Adventures In The Mountains ...

In June 1988, Lisa, Jimmy and I travelled up to Estes Park, driving I-70 past the Coors plant in Boulder, checking out a Lookout spot. It was the most fun weekend I remember we ever had.  

Jimmy loved to fish, so I believe that is why we went to Estes Park.  That was the prettiest park with a lake I have ever seen in my life.  I don't recall me catching anything, though I tried.   I do remember there being a water moccasin in the lake near where Jimmy was fishing.  I was freaking out.  At that time I hated even seeing a snake, I had a severe snake phobia then.  It never got on the bank where we were, but I kept a distance from that sucker. 

We didn't stay long at Estes Park, just long enough to smell the fresh mountain air and see the blue sky.  I loved being in the mountains, so different from my suburban home back in Missouri.   Where I am from is quite humid in the Summer and Colorado is anything but humid.  Instead of air conditioners as I am used to, they had swamp coolers.  They might look similar, but where air conditioners aim to remove humidity in the air, swamp coolers put humidity back in the air.  This is important, because too dry of air can give one sinus problems, and for me I got bloody noses a lot the first few months I lived there.

Now I am not 100% sure what camp ground we ended up going to for the weekend, but I do know that it was over 11,000 feet up in altitude.  Things are a little different that far up, little less oxygen and that has a weird affect on some.  Also it seems like you can touch the starts up that high.  And the sun is bearing down on you differently than at lower elevations like in St Louis. 

We found a campsite, pitched a tent and started a campfire.  Jimmy was really good at starting the fires and barbecuing as well.  We had plenty to eat, some adult beverages to consume, and Jimmy liked telling stories so he told us a freaky story.  I myself was a little weird from the word go as a child, in that I was fascinated with fires.  My dad used to make them in the BBQ pit and then wave his hands over the fire, as to look like they were going to be confused.  Jimmy didn't do that but his fire was good and roaring and putting off a lot of heat.  And I just the loved the look of it and the sound of the crackling it made. 

While we had the fire going so well, I hadn't noticed that the temperature was dropping .... really low.  When we had gotten there in the middle of the day it was probably in the 80s in Denver, but 70s or so in the Mountains.  At the campsite, apparently it had dropped into the 40s.  Can you say freezing?  We finally turned in for the night, Jimmy and Lisa in one huge sleeping bad, me in my own.  But by the middle of the freezing cold night, I had to join them, because it was SO darn cold, I was suffering a bit from hypothermia.  I couldn't sleep and we all three huddled together until the sun broke.  We put everything in the car and drove back down the hill.   And that is when my first ordeal with the changing elevation affected my ears .... really bad.   

My ears popped a lot coming down, and they were hurting so much.  When we got back home, I wasn't feeling well.  I eventually had to go see a doctor and have him check to see what the heck was going on there.  I found out I had a sinus infection and a blocked ear drum, that was what was causing the pain.  Jimmy had tried to help me by putting some oil in my ear, but that didn't help, and it was a little too warm to bear in my sensitive ear.  I was lucky that without medical insurance I could find a doctor that wouldn't charge me too much to be seen.  When I was in my early 20s, insurance wasn't anything I ever really worried about.   That of course changed as the years rolled on.   

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Another time we went up in the mountains but this time it was in the winter.  We went up there and hung around Dillon Colorado.   Someone Lisa knew had a cabin or something like that up there that we girls would stay at.  One night we found a bar at the bottom of one of the ski slopes near Vale and I watched out the window at the skiers coming down the mountain and then they'd get on a ski lift to go back up and do it all again.  I couldn't ski, I had the weakest ankles.   Me and gizmos like skis wouldn't get along anyways, I was a known klutz with athletic equipment.  LOL.   But that was a pretty fun time, it was cold and snowy and slick outside.  Seems I was worried the entire drive we might slip off the mountain roads and head to our untimely deaths off the mountainside.  Obviously that didn't happen....I'm here to write about it.   

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Another time we went to Red Rocks Amphitheater, which is a venue carved out of the mountains in Morrison CO, where of course the Earth is red and rocky.  I don't remember who we saw, but it was most certainly a rock group of some sort.  I would be up there again a few years later and it looked the same.  At that time Lisa took me there and we saw Tesla and someone that opened for them.  Up until this point I had always thought it was Lifehouse, but I did some Internet searches and found that was not the case.  Could have been Poison, they did tour with Tesla back then.  I remember that back in 1992 I was more interested in Country music, so I wasn't thrilled with Lisa's music choice for a musical evening out, but in the end it was a fun time, and that Amphitheater has awesome acoustics!   

