Telluride Oral Histories
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Charlie Wood's Oral History
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An oral history, that is currently on cassette tape at the Wilkinson Public Library: Museum Tape MU38. This is side B: An interview between Sandra Johnson, Alta Cassietto and Charlie Woods. This recording is only 14 minutes long. Side A of this cassette recording is the beginning of the interview-- This can be found under Alta Allan's recording.
Keywords:
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Liberty Bell, Tomboy, Smuggler
74-188
Sheridan, 1914 Flood
188-330
Vanadium Corporation, Naturita
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Charlie Lebonitz, Telluride Transfer
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Leona Koen, Walter Wheeler
188-330
Debi Binder, Charlene Woods
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Cleona Crozier's Genealogy Survey
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A genealogical (biographical) survey taken on July 30th 1990, during an oral history interview of Cleona Crozier, in Telluride, Colorado.
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Craig Muhonen's A Birthing Story
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Here is an email sent from Craig Muhonen on 9/21/22, about the birth of his son, Zane Muhonen:
"A story about a pregnancy and a birth, and a tribute to Lexie and to our doctor, one named “Doc Peters”. April 24th, 1977 (see links below)
This picture was taken 2 weeks before Lexie gave birth to our son Zane, on an April night, half way up Norwood Hill.
The brown Datsun in the background is how I got to Telluride in the first place.
The blue Datsun we had just bought, and when asked what color we would like, Lexie said, “Blue for our boy”. It had a perfect little “birthing” light and a lay back seat.
The dog is Munchkin, “Munch”, who was well loved by all, and became the avatar for my small little plumbing business. She had had 10 puppies in 72’, and at the first Bluegrass festival in Elks park, put on by The Fall Creek Band, Kooster held each one up to the crowd and we gave them all away that day, all except “Floyd” who we kept. I think Munch outlived a lot of her puppies as she lived to be 18 years old. We buried her in Pandora, with a view of Bridal Veil Falls.
We were living in a condo above Dusatko’s plumbing shop in Telluride where I worked, and on the night of April 23rd, her water broke.
I called our doctor in Norwood, to come up for our planned home birth,
but Doc Peters had just delivered a baby to a couple in Montrose and also one at his clinic, and was dead tired, so he asked us to come down instead of him coming up, so I grabbed a blanket and we were off into the night. Munch had always been with us wherever we went, but this night she stayed home.
On the 32 mile drive to the clinic, which was curvy and rock filled, plus the deer, I could tell that the baby was coming fast so in Placerville, when Lexie said,
“stop, I gotta pee”, I thought that she was going to give birth right there on the side of the road.
She climbed back in and I started to drive faster because we still had 20 miles to go down this windy mountain road in the middle of nowhere.
As we started the climb up Norwood hill I knew it was going to be close, and with my hand, I could already feel the head of the baby “crowning”.
“faster, faster” Lexie called out, but I had to be careful, because around every curve there were rocks in the road.
Then, Lexie screamed out, “pull over, he’s coming”!
Luckily there was a small turn out, so I pulled the truck to a stop, and ran around to her side, just barely not tripping and tumbling over the edge of the canyon. What a scene that would have been.
I reached in, felt for the cord, and right there,
Zane was born into my arms, or at least half of him anyway.
His head was up, his eyes were open and as I crouched there dumfounded, (Lexie was in between contractions), a set of headlights pulled up behind us. In a flash, Doc Peters (who lived at the bottom of Norwood hill) was there pulling on his gloves ( I had forgotten mine) and reaching in to her, he said, “push Lexie”, and out he came. He put the baby on her stomach, covered with a blanket and said to me, “you’ve got a boy, I’ll drive your truck and meet you at the clinic”, and tossed me his keys.
As they drove off, I couldn’t believe what had just happened, I was alone and someone had just driven off with my wife, and my minutes old baby.
I quickly went back to his car and realized that it was a ’68 Camaro 4 speed. Growing up in Southern California, I knew this car, and as I “cherped” through the gears, I quickly caught and passed them.
I was standing at the clinic when they pulled in a few minutes later, and I watched Doc reach in, cut the cord, and then he handed me the baby.
“We will go in and take care of the after birth”, and Wow, there I was with this wrinklely little guy in my arms, and I made my way into the clinic room and sat down with him.
I had 15 minutes alone with him and I realized that I had been spared the “trauma” of a hospital and Doctors and nurses and the bright white lights. Then Lexie came in and climbed into the bed.
He had been born in 55 minutes flat, and it seemed so surreal.
A half hour later, our friends from telluride and Rico, who were going to be at our home birth, came in and went right over to Lexie thinking that she had not yet given birth, but when she pointed to me holding the baby,
they screamed, “we missed it”.
After a time of oohs and awhs they were gone, and we settled in for the night with our new baby. In the morning Doc Peters filled out the birth certificate, and under “Hospital” he put, “Datsun”, saying,
“I’ve delivered a few babies in the middle of nowhere before, but this one was the fastest, and it went off without a hitch, Lexie is a trooper”
We were back home by 10 AM the next morning,
and what an amazing 12 hours it was.
