Cheryl Rowe grew up in the Nederland and Rollinsville of the 1960s – the earlier 1960s, before Nederland grew its reputation as a hippie haven. Living now in Crestone, the mostly mature Rowe has written and published a memoir of growing up in the iconic bars of the two mountain towns.

The blurb for her new book puts it all out there: “Before the first bikers or hippies roamed the streets of Rollinsville and Nederland there was plenty going on! The recent memoir Bar Brat – A Childhood Tale of the 1960s in Nederland, gives readers a vivid and humorous inside look at the transformation and exactly how it took place.”

Those of us newer to the area have learned to listen to the stories of the “old- timers,” and often wonder what it was really like back then. Now we can find out.

Rowe tells us “While I certainly cannot claim to be a long-time resident of Nederland, nor even an old-timer by comparison to some, by birthright I am steeped in the infancy of its counterculture. I was there when it all began and I reveled in every minute of it.”

It took Rowe years to write these memories “not because of its length or exhaustive research, but mainly because I didn’t feel qualified to be writing anything. Just who did I think I was anyway?

“What drove me to tell the story…was the people who were there, who shaped my world, and who deserve a moment in time where they are remembered. It is not a sugar-coated story. It includes all that was good and bad and ugly and, thankfully, hysterical.

“Some of them still live in and around Nederland and have roots that date back a generation or two, far deeper than mine. The Smiths, the Glassers, the Cole brothers, the Jacksons and the Kutschers. At the time, I am certain they and many others had no idea of the impact they would have on my life, but it is obvious I never forgot them.”

Rowe asserts that she remembers that life in all its details because “as a kid I had nothing else competing for space in my brain. I have since read medical journals that state adrenaline has a way of crystalizing life-events in the hippocampus of one’s brain, the part that is responsible for memory. That would explain it—if I lived on anything, I lived on adrenaline—I was perpetually in search of it and rarely was I disappointed!”

You can hear all about Rowe’s bar- based childhood in Ned and Rollinsville at a book-signing party featuring author C.B. Rowe on Sunday, September 4, at Roy’s Last Shot, 17268 CO-119, Black Hawk, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Copies of Bar Brat – A Childhood Tale of the 1960s in Nederland are available at the event or at the Boulder Bookstore at Boulder Mall, Dusty Roads Boutique in Rollinsville, or online from Amazon Books.