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The only other visit to the mountains I remember was with my bosses family when I worked at BMW Financial.   He had a cabin in the mountains outside of Aspen.  His daughter Coleen drove us up there and we enjoyed a night of dinner, drinking and stories.  And that the only bathroom was an outhouse.  Was that ever interesting for this "city" girl.   The roads winded and winded around slowly up that mountain, it was the most interesting drive I remember.   At points only one car could go up or down at a time on the road.  I would never have driven that....not then, not now.  Heights and narrow roads are not my friends.   :-)  

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.....thinking about times gone by and the many adventures I had had back then, I often wonder why I never wrote about these then.   It surely would have made remembering things now a bit easier.  But when you are young, as I was then, you often just live life and don't think about the future.  You think you are invincible, and not going to die, and not going to get old.  What silliness that all is!   We all have to die, most of us age and age until we get pretty old before that happens.  Why not write down some things for prosperity and for memory's sake?   You never know if you're going to want to write an autobiography or a blog for all to read.    And there is STILL more to share.  Keep on reading. 

  

One of my pics taken circa 1987 or 1988 in foothills of the Rockies. 

Love those red rocks!

Omission Of Mistakes....

I'm pausing again, this time to state that I am skipping a few stories from my life in Colorado.  Telling my part of the story, what I did wrong or went adrift in life, is not the problem.  The issue is that I don't wish to bring up every fault and failing of others.  I have tried to only state small transgressions of others, nothing so over the top that would create controversy here.  Other people's lives are always involved in a story when they meet your life in the story.   So consideration of how they might feel to have their past broadcast here is important to me.  I have to state some things, otherwise there could be no story to be said.  But I try very hard to choose my wording carefully.   

I am putting my reputation out there, that is my choice.  That was my choice from the beginning with this blog.   The couple of years in Colorado I am discussing now were eventful nearly all the time.  It was the biggest learning time in my life...   I wasn't a saint, I wasn't always helpful, and I certainly wasn't always selfless in considering my motives of things.  It took me a long time to get beyond me, my wants, my manipulations, my concerns, my self-centeredness.  And truth be told, living in Colorado was just one big saga of me being concerned about me, and running away from growing up really.  

So with that being said, I promise to tell you of some of the more interesting parts of my experience.   I do enjoy trying to remember some of the details.  And where I cannot recall timing or exact details, I do my best.   

....take small steps when wandering into sensitive areas.  Each step you make will affect someone else or something else.  There are more stories of Colorado, hang there, and see what comes next.

 

Tragedy Amongst Us....

Lisa's parents both smoked and both drank wine every night.  I think they were very close.  Her mom was an excellent cook, her dad was a good man and could fix anything.  He worked at TWA and could fix anything, and did his own car maintenance.  The family drove all the different models of Oldsmobile vehicles.  That was a pretty good manufacturer back in the 80s from what I recall.  There was routine every time I visited, and I just had to follow Lisa's lead because the whole thing was so different from the way I was raised. 

Now you have to understand Lisa's mom was very old school and very strict about a lot of things.  Things I was not used to at all.  She adamantly expected everyone living in her home and all her guests to remove their shoes at either door before walking anywhere in her home.   This was as foreign a concept to me as was speaking German, Lisa's Mother's native tongue.  I got reprimanded a few times for not doing this.  Lisa was the one that taught me this rule.  I was always tip toeing around like I was on eggshells walking in that house. 

There was the living room of all white furniture, never allowed to use that room until one Christmas.  It was a room to show off nice décor and I think her collection of things in a curio cabinet.  I was in shock when we got to go in that room, sit on the floor and exchange Christmas gifts one year.

Sometime I think in 1986 Lisa's parents made arrangements for the 3 of them to fly to Germany and stay there for a couple weeks.  They asked me to take care of their home, and their poodle dog Brandy.  I did.  I got to stay there and sleep in the guest bedroom.  I listened to their stereo and just enjoyed myself.  No one but my family knew I was staying there.  No one bothered me, and me and Brandy got along okay.  She was a cranky dog sometimes.  I remember watching MTV videos and seeing Whitney Houston sing some of her best songs.  And George Harrison sing "I Got My Mind Set On You."   I always have songs to remember certain events, this was a one that reminded me of that time.  

In 1987, Lisa's Mom had to be in the hospital for tests.   I went to visit her.  I don't know what they found then.   I don't know what symptoms she had been having, but I knew that Lisa being my best friend, I had to visit her mother in the hospital.  I think she was glad I came by.  I just wasn't the most comfortable in new situations then. 

