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My Life With ADD/ADHD

Posted on October 27, 2014 by Bill Leave a comment

My Song

At age 59, I was diagnosed with ADD. I was in a therapy session which was, like most of my therapy sessions over the years, going nowhere. My therapist stopped, looked at me and asked, “Have you ever been evaluated for ADD?” Well,no. No one had ever suggested it and it had never occurred to me.

That evening a computer search brought up several checklists. On the first one I took, almost every question was a head slapper. I was a match for 48 of the 50 questions. That therapist was not a big help for the ADD; most therapists aren’t. The diagnosis, however, changed my life. I had always known something was wrong. I just did not function like most people, and the stress of living in a world where I didn’t quite fit in was taking a physical toll.

I have a number of symptoms, including a short attention span if not wholly engaged, impulsivity, irritability, hyper focus at times, forgetfulness, poor attention to detail, trouble getting started, distractibility, poor memory, and absent-mindedness. Did I mention I forget stuff, like people’s names?

In my fifties I was treated for a bleeding ulcer, migraine headaches, had prostate surgery, rectal surgery, knee and back problems, hernias, and was involved in years of individual and couples therapy. Much of this was due to the stress of trying to function in a world of normies.

Work had ups and downs. I always had authority problems and often missed small details. I was never in enough trouble to get fired, but I had several of those long sessions with several levels of supervisors.

School was much the same way. I am fairly smart, so I almost always got by. In college things got worse. I couldn’t get by on brains and charm. I actually had to work, and found that if the subject matter or the instructor didn’t engage me, I literally could not do the work.

Brain Disorder

I remember a political science course with an instructor who was always patronizing with students and wanted us to learn about Communism by studying Yugoslavia. By the time I realized I was not going to learn anything there, it was too late to drop the course. Another F added to my list.

I lived with anxiety that I would do or say something wrong. I also have a lifetime of replaying the things I did do wrong. Even now, 13 years after the diagnosis, I obsess about things that happened long ago. I sometimes do things on impulse I later regret. To protect my self-esteem I defend situations I get myself into that are indefensible.

Recently at work I threw some things away that needed replacing, but the replacements are not ready. My impulse got my colleagues all stirred up, and the children who come to play don’t have stick horses to ride. I don’t think they minded that the old horses I threw away were worn out.

I get irritated by noise. Big crowds, barking dogs, truck traffic, elevator music, and crying children all get to me. A neighbor friend had a little girl that cried a lot. I found myself getting angry at her to the point of wanting to harm her. I decided then that having children was not an option. To my first wife’s disappointment I got a vasectomy. I’m not sure that was the right decision, but I often believe so. I have poor impulse control.

The diagnosis at age 59 changed my life. The first thing that happened is all sorts of feelings I had not allowed myself to feel came to the surface. Anger, bitterness, rage, sadness, frustration, and just plain pain surged out. I was not much fun to live with for a while. I told Carol that I just had to be those feelings.

After the old feelings subsided and I found a good therapist and a good psychiatrist, things rapidly improved. Cognitive therapy gave me coping strategies more effective than making trouble to get my prefrontal lobes to wake up. The medication helps with focus and awareness. I can sustain tasks, where previously I was terrible at mundane tasks. Now, I am just bad at them.

For me, the biggest change is that I can now write. I have always wanted to write, but the ADD did not allow me the focus to produce anything. Now, except for occasional bouts of writer’s block, I can write. All those years of not writing were not wasted, as I studied good writing. I also practiced doing clear, concise writing when writing the daily shift reports in the water treatment plants where I worked. One or two paragraphs, but I got some practice.

Today, I have gratitude. I can manage the ADD (mostly), I have a wonderful marriage, a comfortable retirement, and I can write. What a long, strange trip it’s been.

