We have so much to be thankful for here in America. As I start this newsletter, it is Veteran's Day and one has to truly be thankful for America's finest. God has blessed this country with the finest military since its beginning!

    I turned 18 in July, 1969. That is when I was required to sign up for the draft. At the time, the war in Vietnam was really boiling. For me the whole idea of going to war and possibly being killed hung over me like a shadow, a dark shadow that even followed me to bed at night.

    When you are an 18 year old living in America, just out of high school, you feel invincible! However when you are qualified to fight in a deadly war, well, it really brings you back to reality! That wasn't a fear that first popped into my mind on my 18th birthday. No, that fear, or frightening black shadow, started to haunt me as early as age 15.

    That is something that the last two generations have not needed to worry about. I don't think most people had any idea of the stress many young men carried during this time. Because of pride, this fear was something that wasn't talked about. Early on in my family history there were many brave warriors, dating back to the Revolutionary War. My great x 5 grandfather, Martin Harter was the largest land owner in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. That land he received as payment for his service in the war. His great grandson, Martin Harter III, was also a brave soldier in the Civil War. He was mustered out of Kalamazoo.

    So what happened to me? I was afraid to go and I carried that fear through what should have been the best years of a young man's life. Then in December 1969, America held its first draft lottery since 1942. The lottery was televised and I missed the first 30 dates that were drawn.

    They had 366 ping-pong balls in a big bowl. On each of the balls was a month and date. If your date was drawn within in the first 30, you might as well start packing for boot camp! The first number drawn was September 14th, and the last number drawn, number 366, was June, 8th. My birthday, July 7th, was drawn as number 365.

    The headlines in a few newspapers actually announced September 14 as the lotto winner! That still drives me nuts! Frankly, I felt like I was the winner. Number 365 means there was no chance that I would be drafted! I did indeed feel like a winner and was ready to have a party! However, my attitude was to change quickly. I called each of my friends and every last one of them had very low numbers and, sure enough, they went to serve.

    That cloud went away for a few minutes but quickly returned, darker than ever! I didn't want to lose any of my buddies. The lottery affected the lives of 850,000. I don't, to this day, understand any advantage to having a lottery. You are hearing that from someone who had the best number possible... well almost!

    Today, my store is behind the local U.S. Army Career Center and the young men that I meet here are those who want to join our military and to defend this land! They are just amazing men! Former presidential candidate, John Kerry described this generation of soldiers as uneducated dummies. Well, that is pure hogwash! It is amazing to me that someone, who has desired the office of Commander and Chief could imply something that stupid.

    How often do you pray for our young men and women in uniform? Lately I have been praying for them more often than ever before. Also, I try to let them know how much I appreciate their service. Having matured over the last 38 years since I registered for the draft, I regret that I didn't do my share in service to my country.

Here are some interesting numbers that I found about the Vietnam war.

1. The youngest Vietnam KIA is believed to be Dan Bullock USMC, at 15 years old.

2. At least 5 men killed in Vietnam were 16 years old.

3. At least 12 men killed in Vietnam were 17 years old.

4. There are 120 persons who listed foreign countries as their home of record.

5. At least 25,000 of those killed were 20 years old or younger.

6. The oldest man killed was 62 years old.

7. More than 17,000 of those killed were married.

8. Veterans killed on their first day in Vietnam 997

    I had an incident in my life that appeared funny when it happened, but as I have thought back on it from time to time, it breaks my heart. One day, back in 1983, I took a phone call from a man who asked me many questions about the top-of-the line White's metal detector. He asked good questions, but I knew that I could do a better job of serving him if he came into the store. When I suggested that, he told me that he was in the Veteran's Hospital at Fort Custer. He told me that he would buy the detector and he wanted me to deliver it to the hospital.

    I took the detector to him and his directions were perfect! He even met me at the door and took me to his room. I could see that we needed more space to put the detector together and demonstrate it. He took me to a very large recreation room with a highly- polished wooden floor. Around the room, against the walls, there were men scattered about sitting on padded benches. Several of these men where in wheelchairs. As I looked around the room it was amazing; it was as if I wasn't even noticed by most of them! Many of the men in wheelchairs were sleeping.

    I assembled the detector on a vacant pool table. After I turned it on, I figured I would be demonstrating as the coil hung over the edge of the pool table. That was when I realized I had forgotten my plastic demo-strips with different good and bad targets glued in place on them. I picked up the detector and dipped the coil towards the floor. I was fully expecting it to respond to metal in the sub-floor, but it didn't! I swept the coil over the floor and I only got a spattering of noise from nails which were easily discriminated out.

