Legend George
Born on a Longmont, Colorado Farm on April 15, 1928, My Uncle George Nelson turns 95 years old today, and he is a Legend.
We were with him at his home in Arizona last month, a place I have been visiting him for nearly fifty years, and I marveled at the way he lives precisely as a healthy sixty year-old would. He spent the month of February skiing in Colorado, Bikes every day with his girlfriend, drives back and forth from Arizona to Colorado to see her, and travels the world with her. While we were there he hoisted his bike onto a car rack and led us on a 17-mile fast bike ride all throughout the city - golfed eighteen holes the next day - and made us dinner twice…
A veteran of the Korean War and a Civil Engineer, George’s life would take him from Longmont to Denver to Aspen and Arizona - places he travels to constantly still as if it all of these places were simply his neighborhood.
“I am an oddity” he says as a matter of fact. When people ask him what his secrets are, he doesn’t hesitate with his number one reason: LUCK. But he follows it up quickly with his number two: Don’t Stop. He has pains and he has ailments - just like most of advanced age. But he keeps going anyway, keeps his activities up despite the extra pain, for the upside that it keeps his body strong. To me, this is a key aspect of his unusual fountain of youth. Also, his third devotion: “Antioxidants!” Good simple healthy foods. He sits down to a big bowl of cheerios with all kinds of berries and fruits almost every day. Fruits - vegetables - moderation - the same old song we’ve all heard forever. It helps!
His fourth unspoken devotion: Loving others.
Growing up on his Longmont Colorado farm, George was a friend and customer of my Grandfather - Robert Lavoie, and through him George met my mother and her sister Sue. Sue was upbeat, fun-loving and a true joy her whole life. In the late 50s she invited my mom to move to California, (and therefore my sisters and I were born - as it was in California that my Mom met my Dad.) But Sue found herself suddenly single with my then 4 year-old cousin Erin, so she moved home to Denver where she invested in a fancy ski suit. An avid Skier all his life, Friend-of-the-family George would give Sue rides to Loveland where she was determined to meet someone new while skiing. My mother would ask her each time if she had met someone and her answer was always: “Well no, but I sure had a good time!”
Less than a year later George and Sue were married and my cousin Amy born in December 1964. I was born 3 months later and my younger sister 4 years after my first. George adopted Erin without hesitation so we became a very happy two-family clan with five girls growing up eagerly visiting each other often. Even 50 years later the sound of the names “Amy&Erin” together fills me with a primal joy because of what it meant to me when we were little.
When Amy was a baby George took engineering work in Aspen where one of his jobs was to survey the land adjacent to the golf course where they were building a new neighborhood on Cemetery Lane. He was offered the entire subdivision for $200,000 but he couldn’t convince his siblings it was a good investment…so he settled on a free choice lot to build a house on with a back view of the golf course, Prince of the Peace Church and the Maroon Bells Peaks - a property he kept for nearly forty years.
We would visit them often in their Aspen house in the late 60s and early 70s. Aunt Sue taught elementary school in town and she remembers when a little known musician named John Denver wandered in and asked if he could play his songs for her kids. When we would visit, Erin would play his songs on her guitar for us and to this day his music still reminds me of being home.
For my cousin’s teen years, George moved his family to Arizona where he still lives today. Erin and husband Marshall Gerston stayed in Arizona to raise their family there: A daughter Kate who settled with her husband in Israel and is raising Georges great-grandchildren Ella Sue and Yogi; A son Max who is a professional motorcycle racer and commentator; and a daughter Olivia who is a graduating soon with a degree in graphic arts and computer science.
Amy moved back to Aspen in the 80s where she and I lived together briefly, once out of college. I left and she stayed for eight years, until she met her husband Blake - also a Nelson! They raised their family in the Denver area but recently moved back to Pitkin County where they are home again at last. Their younger son Rob is an Accountant at Jackson Hole Ski Area; and their oldest son Chase (at one time 7th in the world in downhill mountain bike racing) is an aerospace engineer. He will be married to sweet Keely this June and George will officiate!
George & Sue’s wildly happy life together lasted nearly fifty years until we lost her to cancer in 2013. George was entirely devoted to her until the end and beyond…and she is the kind of a person we will never stop missing. However, we are all so grateful he later met wonderful Barbara - who had suffered a similar loss, and who shares his passion for outdoor pursuits and seeing the world. “If I weren’t 95…I’d ask her to marry me.” The past two years they’ve traveled together to Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Botswana, and Amsterdam. Next up: A journey down The Rhine River in May 2023. It is wonderful to see him seeing so much of the world with such interest with Barbara in this special season of his life.
George is a loving successful person in every way, and he is a living Legend. It is inspiring to watch him live so well and so happily,
for so long. Happy Birthday Uncle George - Thank you for all you’ve taught us and shown us and here’s to many more adventures ahead. ❤️