Posted in ADD/ADHD, Memoirs, My Story, Pain, Stories, Writing

Why I Read and Write

Posted on October 13, 2014 by Bill One comment

Writer and Helper

I have been a reader since I learned how reading Donald Duck comic books in kindergarten. In first grade, Dick and Jane were boring compared to Scrooge McDuck diving in his three cubic acres of cash. I read most everything in sight. I have to know.

At home, there was a lot to read. The living room was dominated by a round oak dining table cut down to coffee table height. It was piled with newspapers, magazines, and books. My father had subscriptions to Time, Newsweek, Life, The Saturday Evening Post, Reader’s Digest, Outdoor Life, Redbook, National Geographic, and Cosmopolitan. Mother had Ladies Home Journal. I had Boy’s Life.

The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel and the weekly Fruita Times were always there. Mother belonged to a book review club, and we had those Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. We had lots of railroad history and books about regional topics. I read it all. Well, not all. Father had Cosmopolitan and Redbook for the romances they ran every month. Not for me.

I read a lot of the stuff boys read in those days. Mark Twain, Jack London, Hemingway, Richard Henry Dana, James Thurber, and Dickens were influences. I think my biggest influences were Mark Twain, with his descriptions and humor, and Richard Henry Dana’s Two Years before the Mast. In fact, I think I will reread that one. It combined a great adventure for a young man with fine writing.

Today, most of my reading is nonfiction. John McPhee is my favorite writer. He writes on a wide range of subjects, almost all of his topics interest me. He does have a book about fish for some inscrutable reason. He combines humor, good stories about the people he finds, extensive research, and clear writing. I even read his fish book.

I have wanted to write for as long as I can remember, but I just could not muster the discipline to do so without the pressure of a school assignment. Instead, I read. I did do well with college writing assignments. I think I had assimilated enough good writing that I did well as long as the topic engaged me. Most topics did so for two reasons, I picked courses that engaged me, and instructors that challenged me.

I even wrote some papers for other students, usually forestry majors at Colorado State who could not write themselves out of a paper bag. I charged $10.00 per page, pretty good money in the late 1960’s. Strangely, I still could not write things for myself. I had to have a deadline.

At age 59, I found out why. I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. I got cognitive therapy and medication. The therapy gave me skills to cope with the disorder that are more effective than the adaptation I had used for many years, mainly making enough trouble to get my midbrain revved up enough to fire up my prefrontal lobes. The other method that worked was the pressure and anxiety of an upcoming deadline.

I still use those methods, but I can often just sit down and write. I still have to have a topic that engages me, and there are those times when the words just will not come. The ancients wrote about the Muses, goddesses who brought inspiration to writers, and how sometimes they just do not attend. I don’t know about the explanation, but I understand the problem.

I like to go to a coffee shop to write, it helps me focus on what I am doing. At home there are too many distractions. I used to call writing the hardest work known to humankind. Sometimes that is true; sometimes writing is easy and just flows out of me. I do know it is one of my favorite things to do.

Posted in Memoirs, My Story, Stories, Writing

Pearl Pass Part Two

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Bill 2 comments

North Side to Summit

In Part 1 I discussed the history of Pearl Pass and my family connection. I also covered the four wheel drive experience travelers have on the pass. I have been rambling around the Rocky Mountains most of my life. There is a lot of good country here. I am fortunate to have spent time in some of the Rockies from New Mexico to Alberta.

Some of the best pieces of mountain country are the Elk Mountains. I have not spent much time there because of Aspen. A Western Colorado native, for many years I harbored a prejudice against ski area development. Aspen is the ski town that started the Twentieth Century Gold Rush, this time mining tourist pockets. The place is just too rich for a small town boy. Over time I lost my bias, but still tended to avoid the Aspen area. I have never been to the Maroon Bells.

Living along the Front Range influenced not visiting the Roaring Fork Valley as it is a four hour drive to Aspen from Denver. Rocky Mountain National Park and the Collegiate Peaks are a lot closer. Recapturing my interest in my family history has drawn me to Pearl Pass. If Grandmother Pearl could drive a wagon over the pass in 1887, I should do it as well.

