Going for the Gold

I have been watching the Winter Olympics a bit.   The Winter Olympics are one of the only sporting events that I find truly interesting.  Most of the events are filled with great feats of flight and fury.  I think I am also attracted by the personal stories from all across the world.  Stories of great victory.  Stories of mighty struggles.  Stories with deep human elements.  I am amazed by the effort—sometimes well more than a decade of constant practice and pursuit—that some athletes will expend simply to compete for gold in the Olympics.

The story of Evgeni Plushenko is illustrative.  At the age of 31 and long suffering from injuries, including a back surgery in which a synthetic disk was inserted into his spine to replace one damaged by the rigors of men’s figure skating, Plushenko still hit the ice for Olympic gold.  Plushenko led the Russians to a gold medal in the first ever team figure skating event, but later dropped out of men’s figure skating competition as his back problems flared once again.

But the pursuit of gold carried him through that first team figure skating event.  

As I watched repeated replays of Evgeni Plushenko struggling to skate just prior to dropping out of the competition due to his back injury, I thought about another more miraculous quest for gold that I witnessed here in Montana.   Put more precisely, I have seen gold cure men of complete disability.

A few years ago, when the price of gold escalated beyond $1,000.00 per ounce, miracles occurred.    Several men that I know who have been many years on permanent disability (with handsome benefits) for back injuries so severe they were incapable of working were apparently cured by the price of gold.  They were able to secretly go out and work a placer mine.  They dug deep into the rocky ground with their shovels.  They carried buckets of water and diggings.  They hoisted and lugged and dragged all manner of items in the quest for gold.

Fortunately, for all parties, the agencies paying their disability benefits were unaware of their cure.  When the quest for gold turned out to be actual work and only occasional specs of gold appeared in their fines, the would-be miners once again realized they were incapable of work and fell back to a life of suffering and complete disability.

Such is the quest for gold.

--Mitchell Hegman