Search results

Although this interview is part of the “Hairy Bacon Bowl” series, Jerry Jacobson was not involved with the football games in any way. He was interviewed, rather, for his involvement in and understanding of many of the cultural changes that manifested during that time period. He starts by describing his childhood in New York City during the Depression. He contrasts the hobos and economically displaced people of the 1930s with the hippies of the 1960s and the positive feelings about government during the WWII era versus recent attitudes toward government. He goes on to tell about his training as an M.D. and a psychiatrist and his move to Boulder in 1958 when he was one of only three psychiatrists in town. He practiced psychiatry in Boulder for 52 years, from 1958-2009. He talks about the changes in mental health services over the half century that he was in practice, including deinstitutionalization of patients in mental health hospitals and the increasing use of drugs to treat mental health issues. He focuses on the 1960s and ‘70s in Boulder, talking about the hippie movement and anti-Vietnam-War sentiment, the questioning of authority, and the ways in which the younger generation separated themselves from older people. He reflects on the ways in which the Hairy Bacon Bowl football games between the police and counterculture students grew out of these cultural tensions and was a positive way of dealing with them. He touches on race relations in Boulder in the 1960s and discusses general changes in Boulder from the 1950s on.

Linda Trahern describes her childhood growing up in Martin Acres in the 1950s and ‘60s. She lived in a small house with her parents and eight brothers and sisters, and attended Sacred Heart Catholic School and then Boulder High School. Her world revolved around doing chores at her home at 29th and Moorhead, attending church at Sacred Heart, going to Duckworth’s Five and Dime at Base-Mar Shopping Center, and playing in the fields near her home with her siblings and neighborhood friends. Later, when she started high school at Boulder High and got a job at the Fox Theatre, her horizons expanded to watching drag races in Longmont and at Lakeside Amusement Park, skipping school to eat burgers and fries at Azar’s Big Boy, dancing at the Devil’s Thumb bar, and making trips to Lafayette to watch the Louisville and Lafayette boys get into rumbles. She speaks fondly of attending the annual Pow Wow Days, which drew people from all over to see the rodeos. Her memories paint a picture of Boulder before the influx of people in the ‘60s and ‘70s, decades that caused a small town at the edge of the mountains to transform into a busy, expensive city. At 18, Linda met her husband Lynn (OH3043), and they left Boulder when he went into the Air Force, returning to the area in the late 1970s to find a very changed town.

Joe Clark was a 15-year-old high school freshman at the time of this interview. He describes many aspects of being a student at Broomfield High School, what being a teenager is like for him and his friends in 2005, in what sorts of extracurricular activities he participates, and what his goals for and vision of his future include. He also mentions adoption, religion, and significant political events so far in his life.

Following a widely publicized instance in Boulder of child abuse resulting in death, and the associated public health failure to effectively intervene, Janet Dean and others established what became the Community Infant Program. Dean drew on her education with the Henry Kempe Center and the writings of Selma Fraiberg to develop an organization and methodology for identifying and resolving cases of infant neglect and abuse through home visits and psychotherapeutic techniques that improved parenting skills. She delves into the history of the program, some of the innovative approaches that it used, and reflects on some of the challenges confronted and reasons for the program’s success. She also discusses recent advances in the field of neuroscience that contribute to the understanding of infant brain development and early intervention strategies.

Ray Crowder has owned his small home in Raymond, Colorado, for decades, buying it to join his sister next door during the summer months. Crowder talks about his long history in Raymond, on Highway 7 between Lyons and Estes Park. His parents bought a cabin there in 1948 when Ray was in high school, and they spent as much time there as they could over the years, at first during summers and then full-time. Ray bought the cabin next door to theirs in 1969, and he and his wife remodeled the cabin extensively. They view Raymond as a retreat and love getting away from ordinary life, fishing, sitting by the firepit, and sipping wine on the deck while listening to the river. He reminisces about the time when people would make and receive calls at the Raymond Store and conduct handshake deals over the ditch water usage. Ray also talks about the changes to the town of Raymond over the years, including population growth; more wildlife than in the past as the animals have been squeezed out of other areas; changing rules for using water from the ditch; rebuilding after the 2013 flood, which has changed the look of the small town; and the possibility of the Forest Service opening a shooting range nearby.

