NOTE: If you would prefer to listen, click here for an audio version of this blog post. When prompted, click the following: Photo 1 Photo 2 Photo 3 Photo 4 Photo 5 Photo 6 Photo 7 Photo 8 Photo 9 Photo 10 Photo 11 Photo 12 Photo 13
NOTE: Click here for Part 5: Home # 3 – 4565 S. Independence; click here for Part 7: University Hills Baptist Church.
In November 1984, Joanna, Alison, and I moved seven blocks almost directly due south, to a two-story house on a cul-de-sac in the Governor’s Ranch subdivision in Littleton. We would live at 5251 S. Independence for just under 3 years, until our move to Texas in August 1987. Even this house has changed a little – the shutters and front door are painted a bright blue now; they were red when we lived there. Otherwise, though, from the outside it looks as fresh and new as it did when we bought it 40 years ago.
Travis was born in November 1985, just over a year after we moved into this house. How excited we were to bring our new son home for the first time!
Governor’s Ranch has a clubhouse. During the summer, it was used to show children’s movies on Saturday mornings. I remember taking Alison to the Governor’s Ranch Clubhouse to see the Disney movie “Gus” one Saturday morning. Also, on the Saturday before Easter 1987, Alison (5) and Travis (16 mo.) joined with other kids in an Easter egg hunt on the lawn of the clubhouse.
Another wonderful feature of Governor’s Ranch is its greenbelt. It is such a great place for parents and kids to walk together. In this picture, you see Joanna & me on the greenbelt with Alison, who brought her tricycle along. (It was a safe place to teach your kids to ride their trikes and bikes.)
There was a King Soopers market and shopping center (still there, as you see in the picture) just a block from our house, which featured a convenient stairway up from the sidewalk. Whenever we just needed a few small things, we would walk together from the house to King Soopers, leaving the car at home.
Here are a few more snapshots of 5251 S. Independence from when we lived there: (1) our cul-de-sac, with 5251 at the top; (2) Alison & Travis in the house; (3) this being Denver, the lawn & driveway were often blanketed with snow, with which (4) Alison built a snowman. My back still aches when I recall the many hours I spent shoveling snow on that driveway.
When we moved to Texas in August 1987, we drove one car; the other car was loaded onto the moving van. As for Bob and Rae? We left them with our trusted friend, Sonny Ebert, my former colleague at Mountain Bell. Once we got settled in our new house in Plano, Texas, Sonny took Bob & Rae to Stapleton Airport, in their carriers, and booked them on a flight to Dallas. He said they both howled like the moon was rising and guilted him with their sad eyes – Why are you leaving us here in these cages? All was well, though, when they landed safely in Dallas, and we picked them up to take them to their new house and yard in Plano.
We moved to Texas with Joanna’s job; however, we loved our 10 years in Denver and hated to leave it. We never stopped missing Colorado, though the move to Texas turned out to be a good one for many reasons. There’s a particularly poignant postscript, however, that gives an entirely different perspective to that move. If we had still been living in that house 12 years later, in 1999, Alison would have been a student at Columbine High School when that terrible massacre took place. Of all the reasons we’ve found ourselves thanking God for that move, that tops them all.