Rear view volume II
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Expressions all indicate joy and elation, But what are they thinking in this situation? The bride's father feels like he's had it and lost it; Both his wrist and his checking account are exhausted. The bride's mother thinks, "Well he didn't abduct her,-- But how can she manage without me to instruct her?! The groom's father frets about sonny's bank balance, But hopes he acquires Dad's lovemaking talents. The groom's mother's lips have a slightly pursed look As she thinks "Well, she's pretty, but I'll bet she can't cook!" The minister's manner shows professional pride As he thinks "There's a knot that'll really stay tied!" The triumphant expression of the bride, it is clear, Is that of the huntress who's bagged her first dear. The groom, on the other hand, feels rather grim, 'Cause he realizes now that the yoke is on him. And the guest at the wedding, who's glad he ain't in it, Thinks, "Barnum was right,--there's one born every minute!" * * * * Kappy and Craig immediately moved to Indianapolis where Craig began his training to become a dentist. Kappy was the main financial support , acquiring a job at Westlane Junior High teaching science. Almost exactly a year after their marriage a bouncing baby son was born on July 13, 1971. Named Douglas Michael Cooper, he was a fun kid, and a wonderful added attraction for Carol and I during our frequent visits to their nice home in suburban Indianapolis. Unfortunately that marrige did not remain permanent They divorced in May, 1977. But after they both became reconciled to the separation they remained friends and shared the raising of Doug into his adulthood as a fine young man. Kappy acquired a good position teaching at Park Tudor School, a fancy private and expensive establishment, where she taught 7th and 8th grade science plus high school human anatomy and physiology for the ensuing 12 years. She soon became acquainted with Hal Sharpe,who was superintendent of schools in Zionsville, a delightful community adjoining Indianapolis. He too was recently divorced, and had charge of his two fine children, Susan Kaye (b. 5/16/67) and Edward Oliver (b. 7/30/65). Hal's and Kappy's association and many mutual interests finally resulted in their marriage on June 4, 1978, and Kappy acquired two step-children for whom she became a capable and affectionate friend and mother. Her motherly duties increased when she gave birth to a baby boy they named Kyle Zachary Sharpe on August 23, 1981. Subsequently always called Zach, he, like his ten year older half-brother Doug, became a joy and delight for everyone, and has always been the friendliest-to-everyone fellow I have ever known. Doug was a fine older brother for Zach. He enjoyed the opportunity to help care for him, and as they both matured through boyhood they enjoyed each other's company and activities. Zach also had the attention and friendship of his older stepbrother Eddie and stepsister Susie, who often served as baby tenders during Kappy's temporary absence from home. Cousin Kelley, who was four years old when Zach arrived, became a close friend of the boys. She especially admired Doug as he grew taller and handsomer, and greatly enjoyed the occasions when her family and Kappy's could be together. It was a fine marriage, but with a tragic end when Hal suddenly died on Jan. 4, 1990, from a massive stroke. He was liked and admired by all who knew him in Zionsville, and the massive crowd of people attending his funeral was a fitting tribute. (It was the only time at a funeral I have ever seen the conducting minister momentarily choke up and shed a tear during the service.) Kappy was much in love with Hal, a personable fellow with whom she shared many tastes and talents, and she of course was devastated by her sudden widowhood. I spent a month living with her afterward, trying to help her cope with her grief, and taking care of the many financial and estate settlement matters that always ensue after the death of a prominent family member. That summer Carol and I persuaded her to visit us in Houston and attend the 25th reunion of her Memorial Senior High class, which we'd heard would be held at a large ranch-type estate near the southwest end of the city. She was not entirely enthused about going to the reunion, but we loaned her one of our cars and convinced her that renewing a few friendships might be a beneficial change for her now-lonely life in Indianapolis. And it was; she returned that night the happiest we'd seen her since Hal's death. She'd met many schoolmates, and was pleased to have renewed acquaintance with a fellow she'd barely known in school,--a handsome man named Jay Lee Cannon, recently divorced. Lee (as he preferred to be called) was then living in Pleasanton, California, and his attending the reunion was only incidental to the reason for his visit in Houston, which was mainly to settle estate matters pertaining to his parents who had recently died. They subsequently had a date or two while they were both in Houston, then began exchanging correspondence after each had returned to their California and Indianapolis domiciles. Over the course of the next year they each made several airline trips to and fro, and I finally told Kappy it would be cheaper for them to get married, so they did. (That's my story, anyway, but I'm sure it was entirely their idea!) So they were matrimonially united on August 10th, 1991, at the Congregational Church in Crested Butte, Colorado. The subsequent reception was at our Colorado cabin a few miles north of C.B., which was well attended and much fun The log-encircled front porch was the site for an enthusiastic dancing party, well recorded by several photographers. One was Jerry Mike who took some fine video views. One of them was of 10-year-old Zach, sitting on the top log on the porch front clapping so enthusiastically that he fell backward off the log about six feet onto the ground, arms and legs waving frantically. Thanks to Jerry Mike that event subseqently appeared briefly three times on ABC's TV program "America's Funniest Home Videos". After the honeymoon Kappy made arrangements to sell her and Hal's attractive home in Zionsville, and moved with Zach to Pleasanton into Lee's comfortable home located at 2439 via de los Milagros ("street of the Miracles"). Like Hal, Lee also had two children, Monica Elizabeth (b. 4/2/70) and Timothy David (b. 7/12/74). So Kappy acquired two more fine stepchildren, expanding her role as mother which the kids and she were delighted to have her do. And Zach acquired another nice stepsister and stepbrother, with whom he established a good rapport. He was especially glad to acquire a fine friendship with Tim, since Doug was now in college at Vanderbilt.
Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan. He and some friends subsequently decided to organize a company of their own, with an office in Danville, Lee being designated vice president. They named their company PictureWorks. Their primary business was producing and selling specialized computer software of use to companies in designing and preparing picture advertisements in newspapers and other publications. Some of their principal customers were Japanese, and Lee's work became increasingly devoted to coordination with those corporations' headquarters managements in Japan. This required considerable trans-Pacific airline travel, with a trip by Lee being required sometimes as often as every three weeks, over a period of about two years. Lee probably set a record of some sort for frequent Pacific crossings, which I'm sure became quite onerous. But one advantageous spin-off result was that Lee probably also experienced more enthusiasm and sincerity in his homecoming welcomes than most husbands have ever enjoyed. A second benefit was the substantial amount of free airline mileage credits he accumulated, which he and his family have used extensively in vacation and holiday travel. He and his business partners finally took an opportunity to sell their company. Lee of course looked forward to a more relaxed life of less travel. But it developed that part of the new company's purchase deal was that Lee would continue trips to Japan and Asia with the objective of consolidating PictureWorks' business connections there for the benefit of the new company. So it was about another year of more Pacific crossings. One of these was to also scout out the possibility of business deals in China and Australia, in addition to the regular Japanese contacts. That was the last major trip. Lee took Kappy along, and they combined the business portion with some vacation side trips for a total tour time of two months. While Lee was making business connections in Australia Kappy was "doing" New Zealand, and they both enjoyed a visit to Thailand where some of the exotic entertainment included elephant rides in the jungle. Lee finally took temporary retirement in 2001, and as of this writing he has not yet decided on his next business venture but is thoroughly enjoying his long luxurious loaf. Although Kappy's only working career was teaching science for 14 years, she pursued a variety of interests: playing guitar and piano, making woodcuts and greeting cards, taking and developing photographs in her darkroom, playing on tennis teams, mountain biking, hiking and exploring. She loves music, for which she gives her mother and Hal the credit; Hal's banjo and her guitar music often filled the rafters of the Zionsville home. After Hal's death, Kappy continued her music hobby with other musicians in the San Francisco area, and she now sings and plays with a bluegrass band called the Roadkill Ramblers. She enjoys the piano, and was the piano accompanist for an Oakland choir. A favorite of her community activities is teaching fifth graders in an after school program at a nearby elementary school. Her strongest passion, other than being with friends and family, is a love for the mountains and a yearning to explore wilderness areas all over the world with Lee. * * * * The Kids' Kids As previously noted (p.94), Kelley Kyle is working on a Master's degree at the University of Houston as this is being written, and after another necessary scholastic year hopes to get started on a career in social work. She already has experience as an "intern" in this field, having spent several summers with a Houston Mental Health Association as a case worker advising and consulting families with troubled children. Doug Cooper studied two years at Vanderbilt, then switched to Indiana University. His favorite college pastimes were intramural sports and being active in the choirs. He graduated #1 in his Speech and Communication school class with a B.A. (which won him a $2,000 award!), and #2 in his Business School class with a B.S. at Indiana University in 1997, following which he was employed shortly afterward by Procter and Gamble as a purchasing agent, with his office in Cincinnati..He was married there in June, 2002 to a lovely young lady named Tanya (maiden name: Roose) in an elaborate weddimg at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Zachary Sharpe did well in high school, scholastically and in intramural athletics. Basketball and snowboard skiing are favorite hobbies, and he now pursues his scholastic career in his second year at the University of Colorado at Boulder where he is doing well in his business classes. He enjoys an active social life that includes membership in the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, and at every opportnity pursues his hobbies of intramural sports, skateboarding and snowboarding. Ed Sharpe's college years at Indiana University included being a Sigma Nu, playing many intramural sports, and graduating with a Business major in 1988. He is now a Business Project Manager for Maxtor Computer Company in Boulder, CO. He is a devoted father to his two cute children, Reid (b. 1/28/95) and Sarah (b. 5/12/97). Sue Sharpe Conger's college years were spent at Ball State University, where she was a Chi Omega, and obtained a degree in Merchandising and Marketing in l989. She then worked as a regional manager for Finlay Fine Jewelry for seven years, during which she married Greg Conger Nov. 9, 1991. Greg now owns his