This is where I was to finish up my high School years. I was student body president one year and Class President several times. I played football and was quarterback and halfback. I graduated from Cache la Poudre High School in 1946.

Let me tell you a bit of history about the people from there. Lee McConnell was one of the most famous people who came out of our school.

This boy Jimmy Hyde I went to school with. When I came to Laport he was graduating. He was older than me. He lived next door to us and his mom was like my adopted mom. We were close. She used to call me her other son. We worked together on their truck farm.  They raised raspberries, strawberries and all kinds of vegetables such as celery. They had a stand up on the highway where they sold produce. I worked for them for 4 years. We used to work the fields with a team of horses.

They had a horse named Jim. We would harness him up every morning and take him out to the fields to cultivate the plants. They had two fields, one on this side of the river and one on the other. I was out there one day and I was cultivating and this horse named Jim was stepping on all the dam plants. So when they came over to see me they say my neck was bowed just like the horse. I was all hunched up behind this stubborn horse. They could see that I was upset because he kept stepping on those plants see.

This farm was active and they were some of the most important people right in Laport there.

Speaking of Jim Hyde. I was his best man at his wedding. Margrett his wife is still living in Laport about a half mile from the store on the corner going south.

Now in my school it was an older building of three stories and a basement. It also had a fire escape. It was a chute that ran down the out side of the building to the ground from the upstairs floors. I went up and down that chute many times. It was fun catching the girls but the boys; we just let them hit the dirt.

Now we would have study hall in that room upstairs and when the teacher would leave the room we would grab a girl and throw her down the fire escape. Yah, we would!

Now the girl would have to come around and walk up the stairs without the teacher finding out she was outside. “That was a lot of fun!”

What a shame they went and tore that school down in 1973. They could have left it for the history. We had the stage with that famous curtain. I was on the stage for plays and graduation.

That reminds me of this story, this is funny!

We had this stage where we did plays. And they had this old curtain that had all this advertising on it.  You know they tore that school down and burned that. That curtain would have been the biggest collectors item you could have or should have had in any museum you could have seen.

Well one day they was rolling up the curtain and the teacher got her dress caught in there and they kept rolling up the curtain. It kept getting higher and higher. We all saw her underwear. Everybody was laughing and giggling, but nobody said, “stop the curtain!”

Her name was Mary Frances Wagner. She was a nice lady. She was our economics, business and music teacher. Now we had good looking and ugly teachers. We didn’t pay much attention to that back in those days. But sure, she was attractive and hey, she had beautiful Legs!

She was supposed to be a good friend of Mr. Van Dyke. She was a nice lady but we never knew if she was married or not. Never paid attention to that.

I had a car in the old days. It was a 1928 Roadster, an Essex. Now I was working for this painter and there was a man who had bought this brand new car for his son who was killed in the war. He had this car a Ford V8 they called it New Thrifty “60” coupe out in the barn. The guy gave it to him free of charge.

Now it was covered with dirt and dust and pigeon droppings. But perfect condition otherwise. The ads said improved and restyled for 1938 and it only cost about six hundred dollars.

My friend and I were working on his Model A Ford and we got it running and ran out of my driveway and on up to Highway 287 and turned left. We were going down the road about 5/10 miles an hour trying to get the engine worked in and get it to go. And we hit Mr. Pratt head on. He had just pulled out of his driveway. We all hit our brakes but that’s how we met Mr. Pratt. Both parties were able to drive away. He was the school principle.

When I was a junior at Cache la Poudre High School we put on a banquet for the seniors. It was held at the northern hotel. I was the toastmaster that evening and had to give a toast to the seniors.

My sister went out with this boy named Harry Simianer. I used to box and wrestle boys. I could whip him every time. He is now dead as is my sister Estella. He was nick named “Bozo”.

For my children this poem was written about your aunt Estella.  

There was once a happy young fella,

          Who loved a young lass named Estella.

          Twas his first, and he loved with a passion,

          This miss, in bobby sox the latest fashion.

