On the way out of the town of Nederland, heading down Highway 119 toward Boulder, is the Barker Dam. The dam holds water in the Barker Reservoir. There are not as many cars pulled over at that stretch of road. Not like you'll find further down where there's fishing in Boulder Creek or hiking paths or Boulder Falls. But there is a view at that spot looking back at Nederland across the water. It's a clear view of the town nestled in the valley. It's a view in retrospect.
As a visitor, you probably don't think to stop and shoot this photo on the way into town. At least I didn't, and I even knew it was there. I pulled my camera lens closer to capture a little bit more detail, but the town is quite a distance from that spot at Barker Dam. This was a remarkable place to live in the mid 1970s. It's still a remarkable place today; albeit different. My friend, Lady Jake, said she studied some of the kids in town and saw traces of our younger selves in them. She could see a bit of retrospect.
The photo of the A-Frame is now a Calvary Church in Nederland. This structure is the first place I lived in Nederland. I was the only working resident. My friend Lady Jake and I shared the house with more than a dozen other guys. We got free rent in exchange for grocery shopping and cooking. I was never so happy as the day I moved in and the day I moved out. Kind of like buying a boat.
We moved out of the A-Frame and into the trailer park by Barker Reservoir. Say what you may, it was our own place. A place where one could run out of propane if one didn't know how to read the propane meter, which meant pulling on pantyhose under the bed covers and discovering later they were inside out and backward. Then, when lighting the furnace, realizing too late that gas without air creates a combustion that could explode. Lady Jake lived with singed hair and eyebrows for weeks.
My last house was the Yellow House, as it was known, at the corner of Spring Road and Jefferson. The owner has since lifted the house, put a basement under it and added on to the back. It's now a tri-plex. But when I lived there, it was a 3-bedroom house. I had scored the middle bedroom. It was the biggest bedroom, a master suite with its own bathroom. Unfortunately, it was the only bathroom in the house.
Looking back at the places where I used to live puts things into perspective for me. It makes me appreciate more my present life as a Sacramento real estate agent but it doesn't erase the nostalgia. It's easy to have retrospect. It's more difficult to predict the future, to foresee what will happen. It gets easier the older you get, though. Just like it gets easier to predict what might happen in a real estate transaction, for example, the more real estate deals an agent closes. I close on average 10 homes a month. If you're looking for an experienced real estate agent in the Sacramento four-county area, call me.
I've lived through 1970's winters in Nederland, Colorado. I know how to go that extra mile.
Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub
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