own company in Indianapolis called Specified Lighting Systems of Indiana.Their three attractive children are Halle (b.9/13/93), Drew (b. 9/21/95), and Jayde (b. 1/19/99). Sue and Greg often undertake the admirable function of gluing the family together by graciously hosting large family reunions on holiday occasions such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, which are greatly enjoyed and appreciated by all those attending. Monica Cannon graduated from San Diego University with a BA in Psychology. She is now living in San Ramon, CA., and is earning a degree in Marriage and Family Therapy at JFK University in Orinda, CA. Tim Cannon's primary interest has been in aviation. He graduated from Embry Riddle with an Aeronautics Degree, and after several years of pilot training as a student and an instructor, acquired his commercial pilot's license. He is now a jet pilot for Skywest, based in Salt Lake City to which he commutes back and forth from his main residence in San Diego (where he can indulge in a favorite hobby of ocean surfing). Neither he nor Monica are yet married, apparently enjoying "playing the field", which I am sure must be an enjoyable and rewarding activity for them, since both are good looking, sociable, and personable individuals (like I always wanted to be!). Summary Writing "The Kids' Kids" section about all my grandkids, step-grandkids, and step-greatgrandkids, and keeping it only briefly factual, has been difficult. I am so proud of all of them, and so lucky to be their relative, that the temptation to enlarge the text into expansive complimentary discussions of their talents, achievements, good looks, and fine family attributes, has been nearly irresistable. But this autobiography is already too long by far, and detailed descriptions of family members in a generation twice-removed from mine would be excessive. So I will limit my concluding comments in this chapter to simply noting that I feel unbelievably fortunate in having such a remarkably fine assortment of kids and kids' kids. I wish I could claim credit for some of their fine qualities, and perhaps to some minor degree I could, but I think my lovely wife was mostly the responsible one, as the fine mother and grandmother she always was. She had, and I have, much to be proud and thankful for. * * * *
CHAPTER IX: The Colorado Cabin I have often wondered whether love of nature develops because of one's early environment, or if it has to do with one's assortment of genes. Genes, of course, are the "in" thing with scientists today, who are frequently reporting discoveries such as that people's genes are responsible for alcohol problems or a passion for peanut butter. In my case I suppose genes may have been involved and passed on down the line, since all my descendants (to date, anyway) have turned out to be avid outdoors people and bona fide tree-huggers (as the land developers scoffingly call the environmentalists). But my boyhood environment certainly had considerable influence on my appreciation of the great outdoors. In my home town of Downsville, Wisconsin, "out of town" was never more that a half mile in any direction, and we kids could spend most of our playtime in the lovely forests, rolling hills, and clear-flowing rivers that encompassed that village. And as young teenagers we frequently took week-long camping trips to scenic locations in neighboring counties. (In those days one could acquire a driver's license in Wisconsin at age 14.) My fondness for camping continued in my adult life, and Carol shared camping experiences with me after we were married in numerous locations in western states. She and I and our kids frequently camped in remote areas of Colorado, and we were especially fond of the magnificence of scenery in a rugged Elk Mountains area several miles north of the town called Crested Butte, near the center of the west half of Colorado.We often thought how nice it would be to have a cabin somewhere in that area. But.--build a log cabin over 1100 miles from Houston that would be accessible only for a few months in the summer? When we mentioned this proposal to some of our friends and relatives, a few of them made comments suggesting (not very subtly) that the Kyles must not have a complete set of furniture in their attics. But we didn't mind that,--we realized that those persons' experience with nature and outdoors recreation was probably limited to mowing the lawn and taking out the garbage. So, as mentioned in Chapter VI (p.77), in 1964, acting on a tip provided by a horse wrangler named Carl Turney we often rented horses from for trail rides, we were able to purchase a lot for a cabin site in an aspen forest on an old mining claim a half mile south of an old ghost mining town called Gothic, about seven miles north of Crested Butte. We stopped in Gunnison (28 miles south of C.B.) enroute back to Houston at the end of that vacation, and I contacted a couple of home builder companies to inquire about getting plans for a log cabin. None of the plans shown us were satisfactory, but they both assured us they would mail us some to our specifications within a couple weeks, and they would of course be delighted to perform the construction of whatever cabin design we settled on. But one problem seemed to be that we were insisting on a "real" log cabin (i.e.,constructed of solid logs) and their typical log construction was of half-logs, with the convex side out and the smooth half inside, usually covered with wall board.