Pearl Pass has seen no change in the last 130 years. Between Aspen and Ashcroft the road is paved and there is development, but once on the four wheel drive road it is as it was. It goes between the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness and the Maroon Bells Snowmass Wilderness. Together, they harbor the largest cluster of 14,000 foot high peaks in North America.

Sandstone

That huge area of high mountain wilderness means wild. Pearl Pass is one of the wildest places I have ever visited. Up high, what you see is almost all above timberline. To the east, the mountains are granite, what I am familiar with in Colorado. To the west is sandstone. Layered sandstone, capped with basalt.

To me, that layered rock seems wild, out of place. It is gray, with a hint of red. When I see sandstone I expect red or tan. The view is so striking and beautiful I am at a loss for words. I have been trying for days to come up with a description that matches what I saw. The pictures will give you an idea, but cannot portray the impact of so much wild space with little human influence.

One reason for the view is because the Elk Mountains are west of the central Colorado Mountains and get more moisture. The glacial cirques are huge, creating a series of basins surrounded by many high peaks 13,000- feet or higher. The pass itself is 12,700 feet high, surpassed by Mosquito Pass for example, but unsurpassed in sheer majesty.

I am now committed to more exploration of the Elk Mountains. There are Taylor and Schofield Passes that are four wheel drive accessible. A winter drive to the Maroon Bells is on my list. I may even break down and get out and walk. My backpacking days are over, but there are lots of day hikes. Lots of people on the trails, but most of them are nice people. The high passes are for solitude.

Posted in Colorado Mountains, Family History, Four Wheeling, My Story, Stories

Over Passes and Through Woods

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Bill Leave a comment

West from Mosquito Pass

I have already written about nearly killing myself on Mosca Pass the week of August 24, 2014. After that little adventure, I continued my trip as planned. My goal all year is to get over Pearl Pass, the one my grandmother drove a wagon over when she was 12 years old in 1887.

Pearl Pass often does not open until late in the season every year, and 2014 is no exception. There are two snowdrifts blocking the road just below the summit. Maybe later in September.

There are lots of other passes, however, and I went over 13 or 14, depending on how you count. Passes go over the divide between two drainages. For example, Pearl Pass marks the divide between the Roaring Fork River that goes to the Colorado River in Glenwood Springs, and the Taylor River that drains to the Gunnison River in Gunnison.

The complication is at Ute Pass, which marks the divide between Fountain Creek and the South Platte in South Park. Right near there is Tracy Hill, not called a pass, but is the divide between the South Platte and the Arkansas Rivers. So, did I go over one, two, or three passes when I came from Woodland Park to Cripple Creek?

So, here is the list: Ute Pass, Tracy Hill, Mosca (I just went to the summit), Medano, Poncha, Marshall, Waunita, Cumberland, Cottonwood, Mosquito, Red Hill, Kenosha, and Guanella Passes. Let’s call it 13 or 14 passes.

From Denver, I went via Deckers (probably going over yet another pass) to Cripple Creek and down the Phantom Canyon Road to Highway 50 outside Florence. Then I drove to Wetmore (and another pass) and to the wet Mountain Valley and Mosca Pass, where I camped.

Next morning it was Medano Pass, first crossed by Americans in 1807 when Zebulon Pike, searching for the Red River, groped his way into the Rocky Mountains, over the pass, and wintered in the San Luis Valley, mistaking the Rio Grande for the Red.

Medano is interesting and worthwhile, with a long drive through private property to Forest service land and the climb to the summit. It is four wheel drive, but not too bad, and not marred by those annoying ATV’s buzzing around because they are not allowed into the National Park.