Jean Walsh taught elementary school in Nederland and Boulder for 32 years. After graduating from college, her first elementary school teaching job in Colorado was in Nederland, where she taught for 13 years, beginning in 1969. In Boulder, she taught at Martin Park Elementary School. She describes the handling by Martin Park/High Peaks elementary schools of the death of JonBenét Ramsey in 1996. She describes her work with diverse student populations (ESL students, special ed students), particularly in Martin Park Elementary School, and her deep fondness for her students and fellow teachers. She also describes living in Table Mesa and being married to a law enforcement officer.

This oral history is a follow-up to OH2034, an interview conducted by Jerry Jacobson. Bruce MacKenzie outlines some of his lineage and reviews his history in the state of Colorado. He starts with his time as a minister in a Congregationalist Church in Denver and then moves on to talk about his twenty-seven years as minister at the First Congregational Church of Boulder. Mr. MacKenzie relates the history of the Congregational church in Boulder and speaks about the wide array of initiatives he led and the groups in which he was involved, addressing religious, community, and social justice needs in Boulder. He then tells about his and his wife’s family’s history. He details his time after serving as minister at the Boulder church, which includes time in Chicago, Illinois, and various places in Hawaii. Mr. MacKenzie ends the interview with an amusing anecdote about his great-aunt and her romantic troubles in California.

After working in human capital management for various corporations for 35 years, Carey Mason moved to Boulder four years prior to this interview, worked as a business coach, and this year (2022) became CEO of the Boulder business DEI4BIZ, which helps businesses work on diversity, equity, and inclusion issues. He talks about how he helps businesses move beyond training seminars to incorporate a comprehensive DEI strategy that also strengthens their business objectives as a whole. Other topics include the attitudes of millennial-generation workers, the current labor shortage, the role of the Boulder Chamber of Commerce in encouraging diverse workforces, taking advantage of opportunities to continue to grow in awareness of biases, reasons for employing a professional consultant when undertaking DEI work, and his own motivations for working in this field.

John Howell describes growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, as part of a large extended family. He discusses his education in St. Louis schools, including getting to take part in the Upward Bound program, which allowed him to spend two summers at Yale when he was in high school. He details his professional life, including working for IBM and later for Storage Technology Corporation (STC). He worked for STC, starting in 1979, for 26 years, after moving to Boulder in 1977 and earning an MBA degree at the University of Colorado. He was hired at STC as a financial analyst, one of few Black professional employees there at the time and was one of the founders of the Black Career Forum, which sought to increase the number of minority professional workers at STC and support their professional development. He also talks about his marriage to Velveta Golightly-Howell, who was a law student at the CU Law School when he met her in 1978. Other topics include his participation in Partners, a mentoring program for teenagers; the importance of working in community; and his family.

Hank Troy is a pianist for the Chautauqua silent film series. This oral history focuses on his musical life, detailing the people and places that had the most influence on his career, leading up to Chautauqua; family and home life also get discussed. Troy recollects his childhood, his introduction to piano, his instruction and development, the social aspects of playing piano—versus playing outside, for example—and the growth of his interests and taste in music. He talks about living in Germany as an exchange student in his senior year of high school, noting the musical and cultural differences. Troy eventually made his way to Denver and played piano for theater, then joined the Queen City Jazz Band. He tells about how he got involved with Chautauqua silent films, describes memorable incidents, and explains his approach to and process for creating the accompaniments. The interview concludes with Troy playing piano and demonstrating musical moods that would surface in a typical silent film.

Jonathan Lopez is a first-year student at CU Boulder who was raised Catholic but never felt much of a connection to his church until he moved to Boulder for college and began attending a church there. He found himself drawn to being a youth leader and has found it very rewarding to serve his church in this way, enjoying connecting with other young people by sharing his experiences with them. He feels it’s important to question one’s religious beliefs in order to understand them better, and discusses the types of questions that are important to ask. He emotionally recounts a religious experience he had on a church retreat when he heard God speak to him and offer him the help he had been praying for. This experience strengthened his faith and made him feel even more connected to his church.

This interview is part of a series focusing on the history of apples in Boulder County. Judy Dayhoff talks about growing up on the farm that has been in her family for over 100 years. Her great-grandfather homesteaded the property in 1881. She discusses her family’s history, life as a farm child, the life of the community, what the farm produced, and the apple orchards on the property. She also mentions her involvement, with other local authors, in researching and writing the book "If These Stones Could Talk: Tales from Columbia Cemetery."