The Way Back Machine

The time: June, 1979
The place: Silverton, Colorado

One of the Farmer's first jobs out of college was working for one of the largest producers of dairy products in the U.S. He was invited to participate in a business seminar that was being held at a resort in Silverton, Colorado. We'd only been married for 6 months and luckily for me, the wives were invited along for the trip.

We flew a jet from Chicago to Denver. That's a story in itself, as days before our departure a jumbo jet crashed after taking off from O'Hare, killing everyone onboard. It made for some nervous travelers on this trip. This is the plane we took from Denver to Silverton, although I remember it being much smaller.



We stayed in this dramatic resort on the side of mountain.



Not much sleep for flatlanders who were afraid of sliding down the mountainside in the middle of the night.

Look how young the Farmer looks! And relaxed too. He was a workaholic even back then.



One of the activities offered at the resort was a trail ride up into the mountains where you'd go fishing in a lake. Most of the group from his company decided to participate. I don't remember alot of the wives being along on this trail ride.

I pretended to be a cowgirl. I'd never spent more than 20 minutes on a horse in my life.



The Farmer kept looking back to make sure I was still in the saddle.



We rode for about an hour, up into the high country. There's was a shack where they kept all the tackle. Yes, it was THAT beautiful.



Do you see all those guys at the water's edge? They're the big executives from the company. They thought it was a good idea to walk down to the edge of the lake right in front of the shack and just start fishing. Hmmmmm.....

It seemed to me that they never had a grandpa who loved to fish. The kind of grandpa that required you to learn to fish if you ever wanted to spend any quality time with him. Nope, they never had a fishing grandpa.

I did.

My grandpa showed us how to walk around a lake and scout the holes where the fish might be hiding. Like this one.



He taught us how to bait a hook, be patient and jerk the line to set the hook. He taught us how to reel 'em in and string 'em on a line.

And that's what I did.



Lots of them.



So many that we were able to have the resort's chef cook them up for appetizers at that evening's meal.

The executives on the other side of the lake? They weren't very good sports about the whole thing. They kept asking the Farmer, "What's your wife doing over there?"

"Oh, nothing," he answered. "Just a little something her grandpa taught her."

NOTE: I do not remember EVER being that skinny. The South Beach Diet starts today!! Yes, our glasses are so 1970's.