One of my earliest and favorite adventures was with my Dad's cousins in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was between 1980-83 at the annual street breakfast downtown. The local ranchers and business men held an annual cattle drive and fun camping trip into the mountains. They would kick it off by having an early morning breakfast on hay bails downtown, followed by a parade. Ken Ochs, was one of them.
Ken passed away this week and I wanted to share some memories of not only a relative I've come to respect, but a fellow adventurer.
Ken was a rancher in Gunnison, Colorado (the setting and real life town for the second AVP movie). Cattle was just one of his businesses. He and the other Ochs brothers had a variety of investments, including the old railroad depot downtown that houses Guiseppe's Old Depot Restaurant. Naturally, this was a regular gathering place for family and friends where Ken would tell funny stories at the head of the table as the freight trains rolled by. I always liked how the railway men used to call the depot ahead of time from the train and pick up a pizza from the restaurant as they passed through. I liked seeing the trains up close.
Ken and his wife Delores (Dee) had a home just as warm and inviting. Michael Garman sculptures depicting cowboys were scattered here and there. There was a saddle rack off to one side by the desk. There were also plenty of seats and couches for folks to sit and talk, some sporting Native American blankets. I played Atari 2600 for the first time in 1980, in that living room, and years later, would watch Ben Hur for the first time with Ken and Dee.
Ken was a spiritual man and, in his later years wrote and published a few books of poetry. Much of it was cowboy thoughts and musings, but all of it was from the heart. He took great joy in his writing, evening enclosing a bit of it in the annual Christmas letters.
My favorite memories of him were at the street breakfast. He let me ride with him in the parade one year and he had a little burlap sack full of candy for me. Somewhere, there's a picture of he and I by a horse, one that later would eat part of my straw cowboy hat. If anything, that day with him was a joy, one of many, and truly an adventure. I would think of him fondly years later when I took my own horsback ride. It was then I realized the joy he felt in riding, mixed with an indescribable serentiy.
A good man and fellow adventurer goes to rest now, to ride heaven's finest horses and travel it's beautiful landscape. I love you Uncle Ken, and thank you.
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2 comments:
Sorry to hear of your loss man. There are many adventurers in our lives, good people who provide examples to us of what it means to be alive. That you listened enough to hear your uncle's tread is pretty awesome. That you cared enough to recognize his passing and say good words says volumes about you taking care of your business. You're on that horse too man, ridin' true. That's respect for those who have gone before us if I ever heard it.
hello i was lucky enough to meet ken he was a close family friend being one of the Kemper clan it was a sad day when he passed in fact it was a month after my grandmother Anna passed my grandpa actually built ken and Dee's home. i am the 2nd youngest of their grand parents and am still close to Amy and the rest of the family.
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