From the summit, the road descends down the

Medano Creek

Medano Creek canyon, which burned in 2010. It recovering nicely. The road crosses the creek several times and is sandy lower down. I had no problems ignoring the Park service signs telling me to lower the pressure in my tires for better flotation in sand. I have always thought that is for Californians, not us mountain people. I met no other cars.

From the sand dunes I went up the vast San Luis Valley and over

Marshall Pass

Marshall Pass, the narrow gauge Rio Grande Railroad route into the Gunnison country. I like old railroad routes. I then bounced over more bad roads to Taylor Park, intending to go over Taylor Pass. I started up the steep four wheel drive road, decided my sore body had had enough, turned around, went over Cottonwood, and got a motel in Buena Vista. That hot shower sure felt good. I found chicken mole enchiladas in a restaurant there.

The next morning was Leadville and Mosquito Pass. The Lake County people are missing out not promoting the roads around Leadville for off-roading. Taylor Park is overrun with ATV’s. I met no one on the roads above Leadville. Good for me, bad for depressed Leadville.

Mosquito Pass is world famous, and the road is a challenge. My stock Tacoma was fine, but the road is steep and very rocky. They ain’t called the Rocky Mountains for nothing. It is a spectacular trip, with views of some of the tallest mountains in our state. I will do it again.

From Mosquito Pass I went down to Fairplay and home via Guanella Pass, another of my favorites.

Posted in Current Activities, Memoirs, Stories

Home Improvement 2014

Posted on June 5, 2014 by Bill Leave a comment

Old Garage

We are adding a two car garage and solar electricity to our 1937 vintage house. We thought it would be a fairly straightforward project, but it is not working out that way. We had a brick one car garage, an ugly carport, and a parking pad, all on the alley.

Step one, I mangled the sprinkling system in an attempt to move it out of the way of the larger garage. It cost $140.00 to get that fixed after a three week wait, then the concrete form setters drove their stakes through one of the lines. Ed, our contractor and a great guy, replied to my email with “oops, sorry”. Of course, I found the leak while watering the lawn and garden just before two big thunderstorms.

The main problem is delay. We waited two weeks on the demolition contractor. We saved 800 bricks from the garage for walks and a patio. The demo contractor recycles bricks, so saving those bricks cost us $300.

We waited another week for tree removal, than another week to get the tree stumps ground. After another wait, the concrete contractor showed up to start setting forms. They had to chop out two stumps. The first forms they set were too close to the alley. They had to take them out anyway to bring in road base (50% gravel, 50% dirt). That entire process took two more weeks. Yesterday, they poured the concrete. The evening rain was perfect, cooling the concrete as it cured.

All the delays are part of any construction project these days. The recession of 2008 put a lot of construction people out of business. Now the economy is back, but the companies are not. Those in business are overbooked and having trouble getting skilled workers. None of the subcontractors’ workers have English as their first language. They are all good guys, hard-working and fun to be around. I provided some cervezas as they finished the day. One cause of the labor shortage is the oil boom in North Dakota. Natives up there used to say that the climate kept the riff-raff out. Lots of riff-raff up there now. Lots of money as well. People go where the work and good money are.

Ed is going to do the fencing, which is a good thing as I called three fence contractors and only one returned the call. We called three solar contractors, got responses from all three, but one never submitted a bid.

New Garage Concrete

The garage should go up starting next week. Many decisions to make. Doors, lighting, roofing color, whether to replace the roofing on the sunroom where more solar panels are going, what kind of gate latches, finding a hardscape contractor (I was going to do it myself, but decided I am too old) paint colors, on and on.

In addition, we added painting the north gable on the house to the project. I got up there to scrape the old paint. The trim on the bottom of the siding and the bottom board of the siding are rotten. Another task and some more expense.

The next door neighbors are learning about home improvement as well. They decided to replace the roof themselves. Mom, dad, and kid brother came from Omaha last week to help. five people, fairly skilled, worked Friday through Monday and didn’t finish. Mom and kid brother had to go back to Omaha, wife went to work. Dad and husband worked Tuesday, Dad on Wednesday. Thursday morning Dad worked two hours and left for Omaha to deal with the water in the attic and basement from the big storm there. The roof is about 95% finished. They will finish this weekend and have a nice roof with new skylights.

