B.G. Brooks, Nederland. In the surreal, troubling and often sorrowful times of 2020 AD, the indoor reopening of Nederland’s New Moon Bakery remains like so many other of our world’s weightier questions -- unanswered, uncertain.
The optimist in me that eventually surfaces says it will surely happen, and when it does a group of Monday morning regulars will safely and thankfully reconvene at what I remember from six months ago as the New Moon’s only roundtable -- a configuration that lent itself (and hopefully will again) to conversation of every kind.
Current events, local history, truth, and occasionally taste received a good stretching, so much so that someone among the regular coffee gulpers -- New Moon owner Peter says it was “Tall Mark” -- authored a Roundtable Mission Statement, which Peter neatly etched into the tabletop. It reads:
Welcome to The Roundtable!
Intelligent, insightful and thoughtful comments are encouraged. However, expect they will be challenged with skepticism, ridicule and insults. Enjoy your stay!
But on that anticipated morning when the indoor reopening and reconvening occur, there will be sadness, a palpable emptiness. Bob Foss’s seat will be vacant; he passed away at 84 on Sunday, September 6, 2020, at his long-time and lovingly, painstakingly, and oddly expanded home in Coughlin Meadows.
Oddly expanded? Starting with a one-room cabin in 1971, Bob added rooms as needed, all modestly comfortable and mostly functional. He wouldn’t mind that description at all. He was a dedicated DIY-er, a gentle soul with an odd streak that intertwined with an adventurous spirit, and he likely would offer a characteristic sly grin at “oddly expanded.”
It was how he lived. He could (and did) tell stories of a bike ride to Aspen, of learning to kayak during a summer high school trip to Germany, of backpacking through Europe, of trekking in Nepal, and a college year abroad in Australia and Asia.
His sense of humor was on the seriously wry side and if he ever tilted toward pretentiousness, wife Jean -- she passed in February 2016, also at their home -- would offer a gentle course correction. She was his navigator, his anchor as well.
Bob’s wry humor was never more evident as when the roundtable conversation turned to fishing and fish pictures, which Bob tolerated . . . but very grudgingly.
Shown a cell phone shot of what one of the proud anglers-in-residence believed was a worthy rainbow or brown, Bob would briefly study the image before drolly noting, “Yeah, that’s a fish.”
Fish weren’t his choice of entrees but Jean liked them -- as long as they were small. Her father, she once recalled, was a fly fisherman and brought home four- to five-inch trout for the family to eat. Thereafter, all small trout caught by a couple of us at the table were referred to as “Jean-fish.”
If angling ranked in the basement of Bob’s outdoor pursuits, skiing was in the penthouse. And he was good, very good. In his 70s, he might have been the best senior skier in Boulder County. He routinely placed high in a number of state senior events, and when the University of Colorado ski team trained at Eldora Mountain Resort it was Bob who set the slalom course and tested the snow on a first run.
He laughingly called himself the team’s “mascot,” but coach Richard Rokos said Bob was more of an inspiration to the coach as well as his skiers. Said Rokos, “I had a 30-year association with Bobby and I loved every minute of it.”
Jean also was involved with the CU ski team, but in what amounted to an auxiliary role. With the team in preseason training, Rokos would lead his skiers on the long, uphill bike ride from Boulder to the Foss home in Coughlin Meadows, where Jean had breakfast or lunch waiting for them.
In addition to skiing, Bob was proficient in track mostly as an intermediate distance runner at Denver South High School and at CU, where he was coached by the legendary Frank Potts. He set records at South in the half mile and 800 and was on a CU 2-mile relay team that posted a top national time in the 1959 Texas Relays.
Bob attended graduate school at the University of Arizona and the University of Denver and taught geology for two years at the University of Wyoming. But his undergraduate years at CU were the most impactful and rewarding: he met Jean there and they were married on October 1, 1960. They lived in old town Ned (Tilton Street) in the mid-60s before moving to Sugarloaf in 1971.
Bob and Jean had one daughter, Karin (Car-in), who now lives in Edwards with husband Robert. Her dad wanted her to call him father, which wasn’t easy for a toddler. “Father” emerged as “Foddy” -- which she still affectionately calls him.
Their relocation from old town Ned to the Sugarloaf area offered Bob and Jean space and solitude, both of which were highly prized.
Former Ned residents Scott and Becky Williams, who now live outside of Lake City, recalled receiving a phone call years ago from travelers Bob and Jean asking if they could stop at the Williams’s home “for just one night . . .”
Remembered Scott: “They said they’d get out of here early first thing to get out of our hair. They got here and spent a very pleasant evening commenting frequently on how private this area is and how much it reminded them of their own place on Sugarloaf before it got busy over there.”
The following morning, the Fosses came downstairs collectively wearing what Scott termed “sheepish looks” and asked for a favor: “They asked if they could stay one more night. They both expressed how much they appreciated the quiet and beauty of the place and simply wanted to experience it for one more day and night . . .
“We remember having a great additionally (unexpected) day and evening with them before they moved on. They really ‘got’ our area which made it easy for us to really ‘get’ them.”
Jean might have occasionally questioned so much solitude in Coughlin Meadows, but Bob needed the space for storage (skis, bikes, etc.) and the indulgence in another of his passions -- a machine shop for various home projects and garages for his numerous vehicles and the maintenance/restoration thereof.
He owned and coddled the big and the small -- a Caterpillar bulldozer, a John Deere tractor, a pickup truck, a Karmann Ghia he was rebuilding, a couple of vintage Porsches, a restored Honda that would be his last car, and some other vehicles I’ve probably overlooked.
His love for Porsches was born and nurtured when he received one as a high school graduation present, and he owned several others in subsequent years. Several years ago, he earmarked the two most recent Porsches for granddaughters Bria Barker Lee and Erin Barker, both of whom are now living out of state.
They are scheduled to return to Colorado later in October, when Karin said the family will gather at the Foss home on Sugarloaf for the scattering of Bob’s ashes.
“It was what he always wanted,” Karin said.
I last spoke with Bob the day before he died. He was very dependable about calling with his attendance status for coffee, and on that Saturday he phoned to say he wouldn’t be at the New Moon on Monday, that Karin was coming in from Edwards and he wanted extra time to visit with her.
I last spoke with Bob the day before he died. He was very dependable about calling with his attendance status for coffee, and on that Saturday he phoned to say he wouldn’t be at the New Moon on Monday, that Karin was coming in from Edwards and he wanted extra time to visit with her.
Unknowingly, she had already had her last visit with “Foddy.”
So had the New Moon roundtable folks, who on various Mondays and at random times included Harris, Allen, Ken, Jerry, Vince, Mark, Bob, Danielle, Lance, Brian, Peggy, Tom, Sally, Peter, and others who hopefully will accept my apology for an unintentional omission.
Our grieving will pass and life in Ned will proceed, but minus a generous slice of its local color and warmth. Rest easy, old friend, and know that you’ll forever have a place at the table.
B.G. Brooks, a Nederland resident since 1999, is a retired journalist who worked at newspapers in Tennessee, Missouri and Colorado -- most recently the Rocky Mountain News from 1978-2009. When the News closed, he wrote for the website CUBuffs.com from 2009 until his retirement in 2017.
(Originally published in the October 1, 2020, edition of The Mountain-Ear.)
