Category: Uncategorized

Every Sunday around four o’clock I have a date with a now almost 16 month old. Her name is Sofia. On Thanksgiving day of 2018, MK and I were walking out of a typical family gathering on a perfect November afternoon. The scene was familiar, 20 people gathered in a driveway all saying goodbye after a feast and football. I looked over at MK who was on the phone crying. “What’s wrong”? She took about a minute to get out this sentence— “Stephanie is pregnant”. You could have knocked me over with a spitball. Our then 45 year old daughter…

I can never remember a time when I couldn’t swim. I do remember during a “polio epidemic” in the early 1950’s my parents saying “we can’t do swimming because of polio”. Then came the vaccine and standing in line at Ben Franklin Elementary with 100’s of folk to get our shots. We were members of a local swimming club and almost every day in the summer we would ride our bikes to the Belmont Club to spend hours in the pool. In the winter we went to the YMCA. I was never a fast swimmer but I could go for…

My dad Bill and his brother Paul, were 12 and 8 when their parents told them they were putting them on a train to Greeley, Colorado.  Their parents were native Coloradoans who had gone to Bellingham, Washington to start a business.  In 1932 they lost everything and had to send their boys to live with relatives in Weld County.  The brothers rode the train by themselves to a place they had only heard about. By 1934 Paul and Opal (my grandparents) had relocated to Colorado Springs.  They lived in an old Victorian home on North Royer Street.  I can still…

On August 1st I celebrated 33 years in recovery. It’s always a challenge to talk about alcoholism, particularly my own 24 years of alcoholic drinking, and its consequences. AA is clear that anonymity is a personal choice. I debated as to whether I should tell this bit of “my story”. Hey, it’s my blog and the gratitude I feel is something I want to share. I was not looking for recovery, it found me. Alcohol is a strange substance. Nine out of ten adult drinkers do not have a problem with the addictive qualities of C2H5OH. However for the 10%…

This week I had the privilege of spending four days in Avon, CO (Eagle River Valley) with my grandson Miko. He turned 20 this week. He was born smack in the middle of 2000. We talked about being 20. “20 is age Purgatory, you are too old to be a teen, and too young to claim any benefit of being an adult” mused Miko.The fact that he wanted to hang out with his grandpa is his birthday gift to me. From his days as toddler to now this young guy, puts a smile in my heart. When he was in…

In 1953 my grandparents Paul and Opal, took a four year old Me on a very memorable road trip.  They came down from Colorado Springs to pick me up on a tour through Colorado.  The first stop was at a town I vividly remember by its smell, Pagosa Springs.  The natural mineral hot springs put out a distinctive “rotten egg” sulphur aroma that indelibly left its imprint on my olfactory memory.  This week the moment I pulled into Pagosa Springs the file was opened into 67 years of numerous visits in this most special 7345’ mountain valley, tucked on the…

It was a Colorado spectacular last Sunday of October in 1998. There was a buzz on at the church, and we were headed after worship to a Bronco game.  Mary Kay got a phone call from her brother Dan.  Her face fell, I knew something was wrong. “My Dad was hit by a car and he is in surgery”. He was making his usual Sunday rounds taking communion to ‘shut-ins’ and was one block from home when a truck came over a hill way too fast and broadsided Joe.  We gave our Bronco tickets to our daughter Amy and headed…

Last Wednesday we drove to Colorado Springs to have a life time friend do our taxes. South of Castle Rock, a red warning light came up on my dash— YOUR TRANSMISSION IS OVERHEATING SLOW DOWN. This is sort of like getting an almost flat tire while driving to Dental 911. We feathered the car in to The Springs, the light went off and we got our taxes done. Now to deal with a sick car. Red was a 2014 Outlander Sport with 161,455 miles on it. This car has been a supporting actor in this blog. Nearly 9,000 different people…