A lot of this story is about things that are fairly normal for any project, but the delays are somewhat unusual. We did the kitchen last year with little delay as it went along. When it is finished, this year’s project will make our little nest more livable and more fun. I don’t call the process itself much fun.

Posted in Current Activities, Home Improvement, My Story, Stories

Energy

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Bill Leave a comment

Solar Panels

Carol and I are concentrating on how we use energy. Watching “Cosmos” with Neil DeGrasse Tyson pointing to the sun and saying, “It’s Free!” is partly responsible. I did a lot of research for my talk on Front Range Colorado flooding. One conclusion I reached is that the climate change we are now experiencing will lead to more floods.

Releasing fossil carbon into the atmosphere is setting up a worldwide crisis of unparalleled magnitude. Drought, wildfires, floods, sea level rise, and pollution will affect millions worldwide. The environmental changes have already increased political instability. Syria and sub-Saharan Africa are cases in point.

Here in the U.S., rhetoric and denial are the most visible response to the looming disasters. Those who make money from fossil energy deny the problem and buy inaction in Congress. Public utilities seem to be much more interested in selling gas and power produced from coal and gas than switching to renewables. Wind farms are on the increase and more commercial solar power installations are being built, but the pace is fairly slow.

Germany is a leader in switching to renewables, but recent stories that over 70 percent of production is from renewables is exaggerated. The fact is that their wind and solar production is increasing, while coal use is declining. China is starting to move to renewables, but is the world leader in coal use, and coal production is increasing. In China, 66% of their power comes from coal compared to 49% in the U.S. The switch to gas from coal is on, driven by cheaper gas (from fracking) and the high cost of coal plant pollution controls. Burning gas has about half the carbon footprint of coal, but it is still burning huge amounts of carbon sequestered millions of years ago.

Worldwide people and governments are starting to respond to the dangers of fossil fuel generated climate change, but slowly. So what are we to do? Join the grassroots green energy movement. People use all this energy, so people have to use less. Less gasoline, less natural gas, less electricity, and most of all, less coal.

So what is a couple from Denver to do? We aren’t much for marching in the streets or being rabid environmentalists, but we want to do our part. Activism begins at home. In our case, home is a brick bungalow built in 1937, when builders were not concerned with energy efficiency. The main thing builders did in the 1930’s did was build smaller houses. Ours has 830 square feet on the main floor. It is a far cry from the 2400 square foot houses that are today’s norm.

We did add a 400 square foot sunroom that we can close off from the rest of the house. In the winter, it is at 40 degrees, and an exhaust fan pulls cool air from the basement in summer. We have a modern high efficiency furnace and water heater. We have increased the attic insulation twice, first to R36, then to R50. The original steel casement windows are terrible for leaking cold air in winter, and hot air in summer. We have historical designation on the house which means keeping those windows, but we installed inside storm windows that stop those wintry breezes.

Carol forces me to tolerate 68 degrees in winter and 78 degrees in summer. That mainly means either more or less clothes depending on the season. At night the programmable thermostat is set for 56 degrees, but the house seldom cools off that much. I did break down and get some fleece lined slippers instead of my beloved L.L. Bean moccasins. The basement, with my man cave, gets cold. I guiltily run an electric heater. Someday we will insulate those cold basement walls.

When we increased the attic insulation the first time we also put in attic ventilation. We had rooftop vents installed and put a large vent in the north gable to introduce cooler outside air. When we re-roof we will add more vents. Prior to that, the only ventilation was a small vent over the entryway. It sure did get hot up there.

