Tough Times

Spotted this mobile home and some memories came flooding in. At one point in time, my parents, little sister, and I lived in one like that, size and color too, for a year or so.

The old saw, “Tough times don’t last, tough people do”, applied to my parents.  Around 1949, my father got hired by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. We became railroad gypsies, living in “house cars”, that is to say railcars made into mobile houses. Some were quite nice, others were Spartan at best.  At various times we lived, along the tracks in Colorado; the North Denver yards, Plainview, Rollinsville, Pinecliff, East Portal, Kremmling, Tabernash, Toponas and Steamboat Springs.

 My sister, who is nine years younger than me, was born while we lived in East Portal.

The railroad operated on the seniority system. After a time, my father was promoted to Section Foreman. The management was always consolidating sections. A section would be consolidated, everyone “bumped” down, and everyone moved. In ten years, my father never went higher than next to last and many times he went back to being a section hand. That was the reason we lived in that dreadful mobile home. Kremmling was where he could go.

The Section Foreman was provided with a home by the railroad. We were in a nice home in East Portal when my father got “bumped”. What was opened to him was the #1 section hand in Kremmling. We lived there for a summer and winter when he was able to become the Section Foreman in Toponas, and later, Steamboat Springs.

Kremmling was dreadful. Mosquitoes as bad as Alaska. My sister, still in diapers, and I shared a small bed in the rear while my parents had a fold out couch in the front. It wasn’t a fun time!

Steamboat had better opportunities for my parents and they were able to leverage their “ranch raising” to better jobs with summer camps and private schools. They were able to buy a small ranch. They still worked “town jobs” and, in later years, made a lot of money in real estate sales when the “ski boom” took Steamboat from a 2,000 population town to a world class skiing destination. 

My sister had the good fortune of growing up in Steamboat, attending school K -12. She took her horse riding to a high level, becoming, age 13, the youngest certified riding instructor in the country while working at the Perry Mansfield Camp.

https://www.perry-mansfield.org/

She was also a gifted dancer. While not enrolled in the dance programs, the instructors would coach her on the side.

Steamboat for me was a place I came to hate. Always the new kid, and never one to kiss anyone’s ass, I was accustomed to fighting whoever was the school bully. Him, a 6^th grader and me a 2^nd grader? No hesitation, fight on!  Steamboat was different; I always had to fight two or three at a time. That finally died down but I was never accepted. What I did develop was complete self reliance and trained myself to not need anyone.

What I gained from that upbringing was the willingness to tackle any kind of job head on, with no fear of failure. Fail? Fuck it, what’s next?

This blog gets read, from time to time, by members of my extended family. Some of the younger ones may gain something useful from it. Hope the rest of you weren’t bored.

For the record, while I was growing up, my parents were honest, sober, hard working responsible people. They walked the walk. (Poaching deer doesn't count)