Memory

Memory is an interesting thing.

Just last week my partner, Ted White, who read my first post, told me that he did the Denver to Aspen ride as a young man in the 70s.?The wind, he said, had been the hardest part.?Interestingly, this sparked a memory in me. One my dad can no longer recollect but one he had told me about when I asked him about his ride many years ago.?You see, Ted explained that he had taken the route through South Park and Buena Vista to get to Aspen.?I think my dad took that route too.

This was not the route I had been envisioning. The route I was envisioning is one I found on the internet, and the one from the internet started at Sloan's Lake and ended in Woody Creek. But my mother told me recently when I asked about the route that she always remembered my dad saying that they embarked on their ride from I-25 and Hampden, by the Continental movie theater. This would not make sense given the route I was envisioning, but would make perfect sense if they were going to go through South Park. They would have taken Hampden until it turns into Highway 285 and stayed on that road up through Conifer and Bailey, going over Kenosha Pass, then dropping into South Park for a long but decent and then gradual climb from Buena Vista up to Twin Lakes before the final climb up Independence Pass before dropping into Aspen.

The route through South Park is a good 26 miles longer than the one I was envisioning, but it only requires going over two mountain passes instead of three. I thought a little more about this, and Ted's comment about the brutal headwinds in South Park reminded me of a story my dad told me as a boy.?He said that he and the two guys he rode with shared time in the lead to cut the wind and allow the riders behind to draft and save energy.?He said that one time when he was getting ready to move into lead position from the back of the line he almost forgot to look before pulling out to pass.?Good thing he did, because a big truck was coming in hot.?Fortunately, he looked, and had a story to tell me afterwards. It is a lesson I remember decades later.

I tried to figure out why I thought he took a ride up Loveland Pass and I think I was conflating memories of his ride with memories of the Coors Classic bike race from years ago. My dad was excited about that race and took us to see a leg of it once. The memory of the Coors Classic was one from an era that feels fairly far away. It was the time before my two little brothers were born. My family was just my dad, my mom, my older brother, Chuck, and me. I was only five when my dad took this ride. That's the age of my oldest daughter. Knowing that I am leaving impressions on her memory now that will last for decades lets me feel the sublime enormity of life and fatherhood. And I know that part of why I am doing this is to do something memorable, that can last beyond a time when my own memory fades.

When writing the first post, I had to do some detective work to find out the simple fact of when my dad actually took his ride. He does not remember and my mom could not remember exactly. She did recall, however, that it predated the birth of my younger brother, KC. So I went to their house and got out old photo albums. I looked through one from 1979 and saw pictures of me wearing a cycling cap from the "Big Wheel" bike shop in Denver. I remember that hat and wish I could still find it. I also saw pictures of the family enjoying a visit to Aspen in the summer time. Then I saw the picture that I put on the first post of my dad and his friend at the end of their ride (I think they might have actually stopped at the top of Independence Pass and ridden down into Aspen in the white van in the background, which was their support vehicle - something my mom vaguely remembered.) Looking through the old photos, I remembered times going to a bike shop (which I think was on Illiff) with my dad. We spent a decent amount of time there. I'm sure I was just tagging along, but I always remember being intrigued about the shop and all the bikes, and I'm pretty sure it is the place where I got my first bike, which my dad taught me to ride. It was part of that beautiful time in childhood where there is no purpose in life other than to be, and where your connection to your parents is a vital and primal one. They provide for you, guide you, and shape you, and often times not through any conscious or deliberate ways. Just being with them, watching them live their life and pursue meaningful goals, that leaves an impression that lasts. This was my early childhood, when I was the youngest, when I just was.

Going through the photos was a journey through memories, one made possible by my dad. For any of you who know him, or whoever has visited my childhood home, he was an avid photographer. His subject was his family. I remember him saying that he didn't really have any interest in taking landscape photos. It was people, family that he liked to photograph. And that he did. We have literally thousands of photos of our life. Memories preserved physically.

Old age faces all of us. We can fight it or accept it gracefully. I think both approaches are cool, so long as the fighter fights with grace and the graceful person never stops fighting. But memory loss... that hurts. It seems unfair. I've always had a hard time reconciling how our world can be so beautiful and so painful. Some things just are not fair. We all have something like this in our life. A painful event, a loss, a tragedy. Something that brings us to a place where we are not sure we can come back, or want to come back, and when we come back we never feel quite the same. Despite a lot of time meditating on the subject, I have yet to find a cure for this. But, I am starting to see how embracing the opportunities each day brings can create new memories, and how new memories have a way of bridging the gap with the memories of the past. The gaps spans over loss and grief and times we may not want to remember, but we get to, at least for now. And what we do today can be part of the fabric that makes up the memories of those around us.

Memory and being sometimes seem like different things, but sometimes mesh together and become one. My dad's memory of his ride is mostly gone, and these days are full of just being for him. That "being" is somewhat simple on the surface, but there is a depth we just don't know about. He is here, being part of a new memory that is in the making, linking to memories of the past and the life he lived and created for his family.

I may end up taking a slightly different route to get from Denver to Aspen, just as I've taken a slightly different route in my life than my father did. But I will embrace the challenges and look at fatherhood as a heroic journey and strive to provide to my family, and our friends, something like what he provided. When my memory fades, when I am gone, I hope to live on in the memories and hearts of the people in my life.

May today bring you an opportunity to make a good memory in your life!