The air conditioner has a device provided by our electric utility that runs it less often during periods of high demand for power on hot days. To reduce air conditioner use we open the house up in the evening and run fans to exhaust hot air and bring in cooler outside air. Denver averages a thirty degree difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures. Texans, eat your hearts out. When we have to have a new roof in the next few years we will add an attic fan. They are noisy, but they exhaust hot air in the house and cool the attic.

The big thing we are doing now is adding solar electricity with our new garage. We have needed a garage for some time. We have never been able to park a car in the old one, designed for a 1937 Ford. My shop area, the gardening stuff, until recently my motorcycle, and the bicycles filled it up. Our block has an alley, which is a crime conduit. We have had several break-ins, and want our cars inside.

The solar panels will go on the garage and sunroom roofs. When we replace the roof on the older part of the house, we will add enough panels to produce all the power we need. We will be at about 80% with the house and sunroom panels.

So we are slowly going green. It is possible for individuals to make a difference. If more of us do it, it will pressure governments and the utility companies to get serious about energy. It will take grass roots action to make it happen. Boulder, Colorado is threatening to take over Xcel energy’s infrastructure in their city. That is a message to the utility companies that they have to get serious about renewable energy or lose their customers city by city. I am hopeful that meaningful change is going to happen. I don’t think it is enough to stop some of the climate changes we are seeing, but we are slowly starting to try living with our planet, not exploit it to our extinction.

Posted in Energy Policy, Environment, Home Improvement, My Story, Stories

If it Doesn’t Hurt, it Itches

Posted on May 16, 2014 by Bill Leave a comment

I have reached that age where parts of me do not work quite as well as they used to. I have aches and pains. I have a titanium knee. I am short a finger on my right hand. I wear hearing aids. A tooth is missing. A LOT of hair is missing on my head. My right shoulder, both wrists, left knee, and right foot hurt. My left little finger has this hitch where it doesn’t want to straighten out and sort of snaps past a point when I do straighten it. That hurts as well.

I have sinus headaches, acid reflux, a bad disk in my back, and an ass that is so small my pants won’t stay up. No ass, no hair, no little finger, what is going on?

When I was in my forties (I am 72) I did a career change. I went from being a desk bound bureaucrat to working in the water business. My first job required water treatment knowledge and a lot of physical work. I laid pipe, repaired manholes, cleaned sewer lines, pumped a lot of water, read meters, and did a lot of pick and shovel work. I remember thinking that I could do everything in my forties that I did in my twenties.

Then I hurt my back carrying an unbalanced load up a ditch bank. I learned about physical therapists and chiropractors. I am still learning. Up to then I had taken my body for granted. I did what I wanted to and mostly got away with it. From the back injury on, it has been downhill.

Since then, my body tells me when it does not like what I am doing to it. Usually it uses pain. The other strategy it employs is the itch. My head, back, legs, and arms itch. It is seasonal. I itch spring, summer, winter, and fall. I have recently discovered that some of the itching may be from ultraviolet light. I am eliminating UV light in the house. I take Benadryl and Allegra. They help. I still itch.

I have had prostate surgery, hernia surgery, a knee replacement, several colonoscopies, several endoscopies, a finger amputated, and an optorectomy (severing the nerve from your butt to your eyes to get rid of the shitty outlook). I have high blood pressure. I get migraine headaches.

I don’t do some things I used to do. Run, jump, carry heavy loads, mess around on roofs, or think. I have ADD. Therapy and medication help a great deal, but I still forget, get crabby, and do impulsive stupid things. I have been able to do some writing, however. That is, if you can call this writing.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining. That is a lie. But, I can still do a lot and have fun at it. I have the limitations of an aging body, but I remain active and can work with the school kids at Four Mile. They seem to like Mr. Bill. Life is good.