After I moved to Aurora, CO, in March 1988, Lisa got the worst news from her Dad.  Her Mom had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.  Pancreatic cancer.   Lisa flew back home to ST Louis to see her mom.  She said that her mom wanted to take her shopping and ended up picking out a nice dress.  It was black.   Her mom looked thinner than she remembered her being.  I think the prognosis was 3-6 months to live.  Her dad worked to find a treatment center that could help prolong her life, it was in Houston.  Lisa's mom died before the arrangements could be made to do that.  She was only 56.  

The morning her mother died, we got a call early in the morning from her Dad that she had passed over night.  She had gotten up to use the restroom and collapsed.  She was all but 90 pounds or so.  Since Lisa's Dad worked for the airlines, she got to travel for only $10 a flight on standby.  Sometimes that meant waiting for a flight that had at least one seat left.  She and her sister flew out for the funeral.   It was the saddest time in my life.  Jimmy gave Lisa an Alf doll to put in her Mother's casket, he knew she loved Alf.  She was like Jimmy's 2nd mom. 

This was in June 1988.   During this same Spring 3 of my relatives had passed within a couple months of each other.  My Dad lost two of his sister's Peggy and Doris, and Mom lost her oldest brother Cyril.  I missed all the funerals.   My brother latter wrote me and said it was a pretty depressing time.  And mom must have gotten tired of going to a funeral about every other week.  But she went to all four of them, I do believe.  

.....death is a part of life.  Some believe it is just the beginning to a new life.   Those left to mourn their loss sometimes have to spend a long time sorting through their feelings about the loved one lost, some move on quite quickly after a short mournful time.  Each of us has a different relationship and different emotional sense about such things.   There really is no right or wrong length of time to mourn someone.  More to come about the after effects of Lisa's Mom's death to come. 

New Home, New Jobs ...

Now that I was in Denver, things had to be done.  I had to find a job.  Jimmy and Lisa were supportive and didn't push me into getting a job or worry about paying for anything until I did.  I think I got a job 2 weeks after moving out there.  Now I don't recall the exact order of the jobs I had, but I do remember some incidents while there, worth noting. 

At one point I worked part-time at Kmart, where Jimmy's Mom worked.  Let me say this unequivocally.  I HATED THAT JOB!  I didn't like standing on my feet all day in one spot and there was no time to meet other coworkers and get to know anyone.  This was back in the day before sliding credit cards through card readers.  This was the time when you had to get the credit card machine and a carbon form and slide the gizmo over to imprint the card info on the form.   Very time consuming for customers to wait, and if you messed up any of it, you had to do it over.   You had to call a number to make sure the card was valid.  I got plenty of denials...aggravating that's all I can say. 

Later on while still at Kmart, I got a second part time job with a real estate company, working as the receptionist.  My schedule was set up where I worked a Kmart in the morning, and the real estate office in the afternoon.  Why the RE office didn't want a full time receptionist, I don't know.  But in the morning Evelyn would be in the office.   I'd take over for her and things rolled on along.  Now, I cannot say I hated this job, but it wasn't the most efficient place.  Real estate agents coming and going, and giving me notes about things I had to remember.   I had to print off MLS records of new listings, and I had to do a lot of other things. 

The big problem came after I was there maybe 2 or 3 months, when Evelyn came through my line at Kmart one day.  I had no idea why she was at the store I worked at.  I don't think she lived anywhere around there.   But one day I had mentioned to her that I got paid every Friday in cash.  Why Kmart did that, I don't know.  Why I told her that, I don't remember.   So one day I showed up at the RE office on a Friday, put my purse in the drawer next to Evelyn's and then went to retrieve some MLS reports off the fax machine.  I came back and Evelyn was leaving.  Didn't think a thing about it, until later.  I went in my purse sometime later in the day and realized my income from Kmart, the cash I earned from the prior week's work, was gone!  Now I knew good and well I didn't actually see anyone take it.  But Evelyn was the only person in the office up at the receptionist desk during the short period of time I was away from the desk.  My thought was she took it.  I went to my boss in private and mentioned that I suspected she took my money, figuring he'd help find out.  Well, was I ever wrong!   The next day after he had spoken with Evelyn, I was surprisingly LET GO!  I was stunned and livid!   The president gave me my final check and said I was not needed anymore. 

