By Doris
Grandpa Rudy and Grandma Mae were a big part of our family activities, driving from Colorado Springs through South Park and over Hoosier Pass for holidays and school events. Grandma never came empty handed, sometimes making a bakery stop, other times with homemade goodies. They moved from NJ to Colorado Springs when we retired to Breckenridge so they could watch Jennifer and Kent continue to grow up. Sound familiar? I am so glad we were able to enjoy those special times with them.
We have some interesting stories involving cars and driving experiences, starring both Jennifer and Kent. Don taught both of them to drive, and particularly how to drive in snow, from skidding on ice to climbing hills in low gear. Our cars, mostly Volkswagens, were all standard shift cars, not automatic. It was all I drove for years and driving automatic cars still doesn’t feel like real driving to me. One night Jennifer was going to play practice, got in the Square back, and backed into the van parked behind her, knocking off the spare tire mounted on the front. When she came in to tell us I had to try really hard to not laugh. I had an immediate picture in my mind that struck me funny then and it still does!
Our Volkswagens were not known for their heaters and Jennifer sometimes had to drive with big down mittens, holding an ice scraper in one hand to keep the inside windshield clear. One episode involving Kent happened when he was near Swan Mountain Road on Highway 6 and Keystone, when one of the back wheels on the square back came off, and he managed to skid to a stop. Don took his tool box, Kent had the wheel, and they put it back on.
Six weeks after Kent got his license he got a speeding ticket on the way home from Frisco. Don had told him that in dealing with law enforcement the only correct way was to say “yes sir, no sir.” The trooper was so impressed with Kent’s responses that he explained to him how to cop a plea in court so he would get fewer points on his license. This was important because at 16 years of age you could easily lose your license with a certain point count with another minor offense. It was an experience for Kent to go to court and go before the judge and learn that fines also had to be paid in cash. My takeaway from the episode was that every teenager should have a point count on their license to slow them down!
My proudest driving moment came when Jennifer, Kent and I were returning from a trip to Denver. There is an intersection there called the “mousetrap” where you have three choices: one to Ft. Collins, one to Colorado Springs and one to the mountains. There was no sign to just Breckenridge, and with my notoriously poor sense of direction, I had to do some deductive reasoning and make the right choice at 60 miles an hour. As we made it successfully through the mousetrap, I got a round of applause from the back seat!
Kent was on the ski team at Summit High which meant getting to school very early on ski race days to travel by bus to the site. Summit High had one section where the building was round, and one morning Kent arrived a little too quickly and ran his car into the building, which has left me with a very funny picture in my mind! He did win a race that day and it was suggested that he tell us that first, and then break the news about hitting the building!
When Jennifer went to Colorado College in Colorado Springs and would come home for the weekend on occasion, I would insist that we follow her over the pass in snow conditions to make sure she made it. It was too easy to slide off the road and prior to cell phones, it could be hard to locate someone. She always carried a down sleeping bag in the car. When she transferred to Drake in Des Moines, Don gave her instructions one day on how to fix the starter on the car, all by phone. The guys living in the house next door were pretty impressed!
Our outdoor fun was also cross country skiing and one time near Christmas we were out skiing on National Forest land. Summit County was comprised of a lot of National Forest acres. I thought it would be nice to take some of the pine branches for decoration, and as I broke one off, Jennifer informed me that it was against the law to cut branches on National Forest Service land. But I took them anyway!
There are so many stories to tell, but we will leave it to Jennifer and Kent to tell some of theirs.
Jennifer and Kent both had a number of jobs growing up. Businesses in town always needed help. Jennifer worked in a sporting goods store, another store operated by our duplex neighbors, a summer day camp, and at the Courthouse as part of a program with the school. The courthouse was an interesting place because she came in contact with a lot of local people and had quite a bit of responsibility and learned a lot.
Kent had a job with the Whale’s Tail restaurant, Goods (a clothing store), and the movie theatre in town. The theatre job involved cleaning the theatre every day before the night movie. A movie story about Kent was pretty funny. Before he worked there, I gave him money to go see a movie. He had money to cover the ticket and snacks. He was to telephone when the movie ended and we would pick him up. At about 10 o’clock the phone rang and the operator asked, “Will you accept a collect call from Kent Lidke?” He had used up all of his money, and problem solver that he was, he called collect! Another job he had was shoveling snow off steps at a condominium development. This was dependent on when it snowed. Jennifer and Kent had quite the resumes by the time they were 18 years old!
