{"id":10085,"date":"2024-05-01T10:00:20","date_gmt":"2024-05-01T10:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/?p=10085"},"modified":"2024-05-30T17:54:53","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T17:54:53","slug":"may-2024-newsletter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/?p=10085","title":{"rendered":"May 2024 Newsletter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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\u201cThe Best Thing I Ever Did\u201d<\/h1>\n

A Visit with The Olsens<\/h3>\n

By Dale Dauten<\/h4>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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If you\u2019re like me, you\u2019ve got a bit of an obsession with the \u201cwhat might have beens\u201d of life, fascinated by all the millions of little events, decisions and coincidences that become turning points. That\u2019s especially true with how two people, each riding their great wave of improbability, come together to be a couple.<\/p>\n

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What got me thinking about small decisions turning into big events was visiting with Ada and Robert \u201cWhitey\u201d Olsen and hearing how a sweater changed their lives.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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The Olsens have been married for 55 years, so our story backs up to the late sixties. First, we have to get our two protagonists into the same city, which requires a bit of background \u2026<\/p>\n

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ADA<\/p>\n

Although she was born in Oklahoma, Ada\u2019s dad was in the Air Force and got transferred to New Mexico, first to the radar site near Tierra Amarilla that covered Los Alamos, then to a base in Albuquerque. Her dad ran the mess hall, and the family \u2013 parents and four siblings \u2013 lived in a mobile home, one that Ada recalled as snug for a family home at 8\u2019X35\u2019. Ada went on to graduate from Albuquerque High, and continued working a job she\u2019d started while a student, working in the office of a collection agency.<\/p>\n

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WHITEY<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Whitey was born in Indiana; however, he and his brother suffered from severe asthma\/allergies and their parents were advised to head to a drier climate\u2026 they chose Albuquerque. After graduating from Valley High, Whitey head off to the Navy and got the coveted stationing in Hawaii, only to have severe reactions to the climate there. Given that the Navy doesn\u2019t have many dry places to send a young seaman, they sent Whitey back to Albuquerque.\u00a0Back home, he ended up taking a job in the parts department of a local car dealership, Frontier Ford.<\/p>\n

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So, now we have two young adults in Albuquerque; and, doing what so many young adults do on a Saturday night, Ada and a friend headed out to local bar\/nightclub, this one a country-western place called the Hitching Post. During that evening, Whitey and a friend happened to come in and sit next to Ada and her friend. The four chatted a bit, but nothing came of it.<\/p>\n

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That was Saturday night. The following Monday Ada started a new job, working as a cashier at Frontier Ford. Once on the job, Ada noticed Whitey in the Parts Department and said, \u201cI think that\u2019s the guy I met Saturday night.\u201d And, looking back, adds, \u201cI guess it was fate.\u201d But hold on\u2026 Whitey, pleased to re-meet his new colleague, asked her out. But no, she turned him down. She felt that she didn\u2019t want to date a co-worker and also felt \u201che liked to party more than to my liking.\u201d Undeterred, he asked her out several times, but she continued to turn him down. Then came the office Christmas party. Ada described what happened: \u201cHe bought me a Christmas gift. It was a sweater, a beautiful sweater. I decided that if I was going to keep it, I should finally go out with him.\u201d As for Whitey, he says, \u201cBuying that sweater was the best thing I ever did.\u201d<\/p>\n

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And, in the photos below, you can see how things transpired from there (and you can see how Whitey came to have his nickname\u2026<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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In looking for a wedding photo to share, Ada came across this old ad from the Ford dealer where they once worked. (This was long before spell-checkers \u2013 notice the typo above the company name.)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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MR. & MRS. OLSEN<\/h4>\n

The couple went on to have two kids, Michelle and Steve, and now have five grandkids. Whitey worked at the dealership till he had an opportunity to become a steamfitter, working on power plants. When a recession caused those jobs to dry up, he was welcomed back at the Ford dealer, and became their Parts Manager.<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, Ada stayed home till the kids were in school, then went back to work, starting with driving a school bus but then working for the school district and finally for a finance company, eventually working her way up to handling loan underwriting and compliance. In fact, she made herself so valuable that the company wouldn\u2019t let her quit. She explained what happened when they planned to buy an RV and see the country: \u201cWhen Whitey retired in 2012, I tried to retire, too. But my boss panicked \u2013 he didn’t have anyone else who could do the government reports. He said, \u2018It\u2019s all on the computer. You can work on the road.\u2019 And I did\u2026 for 12 years, and I only went into the office once or twice in those 12 years.\u201d Thus, Ada became a remote employee before the term \u201cremote employee\u201d existed.<\/p>\n

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COMING TO SILVERIDGE<\/h4>\n

By the time Whitey retired and Ada went remote, they took the RV to visit family in Texas, and decided they would\u00a0not\u00a0want to spend winters there \u2013 it was, as Ada said, \u201ctoo hot, humid and windy.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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So the following Fall, they began to think about where they might want to try spending the coming winter. A friend suggested Apache Junction and, after an internet search, Ada described what happened next:<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe eventually decided on Silveridge.\u00a0We arrived on January 1st<\/sup>\u00a0in 2013 for three-month stay. We were greeted right away by our neighbors, Buck and Rose Buxton. That evening we attended a dance and Myrna and Duane Ehlert were our table mates. They made us feel so welcome — they gave us info on the park and invited us down to play shuffleboard the next morning. We loved being here in Silveridge and meeting people of all walks of life gathering for friendship and the various activities, dinner shows, etcetera. The next season we came for four months, then five and then we were booking six months. In 2019, we bought a park model.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Then, in 2022, Ada finally gave up her job and the two settled into fulltime residency at Silveridge, including summers. While they hate to see so many friends leave in advance of the heat, they continue to keep busy. As Ada told us, \u201cLife continues with various activities still available down at the club house. We still enjoy coffee and donut time, card games, I\u2019ve seen quilters working, library is open, water aerobics, weekly and\/or holiday monthly pot lucks. And I \u00a0volunteer to keep the paper crafters room open for any summer folks who would like to come down on Wednesdays mornings 9:30 to 1:00. Any crafter, who wishes to bring their crochet, or other projects down to Room 5 are welcome to join in. I can always adjust time to accommodate another day or evening.\u201d<\/p>\n

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THE BEST ADVICE<\/h4>\n

Let\u2019s end with an answer to that question that we love, the one about the best advice you\u2019ve ever gotten. Whitey thought for a moment and said, \u201cSomeone said to me once, talking about being open, \u2018Never forget, when you come to a \u2018T\u2019 in the road, you can take either one.\u2019\u201d We\u2019re still thinking about that one.<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, here\u2019s a photo of Whitey taken at one of his favorite Silveridge activities\u2026<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cThe Best Thing I Ever Did\u201d A Visit with The Olsens By Dale Dauten If you\u2019re like me, you\u2019ve got […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10085"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10086,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10085\/revisions\/10086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}