Serene Karplus, Nederland. I drove west. In my rearview mirror shone a 19-year banking career and childhood memories. My parents continued to gently age, along with their pre-fab starter home in the little Chicago suburban neighborhood where they had raised their four children. I recognized that I, too, at a birthday that squarely hit middle age, was aging, and life was streaming past while I was busy working.

After years of financial management, I had no idea what life after the bank buyout would entail. I only knew that the freedom I had dreamed of was finally here and that whatever was next would need to include an office with a window that opened, leading from the heart, and having an impact on my community. 

I bought a minivan and slept in it for five months as I toured the Canadian Rockies and the American West. I had often vacationed in Colorado to hike and visit family. As I returned home from my trip, I received a call from my Boulder nephew. “My wife took that job in Germany and we’re selling everything we own.” “Townhouse! I’ll take the townhouse,” I responded without hesitation. I sold my little ranch-on-a-slab and moved to Boulder, joining forces with a Denver fellow I’d met on a trail in Zion months before. 

No sooner had we settled into the townhouse when a distant cousin I never knew invited me to housesit her lovely home in Pinebrook Hills northwest of Boulder. “We’ve got to live in the mountains,” we declared, and within a year had moved near the postcard-perfect town I’d always loved as a visitor. The location was perfect – awesome mountain views, quiet starry nights and straddling a small town and a university town with a big city below.

To get to know folks in my new community, I joined in the fun of playing in the local melodrama Oh Horrors, It’s Murder! while interviewing for jobs. I stepped up to the post of executive director of the Nederland Area Chamber of Commerce for four years. It grew into a vibrant organization of 150 members, including many home-based service businesses with no presence on the streets of town. Monthly networking events with educational speakers and thick newsletters full of small business tips and resources helped many businesses thrive. 

An important member of the Chamber Board was always our senior liaison. When an opportunity arose to serve the senior population as director of the nonprofit they had designed and built, I jumped at it. My mother had recently succumbed to ovarian cancer and I had always appreciated the sensibilities and values of her generation. I loved the folks I worked with and enjoyed seeing everyone twice a week at the catered lunches that brought these dozens of friends together.

We learned together from educational speakers and broadened our horizons with a wide variety of cultural outings ranging from opera to baseball, from art to car museums. We stretched and hiked many miles to stay fit and share our local scenery, flipped thousands of pancakes to bring all ages together and supported microbusiness crafters and performers as hosts of the Holiday Mountain Market. 

The friendships we developed and the many new residents we welcomed to our community have enriched our lives beyond measure. Like Bedford Falls in It’s a Wonderful Life, none of us really knows what life would have been like without the social tapestry woven by the Nederland Area Seniors. 

Many folks who have moved away still stay in touch to maintain the heart connections made here. They tell us that no other place provides the welcoming and loving community they found in our lunch room. As friends moved to other states to reunite with family or moved on to the next plane, the ever-increasing number we served slipped a whopping one percent about five years ago and I wasn’t going to watch the organization entrusted to me shrink. 

I launched a new program to expand the social lunch concept into dinners and breakfasts/brunches. I wanted to reach out to those who don’t consider themselves “seniors” and may still be working, unavailable to meet friends over lunch. They showed up by the hundreds. Many grateful participants of our Mountain Peak Life program (originally named Mountain MidLife) have developed close friendships with neighbors they had never met and fellow mountain dwellers who share their interests - hiking, skiing, pickleball, books, wine, culture and so much more.

It has been my good fortune to be the facilitator of our many educational forums and social connections for the past nearly thirteen years. Along the way, I grew to know and love hundreds of people in our Peak to Peak communities. I reached out to many I’ve never met through over 600 weekly columns to share the world from a senior perspective in a way that might appeal to all age adults and still hear from past readers about columns that touched them.

Last month, I opted to move on from directing this beloved organization and the position of serving this expansive group. I celebrated another big birthday that qualifies me to benefit from the programs I created and decided it was time to just enjoy all the friendships there. On Friday, November 22, more than a hundred friends gathered over a lovely Mountain Peak Life dinner to celebrate our connections and to honor me for founding this program and for enhancing the quality of life of our local seniors. Many who could not attend sent letters and cards sharing what the organization has meant to them this past decade or so. 

Receiving so many hugs, both in person and in writing, warmly rewarded my years of hard work and long hours, of dedicating myself to my community. Thank you, everyone, for reflecting back to me all the love I have felt for each of you. 

It is now up to all of us collectively to keep the torch burning, to keep outings and gatherings vibrant, to maintain and expand our connections and to nurture our organization and community so all may thrive.

(Originally published in the November 28, 2019, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)