Memorable Students Who Stayed

About Ken Hanson et. al.

        An interesting student who turned up in one of my classes back in the sixties was Ken Hanson who I think may still operate an auto repair shop in Breckenridge. I first met Ken when he was a high school kid pumping gas and doing general repair work at Gill's (Coppelman's) DX Station. Even then Ken showed a natural ability to trouble shoot problems which very often beset the 41 Mercury I was driving at the time.

        The most astonishing demonstration of Ken's mechanical genius happened when, years later, I brought in the strait stick of my Fiat 124. The shifter had literally broken off as I was leaving the station. Ken had the whole thing apart in minutes and pointed out that the little steel nipple that engaged the gears had literally broken off and would need to either be welded or the whole thing replaced.. “Kenny, what should I do?”

        “Take it across the street to Herman Gagelin and tell him 'Ken Hanson bets you can't weld this.' He probably won't want to mess with it if you just ask him, but challenge him and watch what happens.” .Well, I did what Ken said and Herman snorted and said,”gimmie that blankety blank thing.” And he got out his acetylene torch and had it welded in ten minutes. That really amazed me,but what amazed even more was the speed at which Kenny was able to put the whole thing back together in my car. There must easily have been twenty or so shims and spacers and bushings and braces that served to keep that strait stick strait. I know it would have taken me hours. It was a pile of parts that would have baffled even Rubric himself, but Kenny Hanson had it back together and installed in my Fiat in less than ten minutes. I think Ken might have made as good a psychologist as he was a mechanic.

         Since then I've had my cars fixed at Ken's garage a number of times and always with the same excellence and attention to detail. By the way, Ken made the transition from the old fashioned nuts and bolts mechanics to the modern computerized approach seamlessly as well.

        A small side bar that might be of interest is that the same Gill Koppelman who owned the DX Station lived next door to Doctor E. P. Walker, the veterinarian whose beautiful daughter, Audrey, I was dating back then when I was going to Science. How often I parked right in front of Koppelman's house--either waiting for Audrey to come out, or finding ways to delay her going in. “Those were the days, my friend; I thought they'd never end.” But they did, and the 60 years twixt then and now have zipped by “like a weaver's shuttle."Thankfully, I've spent 58 of them with that same beautiful lady I was dating then. Life can be beautiful; but “how fate loves a jest."

I will write of other notable students another time.

Gene Pinkney - - - 11/21/19 - - -Uploaded, November 2019

Gene Pinkney

Uploaded, November 2019