    After demonstrating the basic tuning steps, it was time to hear some good targets. I removed some coins from my pocket and tossed them out onto the floor. There were two quarters, a dime and a nickel. They landed on the floor, almost on top of each other, so I walked over and was about to spread them apart with my foot. That was when I heard someone running toward me at full speed! I looked up, and as I did, a man went down into a feet-first slide! It was like he was sliding in at home plate!

    His slide almost came to a stop beside the coins, which he quickly picked up. In one smooth, fluid- motion, he was on his feet again and, and in two strides, he was back up to full- speed. He ran to the furthest corner of the huge room and into a chair! One of the nurses softly chuckled and offered to give me some more coins.

    Strange? You bet! There could be many things that would explain this young man's behavior. Most people suggested the man could have suffered a head injury and that could have happened on civilian time, after his service. Another friend suggested it could have been caused by long term drug use. But, you know what? It could have been the result of this man putting his life on the line to protect my freedom! It seemed funny at the time . . . until I had time to really think about it. Many times this memory has brought a tear to my eye.

    This Thanksgiving, the number 2 item on my list of things to be thankful for, along with my wife and family, are our veterans! The number one thing on my list of things to be thankful for is my Lord who gave His life for each one

of these special men and women.

God bless each of our veterans!

    I can hear some of you saying, "What's new about riding home with a turkey?" Now come on, let's be nice! After all this is the season for giving thanks. And what better time to thank God for the wonderful fellowship of friends and family.

    Each year our club treasurer puts on his pilgrim's hat and goes turkey tracking. After the lead flies, it's off to a chopping block, then hours of feather plucking! Next comes the real challenge: finding a way to stuff those fat birds into plastic Spartan bags so you will think they are store-bought!

    It is time to start thinking about paying your 2008 club dues. Dues must be paid before January first. If you can get your dues paid at this meeting, it would be a big help. I will insert a form for mailing in your dues in next month's newsletter. The address to mail your dues is:

John Dudley

55344 C.R. 384,

Grand Junction, MI 49056

Dues are still only $20.00 for single or family membership. Mail a check or money order made payable to:

S.W.M.S.S.

    Well fall is here and we have just seen our first frost. I hope everyone else is taking advantage of this almost perfect digging weather. The ground is like butter as far as digging goes, and the temps are nice and comfortable.

    Many say that when the ground is moist you can read targets deeper from the halo they put off, and a few say it is better in dry soil. I personally lean towards the moist soil producing better depth on targets. That being said let's get out there after those oldies while the getting is good!

    Looking back at 2006 we had an awesome year as a club, but 2007 is going to be hard to beat! We have seen many gold rings with diamonds, with several of them valued at over one thousand dollars. We have seen dozens of old coins dating back as far as the 1700's, also each month we see many very cool relics at the find of the month show. There is no telling from month to month what will show up at the table next. Keep on bringing in those awesome finds! It doesn't matter if yours will win or not, just that we all get to see it! So enter your best find in each category! Winning isn't the prize, that cool treasure you found is!

    This year more than any in the past we have seen new members and guests at every meeting. It is a joy to see new people at every meeting and then to see them join because they see how much fun we have as a club. Yes that means the club continues to grow with a paid membership of over 100 we are still one of the biggest detecting clubs in the USA! :) How cool is that! The kind of people our club has is 2nd to none! I have seen people show up an hour early for a meeting to get it all set up and then they leave and go to work. Is that dedication or what! It takes all of us to have such a great club, from the setting up to tearing down, planning events and so forth! I say thanks to you all for such a great club.

    Sorry about all the exclamation points!!!!! It just shows my excitement to lead such a great club! :)

    Lastly I will close by mentioning one of my favorite parts of the club. That is going out with different club members to go digging. This year I know I have hunted with no fewer than 24 members from the club. It is so much fun to go detecting with friends and share in the fun of what they find. Just recently I was there when different members found a (first). This year some of the firsts I seen dug were a two cent piece, a large cent, a barber dime, a gold ring, first Civil War relics, and the list goes on. To share in that excitement! It don't get much better than that! Be sure to get with me, or any other member if you would like to share in that kind of fun! Let's go digging! :)

    We had a great turnout for our October meeting! The new members and guests were: Sharon Gilmore and Wilma Brandt from Kalamazoo and Tracy Osborne, from Jackson. It was great to see our old buddy Rob Poth again!

    Rob is getting the old water hunting bug back, and he has been making some awesome finds! He found a silver class ring that was from the second year of Western Michigan University! It wasn't actually known as W.M.U. in those days! The university knows of only one other ring like this, and they plan to do a story in their alumni paper about Rob and his rare, collectable find!

    I was asked to mention that the club would like to do a photo presentation in the club's showcase. If you have treasure hunting photos that we can add to this display, please bring them to the meeting.