Posted in Memoirs, My Story, Pain, Stories

The Secret

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Bill 3 comments

Four Mile House

I have a lot of fun with the elementary school children at Four Mile Historic Park. In my introduction, I talk about the horses, warning them about being kicked or bitten. I then show them my missing finger. That gets the message across, even after I tell them it was not a horse. When there are several Latino kids in the group, they learn that my name in Spanish is Nueve.

One of my favorite things is to get some of the girls aside and ask them if they know the secret. They don’t know, of course. I tell them, “Girls are smarter than boys.” There are several reactions. With several girls, it is “Yes!” with some high fives. With first or second graders, they are a bit surprised, but agree. With older girls, they usually nod sagely. They all like hearing it from an old man.

Parents and teachers also like hearing it. I tell them about the Bill Clinton Society. That is the organization of men whose wives are smarter than they are. Women and men all agree that all men are members, with a big laugh.

I also make a point of establishing myself as a big storyteller. They learn that some of my stories are true, some not so true. I do say when I am not lying, as how I really lost my finger.

Often, I tell them about my grandmother Pearl driving a wagon from Texas to Colorado in 1887 when she was 12. The link to that story is here.

Another thing we show the children is the fuel for campfires the pioneers used out on the prairie. We ask them what fuel they would have used where there was little firewood. The answers are usually grass, rocks, or wood. “No wood, grass burns too fast, rocks don’t burn. They used Buffalo Chips.”

Buffalo Chips

We hold one up. They don’t quite understand until we say “Dried buffalo poop.” “Eww!” is the universal response. They then learn that it was the task of the children to gather the stuff. They begin to understand that life on the trail was not very easy.

The children visiting Four Mile have fun, I have fun, and we all learn something. The main thing I have learned is that the kids are bright, fun-loving, and they enjoy learning. Most of the teachers encourage the learning and fun. Some of the teachers are only interested in control. We all had too many of them. I do my best to counter that attitude. This is my fourth year at Four Mile. In that time, only three children have been a big problem out of the thousands I have met. I hope to meet and have fun with many more.

Posted in Four Mile Park, Stories

Four Mile Historic Park

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Bill Leave a comment

The House at Four Mile

When I give a house tour, I always say, “This is a museum. What’s the rule?” “Don’t touch!” is their response. All through the house I have to remind them, “Don’t touch.”

I work part time at Four Mile Historic Park. I help with elementary school field trips and birthday parties. Four Mile was a stagecoach stop on the Cherokee Trail from the 1859 Pike’s Peak Gold Rush until the railroad came to Denver in 1870. It is four miles from the Intersection of Colfax Avenue and Broadway, where the Colorado State Capitol building stands.

The Cherokee Trail came down Cherry Creek to Denver, then went north to close to the Wyoming border, then west to Fort Bridger and on to California. The stage line came west from Leavenworth, Kansas on the Smoky Hill Trail across Kansas to where Limon now is. It then came across present Elbert County and down Smoky Hill Road to the Cherokee Trail and Denver.

The Four Mile station operated from 1859 to 1870 when the railroad came down to Denver from Cheyenne. It then was a farm and informal neighborhood center until around 1940. Today it is owned by the City of Denver and operates as a nonprofit.

The original house dates to 1859 and is the oldest standing structure in Denver. It is the museum I referred to in the first paragraph. We have horses and wagon rides, a stagecoach and several other wagons. There are goats, chickens, a tipi, a trapper’s cabin, wells, barns, gardens, and lots of places to picnic.

Our goal with school trips is to give students a taste of life in the nineteenth century. They are often shocked to find out that people managed to survive without iPads. Another goal is for them to have fun doing some of the things children did in the 1860s. They cook over an open fire, make butter, feed chickens, wash clothes in the washtub, pan for gold (fool’s gold), and play some pioneer games.

I tell stories about my pioneer family, tell them that the horses favorite food is third graders, that trolls live along the creek, and that the children emptied the chamber pots, brought in firewood, carried water, gathered buffalo chips for fuel on the trail, and fed the animals. Yes, they get some tall tales as well. Second graders are too little, fourth graders are too tough, but third graders are just right for horse food. I tell the girls the secret: “Girls are smarter than boys.”

