 | A WRITER'S WIT |  K. Kesey |
MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the seventeenth post of fifty.
Colorado (1964, 1965, 1967, 2000, 2011)
In my youth I was a church goer, mostly by default, de fault of my mother (har har). Our youth group spent two different week-long sessions in retreat at a cabin our minister owned near Silverton. It was a ten-hour drive from Wichita, and some of we luckier kids rode in the education director’s car, which had a rather new innovation: factory-installed air conditioning. You weren’t exhausted from the wind whipping your face hour after hour or from its roar in your ears. Your skin didn’t stick to the seats. She even let some of us drive! The retreats were great. Short on Bible and theological discussions and long on FUN. We hiked, made day-long climbs up particular mountains, cooked outside. And it was cool! No AC was needed as it was back in Wichita.
On my flight back from LA in 1967, my plane stopped in Denver. As I was flying standby, I was bumped from the flight to Wichita . . . late at night. I called my mother to explain what had happened. She encouraged me to spend the night in the airport, just sleeping on a bench, as she had during World War II, waiting for a train. I’d seen too many movies about people sleeping on hard benches and declared that I was staying in a motel. And I then lifted one of those white courtesy phones connected directly to a motel and took its shuttle. The room cost me eleven dollars, and I tipped the bell hop fifty cents and had no idea whether that was too much or too little. It had just rained and was in the mid-fifties. The air, after I had lived with the smog-filled air of LA for two weeks, seemed splendiferous, providing a natural AC.
On my flight back from LA in 1967, my plane stopped in Denver. As I was flying standby, I was bumped from the flight to Wichita . . . late at night. I called my mother to explain what had happened. She encouraged me to spend the night in the airport, just sleeping on a bench, as she had during World War II, waiting for a train. I’d seen too many movies about people sleeping on hard benches and declared that I was staying in a motel. And I then lifted one of those white courtesy phones connected directly to a motel and took its shuttle. The room cost me eleven dollars, and I tipped the bell hop fifty cents and had no idea whether that was too much or too little. It had just rained and was in the mid-fifties. The air, after I had lived with the smog-filled air of LA for two weeks, seemed splendiferous, providing a natural AC.
In this century we’ve stayed with friends in Grand Lake (2000) and in Denver (2000 & 2011). In 2014 we drove widely around Denver on E-470, a toll road, not really wishing to partake of its urban sprawl. We spent the night in Pueblo, taking short trips out to see things such as Rosemount and the raptor center.
The Colorado Centennial was celebrated in 1976, the same year as the nation’s bicentennial year, the same year Ken and I began our longtime relationship.
The Colorado Centennial was celebrated in 1976, the same year as the nation’s bicentennial year, the same year Ken and I began our longtime relationship.
HISTORICAL POSTCARDS
NEXT TIME: My Book World
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