Storytime – tierneycreates

Every Winter I say to myself: “I should share this story on my blog”, but then Winter passes and I forget. Well it just turned Spring and there is still a little bit of snow on the ground in Colorado so I am giving myself permission to go ahead and share it now instead of waiting until next Winter (smile)…

If you are new to this blog let me give you a little bit of background to the story I am about the share. I am a widow and my husband John is a widower. We were each together with our late partners, who both passed in 2018, for over 30 years (I was with my late husband Terry since I was 20 years old). John and I met in 2019 when I left Bend, Oregon and moved to Denver, Colorado to try and start a new life after my devastating loss.

John and I have each lived quite a bit of life before we met each other and one of the fun parts of getting to know each other has been sharing our life stories. In this post I am sharing one of my favorite stories John has shared.

Misadventures in Ice Fishing

Years ago John and his brother-in-law went ice fishing in Deckers, Colorado. (If you’ve never heard of “ice fishing”, I put a hyperlink above for more information).

Photo by Glenna Haug on Unsplash

It was a 10 degree F day (-12 C) and when they were done fishing, they went walking across the frozen river to get back to his brother-in-law’s truck which was a mile away. While traversing the frozen river, the ICE BROKE near the shore, and they fell into the icy river. They pulled themselves out of icy river and shivering they agreed that no matter what they would keep walking and not stop until they got the the truck (if they stopped they could become hypothermic and run into life threatening issues).

Photo by Bryan Rodriguez on Unsplash

They had to walk close to a mile to the truck feeling like they were freezing to death. When they got to the truck they started the truck, stripped down to their underwear to get the freezing cold clothes off their skin, and threw their wet clothes into the back of truck.

Driving back to John’s brother-in-law’s house and running the heat in the truck at full blast, suddenly they saw law enforcement lights behind them, it was a Colorado State Trooper following them and signaling for them to pull over.

So there they were in only their underwear, two middle aged men on 10 degree F day (-12 C) driving around in a pickup truck, and a Colorado State Trooper is pulling them over! There was nothing to do but pull over to the side of the road and face the State Trooper!

When the State Trooper walked up to the passenger side of the truck and saw the two men in just their underwear he did a double take. John and his brother-in-law immediately said to the State Trooper: “This isn’t what it looks like, he is my brother-in-law”. Then they went on to explain what had happened after they went ice fishing, the breaking of the ice and fall into the river, and why they were only in their underwear.

The State Trooper (who was probably trying his best to keep a serious face) said: “The reason why I pulled you over is there were clothes flying out of the back of your pickup truck onto the highway”. The State Trooper didn’t give them a ticket and let them just continue on their way home to get warm (and get some clothes on).

If only they had thought to put the wet clothes in a more secure place they wouldn’t have given the State Trooper a story he probably still tells to this day!

Postscript

To my dog Mike, my late husband Terry was his whole world.

One of the very sad things that happened when my husband Terry died was that he passed suddenly at home while alone with our dog Mike the Miniature Schnauzer. Mike had to be with Terry’s body for a couple hours before I came home to discover him.

I thought Mike would be traumatized for the rest of his brief dog life and I tried to give him all the love I could after Terry died while dealing with my terrible grief and my trauma of finding the love of my life dead on the floor in front of the Christmas tree.

I remember taking Mike on walks after Terry died and every time Mike would see a man in the distance walking towards us, he would wag his tail and think it might be Terry joining us. It was unbelievably heart-breaking.

Then I met John after moving to Colorado and Mike (who is a “guy’s dog”) completely fell in love with John and I think John healed Mike’s heart.

Here is a photo that always makes me smile – Mike all snuggled to the new love of his life – John: