The very first time that I was privileged to have driven past...The Road Sign...RUSH 33....was right after a Driver's License Examiner at Simla Colorado had "handed" me, sans a test of any sort, my first Colorado Drivers License at the age of eighteen!!!
Now back in those "good old days" of this era it was customary for young folks, that could be spared from various duties, extra hands and others that were seeking part time employment, people from the farms on the plains of Eastern Colorado would journey over to the Western Slope to such places as Fruitvale, Orchard Mesa, and Palisade, small farming communities around Grand Junction Colorado, there to help harvest peaches and other fruits. As destiny would have it I was permitted to make this particular trek across the Rocky Mountains...ONLY one time!!! This trip was a very memorable...if not a downright unforgettable venture....and most especially the return trip home!!!
..........................MR. RONALD J. HOOVER of Rush "33"........................
Very much like the nickname Corky that was "tacked" onto me by my beloved brother Walter Marlin about five and one half months prior to the time my beloved sister Gladys had taken my baby picture....in a letter that I recieved dated May 25, 2004 from my friend...everyone in Eastern Colorado knew him as Ron...he wrote; "Hi Corky" "I'm starting this as Corky, because when someone says Lyle Schmeiser, I have to stop and think a while, as to who they are talking about. So you will always be Corky". And Ron was right...I have always been Corky!!! Ron had a car that was much more "road worthy" than the '39 Ford 2dr sedan that I had purchased from my brother Vern for the sum of $50.00 and although Ron lived with his parents, Mr. & Mrs. Harold Hoover on their farm a few miles north of...RUSH 33...Ron and I ran around together, mostly to dances around the country. (The Ginkgo Biloba is kicking in)...
One of those times of going to a dance didn't work out so well and was quite a disapointment to us. A "gulley washer" rain had washed out a bridge which resulted in us turning around and "high tailing" it for home!!!
On the trip over to Grand Junction I was PRIVILEGED, I had the distinct pleasure....
(I've learned the true meaning of what the word HONOR means since the time I was "eighteen going on thirty"!!!)(And it has been my HONOR to have been acquainted with a LOT of really great people all over the state of Colorado where I had the PRIVILEGE of living the majority of my life")!!!....The trip over to Grand Junction with Ron and his younger brother Tom was a breeze compared to the....sometimes a bit scary...hair raising...trip back across...some of the most AWESOMELY BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY in the entire United States of America!!!
The orchard that a whole bunch of us from...RUSH "33"...were "working" in belonged to Ron and Tom's uncle and aunt, Mr and Mrs Verle Deniston and seemingly from the time of our arrival until the day I gave it up and left to go home...was one continual "wall to wall" party!!! There was a lot of "horse play"...a lot of nonsense and clowning around involved...along with a hot, sticky, dusty job of picking tons of fuzzy peaches!!! We would work all day and then "try" to sleep at night. We were "sleeping" in a vacant house owned by another neighbor located across the road and about 200 yards from Ron's Uncle and Aunt's home.
.......................................ROSIN......................................
At this "bunkhouse of sorts" where a bunch of us guys spent our evenings and long drawn out seemingly endless sleepless nights....(my dictionary describes it rather aptly)....BOISTEROUS...rough and noisy, noisily jolly or rowdy, clamorous, unrestrained...the sound of boisterous laughter....I dont know if any of us were doing much laughing....but there was plenty of "unrestrained" clamor going on!!!
Someone had attached a string to an outside wall, most likely right near an open window and then they would set up a din of "sawing" on this string with a piece of rosin which would create all kinds of weird, eerie, nerve racking sounds with this combination!!! Just about the time we would all get settled in for the night and perhaps doing a bit of "sawing" of our own, this tumultuous, noisy din would start up and it was usually kept going until the whole camp was awakened and wandering aimlessly about in the darkness seeking the cause of commotion...all the unrest!!!
Now add all of that to the aforementioned peach fuzz, the hot hard work, along with all kinds of flying insects...both day and night...and as can be imagined...it wasn't long before some of us were ready to go back to the quiet peaceful Eastern Plains!!!
.................................THE RETURN TRIP..................................
The Rapp family, Bob and Carol and their four children from northeast of...RUSH "33"
....had driven both their family automobile as well as their farm pickup over there on this "Historic Peach Picking Trip". The primary purpose for this was to haul a load of fruit back home with them on the return trip. I believe it was because of the youngest of their children becoming quite ill that they deemed it necessary to return home before the harvest was completed. They inquired of me if I would like to drive the pickup back to their farm in exchange for a ride home? They did not have to twist my arm NOR did thay have to ask twice....for a couple of reasons and one of those reasons is explained in the next segment, while the other is described in "ROSIN"!!!
..............................MISS CRYSTAL RAPP................................
.......RUSH "33"........
I had taken a "shine" to the daughter of my special friends Bob and Carol. However Crystal, who was perhaps a year or two younger than myself, much to my dismay, did not care very much to share in my enthusiasm in anything more than just a casual friendship. She did, however, along with one of the younger children start out by riding in the pickup with me. This arrangement didn't last very long though so the caravan stopped and allowed her to ride with her parents and one of the other younger ones then rode in the pickup with me. From that point on we were supposed to alternate the riders in the pickup but that plan did not work out at all due to the fact that Bob and Carol decided to stop somewhere en route while I kept on going....
much to the consternation of my two young riders!!!
The distance from Grand Junction Colorado to the Bob Rapp Ranch at...RUSH 33...is approximately three hundred and sixty miles. We were able to accomplish this all in one day, but not without considerable difficulty!!!
.....................................MONARCH PASS.................................
The Continental Divide of the Americas meanders from the Seward Peninsula in Alaska all the way down through Canada and the United States, through Old Mexico and extends to the tip of South America to eventually even be crossed by the Panama Canal
....and the only way to get from the eastern plains to the western slope of Colorado and visa versa....besides flying in a jet airplane...is to drive over the Continental Divide!!! MONARCH PASS, standing at eleven thousand three hundred and twelve feet above the level of the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Atlantic Ocean
to the east, over the breathtakingly beautiful Rocky Mountains is one of Colorado's higher passes.....About sixty miles to the south of Monarch Pass is a pass that a Mr. C. W. McCall, singing a country/western song....where either the singer was made famous by the Wolf Creek Pass or vice versa....anyway Earl and his buddy were hauling a load of chickens over this 10,857 feet pass...singing, "Wolf Creek Pass way up on the Great Divide, truckin on down the other side". They didn't fare so well on account of the fact that the brakes went out on their flatbed truck and they lost the top row of crated chickens when they shot through a tunnel and then slammed into the side of a feed store in downtown Pagosa Springs, Colorado!!!
My trip over Monarch Pass in Bob Rapp's 1950 1/2 ton Chevrolet pickup, as exhilarating as it was, was not nearly so eventful as Earl and his buddy and all them chickens flyin down off'n Wolf Creek Pass!!! (Google C.W. McCall and read all about it)!!!
Things went along relatively well until we began the ascent of this pass and on to the summit, at which point would have been about half way "to the house". Two or three times upon our approach of the summit of this majestically beautiful landscaped work of art by the Creator of the Universe, God Almighty Himself, the pickup overheated making it necessary for me to pull off to the side of the road to allow the motor to cool down and to add coolant to the radiator. Two of the younger children were riding with me at this time and coupled with the fact that the pickup was causing a bit of concern along with the fact that the parents were "lagging"...
far behind...plus the excitement of the height of the mountain we were attempting to climb...and the children were beginning to act up as well...I do not mind relating the fact that I was beginning to get a bit uneasy myself!!!
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