during summers in her nearby cabin, about a quarter block's distance from ours but sheltered from our view by intervening aspen forest. The only other cabins in our area were two on the road to Gothic and one a quarter mile north of us across the East River. One of the road locations was owned by a family living in C.B.and one by a family living in Kentucky, and both were seldom used. The one on East River was owned and more frequently used by a couple named Bench from Denver. They were a pleasant and sociable pair, but for us to visit their cabin required either a hike or auto drive almost to Gothic with a double-back on the other side of the river. So the only all-summer human readily accessible inhabitants in our East River valley were the staff and students at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic. But we never lacked non-human visitors. Our cabin was often visited by White-Tailed deer, and elk and black bears could often be seen in the more remote sections of the mountains. Occasionally a wolf could be spotted, and at night the air would usually be full of the noise of vociferous coyotes. Marmots (relatives of woodchucks) liked to establish living quarters under the cabin (which we disapproved of). Rabbits romped regularly about the yard, and chipmunks and martens (="American Sable"; relative of weasels) were popular visitors on our open front porch, especially when we were sitting there with unpopped popcorn and peanuts to feed them. And our windows-hung bird feeders attracted literally swarms of several varieties of humming birds, many of which could, with patience, be coaxed to sit on our fingers as they slurped up the liquid nourishment. * * * *
Gothic Gothic had an interesting but brief history as the center of a silver mining boom in the late 1880's. Following is a descriptive excerpt from a R.M.B.L. publication called "Recollections of R.M.B.L." by John C. Johnson, Jr., a professor at that institute who is the son of the founder, and his wife Dorothy Johnson (with both of whom Carol and I became good friends during our many summers there): "In May, 1879, the schooled eyes of brothers John and David Jennings located the first rich silver lode at high Sylvanite Basin. Word of their strike quickly spread. Hundreds of eager prospectors poured in. A good toll road was soon built up from Crested Butte. Many log and frame residences, two hotels, two large general stores, several saloons, a bakery, a town hall, and other structures sprang up at Gothic like magic. By summer's end "Gothic City" was legally incorporated. Newpapers billed the bustling town as "the gateway to the mines".Thus another Colorado "boom town" was born, quickly becoming so well known that in 1880 Ulysses S.Grant paid it a personal visit. "Yet by the summer of 1881 the town began to fade. Restless pospectors and their attendant merchants started to move on to new bonanzas because the ores of the Gothic area had not proven rich enough and the winters were too severe. Although the town government held on for a few more years, the 1893 silver panic finished any hope of survival." Dr. John C. Johnson, Sr., who was Professor of Biology and dean at Western State College in Gunnison (1919-1928), had visions of a high-altitude biological field station in the Rockies. He had the foresight and ambition to secure property in Gothic, and with the help and support of professors from other universities established the R.M.B.L. in 1928. It has since successfully grown and expanded, and every summers conducts various courses in biology and botany for dozens of graduate students from numerous colleges and universities throughout the U.S. * * * * The Kyle cabin (which we named "Valley Hi") has been occupied every summer for 37 years by family members and friends (and for a couple days one winter by Jerry M.). A Jeep was needed to visit the many miles of remote mountain trails, so in Feb.1967 I bought a slightly used one in Houston, painted a big red heart on one side, and presented it to Carol as a Valentine Day gift. It was very functional for our many sight-seeing and exploratory tours in areas completely inaccessible by regular vehicles. Unlike more modern Jeeps and SUVs it had two rear seats facing each other and parallel to the car length, so with the canvas top removed we could (and often did) readily carry 6 adult passengers and two small kids.
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