Mrs. Gulch would have turned 70 today. Her family joked that she was their Christmas present back in 1954. I miss her and in particular I miss her sense of humor and wise counsel. Here’s a story from the first days of our 50 year marriage when we moved into my VW bus for the summer.

Sense of humor

We camped for a few days at the Great Sand Dunes and then headed over to Monarch Pass to the Gunnison Valley. After we dropped into the valley Mrs. Gulch asked about lunch and decided she could create something, while moving towards Gunnison, with a can of tuna in oil that we had in the food box. The dilemma at hand was what to do with the oil. She slides the passenger window open and uses the lid to release the oil onto the highway.

In a little while I notice a car behind us, with it’s windshield wipers going, lights flashing, and horn honking. The driver had his head out the window which I figured out later probably served two purposes, my cussing out, and the ability to see the road. I concentrated on looking straight ahead not giving away the fact that I saw them behind me and overcame the urge to pull over to see what they wanted.

After a short while the driver moved his car into position for revenge. He pulled alongside and a little ahead of the bus while his passenger was shaking a can of pop preparing the contents for launch. When she popped the top the soda blew back into her window instead of coating the bus. They then took off west down US-50.

We couldn’t stop laughing, great belly laughs, howls of laughter, embarrassed red-faced laughter, guilty laughs for the trouble we had caused, and relieved laughter that they had sped away. This went on for a good long time and every time we looked at each other another round would break out.

After gassing up on the edge of Gunnison we were moving west down the main drag through town and saw them at a car wash. Of course this spawned another wave of guilty laughter. It would’ve been hard to deny culpability with tuna oil caked with road dust all along the side of our vehicle.

Wise counsel

Mrs. Gulch’s wise counsel that afternoon was to keep heading west up into the National Forest and find a place to camp — maybe for a couple of days.