    Ken Mason and Tom Herman split the 50/50 prize! Ninety 50/50 tickets were sold! Gordon Samsell and Bruce Wood were both silver dollar winners! Ron Jenner was the website contest winner. You cannot talk about winners without mentioning Charles Turner, can you? Charles won the Silver Cache, AKA the Fish Bowl contest.

    OK, now that you have all set your clocks back, it's time to bring back Gene Carruther's favorite F.O.M. category! That's right! It is time for the Miscellaneous Contest! You may enter any special non-detecting find. It can be something you just inherited, found at a garage sale or a flea market. Like with all of our F.O.M. categories, you must have made your find, or acquired it, since the last meeting.

    I used to practically beg people to enter items, even if they didn't have a chance in the world of winning. By doing so, you encourage each of us and we in turn get a chance to encourage you. I still feel that way but something has changed . . . the club has really grown!

    The find of the month program takes longer then ever before, and the gals in charge of logging all of the finds are overwhelmed! Interestingly, doing the Find of the Month in the newsletter is the most time consuming part. It takes me nearly a whole day for that part alone.

COIN FINDS

1. 1874 Indian Head Cent                                       By: Mike Walker

2. 1899 Indian Head Cent                                       By: Tom Herman

 3. 1898 U.S. "V" Nickel                                        By: Brian Norgan

4. 1847 Large Cent                                         By: John Assenmacher

5. 1882 Indian Head Cent                                       By: Ron Osborne

6. 1911 Wheat Cent                                                  By: Sally Brown

7. 1921 U.S. Morgan Silver Dollar                           By: John Corbin

 8. 1898 U.S. Barber Dime                                       By: Bruce Wood

9. 1946 Silver U.S. Quarter                                 By; Deb Wittkowski

10. 1943 Mercury Dime                                             By: Ron Jenner

    Our winner was President Mike Walker with one of the most beautiful Indian head pennies that we have seen in a long time. If your Indian head penny is from the 1870's, it is also going to be rare! The one to find is the 1877. Mike's 1874 Indian head was graded by a coin dealer to be in Almost Uncirculated '50' condition. This means the first guy to own it was the last one to touch it. When you dig something out of the ground does that cross your mind? It give me goose bumps! Mike's coin is worth $150.00!

1. 14-K 2006 Class Ring                                        By: Mike Walker

2. Lady's Ring With Pink Stone                    By: John Assenmacher

3. 1932 High School Class Ring                             By: John Corbin

4. W.W.II Navy Submarine Pin                            By: Ron Osborne

5. Shoe Shaped Charm                                         By: Ernie Lawson

6. 14-K Gold Coin Ring                                      By: Ronald Jenner

7. Gold Ring with Amethyst                              By: Deb Wittkowski

    John Corbin's 1932 high school class ring was the crowd's favorite! My wife figured this person would have been born around 1915 and would be about 92 years old today. My grandmother is turning 94 this year. I feel certain this is a girl's class ring and there is a chance that she could be alive. The only clue we have is 'N-High School' and the date. Not much to go on. I purchased this ring from John and, if any of you detectives want to dig up the owner, I would be happy for them to have it. Perhaps 'dig up' is a bad choice of words.

1. Victorian Era Watch Fob                                   By: Mike Walker

2. 1924 Kalamazoo Dog License                            By: Tom Herman

3. Army Private First Class Pin                                  By: Ron Davis

4. Age of the Dinosaur Token                                  By: Sally Brown

5. Oklahoma Tax Token                                        By: Ron Osborne

6. Boy Scout Good Deed Token                          By: Deb Wittkowski

        My good friend Mihail Patov from Bulgaria showed us some of the oldest finds I have ever seen. One of his coin finds was from 350- BC! Could it be that Sally Brown's Age-of-the-Dinosaur token beats that? Could it have been lost by Barney Rubble? It's dated 100 million BC!

Our winner was Mike Walker's antique watch fob! Nice find, Mike!

1. 1800's Bridal Rosette                                 By: Mike Walker

2. Ornate Crotal Bell                            By: John Assenmacher

3. Antique Metal Kewpie Doll                         By: Sally Brown

4. Metal Tire Plug                                         By: Ron Osborne

5. Swiss Army Knife                                         By: Ron Jenner

6. Crotal Bell Charm                                 By: Deb Wittkowski

    About four years ago, in the late summer, a man came into my shop door carrying a wire milk crate full of old dairy bottles. I had never seen this man before and he confessed that he didn't know me, as part of his introduction.

    "I'm changing jobs and I have to move out of the state. I'm not going to have room to take these bottles with me and I can't bring myself to throw them away. I was told that you are a bottle collector. Would you like to have them?"

    Now isn't that so much easier than digging them? I don't know why, but I can't help but think that even just this much of the story is amazing. To this day, I wonder who told this man that I collect antique bottles and why didn't that person take them?