We decided to get a golden retriever following our bad experience with Baron, our last German Shepherd. Sandy was the easiest dog we ever had, with the sweetest disposition. Jennifer took Sandy to be put down when she was home from college because Don and I couldn’t bear to. She had surgeries to remove growths from her mouth. She was followed by another golden, Casey, who when he was close to the end of his life, went on a tour of the local hotel kitchens. We let him out one night and then couldn’t find him. At two in the morning we got a call from one of the hotels saying they had Casey, so we gratefully “retrieved” him!
Both dogs always retrieved our newspapers for us so we didn’t have to go out in the snow. Sandy would sit out on the deck and the squirrels would be hoarding nuts, some pine cones falling on her, but she never looked up! We all loved those dogs.
When Jennifer had her first teaching job in Colorado Springs, she stayed with Grandma and Grandpa, but later when she had her own apartment she got Jazper, a little Sheltie. When she would visit with him it was great fun to see him with Casey. For some reason Jazper never liked Kent and would growl at him, no matter how hard he tried to be friends. One day as Kent was coming down the stairs and Jazper was growling again, Kent looked at him and said “You would make a very good hat!”
Time marched on and Jennifer and Kent had lives away from Breckenridge — college, teaching and the Navy called. Don told Kent that if he joined the Air Force, he would disown him. He soon left his lift attendant job and drove to Pensacola to meet his Marine Gunnery Sergeant for close order drill and other fun and games before actual flight training.
Jennifer met Keith at Colorado Springs and we were soon planning a wedding in the Springs. Keith had been working at the Four Seasons in Colorado Springs and it was a perfect setting for the reception. The exchange of vows was at a beautiful church where they were members. It was a pleasure to meet Keith’s family who came from Illinois. Brother Gary was the best man. Keith’s dad, a professional photographer did the wedding photos. All of Keith’s family knew how to fall quickly into place for pictures from years of practice. My father and stepmother came from California, and of course Grandpa and Grandma Mae were there. Jennifer was beautiful in my wedding dress, which she redesigned to make it uniquely hers, and her attendants were in beautiful blue, her favorite color and mine too! I spent a lot of time with Grandma Mae shopping for her dress. She was very concerned that we wouldn’t be able to find one to fit. On a clothing note, older ladies usually shopped for half sizes, which were not particularly stylish. Fortunately the petite category, a recent designation in clothing, fit the bill, and we found the perfect dress for her. I realized it was very important for her to have a pretty dress because Jennifer was special to her, and she was so happy she was able to be at her wedding.
At the time we were planning Jennifer’s wedding, Kent was in the Navy going through basic officer training. The date set was so far in the future we foresaw no conflict for him. Unfortunately he developed pneumonia during basic training, but it was missed by the Navy, and he kept plugging along, until they finally discovered it. During basic training any recruit can drop out at any point, and many do, but Kent persevered. He was in a unique position, between a rock and a hard place, which is often the case in the Navy. Because of the delay in his training caused by the pneumonia, for a period of time it was touch and go as to whether he would finish without a conflict of dates. There was the possibility that his ceremony in Pensacola and Jennifer’s wedding would fall on the same day! Fortunately it turned out to be a week earlier and he arrived in time. It was wedding jitters for the parents of the bride!
Another life changing event happened in 1982, the year Kent graduated from high school and left for RPI. In August I developed Type One diabetes, often known as juvenile diabetes. I was 46 years old! Kent pretty much got himself ready to leave home and drive from Colorado to New York State, driving the 1966 VW Square back, which we purchased upon leaving Adak because Kent had been born and the VW bug was too small (the same car he drove into the school and the one Jennifer used backing into the van). That car had a long interesting life!
Jennifer and Keith eventually settled in Eckert and Kent began his eight year Navy career. One tour of duty took him to Antarctica (at his request). We all celebrated Christmas in Breckenridge that year and one of his gifts was electric socks!
In writing these stories I found that each one triggered ten more, but I will conclude with this final one. Kent was home on leave, Grandma and Grandpa were living in Colorado Springs and Jennifer and Keith were living in Eckert. We arranged for all of us to get together at Jennifer and Keith’s. Don, his folks, and I drove in one car and Kent left an hour behind us in his car, which was now a BMW with many thousands of miles on it (the squareback was history). Awaiting us in the kitchen at Eckert was a malfunctioning dishwasher, which Jennifer happened to mention. Don sprang into action and dismantled the dishwasher in the middle of the kitchen floor, because any broken thing is a challenge to be fixed immediately. Kent arrived in the middle of this scene, looked around and by way of greeting said “Okay, so who is the dummy who told Dad the dishwasher didn’t work?” And our mini-family reunion was under way!