Happy Birthday to you.!.
Alan Swanson celebrated his 70th Birthday on February 28, 2009. He was born in 1939 in Greeley, Colorado on February 27. His parents Harold and Frances Swanson must have been so proud to have their first baby boy. What a joy to bring in this new life to their farming community.
He grew up learning the hard work and toil it took to work the land and feed a family. Early on his older sister Nancy worked in the fields doing whatever it took to help out their parents. When he was about 5 or so, Nancy about age 8, was driving a tractor pulling a hay-sled through the field to pick up the bales of hay. Alan was evidently hanging on the back of the tractor and slipped off on to the ground. The sled ran right over top of him. If it weren’t for the small ditch that he had fallen into the sled would have crushed him instead of badly bruising him. Can you imagine a parents concern at the thought of an accident like that with their son.
Our Dad was a great gadget person. He liked to tinker with stuff and you could hear him whistling in delight as he fiddled with things at his desk. I imagine that Christmas he started Alan with an American Flyer train set was one of those whistling, fiddling, times.
It was probably about 1950 and Alan was around age 11.
The plywood board provided the base for the track. The engine had smoke billowing out of the stack. Cars were very interactive for the time. There was a bright-red cattle car that stopped at the cattle yard. The little red Herford cows scooted out of the car using electric current and probably some kind of vibrating magnet to move them down the ramp into a corral.
There was a snazzy Pullman car that lit up and another car that delivered milk cans with the same idea as the cattle car. I am 7 years younger than Alan and delighted in watching the train and playing with the small parts. Sometimes Alan let me work the controls.
We lived in this old farm house on a farm that we rented from Royce J. Tipton. The upstairs bedroom floor became the space for the train set and all its glory mostly in the Winter around Christmas time. The rest of the year the cars were boxed up and the plywood propped up against the wall.
Another time Alan was a teenager about 18 or 19 working with some farm equipment. He was reaching for a light switch by standibg on a a plow. The plow slipped and tipped over slicing partially through a couple of fingers on his right hand. No one was home except me, his little sister. I was about 10 or 12 at the time.
I remember going to the hospital with him that day. He drove letting me know that I had to drive if he passed out. His hand was bleeding up a storm. I sat on a chair next to the desk where the doctor was looking at the damage. The doc asked me if I was his wife. For heaven sakes couldn’t he tell I was a kid and this was my brother. Boy some of the things we remember about situations.
The doc proceeded to fix up Alan’s fingers connecting, the parts as best he knew how. Today and throughout his life Alan still can’t exactly lay those fingers out straight.
Alan was just a good person. We spend a lot of time as a family going to church with lots of singing and harmonizing in the choir. Alan continued that love for music in high school performing often in a barbershop quartet with three of his best friends. They looked so dapper in their white sport coat and black shirt and tie. Imagine in the 1957 era finding a black shirt at the local Hibbs department store. I think our Mom probably had to die a white shirt black.
Hello Mary Lou
From the First Hello
He went off to college to Colorado State University in Fort Collins to study agronomy. He had this very cool car, a 1958 robin egg blue Chevy with a continental kit. It was a chick magnet for sure. Being the responsible person he was, he came home every weekend back to Greeley to help his Dad with the farm chores and to milk the cows.
College life changes you and opens new horizons. He married Cathy Miller, a pretty gal from Oakland California, in a charming ceremony in the chapel on campus. He joined the military service as was mandatory at that time as a second lieutenant in the Army. I remember visiting him and his young family, Lisa his daughter and infant Charlie, with our parents to Williamsburg, Virginia. How proud our Dad was at this visit to share time with his son and family. It was during Thanksgiving and we all had dinner at the mess hall on base. Small interesting pleasures.
Vietnam lurched on the horizon and Alan trained in South Carolina to lead soldiers through the jungle. Choices we make lead the pathways in our lives. He opted not to re-enlist and instead moved his family to Gilroy, California working in insurance.
Life goes on and Alan’s love for the climate in California never changed. Things just didn’t work out with Cathy so they divorced and several years later Alan meet the Janine, the love of his life. They blended their families and lived as we say – Happily ever after.
The love for singing, trains and zest for live continues today. At his celebration several of his friends from his barbershop groups treated us with a few songs. The beautiful sound of perfect harmony resonated through the high cathedral ceiling in Alan’s home.
Wail til the Sun Shines Nelly
In his garage for the past couple of years Alan has been working on an eight foot model train module called Cloverly with displays and sets reminiscent of our farm community. There is a station for Swanson Farms, a grain elevator similar to the one close to where our Mom grew up on 5th street and a cement truck sporting the name of Joe Gibson’s contracting. This truck is a reminder of our Grandfather’s business building homes and setting concrete sidewalks along the streets of Greeley using horse and cart of course not a truck. It is very interesting to bring in the past with current technology.
Alan’s son Charlie joined in the fun with his wife Rochelle and three of their children, Justin, Maren and their cute little brother. How fun it was to see the family resemblance in Charlie. The transfer of business acumen seemed to be carried forward genetically from our Dad, Harold and Grandfather Carl Swanson. Those traits must be ingrained in the genome.
Our cousin Bill Morris and his wife Sharon also joined in the celebration. The house was filled in family and friends celebrating with Alan on his special day. Their cute little white dog, Abby added to the fun with her perky ears and a sweet disposition.
Alan Swanson
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