    Of course, I took the crate full of dairy bottles and I thanked him for them. Without saying another word he spun around and walked back to his truck. I carried the crate into my back room to store it with my tons of pack-rat junk.

    I love antique bottles, but for some reason I have never been a big fan of dairy bottles. I guess it's because they seem to be so much a part of my era. My grandfather's first job in Michigan was working for a dairy or creamery near Detroit making cottage cheese. He moved into the Otsego area and started his own business, the Michigan Cottage Cheese Company. He chose Otsego because there was an abundance of dairy farms.

    As his business grew, he had to look for more sources of milk. That is when he purchased a dairy in Albion,
Michigan. I asked my grandmother, who is 94, if she could remember the name of the dairy. She told me that she thought it was Albion Dairy Co-Op, but she wasn't sure. I went online to an Albion History web site by Frank Passic where he lists the following Albion dairies:

    Coldpack, Gem Dairy, Gold Top Dairy, Haven Hills Farm, Hearts Desire Dairy, Hicks Dairy, Home Dairy, Humphrey's Dairy, Kreger Dairy, Riverside Dairy, Starr Commonwealth for Boys, Sun Dawn Farm, and Sweeney. And he even said that there were more!

    Since doing my search of Albion, Michigan dairies, I have learned from my mother that it was the Albion Dairy Co-Op of Albion, Indiana! I have no idea how many dairies they had down there.

    I have a few dairy bottles that I am very fond of.. My stepfather, Howard Norton, gave me a perfect Holland's Dairy bottle which I don't think it ever had milk in it --- it is that perfect! It is a half- pint painted-label bottle that claims to be "Milk that is Milk." It pictures a little fellow delivering milk with a horse- drawn dairy wagon.

Howard used to work a Holland's dairy route in Otsego

in the Mid-1940's. Because of the war, the old Divco milk truck could not be replaced when the engine gave out. So, they removed everything ahead of the firewall and rigged up a swivel axle and two wagon shafts to harness a horse to. Howard told me that as soon as the horse left the dairy he was on auto-pilot! He knew every stop and every turn without any help from the delivery driver.

Carl Holland, the owner of Holland's dairy, is still living in Otsego and is a very good friend of mine.

    But generally, I'm not out there looking for milk bottles. One winter's day, when my business was slow, I grabbed my camera and took some photos of a few of those bottles with my plan of putting them on e-Bay. Most of the bottles were self explanatory because of the labels or embossing. In other words, they had the dairy name, the city and state clearly stated.

    That was true for all but one tiny little half-pint bottle where the only embossing was just three letters and three dots. "C.C.B." I knew that there would be only one guy who could help give me the information that I needed about this mystery bottle. That person was Steve DeBoode! Actually, as I think back, it was John Pastor who pointed me to Steve. Regardless, Steve really was a huge help.

    I e-mailed Steve and told him what I had, and he told me that he also has one of these bottles in his collection. He went on to say that his C.C.B. bottle is the only one that he has ever seen. From his research, Steve was able to tell me that the dairy was located in Ionia County, and he was sure that the bottle was rare. Armed with that information, I started the auction on e-Bay.

    In the title for my auction, I mentioned the key words: C.C.B., Dairy bottle, half-pint, Ionia County, Michigan. The auction was only a couple hours into it's seven-day span when a fellow e-Bayer sent me a message telling me that this wasn't only from Ionia County, but he was able to pin the location down even further by telling me that the small dairy was located at Lake Odessa, MI.

    You want to include as many key words in your auction title and auction body as possible. Certain collectors type in key words to do a quick search of e-Bay instead of spending hours looking everywhere. For example, I am interested in stuff from Otsego Michigan. If I type in "Otsego" I will get a big string of auctions and 98% will be from Otsego, New York. If I type in "Otsego MI" that weeds out a lot of stuff that I am not interested in. The eventual auction winner's favorite key search-word was, "Lake Odessa MI"

    I was lucky to not have any bids yet, so, I was able to edit my auction page and title to include the important key words "Lake Odessa." This auction didn't get off to a fiery start, but by the time that the last day of the auction had started, the little bottle topped the $100 mark! That evening when the final bid was in, the last bid was around $375!

    I have forgotten the name of the dairy's owner, but the dairy's name was his initials and his first name was Charles.

    The winning bidder had some very serious competition out there! He told me that it was far more than he would liked to have paid and, like me, he was shocked that the little bottle could be so valuable!

    This e-Bay winner was not a bottle collector, but clearly he was bidding against some. Even though he lived here in Michigan, he wanted me to send the bottle to his mother in South Carolina. He made me swear an oath, not to put any type of receipt in the box because he didn't want his mother to know how much he paid for the bottle! C.C.B. was her father and the buyer's grandfather!