Late 1960’s

Was there ever something you said as a child that you spent the rest of your life trying to forget, or worse; live down while your friends and family refused to let it go?  Well this story is about one of those moments in time that should never have happened.

In the 1960’s travel across Colorado was a slow process.  The roads throughout the state still had sections that were gravel or poorly paved.  The interstate system was still inching its way to the Midwest having begun on both coasts.  Colorado was one of the last states to have its interstate run from border to border culminating with the completion of the Glenwood Canyon corridor in the early 1980’s.

My grandmother lived in Grand Junction at the time and trips to see her were frequent and usually took four or more hours to drive there (takes just 2 hours today).   With four very busy kids in the car my parents would stop along the way for us to “burn off some energy” and for refreshments.  One of our favorite stops was in Silt at the Dairy Queen.  At the time, Silt and the surrounding area was a large Alfalfa growing region.  Along highway US 6 and the Rio Grande Railroad tracks stood a large processing plant for the locally grown alfalfa.  In fact, Silt did not have the most pleasant aroma during the harvesting seasons back then. 

The Dairy Queen was on the east end of town and provided plenty of space to run around.  It was also a great place to watch the trains pass by and the kids often begged my father to stay long enough to see one go by.  This left a lot of time to sit around and visit which we were all pretty good at, talking that is.  The sitting around part was monumentally more difficult.

On this fateful day the conversations ranged from the smell of the alfalfa to the paving of the interstate that was inching its way through the western Colorado.  I am not sure how things went so horribly wrong but at last count my parents and sisters were in a conversation about our horses.  The next thing I knew they were talking about the asphalt the road crews were putting down for the highway.  I innocently enough inquired about what I thought I had just heard them talking about, “what part of the horse do they make asphalt out of?”  After the initial laughter had abated I was informed that I had participated in parts of two different conversations, but the damage was done. 

Ever since then, any time I am in a conversation with my family members and get confused about what is being discussed one of them will utter, “what part of the horse do they make the asphalt out of?” followed by another round of laughter.

Will I ever live that down?  Probably not!