We traveled along the old mining trail, now a highway, through the rugged, granite mountains to the old mining town. In front of the once blue wood-planked hotel, where rumor had it Old Doc Holiday once lived and died, he sat.

Old miners’ boots, traces of years of old mud and years’ worn. Turned up cuffs on the faded blue denim jeans, waste-high, with a cracked, black leather belt holding in the once-red plaid flannel long sleeved shirt.

The aged, swollen hands loosely hanging from his sleeves on the arms of the dark wooden chair, showed the years of hard work through the sun-darkened, deeply creviced skin.

Looking into his face, his deep-set, hooded black eyes with a bulbous red nose between, stared emptily towards us. Deep gouges creased his brown porous skinned face and neck with years of living on this unkind planet. Long silver white thinning hair peeked from under the wide brimmed straw hat, a black with silver coins hat band crowning his head.

He was old; as he began to speak, we all sat and listened to the stories of the miner’s past.