          He wished to etch her name for posterity,

          Sought an Artist with great dexterity.

          Emblazoned the name in indelible ink,

          On muscular arm, with skin so pink.

          Alas, fortunes of love, took a sudden turn,

          She found another and he did a slow burn.

          She walked down the aisle with her new lover,

          And left the poor lad behind, to recover.

          Pursued with great endeavor,

          A new love, pledged zeal forever.

          This hapt in the Sandhills,

          Fresh as spring hills and daffodils.

          There was one big problem,

          Before vows so solemn.

          What to do,

          With the outdated tattoo?

          He was in posterity,

          Sought the Artist of great dexterity.

          Discussed the problem the tattoo poses.

          Meditated a moment, & buried Estella in a bed of roses.

                                      Carl W. Simianer (about Bozo- Harry Simianer)

Now Paul Thuelin our Basketball coach. He was a good coach but in poor health. He was dating my aunt Stell Wilson so we got to know him well. He was one of the best fishermen I ever met.

Speaking of fishing. I was up the Cache La Poudre River (Pouder, as we call it.) fishing with the family and there is this place called Ted’s Place just at Highway 287 3 miles north of Laport at the intersection of Highway 14. The old Ted’s Place was a sporting goods place and it was torn down. But Ted Sr. owned it and his son was to take over and manage the place later in life.

As I was saying I was up there fishing with my family on a Sunday back in 1943 and when I was coming down the canyon that day there was a army trainer plane upside down right along the highway by his fathers place. Richard “Dick” Herring was a fledgling air corps pilot and he crashed his plane as he was buzzing the area to say hello to his parents. He had gone off his route and he was flying under these wires and his wing hit a road sign flipping the plane. He survived with just a brain concussion. I wound up sanding his floors at one point and we had the chance to talk years later. Dick was not a friend of mine he was a little older.

Now after I graduated Jim and Louise Hyde wanted to go to California. So I just picked up and left home to go to California. We lived off the land at that time. Not like hunting our meat. But I would get jobs here and there to make a little money. I used to hunt but now I wouldn’t hunt at all those cute little deer with their brown eyes looking at you. We never hunted for anything but for the meat. Never did we hunt just to kill a deer. But that is a different story.

Chapter 3: My Wife Helen

My wife Helen was born back in 1932. I have five children with my wife but to this date no grand children.  My oldest son is Steve. He works right next door here at the gas station (we own). Then came Diane. She now lives out in San Diego. She just came back for Christmas in (2008). I have Connie and Gary and Jim. Helen and I were a great little team. We started out with zero.  Well I did have a little money when I married Helen on August 8-9^th back in 1954.

I started a floor sanding business right off the bat when I returned from Korea. Then I built a speculating house. I didn’t have a penny. But the Steel lumber company trusted me and knew my dad. So they loaned me the materials and I knew a realtor who had a lot that he provided me. Now I got my dad mixed in because he did rock work and so he helped me out. I built that house and sold it for $17,500 the first year I came back from the Korean War.

I was 24 years old at this time. It was when I had an open house to sell this home that I met my little wife Helen. She was about 20 at that time and she had just graduated from Denver University.

She was wonderful. She was never moody or sad. She had an IQ over 140. She was one of those people who knew the answer to everything. Like on those TV shows I would sit there with her and watch. They would ask a question and she would blurt out the answer before the contestants.

I would ask her. “How do you know that?”

She would know the answer all the time, Ok, that was Helen! She was a nice person to be with. I was looking and found this old paper she did on chemistry back when she was a sophomore in school. She got a 100 on the paper and I don’t know many people who could write that stuff.

As a child she contacted polio and at one time they had her on an iron lung. To pass the time when she was incapacitated, she was an adopted and an only child, so she would read the Encyclopedia Britannica. That’s where she got all her information and that’s all she did and she would remembered it, see! So I called my little wife Helen. “My Encyclopedia Britannica”.

