Front Ranging

Although our primary objective last month was to spend time with our three daughters, we were also keen on seeing our friends and looking at our former homes along Colorado’s Front Range.

Bob and Ned roomed together at Colorado University in the ’70s and have a long history of posing implacably behind their sunglasses.

We took Emily and John to lunch in downtown Denver at Park & Co, less than a mile from 1600 Glenarm Place, where I cooked and cashiered at Stouffer’s more than fifty years ago.

We spent two days with Rob and Sharyl, friends since 1990 when Bob and I worked with Rob at Data Entry Products (DEP). On Wednesdays, we’d leave work early and four of us would motor around  Horsetooth Reservoir in our shared boat, taking turns on a boogie board. I married Bob in July of 1994, and Rob and Sharyl married three months later.

Bob and Rob contentedly discussed many topics of importance in the shade of the big trees.

Bob and I threw in with each other in the spring of 1992 and began living together in my Loveland, Colorado apartment.

Eventually, we moved a few blocks away to a standalone house at 913 Franklin Avenue, which had a second bedroom for the girls. There was a basketball hoop outside the garage where we played many games of horse. We used the garage like a covered patio for cocktails with friends or to paint our daughter’s fingernails with pink polish. We called it the pallet house because our bedroom walls appeared to be constructed from pallets.

Next, we rented an old house on two acres with room for our saddle horses outside of town. This is where we stood on the porch and said our vows aloud in front of our friends.

That place was close to the Big Thompson River, and we rode our horses, Jesse and Penny, down there several times a week.

Now a medical clinic, this is where we worked until DEP sold to Lucas Varity, and we relocated to Williamsburg, Virginia.

Ten years later, we returned to Colorado, settling into a clean and airy apartment in Berthoud within walking distance to Bob’s new job at Biodiesel Industries, the grocery store, post office, library, and farmers’ market.

We did not miss having our own yard and gardens as we initially feared. The apartment was a short walk to nearby parks, all of Berthoud’s streets were lined with shady trees, and we had a roomy patio on the back of the building. We parked our bicycles and an under-driven 1995 Ford Escort in the back. At that time, Habitat for Humanity occupied the building next door, where I volunteered in their used book department.

Much remains of our old life along Colorado’s Front Range, especially our friendships. We fondly remember ice skating on Lake Loveland, riding our horses in the Corn Roast Festival Parade, hunting for wild asparagus, and happy gatherings. It was gratifying to visit places that were once part of our lives.