Lexie and I celebrate our 48th year together, and hats off to her for doing the every day work, as Plumbing kept me away from them much of the time."
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Craig Muhonen's Hang gliding with the TAF
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Picture is of Clint Wolfe, Jim Drew, Bob St Onge, John Dunham, and Craig Muhonen hang gliding down a rainbow in Telluride, Colorado in 1972. Here is an email from Craig Muhonen regarding the history of hang gliding in Telluride:
"Here are the names of the original TAF Pilots
Original TAF (Telluride Air Force): members: Joe Kray, Dennis Stenslien, Gary Gross, Clint Wolf, Robert St.Once, Greg Henzie, Don Dusatko, Jim Lincoln, Jim Guest, Jeff Campbell, Mitchell Stanfield, David Stanfield, and “captain” Jack Carey.
I was lucky enough to be there when Hang Gliding in Telluride got it's start. I watched as my newfound, crazy skier friends, decided to embark on what would be a history making attempt to access a launch site that was outside the ski area boundary on Gold Hill by incorporating the Telluride Air Force. Jeff Campbell and Jim Guest, who were “ski patrollers”, along with Clint Wolfe, Winter Wolfe, new that this new recreational sport would be met with trepidation from the ski area owner Joe Zoline, so they set out to get themselves in order, and explore the “insurance” possibilities they needed to satisfy Joe and let them fly off of Gold Hill, which was only accessible through the ski area by switch back roads or the lift system.
They had been practicing “Hang Gliding” at a number of other take off sites, (some at 13,500 feet!) in the area with their new “flex wing hang gliding machines”, and when Clint asked me if I would drive his truck up Black Bear Pass and hike four gliders to the top of Ajax, I said yes, and hell yes.
Clint had told me the stories of how they had driven up Tomboy road and launched from Imagine Pass, but also had camped, and then hiked their gliders on the ridge above Savage Basin to the top of Ajax before. What a trek that must have been.
A story that I’ll tell here about a 12 year old kid named Hal Brock, who hitch hiked to town and made that same trek by himself, carrying his Hang Glider on his little shoulders. I was sitting on the bench that day, in front of the Flora Dora Saloon, and watched him set the glider up. A crowd had gathered by this time, as we always did to watch Hang Gliders fly, but the wind had changed and Hal wisely folded his glider up and walked back along that tricky ridge to Tomboy and hitched a ride down. He went back to Aspen that day and a week later died when he apparently turned his wing too sharply, and knife-edged to the ground in front of his family. Tragic.
We lost a lot of Hang Gliders in those early days because of that defect in those early gliders that made it impossible to recover from “the luff dive”, but the Telluride Air Force Pilots carefully re-rigged their wings to fly much better, and they never lost a sole.
The Gold Hill launch site was by far, the best place to launch, and the towns people had watched these guys and their friends, take off and land many times and knew how incredibly exciting it was, so when TAF came out into the town and talked about what they wanted to do, the excitement only grew. When Clint and Jim and Jeff had gathered their information from the town, they looked for an “insurance” company who would underwrite their crazy idea, and they found one, Lloyds of London. They took a serious look at the input from the townspeople, and who these ski patrol “Hang Gliders” were, and the policy that was put together was one of the first of it’s kind. When they brought it to Mr. Zoline, he read it and said, “I accept this, but with one caveat, do not ware your ski patrol jackets when you fly”. Ha..
This was the start of renowned Hang Glider flying at one of the world’s best and trickiest sites. Over the next years Telluriders and spectators alike were given the view of this amazing new sport, and they drew people from all over the world.
From, “Luff-divers” to full loops in 10 years, put the TAF and their many pilot friends at the top of the list for the place to come.
The. “king post” Hang Glider has gotten a little better since 1981, but those gliders we saw back then were as good as it gets. That’s 40 years ago, think about that.
A note here about the Gold Hill launch site.
The modern TAF which is now made up, since 1989, of mostly Paragliders (go figure) had their insurance raised so much due to the dangerous nature of flying a light, collapsible canopy, they refused to pay the higher rate and let it lapse.
So now all “foot launched” flying from Gold Hill, has been banned forever. What a shame.
The Hang Gliders have gotten older now and retired, so that form of flight has greatly diminished, the younger generation has taken to paragliding in huge numbers maybe because it’s so easy to join the “club”, put a back pack on and walk to a launch site, fly their “parachute”, and then land and stuff the “wing” into a laundry basket, throw it in the trunk or put it in the closet.
It is a, “badge of courage” to see Hang Gliders pull into a launch site, because you know exactly the sport they loved. Same with long board surfing, you couldn’t miss us.
I so wish the Hang Gliding community would get it together again, and take back the skies, especially in Telluride, for it was the best of times when they were over head."
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