The people we admire most...

There are plenty of people I have looked up to in my life - who have been a pivotal influence, a great mentor, boss, a Samba dancer, roller derby skater or someone who amazes me - and I think it's a good thing that they keep changing as I grow in my own life. However, when it comes right down to it, the person I admired most is not a world leader, musician, artist, or writer but simply my Aunt Jane.

She was actually my mother's aunt (my grandfather's sister) - she owned cabins up on the South Platte River in Colorado near the town of Twin Cedars in the Rocky Mountains. She had a bar/restaurant and "general store" right near the state route that ran along the South Platte. We went up there for fishing tournaments. She always hung up all of the crazy things my brothers and I would draw and mail to her. She gave us gumballs. She let us tromp around the forest. She hired a gaggle of teens for the summer to help manage the cabins and all of the fishermen.

Her husband was a drunk. She had no children. She was a "blue blooded Democrat" (and the way the rest of my family said it you would think she was the devil.) Her oldest sister died of the Great Influenza of 1919 (which killed 20-40 million people.) Her other brother (not my grandfather) killed himself. She owned this property. She was the heart of that area. I don't think I knew what I loved about her when I was younger and I'm sure I'm romanticizing her life now, but I admired who she was. I admired her independence, as a woman up in the mountains, all the work that she did and all of the people she knew - her closeness to the land.

The US Gov bought her property though the power of eminent domain - the plan was to dam the South Platte consequently flooding Twin Cedars. She moved down the mountains to the town of Castle Rock. She was older, though she seemed to get even older out of the mountains. She died when I was in high school.

I admired her feisty spirit. I admired she had her own business and going against the grain.

And I still admire her now.