Four mile is a fun place to work and the kids make it so. Of the hundreds of kids I have worked, only two seemed like they were headed for big trouble. I have as much fun as they do.

Posted in Current Activities, Memoirs, Stories

Kodel’s Canyon

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Bill Leave a comment

Kodel’s Canyon

In the late 1950’s, some friends and I liked to go to Kodel’s Canyon. The canyon is in the Colorado National Monument about five miles from Fruita. We would get a ride from a parent and with our .22 rifles, hike on the relatively flat desert area between the Colorado River and the National Monument, laying waste to any number of unsuspecting rocks with our .22’s.

Sometimes we would climb over the Park boundary fence and up into the canyon. It is the first canyon west of Fruita Canyon, where Rim Rock Drive climbs, and the scenery is as spectacular as the rest of the National Monument, but at the time was seldom visited. Carrying firearms into the National Park and firing them was illegal, but we never worried about getting caught. No one went there but the local kids.

The canyon has the sheer sandstone cliffs the Monument is famous for, but the lower end is black Precambrian granite, schist, and gneiss, black and weathered into narrow cracks and rounded humps. A demented miner who gave the canyon its name worked a mine in that rock for many years, never finding any gold. It should have been clear to him there was no gold; there is relatively little quartz in the rock, which is associated with gold, and Kodel’s canyon is far from the Colorado Mineral Belt, which runs from the Golden-Boulder area to Telluride. Most of the state’s minerals, including gold, are in that roughly 20 mile wide belt. The big exception is Cripple Creek, a volcanic neck with a rich gold deposit. Nevertheless, Kodel persisted for years, giving the local Fruita kids a place to risk their lives.

We would poke around in the mine, and its mystery. We didn’t go too far in, as we never had a flashlight. The big attraction was the climbing. In some places the 1.4 billion years old rock is broken and crumbling, but for the most part is so smooth and rounded as to look polished.

We had no climbing shoes, just our tennies. We had no helmets, ropes, or the hardware climbers use today. We got good at mostly unaided climbing and went up places that trained climbers attempt only with ropes and hardware. The only climbing aids we used were our .22 rifles, using them to help one another up especially steep pitches or as support. The climbing was somewhere between bouldering and free soloing. Not for those afraid of heights.

Years later, I climbed Long’s Peak with some friends. Lee had a bad knee, and Danny was helping him as we went up the Cable Route, which traverses the top of The Diamond, that sheer northeast face of the mountain with a 2,000 foot high cliff. Years ago the route had a fixed steel cable leading to the top that climbers could hold on to. When we climbed, there was no cable and some of the rock was wet. I just climbed up, doing what I learned in Kodel’s Canyon.

Danny would move up a pitch with the rope and belay Lee as he climbed on that bad knee. Danny remarked to Lee as they crept up with their rope that I was single-handing. It was steep, but I had good shoes and walked up, using one hand to occasionally support myself as I chose each foot placement. Proper safe climbing technique calls for having three support points on the rock, moving one hand or foot at a time. I was not ignoring the rule, I didn’t know it existed.

I only know of one serious injury in Kodel’s Canyon. Jerry badly sprained an ankle on the approach to the canyon and had to have help getting back to the road. He hobbled around for weeks, not getting much sympathy from us. In retrospect, we were serious risk-takers, but we just went where we wanted to without thinking about the danger. Those experiences in the hills and canyons south of Fruita made us all willing to accept challenges with little hesitation. We also gained confidence in our ability to overcome difficulty. We acquired life skills there. In our safety-oriented society, kids may be missing some important lessons. We need to test ourselves in the name of fun, and risk is part of the test. For me, it was a fun thing to do. I think I will go back, a bit more carefully this time.

Posted in Geology, Memoirs, Stories

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