? And possibly it is even sequestered (and neatly hidden) within that place in time and space - that no mortal being can ever truly find?

Hardcore