The People of the Park:

The Positive Outlook:

A Visit with Jerry Colling

By Dale Dauten

When long-time Silveridge resident Jerry Colling was a detective back in Michigan, assigned to investigating larcenies and burglaries and the like for the City of Pontiac Police, he heard of an opening in Major Crimes, the unit that handled the biggest cases, including homicides. Jerry told us, “I remember going in and talking to the Lieutenant and telling him I wanted that job. He said, ‘Colling, what makes you think you could handle that job?’ and I said, ‘Lieutenant, what makes you think I can’t handle it.’ Apparently, that stumped the Lieutenant because he thought a moment and said, ‘Well, let’s try you out.’”

And, as we got Jerry to reflect back on his long life, that seemed to be a theme: Jerry can handle it.

Let’s back up and start at the beginning and that’s in Colling, Michigan. It’s where Jerry grew up, and not too many of us get to be from a place named for a relative. Jerry explained: “I was raised in a little town, believe it or not, named Colling, which is nine miles north of Caro, right up in the thumb of Michigan. My grandparents and all my aunts and uncles were farmers up there. It was named after one of my great uncles who had a little… I wouldn’t even call it a house… it was kind of a shack. He was single and lived there for years and years and in fact when they took the old place down, they found coins and money between the walls. Anyway, there’s not much of a town there now but there used to be an automobile repair shop and a couple of general stores.”

Jerry went to school in Caro and Akron and then the family (consisting of his folks, two sisters and a brother – the brother is John Colling, a Silveridge winter resident) moved to Pontiac, Michigan. His dad worked for Pontiac Motor Division and his mom for Fisher Body, and Jerry went to Pontiac Northern High School before he, too, went to work in the auto industry while taking classes at a junior college that’s part of the University of Michigan and then at an industrial engineering school. Jerry worked for Pontiac and then for companies that were suppliers to General Motors, including a division of what was then the Lear Jet Corporation. Along the way, he found himself getting restless, and when a friend who was a Captain with the Pontiac Police Department urged him to apply, he recalled what transpired:

“I went down the first part of June in 1968, and the 1st of July I was on the payroll going to the Police Academy. In fact, the first weekend, just before the 4th of July, we were sent out to look for two young boys that were missing along the Clinton River that runs through the City of Pontiac. We finally found them — they were at the bottom of a spillway, and the water was holding them down. They had been there for a day or two. We found the boys but lost a Captain that fell out of a boat and drowned. That was my first weekend.”

Jerry described his time with the Pontiac Police: “I was in uniform for about 6 1/2 years, then picked to go on to a surveillance and intelligence unit, then after a couple years I was promoted to Detective.” And, after a couple of years as Detective, the story brings us to where we started, with Jerry’s time at the Major Crimes Unit. That went so well that he was selected to represent his department in an anti-organized crime unit run by the Michigan State Police. Reflecting on the start of that assignment, he said, “I still remember my wife, Barbara, saying, ‘Oh no, this job isn’t going to be like it was when you were in surveillance, and you didn’t get home for a day or two, is it?’ I said, ‘No, this is all white-collar crime — you don’t have to worry about that.’ Well, it was the second day that I called her from Skokie, Illinois and told her I wouldn’t be home.” Even so, Jerry recalls those times fondly, saying, “It worked out pretty well. I learned a lot being in contact with FBI and DEA and IRS, trying to figure out things.”

If you run into Jerry at the park, you might be able to get him to tell you some stories from those days, including encountering a man who conned automaker John DeLorean out a million bucks, investigating the KKK, following up leads on the Jimmy Hoffa case, or the heartbreaking time when a fellow officer was gunned down. It was a full career and, after 22 years, Jerry took his retirement and he and wife Barbara knew where they were headed next: Arizona.

But before our story leaves Michigan, we should back up and point out that Jerry and Barbara were married there 56 years ago. They were a blended family before that term existed, as Jerry and his first wife had two kids, Dawn and Doug, while Barbara had two kids from a first marriage, Cindy and Bill – and Cindy is a fellow Silveridge resident.

As for getting to Silveridge, it was 1990 when Jerry left the police force and, having previously visited an aunt and uncle who lived in an RV park in Mesa, that’s where he and Barbara decided they’d settle. Jerry recalls visiting park model dealers along Main Street: “Finally this one guy said, ‘If you buy one, where are you gonna put it?’ I looked at Barbara and she looked at me and we said, ‘Well, we never thought about that.’ That’s when we came over here to Silveridge, and at that time you could have shot a cannon from any place and hit the clubhouse — there wasn’t much here. We picked a spot in the far corner, and they put some cement in for us and new driveways.”

Jerry & Barbara – early days at Silveridge and more recently

Jerry was soon helping the staff care for the place and eventually became a volunteer in the kitchen – he puts that sometime around 1993. A few years in, a friend in the park, Harvey Jameson, asked Jerry to team up and take over running the kitchen. Together they would do the ordering, and Jerry would supervise the main meals. They worked together for eight years before Harvey passed and Jerry was left in charge, although he wasn’t alone, as he credits Tracy Gagnier with organizing a talented staff of kitchen volunteers. He says of them, “Our volunteers are super. We try and make it fun in the kitchen and most of the people go back there and seem to really enjoy working.”

Jerry as Waylon Jennings for a Silveridge talent show

Plus, starting last season, the team added Brenda Osborne and Jerry says of working together, “I’ve always been a meat and potatoes man, but Brenda brings in some good stuff because she’s got the culinary degrees. After Harvey died, I took over as a kitchen manager and did all the ordering, all the nutrition, all the menus. Brenda has taken over all that and thank God — she does a great job. She’s pretty extraordinary in the kitchen.”

Jerry summed up his time in the kitchen with a philosophy taken from his long career: “I learned a long time ago that if you don’t go into this stuff with a positive outlook and a positive attitude, you’re never gonna make it work.”