More on Why We Love This Business

Last night I spent a delightful evening at the Hearts on Fire dinner at the Centurion Jewelry Show. I sat with jewelers Pat and Kim Murphy of Murphy Jewelers in Pottsville and Hamburg, Pa., and Scott and Kelly Wickam of Goldsmith Gallery Jewelers in Billings, Mont. We got onto the usual topic of why non-jewelry people think jewelry people are nuts, and why we think checking out jewelry stores on vacation is perfectly normal behavior. We also talked about how great it is to have friends from places you’d never go otherwise.

Halfway through dinner, Pat tapped on my arm.“This would make a great story for the magazine,” he said. “You have to write about how Scott and I met on an IJO [diamond buying] trip to Belgium and became best buddies.” I’ll leave it to Pat and Scott to fill in the details, but let’s just say that pub-crawling in Antwerp is a central theme. And, of course, as with any discussion of Antwerp, we debated the relative merits of Del Rey vs. Leonidas chocolates (Del Rey wins hands-down in my book).

Meanwhile, thanks to the Murphys and myself, a good many people in this industry have been turned on to Yuengling beer, which is America’s oldest brewing company—still family owned—and based in Pottsville. See, I grew up in Pottsville too, and aside from being proud of one of my hometown’s most famous exports (the other being those way-chic bullet-shaped industrial garbage cans from United Receptacle), Yuengling makes the best lager on the planet.

I’ve known Pat and Kim for a really long time. They moved next door to us shortly after they got married, when I was still in high school. Murphy Jewelers was then and still remains our family jeweler.Pat and Kim and I had many of the same teachers in high school, went to many of the same party spots (and, later, many of the same parties, period) and Kim’s cousin Robin was my college roommate.

Then the conversation turned to the subject of boilo, a local libation that is to Pottsville what grappa is to Italy. Made with citrus fruit, cinnamon, and grain alcohol, its potency falls somewhere between grappa and rocket fuel. Seems Kim makes a wonderful version and now many of their vendors not only demand she have it on hand when they visit, they’ve also asked her if she can bottle it and ship it out for their internal company meetings!

Talk then turned to the palladium mine outside Billings. I’m angling for a chance to go see it. I like visiting mines, and I’ve always wanted to go to Montana. I also want to go to Rapid City, S.D., to see Mt. Rushmore (and, of course, visit the Black Hills gold companies in the area). It goes without saying that if I do get to the mine, a visit to Scott and Kelly will be a key part of the trip and Kelly even promised we can drive over to Rapid City, a mere five or six hours away. (Apparently that’s the equivalent of “just around the corner” to a Montanan).

All part of this wacky, crazy industry we all love.