My Helen passed away eleven years ago of a heart attack. I could map out the way things would be from that point on. Mostly loneliness and depression. It came to be true.

My brother in law called me that evening before to tell me my sister was in a coma down in Longmont so we rushed down there. My sister had had a stroke the night before in Longmont. The next morning my wife died. I often wondered if we did not get that phone call would she still be with me. It makes you wonder.

Chapter 4: My Family Has Some History

Chapter 5: The War

I think the war was the thing that had the most affect on my youth. I think everybody that was alive at the time of the war participated in the war effort. You either were on the front lines or you were on the support side. They had rationing, and kids would go out and gather scrap iron.

We had training from the time we were in the eighth grade.  They put in  an obstacle course in. They prepared us all so the moment we turned 18, bingo, they would take us into the war. Our main concentration was of course the war.

Every time you would go to the movies on Saturday night they would have the Movie Tone newsreels about what they were doing on the invasion, but we were constantly thinking about the war.

It was December 1945 I went down for my physical. They passed me. But they would not take me until I finished school in 1946. But at that time the war had ended. So I did not serve at that time.

I was in the First Cavalry Division. I still have my patch. It is a blue patch within a yellow diamond with the little yellow horse.  I did go to leadership school and I did get an accommodation from General Harold. Now I wasn’t a solder really. I was a civilian in disguise!

I was really abducted into the service. I had a good job out there in LA. I was making at that time 2.50/hour. I had a brand new Chevy car and a girl friend. And then I got this notice in the mail. I went out to my mailbox one day and I said “Holy Cow!” it was from the Larimer County Draft Board. I knew instantly what that was. I stuck it back in the mailbox and shut the door and walked around thinking. Ya, I just shut the door and walked away!

I immediately quit my job and I went up north. My little cousin Donna Hays was going to get married. So I went up there and I met my folks and my parents and went to the wedding. Then I came home and got the notice back here in Colorado.

Then one morning I had to go down there to Linden Street and catch a Grey Hound Bus. My mom was crying and my dad was shaking my hand goodbye. They took us to Denver and put us on a train heading to Camp Roberts California. We went past the Great Salt Lake and over Donner Pass. The Donner Party, you know that story about the cannibalism etc. I really enjoyed that trip. I spent a lot of time out there on the caboose looking at the country. There were a number of the guys with us but one of them went A-Wall the moment we got there because he was newly married and all and he didn’t want to leave his wife. They finally picked him up and threw him in jail. So that is where I trained at Camp Roberts, Paso Robles, California.

When they gave me time off I could hitchhike down to L.A. because I had friends there. My car was back here in Laport at my parents. They sent me to an area where I was more or less familiar. Most solders they send them away to places where you don’t know a sole and a hundred miles from nowhere. Now being in the service isn’t all bad, You learn a lot of things. Hey if we want to protect our country well someone has to do that. I wouldn’t say that I was one that was going to go to Canada. But I almost got there! I knew they were after me and in 10 days or so I would be back in Fort Collins. So I went to the Draft Board there.

I got hooked into the Korean War. I was in the Army and I got sent to the lines for 6 months. I spent some time in northern Japan. But I did the same things all soldiers do. I went up there on the front lines to get killed! And yes, I did go to the front line and I saw action. I did shoot at people and got to throw hand grenades and all that stuff. It was defiantly for the person who doesn’t have any brains. And they were paying us OH-$100/month!

I was out there on the tank and those little Chinese where shooting those mortars at us. You can’t hear them coming! They hit and go BOOM before you hear them coming. I was there with shrapnel flying all around me. I am more concerned now at that moment because I see these solders coming home with their eyes pierced and legs cut off. And that could happen to me!

One time I jumped down off the tank and I thought Gosh Dang it! I have to be careful because I don’t want this tank to run over my legs. And all this was going on while we were under mortar attack. Lucky for me I didn’t get a scratch! When I got out, I was a Sergeant and making 150 dollars a month.

See a lot of men came back from the war despondent and all. I never looked back. I just went into business!