The next day, Evelyn calls my home saying SHE was sorry that I was let go.  I told her that I thought she was the one that took my money, she of course denied it.  Then for the top shocker of them all, she told me that she had gotten hired to work FULL TIME at the office.  When I got hired a couple months prior, they told me they didn't want a Full Time person cause they'd have to pay full benefits, now they hired her, after she possibly stole from me.  I felt like I had been kicked in the gut and then stomped on.   I hadn't done anything wrong, in my mind.  I accused her of stealing from me, and I get fired?   What the Hell?

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Another job I had was working at Silo, with Lisa.  Which was very convenient.  We rode together, she taught me my work, and I got to meet a bunch of fun and interesting people.   We had to enter purchase orders and invoices into their computer system, and periodically do inventory.  I did like this job a lot.  It was more up my alley of work, and it provided me with good money to live off of.  I actually worked for a Temp Company, Lisa actually worked for Silo.   They told me my assignment was for 6months to possibly permanent.  So I wished and wished it would turn to permanent.  It did not.  But I enjoyed the camaraderie amongst the crew I worked with while there.  The one person that stands out to me was Tony.  He was gay.  But a funny gay guy at that.  Everyone loved Tony!   He made the room light up with his awesome humor and his knowledge about so many things.  He'd hang around all us girls and just have us cracking up, every time.  I love that about work environments.   Laughter is so much needed in the business environment, when stress is at an all time high, laughter helps chill the mood.  And it is always contagious.  :-)


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I had one job that didn't last long and it was a 2nd shift position.  I started at 3:30pm and got off at Midnight.  It was working with student loan applications and loading information about each student and loan in a system.  That was it!   The most boring job I had ever had in my life.  Thank god it didn't last long, I found a full time job as a data entry person in a CPA firm.   This would be the job that I loved the most and hung with the rest of my time while living in Denver. 

The company was called BMW Financial Inc.  Had nothing to do with the car manufacturer BMW.  Instead those are the initials of the last names of the 3 owners of the company.  The office crew was small, I believe 7 or 8.   And we shared office space with another company, though I have no idea what those folks did.  Their receptionist was the first person anyone would see. Yours truly was in the far back office, entering data for each account we had, everyday. 

I loved this job because I was like a bookkeeper in training.  It was mellow enough that we were allowed to listen to a radio all day, and busy enough that I never got bored.  And challenging enough that I got to use the really cool IBM computer to create new forms for the clients that needed them.   I was in a place that let me create, do work that involved a lot of math, and did not have too many distractions to upset my balance, so to speak.  Jim's daughter Coleen worked there.  She was sometimes a pill and half.  She was married to a guy from Pakistan I think and they had a little boy.  And Jim's wife would stop in every so often.  She made me nervous for some reason.   Deana was the lone woman owner, and she wasn't there the whole of my employment there.  She ended up with some severe headaches but not sure what from.  She ended up selling her part of the company to Jim and the other male owner (name escapes me) and leaving.   She's the one that hired me and so I was sad to see her go. 

Diane was the actual bookkeeper.  She sat in another room, connected to the one I was in.  She was a force and a half.  I was at BMW for a little over a year, until I left Denver and moved back to Missouri.  Diane left the company before I did.  She got offered a job somewhere else, by one of our clients, and took her Rolodex with her, and attempted to convince many of our clients to go with her new company.  Some did.  Of course the owners were pissed with that whole thing.  It got a little tense in the office when all of this went down.  

Cindy was our lone sales person....garnering new accounts all the time.  She was in the office sporadically, and I have to say I loved Cindy!  She had 2 kids both of which that were allergic to wheat.  I heard and learned a lot about how difficult it was (back in 1989) to find foods that kids could eat that were Gluten Free.  She explained how long it took to figure this was the reason for her kids constant illnesses.  That had always made an impression on me, surely why I remember that story until now.  She was a good Mama and a good Sales person. 

At some point Lisa, my roomie, lost her job at Silo.  My boss was looking for another data entry clerk, I think I mentioned the opening to her and she came on board.  This was one of my biggest mistakes.  But to understand why, you'd have to hear the story of how Lisa ticked.   It didn't take me long to realize I shouldn't have told her about the job.  I know she needed a job, for many good reasons, but working with one's closest friend can have repercussions at home and in the work place.    Something to talk about in my next post.  



.....  when you go off on your own for the first time, things are new and fresh, and sometimes so thrilling you don't see all the ramifications of your new choices and new options.  Where some things seem logical, other things seem to interfere with your plans.  And some things come out of nowhere to upset the whole life you had created.   I had plenty of that type of thing going on while living in Denver.  Plenty.  And you'll just have to read on more to find out what else went on.   These were the days of much of my life's learning.....

First job in Aurora Co

 

 

Aurora on a map, East of Denver proper