The same, and different

 Today Mona and I had two very different experiences that were also very similar.  Let me show you.

This is the Sheldon Jackson Presbyterian Chapel in Fairplay, Colorado. Built in 1872 it now has about 80 members and 30-50 in Sunday attendance, including children (note the children's activity packets under the table in the right photo).

Above right is Mona with John Redmond, the Clerk of Sessions (Trustee Team Leader). We met he and some friends (Other SESSIONS members) spending their Monday evening pruning and planting the prayer garden. There was Pam, Gary, and Carol on their hands and knees in 50 degree weather (a warm June evening for Fairplay) digging in the soil.

Then Sheila arrived, who we learned is the church BOTANIST, and the real work could begin!

I introduce you to these folks not to let you know there are still churches out there other than United Methodist, but to tell you about John's 'character'.  I didn't say he is a character, though his wonderful sense of humor and ready smile might prove him one.  I said he has a character; one that he plays during Fairplay's Heritage Days in August every year. The person he portrays is an ordained pastor. And this man is not a Presbyterian. He is a, of all things, Methodist.

John plays John.  John Dyer, though, a man so beloved of all in the area they called him Father John.  He arrived in Fairplay when it began as a gold town so he could start a Methodist Church, which he did.  But the flock could, or did, not pay him well so he supplemented his income by carrying the mail over Mosquito Pass, which is over 13,000 feet high.  Fairplay is nearer sea level at just under 10,000. Summers were OK for the long trek but winters, which last here from mid-September to mid-April are brutal anyway, let alone on a lonely path that runs above tree line at it's summit.

Such was the life of this early methodist minister.  No retirement parties for Father John. Read about him at http://www.fatherdyer.org/history.html

 -----------------------------------

Now hear a very different story about another kind of hero of the American West.  This time of the old Northwest, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

GR Fogelberg (GR is what he's called and Fogelberg, he likes to remind folk, is Norwegian) was with his wife at the self proclaimed 'highest bar in the USA in Alma, Colorado.  Mona and I met him as we had a dinner there of Chicken Fried Chicken and stuffed baked potatoes.  OK, we shared one dinner and had it with salad, not soup and no dessert.  Well, I had a dessert.  A Blue Moon before the meal. :)

We learned from speaking first with his wife (seated to the left of the picture at the left) that he had served first the Chicago-Northwestern and when it was bought out the Union Pacific Railroad based out of the Twin Cities for 42.5 years. GR had begun driving engines as one of the youngest engineers, or as experienced drivers call the newbies, Hogdrivers (Pigdrivers in Canada) at 19.

 He retired 2 years ago and was finally, his wife said, getting used to not working every night so he had to get his 4-6 hours sleep when the children were home. He missed so many holidays he felt he hadn't really 

                                                      seen his kids grow up. But he still wears his UP hat, doesn't he?

Well. I tried 11 ways to get GR's picture to stand up straight but I have to surrender.  So turn your screen on it's side and read the rest of this story sideways.

He told so many good personal railroad stories I invite you to look him up the next time you get to Wisconsin. Where does he live?  Like I said, you'll have to 'look him up". But one story stood out.

It was toward the end of the day and GR was hauling a line of potash cars between point A and point B, way out in God's Country when he saw the truck of a local dairy he knew driving  home from a long day of picking up full milk cans at local farms (long before that area had tankers suck the milk from a farmer's own bulk tank).

Now this particular day this particular driver was driving his truck somewhat erratically on the road alongside GR's 40 mph rolling diesel when all of a sudden he swerved the truck right into the path of the engine and before you could say MOO the entire load of milk and cans and van body exploded all over the front of that engine.  GR slammed on the brakes but it takes time to stop a train of potash cars.

When he had stopped her, and backed up to the wreck, there was the evidence, all over the grade, and the cab of the truck, intact but fully separated from the box, nosed into a six foot deep ditch along the track with the shattered drive shaft spinning itself out of the still running truck engine transmission, throwing up the gravel along the track.

GR and his crew helped the conscious but very confused driver out of his cab.  Where am I?" he said in a daze. Why you've just hit my train and your entire load is smashed all over it!" said GR.  "What? What train? I never saw any train?" and he fell asleep in GR's arms.  He wasn't hurt.  He was dead drunk.

I asked GR what happened to the driver.  I assumed there were legal and financial ramifications, but surely he also lost his job.  "No," said GR disgustedly, "He was the owner of the dairy. What do you think?"

-------------------------

So here are two stories. One about a man who grew his church and community through winters walked across that frozen summit and died a hero to his state.  The other a man who built his company up and then himself down so that in the end he and his dairy went out of business.

These two stories, told in very different settings, by two no doubt different men, have, I believe, at least this one moral among possible others:  If you stand for something well enough, people will notice what you stand for and pay attention to you.  If you fall down badly, getting up again can be very, very hard. So do your best to stand, and when you fall, fall SOBER.

-Ken

PS:  The coach is now spending two weeks at Denver's Camping World Collision Center in Arvada.  We are staying this week in our planned Marriott time share in Breckenridge, CO.  Then we drive to see Jim, or he comes south to see us, and all three will stay in a hotel as we travel central Colorado together till Mona and I can head back on the road.  But at a much easier pace.  After all, you can't run by all those churches and bars and miss so many good stories!